Chapter Twenty Nine: The War of the Rose Part Two.

Spider-Man was on the chase for the goons of the Rose and the man himself. Of course, webbing onto the back of a truck, while it went at almost seventy miles through hour to the city streets of New York was not the best idea. It was not something that Spider-Man recommended trying at home at any rate.

'Oh boy, suck, this is going to suck, so bad, really, really suck, badly, oh boy, this really sucks, badly,' Spider-Man commented as he hit the speed bump and was nearly propelled high into the air. He stuck his landing on the back of the truck and felt some of the oxygen knocked out of him. The web slinger kept his head up and tried to stand up.

"Okay, I'm going to see your license and registsration!" Spider-Man said as he webbed the hands of the passengers to the dashboard which presented them.

"Spider-Man!" one of the goons growled as he reached towards the gun.

"Hey, both hands on the wheel at all….ah snugglebunnies!" Spider-Man yelled as he dodged the barrage of bullets as the van made its way towards the end of the street.

'Well looks like it's time to put the breaks on, the hard way, oh boy, this could suck, big time,' Spider-Man thought as he launched a couple of lines of webbing out to latch onto the edge of a wall. He felt his shoulders crack underneath the pressure.

By some kind of miracle, Spider-Man was able to stop the truck in its tracks and not a moment too soon. He was slumped over the edge of the van and his breathing was labored.

The truck broke open to reveal more rent a goons.

"So do you guys really have a union or something?" Spider-Man asked as he dodged the frantic attacks of his enemies. "I mean….you know with dental and all of the perks….no need to bite my head off, or blow it off…..or something like that."

The web slinger flung himself onto the ground and kneed him right in the back of the head. The web slinger avoided the attack of a larger lumbering goon.

"Yeah, that might hurt in the morning," Spider-Man commented as the goon did a head long smash into a light post which dented it. The web slinger webbed his hands into the post and then fired a series of kicks to the back, rocking him extremely hard. "Actually come to think of it, that will likely hurt in the morning."

Spider-Man drilled the elbow into the side of the neck and caused the man to slump over in pain, just in time to face another lumbering goon who tried to take his head off with a piece of lumber. Literally as the two by four swung towards his skull.

"Well, as usual, a guy coming at me packing wood is not a good thing," Spider-Man said as he sprung over his head, webbed the man's ankles out from underneath them, and caused him to land face first onto the ground with a sickening thud. "Well, I really do hope that you have the dental plan after that one."

Sure enough the broken teeth of the man down on the ground told the story and Spider-Man shifted all of his attention to the contraband in the truck.

"Let's see what we've got here, lots of contraband, enough to put the person who is playing with it up the river for a good few years," Spider-Man said as he looked around. "But no Rose….unless he is cosplaying as one of his own goons."

Somehow Spider-Man seriously doubted that but he had to be sure one hundred percent of the way. The web slinger turned around, looking off into the shadows. He thought that he heard something but it was in fact nothing.

'Becoming a bit too paranoid for you own good,' Spider-Man thought to himself. No sooner did he think that thought was his spider sense was starting to make some nose.

The ticking in the back of the van started up and Spider-Man realized that this particular van had been a trap, one big spider killing trap.

'Oh boy,' Spider-Man thought as the web slinger looked at the van. If he was going to move it, he could jostle the bomb and cause the countdown to go faster.

Talk about being in the pressure cooker, the web slinger wiped the sweat off of his brow and had an idea.

'No bomb, no bomb, no bomb, ah here we go bomb,' Spider-Man thought as he managed to gently lift it open. 'Okay, just calm down, and let the spider sense be your guide, thirty seconds huh, no pleasure here.'

Spider-Man went for each wire but then it gave the tell tale sign of his spider sense kicking off into high gear. He was driven to one conclusion.

There was no way to release.

The bomb was right there in front of his face, there was no way to get out, no way to disable it.

The bomb hissed and then blew up, although the explosion was minimal. It released a cloud of red roses with a note on it, written in ink, at least he hoped that it was red ink.

"Bit too early to be sending me a Valentine," Spider-Man joked as he looked it over but the note filled him with an incoming sense of dread.

The Rose was playing a game of cat and mouse with him and he could choose to terminate it at any time.

The only thing that was for certain was the Rose was not here so Spider-Man made his way into the night to go for the next lead. He felt like that hamster on a wheel but if he could find a second van, he might find his man.


Kitty Pryde realized the situation and she realized how dire it was. She did not need a score card to figure out that she had her back up against the wall in one of the most dangerous situations she had ever come up against in her young life.

It was her against a squad of twelve Hellfire Club goons, all of them circling her with the nastiest intentions possible.

"You can't hope to defeat us all, little girl," one of them said but Kitty sunk his head down into the ground.

"Maybe….not," Kitty said as she blocked the dagger of one of them and kicked him in the back of the leg. It caused him to spiral down to the ground.

"Then what do you hope to do….."

"The X-Men will wake up, then we're going to get your smug elitist asses!" Kitty cheered with a grin on her face as she popped up and nailed one of the Hellfire Goons with the full force of a kick.

She flipped over their head, grabbed one of them around the head, and plowed him into the ground.

Emma watched, in amusement. The poor girl might tire herself out before she actually got her entertainment. Then again, this exercise proved to be an entertaining endeavor to see which goons could stay and which could be served their walking papers.

Kitty grabbed one of them around the head and impacted his head into the ground.

"Not going to lie, that was awesome," Kitty said with a grin as she dodged two daggers immediately that were flung at her. She knew better than to go intangible when something was thrown at her.

"Yes, but this will be more so, child," Emma muttered as one of the goons grabbed her around the head.

Kitty screamed as she felt a splattering of her worst memories come into her mind. The brunette slipped through the ground to escape but she felt like she was falling much further.

Her heartbeat sped up and she had no idea what was happening for her.

"That was anti-climatic," Emma said as she walked over. "Leave them on the ground, if the X-Men wake up…."

"Hey, you high class escort, did I say that I was done with you yet?"

Kitty stood in front of Emma and the blonde blinked her eyes. There was amusement that danced through her eyes.

"Are you speaking to me?" Emma asked as Kitty rushed towards her but Emma side stepped easily. "Telepath, honey, your mind is an open book to me, and not that many pages at that. Therefore, I can figure out what you're going to do before you even finish thinking about them."

Kitty tried to phase through the tree but Emma caused her to stop suddenly, shutting down the portion of her brain that controlled her mutant powers.

"Poor little Kitty, stuck in a tree," Emma said as she leaned forward and patted Kitty on the head in a condescending manner. "And for the record, I will be getting away with this, so waste your breath and try not to move too much. You might find it quite difficult to do so without crushing your ribs until your brain reboots itself in about an hour or two, maybe a day. I'm not quite sure."

"You b….."

"Yes, I know," Emma said as she turned around to see the man in the shadows. "Well now that this minor annoyance is take care of, we got to deal with the Phoenix. She will be under the control of the Hellfire Club."

"Shaw seems to think…."

"Mastermind, save your words, I know exactly what Shaw thinks, and I know how to deal with that pathetic excuse for a man," Emma said as she looked at the mutant stuck in the tree one more time. "Careful, dear, or I might make your face freeze like that."

A little entertainment went a long way, although Emma was getting quite bored with the cat and mouse game between the Rose and Spider-Man.

'Time to spice things up a little bit,' Emma said, as she may have inadvertently given Spider-Man the most probable location of where the Rose went off to.

It was a slip of the tongue or the mind rather. The Hellfire Club was out to put their Phoenix under their control.


Spider-Man managed to follow the trail to the warehouse where the Rose was holed up. He was preparing himself for a battle. This was the man who had his goons hold his own with the X-Men. He had weapons that were beyond the scope of anything that Spider-Man had ever seen, and he had seen a lot.

Although there was a lot that he did not see in his life but that was beside the point. It was time for the web slinger to head inside and see what was about to happen.

He could see everything around him and he knew that he was getting perilously closer to finding the man himself.

Two goons were guarding an office area and that looked pretty important. Spider-Man scaled up to perch on the ledge and craned his neck. The goons walked around, circling each other.

'Okay the one on the left looks bigger, but the one on the right looks smarter,' Spider-Man mused as he made a battle plan. 'Okay, got to do this, in three, two, one.'

Spider-Man dropped down and the goon that looked a bit quicker on the uptake screamed "SPIDER-MAN!"

"I don't think that there was a few people that heard you in Jersey!" Spider-Man yelled as the goon rushed towards him with the force of a bull but Spider-Man dodged him. The goon shattered crates with his body and Spider-Man webbed him up immediately.

The other goon grabbed a pipe and swung for the fences.

"Strike one!" Spider-Man cheered as the pipe sailed over his head and missed as it connected against the wall. "Come one, swing batter, batter, batter, swing!"

The goon did in fact take a swing with an honest attempt to take Spider-Man's head off.

"STRIKE TWO!" Spider-Man yelled as he could see the pipe was about ready to connect with his skull.

"Come on!" the goon said as he looked around and swung again.

"Strike Three, you're out!" Spider-Man yelled as he web yanked the pipe, jumped into the air, and plowed his head into the ground.

Both goons were webbed up and Spider-Man was surprised that there were only two goons guarding the gates. That caught him off guard ,not that he was complaining about that fact. That being said, it still caught him off guard.

"Okay, let's see what's behind door number two," Spider-Man said as he placed his hands on the handle and gave a tug, but the breath left his body as he tried to get it open.

The door burst open just as the Spider Sense went off and the one and only Rhino stampeded out to knock Spider-Man back.

The web slinger fell back and collided with a series of pipes. The pipes landed onto the ground with a heavy clatter and Rhino once again went after him.

"You again, we got to really stop meeting like this," Spider-Man muttered as Rhino smashed into a set of paint cans which caused them to clatter onto the ground. "People are starting to talk about us…."

"Cram it Web Head," Rhino said as Spider-Man dodged underneath his lumbering attacks.

Spider-Man was on the catwalk and released a rope which caused more paint cans to land onto Rhino with a clatter.

"That's it, do you realize how hard a suit like this is like to get dry cleaned?" Rhino asked as he looked up and smashed into the side of the scaffold.

"You mean it comes off, or do you get it dry cleaned why wearing it?" Spider-Man asked as he hung onto the scaffold for dear life, while mentally calculating the trajectory of what he was going to do next. "Actually, how does that work, actually that suit, it has a lot of scientific questions that should not really be answered, like for one, how exactly do you…."

"SHUT IT!" Rhino yelled as he smashed into the side of the scaffold, with Spider-Man holding on for dear life. He was about to be brought down the hard way and he was pretty sure that this was going to suck no matter how many ways you cut it.

"Okay, shutting it, so shutting it, shutting up, now, okay maybe later, but I'm shutting up," Spider-Man muttered underneath his breath as he looked forward.

"See that you keep it shut, web head," Rhino growled as he plowed the side of the scaffold but Spider-Man pushed himself down and caused the scaffold to collapse on them.

"Kind of walked into that one, didn't you horn for brains?" Spider-Man asked as Rhino was down underneath the scaffold. "The most painful thing about this is that you'll be back, likely to gore me again and again….oh well, let's see what's behind door number three….I think it's door number three anyway."

The web slinger grabbed the edge of the door and was about to click it open but he stopped for a second. There was no spider sense, no good thing.

"So, you came here, you've made a big mistake."

Spider-Man turned around and went eye to eye with the Rose.

"Yeah, well you don't seem to be the fighting type," Spider-Man suggested but he was keeping an open mind.

"Well you don't seem to be the type that should keep fighting me after all of this time," Rose said as he stared down Spider-Man. "You've been a thorn in my side for long enough."

Spider-Man started to laugh at this statement and it caused the Rose to be confused and agitated at the same time. A response he was pretty sure that many people got when they were dealing with Spider-Man.

"What is so funny?" the Rose demanded and Spider-Man was preparing to tell him as only he could.

"Thorn….rose….thorn….rose….ah no sense of humor at all," Spider-Man said as he was standing on the business end of the Rose's gun. It was ready to fire but strangely enough, Spider-Man's spider sense was not ringing alarm bells in his head.

That was something that defied pretty much all explanation and the web slinger wondered what exactly was going on.

"I don't understand, the stupid weapon….it should work!" The Rose yelled but he pulled a regular gun out of his suit. "Well, if that doesn't work, you're going to have to go to the basics."

That did in fact register as a definite threat on the Spider Sense scale of death and the web slinger had to play dodge the bullets as he was going around in circles. His heart sped up but this was what he would do.

"Come on, after all of these schemes, you're just going to shoot me!" Spider-Man said as he blew up a vase.

"Yes," The Rose said as the game of cat and mouse between the two continued.


Jean Grey sat, the lights were on but no one was home. Emma sat behind her, stroking her fingers through Jean's red hair with a smile on her face and she leaned forward.

"Jean, Jean, you need to unlock it, Jean, it's there, the power is yours, all you need to do is grab onto it, break the locks and unleash your potential," Emma whispered in Jean's ear and Jean closed her eyes.

"This won't work," Mastermind said as she looked at Emma.

"Well she was fighting you every step of a way, but who would want your grimy little fingers in their mind?" Emma asked and Shaw stepped in.

"Wasting valuable time," Shaw said and Emma turned towards him.

"Shaw, sweetheart, let me do my thing," Emma said as she was seconds away from controlling the Phoenix Force and bringing it into a far more worthy vessel.

"Yes, we are letting you do your thing Emma," Shaw said but he kept his eyes on Emma. It was almost as he was expecting some type of double cross. Something that was the ultimate irony given the fact that he was planning onto do the same thing.

Jean's eyes flashed open but her mind was still at a restful state. There was no pain, only feelings of pleasure, unlike that crummy attack that Mastermind decided as he tried to brutally take control of the Phoenix Force with a sophistication of a baboon.

"Just relax Jean, you're almost there, you're almost finished," Emma whispered sweetly in Jean's ear as she started to stroke Jean's ear. "Let it cause your body to heat up and just let it go."

Jean's mouth opened as she was reaching forward to something.

"I can't figure out if you're going to take the Phoenix Force or romance her," Shaw said and Emma turned over her shoulder.

"This needs a more delicate and gentle touch, something that you would know nothing about, Sebastian," Emma commented cattily

Jean's hips bucked up as she spasmed and she was reaching through the air. A moan escaped her mouth but Emma placed her hands on her shoulders gently.

"Jean, you're almost there, just let it all out, it will be yours," Emma whispered in her ear as she almost straddled the woman's lap, more of an attempt to hold her down than anything else. She could feel Jean's body heat up, which meant the primal force of the Phoenix was about ready to claw out of her body.

"Almost there," Jean whispered as she could feel warmth go through her body, sensations that she did not imagine in her wildest, most passionate dreams.

"Yes, Jean, you're almost there, almost at the climax," Emma said as she pressed herself down on them and felt the transfer of the Phoenix Force about ready to break free.

There would be a one second window where she could screw up and all would be lost. Emma allowed herself to be lapsed in an amount of total concentrated.

"You wanted it, didn't you?" Jean asked as her voice became rather seductive and sensual as she looked at Emma, her glowing eyes flashing open.

"Um….yes," Emma said as she did not know what to make about that sudden turn around and she was confused.

Jean's body was heating up to the point where Emma had to back off.

"You think that you're in control of me, aren't you?" Jean asked as the Phoenix within her flared up. "I DISAGREE!"


The moment of truth was almost at hand with the web slinger dodging each individual attack as the bullets once again ricocheted off of the wall. He was almost face to face with the Rose and it was time to pluck him.

"Okay, I've got this," Spider-Man muttered to himself, before he got serious, which for Spider-Man was to get less serious in an attempt to psyche out the bad guys as they tried to take him down. "Hey, you know, a shot like that, it's not really that much of a surprise that you haven't been able to take control of the New York Criminal underworld before that…."

"You're a dead man!" The Rose yelled as all sense of his plan had gone out the window. He had fallen into the same trap that people have had before him.

Spider-Man had gotten to him and when Spider-Man got to you, that meant that Spider-Man was about to get you.

The web slinger hopped down, dodging the attacks of his adversary. A couple of goons rushed in but they were just the type that were rented out for a day of trouble.

BAM!

The gun was now webbed out of the hand of the Rose and Spider-Man hurled him hard against the wall. He ricocheted off of it, the wind being knocked completely out of his body. He coughed, blood spilling from his mouth as he tried to look up but he was down for the count, and he was not about to come back.

"So that….was that," Spider-Man managed as he twisted the arm of his enemy behind his back and forced him to the ground.

"Let me up!" he demanded and Spider-Man reached around to grab the mask.

"Well look at this, I wonder what we have here?" Spider-Man asked as he tugged on the mask to unwrap the Rose.

There he was as clear as day ,Spider-Man recognized the face, in fact he had a couple of run ins with the man himself.

It was Fisk, Richard Fisk, the son of the disgraced and imprisoned Kingpin of Crime.

"Richard Fisk….well that's…..actually that just proves that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?"

The outraged glare of Fisk could be seen and Spider-Man could feel the chills that went through his body.

"Let me make one think perfectly clear, I'm nothing like my father," he spat and Spider-Man smirked at him.

"Well, I think some people might disagree," Spider-Man replied as he looked down at the battered form of Richard Fisk, who was unable to comprehend what happened, and how he got beat. "I mean, you both got your rears handed to you by everyone's favorite friendly neighborhood Spider-Man."

Fisk was rather agitated and tried to get up to his feet but Spider-Man twisted his arm behind his back and made sure his hands were webbed tight.

"The Hellfire Club sold me out!" Fisk grumbled.

"Yeah they seem to be the type to do that," Spider-Man agreed, he was not about to dispute that fact.

Another fact that he was not about ready to dispute was his spider sense, as in the fact that his spider sense was going haywire.

It continued to go haywire, it was almost to the point where it split the inside of his head. The web slinger staggered and dropped to his knees like he was nothing. The breath left his body as he blinked.

Even Fisk was confused, he thought that Spider-Man was about to bring him in but he was on his back like a kitten.

Spider-Man had always thought of his spider sense as some subtle premonition of things to come but the web slinger pulled himself over, nearly collapsing on the ground from what happened.

He saw the end, and it would not let up.

To Be Continued.