CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Flames

I was starting to see black. My ears were ringing. I couldn't breathe. Osborn...no, the Green Goblin, was shocking me and it was all I could do to stay conscious. I tried to pry his hands from my chest, but they wouldn't budge. Clenching my fists together, I struggled to pull my arms back, and managed to clap my fists on his ears. The Goblin howled in pain and stopped electrocuting me. Pressing the advantage, I grabbed him by his forearms, rolled onto my back, and pressed my feet into his stomach. I used my body as a pivot, lifted him into the air with my legs and monkey-flipped him past me.He flew through the air and crashed through one of the pews, sending splinters of wood flying in each direction.

As soon as he landed, he turned and started to stand back up. I arose to my feet and jumped toward him. He stood up and managed to look up at me just before I tackled him to the ground. I started to beat the Goblin's head into the floor with rights and lefts, bashing him until I saw specks of blood fly from his nose and lips. I got a good twelve punches in before I noticed him reaching to the side with his right hand. He was reaching for his sword. He got a hold of it and swiped it in my direction. With less than a second to dodge it, I jumped off of him, performed a double backflip, and landed a few feet away from him. The Goblin stood back up and stared me down.

"I'm impressed with your strength, Spider-Man. You turned out to be pretty powerful, for a trial run. Of course, I've progressed in my experiments, and now my work has far surpassed you," said the Goblin.

"Yeah. You learned how to turn your skin green. That's a hell of a lot of progress," I replied.

"If you only knew. I have far more resources now, and a little help from some friends. That dingy little lab of mine is long gone. I have a real research facility, with unlimited funding, and..."

His speech was cut short. Mainly because I ran toward him and punched him in the mouth.

"You killed my mother!" I exclaimed as I hit him with a left hook.

Before I could hit him again, the Goblin swung his sword at me again. I bent almost completely backwards, and the sword swung over my head. I stood back up and continued hitting him, only stopping momentarily to dodge more sword swings. Finally, I hit him with a right cross, and he stumbled back. It seemed as though I had hurt him with that one. I ran toward him and cocked my fist back. One more punch would do it, I thought.

Of course, more than half of what I think invariably turns out to be wrong.

The Goblin swung again, and this time he connected. The blade caught me on the chest, ripping a big chunk of cloth, along with a fair amount of flesh and blood, with it. The cut wasn't deep enough to be a mortal blow, but it damn sure hurt along. I dropped to a knee and clutched my chest as blood ran over my hands and pooled on the floor.

"Oh God...oh God..."

"God can't hear you, Spider-Man. Just like he couldn't hear that whore of a mother of yours..." cackled the Green Goblin.

Before I knew it, I was struck in the face with the Goblin's monstrously large, clawed right foot. I flew back towards the podium and crashed into it, toppling it over.

"He can't even hear you in this place..." said the Goblin as he stalked toward me.

I couldn't breathe. I was bleeding everywhere. My vision was getting blurry and I was starting to go numb.

Oh my God...I thought in a panic. I'm dying...I'm going to die in this place in this costume with this monster...

My mind was moving a mile a minute. I had to calm down, or the Goblin would finish me for sure. If I didn't focus, I'd be dead. And I'm obviously no use to anybody as a corpse.

Think, Rob. Just think of some way to hit him back hard. What was it that Dad always said? Never...never panic in an emergency, right? That panicking would only make things worse...alright, listen to your father for once, dumbass. You are not going to die here. This...whatever it is...it killed your mom...take him down.

Looking back, I saw that I had knocked the podium into the candles that the Goblin had set up. All of the candles fell over and set fire to the rug beneath it, which quickly began to spread and ignite on the wooden floor. The flame also lit the podium ablaze. I grabbed it, lifted it over my head, and hurled it at the Goblin.

"Pathetic!" he roared, and with one swing of his sword he broke the podium into a mess of splinters and embers.

That's alright, though. That's what I wanted him to do...

With the Goblin distracted, he had little time to react as I dove forward and hit him in the stomach fists-first. I followed up with a right uppercut, then a left backhand. The Goblin attempted to bring the sword down upon me, but I managed to sidestep it, causing the blade to get stuck in the floor. I jumped and turned, hitting him in the face with a roundhouse kick. Upon landing, I attempted a spinning side kick, but before I knew it, he caught my leg by the ankle. We both stood still for a moment. Then, he lifted me into the air...with one damn hand I might add...and started to swing me over his head. After three swings, he threw me away like a rag doll.

Ya know, I think I was right about that whole thing with the full moon and bad luck, all things considered. I say that because, next thing I knew, I fell against the wall where the flames had spread. Fire had now caught to my arms and back, and it was all I could do to get away from the flames and roll on the ground in an attempt to put it out. I had managed to do so, but not before suffering some burns. My back and shoulders were in intense pain, not to mention my chest, but I had to attempt to ignore the pain and continue the fight. I looked up to see the Goblin pulling his sword out of the ground.

"We'd better finish up here, Spider-Man," he said. "This place will burn to the ground before long. What say we take this somewhere else?"

The Green Goblin turned toward the door and made a run for it. I struggled to my feet and ran after him. He lowered his head and burst through the door with his shoulder, splintering it and sending little pieces of wood everywhere. I continued running after him, and we found ourselves in front of the church and surrounded by a large crowd of people.

"Look, Spider-Man, spectators! Let's welcome them!" said the Goblin.

"Goblin, stop! They have nothing to do with this!" I yelled after him.

Before anyone could react, the Goblin ran into the large crowd of policemen that had surrounded the church. I watched as they aimed their weapons at him, but it was too late.

What happened next seemed to be in slow motion. The Green Goblin plowed through the police officers, swinging his sword in every direction and hacking off body parts like it was a game. I watched as limbs flew everywhere, as the officers were amputated and halved and decapitated. I continued running toward him and jumped into the crowd. I managed to tackle him to the ground, knocking his sword out of his hand. We ended up grappling on the ground amidst blood and body parts. It was like something out of a horror movie. Eventually I was able to pin him to the ground and hit him repeatedly with my right fist. After I hit him with five punches, he threw his hand over his face.

"Stop! I give up! I can't take anymore!" the Goblin bellowed.

I paused for a moment. It seemed that the fight was finally over.

Naturally, I was proven wrong yet again. The Goblin, sick monster that he is, grabbed a policemen's severed arm of all things and slapped me in the face with it, knocking me off of him.

"Sucker!" he said with a laugh.

We both stood up and faced off. There was no telling how, or when, this thing would end. We wouldn't have time to figure it out, though, because we both looked up at the sound of guns cocking. The dozen or so surviving officers around us had their weapons trained on us.

"Put your hands up, both of you! Either of you freaks moves a muscle and you'll be ventilated!" demanded the captain.

"Heh...I'd like to see you try..." the Goblin cackled.

In a split second, the Goblin was right in front of me with his hands wrapped around my throat. He lifted me in the air with both hands and laughed as he strangled me.

"There, my hands are up," he said, laughing as he did so.

I struggled to get his hands off of my throat, but his grip was too strong. All of the policemen around us watched in awe, but nobody did anything. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the cops turn to the captain.

"Sir, what should we do?" he asked.

"You should shoot the motherfucker, that's what!" I said as I managed to pry the Goblin's hands away from my neck. It took repeated kicks with both feet to finally make him back off. I landed on my feet and looked up.

"Take a look behind you, Spider-Man. Have a look at your handiwork," said the Goblin.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw what he was talking about. My eyes widened beneath my mask at the horrible sight before me.

The church had become entirely engulfed in flames. It would be completely destroyed soon. There was nothing that could be done to save it. I stood and turned back to the Goblin.

"You're a real bastard..." I growled. "What was the point of all this?"

"I'm not the one that set fire to the church, hero," the Goblin replied with a devilish grin.

I was about to reply, but then I felt it. The danger sense buzzed at the back of my neck, this time with more ferocity than usual. I looked up and immediately realized what was causing it to go off.

The captain took a step back, then aimed his weapon at us, along with the rest of the policemen.

"Fire!" he commanded.

Instinctively, I leapt into the air, then found myself twisting and flipping through the air in an attempt to dodge the hail of bullets. The cops knew what they were doing. They all crouched low and fired high, careful to avoid hitting one another and doing everything in their power to hit us. I continued to jump back and forth, cartwheeling and handspringing to avoid being hit. Much to my surprise, the Goblin, despite his size, had managed to dodge a few bullets himself before jumping into the crowd of policemen. He slapped a few of them aside, then ran away from the scene.

"God damnit! I don't have time for this!" I said as I continued to dodge bullets. I finally managed to jump over the heads of the cops and fire a webline at a nearby building. They continued firing at me as I swung away from them and toward the Goblin.

The Green Goblin continued to run for about two blocks. I swung after him as fast as I could and managed to catch up to him.

"Where the hell do you think you're going? This isn't over!" I yelled after him.

"Oh, I know. I just wanted to find a less crowded place to kill you!" the Goblin replied.

Much to my surprise, the Goblin jumped into the air...really goddamn high into the air...and stuck to the side of a nearby building. Upon further inspection, I saw that he had actually dug his clawed fingers into the wall and was making handholds for himself. He climbed to the top of the building and then took off again. I swung to the top of the building and chased after him.

The Goblin continued running to the edge of the building, then he leapt off of it. I stopped and stared in shock as he flew over two other buildings before landing on the roof of the third.

"Shit..." was the only thing I could really say in regards to that.

I continued running after him, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, until I caught up to him once again. He stopped and started to laugh in my face.

"The hell's so funny?" I asked.

"Your efforts have been futile. I just find it amusing that you keep trying," he replied.

"You think I'm just gonna turn around and go home? I'm not finished until I take you down."

"And then what? You'll put me in prison? Hand me over to the police that would just as soon fire upon you as they would on me? I suppose I'd have to make a plea bargain, then. Maybe I'd give them some information about you to reduce my sentence."

"You won't live long enough to say anything..."

"Oh, but I have so much to tell. And I'm sure they would be eager to hear everything I have to say. After all, somebody has to tell them about your evil ways. Especially about that incident where you murdered your own mother..."

"Bastard!" I screamed as I pounced on him and wrapped my hands around his throat. I started banging his head into the roof and tightened my grip.

"The truth hurts, doesn't it?" the Goblin spat.

"You killed my mother! For no reason!"

"I did you a favor, you ungrateful little shit!" said the Goblin. He placed his hands on my chest and shocked me again. I released my grip on his neck and fell back. The Goblin stood over me and cackled.

Slowly, I arose again and faced him. I was exhausted and bleeding, and my costume was torn. That monster, that thing that killed my mother, just stood there laughing like a hyena. Sparks started to fly around his hands. I clenched my fists and crouched into a low stance. I had to finish it before he managed to kill more people.

"What say we finish this, Spider-Man?"

"Sounds like a plan."

Of course, neither of us got to act on that little notion. Suddenly the wind kicked up, and I heard a loud whooping sound. Before I knew it, there was a bright light being shone down upon us. I looked up to see a police helicopter flying over us. I heard a loud, booming voice coming from the chopper.

"This is the Philadelphia Police Department! Lay face down and do not move! This is your only warning! Failure to comply will result in the use of lethal force!" said somebody in the chopper.

"Hm...pests..." said the Goblin. "I suppose we'll have to postpone this fight, Spider-Man. Another time, then."

With that, the Goblin had leapt off of the roof faster than the police could react to him. I jumped off of the roof, fired a webline, and swung after him.

"Oh, fuck that," I said as I followed him. "We're ending this tonight!"

END OF CHAPTER EIGHTEEN