She wasn't sure exactly what had woke her up. It must have just been that time; according to the digital clock she saw on the nightstand it was nearly nine in the morning. There was hardly room on the nightstand for it, what with the stacks of books piled six high at least. The nightstand itself was shuffled off into a corner of the room, trapped there by a desk on one side and the bed beneath the window on another. The sheets on the bed had been straightened a little, but the desk was a disaster, piled high with papers and small contraptions and a sleeping laptop.

Continuing her lazy look around the room, her eyes swept over the door and past the closet—sliding doors revealed only half of it, but she saw a white coat hanging inside. The final wall bore a tall bookshelf, crammed to worrying overcapacity with books of varying condition, and a long dresser about the same height as the desk, its surface similarly cluttered with glass bottles and beakers and notes and—

Olivia Osnick finally sat bolt upright as a little more consciousness brought a realization. This was not her bedroom.

Of course it wasn't. The memories of last night didn't come in a rush so much as a trickle; being sucked through a violet portal, meeting seven other Spider-People from alternate dimensions, walking out into a New York City that was more cluttered and futuristic and alien than the one back home had ever been. Swinging through the canyons of glass and metal that looked like the architects behind it all hadn't been able to agree whether to do art deco or science fiction, and then tried to outdo each other. Finally finding a relatively normal-looking brick apartment building, carefully entering through a single window one by one, and settling in for the night.

Ollie sat back a little in her web-hammock as she relaxed. It was comfortable for a makeshift bed. The strands of webbing were a little thicker than her own, and instead of an electrified residue they felt a little like a tacky nylon. The Spider-Man that had made it, she remembered, had used a pair of small, wrist-mounted machines. She pushed her foot against the wall and let herself swing for a few seconds, smiling contentedly.

Then her stomach growled. Hard.

Ollie frowned. Easily pulling herself out of the hammock, she jogged to the main room of the apartment, a living room/dining room/kitchen combo with a line of windows across the wall overlooking the street below. Two others were already there: the fifteen-year-old girl with dark purple hair sat curled up on the couch, absorbed into the action movie on the TV, while the sixteen-year-old African American boy sat sideways on a comfortable chair next to the windows, a phone book open on his knees and the phone at his ear.

"Hey!" Ollie said aloud. "You two have the same costume!"

They both looked down at their uniforms; Teresa's was a little darker red, and Drake's gloves had been removed and his sleeves rolled up, but aside from that they were nearly identical.

"That's interesting," Teresa commented. "And Spec's is pretty similar. It makes no sense why these costumes are all the same across dimensions."

Drake nodded in agreement, but then he leaned forward a little. "Hello," he said into the phone. "I'm looking for a 'Drake Carter.'" He paused for a few seconds. "Okay. Thank you. 'Bye." He hung up.

"No luck?" Teresa asked without looking away from the screen.

"I haven't found this world's Drake Carter yet, no." Drake shifted his position on the chair, resting his hands on his knee. "But yeah, it is kinda weird how similar most of our costumes are. I mean, mine wasn't really my choice. I got it from SHIELD, so there's probably some meaning behind it that I don't know. Yours was homemade?"

"I made it myself," Teresa replied, with a hint of pride in her voice. "You're an agent of SHIELD?"

Drake laughed mirthlessly. "No," he said, "they wanted me to join, but I said I had to think about it. They gave me the costume anyway."

While this was happening, Ollie was digging through the cabinets for some sort of breakfast food. She devoured a few granola bars, pushed the assorted pastas aside, threw a bag of tortilla chips onto the counter behind her, and pulled out a bag that was clipped shut with a clothespin. Raising an eyebrow at the packaging, she tossed the clip aside, unrolled the bag, and looked inside.

"...Oh."

"Did you find the crickets?" Drake called from the living room, grinning.

She had. Ollie stared into the bag, and hundreds of roasted, caramel-coated cricket husks stared back.

"They're actually not half-bad," Drake continued. "Specs convinced me to try one earlier. You can barely taste anything weird past the caramel and salt. Oh. Hello, is there a 'Drake Carter' I can talk to…? No? Thank you, 'bye."

Teresa said, peered over at the crickets with a raised eyebrow. "That is completely disgusting!"

Ollie glanced up at Teresa, then at Drake. Carefully she reached into the bag, extracted a single cricket, and popped it into her mouth. "Ugh!" She stuck her tongue out, scraping the chewed-up insect off with a finger. "Terry's right."

"Teresa! Stop calling me Terry!"

"I've had better bugs home-cooked!" She dropped the bag onto the counter, then looked up to see Teresa and Drake both staring at her oddly. "…Oh. Back home, Roadblock really likes chocolate-covered grasshoppers. They're pretty good, when you're in the mood for something different."

Teresa looked at Drake, who seemed satisfied with this explanation, then back at Ollie, who was now looking through the fridge. She raised an eyebrow at Drake, who didn't seem to notice as he entered another number into the phone. Then she intently scrutinized Ollie, who glanced away from her examination of a block of blue cheese to return the stare.

"You're both insane," Teresa finally said, focusing on the TV.

"Well then so is Specs," Ollie replied. A thought struck her. "Where is Specs, anyway?" She looked around. "Where's everyone?"


Two Hours Ago

Mary Jane, the Scarlet Spider, blinked her eyes open to find a pair of blue ones looking back at her. After puzzling at them for a second, she made out the face they belonged to.

"Have you been staring at me for a while?" she asked.

"I didn't want to wake you," Peter—her Peter—admitted.

Scarlet smirked. "You're a regular Prince Charming." She sat up, looking around the room. The recliner next to their fold-out bed was partially covered by a blanket, dark purple hair protruding from the top and the toes of a pair of dark red boots poking out the bottom. "What time is it?"

"Too early."

"I was hoping for an actual time, Tiger."

"Sue me, MJ."

Rather than set about hiring a lawyer, Scarlet climbed off the bed and walked towards the kitchen. She stopped before reaching it as she saw the figure slumped over the counter. Specs, flanked on either side of him by a few open notebooks and a coffee mug that his fingertips were still sticking to, had his face pressed into a beat-up open paperback, his glasses askew and his eyes shut tightly. He was gasping and muttering incoherently, his frame occasionally racks by a twitch or odd tremble. Scarlet raised an eyebrow at the sight. Hesitantly he reached out a hand and touched his shoulder.

"Specs?"

"AAAGGH!" He started violently, falling from his stool, taking the mug with him and splattering cold coffee over them both. "AAGH! NO!" Shaking violently, he crabwalked away from her, the coffee mug still stuck to his fingers as he bumped into the cabinets and stared up at her, his pupils mere pinpricks and his breath coming in gasps.

"Woah! Woah! Specs!" Scarlet came forward, dropping to his level and looking into his eyes. "It's me! It's Scarlet Spider, from yesterday!"

Specs stared at her for a few seconds, his eyes wide as saucers. "…I know that," he said finally, his voice taking on a bit of a sheepish tone.

"Good. What happened?" Her own Peter had joined them, pulled out of bed by the screams and now peering over her shoulder.

Specs glanced between them. "Just a nightmare," he said finally. "Just…you know, the whole 'falling without a parachute' thing. I'm fine."

It was a lie, and an obvious one at that. A little voice in her head that Scarlet recognized as Peter's urged her not to pry. Specs' breathing had settled into deep, slow breaths, the back of his head had settled into a low, lingering hum, and gradually he wrapped his arms around his chest and groaned in pain.

"Ribs," he muttered between his teeth.

Scarlet helped him up before pulling one of the last apples out of the fruit bowl. "So," she said, biting into it. "What's going on today?"

Specs crossed to the coffeemaker tucked into the corner, turning the heating plate back on. "I've gotta go talk to Doctor Strange, and then I've gotta run to the Bugle for my next assignment. As for you and—um, him, you can check out the city, or maybe you could tag along to the Doc's."

"We don't have any street clothes," Peter said. "Why're you going to see one of the world's finest experts in surgery?"

Specs turned to look at him on his way to his bedroom. "Call him a polymath," he said casually. "He's branched out just a bit from neuroscience. You won't need street clothes, trust me. I'm gonna go get my spare costume. Be right back."

He ducked into his bedroom, ducking back out again after a second with a red and black fabric bundle in his arms and locking the bathroom door behind him. Shucking his lab coat, he winced as he stared at the massive purplish-yellow bruises down each of his sides, telltale of broken ribs. Careful not to make any sudden movements, he put in a fresh pair of contacts, applied deodorant, and pulled on the shirt of the costume, the stiff fibers of the hem interlocking with those of the pants and ensuring they wouldn't come apart until he meant them to. Straightening the sleeves, he strapped on one web-shooter, than the other, which he had already fitted with a replacement nozzle. Pulling on the boots, he unlocked the bathroom door and grabbed the backpack from his bedroom.

"Where're you goin'?" mumbled the half-awake third Peter, who lay in his hammock with a blue hoodie draped over himself.

"Out," Specs said vaguely.

"…Out where?"

"Outside. Don't worry your little head about it, Blue."

He turned and walked back out into the main room, pushing cartridges into the pockets made by the elastic strap about his waist. When he looked up from that, it was to see the other two waiting for them. Scarlet had already pulled her mask on and was leaning against the counter casually, but her Peter still had his mask rolled up like a stocking cap and was pressing a headset into his ear.

"Could you give us your Gwen's number?" he asked.

Specs froze mid-step, his eyes widening. For a second he said nothing, and then he stammered, "Gwen?"

"Gwen. Gwen Stacy. Back home she's sort of like our Mission Control, lets us know when there's crime…what, you don't have a Gwen?"

Specs looked like a he had just seen a dog get kicked, but then he straightened himself a little. "Had," he said, making a beeline for the coffeemaker. "Past tense." He moved to pour himself a cup, then changed his mind and chugged directly from the pot.

There was a dead silence behind him as he reached the bottom of the batch. He set down the pot, grimacing and wiping coffee grounds off his lips. The other Peter's voice was hesitant. "What…what happened to her?"

Specs didn't turn around. "She saved my life." He took a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut. Then he looked down at the coffeepot in his hand and set it on the counter next to the machine. "We should get going."

The mask was meticulously pulled on before he turned around, his eyes hidden behind the reflective silvery-black stolen from a pair of sunglasses. Scarlet's face was similarly unreadable behind her own mask, and her Peter was in the process of pulling his down to where it met his shirt collar mid-neck. Specs jogged past both of them, leading them to his bedroom window.

"Shoo," he muttered, waving away a few bees. He carefully stepped over the girl sleeping on his bed and pushed the window open, began to duck out, then looked at the red-and-blue version of him that was standing in the door. "Your Gwen's alright?" he asked. "She's okay?"

He nodded. "Yeah, she's fine. The Green Goblin came after her, but we managed to stop him."

Specs was silent for a moment, staring at him. When he finally spoke, his voice was smiling. "I think I'm gonna call you Lucky." Then he turned and jumped.

He landed on the edge of the roof six stories above and paused, staring down at the window and waiting for them. The newly-christened "Lucky" stared back. Putting a foot on the windowsill, he launched himself across the alley and stuck to the wall.

"…Calls me Lucky when he can jump like that…" he muttered as he began to climb. Scarlet stepped over Honeybee and leapt out after him.


Mary Jane, the Honeybee, was rather rudely woken up by the feeling of insect legs crawling across her face. When she cracked an eye open, it was to see a honeybee standing on her face just below her eye, its own compound eyes staring curiously at her. Realizing she was awake, the bee darted up into the air, hovering just above her and waving its antenna.

Honeybee smiled. "Good morning to you too," she said. Pushing the blankets off, she rolled out of bed and looked around. Her bees were scattered about, some drifting aimlessly in the air, some crawling across the walls or furniture, and a few of them—

"Hey!" Honeybee started to her feet, looking at the developing beehive in the corner above the door with an air of immense disapproval. "Stop that! This place isn't ours, you can't make a hive here!"

The bees drifted away from the structure, all looking at here and buzzing in seemingly random patterns.

"I don't care what it's from! You can sleep on the nightstand or something! Take that down!"

As the bees sulkily removed the hive from the wall and dropped it into her hand, a few others buzzed loudly behind her. Turning to face them, she saw them hovering around one of the three web-hammocks hanging from the ceiling. The body in that hammock was far taller than any of the other Spider-Men, and the upper half of his red-and-black costume had a blue hoodie draped over it like a blanket. He was stirring. One of the bees alighted on the hammock's framework, then panicked as it found itself stuck.

The Peter Parker opened his eyes after a few unsuccessful tries and stared at nothing for a second, and then his brow furrowed. "'Blue'?" he said confusedly, sitting up in the hammock.

"What?"

He looked at Honeybee as though he had only just noticed her, which was probably the case. "What? Oh. Uh, earlier Specs called me 'Blue.' Good morning."

Honeybee smiled, then walked to the hammock and busied herself extracting her bee from the strand it was stuck to. "It's a good nickname," she said as he climbed out of the hammock. "He's probably taking about that blue hoodie. This webbing is way stronger than my Spidey's back at home—ah! There we go." She released the bee, letting it fly up and rejoin the swarm.

Blue, for his part, looked down at his jacket before shrugging and pulling it on. "I like this hoodie," he said defensively. "I wear it every day."

"I'm not judging you," Honeybee said.

A cold breeze made her look toward the open window.

"Sorry. Just on edge after all these interdimensional shenanigans. Just when I thought that I was through with this sort of thing to boot." Blue said.

Honeybee turned away from the window.

"So, you want to go out?"

Blue tilted his head.

"I mean, some fresh air would us both some good, and I need to stretch my legs…and wings."

Blue's eyes went wide as saucers as he saw a set of human-sized bee wings attached to Honeybee's back suddenly extend.

"S-s-sure." he stammered.


Greenwich Village

"Aagh!"

Specs stumbled when he hit the ground, his leg buckling from the force, his hands clutching at his bandaged thigh, and his teeth gritted tightly. As he straightened up again, Lucky and Scarlet came to much smoother landings just behind him, and he glanced at them before pointing vaguely ahead of them.

"Steven Strange lives here?" Scarlet asked, looking up and down the block. It was largely filled with aged, four-story, vaguely Eastern Europe-style buildings of steel I-beams and bricks and slabs of concrete with large, plain windows. It had a charm to it, but only a fringe, hipster-ey charm.

"Correction," Specs said, raising a declarative finger as he walked forward. "Doctor Strange lives here." He gestured grandly to the building they stood before.

It was on the corner of Bleecker and Sullivan Street, a reddish building of the sort that you might see anywhere. It was in a bad state of disrepair; the door was at the very corner of the street-facing walls at the bottom of a vertical line of windows, many of which were cracked and the rest of which were too filthy to see into. The foundation was slanted and cracked; the walls dotted with (actually quite creative) graffiti. The fire escape was coated in rust and sagged on its anchors, but that was okay, because the building looked like it had been deserted for at least a year.

Lucky stared up at it skeptically. "…Is your Dr. Strange one of those hippie types who's into spiritual healing or something?"

"He's really more into the occult." Specs' voice was grinning as he knocked smartly on the door.

"…Oh holy CRAP!"

From the point that Specs' knuckles had rapped on the door the building had transformed outward. It had shifted from four stories to three; the windows had all smartly repaired themselves and cleared, and the topmost one was a round pane set into the slanted roof of the tower-like section they now stood before. The general architecture now had a slight Asian influence to it; the fire escape had vanished entirely. Specs turned away from the door—now huge and ornate—to gauge the reactions of his companions as they gaped at the change.

"Yeah," he said finally, nodding, "it's pretty cool."

"Bu—" Scarlet looked around wildly, as though expecting to see a candid camera. "But—how?! It just changed, right in front of us!"

"Yeah, you have to be shown," Specs said, shrugging. He turned back to the door. "I don't know how it works. Magic makes no sense to me, but what can ya do. Come on, c'mon…" He stepped forward to knock again, but the door boomed open just before his knuckles connected and he jumped back, startled.

"Mr. Parker."

Specs stared at the bald, middle-aged man who stood just inside the enormous ornate door, coming out of a bow. "Ahhhhh…just Spider-Man, okay? I know you know, Wong, but that's no reason to point it out at every opportunity."

Wong gave him a very small smile. "Doctor Strange is expecting you—"

"Great! I hate waiting rooms, so depressing."

"—But you may need to wait a few minutes. He's currently busy with the fabric of reality."

"Oh hey! That's actually why I'm here. Just bus me in, will you, and I'll be out of your hair pretty quick." He glanced upwards at Wong's hairless scalp. "Figuratively, of course."

Wong's smile shrank a hair, to the point where one couldn't be sure if it was actually a smile, as he led Specs and the others into a hallway whose ceiling was higher than the roof outside had been. The wallpaper was a patterned red, although that was pretty hard to see past the picture frames covering almost every square inch of it. As the three of them glanced about at the inside of the hallway, Wong's shoes clacked against the dark wood floorboards as he walked away.

After a moment, the rapid-fire light thuds of Specs' thinly padded footfalls started after him, and after another moment the slightly heavier footsteps of Lucky and Scarlet followed hesitantly.

"You brought guests."

"What? Oh, yeah. Wong, this is, uh, me. From an alternate universe. I call him Lucky, and this is the MJ—she's this friend of mine—"

"I know who Mary Jane Watson is."

"Well you really shouldn't," Specs snapped at him. "He's in the Nexus, right? I know the rest of the way." With that, he rudely brushed past Wong and led his companions up two flights of stairs and down a hall.

"Specs," Scarlet said as they ascended, grabbing his shoulder tightly. He flinched away reflexively, stopping on the stair above them. "What is going on? You're acting like we should already know, but Pe—Lucky and I have never had to deal with something like this back home yet. I mean—magic? You're telling us magic's real here too?"

Specs was silent for a second. He looked around for a moment before scratching the back of his neck. "I didn't tell you that, you inferred. But yeah. Magic's existed since abooouut 1822."

He started up the stairs again, closely followed by Lucky and Scarlet.

"See, this Tibetan farmer was trying to reconcile mysticism with the recent discoveries of science—I don't know which discoveries exactly, I just read the Wikipedia page. His practices kind of…attracted? this cluster of realities to our universe, and they kind of latched on to Earth. It's all a bit weird. I don't know exactly what the hell happened, but the point is that those realities are considerably less stable than ours. They don't really run on the same rules, and the areas between them—well, all sorts of crazy shit can happen there. That's where magic's from. Actually, you can't really do magic outside of it unless you've got one of those Eyes of Whatever."

"This is all a bit hard to believe." By now, they had reached the top floor, and Specs strode down the hall as Lucky continued talking. "I mean, there were a bunch of realities just drifting around before they latched onto this universe like a tick? That makes no sense. I mean, what would you even call that?"

Specs reached a hand out and grasped the doorknob of an inconspicuous-looking door at the end of the hall. "We call it the Nexus," he said, and opened the door.

The other side of that door was a lot of things—practically infinite things, really—but inconspicuous was not one of them. It wasn't a room, exactly, either; the wall the door was set into stretched in either direction as far as the eye could see, and probably farther. The hardwood floor ended not far away from where he stood, only a path resembling a strip of red silk stretching beyond it and into an enormous expanse of barred gateways and color-bleeding holes in the air, and other assorted acid-trippiness. Specs hesitated for an instant before stepping onto the path, and it rippled in response to his lack of confidence; but then he took a deep breath and put his full weight on it, and it held him readily and solidly. Opening his eyes, he placed his other foot on the path and stood for a second before turning to the others.

"He's gonna be in here somewhere," he told them. "Uh, be careful with this path…thingy. You kind of have to believe it'll hold you before it can."

"Oh, that's reassuring," Scarlet muttered.

"How could that possibly work?!" Lucky roared.

Specs shrugged. "I really don't know. I'm just going by what he told me last time I was here. Listen, I'll go and get him. You wait here for me, 'kay?" Without waiting for a response, he turned and began to jog down the path.

"Doc?" he called between his cupped hands, looking this way and that as he ran. An irregular flashing around a corner drew his attention, and he could feel rapid movements through the air in that direction. As he drew closer, the confused humming in his head steadied into a tingle of alertness, and he fired a webline at a Victorian-era lamppost floating in midair a ways up and to the left, using it to swing around the corner rather than walk a few meters farther.

"Show-off." Lucky muttered under his breath.

About five or six minutes later, Specs returned. He followed just behind a slightly gaunt, mustachioed man in an ankle-length, burgundy frock coat with popped lapels. Clasped around his neck was a large golden brooch resembling an eye, which darted back and forth to look at the two.

"Doctor Strange, I presume?" Lucky asked.

Strange smiled, extending a gloved hand to shake. "The same," he said as he stepped off the path and onto the wood floor. The golden eye closed silently. "I'm pleased to meet you, 'Lucky.' 'Scarlet.'"

Scarlet raised her hand.

"Did Specs fill you in on everything?"

"On your current situation, yes. I know the rest." Strange gently moved past them, the door opening of its own accord as he neared it. "Come. Let's talk in my study."


"We built this city! We built this city on rock and roll—built this city!" Honeybee sang.

"Would you please not do that? You'll draw too much attention to us!"

Honeybee shot Blue a dirty look as the two explored the alternate New York City in all its bizarre glory.

"You think that the sight of a young woman flying under her own power won't draw attention?" she snarked.

"Point taken."

Just then, Honeybee's gaze shifted to the large mass of concrete surrounding Manhattan.

"Race you to the seawall!" she exclaimed.

By the time Blue had managed to reorient himself, his companion had already darted off towards the wall.

"It's on."

Blue made a rapid turnabout, fired a webline at a nearby building, and swung after Honeybee. His momentum built, and before he could make contact with the building, he fired off another line.

"Made it, ma! Top of the world!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.


"So, what's going on?" Lucky asked.

"Do you want the full story or the short version?" replied Doctor Strange, hanging his coat on a hatstand just beside the door.

"We've got time," said Specs, and immediately dodged a dope-slap.

Lucky gave him a look. "Short. Frankly, I'm surprised that magic is real here—"

"Don't be." Strange sat down on a red chair just beside the fireplace, which burst to life when the Eye flickered open momentarily. "It's just as real where you're from. Ask Jonathan Slattery, Phoebe Ashe, or Owen Burnett if you get the chance."

Lucky tilted his head.

"Now then, as to what's going on. Spider-Man—"

"Yeah?" said Lucky, at the same time as the shorter Spider-Man browsing the bookshelves turned slightly and said "Hmm?"

"I'm sorry. Specs." He paused, considering the nickname. "Specs as in 'Spectacular?'"

"Specs as in 'spectacles.'" He turned back to the paperback he had pulled of the shelf and began flipping through. "Really, they might as well call me Four-Eyes. Whatever. What were you saying?"

Doctor Strange held a fist to his mouth, suppressing an amused smile. "Right. Specs, you saw something in the bowls of OsCorp."

"'Something,' that's specific." Specs turned to face them, leaning (slumping) against the bookshelf. "Yeah. OsCorp's physics department opened a portal to another reality, and on the other side was…Ungoliant? I don't know…" His voice had dropped in volume and lost its perpetually stressed undertone. "Doc, what was that? How did it know my name?"

"'That' was a Spider-Totem, like yourself. A particularly powerful one, perpetually ravenous, completely self-centered, with none of the moral fetters binding any of you three."

"Wait, go back." Scarlet leaned forward in the seat she had taken. "A 'Totem'? Like us?"

"A Spider-Totem, yes." The Eye of Agamotto had opened wide, and flickers and fragments of images danced through the minds of the present Spiders. "There are billions of them throughout the multiverse. Some are human, some not, some good or evil, but all avatars of the Master Weaver of Earth-000. And all connected by the Web of Life and Destiny."

"English, please. I don't speak mage jargon." Lucky interrupted.

The Eye rolled once and shut tightly. Strange sighed. "In layman's terms, you're all connected to some magic network that's like some multiversal spider web."

"What about Ollie and the other me?" Scarlet asked.

"Their connection is more tenuous. Miss Osnick drives her powers from the X-Gene, and Honeybee is obviously not a bearer of the Spider Totem. But yet they are part of the Web."

"But how did they—"

"It's complicated, and there are more important things to discuss. Listen." Strange stood up as Specs came a little closer and Scarlet leaned forward more.

"Across the multiverse, Spider-Men are engaged in a battle against a family of beings that would see you all destroyed. Totems of the Master Weaver are flying from strand to strand of its Web, jumping dimensions with reckless abandon. Their activities are, for a time, weakening the integrity of the multiverse."

"What?!" Specs cried. "Shit! What do we do?!"

"Hopefully, nothing."

Specs tilted his head slightly as Lucky and Scarlet exchanged a glance.

"Our realities are on the outskirts of the Web," Strange continued; "the bulk of the War is taking place near the center. We're affected, yes, but only structurally. It's extremely unlikely that either the Inheritors or the Spider-Army will approach this world, or any of the others. What we need to worry about is…" he gestured towards Specs. "…Ungoliant."


"You did a pretty good job back there." Honeybee said.

"Yeah, but you still beat me." Blue replied.

The duo was currently perched on top of the seawall, looking out over the encroaching waters of the North Atlantic.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Honeybee lightly bit down on her lip.

"It's just so…weird."

"What? The interdimensional shenanigans? This alternate New York City?"

"Both. I mean, how did we get here? Why were we brought here? And how do we go home?"


"What happened in OsCorp was an attempted invasion," said Doctor Strange as he pulled down a few books from the shelf and the hung in midair around him. "The radical scientists there realized that the walls between worlds are weakened, and they tried to exploit this to open a small portal to another reality." He pulled down the last book manually, flipping to an early page and pulling out a pen.

"That was not small," Specs protested.

"That was the intent. It just so happened that the world they managed to establish a resonance with was Earth-130115, the home of your…Ungoliant. Once she realized what was happening, the Dark Spider seized control of the portal, expanded it to suit her purposes, and began sending her children through. In the process she destabilized it, which is why it began attracting Spider-Totems from other universes."

"Why did it try to invade, anyway?"

"If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that she wants to expand her territory. Your actions forced her to retreat for a time, Specs, but she will be back, and I doubt she'll be happy with you."

Specs looked very, very small. A noise between a groan and a squeak escaped his mouth.

"Well," said Scarlet as she stood up, "let's not keep her waiting. Let's go get 'er, and then go home!"

"What." said Strange, disbelief dripping from his voice.

"What?!" squawked Specs, panic dripping from his.

"Yeah, why not?" Scarlet pointed in the general direction of the door to the Nexus. "I mean, Specs said that was the space between realities, right? The one with Ungoliant must be out there somewhere, and so is ours. Maybe farther away than what you usually deal with, but—"

"It doesn't work like that," said Strange.

"Why not?" asked Lucky. "Makes sense to me."

"We can't reach them."

"What," said Specs with folded arms, "are those universes, like, years and years away or something?"

"No," Strange said. "They're not out there at all."

There was a few seconds of silence before Specs cleared his throat. "…You gonna…explain that?"

Strange took a deep breath. "The Nexus is the result of those specific worlds connected with ours. The areas beyond them are inaccessible to us."

"Why?" interrupted Lucky. "Specs described them as whole other universes. It doesn't make any sense that they're exclusive from the rest of the multiverse."

"And even if they are, the Nexus itself proves there's the possibility of reaching beyond them!"

Strange, who had lowered his face into his hand for the last ten seconds, held both of his hands in front of him. "No no, no! Listen to me!"

Dead silence.

"We're listening," said Scarlet.

Strange took a deep breath, blowing it out through his nose. Waving one hand vaguely, he began, "Imagine…a soap bubble…with smaller soap bubbles stuck to it. Our universe is something like that. The main bubble still ends at that door, but the smaller bubbles are still part of it. Those realities I deal with are still technically part of our world. Your world…is not. And neither is Ungoliant's. Do you understand?"

"I see," said Scarlet slowly as Lucky nodded. Specs was still stoking his chin as though he had a beard.

"Maybe we need a redefinition of terms," he said finally. "How about…"

He made a vague gesture towards the door.

"…Realities…" He pointed at Lucky and Scarlet. "…Iterations. That work?"

"Works for me," said Scarlet.

"It'll do," Lucky agreed. He turned towards Strange. "So how do we get back?"

"You'll have to wait for Ungoliant to make a move," Strange said, sitting back down. "And hope she doesn't try reaching out for help."

Specs cringed a little at that last statement.

Strange shrugged. "I'm sorry I can't be of more help to you. The Eye of Agamotto wouldn't work in other 'iterations'—"

"No need to apologize, Doctor. You've been a big help."

"Thank you, Lucky. And when you return to your home iteration, check up with my counterpart there." The Eye around his neck suddenly opened, and he stood immediately. "Now. I have to get back to my work." He strode towards the door as his coat pulled itself off its hanger.

"Lucky, Scarlet, it was nice to meet you. Specs, you know the way out. I'm sorry to have to shoo you out like this, but this could get hairy." He slipped into the coat and paused to straighten his gloves dramatically. Then the door opened of its own accord and boomed shut behind him.

"Nice to see you again too, Doc!" Specs called after him. "You're as good at the dramatics as ever!" He sighed and hopped up to the skylight, opening a pane of it and climbing out onto the roof. Lucky and Scarlet joined him a few seconds later.

"So," said Scarlet, "what do we do now?"

Specs' mask was stretched oddly: he had pushed the eyepieces up a few inches and was now rubbing his eyes through the fabric. "I gotta run home and grab some clothes," he said as he straightened his mask again. "And then I'm off to the Bugle. You two can…I dunno, explore the city. Be careful in the Narrows—"

"The what?"

"Upper Bronx. The place is half-flooded, falling apart, crawling with gangsters, thugs, genetically mutated freaks—we're right at home in that regard, but still. If you see a walking corpse—you won't, but if you do—kill it. I know we've got rules against that, but it's already dead. All it can do is kill. Destroy the brain, do not let it bite you, and leave it somewhere a cop on patrol will find it."

He fired a webline at the top of the nearest building.

"Okay, can't think of anything else you need to know—oh! Drop by the Black Cat Club if you see it and tell Felicia I said hi. Just go in through the top window, she's got a silent alarm. She'll be up in a minute. Aaaannd that's about it. Try not to end up in any newspapers, but I guess that's really more my problem. Have fun! Be home by ten!"

And with that, he pulled hard on the webline, zipping skyward and vaulting out of sight.


Notes from Courier:

Jonathan Slattery is Liquidator from Inhumanoids. In Earth-H, he's a sorcerer as well as a chemist.

Phoebe Ashe is Rapture from Jem. Unlike her original cartoon version, who was a con woman, the Earth-H version is a bona fide sorcerer.

Owen Burnett is from Gargoyles. He's Xanatos's main lackey, and he's secretly Puck, a member of the "Third Race" and a notable trickster. This applies to the original show and to Earth-H.

Notes from Brackets:

So, yeah. Her nickname's Ungoliant, a reference to The Silmarillion. Guess this means I don't have to mail out any no-prizes, but don't worry, Rider Paladin, there was nothing in the envelope anyway.