When the portal opened, Kingpin still had no idea a tidal-wave assault was already crashing down on him.
He sat in the central control room on sublevel thirteen. Through the glass, he could see a thriving private munitions factory. Most of the workers on the assembly lines were relatives of gang members. Nobody here cared about using kids. They assembled firearms, pressed bullets and bombs, and snapped electronic components together into guidance systems for rocket launchers. A few scientists who'd been compromised and squeezed into obedience also worked here, developing more modern weapons and equipment.
A gang was just a kind of social organization. If it controlled production, it was practically a nation inside a nation.
Kingpin never hid his ambitions. He wanted to build a dark kingdom and stand toe-to-toe with the White House—before sunrise, the country belonged to Washington; after sunset, it belonged to New York.
He told his secretary to place a call to the elder power at Stark Industries: Obadiah Stane.
The call took a while. Obadiah didn't pick up.
While he waited, one of Kingpin's men delivered a jet-black cane. It was a weapon his people had developed for their crime emperor—like the Penguin's umbrella over in DC, or the kind of innocent-looking prop you'd see in an old spy thriller that secretly hid murder. This cane could fire a laser, release poison gas, flood smoke, and discharge high-voltage electricity.
For someone who'd pushed his body to the human limit, mastered multiple fighting styles, and could dismantle over a dozen elite fighters in twenty seconds, Kingpin didn't need a high-tech cane—until he discovered just how fragile his proud strength became in the face of the supernatural.
The East Coast's underground ruler, vomiting in the street, choking on his own puke, gasping on the curb like a drowning dog—brought to that state by a high school kid running a food truck.
Power forged a dream of invincibility. Once you woke up, the shock of reality hit so hard Kingpin almost wished he'd died that afternoon. But now he had to rebuild. He had to take up the scepter—his rebirth through fire.
Kingpin faced his full-length mirror and ran through a set of staff techniques—sharp, vicious, yet strangely elegant. His sweet-faced secretary hurriedly applauded.
"Don't clap," Kingpin said, voice low. "I don't want to forget the fact that I'm a failure."
"Yes, sir."
Beep.
The call finally connected. Obadiah's irritated voice came through. "Kingpin. Is there some reason this can't wait?"
"Stane. I need weapons. A lot of weapons."
"For that, you can talk to a sales director."
"I also need more help—about our cooperation—"
He didn't get to finish.
A siren blared.
"What's going on?" Kingpin snapped.
"Intruders!" a subordinate reported over the radio.
Kingpin rubbed his scalp, furious. Yesterday he got hit in a skyscraper. Today he gets hit underground. So this so-called impenetrable criminal palace was made of cardboard, was it?
"How many?"
"At least a hundred—still increasing. They're fast. We can't hold them."
On the other end of the line, Obadiah caught the danger in the tone. "Handle your own mess first, Kingpin. Then we'll talk business."
He hung up.
Right now, the Spider-Men were having the time of their lives.
The most important thing in an underground facility was drainage. But when a living flood of red-and-blue chaos poured in, no drainage system in the world could save you.
They tore doors apart, dropped down elevator shafts, and clung to vertical walls to reach every level. They moved through air ducts, corridors, fire stairs—through shadow and under light. Human spiders, animal spiders, mechanical spiders, warped mutant spiders—each one monstrously strong, with speed and reflexes far beyond anything human.
Even with home-field advantage and modern weapons, Kingpin's men looked like medieval peasants with pitchforks trying to stop a charge of armored knights.
The lunatics opened fire, but they didn't even know where to aim. After two shots, webbing yanked their guns away—and then they were met with superhuman mockery that bordered on cruelty.
"Whoa there, pal, you shouldn't be waving that around—let me hold it for you."
"Where you from? Somewhere in Europe, yeah? I've always wanted to visit."
"Oooh, look at you with the lucky red underwear. Big game day superstition? No? So you just like red underwear. Respect."
Spider-Men hanging upside down, Spider-Men plastered on the walls, Spider-Men in front of them, behind them—this wasn't "caught between two sides" anymore. It was an eight-direction ambush.
These hardened gangsters never imagined they'd be attacked by a bunch of spandex freaks firing sticky white goo everywhere—then splatted onto the wall so hard they couldn't even peel themselves off. Their mouths were webbed shut too, leaving them only muffled, helpless whimpers as they watched the hive get dismantled—and had to endure nonstop chatter from every Spider-Man who swung by.
The first Spider-Man led the charge. His suit was a strange black living material. When Skyl found him, Peter—the Tobey Maguire version—had only recently been bonded with an alien symbiote. It twisted his personality into something reckless and smug: the infamous Bully Maguire era.
Spider-Man was already a physical monster. This one could stop a train with brute force. With the symbiote boosting him, he became even more unstoppable. Security doors? He didn't even look at them—just kicked. If one didn't fly open, he kicked again.
Kingpin, sweating bullets, listened to floor-by-floor updates. The answers were basically all the same:
Overrun.
"Damn it—are you all pigs?" Kingpin roared. "Even pigs could hold for a few seconds! What are you fighting, Superman?"
Boom!
The security door to sublevel thirteen caved inward from a heavy kick.
Like a siege beast was trying to batter down a gate.
Kingpin's face changed instantly. Researchers and factory workers stampeded toward the nearest evacuation routes, while armed men stacked behind the door, weapons up, ready to fire.
Outside, Bully Maguire hissed under his breath and rubbed his foot. The door looked sturdy, and it turned out it was sturdier than it looked. One more inch and he'd have torn a seam in that symbiote suit.
Behind him, a grinning kid piloting a spider mech told Tobey to step aside. She pulled out a professional-grade tool—a huge impact drill—and with all the noise of a demolition crew at work, she punched a large hole through the security door.
Kingpin lunged into position behind the door and barked at his shooters. "You see that hole?"
"Yeah, boss."
"Aim. Put every bullet you've got through it."
A storm of gunfire erupted. Tracers stabbed into the hallway darkness beyond the hole—no screams, no footsteps, nothing.
Then the elevator beside them detonated open.
A pack of Spider-Men poured out of the shaft like a screaming zoo stampede. If you didn't know better, you'd think somebody had let loose a troop of monkeys.
"Right here, sweethearts!" Spider-Gwen laughed, and Gwen—cradled in her arms—snapped a finger at Kingpin. "That's him!"
Webbing rained down like a net from heaven. The shooters were slammed to the floor, tangled so tight they couldn't move.
Bully Maguire used the opening to slip through the broken hole in the door. There was a bleeding bullet hole in his shoulder—he'd taken it protecting the kid in the spider mech.
He stared at Kingpin and flashed a villain's grin.
"I'm gonna put some dirt in your eye."
Kingpin was surrounded by dozens of Spider-Men. He stayed calm. He didn't know who these spandex freaks were, but he believed in his own martial skill.
"Hmph. You've come here to die. Every day I fight dozens of the world's best martial artists in live combat. The longest any of them lasted against me was twenty seconds. Now—pray for yourselves."
Bully Maguire rushed in and drove a punch into Kingpin's face, sending him rolling across the floor and smashing through several production lines. Sparks flew everywhere.
"Sorry—what was that?" Bully Maguire said, smug. "Sounds like your hired fighters weren't that great."
Kingpin rose slowly, like a demon unfolding. Dense muscle bulged as fabric strained and tore.
The sheer force of his presence was imposing—no wonder he was a man standing at the edge of human limits.
One especially burly Spider-Man couldn't help reacting. "It's a sumo tank!"
"Correct." Kingpin inhaled deeply and dropped into a sumo stance. With his skill, he could've taken the top rank. "You can't knock down a sumo champion."
And then the Spider-Men jumped him.
Kingpin was still only a human at the limit. Spider-Man was superhuman.
The massive crime boss got battered around like a beach ball. Gwen watched, and not a shred of pity rose in her anymore. After what she'd seen inside this underground filth-pit, she could only clap and cheer.
In the critical moment, Kingpin triggered his cane and blasted thick smoke. Under cover of the chaos, he escaped the beating. That symbol of dark imperial power had saved him again.
The Spider-Men didn't chase him—honoring Skyl's request. Instead, they kept sweeping the fortress: rescuing civilians, protecting the crime scene, dropping armed men, rounding up the unarmed. Some even started thinking about how to explain this nightmare place to the cops without getting shot themselves.
Kingpin slipped into a secret passage. In moments, he'd be free—vanishing into New York's tangled underground water systems.
Just one more door.
Behind it was freedom.
Then a blue pillar of light punched through everything.
Kingpin's movements slowed, like a fat fly trapped in amber.
And next—
The Devourer of Worlds' daughter ripped the entire underground lair up with impossible strength.
Kingpin stood near the edge of the lifted mass, like a man on a cliff.
The sewer entrance that had been one step away was gone. In its place was the New York night skyline. Police cars surged in from every direction. News helicopters circled overhead. The scene was a death sentence for his evil empire.
For the first time in his life, the crime emperor—proud to the bone—felt darkness crawl over his vision.
He couldn't understand why he was this unlucky.
A portal opened beside him.
Skyl stepped out.
Kingpin's eyes went wide.
"Mr. Kingpin," Skyl said mildly, "you don't look like you're doing too well."
"It's you?! You called in these spandex freaks? This is revenge!"
"Revenge?" Skyl sounded almost amused. "No. My revenge hasn't even started. I'm just here to save a kind girl."
The night wind of New York swept in, washing away the suffocating stench of the pit. Skyl's wizard robes snapped and raged in the gusts. His hair lifted, alive with motion, and his eyes shone like a polar star—so cold it felt like it could freeze marrow into splinters.
Kingpin felt that choking fear again.
This time, it was pure terror.
Skyl smiled gently, clapped his hands, and conjured a parachute pack. He tossed it to the empireless dog at his feet.
"Run, Mr. Kingpin. Run. Do everything you can to escape. Use every trick you've got to fight back. And I'll be waiting at the end of your life… when you receive your final judgment."
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