The elental's magma spray had coated the drones in a thick, heavy slag. Though EDITH commanded them to evade at maximum speed, their movents were sluggish, their agility stolen. The elental's hundred-ter arms swung down with impossible speed, and the sound of impact was a deafening crunch of rending tal. Twenty drones, built from alien alloys ant to withstand bombardnts, were instantly annihilated, their fragnts scattering like shrapnel through the burning forest.
The titan was not satisfied. A burning cosmic vortex of fla intensified around its massive body. It slowly raised one colossal leg and stomped down again with earth-shattering force. The few drones that had survived the first strike were caught in the second, crushed into nothing. A powerful shockwave, a localized earthquake, radiated from the impact point. Trees splintered and collapsed, their burning branches tracing fiery arcs through the superheated air. Even from a distance, the heroes felt the ground heave beneath their feet.
"Whoa! This thing's ground ga is as bad as the earth elental's!" the 2nd-generation Spider-Man quipped, trying to keep his balance.
The words had barely left his mouth when an ice-pick of pure panic stabbed into the back of his skull. His spider-sense shrieked, a frantic, overwhelming alarm that made his face go pale. A split second later, the 1st-generation Spider-Man and Gwen felt it too, their bodies tensing with a primal sense of imminent danger.
Before they could even voice a warning, the 2nd-generation Spider-Man scread, "Strange! Get us out! Mirror Dinsion, now!"
Without hesitation, Strange wrenched open a gateway, pulling them all into its safety. Two seconds later, they watched in horror as the very ground they had just been standing on bulged upward. Streams of superheated magma erupted from the earth, shooting straight into the sky in fiery columns. A second geyser tore through the surface, then a third, and a fourth.
The fire elental had forcibly drawn magma from the nearby, dormant Mount St. Helens, turning the valley into a volcanic hellscape. The lava columns surged toward the drone formation. EDITH's processors ran countless evasive maneuvers, but the eruption was too vast. The molten rock couldn't destroy the durable drones, but the sticky magma clogged their weapon ports, rendering a huge portion of the fleet useless.
"Oh my God… Did you see that?" Captain Arica, arriving late in the Quinjet, stared in stunned silence at the lava fountains erupting in the distance.
"I see it," Mysterio replied, his face grim. "But it shouldn't be possible…" In his universe, the fire elental could trigger eruptions, but it had never shown the power to rip magma from the crust on flat terrain. He gritted his teeth. "Open the cargo hatch, Cap!"
"Okay! Be careful out there!" Captain Arica hit the control, and the rear hatch hissed open. A blast of turbulent, hot air rushed into the cockpit. "Is that the heat from that thing?"
"That's the one! Fly safe, Cap! Don't want to see you go down!" Mysterio forced a confident smile, then leaped from the jet. Green illusory smoke trailed behind him as he soared toward the elental. He was still a good distance away when a pane of glass seed to shatter in the air before him. Before he could react, he plunged straight through it.
Natasha, seeing him approach, had asked Strange to pull him into the Mirror Dinsion. While his fishbowl helt could filter the toxic volcanic gases, it wouldn't protect him from a direct hit by molten lava.
From the sky, Captain Arica and Barton, piloting a support craft, could only watch from a safe distance, Bucky at Cap's side. The area for several kiloters around the elental was now a flowing river of magma. Anything that hadn't escaped—trees, animals, the very earth itself—was gone.
Inside the Mirror Dinsion, Scott looked at the molten landscape with an expression of pure terror. "If it wasn't for your spider-sense," he said to the 2nd-generation Spider-Man, his voice trembling, "we'd be… part of that."
The dinsional barrier cut off all communication. "I have to get out there," Tony said, "I need to assess the damage." Strange opened a small portal, and Tony flew out. His HUD instantly lit up with red icons. Three-quarters of the drone fleet were non-operational.
"The rest of you, stay here," Strange commanded. "The temperature is too extre. It's pointless for you to engage."
It was a demoralizing truth, but they all knew he was right.
"I can help," Gwen suddenly called out. "The symbiote… it's not affected by the heat."
The 1st-generation Spider-Man looked at her, then at the inferno raging outside. He had seen the suit protect her, but he hadn't realized the extent of its power. "It's really not affecting you? Not even this?"
"No. I haven't even broken a sweat. I don't feel hot at all," she said, her voice firm.
He nodded slowly, a dark, familiar idea taking root in his mind. He looked at her, his expression unreadable behind his mask, and extended a hand. "Symbiote," he commanded, his voice low and firm. "Return to ."
The black, liquid suit that enveloped Gwen instantly recoiled. With a fluid, silent motion, it flowed from her body, leaving her standing in her normal suit, and leaped across the small space to him.
"What?! Peter, what are you doing?!" Gwen cried out, reaching for his arm in shock.
But it was too late. "You don't have the suit anymore," he said, a strange mix of regret and exhilaration in his voice. "It's with ." The symbiote flowed over him, the iconic red and blue of his costu lting away into a stark, living canvas of black and white. He clenched his fists, feeling a surge of raw, intoxicating power.
"Wow," he breathed, the sound amplified by the newly ford mask. "I haven't felt this in a long ti." He could feel his strength multiplying, his senses sharpening to a razor's edge, all wrapped in a comforting, familiar darkness.
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