The Elementals' assault drove the Midtown High tour group off the streets, but the teenagers didn't cower in their hotel rooms. The school had booked a hotel with a sprawling, velvet-lined lounge. The entire class huddled around a massive plasma screen, watching live aerial footage from local Italian news crews crazy enough to fly helicopters into a superhuman warzone.
"That's him!" Flash Thompson cheered, vaulting onto a velvet ottoman and jabbing a finger at the screen. "That's Spider-Man! What did I tell you losers? That was absolutely him in Lisbon!"
Across the room, the Life Model Decoys of Peter, Cindy, and Felicia sat quietly among their classmates. It was the perfect alibi. If Peter Parker was sitting on a leather sofa in Naples, he couldn't possibly be fighting monsters outside.
Harry frowned, squinting at the LMD Peter. "Wait. I thought we were dealing with some British knock-off?"
The Peter LMD simply pointed at the TV ticker. "Look at the news scroll. It shows Spider-Man running across the Mediterranean Sea. He probably just crossed the Atlantic."
Flash didn't care about the logistics. He just pumped his fist, his fanboy bravado fully reignited.
Out in the ruined plaza of Naples, the real Peter Parker dropped his makeshift, hermetically-sealed vacuum rig. He had just sucked Whirlwind's lethal biochemical gas completely out of the atmosphere.
Peter tapped the side of his tactical goggles. A stark red warning blinked across his heads-up display. The miniature arc reactor powering his Speed Suit was draining fast. The cold fusion output couldn't maintain peak efficiency for much longer. The suit absolutely devoured power.
Just need it to last long enough to drop one of these windbags, Peter thought, rolling his shoulders to loosen the high-flex fibers.
A heavy pair of boots slammed into the cobblestones beside him. Captain Britain straightened up, adjusting his grip. "Brilliant timing, Spider-Man. Though, from my briefing files, you aren't typically classified as a speedster."
"There are exceptions to every rule, Cap!" Peter quipped, his lenses narrowing to focus on the swirling storms ahead. "I originally built this rig to handle a guy made entirely of electricity. Figured it would work just as well on an angry weather system!"
Brian Braddock raised an eyebrow. "I assume you have a tactical plan, then?"
"Always!" Peter lied. "Can you and your team distract the others? Leave the giant walking fan to me."
Captain Britain offered a grim smile. "Consider it done."
Peter didn't rush in blind. He had analyzed the Wild Pack's combat footage on the flight over. Whirlwind didn't just control the wind; he generated tornadoes through his own localized, high-speed rotation. Every wind blade and gust originated from that kinetic spin.
The countermeasure was basic physics. Find the epicenter, rotate in the exact opposite direction at a higher velocity, and cancel out the shear force.
Across the plaza, Excalibur launched their offensive. Captain Britain launched himself into the sky, colliding brutally with Jim Hammond, the WWII-era synthetic being. Meggan's mutant physiology shifted, bursting into an avatar of living fire to scorch Sandman into glass. From the shadows, Psylocke drove a telepathic spike directly into Hydro-Man's consciousness, stalling his watery advance.
That left Peter and Whirlwind.
Peter engaged the Velocity Suit's maximum overdrive. His boots cracked the pavement. A deafening sonic boom shattered the remaining windows in the plaza. He became a blur of white lightning, carving a tight, impossibly fast circle directly against the rotation of Whirlwind's tornado.
The storm immediately began to collapse.
Whirlwind panicked. The sheer aerodynamic drag was neutralizing his spin. Abandoning his physical manifestation, Whirlwind shifted into his ethereal spirit form, intending to slip away on the ambient breeze.
He didn't realize Spider-Man could see him.
Peter snapped his wrists forward. He didn't fire standard webbing. He drew deep on his unique status as a Patriarch, channeling the ambient magic of the Web of Fate. He shot strands of ethereal, glowing silk directly into the eye of the collapsing storm.
The magical webbing latched onto Whirlwind's spirit body. The wind-manipulator roared, a sound like tearing metal. It felt exactly like what had happened to the Molten Man. He was being tethered.
I am the free wind! Whirlwind mentally shrieked. You cannot leash a hurricane!
In a desperate, terrifying surge of power, Whirlwind began to spin at his absolute maximum output. He accelerated in the opposite direction, matching Spider-Man's trajectory. A colossal, apocalyptic tornado erupted from the cobblestones, stretching into the heavens. The sky blackened instantly, blotting out the sun.
Peter didn't flinch. He grounded his stance, his boots skidding back three inches. He wove a specific spell directly into his silk.
The Snare of Neith.
The glowing, ethereal web snapped tight. It didn't just catch the wind; it trapped Whirlwind's very soul.
The massive tornado abruptly stalled. Whirlwind let out an agonizing wail. He hung suspended in the air, his spiritual form bound completely in place.
Then, something went wrong.
A violent, unnatural twitch wracked Whirlwind's spirit. Thick, noxious green smoke began pouring from his ethereal form. It was a kill-switch.
Peter's eyes widened in horror. It wasn't just him.
"Pull back! Retreat!" Sandman bellowed, its granular form trembling. "Leave him!"
Hydro-Man didn't hesitate, surging away toward the coastline.
Whirlwind reached out a hand, thrashing against the webbing. He looked toward the sky, desperately trying to see something through the green haze.
But there was nothing. His entire life had been a frantic, destructive spin, and in his final moments, he saw absolutely nothing at all. The green smoke consumed him, and the wind simply died.
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