Chapter Text
Lichtenberg figures are caused by electric discharge passing through a dielectric, something that electricity definitely shouldn’t be passing through. Metal and other conductors take on the force easily, but when an insulative material is struck, like say, a body, it takes its time searching for the best way to travel.
After a lightning strike burned down their childhood home, causing him and Ted to live in hotel rooms for half of his eighth grade career, Pete developed a morbid fascination with storms as a coping mechanism. He researched as much as he could about lightning, lichtenberg figures, anything pertaining to storms.
When he found out that people could not only be struck by lightning but also survive, Pete learned everything about lightning strikes. It was useless knowledge at the time, just a way for him to regain control. He never thought it would come in handy.
The lightning strike takes the path of least resistance. It makes the axe head in Grace’s hand glow white for a moment—a perfect conductor—before travelling through the handle and into her body. Pete feels like he’s watching it happen in slow motion, the moment so clear he wonders if he could pause it, take a bathroom break, come back to it later.
He thinks of the branching pattern on the concrete outside of his house as he watches those same fractal curves blossom over hatchet’s wooden handle and through Grace’s raised arms.
Her eyes widen, and the football field explodes with light. Pete’s blinded before he can look away. Hot white light burns his eyes, darkening his vision. The ground beneath his feet vibrates. It builds, builds, then throws him backwards with a sudden static wave. He hits the earth like a stone, sliding through the rain-softened dirt, tearing the grass out by its roots.
Energy tingles where his body touches the earth, thrumming up his body. Pete gasps for air, the heavy rain forcing his eyes to remain closed until he finds the strength to sit up. His mouth tastes like blood and ozone.
When the light dies, it takes a few minutes for the white spots in his eyes to fade.
Pete finds himself alone in the football field. He looks down at the scorched remains of something that used to be a friend. Blackened bones, sizzling clothes. Dark fractal lines spread out from Grace’s body like a distorted spider’s web.
The autumn air smells of burnt hair and cooking meat. The axehead gleams in the moonlight.
And then the anger comes. He must be past denial, because a sudden, burning rage bubbles up from his chest and explodes from his mouth before he can swallow it down.
“Fuck you!” His voice echoes like a gunshot. Pete digs his fingers into the earth and throws clumps of grass and dirt at her. “You fucking bitch! You took everything from me, and now you fucking die? What the hell is wrong with you? How could you leave me alone like this? How… could you all… just leave me?”
He almost can’t believe how quickly Grace is struck down. One moment, she’s a murderous menace meticulously tearing his world apart, and the next she’s taken out by a single chance lightning strike. Pete doubles over, hands around his stomach, and he laughs, his screams overwhelmed by the deafening storm above him.
Eventually, the laughs turn into weeping. His breath comes swift and uneven, barely making it to his lungs before he’s heaving it out again. He doesn’t know who or what he’s crying for. There’s just too much to grieve.
Ted, Richie, Ruth. Steph. All of them gone in days, hours. Split-seconds. The human body wasn’t made to contain so much pain.
The rain pelts him like bullets. He starts to shiver uncontrollably as the cold seeps into his bones, his skin burning like ice and his muscles cramping.
If he dies here, he’d be happy. No, not happy, but at least devoid of the pain. This is a kind of grief nobody was meant to carry alone. And Pete is utterly, devastatingly, alone.
Time passes, and the storm churns the earth around him into soft putty. Pete lies on his side, allowing the rain and dirt and grass and wind to swallow him. The sun touches his cheeks, but its warmth is not enough to penetrate the ice in his body.
“Please,” he whispers to nobody, because there is nobody left to hear him. “Please don’t be dead. I can’t do this alone.”
The earth is welcoming. He could just disappear into it, never be seen again. If he lies still enough, maybe he can.
But then Pete hears a laugh, a goofy and psychotic sound that ricochets off his bones and sends him into a panic. He shoots up. A figure stands over him, blocking the rain and rising sun. It stands at nearly double his height covered in mangy yellow fur matted with blood. Its clawed hands appear human, but its legs are hooved and bend backwards.
In place of a human face is a long, blood stained goat head, a shiny blue tongue curling out of its parted jaw. The teeth in its mouth are crooked and too big, sticking out from under its lips in different directions. Spiraling horns block out the sun. Large hazel eyes look in opposite directions, rolling loosely in their sockets like billiard balls until they land squarely on Pete.
He knows this face all too well.
“You again.”
Again, the goofy fucking laugh. The beast tilts its head to the side, large ears flopping. When it speaks, the voice comes from every direction.
“Nice to finally make your acquaintance.”
“Fuck off,” Pete spits.
The satyr lifts its clawed hands defensively. “Hey, now. Don’t be such a little bitch, Petey Pie. And here I was, wanting to help.”
“I doubt you want to help me.”
“What can I say, I’m a creature of many talents. One of them being oh, I don’t know, moving through time. Through worlds. And your friends happen to be alive in those other worlds.”
Pete hates how hope fills him at those words. He knows they’re not true. “Leave me alone.”
“Oh, I think Grace has done a good job at doing that all on her own. But I can give you a choice,” Tinky says. “The same one I gave little Stephie-Poo a million worlds ago. You can reload your save file. Get another chance at your happy ending.”
For a moment, Pete considers it. His loneliness is overwhelming, grief so heavy he feels like his bones could crack under its weight. He would do just about anything to relieve it. But he knows better.
“There’s gotta be a price,” he says.
“Ah, there always is.” The twisted goat figure leans down until its lolling head is eye level with him.
“Then why the hell would I pay it?”
“Because, it’s a small price for such a big prize. Dontcha want to hear it?”
“No.” Yes, he does. But he can’t, or else he might just agree.
“There is a loose cog in this machine. Kill her, and you get your happy ever after.” Pete is about to reject the offer when Tinky continues, “One little murder in exchange for an opportunity to save your poor little Stephie seems like a pretty fair deal, dontcha think?”
He lies back down. “You don’t get the satisfaction of making a deal with me.”
“... What?” Tinky sounds genuinely confused. It pulls back in shock. “What, no. No, you’re supposed to take this deal.”
“Why would I? We’ll just end up this exact same way. It’s a fucked up cycle. I’m done. Let me die at least with my dignity.”
Tinky growls, and kicks something to Pete. Its black leather cover is muddy and stained, the pages damp. Pete stares down at the Black Book, then up at Tinky.
“Make a deal. C’mon, Petey Pie. I’m the only one who can give you what you want. Isn’t the pain just too much? Aren’t you just so heavy with it? About to collapse? So alone, so useless without the people around you. Don’t you want relief? Who knows. Maybe you’ll make it out alive this time.”
Something stirs in the back of Pete’s mind, a memory falling loose. Tinky might be the bastard of Time and Space, but who’s to say he’s the only choice? There are more options. Maybe even better options.
After a long moment of consideration, a desperate plan slowly falls into place. Pete picks up the Black Book. Tinky watches with that demented smile, blood dripping from between its domino teeth.
Pete flips to a page, swallows roughly, and begins the summoning.
“Web’rithal.”
Tinky recoils as if burned. “What are you doing?”
“The Orbweaver, She Who Weaves Impossibilities.”
“Stop it! Stop!”
“Queen Of The Everbright. I want to make a deal.”
“No!”
“You’re not the only weaver in your family.” Pete meets Tinky’s eyes and grins. “Get fucked, loser.”
Its hazel eyes glow with a gold fury. Tinky roars and lunges at Pete, claws aimed at his throat. He cowers, eyes closed, waiting for swift pain. Suddenly, a pair of hands grab his shoulders, then more grab his head, his wrists, his waist. They pull him into the ground.
When he dares to open his eyes, Tinky is gone. He sits in a blinding white void. There is no beginning or end to the brightness around him.
Pete unsteadily stands, feeling the invisible floor beneath him shiver like a jump rope. He doesn’t feel cold or wet anymore. For a moment, he believes he’s dead.
A woman, ridiculously tall and not a woman at all, stands before him. Her straight white hair tangles around her four legs and four arms folded behind her back. It spreads across what he assumes is the floor, almost indistinguishable from the endless white around them. She has marble-pale skin etched with thin, dark webbing like veins. A dozen black, reflective spider eyes stare him down. Pincers escape her large, frowning mouth.
She looks… familiar. She looks like Steph.
“Peter Spankoffski,” she says with a mild hint of surprise. “Curious. You were never on my roster.”
“Are you… the Queen in White?”
“I am. But you can just call me Webby.”
“Okay, Webby. Am I dead?”
She chuckles. “No, dear. I simply pulled you into a pocket between worlds, away from my brother’s wrath. Tinky doesn’t like it when people trick him. They hardly ever do. And I do not normally get summoned. It’s meant to be impossible, but the circumstances of your world sadly allow anything to be possible.”
“What do you mean?”
Her mouth twists into what he thinks is a frown. “Grace Chastity finished her ritual. She was the last sacrifice. I’m sorry for putting you so close to the lightning, but I had to kill her before she killed you.”
“Don’t be sorry. She killed all my friends.”
“I am truly sorry about that as well,” she says.
Webby sits cross legged in front of him, and Pete does the same. She looks like a spider in the middle of a web. In a way, he supposes she is.
“Can I ask… why did you answer?” Pete asks. “What do you want?”
She runs a hand through her hair, allowing it to fall across her face like silk. “Your world is over. Your friend, Ruth. She’s been touched, infected, and it’s going to spread. There’s no stopping it now.”
“But Ruth’s… dead.”
“For now. But nothing infected with song stays dead. Upon killing Ruth, Grace inadvertently started off a doomed timeline. It’s happened before, in a timeline so far away, and I hate to see it every time. Trust me, you do not want the details.”
“How do you know all this?”
“My brothers fight over who gets control over what gossamer. They’re all powerful in their own right and each have a different definition of control. Nibbly wants an endless feast. Blinky wants entertainment no matter the consequences. Tinky wants to destroy the world of one or two people everywhere.”
Pete swallows. “Me and my brother.”
She nods. “Wiggly wants to wipe the earth clean just because he can. But Pokey wants absolute unity. And he has a very good track record.”
“What about you?” Pete asks. “What do you get out of this?”
Webby’s eyes fall to the white nothing above them. “We don’t all want something in return for our interference.”
“Don’t lie. I know you do.”
She sighs, her pincers clicking together. “I can’t give you what Tinky promised. I can’t plop you down into a random gossamer and let you live happily ever after. I manage these worlds, and I cannot jeopardize their sanctity, no matter how much I pity your situation.”
“... But?”
“But, I can give you a purpose. And perhaps a chance to save your friends somewhere else.”
“Like what?”
“What Grace did started a chain reaction across timelines,” Webby explains. “She completed a ritual that allows all the Lords in Black to take a physical host in your world. But the unfortunate consequence, and one I’m sure she hadn’t considered, is it allows me to take one, too.”
He remembers reading something about that ritual, one to summon the Lords in Black.
Never, under any circumstances, allow them to summon her. Kill yourself if you have to. Once she is out in one world, all other worlds are damned.
“What happens if you’re summoned?” Pete asks.
“I can never leave the Everbright,” Webby says. “At least, not for long. My physical presence alone maintains the structure of reality. And when we get summoned into a host, like Grace was planning, we become tied to our hosts. But unlike my brothers, who can still move between worlds, I become trapped. Without me to hold the web together, it will rot. And then there will be no worlds at all.”
“How do you know that? Has it happened before?”
Webby hesitates then. She tilts her head to the side, considering his questions. Her spider eyes all blink out of time.
“Well, no. But I’m certain of its danger. It cannot come to pass. I can’t risk being summoned.”
Pete is all about the scientific method. Proving things through trial and error, hypotheticals and experimentation. He’s watched monsters attack his friends, seen gods mock and torment teenagers.
Despite her monstrous origins, Webby seems sincere in her words. If she wanted him dead, it would be so easy. Instead, she’s asking for help against this idea that he’s not sure he even believes.
But a chance to see his friends again… to see Steph and Ted… he would do just about anything.
Pete stares at the threads of the web under his feet, the gossamer of worlds, the entire universe under his fingertips, and makes a rash, ashamed, but easy decision.
“What do you need me to do?”
Webby smiles, and she looks so much like Steph it hurts. She cups his face in her hands, thumbing away stray tears still falling.
“Close your eyes for me,” she whispers softly, almost fearfully, “and brace for impact.”