Spider-Man: The New Animated Series Season 2: Against All Odds
Episode 8: The Live, The Dead, and the Ugly
"Peter Parker," Beatrice Lange said to Spider-Man from the other side of the table they were both sitting in, "for briefly serving the Antichrist, here is what you must know: Uatu has informed me that a crime boss known as Richard Fisk's drug peddling operations are being hindered by a crime boss of lesser power known as Billy Russoliti. In order to take care of this, Fisk has hired a psychotic mercenary known as Deadpool to kill Russoliti. If Deadpool is successful in terminating Russoliti's life, Fisk's revenue will go up as Russoliti's empire will fall. So, in order to redeem yourself for serving Memmon, you must prevent Deadpool from killing Russoliti until the crime boss decides to move out of New York City. This is the meaning of this test: You will prevent one evil from fully blooming to its highest potential even if it means assisting the survival of another evil, who will not flourish to the best of his abilities anyway. Do you understand so far?"
"I do," Spider-Man replied.
"Then you are now to go out there to the docks later tonight," Lange said, "as Uatu has also told me that there is a shipment of drugs being brought in by Fisk's men, which will be ambushed by Russoliti's men and Deadpool in six hours. There, you must do everything within your spider-like powers to make sure that Deadpool will not be able to successfully interrogate any of Russoliti's men so that he cannot find him. Do whatever you have to in order to foil the purpose of Deadpool's assignment, even if it means that you yourself will have to bring upon the end of the lives of of Russoliti's men with your bare hands.
"The reason that you are not to kill Deadpool himself is because it would be a fruitless endeavor; Deadpool has a healing ability that allows him to survive anything that would kill a normal human being. If and when you have succeeded, you are to report back to me immediately through your standard mean of communication through Brian and Bernie's computer in their apartment. Do you understand what you have to do in terms of your mission parameters?"
Spider-Man was silent for a moment as he stared contemptibly at Lange before he replied with, "Do you really expect me to kill, even if those lives you bring up are better off dead anyway, Lange?"
"I certainly did not expect you to serve the Antichrist, Mr. Parker," Lange countered with the same level of calm and detached formality, yet still making her tone feel as cold as Antarctic ice. "And you appear to have no qualms about killing Memmon either. What should I expect from you next? A bank robbery? Now, I will ask you again. Do you understand what you have to do now?"
"Yes, I do understand what I have to do," Spider-Man replied, his own heated tone unabated.
"And may I expect you," Lange continued, emphasizing that word to remind Spider-Man of his service to Ugly Kid, "to carry out with that duty? Or do I have to remind you that this is the only way to circumvent the consequence of serving the Antichrist?"
Even in spite of his mask hiding his facial expressions, Lange knew he rolled his eyes at her. "I'll carry out with the duty."
"Then you are dismissed," Lange said.
After Spider-Man left, Lange left a few moments later. Then, when it was sure that both of them were gone, the micro-sized camera placed on the side of the exit of the room had exploded, its usefulness worn out now.
And that was because the mole within the angels' organization already got the information he wanted.
~o~
Later that night, two cargo boats came into New York Harbor, carrying loads of cocaine and heroin. Several dozen of Richard Fisk's men began loading in the shipments of drugs into their vans so that their boss could make his profit selling the illegal products to his addictive customers. The whole operation was overlooked by a few dirty cops as official onlookers and who would report everything clean to their superiors for Fisk's sake.
But like a few of the other drug-loading operations of Fisk's that have gone awry before, the men of Billy Russoliti began their attack on Fisk's men by popping out from behind the crates that dotted the dock all around. Russoliti's men's guns began firing instantly, in which two of Fisk's men fell dead from the initial wave of gunfire, while the rest dropped what they were doing so that they could take cover behind the crates that weren't occupied by their opponents.
The sixth gunfight between Fisk's men and Russoliti's men in the last month broke out, with the dirty cops immediately assisting the former. Several men from each side fell whenever their enemies got off a lucky shot or two, but still, despite Russoliti's lesser influence and wealth in the criminal underworld, his men were winning in the gunfight against Fisk's men and the dirty cops, as those of the latter group were losing twice their men than those who worked for Russoliti.
But then, all of a sudden, a red-clad man with two katana swords busted out of one of the crates like the Kool-Aid Man, and that crate happened to be a hiding spot for a few of Russoliti's men.
"Surprise!" the man exclaimed to the crooks before he slashed them all dead with his swords, not giving any of them a chance to try to shoot him down.
This red-clad man was the psychotic mercenary hired by Richard Fisk, Deadpool.
"It's okay, guys!" Deadpool called back to Fisk's men. "I've got this now! You just leave the killing to me so that I can interrogate the very last guy who'll tell us where Russoliti is and then kill him! All right!"
"You moron, you don't shout out the plan like that when there're still more of these guys here!" one of Fisk's men shouted.
"Yeah! And why the hell didn't you do this earlier, idiot?" another of Fisk's men asked. "What in God's name were you waiting for?"
"I was waiting to finally find the proper moment to make my grand reveal!" Deadpool called back.
"What're you talking about?" one of Fisk's men asked.
"I'm talking about probably the first time breaking the fourth wall has ever been performed in a novel-like format like this!" Deadpool replied. "But then, the writer of this story doesn't really know a lot since he'd still be in high school at the time this is being written, so maybe there were stories like this that broke the fourth wall in their own ways!"
"Did you already smoke one of the drugs we were loading, man?" one of Fisk's men called out.
"At this point in my life, I don't know whether I was a coke addict, a Pepsi addict, or even a televangelist who said that smoking weed and homosexuality is a bad thing," Deadpool replied. "I mean, next thing you know, they're gonna be saying that killing, stealing, cheating, and lying are all bad! Huh! What is this world coming to?"
"Can you just shut up and do your job already, Deadpool?" one of Fisk's men called out.
"You know, the writer of this story should give you names, so that the text doesn't always read 'one of Fisk's men' whenever any of you guys say something, because it kinda gets monotonous, you know? But then you all have the personality of characters in The Matrix movies anyway–"
"Wait, wait, wait, we've been set up?" one of Russoliti's men called out.
"Hey, c'mon, man! You didn't even let me finish my sentence! I mean, how are the dumb, doo-doo head readers out there supposed to know that 'twas I, Maximus Awesomess Gladiator Deadpool, who had spoken this line and the second-to-last line before this one?"
"C'mon, guys, we gotta get outta here!" one of Russoliti's men called out.
"Oh, all right," Deadpool said in an annoyed tone, "let's just get this over with then."
Deadpool then replaced the swords in their holsters on his back, then he ducked out from the protection that the crate in front of him provided while taking out the pistols holstered at his sides. He ran forward and shot randomly at whatever moved, since anyone on this side of the docks was a thug of Billy Russoliti's. Surprisingly, nearly everyone of those shots was successful, either hitting something on those men's bodies like their heads or chests that ended their lives instantly. Eventually, after a few more minutes or so, Deadpool had dispatched with all of Russoliti's men at the docks before
And he did it all while singing a Katy Perry song.
"Okay, that's bullshit!" Deadpool called out to the sky. "You know I would never sing that crap in a million years! I would sing Kesha, however!"
"Are they all dead?" one of Richard Fisk's men called out to Deadpool.
"I think so!" Deadpool called back. "Ya happy now, guys?"
"Actually, no, we're not!" that very same man of Fisk's replied. "You weren't supposed to kill every one of them! You're supposed to leave at least one alive to–"
Suddenly, a man ducked out from behind one of the crates, which was several yards away from Deadpool, and took some failed potshots at the Merc with the Mouth, who had ducked back behind the closest crate in reaction.
Deadpool had forgotten that he missed this guy during his shooting frenzy, he remembered.
"Hey, guys, I guess I didn't kill every one of them!" he called back to Fisk's men.
"Well, gee, that's great!" one of Fisk's men called back with a snide tone. "Then take him down, but alive, ah-capisi?"
"No thanks, I'm not hungry!" Deadpool called back. "Wait a minute, did I just steal that joke from Dane Cook? I'm not that desperate for material! And from an obscure nineties' movie with Dennis Rodman of all references! What are you thinking, Mr. Writer, sir?"
"What're you talking about, pal?" the remaining thug of Billy Russoliti's asked.
"I'm talking about that movie just recently reviewed by the Nostalgia Critic!" the thug heard Deadpool call from the same position he first heard him from. "What was it called? I forgot! It had a coupla' dancing cyber monks, who danced really bad, by the way, a hot ninja chick who got into some disco sex with Dennis Rodman, and a weirdass over-the-top, overacting bad guy who makes Richard Roxburgh look subtle! What was the title of that film? Oh, yeah! Now I remember!"
Suddenly, Deadpool appeared right from the side of the crate that the surviving thug was hiding behind, and instantly cut off the thug's gun hand with one of his katana swords before the crook even had a chance to get off a shot.
As the thug fell to his knees in pain and he screamed in agony, grasping his bloody stump of a hand, Deadpool concluded with, "It was called Double Team! No, wait, Double Team was the one with Jean-Claude Van-Damme and Dennis Rodman. Eh, it had cyber monks and was reviewed by the Nostalgia Critic anyway, so close enough."
"Deadpool, would you just shut up and interrogate him about where Russoliti is already?" one of Fisk's men called out.
"All right, all right, I'll do my business, nameless redshirt of a thug," Deadpool replied. He then walked up to the agonized thug, grabbed him by his shoulders, and then slammed him against the crate behind him, eliciting another painful scream from him. "All right, pal," Deadpool continued, "now to act serious, contrary to my usual motto, I shall ask you: where's Russoliti?"
"I don't know!" the man cried through the shock in his leg. "I swear to God–"
"Swear to me!" Deadpool shouted as if he were the Christian Bale Batman. He followed that line up by taking out of his swords and then stabbing it up through the stump, eliciting a raw shriek of pure agony as the blade severed more nerves in his stump of an arm.
All of a sudden, however, Spider-Man swung in and kicked Deadpool back and away from the thug. As the Merc with the Mouth flew away, his sword ripped away from the arm, Spider-Man turned back to the man who had his hand swiftly amputated, and who was now in a heaping spasm of pain on the ground.
"You're gonna be all right," Spider-Man said to the downed man as he knelt next to him, trying to think of what to do so that he could help him.
"Yeah, the only thing more convincing than that statement is saying that Britney Spears can have a lasting marriage," Deadpool replied as Spider-Man's spider-sense kicked in.
The Merc with the Mouth swung both katana blades low to try to decapitate Spider-Man in a scissor-like fashion, but the latter flipped back from the attack while simultaneously kicking the swords out of Deadpool's hands. Then, upon landing in a crouch a few meters away from Deadpool, Spider-Man shot out one web-line from each hand to yank in both katana swords from out of the air before their owner could catch them once they began descending to the ground. Now in Spider-Man's hands, he cut one of the blades off with the other before snapping the remaining intact blade like a twig with his own two hands.
"You know, psychotic mercenaries such as yourself shouldn't be playing with sharp objects like these," Spider-Man quipped. "After all, you could poke somebody's eye out."
"Oh, c'mon, that line has become such a cliché at this point, Spider-Man!" Deadpool said. "And who the hell do you think you are? I'm supposed to be the guy who says funny things, not you! You're supposed to be this angsty douchebag Batman-wannabe!"
"Who's the wannabe here when you look just like me?" Spider-Man retorted.
Deadpool then slapped his forehead in irritation. "Oh, God! Why does everyone always point that out? That's it, you're going down!"
And just like that, he pulled out his large handguns and began firing. But Spider-Man, as usual, jumped over the incoming bullets before they could touch them, and again, just like with the swords, one web-line from each hand sent those guns right into his own hands for him to crash together and have them fall into pieces on the way down.
"Hey, you know how much time and effort I spent in making those swords and guns? Well, none actually, they were made by other people, but still!" Deadpool cried out once Spider-Man landed, letting the pieces of the guns fall to the ground at his feet. The Merc with the Mouth then cranked his head in the direction of both his shoulders, as if in preparation for combat. "Okay, now we settle this the old-fashioned way."
"I'm ready when you are–" Spider-Man tried to say.
"With a yo-momma contest!" Deadpool interrupted.
"What?" Spider-Man asked.
"Yo momma is so fat, that when she sit around the house, she sit around the house!"
"Deadpool, what the hell are you doing?" one of Richard Fisk's men called out.
"Take it easy, guys, I'm gonna yo-momma him to death! It'll work, trust me!"
"Ah, to hell with this!" that same men of Fisk's announced to his fellow thugs. "Waste Spider-Man!"
"Aw, c'mon, guys, me and webhead didn't even get into a half-decent fight yet!" Deadpool called out as Fisk's men drew guns on Spider-Man. "And I had like a hundred and forty-nine more yo-momma jokes to use!"
In the time it took Deadpool to say that, Spider-Man had already jumped into the throng of Fisk's men and was already dispatching them one by one as he moved swiftly and quickly among them, without ever letting any of Fisk's men safely get off a shot, since at such close range, they would only hurt their friends if they doubtless missed their real target.
After less than a minute, all of Fisk's men were out for the count.
"Wow, that was fast," Deadpool commented. "And to think that the writer of this story would put in a little bit more detail into that for this story to extend it to its full eleven pages."
With all of Fisk's men defeated, Spider-Man turned back to Deadpool and asked, "So you say you want a fight?"
Suddenly, before Deadpool could answer, raging sirens from police cruisers rang out as they pulled over at the docks.
"Ah, you know what, not really, I changed my mind," Deadpool replied as he was kneeling to the man of Billy Russoliti's who was in shock. "I have a job to do. Toodles." Then he gathered him up, placed him on his shoulders, and charged off to the side.
Spider-Man tried to stop Deadpool by firing one web line from each wrist, but they missed their target as the Merc with the Mouth got out of sight as he ducked behind a crate. Spider-Man followed, but found that Deadpool was gone.
"Damn!" Spider-Man muttered. "How do they always do that?" He then spout out a web line from his left wrist and swung off just as some cops, led by Officer Barr, appeared from behind one of the crates in the docks, looking for anyone left alive in the docks. Fortunately for them, they managed to catch the surviving men of Richard Fisk and their dirty police associates, and arrested them because of the drugs they clearly shipped in.
"You! Stop right there! Put that man on the ground and put your hands in the air!" Spider-Man, who was perched on a nearby lamppost after his swing, heard one of the cops below at the entrance to the docks call out. He looked down and found that a few cops were pointing their guns at Deadpool, the dismembered and bleeding goon he captured hanging around his shoulders like a human scarf, just after he left the docks.
"You'll never take me alive, coppers!" Deadpool replied in a mock-New Yorker voice as, with one hand, he swiftly took out one of his handguns from its holster and quickly aimed it at one of the officers.
But those cops were quicker in their response as, without hesitation, they opened fire on the Merc with the Mouth.
As the bullets ripped through Deadpool, they incidentally also tore through the body of the crook around his shoulders, and the two of them flopped to the ground, lifeless, and a giant puddle of mixed blood pooling beneath their corpses.
"Hey, it's Spider-Man!" one of the cops elsewhere in the docks called out. Spider-Man himself turned his head to the direction where the call came from, and indeed, he saw a cop indicating to his fellow officers where the spider-like vigilante was. "Take him down!" that same cop intoned as he and the other officers pulled out their firearms and aimed them in Spider-Man's direction.
Without a second's hesitation, Spider-Man leapt off and swung away before any of the other cops in the docks could get a lock on his previous location. Normally, he would have stuck around to make sure that Deadpool wouldn't have been able to do anything that would lead him to Billy Russoliti's location, but seeing as how the cops were all here, he decided to leave it to them at this point.
Spider-Man should have also warned them of Deadpool's healing ability, but seeing as how they wouldn't listen to him anyway, it would have been pointless and dangerous anyway. That was a shame, too, for the cops, for just seconds after Spider-Man swung off and away from the docks, disappearing a few blocks away around the corner of a building, the gunshots in Deadpool's body unexpectedly healed before the eyes of the cops who shot him down.
That was the last thing all of those cops saw before Deadpool quickly lifted up his head and unhesitatingly made precise, pinpoint shots right in the middle of each officers' heads in less than two seconds as he lay several yards away. Those unfortunate officers were dead before they hit the ground less than a second later, and Deadpool wasted no second himself as he rolled back over his shoulders and up to his feet.
Once he was up to his full height again, he quickly whipped out his other handgun as the exiting forms of several other cops leaving the docks with the surviving men of Richard Fisk and their dirty associates in the police department saw what had happened to their colleagues. He quickly triggered both weapons as he stepped back a few steps, leaving a covering fire to the other cops, who, by then, in spite of the added weights and resistance of their new prisoners, had ducked back behind the crates dotting the docks.
Deadpool kept on clicking his resounding firearms, even though there were no targets in his crosshairs, and though he was walking back, he didn't stumble or trip against anything as he backed up across the empty street and into an alley. Once he was in that alley, he turned around and dashed right in. A few of the cops back at the docks leaned back out and quickly shot at nothing while Deadpool had replaced his guns in their holsters and lifted the manhole that led to the sewers in that alley. And as he began to gradually climb down into the disgusting muck below, he replaced the lid back across the hole before he just decided to drop into that muck.
He was in total crap now, Deadpool realized, both figuratively and literally, as he walked through the human waste that engulfed his ankles.
"Or at least I would be," Deadpool said out loud as he stopped in his tracks, "if I didn't have this!" Then he whipped out a cell phone that he showed in the direction of a dark corner of the sewer.
~o~
An hour later, at Brian and Bernie's apartment, Brian, dressed in his pajamas, opened the door to find Peter there, adorned in his civilian clothing. "Peter, what are you doing here, do you have any idea what time it is right now?" Brian asked as he looked at his watch. He had responded to the knock on his door that had occurred moments earlier.
"Sorry to disturb you, Brian," Peter apologized, "but I just need to call Lange from here, seeing as how you and Bernie have the reliable communication to her. I just need to inform her that the mission in stopping Deadpool from finding out Billy Russoliti's location was a success."
"All right, come on in," Brian said as he allowed Peter in.
Minutes later, Peter was at the computer from which he could talk to Lange. Once her form appeared on the monitor, the first thing she said was, "Report."
"The mission at the docks was successful, Miss Lange," Peter said formally. "Deadpool failed to capture or interrogate any of Billy Russoliti's men in determining his location."
"That is good to hear," Lange said without inflection. "Now, Uatu had previously informed me that, in the event of your purported success, the next time you are to confront Deadpool will be in two days, at the Drip Den at six PM. Don't be late. You'll know what to do to stop him." And with that, she signed off.
~o~
The next day, Deadpool, coated in human waste, had emerged from the sewers after he lifted up against a manhole in the alley next to his apartment building. After replacing the lid of the manhole, he entered through the building's side entrance, and continued up the stairs until he was on the floor of his own apartment.
There, after he was inside, the first thing he did was cross over to a door several rooms away. He opened that door, and out flopped a thin, pasty man, with thick glasses. The man, sprawled across the floor in fatigue, wearily looked up at Deadpool.
"Hey, Weasel," Deadpool said. "Did you get a good sleep in there last night?"
"That's not funny, Wade," Weasel replied as he pushed himself up to his feet.
"Well, if we're talkin' Jerry Seinfeld funny, then I guess not," Deadpool retorted. "But now, if we were talking Family Guy..."
"Whatever, I need to get a good sleep for the rest of the day," Weasel said. "Thanks for giving me such a fair punishment when I ate the last Pringle yesterday."
"Wait, Wease," Deadpool said, stopping his computer genius friend–at least "friend" by the terms of the Merc with the Mouth–by grabbing him by the arm. "You know that job Richard Fisk sent me on last night to get the info on Billy Russoliti's whereabouts from one of his goons?"
"Yeah, what about it, did you botch it up?" Weasel asked.
"Hey, I didn't botch it up!" Deadpool exclaimed.
"So you succeeded in the mission and Russoliti is now dead?" Weasel asked.
Deadpool was silent for an awkward moment before he slapped him and said, "Don't question me, woman!"
"Ow! Okay, so what is it that you need?" Weasel asked as he rubbed his cheek.
"When I tried to kidnap the sole survivor of Russoliti's men," Deadpool explained as he took out a familiar device, "I got this off of him. It's a cell phone."
"Yes, I can see that, Wade," Weasel said as he looked at the object.
"Oh, no, I didn't say that for you," Deadpool said. "I was saying that for our stupid readers who probably forgot what I took from that guy last night."
Weasel shook his head at the statement his friend made. "What about this cell phone, Wade?" he asked.
"Well, I was thinking that maybe you could use your technical wizardry to use this cell phone to get Billy Russoliti's location through his number on speed dial," Deadpool said, "because I'm betting that Russoliti must've made at least a few calls to each of his goons for one reason or another, whether it would be disposing of a high-profile body or getting him pizza at the local Domino's."
"So you're saying you want me to trace his number back in order to determine his location?" Weasel asked.
"Duh," Deadpool replied.
"Well, I could do that," Weasel said. "However, I can't just do it by the number alone; we'd actually have to call him so I can have time to trace his location. Second, I need a good morning's sleep first."
"Oh, c'mon, Wease, do you have to get the required rest needed for your mind and body to properly function throughout a regular day?" Deadpool asked.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Weasel asked.
"Oh, all right," Deadpool said reluctantly. "So how much do you need, like half a minute or so?"
Weasel sighed in frustration. "I'll let you know when I wake up," he said as he walked to his bedroom.
~o~
Billy Russoliti used an abandoned Olive Garden as a front for his operations. And in his office, he was sitting behind his desk as a pathetic, whiny man was begging not to kill him for being two days late in paying his hundred thousand dollar debt. Behind that man were two of Russoliti's goons who made sure that the bitchy vermin in front of their boss wouldn't try to run or do anything stupid.
"It's too late, Jimmy," Russoliti said as he opened a cabinet in his desk and pulled out a revolver. "Either you pay on time, or you don't."
But before Russoliti could pull the trigger, his cell phone rang. He rolled his eyes, put the gun down on the surface of his desk, and pulled out the phone.
"This had better be worth my time," Russoliti said.
"Hello, am I talking to a Mr. Russoliti?" a gravelly yet energetic voice said from the other end.
"Who wants to know?" Russoliti asked.
"Well, Mr. Russoliti, my name is Wade Wilson," the voice said. "And I'm calling to offer you an extension on your cell phone services. Now before you hang up like any other douchebag like you, I would like to tell you first that I'm the badass mofo who happened to carve up your guys last night at the docks. And if you would like to know where to find me, I'll be at the Drip Den café in NY. Now about that extension, you'll pay double the money for no real changes. How does that sound?"
Russoliti closed his cell, cancelling the call.
"What is it, boss?" one of the goons asked.
Before Russoliti answered, he picked up his revolver and it took one shot to kill Jimmy. Then Russoliti, after blowing the smoke emanating from his gun, placed the weapon in his jacket, stood up, and said, "Boys, we're gonna get a coffee."
~o~
After Russoliti hung up, Deadpool closed his stolen phone and looked over to a tired Weasel. "Did you get that, Wease?" the Merc with the Mouth asked.
"I did," Weasel answered as he looked away from the computer monitor. "He's at an abandoned Olive Garden in the outskirts of the city. But why did you tell him where you'll be? Why didn't you just call him without bothering me?"
"Well, in case I failed the mission again, I'd at least know where Russoliti was hiding so I could tail him back there and end him for good," Deadpool said.
"That actually sounds like a smart idea," Weasel said. "And it shows that you're not as much of an arrogant prick as you make yourself out to be."
"Shut up, woman!" Deadpool said before slapping Weasel to the ground.
~o~
The appearance of Billy Russoliti and six of his men at the Drip Den didn't go unnoticed by the café's attendees, including Peter Parker, who had waited alone, by himself with a coffee, at a table nearby the café's exit. He was waiting for the past several minutes for either Russoliti and his goons and/or Deadpool to show up.
As Russoliti walked up to the counter, unhindered by anyone waiting in line, so he could order a coffee, Peter's spider-sense tingled instantly. He turned in his seat, and was more perplexed by the way Deadpool arrived than he was shocked by it.
The Merc with the Mouth had apparently hijacked a police horse and some Old Western garb, complete with a black fedora, and he was riding that horse from across the street right towards the Drip Den. Cars screeched to a halt so they wouldn't hit the horse as it charged from the alley behind it at its insane rider's behest.
Everyone in the Drip Den, including Russoliti and his men, turned and saw the horse charging in. No one noticed as the mobsters took out their guns and aimed them at the café's windows, but before they could take a shot, the horse stopped in its tracks before it could hit the window. The momentum of the animal's stop caused Deadpool to fly from his saddle, pulling out his guns at the same time, and fired them through the Drip Den's windows.
As the bullets shattered the windows of the Drip Den, from both Deadpool and his targets, everyone in the café screamed and ducked to the floor to avoid getting shot. Russoliti and four of his men were able to duck behind a table next to a terrified couple while the other two men had been gunned down by Deadpool.
The Merc with the Mouth himself had rolled in across the floor of the Drip Den and came up guns blazing as he fired towards the hidden forms of Russoliti and his men. Another of the crime boss's goons was gunned down while the others had managed to successfully bolt right behind the counter that served coffee.
"Eeeee-haaaa!" Deadpool exclaimed. "Any y'all doggies wanna come out here so we can settle it out on the street like men?"
At that, one of Russoliti's goons appeared behind the counter and gunned Deadpool down with five shots.
"I got 'im, boss!" that goon said.
"Good job, Biff," Russoliti said as he and the others came up from behind the counter.
But at that instant, Deadpool suddenly came up and aimed his guns for the exposed mobsters.
However, before he could take a shot, two web-lines had yanked the guns out of his hands, and right into the hands of Spider-Man, standing right in front of the door leading to the men's bathroom.
"What the hell?" Russoliti exclaimed, confused as to how Deadpool could be alive and why Spider-Man was here.
Two of the goons fired upon Deadpool while the other one fired at Spider-Man. Russoliti, meanwhile, turned around and decided to run to the back of the café to escape, pushing away any employees in the way.
As for Spider-Man and Deadpool, the former cartwheeled out of the way of the incoming bullets, ducked behind an empty table, and then punched it out of its bolts so that it flew towards Russoliti's surviving goons. Deadpool, on the other hand, had allowed himself to be shot, seeing as how his healing ability could allow him to survive the onslaught of bullets; that way, when the goons finally ran out of bullets, he could take advantage of the lull in gunfire and take out the goons and their boss.
However, the flying table heading to the goons negated that plan, and the trio of mobsters ducked back behind the counter. Deadpool then leapt to his feet, ran to the counter, and by the time the trio of goons reemerged, he vaulted the counter and tackled them all to the floor. He grabbed the guns of two of the goons and used them to blow their brains out before turning one of the guns on the last surviving goon. And as soon as that last thug was dead, Deadpool looked up and saw Russoliti disappearing out the back of the café. He aimed the guns he grabbed for the mob boss, but was tackled against the trio of dead bodies from behind by Spider-Man.
Upon this tackle, Deadpool lost his hold on both guns and they flew out of his grip before he could get a shot off for Russoliti. Nevertheless, he was able to turn onto his back in spite of Spider-Man's weight on him and then smacked the vigilante across the face, knocking the superhero off of him. Deadpool then pushed himself to his feet just as Spider-Man did, and the two of them stared down at each other before the Merc with the Mouth swiftly turned to the back exit of the café and ran for it.
As expected by Deadpool, Spider-Man fired off at least one web-line for him, from which the Merc with the Mouth easily dodged and then continued onward for the exit. Spider-Man shot out yet another web-line from his wrist, but Deadpool was able to quickly grab a startled employee in his way and threw her in front of the strand. From then on, Deadpool was able to use the rest of the employees of the Drip Den to get in the way of whatever further strands Spider-Man tried to use to stop him.
Deadpool then charged out the back exit of the café, looked both ways in the alley he found himself in, and saw that there was one exit and no ladders or stairs that led up to the other building. So he turned to the alley's exit and ran for all the money that Richard Fisk was paying him to kill Russoliti. But just as he was out of the alley, he turned to the direction of screaming pedestrians, who were getting out of the way of a car that had mounted the curb. Deadpool was able to make out that the driver was Russoliti himself before the car plowed right into him.
The Merc with the Mouth flew back from the force of the vehicle and right into a lamppost, which toppled behind him, narrowly missing a hapless pedestrian. Meanwhile, because of the fact that the car was on the sidewalk, a hidden police cruiser from the alley across the street and behind Russoliti's car came out, sirens blaring. So, realizing that he didn't have enough time to finish off Deadpool, Russoliti drove past the downed Merc with the Mouth and drove off with the cruiser chasing after him.
But thanks to his healing ability, Deadpool was able to quickly recover from the impact of the car and jumped right on top of the passing cop car. After a few metres, the car stopped, since the driver and passenger inside knew that they had inadvertently picked up a hitchhiker. And when the car stopped, Deadpool rolled down across the front of the car, landed in a crouch in front of it, and turned around to face the officers that came out to confront him. He leapt for the former driver, tackled him to the ground, punched him out, took out the cop's gun, and used it to shoot out the leg of his partner.
As soon as that cop was incapacitated with unbearable pain, Deadpool hijacked the cop car and zoomed after Russoliti's vehicle just as Spider-Man swung out of the back alley of the Drip Den. The superhero noted the downed cops and figured that Deadpool had took the cruiser to chase down Russoliti.
Meanwhile, as Russoliti drove his car in haste, he noticed via the rearview mirror that Deadpool was driving the cop car. Then, once he took his eyes off the rearview mirror, he saw that he was coming up on a yellow light. So he pushed the gas pedal for all it was worth and zoomed, hoping that he could beat the light and make it through. Unfortunately for him though, the red light came up before he could clear the crosswalk and a large dump truck rammed him in from the passenger side. The mob boss's car twirled around while the truck stopped from the impact, and as soon as his car stopped, Russoliti turned to his window and saw the cop car driven by Deadpool charging for him.
So Russoliti leapt out of his seat and into the passenger side, even as it was crushed in from the other side, but it did save his life as the vehicle went around for another spin. Fifteen seconds later, when the spinning stopped, Russoliti turned onto his back and kicked open the door. He scrambled out and looked off to his side, only to find that he was looking up at the barrel of the gun held by Deadpool.
"As you Italians say, hasta le vista, baby," Deadpool said.
Russoliti didn't even have time to correct the Merc with the Mouth before the latter pulled the trigger, and the mob boss's brains had been splattered all over the pavement behind him.
~o~
"No!" Spider-Man exclaimed when he swung in to find that, too late, he arrived to find that he had failed his mission.
He landed several metres behind Deadpool, and the Merc with the Mouth swiftly turned around, firing off the gun. Spider-Man leapt over the incoming bullets and then swung in to kick Deadpool to at least see to it that the cops would arrest him after all this was over.
But Deadpool leapt and rolled out of the way of the incoming superhero, and as soon as he was crouched, he reached for his belt, pushed a button, and he just vanished into thin air.
Spider-Man, upon landing from the swing, looked at the area that Deadpool vanished at, perplexed. But he didn't stay there long, because the incoming sirens from police cruisers were getting louder from nearby. So he leapt up and swung away.
~o~
Deadpool appeared right out of thin air inside the apartment he shared with Weasel, though he was facing the exit.
"Hey, Wease! Your teleporter thingy works!" As he turned around, he said, "I honestly didn't figure–"
But Deadpool shut up in shock once he saw a hideous adolescent teenager standing there rather than Weasel. The teenager was holding a cell and saying into it, "He's dead? Good. Yeah, he's here. No, I'll just congratulate him; next time, he'll get it. Okay, bye, Niske." The hideous teenager then hung up the phone and said to Deadpool, "Don't worry about Weasel. He's in the Box right now. I'm just here to tell ya you did a good job on the Russoliti job. Now everything will go nice and smoothly."
And with that, Ugly Kid walked out the door, leaving a perplexed Deadpool in his wake. And it was because of the presence of the continuous presence of the Antichrist that the Merc with the Mouth was unable to firmly grasp his fictitious status to understand what he did in killing Russoliti.