The familiar chime of the system echoed in Ethan's mind before he could even offer Gwen a seat.
[ Mission Complete: The Uninvited Guest ]
> Reward: 5,000 System Points, 1x Rare Material Box.
Current Balance: 10,010 System Points.
Wait, that's it? Ethan thought, a small smirk playing on his lips. Just catching her and bringing her here counts as 'handling'? This is the easiest payday I've had since arriving in this world. Five thousand points just for a game of tag.
He glanced at the Rare Material Box sitting in his inventory, but he pushed the curiosity aside for now. He had a multiversal spider-vigilante sitting in his living quarters, and she looked like she was currently deciding which part of his face to punch first.
****
An hour later, the atmosphere in the Sanctum had settled into a tense, quiet truce.
Gwen had emerged from one of the guest rooms, having shed the white-and-pink spandex. She was now wearing a set of casual clothes Ethan had "sourced"āessentially a pair of soft gray joggers and a slightly oversized navy blue t-shirt. With her blonde bob damp from a quick wash and the freckles clear on her face, she looked less like a lethal vigilante and more like the college student she was supposed to be.
Ethan sat across from her, a steaming mug of tea between them. He watched her for a moment, noting how she held the cupāfingers steady, eyes never leaving him.
"You took the whole 'teleporting through a golden ring' thing remarkably well," Ethan started, leaning back into the leather sofa. "Most people are usually halfway through a nervous breakdown by now. Have you encountered sorcerers before? Guys in robes, moving through walls, that sort of thing?"
Gwen took a slow sip of the tea, her gaze cool and analytical. "No. But honestly? I don't find magic that surprising anymore."
"Really? I'm offended," Ethan remarked dryly. "I put a lot of work into the theatrics. The sparks, the dramatic entrance... I even did the 'hero landing' in my head."
Gwen ignored the jab. "I got these powers because I was bitten by a radioactive spider. Do you have any idea how statistically impossible that is? Normally, when people come into contact with high-level radioactive material, they get cancer and die. They don't gain the ability to stick to walls or sense danger before it happens."
She set the mug down on the table with a soft clack. "And on top of that, I just fell through a literal hole in space-time and landed in a city that looks like mine but feels... wrong. After that, a guy in a cape making sparks with his fingers is just another item on the list. What more weird can it get?"
Ethan chuckled. "You'd be surprised. We're currently in the 'tame' era of this world. Give it a few years, and a giant purple alien will be the least of your worries."
Gwen leaned forward, her expression turning serious. "Who are you? And what are you? How do you know my name? And what is this 'Earth-65' you mentioned back on the roof?"
Ethan raised a hand. "Woah, woah. One question at a time, Spider-Girl. I'm not a Google search result."
"Fine. Who are you? Or what are you?"
"Well, my name is Ethan Williams," he said, enjoying the sound of his own title for a second. "As for what I am... you can say I'm a protector of Earth from other-dimensional creatures. It's not often a beautiful girl pops out of a rift; usually, it's some tentacled horror or a demon looking to turn Manhattan into a buffet. My job is to make sure that doesn't happen."
"So you're like a superhero," Gwen summarized, her tone skeptical.
"You could say that, but I'm not a solo act. There's a whole organization behind meāKamar-Taj. I'm just a... highly talented new recruit running the New York branch."
"So why do you know about me?"
Ethan paused. He couldn't exactly tell her he was from a world where her life was a comic book and a movie. That tended to ruin the vibe of a first meeting.
"Let's just say my 'magic' gives me a very wide perspective," Ethan said, choosing his words carefully. "I know who you are because you're a significant thread in the tapestry of reality, Gwen. And right now, that thread is snagged in a world it doesn't belong in."
"Can you send me back?" she asked. Her voice dropped, a hint of desperation leaking through her stoic mask for the first time.
"Right now? No," Ethan admitted. "The rift you came through was a fluke. An anomaly. My current portals only move through the space of this dimension. Jumping to another universe requires... well, a bit more processing power than I have at the moment. It's like trying to run a PS5 game on a toaster. I need better hardware."
Gwen slumped back into the chair, staring into her tea. "So I'm stuck here. Great."
"Hey, don't use such a harsh word," Ethan said, trying to lighten the mood. "Consider it a vacation. New York is lovely this time of yearāif you ignore the traffic and the impending alien invasions."
"Vacation?" Gwen echoed. "To another world? That's a hell of a destination. So what was that 'Earth-65' thing? Does the universe have a numbering system or something?"
"Not technically," Ethan explained, waving his hand to project a faint, glowing map of the multiverse in the air. "It's just a name for the convenience of differentiation. As you've gathered, there are infinite parallel universes. The one you came from was Earth-65. This world? This is Earth-199999."
"Fuck me," Gwen muttered, leaning her head back against the chair in total exasperation. The sheer weight of the situation she is in starting to settle in.
Ethan smirked, his hand moving to the buttons of his shirt as if the room had suddenly gotten too hot. "Whenever you're ready."
Gwen's eyes snapped to his, narrowing into a lethal glare. She tsked under her breath. "Your organization must be incredibly low on manpower to make a creep like you the master of this place."
****
[System: Tsk tsk. Truly, how low can you fall? You finally get a visitor from another world and your first instinct is a pick-up line from a 90s frat movie? The 'Hand Warrior' title is starting to look like a permanent status effect.]
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