The air over the warehouse district tasted like burnt cordite and heavy ozone.
Earth-65 Harry Osborn banked his goblin hard to the left, the thrusters screaming as he cut a sharp arc over the street. He armed an incendiary pumpkin bomb. Drawing his arm back, he hurled the glowing orange sphere straight at Dr. Cindy Moon.
Cindy merely sneered. Four titanium spider legs erupted from her mechanical mobility harness. The top two metallic appendages whipped forward, firing thick, synthetic web-lines. The webbing snatched the explosive sphere cleanly out of the air, freezing it mid-flight.
Spider-Woman didn't miss a beat. She launched herself through the drifting smoke of the battlefield. Two magenta web-lines shot from her wrists, anchoring securely onto the joints of Cindy's titanium spider legs.
Gwen planted her boots into the cracked asphalt. She leaned her entire body weight backward, pulling with every ounce of her enhanced strength.
Cindy didn't budge. The S.I.L.K. leader possessed her own heavily engineered spider-physiology, and she had a decade of experience mastering her center of gravity. She braced her metallic legs against the pavement. The tug-of-war reached a violent, screeching stalemate.
Using her two free lower titanium spider legs, Cindy swatted at the sky, forcing Harry's glider into a chaotic, evasive spin to avoid getting swatted out of the air.
"You two are completely pathetic," Cindy called out, her voice cutting easily over the engine noise. "Do you really think you can dismantle my syndicate? Use your heads. S.H.I.E.L.D. has hundreds of highly trained tactical operatives. Why did Director Carter send two grieving teenagers to the front lines? Because nobody cares if you die!"
Gwen's muscles burned. Her grip tightened painfully on the web-lines.
"No one but your parents will mourn you," Cindy laughed, stepping forward and dragging Gwen an inch across the concrete. "Why throw your lives away for a government agency?"
"I'm not working for S.H.I.E.L.D.!" Gwen screamed, her voice cracking under the strain. "I'm doing this for Peter!"
Suddenly, Cindy Moon staggered. Her right knee buckled violently. She pitched forward, completely losing her balance.
Gwen didn't hesitate. She ripped her arms backward in a brutal, sweeping arc. The sudden shift in momentum tore the two webbed titanium spider legs completely off Cindy's harness.
Sparks showered the street. The captured pumpkin bomb dropped. It detonated directly against the exposed circuitry on Cindy's back.
Fifty feet away, Peter Parker sat perched on a rusted streetlamp. He looked down at the 616-variant of Gwen Stacy leaning casually against the metal pole next to him. "Did you just trip her?"
616-Gwen offered a wide, entirely innocent shrug. She didn't say a word.
Down in the street, Cindy pushed herself up from the smoking crater. The explosion had completely fried her mobility harness. Her remaining tentacles hung dead and limp. Blood dripped from a cut on her forehead.
"Damn it!" Cindy shrieked, spitting onto the pavement. "You little pests!"
She locked her glowing red goggles onto Spider-Woman. She raised her right hand. A blinding, crackling white energy surged across her palm.
"I gave you that power!" Cindy roared, lunging forward with terrifying speed. "And I can take it back!"
She swung her glowing hand, slapping Spider-Woman squarely in the chest.
Cindy let out a breathless, triumphant laugh. She felt the genetic disruption pulse through her target. The spider-isotope instantly dissolved.
Then, a heavy, galvanized steel trash can slammed directly into the side of Cindy's face.
The impact shattered her red goggles. Cindy crumpled to the concrete, completely unconscious.
Spider-Woman stood over her, breathing heavily, entirely unaffected. She dropped the dented trash can. Harry Osborn dropped from his glider a second later. He grabbed Cindy by the collar, slamming her back against the pavement just to ensure she stayed down.
Peter watched from the lamppost. "Miguel. Tell me that didn't just trigger a Tether Snap."
Miguel O'Hara look down at the localized holographic data scrolling across his forearm armor.
"Negative," Miguel's said. "All temporal readings remain stable. Reality is intact."
Peter let out a long breath. 616-Gwen's Ghost abilities were completely absurd. The Cosmic Cube had scrubbed her existence from the foundational architecture of reality. The multiverse monitoring systems didn't even register her interference in the timeline.
Down in the street, Earth-65 Gwen stared in utter confusion as her 616-counterpart suddenly materialized out of thin air right next to her.
"Thanks," Earth-65 Gwen panted, wiping sweat from her forehead. "If she had actually hit me with that, I would have been completely defenseless."
"Her tech was actually pretty impressive," 616-Gwen noted, inspecting her own gloved hands. "I stepped in front of you to take the hit. She completely neutralized the spider-isotope serum I stole. I don't have the spider power anymore. But her little slap couldn't touch my ghost abilities."
Peter dropped from the lamppost, landing lightly beside them. Of course it couldn't, Peter thought dryly. Your power came from Cosmic Cube, and what can Cindy do to counter that?
Earth-65 Gwen finally looked past them. She spotted the massive, armored man standing on the roof edge. Her eyes went wide.
"Wow," Earth-65 Gwen blurted out. "Who is the glowing muscle guy? The Blue Spider-Panther? Cloaked Blue Army? Darkened Spidey?"
Miguel O'Hara slowly lowered his arm. He stared down at Earth-65 Gwen. The sheer magnitude of his disapproval seemed to physically lower the ambient temperature in the alley.
"I am Miguel O'Hara," the man growled, dropping heavily to the asphalt. "Spider-Man of Earth-928."
Miguel reached into a pouch on his belt. He pulled out a sleek, metallic wristband and tossed it to Earth-65 Gwen. She caught it awkwardly against her chest.
"This is a dimensional tether," Miguel explained. "A multiversal travel bracelet. It is restricted. You cannot use it to jump freely across realities. I have locked the navigational parameters to prevent you from triggering a Tether Snap event."
"Wait, where we come from, Reed Richards builds the multiverse stuff." 616 Gwen exclaimed.
"Earth-928 represents a possible future of Earth-616," Miguel stated flatly. "My technology is derived directly from Richards' framework. You are holding the 2099 iteration of his work."
A few yards away, Harry Osborn sat heavily on the curb. He ignored the spider con conversation happening behind him. He just stared at the unconscious, bleeding body of Cindy Moon. His green skin looked ashen in the harsh streetlights. The burning drive for vengeance that had kept him going for months was suddenly gone. S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical vans were already screaming down the block to arrest the S.I.L.K. operatives, but Harry just looked completely empty.
Peter walked over to Earth-65 Gwen. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets.
"So," Peter asked quietly. "What happens now?"
The great revenge tour was over. Dr. Connors was being extracted. S.I.L.K. was dismantled. Harry and Gwen had reached the end of their respective ropes.
"I... I honestly have no idea," 65-Gwen admitted, looking down at her white sneakers. "Maybe I actually try being a superhero? Or maybe I just put the drumsticks back in my hands. We'll see."
She rubbed her arms, shivering slightly in the cold wind. Cindy's psychological warfare had dug deep. The villain had forced Gwen to confront the ugliest part of her grief. She had beaten the Lizard Peter to death. She hadn't felt regret until the scales faded.
65-Gwen looked up, meeting Peter's brown eyes. "Have you ever killed anyone?"
She asked it desperately. She needed to know if the gold standard of Spider-Men, the pure hero from Earth-616, carried the same blood on his ledger.
Peter didn't flinch. He didn't offer a sanitized, comic-book answer.
"It depends," Peter said, his voice dropping into a somber, grounded register. "I slaughtered an entire horde of infected people in the Marvel Zombies universe. And back home... there were a few times I crossed the line. When someone explicitly threatened the people I loved, I went after them with lethal intent. I fully intended to kill them. I even thought I had, for a minute."
616-Gwen stepped up beside Peter. She reached out, sliding her hand into his, lacing their fingers together.
Peter squeezed her hand, keeping his gaze locked on Earth-65 Gwen.
"If you're asking me whether someone who takes a life can ever find their way back to the light," Peter said softly, "I don't have a perfect answer for you. I'm still figuring that out myself. But if you're trying to figure out what you should do next... I think there's only one question you actually need to answer."
Harry Osborn slowly raised his head from his hands. He looked at Gwen Stacy, waiting.
Peter tilted his head. "Why did you choose to put on the mask in the first place?"
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