Chapter Thirteen
Clark and Spider-Man returned to the rooftop where they had been perched a few minutes earlier. They stared in awe at the sight of the growing electrical force field in the sky and the spandex-clad man at its epicenter. All across the city, lights began to flicker out as more and more power was drained from the power plant.
"Do you think that's what Fury was trying to warn us about?" Clark asked.
"Probably," Spider-Man replied. "But he kept saying 'six.' Six what?"
Twenty stories below them, the ground began to shake. What started as a low rumble quickly became deafening. The pavement began to crack. Then, huge chunks of concrete and asphalt went flying everywhere as a gigantic mole-like creature the size of a school bus crashed up through the street. People began screaming and running from their lives, fleeing from the grotesque monster that was now roaring and thrashing around in the middle of the city.
Clark dashed to the edge of the roof. "Come on!" he cried. "We've got to stop that thing!"
"Wait!" Spider-Man said, grabbing Clark's arm. "Something's wrong! My spider sense isn't going off!"
"Your what?!"
"I have a sixth sense that goes off that warns me of danger," Spider-Man explained quickly. "It should be going off the charts right now, but it's not! For some reason that monster isn't setting it off!"
Clark x-rayed the mole monster and found, to his surprise, absolutely nothing. No skeleton, no internal organs… he could see through the monster as if he was looking through a window.
"It's not real," Clark said. "I can see right through it. It's some kind of sophisticated illusion."
Clark continued to look through the monster. Standing in an alleyway behind the mole monster was a man wearing a purple cape and a shiny glass sphere over his head. In his hand, he held a small cube that seemed to be projecting a faint aura of light.
"Um, there's some guy with a fishbowl head in the alley behind the monster," Clark continued. "I think he's projecting that mole monster, like a hologram or something."
"That monster is still dangerous if those people believe that it is," Spider-Man said. "All the panicking, rioting, someone's going to get hurt."
"Great," Clark said. "You want to take electricity guy or fishbowl head?"
Before Spider-Man could answer, Clark's super hearing picked up something a few blocks away. He held up one hand, letting Spider-Man know he needed a moment. He focused his telescopic vision to reveal two more costumed men wreaking havoc elsewhere in the city. One was a huge brute of a man wearing a gray rhino costume and plowing over parked cars with the enormous horn on his forehead. The other man wore a yellow and brown checkered outfit, and seemed to be blasting out shockwaves from a pair of metallic bands on his wrists.
"What is it?" Spidey asked.
"More trouble. Two more costumed crazies."
"That makes four."
They looked at each other, fearing that they now understood the meaning of Fury yelling 'six.'
"Could there really be two more?" Clark asked, voicing what they were both thinking.
"You know that sense I just told you about that warns me of danger?" Spider-Man asked.
"Yeah?"
"It's going haywire right now."
Clark turned around just in time to see a pumpkin bomb heading straight for Spider-Man's head. Moving between ticks of the clock, he reached out one hand and snagged the bomb from the air, then hugged it close to his chest. The bomb exploded against him, a burst of flame and cloud of smoke shooting up from between his folded arms. Clark and Spider-Man both looked up to see the Green Goblin hovering on his glider about twelve feet above their heads, laughing menacingly.
"Who's your friend, Spider-Man?" the Goblin cackled.
"Not this guy again," Clark whispered.
"Tell me about it," Spider-Man whispered back.
The Goblin swooped in low and fast, grabbing Spider-Man by the throat with one hand and zooming back off into the sky. Clark dashed to the edge of the roof, but he was too late. They were already lifting higher and higher up into the air. Clark prepared himself to make a super-jump, but he was interrupted by a voice from behind him.
"It is time, Kal-El."
Clark turned to see Doctor Garner, still possessed by the Eradicator, standing behind him on the rooftop.
"Time for what?" Clark asked.
The surge of bright, pulsating energy that was the essence of the Eradicator shot out of Garner's chest and straight into Clark. Clark screamed with the physical and mental pain of having his body taken over by an invading force. In a moment, it was all over. Garner's body lay unmoving in the fetal position, and Clark Kent, now one with the Eradicator, stood tall. His eyes, hidden behind the translucent visor, glowed yellow.
"It is time," Clark said, his voice now the hollow, emotionless voice of the Eradicator, "to fulfill our destiny."
With that, his feet lifted up off the ground, and he flew off into the night sky.
. . . . . .
Back on the ground, a few minutes earlier. Chloe Sullivan raced down the street flailing her arms and screaming at the two figures on the top of the building in front of her. She dodged panicked citizens running the other way, away from the giant mole creature thrashing around less than a block from her. When she had seen the commotion from her hotel room, she knew that her superhero friends, Clark Kent and Peter Parker, couldn't be far away from the madness. Fortunately, it had not taken her long to spot the two costumed characters on the roof above.
"Spider-Man! Spider-Man, down here!" Chloe screamed, trying to get them to hear her. She wanted so badly to yell out Clark's name, but she knew she couldn't, for fear of someone hearing her and learning who Clark was. She jumped up and down and continued yelling and flailing her arms, but it was no use. With everything that was going on, they were too distracted to notice her.
"You know that web-head, darlin'?" asked a man who slowly approached her from a nearby alley. He wore a long black trench coat and snow cap, sported a stubbly goatee, and spoke in an Irish accent. He casually chewed on a toothpick as he spoke.
"Um… well, everyone knows who Spider-Man is," Chloe said, slowly, backing away from the mysterious man.
"I suppose so, but I'm thinkin' you know him a bit more personally, seein' as you're runnin' towards the bloody mole monster instead of away from it," the man said with a grin. It was only now that Chloe noticed the stack of bodies in the alley behind the man, each sporting toothpick sized holes in their jugular veins.
The man pulled off his snowcap to reveal a target shaped scar on his forehead.
"And since we're supposed t' be drawin' this Spider-Man fella out, well… I was always partial to goin' after the beautiful girlfriend," the man said with a sly wink.
Chloe turned and ran. She only got a few steps away, however, before she felt the sharp pain of a toothpick digging into her Achilles tendon. She fell to the ground as the hitman known as Bullseye laughed gleefully behind her.