R Batman Incident (III)

In an alley in Queens, Peter hurriedly put on his Spider-Man suit while arguing fiercely with Venom in his mind.

"If it weren’t for that bat monster you created, how could New York have gone into lockdown? My God, is this the start of a world war?"

"You’re way too timid. I say we could even take a lap around the skies over New York City!" Venom said. "You coward, what are we afraid of? Nobody can hit us anyway."

Peter was practically beside himself with anger. "Listen to what they’re saying! They’re actually saying the Bat God is coming?? Come on! I’m—I’m a spider! I hate bats!"

"Really? I think that’s pretty cool." Venom sounded relaxed. Peter rolled his eyes at him. "Fine, listen. I already let you be a bat for one round. Now it’s my turn to be Spider-Man. You are not allowed to interfere!"

Peter climbed to the roof of a building and looked into the distance. Night had fully fallen, but the entire city was submerged in the red glow of vampire eyes. Near Brooklyn Bridge in particular, countless bats could visibly be seen battling the ground forces.

Peter smacked his forehead. "What the hell is going on? Even if they misunderstood us, this many vampires shouldn’t have suddenly appeared, right?"

"You really think this is all because of us? Obviously, they planned this long ago. Didn’t you investigate it before? A whole lot of newly arrived vampires have been squeezing into New York. Take a guess what they originally wanted to do."

"You mean they were already planning to invade New York?"

"I didn’t say that." Venom said. "The incident that broke out in Queens was merely a qualitative change after things had accumulated to a certain point. These monsters had already been spotted in Hell’s Kitchen weeks ago. Those vampires who came to New York had no idea how to keep a low profile. They provoked someone they shouldn’t have…"

"Hell’s Kitchen? Isn’t Doctor Schiller in danger, then? No! I have to get over there right now. His psychiatric clinic doesn’t have any defenses. I need to protect him!"

"It’s already too late for that. He was taken to Stark Tower back when we showed up."

Peter breathed a sigh of relief, then pulled on his mask. "Forget it. They wanted to do bad things anyway, so this isn’t on me. I’m going to be Spider-Man."

Peter stuck a web line to the roof and swung away. "Woohoo! Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is here!"

Within minutes, he arrived near the fiercest battlefield. The large group of vampires there were all high-level vampires with magical abilities, and they seemed to have someone commanding them. Their tactical coordination was excellent, forcing the armed police line steadily backward.

Grabbing his web line, Spider-Man swung hard and kicked one vampire in the back. Then he flipped through the air, landed on the back of a giant bat, smashed it into the ground, and gave it several brutal punches.

Taking down two vampires right off the bat naturally caught the police’s attention. George, the Police Commissioner of Queens, was holding a phone. "…We can begin the counterattack, right? All right! Understood! I’ve put up with these sons of bitches for long enough!"

He shouted at the police on the front line, "Prepare heavy fire suppression! Machine gunners, get ready!!"

A police officer at the front shouted, "Look! It’s Spider-Man! The Spider-Man who plans to fight all the vampires in the world!"

George cursed, put away his phone, and moved behind a riot shield. Watching Spider-Man wreak havoc, knocking down one bat after another in the air, he said, "What are you standing around for? Support him! Focus fire on the bats that hit the ground! This is the perfect chance to finish them off!"

Then he picked up a rifle himself and fired at the wing of the nearest bat. Logistics personnel hurried over to hold him back. "Director George, please return to a safe position. We just received word that you are the overall commander for the three streets at the border between Queens and Brooklyn District. You absolutely cannot get hurt!"

In the air, Peter found that tactical state again, where strategies kept circling through his mind. Taking advantage of the flashes from the gunfire, he gestured to the police, signaling for them to coordinate with him.

Spider-Man fixed his gaze on a truck by the roadside that had just exploded. He wrapped two loops of webbing around it, then swung it viciously. The bats opposite him were preparing to form up for another dive, only to be swept away by the truck in a five-for-one blow, all crushed beneath its heavy wreckage.

High-level vampires could teleport, but only if they hadn’t been smashed senseless first. Spider-Man’s attack had come too suddenly. Of the five vampires, two were wedged between the truck and the wall, while three were pinned beneath the truck. All of them temporarily lost the ability to move.

The police had already received Spider-Man’s signal. The machine gunners loaded up with silver bullets and unleashed indiscriminate firepower at them. All five bats died on the spot.

Unable to use heavy firepower before, the armed police had been frustrated beyond belief. Now the snipers stopped holding back as well, switching directly to high-powered armor-piercing rounds. The bats in the air could not escape the eyes of these well-trained snipers. So long as a bullet grazed them, even if it only hit a wing, they were either dead or badly wounded.

The battle gradually began to turn around. Humanity gained the upper hand and nearly pushed the front line to the entrance of Brooklyn Bridge, but advancing any farther became difficult.

The bridge piers of Brooklyn Bridge provided the bats with natural cover. Quite a few bats hung upside down beneath the bridge, avoiding the heavy fire from the humans on shore, then swooped out to launch surprise attacks while the humans were reloading. The battle reached a stalemate.

Spider-Man had no particularly good solution either. A bridge was different from a street; the distance between two piers was too great, leaving nowhere for him to swing around. He could only fight at close range.

But the stalemate did not last long. Soon, humanity’s armed helicopters entered the battle and began fighting the bat army for air superiority. One moment, machine guns strafed downward and several bats fell, only to be finished off by ground forces. The next, an armed helicopter was damaged by the bats and spiraled down with smoke pouring from its rotors.

Spider-Man rushed to rescue people at the crash sites. At that point, the aerial battle reached its peak in intensity, for no other reason than that Hawkeye, Quake, and a group of other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had entered the fight.

Hawkeye might have been the weakest Avenger, but he was still far stronger than ordinary people and police officers. His arrows were practically impossible to miss, and after switching to high-powered silver Explosive Arrows, any bat struck by one would definitely lose its ability to move.

Quake, Daisy, was also very strong. In the comics, her abilities were incredibly powerful; she had even defeated Magneto while he was controlled by an energy entity. But now, she had only recently joined S.H.I.E.L.D. and had yet to fully develop her powers. This was also her first time participating in such a large-scale battle.

Still, she was well suited to the current situation. She could use the frequency of her vibration waves to coat Hawkeye’s armed helicopter in a protective shield. Any bat that dared approach would immediately be blasted away, ensuring the safety of their main damage dealer.

Natasha was aboard another armed helicopter. She was the overall commander of this air battle. The female agent shouted into the radio, "The helicopter squadron to the southeast, pull back immediately! Climb now! Those monsters under the bridge are charging up again!!"

She cursed in Russian, then said, "Contact the ground forces immediately and have them stop those monsters in the southeast. We can’t afford to lose another squadron."

"And why hasn’t Spider-Man joined the communications channel yet? Send someone to bring him a radio immediately. I need to know the status of the crashed helicopter pilots…"

Before long, Spider-Man’s voice came through the radio. "Hello? Can you hear me? This is the Spider-Man channel, serial number 10611. I’m currently on the east side of the bridge. The helicopter pilot here fell into the water and is trapped in an underwater rock crevice. The situation is complicated, and I’m not very mobile underwater. Send someone over quickly…"

Natasha was somewhat surprised because she knew Spider-Man’s true identity. Spider-Man’s usual style had always been to save those who could not be saved, stubbornly throwing himself into things regardless of whether it delayed him.

Yet now, he actually considered efficiency and was willing to ask for help. For a boy his age, that was a major improvement.

Natasha immediately replied, "Do not enter the water. I repeat, do not enter the water. Blind rescue attempts without understanding the underwater conditions will only make things worse."

"We’ll send professionals to rescue him immediately. Head west now. The fighting over there is too intense. I need you to rescue the pilots from the two helicopters there, then have them return to the battlefield at once. Remember, tell them they must climb before reentering, or they will definitely be shot down!"

Spider-Man withdrew without hesitation. Before long, the unlucky pilot who had fallen into the water was rescued, while Spider-Man had already saved two other pilots.

He looked up and saw that the armed helicopter squadron had suffered devastating losses. Of the nine armed helicopters that had entered first, only three remained. If not for Quake’s protection, the three helicopters carrying Hawkeye and Natasha would likely have been shot down long ago as well.

Although humanity’s technology was powerful, the giant bats held the greater advantage. There were too many of them, and they changed tactics too quickly. Once hit, they immediately used magic to escape, and their Self-Healing ability was incredibly strong. Before long, they would return to the battlefield.

Natasha watched the situation with a frown. Hawkeye shouted into the radio, "This can’t go on! I’ve seen the same bat three or four times already! It’s him every time! At this rate, they’re endless…"

Beneath the pitch-black night sky, bats filled the heavens above Brooklyn Bridge, circling like layers of terrifying curtains draped over the bridge and river. Machine-gun flashes flickered constantly, while the screams that rang out from time to time made the scene even more horrifying.

Before long, Jarvis’s voice sounded through the radio. "Twelve hundred units of specialized night-vision equipment have entered the field. The UV emitters are being deployed…"

Natasha said, "Leave two for me. Don’t drop them yet. We’ll give them something big in the air!"

Then she shouted to Quake, "Daisy, how long can you control a device weighing roughly one hundred and twenty kilograms?"

"Five minutes at most!" Daisy, wearing a bodysuit and hanging beneath the helicopter, waved a hand and slapped a bat away through the air. During a lull in the fighting, she said, "My power is for destruction! I’m not good at control! And I have to split my attention to protect this helicopter. If it’s equipment requiring delicate control, I can manage it for five minutes at most!"

"That will be enough. Jarvis, tell Stark that the airdrop target is Hawkeye’s helicopter."

"Daisy, get ready. Once the equipment enters the field, immediately control it and fly it southeast, then hold it steady. We need no more than three minutes… no, two minutes! You only need to hold on for two minutes, and we’ll use our formation to force these bats over there!"

At that moment, Natasha’s voice also came through Spider-Man’s radio. "Spider-Man, find a way to make some noise under the bridge. Get those bats airborne and drive them southeast as much as possible. Keep them hovering in the air over there for a while…"

"Leave it to me!"

Spider-Man cut off the communication, leaped high into the air, and landed on the riverbank beneath the bridge. Countless black tendrils extended from his back, sticking to innumerable massive rocks along the riverbank like a spiderweb before slamming them hard into the underside of the bridge. In an instant, a huge flock of bats took flight like startled sparrows.

"That move was awesome! Make an even bigger web! We’ll catch them and throw them over there!"

Venom directly stuck a tendril to one of the bridge’s pillars. Then black Slime erupted, forming an enormous spiderweb.

Peter grabbed the web and swung it around several times before hurling it forward. More than a dozen bats in midair were instantly stuck to it and trapped. Peter hung from the top of the bridge pillar, exerted himself once more, and threw the huge flock of bats into the range of the UV emitters in the southeast.

Natasha shouted, "Excellent work, Spider-Man! I underestimated you!"

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