Chapter Ten: "Spot of Trouble Part Two."
Hindsight being what it was, perhaps following a super villain who could control portals without the ability to control them yourself was not the smartest idea in hindsight. At least that was the thoughts that moved through the heads of the two web slinging super heroes when the two of them turned around. Their hearts thumped into their chest, practically bouncing off of their rib cage. They shook their heads when they rested in the nexus. There was purple vortexes around them and it was not too hard to see what was around them.
There was portals, hundreds and hundreds of portals, portals that stood in every direction and threatened to taunt them. The web slinger gave a bit of a cough when he peered over his shoulder towards Gwen.
"The good news is, I'm in one piece," Gwen managed when she coughed a little bit and made sure she was all in one piece. "Actually….that's not the best news in the world because the one thing that we could go through the portal, the modulator on the Iron Spider suit is on the fritz. I don't know….I can't repair it in here. I suppose that we could try and catch one of these portals out of here."
Peter thought about it after a moment but realized that despite the fact it sounded like a good idea in principle, it was much less of a good idea in practice. It was a one in a billion shot to go through one side of the portal from another. The web slinger realized that the more he thought about it and the more he considered everything. Being trapped between a rock and a hard place was a term that was thrown around very loosely but that was an apt explanation.
Now he turned towards Gwen, when the blood popped her face plate on her helmet and turned around, she blinked a little bit.
"Are you okay over than the suit being damaged?"
Gwen responded with a shrug. "Yeah, I'm fine."
The fact of the matter was that she wished she was fine mentally as opposed to physically but it seemed like every time she tried to fight crime, something bad happened. Gwen often did wonder how Peter held it together. In some ways, she really did admire him for the ability to keep his wits together. Her wits spun around with her blue eyes closed and she rolled her head back a little bit.
So far, so good, at least that's what Gwen thought, she was not damaged.
Other than her pride that was, that was very much damaged, the moment she blasted through the portal and landed to the ground with a solid smack. She tried not to show it, Peter was counting on her to help him find a way out of here so the two of them can surf on through the portal. These portals, there were countless ones around them, and the duo gazed around, trying to pick out everything.
"Okay, all we have to do is look for the portal that looks the same as the one that brought us in here. That should be easy enough, shouldn't it?"
Gwen shook her head, as much as she would like to hope that statement from Peter was going to be helpful, there was one simple logical hole in his statement. And that was that every single portal in this place had the same look. The texture was the same, the number of swirls in the vortex was the same, they were even the same size. No two portals were even different to the naked eye, which made things very difficult to deal with.
"And how would the portals be different, look at them, they're the same? I don't suppose we could randomly dive through the portals and see what happens."
Gwen stopped and stared, when she turned her head. She shook off the thoughts that were a kind of stupid question to be honest with her. The blonde wanted to smack herself in the head for even asking such a stupid question.
"Yeah, that's a stupid question isn't it?"
Spider-Man stood up, not acknowledging that question, at least for the moment, at least until he could figure out what was going on in the back of his mind. The web slinger turned over everything in his head and closed his eyes, trying to hope the portal would give him some tell tale hint. He wanted a sign, any sign, it didn't matter what sign it gave him, he wanted something that would show him the way.
'Okay, no whammies, no whammies.'
Peter grabbed Gwen around the hand and he rushed forward towards the portal. Both of the web slingers hoped that this was the one. The web head paused, his spider sense did not go off, that was a good sign. At least it meant that this portal would not take him anywhere dangerous to some dimension where flesh eating parasites could feast on his heart and lungs. Or that would be the worst case scenario to be honest.
Both popped through the portal with a solid crack and both flowed through, surfing their way through the portal. The two held onto each other whilst they also held their breath. Seconds passed by.
The time ticked by with each of them.
With a thud, they shot out of the portal with a cannon and they landed on the ground with a crashing thud. Spider-Man and Iron Spider rolled over, their egos bruised, along with their bodies a little bit. The two of them closed their eyes when they held their heads up and tried to hitch in a bit of a breath and looked around, with hopeful optimism dancing in their eyes when they turned around.
"And we're right back to where we started."
Spider-Man issued that statement dismally.
"Take two?" Iron Spider asked tentatively when she grabbed him by the hand and she looked up into the sky. She shrugged her shoulders before she picked out a portal. "I've got a good feeling about this one."
"Let's hope it's more than a feeling."
Iron Spider and Spider-Man went through the portal and they experienced the same fantastic journey that they experienced the first time around. Their heads swam when they went through the portal. They felt like their very beings went inside out, with the web slingers going through and trying to find their way out to escape the portal, feeling the swimming sensations that went through their stomachs.
They flew out at the other end with a crash.
"Third time's the charm?"
The Spot returned from his latest trip through the portal, even though he mentally slapped himself a little bit for running into trouble at the hands of Spider-Man. The web slinger was a crafty devil, he'll have to give the devil his due. The criminal continued to walk towards his destination with everything swimming through his head. He thought there was going to be even more problems with what happened but he sent Spider-Man and Iron Spider on a journey that they would never return from. It was quite sad almost, the fact was that they were not too bad, just annoyances that he had to get out of the way.
With these words, he exited another portal to the office that his employer set up, the bounty that he collected in his arms and he shook his head a little bit. The criminal continued to walk a little bit, taking his strides with confidence. Managing to defeat Spider-Man in such a way would put a spring in anyone's step. While he would not call himself a fan, the Spot devotedly followed every single step of the web slinger's career.
It fascinated him more times often than not, every single battle was more inspiring than the last. If Spot was not indebted to the person he was indebted for, he would have decided to try his hand at the entire crime fighting thing himself. What was the worst that could happen? He figured that his powers would be useful, there would be nowhere that criminals would hide from the powers of the mighty Spot.
"So are we having fun?"
Spot turned his head around and figured that his employer would be there right on time. Despite his powers, he was still a mild mannered scientist and not prone to acts of wanton violence. This particular woman was different from that. No act of violence sated her bloodlust and she continued to get more twisted by each passing year. As twisted and tormented as she was when she was a teacher, she got far worse when she was an adult. Rhona Burchill earned the moniker of the Mad Thinker, and her sadistic expression could not be matched by many. In fact, it brought chills in the heart of men and women.
"I've got the technology as you requested, from Oscorp's competitors."
Rhona turned her head towards this man, who she rescued through the portal and gave him the power suit to stabilize his powers. She made sure to have a killswitch ready, activated at a moment's notice. Her dark hair swung over her face to curtain it and her soulless black eyes stared back at him, her newest puppet. The Osborn heir could do what he needed to ensure the company did not fall into the ground.
She had bigger things to worry about.
"So you have,' Rhona answered in a crisp voice when she snatched the satchel away from her employee and opened it up to rifle through it. So far it was so good and as long as he continued to do good, he would live.
People like this, give them a bit of power and they thought that they could rule the world. Rhona saw things through a different set of eyes, power as it was, it was rather subjective and the true power came from the mind. Those who allowed a little bit of power get to their head often became weak in the mind. And when the mind fell, the body came soon after so she understood this on several levels.
The problem was most people did not understand that power could not win battles alone. They needed a thinker to guide them, and there was no thinker with a mind stronger than hers. Sure one might call her a bit mad but that was part of the science that made her mind work. Some could also call her obsessed and she would agree with that under certain terms. In other terms, she would fight them to the death with it.
There was fine line between obsession and passion and that was something that Rhona straddled each and every individual day when she walked it. It was like a tightrope that she struggled not to fall off of, into the abyss. She might say that some looked at the abyss but she mastered it. That was what Doom taught her and that was all she understood, the power of her mind and the strength of her passion, some might say obsession.
"I took Spider-Man down anyway," Spot stated when he looked at him.
"And is his decaying, rotting corpse at your feet?" Rhona asked when she put her hands on her hips and turned her head to focus at her minion who shook his head. "I thought not, that means that you do not win anything."
This was why people like Osborn, Octopus, Mysterio, and that entire gang of Ravencroft Psychopaths all failed when they went up against Spider-Man. They declared victory prematurely but there was nothing premature about what went through the head of the Mad Thinker. She was all about decisive action and she would win the day. She looked at the Spot and decided to voice this opinion out loud.
"As long as Spider-Man breaths somewhere, no matter where, until you've verified a corpse, there is no way that he's defeated. If there is no way we he could have survived something, there means that there's a greater chance he survived something."
Spot nodded his head.
"Is that clear?"
Once again the Spot nodded his head and Rhona looked at him.
"Go back and finish the job you started, bring me Spider-Man's head as a trophy," Rhona stated when she folded her arms and malicious intentions danced in her eyes. She stood above the Spot, towering over him.
The Spot understood what he had to go up against. He was not one to intimidate that easily but at the same time, he knew better than to push the buttons of a person that could take him down at any time. He had the power but she had the control and that was the details of their business arrangement, one that was understood even though neither of them really had to say it out loud. It was one of those things where they knew.
So the Spot moved off to take down the web slinger once and for all. Back through the portal and to the limbo dimension he went, he would track down his enemy and their final battle would be at hand. The web slinger was not going to go down that easily, he figured but the Spot understood that he was underneath the thumb of the Mad Thinker more now than ever before.
The Mad Thinker watched him, his success or his failure, neither managed to her. She activated a communication link and said a few words.
"Phase Two completed, onto phase three."
Gwen and Peter sat with their legs crossed with the blonde in question messing with the circuits in the Iron Spider armor. While she thought that there was little to no chance of her completely fixing the armor where it would work a hundred percent, she could at least fiddle with it a little bit and work on it, trying to adjust the circuits so they could work a bit better. At least that was the hope but there was a chance that would blow them straight into another dimension.
Peter tapped his foot, waiting, they must have used about forty or so portals in their attempts to get out. That was before they completely gave up the ghost and any attempt to get out of this limbo world. No matter what they could say, there was going to be no easy way out and the pair of them understood it. The web slinger tapped his foot a little bit and turned to Gwen, with the blonde offering an answer to Peter's unanswered question.
"I should be done in a minute."
Peter shrugged a little bit before he looked at Gwen. "What are you doing?"
Gwen bit her lip with sweat rolling down her face before she answered the question, when she fiddled with the circuits. There was a slight pause before she answered his question. "Yeah….I'm trying to figure out a way to track the energy signatures so we can find the right exit portal."
The web slinger nodded, he did understand a lot of it or at least he understood most of it. He understood enough of it for to help Gwen when he could. The two of them poured over the readings that they had. The suit reflected the battles that it had been through and there were many battles throughout all of the time that they were there. The web slinging sensation tapped his foot on the floor, listening up.
His spider sense went off suddenly and he turned around.
"What now?"
Gwen looked up, her eyes wide as saucers when she saw the figure, this mysterious Spot pop through the portal to face them. Spider-Man turned to his partner, shaking his head before he peered over his shoulder and held his hands to his side before he walked off.
"I'll take care of this."
The web slinger propelled himself at the Spot, hoping to trick him into revealing the secret to allow him out. The web slinger dodged his attack and he smashed down to the ground with a thud. Another attempt to grab the Spot but a portal opened itself and the web head dove on through the portal before he came back around and moved on to face the Spot, the two of them faced off agains each other.
"Sorry to be a bother, but I don't like to leave these loose ends tied up," Spot responded when he aimed a shot towards Spider-Man but the web slinger avoided his attack, ducking and rolling, before he sent a line of webbing at his legs, wrapping around him and tripping him up. At least that was what he tried to do but the Spot jerked himself out of the way and jumped into the air, landing on the ground.
Spider-Man took a deep breath when he engaged his enemy in battle, with his punches passing through portals. He was going around in circles, fighting losing battles before the web slinger tried to get his way out. The web slinger shook his head before he bounced back off of the side of the walls before he jumped into the air and tried for another strike, intent to take Spot down to the ground.
Another portal opened and it knocked the web slinger for a loop. A second portal opened when the web slinger spiraled his way out and landed on the ground with a thud, before the Spot grabbed him around the head, before slamming him down onto the ground. The web slinger rolled over grimacing.
'I….I'm fighting a losing battle.'
He tried not to let that hopeless notion go through his mind but it was very easy to pass through the back of his head. The web slinger bounced back, ducking his head and doing a forward roll before he landed on his feet.
"You can't defeat me with all of this power," Spider-Man answered when he looked at the Spot, the web slinger moving around him. "With all that power….you could be something, you could help people in the world."
Spot understood this but he refused to acknowledge this when he aimed a punch to the ribs of the web slinger. Spider-Man dodged the attack, for all of his powers, there was one thing that was for certain. He did not have the refinement and the practice that Spider-Man did and he bounced back off of the ground.
Gwen bit her lip furiously, she continued to work on the device on her body armor and she flicked over, before she thought she got something. She got a spark of something, when the Spot used the portals, diving and dodging, trying to wear out Spider-Man.
'Hang on Peter,' Gwen though to herself, she kept her hands steady when she continued to work on everything. The web slinger bounced back and off of the side, and continued to fight the Spot, with the two diving out of portal after portal.
"You know what the portals do but you don't have my control to keep them open."
The web head turned around, a smile crossing his face underneath his mask.
"You might say that I don't have the control but I don't think you do either."
Gwen was almost there, she thought that she got it. She blasted towards one of the portal holes to hold it open.
"Spidey, now I don't know how long I can hold this!" Gwen yelled when she grabbed Spider-Man's hand, and the two threw themselves through the portal, with the Spot following behind them.
The two of them flew out of the portal both arachnids spiraled head over heels and landed onto the ground with a thud. The two tried to push themselves to the ground and they understood what was going on around them. Somehow, some way, they made it back to Earth and was now ready for the battle with the Spot. Iron Spider and Spider-Man got up to their feet, they were shaken and rattled but they were not out. They were not out of the battle with a slightest and the fight was not going to be over yet.
Spider-Man and Iron Spider got up to their feet, with their knees shaking and they heard a loud crack. This crack resounded through their ears and they shook their heads, taking a long pause before they saw their enemy fly out of the portal. The two of them held hands with each other, and they came face to face with the Spot. The Spot looked more determined than ever and despite his rather cheesy name, he was ready.
'Let's do this.'
This was the statement that resounded out of the back of Peter Parker's head when he twisted his attention off to the side. The web slinger rolled his shoulders a little bit and turned to face the Spot. The Spectacular Spider-Man latched his webbing on the side of a fan and he swung forward, to engage the Spot. He would have to focus more on the portal and allow his spider sense to be his guide when he went forward.
The Spot remained steady, waiting for Spider-Man to go through and he saw a blast from the other side. He opened up a portal to allow her past of light to go harmlessly through. While the web slinger shook his head and rolled forward, before swinging around and knocking his enemy with a double foot kick to the face. His feet bounced off the back of the head of the Spot and sent him flying down with a thud.
The Spot landed back and went through a portal on the floor. He sucked through the portal before he bounced back off the ceiling and landed on the back of the head of the web slinger. This attack Spider-Man knocked off to the side, going head over heels before he bounced off the ground. The wall crawler rolled and ducked the attack, before he maintained eye contact with his partner before he nodded to her.
Gwen fired the attack, sending an electrified net to the Spot which stuck through his body. He tried to open the same portal but the material held him in place. He could not move, and tried to get out of it. The more he struggled, the tighter the webbing wrapped around him, when the Spot turned his head around and tried to push his way out of the attack. The material hugged tightly around him.
"It's over."
Spot closed his eyes.
'Then again, maybe I was a bit premature.'
Spider-Man watched a vortex open underneath the feet of his enemy and this caused the webbing to break free. Iron Spider tried to blast him once again, but two miniature black holes appeared and threatened to pull her arms off from the hyper gravity. Thankfully, they became just portals instead of black holes, otherwise that would have been bad and Gwen pulled her hand out, pushing his way in.
Spider-Man's feet were swept out from underneath him, and Spot launched Spider-Man through one portal, before he pulled out a knife., and opened up the portal on the other side. The web slinger flew from the portal.
"Hey, don't play with knives!" Spider-Man yelled when he dodged the attack and was nearly stabbed to death. The Iron Spider blasted the knife out of her enemy's hand, blowing it to smithereens.
Spider-Man tried to web the Spot up but once again the Spot avoided his attack, before he dove from the hole. The web slinger turned his head a little bit and his spider sense triggered. There was an attack that came nearly out of nowhere but he blocked it. The web slinger ducked, dodged, and rolled each attack, the portals opening for a flying fury of fists and feet, and the web slinger was driven out of breath.
"Are you….you can't beat me."
Spider-Man dodged the attack, turning around, he hoped to get inside the head of his enemy. Gwen ran interference on the other end but this was only a temporary distraction. If he learned one thing as a super hero that many battles were won in the theater of the mind than anything else. The web slinger bounced back and forth, trying to ground him. His eyes flickered a little bit, before he noticed a dial on his suit.
"Come on, Spot, you can't beat me," Spider-Man stated when he threw his head back and thought about it. "Then again, that ridiculous suit must be reflective of your ridiculous fighting abilities. I mean, if the suit makes the man than what does that thing make you."
"It's very practical!" the Spot fired back angrily, when he opened the portals and tried to suck the web slinger through. The web head twisted his attack and the Spot pulsed with power, before he tried to open another portal.
'Gotten to.'
"Practically stupid maybe?"
Spider-Man bounced off the wall as his portals were less refined and the web slinger tried to trip him up. He ducked and rolled, before he pushed himself to the limit. He turned his head, once again he dodged. Then he pivoted, turned, and the Spot's hands blasted through the portal, in an attempt to take him down to the ground. His attacks became more and more sloppy with each passing moment.
"I'll show you."
'Yes, definitely gotten to.'
The web slinger pushed himself to the greater limits, with him dodging and moving around the attacks, ducking his head and pushing it back up, his heart beating with fluid intensity. He worked up a lot of adrenaline that pushed him to the highest levels. He nearly got impaled through a portal but his Spider sense was his guide. He realized that if the Spot was more dangerous, he could be a rather formidable threat.
Iron Spider sent another line of electric webbing, wrapping around him and caused his knees to buckle a little bit. The Iron Spider and Spider-Man combined their attacks, with the web slinger pushing their attacks, before a loud crack echoed.
The Spot was knocked out. His suit deactivated, at least the part where he could control the portals. He was still stabilized but it would be up to the people at Ravencroft to be able to put him in a cell.
Rhona slammed her hands down on the desk when she watched the battle through the suit. The Spot had them in the palm of his hand but they got in his head. They shook him off and then the battle ended. She closed her eyes; the only good thing was that the Spot proved to be a worthy distraction. Nuisance as he might be, incompetent that he might be, he did prove to be a great distraction and allowed the distractions of the web slinger to be diverted when she planned everything.
'That fool thought that he had power, but really there was no power that I didn't allow him to have,' Rhona thought to herself when she held the remote control. If the Spot got out of hand, she had a killswitch that would open up a portal and spread all of his molecules throughout countless black holes. 'I'm….yeah I'm going to step back a little bit, that's the ticket, and then I'm going to make them think that I'm done.'
There was something that told her that Spider-Man was coming dangerously close towards her operations. They only had one encounter previously, the battle at the Baxter Building three years ago where Spider-Man saved the Fantastic Four. Rhona spent many nights going over everything, nit picking every single it. She was not the only one who did the nit picking, her mentor made sure she stuck her nose to the security tapes. Every single night made her desire to prove that she was superior to Spider-Man more. Every single night, she moved closer and closer to the edge.
She determined who was under the mask but it was a minor challenge to deduce the secret identity of Spider-Man. This thinker figured that there would be no glory in defeating the human being that was underneath the mask, he was an insignificant nobody. Granted this insignificant nobody was far smarter than many were but still he was insignificant in all ways that mattered as far as she was concerned. She twisted her expression towards the security tapes once again and looked at everything.
She thought about everything, she was one step closer, with the equipment that her minion grabbed. That was one part of a bigger plan that would unravel over the next month or so, actually it was unraveling for the past year. The young sadistic thinker understood her role in the plan of her mentor. The protégé of Doom flickered her gaze towards the plan, hiding them from any prying eyes. Despite the fact that she considered Harry Osborn to be a naïve fool, he did sometimes ask too many questions.
And those too many questions threatened to boil to a head at the worst possible time. Rhona prepared the master plan, launching it forward and hoping that everything would remain on a certain time table. She would need to get all of her ducks in line before it was too late and hoped that her mentor would be pleased. Failure was not an option and victory was not only the most important thing but it was the only thing. Years of calculated planning would not go down the toilet because of some web slinger in tights and she turned her head a little bit to think about everything that transpired.
The day would be hers. Victory would be at hand.
Worry was not a word that entered the vocabulary of Gwen Stacy, even in the worst of times. Despite the fact that worry surrounded her entire life, first her mother was stricken with a terminal illness when she was very young. Gwen thought that her mother would get better but a part of her worried that she would not. Then after a number of years, those worries would be justified when her mother passed away.
Then, she worried about her father and his job, Captain George Stacy put his life on the line every day against people who would kill him without a second thought. Respect was not something that was a part of the dangerous game that the Captain of the New York City police department played, and Gwen closed her eyes to think about everything that went on regarding him. She blamed herself for his death as much as she was certain that a part of Peter still blamed himself for his unfortunate role in it. Despite that blame, Gwen had to think about the worry she had and once again her instincts had been right. The worst truly did come to pass.
Then there was the fact that her boyfriend and truly her best friend, Peter, put his life on the line as a web slinging hero. He was bitten by the spider at a science exhibit that she invited him to. It was her idea that he went there and she worried that something was going to happen. The blonde closed her eyes and thought about that, everything that happened. She stood by him as the Iron Spider, and that suit needed repairs once again. She worried that her very best would not be enough, no matter what she did. The blonde girl turned her head, twisting it off to the side, and placed her hands on her hips.
"Something on your mind?"
Gwen nodded at this statement from Peter when he sat down next to her.
There was a lot on her mind.
"Harry's new personal assistant is a homicidal maniac who is bent on murder," Gwen answered when she looked at her boyfriend and he leaned forward, to try and give her reassurance in the form of a light kiss on the lips.
Peter could not worry but at the same time, he did. He thought about all that would happened with Harry and his problems with drug addiction. An injury at the hands of the Vulture where he suffered a broken collarbone led to an addiction of pain killers. It was not as strong as Norman's addiction to power but still Osborns had addictive personalities.
"I don't know what to say."
"What is Rhona's plan?" Gwen asked and Peter shrugged.
That was a good question and he wanted to know.
To Be Continued in "Exposed."