Part two of Series Three's grand finale begins with Adriana's greatest secret being revealed. Now comes her past as Cindy Moon, her true motivations, and the continuing escalation as sides are finally chosen and the real battle truly begins...

I present to you: Civil War II!

(And on a side note, I've recently been getting spammed with PMs from people who keep saying that they want to draw commissions for me. I've had probably twenty of them in the last week, and I'm fairly certain they're all spambots. Not really sure what to do with it, it's just a bit annoying.)

From the day of her birth, Cindy Moon was told that she would achieve greatness.

Even when her parents were murdered in a fit of racially-motivated violence and she was thrown into child protective services before being lost to the New York slums in North America, her elderly caretaker, the mad oracle that was Cassandra Webb, promised her that she was destined for greatness, that her mother and father's murder had a grander purpose to them then just an senseless act of death. Through her visions, Cassandra knew Cindy to be the bride of the Spider, She who would give herself to He and weave a new web across all creation.

Then, they, along with all the other children in the slums, were approached by the eccentric, but charismatic priest of the Spider-Society church, Ezekiel Sims, who had come for Cassandra Webb and her visions, and offered the children there a home.

They accepted without hesitation.

Cindy Moon and the children were inducted into the Spider-Society, and Cindy was elevated to the position of the Spider-Bride, the one who would become the Spider's consort and bring about a new age to the whole world. Ezekiel would soon seek out Peter Parker, the fabled Spider-Man of Cassandra's visions, and Cindy would become his best friend, playing with him for days on end and holding him as he wept, kissing his tears away like the good bride-to-be whilst his aunt and uncle were sacrificed to the Spider Totems by his parents.

Then, one day, avoiding All Might and the pro heroes that were running around in reaction to All for One's defeat, the collapse of his criminal empire, and the subsequent gang war that followed in various cities across the country, Cindy would follow the rest of the Spider-Society into Japan and set up shop there to wait for the inevitable arrival of the Spider-Man they had prophesised.

And then he arrived. The Spider-Man came to them, from the future, and Cindy met the one who would bless them with his gifts and make her and her consort Peter his chosen.

They drank from his blood and she was the second to receive his blessing after their priest Ezekiel. She, the Spider-Bride, and Peter, the Spider-Man, would be the one whom carried his godly joy whilst the others, deemed undeserving by the blood of her consort from the future, would be left to fester in their unworthiness.

But then, it all went wrong. Cassandra Webb passed away, and the heretic known as the Void Knight came and destroyed their church. Their god, the Spider-Man, rejected them and dealt unto them the killing blow, and his blood had killed all her fellow churchgoers, including her consort.

There were only two survivors. Cindy Moon herself, and a wounded Ezekiel Sims, who took Cindy away to continue their work once more.

Ezekiel Sims hadn't just returned to his homeplace of Japan to await the coming of the Spider-Man, though. He had spent his years since his first encounter with the Spider-Man wisely, and had created a vast private security company known as Webcorps, which, upon his death two years later, he would pass down onto Cindy as his heir.

And here would be when Cindy Moon finally realised the scope of her destiny, and what she was born to do. She was born upon this earth, and blessed with the gifts of the Spider, to carry out the will of the Spider-Man. The true will, not the safe falsehoods and comforting lies that he told himself.

The deceased Cassandra Webb had shown her visions of all realities and all Spider-Men throughout the multiverse, and every one of them suffered from the responsibilities that their powers gave them. All of them have gone through identical pains and miseries throughout their lives, all of them having sacrificed so much and lost so many, all for the sake of satisfying the memories of the dead and the powers that they had been blessed and cursed with. All their Uncle Bens and Gwen Stacys, their Captain Stacys and Harry Osborns, death after death and tragedy after tragedy, all for the sake of people who remained eternally ungrateful of the men and women that they themselves had been blessed with.

No more.

Cindy proclaimed that there would be no more tragedy, no more despair. She would remove the despair of the Spider-People from the world and create for them a new land, a kingdom all to themselves where they would never know the great sadness that plagued them all. They would be removed of their power, and they would be saved from their responsibilities. They would finally be allowed to slow, to stop, to think for themselves, to love themselves, and to never know the agony of serving others ever again.

This was Cindy Moon's purpose on this Earth, her destiny. She had been born a Spider Totem to understand the pain of being a Spider Totem. It had given her great power to see the horrors of such power, and gave her the responsibility of destroying responsibility.

And so, through mastering her new powers, particularly her ability to release controlling pheromones, Cindy took over Webcorps and rebranded it to be S.I.L.K.. Over the years and through her new contacts, she had it joined with the Japanese Diet as an official government agency, and got herself a seat on the Diet itself despite her age compared to the rest of the politicians there, whispering into the ear of everyone from minor political figures to even the Prime Minister himself to grow in size and power, all in the name of accomplishing her greatest goal:

The destruction of power, and therefore the destruction of responsibility.

Then, one day, Spider-Man arrived. The true Spider-Man, the same one that visited them in the Church of the Spider-Society all those years ago. Spider-Man had come to them once more, and with him came a new generation of heroes - true heroes, not those selfish, money-hungry fools who wore the banner and echoed the words of a hero without ever committing to them...

It was time for Cindy, under the guise of Adriana Soria, to put her plans into motion.

Now, after so long, those plans were finally beginning to bear fruit. With her Anti-Venom clones, they will spread out like a wave across the world, freeing people from their quirks and the terrors that they bring. Soon, when they have collected the last of the Infinity Stones, they will spread out across all of creation and deliver unto everyone liberation, freedom from their shackles of duty and slavery to their ideals.

Then, when all have been saved from their responsibilities and been delivered into the welcoming arms of powerlessness once more, so to would the Spider-Man and the Spider-Bride make their kingdom of webs and steel.

And then, finally, they will know peace.

And yet, as she looks at Peter, her consort, she sees that he is not amazed and delighted at her ambitions but is instead horrified at what she has proposed.

Peter cannot believe it. What Adriana – what Cindy – is proposing... it's madness. Insanity. Depriving other people of their power, all for some demented sense of peace? It's depraved. What Cindy is asking of him goes against everything that he stands for.

She's asking him to stand beside her as she unleashes a horde of monsters onto the world and take away everything from people, their power, their self-reliance, their ability to make choices for themselves...

He will not stand for it.

Cindy tilts her head to him. She's confused. He should be overjoyed with what she is asking of him, for him. All his life, he's been in pain. From losing Uncle Ben to his first outing against the Thousand, from being beaten by villains day after day to making a nemesis out of the Green Goblin himself. He lost Gwen Stacy and Harry Osborn all in the same year, the same space of time. And ever since coming here, he's been beaten, torn, lost his Uncle Ben again, lost Kazuho, and had to fight through war after war throughout the last year alone, all the while people continue to die around him again and again.

Isn't he tired of it all? Doesn't he want to escape?

Spider-Man gives her a long look, unsure of how to answer. Cindy presses on, asking him how much he has suffered ever since he became Spider-Man, how much he has lost all for people who resent and despise him. How much has he given? How much happiness has he sacrificed? How much happier would he be if he could just let it all go? Let go of the power and the responsibility that comes with it?

How much happier would Spider-Man, would Peter Parker, be, if he could just let it all go?

Peter then asks her what she is to do with herself, and Cindy admits she has been cursed with power and the responsibility that comes with it. But now she knows how to use that power, and it is her responsibility to remove that power from others, so that they might not be corrupted by it, driven to evils and madness.

The goal of S.I.L.K. is to bring peace to everything and everyone that it touches. Through the relinquishment of power and responsibility, that peace can finally-

The Octobot from before crawls up Cindy's back and taps her neck, sending an electrical signal into her brain that would override Cindy's personality with Otto Octavius' own...

Or at least it would have, if it wasn't for the slab of metal that Cindy had had surgically implanted into her neck in preparation for such an event. Cassandra had shown her more than just visions of Spider-Man, after all.

Reaching behind her and crushing the Octobot in her Infinity Gauntlet, Cindy whirls around and decides that the crippled and dying Doctor Octopus has outlived his usefulness. Snapping one finger, Peter's S.I.L.K. suit goes still around him, locking him inside. The armour inside his Spider-Suit locks up, acting like a prison for him, and keeping him in place.

Cindy, meanwhile, shoves Carolyn Trainer aside as she tries to defend Otto, deciding that she is too much of a liability as well and drowns her in her pheromones, completely brainwashing her into becoming a mindless sycophant. However, recognising that Otto has long since made himself immune to her pheromones, Cindy instead opens a portal with the space stone and banishes Octavius through it, flinging him through dimensions and to certain death.

Then, Cindy looks back to the frozen Spider-Man, only to see that he has forced his way out of his armoured suit, punching his way through the metal and emerging as Peter Parker.

And yet, as Peter realises that he no longer has his web shooters, and looks to a fully powered Silk as her armed minions finally arrive, along with their Spider Slayers, all the while the Infinity Gauntlet sits snugly on Cindy's hand, he realises that he is no match for them, and is forced to do the one thing he hates doing in such a situation...

He flees, as fast as he can, and, after using the Anti-Venom on Carnage to cleanse his body and throw the inert body into a vat, with Cindy Moon trailing behind him.

Elsewhere, Izuku puts himself protectively before the still wounded Bakugo as Twice's clones, alongside Jessica, Kirishima, and Tetsutetsu, surround them. Izuku morphs into his Agent Anti-Venom form and demands to know what the hell is going on, and why the hell they are here. Jessica reminds him of what she told him last night, that Bakugo is a wanted criminal and that they need to take him in. And since Izuku is helping to harbour a fugitive now, then they need to arrest him as well.

Izuku tries to reason with them, to get them to understand where Bakugo had escaped from and what had been done to him, but it's no use. They've been exposed to Adriana's pheromones so many times that it's embedded itself into them. They've been so drugged by the hypnotic fumes that they were now unable to see anything but Adriana's orders. They'd effectively been brainwashed. Izuku has no choice now but to fight to protect Bakugo and himself.

So, they fight, and Anti-Venom finds himself on the defensive against the lot of them, unable to keep up with Kirishima and Tetsutetsu's strength, Twice's clones, and Jessica's sheer prowess. During the skirmish, Twice's clones end up grabbing Bakugo and whisking him away, with Izuku trying to go after him, only for him to be cornered by the rest of the clones and Adriana's agents once more, his former friends, now turning their strength on him.

Then, the fight is interrupted, and the sides are evened out as Wraith and Black Cat break in to join the battle on Izuku's side, telling him that Ochako had called them down for support. Things are beginning to escalate out there, and word is spreading that S.I.L.K. has carpet-bombed Deika into rubble...

Elsewhere, Ochako in her She-Venom form, Keemia, Melissa, the Lizard, and Kaine are busy fighting through the streets once more as S.I.L.K.'s remaining heroes and operatives in the city turn on them. Calling all their allies, Ochako sends out a warning that S.I.L.K. has turned against them, and that they need to go underground and rendezvous at their secret hideout pronto...

A message which is picked up by Momo and her friends and allies in the new U.A. grounds, who goes to escape from U.A. as the school begins to lock down in response to the Paranormal Liberation War in Deika… only to be stopped by Tsuyu and the rest of their classmates in the hero course.

Momo is surprised at this development, but then begins to think back to all her recent interactions with Tsuyu, and realises that she must've been working for Adriana, acting as her informant inside U.A., ever since the Mr. Negative incident, maybe even earlier than that.

Tsuyu simply replies that she's tired. She's tired of losing friends, tired of them getting hurt and breaking the law and getting themselves thrown into worse and worse situations again and again and again. So much has changed, so many terrible things have happened, as she just wants thing to, for once, go back to normal.

Adriana gave her two simple instructions: keep an eye on Momo and the rest of Spider-Man's allies in U.A., and when the time comes, make sure that they can't leave U.A..

She was sorry, she really was... but she couldn't let Momo's lot leave. She couldn't let them break the law as much as they like and turn themselves into criminals once again.

She was a hero. She stood on the side of the law. She was the one who brought down the villains.

And if Momo and her lot wanted to break the law, then that would make them no better than villains.

So please, she pleads to Momo, stand down.

Momo simply sighs, says that she's sorry, and launches into action alongside her friends.

The civil war has reached U.A.'s own walls.

In the streets, Peter is being chased down by Cindy Moon, still in her Silk outfit and with the Infinity Gauntlet wrapped around her hand. Without his web shooters, Peter has become limited in his ability to move, something that is only worsened by Cindy's organic webbing and the capabilities of the Gauntlet.

He is tired and mentally rattled. He doesn't have much energy left in him anymore.

But then, as he tries to hide from Cindy and get off the streets, finding himself panting for breath on one of the rooftops of Musufatu's tallest buildings, he sees one of the skyscrapers around him holding a giant television screen on it, broadcasting a news report about how S.I.L.K. and other government and hero forces have just levelled Deika City to the ground.

Peter is horrified by this. An entire city... just gone?

Behind him, he hears Cindy's voice, telling him that this is what happens when people are given power.

He spins around and throws a fist, but Cindy catches it effortlessly. Her hands sharpen to claws and she digs them into Peter's chest, keeping him in place. Cindy apologises for hurting him, but Peter snaps back at her, demanding to know why she bombed an entire city to oblivion. All those people...

Cindy retorts that none of them were innocent. Deika City was a place where MLA extremists and terrorists had been gathering together after attempting to overthrow the government. They were too dangerous to allow to continue on, and they'd made it clear that they had no intention of being taken alive, especially that manchild All for One before being overridden by that psychopath Carnage.

Peter lets out a roar at her. And what about everyone else that was in the city? All the people that were living there? Were they just as guilty as well?

Cindy simply states that it doesn't matter. They're victims of the same power that has corrupted everyone.

Peter tries to fight back, but Cindy is unbothered by it. The MLA held within themselves great power, and they held the great responsibility to use it. However, their ideals, fuelled by their power, told them that their responsibility was to twist and use said power against others. In a sad way, the MLA are as much a victim of the corruptive temptations of power as the ones who they wished to terrorise as well.

This is what happens when a person is given power and responsibility. It will break them, ruin them, turn them into monster and animals, or just simply destroy them. Study history, and see the patterns. All power has done is destroy and bring sadness wherever it goes. It's time to get rid of it all, give people the peace and happiness that they deserve.

The work has yet to be completed, but when it is, Peter will be proud to see it. His bride is sure of it. There will always be a place for Spider-Man within her kingdom-

A massive fist slams into Cindy and throws her onto another rooftop. Cindy immediately gets up and demands to know what just happened.

All Might cracks his knuckles, allowing Ben Reily to chance to grab Peter and swing him to safety, and gives Cindy the sharpest glare that he can muster.

In one word? Regicide.

Elsewhere, Izuku, Wraith, and Black Cat are finally able to fend off Adriana's agents and escape, fleeing into the night with Twice's clones hot on their heels. Leaning into their headsets, Black Cat and Wraith confirm that All Might and Ben got their message, and that Ben's grabbed Peter whilst All Might's keeping Adriana busy.

Wraith splits off from the group to make sure that everyone in the Morales household is safe, and Black Cat and Anti-Venom finally shake off Twice and make their way to the safehouse. Inko and May and the rest of the Spider-Gang will be waiting for them there.

In U.A., Momo and her friends continue to fight against Tsuyu and the rest of their former classmates. Even the teachers are getting involved, either siding with the law or at least trying to stop the fighting.

Soon, Momo and Tsuyu end up squaring off, and despite Tsuyu's latent strength and skill, Momo is able to prevail, and kicks Tsuyu into Midnight, knocking the frog girl and the rest of their former classmates out with the pro hero's knockout gas, and giving them the time to escape before S.I.L.K.'s agents arrive to round them up.

And in the middle of Musufatu, Cindy and All Might begin their own battle, with All Might donning his Villainbuster armour and laying in fist after fist into the director of S.I.L.K., intending on taking her down and making her face justice for everything that she has done.

Cindy, however, is unimpressed by All Might, and straight up tells him that. He's getting slower, isn't he? He's slowing down. He's not as quick as he used to be. So much for always being there, eh?

All Might frowns and throws another punch. Cindy sidesteps it, and bounces away.

All Might may be a relic, but Cindy still has plans for him... and besides, they all know what he'll do next.

So, Cindy simply slips away, telling All Might that she'll see him the next day, when he and the rest of the Spider-Gang attempt to take her down.

It's an inevitable confrontation, one that she has been preparing for for a long time.

But she doesn't tell All Might this. She simply lets All Might believe that he's won and flees the battle, returning to her R&D centre and orders the staff and security there, including the brainwashed Lady Octopus and returning agents Twice, Jessica, Kirishima and Tetsutetsu, alongside a thrashing, quirkless Bakugo, to recall their forces from Deika, fortify their S.I.L.K. bases, and prepare.

The Paranormal Liberation War isn't over yet.

Meanwhile, the Spider-Gang has congregated in their new hideout, that being a dugout bunker underneath the ruins of F.E.A.S.T.'s first shelter, and begin to try and form a plan. All Might has just gone on camera to condemn Adriana Soria - whom they know now as Cindy Moon, Silk - and the rest of S.I.L.K. for their crimes, so they'll have the support of not just Skycrawler, Ryukyu, and Gang Orca, but a whole army of pro heroes as well, so they have that comfort.

However, Peter Parker has been left despondent by the recent revelations that he has been exposed to. Everything, from S.I.L.K. to the stones to the experiments to Adriana, Cindy, Silk, the Spider-Queen, whatever the hell she's calling herself now.

He should've known. He should've figured it out sooner. This is all his fault. If only he'd been-

It is Ochako that breaks Peter out of his spiral of guilt. Enough. Enough of this stupid self-flagellation that Peter has become so famous for. It's pathetic. How many times has Peter blamed himself for something that isn't his fault? Every single time, and Ochako and everyone else has had enough.

Ochako tells Peter to get over himself, to stop blaming himself for every single thing that has gone wrong. Uncle Ben's death was not his fault. Neither was Harry's, or Gwen's, or Kazuho's, or anyone else's. None of that is on him. The only actions that Peter needs to be accountable for are his own, not anyone else's.

Enough of this self-deprecation crap. Enough torturing himself over his inflated sense of guilt. It's time to let it all go. It's time to move on.

Peter listens, and nods. It's easier said than done, though.

But right now, they're right, it's time to get to work.

Peter then thinks back to Cindy, and feels angry. That woman... Silk is taking all his morals, everything that he stands for, that he believes in, and is twisting them into something monstrous. She's taking his ideals and destroying them, mutating them, using them as an excuse to carry out her diseased plans.

She's tortured people and killed who knows how many more, brainwashed his friends and family, and she's doing it all in his name.

And that... makes him angry. Incredibly angry.

And as he looks for his old suit, he finds that all of them were either damaged and broken, mainly his first suit, or have been confined and confiscated by Cindy's operatives, seeing as they're all U.A. and S.I.L.K. property now.

All... save for one.

The black suit, the knitted replica of the Symbiote suit that Adriana - Cindy - had made for him when he first joined S.I.L.K.. It's the only Spider-Suit that he has on him.

And so, in his anger, he quietly puts on the Black Suit, donning the obsidian colours of his own inner darkness once more...

…And the next day, he swings to the main gates of S.I.L.K.'s R&D centre, as quiet as a knife.

Cindy, in her Silk outfit, is there to greet him. She tells him that she knew he'd come back, and welcomes him inside.

She's eager to show him what their future will be...

And here we are, one step away from series three's grand finale. Cindy Moon's past has been revealed, and the true scope of her goals is coming into focus.

If any of you are wondering who to blame for all this, blame Ezekiel Sims.

When I was writing this story, I didn't quite understand just how big of a role Ezekiel would end up playing within the story, even when he has passed on and is no longer alive in the narrative. He's gone, but his legacy in the form of Cindy Moon continues to haunt the world.

Cindy Moon is the big bad of the story, but know that Ezekiel is the one who put her there and made her that way in the first place. Now if that doesn't make Ezekiel one of the biggest influencing factors in this entire narrative, then I don't know what is.

But yeah, Cindy Moon's the main villain of the story, despite her being a hero in the canon of Spider-Man. Why is that, you may be wondering? Well, when I was perusing some Spider-Man fanfics out in the wild, I came across a fic that also, in a way, merge Cindy Moon and Adriana Soria together into one character. Sort of. It's a bit of a naughty fic, so I shan't link it here, but it's one set in the 2000s Ultimateverse and changes Cindy into a mutant, giving her the same powers as Spider-Man, but also telepathy and the ability to control insects.

The same powers that Adriana Soria, the Spider-Queen, has.

This was fuelled by a desire to deviate from the typical Spider-Man fics and MHA/Spider-Man crossovers who just default to having the Green Goblin or All for One or one of the A-list villains in either franchise as one of the main villains. I wanted to do something different and bring a lesser known villain into the forefront, something that Spider-Man writers have been doing more in recent years such as with Mister Negative in the Marvel's Spider-Man game and the Spot in Across the Spider-Verse.

That, and I also figured that someone like the Spider-Queen, seeing as she is literally named the Spider-Queen, would be a good way to deconstruct Spider-Man's morals and entire character. A lot of fics out there, especially crossover fics between Spider-Man and My Hero Academia, tend to spend their time reinforcing Spider-Man's ideals in the face of hero society and everything that it entails.

Here though, I really wanted to put Spider-Man's entire ideology into a jar and see what happens when I shake it.

Because as flawed as hero society is and how a lot of it tends to fall apart when you start applying logic to it, the entire idea of hero society represents a more organised form of what's already been going on in Marvel and DC for years, and it's all with pay and benefits for the heroes as well, which is more than Spider-Man himself gets for all his heroing and such.

Plus, I then saw that the team behind Spider-Gwen has already made Cindy Moon a villain in their alternate universe story, so hey, vindication!

So, Cindy Moon serves as not just the main villain of the story, but also a massive deconstruction of the phrase 'With great power comes great responsibility'. She's meant to be this massive threat, not just in the narrative, but to Peter Parker especially, simply because of what she represents: all the morals and ideals of Spider-Man, made into something monstrous.

But anyway, that's all I've got for this chapter. All the major players are where they should be, all the remaining pieces of the jigsaw are being put into place, and the final battle of the Paranormal Liberation War is about to begin...

But I can promise you, this is not going to go the way you think.