Chapter 4 of 5

Two Worlds

Webber's POV

My mind was tearing itself apart.

The worst part about that statement was that I didn't even know for sure if it actually was or not. It was possible, at this stage, that there was no exaggeration or lie to that line. Webber had grown so much stronger as of late that fighting him was beginning to become a constant battle, and I had exhausted so much of myself subduing him in the days before that I was growing weak. A constant headache thrummed behind my eyes, something that grew exponentially every time I even thought about Maxwell or the Teleportato.

The outward result was a strange sort of mania. Wilbur and Winona knew that I was acting strange, but I could tell that neither of them wanted to push it too far. They had already tried, and I had already snapped at the both for caring enough to notice. I was trapped in a terrible hybrid of mania and depression, and my mind and heart were tearing at the seams because of it.

Saliva pooled in the bottom of my mouth as I stared at the abundance of clueless rabbits just twenty feet away from me. Already, my mind was scrambling to run the calculations- how fast could they get back up and get to full speed, how quickly could I chase them, would I be able to hunt as normal or did I need to sneak up and pounce? I could feel my stomach growling at the thought of raw meat and blood, and my fangs ached with the urge to bite and tear. The smell was intoxicating, all warmth and sleep and pounding blood. I had seen so many rabbit hearts at this point. Little things, so small they could be crushed like a berry. They pounded so quickly to make up for their size that the rabbits ended up incredibly fragile. They would bleed out in seconds if hit in the right spot. It would be cleaner to break their necks, but-
I sucked a harsh breath in between my teeth and violently shook my head. I was panting now, every single muscle and tendon in my body strung tight and ready to snap. When the others turned away to continue exploring, I was able to drag my eyes away from them without giving into the instincts. Even if it caused my chest to heave with the effort, and my stomach to howl in agony as I denied it its easy meal.

I was falling apart. I could feel my mind turning to sand in my hands. The reins I held on to so tightly were slick with sweat and blood and I was beginning to lose my grip.

"Yeah, I think this is a bribe," Wilbur said.

I turned my gaze to him and swallowed heavily before responding. The last thing I wanted to do was drool like a baby.

"So we take advantage of it," I responded carefully. My tongue felt clumsy in my mouth. "Get what we can out of here and leave." I felt my claws twitch despite my attempts to keep them still. I couldn't tell if Webber was actively pushing at me again- it didn't feel like it- but the arachnid instincts were coiling through my bones anyway.

I was splitting. Shattering. Dissolving. Whatever you want to call it. Caught in a tug-of-war of minds where the rope was frayed dangerously thin.

Maxwell had told the truth about the night. The moon was plump and round and in all honesty, we didn't really even need a fire to keep the darkness at bay. It was simply an unspoken agreement to start one nonetheless, likely as a sense of comfort for all four of us. It had been so long since the darkness was considered safe to any of us, and I was sure nobody was willing to risk it just to test Maxwell's boundaries.

I initially fell asleep relatively easily, but my sleep was light and restless. Blurry nightmares swirled behind my eyelids, each one different and more realistic, yet they would fade the second I opened my eyes. Upon my third violent start awake, I finally gave up.

I was no stranger to putting off sleep until I was too tired for nightmares. It just sucked that I would have to do that in a world that seemed perfectly designed for resting.

Wilbur didn't seem to have even tried to sleep. He had raided the orchard at some point and now sat in front of a wide array of foodstuffs. Berries, bananas, the thing the others had called a 'pear', and a million other ones I couldn't even name. Many of them had a single bite taken out of them before being carefully categorized into small circles around him.

"What are you doing?" I asked the prime ape quietly. I kept my voice as low as possible to prevent waking my companions. At least they should be able to get some proper rest.

Wilbur twitched his tail, but didn't startle. He must have already known I was awake. "Testing," he whispered back. "I don't recognize a lot of these so I'm trying to get their tastes down." He waved his hands towards his circles without looking at them. "Separating them. Sweet, sour, bitter, rich, subtle, you know." Though he spoke in a calm voice, I could see the stiffness of his shoulders forming. He kept taking deeper breaths as if to speak before deciding against it and going back to what he was doing.

I'm annoying him.

No, he's wanting to talk.

I don't want to talk. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about any of it with anyone.

I knew it was a foolish wish to hope that nobody would talk about the attempt on my life. Of course they would want to know about it, what happened, why I snapped. They deserved to know, so they could understand why they shouldn't have saved me. Even without taking into account my unraveling mind and my tendencies towards violence, Nightmare had branded me and was apparently dedicated entirely to making me his new host.

I swallowed hard and closed my eyes. I would have to start this conversation. Nothing would go back to normal until I did… and even then, who knew how long they'd keep me on suicide watch? How long would they chain my arms and legs and force me to stay in their sights, just so I don't try to kill myself again? My stomach felt tight and uncomfortable. I felt sick at the thought.

I couldn't try again. I didn't want to know what Nightmare would do if it caught me again.

"We can talk," I said softly. I didn't meet Wilbur's eyes, even though he turned to look at me. Instead, I swiped up the pear from the ground and closely examined the fruit. This one didn't have any bite marks yet, although that was likely because Wilbur already knew how they tasted from his test earlier. Wilbur was still tense, and even without looking I could feel the conflict twisting his face. "I know you want to say something. Just say it."

"Why did you do it?"

I sighed. It was exactly the thing I was expecting him to ask, and yet the last thing I wanted to answer. Not just because of the implications of whatever answer I gave him, but because there were so many possible answers. It wasn't just one reason. It was so many different reasons stacked on top of each other that it felt like the only way out. "That's… a hard question to answer."

"Can you try, then?" His voice was gentle. I finally looked up to meet his eyes. Wilbur gave me a soft smile as I did.

"There's so many answers to that, Wilbur." I shook my head. "At this point… there are more reasons for me to die than there are for me to stay alive." I sank my teeth into the pear and immediately reeled back in surprise. It was much softer than I was imagining, with a gentle sweetness and a strange texture I wasn't sure I had ever experienced before. It seemed to suck the water from my mouth, but it was good enough for me to not care about that.

"Then give them to me one by one, and we can talk about all of them."

I nodded. That sounded reasonable. I took another bite of the pear, considering my next words as I chewed. The first thing to say. "I was scared," I whispered. "That I had finally snapped. I hurt you so bad and I… didn't even realize what I was doing. I thought that I had finally broken irreparably and that Tyler was going to be… no more. I promised myself a long time ago that if I thought Webber was about to win, I would destroy this body so that he couldn't. And then I attacked you, and I was so scared…"

"That wasn't Webber," Wilbur said. "And it wasn't you. What happened was I accidentally triggered a defensive response from you, and you reacted accordingly." I looked away. I had already heard this speech from him. Still, though, he nudged my head until I turned back to him. Wilbur tipped his head slightly. "Your eyes were scared. It was a panic attack, Ty. It wasn't anything either of you could have helped."

The prime ape was full of it, but I knew this wasn't going to go anywhere. He had already tried to get me to understand this once and it had only made me feel worse. "I… have been hurting," I continued on my list. "For a long time now. My entire body always aches. My hand cramps when it gets cold, and my ears hurt when things get too loud or too quiet. And it's always one or the other. When my body doesn't hurt, I can't stop thinking of everything, and thinking about how useless I am-" my claws curled into my legs. "And how helpless I am. How I don't even know what I am anymore, or what my purpose is. The Ancient Guardian called me the Young Heir. The mural called me the Martyr. Nightmare called me the Host-"

"Nightmare?" Wilbur pressed, suddenly much more alert. "Nightmare… when did…?"

"When I…" I found my words dying on my tongue. I couldn't spit it out, even though it was teetering right behind my teeth. I swallowed hard and tried again. "When my… heart… stopped beating. It talked to me. It said that… it wouldn't let me die. Because in order for someone to die, it has to take them across a veil. And it wouldn't…"

"You were in Checkmate!?" Wilbur cried, and I immediately had to hush him. He did quiet back down, but his eyes were still huge. "Why was Nightmare there? You didn't see Charlie or the Mar… um… your brother?"

I slowly shook my head. I didn't even think about seeing either of them, although now that the thought was in my head, I felt even worse.

"Nightmare told me that it was the only thing that could kill me," I whispered. "It said that I was its host once, a long time ago. So now I just-" I took in a shuddering breath. "I don't know what I'm supposed to be." Tears rose in my eye but were quickly absorbed by the fur below it. I wiped my wrist against my cheek nonetheless in an attempt to hide the sudden dampness. "I thought I was the Martyr, Wilbur. I thought I was doing a good thing. I thought it was what the world wanted me to do. Tenacity, the ability to do what's best for other people. Integrity, the strength to push past my doubts. I thought that… that was what the world was telling me. To fulfill the role of the Martyr so you could go on." But then, I groaned and pressed my hands against my face. "No, I'm lying. I wasn't even thinking that when I first ran off. But it's what I told myself to justify it…"

"Do you know what it was you were justifying?"

"My selfishness," I said softly. "I was justifying my selfishness."

Wilbur was quiet for a moment. I finished off the pear and drew my knees towards my chest, before pressing my cheek against them and looking away.

"I know. All of that about the greater good and trying to do the right thing… when really I was just so selfish. I didn't care what anyone would think about it. I didn't even think about you guys. All I was thinking about was myself."

"Ty, you're… allowed to think about yourself, you know. That doesn't make you selfish." Wilbur inched closer, his tail gently wrapping around my wrist. I didn't react to the touch. "Especially when you're hurting like this."

"And yet I just made it worse."

Wilbur wavered slightly, which I took as evidence that he agreed. Another sigh left my chest, bringing with it a fresh wave of tears. I didn't wipe them away this time. Instead, I simply let them saturate the fur on my cheek.

"Tyler, I… can't deny. Hurting yourself more doesn't help anything." He gently touched one of the spots on my left arm, where just a day before there were bloody, weeping wounds clawed across by my own hand. They had all but vanished now as a result of Maxwell's tampering. I still didn't like the idea of the man having any contact with me, but I couldn't deny, waking up without some deadly illness spawned from hypothermia was a treat I wasn't expecting. "But nobody is mad at you for it. You're hurting, and sometimes, when you hurt, you feel the need to punish yourself for it."

"It's stupid," I muttered, because to me, it really was. What normal person would make themselves hurt even more when they're already hurting? I was sick, stupid, filthy-

"It's not stupid," Wilbur immediately argued. "And none of us think you are stupid. You're sick, Ty, nobody will blame you for that. We all just want to see you get better. We love you more than you know."

"Wilson doesn't."

Immediately, I wasn't sure why I said it. Wilbur was doing nothing but trying to help me, and all I could do was remain painfully stubborn and refute everything he said. Wilbur had no control over Wilson's actions, why even bring it up?

"Wilson doesn't-"

"Wilson would be happier," I spat. "If I died that night. You can't say you all love me when you can't speak for the others."

"Fine." Wilbur straightened his back and pulled his tail back, curling it over his feet. "Then I'll only speak for myself."

"Don't," I said. "Just-"

"I love you," he started. "Because you feel to me like the son I never had. I want to see you happy and healthy. I want to see you get out of this mess because I want to be able to officially adopt my spider son and raise him to understand just how loved he is."

"Shut up," I protested weakly.

"I want to go back to the Archipelago one day, with you in tow and settle down on the beach. I want to show you everything you need to know to make every meal I've ever learned. I wish more than anything else that I had the ability to introduce you to Roselyn and Elizabeth, because I know for sure they would accept you as part of the family in a heartbeat." Wilbur was growing visibly agitated. "But since that's not going to happen, I'm going to set aside a day where we can go visit Roselyn's grave so I can let her properly meet you. In fact, we could set aside a day every year to mourn for the people we've lost in a healthy manner- together. You're going to get better, and on the day when I see you smile all the way without any hint of tension or fear, we'll learn how to make pie together and celebrate. You'll get to grow up and learn everything about what it means to be happy. You and I, one day, will look back at these times with nostalgia, but we won't miss it, because things'll be so much better. I'll never see your ribs showing again from starvation, or a glimmer of fear in your eyes, or the slightest shake of nerves.

"I'll show you how to properly play in the ocean. I'll show you how to climb trees and where the best spots for sun are and how to tell if a banana is ripe or not. When you have nightmares about this time of your life, you'll wake up only to realize you're no longer in danger. You'll be able to sleep peacefully knowing that no one will ever hurt you again. And when you're struggling really badly, you'll wake me up and we'll make stew together." There was a fervent passion in his eyes. His words poured out without pause or consideration. "You'll grow up. One day, it will all be okay. I promise. God, Ty, I promise one day, it will all be okay. It's okay to not be okay now because it won't last forever. We can all get through this together, and after that, you'll receive all the years of care and love you missed out on. You will have a childhood, Ty. I will make sure of it."

I couldn't decipher what I was feeling at that moment. I could sense the love practically pouring out of Wilbur at this point, but it simply settled on my skin instead of sinking any further. True, my body seemed to react in turn to his words as weary sobs tore through my chest, but my heart stuttered uncomfortably as it struggled to contain the meanings.

"Shut up," I hissed, because it was all I could manage. "Shut up, shut up, just stop talking." It hurt. It hurt so bad to hear someone talk about a hypothetical future of mine that I knew I was never going to get. No matter what my role was, I was never destined to grow up. I would never live the life that Wilbur was promising. The closer we got to Maxwell, the closer I marched to my inevitable end. Whether that end was death as the Martyr, the Nightmare Throne as the Young Heir, or Nightmare itself as the Host. 'After' did not exist for me.

The prime ape leaned forward and pulled me into a hug. My mind immediately screamed a protest, told me to fight him off, but the rest of me didn't listen. I folded into him, curling into as small of a shape as possible. Wilbur was soft, his fur finer and softer than my own. Even though I was taller than him standing up, I felt impossibly small in his embrace. I could hear his heartbeat, slow and steady and real. Alive. Here, right now.

"You shouldn't have to go through any of this," Wilbur murmured softly. "You're just a kid."

"Nobody should have to," I protested, although my words were so slurred I wasn't sure if he could even understand them. I sniffed loudly to clear my nose and pulled away so that he could hear my next sentence better. "I'm not special just because I'm younger."

"No," Wilbur agreed calmly. "But Wilson, Winona and I have had entire lives before this. We had time with our families, time to fall in love, even time for me to have a family of my own. We've already lived lives." A gentle caress to my head, parting the matted fur and gently freeing tangles and clumps. "So let us fight for the ability for you to have a life as well."

I couldn't respond. What was I supposed to say to that? He was right. I knew Wilson and Winona were both at least in their mid twenties. I was fairly certain Winona was older than him- maybe thirties? And I knew very well that Wilbur was many thousands of years old. Next year, I will have spent over half of my life as a disgusting, violent, hated hybrid. I had never known the things Wilbur talked about. I didn't know what it felt like to fall in love, or how it felt to learn math and music under teachers. I barely even remembered what it felt like to sleep in a bed, let alone the tender experience of having a parent put you to sleep.

Even though I knew it was still a life that would never be mine, I let myself indulge in the thought. Of what it would be like to go to the Archipelago and forget any of this ever happened. I would miss my companions, though. And, however much I loved Wilbur, he wasn't my biological father. I hadn't seen my real father in so long that I had almost forgotten his face. In fact, when I tried to think of it, all I could see is harsh, gray eyes and a knife-

"You know," Wilbur suddenly said, his voice still gentle but taking on an entirely different note. A more playful one. "Did I ever tell you about when my daughter was born?"

The change of subject was obvious and direct. I almost protested the very thought of it, but then I remembered his past suggestions to remember the good as well as the bad. So, I simply shook my head without removing my face from his shoulder.

"Oh yeah. It was an ordeal. Roselyn didn't tell me until like, a week afterwards."

I sniffed again. "Why not?"

"Oh, a few reasons," the prime ape chuckled. "For one, my kind is sort of infamous for the fact that males like to kill their offspring. She wanted to be at full strength before telling me, in case she had to fight me off."

"...did she have to?"

Wilbur scoffed. His claws gently scratched through the fur on my head in a soothing motion. My eyes flickered as they started to grow heavy. "No, but she had good reason to think she would. Liz was, like, smaller than your head when I met her for the first time. You think me the type to kill babies?"

"Maybe," I responded, causing Wilbur to furiously muss up my fur.

"I would not," he huffed. Then, he paused. "Well…"

I sat up abruptly, wiping at my cheek as I stared at him. "What did you do?"

Now that Wilbur's claws were free, he moved them to the back of his own head. "Well- see, um, she tried to tell me before. Quite a while before, actually."

"But…?"

"But I had a panic attack over the idea," he said awkwardly. "I freaked out so bad that I had her pinned to the ground before she managed to snap me out of it. I beat myself up for months afterwards."

I suddenly understood why he decided to tell me this story. I found myself shaking ever-so-slightly and swallowing hard before continuing. "How… how did she…?"

"React?" Wilbur finished with a knowing smirk. "Well, obviously she was scared of me for some time. But one day, I sat her down and explained that I had abusive parents, and asking me about parenthood made me immediately remember them. I thought about myself in my father's situation and then I remembered my own childhood and… well, yeah. I panicked. Once I told her all of that, I could almost see the tension drain out of her shoulders. She understood what happened and that I didn't intend to harm her or Liz. She forgave me."

"She just… forgave you? Like that?"

"Of course." He shrugged loosely. "I didn't permanently harm her, and it wasn't like I purposely did it. I just panicked and my body reacted in turn." Then, Wilbur tipped his head. "Sound familiar?"

I turned my gaze away from him. At this point, my eyes had dried up, and all that was left was a deep sense of guilt… but also relief. This entire time, I thought Wilbur was just throwing me a bone by not hating me after I attacked him. With the clarity that he had been through the exact same situation before, and came out the other side still loved by the one he hurt…

"I'm… I'm so sorry for attacking you," I whispered.

"I know you are, Ty. And I accept your apology. I knew what I was getting into when I took you under my wing. And you know what?"

I hummed.

"You are a lot stronger than I initially expected."

I couldn't help the little scoff that escaped my chest. "What in the world were you expecting then?"

"A wet little kitten that can't hold his own in a fight," Wilbur immediately teased. I chuckled wetly, even as the prime ape sobered up. "You're stronger than you think you are. And you are more loved than you think you are. Believe me when I tell you that. We're here for you, whatever it is you go through. And if some mean ol' spider tries to control you, then we'll fight that together, okay? No more of this… trying to fight him off yourself. You have our undying support."

Normally, during these sappy moments, I forced any words thrown at me to simply bounce off my skin and go unheeded. No matter how many times they told me the exact same things, I refused to really believe any of it. Even when they showed their care and love with every inch of their being, I rejected it. I rejected myself

This time, though, I let the words in. I let them in through the cracks of chitin and let them swirl somewhere in my stomach. One day, maybe, they would reach my chest and start to break away at everything I held in there, but for now, this was as good of a start as any.

"Wilbur," I said calmly. He tipped his head at me and gave a short motion to continue. "I think I'm about to have a breakdown, but after that, can you show me a new recipe?"

"You can't just blow past that!" The prime ape exclaimed, but he wasted no time in dragging me back towards his embrace. By the time I even really felt the tears rise in my eye, he was already carefully carding his claws through the shaggy fur on my head.

I should have felt guilty for making him deal with this yet again, but not once did he even hint that he minded. He simply murmured soothing phrases over and over again until I finally passed out from exhaustion.

I didn't have any more dreams that night.

…

It was the gentle brush of the sun against my eyelids that woke me up. I muttered incoherently in protest as if the celestial body would listen to my arguments as to why I should get to sleep longer, but predictably, it ignored me. I stretched out my limbs, and my joints popped as they shifted back into their proper places. I honestly couldn't remember the last time I had felt so rested.

Hearing the murmurs of my companions a few feet away, I finally dragged my eye open to see their activities for the day.

Some part of me expected to see the trio hunched over sketches in the dirt and discussing how to move forward. I expected to see them with serious faces and low voices, maybe even talking about me or the conversation I had with Wilbur last night.

Instead, I saw what was immediately a confusing sight. Wilson sat with his legs crossed, one hand placed on his chin as he considered an array of foodstuff. Different types of meat, ones I immediately recognized as rabbit, bird, even beefalo despite how strange it was that they were able to hunt and skin a beefalo before I even woke up. There were also the variety of strange fruits Wilbur had been sorting through yesterday, maybe even a couple of new ones that I didn't recognize. I also spotted some vegetables in the bunch. Honestly, to see so much food in one place was stunning.

Winona's hair was loose, freed from the headband she typically wore to keep it back. It was strange to see her like that, with black strands framing her face and constantly falling into her eyes. The headband, actually, was currently tied over Wilbur's eyes as the prime ape patted his hands against the ground.

As I watched, Winona and Wilson both selected a random item from their selection before offering it to the blindfolded Wilbur. He took them immediately and popped both items in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

"Beefalo," he said immediately. "Tastes a lot like the water beefalo at home but it's a lot richer. More… peaty."

"Yup," Winona said with a nod that he couldn't even see. "What about the other one?"

He took a bit longer on that, clearly thinking extremely hard before finally answering: "I think that was what you called a peach. Really soft, juicy, sweet. I nearly choked on the seed last night."

Wilson leaned back and whistled. "Are you sure this is your first experience with these fruits?"

"Most of them," Wilbur said with a shrug. "You might just say I have a distinguished palate."

"...uh, guys?" I spoke up, catching their attention immediately.

"Hey, Ty!" Wilbur called cheerfully. "I'm proving my innate abilities to these scrubs."

"Extremely long story short, he said that he could identify any food that he's tasted at least once and we decided to make him prove it." Winona waved one hand at the arrangement.

"We've had an abundance of food for one day and you're already playing with it?" I asked dubiously as I came to join them.

"This is not play, it is an experiment," Wilson mumbled. His demeanor had immediately soured in my presence. "And it's not wasting anything if it's being eaten."

"Do you wish to challenge the king of the palate?" Wilbur opened his arms and grinned devilishly. "Cause you will lose; I guarantee it."

"Shouldn't we be… doing something productive?" I said. "Planning our steps forward? Deciding what to do next?"

"All that's left to do right now is wait," Winona pointed out. "There's nothing we can really do until either Maxwell shows his hand or we get what we need to advance, so…"

Wilbur pushed his makeshift blindfold up, revealing brown eyes sparkling with mischief. "So I think that means we have real down time for the first time in forever!"

"If you want to do something productive, we could train." Winona leaned back on her hands, turning her face up to the sky. "How well do you actually know how to use your sword, hmm?"

"You say that like any of us are swordfighters," Wilson huffed. "And he's left-handed." He motioned towards me. "Even if one of us knew how to properly swordfight, it's not like he would be able to get very good at it."

I recognized a challenge when I heard it, even if it wasn't intentional. I swiped my sword from the ground and leveled it at the scientist's chest, teeth bared. "Remind me, who was it that mutilated my hand? I seem to have forgotten."

"And you just took it. Maybe if you had fought back-"

"I'll fight back now, Wilson. I'd be more than happy to give you matching scars."

An ember had lit in my chest. Fury and heat, setting my muscles ablaze with tension. My fighting skills had gotten rusty, but my body still knew the stance. The fire was controlled in a way that it hadn't been in a long time. White-hot, yes, but low and even. Not the kind of fire that would demolish forests in its brilliance, but the flame used to temper a sword. Growing hotter every moment but willing the metal to expand, to strengthen, to forge.

In the corner of my eye, I saw Winona take a step forward as if to intervene. Before I even had the chance to hiss at her, though, to push her back, Wilbur was stopping her with a hand on her leg. She hesitated, her eyes wavering with uncertainty, but the prime ape shook his head. He was beaming.

"Get a weapon," I growled, low and threatening.

The scientist scoffed. "You have to be kidding me. You think that beating me up is going to make you feel any better?"

"Maybe, maybe not." I shrugged without moving the sword. "But I'm always willing to try new things." I nudged it forward until the point rested against his sternum. "And unlike someone, I wouldn't brutalize an unarmed opponent."

My senses felt enhanced. I could feel every fur on my face as the wind teased it. My whiskers trembled at every change and movement around me. My vision was clear, colors bright and vibrant and every line impossibly sharp and focused. I could hear the low, steady thump of my heart in my chest, the rhythm only slightly higher than usual as it prepared my muscles for a fight. My breaths were slow and deep, each inhale bringing in a million new scents and each exhale forcing out a million old ones.

And yet, for a long moment, neither of us moved. Wilson may have doubted that I wouldn't attack an unarmed opponent, and in a way that was a lie, but there was a difference between attacking and brutalizing someone. I was not the kind of person who would take a knife to someone with no intention of fighting back. I would not be the kind of person he was.

Wilbur was the one to break the stalemate, but not by dousing the fire. Instead, he broke it by tossing Wilson what looked to be a makeshift spear, much like the ones we used to use to fight back when it was just Wilson, WX, and I. I kept myself still, my eyes traced on every movement of muscle as Wilson took the crude weapon. He seemed almost uncomfortable with it, as if he, too, had forgotten what it was like to hold a spear. His hands opened and closed on it a few times, clearly trying to find his grip.

I was patient, though. I would let him get his footing.

When we used to spar, all that time ago, we typically had the same kind of weapon. Crude spears, made of flint and grass and whatever sturdy sticks we could find. I had held my own back then, knowing my companions' strengths and weaknesses by heart. Wilson was calculating, the most skillful I would argue. He caught on quickly to using different weapons in different ways, but he wasn't as heavy of a hitter as WX.

He also wasn't nearly as fast as I was.

I was small, even smaller back then than I was now. I had grown a lot over the past two years. And while Wilson may have forgotten some of his strategy, I never lost my speed

And right now, facing against each other, Wilson had the advantage of working with his dominant hand with a familiar weapon, but I had the advantage of a well-crafted sword.

Wilson caught me off guard when he attacked first. I could see the gears turning in his head as his old prowess came back to him in trickles.

He swung the spear in an arc, aiming more towards the sword than myself as if attempting to immediately disarm me. My muscles instinctively jerked and I took a single step back. I grasped the hilt with both hands and forced the sword against his attack.

Wilson had noticeably grown stronger since the last time we sparred. The force behind the swing was harsher than usual, but now that I had a good feeling for it, I would be able to face it.

After all, most of my early fights had been with the strongest of all of us.

Wilson was visibly startled at the block and my ability to keep a hold of my sword. Forcing my own strength against his own, I managed to push the spear back up until he stumbled.

The fire was doused almost as soon as it had lit, but every sword must be smothered in water. It's part of the forging process.

Wilson spun his spear until it landed in his opposite hand, movements precise and quick. The muscles in his arm twitched, cluing me into his next attack before he even properly made it. Light as ever on my feet, I ducked under the spear and slid towards his left.

As soon as his eyes turned to face me, and just as he was gaining control over his swing, I feinted towards his right and shoved the butt of the sword into his stomach. He grunted as the air was forced from his lungs, but his recovery was almost immediate. Before I had the opportunity to dodge again, he landed his own hit against my side. My blind side. I hissed without really meaning to.

Oh, he was playing dirty.

The edge of the spearhead pierced through the skin on my hip, leaving a thin trickle of blood in its place. The pain was meager, though, barely enough to even slow me down.

I jumped back out of his range before he could land another hit. My heart was pounding now. Every inch of my body was attuned to the familiarity of battle.

With the knowledge that he was now playing dirty, I let my sword hang at my side as I snapped forward and sunk my fangs into his dominant arm. His pained shout hurt my ears, but I refused to release him until my teeth went deep enough for blood to flow from the wound.

I dropped back again, hunched low to the ground to keep my center of gravity low in case he tried to retaliate. I kept my face angled to one side, keeping his entire body in my main vision at all times.

Predictably, Wilson had dropped the spear as soon as I bit him. He was now clutching his injured arm, teeth gritted in pain and eyes alight with anger. He muttered something lowly, but I didn't care to know what sour things he was saying about me. He had been disarmed, and he wasn't even really in a defensive position anymore.

With these details taken into account, I rushed him one final time, sword held ready and prepared for a winning blow. He didn't even seem to realize that I intended to finish the fight instead of dropping it as soon as he was injured.

Every muscle alight with fire, every tendon vibrating with energy, every cell in my body crying out for the conclusion, I pulled my arm back.

And with the ease of smothering the metal in the water it was tempered in, I plunged the blade deep into Wilson's stomach.

For a long, long moment, he stared blankly at me. His eyes darted between the sword slicing through skin and viscera like nothing and the hybrid that held it. Like he couldn't comprehend something that, under any other circumstance, would have been a killing blow.

I was smarter than that, though. I wouldn't have done it if I thought it would kill him.

"Dead," I said simply, withdrawing the sword. As predicted, it came out clean, leaving nothing but a tear in his shirt and intact, undamaged skin. I twirled my sword in my hand for a moment before pressing the tip of it into the ground, grinning wildly up at the scientist, who still didn't seem to comprehend what just happened.

So, Wilbur had the first reaction.

"That was awesome!" The prime ape shouted as he bounded towards me. He grabbed my shoulders and shook me violently, laughing all the while. "You totally creamed him!"

His laughter was contagious. Soon, mirth was rising in my chest, and I couldn't help but let out an embarrassing giggle at his excitement.

"That- that was cheap!" Wilson protested. His brain finally seemed to realize that he wasn't dying after being eviscerated, so he turned his anger to the fact I bit him instead. "You can't even win a fight without biting someone!"

"Maybe you're just a sore loser," I shot back. Honestly, I was too buoyed by my victory to even feel upset about how it was achieved. "You have teeth. You could've bit me. I just got to it first."

"Wilson's a sore loser!" Wilbur sang, giving my shoulders another little shake.

"I'm not a sore loser," he snapped. "I was under the impression we were having a fair fight-"

"And you blew it by going for my blind side," I finished for him. "If you're allowed to play dirty, so am I."

"An enemy isn't going to care about whether you have a blind side or not!"
"And an enemy wouldn't argue about a fight being unfair because they got bit." I waved one hand, effectively brushing off the issue. "You might want to treat that, by the way. I don't know if I still have anything in my mouth leftover from Webber's monster meat fiasco, and it'd be a shame if it got infected."

While the scientist was clearly still angry, he did drop the argument to go treat his newly acquired wound. I checked the scratch I had received from his attack, and though it was still bleeding sluggishly, it didn't appear to go very deep.

"You guys could've hurt each other really badly," Winona said. I turned to face her and tipped my head. "I mean… you stabbed him. That could've ended poorly if it wasn't with your sword…"

"Ah, give him this, Winona," Wilbur said before I could respond. "The kid just stood up to his bully and absolutely demolished him."

"If Wilson can't handle fighting someone half his size, I'd be more concerned about his ability to survive basic threats than whether the half-pint went too far."

"Half-pint!" Wilbur repeated in a shout. He pumped his fist in the air and shouted it as a chant. "Half-pint! Half-pint!"

"I know how to use my sword," I said, knowing full well that she would protest further if I didn't clarify that. "I know what my sword can and can't do. I've seen it work before. There's a reason I used it instead of any other weapon. I could've done so much worse with a spear. Trust me, I was in control of my actions, and I knew what I was doing."

"Eat it, Webber. My boy can fight like a spider with or without you!"

Winona sighed, but it seemed more fond than upset this time. "Just… please be careful. I know he's not… great to you. But I don't want to know what would happen if one of us got too injured."

"I understand." I nudged her, simply incapable of letting the grin drop from my face. "I've got no reason to stab him again, anyway. It's just getting even for when he stabbed me."

Wilbur hip-checked me with a glitter in his eye. "That is something he did," he concluded. "All is fair in love, war, and vengeance."

The last bit of laughter left my chest in a soft sigh. I watched Wilson for a moment as he treated his new bite wound, his face creased in thick lines of anger.

"Hey, Wilbur? Winona?"

Wilbur looked at me, and Winona gave a hum of acknowledgement.

"I think I missed a bit of your game earlier." I waved one hand at them, grinning cheekily. "Care to teach me how to play?"