CHAPTER ONE

Dick Grayson beamed as he drove into Gotham City with a beautiful girl by his side in his bright red sports car. Her long blonde hair was in the breeze as he drove by the city hall and then pulled to a stop outside the bank. He grinned at the beautiful girl with him and tried to be gentleman enough not to stare at the front of her tight sweater. Her big blue eyes looked back at him as he lightly grinned humbly enough to impress her.

"Joy," He started. "I just got to dash in a second to get some cash. It'll only take a second."

"Take all the time you want, Dicky." She giggled sort of annoyingly, but Dick had wanted to date her for some time and after she'd finally accepted, he couldn't back out now. He turned and entered the back. There were a few busy windows, but he just moved to the shortest one and waited behind a man wearing glasses and an overcoat. The lady at the front of the line deposited her cash as the heavily covered figure moved up ahead of Dick. Dick whistled a bit as he hoped the old guy in the glasses didn't take too long.

"Yes sir," The cashier looked up. "How can I help you?"

"Yes, I'd like to make a withdraw."

"From which account?"

"How about all of them?" The man grinned as two long metallic tentacles dashed out from under his coat. Dick was knocked to the floor as the man stood up on two more metallic tentacles extending down from his coat and threw off his overcoat in the aftermath. Clad in a green button-over lab suit, he grinned sadistically as his clawed tentacles gripped the door to the bank safe and began ripping it out of the wall. The other bank customers were screaming as the tentacled madman ripped the door off and tossed it aside to loot its interior.

"Holy Octopus Men!" Dick blurted out.

"That's right, boy!" The many-armed menace grinned. "The name's Doctor Octopus! Remember it well!" He swatted at two guards at once with one tentacle and little effort. He collected his several bags of cash with his long steel arms working effortlessly together and started carrying it out as Joy had left the car outside to see what was happening. She screamed as loud as she could as one long arm flitted through the front of the bank and lifted her off her feet.

"Joy!" Dick hurried to his feet. "No!" He ran out as one police car in the area was already on the scene. Another one was quickly approaching as Dr. Octopus lifted the first one up with one of his longer arms and tossed it at the second one. His bottom tentacles lifted his body high up the ground and his female hostage even higher as he waved his fist at the
police.

"Ha," He laughed. "Is this the best you Gotham City Police, can do!" An unexpected quick iron wire quickly anchored the doctor's free tentacle to the pavement. He turned his head as the city's Dark Knight protector dived quickly for Joy in his clutches, grabbed her and dropped to the confused traffic stopped street. The costumed crime fighter was reaching for another weapon as Joy rushed to the safety of her date.

"Batman!" Octopus yelled. "Just who do you think you're fooling with? I'm not some pathetic punk like the Riddler. I can break you in half, you weak Captain America clone!" He ripped his trapped tentacle free and swung the attached concrete broken loose at the caped crusader still trying to throw his batarang. Police Chief O'Hara watched in shock as he saw for the first time the Batman knocked off his feet and thrown the length of the block.

"Batman!" Dick screamed as if he knew the caped hero personally. Doctor Octopus grinned ear to ear clutched the money he had stolen in his normal arms as he lifted himself over the heads of the police and strided unfazed down through the alley way next door. The citizens of the city and drivers of the fair metropolis stopped their cars and watched in disbelief as they saw the Batman pull himself up hurt and bruised and stumble just a bit. Over their heads walking on four fully extended articulated metallic arms, the physicist formerly known as Dr. Otto Octavius moved over them barely concerned with the gunfire deflecting off his arms. He was definitely something new to Gotham City, but with him here, had the Batman finally met his match?

CHAPTER TWO

It wasn't that hard for Dick Grayson to shake Joy. After her experience, she was no longer concerned with dating any rich millionaire's ward and just wanted to be returned home anyway. After dropping her off, Dick returned as fast as he could drive back to Wayne Manor on the city limits and headed straight through the study. He pulled the head back on the bust of Shakespeare on the desk, flicked the concealed switch inside and was down his marked bat pole behind the sliding bookcase in an instant. He landed the five hundred feet under Wayne Manor carrying his costume from its place at the poles while Alfred tended to the wounds on his master.

"Yeow, Alfred, that smarts." Bruce squirmed bare-chested and stripped to the waist down with his costume peeled down to his waist. Numerous bandages covered the black and blue marks across his back.

"I imagine,'" Alfred mused. "This rather reminds me of the time you slipped and fell down the steps to Wayne Manor after your father told you that the grounds was no place for a skateboard."

"Bruce," Dick hastened over pulling on his mask as Robin the Boy Wonder. "Are you okay?"

"Bruised, tarnished..." Bruce stood up with a crick in his neck. "Mostly in my self-esteem."

"And much lower than that." Alfred answered.

"But what is Doctor Otto Octavius doing in Gotham City?" Robin asked as they stood above the crime computer. "I thought he largely terrorized further south in Manhattan."

"I can answer that..." Bruce took a brand new top for his bat-suit and was pulling it on as he worked the unlabeled switches on his computer. "Wayne Enterprises recently got a memo from the United States Government warning them of certain computer parts and illegal weapons being sold clandestinely in the United States. Potentially threatening equipment was
stolen from unknown terrorist agencies that Octavius must be collecting money to buy. He is a scientist."

"Holy Illegal Weapon Tampering!"

"Exactly..."

"Excuse me for butting in, sir." Alfred interceded with the accent of a proper British gentleman and turned with Bruce's extra cape and cowl. "But two problems: this Doctor Octopus is obviously too dangerous for your exceptional merits. Might you perhaps call in for assistance? Your friends in the League, perhaps? Those Avengers?"

"If I can't handle one criminal, Alfred, I don't deserve to go out in this cape and cowl." Bruce looked out as he shed his mask of Bruce Wayne and resumed his true identity and became the Dark-Knight Detective once more. "On my parent's graves, I swore to protect the innocent and never let evil rule this city."

"The Bat-electronic inhibitor." Robin held up a small device. "It will turn off the signals Octavius transmits into his arms."

"What was your other question, Alfred?" Batman asked.

"How are you going to find where the stolen technology is being sold?"

"That..." Batman realized his computers only had data on his regular rogues gallery of foes. "Is a very good question..."

CHAPTER THREE

The ordeal with Scourge had affected Barbara Gordon's demeanor in her identity as the Batgirl and it was evident by her changes to her costume. The violet in her costume had been changed to dark gray, almost black and the yellow was now a pale ivory white as she rarely stayed home. Her neighbor's cat had eaten her bird Charlie and now she was patrolling the heights of the city and jumping from rooftop to rooftop with her big black cape flapping behind her. Pedestrians and motorists who saw her fleeting image over the city didn't realize it was she and instead wondered if a third much more darker and shapely beauty was now haunting the city. She stopped and looked back over the city for a moment as she saw the Bat-mobile's distinct shape shooting through the traffic from several blocks away.

Growing quite adept with the gear she had taken from the Scourge, she shot a line across the wide city street to city hall and then landed on the roof of her father's office. Commissioner James Gordon listening to her scurrying across and passed it off as she jumped an alley, scampered across the ledge over the neighboring building with the grace of a dancer then saw the Bat-mobile parked closer up near the midtown Penthouse Towers. She shot her line to one of its gargoyles and then allowed the recoil pull her up to the top. She stopped and leaned back grinning as Batman and Robin pulled themselves up the hard way to meet her.

"What took you guys?" She asked. "I had time to do my hair..."

"Holy Timing!" Robin cried out as Batman looked surprised. "How did you know about this place?"

"I have as about as many secrets as you two." Batgirl liked being able to show them up even at the expense of her ego. "The question is, how did you two know?"

"Every apartment in the city is legitimately booked and owned by private individuals." Batman walked the high ledge twenty stories off the ground as effortlessly as if it were a simple path. "Our Batcave computer revealed that this apartment is owned by a corporation with numerous ties to the underworld and terrorist activities."

"It would be a perfect front for the sort of high-ranking criminals and terrorists hoping to buy, sell or trade stolen arms." Robin paused as Batman dropped eight feet to a balcony. He took the opposite side as Batgirl peeked around Robin on the side across from him. Robin sneaked a look at her figure in her new costume and hoped he didn't catch her admiring her figure.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen..." A German voice came from inside the penthouse suite they were keeping under surveillance. "My name is Ludwig Konrad Siegfried, and this is my comrade, Hans Johann Schtarker, you may applaud if you like..."

A few of the assorted men clapped. Some of them were dressed in the attire they were comfortable with. The Asian terrorist were in black suits with white ties, the South American rebels and mercenaries were in fatigues and uniforms, a few others like Dr. Octopus were clad in heavy overcoats or long military jackets.

"Today..." Siegfried looked over the room. "I offer you my brothers in arms some weapons I stole... I mean, liberated... from Hydra in order to raise money for KAOS, a short sweet men's club that loves you all. Not like those schnooks at Hydra who shoot you in your sleep..."

"What about Agent Orange last week, Siegfried." Schtarker spoke up as Siegfried made a face. "He was asleep when you..."

"Shut your mouth, you addle-brained dumkopf!" Siegfried drowned him out and turned back to his guests. "Now, shall we start the bidding at fifty thousand?" Everyone started screaming their prices in their native currencies as Schtarker tried to keep up with the rates of the currency being bandied about. Dr. Octopus just watched the meanderings as he slightly revealed his tentacles under his coat as he pulled out a briefcase. He slammed it down to get everyone's attention.

"Fifty million dollars, all in genuine American currency," He grinned as he popped the briefcase open. "This is one part, the directions to the rest are on the bottom. Do we have a deal?"

"Give that man a receipt!" Siegfried yelled. "So good to be doing business with you."

"No," One of the Asian terrorists screamed as his men pulled out numbchuks and shuriken. "I am authorized to bid five billion..."

Batman and his partners backed to the exterior walls of the building as five Asian terrorists met the wrong end of Octavius's tentacles. The glass doors shattered as they were flung off the balcony as just so much trash. Batman listened to the screams on the street below and the traffic crashing under the falling bodies as his made his presence known.

"The only place that money is going is back to the good people you stole it from!" He sounded a bit pompous as he stood his ground.

"And you're going back to jail!" Robin added as Batgirl slightly distracted him with her stance.

"Batman!" Siegfried and Doc Ock yelled as weapons were being pulled out. The caped crusader began pulling out his Bat-electronic inhibitor to use against the tentacles of the costumed menace as Octopus grabbed it first and crushed it in the pincers on his arm.

"You think you're the first person to try that!" His other three arms jerked up the terrific trio and threw them as hard as rag dolls against the far wall the full distance of the room. "You think you're fooling with some idiot like the Joker!"

"Give that man an application to KAOS." Siegfried whispered to Schtarker. He turned back as the other mercenaries and guerillas in the room held their weapons at the ready. Octopus was had already dragged the delirious heroes by their feet to the balcony and was now holding them out in open space ten feet outside the room. Robin was flailing to reach Batman as Batgirl tried to think through her swimmy head for a plan.

"Now," Octopus grinned triumphantly. "For the one thing that the Penguin and Egghead could never do, the deaths of the heroes of Gotham." He then let them go as Batman's eyes went wide and he tried to grab Robin and Batgirl to save their lives before his. They dropped several dozen feet in just a few seconds, but in that same scant fraction of time, two spidery webs shot down, grabbed them from a hideous fate and bungee bounced them back up to the ledge. On another web, an unearthly thin figure in dark blue and crimson lowered itself upside down and looked back to his for long nemesis with two large shining white eyes.

"It is a small world after all." He replied.

"Spiderman!"

"It's that masked wall crawler!" Siegfried screamed. "Schtarker, my laser cannon!"

"I didn't bring it."

"You tell me this now?"

Batgirl grabbed the balcony and reached for Robin as Batman wearily and very bruised tried to stand. His vision was barely back as he heard gun fire going off in the penthouse, Octopus screaming his head off and the odd sounds of huge spider webs flying everywhere. Siegfried cursed once and again several times trying to shoot the damned costumed hero fleeting around too fast over their heads with quick liquid movements and was quieted as Batman stood his ground before the wall crawler and the seventeen figures glued to the walls in thick dried liquid nylon webbing. Batgirl stood impressed as she pulled her partially loosened cowl on.

"What are you doing in Gotham?" Batman asked Spiderman. He'd heard of him and kept a file on him, but never expected to encounter him.

"Oh," Spiderman crossed his arms. "Business trip. Recognized Octopus on the street and came running..."

"Octopus!" Robin straightened his eyeholes on his mask. "Where'd he go!"

"He grabbed a crate, the loot and vanished down the elevator." The wall-crawler admitted. "Was it anything important?"

CHAPTER FOUR

Strange lights flickered from the abandoned warehouse near the wharf. Many denizens of Gotham City thought they had another haunted site in the city as Doctor Octopus worked alone in the nearly squalid surroundings stripping the stolen Hydra technology for his own invention. A large magnifying glass increased the accuracy of his precision connections as he built a device that was going to revolutionize movement on the planet. His human fingers working in tandem with his metallic arms expedited his progress as his electronic masterpiece reached fruition.

"Must thank those KAOS boys for stealing this for me." Octopus talked to himself. "Next to Japan, Hydra has the best spare parts..." He continued wielding and connecting new circuit boards no larger than a quarter and power packs with enough power to light a city. His work was slow and precise as out the corner of his eyes he saw the light bouncing off the buttons of his jacket. Among the buttons, something else flickered. He looked up as one his arms extended, grabbed the small flickering piece of metal on his overcoat and held it up close to his near-sighted eyes. It was a tiny spider shaped sliver of metal with a microchip attached.

"A Spider Tracer!" His tentacle crushed it in its pincers.

There was a crash as Octopus turned round then looked straight up to the rusted warehouse rafters. It was the Batman again and his crime fighting allies with his old sparring partner, Spiderman dropping down over him. He gritted his teeth as the repaired object in Batgirl's hands caused his tentacles to lose power and fall lifeless. The quintessential quartet landed with a flourish from the ceiling as Batman stepped forward.

"Octopus," He yelled with the ego of a campy Hollywood actor. "As a fully-deputized agent of the law, I hereby order you to give yourself up!"

"Does he always say that?" Spiderman turned to Batgirl.

"Almost always." She answered.

"You think you have my tentacles to worry about?" Octopus stepped back dragging his useless arms and grabbed a small remote control device. He flicked it on as Spiderman's senses tingled. The wall crawler jumped as separate tentacles shot out from other wise inconspicuous barrels and boxes and reared up the dynamic duo.

"Holy...constriction, Batman!" Robin called out.

"Nice try, Doc Ock." Spiderman clenched his fist and shot a web. He made contact with his nemesis's remote control and jerked it away just as his danger sense warned him again. Octopus's arms returned to life with a fury and began reaching for him.

"Spiderman, look out!" Batman yelled to warn him. He turned to see why Batgirl had turned off his inhibitor and saw her laying unconscious on the floor of the warehouse. Over her, a figure with white skin, green hair and garish purple clothes stood laughing with the inhibitor in hand.

"Joker!" Robin recognized him. "What are you doing here!"

"Someone called me an idiot." The clown prince of crime laughed and cajoled as a childish madman with a new toy as he switched the device on and off to teach Octopus and Spiderman a lesson. The wall-crawler was jumping around the fighting and failing limbs and firing webs trying to contain them. Batman was still fighting the other tentacles coming from out of the crate next to him holding him and reached for his batarang, but as the Octopus's arms kicked back on, the criminal scientist reached out and grabbed the batarang out of the air with one of his metal tentacles. Batman looked up and saw Spiderman at Octopus's mercy squeezing the life out of the wall crawler.

"A partnership, Joker..." Octopus yelled. "And we can finally see the death of our much hated foes!"

"I'll drink to that!" The Joker laughed at the sound of the promise.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Batman tilted his head and looked down as the Joker cranked himself, Robin, Spiderman and Batgirl over Dr. Octopus's creation. Stripped of his utility belt, he hung upside down trying to get an idea as his chest was pressed to Robin. Both of them were still a bit delirious because of the beating they had taken. Spiderman was pressed chest to chest with Batgirl and as little use to him as possible.

"But Aunt May, I don't want to go to school," Spiderman mumbled in his delirium. "Flash keeps flushing my head down the toilet..."

"Spiderman, snap out of it." Batman called to him. "We need you conscious..."

"Keep quiet, you crime-fighting nincompoops." The Joker snapped at them while the heroes seemed to be hung over a huge empty ring. Dr. Octopus changed a few circuits and checked some calculations as his electronically charged ring emanated with electro-magnetic energy and then became charged with more energy as the floor vanished beneath it. It seemed to become some doorway to another dimension.

"Holy cliffhanger, Batman!" Robin cried out as Batgirl gasped and struggled to free herself, but she had been upside down for so long her head was about to burst.

"What does this do, Octopus?" The Joker looked to his new partner.

"Very simple, you white-faced baboon." Octopus glowed in the presence of his creation. "I have created a molecular transporter. It can turn our molecules into energy and transport us anywhere and back from anywhere into the world. Think of it, we can enter vaults and banks anywhere unseen and get away unseen and uncaught before anyone knows a crime has been done. It's a virtual transportation device."

"Wonderful..." The Joker cackled his ghoulish laughter. "We'll send these heroes and all like them to the moon!"

"Even better..." Octopus beamed sadistically. "I'll send their molecules on a massive molecular dispersal and beam their molecules from eternity and back. No amount of glue in the world will ever put them back together them."

"That's cold-blooded murder!" Batman screamed.

"We're criminals." Octopus looked up as his eyes looked like huge brown dots in his glasses. "In case you haven't noticed, it's what we do."

"Fire it up..." The Joker cackled. "Do I have the honor of throwing the switch?"

"It would be an honor..." Octopus grinned ear to ear while Spiderman seemed to snap out of his stupor. A web line shot from his wrist to the wall and then another one as the chain holding them from the ceiling let go of them. They dropped a few feet and just inches above the device humming to disperse molecules just before his web-lines grew taut from their weight. Another web and another line as Octopus arm's cut each one faster than he could fire them.

"I'm running out of webs!"

"I'm almost free..." Batman was reaching for freedom as Octopus continued severing web-lines. Their lifeline dropped them closer into the molecular transporter as Robin's stopped. Batgirl gasped realizing her father would never know what happened to her. Another snapped line and they dipped just close enough to smell the ozone off the device. Batgirl felt the tips of the red hairs on her dissolved in the humming energy an inch from her face. Batman clenched his teeth and grabbed Robin. Another broken line and he grabbed Spiderman's web line and swung to safety. The wall crawler lurched up Batgirl away from death on his arm and ripped down a wire conduit from the wall to save his life. Doctor Octopus's device shut down in the power failure and he turned round to follow the heroes' movements. His arms dropped dead as Robin flicked on the inhibitor.

"Time to play…" Spiderman dived inches from the acid sprayed from the Joker's lapel and swung his momentum round a pole and cold cocked the Crowned Prince of crime on his heel.

CRACK! Batman punched Dr. Octopus and sent him tripping over his flaccid non-charged arms.

BAM! Batgirl whirled the Joker round into the wall as he reached for his Joker dust.

OOOOF! Octavius felt his mind drifting into unconsciousness as Robin sent him falling over a crate dragging his limp metal tentacles. Batman stood over the once great doctor and bemoaned what he could have been.

"You could have been a great man, Octavius…" He stood over the criminal scientist. "Why do you insist on embarking down this life of crime?" The man Octavius used to be just gurgled incoherently with blood trickling from his lip and his eyeglasses askew. Above the mad scientist, the Joker hung upside down in a massive spider web.

"I can have Commissioner Gordon here in five seconds." Robin recovered his and the Batman's utility belts and whipped out a small phone.

"I hope you guys don't mind if I don't hang around." Spiderman leaned irreverently into Robin and replaced a cartridge in his web-slinger device. "I've had bad experiences with police uniforms… Well, the guys in them."

"No, problem, wall crawler," Batman looked up proudly and solemnly. "You are welcome in Gotham any time. I'm truly sorry that you are as badly misunderstood in a world that deeply needs heroes."

"Say hello to the big blue boy scout for me…" Spiderman shot a web to the air and quickly vanished in the shadowed girders of the metallic ceiling. Listening to him crawling through the dark overhead, Robin clicked off his phone just as the shrill cry of police car sirens already echoed through the block. Batgirl stood triumphant and arched her chest with a deep breath as the Joker continued rambling under breath.

"I'd have gotten away with it too if it hadn't been for you meddling kids and dumb dog…" His memories were overlapping and getting confused.

"Is he still harping on that?" Batgirl remised. "That was over a month ago!"

END