Parker materialized between Hercules and the Street Rat mid-battle, and reality simply... stopped.
Not time. Not space. But the very concept of conflict ceased to exist in his presence. Hercules's fist, mid-swing toward the Street Rat's face, simply hung in the air as if the idea of violence had been deleted from the universe.
The Street Rat's shadows, moments before lashing out like living whips, went still as death.
Both combatants stared at him—not with recognition, but with the bone-deep terror of prey animals realizing they were in the presence of an apex predator beyond their comprehension. If Parker's beauty was beyond what the world could explain, to them he was the most terrifying thing in existence. Perfect features that belonged to renaissance paintings carved from starlight and shadow, but eyes that held the weight of infinite lifetimes and the casual authority to unmake gods.
