*MJ's Apartment. 11:47 PM. That Night.*
Mary Jane Watson lay in her bed. Her body ached. Every muscle felt sore. Like she'd run a marathon and then climbed a mountain.
The training session with Peter and Gwen had been intense. Three hours of learning to control impossible abilities. Wall-crawling. Strength modulation. Spider-sense recognition.
She'd crushed six coffee cups before learning proper grip control. Had fallen off walls seventeen times before her adhesion became reliable. Had gotten warnings from her spider-sense that turned out to be false alarms because she couldn't filter the input properly.
But she'd made progress. Real progress. By the end, she could stick to walls without thinking about it. Could adjust her strength with reasonable precision. Could start to recognize actual danger from background noise.
Peter had been an amazing teacher. Patient. Encouraging. Never making her feel stupid when she failed. Just showing her how to improve. How to adapt.
And Gwen had been competitive as always. Turning everything into a challenge. Who could climb higher. Who could lift more. Who could dodge faster.
It had been exhausting. Terrifying. Exhilarating.
MJ's eyes closed. Sleep pulled at her. Her enhanced body needed rest to consolidate the changes. To adapt to the training.
She drifted off. Fell into dreams.
---
The city was on fire.
MJ stood on a rooftop. Smoke filled the sky. Buildings collapsed in the distance. Screams echoed through the streets.
Something massive moved through the destruction. She couldn't see it clearly. Just glimpses. Metal. Alien technology. Weapons that tore through buildings like paper.
"MJ! Left side!" Peter's voice. Urgent. Commanding.
She moved without thinking. Jumped. Swung on webbing she didn't remember having. Landed next to Peter on another rooftop.
He wore a suit. Red and blue. Spider symbol on the chest. Mask covering his face. But she knew it was him. Could feel it through the connection.
"They're pushing through the perimeter," Gwen's voice. She appeared from the other side. Also in a suit. White and black. Spider design. Moving with perfect grace.
"We need to hold this position," Peter said. His voice was older. Harder. Like he'd been doing this for years. "If they break through here, civilians die."
"How many?" MJ asked. Her own voice sounded different. Confident. Experienced.
"Three thousand in the evacuation zone. Maybe more."
The massive thing appeared. Broke through a building. MJ saw it clearly now. Some kind of war machine. Alien design. Weapons charging with blue energy.
"Engage!" Peter launched himself forward. Webbing shot from his wrists. He swung directly at the machine.
MJ and Gwen followed. Moving as one. Three spider-powered heroes against impossible odds.
The battle was chaos. MJ fought with abilities she didn't know she had. Webs strong as steel cable. Strength enough to tear metal. Speed that made her a blur.
She worked in perfect sync with Peter and Gwen. They anticipated each other's moves. Covered each other's weaknesses. Fought like they'd been a team for years.
Peter took point. Aggressive. Powerful. Drawing fire. Gwen provided support. Tactical. Precise. Targeting weak points. MJ protected the flanks. Creative. Unpredictable. Using the environment as a weapon.
They were winning. Actually winning. The machine was falling back. Damaged. Retreating.
Then something changed. A new threat appeared. Bigger. Darker. MJ couldn't see it clearly. Just felt the wrongness. The evil.
"Fall back!" Peter's voice. Fear in it for the first time. "We can't fight that! We need to evacuate!"
"There's no time!" Gwen shouted. "If we run, everyone dies!"
"Then we hold," MJ heard herself say. "Together. No matter what."
They stood side by side. Three against darkness. Ready to die to protect the innocent.
The darkness rushed toward them. MJ felt Peter grab her hand. Gwen grabbed the other. United. Connected.
"Together," Peter whispered.
"Together," they echoed.
The darkness hit them like a wave and everything went white.
---
MJ jerked awake. Gasping. Her heart pounded. Sweat covered her body.
She looked around frantically. Her room. Her apartment. Safe. Normal.
'What was that?' MJ thought. Her hands shook. 'It felt so real. Like a memory instead of a dream.'
She tried to remember details. There had been a city. Fire. Something attacking. She'd been fighting alongside Peter and Gwen. They'd been heroes. Experienced. Working together like a team.
But the specifics were fading. Slipping away like water through her fingers. The harder she tried to hold onto the dream, the faster it disappeared.
Within minutes, she couldn't remember anything concrete. Just vague impressions. Emotions. Fear and determination and trust.
And the feeling of holding hands with Peter and Gwen. Facing something terrible together. United against darkness.
'Just a dream,' MJ told herself. 'Just my brain processing everything that happened today. Getting spider powers. Learning to fight. It's natural to dream about using them.'
But it hadn't felt like just a dream. It had felt like a vision. A glimpse of something real.
MJ checked her phone. 3:47 AM. Too early to be awake. Too shaken to go back to sleep.
She got up. Went to her art desk. Started drawing. Her hands moved automatically. Sketching what little she could remember.
Three figures. Standing together. Facing darkness. United.
She didn't understand why. But she needed to draw it. Needed to capture the feeling before it faded completely.
By the time the sun rose, MJ had filled three pages with sketches. Different angles. Different compositions. All showing the same thing.
Three heroes. Together. Against impossible odds.
She looked at the drawings with confusion. 'Where did this come from? Why do I feel like this is important?'
She couldn't answer. Couldn't explain. Just felt it in her bones. This meant something. This mattered.
---
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