Part 1 - Fires of Revolution

Chapter 4 - Bank Heist

Gwen swung down onto the street; a bank alarm was screaming its ear piercing sound. Police cars formed a barricade for the criminals inside. The officers were crouched behind them, their guns aimed at the front door. Gwen leapt over the bonnet of one of the cars and approached the doors.

"Yeah! Spiderwoman!" An officer shouted, encouragingly.

"This should just be a normal job. Finally no more temporal nonsense." She thought as she moved ever closer.

She stopped just outside and listened. There was a dull thumping sound coming from inside, like a fast moving beast. Suddenly her spidey sense lit up like a fourth of July fireworks display. She jumped to the side as the front doors of the bank exploded open. A woman appeared, held by dull green tubes with claws and spinning blades on the end. It took Gwen little more than a second to realise who this was: Olivia Octavius, or Doc Ock as the spider knew her. Ock looked around at the police officers, then spotted Gwen.

"I know you. You're that spider girl at the collider."

"Sadly I know you too. What are you doing here? And how are you here?"

"After Kingpin was locked up, I needed employment which I found in the dimensional labyrinth which I had so long dreamed of exploring."

"You were hit by a truck."

"Oh please. I've been hit harder than that before. I woke up in a morgue, and now I'm here."

"What have you stolen?"

"What I was asked to steal."

Gwen readied herself for a fight. Ock laughed.

"You only beat me because there were six of you. What can one do?"

Gwen leapt at Ock, swinging her fist as she did so. One of Ock's claws swung round and narrowly missed her. Gwen's fist made contact, knocking Ock backwards a little. Ock growled and used her normal fist to punch Gwen back. Gwen grabbed her by the throat and fired a web at a building across the street. She began to pull as hard as she could. However, one of Ock's blades sliced cleanly through the web, and another claw grabbed her and threw her away. Gwen picked herself up quickly and fired webs at the wall behind Ock. She pulled herself forwards and slammed her feet into Ock's face. Ock grunted. Both of her claws came for Gwen at the same time. Gwen backflipped over them, then leapt along their length and wrapped her arms around Ock's neck. The claws came back and hauled Gwen from her target, throwing her into the side of one of the police cars.

"Come on Spiderwoman! Get her!" The officers began to shout.

Gwen began to get up but one of the claws slammed her back down. The other pinned her to the ground by the throat, choking her. She pulled at it as hard as she could but it wouldn't budge. She couldn't breathe. Her mind began to swim with thoughts of how to get free as she struggled for oxygen. That was when it happened, something she never thought would save her. The claw pulled away, twitching, flickering with hundreds, maybe thousands of colours. Gwen sucked in air in deep breaths, then looked at Doc Ock. She was writhing around on the ground, screaming in agony as colours flickered around her. She was glitching, Gwen suddenly realised. Oh how the tables had turned. She sprinted over to her enemy. An object had fallen out of a compartment in her suit. It was an emerald green, diamond shaped plate. Dots of light swirled around inside it. Gwen knelt down and reached for it. Her fingers made contact. Suddenly, she too was screaming with agony as emerald green light coursed through her veins. It felt like her insides were being boiled, then put through a shredder. Doc Ock began to stabilise. She saw Gwen screaming on the ground, and was confused by the light that glowed in her veins. Then she looked behind her and saw the plate had fallen out.

"Stupid girl."

One of her claws carefully slid the plate back into its compartment. Ock stood up and wiped a little blood off her chin. The police officers began to back away, their guns poised, ready to fire.

"So long, people of this Earth."

In a spectacular burst of colour, Ock disappeared to whichever dimension she had come from. Gwen lay twitching on the ground, the green light in her veins slowly growing dimmer. She was out cold. The officers approached slowly.

"Nobody touch her!" Yelled the sergeant, pocketing their gun.

They gathered in a circle around her body. Was she dead? There was no way to know without touching her to get her pulse.

"We have to call a paramedic." Said one of the officers.

"What will they do? For all we know it will just kill them as well." Replied another officer.

"No, call them. They might be able to find out if she's alive or not."

One of the officers sprinted back to their car to call an ambulance. The rest began to talk quietly.

"Come on, Spiderwoman. Get up! Like you always do!" Said one of them.

"Shouldn't we arrest her? She's wanted." Suggested another.

"Good luck with that."

Conall was sitting alone in his office, typing away at his computer. He was writing an email to Dr Strange, working out exactly what had happened with the time stone. Suddenly, he stopped. Something burned inside him. He closed his eyes. A flash of an image came to him, but it was all he needed to see.

"Corbo. One of the Ethereals has been found."

"Which one?"

"The green one."

"I will keep a log, sir."

Gwen still lay on the ground, her body continuing to twitch every now and then as a small speck of green light flared up somewhere on her body. Suddenly, one of the police officers gave a shout.

"Look! Over there!"

The other officers turned, reaching for their guns in case Doc Ock had returned. Instead, they were met by a golden wreath of flames, from which came a person. The person had golden flames roaring from their eyes, a golden cape flowed out behind them. His body was covered by shining golden armour, like that of a medieval knight. Their hands rested on the hilts of two swords which were sheathed by their waist. Conall gazed upon the scene. He spotted Gwen on the ground and the officers pointing their weapons at him.

"Freeze!" The sergeant yelled.

Conall raised his hand and clenched it. The sergeant was lifted into the air. He moved his hand to the side and released it, throwing the sergeant out of the way. A flicker of green light caught his attention. He looked in time to see it disappear again from Gwen's body. Immediately he knew most of what had happened.

"Step aside, people. There's been enough suffering today." He said sternly.

"What do you want with her?" Yelled the sergeant.

"I'm the only person who can help her. And she'll die if she doesn't get help."

"Who are you?"

"That...is a question for another time."

With a flick of his wrist, Conall lifted Gwen's body into the air. He turned and walked back through the gateway, carrying her with him still using telekinesis.

Conall flicked his other wrist to throw things off his desk, including his computer monitor which hit the ground with an unhealthy crack. But he did not care. What mattered now was both Gwen's life, and the information on who had the Ethereal plate.

"Corbo, I need an empty syringe."

A drawer in the wall popped open revealing a clear plastic tube with a long needle on its end. Conall lay Gwen down on the desk, still not touching her. With a few brisk steps he reached the drawer and took out the syringe.

"I hate needles." He muttered.

"Would a hypo spray be better, sir?"

"There's no time to get one." He replied as he stuck the needle in his arm and began to draw blood from it.

When the syringe was almost full, he pulled it from his arm, ignoring the few drops of blood which trickled down from the puncture. He returned to Gwen's side and tried to roll her sleeve up, but it was too tight.

"Blast it all." He muttered as he reached for his waist and drew a small golden dagger.

He put it to Gwen's arm, just below the shoulder, and carefully cut the suit open down to her elbow. He pulled the two sides of the fabric apart then picked up the syringe again. After a few seconds of hunting for a vein, he stabbed the needle into her and began to slowly inject his blood.

After nearly thirty seconds, the syringe was empty. Conall removed it and took a deep breath. He pulled one of the chairs out and collapsed into it, closing his eyes. His cape folded in on itself and disappeared, his armour faded away and the flames from his eyes went out. This was not good. None of it was. The plate had not been with Gwen, which meant whoever broke into the bank had it. His thoughts wandered to Miles. When he found out Gwen was in such a state it would break him, even more than a punch from Iron Man. Conall opened his eyes, suddenly confused by the emotions he felt. Worry, concern. Not about the plate, but about the two teenagers he had forced to work for him. No, he had given them a choice; he hadn't forced them. Then again, when they felt so strongly about each other, was there ever a choice? Yes, he had offered one to move in with the other. But both had a commitment to their families. There had been no choice. He had forced them down this path, and it may have awakened more than he ever wanted to see again. Conall stood up and walked to the window. He stared out across the wasteland before him, and into the heart of the red giant star. One day the planet would crash into a star, perhaps a plant, or maybe even a black hole, and be destroyed. Then he would move to Earth 02, where the Sun had also burnt out and it too had become a wandering planet. But recently it had become ensnared in the orbit of another star and was once more an almost habitable hideout. He turned back to Gwen. Her body had stopped twitching, but he could see her chest rising and falling as she breathed. She was recovering. The occasional flashes of green light had stopped too. Conall looked around. There was no bed here as he never slept. However, he twirled his wrists, moved his arms and flicked his fingers until a number of blankets were spread out across the floor. Gently, he lifted Gwen with his own arms and placed her on the make-shift mattress. He stood up straight and opened a gateway.

Stepping through the gateway, Conall arrived in Miles' world, straight into his bedroom. Miles' roommate, Ganke, turned in shock and promptly fainted. Miles' head appeared from the top bunk.

"Oh. You."

He disappeared behind the railing and bed sheets again. Conall dumped Miles' roommate on the lower bunk then climbed onto the first step on the ladder up to Miles. Miles was reading a comic.

"Miles, we need to talk."

"Yeah, we do. What is wrong with you that you think you can just throw me and Gwen into situations like that? We just want to be happy together, while being friendly neighbourhood spider people. None of this temporal stuff."

Conall nodded.

"I didn't know the situation with Strange. Nor did I expect you to enrage a billionaire with a super suit. But the temporal stuff in general? It seems to be coming to find you both now."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean Gwen was almost killed whilst fighting an old friend of yours."

"What? Who? How?"

"Doctor Olivia Octavius. Or Doc Ock as you call her. As for how, Octavius attempted to steal, and succeeded in doing so, an extremely powerful temporal relic."

"Like the Time Stone?"

"More powerful than that. I'll explain the Ethereal plates another time. What you need to know is that Gwen touched the plate, and it nearly killed her. If she was a normal human it would have done so instantly. Doc Ock escaped with it, but to where I don't know. I need to get the details from Gwen."

"I have to go and..."

Miles had tried to sit up suddenly, but his ribs stopped him.

"You can come and see her. But you won't get much out of her. I'm no medical expert but I believe she's in a coma, or in a very deep state of unconsciousness."

"If you're not an expert in medicine then how did she survive?"

"Firstly by being a spider person. More durability and healing abilities help massively. Secondly, because I know how to treat a number of temporal injuries. When she wakes up she'll have a lot of working out to do. Just like you when you became Spiderman."

"What?"

"Are you coming to see her, or will you leave it?"

"I'll see her. I have to."

"Come on. I'll help you."

Crossovers in this Chapter

There weren't any...