Sorry for the long pause ... I've been going though some of my notes for this story - I obviously ripped off Spider-man 2 -but for all of that it actually worked out quite well
Things were changing Joyce, for all of us.
Oz finally left, gone, zip, the only clue to his reasoning for leaving was that he was losing control of the beast and needed to regain it.
Willow was devastated. Buffy and I should have been there more for her but in the end, it was Tara who came to OUR rescue, saving the most important person to either Buffy or myself. I'm not not sure which was more off-putting in those days, finding out Willow was bisexual or finding out her new partner was a Spider-freak of the first order. Pictures, news clippings, Tara was big, big fan.
Then Came the Gentlemen...Overnight the whole town lost the power of speech. Buffy searched for the cause as did Spider-man Buffy found The Gentlemen and shut them down and according to what she told me later that was unfortunately how Riley found out about the Slayer.
Nobody likes to get blind sided like that as I was about to find out for myself when Uncle Otto came to town and everything changed.
True to his word Connors secured the Scoobies invites to the Octavius demonstration. Although, he had no idea why Spider-man would want three youths to attend such an event and Spider-man was loath to explain the inconvenient connection between him and Xander.
Willow was practically bouncing when they arrived at the theater. She and Tara were standing just close enough that they could always be in some kind of contact yet not being overt about their newly established connection.
In the center of the room was a bank of computers connected to a control console. In the middle of the room a circle surrounded at four points with metal arms reaching upwards.
Willow waved to Otto who smiled back. Rosalie walked over to the group. "Thanks for coming." She said giving Willow a hug "Otto won't admit it but he is a bit nervous."
Willow nodded "That's why I brought all the moral support."
"Hi Aunt Rose, " Xander smiled.
Rose hugged the boy as well, "I hear good things from Professor Bender he likes what you've done for him so far."
They all talked a bit as the room filled. Connors appeared looking pale again.
"What's with Connors?" Buffy asked
"Don't know, he skipped classes the other day." Willow said simply
Xander avoided her gaze. He had given his word and his word had to count for something. instead he checked his cellphone for messages from Cassandra. Buffy caught his furtive moves. "Xander's got a Grrrlfriend." she teased.
"She's not my girlfriend Buff...she's just a person with whom I have scheduled meals."
"Where is she?"
"Said she was looking to grab some thing to eat. She claims she's been dieting and is hungry all the time. Long experience has taught me that commenting on female dieting is a fast way to pain-ville."
As soon as everyone was in position the lights dropped and Otto moved to the middle of the room. "Thank you ladies and gentleman, I want to thank The Dean for allowing today's demonstration and of course, Professor Maggie Walsh for her contribution of the facilities."
Walsh nodded Riley stood beside her. Xander noticed that he and Buffy were still playing some weird game where they would try not to get caught looking at each other.
"I'll cut to the chase gentlemen. What you are about to witness is the practical application of theory. Namely, that there are worlds beyond our own but that by using complex physics calculations you could accesses those realms. Primitive man thought you could do it with magic, in the sixties we were using LSD some have theorized math's was the way to go ...Today, you will see laser harmonics was the key."
"What would be the point of such an exercise Otto?" Walsh asked peevishly
"What indeed, I'll show you in just a second. But first the mirrors behind the magician, Rosie."
Rose stepped forward with a tray in her hands. Otto pulled a cover off the try to reveal four huge diamonds.
"These Crystals are actually grown for me and are essential to the process they focus the energy of the four lasers you see."
"Are they the only way?" Walsh asked.
"For now, yes. Natural diamonds would work better since they are harder and can withstand greater stress then manufactured crystals. But if I had access to diamonds as big as your fist and then proceeded to burn them out, my wife would kill me on general principle." The assembled crowd laughed at his joke."The process is hard and the power balance needs to be exact." He finished explaining.
Rose and Otto took the diamonds, placing them into the lasers before turning to his other assistant giving the man a nod. The man acknowledged the signal, throwing a switch. A high whine filled the room as the lasers powered up.
"Now, the laser projectors will focus energy along a fixed path opening a small hole in the fabric of space-time." he turned to the machine and pulled at a huge lever. "And god said let there be light." The four projectors fired and the beams collided in the middle of the circle. They created a ball of light that pulsed and seethed.
"Power flow is constant Dr. Octavius." the assistant reported.
"This is the tricky part, the flow has to be stable at all times in the early stages after the portal is established the reaction is self sustaining. "
Inside at almost the same moment, a shadow flitted though the underground complex. passing cell, after cell. The creatures shuffled in fear. watching as the shadow stopped at one cell. the poor creaturegroveled in fear as the laser bars on its cell were ripped aside. The demon began screaming as the shadow fell across it a word old and powerful that some thought was just a story to frighten children ...
"Morlun!" it screamed as its life ended
The power flow to the cage flared, spiked, and then shut down. Reserve power cut in but by then The Morlun had already moved on to another cell and another.
The surges flowed through the system and finding no open circuit in the basement levels, they traveled to the only other spot. The theater
The tech gave the first sign that something was wrong Otto the power is spiking. I'm getting surges from somewhere
"Regulate it danm it "
"I'm trying." The ball of light flared and then became a disk of light.
"Its like Acathla's portal " Buffy whispered.
"What?" Willow whispered.
"Its like the portal Angelus made "
"If it's like that wouldn't it be drawing everything inside it?" Willow asked
A tentacle lashed out of the disk followed by several more.
"I think there's something inside it." Xander shouted.
Buffy moved to the wall and punched the glass case holding a fire hose and axe she grabbed the axe and jumped at the surging mass of tentacles. Willow caught Xander's gaze and looked at the window in the corner. As It exploded inward, the lights fell and in the confusion Xander shed his clothes and went Spidery.
"Shut it off " Otto screamed.
The tech worked the controls but the tentacles surged and thrashed. They lashed out striking the tech and sending him flying toward the wall.
Spider-man leaped downward to catch the tech. After dropping him safely on the ground, he webbed up a several of the tentacles. The entangled writhing mass flexed and thorns shot out. Spider-man wove a web-net that protected spectators. The thorns bounced off.
"Gotta love the Spider-powers." Spider-man grinned under his mask.
Buffy jumped at the mass and started chopping at the main body of the thing. A tentacle snapped out trying to lash at her. She used the axe to bat it away.
The tentacles lashed out at Rose who screamed. Spider-man leapt on top of the questing appendage which began to thrash violently." Yee-haw, whoa there widow maker." he cried as he was thrown about.
Buffy started chopping at the arms that Spidey had webbed up. The remaining ones flexed again and more thorns rained around the room. One lodged in Otto's back as he fled after Rose. She screamed as he fell.
Buffy ran over to him. A thrashing tentacle beat at her sending her crashing to the ground.
Rose turned back, reaching for her fallen husband. Two tentacles grabbed at her and wrapped around. They began pulling at her. Buffy hurled her axe at appendages pulling at the screaming Rosie while The Slayer wrestled with the ones trying to keep her entangled. She cursed as the tentacle refused to come loose. Suddenly, two more arms streaked toward her slamming into her with the force of a car. A dazed Buffy was thrown into a wall where she sat watching as arms curled around her and began pulling her in.
"Buffy " Spider-man screamed, "snap out of it "
She shook her head to clear it and grabbed onto a chair as she was bring dragged along the floor. She started beating on the entrapping arm. One of the tentacles uncurled and seized the chair trying to tear it from her grasp. The chair groaned then snapped, Buffy was left holding a severed leg, and watching as the chair was hurled at Spider-man who dodged the chair which flew past him to shatter against a wall.
Buffy didn't hesitate, she just plunged the remaining leg into the tentacle impaling the thing and pinning it to the floor. The arm tensed and then released her. Buffy rolled free as the arm tore itself free of the floor and retreated.
Spider-man made a grab for Rosalie but was snatched by tentacles and hurled to the ground. He watched dazed as the woman vanished into the portal.
"Rosie" Otto cried out then passed out. Xander watched sorrowfully as Willow looked at the spot where her Aunt had vanished. In the distance, campus security was banging on the door and police sirens where wailing.
Willow;" he whispered, "I'm so sorry..."
"No time, Spider-man is verboten around here. We'll do this later." Buffy said quietly and resolutely.
Spider-man nodded and slipped out the window and took to the skies.
"We have to tell him." Willow was saying when Xander joined them later.
"How is Otto, " Xander asked quickly
"Gone"
"What do you mean gone? He had that thing in his back he was out of it how could he be gone"
That thing in his back apparently turned into some weird growth that spawned these tentacles. The arms attacked the EMT staff and he vanished."
"Don't worry Willow we will find him and get those things off him." Buffy was saying
"If they are anything like what came out of that portal," Xander mused, "that won't be easy."
"Which is why I want Connors help, he knows Otto, knows his mind, where he might run to especially if he is still freaked about his wife's death."
"Geez Buff; empathize much." Xander hissed jerking his thumb at Willow who had paled at Buffy's harsh words.
The gang headed down the down the hallway. They arrived at Connors door and opened it. The scene was a horror-show.
Books and papers were strewn about and several of the stands and cages containing Connors work had been smashed. Buffy sniffed the air and growled "Something Big, Fast and scaly"
"How do you know?"
"I can smell it." She walked to the window flexing her hands Xander noticed that her nails normally well kept to the point of maniacal neatness were looking long almost claw-like. She scraped them across the window glass with a rasping sound. " I can smell everything lately."
She headed out the door with a stride that bespoke confidence unseen since well before the Parker incident Xander wondered what had changed. "Is it me, or has this whole Parker thing kind of done something odd to Buffy."
"I like it, she's less …she's more…. well whatever it is I like it a lot" Willow smiled her eyes glittering.
"Well, whatever IT is, it seems to have a scorched earth policy about busting the bad guys. That could be bad if whatever has Uncle Otto is hiding him someplace and we need that creature's help getting to him."
Willow paled and rushed out after Buffy. Xander stood looking at the windowpane. Four scratches scarred both glass and wood marking where Buffy had stood. "Something is going on." He muttered to himself, "something is going on and I'm not seeing it because I'm right in the middle. "
Otto sat dejected.
"It's gone my lab and work, Rosie dear god Rosie what had he been thinking."
"You were thinking that you were a genius and you are "
"Who said that?" Otto looked around it for the voice in his head.
"We did father we spoke."
"What are you," he looked that the things attached to him moving like they were alive, as alive as the thing that had taken Rosie.
"No father not taken blessed is mother, being changed made better. A way must be prepared for her return"
"These things are speaking to me they are..."
"Alive." This voice was from the shadows "hello Otto"
"Who are you, where are you "
"Right here Otto, and I can hear your new friends. No doubt, some part of my body allows this. I wonder if I can communicate with them as well."
"What are you" it was almost seven feet tall and humanoid in appearance. Its face and body were an amalgam of several different types and textures. Otto had once read and reread Shelly's Frankenstein. Here before him was every image he had had when young of what that pitiful creature would look like.
"My name is ADAM, it was the only name my mother has given me."
"Your mother?"
"Professor Walsh " ADAM supplied helpfully
"Walsh," Otto snarled "She did this to me wanted them to cut me open and examine me instead of helping me and now these arms are… "
"…Linked to your cerebellum I looked at the scans the doctors performed while you were unconscious."
"I'm a freak "
"You are a miracle, a world of miracles really. Do you realize that the creature that those arms came from can travel between worlds. Linked as they are to you now, they bend to your will you are a part of that power, the power you wer trying to tap and unlock the power of inter-dimensional travel. Your experiments could continue."
"No I was wrong to tamper with nature."
"No father not wrong, never wrong you are too great and good to be wrong "
"Look at what you accomplished you opened a portal a stable portal that would have allowed access to other worlds."
"And look at the cost, these parasites attached to me like octopus arms and Rose, my beautiful Rose, dead "
"But father, we have already told you Rose is not dead. Our mother cares for your Rosalie even now."
"What?"
"She is in the divide between worlds, if a portal of greater size could be opened mother could join your world to all the others that that she has become one with. You and Rosalie would be reunited."
"They speak the truth Doctor, and I require your genius as well. I had a plan that was going to take time to implement but your presence here and now with these abilities that the arms grant you allows me to expand my plans
"No I must not "
"Must not what Otto grab the opportunities for greatness that you have been granted?"
"So much was lost "
"So much more would be lost if you allowed false guilt to blind you "
"Allow us to aid you father and you will see there is much great work that could be done"
"I would need resources "
"I think you will find that I have access to the one thing you really need Space to work and access to power."
ON some level Otto Octavius knew that he was being manipulated. But he wanted so badly to be right to be great...but he was great wasn't he? On some level he could feel his mind being changed, altered. warped.
"There are those who will oppose us"
"The means to deal with them is already in motion. A Slayer, she might try and stop us, she will fail. In fact I look forward to her attempts. She will be quite helpless against me
"And Spider-man?"
"You're to deal with as you see fit. Had he not involved himself your Rosalie might still be here
"Yes, his fault, he allowed my sweet rose to be dragged to exile he will have to dealt with
"Then we are agreed you will continue your experiments with my help
"What about Professor Walsh, she has also done much for which she must atone."
"I was supposed to be back in the lab to meet her. Perhaps you and she can discuss her act of atonement."
ADAM and the Otto started back toward the underground lab. Octavious chuckled to himself. "Life, it seems, is not without irony. You know what they called me back in school to mock me?...Doctor Octopus."
ADAM assured him, "Then it is time the world learned to respect and fear that name."
