6:00 AM, Queens.
Leon confirmed that Peter’s body temperature had returned to normal.
The heat that had felt as though it might burn right through the mattress had completely vanished, replaced by a steady, dormant breathing full of explosive power.
He put the chair back in its original spot and quietly backed out of the room.
The stage was now set for Peter Parker.
Ten minutes later.
In the distance, a subway train thundered along its tracks like a steel beast.
Normally, the sound was nothing more than background white noise, but to Peter lying in bed, it felt as if a heavy metal concert was blasting inside his brain.
“Ugh…”
Peter snapped his eyes open, his pupils shrinking tight.
The headache was gone.
In its place was hunger.
A gnawing, ravenous hunger that felt as though his stomach was devouring itself, making him feel like he could swallow a bull whole.
Groggy, he sat up and habitually reached for his glasses on the nightstand.
They were thick-rimmed glasses he had worn for ten years; without them, the world was just a smeared blob of melted cream.
His fingertips touched the cold frame, and he expertly slid them onto the bridge of his nose.
The next second.
Peter froze.
Instead of becoming clear, the world dissolved into a blurry mess of bleeding oil paints.
A wave of intense nausea hit him, turning his stomach upside down.
“Did my…
prescription get worse?”
Panicking, he took the glasses off.
The moment the temple arms cleared his ears—
BOOM!
The world detonated across his retinas.
It wasn’t just clear.
It was an extreme, violent, data-stream level of high definition.
In a corner of the ceiling, a thumbnail-sized spider was spinning a web.
He could even see the specks of dust flicked into the air as the silk vibrated.
The sunlight streaming through the window was no longer a simple beam, but galaxies of countless dancing dust motes.
His hearing was disastrously sharp.
Downstairs, the crisp snap of paper fibers as Uncle Ben turned a newspaper page; in the kitchen, the sizzle of raw egg hitting hot oil; next door, the muffled thrum of toilet water rushing through pipes…
Every sound rushed into his eardrums like a tsunami, all at once without hierarchy.
Peter clutched his ears in agony, curling up on the floor for several seconds until his body gradually adapted to the sensory overload.
He stepped barefoot onto the carpet.
The direction every single carpet fiber bent was fed back with crystal clarity to the nerve endings in the soles of his feet.
Peter bolted into the bathroom, slammed his hands onto the sink counter, and looked up.
The person in the mirror was a stranger.
The frail, beanpole Peter Parker who always slouched was gone.
In his place stood a teenager with muscles intertwined like steel cables.
His abs were sharply defined without looking bulky, exuding a sleek, cheetah-like aesthetic.
“Is this…
me?”
Peter pinched his arm in disbelief.
Hard as rock.
Last night’s nightmare.
The spider that bit him.
Even a nerd like him could put two and two together—genetic mutation.
“Calm down, Peter.
Calm down.”
He grabbed the toothpaste, trying to go through his usual morning routine and pretend everything was fine.
He gave it a gentle pinch with his thumb and index finger.
*Splat!*
A muffled pop echoed.
The entire tube exploded instantly.
Mint-green paste shot out like a pressure washer, splattering across the mirror and leaving a green trajectory arc on the ceiling.
Holding the flattened, crumpled tube, Peter froze in place.
“Damn it…”
Flustered, he tried to clean up the mess and reached to turn the faucet knob.
Must be gentle.
As light as touching a feather.
He chanted frantically in his mind.
His fingers rested on the solid brass cross-knob.
*Creak—*
The grating noise of twisting metal made his teeth ache.
Under his fingertips, the hard brass crumpled and deformed like Play-Doh before snapping in two with a sharp *clack*.
A geyser of water shot straight up, blasting Peter right in the face.
“Peter?
Are you demolishing the house up there?”
Uncle Ben’s hearty voice boomed from downstairs.
“N-No!
I just…
slipped!”
Peter yelled back, a distinct tremor in his voice.
He slammed his palm down hard to cover the spraying pipe.
The high-pressure stream, which could easily force open an ordinary person’s hand, was now as docile as a trickle.
I’m screwed.
Completely screwed.
I turned into a monster!
It took Peter five minutes to forcibly bend the pipe shut, then wipe down the mirror with a towel.
Staring at his unfamiliar reflection, his heart pounded frantically.
I have to get out of here.
Find somewhere empty to figure out what the hell I’ve become.
He changed clothes, threw on his backpack, and tiptoed out of his room like a thief.
Every step required precise calculations of force, terrified he might step right through the floorboards.
Reaching the top of the stairs,
Leon was leaning against the doorframe opposite him, holding a glass of water, looking relaxed.
“Morning, Peter.”
Leon’s eyes swept over Peter’s glassless face, a playful smirk curling at the corner of his mouth.
“Looks like you made a full recovery from that ‘flu’ of yours?”
Peter nervously dodged Leon’s gaze.
“Uh, yeah.
Sweated it out, all good.
So…
I’m heading to school.”
“It’s Saturday, genius.” Leon pointed at the clock on the wall.
Peter froze in embarrassment, his toes scrunching against the insoles.
“Right, Saturday.
I’m going to…
to the library.
To look up some stuff.”
With that, he bolted down the stairs like he was fleeing a crime scene.
Once I’m out the door, I’m safe.
Peter rushed to the front door and grabbed the solid brass knob of the heavy oak door with his right hand.
The door usually swelled from humidity and needed a little trick of leverage.
Peter instinctively used a “little” extra effort.
*Snap!*
A crisp snap of breaking metal rang out unnaturally loud in the quiet morning.
Peter’s hand remained frozen in pulling position.
The door didn’t budge an inch.
In his hand, however, was a solid brass doorknob attached to half a lock cylinder.
The metal at the fracture was twisted, looking as if a giant beast had bitten through it raw.
Peter held the doorknob like a live grenade with the pin pulled.
In that instant, the sheer mortification felt worse than the mutation itself.
“Peter?”
Ben Parker poked his head out from the living room, newspaper in hand.
Aunt May followed right behind him with a plate of fresh pancakes.
Two pairs of eyes stared blankly at the doorknob in Peter’s hand.
The silence in the room was terrifying.
Peter swallowed hard, cold sweat running down his temple.
He opened his mouth, trying to figure out how to explain why a high school kid could shear off metal with his bare hands.
“Uh…
it just kind of fell off?
I guess…
I guess what I meant to say was it’s time to get a new one…”
The excuse was so pathetic he wanted to slap himself.
Ben narrowed his eyes, his gaze darting between Peter and the handle, growing increasingly sharp.
Just as Peter thought he was about to be shipped off to a lab for dissection—
Ben let out a sigh and looked past Peter toward Leon on the stairs.
“Leon.”
Ben’s tone was stern yet resigned.
“I know you young guys have a lot of energy, and I know that…
that watch—*cough*…
you’ve been getting pretty strong lately.
But can you stop practicing on the house doors?
This is the third time I’ve had to fix a door this month.”
Peter whipped his head around to stare at Leon, his eyes wide as saucers.
Leon was standing on the bottom step, water glass still in hand.
He blinked in surprise, then caught sight of Peter’s near-tears expression and Ben’s convinced look.
In this household, whenever supernatural destruction occurred, Ben’s prime suspect was always Leon with his Omnitrix.
After all, who would suspect good boy Peter Parker?
Leon shrugged helplessly, walked over, and took the mangled handle from Peter’s hand, tossing it lightly in his palm.
“Sorry, Dad,” Leon said with utmost sincerity.
“Didn’t gauge my strength right coming downstairs.
Was testing out some newly unlocked…
well, strength training.
I’ll be careful next time.”
May shook her head and set the pancakes on the table.
“Alright, Ben, don’t blame the boys.
That handle was already loose.
Leon, just be careful next time so you don’t hurt your hands.”
“Got it, Mom.”
Leon turned around to face Peter, who was still petrified in shock.
With a subtle smirk, positioned so only Peter could see, he silently mouthed:
—*You owe me one.*
Peter felt a lump in his throat.
The crushing weight of holding a massive secret lifted instantly.
“What are you standing there for?” Ben fished a screwdriver out of his toolbox.
“Since the door’s broken, don’t think about sneaking out.
Come give me a hand, Peter.”
“I…
I really have to go to the library!”
Peter snapped back to reality, grabbed his bag, and squeezed through the crack in the door, not daring to lay a finger on the frame.
“Leon can fix it!
He’s strong!
Gotta go!”
With that, he bolted out of the house like a startled rabbit, moving so fast he kicked up a gust of wind behind him.
“What’s gotten into him today?
So restless,” Aunt May remarked with a puzzled look at Peter’s retreating back.
“Didn’t even eat breakfast.”
“Teenagers,” Ben said.
Leon nonchalantly remolded the twisted brass knob back into shape like clay.
It looked a bit ugly, but it was functional enough.
He placed the handle on the shoe cabinet and watched the direction Peter had vanished in, a spark of amusement in his eyes.
Go on, Peter.
Go to that abandoned warehouse, get used to your new body, and become the hero who swings between the skyscrapers of New York.
By the time you return, the world will be different.
“I’ll go grab a wrench from the garage,” Leon told Ben.
“Sure, and check my tires while you’re at it.
Feels like they’re leaking air,” Ben replied without looking up from his paper.
Leon reached the garage and pulled down the shutter door behind him.
In the dim room, only the green glow of the Omnitrix flickered.
He raised his wrist, data streams rushing across the dial.
[Target: Peter Parker] [Status: Awakening Complete] [Strength Multiplier: 800% (Continuously Increasing)] [Agility: Beyond Human Limit] [Spider-Sense: Activated]
“Crushing solid brass with one hand…
starting strength is already over five tons…”
Leon muttered quietly to himself.
Even though he possessed the Omnitrix and could transform into all sorts of powerful alien heroes, watching his brother undergo such absurd physical mutation made it impossible not to feel a tiny bit envious.
Is this really the truth behind “the rich rely on tech, the poor rely on mutation”?
Then again…
Leon rotated the dial.
A holographic projection cast a red silhouette with four muscle-bound arms into the air.
Since Peter was evolving, he couldn’t just stand still as the younger brother.
The mutant spider hadn’t just transformed Peter—it had allowed the Omnitrix to analyze and unlock a portion of a special gene lock.
Leon took a deep breath and slammed down on the faceplate.
A flash of green light flared, filling the entire garage.
Sounds of muscle tearing and reshaping burst forth inside the cramped space.
His height surged to ten feet tall, red skin covering his body like armor.
Four thick arms snapped outward, every muscle bulging like solid rock.
Tetramand DNA—Four Arms.
If you’re going to be Spider-Man, protecting New York, then I’ll be the monster that has your back.
A deep, booming roar echoed inside the sealed garage, causing the wrenches on the tool rack to hum and vibrate.
“Heh, I’m terrifyingly strong!
Time for morning exercise.”
Four Arms clenched all four fists and threw a punch straight into the air, creating a sonic boom.
*BOOM!*
The terrifying force compressed the air instantaneously, exploding into a visible ring of white shockwaves inside the garage.