158. The Message in the Web. (Patreon)

POV: The Captured Spiders

Darkness gave way to a dim, sterile light.

Ben Reilly blinked, the blur of cryo-fog slowly clearing from his vision.

He was still inside the containment pod. Suspended upright, arms pinned to his sides. Around him, the others stirred, sluggish and confused.

Cyborg Spider-Woman’s optics flickered to life first. “Power’s… stable. Still locked in, though.”

Peter Parker groaned. “Anybody else feel like we just woke up from a coma inside a fridge?”

Spider-Cat yowled weakly, tail twitching. “Speak for yourself, furball. I can’t move my whiskers.”

Spider-Plushie bobbed beside him, little fabric arms flailing. “This isn’t funny, meow-bro.”

Tarantula strained against the translucent walls. “These pods… not restraints. Preservation units.”

That’s when the hum began. A low, resonant vibration that crawled up their spines.

A thin blue holographic line split the air before them. It shimmered then coalesced into a familiar face.

Peter Parker of Earth-65M.

Calm. Composed. Dressed not in armor but in a simple dark shirt, sleeves rolled up, eyes sharp and steady.

He looked less like a man and more like judgment personified.

The spiders went silent.

---

Peter’s holographic message began.

“Greetings, members of the Spider Society.”

His tone was disarmingly calm, neither angry nor mocking, merely tired.

“I am Peter Parker of Earth-65M. And before you start panicking Jessica Drew is alive. She’s in stable condition and being well taken care of.”

A collective exhale.

Even Ben Reilly’s rigid shoulders loosened.

“But I’ll be honest,” Peter continued, voice cooling. “While I expected an attack on my headquarters and loved ones, I never thought you’d actually carry it out.”

Heads bowed across the pods.

Guilt burned behind every mask.

He didn’t stop.

“But hey, no matter what mask you wear, at the end of the day, you’re still human. And humans… well, we humans carry fear. Greed. Want. Selfishness.”

Peter’s gaze swept across them. Though they knew it was a recording, it felt like he was looking into each of their souls.

“I understand that.” He said. “Because I’m human too.

But what I don’t understand, what I can’t forgive is how easily you let Miguel twist your minds.”

Charollette spoke softly, voice muffled through her helmet. “He said the multiverse was collapsing… that you would have destabilizing realities.”

Peter’s hologram tilted his head slightly, almost amused.

“Miguel might’ve told you that the multiverse is at risk because of me.

But that’s not true.

And deep down, I think some of you already knew that.”

---

Cyborg Spider-Woman whispered, “Then what is true?”

The hologram flickered. A projection of the Super Collider appeared beside Peter, a model of its collision rotating in midair.

“During the Kingpin’s collider event,” Peter said, “I noticed that Miles Morales of Earth-1610 had two distinct quantum signatures in his genetic markers. Meaning the spider that bit him wasn’t from his universe.”

Spider-Plushie blinked. “So… the spider came from another dimension?”

Peter nodded. “Exactly. From Earth-42. According to Miguel, when a spider leaves its home universe, that universe dies. That’s the ‘cannon’ rule, right?”

A pause. Every spider in the room knew that rule by heart.

Peter’s smile was small. It held no joy but rather sadness.

“Well, I’ve got news for you idiots, Earth-42 still exists. It’s just a living hell. Crime-ridden, broken… but alive. People breathe there. They suffer. They fight. That’s not the sign of a dead world.”

The room was silent. The shame in the air was thick.

Ben Reilly’s voice cracked first. “Then… all this? All this fighting, all this guilt... it was for nothing?”

Thompson clenched his fists. “We trusted Miguel.”

Peter’s tone darkened. “And that was your mistake.”

The hologram shifted, showing a data cascade, lines of multiversal equations rotating around a glowing black sphere.

“As for why Miguel’s universe collapsed when he replaced his dead counterpart. It wasn’t fate. It wasn’t ‘canon’. It was science gone wrong.”

Araña leaned forward in her pod, eyes wide. “Explain.”

Peter raised a finger.

“The Alchemax of that universe overloaded their Super Collider in the name of science, of progress.

The equilibrium between negative and positive dimensional energy was shattered.

When that balance collapsed, the universe entered a rapid Big Freeze.

All matter, space, time and energy was compressed into a singularity.

A black point of failure.”

He met their stunned silence with cold finality.

“That’s why the world died. Not because a man wanted to save his daughter. Because his world’s Alchemax broke the laws of dimensional equilibrium.”

---

The realization hit like a gut punch.

Whispers filled the chamber.

“Dear god…” Max murmured, bound hands trembling.

“We’ve been following the wrong enemy.”

Tarantula's voice cut through the silence. His voice was furious, desperate.

“Then we have to stop him! You need to stop Miguel! He’s going to destroy the Dimensional Energy Siphon in Earth-1610!”

The hologram didn’t react.

It was as if Peter had anticipated even this outburst.

“Those of you who’ve finally realized the error of your ways,” He said, “and are probably shouting warnings right about now...”

A pause.

“Let me ease your mind.”

He stepped closer, the projection almost life-sized now, his eyes gleaming faintly blue.

“If I can predict your actions,” He said, “then I can predict a simpleton like Miguel O’Hara.”

Gasps rippled through the pods.

“I’m already there.” Peter said.

“And I will not fail.”

His last words were colder.

Sharper.

“Miguel O’Hara… might die.

And as you people like to say...”

A faint smile, terrifying and cold.

“...In this job, you can’t save everyone.”

The hologram blinked out.

Silence.

Then the cell filled with overlapping voices.

“We have to warn him!” Pter roared from his oversized pod.

“But how?” Tarantula hissed. “We’re locked in!”

Ben slammed his hands against the glass. “Peter’s not bluffing, he’s going to kill him!”

Cyborg Spider-Woman growled. “No. He’ll defend himself. But if Miguel pushes too far…”

Spider-Knight looked down. “Then we’ll lose another brother. But looking at that Peter he isn't like us, he isn't afraid to be the monster.”

Even Spider-Plushie’s tiny voice trembled. “We can’t let that happen.”

Max Borne turned to the others, desperation etching every syllable. “Then we find a way out! We’re the Spider Society. We don’t give up!”

He barely finished the sentence when a cold, mechanical voice echoed through the chamber.

“Initiating Cryo-stasis protocol in three… two… one…”

“Wait—!” Ben shouted, struggling against the pod glass.

A burst of freezing mist flooded each of the pods. Cold, sterile, unstoppable.

It poured from hidden vents in the stasis pods, rolling down like fog on a battlefield.

Cyborg Spider-Woman tried to override her systems, sparks flashing uselessly.

Spider-Cat’s yowls grew faint.

Araña's systems sputtered and died in the cold.

Max’s last words were a whisper:

“...Miguel… please…”

Frost crawled over the glass.

The hum deepened and one by one, the Spider Society fell silent, their eyes closing beneath a veil of frost.