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Y.A.R.N.
Otto smirked as the octobot skittered through the vents, bending the grate and popping out the screws just enough to be innocuous as the gold and black limbs wriggled though. Otto managed to raise a shaking hand to where the implant for the neurological interface and sighed in relief. Soon the damaged flesh would be discarded for the body that AIM had so charitably made for him so he could be of use. But Otto Octavius was no fool and had known of their intentions to keep him subservient through the use of paralytic agents placed in his 'new' body. The harness had been a lucky find and his octobot had shown him the scans of the new bodies they had made. It was a pity in all honesty, had they simply stuck to the deal and then left him alone, he may have been willing to become a longtime partner. Oh well, he would show them the error of their ways when he was good and ready, he had plenty of targets for his ire. Through all of his musings the octobot squirmed until it climbed to the base of his skull and one of the legs jacked into the empty socket where his arms once connected to him.
Otto gasped and his eyes rolled up as his decaying vessel fell to the floor in a heap of now-conscious-less flesh. The octobot flexed its limbs experimentally and began to clamber back towards the vent, neatly snapping it shut and flawlessly affixing the vent in his cell.
Soon.
Soon.
Peter awoke to his Spider-Sense ringing painfully in his skull.
He managed to suppress a cry of pain as he leapt of his bed and stuck to the ceiling, fist pulled back, ready to strike any approaching foe when he realized the lab was still empty. He carefully looked around before dropping to the floor, the spider emblem that formed on his chest releasing nanites into his Iron Spider Suit in preparation. Suddenly, the ringing in his head tapered off into silence and Peter relaxed as Viri shifted to form some clothing while his nanites retreated back into the spider emblem he had affixed to his chest.
"What the heck?" Peter mumbled, hand coming up to rub at his forehead, "What was that about?"
"I don't know." Viri replied, "Your sixth-sense doesn't randomly go off, but there was no danger. Is something happening that is affecting you?"
"I wish I knew. That's not something that has happened before…" Peter mused, "Then again, it wasn't as… as though something was about to attack… it was painful… is that serious?"
That also had never happened before.
His Spider-Sense was always a static 'an-attack-is-coming' sort of warning, it never varied in intensity. Sure he had been trying to enhance it lately just to see if he could, because he figured Viri might be able to help him hone it into something more. Was that what was happening? Were his powers changing after 8 years of relative stagnancy?
"I don't believe I had a hand in that yet Peter… but we can theorize about it later." Viri offered, "Until then, we are awake and should get started on the day."
Peter checked the time and sighed.
10:48 in the morning on his day off, he had promised to meet with MJ and help her work on actually fighting at 12:00.
He hadn't wanted to teach her, but she had more or less declared he help or she would figure it out on her own.
So Peter had no choice.
He sighed and walked over to the small bathroom he had, might as well get started on freshening up before figuring out what was happening.
MJ was practicing with her new suit with a fervor that even Peter was startled at just how hard she was working at it. Rather than make a heroine that was recognizable or had any connection to any hero, she form the suit with form-fitting segmented mechanical plates acting as additional armoring with no insignia. With the programmable matter being able to take any shape, she wasn't exposed in any way. He had chose the abandoned Fisk Tower as their training ground as nobody was in there since The Tinkerer's death and the subsequent collapse of The Underground; no one bothered to clear out the remains of The Underground equipment (mainly because no one knew the were using Fisk Tower as their base of operations). Still, Peter had no idea why she was so determined to learn how to fight and defend herself and didn't know if he would get her angry by asking.
Still, he probably had to know why, if she kept pushing herself this hard she would do more harm than good.
"MJ…" He started, grabbing her by the shoulders as she panted, "You don't need to push yourself so hard. I thought we agreed that you aren't going out to play hero or anything, you don't need to master working with your programmable matter in one day."
Mj stilled and suddenly her shoulder slumped.
"It's not about that." She sighed in resignation, "I know we are being partners and info gathering and chasing down leads is more my thing, but you were attacked in front of me and I couldn't do a thing! I get you have powers and that makes it different, but I should at least be able to help you when you need it too! I never want to feel that helpless when you need someone, it was pure luck that Wraith was there and I am tired of being a liability! It's just frustrating that it always seems like I can't save anyone and always need saving…"
Peter shook his head and moved to hug MJ against his side, "I do remember someone hauling my sorry bacon out of the burning wreckage of a FEAST center sometime earlier when The Devil's Breath Incident was happening. Who was that again?"
MJ smiled and bumped his hip with hers, "Who saved me several hundred and one times before that?"
Peter rested his head on hers chuckling at their easy banter.
"MJ… more than anything you do actively. You save me by staying safe." He murmured, "If you get hurt, I'd lose my mind. You keep me grounded and give me a reason to fight. So don't ever consider yourself a liability, you're what keeps me going."
MJ lifted Peter's mask as her mask mouth guard shifted out of the way and kissed him, "Thank you."
"That's why I am trying to make you safe. I can't promise I will be okay with it, but I can promise that I will do my best to help. We're partners, and I am trying my best to make sure that even though I don't want that, you can fight or at least get out of a situation that may be too much. I need you. I really really do."
It was things like this that made her heart soar when she was with him and made their break-up so painful for the both of them.
Mary-Jane Watson was not giving up again.
AIM's New York base was in bad shape as a it looked as though someone had taken their time breaking everything they had acquired and destroying their equipment and notes. Oliver Osnick looked at his shattered work desk — arm in a cast and head wrapped with bandages — and threw the unused — and apparently unneeded — pieces of the octobot onto the floor with his good hand.
"Otto knew." He snarled, "He knew we'd try to bind him and took one of the unaltered clones and his harness and left."
"He was found in a coma in his cell on The Raft this morning." One of the administrators murmured, "The Raft has gone through great pains to hide this from the general public. But it is now only a matter of time before it is released."
"What do we do?"
The administrator sighed, "We pull out. This venture has ended in failure. We retreat and cut ties with Otto and stop trying to catch Parker for now. We only wanted Parker to finalize the harness' connection to the mind. Otto already knew how and he knew we couldn't risk losing him as an asset. He's outplayed us perfectly."
Oliver sighed, "So AIM will keep in touch?"
"You're one of our operatives here. When the climate is better for us to push forward here, we'll strike back."
In one of the warehouses that Roxxon hadn't quite yet cleared out, an octobot clambered out of the pod and skittered away as a figure awoke with a gasp and began to pant harshly. The brown-haired figure sat up, hand pressed to his chest as he tried to calm the thundering of his new body's heart. Slowly the figure began to relax and his breathing and just sat there for a moment, feeling everything around him.
Otto opened his eyes as he took a deep breath, his lung filling with air and hid body buzzing with sensation. He got up and experimentally flexed his arms, legs, fingers, and toes, relishing in the fact they moved without any issue and responded with a clarity he hadn't felt in years. He quickly patted down his body and grinned at the lack of any hinderance or exhaustion that had plagued his old body. He checked his neck and smiled at the jack already placed to connect to a harness. He would have to take some steps to increase the defenses around that area, knowing that if it got damaged it could disrupt his connection to the arms he would rebuild. He had toyed with the idea of appropriating his old workshop, but no doubt it had been cleaned out after his crimes. Going back to the AIM rented out space was just moronic as it was still no doubt under surveillance and he would be shot on sight. Right now the biggest problem was his lack of proper resources, as he couldn't do anything substantial with just the clothes — his octobot had to literally sneak into a thrift shop and steal clothes — on his back and his inert octobot. He may have had one of the birthing pods, but even he couldn't dismantle it and then use the very specialized materials on whatever idea he had. That Osnick fellow had done a decent job with the arms, but having it in a harness was far too clunky and inelegant. The tech remains around him wasn't terrible but was nowhere near what he needed or wanted.
He could create something from it though, Otto Octavius was not a man to shy away from hard work due to lackluster materials. Guerrilla science was well within his capabilities as a man of science and he had a plenty of time as this body was younger. He would scavenge whatever he could and move it as soon it as soon as he had a secure location to live out of. The octobot whirred to life and skittered up his leg to latch the jack into his head and then jack into the harness. The mechanical arms shifted, but it was not even worth comparing to the build that Otto had made two years ago when he went after Norman.
But it would suffice as a suitable replacement for now.
He would also need an alias until he came back as Otto Octavius but Otto had months of planning and fantasizing about his return, so he had a name ready.
Elliot Tolliver stepped into the city and began the long journey of amassing resources to crush Norman.
Then he would deal with everyone else who wronged or failed him.
Miles dusted his hands and swung up into the sky as he interrupted a robbery and left the various robbers webbed up for collection. The death of Phin still weighed so heavily on him, not to mention when she stabbed the Rhino, who was still comatose in the medical wing of The Raft. Despite it all though, he was happy Phin and him managed to reconcile — however briefly — before she died and saved the people who had been at Roxxon tower. With Peter and him both patrolling New York, it had helped them balance the time and life for heroics and life in general.
Suddenly — in the middle of a swing — his head buzzed with a sharp and painful spike from his spider-sense and he let out a sharp cry as he gripped his head and fell to the streets. He fired a web-line and slingshotted himself at the roof of a building, hand still clutching his head. He hit the top and rolled a few times, the pain of his spider-sense suddenly vanishing as abruptly as it came. He took a moment to shake his head as if it were going to return before getting to his feet, slowly rubbing his head as he looked around.
No one was coming to attack him.
"What the…?"
In a high-rise penthouse, a woman swirled a glass of wine as she surveyed the assembled men and women stood as still as statues, eyes blank and glazed over. These people had their uses as it came to peons and servants as vanilla humans were good foe little else. Ever since she entered New York, there had only been a handful of people who had the insect gene but they were not who she was interested in. When she had finally resurfaced from her hiding and training she had found what she desired more than anything before.
Perfect specimens as her husbands.
The King to her Queen.
Future ruler and lover.
Spider-Man and — if Spider-Man wouldn't agree or died — his protégé, Kid Arachnid.
They were what she wanted, they were heroes who had powers that resembled that of the spider, unlike the technology of the villain who called himself 'The Scorpion'. The power of their came from their bodies, with only augmentations made through technology that resembled the machines and armor of the former Underground. But they would not need them for much longer as soon as she had much more grandiose plans for her eventual spouses. After all, who would need extra arms once the commanded armies to carry out their will?
She would be in New York, and then she just need to draw out the Spiders with a few petty crimes.
Adriana Soria smiled to herself as she imagined the future.
"Well Mr. Parker," Max Model said proudly, "I'd say you done an amazing job. The arm works just as intended!"
Peter tried to force the stinging in his eyes back as he saw the man slowly playing the electronic keyboard with his mechanical hand. It was a fluid and beautiful melody that only made the ache in Peter's chest pulse harder. There was tweaking to be done on the neural interface, so they had substituted it with a clunkier interface module that was just for the trial phase of limb control. Still, this was closer than anything other than the finalized product that Otto had misued before as the neural interface was almost done. He triple checked ever single node and connector to make sure there wouldn't be any adverse effects, Viri even let a sample of his matter be observed in order to smoothen the movements.
"You did it Peter." Viri congratulated softly, "Very well done."
God it felt so good to see this.
This was the dream he shared with Otto before everything went to hell because of Norman and Devil's Breath and Li.
Before Otto went mad.
A small part of him wished Otto was here to see this, to see that his once benevolent dream became a reality.
But it would never happen and Peter had long since accepted it.
"This is the only working prototype for the limb, so where are we on the interface?" Max Model murmured.
Peter looked over his tablet, checking over the schematics he had been doing for the interface he had slaved over for days, "Close, I managed to work out all of the bugs, but I won't do anything serious until I am sure there won't be side affects."
Max nodded at that, "I see. What are the time estimates?"
"A week?" Peter offered, making sure to take factor of any potential Spider-Man related activities, "Maybe two to be safe?"
"Good, we'll schedule the next test in a week and a half." Max replied, "Let's end the test here, I think we've got what we needed from the limb diagnostic."
Peter smiled, "I have to admit… this takes a huge load of my shoulders."
The rat scurried out of the small drain in the bathroom, a small tendril of symbiotic matter hoisting it up while pushing the drain cover off. The rat itself was horribly emaciated and not long for this world, but Venom didn't need or want it for long, he just needed it as a final transport to his destination. It had taken days and multiple hosts for Venom to navigate through the sewer system but he was finally where he knew he would find what he needed.
The Raft.
It was here he would find the perfect host.
Many of these men would revel in his power and satiate his own bloodlust as they carved a bloody swath through those who would stop him. He would rip Spider-Man limb from limb for separating him from Kid Arachnid and then — if he would not rejoin with Venom — kill Miles Morales. He would then travel this world, devouring more host to conquer this planet and become its undisputed ruler. He would become stronger and stronger, and no one could stop him from his future of soaking this planet in the blood of his foes. He would have to make sure they could be dominated completely, hopefully their will wouldn't be strong enough to break out of his control.
But none of that could be done without a host body to work with.
He noticed he was could be called a medical room with white walls and hospital beds.
Venom grinned in his head.
Perfect, a unconscious host would be much easier to take over and get him to a good host.
He ran over to the first bed when he noticed the body of a balding older man in hospital gown, breathing deep and slowly while attached to an iv. He was thinner as he had eaten any food since he had fallen into a coma.
Otto Octavius? Had his loss of functionality finally put him in a coma?
He'd do, the man had plenty of hate, he could sustain Venom.
Venom leapt of the rat that immediately fell dead next to the comatose body as Venom burrowed into the comatose body.
Venom realized that there was no consciousness in this body, it was just a lump of living flesh and bone that he wouldn't even have to suppress in any way.
Venom laughed in glee, this was perfect!
The symbiote covered the body and Venom opened his eyes.
Time to break out.