Ben

After sneaking in a circle around the base of the Night Stalker spire, he arrived directly downhill from the Hub. He needed someplace to rest and recover and the hidden cache wasn't big enough for three. Hauling his bundle up the breaking stone hill, Ben alternated between telling himself he was crazy and to stop being a little bitch.

With a will as frayed as his netting and an ache in his soul reflected by every muscle, Ben hauled his burden up the slope. He arrived safely at the leather armored door. Cracking it open and stepping within, Harper rushed forward.

"You're back!" Harper covered her mouth with her hands. "She's not."

"Alive and injured," Ben interrupted. "Who else has arrived so far?"

He knew Mathew wouldn't be joining them, but he wasn't about to open that can of worms. Not being honest still bothered every fiber of who he was but he'd seen what honesty could do to people when he overestimated what they could handle.

Stabilize the situation first, then ease into the whole truth.

"Just you two," Harper answered. "What is her condition?"

Ben locked his vison to her hazel eyes. "She will live. Internal abdominal trauma and an amputated right hand. I also knocked her unconscious. There will be time to explain everything. Let's get her settled in to recover and have a talk while we wait for everyone to trickle in."

"Okay," Harper nodded.

Gingerly taking Amber off his shoulder, he regretted that her open guts were carrying the weight of most of her body. An oversight on his part, but he could only feel so bad about it. Not only had he saved her life, he'd also been through a lot and shouldn't be expected to make the best decision. Regardless with a vial of health regeneration potion, she'd survive any minor compounded injury.

"Did we get it?" Harper asked. "Whatever secret we were looking for?"

"I think so," Ben replied. "Mathew and Grant poisoned the Alpha where it was trapped. So I think they had access to everything."

"So long as this was worth it," Harper's lips were pressed into a thin line.

Lapsing into silence, Ben began to work at repairing his net. He was out of snake hair thread, so he integrated the monster quality spider webbing into his weapon. Weaving without an intelectus required him to practice the core skill unaided.

This wasn't the first time he'd wound up mentally tapped and had to recover his mind and equipment simultaneously. The secret was doing what was tedious. Impatience, stress, anger at being stolen from his home and thrown into this nightmare shitshow all had to be put aside. Instead, the world just became the next knot.

Sure his mind wandered and worried about what it meant that Mathew hadn't made it and if he took the secret to civilization with him. Ben never did feel the need to worry about Grant surviving. But his recent coma taught Ben that Grant's image of inevitable survival was stronger than Grant actually was.

No matter what the whole situation was, at the end of the day, he needed to be his most ready as soon as possible. So he tied knots, threaded more and tied again.

"Can you wake her up?" Harper asked.

"Sure can," Harper answer herself. "It's a negative application of hibernation. It'll be a bit sudden."

Ben looked up from his work. He'd seen a few people crack under pressure, but most didn't start talking to themselves. Unresponsive once but talking to oneself was at least reasonable under the dire circumstances.

"Wake her up then," Harper said.

Amber jerked up with a start. Harper held her back from jumping to her feet.

"Calm down, Amber or you'll hurt yourself more," Harper did have a soothing voice.

"Where'd that slippy fucker go!" Amber's eyes glowed with a golden fervor as they locked on him.

"You're welcome," Ben gave his best impression of Grant's confident smile.

"I oughta shoot you." Amber glared. "Are they still out there?"

Ben nodded.

Amber stood to her feet over the protest of Harper. "They better be, or I'm blaming you."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Ben said darkly. "Whoever is still alive will show up on their own or not at all."

"Whoever is still alive!" Harper's eyes went big.

"Yeah numb skull here, grabs me up and whisks me away from the Alpha fight. When I freedom out of his grasp to help Mathew, he knocks me out like a beanpole caveman," Amber took a calming breath. "Mixing all the worst things from Mathew and Grant."

I'm my own person! Ben clenched his jaw. Focusing his awareness into the restful embrace of Emily's crystal, he stopped himself from snapping out. They wouldn't live for very long anyway no need to get in a fight.

He caught himself thinking by habit. They may actually build a town again. He'd have to stop thinking about people that way. Still, Amber being alive was better than both her and Mathew dying.

Amber started across the room. Ben adjusted his net, so it was free if needed.

Amber went right past him.

"Where are you going?" Harper asked.

"Going to get everyone left behind by this coward," Amber declared.

This wasn't the first time he'd heard the accusation of coward before. No less from someone he'd saved from near certain death. It still stung for some reason.

"Don't go off half cocked," Harper insisted. "At least gather up anything that-"

Closing his focus away as Harper tried to talk Amber into staying safe, Ben kept tying knots. Letting his mind recover faster in the embrace of the crystal, he tried to let go of his guilt. It was working and he was recovering. Even if the weight on his heart didn't fade away, the exhaustion would.

The door swung open and Grant stepped in. He was carrying a crimson cutlass Ben had never seen before. Grant didn't have time to go by the cache. Is he holding out on me?

Ben wouldn't put it past him to keep a second secret stash. To be fair, Ben had set up a few of his own. Leaving them protected with a shroud of stealth magic probably made them safer than any Grant could make.

"Where's Mathew?" Amber and Harper asked in unison.

"Just back off!" Grant looked more frustrated than Ben had seen of him. Are we in threat right now?

Standing to his feet, Ben got ready for immediate danger. The only thing that put Grant off his game was his magic warning of a dire threat.

"I need to think a moment," Grant raised his hand in the stop sign gesture.

"Of course he doesn't know. Grant probably abandoned Mathew like he abandoned us before this happened." Amber raised her shortened arm.

Ben watched as Grant backed against a wall and slid down.

That meant he didn't have an imminent threat.

The Night Stalker spire shook again. Sound ripped across the land. It boomed through the door and echoed through the stones underfoot. Ben would characterize it as the 'caw' of a crow, but the sound drowned out the memory of supernatural monsters bellowing in his face. A weight elevated the sound from a mere thump against his chest to a knee-weakening assault.

Was Grant sitting down because he knew there wasn't anything to do about the threat? Is everything hopeless?

The thought left Ben feeling regret for those he didn't fight harder to save. If he was going to die in the end, he'd rather have gone out in a blaze of glory before the regrets built up.

Watching Grant in his moment of weakness, Ben started to see a truth he should have seen long ago.

Clare

Dragging her twisted leg behind her, she smiled through her tears. Using Ripper to support her weight like a cane, she went back through the equipment menu she had skipped during the scuffle.

[Carrion Ripper

Crafted from the living bone of a hybrid carrion soldier this blade is aligned to corruption magic. Strengthened by feeding on prey, this weapon has crossed its first evolution threshold.

Passive: Improve tolerance to temperature. Comfortable range expanded 40 degrees Fahrenheit

Active: +2 skill in ambush, mental support and mental attack when using this weapon.

Permanent:

40% affinity +.3 durability

90% affinity +3 durability]

[Carrion Ripper equipped

+5 affinity Alpha dominance

+5% affinity growth Alpha dominance]

Durability, that would explain how he survived the first blow. That would mean he would have body mind feedback to increase his mental resistance. Along with the mental skills that gave her some hope of finding another Hybrid who would not break under the strain of being a Hybrid.

Additionally, he had crafted this weapon. That meant he not only could perform monster crafting but he went through the agony of actually doing so. Protecting him rekindled a connection she hadn't realized had grown dim.

So many babies died. As a mother, her heart was rent open. The monster in her could not understand. This was probably the worst part of her combination of instincts from the two sides of who she was now.

Today though, her loss was not just bitter. It was bittersweet. As much as she had lost herself to becoming a monster, this tied her back to humanity. Clare stopped and cradled the bone sword to herself for a moment. Maybe he could solve one of her problems as well.

After consolidating her new Territory, she would have to go looking for him. As much as she wanted to leave immediately in search of him, the Apex Alpha had spoken. No matter how unconventional her mind was for an Alpha, some things were simply unthinkable.

Commanding a spider minion she'd assigned with baggage duty closer, Clare extracted Doc's next book on Hybrids.

Little is known of the cultivation spectrum, but we know that humans engage with their range of the energy spectrum in a unique way from all other animals. An artificial filter converts power as it leaves the world before the person can access it. Further, this filter expends the energy on behalf of each person. Each level up is directed by this filter in how the energy enhances organs and tissues.

Hybrids have access to this filtered human spectrum, and whatever spectrum of power is native to the other side of their hybrid nature. Focusing this raw energy into an organ or tissue allows a Hybrid to control their development with-

...Skip, she knew all this.

Thumbing through the book, Clare walked down one of the main roads to her home. Reading and walking was so much easier on a straight and level road.

Glancing through the webbing, she watched her workers cultivating foodstuff. Under the burdens of being an Alpha, she had to take care of limiting how much time she spent away from the center of her Territory. There would be plenty of boring time to read. She really should inspect her domain while traveling through it.

The growth was explosive. Her children converted the blighted lands with young shoots of vital and blood sap plants. This would backfire eventually as the territory value grew more than her strength to hold it. For now, it let her divert enough of the excess Alpha energy to keep her sanity.

If she was lucky, she'd find a way to elevate enough lieutenants to guard the border. Investing in the monstrous spiders after they hatched was unnatural to the Blood Spider Queen and even the hatchlings had no innate response to the energy infusion. This made the process inefficient.

The inefficiency made her happy. Anything to slow down the unbalancing that would try to wear away at who she was. Degrade the advancement of her monstrous side so her human half could keep up. Then survive this world while crippling her growth. She had made it happen so far, and now she had a lead on her pressing problem.

Getting to the security checkpoint, Clare passed her fingers over the chitinous exoskeleton of Mavric, her second favorite lieutenant. Funneling a packet of Alpha spectrum energy to him caused Mavric to chitter his mandibles and drool.

"Who is a good boy?" Clare crooned. "Yes, you are."

This was where she settled. Her relationship with the monsters was not simply mother. They were not smart enough for her to truly consider them as children to the legacy of human intelligence. Still, they were part of her family. So she settled to feeling of them something roughly to that of pets.

Making it past the transition of white threads to the higher quality blood thread, Clare limped through the choke point of their defenses. In contact with the blood thread, her bare feet started to draw blood energy to herself. A small force of will to her Territory and it waited.

Following a radial line to the center of her domain, Clare walked to her throne. Built as a reminder to her human side, an actual seat of power held little meaning to the monstrous world. Soon, she'd be able to entertain a guest, and a throne's social message would be significant.

Tapping a finger to her strawberry lips, she was not sure she liked the image. Blood Queen overlord of her Territory... powerful but not personal.

Sitting down on her throne, she adjusted the spider abdomen grafted to her lower back. Adjusting her bloodsilk dress and looking at her injured leg, Clare had a choice. She could repair the injury with infusions of human or monster energy.

From experience, she knew that a monster energy infusion would convert that part of her body to have spider-like qualities. A few strips of exoskeleton on her ribs taught her that. But healing her human side this way consumed some of her progression to the next level. She needed that progress to keep up with her monster half's growth.

I'm in this for the long haul. Clare thought.

Blood power concentrated under her throne and rose to infuse her. Channeling that power through the tan half of her ball of health, Clare drew the blood energy into her injured leg. Her progress to the next level ticked down as she went, but her leg straightened out. After fully healing, her blood healing skill began to lose grip on the energy. Of its own accord, it drained back down into the nursery under the throne room.

As much as she really ought to go underneath and spend time with the young, this feeling of rekindled humanity was too precious to let go of just yet.

Jumping up two stories into the trapdoor at the bottom of her personal quarters, Clare drew Carrion Ripper behind her. While the room was embedded into the ceiling of alien spider webbing, she'd kept the inside as human as she could. Finished wood floors and walls, a vanity, her oversized four poster bed. It was not a lot but the slice of ordinary helped remind her to hold on.

Setting her newly equipped sword onto the stand against the wall, it stood out like a sore thumb. The row of blood forged blades ended with Ripper. She'd miss Caustic Resolution unless she was able to recover it sometime.

Still, his smell permeated Ripper and she enjoyed adding part of him to her room. It was the influence of the Alpha side, no doubt, but one that her human side didn't feel revulsion at.

Opening her vanity drawer, she strung webbing through a needle and started to repair the cuts in her dress.

Humming to herself, she thought. Now I just need to wait out the Night Stalker. Maybe they will even live so I can find them again.