"Maybe I should take up sailing someday."
Technically, driving a motorized speeder boat wasn't sailing, but for the black-suited man behind the helm, the experience was close enough. The calm afternoon air, the serene tide, the glistening water gently reflecting the sun into peaceful waves of light, the sweet salty smell of the sea (albeit the other smells, of course) – this particular sailor was in serene ecstasy.
The speeder's motor chugged a soft spittle as the black-suited sailor spun the wheel to the right, following the seemingly endless dock coastline. Of course, the speeder could have obviously gone at much faster and more powerful speeds, tearing butt down the line within moments. He, however, simply didn't want to do that, for this particular sailor was in serene ecstasy.
Whistling casually to a relaxed, laid back tune, the sailor's black fedora hat neatly shaded his eyes from the afternoon glare, and also succeeded in slyly covering up his facial features into a mystery. Whistling his casual, laid back tune, this casual, laid back sailor casually tapped on the gas and lucidly steadied the wheel casually. Given the amount of times "casual" and "laid back" were used in this one sentence just now, one could get an idea of just how peaceful this man felt. This particular sailor was in serene ecstasy.
And it seemed that nothing would have been able to break his high.
"Man, I should take up sailing someday," this sailor repeated softly to himself.
And then there was Lupin. Mad-dashing across a dock the boat was approaching.
"Jigen, goddamn it! No time to screw around!"
"Sonofabitch," Jigen spat. There always had to be something.
--------------------
EARLIER
"SPIDER-MAN?!!!!!"
"And we cue music," Spider-Man remarked.
"The hell are you doing here?!" Fujiko spat.
"Uh, sightseeing?" Spider-Man replied
"How the hell did you find us?"
"Ninja powers," Spidey said.
Goemon raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"No." Spider-man decidedly remained upside down on his web-line. "I'll give you guys credit for being smarter than the average degenerate douches out there." Spider-man pointed at the particularly shiny-glowing gem on Lupin's hands. "But a smart douche is still a douche. Hand it over, buddy."
Lupin replied by snapping the small black box shut with a smart-ass grin. "Sorry, spider-freak. You want one of these, you steal one yourself, like every other hard-working degenerate douche out there."
"But I'm not going to –"
The base of Spider-Man's skull suddenly shrieked just before his webline was abruptly cut from above. Elegantly reacting with a backflip as he fell to the floor, Spider-Man sprawled into a low-standing hunch just in time to meet his new dance partner.
"Lupin, Fujiko, get out of here. I'll catch up," Goemon said boldly, his trusty "walking stick" readily held on his left side.
"Whoa, whoa, wait," Spider-Man interjected. "Did you say Lupin? As in, world-famous, most wanted, super-uber crazy-go nuts, thief Lupin?"
"You guessed it, slick," Lupin waved, shortly before he and Fujiko began their mad dash away from the scene. "Catch ya on the flip side."
"Oh, man," Spider-Man exclaimed, "oh man!" Spider-Man raised his right hand towards them. "Sir, it would be an honor to kick your butt."
Just as instantly as he finished his last sentence, a spindling line of web jetted out of the base of his palm, rocketing towards the fast escaping Lupin and Fujiko. But just as instantly as the webline thwipped from his hand, a razor-sharp blade sliced through the tip of the webline, not only cutting it in half but changing the direction of the web enough away from Lupin.
"Sorry, but it won't be that easy," Goemon said, slipping his sword into his walking-stick sheath.
"Oy. And this day just got longer."
-------------------
As the boat approached the end of the dock, Lupin hopped into the speeder. "We're going to phase 2 right now! Switch. I'll drive!"
"Hey what's going on?" Jigen asked, "and where the hell is Goe-"
"He's taking care of it," Lupin replied, switching sides with Jigen.
"Takin care of what?"
"We got a hot one on our asses."
"NYPD? FBI? Or –"
"No, it's Spider –"
Dashing down the walkway towards the dock was a long-haired, Japanese male who had (thankfully) shedded away the fat suit. Dashing towards the speeder with sword in hand and his standard shifty assassin look in his eyes, it was no mistake he was –
"Goemon!" Jigen said.
"You actually – "
--------------------
Spider-man leaned back as a sideward sword swipe narrowly missed his nose. Extending his left hand to the ground, he attempted to web his opponent's feet together, but Goemon simply hopped up, raised his blade above his head, and drove a vertical slice directly at Spidey's shoulder. Sidestepping to his right, Spider-Man rocketed a left hook at Goemon's head, which met air as Goemon himself ducked under the blow and slashed at Spider-Man's left side. Spidey had long flipped forward and away from the attack, leapt onto a pillar, and flipped over Goemon's head just as he thrust the tip of his sword at the web-head. Spidey barely landed on his two feet before Goemon instantly turned around with a commanding horizontal swing, but the red and blue hero luckily somersaulted backwards into an aisle of steel shelves, and into a safe distance – which at this point was anywhere away from his Samurai opponent's blade.
This action blurb was officially a tango, and an interesting one at that.
Spider-Man was incredibly fast, but Goemon amazingly managed to keep up with the superhero thus far.
And judging by how heavily Goemon was breathing just to regain his composure, it was taking a lot out of him. And he was not one to lose his composure easily.
"Well," Spider-Man said, leaning against one of the stacks of steel shelves, "at least you get an A for effort. But seriously, can't we just sit down and –"
"Hunh, hunh, hunh . . . "Gasping for air moderately heavily, Goemon abruptly clutched the hilt of his sword and dashed towards Spider-Man.
"Whoa, slow down there turbo!" Spider-Man exclaimed as he shot two ropes of web towards his incoming attacker. Ducking and weaving through the two web- lines shot towards him, Goemon drew his sword and began to slash at Spider's head . . .
. . . when he suddenly switched directions and slashed Spider-Man's left wrist just as the hero was evading away.
"Oh, come on!" Spider-Man seethed. "For Christ's sake, what the hell is wrong with you?" Spider-Man tapped his left wrist, the cloth sliced open to reveal a sliced open web shooter. "You know how much this thing costs to make? Good job, you now owe me fifty – aagh!"
Wasting no time, Goemon took advantage of Spider-Man's spiel and got his first decent hit of the game – taking out the hero's legs from beneath him with a well-timed sweep kick.
As Spider-Man face-planted onto the ground, Goemon raised his sword above his head again and sliced down at the hero. Spider-Man easily evaded the slash and quickly gained height over his opponent by climbing up one of the high-rising steel shelves. Goemon, however, seemed to have a lapse of sanity, flipping out like a madman and hastily slashing the shelves, pillars, and metal around him. A ring of sparks surrounded him as he kept on slashing metal and support beams, until Spider-Man decidedly intervened.
"Yo, Spazzoid," Spider-Man cracked from above, waving at Goemon. "I'm up here. You missed."
Goemon coolly went into an upright stance and sheathed his sword.
"Not exactly," he answered.
The following three things then happened to Spider-Man almost instantly in order:
Screeching, whining of metal failing. Apparently slicing metal support beams can cause that sort of stuff.
Spider-Man's spider-sense shrieking
Metal shelves, steel pipes, and one pillar falling onto him before he had the chance to escape, causing him to fall about a story and a half to the ground and getting buried under piles of rubble.
Any other smug warrior would have grinned satisfactorily at his work and cockily walk off. But Goemon, being the wiser, did exactly what smarter people have done in cases with tangling with overpowering superheroes and suddenly getting an upper-hand.
Run.