161. Shattered Horizons. (Patreon)

Miguel POV:

The C-17 Globemaster III screamed through the upper atmosphere like a dying bird. The cabin was a cacophony of engine roar, rattling bulkheads and the sharp stench of burned fuel. I gripped the overhead railing as the aircraft bucked violently, turbulence slamming my team against the restraints.

“Stabilize the pitch!” I barked.

Peter-Parkedcar’s voice crackled from the cockpit speakers, modulated and calm despite the chaos. “Pitch stabilized, more or less. We’re coming in hot. Literally.”

Outside, through the thick viewport, the sky fractured with lightning. A shimmering distortion rippled across the clouds. An invisible wall, the cloaking field of the Helicarrier.

LYLA’s holographic avatar flickered to life on my wrist display, her tone grim.

“We’ve got interceptors inbound. F-302s, four of them. Their IFF tags say Earth-65M Spartan Command, under the direct command of Peter.”

“Perfect.” My fangs bared slightly as he pulled down his mask. “Everyone brace for decompression.”

Doppelganger, hissing with manic energy, cracked his neck. “You got a plan, jefe?”

“I always do.” I said coldly, locking the mag-boots on my armor. “We land on the deck, find Parker and burn that Siphon to ashes.”

Before anyone could answer, the first missile struck.

The explosion tore through the airframe, sending a wave of fire and shrapnel through the cargo bay. Malala Windsor screamed as Spider-Wolf grabbed her midair and slung her through the emergency ramp. Spider-Monkey howled as the floor disintegrated beneath them.

“GO!” I roared.

They didn’t jump. They fell.

The C-17 disintegrated behind them, burning like a meteor. The night split with streaks of red and gold as the Spider strike team free-fell toward the cloaked Helicarrier.

“LYLA, mark the vector!”

“Thirty meters below you. Adjust trajectory three degrees east!”

I twisted, claws extending from my gauntlets and then I saw it. An invisible outline in the clouds, vast and angular, the shape of a city-sized warship hidden behind refracted light.

“Now!”

We hit the field with the sound of glass breaking. Reality shimmered, then spat us out onto a metal runway drenched in rain and searchlight glare. Alarms blared instantly.

“CONTACT FRONT!” A mechanical voice barked.

A row of Spartans in MJOLNIR Mk.VII armor emerged from the mist, tesla rifles snapping up. The air was filled with the sound of servos and charging capacitors.

Spider-Canada hit the first soldier like a cannonball, his fist slamming into the man’s chestplate but the Spartan was no pushover and neither was his gear. Sparks flew. Spider-Wolf howled and lunged, his claws raking through armor joints without any results. Julia Carpenter’s psionic web snapped through three more, their rifles melting in bursts of psychic energy but she is met with fists of steel.

I hit the deck, rolled and tore through a Spartan’s visor with my talons. “Push forward!” I shouted. “Control tower...now!”

LYLA materialized again.

“Warning: Helicarrier energy readings spiking. It's coming online.”

“Goddamn it!!!" I growled.

Helicarrier Control Room:

The blast doors burst open. Miguel stormed in, claws sparking, and froze.

Frank Castle stood in the center of the chamber. His MJOLNIR Mk.VII Vibranium-S variant armor fully powered, glowing with the faint pulse of kinetic shielding. Behind him, Tony Stark in Iron Man Mk.XVI hovered half a meter above the floor, repulsors humming like an angry hornet swarm.

On the far side of the room, Hank Pym and Bruce Banner worked the forcefield generator. A shimmer of blue energy pulsed between Miguel and the main console.

Tony’s faceplate retracted just enough for a grin.

“Let’s dance, Twilight reject.”

“Stark,” Miguel hissed. “Still hiding behind toys.”

Frank chambered a round into a railgun that looked far too large for a human to wield. “Still monologuing before fights.”

The floor erupted.

Miguel moved first. Superhuman blur, claws slicing through Tony’s opening volley. A repulsor beam ricocheted off his forearm and blew out a control station. Castle moved in low, heavy armor thundering as he swung a punch that cratered the floor plating. Miguel countered, catching the gauntlet and twisting, using the momentum to hurl Frank across the deck.

Tony dove, both palms flaring white. Miguel barely rolled aside before the beams scorched a molten trench through the wall.

LYLA’s voice cut through the chaos.

“Miguel, Banner’s about to—”

Too late. Hulked-out green fists slammed through the floor from below as Banner roared, ripping through a layer of metal.

"Great, just great."

Miles POV:

The city was breaking.

I sprinted through a street that no longer obeyed physics. Cars floated sideways. Buildings bent toward the sky, twisted around glowing black rifts. Every few seconds, a boom like a heartbeat, shook the horizon.

“Mom! Dad!” I shouted my voice drowned by the chaos.

Mom’s car was upside-down near 145th Street. Dad was dragging her out, face streaked with dust. I bolted forward, grabbing both of them in my web-lines and yanking them clear as another portal erupted behind the wreck.

Dad still dangling from the webline, kept firing his service pistol uselessly at the growing void. He froze when he saw him. "SPOT!!!!" He thundered.

“Dad!” I yelled. “We gotta go—NOW!”

A white tendril lashed out from a swirling black portal. My bio-electric charge flared instinctively, Venom Strike shattering the tendril midair.

“Peni, Margo, I’ve got them!” I yelled into the comms. “Get the crowd out of the east blocks!”

“Copy that, Miles,” Margo replied. “But you’ve got...uh...skyfall inbound!”

I looked up and saw the streak.

A cube descending through the storm, crashing through the skyline like a meteor.

Peter POV:

The War Pattern Helios Mk.II hit the ground hard enough to crater asphalt. Sparks bled from the thrusters as I straightened, servos whining.

Across from me, the Spot pulsed. A man-shaped hole in the world, his edges flickering between dimensions.

“Hello, Mr. Unknown.” His voice echoed like it came from underwater, from everywhere and nowhere. “Still think you can beat me?”

“I don't think, I know.” My hands clutching Dawnbringer.

He laughed a distorted, hollow noise that rattled the air. “Do you think your armor, your science, your rules will stop me? I am the rule now.”

He stepped forward, and the world rippled. Buildings melted into corridors of infinite white and black, sky folding in on itself. I could see through him. Gateways to other worlds flickering inside his body, screaming faces of versions that never were.

Scarred Peter’s voice came through the comms, piloting the hardlight Miles beside me.

“Control stability’s dropping. He’s breaching the membrane again.”

“I know,” I replied, raising the disruptor cannon. “Let’s see if we can make him bleed light.”

Spot tilted his head. “You still don’t get it, do you? I’m not your enemy. I’m the result of your kind. You tear holes and call it heroism.”

“I call it nothing for I am not one of them.”

We moved at once. His white portals slicing reality apart, my armor phasing between lightfields. Every blow shattered air like glass. My disruptor cannons burned holes through geometry itself.

And through it all, one thought anchored me. The promise I made to Gwen.

I will always come back.