Chapter Fifty-Two:


Doctor Otto Octavius slowly and groggily pulled himself to a state of being awake. His mind rolled through with numerous thoughts. All of them clouding his mind, and he backtracked where he was in his mind.

The last image he remembered in his mind, he stood in a lab with Norman Osborn. Osborn insisted on testing the Goblin Formula on himself. Despite Otto's numerous misgivings, he went along with Osborn's request. The formula exploded in his face, literally speaking. And he woke up here.

A dull hissing echoed in the back of Otto's head. His skull experienced a sensation akin to something jumping out of the back of his skull. The man attempted to pull himself up off of the bed and collapsed one more time. The man groaned several times, shaking his head.

A doctor glanced down at Otto. His mouth opened up.

"Doctor Octavius, can you hear me?"

"Yes, I hear you," Otto said.

In a second, Otto's arms began to twitch like mad. His breathing became labored. The control component must have been jammed during the battle. One of the arms flung to the side and smashed into a vase. The vase flew off of the table and shattered onto the ground in a matter of seconds.

"Doctor Octavius, you need to calm yourself," the Doctor said.

The movement of the arms forced the doctor to avert back another step. Otto closed his eyes, sweat rolling down his face. Two more doctors, a nurse, and a pair of security guards entered the room.

"Just, relax, Doctor Octavius, we're here to help me," the doctor said. "If you just tell us everything about the arms. Doctor Evans-Parker told us….."

Otto screamed as a sound bombarded his skull. He managed to gain his bearings. The arms slithered to the side, and one of them jerked forward. Had the doctor not been further back, he would have been suddenly impaled on backswing.

"Sir, you need to understand….."

"Don't tell me what I need to do, don't tell me what I need to understand," Otto said. The limb continued to twitch and jerk from one side to the next. "I need to see my wife, tell her I need something….to fix this."

"Doctor Octavius, I don't want to be the one tells you this, but….."

The doctor remained silent for a second. The arms continued to move around.

"Tell me," Otto said. The man's agitation hit a fever pitch. "TELL ME!"

"You have to promise you'll be calm," the doctor said.

Seconds passed as the good doctor caught his bearings. His breath rose and fell from behind his chest.

"Yes, I'm calm," Otto said. His eyes and body language told a different story, along with the robotic limbs swinging around. His voice showed how calm he ended up being. "Now tell me."

The doctor paused for a second, not knowing what would happened. Otto's eyes narrowed for a second.

"Your wife, sir, she passed, shortly, before you woke up."

"I see," Otto said. "Thank you for telling me."

The doctor thought for a few seconds he was out of the woods. The thought disappeared when Otto impaled the robotic arm into the chest in a flash.

The nurse screamed at the sight of Otto slamming the razor sharp arm through the chest of the doctor. The arm removed from the chest of the doctor.

"I'm sure you did everything you could," Otto said. He didn't raise his voice, he spoke extremely calm. "But it wasn't enough."

The guards pulled their guns on Otto. The good doctor gripped onto their guns and pulled yanked them away. Their arms snapped. The clasp of the arm snapped around the wrist of the guard, hoisting him high off of the ground. The two guards flew head over heels and smashed through the window.

The nurse almost lost her shit, and bolted.

"HELP!"

The robotic limbs grabbed the nurse around her shoulders to hurl her through a plate glass window. Glass shattered everywhere when the woman dropped to the ground.

Otto broke open the window and descended down to the stress, hospital gown flapping in the wing against his mental tentacles.

The doctor vowed to get to the bottom of this and only one place permitted him the ability to get to the bottom of all of this insanity.


The death of Mary-Alice hit Harry and Gwen fully at this point. Gwen looked at Harry, with a long sigh escaping her throat.

"Perhaps it's the best thing Otto is still in a coma," Harry said. He squeezed Gwen's hand. The brainy blonde nodded in response. "He'd be devastated if he heard about it."

"Yes," Gwen said. "But, who knows what his mental state is when he wakes up?"

Harry only began to guess how messed up Otto would be when he woke up from his coma. The two of them stuck around the hospital, to meet with Mary-Alice and Otto's attorney, who thankfully was in the vicinity.

The elevator opened up. A fairly attractive brunette made her way from the elevator. The woman placed her hair up in a bun, and wore conservative baggy clothes which didn't make her really stand out in a crowd. The high angular cheek bones and pouty lips made Harry think something else lingered beneath the surface.

"Harry Evans-Parker?"

"Yes, I'm him," Harry said. He motioned towards Gwen. "And this is Gwen Stacy."

"My name is Jennifer Walters, I'm the lawyer for the Octavius estate," she said. The woman took a couple of seconds to regain her bearings. "And…while Mary-Alice prepared me for this, you never expected this would happen."

"No, I don't think any of us expected this to happen," Harry said. "So, what do I need to do?"

Jennifer shuffled through her briefcase. She caught one look at Harry, and fumbled with the briefcase. The case dropped to the ground.

"Sorry, not really my day today," Jennifer said.

"Here, let me," Harry said. He bent down and picked up the briefcase.

"Well, aren't you the real gentleman?" Jennifer asked. The woman grinned as she looked at Harry. His green eyes could be a real trap. "No wonder all of the ladies are after you."

"Well, the ladies do have taste," Gwen said. "For keeping their eyes on my boyfriend."

"Oh, I'd figure the two of you were together," Jennifer said. She had a pretty good eye for these things, and Gwen didn't have the raging bitch look a lot of women had when others looked at their boyfriend.

"Together, we have a lot of the same tastes," Gwen said.

'Like the same women,' Gwen thought.

"Don't worry about it," Harry said. "Why don't we go into the longue, it's a bit less crowded than out here?"

Jen agreed, following the two of them into a lounge area. She regained her bearings for a second and sat down in front of Harry.

"So since, Mary-Alice's health had been failing for some time, and especially after her husband being indisposed, she made arrangements in the event she took a-turn for the worst," Jen said. Her voice shook for a few seconds, but the woman managed to maintain somewhat of a professional demeanor and focus on the situation at hand. "So, I'm going to need you to sign these papers."

"Will do," Harry said.

Jen placed the papers in front of Harry. She smiled.

"Most don't read papers, or trust someone else to explain the contents of them," Jen said. "I'm not complaining, rather I'm praising you, you don't know how refreshing it is to see someone actually taking an interest."

"She made me her heir?" Harry asked.

"Yes, it isn't much, but merely a formality to ensure everything is line," Jen said. "As you know, the insurance is already taking care of Doctor Octavius and his condition. So you shouldn't have to worry about anything there."

Harry smiled, he was glad.

"And you're still going to need to discuss things with Mrs. Alders, the Executer of Estate."

"I'll make an arrangement to get in touch with her," Harry said. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you."

"Oh, it's been a pleasure doing business with you," Jen said. "I've heard so much about you."

"Hopefully the best," Harry said.

"Well, I've done some work for an associate of yours….Emma Frost," Jen said. The woman's lips curled into a slight smile. "She can be one of my more challenging clients."

"Don't let it get you down, Emma just has a charming personality where she ran rub people a certain way," Harry said.

Jen laughed, if it wasn't true, she didn't know what was. Regardless, she took a slight breath to calm herself down after a few seconds. She started to relax around Harry, a lot more than she could say than she did around a lot of people.

A crash caused Harry to bolt up. Locking eyes with Gwen, the two of them understood one thing.

'So did your Spider-Sense go off?' Harry asked.

Gwen nodded, and Jen frowned, she heard the crash as well. The two of them looked out the window from the conference room area and gasped. Jen stood at their shoulder and eyes widened as well.

Broken glass strewn all over the grass, and worst of all, the prone, mangled body of one of the nurses, Harry listened to one of the NYPD officers who turned up.

"You're saying Octavius did this?"

Harry tensed up for a moment. They would have to take a closer look to this. Otto woke up and found out about the death of his wife. Needless to say, the man didn't take it too well.


Emma arrived dressed in style. Her personal assistant, a brunette woman, dressed in a rather conservative female business suit, wearing a pair of thick glasses, walked behind her. She arrived at Horizon for a meeting.

"Good morning, Emma."

Emma smiled and shook hands with Rose, who waited for her for this meeting. The woman became guarded the second she ran into Selene, the Black Queen. Given Emma's potential future in the Hellfire Club, she would be seeing a lot of this women.

"Well, Miss Frost, it's a pleasure to see you today."

"You remember, Selene, don't you?" Rose asked.

Emma bit back the obvious comment rising on the tip of her tongue.

"All too well," Emma said.

"And, young Betsy is assisting me in preparation of taking over control of the Braddock business interests," Rose said.

"It's a pleasure to meet you again, Emma," Betsy said, trying not to look too excited.

"Yes, the pleasure is mine," Emma said.

Emma extended her hand and smiled, squeezing Betsy's hand. The two of them backed off from each other.

The five made their way to the conference room off to the side. Rose settled down, with Emma sitting down in a seat. Emma's assistant joined them.

Rose gave Emma's assistant a look, frowning, but she didn't say anything just yet.

"Plans for the Sentinel Program have hit a snag ever since Norman Osborn died," Rose said.

"A snag doesn't necessarily mean the plans are dead as of yet, though," Selene said. The woman spoke in as firm and a crisp voice as possible. "As long as Shaw breaths, there's always the danger of the plan finding new life and new ways to complicate the future. And I won't have it."

"Yes, I'd imagine not," Emma said. "But, as you know, Harry has shares in OsCorp, and if he can acquire more, then…"

"There's the one simple problem of letting Harry in on this entire scheme," Selene said. "Which we will in due time."

"Do not underestimate him," Emma said in warning. "He will have found out in his ways. Maybe not now, but he is going to find out soon. Deception is not someone he sees through. He has friends. You know who Helena Wayne is, don't you?"

"Yes, the daughter of a man who always seemed to be ten steps ahead of his opponents," Selene said. "And her mother was fairly intelligent as well. We have been unable to recruit her, mostly because she hasn't been around as of late."

"Oh, she's around," Emma said. The woman smiled knowingly. "Just because you cannot see her, she's always around, and can pop up at a time where it's inconvenient."

"As Emma said though, Harry has a fair chunk of OsCorp stock, and with the company in flux, he can buy up even more if necessary," Rose said. "And his other business dealings are going smoothly, with the merger between SLE and Frost Industries being the top of the list."

"Said merger was only inevitable, after our own personal merger," Emma said.

Betsy ducked her head to hide the amusement she had at the words she spoke.

Emma shifted, as her personal assistant brushed her foot underneath the table across Emma's thigh.

"What about Stark?" Selene asked.

"Stark is dealing with the pressure of Congress, who can be annoying even on their best day," Emma said. "Any business dealings Horizon has with the company might force the politicians to back off. Harry has some friends in some extremely high and important places, as do I."

"Yes," Selene said. "We understand as much."

The group decided to discuss a few more business dealings, although nothing important.

"Seems to me like a change in the guard is going to come soon," Emma said.

"Sooner than we think," Selene said. Her dark eyes fixed on Emma's bright blue eyes. The tension between the two, both sexual and otherwise, could be felt. "But, I'm sure you'll be prepared for anything, Miss Frost."

"You better believe I'll be prepared," Emma said. Her lips curled into a knowing smile as she looked at the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club.

The group parted their ways. Emma and her assistant made their way to the elevator to head back out.

"So, have you thought about the deal?"

"Yes, Felicia, I have," Emma said. "Investor confidence in Hardy Consolidated has shaken a little bit, hasn't it? I'm not sure how much you have stirred the pot behind the scenes in your own right."

"A little," Felicia said. "But, I'd want you to swoop in and purchase the stocks. It should allow for the hostile takeover of the company."

Emma smiled. Felicia must have planned this out to the tee.

"I'm sure we can arrange something," Emma said. "Rose might have been looking at you a bit too much for my liking though."

"I thought this was a good disguise," Felicia said.

"I won't dispute how perfect the disguise is, but Rose is crafty, just like Harry is," Emma said. The Frost heiress placed her hand on the shoulder of the Hardy heiress. "You need to keep on your toes. Especially if you're going to go as far as you want to go."

"You know me," Felicia said. "I like to go all of the way."

Emma didn't become psyched out.

"Well, you were trying to distract me underneath the table. So, I think when we get home, there's going to be some punishment in order."

Felicia shivered for a moment. She wasn't normally submissive, unless it pertained to Harry. Regardless, the thought of Emma having her way with her excited her.

"What are you going to do?"

Emma leaned forward, placing her hand on Felicia's shoulder with a smile.

"I'll think of the best way to deal with a naughty kitty like you when we get home."


"And so, once again, Spider-Girl terrorizes the city. And what more, there's another contender throwing his name into the ring, to menace us all. This Spider-Man…..well, I don't know where he came from. But if he showed up in my bathtub, I'd send him down the drain!"

Harold only barely listened to the nonessential rantings of J. Jonah Jameson. He worked trying to uncover the Oz3 formula Harry Evans-Parker finished from the computer. The young man's frown deepened the further he worked on this formula.

"Damn it!"

Harold drew in the deep breath, and picked up the glass of wine he drank. He hurled the wine glass at the television, causing it to shatter from the impact.

The young man started to breathe in and out, glass flying everywhere. He rose himself from the lap top and crossed the room to the table.

He opened up a box on the table and opened it up. Slipping a purple pill out of a vial, he popped it into his mouth.

The door busted open as Harold slipped into a blissful state of not really giving a fuck. The door shattered underneath the arms of Doctor Otto Octavius, who dressed in a long trenchcoat. His arms started to frail in every direction.

Otto gripped Harold by his arms and hoisted the young man off of the chair. Harold slammed into the wall, with Otto pinning him against the wall.

Harold broke into a fit of laughter, sounding like a diseased hyena. His giggling increased, making Otto look at him with a raised eyebrow. The man wondered if the young man turned onto some hard droves.

"Focus, Mr. Osborn," Otto said.

"Fine, it's really good to see you're up and about, Doc," Harold said. He really meant it, because Doctor Octavius always treated him halfway decent. "I see you have a good enough hand on things."

"Where is Norman Osborn?" Otto demanded. "He and I need to have words about the death of my wife!"

Harold shook his head. A sneer appeared on his face.

"My father is dead," Harold said. Further malice entered his voice as he added the other part to what he wanted to say. "Harry Evans-Parker killed him."

"Good, justice regardless," Otto said.

"No, not justice!" Harold yelled. "Parker is responsible for the formula which killed my father. He's responsible for putting you in a coma. And putting you in a coma must have put stress on your wife which killed her. This is all his fault!"

Otto hesitated for a moment. He dropped Harold down to the ground. Harold dropped down to the ground like a ton of bricks. Blood oozed from his shoulder when he slid to the ground.

"I see. Now, I know what must be done."

Otto left, Harold on the floor. Harold leaned against the wall, uncaring of the long cut on his shoulder, due to the drug induced state he found himself in.

"I hope you intend to replace my door…and my window as well."

For Otto smashed his way through the window, and descended down on his robotic limbs to the grounds below.

"I'm guessing you won't!"


Harry found himself in the suit he never wanted to be in, not even twenty-four hours after he found himself in the suit the first time.

"So, can you hear me now?" Marla asked.

"Loud and clear," Harry said. "How about you Gwen?"

"Yes," Gwen said without any hesitation.

"Well, since Harry entered the field, at least on a temporary basis," Marla said.

"Oh, and I owe Betty a hundred thousand dollars," Harry said.

"I'm pretty sure she was being facetious when she made the bet," Gwen said.

"Well, I'm taking it seriously," Harry said. "She deserves to be treated to something nice. Besides, a hundred thousand dollars is like toilet paper to me anyway."

"Considering just the finances of the Evans business ventures alone, I wouldn't doubt it," Marla said.

"If I can help it, this will be the last time I'll be out in this suit," Harry said.

"Why do I have a feeling you won't be able to help it?" Gwen asked.

Harry didn't answer Gwen's question. She was right, but Harry needed to focus on something else. An annoying buzzing went off in the back of his head, forcing Harry to duck to one side and Gwen to duck to the other side.

A giant robotic wasp stalked them with six smaller drones circling it.

"What?" Marla asked.

"Trouble," Gwen said. She took a look at the problem coming right after her, and her spider sense indicated they were a threat. "Do you have a visual?"

"Yes, I have a visual, and I can't believe it," Marla said. "And despite the tacky design, whatever you're fighting looks pretty dangerous."

"Noted," Harry said.

They moved into ear sight of Jameson's non-stop ranting.

"And, furthermore, Spider-Girl has….."

Harry diverted his attention away from Jameson and to the enemies attacking. Two of the smaller drones rushed at Harry, sending stinging blasts at him. He found himself so distracted by the big fish and Jameson's mouth; he neglected to notice the smaller wasps.

He webbed onto the drones, yanking them forward. He whipped his arms, sending a jolt of energy through the wasp, short-circuiting them.

Gwen somersaulted in the air. She stuck the landing on the wall, avoiding a stinger blasted from the larger wasp. The web slinging heroine averted the attacks, and manipulated one of the smaller drones in the path of a larger done.

Bullseye, the larger model took out one of the smaller drones.

"Robots, I hate robots," Gwen said.

"Why?" Marla asked.

"Oh, you can't get in their heads with the witty banter," Gwen said.

"Actually, you have a pretty good reason to hate robots," Marla said after thinking about what Gwen said for a moment.

Gwen smashed her fist through one of the smaller drones. It dented, but kept blasting through the cracked shield.

Harry drilled one of the drones with an intense venom blast, exploding the drone into millions of little bitty pieces.

"And with this Spider-Man on the scene, is Manhatten about ready to be turned into some kind of Spider Island?"

Jameson's ranting made Harry really wish he could web the man's mouth shut. Regardless, Harry closed his eyes, focusing on the other two drones.

He noticed a weak spot in the larger wasp model. He lured it over. Once the drone made its way close enough, Harry fired a venom blast at the drone. The venom blast hit the red light on the front of the drone. With the guidance system somewhat compromised, the drone did a jerky motion.

"Did you damage it?" Gwen asked.

The two spiders forced to jump in either way, avoiding the blasts of this Spider Slayer. Harry took note of one of the drones.

"Gwen, keep it distracted."

Gwen nodded, and shot a web ball, getting the attention of the wasp slayer. The woman webbed onto the side of the Wasp Slayer, even though it didn't do her the slightest bit of good. The Slayer started to jerk in every direction.

"Yeah, distracted," Gwen said.

Harry webbed onto one of the miniature drones and wound it up. The drone reached overload load. With a strong arm, Harry hurled the drone.

The drone stuck into the guidance system of the larger drone. An explosion rendered the wasp drone unable to hover.

The two spiders used their web lines to prevent from descending down to the city.

The lone miniature drone shorted out when the master did, falling to the ground. Harry scooped up the drone in his hand.

"Well, we showed them," Gwen said.

Something told Harry this was far from over. Call it bad experience, or whatever.


Spencer Smythe reclined in his chair, watching the results of the first field test.

'Not surprised Spider-Girl beat my field test,' Smythe thought. 'But, Spider-Man is an added variable I'll need to compensate for.'


To Be Continued on October 5th, 2015.