Ethan moved with quiet purpose, leading Amy through the shadow-warped halls of Midtown High's mirror world. Every corner creaked with unseen whispers, but Ethan kept his voice calm, measured. "Just follow me, and I believe we'll be able to get everything we need to do this. We don't have time to second-guess."
Amy clutched the items Ethan had marked down—a mop bucket for the water, glow-in-the-dark stickers shaped like stars, and a rusted step ladder they'd found overturned near the gym.
The shadows hissed and twisted around them, their movements increasingly aggressive, but they didn't strike. Not yet, but soon they would.
Ethan's eyes narrowed. 'That demon's watching. Waiting. It must know something.'
As they set up the items in a classroom stripped bare, Ethan arranged the ladder at the center of the room, placing the water-filled bowl beneath it. He carefully sprinkled the makeshift stars across the water's surface, creating a glimmering reflection of a starry sky.
Amy looked hesitant, her hands shaking as she knelt before the bowl.
"Ethan… what if this doesn't work?"
He crouched next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Then we die. I have no other ideas."
Amy's eyes widened.
"But if it does…" Ethan's voice dropped, low and reverent. "You'll be something greater. A light in this place. Something the darkness can't touch. You'll become someone who can save Rachel's life."
It wasn't all a lie.
He wanted to see if a god would actually answer. If she became Nut's avatar, it would mean Ethan had direct access to a cosmic force.
And that? That was enough to be worth this gamble.
Amy nodded, breathing out slowly, then began to speak the prayer Ethan had crafted for her.
The moment she reached "Protect us, O Celestial Mother," the water began to ripple.
And the shadows screamed.
The basement reeked of burnt wax and rotting dreams.
Felicia landed in a crouch as Paige stepped beside her in a full diamond form, glinting with reflected candlelight.
At the center of the summoning circle stood the janitor Paige had seen the last time she was here with Ethan. He was once mild and quiet, now twisted and bloated with shadow.
"You think you can stop me?!" he snarled, his voice distorted by Nisanti's power. "I was nothing! Invisible! But now, now I'll be feared. Worshipped. Women, money, power—Nisanti promised it all!"
Felicia rolled her eyes. "Wow. All that whining, and it still boils down to money and women."
The janitor roared and charged.
Paige met him head-on, her diamond body absorbing the brunt of his strike. She grunted as his shadow magic-infused claws scraped across her surface, but she didn't yield.
Felicia moved like water, ducking low, slashing her claws at tendons and weak spots, then grappling to the overhead pipes to kick him from above.
"Tag in!" she called.
Paige launched herself forward, fist like a wrecking ball, slamming into the janitor's jaw with a sound like shattering glass.
He stumbled, shrieking. "You can't stop this! Nisanti is coming!"
Paige growled in her thick Southern drawl. "Then bring it, ya creep. Ah got a fistful of diamond just waitin' fer it."
Elsewhere, Peter Parker, landed inside the school as the last of Strange's spell peeled away the barrier.
But the moment he stepped inside, everything changed.
The lights flickered and died.
His phone screen went dark.
And a new barrier shimmered around him—this one more personal.
"Ben…" whispered a voice behind him.
Peter turned and saw a graveyard stretching into infinity, with Ben Parker's tombstone cracked open, dark smoke pouring out.
Then—
Mary Jane's voice.
"Peter… you'll never save me in time."
Peter clenched his fists. "This isn't real. I've done this dance before."
The shadows coalesced into a shape.
A dark Spider-Man.
The suit was sleek and black, the eyes glowing red, movements inhuman.
It stepped forward, mockingly. "If you want to reach them, you'll have to go through yourself."
Peter squared up. "Then let's see what I've learned."
As Amy finished the final word of the invocation, her voice trembled with emotion, the last line echoing across the empty classroom like a ripple through space itself.
"Protect us, O Celestial Mother."
The shadows all around them screeched, convulsing violently, retreating into the corners of the room like creatures scorched by light. The bowl of water shimmered, the stars Ethan had arranged swirling in a perfect, synchronized dance across the surface.
Then—the room fell utterly silent.
A low hum, deep and vast, like the distant resonance of a star being born, rumbled through the air. The ladder began to glow. The ceiling above them seemed to fracture, revealing a veil of endless night.
And from that cosmic tear, she descended.
She appeared not as a mere spirit—but as a celestial projection, an embodiment of the very sky.
Nut, the Celestial Goddess of the Sky, stood suspended in the air, radiant and endless. Her midnight-blue skin, speckled with shifting constellations and glowing nebulae, shimmered like galaxies in motion. Each breath seemed to breathe life into the stars themselves.
Her eyes burned with divine radiance—one silver like the moon, the other golden like the sun. Her hair flowed like the Milky Way, streaming endlessly behind her, weightless and gleaming with stardust and auroras.
She wore white robes that rippled like woven starlight, draped in a shifting mantle of night, filled with dancing stars and celestial winds. Her headdress, a celestial arc, glowed with moving constellations, the center marked by a radiant golden sun disk. Silver crescent moons adorned her ears, and her arms bore golden bracers, etched with ancient star maps.
The air trembled with quiet reverence.
She did not walk—she hovered, her form casting no shadow, her presence illuminating the room in a cosmic twilight that defied time and physics.
Ethan, for the first time, said nothing.
Even he, with all his knowledge, couldn't help but be humbled by the presence of this being.
And then—she spoke.
Her voice resonated like the vibration of a harp strung between galaxies—cold and regal, yet tender and eternal. It carried the weight of eons and the gentle warmth of a mother's hand.
"Who calls upon the Keeper of the Vaulted Sky?
Who dares open the gate beneath mine stars?"
Her glowing eyes settled upon Amy, who dropped to her knees, shaking.
"Why dost thou summon the Mother of Sun and Shadow?
Speak, daughter of Earth, and be known."
Amy choked out a whisper. "I…I'm Amy. W…We're trapped. A demon—it's taken my friend, others too. I—I didn't know where else to turn. Please help me!"
Nut's presence pulsed gently, the stars in her skin shifting, reflecting the girl's turmoil.
"Thou art but a small tiny spark in the great endless void… and yet thou cried into the silence, and I have heard thee."
Amy's tears welled up, but she stayed strong. "I didn't want to die without trying. Without helping."
Nut drifted closer and gently wiped away her tears.
"A heart that seeks not glory, but salvation. A soul whose light remains unclaimed… Such courage is rare in this age of man."
She extended one glowing hand. The stardust swirled around Amy, lifting her hair, tracing the outline of her body like celestial vines.
"Wouldst thou bear mine sky, daughter of Earth? Wouldst thou shelter the lost and challenge the darkness in mine name?"
Amy, her voice cracking, whispered: "Yes."
Nut's cosmic eyes narrowed with divine clarity.
"Then arise, child. Arise as mine chosen.
Let thy voice be thunder,
Thy light be stars,
And thy soul a bridge 'twixt day and night."
Light burst from Amy's chest, engulfing the room. Ethan shielded his eyes, watching as Amy's body rose off the ground, stardust weaving into her veins and her very presence beginning to radiate celestial energy.
The shadows screamed and recoiled in fear, their formless shapes fleeing from the light like vermin from flame.
Nut's image lingered in the air, her starlit form towering above them, her expression unreadable—a cosmic mix of serenity and command.
She gazed down upon her chosen vessel and spoke once more, her voice echoing like the hum of distant planets aligning.
"The heavens stand with thee now, little one. Guard this world well… for the darkness still stirs. And know this—"
She extended a single, glowing hand toward Amy.
"For thou now art mine vessel.
Thou shalt bear my grace and my judgment.
For thou dost represent both my fury…
And mine love."
As the final word left her lips, Nut's divine projection unraveled into a brilliant column of light that soared upward, disappearing into the fractured sky above.
Amy slowly descended to the ground, her body trembling, her eyes glowing faintly with the lingering touch of the stars.
Ethan took a measured breath, his mind already calculating the implications, the variables—and the opportunity. "Let's see what you can really do."