I bolt upright as I wake up. As soon as I do, I wake to find Peter hugging me, very tightly. It's comforting in the face of what I have to do now.
He's about to pull back once he notices I'm awake again, but I hold him back. "Not...not yet." We embrace for a bit longer, because I'm not ready.
"What happened to you, Gwen? Stephen went all floating meditative as soon as I explained what had happened to you, so I've just been waiting for you to come back, hoping you're not in trouble. ...Are you in trouble?" He suddenly looks at me, trying to mask his fear. I can see it though. He can't really hide his emotions from me anymore.
"Well. Strange told me that...that….that…" I can't even get it out. My abilities and responsibilities have been such a huge part of me for almost ten years. I mean, sure, they're given me trouble, and caused bad things, but I've been able to help so many, too.
"What? What did he say? What's wrong? Why are you so shaken? What IS IT?" He's thoroughly scared now, not even trying to hide it. I can hear it in his voice. I keep my head buried in his shoulder.
This happens to be the exact moment that Doctor Strange gets up as well. "Ah good. Glad to see you got here safely, Gwen. I was just a tiny bit worried I'd have to fight Flame Guy over there by myself."
I snap to attention. "WHAT?!" I take my face out of Peter's shoulder and look over in the corner of our room. Sure enough, there is indeed a Fire Guy standing there. One I know.
"Dormammu. Why have you come here?" I ask, even though I already know the answer. Peter looks at me with a strange look, saying You Know This Guy?
Dormammu turns and faces me, a scowl replacing his maniacal smile. "Ah. So Strange managed to get you to admit what was happening to you. Fine. Well, he clearly didn't get rid of my connection to this wondrous world, since you're still alive and quicking, so that works just fine for me."
"Yeah, well, there'll be a lot of kicking, so get ready for that," I say menacingly as possible. It's kind of hard to do so when you're facing down an evil Fire Demon who made you the reason for this whole mess. As I'm talking he looks behind me and smiles maliciously. "Ah. The Sorcerer Supreme. I'm glad to see you could join us too."
I turn around to see Strange, awake and ready to go. "Give it up, Dormammu," He yells, pulling off the menace way better than I did. "I know you're not at your full power yet. You're still only human sized. We can take you down." Oh, good. I was wondering when he was going to get up to help.
"Maybe. But nothing can keep me from coming back tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next. As long as Spider-Woman is alive, I can always return!"
Strange glances at me, I nod. He nods back and says, in a remarkably boss way, "That's what we're hoping for."
I quickly tell Peter to stay right where he is and spring into action, throwing myself at Dormammu. His momentary surprise allows me to land a hit (without burning myself somehow) before he grabs me and throws me back at the wall. I go flying and hit it hard. Ow….that hurt.
Dormammu thinks this is all great fun and lets loose a maniacal laugh. "You cannot honestly think that the two of you can defeat me? You know the only way to cast me out is to destroy Spider-Woman! She's the link here! Even though I can't control her, I can still fight both of you easily! You remember what you had to do to stop Mordo,and I don't think you'll do it to your friend here. It's impo-"
I spring at Dormammu again and hit him in the face. Immediately afterwards, I try to throw myself away from him before he can get me. It doesn't work, though, and he grabs me by the throat (still not burning me though. How does his fire work?).
As I choke, Stephen gets up from where he was floating, having been trying to set up the spell to stop Dormammu. Of course, he tries to help me with some magic but it only impedes Dormammu momentarily because he's too focused on the plan. "I remember what I had to do to Mordo," he says while still focused on his part of the plan. "And no, I won't do that again. He was my friend, and so is she. But I know you won't kill her. She's your link to this world. She goes, you go. We're the ones in control here." Dormammu looks at Strange, then me, in disgust and throws me at the wall again. Surprise: walls are still very hard.
Strange does his best to stay calm, hoping I can distract him for a couple more minutes. We both know that while Dormammu may not be able to kill me, he can still destroy the Doctor. We're hoping he won't realize this soon.
Peter is doing his best to stay calm as well. He's not doing a great job of it. "GWEN! Strange, he have to help her! We can't just stay here and not do anything!" Peter's about to head in between me and Dormammu, until I yell at him to stay where he was. I know what I'm doing. I pick myself back up off the ground.
"Gwen! Gwen," Stephen yells at me. "I'm ready to do this. Are you ready?!"
I grit my teeth and shout back, "Yeah, let's do this!" I run up to Dormammu again and throw a punch. He catches it in his hand and squeezes. Hard. He picks me up by my hand and lifts me off the ground. Perfect. He's focused on me.
"You all are so amazingly ill advised right now. You CANNOT win without your death, silly Spider-Woman! There is no way you can stop me in the time it will take for me to gain my full power back. And then I can destroy both of you and find someone new to be my link to this world and conquer it!" Dormammu once again releases a huge laugh.
I grimace and look at him. "That's where you're kinda wrong. The death of Spider-Gwen is the only way to be rid of you before you gain full power, that much is true. But I don't think that means exactly what you think it means. Oh well. NOW, STEPHEN!" I shout preparing what Strange is about to do to me.
As Dormammu looks on in confusion, Doctor Strange shouts the final castings for his spell. As soon as he finishes, Dormammu drops me as both he and I begin to writhe in pain. I can feel my energies leaving my body. I can hear Dormammu yell and curse at us as he is drawn back into his portal, his link being severed. And then, suddenly: Silence.
It worked. He's gone.
Spider-Woman is dead.