V for Vanquish

This is inspired by an argument between a die-hard, infatuated fan of V and her Spider-Man-obsessed brother. (Don't get me wrong—I love Spider-Man, but V beats him, hands down, any day of the week.) One-shot of Spider-Man interfering with Norsefire. Takes place during the five-year break between Larkhill and the Fifth of November—sometime during the 1990s. I know that Spider-Man was a teenager in 1963, but I've made him a bit younger than he should be.

Warning: For the movie lovers: the comic book versions are used in this story! So if any facts don't seem right to you (such as Voice of Fate/Voice of London), it's probably because the movie people had to go and change it all.

Disclaimer: I am neither Stan Lee nor Alan Moore. And I'm obviously not Steve Ditko nor David Lloyd, seeing as how I can't draw. So don't sue!...please?

Something told me that not all was right in my world. Everything had to be perfect, but this nagging feeling refused to leave me alone. I tuned into the broadcasts of Commander Prothero, the "Voice of Fate", to see if he could tell me what was wrong. I honestly could not understand how people did not see through his flimsy façade. He was a fake! How on Earth could a computer speak? But Susan has done his job too well—the people of England swallow his lies like honey.

"…It's 9:45 and the skies will be clear tonight, except for the slight shower we will receive in precisely 24 minutes. And now for the news…

"America's civil war rages on. New York has recently been utterly destroyed. The few fugitives left attempt to flee, but as far as anybody knows, there is only one survivor. And the Leader himself has invited him to take cover in England! So if you see your friendly, now-neighborhood Spider-Man in the streets, call him Finger-Man instead, for he is the newest addition to the guard that keeps you safe—"

What trash! This was their newest gimmick? Invite, of all people, Spider-Man to England? No wonder I had a bad feeling! He would ruin everything for me! I knew that as soon as he arrived to England, he would have a special welcoming committee. The newest addition to the Finger could not possibly have an ally like that. It was too dangerous. But one thing I could not understand: Spider-Man had always been on the side of good? Or was it just that he was on the side of the most powerful government?

I donned the Guy Fawkes mask, the wig, the cloak, my hat, and most importantly, tucked my knives into my belt. I made sure I had my bag of tricks, and exited the Shadow Gallery swiftly. This problem could not wait another minute. Spider-Man must be vanquished if I am to prevail!

Under the cover of night, I slipped into the shadows, invisible to anyone's eyes, making my way to the top of a house. I slid down the roof and leapt gracefully onto another house's rooftop. In this fashion, it took much less time for me to reach the docks than for a normal person. I had a feeling he would arrive here (my feelings are usually correct), though ships were never allowed into the country. Neither were planes. England prevails, as they say, and is self-sufficient. Nothing different is allowed here, foreign influences especially.

I watched a small speedboat pull in. I was surprised by how fast Norsefire's fleet could go. It just goes to show where they put their money—instead of helping the country, they use it for their personal advantage. If I was correct, it had taken the boat just over fourteen hours to get from New York to here. Impressive.

An average-looking man thanked the captain, pulled his shabby coat tighter around himself, and stepped off the craft. A pretty redhead followed suit, but went in a different direction. I examined him; this had to be the infamous Spider-Man. He was in his forties, and graying a bit, but it was obvious that he was very physically fit and kept himself in perfect condition. He looked around suspiciously. I had heard of his "spider-senses", and wondered if I was showing up on his radar and piquing his interest.

Spider-Man slipped into an alleyway before slipping off his clothes. He trained his wrist on the bundle, wrapping it in his webbing, and hung his clothes from a nearby windowsill. "Now, to meet the Leader," I heard him mumble as he swung away. I slipped a tracer on the clothes, and then continued to follow him from a distance, watching and analyzing every move. It seemed to me that he had a utility belt of sorts, which he used to flash a silly-looking signal to scare people and warn him of his presence before interfering. Eventually, he entered the Norsefire headquarters to speak to Susan. I could not follow him in, for obvious reasons, but instead listened to the conversation, using the help of Fate herself, Susan's life and soul. Such a handy tool! I could never have asked for a better one. Unfortunately though, there was nothing of substance in their conversation, only formalities and tools handed over, such as a special communicator.

I returned to the Shadow Gallery to formulate a plan. From what I had seen, Spider-Man was the most agile, the fastest, and the strongest person I would ever meet. He also had that webbing of his, enabling him to swing around, and the spider-sense, which would allow him to dodge almost any attack. And whenever he ran out of webbing, he had all those extra cartridges. First, I would have to run him out of webbing to even the playing field a bit…

The next night, I was sure that I was ready for this showdown between myself and this upstart who decided he could take over the streets of London. I tucked a violet carson into my cloak as well this night right before I left. My garden was the only one to have these anymore, and I was taking a giant risk, but I doubted the government would be able to trace it, not to mention the public humiliation that would come with the death of their precious Spider-Man. I doubted that Norsefire would let anybody know that it had even happened. They would allow the public to think that Spider-Man still plagued London, and everybody would be too afraid to leave their houses to figure out the truth.

But no, I was getting ahead of myself. I had to stay on track. I followed my tracer to Spider-Man's home. I was glad—I had thought it would take me there. Here, I could wait for his return from his nighttime romp. I settled comfortably into an armchair, and turned on the television, flipping idly through the channels, but there was nothing except for Norsefire propaganda, channel after channel. I settled on the ridiculously biased news anyway, turning up the volume to disguise any noises that might happen accidentally.

Finally, he came back home at four in the morning. I was prepared for him: as soon as he stepped into the darkened luxury apartment, I had a hand over his mouth and a dagger to his neck. "Don't move or make a sound, or it will be exceedingly painful for you," I said, "as well as that girl sleeping in the next room. What's her name? Ah, yes…Mary Jane Parker, right?" He flinched visibly. "I see that name means something to you. Mary Jane." I savored the name, saying it slowly.

"Leave her out of this," he dared to breathe. "She has nothing to do with you, or me."

"Lie," I said simply. "She has everything to do with you. The only question is—which of you should suffer more?" I hadn't realized that Spider-Man possessed such a colorful vocabulary until then. Oh well; that's what happens when you run around with the wrong crowds for far too long. I laughed at his pathetic attempts to fight back, reminding him with a small nudge of the knife at his neck.

"What do you want?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at me. "I'm listening."

"For you to stop meddling. But there's only one way for that to happen—and that is to kill you, most unfortunately. You should have stayed in America, Peter, and kept your Mary Jane there, too. It's your fault she'll die tonight!"

His eyes widened in shock. "How do you know who I am? Who are you?"

"View your vanquisher, valiant villain!" I replied, with a brandishing of a knife. I released my chokehold of him, and he spun out quickly.

"There's your first mistake!" he crowed. "Letting me go!"

"You're wrong."

I lunged forward, and he twisted out of the way, like I expected. Then, again according to plan, he shot out some of that ingenious webbing of his. I twisted out of the way as well, letting him shoot as much as he wanted. Being that he had been out all night, he was already low on web fluid, and it was only a matter of time until he completely ran out. The stress and fear had his thinking clouded, and I knew that he would not realize that his webbing was gone until he had no more left. He would not bother to conserve in his anger. All I had to do was wait, and put all my practice dodging swords to good use.

"Tired yet?" taunted Peter. I ask you, what sort of name is Peter for a so-called superhero?

"Not nearly as much as you'll be, old man," I said calmly, spinning out of the way again. "What's wrong? Are you getting slow in your old age?"

"Shut up!"

I maneuvered the fight into the bedroom, where Mary Jane was still sleeping. The TV still blared, masking all noise, and I was surprised at how deep a sleeper this girl was. I back-flipped over the bed, and Peter tried to follow me, until I had a knife at her throat this time.

Finally, the girl woke up. "Peter? What's going on?" she asked groggily. He froze, looking between her and me. Should he go for it and risk me killing his love? Or wait for me to kill her anyway?

"I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your Peter has made his last wrong move," I said to her. "He should never have interfered. Why did you not convince him to stay in America? At least you know what's over there. Here, you have no idea." I placed the violet carson on her chest, and folded her hands over it. "Poor girl. This is none of your fault." I spoke truthfully; I felt remorse at having to kill her as well, but she would have to blame it on Peter, if she ever saw him again. "Goodbye. Any last words, either of you?" Peter shook his head mutely. I glanced at Mary Jane in surprise—she had a content smile on her face, as if she had already been killed, or as if she had fallen asleep again. I injected her quickly, not feeling the need to draw it out any longer.

Peter lunged at me, releasing some kind of deranged, strangled scream. "How dare you! You…" I refuse to repeat the rest of what he said—none of it was appropriate for even someone of my own age. "I'll kill you!"

"No, you won't," I said, keeping my calm as I deflected his crazy blows. He attempted to fire some of his webbing at me, but then he realized that he had run out. He swore again. "Tut, tut. You must have had a bad upbringing to be speaking like that. Didn't your mother ever teach you that swearing is bad?"

"Not Aunt May too! First MJ, then Aunt May!" He attacked me again, swinging wildly. Now I was simply drawing it out, enjoying it. I had no clue what he was speaking of, but I didn't care. Here was an amusing fighter that I would easily be able to finish off.

"Let's take this outside, shall we?" I asked him, but before he could reply with a new string of cusses, I dropped out the window.

He leapt out after me, and I grabbed the windowsill, using it to swing myself up onto the rooftop. Peter scurried up the wall, and managed to seize my ankle. "You're not getting away from me!" he shouted. "I'll kill you!"

A neighbor poked his head out to see the commotion, but all he could see were blurs of red, blue, and black. His wrist was still insistently fastened onto my ankle. I knew that I could not move, nor shake him off—he was too strong, so I did the only thing I could: I brought the knife down decisively, slicing his hand cleanly off. He screamed, flailing and falling. Now I grabbed his other hand, beginning to tire of the fun. It was beginning to make me feel a little bit bad for the man. He hadn't known what he was getting in the middle of. All he wanted was a safe haven for him and his lady. It was too bad for him that he came to the wrong place.

His bright blue eyes glared at me, delirious and furious. He tried to lash out, and I wondered how in the world he had ever done well in a fight. In truth, I was disappointed. I had wanted a greater challenge, but it was not so. Instead, I had ended up with a tired, crazy opponent. Disgusted, I plunged the knife directly into the middle of the spider on his chest. He screamed again, but it was shorter this time.

How was he not dead yet? I did not have time for this—soon, the Ear and the Eye would be back up in working condition, and detect me. My methods were not permanent, and I had to get going before was caught.

I simply opened my hand, letting go of the hand I held. His eyes widened again as he realized what I had done, and he let out a long, depraved wail as he kept falling, falling down to his death. He landed with a sickening crack, and I turned back for the Shadow Gallery. My work here was done.