Chapter 2: The Return of the Octopus
"Hearing your name, the memories come back again,
I remember when it started happening.
I'd see you in every thought I had and then
The thoughts slowly found words attached to them."
Linkin Park, "Figure.09"
late afternoon, fifth avenue
She ran, ducked into a dark alleyway, reflexively tearing off her shirt, pawing for her costume. She felt a tickle as the black costume of the ShadowSpider crept up to cover her, not noticing, leapt up into the air and onto the nearest wall. She skittered up the building higher and higher, not caring about the heights she was scaling, or the danger she was facing, or the fact that he'd beat the stuffing out of her before, or anything except getting her hands on the bastard who had ripped her first love away from her.
She leapt onto a flagpole, swung around it, momentum propelling her onward, leapt to the next building, ascending as rapidly as she did before.
She saw and heard the blinking lights and wailing sirens of police cars far ahead, fired a web line to a building three blocks down, flinging herself forward on it not caring that she'd never done that distance on one swing before.
She didn't care that her sheer rage was fueling her black suit, didn't care that her hands had become taloned like a hawk's feet, didn't care that her muscles under the suit seemed more prominent and defined, didn't care that a quick look in a reflective surface would reveal a newly acquired set of sharp fangs and a long tounge.
In fact, she didn't even notice.
She swooped down towards the street, fired another web in mid-swing, made sure it caught on another building, snapped up on the arc, continued her journey by repeating steps one through four ad infinitum, thinking of nothing but Peter.
Worse, all she could think about was that last conversation she had before he headed off to the bank and she climbed up the hospital wall in pursuit of her first supervillain. Actually, she wasn't sure if she should even call that a conversation. An argument, a temper tantrum, the petulant words of a spoiled little girl, demanding he get the money so he could take her out to dinner, because this is strenuous work and I'm not doing it for free was more like it. She was fairly certain that was the last of her words as Mary Jane Watson which Peter carried with him when he was forcibly shuffled off this mortal coil. It was fundamentally unfair on so many levels and it fueled her rage all the more as her swings overtook the police pursuit.
Then she heard her archenemy's hated voice from a rooftop.
"You look good in black, Spider-Woman."
With as much sarcasm as she could muster, she replied, "As do you." His chestnut hair had grown out; he'd replaced his thick glasses with prescription shades; and he was attired in a long black trench coat, black slacks, black button-down shirt, and black gloves. His innate nerdiness was still evident, though; he would fit in entirely with the throngs of geeks lining up for the brand-new video game system were it not for the four enormous robot tentacles sprouting out his back.
Spidey wanted to think about anything else except the tentacles whipping towards her, or worse, the circumstances surrounding her previous battles with him. She thought that if a big movie studio like Sony Pictures ever bought her story, she would be played by Kirsten Dunst and her current opponent would be played by that guy, what's-his-name, who played Snidely Whiplash in Dudley Do-Right. Peter, she supposed, might be played by Tobey Maguire, or if they really wanted to stretch reality, Jake Gyllenhaal.
His tentacles shot towards her, but she easily overleapt and dodged them, in spite of his boasting about making his tentacles stronger and faster. The tentacles were so far keeping her away from her master, but otherwise they had absolutely no effect on her. In fact, her legs and arms carried her to where she needed to go; she wasn't even thinking about what she was doing. What she was thinking about was whether James Franco was sufficiently creepy enough to play the dearly departed Harry Osborn in the inevitable sequel.
She grudgingly admitted that Octopus had improved his tentacles somehow. They were acting in perfect concert, bobbing and weaving, feinting to confuse her spidey-sense. Spidey briefly managed to keep away from them, but finally one struck a glancing blow to her head and another came down like the hammer of Thor and swatted her right off the wall. Spidey fell away and down, but quickly recovered, threw a web-line, and bounced upward on it like a bungee-jumper. Her teeth gritted, she leapt towards him, pushing him off the rooftop with a flying kick.
Octopus' pincers drove into the wall, steadying his position, but the adamantium broke pieces off the wall in doing so. Neither of them paid any mind to the concrete chunks obeying the call of gravity.
On street level below, a little boy looked up from his ice cream, bewildered at the huge rock heading towards terra firma.
Captain George Stacy of the NYPD, who had led the police chase and still kneeling beside his car (in case Octopus diverted his attention from the wall-crawler to the civilians), noticed the imminent danger. "Son, look out!"
Stacy, the former MVP of his high school football team, made a flying tackle towards the child, shoving him out of the way, but in doing so, the concrete crushed him instead. Neither Spider nor Octopus gave any notice to the fallen police officer, which Spidey would soon sorely regret. That is later in the story, though.
Then one overriding thought popped into her brain, namely, This jerk killed my boyfriend and now he's gonna pay.
And all her fears and doubts shrivel in the flames of her white-hot rage.
Her head has been filled with the smoke from her anger, regret, and grief for far too long; it has been the thunder that darkens her mind. But finally, the return of the Octopus had opened her firewalls so that the terror, angst, and rage are out there, in the fight where they truly belong, and Spidey's mind is as clear as a diamond. She leaps towards Octopus. There's only one thing she has to do now.
Decide.
So she does.
She decides to win.
The mad scientist notices to his dismay and growing horror that the web-slinger is finally getting the best of him. The tentacles try their best to yank ShadowSpider off, but she clings to him with the same adhesive power she used to cling to walls, and she starts to pound on him with such force that only his sheer willpower prevents him from blacking out.
Then she decides to quit holding back.
She decides to quit pulling her punches.
She decides that Otto Octavius should lose his life as Peter Parker lost his.
Decision was now reality, here. Her fists move simultaneously with her will and they teach her terrible things. She hits him one, twice, a dozen times, kicks him a dozen more. She decides that Octopus should die with every bone in his body broken, just as Peter did. In the fight, there is only terror and rage.
Octopus gasps for his life.
"Ask me nicely!" Spidey shouts, smashing her head into his.
"Never!" Octopus is defiant to the end.
"Ask me! Beg for your life!" she commands again, and shatters his nose to the back of his head.
"I said ask me! I want you to beg for mercy!" she screams, smashing his jaw beyond repair.
"Please…" he gasps, "I'm begging you to spare my life."
She spits on him, a last gesture of contempt. "You didn't spare Peter Parker's!" she shouts at him, and breaks the last thing on his body she hasn't already: his neck.
