Peter Parker's POV
I dropped down from a street lamp and latched onto the wall of the warehouse without so much as a peep. My vibranium bodysuit made sure of it. I crawled downward until I found an open window and peered inside. Dozens of Hand ninjas, silhouetted against the rafters, hid behind boxes and tucked themselves into dark nooks that someone without my senses would have missed.
At the center, three people stood in a circle, arguing. A massive shipping container loomed behind them.
"We have to leave. New York is lost to us," Gao insisted.
"And waste centuries of work?" Bakuto replied, his voice gentle, his speech colored with an accent I couldn't quite place. "The bones are beneath us. Our weapon is ready."
They were talking about the body of an ancient dragon. Apparently, it had enough chi flowing through it to sustain their inner circle for generations.
"You know it won't be enough," Alexandria said. "You've seen the news. You know what we're up against."
Bakuto sneered. "We've fought the forces of K'un-Lun, resisted the will of the immortal dragon. We will—"
Bakuto went on to boast for another half minute or so.
He really liked hearing himself talk.
Eventually, I got bored and sent a message through the telepathic enchantment built into our new bracers. They were part of the latest upgrades Dante had sent over through Rin a few days ago.
"They're all here," I sent across the group link. "Plus fifty other ninjas and a strange container."
"I really didn't think it would be this easy," Colleen said slowly.
We had gotten lucky yesterday and captured a lieutenant on his way out of soccer practice—believe it or not. Colleen had put him to sleep using one of the bracer enchantments, and Wanda had sifted through his mind for information. We dumped him back at his place afterward.
"I figured they would've switched up the meeting place," Jessica hummed.
"I just think they're arrogant douchebags," I chimed in. "You should hear Bakuto talk. You'd think he singlehandedly built America."
Colleen snorted. "He has a very high opinion of himself. They all do."
"What do you think, Lawman?" Jessica asked. "You've been after them longer than we have."
Ten tense seconds passed. Matt didn't respond. He was supposed to be on the opposite side of the warehouse, scouting from his angle.
He'd been like this since the invasion—distant, hot and cold. Part of it was adjusting to his sight, but a bigger part of it was how we operated as heroes. Matt refused to kill. Jessica and Colleen didn't have a problem with it.
There was also the matter of Dante, but that was a problem for another time.
"You okay, Lawman?" Jessica asked. Matt finally spoke.
"There's someone in that container," he said. "I think it's Black Sky."
"What's that?" I asked.
"An old legend my…trainer used to talk about," Matt replied. "It's the Hand's nuclear option. He was vague on the details, but if you take him at his word, it's some kind of civilization killer."
My breath caught. I looked back at the container and focused, really listening. There was a heartbeat inside, alright. It thumped once every thirty seconds.
That was slow, even for a Hand assassin. I'd fought greater demons and avatars of evil gods, and still, this unsettled me in a way I couldn't put into words.
"Should we loop someone in?" I asked. "Rin. Wanda. Dant—"
"No," Matt cut in. "Not yet. All we have is a hunch and a slow heartbeat. Between the four of us, we have more than enough power. I say we end this now."
A tense second passed before Colleen voiced what we were all thinking. "Are you sure about this?"
"You're usually the one telling us to be careful," Jessica pointed out. "Strategic."
"Sometimes," Matt said evenly, "there's nothing left to do but fight. The beacons on the bracers activate instantly. If we're wrong, help will be less than a minute out."
I chewed the inside of my lip. Everything he said made sense, but we all knew how fast things could spiral out of control—especially if this turned out to be another Lauren-level threat.
"I know you're scared," Matt said, directly to me, "but we can't stay in his shadow forever. We can do this."
Jessica snorted, snapping the tension in our telepathic link in half. "Really? That's the best you've got? We can do this? Don't you do this for a living?"
"Time and place, Jessica," Colleen said, though I could swear she was smiling. "But she's not wrong. That speech was dreadful."
"I thought it was okay," I shrugged, earning a laugh from both of them.
"I'll prepare something better next time," Matt joked, and that got a chuckle out of me too.
"So, straight to it," Matt said, his tone shifting to the one he'd first used during the invasion. "Peter handles containment. I keep the ninjas off Black Sky. You two do what you do best."
Jessica huffed. Colleen stayed silent.
"Any objections?"
He waited a beat. Then another.
"Good. Let's go save the world."
I smashed through the window, plastering every surface with low-yield explosive web blots, then sprang off a rafter and launched myself toward the container and the Hand leaders.
They reacted unnaturally fast. Alexandria slipped into a natural Wing Chun stance. Bakuto took no stance at all, straightening his posture and staring at me with open hunger. Gao dropped her cane and began gathering gold-and-black-tinged chi.
I winced. Not that again.
According to Matt, the Hand's generals and high-level mystic martial artists fought using their literal life force. Naturally golden, but darkened through centuries of cheating death.
I had never been hit by one of their chi attacks, and I wasn't planning to start tonight.
I fired two thick blots of webbing at Bakuto and Alexandria. They dodged, opening a lane for Gao to fire a condensed chi orb. I shot a line to the floor and yanked myself downwards, avoiding the blast—and the storm of shuriken and knives that followed.
With a flick of a mental switch, I detonated every explosive web blot.
The warehouse erupted in light, sound, fire, and shrapnel.
The team moved immediately.
A window behind the Hand leaders exploded as Daredevil leapt in, bow staff swinging. It nearly clipped Alexandria, but she twisted away at the last second and countered with a glowing palm strike.
A metal fist burst through the wall, closing around a Hand ninja's neck and twisting hard. Jessica dragged him through the breach, tearing open the warehouse and creating a path for herself and Colleen.
Read up to Chapter 240 on Patreon.com/artandcreativewriting.