The air still trembled when the last blast died down. Smoke crawled through the streets like a living thing, and embers floated in the wet night like slow, angry stars. Sirens wailed distant and thin, the city's tired heartbeat trying to steady itself.
Spider-Man swung low, a black blur cutting through the haze. "I'll cut them off! Cover the wounded!" he yelled, voice raw over the roar. He rocketed between ruins, webbing snapping like the strings of a frantic harp. He twisted midair, caught a falling beam with one hand, and with the other flung a web-line that dragged a burning civilian out of the blast radius. Every motion was calculation and instinct.
Around him, rebels pushed through the chaos. Trey and Arlo hauled an injured scavenger past smoking wreckage. Milo barked coordinates from a shattered rooftop, his cybernetic optics spitting heat maps into a cracked holo. Quin moved like iron, dragging bodies to safety with blunt efficiency. Robin laughed once short, wild then fell silent as he worked to staunch a wound.
Frank Castle's voice cut through it all, a blade of order. "Pull the line back! Regroup at Point Echo!" Men and women obeyed without question. Punisher's soldiers formed a moving wall, every step measured, every shot deliberate.
Spider-Man's eyes kept flicking to the center of the chaos, Kraven, bound in thick webbing, sprawled against the cracked asphalt like a defeated animal. Even tied, Kraven's chest heaved. That slow, maddened grin still played at his lips.
(He's still alive. He's still the danger.) Spider-Man thought, chest tight. (I can't let that grin become a rallying cry.)
He landed beside Kraven and tightened the last of the bindings, fingers moving with mechanic calm. "You're done," he said quietly, more to himself than the hunter. "No more hunts."
Kraven's eyes tracked him. "Hunt… never ends," he rasped, voice frayed and unreal. "You'll feed the next…"
Spider-Man heard it as a promise and a threat both. He webbed Kraven's wrists to a reinforced column, then secured a pair of improvised shackles for good measure. "Not tonight."
Ganke jogged up, breathless, face streaked with soot. He spat on the ground in disgust, then crouched to check a rebel's pulse. "We lost—" He swallowed, the number stuck in his throat. "Too many."
"We did enough," Punisher said, cold and final. He holstered his rifle with a motion that said the work was far from over. "Everyone alive moves. No one sleeps here. We move."
The rebels stacked wounded onto stretchers. Spider-Man became a one-man triage on the move webbing a makeshift sling here, yanking down a metal girder there to stabilize a crushed limb. He worked faster than pain allowed, ignoring the burn along his ribs and the taste of iron in his mouth.
A static-laced tone whispered in Nick Fury's ear. He stepped aside from the regrouping cluster, pinched the comm, and activated his earpiece. A grainy drone feed blinked to life—a recon orb Milo had launched earlier, now re-routing through Fury's secured channel.
"We got something," Milo's voice crackled over the line. "Signature on the explosives—non-standard alloy. Microprints match to a vault in Octavius' old lab. Patterning consistent with experimental dispersal tech."
Fury's one good eye narrowed. "You saying these bombs are Doc Ock tech?"
"That's what the feed says," Milo replied. "Containment matrix and dispersal sequencing—Doc's fingerprint all over it. Either he supplied it, or someone broke into one of his caches."
Punisher stalked into the circle, every inch the battlefield commander. "Octavius' vault? That son of a bitch hoarded dangerous toys. If those weapons are Ock-made, we're not just dealing with gang bombs—we're cleaning up leftover lab-grade ordnance."
Spider-Man glanced up, breath steaming. "Doc Ock? He's been laying low, right? Why would his tech end up with the Vipers?"
Fury's jaw tightened. "Because someone inside the Six—or one of their contractors—raided a lab. Or Doc's selling off pieces to fund something bigger. Either way: this changes stakes. If those explosives are experimental, they'll keep evolving. We need to find the source and cut it off."
Ganke looked up at Kraven, then to Fury. "So Kraven's not the engine—he's the distraction."
"Exactly," Fury said. "He's a damn good distraction."
Punisher spat a curse into the wind. "Then we go to the source. Strip the hands from the snake. No more suicide runs, no more caught-in-the-open. We take the labs, burn the caches, and make sure Octavius's trash doesn't get recycled into terror."
Quin's silver braid gleamed as she nodded once. "We move at first light. Tonight we heal, arm, and share what we have. Milo—get me a map of Doc's lab locations."
Milo's eyes flared. "Already on it."
Harry stepped up beside Spider-Man, placing a steady hand on his friend's shoulder. The touch was small but it anchored Peter. "You okay?" he asked, voice low.
Peter met his gaze and gave a tight nod. "I'll be fine. Kraven's secured. We'll regroup."
(I'll be fine because I don't have a choice.), Peter thought. (Mark II or not—I've got to be the wall tonight.)
Punisher watched Kraven for a long moment, expression carved from stone. "Tied or not, this one's a lesson. We can't leave broken men to rot if they'll spark worse than they were before. We handle this clean."
Spider-Man stared down at the hunter, the hunter who'd called chaos beautiful. In the smoke and ruin, the hunter's laughter seemed to echo.
"I'll find out who linked Octavius to the Vipers," Spider-Man said, voice steady. "And we'll make sure it stops."
Fury's nod was a curt, dangerous promise. "Good. Take the night. Patch people up. I'll trace the lab hit and get us a strike plan. Spider, when you're ready, bring whatever you've got."
Spider-Man looked at his torn black suit, at the white crow pulsing faintly under the soot. He flexed his fingers, feeling the sting.
(Mark II soon. For now, this will have to do.)
They moved out like a living machine. The rebels carried their dead with a reverence that was both ritual and rebellion. Punisher ordered the wounded to the med tunnels. Quin organized the perimeter. Ganke and Harry walked side by side, eyes forward.
Above them, in the hollowed sky, the city's broken bones creaked. Far away, someone muttered a prayer. A siren cut the night into jagged slices.
Kraven's chest rose and fell once more. The hunter's grin was there even as medics clambered close to check for hidden explosives and fail-safes.
Spider-Man tightened the last knot on the webbing and stood, watching the rebel column move away.
(We'll end this. We will find the labs. We'll burn the cache. We'll stop Octavius—if he's involved—and anyone else trying to make monsters.)
As they withdrew into the dark, Fury's channel buzzed again with first passes at the lab locations. He set the files to share with the inner command.
"Tonight," he said, voice low and certain, "we rest. Tomorrow, we take away their toys."
Spider-Man swung upward once, then back down, joining the line. Behind him: rebels, wounded and fierce, moving toward a fragile kind of dawn.
Kraven's laughter drifted faintly on the wind still alive, still dangerous, but for now, secured.
To be continued.