Gwen Stacy Syndrome Ch. 08

"Let me, Mother," Ana begged. "Let me show you what Peter's taught me."

Sasha's eyes, coming inexorably close, snapped open. "Peter?"

"He fucked me so good. He fucked me and Felicia, and Felicia fucked me, and I fucked her. It's bliss, Mother. Letting him have you—it's endless bliss!"

"Peter Parker..." Gasping, her body overheated, Sasha pulled herself away. In her stupor, her wet feet nearly slipped on the tile floor before she steeled herself. "You... you let yourself be taken by the Spider?"

"I gave myself over to him. Mother, he's strong, stronger than you know, stronger than even Father was!"

"Silence! You whore, I can't believe... little slut... he was the one that came inside you? That made you his?" Sasha's head was swimming. She felt short of breath.

"Again and again and again. Mother, there's no point in hunting him. He is the supreme predator. Imagine him leading us into battle! Every day, a new criminal to fall before our claws, our teeth. Every night, the pleasure of his bed..."

"I should kill you! Little whore!" Sasha looked around for a weapon. "Waste of your father's seed--!"

And as Sasha saw herself in the mirror—naked, flushed with arousal—she also saw Ana launch herself from the bath, tackle Sasha to the ground, dash her head on the linoleum floor. Then all Sasha saw was blackness.

"You don't know yet," Ana said. "You can't. But you will."

***

"An interdimensional portal?" Peter repeated, blinking against the morning light. Usually he didn't sleep in, but then, usually he didn't have sex with two women right in the middle of his sleep cycle.

"Built by Mysterio," Ana repeated. "It's a fusion of mysticism and technology. It works with Totems."

Peter heard the capital T. "Oh, great. Paging Mistress Web..."

"I've traveled through it myself. As a Hunter, I've replaced bears, lions—had to take a zoo hostage. But my mother's goals were conservative. If someone wished true harm, the results should be catastrophic."

"And you couldn't have told me this sooner?"

"I would not want to think you only took me to bed out of gratitude for giving you this thing."

Peter closed his eyes. Who knew having a harem could be such a headache? "Alright, keep an eye on the damn thing. I'll be there soon. We'll see if I can disable it before we get a visit from the planet of nothing but... shrimp. Or whatever."

***

"What the hell is this?" Through the glare-cutting crispness of his mask's lenses, Peter saw the room. The swirling vortex of extradimensional energy, the rift torn in reality and harnessed by infernal machines, that he was used to. The bed came as a surprise. And the woman in it, naked, spread-eagled, tied to all four bedposts, that was a shocker.

She was gagged, her nude body oiled down, her vagina shaved. If it had been MJ or Felicia, Peter would've been intrigued. But it wasn't.

"Peter," Ana said proudly. "I think it's time you met my mother."

Peter tensed. "I suppose it's for the best that she's tied up, but why is she naked? What's with the bed?"

Ana giggled confidently, like Peter was quizzing her and she had the answer. "So you can fuck her, of course." She leaned into him, embracing him, resting her head on his arm. "It's the only way she'll see how powerful you truly are, how worthy you are to claim her allegiance as a broodmare. If you make her come half as much as you did me, then she'll see how foolish it is to keep fighting you. Not when there are other ways so much more pleasurable..."

Peter pushed her away. "Jesus Christ! Haven't you picked up anything? I'm not just gonna rape someone!"

"But it is only way," Ana said, uncertainty creeping into her voice. "She wants to avenge Father. She won't stop until she is dead or you are. The only other way is for her to give up Father; for you to be new Father!"

"She's tied up and gagged! I'm not doing anything with her but getting her something to wear!"

"But... doesn't her body please you?" Ana asked. She stepped closer, gesturing at Sasha's nudity. "She is older, yes, but her body is very nearly as firm as mine! It will not be long before I look as such, if I am lucky!"

"It's not about whether I'm attracted to her or not! I'm not going to do it because it's wrong, the same way it would be wrong to kill someone! You remember that, right?"

"Yes. It is wrong to kill. Taking our prey alive is more of a challenge, more worthy of greatness such as yours..." She saw Peter rubbing his sinuses. "What? What is it? What is wrong? Have I done something?"

"No. No. I just... I don't... how am I supposed to make you have any conception of right and wrong?"

"It is right to protect what is yours, to be strong, to the best. It is wrong to be weak, to be unworthy, to be unfit. This is the law of the jungle."

Peter's head was cast downward. "God... God..."

"Please!" Ana begged. "What have I done wrong? I did not mean to do anything wrong, I didn't mean to displease you—"

"It's not... it's not your fault. It's how you were raised. I just don't know—"

"You know." Now it was Sasha who had spoken. She had taken the gag off as she slipped behind Ana, brought the knife to her throat. "She's mine. My flesh and blood, and as much as you kiss her and inseminate her and lie to her, she will always be of my stock!"

Peter's hands tensed at his side. "Put the knife down, lady."

"You care for her. Even knowing what a monster she is. That's good. Move, there, to the circle in the floor. Otherwise I'll bleed her. You know I will."

Peter walked slowly to a space nearby the portal, sectioned off in green tape. My spider-sense isn't going off. What kind of death-trap is this?

"Look what you've done to your daughter. Your flesh and blood. She doesn't understand the most basic rules of living in civilized society."

"Civilized," Sasha sneered. "Were you civilized, killing my husband?"

"Was he noble with a gun in his mouth?"

Sasha scratched the knife's tip over Ana's jugular. "There are other worlds, Mr. Parker. Some where you've died. Some where my husband lives. We'd only just begun to explore them. The first in our explorations was—corrupted. It festers. Soon, it will be culled. If I cannot kill you myself, I would like to think of you trapped there, apart from your two whores, as the dying world breathes its last."

Peter stood there, inside the green tape. His spider-sense wasn't ringing. It was the only thing that let him keep still. "In the words of Arnold Schwarzenegger, 'ah'll be back.'"

"Give my regards to Mysterio. Tell him he's fired." And Sasha jammed the butt of her knife down on the console.

In a swirl of energy, a ripple of geography, Peter was gone. Ana screamed, Sasha tossing her aside, slapping her as she crumpled to the floor.

"Foolish child. Lucky for you; you never could tie a knot." As Ana wept, Sasha stared at the vortex, its colors flashing change after change. "The multiversal constant must remain the same. For one spider to go through, another must return. But if everything is continuing according to schedule, their web's avatar is dead by now. I wonder what will be traded to us in exchange..."

She didn't have to wonder long. A moment ago, the space had been filled by a man grown, the air around him crackling with his power, the weight of his experience, the confidence of his years. Now, two boys replaced him, short, slender, one springy, the other stocky. Where Peter had been calm, cool, collected, they wore their nervousness with fidgeting energy.

The first had on a costume similar to the Spider-Man he had replaced: the colors a different shade, the symbolic spiders on front and back slightly different, the lenses in his mask a different size, shape, and color. But it was clearly the same pattern.

While the second was another species entirely. His costume not blue, but black, with red webbing filtered through it in fragile lattices, covering his fingers but not his hands, his chest but not his legs.

"Uh," the first one said, his voice a feeble echo of Peter's confident patois. "Is it just me or did the opening credits of Doctor Who just happen in real life?"

The second one was looking at him. "Is it just me or are we double-booked?"

Then both turned to the women.

"Who're they?" the Spider-Man in black asked.

"Naked," the Spider-Man in blue replied unthinkingly, his eyes locked on Sasha Kravinoff—at least, parts of her.

Ana recognized the voice. "You!"

"Who's she?" the Spider-Man in black asked.

Under the mask, Peter Parker, age seventeen, began to swear. "Ex-girlfriend."

***

"Dude, you on your way to a convention?"

Peter awoke in an alleyway. Home sweet home. His whole body stung, one big bruise waiting to happen, and his spider-sense was acting like a cell phone running out of juice. He rolled over, off the face he'd apparently landed on, and saw a bum standing over him.

"Yeah. That's me. The amazing Convention-Man."

The bum shook his head. "You're way too tall, man. The real Spider-Man wouldn't come up to your shoulder."

"Uh-huh. And he shoots webbing out of little holes in his wrist..." Peter sat up painfully. "Talks to spiders... his dad genetically modified him as a kid... I've heard 'em all. 'Really tall' is nice. Does he also have a manly musk?"

The bum kept staring at him. "Buddy, you're weird. Tall as you are, with all your muscles, you should be Captain America."

Peter's eyebrows raised. "Thanks. That's actually kinda nice of you."

"He's a fucking fascist, but he's got a lot of muscles. You need a blanket?"

"It is a bit chilly this time of night." Peter looked up at the stars. Hadn't it been mid-morning when he'd fallen into the swirling vortex of terror?

"Here ya go," the bum said, offering him a newspaper.

One look and Peter seized it, turning it around, upside-down, coming to the front page. It was faded, tarnished, but the headline was still legible.

BROTHERHOOD OF MUTANTS LEADER CYCLOPS THREATENS MORE ATTACKS; ULTIMATES PROMISE SAFETY & SECURITY.

He dropped the paper. "Toto, something tells me we're not in Kansas anymore."

"My name's Roy," the bum said.