Chapter 86: The Snapping Web
The glowing green hologram of the newly synthesized element spun flawlessly in the air. Tony stared at it in absolute silence, his genius brain finally catching up to the fact that he had just been out-engineered by a guy holding a glass of scotch.
"I read a lot," Ethan smirked, taking another sip.
Before Tony could formulate a comeback, a violent, blaring siren erupted in Ethan's mind.
The scotch sloshed in his glass as a blood-red System interface hijacked his vision, pulsing with a frantic, lethal urgency.
[ Emergency Quest Triggered: The Snapping Web ]
Objective: Gwen Stacy has been cornered by interdimensional predators. Save her.
Failure: Death of the Spider-Totem.
Reward: 5,000 System Points, +50 Gwen Maxine Favorability, 1x Multiversal Tracker.
System Note: The Inheritors have caught her scent. Move now.
Ethan's smirk vanished. The relaxed, arrogant posture melted away, replaced by cold, calculated tension. He set the glass down on the workbench with a sharp clack.
"Gotta go, tin can," Ethan said, his voice clipped.
Tony frowned, noticing the sudden shift. "What happened? You look troubled. Did you leave the stove on in your magic mansion?"
"Not troubled. Just exasperated," Ethan grunted. He closed his eyes, tapping into the vast reserves of his Wizarding Core. He cast a localized, city-wide tracking spell, searching for the unique, vibrating frequency of Gwen's multiversal signature. "That girl has gotten herself into some serious trouble."
"Oh. The Gwen girl," Tony said, leaning back and wiping grease off his hands. "I have to say, when you told me to forge her an airtight identity, I suspected she was a bit abnormal. But I never expected her to be a spider. 'Pink-Web Patroller', huh?"
Ethan opened his eyes. The spell locked on. "Of all places, she had to go to Hell's Kitchen in the middle of the night."
"No time for chit-chat, man," Ethan interrupted. He raised his hand and spun two fingers in a tight circle.
A shower of golden sparks tore through the lab, opening a portal straight into the rainy, neon-lit skyline of Hell's Kitchen. Ethan didn't wait for Tony's response. He stepped through, and the portal hissed shut.
The transition from the sterile lab to the gritty, rain-slicked rooftop was instant.
Ethan stepped onto the gravel, the heavy downpour instantly soaking his charcoal shirt. The smell of blood and wet asphalt was overpowering. He looked up, and his golden eyes narrowed.
It was an absolute bloodbath.
Gwen was pinned to the ground near a shattered skylight, her white-and-pink suit slashed in half a dozen places. Looming over her was a nightmare—a massive, grotesque, multi-limbed beast that looked like a terrifying fusion of a hairless wolf and a spider. A 'Hound' of the Inheritors.
But the beast wasn't alone.
Flanking it were two figures Ethan instantly recognized, though they looked wrong. Twisted. One was a hulking behemoth encased in thick, grey, rhino-like armor. The other was a leaner man in sickly green plating, a massive, mechanical scorpion tail whipping back and forth behind him.
They weren't the MCU villains. They were enslaved variants. Hounds from another universe, brainwashed and sent to hunt down Spider-Totems across the multiverse.
And they weren't the only ones on the roof.
Lying in a crumpled, bleeding heap near the edge of the building was a man in dark red tactical armor, a pair of small horns jutting from his cowl. Matt Murdock. Daredevil. He was clutching his ribs, struggling to breathe, having clearly gotten caught in the crossfire of a multiversal hunting party.
The multi-limbed beast sniffed the air. Its head snapped up, its six pitch-black eyes locking onto Ethan.
Gwen turned her head, fighting against the crushing weight of the beast's claw. Through the torn fabric of her mask, Ethan saw the absolute terror in her eyes instantly shift into a desperate, clinging hope.
"Ethan..." she gasped, coughing up a spatter of blood.
Ethan stepped forward, the rain vaporizing inches from his skin as his magic flared to life.
"You Spiders never listen, do you?" Ethan sighed, his voice echoing over the storm. "I told you to stay at the Sanctum."
The Scorpion variant hissed, his mechanical tail striking the concrete. "Another bug? No... you smell different."
"I'm the exterminator," Ethan said.
He didn't wait for them to attack. The 10% Ben Tennyson template flared in his mind, flooding his muscles with Plumber martial arts training and peak-human agility.
Scorpion lunged first. The mechanical tail whipped forward at blinding speed, aimed directly at Ethan's chest.
Ethan didn't cast a shield. He sidestepped with liquid, effortless grace, letting the lethal stinger breeze past his ear. He pivoted, grabbing the thick metal cable of the tail with both hands.
"Confringo!"
A blast of pure, explosive kinetic energy channeled straight from his palms into the armor. The explosion blew Scorpion backward, shattering the concrete edge of the roof and sending him tumbling into the alley below.
"One down," Ethan grunted.
But Rhino didn't give him a second to breathe. The behemoth charged, the ground shaking with every step.
Ethan swiped his hand, summoning a massive, rotating Tao Mandala shield. The Rhino slammed into it. The impact was like a freight train hitting a brick wall. The Eldritch geometry cracked and shattered under the sheer multiversal density of the armor.
The blow carried through, grazing Ethan's shoulder.
Ethan grunted in pain, feeling the fabric of his leather jacket tear and warm blood spill down his arm. He used the momentum to backflip—a flawless, Plumber-trained evasion—landing softly ten feet away.
These guys aren't jokes, Ethan thought, his eyes flashing. They're empowered by Inheritor magic.
The multi-limbed Hound screeched, abandoning Gwen and leaping at Ethan. It moved erratically, all six limbs clawing at the air.
"Enough," Ethan roared.
He slammed his hands together, pulling them apart to reveal thick, crackling ropes of dark red energy.
"Crimson Bands of Cyttorak!"
The Eldritch whips shot forward like homing missiles. They wrapped around the Hound in mid-air, binding its multiple limbs to its torso with a violent, magical constriction. The beast hit the gravel with a heavy, wet thud, thrashing wildly, but the bands only tightened the more it struggled.
Seeing the Hound captured and Scorpion missing, the Rhino variant let out a frustrated bellow. He reached into a pouch on his waist and smashed a small, glowing device against the roof.
A jagged, tear in space-time ripped open—a harsh, violent portal that smelled of ozone and decayed meat.
Rhino didn't hesitate. He dove backward into the rift. A split-second later, Scorpion's mechanical claw reached up from the alley, dragging his battered body into the portal just as it collapsed and vanished completely.
The roof fell silent, save for the pouring rain and the shrieking of the bound Hound.
A few yards away, Matt Murdock was trying to push himself up.
His radar sense was completely overwhelmed. The world around him was usually painted in crisp, sonar-like lines of sound and vibration. But the man who had just stepped onto the roof?
Matt "looked" at Ethan and felt a profound, terrifying awe.
Ethan didn't just have a heartbeat. To Daredevil's heightened senses, the man felt like a roaring, open furnace. His heartbeat was steady, but the sheer, crushing density of the energy radiating off him felt like standing next to a dying star. It was dangerous. It was absolute.
"Who... who are you?" Matt rasped, spitting blood onto the gravel.
Ethan walked over to Gwen, ignoring the bleeding vigilante for a moment. He knelt down, offering her a hand.
"Told you," Ethan said, pulling her up. "In my city, we squash the bugs."
Gwen leaned heavily against him, clutching her ribs. She looked at the torn leather on his shoulder, her eyes softening. "You're bleeding."
"Yeah. Ruined a good jacket," Ethan muttered, looking at the captured, writhing Hound.
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