thefictionvixens Chapter 33 The Chameleon's Defeat
Chapter 33 The Chameleon's Defeat
Chapter 33 The Chameleon's Defeat
"Hey, Peter."
The morning sunlight streamed into the kitchen through the gaps in the curtains. Aunt May and Uncle Ben were unusually early at the table, with fried eggs, bacon, and golden-brown toasted bread in front of them. Peter rubbed his sleepy eyes, instinctively sensing that the atmosphere was a little awkward—Uncle Ben was looking at him with a hesitant expression.
Uncle Ben cleared his throat, his tone serious: "Peter, listen, we have something to tell you..."
"What? What happened?" Peter's drowsiness vanished instantly, and his fingers unconsciously gripped the edge of the table.
"Don't listen to your Uncle's fuss," Aunt May couldn't help but interrupt, patting Peter's hand with a smile. "An old friend of ours invited us to stay with him for a few days. Considering your studies, we've decided not to take you with us... You'll have to stay home alone for a few days."
"I just wanted to tease the kid!" Uncle Ben laughed heartily, giving Peter's hair a good ruffle. "A fifteen-year-old lad should be able to change a lightbulb by now, right?"
"Of course, I can take care of myself." Peter grinned, his gaze sweeping over the lavish breakfast on the table. "So... can we eat now?"
A burst of laughter immediately erupted at the dining table.
After dinner, Aunt May hugged Peter tightly, while Uncle Ben lowered his voice, feigning seriousness, and said, "Sorry I couldn't take you to school on back day... I wonder which girl you'll invite to dance?"
"You'll find out next year," Peter winked.
"Be careful." Uncle Ben tapped his shoulder with his thumb—a warning that contained a secret code only they understood.
Watching the car drive away from the street, Peter immediately rushed back to his room, pulled out the Spider Disc from under the bed and activated it, put on his new uniform, then climbed out of the second-floor window, onto the roof, and ran towards school with his schoolbag on his back.
"A strange day, or maybe several days, without the Avengers, without Uncle Ben and Aunt May, as if all of New York City was just Spider-Man and Peter Parker—of course, nobody cared about Peter Parker."
"The hot dog Spider-Man loves! This is the hot dog Spider-Man loves! The only officially designated Spider-Man hot dog in New York!"
Peter landed at Spider-Man's only designated hot dog stand once again. This time, he was wearing a new suit and planned to show it off to his old friends, but he was surprised to find that there were far fewer customers at the hot dog stand than before.
"Hey Miller, business's not so good today?"
"Your hot dog's at the usual spot, Spider-Man." Miller didn't look up, pointing to the top of the umbrella with his spoon. "You don't go online much, do you? Right now there's a video circulating online of you beating up those thugs and robbing them, and a lot of people think it's real."
Spider-Man's new suit's goggles have vividly changed in size, one large and one small, expressing his current confusion.
"Yesterday afternoon? I spent the whole afternoon making my new battle suit."
"I see it, so your eyes can move now?"
Peter realized he couldn't talk to him about his suit upgrades, so he used spider silk to hook his hot dog down: "It sounds like someone's impersonating me to do bad things. That's strange. Where was the video filmed?"
"Hell's Kitchen".
"That's strange. I'll go check out this place I almost never go to. Maybe I can catch this guy."
"Hey, Spider-Man? Is it Spider-Man?!"
A voice interrupted his conversation with the boss. Spider-Man turned around and saw a young student who was much taller than him, but not quite as tall as Kal-King's 1.9 meters. However, he was definitely over 1.85 meters tall. Under his jacket, he was wearing a Spider-Man cosplay costume.
"Oh my god, it really is you! I've really met you!" The guy was incredibly excited, practically incoherent: "You...you changed your uniform! Oh my god, your battle suit is brighter, it looks more textured, the mesh is bigger, and your spider icon is different on both the front and back..."
"Uh..." Seeing that this fan, whom he was meeting for the first time, was more attentive than many of his old friends, Spider-Man realized for the first time that talking too much wasn't a good thing, and decisively interrupted the other person: "Dude, calm down?"
"What? Oh, okay."
The big man took a deep breath, seemingly calming down.
But as soon as he opened his mouth, Spider-Man knew he was wrong.
"My name is Eugene Thompson. I'm a student at Midtown Middle School. I'm a huge fan of yours. Look at this outfit; it's your cosplay costume. Today is our school's theme day, and we're dressed up as superheroes, so I ordered this costume as soon as possible..."
"Okay, Eugene, stop. Is it okay for me to call you that?"
Peter quickly jogged a couple of steps, preparing to swing away from this troublesome place on his web: "Thank you very much, but I have something to do. I need to go to Hell's Kitchen to catch that guy who impersonated me. Goodbye."
Watching Spider-Man swing away, Thompson simply shouted, "I'm sure you didn't do those things, Spider-Man, go beat the shit out of those imposters!"
Having finally escaped Thompson's clutches, Spider-Man couldn't help but sigh at the sheer fervor surrounding "Flash," but quickly refocused and headed towards Hell's Kitchen. That place was one of the most crime-ridden areas in New York, but also one of the least reported, and practically devoid of security cameras; his new system, designed yesterday, was practically useless there.
But sometimes, you don't need a fancy method to find the guy you're looking for. After all, guys flying high in the sky above Manhattan are easy to spot from the same height.
"Another spider, or Mysterio?"
Spider-Man, who had landed on the wall, watched as the imposters in his old suit fell into the street and started beating them up. He activated the infrared function of his tactical goggles and discovered that there was only one thermal reaction at the scene. The people being beaten were fakes. So he skillfully somersaulted into the battlefield, but his figure was erased by light particles.
"With the light particle manipulation technology, the light reflection on my body has been completely replaced by a pre-created scene, meaning I'm invisible to him?"
At that moment, the chameleon, who was acting, heard a sound but couldn't see anything. It could only ask its backup, "What happened?"
"What happened is that you didn't pay me my copyright fees!"
He was punched in the chest in a place completely out of the chameleon's sight, and then flew away. Because he had left the pre-set "scene", his own figure was obscured by light particles.
But this doesn't prevent Spider-Man from seeing him through his eyepiece.
"What's going on?!"
"I don't know... It seems like Spider-Man came, and he entered the reflection field?"
The chameleon was nearly driven mad, staring at the completely empty illusionary area: "How did he see me?!"
"I have no idea!"
"Shouldn't you do your research on someone's appearance before impersonating them? It really hurts me to see someone so unprofessional as an imitator."
Stuck in a spider web that appeared out of nowhere, the chameleon was pulled over, then punched and sent flying against the wall, where he could still hear Spider-Man rambling on: "Quentin Baker? Right, can you tell me who hired you?"
"He knows me?!" came Quentin's terrified voice through the earpiece, while Chameleon cursed under his breath and roared, "Turn off the projector!"
"But he knows..."
"Turn it off right now!"
Looking at the street that had returned to normal after being shut down, and Spider-Man standing with his hands on his hips, Chameleon immediately noticed his new suit and his own old suit. He cursed angrily, while Spider-Man finally realized that he wasn't fighting Mysterio, but a guy who was actually wearing his old suit, only different in height.
"So you're not Quentin? He's just providing you with technical support?"
Spider-Man noticed the small ball on the ground, stuck it to the ground, and stuffed it into his pocket. Meanwhile, the imposter pulled out a small knife from somewhere and said, "Don't mention Quentin Baker!"
"So, can you introduce yourself? A master spy? A master of imitation? A third-rate Hollywood actor?"
"Shut up, you damned bug." Chameleon, wielding a tactical dagger, charged forward and thrust. After being dodged, he immediately released his grip, switched hands to hold the dagger, and simultaneously delivered an elbow strike.
"I received KGB-style training! I'm a top agent for the Foreign Intelligence Service! I've killed countless people, I..."
The chameleon, kicked in the stomach by Spider-Man, flew through the air, crashing into the wall and then onto the ground, where it was wrapped up in spider silk like a dumpling.
"Then you'll be facing someone who can carry an overpass for two minutes. Sorry, buddy, there's a personal grudge involved, but you'll be fine."
Peter picked up the chameleon, who was tied up like a dumpling, and planned to take him directly to a precinct of the NYPD. After all, this was Hell's Kitchen, and the police he called might not be reliable.
"Alright, Mr. Imposter, if you'd like, we can chat about your boss on the way, how about it?"
(End of this chapter)