"Easy, easy. What's wrong, Peter? What happened?" Ben Parker was a kind old man. Compared to someone as loose and wild as Stan, he was far steadier and more serious.
Skyl had said before that a good-hearted man like Ben Parker shouldn't have been able to grow old in America. So how had he died? Just because he tried to help a convenience store owner stop a thief. The thief had fallen, dropping a gun. Ben Parker grappled with him, and the gun went off, killing him.
The smart thing would have been to step back and stay out of it. It wasn't like Ben Parker lacked basic street sense. Maybe he just acted on impulse and paid for it with his life.
No matter how you looked at it, Skyl personally felt Ben Parker had died way too carelessly. He existed almost entirely as the emotional pillar inside Spider-Man's heart. Once Uncle Ben died, Spider-Man was born. Destiny, in other words.
Peter clung to his Uncle Ben and kept apologizing. Of course he blamed himself for Ben Parker's death. They'd argued, Peter had stormed out of the house, and Ben Parker had gone out looking for him.
"Don't cry, don't cry. Good lord, why do you keep saying you're sorry? It's okay." Uncle Ben thought Peter was apologizing for their argument earlier that day. "Let's go home. May's worried sick about you."
Peter wiped away his tears and introduced Skyl to Uncle Ben.
"This is Skyl. He's a really amazing friend of mine."
Ben Parker warmly held out his hand. His solid, broad face was full of sincere smiles, and when he noticed that Skyl was Asian, he immediately made friendly conversation. "You must be exceptional. My Peter doesn't hand out praise very often. He's one of the top students at school, so it sounds like he's finally met some real competition."
Skyl laughed and placed a hand over his chest in greeting. That old-fashioned courtesy left this New Yorker so flattered he almost didn't know what to do.
"My esteemed sir, Peter and I do not attend the same school."
They chatted easily. When Uncle Ben heard that Skyl supported himself by selling fast food while studying, he was full of admiration. He clearly took Skyl for the model student type: brilliant, poor, hardworking, and diligent.
Not long after, a panicked man came running out of the robbed convenience store, with the owner chasing after him and shouting, "Stop him!"
This time, Peter lunged forward instantly and took the thief down in just a couple of moves.
Peter's rage boiled over. He hit the man again and again. Even while trying his best to restrain himself, he still beat the thief until the guy's eyes were rolling.
"Stop—stop hitting me—please..."
"Peter!" Uncle Ben hurried over to stop him. "What are you doing?"
Looking at the bleeding thief sprawled on the ground, Peter finally calmed down. He clutched his head and panted, his heartbeat hammering like a snare drum.
Uncle Ben stepped forward to check the injuries. Thankfully, there was no skull fracture, but a mild concussion was unavoidable.
"Sir, hold on. I'll call an ambulance for you."
The thief was just a lowlife hoodlum. The moment he heard the word ambulance, his nearly fading consciousness jolted awake. "No, don't call one... I can't afford it..."
"Don't worry. I'll take care of you." Ben Parker really was too kind for his own good. If he'd known this same thief had killed him in another timeline, who knew whether he'd still be this compassionate.
Peter realized something strange was going on with his body. He seemed more restless than before the time jump, and healthier too. Ever since becoming Spider-Man, he'd been injured constantly. His mutated body healed well, but some old injuries still gave him faint lingering aches.
But now he felt refreshed from head to toe, like a perfectly wound machine filled with fresh oil. His body felt vivid and alive.
Peter quickly told Skyl what he'd noticed.
"Makes sense," Skyl said, taking Peter's palm to examine it. As a wizard, using palm reading to estimate someone's age was perfectly normal. "You've heard of the grandfather paradox, right?"
The grandfather paradox meant that if someone traveled back in time and killed his own grandfather, then he would never be born, which meant he could never go back in time and kill his grandfather in the first place. Real galaxy-brain stuff.
"What does that have to do with this?" Peter asked, only half understanding.
"The grandfather paradox explains why time travel should be impossible. There are usually two ways around it. One is to split off a parallel universe. In that case, two versions of the same person can exist in the same spacetime. The other solution is..."
"A closed time loop," Peter said, getting the answer out first this time.
"Exactly. In other words, traveling to the past becomes both the cause and the result. Since the traveler is the same person, two copies of him can't coexist in the same spacetime. So you replaced the you from two years ago."
Peter nodded. "Then what if I leave? Will the other me come back?"
Skyl raised an eyebrow. "We'll find out when we test it. First let's get your uncle home..."
Bang!
A gunshot shattered the street.
Peter and Skyl spun around.
Uncle Ben had collapsed into a pool of blood again.
The thief had still pulled the trigger.
"No!!" Peter screamed in agony.
Skyl's expression turned strange. He seriously suspected this was one of those unavoidable plot-kill moments.
Ben Parker lay in his own blood, barely breathing, and spoke the famous line to Peter.
"...Remember, with great power comes great responsibility."
Then he died.
Skyl stepped forward and used magic.
And then he lived again.
Peter subdued the gunman and snapped his arm on the spot. It was only because Skyl had said Uncle Ben could still be saved that Peter managed not to go too far. Otherwise, in that blind fury, Peter might very well have become a killer.
"Accidents are everywhere," Skyl said, frowning. "Looks like we'll have to be careful. Peter, we're not going to save your father-in-law yet."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I need to stay here for a few days. Does your house have a spare guest room?"
Peter held on to the badly shaken Uncle Ben and refused to let go. The police and ambulance arrived maddeningly late. After taking statements at the scene, they quickly hauled off the criminal and left. A few witnesses claimed Skyl had used magic, but that was dismissed as the rambling of lunatics and ignored.
The whole night passed in chaos. The food truck was driven back to Uncle Ben's little villa, and the elderly couple cleared out a guest room for their visitor. Supposedly it had once been kept ready for Peter's parents if they ever came to stay. Even after all these years, it was still spotless, as if the room had been waiting for them to appear at any moment.
Skyl was already used to staying wherever the road took him. A traveler like him was at home everywhere and nowhere.
Peter clearly had a mountain of questions he wanted answered, but Skyl went to bed early and gave him no chance to come knocking.
Early the next morning, Aunt May came to knock on the door.
Peter had slept like the dead. There was still a bit of dust on him, so it looked like he'd snuck out again the night before. After washing up, though, he still had an irrepressible grin on his face. Anyone who didn't know better would've thought he'd found a bag of cash.
"Couldn't wait to go see Gwen, huh?" Skyl mocked him for being so eager. "You do realize it's a school day, right?"
"Oh, crap!" Peter shook his head hard and begged Aunt May for a cup of strong coffee.
A simple American breakfast sat on the table. Nothing unusual—fried eggs, bacon, toast, and cereal with milk. Skyl also got a mug of hot cocoa, because Aunt May thought he was too skinny and needed better nutrition.
"All right, boys," Uncle Ben said, "finish breakfast and head to school. Need me to drive you?"
Skyl waved a hand. "I can drive."
He gave Peter a ride. Peter, in the passenger seat, chattered nonstop. Back in familiar surroundings, back in high school, his motor-mouth tendencies came roaring back to life.
"Lin, when are we going to save George?"
"No rush." Skyl handed Peter the Book of Mora. When he opened it, the pages glowed green and projected a live feed of Ben Parker in real time. "I left a magical eye on your uncle. I suspect he may still run into some kind of accident."
"Why?"
"Because of Spider-Man's destiny. It sounds ridiculous, sure, but that's how it is. If you still want to be Spider-Man, then the people close to you are doomed to face death."
"Then what if I just change the name? I won't be Spider-Man anymore."
"Give it a try," Skyl said with a nod.
They found a parking lot near the school and left the food truck there. Then Skyl walked into campus together with Peter.
"Aren't you going to sell fast food?" Peter asked in surprise.
"With Gali not here, what exactly am I supposed to sell?" Skyl said, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I'll stick with you for the next couple of days. Besides, I've always wanted to experience an American high school campus. The schools in the 2010s really were pretty peaceful. By the 2020s, students were showing up with MP5s..."
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