September 6th. The air here tastes like static and failed algebra. A temporary pocket, a bleed in the fabric of things. They call it a safe zone. No such thing.
The light of the Great Web is a cold, sterile blue, filtering through the crystalline structures we've taken for shelter. It isn't a place of warmth or life, just a nexus point where the shimmering threads of reality converge. It hums. A constant, low thrum that burrows into the bone and settles in the teeth.
Around me, the walking primary colors lick their wounds. The one from India, Pavitr, has a dislocated shoulder. The girl, Mayday, is applying a pressure wrap to a deep gash on his arm, her brow furrowed with a seriousness that doesn't belong on a face so young. Others nurse psychic echoes from the creature—headaches that flicker behind the eyes like bad film. Bruises. Scratches. The usual detritus of failure.
The pig, Spider-Ham, trots between the injured, a roll of bandages in one hoof, a terrible pun on his lips. "Looks like that beastie really wanted to boar a hole in you, Pavitr! Get it?"
Pavitr manages a weak, pained smile. The others offer polite groans. They think it keeps spirits up. A flimsy bandage over a sucking chest wound. Laughter in the face of annihilation is just another form of screaming. I watch the pig's cartoonish eyes, the black voids that hide nothing and see everything. He's smarter than he lets on. A survival tactic. Absurdity as armor.
I turn away, retreat to the shadows of a crystal column. Open my journal. The paper is dry and brittle in this strange, humid air. My pen scratches across the page, the sound loud in the relative quiet.
Strike team compromised. Target escaped. Dimensional predator, amorphous, psionically disruptive. Fed on fear. Plenty of that today. Team exhibited weakness at the critical moment. Hesitation. Moral panic. Predictable.
I document the patterns of the creature's attack, the angles of its claws, the frequency of its psychic wail. The facts. Only the facts matter. The rest is noise.
"You."
The voice is sharp, cutting through the low hum of the Web. I don't look up. I know the sound. Ghost-Spider. The girl in white and black. Gwen.
I continue writing. Hesitation originated with operative Stacy.
Her boots stop in front of me. "I'm talking to you."
I finish my sentence, then slowly close the journal. Look up. Her mask is off. Face pale, streaked with grime. Her arms are crossed tight, a wall of anger. "You're reckless," she spits, the words precise and venomous. "You don't fight for the Web, you fight for your own bloodlust. You broke formation, went straight for the kill, and you almost got half of us killed."
I stand. We're nearly the same height, but the space between us feels like a chasm. Her anger is a fire. I feel no heat.
"The creature presented an opening," I state. No emotion. Just the facts. "It exposed its neural core. I moved to terminate. You hesitated."
"I hesitated because you were going to bring the whole cavern down on us! Pavitr was still in the collapse zone!"
"Acceptable losses."
Her eyes widen, a flicker of disbelief turning to pure rage. "Acceptable losses? We don't trade lives, you psychopath! That's not how we do this!"
"My way works," I say, my voice a low rasp. "Yours lets the monster escape to kill again. The math is simple."
The tension coils in the air. The others fall silent. The pig stops his joking. The boy, Miles, watches with wide, nervous eyes. They are a jury, and I am the evidence they don't know how to interpret. They look from her righteous fury to my blank, shifting mask. Unsure which is more dangerous.
"There is no 'math'!" Gwen shouts, taking a step closer. "There's just us! A team!"
"A chain," I correct her. "With weak links."
Before she can retort, a hand lands on my shoulder. Gentle, but firm. Miles. He steps between us, a physical barrier against the rising tide. He keeps his body angled to address us both, the practiced move of a born leader. Or a fool who thinks you can reason with a rabid dog.
"Hey, hey, ease up. Both of you," he says, his voice calm. "We're all on edge. We lost. It happens. But we need to focus on the next move. This isn't about blame—it's about learning."
Gwen scoffs, a bitter, incredulous sound. She turns her glare on him. "Learning? From him? He's a lunatic in a trench coat, Miles! He doesn't have a plan, just a target. There's nothing to learn from that except what not to do."
I don't look at either of them. My gaze drifts to the journal in my hand. Lunatic. Another label. Prey. Predator. Hero. Villain. Names don't matter. Only the action. The result. I mutter it to myself, a thought given just enough breath to exist. "Lunatic. Prey. Predator. All just words. The teeth are real."
The argument fractures the room. In the strategy meeting that follows, the cracks become chasms. Pavitr, his arm now in a sling, sides with Gwen. He speaks of containment, of finding a non-lethal way to neutralize the creature. Humane tactics. Futile.
"We must consider the possibility that it is merely acting on instinct," he argues, "a lost animal, not an evil entity."
I almost laugh. A harsh, ugly sound I swallow before it can escape. There is no distinction.
Surprisingly, the pig speaks up, his voice losing its jovial edge. "I hate to say it, but the grump in the coat got results. He's the only one who managed to tag it. That wound he slapped on it is the only reason we know which dimension it fled to." He glances at me. "His methods are… messy. But effective."
Mayday shakes her head, her expression resolute. "Effectiveness isn't the only metric. We have protocols. We have a moral code. The moment we start compromising that, we become the monsters we're fighting."
I watch them argue. Listen to their philosophies. Their fears. They are clinging to a rulebook in a world determined to rip the pages out. I open my journal again.
Weak links. Soft threads. Snapping soon.
Later, they assign me quarters. A cell. A perfectly symmetrical crystal room, featureless save for a slab that might be a bed. The isolation is a comfort. Alone, the world simplifies. I sit on the floor, back against the cold wall, and flip through my journal. My notes on this place. These people. This hunt.
On the last page, something glows. A faint, sickly green luminescence. It's a sliver of the creature's hide, a microscopic filament I scraped from my glove and pressed between the pages. It pulses with a faint energy, leeching into the paper. Beneath it, I'd written a simple observation from the moment we arrived.
Threads fray. Error persists.
They see me as an ally. A member of their 'Spider-Army.' They are wrong. They are shepherds trying to protect a flock. I am the wolf hired to kill the other wolf. We are not the same. I am a predator in a world of prey, and they are trying to convince me to eat grass.
I uncap my pen. Add a new, brief note to the page.
The Web protects its own. I protect nothing but truth.
The arguments continue outside my room. I can hear their muffled voices through the crystal. Gwen's sharp accusations, arguing that this is no longer a mission, but a personal vendetta for me. Miles's desperate attempts at unity, pleading for them to understand my perspective. Pavitr and Mayday, their voices low, speaking of their unease, of the team's failing cohesion. They are right to be uneasy. This alliance is a house of cards built in a hurricane. Some of them trust my skill. The rest fear my methods. The fear is smarter.
And then, a change.
The low hum of the Great Web, the constant background frequency, shifts in pitch. It deepens, developing a discordant undertone. I look at the wall. The glowing threads of reality visible through the translucent crystal flicker. Not randomly. They warp and distort in my vicinity, as if recoiling from a foreign body. The air grows heavy, charged with a new potential.
Most of them won't notice. They are too busy with their emotions, their debate. But I hear it. I feel it. It's the sound of a system recognizing an anomaly. An error in the code. It is a warning. Or perhaps, an acknowledgment. A recognition of a fellow predator.
I stand up, walk to the transparent wall that serves as a balcony, overlooking the impossible, infinite tapestry of the Web. Pulsating rivers of light, stretching into forever. A grand, beautiful lie. It's not a web of life. It's a web of causality, of fate. A cage, just on a larger scale.
The creature is still out there. Wounded. Marked. My mark. The hunt is not over. It was never about them. It was never about their mission. It was about a monster and the need for it to be put down. They can debate morality. They can wring their hands and search for a better way.
I will do what is necessary.
I stare out into the endless blue. My face, my real face, hidden behind this shifting mask, is a roadmap of scars. A marked face for a marked hunt. Their alliance is cracking. Let it break. It changes nothing.
"Not finished," I whisper to the silent, humming void.