The rain poured into the ruined cabin of the Audi, instantly chilling the sweltering, lust-heavy air.
Jagged diamonds of safety glass bounced harmlessly off the glowing, translucent Tao Mandala Ethan had instinctively summoned over them.
Beneath him, Gwen was trembling. Her chest heaved, her flushed skin stark against the dark leather of the passenger seat. Seconds ago, she had been lost in a haze of overwhelming pleasure. Now, her eyes were wide, the pupils blown out with pure, adrenaline-fueled terror.
Ethan slowly lowered the golden shield.
He looked up through the empty windshield frame.
Crouched on the crumpled hood, crushing the V10 engine block beneath massive, steel talons, was a nightmare of green metal.
As he watched the familiar and unfamiliar figure her wondered.
‘Vulture?’
‘At this point of time. From what he knows Adrian Thomas only becomes vulture after the Chitauri attacks from the Chitauri tech debris. That's far ahead. It’s only 2010 now. Where did this vulture guy come from’
But then he noticed the tech. The gear.
This was not Earth’s tech. Atleast not this earth’s.
There was no scavenged bomber jacket. No salvaged Chitauri scraps. This armor was sleek, hyper-advanced, and practically hummed with dark, dimensional energy. Razor-sharp turbine wings stretched wide, scraping against the brick walls of the narrow alley.
He realized its identity.
The Vulture. An Earth-1 variant. He was a hound of inheritors.
That Rhino and Scorpion bastards have must asked for reinforcements after I beat them up….
The mechanical visor clicked, the glowing green optics locking dead onto Gwen’s half-dressed form.
"You have lived enough spider.," the Vulture hissed. His voice was heavily distorted, vibrating through an advanced vocal modulator. "It’s time you die."
Ethan didn't say a word.
The cold, world-ending fury completely overwrote the heavy throb of his arousal.
He slowly, methodically zipped up his jeans. The metallic slide of the zipper was absurdly loud over the drumming rain.
He looked the multiversal predator dead in the optic sensors.
"You picked the worst possible time to exist," Ethan said.
His voice carried the terrifying, absolute weight of a dying star.
Gwen scrambled backward. The embarrassment of being caught naked hit her for a fraction of a second, immediately overridden by the lethal instincts of the Spider-Totem.
She grabbed the straps of her dress, yanking the silk back up over her shoulders. She zipped the back with a frantic, jerky motion. The flush of arousal on her cheeks hardened into a mask of pure, unadulterated fury. One moment she was completely vulnerable; the next, she was a coiled spring.
The Vulture tilted his helmet, observing the frantic movement.
"Soft little spider," the Vulture taunted, his mechanical wings shifting, the razor feathers slicing through the falling rain. "Always tangled in someone else's web."
Gwen stepped out of the ruined passenger door, her bare feet hitting the wet asphalt. She didn't flinch at the cold.
"Funny coming from a bird who needs metal wings to fly," Gwen fired back, her fists clenching.
Ethan kicked the driver’s side door open. The hinges screamed, snapping completely under his enhanced strength. The heavy door clattered onto the wet pavement. He stepped out into the storm.
Vulture lunged.
The massive green wings snapped forward like a mantis striking. Razor-sharp vibranium-laced feathers sliced through the rain, aimed directly at Gwen’s neck.
Her spider-sense screamed. She dropped backward, her spine bending at an impossible, arachnid angle. The wing blade cleanly decapitated the Audi’s side mirror, burying itself an inch deep into the brick wall behind her.
Before Gwen could counter, a secondary panel on Vulture’s chest plate slid open.
A high-frequency sonic pulse erupted in the alley.
It wasn’t a standard soundwave. It was specifically calibrated to the neuro-receptors of a Spider-Totem.
Gwen shrieked. She clamped her hands over her ears, her knees buckling as the sonic wave scrambled her equilibrium. The world tilted violently. Her spider-sense didn't just warn her of danger; it overloaded, blinding her with a phantom pain that felt like needles driving into her skull.
Vulture raised a steel talon to finish it.
He didn't get the chance.
Ethan kicked the driver’s side door entirely off its hinges. The heavy metal slab flew through the air, slamming directly into Vulture’s chest.
The impact staggered the assassin. The sonic pulse cut off.
Ethan stepped out into the rain. His golden eyes were burning.
"Look here, birdy," Ethan ordered.
Vulture recovered instantly. The turbines in his wings screamed. He launched himself off the crushed Audi, diving straight at Ethan with both talons extended.
Ethan didn't summon a shield.
He sidestepped the lethal dive by a fraction of an inch. As Vulture flew past, Ethan grabbed the thick, armored joint of the left wing.
He pivoted, using Vulture’s own momentum against him, and slammed the assassin straight down into the asphalt.
The ground spider-webbed under the impact.
Vulture snarled, his right wing sweeping low to cut Ethan in half.
Ethan flicked his wrist. A golden, spark-rimmed portal opened directly in the path of the wing. The razor-sharp edge vanished into the rift.
A second portal opened three feet above Vulture’s own back. The wing exited the rift, slicing deeply into Vulture's own rear armor plating. Sparks showered the wet pavement.
"Argh!" Vulture roared, thrashing wildly to free his wing from the spatial loop.
Ethan didn't let up. His mind shifted from Plumber reflexes to the century-old combat instincts of Albus Dumbledore.
He raised both hands, his fingers twisting in a complex, fluid motion.
The shattered metal of the Audi groaned. The ripped hood, the heavy doors, the twisted frame—it all melted and reformed in a split second. The metal slithered across the wet ground like silver snakes, wrapping violently around Vulture’s mechanical legs and pinning his turbines to the alley floor.
Transfiguration. Brutal and absolute.
Vulture strained against the metal binds. The servos whined, maxing out their torque, but Dumbledore’s magic held the steel rigid.
Ethan walked forward. The rain vaporized inches from his skin.
He snapped his right hand out. A thick, crackling rope of dark red energy erupted from his palm.
Crimson Bands of Cyttorak.
The Eldritch whip wrapped tightly around Vulture’s throat, hauling him upward. The armor groaned under the crushing magical pressure.
"Who sent you?" Ethan demanded. His voice was completely devoid of mercy.
Vulture dangled in the air, his boots scraping the wet asphalt. He laughed, a wet, rattling sound through his broken teeth.
"You think you won?" Vulture gasped through the vocal modulator. "You think I’m the hunter? I’m just the retrieval squad."
Ethan tightened his fist. The red band constricted. Metal began to buckle.
"Who are your Masters?" Ethan asked again.
Vulture opened his mouth to spit an insult.
Suddenly, a dark, sickly red spark crawled up the back of Vulture’s neck. The dimensional hum of the armor spiked to a lethal, whining pitch.
Vulture’s green optics widened in absolute terror.
"Wait—no!" Vulture screamed, thrashing against the magical whip. "I didn't—I didn't tell him! No!"
It was a fail-safe. Built into the nervous system of the suit by whoever owned him.
"Get down!" Ethan roared.
He threw his left hand back, casting a massive, multi-layered Tao shield completely over Gwen.
The green armor detonated.
It wasn't an explosive fireball. It was a localized, dimensional implosion. A wave of searing black-and-green energy ripped through the suit, incinerating the biological matter inside instantly.
Vulture’s screams were cut off.
The armor melted, slagging onto the wet pavement in a heap of burning, smoking metal.
Ethan dropped the Crimson Band. He stepped forward into the burning heat, his eyes locked on the center of the melted back-plate.
A fist-sized, glowing green core was rapidly overheating, pulsing with raw dimensional energy.
Ethan plunged his bare hand straight into the molten slag. He ignored the searing heat burning his knuckles. He grabbed the core and violently ripped it free, severing the power cables.
The core sputtered, flashing twice before powering down into a stable, quiet hum.
The alley fell silent, save for the rain hissing against the hot metal.
Ethan stood up, holding the damaged Wing Core. He looked around. Jagged shards of the Vulture's razor-wings were deeply embedded in the brick walls and the asphalt.
He didn't bother collecting them. He let the magic fade from his eyes.
He turned around.
Gwen was sitting on the wet pavement, leaning against the brick wall. Her dress was ruined. Her bare feet were scraped. She looked at the smoking pile of metal, her chest heaving.
The reality of the situation crashed down on her.
This wasn't a random mugger. This wasn't a bank robber. This was a highly trained, technologically impossible assassin sent from another universe specifically to find her.
"They're not going to stop," Gwen whispered. Her voice was hollow.
Ethan walked over. He crouched down in front of her, ignoring the rain.
"This wasn't your fault," Ethan said firmly, holding her gaze.
"It's my trail," Gwen replied. She looked down at her shaking hands. "I'm a beacon. Everywhere I go, I drag this target with me."
"Then we break the beacon," Ethan said.
He offered her his hand.
Gwen looked at it for a long moment. She didn't want to be a burden. She didn't want to be the prey. But she took his hand, letting him pull her up.
A translucent blue screen flickered to life in the corner of Ethan’s vision.
[ Emergency Quest Complete: Broken Wings ]
Objective: Survive the Vulture ambush. Prevent Gwen’s capture. Recover the dimensional wing core.
Rewards: 3,000 System Points, Ben Tennyson Template Synchronization +2%, Item Acquired: Damaged Earth-1 Dimensional Wing Core.
Multiversal Tracker Data Updated: Spider-Totem Scent Trail Confirmed.
Current Ben Template Synchronization: 12%
Ethan swiped the screen away. He looked past Gwen, staring at the completely flattened, unrecognizable pancake of metal that used to be a multi-million-dollar sports car.
He let out a long, heavy sigh.
"Tony is going to be infinitely more annoying than that dead bird," Ethan muttered.
Gwen blinked. The sheer, absurd shift in priority caught her completely off guard. A short, watery laugh escaped her lips despite the adrenaline crash.
"He's going to bill you," Gwen said, wiping a streak of rain and soot off her cheek.
"I'll pay him in magic tricks," Ethan grunted.
He looked down at his hand. The green Wing Core pulsed once against his palm. A faint, nearly imperceptible vibration.
Someone, somewhere, had just tried to listen through it. And now they knew exactly what universe the Spider-Totem was hiding in.
Ethan spun his fingers. A shower of golden sparks tore through the dark alley, opening a gateway back to the warm, mahogany safety of the Sanctum.
"Let's go home," Ethan said.