"Goodbye girl!"
It's said that before the impact of death, your life is supposed to flash before your eyes, for Gwen Stacy the flashback happened a few hours before her demise.
Before hearing an all-points bulletin from a police scanner that her father had misplaced by her stealing it and placing it in a gutted-out stuffed penguin on her shelve, Gwen had suited up and swung straight across the high rises of the island of Manhattan heading straight towards the Guggenheim Museum of Art.
After leaving her band The Mary Jane's in a vague hint that they may have just lost their drummer Gwen boarded a crowded subway heading for home. During the ride as she shuffled through train cars the young musician was plagued with memories of her time as the crime fighter known as The Spec…Amazi…Ultim…Sensa…Unlimt…Spider-Woman, as The Spider-Woman adjectives notwithstanding…for now.
But the thought that was beating into Gwen's head that she had tried to drown out over an impromptu drum solo that got her in an argument with her bandmates in the first place was Peter Parker, her Peter. Parker Her best friend, her loudest supporter, her greatest failure. Gwen never figured out that a smart guy like Peter would be able to put two and two together and find out what his best friend did during the night and off hours away from him, school, and band practice.
It was her fault, that was the only conclusion Gwen kept coming back to, maybe Peter was jealous of her powers, maybe he just wanted a way to stand out and be seen, or that without meddling with a science experiment of his own Peter wouldn't be strong enough to help her as he was, a weak mortal.
If she were any kind of investigator or friend, she would have been able to put the pieces together that Peter was up for something, just as he managed to with her own secret. But it was too late for her and for Peter, even close to a year and the night Peter had lost his life kept haunting Gwen in her lowest moment even when her mind was plagued with thoughts of her new friend Miles, one that she had no hope of ever seeing again either without a gateway though the multiverse that is.
So, here Gwen was dressed in her Spider-Woman, costume or uniform whatever term you thought best for a young woman dressed to fight crime in. It was a full-bodied suit made of spandex and breathable fabrics, black from the waist down and white at the waist up. Along with her white mask that had white lens with magenta accents so was the hood she wore over the mask, its insides being magenta as well with decretive cyan web patterns on top of it.
And to complete her unique Spider Suit were her shoes the only remaining proof that Gwen Stacy had ever taken up ballet and dance lessons until she traded them in for a set of drumsticks, a pair of cyan dance slippers tied around and over her ankles.
So now that you're up to speed on what Gwen Spider-Woman looks like and that she was in mortal danger it was time to let you in on the danger. A man who looked like he stepped out of a doodle from DaVinci's thrown-out sketch pad had his paper steampunkesk metal claw shoes pined on Spider-Woman's head and left arm.
With her body pressed into the concrete structure of the museum even with her superhuman level strength Spider-Woman couldn't pry the clearly alternate reality Vulture off of herself as he gave Gwen a sinister smile and rolled his upper body back and held up his hand for his final attack.
A set of claws emerged from his fingertips as the Vulture let out a yell of furry as he brought his metallic claw gauntlet down on the helpless Gwen who let out one last tired yet not fearful, "Oh no" before something stopped the Renaissance villain in his tracks.
A series of looked to be golden glowing ropes appeared out of nowhere and wrapped themselves around all five fingers and thumb of the Vulture's claw-like gauntlet. The glowing ropes were stoning enough that when they went taut, they not only held the Vulture from attacking but managed to pull his whole arm back.
With her head still trapped under the Vulture's foot shoe claw thing, Gwen used her eyes to look at where the mysterious ropes had come from. And when she saw that the ropes seemed to be coming from an equally mysterious glowing circular portal with a series of mystical-looking runes rotating around it, her heart skipped a beat.
The lenses of her mask widened as her eyes did underneath when Gwen saw the portal grow bigger and from the other side of the circle someone or something pulled the ropes hard enough to get the Vulture's full attention as he was restrained from using his right hand all together.
In the blink of an eye someone shot right out of the portal in a blur of red and blue as they headed to and punched out the Vulture in one move freeing Spider-Woman. And when her savior from the other side passed right by her eyeline Gwen's heart practically acted like a metronome as time seemed to slow down to a crawl when she saw the face of Peter Parker with a look of determination pass right by her.
And in that instant time started back up again as the Vulture and the not-Peter shot across the main upper part of the gallery and down a few floors to the ground. Shotting two lines of webs from each of her wrist mounted web shooters Spider-Woman used her might to pull herself out of the concrete fall thus freeing herself as she jumped down towards the wreckage of the other two.
With a quick free fall followed by a web sling Gwen gently landed on the rubble from the result of her previous scrimmage with the out of universe Vulture as she carefully had her guard up ready for any more curve balls life seemed to be pelting at her from a malfunctioning pitching machine.
The guy who saved her who Gwen immediately concluded was a Peter Parker from another universe shook some rubble that managed to coat on top of his cape off as he stood up from a crouching position…oh yeah, this Peter was rocking a cape.
But not like a normal superhero cape, no it looked like something that Count Dracula would wear on a night out in Transylvania. It was dark red with a popped-up collar that held around the Peter's neck, and if it wasn't weird enough that this Peter Parker was wearing a cape the rest of his ensemble was just as strange as well.
A red tunic a few shades lighter than the cape with a pair of dark blue pants that a martial artist would use in competitions and a black sash tied around his waist tied together with a jet-black pair of P.F. Flyer high tops completed the odd assortment of cloths that this Peter Parker had decided looked normal enough to start his day with.
Gwen's eyes caught the attention of a pair of golden bracelets as the metallic jewelry that this Peter wore on top of his tunic reflected a small shimmer of light into her eyes as he looked around his surroundings.
"Oh man I got to work a lot better on my landings," The new Peter said out loud as his cape somehow furled itself upwards as if a breeze of wind and flown by, which it hadn't. The cape seemed to have a life of its own as it wiggled and tangled itself around Peter as if to get his attention.
"What, no I'm not blaming you Buddy that was all on me!" Peter said franticly as if to calm the cape down, which it did conforming one thing out of the millions of questions that Gwen had for this Peter Parker namely, IS YOUR CAPE F*&KING ALIVE!"
When Peter seemed to get his magical nonverbal cape to calm down for a second, he looked around the broken museum, most likely trying to see where the Vulture had landed when he saw Gwen standing right behind him.
Not knowing how this Peter would react, if he somehow recognized her under the mask or at all in general, or thing she was an enemy he surprised Gwen with a bright smile and a small wave as he said, "High I'm Peter by the way!"
Gwen didn't know how to respond, she met other versions of her friend, two in fact but those other versions of Peter Parker were both older and far different from her friend. She managed to adjust to being in their presence with no problem. But this Peter looked just like Her's, except for the fact that his hair wasn't as messy as it was neatly combed with pomade from the light pleasant smell and sheen of it and he seemed to also be in better shape, toned and slightly more muscular, like if the Peter she knew hit the gym as much as he hit the science lab and library.
With her taken back expressions Gwen thought that her body language would put off the other Peter Parker, but instead, he seemed to be walking towards her, with his hand now sticking out like he wanted to shake Gwen's own hand.
Stopping right in front of her Gwen awkwardly took the seemingly friendly Peter's hand as he shook it in a firm yet gentle manner, "Sorry that was kind of rude of me, Peter Parker" he said with the same upbeat attitude.
Already Gwen could tell that this Peter was different from the other two Peter's she had met before in her multiversal adventure a few months prior. He wasn't as old as the other Peter's he had the same youthfulness as her Peter, and it seemed like life hadn't beaten him down so much as it had Peter B. Parker or the Peter whose world was more monotone in color.
But he was a Peter Parker so there was a chance that this friendly caped Peter was just hiding a hero's guilt and a hero's pain just like any of the other Spiders Gwen had met.
Letting go of her hand Peter looked around the empty and half-ruined museum when he looked down at his own hands in wonder as if looking at them for the first time. "I gotta say the metaphysics of your universe is amazing, everything looks so pretty in pastels."
"In my universe?" Gwen asked in mock surprise, "What do you mean my universe looks amazing?"
As if he realized he was forgetting something, the Caped Peter shook his head and placed his fingertips on his temples. "Oh, right sorry I should explain, I'm Peter Parker…"
"You said that already," Gwen said cutting him off in order to have a little fun with this Peter.
"Yes, yes I did," Peter responded by pointing his finger at Gwen. "And as crazy and confusing as this sounds I'm from another dimension."
Gwen held her hands up to her mask as she let out a gasp and said, "WOW!" followed by dropping all pretense of surprise as she added, "Actually, I'm not that confused."
Peter now looked to be the one taken back as he turned his head a bit, looking like the confused one as well. "Wait are you, have you..."
"Ah, is you?" Spider-Woman said slyly, "Gonna pick the right question to ask there, Dude?"
"…I'm not the first person you've met besides that retro-looking metal chicken guy from an alternate dimension, am I?"
"No, you're not," Gwen said with her head shaking back and forth and her hand on her hip. "How did you get here anyway from those bracelet things?
"The Bands of the Power Cosmic?" Peter called them as he looked at his fashion accessories, "No these are more like mystical radio relays that let me sort of boost my magical mojo across universes. I got here using a dimensional gateway spell I know."
"So you have a way to safely travel to different dimensions? Do you think you could take me to an alternate dimension that I've traveled to before with that spell of…wait did you say spell and magic…Are you a wizard?!"
Looking rather smug of himself Peter folded his hands as he said, "Well I prefer the term Apprentice of the Mystic Arts, then something like a wizard or a Man Witch."
"…Manwich like the sandwich?"
"What no that's not what I meant!"
"And also, magic's real I mean at this part of my story I feel like that shouldn't really come as much as a shock but Magic is real?!" Gwen managed to calm down a bit after a small dose of appropriate freak out before adding on, "And you're still just like an apprentice that's in your official magical job title?"
"Well, I've been granted a seat on the Mystic Council, but I have yet to be granted the rank of Master."
That last statement made Gwen smile from under her mask, it was a comforting thought that some Peter's were still the same as Her's, for the most part. With all their chatting it seemed that the Vulture was getting his second wind as Gwen could see that a rising form was emerging from the pile of debris behind Magic Peter, so she decided to wrap things up for now.
"Listen I really want to get back to you on magical dimensional travel but there's still that matter of that giant mechanical turkey from the Renaissance that I have to bring to justice so if you don't mind…" Gwen started to walk around Peter to get the Vulture before he could fully emerge from the ground only to get intercepted by the not wizard.
"That's actually why I'm here too!" Peter exclaimed as he ran in front of Gwen making her stop. "I've been going to different universes finding people, for some reason always supervillain people, being zapped from their home worlds to different realities altogether!"
"Oh, so are you saying that you got this handled by yourself?"
"Well now that you mention it every time, I run into these misplaced bad guys I'm always helped out by a Spider-themed superhero so if you'd want to team up…" Peter stopped speaking when he felt his cloak whirled wildly as it altered him to notice that a bright light was slowly emerging from behind him.
"GET DOWN!"
Peter shouted as Gwen watched as his most likely magical cape turned his whole body around letting Peter face forward against the Vulture. The aerial supervillain had his mechanical wings raised up as his helmet was lowered over his mouth making his appearance more raptor-like. The two liquid vats on the sides of his cheeks glowed even brighter as the Vulture opened his metal beak a small flame emerged from within it.
"BY THE SHEILD OF LIBERTY!" as Peter cried those words out, he held out one of his hands with the other bracing his held-out wrist as a giant circular shield of light emerged from within his wrists until it shot forward growing until it covered in circumference both Peter and Gwen as she stood behind him.
The circular light almost looked like a disk as it bent around the edges Spider-Woman could make out a giant star in the middle of the disk as the flames from the Vulture's attack made contact with the magical defense.
The blowback from the firestorm made its way as a shock wave that pushed both Peter and Gwen back until said web-slinger quickly wrapped her arms around the mystic apprentice's waist and used her feet to stick onto the ground as hard as she could, bracing both of them together.
As the Vulture's attack split into a three-way beam of fire, going off on both sides while also traveling up thanks to Peter's shield Gwen gritted her teeth as she tried to hold on with all her might. At the same time, Peter managed to hold his own as he felt the force of the heat wave washing over him.
In a matter of moments, the Vulture's flames died down as the fuel for his attack drained his reserves. Seeing that his prey and her strangely dressed friend were still out of the fire he decided to switch tactics and take them to the kitchen…of their deaths!"
Peter released his grip on the shield when the fires died down and dissipated his defense back into the aether as it broke away and dispersed like stardust, as he turned his head to look over at the Spider-Woman. "All right we did it, ya teamwork," he said halfheartedly as he raised a pumped-up fist into the air acting as if he'd just come down from running a mile.
Peter still felt Spider-Woman's grip wrapped around him as he looked and saw her resting her head on his upper shoulder. Finally noticing that the two were out of intermediate danger Spider-Woman slowly let her head up and saw that she was still hugging Peter.
"Oh, right sorry," Gwen quickly released her grip on the young man as she slowly took a few paces back. "Personal space," she laughed that out slowly and awkwardly as she waved her hands around before placing a hand on the back of her neck and chucking out, "Well this is a little embarrassing."
"Time to Die!"
The Vulture cried out his declaration of attack, saving Gwen some of her dignity as he flew charring right towards them Peter pointed his finger at the bird man and cried out, "Blind him!" Taking the command on the drop of a hat Pete's cloak leaped from his shoulder as it flew straight towards the Vulture, wrapping around his head and eyesight until the metal birdman flew off course and missed the two teens completely as he spiraled up into the higher levels of the Guggenheim.
"Curse you and your infernal devil blanket!" Vulture screamed as he flew frantically around the museum in both fury and terror.
"Ok, my turn!" Gwen quickly fired a lining of the web from her web-shooters as she vaulted up in the air and started to chase after the fleeing villain.
As Spider-Woman looked like she was dancing up the walls trying to catch up with the metal bird Peter felt that his gaze on a certain pair of assets that the young hero presented when she bent around in mid-air was longer than appropriate as he lightly slapped himself in the face.
"Come on Parker time to act like a procreational, stop the bad guy and send him to him then try to ask the Spider-Girl out on a date without sounding like a complete dork." Trying to psych himself up Peter started to wave his hands back and forth as he tiled his neck from side to side.
As Gwen managed to web herself onto the Vulture's back and take the reins of his wings in a small squad of police officers entered the museum from the newly made entrances that the Vulture had made from his last inferno breath attack.
Captain George Stacy led the charge as some of his officers came up from behind him. As the captain looked up and saw the suspect and his own personal public enemy number one Spider-Woman flying around at the top of the museum he immediately looked down at his eye line and saw a ghost from his past looking up at the Vulture and Spider-woman as well.
"Mother of God…" Captain Stacy whispered as his eyes widened in shock as he saw his daughter's dead best friend Peter Parker alive and looking like he just stepped out of a fantasy roleplaying game jumping around on the ground a few feet away from him as the young man waved his hands around. "…P…Peter?"
George couldn't believe it, this had to be some sort of trick. Peter Parker, the son he never had, who he witnessed die as he held him in his arms and helped Peter's poor Aunt May bury into the ground at the end of the boy's funeral was seemingly alive as he held his hands up into the air.
"By The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak!"
Maybe it was universal instinct or just a cosmic coincidence but whatever the case Peter Parker held his hands up as he extended his index and pinky fingers while flexing down his middle and ring one with his thumb sticking out as a series of glowing golden rope-like appendages emerged from his hands and shot into the air catching and entangling the Vulture by legs.
"PETER!"
Geroge Stacy held his hand out reaching for Peter as he saw the young man swing into the air as the Vulture inadvertently pulled him off the ground. Seeing the look of excitement on Peter's face before flying out towards the two criminals only baffled the officer of the law even more than seeing the ghost in the first place.
As for Peter, when he shot into the air, he quickly let out a whistle that somehow managed to echo through the whole museum as it seemed to signal his cloak to let go of the vulture. Releasing its victim of darkness, the cloak unraveled itself from the Vulture's head as it flew down towards the rising Peter.
With his cape back on his back Peter didn't stop his rising accent as with his hand held out and his fingers clenched, he shouted out, "Fist of the World Breaker!' as a silhouette of a giant green fist extended out of his own and struck the Vulture right in the jaw sending him springing even more than before.
Gwen quickly jumped off the Vulture's back before Peter's giant hand could make contact and avoided going with the crazy drawn-out bird's trip. Right as she was about to fire a web line out, she was caught by Peter as he held out his arms and held Gwen up bridle style.
Looking around and seeing that the two of them were suspended in the middle of the air and that Peter's cape was billowing outward as if it was riding an invisible jet stream Spider-Woman quickly asked. "So do you do this kind of thing for all the girls you team up with or am I just special?" She meant it more as a joke as being held by this Peter was still unsettling for her. Not bad just a little…not, right?
The bashful look on Peter's face wasn't helping as he stuttered out, "Oh you know just the pretty ones, not that I judge women on their looks, or guys, or anyone for that matter you know only if they're pretty on the inside?!"
It seemed that the last strike Peter made had only managed to upset the Vulture even more as he flew towards the two teens this time around with a different strategy of using his razor-like wings to cut down the installations that were hung up by the ceiling.
The art pieces started to descend towards the ground where some of the helpless patrons of the museum who were trapped by the Vulture ran franticly towards the exits hoping not to get smooshed from the falling prices of modern art.
"Man, what a jerk I'm not a fan of modern art but you don't see me throwing a temper tantrum about it," Peter said as he quickly tossed Spider-Woman from his arms and over his shoulders letting her fall into the open air. Stunned by the new Peter's actions and without warning Spider-Woman just free fell for a few seconds before she quickly shot a web line just in time to swing herself over towards the upper levels of the museum with the intent of helping those still trapped up there.
"Hey, speaking of jerks how about a little heads-up next time Peter?!"
"Sorry!"
That confirmed it, as Captain Stacy helped usher some of the fleeing citizens out of the museum, he heard what Spider Woman called the boy in the red cape as he quickly ran towards the stairs in an attempt to intercept the vigilantly as she swung around the levels down.
"Come hell or high water I'm getting to the bottom of this," Captain Stacy said as he pulled out his weapon and charged up the stairs.
Bold/ Spells
Italic/ Italans words
