Mathew

Clare's mind bristled after his confession about his mental attack skill. Even though he felt guilty, Mathew wasn't about to turn it off. Too much was at stake for him to mess this up.

Betrayal. Clare thought, her memories of The Colony coming back to her. Suspicion blanketed her mind to cover the old wound.

"Trust. You ask for trust after hiding the truth from me," Clare shook her head. "I do not think you are qualified to ask for trust."

"You wouldn't even know about the omission if I didn't choose to be honest. That means something," Mathew said.

"That something is so small to be nearly nothing," Clare crossed her arms.

"All of your problems are due to your spider side. I believe I can fix it. Please let me try," He asked.

"You are mistaken. My greatest problem is that no one is worthy of my trust. At least no one close to me," Clare shook her head. "What do you intend to do with my defenses lowered?"

"I have a skill called mental support. Here," Mathew willed over the notification.

He could see the shape of her struggle better. Some of it was the spider's influence exaggerating the broken trust she'd suffered. The other pervasive element in her mind was that being a monster had an allure. You'd never be betrayed, isolated from civilization. Her memories of a good life on Earth faded around the edges. Each memory was a frayed string to anchor her to hope.

"-I'd support the parts of your mind that you tell me you want to be empowered," Mathew's dark eyes pleaded.

Intense hate filled her at his expression, but Mathew couldn't figure out why.

"So I am too strong for you to manipulate with your mind, so you use your words?" Clare accused.

"Ehh, no. Okay, mechanically my ability is quite limited if I'm going to do anything and not be noticed," Mathew took a step closer on the shifting gravel. "Your mind is powerful, so yeah, that limit applies to you even more."

"Do you hear yourself? "And not be noticed," No, I can not trust you," Clare stepped back.

She wants to argue. A strategy, from his childhood training, came to his memory about turning an argument back into a conversation. He hated it, and it was risky, but it was worth a try.

Step one attack.

"It's not like you are the most trustworthy yourself," frustration bled into his tone. "All you are doing is looking after numero uno. Why should anyone trust you?"

"I was honest about everything at every step. If you can read my mind, you know that is the truth," Clare stared him down. "How dare you say that of me, after I saved your life and helped you so much."

"You didn't do that just for me, though. You've always wanted something from me!" Mathew growled.

"No, when I first saved you, I had not yet put the pieces together to see the options you present. Only after that first encounter was what you can do for me on my mind-"

Step two admit your attack was wrong and cool down the conversation.

"You're right. I'm sorry," Mathew cooled his town and threw his hands up in aggravation. "I struggle at this sometimes. It's just that I really care, but I'm powerless to help, and I can't convince you. I shouldn't lash out. You've been great."

Fickle, Clare thought. The word carried memories of those who had manipulated her into taking on the monster organ graft.

Clare pointed to the Spire. "I think you should leave my Territory now."

"But-"

"WE ARE DONE HERE!" Clare's scream disturbed the nearby spiders from their nests.

"Okay," Mathew put his hands up.

Worry about him worming inside her head gripped her thoughts as they made their way to the Territory boundary. No, I'm just listening at the edges.

Clare thought about the growing threat he represented and nipping him in the bud. Everyone had dark thoughts like that, which they immediately rejected. Mathew tried not to take it too seriously or personally.

She followed behind every step of the way, escorting him from her land. I'm more trustworthy than that! Mathew tried not to prickle on the outside. He held a tight clamp on his emotions. She'd felt them before through the Alpha spectrum.

A tide of loneliness rolled from Clare, "I think it's best if you stay away. Consider our deal off."

She'd rather devolve into a monster than be betrayed again. If he argued, Clare would take it as a fight. If she chose to cut off ties, he couldn't even bargain to save her.

Grinding his teeth, Mathew kept walking.

A glint over the next rise caught his eye.

Scan.

[Rose Baker

Earth raid transfer

Entry quest

1) Incomplete

2) Incomplete]

The broken stone crunched underfoot as Clare closed the gap to his stationary form.

He pointed. "That's a chronosphere. What are you going to do with that person?"

He's stalling! Clare's thought practically yelled. But her words were composed as her noble persona demanded, "Nothing. There isn't anything I can do."

"This is your Territory. What do you mean there is nothing you can do?" Mathew asked. His voice was cold and distant.

"I can only keep my spiders in check near myself, and I simply can not afford to try saving everyone. At some point, I would have to leave, and then my children would kill them," Clare's voice was clear of guilt.

"Let Harper build a shelter for the sphere, and we'll take survivors from your land," Mathew said.

"Or what?" Clare challenged.

"Or I'll fight you," Mathew turned on her. Rage in his eyes. She could damn herself, but he would not let Clare take anyone else down with her. "If anyone should want to protect the weak newcomers, it should be you."

"You don't know anything about me! All you ever do is ask me questions so you can get stronger. You don't care, and you never did," Clare stalked towards him. "You want to save that person, then fight me!"

"I don't want to- umph."

She pounced at him, a palm strike driving the air out of him in a woosh.

"Fine!" He bellowed. This was stupid, his common sense tried to tell him as his frustration drowned it out with angry noise. Without his weapons and low on health, he didn't really want a serious fight.

Sorry, Pa. Mathew thought as he swung at a girl for the first time in his life.

Bending around his strike, she kept her balance by kicking him in the side. Plates cracked, and heat bloomed in his side. His bone regeneration getting a workout.

Spiders scuttled towards the fight as their Alpha engaged. Clare hissed at them, emitting a red mist of Alpha energy. Even Mathew's shallow experience understood the order was "Stay back."

He landed a sucker punch against her back while she was turned. Stepping forward with more fast strikes, he hoped to keep her off her balance. Without sure foot, Clare was sent sprawling. The distance countered his intention of holding the pressure.

Following the reset, she weaved her way inside his guard. Striking faster and faster, her knuckles tore open against his body, but his body broke where her strikes repeated.

That was an aspect of durability and endurance. Some of the strength of durability existed in the material, but some of the toughness came from an energy that endurance would refill.

It wouldn't matter much to Mathew. With some conversion, he'd top it off. Keeping himself in prime condition. That wasn't what he did this time. Instead, he allowed bone regeneration to do its work automatically. On top of gaining skill levels, it didn't cost him any willpower.

Mental attack shared another of Clare's thoughts. He's a good punching bag!

She flowed around most of his attacks that she didn't deflect. Mathew tightened up his stance keeping his elbows in, growing more snappy with each adjustment.

Clare changed her behavior as well, incorporating more kicks and inhuman acrobatics.

[New skill awarded: Bone regeneration 10. Bone regeneration 10 overrides bone regeneration 9]

Splitting up his focus Mathew pulled up the perk menu.

[Bone regeneration ~ perk tier one

Damage Memory - Heal stronger than before the break

Healing Aura - Bone that isn't regenerating creates a weak healing aura

perk tier two

Ready regeneration - Bone can store extra reserves for later healing

Temper trap bone - Bone can pool energy for various uses.]

Each option was delicious, temper trap bone particularly so. It would give Mathew his first skill related to pooling, albeit indirect. Healing aura was also tempting, but Mathew didn't know if it would apply to others like he wanted it to or not. Selecting the perk he'd decided on long ago, Mathew felt damage memory settle into place.

With the rest of his willpower, he worked on understanding Clare. Something didn't feel right. She wanted a punching bag, not to kill him. What did she want? Why was she fighting him?

His every effort to beat her resulted in abject failure. It was working, though. A block in her mind gave way. Each broken plate of armor and deflected strike let her relax. Until the bock broke free.

I see you fight a losing fight for a stranger. Who don't you fight for me! Her irrational question was carried forward on a tide of anger.

[16 Health reserved: arm]

[20 Health reserved: torso]

[9 Health reserved: arm]

[12 Health reserved: toros]

Mathew felt like he was in danger for the first time in this fight. Pain from every strike tore into his mind. He couldn't let this go on.

This time when he repositioned, he stepped on her foot. Overlapping a boulder and her foot, sure foot applied to both. Glued together and in place, Mathew forced his way forward to grapple.

[42 Health reserved: head]

[18 Health reserved: torso]

[13 Health reserved: arm]

[6 Health reserved: arm]

Her blows rained stronger and heavier. Each one to keep him further away. Latching his joints before a blow and unlatching his joints to get closer, Mathew dragged himself closer with each move. Full on hugging her, Clare didn't have sufficient room to hit him as hard.

"Rrruugh," Clare bucked her hips, trying to throw him off. "You call this fighting!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't know you wanted me to fight to save you," Mathew raised his head to look her in the eyes through the holes in his exoskull. "You're right. This wasn't fighting, but for you, I will."

Everything about this felt wrong. Grappling a woman and invading her mind. He ruthlessly buried those feelings.

Empowering his mental attack with mental support and mental reinforcement, Mathew joined the battleground that her mind had become. This is fighting.

Now that he was rifling through her mind at full power, she could feel his presence. Signs of conflict filled nearly all the threads of her mind. As she had fought his body, this inner war cooled. On feeling his invasion, the war in Clare's mind heated up again.

Wherever he mentally touched, two streams would appear. Each was an instinctual response to him. Most often, Mathew couldn't tell which was her and which was the spider. Both wanted him gone.

The calm poise of a dignitary was built by her human mind. He was sure of it. Reinforcing it, Mathew assembled a beachhead. Constructed in the style of an embassy, it was accepted readily. A truth leaked out about the foundation of her persona; it was built to justify the growing loneliness she'd felt.

Royalty and nobility had lived a life separated from their subjects. Their loneliness had purpose, so now Clare's did too.

Mathew was never meant to know these things. He didn't want to understand why people were put together the way they were. Corralling his rebellious mind, Mathew kept going.

He wound up inside a childhood memory. Up in the mountains, the air was cold in a crisp revitalizing way. Her Dad was serving her a fresh and gooey smore. Chocolate and marshmallow blended with fondness at childhood purity. Sadness permeated the recollection. Clare's father wasn't in her newer memories, the lack of him was a grief filled wound.

As messed up as it was, this bittersweet memory was one he should be able to work with. That memory was human Clare being sad at her loss. The Blood Spider Queen didn't care. Empowering that node, he began to fear his ignorance with mind surgery all over again. But it was too late to stop.

Time lost its meaning as they grappled in body and mind. She didn't trust him, but he wasn't going to be weak enough to let that stop him. What type of hypocrite would he be to fight Clare to save someone else but not her?

The more progress he made, the harder she fought him. Less energy was being wasted on an internal struggle. Every thread and decision node he reinforced came back to fight him harder.

"I don't need your trust," Mathew said. "I don't need you to be my friend or ally, but I will not stand aside while you suffer."

"Are you willing to bet your life on it," Venom in her words, was followed by a venomous bite.

Her incisors had fallen out to be replaced by fangs. Thankfully they didn't have the durability to punch through the armor around his neck.

The liquid venom still got between his plates and against his skin.

Mathew bled.

"I don't want to die, but I don't want to live with regrets," He spoke into her crimson hair.

"Shut up!" Clare activated a skill. Mathew's blood lifted up into his eyes and mouth, blocking off air and sight.

Breathing out a controlled cloud of digestion, Mathew recycled his own blood. I can do this all night!

More time passed, and Mathew became certain of two things. He was pulling Clare Jackson out from that mess of a battlefield, and she was starting to hate him.

Mathew disentangled, pushing all the way up to standing, "I told you I didn't want to fight."

She lay there smoldering at him.

Risking his back, he turned away again.

"Tell Harper she can build a shelter," Clare's voice caught his back.

"I will."

Clare didn't escort him the rest of the way. Somehow that made Mathew feel worse.