"Bite me." Peter switched the launcher to web grenade mode, pulled the trigger, and fired a string of little balls.
"Pathetic." Magneto raised several pieces of debris in front of himself. The grenades exploded, sticking the pieces together. He looked at the tangled mess and sighed. "How annoying."
"Have some webbing in your eyes!" Peter shouted.
Magneto looked up in surprise. Peter had already swung over the wall of debris on a web. He pulled the trigger again, scoring a direct hit this time.
"What is this?!" Magneto struggled.
"That's what you call getting caught in a web!" Peter clung to the side of a building. "Activate repulsor cannons, medium power!"
The devices hummed, and two force beams blasted out, slamming Magneto into the side of a building.
Peter breathed a sigh of relief and turned toward the street. The girls had followed Felicia into an alley. Good, they were safe.
"You insect!" he heard Magneto roar.
Peter swallowed as he watched him rise into the air again, his powers unleashed, more and more metal fragments swirling around him. The fragments rained down, and Peter leaped desperately to dodge them.
His Spider-Sense screamed as he used every trick he had, twisting his body at impossible angles to evade them.
"What's going on?!" an old woman shouted, opening her window.
Peter swung past the window and fired a web, catching a piece of concrete before it could hit her.
"Get inside and lock your windows, ma'am!"
He shouted as he swung away. He had to lure Magneto somewhere without metal, like a park!
He was swinging toward the nearest park when a piece of metal suddenly cut through his web, sending him plummeting.
Just before he hit the ground, the metal bracers holding his Silk-Shooters were suddenly yanked upward, dragging him in front of Magneto, who hovered in midair.
Magneto tore apart the web cocoon wrapped around him. He studied Peter, using magnetism to control his metal bracers and force his hands apart.
Peter struggled desperately, but it was useless. He could only hang in midair as though nailed to a cross.
"You're an interesting creature, I admit." Magneto tore the last of the webbing off his suit. "Tell me, are you a mutant?"
"No, not exactly." Peter's mind raced for a way out as he spoke. "So I won't be joining your 'mutant supremacy' club. Sorry."
Magneto's eyes widened. "How dare you?! Do you know who you're talking to?!"
"I'm talking to a boy who saw humanity's darkest side firsthand," Peter shot back. "And to a man afraid that mutants might suffer the same fate one day."
"If you know all that," Magneto growled, "how can you compare my goals to those of their persecutors?!"
"Because you're turning into someone just like them." Peter spat. "Mutants are the superior race, right? Didn't those persecutors always say they were superior too? They branded the weak as outsiders and exterminated anyone who resisted."
"Is that what you're going to do next? Round up all the ordinary people and do whatever you want with them?"
Those words had clearly struck a nerve.
Magneto growled and clenched his fists.
Peter's eyes widened in pain.
"Aah!"
The metal bracers holding his Silk-Shooters were crushed into his forearms, the sound of breaking bones clearly audible.
But it wasn't over. Magneto released his hold on the bracers, grabbed Peter's suit, and lifted him with muscle power alone.
"I am nothing like those persecutors! Do you hear me, you insignificant insect?!"
He roared. Peter felt blood dripping steadily from his hands as the ruined metal bracers fell to the ground in a heap of scrap.
"I would never inflict the suffering I endured on humanity! I am saving my people!"
Peter's breathing slowed. The agonizing pain gradually became numbness, with each drip of blood bringing a sting.
He panted. "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
Magneto looked stunned. "What... what did you say?"
"You're right, Magneto. You want to protect your people, and there's nothing wrong with that. But you hate humanity too much."
Peter gasped for breath.
"You hate us, but you're human too. You're not superior. You're just a little boy who can't see the good in humanity."
"I'll make your death painful, Spider," Magneto growled. "I'll drive metal into your bones and suffocate you from the inside out, making you feel every second."
"Funny. I was going to tell you the same thing."
Peter grinned, and four enormous red mechanical arms suddenly sprang from his back.
As Magneto stared in shock, the mechanical arms lunged. The upper two pierced his arms, while the lower two drove straight through his flanks.
"Aah!" he cried out in pain.
But Peter wasn't finished.
"Activate unibeam, maximum power!"
He let out a low shout.
Magneto looked down as the spider emblem on Peter's chest blazed with dazzling light. He let go and flew backward, but the unibeam fired in an instant, blasting him all the way to the end of the street.
Peter began to fall, but he controlled one mechanical arm to fire a web from its tip and slowly swung down to the ground.
He landed, panting, and cursed under his breath as he looked at his arms. His wounds were bleeding badly.
Peter hastily bandaged them with webbing to stop the bleeding and rotated his wrists. Fortunately, only his forearms were broken. He had gotten lucky. Hopefully, the web splints would help his bones heal faster.
He looked up. Magneto was gone.
He had probably flown away, much to Peter's relief. Without a surprise attack, he couldn't have hurt Magneto at all. If his opponent had known his trump cards beforehand, he would have been dead.
Peter tapped his helmet. "Call Xiaomaomi."
The system automatically connected the call, and Felicia answered almost immediately.
"Are you okay?" she asked at once.
"A little hurt, but I'm okay." Peter looked at the ruined Silk-Shooters on the ground. "What about you?"
"We're at Jean's house, eight blocks away. Her parents aren't home. It's just us." Felicia spoke rapidly. "How soon can you get here?"
"I don't know. Ten minutes?"
His arms were already out of commission, and he wasn't used to swinging with his mechanical arms yet.
"That long? Wh-what happened?" she asked fearfully.
"My Silk-Shooters broke." Peter cursed. "I'll be there soon, Xiaomaomi. I promise."
"I love you, Laohu. Stay safe," she said.
Peter ended the call and sighed. He had to get moving.
He quickly collected the ruined launchers and cleaned up the blood that had dripped along the way. He couldn't let any of it fall into enemy hands.
Peter used a mechanical arm to shoot a web around a streetlamp and slowly swung away. He still needed time to get used to the mechanical arms.
But on his way to Jean's house, he wondered how he could possibly beat this guy. His powers were absurd. How could he control all metal?
Was it magnetism?
If it really was magnetism, he shouldn't be able to control metals with extremely weak magnetic properties-like his mechanical arms!
Magneto hadn't been able to stop the mechanical arms from hurting him because they were made of titanium alloy, a metal with extremely weak magnetic properties.
Peter's web-shooting bracers, on the other hand, were mainly made of steel and small amounts of other metals, most of them iron-based materials that were easily controlled by magnetism.
He had to exploit that.
Peter had no time to make new Silk-Shooters. But just then, he passed a pawnshop, and an idea immediately came to him.
Meanwhile, in Jean's bedroom.
Felicia came out of the bathroom and sighed.
Jean looked up from the bed. "Who called?"
"Peter," Felicia said. "He called to check on us."
"What did you tell him?" Mary Jane asked.
"I told him everything was fine and there was nothing to worry about," Felicia lied.
"Why would you say that?!" Liz shouted. "Nothing is fine! Some psycho mutant who can control metal is coming for us!"
"That's exactly why Peter can't come anywhere near here," Mary Jane countered. "He needs to stay safe."
"Can't we get Johnny Storm or the Fantastic Four to help?!" Liz asked.
"Yes, we have to," Jean said urgently. "I don't want Peter getting hurt, but Spider-Man can't hold out much longer. We need help!"
Backed into a corner, Felicia sighed. "I don't-"
"Felicia! We're going to die! We have to-"
Boom!
The wall at the far end of Jean's room exploded, torn open and hurled away.
Magneto hovered before the opening, his cape in tatters, his red breastplate shattered, blood dripping from his hands and chest.
"Jean." He narrowed his eyes. "This is your last chance. Join me or die."