Shock

Boom!

The ground beneath cracked and splintered as if struck by a meteor, and the subway, like a ferocious beast breaking free from its cage, erupted from the earth amidst a violent storm of dust and gravel. The once-contained chaos had been unleashed.

The front train carriage was now a mangled wreck of steel, torn apart by the force of the crash. The entire length of the train leaned at a precarious angle, its heavy metal carcass groaning in protest as it smashed down onto the construction site below. Sparks flew in every direction as the metallic behemoth screeched against the ground, dragging its weight along the rubble-strewn road.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of friction and tension, the train came to a halt.

Stopped.

Once upon a time, Charlie had often grumbled about the endless construction sites in the city, bemoaning how they seemed to pop up on every other block, disrupting his commutes and detours through Riverton City. But today, for the first time in his life, he found himself grateful for the construction zones.

Because without this accidental buffer zone created by unfinished roads and unoccupied areas, finding a place to stop this runaway subway would have been nearly impossible.

The scene before him was nothing short of surreal. The first car of the subway had pierced through the earth's surface like a sword, emerging half above ground while the rest of the train remained buried beneath the rubble of the tunnel. A jagged hole had been punched through the road, and dust filled the air like a thick fog. The sight of the subway lying half-exposed to the elements, twisted and broken, was nothing short of shocking.

This was the best Charlie could manage as Spider-Man, given the circumstances. The buffer distance had been far too short to safely stop the train using brute force, as 'he'd' done in past feats. Instead, this was a controlled crash—one that minimized casualties and damage as much as possible. It was inevitable that people would be injured from such a violent stop, but when the dust settled, and the rescue teams arrived, the reports revealed that most of the passengers had only suffered minor injuries. A few were seriously hurt but were not in any immediate danger of losing their lives. And against all odds—no one had died.

For a disaster that had looked certain to end in tragedy, the results could only be described as a miracle.

It took several minutes for the passengers to process what had just happened. At first, they simply lay where they were, dazed and unsure of whether they were still alive or not. Slowly, they began to rise, peering around in disbelief. They felt the cracked pavement beneath their feet, saw the rubble strewn across the road outside the train, and stared at the fractured tunnel they had just emerged from.

It took a few more moments for them to understand that they were not in some otherworldly realm or the afterlife. They hadn't perished in some great, fiery collision.

No, they were still very much in Riverton City. And somehow, against all logic and expectation, they had survived.

As reality began to sink in, the passengers began murmuring among themselves. They looked up and remembered the strange man in the tight red and blue suit who had quite literally pulled the train back from the brink of destruction.

"What the hell just happened?" one passenger muttered, rubbing his head as he tried to make sense of the chaotic memory.

Another, who had managed to witness the full event, pointed toward the front of the subway car. "That guy—The Spandex-Man—he pulled us out! He stopped the train!"

The realization spread through the crowd like wildfire. Slowly, a sense of awe began to creep into their voices, as they pieced together the seemingly impossible events that had just unfolded.

"Brothers... that was a sign!" one of the passengers shouted, his voice trembling with excitement. It was as if he couldn't believe his own words. "The Bible says that the angels will return with Jesus, and they will come with a loud sound of the trumpet!" the passenger fanatically continued. That man, he must be one of God's messengers."

Shouts of amazement, disbelief, and lunacy erupted among the survivors, many of whom had resigned themselves to death just minutes earlier. For these passengers, those few moments were nothing short of the most harrowing experience of their lives. They had gone from certain doom to miraculous salvation in the blink of an eye.

Meanwhile, the rest of Riverton City was watching the scene unfold from afar. The entire city had been following the runaway train disaster through live news coverage. And now, as helicopters flew over the scene, broadcasting images of the half-buried train, citizens across the city found themselves staring at their screens, dumbfounded.

"Wait... how did the subway end up there?" a confused citizen watching from home asked aloud.

To make matters worse—or, more accurately, better—Charlie, still controlling Spider-Man, had to deal with the aftermath of his heroic actions. 'He' coughed as he crawled out from under a pile of rubble and debris. Dust clung to his suit, and his normally agile movements were sluggish as he slowly got back on his feet.

For the onlookers, it seemed as though Spider-Man had been injured in the chaos.

But Charlie knew better. Despite his appearance, Spider-Man was fine. Sure, for most people, being involved in a subway tunnel collapse and getting flung from a runaway train would have spelled disaster. But for Spider-Man, it was just another day at work.

In fact, while he might have looked a little battered, Charlie knew that Spider-Man could take much worse. After all, this was the same hero who had survived head-on collisions with speeding trains in the past and had walked away without a scratch. A little dust and a few bruises were hardly enough to slow him down.

Even so, the job was done. The train was stopped, the passengers were safe, and Charlie had earned himself a fresh batch of Hero Points.

In the world of superheroes, it was widely known that each hero seemed to have a unique knack for wrecking specific types of vehicles. Superman had a history with airplanes, Aquaman had trouble with ships, and Spider-Man... well, Spider-Man always seemed to get involved with runaway trains. This wasn't the first time, and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

As Spiderman stood up and dusted himself off, one of the passengers, still recovering from the shock, hesitantly approached him.

"What the heck are you...?"

Spiderman turned, his mask-covered face tilting slightly in amusement. He had heard this question countless times before. With a playful shake of his head, Spider-Man responded with his trademark line.

"I'm your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man," he said with a grin beneath his mask.

With that, he raised his hand, fired a web at a nearby building, and swung off into the distance, leaving the bewildered survivors behind.

Up in the sky, a news helicopter hovered above the scene. The reporter, stunned by what he had just witnessed, turned to his cameraman.

"Tell me you got that on tape," he asked, his voice filled with disbelief.

"..."

Soon, reporters and rescue teams flooded the scene. After interviewing the survivors and piecing together the story, it became clear what had happened.

"It's true!" one of the passengers declared, standing before a news crew's microphone. "I swear on your grandmother's grave! The guy who flew off—Spider-Man—he's the one who stopped the train!"

"He shot some kind of web from his hands and pulled up the subway tracks with his bare hands! I don't even know how he did it! Then, he somehow yanked the train up onto the ground!"

Reporter: ???

Audience: ???

The entire city was in shock. The words the survivors spoke made sense, but the sheer absurdity of it all left many struggling to believe it.

And yet, as bizarre as it sounded, the evidence was right there in front of them. While Spider-Man's webs had dissolved, the twisted remains of the subway tracks—pulled from the earth by superhuman strength—were proof that something extraordinary had taken place.

Across Riverton City, the name Spider-Man surged to the top of every search engine, trending faster than any celebrity news or viral video. Forum users began sharing their experiences, and soon, more and more people stepped forward to share their own encounters with the friendly neighborhood hero.

"Wait... I know him! He's the one who helped me get my cat down from a tree last month!"

"Yeah, I remember him! He caught a bike thief outside my apartment complex a while back."

Meanwhile, underground organizations like the Riverton Bank Alliance, who had once tangled with Spider-Man without realizing his true strength, began to feel a growing sense of dread. Their previous encounters with the masked hero had left them with bruised egos, but they never imagined they had been dealing with someone capable of stopping a runaway train.

One member of the Alliance, reading the news on his phone, nearly dropped it in shock when he saw the red-and-blue figure swinging through the air in the video footage.

"Wait... isn't that the guy we tried to take down last month?"

"Were we really shooting at this guy?"

Soon, it became clear that Spider-Man had been quietly operating in Riverton for some time, helping with everything from catching petty criminals to performing small acts of kindness. But it was only now, after this spectacular event, that the city as a whole began to understand just how remarkable their friendly neighborhood Spider-Man truly was.

---

As the day drew to a close, Charlie logged out of his Spider-Man interface and took a deep breath. It had been a long, exhausting mission, and he was ready for a break.

But, just as he was about to relax, a message from Friday popped up on his screen.

"Sir," Friday's voice chimed in, "Daredevil has found something in Grace City."

Charlie sighed. There was never a dull moment.