Part Two

Harry was sitting in the living room of the Osborn penthouse. His father was off at work on some sort of business. He was watching the news with great interest. "Man, things just keep getting worse." He remarked.

"We bring you the latest reports that six men have been slaughtered at a Laundromat supposedly run by local drug dealers." The reporter from Fox News took a pause before speaking to allow the viewer to take in the full force of the news, "Once again reports point towards the murderer being none other than Spider-Man."

The young Osborn shook his head disgusted with the entire situation. "This is what happens when the city let's these costumed freaks run around unsupervised."

The phone in the kitchen rang loudly, demanding his attention. Harry reluctantly left the grip of the T.V. and grabbed the phone in short order. "Hello?" He said. A voice laughed on the other side of the line. "Who is this?" Harry asked accusingly, expecting this to be a prank call.

"I've been waiting to speak with you again, Harry." The voice said coldly, "How much do you know about your father?"

"What?" Harry looked at the phone suspiciously, "Listen, I'm going to hang up."

The voice snickered, apparently enjoying this, "Turn to channel seven."

Harry's face dropped and he slowly walked to the television. Complying with the voice's demands, Harry changed the channel and was greeted by the wreckage of a building.

"If you're just joining us. Another factory belonging to Osborn Industries has gone up in flames. Reports hint to involvement from the maniac named the Green Goblin."

He rushed back to the phone, "Who is this?" Harry's tone became almost desperate, "What are you telling me?"

The voice suddenly became bland, "We'll talk again." He hung up.

Harry stared at the phone in his hands and frowned. "What's going on?"

"Why don't we have shots of Spider-Man on front page!" Jonah Jameson demanded furiously. "This is what I see on the front page of the New York Post: Exclusive pictures of rampaging Spider-Man! Look at the Times: Spider-Man loose in the city! With pictures, no less."

Robertson shrugged, "We're trying JJ. Its not easy with Parker gone, we have nobody able to get even a decent shot of him."

Jameson looked at the reporters assembled before him. "Does anyone have anything decent?"

"Well, I've got that story about alligators in the sewers." Ben Urich suggested from the rear of the group.

"I want front page news, not something for the comics section." Jameson rubbed his brow, "The Bugle is a respectable paper. Sure, we dropped the ball when he went with the super smart baby story, but the city's forgiven us for that. I need something about Spider-Man."

Robertson sighed, "The news stations seem to have gotten it pretty covered."

JJ frowned, "Do you think I care? These murders are what the people care about. I'm not going to tell them about the rising cost of prescription drugs when we've got a madman on the loose!"

"Well, what do you want from us, sir?" Urich asked meekly.

"Pictures of Spider-Man." JJ retorted, "Plain and simple. I want the city to know him for the menace that he is and to do that we need the people to see him. Now, so far we've been lucky. The other media outlets, newspapers included, have only gotten blurs of him passing by. If we get a good shot and stick it on our front page, we'll sell those papers like hotcakes."

Eddie Brock gulped and broke through the crowd, "Sir, I'll get those pictures."

JJ laughed, "You, Brock? What kind of access do you have?"

"I can do it." Eddie retorted, "I know I can. And when I get those shots on your desk, I want a promotion."

"Why should I promote you for doing your job?" JJ inquired sardonically. "You're on thin ice as it is."

A wave of chuckles and snickers ran through the crowd. Brock glanced at them hatefully and then turned back to JJ, "I'll have real shots of him, JJ, up close, by the end of the week."

"Seriously?" JJ asked.

"On my mother's grave." Eddie replied.

Jameson extended his arm and shook hands with Brock, "Pull this off and you'll be employee for the week."

Ben Parker popped in one of the many videos that he had news stations mail him concerning the Green Goblin. He sat down on the couch and turned on the VCR via his remote.

The television screen took a moment to link up with the external hardware. Ben waited patiently. He had lived a hermit's existence over the last several days.

The screen snapped to live and provided him with the image of the Green Goblin hovering over a crowd, cackling wildly. He screamed out something, quickly followed by Peter's arrival. It was a recording of their first battle.

Ben couldn't help but flinch when his nephew took a blow from the criminal. During the fight, the cameraman managed to get close to the fight.

Peter suggested the Goblin model lingerie to which the latter responded, "Priceless! You should have become a comedian!"

The fight progressed for a few more minutes, until the Goblin made his escape with Spider-Man in pursuit.

"That's enough of that." Ben said turning the VCR off. Once the television reconnected with a channel, he got up in shock, "What in the hell?"

The words were unmistakable that ran across the visual feed from the news station: Spider-Man murders again.

"Oh my God." Ben whispered, "Peter. What have you done?"

"What do you think, Harry?" Gwen inquired.

"Huh?" The young Osborn said, lost in another world. "What were you saying?" Gwen, Mary Jane, and Harry were all sitting at a table in the cafeteria.

MJ laughed, "Hello, Earth to Harry? What's wrong with me?"

Harry frowned, "Why would something be wrong? I'm fine." He replied.

"You look distant." Gwen added. "Anything bothering you?"

"No." Harry said. The name Green Goblin seemed imprinted on everything that he saw, trying to tell him something. "Nothing at all. What were you saying?"

Gwen brushed her long hair back, "Do you think the police are still looking for Peter?"

"I suppose." He replied, "At least they should be. There was no body, so he must be alive. Maybe he suffered amnesia."

"How can we be sure?" Gwen asked, a look of sadness in her eyes, "I think maybe it-its time we accepted the possibility that he's not coming back."

MJ shook her head, "No. Peter's fine, I know it."

Gwen looked at her quietly for a moment, "How can you be sure?"

"Peter is gone because he made the decision to leave." She explained, "Whatever the reason, it was for the best. The one thing you can count on about, Pete; is that he'll do what he can for the best, and that he'll come back."

"How dare he!" Norman Osborn roared tinkering with his equipment at the abandoned steel mill, he was using as his base. "How dare that fool, make a mockery of the legacy that I've created!"

He raised the pumpkin bomb in his hands and played around with the detonator. "How dare he steal my formula, my equipment and twist my name to suit his own purposes. The cheap imitation has no idea of the true meaning of the power that he has tapped, the genius behind the grand design that he has peeked at."

Norman stared into the black empty eyes of the pumpkin and grinned wickedly, "Well, I'll just have to show him what it really means to be a Goblin, all I need to do is find the proper lure."

The HobGoblin rubbed his chin rather concerned. "Now that I've made my presence known to Osborn, he won't take the idea of somebody using his very own weaponry lightly." He was standing in his grand office, looking at the city's sights all around him. "His dementia is worse than I thought. It makes him unpredictable and dangerous."

He focused his eyes on the sun in the distance. "To think he called me insane! Who does he think he is?" The HobGoblin frowned, "I'm not the crazy one." His face twitched slightly, "I'm not."

Shaking his head, suddenly, he reestablished control. "That is not what matters now. I will have to counter Osborn's madness with my own intellect." He tightened his fist, "That will win the battle. Control, focus and prospective." He took a deep breath.

"This is just a game of chess with some very high stakes." He assured himself. "Already, a pawn is being moved into check." The HobGoblin smirked, "I can't wait to see his face."

Eddie Brock walked into the nightclub, already full of policemen and other members of the media. The police tape barred them from the center of the club where the action really had been. "Holy crap." Brock murmured. "What the hell happened here?" Bodies of the dead had been piled up in the center of the room. He gripped his camera and took a quick shot.

"Don't get too close." Sergeant Hernandez warned the photographer, "We don't want any contamination."

Brock nodded, "What happened here?"

"The place was a haunt for drug dealers and members of the mob. Looks like Spider-Man hit the place with everything he had." Hernandez sighed, "He's staying in the general region but there are a few exceptions." The sergeant walked away to speak with one of the officers.

Brock focused on the bodies, their faces frozen in moments of agony. "I hear you." He raised his camera again to his eye and took another shot with his camera. "Who needs Parker? I'll get JJ those shots with some good old-fashioned elbow grease." He smiled, "I can do it."