Zzzzzzt!
The ear-piercing screech of electrical discharge tore through the night sky! Jagged bolts of blinding white light streaked toward Gwen with lethal precision.
In that split second, Gwen's Spider-Sense screamed a frantic warning. She threw herself into a desperate lateral roll.
BOOM!
The lightning grazed her by a hair's breadth, slamming into the asphalt. The road surface melted instantly, sending up clouds of acrid, pungent smoke. Before Gwen could even scramble to her feet, Sandman's massive fist was already descending like a falling building.
Again!
This was the countless times Gwen had been forced into a clumsy defensive maneuver. If she were fighting either of them one-on-one, she was confident her modified web-shooters could handle the job—or at least hold them at a stalemate until the NYPD arrived.
But this "Evil Two-on-One" was proving to be a nightmare. To make matters worse, the city-wide blackout had caused crime rates to skyrocket across Manhattan.
The NYPD was stretched thin dealing with looters and muggers; there was no backup coming for her.
It was a massive headache. Dealing with two supervillains was irritating enough, but Electro wouldn't stop rambling with his delusional, cringeworthy monologues.
"Marry me, and I'll make you the happiest woman in the world.""You have no choice; you have to submit to me!""Only I truly love you. Look at you now—danger all around, isolated, helpless. Where is your lover? Where is he? That coward doesn't deserve you."
What the hell is he talking about?
Gwen wasn't a judgmental person by nature, but at this moment, she had a fierce urge to snap back. She really wanted to yell: "Compared to Peter, you're just a piece of farm equipment!"
But she couldn't. Mentioning Peter's name would only put a target on his back. She couldn't let this psycho anywhere near him.
Fuming with frustration, Gwen tried to turn and web Electro in his big blue mouth, but when she tapped her triggers—nothing came out.
When it rains, it pours. Between the prolonged chase and the heavy fighting with Sandman, her primary web fluid cartridges were bone dry.
She needed a window of time to swap them out, but how was she supposed to find three seconds of peace while dodging a lightning god and a sand giant?
Electro and Sandman both noticed her predicament. Sandman immediately turned back to the bank vault, more interested in gathering the flying Franklins for his daughter's surgery than in taking a life.
Electro, however, approached with a predatory grin. "Little darling, it looks like you need my hel—"
BOOM!
Before Electro could finish his sentence, a heavy, mountain-shattering kick slammed into his back from behind. If he hadn't been in his "semi-elemental" overcharged state, that single kick would have folded him like a flip-phone.
Gwen stared in disbelief at the familiar back that had descended from the sky, slowly landing between her and the villains.
She instinctively whispered a single syllable: "Pe—"
She caught herself instantly, slamming her hand over her mouth. Am I going crazy from missing Peter? The black-and-red suit, the overwhelming, invincible aura... this was clearly The Arbiter, the hero who had vanished for a long time.
But that back... how can it be so similar to Peter's?
And... did his body stiffen slightly just now when he heard her start to speak?
After kicking Electro away, Peter didn't stop to chat. He stepped into the air—Moonwalk—and twisted his body in a gravity-defying arc, snapping back toward Sandman.
"Get lost!" Sandman roared, swinging a massive limb to swat away the man blocking his path to the money.
Peter didn't dodge. He clenched both fists, aligning them vertically toward the incoming arm.
Six Paths Secret Technique: Rokuogan (Six King Gun)!
This was the most effective move in his current arsenal for dealing with a dispersed physical mass like Sandman. The technique focused compressed shockwaves through the target's internal structure.
The shockwave exploded inside Sandman's chest. The sheer force was so immense that the seven-meter-tall sand giant was literally pulverized into a cloud of fine dust!
The visual impact was staggering. Both Gwen and Felicia stood with their mouths hanging open in a perfect "O" shape.
Even Electro, recovering from the kick, felt a surge of genuine terror. If that hit had landed on him, would he have just ceased to exist?
Taking advantage of the time Sandman needed to reform, Peter looked back at Gwen. "Change your webbing. Now. You handle the Sandman; I'll take care of the electrical 'cabinet' over there."
He then cast a quick glance at Felicia. Though confused, Felicia's reflexes were sharp. She took a deep breath and prepared her voice.
There were two ways to activate the Emerald Dragon Scale: singing seven different notes or shouting a transformation phrase like "Let the song give me strength!" The latter was so embarrassing that even Felicia couldn't stomach it, so she opted for the vocal warm-up.
Suppressing her swirling thoughts, Gwen gulped and jammed backup cartridges into her wrists. She immediately began firing lines of silk into the ground, trying to partition the settling sand to slow down Sandman's regeneration.
"Is it you?"
Electro scrambled up, staring at Peter with eyes burning with jealousy and venom. "Is Ghost-Spider choosing you instead of me?"
Gwen's face turned bright red under her mask, a mix of panic and shame. "Shut up! What are you talking about?!" she yelled. "I have nothing to do with you! You've been talking to yourself this whole time! And besides..."
She looked at The Arbiter's back—the back that looked more like Peter's every second—and bit her lip before shouting defiantly:
"The person I love is my neighbor who grew up with me! Aside from him, there is no one else!"
Hearing this "confession" that was a perfect ten out of ten, Peter didn't turn around, but a satisfied smirk curved beneath his mask.
Well said, my little Spider.
As for you... Peter cracked his neck, his bones popping like rapid-fire crackers as he stared down Electro.
"You have chosen the path to your own death!"
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