Chapter Text
The tiny spider picked its way along the tunnel, searching for something to eat. Food was this way, it knew. Had to be. The track it followed narrowed as it sloped gently upward, ending at a wall of tightly packed dirt and stone. The spider reared back and felt about overhead with its two front legs. If it couldn’t go forward any further, maybe it could go up. The softer dirt above shifted at its touch. It poked about some more and soon opened a hole in the ceiling that let a thin shaft of light and a hint of fresh air into the tunnel. The spider clambered through the opening, emerging onto a flat expanse of dusty, rust-colored ground dotted with more tiny holes like the one it had just climbed out of. It turned about, tasting the air and shivering with pleasure at this first touch of the warm sun on its body as it took in its new surroundings, then unspooled a thread of silk and allowed the gentle breeze to lift it up to join the thousands of other spiders drifting across the asteroid. The air was so full of spider silk it looked like a blizzard was raging beneath the cloudless red sky. Shredder and Krang stood in the Technodrome’s main Control Room, watching the swarm of drifting spiders captured by the external camera feed on the chamber’s giant portal/view screen.
“So how long does,” Shredder gestured to the screen. “This last?”
“Few more days, then it’ll taper off,” Krang said. “Happens every year. Newly hatched Korespiders dig themselves out of the burrows where their eggs were laid and sail off in search of food.”
“I have been in Dimension X how long now? Why have I never seen this before?”
“Because swarms this big are rare, only happen every few dozen years or so. Best to remain inside until it’s over. These spiders are known to bite at the mildest provocation.” Shredder missed much of what Krang was saying, having noted a black speck scuttling across the Control Room floor toward where the two of them were standing. As soon as it was close enough, Shredder lifted his foot and crushed the spider beneath his boot. “We, uh, may want to make sure all the vents are closed so we don’t get any more in.”
The great double doors at the other end of the chamber slid open just as Krang finished speaking. He and Shredder turned around in time to see Bebop and Rocksteady rush in, eyes wide with panic, and press their backs against the wall beside the entryway. Both were breathing heavily, as if they’d run a great distance, and both had red welts dotting their arms and faces.
“Spiders,” Rocksteady wheezed.
“Dozens ’n dozens of ‘em,” Bebop added.
Shredder turned to Krang and said blandly, “Have a feeling that’s moot at this point.”
“Where did you find them?” Krang asked the mutants.
Rocksteady waited until his breathing had slowed enough that he wasn’t gasping before replying. “Storage room on the 28th floor.”
“What in the world were you doing up there?” Shredder said.
The rhino spread his hands. “Followin’ the spiders. Wanted to see where they was comin’ from. There’s a big hole in the wall up there they’re climbin’ in through.” He flattened his ears uncomfortably. “They uh, didn’t like it so much when we got close."
Bebop poked his cheek with the tips of his fingers. “My face feels funny,” he said, words slurring as if his lips were numb.
Krang waved a tentacle at the mutants. “You two, get over to the sick bay.”
“Uh, why?” Rocksteady asked, scratching at a welt on his neck.
“Because those spiders are venomous,” Krang said with a disturbingly sweet smile. “So unless you want to end up permanently paralyzed, you’d better get a dose of antivenom quickly.”
The two minions jumped and stumbled over their own feet in their haste to get to the doors. They barely waited until the opening was wide enough to fit through before shoving themselves out of the Control Room and into the hallway beyond. The sound of their footsteps pounding down the corridor cut off abruptly when the doors slid shut again.
“Are they really going to end up paralyzed?” Shredder asked.
“Nah,” Krang said, flicking a tentacle dismissively. “The spiders are so small right now that their bite’s more nuisance than harmful. Venom’s not strong enough to cause more than numbness and nausea that'll pass in a few hours. Only suggesting they get the antivenom because of how many times the idiots were bitten.” He appraised Shredder with narrowed eyes. “Korespider venom does get more potent as they get larger, though. Strong enough to incapacitate something your size, Shredder.”
“What a charming thought.”
“Oh don’t be so dramatic,” Krang admonished. “It’d still be a few days before it became fatal. Plenty of time to get the antivenom. But we still don’t want them taking up residence inside the Technodrome.” He curled his lips back in that unsettlingly sweet smile again. “The foot soldiers can operate flamethrowers, right?”
He didn’t wait for a response before piloting his bubble walker out of the Control Room to go tend to the henchmutants in the sick bay. Shredder left soon after to do his own investigation of the 28th floor and see the extent of the spider incursion for himself. Just as Rocksteady had said, there was a line of spiders crawling along the corridor’s walls and floor, tracing back to a storage room near the emergency stairwell. The door had been left partially open after the two mutants ran out. Shredder eased it open fully with the toe of his boot and slipped inside.
The room was teeming with spiders. Several clung to the sides of the crates and boxes whose contents Shredder couldn’t be bothered to recall; a few more descended from the ceiling on thin tendrils of silk; others had built webs in corners and pounced on any of their brethren unlucky enough to get caught in the sticky substance; still more scuttled about the walls and floor. The largest concentration seemed to be on a spot near the center of the back wall. That must be where the hole the creatures were using to gain access was. Shredder wove his way through the room to get a better look, careful not to brush against the stacks of crates or disturb any of the webs along the way. Big hole, as Rocksteady had described it, was an understatement – it looked more like one of the exterior panels had been knocked askew, leaving a gap large enough that Shredder could see the flurry of spiders drifting on the wind outside. A steady wave of arachnids was landing on the Technodrome’s outer walls and flowing in through the opening.
Shredder made a sound of disgust and stormed out of the storage room to fetch a pair of foot soldiers to clear out the infestation. The two robots remained stationed in the storeroom for several more days afterward with instructions to use the flamethrowers they’d been equipped with to blast any spider the found climbing in through the gap. By the time the Korespider swarm abated, all the crates and boxes in the storeroom had been shoved about into haphazard stacks, and the walls and floor around the gap were coated with a layer of dark black soot.