Encounter

Feeling his body fall, Peter quickly reached out with his other hand.

Fortunately, the web-shooter on his left hand was still usable. However, due to some of his habits, he had been looking for a fixed point on his right side to shoot his webs, and it obviously wouldn't make sense to use the left-hand shooter for that.

So, he could only hastily search for a suitable anchor point on his left.

Freefall was very fast.

Even with Peter's quick reactions, he didn't have time to think too much in his haste and could only find a place that seemed roughly suitable.

Thwip!

Feeling the solid force transmitted through the web line, Peter's heart relaxed.

"Great, this is just how I imagined it, ahhh, not quite good enough to change trajectory yet!"

Due to the angle deviation, Peter's body almost crashed into a car below.

In the critical moment, he grabbed the web line with both hands, using the strength from his waist down, folding his upper body almost in half.

Whoosh—

His rear end felt a chill.

He vaguely felt the friction of his backside scraping against the metal roof of the car.

But now was not the time to worry about that.

"Careful, careful, Spider-Man Express is flying through!"

Peter shouted, trying to make light of the situation.

"Waaah!"

The web line finally swung to its highest point. Peter directly hit the edge of the third floor of a residential building, then fell onto a second-floor fire escape, and finally dropped from the edge of the fire escape, hitting the ground.

"Ouch! My back!" Peter groaned as he lay on the ground. The integration of this body with the spider genes didn't seem to have reached its peak yet, and its strength was slightly lacking.

That impact just now might have hit his spine, making his body unable to exert strength.

"Sorry, buddy, I really can't blame you for this. Who knew your web-shooter would fail at such a crucial moment?" Peter muttered to himself, apologizing to the other consciousness within his body.

Even after crossing over for the second time, he wasn't entirely sure of his current state.

Was he borrowing another Spider-Man's body?

Or had he temporarily merged with another Spider-Man?

Well, no matter what, apologizing first was the right thing to do.

Just then, not far away, several figures quickly walked towards Peter, who was lying on the ground.

As they walked, they took out white masks from their bodies, then pulled out weapons like metal rods and pipes.

The leader said, "Who's going to call the boss? Tell him we've caught that masked clown!"

The Spider-Sense jolted Peter awake. He weakly looked up at them. His night vision allowed him to see the attire of the people in the darkness. "Who... are you?"

The leader, however, simply walked quickly to Peter's side and looked down at him. "Let me guess, you must be that Spider-Boy who's been causing trouble around here lately, right? Doesn't seem so amazing now!"

"Ha, is everyone popular with masks these days?" Peter felt his body's condition. The injuries from the severe impact were rapidly healing. This injury seemed to have stimulated his body's potential, further increasing the gene fusion progress.

About another minute?

No, thirty seconds should be enough!

Peter estimated silently.

"Beat him!"

However, these guys clearly didn't want to give him any breathing room.

Four people surrounded Peter and began punching and kicking him. It was truly a case of a tiger being bullied by dogs on the plains.

Fortunately, these guys had no intention of taking off their masks.

Peter thought, trying to find humor in the situation.

As for their punches and kicks?

Although they hurt a bit, it was only a bit.

The damage they caused was not as fast as his body's self-repair.

But this couldn't go on.

If his body's total repair capacity was 1, and if all of that 1 was used to repair his spine, it could be fully healed within a minute.

Thirty seconds would allow him to regain control of his body.

But now, the external damage was taking at least 0.3 of that 1 to repair them.

The remaining 0.7 would need more time to repair his spine.

And he didn't know if these guys would get more aggressive.

"If only there was something to distract them, so I could quickly repair myself," Peter thought.

"Ouch, you guys, ouch... is that all, ouch... you've got? Ouch." Peter tried to achieve his goal through words.

"I heard this guy talks a lot of crap?" the leader said.

"Why don't we just throw him into that trash pile over there? It's full of 'trash' too!" another thug suggested with a wicked grin.

"Good idea, come on, give me a hand. One, two, three!"

Bang!

Peter's body was lifted by three people and tossed onto piles of black garbage bags stacked in a corner near the wall.

"Oh, damn, this feels just like home," Peter chuckled.

"What are you laughing at, kid?" Several thugs walked up again, ready to continue tormenting Peter's body.

Peter smiled and said, "Nothing, just this!"

He raised his left hand and shot a web upwards, his body following it up the wall a short distance. Then, relying on his wall-crawling ability, he stopped with his back against the wall.

"Wall-crawler! You think this means we can't do anything to you?" the leader of the thugs said coldly.

"No, no, I don't doubt your abilities, sir," Peter said. "But I do have a question, and I wonder if you could answer it for me."

The thugs all stared at Peter coldly, seemingly contemplating how to get him down from the wall.

Peter continued to himself, "Why are you guys dressed like this? Are you imitating Friday the 13th? But don't you think that stuff is already outdated?"

The four protagonists from Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre are known as the four classic serial killers in American film history. Their protagonist, Jason, is famous for wearing a hockey goalie mask and dismembering teenagers with a machete.

The thugs in front of him were dressed almost exactly like Jason.

But that movie came out in 1980, it's ancient history.

"You shut your damn mouth, brat," the leader of the thugs said furiously. "If you've got the guts, come down here!"

"Okay," Peter said agreeably, and he actually jumped down.

"You, you actually came down?" The leader of the thugs was momentarily stunned by his action.

Peter shrugged. "What can I say? One of my strengths is that I'm good at taking advice, unlike you guys..."

As he spoke, his body suddenly moved.

Pow pow pow pow!

A series of impacts, and four figures fell to the ground.

"I told you it was outdated, but you insisted on dressing like that and not listening to advice. See? This is the consequence."

Afterward, Peter used the shooter on his left hand to fire webs, binding each person individually, and then wrapping them all together again.

"Now this looks much more stylish, like pigs tied up. It'll never go out of style, no matter the era."