Chapter 6: Rhino Wrecks the Neighborhood
"Sir, you have a call?" The butler told Norman.
"Who is it?"
"He calls himself "Mr. Hardhat", sir."
"Ah yes, thank you Joseph," Norman held out his hand for the phone. Joseph handed it to him, and left. Norman put the phone to his ear, "I thought I told you not to call me at home."
"Your little experiment failed," Hammerhead's voice growled from the other end.
"Did it?" Norman questioned. "I seem to recall he managed to poison the bug."
"He's still up and crawling, you old, decrepit bastard!" shouted Hammerhead.
"I'm fully aware, but it's been proven that he can be hurt," Norman retaliated. "Do you have someone in mind for the next one?"
"As a matter of fact, yes," Hammerhead answered. "Someone the bug cut a couple weeks ago, Aleksei Sytsevich."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~A Couple Days Later~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
During free period, Peter got a text from Aaron, stating "Spidey Alert: A Humanoid Rhinoceros is on a Rampage!"
"What is it?" MJ asked, noticing Peter's questioning expression.
"Aaron says there's some kind of Rhino Man on the loose," he whispered.
"Rhino Man?" MJ asked.
Peter shrugged, "But, we got Trig next period..."
"Ten minutes, kick that Rhino guy's ass, and ten minutes to get back," MJ whispered. "You can do that with your mask on backwards."
Peter chuckled a bit, "I wouldn't go that far." He got up, told the teacher he was going to the restroom, and changed as he climbed to the roof of the school.
"Okay Aaron, which way is this Rhino guy?"
"Just follow the sirens," Aaron answered.
"Got it," Spidey said before he shot out a web and began to swing through the streets, following the sound of police sirens. As he got closer, he saw signs of extreme property damage; it was like a bulldozer had run through the area! Spidey saved a couple from getting crushed by a thrown car before turning to the street where the sirens were heading.
And...Aaron wasn't wrong; there was a large man in a grey/silver suit of armor wrecking everything in the area! From the way his feet looked, and the horn on his head, he was definitely supposed to look like a rhino.
Spidey landed behind Rhino just after he crushed the hood of a police car, "Hey, is that a horn on your head, or are you just...happy...to..." He trailed off as Rhino turned to him and he could see exactly how big the man was. "I am so scared; I can't even finish my joke..."
"Finally you come, Spider," Rhino said with a Russian accent, before backhanding the young hero into a wall!
Spidey fell to the ground, then got up after a few seconds, "Don't worry, nothing's broken! Except my spine, a few ribs, maybe everything else..."
"Unless I'm wrong," Aaron said, "I think that's your old friend Aleksei!"
"What?!" Spidey questioned before he jumped out of the way of Rhino's charge. "Karen, could you run this guy's face through facial recognition?"
"Already working on it," the female AI responded. "Match found, Aleksei Sytsevich. You caught him two weeks ago when he attempted to steal an Oscorp truck moving plutonium."
"Oh, right," he muttered. "You want me? Catch me!"
Spidey swung away, but Rhino chased after him!
"You like being hunted, freak?!" Rhino asked with a sinister laugh.
"Would you PLEASE look who's talking?" asked Spidey as he kept swinging.
"But I'm not coward!" Rhino responded. "Even before I had suit, I never ran away scared!"
He smashed a fire hydrant with his foot and soaked up the water! Spidey caught the thrown hydrant with a web and threw it back at Rhino! It hit him in the stomach, but didn't seem to do any damage!
"Um, ouch?" Rhino joked.
"Oookay, this MIGHT be a problem," said Spidey, worriedly.
He swung down another street, baiting Rhino to chase him.
"Hurry up, hippo!" Spidey taunted. "Gotta lead this guy to a deserted area."
As he said this, his Spider-Sense picked up a speeding Diesel truck headed right for him, causing him to yell out in surprise as he barely dodged it!
"Where do you find deserted in a city of 8 million?!" he asked.
Rhino rammed into the truck, completely smashing the front! He then ripped out its engine and threw it at the wall-crawler!
Spidey dodged it, then threw it back with a webline! It hit Rhino in the head, knocking him to the ground, but he quickly got back up.
"You'll have to hit harder!" he declared before he charged again and destroyed the wall Spidey was on!
And in doing so, he knocked Spidey down to the ground, as well! He grabbed the hero by his ankle, slammed him to the ground twice, then threw him a considerable distance away! He crashed through the window of a sporting goods store and slid into a rack of hockey sticks, knocking it over!
Spidey groaned as he tried to get up, "That's gonna leave a mark..."
Rhino charged through the wall to the store, and slowly walked over to Spidey, who was still on the ground.
"Hey wait, wait!" he begged.
"What?" Rhino asked.
"Weight!" Spidey pulled a dumbbell weight to his hand with a web, then smacked Rhino in the head several times with it, knocking him into the shelves with several weights on them!
Using his chance to escape, Spidey quickly swung away while Rhino shoved the shelves off of himself with an angry roar!
"Where'd you go?!" he yelled before he looked around. However, he looked very out of breath and he was sweating profusely.
He broke open a fridge of soft drinks, grabbed a water bottle, and crushed it in his hand, splashing the water onto his face and into his mouth.
"Wow, he's so cocky that he's taking a water-break?" Spidey questioned, then he had a light bulb moment. "Unless..."
Rhino crushed a few more water bottles before Spidey took them away with his webs, "Okay, break's over!"
"Why you!" Rhino shouted as he charged at Spidey and sent him flying through the ceiling and out into the open, but this time, Spidey managed to catch himself!
They were now in an alleyway, where Spidey threw a dumpster at Rhino, crashing through another wall! Spidey leapt over to a grate that lead underground, then called to Rhino as he got out of the rubble, "Come on horn-head! Let's play 'Follow the Leader"!"
"Think you can hide from me, down there?!" Rhino asked as he jumped in. "Think again!"
He soon found himself inside in an underground pipeline.
"Phew!" Spidey exclaimed as he hung from the ceiling. "Hot enough for ya? Come on, ya big lug! Let's go for a run!" With that, he ran along the ceiling with Rhino chasing after him.
Spidey jumped down to stand in front of some pipes, "Toro, Toro!"
He jumped away as Rhino hit the pipes headfirst, causing some steam to be released! He struggled for bit before he pulled his head out, and he was already sweating.
"What's the matter?" Spidey asked. "Running out of steam? No pun intended."
Rhino growled before he kept trying to hit Spidey, who jumped out of his way every time, but each time Rhino threw a punch, he only ended up destroying more pipes and releasing more steam throughout the tunnel. The steam even started to blow open some manhole covers in the street!
"I made a mistake when I tried to crack open that suit of yours," Spidey stated as he kept jumping around.
"Nothing can do that!" Rhino panted. "My employer *pant* said *pant* I am impenetrable..."
"Too true, and if nothing can penetrate, then you can't perspire," Spidey said. "Your face is sweating for your whole body. It's probably enough under most conditions, but in a steam tunnel..."
That's when Rhino realized that he had fallen for Spidey's trap: he was going to make him pass out from overheating!
"I gotta get outta here!" he exclaimed as he turned to run.
He tried to climb up a ladder to street level, but Spidey swung over and kicked him down. He then pulled more pipes open with his webs. Eventually, the heat from the steam made Rhino slow down enough that when Spidey kicked him again, he stayed down!
"Ladies and gentlemen, the biggest underdog story ever!" Spidey cheered. "A tiny spider defeats a big, bad rhino!"
"You...crush you..." Rhino panted. Spidey climbed out of the tunnel, where the police were waiting.
A Japanese woman with short black hair, wearing a black leather jacket and red plaid shirt, and a badge strapped to her waist walked over,
"Is he down there?"
"Yeah," Spidey panted. "You're gonna need a crane."
Soon, Rhino was lifted out from under the tunnel, unconscious.
"Well, thanks," The policewoman said. "Lieutenant Yuriko Watanabe."
"Nice to meet you," Spidey responded. "Sorry, but I've gotta be somewhere."
He jumped and swung away, heading back to the school.
And he couldn't have arrived any later, because it was almost time for the next class.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The next day~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Spidey perched on a rooftop in Queens, just looking around, waiting for something to happen.
"Peter, there is a bank robbery in progress," Karen told him. "And to make matters worse, it's a hostage situation."
"What a way to start a Saturday morning," Spidey replied before he swung away. "I'm on my way!"
"Lieutenant Watanabe is in charge of the police unit at the location," Karen added. "I recommend that you talk with her before going in."
"Good idea," Spidey agreed. As he kept swinging through the city, he heard a loud crash, followed by an explosion and people screaming!
"Okay, speaking from professional experience, that is NEVER good!" Spidey said as he hurried to the location.
As he arrived, he saw that the crash and explosion was from a police chopper that had been shot down!
Spidey landed on one of the police cars next to Yuri, who was giving orders to her radio,
"Lieutenant, what happened?!"
She turned to face him, "These guys are serious! They just shot down one of our choppers with an RPG!"
"I know there's hostages," Spidey replied.
"One of them is Captain Stacy's daughter," Yuri added.
"What?!" asked Spidey in disbelief. Peter knew Gwen Stacy from school; she was a very pretty, curvy blonde, whose brains matched her beauty. She was nice, even though she hardly interacted with Peter and his friends.
"But these crooks don't know that, yet," Yuri assured him.
"Have they made any demands?" Spidey asked.
"So far, all they've said is to stay away, and...they have a bomb," Yuri replied. "Bomb squad is already on its way."
"All due respect lieutenant, I can't sit here and do nothing," Spidey said.
Yuri turned to look at the bank for a minute, "If I let you go in, we do this quietly."
Spidey nodded his head before he began to sneak his way inside by crawling along the walls.
"Peter, scans show four hostiles on the roof, all armed," Karen said.
"Is there a way in up there?" Spidey whispered.
"Yes, through ventilation," Karen answered.
Spidey climbed up the walls and took a peek at the roof; four men, all wearing black bodysuits with gray harnesses, and black ski-masks. All carrying assault rifles.
"I can handle this," Spidey whispered before he used his webs to quickly disarm the four men, then quickly tied them up in a larger web before they could alert their buddies inside.
Spidey saw the ventilation shaft, so he pried it open and crawled inside.
"Peter?" Aaron asked. "Listen, these guys are called the Jade Syndicate, and they mean business."
"I already gathered that," Spidey whispered back.
"I've added stealth modes to your suits," Aaron said. "It'll help you blend into the shadows."
"Karen, activate "Stealth Mode"," Peter told his AI, and he saw an image on his HUD that the colors of his suit changed. The bright red changed to black and the black changed to navy blue, and the white spider changed to dark gray.
"Well, well," Spidey said as he looked himself. "I think black might be new color."
"Focus, please," Karen reminded.
"Right," Spidey crawled through the vents more until he found a grate, and another crook was right beneath it. He quietly opened the grate and pulled the guy up with his webs, and webbed him to the ceiling. He also knocked him out.
"Okay, now where are those hostages?" Spidey asked as he looked around.
He stayed on the ceiling as he moved down the hallway. He then saw some of the hostages, crouched against the wall in the next room.
Worse, they were all holding unpinned grenades! Two robbers were watching them.
"Karen, patch into Watanabe's radio frequency," Spidey whispered. "Yuri, the robbers forced the hostages to hold pulled grenades."
"Dammit!" Yuri cursed quietly. "They didn't want them to use their hands."
Right when the first robber walked over to stand next to the second one, Spidey slowly lowered himself down a webline and bashed their heads together, knocking them out!
"Spi-!" One of the hostages almost exclaimed, but Spidey shushed them.
"Where are the others?" he asked.
"There's another group on this floor, and three on the first floor," One of the hostages responded quietly.
"Is there one named Gwen Stacy?" asked Spidey. "Pretty blonde, around 17 years of age?"
"She's with the group next to the leader of the robbers," Another hostage answered.
"Oh, that's not good," Spider-Man said. "I gotta hurry."
He quickly found the next group of hostages, then used a splitter-web to pull two of the robbers into a wall and webbed them to it. He then used a web-grenade to tie up the last three, and dropped down from the ceiling to calm the hostages down.
"I see 5 hostages, but still no Gwen," Spidey muttered.
With that, he hurried to get to the 1st floor of the building, realizing that Gwen was probably with them.
"You're safe now," Spidey said. "Do any of you work here?"
"I do," One woman spoke up, quietly.
"Is there a back way out?" he asked, and the woman nodded. "Okay, there's another group back that way. Find them, lead them out and get to the police outside. They'll know what to do with those grenades."
The people got up and went in the direction Spidey had pointed, while the wall-crawler hurried to get to the first floor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~On the First Floor~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The three hostages were sitting behind the leader of the robbers...among them was Gwen Stacy.
The leader picked up his radio, "Hey Green, how's it coming?" No response. "Green? Hello?! Hey, someone check upstairs."
Two guys headed toward the elevator, only for Spidey to web one to the ceiling and wrapped up the other guy in a web-cocoon.
"Why don't you guys get comfortable for a bit?" Spidey asked.
He did the same for the last three robbers, then found the main office, where the leader was, along with Gwen and the last two hostages.
"There she is..." Spidey whispered as he spotted Gwen. 'Let's see if this new gadget works.'
He aimed carefully and fired a small red device that latched onto the leader's back. He quickly stood up, pulling out his gun, then a webline shot out of the device, pulled him into a wall and tied him up!
"What the hell?!" he exclaimed.
Spidey hopped down and the colors of his suit returned to normal, "Yeah, next time, maybe don't rob a bank. Nobody does that anymore. Wait, what am I talking about, next time?"
"Spider-Man!" exclaimed Gwen in relief.
"You're all safe now," Spidey told the hostages and led them outside.
The gathered crowd cheered as the cops headed inside the bank to arrest the robbers. All the hostages went over to the bomb squad and threw the grenades in the truck, where they safely exploded.
Gwen ran over to Spider-Man and hugged him, "Thank you! Thank you!"
He gently hugged her back, "Anytime."
"Thanks for the backup, I definitely owe you one," Yuri told him.
"No problem," Spidey responded. "Let's try to work together more instead of a competition."
"I'll think about it," she said. "And I'm sure Captain Stacy will, too."
Gwen released Spidey from her hug and he swung away. On his way to Aaron's garage, he once again caught petty criminal, Flint Marko. That guy just never learned; it was the fifth time this month that Spidey had caught him.
"Dude, for real," said Spidey. "This isn't even funny, anymore."
He then went to Aaron's garage, where the tech-whiz dropped a big bomb of a question...
"So, you guys going to your school's Winter Formal Dance?"
"H-h-how'd you know about that?" asked Peter, who had taken off his mask.
"I keep informed," Aaron responded. "Also, if your Michelle Jones is like the one on my Earth, she doesn't own many dresses."
"Hey, now, that's not necessary," Peter argued. "Besides, she's not that into dresses."
"I know, but I know she'd wanna try for these occasions," Aaron said.
"...Well...she is trying to be more sociable," Peter said. "She's been volunteering with my May."
"At the F.E.A.S.T. Center, she told me," Aaron responded. "Btw, you two should be receiving a tux and a dress, courtesy of Pepper."
Peter's eyes widened, "You told her?!"
"Pete, you know if Tony was here; he'd be doing the same," Aaron argued.
"...Point taken," Peter muttered in a sad tone.
"Sorry, touchy subject," Aaron apologized.
Peter checked the time, then put his mask back on, "Sorry, gotta meet MJ for a date!"
"It's cool," Aaron told him. With that, Spidey soon left the garage.
Aaron noticed a sensor alert and brought up one of the video feeds from one of his drones.
He saw someone on one of the rooftops, watching Spider-Man swinging away. Only problem, Aaron recognized this person immediately.
"Oh shit," he cursed.
Who's the mystery guy watching Peter?
Did anyone recognize the bank heist from the PS1 Spider-Man video game?
Read and review, please!