"Come on, dude, please," Ganke was on his knees. His hands were clamped together as he begged Miles for help. Not Miles's favorite way to start a Monday.
"I don't get it, man. You want me to ask Liz if she'll sit with us at lunch?" Miles sat at the desk in their dorm room as he tried to finish his Spanish homework.
"What's not to get?"
Miles sighed, lolling his head back against the chair, "Can we not do this right now? We have a Spanish quiz today."
"You speak Spanish!"
"It's not the same thing."
"Please Miles, just this once," Ganke pleaded trying and failing to give Miles the puppy eyes from his place on the floor. He jutted out his bottom lip as his dark brown eyes screamed how desperate he was.
Miles groaned rubbing his temples, "Fine, but you have to come with me. I'm not gonna look like an idiot by myself."
Miles could have swore that Ganke grinned as wide as the the Nile, "Thanks so much!" He pulled Miles into a hug, while Miles just chuckled and patted him on the back.
The two were alerted by a silent, rhythmic beeping sound. Miles felt his eyes scan the room for the source before landing on his gizmo. Ganke seemed to have realized it too because he spoke not even a second later, "I think your watch-thingy is ringing."
Miles nodded, reaching over to his nightstand where the watch laid, to grab it. He pressed a blue icon on the screen that read, 'Accept Call' in big, bold letters.
A beat later a hologram of Miguel appeared above the device. Ganke was by his side in a instant, gawking at the watch and rambling about how cool it was.
Miguel wore his usual unimpressed look, "Miles, I- who is that?"
Ganke was practically hanging on Miles shoulder. Miles placed a hand on Ganke's face and shoved him away, "It's just my roommate. It's fine. He knows about all the spider stuff."
"You seriously told him?" Miguel groaned, "What part of secret identity don't you get?" He shook his head dismissively, "Whatever, I'm calling an emergency meeting. Meet me and the others in my dimension now."
"I can't. I have first period in like," Miles checked his phone and panic flooded through him, "Fifteen minutes!"
"Don't care. Get over here," Miguel stated, before abruptly ending the call.
Miles groaned, "You've got to be kidding me."
"What's his problem?" Ganke asked from his right.
"No idea." Miles stripped himself of his school uniform. Once he was down to his boxers he grabbed his suit from the closet and scrabbled to put it on. He slid his mask over his face, then began fiddling with his gizmo.
"So umm," Ganke looked to him earnestly, "You'll be back before lunch right? Y'know for the thing with Liz?"
Miles smiled small, "I'll try, okay? I promise."
Miles punched a few digits into his gizmo. Gazing as a portal appeared before him. He gave his roommate a wave before stepping through.
After landing on the other side of the portal he was met with the futuristic sight of earth '928'. Peter and Noir stood beside each other at table in Miguel's kitchen and Peni sat on top of the table, at the corner as she conversed with them. She swung her legs back and forth like a child would do.
Miles noticed two more portals opening up and out stepped Gwen and Porker. The boy smiled when Gwen gave him a half wave. "Hey Gwen," he called.
"We're all here too, kid," Peter announced with a mischievous grin, "Favoritism much?"
Miles's face flushed red, "No! I just-"
"Yeah, yeah, we all understand perfectly," Peter cast him a not at all subtle wink, "But nice to see you kids," He cast Porker a smirk, "You too, Bacon Bit."
Ham growled in annoyance, "I wouldn't talk, Parker. You're more of a Pot-belly than my uncle, George."
Peni giggled while, Peter tightened his lips into a scowl, "Hey, that's not fair."
Gwen, who had been standing behind Porker, shrugged lazily, "Welcome to life, Peter."
A robotic female voice sounded round the room, "Miguel wishes to see you all in the surveillance room."
"Couldn't he have told us himself?" Miles muttered to himself.
The group made their way down the hall, past the moving portraits on the wall and toward the room they had all met in the last time they were here. The technology in this dimension never ceased to amazed Miles.
"So Peni, do you know what's going on?" Miles heard Gwen ask.
"Of course, but I thought it might be better to let, Lyla do the explaining. She'd be better at breaking it down for you guys than I would."
Miles understood that Peni was from the future as well. He was pretty sure that her universe was even further in the future than Miguel's, but he couldn't help but take a bit of offense at that statement. Peni was basically saying she needed Miguel's robot, lady-friend's help to dumb it down for them. He decided to brush it off. Peni didn't mean anything by it. Plus, she was a genius after all.
He looked over to Gwen and almost laughed aloud. She was probably thinking the same thing, judging by the peeved and irritated expression on her face.
When the spiders reached the surveillance room, Miles found it looked the same as last time, lined with multiple holograms and television screens. The boy found himself wondering just how advanced the TV's were.
"The year is 2099 right? So they're probably like 24k TVs. That's so cool! I wonder if Miguel would let me keep one. Probably not."
Miguel was leaning against the wall with his arms folded, looking as if he'd been waiting for them forever when in reality, it had only been a few minutes. He just always had this expression on his face that made Miles feel that he wished they weren't there. To Miles his face read 'As soon as we stop Olivia I'm done with you all'. Miles was not a big fan of his and would honestly be glad to not have to see him anymore.
"Lyla, they're here," Miguel announced their presence to his A.I. Then the same fair skinned lady appeared as a hologram in front of them.
"What is it, Miguel? I was in the middle of something."
"Isn't she a computer? What could she have been doing?"
Miguel sighed, "Just explain to them what Peni told me?"
"Oh seriously! I don't want to have to speak stupid for these half-brains."
Miguel groaned and Peter stated, "I take offense to that."
Peni looked up at the hologram, with a smile, her eyes sparkling. "We know how smart you are, Lyla. Can you please explain it to them, just this once?" she pleaded.
Lyla huffed, "Fine."
Miguel head shot up and he blinked three times, "Wait, that worked?"
Peni grinned at him and teased, "Surprised huh? Saying please might actually be useful."
"Whatever."
"Alright listen up, because I will not repeat myself," the A.I proclaimed. "Peni found that Olivia's collider is limited to a handful of dimensions. She is from Miles's dimension, therefore her collider can only take her to neighboring dimensions."
Miles had no idea what she was saying.
When the group still looked confused Lyla huffed in annoyance, "What are you? Children?!"
"Can you run that by me again, Ma'am?" Noir asked.
She sighed, "Fine, I'll go daycare speed." Her body disappeared on the screen and was replaced with a large tree.
"Think of the multiverse, like a tree," she began, "Each branch is a new universe. See this branch here?" A branch of the tree was highlighted in a bright yellow, "Imagine this branch is Miles's and Olivia's universe. Though as you can see there are multiple smaller branches stemming off of it. Those are its relative or neighbor dimensions. When the first collider was activated two years ago, it opened up your dimensions specifically, because they are relative dimensions to Miles's."
Miles nodded along with her explanation. He was started to understand all this.
"Each dimension has twelve, relatives," she continued, "Since Olivia can only travel to those twelve. We should be able to find her approximate location. She has already raided the Oscorps in six different universes including her own. So that just leaves seven more dimensions including yours," she said gesturing to the Peters, Peni, and Gwen. "So now we can narrow down where she may head next."
"Okay thank you! That makes way more sense." Peter praised her.
"So what dimension's do we think she will to go to?" Gwen asked, now facing Peni.
Peni tapped her index finger on her chin in thought, "Well, the Oscorp in my dimension has a whole bunch of drastic security measures, so I doubt she'd head there. And Noir probably doesn't have any tech she could use. Same goes with Ham."
Miles nodded in understanding, "So that just leaves Peter and Gwen's universes and two others."
Peni strode over to one of Miguel's computers and started tipping away. Miles listened for a few moments to the faint clicking and clacking of Peni's fingers against the keys, before her head shot up. A triumphant expression lined her face., "Found them. Anya Sofia Corazon from 691682. She's sixteen years old. Benjamin Reilly from earth TRN579. He's a clone of that dimension's Peter Parker and he's twenty-one."
"He's a clone. Awesome!"
Miles took a step forward eyeing the photos of the two new spider-people, "So we should warn them, right? I mean, could always use more help."
"Fine, we'll split up," Miguel said, "Peni and I will be one group then Miles and Peter."
"Actually," Peter retorted, "I have a date with MJ tomorrow, but Gwen could pair with Miles. They work pretty well together." He smiled innocently as Miles shot him a pointed glare.
"Whatever," Miguel groaned, "I really don't care who goes with who. You two just pick who your target."
Miles leaned toward the computer to study the two heroes on the screen. Ben Reilly had fair skin and messy, blond hair. He had deep brown-hazel eyes and a pretty nasty scar across his left one. He honestly looked a bit like the Peter Parker of Miles's universe, minus the brown eyes and the scar.
His costume looked as if someone tried to made a red and blue handmade version of gwen's costume with a spider symbol resting along the chest horizontally. Though if he looked closely he noticed the texture of the red fabric resembled that of a basketball.
The girl was actually kinda pretty. She had light brown, Latina skin and loose curls flowing past her shoulders. What threw Miles off was her suit. It was black with a large, white spider emblem in the jutting down the middle, but her mask didn't even cover her entire face. It only covered her eyes. Though it did look cool.
"I think we should go to Reilly's universe," Gwen spoke up coming to stand beside him. She cast him a look that he couldn't seem to read.
Miles squinted in confusion.
"Why would she wanna go there? No offense to him, but Ben doesn't look too friendly. And Peni said that Anya was our age."
Still, Miles was a pleaser, so he just shrugged and agreed with her. Gwen cast him a small smile, "So we should meet up tomorrow after school. Then we can head there."
Miles eyes widened at the mention of school. He needed to get back before lunch to help Ganke. Well, he shouldn't say help. Miles was basically doing the work for him.
"I got- I gotta get to school!" Miles stuttered, before bolting out the door, leaving the rest to stare at him quizzically.
Miles scrabbled to open a portal. After stepping through the new opening and falling through the dimensional void, he landed back in his dorm room.
The boy darted out of the room and down the empty hall, passing multiple other rooms. He had to do a speedy double take when he realized he was still wearing his spider-suit. The hero dashed back toward his his room at record speed.
"Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"
Miles slammed the door shut behind him as he gasped for his breath. He did a quick change of clothes before heading back out. As he walked through the hallway at a more normal pace, he ran a hand through his hair in attempt to calm himself.
"You're good, Miles. No one saw. Your spidey-sense never went off. Everything is completely fine."
Miles let out a breath, before he remembered why he had been running in the first place. Suddenly he was rushing again, darting to the end of the hall. He open a door at the end and sped through. He passed through a narrow walkway, where the walls were made entirely off glass. It was basically a bridge connecting the dorms to the school.
Once he reached the other side, he sprinted past the classrooms. Dread rose in him when he realized all of the classes were empty. When he finally made it to the cafeteria his face dropped.
It was packed. He was too late. The curly-haired kid let out a defeated sigh. There would always be tomorrow.
Miles made his way over to his usual lunch table in hopes of finding his roommate, who would most likely be mad at him, but he'd deal with it. He found Ganke sitting at the table and when his eyes flicked over to him, Mikes found his expression was... not as peeved as he thought it would be.
"What's got you so happy?" Miles asked asked as he slid into the seat across from.
Miles's question was answered as he was started by a voice from behind him, "Hey, you're Miles, right?"
Miles swiveled around in his chair and was met with the hazel green eyes of the one and only, Liz Allen. Miles jaw dropped at the sight and Liz probably thought he looked like a moron. If she did, she didn't say it.
"I'll be right back. I'm going to grab some food," she excused herself, as she walked off.
Miles turned back to his friend with the most shocked look on his face. "You asked her yourself?!" he whisper-shouted, then his face broke into a smile, "Nice going, man. What did you say?"
A proud grin etched itself onto Ganke's face, "Oh y'know," he started, crossing his arms over his chest, "I used the shoulder touch."