Aria blinked her eyes and something immediately felt wrong. There were too many of them. She groaned though thankfully she managed to keep it inside her head. Yet another morning she woke up with extra body parts.

  Her spinneret had certainly been a surprise when that grew in and the changes that already happened to her eyes were a little shocking when she looked in the mirror afterwards. By this point though she was adjusting. The rat’s tail wasn’t exactly every young dy’s dream but the rest were either aesthetically pleasing enough or easily hidden.

  Little pieces of carapace that continued to become more numerous, antennae she hid under her bangs, insectoid wings that folded neatly into her back and the fangs that made her smile glint with just a little extra teeth… All of them creeping in slowly throughout her childhood and teenage years.

  It was fairly uncommon for the awakened to go through physical changes but it had happened before. She did think hers were excessive. Despite that she couldn’t exactly say she hated the idea any more, as resistant as she was at first. It gave her superpowers. Better it made her a hero, one aptly named spinneret for her ability to both make costumes and arrests. She didn’t even have to know much about fashion to do it. Her ability to make small changes to the silk she produced meant she just had to make it already to the client’s specifications. If she got it wrong she could just make another. Failed batches went to her parents as quality spare clothes or homeless shelters they knew if the two of them didn’t need it.

  Her arrests meanwhile were a little more in question. As an honourary Noblesse only recently inducted into the system she was given all the grunt work jobs. She reported to a knight superior and hers just happened to be a spartan one.

  She would have to report her changes right away which meant she should probably check out what features she actually gained this time. She opened her eyes. Many, many eyes. Somehow the 48 points of view she was currently seeing from didn’t disorient her in the slightest and being able to see 360 degrees out of them all didn’t seem to change that much.

  Weirdly, they were all rather high off the ground. She ignored that for now and began to test what these new eyes could do, focussing on various points in the distance. The hero tower was the first. She zoomed in on a singur window where she saw a singur office drone standing from his desk and staring out the window. His mouth was open and she zoomed in further. Far enough that she could see the pque on his teeth and the slight damage to his gums. Then she heard him mutter “What is that?” to himself.

  Wait… She heard him from this distance? That was another change so she guessed her ears had also changed, she’d have to look in the mirror for that one. She used one of her many points of view to find her mirror and finally realised. She wasn’t in her house.

  In fact as far as she could tell there was no building surrounding her at all. That was when she heard more. Screams, panic shouts of “vilin attack!” or “Is that a monster?!” were echoing out around her in all directions and her training taught her to use this new vision to find the threat. Even if she wasn’t totally ready to accept this yet.

  She found the people running fairly quickly. They were all running away from her direction but she couldn’t pinpoint where the source was around her. Even with 360 degree vision she couldn’t see a threat.

  Concerned about an invisible enemy she began spinning webs and shooting them around the nearby buildings in a vaguely deliberate pattern. That was faster too. Actually they looked a little different and a lot thicker than they used to be but she pced that aside for now and searched for this threat people were facing. She wasn’t fully combat trained yet and her body had gone through some changes. Thankfully her body always adapted to these changes immediately and it was only her mind that had to keep up. So she wasn’t disoriented by her new vision but it’d take some finesse to know how much attention to pay for each point of view.

  As she readied herself for combat despite still not seeing any enemy she decided now was a good time to figure out where she was. She finally paid attention to more than the people in her vision. Like why on Earth was she so high off the ground, where was her house and what kind of monstrous feature had she adopted this time.

  Her new point of view let her look at herself and… What she saw caused a scream to finally rip itself free. Her mouth(which she could now see had rge fangs, a mosquito needle and was drooping from her OVAL shaped head) meant what would have been a scream if she were human now sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Actually it was more like a high pitched chitter which would make sense since she had a GIANT BLOODY SPIDER BODY. An abdomen that she could only compare with nearby buildings in terms of size. Attached to it’s back were her usual insectoid wings except now the SIXTEEN pairs certainly wouldn’t fold neatly into a human spine. They were all different, like she’d taken one from each kind of bug. Instead of folding into her spine now they were covered by an admittedly pretty fan like you might find on a peacock or more accurately in this case, something you might see on deep water fish. Particurly simir due to it’s bioluminescent shine.

  Unfortunately the pretty colours didn’t distract her for long because she noticed spider-like legs she was skittering along on, all 40 pairs of them. No wonder she was so far off the ground. Ew, she was covered in tiny hairs and now that she noticed them she realised what they were for. Spiders had an acute tremor sense. Apparently she had one now as well, along with what she thought was a sense for both magnetism and electricity, though she’d never felt those before so who knew?

  Returning to the abdomen, she still had her spinneret though obviously it was much rger now and the rat tails were still connected there. Wait… tails… Sure, she can have 9 rat tails it wasn’t like there was any point even pretending her biology was human any more. At least she was still female. The most dread she had ever felt however came from how she confirmed that fact because her many viewpoints now focussed on the underside of her building-sized abdomen. She had egg sacs. They were even exposed to the open air for everyone to see and they looked.. active. In fact she could feel them against her abdomen, ready for release at her will and strangely insistent she do so. Was she pregnant? Just… How?

  It was all too much. Forget trying to hide her monstrous features, she couldn’t even pretend to be human any more. What would her parents think if they saw her now?! She almost looked like a camity with the giant spider-like body, rge fangs, mosquito needles, egg sacs. Forget her parents what would the average person think… Suddenly her thoughts came to a halt.

  That was why people were running wasn’t it? There wasn’t some undefined threat that could go invisible to the point even her new eyes(that could apparently see most of the light spectrum) couldn’t detect. It was her. People were running away from her because when a spider the size of the hero building appears in the middle of the city and starts chittering while throwing webs around you get out of there quick. Sapient or not she still looked like a camity and could crush someone underfoot by accident.

  Realising this, Aria stopped filing about and began moving slowly, trying to be careful not to step on any buildings or civilians. Surprisingly easy with her enhanced vision. For now she needed to get out of the city, maybe get a message to her parents or superior. Tell them about her situation while she figured out what to do.

  As she began moving however she heard a loud voice from some sort of speaker. “Everyone please remain calm. Begin evacuating the city with assigned personnel, you will recognise them by the big H on their uniform. Please do not interfere with the Noblesse in action. If you spot a hero in need of assistance, do not begin providing it yourself. Please inform nearby personnel and they will reward you generously….” So the pre-recorded announcement continued. She recognised it of course, both from her own training to become a hero but also from her csses at school.

  That meant a full evacuation of the city was in progress and heroes would be arriving on the scene shortly to deal with an emergency. Except there was no real emergency. Or rather she was the only threat they could be talking about and heroes were going to come and subjugate her?! She hadn’t even done anything, weren’t the Noblesse supposed to guide the newly awakened?

  She moved with a lot more haste now. Still careful not to squish anyone but as fast as her new limbs could keep up with her precise directions on where to put them. She wasn’t sure anyone would dismiss this if a full evacuation was underway. It’s all very well and good to say she didn’t want to harm anyone but when she caused the entire city to be abandoned by existing they couldn’t let her get away with a sp on the wrist for that. No matter how unfair it was.

  Everyone else seemed to recognise the warning as well. Plenty of vilin attacks meant people had plenty of practice fleeing and the smart ones had already begun doing so the moment someone came running towards them. The less world-wise were now streaming out of their homes. The pre-recorded announcement wasn’t the only one either, official personnel were a little more frantic but repeating the same message.

  “Everyone, attention! A city-wide evacuation is in progress, remain calm and form orderly lines as you follow personnel under the command of the Noblesse. Our noble saviours are on their way. Do not stop, do not engage the threat, do not endanger yourself to help fallen Noblesse. Remain clear of any personnel currently engaged in combat!” Screamed a man with an H on his uniform. Then there were the civilians. “The Noblesse will save us don’t worry.” Some could be heard saying while others were praying the camity would not focus it’s attention on them.

  Aria had been in the first camp herself. Hope and prayer didn’t get you anywhere but waiting for the Noblesse to arrive so they could deal with the situation was the more practical approach. Until they got there though you were on your own. She suddenly thought of her parents, would they be evacuating as well or would the Noblesse realise she was missing by talking to them? No, she could think about that ter.

  Right now she focussed on avoiding the heavily trafficked areas and hopefully minimising the risk of casualties. She didn’t want to be the reason anyone had to fear. A little evacuation drill might be ok, but if she actually stood on someone by accident she’d never forgive herself.

  Thankfully Aria had lived in London all her life and knew her way around fairly well including the evacuation routes. It was a little more difficult to navigate now that she was looking down at the city streets. Her size also meant she couldn’t exactly fit through back alleys any more but she could stick a leg in one and another somewhere else. With a bit of finesse she could make it out of the city without stomping on anyone fleeing. After that… The only pce she could think of was an old camping ground her dad had taken her to that shut down after a vilin took the pce over.

  Heading towards a vilin wasn’t a great idea but she doubted even that notorious criminal would want to mess with her when she was the size of several buildings put together. Also was she still growing? Yeah, even bck queen wouldn’t want to mess with her right now no matter how close she might be to a hideout. Her legs continued to find gaps in pedestrians and traffic. Over a bus, beside the child, away from the injured mother… wait what? She paused and looked over.

  A mother was telling her child to run as she watched helplessly, stuck under a wooden pilr that seemed to have dropped from some construction above. The child was refusing to budge. Well she doubted it would help her case but she couldn’t leave them like that if it was mostly her fault.

  Firing a quick web at the pilr she tried just lifting it with her abdomen. She was bigger now surely that meant she was stronger? Apparently so as even the slightest twitch of her abdomen sent the wooden pilr flying into the air where she had to web it to nearby buildings so it didn’t fall on anyone again. Property damage wasn’t great but civilian casualties were always worse. Seeing the mother free she was satisfied for now and continued moving out of the city, or tried to. No good deed goes unpunished.

  Someone had seen her. A baron by the looks of him, coming to investigate the situation in his hero gear. He wore a set of full pte that shone a dull gold. The cape that marked him as a baron was a deep blue and shone with a small amount of inset gemstones.

  The full pte meanwhile didn’t seem to be a costume and more of a power. Instead Aria’s new eyes could see underneath it. He was actually wearing a skin-tight suit under the pte armour and it looked fairly high tech. He was rushing over towards her, sword in hand and shield on his back. He paused however when he saw her save the mother and his eyes began roaming to where she had pced her legs to not harm any civilians. Seeing this, Aria realised she had a chance.

  This man would normally be her boss’ boss and deserving of respect. He likely patrolled the entire district if not governed it. Knowing this Aria attempted to adopt a formal speaking tone only to have chitters come out of her mouth rather than words.

  “Did it save the mother? It’s not hurting anyone and I think that was even an attempt at communication. Is this thing intelligent?” Aria’s new, much keener ears heard him mutter to himself. She was right, Baron Gareth Faulkner had noticed that this newly spawned camity still had at least a semblence of intelligence. He had to ask himself if that meant the creature was sapient and could be reasoned with. At that moment one of his eager knight level heroes charged the creature.

  Aria saw him coming from a mile away but didn’t really know what to do. Her webbing had been non-lethal at least. So she fired a spray at the man, sending him smming into a nearby building and remaining stuck there.

  Gareth once again noticed the restraint employed by the creature but his knight’s bravery had reminded him of his duty. He still had doubts and his bde had stilled. It was not as though he could have a leisurely conversation with a beast in the midst of an attack on the capital. Retrained or not he had his orders. This was a strange camity and it’s restraint would stay his sword if he did not firm his resolve. To do so he shouted. “No matter. I have been ordered to dey the camity until the arrival of the king and his Dukes, I shall not disappoint His Noble Majesty. I, Baron Gareth Faulkner, will ensure this threat to humanity is sin!” He decred with resolve.

  What little hope Aria had died with that decration. Whether she wanted to fight or not wouldn’t matter if the King had given his orders. Her wings fred instinctively even if she was still hesitating on the inside. That pull from the egg sac was stronger now as well. She wouldn’t have to deal with this if she just had a swarm at her beck and call, like any good hive queen should.

  Aligory