"With great power comes great responsibility."
Those words have always defined me. For a long time, I believed that being Spider-Man was the only meaningful thing I could do, that this mask was the only thing I could have in this life.
But all that...
As the situation escalated, Robert summoned his Mecha suit, which crashed through the ceiling, stomping on the idiot, allowing Mecha Man to prepare for the real battle.
The idiot revealed he was a supervillain with powers, who called himself "Toxic."
—a criminal enhanced through Shroud's augmentation technology— And honestly, the name suited him well on several levels.
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Robert engaged him in a brutal multi-level battle throughout the Place while fending off a growing number of armed guards and super-powered attackers. Despite his skill and the versatility of his suit, the continuous assault began to overwhelm its systems.
But them the arrival of Shroud turned the fight into a desperate struggle.
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Shroud's henchmen managed to trap Mecha Man and leave him hanging, ready to attack. Luckily, Mecha Man activated his suit's energy shield, protecting him for a few moments, but it wouldn't last.
Seeking to steal the power core known as the Astral Pulse, the power source of the Mech Suit, Shroud ordered his men to intensify the assault while Toxic monitored the Mech's failing shields.
In a final effort to break free, Robert diverted the core's energy into the boosters, blasting himself upward and narrowly escaping as part of the suit tore away.
But before Robert could stabilize himself, he discovered—too late—that a bomb had been attached to the Mech.
The explosion tore the suit apart mid-air, sending him crashing toward the ground before a second explosion rocked the street below.
Footage of his fall spread across the city, and for weeks many believed Mecha Man had died.
A later news report recounted the history of the three generations of Mecha Man: the heroic Mecha Man Prime, followed by Astral, and finally Robert as the modern successor.
The report revisited the sacrifices each had made, Shroud's violent betrayal, and the tragedy of the crash.
But it also confirmed that Robert had miraculously survived, though severely injured.
