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Spider powers. Behind those two words lay an entire world, and Gwen was its classic, almost exemplary representative. She didn't have secondary electrokinesis or adaptive camouflage. She lacked the absurd twenty-ton lifting capacity attributed to some Spider-variants from other realities, though if she gathered all her strength, she could definitely lift a car. She didn't have organic webbing either. Instead, a couple of days after the bite, an elegant chemical formula had flashed into her mind like sudden inspiration. That alone was an anomaly, hinting at something far greater than simple mutation.
The physical test results lined up on the monitor as neat graphs: numbers that were truly impressive. Her speed, reflexes, and endurance exceeded the peak performance of an Olympic champion several times over. Her strength was greater by at least an order of magnitude. Tissue analysis showed increased density in her skin and muscle fibers. Her regeneration (she claimed it, and we hadn't tested it yet) healed bruises and cuts within hours and serious wounds within days. It wasn't Wolverine-level, but still impressive.
After the basic biometrics, I moved on to the most interesting part: the genetic analysis. For any other scientist, this would be the culmination, but for me it was just an intermediate step. I already knew the root of her powers lay deeper, but my curiosity demanded satisfaction. It was rewarded. In the so-called "junk" DNA, the non-coding regions of Gwen's genome, I discovered an anomaly. It was an elegant sequence, almost alien in its complexity. It resembled a retrovirus embedded in the genome, but its structure and the volume of encoded information had no parallel in nature as we knew it.
An ordinary scientist would call this a "Retroviral Meta-Genomic Marker." They would declare it the source of her powers and stop there, unable to explain how it worked. For a conventional researcher, it would remain a "black box," an anomaly violating every law of biology. And right here, where traditional science hit a wall, my real work began.
Gwen's voice pulled me from my thoughts about the upcoming metaphysical immersion. She was watching me, and I could read concern in her gaze.
"John... can I ask you a personal question?" she began carefully. "What's your plan for Peter? And why are you dragging out his enhancement? It's just..." She hesitated for a moment, choosing her words. "My sense, in these moments... it vibrates slightly."
"Oh, really?" I leaned back in the chair, pulling myself away from the microscope. Her words were an important confirmation. "This is interesting. It means things are getting serious. Look, Gwen, I want to give Peter the exact same spider powers you have."
She froze.
"This... is even possible? And..." she asked, voicing the most obvious question, "why him, and not you?"
"Whether or not it's possible, I'm hoping to find out in the next hour. As for me... Tell me, does your sense react at all to this thought? To the thought of me having spider powers?"
Gwen paused, listening to herself, then shook her head.
"No. There's silence. But what does this have to do with it?"
"This is my working hypothesis." I sighed, sharing some of my thoughts with her. "I'm assuming spider powers aren't so much genetics as they are magic. And that only the 'chosen' can master them. I, unfortunately, don't belong to their number."
"But how do you know all this? And how do you know Peter is one of the chosen? We've only just met."
"I think you've already figured out that I'm not so simple." I chuckled. "And that I'm capable of perceiving the world at a level that normal people can't access."
I closed my eyes for a moment, sending a thin spiritual impulse outward. I sent out my sonar. My consciousness expanded for a fraction of a second, encompassing the building. It was empty. Only Peter was there, absorbed in his work in the neighboring laboratory.
"Argh, again!" Gwen winced, instinctively rubbing her temples. "It's like someone is scraping my nerves raw."
"Precisely." I opened my eyes. "This is the source of most of my knowledge and theories. Metaphysics, magic, the spirit... call it what you want. The point is, we're about to begin the most important stage of your examination, and I need your full concentration."
I was hoping this vague answer would calm her down and deflect any suspicions about my true nature. However, she most likely wouldn't care anyway. After all, she didn't know the original John Thompson.
In any case, science had hit a wall. That meant it was time to turn down the alley where its insane but far more powerful sister dwelt.
In classic fashion, I decided to start with Strange Science.
The first thing I noticed when I immersed myself in the Strange Science-level analysis was the volume of Gwen's spiritual energy. It was slightly lower than Clint Barton's, which once again confirmed Hawkeye's uniqueness, but the girl definitely ranked among the elite. But quantity wasn't the issue. Quality was. Her spiritual power felt... different. It wasn't static, as it is in most people. It vibrated constantly, barely perceptibly. Like a string stretched to its limit, connected to something huge, invisible, and infinitely distant.
I focused my spiritual perception on the metagenomic marker in her DNA and found confirmation of my theory. On the spiritual plane, this formation shone with a soft, otherworldly light. This wasn't just a set of molecules. It wasn't just genetic code. This was an anchor. A spiritual antenna. A singularity point where her soul and body connected with an external, immaterial source.
It was already possible to draw certain conclusions, but I didn't rush. Ahead of me lay the main test: Essence Smith.
Purely for scientific purposes, and to feel her fundamental nature, I touched the bare skin of her forearm. I immediately jerked my hand back, as if burned by ice.
Gwen's essence was human at its foundation, without a doubt. But this foundation was permeated through and through with shining threads of something else. Something ancient. Something all-encompassing. I felt not just energy, but pure concepts. Connection. Fate. The web. The eternal dance of hunter and prey. And towering above it all, an unbreakable pillar of responsibility. This wasn't a pact with a specific entity, like Kraven's had been. This was a direct connection to a gigantic, living network.
But precisely because this network was alive, I yanked my hand back. The moment my consciousness touched her essence, I felt a responding impulse. Fortunately, it held no hostility. Only awareness. It was as if a galaxy-sized, slumbering mind had, for one infinite instant, half-opened an eye and looked directly at me. My intrusion, my research, had been noticed by something immeasurably greater.
Now, the conclusions weren't just possible. They crashed down on me like an avalanche, and I didn't like them.
The DNA marker is not the source of the power. It's not even an antenna in the usual sense. It is a resonance key. A unique network address that allows Gwen's soul to tune to a specific frequency in the metaphysical web and gain access to it. Her abilities themselves, her speed, her strength, her sense, are merely "applications," or data packages that "stream" from this network into our reality through her body.
The result was stunning and frightening.
Gwen is a "Spider Totem." She is a living avatar connected to the multiversal concept known as the Web of Life and Destiny. Her unique DNA is not the source. It is a biological interface. It is the "hardware" capable of establishing and maintaining a connection with this cosmic network. Her cheat, the spider sense, is not just a heightened reflex. It is a short-term connection to the Web's own foreshadowing threads, one that allows her to glimpse a fraction of a second into the future.
And now, the main question was this. With such inputs, how could I endow Peter Parker with these same abilities?
Yes, the fact that he was a worthy vessel remained unchanged. But my initial, utterly naive plan to carefully transplant a fragment of the spider essence from Gwen to Peter now looked like stealing silverware from God's own table. It wouldn't just be noticed. It would be perceived as an act of aggression against the conceptual network itself. And the entity slumbering at its center would be unlikely to ignore this.
But if I thought about it carefully, there was another path. It was elegant and devilishly simple. I could reverse my approach.
I wouldn't try to transplant a part of Gwen's essence into Peter. Instead, I would weave it into an ideal yet mortal carrier, an ordinary laboratory spider. I would conduct the finest spiritual-genetic modification, turning the insect into a living, self-guided syringe loaded with the ideal spider serum. Then it would be a matter of technique. I would stage an 'accident'. I would orchestrate the moment when this spider found itself in the right place at the right time to bite Peter Parker.
To any outside observer, and even to Peter himself, this would look like a natural, random event. The mechanism of gaining power, a bite from a radioactive, or, in our case, metaphysically charged, spider, would fully correspond to the classic path of becoming a Spider Totem. He would think that he had simply gotten lucky. In reality, though, it would be a completely artificial, staged process, with me acting as a demiurge. I would literally be playing the role of Fate. This would be an act of 'intelligent design,' disguised as natural chaos. In theory, even the universal Web of Life and Destiny shouldn't reject such an elegant deception.
But in this world, there would be two Spiders.
And this fundamental metaphysical anomaly could not remain without consequence. From the fragments of my knowledge and the information I had gleaned from Gwen, I could confidently state that the Web, as a rule, allocates one Totem per universe. The appearance of a second would inevitably create interference. I imagined how their spider senses would start to malfunction. They would turn from a gift into a curse. There would be false signals. There would be deafening silence at critical moments. There would be a constant mental screech from the mutual interference. They would become two radio stations trying to broadcast on one overcrowded frequency.
The second problem flowed naturally from the first. The power channel allocated to this universe was limited. The appearance of a second Totem would split that flow. Both Gwen and Peter would become weakened versions of themselves, shadows of what they could have been individually.
But there was a third, and most important problem. It was a bull in a china shop, impossible to ignore. Two Totems on one thread of fate would shine in the multiversal Web like a supernova. And by that light, those who hunted it would flock immediately.
I didn't know all the details about the Inheritors, but their mere hypothetical existence chilled my blood. Even without them, there were other forces. The Guardians. The other Spider Totems who monitored the network's stability. Madame Web herself, or Miguel O'Hara from the year 2099. They would detect this glaring violation and might appear to "correct" the error. And their methods of correction would be unlikely to prove painless.
Being an anomaly meant voluntarily painting a target on your back. That was precisely why I had refused this power for myself. I understood that with enough desire and cunning, I could have bound it to myself. But the price was too high.
And here, having mentally reached a dead end while sorting through the risks, it dawned on me.
I had been asking the wrong questions all this time.
I had been thinking about how to endow Peter with the power without waking the leviathan. But what if I didn't hide from the leviathan? What if I made it work for us?
What was the meaning of the Web of Destiny? Who created it? Why, in the overwhelming majority of realities, did Peter Parker specifically become Spider-Man? Many questions, zero answers. But even these were enough to formulate the key idea. Peter Parker was the ideal vessel. He was so perfect, so predisposed, that the Web's very first cause could not ignore him. And with this... yes, with this, I could work.
I don't know who or what stands at the Web's origins. But in the Marvel Universe, everything has a first cause, and often, a sentient embodiment. Precisely, this embodiment was what I needed to reach. No, not reach. That was too crude.
I needed to create an ideal, resonating signal for Peter. I needed to tune his soul, his essence, so it would resonate in unison with the Web itself. I needed to ensure the creator of this vast system would notice him, and grant him the power, but as destiny.
So, it turned out I didn't need to hack the system. I needed to make it work for us.
For this, I obviously needed a different approach. I wouldn't transplant an essence. I wouldn't arrange a random event. I would work directly with Peter's spiritual imprint itself. I would tune and calibrate his soul so it would resonate perfectly with the Web's frequency, turning him into a perfect, vacant form for a Spider Totem. But simply waiting until they noticed him... could take forever. That meant I needed amplification. I needed not just a device, but an entire room, a giant metaphysical antenna tuned to the same frequency. It would multiply the signal emanating from Peter's prepared soul many times over. Then I would place him at the very center of the resonant focus and present the ideal vessel to the Web's creator.
As a result, we wouldn't get an anomaly. We would get a sanctioned, planned addition. We would get a personal blessing from the source.
Oh, yes. This would be the most elegant and daring job interview in the Multiverse's history. The main thing was ensuring the backwave didn't engulf me, too.
I had decided on the plan. Now only one small matter remained: bringing Peter up to speed. And here was the snag. Even if he meditated five hours a day, the process of tuning his soul would take at least a month. For me, that was a long time. For him, it might seem like an adequate time frame. The main thing was that he didn't break down and inject himself with the super-lizard serum in a fit of impatience.
But I had no choice. If I gave him the fate of a half-lizard, a steroid-pumped pseudo-superhero, would that be all just so the capricious Web could ultimately kill him for failing to match a role it wasn't even rushing to give him? No. This world needed Spider-Man. Not a "Perfect" one. An absolute one. It needed one blessed by the spider Chthon itself.
While Gwen and I were secluded, definitely not being watched, it was worth preparing the instrument. I would prepare a spiritual tuning fork. I descended to the laboratory on the third floor. I didn't just grow it; I constructed an ideal, defect-free crystal from the purest quartz at the atomic level. It was a perfect resonator. Then I touched Gwen again. With a jeweler's precision, using the Essence Smith skill, I created a perfect but non-living imprint of her Spider Essence. It was pure information about the resonant frequency of the Web of Life and Destiny. Using Reishi compression techniques, I impressed this spiritual imprint into the very soul of the crystalline lattice. Now the crystal vibrated at the required frequency, both physically and metaphysically. All that remained was to create a housing for it. I created a small medallion from my Iron Blood. It would serve not only as protection but also as an insulator. I integrated the simplest spiritual power source into it. I programmed it to absorb a constant, minimal flow of the bearer's Reiryoku and feed it into the crystal. This was for Peter. This would make the crystal passively and continuously vibrate on the spiritual plane, creating a reference field of the Spider Totem's frequency around Peter.
[Artifact "Spiritual-Resonant Medallion" created. Complexity: Normal. Received +250 OP!]
An artifact in the form of a medallion. It contains a quartz crystal that holds a spiritual imprint, the Spider Totem's frequency. When worn, it slowly and passively harmonizes the bearer's soul with the cosmic frequency of the Web of Life and Destiny, preparing them to become an avatar.
"Done. Now I need to explain this to Peter," I exhaled, feeling slightly dizzy. I looked at Gwen, then at the clock. Outside, the dusk was already thickening. "Can you stay for another couple of hours?"
"Yes." She nodded, studying the medallion in my hand. "But about your plan... will it definitely succeed? My sense... it's reacting strangely right now."
"Is it dangerous?"
"No..." She frowned, searching for words. "It's more like ripples on the surface of a bottomless ocean. A premonition of something... huge and undefined."
"That's amusing." I chuckled. "It means this Web isn't that omniscient if it can't predict the outcome. Actually, that's a good sign. It means we're already creating waves. Peter definitely can't hide from the all-seeing eye of the spider-godling now."
I approached the laboratory intercom, connected to the entire building system, and called Peter, asking him to come up here for an important conversation.
"I'll be there in a couple of minutes." His energetic voice came through.
Well, then. All that remained was to wait. The door to a new reality for Peter Parker was about to open. And I held the metaphorical handle to that door.
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