Listen by gosh I have finals I have projects I have deadlines I have stress but I got one review asking for me to update today because today is your birthday. Well, Gmac? Happy Birthday.

Finals can wait.


Chapter 2

"Let's do this one last time. My name is Noah Lancaster, and for the past five years, I've lived with my mentor Isaiah Tomlinson and learned how to live up to the Lancaster name. My life was changed forever when my family died in an airplane crash that gave me the spider-like and spiritualist abilities that made me into Shadow-Spider.

Emily looked Noah up and down and shook her head, changing her Spiderling outfit back into the light blue hoodie jacket she'd been wearing earlier, to Noah's surprise.

"Put this on, then it's a look," she said, tossing Julian's jacket at him. It was a little big on Julian, it fit Noah perfectly. He zipped it up and instinctively put his hands in the pockets, dragging out a key on a simple keychain while Emily unhooked a necklace from her neck, pressed an almost invisible button, and dropped it on the table where the nano-cloud had been. Nanoparticles swarmed the necklace.

"Nano-magnet," she explained.

"Dorm key," he explained, tossing it to her and beginning to pick through Julian's backpack, finding a sketchbook.

"Oh, great, we could question Julian's roommate about this ordeal."

"Good plan." Noah followed her out of the building, shouldering Julian's backpack and studying the sketchbook.

"Emily! Are you headed to dinner?" A voice called out from a short distance away, jogging up to them. Noah stared down at the shorter guy. He was probably 5"9 to Noah's 6"3, and he had boring brown hair in a short haircut similar to Noah's, and crazy piercing blue eyes, which reminded Noah of his friend Eve.

"Uh, no. I was um… Hey, do you know which dorm this room key is for?"

"Oh, sure, that's my dorm." Emily grinned at her friend.

"Who's your guy?" Her friend asked, nodding at Noah.

"Oh, Shores, this is Noah, one of my brother's friends, Noah, this is Shores."

"It's nice to meet you," Shores grinned, shaking Noah's hand, "any friend of Emily or Daniel is a friend of mine."

"Uh, same," Noah returned.

"Hey, Shores, do you know anything about Julian Carver?"

"I think he lives in my hall with Deke Masters, otherwise no."

"Well, this is his key. Could you like, go to his room and give it to Deke? Maybe ask him if he knows where Julian is and how to get a hold of him?" Shores nodded, seeming eager to please.

"Um, do I get any secret mission music?" Shores asked. She slipped an earbud in his ear and turned on Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson, and he jogged off, Noah and Emily following behind.

"He seems nice."

"Oh, yeah, he is."

"Your boyfriend?"

"Oh, no, just my best friend."

"Yeah, but best friends can be more than just best friends…"

"Is that the case with you, Noah?"

"Uh, no, not exactly."

"Then I don't want to hear it."

"What about this Julian guy?" He'd begun to flip through the sketchbook. There were lots of detailed blueprints for the thing that had landed him in this dimension, but that wasn't all.

"Uh, he's in my English class. I had no idea about any of this, he's the one who opened the interdimensional doorway from this side. I tried to stop him."

"Are you friends?"

"Oh no, we just talk in class." Smooth Criminal switched to Turning Out by AJR.

"Does he have a crush on you or something?"

"What? No? Why do you ask?" Emily was weirded out. She liked Julian, as in they could maybe one day be friends, but she didn't know if he would want to talk or hang out outside of class.

"Because this is a drawing of you." Noah turned the sketchbook towards her and a blush flared up on her face.

"So it is," she said, looking down and studying her feet.

"Clearly there's a lot more going on than either of us know."

"Yeah. Let's see what Shores can find out."

They didn't have to wait long for her best friend to return from his super-secret mission. He was holding something super gingerly like it was a baby bird, but from where Noah stood it was just another piece of tech that was more advanced than anything in his universe.

"Apparently your boyfriend," Shores cracked a grin, "has this lame-o walkie-talkie that you can call him on if you need to." Noah thought back to what he knew about walkie-talkies and couldn't fit the two images together.

"He's not my boyfriend, why would you call him my boyfriend?" Emily asked, exasperated, taking the device with just as much care as Shores had been using.

"Mm I don't know, Deke seemed super closed off to my questions about how to reach Julian until I mentioned that you were the one asking. So either Julian likes you or Deke does but Deke's got a girlfriend so that doesn't seem as likely, does it?"

"It's definitely Julian that likes her," Noah smirked, "Look at this drawing he did of her in his sketchbook."

"Ooh, Emily, you gotta get on this." Shores grinned and lightly punched her arm. Emily rolled her eyes.

"You need to pack if you want a ride home," Emily said, crossing her arms. In her mind she was composing a text to Daniel, he was the only person from her universe that knew she was Spiderling. He'd been covering for her for a while now, he would definitely cover for their interdimensional guest. He was a good brother.

"Oh! We're going after all!" Shores brightened, "I'll meet you in thirty minutes then."

"Does he know?" Noah asked as soon as Shores was gone.

"No. Only my older brother knows. And now you. And possibly Julian, from our interaction before he disappeared. I'm really worried about him, scientific risks are dangerous. I've lost good people to science. A good person..." Emily didn't elaborate, she didn't like talking about her dad.

"I know," Noah remarked casually.

"Huh?"

"You just… You carry yourself like someone who's lost someone. My whole family died, the accident is what gave me superpowers."

"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that." Emily studied him for a while, "What… What do you know about me? You're hiding something."

Noah ran his hands through his hair, wondering what he should say to this stranger. Like Emily, his own best friend didn't know about his superpowers, he kept that kind of thing pretty quiet. But this girl, here, knew that he was something different, and she was too. He didn't know if he should tell her what he knew, he didn't know if it would hurt her.

"I'm not sure if I could tell you. If I should tell you. It's not the nicest thing to hear."

"Just tell me." After everything that had happened, she had no patience for this sort of thing.

"Okay just, um, don't get mad at me, and please don't cry…"

"Noah!"

"Right, okay, one of my abilities is to see and talk to ghosts. And, uh, your dad says hi."


Again, happy birthday, Gmac. Thanks for the review. Some of this chapter was already written so it wasn't the hardest thing to do to finish it, so I have no regrets lol.

But I'm definitely going to bed now XD