157. Echoes in the Web. (Patreon)

Miguel O’Hara POV | Earth-1610, New York

Rain lashed against the skyscrapers of New York like a thousand accusing fingers.

The neon city burned in the storm, lights smeared into ribbons of color across wet glass.

Miguel O’Hara perched on the roof of a highrise building, claws embedded deep in concrete, his eyes glowing crimson against the gloom.

Below him, the city sprawled. It was chaotic, vast and stubbornly silent.

“LYLA,” Miguel growled, voice sharp. “Run the scan again.”

The hologram flickered beside him, static in her outline.

“Already did, boss. Quantum trace levels are zero. It’s like your big scary toy never even existed.”

Miguel’s hands flexed. “It’s here. It has to be. This is where Spot is coming.”

He dropped to the street, boots cracking asphalt.

Behind him, his small strike team gathered. Doppelganger, low to the ground and hissing softly; Peter-Parkedcar idling beside a old fire hydrant, engine purring; Malala Windsor calm but wary; Spider-Canada crouched on a streetlight; Spider-Monkey clinging to a signpost; Spider-Wolf, snout low to the ground sniffing for energy trails; and Julia Carpenter, psychic web-glow faint beneath her palms.

Julia frowned. “I’m not sensing anything dimensional. The siphon’s signature is… gone.”

Miguel’s fangs bared in frustration behind his mask. “It can’t just vanish! Even the smallest of its kind will be the size of a two storey building.”

LYLA’s voice piped up again, sarcasm creeping in despite the tension. “Well, technically, it can, if someone covered their tracks with a level of precision matching, say, your favorite armored nuisance from Earth-65M or it's not in here.”

Miguel’s glare could have melted steel.

“Don’t say his name.”

Spider-Canada sighed, C insignia glinting under the flickering streetlights.

“Mate, we’ve been over every block in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, even freakin’ Jersey. Nada. Zip. Goose egg.”

Spider-Wolf snarled, hackles raised. “City reeks of iron and mundane. No god level tech trace. Just… ghosts.”

Spider-Monkey scratched his head. “Maybe the siphon’s cloaked? Like in a pocket dimension?”

“Impossible,” Miguel muttered. “Our watches would’ve picked up the quantum variance.”

Doppelganger tilted his head, mandibles clicking. “Then… trap?”

Miguel’s muscles went taut. He didn’t want to say it. But the word lodged in his throat like glass.

“...Possibly.”

Then, as if the world itself mocked him, the rain intensified, drowning out his next breath.

He slammed his fist into the wall beside him. Concrete shattered as a ripple of fury coursed through him.

Julia’s voice was quiet. “Miguel… maybe he outsmarted us this time.”

Miguel turned, eyes burning through the downpour. “No one outsmarts me. No one manipulates the Web. We are the Web.”

LYLA flickered again, softer this time. “Then maybe it’s the Web telling you to stop.”

He froze, claws embedded deep in the wall.

For a brief, terrible second, Miguel didn’t look like the leader of the Spider Society, He looked like a man standing on the edge of breaking.

Rain ran down his face like tears he refused to shed.

---

Somewhere far away, in a place where light itself seemed to hesitate.

A sound. Soft, hollow.

Dripping water.

Footsteps.

Then a gasp.

Ben Reilly’s eyes snapped open.

Darkness.

A faint bluish light above, pulsing rhythmically.

His body felt heavy, limbs refusing to obey. He tried to move and felt restraints hiss.

A fog clung to his thoughts like cobwebs.

“...Where… am I?”

A voice groaned beside him. Peter Parker, older, dazed. “Ben…? What happened…?”

Memories flickered. A lawn, a jump, a flash of constricting black filaments and then nothing.

“Guys…” Cyborg Spider-Woman’s mechanical voice crackled faintly from the next pod. “Systems rebooting… we’re alive.”

Spider-Cat yowled weakly somewhere above. “Can’t… move my tail…”

One by one, eyes blinked open across a row of containment pods.

Spidercide. Tarantula. Doppelganger. Spider-Plushie. All dazed, confused, trying to piece together fragments of the night before.

The air was cool. Sterile.

The floor hummed faintly, like a heartbeat deep beneath steel.

Tarantula grunted. “We were… caught. But… by who?”

No answer. Only the slow, rhythmic hum of hidden machinery.

Peter Parker turned his head toward the faint glow of the room beyond the glass.

Figures moved in the haze like shadows and they were indistinct.

Someone watching.

He whispered, barely audible:

“This isn’t a cell.”

Ben Reilly’s eyes narrowed, fear twisting into dread.

“Then what the hell is it?”

Somewhere in the dark, a voice in a calm, cold, unmistakable and spoke through a speaker:

“Welcome back. You’re safe… for now.”

Every spider froze.

Because that voice wasn’t Miguel’s.

It was Peter’s.