Better Than One
Chapter Three: Devilishly Clever
by DocCassieOck
Disclaimer: Three guesses, and the first two don't count.
Summary: Crazy Cassandra Octavius is bringing her set of actuators ("tentacles") to New York so she can take over her father's role as Doctor Octopus, and also to try and convince Harry to carry on the Green Goblin legacy.
"She's fading away
Away from this world
Drifting like a feather
She's not like the other girls
She lives in the clouds
She talks to the birds
Hopeless little one
She's not like the other girls I know"
Cassandra Octavius was a woman with a mission. She plowed down Regal Street, a dark, scheming expression twisting her pretty features. One thought was on her mind: getting herself and her actuators to Oscorp Industries in New York before the sun set that day.
She certainly was a woman with a mission: kill Spider-Man.
When she arrived at her office, after having to endure nearly twenty offers of consolation from co-workers, none of which she really wanted to hear, she snatched up the phone off her desk and hurriedly dialed Harry's number. It rang three times before he answered, sounding much more sober than last night. "Harry Osborn," he recited, sounding not at all like he was one for talking at the early hour it was in New York. Cassie didn't beat around the bush. "Harry, I need a plane down at Bush Intercontinental Airport in four hours. Make sure it can transport a very large object." she snapped. "What? Cass...what do you need a plane for?" Harry sounded genuinely confused. Twit, she thought angrily. The twit she loved.
"Harry, we have a lot of things to discuss once I get to New York. Expect to see me at your lab in no more than five hours. There's a little experiment I have to conduct that can't be done in Houston. Please get this plane down here now." The agonized tone accidentally crept back into her voice. She cursed inwardly for sounding so weak.
"Anything you say, Cassandra, but I still don't understand."
"Hang up, Harry."
"Cassandra?"
"What?" Her voice sounded much gentler this time...lilting and angelic, Harry thought absently.
"Um, Cassandra...I love you."
Love me? Wow, that came out of left field. But still...I guess... "I love you too, Harry."
Cassandra felt the brood returning as she watched the two workers, or minions, whatever Harry referred to his employees as, load the enormous crate which held her prize onto the waiting Oscorp Boeing 747, bound for New York, one way, just for her. She wouldn't have to return to Houston once she completed her task.
Suddenly, something leapt out to her in her mind. Harry, she thought. He hates this Spider-Man character, he killed his father! Sure, old Norman was crazy as a rat in a tin shithouse and was the Green Goblin to boot, but still, he's dead, Harry's pissed...and could be very, very useful to the cause. Start up Harry as the Goblin...and there's not a chance on God's green earth that Spider-Man could win. Not against them both. No way. Now that damn webhead is going to have to fight both Doctor Octopus and the Green Goblin. This struck her as very funny, and she began to giggle as she settled into her seat in the small area in front of the cargo hold. After all, two villains are better than one.
Harry Osborn stood, arms crossed, in one of his best Armani suits, at the entrance to Laboratory 17C, watching Cassandra move nearer and nearer to him. Before she had a chance to speak, Harry put his hands on either side of her face and kissed her so deeply that she actually felt weak in the knees. "I guess you're happy to see me," she said, genuinely surprised at the total outrageousness of his action. "Damn straight I am. Listen, Cassie, I've been thinking. You're right. Spider-Man stole both our families from us, and he needs to pay. I don't know what you have in store, but whatever it is...God, I hope it causes him triple the agony he caused us." His face was hard and cold as stone, and for some reason, Cassandra thought it was wildly sexy.
"Yes. Have someone bring that crate into the lab. We have work to do, and I have to talk to you about something. It's gonna be real good for the cause." A sinfully overjoyed grin leapt onto her face, and waited till the crate was wheeled into the lab before entering. Harry motioned for the workers to leave. He knew this was going to be a very...shall we say, secret experiment, so he picked the remotest, most highly secured lab in the facility. Once they were gone, he took off his jacket and tie, picked up a crowbar, and started opening the monstrously large crate. "Jesus Christ, Cassandra, what did you bring?" he grunted, ripping off slats of wood as he spoke. She smiled her idyllically insane smile and said, "Remember Daddy's fusion experiment? The one that had, um, explosive results in his laboratory?" She sounded as level-headed as ever, but Harry could tell that a tempest was raging just below that calm exterior. "Yes," he said, through teeth gritted with effort.
"Well, I've brought along my own little piece of the Octavius fame." At this point, the front panel of the crate came crashing down, and Harry leapt out of the way to avoid being smashed. Serenely, Cassandra moved to stand by the dumbstruck young Osborn.
"Oh my dear, sweet, holy God," Harry breathed as he gazed inside the crate. "The actuators."
"The actuators," Cassie repeated, a twinge of mania detectable in her voice.
At this point, Harry started to get afraid. "Cassandra, you're not going to—"
"I am, Harry Osborn," she interrupted. "I'm going to do it now, today, right here, and I think you should take on the responsibility of finishing what your father started."
"The Green Goblin?"
"The one and only. Spider-Man has only had to deal with one enemy at a time. What do you think would happen if he suddenly had to deal with two? It's doom inevitably, and we'll get our revenge. Do it, Harry. For Norman." She sounded twisted, sadistic, possessed. But the horribly crazy gleam that was in her eye awoke in Harry something that seemed to want to...to cackle...like his father...
And so he did. The manic screech of hysteria escaped from Harry, but he didn't jerk to a halt in fright like usual when he heard this mad laugh. He felt strong.
Cassandra gesticulated for Harry to come and help her lug the platform on which the actuators sat out of its container. The two finally worked it out of the box and into the middle of the lab. Swiftly, Cassandra yanked off her blouse and bra, making Harry rather embarrassed at seeing her fully topless. Wordlessly, she stood in front of the actuators and pressed a button, causing the harness to close around her waist. A dark expression clouded her features as she hit the second button, which caused the metal spine to lay itself against her back, and she screamed, loud and high pitched, when the needles, sharp and vindictive, drove themselves through her skin and down into her spinal column, where she could actually feel the searing pain as they fused to her nerve bundle. When this torturous process was finished, which Harry had watched with some sort of morbid fascination, Cassandra gritted her teeth in pain and lifted the arms of the tentacles out of their brackets. She stepped down from the platform, picked up her shirt, and made a large rip in the back. She then took about two minutes to work herself back into her blouse. Once this was done, she wiped the tears of pain from her cheeks, narrowed her eyes dangerously, and raised herself up off the ground with the bottom two tentacles. Harry laughed nervously, but Cassandra all out howled. Looking down at Harry, she shouted, "The doctor is in!"