Underestimating enemies
"Alright, let's go," I say, putting on my minimal amount of gear and jumping down from the roof. Felicia is right behind me, but shortly before reaching the parking lot where the Rhino is, she splits off to go inside the museum, presumably to nab whatever she came here for.
I would feel bad for the owners of the museum, but since, to my knowledge, most of the art here is modern stuff only used for money laundering, it's not like they are losing much.
Approaching Rhino from behind, I don't even need to try to be quiet as he is preoccupied with yelling at the last of his subordinates still standing. The rest have been hit by him and are lying at his feet.
Another one of his goons exits the museum with a weird sculpture in hand. There must still be others inside looking for valuable stuff to loot, I wonder how Black Cat is dealing with them.
I walk up to the man and take the sculpture from his hands before he can react. "Sorry, I need to borrow this for a second."
"Wait, you-" He tries to say something and grab it back, but I have already thrown it at the back of Rhino's head.
Upon the unexpected contact, Rhino stumbles forward a little and turns around, immediately glaring at me angrily. "Who the fu-. SPIDERMAN!"
"It wasn't me, this guy did it," I say, pointing at the guy I took the sculpture from.
Rhino turns to the guy next to me, frantically waving his hands in front of him, denying fault. "BOB! I knew I couldn't trust you, you snake!"
He kicks the sculpture that landed at his feet and sends it flying at his minion's head, knocking him out upon contact. What an idiot.
"Sike, it was me." I taunt, bringing out my sword and jumping at Rhino, aiming to cut him.
With the meager amount of hp he has, it would only take a few slashes before he is defeated. An easy fight, right?
I go in two, handing my sword and aiming to slash his shoulder since I don't actually want to kill the guy.
It would probably be bad for me if I went around killing every criminal I meet. Not only would the people be against me, but secret organizations like Shield would also classify me as a threat. I should at least wait until I am strong enough not to care about their opinion.
Much to my surprise, though, Rhino moves much quicker than I could have anticipated and blocks my slash with his arm. The sword simply bounces off his armor, dealing not even 20 damage.
In a hurried manner, I let go of the sword with my right hand and try to shoot a web to pull myself away, but before I could, Rhino's other fist hits my stomach, draining my hp and sending me flying back a few meters.
I land on my back and quickly eye over my system to see that I lost a whole 600 health just from that punch. For wearing that bulky armor, he is a lot faster than expected.
I shake off the pain and jump back on my feet. Immediately upon standing up, my spider-sense goes off, warning me of Rhino, who is charging straight at me. I fire off a web at a nearby lamp post to pull myself away, but I don't get far, as once again, Rhino's speed is staggering and his strength even more so.
My feet are barely off the ground before Rhino's charge reaches me. My escape attempt is foiled with the web breaking, and the two of us are headed directly toward the museum wall. Only by a narrow margin was I able to move my body out of the way of his horn in order to avoid being impaled.
Rhino doesn't slow down at all, and moments later, we crash through the wall with my back taking most of the damage. As you might expect, going through a solid concrete wall hurts quite a bit, I even feel the backside of my costume being broken and torn open.
Once inside, Rhino abruptly stops, but I continue flying farther from him another few meters. Finally sliding on my back, I come to a stop when my head touches a wall.
With my body hurting all over, I hear a voice from right next to me.
"You underestimated him, huh?"
I open my eyes to see Black Cat standing next to me, carefully extracting a painting from its frame.
"Yeah, maybe a little," I reply
[HP - 1,012 / 3,550]
Okay, so maybe I underestimated him a bit more than a little, but in my defense, who could have guessed that a level 12 with so little health could pack such a punch. That armor must be giving him huge bonuses, not to mention damage resistance.
"Black Cat, I see you left Kingpin as well," Rhino growls
Felicia snorts in reply, "Oh please, I was never under Kingpin in the first place. I only helped with one job."
I get back up from the ground once again and dust myself off. My body hurts all over, but I don't want to be caught lying down when Rhino decides it's time to attack me again.
"You gonna help me out with this guy?" I ask Felicia, who is busy having a stare-down with Rhino. These two don't exactly radiate the energy of being great friends.
Rather than Felicia answering me, it is Rhino who starts laughing as if he just heard a funny joke. "What, you still think you have a chance against me, little guy? Didn't flying through a wall teach you a lesson already?"
"Oi! I just miscalculated a little there. You wouldn't be shit without that big suit." I say, pointing my finger at him in a dramatic way like in an anime. A little hypocritical coming from someone with a system, but I choose to ignore that.
"Hmph, we will see about that." Without further notice, he once again charges at me at full speed, but different from last time, I was ready for it and able to roll out of the way. Felicia did the same but in the opposite direction.
In good faith, I attempt to web him to the wall when he hits it, but as expected, he breaks free with almost no effort. Despite that, he is not yet able to move away from the wall as he got the horn on top of his head stuck inside it.
I share brief eye contact with Felicia, who shrugs and motions her head toward the ceiling, where a giant model of the Earth hangs by a chain. "Get him down under it, and I'll make sure he goes on to take a nice long nap."
She takes off running up the stairs but briefly stops to look back. "Oh, and you see that huge thing on his back? It should contain the engine or whatever is keeping his armor running, take care of it, and he will have a much harder time moving around."
I look over at Rhino's armor, and indeed there is a lump of metal extruding from his back that looks out of place, in fact, it almost looks like he is wearing a backpack.
I don't have time to look for long, though, as Rhino frees himself from the wall. No, never mind, he fails to unlodge the horn from the wall it was stuck in and just took the wall with him, separating a block of it that stays around the metal horn.
"You look like your having some trouble there, feeling top-heavy?" I say using my taunt skill to make him act irrationally, but I get the feeling the guy doesn't use his brain anyway, so it probably won't affect much.
I only get a grunt as a reply before he charges at me like a bull seeing red. I guess he has no other moves other than just running at me and hoping he hits. To make things even harder for him, I fire off a bunch of webs onto the window that he looks through, covering it completely and making him unable to see.
To my amazement, he actually stops his attack and, rather than running forward blind, starts scraping the window with both hands to clear his vision. Unfortunately for him, he stops right where I want him to be, under that big ass globe hanging from the ceiling.
"Here, let me help you out a bit." I fire off my Mana Bolt, not expecting it to do much other than maybe stun or anger him more, but the explosion instead not only cracks the reinforced glass but also sends many metal chunks from his armor flying around.
An enemy almost entirely resistant to physical attacks but weak to magic? I should really invest more time into training my magic. Alright, it's a done deal. Tomorrow, I will go see the bald lady who I've kept waiting for long enough.
In the corner of my eye, I see Felicia leaping from the second floor of the museum and landing on top of the globe, time to finish this before Rhino recovers.
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[Root Strike - Active] (Level N / A)
A sharp root pierces out of the ground at a designated spot dealing 5000 physical damage.
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The skill that comes with my wooden ring deals a ton of damage and could probably kill Rhino instantly if aimed correctly, but rather than that, I summon it a little ways behind him, aiming it to only destroy the power source on his back without actually hurting him.
The skill works quickly with the Root emerging and causing a small-scale explosion upon hitting its designated target. Only a second later, it goes back to the ground and even closes the spot where it emerged from, leaving no trace of the skill being used behind.
"AAAARGH!" Rhino lets out a loud yell, and his arms freeze up. No part of his armor moves anymore.
Seeing the opportunity, I rush him, sliding between his legs and, when behind him, attach two webs at both of his heels. Standing up, I pull with all my might, and even though it's a bit tough, I manage to pull his legs from under him and make him faceplant onto the ground.
I watch him lying there with glee until a few seconds, a loud clank is heard, and the globe falls from the ceiling, crashing right onto Rhino and shattering into many pieces.
[Gained 7% experience]
Felicia lands next to me with an elegant backflip, rolled up painting firmly in one hand and her grappling hook in the other.
"Well, that's one down." I sigh as all the pain catches up to me with the battle ending and the adrenaline going down.
"One of many." Felicia says, "That is if you are planning on stopping all the guys breaking free from Kingpin's control."
I nod, thinking about all the villains I remember Spiderman has had over the many years. "You wouldn't be so kind as to tell me who else I might have to send behind bars in the coming months, would you?"
Felicia thinks for a moment before speaking, "Well, there is the Vulture, Shocker, Tombstone, Chameleon… look, there are too many to name, and it's not like I know them all in the first place."
"Them all going their own way would make my job a lot more dangerous…and exciting…." She continues, whispering that last part under her breath softly enough that most people wouldn't be able to hear.
"Sorry, I guess… wait, why am I even apologizing to you? Aren't you one of these bad guys as well?"
"I'm saddened that you think of me like that. I only steal from the rich. I'm like a real-life female Robin Hood, you know!" She protests.
"So you give your loot to the poor?"
"Oh, absolutely not. I keep it all."
As we continue speaking for a while longer, I start hearing a myriad of police sirens approaching from the distance. Took them long enough.
"Ah, and that's my cue to get out of here," Felicia says, also hearing the sirens. "I forgot to tell you earlier, but I'm working on something you might be interested in. I will contact you once I make some more progress."
Hearing her, my interest is piqued. What could she be working on that I would be interested in? "How are you going to contact me? I'm pretty sure we haven't exchanged phone numbers."
Turning around, she runs out of the art museum through the hole Rhino and I created, only yelling back, "You'll see!"
I stare at her back as she runs off. Deep down, I'm a little worried about this 'contacting me' thing, but I'm confident she hasn't figured out my real identity, so whatever she has in mind couldn't be that bad…I hope.
As she grapples onto a high roof and disappears into the distance, I redirect my focus onto the downed Rhino, who has yet to move even a little. Oh, I should get my drops before the cops show up to bring him away!
Walking up to him, I place my hand upon his broken-down armor.
[Obtained "3,570,000 million dollars"!]
[Obtained "Knight Lance"!]
[Obtained "Blueprint: Rhino's armor"!]
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[Third person POV, The next morning]
"Good Saturday morning to all New Yorkers, and thank you for tuning in and watching today's special episode of 'Just The Facts with J. Jonah Jameson'."
"Many of you might have already heard, but our 'friendly neighborhood Spiderman' has managed to beat and arrest another deadly criminal known as the Rhino last night. I already know what you all are thinking. 'Oh, how is the big bad Jameson going to turn this one against our hero and savior Spiderman' but all I ask of you is to use your head for just a moment!"
"Sure, Rhino might be behind bars but have you all looked into how much damage the fight between them caused? Millions and yes, you heard that right, MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF ART WERE EITHER BROKEN OR DAMAGED BEYOND REPAIR!"
"Not only that, but through my connections, I was able to get access to the video feed of the cameras in the museum that night since I wanted to show you all the unhinged destruction that so-called hero causes, and guess what, I discovered. Spiderman and the known thief Black Cat working together, hand in hand!"
"Not only were they talking as if they were friends, but Spiderman even let that thief walk away from the museum carrying one of the most expensive pieces of art of our generatio-"
Jameson's speech is cut short by the tv abruptly being shut off. A large man sitting behind an expensive, antique desk places the remote on his table and takes out an expensive cigar to smoke.
Another man standing next to the desk wearing a blue and black spandex suit with a target on his forehead speaks. "Mr. Fisk, hasn't that guy done enough damage to your reputation? Can't I just go out and eliminate him already, I promise it will be a quick job."
"No," Fisk, more commonly known as Kingpin, replies simply, spinning his chair around and looking out the window of his office, which is located on the highest floor of his tower.
The man next to him, Bullseye, frowns. "I don't understand why we haven't already taken care of him the amount of damage he has cau-"
Bullseye's speech is cut off by Fisk raising an open hand into the air. He might almost be considered a right-hand man to Kingpin, a weapon that takes care of his enemies, but he wouldn't dare speak up when his boss has clearly ordered him to shut up.
A few seconds of silence go by in the office as Kingpin smokes his cigar before finally saying. "You need to think bigger this is the perfect chance to see who is truly loyal and who would leave at the first chance they get. Besides, this Spiderman is no threat to us. I've already got a guy… a hunter, coming over from Russia to take care of him."
"And me?" Bullseye asks, disappointed that someone else is taking the job he wanted.
"You… You go take care of the cat."
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Note: SORRY! This chapter took like three days to write. I wrote it all only to delete everything and rewrite the chapter three different times because I was unhappy with the quality, only to finally say fuck it, it's good enough.
As a plus, it is almost 3000 words long, 3x the length of a regular chapter.
My policy recently has been to release 3 or 4 chapters a week, but when one chapter turns out to be the length of several chapters, it can really be helped, right?