“XLR…
what?”
Before Peter’s brain could even process the word, the blue-and-black conical mask was already pressed right against the tip of his nose.
There wasn’t even a rush of wind—because the sound had been left far behind.
*Thwack!*
Peter staggered back two steps, clutching his head as tears burst from his eyes.
It wasn’t a heavy blow—no dizzying concussion or excruciating pain of fractured bone.
Instead, it felt like someone had flicked the back of his head with a thick piece of high-elasticity rubber.
Insulting as hell.
“Too slow.”
The voice suddenly spoke right in his left ear.
Instinctively, Peter swung a left hook.
His red glove tore through the air, but it only dispersed a lingering blue afterimage.
“Too stiff.”
The voice instantly shifted to his right.
Gritting his teeth, Peter snapped his core and forced his center of gravity to shift, throwing a kick to the right.
Nothing but thin air again.
He hadn’t even grazed a thread of fabric.
“And…”
The playful, digitized voice came from below this time.
Peter’s scalp went numb.
He looked down.
A pair of sphere-shaped feet was spinning idle right between his legs.
The blue figure squatted on the ground and gave a gentle flick with his clawed fingers.
*Snip.* Left shoelace untied.
*Snip.* Right shoelace untied.
The two laces intertwined in the air, tied into a double knot with speed so fast it was a blur.
“Your shoelace technique is an utter disaster.
I redesigned it for you.”
“Hey!
Those are limited edition…
even if they’re second-hand!”
Peter cried out, trying to take a step to adjust his balance.
His feet were completely locked together.
He fell straight forward like a sawed-off log toward the sour, foul-smelling concrete.
His face was a mere ten centimeters from the ground.
Peter flicked his wrist instantly, shooting a strand of webbing at a streetlight and yanking himself back into the air, narrowly escaping facial disfigurement.
“Whoa, nice core strength.”
Leon was perching on a fire hydrant a few meters away, holding a can of soda without spilling a single drop.
Through his visor, he watched his cheap excuse for an older brother swinging like a pendulum in midair, feeling a wave of petty satisfaction.
Usually, Peter pulled the “older brother acting like a dad” routine just because he was a few years older, lecturing him on everything—study hard, stay safe, don’t date too early.
And now?
Watching Peter eat dirt was even more refreshing than an ice-cold soda.
Is this the joy of speed?
No, this is the joy of playing the dominant brother.
“What on earth are you?”
Peter hung upside down from the lamp post, struggling to untie the knots on his feet while eyeing the blue-and-black figure warily.
“Brotherhood of Mutants?
Or some illegal alien immigrant?
Just so you know, I don’t have money for protection fees.”
“I don’t belong to any organization.”
Leon casually tossed the empty soda can into the air.
“I’m just a passing…
alien wholesaler.”
The aluminum can was still rising.
Leon’s figure had already vanished.
*BOOM!*
A delayed sonic boom detonated down the street.
Peter’s field of vision was completely flooded with blue and black lines.
The world turned into a giant washing machine on a spin cycle.
The guy was running—running in circles around him.
The sheer speed created a vacuum effect, siphoning the air straight out of his lungs.
A wave of suffocation rushed over him.
“Damn it…”
Peter’s face turned beet red.
Inside his skull, his Spider-Sense screamed frantically—not a single alarm, but as if thousands of bees were buzzing in his brain simultaneously.
Front, back, left, right, up, down—danger was everywhere!
“Don’t rely just on your eyes, Little Spider,” came the sharp, synthetic voice from the center of the storm.
“Eyes can deceive you, and so can your mind.
At this speed, I am everywhere.”
*Whoosh!*
A violent gust slashed at Peter’s flank.
Instinctively raising an arm to block, the immense force threw Peter straight off the streetlight.
He flipped several times in the air and hit the ground, but before he could catch his balance, that horrifying whistle closed in behind him again.
Too fast.
This wasn’t even a fight in the same dimension.
Cold sweat broke out on Peter’s forehead.
Was this what a true high-level combatant was like?
Compared to this guy, those thugs with switchblades earlier were like clay figures in a stop-motion film.
“It’s over.”
Leon’s voice cut in abruptly.
No teasing this time.
Though Leon was messing around, he still wanted to see how far his foolish brother could push himself right now.
Speed shift upgraded.
His body turned into a darting arrow, shooting straight for Peter’s lower body.
A hyper-speed sweep kick.
If this landed, Peter would be bedridden for at least half a month.
*Of course, I’ll hold back.
He is my beloved brother, after all.*
Just as the high-speed spinning sphere foot was about to hit Peter’s ankle—
*BZZZT!*
The Spider-Sense in Peter’s brain exploded instantly.
The sharp pain was more intense than ever, like someone jamming a red-hot steel needle straight into his brainstem.
The world slowed down for a second.
Survival instinct triggered an adrenaline overload.
Without thinking, Peter handed his body over entirely to instinct.
His spine cracked sharply as he bent backward in an anatomically impossible fold.
His upper body practically pressed flat against the ground, his thigh muscles straining against his suit to the point of bursting.
*Swish!*
The low kick grazed right past the tip of Peter’s nose.
The gale-force pressure scraped across the lenses of Peter’s mask, leaving a white scratch.
“Huh?”
Even in hyper-speed, Leon was taken aback.
*He dodged it?*
It was like a housefly executing a graceful sidestep the exact millisecond a bullet left the barrel.
Unscientific.
But extremely Spider-Man.
Driven by momentum, Leon skidded forward over ten meters.
Sparks flew beneath his feet, plowing two deep scorch marks into the asphalt before he barely ground to a halt.
He turned around.
Peter was wheezing heavily, hands on his knees, trembling all over.
But behind those white lens covers, panic was fading away.
In its place was a beast-like focus.
“Whoa…” Peter wiped sweat from his forehead.
“That one almost knocked my breakfast out of me.”
Leon swished his tail, the corners of his mouth curving beneath his mask.
“Interesting.
Guess God really left a back door open for you.”
“God?
Nah, I think this is just a side effect of getting bitten by a radioactive spider.”
Peter straightened up and dropped into a combat stance.
*Round two.*
Leon launched himself again.
Still speed invisible to the naked eye, still the sonic booms tearing through the air.
But this time, the dynamic changed.
As Leon moved to circle around to Peter’s left, a strand of white webbing shot out without warning right along his path.
Anticipation.
Leon braked hard and shifted direction.
The moment he shifted, another web line blocked his escape route.
Peter closed his eyes.
If his eyes couldn’t keep up, he wouldn’t use them.
He surrendered himself completely to that mysterious “sixth sense.”
*Left!* A tilt of his head dodged a palm-edge strike.
*Rear right!* He ducked under a sweeping kick, firing a web glob back over his shoulder.
Though Leon still held an overwhelming speed advantage—and Peter was still knocked around, gaining several shoe prints on his suit—he was no longer a helpless punching bag.
He was adapting.
Adapting to this unbalanced fight at a terrifying rate.
Five minutes ago, he couldn’t even touch Leon’s shadow.
Five minutes later, he was already anticipating Leon’s attack trajectories and attempting to lay traps.
This wasn’t a learning capacity any normal human possessed.
*This cheat code is getting ridiculous…* Leon grumbled inwardly.
Watching Peter predict his landing spot yet again and fire webbing ahead of time to cut him off, he suddenly lost interest.
If they kept going, he’d have to get lethal to completely suppress this rapidly evolving freak.
Besides, his Omnitrix transformation time was running out.
The hourglass emblem on his chest flashed red, emitting a rapid series of beeps.
If he turned back into the “useless little brother” right in front of Peter, that would be a complete disaster.
*Screeech!*
A harsh braking sound echoed out.
Leon skidded to a halt five meters away from Peter, crossing his arms while his long tail tapped the ground lazily.
“I’m done.”
Peter, ready to fight for his life, froze.
He nearly shot a web right into the creature’s face.
“Huh?
Why?
I just finished warming up!”
“Boring.” Leon shrugged, his tone dripping with disdain.
“Bullying a high school kid running around in pajamas isn’t good for my rep.”
“This is a suit!
A super-suit!” Peter pointed angrily at the spider emblem on his chest.
“And I’m not a high school kid…
okay, fine, I am, but that’s beside the point!”
“Whatever.”
Leon glanced at his wrist.
Thirty seconds left.
In a flash, he reappeared atop the old apartment building nearby.
Peter instinctively started to give chase, but stopped after a single step.
He couldn’t catch him—not a chance.
Leon looked down at the red-and-blue figure from above, the night wind swaying the black tendrils on the back of his head.
“Hey, Little Spider.”
“What?” Peter called up, rubbing the back of his head where he’d been flicked earlier.
“Wash your suit.
It reeks of sweat.
Also…” Leon pointed at Peter’s feet.
“Remember to double-knot next time.
Or get boots without laces.”
With that, a flash of blue light flared.
The mysterious figure vanished entirely into the Queens night, leaving behind only a crackle of fading blue arcs.
“What do you mean ‘sweat’?
That’s the scent of manhood!” Peter threw a punch at the air before sinking dejectedly to the ground.
He was too strong.
That overwhelming speed, that cool nonchalance.
Looking down at his trembling hands, Peter realized for the first time that there were other “monsters” in this world besides himself.
And the power he took pride in might just be a joke in front of a true powerhouse.
“I have to get stronger…” Peter muttered to himself.
He glanced over at the three thugs still unconscious by the trash cans, let out a sigh, and fired a web strand to swing into the night sky.
He hadn’t even finished tonight’s homework yet.
…
Midtown Manhattan, Oscorp Tower.
A towering spire of steel and glass, cold and aloof, overlooking the city’s neon-lit night.
The top-floor office was unlit.
Only a massive holographic screen emitted a faint cold glow, illuminating a gaunt, twitchy face.
Norman Osborn sat in a leather swivel chair, the amber whiskey in his glass held completely still.
On the screen, a grainy surveillance video played on a loop.
Footage outside the convenience store.
The red-and-blue Spider-Man, and that blue-and-black creature moving fast enough to leave blur trails.
The footage was slowed down fifty times.
Even so, the blue figure remained blindingly fast, every movement accompanied by wild spikes in data metrics.
“Incredible kinetic energy…
perfect biological structure…”
Norman set down his glass, fingers darting across the trackpad to pull up a complex set of biomechanical analysis charts.
On the left was Spider-Man’s evasion model, labeled “Extremely High Neural Reflexes” and “Precog Tendency.”
On the right was XLR8’s movement trajectory, with a stark line of bold red text:
[Velocity: Unknown.
Estimated near sonic speeds.
Anti-friction force field present.
Energy source: Unknown.]
“This is what we’ve been looking for.”
Norman’s voice was raspy, laced with a morbid obsession.
“This is the true direction of human evolution—not those meatheaded fantasies the military fools want.”
The military orders were pressing hard.
Research on the Human Enhancement Formula had hit a bottleneck, with side effects causing a 90% mortality rate in laboratory mice.
Those old suits on the board of directors were already sharpening their knives, waiting for a chance to oust him and carve up the corpse of the Osborn empire.
He needed a breakthrough.
And tonight, fate had served up two perfect specimens right to his doorstep.
“One with divine perception, one with divine speed.”
Norman walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out toward the dim lights of Queens in the distance.
The glass reflected his twisted grin.
“Go.
Keep eyes on that blue lizard and that little bug.”
He commanded the empty room.
In the shadows, several figures clad in tactical gear slipped away silently.
“I want to know everything about them.
Blood, genes, identity…
even how many eggs they eat for breakfast.”
Norman downed the hard liquor in a single gulp.
The harsh liquid burned down his throat and into his stomach, yet it could not smother the wild fire burning in his eyes.
If God refuses to hand over the key to evolution, then he’ll tear it away himself.