Peter's operation against Bullseye wasn't going smoothly. The first problem he encountered was that he couldn't figure out where Bullseye was.
The truth was, Hell's Kitchen had a lot of transient population. Even if he was Spider Man, it was impossible to go through the whole area's population in such a short time.
As Erica had said, Bullseye was very cunning. Knowing he had many enemies, his movements were unpredictable. Peter had him under surveillance outside a nightclub, only for him to disappear the next day. With so many buildings and mobs in Hell's Kitchen, it was tough for Peter to find Bullseye's den.
Only then did Peter understand the magnitude of effort Matt had put in to precisely target Kingpin's industries every time.
Peter felt somewhat frustrated. He had frequented Hell's Kitchen before and occasionally dealt with some robbers or thieves at the edges of the district, and beaten up a couple of gun-wielding drug dealers.
However, organized crime and sprinkled troops were two different concepts. Some gangs were difficult to manage, and some criminal organizations were tough to eradicate because they had deep roots and omnipresent eyes in the local area, which gave Peter a hard time. Clearly, Bullseye was on guard.
But Peter wouldn't give up.
He was smart and knew where his strengths laid. After hitting blindly like a headless fly in Hell's Kitchen with no success, Peter began to seek help from modern technology.
One noon, Shiller watched as Peter placed a huge box on the table with a "bang".
Upon opening it, inside was a strangely shaped computer integrated with the box, an odd keyboard and no mouse, but lots of complicated wires and antennas.
Peter was constantly tinkering with it, the blue light from the screen reflecting on his face. Pikachu, standing by the side, asked, "You want to track mobile signals? Monitor the communication content in Hell's Kitchen?"
"Exactly. The people here certainly have no awareness of network and signal encryption. I gathered some junk from my classmate's dad and assembled this simple piece. It's not very bright, but it will do."
"But there are so many mobile and internet signals, even if you intercept and crack them all, wouldn't you still have to sift through them one by one to find out who Bullseye is?"
"That's what I'm doing now. In fact, I've tried to intercept signals, it's not difficult, now I'm writing a program to intelligently capture communication content."
Shiller, standing nearby with arms crossed, asked them, "So when did you two plan to team up?"
Pikachu, eating peanut butter, replied, "Don't forget, I'm a detective. This kid hired me."
"Correct. I need help, I need someone to watch the backend operation."
"Oh, I appreciate you choosing a mouse over me," Shiller remarked.
"Oh, no offense, Doctor." Peter said a bit embarrassedly, "I always thought such a task wouldn't necessarily bother you, hence I assembled this computer myself. In Stark Building, there are all kinds of state-of-the-art computers, not to mention monitoring Hell's Kitchen, even monitoring the entire Manhattan district won't be a problem."
As he rapidly typed on the keyboard, Peter soberly remarked, "I indeed can't depend too much on others. When I heard Matt talk about his experience in fighting criminals, I felt like I could do it too. They were just people after all, how hard could it be?"
"But when I put it into practice myself, I found it was indeed very difficult. The hard part isn't severing a single wire, but finding the needle in a haystack, in the form of that one lethal wire."
Clapping for him, Shiller said, "Has anyone ever told you? You're a natural."
Peter was practically born to be a superhero. He was mighty, kind, and most importantly, he had a cleverness that most people didn't possess.
Soon, with a flash of blue light on the screen, Peter's fingers stopped typing. "Done now. I'll have to wait a few hours. As long as he's sent any identity-related signals during this time, I can grab his tail."
"So what are you going to do next? Directly break in?" Pikachu asked.
"No no no." Peter shook his head.
"Actually, Captain has told me a lot of tactics before. I didn't pay much attention then. But when I needed them, I remembered some of the stuff that might help."
Peter, while he was talking, pulled a map out from his backpack and unfolded it. Pointing to a section of it, he said, "Look here, this is Hell's Kitchen. See the lines I drew?"
"I've found an old map at a newsstand showing the layout of the New York Sewer when it was constructed. The sections of Hell's Kitchen are drawn out on this map."
"As you can see, the sewer leads to most of the main structures in Hell's Kitchen. The distance between each manhole it passes on its way from the southernmost point A to northernmost point B is evenly distributed in an annular manner."
"This is a natural attack route. All I need to do is go in from here. See this? The red dot I marked, I'll enter from here. With my running speed, I'll need less than five minutes to reach the core buildings of Hell's Kitchen. The buildings in the second concentric circle will take about 10 minutes. Even the peripheral buildings will take less than 15 minutes..."
"As long as I get the signal, it'll take me a maximum of 15 minutes to get to Bullseye's building."
Pikachu suggested, "I guess he won't choose the nearest or farthest circle, but should be in the middle section of Hell's Kitchen like us."
"That's what I was thinking too. Although the central part is all Kingpin's properties, Bullseye knows he'd be watched there. He must have another base on the outskirts."
"Catching him there would be much easier than sneaking into a place full of Kingpin's henchmen."
Peter is indeed talented in computer skills. In less than 20 minutes, the screen brightened up again. Peter quickly resumed typing, glanced at the screen, then jumped up, grabbed his backpack, and ran out, shouting as he pushed the door open, "Keep an eye on it for me! If there's any movement, call me on the walkie-talkie!"
Pikachu gave him a reassuring gesture.
Peter jumped into the nearest New York sewer entrance. As he had predicted, the New York Sewer was interconnected. Tracking the map as he ran, Peter arrived a few minutes ahead of schedule.
When Peter emerged from the sewer cover, he was on a street south of Hell's Kitchen. Shiller's clinic was to the north, quite far from Matt's cottage across several streets.
Bullseye had chosen a perfect place - a junkyard where the signal originated, a place where people seldom came.
But for Peter, this place was perfect. The uneven terrain of the junkyard, the variety of rubbish that he could stick to his Spider Silk and swing as weapons, and several garbage trucks used as covers to avoid hidden weapons...
Peter didn't know anything about terrain tactics, but he instinctively felt that it would be convenient for fighting.
He silently advanced along the edge of the junkyard. As he focused, his Spider-sense became sharper. A 3D environmental map of the area within a few meters around him emerged in his mind.
Behind the junkyard, Peter climbed up the wall of a two-story building and reached the roof in a few moments. Then he hung upside down with a strand of Spider Silk, looking into the window.
As expected, Bullseye was in the room, smoking and talking to a subordinate. Peter twitched his nose, smelling the stench of marijuana. Looking at the smoky interior, he retracted his Spider Silk, took out a red and blue battlesuit from his backpack, and muttered, "I forgot to ask Mr. Stark to add a gas mask for me. Damn Hell's Kitchen."
Peter put on the Spider-Man suit without any hesitation, swung on his Spider Silk, and crashed through the window.
Bullseye's henchman, standing near the window, hadn't turned around before Peter knocked him out. Bullseye threw away his cigarette, cursed, and blocked Peter's punch with his arm.
If Peter had been an ordinary person, Bullseye's actions would have provided an effective defense. But the strength provided by the spider mutation, even if not fully developed, was not something an ordinary person could withstand.
Upon receiving Peter's punch, Bullseye was knocked back.
However, he was a true acrobat. He twisted in mid-air, somersaulted, and managed to land safely.
He quickly ran to the back door, with Peter following him. The stench and lingering smoke in the room dulled his senses. Not until he heard the "click" of the back door opening and giving chase did he face three incoming darts.
Peter couldn't afford a direct hit and rolled to the side, web-slinging off the back door's wall, landing in the junkyard where Bullseye stood atop a mound formed by the trash.
"Hah, where did this rookie come from? Thinking wearing a strange-looking suit allows him to stir up trouble in Hell's Kitchen?"
Peter didn't bother to respond, but instantly kicked him.
During the tactical lessons taught by Steve, Shiller had also told Peter an extremely useful tactic: villains always die due to talking too much. As soon as the villain opens his mouth, one should just punch immediately. Once he's down, there will be plenty of time to talk. Who talks about honor with villains?
The tactic paid off spectacularly, Bullseye had barely started speaking before he had to scramble and dodge.
Repressing his desire to engage in dialog, Peter just let loose a flurry of punches. Even Bullseye began to falter. He found that the youngster's strength was astonishing. Even a glancing blow was hard to bear. Whenever Bullseye punched Spider-Man, Spider-Man just vaguely swayed. However, whenever Spider-Man hit Bullseye, he was knocked back.
If it wasn't for Bullseye's balance and flexibility, which allowed him to land safely every time, he would've been caught and defeated long ago.
Seeing that the situation wasn't in his favor, Bullseye threw a handful of darts. As Spider-Man was evading, Bullseye drew a small ball from his pocket and threw it to the ground. After a slight hissing sound, tear gas engulfed the area.
This wasn't a smokescreen, but a miniature tear gas grenade. The smell was so stinging that Peter felt like he was almost suffocating. He covered his mouth and nose, coughed twice, and by the time he pulled himself together, Bullseye had disappeared.