The sudden appearance of Spider-Man instantly sent the trio—who had been quietly stealing cargo into full-on berserk mode.
Clearly, this wasn't their first run-in with the pesky wall-crawler or the Vulture.
Every time this little spider popped up out of nowhere, he ruined their plans.
Naturally, they were itching to finish him off for good before he dragged the real Avengers into the mess.
The container yard was now a warzone—loud, chaotic, and ablaze with conflict.
Spider-Man zipped around, dodging the Tinkerer's relentless attacks while firing back with webs from the shooters on his wrists.
"Web Shot! Rapid Web Fire!"
Peter Parker called out his moves like a kid in an arcade game while flipping and rolling across the battlefield.
"Spider Leap! Web Split! Sticky Web! Web Blade! Take this! Oh—and Web Grenade!"
A wild flurry of webs in all shapes and sizes shot toward the Tinkerer, but each one was neatly countered by the two mechanical arms on the villain's back.
'Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!'
The cannons mounted on those arms kept firing nonstop, giving Peter barely any room to breathe.
Explosive rounds whizzed past him, leaving trails of blazing heat as they smashed into the nearby containers.
'Hissss—!'
Wherever the shots landed, the steel walls of the containers began to melt—fast.
The once-solid metal turned black and gooey in an instant, collapsing into an unrecognizable, soft mass like ice cream dumped onto a hot griddle.
"Holy crap! What the heck is that?! That's terrifying! I really don't want to end up melted, thanks!" Spider-Man quipped, dodging another blast.
"Since when do you guys carry weapons of mass destruction when pulling a heist?!"
"Hmph! You don't get a say in this, little spider!" The Tinkerer sneered. "This is my personally-designed Thermal Dissolver Cannon—it can melt almost anything!"
As soon as he finished speaking, another volley of deadly rounds screamed toward Spider-Man.
While Peter leapt and twisted, firing webs in return, his spider-sense suddenly flared—sharp and violent, like a hammer blow to the chest.
'THUD.'
Something huge and dark dropped from above—metal wings screeching through the air like banshees.
A blast of searing wind and the grating of steel on steel rushed straight for the back of his neck.
Vulture's dive attack!
"Oh, come on! I'm so dead—I'm so dead! This is not fun! You guys are such bullies!"
Peter gasped, even now unable to stop cracking jokes.
"Seriously, you're all old enough to know better—shouldn't you be treating kids with some respect? At least give me a fair fight!"
Vulture's razor-sharp talons drew closer. Meanwhile, the Tinkerer's blasts had boxed Peter in—no room to dodge.
Spider-Man was trapped.
Either get skewered by Vulture's alloy claws... or get dissolved into sludge by the Tinkerer's thermal blasts.
A true double bind.
Twice the danger... twice the (nonexistent) fun.
'WHOOSH—!'
At the last second, a silver flash streaked through the air.
'CLANG—!'
Vulture's wing was pierced—a sleek arrow drilled straight through his mechanical flight gear, embedding itself deep in the armor on his back.
"Gah! Damn it—another one of you?!" Vulture flinched hard, thrown off balance by the sudden strike.
He flared his wings, banking sharply to escape and gain altitude again, all while scanning desperately for whoever just ambushed him.
"Thanks, Lila! You're a lifesaver!" Spider-Man grinned and waved toward the distance.
"Love ya!"
"Ugh, you're so annoying!" Lila Barton's irritated voice came over the comms.
"And hey—I told you! When we're in the field, call me White Owl! What if the enemy hears you using my real name?!"
"Oh, right, sorry—White Owl!" Peter clamped a hand over his mouth sheepishly before turning back to the Tinkerer.
"Looks like it's a fair fight now. Two-on-two. If you surrender quietly, you can avoid a lot of pain, you know."
"Hah! Keep dreaming, kid. One or two—it makes no difference. Sooner or later, I'm melting you both down!"
The Tinkerer growled, lifting his mechanical arms again and taking aim at the perched Spider-Man.
"Die!"
"Still want to fight? Fine—I've got all day!" Spider-Man shot another webline and swung into action, diving straight back into the brawl with the Tinkerer.
'VROOOM—!'
Vulture wasn't sitting idle either.
He looped through the sky in a perfect arc and dove toward Spider-Man again.
'WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!'
At that moment, more arrows whizzed past the Vulture, striking sparks and gashes across his mechanical flight suit.
Perched atop a distant shipping container, Lila Barton stood confidently in her sleek tactical bodysuit, wielding her modified high-tech compound bow.
Her slim, poised figure carried a trace of her father Hawkeye's sharp presence.
"Feet apart. Steady breath. Calm mind. No pride, no fear."
Lila silently recited the mantra her father had drilled into her as she drew another arrow and took aim, unleashing a precise volley toward the Vulture.
"Tch... Looks like I'll have to take care of that annoying archer first," Vulture growled.
Dodging Lila's deadly shots, he abruptly changed course, angling toward the young heroine known as White Owl.
"Here he comes..." Lila inhaled deeply, her expression calm and unflinching.
With perfect timing, she sprang off the container, narrowly evading Vulture's dive attack while loosing another arrow in counterstrike.
Her lithe form darted gracefully through the maze of shipping crates, engaging the Vulture in a fast-paced game of cat and mouse—her speed and agility matched against his brutal, unrelenting assaults.
Meanwhile...
Spider-Man vs. Tinkerer.
White Owl vs. Vulture.
The entire unloading dock had erupted into chaos.
On the edge of the battlefield, another member of the villainous gang—Shocker—was still stuck to the side of a container, trapped by Spider-Man's stubborn webs.
He grunted in frustration, yanking and pulling, but the webs refused to budge.
No matter how he struggled, the tough, elastic strands held fast.
With a long sigh, Shocker glanced toward his battling comrades.
"Tch... Guess I have no choice. I'll have to use that. Ugh, I hate this damn feeling of quantum shift... but whatever. Here goes nothing!"
Clenching his teeth, he activated a special module on his combat suit.
Suddenly, strange quantum ripples spread across his body.
It was as if his entire form had become distorted, flickering like a glitched-out TV screen caught between channels.
'BZZZT!'
The next second, his body turned semi-transparent, and he slipped effortlessly from Spider-Man's webbing—like he'd stepped out of this reality and into another dimension entirely.
Quantum shift—initiated!
Wait... isn't that Ghost's ability?
As far as I recall, Ava Starr—better known as Ghost—gained her quantum phasing powers after a catastrophic quantum tunnel explosion, allowing her to manipulate matter on a subatomic level in the macroscopic world.
But the side effects left her in constant agony...
Watching from a concealed spot near the docks, Hitomi Kagura narrowed her eyes, taking everything in.
All the intel she gathered was being streamed live to Cortana via Rhodes Industries' global surveillance system.
So Ghost's powers... but used by Shocker?
And not even innate—triggered by his combat suit.
Hmm... interesting, very interesting.
Hitomi nodded silently, piecing together the situation.
Looks like Ghost herself had teamed up with Vulture's crew, sharing her quantum tech through specialized equipment so that others could replicate her abilities.
No wonder Lila Barton had reported seeing multiple "Ghosts" looting high-tech shipments lately.
Ghost and Vulture—two villain factions, joining forces... what a pain.
"Ha! It worked!"
Freed from the webbing, Shocker cracked his neck and stretched, grinning wickedly as he turned toward Spider-Man.
"Hey, kid... Let me teach you what real fear looks like—the kind of fear that makes your bones rattle and your heart stop!"
But before he could jump into the Tinkerer and Spider-Man fight, a small voice chirped behind him.
"Hey, mister!"
Shocker froze.
"You're going the wrong way, you know. Your fight's with me!"
A tiny figure stood confidently behind him—a girl, voice clear and defiant.
"After all... this is supposed to be a fair three-on-three!"
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