"It seems… Tony won't be able to hold on much longer."
Hidden in the shadows, Captain Steve watched as one steel suit after another was torn apart in front of him until Tony Stark was left fighting alone. After seeing the battle develop to this point, he arrived at that conclusion ahead of time, his expression dark and grim.
He wanted to step in and help. So did the other two. But after witnessing that earlier clash, the kind that looked more like a war between gods than anything human, all three of them wisely gave up on the idea.
They could handle ordinary supervillains. That much had never been in doubt.
But against a monster of this scale, they were helpless.
Hawkeye gripped his bow so tightly his knuckles turned pale, yet he didn't dare loose a single arrow. Even Iron Man's lasers couldn't pierce that monstrous spider's outer shell, so what could his arrows possibly do? Under normal circumstances, he was more than happy to criticize Tony Stark's mouth and attitude, but when a real crisis hit, the only person they had left to depend on was the same arrogant billionaire they usually couldn't stand.
And judging by the current situation, even Tony was in serious danger.
"Maybe… our new teammate can do it."
Captain Steve turned his head and spoke in a solemn tone, his expression carrying the kind of certainty that made people want to believe him. He didn't look like he was guessing. He looked like he already knew the answer.
"That Dr. Banner guy?" Hawkeye asked, clearly unconvinced. "The one who's supposed to be some kind of combat specialist?"
"That's right," Steve replied with a nod.
"But he looks like he'd get blown over by a strong wind," Hawkeye shot back. "How is somebody like that supposed to beat something this insane?"
His doubt wasn't unreasonable. Ever since Dr. Banner had joined the organization, he'd never actually shown the team what he could do in a real fight. There was nothing concrete to build trust on. Aside from Captain Steve, who naturally served as the standard everyone else measured themselves against, no one on the team had seen enough to believe Banner could really make a difference.
But Steve had.
On the second day after Banner joined, Steve had learned the truth from Agent Hill. He'd watched the footage too. The moment Banner's emotions tipped over the edge, a green monster had erupted from his body and flattened an entire school with raw force.
That wasn't ordinary power. That was something close to divine.
If a force like that could be controlled and properly directed, it would change the entire balance of world peace. After all, even weapons of mass destruction like nuclear bombs were still just dead things. They had to be launched, targeted, guided.
Banner was alive.
Captain Steve looked at the others and said with deep meaning, "So what if it's Tony? He still can't beat Dr. Banner."
He spoke with such certainty that it almost sounded like prophecy.
Then the sky split open.
A terrifying shockwave tore through the clouds above and came crashing down with unstoppable force, slamming directly into the giant spider demon just as Peter thought victory was finally within reach. The blast hit like divine punishment.
"Boom!!!"
The explosion spread instantly.
Dust billowed in all directions, chunks of broken concrete lifted into the air, and the shattered remains of the surrounding ruins were swept up in the violent wave of force. It struck again, even harder this time, driving everything deeper into the ground and turning the battlefield into an even more lifeless wasteland.
Inside the pillar of destruction, Peter howled.
The Venom symbiote had enormous potential. It had fused with him and transformed him into the giant spider demon that had nearly reduced this district to rubble. But no matter how strong it became, light and heat were still its natural enemies. The only difference now was that its resistance had improved slightly thanks to the monstrous shell it had grown around itself.
But now that shell had been broken.
Once the beam punched through the outer armor, the damage no longer stopped at the surface. It was applied directly to Venom itself. The pain was so intense that the symbiote, which had expanded to its absolute limit, began to contract and melt away.
It shrank like ice under a merciless sun.
In only a few dozen seconds, the giant spider demon lost more than half its size. What had once towered over the battlefield was now reduced to a twisted thing only a dozen meters tall, and that obvious change didn't go unnoticed.
"Clang."
Captain Steve's shield slipped from his hand and hit the ground.
Just one second earlier, he had been confidently declaring that Tony Stark was about to lose. Then reality turned around and slapped him across the face so hard it left a mark.
"Heh… it's just high-tech firepower," Steve said, immediately trying to recover his dignity as he turned toward the others. "Dr. Banner is different. He tears everything apart with pure physical strength, one punch at a time, one kick at a time."
"That kind of strength is real strength…"
"Aaaaaah!"
A shrill scream ripped across the battlefield before Steve could finish posturing.
The giant spider demon was still breaking apart. In the time it took to blink, it shrank again, this time down to only five meters tall. At the center of the collapsing monster, Peter's body was finally exposed. He writhed madly on the ground, every nerve in his body flooded with pain as he felt the satellite cannon's full power burning through him.
It was agony beyond description.
If Venom hadn't diluted and spread through most of his body, that attack would have torn him apart already. But even symbiotes had limits. As Venom shrank further and further, it became barely capable of covering him at all, and the energy cannon still hadn't stopped firing.
Peter understood something with brutal clarity.
If he didn't find a way out now, he was going to die.
Under the pressure of that overwhelming force, he frantically tried to think of some solution, any solution, but his mind came up empty. The scorching power had already started to burn through his skin. It hurt so badly that the pain itself became its own kind of madness.
I'm going to die.
I'm really going to die.
The suffocating terror of death wrapped around him completely.
Peter's eyes went wide as he looked around wildly, and what he saw only made the rage in his chest explode even harder. Captain Steve. Black Widow. The others. They were standing there, watching coldly as if his life ending in front of them was nothing more than a spectacle.
How could he accept dying like this?
How could he lose to these people?
Right at the edge of death, Peter briefly regained a shred of clarity, only to be met with even deeper despair. He could feel everything slipping away at once—his strength, his body, his pride, his future.
Then the battlefield changed.
"Boom!!!"
At that critical moment, the world itself seemed to shift.
Dark clouds suddenly gathered overhead, rolling together in a violent mass as thunder growled between them. Lightning flashed through the sky, so dense and wild it looked like a storm had been born in an instant. Then countless bolts of lightning came crashing down from above, striking toward Peter one after another.
If the satellite cannon was already enough to erase the monster, this was like pouring fuel onto the fire.
Tony Stark lifted his mask and revealed a smug, satisfied expression as he admired the result. In his eyes, the dust had already settled and the battle was effectively over.
"Click."
April captured that expression perfectly.
"It's over," Captain Steve said with a slow shake of his head.
He had to admit it now. Dark Spider-Man was strong, terrifyingly strong even, but human power still had its limits. How could flesh and blood possibly stand against this kind of technology? Under that overwhelming energy cannon, with thunder and lightning crashing down from the heavens, Peter's fate seemed to have been decided long before this moment.
"I just hope S.H.I.E.L.D. gets a cut once the research on that alien creature starts producing results," Steve said.
He wasn't some old-fashioned purist. He'd already tested the suit Fitz built before, the prototype inspired by the Venom symbiote. That had only been an incomplete version. If they could obtain the finished product—
It would definitely allow him to protect this country even better!!!
——
Unexpectedly, after enduring both the satellite cannon and the lightning strike, Spider-Man Peter Parker survived.
.....
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