Super Science
Ch. 132: Quelana
"Now that things have settled down, how about you tell me about this new "sister" of yours?" Hankoyo asked the man-spider sitting in his office after hearing from Izuku that the Mothra situation had been handled.
Quelaag was standing nervously in the small office, poking his fingers together while looking off to the side as his spider's lower half tried to cover its face with some of its legs. After a tense and silent time from the man, he finally took a deep breath and began to say, "Well…. It happened several weeks ago."
"Several weeks!?" Hankoyo exclaimed, cutting him off.
"I said I was busy," Quelaag begged and pleaded meekly.
"Uh-huh, "busy." Like I'd believe that." Hankoyo replied with disbelief, narrowing his eyes.
Quelaag cleared his voice and continued to tell him, "As I said, it was several weeks ago, and I was on duty hunting down the humans on Pacifica."
Pacifica, several weeks ago
Quelaag was walking through the Hyperion jungle, doing his usual rounds of trying to find the human invaders. So far, today has been a slow day, and not one human has managed to show up or be seen by him or any of the spiders. Just then, one of the spiders ran out from the brush and began to tell him something by clicking its mandibles.
Quelaag listened and repeated, "What's that you say? You found a human!" The spider clicked its mandibles some more, and Quelaag stated, "Standing in the open. That's ridiculous."
The smaller spider, now insulted by him, guided the large Man spider to the human, and when they got to the spot, they both hid in the underbrush and peeked out to where the smaller spider was bringing him. As was said in a clearing in the forest, a human female stood alone. Her hair was long and golden, and she was dressed in a long white gown that had been tattered, torn, and ripped apart in several places. Her bangs covered her eyes, and she stood perfectly. Still with her head bowed and her hands clasped as if praying or waiting for something.
"I stand corrected," Quelaag stated in surprise, making The smaller spider look at him with a shit-eating expression. Quelaag noticed this and said, "Oh, don't give me that look. Let's just kill her and move on."
The two of them sank back into the underbrush and prepared themselves to attack the woman who continued to stand out in the open perfectly still. Once Quelaag was ready with his scythe out, The two of them burst out of the brush and surrounded the small woman. The man's spider brazenly proclaimed, "HA HA HA! So, human, have you decided to accept your fate and let your fleeting light die out faster!?" He offered in a threatening tone while holding the edge of his scythe near her face.
"Yes." was all she said in a small voice.
Quelaag looked at the confusion of this and repeated, "Yes? I wasn't expecting that response. What's the catch here? Did your friends use you as a distraction, bait, waiting to ambush me? Wouldn't be the first time." Quelaag tries to guess her intentions with a sinister expression.
"No. Please. Kill me." The woman replies in a meek, small voice nearly above a whisper.
Quelaag and the smaller spider both look at one another before looking back at the woman, where the man spider says, "What? You're sucking the fun out of this. What's the point in intimidating you if you don't act like you are?"
"I've given up on this life. Perhaps it will be better in the next one, " the woman vaguely explains, and a few tears drip down her face.
Something stirred within Quelaag, an emotion he hadn't felt in a very long time, one that he almost assumed had been muted. Compassion? Pity? Or maybe it was something else? Perhaps it was the fact that her plea sounded so familiar.
So he put his scythe away and told her, "You are a strange one, human. The only other one I have met like you is…myself." The woman looked up at him past her bangs, noting her beautiful but almost dead-looking pale eyes. There, the man-spider explained to her, "I, too, know what it is like to give up on life and wish for a better one. Perhaps we shall allow Lady Ungoliant to decide your fate."
Without waiting for a response from her, the smaller spider snatched her up and carried her alongside Quelaag to the nest of Ungoliant located in the Chasm of Darkness. The two spiders walked briskly and casually through the jungle as if walking through an open city park, ignoring or ultimately dispatching animals that tried to attack them. Any of them that were smart either moved out of the way, ran away, or ignored them.
Eventually, the trio came to the chasm of darkness, an enormous gorge with a large sheet of spider webs all colored pitch black and blanketing the scar in the earth like a great bandage. They traveled down to where the entrance of the chasm was, which was a significant slope that gently declined into the Earth as they traveled deeper within the chasm, traversing underneath the covering of black webs. The light around them appeared to disappear as if it had been snuffed out and not simply covered over by the black webs.
The deeper they traveled into the tunnel, the more spiders began to appear, the size of the one carrying the young woman, all of them large, horrible, and hideous with egg sacks. Littered all over, and the remains were freshly captured prey bound and spun in the dark webs for later. One spider, in particular, was bigger than all the others; Shelob, Ungoliant's daughter, watched as they carried the woman to their mother's resting place. There, they finally made it to the end of the chasm.
Sitting in the largest, deepest, darkest, and widest part of the area was a spider more massive than all the spiders put together. A body as large as a building and legs long and thick as a train, large, horrible, and hideous with features that should not go on a spider. Many smaller spiders swarmed around her, cleaning her body or depositing food for her to consume constantly.
The spider carrying the woman finally set her down before the enormous spider, and Quelaag stood before her and loudly proclaimed in reverence, "Human! Cast your eyes to the darkness before you and behind Her Majesty! The consumer of light, the weaver of darkness, the eater of all, the mother of spiders herself! The great Goddess Ungoliant!"
The woman gazed upon Ungoliant in all her majestic, unnatural State, and the only thing she could say and reply upon seeing the gargantuan spider was, "She's… beautiful."
Quelaag double-checked her reply and asked, "You think our goddess is…beautiful?"
"The most beautiful, " the woman agreed, looking at her with amazement and not a single twinge of fear.
Quelaag gave a sideways smile before stating, "When others see her, they just scream, cry, piss themselves, some odd combination or all three at the same time. But she shall decide your fate!"
Ungoliant turned away from her meal and set her dozens of piercing red eyes. Upon the young woman there, she sat and looked at her every eye, looking over her, observing, studying as if trying to make sense or come to a decision. Finally, the gargantuan spider seemed to make her choice and brought one enormous leg forward, bringing it up and above the young woman's body. Looking ready to strike it down upon her. Ungoliant had made her decision, and her decision was death.
But something stirred within Quelaag, and he ran out and pleaded with his goddess, "Lady Ungoliant, wait! I beseech you!" Mongolian stopped her attack, bringing her leg away. She turned many of her piercing red eyes to the man's spider, who begged his goddess, "Do not kill the woman. She had clearly seen the wonder that is you. I ask that you make it like you made me! She is not like the other humans on the island; she doesn't have the same scent as a rapist, a killer, or any other undesirable. I plead that you give her a chance!"
Ungoliant appeared to consider this proposal for quite a while, taking one smaller leg and putting it near her lower jaw as if thinking. After a couple of minutes, the gargantuan spider made a decision, lifted her enormous thorax, and held it over her front, where she began to vibrate and make a set of unusual sounds.
Confused by what was going on, the woman asked, "What is she doing?"
Quelaag did not answer at first. Instead, he ran and collected a large basin that he held above his head. He used it to collect several large black droplets that shed off of Ungoliant's body and dripped down into the basin. Once every droplet was collected, the man spider brought it over to the woman and held it up for her to see. Within the basin was what looked like some kind of black ichor, but upon closer inspection, she could see that the liquid was moving around unnaturally. This was not a liquid. This was something alive. Many living things. These are things that look like small leeches but have a composition that is more similar to water.
Quelaag smiled at the basin, holding it up to her. He explained, "The lady has accepted my proposal. You are to be reborn from the flesh of our goddess!" He held the basin up to her lips. He instructed her, "Now, my dear, drink upon the essence of your goddess and be born anew, in a new form and a new name."
The woman took the basin into her hands, and just before partaking in the gargantuan spider's essence, she asked, "But what shall be my name?"
Quelaag thought about this for a few seconds, explaining to her, "I was given a new name upon my rebirth, so I shall give you one." He took a few more seconds, and then, with a smile on his face, he said, "From here on, you shall be known as Quelana!"
After being given her new name, the woman raised the basin above her head and drank its entire contents in one go. Suddenly, she dropped the basin on the ground, letting it shatter as she clutched at her face, neck, and body, which fell to the ground as the transformation began to take place, turning her into something like Quelaag.
And that is how I got a new sister. And it's the whole truth, lord Hankoyo." Quelaag finished his story with a dorky smile.
Hankoyo stared at the man's spider with a perplexed expression. He then downed a nearby water bottle in one go before saying, with a stressed sigh, "I need to tell Egon about this."
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