Peter had always known the Shocker would be the first true supervillain he ever faced. He had never believed becoming Spider-Man meant he would somehow avoid meeting supervillains forever.
He just had not known whether he was ready.
And today was the day to prove it.
Spider-Man pushed himself up from the inner wall of Midtown Bank and immediately started sprinting around the circular lobby, forcing the Shocker to track him with blast after blast. Herman kept firing exactly as Peter had hoped, shattering the ornate ceiling overhead while Spider-Man darted behind a marble column. A shockwave hit the column and snapped it in half.
"You know, Herman? I actually liked that Roman-style column."
Spider-Man did not run back in. Instead, he used a webline to slingshot himself forward, crashing into the Shocker with a flying kick. Herman stumbled back two steps, only for Spider-Man to follow up with a heavy punch straight to the face.
He rocked from the blow, then straightened right back up.
Spider-Man looked at his own fist in disbelief.
"How are you..."
"Gold-titanium alloy, kid."
The Shocker's gauntlet surged with power, and one punch under Spider-Man's jaw sent him flying. While airborne, Spider-Man fired a web at the broken marble column and yanked the whole thing at Herman.
The Shocker drew back a fist, inhaled, and punched.
The three- or four-ton marble column exploded apart.
But in that exact instant, a wad of webbing splattered across his faceplate, blinding him.
"I've got a question. If your punches hit that hard, and your armor's that tough..."
Spider-Man landed on Herman's back, shot webbing around the arm Herman had started charging, and yanked it toward his own helmet.
"Then what happens when your fist hits your face?!"
The instant the punch slammed into Herman's own helmet, Spider-Man sprang clear. The heavy shockwave hit him square in the face, making him stagger back two steps.
Then Herman started laughing.
He looked at Spider-Man, who had landed on the floor again.
"My armor disperses most of the force into kinetic motion, Spider! Doesn't matter whether the shockwave comes from me or from outside!"
"That's great!"
Spider-Man had already webbed the remaining base of the marble column and tore the rest of it free, hurling it at Herman.
"Does that mean I don't have to hold back when I punch you?"
"Or maybe you should start thinking about how you're going to survive!"
The power gauge on his forearm armor flashed red in an instant.
The Shocker slammed both fists into the floor.
The violent tremor shattered every remaining pane of protective glass in the bank and pulverized the falling marble debris. Then that yellow figure burst through the dust cloud and launched himself straight at Spider-Man.
Even with spider-sense, Peter could not dodge in time this time.
The Shocker drove him to the floor and raised one fist high.
"Say goodbye, Spider-Man!"
"I usually prefer cheese!"
Peter fired webbing from both hands at once, pasting it across Herman's faceplate. The blinded punch veered off target, and Peter kicked upward hard enough to launch Herman through the ceiling. Then he kip-upped back to his feet, still clutching at his aching head.
"Herman's burst speed is insane. Even with spider-sense I barely reacted in time. Oh, great."
He jumped again, twisting aside just in time as Herman crashed back down through several layers of ceiling and landed below looking completely unharmed.
"You think I'm still some two-bit thug?" Herman said, straightening. "I'm as strong as you now, Spider-Man! No. I'm stronger!"
"Question for you, Herman."
Peter backed up while talking, using the conversation to buy time and catch his breath.
"I thought maybe you were just broke and back to robbing banks again. But this doesn't look like that. It looks like you just want to beat me up. Why?"
"I am broke," Herman answered, "but with this suit, making money's easy."
"You don't need this suit to make money. You're smart. You've got talent. You've got creativity. You could succeed anywhere."
Herman laughed.
For the first time, it was genuine. Not bitter. Not mocking. Just laughter because he wanted to laugh.
He knew the kid in front of him was sincerely trying to convince him not to be a criminal.
He lowered his fists and crooked one finger at Spider-Man.
"You had chances I never did, didn't you?"
"Uh..."
"You had chances I never did, didn't you? You got to go to high school. Even if you ended up buried in student loans, you still had a path forward. I didn't. Maybe I never even had the chance to start. Think about it. Stark. Osborn. Baxter. Do you think they'd hire somebody without a high school diploma? Somebody like me?"
"That doesn't change how gifted you are. You could help a lot of people! You... you could prove right now how brilliant you are! Look at your armor. It looks incredible!"
"Yeah."
Herman nodded again.
And just when Peter thought he might be getting somewhere, Herman clenched his fists.
"There's just one problem!"
A straight punch blasted toward Spider-Man.
Spider-Man twisted away from the shot and stuck to another marble pillar, while Herman charged forward and smashed a fist into it.
"If the world never cared about Herman, then let it remember the Shocker instead!"
Spider-Man launched off the marble, intending to vault behind Herman, but the Shocker jumped too.
Not only that, he jumped even higher than Peter.
Then he drove a punch into Spider-Man and sent him crashing beside the vault whose door had already been blasted away.
This wasn't going to work.
He needed something Herman could not punch through.
Peter looked at the vault door Herman had thrown earlier, then at the man charging him. He fired webs at both gauntlets, anchoring them to the floor and temporarily pinning Herman in place while he got to his feet and shot another line.
Herman yanked once or twice, realized the grounded webbing was unusually strong, and activated the launcher to blast it apart.
"You think these little tricks are going to..."
"That wasn't a trick, Herman!"
The howling noise made Herman focus instinctively.
The giant vault door, nearly ten feet tall, came hurtling at him on web lines.
He lifted a fist, intending to punch it away, but there was no time.
The vault door hit him dead-on and sent him flying backward across the lobby floor.
Finally getting a second to breathe, Spider-Man rapidly fired web after web, pinning the vault door and the Herman trapped beneath it tightly to the floor.
Based on every Spider-Man game Peter had ever played, that should have been enough to deal with the Shocker.
"Think it over, Herman. With your talent, you don't need to do this." Peter breathed hard as he spoke. "You don't need this kind of stunt to make people remember you."
"Then what am I supposed to do? Huh? The first time we fought, you thought I bought that gun."
"I just didn't expect..."
"I know."
Herman lay there seemingly motionless, staring at Spider-Man.
"You're a good person. Not like those idiot cops who laughed when they heard I built those weapons and refused to believe it. You're the kind of guy who'll go get a kid's bike off the subway tracks."
"That was you? Wow. That is incredibly lame, man."
"Want to hear something cool?" Herman turned his head toward the ceiling. "The vault door was a good idea. You're right, I can't punch through it."
"But the floor is different. Gotta love modern city construction. Buildings like this all sit on top of underground parking garages."
"What?!"
The violent tremor felt like a small earthquake.
The entire first floor of the bank began collapsing.
Spider-Man had no choice but to jump up to the already shredded ceiling and watch the whole lobby cave in beneath him.
Then the massive vault door came flying straight at him.
Spider-Man dodged on instinct, and a second later realized just how bad that was.
The door shot straight out of the bank building.
"Spider-Man is still inside Midtown Bank fighting Herman Schultz. Streets around the area have already been sealed off..."
George was listening to the updates from his officers, already deeply worried by the repeated violent impacts coming from inside the building. Then a thunderous blast shook the block, half a wall blew out, and the giant vault door came flying through it.
Spider-Man followed right behind it, trying desperately to web it down.
"Stop! Stop! Stop! Everybody move!"
The police scattered as fast as they could, but not fast enough to stop the vault door from slicing through a patrol car and embedding itself in the second floor of the building across the street.
Spider-Man managed only to make sure it stayed lodged there instead of flying farther.
"What kind of building is that, Captain?"
"...A Roxxon Energy office building. I'll send people to check on it." George was still pale as he stared at the vault door. "What's the situation inside?"
"I'm not totally sure. But I think the Shocker's coming out."
"The Shocker? You mean Herman?"
Spider-Man crouched on the vault door wedged into the wall and narrowed his eyes at the yellow figure emerging from the bank.
Then he drew in a breath.
"Yeah."
(End of Chapter)
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