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Chapter Text

HENDERSON BALLET, CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN, NYC

“One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four…”

The ballet class of six (seven if you count the instructor) sweltered in the cramped dance studio. The AC unit has totaled and while repairs are being made, it would have taken three more days to fix.

The last two classes have been held under considerable agony from the July heat. The current instructor, blonde and imperious, was not letting up.

“Stop!” The instructor’s sharp voice echoed across the walls. “Your foot placement was incorrect. We have gone over this how many times now? Again.”

“Hernandez, your knee isn’t straight. How many more times do I have to tell you?” She barks. “Again!”

“Jennings, don’t you cheat. I can see you hanging your leg on the railing. Again!”

Again and again, the students sweat, growl, and toil under her watchful eye.

“Alright, that will be all for today. You’re free to go.” 

The rushing patter of feet towards the door followed. The blonde woman did not blame them.

“Chloé, don’t you think you’re being way too hard on them?”

Chloé still preferred to be called the second part of her first name, which was once her first name. It was Lisa Hamer, the resident choreographer. A promising dancer whose career was cut short by injury, forcing her to give up a budding career in one of the country’s biggest ballet companies to, in her own words, “teach ballet to the poor kids of her neighborhood”. The Frenchwoman felt sorry for her.

“What did they expect from a French ballet education?” She idly remembered how excited the students were at first when they found out she was French.

“Still, you’re running them ragged.” Lisa says. “There won’t be much left of them when I actually teach them the actual dances.”

“If these kids are gonna do ballet, they don’t have the luxury to do it for fun,” Chloé’s response came out colder than she intended. “If ballet is the path they chose to get out of their situation, they ought to do better. I expect it from them.” 

They part ways. She was not an avid conversationalist. Not anymore.

The dance studio was a 30 minute walk from her shabby Bed-Stuy apartment. It was only after moving out did Chloé realize how bike-averse New York was. It was car everything. The walk home, and the subsequent climb up four flights of stairs drains her considerably.

Fresh out of the shower, only after drying her body and hair did Jeanne-Chloé Roques fall head first into the pillow, already passing out. She slept badly that night.

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She stares out of the window the next day, bone-tired. Sleep has not come easily these past few nights. Having lived on the streets for over a year, Chloé knew firsthand normalcy was not something easily frequent, much less maintained. Ballet class was not due again for another day. The blonde woman groaned. Ballet was one of the few things keeping her mind off of her miserable situation.

It had been 7 years since she lost everything and 4 years since she told her mother to go fuck herself. 

She had long decided it was better to not think about whether it was something she would come to regret.

A trip to the local Starbucks did not give her peace. New York is the jewel of America, a concrete jungle built on slums, she realizes. Paris, at least, had the idea of keeping the slums out of sight, in the outskirts of the city. It was a scheme that long preceded her father’s tenure as Mayor.

Chloé thought about her mother. She could just go back to the Ritz Carlton, just a bridge and two neighborhoods away, fall to her knees and beg for forgiveness, and accept going back into the gilded cage her mother had her in those three years. The thought was sometimes overpowering, even in her worst moments. But she persevered. To make certain of her separation, Chloé even changed her name: Jeanne-Chloé Roques, severing all ties with her old life.

There are times she thinks she got lucky.

The clamor woke her up, as it did the poorfolk reclining next to her.

“Cops!” Screamed one tramp. “Cops are here!”

True to his word, the NYPD had sniffed out their current encampment and were in the process of clearing them out. The barking of K-9 units signaled them closing in. Chloé gritted her teeth. All of New York’s homeless shelters have been filled out for the night. 

She wasn’t going to get hit with the slammer, and get repatriated by her mother like a lost pet, end of story.

Gathering all of her stuff (sans her sleeping bag, it was an acceptable sacrifice), Chloé took off. It wasn’t, however, a clean escape. 

“Hey, STOP RIGHT THERE!”

A pair of cops, noticing her brisk exit, are now on her trail. The blonde’s heart leapt out of her chest as she tried to cut off her pursuers. In her panic, she found herself in a brownstone townhouse, having leapt through the door past a shocked tenant, nearly knocking him over.

After rushing up several staircases did Chloé allow herself to slump bonelessly against the wall, defeated. She can’t run anymore. All her strength has left her. Her mind is a mess. She can’t go on like this why is it all gone so wrong the cops are gonna come up any time now her life is over一

Chloé did not hear the creaking open of a door. “Why don’t you come in?”

It was the first peaceful night she has had in months. Mrs Henderson, a retired ballet choreographer, had offered her refuge that fateful night. Chloé’s own background in ballet shone forth in their conversations, and thus the job offer at the older woman’s little dance studio came. It wasn’t even due to Chloé’s own experience or lack thereof: the shortage of ballet instructors in the area was simply too much. All of this was little over two years ago.

Throughout their talks, Chloé never spoke about who she really was.  

At this point, the French girl was more afraid Mrs Henderson would find out about it anyhow.

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Chloé had to learn how to keep her head down by necessity. 

After a lifetime of having to be on top, having to be the biggest, most recognizable face, it had backfired horribly on her. For the first few months, the buzz was relentless. The tabloid mills with their hordes of paparazzi were working non-stop to catch even the slightest sliver of “news” of Audrey Bourgeois’ dictator-wannabe daughter. All of which further strengthened Audrey's grip on her.

Passing through a neighborhood on the way home 一 one of many she passes en route. She quickly came upon a gaggle of Italian-Americans seated on a front porch chatting and laughing animatedly. The American stereotype of the wiseguy was on full display in all its rank crudeness. Chloé’s only prior exposure to Italians was Lila Rossi (or whatever she goes by now) and even then her constant two-facedness and lying was much more preferable to this.  

Fuck. I should have crossed the street earlier…

She kept her head down and tried to walk past them. 

“Hey beautiful!” One of them called after Chloé, stopping her dead in her tracks. “Yeah, we heard of you. French girl teaching dancing in the hood. Real reverse Emily in Paris shit.”

Another piped up. “Why don’t you come over here and teach us sumthin’ special?” His hands quickly shift into a lewd gesture, whereupon his friends immediately howled in laughter. 

Chloé knew then she was not gonna take this lying down.

“You know, I saw a lot of Americans in Paris back when I was there.” She turned the tables. “You know why no one ever questions why Americans expatriate?”

“Why?” One of them was dumb enough to set himself up. Chloé merely smiled.

“Because you’re either there to teach English or to fuck underaged girls. No inbetween.”

“Motherfucking bitc一” The hoodlums were actually insulted enough to get off their ass. Chloé was gearing up 50-yard dash out of there when she was distracted by the door opening behind the goons.

“Ey! What’s going on ‘ere?”

The voice belonged to a man nearing 30, rudely handsome in looks. His hair was licked back. A dark suit jacket over a bright red dress shirt and black pants was his ensemble.  

“Oh hey Joe,” One of the goons replied. “Was about to give this frog-eating slag a piece of our mind.” Chloé frowns. What a quick turnaround from the catcalls.

The man, Joe, to his credit, did not look amused. “Get your ass inside,” He all but ordered. “That means all of you. You got work.”

Grumbling, not before throwing dirty glares towards Chloé’s direction.

“Miss Bourgeois,” greeted Joe. “Glad to see you’ve come by my workplace.”

Chloé stills. “Who are you and why the fuck do you know who I am?”

“Joseph Furio, at your service,” The man mockingly bowed. “To answer your question, I learned of you from your mother, Miss Bourgeois. She’s asked my boss to ‘keep an eye’ on you. I’m just the guy he assigned to the job.”

Chloé scrunches her nose in disgust. “My mother doesn’t associate with… people like you.”

“Everyone associates with everyone in high society, Miss Bourgeois.” Furio seemed to have much thicker skin than his subordinates. “Being a member of high society here… gives you a long arm. Who do you think occupies the front rows of boxing events? VIP booths in concerts? It’s the same for your mother’s fashion shows. It’s the courtesies we show to one another… this one’s no different.” 

Chloé silently takes in the information. It seemed her mother’s claws were around the city itself, still threatening to clamp around her at any moment's notice. But Chloé isn’t known for capitulating easily. “Then you tell my mother I’ll say the same thing to her as the last time.”

“Which is?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Furio has the gall to smile at that. “Loud and clear.” He turns on his heel to depart, not before throwing her a self-satisfied smirk. “See you around, miss.”

Chloé was left on the sidewalk, flabbergasted. This was such a nauseating surprise that she didn’t even have the energy to properly process what she had learned. She stomps off, mood brought down.

In her peripheral vision, Chloé sees a pawn shop. Nothing spe一

*THUM* 

A strange pulse washes over Chloé, like a sudden chill. Something she hasn’t felt… since…

No…

It can’t be. She left that life behind.

Still, the sensation persisted. A pull. A tug. Something was drawing Chloé to the pawn shop that was beyond all reason.

The same thing that brought her and Pollen together…

Absent-mindedly, she crosses the street and enters the establishment.

Items galore, of all shapes and sizes, gather haphazardly on all the shelves. The blonde idly wonders what even drew her here in the first place.

It was when her eyes locked in on it.

A hematite ring. 

The kind of luck-granting charm that is mostly associated with hippies and spiritualists, packed in paper packaging. A cheap, useless trinket to the eyes of many, but to Chloé it was humming, almost vibrating, with a strange, barely perceptible energy. She couldn’t look away from it, as if in a trance.

“How much is it?”

“A dollar. Real cheap.”

The decision was quickly made. Paying for the ring, Chloé shoved it rather roughly in her purse and shuffled out. She couldn’t have walked any faster.

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Finally home , thinks Chloé, as she opens the door to her apartment. It was a gulf of difference from the first-class imperial suite she once lived in at the Le Grand Paris. At least the door isn’t stuck anymore.

She makes her way to the mirror of her bathroom. Leaning on the sink, she takes in her appearance. 

In the years succeeding her exile from Paris, she had grown a foot and a half taller rather gracefully into a woman, but the positives end there. No more expensive beauty treatments and spa days. Her hair was stringy and all bangs. Hamer once said to her (jokingly) that she resembled hippie Jenny from Forrest Gump, and now she cannot help but agree. Life on the streets was wearing Chloé down and the rings around her eyes are proof of that. Sometimes she would put on mascara just to watch her tears make ugly dark tracks on her cheeks.

Chloé is tired. 

This is the real her now. Struggling to stay afloat.

Suffering builds character suffering builds character suffering builds character suffering builds character suffering builds character suffering builds character suffering builds character一

It does nothing for her.

Chloé lies down on the bed. She would want nothing more than to sleep. Her eyes slowly close一

“Put me on.”

一only to snap open.

Whatever - whoever - that was, it was loud. Loud enough for her to almost tumble out of her bed.

The blonde woman stares. Stares at the infernal trinket that she knew not what possessed her to buy. It seemed to stare back at her, as if it had eyes of its own.

“Let me out.”

Chloé’s eyes enlarge in fear. The ring was what she had suspected it had been. 

A Miraculous.

If it’s really a Miraculous, why isn’t the Kwami showing itself? Why is it speaking from within the ring like some cursed prisoner? What Miraculous is this anyways? It wasn’t a part of Ladybug’s collection.

It made no sense. None of this made any sense.

But it didn’t stop Chloé from tearing the paper box open. Now, the ring sits in the palm of her hand, as if waiting一

“Put me on.”

Chloé is losing control. Her breathing, her heartbeat… everything. This isn’t Ladybug, her former object of admiration, offering her the Bee Miraculous for her to fulfill her dreams as a superhero. This is the path to hell, on which her own past good intentions are still there, open and waiting.

She picks up the ring anyways, the hematite circle just barely hanging near her left middle finger.

“What’s in it for me?” 

The words tumbled out of her but she pushed on.

“I know what you want me to do but…” Stumbles Chloé. “I have to know… if there’s more to this than just you telling me to put you on and suddenly everything might go right? 

“I didn’t suffer for 7 years - SEVEN YEARS! - for things to change so quickly, like nothing even happened! What if this isn’t real!? What if this is all in my head?!”

“WHY NOW?” Tears are streaming down her face. “What am I getting out of this?!”

Chloé heard it immediately: a garbled near-chuckle crawled across her chilled spine like a death rictus, dancing between amusement and mockery.

“You’ll see.”

There was no choice left, was there?

Chloé slips on the ring.

Chapter Text

For a moment, Chloé’s field of vision was flooded by black. Clawing at her face, she thought had gone blind. The inky darkness blocking her sight soon coalesced into a small hovering before taking a form very familiar to Chloé.

The creature before her was indeed a Kwami. Swathed in black from top to toe, six insectoid wings sprouting from its back. Its eyes seemed more like lenses, crowned by two thin, horn-like antennae amongst long, unkempt dark hair, all of it on an oversized head attached to a cartoonishly undersized body. On the chin of its oversized head are two hornet’s mandibles under a mouth of jagged teeth. 

For a second, Chloé felt a pang of familiarity.

Her suspicions were there after she made the spontaneous purchase of the hematite ring. But her numerous experiences with Miraculouses and their users proved otherwise.

But even then, this was uncharted territory. This wasn’t sweet, adorable Pollen calling her “my queen”.

This was something from the deep dark unknown, that Chloé may have inadvertently awakened.

“Ah… ” The Kwami’s voice seemed to reverberate across the small apartment. “ AT LAST! SHATHRA IS FREE! DAMN YOU SPIDERS! DAMN YOU WHO IMPRISONED ME HERE!” 

Chloé was taken aback by the exuberant display. Relieved would be an understatement for the Kwami, to be released from her ring after so long, as it would seem.

They finally lock eyes.

“I am Shathra, goddess of aggression and wasps!” The Kwami was still too high in its victory lap to fully voice its condescension. “You should be honored to be in my presence!”

Chloé cringes. The Kwami sounded too much like past her for her comfort.

“Never seen a Kwami call itself a god before.” She observes.

The Kwami’s lens-like eyes scrunch in confusion. “A… what?”

“You… don’t know what a Kwami is?” The confusion was returned in kind. “That’s what you are.”

“Why should I?” The same haughtiness resumed. “And why in the name of Oshtur am I bound to a piece of jewelry?”

“Oh, the ring? That’s a Miraculous.” Chloé remarks. 

The haughty voice of the Kwami twists into confusion. “A… what?”

“Seriously?” Chloé returns the confusion in kind. “You don’t know what a Kwami is?”

“How should I know?”

The blonde narrows her eyes in incredulity. The ensuing uncertainty was getting on her nerves. It needs to be nipped in the bud. “Do you need to look in a mirror? There’s one in the bathroom over there.”

Looking at the human disbelievingly for several seconds, Shathra quickly relents as she floats into the bathroom. 

An ear-piercing wail erupting from said bathroom was indication that Chloé’s hunch was right.  Rising to her feet, she enters the bathroom to see the Kwami dashing about in shock at her appearance.

“Oh, no, no, no, no… ” The Kwami rages, holding her head in her tiny paws. “ My godly form… this can’t be!?”

“You mean you didn’t look like this originally?”

“Of course not! I was taller! More fearsome! I once brought the Spider-Verse low with nothing but my power!” The statement did not escape Chloé’s notice. “And now, I’m this helpless, diminutive creature… this…”

“Kwami.”

“YES!”

The room fell into an awkward silence. Shathra seemed to deflate after her outburst, while Chloé’s curiosity grew greater with every passing minute. Wordlessly, they followed each other to the blonde’s bed.

“So…” The silence was broken first by Chloé. “You’re not exactly… from this… universe, did I get that right?”

“No... I arrived here at this universe by chance, forcibly banished by my enemies through space and time, ” recounted the once-goddess. “ When I arrived at this universe, I saw it explode in a brilliant white light… then I was caught in it.”

Chloé was taken aback. She knew exactly what Shathra was referring to. “The universe… exploded?! But I’m still here… The world is still here!”

“I was getting to that!” Shathra interrupts her. “When I opened my eyes again, I found myself in a ring-making factory, trapped in one of the manufactured rings. I could not move, nor could any living creature hear my voice, even after I was shipped to that pawn shop…” The now-Kwami stops short. “...until you found me. You heard my voice.”

“What?” 

“Seven long years I spent inside that pawn shop... No matter how much I screamed or rage, no customer would hear me… none would even look in my direction… until you came.” The Frenchwoman saw something almost akin to genuine gratitude in the once-goddess’ len-eyes. “Now it seems that the form I took after regenerating is that of what you call a Kwami…”

Chloé sat silently as she took in the information. Not only did Shathra all but confirm what she saw and felt all those years ago was true… the goddess even experienced it herself, firsthand. Whatever it was… 

“You said this happened about 7 years ago, right?” Chloé slowly poses her question.

“Yes?”

“7 years ago, I was on a transatlantic flight with my mother. It was then I saw it,” Chloé shuddered as she recalled it. “A bright light. It engulfed the plane, everyone in it, then me ,” Her hands clenched on the bed sheets. “It all happened so quickly, but I still remember it, as clear as day. It might have just lasted for a second or two, but I felt myself, my entire being slowly being reduced to nothingness. And then I was back there, on the plane, screaming my lungs out. Everyone in the plane, turns out, didn’t see anything, didn’t remember anything. No one, but me.”

Blue eyes drift down in shame. “Some of my nightmares since then are just that. Just a void of sheer brightness. For so long, I thought what I saw was a hallucination… but it was real. The destruction of the universe…”

Shathra, listening intently, could not help but be impressed. “It seems that you are more special than you give yourself credit for, human. So, what now?”

Chloé hesitated. Had this been her 15 year old self, she would have not hesitated on using Shathra for revenge against Ladybug and Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Her past life is no more. Yet, Chloé’s childhood dream never faded.

“You said that you are not native to this universe, right,” she began. “I would like to make a deal with you, Shathra.”

“I’m listening.”

“I teach you about this world, Kwamis and the Miraculous,” Chloé proposed.

“In return?”

“You teach me how to be you.”

“I sure hope you’re not getting more than what you bargained for, human,” The immortal bug-like creature seemed receptive to the deal, at least on the surface. “ By the way, I did not catch your name.”

“Chloé. Chloé Bourgeois.”

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Dance class was over. Thank the heavens above the AC was fixed in time, thought Chloé. It was hellish this past week for her and her students without it. Shathra was patient enough to wait within her purse, but not patient enough to not complain.

Now free of her teaching duties, Chloé found herself walking down the street of her home, past her apartment to her present destination. It was near midnight, and the flickering lights shone a path for Chloé through the city’s empty, mostly ignored streets. Situated in an abandoned block, the building itself was old and broken down from the outside, but she long knew better. Quickly locating an old, rundown service elevator, the blonde dancer quickly entered as she pressed the 9th floor button.

“Where are we?” Asks Shathra, still nestled within Chloé’s purse.

“This used to be an old dance studio but it got closed down 10 years ago. I found it several months back,” Chloé smoothly replied as the ding of the elevator signaled their arrival. “Here we are!” 

The two went down a ruined corridor. Quickly locating a doorless entrance, they stepped in. It seemed cleaner than the building it is located in as a whole. A cot and a stool lay in the corner, unused.

Sweeping the dust off the cot, Chloé sat down on it, taking in the abandoned studio. She had not been here for a long time. The mirrors remained intact and so were the barres, with the sprung hardwood boards relatively tidy, only gathering dust from her absence. Outside, the full moonlight shines through its windows, illuminating the studio.

“Human, ” prodded Shathra, who floated out of the girl’s purse. Chloé only now noticed how eerie the Kwami’s lens-eyes glowed ominously in the dark. “ I thought we were here for a purpose.”

“Oh, yes. Right,” Chloé fidgets. “What do you need to know?”

“Everything. Miraculouses, Kwamis… ” Shathra seemed contemplative. “ You spoke of them with such familiarity. I must know more. Leave nothing out.”

“So, uh… basically…” 

Chloé began explaining everything the best she can about the Miraculouses and Kwamis that she can. How they are bound to millennia ago, how they are utilized by an ancient order of mages to the present day, to the Kwamis themselves, their individual and shared abilities, and how to activate/deactivate them. It did not escape Shathra’s notice how the girl seemed melancholic when touching on the Kwami she once partnered with - the bee Kwami called Pollen, and somewhat bitter when she touched on certain misadventures with one Ladybug.

“I see… These ‘Kwamis’ are basically totems.”

“They’re… what now?”

“Deities that tie humans to animals. The spiritual midpoint between the two. ” Shathra explains. “ It seems that humans in this universe have figured out a way to bind animal totems to these… Miraculouses… to enslave them to their purposes.”

The blonde felt her blood run cold. “Hold on now. ‘Enslaved’ isn’t the word I’d use.”

“What other word is there? ” It came out like a whip crack. “ Partnership? When you can call them to you for their powers, against their will? When you can silence them with a command? Do you think I’m stupid, Chloé Bourgeois?” The former wasp deity then rounds on the holder of her ring, making the blonde step back until her back was against the wall.

“I…” This isn’t happening. “I didn’t一”

“Can you even say you didn’t do this to the bee totem yourself?” 

Chloé’s deafening silence told Shathra everything she needed to know. “You never even gave it a single thought.”

The blonde could only let out a shriek as black wasps, seemingly endless in number, start to spawn from black rifts The insect swarm latch onto her limbs and pin her to the wall by sheer strength of numbers, their slightly bigger summoner floating in the air in front of her victim.

Wasps?! And so many?! Leapt about Chloé’s fearful mind. Is this… her power?!

“You humans are just the same, duplicitous and controlling. Do you really think I would let a wretch like you sample even the smallest taste of my power?! ” Shathra accuses, watching the wasps restrain her would-be prey. “ I could just have my children devour you to the bone right now and none would be wiser. It was a mistake to even think you were my salvation!”

“Y–you can’t!” Chloé shrieked. “Kwamis can't do that!

“Do I look like a normal Kwami to you?”

These horrifying sights would fill others with nothing less than sheer terror as they would wail and beg for their lives. But not Chloé, now filled with a silent realization.

She simply hung her head low, silent tears running down her face. Perhaps she deserves everything that is happening now.

“Maybe… you’re right,” she chokes out. “Maybe I deserve to die here.”

Those words, and the lack of stayed Shathra’s hand, even for a scant moment.

“I was a little monster. I treated everyone around me like trash because of who my parents are… I didn’t realize how lonely I was until Pollen came. She was the key to my dream. But I treated her like a slave. I did all those things you said I did. All because I wanted to hold on to the dream of being a hero!”

“Ladybug gave me a chance, and I ruined it!” The crying slowly comes to a stop. “But maybe, maybe just for once I can stop worrying about who likes me or hates me… I can finally stop being scared that I’m not good enough…”

“Because I’m not.” Chloé’s voice has dulled to barely above a whisper. “I’m no hero.”

Dropping Chloé like a sack of potatoes, Shathra watched the young woman curl into a ball. With a flicker of the paw, she commanded her wasps to recede into the shadows.

“Self-reflection, ” thundered the wasp totem. “ Perhaps there is hope left for you yet. Get up.”

Chloé stumbles to her feet, her eyes unworthy of meeting Shathra’s glowing gaze.

“Allow me to make one thing very clear, child, ” the voice continued, beckoning no rebuke. “ This Miraculous ー this ring ー may have chosen you. But I did not choose you. The power of the wasp has never been held by a human before. If you wish to bear it, you had best prepare for what comes next.”

“W-What… comes next?”

“ For the Great Hive . That’s my transformation phrase.”

Her question unanswered, the young woman stills. Her mouth goes dry. This was her chance to realize her dream. The dream she left behind in Paris.

“Shathra… For the Great Hive.”

Chloé barely caught the smirk that appeared on Shathra’s lips before the black Kwami is sucked back into the hematite ring一

Before black floods her senses whole.

Chloé is immediately floored by the intense magical pressure, the full brunt of it compressing her to the ground in waves. She is on her hands and feet, unable to move, and very nearly, couldn’t breathe.

This wasn’t the pleasant transformation she had with Pollen. The pride and elation that came with emerging from the other side as Queen Bee.

This is raw, untamed, unclaimed power, at its most primeval. 

The wind is forced out of her lungs and perhaps her soul shall be from her body, Chloé thinks. What a wretched way to die. Being unable to withstand a Kwami transformation. How pathetic一

The pressure ceases as Chloé lets the air Under the soft but gleaming moonlight, she sees her hands are black, her arms are black, her everything is black. Dark as night.

Much like Shathra herself一

What comes next… is PAIN.

The sudden, harsh stab of pain forces Chloé as this time, she screams. The back of her ribs seem to be splitting open. As the scream tears itself out of Chloé’s throat, she could feel something unholy force itself through the skin of her back with a wet, sickening squelch. Limbs, muscles and tendons, existing and god forbid, moving where they shouldn’t be, spring free. All the while, Chloé screams. She isn’t even sure her lungs remained intact.

Wings, realizes her horrified conscious mind, lost in pain. Wings of a wasp.

Not even Pollen gave her wings.

The growth grinds to a slow halt, and along with it, the pain. Chloé coughs, her throat sore from the screaming. The pain has shrunken into a dull ache spreading across the whole of her back, where a strange weight can be felt where it was not there before.

Ah. You survived. A surprise, for sure. I thought no human could bear the brunt of the wasp’s power.

“Wーw… what…? WーWho…?”

Don’t be daft. You know who I am.

“ShーShathra… You’reー”

In your head? Yes.

Hands paw at her face, hoping to feel the familiar features of a human face to no avail. The night somehow seemed brighter in her eyes, as if adorned in night vision.

Isn’t this what you want?

“I… You…”

Say no more, and look into the mirror.

What gazed back at Chloé, illuminated by the moonlight, took her breath away. Her statuesque form is clad in form-fitting black from head to toe. Her face, near featureless save the enlarged, glowing lens-eyes that Shathra once bore, is crowned with two long, horn-like antennae amongst long, unkempt dark grey hair and two sharp mandibles on both sides of her chin. Six insectoid-like wings grew from her back, crowning her further, while two black spikes ran down the length of her arm, ending where pale V-patterned stripes adorned the dorsal side of her hands. Such same pale white stripes run across her collarbone area, her hips in a V-shaped pattern, and around both of her wrists and ankles. Shathra's word had proven true: the goddess she once was is now in full display.

Chloé’s throat ran dry as she continued to look on at what she had become.

Isn’t it wonderful? The beauty and the horror?