Mary Jane dreamed.
She dreamed of hovering green faces and manic red eyes. She dreamed of cribs and knives and bloody blankets, of sneering voices and of falling. Falling forever.
Falling into a sea of blood that stretched as far as the eye could see, and feeling the thick metallic liquid fill her lungs so fast she couldn't breathe -
I'm going to die...
And then the phone rang, jarring her awake. She sat up, strands of her coppery hair falling into her eyes, and her clothes rumpled and wrinkled. Struggling to get her head together she fumbled for the handset, stumbling towards its cradle and grabbing it just before the answering machine kicked in.

"Hello, Mary Jane Parker speaking?" she said in a voice that sounded as if she were speaking through treacle. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was about one in the morning. Who could be calling at this hour? she thought, confused. She didn't seem to be getting any answer, so she said "Hello?" again, just to make sure that the connection hadn't died. Still nothing.

Okay... I don't like this... "Look, whoever you are, I know how to trace phone calls. You won't get away with this."
Finally there came a sound on the other end.

"I - I'm sorry." And then the connection finally died, leaving Mary Jane more confused than ever. This is getting stranger and stranger, she thought uneasily. Walking into the bedroom, she rooted around under the bed until she found what she was looking for - her .38 Special six-shot revolver. She hadn't fired it since that crazy business with Peter, Ben, and the third Parker clone who had turned out to be nothing more than a mutant monster, and she had no wish to do so again, but if she were being watched by unknown parties with Peter off who-knew-where playing superhero, she wanted to at least have some form of protection by her side.

Sliding six bullet's into the gun's individual chambers, she pushed the gun under her pillow before she changed into her nightclothes and finally got into bed. Whichever evil wacko found her first would get a nasty surprise - of that she was certain.
A part of her hoped that it would be Norman Osborn.

Spider-Man ducked a pumpkin bomb and felt the heat of the explosion on his back, along with some fast-moving splinters of bark. Not that he paid much attention to them - he was concentrating on the man swooping and hovering above him on the Goblin-glider. He was concentrating on the ice-cold rage he could feel building in his gut. He had felt this rage only a couple of times before - once, when Gwendy had died, and again, when his only brother, Ben, had been speared in the back by the Goblin's deadly tinker toy. And now he felt it again as it seared his veins and burned through his mind, threatening to insinuate itself into every fiber of his being. His brain twisted around itself, rationalizing what he was about to do to the Goblin - to the man inside the Goblin - and it made Peter afraid.

"Stop running, Parker!" the Goblin taunted, shrieking with hideous, maddening laughter. "Fight me like a man!"

"Wouldn't be a fair fight, Norman," Peter said coldly. "You wouldn't know how." Leaping, he aimed a scything kick at the Goblin's head, striking hard on Osborn's temple and staggering him. The Goblin was only saved from falling by the glider's autopilot systems and the bootstraps that kept him anchored to the glider's wings.

"How dare you, Parker - how dare you strike your superior!" Osborn seemed to have forgotten about Kaine completely - a fact that Peter took in his stride, Osborn's vengeance seemed directed only at him, Kaine being mere incidental detail. Peter decided that he could use that to his advantage. Reaching out with his right hand, he snagged the rear of the glider with a webline and slammed it into the ground, hard, sending the Goblin tumbling to the floor, where he rolled for a while, his padded costume absorbing most of the impact. Nevertheless, he still looked dazed when he staggered to his feet - right in front of Kaine's towering figure. The massive clone dwarfed him, but Osborn was still not intimidated.

"Peter, I'm disappointed," Osborn said, tutting, as he rocked back and forth on his feet. "You really think that this creature - this nothing - can hurt me?"

Kaine replied in Peter's stead, hammering Osborn with a double-handed blow to the chin.

"You're just like the others, Osborn," he said as he lumbered forwards and picked the Goblin up off the ground by the throat. "You think you're so very able to look down on others because of your power. You think you have the right to destroy Peter. That ends tonight, if I have anything to do with it."

Osborn cocked his head to the right, the manic red eyes of the Goblin displaying no emotion.

"Really?" he asked flatly. "Well, you'll have to do better than this, my misshapen friend." Raising his hands towards Kaine's face, he blasted the clone at point-blank range with all ten of his sparkle-blasters. Kaine roared in agony, dropping Osborn to clutch at his eyes instinctively, as they were singed by the intense light and heat of the blasts. Peter was momentarily concerned that Kaine might have been blinded by the flash, but he quickly remembered that Kaine was a lot tougher than he looked - which was saying something in itself. You couldn't stop Kaine short of shoving an I-beam through his chest or dropping a landslide of molten rock on his head. He'd survive. Unfortunately, Osborn was using the respite to call his battered flyer towards him again, and he was able to hop nimbly back on board as it flew close by him. After a few seconds he was ready to attack once more, and Peter braced himself to begin evading heavy debris showers again. Here, in the trees, the Goblin's flight path was limited at best, but with the added advantage of height, he could throw those lethal pumpkin bombs and razor bats of his with impunity, and with little fear of getting hurt. Peter had to even the odds somehow.

Osborn swooped round for another pass and was reaching into his satchel for another bomb when he said, "Oh, Peter? While we're out here, what do you suppose is going on inside my lodge?"

Peter paused, feeling his blood boil again. "You monster. If you've hurt my little girl -"

"What?" the Goblin gloated. "What will you do? Expose me? Turn me over to the police?" He snorted with disgust. "You'll never do that - you know what would happen if you did, don't you? You expose me, and I'll expose you for the menace that you are. I'm sure J. Jonah Jameson would be more than happy to run the story in his dirty little rag. And what happens to Mary Jane then? What happens to your baby? All your enemies go after those two innocents in revenge for what you've done to them. They'll die, and you'll have to live with the knowledge that it was you that let it happen."

"I'm guilty of a lot, Goblin, but I'll never be guilty of murder. I'm not like you," Peter said in revulsion, flipping over and over to avoid a hail of bombs and bats, the foliage around him shredded and burnt as the Goblin seemingly threw all of his arsenal into his offensive. Inwardly, Peter wondered how many more evil little toys the Goblin had tucked away in that little bag of his, and cursed himself for not bringing some left-over stingers with him; he thought the Goblin deserved at least a small measure of pain for what he had done. Outwardly, though, he kept his eye on the Goblin as Osborn swooped towards him, holding what looked to be a specially-sharpened razor bat in his hand. Peter could see the edge of the bat gleaming brightly in the moonlight, the cold steel glittering like the eyes of a snake. Peter immediately realized what the Goblin was trying to do, and started to gather his strength in his legs, ready for a leaping escape over the Goblin's head.

"This is where we part company permanently, Parker!" the Goblin howled, his voice filling with even more insane venom and hatred for his old foe.

Peter recognized, also, the arrogant, superior streak in the Goblin's voice - the same emotion seemed to be evident in all the people who pulled on the mask. The same emotion that made them overconfident, too, and that was what Peter was counting on right now. He leapt - The Goblin lashed out with the razor bat, the polished blade coming perilously close to Peter's abdomen, ready to slice eagerly through flesh and muscle and bone -

And suddenly, the Goblin was tumbling to the ground again, a third man hugging onto his back like a limpet. The Goblin's damaged glider whined in protest as its engine was overtaxed, and the Goblin spiraled to earth. The stranger clung on all the while, fearlessly, slamming the Goblin's head into the dirt repeatedly as they impacted, in order to stun him - at least for a while.

Spidey didn't recognize him - the costume wasn't one that he'd seen before, and he'd spent more than one evening in the company of the cream of New York's super-set. It was a full-body number, similar to Kaine's, but without the degeneration-slowing devices that Kaine wore, and colored like the Black Panther's regular duds. Peter hadn't a clue how to address the man, except with one word: "Thanks."

"Not a problem," the stranger replied. His voice was unfamiliar. When he spoke it was with a pronounced electronic buzz, as if his mask was altering his voice somehow. Peter made a mental note to look into this guy at a later date, even if his spider-sense didn't think there was anything to worry about. "Anything I can do. You know how it is."

"Uh... yeah," Spidey replied, slightly uneasily, and painfully aware of how little time they had before the Goblin resumed his attack once more. "Who are you?"

Peter thought he detected a slight half-smile beneath the man's mask. It lay close enough to his face to allow that much definition, at least. "I'm a friend of Kaine's," he replied after a few seconds' thought, which frankly made Peter even more uneasy.

"A friend of Kaine's?" he repeated sardonically. "Now I've heard everything."

Kaine stumbled to his feet and staggered over to where Spidey and the mystery man were standing, his vision evidently not up to its usual standards yet, but getting back to it slowly. "I know it's a hard thing to believe, but he's telling the truth, Peter. He and I are here because of your daughter, as I explained. We were led here by Osborn's Scriers - my friend here helped me track them down." He waved Spidey towards the lodge with one massive paw. "Go - find your child. We two will deal with the Goblin when he wakes up."

Peter nodded slowly. "Okay, Kaine. I'll come back, I promise."

Kaine smiled. It made Peter's skin crawl. "If everything goes to plan, you won't have to." He offered Peter his hand - in friendship, it seemed. Peter grasped it uncertainly. With his free hand, Kaine gestured once again towards the lodge, then turned back towards the Goblin. "Good luck, Peter."

Peter nodded silently, and sprang away from the two men, leaping towards the lodge and the prize - the prize that he had waited nine long months for - that it held within it. He considered going in through the front door, but instantly dismissed the idea as too dangerous; remembering what he had to endure on the way over here, he expected much the same to be waiting for him behind the heavy pine door. So, he snuck around the side of the lodge itself, looking for an alternative entrance. Seeing a window on the first floor, he clung to the building with his fingers and the tips of his toes, and crawled silently up towards it. When he got there he found that it was locked from the inside with a small handle-based lock. He felt a pang of guilt for a second as he prepared to punch his way through the thick double pane of glass - Uncle Ben would have frowned on breaking and entering, even under these kinds of circumstances - but was still able to plant his fist through the window with relative ease.

Spider-Man fumbled for the catch and unlatched it so that he was able to crawl inside. Peter crouched for a second, expecting a flurry of blows to come raining down on his head from all directions. When that didn't happen, he straightened and began to examine his surroundings. His hand had been cut by a sharp edge on the window's broken glass, and stung as a result, but Peter counted that as a fair trade-off for what he was about to receive. Spraying a little web fluid onto the wound to keep it from bleeding any more, he knew that that was about as much first aid as it was going to get for now - at least until his regenerative powers kicked in. He didn't know exactly when that would be, though, so he decided to keep as low a profile as he could for the moment. Goblins or no Goblins, he wasn't going to bleed to death before he was able to look into his daughter's eyes for the first time.

Looking about himself again, he saw that the lodge resembled one of the Escher posters he'd bought for his room as a kid - it seemed impossible. By all accounts it looked bigger now than it had when he'd been outside. He didn't exactly know who Norman had employed to build it for him, but Peter decided that he'd try to get them to build him a summer house like this when he was rich and famous. Although he conceded that that wouldn't be for a while yet. Maybe if I do another book of Spider-Man photos, he thought acidly, I might be able to afford the first down payment on the doorstep on this place. In about twenty years' time...

He tiptoed cautiously down the corridor, looking about himself anxiously, expecting an attack to come from any quarter. He saw a room up ahead, and he opened the door as quietly as he could. Glancing inside he saw nothing but a few empty cardboard boxes, a small can of petrol, and a couple of discarded Scrier costumes. He shuddered at the sight of them and shut the door quickly, turning around and walking away from the storeroom. This place looks deserted. Not even a twinge from my spider-sense yet. That, if anything, made him feel a lot less secure.

Suddenly, Peter heard sounds coming from down the hallway to his left, and he spun on his heel, launching himself into a run as he did so. If the sounds were Norman's hoods, he could find a way to get them to tell him what Norman's plans were. If not... then he'd just have to keep searching. As he got closer and closer, Spidey could make out what the sounds were, and the realization made him run all the faster.
"I'm coming, sweetheart!" he yelled. "Daddy's here!" Daddy's here.

He rounded a corner to see two sets of double doors either side of the passageway, and he could hear the cooing and gurgling sounds coming from the doors to his left. He could feel a huge lump forming in his throat, his vision blurring as he did so. He risked raising his mask to wipe away the tears before quickly setting it down over his face again, Running towards the noises quickly, he near ripped the doors off their hinges in his hurry, and found a small wooden crib placed centrally in the room. Trying to refrain from shouting with joy, Peter tentatively tiptoed forwards and found something curled in the thick blankets that filled the cot. Reaching out with his uninjured hand, he moved the blankets back gently -

- and found nothing but a small doll, and a tape recorder playing a looped soundtrack of baby noises. Taped to the doll was a single sheet of paper, on which was written "GOTCHA! N.O."

No... "Where is she, Goblin?!!" Peter yelled, enraged, and picked up the crib, hurling it and its contents across the room, the wood shattering as it impacted against the far wall. He felt an agony so pure, so intense, that it tore at his heart like a ravening beast. He could not find voice for his anger, save to scream at his unseen tormentor "Where's my baby?! Where is she!?" It was only then that, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the shadowy figure standing in the eaves of the entrance to the room, and only then that he noticed his spider-sense had been dulled to the point of not functioning. The faint, almost imperceptible mist in the air confirmed his worst fears, and he felt his heart sink into the pit of his stomach in horror. The Goblin's trademark gas and Peter's own preoccupations had combined to totally cancel out his spider-sense and make him fall for this utterly obvious ploy, leaving him helpless against whatever Norman had planned for him. Mary Jane, I'm sorry - Before he could even finish that thought, he felt the obscured figure's brutal fist against the base of his skull, and he was wrapped in the blissful embrace of oblivion.

Kaine watched his friend somersaulting through the air with the grace if an acrobat and the fierce, unrestrained poise and power of a born hunter. The
Goblin seemed out of bombs and razor bats, but Kaine knew to expect the unexpected from this particular variety of maniac - in his few run-ins with the Hobgoblin, he had learned that anyone insane enough to ride a Goblin-glider was not to be trifled with. He leapt back from a sizzling sparkle blast that carved a smoking rut in the ground where his feet had been a second before, his intuition vindicated. Suddenly he felt a searing, agonizing pain at the very core of his soul, a pain that seemed to slice his being in half.

No... not a vision... not now... He felt the vision take hold more completely, felt his mind being torn apart. He felt the outside world melt away, and he curled in on himself, assuming a fetal position to try and reduce the agony of the premonition. Futile, he knew, but it was a simple instinct that he could no more suppress than he could take conscious control of. Opening his eyes he saw the triumphant form of Norman Osborn towering, like the Colossus of Rhodes, over the prostrate body of Spider-Man, the hero's costume ripped and tattered. Osborn's face was lit by a madness Kaine knew all too well, and he was laughing. Kaine felt his soul chilled to its center by the insane sound.

Osborn - triumphant? he thought, confused. But - how can that be? How can he be with Peter when he is... here?

And then, abruptly, the vision was gone. Kaine felt like throwing up as a wave of intense nausea washed over him. Looking up through eyes made blurry by the effects of the vision, he saw his friend in close combat with the Goblin, fists and feet his only weapons now - agility and evasiveness had been put to one side, it seemed. Kaine stumbled to his feet, wobbling for a second as as all the blood in his body seemed to flow directly to the veins in his temples, where it threatened to explode from his body altogether. And then he was standing again, his sight clearing rapidly. He summoned all his strength and began to run towards the two combatants. He felt hot rage searing his mind as he saw the Goblin land a heavy, brutal punch on his friend's jaw, and as he heard the madman's evil laughter ringing through the forest like a hyena standing over a kill.

"No!" he screamed.

"Kaine, help me!" his friend said hurriedly, grabbing the Goblin's gloved hands as the manic villain tried to grasp his throat.

"Take off the mask!" Kaine lumbered forwards and grasped the long purple cap that crowned the Green Goblin's mask, tearing it off in one fluid motion.

The stranger watched as the Goblin withdrew his gloved hands from his throat to try and keep the ugly mask on - with little success, since Kaine was so much stronger than him. "Time to face the music, Osborn," he said in triumph as the mask slid up and over his foe's chin and from there up towards his nose and eyes. When it had been removed, the stranger felt unable to suppress a gasp of horror and shock.

"Harry?" Harry Osborn?!

Suddenly there was a familiar whine, and both Kaine and the stranger looked up to see what looked like another Goblin swooping in towards them, an unconscious Spider-Man slung over his shoulder. This new Goblin reached into his small bag of tricks and threw a couple of pumpkin bombs down towards the two men. They impacted close together, spewing out a large cloud of greenish gas as they bounced off the earth, intact but for their gas caps at their tops. The unknown hero coughed, the gas seeping under his mask and leaving an acrid, ashen taste in his mouth. It affected him almost immediately, making his eyes water and his lungs protest violently. He felt his legs wobbling and he realized that the other Goblin had been a decoy. The real threat had been waiting in the shadows all along, and they had played right into his perfect little trap. With his vision blurring, he looked up at the new Goblin as it swooped low and dismounted from the glider to stand before him like a king triumphant. He watched the mask slip off, and then he saw what looked to be the face of the devil himself - the gloating visage of Norman Osborn.

"You're not... getting away... with this... Osborn," he said through lips that were refusing to co-operate. "We'll... stop you."

"You can't even stand up," Osborn said sneeringly. "You're pathetic. You've been a thorn here for too long." With that, he kicked the young hero across the face, and that was the last thing the stranger knew.

Kaine watched his friend being abused by Norman Osborn, and he felt anger boil at the base of his skull, behind his eyes, and in the pit of his stomach; all the deep, dark places inside his twisted body burned with rage that he felt unable to release, thanks to his body's induced weakness. Trying to shrug off the effects of the gas - which was easier for him because of his size - he charged Osborn, roaring with rage. Osborn glanced over towards his rapidly-advancing frame and squared his shoulders towards the massive clone, looking up at him with no fear in his eyes. As Kaine closed on him, Osborn simply stepped aside and aimed a quick, hard blow at the back of Kaine's head with the edge of one hand. Kaine realized that he shouldn't have even felt it, normally, but now it felt like he was being hit with a sledgehammer. He crashed to the ground, his head spinning.

Standing over him, Osborn laughed coldly and looked down at his fallen foe, slipping the mask back over his striking features with an evil, satisfied chuckle. "I thought Peter might try this," he said, putting a gloved hand to his chin. "I didn't expect to see you with him, though." He smiled beneath the mask, and Kaine felt a shudder running down his spine; a feeling he was unused to, and one he did not care to feel again.

"No matter," Osborn continued. "You'll all die sooner or later." Osborn's cold laughter began to echo through Kaine's mind as he felt his limbs stop working, and then he lost his grip on consciousness, unsure of whether he'd ever regain it again.