A little earlier, Herman and his crew had put on their signature black robber masks, grabbed the Shocker launchers he had built, and gotten ready to rob a bank.
The Chitauri ruins had already been cleared out. There was nothing left to dig up. And after getting used to fast money, none of them could stomach going back to honest work. Especially now that they had a new edge: the Shocker launcher, a device that could open any vault.
They had chosen a time no one else would have picked: early morning, before the bank even opened.
There were three reasons for that. First, it was unexpected. No one would think somebody would rob a bank before business hours. Second, Herman did not want to kill anyone, so he deliberately chose a time when there would be no employees inside. And third, the Shocker launcher was powerful enough to blast open both the bank's entrance and the vault door, so it did not matter whether anyone was there or not.
"Just like I said. The greatest lockpick ever made."
Wearing his black mask, Herman took the lead, blew open the bank's front doors, and charged in with the others.
"Come on, boys! Find the vault door!"
"How hard can that be?" one of the crew shouted, turning his weapon up to level two and sweeping it wildly around the interior. "Whatever doesn't break is the vault!"
A bunch of them yelled, "Good idea!" and immediately got to work.
None of them noticed that while they were wrecking the place, something had crawled in through the blasted-open doors from outside and was now clinging to the ceiling, quietly watching them.
"The second I came in, my spider-sense started going nuts. What is that thing? Doesn't look like Chitauri gear. More like some weird homemade tech."
Spider-Man watched one of the criminals aim the weapon in his hand at the counter.
The counter exploded instantly.
"Sonic... no, shockwave weapon? Man, I really wish shockwaves in real life came in bright colors. Dodging them would be way easier."
Still muttering to himself, Spider-Man reached out and fired a web, yanking one of the Shocker launchers away.
"Hey, guys, you do know banks don't open until nine, right? At this hour, try an ATM!"
"It's him!" one of the gang members shouted, recognizing him. "It's that bug that beat up all those guys! Light him up!"
"I'm guessing those 'all those guys' weren't exactly friendly neighbors!"
Spider-Man stuck a strand of web to the floor near the man's feet, used the tension to sling himself forward, and kicked him flying before he could pull the trigger. At the same time, he shot another strand to force a second criminal's weapon downward. The level-two blast launched the guy straight into the ceiling before he dropped back down unconscious.
"Oh wow, sorry, I genuinely did not think that would happen. Guess the ATM isn't really your style of withdrawal either. Why is my spider-sense screaming this hard?! Behind me!"
With a sideways flip and a rapid burst of webs, Spider-Man's first real clash with Herman began.
Herman handled the Shocker launcher far better than the others. Every strand of web Spider-Man fired was shattered by invisible shockwaves before it could reach him. Only Spider-Man himself managed to stay ahead of the attacks for the moment.
"Look, on some level I'd love for you to tell me where you bought that thing, but I'm guessing you'd rather explain it to the police, right?"
Spider-Man bounced all over the bank floor, relying on his spider-sense to evade the invisible blasts. He could not get close, and he could not use his webs effectively, so he had to think of something else.
"Bought?!" Herman roared. "I built this! It's mine!"
He tore off his mask in fury, lashing out with a rage Spider-Man could not understand at all. Then he cranked the Shocker launcher to its maximum safety setting, level three, enough power to cut through a vault door, and fired at Spider-Man.
"Whoa, wait! Don't get mad! What did I even say that upset you?"
Spider-Man took off at full speed across the ceiling, hanging upside down as he ran. One glance back at the hole blasted through the ceiling told him this was getting bad. He webbed the bank counter, tore the whole thing loose, and hurled it at Herman.
Facing the flying counter, Herman kept firing, but the shockwave only tore the desk apart.
As for Spider-Man, he had vanished amid the storm of loose papers now filling the air.
Where was he?
"I'm right here!"
From behind, Spider-Man grabbed Herman by the shoulder and drove a fist into his face, knocking him senseless and sending him crashing to the ground. The Shocker launcher dropped beside him.
"Buddy, if you really designed this thing yourself, then you're basically an engineer. Why not just get a normal job?"
Peter cheerfully webbed the Shocker launcher over to himself and started fiddling with it out of curiosity. He set it to the lowest setting and tested it on the shattered remains of the counter. The power was mediocre. It did not even completely destroy what was left.
"Oh my God. What output were you lunatics using... the outer walls are starting to fail, the building's whole load-bearing structure is getting damaged. If this keeps going, the entire place is going to come down."
Herman had still been dazed from that punch, but hearing that snapped him awake.
"What? Structural damage? That's impossible. I didn't set the output that high... the Shocker launcher shouldn't be that destructive!"
That was when Peter finally realized what the problem was.
"Wait, you said this thing is called the Shocker? Yeah, okay, that is officially way too shocking."
Another gang member Spider-Man had just beaten down used the moment to get back to his feet, grabbed a Shocker launcher, cranked it to the maximum third setting, and fired.
Thanks to his spider-sense, Peter dodged immediately, but the concentrated shockwave carved a glaring crack through the bank wall. Not just one wall either. It punched all the way through the building in a straight line.
Sunlight streamed in from outside.
"Crap! I've got to shut them down!"
Realizing the whole building would collapse if this kept up, Peter moved instantly. He weaved around the attacks while firing webs, using his spider-sense to let the focused shockwaves graze past him by inches. One web finally succeeded in yanking the man's hand away from the trigger.
Then Peter rushed in, snatched the weapon out of his grip, and bent the Shocker launcher clean in half with brute force.
Problem solved.
Only then did Herman realize the Shocker launcher was even more dangerous than he had imagined. Its high-power shockwaves lost far less force after smashing through physical objects than his calculations had predicted, meaning they still carried terrifying destructive power even after impact.
"Stop firing!" Herman shouted urgently as another one of his men raised his weapon. "If we keep this up, the whole building might come down!"
But the guy staggering to his feet was too dazed to listen. He twisted the dial all the way up.
Not to level three.
For some reason, the safety lock had broken, and the weapon turned all the way up to level five.
Herman stared in horror and immediately screamed, "Frank! Throw that thing away! The recoil will kill you!"
The man named Frank looked down at the weapon in confusion.
Then he pulled the trigger.
The moment he did, he lost all control. His whole body nearly launched into the air. Nearly, because Spider-Man kicked him away at the last possible second.
But the trigger had already been pulled, and something had jammed it in place. The weapon slammed straight into the oncoming Spider-Man.
Then the massive force discharged into the ground.
The explosion of shockwaves instantly knocked out the entire gang, Herman included. Meanwhile, Spider-Man, still clutching the Shocker launcher, was blasted upward by the colossal recoil. The force hurled both him and the weapon through the bank's ceiling, then up through more than a dozen floors before finally embedding him in a ceiling somewhere far above.
"Ah, my back. My back..."
Peter pulled himself free from the ceiling and rubbed at his back, wincing hard.
It hurt like hell, but he was okay.
Thankfully, his body was far beyond normal human limits. A hit like that only left him bruised all over, and with his healing ability, the bruises would probably be gone in a few hours.
"For a guy called the Shocker, this is way more brutal than I expected."
After prying himself loose, Spider-Man jumped down through the hole he had made and returned to the first-floor bank lobby with a classic superhero landing.
Every member of Herman's crew was still unconscious on the collapsed bank floor below.
Spider-Man looked at the nearly shattered flooring, then did what he always did: webbed up all the criminals, sealed up their weapons too, and swung out through the front entrance.
Then, getting creative, he spun several large lines of text out of webbing to warn people how badly damaged the building was, and he also marked off the nearby street to start an evacuation.
The web fluid would only last two hours. If the NYPD and Damage Control still had not found a way to stabilize the building by then, things would get ugly.
Though even if they did, a whole structure with its load-bearing frame compromised was still unquestionably unsafe.
"Hey, Uncle Ben! Gwen!"
Ever since Spider-Man had spun that huge web across the street, they had not gone into the subway station after all. They had only stayed near the entrance, which made it easy enough for Peter to find them.
"I found a route out. We can still make it through, and traffic doesn't look bad yet."
Peter came running over with his backpack on, waved to them, and patted Uncle Ben's car.
"Good news. Your car's okay, Uncle Ben."
"Who is that guy?"
Back from London after two months, Gwen pointed at the webbing hanging across the street. She had no idea New York had picked up a web-slinging freak like this while she was gone.
Peter hesitated for a second before explaining, "Some guy calling himself Spider-Man's been stopping crimes lately. You know, superhero stuff."
"Oh. Then his taste is pretty questionable."
As she opened the car door, Peter asked in a half-joking tone, "You mean his suit?"
"No. I mean his shoes. They're the same as yours."
(End of Chapter)
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