Spider and Bat (Part 3)

In Parker's room at the Peter's house, Peter clung tightly to the doorframe, shouting, "Let me go! This is my body! I can do whatever I want with it! I'm going out to meet Gwen..."

Then he glanced at his watch and said, "Please! It's already 10 o'clock. We need to meet by the river at 10:30. We can still make it if we hurry. I can't break our promise. She just went through such a dangerous situation yesterday; she definitely needs someone to comfort her..."

"But you haven't even finished writing a decent battle plan!! You've been dawdling here for three hours!! You've only written a third of it!! You have to finish it before you can go play!!"

"Are you crazy?! Even school teachers don't ask anyone to do homework for three hours straight!! I'm leaving now! Let me go!"

Peter's arms relaxed and tightened intermittently, as if he were playing tug-of-war with himself. Finally, Venom roared, "You're 16! You'll be 18 in two years! The 18-year-olds I've seen are far more hardworking and disciplined than you!"

"You're lying! All my upperclassmen are just like me, we're the normal ones! What high school student in this world would stay cooped up in their room doing homework?! Get me out of the house! I'm really going to be late!"

Twenty minutes later, Peter landed on a rooftop, mentally warning Venom, "I'm going on a date with Gwen later, don't you dare peek."

"You haven't even held her hand?" Venom said.

"How could that be? Of course we held hands..."

"We only held hands, right?"

Peter blushed slightly and said, "So what? We've only been dating for a few months, and we haven't even gone on more than 100 dates..."

A while later, at a coffee shop by the river, Gwen had already ordered two coffees. She was very happy to see Peter, and Peter excitedly ran over to her, saying, "Sorry I'm a little late today, there was a bit of traffic on the way..."

"It's alright, I just arrived too early. I've already ordered coffee, let's go sit over there."

Peter had just taken the coffee cup when he suddenly felt his body spiral out of control. He opened his arms and hugged Gwen tightly. Gwen was startled, Peter Gwen grimaced as he released her, saying, "Oh, sorry! I... I just..."

Then he saw tears suddenly welling up in Gwen's eyes. Gwen said, "You saw the newspaper? You saw what happened on the street next to the school yesterday?"

Peter was there at the time, so of course he knew, and then he said, "Ah... yes, I saw you there too..."

Before Peter could say anything more, Gwen, her eyes red with tears, said, "You have no idea how dangerous yesterday was. I watched a young policeman die with my own eyes. My God, I just can't accept it..."

"Hold her."

"You've gone too far! How can you control me..."

"Listen to me, hug her."

Peter felt his body was out of control again. He hugged Gwen tightly, and Gwen hugged him back and started crying. Soon she was trembling all over from crying, Peter could only pat her back.

It took Gwen a while to calm down. She wiped her tears with a tissue and said, "I'm so sorry, I couldn't control myself, but..."

She choked up again, saying, "My dad is already under a lot of pressure. I don't even dare to show my fear, for fear that he'll worry about me. If he gets distracted at work, he might be the one who suffers..."

Seeing Gwen's sad and worried expression, Peter felt a pang of sadness. He could barely speak, but then his arm involuntarily rose up and grasped Gwen's hand holding the coffee cup. Venom whispered in Peter's mind, "Aren't you going to say something?"

"What should I say? I... this is too abrupt..."

"You are the most cowardly human I have ever met."

Finally, Peter mustered his courage, looked into Gwen's eyes, and said, "Don't worry, I've always been with you..."

After saying that, he quickly withdrew his hand as if he had been burned, then picked up his coffee cup and took a sip.

Gwen looked at his slightly flushed face and suddenly burst into laughter through her tears. She said, "You're really different today."

Peter thought to himself, "It's all your fault. Gwen will definitely think I'm being unreasonable."

Then he heard Gwen say, "But I think it's actually pretty good. You were a bit too introverted before, I really didn't expect you to be so proactive..."

Peter's face turned even redder, and he stammered, "N-nothing... it's nothing, it's only right..."

"You're hopeless." Venom's voice echoed in his mind again.

Gwen giggled, almost choking on her coffee; she seemed to really enjoy seeing Peter's shy and embarrassed state.

"Let's go see a movie later, to our usual theater. I have a coupon for a large cheese ball bucket, which we can use."

After the two left the coffee shop, Peter said to Gwen, "Sorry, wait a minute, I'm going to the convenience store."

He ran into the nearest convenience store, went to the shelf, grabbed a bag of chocolate balls, and paid.

Gwen saw him come out of the store, and then she looked at the bag of chocolate balls in Peter's hand and said, "Why did you suddenly buy this? I don't remember you liking chocolate."

Peter tore open the packaging, took one out, handed it to Gwen, shrugged, and said, "I just think eating sweets makes me feel better."

Gwen was delighted. She put her hand on Peter's shoulder and said, "It seems you've really changed a lot. My friends used to say you had no idea how to please girl, but now it seems you're not so bad after all."

Peter blushed a little, then he took out one, unwrapped it, and put it in his mouth.

"Oh, shit, this tastes awful," Venom's voice rang out.

"Then why did you make me buy it?"

Peter chewed it and said, "I think it's pretty good. Isn't this what all chocolate tastes like?"

"You naive kid, this chocolate is worse than I expected. You never know how cheap things can be good," Venom said.

When they arrived at the movie theater, Peter received a tub of cheese balls that was almost half his height from the salesperson. Gwen said apologetically, "I didn't expect it to be this big when I bought it; it didn't look like it had this many in the picture..."

Peter struggled a bit to carry the large bucket and said, "It's okay, you know I've been eating a lot more lately, I think we should be able to finish it."

When the movie started, the two chose a seat in the middle of the back row. Peter wedged the large bucket of cheese balls between the armrest and the back of the seat in front of him, right between the two of them, within easy reach.

After the movie started, the two ate cheese balls and drank cola while quietly discussing the plot.

Gwen had just reached for the cheese balls when she saw a black tentacle swiftly snatch seven or eight cheese balls from the bucket. She rubbed her eyes and exclaimed, "What was that???"

"What?" Peter turned to look at her. When Gwen looked back, the tentacles had disappeared. Because there were so many cheese balls, it was impossible to tell that a few were missing. Gwen blinked and said, "It's nothing, I might be hallucinating."

Then Peter heard Venom complaining in his head, "This doesn't taste good either, it tastes like cheap junk food."

"Why are you making such a fuss?" Peter said. "Isn't this delicious?" As he spoke, he grabbed five or six cheese balls and threw them into his mouth.

When the movie ended, Gwen looked at the empty bucket, opened her mouth and said, "I know you've become a big eater before, but this shouldn't be so exaggerated, right? This is a serving of cheese balls for 10 people!"

In Peter's mind, Venom burped and said, "It's not very tasty, but it's quite filling."

After dropping Gwen off at home, Venom saw Peter still wandering around outside and said, "Can't you go back and finish that damn battle plan?"

"God! Have mercy on me! I don't need any battle plan!" Peter squatted on a rooftop, took out the Spider-Man suit from his backpack, put it on, and said, "We'll just wear this and take down that stronghold, it's that simple."

"You're going to get a really bad beating," Venom said.

Half an hour later, Peter was running for his life in an alley when a cloud of black mist enveloped him, slowing his movements. Then, a pair of sharp claws slashed at his back, but a clump of black Slime blocked the attack. Peter turned around and threw a punch, and the opponent instantly teleported away.

Before he could turn around, another vampire teleported in front of him and swung a claw at him. Peter ducked to dodge, but another bat had already pounced down.

"Damn it, I've fallen for their trap. They've been waiting for me here all along." Peter looked around and saw that he was surrounded by at least four or five high-ranking vampires.

This kind of opponent is a perfect counter to Peter. Although Peter is strong and has Spider-Sense, he doesn't have any good ways to counter magic.

Although his fists are powerful, they are useless if he can't hit anyone. Although he is fast, he doesn't have wings. Once the opponent turns into a bat and flies up, he won't be able to catch up for a while.

On the contrary, the vampires could take turns harassing him, with one taking the lead while the others interfered from the side, severely slowing Peter down.

"Listen, if you can't resolve this problem in 10 minutes, I'm going to have to step in," Venom said.

"Fight back? You can't even fight? Then why not now? Can't you..." Peter rolled on the ground again, dodging another attack, and shouted, "... come help me now?!"

"This is the consequence of not making a battle plan!!! And do you think I didn't want to? Do you know how much trouble I would cause?"

As they were talking, the high-ranking vampires seemed to have given up on harassing him. They cornered Peter and launched an all-out attack on him. Soon, Peter's suit was scratched in several places, and it would probably be torn after a few more hits.

Venom said, "Alright, now, clear your mind, I'm going to make my move..."

Just then, a gunshot rang out, and one of the high-ranking vampires let out a scream, with wisps of black smoke rising from its body. A black man wearing a leather jacket and an eye patch climbed over the wall of the alley.

He slashed another vampire on the shoulder with his blade, black smoke rising from the point where the blade touched his flesh. The vampire tried to transform into a bat to escape, but another slash severed his wings. He fell to the ground, fluttered twice, and was then impaled in the heart by a silver wedge.

The man who made the move was called Blade, a half-vampire and a Vampire Hunter. He had been tracking this group of high-ranking vampires for months, and now that they had gathered together, he could wipe them all out in one fell swoop.

Blade's prediction was correct. In just a few exchanges, he had killed one vampire and wounded another. However, he was so focused on fighting the vampires that he didn't notice the person surrounded by them. When he came to his senses, he saw black Slime erupt from the crowd, and a figure soared into the air.

Amidst a massive amount of black slime, a gigantic monster with wings on its back emerged into the air, a bat symbol protruding from its chest.

Blade looked up and saw a huge black bat with a wingspan of over ten meters, almost blotting out the sky, appearing over New York.

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