Chen Mo pushed off with his toes, springing three meters into the air in an arc. One of Falcone's gunmen had only just swung his muzzle around when webbing sealed his safety in place.
"That thing has a nasty kick. Bad for your shoulder. I'll hold on to it for you."
He pulled back, sending the submachine gun flying up to the ceiling to join the previous two.
Batman charged straight in.
His fist slammed into the nearest gunman's bulletproof vest. The force punched through the armor, and the man crumpled like a puppet with cut strings, his scream caught in his throat.
Hanging upside down from the second-floor railing, Chen Mo watched Batman sidestep a rifle butt thrust at him from the right, catch the attacker's wrist, and twist it outward.
Crack. The joint dislocated.
"Tsk, tsk. That hurts just to watch. Bats, are you sure you're a vigilante and not an orthopedic surgeon? I think you could open a bone-setting clinic. Should make a pretty good side income."
He fired two strands of webbing onto the rifle barrels at the remaining second-floor firing positions and yanked upward.
Every bullet struck the chandelier overhead, sending sparks flying. He flipped down to the floor, kicked off the side of a shelving unit to propel himself sideways, and webbed a third gunman's ankle. With a swing, he left the man dangling upside down from a beam.
"Hold tight! Aerial acrobatics, free admission tonight. Come back anytime, though I hope there won't be a next time."
Maroni's burly bald man emerged from behind the stairwell, carrying a sawed-off shotgun, and pulled the trigger at Batman's back.
Chen Mo's Spider-Sense erupted.
He moved faster than the bald man's trigger finger, sticking a strand of webbing to the shotgun barrel and wrenching it left the instant the shot left the muzzle.
All the pellets struck an empty shelving unit, blasting wood splinters into a pale cloud.
Before the burly bald man could react, Batman was already beside him.
Batman planted one hand on his shoulder and drove a knee into the small of his back, slamming him facedown onto the floor.
Chen Mo lowered his head from the ceiling, hanging upside down. "Your aim's pretty good, but you picked the wrong target. Try a stationary one next time. Moving targets waste too much ammo. Prices in Gotham have gone up again lately. Do you know how much a shotgun shell costs? Or does your gang reimburse you for ammunition? Though I heard even the military doesn't reimburse theirs."
Falcone's remaining gunmen watched these two walking disasters handle Maroni's men like chicks being picked up, and the guns in their hands suddenly felt especially heavy.
They exchanged silent looks, assessing escape routes and the disparity in firepower.
A young gunman had barely taken half a step back before Chen Mo landed in front of him, webbing his barrel shut and sticking his hand to the gun for good measure.
"Relax. No hitting faces. The streetlights are fully booked tonight, so just stay here and be good until the nice police officers come to check you over."
He glanced up at the others and tilted his head. After a moment of silence, the gunmen put their guns on the floor. They said nothing and did not raise their hands.
Chen Mo was about to straighten when he caught a thin glint of light out of the corner of his eye at a shattered second-floor window.
A reflection from a scope, gone in an instant.
Batman emerged from the shadows beneath the stairs, a faint patch of dark red seeping through the bandage on his left shoulder.
Engines roared outside. The False Face Society's main force had arrived. Several modified heavy-duty pickups smashed through one corner of the container barricade, and the first wave of riders roared into the dock area.
Batman vaulted onto a raised platform and set up a captured light machine gun. Chen Mo's eyelid twitched.
"Whoa, Bats, isn't that against the rules? What happened to no killing?"
"Shooting tires."
Gunfire rang out, every round biting precisely into a motorcycle's front wheel hub. Riders tumbled with their bikes, left battered and dazed, but no one actually died.
Chen Mo raced along the flank, both hands spitting webbing like a loom, sealing off every route anyone tried to use to circle around behind them.
"I'm weaving webs as fast as a spider demon. Any more of you and I'll have to start charging web fees. Web fluid costs money too... I've kind of made myself hungry."
Before those in black masks could approach the warehouse entrance, they were stuck fast to the walls.
A sniper rifle cracked from a crane high above the docks. Penguin's sniper opened fire on the False Face Society, hitting the lead rider in the shoulder blade. He fell off his bike on the spot and rolled over a dozen times.
Crouched atop a container, Chen Mo watched the False Face Society's formation fall into chaos. Their commander signaled a retreat, and the motorcycles dispersed from the docks' perimeter like an ebbing tide.
"Attacked from both sides. No way to do business like this. Still, that's good. Saves me patching up that row of webs on the left."
Only spent casings and a few unlucky souls still groaning remained scattered across the warehouse floor.
Falcone's men were webbed to the stair railing in a neat row.
Batman had handcuffed Maroni's burly bald man to a shelving upright. His eyes were unfocused, and he was still muttering, but he no longer had the strength to struggle.
Chen Mo crouched on the edge of a toppled container, pulled a bandage from his pocket, and wound it around his wrist.
His wrist joint ached and felt swollen. He had fired too much webbing too hard just now.
He looked up as Batman came out of the warehouse. "Where to next? You don't look like you're ready to call it a night and head home!"
Batman ignored him and pressed a button on his belt. An engine's low, beastlike roar sounded from the end of the street. The Batmobile cut through the fog and came to a steady stop in front of them.
Chen Mo stood and rolled his shoulders. With one attempt already under his belt, he flipped up and started climbing onto the roof.
"Could you drive just a tiny bit slower this time?"
Finding a groove to lie in, Chen Mo adjusted his mask and kept chattering.
"It's seriously windy when I'm lying on your roof. My face gets all dried out."
"Spider-Man."
Batman's voice came from behind him.
Chen Mo froze mid-motion, looked back, and pointed at the tip of his own nose.
"Get down."
Chen Mo released the edge of the roof and stood beside the door, tilting his head at Batman.
"You want me to swing there myself? Bats, I don't know the way. You might not believe this, but one of the main reasons I don't go downtown is actually that I get a little lost."
He paused, looking at Batman's profile. "What, you're going alone? Then you get beaten down again halfway there, and I show up late and save you again? I don't really mind. I'm not the one getting beaten up and hurt, after all."
"..."
Before you continue