Mister Sinister was launched backward into the dark void of the elevator shaft by an invisible force.
Peter blinked, his vision swimming back into focus. He had thrown the punch purely on instinct. He let out a breath and dropped his optical camouflage. Tiny, crackling arcs of white bio-electricity still danced across his skin.
He crossed the ruined laboratory, grabbing a massive slab of fallen concrete and casually tossing it aside. He reached a hand down into the rubble. "You good, Cindy?"
Cindy took his hand and pulled herself up. She shook the dust from her hair, looking at Peter. He was practically glowing in the dim light. She blinked, her gaze dropping. "I'm fine. But, uh... your clothes."
Peter froze. To facilitate the genetic recalibration inside the surgical pod, he had stripped off his tactical suit. He was currently standing in the middle of a warzone wearing nothing but his boxer briefs and his Spider-Man mask.
"Whoops!" Peter yelped, instantly turning invisible again.
Cindy and Jubilee watched as a crumpled red-and-blue suit levitated off the floor and vanished into thin air. A few seconds of frantic rustling echoed through the lab. When Peter dropped his camouflage, he was fully suited up. He tapped the chest spider, vacuum-sealing the smart-fabric to his newly stabilized musculature. He cleared his throat, actively avoiding their eyes.
Jubilee popped a bubblegum bubble. "Nice abs, webs."
Peter opted to pretend he didn't hear that. He hurried over to Hank McCoy.
The Leech field had completely stripped Beast of his mutation, leaving him as a baseline human. Without his massive bulk, Hank's tactical armor hung off his frame like an oversized hand-me-down. Peter hauled him to his feet. "You with us, Hank?"
"I will manage," Hank groaned, collapsing into a rolling desk chair. "The Leech suppression field requires constant proximity. It isn't permanent." He pointed a shaky finger toward the shattered elevator doors. "You and Cindy are the only combatants immune to that field. Tread carefully."
"Don't sweat it, Doc. I've got plenty of juice in the tank." Peter cracked his knuckles, rolling his shoulders. The erratic, terrifying instability in his DNA was gone. He felt perfectly calibrated. "I'll go deal with Dracula's pale cousin. Cindy, get these two back to the surface."
Peter sprinted to the ledge and dove headfirst into the pitch-black elevator shaft.
The air rushed past his mask. He had never felt this dialed in. His physical senses were razor-sharp, processing the microscopic changes in air pressure as he plummeted. His spider-sense wasn't just a vague alarm bell anymore. It was a precise, three-dimensional radar, feeding him exact distance, velocity, and trajectory data on his target.
He reached his hands downward. Blinding white electricity arched across his knuckles, illuminating the dark shaft. Mister Sinister was flying straight up the drop, his chalk-white face twisted in absolute shock as he looked up at the descending teenager.
Peter flipped mid-air. He landed squarely on Sinister's back. He channeled a surge of bio-electricity directly into his fingertips, hyper-charging his electrostatic adhesion. He stuck to the villain's armor like industrial glue.
Sinister snarled. He accelerated vertically, violently twisting his body to crush Peter against the rough concrete wall of the shaft.
Peter felt the intent before Sinister even twitched. He fired two web-lines straight up, anchoring them to the lip of the shaft.
"You know, the last time I caught air like this, I was at Coney Island!" Peter yelled over the rushing wind, clinging to Sinister's back. "I love the drop tower! You know how you're supposed to ride it? Like this!"
Peter yanked hard on the web-lines, using the tension to violently alter their trajectory. He shoved Sinister forward. The geneticist's pale face slammed directly into the concrete wall. As Sinister continued to fly upward at breakneck speed, Peter rode him like a surfboard, grinding the villain's face against the jagged concrete for three solid stories until they erupted out of the shaft.
Up on the surface, Scott Summers lay paralyzed on the asphalt.
His ruby-quartz visor was shattered. For the first time in years, his eyes were open, exposed, and entirely devoid of concussive force. He watched a streak of white lightning erupt from the ruined bunker. He blinked. Spider-Man was literally riding Mister Sinister into the sky.
"The spores are giving me hallucinations," Scott muttered dryly. He glanced sideways. The Human Torch stood a few yards away, passively guarding the unconscious mutants.
High above the docks, Sinister broke into the open sky. He banked hard, accelerating to Mach speed, trying to violently shake the teenager off his back. Peter didn't budge.
Desperate, Essex reached out with his telekinesis. He ripped a massive, eighteen-wheeler cargo truck off a nearby overpass and hurled it directly at his own position. With his stolen healing factor, he could survive the crushing impact. The spider would not.
Peter's spider-sense screamed. He detached his grip and vaulted backward into empty space.
The multi-ton truck smashed into Sinister, passing squarely between them. Essex used the distraction to shoot higher into the clouds, intent on exploiting his flight advantage against a gravity-bound opponent.
Essex turned to look down. He expected to see the boy falling.
Instead, Spider-Man was accelerating right toward him. Peter threw his arms wide. The specialized web-line glide panels under his armpits snapped open. Catching the massive updraft from the explosion, Peter turned his freefall into a controlled glide. He shot forward, grabbing Sinister by the shoulder.
"Hi! We've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty!"
Peter unleashed a massive, concentrated pulse of bio-electricity. A blinding white sphere of energy detonated in the sky. The thunderous crack echoed across Madripoor. Peter folded his wingsuit panels, fired a web-line at a nearby crane, and swung smoothly down to the asphalt beside the bunker.
Sinister plummeted toward the earth, smoking and charred. At the last possible second, he caught himself with a telekinetic safety net, touching down boots-first in front of Spider-Man.
The villain's gothic cape was singed. His flawless pale skin was scorched. He glared at the teenager, pressing two fingers to his temple.
"Enough!" Essex roared, losing his aristocratic composure. "I have had it with you, insect! I am going to rip your mind apart! I will ensure you never speak another word!"
Essex unleashed a massive telepathic spike directly into Peter's frontal lobe. He encountered zero resistance. His psychic projection slammed straight through the boy's mental defenses, preparing to shred his consciousness.
On the ground, Scott lifted his head. He stared at Sinister, desperately trying to force his optic blasts to fire.
Suddenly, a cool, crystal-clear voice echoed in his mind.
Do not worry about the spider, Scott, Emma Frost's telepathic voice whispered. Essex's trick will not work on him. My abilities are suppressed, but I can temporarily bypass your block for a single optic blast. I need you to aim at the android.
Completely unaware of Emma's subtle psychic interference, Essex drove his mind deeper into Peter Parker's brain.
But he didn't find human thoughts. He didn't find memories or fears. He found himself standing in an infinite, cosmic void. A sprawling, multidimensional web stretched out in every direction. Inside each glowing thread, thousands of different lives flashed by—thousands of different Spider-Men, across countless parallel universes.
He hadn't invaded Peter's mind. He had stumbled directly into Peter's connection to the Web of Life and Destiny.
And he wasn't alone.
A colossal shadow fell over Essex's psychic projection. A gargantuan, hundred-meter-tall spider descended from the cosmic threads. It possessed ancient, terrifying intelligence. The Great Weaver turned its multi-faceted eyes toward the invading geneticist.
It moved with impossible speed, materializing directly in front of Essex. The massive arachnid raised a single, razor-sharp leg and drove it cleanly through Mister Sinister's psychic heart.
PS: Spider-Man actually has one of the most uniquely defended minds in the Marvel Universe! Because his powers are intrinsically tied to the mystical "Web of Life and Destiny," telepaths who try to forcefully invade his mind often find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the multiverse, or confronted by the Great Weaver—the ancient spider-deity that spins the web connecting all Spider-Totems!