A Masterpiece is Born

Sinew paced the bottom floor of the factory excitedly; she was finished, she was perfect, but most importantly, she was awake. And who better to be the first to witness her than the goddess who had inspired her in the first place. It was fairly late into the night, but neither beauty nor science cared for the petty borders of time. The second his masterpiece was awake, he had frantically called the Lady Arachna multiple times, leaving frantic voicemails that he had "something of great importance to show her", and "She's awake". Up in the rafters on the roof, she sat, silently waiting for his command to descend.
His pulse was racing, his palms were sweating, the ground beneath him gave like a ship at sea, and the air turned to sand in his lungs. The Rancid Noises had been growing louder and louder lately, but he couldn't take his pills; they stifled his creative potential. As an obvious result, the Rancid Noises, and everything that came with them, were getting more powerful, clawing and hungering inside his skull, lurking in the deep corners of his mind. But now wasn't the time to worry about that. Now was the time to prepare; the Lady Arachna was sure to be arriving soon.

And arrive she would. The factory's door would open suddenly and Arachna's body would slide in sideways like a stealthy, black, half-naked shadow. She was on full alert until she found herself hidden in the confines of the old factory, a location which hadn't even registered as a hint of a blip on the SF's radar yet. She could relax here, or at least let her guard down a bit more than she had on her way here to ensure she wasn't followed or seen coming to this part of the city so late at night.

She let out a long breath to recompose herself before addressing the elephant in the room, that being Sinew standing there in the middle of the room and grinning like an idiot... a really, really insane idiot.

"This had better be good," Arachna started, brushing a bit of nothing from her shoulder as she awaited the big news. "You awakened me from a rather pleasant sleep and I have a class to teach in the morning. That's not to mention the risks of possibly being seen by night prowling heroes that could track my odd night migration to this location."

Sinew bowed slightly; it was customary to bow to royalty. "O-of course, Lady Arachna. But you said you wanted to know as soon as the masterpiece was completed, and..." A great grin spread across his face; one of the lenses of his glasses seemed splattered with blood, adding to his overall demeanor. He looked up and let out a sharp whistle.
From up in the ceiling, a large figure slowly descended, crawling down the walls. The creature was about as tall as a human for the most part, twice as tall at her front, and as long and wide as a van. She could best be described as a sort of centaur, but instead of half man/half horse, she was half man/half spider. Her eight legs were fashioned from various human limbs, about five of them legs, the other three arms. The abdomen was large, lumpy flesh, but the skin was hardened and thickened. The front was a woman's figure from the waist up, void of skin. She gazed down at Arachna, her mouth slightly agape, showing her sharpened fangs, strands of saliva dripping down. Her face, unlike the rest of her, was completely symmetrical, the four eyes perfectly positioned on her face, and bone plating like armor fashioned on the back and top of the skull, and lightly on the sides of her face.
"This..." He whispered, gesturing to her with a trembling, excited finger. "Is Charlotte... She is my first masterpiece." He turned to her, his eyes alight with obsession. "A-as I promised, I fashioned her in your image, Lady Arachna." He approached Charlotte, caressing her powerful body with a blood-stained hand. "Is she not beautiful?"

"Oh my..." Arachna mouthed quietly, her eyes widening in surprise as the rather large arachnoid crawled its way down the wall to approach her master and mistress. Could it really be considered a female? The thought stuck in Arachna's mind. Certainly the creature was made in her image, the skinless human body very roughly sharing her general proportions, making her a bit happy that it wasn't made to be anatomically correct, but that meant it was sexless and thus calling it a 'her' was incorrect. It was just as much an 'it' as all of Sinew's other creations had been.

She blinked the shock from her eyes as the skinless thing stopped to put itself on display for her approval. More than happy to oblige, Arachna raised up on her spider's legs to gain some extra height and strode up to the spidery thing with a wide grin of her own, slowly circling it to get a full view of what was on offer.

"Hah!" she chuckled with amusement as just what had been accomplished began to settle in. "You made yourself a drider in my image! Well... a drider of sorts..." she mused, one of her pointy legs prodding at one of the arms that made up one of the drider's legs. She took her time testing the resilience of what was the spider-thing's carapace. It appeared tough despite being skin and the creature would likely prove even more resilient than Klaus or Baskerville had before it.

"You've outdone yourself this time, Doctor. This is by far your greatest achievement yet," she approved whilst hovering near to the creature's face to get a good look at its features and four human eyes staring back at her. "How does she climb on the wall as she does? Does she speak or is she mute?" He appeared to prefer his creations mute, the only exception that she'd observed thus far being Baskerville which could only make disturbingly human-ish dog sounds, but it was worth asking.

Charlotte opened her mouth and let out several hissing sounds and soft snarls as Lady Arachna prodded her carapace, but Sinew quickly silenced her with a curt command. The Lady Arachna seemed truly interested, impressed with his work; she was even asking on how the design of the art, and Sinew couldn't stop smiling at the thought of his muse being a fellow art lover.
"She climbs from a reprogramming of sweat glands in her feet; when climbing, they go into overdrive, significantly increasing traction on nearly any surface. Unfortunately, she cannot climb on ceilings lest they have support beams, but then it's more of a sloth or primate... As for speaking..." He looked up at Charlotte and swallowed. Charlotte looked back and let out a soft, zombie-like groan. "I-I... I tried... But despite my greatest efforts, I could not make the flesh speak... I can usher a new life force into the flesh, but what was in it before is lost... I-I have yet to figure out how to make them speak like us..." He lowered his head slightly. "But I will find the answer. I just need more flesh. And better flesh.."

Arachna stroked her chin thoughtfully as the spidery thing let out a decidedly unimpressive moan as if it were hungering for brains. Not particularly speech... at all. She considered briefly whether it was a lack of intelligence or merely a lack of ability that meant that Sinew's creations couldn't vocalize. So far she hadn't seen anything that resembled human level intelligence from his creations. Mostly they just followed orders directly and literally on the level of intelligent dogs.

"Better?" she took her attention from the flesh-drider to address Sinew, skittering back from the creation's personal bubble and lowering herself back onto her human feet with her investigation thus concluded. "What sort of better?"

Sinew's gaze shifted up to Lady Arachna; he had dark bags under his eyes and his skin was horribly pale. He hadn't left the factory since he began fashioning Charlotte weeks ago, only stopping to sleep or eat when absolutely necessary. His voice shifted dramatically, from the high-pitched squeaky nervous man to a deeper, cold, analytical tone. "In my time working with so much clay, I've discovered a great deal about the various qualities of it. Klaus was fashioned with the equivalent of play dough, while Baskerville was fashioned from the same sort of clay a student could get at a crafts store. The type of person they were in life determines the quality of clay I can work with... And there is one type of clay that I think would allow for more... versatile... projects..." He stepped towards Lady Arachna. "Power. I've only had the ability to work with typical rabble, uninteresting people. If I could get clay of some people with powers..." He chuckled to himself.

"Hmm..." Arachna took a long moment to think inwardly on Sinew's macabre proposal, even briefly considering killing someone like Hive or Charon to add to the mad doctor's rogue's gallery of monstrosities. It was only a momentary thought though. They were much more useful to her fully alive and capable of cognitive thought. She'd keep them in mind, however, if she ever found them to be dead or deserving of the term. No, for now the doctor's proposal would have to be nothing but a passing fancy.

"Nyet. It simply won't do." She waved her hand dismissively and turned away. "Perhaps as a murder of convenience it will work, but I cannot bring you better materials on a whim. My position as a member of the foundation is much too important to lure heroes to their death. The time will come when our actions bring heroes to play, but not yet. We still must prepare."

There was a moment of mixed frustration and disappointment on Sinew's face, but it quickly faded. "O-of course, Lady Arachna..." He said, his voice shifting back to its nervous tone. "I understand fully..."
Lies. The Rancid Noises whispered.
A skittering sound above the two brought him back to reality. What appeared to be a skull with several spidery legs crawled into the building through the skylight. It quickly descended one of the steel support columns and scuttled up to Sinew's feet; it had a disturbing amount of eyes, several of which seemed to have been ruptured by gunfire. "Galileo!" He exclaimed with a mixture of surprise and nervousness. He knelt down and began cooing the odd creature. "Are you alright? What happened to you?"

The sound of skittering legs attracted Arachna's attention just the same as Sinew's, glancing up to see the insectoid thing climbing down from the skylight to stop at his feet. It appeared that she really was giving him some muse for his projects as this one also carried a heavily arachnid influence to it even if it was simply legs attached to a skull.

"It would appear that your recon wasn't stealthy enough..." Arachna noted casually. "It could likely use some cotton balls on its feet. I heard it coming the moment it entered the building."

He waved his hand dismissively at her statement; he was more focused on the damage the Mapmaker had received. "There, there, Galileo, I'll fix you up..." He scooped up the gargling creature and turned to face her, a hint of pride and excitement in his eyes. "Galileo here is special..." He whispered. "You see. I've recently discovered I can do more than just... create art..." His eyes flicker wickedly. "W-with the Lady Arachna's permission, I would like to show you what else I can do... I-it won't take long, I promise! You won't be kept for much longer, and you'll be able to get home in time to get some more sleep before work."

"Very well," Arachna gave her permission with a curious tilt of her head. She crossed her arms before her... all of her arms, and waited for whatever this show could possibly be to begin. "You may continue, but not much longer... as you said."

Sinew's face twitched with a smile as he slowly raised Galileo onto his head. Galileo slowly lowered himself onto the top of Sinew's head until it looked like the scientist was wearing his creation like a crown; the man's eyes suddenly flared open as he took a sharp gasp, and Galileo let out a guttural screech. Sinew collapsed to the ground, laughing slightly. The spectacle continued for about thirty seconds until Galileo slid off. Sinew chuckled for a moment, the skin on his forehead bleeding from where Galileo's sharp legs were burrowing into his skin. "I-I saw it... The man, the face, the hotel, the map..." His laughter grew slightly. "I saw... EVERYTHING." Charlotte slowly approached Sinew and gingerly lifted him to his feet. "Th-that is what I can do, Lady Arachna... I can assimilate my own mind with them, some of them at least... I see what they saw, remember what they remember..." His voice trailed of as he spoke incoherently to himself for a few moments. "I-I... I have little else for you... I-I... I need rest. It strains me, conversing with Galileo like that..."
Klaus approached Sinew, emerging from his lair beneath the stairs, and Galileo stared up curiously at Lady Arachna. Klaus and Charlotte held eye contact for a moment, and the two seemed to make an arrangement through their speechless connection. Charlotte hoisted the still chuckling doctor over her shoulder, and Klaus walked past Arachna, opening the door and gesturing for her to leave. Klaus had taken to doing this quite frequently in recent days, ushering out Arachna and the Hive alike when he felt his Master needed privacy or silence. Galileo stared up at her for a moment longer before slowly scuttling after Charlotte; it seemed the creature was equally drained from the exchange.

Arachna's brow rose as Galileo rode atop its master's head like a cap before the two had a moment that lead to Sinew collapsing to the ground. Considering the fact that he was laughing, Arachna could assume that this wasn't a heart attack or his body suddenly giving out on him from too much stress. This was apparently what he'd requested she stay and see.

Once he'd finished and was helped to his feet, Arachna nearly requested knowledge on just what he'd seen, but decided better of it. She hadn't hired the man for information gathering as he was far too unpredictable to gather reliable intelligence. Whatever he'd found was likely of little worth to her or her future plans. She'd let him keep it to himself without trying to make sense of whatever claims he may have had.

Thoroughly unimpressed with that final show, Arachna wordlessly turned and walked out without much urging from Klaus as Charlotte carried the doctor off to rest. Judging from his initial appearance he was in dire need of some sleep anyhow so it would do him some good.