Pikatwig: So… next chapter is gonna have something special in it, but we can't say what that is just yet…
KKD: It's… kind of a surprise. You'll see when we get to it.
Pikatwig: But… today's chapter introduces another iconic Spider-Man villain.
KKD: Doctor Octopus.
Pikatwig: So, amongst Spider-Man's baddies, who would you say is his 'arch enemy', like the Lex Luthor or the Joker of Spider-Man?
KKD: Hmm… technically, I'd say Green Goblin since he's paired up more often, but Doc Ock's been around longer, so… it's a tie between the two.
Pikatwig: Alright, just wondering. ...oh yea… I remember a Spider-Man/Batman crossover where it was shown Cletus Kassidy was the guy who killed the Waynes.
KKD: Huh. Weird.
Pikatwig: Doc Ock became a villain in a multipart storyline in the current Spider-Man cartoon. Oh, Scott Menville didn't even know he was auditioning to voice the guy. His script just described the character as a '19 year old high school teacher'.
KKD: …
Pikatwig: What?
KKD: ...WHAT?! Doc's only 19 YEARS OLD?! B-But how?! In the comics, no matter what version, he's always older than Peter by a few decades at least, but this puts him on the same AGE RANGE as Peter. I mean, HOW! COULD! THEY! DO! THAT?!
Pikatwig: ...it does explain why he's short and why Peter mistook him for a fellow student. ...also… you said 'he looks younger than Peter does' in our review of the first two episodes… turns out he could actually be a bit older.
KKD: ...how?! HOW?! I… fission mailed… fission mailed… paradox… PARADOX! *grips head*
Pikatwig: ...I got something to calm you down. *shows him a picture*
KKD: ...D'aww~! X3
Pikatwig: RWBY picture.
KKD: Yea, that fixed me.
Pikatwig: Had fun watching that be worked on in a stream… even if it was difficult to watch due to me not having Monday off. ...and we're getting sidetracked, like normal.
KKD: Why am I not surprised?
Pikatwig: Well… let's begin this chapter and see how we interpret Doctor Otto Ocatvius… and he won't be as young as the new Spider-Man cartoon.
KKD: Good.
Disclaimers: Neither KKD nor Pikatwig own anything in this story as it is a fan-based project. Spider-Man and any associated properties within are owned by Marvel Comics, Walt Disney Studios, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and their respective creators and owners. The only things the authors own are the original concepts and idea introduced within.
"Well, today's certainly a unique day. We have today off from school, so I decided to just go web swinging. I forget what today is off for off the top of my head, but we're off for some reason."
Spider-Man roamed around some rooftops of buildings, minding his own business before stopping at the edge of one roof to look around. He then noticed Gwen Stacy and her father exiting a restaurant across the street.
"Good to see Gwen enjoying some time with her dad… it's rare seeing he works on the police force and all," Spider-Man noted. He then squinted his eyes to see the restaurant they were leaving from. He could faintly see the logo of the restaurant that the two were exiting from, which looked to have a flag that looked to be a mix of a Russian flag and a Mexican flag, but the logo was written in a bizzare mixing of Russian and Spanish. "What the heck kinda place is that? ...why is it I decided to take Japanese and not Spanish or Russian? This is just so odd…"
He used a sort of binocular built into his visor to see some signs that indicated the food was mixing of Mexican and Russian.
"Ok… that's just weird. But… got a couple of hours left in the day, so… eh. Maybe I can try the place for lunch…" Spider-Man shrugged as he webbed away.
"So… what is this place called?" Aunt May asked.
"I have no idea…" Peter admitted, "The logo was in Russian and Spanish…"
"Hmm… it must be a new establishment," Aunt May figured.
Peter just shrugged a little as he and his aunt walked over to the place and headed on inside of it. As they entered, Peter was too busy looking around to not noticed the person in front of him, and accidentally bumped into him.
"Watch it, please…" the man, who had short dark brown hair, dark glasses, a VERY large brown jacket, and was wearing a green colored shirt, a yellow tie, black pants and shoes.
"Sorry," Peter apologized.
"Pardon my nephew, sir. He's a bit of a clutz sometimes…" Aunt May said quickly.
The man just shrugged a little as he returned to his spot in line, adjusting his tie, and simply continuing to wait.
Peter and his aunt sat in a booth and simply waited for their dish to arrive.
"You know… I have had some Russian food before…" Aunt May informed, "Your dad was in Russia for his job once."
"What was it he did?"
"...I.. don't remember…" Aunt May admitted., "It was a long time ago, so I honestly don't remember."
"...did dad ever speak Russian?"
"I don't remember, but… I think he met your mom in Russia."
"...I'm part Russian?" Peter gawked.
"I'd need to double check the family history books, but I believe your mother was Russian."
"Wasn't her name Alice?"
"Yea…"
Peter just shrugged as some food arrived at their booth.
"If my mom was Russian… I certainly didn't inherit her liking of Russian food…"
Peter simply sat in the bathroom next to his room with a sickly look on his face. He groaned in pain, clearly not feeling well, as he simply tried not to throw up.
"Peter?" Aunt May spoke up as she knocked on the door, "Are you feeling alright in there?"
"...I can't stomach Russian…" Peter responded, "But… I'm fine… I guess…"
"So… I double checked our family history books… your parents did meet in Russia, but your mom's not Russian," Aunt May informed, "She's actually from Japan."
"Well… that explains a lot."
"While I was dealing with my stomach… that man I met at the place… he was in the midst of building something…"
The man, now missing his jacket to reveal what looked to be mechanical arms, was working on a gizmo that was resembling some kind of metal backpack with a thing that looked like a spiral, "Soon… I'll have a little army ready to help me… and the folks at Midtown will regret having reported me for 'questionable acts', to the school board…"
The following morning, MJ stood in front of the Parker household with a balloon, card, and something wrapped up as she looked concerned. Aunt May eventually arrived at the door and smiled at MJ.
"Mary Jane. What a pleasant surprise. What brings you by?"
"I heard Peter wasn't feeling well, so I wanted to bring him some stuff to make him feel better," MJ informed.
"You're such a sweetheart. I'm sure he'd just love the affection that you give him."
MJ blushed a little, unsure what to say before Aunt May let her inside and showed her to Pete's room.
"Hey…" Peter told her.
"What's up, Tiger?" MJ asked with a soft smile.
"Sick from eating at a Russian-Mexican place…" Peter sighed.
"...that's odd sounding…" MJ admitted, "It must've been killer on your stomach…"
Peter just weakly nodded, clutching his gut a bit before MJ handed him the gifts she brought.
"I hope you feel better, tiger. I'll make sure you get the notes and homework for class. I know you hate it when you get behind."
"Thanks…"
MJ smiled before she headed off for school.
"So… how'd Pete get sick? It's not like him to get sick," Harry questioned as MJ walked in.
"He ate at some Russian-Mexican fusion place and got sick from the Russian half," MJ informed.
"Oh gosh… that place was bad…" Gwen groaned, "The food was such a mess and the owners didn't even actually cook their own food. They just stole food from other places and just combined it in a way to make it seem like they made it. My dad's investigating the people behind the restaurant tonight…"
"Well, that's a bit extreme, but I suppose with the villains who threaten the world that's rather… normal…" Harry commented.
"Yea…" Gwen nodded.
MJ simply waited for the class to begin, nervous for Peter when the PA chimed.
-Attention all students. Please report to the auditorium for a special announcement in regards to the principal. Repeat, all students. Please report to the auditorium for a special announcement in regards to the principal. All teachers, you may go to the teacher lounge for a break.-
"I wonder what that could mean…" Felicia muttered.
"Class hasn't even started yet…" Dr. Connors noted, "This seems a little suspicious, but if the principal asks…"
The students simply headed to the auditorium as they were all questioning what was happening while Connors simply proceeded to head for the teachers lounge. It wasn't long before the students were all in the auditorium and waiting for the announcement to begin.
MJ simply slipped out her phone and just looked over some stuff on it to make sure that Peter was alright. She lightly tapped the side of her phone, unsure of what to do as they waited, before she saw a text from Peter.
-What's going on in class?-
MJ simply looked at the text for a moment before she typed out a response.
-Class hasn't started yet. We got an announcement to go to the auditorium… something's up. Not sure what.-
She quickly sent it, hoping Peter would respond, and then they saw somebody walk on stage. This person, unfamiliar to the students, simply smiled.
"Hello there," he greeted, getting the students confused before he smiled, "As of today, I, Otto Octavius, am your new principal… and leader."
The students gasped in shock before Otto raised up a sort of machine that sent out a sort of wave of energy. Students gasped in worry, but were then unable to move as they looked at the energy wave. MJ, who had her head lowered to her phone, ended up not seeing some of it, but ended up seeing it in the reflection of her phone. She felt her head getting messed around with and, with the last bit of energy she had, she managed to type out a two word text and send it…
-Peter… help.-
Peter was sitting in his room and just watching TV, recovering a little and managing to have some energy, looked over to a book he had about some Japanese etiquette. Aunt May had found the book while looking through some belongings of his parents and gave it to him to read. He debated deciding to read it before his phone buzzed with another text.
"Huh? What's up now?" he wondered, looking to his phone and soon seeing the text. He gasped in concern before he stood up, "...she knows I'm sick, so… what could she need help with?"
He thought for a moment but shrugged it off as he went to try and eat something. However, the more he thought about it, the more worried he became.
"I can't stay here. I have to see what's up…" Peter sighed as proceeded to get into his Spider-Man costume. He proceeded to head on out, ready to web-swing, only to slow down to a stop, "...dumb stomach… better make this quick…"
Otto was now within a sort of suit of armor that was mostly green and black with four mechanical arms coming out the back. He watched as the students were working on constructing something for him. He then began to mumble a little, "Perfect… mind controlling the populace to be scientists to build my machines. What genius. And they said mind manipulation was unethical…"
Flash had walked past the students with some supplies… and accidentally dumped them out into the trash.
"...of course… that doesn't improve intellect…" Otto sighed.
Spider-Man managed to get to the school and snuck in via the air vents. He looked around to try to find any sign of anybody he recognized, but he soon noticed the staff was locked in the teacher's lounge. Confused, he soon lowered himself outside of the room before managing to see the door had gotten boarded up. He quickly webbed it up and removed the barricade before he opened the door.
"Hello?" Spider-Man called out.
"Who are you?" a teacher asked.
"Wait… he's that guy from the newspaper. Spider-Man!"
"Didn't that West guy get pictures of him?"
"I think it was Chris West…" another added.
"Spider-Man…" Dr. Connors began as he approached him, "Look… I don't know what happened, but you have to help us. Someone seems to have invaded the school and is doing something to the students."
Spider-Man tensed up in response, not sure what to expect, but he quickly headed out to try and find the source.
Otto, meanwhile, grinned as some machines were finished.
"The mechas are going well, sir," Gwen said in a monotoned voice.
"Excellent…" Otto smiled as he approached one, "Soon, with these completed, the world will fear the name… of Doctor Octopus!"
"...Doctor Octopus?" Spider-Man's voice echoed, making Otto turn to see the wall crawler, "Is that the best you could come up with? I would've gone with something that represents how you only have four legs and octopi have eight."
"SPIDER-MAN?!" Doctor Octopus yelled as Spider-Man jumped down.
"Yep, that's me," he nodded as he shot a web ball at the mecha, "Can't let you use these."
Doctor Octopus growled in anger before launching one of his arms at Spider-Man. The wall crawler managed to dodge in time before he caught the arm in some webbing. Doctor Octopus growled in anger as the arm managed to snap the webbing off before lunging it towards Spider-Man.
'Spider Sense…' he thought as he managed to dodge quickly… only for something to smack him in the back of the head, 'Note to self, spider sense is powerful, but lacks effectiveness if I'm already dodging something it sensed.'
"Perfect…" Doctor Octopus smiled.
Spider-Man turned to see what was thrown at him and who threw it at him. He sighed a little as he saw it was a clipboard… and the person who threw it was Flash.
"...wait… what?" Spider-Man blinked a bit.
"True genius knows to seek out help… and how to get that help to listen no matter what…" Doctor Octopus said with a smirk.
"Not the last time I would ever encounter people who used mental manipulation. ...trust me…"
"That… is sick…" Spider-Man said with a growl as he attempted to run over to punch Doctor Octopus, but was blocked due to another mind controlled student. Spider-Man jumped up onto the ceiling as he began to think up a plan.
"Come on out spider…" Doctor Octopus said with a gleeful tone, "Might be nice to have a scapegoat for this little plan…"
'...there is no way in all seven circles of heck I'm gonna let you do this to my friends, sicko!' Spider-Man thought before the Spider-Sense went off and he had to quickly dodge some of Doctor Octopus' mechanical legs in a hurry. He began to hold his stomach as he moved around quickly. He ended up getting knocked off of the ceiling and landing on the ground, "Ugh…"
Doctor Octopus laughed evilly as Spider-Man got up. The web warrior looked to be rather woozy after all of the dodging and shots taken. He slowly removed a little bit of his mask, just enough for his mouth to be visible, as Doctor Octopus moved over.
"And so the Spider-Man is m-"
Spider-Man ended up throwing up as the mad scientist approached. This ended up causing a leg to slip and knock Doctor Octopus off balance. Spider-Man quickly seized his opportunity and webbed up the evil scientist.
"Uh… I meant to do that…" Spider-Man nervously said, trying to play it cool before he slowly headed towards the nearest exit…
"Well… not the most conventional means to take down a villain, but I'll take it. Trust me, it would've been better if I wasn't sick off my rocker, but a victory is a victory…"
The police had arrived at the school, arresting Doctor Octavius and detaining the still mind controlled students.
"School ended up getting canceled for the rest of the week while everybody had their minds… healed… for lack of a better way to put it. Doctor Octavius was sentenced to prison for a year or two for destroying public property and what he did to the student body, among other things. As an aside… that little… instance of Parker Luck ended up helping me feel better. So… two victories for the price of one? *awkward laugh*. Anyway, I did manage to recover after that and things were looking rather normal with that time off..."
"So… Gwen and Harry are still getting their minds healed and stuff?" Peter asked MJ.
"Yea. That's the best way to put it. I had the least amount of exposure to the… thing… so, I'm good," MJ smiled, "Certainly a lucky little coincidence that you ended up being sick."
"For once… luck was on my side…" Peter smiled.
"Doesn't your family have some reputation for being terribly unlucky?"
"People say it's as if the guy who thought up Murphy's Law cursed me and everybody who has my family name…"
"Oh Pete, you don't have to say that…" MJ told him with a soft smile, "Luck is what it is. Luck. You on the other hand, are very lucky even if the luck isn't on your side…"
"...I don't get it."
"Think of your luck as a good and a bad thing. You just have to take advantage of it when the chance presents itself."
Peter just smiled at MJ and hugged her, MJ happily hugging back even if she was a little nervous.
"At the time… I didn't know that Doc Ock was in the midst of working on a revenge scheme… and he would be getting some very, very, very… VERY unexpected help…"
The evil scientist sat in jail, clearly angered as his robotic limbs were hard at work trying to build something.
"I'll get my revenge on that spider.. And when I do… he will rue the day he thwarted the plans of Doctor Otto Octavius!" he yelled out. As he continued his work, he didn't initially notice something up with the shadows, but some began to move, yellow eyes poking out of them as they began to roam around the jail cell. He eventually took notice, "Gah! What the?! Are are these… these… things?!"
"It is most impressive that you managed to lure the Heartless to this world with only plans of revenge," a female voice spoke, as the doctor turned to see a figure emerge from the shadows. To the audience, however, this woman was obscured due to the darkness of the cells.
"...Heartless?" Doctor Octopus questioned.
"These creatures…" the woman commented, "They are attracted to the darkness within one's heart. And you are just the being that lured them here…"
"Wh-who are you?!"
"My name is of no importance to you at this moment. What is important is that you let the Heartless have their fun in this world… in return, you can have your vengeance against whoever has wronged you…"
Doctor Octopus looked at the Heartless and gained a wicked smirk…
The Door Has Been Opened...
KKD: Well… that was unexpected.
Pikatwig: The Heartless are here… that's… bad.
KKD: That's… putting it mildly. Considering you need a Keyblade or be associated with someone who wields one to stop them, this can only mean one thing.
Pikatwig: This is part of the reason why Doc Ock appeared so early. We needed a Spider-Man villain who could've reasonably attracted the Heartless.
KKD: Huh… ok.
Pikatwig: Yea. We're a long ways away from the Green Goblin and the Jackal. And we're going to be patient before we establish more of the Marvel universe here. They may make a cameo, but they won't be the focus for a while.
KKD: Yea. For now, we'll settle with Doc Ock. And before you guys mention Venom… that's gonna be a bit later as well.
Pikatwig: So… about that Russian/Mexican place featured near the start of the chapter… that was going to be a real restaurant.
KKD: What? That's just stupid, I mean, who woul-wait, was?
Pikatwig: Basically, the chef behind it was just a con-artist who had some helpers buy food from a Russian place and a Mexican place and then they just reassembled the food. They were arrested for the crime.
KKD: ...you heard about this where?
Pikatwig: Some TV show that did undercover stuff in restaurants. Oh, another story from that show… there was this one place that was comic themed and an undercover agent brought in a mint-condition copy of Tales of Suspense #57.
KKD: Debut of Hawkeye.
Pikatwig: Yep. ...and he got conned out of it. He was duped into thinking it was a reprint and sold it for ten dollars.
KKD: Seriously?!
Pikatwig: Yep…
KKD: Ouch! That's gotta hurt.
Pikatwig: Yea. And I partly bring that up because it brings us back to Marvel. So, overall thoughts on this chapter?
KKD: I personally thought it was cool, but I feel bad for Peter having been sick the whole time. In the end, it was a fun chapter, and I'm glad Doc Ock was the first baddie we introduced.
Pikatwig: Major baddie, since Peter fought Mysterio last chapter, remember?
KKD: Right.
Pikatwig: So… about how Peter ended up beating Doc Ock. ...I really had no clear idea how he would do that… then we thought up him having stomach issues and I thought up the idea to… basically more or less have his luck kick in on a foe for a change.
KKD: That was a bit unorthodox, but I'm willing to go with it.
Pikatwig: Alright. And now we have the revelation about Peter's mother being Japanese. KKD's idea.
KKD: Yea, I couldn't help it. It may connect to other stories I may have, but I wanted to have this Spidey have some Japanese ancestry.
Pikatwig: Yea, it works. So… funny little story from behind the scenes. When I set up my internet to work on these stories, I try to have the note page on one part of the screen, the chapter file itself, and then some mood music. I pulled up YouTube to load up the Spectacular Spider-Man theme… *laughs a little* but… I accidentally typed in 'Fantastic' into the search engine…
KKD: Whoops! *laughs a little* Oh well.
Pikatwig: So… favorite part?
KKD: Hmm… tough part… I might have to say… either the battle that was creative, or the reveal of Peter's Japanese ancestry.
Pikatwig: I honestly really liked the moments between Peter and MJ in this chapter. They're so adorable together…
KKD: Yea…
Pikatwig: And then it was retconned and Peter's next love interest after MJ had nothing original about her and was named after Quesada's daughter.
KKD: …*eyes tick angrily*
Pikatwig: But… good news. In the upcoming Insomniac Spider-Man game… Peter and MJ are married! And you even get to play as MJ in some stealth stages!
KKD: NICE! I can't wait to play that one now.
Pikatwig: So… KKD… little hypothetical…
KKD: Ok…?
Pikatwig: How would you react if Chrono Trigger was in a Kingdom Hearts game? It is a Square Enix game.
KKD: I… uh… well… that would be pretty cool, but I'm not sure how else to react. I didn't grow up with the game like others. Why ask?
Pikatwig: No reason. Just curious.
KKD: Alright…
Pikatwig: Well, wrap up time.
KKD: Jaa ne.
Pikatwig: Just Live More.