When Chen Mo placed Bruce into the cardboard box, his movements were as gentle as if he were lifting a nuclear bomb that could detonate at any moment.
The little mutt with the broken hind leg shrunk into the corner. Its wet eyes stared at him, neither barking nor struggling.
"Good boy. If you dare to howl like a wolf at two in the morning, I'll give you to the Maroni crime family downstairs as a midnight snack."
He mumbled while pulling a bunch of bottles and jars from his coat.
Iodine, gauze, and pet anti-inflammatory medicine--things he had exchanged his last bits of conscience and a few crumpled bills for at the pharmacy right before it closed.
He had checked the price list for Gotham's pet hospitals on his phone: fifty dollars for a basic check-up, bone-setting and splinting started at two hundred, and an X-ray would blow through six hundred.
"Six hundred dollars?" Chen Mo had sneered at his phone screen at the time. "How many pounds of ribs could that buy? It's enough to buy a dog's life several times over, isn't it?"
Actually, it was enough for a human life too, and human lives generally weren't even that expensive.
Chen Mo cursed while skillfully using his web fluid to fix Bruce's broken leg.
He might not be skilled at fixing a dog's leg, but could he still be unskilled at fixing a human leg?
This webbing stuff was much more useful than plaster; it was lightweight, breathable, and would automatically degrade in a few days.
After wrapping the gauze, he poured a little bit of the cheapest puppy kibble into a broken bowl.
"Eat sparingly. A bag of this stuff costs me fifteen bucks. With our current net worth, we can only afford a hundred bags."
Bruce leaned over, took a lick, and wagged the very tip of his tail slightly.
Looking at that wagging tail, Chen Mo sighed in his heart.
He hadn't picked up a dog; he had picked up a paper shredder for cash.
But the puppy really was adorable.
Chen Mo squatted in place and admired his dog for a little longer before standing up and walking over to the second-hand sewing machine. It creaked so loudly it sounded like a home renovation.
He tossed aside the old shirt he had worn to rags over the past two days and changed into a pair of second-hand overalls he had just scavenged, which cost less than ten dollars in total.
Although there was a musty smell that wouldn't wash out, at least it was clean.
He sat at his desk and spread out his drawing paper. He was an art student--both before his transmigration and after.
Gotham's nights belonged to Spider-Man, but during Gotham's days, he had to rely on this pen to survive.
The comic manuscript wasn't finished yet, and that was next month's rent and Bruce's ribs.
He had just finished six panels.
Outside the window, the Bat-Signal flashed in the clouds again.
Chen Mo stared at the light for two seconds.
"Turning on such a bright light every single day, doesn't anyone care about the electricity bill?"
Quickly changing back into his suit, he pulled on his mask and slipped out through the vent.
...
At the Gotham docks in the early hours of the morning, the fog was so thick it looked like someone had overturned a milk bucket over the sea.
Crane arms loomed in the mist, shipping containers piled into jagged mountains of steel, and the lights were wrapped in fog, turning into blurry halos of orange.
The air was mixed with the smell of engine oil, sea salt, and rotting wooden crates.
Chen Mo squatted on the edge of a suspended shipping container, one leg dangling outside, using his webs to play cat's cradle on the crossbeam of a crane.
He was waiting.
Surely no one would turn on the Bat-Signal just to walk him like a dog for no reason, right?
Moreover, it was too quiet here--so quiet it made one's skin crawl.
Then Chen Mo heard a sound.
A muffled, mangled groan squeezed from the deepest part of a throat, as if something had been crushed.
Immediately following was a low growl. It didn't sound human; it belonged to some kind of predator that could tear humans apart like disposable resources.
Chen Mo's Spider-Sense flared violently, like a needle prick, surging all the way from the back of his head down to his tailbone.
He flipped and leaped off the edge of the container.
In the mist, a massive behemoth was pinning a dock worker against the side of a container.
The worker's feet were dangling, at least half a meter off the ground.
The hand choking his neck--if it could still be called a hand--was covered in dark green scales. The knuckles were as thick as wrenches, and the fingertips ended in five black talons, each sharp enough to gouge furrows into concrete.
The worker's face had already turned purple, his struggles growing weaker and weaker.
Chen Mo adjusted his posture mid-air, bringing his feet together, and hurtled through the mist like a torpedo.
He slammed into Killer Croc's back, his knees and elbows driving down simultaneously, using the acceleration of gravity to plow his entire body weight into the most vulnerable cervicothoracic junction of the beast's spine.
A dull impact echoed. Killer Croc's body shook, and his hand gripping the worker loosened.
The worker dropped to the ground, coughing violently, and scrambled on all fours toward the warehouse.
Killer Croc turned around.
His golden vertical slits glowed coldly in the mist, his pupils narrowing to fine lines.
A low growl rolled from his throat.
"Spider, go away. I'm looking for the Bat..."
Chen Mo didn't touch the ground.
The moment Killer Croc turned, his right hand shot a web to anchor onto a side crane, pulling himself horizontally through the air.
His body spun 360 degrees mid-air, his left leg gathering full power during the rotation. Riding the speed of the web's pull, he delivered a front kick squarely into Killer Croc's face.
"Seriously? Am I not cuter than the Bat? Why the rejection?"
The impact felt like kicking a block of granite. But the force made Killer Croc take half a step back, a foul, bloody stench snorting from his nose.
Chen Mo used the recoil to spring back to the crane, squatting on the crossbeam.
"Hey, big guy." He looked down. "Can Gotham's skincare products no longer save you? Your stratum corneum is thick enough to rebuild the Great Wall."
Killer Croc looked up, his vertical pupils narrowing into single lines.
"I'm going to chew every bone in your body to pieces."
Chen Mo stared at that crocodile face, a thought popping into his head.
Sure enough, every Spider-Man has his own Lizard.
"Hello, Lizard Man. Were you turned into this by some genetic experiment too? Or were you just born deformed naturally?"
Killer Croc let out a furious roar that made Chen Mo's ears ring with pain.
"I'm a damn crocodile! You're the lizard!"
He stamped his foot, cracking the concrete floor. His massive frame charged forward like a runaway truck.
Chen Mo sprang from the crane, executed a backflip to land on top of a shipping container, and squatted at the edge.
"Look how anxious you are. Crocodile or lizard, you're both cold-blooded reptiles anyway. Too bad I can't be a lizard--I'm a spider."
Killer Croc turned, dug his claws into the edge of the container, and hauled his entire body up.
Standing two and a half meters tall on top of the container, his dark green scales gleamed with a damp, cold light under the fog lamps. He opened his claws and lunged at his prey like a true beast.
Chen Mo didn't retreat.
The moment Killer Croc lunged, his right foot kicked off the container's top cover as he dashed toward the front left.
He kept his body incredibly low, sliding almost flush with the ground.
Killer Croc's right claw grazed past his back, the tips a mere two centimeters away from his spine.
The stinging pain of his Spider-Sense screamed in his brain, but he had already calculated the distance.
Sliding to Killer Croc's flank, his left hand braced against the ground as his entire body flipped into a handstand, his right leg whipping down like a lash onto the back of Killer Croc's head.
Thud.
A muffled sound echoed, like an iron pipe striking a burlap sack filled with sand.
Killer Croc's head jerked forward, and a visible deformation finally appeared in the layer of scales on his neck.
Using the recoil of the handstand, Chen Mo vaulted back into the air, flipped twice, and landed steadily on the edge of a container three meters away, squatting with one hand resting on the ground.
"Didn't you just say you were going to chew my bones to pieces?" He tilted his head. "How come you can't even touch me? Why don't you shave down the calluses on your face first, so your eyes can actually see something?"
Killer Croc was enraged.
"I will crush you! Little bug!"
He leapt down from the container, smashing into the ground and sending a ring of gravel flying as he charged straight ahead.
Every punch he threw left a deep crater in the containers, the sheet metal denting as if struck by a giant sledgehammer.
"Uh-oh. But I still have to correct one thing: spiders aren't insects..."
Chen Mo bounced between the containers, each step landing just a fraction of a second before the opponent's fist fell.
His webbing stuck to a container behind Killer Croc, pulling tight and accelerating on the rebound.
Like a pebble fired from a slingshot, Chen Mo tucked his knees together, curling his entire body into a cannonball that slammed into Killer Croc's chest.
The sound of the impact echoed through the dock area.
Killer Croc staggered back two steps. A hairline crack was smashed into the scales on his chest, oozing a trace of dark fluid.
Chen Mo rebounded, landed, and squatted firmly.
His knees were numbing; the recoil from that strike had shaken him up considerably as well.
Killer Croc looked down at the crack on his chest, something other than anger finally flashing in his vertical pupils.
"How could you break my sca..."
"Surprised?"
Chen Mo stood up and flexed his ankles. "I'm surprised too. Look, your hide is so thick my hands hurt from hitting you. Let's make a deal: you behave yourself and report to Blackgate Penitentiary so I can save some strength and you can save on medical bills. How about it?"
Killer Croc answered with action.
He spun around fiercely, his thick crocodile tail sweeping across, tearing through the air as it smashed toward Chen Mo.
Chen Mo didn't dodge.
He used his web to latch onto the crane crossbeam, launching himself vertically upward. His entire body extended in the air like a fully drawn bow.
The tail swept past beneath his feet, the wind pressure blowing his hair back beneath his mask.
Then he tucked his abdomen, flipped his wrists, adjusted his angle, and used the snapback of the web to plunge straight down from directly above.
Elbow first, body following, all his power concentrated at the tip of his elbow, aimed right at the crown of Killer Croc's skull.
Bang.
Killer Croc was driven to one knee by the blow.
A ring of the ground caved in. The scales on the crown of his skull made a faint cracking sound.
Chen Mo rebounded and landed, but he failed to stand firmly upon touchdown.
His knees buckled, his body swayed, and he had to extend a hand to prop himself against a nearby container.
That continuous sequence of high-intensity jumping and spinning--from the handstand whip kick to the torpedo crash to the vertical elbow strike--had relied entirely on the traction of his webs and his body's explosive power.
The spider genes were strengthening his muscles and endurance, but with continuous overexertion, even an enhanced body couldn't take it indefinitely.
Still not strong enough.
System, I'm looking at you!
Killer Croc stood up.
His mouth opened wide, revealing a maw full of crooked, sharp teeth.
A completely infuriated roar rumbled from his throat. He charged over like a missile, his entire body airborne, bringing over two hundred pounds of scale armor and muscle crashing down.
Chen Mo wanted to dodge.
His Spider-Sense was screaming, but he couldn't determine a direction.
Killer Croc's massive frame blocked all possible evasion angles along his path.
Chen Mo crossed his arms in front of his chest.
The titanium alloy plates faced Killer Croc's claws directly.
A massive impact crashed into him. He heard his ribs groan; they probably weren't broken yet, but they weren't far from it.
He was knocked back a meter, his feet dragging two deep ruts into the ground.
The titanium alloy plate dented inward, and a newly stitched seam on his shoulder burst open.
The stitches unraveled, the nylon cloth curled back, and the still-reddened skin underneath was exposed.
This tear would cost at least fifty dollars to fix.
His money!
Killer Croc raised his claws, preparing for a second pounce.
Chen Mo didn't give him the chance.
He shot two lines of webbing to anchor onto the container behind Killer Croc, kicked his legs against the beast's chest, and used the force to spring backward. His entire body shot out like a highly compressed spring suddenly released, flipping once mid-air as his left hand shot a web to grab the steel frame at the top of the crane.
He didn't stay to fight. If he kept fighting, his ribs would break, his suit would be ruined, and Bruce would really only have compressed biscuits to eat tonight.
Behind him came Killer Croc's roars and the sound of containers being smashed to pieces.
He didn't look back.
This wasn't called running away.
The spider's purpose in appearing there was only to save the poor worker.
He had succeeded in saving him! He had stalled for enough time!
This was called withdrawing after a successful mission.
When he returned to the attic, Chen Mo crawled inside.
Although he crawled in every time, there was a difference between types of crawling.
Chen Mo collapsed onto the ragged sofa, lacking even the strength to pull off his mask.
"Bruce..."
Chen Mo called out in a muffled voice. The puppy poked its head out of the cardboard box, looking at the red-and-blue big spider covered in dirt.
With trembling hands, Chen Mo peeled off the suit.
A large patch of purple and blue bruised his ribs, with hints of dark red in the middle. He poured alcohol straight onto the bruise.
"Sss----ha----!"
Chen Mo grit his teeth, tears nearly bursting from his eyes. The spider genes were frantically repairing his body, and the itching sensation coming from the gaps in his bones was more agonizing than the pain.
"See that, Bruce?" Chen Mo pointed to his own ribs, then to the puppy's short leg. "We're matching now. But I'll definitely recover faster than you because I have spider powers."
The puppy wagged its tail, seemingly mocking his pathetic state.
Chen Mo slumped on the sofa, staring at the leak on the ceiling.
His suit was torn, his ribs were cracked, and a portion of the remaining cash in his pocket would have to be set aside to fix his clothes.
And that big guy in the crocodile skin was still roaming the docks.
Chen Mo closed his eyes, replaying every one of Killer Croc's movements in his mind--astonishing bite force, thick armor on his back, immense strength, but a slower turning speed, and a noticeable recovery window after attacking.
The tail sweep was his biggest weapon, and also his biggest habit. Before every tail sweep, he would always glance half a beat in the opposite direction first.
He suddenly remembered a clip he had seen before on Animal Planet.
Crocodiles, it seemed, had a fatal weakness? The temporal region, both sides of the skull, where the temporal muscles attached. The back armor was extremely thick, but the belly was relatively soft.
And wrapping a bandage around the snout was more effective than anything else.
Chen Mo rolled over, enduring the pain to reach for the comic manuscript on the table.
"When I get rich, the first thing I'll do is buy a few tons of explosives to turn that big lizard into charcoal-grilled crocodile ribs."
He picked up his pen and fiercely drew an abstract, chibi crocodile face on the drawing paper.
Since his fists weren't hard enough, he would have to rely on his brains.
No wonder Batman liked to fight with prep time.