But just as he reached the bottom of the stairs and lunged toward the only exit leading up to the first basement level, Peter slammed on the brakes.
His cousin was already standing right there, blocking the exit.
Peter gasped in shock.
"Since when?!"
There was only one way out of the sub-basement. How had Tobey gotten ahead of him without making a single sound?
The answer was simple. Compared to Peter, Tobey was vastly faster, vastly stronger, and infinitely more experienced with his powers.
Peter had run across the floor. Tobey had crawled across the ceiling.
For a Spider-Man, scrambling across a wall was naturally much faster than running on the ground!
Besides, what kind of self-respecting spider runs on the floor when there is a perfectly good ceiling available?
Tobey leaned against the doorway, crossing his arms with a half-smile that sent shivers down Peter's spine.
"Running?"
"In all the years Ben and May asked me to catch you when you misbehaved, have you ever once managed to outrun me?"
"Just accept your fate, Peter. No matter how strong you get, your big brother is still your big brother. Now be a good boy and accept your special training!"
Before Peter could argue, Tobey tossed two metallic wristbands toward him.
Peter caught them reflexively, looking down at the strange devices in confusion.
"What are these?"
Tobey explained in a flat, clinical tone.
"Web-shooters. You wear them on your wrists. The firing triggers sit right against your palms. They are tactical tools to assist your mobility and combat flow."
A look of realization washed over Peter's face.
"Oh! This is what you used to seal the broken pipe in my bathroom this morning! I was wondering how you did that!"
Tobey raised an eyebrow and wagged a finger at him.
"Wrong. Those are training wheels for a hatchling like you. I do not need toys."
Although Tobey had actually built functional web-shooters just in case, he fundamentally despised relying on external technology.
As far as he was concerned, the organic webbing produced by his own mutated biology was infinitely more reliable.
Mechanical web-shooters could jam, run out of fluid, or break. But his organic webbing? As long as his body was healthy, it would never fail him.
After strapping the twin web-shooters onto his wrists, Peter lowered his head. A sly, cunning smile flashed across his face.
Without a shred of warning, he raised his arm and fired a stream of webbing directly at Tobey!
Unfortunately for Peter, this was his very first time using mechanical shooters, and his aim was predictably garbage.
He had originally intended to shoot Tobey's feet, hoping to glue his cousin to the floor long enough to make a frantic escape up the stairs.
But the trajectory of the synthetic web fluid deviated just a tiny bit from his intended target—and shot directly toward Tobey's face!
"Holy shit! Oh no!"
Knowing he had just signed his own death warrant, Peter instantly clamped his hands over his head in despair.
Fortunately, the stray web-line didn't actually hit its mark. A split-second before the synthetic adhesive plastered his face, Tobey casually tilted his head, letting the webbing splat harmlessly against the concrete wall behind him.
Unfortunately, immediately after dodging the web, Tobey pulled his black tactical mask from his pocket and slid it over his head.
The Poison Spider had entered the chat.
"Instead of begging for mercy, you actively chose to attack me? Interesting!"
Through the thick fabric of the mask, Tobey's voice dropped into a dark, distorted register, completely dripping with predatory excitement.
Since his debut in the criminal underworld, all of his opponents had been fragile, ordinary humans. He had long since grown bored of slaughtering men who died from a single punch.
Now that Peter had finally acquired his spider powers, Tobey finally had a punching bag durable enough to withstand a real beating!
Tobey dropped into a low crouch. He spread his arms slightly, curling his fingers like the mandibles of a massive arachnid, adopting a hyper-aggressive combat stance.
He didn't even give Peter the chance to yell that it was an accident. Tobey exploded forward like a crimson blur!
This was Peter's very first fight. Even though his Spider-Sense flared wildly, warning him of the incoming strike, his brain simply couldn't process Tobey's blinding speed.
Before Peter could even raise his arms to block, Tobey drove a brutal upward palm strike directly into Peter's gut.
The sheer kinetic force of the blow launched Peter entirely off his feet. He flew straight up, rocketing toward the twenty-foot-high ceiling!
Gasping through the pain, Peter instinctively threw his hands out behind him, bracing for the bone-shattering impact against the concrete above.
But when his palms slapped against the ceiling, something miraculous happened. He didn't bounce off and fall back down to the floor.
Instead, he stuck perfectly to the ceiling, hanging completely upside down like an insect!
"Our power doesn't come from some magical bloodline awakening," Tobey said, standing straight and looking up at his cousin. "It comes from the spider."
"We possess the proportionate, superhuman strength of an arachnid vastly larger than ourselves. We possess their hyper-sensitive danger perception. And, naturally, the microscopic bristles on our hands and feet allow us to traverse any surface as effortlessly as walking on flat ground."
Clinging to the ceiling, Peter gasped for air and nodded slowly.
"Oh... I see... AUGH!"
The moment Peter nodded, he looked down just in time to see a thick strand of white organic webbing slap directly onto his chest!
With a brutal yank, Tobey ripped Peter off the ceiling. Before Peter could even hit the ground, Tobey delivered a devastating mid-air kick that sent his cousin tumbling across the gym floor with a pathetic, cartoonish scream!
Peter lay sprawled on the mat, gasping for air for several long seconds before he finally managed to push himself up. Clutching his throbbing chest, he whined loudly.
"Bro! Are you trying to kill me?! You said this was just training! Do you really need to hit me this hard? You're definitely just retaliating because I accidentally shot webbing at your head!"
Tobey raised three fingers. His voice was completely devoid of sympathy.
"First, if I had actually hit you hard, you wouldn't have gotten up from that first strike."
"Second, you are far too easily distracted by your surroundings. If you don't fix that fatal flaw immediately, it will get you killed on the streets."
"Third, you are absolutely right. This is retaliation. And I am not even close to being finished yet!"
"So, little spider. Are you ready for round two?"
Hearing this, Peter frantically raised his hand in a rigid, desperate military salute.
"No! I am definitely not ready— Mmph! Mmmph!"
Before Peter could formally surrender, another strand of organic webbing shot across the room, perfectly sealing his mouth shut!
Under the black mask, Tobey's lips curled into a vicious grin.
"Too bad! I don't care if you're ready or not!"
When Tobey smiled, someone usually died!
The Parker family's underground gym was incredibly lively that morning. For an entire hour, Peter's muffled screams echoed relentlessly off the concrete walls.
It wasn't until an hour later, when Peter was physically incapable of peeling himself off the floor, that Tobey finally—and somewhat reluctantly—called an end to the "special training."
Of course, the hour-long beating hadn't been completely pointless.
Forced to adapt to Tobey's suffocating, high-intensity combat rhythm, Peter had rapidly familiarized himself with his new superhuman physiology. He had learned the basics of integrating his strength, agility, and webbing into a cohesive combat flow.
However, Peter wasn't the only one who had gained something from the session.
Tobey had reaped a massive reward of his own. In fact, his reward was arguably far greater than Peter acquiring his powers!
Because Tobey had acquired Peter's powers!
Now, someone might ask: Isn't that redundant? Didn't Tobey already have spider powers?
No, no, no. The spider abilities he already possessed and the abilities he just acquired were two entirely separate things!
He hadn't awakened a new aspect of his own mutation. He had literally absorbed Peter's!
Remember that strange premonition Tobey felt earlier? The creeping instinct that if he violently crushed Peter, he could extract something from him?
The moment Tobey completely physically dominated Peter, that premonition became reality!
And he hadn't just siphoned a fraction of Peter's strength. He had absorbed the absolute totality of Peter's new spider abilities!
The superhuman strength, the blinding reflexes, the Spider-Sense, the wall-crawling—every single stat Peter had just gained was instantly duplicated and stacked directly on top of Tobey's existing baseline!
For example, Tobey's original strength was roughly double what Peter currently possessed. But after absorbing Peter's equivalent stat, Tobey's total strength skyrocketed to three times that of a standard Spider-Man!
And this absolute, proportional enhancement applied to every single ability across the board, with the sole exception of organic webbing, since Peter relied on mechanical shooters.
Tobey stared at his own hands in disbelief.
Could he continuously multiply his stats by hunting and defeating other Spider-Men across the multiverse?
What kind of terrifying, predatory spider was he?!
More Ps = More Chapters!