Part 4 - Resurgence
Chapter 63 - Imperial Visitor
Gwen was scared, even with the Ethereal Plate stuck inside her. Lucifer had been using her to all the dirty work. Whenever she didn't manage to get something done, he would scold her like a child. She wished now more than ever to go back and change herself merging with the Plate. Teresa had been right: Miles didn't love her anymore, and most likely hated her for everything she had done. She might be able to get over him without the Plate, but now she had magenta powers like scars just there to remind her of how stupid she was. Why had she used the third favour with the devil? In every situation, the devil would come out on top; it was simple logic and written in just about every religious text containing him. Gwen took a deep breath, splashing her face with water to get rid of the tear stains. As she looked in the mirror, her eyes fell on the scar above her eyebrow left from when she had been assimilated by the Borg and the Quintari had removed the few remaining implants. Those were the good old days when Conall was the biggest of their concerns; when she and Miles had been two naïve teenagers...before she had brought the Reapers to 7065 and laid waste to everything. She took a moment to get control of herself, shaking away thoughts of the past. But still they broke through even when the Plate was in control of her. She made her decision: she would go and get a definitive answer about Miles and about so many other things.
Teresa wasn't expecting any visitors since it had been a couple of hours since her last fight. However, the door on the other side of the bars squealed open and slammed shut a moment later. The sight she saw confused her massively; it looked like someone wearing Gwen's spider suit, but they had spray-painted it to look vaguely like Miles', except in dark grey instead of black and some of the red trim was much messier. The person pulled off the mask and shook the hood down. Teresa glared at Gwen, struggling to resist the temptation to strangle the Empress. However, after a moment she saw the Ethereal spider had been crying and frowned, taking a seat without saying a word. Gwen leaned her head against the bars.
"I know you hate me, but you've no idea how hard it is to leave the palace without security or a good reason. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't important."
Teresa shrugged.
"I'd guess you've come to taunt me. 'Oh look! You're behind bars!' Or are you here to bitch at me about talking to my friend Miles again?"
"I came to ask why you didn't shoot me in Pandora's Vault when you had the chance."
"I have no idea, honestly. I told Miles it was because you were the lesser of two evils, but I'm a soldier. I've killed plenty of people either with a gun or projection. Anything else?"
"You should have gone through with it. It would have saved a lot of people a lot of pain."
Teresa wasn't sure how to answer that at first, but Gwen was gone before she could say anything else. The Empress was hiding something; something big. What happened behind the scenes in that palace?
Miles swung down from seemingly nowhere, grabbing a person who was trying to break open an ATM. A small crowd had gathered, waiting for the chance to catch a few loose bank notes that escaped. The criminal struggled but found themselves strung up as a police car arrived. However, the police didn't move to arrest the criminal. Instead they pulled their guns on Miles. Miles frowned.
"What are you doing? Arrest him!"
Bullets flew; Miles leapt off the wall, twisting and turning to avoid the deadly projectiles until he managed to reach the officers and kick their feet out from under them. He grabbed their guns and stuffed them down a drain. The officers engaged in hand-to-hand combat, throwing punches at the spider who took them out with ease. When he was sure everything was calm, he swung away to the top of a skyscraper to take a moment to reflect on what had just happened. As he made to pull his mask off, his spidey sense screamed at him. He heard the sound of web shooters and half-expected Peter to appear, but that didn't explain why his spidey sense was going crazy like a compass surrounded by magnets. The next thing he saw brought on even more questions: someone had tried to spray-paint his suit's pattern on Gwen's but in dark grey rather than black.
"Who are you?" He asked, wondering if they were friendly.
The person removed their mask and shook their hood down; Miles tensed up immediately, ready to turn invisible and charge a venom strike. Gwen threw her mask down and held her wrists together.
"Web me." She instructed.
Her voice wasn't the taunting one she had spoken in when he had been resurrected. Instead, it sounded weak and unsure. Miles did as she asked, firing some webs at her hands to stick them together. She tested to make sure she couldn't escape, then sat down on the edge of the tower with her legs hanging over the edge. Miles began to worry that she might jump, but she just stared into the distance. He took a deep breath and sat down with her but with a little distance between them. Her face bore tell-tale signs that she had been crying recently, and she looked on the verge of doing so again.
"Are you...OK?" He asked hesitantly, trying to work out whether he should address her as an empress or a lover.
She turned her head a little towards him.
"I'm scared, confused and I don't know what to do."
"Scared of what?"
"Of me, of Lucifer."
"What about Lucifer, other than him being the devil?"
"He sits around doing nothing, giving me orders like a slave. When I don't do something, he gets angry. He's hit me a few times, he starved me once until I had finished something. I want to go back. I want to go home."
She was fighting it, but a few tears had escaped. Miles wasn't sure what to say to this; it was so out of the blue.
"And what about you?"
"The Plate. It comes and goes. Sometimes I want to kill everyone and everything, other times I just want to rip my own head open and pull it out. I know you're scared of me, I know I tried to kill you right after bringing you back. I just...Miles, I can't control myself. I wish Teresa took the shot all those years ago."
Miles shuffled closer to her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and began sobbing into his shoulder. He wasn't sure what to say or do, so he decided to ask.
"Can I do anything to help?"
"You were picked up by cameras talking about starting an uprising. Do it, Miles. Please. If not for me, do it for Teresa or someone else."
"Why would I do it for Teresa? She called you a bitch."
"It doesn't matter. I can be of use, even if I'm not on the front lines. Lucifer will probably assign me to putting the rebellion down; I can sabotage the effort."
"Gwen, if I do this there'll be a lot of people out for your head."
"I know. But I'd rather that than spend the rest of my life on top of an Empire with the devil watching and a Plate stuck in me. If they're going to kill me, I want you to do it."
Miles shook his head.
"I won't let them. The Plate made you do this."
"But I chose to merge with the Plate, fully aware of the consequences."
"It was an act of desperation."
"And how will you get the Plate out of me?"
"It's been done before. We'll just find someone to do it again."
"It won't work. It's a part of me now; remove it and I die. And what's to stop me doing it all again?"
Miles took her webbed hands and kissed her cheek.
"Me."
Gwen took a deep breath.
"I love you, whatever happens."
"I love you too. Just the Gwen part, forget the Plate."
"I have to go."
"You could stay."
"No, if I do that Lucifer will come and find me and he'll kill you. But could we meet here every now and again?"
"How about Fridays, 8PM?"
"I'll do my best."
Miles freed her hands from the webs; she pulled her mask on and leapt off the building, swinging away to somewhere she could return to her position of 'Empress'. Miles knew what he had to do, but didn't know where to start. An army was a necessity but where could he find one? Maybe the Borg? Or an army of spider people? The Borg were too unpredictable, so spider people it was. He knew which one he had to convince first, but Peter had said no already. Maybe with this new information he would change his stance?
Miles returned to Peter and MJ's house where he was still staying until he sorted something else out. Peter looked up from his newspaper.
"What's new in today's issue of the 'Empire Times'?" Asked Miles, pulling his mask off.
"Not much. The usual propaganda about how everything is better now, that we're all united more than ever."
"Hmm..."
He sat down in the armchair opposite Peter who folded the paper and and yawned.
"What's new in the streets of New York?"
"I had cops try and shoot me instead of a criminal."
"Probably paid a few thousand to kill you."
"Well, right after I had an imperial visitor on top of a skyscraper."
"Official business? Telling you to stop helping people?"
"I'm not sure, really. I mean...is a request from the Empress official?"
"Gwen came to talk to you?!"
"But is it still official business if the Empress tells you to start a rebellion?"
Peter narrowed his eyes.
"I think I know where this conversation is going. My answer is still no, even more if it's a request from her. She was testing you, Miles. If you do it you'll be publicly executed."
"Lucifer beats her, Peter, for even the smallest things."
"And you want me to beat the devil up for it? Not happening."
"Why?"
"It's suicide!"
"Isn't that the whole point of being Spiderman? You fight the fights nobody else will, even if it kills you?"
"I have other responsibilities nowadays."
"What could be more important than this? What could be more important than fighting a system that has people put to death for being a Christian or Muslim rather than a devil worshipper?"
"My family, Miles. Unlike you, I still have people I can lose. If I put on my suit and start throwing punches, they'll kill MJ and our kids."
"They'll do that anyway at some point!"
"That's selfish, Miles. I can't put the lives of others on the line for you and your thirst for blood."
"Selfish? What about all the people like those Vikings who are being starved despite doing nothing wrong? Doing nothing about that is selfish."
"I can't change all that on my own! Neither can you! And working together won't be enough either! How hard is that to understand?"
"It won't just be us. We'll get other spider people in."
"They won't join, Miles."
"Some will. Not everyone in this multiverse is a mouldy middle-aged loser."
Peter glared at him; Miles put his mask back on and left the house again, slamming the front door.
"Fine. I'll do it myself."
Gwen sat down for another dinner with Lucifer. She said nothing as she started eating, but Lucifer had things to say as usual.
"You still haven't dealt with the Scarlet King rumours."
"They're just rumours. What harm is there?"
"It makes people think there's a force out there able to topple the Empire."
"So what? Let them think what they want. The King is powerless without the Crucible."
"You went to see Miles this afternoon."
Gwen's heart skipped a beat, she felt adrenaline surge through her veins and froze.
"Where did you hear that?"
"You saw Teresa as well."
"And?"
"You have duties as Empress."
"So do you, as Emperor. But I don't see you lifting a finger."
In response, Lucifer did lift a finger. Gwen was thrown backwards against the wall, pulling at an invisible hand around her throat.
"You will tell me everything."
"I have nothing...to tell."
"We shall see."
Crossovers in this Chapter
- Lucifer
- Star Trek