[Third Person Pov]
Peter was running circles around Marko so quickly that his entire body blurred into a streak of blue electric light, crackling and weaving around the towering sand colossus that Sandman had become. Every step he took kicked up tiny sparks along the ground, his momentum carving a perfect ring around the storming mass.
"Come on, Marko! Let's talk about this like civil adults!" Peter shouted, his voice warping as it stretched through the vortex he was creating. With each lap he completed, he grew faster, until the air around him shimmered with heat and static.
Marko roared, turning his massive sandy head left and right, trying desperately to track Peter's movement. Peter's speed began to tighten the swirling storm around him, compressing it, shaping it, until the chaotic sandstorm became a barely controlled cyclone. His feet skimmed across the loose grains with such velocity that they might as well have been gliding—frictionless, weightless, leaving only bursts of lightning in his wake.
"There's nothing to talk about! You're not getting in my way!!" Marko bellowed, his voice vibrating through his unstable sandy form as Peter's motion formed a luminous halo around him.
"Firestar Combo Move!" Peter called, letting the energy surge through his limbs until he looked like a comet chasing its own tail.
"Alright, if you say so! But don't complain if you come out looking extra crispy!" Lizzy yelled from above. In a burst of blazing momentum, she hurled a spiraling vortex of fire straight toward the speeding blur that was Peter.
The flames slammed into him head-on—an eruption of heat and light engulfing his path—but his upgraded suit absorbed the worst of the blast. Even through the protective layers, he felt the pressure of the inferno pushing against him, but he lowered his stance and redirected the flow. Using his speed, Peter caught the rolling firestorm in his slipstream and guided it like a shepherd steering a wild animal.
The fire bent, twisted, and then wrapped around Marko, swirling upward into a burning cyclone. Flames licked skyward as the prison of fire tightened, forming a towering pillar of churning heat that hemmed Marko in from all directions. The sand giant thrashed, unable to expand or escape without burning himself further.
Up above, Lizzy accelerated as she flew in rapid, fiery circles. She unleashed wave after wave of flame toward Peter's path, trusting him to gather and redirect every blast. Peter kept running, weaving each fiery strike into the blazing cage as the inferno grew brighter, hotter, and more constricting with every second.
Marko was shifted around and tried to snuff the flames out with his sand. He sent streams of sand in front of him, slamming them into the spiraling wall of fire. Each attempt only scattered the flames, causing them to roar higher as the heat fed on the friction Peter's vortex created.
The moment the streams of sand pushed outward, Peter reacted—his outline flickered, then doubled, then tripled as afterimages peeled off him like ghostly silhouettes. The wind he produced intensified, whipping the flames into a tight, controlled cyclone that pressed inward on Marko from every angle.
"I said stay back!!" Marko roared, trying to pull his body together. His massive sand form trembled, grains shedding from him in torrents as the heat fused patches of his exterior into brittle, darkened clumps. He staggered, clawing at the air, trying to break through the spinning inferno.
But every time he lunged, he slammed into a wall of scorching wind—Peter's slipstream, pushed outward like a rotating barricade of pressure. The impact sent his limbs collapsing back into scattered dunes.
"Marko, we can talk about this!" Peter shouted, his voice fighting through the howling vortex he'd created. "Maybe I can help you!"
Marko didn't listen. He compressed himself, pulling thousands of swirling grains into a tight, narrow spire. The column of sand shot upward like a spear, attempting to punch a hole straight through the vortex's ceiling.
"Nice try, big guy—BUT NOPE!" Lizzy dove from above, her hands blazing as she unleashed another spiraling torrent of flames downward. The fire slammed into the rising spire, knocking it back into the whirlwind. Molten sand sprayed everywhere in bright orange droplets before cooling and clattering to the floor like glass beads.
Marko howled—an echoing, hollow bellow that vibrated the air. He tried again, twisting his body into a massive tidal wave of sand that surged toward the weakest patch of flame. The wave hit the fiery barrier like a crashing breaker—but Peter pivoted sharply, skidding across the sand in a crack of blue light, reinforcing the wall with another blast of wind.
The collision detonated in a burst of burning sand that rained down inside the fiery vortex.
Lizzy winced. "Okay, that's actually kinda impressive… and terrifying."
Marko roared again, voice rattling like grinding stone. His body swelled, gathering mass from the sand beneath him as he threw everything he had at the flaming vortex and the wind wall trapping him.
But the harder he pushed, the stronger the prison became—fire fed by motion, wind shaped by speed, and both interlocking around him like twin jaws.
For the first time, fear flickered through Marko's rugged voice.
"I… I can't—" He slammed his fists into the swirling barrier again, but the heat blasted them back as the winds pressed in tighter. "LET ME OUT!!"
"COWABUNGA!!"
The shout crashed over the battlefield as loudly as the incoming tidal surge. Peter and Lizzy both turned toward the ocean just in time to see Felicia riding the crest of a massive tidal wave. The water churned beneath her like a living beast, rising higher and higher as if summoned from the sea floor itself. Silver light pulsed from Felicia's hands, threads of magic snaking through the water as she commanded it.
"What did the ocean say to the beach?!" Felicia yelled, her voice echoing across the stretch of sand as the wave bore down on them. She leapt gracefully off the crest, flipping in the air as she and the others scrambled out of the way.
"Nothing—it just waved!"
The tidal wave crashed into the pillar of flames and into Marko with a thunderous WHOOOM! Steam exploded outward in a gigantic billowing cloud, hissing violently as fire met water. Marko roared, staggered, and tried to hold himself together as the intense heat from Lizzy's flames fused his sand… only for Felicia's sudden deluge to shock it ice-cold. His movements jolted, stiffened, and the once-malleable sand hardened into a rock-like crust. Cracks spread across his form like fractures in volcanic stone, and steam poured off him in long ghostly tendrils.
A swirling portal tore open in midair behind the steaming statue, and Peter shot forward, wrapped in a storm of lightning and residual heat. His entire body vibrated with momentum, electricity flickering like blue wildfire around his limbs.
"Kat, we're giving you private lessons on quips after this," he called out, fist cocked back and glowing, "because that one was terrible!"
His punch connected with a deafening crack. All the accumulated heat and electrical charge Peter carried unleashed at once, traveling through Marko's hardened shell like a shockwave. The crust glowed briefly—then shattered. Sandman collapsed into a pile of enormous brittle rubble, each chunk crashing into the ground with the weight of demolished concrete.
Felicia landed lightly on her feet, hair damp and sticking to her cheeks. "What was wrong with what I said?! It was a good joke!" she protested, arms crossed in a dramatic pout.
Peter landed beside her, still shedding lingering sparks. Lizzy floated down just behind him. "Yeah, I'm sorry," Lizzy said through a laugh, shaking her head, "but your delivery was rough."
Peter motioned toward the broken mound of rubble and the slowly dissipating sandstorm. "Now if you will, please," he said, gesturing at the fractured remains of Marko.
Felicia grumbled under her breath but stepped forward anyway. Her hands shimmered with the same silver aura, probability warping around her fingertips as she focused. "I'd like to see you come up with something better…" she muttered while nudging reality back into place.
Under her guidance, the crumbled pieces of Marko began pulling together like magnets snapping into alignment. Sand melted into sand, clumps reattached, and the structure reshaped itself. Soon, Marko was no longer a scattered ruin but a slumped figure on his hands and knees, breathing hard and sluggish.
Peter crouched in front of him, pulling a specialized pair of restraints from his belt. With a soft click, he slapped the cuffs onto Marko's wrists. Instantly, the sand coating his body withdrew, collapsing in gentle streams to the ground. His human form reemerged from beneath the dissolving façade.
"Marko!!" Peter greeted warmly with a smile.
"Spider-Man…" Marko grumbled, eyes radiating pure irritation.
"Actually you were supposed to say Polo, but I'll let it slide," Peter said, straightening up before glancing at Felicia. "And that's how you quip—not whatever catastrophe you dropped earlier."
Felicia puffed her cheeks out in an exaggerated pout, glaring at him. "You're so annoying."
Peter and Lizzy both snorted, trying and failing not to laugh. Marko, however, clenched his fists and gritted his teeth hard enough that Peter's smile slowly faded.
"You can't keep me here!" Marko shouted, voice shaking with urgency. "Let me go—I have to save my daughter!!"
All three heroes froze.
Peter's expression tightened, humor draining from his face as he looked down at Marko with a sudden, sharp seriousness.
"…What?"
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