Three hours earlier. Earth-65, Queens, New York.
Morning sunlight filtered through the gaps in the blinds, carving mottled patches of light and shadow across the floor. The rich, greasy aroma of frying bacon drifted from the kitchen, mingling with the crackle of the morning news on an old radio.
Gwen Stacy stood before the bathroom mirror in her high school uniform skirt. She held a toothbrush, her mouth full of minty white foam. Everything had the reassuring feel of everyday life.
"Click."
The faucet was turned shut, and a drop of water struck the bottom of the porcelain basin with a crisp sound.
In that tiny fraction of a second, a flash of white light exploded deep inside Gwen's brain.
"Bzzzt-!"
Without warning, a memory that did not belong to this timeline drove brutally into her brain like a rusty steel spike.
Raging wind. An abyss. The weightless sensation of plummeting.
And the suffocating resolve in that man's eyes as he swung his tactical dagger down in a reverse grip.
"Don't forget me."
"Clatter!" The toothbrush slipped from her hand and hit the floor.
Gwen's legs buckled, and her knees slammed into the cold tiles. Her stomach convulsed violently. She retched, all ten fingers digging into the edge of the sink, her nails scraping shrill against the porcelain.
Cold sweat instantly soaked her back. She gasped for air, every breath bringing a tearing pain through her chest. It was the pain of Lynn's bones being crushed by gears as he fell, synchronized one hundred percent with her senses by the simulator.
"Lynn... Lynn!"
Gwen jerked her head up toward the mirror. The girl reflected there was as pale as paper, her eyes webbed with frightening red veins in just a few seconds. Her once-clear, resolute eyes now churned wildly with utter obsession and remorse.
Heavy footsteps sounded outside the door. Police Captain George Stacy knocked. "Gwen? Are you okay? I heard something in there."
Gwen bit down hard on her lower lip until she tasted the strong tang of blood. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, nothing remained in them but cold killing intent.
"I'm fine, Dad." Her voice was frighteningly hoarse, carrying madness suppressed to its limit. "I just... lost my one and only 'jewel.'"
She did not open the door. Instead, she turned and smashed the mirror with a punch. Shards of glass cut the back of her hand, and warm blood welled out, but she did not even frown.
She yanked her pure-white and bright-pink Ghost-Spider suit from the hidden compartment beneath the sink and pulled it on. Then she dug out a crudely fashioned Metal Wristwatch-a trophy she had confiscated from an Interdimensional Smuggler half a month earlier.
Without hesitation, she fastened the watch around her wrist and entered the Soul Signature branded deep within her soul.
"Warning: forcing a dimensional crossing will overload the device. Estimated survival rate is below ten percent," the watch announced in a mechanical electronic voice.
"Shut up."
Gwen slammed the activation button. Deep-blue high-voltage arcs erupted instantly, scorching the skin on her wrist as a burnt smell spread. Like a homeless Rogue Ninja who had completely abandoned her past, she plunged without hesitation into the deep-blue rift tearing through space.
"No one is taking you away from me... not even death!"
The main universe, reality. A safe house on the outskirts of Brooklyn, New York.
Lynn sat on the soft leather sofa, his left hand still tightly clasping Wanda's fair hand, their fingers interlaced.
He lowered his eyes and glanced at the Encrypted Communicator whose power supply he had crushed with a turn of his hand. The top-secret message Nick Fury had sent now lay on the coffee table as a pile of scrap.
That old dog Pierce is so desperate he's thrown away his last shred of dignity.
Lynn sneered inwardly. Hydra's Helicarrier had locked its main cannon onto this location. It looked like a hopeless situation, but it was exactly what he wanted.
Compared with facing the deadly showdown between obsessive women that could erupt here at any moment, he now sorely missed his slacker routine before transmigrating: eating Ichiraku Ramen in front of a screen and watching the sunset over an anime training ground. But now, he had become the one and only "bond" these madwomen insisted on clutching tightly in their hands.
On an oak tree fifty meters outside the window, Gwen hung upside down in the shadows like a ghost. Lynn's Spider-Sense could clearly pick up every one of her fiercely suppressed breaths. That Spider-Girl was waiting, waiting for a chance to snatch Lynn out of the Scarlet Witch's arms.
If Lynn went out himself to drive Gwen away, she would absolutely lose control on the spot; if he woke Wanda, she would crush the bug outside into bloody pulp without hesitation. He needed a powerful outside force to break this deadlock.
And Pierce had very thoughtfully delivered that "tool."
The night wind suddenly stopped.
The air temperature soared within seconds, and an overpoweringly nauseating smell of ozone and the scorched odor of compressed high-energy particles forced its way into Lynn's nose.
Lynn raised his head and looked through the bulletproof glass into the pitch-black night sky.
Thirty thousand feet above, thick storm clouds were forcibly churned apart by a terrifying invisible force. A steel behemoth as massive as a mountain broke through the clouds, revealing its menacing underside armor.
The muzzle of its main cannon, capable of leveling half a city block in a single shot, flickered with a deep-blue light of destruction. The Energy Matrix had charged to its critical point, and the surrounding air visibly warped from the extreme heat.
Its target coordinates were locked firmly onto the safe house where Lynn was.
"It's here." Every muscle in Lynn's body tightened to its limit at that moment, his Superhuman Flexibility Physique making him like a cheetah poised to spring.
At the same time, Gwen, hidden in the oak tree's shadows, also noticed the change overhead.
She snapped her head up, her bloodshot eyes contracting beneath her mask. That world-shattering surge of energy above struck her nerves like a heavy hammer.
It's aimed at Lynn!
Ghost-Spider, who just a second earlier had been crazed with jealousy and wanted to tear everything apart, instantly transformed all her obsession and madness into the purest instinct to protect.
"No-!!!"
Gwen let out an utterly piercing scream. She thrust off with both legs, her thigh muscles bulging, and shattered the thick oak branch beneath her feet.
Like a white cannonball, she charged recklessly out of the shadows and sprinted toward the safe house fifty meters away. Both wrists vibrated wildly, and two thick strands of specially made webbing shot through the air straight toward the safe house's floor-to-ceiling window.
Only one thought remained in her mind: Even if the main cannon blasts me to ashes, I'll drag Lynn out! Who dares kill him in front of me again?!
"BOOM-!!!"
High in the sky, the Helicarrier's main cannon thundered.
A deep-blue beam of destruction more than five meters in diameter tore through the pitch-black night, accompanied by a piercing sonic boom, and slammed toward the roof with the crushing force of a mountain. The brilliant light instantly stripped everything around it of color, illuminating the entire outskirts of New York as brightly as day.
A wave of heat swept down, and the lawn surrounding the safe house turned to ash the instant it touched the beam's edge.
The glass began melting in the intense heat. Gwen's webbing had barely touched the window frame before the terrifying temperature vaporized it.
At that critical instant.
Wanda, who had been curled up sound asleep in Lynn's arms, abruptly opened her eyes.
In a thousandth of a second, those eyes, once filled with languor and dependence, were utterly consumed by scarlet so thick it seemed blood could drip from them.
The absolute domain belonging to a Skyfather-level Chaos Witch was thoroughly enraged by this deadly threat descending from the sky.
"Who gave you permission... to touch him?!"
Wanda's voice was not loud, but it carried an arrogance and brutality that stood above all rules.
The next instant, Lynn felt his arms empty.
Violent scarlet particles erupted from Wanda's body like a volcano held back for millions upon millions of years!
Without the slightest restraint, that power smashed straight through the roof's load-bearing walls and surged upward against the deep-blue beam of destruction!
Lynn sat on the sofa. Overhead, two forces powerful enough to destroy a city were colliding furiously; outside the window, Ghost-Spider smashed headfirst through the glass and lunged inside, covered in blood.
He narrowed his eyes, the corners of his mouth curling into a cold arc.
At that moment, the showdown between obsessive women and the destructive cannon fire met in the deadliest collision.
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