For a moment, Chloé's field of vision was flooded by black. Clawing at her face, she thought had gone blind. The inky darkness blocking her sight soon coalesced into a small hovering before taking a form very familiar to Chloé.

The creature before her was indeed a Kwami. Swathed in black from top to toe, six insectoid wings sprouting from its back. Its eyes seemed more like lenses, crowned by two thin, horn-like antennae amongst long, unkempt dark hair, all of it on an oversized head attached to a cartoonishly undersized body. On the chin of its oversized head are two hornet's mandibles under a mouth of jagged teeth.

For a second, Chloé felt a pang of familiarity.

Her suspicions were there after she made the spontaneous purchase of the hematite ring. But her numerous experiences with Miraculouses and their users proved otherwise.

But even then, this was uncharted territory. This wasn't sweet, adorable Pollen calling her "my queen".

This was something from the deep dark unknown, that Chloé may have inadvertently awakened.

"Ah…" The Kwami's voice seemed to reverberate across the small apartment. "AT LAST! SHATHRA IS FREE! DAMN YOU SPIDERS! DAMN YOU WHO IMPRISONED ME HERE!"

Chloé was taken aback by the exuberant display. Relieved would be an understatement for the Kwami, to be released from her ring after so long, as it would seem.

They finally lock eyes.

"I am Shathra, goddess of aggression and wasps!" The Kwami was still too high in its victory lap to fully voice its condescension. "You should be honored to be in my presence!"

Chloé cringes. The Kwami sounded too much like past her for her comfort.

"Never seen a Kwami call itself a god before." She observes.

The Kwami's lens-like eyes scrunch in confusion. "A… what?"

"You… don't know what a Kwami is?" The confusion was returned in kind. "That's what you are."

"Why should I?" The same haughtiness resumed. "And why in the name of Oshtur am I bound to a piece of jewelry?"

"Oh, the ring? That's a Miraculous." Chloé remarks.

The haughty voice of the Kwami twists into confusion. "A… what?"

"Seriously?" Chloé returns the confusion in kind. "You don't know what a Kwami is?"

"How should I know?"

The blonde narrows her eyes in incredulity. The ensuing uncertainty was getting on her nerves. It needs to be nipped in the bud. "Do you need to look in a mirror? There's one in the bathroom over there."

Looking at the human disbelievingly for several seconds, Shathra quickly relents as she floats into the bathroom.

An ear-piercing wail erupting from said bathroom was indication that Chloé's hunch was right. Rising to her feet, she enters the bathroom to see the Kwami dashing about in shock at her appearance.

"Oh, no, no, no, no…" The Kwami rages, holding her head in her tiny paws. "My godly form… this can't be!?"

"You mean you didn't look like this originally?"

"Of course not! I was taller! More fearsome! I once brought the Spider-Verse low with nothing but my power!" The statement did not escape Chloé's notice. "And now, I'm this helpless, diminutive creature… this…"

"Kwami."

"YES!"

The room fell into an awkward silence. Shathra seemed to deflate after her outburst, while Chloé's curiosity grew greater with every passing minute. Wordlessly, they followed each other to the blonde's bed.

"So…" The silence was broken first by Chloé. "You're not exactly… from this… universe, did I get that right?"

"No," "I arrived here at this universe by chance, forcibly banished by my enemies through space and time," recounted the once-goddess. "When I arrived at this universe, I saw it explode in a brilliant white light… then I was caught in it."

Chloé was taken aback. She knew exactly what Shathra was referring to. "The universe… exploded?! But I'm still here… The world is still here!"

"I was getting to that!" Shathra interrupts her. "When I opened my eyes again, I found myself in a ring-making factory, trapped in one of the manufactured rings. I could not move, nor could any living creature hear my voice, even after I was shipped to that pawn shop…" The now-Kwami stops short. "...until you found me. You heard my voice."

"What?"

"Seven long years I spent inside that pawn shop," "No matter how much I screamed or rage, no customer would hear me… none would even look in my direction… until you came." The Frenchwoman saw something almost akin to genuine gratitude in the once-goddess' len-eyes. "Now it seems that the form I took after regenerating is that of what you call a Kwami…"

Chloé sat silently as she took in the information. Not only did Shathra all but confirm what she saw and felt all those years ago was true… the goddess even experienced it herself, firsthand. Whatever it was…

"You said this happened about 7 years ago, right?" Chloé slowly poses her question.

"Yes?"

"7 years ago, I was on a transatlantic flight with my mother. It was then I saw it," Chloé shuddered as she recalled it. "A bright light. It engulfed the plane, everyone in it, then me," Her hands clenched on the bed sheets. "It all happened so quickly, but I still remember it, as clear as day. It might have just lasted for a second or two, but I felt myself, my entire being slowly being reduced to nothingness. And then I was back there, on the plane, screaming my lungs out. Everyone in the plane, turns out, didn't see anything, didn't remember anything. No one, but me."

Blue eyes drift down in shame. "Some of my nightmares since then are just that. Just a void of sheer brightness. For so long, I thought what I saw was a hallucination… but it was real. The destruction of the universe…"

Shathra, listening intently, could not help but be impressed. "It seems that you are more special than you give yourself credit for, human. So, what now?"

Chloé hesitated. Had this been her 15 year old self, she would have not hesitated on using Shathra for revenge against Ladybug and Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Her past life is no more. Yet, Chloé's childhood dream never faded.

"You said that you are not native to this universe, right," she began. "I would like to make a deal with you, Shathra."

"I'm listening."

"I teach you about this world, Kwamis and the Miraculous,"

"In return?"

"You teach me how to be you."

"I sure hope you're not getting more than what you bargained for, human," The immortal bug-like creature seemed receptive to the deal, at least on the surface. "By the way, I did not catch your name."

"Chloé. Chloé Bourgeois."

Dance class was over. Thank the heavens above the AC was fixed in time, thought Chloé. It was hellish this past week for her and her students without it. Shathra was patient enough to wait within her purse, but not patient enough to not complain.

Now free of her teaching duties, Chloé found herself walking down the street of her home, past her apartment to her present destination. It was near midnight, and the flickering lights shone a path for Chloé through the city's empty, mostly ignored streets. Situated in an abandoned block, the building itself was old and broken down from the outside, but she long knew better. Quickly locating an old, rundown service elevator, the blonde dancer quickly entered as she pressed the 9th floor button.

"Where are we?" Asks Shathra, still nestled within Chloé's purse.

"This used to be an old dance studio but it got closed down 10 years ago. I found it several months back," Chloé smoothly replied as the ding of the elevator signaled their arrival. "Here we are!"

The two went down a ruined corridor. Quickly locating a doorless entrance, they stepped in. It seemed cleaner than the building it is located in as a whole. A cot and a stool lay in the corner, unused.

Sweeping the dust off the cot, Chloé sat down on it, taking in the abandoned studio. She had not been here for a long time. The mirrors remained intact and so were the barres, with the sprung hardwood boards relatively tidy, only gathering dust from her absence. Outside, the full moonlight shines through its windows, illuminating the studio.

"Human," prodded Shathra, who floated out of the girl's purse. Chloé only now noticed how eerie the Kwami's lens-eyes glowed ominously in the dark. "I thought we were here for a purpose."

"Oh, yes. Right," Chloé fidgets. "What do you need to know?"

"Everything. Miraculouses, Kwamis…" Shathra seemed contemplative. "You spoke of them with such familiarity. I must know more. Leave nothing out."

"So, uh… basically…"

Chloé began explaining everything the best she can about the Miraculouses and Kwamis that she can. How they are bound to millennia ago, how they are utilized by an ancient order of mages to the present day, to the Kwamis themselves, their individual and shared abilities, and how to activate/deactivate them. It did not escape Shathra's notice how the girl seemed melancholic when touching on the Kwami she once partnered with - the bee Kwami called Pollen, and bitter when she touched on certain misadventures with one Ladybug.

"I see… These 'Kwamis' are basically totems."

"They're… what now?"

"Deities that tie humans to animals. The spiritual midpoint between the two." Shathra explains. "It seems that humans in this universe have figured out a way to bind animal totems to these… Miraculouses… to enslave them to their purposes."

The blonde felt her blood run cold. "Hold on now. 'Enslaved' isn't the word I'd use."

"What other word is there?" It came out like a whip crack. "Partnership? When you can call them to you for their powers, against their will? When you can silence them with a command? Do you think I'm stupid, Chloé Bourgeois?" The former wasp deity then rounds on the holder of her ring, making the blonde step back until her back was against the wall.

"I…" This isn't happening. "I didn't一"

"Can you even say you didn't do this to the bee totem yourself?"

Chloé's deafening silence told Shathra everything she needed to know. "You never even gave it a single thought."

The blonde could only let out a shriek as black wasps, seemingly endless in number, start to spawn from black rifts The insect swarm latch onto her limbs and pin her to the wall by sheer strength of numbers, their slightly bigger summoner floating in the air in front of her victim.

Wasps?! And so many?! Leapt about Chloé's fearful mind. Is this… her power?!

"You humans are just the same, duplicitous and controlling. Do you really think I would let a wretch like you sample even the smallest taste of my power?!" Shathra accuses, watching the wasps restrain her would-be prey. "I could just have my children devour you to the bone right now and none would be wiser. It was a mistake to even think you were my salvation!"

"Y–you can't!" Chloé shrieked. "Kwamis can't do that!

"Do I look like a normal Kwami to you?"

These horrifying sights would fill others with nothing less than sheer terror as they would wail and beg for their lives. But not Chloé, now filled with a silent realization.

She simply hung her head low, silent tears running down her face. Perhaps she deserves everything that is happening now.

"Maybe… you're right," she chokes out. "Maybe I deserve to die here."

Those words, and the lack of stayed Shathra's hand, even for a scant moment.

"I was a little monster. I treated everyone around me like trash because of who my parents are… I didn't realize how lonely I was until Pollen came. She was the key to my dream. But I treated her like a slave. I did all those things you said I did. All because I wanted to hold on to the dream of being a hero!"

"Ladybug gave me a chance, and I ruined it!" The crying slowly comes to a stop. "But maybe, maybe just for once I can stop worrying about who likes me or hates me… I can finally stop being scared that I'm not good enough…"

"Because I'm not." Chloé's voice has dulled to barely above a whisper. "I'm no hero."

Dropping Chloé like a sack of potatoes, Shathra watched the young woman curl into a ball. With a flicker of the paw, she commanded her wasps to recede into the shadows.

"Self-reflection," thundered the wasp totem. "Perhaps there is hope left for you yet. Get up."

Chloé stumbles to her feet, her eyes unworthy of meeting Shathra's glowing gaze.

"Allow me to make one thing very clear, child," the voice continued, beckoning no rebuke. "This Miraculous ー this ring ー may have chosen you. But I did not choose you. The power of the wasp has never been held by a human before. If you wish to bear it, you had best prepare for what comes next."

"W-What… comes next?"

"For the Great Hive. That's my transformation phrase."

Her question unanswered, the young woman stills. Her mouth goes dry. This was her chance to realize her dream. The dream she left behind in Paris.

"Shathra… For the Great Hive."

Chloé barely caught the smirk that appeared on Shathra's lips before the black Kwami is sucked back into the hematite ring一

Before black floods her senses whole.

Chloé is immediately floored by the intense magical pressure, the full brunt of it compressing her to the ground in waves. She is on her hands and feet, unable to move, and very nearly, couldn't breathe.

This wasn't the pleasant transformation she had with Pollen. The pride and elation that came with emerging from the other side as Queen Bee.

This is raw, untamed, unclaimed power, at its most primeval.

The wind is forced out of her lungs and perhaps her soul shall be from her body, Chloé thinks. What a wretched way to die. Being unable to withstand a Kwami transformation. How pathetic一

The pressure ceases as Chloé lets the air Under the soft but gleaming moonlight, she sees her hands are black, her arms are black, her everything is black. Dark as night.

Much like Shathra herself一

What comes next… is PAIN.

The sudden, harsh stab of pain forces Chloé as this time, she screams. The back of her ribs seem to be splitting open. As the scream tears itself out of Chloé's throat, she could feel something unholy force itself through the skin of her back with a wet, sickening squelch. Limbs, muscles and tendons, existing and god forbid, moving where they shouldn't be, spring free. All the while, Chloé screams. She isn't even sure her lungs remained intact.

Wings, realizes her horrified conscious mind, lost in pain. Wings of a wasp.

Not even Pollen gave her wings.

The growth grinds to a slow halt, and along with it, the pain. Chloé coughs, her throat sore from the screaming. The pain has shrunken into a dull ache spreading across the whole of her back, where a strange weight can be felt where it was not there before.

Ah. You survived. A surprise, for sure. I thought no human could bear the brunt of the wasp's power.

"Wーw… what…? WーWho…?"

Don't be daft. You know who I am.

"ShーShathra… You'reー"

In your head? Yes.

Hands paw at her face, hoping to feel the familiar features of a human face to no avail. The night somehow seemed brighter in her eyes, as if adorned in night vision.

Isn't this what you want?

"I… You…"

Say no more, and look into the mirror.

What gazed back at Chloé, illuminated by the moonlight, took her breath away. Her statuesque form is clad in form-fitting black from head to toe. Her face, near featureless save the enlarged, glowing lens-eyes that Shathra once bore, is crowned with two long, horn-like antennae amongst long, unkempt dark grey hair and two sharp mandibles on both sides of her chin. Six insectoid-like wings grew from her back, crowning her further, while two black spikes ran down the length of her arm, ending where pale V-patterned stripes adorned the dorsal side of her hands. Such same pale white stripes run across her collarbone area, her hips in a V-shaped pattern, and around both of her wrists and ankles. Shathra's word had proven true: the goddess she once was is now in full display.

Chloé's throat ran dry as she continued to look on at what she had become.

Isn't it wonderful? The beauty and the horror?

AN: Chloé finally opens Pandora's Box and is engulfed by its evil… perhaps she will find hope underneath. To think of Chloé now as merely a darker Queen Bee is reductive… She is now, in a way, one with Shathra. Her appearance pretty much reflects that; it's a near 1:1 with Shathra's canonical appearance in End of The Spiderverse.

Once again, I will only continue this if you guys really want it.