Just as the soldiers of the Wild Pack were arriving one after another, the Hulk launched his own attack on his enemies. Since Thor had gone to protect Iron Man and the others, the colossal Hydra robot naturally became his toy.
Peter, meanwhile, departed the scene rapidly, following the insistent call of his Spider-Sense. The entire battlefield was partitioned with orderly precision, as every member of the team had their own objective to pursue.
Logan, for instance, was tracking the scent and trail of Strucker and Captain America. He followed the path, sensing them drawing closer. Since the two were undoubtedly engaged in combat, their movement speed wouldn't be very fast. As for whether they would remain fighting atop a vehicle, Logan knew the Captain well enough to know they wouldn't.
However, he did not expect to come face-to-face with an entirely new enemy.
"Heh, Sinister. I don't even know if encountering you here is something I should be surprised about."
"Don't say that, Logan. I was quite looking forward to your surprise." Appearing before Logan once again was Mister Sinister—or rather, yet another of his clones. "You should know that a long time ago, your genetic material was a vital component of the Weapon X program. Unfortunately, your DNA was damaged, which is why I have been pursuing you ever since."
"Heh, couldn't you find someone else?"
"I've searched for many. For example, Deadpool, who was transplanted with your healing factor back then; or perhaps your son Daken, or your old rival Sabretooth. Regrettably, none of them possessed a genetic stability comparable to yours. Later, I began to wonder exactly what I was missing—and now, I understand."
Sinister stopped mid-sentence, but Logan remained alert to his surroundings. The scents in the air told him that someone else was nearby, someone who might be the killing blow Sinister had prepared.
"On a related note, are you familiar with the Red Room? Most of their research is quite tedious—tracking chips, false memory implants. But one thing they developed is remarkably effective: a spray that, when combined with false memory programming, can create soldiers who follow orders with absolute obedience."
As Sinister spoke, he shook a bottle in his hand and opened it. A cloud of red mist drifted through the area. Then, Sinister pushed a young girl, no more than eleven or twelve years old, out from behind him. Resting his hand on her shoulder, he smiled at Logan.
"Logan, the reason my experiments failed before was because I underestimated your potential. Your healing ability far exceeded my imagination; it was the Adamantium that suppressed your healing factor. So, I now have a new Wolverine. She doesn't have a full Adamantium skeleton—it has only been implanted into her claws."
Sinister patted the girl's face. She wore wind-resistant goggles, and her face was covered by a mask similar to the one worn by the Winter Soldier. She stood before Logan, and under his gaze—which hinted that he had guessed the truth but dared not admit it—two steel claws extended from the backs of her hands.
"Eliminate him, X-23. This is your mission. A child must always step out from her father's shadow, mustn't she?"
While Logan encountered his "daughter" X-23 for the first time, Peter followed the echoes of his Spider-Sense to a specific location. There, he saw Cindy fighting Hydra soldiers. He immediately moved to assist, and together they quickly cleared the area.
"Did you feel it too?"
"It's magic."
Cindy's answer caught Peter by surprise. He looked at her in astonishment. "What?"
"The source calling to us... it's related to magic. Magic, gods, things like that probably... I can't quite put it into words." Cindy didn't know how she was perceiving it, but her Spider-Sense seemed to consistently produce peculiar effects.
The two entered the building before them warily. It appeared to be a warehouse filled with various items, and Peter and Cindy's Spider-Sense never ceased tingling from start to finish.
They came to a halt before a specific object.
It was an ancient golden totem pole, carved with the image of a spider. Peter thought it looked familiar, and then he remembered: this object looked exactly like the idol that gave Spider-Man Noir his powers!
In certain parallel universes, Peter Parker lived during the Great Depression on the eve of World War II. He was bitten by a spider from an ancient European spider idol, subsequently had a dream about a Spider-God, and became the Spider-Man of that universe.
Peter had originally assumed this object didn't exist in the 616 universe; he hadn't expected it to actually be here!
Wait, did that mean Hydra also had a Spider...
"Ah, Spider-Man, Agent Silk. Welcome, welcome." An unfamiliar voice echoed around them as the totem was showcased to the two of them. "You can sense the incredibly powerful energy emanating from it, can't you? I've heard that those with spider powers can all sense it. If not for this object, perhaps we wouldn't have had our trail discovered by Richard Parker, and we wouldn't have been exposed."
"Richard Parker was a Spider-Sense user?"
"No, but a companion he knew was—a rather decadent man. We are currently searching for his whereabouts, but unfortunately, we do not know who he is either."
At this point, the voice seemed to recall something. "Ah, allow me to introduce myself. I am the global artificial intelligence of Hydra, Arnim Zola. Perhaps you have heard my name, perhaps not, but it doesn't matter now."
"In reality, our weapon expansion programs are all researched and developed based on precedents that exist in reality. For example, the Savage Force program. As early as the 1950s, we obtained intelligence about a woman who possessed abilities similar to a spider. We located her immediately and spent a vast sum of money to purchase this totem from her hands."
"This totem has a very special effect. As long as you keep Italian tarantulas inside it, these spiders can grant others the opportunity to acquire spider powers through their bite. Of course, most people simply die of a non-existent disease called Tarantism."
Because of this, Hydra had failed to produce a successful spider-powered individual for decades.
Thus, they took an alternative path, choosing to use science to replicate those results. The final outcome of that was, naturally, Richard Parker and his research into genetically modified spiders.
And now, while this object had largely lost its original purpose, it still served one very useful function.
"And that is: no matter where a spider-powered person is or what they are doing, they almost never refuse such an energy fluctuation and will actively seek it out. Furthermore, this thing can interfere with your Spider-Sense. It can at least keep your head ringing incessantly, making you think it's just this device's fault while you overlook the bombs planted here."
Arnim Zola laughed and pressed the detonation button.
"Farewell, Spider-Man."