Chapter Text
Miguel sighed, running universe 71920 diagnostics on his computer as the transporter loaded the program to geolocate their drop off points. He knew that the mission wasn’t exactly dangerous enough to warrant so many spiders, but this situation was tricker in that the Beastman anomaly could be in one of several locations. Lyla was having difficulty pinpointing him on the planet, given his intentions of utilizing multiple ancient ruin sites to set up portals in between as he constructed his terraforming machinery.
But she’d narrowed it down to three, each on a different continent, that gave off the distinct digital footprint of the anomaly’s activities. So, he had pulled the next six names on the roster for mission tasking, surprised and chagrined when one of the names that the program spat out was Gwen Stacy’s. Doing the math in his head, he realized that she had technically graduated to the next rank on her last mission, her fiftieth in the organization, and was thus newly qualified to take on this B-grade supervillain.
Well, she shouldn’t go unsupervised, he sighed to himself. Jess’s little protege was a talented spider-woman with the skill to launch herself into the upper ranks of their society, but much of that could also be credited towards her tendency to avoid the problems in her personal life by throwing herself at her new job. And those kinds of problems had a knack for coming full circle eventually.
But here she was anyways, her name shining in black on the computer’s list, a fully qualified teammate. Miguel ground his teeth briefly before dropping one of the names from the list, setting the requirements to five. He knew that Jess was spending time with her family for the next few days, so he resigned to the understanding that he would have to go on this one with Gwen. She was just too junior to be on her first B-grade mission without one of the supervisors tagging along, and besides, it would be a good opportunity for him to assess her progression, as he hadn’t seen her in action for a few months now. If she seemed confident enough, they may even be able to project a date to send her home, where she could manage her universe on her own.
The team was a solid blend of skill. Spiderman Noir and Pavitr would take Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Webslinger and Dark Spider would do Stonehenge in England, and Miguel would check El Mirador in Guatemala with Gwen. The mission should have been straightforward; each two-person team would find the portal and terraforming equipment, break it down, secure the site, and capture Beastman if they found him. Reports were due at sunup and sundown, regroup was scheduled seven days out at HQ. The emergency regroup site was, as always, on planet and in Brooklyn.
Miguel felt a twinge of reservation about the mission, but quickly reassured himself that the team was more than equipped to handle it. Even if Gwen majorly fumbled anything, he’d be there to keep things on track. As he pressed send on the assignment, five watches beeped across the Headquarters, and the team simultaneously began to make their way towards Miguel’s office.