Part Five
Jameson puffed his cigar and stared out the window at the dark city. Some candles served as his only illumination. "Where are my reporters when I need them?" He asked complaining.
Robertson entered JJ's office with a purpose to his haste, "We've got reports of Spider-Man fighting Electro by the Empire State Building, the whole place is becoming a war-zone!"
"What!" JJ barked, "Get someone out there! I don't care who, pick up a guy in a wheelchair off the street if you have to! I need reporters down there, pronto!"
Peter stared at the building electrical energy in Dillon's hands. He tried to move his legs but found them too stiff and awkward. "I can't die now." He whispered beneath the electrical crackle. "Not now."
He spotted a ledge on a building far down the street. If he could just move his arm enough. Peter fired a web-line from his shooters that connected with an office building. "Bye-bye." He said triumphantly and tugged on the line.
Electro screamed outraged, and lashed out at Spider-Man with every bit of power he could muster. "You can't get away from me." He assured himself, "No one can."
Peter landed on the ledge clumsily and took the moment to rest. "My body feels like stone." He remarked flexing his arm. "How am I going to beat this guy? He just keeps coming."
"You've got that right." Max declared riding an electrical current through the air like a slide.
"Nuts." Peter said trying to maintain some semblance of readiness. "Electro, you have to stop this. Whatever you think the world's done to you is not an excuse to murder innocent civilians. Don't go down that path."
Max grimaced, "Who are you to tell me what I will and will not do." His hands glowed with power, "I am in control here, Spider-Man! Me! Not you! Now I'm going to get rid of you for good." He unleashed a concentrated blast of electricity onto his arachnid foe.
Peter writhed in agony and feebly put his hand in front of his face for protection. He leaned against the wall of the building as Electro pounded him savagely. He could feel his blood boiling inside his veins. The costume was being torn away in clouds of hot ash.
Drawing upon what energy he had left in his body, Peter leapt forward and smashed into Electro with his shoulder. Yet, the latter hardly flinched and manipulated Peter with bands of electricity, "It's over, Spider-Man." He raised his hand, "I'm not a monster, that's just what society is making me out to be. But I'll show them soon enough, the poor kids on ventilators and respirators will soon have their parents grieving for them." Electro hurtled a bolt of electricity straight into Spider-Man's body. The impact flung him through the streets like a rag-doll. The helpless hero came crashing through the side of a building and vanished from sight behind a cloud of smoke.
Max smiled, "That's the end of him. Now I have to finish what I started. There's not much time." He created another current and rode it through the streets, but unlike some of the other madmen who had stalked the denizens of this steel world, he did not laugh in preparation for his victory. Instead there was only a somber resolve.
Peter landed on a rug inside some sort of office. Without light he could barely see the city outside the window. He coughed blood onto the rug and rolled onto his back. Electro had soundly beaten him. If he had wished he could have fried Peter until he was nothing but a charred slab of meat.
"If I had seen this when I was eighteen, when I was a young man, I might have been shocked." Said a voice from the darkness, "But after living in New York for this long, I've grown accustomed to such things."
"Whose there?" Peter asked feebly trying to stand up.
A candle was lit revealing a face in the darkness. He appeared to be about thirty. He was slender, had what looked like a bowl-cut and wore black spectacles on his face. Peter resisted the urge to comment on the hair. "If I am correct, you would be Spider-Man."
Peter groaned as he crawled along the ground, "What gave it away?" His costume was ruined. The last strike from Electro had nearly torn the costume completely off his body. The mask had been torn away; everything up to his cheeks was gone. The fabric over his left arm had been destroyed his boot had holes all over it.
"Stay there, fellow, I'll fetch some water." He remarked.
"Wait." Peter said struggling to move, "You know my name, mind telling me yours?"
The man smiled, "My name is Otto Octavius. Now wait here."
Max Dillon stared at the building coldly. He would have to take out the generator, in the lower levels of the building. For a moment he pondered the sanity of his actions. He had only reached this course of action after much soul-searching.
There was no glory in this; he was no hero or revolutionary. He did not want to do this. Max wanted to turn around and go home. He was tired. Despite what he told Spider-Man, the truth be told, those bodies in the streets haunted him.
He sighed and approached the building. It didn't matter what he felt. Max had no other choice. This was something that he had to do, no matter how horrible.