Enter the Spider... or Whatever I Am's Web

by Autum Breeze

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

___________________________________________________________

“And where were you all?”

We all flinch as we enter the hall, only to find Principal Knickerbocher standing there, arms folded, tapping her foot, a very unpleasant look on her face.

The others glance at each other, before I get an idea and hide behind Will.

Thankfully, it seems the others catch on, because Hay Lin quickly comes over, putting her hands on my shoulder in a comforting manner.

“Sorry, Principal Knickerbocher,” Will says when said woman gives a confused raised eyebrow. “My mom told you about how anxious my cousin can be? Well, when the cafeteria went dark like that, she ran out. How she didn’t run into the wall and went right out the door is a mystery, honestly.”

Knickerbocher’s expression softens slightly, turning into understanding as she watches Hay Lin comforting me as I wipe away a few tears (provided by Irma quickly moistening the area around my eyes).

“We went out to look for her, to make sure nothing happened,” Taranee adds, pulls attention towards herself, Will now “comforting” me too, myself clinging to her. “I know we should’ve told someone, but, it was a spur of the moment kind of thing. We didn’t have time to really think it through.”

Knickerbocher heaves a sigh, folding her arms, a slightly annoyed but understanding look on her face. “Well, I suppose I can understand that. It was strange, whatever happened in the cafeteria. Still, Miss Vandom, please be sure to keep a closer eye on your cousin.”

“Of course,” Will nods, rubbing my back.

Knickerbocher walks off and we wait until she’s a long way down the hall and around the corner, but we all relax, sighing with relief.

Will shakes her head. “Okay. After school, we’ll quickly see what Lilian wants to talk with Mel about, then we need to do some W.I.T.C.H. training.”

“Aren’t we already good enough with our powers?” Cornelia asks, cocking an eyebrow.

Will puts a hand on my shoulder. “Yes, but Mel isn’t experienced with her Shadow power. She’s already unintentionally lost control of it twice today now. She needs to learn how to keep her powers from slipping out whenever she gets startled.”

I nod, my expression firm.

You’d think I’d be offended by how Will worded that, but, I completely agree with her.

In the week leading up to my moving to earth indefinitely, I didn’t have anything startling me or putting me under the kind of stresses that would accidentally release my powers.

In fact, I didn’t even realize my powers could do that, so it took me completely off guard when Sunset made me realize my power was Shadow.

We split off for our next classes, myself, Will and Cornelia heading for science class.

I end up being sat next to Alchemy, who looks at me with worry as I settle into my seat, taking out my books.

“Are you okay?” she asks as I put my bag under the desk.

I glance at her, slightly confused. “Huh?”

“What happened in the cafeteria,” she says, glancing around. “I noticed you, Will and her group were gone when it stopped being dark.”

At once, I blush, realizing how much I’m going o have to make myself look pathetic to keep up my cover.

“I… I got startled,” I say, doing my best to sound anxious and embarrassed without the frustration I’m feeling from the lie. “I… I was still anxious after what happened in computer studies and, well, I wasn’t exactly expecting it to go pitch-black in the middle of the day like that.” Granted, I’m the cause of it going pitch-black, but I hadn’t known that at the time.

Alchemy frowns, turning to look at the desk. “Yeah. That was really weird. Principal Knickerbocher said it was something to do with a power surge, but that doesn’t explain why no sunlight was coming through the windows.”

“I hear it was a ghost,” Uriah’s voice says from behind us, him saying the last word in that stereotypical spooky way.

I can actually feel Will and Cornelia’s worry about whether I’ll keep my cover or not as I’m inwardly snarling at the fact I realize I’m going to have to act all scared at the idea of ghosts, especially when I know it wasn’t a ghost because it was my own damn powers and seeing me scared is just going to make Uriah try harder.

However, I didn’t get away with breaking a few rules every now and then back in my old schools without being a good actor.

So, sucking up my pride (and inwardly promising I’ll make Uriah pay personally once I can build up my cover to the point no one would question my standing up for myself), a pretend to squeak in fear and hunch over, acting scared.

“Uriah, leave Melinda alone!” Alchemy says, far louder than I’d actually expected.

Timing’s a funny thing sometimes and karma must’ve decided my humiliating myself deserved a reward, as, the moment Alchemy spoke up, the teacher came in, hearing her loud and clear.

“Seriously?” Will asks angrily, stepping up, glaring at the boy. “Wasn’t it bad enough that you made her uncomfortable before school even started? Just leave my cousin alone already, Uriah!”

How W.I.T.C.H. and I are so good at following each other’s lead without needing to say anything is really surprising to me, though I can tell Will’s anger is only half an act. She’s probably really annoyed how many times we’ve had to really push the “Will scared cousin” act so much when it’s literally just the first day.

I share her sentiment.

“Uriah, that’s enough,” the teacher says, leaving the bully floundering to come up with a good excuse… something he clearly is not smart enough to come up with on the fly. “If I find out one more time that you’re making things harder for Miss Vandom, you’ll be spending the next day in detention.”

Uriah clams up, but, as the teacher moves towards the front of the classroom, I see him shoot me a dirty look that I almost give back.

Instead, I just turn to face the front and hunch down a little.

This results in Alchemy putting an arm around my shoulder. “Hey, don’t worry about it. It’ll be fine.”

I give her a small genuine smile.

___________________________________________________________

“You did pretty well for your first day,” Irma compliments as we walk down the street towards Cornelia’s apartment complex. “You made everyone think you’re a crybaby, without crying.”

“I’ve never felt more insulted by an earnest compliment,” I deadpan.

“I know it’s not easy,” Hay Lin turns around, walking backwards as she looks at me. “But, it shouldn’t have to be too long. A couple of weeks, a month maybe, then you can be yourself.”

“And, it’s not like you’re a bad student,” Taranee remarks, smiling. “You did really well, from what I heard.”

“Except algebra,” I grumble, putting a hand to my forehead. “God, seriously, I never understood that garble before and now it somehow makes even less sense.”

“At least you made a friend outside our group,” Matt points out.

“Don’t know if Elyon’s gonna be too pleased when she finds out about it, though,” Irma jokes.

We reach the Hale apartment a couple minutes later. As we walk in, we’re all met with a surprise. Irma’s mother and her brother are there, looking like they’re about to leave.

“Mom?!” Irma asks, sounding as shocked as we all feel. “What’re you doing here?”

“I agreed to watch over Lilian today and decided she and your brother could have a playdate,” her mother replies, her tone chipper.

“Glad I don’t have to play with her anymore today,” Chris says, sounding very annoyed, pointing to Irma. “You can handle Miss Earth’s Queen now.”

At once, a feeling of dread passing through us all, our eyes meeting. WHAT?!

Irma’s mum just laughs, leading her son out the door.

As she does, something causes me to pause, sniffing the air and glancing over my shoulder, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

“Mel?” Will’s voice pulls me back to the present and I shake my head, then nod, following them all inside.

“Miranda!” a voice happily calls out as Lilian runs out of her room, wearing a princess costume and hugs me. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

I glance to the others, a little confused, before looking down at the little girl with an uncertain smile. “Of course, I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?”

She unaware of the name change or just not care? I think to Cornelia.

Pretty sure she was unaware, since she didn’t really listen when I tried to explain it days ago, Cornelia shrugs.

Lilian pulls away, smiling up at me. “So, when are you moving in?”

…

Huh?

I glance down at the eager child, very confused by her last statement.

“I’ve… already moved in, with Will and her mother,” I say, not hiding my confusion from my face.

Lilian gets a confused frown. “Well, that doesn’t make sense. How’re you supposed to protect me if you’re living in a totally different house?”

I glance to Napoleon, the black cat sitting on the couch, watching the exchange, giving him a look that asks him to explain.

He sighs, hopping down and walking over. “Mistress, we already explained this to you. Melinda isn’t here to protect you. She’s here to work alongside the Guardians.”

“Yeah, I know, I heard The Oracle back in that floating castle,” Lilian nods, pointing around from Napoleon, Mr. Huggles and Matt. “And you’re my guardians. She came to Earth to protect me.”

There’s a pause, before it clicks.

“Oh, okay. I see the misunderstanding here,” Cornelia does a light facepalm, before leaning down to her sister’s level. “Sweetie, when Melinda said she came to Earth to protect you, she didn’t mean she’d been given the task of doing so, like your Regents. She came to protect you because she knew someone was after you at the time.”

“And, while, yes, Matt, Mr. Huggles and Napoleon are your guardians, The Oracle didn’t mean Mel was coming to Earth to be your guardian specifically,” Will adds, leaning down a little, hands on her knees. “She a member of the Guardians of the Infinite Dimensions, not just Earth.”

“And that’s another thing!” Lilian look stomps her foot, annoyed. “Why do you all keep calling her Melinda or Mel? Her name’s Miranda! Bad enough she had to give up her home in that pony world, you have to take her name away too?!”

I sigh, deciding it’s time I speak up. “Lilian, it’s not like that. Miranda isn’t actually my name. It was simply the only name I could go by at the time because that’s whose body I ended up in and I can’t remember my original name.”

“But, now that she’s going to be living here on Earth for a while and another Miranda is skulking around, she has to use a different name,” Hay Lin adds, before smiling. “Besides, I like the name Mel far better than Miranda.”

“Yeah,” Irma smirks. “Plus, what could we call her for short if she kept that name? Mir? Miran?”

We all have a light chuckle, which Lilian tries to ignore, pouting, before she eventually gives in, joining the giggles.

After Matt says he’ll watch Lilian for a while, and after we remind Lilian why she can’t just go telling anyone, even close friends, that she’s Earth’s future queen yet, the girls and I head out down to where they usually train, outside the city, by the cave Frost trapped them in back at the beginning of season two.

“Guardians,” Will and I say together as she holds out the Heart, “unite!’

We all transform, myself glancing back at my wings, honestly wondering why they’re designed the way they are.

“Alright,” Will says, folding her arms as the five stand before me. “First, let’s test those shadow powers of yours.”

I nod, a little hesitantly, and hold my hands out, facing the cave, focusing.

I try picturing shadows around my hands, before I feel like the temperature around my hands suddenly dropped a little.

Glancing down, I see that, they are indeed surrounded by shadow-like energy.

“Good,” Will says from behind me. “Now, focus on releasing that energy outward, towards the wall.”

I try exactly that, but apparently forgot about how the concept of force works.

Firing any form of energy is like a gun. There’s going to be a recoil. If you’re not prepared for it, you’ll be knocked back by it… which is exactly what happens.

The recoil from firing my shadow energy sends me flying backward, slamming into Taranee, taking her completely by surprise and I cry out as I feel something hot near my wings.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Taranee cries as she scrambling from under me.

“Hold on!” Irma yells and I hear water moving.

I’m still trying to right myself when I’m hit with a wave of water and tumble backward, hitting someone else and hear what I know is when Will fires a lightning blast, followed by a small exploding sound.

I suddenly feel the legs where my spider-web wings were stretch out and I quickly try getting up, finding my feet suddenly no longer on the ground.

Rubbing my eyes, my vision clears and I see… my wings are now like spider legs?

The others are righting themselves and recovering from our little tumble and all staring at me in shock.

“You can do that with those?” Irma asks, pointing to the legs holding me above the ground.

“I… I guess so?” I shrug. I kinda look like Peter Parker does in the MCU with that nano-tech suit, how it has extendable arms.

“Well, can you come down now?” Will asks, cocking her head, arms folded.

I frown, glancing at the limbs and focus, them reacting instantly… so instantly it’s honestly creepy. They feel as natural moving at my command as if they were my arms.

“Well, this is certainly unexpected,” Cornelia points out as I move the legs around in the air, getting a feel for the oddness of it all. “So, how did those legs work as wings before?”

Almost as if in answer to her question, webbing shoots from the edges of the legs, connecting them so the two legs on either side now look like wings again.

“Well, that’s just weird,” Irma remarks.

“Looks like training’s gonna be about more than just you getting used to your shadow powers, Mel,” Will sighs, shaking her head, hands on her hips.

___________________________________________________________

“I think that’s enough for one day,” Will said, changing everyone back to normal. “Mel and I had better get home soon or Mom’ll worry.”

The girls all agreed, heading off.

From within the cave, a figure watched them.

They’d watched the girls training for the last hour. It had taken their arachnid like member time to figure out her new limbs, but, after a quarter of an hour, she seemed to have grasped it enough.

She used them to move around on the ground when not flying to help her friends with target practice, her proving way faster on her four spider limbs than her two human legs, even climbing along the walls at times.

It had been fascinating when she fired webs from the tips of the legs, catching herself and her friends off guard, pinning two of them to a nearby wall outside the cave with the sticky mass.

Now, as they left, they could not help but smile.

“Well, I’ll be. She really was telling the truth,” they spoke with the voice of a young man. “She really is another me and I really ended up Miranda. Boy is she going to be in for a surprise once she figures it out.”

Chuckling, he turned, opening a Fold and walked through, glancing back over his shoulder at the girl chatting happily with the Guardians.

“Good like and I hope you’re ready for this, Mel. If my world is any indicator, you’re in for quite the ride and you’re gonna need it.”

With that, he passed through, the Fold closing behind him, the six girls none the wiser that they’d been observed.

Author's Note:

Okay, this chapter proved a LITTLE trickier to figure out than i first expected, namely because i needed to work the rest of the day in along with adding the first pieces for the later puzzle, including a small hint to something that comes up later in the original comics relating to Irma personally.

It was small, but you might've caught it, if you were paying close attention.

So, Mel and the Guardians now know Mel needs training to improve her control over her powers, of which she has more than they expected.

Who was the mysterious stranger in the cave? What was he watching them train? And what did he mean by "another me"? and just what is it Mel has to "figure it all out"?

Answers come, but more questions arise?

Now, i'm not sure how long it'll be between this and the next chapter coming out as, i have to start work again next week and i'll be spending as many of my days off as i can transferring files around in usbs so i finally have backups for most of them, as i had been slacking on that since november, despite meaning to start doing so before the end of july, so i won't exactly have a lot of time for writing for a while.

As for several statements/questions proposed to me in the comments recently, the only way this fic would be crossing over with any of my other fanfics is if there was a distinct connection they shared, something that binds them under a single banner.

we are NOT going down the Displaced road here. a crossover in this fanfic with any others i've posted would need to make logical sense within the realm of this fanfic itself. a connection only those fanfics share.

as for the correction last chapter, that was no mistake. Shadow and Life are how it was meant to be written, as Mel's power is Shadow and Will's power, Quintessence, is Life.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed this chapter, wish me luck with returning to work and, til next time, stay safe, stay clean and see you later everybody

Comments

[Asolem2]

Firing any form of energy is like a gun. There’s going to be a recoil. If you’re not prepared for it, you’ll be knocked back by it… which is exactly what happens.

That's always fun... for everyone watching

[Tojolocookie]

I think that stranger in the cave was a variant of Spider-Man or an alternate version of the protagonist Miranda, but I have a little theory for this story.

Spoilers! for Spider-Man: No Way Home

What if at some point Miranda gets pulled into Tom Holland’s spider-verse from him botching up the spell because she knows who he is, and then she’d help him out with the villains or something? Maybe try to help him reform them and protect his Aunt but still understand that with great power, there must also come great responsibility. It would be crazy but I like the idea. It is my theory of course, it’s not like it’ll happen.