The Velvet Queen... the Venice Queen... the Spider Herald... Spiderland... and what seemed to be Hunter Morgan herself... where did each title or identity begin or end? Did that question ever matter?
Did she, ve, they, or even he... start as a biological baby? An idea? A machine learning program with a data set?
The Byza and Alca gang members with gaped mouths could not tell, but the Spider Herald in front of them... as raindrops made sparks on vis electric hologram, ve at this point...
Well... I can tell you the difference this time mortal.
Ve... at this point in time... was simply an idea manifested into an image. Whether ve would live on as a biological being or a robot through esper or spaghetti code shenanigans, through a human reading a book that strikes the heart, or through a human falling to propaganda that resonates with their soul...
What was the difference?
"Who are you?"
If one followed where that question came from, within the crowd pointing guns and cybernetic limbs at the translucent hologram with a velvet jumpsuit and a bone helmet made of a yedaliuth's tooth, a teenage Dominic stepped out of shadows and fog. His confident arrival made his dark bomber jacket flow behind him with the storm's breeze. His dark brown skin and black hair glowed in the neon lights of towering skyscrapers as he gazed at the holographic being. With a solid jawline and already weathered hands as a teenager... it seemed he was not going to use them as he held them up ever so slightly over his hips.
If anything, he grinned at ver.
The Spider Herald turned to meet Dominic's grin, the rain causing more flickers on ver while it made dark streams on Dominic's jacket as the petrichor grew stronger. As the neon circle descended and night begun... it barely got darker at all with the rain roaring once more with a lightning strike to finish its harmony. Quite the contrary, the phosphorescent neon lights of the futuristic Colorado Springs city set the scene above the skyscraper comfortably ablaze.
"I am the Spider Herald."
The crowd let those words sit as the rain filled the silence.
"Well... I do like being ten, twenty, or even thirty steps ahead..." Dominic said, finishing it with a chuckle. "But what benefit do you get from telling us your future predictions? My gut tells me you know exactly how this is *all* going to play out..."
The young man really emphasized the word *all*, raising his arms to the dark sky and spinning at the same time because it seemed all the simulations across spacetime were going through weird events on a daily basis. The children could not stop telling multiversal stories while the adults seemed to be experiencing some kind of mind virus on a mass scale.
The soft glowing pink and baby blue eyes inside the virtual herald's bone helmet... it was almost as if the Spider Herald was smizing at Dominic.
"My reason to be here? You might have gotten to this point because you needed to bring food to the table..." the Spider Herald prophesized.
"But soon enough... the existence of tables and food itself will depend on you ascending to donhood Dominic."
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"Do you know how this all works?" Iker the black cat asked as he floated on dancing lights with Bastian the white cat. "This feels like... the first time you went to Bolsa Mágica."
Iker still had his magical duffel bag strapped to his front legs while Bastian's vinyl red gears were floating with them.
"Bolsa Mágica ain't coming back hermano," Bastian murmured.
"What do you mean?" Iker asked. "I said that it seemed you wanted to recreate the simulation after 0 or 1 destroyed it..."
"Yea, we are going to... but Bolsa Mágica is never *actually* coming back," Bastian said. "Your mom kept going back in time to save it, but every time she failed. Every time she sees it get deleted..."
"I saw it through Joaquim's eyes," Iker murmured, his yellow eyes softening.
In the light and beam tunnel the talking cats were dancing in currently, the force pulling them made them perform a flip as the tunnel made a sharp turn.
"I feel like... with all the memory and time shenanigans... I sometimes am not sure of who I am," Iker said.
"That's a side effect of shapeshifting too," Bastian said. "The same way Camilo kept losing his sense of self... we are losing ours too. Shapeshifting dysphoria. All the memory swapping is not helping either."
"Why... why is this happening to us?" Iker asked. "I thought having to work for Byza and taking a life for them was already bad enough... but this... I feel like I don't have an identity anymore. I have to trust Spiderland rather than trust the information ve gives me and then being able to make my own decision. I have to trust that all the memories ve is keeping from me is for my own interest..."
"I deal with that pain every time we go back to session fifteen too," Bastian murmured. "I get it."
"And you cause that session to happen before my death... even in timelines you were defeated you can reset your life back... you care so much about me that... even as a being made up of only influx..."
Iker sniffled, shadowing his yellow eyes as he titled his head towards his chest.
"What's wrong?" Bastian asked.
"I feel like shit... I don't want to put you through this anymore."
Bastian softly tackled Iker with his snout, brushing whiskers with him. "Don't be sad. Not only do I have to do this so any of us can still go through things, but I love you too. You will always be my very best friend Iker. Even when you make mistakes, you always come around. I only got this way after resetting my life over and over... because I learned from you. Do not feel bad for me at all... maybe we can save Fornia this tim-"
"Wait," Iker interrupted. Remembering a faint memory... perhaps from a reset a long time ago... Iker remembered that they were not this vulnerable to each other at first. For both him and Bastian... it took several retries. Yet, it was mostly a gut feeling for Iker than an actual tangible memory... either caused by time shenanigans or Spiderland verself. "Ameen and his inquisitors did not invade Fornia yet? It's like I said earlier... I am sure in my human form I am fourteen, but inhabiting Joaquim's body and exchanging memories with Spiderland and Bolsa Mágica's operating system is making me lose my sense of self..."
Bastian smiled at Iker, then looked forward at the end of the tunnel, it being a small black pixel in the distance.
"I am still recreating Bolsa Mágica using the code you wrote, but it's only going to be its software that will run rather than the whole town respawning... we need to bail out Uzi out of the fight ve is in with your dad," Bastian said. "Once we rescue ve... yes the Alkrezian invasions on Fornia and Ember Tree City are years apart in our simulation, but from Ameen's perspective, the invasions are back to back and we are going to fight Ameen before he steps into Fornia. Ember is trying to take advantage of these simulations to start a new tourism venture... and Ameen is going to take advantage of her to destroy the last two flying cities... the children of the people who lied about the genocide Israel had done in the middle east back in the 21st century. Not any ethnic group, but the politicians, the celebrities, all the cowards who could not stand against the genocide of the Palestinian people."
"Even their mothers were not alive to perpetuate the lie while knowing the truth," Iker said. "It all happened long before they were born."
"Ameen doesn't care," Bastian said as he propelled his front paws forward to the light tunnel's exit. "Sins of the father. We could have Star Trek... but humans gonna human. People are more scared of being wrong than being dead. I can't blame Ameen though... but we can't let him kill innocent people either."
Iker snuzzled back Bastian as they arrived to the simulation of the planet Hydris Lacuna; what was once a battle stage that would spawn from Bolsa Mágica.
"Agreed brother. We got this."
Iker and Bastian dapped paws.