Chapter 218: The Spider-Society, Taken Down in Two Moves
Gwen had checked the dimensional watch three times before she'd let herself believe it.
The coordinates were correct. This was Spider-Society headquarters. What it looked like was a construction site after something had gone wrong — half the structure simply gone, the rest open to whatever passed for sky in Universe 928, dust still settling in slow drifts through the exposed framework.
"Move," she said, and went in.
Garfield-Peter and Tobey-Peter were right behind her. Garfield-Peter was running worst-case scenarios — he didn't know anyone here except Mr. Cross, and Mr. Cross was the only reason any of this had worked, and if something had happened to him—
Tobey-Peter was quieter. He had a theory, and the theory was making him feel something between pride and secondhand embarrassment. There was exactly one person he could imagine doing this to a building. He kept the theory to himself until he had confirmation.
They moved through the wreckage, checking on fallen Spider-Men as they went — pulling people clear of rubble, asking questions that got no coherent answers, moving deeper. Most of the ones they found were out cold. A few were conscious enough to stare at the ceiling with expressions that suggested they were reconsidering their life choices.
Then Gwen found two people who were still on their feet.
Spider-Woman was at a terminal that was somehow still functional, running damage assessment on the web monitoring systems with the focused urgency of someone who had a job and was doing it regardless of the state of the building around her.
Hobie was leaning against a wall. His clothes were more destroyed than usual, which was saying something. His hands were not entirely steady. His expression was the careful neutral of someone who had made a decision not to let his face do anything interesting.
"What happened?" Gwen crossed to him. "Was it an attack? Is Miguel—"
Hobie shook his head. Just that.
Gwen stared at him, and the silence filled in with her own imagination, and none of what it filled in with was good. Miguel was dead. The Society had been hit by something catastrophic. Miles changing the canonical event had triggered some kind of cascade—
"Nobody's gone." Peter B. Parker came around a corner with Mei strapped to his chest, one hand steadying the carrier, the other raised in a small pacifying gesture. "That's what he means. Everyone's accounted for. Hobie's just—" He glanced at Hobie. "Processing."
Gwen looked at the open sky where the ceiling had been. "This is 'nobody's gone'?"
"We had a sparring session with Ethan." Peter B.'s voice was the particular flat of someone reporting something they still hadn't fully metabolized. "That's all."
"A sparring session."
"With Ethan," he said again. "Yes."
Garfield-Peter looked from Peter B. to the destroyed structure to Peter B. again. "When you say Ethan — you mean Mr. Cross did this?"
"Two moves," Peter B. said. He sat down on a piece of rubble, adjusted Mei's carrier. "He used two moves. That was enough for all of us. Miguel included."
Gwen turned to Hobie. "Two moves?"
Hobie's fist tightened against his leg. That was the only answer she got.
She'd expected friction. She'd half-prepared herself for the possibility that Ethan's intervention on Miles's behalf would create problems with Miguel — consequences, confrontation, something that would require managing. She had not prepared herself for the possibility that Ethan would simply fight the entire Spider-Society and win before she got back.
She followed the sound of voices to what remained of the main room.
The scene inside stopped her in the doorway.
The room was rubble. The people in it were battered — suits torn, faces showing bruises already deepening to color, the general appearance of individuals who had recently lost a significant physical argument. And they were laughing. Crowded around Ethan, talking over each other, the energy of the room something closer to a post-game celebration than the aftermath of a defeat.
"The suit is genuinely unreal, I have questions about the engineering—"
"My card, seriously, open invitation to my universe—"
"Are people from your world all like this? Because I have follow-up questions—"
Ethan was in the middle of it, smiling, at ease, one arm around somebody's shoulders. The notifications had been scrolling since the fight ended and he was reading them with the peripheral attention of a man who has learned not to let good news distract him from the room.
「DING!」「Congratulations, Host! Scarlet Spider Ben Reilly has been added as a friend!」「Congratulations, Host! Iron Spider Peter Parker has been added as a friend!」「Congratulations, Host! Ghost-Spider Peter Parker has been added as a friend!」「…」「Congratulations, Host! Miguel O'Hara's Friendship Level has risen to ★★★★!」「Congratulations, Host! Gwen Stacy's Friendship Level has risen to ★★★★★!」「Congratulations, Host!…」
His face was going to cramp if this kept up.
"Come on, we're all friends here," he said to the room. "Open invitation — any of you want to visit my universe, I've got several suits in the same line. You can look at them up close." A beat. "Your form is solid, by the way. Don't get discouraged. Keep at it."
"You pulled the building apart," Miguel said. He was standing slightly apart from the crowd, arms crossed, brow furrowed with the expression of a man doing structural cost estimates in his head. "My headquarters."
"I went easy on you," Ethan said, with complete sincerity. "I only used the Killbus Spider abilities. Everything else stayed off."
Miguel looked at him.
Ethan spread his hands. It was a reasonable point. If he'd opened up the full toolkit, the Spider-Men would have been done before they'd finished coordinating their first attack. The building would have been in considerably worse condition.
Miguel seemed to be working through whether this was reassuring or more alarming. He hadn't reached a conclusion.
"We had a wager," Ethan said.
Miguel's expression shifted — something behind it settling into acceptance. He'd known this was coming. "When everyone's back on their feet. I'll make the announcement then." His eyes moved to Ethan with the particular look of someone who is going to be gracious about losing and would like acknowledgment that this costs him something. "You didn't have to take half the ceiling with you."
"That was the Rider Kick," Ethan said. "The ceiling was a casualty."
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