Chen Mo had just dragged the last passenger out of the overturned bus. His whole spider-self was still hanging by the window, one hand holding a middle-aged man who was nearly fainting from fright.
The man clung to his arm, almost in tears.
"Thank you, Spider-Man!"
Chen Mo caught his breath. He was just about to say there was no need to thank him and ask whether New Yorkers had any legal meal-subsidy programs for thanking superheroes. In Gotham, that would have been pure banter, but in New York, it was a sincere question.
The next second.
Another boom sounded overhead.
Half an alien aircraft came crashing sideways between two buildings, trailing flames.
Chen Mo glanced up.
Then he calmly pushed the man aside.
"Run."
The man said, "Huh?"
Chen Mo said, "That's not a figure of speech, it's a verb! Run! Hurry!"
Webbing shot out, sticking to a streetlight and the wrecked bus. Chen Mo swung himself up, caught a flying metal panel with his other hand, and forcibly hurled it toward an empty street corner.
The metal panel smashed into a newsstand.
The newsstand died on the spot.
New Yorkers screamed and fled.
Chen Mo landed, the asphalt still shaking beneath his feet.
He looked at the sky.
At one fireball after another.
At the spaceship debris constantly falling from the clouds.
Bastards! Give me back sunny New York!
Other protagonists came to New York to enjoy the lovely sunshine!
Chen Mo tugged at his dust-covered jacket, feeling that he looked less like a superhero and more like an unlucky high school student who had crawled out of an explosion.
Oh, wait.
He was an unlucky high school student.
Just one who moonlighted as a superhero.
Without pay.
He was just about to charge ahead again when the