Herman had never forgotten Spider-Man.
By now, he was completely convinced that if he wanted to make a name for himself, he had to beat a real superhero. Compared to the well-equipped Avengers, that spider kid in the cheap spandex suit swinging between skyscrapers was obviously the better target.
The last light of sunset filtered through the steel skeleton of the unfinished building, throwing broken shadows across the floor. Then a flash of silver cut through the gloom. Wearing his silver armor, Herman launched himself high into the air and smashed his mechanical gauntlet into a concrete wall. The impact erupted with a deafening roar, and the entire wall exploded apart. His body dropped with the collapsing rubble, crashing through three floors before slamming into the ground level in a cloud of dust.
"Finally... it's done."
Improving the Shocker launcher had never been the difficult part for Herman. What had taken the entire week was the suit of armor he wore now. It had an internal power circulation system, reserve batteries mounted on the back, and forearm-mounted Shocker launchers. The gold-titanium alloy armor could even withstand assault rifle fire. More than that, the recoil from the shockwaves could be completely converted into kinetic energy, giving him superhuman strength and speed. Concrete crumbled like crackers under his fists, and the hundred-pound metal shell did nothing to slow his sprint.
The only drawback was that putting it on was a nightmare.
This was not some sleek high-tech exoskeleton. It was just a mass of metal plates connected through a complex transmission system, and it had to be assembled piece by piece like a medieval suit of armor.
When he finally removed the last plate, Herman let out a long breath. The money left in his pocket had been meant for food, but the sight of J. Jonah Jameson shouting about Spider-Man on the giant street screens made him change his mind. That red-and-blue costume on the screen reminded him of his own rough silver armor, still marked with welding scars and hammer dents from the forge.
So he turned and walked into a convenience store.
A few minutes later, he came back out holding two cans of spray paint.
"Time for a shocking debut."
"Today! Is! A! Completely! Normal! Day!"
High school life passed in the blink of an eye. For Peter Parker, nothing especially good had happened, but nothing bad had happened either. The Detective Club investigation had gone nowhere, Harry and Amadeus had come over for a LEGO night full of laughter, Gwen had secretly joined the rock club, and Homecoming was on the horizon. Everything had been so peaceful it was almost reassuring.
The only small annoyances were that his internship application had vanished into the void, and he could not afford a costume for Spirit Week.
At this rate, he would probably have to head home early on dance night.
As for Spider-Man? The friendly neighborhood routine continued. No supervillains. No alien-tech weapons. Even the street thugs had practically disappeared. If Avengers Tower were not still standing against the skyline, Peter might have started wondering whether New York had finally run out of trouble.
"Oh. Okay, that's probably not good."
The shriek of sirens and the wail of ambulances cut through the air, making it very clear that something had gone badly wrong somewhere. Spider-Man moved instantly, swinging after the police cars.
"All right, what is it this time? Gang idiots? Bank robbers? Fancy tech criminals?"
He landed on a familiar outer wall, looked at the familiar sign, and scratched his head.
"Or maybe all of the above? Why would anyone rob the same bank twice?"
The smoke was pouring from Midtown Bank.
The building should have been condemned by now because of the structural damage to its load-bearing frame, but Tony Stark had stabilized it with emergency support equipment. That had turned demolition into a huge legal and financial mess. Every company with anything left inside wanted time to recover its remaining assets, and all of them used the excuse that there was "no major ongoing danger" to delay the building's destruction.
So the "perfectly safe" death trap had somehow become a strange little local attraction.
Peter was not sure whether a damaged bank inside a condemned building even still had money in it, but judging by the two overturned police cars outside and the heavily armed officers waiting nearby, it was definitely his cue to step in.
"Hey, Captain. Long time no see."
Spider-Man landed on the utility pole beside George's police cruiser, drawing the captain's attention. Looking at the super-powered vigilante, George had to admit that no matter how many citizens accused the police of being useless, there really were criminals only masked vigilantes could deal with.
"You're right on time, Spider-Man."
"Who's inside?"
"Herman Schultz, from what we can tell."
"Who?"
"The leader of the bank robbery crew you arrested here last week. He escaped from NYPD custody. His men said he invented those weapons himself and used them for the robbery. Two of our cruisers were flipped by shockwaves, so it pretty much has to be him."
That was enough for Peter to place him.
"Oh. Mr. Shocker. Right, now I remember. Don't worry, Captain. I'll bring him back in."
George could only wish him luck as Spider-Man declared that with absurd confidence and swung into the bank.
Inside, nothing had changed.
The damage from their last fight was still everywhere. More importantly, his spider-sense was dead quiet. It did not feel like danger at all. That matched the rest of the room, because the bank was dark, empty, and showed no obvious signs of a fresh break-in.
"Hello? Herman? Mr. Shocker? You in here?"
He called out twice, got no response, and kept moving. He spotted the vault door.
It was slightly open.
That was strange enough, but stranger still, it did not look like it had been blasted apart by a shockwave weapon.
"I once called myself the best safecracker in New York. I used to think it was just something I told myself. But this vault door proves otherwise. I can open it. I don't have to destroy it."
A man's voice echoed out from behind the vault, crisp and unnervingly clear in the hollow building. Spider-Man stood outside and waited for him to finish before shrugging.
"So how about you come out and talk? Or I come in, as long as you promise not to shoot me with your Shocker gun."
"Do you ever think they're stupid, Spider-Man?"
"Who? You? Because seriously, what kind of person robs the same bank twice?"
"But they didn't take a single dollar out. They left everything right here, like they were waiting for me to come rob it."
A brutal spike of pain slammed through Peter's brain.
The last time his spider-sense had hit him that hard was when he had been facing the Chitauri leviathan. He backflipped on instinct, barely dodging the vault door as it came flying at him. Several tons of solid metal crashed to the floor with a thunderous impact, and all Spider-Man had time to do after landing was let out one astonished curse.
A storm of dollar bills burst outward like a golden avalanche.
Walking through it came an enemy Peter had never seen before.
He wore heavy tan-and-brown shock-resistant armor. His shoulder plates and chest plates were built from layered metal segments, and the entire surface was covered in honeycomb-style damping structures. His arms carried forearm-mounted Shocker launchers, and his brown helmet made him look like some kind of dangerous owl.
"Like I was waiting for you to come back."
At that moment, Herman Schultz no longer felt like Herman Schultz.
He was the Shocker.
He threw a left punch, and the shockwave that blasted from it had enough force to send an entire vault door flying. Spider-Man dodged using his spider-sense, then swung back into the main bank hall where there was more room to fight.
"Wow, Herman, I'm flattered. You upgraded all your gear just to beat me up? You even built yourself armor?" Spider-Man clung to the wall and looked down at him as the Shocker stepped forward. "Just look at what you made. You're a genius. You could do something worthwhile with talent like this. You could help people. You could even be a hero. Ever think about that?"
The Shocker paused. He lowered his arms, and Peter could feel his spider-sense easing slightly.
"You make a good speech, Spider-Man." The Shocker nodded and looked up at him. "Except for one thing."
"You should've invited me before I stopped being a nobody!"
Outside, George was still waiting to see what happened inside the bank. It did not take long for things to look bad. One of the exterior walls exploded outward, and Spider-Man came flying out through the hole.
"Don't go in, Captain! Herman's dangerous! Clear the area!"
Spider-Man stuck a web to the lobby floor and slingshotted himself back into the fight. The upgraded launcher had an absurdly wide range now. Even with spider-sense, he had not managed to dodge it completely.
A second later, he landed right in front of Herman in a classic superhero crouch.
"Okay, Herman. Looks like I'm going to have to explain this to you the hard way."
(End of Chapter)
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