Part Five

            Norman wearily brushed his head of sweat as he toyed with his glider's mechanics on a work-bench inside one of his many warehouses. "Does Parker really think he's bested me? The gall of that whelp is unbelievable!" He exclaimed angrily.

            "They will suffer soon enough. The redhead has only received a reprieve from my wrath, nothing more. Her time will come soon enough and as for Spider-Man; he's a fool if he thinks I'll stop there. I've already supplied one of his greatest enemies with all of the evidence necessary to link Parker with his dual identity." He completed his modifications on his glider and pulled the purple glove back over his green twisted hand.

            The Green Goblin lamented, "I had him; Parker was mine! Another moment and he would have been destroyed, if only the coward hadn't run from battle."

            "You've got a strange way of remembering things, Osborn." Peter said appearing menacingly in the rafters of the warehouse.

            Almost before Peter could blink Norman was back on his glider with pumpkin grenades in his hands, "You dare to approach me." He flung one of the grenades, "It's time you learned respect, Spider-freak!" Peter jumped down from the rafters moments before his grenade detonated and tore everything in its path apart. "I am the one who decides when and where we'll fight! I'm in control of this relationship!"

            Peter fired a line and swung across the warehouse slamming his fist into Norman's temple as he passed by and landed on one of the walls in mere moments. "You're a diseased loser, Osborn. And if you think I'm going to let dictate the battlegrounds you're more nuts than I thought."

            Norman wiped the blood trickling down from his gums away, "Really, Parker, you should have thought this out." He fired off a shot of energy from his zap-gloves which Peter easily avoided with a few acrobatic maneuvers, "Any sane man wouldn't have wished to even hear my name again so soon after the sort of defeat you've suffered at my hands."

            "Defeat, Osborn?" Peter jumped onto a support beam as the goblin approached him on his glider, "You're really off your rocker aren't you? You were the one who ran away."

            "Don't be so dense, Parker." Norman cackled eagerly, "Defeat does not only come with losing the battle, losing something, someone is the most potent, stinging, defeat; I suppose now at least we share that common ground."

            Peter's face took on a cold look, consumed with grief and rage. "When I see that scar on that dead eye of yours, it brings a real sense of satisfaction to know that I helped cause that."

            Norman traced it for a moment, "I'm sure it does." He flung another pumpkin and accelerated the throttle on his glider.

            Dodging the first pumpkin bomb, Peter leapt off the beam but failed to see Norman coming in time. The Goblin landed an uppercut that threw him down to the floor. Peter could hear his cackle as he came around already hurtling another bomb.

            Peter fired a web-burst that knocked the grenade away into a corner of the warehouse and exploded, blowing away a box full of razor-bats. "You'll pay for that, Parker!" Norman screamed, "I swear you'll pay!"

            "Another perfectly sane message from your friendly neighborhood Goblin, is that it?" Peter asked landing a blow to the Goblin's gut with a burst of webbing with the density equal to that of concrete. "Don't go screaming about some toys…not after what you've done to me!"

            Norman reeled back from the impact of the blow; blood trickled down his mouth revealing the injury had caused more damage than Peter could have hoped. He pulled another bomb from his satchel, "Your cockiness may fool others, Parker, but not me; I know you too well."

            "Mister, you don't know the first thing about me." Peter replied defiantly, "Not about me, Uncle Ben, MJ, or Harry."

            "Is that so, Parker?" He flung the grenade with impressive force. "Let's test that theory!"

            Peter, true to form readied a web-burst to shoot the grenade back to its owner, when instead the Goblin discharged a burst from his gloves and detonated the pumpkin himself.

            The force of the explosion on Peter's flesh was simply too much to describe. His costume was torn to shreds, his mask totally blown away and blood began to pour from the resulting gashes and burns.

            The Goblin cackled and dove in to take advantage of his strike. He landed a blow passing by on his glider to Peter's face and covered him in blinding smoke.

            With adrenaline acting as a fuel, Peter emerged from the cloud, battered but still fighting. He fired a web-line and swung into Norman, his shoulder colliding with the latter's gut. The Goblin groaned from the blow but managed to toss Peter away.

            Both men retreated on opposite sides of the warehouse, tired, weary but equally determined.

            "It was a mistake for you too come here, Parker." Norman declared wiping the sweat off his forehead, "I was prepared to let you live another day, any moron would have taken the chance."

            Peter grimaced, "I guess it's a good thing I'm not a moron." He had taken the worst of this, the injuries that Otto and the Lizard had inflicted on him were beginning to catch up; the pain was now beginning to hinder his movements.

            Norman flexed his hand rubbing the sore muscles there, "I never wanted this for us, Parker; you were supposed to be a true Osborn in every sense. Yet, I reached you far too late, that fool Ben Parker had already tainted your mind with idiotic ideals and notions. He turned you into a mere shell of your true potential."

            "I'd rather be a shell than the psychopath that you are." Peter retorted moving slightly along the wall of the warehouse.

            "It amazes me how blind you are." Norman remarked in an emotional state, "At times I envied you Parker. I was once like you in my youth: innocent, pure, but my life, my father would have none of it. All he ever taught me was that I needed to be ruthless, cold or I'd end up like him, penniless with a weapon sticking into my mouth." His hands almost trembled, "You have it all, your power, friends, family, a woman that loves you and it infuriates me to no end." Norman clenched his teeth furiously, "I hate you, Parker, I hate you because represent what I could have been and I could never live with that."

            Suddenly, his demeanor became more happily sadistic, "But I solved that problem, didn't I, no longer can I envy you. Always remember what I took from you this day and weep for it."

            Peter raised his head doggedly and then collected what was left of his resolve and will for one last go at it, "I won't forget, I can never forget no matter how hard I try. But I'll also remember today for another reason, because today is the day that you die, today is the day that I kill the Green Goblin and there is nothing that anyone can do to stop me!"

            With a rush of rage, adrenaline and fear they battled for what would be the last time. Norman barraged Peter with a spray of grenades and energy blasts. Flames from the chaos of the battle spread through the warehouse. Using his agility and what was left of his wits he barely managed to dodge the array of weapons thrown at him. He leapt over Norman's head, grasping the Goblin by the shoulders along the way and pulling him off his own glider.

            Without flight, Norman landed clumsily on the ground while his glider smashed into the side of the building. It took only a second to see it was of no more use while Peter landed on the ground just a few feet away.

            This was it, the final stretch. Peter landed a roundhouse kick to Norman's skull nearly forcing the Goblin to his knees. Wasting no time in retaliation, Osborn kneed Peter in the gut and landed a right across the side of his face.

            Peter stumbled away wiping the blood trickling down from the bruises on his face. Without hesitation, the Goblin charged in mercilessly. Peter with acrobatic finesse that only he could muster tripped Norman's feet with his own and threw Osborn into a flip that sent him crashing onto his work-table, smashing through it with his face exclusively.

            As Peter moved in, Norman rolled over on his back and discharged another blast from his zap-gloves. Peter contorted to avoid it and the second that immediately followed.

            Panic began to set into Norman's mind and he surveyed his surroundings for an advantage. A smirk slowly spread across his face and even as Peter punched him across the cheekbone plans were forming.

            With a kick to Peter's shins, he loosened the web-slinger's hold on him, "This should hurt you a lot more than it hurts me." Norman exclaimed and threw Peter onto some wooden boxes.

            "That was it? You're going to have to try better than that to put me down." Peter exclaimed already beginning to rise.

            "No, my boy, this is what is going to hurt." Norman declared and fired a blast into the boxes.

            And inside, Peter realized were a load of pumpkin grenades. Anyone else would have been instantly incinerated, but Peter was jumping away from the carnage in nanoseconds but even so the force of the explosion still managed to catch him in its deadly grasp. He landed clumsily against the side of the warehouse and already Osborn's cackle seemed to pervade every one of his senses.

            "Kill me, you said? No, Peter it seems that it will be I who kill you" Norman declared excitedly.

            Peter coughed up blood onto the warehouse floor, he wasn't in good shape: his ribs were broken, he had probably suffered a concussion and he was weak from a loss of blood. He couldn't manage this much longer. Peter spotted a shard of metal that had landed into the wall just centimeters beside his head to the right. He pushed himself back up only to be knocked back down by Osborn who eagerly clasped his hands around Peter's neck and began to squeeze the very life out of him.

            "It was quite a ride, Parker, but in the end you're just too soft to beat me. You couldn't even save those closest to you, not a single one of them." The Goblin laughed excitedly, "I think I'll finish what I started with that pretty little redhead of yours!"

            Everything was beginning to fade away; his life was slipping through his very fingers. Peter rocked his head back and let himself slip into the darkness.

            "Listen to me." A voice echoed in his dying mind, "Peter, you can still have a future, a family; a chance with Mary Jane at a real life. You can't kill in cold blood, that's not your nature, but you can defend that future, you have to or it will all have been in vain."

            "M..?" Peter murmured which Osborn simply ignored as the final motions of a man in his death throes.

            "Do it, you have to. Do it for her." The voice exclaimed in his mind forcing him to face reality again, willing him back to consciousness, refusing to let him go down like this.

            Coming back was an experience, he felt anew, revitalized, reborn. The Goblin was still cackling in his face trying to finish him off.

            Peter knew what to do; he was already reaching for the metal shard in the wall. Using what speed was left in his ravaged body he pulled the shard out and with one fateful thrust stabbed it into the Green Goblin's neck and found his target at the jugular.

            Osborn immediately let his hold go and grasped the wound even as blood poured from it like a faucet. "I…" He stammered to find words for his fate.

            Lying against the wall, tears filling in his eyes, Peter watched the final moments of the Goblin's life.

            Norman seemed lost for a second as he fell to his knees. "Peter." He managed to blurt out before collapsing meekly on the ground, "I feel…cold."

            For several minutes, Peter simply stared at Norman's corpse; his skin becoming a pale green, his good eye fading into blackness. "He's gone; I had envisioned something grander, not so pointless." He said to himself with a sense of closure nowhere to be found.

            Osborn was right; he would never forget what he had lost, what had been ripped from his life. What had this been for? He wondered, why had his life brought him to this moment, what had it wanted to teach him? There were no answers staring him in the face, only the twisted shell of a man.