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seriousficFIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
The Statue of Liberty. Funny, Octavius had never been to it before. Not even with Rosalie.
Now he’d finally made it, but not with his beloved wife. Oh no. With a hostage, a chess piece to be played in his war on Osborn, on Spider-Man, on the world.
One of the helicopters persistently hovering nearby shone a nose-mounted spotlight on him. Octavius darkened it with his minigun.
Sunset. He’d seen enough of those with Rosalie, but it seemed duller now. Perhaps it was just his protective sunglasses. His need for them was depressingly literal. As it turned out, Rosalie had been his shield and armor against the world. Without her, he was stripped bare. Well, if they wanted his blood, they could take it. He’d leaven it with the entire city’s if that was what it took for justice to take hold.
Mary-Jane sat on one of the rays of Lady Liberty’s crown. Otto could tell that, despite the situation, she was taking a child-like wonder in the incredible view, blocking out him and what he represented. Perhaps she had armor as well.
“Aren’t you worried?” he inquired, as politely as he would offer a blanket if she were cold.
“Spider-Man is coming for me.”
“I doubt that.” Octavius checked his watch. “Not too long now. Make your peace, Miss Watson.”
”Why are you doing this? Peter said you were a good man.”
“A good man?” Octavius’s tentacles flowed about him, coiling inward. “What is good? People like to talk about what's right and what's wrong... but they never ever say why. Because the lie, the lie all society is built on, is that crime is punished.” Like Osborn should’ve been punished for what he’d done… yet it had been Rosalie that paid the price. “You see, the real reason people follow the law is not because of honor or ethics, it's because they're afraid of being caught. Even the religions of the world promise a final punishment for the wicked and the reward of an afterlife for the just. No one is good just for the sake of being good. I don't believe in any post-mortem reckoning and I am too powerful to be caught. Therefore... the law, such as it is, does not apply to me.”
”Spider-Man does what he does because it’s the right thing.”
“Oh? Is that the only reason?”
Mary-Jane thought of Uncle Ben. Thought of Peter’s face as he told her about him. “It’s the most important one.”
A tentacle lashed out behind Octavius’s back, grabbed Mary-Jane by the throat. Octavius notices, but didn’t turn to look.
”Tell me, what's to stop me from killing you? An infallible god invented to comfort fallible men? Where in science is there room for morality? The weak exist to be crushed by the strong. It is their lot. Myself and Spider-Man... we are strong. And you? You're nothing.”
”So why keep talking about it? Kill me.”
Slowly, the tentacle opened to release Mary-Jane and retracted back to Octavius. “Because Rosalie wouldn't approve. She would understand. But she's been taken from me. I don't know who's at fault. Spider-Man, for distracting me. Osborn, for giving me faulty tritium. Or maybe God, if there is one, for choosing to play whatever cosmic joke he finds amusing.”
Another spotlight shone on Octavius, painting him in light.
“But there will be justice. Justice, and punishment, for the cruel, stupid world that cost Rosalie her life... and me, my love. I've tried to live by the conventions of society and they have failed me. And now I am reborn. The first of the new, come to destroy the last of the old. It is my destiny. The more efficient predator always takes the place of its ancestor. The only reason I'm even thinking about letting you live is because I need a herald of Spider-Man's destruction, someone to tell the tale of the last and best of the heroes. Before he's replaced by the new breed. Before he's replaced by me.”
Octavius advanced on Mary-Jane, chasing her onto a ray. His tentacles struck the ground at his feet like war drums, punctuating his words.
“Chivalry. Honor. The antiquated notions of a bankrupt, hypocritical, schizophrenic society, which I will tear down and replace with pure evolution. No room for the weak, the timid, the merciful, just as there was no room for Rosalie in this world of pain and suffering. And the first blow will be struck against their self-proclaimed messiah. You say Spider-Man is coming for you?”
Octavius lowered his sunglasses. Mary-Jane gasped at the sight.
“Bring. Him. On.”
***
Spider-Man was on a warpath. He didn’t consciously think about the distances he was traversing, he just let instincts carry him. He jumped from rooftop to rooftop, shot out weblines when he had to, always picking up speed, always pushing himself harder. Ahead, the sea sparkled in the dying sunlight. With zero hesitation, Spider-Man ran across a pier building and took a running leap over the water.
***
”My boyfriend’s going to kick your ass,” Mary-Jane said under her breath.
***
A police chopper arriving to reinforce the Coast Guard slumped under new weight. The co-pilot looked down to see they had a stowaway. Spider-Man hanging from a webline attached to the fuselage. Stoic. Silent. No more playing around.
***
Octavius saw what Mary-Jane had seen.
“Impossible!”
***
Spider-Man let go of the braking helicopter, shot out another webline and swung from a stationary chopper toward the Statue.
***
“Inconceivable!”
***
Spider-Man fired one last webline. It caught a news chopper’s spinning rotors, spun him around for a moment before he let go and was flung onto the torch of Lady Liberty.
“Inevitable,” he told Octavius. He jumped the railing and slid down the arm, toward Octavius. “Now then, do you want one lump or…”
”Be quiet, wall crawler. Don’t you understand anything?” Octavius lowered his tentacles. They fell about the ground like molted snake skins.
Spider-Man was motionless, looking from Mary-Jane to Octavius.
“Almost dark, isn't it?” Octavius said. “Beautiful sunset, in case you can't tell behind those lenses of yours.”
He took off his sunglasses and wiped his eyes. They had no pupils.
He threw the sunglasses away. “I never liked these things anyway. Always seemed too 'cool' for me.” Octavius’s tentacles rose, stretching toward heaven. “Tell me where Osborn is.”
“I can’t let you have him.”
“And I can’t let him live.”
Spider-Man took a tiny step forward. ”I've listened to you, Octavius, now you listen to me. It doesn’t have to be like this. All it takes is one good decision to change.”
”But Osborn...”
”I'll take care of Osborn! Just... please. Before it's too late.”
Octavius wiped his eyes once more. When they focused on Spider-Man again, they were white as marble. “It was too late the moment you killed my wife. Or didn't, it doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters anymore.“ He threw his arms out widely. “Go on. Hit me. That's the way it is, isn't it?” Spider-Man didn’t move. “What's the matter? Still thinking of all the wry quips? Waiting for me to tell you all about my evil plot and my sad childhood and the twist of fate which resulted in these wondrous extra limbs? Your damsel in distress is waiting for her prince in shining armor. Now all you have to do is go through the dragon. Let’s get it over with.”
“Don’t make me do this, Otto.”
“Otto? Yes, I remember that name. My friends called me Otto. But you may refer to me as Doctor Octopus! Hit me! Never mind, I’ll start without you!”
All four tentacles sped toward Spider-Man. He was cuing to his spider-sense before he knew it, landing on one of the rays that extended from Lady Liberty’s crown in a crouch. Octavius extended his buzzsaw and severed the ray. Spider-Man flipped sideways onto another, abruptly reversed course when a burst of fire from the chaingun nearly hit him. The flamethrower was next; Octavius screamed as he fired it. Spider-Man dropped between the rays, feeling the heat of it kick his perspiration into overdrive. He caught himself on the Statue of Liberty’s face.
Well, look on the bright side. At least David Copperfield isn't around.
To either side, Spider-Man saw tentacles bite the rim of the crown. From the two clanging noises opposite him, Octavius was doing the same on the back of the crown. He lifted himself up in a sort of iron cross, swaying about to look for Spider-Man. Peter took cover between Lady Liberty’s nose and lower lip, cramping himself into the space to avoid Octavius’s gaze.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are...”
Suddenly, Octavius screamed. Could’ve been a trap, but no, there was too much pain. Spider-Man flipped up onto the tip of a ray to see Mary-Jane stabbing the device he’d given her into one of Ock’s tentacles. Lightning and steam were dancing in the damaged area. The device shot sparks, but MJ bravely held on until it shorted out with a loud pop.
Spider-Man leapt into action. He grabbed Mary-Jane and carried her up the statue’s arm. Behind him, Octavius’s tentacles were collapsing around him with a deepening groan of vanquished energy. His feet touched the ground and he began striding toward the torch, his tentacles dragging behind him, his face contorted into a hateful snarl.
”You'll pay for that!” Octavius shouted after him.
Spider-Man kicked through the glass of the torch and then lowered Mary-Jane into the torch. “Keep your head down,” he whispered.
“I love you,” she whispered back. It’d be so long since she’d said those three small words to him that he’d forgotten the spell they cast.
“I love—“ Octavius’s tentacles came alive with a sound like a computer rebooting in fast-forward. Spider-Man jumped just before the chaingun opened fire, shredding the glass flame of the torch. Mary-Jane screamed as shards of glass bounced off her back.
Spider-Man flew sixty feet straight up before he began to fall, a leisurely arc that carried him down toward Octavius. He fired webballs which Ock’s tentacles swatted aside, one of them extending its taser and stabbing him in the chest. Shocked, he bounced back upwards and the tentacle swatted him sideways. He demolished another ray as he sailed through the air.
Wind whistled by his head, peeling back the cobwebs. He was falling. Far away from the statue, going to land either in the ocean or on the ground. Neither of which was looking good at this height. He shot a webline up, caught the torch arm's elbow, and swung in a wide arc that carried him around the statue to land on the tablet, fingers bent and limbs splayed. Mary-Jane loved him. How cool was that?
Cursing, Octavius stampeded down toward him. He was going so fast that he had barely a single tentacle touching solid ground at any one time. Spider-Man weaved and bobbed, avoiding the flailing tentacles as they left huge cracks in the tablet. It took a minute of dodging for him to notice that only two tentacles were attacking them. The other two were peeling the tablet from the statue with a horrid rending sound.
Spider-Man jumped up, landing in-between the two tentacles, grabbed hold, and pulled Octavius toward him by the pseudopods, stopping him with a hard right hook. Below, photographers’ cameras were twinkling like stars. If the tablet fell, they’d be crushed.
Gravity took over with a last, deep rumble. With Octavius stunned, Spider-Man shot two weblines down and caught the tablet. Its momentum forced him down several feet, the copper of the statue cracking underfoot as he skidded to a stop. It made him wonder what percentage of Lady Liberty’s two hundred tons was in that damn book she carried. Ninety?
Octavius sent down a tentacle, buzzsaw revving. Spider-Man kicked off the statue and shoved his weblines into the buzzsaw. They jammed the works and all of a sudden Octavius was attached to several tons of falling copper. He was yanked downward, his remaining three tentacles pushing up the material of Lady Liberty like Wile Coyote trying to stop himself before going over a cliff. Finally, he drove the tentacles into Lady Liberty like piledriver posts and threw the book upwards at Spider-Man, snipping the webbing with a blowtorch-like blast from his flamethrower. Spider-Man watched the tablet bear down on him. Least his chainsaw is still jammed.
Spider-Man flattened himself to the statue, waited until he felt the tablet passing by him, then kicked off to slam into it and ride it out over the water. He kicked off the tablet in turn and rammed into Octavius, hard enough to dent the statue with Ock’s body.
“Otto, you don’t have to do this!”
Octavius roared and threw Spider-Man upwards. Peter narrowly managed to contort his body between two rays. He landed on the crown to find Octavius waiting for him, shooting a burst from his flamethrower. Spider-Man took cover behind a ray. Flames shot by on either side, singeing his costume. He ignored the pain as he wove a ball of impact webbing… he’d theorized being able to construct one by manipulating different pressures and consistencies, but never actually tried it.
Octavius’s tentacles groped through the curtains of fire, taking bites out of the ray. “Only a matter of time now, you freak!”
”Yeah, that's what you told yourself about puberty too,” Spider-Man muttered as he wrapped his throwing arm in webbing like an oven mitten. Bracing himself, he placed the impact webbing in that hand and then reached out into the flame to throw it. The pain was so intense, so sudden—burning, his flesh was burning, he could smell it—but he didn’t pull back until he’d thrown the webbing. He heard it strike home, heard the flamethrower clog, then jumped straight through Lady Liberty’s face.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he said as the dust settled.
Octavius lashed his tentacles down between rays, trying to hit Spider-Man, before he realized that the webslinger had disappeared.
”Spider-Man? Where are you? Come up and face me, coward!”
Spider-Man's hands broke through the floor beneath him and grabbed his feet! “Why don't you come down here? We've got beanbag chairs!”
He pulled Octavius down, laying in a few hard body blows before Octavius started in with the chaingun. Bullets ricocheted through the copper headspace, throwing Spider-Man into overdrive as he tried to dodge between them. Weaving, dodging, contorting, flipping! He was bouncing around like a ping-pong ball. The bullets became so numerous that he had to take hits; not full-on impacts but bullets slicing lines across his flesh. It distracted him from the pain of his burnt arm, so that was a relief.
No more time for games. He rebounded to the back of the headspace, coiled his legs, and sprung toward Octavius in the space of a millisecond. A bullet grazed his skull, knocking him dizzy, but he didn’t have to do anything further but let his momentum carry him into Octavius.
Doctor Octopus was hit and flung out the hole Spider-Man had made, widening it as he flew out into open air. Spider-Man shot out a webline, catching him and dragging him back to crash into the face of the Statue of Liberty once again. Octavius wrapped a tentacle around a spire, hanging from it as he prepared his next attack.
His spider-sense rung even louder, a clarion call among the usual soundtrack of watch out and be careful! The flamethrower was about to burn through the webbing clogging it. Spider-Man snagged it with a webline and coupled it to the chaingun tentacle. The heat exploded the unused ammo like popcorn kernels, shorting out that tentacle. Octavius screamed and blocked the pain out with more of his personal rhetoric, grabbing Spider-Man’s burnt arm with a tentacle. He flung Spider-Man around by it, making him cry out in pain as he was dashed along the statue’s innards.
”There are no gods! Only men who makes themselves into gods! Such as I! I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning of your end!”
”You really like to pad your resume, doncha?” Spider-Man hit a wall with his feet, stuck to it, and pulled his arm free. Webbing, costume, and burnt skin came loose agonizingly. He didn’t waste time on pain. He lunged for Octavius, tackling him around the waist. They orbited Lady Liberty's forehead on the tentacle Ock was hanging from. Octavius twisted around so that they landed on Spider-Man when they hit the ground. With his human hands he wrenched Spider-Man’s burnt arm.
Rational thought was impossible for Spider-Man. There was too much pain. The tentacles lifted him up, almost like he were an infant being cradled, then slammed him to the ground. Again and again.
“Did you really think you could beat me? Humiliate me again?”
Octavius slammed Spider-Man down, then stomped on his injured arm. He lifted him up again. Slammed him back down again. The ground was cracking under the force of the impact.
”What could possibly possess you to believe that you had a hope of defeating me? Why do you think you'll win?”
Spider-Man coughed up blood. “Because... I'm the good guy.”
Octavius smirked as he extended the reliable spike from a tentacle and hung it like the sword of Damocles above the prostrate Spider-Man. “Thus fell ‘the good guy’.”
The tentacle reared back, then shot towards Spider-Man’s head… only to be knocked off-course by a second tentacle. Octavius reared back in surprise.
”What is this ridiculousness?”
The second tentacle tried to smash Spider-Man, but the first held it back. Then the third tried to sneak by and kill Spider-Man. The first two stopped it. And soon all four were fighting over which got to kill Spider-Man.
”Would one of you just finish the damn job!?” Octavius shouted.
Spider-Man rolled onto his side, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Because I’m the good guy… and because I hacked your tentacles with an virus carried on infrared earlier. Now how about a round of applause for my lovely assistant?”
Octavius looked up to the torch, at Mary-Jane. She waved to him.
”No!”
”Oh yes,” Spider-Man breathed, starting to get up when Octavius kicked him in the ribs. The mad scientist was constantly pulled off-balance by his quarreling pseudopods, but he was still able to plant a boot on Spider-Man’s throat and squeeze.
“Fine! I’ll do it myself!”
Spider-Man tried to push Octavius off, but he was too weak, the pain was too much. If he could only get a breath, just some air… Mary-Jane was screaming and he was blacking out. He looked up to the stars, but there was no help there, just the helicopters overhead, taking pictures of him dying, he was dying, those helicopters…
With Zen calm he reached up, curls his hand, and fired a webline upward. Octavius flinched, then saw it had bypassed him entirely.
“Ha! You missed!”
The webline hit the undercarriage of a news helicopter like a harpoon. The pilot panicked, pulled up. Spider-Man was yanked upward, smashing into Octavius. They landed on a ray. Spider-Man smashed Octavius in the face until he held up his hands in surrender.
Octavius breathed heavily. “Why do you bother, Spider-Man? A million years from now, no one will remember who you were.” Octavius’s hand inched down to his pocket, the switchblade he kept there for just such an occasion. “No one will care. “
Spider-Man slapped the knife away as soon as Octavius drew it. ” Maybe so. But that’s a million years from now. Today, I’m taking you down.”
He backed up, leaving the tentacles to turn on Octavius. Their red lights were shining brighter than ever. Octavius, too beaten to maintain control over them, held his hands to his ears as they screamed in his mind…
Father! Can you hear us? Don't let them hurt us! We can help you! We are you! Help us! We don't want to die! Why can’t you love us like you loved Rosalie, what happened to all your wondrous experiments, we’ve reviewed the equations and the only thing that could be wrong is you!
”No! Get back! I created you! I am your master! Me!”
Octavius stumbled into the hole he’d been pulled down through earlier, falling into the head of the Statue of Liberty. Spider-Man slumped down onto a ray. “Words cannot describe how good that felt,” he muttered.
That’s when a pumpkin bomb landed on the Statue of Liberty.
The Hobgoblin watched the explosion claim Peter, Mary-Jane held tightly in his arm.
The Statue of Liberty. Funny, Octavius had never been to it before. Not even with Rosalie.
Now he’d finally made it, but not with his beloved wife. Oh no. With a hostage, a chess piece to be played in his war on Osborn, on Spider-Man, on the world.
One of the helicopters persistently hovering nearby shone a nose-mounted spotlight on him. Octavius darkened it with his minigun.
Sunset. He’d seen enough of those with Rosalie, but it seemed duller now. Perhaps it was just his protective sunglasses. His need for them was depressingly literal. As it turned out, Rosalie had been his shield and armor against the world. Without her, he was stripped bare. Well, if they wanted his blood, they could take it. He’d leaven it with the entire city’s if that was what it took for justice to take hold.
Mary-Jane sat on one of the rays of Lady Liberty’s crown. Otto could tell that, despite the situation, she was taking a child-like wonder in the incredible view, blocking out him and what he represented. Perhaps she had armor as well.
“Aren’t you worried?” he inquired, as politely as he would offer a blanket if she were cold.
“Spider-Man is coming for me.”
“I doubt that.” Octavius checked his watch. “Not too long now. Make your peace, Miss Watson.”
”Why are you doing this? Peter said you were a good man.”
“A good man?” Octavius’s tentacles flowed about him, coiling inward. “What is good? People like to talk about what's right and what's wrong... but they never ever say why. Because the lie, the lie all society is built on, is that crime is punished.” Like Osborn should’ve been punished for what he’d done… yet it had been Rosalie that paid the price. “You see, the real reason people follow the law is not because of honor or ethics, it's because they're afraid of being caught. Even the religions of the world promise a final punishment for the wicked and the reward of an afterlife for the just. No one is good just for the sake of being good. I don't believe in any post-mortem reckoning and I am too powerful to be caught. Therefore... the law, such as it is, does not apply to me.”
”Spider-Man does what he does because it’s the right thing.”
“Oh? Is that the only reason?”
Mary-Jane thought of Uncle Ben. Thought of Peter’s face as he told her about him. “It’s the most important one.”
A tentacle lashed out behind Octavius’s back, grabbed Mary-Jane by the throat. Octavius notices, but didn’t turn to look.
”Tell me, what's to stop me from killing you? An infallible god invented to comfort fallible men? Where in science is there room for morality? The weak exist to be crushed by the strong. It is their lot. Myself and Spider-Man... we are strong. And you? You're nothing.”
”So why keep talking about it? Kill me.”
Slowly, the tentacle opened to release Mary-Jane and retracted back to Octavius. “Because Rosalie wouldn't approve. She would understand. But she's been taken from me. I don't know who's at fault. Spider-Man, for distracting me. Osborn, for giving me faulty tritium. Or maybe God, if there is one, for choosing to play whatever cosmic joke he finds amusing.”
Another spotlight shone on Octavius, painting him in light.
“But there will be justice. Justice, and punishment, for the cruel, stupid world that cost Rosalie her life... and me, my love. I've tried to live by the conventions of society and they have failed me. And now I am reborn. The first of the new, come to destroy the last of the old. It is my destiny. The more efficient predator always takes the place of its ancestor. The only reason I'm even thinking about letting you live is because I need a herald of Spider-Man's destruction, someone to tell the tale of the last and best of the heroes. Before he's replaced by the new breed. Before he's replaced by me.”
Octavius advanced on Mary-Jane, chasing her onto a ray. His tentacles struck the ground at his feet like war drums, punctuating his words.
“Chivalry. Honor. The antiquated notions of a bankrupt, hypocritical, schizophrenic society, which I will tear down and replace with pure evolution. No room for the weak, the timid, the merciful, just as there was no room for Rosalie in this world of pain and suffering. And the first blow will be struck against their self-proclaimed messiah. You say Spider-Man is coming for you?”
Octavius lowered his sunglasses. Mary-Jane gasped at the sight.
“Bring. Him. On.”
***
Spider-Man was on a warpath. He didn’t consciously think about the distances he was traversing, he just let instincts carry him. He jumped from rooftop to rooftop, shot out weblines when he had to, always picking up speed, always pushing himself harder. Ahead, the sea sparkled in the dying sunlight. With zero hesitation, Spider-Man ran across a pier building and took a running leap over the water.
***
”My boyfriend’s going to kick your ass,” Mary-Jane said under her breath.
***
A police chopper arriving to reinforce the Coast Guard slumped under new weight. The co-pilot looked down to see they had a stowaway. Spider-Man hanging from a webline attached to the fuselage. Stoic. Silent. No more playing around.
***
Octavius saw what Mary-Jane had seen.
“Impossible!”
***
Spider-Man let go of the braking helicopter, shot out another webline and swung from a stationary chopper toward the Statue.
***
“Inconceivable!”
***
Spider-Man fired one last webline. It caught a news chopper’s spinning rotors, spun him around for a moment before he let go and was flung onto the torch of Lady Liberty.
“Inevitable,” he told Octavius. He jumped the railing and slid down the arm, toward Octavius. “Now then, do you want one lump or…”
”Be quiet, wall crawler. Don’t you understand anything?” Octavius lowered his tentacles. They fell about the ground like molted snake skins.
Spider-Man was motionless, looking from Mary-Jane to Octavius.
“Almost dark, isn't it?” Octavius said. “Beautiful sunset, in case you can't tell behind those lenses of yours.”
He took off his sunglasses and wiped his eyes. They had no pupils.
He threw the sunglasses away. “I never liked these things anyway. Always seemed too 'cool' for me.” Octavius’s tentacles rose, stretching toward heaven. “Tell me where Osborn is.”
“I can’t let you have him.”
“And I can’t let him live.”
Spider-Man took a tiny step forward. ”I've listened to you, Octavius, now you listen to me. It doesn’t have to be like this. All it takes is one good decision to change.”
”But Osborn...”
”I'll take care of Osborn! Just... please. Before it's too late.”
Octavius wiped his eyes once more. When they focused on Spider-Man again, they were white as marble. “It was too late the moment you killed my wife. Or didn't, it doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters anymore.“ He threw his arms out widely. “Go on. Hit me. That's the way it is, isn't it?” Spider-Man didn’t move. “What's the matter? Still thinking of all the wry quips? Waiting for me to tell you all about my evil plot and my sad childhood and the twist of fate which resulted in these wondrous extra limbs? Your damsel in distress is waiting for her prince in shining armor. Now all you have to do is go through the dragon. Let’s get it over with.”
“Don’t make me do this, Otto.”
“Otto? Yes, I remember that name. My friends called me Otto. But you may refer to me as Doctor Octopus! Hit me! Never mind, I’ll start without you!”
All four tentacles sped toward Spider-Man. He was cuing to his spider-sense before he knew it, landing on one of the rays that extended from Lady Liberty’s crown in a crouch. Octavius extended his buzzsaw and severed the ray. Spider-Man flipped sideways onto another, abruptly reversed course when a burst of fire from the chaingun nearly hit him. The flamethrower was next; Octavius screamed as he fired it. Spider-Man dropped between the rays, feeling the heat of it kick his perspiration into overdrive. He caught himself on the Statue of Liberty’s face.
Well, look on the bright side. At least David Copperfield isn't around.
To either side, Spider-Man saw tentacles bite the rim of the crown. From the two clanging noises opposite him, Octavius was doing the same on the back of the crown. He lifted himself up in a sort of iron cross, swaying about to look for Spider-Man. Peter took cover between Lady Liberty’s nose and lower lip, cramping himself into the space to avoid Octavius’s gaze.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are...”
Suddenly, Octavius screamed. Could’ve been a trap, but no, there was too much pain. Spider-Man flipped up onto the tip of a ray to see Mary-Jane stabbing the device he’d given her into one of Ock’s tentacles. Lightning and steam were dancing in the damaged area. The device shot sparks, but MJ bravely held on until it shorted out with a loud pop.
Spider-Man leapt into action. He grabbed Mary-Jane and carried her up the statue’s arm. Behind him, Octavius’s tentacles were collapsing around him with a deepening groan of vanquished energy. His feet touched the ground and he began striding toward the torch, his tentacles dragging behind him, his face contorted into a hateful snarl.
”You'll pay for that!” Octavius shouted after him.
Spider-Man kicked through the glass of the torch and then lowered Mary-Jane into the torch. “Keep your head down,” he whispered.
“I love you,” she whispered back. It’d be so long since she’d said those three small words to him that he’d forgotten the spell they cast.
“I love—“ Octavius’s tentacles came alive with a sound like a computer rebooting in fast-forward. Spider-Man jumped just before the chaingun opened fire, shredding the glass flame of the torch. Mary-Jane screamed as shards of glass bounced off her back.
Spider-Man flew sixty feet straight up before he began to fall, a leisurely arc that carried him down toward Octavius. He fired webballs which Ock’s tentacles swatted aside, one of them extending its taser and stabbing him in the chest. Shocked, he bounced back upwards and the tentacle swatted him sideways. He demolished another ray as he sailed through the air.
Wind whistled by his head, peeling back the cobwebs. He was falling. Far away from the statue, going to land either in the ocean or on the ground. Neither of which was looking good at this height. He shot a webline up, caught the torch arm's elbow, and swung in a wide arc that carried him around the statue to land on the tablet, fingers bent and limbs splayed. Mary-Jane loved him. How cool was that?
Cursing, Octavius stampeded down toward him. He was going so fast that he had barely a single tentacle touching solid ground at any one time. Spider-Man weaved and bobbed, avoiding the flailing tentacles as they left huge cracks in the tablet. It took a minute of dodging for him to notice that only two tentacles were attacking them. The other two were peeling the tablet from the statue with a horrid rending sound.
Spider-Man jumped up, landing in-between the two tentacles, grabbed hold, and pulled Octavius toward him by the pseudopods, stopping him with a hard right hook. Below, photographers’ cameras were twinkling like stars. If the tablet fell, they’d be crushed.
Gravity took over with a last, deep rumble. With Octavius stunned, Spider-Man shot two weblines down and caught the tablet. Its momentum forced him down several feet, the copper of the statue cracking underfoot as he skidded to a stop. It made him wonder what percentage of Lady Liberty’s two hundred tons was in that damn book she carried. Ninety?
Octavius sent down a tentacle, buzzsaw revving. Spider-Man kicked off the statue and shoved his weblines into the buzzsaw. They jammed the works and all of a sudden Octavius was attached to several tons of falling copper. He was yanked downward, his remaining three tentacles pushing up the material of Lady Liberty like Wile Coyote trying to stop himself before going over a cliff. Finally, he drove the tentacles into Lady Liberty like piledriver posts and threw the book upwards at Spider-Man, snipping the webbing with a blowtorch-like blast from his flamethrower. Spider-Man watched the tablet bear down on him. Least his chainsaw is still jammed.
Spider-Man flattened himself to the statue, waited until he felt the tablet passing by him, then kicked off to slam into it and ride it out over the water. He kicked off the tablet in turn and rammed into Octavius, hard enough to dent the statue with Ock’s body.
“Otto, you don’t have to do this!”
Octavius roared and threw Spider-Man upwards. Peter narrowly managed to contort his body between two rays. He landed on the crown to find Octavius waiting for him, shooting a burst from his flamethrower. Spider-Man took cover behind a ray. Flames shot by on either side, singeing his costume. He ignored the pain as he wove a ball of impact webbing… he’d theorized being able to construct one by manipulating different pressures and consistencies, but never actually tried it.
Octavius’s tentacles groped through the curtains of fire, taking bites out of the ray. “Only a matter of time now, you freak!”
”Yeah, that's what you told yourself about puberty too,” Spider-Man muttered as he wrapped his throwing arm in webbing like an oven mitten. Bracing himself, he placed the impact webbing in that hand and then reached out into the flame to throw it. The pain was so intense, so sudden—burning, his flesh was burning, he could smell it—but he didn’t pull back until he’d thrown the webbing. He heard it strike home, heard the flamethrower clog, then jumped straight through Lady Liberty’s face.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he said as the dust settled.
Octavius lashed his tentacles down between rays, trying to hit Spider-Man, before he realized that the webslinger had disappeared.
”Spider-Man? Where are you? Come up and face me, coward!”
Spider-Man's hands broke through the floor beneath him and grabbed his feet! “Why don't you come down here? We've got beanbag chairs!”
He pulled Octavius down, laying in a few hard body blows before Octavius started in with the chaingun. Bullets ricocheted through the copper headspace, throwing Spider-Man into overdrive as he tried to dodge between them. Weaving, dodging, contorting, flipping! He was bouncing around like a ping-pong ball. The bullets became so numerous that he had to take hits; not full-on impacts but bullets slicing lines across his flesh. It distracted him from the pain of his burnt arm, so that was a relief.
No more time for games. He rebounded to the back of the headspace, coiled his legs, and sprung toward Octavius in the space of a millisecond. A bullet grazed his skull, knocking him dizzy, but he didn’t have to do anything further but let his momentum carry him into Octavius.
Doctor Octopus was hit and flung out the hole Spider-Man had made, widening it as he flew out into open air. Spider-Man shot out a webline, catching him and dragging him back to crash into the face of the Statue of Liberty once again. Octavius wrapped a tentacle around a spire, hanging from it as he prepared his next attack.
His spider-sense rung even louder, a clarion call among the usual soundtrack of watch out and be careful! The flamethrower was about to burn through the webbing clogging it. Spider-Man snagged it with a webline and coupled it to the chaingun tentacle. The heat exploded the unused ammo like popcorn kernels, shorting out that tentacle. Octavius screamed and blocked the pain out with more of his personal rhetoric, grabbing Spider-Man’s burnt arm with a tentacle. He flung Spider-Man around by it, making him cry out in pain as he was dashed along the statue’s innards.
”There are no gods! Only men who makes themselves into gods! Such as I! I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning of your end!”
”You really like to pad your resume, doncha?” Spider-Man hit a wall with his feet, stuck to it, and pulled his arm free. Webbing, costume, and burnt skin came loose agonizingly. He didn’t waste time on pain. He lunged for Octavius, tackling him around the waist. They orbited Lady Liberty's forehead on the tentacle Ock was hanging from. Octavius twisted around so that they landed on Spider-Man when they hit the ground. With his human hands he wrenched Spider-Man’s burnt arm.
Rational thought was impossible for Spider-Man. There was too much pain. The tentacles lifted him up, almost like he were an infant being cradled, then slammed him to the ground. Again and again.
“Did you really think you could beat me? Humiliate me again?”
Octavius slammed Spider-Man down, then stomped on his injured arm. He lifted him up again. Slammed him back down again. The ground was cracking under the force of the impact.
”What could possibly possess you to believe that you had a hope of defeating me? Why do you think you'll win?”
Spider-Man coughed up blood. “Because... I'm the good guy.”
Octavius smirked as he extended the reliable spike from a tentacle and hung it like the sword of Damocles above the prostrate Spider-Man. “Thus fell ‘the good guy’.”
The tentacle reared back, then shot towards Spider-Man’s head… only to be knocked off-course by a second tentacle. Octavius reared back in surprise.
”What is this ridiculousness?”
The second tentacle tried to smash Spider-Man, but the first held it back. Then the third tried to sneak by and kill Spider-Man. The first two stopped it. And soon all four were fighting over which got to kill Spider-Man.
”Would one of you just finish the damn job!?” Octavius shouted.
Spider-Man rolled onto his side, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Because I’m the good guy… and because I hacked your tentacles with an virus carried on infrared earlier. Now how about a round of applause for my lovely assistant?”
Octavius looked up to the torch, at Mary-Jane. She waved to him.
”No!”
”Oh yes,” Spider-Man breathed, starting to get up when Octavius kicked him in the ribs. The mad scientist was constantly pulled off-balance by his quarreling pseudopods, but he was still able to plant a boot on Spider-Man’s throat and squeeze.
“Fine! I’ll do it myself!”
Spider-Man tried to push Octavius off, but he was too weak, the pain was too much. If he could only get a breath, just some air… Mary-Jane was screaming and he was blacking out. He looked up to the stars, but there was no help there, just the helicopters overhead, taking pictures of him dying, he was dying, those helicopters…
With Zen calm he reached up, curls his hand, and fired a webline upward. Octavius flinched, then saw it had bypassed him entirely.
“Ha! You missed!”
The webline hit the undercarriage of a news helicopter like a harpoon. The pilot panicked, pulled up. Spider-Man was yanked upward, smashing into Octavius. They landed on a ray. Spider-Man smashed Octavius in the face until he held up his hands in surrender.
Octavius breathed heavily. “Why do you bother, Spider-Man? A million years from now, no one will remember who you were.” Octavius’s hand inched down to his pocket, the switchblade he kept there for just such an occasion. “No one will care. “
Spider-Man slapped the knife away as soon as Octavius drew it. ” Maybe so. But that’s a million years from now. Today, I’m taking you down.”
He backed up, leaving the tentacles to turn on Octavius. Their red lights were shining brighter than ever. Octavius, too beaten to maintain control over them, held his hands to his ears as they screamed in his mind…
Father! Can you hear us? Don't let them hurt us! We can help you! We are you! Help us! We don't want to die! Why can’t you love us like you loved Rosalie, what happened to all your wondrous experiments, we’ve reviewed the equations and the only thing that could be wrong is you!
”No! Get back! I created you! I am your master! Me!”
Octavius stumbled into the hole he’d been pulled down through earlier, falling into the head of the Statue of Liberty. Spider-Man slumped down onto a ray. “Words cannot describe how good that felt,” he muttered.
That’s when a pumpkin bomb landed on the Statue of Liberty.
The Hobgoblin watched the explosion claim Peter, Mary-Jane held tightly in his arm.
The_Lurker
Date: 2009-09-14 09:29 am (UTC)Hum...maybe a young John Cusack and Alicia Witt? As for Alfred Molina, i can't see anyone else in the role since i saw him.
The_Lurker
Date: 2009-09-15 02:37 pm (UTC)