But it was already in motion. The exoskeleton on Arachne’s leg was stretching towards the bone in Eva’s stump. The bone itself extended forth to meet the exoskeleton.
There was a small amount of disappointment as he realized she hadn’t dug out the remains of her leg bone from the socket.
As soon as the bone and exoskeleton met, the bone started turning black. It was only visible for a moment because another portion of the exoskeleton stretched to meet the skin of Eva’s buttocks and hip. It continued onwards, turning skin to exoskeleton up nearly to her bellybutton. The exoskeleton formed swirling curls that dug into Eva’s unchanged skin.
It matched her forearms nicely, he had to admit.
Arachne repeated the process with her other leg. Devon carefully watched the white bone as it met the exoskeleton. Sure enough, it turned to the same chitinous black as Arachne’s exoskeleton. He wondered if it spread to the rest of her bones or if it stopped at the end of her femur.
“I’d love to get you under an x-ray,” Devon mumbled, mostly to himself.
The exoskeleton finished merging. Devon noted that it wasn’t symmetrical. The black curls formed different patterns. The black exoskeleton started high on her sides, curving down to a point beneath her bellybutton in a sort of ‘v’ shape.
Devon reached forwards to squeeze it and feel out its strength as well as check how much changed on her backside.
“Just because I can’t feel anything doesn’t mean I want you feeling me up.”
He gave her a glare he wasn’t sure she’d actually see. “I’m offended you think I’m ‘feeling you up.’ This is for research, girl.”
The exoskeleton on her back did mirror that on the front. The shiny black covered her entire lower torso in a sort of ‘v’ shape.
Her wrists were almost entirely rigid on the forearms. Oddly enough, her torso wasn’t. It stretched and flexed and squished in his fingers. Not quite like normal skin. It felt tougher.
Flexibility might be needed. The rest of her was still the human body and she had a human skeletal structure in her torso. The magic might have decided that it needed to be soft in order to work with the rest of the body.
Or perhaps it would harden later. He hadn’t gotten a look at her hands for several weeks. It could have started soft and wound up the rigid stiffness that it was today.
Something to keep an eye on.
“Are you done?”
Devon grumbled as he pulled his hands away from Eva.
“The antidote,” Eva slurred, “if you will. I’d like to look myself over.”
“You can’t even see properly,” Devon said. He pulled out the vial anyway. “It won’t look any different to you if you can move.”
“I’d like to at least feel it, maybe try walking around.”
Devon held the vial over her mouth. “Get ready. As soon as you can swallow, you must. Try not to inhale any.” With that, he started tipping the vial.
Just a drop at first. Then two drops. Two drops turned into four as her tongue started moving properly. The drops turned into a dribble that soon turned into pouring the rest down her throat.
Five minutes later and Eva was sitting up on the gurney. Arachne, walking around on six legs jutting from her back, was helping her sit.
Long clawed fingers, belonging to both Arachne and Eva, ran up and down her new legs. Devon noted with some disdain that Eva did not protest when the spider-demon started prodding her abdomen.
“That’s weird,” Eva said.
“Something wrong?”
“No. It is just that I’ve only got four toes. And they move weird.” Eva sighed. “I’m going to have to wear clown shoes.”
“My feet are not that big,” Arachne protested. “You could get away with some nice boots. Or just go barefoot and claim you’re wearing boots.”
“That would work if it were perpetually dark. In the light, you can clearly see between the toe–claw–things.”
Devon jumped backwards as Eva swung her legs around, almost knocking into him.
“Help me stand up,” she commanded Arachne.
The spider-demon complied. It seemed she didn’t notice or care about her own leg stumps dripping blood.
Carefully, Eva drew herself up to her full height. Her eyes were level with Devon’s now. Maybe slightly higher. “You’ve grown,” he said. Devon wasn’t the tallest man around, but he felt five foot eight inches was a respectable height.
At least, it used to be a respectable height.
“That was expected. Arachne is about two to three feet taller than me–than I was. Some of that is in her upper body though.”
“You’re at least a foot taller.”
“Summer growth spurt.”
Eva tried taking a step forwards and almost immediately stumbled. If Arachne hadn’t been hovering around her, she would have fallen flat on her face.
A small part of him wished Arachne had been a few paces back.
“Yeah,” Eva said, “this is definitely going to take some getting used to.”
Summer
Trees whisked past. Brush and ground vanished into the distance.
Long, black hair trailed through the air gracefully, almost parallel to the ground. She was a sight to see.
