Ah, isn't it great when the fan fiction website is back online and you can finally update? Now off to the reviewers!

To Agent Silver: Dagnabit, the link you were trying to send me has completely disappeared. If you email me the link, I'd love to get right on it.

On your second note: The Ultimate Six is one of the (count 'em) five Spider-man comic books I own. I relied on that for much of my knowledge of the Sinister Six villians, except for Doc Ock and Green Goblin, who I am very familiar with. So there might be a few little similarities there. And this might be because it's midnight and I'm kind of zoned out, but I'm really hard pressed to think of any meaningful similarities between Austin and Peter right now...

To Cobra Commander: Thank you for the constructive criticism. Looking at it now, I realize that my transistions are a bit jerky and the pacing is really fast. It's one of my weaker points, if original characters, combination of comic and movie canon,and creative ideas are my strong points.

To LadyKayoss: There's no question on who Austin's father is...however, I can see why Mag's paternity might be a matter of confusion. Here's how I worked it out in my head:

For the record, Jake Winthrop is Magni's father. Not Otto Octavius. If my understandings of biology are correct, a pair of fraternal twins is produced when two sperm fertilize two different eggs at the same time. Jake had sex with his wife the night before Anna left for her bar association conference. Then they had the fight, and Jake told Anna he'd cheated on her. So Anna's pretty depressed when she gets to NYC, and she goes to a bar and drowns her troubles (as the country songs call it). And then, as it says in OS chapter 1, she gets so tanked she has a one night stand with our friend Otto. So two different sperm end up fertilizing two different eggs, resulting in Austin and Magni, who are chronologically twins but genetically half siblings. That's the way I've got it worked out...

So, out with the chitchat and in with the story and read and review!

Chapter 14: The Father of All Battles

Peter Parker looked in the minivan. "May, where's Austin?"

"Haven't seen him, Dad."

"Rachelle? Magni? Have you seen him?"

"Nope," they said.

"MJ," Peter told his wife, "you drive the girls to our house. I'm looking for Austin myself."

"What is this emergency supposed to be, anyway?" asked Mary Jane.

"For some reason, the Girl Goblin's after Austin," Peter explained. "Noreen Osborn."

"Harry's daughter?" MJ was incredulous. "I never thought she'd take that path."

"Well, it runs in the family, doesn't it?" asked Peter. "Look after the girls."

But May was climbing out the door. "I'm going with you, Dad," she said.

"No, May. Stay here with your mom."

"Dad." May paused. "Why was it okay for you to rescue Mom from every evil supervillian who tried to hurt her, but it's not okay for me to do that for my boyfriend?"

"Your mom doesn't have powers," Peter said. "And she certainly doesn't have four honking—"

"Peter." Mary Jane snapped. "Stop."

"Fine," Peter said heavily.

At that moment, Peter heard the screech of tires, followed by the slamming of a car door and a strange and creepy, but all too familiar crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch! This was followed by his son, Ben, running up to him.

"Dad! There's a guy here who wants to help you search for Austin!"

"Who?" asked Peter.

"Oh, I dunno, Dad," Ben began his usual sarcastic tone. "He's just got bad hair, a long green trench coat, sunglasses, the initials of O. O., the nickname of an underwater mollusk, and he bent my ear off the whole ride telling me that Alfred Molina did a crappy job portraying him in the movie!"

Oh, sweet holy mother of Christ, Peter thought. The good doctor's the last one we need in this mess.

"May I help you, Dr. Octavius?" asked Peter stiffly.

Doctor Octopus was panting. His age was finally catching up to him. "The Girl Goblin's heading towards here. She has five others with her, one of them's Austin, and she's after your blood. I thought you should know. And I thought I should help."

"And why would you of all people want to help me?" asked Peter.

"Whether you like or accept it or not, I'm his father," replied Otto quietly.

"Yeah, Austin told me you were real Father of the Year material," snapped Peter. "You never even saw him until he was fourteen and then you welded those tentacles on him. Nice absentee parenting, there, pops."

"Why, I ought to…" Otto growled. His tentacles began hissing madly.

"Will you stop, the both of you!" shouted Rachelle. "Arguing with each other isn't going to solve anything!"

One by one, they descended on the front lawn of the Empire State University. Miranda, Alexei, Philomela, Flint, a very unwilling Austin, and finally Noreen, in full costume and on her glider.

"Aww, how sweet," Noreen mocked. "I'm so sorry to interrupt your little family reunion."

Austin decided to sit down and watch. He might have been forced to come with Noreen, but he was not going to take an active role in her crimes.

Peter was busy webbing up Miranda, while his former enemy used his tentacles to short circuit Philomela's electromagnetic bird suit. Ben had his hands full with Flint, but fortunately, he'd had a lot of experience with sandstorms in Iraq. Rachelle even helped by kicking Alexei in the—unmentionables before racing back to Peter's car. Magni wasn't as lucky as Rachelle, though: her effort to throw her steaming hot café latte in Noreen's face was met with a pumpkin bomb and a very hard punch to the jaw.

Magni flopped to the ground. "Wonder how Barry Bonds would play if he took the same stuff that girl drank?" She rubbed her jaw. "God, I think she's dislocated it. That's it! I'm letting the super powered types do all the work!"

Finally, one by one, the only Sinister Six members not completely webbed up were Noreen and Austin. The rest were neatly packaged up in a nice cocoon of spider web and presented to the campus police across the parking lot, who were all too afraid to get any closer to the battle.

Noreen shouted at Austin. "Do something useful, you big lump, or pay the price!"

The next thing Peter knew, Austin had rounded on him, his tentacle drawn back, blade extended. Two more tentacles wrapped around Peter, holding him tight like two metal boa constrictors. There was a mad gleam in Austin's brown eyes, but a trace of sadness as well.

"What are you doing! Snap out of it!" Peter yelled, wheezing in Austin's chokehold.

"I can't, Mr. Parker. I have to. Noreen will kill my sister and cousin, you know she will, she's nuts…"

"No she won't!" Peter yelled. "Your sister and cousin are safe, they're under my wife's care. Noreen won't touch them."

Austin paused. "You—swear? They're safe?"

"Yes. I swear."

Austin turned from him, the tentacles unwrapping Peter as theyrounded on Noreen. The tentacle blade stabbed Noreen deep in her right shoulder.

Strangely, Noreen didn't seem fazed at all. She wiped the blood away. There was nothing at all underneath it…it was as if she'd never been stabbed at all.

"Okay, so I haven't told you about my super healing powers," Noreen hissed. "Now you've just gone and pissed me off!"

Noreen grabbed her glider. She advanced on Mary Jane's car, ripping the roof right off. She grabbed Rachelle and Magni by the shirts, and flew off, leaving the family with no choice but to follow.