"Boss. We have a problem. The Sandman just touched down in Lisbon."
Silvija Sablinova cursed aloud, violently strapping her tactical harness over her chest. "Damn Americans. All they do is drag chaos across borders."
Sandman appearing in Portugal made absolutely zero tactical sense. Lisbon didn't house any Weapon Plus black sites. There were no rogue geneticists hiding in the city for the syndicate to extract. If the earth-elemental had abandoned his Madrid staging ground to hit this specific location, there was only one logical variable in play: Spider-Man.
Silvija hadn't even known the teenage Avenger was in Europe until yesterday. Nick Fury, that one-eyed bastard, had clearly leaked their coordinates on purpose. S.H.I.E.L.D. was using the Wild Pack—and the high schoolers—as bait to flush out the mole inside the Weapon Plus syndicate.
Fine, Silvija thought, slamming a magazine into her rifle. I'll show that cyclops who he's dealing with.
"Pass the order," she barked to her lieutenant. "Environmental suits on. Spin up the VTOL. We drop in five."
Her subordinate hesitated, holding a datapad. "But boss, we don't have a contingency layout for Lisbon—"
"I am the contingency," Silvija snapped, her silver eyes flashing. "Move!"
I am the approaching storm, Peter thought dryly, watching a ten-story wall of brown dust swallow the historic Lisbon skyline.
He fired a web-line, launching himself directly toward the swirling vortex. The storm seemed to lock onto his trajectory instantly. It pivoted, rushing to meet him over the terracotta roofs of the old town.
Fine, granular grit battered Peter's lenses. His HUD flared to life. Ultron's smooth, synthesized voice murmured in his earpiece, processing the environmental data in real time. The sand wasn't imported from a desert. It was entirely localized—crushed masonry, pulverized cobblestones, and coastal beach grit sucked up from the shoreline.
Peter had handed the real-time telemetry processing over to Ultron. Was it a massive risk trusting the hyper-intelligent super-AI? Sure. But until the murder-bot actually tried to turn on the Avengers, Peter was absolutely going to exploit the free processing power.
Peter vaulted off a brick chimney, waving both arms at the massive, roaring face in the dust cloud. "Hey! Over here! Quick legal question: did you get clearance from Universal Studios for this? Because I'm pretty sure The Mummy franchise is gonna sue you for copyright infringement!"
The air warped. The vortex rapidly compressed, violently pulling inward until it solidified on a reinforced rooftop.
Flint Marko stood there. He wore a classic green-and-black striped polo. A thick, sandy beard clung to his heavy jaw.
"Spider-Man," Marko rumbled. His voice sounded like grinding millstones. "I know you. You've broken a lot of strong men."
Peter landed on a weather vane, crouching on the narrow metal. "Oh, stop. I'm blushing. Let me guess—you're different, right? Everyone always thinks they're different."
"I am here to test you," Marko corrected, his arms expanding into heavy, shifting maces. "To see if you truly deserve the title. To see if you really are the crown jewel of the weapons expansion program."
Peter tilted his head. "Crown jewel? Who told you that? Wait, do you guys have a group chat? Can I get an invite? Drop your email, man." Peter shifted his weight, preparing to move. "And your next line is gonna be: You've already lost, Spider-Man!"
Marko narrowed his eyes. "You've already lost, Spider-Man!"
The mercenary blinked, suddenly entirely confused by his own mouth. Peter barked a laugh. The classic JoJo prediction trick never failed.
Marko snarled. He lunged.
Peter didn't dodge. The symbiote flared beneath his collar. [Let me try!] Venom hissed in his mind.
Black tendrils whipped out from Peter's suit, coated in a terrifying, crackling layer of Peter's raw bio-electricity. The electrified tendrils speared into Marko's torso. The extreme current locked the silica particles in place, paralyzing the mercenary's molecular control. Venom ripped a chunk of sand out of Marko's chest, chewed it for half a second, and violently spat it out onto the roof tiles.
[Tastes like cat litter!]
Marko stumbled back, staring at his chest in absolute shock. The boy wasn't just fast. He was a nightmare.
Marko roared. He pulled ambient silica from the surrounding buildings, swelling his right arm into a colossal, boulder-sized fist. He brought it down toward Peter like a meteor.
Peter didn't flinch. With a mental command, the housing on his back snapped open.
Four articulated, golden-titanium mechanical claws erupted from his spine.
The mechanical spider-legs lunged upward, catching the massive sand-fist in mid-air. The servos whined against the crushing weight. Peter gritted his teeth and flooded the legs with pure bio-electric voltage.
Blinding blue light surged through the metal claws. The extreme current pumped thousands of degrees of heat directly into the sand.
FSHHHHHH.
The colossal fist instantly vitrified. The sand fused into solid, brittle glass.
Peter pulled his right arm back and threw a devastating punch. The glass fist shattered into a million harmless, glittering shards.
"Any other party tricks?" Peter quipped, stepping out of the falling glass. "Because your sand can't touch me, your punches are made of windows, and I'm really running out of movie references."
Marko didn't answer. His expression darkened. His body began to destabilize, rapidly splitting into a dozen identical sand-clones.
Before they could rush Peter, a heavy, rhythmic thumping filled the air.
Peter glanced up. A matte-black V-22 Osprey tiltrotor broke through the cloud cover. Loud concussive pops echoed from the aircraft's underbelly. Thick white mist immediately began bleeding into the atmosphere. The clouds darkened instantly.
"Cloud seeding," Peter noted, grinning behind his mask. "Artificial rain. I'm guessing you're not a fan of getting soggy?"
A dozen paratroopers dropped from the Osprey. They snapped their wingsuits open, gliding flawlessly through the churning sandstorm.
Peter's HUD flared. [Incoming personnel are generating localized electrostatic shielding fields,] Ultron reported smoothly. [It actively repels the silica intrusion. Identical to your bio-electric defensive methodology, Spider-Man.]
The Wild Pack operatives hit the rooftops. They raised heavy, pressurized rifles and pulled the triggers. They didn't fire bullets. They fired concentrated streams of a chemical desiccant compound. The moment the spray hit the clones, the sand clumped, hardened, and began dropping to the tiles like dead weight. Marko's control was evaporating.
Silvija Sablinova dropped from the sky. Her silver-white tactical suit gleamed in the artificial rain. She fired her jump-pack retro-thrusters, landing cleanly beside Peter. Before her boots even touched the shingles, she drew twin sidearms and fired a rapid volley of specialized rounds directly into the primary Marko's chest.
The mercenary's body collapsed, washing over the roof in a lifeless wave of wet mud.
Silvija lowered her smoking guns. "He's gone. He scattered his consciousness before I took the shot. These bastards are slippery."
Peter retracted his mechanical claws. "So you had specialized tactical gear to counter them this whole time, and you just decided to keep that little detail to yourself?"
Silvija holstered her weapons. She didn't look at him. "We hadn't reached the deployment phase. I don't give away my playbook to tourists." She finally turned, her silver eyes locking onto Peter's lenses. "But they diverted from Madrid to ambush you here. You've clearly terrified the people holding their leashes, Spider-Man."