Hello friends! I am back with another story, and I hope you enjoy it! Like I said in the synopsis, this story contains several one-shot chapters, each one being wrapped up by the end of the chapter. I'm not going to say much, but I will say this: If you are interested in reading the sequel to The Friend of My Enemy, you don't necessarily HAVE to read these, but it would probably not be a bad idea...

Peter fell through the sky, waiting until the very last moment to sling a web at a cell phone tower, pulling himself back into the sky before he collided with the pavement. Moving one arm over the other as he swung from building to building, he let out a soft sigh of contentment. Nothing helped him feel more free than when he was being Spider-Man, flying through the air on his webs. Suddenly, he heard a cry of alarm from the street below him. Peter glanced down to see what the commotion was and where it was coming from, and after a few moments he finally spotted the source of the yell. A girl was running away from a group of three boys who were chasing her down an alley.

"Here we go," Peter said to himself, changing direction and dropping out of the sky, landing in a beautifully executed crouch between the girl and her pursuers. He straightened up from the crouch he was in, staring at the men in front of him.

"Hey guys," he greeted. The three men stopped in their tracks, staring at him with frustration and confusion.

"Get outta here," one of them growled, advancing on Peter and pulling out a knife.

The high schooler rolled his eyes and sighed. "Really?" he asked in a disappointed tone. His disappointment didn't do anything to stop the advancing attacker though, so before anyone could hardly blink, Peter extended his arm and fired a web. The sticky material found it's mark, and Peter yanked the weapon out of the would-be attacker's hand.

With a smile on his face, Peter listened to the men let out surprised exclamations, sparing a moment to glance behind him; he was glad to see that the girl had exited the alley. While his attention was drawn elsewhere, one of the men decided he was going to take care of the Spider, and he took a swing, trying to land a punch on the back of the hero's head. Peter's spidey senses alerted him that something was coming up behind him, and he somersaulted away from the hit with ease. When he stood back up and turned back around, he noticed that all three attackers looked more than a little perturbed.

"Come on guys, we can take him," one of them said. "There're three of us and only one of him!"

"Look at that, you guys know how to count!" Peter praised, clapping his hands as he hopped up and sat against the side of the wall. "And they say the school system is failing."

The men growled out different threats as they each took turns jumping, trying to reach the hero, but each time they fell just out of reach. Peter chuckled; he could have watched them all day, but he knew it was time to wrap things up. Other people were out on the streets, and they needed help from their friendly, neighborhood Spider-Man just as much as the girl had.

"Listen guys, I'd love to stay and chat, but whaddya say we just all agree that you're gonna leave that poor, nice girl alone," he requested, firing a web at each of the men's feet, making them trip over each other and themselves. As they fell to the ground, each of them let out a cry of surprise and frustration, and try though they did to get away, they were each firmly stuck to the cement. "I appreciate your cooperation!" Peter called out as he climbed up the wall, leaving the three squirming men behind him, yelling insults at the web head as he swung away.

"I've alerted the authorities to their location," Karen chipped in a moment later.

"Thanks, Karen."

The next several minutes consisted of Peter climbing along the walls of different buildings and swinging through the streets, pausing to wave at the crowds below that always gathered when he was around. Suddenly from just a few blocks ahead, he heard a large crash, followed by the sound of car alarms going off. Peter followed the sounds of mayhem, trailing after the line of crushed cars like they were breadcrumbs, and when he turned a corner, he finally found the source of the commotion.

"Doc Ock," Peter muttered to himself as he saw the multiple-armed scientist making his way through the streets, his metal arms helping hold himself above the ground and walk on top of the cars.

Peter had run into Otto Octavius before, and he remembered how strong the man's mechanical arms were. They had almost squeezed the life out of the high schooler, and the only reason he'd gotten away was because there had been a glitch in the chip that the doctor implanted at the base of his brain stem that allowed him to control his extra limbs. Along with that, Peter didn't think that the doc knew just how strong his extra limbs actually were.

Otto Octavius becoming Doc Ock was thanks to a tragic accident in his lab. While using specially-designed robotic limbs as his "lab assistants" that he controlled with a brain-interface chip, the doctor had been working with radiation and different methods of fusing things together. The experiment had gone south though; the machines being used had overheated and exploded. One of the after-effects of the explosion was the permanent bonding of the robotic limbs to Otto's spine.

The doctor had been taken to a hospital to have his injuries treated and to try and see if the limbs could be removed, but before they could try anything, Octavius had woken up. In what almost had seemed like a fugue state, he'd taken the floor of the hospital he was on hostage, yelling about how he needed the funds to get back to work. He was planning on using the patients as leverage, but thankfully before any of the occupants of the floor were injured, Spider-Man had shown up. Unfortunately, Peter made the mistake of underestimating the doctor, and after being thrown around and getting his ribs crushed by the metallic arms, Peter had been thrown against a nearby wall, stunning the teenager. By the time he'd come to his senses, the six-armed man had disappeared.

Peter had the sneaking suspicion that if Ock hadn't known how powerful his robotic limbs were before, he most certainly did now. The scientist was using the limbs to pick up and move obstacles out of his way with little-to-no effort whatsoever. Suddenly, Spider-Man's eyes widened as he realized Octavius wasn't using all of his metal limbs to move objects. One of the arms was carrying someone. The girl was struggling, trying to pry Ock's claws away from her midsection, but Peter knew she wasn't going to have any luck.

Knowing he had to stop Doc Ock before the girl got hurt, Peter chased after the scientist with more vigor than before. As Octavius disappeared around a corner, Peter was only seconds behind him; he swung around the corner as well, positive that he was going to catch up with the scientist before he could get away.

"Hold on, Octav-"

Peter's order was cut off as he was smacked across the alley he'd entered with a long piece of metal. It took Peter a second to realize that what hit him was one of Octavius' metal arms. He was smacked into the wall and left seeing stars, his head ringing. Through the bells clanging in his head, Peter was still able to hear the doctor start speaking to him in a condescending tone.

"Spider-Man," the scientist sneered. "I had a feeling you would show up. Looks like I was right."

Peter pushed himself to his feet, though his head was pounding. "Let the girl go," he ordered, trying to sound authoritative. He looked up at the other captive, realizing she didn't look much older than he was; she was probably no more than a senior in high school.

"I think not," Octavius said, glancing over at his female captive. "Her mother is the reason this happened to me," Octavius said.

"What do you mean?" Peter asked as he shook his head, still trying to clear the spots away from his vision. Shaking his head was a bad idea though; he became dizzy, and immediately stopped the motion, deciding he wasn't doing that again for a while. He tried to move, but his balance wasn't back yet, and he began falling to the side. Something cold and heavy caught him and pinned him against the wall. Peter glanced down and saw another one of Doc Ock's arms wrapping around his middle, and his breathing began getting faster as the limb began constricting. It wasn't tight enough to hinder or stop his breathing yet, but it was uncomfortable.

"Her mother was the one who initially provided the money for my experiments, but when she deemed them 'too frivolous' and 'not worth her investment,' she pulled the plug. I was reduced to using inferior equipment; that was why the machines malfunctioned and exploded, leaving me a hideous beast."

"And why couldn't you have just gone to someone else for money? I'm sure there are other rich people out there who would've funded you. Why try and work with 'inferior equipment' instead of finding someone else to bankroll you?"

Ock opened his mouth to explain himself further, but Peter shook his head. "Wait, wait, wait," he said as the villain began speaking. "I take that question back. I don't want to know."

"You don't?"

Peter shook his head slowly, trying to avoid getting dizzy again while he tried to buy himself a little more time. He fiddled with a few buttons on his web shooters, trying to avoid pulling the doc's attention to his wrists. "If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a villain monologue. They just go on and on and on, and you guys all think you're going to get away with every single thing you say you will, but you don't realize that while you've been monologuing, the hero has found his opportunity to escape."

"You think you will be getting away from me?" Octavius asked with a sneer and a cruel chuckle as his arm lifted Spider-Man off the wall and began increasing the pressure on his midsection.

"Pretty...sure…" Peter panted as the arm continued to squeeze, squeezing the high schooler's torso, forcefully expelling any air inside Spider-Man's lungs. While Doc Ock laughed at his opponent's petty-sounding comeback, Peter seized his opportunity and fired a web, sticking the strand on one of the metal arms that wasn't holding a person, activating the taser web and sending electricity coursing through the sticky material.

Otto grunted in surprise and pain as he felt the shocking sensation run up the metal limb, and reflexively he dropped Peter to the ground. Peter heard a scream from above, and he immediately dove underneath the girl, catching her as she was released as well. Peter set her down on the ground and pointed towards the opening of the alley. "Run," he instructed. Without a word argument or a moment of hesitation, the girl turned and ran away.

"No!" Octavius yelled, trying to rush after the escaping girl. Before the scientist took three steps though, Peter fired a web at the man's back, yanking hard enough to stop Ock's progression. With a growl, Octavius turned around, facing Spider-Man again. "Fine," he said with a huff. "I can always get little Miss Hardy later. Right now I guess I need to take care of you."

Peter scurried out of the way of the flailing limbs as they crashed around the high schooler; Doc Ock was trying his hardest to squash the meddlesome spider, but Peter managed to avoid the attacks. "Hey, Doc," Peter called out from where he was landed, which was right behind the scientist. He leapt out of the way as Octavius turned around, impaling his swinging metal limbs where Peter had been moments before. "You really gotta work on your sense of style. I heard they're gonna start charging bad guys for the amount of pain they cause their victims who are forced to have to look at them longer than two minutes."

Octavius growled and continued trying to skewer Spider-Man, who kept jumping out of the way at the last moment, angering the doctor. "Seriously," Peter continued. "I hear there's a fifty dollar charge for bowlcuts alone!"

"Do you ever stop talking?" Octavius growled as he continued to try and squash Spider-Man.

"No, not really," Peter confessed. He felt one arm coming at him from behind, but when he jumped and twisted out of the way, his senses screamed at him that there was something else coming, but though he tried to avoid it, one of Otto's other arms smacked into the teenager, throwing the young man into the wall once more. Peter grunted as he collided with the brick, but he was soon removed from the wall as the arm snaked around his neck and lifted him into the air, bringing him face-to-face with the mad scientist.

"Okay, okay, your hair is fine!" Peter gasped as he tried to get his fingers underneath the metal, fighting to get the pressure off his trachea, though he knew it was a futile effort. Otto's robotic arms were stronger than him any day, and Peter knew the only way to defeat the Doc was to outsmart him.

He tried firing another taser web at one of the limbs, but Doc Ock simply laughed. He had anticipated the attack and moved his arm out of the way when he saw Peter preparing to fire. "Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice…" Otto gibed.

"Shame on you again," Peter choked out. He fired another taser web, this time aiming at the Doc Ock's chest. The electricity coursed through the web, and Ock froze in place, his eyes going wide as he felt the taser's effect. Once again, the arm holding Peter was loosened, and the young man fell to the ground. He tried to land in a crouch, but his coughing fit made it difficult to balance, so instead he landed on his butt.

Knowing he didn't have a moment to waste, Peter began webbing any and every single part of the mad scientist that he could. He stuck the man's feet to the floor, and when two metal limbs came towards him, he lunged out of the way at the last second, firing and sticking the arms together. He knew the amount webbing he'd used on the arms wouldn't hold them for more than a few seconds, so he began jumping around on the wall, trying to get the different arms to jab at him; when they did, he would hop out of the way and let them impale themselves deeply in the wall, where he would then fire a continuous stream of webbing until he was satisfied they would be stuck for at least a few minutes.

He was able to do that to three of the arms, but the fourth one refused to cooperate. It continued to wave around, escaping each webbing attempt that Peter tried; as he glanced around, Spider-Man could see that the other limbs were beginning to break through the webs that he had sticking them to the walls. Thinking fast, he did the only thing he could think of; he ran forward and jumped, kicking his feet right into the scientist's face.

The scientist collapsed to the ground, unconscious. The metal limbs stilled as the man controlling them lost consciousness, and Peter let out a sigh of relief. "Why didn't I do that earlier?" he asked himself exasperatedly. "Sorry," he added to the inert Octavius. Peter heard men yelling as he webbed Ock's hands together. As he stood up and turned around, Spider-Man saluted the men in blue as the cops hurried towards him. "It's all good," he assured them. "He's just knocked out."

The cops didn't say much to the hero, though he was used to it. They didn't quite like the fact that heroes and vigilantes were suddenly getting so much attention; they claimed it was taking away the jobs of the cops who worked hard to get where they were, though that wasn't Peter's intention at all. He merely wanted to work with the cops, which to him meant stopping crime when he saw it, and leaving the cops to do the arrest.

"Catch you guys later," Peter said as he took off, webbing a nearby building and pulling himself into the air. As he exited the alley, he looked down and saw the girl he'd rescued standing next to a blonde woman who looked quite similar to the girl, and Peter assumed that it was the her mother. He dropped down next to them.

"Hey," he greeted. "You doin' okay?" he asked, looking at the young woman. She nodded and wiped a tear away from her cheek.

"Yeah," she replied. "Yeah, I'm good. Thanks to you," she added, blushing slightly.

"Nah, wasn't anything," Peter said, waving his hand nonchalantly. "All in a day's work, Miss…"

"Felicia," the girl introduced with a small smile. "Felicia Hardy."

"It's nice to meet you, officially," Peter replied.

"Thank you for saving my daughter, Spider-Man," the older woman replied, holding her daughter closer to her chest. Felicia's mother had a stern looking face, and her blonde hair was pulled back into a tight bun, adding to the 'don't mess with me' look she had going on.

"I was just doing what any decent person would have done, ma'am," Peter said.

"Well, I appreciate it. Please, let us know if there's anything that we can ever do for you."

"I will. You two have a good day now," he said as he leapt towards a building. "Try to avoid any more mad scientists if you can help it," he called back to them jokingly.

After a few minutes of swinging through the city, a cry for help sounded from below him, and Peter sighed. "Welcome to the city that never sleeps," he muttered, diving down towards the sound of the new commotion.

0-0-0

"You sure he'll be secure here?" the mayor asked as she stared in at Otto Octavius. The man had been placed on a bench in the center of a large room in the prison, and each of his robotic arms had been stretched out to their fullest extent before being bolted into the wall.

"Trust me," the warden said as he led the mayor away. "He's not going anywhere."

Otto Octavius sat in his cell, seething as the jailor and mayor walked away. As soon as he could, he was going to get out of his cell, and he was going to make Spider-Man wish he'd never interfered.

So there is the first villain down. What did you guys think?