Peter knew Scarecrow was the first supervillain he had ever encountered. He had never thought that becoming Spider-Man meant he would never run into supervillains. He just did not know whether he was ready.
And today was the time to prove himself!
Spider-Man rose from the inner wall of Midtown Bank and began sprinting around the circular banking hall, forcing Scarecrow to fire vibration waves after him. Herman kept shooting as expected, shattering the elaborately patterned ceiling. Spider-Man ducked behind a marble pillar just as Scarecrow's vibration wave snapped it in half.
"You know, Herman? I kind of liked that Roman-style column."
Instead of running over, Spider-Man swung on his webbing and accelerated straight into a charge, kicking Scarecrow in the chest. Scarecrow staggered back two steps, only for Spider-Man to pounce forward and slam a heavy punch into his face.
He swayed, then straightened up. Spider-Man looked at his fist, disbelief written all over his face.
"How did you...?"
"Titanium alloy, kid." Scarecrow, having built up energy, punched Spider-Man in the jaw and sent him flying. While airborne, Spider-Man fired webbing onto the broken marble column and hurled it at Herman.
Scarecrow took a deep breath, drew back his fist, then punched. The three- or four-ton marble column shattered outright. But in that instant, a wad of webbing splattered across his face, blocking his vision.
"I have a question. If your fists are that powerful, and your armor is that tough—"
Spider-Man landed on Scarecrow's back. The webbing in his hand stuck directly to Scarecrow's charged fist and pulled it toward the armored faceplate.
"Then how about using your own fist to punch your own face?!"
Just before the heavy punch struck Scarecrow's face, Spider-Man sprang away. A powerful vibration wave crashed into Scarecrow's own face, knocking him back two steps. Then he could not help laughing as he looked at Spider-Man on the ground.
"My armor can dissipate most of the kinetic energy from impacts, Spider! Whether it's vibration waves I fire myself or attacks from outside!"
"Awesome!" Spider-Man's webbing had already hooked the remaining section of the marble pillar. He yanked the entire pillar loose and sent it crashing toward Scarecrow. "Does that mean I can hit you as hard as I want without holding back?"
"Or maybe you should think about how you're going to survive!"
The energy indicator on his gauntlets instantly turned red. Scarecrow slammed both fists into the ground, unleashing a violent shockwave that shattered every protective pane of glass in the bank as well as the falling marble. Then the yellow figure leaped from the dust and lunged straight at Spider-Man. Even with Spider-Sense, Peter failed to dodge this time. Scarecrow tackled him to the ground and raised his fist high.
"Say goodbye, Spider-Man!"
"I usually prefer to say cheese!"
Peter fired webbing from both hands at once, splattering it over Scarecrow's faceplate and making his punch veer off. Then Peter kicked up with both legs and sent Scarecrow straight through the ceiling. He kip-upped to his feet, but still could not stop himself from clutching his throbbing head. "Herman's burst speed is too fast. Even with Spider-Sense, I didn't have time to react. Oh, crap."
He immediately sprang up and twisted aside. Scarecrow came crashing down from above along with who knew how many layers of ceiling, then stood upright looking completely unharmed.
"You think I'm still some street punk? I'm as strong as you now, Spider-Man! No, I'm stronger than you!"
"Quick question, Herman." Peter backed away as he spoke, making small talk to buy time and recover his strength. "I thought you were short on money and robbing banks again. But now it looks like you just wanted to beat me up. Why?"
"I am short on money. But with this suit, making money is easy."
"You could make money easily without that suit too. You're smart. You're talented, creative. You could succeed anywhere."
Herman smiled, for the first time from the heart, simply because he wanted to smile. He knew full well that this little bug genuinely wanted to persuade him not to become a criminal. He unclenched his fists and beckoned to Spider-Man. "You're not Black under that suit, are you?"
"Uh..."
"You can afford high school. Even if you owe student loans, you can pay them off in your lifetime. I'm different. I might never pay mine off in a lifetime. More importantly, maybe I never had the chance to go to school at all." Instead of moving toward Peter, Herman increased the distance between them. "Think about it. Stark, Osborn, Baxter—would they hire someone without even a high school diploma? A Black man?"
"This has nothing to do with skin color. You could help a lot of people! You... you can prove what an incredible genius you are right now! Look at your armor. The design is so cool!"
"Yeah."
Herman nodded again. Just as Peter was about to continue persuading him, Scarecrow clenched his fists.
"There's just one thing!"
"If Scarecrow is what makes me famous, why should I be Herman Schultz?!"
A straight punch shot toward Spider-Man. Spider-Man twisted aside to dodge the blast and clung to another marble pillar, but Herman charged straight over and smashed his fist into it.
"If nobody wants to know Herman, then let them fear Scarecrow!"
Spider-Man sprang off the marble, originally intending to leap behind Herman. But Scarecrow jumped too—and not only that, he jumped even higher than Peter did. Then he punched Peter straight toward the vault whose door had already been blasted away.
This would not work. He needed to find something Herman could not break through and use it to counterattack.
He spotted the vault door Herman had knocked away, then looked at Herman charging toward him. He immediately stuck webbing to both of Scarecrow's gauntlets, stretching the webbing down to the ground to temporarily pin him in place. Then he got to his feet while firing more webbing.
Scarecrow tugged twice and found that the webbing stuck to the ground was unusually tough, so he activated his emitters and blasted the webbing apart.
"You think those little tricks of yours can—"
"This isn't a little trick, Herman!"
The whistling sound made Herman focus instinctively. The massive vault door, three meters tall, came flying toward him as webbing pulled it along. He intended to raise his fist and knock it aside, but there was not enough time. The vault door slammed directly into him, sending him flying and crashing onto the hall floor.
Finally breathing a sigh of relief, Spider-Man fired web after web, firmly sticking the vault door and Herman beneath it to the floor. Going by the Spider-Man games he had played before, this should have been enough to deal with Scarecrow.
"Think it over, Herman. With your talent, you don't need to do this." Peter spoke between breaths. "You don't need to become famous this way."
"Then what should I do? Huh? The first time I fought you, you even thought I bought that gun."
"I just didn't expect..."
"I know." Herman lay seemingly motionless, only looking at Spider-Man. "You're a good person. Unlike those idiot cops who heard I invented weapons and laughed because they didn't believe me, you're the kind of guy who would help a kid retrieve his bicycle after it fell into the subway."
"You did that? That's pretty lame, dude."
"Want to hear something cool?" Scarecrow turned his head toward the ceiling. "The vault door was a good idea. My fists really can't break through it."
"But the floor is different. Thanks to modern urban construction, there's an underground parking garage beneath buildings like this."
"What?!"
The violent tremors were like a small earthquake. The entire bank lobby began to collapse, forcing Spider-Man to jump onto the already hole-riddled ceiling and watch the bank's first floor cave in. Then the massive vault door flew toward Spider-Man. He instinctively dodged it, then realized something was very wrong.
The door smashed straight out of the bank building!
"Spider-Man is still inside fighting Herman Schultz. The streets around Midtown Bank have already been sealed off..."
George Stacy was listening to his subordinate's report. The strange sounds coming one after another from inside the bank had him deeply worried. Suddenly, a massive roar erupted. The huge vault door blasted through half a wall, followed by Spider-Man, who kept firing webbing to latch onto it.
"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Everybody move!"
The police officers quickly scattered at the shouted warning, but they still could not stop the vault door from slicing through a police car before crashing into the wall of the building across the street. Spider-Man could only manage to make it lodge into the second-floor wall.
"What kind of building is that, Sheriff?"
"...An office building for Roxxon Energy Corporation. I'll have someone check on the situation." Sheriff George, still shaken, looked at the vault door that had flown out. "What's happening inside?"
"I'm not sure, but Scarecrow should be coming out soon."
"Scarecrow? You mean Herman?"
Perched on the vault door embedded in the wall, Spider-Man narrowed his eyes at the yellow figure walking out of the bank and took a deep breath.
"Yeah."
Before you continue