"Captain America?"
Sandman's eyes locked onto the man in front of him, and his face twisted with disbelief that quickly turned into raw frustration. He looked Steve up and down like he was trying to confirm this wasn't some kind of sick joke.
"This has got to be a joke," he muttered, his voice tight with anger. "All this… for a million bucks?"
His grip tightened unconsciously, sand shifting around his fingers as his emotions spiked. He hadn't robbed a vault full of gold. He hadn't taken down a city block. He'd grabbed what he needed—barely enough to keep his daughter alive—and suddenly every major hero in New York was crawling out of the woodwork to stop him.
"Do you people really have nothing better to do?" he snapped.
But frustration didn't slow him down.
If they thought he'd just give up now, they were out of their minds.
Sandman lunged forward without hesitation, diving toward the fallen suitcase as if it were the only thing that mattered in the world—because to him, it was. Every second counted, every delay shaved away another piece of his daughter's chances.
Steve moved just as fast.
Captain America surged forward, cutting him off before he could reach the money. The vibranium shield came up in a clean, practiced motion, intercepting Sandman's advance and forcing him back into a close-quarters struggle.
The clash between them wasn't flashy, but it was relentless.
As the first super soldier, Steve was the peak of human potential—strength, speed, endurance, and willpower all pushed to their absolute limit. Every movement he made was efficient, disciplined, and backed by decades of combat experience. He didn't waste energy, didn't overextend, didn't panic.
Sandman, on the other hand, was raw adaptability.
His body shifted constantly, reforming around impacts, absorbing damage that would've crippled a normal person. Even when Steve's strikes landed clean, they didn't end the fight—they just slowed it down.
The result was a stalemate.
Neither side could break the other quickly.
"Bang!!!"
The sudden impact shattered that balance.
Sandman's body was sent flying sideways, his form scattering into loose grains before snapping back together. He hit the ground hard, skidding across the platform before catching himself. When he looked up, his expression froze.
Something was wrong.
In the shadows beyond the cracked wall, something moved.
At first, it was just sound.
A low, guttural roar, like a beast dragging itself out of a nightmare. Then came the movement—black shapes twisting, writhing, multiplying in chaotic layers. They looked like tendrils, or maybe limbs, or maybe something that didn't have a proper name at all.
They converged.
Compressed.
And then formed something that vaguely resembled a human figure—if that human had been dragged through something dark and warped on the way out.
Sandman swallowed.
"That… that's not Spider-Man," he said under his breath.
It wasn't.
Whatever stood there now was something else entirely.
Earlier, Locke had forced Spider-Man back with a clean, overwhelming display of swordsmanship. But that clash hadn't ended anything—it had only pushed Peter deeper into the darkness he was already drowning in.
The symbiote reacted to that pressure.
It fed on it.
What had once been a controlled enhancement was now spiraling out of control. The black substance spread across his body like a living infection, splitting, growing, layering over itself until it formed something closer to a monstrous reptilian spider than anything human.
The shape was wrong.
The movement was wrong.
Even the air around it felt wrong.
Sandman stood there, momentarily speechless.
Captain America saw it too, and for a fraction of a second, his calm cracked. His brows pulled together, the weight of the situation settling in as he realized just how far things had escalated.
But what unsettled him even more wasn't the creature.
It was Locke.
The man standing calmly nearby, sword in hand, watching it all unfold.
Before Locke had left S.H.I.E.L.D., he'd been dangerous—but contained. His strength had been measurable, his limits at least somewhat understood. Now?
Now he felt like a completely different entity.
Stronger.
Sharper.
Unpredictable.
"Has he been holding back this whole time?" Steve thought, the idea forming quickly and refusing to go away.
If that was true, then Locke wasn't just a problem.
He was a threat.
A serious one.
Someone with power like that, combined with a grudge against S.H.I.E.L.D., wasn't something you let walk free indefinitely. If there was a chance to deal with him here, now, before things got worse—
Steve's grip on the shield tightened slightly.
"Unless we end this here…"
The thought lingered.
Locke, meanwhile, had already moved.
The Bloodthirsty Blade hummed softly in his hand as he shifted his stance, the air around him dropping several degrees in an instant. Frost crept outward from his position, thin at first, then thickening as a chilling aura spread across the platform.
The temperature plunged.
Breath turned to mist.
Then the technique unfolded.
The second form of the Aohan Six Secrets surged through his body, manifesting as a sweeping wave of frost-laced blade energy. It cut through the air and solidified instantly, forming a towering wall of ice—thick, dense, and unyielding.
Three feet deep.
It rose between them and the monstrous Spider-Man, sealing him in like a beast locked inside a cage.
The transformation was immediate.
The roaring, thrashing creature slammed against the frozen barrier, but the structure held firm, the ice reinforced by the same killing intent that powered Locke's blade. For a moment, the chaos was contained.
Just like that.
A rampaging superpowered threat—neutralized.
Locke turned his head slightly, eyes settling on Steve.
"Well, this is a coincidence," he said lightly. "Didn't expect to run into you here, Captain."
Steve raised his shield instinctively, every instinct telling him not to underestimate the man in front of him. At the same time, his free hand moved to his ear, pressing the comm device hidden there.
"Locke," he began, his tone measured, controlled. "About what happened—"
"Whoosh—!"
The response came in the form of a blade.
Locke didn't wait for him to finish.
The sword flashed, and a line of force tore across the platform. Steve reacted instantly, diving to the side as the attack carved a deep trench into the ground where he'd been standing moments earlier.
When he looked back, the mark stretched nearly ten feet long.
Clean.
Precise.
Lethal.
If that had landed—
Even his enhanced body wouldn't have walked it off.
"Have you lost your mind?" Steve roared, anger finally breaking through. "We were on the same side!"
Locke didn't look impressed.
"Iron Man's on his way, isn't he?" he said calmly. "Maybe Black Widow and Hawkeye too. You stall me here, keep me talking, and they show up to box me in."
He tilted his head slightly, voice almost conversational.
"If you wanted to drag me into a trap, you could've been more subtle about it."
Steve froze.
Just for a second.
But it was enough.
Everything Locke said was accurate.
Backup was already inbound. In a couple of minutes, this station would be crawling with reinforcements. Steve had chosen to engage, to delay, to create an opening.
And in doing so, he'd made his position clear.
His jaw tightened, a flush creeping up his face despite himself.
He didn't have a rebuttal.
"Butcher," he said finally, forcing the words out. "Don't do this. Don't go down this road."
Locke's gaze flicked briefly toward the ice barrier, where the trapped creature inside was starting to crack the surface with brute force.
"Captain," he replied, almost casually, "I'd worry less about me and more about that."
He lifted his sword slightly.
Then brought it down.
The ice shattered.
The barrier exploded outward in a storm of frozen fragments, and the thing inside surged free like a predator finally released. The monstrous spider form hit the ground with a heavy impact, its limbs spreading wide, its eyes empty of anything resembling reason.
There was no Peter Parker in that moment.
Only instinct.
Only hunger.
Only violence.
Steve's expression darkened instantly.
He wasn't built for this kind of fight—not like this. He couldn't fly. He didn't have overwhelming firepower. Against something like that, he was operating at a disadvantage he couldn't easily overcome.
And Locke—
Locke didn't stay.
He stepped back, motioning once to Sandman.
That was all the invitation needed.
The two of them moved in sync, turning and heading for the exit before Steve could close the distance. By the time he pushed forward, they were already gone, disappearing up the stairwell and out into the city above.
Behind him, the creature roared.
And Captain America was left alone with it.