The Crossfire of Heaven and Hell

By Matisse Mozer

They had been cornered, Squirrel Girl and this…girl. Person. Woman-person with the white hood.

Squirrel Girl had found herself in the underground safe of the Fifth Street bank, responding to an old-fashioned 911 call, and she found herself with a girl in white, surrounded by machines with guns. In the darkness, Squirrel Girl couldn’t see their numbers, or heck, which ones were even punchable.

Squirrel Girl’s knuckles ached. The last thing she wanted was to split them open again…for one, split knuckles made going to the bathroom horrible…

But then, the girl in white made her statement toward the situation.

She was a blur. Long white strands zipped from her wrists onto the sentry drones’ cameras; she latched one to the ceiling and pulled herself up, acrobat’ing over the array of pipes covering the walls, and landed effortlessly behind the machines.

Now the sentry drones were angry, rightfully activating their lethal modes, and focusing on Squirrel Girl.

“Hey, thanks for the assist,” the girl in white said. She flipped a small black box in her palm, then flipped the thumbs-up. “I’ll see ya around sometime.” The girl started down the long hallway to the surface.

Squirrel Girl apologized to her knuckles. But there was work to be done.

She struck the closest drone hard enough to crack it clean in half, shattering the aluminum body and severing the cords. Bullets flew for her–a steady RAKAKAKAKAKA–and Squirrel Girl took the stranger’s hint, bounding onto the wall and up onto the ceiling. Ammunition ricocheted behind her, but with the snap of a finger, Squirrel Girl’s backup was on the attack.

Otto Ottoman and Bert Bertson, professional squirrel backup attackers! The two squirrels pounced onto two of the drones’ rifles…right on their sight lines!

The drones turned on one other. A torrent of bullets and death erupted behind Squirrel Girl as she ran, ran, ran for the surface.

In these kinds of situations–underground heist-thwarting kinds of situations–the emergency exit was often a sealed, foot-thick steel barricade. Squirrel Girl recognized it as she came close…

But…it was already propped open? Just barely, too–the white strands were pulling the gate open, just wide enough for a bottom-heavy teenager to fit herself and her tail through. Squirrel Girl dived for it, followed closely by the twin blurs of Otto and Bert.

The evening light seared something fierce into her retinas. Squirrel Girl landed on the alleyway pavement. She skidded, and then she went into a clumsy roll. Her head sounded a BANG against the side of a white car.

Men in blue towered over her.

“We’ll take it from here, Squirrel Girl,” an officer said. Squirrel Girl’s vision slowly returned. There were a handful of squad cars lining the alley. “The alarms down there are…loud,” he said, his middle-aged seriousness slicing the air.

Squirrel Girl stood up slowly. She followed the other officers disappointed gazes…to Otto and Bert shaking their heads…to finally, the head-shaped dent in the side of the officer’s car.

“I…I can pay for that,” Squirrel Girl said.

“No, you can’t,” the officer said.

“I know,” Squirrel Girl said, and sighed.

The afternoon arrived.

It was nearing the half-hour mark of the girls’ study session. Mike leaned over. “Hey Kamala, what do you think of this?”

They were in the library, at the tutoring table that was slowly becoming a familiar place. The library assistants knew Kamala’s name now, and she was vaguely certain that she could smile her way out of library fees if she needed to.

That was the kind of power you couldn’t buy!

Kamala leaned away; Mike had shoved her phone so close to Kamala’s nose that she could smell the fingernail polish that had rubbed off on the screen.

Kamala had seen the images on her own social media feed during lunch. For whatever reason, white strands of fluid had hardened around the secret exit of a research facility. And the blurry footage showed acrobatics like exactly one other person.

An insectoid-human, if you will.

The less Kamala let on about her superheroics, the better. “I think it’s got nothing to do with this term paper,” Kamala said.

Mike’s beaming grin dulled. If being Doreen Green’s friend was hard on her superhero life, being friends with Mike would be rough on the normal-life side of things, too.

In all fairness, Mike was a neat girl. Kamala had spent the last few days sitting with Mike at lunch, talking about classes, and what shows they liked, and what snacks they snuck into the house…but every time, it came back to Mike’s interest in other things.

Superhero things.

And come to think of it, Kamala wondered…where was their tutor?

As if on cue, Doreen collapsed in the chair at the head of the table. She slouched, sank into the fabric, and slowly keeled over. Her red hair spilled out like an exhausted wound.

“What happened to you?” Mike asked. Doreen was unresponsive.

Kamala jabbed Doreen’s head with the end of her pen. Still, no reaction.

“We should put a mirror by her mouth,” Mike suggested. “That’s the best way to see if someone’s still breathing.”

Doreen mumbled. “That only works for dogs.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“I think I used that on my cousin after he ran into open traffic,” Kamala added.

Doreen ran her hands through her hair. She curled up slowly, like a particularly depressed cobra.

“You look like hell,” Kamala said. “And I’m not gonna comment on the smell…where were you, a bar fight?”

Doreen peeked out over her bangs. She gave Kamala what the two girls had decided would be ‘the look’.

Bug your eyes out like you’re crazy, and that meant things were weird because a superhero mission ended a few hours ago.

Doreen’s eyes were so wide, Kamala wondered if they’d spill out of her head. She glanced behind Kamala for a moment, then covered her ears, and BANG! Zoe’s textbooks crashed onto the library table.

“I’m not failing another test, do you hear me?” Zoe growled. Her whisper-yelling could put Kamala’s dad’s menacing tones to shame. “What kind of tutor are you? And what kind of group is this?”

“It would help if you actually showed up,” Mike said.

Zoe sat down and turned her nose up at the blue-haired girl. “We are going to stay here until they try to kick us out, and then my daddy is going to call and complain so we can stay as long as we want, because I am not losing eligibility this year over…what class was this? Animal something?”

“AP Environmental Studies.”

“Right! That one. See, Mick, we understand each other.”

“It’s ‘Mike’.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Good, good, whatever,” Doreen said. She waved her hand in the air as if wafting the fumes. “I’ll just be here if you have any…yawn…any questions.”

The next two hours were the proverbial bullet to Kamala’s brain. Zoe wasn’t just behind in class; she was behind in the concept of the class. Mike explained that the coursework was difficult because of the Advanced Placement status of the material, and Zoe’s grimace stretched from ear to ear.

“Advanced Placement, huh? Who do I have to blame for that mess?”

“Your guidance counselor, probably.”

“Guidance counselor, eh? Malk, I’m gonna call my daddy and have that man fired.”

Kamala was not a praying person. Barely even a spiritual person, really. (Like, it was one thing to go to mosque with her family, and it was fine that her brother was so devoted to the faith that his beard looked like a beehive, but maybe her faith didn’t have to be the end of the world!)

(But that was for another time with her dad.)

Her prayers were answered nonetheless, and promptly at 6, Zoe packed up her books and left the library, along with Mike, Doreen, Kamala, and the school faculty.

“No menacing fathers were called upon,” Doreen said. She rubbed her hands together to make them warm, then tried to rub the sleep out of her face. “I must consider today’s tutoring a bona-fide success.”

“Indeed,” Zoe said. Did she have to talk like Draco Malfoy, or was that just part of her snobbish charm? “Mark did most of the work, but this group is pretty helpful.”

Mike rolled her eyes.

“And besides, I’ll let you guys in on a secret.” As they walked through the deserted school halls, Zoe pulled a small compact from her bag. She was able to work on her lip gloss and walk?! And Kamala could barely keep her one good hoodie from tearing apart?

…Granted, Zoe wasn’t using her lip gloss to fight crime, but still…

“I couldn’t have called daddy even if I wanted to. He’s been busy with this new building project, or something. But’cha gotta admit, little white lies do come in handy, right?”

Wasn’t I’ll have my dad fire the guidance counselor more of a white threat than a white lie?

The girls left the building, and were standing on the busy street corner of the outside world. The smell of corner hotdogs mixed with the sidewalk trees to create something mystifying. Kamala often forgot how lucky she was to be going to a good school in Jersey City. If she could make it here, then getting into a decent college would be a breeze. And heck, college would be a breeze, too.

Mike and Zoe went their separate ways. Kamala and Doreen still waited a few moments before talking about more serious things, just in case.

“Okay, good,” Doreen said. “If they try to sneak around and eavesdrop on us, my squirrel buddies will have time to warn us.”

“Why would Mike and Zoe want to eavesdrop on us?”

“You never know, Kamala.” Doreen put a hand up to shield her eyes from the setting sun, and she squinted down the road. “One second, someone can be your friend, and then POW! Right in the kisser!”

“…Has that ever happened to you before?”

“No. But that’s because I’m so vigilant.” Doreen nodded to herself and folded her arms. “Well, time for business.” She raised a finger in the air. “I have reason to suspect that a Spider-Person is either working a case, or has become evil and is working a case towards nefarious ends.”

Kamala remembered the pictures from Mike’s phone. That had definitely been a lithe, in-shape Spider-Person doing whatever Spider-People did, but…the details didn’t add up.

And…hold on. “Doreen, in what universe is a Spider-Person evil?”

“I’m glad you asked! According to Twitter, there’s this multiverse…Kamala? Why are you walking away from me? Come back! I have Spider-Verse things to tell you about!”

The sun set casually, and night fell across Jersey City, the violet sky caressing a skyline teeming with life.

Another heroine stared at the skyline, eyes expectant.

It had been hell to get this far, through the barriers between worlds, and then to her friends…but they weren’t her friends. Here on Earth-719, they were people with the same names and faces. Here, in this world nobody recognized the white spider with the hood.

Gwen Stacy pulled her hood down and let the symbiote retract its mask. Her crisp cut of blonde hair billowed with the breeze. She perched on the corner of the office building, watching across the street, waiting for her guest.

She’d never been to the Jersey City of Earth-719. It was suburbia. Maybe a main street here or there, but otherwise…nothing worth a day trip.

Meaning, the towering skyscraper across from Gwen? It had to be something interesting. And if she thought it was interesting, then her guest was all but guaranteed to be enticed.

Gwen’s stomach rumbled. The symbiote retracted from her arm, but only for a moment. Gwen focused. The suit returned, but she sensed its annoyance. Its hunger.

…A hunger for literally anything. The symbiote responded to Gwen’s internal digestion, not its own. That meant it wanted something that was available in a store. (It tended to prefer hot dogs.)

What kind of hell world was Gwen’s life, where feeding herself and her symbiote would have been easier if the prey could be human?

“I’ll feed us soon, buddy,” Gwen said. Could the symbiote hear her? Could it understand anything feelings-y? She liked to think so. “As soon as I figure out where food and water are in this place.”

The prick at the back of her neck lit up like wildfire. Her spider-sense.

Gwen looked back at the building. Her guest had arrived.

The Chameleon was smart, for a scumbag. He wasn’t familiar with this Earth, and so he didn’t know who to change into when he got here. But then his friendly neighborhood Spider-Woman entered the scene, come to drag him back to his home dimension…and suddenly, he had the perfect disguise.

Gwen watched the copycat as he stood on the skyscraper roof. If he burgled more tech here, then he’d go back to their home Earth with basically alien weaponry, and a world that distrusts Spider-People, especially ones in white with hoodies.

Gwen didn’t know which made her angrier.

Chameleon knelt down, and a moment later, he disappeared from Gwen’s view altogether.

Her mask materialized once more. Gwen pulled her hood up.

She leapt off of her perch and shot out a line of…what was she calling it these days? Web-fluid? Symbiote-juice? Gwen-ropes?

The line attached itself to the opposing skyscraper. Spider-Woman soared above the cars, making sure not to swing by a lamppost or spotlight.

Limousines had parked up and down the block. Something must have been going on in the skyscraper. A socialite thing, a politics thing…it made no difference. If everything went well, like Gwen hoped, then she wouldn’t have to spoil all these upper-crust’ers evenings.

And besides…

Every world had a J. Jonah Jameson. Every world would love to see a Spider-Person ruin a fancy night.

Gwen scaled the side of the building. She found one window, open from the inside, which seemed to lead into an office.

It was time to get to work.

Back at the Khan residence.

It was time for bed.

And thank god, because that meant Doreen finally had to go home.

Kamala’s parents had spent her entire life keeping her from having friends over. They were always a distraction, or a bad influence, or in one case, a ‘disgrace’.

But a computer-science-student-slash-tutor? That was absolutely acceptable.

Doreen sat at Kamala’s desk, spinning in her chair in between fits of typing like a madwoman. The fan on Kamala’s old laptop coughed and churned. “Okay,” Doreen started. “No sign that Hydra was behind that attack. I guess that’s good news.”

Kamala stood in the middle of the room, her school outfit changed to sweatpants and a loose pajama shirt. “What, was Hydra going to post on their Twitter feed that they’re in Jersey City for round two?”

“Ah, the padawan shows naivete,” Doreen said. She glanced Kamala’s way, did a double-take, and frowned. “That doesn’t look like shadow boxing to me, my dude.”

“Shadow boxing is stupid. F-for me, I mean.” Kamala nevertheless resumed her fighting stance. She threw a few limp punches. “I can’t stretch in here. I won’t be fighting like this, so what’s the point of training like this?”

“Wax on, wax off, Kamala.”

“That’s from Karate Kid. You can’t mix Star Wars and Karate Kid references.”

“Activate trap card! As your tutor, I get to do whatever I want.”

“That’s not even…never mind.”

Doreen’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She removed it, flicked the screen, and made a surprised sound. “Zoe’s not gonna be at school for tutoring tomorrow. Something about her dad being at an event tonight and she’s taking the plus-one ticket. Huh!”

“That’s…weirdly considerate of Zoe,” Kamala said. She wondered if getting to know Mike was having an effect on Zoe’s overall…well, her Zoe-ness.

“Unless she’s lying,” Doreen said. She went back to the computer and resumed typing, and before Kamala could ask why anyone would bother to lie to their college-aged tutor, Doreen clapped her hands and slid away from the screen. “Never mind. Check it out: there’s the building, and there’s the fancy event.”

Kamala gave up on the shadow boxing. She shook out her hands and watched the screen.

Kamala had expected some kind of live YouTube broadcast.

Kamala’s reality was a grid of black-and-white, time-stamped security camera footage, displaying right on her old macbook. Green-tinged code ran along the side of the display, numbers and cyrilic text scrolling endlessly.

“Doreen?” Kamala asked cautiously.

“What’s up?”

“This doesn’t look legal.”

“Strictly speaking, it’s…not? I had to go through a backdoor hack into the Jersey City PD network…but relax. I used a VPN to connect to my personal VPN. Nobody’s gonna find you.”

“What’s a VPN?”

Doreen paused. “You know, nobody’s ever asked me to define it before.”

The girls watched the broadcast, letting the anxious pause leave the room. Kamala watched the different angles of limousines pulling up, and fancy-dressed people walking toward the bright lights…

And Kamala realized: she needed to let up.

Control kidnapping her, getting her powers, being brainwashed and having to fight Avengers… that was her life. Fighting Hydra goons–or possibly Hydra-adjacent goons–with Doreen was her life. It was strange to Kamala Khan, but that wasn’t the only person in her life. She was also Marvel Girl.

…No. Not Marvel Girl.

Not Control’s name.

…Anyway.

Going to school, hanging out with Mike and Doreen and even Zoe, getting good grades and worrying about boy drama…wasn’t that her life, too? Wasn’t that Kamala Khan, age fifteen?

What did that make this person, in her sweats, watching security camera footage with a superhero?

Who the hell was this anxious, not-Marvel-Girl person she’d become?

Her dad would tell her to relax, and take some time to focus…before getting right back to work, of course. That would come up in therapy when she was in her forties, for sure.

Kamala sighed. None of that was so terrible that it had to be solved right now. She was figuring out the school thing. She was figuring out the friends thing. She could figure out how to relax–

She saw a white blip in the footage–

“Holy crap, Doreen, I think that’s your Spider-Person.” Kamala reached for the laptop. Her arm stretched the length of the room, and then her fingers extended to pause and rewind the clip.

Doreen’s eyes ran up and down Kamala’s stretched arm. “It’s like human string cheese,” Doreen mused. “It’s kinda gross when it’s not saving my life.”

“There! Look right there,” Kamala said, her elongated pointer finger poking the screen.

A white figure stood on the skyscraper rooftop. The figure surveyed its surroundings, spinning like only someone guilty does, before crouching down. All told, it was less than five seconds.

Doreen was silent for a moment. Kamala felt her anxiety come back up: “I-I mean, maybe I was seeing things. It’s just a blip. Maybe–”

“We need to sneak you out of the house, Kamals. Tonight.”

Kamals. Whenever Doreen called her that, it usually ended with people getting punched. “H-hold on. Are you sure? Maybe that’s like, the actual Spider-Man, or—“

“Nope. That’s the white-hood-in-heels I’m looking for. I can feel it in my jimmies.”

“I…heels?”

“She wasn’t wearing heels. It’s a figure of speech.”

“‘…Jimmies?’“

“Kamals, we are getting out of this house and we are protecting the denizens of Jersey City. Are you with me, or not?”

Of course Kamala was with her. The only question was, how were they going to leave the house?

It was surprisingly easy.

“It’s so generous of you to give Kamala a tour of the Empire State campus!” Kamala’s mother said, her hands folded and her eyes wide with gratitude. “Oh my, it’s late…but you said that Kamala has to sign up now, right?”

“Admin runs like a circus, Mrs. Khan,” Doreen said. They stood politely in the foyer, and Doreen even folded her hands together to look extra-polite.

“Let me get my keys,” Kamala’s dad said from the living room. “I’ll drive you.”

“T-that’s okay, dad! Doreen brought her car.”

He looked out the window. “I don’t see anything…”

Kamala elbowed Doreen. “Oh, yeah, Mr. Khan, I parked around the corner. I’ve been trying to get better at parallel parking, and there was prime opportunity right down the block! Between a Tesla and a Beemer, I think.”

“Hm.” Kamala’s dad sounded his approval. “Always looking for a chance to improve. You could learn a lot from Doreen, beta.”

Kamala was still scowling moments later, after the girls walked a few blocks before leaping onto the rooftops. The night air whipped past Kamala’s chubby cheeks as they ran and leapt. Kamala was getting better at stretching her legs when she ran…or at least, trusting that her legs would extend once she committed to the motion.

Traffic started to back up as they got toward downtown. The skyscraper’s lights peeked out from behind the evening clouds.

Doreen landed on the building beside the skyscraper. She zipped up her brown sweater and pulled the hood up. Two fluffy ears had been sewn into the top, mimicking the headband on Doreen’s usual costume. “Okay, Squirrel Girl emergency costume is go.”

Kamala was already wearing the bloodied-but-washed-a-few-times-and-sewn-up hoodie from their fight with the Tinkerer.

“You’re missing your tail,” Kamala pointed out.

“Right! Just give me a second. Turn around.”

“…Are you going to rip holes in your underwear and your jeans?”

“No. Turn around.”

Kamala turned her back to Squirrel Girl. Two quick rip sounds echoed in the night. Kamala spied Doreen’s shadow: her long, puffy tail extended out and upward.

“Okay, now the Squirrel Girl emergency costume is go.”

“I feel lied to,” Kamala said.

The girls leapt onto the skyscraper. The bright lights on the sidewalk were a terrifying reminder of what would happen if Kamala were caught. Did Control want her back? What would her parents think? What if the Tinkerer had buddies who would come for…

Doreen scurried up the building and inside an open window. Her tail wrapped around Kamala’s wrist and pulled her inside. It was an office, replete with degrees on the wall and expensive-looking chairs behind even-more-expensive-looking desks. Kamala considered turning on the lights, then remembered how dumb that idea was.

“Should I close the window?” Kamala asked.

The office door was already open. Doreen peered her head out so she could look up and down the halls. “No way, dude. I’ve got a feeling we’re not alone in here.”

“How do you figure?”

“Easy. That window was already open. And this door was, too.”

Doreen slinked out into the hallway, and Kamala followed closely behind. It was an eerie silence: the carpet muffled the girls’ footsteps, and at this time of night, the scream of traffic had dulled to a slight hum. The hall led to another room, this one with wide double doors. The left door swung open, as if on loose hinges.

Or, on closer examination, as if someone had broken the hinge outright. Doreen and Kamala poked their heads through the door.

“Ah, crap. I hate it when this happens,” Doreen commented. “We’re late to the party.”

Incapacitated security guards littered the floor. Their bodies were broad, muscular, and bruised. Several gentlemen were embedded in the walls, as if thrown with herculean force. White, gooey ropes had locked a few more men onto the ceiling itself. Handguns and bullets riddled the room, as did the gunshot holes along the walls.

“I wouldn’t call this a party,” Kamala said, remembering the brawl with the Tinkerer’s men.

Both girls jumped out of their skins. On the other side of the room, the doors had been torn clear off their hinges, and the man’s guttural scream bellowed.

The girls ran with purpose (and special care not to step on any unconscious bodies).

The path ended at a T. The girls were almost at the intersection. The poor man’s body flew through the intersection, a trail of white fluid and deep red blood following in the air. He landed with a hard THUMP, but he maintained enough consciousness to reach for the walkie-talkie at his breast pocket.

“Intruder…need reinforcements…”

THWIP! White ropes shot out and landed on the man’s mouth, muting him and hitting him with enough force to shoot his head back down. He was dreaming now, for sure.

Doreen and Kamala burst onto the scene. On one side was the injured security guard. On the other…

“I’m sorry, mister guard sir,” the girl in white said. She dropped down from the ceiling and put her hands on her waist. “I’m almost done here, I promise.”

Doreen clenched her fists and went into a fighting stance, and then she jabbed her finger at the girl. “You! I knew you’d be here!”

“You…did?”

“I saw you on the security feeds! And let me tell you something, Miss-Steals-Technology-Like-She-Owns-The-Patents, I don’t take kindly to being made the fool in a fight!”

“…What are you wearing?”

Doreen touched one of her hoodie ears. “It’s lit, ain’t it? Got it at Hot Topic when the one by my house was going out of business, and it’s got inside pockets, and…hey! You’re one to talk, Spider-Person! I’m bringing you in! So is Kama–er, so is my sidekick here!”

Kamala rolled her eyes. That’s what she got for not having an official name.

“I’m the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl,” Doreen announced. “I’m here to eat nuts and kick butts! And I’m all outta nuts.”

The girl in white tilted her head to the side. “I’ve literally never heard of you. But hey, the name’s Spider-Woman. I’m looking for this guy called the–”

Squirrel Girl pounced! Spider-Woman dived out of the way, catching her fingertips on the leftmost wall and letting the so-called Unbeatable girl go clear past her.

“Look,” Spider-Woman said. “I’ve had to clobber a whole army of guys who think I’m somebody they actually should be clobbering. I’m not in the mood for this whole mistaken-identity bit.”

“Bite this, criminal!”

Squirrel Girl turned and, using her tail as a springboard, tackled Spider-Woman clear off of the wall! Kamala slinked back into the hallway they’d come from, and Squirrel Girl and Spider-Woman were locked in combat. Squirrel Girl threw her fists with a mechanical precision. But Spider-Woman was faster, and even a little bit more lithe, and each of Squirrel Girl’s blows met nothing but office-building drywall.

BOOM!

CRAK!

POW!

The girls landed and caught their breaths. The holes in the walls revealed wiring and who-knew-how-old cobwebs.

“You’re a lot better at this than you were this morning,” Squirrel Girl said.

“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, sure. And I bet all these beaten-up security dudes wasn’t you, either, huh?”

“No, that was me. But it was because they thought I was…Ah, forget it. I don’t have time to deal with this.”

Kamala recognized the Spider-Woman’s hand gesture. Webs!

The white fluid–web fluid!–soared across the battlefield. Squirrel Girl batted her tail at the white gunk, but she whipped her tail too hard, with too much inertia…with a SPLAT, her tail was stuck on the wall.

“Oh, come on,” Squirrel Girl grimaced.

Spider-Woman took her chance. THWIP-THWIP as two weblines attached to the walls, and Spider-Woman pulled herself along them, sling-shooting herself to close the distance.

From there, it was over. Squirrel Girl blocked and parried the blows, but she couldn’t move, and Spider-Woman’s fists landed in her gut, on her face, at her knee so she’d drop onto the ground, and finally at her jaw. With a sickening CRUNCH, Squirrel Girl’s head rattled, and her eyes darted around the back of her skull. She collapsed.

Spider-Woman shot webs at Squirrel Girl’s legs, keeping her down.

“Jeez louise. If you’d hit me even once, I’d probably be a goner,” Spider-Woman said to her defeated opponent. She crouched down and got a good look at Squirrel Girl’s face. “Woah, it’s you. There’s no way,” the web warrior mused. She pulled the hem of Squirrel Girl’s hood back an inch.

“Hey! Back off!”

Kamala stood in the blasted and ruined hallway.

“So Doreen’s a superhero in this world, huh?” Spider-Woman mused. “Ya know, in every world, she’s doing something with heroes and squirrels. It’s just not usually this…literal. You’re her friend?”

Kamala’s words choked in her throat. Spider-Woman hadn’t just beaten up Squirrel Girl.

She’d bodied Squirrel Girl.

Kamala’s superhero mentor, who already had a history of adventures and knew the ins-and-outs of her powers, went toe to toe with the woman in white. And she’d ended up webbed to the wall and floor, bruised and bloodied and not even awake in under a minute.

Kamala felt the burning at the back of her head.

…Fear.

But the Spider-Woman gripped the back of her head, too. “Spider-sense?! Where…!”

BANG.

Not a full-body impact. Not a punch or a kick or even a tackle.

It was the sound of a full-on gunshot.

Kamala hit the deck, without thinking. Spider-Woman was not so lucky. The bullet hit her side, spurting red blood and white fluid–fluid from the suit?–onto the walls and floor.

Spider-Woman fell to her knees. She keeled over with the kind of wound where, if she went to sleep, she wouldn’t wake up.

Kamala’s fear evaporated. In its place was purpose.

Kamala ran into a slide, and found herself knelt next to Spider-Woman. She held up the webslinger, doing her best to ignore the blood staining her sweater, and now her jeans.

Couldn’t she go one adventure without getting blood everywhere?

Kamala turned to face where the bullet had come from. The shooter was a thin figure in a white-and-black outfit, fitted for a woman..but the outfit didn’t work. The shoulders were too wide, the hips too muscular and straight. The shooter stepped into the hallway.

“Uh…Spider-Woman?” Kamala asked. “I know you’re hurt, but why is there a man dressed as you with a gun?”

“Because that’s his MO,” Spider-Woman said. She shrieked as she aimed her web-thwipping-hand at her wound and fired, creating a makeshift bandage. “Guns? Really, Chameleon?”

The second Spider-Woman lowered their hood and mask. Behind the mask loomed the face of a middle-aged man, scarred from a life of crime, and emboldened by his victories.

“Hello hello, Spider-Woman,” the Chameleon said.

Zoe Zimmer had invited herself to the Rand Corporation Inaugural Ball. And what a ball of crap it was.

Her father had scored exactly two tickets: one for himself, and one for the floozy of the week. But this week’s floozy had to fly out of town for a special “procedure”–which made Zoe cringe every time she heard the word–and so finally, Zoe had a chance to be around her father.

It had lasted all of a moment.

They were photographed together on the red carpet. Now Magazine, the Daily Bugle, the Jersey Times and even Buzzfeed would have shots of the wealthy Zimmer family.

But then Zoe’s father left for his circle of interchangeable men in suits. Zoe was left alone by the champagne fountain. She nursed her glass of Sprite and searched for an empty seat somewhere at an empty table.

God, she should have just stayed home.

That’s when she saw the group of security guards huddle, in the far corner by the emergency exit. One by one, they checked their guns, brandished their batons, and left out the nondescript double doors.

Zoe hurried. Nobody noticed the small, blond white girl at a party full of tall, blond white adult women. And when the guards had exited and the door almost swung shut, Zoe stopped it with her shoe.

Finally, something interesting, she thought, as she went into the dimly lit maze of offices.

Back at the fight, several stories above the ball.

Spider-Woman staggered up to a standing, and then a fighting stance. Kamala followed suit, her hands still shaking from the surprise of the gunshot.

“The Chameleon? Doesn’t he use tech stuff already?” Kamala asked aloud, remembering some of the information she’d mindlessly scrolled through on social media. “What’s he need Rand tech for? Or…a gun?”

“That’s because this isn’t the Chameleon from your world,” Spider-Woman said. “This version of Dmitri Smerdyakov is from Earth-65. So am I.”

Kamala glanced to see if Squirrel Girl had anything to say about the multiverse. But nope; she was still webbed up and out cold, and now her bruises were swelling. Maybe she was dreaming about sweet squirrel things..?

“In our world,” Spider-Woman continued, “Rand Corporation got merged with Stark a long time ago. Stealing from Stark is too much work for this scumbag…so you had to come all the way here, huh, Dmitri?”

“Work smarter, not harder, Spider-Woman,” the Chameleon remarked. “Like I’m going to fight Iron Man over a pair of hard drives?”

The Chameleon bounced a small, black box in his hands. Just like the one he’d taken this morning, on social media, when he’d gotten away from Squirrel Girl.

It was all coming together for Kamala. This had been a complicated scheme. A heist. A criminal committing crookery.

Kamala’s fear was replaced with adrenaline. Where her hands shook, now they clenched and expanded like sledgehammers.

“Woah,” Spider-Woman marveled at Kamala’s fists. “You’re just the sidekick? Really?”

“I’m more of an intern,” Kamala clarified. “Hey…Dmitri, right? Put the drive down or I’ll put it down for you.”

The Chameleon laughed.

“He’s more than a gun,” Spider-Woman said. She was standing upright on her own, and if not for the way she favored her un-wounded side, she looked almost healed. “Dmitri’s got training from the Hand…if you know who they are…and he’s got some cybernetic implants, too.”

“I’ve beaten up robots before,” Kamala said.

“Very well, then. I’m not against leaving a body count behind me,” Dmitri cooed.

He pointed the gun at Kamala–

THWIP! The webline clogged the tip of the gun and yanked it away. Kamala leapt toward the Chameleon, fists first.

Zoe took off her heels and wandered down the dimly-lit halls. She eventually wandered into a room that was pitch-black.

Zoe reached around the walls for a light switch. She found it, flicked it…

CLICK.

The incandescent lights beamed overhead, shining down upon the five men clad in deep, maroon-red robes and hoods. Pointy weapons were strapped to their waists; one gentleman had what looked like an entire Claymore sword strapped to his back and sheathed.

(Claymore swords, Zoe remembered, had been the answer to a question she would’ve missed without Mark’s help. Mark? Malik? Michael? What was her name, again..?)

Zoe flailed at the light. A long knife cut through the air and stabbed at the switch, disabling it.

“Well, this is what I get for wandering,” Zoe said with a hollow laugh.

The Claymore-wielding man crossed the room with a predator’s stride. Zoe reached behind her for the door handle, but the man was in front of her now, and he caught her wrist in his gloved grip.

“Excuse you! Don’t you know who I am?”

The warrior was silent.

“You’re supposed to be awed, you know. Zoe Zimmer? Heiress to the Zimmer family?”

The man squeezed her wrist. Zoe winced. “M-maybe we can talk about this?”

“They don’t talk. The only language they speak is death.”

It wasn’t the man before her. Another speaker.

The voice was older, assured…and warm. Comforting. “Allow me to converse.”

A flash of yellow and green cleared across the room. The lights went off once more.

“Stay down, and when I tell you, go back to the party,” the warm voice said. Zoe covered her ears when the first strike in the brawl landed, and knives and blades clashed, incessant.

CRASH! Spider-Woman’s body broke through the wall, broke through the beams and supports, and she flew clear out the side of the skyscraper, metal debris chasing after. THWIP– a webline attached to the edge of the opening, and Spider-Woman pulled herself back inside, fist first!

POW! The Chameleon toppled and skidded along the ground. He rolled up in time to see Spider-Woman on the ceiling, both hands grasped together and on route for his head–

SMASH! The Chameleon’s head cratered through the ground, severing bundles upon bundles of wiring. Spider-Woman dropped down to follow him, down into what looked like a server room.

Dmitri was ready. He caught Spider-Woman’s throat as she dropped, and, spinning around once to gain momentum, threw her clear through the room. A cacophonous orchestra rang out as Spider-Woman collided with rack after rack of expensive, heavy-looking equipment. Spider-Woman struggled to get up, but her wound held her back with a stabbing pain.

Kamala dropped down, and into the fight! She landed gracefully, bouncing on the heel of her Converse shoes and propelling her toward Chameleon.

He dived away from her first two punches but the third one hit home–THUNK!–and the thief staggered back. His jaw creaked as only metal could. He spat a wad of black bile onto the hard tile floor.

He narrowed his eyes at Kamala.

The fight resumed! The Chameleon swung like a lumberjack. Each fist that missed Kamala broke metal server racks, shattered reinforced glass display screens, punched holes in the wall, without slowing him down. Kamala ducked and dodged. If she stopped to try and hit him again, she’d be an easy target.

What would Squirrel Girl do?

She’d try something from an action movie, of course.

Kamala ducked and spun, her legs out in a sweeping kick. Responding effortlessly, her leg elongated, stretching the length of the room, and the Chameleon wasn’t just hit–he was dragged clear through the weakened wall! Stone and metal crumbled as he fell into another room…what was that, a break room? The Chameleon ripped the refrigerator clear from its hole in the wall. He charged for her–

THWIP! Spider-Woman’s webline caught the break room refrigerator and pulled it away, opening the Chameleon’s guard. Kamala’s fist grew again, twice, three times its size, and WHAM!

The Chameleon’s punished body landed in the wall, his fall broken by the now-twisted water pipes. Water sputtered, then sprayed out onto the kitchen floor.

“You’re better than I thought you’d be, kid,” Dmitri spat. “What are you? A Mutant? Friendly-neighborhood…stretchy thing? Or even an Inhuman, perhaps?”

“None of the above. Just a girl who hates bullies.”

“Heh…sure thing. But you’re still just a kid.”

He removed another handgun, concealed in his fake Spider-Woman suit.

Kamala dropped to the ground instinctively. And, ready for his chance, the Chameleon tackled her with the whole of his body. The ground gave way beneath the force of his metal frame.

The world became flashes of white as they fell through the building stories, each agonizing impact dizzying Kamala beyond what she knew was possible. She landed hard, breaking this floor’s support beams for sure.

Kamala fought to get back up, but her entire body refused.

She blinked her eyes open, but the lights were off. She touched the floor, looking for anything she recognized.

“Sorry, kiddo,” Dmitri said. She only heard out of her left ear; the right was filled with an incessant ringing. His was a menacing voice lost among the void. “Better luck next time.”

She fought to get up. “I…I won’t let you get away.”

A foot crushed down on the small of her back. She cried out, weakly, and exhausted. She felt her eyes water in frustration.

“It’s not your fault,” the Chameleon said gently. “Everyone fails their first team-up.”

A flash of yellow fabric raced through Kamala’s vision.

Something–someone?–knocked the Chameleon off of her. She rolled over onto her stomach, struggling to catch her breath, as her savior beat the Chameleon down. Blows rained down on his cybernetically-enhanced body, each strike ringing out like a hammer hitting a steel beam.

“I’ll take that,” the lone hero said.

“Miss Zimmer. Go, now,” he said.

Kamala was fighting delirium. Zoe? From her class? No…Miss Zimmer had to be her mother…right?

“You think you’re so tough?!” The Chameleon coughed, his words scratchy and unsure. “Bring it on! Come get some!!”

The hero’s words were steady. “I make my fist undo a thing of iron..!”

Kamala’s eyelids dropped. For a moment she heard the sounds of combat, but they drifted away, and then the world was quiet.

…

…

…

“Hey, kid? Are you okay?”

Kamala’s eyelids fluttered. Everything hurt. Not just hurt…everything ached. Like, full body traction, but without the casts. “Am I dead..?”

“Nah. Looks like you’ve got yourself a Healing Factor. Good thing, because–”

Kamala’s eyes focused. It was a white and black uniform there, in the corner! She punched out—

A long, bushy brown tail caught her arm and brought it back down. “Easy there, Kamals. No more property destruction for a little while, okay?”

Kamala sat up slowly. She didn’t recognize the studio apartment, the full-size mattress, the army of computer monitors mounted to the wall, or even the piles of manga and pizza boxes around the floor.

But she recognized Doreen Allene Green, age eighteen. A bandaged-up Doreen sat at the foot of the bed, her tail returning to curl around the two of them. “There she is! Good morning. How’re’ya feeling?”

Kamala’s head felt rent in two. She reached up to cradle her forehead, and then her elbow screamed. “Pain,” Kamala said. Flashes of the battle raced through her mind’s eye. The hallway fight, then the server room fight, then the kitchen, and finally falling through so many stories…

…And Zoe? And the yellow bandana that had saved Kamala’s life…?

Doreen walked to the one table in the center of the room, then came back and placed two pills in Kamala’s hand. Doreen held the glass of water and offered it. Kamala took the painkillers and managed to kick her legs off of the bed, so she could be sitting up.

Gentle orange light filled the small space, bathing the strewn clothes in a welcoming feeling.

“Welcome to Chateau de Green, or Casa de Verde I sometimes call it in my own head,” Doreen said.

Kamala remembered: she was supposed to be spending the night at Doreen’s college. She hated lying to her parents, but if she was going to be coming home battered more often than not, maybe crashing at Doreen’s made sense.

“The Chameleon’s off with Jersey’s boys in blue!” Doreen continued. “They found both hard drives on him, too. Mister Criminal is headed to the Raft, bet.”

“I’ll take that bet,” Spider-Woman said. She sat at the open window, her legs dangling above the waking city. “Nine times out of ten, these guys break out way before they get on a transport to the Raft. But that’s my problem. You guys did pretty okay back there.”

“Wait,” Kamala grimaced. “So we…did we win?”

Spider-Woman turned to smile at Kamala. “The hard drives were returned, none of the ball guests was hurt, the beaten-up security guards are all still alive, the bad guy is getting locked up and the heroes got to fight another day.” She giggled. “We won.”

Her mask was off!

Spider-Woman was nothing but a round-headed teenage girl, just like Kamala herself, with a shock of blond hair and bruises for days. Her green eyes were hardened, but her grin was genuine.

“Doreen tells me your name’s Kamala,” Spider-Woman said. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Gwen Stacy. Call me Gwen.”

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