Only one chapter left, folks! Off to the reviewers!
To moonjava: Thank you.
To LadyKayoss: Yeah, I know. I'm not a big Goblin fan myself. We're both just big Octopus fans, aren't we?
To Agent Silver: (sounds like an announcer guy) We're back with "All in the Family"! Only one chapter left before the series finale! (normal) Okay, Austin doesn't exactly hate Noreen...on the one hand, he's repelled by her cruelty and evil, and yet he's attracted to her beauty and power (see ch 4), like Gwen Stacy was attracted to Norman Osborn in that "Sins Past" comic I bought two days ago. There's something about truly evil people that fascinates you and draws you in, and gives you the willies at the same time.
Only the epilouge is left...read and review while you still can!
Chapter 13: No Longer Mourn For Me
"No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone."
–William Shakespeare, Sonnet 71
"What? What did you say?"
"I said get bent, bitch."
"No!" Otto shouted at his son. "May's life is not worth it!"
"Thought you could call my bluff, did you, Austin?" Noreen asked. "Go ahead and make a move, any of you. I want you to try." She lifted May up from the lounge, closed her hands around May's neck.
"Let her go, Noreen," Otto addressed the villainess, not daring to look upon her incredibly beautiful but cruel face. "None of us are coming near you. Just put my daughter-in-law down and we'll go on from there."
Noreen went into her evil laugh some more. "I'm not going to ask, people. I'm going to tell, because I am an Osborn and a Goblin and I call the shots. I'm going to prove a point."
Noreen's hands closed tighter around May's throat. "And the point I am going to prove now is: This was your fault, you know, Austin."
Then there was a sickening crack, and then stunned silence. May Parker's body was dropped to the ground.
"Nooooooooooooooooooooo!"
"And you know what, my dear Austin?" Noreen continued, in barely a whisper. I'll do it again, first to your daughters, then your parents, and then, every day for a year, someone at random will die in such agony and torment by my hands that they—and everyone in the New York City area will pray for the end to come. And it will be your fault."
Austin's howl of rage, grief, and frustration caused Kelly Brock to slowly sit up, the black symbiote slowly peeling away from her body. It jumped onto Austin, unnoticed. The symbiotes were always attracted to hosts with strong emotion.
Everyone could only watch in horror as the black symbiote spread over Austin's body, forming a black suit with emerald green, curved stripes. His four metal tentacles poked out the back.
The blank white eyes stared up at Noreen. "We will get our revenge on you for this, Osborn," Austin said in a dark voice not his own.
"Try it!" Noreen dared. "You have no idea of the power the symbiote holds!"
And so Austin pounced, knocking Noreen out with one punch. He closed his own taloned hands on Noreen's throat, attempting to absorb her life energy from her.
Noreen knew Austin had realized the power the symbiote could afford him. Before she had found Kelly, power-hungry Noreen tried twice to get the symbiote to bond with her. It had failed both times. Guess her emotions weren't strong enough.
Under the influence of the symbiote, Austin was getting angrier, stronger and more powerful by the second, and if she was going to do something, it might as well be now. Noreen reached for the sonic ray gun. Knowing that the symbiote was sensitive to strong sonic energy (like the church bells it had once succumbed to, years ago, when Peter was its host), she'd built the device to keep Misery under control. She turned the dial up.
Trying to avoid the harmful energy, the symbiote peeled off Austin's body and slipped down the sewer pipe. Austin sat up, dazed. Noreen was advancing on him, a long stabbing blade popping out of her right-hand glove.
"For who would bear the whips and scorns of time…when he himself might his quietus make with a bare bodkin?" Noreen hissed at him. From Macbeth to Hamlet, Austin distantly thought. Meanwhile, his tentacles were just laying there at his sides, simply observing their master's predicament.
What the hell are you doing?
Nothing, Austin.
Exactly! Why aren't you helping me? I need you to help me!
No.
You took a foolish risk.
You refused to listen to us.
You let your wife stop functioning.
You let her die.
You are not worthy of us.
Fight for me! Now! I order you--
No. Effective immediately, we will no longer obey your orders.
You have proved yourself not worth the electrical energy it takes to defend you.
You have proved yourself unworthy to be called our Brother, Austin.
If you need to fight, do it alone.
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life—"
Noreen's blade curved down, and that was all Doctor Austin Smith ever heard.
Noreen's insane bloodlust not quite satisfied, she advanced towards Ottoline and Parker Marie. In their faces, she only saw the man who had murdered her grandfather…and the man who had scorned her. Noreen raised her blade, ready to strike.
But before anyone else could do anything, Otto stepped between Noreen and his granddaughters, and committed his last murder as Doctor Octopus.
One swish of the tentacle blade, and Noreen's severed head dropped to the ground, cold, blue eyes half open and seeing nothing.