Chapter 9: Hammerhead

In his mansion, a tall and burly man with combed black hair and a hammer-shaped face stood before his family and henchmen. As a kid, he had always dreamt of this: becoming the most feared crime boss in the city. Now that Wilson Fisk was out of the picture for the time being, his dream had finally come true.

"My family. Friends. All of you from the Hammerhead family! I've waited since I was eleven years old for this moment, and it's here. It took us a lot to get here, but well, here we are!" Hammerhead started off.

The Hammerhead family started laughing.

"Though we did lose some of our people in the process, they didn't die in vain. By taking reign of this city, we'll make Wilson Fisk look like a nobody! We're gonna take every rotten part of this very squalor and make it pure. We're gonna do beautiful things. And we'll start by doing what Fisk couldn't. We'll kill Spider-Man."

Hammerhead and his family held up their wine glasses.

"Salud!"

As the family started laughing and talking, Hammerhead sat at the couch with his new second-in-command Lonnie Thompson Lincoln, or as people liked to call him, 'Tombstone'. A muscular African-American man, Lonnie took pride in his looks.

"Lonnie! How's it feel to be a part of the family?" Hammerhead excitedly asked.

"Already feels thrilling. Should be more exciting than any of the bullshit Fisk had ever assigned me to," Lonnie chuckled.

"You made the right move coming over here after Fisk's arrest. You're gonna do great business here!" Hammerhead assured.

"What's the story with you, bro? Why you into this whole gangster shit?"

Hammerhead sighed. "As a kid, my father was the kind who made no right decisions, you know? Scammed a lot of people. Now, one of those people happened to be a successful surgeon. Lost his medical license all because of my father. Funny, huh?"

"Nah, man, sounds sorta fucked up."

"Absolutely. That surgeon took me to the back of an alley, and he just pummelled me across the face until nobody could recognize me no more. My dad hired the best doctors in New York to patch me up. Though the best they could do was reinforce my entire skull with some powerful metal shit. Explains why my head is shaped like this."

"Damn, man, that's crazy."

"You wanna know what's crazier? Follow me."

Hammerhead got up and left the dining room with Tombstone following him. Hammerhead led Tombstone to the garden where a blindfolded man was tied up and on his knees. Two henchmen were watching over him. In front of the man was a briefcase.

"Look at this little prick right here!" Hammerhead scoffed. "This man worked with Fisk for a decade, and after his big boss goes to jail, I decide to offer him a chance! An opportunity to have some real fun with us! And what does he say?"

Hammerhead cocked a gun and aimed it at the man.

"Say it. Repeat it before I blow your head off."

"We're all loyal to Fisk," the man groaned.

"See? To celebrate our new reign and your addition to this family, you can do whatever you want to this man! Just make sure he isn't breathing by the end of the night," Hammerhead rewarded.

Tombstone nodded, genuinely happy. "Got it."

Hammerhead pat Tombstone's shoulder and walked back inside along with his two henchmen. Enthusiastic, Tombstone opened the briefcase to find torturous weapons everywhere.

"Interesting."

"No, no, please! I'm begging you, sir! Please, I got a f-fa-family-" the man blubbered.

"That's what everyone says," Tombstone sighed.

Tombstone then closed the briefcase with another plan in mind.

"Why, all this when I can just do this?"

Tombstone grabbed the man, punched him in the face, and slammed him down to the ground. Tombstone then proceeded to savagely stomp on the man, allowing him to bleed out.


"Help!"

Swinging throughout the city, Spider-Man's Spider-Sense immediately started tingling at that yell. Spider-Man quickly swung into an alleyway where he found a muscular man holding a gun to a woman's head.

"Help, please!" the woman pleaded.

"Don't be stupid. Let the lady go!" Spider-Man demanded.

The man smirked. "Gladly."

The man let go of the woman, who took a machine gun out of her purse and fired bullets at the hero, with the man doing the same. Spider-Man jumped and crawled across the brick wall, dodging the bullets, and then yanked the guns away with his webbing.

"What the hell, lady?!" Spider-Man yelled in anger. "I could have been killed. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

Spider-Man then pulled back his fist and sucker-punched the woman to the ground.

"Huh. Never thought I'd hit a woman."

Spider-Man turned to the man, who was fleeing. Spider-Man quickly shot a web at the man and pulled him back into the alleyway, dragging him by the leg.

"You, talk! Who sent you guys to kill me?"

The man simply smiled. "We're gonna do what Fisk couldn't: burn this city down, and rebuild it into something beautiful! And to do that, we're taking you out. Without you, it'll-"

A punch to the face knocked the man out.

"You talk too much."

At that moment, a truck pulled up in front of the alleyway, blocking Spider-Man's exit. Five armed men came out of the truck with machine guns.

"Oh, shit."

Spider-Man shot webbing at the guns and men's legs, causing them to hit each other and trip everywhere. Before Spider-Man could get away, one of the men took out a grenade. Spider-Man swung away as fast as he could, though the grenade blew up a decent amount of the alleyway. It was just miraculous that nobody else was there during that time.

"Damn Hammerhead," Spider-Man sighed, swinging away.


Nearby, Hammerhead's next plan was about to begin. But he also had something else in mind.

"What the fuck were you thinking?! He knows we're after him. He could alert every damn cop to our presence!" Hammerhead yelled at the muscular man from earlier.

"But the cops have an arrest warrant on him. Who's to say they wouldn't go after him? He's not a friend of theirs." the man pointed out.

Hammerhead punched the man across the face, causing his nose and mouth to bleed.

"For what you've done, you must be punished."

"Hammerhead, please. God, please! Four years together-"

Tombstone appeared from behind and started strangling the man. Hammerhead slowly took out a pistol and fired point-blank.

"Time to go to work," Tombstone said.


BOOM!

On top of a building, Spider-Man saw smoke rising from a bank nearby. Sighing, Spider-Man swung over. He avoided and incapacitated the armed man outside of the bank and ran inside. There were a few hostages on the ground.

"This again?" Spider-Man scoffed, genuinely annoyed.

Armed men were inside the bank.

"Alright, then. Piece of cake."

"Not necessarily."

Spider-Man turned around to see Hammerhead standing at the entrance of the bank.

"Look who it is, the itsy bitsy spider-"

"Stop it. I hate that song," Spider-Man said while covering his ears.

"Well, Spider-Man, this may seem easy for you. But it won't be in-"

Even more armed men burst through the entrance, and explosions blew the walls open, with more men coming in and aiming their guns at Spider-Man. There had to have at least been forty men in there.

"Am I dreaming?" Spider-Man asked himself.

"Freeze!"

Much to Spider-Man's relief, a few police cars and trucks pulled up with cops coming to surround the armed men. Unfortunately, the amount of cops was way lower than the amount of hostiles.

"Get down, or we will open fire!" one of the cops yelled.

A cop fired the first shot, ensuing a shootout. Spider-Man had been involved in gun fights, but they were a walk in the park compared to this. While dodging the bullets, Spider-Man did his best to fight some of the armed men. The hostages had hidden behind furniture or desks.

"I'm gonna need a break after this!" Spider-Man declared as he webbed up some armed men.

Luckily, the hostages had taken the opportunity to flee through the nearby exit. Unfortunately, so did Hammerhead.

"Damn it!" Spider-Man muttered as he ran out of the bank to find Hammerhead running down the steps.

Spider-Man shot a web at Hammerhead's leg, pulling him down. Hammerhead took a shotgun out of his jacket and started shooting at Spider-Man, who dodged the shots. Hammerhead cut the web off his leg and took out a grenade. Hammerhead threw the grenade, though Spider-Man grabbed it and threw it as high as he could at the sky. Hammerhead took a machine gun off of one of the unconscious men armed from earlier, but Spider-Man ran over and kicked it out of his hands. Hammerhead grabbed one of Spider-Man's punches and headbutted him to the ground.

"What the hell is with your head?" Spider-Man groaned as he rolled over to avoid Hammerhead's stomp.

Spider-Man did the first thing he thought of, which was to kick Hammerhead in the groin, causing the crime boss to fall in pain.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Spider-Man asked as he stood over the groaning criminal.

Spider-Man punched Hammerhead in the side, knocking him over.

"Look, this has been fun and all, but-"

Hammerhead quickly took out a taser and shot a wire at Spider-Man, electrocuting him.

"Guess we're even," Spider-Man coughed as he struggled to get up.

"That's what happens when you're too cocky," Hammerhead mused as he pulled out his shotgun and aimed it at Spider-Man's head.

Bullets started hitting the surface at Hammerhead's feet, forcing him to run. Hammerhead shot at the police while running and avoiding them, and he escaped in his van with a few of the remaining men. As for Spider-Man, he was nowhere in sight.


"Holy shit, man," Harry commented.

School was rough because Peter had a bruise on his forehead from his battle with Hammerhead that hurt like hell. It felt like he had a major headache.

"What happened, bro?" Flash asked.

"Fell on my head outside the other day," Peter quickly lied.

"If you fell right on your face…" Harry wondered.

"Shouldn't you have gotten a black eye or something worse? Missing teeth?" Flash questioned.

"Guys, it happened the way it did."

Gwen walked over, and her smile faded once she saw Peter's bruise.

"Crap, babe, what happened?" Gwen fussed, feeling her boyfriend's forehead.

"Fell on my head."

Gwen kissed Peter's forehead. "That looks pretty serious."

"Sooo, let's be positive," Flash suggested. "Anything new, guys?"

"Liz and I are hanging out this weekend," Harry announced.

"Good for you, man!" Peter congratulated as Flash gave Harry a fist-bump.

"Yeah, it'll be nice. Haven't had much fun since my mom died."

"I'm looking into the winter play since football season is over," Flash admitted.

"You? Acting?" Peter asked.

"No offense, Flash, but you don't really strike me as the type who'll get on stage and perform Broadway magic," Gwen chuckled.

"I'll be fantastic," Flash bragged. "All the hotties will be coming on to me."

"Oh, Gwen, how's your dad taking that bank incident with Spider-Man?" Peter asked.

"Oh, he just hates Spider-Man even more now with a burning passion. Obviously, he has a grudge against this new Hammerhead guy since he's being called the new Wilson Fisk, but three of his men were killed. He blames Spider-Man for motivating the men to go after him," Gwen vented.

"I don't know your dad that well, Gwen, but he might top Jameson as the biggest Spider-Man hater ever," Harry said.

"Even more than you?" Gwen asked.

"I may not be the biggest fan of him, but I wouldn't say I hate him. Your dad just wants to rip his head off," Harry responded.

"True," Flash agreed.


At Hammerhead's mansion, the crime lord was addressing his family.

"We failed. WE FAILED!" Hammerhead ranted, banging his hand onto the table. "I had him, and the stupid cops had to intervene."

"Good thing I wasn't there," Tombstone sighed of relief. "Sounded like a shitstorm to me."

"You're not helping," Hammerhead scolded. "You weren't even there."

"I'm sorry, but we both agreed I should take at least a short break before going back into all that crime."

Ignoring what Tombstone said, Hammerhead continued, "It's official. The cops need to go. We need them begging at our feet."

"Good luck with that. You can't take out the whole NYPD."

"Watch me," Hammerhead said with a glare before he pulled back his fist and knocked Tombstone out unconscious.


Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Reviews are greatly appreciated. Next chapter: Spidey vs. Goblin Round 2.