"The finale? No! Scarecrow never has a finale!"
Herman's roar was like a sharp blade stabbing viciously into Peter's eardrums. He struggled wildly, trying to clench his fists, his knuckles whitening from the effort. Peter had no choice but to release the hand restraining him and instead grip both sides of Scarecrow's gauntlets with all his strength. The metal groaned under his fingers, warping out of shape—but he was still a step too late. With a boom, the shockwave erupted, sending Peter flying like a kite with its string cut. His back slammed hard into a pile of scrap metal.
"No! No! No! Herman!"
Peter sprang to his feet. He was shouting so urgently not because Scarecrow was trying to run away again or anything like that—the gauntlets were losing control. Sparks burst from their seams like the final gasps of a dying beast.
There were three possibilities. First, the Scarecrow launchers themselves had reached their limit and were about to explode. Second, Spider-Man had merely crushed them, and they had reached the end of their service life. Third, Spider-Man had crushed them, and they were about to explode.
The swaying Scarecrow did not realize that yet. He even raised his fist at Spider-Man, but staggered and punched off to the side instead. At the same time, even more sparks spewed from his gauntlet.
"Great! We can rule out option two!"
Two strands of Silk stuck to the ground behind Scarecrow, pulling Spider-Man right in front of him. Peter immediately began trying to forcibly dismantle the Scarecrow launcher. One hand gripped Scarecrow's arm while the other tore at it, ripping off the gauntlet's titanium-gold alloy casing and tossing it aside, exposing the circuitry beneath.
"It works on the same principle as your previous launcher, right? Just shrunk down and stuffed into your arm. Okay, I remember the layout. Let me see."
"Get away from me!"
Scarecrow's other arm swept toward him with a punch carrying a vibration wave. If Peter had not ducked in time, it would have hit him in the head. He stared at Scarecrow in disbelief. "Hey, man, I'm saving you. Your equipment's malfunctioning. Don't you know that?"
"I..."
Scarecrow, whose mind was still muddled from being hit by the billboard, looked at his sparking gauntlet and regained some clarity. Then he immediately drove his head into Spider-Man's, bringing his titanium-gold alloy helmet into intimate contact with the other man's skull. With a thud, he knocked Spider-Man back several meters, stars flashing before Peter's eyes.
"I can handle all this. I just need to... just need to deal with you first."
"What?"
Spider-Man was speechless. He spread his hands and asked, "Man? You've already lost. It's that obvious. What else are you trying to do?!"
"So many cameras... so many screens... I can't lose... I won't lose..."
Right. There was no talking to this guy.
Peter sighed. He had only thought the media spotlight could draw Herman out. He had never imagined it could turn Herman straight-up neurotic. The man probably had some kind of exposure syndrome. He was beyond saving.
But the problem was, his launchers could explode at any moment! There was no way to know when!
"Let me think, let me think."
As he backflipped away from the vibration wave fired at him by the already unsteady Herman, Peter thought hard. The issue now was that while Herman had already been defeated, removing his gauntlets would take time. Besides that, no one knew when they would explode. They only knew it would be soon. What if he removed them and they exploded on the way down?
For the first time, he felt that movie bomb countdowns were incredibly convenient.
"No, no, wait. I can deliberately overload the launchers and trigger an early detonation." With another simple tilt of his head, Peter dodged a vibration wave aimed at his head. He began desperately trying to remember the first time he had met Herman. Back then, he had picked up an old-fashioned Scarecrow launcher and carefully examined its internal structure. If he thought hard enough, he should be able to remember...
Herman's original launcher had been able to slice through an entire building, but its later output had never been that powerful. That meant Herman himself knew he could not let the launcher reach maximum power. And the old Scarecrow launchers had a fatal flaw: their safety system could not function properly. It would ignore the launcher's output and lose control outright. What if he recreated those two conditions—first used maximum power to launch himself high into the sky, then disengaged the safety and overloaded the launcher?
Did that flaw still exist?
"Let me see, let me see!"
The helicopters filming overhead watched in confusion as Spider-Man tore off the casing of Scarecrow's other gauntlet, while Scarecrow punched and kicked at Spider-Man only for every attack to be easily dodged. Peter examined Herman's equipment, comparing it with his memories as he searched for the gauntlets' safety mechanism.
He discovered that Herman controlled the launcher's output by how tightly he clenched his fist, while the safety mechanism remained permanently jammed—meaning Herman had never solved the safety flaw at all. During combat, he merely tried his best not to use frequencies high enough to break the jammed safety.
"Okay, Herman. Considering we're in downtown New York City, I'm going to have to improvise."
He found the part securing the gauntlet at the elbow, forcibly removed it, then yanked Herman's gauntlet off and awkwardly fitted it onto his own arm.
At that moment, Herman had not even reacted yet. He was still muttering to himself in a daze, so Peter had no choice but to bind him with Silk and toss him aside before clenching his fist with all his strength.
"I'm going—flying!"
Spider-Man flew. Literally. A massive shockwave blasted a huge crater into the ground, while Spider-Man was launched into the air by the tremendous force, climbing higher and higher into the sky. During the ascent, he disabled the gauntlet's safety mechanism. Once he was sure his fist was clenched as tightly as possible, he faced the ground. He had no idea how high he would fly, but he saw the whole island of Manhattan, then nearly all of New York.
With his back to the ground, he clenched both fists.
The tremendous impact scattered all the clouds over New York in an instant. Spider-Man was hurled straight toward the earth, and the powerful force separated the gauntlet from him in midair. The recoil instead flung it even higher into the sky, where it emitted a blinding white light.
"Now there's only one question."
Spider-Man asked as he fell freely.
"Am I at least a kilometer away from that thing?"
The blast's aftershock accelerated his descent. Peter narrowed his eyes at the rapidly approaching Manhattan. At this height, even if he stuck Silk to a building, the acceleration would tear his arms right off.
Fine. He had imagined situations like this countless times in his mind. High-altitude rescue techniques—he had developed them so he could save Gwen perfectly. Who would have thought the first time would be to save himself?
The Web Shooter went into full operation as well. One web after another, layer upon layer, stretched between the skyscrapers. Spider-Man crashed into them, relying on the webs' elasticity to slow himself down. Each layer snapped after completing its cushioning task. After passing through dozens of layers, Spider-Man finally stuck himself to one of the webs. Looking at the media rushing into the battleground now that the fight was over, he could not help sighing.
Panting heavily, he landed on the ground and waved for the reporters surrounding Herman to make way. At last, he squeezed through to Herman's side.
"So... did you see that? That thing almost blew you into fireworks."
Herman said nothing. He turned to look at Spider-Man, and Spider-Man looked back at him. At last, Peter understood what he meant and removed his helmet. Herman Schultz's face appeared before every media outlet. In that instant, every spotlight flashed across Herman's face. He narrowed his eyes, revealing a satisfied expression.
"I really don't want to say this, but you're insane."
As he spoke, Peter patted Herman on the shoulder.
"But no matter what, Scarecrow had a stunning finale."
This felt kind of rushed... Feels like it was the worst chapter I've written.
Before you continue