LOOTING DC #21. Out of the Woods
A single droplet of water fell from a jagged limestone edge above, landing with a soft 'plink' that echoed through the cavern. It might've been the loudest sound in the room - if not for the tension coiled like a trap between the three figures lost in its darkness.
Jake was spiraling.
He tensed his fingers, shifted his wrists, clenched his jaw - desperate to fire even a single web. Nothing. Not a twitch of silk.
What the hell is happening?! Was it the pressure-point strike? The vision? Did something break inside him? Did he lose his powers?!
Come on... come on...
Come out already!
Still nothing.
From across the chamber, Cheshire's voice sliced through the thick silence.
"So what now?" she asked, words fixed on Artemis. "You gonna ride off into the sunset with him?"
"I don't know," Artemis replied coolly. "Maybe I'll present him to Sportsmaster. Alive. He's worth more that way."
Cheshire laughed - feral and sharp - as she took a predatory step sideways.
"Oh, really?"
"Because it looked to me," she said, her tone dripping with glee, "like you were seconds from taking his head off."
"You ruined the moment," Artemis said flatly. "Falling from the sky like some jealous bird."
"Is that really why you hesitated?" Cheshire asked, circling. "Or was it something else?"
Artemis ignored her.
She knelt beside Jake, scanning him like a puzzle she hadn't expected to break this easily. His breathing was shallow. His muscles locked. His body didn't just look paralyzed - it looked like he was in his pain.
She'd used Shi Kan Ketsu - the Way of the Black Dragon - on him. A forbidden technique designed to interrupt the flow of a meta's power from its conduit - mind from manifestation. An eddy in the current.
She'd used it before. But the results had never been like this. She hadn't gone too far, had she?
Not possible. She was yet to master the final form.
But why was he like this?
He looked like he was burning up and shutting down all at once. Feverish. Twitching. Something close to a seizure - and for a brief second, she was worried for him.
But that second passed.
Cheshire was still here.
"Help me restrain him before he regains control," Artemis snapped, fetching a grapple line from one of her tether arrows to bind Jake's limbs.
Silence.
Then Cheshire's boots shifted against stone.
"No, sis," she said, cold and rooted. "Father won't mind just getting his head. In fact, I think he'd prefer it."
She tilted her head. "Finish the job."
Jake barely registered the words. The voices around him were muffled - like they were underwater, distant echoes in a nightmare.
Since the webs stopped working, something else had started.
His spider-sense hadn't gone silent - but instead buzzed in sharp, chaotic bursts, like a circuit shorting out. The danger was everywhere - and nowhere.
His body felt flooded. Like the web-fluid inside him wasn't dormant - it was overloading, suffocating his nerves, numbing everything.
He couldn't feel his arms. Or his chest. Or his legs. Something was very wrong.
He couldn't even think. His mind was juggling the surge of information tangling in glowing eldritch threads that all came back to...
The girl in the web.
🕸️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕸️
She sat quietly in her room, hovering a few inches above the floor in a lotus position. An open book floated before her, a pen suspended in the air, poised above the page.
The evening was still. Peaceful. She'd been hoping it would stay that way. But hoping against fate never worked. And tonight, fate had something to say.
Her teammates were out handling a situation in Jump City. She could've gone with them. She almost did. But something in her had pulled back - subtle, insistent. The Tower felt like the place to be tonight. Something was off.
She couldn't name it. Couldn't see it. But the cold that lingered beneath her skin told her everything she needed to know: If she wasn't alone, someone she cared about might suffer for it.
So she stayed. And she wrote.
Thoughts. Fragments. Fleeting emotions. Anything that passed through her mind, she captured in her journal, eyes half-closed as if searching distant stars. The ruby on her forehead pulsed softly with each breath-
Concentrated. Still. Fully immersed.
Yet, somehow, the moment still slipped past her - just as it always did. One breath she was present, grounded… and the next, her soul-self had slipped free, pulling her into a trance as a flood of overwhelming information crashed through her senses.
Her room flooded with the blinding light of her purest soul-self. From its white-hot center, twisting strands of gold spiraled outward, coiling through the air like veins of living light. They wrapped around her arms, her legs, her chest - until they converged on the cloak draped behind her.
The dark fabric rippled, stirred by transformation, as the golden strands wove themselves into its shadows, etching a design too deliberate to be chance. A lattice. A web. It sprawled across her cloak in a pulsing glow, until the material shimmered with a new shape - like a spider's suit, not sewn by hand, but forged by fate.
Her body hovered, motionless, trapped in trance - but her mind spiraled outward.
Knowledge poured in. Worlds layered atop worlds. Destinies knotted into braids. Possibilities stretching into forever.
And the ruby embedded in her forehead drank it all in.
It shifted - deep crimson to radiant scarlet, then to molten gold - resonating with the web now pulsing through her soul.
A voice seeped into the silence, silk-wrapped and dripping with malice. Elated. Hungry.
"Such power..."
"Such freedom..."
"I want it all..."
"Bring it to me, daughter."
She fought back. Harder than she ever had. Fought against his will, his control, his endless need to dominate.
And in her resistance, her soul-self shattered - like glass dropped from on high.
The glow vanished.
She fell.
Hit the Tower floor with a jarring thud, breath ripped from her lungs, drenched in silence.
The door burst open.
Beast Boy stood in the doorway, wide-eyed, panic etched in his face.
"Rae! I- are you okay? I came to check on you and…"
She looked up, still gasping, the last shivers of power fading from her skin.
Then - she smiled.
"…I'm- I'm okay."
🕸️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕸️
Jake's convulsion stopped. He could feel the mysterious connection wearing thin. Dissolving like mist. Sensation and clarity creeping back in.
Artemis clenched her jaw.
"Not this again," she muttered, teeth gritted. "We've got him pinned. This is not the time for tests, Chesh."
Cheshire stood firm, voice cool. "It's the best chance you'll ever get. Do it, and your loyalty to our cause will never be questioned."
Her stance was unshakable - and Artemis could tell this wasn't just about loyalty anymore. This was personal. There were no cards left to play.
"You never really forgave me, did you?" Artemis asked, quietly.
"What you did is beyond forgiveness," Cheshire spat. "But watching you break your precious no-kill rule? That might warm my heart."
Silence.
Artemis lowered her gaze.
"I guess that settles it, then," she said softly.
A pause.
"Once again, we take different paths."
She let her hands fall to her sides, a subtle gesture - as if tossing away an invisible deck. She didn't care about playing her cards right anymore.
Grr-ah!
Cheshire snarled, blades flashing.
"If you won't kill him," she growled, "then I will."
With a fluid kick, she launched herself into the air - twin blades drawn. "Each Claw for each head."
Her strike came swift, one blade aimed at Artemis. The other - Jake.
Artemis inhaled sharply and closed her eyes. This wasn't how she wanted it to end. But she'd made her choice. No more cards. No more masks.
She readied her blades.
Thwiiip!
Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.
Web-lines snapped through the air - fast, sharp, full of energy.
Jake moved. Rejuvenated. Four strands flung outward - one to anchor, two to pull. The fourth yanked both him and Artemis clear of Cheshire's blades.
He twisted mid-air. Handspring. Landing - perfect.
A few random webs followed, reflexive. Testing and centering.
"Phewks," he exhaled, standing tall. "Thought I'd lost my groove for a second."
He took a breath. Deep. Grounded. The panic was gone. The pressure in his head, vented. His mind - clear. His body - fluid.
And for a moment, he was certain: he'd seen the Web of Life. Felt it. And someone else - entangled in it.
Mystery for later.
"Okay, ladies," he said with a cocky grin, "this has dragged on long enough."
Cheshire didn't answer. She was already on him - blades slicing the air with feral precision.
Jake shot a web - aiming to disarm.
Shink!
She sliced through it mid-air like it was nothing.
"Oh," Jake muttered. "She can do that."
He pivoted, recalibrating fast, eyes scanning for the cave's entrance.
Thwip!
He launched upward, arcing into the air. A blade whistled past his back - too close - snapping him into clarity.
"Right," he muttered, wincing. "Murderous sister still on a rampage."
He twisted mid-air and fired a webline back the way he came.
Thwip.
He snagged Artemis mid-step and yanked her toward him just as Cheshire's second blade buried itself in the stone where she'd stood - unseen, a thin line of red welled beneath her sleeve.
They landed hard. Jake staggered, dragging Artemis with him - her weight slumped on his shoulder, half-limping.
"No offense," he panted, "but how are you so hea-"
He caught her face in the moonlight. Blank. Distant. Lost.
And Cheshire already closing in behind them.
Instinct kicked in. Jake shot a web toward the far side of the waterfall.
"Alright then," he said, tightening his grip and launching. "Hold on tight."
Cheshire came out, but was only left hissing. "This isn't over, you little bug."
Streak: 1/10
Hope you enjoyed.