No Way Home

J'onn J'onzz was in communication from the Tower with Star Labs. Iris West-Allen answered the call. The Martian exposed her to the whole situation about visitors from other universes related to Spider-Man.

"I'm sorry, J'onn. We would have helped you, but we're overwhelmed in Central City." explained Iris with regret. "Barry is fighting Godspeed. He's a hell of a threat to our city. We are on all fronts. We'd love to help Peter, but it's not a good time."

"Understand, Iris." J'onn nodded. "In the meantime, would it be possible for Caitlin to direct the Star Labs' satellite over New York? It would make it easier to search for our unwanted visitors."

"I'll see what I can do. Give my regards to Peter for the whole Team Flash. We think very strongly of him. Take care of yourself."

"I will." J'onn assured her.

And he cut off communication. He hoped to quickly find the visitors and send them back to Strange. He made contact with someone else. It was Shuri who answered his call.

"Hello, Shuri."

"J'onn J'onzz." the young female Wakandese greeted him with a formal tone. "What do I owe the pleasure?"

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Shuri. I would need the help of the technology of Wakanda." explained the Martian. "We have visitors from other worlds who have come to New York. The exact number is still unknown. Your satellites would be a great help in finding them."

"I'll see what I can do for you." Shuri assured him.

In the crypt of Strange, Ned installed his equipment, while Peter tried to wash his suit still soaked in green paint. MJ was interested in the Doctor Strange's goatee template and a miniature version of the Sanctum Sanctorum.

Mia had moved away from the teenagers to practice hitting her fists against a punching ball with ferocity.

Lizard threw a stone into his cell, wallowing in his sadness. Peter carefully rubbed his suit with foam, desperately trying to get the green paint off while talking to his aunt May on the phone.

"If it won't come off, bring it to the shelter and I'll get it out." she said.

"No, no, no, May. We gotta find these guys first." first, her nephew says.

"Well, finish your mission, then come by."

Peter realized he couldn't remove the paint. Turning it over, he noticed the black cloth with golden threads.

Finally, Ned challenged everyone:

"I got one, I got one, I got one."

Peter, MJ, Alex and Mia joined him. The young geek was overexcited. He showed them the result of his research on his laptop.

"I mean, you can take the guy out of the chair, but you can't take the chair out of the guy."

"Ned!" Mia got impatient. "What did you find?"

"There's a... disturbance near a military research facility outside of the city, and witnesses say they saw a monster flying through the air."

"That's gotta be the guy we saw on the bridge?" asked Alex to Peter.

"It could be."

"That's impossible." declared Octavius from his dungeon, finally speaking for hours.

All eyes were on him.

"You know him, don't you? " asked Peter. "On the bridge, you said his name."

"Norman Osborn." replied the jailed mad scientist lost in his thoughts.

"Norman Osborn? That name doesn't ring a bell." said Mia intrigued.

"Norman Osborn. Norman Osborn." made Alex frowning and confused. "I've heard that name somewhere. I think it was during the Crisis."

"And who is this Osborn?" asked Peter with confusion.

Octavius answered:

"Norman Osborn. Brilliant scientist. Military researcher. But he was greedy. Misguided."

"What happened to him?"

"WE TIRE... OF YOUR QUESTIONS, BOY!" replied the man with tentacles by throwing a enraged look at him.

"Hey, keep your voice down, Octopus-Man!" Alex grunted and gave him a furious look. "We're working on getting you home! So be a little more cooperative! If you know anything about this guy at the glider, now would be a good time to tell us!"

"It can't be him." said Octavius in a more calm tone.

"Why?" asked MJ.

"Because Norman Osborn died, years ago." he replied with a dark look while staring at Peter. "So either we saw someone else... or you're flying out into the darkness, to fight a ghost."

Peter appeared both stunned and worried. The whole Multiverse thing seemed to be beyond him. Then Alex came to dock him away from his friends.

"Peter, I remember where I heard the name of Osborn, and you too." she said. "Do you remember Earth – 962, during the Crisis, when we were fighting Kraven?"

Peter nodded, remembering his adventure to another Earth where he had faced a colossal enemy dressed as a cheetah who had nearly killed him. And that he also met another version of himself.

"Kraven had become powerful because he injected himself with a dangerous chemical that made him unstable." continued Alex. "And this chemical was created by this guy, Norman Osborn. It was your doppelgänger who told us. A chemical that improves the performance of the human body. And the other Spider-Man told us he was long dead."

Peter was stunned. He had completely forgotten this passage. So much had happened long after his adventure on Earth – 962.

"You think it's the same Osborn? But if he's dead, how can he be here?"

"There's only one way to know." replied Alex in a resolute tone. "We need to find this green clown on his glider."

"I'm come with you." Mia said as she grabbed her bow.

Spider-Man swung, his black and gold suit turned upside down, along high-voltage power lines stretched between giant transmission towers. Alex drove her motorcycle under her with Mia as a passenger on her machine.

In the crypt, Ned started to look for something to eat in the fridge, but he stepped back, noticing the strange interdimensional creatures. MJ was monitoring Peter's actions and environment via a camera phone taped to his chest.

"Keep an eye out on those trees, guys." she says. "We don't really know where this guy is."

She looked at the phone that showed the way Spider-Man was flying with his webbings.

"I genuinely don't know how you do this without throwing up."

Spider-Man jumps off power lines and lands in a dark forest. Alex stopped her motorcycle, and she and the Green Arrow joined the hero of Queens, looking at their dark surroundings. They advanced, alert, when something moved through the trees.

"Did you guys see that?" whispered Spider-Man.

"I'm sure I saw something." said Mia, drawing her bow.

"It's, it's really dark." declared Ned via Peter's phone.

Another rustle, now, in the trees behind Spider-Man. The three turned around, but they saw nothing. In the distance, an owl was screaming. The wind whistled through the trees.

"Something is coming towards us." says Alex on guard with her Martian gun in hand.

"What could it be?" asked Mia.

Spider-Man continues his search, but stops. His spider sense alerted him as a strange blue light crackled behind them.

Spider-Man prepared his web lance. Three luminous rings appeared.

"Something new, again!" declared Alex when she noticed them.

The three heroes quickly turned around to see a strange silhouette in blue. Hovering over power lines, absorbing their energy.

"Is it Freeland's Black Lightning?" asked Spider-Man.

"No, he doesn't look like him." Alex replied puzzled. "It's someone else."

Then Spider-Man raised his voice to communicate with the being in blue.

"Uh... You wouldn't happen to be from another universe, would you?"

"Why not shoot him an arrow now?" suggested annoyed Green Arrow.

"What's he doing?" asked MJ from the screen of Peter's phone.

"I don't know. Looks like he's charging." Spider-Man replied.

"I don't like this. Just web him."

"MJ's right, let's catch him!" added Green Arrow, pulling an arrow out of her quiver.

Spider-Man and Mia shot at the same time. A web and arrow flew through the blue visitor, touching a tree that appeared in the crypt, surprising both MJ and Ned.

"Wow! Another new kind of villain!" declared Green Arrow.

"Who is he? " said Alex.

The blue visitor woke up in a flash and saw Spider-Man and his allies. He shoots lightning after lightning on Spider-Man who runs through his paintings. Ned and MJ are trying to guide him on his mobile phone screen.

"Go left, left! Go left!" cried Ned on the phone screen.

"Wait! Right, right!" insisted MJ on the phone screen.

Spider-Man flew through the air avoiding the lightning bolts of his attacker. And the advices of his friends didn't help him at all.

Alex and Mia ran to the ground, also dodging lightning. Alex fired her Martian weapon, but even she didn't stand a chance either.

"I don't see how you can stop an electric guy!" she says.

"There must be a way!" replied Green Arrow running next to her.

An electric shock then hit Spider-Man, causing the young weaver to fall to the ground. In the crypt, Ned's laptop lost connection and the screen went black.

"No, no, no. What happened? Peter? Peter?" cried MJ on the black screen.

Spider-Man twists on the ground, wobbling under the effect of the explosion. Suddenly, the strange blue visitor charged upon him, firing another flash, when a wall of sand lifted and attenuated the shock of the swirling mass, a face appeared. The face of a man of sand.

Alex and Green Arrow joined him and saw, in their great stupor, the man's face on the sand wall.

"An electric guy and now a sand-man?" said Alex astonished.

"Suddenly I miss Star City." added Mia, as stunned as she was.

The man in sand began to speak:

"Peter, it's me. Flint Marko. You remember?"

"Another guy related to Spider-Man." said Alex nodding her head.

"And the electric dude must be too." suggested Green Arrow. "Why else would he attack Parker?"

"I'm Peter, but I'm not your Peter." replied Spider-Man trying to explain things, but it made Sandman even more puzzled.

"What do you mean, you're not my Peter? What the hell is going on?"

"I'll explain everything, but first can you help me stop this guy?"

"Okay." Marko nodded.

"You try to surround him and I'll pull the plug. All right, let's go." suggested Spider-Man.

Marko transformed again into masses of shapeless sand and headed for the blue visitor, absorbing all the lightning thrown at him. Peter leans towards the nearest electric tower and lands, trying to assess the situation. Marko surrounded the electric man (whose shape had gone from blue to yellow) and locked him in an impassable sand tornado. Yet the man had enough lightning to shoot Spider-Man, who needed to perform some extra avoidance maneuvers.

"I can't hold him much longer!" Sandman's voice rumbled through the sandstorm.

"I got him. I got it." announced Spider-Man swinging from canvas to canvas.

One by one, Spider-Man surrounded the different transmission towers that retreated and the lines began to tear. The blue visitor's body became paler as it consumed less and less energy.

Spider-Man cut the last power line and was thrown backwards, sliding on the ground.

The electric man took his last breath, before falling to the ground.

Alex and Green Arrow joined the young Queens' hero.

"Well done, Spider-Man." Alex congratulated him.

"Not bad." added Mia.

Sandman appeared alongside Spider-Man as he was taking off his mask.

"Different Peter... Weird." he said when he noticed the face of Spider-Man without his mask.

"Thanks." said Peter.

He tries to give the Sandman a low-five, but Marko's hand falls apart upon impact..

"Sorry." he said.

"Don't worry about it." assured him Marko.

"Really weird!" commented Green Arrow contemplating the sand-man.

The latter noticed the two women dressed in costumes and appeared perplexed.

"Ladies, who are you?"

"Spider-Man's friends!" replied Alex abruptly.

"I'm Green Arrow." added Mia.

"Green Arrow?" repeated Marko even more confused. "God! Where am I?"

"In another universe." replied Alex.

Finally, the blue figure had taken on a human form. He was no longer in blue. Our heroes could see that it was a black man with a small beard and hair cut squarely. And he was also naked.

The man looked around at the destruction before looking at his hand, which was sparkling with electricity.

"I got my body back." he murmured as he looked at his hand which produced some sparks.

Peter waved his hand to him:

"Hey, um... This is gonna sound really crazy, but this isn't your universe."

"Another universe?" exclaimed the puzzled naked black man.

"What?" said Marko in turn surprised watching Spider-Man.

"That's what I was feeling." said the black man with a look of ecstasy. "The power. It's different. I like it."

At his words, a flash of lightning ran through his pupils.

"Easy, buddy." Sandman on guard raised his hands.

"Don't move!" added Alex, drawing her Martian weapon.

Green Arrow had fired her bow again and aimed an arrow at the electric man.

"Stand down!" she replied in a threatening tone.

"It's actually my fault that you're here." Peter replied.

"Like... Like the universe?" asked the electric man looking around. "Or the woods? I hate the woods."

"I meant the universe, sir."

The electric man was getting angry.

"So what? Y'all just gon' stand here and act like I ain't butt-ass naked?"

"Yeah, it gets embarrassing!" mumbled Green Arrow embarrassed by always holding her bow on him.

"I am." Marko replied, deadpan shrugging his sand shoulders.

"Uh, no, no..." Embarrassed Peter when he noticed a utility shed with line worker clothes inside.

As soon as the electric man was dressed, Peter had quickly drawn a canvas that sent him into a dungeon of the crypt of the Sanctum Sanctorum. Now trapped in a magic dungeon, he inspected the electricity in his hands, under the astonished looks of MJ and Ned. He looked to his right and noticed Octavius, who gave him a slight sign of the hand.

Peter was facing Marko. The latter having noticed the disappearance of the electric man.

"What was that? What did you just do to him?"

"No, no, no. It's okay." said Peter.

"Did you kill him?" Marko was furious.

"Nobody kills anyone here!" added Alex, raising her voice to be heard.

"Whoa, listen. I can explain everything. You just have to trust me, please." said Peter.

"I don't trust you. I don't know you." roared Marko, who was growing in size.

As he was about to throw a giant sand fist at the young man, Mia fired an arrow that hit him. Immediately Sandman disappeared and suffered the same fate as Marko. Imprisoned in the crypt.

Perplexed and furious, he struck the invisible barrier of his prison.

"What is this?"

"You picked the wrong side." says the electric man from his dungeon.

Hearing a giggle, the man looked into one of the cells, eyes wide when he saw the reptilian creature that Strange had captured.

"Connors?" he wondered with incredulity.

"Wait... You know this creature?" replied the tentacle man with astonishment.

"No, no, no, no. Not a creature. A man." explained the electric man.

"Whoa... Same universes." Ned remarked to MJ.

The electric man continued his explanation of the Lizard:

"Dr. Curt Connors. He was a scientist in Oscorp when I worked there. A brilliant scientist, till he turned himself into a lizard. Then he tried to turn the whole city into lizards. It was crazy." explains the man.

And to the surprise of all, the Lizard began to speak:

"It wasn't crazy, Max. It was the next step in human evolution."

"The dinosaur can talk." exclaimed Ned, stunned.

"Lizard." rectified MJ as surprised as he was.

"Speaking of which, what happened to you?" said the Lizard Connors staring at Max Dillon. "Last I recall, you had bad teeth, glasses and a comb-over. Did you get a makeover? You know I can give you a real makeover."

"Let me guess. Into a lizard?" asked Dillon sarcastically.

"Exactly."

"Could you two just shut up?" replied Marko angry and annoyed. "Where are we?"

"It's complicated." stammered Ned.

"A wizard's dungeon." replied MJ.

"Wizard's... Wizard's dungeon?" exclaimed Dillon, stunned.

"There's no real way to sugarcoat that. It's... literally the dungeon of a wizard." said Spider-Man's girlfriend.

Octavius seemed to approve the girl's words.

Not impressed, Dillon replied abruptly:

"Look, you can keep your magic. I want a taste of that new energy I just felt."

He looked at his hands, which were emitting electricity, making the lights of the ceiling flash.

The phone of MJ vibrates. She answered immediately.

"Oh, Peter. Hey."

"Hey. Uh, did those guys come through yet?" asked her boyfriend. "There should be an electric guy and a sand guy."

"Yeah. They're... They're all here and locked up." MJ nodded.

"I, uh... I couldn't do any of this without you, so... Thank you." Peter said to her with sympathy.

Ned was staring at the tree that had been accidentally teleported into the crypt.

"Hey, ask him if this is like a tree monster, or like a scientist that turned into a tree."

"That's just a tree, man." replied annoyed Dillon. "That's a tree."

When Peter hung up, Green Arrow came to him.

"So Romeo, what's next? We have two new visitors at Strange's, but we still haven't found this Osborn."

"I'm going to contact J'onn and ask him if he found something that Ned and MJ would have missed." says Alex as she picks up her phone.

In a deserted alley, the man in green suit was rushing to cover the glider with a sheet and some piles of garbage, his devil mask on the edge of a dumpster behind him.

"Coward."

The man shook his head, revealing Norman Osborn's face.

"We have a new world to conquer." says the voice, seeming to come from the mask as Norman turned to face the mask. "You make me sick!"

"Leave me alone. Please." pleaded the man helpless.

But the voice kept on mocking him.

"Hiding in the shadows... Hiding from who you truly are."

"No!" cried Norman desperately.

"You can't escape yourself!"

Having enough, Norman picked up a nearby stone and smashed it against the mask, breaking it. As the pieces fell to the ground, Norman ran away, trying to ignore the sinister chuckle that followed.

Meanwhile, in the forest, while Peter was finishing patching the power lines, Alex had just hung up on the Martian.

"J'onn has no further information on this flying guy! It looks like he's been a little quiet."

"If this guy is psycho, that's not good." replied Green Arrow.

"We will eventually catch him." assured Peter by joining them.

He received a call from his aunt.

"Hey, May."

"Hey, Peter. I'm at work." says May. "And, um... One of the guys you're looking for just walked in. He says his name is Norman Osborn."

Peter looked shocked, which Alex and Mia noticed.

"Peter, what's wrong?" asked Alex concerned.

"Osborn is with my aunt!

Spider-Man, accompanied by Sentinel and Green Arrow, rushed to his aunt's workplace. The non-profit charitable organization. F.E.A.S.T. Food, emergency aid, shelter and training.

When they reached the building, they passed a sign of the organization where someone had painted with a bomb, MYSTERIO WAS RIGHT. Spider-Man entered the building without his mask. Alex stopped her motorcycle and joined him with the Green Arrow by pulling out her Martian gun.

"May? Where's May?" cried Peter, looking frantically around him, when someone pointed to the kitchen in the back. "Thank you!"

He ran into a room, breathing heavily, before stopping suddenly. May was sitting at a table with Norman Osborn, both holding cups of tea. The man from another Earth was wearing in the clothes from donation bin.

"Hey, here he is." declared May rejoiced at the sight of her nephew. "Norman, this is my nephew."

Alex and Green Arrow came right behind him, brandishing their weapons on Osborn. But the sight of May cheering for her nephew puzzled them.

"And they are there, too." said May with embarrassment.

"May, is everything all right? You're not in danger?" asked Alex, aiming at the man with his Martian weapon.

Even the Green Arrow had her bow and arrow on him.

"Are you Norman Osborn?" she asked.

But Osborn was only interested in Peter.

"I saw Spider-Man in an ad for this place. And I thought he could help me. But you're not him." (Then he looked at the two women in costume.) "And I don't know you two."

"Obviously." Alex nodded confused.

"Wait, so you want Spider-Man's help?" Peter asked with confusion.

"He... He just wandered in." May explained with sympathy for the visitor.

According to Octavius, Spider-Man, Alex and Green Arrow expected to fight a dangerous psychopath. But Norman Osborn seemed, on the contrary, harmless, lost, disoriented and overwhelmed. He looked more like a poor homeless than a mad scientist.

Distressed, Osborn continued:

"I didn't know where else to go. Someone's living in my house. Oscorp doesn't exist. My son... Sometimes... I'm not myself. I'm... someone else."

May shook her head. While Osborn began to ramble:

"And, everytime he's in control, I can't remember."

"Who's in control?" asked Alex, thinking of Reign and Sam Arias.

But Osborn ignored her and continued to ramble desperately:

"And now, I'm here... in this place... in this city, and I don't know... I don't know what's going on with me. And I don't..."

Seeing that the man seemed to go off the rails, Alex hastened to calm him down.

"Okay, wait, Mr. Osborn. Just try not to panic, okay? We'll help you, I promise. In the meantime, can you just stay calm? You're in another universe. A new Earth. You're in New York, but... not in your New York. That's why you don't have a house. And no Oscorp..." (Seeing that the man was going to panic again, she raised her hands to try to appease him.) "Relax, please! Take a deep breath."

Green Arrow was the only one who was wary of man from another earth. She kept her bow raised. She seemed to be mixed up, not knowing what to do.

While May had risen and joined her nephew.

"Okay. He's lost. And I don't mean just in the cosmos. I mean in his mind. Are they all like this?" she says to him in a low voice.

"Clearly" Green Arrow commented with her eyes fixed on him. "This guy is very insane!"

Ignoring the archer, May spoke to her nephew.

"Are they all like this?"

"Yeah. Well, I mean, they all have their own... mental or physical issues." replied Peter.

"Well, he needs help, but maybe they all do." insisted May.

Peter stared at his aunt in amazement. She was considering helping them? Help dangerous enemies of Spider-Man?

"What, you don't mean... No, May, this... This isn't my problem."

"Peter, not your problem? Mmm?" said May with surprise, laying her hands on the shoulders of her nephew.

"May... Their chance of getting help is way better back where they came from. Sending them home, That's the best thing that we can do for them."

"For them? Or for yourself?" said May insistently. "Look around you. This is what we do. What the Flash, Supergirl and other heroes do in our world. They help people! And you too! We help people."

"This is what's best... for them. Trust me."

Alex understood what Spider-Man's aunt meant. She remembered her sister Kara refusing to kill Reign, because she would also kill her friend Sam Arias. And she fought to save her.

Leaving Osborn, she joined her young friend.

"Peter, your aunt's right. Supergirl and the Flash would help these people. Do you think you could let someone handle their problems alone? That's not what heroes do. And you know that. Heroes don't choose who they save. They save everyone. It doesn't matter who they are. Whether they are good or bad, our duty is to save them."

Peter then reflects on the words of Alex and his aunt.

Meanwhile, J. Jonah Jameson was presenting his talk show on Spider-Man. He announced the fight on the power lines outside the city.

"I'm now joined by supervisor Walter Burke, who was at the scene of tonight's disturbance. Mr. Burke, you're saying you saw Spider-Man, with your own eyes, destroying multiple power lines?"

"Yes. Yes, sir, he did." replied Burke by communication.

Taking this statement as incriminating evidence on Spider-Man, Jameson enjoyed it in front of the cameras of his television news.

"There you have it, folks. Firsthand, from an unimpeachable witness, the Teen Terror attacking our electrical grid."

But the direct witness was not finished and that did not go in the direction of the journalist.

"Yeah, he was talking to the Dirt Man… he wasn't alone. A woman dressed in black accompanied him and there was also Green Arrow."

"Beg your pardon?" said Jameson in amazement. "Green Arrow's dead."

"I know, but he was there with Parker." said Burke's voice. "They had a discussion with the Dirt Man... Before they worked together to make the Power Monster disappear with what appeared to be a sparkle web. All right. Yep. Thank you very much!"

While keeping his cool, Jameson spoke softly.

"Well, that… We'll have to circle back and confirm this, folks. I'll talk to my producer to see if we can find out what's in Mr. Burke's thermos."

Then he resumed his usual furious look.

"But the fact remains, Spider-Man is a menace. We'll be right back after a brief word from Daily Bugle Supplements. The only other daily fix you need."

And the show ended. Jameson inspired, then he received a call. His informant reported to him on Peter Parker.

"I got eyes on them. He's with his aunt, a woman, a guy dressed as Green Arrow and some guy I don't know."

"You sure?" asked Jameson intrigued.

"They're just leaving the shelter." he added.

"Okay. Don't lose him." replied the narrow-minded journalist as he rose from his chair.

At the L-Corp building, Lex was watching the latest Spider-Man. On his screens, he could see the fight of Spider-Man against a man with tentacles. Lex was impressed.

"You are more and more surprising, Mr. Parker." said the bald billionaire. "Your enemies have so amazing!"

And he received a call. He answered immediately.

"You find out Parker? Where? With Alex Danvers and a Green Arrow? Where? On Bleecker Street?"

He seemed confused.

"What's on Bleecker Street?"

He searched on his computer and discovered the Manor where Stephen Strange lived.

"Oh yes, the wizard! I see who it is! Watch out for Parker! Don't lose him!"