Martin walked to school dragging his feet, burdened with dark questions and even darker thoughts. How much of the skinwalker’s personality had now been overlaid over his own brain? How much of his brain had already been destroyed or rearranged by the thrashings of the little spider? How much had the forced power awakening in the moment of near-death had screwed him, messed up his mind?

Alexa merrily bounced his right, seemingly looking at nothing in particular. She appeared like nothing but an airhead for the world. Martin knew better now. She was a devious ensnarer that had involved him in her vast, dangerous web-like plot that stretched an unknown number of years back and 400 years forward in time.

Cottie stepped stoically on his left, her multilayered carbon fiber steel boots kicking up small clouds of dust with every step. Her gray Equalizer cloak billowed behind her, armor joints clicking with every step, appearing for all eyes like a knight from some long-forgotten kingdom, now long lost in time. Her emotionless face terrified Martin to no end. He expected the Paladin of Equality to detect the evil lurking inside his brain, to turn to the side and to break his neck, to end him for no reason at all. Thankfully Alexa’s infinite bomb threat was keeping the Equalizer under her control, but how long would this last?

“Why so…” Alexa began.

“You know why, God damn it!” Martin snapped.

“Oh, psh. You’ve evolved, it’s time to toughen up, Mittens! Stick out your chest because it’s ready for a shiny Superstate access pin for being a goodly boy who turned into a hero today! Congratulations, my man! You can now go up the pretty space elevator and look down upon the peasants who toil on the dirty ground with their sticks and stones, from your very own orbital ring estate, feeling all mighty and superior! What splendidness! Such serendipity! Your parents and big sister will be so proud!” Alexa theatrically wrung her hands.

“You don’t know how my family would react to this! So, stop it!” Martin hissed.

“You know, I expected you to be a lot more excited for the opportunity that I’ve graciously blessed you with.”

“What opportunity? What?!”

“The opportunity to be more! You’ve already grown so much in the past few days, compared to say... where you were two years ago.” Alexa pulled out a picture from one of her vest pockets, brandishing it into Martin’s face. He saw himself, looking around 12 years old, walking to school alone across the exocrete sidewalk of the New New York Citadel district 9415.

“What the frig? Where did you get this?” Martin grabbed the photo out of Alexa’s hands. Upon closer examination, the photograph looked severely scratched and worn out.

“The internet!” Alexa declared with a smile.

Martin glared. “I don’t believe you for one second.”

“Okay, you got me. I paid a detective to take it. You were one of many children on my list,” she said.

“Why do you have a list of children?!” Martin shook the photo, noticing that it said “Prospective # 42” on the back.

“I’m Secret Santa. I send them presents!” Alexa innocently blinked her silver eyelashes at Martin.

“No. No, you’re not, damn it! Quit screwing around! This is all part of your plan to infect people with skinwalkers isn’t it!”

“Okki. One person.” Alexa corrected. “You!”

“Yeah, right! What about the other 41? Well?!” Martin growled.

“What, my list can’t start at forty-two? It’s obviously a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference! Read it! It’s a whimsical space opera, guaranteed to entertain even a mild-mannered bee counter like yourself.” Alexa grabbed the photo from Martin’s hand, shoving it back into her pocket.

Martin glared at her, anger boiling over within him.

“You… you can’t do this to people! You’re a manipulative fiend! You’ve tricked me, lied to me! I keep thinking that you’re my friend but you… you’ve been stalking me for years!”

“Not stalking. Investigating. Looking for the perfect…” Alexa smiled softly.

“Perfect WHAT? Test subject?! A fucking patsy to give brain spiders to?!”

“What?” Alexa tilted her head to the side. “I thought you wanted to be a hero. Seriously, look at where you were two years ago versus where you are now, surrounded by two adorable femmes.”

“Becoming a hero is a very complex science, you stupid asshat! It takes years at the Hero Academy with instructor aid and observation and a very specific diet! You can’t just hodgepodge it with a fucking near-death experience!!! Why would you do this?!!!”

Martin’s screaming has reached the highest crescendo. He suddenly noticed that the Equalizer girl was looking at him and his accusatory, screechy tone broke down into a quiet mumble. She scared the bejesus out of him. He remembered watching a very fuzzy video of an Equality Enforcer in action when he was only eight. The knight in a gray cloak simply walked up to a super and shot them in the head. It was brutal, quick, disturbing on all levels. No long winded speeches, no epic fights. It took only a few seconds. Bang, and the hero was dead. Martin shivered, looking away from Cottie.

Alexa grabbed his face, turned it towards herself and stared into his eyes. “Look. Focus. There’s a reason why I do all the things I do, Martin! The world ends very soon, if maybe it slipped your mind! Everyone will die if I fail! You, me, this town, every city on the planet will burn!”

Martin let out some of his rage. “Why can’t you just be straight with me? Why do you have to lie, manipulate me all the time?”

Alexa pointed up at the sky, not saying anything. The ring of Titanomachy glinted overhead, myriads of lights twinkling between clouds.

“I don’t understand.” He said.

“You will, in time. All will be revealed in time.” Alexa said with a sigh.

“Why did you wake my power so early? What if there are horrible side effects?” Martin muttered.

“Look, it worked for me. I didn’t need no Supestate drugs to be awesome-sauce. I’m clearly fine.”

“You are not fine! How are you fine?” Martin hissed.

“Cottie gimme a hug, number one is being mean.” Alexa pranced over to Cottie, burying herself into her cloak. The Equaliser stared at Martin expressionlessly. He wasn't sure if she was judging him. Martin expected the Equalizer to strike him, he drew inward in fear, expecting awful things.

Cottie's arms wrapped around the girl villain. Martin sputtered. He’s never seen an Equalizer hug anyone before. Where had the world gone wrong? How had Alexa managed to break the universe?

A silver eye peered out at him out of Cottie’s cloak. “Psstt. Commerre. We can hang out under this invisibility cloak and steal philosopher’s stone from Dumbleydore and cure cancer with it.”

Martin blanched. He definitely did not want to hide under the Enforcer’s cloak and pretend to be some kind of Rational Harry Potter.

Cottie rolled her eyes at Alexa’s antics. Then, she yipped, twitching ever so slightly.

“Sorry, wrong button!” Alexa yelled from beneath the cloak. “Seriously dawg, where’s the invisibility mode on this thing?”

Martin’s facade of anger cracked. He started to giggle nervously, unable to contain himself. He worried that the Equalizer was going to murder him for this disrespect, yet he could not stop himself. The whole situation was beyond preposterous.

“Welcome to the fellowship of the loop! Villain, Hero, Equalizer, and an angry smol spider from the future, all tied together with itty bitty strings of fate. Our adventure party is now in full order and the real fun can begin!” Alexa announced, flapping Cottie’s cloak like a pair of wings.

"Wait, can you turn into Mothra? Where's the lever for the pretty butterfly wings?"

. . .

Martin looked at his slightly scratched-up mechanical wristwatch. It was lunchtime. He couldn't believe it. Nothing had exploded. Nobody around him had gotten stabbed or died horribly for an entire half of the school day. Alexa acted like a perfectly normal schoolgirl and not like an insane genius, hellbent on terrorising the population of Saint Mary. She went to class, answered questions from the teachers, made occasional jokes at Cottie’s expense, and didn’t harass him one bit. It was a miracle. Martin expected her to snap at any moment and to start causing trouble, but alas he was again and again stupefied with her perfectly mundane behaviour. It was in fact so normal and ordinary without her hexagonal bracelet making a sound that he began to suspect that he was now in some sort of a pleasant, parallel universe where things didn’t go horribly wrong with every hour.

Even the skinwalker spider in his head remained silent, observing the world through his eyes and enjoying the learning experience. The group of older kids, part of the friend-group of the jock that Spiderbro had managed to piss off on the bus, gave them a wide berth, seemingly spooked by the imposing presence of Cottie.

The only thing that was bothering Martin was the fact that there was still another skinwalker somewhere nearby and when he had mentioned it to Alexa she answered with “The SCA has been made aware. Let the authorities deal with it,” which had stumped him even further. This did not seem like her prior behaviour of doing everything herself.

Martin was tired of slipping up on banana skin peels left and right. He thought hard about what he would do if he encountered the skinwalker himself, preparing himself mentally. The fact that the spider in his own head was now under his control was Martin’s advantage.

The trio had descended down to the lakeshore park behind the school and now sat underneath a great willow tree facing the pebble beach. Alexa was studiously reading a “How to survive middle school” book, resting her head against Cottie’s legs who was sitting in a lotus pose. Martin stared at their relaxed postures for a few minutes and was about to suggest they head out to grab lunch from town, when an orange delivery drone descended from the sky bearing a large pizza box.

“Dig in, friends!” Alexa announced, swiping a credit card at the drone. She had a credit card! Martin expected alarms to go off on the drone, screaming about credit card theft, but no such thing occurred. The only criminal thing that had transpired was the fact that the pizza had pineapples on it along with miscellaneous meats. He chose not to complain about it, looking at the sparkling reflections of the orbital megastructure ring of Titanomachy upon the sky-blue water of lake Eerie.

Alexa’s figure was backlit by dancing sun puddles reflected from the lake’s surface, her silver hair gently swaying in the wind as she enjoyed a slice of pizza. Had she lied to him about the whole manipulation of SCA business to save him from the skinwalker’s control? The more Martin thought about it, the more sense it made.

There was no way that a 14-year-old girl, no matter how clever, could manipulate the Superstate or decide which mission his father was given. The SCA had entire divisions of prognosticators at its disposal, including his mom. The future seers could not be deceived or misled; thousands of super geniuses constantly laboured under the prognosticators setting up new security measures up on Titanomachy against intrusions, be it physical or digital. As soon as somebody planned attacking the Supestate, the SCA would come down on them like a ton of bricks. The orbital megastructure was indestructible, impregnable, a world onto itself, filled with countless heroes who were far more experienced and older than the little villain who liked pineapples on her pizza.

Alexa noticed Martin staring at her and threw him a thumbs up, as if confirming his theories. Both her father and the villain minion team had manipulated and used her. Martin felt that she would not betray her first friend in a similar manner, that beneath the deception, she was someone that he could -

“Wowza. This is a lot of human feelings to process.” His brain-resident commented.

“Don’t make me mute you.” Martin thought back, annoyed that the little spider was spying on his personal thoughts.

“Okay, boss-host, you do you.”

“That’s right!” Martin pondered. “I’m…”

“I have noticed an irregularity. It could be nothing or it could be something potentially dangerous to us both.”

“What sort of an irregularity? Are you talking about Alexa’s unreasonably calm behaviour?”

“No. There was a new student present in class. The teacher did not introduce her to the rest of the class like you, Alexa or Cottie.”

“Okay, why is this odd? Maybe she was sick yesterday or something?”

“You do not understand. She was also in class yesterday, but at the same time, she wasn’t. You have two memories present in your mind. One memory shows an empty seat, the other a girl sitting there. I’ve been busy looking over your recent memories, so it’s exactly the kind of a thing that would normally escape your attention, but I am a diligent analyzer. Someone is screwing with your memory.”

Martin gulped. “Oh. That’s not good.”.

Remembering and not remembering something meant only one thing -

"Hm. There are fruits on here," Cottie commented, observing her pizza slice.

"You got something against the taste of pineapples on pizza, equality-chan? Do they violate the 117th commandment of her Divine Preeminence? Thou shall not flavour thine cheesy bread with tingly fruits?"

"No. This is an acceptable flavor. I just never had, um, pizza before."

"Oh, my poor, sheltered child! My heart weeps for you. Growing up under rocks! Avoiding smiles! Carrying water buckets uphill both ways! Don't you worry, you and I are going to experience all the fun things the world can offer from quad bikes to finding out how many licks it takes to get to the bottom of a lollipop!"

Cottie did not look like she was interested in lollipops, Martin noted, returning to his worries about yet another mysterious stranger that was now stalking them.