Part Two

Otto checked his wristwatch anxiously, "My dear audience." He said speaking into the microphone sternly, "It seems your lives are of no importance to Spider-Man. In five minutes I will begin carrying out my threats. Would you please begin choosing who shall die and leave the rest to me?" Immediately, arguments began firstly concerning Otto's demand and then who should actually be chosen to go.

He smiled at the chaos and was pleasantly surprised when actual fighting began to break out. "The human condition for violence never fails." Otto remarked. "Okay who wants to suffer first?" He barked.

"Suffer first?" Spider-Man called landing against the side of a support beam, "What are you going to do, pass some gas Ock?"

"Spider-Man, I'm so glad you've come." He turned to the audience, "You will now see a real show: The Death of Spider-Man." Otto exclaimed with a snarl sweeping across his face, "Come, you insect we mustn't disappoint our audience." He threw the microphone to the floor and charged at Peter.

In a matter of brief seconds, Otto had come into attack range. His tentacles wildly swinging at Spider-Man missed the latter by only a few inches.

Peter landed on the edge of one of the acrobatic platforms, "Hey, Otto, let these people go and we'll finish what we've got to."

"And remove all the drama from our show?" Otto smiled making his way towards Spider-Man with deadly speed, "Not a chance my elusive foe."

His tentacles reached out like hungry creatures. Peter dodged the first two easily enough. The third took some quick thinking on his part but the forth caught him by the neck.

"Now we're having fun." Otto declared and threw Spider-Man furiously on the ground. Another tentacle picked him back up and slammed him into one of the beams smashing it in half.

Peter groaned under the pain that was aching through his back as he crashed into the seating area. He looked at the beam realizing that it was close to collapsing, bringing debris down on dozens of people. He fired a spray of webbing that secured the beam, at least long enough for this to end.

Already tentacles were wrapping around his wrist. Peter clutched the side of a seat, holding on while Otto tried to pull him closer.

"Come on, Spider-Man; let us not delay the inevitable." The good doctor exclaimed.

"I'm just trying to make you lose weight." Peter replied clenching his teeth holding on to the seat now bending oddly under the pressure, "That's it, Otto, p-pull." He said managing to talk over the agony.

The seat gave way and Otto had Spider-Man once again in his grasp. "How amusing, you're actually trying. Well, we can't have that." He slammed Peter into the ground forcefully, "Did that hurt; I imagine so." He said before repeating the motion as if Spider-Man were a rag-doll.

Peter gasped for air, "Come on, man." He said to himself sternly, "You're better than him."

Otto threw Spider-Man into the crowd as if he were a rag-doll. Peter landed at the feet of two hostages, a couple who stared at him horrified.

"That's it, throw him back to me. Discard him like the trash that he is." Otto said, "Throw him away!"

The crowd complied afraid of eliciting Dr. Octopus' wrath. Peter fell down the stairwells and was pushed over the railing, falling back into the circus ring. "I'm in the mood for a science experiment." His tentacles picked Peter up by his ankle, "Let's see how much pressure your body can sustain."

Peter fired a spray of webbing that covered Otto's face forcing him to let loose. "Not enough to carry your fat-ass." He landed on his feet and fired more burst of webbing that stuck three of Otto's tentacles together.

Peter immediately began to charge forward weaving in and out of the way of a mass of metal tentacles. Moments before reaching his target, the fourth clocked him across the jaw sending him back down on the floor.

The crowd gasped realizing how close their salvation had been. Otto ripped the webbing from his face furiously, "You-you stupid…kid."

"Uh-oh, Drew Carey's getting angry." Peter replied jovially rising back up off the floor.

"You want to see me angry?" Otto's tentacles reached across the ring and wrapped around one of the elephants, "This is me angry!" He threw the roaring elephant at the crowd, "This is angry!"

Peter's face dropped in shock even as he sprinted across the ring. He fired two web-lines that latched onto the side of the spiraling elephant and dug his feet into the ground pulling back with every ounce of strength in his body.

The elephant stopped mere feet away from a terrified crowd and was thrown back across the floor of the ring, shaken but unharmed. The same couldn't be said for Peter already captured in Otto's tentacles and being thrashed across the circus ring.

"This is your hero." Otto declared and threw Spider-Man back into the crowd, "Look at him, he is no hero, he's a coward who hides behind a mask. Tear it off!"

The crowd looked at him for a moment and then back at Octavius, "I said to tear it off." There was a murmur among the crowd, "Do it or I swear I'll kill you all!"

Somebody reached for the edge of his mask but hesitated. Spider-Man had saved them and now by taking off it off they were ensuring his doom. "Don't do it." A father yelled out.

"Listen to that man and you will all die." Otto replied, "Remember your precious children. Is Spider-Man's life more important than theirs?"

A mother holding her daughter took action and tugged at the end of his mask. Peter's reflexes brushed her hand away and he rolled on his stomach slowly getting back up, "Come on, Ock, no more games." He jumped out of the seating area headed for Otto like a missile only to be batted away. "Look at him; this is who you were ready to die for?" Otto laughed, "He's an insect."

Peter rolled across the ground but managed the strength to rise if slowly. A tentacle grabbed his wrist and threw him through a flaming ring which he emerged unscathed from even if some parts of his costume carried singe marks.

"Now I'll show you the truth, you are a scourge on this city and even if a few bleeding-hearts pity you, everyone knows your true nature, how you are no better than I." Otto threw Peter back into the crowd, "Throw him back to me." One of his tentacle's pincers opened up, "I think that I'll rip out his jugular. Show you how a hero bleeds."

The crowd picked him back up, Peter trying to struggle but far too weak. And then just as he expected to fall back into Otto's grasp, the crowd placed him on his feet.

"Come on, Spider-Man, go get him!" Someone called out.

"Yeah kick his ass, Spidey!" Another exclaimed.

Otto grimaced, "Shut up!" His tentacles took on a more fierce demeanor, "I said to shut up!"

Peter felt a fresh surge of adrenaline pumping through his veins. "Stick those things up his ass!" Another suggested. More and more cries swept through the crowd. For the first time in his life, the crowd was rooting for him, for the first time in his life they had helped him.

He jumped back into the ring, "Round two, Ock."

"It doesn't matter, when I'm through with you I'll show them what their vaunted heroics were worth." Otto's tentacles swept across the ground.

Peter performed a back-flip avoiding the first. A second tentacle approached to which he batted it away with a short burst of webbing. The third tentacle hit him across the gut but Peter went with the force of the blow rolling on his shoulder across the ground and coming back up on his feet.

Otto struck forward with another tentacle. Peter rolled forward avoiding it as the metal appendage slammed against the floor. He moved in deeper avoiding a tentacle as it passed by trying to grab his legs. Out of surprise and reflex Otto struck forward with his fist clumsily.

Peter easily avoided and got in a much-needed punch. Otto reeled back on the ground, his tentacles becoming lifeless, knocked out cold.

The crowd went crazy, cheering from every corner; even the mother who had tried to remove his mask was overjoyed. A chant of Spider-Man moved through them until it became unison.

With a much-deserved smile across his chest he removed the barricades to the exits that Otto had installed and the crowd began quickly moving towards them. It was almost too surreal. Peter stood by the door seeing many of them out while they shook hands with him, thanking him, hugging him a few women placed affectionate kisses on his cheek.

Some stayed behind for a moment and watched with pleasure as Peter webbed Otto up and strapped him against a support beam. Their smiles made him feel different. It was almost like a dream realized, his was their hero.

He left as the NYPD led by the Feds entered the circus ring, he figured they wouldn't be as inviting.

"Oh my God, MJ it was so awesome." Peter exclaimed, "I mean I was really down for a minute." She watched him fascinated, "He was kicking my butt and just when I thought it was over, everyone there, the hostages, they stood up for me."

She grinned, "It must be that charismatic attitude of yours."

Peter nodded, "Must've been, I didn't know if I could beat him." He sat on the edge of his bed beside her. "This is the greatest day of my entire life; I am so psyched out because of this. I'm going to catch the news."

"Hold on, Peter I need to tell you something."

"Can it wait, I need to go downstairs and get a bite. I think I might have sprained my wrist." He said rubbing the injury gently.

MJ nodded, "Yeah I think it can wait." She said remembering the results grimly, "It can wait." Peter quietly left the room and headed downstairs.

"Spider-Man's great, I saw what he did when he beat that Dr. Octopus guy and it was great." The pedestrian said happily to the camera, "I mean the guy's a real hero."

A cop walking out from a store smiled when addressed with the question, "Man, listen to me, anyone with guts enough to fight that tentacle guy has got my respect; I don't think I could have done that in a million years."

The female reporter from the Globe smiled, "Well, people everywhere have been readdressing the question of Spider-Man. And there is word that the even the Federal Government is thinking of revoking the warrant on his head for the death of Harry Osborn based on a lack of credible evidence. The warrant concerning his involvement in Wilson Fisk's death is being reviewed. Here is Dr. Reinhart once again a leader of the field looking into the superhero psyche."

The good doctor smiled, "Spider-Man's most recent actions have shown that despite past recklessness he is turning his outlook around. Perhaps he's been misunderstood."

Jonah Jameson with the saddest face ever looked into the camera, "I stand behind everything I've ever said about Spider-Man."

"Even after all of the new information had come out on his behavior?"

He slowly nodded, "It'll be a cold day before Jonah Jameson says a good thing about Spider-Man; A really cold day."

Otto sat in his jail cell, every one of his tentacles restrained by metal clamps at each corner. "That fraud got their support. He tricked them all, I tried to-to show them what he was."

The Federal Government would soon begin experiments on him; he was doomed to a remaining life of agony and torment under the knives of these men while they tried to learn the secrets of his tentacles.

He began to cry, weeping for the life that had been taken away. Otto rested his head on his palm. "He's beaten me, there is no denying that."

Without warning the side of the cell exploded, Otto was forced to shield his face from the debris. "What can this be?" He said staring into the smoke and was immediately terrified at what emerged, "The Green Goblin?"

Norman entered the cell through the breach on his glider, "Dr. Octopus is it? I wish to extend a helping hand to a fellow brother in need, in other words this is prison break."

"How have I attracted your attention?" Otto asked suspiciously, "I've never even met you before."

The Goblin cackled, "We both have a mutual enemy. I'm offering you a solution to our problem, the final and conclusive death of our arachnid foe, Spider-Man."