Mechanical-Arm Spider #65.
The totem had been fine moments ago, immediately after he'd redeemed it.
Jake's eyes had tracked the interface as it materialized in his peripheral vision, displaying information with the same clinical precision it always had. Green Arrow's bow qualified as Rare-tier according to the system's metrics, but the Symbolic Extraction feature had elevated it -- had pulled meaning from the weapon beyond its physical construction. The bow represented something fundamental to Oliver Queen, something essential enough that the system recognized it as Epic-tier.
The notification had been clean and unambiguous.
🕷️
[Totem collected!]
Category: Rare --> Epic
Reward: +72h --> +96h to your Time Bank
Redeem totem to receive reward? (Y/N)
🕸️
He had wasted no time reaching toward the mental confirmation to select (Y) and watch the bow dissolve into black firelight.
Then the dimming had started.
The bow had pulsed in his grip -- organic wood producing light that shouldn't have been possible. Jake had felt the weapon's temperature drop against his palm as the glow flickered like a dying heartbeat. Something was happening to the totem, something the system hadn't warned him about or prepared him for.
The interface blazed crimson.
Error messages cascaded across Jake's vision with urgent insistence, replacing the clean notification with corrupted data that made his spider-sense scream warnings his conscious mind couldn't interpret.
🕷️
[Totem corrupted!]
Category: ??
Reward: ??
Totem Irredeemable!
🕸️
Jake's mind went into overdrive. He calculated parameters with desperate speed, searching for the variable that had shifted between collection and corruption. His fight with Green Arrow had been brief -- efficient extraction followed by immediate webbing. The man had gone down with minimal resistance compared to what Jake had anticipated from someone with his reputation.
But that was the problem, wasn't it?
Green Arrow was more intact than Two-Face had been after Jake had taken his coin. Harvey Dent had fractured on a fundamental level, his mind splitting between identities while his body shambled toward Batman with single-minded obsession. The man had been broken in ways that went deeper than physical injury.
Oliver Queen had made a quip about donating more arrows. Had cracked wise while suspended upside-down and stripped of his weapon. Had watched his bow glow and die with visible confusion but without the spiritual collapse Jake had witnessed in others.
This was all wrong.
Green Arrow was supposed to react differently -- supposed to fight for the bow until exhaustion made resistance impossible. Was supposed to demonstrate through his actions that the weapon meant enough to break him when it was taken.
Instead, he looked chilled and unbothered by the theft beyond tactical irritation.
Jake's white eyes narrowed as he studied the man hanging before him. His fingers tightened on the bow while organic claws flexed with unconscious agitation. The totem icon was still displaying the bow in his peripheral vision, hadn't reverted to the question mark that indicated systemic uncertainty. That brought some measure of reassurance during this jarring moment.
The bow was still Oliver Queen's totem. The system had identified it correctly.
Jake just didn't know how it had become corrupted.
His mind worked through possibilities while Green Arrow watched him with eyes that suggested the vigilante was cataloguing every micro-expression visible through Jake's mask. Objects could lose their significance to their owners -- that much was becoming clear. Two-Face could theoretically find another coin, could bond with a different piece of metal and make the same binary decisions that defined his fractured existence.
But Oliver Queen was different.
The man was a genius with the bow, practically flawless with anything that resembled the weapon. Oliver Queen could adapt to broken bowstrings, warped limbs, improvised ammunition. The man's skill transcended any single piece of equipment.
And that was the critical insight Jake's tactical mind seized upon with sudden clarity.
Queen had been stranded on an island for over half a decade, learning to survive with whatever came to his hands. For someone who'd mastered the bow through necessity and desperation, the idea of having a favorite weapon seemed... unlikely. Survival didn't allow for sentimentality when tools broke and resources depleted.
This wasn't about the bow itself.
It was about what the bow represented. And if Jake's theory was correct, then there was only one way to test it.
Symbiote tendrils unwound from Oliver Queen's body with deliberate precision. Black mass withdrew, retracting into Jake's form as the webbing dissolved under chemical command. Green Arrow dropped the three feet to concrete, landing with practiced ease despite having been suspended upside-down for several minutes.
Oliver straightened, rolled his shoulders, adjusted his stance. His eyes never left Jake even as the vigilante assessed his own physical condition -- checking for injury, cataloguing reduced mobility from the brief restraint, recalibrating his tactical options now that freedom had been unexpectedly returned.
Jake threw the bow.
The weapon tumbled through air between them, end over end, landing on concrete with an echoing clatter. The bow rolled once before settling against Oliver's boot.
"Pick it up," Jake's voice carried no inflection. No emotion. Just mechanical certainty delivered through Sleeper's filter.
Oliver Queen stared at him. Then at the bow. Then back at Jake with expression that suggested he was trying to solve an equation with missing variables.
"How generous of you to return what's mine, Spider," Oliver said slowly, his tone shifting from tactical quipping to genuine confusion. "But you didn't come all this way from Gotham to play niceties. Not when you left the city burning, because you couldn't stop yourself from taking." His eyes fell on the bow. "Let me guess, that dim just now was my bow rejecting you, right?"
Jake didn't answer immediately. His attention had shifted to the Navigator tab, checking the red thread that had guided him through Star City in the first place. The thread still pointed in Green Arrow's direction -- same trajectory, same certainty. But the blinking had stopped. The thread was static now, neither advancing nor retreating.
Waiting.
"I did not burn Gotham," Jake's voice cut through Oliver's speculation with flat certainty. "Not from intention." His white eyes fixed on the bow between them, then lifted to meet Green Arrow's gaze. "But I will burn Star City with passion if you don't pick up that bow."
The threat landed with weight that made Oliver Queen's body language shift. Humor drained from his expression, replaced by something harder -- the look of a man who'd heard genuine threats before and knew how to evaluate their credibility.
"You sound exhausted. Look drained and battered even if you try to conceal it with confident postures." Oliver's voice remained level despite the tension bleeding into his shoulders. His eyes tracked Jake with assessment that went beyond tactical evaluation into character analysis. "I don't doubt the threat you present to this city. But Gotham took its toll on you." His gaze dropped fractionally to Jake's hands. "Took your left arm in the process."
Jake felt his organic hand twitch. The man had noticed the difference despite Sleeper's mimicry -- had identified that one hand bore claws while the other clearly didn't. Green Arrow was reading details others would have missed, assembling intelligence from observation alone.
"Pick up the bow."
Oliver Queen was silent for three full seconds. His mind was working through implications, Jake could see it in the micro-expressions that crossed the vigilante's face. The man knew his quiver was empty -- knew that picking up the bow wouldn't restore any tactical advantage. This wasn't about having a fair fight.
And they'd both already established this would be far from fair, especially with Oliver unprepared.
The vigilante's eyes studied Jake with intensity that suggested he was solving a puzzle. The Spider had targeted his bow specifically, had seemed confused and disappointed when taking it hadn't produced expected results. The weapon had glowed, flickered, dimmed and died -- wood didn't do that unless there was some hidden mechanism about the Spider's pursuit that made it possible.
But the cost would be borne by the owner.
Oliver Queen walked forward. His boots found purchase on concrete with measured steps, closing the distance to where his bow lay waiting. He knelt slowly, telegraphing movement in ways that suggested he expected Jake to stop him at any moment.
When no interruption came, Oliver's fingers wrapped around familiar wood.
Jake's muscles twitched. His white eyes widened fractionally behind the mask, body language betraying recognition of something significant happening.
Because the Navigator's red thread was blinking again.
And the bow in Oliver Queen's hands had started glowing.
Faint pulsing light that brightened with each heartbeat, wood producing illumination that defied physics and common sense. The weapon was alive again in Oliver's grip, responding to contact with its owner in ways that confirmed Jake's theory with perfect clarity.
Oliver Queen looked down at the glowing bow. Then up at Jake. Then back to the weapon with decision settling across his features like armor sliding into place.
He broke the bow.
Not accidentally or through weakness -- this was deliberate application of strength against wood that should have resisted casual force. The bow snapped with clean finality, splitting into two pieces that Oliver held for one moment before throwing them in opposite directions.
The pieces clattered against concrete. Rolled away from each other. Settled into stillness while light died from wood that would never shoot another arrow.
Jake held himself back. His claws dug into his palms hard enough to draw blood that Sleeper absorbed before it could drip. Every instinct screamed to consume the fragments immediately, to salvage what value remained before it degraded further. But he knew the truth even before his interface confirmed it.
Broken totems were reduced totems. Shards couldn't carry the same weight as complete objects. Consuming the pieces now would yield diminished returns.
But Oliver Queen's action had proven something critical.
"That was stupid," Jake's voice remained flat despite the fury building in his chest.
"And yet you don't seem surprised." Oliver Queen straightened from where he'd thrown the bow fragments, meeting Jake's white eyes with expression that suggested satisfaction despite having just destroyed his signature weapon.
"You broke the bow because it didn't matter to you," Jake said. His claws retracted slowly, normal hand flexing with stress that Sleeper couldn't quite compensate for. "It only represented what does." His head tilted fractionally, studying Green Arrow with renewed interest. "That is what I will take from you. The only question is how long it will take before you give it up."
Jake turned. His body oriented toward the direction he'd come from, preparing to leap and swing away before Green Arrow could attempt something stupid like trying to stop him.
"The stakes are set," Jake's voice carried back across the distance. "Star City, or your pride."
His webline shot towards a building. Caught metal support beam with adhesive that would hold his weight through the initial swing. Jake pulled himself upward with enhanced strength, body accelerating toward open air above the warehouse.
Oliver Queen watched the Spider's retreat with eyes that tracked movement patterns, analyzed escape vectors, catalogued capabilities for future engagement.
He wasn't worried.
His mind was already assembling strategies for putting down the Spider when their next confrontation inevitably arrived. Multiple approaches presented themselves -- lead the Spider into prepared ambushes, exploit the apparent weakness in his left arm, coordinate with other heroes who'd dealt with enhanced threats.
But Oliver was also bothered by the implication hanging over the Spider's presence in Star City.
Batman.
Had the Dark Knight fallen?
Oliver pushed that concern aside with practiced discipline. Batman could only be defeated only if he'd been caught unprepared or in less than optimal condition. But even that defeat didn't come easy. And knowing the Dark Knight, he never got caught unprepared.
But none of that factored into Oliver's situation. When he faced the Spider again, he'd be in his best condition. Prepared. ready.
And he'd put the Spider down before the threat could metastasize into something Star City couldn't contain.
The fragments of his bow lay scattered across concrete like promises that wood and string couldn't keep.
Oliver Queen left them where they'd fallen and headed for extraction.
Early access and concepts in patreon.com/mimiclord