A/N: Spiderman's new costume is based upon the artist's idea by Alex Ross of a black and white Spiderman for the 2002 movie.

Chapter Seven:

Hatred

Spiderman flipped forward and landed on his apartment's balcony. His soaked boots made a loud sucking sound as he walked slowly into his apartment. Instantly, his eyes fell on a small ornament that Mary Jane had loved. His vision suddenly blurred with tears, and he squeezed his eyes shut, feeling his chest heave as his tears started to flow, full and thick.

After a minute of trying to centre himself, Spiderman reached up and ripped the web-mask from his face. Then he moved over to a small sketch-book lying on his computer desk.

Leafing through the book until he found a fresh page, Peter grabbed a pen that lay on the desk. On his journey home, he'd decided against creating a new black costume; the costume had only driven Mary Jane away from him, so he decided to create something new.

After an hour of scribbling, evaluating, and dismissing numerous designs, Peter found a design he liked. The Spider-Mask was, essentially, the same as his normal mask, with the exception being that the eyepieces were now black, but the rest of the costume was very different.

For the neck and top of the torso, the red design with reflecting black lines remained. But this patch narrowed down on Spiderman's back and chest, leaving two downward triangles of web-pattern that ended just above Spiderman's waist. The Spider-emblem on his chest was changed to a blue, and it was slightly larger than his last emblem. The rest of the suit was jet-black, with the exception of the wrists. The wrists had a small flap, coloured red, just in case Spiderman's stingers were triggered again. There was also a small hole to launch webbing.

Peter shook his head and sighed. He stood up, feeling both satisfied and unsatisfied with the costume's design. He walked over to his fridge, opened it, and pulled out a bottle of beer.

With a flick of his super-powered fingers, Peter knocked the bottle's lid off. The lid fell to the floor and landed with a clatter. He ignored it and walked back to his desk, downing the bottle of beer in one long drink, trying to drown his sorrows. His only regret was that he had nothing stronger.

Sitting down, an idea truck Peter for a new colour scheme on his prototype costume. Instead of the traditional red and reflective black colour scheme, perhaps the red should be replaced by white! He kept the Spider-Emblem as blue, and the rest of the body as black.

Peter smiled and stood up. Now he had a design to work from.

Peter worked quickly and frantically. He had all the materials he needed; he always kept a lot of spare material and dyes in case he had to repair a ripped Spider-suit. The work kept his mind of Mary Jane, but his rage was still there. All he wanted to do was find whoever the 'electric-man' was, and kill him.

Peter pulled on the white mask. The mask was made of lighter material than his usual mask, and the larger black eyepieces offered a larger view of his surroundings, not to mention the fact that it made him look very menacing.

Turning to look at the small mirror that hung in Peter's bedroom, visible through the doorway; Peter was amazed at how very sinister he looked. The black and white body would give any villain a fright, particularly in the dark.

Peter pulled the mask off and leaned over to turn on the TV. The screen flickered to life, and the picture of a grey-haired and bespectacled newsreader appeared. The headline read 'Challenge to Spiderman'.

"A figure, known only as 'Electro', claims to be responsible for the murder of Mary Jane Watson, has sent an aggressive e-mail to the police. The exact content of the e-mail isn't available to us, but our sources claim that it contains a challenge to Spiderman. Apparently, the so-called Electro used to work on the power-lines north of the city, and suffered a massive electric shock which left him criminally insane. The true name of Electro has not been disclosed to the public by the police, however, it is known that Electro was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital a few days ago, which he broke out of. Apparently, before his electrocution, Electro was already a kleptomaniac, and failed to hold down jobs, resulting in being sacked numerous times. He had been working on the powerlines for just a week when he was electrocuted. Odd reports from his psychiatric hospital mentioned that doctors coming into contact with Electro often suffered minor electrical burns, even after he was moved into an electrically insulated room, and, just an hour after Electro's arrival, there was a major power-cu which only affected Electro's cell block. Several anonymous sources from inside the hospital claim that Electro managed to reinstate power to his room, and his room alone, through verbal commands. Coincidence? Perhaps," The newsreader stopped, shuffled his reading-copies, and then continued as Peter sat, fixated.

"Electro apparently blames Spiderman for not being in the vicinity to save him from the electric shock, and brutally murdered Mary Jane Watson with electric shocks whilst Spiderman was pre-occupied, saving actors in a burning movie studio where Mary Jane worked as a camerawoman," As usual, the news report got several details wrong. "Two other actors, standing on the roof with Miss Watson to avoid the fire, which had blocked all other means of escape, claim that the figure who electrocuted Miss Watson somehow flew onto the rooftop and simply extended a hand. The actors claim that yellow bolts of lightning came out of Electro's hand and shocked Mary Jane Watson, eventually causing her heart to fail, despite the efforts of Spiderman to get her to a hospital,"

"The actors also claim that Electro wore a ridiculous costume consisting of a skin-tight green jumpsuit, yellow gloves and shoes, and a yellow starfish-shaped mask described as ridiculous that covered Electro's upper face."

The news reporter looked up, and faint murmuring could be heard, probably coming from behind the camera. A second later, there was a tremendous crashed, and an intense, crackling bolt of twisting lightning shot from behind the camera, and hit the news reporter in the chest. The newsreader was knocked out of his chair and bodily slammed into the wall behind him, which depicted numerous world events. A trickle of scarlet blood appeared at the corner of the newsreader's mouth as he slid to the floor and out of the camera's view. A smear of blood on the wall showed that the newsreader had hit the wall with incredible force.

Then, Peter got his first look at Electro.

The murder suddenly stepped into view. His description fitted the one given by the now-dead news reporter. Peter's hands balled into fists as Electro gleefully grinned, revealing teeth that were sparkling white.

Peter grinded his teeth together, his face turning red with anger. He felt his muscles bulge as he tensed them. Black rage bubbled in his heart as he began to pull on his Spider mask.

Electro spoke, and his voice was a raspy hiss of pure malicious hate.

"Spiderman. I killed that woman. I killed her. Under your very nose," Electro licked his lips, and blue lightning crackled around his hands. "I know this woman is important to you, as you've saved her from certain death numerous times; I'm sure you've probably seen the news reports, gloating over your own supremacy I expect," Peter bristled, his teeth grinding becoming louder and more insistent. "I killed her. You were powerless to save her. Imagine the pain she must've felt, realising that Spiderman couldn't save her when it mattered most. Just like what I felt as I fell from those powerlines," Electro grinned again, and his eyes, visible through slits in his ridiculous mask, suddenly began to glow a fearsome yellow. "By luck, I survived. I landed in a patch of mud. You could've saved me, you could've been there, but you weren't," Peter gnashed his teeth fiercely and stood up, pulling on his new Spider-suit, trying to shut out Electro's delusional rant.

But he couldn't.

"So, as I'm confident that you'll be out, doing your bit for the city, swinging across town and posing instead of really helping people, or watching the news, I'll await you're arrival tomorrow, at the top of the Chrysler Building. If you don't come, I'll kill someone else. Say… Oh, I don't know, your personal photographer Peter Parker? I'm rather interested in Parker. Particularly his elderly aunt. Imagine if, somehow, she encountered an accident in her home. Maybe she'll be cooking, and her cooker or microwave suddenly malfunctions and sends thousands of electric volts coursing into her body?"

Peter, once again Spiderman, screamed and leapt off of his balcony as Electro continued his half-insane, ludicrously cheesy rant.

Spiderman swung, fast as lightning, across New York. Already, the sun was half-risen, and the sky was an incredibly light blue. Faint white wisps of clouds dotted the sky, illuminated by the brilliantly white ball that was the sun. Below, life went on as normal, the first commuters going to work, heading to the subway or flagging over taxis. Spiderman swung above them all, heading to the Chrysler Building. He wondered if anyone in the huge, anonymous, unforgiving city actually cared, actually gave a flying rat's arse, about the life of one man, no, one kid, who tried his best to do the right thing, because his one true failure in life to do the right thing, had resulted in him losing the man who'd been like his father from his earliest memory, to his first day at school, to his first part time job, until Ben Parker had been shot and killed by Flint Marko, the man who became Sandman.

It was the threat to his Aunt May that had gotten Spiderman moving so fast. Even the rage in his heart about Mary Jane's death could've been held in until he'd come up with a plan to battle Electro. But he couldn't afford to wait, not with Aunt May's life at risk. The scariest thing about the whole ordeal was that Electro seemed to be clever, to know so much about Spiderman and Peter Parker. That truly worried him. Whereas, someone like Venom, or Carnage, were easier to deal with because he knew where their knowledge stemmed from; the suits' had all of Peter's memories up to a certain point, and Spiderman was relatively comfortable with that, because he actually knew where Venom and Carnage had received their information.

But with Electro…

Spiderman flipped over and landed atop a relatively tall building, just two miles away from the Chrysler building. He could see the tip of the skyscraper, and he paused, admiring the complicated design, the steel which reflected the sun's intense light and glinted so brilliantly. He couldn't see Electro, of course, but he just felt reassured by seeing that the building was so very close.

Sprinting forward, Spiderman leapt the forty metre gap between the building he had been standing on and the building across the wide street. Seconds before he landed on the next building, he shot a strand of webbing at another building, about a hundred metres away. He grabbed the web strand and yanked it just as it stuck to a satellite dish, and the web-zip technique he used launched him forward at about a hundred miles an hour.

After about ten seconds of literally 'flying' forward, Spiderman skidded to a halt on top of another building, this one just a mile away from the Chrysler Building.

I'll give Electro a fright…

After ensuring he was facing the Chrysler building, the wall-crawler fired two webs, one from each wrist, at two air-conditioning boxes that were just ahead of him and slightly to either side of him. He grabbed the web-lines and started to pull back on them, increasing the pressure on his super-strong web and then leaning back. The web creaked but it was certainly not about to break. He had created a virtual slingshot, ready to propel him forward as soon as he stopped pulling back on the web.

Three, two one…

Taking a deep breath, Spiderman released the web…