Hello folks, Wadey here! As if you didn't know. Anyway, welcome to the epic sixth installment in my first Spider-man story.
For those of you who haven't read the previous parts, the recap is just below.
As for the rest, you will just have to skip the next few paragraphs!
Part I- Spidey kicks the crap out of Rhino at the Bank of Manhattan and runs late for class.
Part II- Peter shows up at the end of Doctor Curtis Connors' lecture where he introduced John Jameson to the class. Jameson unveiled a moon rock with an alien specimen inside. To pass the class, Peter gets to assist Connors with studying the alien. And he also manages to blow off Gwen Stacy who obviously likes him.
Elsewhere, Captain George Stacy tries to get Rhino to talk about his employer. He won't budge. But they record Rhino's phone call with a filtered voice that apparently has connections to get Rhino released.
Part III- Peter arrives at his Aunt's house only to be driven into a conversation about the Web Slinger. After shouting at her, he apologizes and makes peace with her by consuming mass amounts of her cake.
We also see how Peter and Harry first met. In a car accident. And how these two outcasts became the best of friends.
Four months later they go to a science exhibit hosted by the famed Otto Octavius. Octavius shows prototypes of his mechanical arms and begins to showcase his new device which converts any light into energy. A spider passes through the energy bolt causing it to malfunction. The spider followed a fly which had landed on Peter. The spider then bit the over achiever. Which is how Spider-man first came to be.
In the present, an elite mercenary squad broke into police lockup and freed the Rhino. Captain Stacy got the call at 2 in the morning. His daughter, Gwen, heard the shouting and crept down to see what was up. After her dad left, Gwen tried calling Peter. After that didn't work, she called Harry. He gave her a bit of advice on how to wait on Peter.
Part IV- A family of four, the Everetts, "borrow" a Stark Prototype yacht for Spring Break. Rhino is briefed by his mysterious employer who tells him to go and capture the remaining symbiote pieces at ESU. Peter mishandles a conversation with Gwen and she storms off. Peter then gets underpaid by Jameson again. And because of the bank heist a few days ago, he can't withdraw any money for rent. Then Peter had extra credit with Doctor Curtis Connors. He learns that the symbiote had been in the US for two years, not two months. And that NASA is pulling Connors off the project for fear that he is growing too close to the symbiote. This makes Connors manic and Peter uncomfortable. So Peter leaves Connors alone in his lab.
Part V- Connors was openly hostile towards his class the next day. After class, Peter tried to reason with him to no avail. Later, Peters stes a date with Gwen for that night. NASA execs and Norman Osborn show up early to relieve Connors of the specimen. As Dillon prepares his team to ambush Osborn and his convoy, Rhino jams the satellite feed which causes the Stark yacht to go beserk and sink in less than three minutes. Connors meanwhile synthesizes a serum combine with lizard DNA and a piece of the symbiote that he had hidden before NASA had shown up. He tests it on a rabbit and cutting off its foot. The paw grows back to the doctor's joy. Then the merc team take out the convoy that transported the symbiote with relative ease. The scene ends with Dillon walking up to Osborn asking what is in the case.
And now for scenes 19-21!
SCENE 19
Peter and Gwen were having what could be considered a nice date. Minus Jameson showing up and throwing Peter off kilter for a few minutes, that is. Until the satellite feed to the television died at the bar on the other side of the room. The ones sitting near it had been entranced by the football game that had been playing.
Was it the Jets vs the Giants? Peter couldn’t remember. He didn’t really care. What he did care about was that as soon as the transmission ceases, so did the peace.
“C’mon Lee! Why didn’t you pay the cable bill?” one of the patrons complained.
Lee, a not-quite-mountain-yet Asian chef and owner of the establishment, stepped up with a meat cleaver, “Two things Big Mouth: One, it is a satellite not cable. Two, if you are going to complain, find another Chinese Buffet that will let you AMERICAN sports for free.”
After about ten minutes of this, the frustrated couple grew tired of the bickering. Peter helped Gwen out of her chair and went to the cashier to pay. What Gwen didn’t know, was that this was going to put him another week behind on his rent. Oh well….
As they were walking out the door, many of the patrons cheered as the satellite feed came back. But then came a groan as they found out that the game had been interrupted by the news.
Peter stopped in his tracks as he caught what the anchor was saying.
“The yacht has been capsized not two miles off the coast of Manhattan. No word yet if anyone was on board but we have Trish Tilby at the scene for the latest update. Trish?”
Peter ran back in and turned up the volume. The screen had switched to a stunning blonde on the shore of Manhattan.
“Thanks Tim. But it has been confirmed that there are people in the vessel. The yacht, which is some prototype whose company name has not been disclosed at this time, sent an SOS to the nearest receiver using shortwave frequencies in light of the mass communications that occurred not half an hour ago.”
Gwen, who had come inside to see what had gotten Peter so startled, gasped, “That’s terrible!”
Peter turned to Gwen, “Gwen, I’m sorry but I have to go. Jameson will quite literally throttle me if I don’t get down there.”
“What?!” Gwen was shocked. People’s lives were in danger and Peter was worried about his paycheck?
Peter though, misinterpreted her reaction, “Look. We can pick up the date in a couple of days.”
SMACK!!!!
Peter jumped as Gwen slapped him again. He didn’t even move as she walked off.
What did I say? Thought a confused Peter…… Again.
Jason woke up when the water started to flood into his mouth. Choking, he jumped up coughing up the salty water. Looking around, he noticed the room was up to a foot and a half of water. Realizing that the ship was sinking, he shook awake his wife and grabbed his kids. With any luck the elevator was still working.
“Daddy what’s going on?!” cried Joan.
“SHELI?” he called, “What’s happening?”
It took a few moments for the AI to respond, “The ship is sinking.”
“Tell me something I don’t know!” he shouted.
“The distance between the sun and the Earth is-“
“SHELI!!!”
“Yes Jason?”
As he passed his Joan to Susan, “What would be the best way to get out of here?”
“The elevator is blocked off,” this caused an expletive from Jason, “But the rubble in the stairwell is not substantial but there is a considerable amount of water.”
“Looks like we’re heading for the stairs,” Jason looked over at his wife, “Lets go.”
“WARNING WARNING!!!” SHELI bellowed. “Download of AI in progress.”
As they were running down the water filled corridor Susan asked, “SHELI what does that mean?”
“Damage to the vessel is catastrophic. Fail safes are being initiated to ensure that that my construct remains intact.”
“You can’t leave!” shouted Jason, “Who is going to guide us through this water trap?”
“I dddooonnt knoooooooooooooooo-“
“SHELI? SHELI?!” Cal yelled.
“She’s gone Cal,” Jason tried to soothe his son, “Can you run?”
Cal nodded, “Uh-huh.”
“Good,” Jason heaved, “Cause believe it or not, you’re heavy.”
Unfortunately, SHELI had not had enough time to tell the Everetts which stairwell to take. There were three: one was near the bow, the other at the stern (hopefully it wasn’t THOSE stairs), and another portside. The headed towards the closest one, portside, praying to God that they made it in time.
Rhino had turned off the jamming device when he was advised to. For the past ten minutes, he had sat on the roof bored, watching another egghead prove how much smarter he was than Alexei Sytsevich. If the boss was right though, this egghead still had a piece of the package. And that could NOT be allowed. But he still had to wait for the order. Otherwise he could’ve already brought the whole building down.
‘What is wrong with women?’ thought an exasperated Spider-man as he swung furiously towards the sinking ship. ‘I mean honestly! What did I say to piss her off?’
He had to put personal feelings aside as he reached the shoreline.
The shore was bustling with activity. Everyone from reporters to cops were trying to get a better view of the rescue crew. Spidey thought he saw Urich, who seemed to be taking a break from his Gamma article, taking notes on a legal pad. The flash of a camera caught his attention. The man behind looked like he belonged in a boxing ring. Blonde hair cropped really short, he had a look in his eye that reminded Peter of a predator.
‘Why does that seem so familiar?’ he mused. ’Ah well. Back to the task at hand.’
In the minute that he thought all of this, he swung from one end of the shore to the other. Seeing a group of cops, medics, and the Coast Guard appeared to be the obvious choice. The assembled team reflexively jumped as Spider-man leapt in the midst of them
“Hi!” the wallcrawler gave a two fingered salute, “Howya doin’?”
“Great,” a detective stepped forward, “Look, I got no time for costumed vigilantes.”
“Actually, I am not a vigilante. I’m not looking for gratification,” He jokingly elbowed the firefighter next to him, “I saw that in a movie. Anyway, I’m here to help Officer-“
“Detective Terry Lee,” she said. “And you wanna help? Be my guest. The crowd’s over there.” She pointed away from the shore, “Make sure they don’t get too close.”
“Well,” sighed Spider-man, “As much as I would to argue about me being more helpful than that, people’s lives are at stake. See ya on the other side!” With that Spider-man leap-frogged from boat to boat until he found where the yacht sank.
“Waitaminute!!!!!” Detective Lee yelled.
But Spider-man did anything but wait. With a jaunty wave, he swan dived into the sea.
‘There’s gotta be a way outta here!’ desperately thought Jason Everett. The portside stairwell proved to be a bust. For the past five minutes the distraught family fought their way through to the bow of the ship, swimming through what seemed to be miles of debris.
“Daddy, are you sure this is the right way?” asked Joan, who was clinging onto her mother as tight as she could.
“Honey, we’ll find out.”
“Are we gonna die?”
“DON’T even think that for one minute Joany. We’re gonna get out of here. And never take a cruise again.”
Even though that bit of levity got a half smile from even Cal, it didn’t relieve their worries. After a few minutes, they found a sign that read:
BOW STAIRWELL
“See?” he looked over at Joan, “We’re almost out of here!”
But it was not to be. SHELI may have been uploaded to the nearest Stark satellite, but the default programs still running the ship decided to kick in. The propeller systems activated causing the yacht to go into a slow yet definitive spin.
“Jason!” shouted his wife, “We can’t stay here!”
“I know! Make for the stairwell!”
With whole ship rotating around them, maneuvering was next to impossible. But yet they managed it. Thankfully, the bow stairwell wasn’t blocked. But with the onrush of water, it was only a matter of time before it would take super powers to open that door.
“C’mon!” Jason cried.
He managed to get the door open and helped Joan through.
“You next Cal,” Jason and Susan held open the door.
Susan was next through the door when a two air conditioning unit was jostled loose and came barreling at the door, pinning it shut. Jason just got out of the way in time.
“Honey can you hear me?!”
“Jason?!” came Susan’s muffled reply.
“Suzie, I can’t get through over here! You try and make it to the surface without me! I’m gonna try for the Starboard Stairwell!”
“Jason!”
“Yeah Suzie?!”
“I love you!”
Jason couldn’t tell if it was from the salt water or from his wife’s declaration, but he wiped a tear from his eye, “I love you too! See you up top!”
‘Man why couldn’t I have been bitten by a radioactive fish?’ thought the annoyed Spider-man. ‘Seriously! Why did I even bother to dive into this? Oh yeah that’s right. I have a responsibility.’
After swimming about fifty down, he thought he could see the shimmer of lights.
‘That’s gotta be it!’
Swimming harder than he ever had before, Peter made for the plummeting yacht.
‘See this is when I need some kind of Spider-flashlight or Spider-signal.’
When the yacht was in view, Spidey’s lungs were on fire. Following the stream of bubbles coming from one of the portholes in the ship, Spider-man managed to squirm his way through. Swimming down the hall, he found an air pocket.
“Aaaaaauuuuuuuhhhhh” Spidey gulped in the merciful air.
Pausing to catch his breath, Spider-man began to listen for sounds of life.
“Wow James Cameron really knows how to mimic the sounds of a sinking ship.”
But then he heard a thumping. Wait, that wasn’t right. It was a banging sound coming from the bow of the ship. It was a hunch, but Spidey tried to direct his Spider Sense towards the unusual banging. Of course, it could be nothing. But that’s when he heard the screaming. Soft at first, but then louder and louder as he drew closer to the bow.
Eventually the screaming formed words, “Can anyone hear me?! We’re in here!!!!!”
The yacht, still turning, caused the voice to be distorted every time that the water covered the wall where the voice was coming from. When he discerned it was the wall farthest from him, Spider-man dove into the sloshing water and swam towards the desperate voice. When he tried the door on the wall, which was now the floor, the combined weight of the water and the pressure sealing the door shut kept Peter’s incredible strength from budging the door. So he did the one thing that he could, he bashed the door in.
It took several blows but the door was not indestructible. But neither were Peter’s fists. After the fifth blow, the door finally gave. And so did his left hand. Holding back a cry, Spider-man kicked the rest of the door in to find a woman and two kids.
“Are you alright?” he asked as he helped them up and out of the remains of the doorway, now the ceiling.
“We’re fine,” gasped the woman.
“Spider-man!” the little girl exclaimed.
“The one and only.”
The woman grabbed his arm, “But my husband! Jason, he’s still onboard!”
“Where?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “He said something about the starboard stairwell.”
Spider-man weighed his options. The ship was sinking fast. Soon, even these air pockets would be enveloped by the combination of water pressure and the entire bay flooding into the yacht. ‘This really sucks!’ thought Peter.
“Okay,” he moved them in the direction that he entered the ship, “I’m gonna help y’all outta here first. C’mon!”
Pulling the mother who was holding onto her two kids like life preservers, Spider-man maneuvered over to the air pocket closest to the porthole.
“Alright, this is the tricky part. I don’t wanna here any objections alright?” After the kids nodded vigorously he continued, “I’ll push you through the porthole. And I want you to hold your breath. Can you do that?” after another round of nods, “Good. Now after you get out, slowly let out your breath as you go up. Otherwise you’ll be REALLY dizzy and woozy. Got it? Good. Here we go.”
It took about one minute to get all three of them out and swimming for the surface. ‘Three down, one to go.’
Jason was not having much luck navigating his way through to the starboard side. From his little sailing lessons, he remembered that the starboard was on the right. But with the ship turning in a clockwise spin, going right was just as hard as going left. From what he remembered from the maps in the galley, he had to circle around to the stairwell. When he reached the next air pocket, he paused to catch his breath.
“Man,” he gasped, “I knew that I should have taken those swimming classes like Susan told me about.”
But he had to keep moving. Whenever a ship is sinking, the last place you would ever want to be is INSIDE of the vessel. But inside he was.
Jason took another lung full of precious oxygen and dove back into the water. He actually had to bat away a few fish that had gotten sucked into the yacht. After seeing a sign that showed the stairwell was in the next corridor, he smiled. ‘Almost there.’
Spider-man could not find a way into the starboard side from inside the yacht. That meant that he had to backtrack, go back outside, and find another way in. He tore through the water furiously, knowing that Jason was running out of time. ‘C’mon! Hold on Jason!’
Whenever he reached the stairwell, Jason was relieved to find that the door was forced open by the shifting debris. ‘Finally some good luck!’
The water hadn’t even filled the stairwell yet! He ran up the stair, treading water with every step. But that was when the engines decided to change direction. Now instead of clockwise, the overpriced yacht was now spinning in the opposite direction. Which violently shoved all the water at the bottom of the stairs to the top.
Spider-man had finally found an opening that was close enough to starboard as he was ever going to get. He found a hole that had been gouged by what appeared to be some REALLY sharp debris that had been jostled around by the rotation of the yacht. Squeezing through the opening, but it wasn’t a sure fit. And since it wasn’t smooth like the porthole over by the bow, it wasn’t without edges. One of these sharp edges managed to tear right through his costume and reach the flesh beneath.
Wincing and gasping out a small but crucial stream of bubbles. Trying his best to ignore the pain, Peter carefully made his way through the gap and into the flooded corridor. Unlike the bow, the starboard side was almost completely overrun with water. Which meant that there were precious few air pockets to take in a fresh, if not new, lung full of air.
He searched and searched but there was no sign of the wayward husband. And even though Peter had a track record of holding his breath for at least three minutes, that was not a super power.
‘Man where’s a water breathing Fish-Man when you need one?!’ His mind sidetracked for two seconds on how Fish-Men could not exist.
When he got back on track, he found a stairwell. Knowing that he couldn’t hold his breath much longer, he decided to check quickly and see if Jason was in there.
When the water came on top of Jason, he nearly lost consciousness. But he knew that if he blacked out, he would be leaving Joan and Cal without a father and Susan without a wife. So he muscled his mind into cooperation and tried to see what happened.
The shifting debris which had kept the entrance to the stairwell open had been swept inside as if it were dust in a sandstorm. What had allowed Jason through had now blocked him in. Jason tried to swim towards the exit but found that he couldn’t. He looked down and saw that his legs had been cleanly sliced off by the debris already in the staircase.
‘Well that explains why I couldn’t feel my legs.’
Spider-man swam down two flights of steps in less than one minute until he found another blocked passage. He was about to head back when he saw blood, a lot of blood, seep from in between the immovable wreckage like a creature with a mind of its own.
Furiously realizing that Jason was behind that wall of rubble, he started to rip it apart as if it were tissue paper. He cut through the wall in less than twenty seconds and was actually able to see who could only be Jason leaning against a wall, with his legs lying three feet away from him.
Jason’s eyes were fluttering. He couldn’t hold his breath much longer. Then suddenly the blocked stair gave way like aluminum foil. As Jason’s eyes started to blur, the last thing he saw was red and blue hauling him up.
‘Lungs….. On….. FIRE!!!!!!!’ Spider-man couldn’t take much more. He summoned what remained of his strength and heaved himsekf and Jason through the another smoother hole newly made by the ever shifting rubble. And as he the last dregs of his strength ebbed away, Spider-man drifted into darkness and knew no more.
SCENE 20
“Five minutes ago,” Doctor Curt Connors spoke into a recorder, “the test subject had been flailing around. Reason being is because I had severed its front left paw.” He held up the detached limb, “The paw is completely dead and has begun to shrivel at an accelerated rate. But that is not the most extraordinary occurrence tonight. The rodent which has been injected with the cocktail that I developed, grew a replacement limb in less than two minutes of the initial injection and removing of its paw. The applications for this are now in the stratosphere!”
But time had decided to get away from the good Doctor. When he checked the mounted clock on the wall, it read 8:57. Knowing it took about twenty to twenty-five minutes to get home, he started to pack up. Quickly.
Rhino was growing impatient. What was the point of him sitting up on top of a building watching a scientist play with his chemistry set? Was the boss punishing him for his mistake? It wasn’t even his fault! It was that annoying brightly colored bug Spider-man!!!
‘Why do I always pay for someone else’s mistake?’ he glumly thought.
He was just about to plop down on the roof when the moment Rhino had been waiting for arrived.
“Destroy whatever’s left of the specimen Rhino,” the modulated voice commanded.
“With pleasure sir,” Rhino responded.
“Oh and Rhino?”
“Yes boss?”
“If the little doctor pretending to be a scientist in there meets an untimely end…… More the better.”
“You got it boss!”
Doctor Connors was speedily yet carefully putting away all of his materials. He could not afford to replace anything at this point. Especially because of the fact that he had been pulled off a Top Secret data masked project.
‘Osborn you can shove it!’ Connors thought with ecstasy when a bomb went off in the building.
Rhino had charged right off the adjacent building and right through the science lab’s outer wall. The cars parked along the curb shook. This of course made their alarms start blaring.
‘Let’s see what I can wreck in this china shop!’ Rhino thought with a smile.
He didn’t know what the “specimen” looked like. The boss never disclosed that information to him. But he decided to just smash everything and call it a night.
Just walking caused things to topple over and break. Alexei loved how didn’t have to try in this suit. He had always been a klutz, but now that actually came in handy.
He slammed his arm down on a giant desk with a bunch of liquids on it.
‘What is it with scientists and their little vials?’
The desk actually shot down to the next floor and crushed some poor animals.
‘Ah well.’ He wasn’t paid to be a tree hugger. Not that he was one. Why stick up for something that couldn’t defend itself? Especially when one has their OWN hide to think about.
He stalked from room to room, demolishing as he went.
Curt Connors heard the crash. And then for some reason whatever had made that resounding BOOM decided to make towards where Connors had been previously. But when he discovered the crashing coming closer, he scurried around the lab, picking as many thing up with his arm as he could. He stuffed them into the security locker and looked over to where he kept the serum. The serum was contained in miniature vat. It was about eight inches in diameter and twelve inches high. He gingerly lifted it off the counter and was two feet away from storing it in the freezer when Rhino came through the wall.
“So,” Rhino said, “I’ve been told you’ve been playin’ with someone else’s chemistry set.”
‘He knows!’ thought Connors, ‘How could he know?’
Trying to remain nonchalant, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Huh.” Rhino smirked, “That’s funny. Seein’ as how you’re such a know it all, Doc, I’m surprised you DON’T know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout. But enough chit chat. My boss wants a job done. Guess what? That means that I get to have some fun.”
‘I think I might be late for dinner honey,’ he thought before Rhino backhanded Connors through a wall. The small vat that he had been holding wasn’t covered. When he hit the wall on the other side of the next room, his grip slipped and it flew up. The force was so great that it shattered on impact with the ceiling, drenching the doctor with its yellowish green hue.
The Rhino looked over Connors’ bent and broken body. He was a little disappointed that the egghead didn’t put up a fight but at least this meant that he could make it for the last round of happy hour at Jose’s Bar.
“Mission accomplished.”
With that, he leapt out of the hole that made and landed in a huge crater in the street. Rhino then made his home by way of a series of back alleys.
He didn’t notice nor would he have cared if he did the rabbit that had escaped its cage in the middle of Rhino’s initial onslaught. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but for a moment it appeared as if the rabbit’s eyes turned yellow. But there was no mistaking the forked tongue that protruded from its mouth.
Spider-man woke up sputtering water from his mouth and lungs. He turned over and saw a medic putting away some equipment.
“What happened?”
“You washed up on the shore about five minutes ago holding onto a dead body,” the medic replied.
“Dead body?” Spider-man had a hard time trying to recall the last half hour.
Then it all came flooding back. The yacht, the mother with two kids and her husband….. her husband.
“Jason!”
“I gotta tell ya Web-head,” Detective Terry Lee squatted down in the sand, “You did a good job out there.”
“Waitaminute!” Spidey gasped, “Where’s Jason?”
“Are you saying that you knew the deceased?” Lee pulled out a notepad.
“No, not really,” Spider-man tried to reign in his emotions, “His wife told me about him. So I went back.”
“Brave of you but unnecessary.”
“Unnecessary?! How can saving a man’s life be unnecessary?!”
“Hate to pull you off that pedestal of yours, Wall Crawler, but this man was going to die of blood loss anyway. You shoulda just came up with the rest of the family. That way I wouldn’t have had to keep the vultures in reporters’ clothing from trying to rip off that mask of yours.”
“That was decent of you. But I couldn’t just leave a man down in that high tech Titanic without knowing what happened to him.”
“Commendable,” the detective thought about it for a moment, “Look. Don’t beat yourself up about it. It wasn’t our fault.”
“Yeah sure.”
“Hey! I’m serious. Now if you were a cop, I would offer you a round at the local bar. Then I would spar with you in the gym to get some of the edge of the past hour off your back.” She patted him on the back, “But you’re not a cop. You are a vigilante. Not a nice word but there you go.”
“What are trying to say Detective?”
“That you need to stop beating yourself up. Crap happens. You need to learn how to wash off the smell.”
“Thanks for that analogy Detective Lee,” he stood up, “But I don’t think that you can help me.”
As he walked off, Lee whispered, “Was kinda hoping you could help yourself.”
Susan had been swarmed by reporters the moment she had helped her kids out of the water. With no word yet on husband, she had just stood on the shoreline anxiously awaiting the return of husband.
‘He’s gonna be fine. He’s gonna be fine,’ she had kept telling herself.
But that hope had been shattered when Spider-man washed up on the shore holding onto a body. But that could not have been her husband. Her husband had legs. Her husband had a name. Her husband was alive.
But when she had pushed past the medics and the hoard of reporters, she gave out a cry of protest.
“NO!!! JASON!!!!!!!” she fell to the sand and cradled what was left of his battered and shredded body.
After the EMTs had persuaded her to let the coroners put Jason in a body bag, Eddie March, Jason’s colleague, approached her and held her in a long embrace.
“I’m so sorry Susan.”
“It wasn’t your fault Eddie.”
“Suzie,” Eddie released her, “Who do you think doctored the shipping reports at Stark Industries so you all could go on this little excursion?”
Realization started to dawn on Susan’s face, “You knew?”
“Susan,” Eddie couldn’t look her in the eyes, “It was at Jason’s request. He wanted to treat you to something nice for once. And all the tests on the prototype had been-“
“PROTOTYPE?!” Susan was hysterical, “You arranged for us to go on a vacation on a PROTOTYPE?!”
“Suzie,” he had his hands up trying to calm her down, “All the tests had been passed. We had no idea that the satellite uplink would cause-“
“OH THAT’S THE EXCUSE! WHY DON’T YOU TELL MY HUSBAND THAT! TELL HIM THAT THE STUPID YACHT PASSED ALL THE TESTS WHICH MADE IT PERFECTLY SAFE TO USE!!!!!”
“Susan-“
Susan held up a finger, “DON’T!” And with that she left Eddie March on the shore with nothing but reporters who had overheard their conversation for company.
SCENE 21
Martha Connors practically threw the dishes in the sink. She had sent Billy to bed a half hour after they had finished dinner. As she scrubbed the dishes with all of her might, she looked up at the clock.
’10:15! How could I have been so naïve?’
Martha didn’t take long washing dishes. Seeing as how she didn’t have that many dishes to wash, it was understandable. After she finished wiping down the counter, Martha went over, poured herself a martini, and plopped down on the couch, passing her husband’s untouched dinner as she walked.
Her first impulse was to go up to her bedroom, pack and take Billy with her, leaving a note for her neglecting husband.
‘I’m upset,’ she thought with obvious sarcasm, ‘I need to calm down.’
Being the wife of a scientist, she knew how to think rationally and impartially.
‘But when Curt gets home, I’m gonna give him a BIG piece of my mind.’
She reached over to the coffee table and grabbed the remote. Turning on the TV, she changed it to her favorite show: Criminal Minds. Hotchner reminded her so much of her husband. So calm, so determined.
That was what attracted her to Curt in the first place. But as of this moment, she wasn’t the LEAST bit attracted to his inconsiderate hide.
‘He gets engrossed on his work, that he forgets that he has family.’
As she fought back tears, Criminal Minds was interrupted by the local news team.
‘Great, now what?’
“We interrupt your our scheduled broadcast to give you this breaking story: there has been an attack on the campus of Empire State University.”
The martini she had been cradling fell to the carpet.
“We now go to Alan Foster, live at the scene. Alan?”
“Thank you Dean. The scene behind me can only be described as chaos. I am standing on what used to be the front lawn of ESU. If you can look above me, you will be able to see a massive hole punched through the fifth story window. Littered all around me, is wreckage from this unprecedented assault.”
‘Fifth story?’ Martha thought with worry, ‘That’s the floor that Curt works on!’
She scrambled around the house, grabbing keys and purse, listening to Alan’s report, “There apparently has only been one victim in this vicious assault. His name has not been disclosed as of yet, but I am told that he suffered from multiple breaks, lacerations, and contusions. He also is, according to the grapevine, a professor in the science department but that is mere speculation at this time. He has been shipped to Glenview Memorial Hospital. More on his condition as it develops. Back to you Dean.”
Martha didn’t catch any more than that. She was out the door before her favorite show came back on.
There was no one around the industrial park on the West side at this time of night. There was no reason for anyone to really be there. Most of it was automated anyway. But someone was there. Even though he was dressed in bright colors, he moved so fast he was a blur anyway.
‘Maybe Detective Lee is right,’ thought a tired Spider-man, ‘Maybe I just need a release.’
Spider-man swung off some construction equipment and landed in the middle of a three story brick building halfway finished.
‘No better place than here.’
He bent down, grabbed a metal pipe that was discarded like a piece of trash, and examined it.
‘I know I need a doctor,’ Spider-man sighed, ‘I have at least one broken finger and possibly a cracked rib. But I need to vent.’
Making sure the pipe was sturdy enough, he swung it with all of his considerable strength breaking through the four foot thick wall like it was powder. He swung again and again. Until the wall was no more and the pipe was bent.
Spider-man ripped off his mask. It was no longer a super hero pounding on the building. It was Peter Parker. Puny Parker. Average everyday wallflower Puny Peter Parker.
He pounded every inch of that building. The girders, the supports, the windows, the ceiling, etc. With each blow something flashed before his eyes.
FLASH!
Flash Thompson jeering at him.
FLASH!
Jameson calling Spider-man a criminal.
FLASH!
Gwen Stacy slapping him.
FLASH!
Harry Osborn shaking his head in disappointment at him.
FLASH!
Aunt May worrying about him.
FLASH!
A thief running past him.
FLASH!
A gun pointed at an old man.
FLASH!
The gun fires.
FLASH!
The old man dies.
FLASH!
Peter chasing down the shooter.
FLASH!
Peter holding the shooter over a ledge.
FLASH!
The shooter was the thief.
FLASH!
The thief accidently falls.
FLASH!
A funeral and a grave of a man who did not need to die.
By the time that Peter was done, the building had been reduced to rubble. He sat on top of the ruins sobbing.
‘Maybe I should just give up the ghost? Why do I keep doing this? What difference am I making?’
A familiar voice answered Peter’s question, “Peter,” the voice said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
On the North Side, past the projects, there is a warehouse. This warehouse is several stories tall. And in this warehouse bad things happen. Bad things made possible by bad people.
Nikolai Gregorovich was a man of great belligerence. Born into a country fraught with war. And it was a Cold War. He had survived many travesties in his lifetime. After being abandoned by his parents in a country that shows little remorse for the weak, he had built an empire in which the very foundations were made of lies and blood.
But after the Soviet Union fell, he had been forced into hiding.
Nikolai traveled to America, where he rebuilt a fraction of what he had once commanded. But that fraction trafficked in more than one third of New York’s drug trade.
And Nikolai Gregorovich did NOT like to receive bad news.
The last time he had received bad news, he had his lieutenant decapitated and his family’s house burned down. All because he had been incompetent enough to let a fool like Alexei Sytsevich get away with twenty-five thousand American dollars.
He had come to expect competence from his “employees.” And when one comes along who thinks that he can steal from Nikolai learn quickly the consequences of committing such a blatant act of disrespect.
So when one of his subordinates comes along with information they are extremely wary.
“Sir?”
“What is it, Dmitri?” Nikolai asked from his chair at the head of his conference table in his office.
“It seems,” Dmitri began, “That we may have found a lead on Sytsevich.”
This immeidatley grabbed Nikolai’s attention.
“Where did you that fool?” he demanded, “Where is he hiding?”
“Sir, it appears that he hasn’t been hiding very well.”
At this, Dmitri handed Nikolai a set clipped newspapers. The clippings were from the Daily Bugle two days ago. The front page to be exact. The photography on the clippings caught Nikolai’s eye.
“So, Alexei has managed to procure a fancy little Rhino suit.” He pointed at the other figure in the photos, “Is that who I think it is?”
“Yes sir,” Dmitri responded, “That is the spider that has been busting our major drug deals.”
“Hmmmm,” Nikolai pondered this for a moment, “Has the Russian made it back to base yet?”
“No sir,” Dmitri replied, “Another vigilante popped up. Apparently the Russian is going to be in traction for some weeks.”
Nikolai slammed his fist on the mahogany table, “These ‘heroes’ are popping up like cockroaches! First that giant Iron Codpiece, then this Spider-man. Who’s next? A bird man?”
“No sir. Our FBI contacts give his name as Castle.”
“Well, he’s not our main concern right now.” His gaze on the photos increased his hatred of Alexei Sytsevich even further, “The Spider and that abominable fool of a thief ‘Rhino’ is. And since my best mercenary is hospitalized, it’s time we get a hunter on the scene,” he looked up at Dmitri, “Call Sergei.”
I hope you enjoyed this part! Keep an eye out for Part VII in the next few weeks! And here are the rest of my Fan Stories/Casts below:
MARVEL:
Spider-man Part I
Spider-man Part II
Spider-man Part III
Spider-man Part IV
Spider-man Part V
Secret War
The Initiative
Doctor Strange
DC:
Batman 3
Sound off in the comments!