On the other side, Cindy and Mayday were caught off guard.
Other spider allies? Seriously?
Forget it for now.
The two saw the message, immediately jumped into Jetfire's sports car, and took off. Better to slip away first, worry about the rest later.
...
Back at the original spot, Gwen was still shadowing Peni. At the same time, Peni was talking to Little Spider.
"Little Spider, what is this world? Why are there three Spider-Women here?"
"Should I try meeting them, or just focus on figuring out a way home faster?"
"I want to go home."
"But what for? To become some tycoon's new enforcer?"
"Thinking about it, this place isn't so bad."
"But I still want to avenge Dad."
"What should I do…?"
Peni let out a sigh. The black-and-red spider on her shoulder lifted a leg and tapped her face, as if encouraging her.
Gwen took it all in. And from those words, she understood a lot.
"Peni knows we're here."
"Her father was harmed. Maybe she wants revenge."
"Even if she goes back, her life might not be any better."
Peni popped her lollipop into her mouth, giving herself a little boost.
"I'll do my best! The Spider-Mech is fully charged today—let's go explore!"
With that, she skipped forward happily.
Gwen froze for a second. A mech? Spider-Mech? Peni has a mech? Where did she get it? Did it cross over with her? I need to see this.
With that thought, Gwen quietly kept tailing her.
Peni led Gwen on a winding path, eventually reaching an abandoned shipyard by the sea. At first, Gwen thought she was going inside, but instead Peni circled around, then slipped toward the dock's floodgate.
Gwen followed closely. Her presence was so silent and faint that Peni didn't notice at all. Besides, she wasn't carrying any high-tech gear.
If Tony were the one being tailed by Gwen like this... Her phone would stay hidden inside her suit. But the moment she pulled it out, Tony would definitely catch her.
As Gwen observed carefully, Peni went underground—and a mech with a rounded torso and four limbs came into view. Its visor showed streams of energy fluctuations, nearly at full capacity.
"Home at last, Little Spider."
Peni placed the small spider from her shoulder into the Spider-Mech. In the next instant, the mech came alive!
On its glass visor, human-like expressions appeared. First a cute wide-eyed look:
"0.0"
Then it shifted into a smiling face:
"A_A"
Seeing this, Peni lit up with joy.
"Perfect, Little Spider. With you, we can explore this world!"
As soon as she said it, the Spider-Mech's expression nodded in agreement.
"!"
Watching from a distance, Gwen instantly understood. So Peni's true partner was the little spider on her shoulder! And that spider was linked to the mech!
When Peni put it inside, the machine came alive! Which meant... the core of the mech was actually this spider.
"This is amazing," Gwen thought, awestruck.
Right away, she sent her location to Cindy and Mayday, telling them to come. The moment they got it, Mayday and Cindy rushed over with Jetfire.
Meanwhile, Gwen glanced again at Peni's happy face, thought for a moment, then returned to the doorway. She picked up some stones and laid them out into a directional marker. It pointed straight toward the shipyard, exactly where Peni would come out.
Before long, Cindy and Mayday arrived with Jetfire.
"How's it going?"
Cindy asked urgently the moment she arrived.
Gwen shook her head, then nodded.
"Come on over. We'll wait for her outside and I'll fill you in while we're at it."
She led the two and Jetfire to the spot opposite the gate where Peni would emerge, then began recounting everything she'd heard—from Peni's mutterings to the little spider, from the shipyard to the Spider-Mech.
When Gwen finished, Mayday asked in surprise,
"So Peni's powers aren't like ours? Not a Spider-Woman body at all, but a mech?"
Cindy looked puzzled too. Her name was Peni Parker, so she was definitely part of the Spider-Man line. But why a Spider-Mech instead of Spider-Woman abilities?
"No, she should have Spider powers, just different from ours," Gwen said after a moment's thought. "That little spider on her shoulder is connected to her. It's tiny, but it's intelligent. It understands speech, chats with her, even comforts her."
"These are all things I noticed. And that Spider-Mech can only activate with the little spider. That means Peni likely has a special bond with either the spider or the mech."
Hearing this, Cindy and Mayday thought it over, then nodded.
"You're right."
"So how do we proceed?"
Proceed? Simple. Gwen looked at Jetfire.
"Jetfire, we'll sit on this abandoned gantry crane. When Peni comes out, you transform and stand up. We'll let her see us, then I'll tell her we've been following her. Time to talk."
In short: I'll expose myself.
Still in car form, Jetfire replied from below, "Understood."
"That's it?" Mayday asked.
"That's enough," Gwen confirmed with a nod. "From what I heard on the road, Peni isn't afraid of us—she actually wants to connect. But her situation seems much more complicated than ours. She's got her father's revenge, worries about her old world, and more."
She turned to Mayday.
"Take you, for example. Your parents are still back in your world. Do you want to go back to them?"
Mayday hesitated, thought it over, then shook her head.
"Not yet. I'm not ready. If I went back now, I couldn't prove myself. Mom and Dad would just hold me back. They're retired anyway. I'm in no rush."
"But Peni might be," Gwen reminded her.
Cindy caught on to Gwen's reasoning.
"So we're doing this to make Peni quickly understand our intentions and actions, to get to know each other faster, right?"
"Yes." Gwen nodded.
Cindy and Mayday nodded as well.
...
Clack. Thud.
Footsteps and heavy mechanical steps sounded from the spot where Gwen had left her marker.
Hearing this, the group scrambled up onto the gantry crane, striking their poses. Gwen sat in the middle, Cindy stood proudly to the left, Mayday crouched to the right. The hierarchy was obvious at a glance.
"Huh?"
At the gate, Peni's confused voice rang out. She spotted the stone marker and instantly tensed.
"Little Spider!"
She jumped in place as the Spider-Mech's hatch opened. She leapt inside, sealed the glass canopy, and gripped the controls, peering out at the world beyond.
How to put it? She looked just like D.Va—the pink-suited girl from Overwatch—piloting her mech from inside.
Once Peni was inside, she maneuvered the mech slowly forward, leaving the gate.
And right away, a fiery red sports car entered her view.
"Wow—"
Then the mech sensors alerted her to something above. Peni looked up.
"Wow!"
Three Spider-Women were perched on the gantry crane—one seated, one standing, one crouching.
At the same time, Jetfire began transforming!
His tires rotated inward, the front and rear shifted simultaneously. The engine rose upward, forming the torso. The doors spun, the hood split apart.
In under two seconds, Jetfire rose from a crouch to full height—fifteen meters tall, towering directly before the gantry crane.
A crimson longsword hung at his waist, and the blazing gold character for "Lorien" shone on his chest.
"Whoa!!!"
Peni was stunned, her eyes glued to Jetfire.
"You're so cool!"
The moment she praised another mech, a pouty expression appeared on the Spider-Mech's visor.
"...."
Realizing her slip, Peni quickly corrected herself.
"Oops! I mean you're both cool! You're both cool!"
^_^
The Spider-Mech's expression flipped to delight.
It was just like Jetfire's old habits—but while Jetfire's handsome frame made the expressions feel off, the Spider-Mech's version came across as adorable.
...
Of course, now wasn't the time for that.
Peni guided the Spider-Mech forward a couple steps.
Gwen jumped down, landing on Jetfire's shoulder before hopping to the ground in front of Peni. Cindy and Mayday followed right after.
When the three stood before her, Peni spoke first.
"I bow before you~!"
"???"
Her words left Gwen and the others completely baffled. Gwen hadn't expected her to open with that.
"Are you Japanese?"
"No," Peni explained. "My mom might be, but my dad isn't."
That's a relief.
Gwen let out the breath she'd been holding. She'd worried this Spider-Man might actually be Japanese. That would've been a problem—their cultures were worlds apart.
But judging from how Peni had greeted them, she seemed like a lively, cheerful girl who enjoyed talking.
Of course, she was still in her mech. That meant she hadn't dropped her guard yet.
So Gwen took the initiative to introduce herself.
"Hello, Peni. We mean you no harm.
My name is Gwen Su Stacy, captain of the Spider-Alliance and a member of the Goddess Alliance. I'm a native of this universe, and I came here to talk with you."
After Gwen introduced herself, Cindy Moon and Mayday Parker followed with their own introductions. They each spoke of their origins, making it clear they too came from other universes. One was an orphan, the other still had parents, but both had joined the Spider-Alliance.
So Peni introduced herself as well.
"My name is Peni Parker, from... Oh, right—what year are you all from?"
Her thoughts jumped suddenly, and she blurted out the question about the year.
Gwen was a little puzzled, but still answered.
"We're all from around 2010 to 2015."
In truth, the gap might have been even smaller.
"That far apart?" Peni Parker gasped after hearing it.
"That much?" Gwen already felt something was off.
"Yeah," Peni Parker explained. "I'm from New York in 3145. By then, New York has already become a city ruled by financial conglomerates. Compared to that, the New York you know feels like a small town—no, more like it hasn't even been developed yet."
She spoke casually.
But Gwen, Cindy, and Mayday…!!!
"New York in 3145!?"
Gwen was completely floored by that number. That was more than eleven hundred years in the future!
If each dynasty lasted less than three hundred years, then by that point America might have gone through four different White Houses already! And…