He had made his choice.
He was going to face the darkness in this world the same way his father, Ben Parker, did.
Down below, the mixed force of gangsters and hired mercenaries was already closing in on the Daily Bugle building.
Several vans screeched to a stop in front of the tower, and armed thugs poured out of them with guns already in hand.
The mercenaries were even worse, far more disciplined, carrying rifles, full tactical gear, and even rocket launchers.
This wasn't gang warfare anymore.
This was a localized war breaking out in New York City.
An open declaration from organized crime against the government.
"Move! Move! The boss said nobody in that building leaves breathing tonight!"
The man leading them was built like a bear. He didn't even glance at the security guard trembling inside the booth downstairs.
Instead, he strode to the SUV behind him and pulled an RPG launcher from the trunk.
He hoisted it onto his shoulder, raised the sights, and locked onto a massive twelfth-floor window.
That was where the Daily Bugle's deputy editor's office was.
Below, the police units stationed around the building had already started exchanging fire with the gang members.
The gangsters had worse aim and worse weapons than the tactical units, but what they had more of was bodies and desperation. Their bosses had already given the order: charge.
Live through it and get paid.
Fall back and get shot in the back.
Inside the Daily Bugle building, anyone with access to weapons had armed themselves. The SWAT officers had already begun pulling back deeper into the building in a controlled retreat, trying to force the attackers to burn manpower and ammunition room by room.
After the last attack, Jameson had stocked even more weapons inside the building.
He had apparently been preparing for exactly this kind of night.
"Are these lunatics trying to start World War Three in Manhattan?" Jameson muttered through the cigar clenched in his teeth, checking his submachine gun while already wearing body armor over his shirt.
Nearby, Ben was trying to steady the nerves of the younger staffers and interns who had never seen anything like this.
He was as ready as Jameson was.
And George Stacy, his old neighbor, was already on the way with reinforcements. On top of that, Ben's military connections weren't just decorative backstory either.
He had already called an old friend, General Thaddeus E. Ross, who supposedly spent most of his time now hunting monsters of one kind or another.
Back in the day, though, the two of them had gone through military school together and served together. Jameson had been there too, though he'd left that path behind early and gone into journalism instead of continuing further in the service.
At this point, the two men weren't really worried about themselves.
They were worried about the people working under them.
As for their own lives, they had already made peace with the risk.
"Uncle Ben!" Peter shouted inside his head as he swung forward in a panic, but web-swinging wasn't fast enough.
And below, one of the gunmen pulled the trigger on the RPG.
Peter saw the missile leave the launcher.
But he was too far away.
His spider-sense detonated into the strongest alarm he had ever felt, not warning him of danger to himself, but of the imminent loss of his family.
The pain of it made his vision go dark for a moment.
"No... too far... I can't make it in time!"
It was a cruel truth.
He was still over half a mile from the Daily Bugle.
He couldn't get there in time.
"No! Stop!"
Peter's eyes split wide, tears bursting free as he hurled himself forward like a madman, slamming his hand down on the web-shooter trigger.
Even knowing he was too late, he still had to try.
Down below, the thug with the launcher grinned, certain the mission was already done.
"Goodbye, reporters."
The rocket screamed forward, carrying enough force to tear a massive hole through the building as it sped straight toward the twelfth-floor windows.
Time seemed to stretch.
Peter reached forward in despair in midair.
Ben was shoving people toward cover.
Jameson was still fighting downstairs alongside the tactical police.
And then—
The rocket had barely traveled sixty feet, with several dozen more still between it and the building, when a blue streak dropped from above at speeds faster than sound.
It crossed past the rocket.
And the rocket exploded in the air.
The blast wave shattered nearby glass, but didn't injure a single person.
The building stood untouched.
"Wh... what just happened?!"
The thug with the launcher froze, still standing in firing position, staring stupidly at the fireball in the sky.
Was that some kind of anti-air intercept?
Or had Kingpin sold them defective secondhand rockets that blew up early?
That couldn't be right, could it?
Wasn't this supposed to be a clean-up job?
The three swinging in from afar saw it too and collectively blanked.
"What was that...?" Cindy stammered. "Did... a bird just go past?"
Then came an even more terrifying sonic boom than before.
Clark fell like a meteor and slammed into the center of the attackers.
The ground caved inward around him. The closest thugs were thrown off their feet, some knocked unconscious on the spot.
The pavement beneath him shattered like a wafer cookie, leaving behind a crater over thirty feet wide.
Dust and debris exploded upward, hiding whatever stood at the center.
"Cough—cough... hostile! Damn it, something dropped in! Open fire! Open fire!"
The gang leader recovered first. He threw aside the now-useless rocket launcher, drew the Desert Eagle at his waist, and began firing blindly into the center of the dust cloud.
The rest of the gunmen scrambled up too and raised their weapons, pouring fire into the smoke.
RATATATATATATATA!
Hundreds, maybe thousands of rounds screamed into that one spot.
Forget a human being, if a dinosaur had been standing there, it would have been turned into red paste.
But there were no screams in the dust.
No body hitting the ground.
Not even a grunt.
Only the repeated sound of bullets hitting metal.
That hard, bright clanging people always compared to striking steel.
A constant rain of metallic impacts.
Then a gust of wind tore through the smoke and blew it away.
And finally, everyone saw him clearly.
Every face went white with disbelief.
The rumor people had whispered about, the impossible thing passed around in frightened stories—
It was real.
A towering figure stood there in absolute stillness, broad and powerful enough to make people feel like they couldn't breathe.
He wore a dark blue bodysuit made from some strange material, perfectly fitted to the sculpted lines of his body, every muscle looking like it had been carved from living marble.
He wore no body armor.
No helmet.
Nothing.
At his feet lay a carpet of flattened metal discs.
The rifle bullets, rounds that could punch through steel plating, had crumpled into flattened copper pancakes the instant they touched him, clattering harmlessly to the street.
One bullet had even struck him directly in the right eye.
But all it did was tap the surface of that blue iris and flatten itself before sliding uselessly away.
He didn't even blink.
And at the center of his broad chest, under the lights of the city night, was a massive red S.