Chapter 14 – Bad News
Dr. Jonathan Onn, formerly the Spot, relaxed in his prison bed with his hands behind his back when the soft surface beneath him suddenly vanished. When he found himself falling, he figured that it was one of those dreams that he would kick out of, but squinting above, his ceiling shrank into a small rough-edged circle that was floating in the sky.
The next thing he knew, an icy hand clasped around his throat, stifling his screams, as it brought him face-to-face with a snarling green monstrosity.
"What…!?" He saw his feet dangling high above the city and started to panic. "What's going on!?"
"YOU DID THIS TO ME!" growled the Green Goblin. "HOW DO I FIX THIS!?"
"Slow down, slow down!" Onn waved his hands in front of him defensively. "What did I do!?"
The Goblin brought their faces closer. "HOW DO I STOP THESE GLITCHES!?"
"G-Glitches…?" Confused at first, it then clicked. "You're… my Hail Mary!"
"I DON'T CARE WHAT THAT IS!" he spat, furious. "I JUST SAW THE VISIONS! YOU GAVE ME THESE SIDE-EFFECTS, AND YOU BETTER TELL ME THAT THERE'S A SOLUTION!"
"F-First…" stammered the former scientist, gagging for air, "… you need to let me breathe."
With a humph, the green supervillain flipped the man so that he was dangling upside down from his ankle. "THAT BETTER!?"
"Y-Yeah…" he lied.
"WELL… WHAT'S THE SOLUTION!?" asked the Goblin, jerking him.
Onn hesitated, feeling dizzy, as he answered. "Obviously… I don't have my powers anymore, so…" he held his breath, his mind racing for a satisfactory reply, "… we don't have anymore supercolliders, as far as I… oh!" An answer then came to him. "Maybe you can… go back to your dimension… as a suggestion?" He winced, hoping he wouldn't be misunderstood.
"I ALREADY TRIED THAT!" spat the Goblin.
"Y-You did?"
The Green Goblin gave him a stern look; he didn't have to clarify.
Onn let out a shuddered sigh, covering his face. "That… is bad news." His voice was soaked in dread.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?" shrieked the Goblin, raising him higher; his hand holding his foot was trembling now. "ARE YOU TELLING ME I'M GOING TO DIE!?"
The man's voice got high-pitched, whimpering. "You're… an anomaly."
The Goblin stared down this pathetic man before he sighed then grinned despondently… and for the first time, he spoke in a calm voice. "Oh, Johnny… you poor fool… do you have any idea what this means?"
Jonathan's whole body froze, the realization of what was about to happen sinking in. "I think I know the answer… but I don't wanna say it."
"It means…" the Goblin outstretched his arm, the one holding him, "… YOU'RE UTTERLY USELESS!"
Before this former scientist, once a supervillain himself, had a second to protest or beg for his life, he began his plummet through the chilling air, screaming all the way down until he vanished into a mere speck from the Green Goblin's bird view.
"SO MUCH FOR A VILLAIN OF THE WEEK!"
Straightening his back, he howled in laughter, which rang through the open air… when another glitch had him hurling more blood. He sputtered, wiping the red stickiness from his face.
Suddenly, he clutched his head as it began to sting. His vision turned into an epileptic menagerie of scenes, none of which he could understand at first, but then he started to piece it together… these were memories… ones that belonged to the Spot, the man he had just killed.
From his perspective, he was fighting a peculiar Spider-Man through the city.
He had absorbed another supercollider to become stronger.
He faced down all the other Spider-People, defeating them all with ease… all except one.
This Spider, the same one who made him what he was, managed to overpower him.
He had him in a neck hold while draining him with these electric powers.
And in one last act of desperation, he flailed a small burst of dark matter… didn't know where it went… it just disappeared somewhere.
And that was how the Green Goblin, he soon realized while coming out of his vision, ended up with these powers… no… this curse… and it was all that Spider's fault.
"I see now…" he hissed venomously, "… you're to blame for all this. If I'm going to die…" his throat tensed, his eyes boiling with malice, "… THEN I'LL TAKE YOU WITH ME!"
But first, he needed to figure out a way to isolate him from all the other Spiders and prevent them from coming through… patience was a virtue, one that he couldn't afford.
During break, Gwen Stacy found herself on the roof of her high school. She would often isolate herself up here so she could mull about everything that had transpired. Was it true what Noir said to her? Was the court of public opinion really shifting in her masked persona's favor at last? Would her dad not have to pursue her anymore if he decided to take back his job as police captain?
These possibilities made her both anxious and excited.
Suddenly, she felt the air lose its gravity as a purple glow flooded the rooftop.
"Gwen!" a familiar voice called to her from behind. "You got a minute?"
She spun around to see Miles Morales exiting his purple portal. Overcome with butterflies, she ran at the speed of light to wrap her arms around the boy.
"Whoa, easy!" he winced.
"Sorry!" Gwen pulled back just as quickly, full of questions. "What are you doing here? Don't you have class?"
Miles didn't answer her. Instead, he grinned at her ridiculously, his eyes sparkling.
"Wait… what is it?" Gwen observed him, her own heart expanding.
He bounced on his toes, unable to hold his excitement much longer.
"What!?" she repeated, desperate.
Inhaling through his nostrils, he told her. "Guess who's getting a new heart?"
Gwen caught her own breath. She froze for maybe half a minute before the lingering weight in her chest blew up like a balloon; it was like a warm tickle.
"Are… you serious?" she asked, wanting to be sure she heard right.
Miles nodded gladly. "Yeah… they found me a heart, Gwen."
"Oh, my God!" she gasped, her eyes streaming with tears.
He opened his arms wide to welcome her tearful hug. They wrapped tightly around each other as the blonde girl cried into his shoulder, overwhelmed with relief and joy.
"Thank God!" she croaked.
"Don't thank him yet." Miles responded jokingly. "We'll celebrate once I'm out of my next surgery."
Gwen nodded against his shoulder agreeingly before pulling away again, brushing her hair back. "Well, you better get going then."
"Yeah…" he smiled his warmest smile before he kissed her, "… see you around."
"You too, baby."
Soon after he vanished back into his own dimension, Gwen left the school's rooftop with a different spirit. She felt much lighter, like she could spread her arms and fly if she willed it.
On her way down, a new thought crossed her mind… she had decided right then to bite the bullet and accept Jessica's offer to help the reforming Spider-Society.
Eventually, after finishing all her homework for the day, Gwen transported herself to Spider HQ in Earth 928B; it felt like forever ago since she was last here, and she couldn't believe she was back after everything.
"I'm surprised to see you here." she said to Hobie, who was walking alongside her.
"Just lookin' out for my drummer." he replied nonchalantly, then leaned into her ear. "So, what changed your mind, Gwendy?"
"Don't know…" she shrugged, "… maybe hope?"
Hobie understood and smirked. "Can't wait for that next round, can you?"
His drummer responded in kind with an elbow to his ribs, which he simply laughed off.
When they entered the control room, they were greeted by Jessica Drew. The first thing Gwen noticed right away was that her waist was slimmer, no longer bearing that impossibly huge baby bump.
"'Bout time." Hobie remarked.
"Congratulations!" Gwen tried her best to sound happy for her, considering how their last conversation went. "But when…?"
"Few days ago." Answered the Earth 332 Spider-Woman.
"Only a few days?" Any lower, and the girl's jaw would have dropped to the floor. "Why aren't you at home then?"
"Because mama's still got work to do."
"Bloody workaholics, I swear." muttered Hobie under his breath, facepalming at this crazy woman.
"So, what brings you here?" she asked them, ignoring Hobie's comment.
"I… thought about your offer again and came here to see whatever I can do to help." Gwen caught a side-glance from Hobie. "But I'm only here as a free agent, nothing more."
"That's good enough, sweetie."
"And we still have a long way to go before you can call me that again." she added.
Jessica sucked in her lips. "Okay."
Looking away from the once-renegade Spiders, she turned to Miguel O'Hara, who was once again standing on his platform full of consoles, his back to everyone like always.
"Hey!" Gwen's voice echoed to him. "Any luck finding that Goblin anomaly?"
Miguel paused at his machine, not bothering to answer. His back hunched lower as he sighed exasperatedly.
Just then, without warning, the red siren started blaring through the vicinity. All at once, the spider-people, as well as spider-beings, stopped everything that they were doing and spilled into the control room.
"What the hell!?" Miguel spun around at all his bewildered variants. "Who triggered the alarm!?"
"Wait, that wasn't you?" cried one of them.
"No!" he responded furiously.
It was Gwen's turn to speak again. "If that wasn't you, then who…?"
Far below the complex, a sniggering Green Goblin stepped out of his portal in front of a ginormous pillar of light that was surging with energy. For a moment, he gazed up in awe; it looked like something straight out of a space opera.
"So pretty…" he acknowledged while tossing a pumpkin bomb in his hand, "… too bad I have to destroy it."
Snickering again, he casually rolled the grenade towards this futuristic power generator and stepped back into his dark portal before it exploded, obliterating the machine in a tidal wave of sparks and flames.
Back upstairs in the control room, everyone felt the seismic shock before all the machinery in here, all the screens and lights, shimmered off, thrusting everything into sudden darkness. Following this, everyone with a spider-sense picked up on the threat immediately.
"Okay, we've got a situation." stated Miguel.
"It's the Goblin…" Gwen murmured.
"What?" Jess barely heard her.
"It's gotta be the Goblin!" the girl clarified, raising her voice to get everyone's attention.
"Hey, my goober's not working!" cried another voice from within the crowd of Spiders.
"Mine neither!"
"Everyone calm down!" Their leader did his best to keep order before turning to the blonde girl. "Gwen, did you say it was the Goblin?"
"It has to be!" she affirmed, then turned to the exit to lead the others. "Come on, he can't be far!"
Once she was outside with Jess and Hobie, an echoey cackle brought their attention up to a floating green figure on a glider.
"HOW WILL A SPIDER SPIN HIS WEB WITHOUT HIS NETWORK!?" He laughed again, louder.
Immediately, all the other Spiders lunged at this Green Goblin with as much speed and ferocity as they could while firing their webs to stop him.
The Goblin, however, countered this attempt by doing a tornado spin on his glider… all at once, a flurry of missiles exploded from every direction, forcing all the Spiders to retreat back and avoid those lethal projectiles, Jess tackling Gwen out of the way.
The missiles bombarded the place, destroying pillars and platforms, shards and debris flying everywhere in a ballet of destruction, the area smothered with dust.
"ONCE I KILL THE SPIDER RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAY I AM, IT'S BAD NEWS FOR THE REST OF YOU!" And with that last ominous threat, he was gone.
Once the dust settled, Gwen got up with Jess, who dusted her off. She idled while processing what she had just heard... to her horror, she realized who he meant, and all the warmth leaked out of her body.
"Miles…" With mad haste, she raised her goober and jabbed her finger on all its buttons… nothing worked. "Come on, you stupid machine!" She started hammering the device on her arm until Hobie stopped her.
"That won't solve anything."
He was right, but it did nothing to soothe the rising panic in her chest. She had no way to contact or get to him, and she didn't know if there were any other Spiders in his dimension. If he was on his own… he was completely vulnerable.
The ghostly Spider-Woman could only shriek obscenities in her distress.
Somewhere in New York on Earth 1610, Miles G. Morales was sitting on a rooftop and busily fiddling with his own goober to find out why it suddenly wasn't working. Over the past few days, while the other Spiders were out doing their thing, he was lurking around here; after Gwen's encounter with that green menace, he took it upon himself to watch his other self's back.
His intuition was proven correct when he looked up in the sky and saw a floating green figure rear its ugly head out of his black portal to wreak havoc on this city.
The Prowler of Earth 42 could only scowl as he donned his purple mask, ready to pursue him.
"Let's go." he said.
TO BE CONTINUED.
Author's Note: RIP Jonathan Onn AKA the Spot.
