In the howling winds of New York City, Fisk Tower blazed brightly against the night sky, burning like a colossal torch.
A small aircraft, painted in iconic red and blue and adorned with spider insignias, glided silently through the air, hovering high above the skyscraper.
Spider-Man Noir and Miles Morales leaped down first.
Peni Parker and her massive SP//dr mech followed closely behind.
Together, the team landed softly on the top floor of the tower.
Through the massive glass dome beneath their feet, they could see a lavish memorial dinner for Spider-Man taking place inside.
Thomas hosting a memorial to mourn Spider-Man—it was a truly outrageous display of hypocrisy.
“Alright, we’ve breached Fisk Tower.
Everything is proceeding according to plan,” Noir whispered, turning to the two younger heroes beside him.
He sounded exactly like a strict homeroom teacher, deeply concerned with ensuring the safety of his students.
“You both remember the tactics we devised on the plane, right?”
“Of course!” Peni Parker said, brimming with confidence.
The Spider-mech looming behind her flashed a massive, cheerful electronic smiley face across its digital visor to second her statement.
“My suit recorded the entire tactical breakdown.
I guarantee there won’t be a single second of error.”
Miles, however, seemed a little more hesitant.
“First step, infiltrate.
Second step, find that giant machine.
Third step, insert the key…”
“That’s exactly right,” Noir said, his heavy black trench coat billowing in the howling wind as he reached out to pat his new apprentice on the head.
“You’re a rookie.
Just remember those three crucial steps, and leave the heavy lifting to me.”
Just as the three of them were finishing their hushed discussion, thunderous applause suddenly erupted from the banquet hall below.
Thomas, who had just wrapped up his speech, offered a charming, fake smile and waved to his wealthy guests before turning on his heel and leading his security detail out of the room.
“Go, go, go!” Noir hissed.
“Thomas is on the move.
Let’s follow him.”
“If we follow the shaft of the private elevator he’s using, it will take us straight underground,” Peni added.
She had already mapped out the entire architectural structure of Fisk Tower and calculated the most efficient infiltration route.
“That’s where the underground test site and the particle collider are located.”
The three heroes exchanged determined glances and nodded in perfect unison.
Under the cover of the dark night, they vanished from the rooftop in the blink of an eye.
***
Meanwhile, deep beneath Brooklyn, lay the 1 Franklin Street Station.
It had once been a bustling hub of the city’s subway system.
But five years ago, Thomas had used the construction of Fisk Tower as a convenient excuse to permanently reroute the transit lines to a newly built station nearby.
The original 1 Franklin Street Station had been completely abandoned by the public.
However, the supposedly sealed-off transit hub had been secretly transformed into a colossal underground testing facility.
Cold, impenetrable steel alloys completely lined the walls, making the space look like a giant metal egg buried deep within the earth.
And creeping through an abandoned subway tunnel that fed directly into that massive metal egg were three highly uninvited guests.
It was Peter Parker, dressed in his classic suit, walking alongside the middle-aged Peter Parker and Spider-Ham.
“Dear little fat Thomas, are you home?” the older Peter Parker shouted mockingly into the cavernous tunnel.
“Uncle Spider-Man is here for a visit!
Aren’t you going to come out and greet your guests?”
Spider-Ham, evidently feeling that the older Peter’s voice lacked the necessary punch, reached behind his back into some invisible cartoon pocket and casually pulled out a massive megaphone, handing it over.
“Here, buddy, use this,” the pig insisted.
“Your voice is so soft it sounds like you completely skipped lunch.”
“Thanks, this is going to come in very handy.” The older Peter grinned so widely it could practically be seen through the fabric of his mask.
Opportunities to openly mock a mob boss like Thomas with a literal megaphone were incredibly rare, and a seasoned Spider-Man was never going to pass one up.
Seeing what was about to happen, the younger Peter just sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and clamped his hands tightly over his ears.
A split second later, the older Peter’s magically amplified voice blasted through the subway tunnel, echoing with earth-shaking reverberations.
Up in the heavily armored collider control room, Thomas had just arrived and taken his seat.
Almost immediately, he spotted the three Spider-Men strutting into the tunnel on his security monitors.
Hearing the insulting nickname “Little Fat Thomas” blaring from the tunnel entrance caused thick, angry veins to bulge furiously across his gleaming, bald forehead.
“Why are there three of these damned crawlers?!” Thomas roared, slamming a massive fist onto his desk.
“I killed that wretched bug yesterday!”
Dr.
Olivia Octavius, busy typing away at the primary control panel, suddenly stopped.
Her voice spiked with a manic, agitated excitement.
“It must be alternate versions of Spider-Man from the multiverse!
My theory is correct!
The gateways to the multiverse have been successfully opened!”
Thomas stared viciously at the monitor, his heavy, muscular face trembling with pure, unadulterated rage.
“Kill those bugs!
I don’t care how many of them there are, kill them all!”
Upon receiving the order, his private enforcers sprang into action.
Prowler, Tombstone, Scorpion, and the Green Goblin—four highly lethal supervillains—each rushed out of the command center using their own unique methods, charging headlong toward the tunnel to intercept the three Spider-Men.
This aggressive response perfectly aligned with Peter’s master plan.
The loud, obnoxious distraction was working, successfully drawing the heavy hitters away and creating the perfect opening for the infiltration squad to deploy the override key.
A few minutes earlier.
Inside the cramped, dusty ventilation ducts running along the ceiling of the underground testing grounds, Spider-Man Noir and Miles were pressed tightly together.
They peered through the metal slats of an exhaust vent, silently observing the control room below.
Because Peni Parker lacked the ability to crawl on walls without her tech, she had climbed into the cockpit of her SP//dr mech, remaining slightly further back in the shaft to cover their rear.
The vent was positioned perfectly over the main control room, giving them a clear view of Doctor Octopus frantically typing away at the master computer terminal.
Chief Technology Officer of Alchemax.”
Noir held up a gloved hand.
Patience, kid.
The two nodded knowingly, biding their time.
A few moments later, Team B’s distraction went off exactly as planned, successfully luring the four supervillains out of the room to deal with the intruders in the tunnel.
Now, only Olivia and Thomas remained in the command center.
However, with the crime boss and his lead scientist still standing guard over the console, the infiltration plan couldn’t proceed.
Someone was going to have to act as a distraction and make a sacrifice play.
Noir immediately formulated his next move.
He turned back to Miles and Peni, offering them a firm, knowing nod.
A heartbeat later—Smash!
The heavy metal grille of the exhaust vent was violently kicked away.
Spider-Man Noir dropped from the ceiling, executing his classic, inverted entrance as he dangled upside down by a single thread of webbing.
Thomas’s cold, calculating eyes immediately snapped toward the ceiling.
They gleamed with a fierce, murderous light as he glared at the black-and-white vigilante.
His rage was practically boiling over.
Exactly how many of these masked freaks were going to show up tonight?!
“Boss, leave this monochrome bug to me,” Olivia purred smoothly.
“The automated sequence is already locked in.
The particle collision will initiate in exactly three minutes.”
She deftly tapped the final key on the console, then elegantly pulled out a hair tie and pulled her messy hair back into a tight bun.
Beneath her lab coat, massive, undulating tentacles forged from advanced biomaterials violently unfurled, extending one after another.
Taking a menacing stance, Doc Ock made her move.
The mechanical limbs slammed into the alloy walls, propelling her rapidly up toward the dangling Noir.
Seeing this deeply familiar, yet bizarrely altered threat, Noir’s pupils contracted sharply beneath his goggles.
The crushing bionic claws and the completely unhinged mad-scientist persona gave the hard-boiled detective a very stark reminder of just how wonderfully chaotic the multiverse truly was.
“I have to admit,” Noir said, his tone utterly devoid of fear, “meeting a female version of Doc Ock is quite a challenge to my worldview.”
“So…
goodbye, Ms.
Olivia,” Noir growled.
His voice was so mercilessly cold it felt as though shards of ice were falling from his lips.
“Go to hell, and repent to Satan for what you’ve done.”
In that exact same instant, Noir’s right hand moved in a blinding blur, drawing his heavy-caliber revolver with lightning speed.
Bang!
A silver-white, custom-machined bullet erupted from the scorching barrel, hurtling straight toward Olivia’s forehead.
This level of lethal, ruthless decisiveness was something Doc Ock had never expected from a Spider-Man.
Wasn’t this guy supposed to have a strict no-kill rule?
Completely caught off guard by the sheer brutality of the attack, Olivia froze.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as she helplessly watched the fatal slug tear through the air, piercing straight into her skull.