In the dream, the Queen of Spiders sneaks up from behind you and sinks her fangs into your neck.
Your Gem is missing. Your power does not answer your call. But the venom in her bite fills you with indescribable heat and desire, and you don’t care.
It bothers you when you wake, however. You do not speak of it with the other two when you next assemble to fight her loathsome minions.
With beams of light you banish their darkness together. No need to dwell on meaningless dreams when the world needs protecting from evil.
The next night, she takes you again.
Her venom pours inside you, and in the dream you lose yourself. She kisses you, and you do not resist. The fire in your veins erodes such resistance, and you give yourself to her in ways that make you blush to remember in the morning.
The next day her minions attack again. You fight with greater ferocity than ever, as though trying to prove to yourself that a dream is just a dream.
You hope you can take the fight to her soon. Surely ending this conflict will restore peace to your nights.
Again at night your dream conjures the image of your great enemy. Again you experience the sting of her fangs and the rush of pleasure that her venom and her hands and her tongue bring.
At least when you wake you are more refreshed than a night of real lust would’ve provided.
When the leader of your trio summons you again the next day to face yet another battle, you notice she is in far worse shape.
The daily fighting has clearly been getting to her. She looks exhausted, but she refuses to rest. She always has been the most dedicated of you.
That night you return to your lonely apartment looking forward to your dreams. After all, what harm is there in indulging in such a fantasy, even if it is one featuring your enemy?
With an eager smile, you expose your neck to her fangs and spread your legs for her fingers.
Each day the three of you face down the agents She sends. Each night Her venom burns hotter in your dreams.
Your leader runs herself ragged, and she refuses to let the two of you take over for her so that she can recover. She looks more exhausted every day.
She confides in the two of you—not as Starlight Jewels, but as friends—that her nights have been haunted with a fraught sleeplessness. She declines to elaborate, but as you make eye contact with the other Jewel you start to wonder if your dreams are more than dreams.
It occurs to you that you should try to resist or question the Spider Queen when She appears to you again that night.
Yet your resolve evaporates when you close your eyes, drift gently to sleep, and find Her waiting for you as usual. You veins ache with a thirst for venom.
The others would understand if you explain how good it feels, surely. It’s like you have been building a reverse tolerance to it, and every night She bites, the dream venom screams through you, burning with greater and greater intensity.
Her sweet agony is irresistible.
When you wake, you still feel a lingering tingle of sparks inside you. You silence your noisy phone and slip a hand between your legs, filled with heat and a need to answer the cloud of desire filling your morning.
You miss the call to action and show up late to the fight.
Your dramatic entrance turns the tide of battle in favor of your allies, but afterward your leader chews you out for missing her phone call.
You roll your eyes and tune her out. She’s just jealous that you know how to relax sometimes and recharge while she does not.
When at last the Spider Queen confronts you directly, the palpable sense of relief from your trio feels like a far cry from the defiant heroism of past battles.
You call upon the power of your Gem, and unlike in your dreams, it does not fail to answer your call this time.
But She still knows how to disarm you, doesn’t She?
The Spider Queen smiles, baring her fangs, and the dream venom in your mind awakens. You never truly left it behind each morning, did you?
That’s why you’ve felt more vulnerable to its effects each time—dream venom accumulating in your mind a little more with each bite, going dormant when you awaken, but never fading.
As your Gem answers your call, so does Her venom within you answer Her call.
Heat floods your skin. Desire burns within your body.
Your Gem darkens, and the magically-charged dress it summons transforms itself across your body to match, trading pastel shades for darker, richer tones accented with deep black lace.
Your “leader” has her back to you.
She does not notice the change, and she yelps in surprise when you answer the Spider Queen’s unspoken command—delivered through wordless compulsion vibrating through Her venom—to take her.
You never resisted Her at night. You do not resist Her now.
With one hand you grip the pure-hearted heroine’s arm while the other wraps around her throat.
Your friend—similarly transformed into a dark beauty to match you—locks down her other arm and takes the Shining Wand.
It looks like only one of you resisted Her dream invasions.
You suppose that’s why she was always so tired lately. The poor woman had no idea how good it felt to give in. She spent each night fighting off the pleasure of Her venom, and all for what?
Silly thing. It’s good that she has friends willing to help her loosen up.
You make use of Her gifts, plunging sharp new fangs into the side of your former leader’s pretty little neck while her other friend mirrors you, giving the beautiful heroine a double dose of exactly the thing she so foolishly tried to avoid night after night.
She trembles in your grasp. Your lips feel the heat bloom under her skin, and still you pour more venom into your dear friend.
Her knees buckle, and she collapses to the ground, her clothing already turning rich scarlet, the venom’s work accelerated in Her Glorious Presence.
She moans in pleasure, and when the last of the Starlight Jewels turns her eyes to look up in proper worship at your Mistress, the Spider Queen, you shiver in anticipation at the hunger in Her eyes directed at all three of you.