At 1 a. m., in an abandoned industrial area of Brooklyn, a modified Ford Raptor was driving along a bumpy dirt road. Five people were crammed into the vehicle, each holding an M4 pistol, and four military-grade weapon boxes were stacked at the deepest part of the truck bed.
The driver was bald, with a thick beard, and half of his left ear was missing; he was known as " Notched-Ear Joe." He had one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding a cigar, muttering curses under his breath.
"Damn, that's it? I thought the New York Police Department was something special, but after driving around Brooklyn all night, I didn't even see a single patrol car."
A tall, thin man in the passenger seat, who was clipping his nails with a dagger, scoffed at the comment. "Dude, you have to thank those vigilantes. Ever since those lunatics in tight suits started arresting people on the streets, the cops have all retreated to Manhattan. Brooklyn? Who cares?"
"Vigilante?" Notched-Ear Joe took his cigar out of his mouth, spat, and said, "I've been around for years, what kind of superhero haven't I seen? They're all hyped up on TV, but when you actually run into one, they're all just flesh and blood. One burst of bullets and they're all lying flat."
A black thug wearing a headscarf leaned out from the back seat, a fawning smile on his face, "Brother Joe's right. What kind of bullshit superheroes are they? One bullet and they're all going to meet God."
Notched-Ear Joe grinned, revealing a set of teeth stained yellow from smoking. "Selling this batch tonight will keep us happy for a while. In the arms trade, as long as there's a war, we'll always have a share."
The tall, thin man sheathed his dagger and pointed to an abandoned auto repair shop ahead. "Brother Qiao, we're here. This is where the buyer arranged to meet."
Notched-Ear Joe parked his car in front of the repair shop, turned off the engine, jumped out, stretched, and was about to call his brothers to unload the goods when he suddenly felt something was wrong under his feet. Looking down, he saw a thick layer of sand on the ground.
No, Brooklyn is an industrial area, not a beach. Where would the sand come from?
He crouched down and picked up a pinch with his fingers. The sand was fine, dry and whitish, with a faint yellowish hue under the moonlight. He looked up and realized that the sand wasn't just under his feet—it covered the entire road, stretching from the repair shop entrance all the way in the direction they had come from, as if someone had deliberately spread a carpet on the road.
"Boss," the tall, thin man's voice suddenly became tense, "Look at that."
Notched-Ear Joe followed his gaze. The sand was moving. Not by the wind, but on its own. Countless tiny grains of sand seemed to be drawn together by some unseen force, converging from all directions towards one. The sand piled up, higher and higher, denser and denser, finally coalescing into a spider about the size of a fist. Then came the second, the third, the tenth... the hundredth. Each spider had a miniature human face pattern on its back, with two faint yellow lights shining in its eye sockets. Hundreds of sand spiders, hundreds of glowing eyes, surged in from all directions, completely surrounding the Ford Raptor.
The cigar in Notched-Ear Joe's mouth fell to the ground.
"Hold--"
Before he could even draw his gun, the sand beneath his feet suddenly collapsed. The sand seemed to come alive. Grains of sand climbed up his trouser legs, into his shoes, into his belt, and into his collar. The sand enveloped his ankles, knees, and waist, pulling him down with an irresistible force. He looked down and saw that his lower body was already sunk into the sand.
The henchmen beside him weren't in much better shape. The tall, thin man was completely encased in sand, only his head sticking out, his lips trembling so he couldn't speak. The two lookouts in the back tried to jump out and escape, but as soon as they landed, they were knocked down by the surging sand, burying themselves and their guns in the sand, leaving only their hands flailing about. The black man with the turban was in the worst situation; he tried to fire, but the bullet went unheard in the sand, and the next second a sand spider was smeared on his face, scaring him so much that his eyes rolled back in his head.
With his last bit of strength, Notched-Ear Joe lifted his head and saw two people emerge from the shadows of the repair shop.
The one on the left is tall and thin, wearing a comical jumpsuit with the hood pulled low. He walks with a slightly hunched posture, as if he's carrying something on his back. The one on the right is a chubby little guy, wearing a T-shirt with the Star Wars logo, an Uncle Sam mask on his head, and holding a modified tablet computer in his arms, his fingers flying across the screen.
" Peter, that's a wrap."
Two hours later, in the reporting room of the Brooklyn Precinct of the New York Police Department, the duty officer was dozing off at his desk when he was suddenly awakened by a piercing horn blaring. Rubbing his eyes, he went to the door and saw a modified Ford Raptor parked outside the precinct. Four military weapon crates were neatly stacked inside, and next to the crates were seven men wrapped in sand like silkworm cocoons. Each man had a note stuck to his chest with the same sentence written in crooked handwriting:
"You have received moral education; please check your records. Evidence: Theft of weapons; Location of the crime: Abandoned industrial area of Brooklyn."
The officer on duty stared at the words for a long time, his lips twitching wildly, before pulling out his walkie-talkie.
"Chief? Here they are again. This time it's Brooklyn. Seven of them. Arms thieves. Tie them all up."
There was a long silence on the other end of the walkie-talkie before George Daisy's weary voice came through. "Understood. Handle it the usual way."
The police officer put down his walkie-talkie, looked at the robber reciting the " Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces " in his mind, and his lips twitched very slightly.
"... At least I didn't wet my pants this time."
On the way back, Peter and Ned squeezed into a corner of the last subway car. Both were exhausted. Ned leaned back in his seat and scrolled through his phone, Peter leaned against the window and stared blankly.
"What are you thinking about now?" Ned asked without looking up.
"Nothing," Peter said, looking away. "It's just that lately I feel like life hasn't been quite real."
"Which part are you referring to? Uncle Lin, whom you complained was lecherous? Or the part where you got a giant spider bodyguard after being pricked by a golden arrow? Or the part where we're vigilantes in Brooklyn every night now?"
"All of them," Peter said.
Ned put down his phone and looked at him seriously. "Brother, let me tell you the truth. No matter what you choose in the future, I'll help you. Not because you're a superhero, but because you're my brother."
Peter opened his mouth, his Adam's apple bobbed, but in the end he just reached out and patted Ned on the shoulder. "Thanks, bro."
The carriage was quiet for a moment. Ned picked up his phone again, flipped through a couple of pages, and suddenly looked up. "Are you coming out again tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow night won't work," Peter interrupted, his expression becoming somewhat subtle. "MJ invited me to the movies."
Ned's finger stopped on the screen. He looked up at Peter with the look of someone looking at a traitor, his mouth opening and closing repeatedly.
"We were just discussing the superhero cause, and you're telling me you're going on a date? With MJ?"
"She asked me out! I couldn't just refuse! Besides, didn't you tell me last time that I should seize the opportunity?"
"I told you to seize the opportunity to confess your feelings, not to prioritize romance over friendship!" Ned's voice echoed in the empty carriage.
"I didn't prioritize romance over friendship!" Peter's face flushed red, and his voice rose a half-octave. "I just felt that since the crime rate in Queens has dropped recently, taking a day off wouldn't hurt..."
"Take a day off? Are you sure?" Ned's eyes widened.
"Then what do you suggest we do?" Peter's voice was muffled.
Ned stared at him for several seconds, then spread his hands and said in a tone that said, "I knew you'd do this," "Fine, go ahead. I can handle the intelligence gathering myself anyway. But if you two really get together, you have to tell me right away, I want to post it on my social media."
Peter stared at Ned for a long time, then finally couldn't help but laugh. Ned laughed too. The two boys laughed so hard in the empty subway car that their laughter echoed far and wide through the tunnel.
When the laughter subsided, Peter leaned back in his chair, a smile still on his face, but his eyes became more serious. " Ned."
"Um?"
"Thanks."
"Don't give me that." Ned waved his hand. "Hurry back and help me work on your new gear. Mr. Stark said the next batch of upgrades will arrive next week, and this time it supposedly includes an environment adaptation module. Do you know what that means?"
What does that mean?
"This means your suit will maintain optimal performance even in the rain. Previously, sand sank as soon as it got wet, but with this module, the sand particles broken down by the Fool can be freely manipulated in water. Theoretically, if your mental strength is strong enough, you could even build a sand castle on the seabed."
Peter listened as Ned rattled off the technical specifications, his smile widening. To be honest, he wasn't nearly as enthusiastic about the technical details as Ned, but every time he saw his best friend jumping for joy over a new discovery, he felt that telling Ned this secret was probably one of the best decisions he'd ever made.
The subway arrived at the station. The two stepped out of the station and walked into the late-night streets of Queens. The streetlights cast long shadows, and the hot dog stand on the corner had already closed, leaving only a tilted trash can and a few flyers scattered by the wind. As they passed the convenience store downstairs from Ned's house, Ned suddenly stopped, took the ring out of his pocket, and examined it in his palm.
The ring remained unchanged. Its iron-gray band was covered in fine cracks, and its surface was engraved with countless runes, most of which were worn away and illegible, with only a few scattered strokes gleaming faintly under the streetlights. Ned had recently acquired a batch of handwritten materials on ancient runes and mystical artifacts from the black market, and after several nights of studying them, he had finally managed to complete most of the missing runes on the ring.
"What exactly is this thing?" Ned held the ring up to his eyes, frowning as he examined it. "The information I found says these runes are related to some ancient spatial teleportation technique, but it doesn't mention a single word about how to activate it."
"Are you still studying that thing?" Peter leaned over for a look.
"Someone has to study it, right? What if it's some ancient artifact? It'd be such a waste to just leave it there collecting dust."
Peter shrugged and said nothing more. The two chatted about tomorrow's movie as they walked into Ned's apartment building. Yes, Peter had been staying at Ned's house for the past few days. As for why, who could come home to find a little girl Gwen Stacy, who was about their age, insisting that they call her "Auntie"? Seeing Aunt May focusing all her attention on Uncle Lin, and seeing the female officer's menacing look when Uncle Lin and Aunt Betty were flirting, Peter wanted to take care of Uncle Lin, but circumstances wouldn't allow it. He simply couldn't get involved, so he moved out and lived with Ned.
The two opened the door, chatting and laughing. Neither of them noticed that the brightest rune on the ring Ned was clutching in his palm was rotating extremely slowly.
Back home, Peter washed up and went to sleep first. Ned finished washing up and lay down on the bed, then took out the ring and placed it on the bedside table. Peter said that this thing might be a relic of some fallen magical civilization, and maybe it was related to the Sorcerer Supreme. Ned thought Peter had read too many comics, but he himself admitted that since witnessing Lin Xiao teleport with a dagger and release purple lightning from his fingertips, his understanding of the word "impossible" had undergone a fundamental change.
After watching for a while, drowsiness came over him. Ned yawned, put the tablet next to his pillow, turned over, and closed his eyes.
Unbeknownst to him, in the instant he turned over, his left hand, which was under the pillow, had its index finger pressed precisely on the brightest rune on the ring's face. The ring flashed. Not the faint, intermittent light from before, but a complete and bright golden light that burst forth from the very center of the ring, spreading along the cracks to the entire ring, turning it from iron gray to pale gold.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of kilometers away from New York, lies the Kamar-Taj Temple.
The Ancient One sat cross-legged on a futon in the center of the main hall, surrounded by a faint golden light. A young disciple tiptoed into the hall, knelt behind her, and asked in a low voice, "Master, what are your instructions?"
The Ancient One didn't answer immediately. Her eyes remained closed, a faint, unchanging smile playing on her lips. The fluctuation just now was very weak and short-lived; no other mage could have sensed it. But she sensed it. An alien artifact, not belonging to this place, had been activated by an ordinary person who had never practiced magic before, and this person seemed to be connected to that otherworldly being.
The Ancient One gently shook her head, her smile deepening.
"Let them be," she said. "Compile a list of outstanding students from recent years; in a while, some people might want to audit the classes."