"Boss, Sandman has landed in Lisbon."
"Damn Americans, always messing things up!"
Sylvia cursed under her breath. There was no reason for Sandman to come to Lisbon, why? Because Lisbon didn't have any strongholds or scientists needed for the Weapon Expansion Project. This fact alone was enough to prove that Sandman should not have come to Lisbon. Since that was the case, the Sandman, who was supposed to be in Madrid, appeared in Lisbon, and it must be due to some other reason.
What was the reason? Undoubtedly, it was Spider-Man and his crew.
The blame certainly did not lie with the Wild Pack, because until yesterday, Sylvia didn't know that an Avenger was coming. Otherwise, she wouldn't have underestimated Fury's order. But S.H.I.E.L.D. definitely knew that Spider-Man had come to Europe. Given this, it was obvious where the news had leaked from.
No, perhaps it was Nick Fury, that old bastard, who did it on purpose. His goal was probably to catch the mole and see exactly who might be colluding with the group behind the Weapon Expansion Project. As for the Wild Pack? They were just an extra piece.
Then I'll show you who the extra piece is!
"Pass the word down, everyone put on their protective suits and board the aircraft, prepare to engage."
"But Boss, we don't have a contingency plan—"
"Who says we don't have a contingency plan." Sylvia glared at her subordinate. "Move out immediately, I have a plan."
"Yes!"
Leaving aside what the Wild Pack's contingency plan was, let's return to Peter. After Sandman perfectly demonstrated "I am the approaching storm" to Peter from a physical perspective, he quickly swung towards the direction of the sandstorm with his web. The opponent seemed to have also spotted him and was moving towards him.
Soon, the two met in the skies above the old district. Countless fine grains of sand enveloped Peter. System analysis showed that these sands came from nearby beaches or pulverized walls and had nothing to do with deserts or sandy ground.
As for how these sands were being controlled, the system was still analyzing it, and Peter handed this task over to Ultron. Regardless of whether Ultron would rebel later, he hadn't yet, so why not make use of the free labor?
"Hey, hello, can you hear me?" Peter waved repeatedly at the face in the sandstorm. "I want to ask, did you get authorization from Hollywood for this? I remember a similar image in The Mummy movies. How much did you pay them for the copyright?"
As the air twisted, Peter saw countless fine sands drift down from the sandstorm, condensing into a man wearing a black and green striped shirt—this was almost the classic image of the Sandman, except that he also had a full beard.
"Spider-Man, I know you. You have defeated many people."
"And you're different? Trust me, many people have said that before."
"No, what I want to say is that I've come to test whether you are worthy of your reputation, and to see if, as they say, you are the best result of the Weapon Expansion Project so far."
They? Peter raised an eyebrow, then asked, "Who are they? Are they famous? Could you leave a contact method so I can get in touch with them? Even an email address would work. And your next line is, 'You've already lost, Spider-Man!'"
"You've already lost, Spider-Man!"
Sandman was taken aback after uttering this sentence, while Peter, who had played this joke twice, was quite pleased. Tiny currents emanated from around his body, attracting all the sand particles and preventing Sandman from controlling them freely. Then, Venom directly covered Peter, eating all the sand and spitting it out in one go. Sandman looked at Spider-Man in surprise, his expression suddenly becoming serious.
He finally began to treat this opponent seriously.
Sandman raised his fist, instantly using a large amount of sand to make his fist even bigger than Spider-Man himself, and immediately swung it down towards Spider-Man. But his giant fist was quickly caught. Four mechanical claws extended from behind Spider-Man, clamping onto Sandman's fist, and releasing a powerful current. The high temperature brought by the intense electricity instantly melted Sandman's entire fist into glass, which Peter then shattered with one punch.
"Do you have any other tricks? You already know that your sand can't control me, and your fists can't beat me. Anything else?"
Sandman's face was serious. He split one Sandman after another from his body, preparing to do something, when a whistling sound in the sky caught both of their attention. Peter looked up while catching a punch Sandman threw.
Did he just see a jet with tilt-rotors on its wings?
The eyes of the Spider-Mask widened instantly. Along with a series of explosion-like sounds coming from the aircraft, both of them could see white mist appearing in the sky, and the clouds began to thicken.
"Artificial rain, I guess you really hate this, don't you?"
Accompanying Spider-Man's words were paratroopers descending from the sky. They deployed their wingsuits and descended rapidly, their boldness surprising even Peter. One should know that it was a sandstorm all around—weren't these people afraid of their equipment getting sand inside and being controlled by Sandman?
Ultron gave Peter the answer.
[Their equipment has a current-driven shield system, which provides the same effect as your biological electricity for protection.]
As these special forces descended, they were simultaneously spraying something. With this spraying, Sandman's control over the sand visibly decreased. Peter watched all this with interest. It seemed that Sylvia was right yesterday; the Wild Pack was indeed prepared to surround and eliminate the Elementals, and they had conducted thorough investigation and preparations long ago.
So what was the point of Nick Fury sending them over? This was becoming more and more intriguing.
Sylvia landed cleanly beside Spider-Man. She was wearing a silver-white special operations suit and used her rocket pack to buffer her landing before continuously firing at Sandman. The moment the bullets hit Sandman, his body began to crumble, then dissolved into a pile of scattered sand.
"He ran," Sylvia said bluntly. "This is certainly not all his sand. These guys are very cunning."
"So, you have a way to deal with the Elementals, but you didn't tell us?"
"Because it wasn't time for pre-battle deployment yet, who knew they would try to raid you." Sylvia explained, putting away her two pistols. "It looks like you've put pressure on the people behind them, Spider-Man."