Chapter Text
“I don’t get it” he said, weakly. The chains were too tight and he was too tired, he felt like he could pass out again any second now. Escaping both spider-society and being knocked out in a matter of hours, after an emotionally draining and completely pointless talk with his mother? It was too much, and it was only getting worst.
“Don’t worry, you will…” his counterpart retorted, while adjusting his mechanical claws, “...people always get it some time after it happens, and it all makes sense”.
Miles felt himself drifting off, his head was about to explode and his whole body was trembling a little bit with this strange sensation that… no, he wasn’t drifting off. He was charging. The little time off, while doing nothing for his mind, did help his body rest a little. Of course any normal person would’ve be even worse now, but that healing factor spider-people all shared was a blessing, and he was about to make the most out of it.
This time though, he needed to hold as much energy and as long as possible without showing his hand, both metaphorically and literally, so he did what spider-man did best.
“You know, we might look the same, but we’re very different” Miles couldn’t help but die a little bit inside while saying it, he thought annoying their enemies was meant to be their speciality. “I’m well aware of that” was the only thing the Prowler said, while starting to walk towards him.
‘I need to keep both their eyes away from my hands’ and with that, Miles made a gamble. “Yeah of course you noticed. For starters, I don’t rely on cheap sneak attacks or tons and tons of stolen technology to be someone” said Miles, while his counterpart started walking towards him, annoyed look on his face. “Of course the main difference is that I’m not a shame to my father” continued Miles, seeing how it clearily affected his other-self, who opened his claws and powered them up, closing the distance.
“Anything else you’d like to say, punk?” asked the Prowler, as he grabbed Miles by his neck, ready to start squeezing. “Yes” answered Miles, “watch the hands, not the mouth” and then, he released everything. A surge of bio-electricity fueled by his emotions, mainly anger an desperation, came out of him like a shockwave, freeing him from the chains and obliterating the punching bag.
His counterpart was able to dig his claw on the ground, pinning himself down, while this world’s version of his uncle flew backwards towards the wall, shutting his lights out. After a second of hesitation, Miles was running out the door with the Prowler closely chasing after him.
They begun going upstairs, the Prowler pouncing at him every chance he got while Miles dodged him as best as he could, making him hit the walls in the process. He had to get to the roof, either to escape or to have a better fighting chance in an open field.
Even while running for his life he had time to beat himself up for frying his web-shooters in the process of breaking himself free. He was aware of what he could do, normally, and his web-shooters were more than capable of resisting it, also normally. But this was no normal situation, he gathered a strength unknown even to him, and it backfired a little. He’d have to be more careful while using his bio-electricity moving forward. If this journey had taught him something, is that he was way more capable than he thought.
He got to the roof when the Prowler finally tackled him through the door of the last set of stairs. Feeling the shock of the impact and the claws trying to dig into his skin, he turned and slid, rolling on the floor alongside his counterpart. They both got to their feet on a whim, and faced each other in equal conditions for the first time.
The Prowler took a second to analyze the situation, realizing Miles had destroyed his web-shooters. A smile popped up on his face and, after pressing a few buttons on his suit’s wrist, he launched himself towards his enemy. Miles on the other hand, braced for it and at the last second, he dodged, letting his counterpart move past him and making him turn around before resuming the fight, earning enough time to better ground himself and engage.
“So, we need some of you to go to Miles’ dimension to prepare for Spot’s attack, while the rest of us will go to save Miles” the young blonde directed from a slightly higher part of the rooftop to the rest of the spiderpeople. “Peter B, Hobie, Noir and I will go after Miles. The rest of you, go to Miles’ original dimension and prepare for Spot…” she said while entering the coordinates in her wristwatch. Then, she hesitated for a moment. “And… prepare for anything else.”
“You don’t think” Pavitr broke the tension “that Miguel will try anything else, right?”. They all stood looking at each other for a while, until Peter B broke the silence “We must be prepared for anything, even Miguel, if it comes to it. Now go through that portal and prepare, we’ll catch up to you with Miles as soon as possible”.
With that, the group assigned to Mile’s original dimmension started crossing through the portal, while Gwen sent a ‘Thank you’ look to Peter, which he answered accordingly.
After the last one crossed the portal, Gwen closed it and input the coordinates for the spiderman-less dimension.
“I will go with you, but not bec-” said Hobie, before being cut off by Gwen “Not because I said so, I get it”. Hobie limited himself to a small grin, “I’m positive Miles will have the best opinion out of you all for this, taking into account you helped him” Gwen said, while throwing him an exaggerated incriminatory look, to let clear it was playfully done.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about” answered Hobie, while crossing to the newly formed portal in front of him, being closely followed by the rest of the group.
They both struggled to keep up with one another. Spiderman was definitely stronger, while the Prowler was definitely faster, probably due to Miles’ exhaustion, after all, he had been fighting and running non-stop for the last couple of hours. They were both able to damage each other, Miles landing a few blows, shat tering pieces of his counterpart’s suit, while this world’s Miles was able to make a few cuts, mostly superficial, but a few of them got deep enough to restrain his movement a little bit.
Taking a deep stab from the Prowler’s right claw, Miles was able to close the distance and find an opening in his guard to deliver a devastating blow to his foe’s face, but when he was about to make contact, a purple light flashed on his face, and he felt his arm stuck.
Dumbfounded, he looked to the roof’s entrance to see his uncle holding a mechanical whip with both hands, before his counterpart took advantage of the interruption to hit him right square to the face, sending him flying backwards.
'Right, not unc' thought Miles while he fell. And just as he touched the ground, before being ready to get up and continue the fight, he found himself being pinned down by the weight of the Prowler’s boot on his chest.