The New Sinister Six

by petersnightmare

Peter woke up around 8 AM and rolled out of bed. The night before, he had a particularly exhausting battle with his old enemy Electro. He was able to defeat Electro, but his costume was torn in several places during the battle and he was going to have to spend his Saturday morning sewing his Spiderman suit back into its original state.

"May as well turn on the TV," he thought.

"...as reported earlier this morning," the voice of the reporter said, "the costumes of some of New York's most powerful super-villains were stolen last night."

"Wha-," Peter asked aloud.

The reporter continued, " The costumes of the Beetle, the Shocker, the Scorpion, the Vulture, Blizzard, and the Eel were stolen from the federal prison known as The Vault."

"Oh great," Peter thought, "a bunch of idiots in super-suits trying to be super-villains. Why is more comforting when Abner Jenkins, Herman Schultz, Mac Gargan, Adrian Toomes, whoever Blizzard used to be, and whoever the Eel was last week are wearing those suits?"

"This is clearly a plot by Spiderman to have more of his dangerous fights in our city streets!"

Peter laughed as JJJ grabbed the mic from the reporter. He was watching J3 communications after all.

"This is one more reason that masked freak should be captured and unmasked!" Jonah yelled. "That lunatic is setting the whole city up for property damage and a crime wave like we've never seen!"

"You tell 'em, Jonah," Peter laughed, "it's all my fault as usual!"

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Later that afternoon in the secret headquarters of the Kingpin, six men gathered before their boss.

"You are my finest guards," Kingpin told them, "and I have decided to reward your service with these..."

A wall swung around and the six men saw six costumes hanging on it.

"Pick your costumes, gentlemen," Kingpin told them. "These are your rewards. I have decided to reactivate my Sinister Six. Each of you will become a super-powered criminal with only one goal: to capture Spiderman!"

The six men each picked out a costume.

"By all means, gentlemen, try them on," Kingpin told them.

Each man stripped to his underwear and put on his respective costume.

"And now, Beetle, Shocker, Scorpion, Vulture, Blizzard, and Eel, go get Spiderman for me," Kingpin ordered. "You are my new Sinister Six!"

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"It feels good to be web-swinging," Spiderman thought. He swung from building to building looking for any sign of whoever stole the six costumes. There was no trace of any of them. Earlier, he had stopped a mugging and a car-jacking, but no super-villains were to be found. It was getting late, close to midnight, and it seemed like it was going to be a slow night.

The previous night had seen him battle Electro in what proved to be a hard-fought victory. Electro was more vicious than ever. Electro had figured out new ways to use his powers and nearly defeated Spiderman. Using available metal objects, Electro was able assault Spiderman and bring the hero to near-unconsciousness. Only after he finally was able to render Electro unconscious did Spiderman realize that his costume was torn in several places and he was cut underneath it. Worst of all, his mask was torn so badly that it barely hid the features of his face. As the police approached, Spiderman decided to leave the scene for fear of the police officers recognizing his face.

A slow night was definitely a welcome change from battling an electrically powered super-villain. As Spiderman swung toward the Empire State Building his spider-sense went off. A laser blast barely missed him and instead sheared his webline. He was able to fire another webline and catch himself only to dodge a blast at the last second. On the ground below he saw four men in familiar costumes.

"Here we go," he thought as he gazed upon Shocker, Blizzard, the Eel, and Scorpion.

His spider-sense fired again. But what was it warning him of? The four costumed men were well below the range of their weapons to hit him.

"Do it," the Vulture shouted to the Beetle. The beetle fired his electro-bite and nailed Spiderman in the abdomen. Spiderman fell from his perch. The Vulture swooped down and caught Spiderman in midair.

"I see you upgraded the suit with a mask, uhh, Vulture," Spiderman quipped as he noticed the green spandex mask covering this new Vulture's face. "Did you realize that catching me was a mistake?"

Spiderman reached around to the Vulture's back and ripped the power pack off of the bird-like costume and tossed it to the ground below.

"No," Vulture cried as they began to fall from the sky. Luckily, they were only a couple of stories up at this point.

Spiderman landed safely and Beetle caught the Vulture just in time. Spiderman's spider-sense was going crazy as he dodged Shocker's vibro-blasts, Eel's electrical blasts, Scorpion's laser blasts, and Blizzard's ice blasts.

"You guys are serious aren't you," Spiderman asked as he tackled Shocker. "I mean you know you don't really have any powers, right," he said as he ripped Shocker's gauntlets off.

"Hey! No," Shocker yelled as Spiderman crushed the gauntlets.

The others tried to stop Spiderman, but they were too inexperienced to do much of anything. Next, Spiderman webbed Scorpion. "You may have his costume, but you don't have his super-strength," Spiderman said to the entangled Scorpion.

"I got him," Blizzard announced and fired his ice blast at Spiderman. The blast missed and Spiderman leapt onto Blizzard's back and tore the cold unit off.

"No, you don't got him," Spiderman laughed.

"My suit is ruined," Blizzard cried as he was webbed up.

"Fools! He's easy pickings for the Beetle," Beetle said and nailed Spiderman with his electro-bite. Beetle continued to hammer Spiderman with blasts. The Eel joined in and fired his electric blast at the fallen hero. After a few seconds they both stopped. Spiderman lay motionless on the ground before them.

"Free Blizzard and Scorpion," Eel said to Beetle, "I'm gonna take his mask off!" The Eel bent down and grabbed Spiderman's mask and started to pull it off.

"Now, why would I let you do that," Spiderman asked Eel.

Spiderman tore a hole in the chest of the costume Eel wore. The costume began to spark violently.

"My suit...gotta get it off," Eel said. He hurriedly removed the electrified costume and was soon left in the boxer shorts he wore beneath the costume. With his suit ruined and his face revealed, he ran away as fast as he could.

"You guys are amateurs," Spiderman said as he approached the other men.

"Really," a voice came from above Spiderman. His spider-sense screamed at him. The Beetle landed on Spiderman's back and gripped Spiderman's mask. "You won't dare follow us without this!"

"No," Spiderman said as he felt his mask being pulled off. In a flash, his mask was off and he was shielding his face.

The costumed criminals got away, and, for the second night in a row, Spiderman was forced to flee to protect his secret identity.

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"Though you failed me thus far, I will allow you to continue as my Sinister Six," Kingpin told the six men gathered before him. "The cost to replace the costumes of Shocker, Eel, Vulture, and Blizzard will come out of your pay! I will, however, trust that you have each learned a lesson. Without those costumes you are ordinary men. With them, working as a team, you will be a force to be reckoned with. You must learn to function as a team."

"Look, Kingpin," the man who was given the costume of the Eel said, still wearing only his boxer shorts, "I promise this won't happen again."

"Yeah, same here," Blizzard said.

"Don't make promises you may not be able to keep," Kingpin said. "I am pleased that you were able to bring me this," Kingpin said as he held up Spiderman's mask. "You see, we have a valuable piece of Spiderman in this mask."

"What do you man, boss," Beetle asked.

"Well, Beetle, we have a hair sample from Spiderman," Kingpin said, "and I intend to use it for a very special purpose."

"You see, gentlemen," Allister Smythe said as he entered into the room in his hover-chair, "I plan to find a way to remove Spiderman's powers!"

"Without his powers, Spiderman will be easily defeated," Kingpin said. "Once he is rendered powerless, you will bring him to me so that I can unmask him myself! I will revel at the face beneath his mask as he realizes that he has finally, truly lost!"

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"Oh my God," Peter said as he sat in his apartment, "I got unmasked by the Beetle! Not even the real Beetle! Some guy in the Beetle's suit!"

It was late and Peter decided to go to sleep. He removed his costume still in disbelief that he was so easily unmasked by the Beetle.

"I feel like the biggest loser in the world right now," Peter thought as he laid down to go to sleep. "The Beetle?"