The absolute best perk of being a master thief was never having to worry about being robbed. You were the apex predator of petty theft.
Felicia Hardy knelt on the floor of Peter's hotel room, aggressively rummaging through his surprisingly neat suitcase. Peter had told her he prepped specialized bombs to deal with Hydro-Man. They had to be in here.
Her fingers brushed against a padded internal pocket. She pulled out two identical, sleek metal cylinders. She turned them over in her palms. No labels. No warning stickers. Was one for Hydro-Man and the other for something else entirely?
"A little color-coding wouldn't kill you, Parker," she muttered.
She needed a second opinion. She turned toward the desk. A small, specialized glass containment jar sat near the lamp. Inside, a puddle of black, gelatinous sludge shifted weakly. The symbiote was still severely drained from its brutal encounter with the Molten Man, but it was conscious.
Felicia tapped the glass. "Hey. Your name is Venom, right?"
The black sludge shivered.
Felicia held up the two metal tubes. "Which one of these is the payload for the giant walking puddle?"
A tiny, razor-thin black tendril extended from the sludge. It tapped the glass directly in front of the two tubes in her left hand. Then, the tip of the tendril curled into a surprisingly perfect 'OK' sign.
"Good boy," Felicia smirked. "Sorry I can't take you out to play today. You wouldn't be much help against a tidal wave anyway. Rest up."
She pocketed the tubes, zipped the suitcase, and slipped out the door. She moved silently down the hallway, narrowly dodging a cluster of Midtown High students arguing over a map near the elevator bank. She pulled up her hood and vanished into the stairwell.
Meanwhile, the canals of Venice were boiling.
Spider-Man and Silk darted across the terracotta rooftops, coordinating their strikes alongside the Wild Pack's heavy assault helicopters. Silvija hovered her gunship low over the churning water. Standard high-frequency sonic disruptors were entirely useless. She switched to cryogenic munitions.
A volley of freezing missiles slammed into Hydro-Man's chest. The colossal Hydro-Man flash-froze into a solid block of ice.
A second later, the ice shattered. Hydro-Man simply drew thousands of gallons of fresh water straight from the Venetian canals—which fed directly into the Adriatic Sea—and instantly rebuilt his towering form. Ammunition was completely irrelevant against an enemy with an infinite supply of ammunition.
Silvija gripped the flight stick, her eyes narrowing at the tactical monitors. "There's something wrong with his structural cohesion," she broadcasted over the comms. "He's not just water. He's spiked the local canals with some kind of chemical thickening agent. A localized hydro-gel. It's keeping his form stable against the freezing impacts."
Peter swung under a stone bridge, his black stealth suit blending perfectly with the deep shadows. He landed on a wooden mooring post. He fired two web lines, braiding them together into a thick cord. He channeled his newly stabilized bio-electric output straight down the silk.
The high-voltage whip cracked like thunder. It lashed across Hydro-Man's chest. Searing steam hissed into the air. The bio-electricity hit hard, but the gel-thickened water insulated the monster's core.
"I have everything I need right here, Spider-Man!" Hydro-Man roared, his liquid form swelling to the height of a three-story building. "I am going to drown you in this miserable city!"
Hydro-Man threw a massive, liquid haymaker.
Peter didn't blink. He backflipped off the wooden post. Mid-air, he fired a webline at an empty, drifting gondola. He used his momentum to rip the boat out of the water and hurled it directly into Hydro-Man's face. The heavy wood splintered against the elemental's dense jaw, exploding into a massive splash of spray.
Miles away, sitting in a dark subterranean bunker, Hydra operatives monitored the chaotic feed. They noted a glaring tactical detail: Spider-Man wasn't wearing the symbiote. He was wearing his black stealth suit. He was vulnerable.
Hydro-Man prepared to summon a tidal wave to crush the surrounding piazza.
A sleek shadow dropped onto the rooftop behind Peter. Felicia tossed the two metal tubes through the air. Peter snatched them out of the sky without looking.
"How exactly do you detonate those?" Felicia yelled over the roaring water. "I don't see a pull-ring!"
"I'm the detonator!" Peter shouted back. He tapped his earpiece. "Sable! Order the Wild Pack to cease fire immediately! I'm going in!"
"Are you insane?" Silvija's voice crackled through the comms. "The cryo-rounds are the only things slowing him down! If you dive in there, he'll crush you into paste!"
"Trust me!" Peter yelled. He turned his masked face toward Cindy. "Silk! Get ready to yank me out on my mark!"
Cindy didn't argue. Thanks to her unique spider-sense, she could passively track Peter's exact location, distance, and physical state at all times. If he gave the signal, she wouldn't miss. She locked her stance on the edge of the roof, readying her wrists.
Peter fired two web-lines to opposite sides of the canal. He pulled backward, stretching the high-tensile silk to its absolute limit. He released his grip.
He launched himself like a human cannonball directly into the center of Hydro-Man's chest.
He plunged into the freezing, pressurized water. The crushing force was immediate. Peter brought his fists together, violently crushing the two metal tubes. A highly volatile, experimental chemical catalyst spilled into the rushing water.
Peter unleashed his bio-electric field.
Blinding white lightning erupted from his stealth suit. He didn't just shock the water. He used his suit's amplified external speakers to vibrate a message directly into the surrounding fluid, hammering the soundwaves straight into Hydro-Man's consciousness.
"Did you know," Peter's voice boomed through the boiling water, "that if you pour a single cup of liquid into the sea, eventually every drop of the ocean will contain those original molecules?"
Peter pushed the bio-electric output to its absolute maximum. The electric current acted as an aggressive accelerant, violently diffusing the chemical catalyst throughout Hydro-Man's entire gelatinous structure.
"Let's see how you handle rapid molecular diffusion!"
The chemical reaction triggered instantly. The high-energy catalyst—liberated from a heavily restricted Baxter Building laboratory—reacted with the intense bio-electric current. It initiated a catastrophic, instantaneous electrolysis.
Hydro-Man's watery body was violently ripped apart at the molecular level, separating into pure hydrogen and oxygen gas.
Hydro-Man's control slipped. The pressure dropped.
Peter punched his way through the surface of the monster's chest, gasping for air. "Now!"
A thick line of natural spider-silk slapped against Peter's shoulder. Cindy violently yanked backward. Peter went flying out of the water, sailing through the air toward the clock tower.
A stray arc of bio-electricity ignited the newly formed hydrogen gas.
The canal detonated.
A massive, concussive explosion rocked Venice. A blinding fireball flashed over the waterway, instantly vaporizing the remaining liquid of Hydro-Man. A scalding rain of steam and harmless droplets showered down across the cobblestones.
Felicia stared at the empty canal, her jaw slightly slack. "What the hell did you just do?"
"Basic electrolysis," Peter panted, landing heavily on the roof tiles. "I used a high-energy catalyst from the Baxter Building. Combined with my electric output, it ripped the water molecules apart. H2O becomes hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen goes boom."
Silvija's gunship banked hard, hovering over the steam-choked canal. The side door slid open. She aimed her heavy rifle at the water, searching for a target.
"Stand down, Sable!" Peter yelled, holding up a hand. "It's over! We won!"
"Won?" Silvija shouted back. "He's just scattered! He'll reform!"
"No, he won't," Peter said, pointing down at the water.
Floating in the center of the debris field was a large, splintered wooden door torn from one of the sunken gondolas. Carved deeply into the wet wood—etched with frantic, high-pressure water jets just seconds before the explosion—was a desperate message.
HYDRO-MAN AND SANDMAN WILL SURRENDER. GUARANTEE OUR SAFETY.
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