There was a ridiculous amount of paperwork that needed to be completed after getting abducted by aliens. A decontamination, medical checkup, and a bunch of other things to make sure you were safe to reintegrate without spreading some kind of alien virus or something. It took nearly three days for the women to be debriefed and properly screened, each of whom were varying degrees of exasperated. But finally, they were given the all clear, and dropped off at KSU just before dawn.

"I feel clean in places I didn't know I had," Gwen groaned, unlocking their dorm door and letting her roommates inside. She waited until both women dropped their bags before grabbing Himawari, wrapping her arms tightly around her.

"Gwen… what are you doing," Himawari groaned, breaking her angry glaring contest with Andi to look worriedly at Gwen.

"Hugging you. I knew Andi would come for me but I never expected you to. I didn't let myself get close with you all this time because I thought you were sus. I've been a bad friend. I'm sorry." She clung tightly to Himawari, resting her face on the smaller woman's shoulder. Truth be told, she hadn't been worried that she'd die, but she had been worried her friends would arrive too late to save her from the worst of the torture.

"Look… I have been keeping secrets. But I'd never let my secrets hurt you," she said, shooting Andi another glare as she gently rubbed Gwen's back. The taller woman rolled her eyes, tugging her top over her shoulders and tossing it onto her bed.

"I believe you. I really hope this means you're not an extra that disappears at the end of the run. And this isn't a red flag for you. I can't think of too many people who'd chase down an alien spaceship ship for me, and I'd cut Thanos' hand off for every one of them," she sighed, hugging Himawari a little tighter.

"Um… yeah… don't mention it… Andi, a little help?" Himawari could hardly breathe with how tightly Gwen was hugging her, embarrassedly patting her head. She'd never really had close friends like this and she wasn't sure what to do with her arms.

"Nah, you're fine," Andi said, pulling on a shirt she hadn't worn in months. One of the best things about having a symbiote partner is almost never needing a change of clothes. One of the frustrating parts was actually trying to find those clothes once you needed them.

Himawari rolled her eyes at Andi's defiance before gently rubbing Gwen's back. There was a lot going through her mind right now but a small voice in the back of her mind had an idea. "Hey, Gwen?" She kept her voice low, just barely loud enough for Andi to hear.

"What's up Hima-chan," Gwen asked, arms still wrapped tightly around her friend.

"Can I talk with you? In private?"

Andi narrowed her eyes and moved forward with the intention of pulling them apart before she stopped herself. Gwen obviously already knew she was Mania. But Gwen didn't know Himawari was Star. She'd give up her own secret for nothing. Andi rolled her eyes, a small smirk on her face as she sat back on her bed, ready to let her roommate dig her own grave. Once Gwen knew the truth, they'd be able to work together to stop Star as often as they could- hell, they could even work on a way to beat her for good! Then they could get back to trying to be heroes, just like Gwen wanted.

"Yeah, sure thing roomie." Gwen looked back at Andi who simply shrugged before following Himawari out of the room.

Andi took a few deep, calming breaths, working on the skills she'd learned in her anger management courses. She hadn't had a chance to really think at all since landing back in Philadelphia. She had to start thinking up a plan. Now that they finally knew who Star was, they could-

"Thanks for getting me back!"

Mania growled, spinning on her heel ready to strike. Just once she wished this Gwen would leave her alone! "What now," she shouted, practically having predicted she'd show up around now.

"What," Other-Gwen asked innocently. She was sitting on Gwen's desk, her hood down

"What now? You always do this every time something new happens or is about to happen. You come in and say something that you know is gonna make me act the way you want. So what now?" Mania was so angry- so frustrated- with this other Gwen. For once things were finally going well and she didn't even have enough time to enjoy her victory before she was back to ruin things!

Other-Gwen seemed almost shocked for a moment. Her frustratingly calm and playful demeanor fell for a moment, and she looked just like Gwen. Her Gwen. Then the smirk came back. "Aw, you think I'm a plot coupon? That actually really hurts my feelings," Other-Gwen whined, pouting as she looked over Gwen's things. She went through the homework she'd left on the bed and erased a couple answers before scribbling on them. "I'm actually here to congratulate you. And thank you. You really just… grabbed Himawari and Star. Knowing that it'd kill them. You know, my Andi took a few more hours before doing that. That assassin got really violent the closer we got to Teuthida." Other-Gwen rolled back her sleeve up to her shoulder, showing off several cigarette burns. The scars were old and faded, but seemed out of place on Other-Gwen's smooth skin. "M'not gonna show you my thighs, but let's just say I had to finally ask Ronnie for a costume with pants by the time you found me," Other-Gwen sighed. Neither of them said anything for a few seconds, the older woman looking into Mania's bright white eyes before speaking up again. "Anyway, thanks."

"Yeah… whatever." Andi was confused. Other-Gwen was good at riling her up and getting any reaction she wanted out of her. But now here she was… oddly timid.

"Okay, you're angry with me. That's fine. But you helped me out, so I'm gonna help you out." Other-Gwen stood up from her seat on Gwen's desk, looking around the room for a few moments for… something. "You wanna tell baby me about Himawari and Star?"

"I don't even have to. Himawari's probably doing that on her own right now," Andi scoffed. She couldn't wait for that fallout. They'd send Star packing in just a couple days. Out of KSU. Out of S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Stop her," Other-Gwen said flatly. "Gwen can't know about Himawari."

"What? Why the fuck not-"

"Because then the arc is over too fast! Just think about it. We met Himawari in issue two! The entire plot up to now has been leading to this reveal. Once we're on the same page, Himawari and Star barely get a chance to make a name for themselves. Barely get a chance to establish themselves as characters other than our antagonists." Other-Gwen had started pacing back and forth as she spoke. She talked so animatedly- with her whole body, as if to emphasize her points. Just like her Gwen. "The writers don't get a chance to establish a new villain. Our run gets stale and we get discontinued."

"You want me to keep Himawari's secret for comic sales," Mania almost shouted. The thought was ridiculous. So frustratingly ridiculous that only Gwendolyn Poole could've come up with it… And she was hardly ever wrong about this type of thing.

"Trust me, the faster we get discontinued, the faster Gwenpool Strikes Back happens. It's a brand new writer. I retcon myself into being a Mutant- baby me doesn't even know I can do that yet. I wind up in Krakoa. I spend months in Krakoa doing nothing. The only thing worse than me being discontinued is me being relegated to a D-list background character watching everyone around me go on missions and getting bitter and bored about it. Half the guys get transported to Fortnite for Hela's sake and I get left behind. You know I don't even get a Hellfire Gala outfit?" There she goes. Talking about weird things that only Gwen could think of. It was so weird seeing all the same mannerisms in Other-Gwen.

"So… keep it a secret? Seriously?" Mania melted off of Andi, taking the shape of the outfit she was wearing. All of this just seemed so… wrong.

"Yes. Keep it a secret. You can't let Himawari tell me. We're the underdogs right now against a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and a hero! We can't drop that dynamic just yet," Other-Gwen explained. "I said I was helping you, but I'm helping me, too. Well, I'm helping baby Gwen. Maybe if you keep us in print- stop us from going too off the rails… Maybe I don't happen?"

Andi's danger sense wasn't going off. But it never went off around Gwen- either version of her. She couldn't tell if she was lying. She had to trust someone she'd only met because of Mephisto. Could she?

She took a deep breath and pushed her way out the door, running to catch up to Himawari and her Gwen.

"Yeah… sometimes being bad sucks," Other-Gwen sighed. Her speech bubble was bright pink, the individual letters dark against the contrasting background. She sighed and unsheathed her katana, popping the bubble like gum before sucking it back into her mouth to chew on. Then she was gone.

"So what do you want," Star hissed, her raspy, reptilian voice held to just above a whisper. She was obviously angry, tail lashing behind her as she stared down Mania. The late November air was cool against her scales, and she bristled angrily even having to be around the other woman. "What are your terms?"

"You first. I wanna hear how you think this is gonna go down," Andi smirked. Mania covered her body in her usual hero outfit, but left her bare from the neck up. Andi had no reason to hide who she was- both Star and Himawari already knew. She was sitting upside down, hanging from the bottom of a support beam for a telescope. She'd learned from Coach that doing things like this was an easy way to mess with people who you were trying to intimidate.

"Turn yourself in and-"

"Try again."

"Give up the Mania symbiote-"

"I'll go tell Gwen about you right now." She was bluffing of course, but Star didn't need to know that. As long as she held the upper hand, she could make this conversation go exactly the way she wanted it to go.

"You have to give it back. You have no idea how dangerous those symbiotes-"

"Himawari, I've had-"

"I'm not Himawari," Star said gruffly.

"What?"

"I'm not Himawari. And Himawari isn't me. We're two separate people." Star's pupils were glowing a bright blue, clearly more upset at this than she was with Mania in general.

"Okay. Well Mania and I are two separate people. And we belong together-"

"That's the symbiote talking. I've read up on it. It gets inside your head. Makes you think things that aren't true. Andi, Himawari and I can speak to S.H.I.E.L.D. We can get you pardoned for everything you've done up to now- even the Raft! It wasn't your fault, it was the symbiote's influence making you break it out. But we can't protect you forever. If this goes on any longer we have to-"

"I'll take my chances," Andi said sternly. "Mania and I are a team. Period. You want her, you're going to have to kill me."

"... fine. You have to stop this vigilante stuff-"

"We're not vigilantes. We're heroes. And like it or not we're here to stay," Andi shrugged in defiance. She wasn't going to let anyone bully her out of her hero work now.

"You can't just be a hero! There're steps! There's training! There's-"

"We have superpowers. We're heroes," she said flatly.

"You two blew up a bank!"

"We stopped a bank robbery that could've gone way worse without us. They were armed to the teeth for you. If you'd shown up they probably could've stopped you. We caught them off guard and took them down."

"You killed Jack! He was defenseless and you-"

"Do NOT pretend like Jack O'Lantern deserves any sympathy," Andi shouted, barely able to stop Mania from crawling up her face, let alone her Hell-Mark from branding on her chest again. She dropped down from her seat on the beam and landed a few feet in front of Star before standing up. She only just now realized just how small the hero was compared to her. How could she possibly be so strong? "Jack O'Lantern was a piece of shit undeserving of the breath he took every day. He'd already died once. I just fixed my own mistake and put him back in the shithole he came from."

"You really think heroes talk like that," Star countered, arms crossed over her chest. This was exactly what she was worried about. Symbiotes made people unstable. The same had apparently happened to Flash Thompson. Now it was happening with Andi. "You've gotta know that's the symbiote talking-"

"Mania, off." The symbiote slowly crawled off of Andi, a liquid tar pool at her feet. A few tendrils still clung to her ankles, but Andi pulled away, needing to make a point. Andi knew how uncomfortable this was for her friend and she hated making her do this. There was some chocolate in it for her later. "Star? And Himawari, if you can hear me? I killed Jack. Not Mania. Me. I did it. You don't have to like it, but you have to believe me. Jack deserved it, and if I didn't have Mania to help me do it, I'd have done it some other way. Get over it. You're worried about me being a vigilante, fine. But I'm not a bad guy. I'm not Joystick or Ultron or whatever. You won't have to worry about me killing anyone else." Andi took a step back and let Mania slide back up her legs. Together again.

"Alright… Fine," Star sighed, a puff of smoke coming from her nose. "You're really not leaving me with anything here-"

"You're wrong. I'm leaving you with a promise that my partner and I are good guys. We're done killing. You don't have to hunt us down, you don't have to throw us in prison. Hell, if you want, we can say you scared us straight and it can be all over the news how you turned the city's scary vigilante team into heroes. You can focus on the actual bad guys, and leave us alone."

"I can't do that," Star said, shifting her weight from leg to leg. "You've caused too much trouble. If we cross paths, I have to bring you guys in. My career at S.H.I.E.L.D. literally depends on it," she insisted.

"You're never winning that fight," Mania warned her. It didn't matter how bad things got, Andi knew who Star was now. She knew how to fight her. And she wasn't going to let the wannabe dragon get the upper hand on her ever again.

"Maybe not. But I'll fight until my dying breath if it means I get to be a hero. That's just how it's gonna have to be."

"Whatever. I don't tell Gwen about you, you don't tell Gwen about me. Fair enough."

"School is off limits. You have to promise," Star growled, her scales bristling and her ears pinned back against her skull.

"What?"

"Ever since the accident her entire life has changed. She's done everything to try and give me the best life possible. Now I'm doing the same for her. If you mess with us in school, I'll tell everyone about you. You'd be a fugitive on the run for the rest of your life. School is off limits! Promise that now or no deal!"

"That goes for you too then. If KSU's off limits then it's off limits. I see one claw aimed at me-"

"Or one tendril aimed at us and it's over for you. I'll tell her everything," Star threatened. She was so angry smoke was pouring from her nostrils, but Mania didn't care. She'd seen the smaller woman at her most terrifying. She wasn't impressed with the pouty displays now.

"Deal." Andi shrugged, already tired of this conversation. "And I need it from Himawari too."

"What?"

"The same deal. I'm not stupid. You both agree to the terms or this means nothing," Mania pressed.

"No way. You'll kill her the second you can."

"Kill her? You've gotta have more faith in me than that," Mania chuckled, her mouth splitting her face open into a wide, toothy grin. "Trust me."

Star growled and narrowed her eyes before the scales and claws shifted into skin and nails. Himawari was just a little taller than her other half.

"You heard all of that?"

"Pretty much," Himawari nodded, an odd expression on her face. Guilt? Worry? Fear? All three? Mania wasn't sure. "We don't tell Gwen, you don't tell Gwen. Campus is off limits. Besides that, we have to bring you in."

"Yeah, whatever. Good luck."

"Andi?"

"What?"

"Isn't there another way? Can't you just stop the vigilante stuff?" Himawari's eyes were watering, her voice on the verge of cracking. Mania had never seen her roommate like this before. She was normally so strong. Seeing her like this was… unsettling. "You're one of my only friends. One of my only friends! I… I don't wanna have to…"

Andi let Mania slide off her face so her roommate could look her in the eyes. Maybe, had things been different, they could've all worked together. But now? "... do what you have to do. I'll do what I have to do." Mania encased Andi's head again and they quickly swung away, leaving their roommate behind.

"We could do anything," Gwenpool shouted, swinging from rooftop to rooftop with her grapple hook. She was having the time of her life, swinging through Philadelphia's skyline as easily as if she'd been bitten by a radioactive spider.

"What," Mania asked, keeping pace with her. She didn't do all the flips and spins that Gwenpool did- she didn't really see the point. But she at least recognized her friend was having fun.

"We could do anything. Seriously!"

"We need to finish our project," Mania reminded her. She'd let her partner pull her away from their schoolwork after a couple hours of studying. Only if Gwenpool promised they'd be back in their dorm by midnight.

"See, that right there's your problem. You're so worried about school. You suck at this balance thing," Gwenpool teased, free-falling for a few moments before catching herself with another line. She used the added momentum to swing herself further into the sky, sailing a couple stories above Mania.

"Why would I need balance when I have you to literally pull me away from my desk and into the middle of Center City?"

"I guess that is why we work so well as a team. You're the gruff, humorless goth-"

"Hey!"

"And I'm the fun-loving one. We even each other out," Gwenpool teased.

"Yeah, whatever," Mania responded, rolling her eyes as she yanked herself higher into the sky to meet up with her friend.

"See! Humorless."

"Gwenpool, you know I can literally eat you, right? Like, not even in a few bites. I could just swallow you whole." It wasn't a threat so much as it was a fact. Unfortunately Gwenpool hardly ever took threats seriously.

"That's gonna get the vore people excited."

"The what people?"

"Ah, don't worry about it. Come on, I think we've had enough panels of banter. Our next bad guy should be dropping in soon," she warned her. Still, she was positive they could handle anything Marvel threw at her. She was unbelievable after all.

"Couldn't you wait a little longer before saying that? I was actually enjoying not being shot at or lit on fire or punched in the face or-"

WHUMP!

The world around her was moving in slow motion. So very slow, but Gwenpool didn't even have time to react as Joystick landed on Mania's back, shooting her a playful salute as she forced Mania's trajectory down a few dozen feet in less than a second. Mania tried to respond with tendrils and claws to tear the other woman off, but Joystick was already jumping off of her.

Gwenpool changed her own trajectory, shooting a grapple hook past Mania in an attempt to reach her before she crashed into the ground. A fall from this height would hurt her, even with her symbiote and Hell-Mark durability. Before the hook had time to strike its target, a wall of fire and sound hit her friend.

Mania's scream was horrific.

The symbiote shrieked in agony, bubbling and tearing apart on Andi's skin. The two things in the world that could cause it pain, coming together in a powerful blast that hurt it so much even the host underneath screamed. With Mania barely able to keep its own form over Andi, the two plummeted towards the ground. Down, down, down into an alley below. Faster than Gwenpool could follow. Andi hit the ground hard, and her legs shattered. She howled her agony, her legs giving out and forcing her to lean her weight against the brick wall of the alley. Mania was barely able to stay over her face to maintain her secret identity- no way the symbiote would be able to heal those injuries any time soon.

"Remember me, bitch?" The punch was hard enough to pulverize concrete. Even the invulnerability from her Hell-Mark couldn't protect her from a punch like that in her weakened state. Let alone the second punch that pushed Mania's face against the brick wall behind her, cracking and crumbling the stone under her. Andrea Benton hit the ground, unconscious and broken, with Mania barely clinging to her face in a desperate attempt to conceal her secret identity from their attackers.

No.

Move between the panels. Gwenpool slid through the panel she was in, ending up behind Pyro and Shocker. Taking them by surprise, she might be able to dispatch them both, but she didn't have time!

Move faster than the panels! So fast no one else would have time to react. So fast-

"You were right. I am faster than Speed Demon." Eight punches slammed into her before she'd even known she was under attack. The punches came hard enough she thought each one felt worse than the gunshot she'd taken. She wouldn't be able to take another panel of this.

No!

She threw up a panel, using the Gutter as a shield between herself and the taller woman. As long as Joystick was on the other side, she wouldn't be able to attack!

"She's bunkering down. Pyro, Shocker, crack her open," Joystick shouted, giving Gwenpool another playful salute before dashing out of the way.

"On it!" The two men readied their weapons, Pyro's wicked smirk making a shiver run down her spine. Gwenpool pressed against the walls of her panel, the two men taking positions on either side. "Oi, it's 'bouta get nice and toasty in there for ya, Shiela!"

She did her best to hold the sides of the Gutter in place, but they quickly started degrading under the onslaught. Pyro's side began to melt, while Shocker's side began to crumble into pieces. They wouldn't last three panels like this!

No!

Not like this!

This was her comic!

"I can stop this! I can stop this," she chanted to herself. She just had to think! What would Hawkeye do? What would Wolverine do? What would Miss Marvel-

"Got it." She just had to change the angle of perspective. She looked off into the distance, setting it a few feet behind Pyro's shoulder. She looked small- barely a few inches tall next to him as he stood over her. One smoke bomb at the ground filled the little room she'd created for herself and she ran just as Pyro and Shocker breached the walls she'd built.

"Where'd she go?!"

"She's headed for Mania! Don't let them escape! We've only got one shot at this!"

Gwen kept running. No one had seen her yet. She just had to make it to Andi. She jumped off the rooftop and into a garbage can. It only took a few seconds to crawl out, a candy wrapper just barely slowing her down. She was just a dozen feet from her, but at this scale, it felt like forever!

"You think I can't see you?!"

The kick came fast- sending her rocketing back into the garbage can. She couldn't hold her smaller size any more and was forced to grow, groaning in her daze as she pulled herself out of the crumpled remains of the garbage can. She was bleeding from her mouth and ears, holding her side as she tried to stabilize her broken ribs. She wasn't in any condition to fight, but she unsheathed her sword anyway, keeping it raised in her unsteady hands. If she'd learned one thing in K'un-Lun, it was to face her enemies with her weapon ready.

"You ruined everything! Now I'm gonna kick your fucking ass," Redfield hissed.

"We are gonna kick her ass," Joystick chuckled, pulling up beside the angry vampire. They were joined in the next panel by Pyro and Shocker. A wall of evil assholes in between her and Mania.

"Supervillain team-up? Yeah… alright… I guess we're in the big leagues now," Gwenpool said, coughing up more blood. She was definitely going to need to get to a hospital soon.

"Big leagues? You're fucking dead, kid," Redfield shouted.

"Okay… yeah… But who's the last guy? You guys never just work in teams of four. It's always either five or six. And then you have some dumb alliteration based name."

"Clever." Black and green outfit. Green combat boots. Black mask that left his mouth and nose open, with green lenses for his eyes. He dropped down with his sniper rifle in hand, landing in between Joystick and Redfield.

"Oh… you."

"Yeah, me," he shouted, obviously still angry about everything that'd happened.

"I still don't know your name."

"MY NAME IS-"

Gwenpool swung her katana, slicing the page clean in half with all the villains caught in the bottom panel. She moved as fast as she could, crumpling the page and tossing it into the destroyed trashcan before any of them could escape. "Andi… we need to leave now," Gwen hissed, limping her way to the pile of broken limbs that was her friend. Each step felt like it took minutes to complete, pain shooting up from her toes to the base of her skull. Mania hadn't moved, but now that the threat was gone she sprung into action, covering as much of her host as she could in her sticky tar. It was barely enough to cover Andi's face and torso, but they'd make due with what they had.

"I'M GONNA TURN YOU INTO A VAMPIRE AND LEAVE YOU OUT IN THE SUN TO BAKE YOU LITTLE SHIT!" Redfield was absolutely feral, pushing against the borders of the panel she was caught in. They bent and folded under her strength, slowly pushing apart wide enough to crawl out of. There wasn't much time.

"Mania," Gwenpool shouted, pushing herself as fast as she could. Tears were streaming down her eyes, desperation setting in as she raced against time and overwhelming pain to reach her friend.

"Push harder!"

"Where ya runnin' off to!"

"MANIA!" Gwenpool reached her hand out, the symbiote stretching as far from Andi's skin as it could out to reach her. Just a couple more inches-

BOOM

They were gone. Gwenpool and Mania had gotten away just as Joystick made it to them. She'd even outraced the assassin's bullet.

"Well fuck me dead, they got away," Pyro sighed, dousing the place they'd disappeared from with his flamethrower in anger.

"No need to worry. We sent a message. Next time we see them, we bring them to the boss." The assassin smirked, looking pleased with himself for the first time since his creation.