Dimensions Can't Keep Us Apart

Chapter 9

The next day Miles was still thinking about Gwen's rush to leave. She is always wanting to be with me so why did she want to leave? Miles thought as he brushed his teeth. When he finished he went out to walk around to think more about Gwen. Something isn't right. What could possibly ibe bothering her? Miles didn't want to ask because he respected Gwen too much to go against what she wanted him to do. Then Miles realized that sometimes he should go against what Gwen wanted if he thought it was the right thing to do.

Miles walked into an alley and opened a portal into Gwen's dimension. After the portal closed he began to swing around to find Gwen. He searched her house but didn't find her there. He tried texting her and asked where she was and got a response quickly.

Hanging out with my band, can't hang out if you're wondering.

But she just had a practice. Miles thought as he began to swing blindly. Why doesn't she want to be with me? Nothing makes sense.

He landed on a rooftop and was taking a breather when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw Miguel there looking at him with stern eyes.

"Miguel! Been a while."

"Save the hi's for later, you need to come with me."

"What for?"

"You'll see just follow me."

Miles listened and followed him to an abandoned warehouse. He followed Miguel inside and saw the whole spiderfam there. Ham was eating a hot dog but it looked like he was doing that for...stress eating? Noir was twirling his guns which he told Miles is something he only does when he's stressed. Peni was sitting on her robot and eating candy at super human speed. He saw Peter there pacing furiously and murmuring things quietly. Then he saw Gwen. She was putting on a face that seemed calm but Miles knew was a face of stress.

Miguel cleared his throat and everyone looked up and saw Miles there. They all greeted him a way too enthusiastically.

"Hey Miles! How's life? Are you healthy? How many injuries do you have." Peni asked.

"HELLO MILES HOW ARE YOU!" Ham shouted.

"Hey fella." Noir said in his usual tone but then again he never shows any emotion while talking.

"Kid! How are you? I've missed you! How's your spider business going?" Peter quickly said.

Something isn't right. Gwen isn't talking when she always does when she sees me. Something is definitely not right. Miles thought as he heard all of these questions come at once. "What's going on? Why are you asking me all these questions? We just saw each other two days ago." Miles said.

Everyone stared at Miguel looking as though they were seeking permission. Miguel sighed before motioning Miles over to him.

"Miles, come here, I need to talk to you."

"Oh, um.. OK." Miles said as he walked over. "So what do you need to tell me?"

"Before I tell you, you need to promise me that you will not tell a soul about this. Nobody can know, not even your parents. Also you can not discuss this anywhere with the spider people except for in here understand?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Now what happened is that someone came into Gwen's dimension, wrecked up the city, and disappeared. But before he left he demanded for Gwen to follow him. After that nobody saw him again."

"That doesn't seem like something for you all to get worked up on. It's probably someone like the Vulture or someone." Miles said.

"I know who did it. It's someone far worse than the Vulture."

"Who?"

Miguel had a look of fear on his face before answering. "The lion."

"The lion? Who is that?"

"He's a ruthless spider people hunter from a different dimension who has superhuman strength, durability, and powers. He can snap your bone without even trying. He can take rocket launchers and machine guns to the face and not be affected. And he can literally suck the life out of you and use it for strength. He can also watch you whenever he wants and can travel to any dimension glitch free."

"Oh, that is bad."

"If he's coming after Gwen then there has to be a really bad reason why he did is."

"Oh." Miles tried to process this as everyone sat in a tense silence until Miles spoke up.

"If this is so serious, why didn't you tell me?"

Miguel hesitated before he answered. "Because it's no secret how much you care about her. If you heard about this without any of us to stop you, you'll just go up to him and get yourself killed."

"How do you know that? How do you know that I don't have it in me to beat him." Miles shouted as his anger rose up. He was not very fond of the idea of being called weak which was what Miguel was essentially saying.

"Because so many have tried and they all failed. And even if you could somehow beat him, he has a whole family of people who may not be as strong as him, but still require lots of effort to even become close to killing them."

Miles began to protest more before Gwen spoke up for the first time. "Miles, listen to him. You really may think you could've beat him but think about it, there have been so many others who thought the same and every single one of them has failed. If you would've gone after him you could've gotten seriously hurt or worse." Her eyes began to water at the thought of that. "Miguel was trying to protect you so we can work out a way to beat him. He did what was best for you.

Miles' anger left as he thought of losing Gwen in any way. Both of them would be miserable and couldn't survive without her. He realized that Miguel was indeed trying to protect everyone emotionally and physically by not telling Miles.

Miles' thoughts were cut short when Miguel started telling everyone what he wanted them to do. "I'm going to try to recruit help from spider people in other dimensions but this may take a while so right now I want everyone to avoid anything similar to what happened to Gwen's dimension. This could lead you to dying and also possibly killing our chance at defeating the lion. Understand?" Everyone nodded. "Good go back to your dimensions and remember, don't discuss this with anyone.

Everyone opened portals to their own dimensions and walked through them. When Miles closed his he started to think about what Miguel said. He wasn't going to do anything against what Miguel said but he still wanted to find out more about this "lion". Who was he and what did he want?