Revenge
i Kelsi wandered down the Avenue, her host sister next to her. They where chattering. About boys, clothes, the latest movies, normal stuff. They came to a traffic light and waited patiently for the light to turn green. The light changed and Kesli took a step forward, not noticing the truck that was racing towards her at top speed. She heard the screaming of the breaks but it was to late... /i
Kesli heard the screeching of the tires and woke up. It was just a dream. She must have dozed off while she was waiting for the bus. As the first shock wore off Kesli noticed that said bus just drove past, without her. She watched it turn around the next corner till she could not see it anymore. Still staring at the point were it had disappeared she thought what she ought to do now. Taking the next bus was not an option anymore, since she did not want to wait another half an hour and a look into her wallet told her that calling a taxi was not going to happen either.
"I guess that leaves walking." She sighed, but to be honest, she did not mind walking that much. Maybe she could get her head clear again, the last week in Boston had really drained her energy and she had not been able to get a straight thought for the past days. On top of that her best friends had bothered her with some kind of revenge and Kesli had no idea what that was about.
She walked past a hat shop and stopped at the traffic light. Having the dream still in her head she carefully looked left and right before she crossed the street.
Kesli wandered down the block deeply lost in her thoughts as suddenly a loud noise brought her back to reality. Her natural curiosity made her look around, but instead of finding the cause of the noise she found a car flying straight at her. She screamed and ducked out of reflex. The car flew over her head and hit the ground only a few meters away, spun around several times and crashed into another car that was parked there. Kesli cowered together with several other pedestrians close to the ground protecting her head with her arms. Because she had her eyes closed she did not notice that Spider-man suddenly swung past her closely followed by Doc Ock, who already had a second car in his tentacles and was ready to throw it. But what she did notice were the frightened screams around her and the regular i thumps /i that made the ground vibrate underneath her.
Still not knowing what exactly happened Kesli got up and was dragged away with the running and screaming crowd. Struggling not to fall she tried to get free of the mob but failed desperately. She fought with all her might and finally managed to get away. In her confusion Kesli did not know where she was running and as she leaned against a wall to catch her breath she noticed that she has made a fatal mistake.
The two super-powered humans were still fighting on the middle of the street; several cars had already paid their tool to that fight, they were lying crushed and up side down on the sidewalk, their drivers long flown. Spider-man was dodging every blow from the tentacles but Doc Ock was also avoiding Spider-man's attempts to get a hand on him. All in all it was a counterbalanced fight and they both were too occupied that they did not notice the frightened teenager that was suddenly standing behind Doc Ock pressed against the wall or maybe they did...
Kesli did not believe her eyes as she spotted the fighters on the street.
"Joyce won't believe that!" She muttered and could not help staring at the two men in front of her. She was too occupied watching the fight to think of getting out of their fighting range till it was too late.
Doc Ock was just delivering a punch to Spider-man's head, who dodged the attack gracefully by doing a back flip and then shooting a net at his opponent, who also avoided the attack not so gracefully by just leaping out of the way.
As you might remember Kesli had been standing right behind Doc Ock and she was i still /i standing there and so it happened that the net that was meant for Doc Ock actually hit her.
Kesli saw it flying in her direction, but since she did not have any super powers she was not able to dodge it in any way, gracefully or not, and as it hit her she noticed with surprised that there was more power behind that thing than one would expect.
The air was pressed out of her lungs as the net pinned her at the wall behind her.
After several second of gasping for air she tried to move her arms to get free but the net sticked to her and glued her to the wall.
Kesli forgot for a moment that there were still two super powered humans on the street in front of her till she suddenly heard a deep voice say something.
"Hey Spidey, looks like you caught something!"
Kesli looked up in surprise and noticed in shock that the two men had stopped fighting and where now standing in front of her, well, Doc Ock was standing in front of her with his real arms crossed and a wicked smile on his face, Spider-man was hanging upside down from a nearby lantern on one of his net strings.
Kesli swallowed hard. That was not what she had expected her day to be. Certainly not!
"Interesting, not what I expected, but okay." Spider-man pulled himself up and sat upon the lantern post.
Kesli's gaze wandered from the super-villain to the superhero. What are they going to do? Why isn't Spider-man helping her (it's his net that's sticking to her, after all)? And why did they stop fighting? These and a hundred more questions where swirling around her head.
Kesli looked back at Doc Ock, who seemed to have eyed her curiously and now stepped closer.
Strangely enough Kesli was not close to panic; on the contrary, she was very calm, maybe too calm in such a situation.
Doc Ock was only about five feet away now and Kesli was now eying him curiously just as he had eyed her before.
He looked exactly like she remembered him from the photos and drawings in Joyce's apartment. He wore a brown trench coat, black trousers and a white shirt. He had brown hair that was pretty messy, probably due to the fight, Kesli figured. And of course he had a pair of sunglasses on his nose.
Kesli would have never expected to see him anywhere else than on the pictures of the newspapers and especially not like this. It was scary to see him just standing there and Kesli now could kind of understand Joyce obsession with that guy. She had to admit, he was cool.
She now looked up to Spider-man, he, too, looked like he had imaged him. A red and blue costume with a black web pattern all over it and white triangular lenses as eyes. She recalled that Joyce always compared it with a pyjama and Kesli had to agree with that, but nonetheless it was still cool to see the superhero of New York City.
"I know you!"
The deep voice interrupted her thoughts and her head jerked back to the super-villain with the four metal arms.
"What?" she asked in disbelief.
"I know you!" Doc Ock said again.
Kesli swallowed hard. "Is that good or bad?"
Doc Ock tilted his head slightly and looked at her for several more seconds.
Kesli waited nervously, since she could not do anything else. The fact that she could not move made her feel helpless. She had closed her eyes and was about to imagine what was going to happen next when her thoughts where interrupted a second time.
A nearby cell phone played a familiar tune. She opened her eyes and saw Doc Ock pulling his cell out of his pocket and sliding it open. She recognized the tune before it stopped playing, it was "Engel" by i Rammstein /i , Joyce's favorite band. Another thing she would have never expected.
Nervousness ebbed away and curiosity was spreading.
"Yes?" Doc Ock answered the call and listened to the caller. He was still looking at Kesli, who was also trying to hear what was said on the other end of the line.
Suddenly Doc Ock stepped even closer.
"Okay." He said to the caller and then: "Here, for you!" To a perplexed Kesli.
"W- What?" she stuttered?
A tentacle suddenly slid out a blade, cut free Kesli's left arm with one quick slice and retracted the blade again. Doc Ock handed her the phone and Kesli took it with a shaking hand and put it on her hear.
"Y- Yeah?"
"Revenge is sweet, isn't it?" whispered a familiar voice in her ear.
Kesli's eyes widened. How was that possible? She needed several seconds to find her voice again.
"What? Revenge? For what? I didn't do anything.", she really had to control herself not to yell at the phone.
"Oh, you know exactly what I am talking about. I hope you enjoyed yourself in Boston. " The voice on the other end was calm.
"JOYCE!! What are you thinking? Did you plan this all along?" Kesli was now yelling at the phone, she already had forgotten what was going on around her.
"You know, Kesli, it is hard to plan revenge. A lot of variables and no room for mistakes. If you had told me you're visiting Boston, I could have planed in advance, but since you did not, I had to improvise." Kesli's head turned bright red as she heard her best friend chuckle at the other end of the line.
"Now please, be so kind and give me Otto for a sec."
"Otto? Oh, you are on first-name basis already, great, really great!" Kesli sighed, her instinct for protecting were tingling.
"Joyce, we have to talk. Seriously. How did you get Doc Ock's phone number?" She asked and immediately wished she had not.
"DOCTOR OCTAVIUS!" two shouts suddenly came simultaneously from two different sides. Joyce had raised her voice for the first time during the conversation and Doc Ock...uh. Doctor Octavius, who, Kesli now realized, was still standing in front of her and had listened, was more than just little annoyed.
"My name is Doctor Octavius."
"Sorry..." Kesli whispered.
"Give me Otto now, please." Joyce demanded, still a little annoyed.
Kesli, still confused and slightly frightened, held out the cell and Octavius took it. "Yeah?"
Kesli shock her head and tried to get a straight thought again. It was not making sense to her.
She watched Octavius listen to Joyce and saw a smile cross his face. He turned around and looked up at Spider-man, who was now dangling upside down again obviously bored.
"Hey, are you hungry?" He asked the wall crawler. Spider-man let himself fall and landed on all fours on the ground.
"Depends." He said while getting up.
"There's a sushi bar just two blocks from here. Joyce's meeting us there, if you want."
"Joyce? That little German girl who is obsesses with you?" Spider-man asked.
"Exactly!" Octavius glanced back at Kesli and she gave him a puzzled look.
Spider-man thought for a moment then said: "Okay."
"As long as I don't have to eat octopus." Spider-man chuckled and Octavius smacked him on the back of his head with his hand. "Idiot!"
"Okay, we're coming." He finally said to Joyce than hung up and slid the phone back into his pocket.
Kesli had been watching the scene and had been getting angrier every second. She was angry at Joyce for setting this whole thing up, angry at Doc Ock for helping Joyce, angry at Spider-man for not helping her (he is a friggin' superhero!) and angry at herself for being in this ridiculous situation. Sticking to this stupid wall was the worst, because she had the strong desire to hurt one particular person.
Octavius and Spider-man had already turned around and were walking away.
"Up for a race?" Spider-man asked.
"You don't even know where that place is." Octavius said annoyed.
"So?"
Octavius shock his head. "Okay."
Kesli watched in horror. Were they just going to leave her here? Except for one arm, she still could not move anything.
"HEY!" she shouted after the two men. "AREN'T YOU FORGETTING SOMETHING?"
They stopped and turned around.
"Oh yeah!" Octavius said as if he had just remembered something. He gestured to Spider-man, who nodded and then shot another net at her, that pinned her free arm to the wall again.
"Better!" He agreed.
Kesli first stared at her now webbed arm and then at the two men, who were both laughing.
"You can't do that?" She whispered.
"You see, we can." Octavius said then turned around and took off to the building on the other side of the street. "Let's get going, anarchide!" he shouted and started climbing up the wall.
Kesli watched with wide eyes. They were going to leave her here.
"JOYCE, YOU' RE GONNA PAY FOR THAT!" she yelled at the top of her lungs to release her anger. "YOU HEAR THAT? YOU GONNA P-" suddenly a net muffled her screams and she looked up in panic. Spider-man was waving then shot a net and swung down the street following Octavius, who was going the same way on the roof tops.
Kesli felt tears coming to her eyes.
Just not fair.
"Mhmm mmhm mhmm!!!"