Before the man arrived, the sword arrived first.
Wielding the Sword Vigor, Leopardon brought it crashing down onto Galactus, sending a massive shower of energy sparks exploding across his armor.
Although Galactus' celestial armor was durable enough to withstand the tremendous slash without suffering any real damage, he was still forced to interrupt his feast and divert his attention to dealing with the giant robot.
The reason was simple.
This giant machine's hands weren't exactly clean either.
Every few moments, it would deliberately shift its attacks toward Galactus' Matter-Energy Converter.
With protecting his dinner taking top priority, Galactus fired a beam of cosmic energy from his eyes, intending to destroy Leopardon in a single strike.
But its pilot, Takuya Yamashiro, raised the Sword Vigor just in time to block it.
The overwhelming cosmic beam erupted into rippling arcs of electricity along the blade.
Instead of being destroyed, the sword actually absorbed the incoming attack.
A computerized voice echoed through Leopardon's cockpit.
"Sword Vigor fully charged."
Testing his luck, Takuya swung the sword, releasing a blazing arc of sword energy.
To his surprise, Galactus raised an arm to block—
—and was actually forced back a single step.
"It works!"
Taking advantage of the fully charged weapon, Takuya launched into a relentless barrage of attacks, forcing Galactus who was unwilling to waste any more cosmic energy than necessary to continually defend himself.
Having learned his lesson from fighting the Zarab, Takuya didn't pour all of the sword's energy into one all-or-nothing finishing strike.
The legendary blade was said to be capable of killing anything in a single blow...
...but that depended entirely on who it was being used against.
Instead, he chose a battle of attrition, keeping Galactus occupied in prolonged close combat.
Meanwhile, the other Spider-Men swung through the city on webs stretched between skyscrapers and the giant robot, occasionally firing webs or anchoring silk lines onto Galactus to provide whatever tiny distractions they could.
"I got him!"
One rather reckless Spider-Man shouted after wrapping Galactus' right arm in webbing.
Only a second later, the overwhelming force pulling from the other end made him realize something was terribly wrong.
"No, wait—"
"He's got me!"
The next instant, Galactus casually swung his arm.
While forcing Leopardon backward, he simultaneously flung the unfortunate Spider-Man high into the sky.
"AAAAAAAHHHH!"
"Damn it!"
Spider-Man 2099, Miguel O'Hara, deployed the nanotech wings on his back and immediately flew after him, grumbling over the team communicator as he did.
"Which idiot was that?"
"Uh... Peter Parker?"
"Yeah, pretty sure it was Peter Parker."
"That's not helpful!"
"Most of us are Peter Parker!"
Trying to get useful information out of this bunch of goofballs was clearly a lost cause.
Miguel quickly caught up to the falling Spider-Man and grabbed him midair.
Only then did he notice something strange.
"You're this universe's Peter Parker... aren't you?"
Beneath the familiar red-and-blue Spider-Man costume, the young voice answered with obvious guilt.
"No, sir."
"I'm Spider-Man Peter Parker from Earth-2818."
"In case you didn't know."
Faced with such an obvious lie, Miguel who remembered every single Spider-Man he'd personally recruited immediately squeezed the boy's shoulder hard enough to make him yelp before exposing the bluff.
"Spider-Man of Earth-2818 is a fully cybernetic Cyber Spider-Man."
"He's supposed to be helping Iron Man build the weapon right now."
Firing a strand of nanotech webbing and anchoring it to the giant stone Ultraman statue at the center of the battlefield, Miguel folded away his wings and stabilized himself in midair.
As far as he knew, this universe's Peter Parker had only just awakened his powers.
He hadn't even officially become Spider-Man yet.
His Uncle Ben was still alive.
A battlefield like this was absolutely no place for him.
Miguel prepared to toss the impersonating young Peter safely out of the combat zone.
"Listen."
"You're not ready for—"
Being held up by both arms, Peter suddenly widened his eyes and shouted, interrupting Miguel's lecture.
"Sir!"
"Behind you!"
"Nice try."
Having dealt with countless mischievous Peter Parkers over the years, Miguel paid absolutely no attention to the act.
"I've already met hundreds of slippery little guys just like—"
---
"Is your part finished yet?"
Inside the laboratory, everyone worked at a frantic pace.
The workstations were practically throwing sparks from the sheer intensity of their efforts.
The cannon barrel.
The energy relay.
The ignition assembly.
Every component had already been completed.
Only one final task remained—
Engraving the weapon's energy circuits.
That responsibility belonged to Cyber Spider-Man.
"Very few Peter Parkers have ever devoted themselves to Spider-Man's cause to the extent of replacing their entire bodies with cybernetic prosthetics..."
"...transforming themselves into a machine of perfect precision, flawless efficiency, icy rationality, and relentless sarcasm."
"You really don't need to narrate your own introduction."
Everyone waiting for Cyber Spider-Man to finish wiped the sweat from their foreheads.
"We all have the member database."
"We know who you are."
"Done."
Retracting the laser engraving device back into his mechanical forearm, Cyber Spider-Man casually tossed the completed circuit board through the air.
Several Spider-Men nearly jumped out of their skin.
They scrambled frantically to catch the final component before it hit the floor.
"So now we just need to—"
BOOM!!
Spider-Man 2099 and Peter Parker smashed straight through one of Stark Tower's massive glass windows, crashing into the laboratory together.
The Spider-Men moved in perfect unison, quickly pulling every piece of equipment and machinery out of the path where the two were about to crash. Thanks to their teamwork, nothing in the lab was damaged.
"What about us?!"
The two men rolled across the floor together before painfully rubbing their aching backs and struggling to their feet. They shouted in perfect sync,
"Couldn't somebody have caught us?!"
The Spider-Men answered just as uniformly,
"Our hands were full!"
BOOM!
A deafening explosion echoed across the entire city.
Another violent shockwave swept through New York.
Every window on the outside of the building shattered instantly, and even the tower's steel framework groaned as it shook under the overwhelming force.
"What the hell just happened?"
Having removed his Iron Man armor to make experimentation easier, Tony nearly lost his footing under the impact.
Thinking about Takuya Yamashiro's nationality, an alarming thought suddenly crossed his mind.
"Oh, God..."
"Don't tell me he installed some kind of kamikaze protocol inside that giant robot!"
At this point, the losses were already unbearable.
Joey's fate was unknown.
The Silver Surfer and Thor had disappeared.
More than half of New York had already been destroyed.
If Takuya had just sacrificed himself by detonating Leopardon simply to buy him more time...
Then even if Tony eventually managed to drive Galactus away with the newly completed weapon...
What exactly would they have succeeded in protecting?
"No... I think it's more complicated than that."
Spider-Man 2099 and Peter had both looked back just before being thrown away from the battlefield.
They knew exactly what had happened.
"That giant..."
Before either of them could explain, every Spider-Man present suddenly stiffened.
Every muscle in their bodies tensed.
A sharp pain pulsed at their temples.
Their Spider-Sense had detected an overwhelming threat, surging to an intensity none of them had ever experienced before.
"Look out!"
The Spider-Men closest to Tony immediately threw themselves toward him.
Their first priority was protecting the only ordinary human in the room.
A massive shadow descended from above.
It rapidly expanded until it completely engulfed the entire building.
Leopardon crashed down from the sky, sparks pouring from its damaged body as it embedded itself into the middle floors of Stark Tower.
Its reactor was still active.
At that very moment...
It lost control.
Violent cosmic energy erupted outward.
The tremendous explosion blasted straight through the already heavily damaged tower, snapping Stark Tower in half.
An enormous wave of unstable, superheated ionized radiation flooded through the building, overloading nearly every electronic device in an instant.
The Spider-Men scattered immediately, each finding an escape route while carrying Tony Stark out of the collapsing skyscraper.
Tony's reactions were nowhere near fast enough to match theirs.
He had only barely managed to activate his armor before the explosion.
The alien ionizing radiation burned the portions of his face that hadn't yet been covered by the suit, leaving bloody scorch marks across his skin.
His entire body ached from the blast.
His vision blurred.
Even so, he never forgot why he had stayed behind.
"Wait..."
"The components!"
The components they had worked so desperately to build.
The key to defeating Galactus.
After enduring an energy blast like that...
Had they survived?
"They're gone."
Cyber Spider-Man, protected by an energy shield he had deployed just in time, picked up the circuit board he had thrown only moments earlier.
As expected...
It had already become nothing more than warped metal and shattered silicon.
Without hesitation, he tossed the ruined component aside.
With one arm, he hoisted Spider-Man 2099, whose armor had completely shut down because he lacked a Spider-Sense to react in time.
With the other, he grabbed the injured Peter Parker from this universe.
Then Cyber Spider-Man leapt toward the edge of the collapsing building.
"I'm not talking about the components."
"I'm talking about us."
"We're all finished."
He said that because he had already followed the direction both Spider-Men had been pointing.
And what he saw on the battlefield was...
A completely new development.
The giant of light that had fallen silent while battling Galactus...
The one that had turned into a lifeless stone statue...
...had miraculously begun moving once again.
There was just...
One tiny difference.
"Well..."
"I certainly didn't expect to discover an entirely new story in such a remote universe."
"And one that has developed into a sequel I never anticipated."
"Though..."
"This isn't the direction I'd hoped the story would take."
Far above the universe itself...
Hidden within the void beyond reality...
The Watcher, Uatu, silently observed every change unfolding in Earth's desperate battle.
Unfortunately...
The situation had become grim for everyone involved.
"I am the Watcher."
"I do not interfere..."
"Not in the past."
"Not in the present."
"And not in the future."
"But..."
Uatu slowly shifted his gaze away from Earth.
His eyes turned toward the distant reaches of space.
Toward the Silver Surfer and Thor...
Both of whom had been casually swatted into deep space by Galactus.
And then...
A single thought occurred to him.
"What if..."