The blond Peter Parker hung suspended in the air, a translucent polymer tentacle wrapped securely around his throat.
Below him, the twin collider rings screamed. The energy jets were tearing open a dark blue spatial rift in the center of the tunnel. It looked like a jagged, open wound gnawing at the fabric of reality. Liv Octavius hadn't bothered to install safety buffers. The dimensional barrier of Earth-700 was dissolving at a catastrophic rate. If the machine ran unchecked, it would trigger a chain reaction that would collapse the entire universe.
Blond Peter's vision swam, his lungs burning for oxygen. He gripped the mechanical claw squeezing his windpipe. He remembered the kid from Earth-616 giving him a quick rundown of his upgraded tech earlier that afternoon.
"I just have one question, Liv," Peter choked out, his voice rasping against the pressure. "Your new tentacles... they still run on bioelectric feedback, right?"
He didn't fire his web-shooters. Instead, he triggered the suit's taser-web function internally. Blue-white electricity arced violently from the reinforced seams of his gloves. He drove both hands directly into the polymer tentacle.
Liv shrieked. Her new biomass tentacles perfectly integrated with her central nervous system to give her unparalleled control, which meant she felt every single volt of the high-voltage current.
The tentacle spasmed and snapped back. Peter dropped, firing a quick web-line to swing away and catch his breath.
Liv recovered with terrifying speed. She didn't look angry; she looked manic. She reached into her lab coat, pulled out a pristine white handkerchief, and calmly wiped a drop of saliva from the corner of her mouth. Her tentacles whipped through the air, burrowing toward blond Peter. The new biomass material was incredibly flexible. Standard webbing slid right off the slick polymer surface.
blond Peter ducked a sweeping strike and caught the second tentacle with both hands. He couldn't rip it off her spine, so he anchored his boots against a concrete pillar and pulled. If he couldn't break the arms, he would just throw her straight into the collider's energy stream.
Liv simply smiled. She drove two of her remaining tentacles deep into the reinforced steel wall of the tunnel, anchoring herself perfectly.
Blond Peter dangled in the air, his boots swinging a few feet above the lethal energy flow. Liv's fourth tentacle snapped at his face, the three-pronged claw clicking rapidly. It stopped three inches from his mask, stretching to its absolute physical limit. It couldn't quite reach him.
Blond Peter sighed. He shot a web-line past her, anchoring it to the main housing of the collider, and pulled with all his strength.
Liv ignored him. She used her spare tentacle—the one that couldn't quite reach blond Peter's face—to reach into the control booth. The tentacle poured a cup of coffee, grabbed a waffle, and brought them back to her. She took a casual sip from the mug.
"You can't move me, Spider-Man," Liv said smoothly. "My actuators can withstand your maximum tensile strength."
"If I can't pull you in, Liv," Peter grunted, straining against the web-line, "I'll just rip the collider apart!"
He waited for her to panic. He expected her to scramble to protect her machine.
Instead, Liv smirked over the rim of her coffee mug. "Look behind you, Spider-Man."
Peter's spider-sense flared like a siren. He turned his head.
Wilson Fisk stood on the gantry directly behind him, perfectly filling out his bespoke suit. Fisk pulled his massive fist back.
"Hey, Willie," Blond Peter quipped dryly. "Could you come back later? I'm a little tied up—"
"Get out of my city."
Fisk's fist slammed into blond Peter's chest like a wrecking ball. The impact snapped blond Peter's web-line. He flew backward through the air, twisting violently to plant his boots against the far wall of the tunnel. He stuck to the concrete, shaking the stars from his vision. He glanced across the cavern. Miguel and the kid were completely tied up with their own fights.
No backup. Just him.
"Come on, Parker," the blond Peter muttered to himself, rolling his shoulders. "You're Spider-Man. Do the job." He launched himself off the wall, diving straight back toward Fisk.
Tombstone wasn't a threat.
Miguel O'Hara had analyzed the mobster's combat geometry in less than three seconds. Tombstone had the footwork of a standard street brawler. He relied entirely on his impenetrable albino skin and raw strength. He was a highly durable punching bag.
But Miguel didn't have time to hit a punching bag. He needed to clear the board and shut down the collider.
Miguel backpedaled, luring Tombstone closer to the edge of the platform. The massive spatial rift roared a few feet below them. Tombstone took the bait. He planted his feet and threw a massive, telegraphing right hook.
Miguel dropped his center of gravity, slipping entirely beneath the punch. He planted his hands on the grating, executing a rapid backward handspring. His heavy boot caught Tombstone squarely under the jaw.
The kinetic force snapped Tombstone's head back. His boots left the floor.
Miguel didn't wait for gravity to take over. He fired a thick cord of red, digitized webbing. The line snagged Tombstone's chest in mid-air. Miguel ripped his arm backward, hurling the mobster directly into the collider's energy wave.
Raw dimensional energy surged through Tombstone's body. He spasmed violently, his limbs twisting at impossible angles as the rift rejected his molecular structure. The beam spat him out onto the concrete. Tombstone lay completely still, his boots smoking, his fingers twitching faintly.
Miguel stared down at the unmoving mountain of a man. Lucky to be alive, he thought coldly.
He raised his left arm. "Lyla. Give me a diagnostic on the multiverse structural integrity."
The golden holographic woman materialized over his gauntlet. She tapped a floating clipboard. "You haven't triggered a Canon Event fracture yet, Miguel. Reality is completely stable." Lyla put her hands on her holographic hips, offering a digital smirk. "According to your absolute certainty, the universe should be collapsing right now. I guess your math is wrong."
Miguel stood on the edge of the platform, watching the older Peter trade blows with the Kingpin across the cavern.
He lowered his wrist. "Wouldn't that be the best thing?"
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