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Screeech—
A police cruiser rolled to a stop in front of a luxury apartment building in Queens.
Captain George stepped out, finally done for the day. He shut the door and quickly walked to the entrance.
"Whew…"
He paused at the door, clearly eager to get inside, but still took a moment to inhale deeply before gently opening it and slipping off his shoes.
He kept his steps light as he made his way to his bedroom.
But just as he passed by another door in the hallway—his daughter's—he stopped.
"…It's been a long time since I really paid attention to Gwen."
Tonight's events had made George reflect on a lot of things.
Back when the chopper was going down—when he was staring death in the face—he didn't really feel scared. As a cop, he'd accepted long ago that dying in the line of duty might happen.
But when it actually hit him, the only thing he felt was how much he'd miss his wife and daughter.
What truly scared him… was the thought that he might never see them again.
It looked like he had finally gathered up some courage. George walked up to his daughter's bedroom door and slowly raised his hand.
But in the end, he just couldn't bring himself to knock. His hand dropped back down.
"That Spider-Girl… she seemed about the same age as Gwen."
Leaving Gwen's door behind and heading toward his own room, George suddenly thought of the girl in the mask—the one who risked her life and exposing her identity just to save him today.
Back when he was about to pull off her mask, it was the thought of his daughter that made him stop.
Sigh "After what happened today, the station's probably gonna be swamped for a while. Who knows when I'll get a real day off to spend with my family again."
With a helpless sigh, George could only head silently back to his room.
Becoming captain in his early forties hadn't come without sacrifice. He'd had to give up a lot—especially time with his family.
Meanwhile, in Gwen's room, she looked like she was already fast asleep in bed.
But the moment her super-sharp senses picked up that her dad had walked away, her eyes suddenly snapped open.
She sat up slowly, then carefully peeled off her torn-up bodysuit—the same one she'd worn during tonight's fight.
"Hisss…"
Even though she was being super careful, she still touched one of her injuries. A sharp jolt of pain nearly made her cry out loud.
"Good thing my body's changed. I heal way faster than normal people now."
"Otherwise I have no idea how I'd explain this in the morning."
She grabbed some ointment she had stashed away and gently applied it to her wounds.
Gritting her teeth through the pain, Gwen finally laid back down and closed her eyes again.
But just a few minutes later, her eyes popped open once more.
"Ugh, screw it. I can't sleep at all."
Even though her body was totally exhausted, her mind was still buzzing.
Eventually, she pulled out a notebook and a pen from her nightstand, leaned back against the pillows, and started sketching.
Before long, a pretty lifelike drawing took shape.
On the white page, a figure in a black spider-suit practically jumped off the paper.
Rip—
But the second she finished the drawing, Gwen didn't hesitate. She tore it into a thousand tiny pieces.
Then she tossed the scraps into the trash can.
"Whew. That's better."
After venting in her own special way, she felt a bit more at ease.
"And that guy… is he really Superman?"
As the image of that floating figure who'd completely shocked her played through her mind, Gwen started sketching again, her hand moving slowly over the paper.
…
Meanwhile, far away in outer space…
Peter had his arms stretched wide, embracing the sun.
He was fully focused, soaking in a feeling totally different from what he got under the sun back on Earth.
Right now, it felt like every cell in his body was lighting up.
Sunlight poured into him like a flood, his body eagerly absorbing it. Once inside, it was converted by his transformed cells into a unique kind of energy.
Every minute—heck, every second—his strength was growing at an insane rate.
He stayed in that sun-drenched pose, floating in space, for hours.
Back on Earth, the night in New York ended, and the morning sun slowly rose from the east.
At that moment, Peter's tightly shut eyes suddenly snapped open.
And in that instant, a golden gleam flashed through his crystal-clear eyes.
The next second, he twisted his body and shot back down toward Earth like a missile.
In less than a minute, Peter had flown all the way from space back to solid ground.
But instead of heading home, he took off toward a desolate, empty place.
The area was covered in all kinds of massive rocks, towering everywhere—not even a single weed in sight.
The smallest boulders were only a few meters tall, but the biggest ones reached nearly a hundred meters—basically the size of a small mountain.
Peter slowly flew to hover above one of the massive boulders, which was about ten meters across.
Eyes wide open, he stared intensely at the rock below him.
One second... ten seconds... a whole minute...
Minutes passed, and Peter just kept staring with wide, unblinking eyes at the giant rock in front of him.
Like it had some kind of personal grudge against him—and he was trying to destroy it with his glare alone.
Nearly ten minutes went by. Even with his steel body, his eyes were starting to feel dry and itchy.
Then suddenly, a burning energy began to build in his eyes.
In that instant, his pitch-black pupils lit up with a vivid red glow—like flames suddenly bursting into life.
And then, in the blink of an eye, that fiery red completely took over both his eyes.
They were glowing with a hellish crimson light, like the eyes of a demon straight out of the underworld.
"Ahhh!"
With a fierce roar, two thick beams of red-hot heat vision blasted out from Peter's blazing eyes.
They struck the massive rock below with terrifying heat and explosive force.
Ssszzzzzz—!
The intense impact instantly pierced right through the boulder.
The heat was so extreme that within moments, the inside of the rock started to glow red—like molten metal in a forge.
BOOM!
Seconds later, the temperature difference between the inside and outside became too much—the giant boulder exploded.
Peter, still caught up in the moment, instinctively turned his head—and the heat vision didn't stop. It kept firing along with his gaze, slicing a deep trench into the ground.
Wherever the beams passed, everything got cut clean in half. Boulders split right down the middle with surgical precision, glowing faintly red where they were sliced—like they'd just been through a forge.
At one point, he even sliced a several-story-tall rock vertically in half.
The split boulder crashed to the sides with a loud rumble, kicking up clouds of dust.
Only when Peter looked up at the sky did the heat vision finally shoot upward, blasting into the clouds and tearing a hole straight through them.
Finally regaining control, Peter snapped his eyes shut.
Even with his eyelids closed, you could still faintly see the red glow of his overheated eyes.
Slowly, the crimson light faded.
[Congratulations, host. You've successfully awakened Heat Vision and Freeze Breath.]
Right after that, the voice of the system echoed in his mind.
"....."