[Home Plot | Mr. Sandman | Pt. IV]
Boy, talk about being saved by the bad guy! Honestly, I think I would've taken just about any excuse to get the heck out Dodge the second Mary Jane walked through that door. Call me a coward, but there's no sane person on this planet who could tell me that that wasn't the most awkward set-up in the history of mankind. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but that doesn't stop a part of me feeling guilty for having left MJ -- everyone has the same name, okay, give me a break -- to entertain my first wife while I run off to play superhero.
That guilt flies right out the window when my spider-sense goes off the charts, and I'm suddenly too busy dodging a bolt of electricity to worry about much outside the moment. The news bulletin reported a disturbance in midtown, but I made my exit before I heard anymore details than that. Now that I'm here, though, it sure doesn't take a whole lot of brain power to suss out who's behind all the hubbub: Electro and Sandman are up to their old tricks.
Shouts of "Spider-Man!" reach my ears -- some more welcoming than others --
as I swing over the gathering of cop cars and news vans, a growing group of bystanders swarming behind the police tape. Leave it to New Yorkers to want to catch a show.
"Are there any hostages?" I call out to the nearest officer as I swing down, landing in front of him. I don't have a lot of time for chit-chat, but rushing in without some information about what I'm rushing in to strikes me as a bad plan. I mean, look, I'm admittedly a little rusty, here. While I'd like to think I can handle Dumb and Dumber without a hitch, I'm not going to let my ego cost someone their life.
"They let two of 'em go, but we're pretty sure they still got most of the staff inside."
"Right, I'll take care of it," I reply, already shooting off a web to head in to the fray. "Tell your guys to just make sure this crowd stays put, alright? They're lookin' pretty antsy."
He yells something at me that I can't quite make out -- probably not to tell him how to do his job, that's usually what accompanies that particular tone of voice -- but I don't sweat about it. My attention is strictly on the two bozos who are tearing apart the bank. There's sand everywhere, scared bankers ducked behind desks... The place is a mess, the wall leading to the safe having been blown to smithereens. The lights are flickering from Electro's interference.
"Yanno," I say, swinging through the shattered window to land a kick right to Electro's chest that sends him flying through the air, "good as it is to see some things never change, you guys really need to let these people go."
He lands, hard, on a table, the wood splintering underneath him. Looks like I caught him off guard. I won't have that luxury a second time.
"You!" he says, scrambling to his feet, and it's only thanks to my spider-sense that I manage to avoid his retaliatory bolts. Quick as I am, though -- and I'm pretty speedy on a good day -- the people around me most definitely aren't. If I can't get them out of here, maybe I should try luring away their captors instead. "Sandman, the wall-crawler's here!"
"Ooh, wanna call me the insect for old times' sake?" I reply, and I'm so distracted dancing through Electro's electricity that I don't pay attention to the new alarm bell going off at the back of my head. Big mistake. Out of nowhere, a wall of sand hits me like a bag of bricks, knocking me breathless as I crash through an unfortunately intact glass door, but it doesn't stop there. Oh, no, good ol' Sandman takes the opportunity to throw me up over the crowd while he's at it, right before he literally leaves me hanging in the air, pulling out from under me with about as much warning.
My head's spinning. Enough sand's seeped underneath my mask that I can't stop coughing. I'm so dazed from the hit that the weblines I shoot off to catch myself miss by a mile, and suddenly, I'm falling fast, the ground growing clearer by the second.
This is promising.
That guilt flies right out the window when my spider-sense goes off the charts, and I'm suddenly too busy dodging a bolt of electricity to worry about much outside the moment. The news bulletin reported a disturbance in midtown, but I made my exit before I heard anymore details than that. Now that I'm here, though, it sure doesn't take a whole lot of brain power to suss out who's behind all the hubbub: Electro and Sandman are up to their old tricks.
Shouts of "Spider-Man!" reach my ears -- some more welcoming than others --
as I swing over the gathering of cop cars and news vans, a growing group of bystanders swarming behind the police tape. Leave it to New Yorkers to want to catch a show.
"Are there any hostages?" I call out to the nearest officer as I swing down, landing in front of him. I don't have a lot of time for chit-chat, but rushing in without some information about what I'm rushing in to strikes me as a bad plan. I mean, look, I'm admittedly a little rusty, here. While I'd like to think I can handle Dumb and Dumber without a hitch, I'm not going to let my ego cost someone their life.
"They let two of 'em go, but we're pretty sure they still got most of the staff inside."
"Right, I'll take care of it," I reply, already shooting off a web to head in to the fray. "Tell your guys to just make sure this crowd stays put, alright? They're lookin' pretty antsy."
He yells something at me that I can't quite make out -- probably not to tell him how to do his job, that's usually what accompanies that particular tone of voice -- but I don't sweat about it. My attention is strictly on the two bozos who are tearing apart the bank. There's sand everywhere, scared bankers ducked behind desks... The place is a mess, the wall leading to the safe having been blown to smithereens. The lights are flickering from Electro's interference.
"Yanno," I say, swinging through the shattered window to land a kick right to Electro's chest that sends him flying through the air, "good as it is to see some things never change, you guys really need to let these people go."
He lands, hard, on a table, the wood splintering underneath him. Looks like I caught him off guard. I won't have that luxury a second time.
"You!" he says, scrambling to his feet, and it's only thanks to my spider-sense that I manage to avoid his retaliatory bolts. Quick as I am, though -- and I'm pretty speedy on a good day -- the people around me most definitely aren't. If I can't get them out of here, maybe I should try luring away their captors instead. "Sandman, the wall-crawler's here!"
"Ooh, wanna call me the insect for old times' sake?" I reply, and I'm so distracted dancing through Electro's electricity that I don't pay attention to the new alarm bell going off at the back of my head. Big mistake. Out of nowhere, a wall of sand hits me like a bag of bricks, knocking me breathless as I crash through an unfortunately intact glass door, but it doesn't stop there. Oh, no, good ol' Sandman takes the opportunity to throw me up over the crowd while he's at it, right before he literally leaves me hanging in the air, pulling out from under me with about as much warning.
My head's spinning. Enough sand's seeped underneath my mask that I can't stop coughing. I'm so dazed from the hit that the weblines I shoot off to catch myself miss by a mile, and suddenly, I'm falling fast, the ground growing clearer by the second.
This is promising.