"The end? No! Shocker never ends!"
Herman's roar pierced Peter's ears like a sharp knife. He struggled wildly, trying to clench his fists, his knuckles white from the effort. Peter had to release the hand restraining him, instead gripping the sides of Shocker's gauntlets tightly. The metal groaned under his powerful grip, twisting and deforming—but ultimately, he was a step too late. With a "boom," a shockwave exploded, sending Peter flying backward like a kite with a broken string, his back slamming into a pile of scrap metal.
"No! No! No! Herman!"
Peter sprang to his feet. He cried out so urgently not because Shocker was about to escape or anything else, but because the gauntlets were spiraling out of control. Sparks sputtered from the seams, like the last breaths of a dying beast.
There were three possibilities: First, the Shocker gauntlet itself had reached its limit and was about to explode. Second, the Shocker gauntlet was merely damaged by Spider-Man's grip and had reached the end of its operational life. Third, the Shocker gauntlet was damaged and about to explode.
The staggering Shocker didn't realize this. He still raised a fist at Spider-Man, but he stumbled, hitting nothing, and more sparks erupted from his gauntlet.
"Good! Second option eliminated!"
Two streams of web shot out, sticking to the ground behind Shocker, pulling Spider-Man right in front of him. Peter immediately began to forcibly dismantle the Shocker gauntlet. He grabbed Herman's arm with one hand, while the other began to tear at it, ripping off the gauntlet's gold-titanium alloy casing and tossing it aside, revealing the internal wiring.
"It works like your old gauntlet, right? Just shrunk down and shoved into the arm. Okay, I remember the structure, let me see."
"Get away from me!"
Shocker swept his other arm across with a vibration wave-powered punch. If Peter hadn't ducked in time, it would have hit his head. He looked at Shocker in shock: "Hey, buddy, I'm saving you! Don't you know your gear is malfunctioning?"
"I..."
Shocker, still a bit dazed from being hit by the billboard, looked at his sparking gauntlet, clearing his head slightly. Then he headbutted Spider-Man directly, making intimate contact between his gold-titanium alloy helmet and Peter's skull. With a "thud," Spider-Man was sent reeling, stars flashing before his eyes, retreating several meters.
"I can handle all of this, I just need to, just need to get you first."
"What?"
Spider-Man threw his hands up in exasperation: "Dude? You've already lost, it's so obvious, what else are you trying to do?!"
"So many cameras... so many screens... I can't lose... I won't lose..."
Oh, right, this guy's beyond reasoning.
Peter sighed. He'd only thought that the media spotlight would draw Herman out; he never imagined it would drive Herman into a nervous frenzy. The guy probably had some kind of exposure complex; there was no saving him.
But the problem was, his gauntlet could explode at any moment! He didn't know the explosion time, only that it was soon. What if it exploded on the way after he took it off?
He realized for the first time how convenient a countdown timer in movies was.
"No, no, no, wait. I can artificially overload the gauntlet to detonate it prematurely." Dodging another vibration wave aimed at his head with a simple tilt, Peter tried to recall his first encounter with Herman. He had picked up an old Shocker gauntlet back then and examined its internal structure carefully. If he thought hard, he should be able to remember...
Herman's original gauntlet could slice through an entire building, but subsequent versions never had that much power. This suggested Herman himself knew he couldn't push the gauntlet to maximum power. Also, the old Shocker gauntlet had a fatal flaw: its safety system couldn't function properly and would go out of control regardless of the gauntlet's power output. What if he could replicate these two points—first use maximum power to launch himself high into the sky, then disengage the safety to overload the gauntlet?
Was this flaw still present?
"Let me see, let me see!"
The circling media helicopters watched in confusion as Spider-Man ripped off the casing of Shocker's other gauntlet, while Shocker punched and kicked at Spider-Man, only to be easily dodged. Peter, meanwhile, was examining Herman's equipment, trying to locate the gauntlet's safety mechanism from memory.
He discovered that Herman controlled the gauntlet's power by how tightly he clenched his fist, and the safety device was always jammed—meaning Herman hadn't solved the safety flaw at all. He just tried to control himself during battle to avoid using too high a frequency, which would cause the jammed safety to fail.
"Alright, Herman, considering we're in downtown New York, I'll have to improvise."
He found the part that secured the gauntlet to the elbow, forcibly removed it, and then yanked Herman's gauntlet off directly, clumsily attaching it to his own arm.
At this moment, Herman hadn't even reacted, still mumbling to himself in a daze. Peter had no choice but to web him up and toss him aside, then clench his fists with all his might.
"I'm going to—take off!"
Spider-Man took off, literally. A huge shockwave blasted a crater in the ground, and Spider-Man was propelled upwards by the immense force, climbing higher and higher. As he ascended, he disengaged the gauntlet's safety, and once he was sure his fists were clenched as tight as possible, he faced the ground. He wasn't sure how high he would fly, but he saw the entire island of Manhattan, then almost all of New York.
He turned his back to the ground, clenching both fists.
The tremendous impact instantly dispersed the clouds over all of New York. Spider-Man was directly slammed back towards the earth, but precisely because of that powerful force, the gauntlet separated from him in mid-air and was instead propelled even higher into the sky by the recoil, then emitted a blinding white light.
"Now there's only one question."
The free-falling Spider-Man asked.
"Am I a kilometer away from that thing?"
The aftershock of the explosion accelerated his descent. Peter squinted, watching Manhattan rapidly approach. In a free fall from this height, even if he webbed himself to a building, the acceleration would tear his arms off.
Well, he had already envisioned countless similar scenarios in his head: high-altitude rescue techniques, all to perfectly save Gwen—who would have thought the first time would be to save himself?
His web-shooters also began full operation, laying down web after web, layer after layer, stacked between the towering buildings. Spider-Man crashed into them, cushioning his fall with the webs' elasticity. Layer after layer of web snapped after serving their cushioning purpose. After dozens of layers of cushioning, Spider-Man finally stuck himself to a web on one of the lower levels. He sighed, watching the media rush into the battle zone now that the fight was over.
He landed on the ground, gasping, waving for the media surrounding Herman to move aside. He finally squeezed his way to Herman's side.
"So... did you see that? That thing almost turned you into fireworks."
Herman said nothing. He turned his head to look at Spider-Man, who looked back at him, finally understanding his meaning. Peter then took off Herman Schultz's helmet, revealing his face to all the media. In that instant, all the spotlights flashed on Herman's face, and he squinted, a look of satisfaction spreading across his features.
"I don't really want to say it, but you're truly insane."
Peter said, patting Herman's shoulder.
"But either way, Shocker's spectacular run is over."