Shocking Opening (3)

Scarecrow, emerging from the First National Bank, showed no particular reaction to the police surrounding him and Spider-Man perched on the entrance. However, Captain Stacy immediately knew what to do: "Open fire, everyone!"

The police, armed only with their nine-millimeter handguns, unleashed their firepower on the supervillain before them. But their bullets didn't even scratch the paint on his golden titanium alloy armor. He silently watched the police fire repeatedly, then slammed his fists into the ground, flipping over all the surrounding officers and even nearby police cars.

Scarecrow then took a deep breath.

"Come on, Spider-Man, it's time for round two!"

"Leave him to me, Captain. You all get out of here."

The only one not flipped over was, of course, Spider-Man. He swung in front of Scarecrow and met his punch again, while also reminding the fallen Captain Stacy to evacuate quickly: "I'll handle him! I almost had him just now!"

"You were a long way from 'almost,' bug!"

After knocking Spider-Man back with another punch, Scarecrow noticed the web fluid attached to his arm. Spider-Man yanked hard on the webbing, causing Scarecrow to stumble forward a couple of steps. Then, he kicked him in the head, yanked the webbing again, bound one of Scarecrow's hands to his own chest, and punched him in the face.

"Don't rush, Herman. I can do this all day—you know Captain always says that?"

With one hand stuck, Scarecrow swung his other fist at Spider-Man, but his feet were somehow stuck with web fluid too, causing him to fall directly to the ground. Spider-Man immediately sat on him, grabbed his hand, pressed it behind his back against his waist, and fired web fluid to secure it.

Scarecrow, of course, wasn't worried about getting hurt. He fired directly at his own chest with full power, sending himself and Spider-Man sitting on him flying into the air. However, Spider-Man still had energy. He hooked Scarecrow with his webbing, quickly closed the distance, and landed two solid punches on him in mid-air before being sent flying again.

Herman, who landed first, didn't even have time to catch his breath before Spider-Man's mid-air gift arrived. Web fluid shot from both of Spider-Man's hands stuck to the two overturned police cars, smashing them heavily onto Scarecrow. The two police cars collided violently, and in this situation, Scarecrow, activating his vibrational wave, directly detonated both vehicles.

Flames burned around him as Scarecrow stumbled out. The weaknesses of his armor began to show. Due to insufficient funding, the suit had major cooling issues. The continuous combat and the recent explosion made Scarecrow feel dizzy, and he could clearly feel himself becoming dehydrated.

"Stop it, Herman. You know you're running on empty," Spider-Man stood before him, still trying to reason with him. "You're a genius. You don't need to hurt people to become someone important."

"If only, if only you'd said that when we first met, little bug," Scarecrow let out a bitter laugh. "If only you'd said that to Herman Schultz, not Scarecrow."

"I am saying it to Herman..."

"You're lying!"

The impact of his landing tore a crack in the ground, venting Scarecrow's incomprehensible rage. "You say these things because I can do them! You know how capable I am, how much destruction I can cause!"

"Before I became Scarecrow, no one respected me!"

"You really don't listen, Herman."

Seeing Scarecrow seemingly regain his composure due to anger, Spider-Man couldn't help but sigh. Fortunately, the police had already retreated further away and wouldn't interfere with their fight for the time being. Spider-Man directly chose the simplest way to deal with Scarecrow. He pulled down the vault door embedded in the wall and then pushed it directly at Scarecrow.

"Watch out for the door!"

"What?!"

Scarecrow looked around, confirming he couldn't dodge. He fired at the vault door with full power. Spider-Man, enduring the vibrational waves, pushed the vault door in front of Herman. The two engaged in a struggle of strength, separated by a thick metal door. One side had mutated super strength, the other had technologically enhanced power. For a moment, it was impossible to tell who had the upper hand.

But Herman gradually felt he couldn't hold on. He could feel the agony of sweating profusely. Soon, he would lose his combat ability due to dehydration. On the other side of the metal door, Spider-Man also seemed to be running out of stamina, his strength inexplicably not as great as before.

Good, he's reaching his limit too. Thinking this, Scarecrow let out a roar and pushed with all his might, flipping the entire vault door. The heavy vault door landed on a police car, its wheels flying off. Herman stared blankly at the car supporting the vault door.

Then, he felt a sense of weightlessness. Spider-Man, who had secretly slipped behind him, stuck him to his back and then threw him, smashing him heavily onto the ground.

If Scarecrow is too strong to be restrained by webbing, then just swing him around and smash him!

"Sorry, Herman. I hope your armor is as durable as you say!"

Hit on the ground, Scarecrow didn't even have time to get angry, let alone raise his fist to unleash a vibrational wave. He was swung up again and smashed onto the ground on the other side. Only after repeating this three or four times did he adapt to the rhythm, unleashing a vibrational wave on himself, blasting himself away while breaking free from the webbing, and then weakly climbing to his feet.

He didn't want to continue anymore. He had underestimated how durable that bug was and how much he could talk. While babbling about persuading him to be a "good person," he was also giving him a full-on assault.

Fortunately, Herman Schultz was a genius. He knew his enemy's weaknesses very well.

But this was not the right place.

"Still planning to continue, Herman?"

"Stop your lecturing, bug. I'm tired. I'm leaving."

"What? Wait, you can't—"

Before Spider-Man could finish speaking, Scarecrow fired a vibrational wave at the ground, shattering it as he leaped away into the distance. Captain George Stacy, who had been keeping watch around the area, finally emerged. Looking at the devastated battlefield, he gasped.

Injured police officers, a bank nearly destroyed, burning and broken streets – was this the result of a superhero battle?

Was the price too high?

"Herman has escaped, repeat, Herman has escaped. SWAT team en route? SWAT team is no longer capable of stopping this! Can the National Guard be reached? Hello? Hello?"

The electronic signal of the communicator suddenly cut off. As George was puzzling over this, an unbelievable voice came from it.

"Captain Stacy, this is Steve Rogers. We are pursuing the dangerous individual Herman Schultz."

"The Avengers are now taking over the scene."

Spider-Man, completely unaware that the Avengers had intervened, was still swinging on his webs, pursuing Herman. Wherever Herman's large hands reached, destruction spread like wildfire. The streets of Manhattan were cratered by explosions, while Spider-Man did his best to stop it.

"Come on! Herman?! You're just going to run like this? I'm definitely going to get yelled at by that annoying J. Jonah Jameson again. Can't you just cooperate and let us settle this directly?"

"You want to settle this?"

Scarecrow stopped beneath the elevated train station, seemingly unwilling to flee any further. He was gasping for air. There were still quite a few people around, especially on the station above, with many passengers.

"Then let's settle this, bug. You're a hero, right?"

"Let's see what a hero would normally do."

This time, Herman didn't need to fight Spider-Man with full force like before. He simply raised his hand and blew up the load-bearing pillar beneath the station.

"What are you doing?"

"Going to save people, hero?"

"Good idea, Herman. That way, I won't have time to stop you from escaping."

Spider-Man reluctantly got up and swung under the overpass. He began using his web fluid to connect the damaged support pillars, swinging back and forth between the buildings on either side. He used his web fluid to stick the overpass section to the buildings, and didn't forget to yell for the passengers in the station to escape.

But the support pillars continued to collapse, with one being particularly severe. Unable to fix it, Peter chose to kick out the already severely damaged support pillar and hold up the entire overpass himself, buying time for the passengers in the station to escape.

Scarecrow didn't run. He was just waiting for this moment, waiting for Spider-Man to stand there, holding up the support pillar and the entire overpass with his own body. He raised his hand and aimed at Spider-Man.

He listened to the screams of the ordinary people, felt their helplessness. All he had to do was clench his fist, and Spider-Man would be blown away, buried by the collapsing overpass. He could eliminate Spider-Man right now, at the cost of only a few dozen lives.

"Fuck this."

Herman Schultz lowered his fist, punched the ground, and chose to leave.