21 Damsel

Having basically just blindly trusted my spider-sense to dodge out of the way the bullet that nearly hit me, I jumped to the side and managed to land on top of the store counter, pushing most of what was on it to the ground with that little maneuver.

The noise I had created captured the attention of the two parties who had previously been having a standoff.

Marko's face pales as he turns back to look at me, probably not happy with someone interfering in his fun/revenge. How can a giant sand monster's face turn pale, you ask? The color of the sand turned a bit lighter.

The staceys, meanwhile, had some much more interesting reactions.

George, who had just shot at Marko, had now turned his gun to me with his finger still on the trigger, ready to shoot at any time. Does he consider me a more significant threat than the literal monster made out of sand which is clearly hostile to him?

He must be an arachnophobe.

He should learn from Gwen, who, having noticed me, seems much more at ease than before, at least someone here believes in Spiderman.

The confrontation seems to have come to a temporary standstill as both parties are now staring at me, probably waiting to see what I am going to do next.

Not being great under such pressure, I just do the first thing that comes to mind. "Hey, guys… Good morning. What can I get you all on this fine day?" I say, sliding off the table to behind the counter where the shopkeeper usually stands.

My improv is met with a facepalm from Gwen and immediate hostility from Marko, who shoots out a bunch of sand from his arm at high speed, aiming straight at my face, which I really don't appreciate.

I duck down to let the projectile pass over above me. Good thing, too, as the thing just blasts a hole through the wall behind me.

"Hey, that's dangerous, what if you accidentally hit me?" I say, poking my head over the counter briefly but pulling straight back down as another blast of sands heads at me.

Marko appears to have classified me as an enemy and is going full kill mode. I guess I should answer in kind.

Once the second blast hits the wall, I pop out much faster and shoot webs on both sides of him that stick to the wall. Pulling myself forward at full strength, I launch forward, legs first, toward his chest, aiming to deal a heavy blow.

Much to my surprise, however, instead of feeling like I just hit someone, I barely feel anything as I pass right through Marko's body and reach the wall on which my webs were stuck on.

Seeing my glorious failure, George Stacy opens fire, thankfully on sandman, not on me, and empties the rest of his clip but expediently doing minimal damage.

[HP - 2545 / 2600]

We had barely done any damage at all, and Marko looked like he was enjoying himself immensely if the grin on his face was anything to go by.

He shoots several quick bursts of sand one after another that I am able to dodge only thanks to my high dexterity stat. Seeing his failure, Marko looks disappointed and instead turns his focus back to the Staceys.

George had taken the chance of Marko being focused on me to push Gwen out to better cover, but he himself was still pretty much out in the open, something that Marko took advantage of as he now shot a strong blast at him.

"Dad!" Gwen yells and runs to try to push him out of the way of the blast but is clearly way too slow for that. Thankfully I am much faster than her with shooting my webs onto George and pulling him out of the way.

At this point, Marko starts getting a bit more irritated before suddenly he starts laughing. I didn't have a good feeling about that, and my intuition was correct as he shot out a few more sand bullets at George and me before making his sand hand huge to grab Gwen and exit the building.

"Pe…uh Spiderman help!" Gwen yells while flailing her arms as she is being dragged outside, and despite my superior dexterity, George somehow makes it out the door much faster than me.

And wait, what was she about to call me at the start? Pest? Pet? Perv??? What had I done to deserve any of these nicknames?

Anyways, hurrying out of the door, I see that the big pile of sand outside is gone as Sandman, now much bigger than before, is carrying Gwen away through the streets.

George doesn't pay me any mind as he frantically takes out his phone, presumably to call for backup. I don't have any time to wait for that, though, and instead, take off swinging after Sandman and Gwen.

Thanks to his size, the steps he takes are quite big, but he still isn't nearly fast enough to escape me.

Circling his head, I ask Marko, "So uh… anything you afraid of? Fire, radiation, magic? Any info you could give me would help out a lot, I assure you."

What? I had no clue on how to defeat him, and villains love to tell heroes their greatest weaknesses during monologues, so I thought I might as well just try asking him straight up and save some time.

Not being very cooperative, Marko just grunts, "Get out of my way, you bug!"

"If you paid any attention in biology class, you would know that spiders are, in fact, not bugs but arachni- Whoah, watch it, you big brute!" My lesson is interrupted by my new student throwing an entire car that I am forced to dodge at me.

Gwen doesn't seem too appreciative of my antics either, but that's quite understandable with her current situation. Only her head is visible as the rest of her body is encased in Sandman's fist.

It reminds me of kids digging a deep hole at a beach and then burying someone standing up in sand.

The good thing about all the people evacuating the district is that all the previously occupied restaurants are now empty, and the tables are still packed with the food and drinks people had ordered.

I had decided to try out the Sandman being weak to water or liquids in general theory and started grabbing anything from the tables and swinging them toward Sandman.

Water, coke, tea, coffee, soup… I grabbed all I could and barraged Marko while being careful not to hit Gwen with any of it.

My attacks seemed to be working as he had come to a standstill and was trying to cover his face from the projectiles. Those hands, however, were now falling apart from all the liquid. The problem was there just wasn't enough of it even after throwing everything I could catch sight of on the tables.

Sensing my assault had come to an end, Marko uncovers his grinning face. "So what now, bug, run out of ammunition?"

"Well, yes, but actually no," I said, pointing up to the roof of the tall building we are standing next to.

On that building stood a water tower. I'm not really sure why but the Spiderman games had taught me that these things are everywhere in new york and apparently quite poorly maintained, too, since Spiderman was the one who constantly had to repair them.

The legs of the tower were rusted, so I figured it wouldn't be too hard to bring it down, and conveniently enough, Sandman was standing right under it. Before he got the chance to figure out why I pointed at a random tower on a building, I webbed its rusted legs and pulled it forward.

As the water started spilling out and was about to land, Sandman seemed to panic and tried to sidestep away while covering his head with both hands, throwing Gwen high into the air as he decided that saving himself was currently more important than the girl he tried to kidnap.

I heard the water land and Marko scream, but that wasn't important right now as I was calculating Gwen's flight trajectory in my head to catch her. She flew in a splendid arc right into my arms.

"Hey," I say as I catch her, and our eyes meet. Well, her eyes and my mask.

"Hey," She replies. After a few seconds of silence, she asks, "uh… shouldn't you be worrying about that sand monster trying to escape?"

"Escape?" What could she mean by that? I look up to just barely catch a trail of sand slithering into the sewer grate as most of Sandman's body is left behind as wet sand. "Oh heck…"

I guess I got a bit too distracted there for a few seconds. Unfortunately, a few seconds is all it took for Sandman to escape. I don't think I will be able to catch up to him today, and even if I was, I don't think I could defeat him without a plan.

As I was thinking this, I heard a bunch of people running up behind us, most were wearing police uniforms, and George was included among them.

I put down Gwen, and the two get to have their reunion while I ponder over how to defeat and stop Sandman from escaping the next time I meet him.

Roughly a minute later, I feel someone's hand on my shoulder. Turning around, I see it is George. "Thanks for your assistance today. I don't think either me or my daughter would have survived if you hadn't shown up when you did."

"Oh, don't mind it, it's all in a fair day's work for a spider such as myself…." Suddenly a flash of inspiration came to me. I could totally use this guy as bait…sorry, Gwen, your father will be of use to me."

I pull him closer and whisper, "Hey, you know Marko escaped this time, but he will be back for you or Gwen another time."

George narrows his eyes at me and whispers back, "What are you getting at?"

"I have a plan to defeat him the next time he shows up, but I need your help in setting it up."

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Note: Oh my god, this chapter took like four days to write, and I'm not completely happy with the quality. I guess it will take some time to get used to writing again.