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It’s a normal day in the spider society.
Clean up has been difficult. Miguel’s finally owned up to all of the errors in his system, and the usual suspects are hard at work repurposing the containment area. And by that, Miles means that the adults are doing all of the reprogramming required, and he and his friends are throwing marshmallows into each other's mouths from further and further apart, and around larger and larger obstacles.
It’s technically training. It’s becoming somewhat of a game, since they’re down to two bags, running around the maze of empty containment cubes and throwing a marshmallow out whenever they think they catch a flash of another person.
Miles catches a flash of a bright costume, distinctly Gwen’s even behind several rows of cubes. He grabs his ammo, aims, and yeets.
(It’s not a very serious affair, in case there’s still any question left about that.)
Instead of a victory cheer, startled yelp, or sigh of failure, there’s an agonised scream, and as it dies off into a wine, the rest of the room falls into a momentary silence.
Slipping into the unfortunate habit of quipping, Miles asks, “I didn’t throw it that hard, did I?”
Gwen sucks in a painful sounding breath, and doesn’t reply.
Miles jumps on top of a nearby containment unit, scanning the area until he spots her bright suit. He also spots several of the other teens doing the same, and following his gaze over to Gwen’s prone form.
In a matter of moments, they’re all hopping down near her, reaching out nervously but hesitating just before touching. Gwen’s eyes are screwed up in agony, nail beds turning white from how hard she’s pushing them into the reinforced floor. Her form is spasming with pink energy, something akin to a glitch, but distinct enough from the usual appearance of a glitch that Miles doesn’t think that’s quite it.
Distantly, Miles starts hearing the echoes of more screams, all dying off in the same manner. He’d wager the majority are feminine, but that may just be because of the scene directly in front of him.
A few moments later, an alert flashes, telling the entire society that a new multiversal threat has just come into play, and they all better be prepared.
Watching Gwen’s form curl in pure agony, Miles doesn’t think he’s prepared at all.
And then it just… stops. The pink light vanishes, and only then does Miles realise that it was bright enough to leave spots behind in his vision. Gwen gasps, falling onto her side and staring out with her suddenly wide eyes.
Pavitr is the first to speak up. “Are you okay, Gwen?”
“Nope,” Gwen grits out. She moves one arm and attempts to push herself up, but falters when she finds the dents that she’s managed to leave in the floor. Hobie offers a hand down to her and she takes it, he guides her up on shaking legs. “And I thought the collider was bad,” she jokes weakly.
“For all we know, this is another collider,” Margo says, the most serious spider out of their current bunch. “I’m going to go find Jess and Peter, and I’ll get back to you guys when I know what happened. Okay?”
“Thanks,” Gwen says. She runs a hand through her hair, tries to push her weight off of Hobie, grimaces, and then stumbles right back to Hobie’s side.
“Well,” Pavitr says awkwardly. “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again.”