At this moment, Peter found it impossible to make heads or tails of what was happening. Just hours earlier, a mysterious sorcerer, who,as far as Peter was concerned, was appropriately named Dr. Strange, literally showed up out of nowhere in his home. And if that wasn't enough, he also told the young man that he knew his secret identity, and if Peter wanted to keep it a secret, he was supposed to meet him at this very spot. But instead of the caped Sorcerer, Peter was stunned to see a horn-headed vigilante known as the Daredevil of Hell's Kitchen standing now standing before him and would've kicked him off the roof had his Spider-Sense not prompted him to jump out of the way.

Regardless, Peter shook his head to regain enough composure to answer Daredevil regarding his name. "Yeah, but it's Spider-Man when I'm in these clothes. With a hyphen, by the way. So, you're the 'Daredevil' that every news outlet talks about? And I take it that you're also the 'associate' of that Dr. Strange guy? Where is he anyway?"

Before answering, the Daredevil let out a deep breath in frustration. "Well, he WAS supposed to be here, but he said something came up that he needed his attention. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's nothing big..."

SANTORUM SANCTUM

...Inside the lower chambers of the Sanctum, which was partly lit by candles and resembled that of a dungeon, Dr. Stephen Strange found himself using a giant mandala to hold open the massive jaw of a huge, red, lizard-like creature to keep it from eating him. The reptilian beast that was trying to have Stephen as its meal was known as Lagos, an ancient reptilian demon that years ago was banished by Stephen's mentor, the Ancient One, inside a wooden chest. However, in his search for a relic known as the Wand of Watoomb, something he needed for a spell he planned to use, he came across a chest, thinking it possessed it. But upon opening it, Stephen soon found out how wrong he was and released the demon. As such, he and Wong were forced to transport Lagos to the lower floors. All so he wouldn't run out of the front door of the Sanctum and terrorize the people outside.

Also present in the lower chamber was Wong, who was on the creature's back and had used his mandalas to create an energy-based rope that he wrapped in front of Lagos' neck and pulled him back with all his strength to keep it from making Strange its dinner. "For…goodness sake, Strange!" Wong scolded, struggling to keep the demon from lunging forward. "Did you not read the sign that said, 'Do not open this chest?!'"

"It was written in Mandarin! You know that I'm not fully caught up with that yet!" Strange fired back, straining as he channeled his willpower into his Mandela to keep it together and prevent Lago's mouth from closing on him. "Besides, when you first gave me a tour of the Sanctum when I took the job, you could've said, 'Hey Strange, you see that box right there? Don't touch it!'"

Just like all of Stephen's snide remarks, the aggravated Wong rolled his eyes and let out a loud groan just as he was about to suggest that Stephen make a call to Daredevil and the rest of his comrades for help.

However, before Wong could get even one word out, Lagos took this moment to prove that he was no brainless animal, namely that he stood straight up on his hind legs with the intent of crushing Wong between the back of his head and the ceiling.

Acting fast, Wong stopped concentrating and allowed the energy rope to vanish, all so he could roll to the left side and off Lagos' head just as he smashed it through the ceiling and made a sizable hole.

As for the falling, Wong pointed both his hands at the floor with only his thumbs, index and middle fingers raised, channeled his will into them once more, and moved his left hand in a circular motion. This, in turn, caused a small, mystic portal to appear beneath Wong, which he gladly fell into it instead of landing face first into the floor and breaking multiple bones in his body.

Once that portal disappeared, another one appeared in the air, or more accurately, right above Stephen's left side. Moments later, Wong fell through the portal and landed on his feet right next to the Sorcerer, surprising him enough to make him turn and look at his assistant.

Unfortunately, this also took Stephen's mind away from the Mandala, which caused it to vanish and allow Lagos to shut his massive jaws. After letting out a loud, angry roar, Lagos spun around with blinding speed for a being of his size, and with his tail, swatted Stephen and Wong like they were mosquitos. Though Lagos did this with only an ounce of his strength, it still sent sorcerers flying across the room and up against a wall, where they slowly slid down and were momentarily dazed from the hit.

Wong was the first to shake his head to regain focus and willed himself back to his feet while keeping his eyes on Lagos, who looked like he was ready to charge. "Can I just state for the record that you are VERY difficult to work with?" Wong said bluntly as he created two small Mandalas in his hands and stood in a readied fighting stance.

It didn't take long for Stephen to regain a clear head; thus, he gave a mental command to his red cape, known to many as the Cloak of Levitation. And as the name suggests, it lifted Strange off the floor and gently placed him on his feet. "So, I've heard from every other doctor during my surgeon days," Stephen retorted as he created two Mandalas for himself while staring intently at Lagos, who let out another loud roar and then charged toward him and his assistant as they stood for the latest of fights for their lives…

HELL'S KITCHEN

…All the while leaving Daredevil to talk to the clueless but still suspicious Peter. Before continuing, Daredevil waited a few seconds for Stephen to make a grand entrance with one of his portals. But when he didn't hear the fizzing sound that came from one of the said portals, Daredevil sighed when he realized the doctor's absence couldn't be helped and continued his chat with the 'Spider-Man' that stood before him. "So, with the good doctor being 'indisposed,' it looks like we'll have to carry on without him. But first, let me apologize in advance."

Peter couldn't help but be baffled by Daredevil's last statement. "For what?"

"For this," Daredevil calmly replied, then jumped up into the air and flipped in a corkscrew motion, all to throw a Pele kick, with the target being the top of Peter's head.

An attack that Peter, thankfully, was able to avoid by jumping and performing a corkscrew flip of his own, but to the left side, thus allowing Daredevil to plant his foot on the roof floor instead.

While in a crouching position, Daredevil could tell that the stories about Peter's agility weren't exaggerated. However, he still needed to find out how well the young man did in a fight. As such, he took a moment to connect his billy clubs by an interlock system on the tops, thus turning them into a baton. With a new combined weapon now in his right hand, Daredevil stood up, then ran toward the location where he heard Peter's feet land, as well as his heartbeat, and threw a right overhead club strike, intending to hit the teen's masked head.

But thanks to months of going up against thugs such as crowbars or steel bats, Peter quickly and easily dodged the strike by ducking sideways to the right. While bent down, Peter saw Daredevil continue his assault by using that same hand to throw a downward backhand strike and thus shifted to the left to dodge it. Peter had faced violent attackers before but instantly found out that this Daredevil was on a whole other level, coming at him with such intensity and aggression that he truly did earn his name. And the young man's eyes lid up when he spotted Daredevil throwing a horizontal strike at his abdomen and had to step back to avoid it, but narrowly. "Hey pal, I hate to nit-pick, but that badass line you just said, I think it was from a Keanu Reeves movie!" Peter quipped, trying his hardest to stay calm from the stress this fight was causing, and hoped that it would irritate Daredevil enough to make him lose focus.

However, those hopes were crushed when Daredevil lunged forward and attempted to nail the talkative Peter in his temple with a backhand strike. Unfortunately for the horn-headed vigilante, Peter stopped the attack when he utilized his speed and reflexes by using his left hand to catch and grab hold of Daredevil's wrist.

From here, out of pure habit for doing it for so long, especially in the most extreme circumstances, Peter kept on with his jokes. "So, what, next, you'll be telling me you're here because I hurt or killed your dog?" Suddenly, Peter's eyes grew large behind his bugged-eyed lenses when he realized what he had just said. "Oh man, I kinda hope I didn't! Because I really do love animals!" Peter said fearfully, as he remembered from his last fight with Herman that he wasn't exactly the most graceful and had made many mistakes recently, and was horrified with the thought that his chase with Herman resulted in the death of an animal. "Please tell me I didn't kill your dog!"

Daredevil could tell from Peter's troubled voice that his young opponent was getting off track mentally. As such, he took advantage of this buy using his left hand to grab hold of the top half of the baton, then quickly twisted it and separated the two halves into billy clubs once again. Then, in one lightning-fast motion that only comes from years of martial arts training, Daredevil quickly turned and used his right leg to throw a stiff sidekick, nailing Peter in the abdomen and sending him back up against the building's air conditioning box.

After briefly his gut in pain, Peter looked forward and was shocked to see Daredevil coming at him with a left overhead strike. Hence, he wasted no time lunging and rolling to the right side, allowing the horn-headed vigilante to hit the box instead, with the tip of his club making a dint.

As he ended up in a kneeling position, Peter didn't want to give Daredevil a chance to attack again. Thus, when Peter popped back up, he spun around, pointed his hands forward, and began firing web balls in fast succession to try and imprison him in a web cocoon.

But Daredevil was just as quick to go on the defensive, which meant that when he heard the 'thwipping' sounds of Peter's web shooters, as well as hardening webs, coming his way, he moved his billy clubs in front of his body in a circular motion and deflected the web balls. Daredevil continued this method as he ran towards Peter, and once he was close enough, he threw a right club strike to knock the young man out.

This forced Peter to stop firing his web balls and quickly lean back, allowing the club to pass above him and Daredevil to run right past him. Upon popping back up, Peter turned around and noticed that Daredevil had stopped himself from running and went for a right backhanded strike, targeting Peter's left knee in an attempt to prevent him from running or jumping around. Peter narrowly avoided this one like the club strikes before by jumping up and flipping over Daredevil's head. Upon landing, Peter decided to create some distance between himself and the club-wielding masked vigilante who had earned the grim name that criminals and news sources gave him. Thus, the young hero performed a back handspring, followed by hopping up and performing a backflip. While he was in mid-air, Peter pointed his hands forward once more and shot two web lines, which ended up hitting and sticking to the top of Daredevil's billy clubs just as he turned around.

Once Peter landed on his feet, he immediately took away his horned attacker's weapons by pulling hard on his end of the lines and, in turn, yanked the clubs right out of Daredevil's hands, taking him totally by surprise. It didn't take long for the clubs to end up in Peter's hand, and he held them like a teacher holding up a note being passed around the class as she reprimanded a student that received it. "Geez, pal, you can put someone's eye out with these things!" Peter exclaimed in a mockingly scolding tone as he tossed the clubs aside. Seconds later, however, Peter's jokey demeanor disappeared and once again turned into concern. "But seriously, though, did I kill a dog?"

Daredevil let out a huff of frustration from Peter's comment. Not from how this 'hero wannabe' used his incredible speed and agility to dodge his attacks. In fact, he was actually impressed by it. But instead, it was Peter's sense of humor that rubbed the more experienced crime fighter the wrong way, as he felt that the young man wasn't taking this or any other fight seriously. Regardless, Daredevil thought it was time to make things a little more challenging. Namely, now that he had lost his clubs, it was time to use his fists, as it was time to see how Peter faired against a well-trained fighter as opposed to the average street brawler he was used to dealing with. And so, wasting no time whatsoever, Daredevil clinched his fists and ran towards Peter a full speed. As he ran, Daredevil once again heard Peter shooting more webs, which sounded like they were traveling downward. This led to Daredevil deducing that Peter must be going for his feet, and thus jumped up in the air to allow the webs to hit the floor instead. Once airborne, Daredevil went on the offensive by briefly bringing his right leg forward, then snapped it back and threw a cross, aiming for the sound of Peter breathing.

Though stunned by how Daredevil both evaded his web attacks and found a way to strike back quickly, Peter still managed to duck and avoid the punch. As he popped back up, Peter spun around to face Daredevil and prevent him from attacking again but was surprised to see him throwing a left-legged spinning heel kick and dodged it by leaning back.

Once his foot landed, Daredevil went into a boxing stance and threw two lightning-fast jabs.

Though not as refined as a professional fighter, Peter was fast enough to use his arms to block and push away the punches before reaching his masked face. He then spotted and ducked underneath an incoming right hook and, as he came up, attempted to fight back with one of his own.

However, Daredevil easily anticipated this and thus held up both his arms to the right side to block the blow, then followed it up by nailing Peter in the face with a quick left-back fist. With the young man momentarily dazed, Daredevil decided that he knew everything he needed to know about how this aspiring hero operated. As such, he ended the fight by tucking his head underneath Peter's right arm and using the back of his left foot; he kicked his inexperienced opponent's Achilles tendon in an attempt to trip him.

But rather than falling flat on his back, Peter instinctively performed a backflip while Daredevil still held on to him and attempted to create more distance between them by throwing a right-legged front kick, which Daredevil stopped by quickly catching his foot. In a desperate attempt to escape the hold, Peter performed another backflip. But sadly, the hopes of creating some distance were dashed when Daredevil jumped up and performed a front flip just as Peter was in mid-air and planted both of his feet into the young man's abdomen, driving him down into the floor hard and knocking the wind right out of him.

Now the clear winner of this contest, Daredevil calmly stepped off Peter like he was walking down the stairs and allowed him to cough as he tried to catch his breath. "Well, that pretty much confirms everything."

"C-Confirm what?!" Peter asked in between coughs. "That you can…beat the crap out of a guy while indicating that he killed an animal?! Thus, making him feel bad in more ways than one?!"

Daredevil looked up at the sky and let out an exasperated groan. "For God's sake, kid, you didn't kill a dog!" As he allowed Peter to try and catch his breath, Daredevil bent down and gave him a stern but sympathetic expression as he continued explaining. "But what you did do was prove that you're nowhere near ready for this crime-fighting gig."

Meanwhile, something else occupied the clear night sky in Hell's Kitchen, but it was nowhere to be seen, mainly because it was a high-tech small hover carrier with a camouflage cloaking device. Inside the craft were the Kingpin's Enforcers, all dressed in black and with Montana in the pilot's chair. As well as its cloaking device another other technology, Montana couldn't help but be impressed by how smoothly the craft flew, given his experience as a helicopter pilot for the military. "Well, gotta say, boys, looks like Dr. Smythe came up with a winner for this giant tin can," Montana said in a pleased tone, then noticed through the monitor in front of him Peter and Daredevil on a rooftop just ahead. Something which made a devious smirk appear on the southern hitman's face. "And it looks like it's about to help us get paid!"