Our New Night ((Nathaniel X Reader))

Prologue

The glistening moon shimmered with a strange blue hue. The calm of the night and the scattered beauty of the stars were torn apart by the violent clash of blades, sparks leaping across the earth.
I stumbled backward, lungs burning as I shot a desperate glance at my partner. "She's stronger this time!"
We had clashed with July so many times before, but something was different this time around. Every swipe I took with my kama fang blades seemed to slide right off, as if she was coated by an invisible shield. I hit, but nothing truly struck!

My partner let out a heavy sigh, her cape trailing behind her like a shadow. Samantha, or Lumen, when she wore the mask, had been by my side since childhood. On the battlefield, there was no one I trusted more with my life. Lumen thought for a moment, her long, brown hair sweeping around her body. Suddenly, she perked up and looked my way,
"Nyx, I'm going to try to blind her. Distract Arachnophobia so I can get close enough for it to be potent. Once she's stunned, get the object. You see it, don't you?"

Did I? Lumen was better at picking things up than I was. That's why she was the leader among us. July was an beginner Arachnologist, which was someone who studied spiders. Every time a spider of hers passed away, she crumbled like this.
In most cities, she could've had a healthy cry for them and a talk with her support group, but this wasn't most cities. When something bad happened, people didn't have the luxury to cry in peace anymore. Grief had no safe place.

But that's why we were here.

Well, not us, specifically. Heroes. Lumen and I were just one piece of a larger system protecting the city when things like this happened, and July turning into the villain of Arachnophobia was something that was simply a regular occurrence. That meant I should've had an easy time pinpointing what I was supposed to target, but I just wasn't seeing it!
Her eight legs held up a rounded body, and I took in the features carefully,
"There's no clear venom sack this time like with the Yellow Sac," I finally fired back, "She still venomous?"
"Yeah," Lumen nodded, lowering down into a thoughtful defensive position, "Stay on your toes, Nyx. She never turns into a non-venomous one. What are you thinking?"
That was a good question. The only way to fight Arachniphobia safely was to identify her spider type. If we knew the behavior of her species, we could avoid the venom and turn her good again. I wasn't exactly a spider expert here, though!
I gripped my fang blades so tightly my knuckles ached. I stared her down, and she did the same. Why wasn't she attacking? She kept defending when we attacked her, but she never attacked back.
Why?

Suddenly, it clicked. I might not know the species, but if I could spot the pattern in her behavior, Lumen could figure out the rest.
"She's not an aggressive attacker this time. Her shield doesn't let us hit her head on either. It's like she's waiting for something."
"Web catching..."
Lumen quickly began scanning the area with her keen vision. Her kwami of the dragonfly gave her specialized vision that I couldn't see, so all I could do was wait until she finished careful investigation and blinked, turning her attention back to me,
"You're right. It's all around us already, but the threads are too thin to see unless you're looking for it. We're inside a funnel."
"A funnel?"
Funnel webs weren't rare, but for one this massive to go unnoticed? We must have been lucky—one wrong step and we would have been caught.
"Atrax robustus!" My partner suddenly declared, "She's an Atrax robustus! Don't get close anymore! We've been lucky not to trigger the web yet, but we need to revise our plan. I'll go in instead."
She was always like this, throwing herself into danger to shield me. Leader or not, I could handle myself too!
"I can help, you know! You expect me to just sit back while you do all the work?"

Lumen reached behind her winged cape and drew her lantern staff. It always looked like an oversized glowstick to me, but when she powered up, it blazed like a star. Perfect for blinding foes, and thankfully, my echolocation cut right through the glare.
She glanced over her shoulder, flashing me a teasing half-smile,
"I can see the webs, dork. But I do need your help. Use your echo blast when I get close. You need to vibrate the web for me. It'll confuse our girl here and give me an opening to grab it."
I still had no idea what 'it' was, but if Lumen saw it, that was enough. I nodded, dropped into a defensive stance, and prepared my power. My echo blast usually stunned with a piercing scream, but against a web, the sound would ripple through every thread.