Chapter 421: Civil War II!
Peter wiped the smile from his face and turned serious. A simple test was enough to prove it: the person in front of him was a fake.
"Me? I'm Captain America, Steve Rogers. What's wrong, Spider-Man?" The "Steve" in front of him thought to himself that things were looking bad; he must have been exposed.
"Alright then," Peter nodded nonchalantly, then suddenly raised his hand and shot a web.
Thwip!
Faced with this sudden web, the fake Steve was caught off guard, his hands bound tightly.
"Don't even think about running," Peter gripped the webbing and yanked hard, pulling the man toward him.
But to Peter's absolute shock, the moment the man flew forward, he transformed into the Hulk.
"ROAR!" The Hulk instantly tore through the webbing, spreading his massive arms to smash down.
"Oh no!" Peter sensed danger and leaped away, sticking to the alley wall.
Boom!
The ground of the alley was smashed by the Hulk's fists, creating a spiderweb of cracks in the pavement.
"Hulk? Why are you here?" Peter asked, stunned. That's not right. Didn't Silas tell me Hulk went to Canada to live in isolation?
"ROAR!" The Hulk ignored Peter, simply standing in the alley in a state of mindless rage, thumping his chest.
"Green Big Guy?" Peter called out tentatively, but the Hulk below paid him no mind.
Peter immediately realized something was wrong with this Hulk. He tentatively fired another web at the beast.
Squelch!
The web passed right through the Hulk and stuck to something behind him. Peter yanked his right hand hard. The Hulk flew toward him again, but this time, Peter didn't jump away. His Spider-Sense hadn't gone off.
As the Hulk "flew" toward him, Peter reached out his right hand, thrust it through the Hulk's body, grabbed a small object inside the projection, and crushed it.
Crack!!! Zzzzt—
"What is this?" Peter examined the sparking machine in his hand. He had just crushed this tiny device, and the Hulk had vanished into thin air.
"Analysis successful. This is a projector. It appears to be an older model, capable only of fixed-position projections." Once the machine was exposed, Gaia analyzed it with ease.
"A projector?" Hearing Gaia's analysis, Peter finally pieced it together. Everything had been a fake.
"Crap, he got away." Peter looked down. Not only was the man gone, but even the cracks the Hulk had supposedly made in the ground were gone. Everything was calm, as if nothing had happened.
Peter perched on a lamppost. He had never seen such realistic projection technology before. For a moment, he truly thought it was real. What surprised him most was the sound design—the Hulk's roar and the impact of his fists were perfect.
"What were they trading, though?" Peter had a bit of a headache. He felt like he had seen the man who left earlier somewhere before. Because Schultz was wearing a new suit, Peter hadn't recognized him immediately.
"I need to keep an eye on these people." Peter scanned the area for more clues, and finding none, he leaped away. He took the broken projector with him; he could study it later. By storing it in Silas's Shadow Kingdom, he didn't have to worry about the villains tracking him home.
Shortly after Peter left, a group of men appeared in the alley and retrieved an extremely well-hidden, tiny projector from the wall.
"We were spotted."
"Be more careful next time. Luckily this one wasn't found."
"The old projectors are unreliable. We need to upgrade immediately."
"Remember to arm the next batch of drones. Let's give our enemies a real surprise."
The Lab
"A projector?" Silas stood in his laboratory, holding the damaged, palm-sized device. When Peter obtained it, he had sent it into the Shadow Kingdom for the Shadow Ninjas to study.
The first person Silas thought of was Mysterio. Based on the clues Peter provided, it was almost certainly him.
"I didn't expect Mysterio to show up so soon." Silas tossed the projector onto the lab table. The Shadow Ninjas began dissecting it.
Given the current trajectory, a second Civil War was inevitable. The memory of the Ultron incident was too fresh for anyone to risk another catastrophe. Nick Fury was acting out of caution; Stark was the prime suspect, so he had to be contained for monitoring.
"Projection tech..." Silas wasn't particularly interested. He had plenty of ways to attack and didn't need this. If he encountered Mysterio, he could simply manipulate gravity to crush the drones. With ten times gravity, those drones wouldn't even be able to take off. Or, he could use Almighty Push to repel everything around him and shatter the illusion.
"Stop the research." Silas dismissed the ninjas. The tech was useless to him. He stepped out of the Shadow Kingdom and stood atop a skyscraper, looking up at the distant sky.
North Hempstead
"How do you feel?" Tony asked as Pietro returned.
"I feel great!" Pietro said excitedly. "If I run any faster, I feel like I might actually take flight."
"Then fly for me and show off," Tony joked.
"..." Pietro was speechless again. I was just kidding, why do you always have to burn me?
Tony's smiling face suddenly turned solemn.
Clang!
A suit of armor flew onto Tony's back, completing its assembly in seconds.
"What's wrong?" Pietro asked.
"They couldn't wait any longer." Tony shut down all the systems in the room and took flight toward the door. "If you're having second thoughts, you still have time to slip out the back."
"How could I regret this?" Pietro puffed out his chest and followed him out.
Outside
The moment they stepped out, Pietro and Tony were surrounded by heavily armed agents and high-tech equipment.
"Tony Stark!" Nick Fury shouted from the front of the line.
"What is it, Mr. Cyclops?" Tony glanced casually at the perimeter. They truly had him boxed in.
"You know my stance, Stark." If possible, Fury didn't want this fight to happen.
"Sorry, I don't like being locked in a room. It makes me feel like a prisoner," Tony replied.
"Then why did you make me stay in that villa last time!" Wanda's voice rang out as she stepped forward. Behind her were Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Ant-Man, Falcon, and others.
"That's different. You had entertainment systems. I don't," Tony countered.
"Long time no see, Captain. How are you feeling?" Fury greeted Steve.
"I feel alright, but does it really have to come to this?" Steve asked, feeling weary. He was about to fight his own people again.
"That's up to you. If that egomaniac Stark agrees to be monitored, we can shake hands and end this," Fury said, glancing at Tony.
"Absolutely impossible," Tony stated. He wouldn't agree even if it cost him his life.
Fury looked back at Steve, his expression saying, See? Stark is the one refusing. "I must say, Agent Romanoff, I didn't expect you to stand on that side."
"Someone called me a double agent last time. I was angry at first, but now I feel like I actually am one," Natasha laughed self-deprecatingly. Tony looked at her, moved that she had actually come to help.
"Don't worry, we'll go easy on you!" Scott Lang laughed. This felt much simpler than the last Civil War.
"Is that so?" The corner of Fury's mouth curled up.
BOOM!
Suddenly, a streak of light descended from the heavens, crashing down in front of the Avengers.
"You had better use your full strength."
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