Part Two
"Jonah!" Robbie screamed entering his office, "I just got a call from Foswell; he said he passing through Peter's area."
Jameson grimaced, "What happened now? The kid's out stealing hubcaps or something?"
"His house burned down." Robbie remarked almost in a panic, "There's no sign of him but they found his uncle, Ben Parker, he's dead."
"What?" Jameson arose from his seat afraid to ask, "Did Parker do it?"
Robbie gulped trying to regain control over his faculties, "Here's where the story gets scary. Foswell was asking the police investigating and they said it was definitely a arson and they showed him a piece of what they believed was one of the grenades that blew the place up."
"What was it?" Jameson inquired.
"They'd never seen anything like it before, but Foswell had, he said he recognized it from those pumpkin bombs the Green Goblin always carried. He also mentioned that some eye-witnesses reported seeing a guy with metal arms running around in the area last night." Robbie exclaimed.
Jameson brushed his hair in a state of shock, "Jesus, um…get all our people out on the streets, find where Parker is! They must have thought Parker knew where Spider-Man was. Damn it, Robbie what are you standing here for, get people out there and find him!"
Otto stared at his surroundings trying to familiarize himself with it. It was an abandoned facility that had just happened to have slipped through the cracks of the city's many politicians and activists. A large central building full of catwalks and now-dead vats stood dilapidated behind him. Natural light flooded the inside of the building via the gaps in the roof from years of disuse.
Most of the exterior of the facility, where Otto was standing, consisted of piles of rusted steel or cars that had been driven here and torched by their owners to capitalize on their insurance policies while scrubs of brown and dead grass littered the entire grounds.
Gwen Stacy's whimpering drew his attention. Otto stared at her guiltily and then rubbed his face wearily with his hands. He moved towards her slowly and removed the gag.
"Please let me go!" She screamed in a total panic. The attack on her own home had been furious, they had only knocked out her father when he had attempted to intervene, Ben Parker hadn't been so fortunate. "Don't kill me, please!"
Otto lowered his eyes, "I am sorry."
"Why?" She pleaded, "Why are you doing this?"
A bitter expression overtook the doctor's face, "Because of this!" He extended his tentacles emotionally, "Because of the suffering Spider-Man has caused me. Imagine if you were horribly disfigured, you could never become a normal part of society." Otto clasped one of the tentacles angrily, "Now imagine if I possessed the means to heal you and restore your beauty and imagine if I denied it to you." He nodded in confirmation of his own mission, "You would have every right to see me dead, miss. Spider-Man has done that to me, denied me of my own restoration."
"So if you kill him, then what?" She asked, "You'll kill me?"
Otto sighed, "I'm tired, you're young and youthful, innocent, but I…I've tainted myself." He took several steps away from her, his tentacles contracting to form almost a shield around him, "I fear there is nothing that can be done to save my own soul, but I have no wish for it to be further corrupted. I don't care what Osborn says, if you will only play my hostage for a short while long then I will let you live. If the Green Goblin goes after you himself and finishes you personally is not important, at least I will have not dipped my hands that deeply in blood." Otto placed the gag back in her mouth, picked her up with one of his tentacles and placed her behind an old fork-lift, "Osborn was right, this place is perfect, I will finally have my revenge on my accursed enemy here once and for all."
Flash stood outside Parker's home with Phil Urich. "Well, that sucks." Phil remarked, "What do you think happened?"
The young jock grimaced staring at the wreckage of the home, it didn't look like right; something was off about the shape of the ruins, almost as if it had been bombed in. "Something's wrong, why would somebody do this?" He felt like punching somebody in the face, his short temper was already at its limit, "Some crumb-bum did this."
"Well we can't do anything about it. I mean we don't even know if…he's alive." Phil said behind a gulp.
"If I ever run into the guy who did this I'll knock out all his teeth." Flash remarked angrily, "Come on; let's go."
Peter landed just behind the fence of the mill. He immediately scanned his surroundings and saw nothing of interest. Moving deeper into the facility he listened for any rustling from Otto's tentacles. This place wasn't good for him, a lot of open spaces, not to much to swing on or cling to, except maybe for the large building at the center of the mill.
This was only going to end in death; he could feel it in the air. What did it matter? Ben was gone, the only man he had ever called father was dead, now he was going to return the favor to both of them.
Maybe some would say that doing this would make him as bad as them, and they were probably right. By killing them he'd be committing to their game for the rest of his life, it didn't matter if he died today or in sixty years, it would be the first step down a path he had never wanted to go down, but for him it didn't matter anymore. All he cared about was revenge.
A tingling sensation tore away at his skull forcing him into a spin just in time to avoid a rusted beam of steel as it flew by smashing violently into the fence. Otto emerged from his hiding place and moved across the open field using two of his lower metal arms like legs, "Spider-Man, welcome to our final encounter. I see you've been busy." He remarked pointing to the tears in Peter's costume.
"Where is she, Ock?" He demanded angrily.
"Who would that be?" Otto inquired maliciously.
Peter grimaced, "You know, Ock, now answer me!"
"She doesn't matter anymore." Otto replied harshly, "All that matters is us!" He lashed out at him with one of his tentacles, "Let us bring this to an end!"
Dodging the first tentacle was easy; it was the next two that presented a challenge. The third clipped him across the jaw while he flipped forward throwing him clumsily to the ground.
Otto attacked more furiously than he ever had in their previous encounters. One tentacle landed mere inches from Peter's skull forcing him to roll away in time to avoid the second, then the third and finally the forth as it came crashing down on the piles of dirt beneath them.
Peter flipped back up to his feet and moved with every ounce of speed he could muster. One of Otto's tentacles swiped at him but he leapt over it and used it as a launching platform to jump forward. Less than a second before making contact Otto swatted him away with another tentacle. "Your infantile game is coming to an end, Spider-Man."
"What? You're calling this a game?" Peter asked as he rose back up from the ground feeling a tear in his shoulder muscles, "You think this is a game to me, you fat freak? You've kidnapped a close personal friend of mine, you killed my uncle and I have no idea where the woman I love is and you think this is a game?" He closed his fist furiously, "Bring it on, chowder-head!"
"Well, then let us not prolong this any more." Otto's tentacles slid across the ground with alarming speed, knocking Peter's feet out from under him, "We shall finish this somewhere more appropriately." He moved towards the large building and tore the side of the wall open, "A place that I've already rigged up to destroy you." He whispered confidently and entered the facility.
Peter felt the tear in his mask and the blood coming from the scratch along his cheek. He moved, a man possessed and followed Otto through the gap he had created in the side of the building. Inside, the first thing he noticed was how old this place looked. It was like entering a tomb and then he realized Otto had intended it to be his tomb.
His spider-sense flared up, and he immediately dived forward with everything he had in him. Half a second later a pile of crushing steel beams came down on his former position.
"I should have known that Otto wouldn't enter here unprepared." He got back up only to receive a blow to his rib-cage from the doctor as he emerged from behind one of the vats throwing him deeper into the facility.
Peter crashed up against a fallen catwalk, his entire torso aching from the punishment it was receiving. Otto came in with alarming speed, his tentacles diving in for the kill.
Springing away with amazing power he escaped them just in time and landed against the side of one of the vats. "You're a monster." He remarked.
"That is only because you made me that way." Otto answered back already advancing on him, "You had no right to deny me what I asked of you and look at the deaths it has resulted in!"
Peter grimaced, "That's all you do, Ock, isn't it; blame other people for your problems. You made your own choice and you went down your own path and as much as you want to forget that, I know that deep down you realize it."
Otto hands trembled furiously, "Liar!" He grabbed Spider-Man before he could react with one of his tentacles and smashed him against the wall of the building, "I'll show you!" He dragged a weakening Peter over to a very particular area of the facility and rammed him onto the ground repeatedly dropping him only after the web-slinger was sufficiently dazed. He pulled a small black box, the size of his palm from one of the pockets of his trench-coat and tapped the red button on it passionately.
The signal he sent out detonated explosives on one of the catwalks directly above Peter. He was too tired to react with the speed that was needed and feebly covered his face the best he could. The twisted and torn catwalk tumbled in a display that was as shocking as it was impressive and crashed down on Peter.
Otto laughed and clasped his hands together. Out from the wreckage, Peter's arm poked through, struggling though slowly losing its will to go on. His tentacles seemed overjoyed and began to brace themselves against the closest things they could find in anticipation. "I've done it!" He exclaimed victoriously at the sight of his accursed foe's arm going limp, "I've killed Spider-Man!"