The Prowler’s arms and legs were completely bound in webbing, leaving both his claws and jet boots useless.
He had been struggling fiercely, but Peter’s next words made his entire body go rigid.
“Mr.
Aaron Davis, have you ever wondered what would happen if your identity were exposed?”
“You…
How could you possibly know…?”
“Don’t forget, if the Multiverse has Spider-Men, then naturally it also has Prowlers.
Finding out your identity wasn’t difficult.”
“I will never betray Kingpin!”
“Kingpin?
What if I told you that in some universes, you die at Kingpin’s hands?”
The Prowler’s eyes flickered behind his mask.
His trust in Kingpin had clearly begun to waver.
“One last thing.
Your nephew Miles is fighting the Green Goblin right now.
He’s a true hero.
What does that make you?”
Peter raised a hand and pointed toward the distant battlefield where Miles was fighting.
The Prowler went completely still.
To him, the revelation was like a bolt from the blue.
Having said all he needed to say, Peter fired a strand of webbing and prepared to rush to Gwen’s aid.
Kingpin was the strongest of the Supervillains.
Gwen could not handle him alone.
As Peter swung away, he left the Prowler with one final sentence.
“You don’t have much time left to make amends.
You don’t want to see the disappointment in Miles’s eyes, do you?”
The Prowler closed his eyes in anguish.
He was torn, unable to decide what he should do.
He feared his family discovering his true identity, but he could not bear the thought of his nephew dying at Kingpin’s hands.
Perhaps…
Spider-Man was right.
There was still time to make amends…
When the Prowler opened his eyes again, all hesitation and conflict were gone.
In their place was unwavering determination.
He would sever every tie to his dark past, accept the punishment he deserved, and start over!
“Hey, Spider-Man!
Come over here!
I can get you to Kingpin right away!”
…
Gwen was in a bad situation.
To be precise, she was in an extremely bad situation.
Kingpin might have looked bulky, but with his monstrous muscular strength, his straight-line acceleration was terrifyingly fast.
Every punch and kick came with the speed and violence of an exploding bomb.
Even the gusts created by his missed strikes made it difficult for Gwen to breathe.
There was no way she could fight him head-on.
All she could do was rely on her Spider-Sense and agility to evade his attacks.
But as Kingpin gradually became familiar with her dodging patterns, it was only a matter of time before he landed a hit.
Suddenly…
“Hey, hey, hey!
Chubby Wilson, isn’t picking on a little girl a little out of character for you?”
The familiar taunt made Kingpin’s punch falter for an instant.
Gwen seized the chance to backflip away and create some distance.
When she turned her head, she saw Peter crouched on the Prowler’s back, speeding toward her.
The Prowler, who should have been on Kingpin’s side, was now serving as a human aircraft.
His actions made it clear that he had switched sides.
Kingpin’s eyes widened.
The whites were almost completely covered in dense blood vessels, making him look as terrifying as a rabid dog.
“Prowler!
How dare you betray me!”
Faced with his former boss’s fury, the Prowler merely sneered.
“I didn’t have a choice before.
Now, I want to be a good person.”
The Prowler’s last-minute betrayal immediately placed him at the top of Kingpin’s kill list.
For the moment, he had even surpassed Spider-Man.
Kingpin reached beneath the hem of his suit with his heavily muscled right arm, drew a silver pistol, and aimed it at the Prowler.
It was the same weapon that had killed the Prowler with a single shot in the original storyline.
The silver pistol looked unremarkable, but since it could pierce the Prowler’s armor in one shot, it was undoubtedly a specially made weapon.
Peter, however, had already been prepared and acted first.
“Foul!
Foul!
Concealed weapons are confiscated.
Hand it over.”
Whoosh!
A strand of webbing struck the pistol’s barrel with pinpoint accuracy.
It sealed the barrel instantly, trapping the pressure inside.
At that exact moment, Kingpin pulled the trigger.
Boom!
Fire erupted, and shards of metal flew in every direction.
It was as though Kingpin had been holding a fragmentation grenade when it exploded.
The pistol’s metal fragments were propelled with tremendous kinetic force when the chamber burst, turning them into deadly projectiles.
In an instant, they tore through the skin of Kingpin’s right hand.
Yet Kingpin’s terrifying muscular strength was fully displayed at that moment.
Every fragment was caught in muscle fibers as tough as reinforced steel.
They could penetrate no farther.
An explosion powerful enough to blow off an ordinary person’s entire arm had left Kingpin with nothing more than superficial wounds.
“Hey, Spider-Man!
This is as far as I can take you.
I need to get to Miles!”
The Prowler used all his strength to launch Peter from his back, then immediately changed direction and flew toward Miles’s battlefield.
Peter traced a wide arc through the air and landed smoothly in front of Gwen.
“I’ll handle Kingpin.
Go help Peni.”
Gwen looked at Peter’s back, and an unfamiliar sense of security rose within her.
So this was what it felt like to have another Spider-Man as a partner.
It was surprisingly reassuring.
“Be careful.
Kingpin in this universe is ridiculously strong.”
Peter nodded.
With the hand held behind his back, he smoothly accepted the [Key] Gwen discreetly passed to him.
Kingpin clenched his fist so hard that the metal fragments embedded in his muscle fibers were forcibly expelled.
When he saw Gwen leave, a vicious grin spread across his face.
“Little spider, you’ll regret trying to fight me alone.
Didn’t you learn anything from your predecessor?”
“Wilson, I hope you’ll still have enough energy to entertain me with jokes after I beat you into the ground.”
The tension between Peter and Kingpin had reached its limit, like a powder keg waiting for the slightest spark.
At that exact moment, the countdown reached zero!
Buzz!
Enormous purple beams of energy erupted from both ends of the Particle Collider.
The two beams collided in the center, tearing open the barrier of space and forcibly creating a vast, dark-purple void.
Spatial rifts opened one after another within it.
Objects from different Multiverses were dragged through and pulled into a universe where they did not belong.
Skyscrapers, city streets, all kinds of cars, trains, and aircraft appeared.
Even the Statue of Liberty was pulled inside!
“Now.
This is our chance!”
Peter reacted instantly.
He fired a strand of webbing onto the outer wall of a skyscraper floating overhead and allowed it to carry him upward toward the center of the dark-purple void.
“Don’t even think about escaping!”
Kingpin roared.
The muscles in his legs swelled so violently that they tore through his loose suit pants.
Boom!
The alloy floor collapsed beneath him as Kingpin launched himself into the air and pursued Peter.
Peter had barely landed on the side of the skyscraper when Kingpin crashed toward him like a human meteor.
Amid exploding glass and chunks of shattered concrete, a head-on clash became unavoidable.
The two fought fiercely at close range while steadily drawing closer to the center of the dark-purple space.
At last, Peter and Kingpin both leaped into a floating subway car, reaching the area surrounded by countless spatial rifts.
“So you’ve finally chosen your grave?
You have terrible taste.”
Kingpin’s muscles bulged, and veins covered his skin.
He looked almost comparable to the Green Hulk.
Peter merely shrugged and, unusually, said nothing.
He knew what was about to happen.
“Where is this?
How did we get here?”
A wavering voice familiar to Kingpin drifted through the air.
Kingpin trembled and turned in disbelief.
Before him stood the flickering, translucent figures of a woman and a boy.
“Vanessa!
Richard!
Don’t go!”
Kingpin instinctively reached toward the two flickering figures.
The dark-purple space had caused the time and space of different Multiverses to overlap.
What Kingpin was seeing were his loved ones from another Multiverse.
The entire reason he had tried to open a passage to the Multiverse was to find his deceased wife and son.
Their appearance completely overwhelmed him.
For a moment, he even forgot Spider-Man was there.
“Good night, Wilson!”
Peter put all his strength into a punch that struck the defenseless Kingpin squarely in the jaw.
The tremendous impact caused Kingpin’s brain to slam back and forth against the inside of his skull, sending him into a deep coma.
Boom!
Kingpin collapsed.
Peter was also beginning to feel exhausted, but he forced himself to bind Kingpin into a ball with webbing.
He then hoisted Kingpin onto his shoulder, leaped out of the subway car, and moved through the surrounding obstacles until he returned to the Particle Collider.
After tossing Kingpin aside, Peter reestablished contact with his teammates through his tactical headset.
Every battlefield had ended in victory for the Spider-Men.
It was the best news Peter had heard all night.
Peter then looked toward the center of the dark-purple void.
The countless spatial rifts had joined together, forming five stable Multiverse portals.
He took a deep breath and spoke to his companions.
“Guys, I’ve got good news and bad news.
Which one do you want first?”
Over the tactical channel, the Spider-Men unanimously chose the bad news.
“All right.
Looks like everyone prefers to get the unpleasant part over with.
The bad news is that the Multiverse portals have fully opened.”
The communication channel fell silent.
Everyone assumed the mission had ultimately failed.
“The good news is that you can go straight home through those open Multiverse portals.
After that, we can blow up the Particle Collider and close every portal.”
Peter forcefully tore open the half-destroyed alloy shield.
At last, the crucial USB port was revealed.
Peter took out the [Key] Gwen had passed to him and aligned it with the port.
Over the communication channel, Peter offered his final farewell to the other Spider-Men.
“My dear friends, are you ready to go home?”