I stared into the swirling blue-green vortex. "Strange, since you're such an expert, do you have some way to see where these things go before you land? I've been going blind—"

He opened a locket, showing me a magical live picture of a construction site, clouds of winged insects obscuring the view. "Your double's earliest Multiversal screw-up. Right this way, I'll give you a closer look."

"N-no, that's really okay—"

Before I could fight back, he forcefully grabbed my arm and yanked me into the wormhole.

My stomach lurched as I tumbled behind him, amidst the now familiar transdimensional light show, unearthly sounds and smells.

In a flash, we popped out the opposite end, smashing into the back of a portajohn. It sloshed and rocked, threatening to tip over.

I brushed myself off and got up, wrinkling my nose. Even in a parallel world, people hadn't figure out how to make a portable toilet not smell bad.

Immediately I noticed the insects: Wasps with eight legs, black abdomens with the red tell-tale marking of the black widow.

Not tiny things. These bugs ranged from the size of golf balls to grapefruits and toasters, and millions swarmed around us. "Holy shit! What are those?"

"Oh, just one of those things they'd stop you at customs for, if dimensions had that kind of thing."

Something buzzed behind me. The moment I turned around, Strange had his hands spread out, creating a glowing orange forcefield, inches from my neck. A winged black widow fell to the ground, which he immediately stomped to a pulp.

I opened my mouth to thank him, but he only waved his hands again. A huge orange bubble surrounded us, a rain of flying insects hitting the barrier and dropping to the dirt and concrete.

Only half of them died. The rest came crawling toward us like regular spiders, little wings flapping in preparation for another airborne assault.

Couldn't see much of the construction site, on account of the swarms of flying insects. They appeared to be building a parking garage or an office building of some type. Big yellow construction machines stood immobile, decaying bloated corpses in hard hats and orange vests sprawled all around. It's one of those times where you'd wish you didn't have a nose.

Whoosh! Wade and The Professor popped out the wormhole to join us, accompanied by Wong and Rembrandt.

Wade ducked a flying insect. Wong waved his hands, and used glowing magic runes to hack down a large swath of the killer bugs.

With a Tai-Chi motion, he formed a magic bubble around my friends.

Rembrandt drew a pistol, squinting as he aimed at a red-black abdomen.

Surprisingly good shot. The bug popped like a squished grape.

"Heh! It's been a long time since the Marines, but Cryin' Man still got it!" He splattered four others before clicking empty.

Wong gave him a grunt of approval as he made more magical Tai-Chi motions in the air.

Rembrandt dropped a couple shells as he reloaded his weapon. He just happened to kneel at the right time to avoid stinging death. He pistol whipped the attacking insect into squirming mush.

Strange chopped bugs with his magic, reformed the barrier. "Where's our reinforcements?"

Wong shrugged. "The duck's working on it."

Illyana teleported between the two wizards. Now reverted to her horned, goat hooved form, she twirled around a fiery sword, hacking insects right and left. Her spade tail slapped another out of the way. Hooves smashed the crawlers.

She failed to notice one hovering behind her shoulder blades.

"Illyana!" Strange rushed ahead, smashing the creature with his power.

Unfortunately, that left me exposed. I grabbed the nearest weapon I could find: A splintery two by four with a couple nails sticking out of it. I swung right and left, crushing clumps of winged arachnids.

Catching this as a cue, The Professor picked up a piece of rebar, braved the border of his shield bubble, smashing the ones surrounding him. Wade threw rocks and pieces of masonry.

Rembrandt kept shooting.

Strange jumped back, shielding me from a stinging death from above. "Knew you guys were useful for something..."

A portal opened in the sky. Out came a futuristic military aircraft, shaped like a falcon. As it descended from the air, fire blasted out of its cannons, roasting wide sections of the swarm like popcorn.

The jet landed, a cargo ramp lowering to the ground. Out marched a weird assortment of figures in Hazmat suits.

All of them set to work the moment the ramp hit the dirt:

A black man with an eyepatch rushed out and blazed through the bugs with a flamethrower. A pudgy, egg headed man trailed behind him with another torch, clearing out the flying spiders that closed on Eyepatch Guy.

A tall figure with a combination steampunk gas mask and goggles took off with a rocket pack, vaporizing bugs with a pair of space guns.

Bringing up the rear, a scowling Asian lady, and a child sized figure with a hairy raccoon face blasted the insects attempting ingress into their flying vehicle.

The battle took a couple hours, but we all hacked away at the swarm until only a few stragglers remained.

I kept searching the air for danger, gripping the two by four. "We done yet? Is that it?"

Strange gritted his teeth. "We're not done until they're all wiped out. Your doubles only brought a couple into this world, and look what damage it caused."

Our extended team splattered more and more, until none could be seen anywhere. Illyana, noting the lack of killer insects, abruptly made herself vanish.

I could see the site more clearly now, not much to look at. They'd put in the concrete, steel pylons and girders, but still had huge piles of gravel that needed distributing, areas remained covered in plastic, I-beams and stacks of boards that needed installed somewhere.

The eyepatched man dropped to his knees, clutching his neck. His protective headgear came off.

The egghead rushed to his side. "Director Fury! Are you okay?"

Eyepatch Guy shook his head, gasping for breath. "One of these mofos got inside mah suit, Coulson. I'm done for."

Egghead pulled off his head covering, shouting at the woman in the plane. "Mae! Help me get him into the Quinjet!"

Scowling Woman rushed up and grabbed Fury's legs. The two hustled to the airplane with the victim.

Jetpack Guy landed in front of Strange, removing his mask. Beneath: A plump face, a head of curly hair. "That it for us? Or you got more hiding somewhere?"

"They're hiding, Quill. We need to get some equipment and hunt them down, one by one. Pray that they only reproduced by themselves, and didn't have outside help from a laboratory."

To my surprise, the small guy actually was a raccoon. With his headgear under his arm, he also approached the space wizard, holstering his weapons. "Strange, why didn't you just hire some exterminators for this crap?"

"Rocket, in case you didn't notice, these aren't your run-of-the-mill bugs. A lab on a different world created them as a biological weapon. Where they came from, entire divisions of pest control companies and the CDC died trying to clear them out. They hide in places normals can't get to, fly where they can't reach. There's a reason why I asked for Fitz and Simmons to join us. We need someone to synthesize an antivenom, and fast."

The raccoon pointed to me. "Any reason why you brought this guy and El Lardo over there along?" He glanced sideways. "Not Wong. The other El Lardo."

"Their parallel universe twins are responsible for this mess."

Quill rolled his eyes. "So you're pulling a Thirteen Ghosts of Scooby Doo on them?"

Strange raised an eyebrow like he'd never heard of the show, but... "They opened Pandora's box by screwing around with the Multiverse, so I'm enlisting them to put things back in order. I suppose you could compare me to Vincent Price..."

I scoffed. "Actually, I'm better than Shaggy, I'm a physicist. Quantum mechanics, that kind of thing. But I really would like to help with this flying spider problem."

Strange nodded to Quill. "It's really for the best. If I leave him to his own devices, he'll just crash into another dimensional tinkerer and have the totality of his being subsumed into the other person's consciousness. It's really hard to get them unstuck when they're like that."

Not believing what I heard, I gawked at him, open mouthed. "What?"

He waved dismissively. "Happened to the other you. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about."

The Professor marched up to us. "Excuse me, I couldn't help but overhear — you have scientists aboard that fancy plane of yours?"

Strange stroked his goatee. "Their names are Fitz and Simmons. The most gifted scientific minds I could locate on short notice." He gestured to the vehicle. "I'm sure you'll find lots of boring things to talk about."

Wade tugged my arm. "Quinn..."

The moment I looked her way, my girlfriend collapsed on the ground color drained from her face, a large lump with a red bullseye marking swelling out the side of her neck.

"Wade! No!" I knelt beside her, flushed with panic and fear.

"At least the Kromaggs won't be able to put her severed head in a jar," Strange muttered under his breath.