A warehouse/secret CIA lab in Jersey, Saturday morning
Peter
Peter shook his head to clear any cobwebs as he woke up. It didn't take him long to realize that something was wrong. The fact that he had been sleeping vertically was on clue. And then there was the thing where his hands and feet were restrained. "Hello?" he asked, taking a look around. Well, this was some kind of lab. That much was obvious.
Richard
"Peter? You're awake?" a man in a labcoat asked. "Good. I was starting to get worried.
Peter
Peter's vision was a little blurry, but he recognized the voice immediately even though he hadn't heard it in nearly ten years. "Dad...?"
Richard
"You remember me," the man Peter recognized as Richard Parker said with clear pride. "I was afraid you would have forgotten me after all this time."
Peter
Peter smiled for a moment. He hadn't forgotten, but... "You're dead." The smile had faded.
Richard
"Emotionally, yes. Physically, no," Richard said. "I wasn't on the plane that killed your mother and the Brocks. I decided that the business meeting - you know the one, don't you? The suit? I heard that you actually dealt with it."
Peter
Richard was talking about the Venom project, a bio-suit that could have theoretically cure cancer in the person wearing it. The funding for the project eventually funding because the miltary wanted to use it as a biological suit of armor and Richard and his partners were reluctant to let that happen. Peter had found out for himself how dangerous it could be a couple years ago now.
"Yeah. Venom," he said, simply.
Richard
"I decided not to go through with the meeting. I didn't want it to be a weapon," Richard explained. "Your mother disagreed with me. She legally had the rights to sign away the work and she chose to do so."
"Everything had been taken away from me in that plane crash. My wife, my work... Everything but you and Ben. I was in no shape to care for a young boy, though. May and Ben were better parents to you than I possibly could have been then."
Peter
"Then what's this?" Peter asked why am I strapped to a table?"
Otto Octavius
"I believe I can answer that, Parker," a familiar voice said. Dr Otto Octavius took some joy in the hate that flitted across Peter's face at the mere sound of his voice. "You are raw material for a groundbreaking movement. I've done what nobody else has managed to do. I've perfected cloning! It was me, not Reed Richards, not Norman Osborn, not Tony Stark! Not even your daddy, Parker. He was years ahead of his time with genetics and he had most of the resources available to him. But I was the one who put it all together! It was me. And it's all thanks to you."
Peter
"What are you talking about?" Peter demanded.
Otto Octavius
"It was beyond our abilities to clone a normal human being. We needed something stronger first. When that spider bit you and injected Osborn's OZ formula into you, your DNA became stronger but more pliable. It was better able to withstand what we did with it. They haven't all been complete successes, of course. The clone that tried to kill your friends at that school of yours is proof enough of that."
Peter
"What?"
Otto Octavius
"Don't worry, your friends defeated him and he went back to the agency," Octavius said noting a look of confusion. "Oh, yes, the agency. I'm doing all of this with the CIA. They got tired of your friend Nick Fury having a monopoly on superpowered agents. Now they have two dozen of their own. Because of me. Agents with spider-powers derived from you and other abilities that I decided to add."
"Scorpion, Tarantula, step forward and remove your masks," Octavius ordered. They complied. The Scorpion's face was an exact duplicate of Peter's. The six-armed Tarantula's face was covered in fur and featured spider-eyes and fangs.
"I can make them grow cybernetic tails, make them look like a humanoid spider, suppress the Y-chromosome and make a female version of you. I can even enhance their age." Octavius gave a long look to Richard, who seemed surprised. "And with a little bit of work from a psychic on my staff, I can wipe your memories from them and make them believe whatever I want."
Peter
Peter hung his head. "So what was that? You need some more samples from me and couldn't resist screwing with me, too? Giving me my dad back for ten seconds?"
Otto Octavius
"That," Octavius said, pointing to Richard, "was a test and he passed flawlessly. He truly believed himself to be your father and just for a moment, so did you. Your problem here is that you don't realize that I'm not doing anything because of you. This isn't about you. This is about my work. It just so happens that my work completely perverts and destroys every single part of you and your life."
Octavius patted Richard on the shoulder and smiled. "Every. Single. Part."
And that's when they heard a collision downstairs. "Hmm. That doesn't sound promising." That sound was followed by gunfire. "Tarantula, go down and see what our problem is."
Kawalsky
By the time they arrived in Jersey, Kawalsky was still concerned about this being a trap. But Peter was in trouble and they didn't have much of a choice. All they had at this stage was the element of surprise, a mallet, alien-fu, a clone with questionable loyalties, a pocket knife and a pistol. Well, and Dave. It would have to do.
"When we get in there, get out fast and find somewhere to take cover. If there are people in there, they probably have guns." He checked the ammunition clip. "I'll take out who I can. Don't get shot."
Then he held onto something, because van or no van, this was gonna hurt.
Zero
Zero aimed Dave at the doors and floored it. A few moments later, the CIA agents were very surprised as a large teal van burst into their hideout.
"Sorry, Dave," Zero said before she grabbed her mallet and got out of the van.
Isabel
Isabel followed, heading out the side door and immediately looking for targets
Jessica
Jessica - in true spider-fashion, swung out of the door and ignored Charlie's orders to take cover, instead deciding to draw fire. "I don't think they like me much since I escaped from here," she said, dodging a couple gunshots. "Just a hunch."
Kawalsky
"No kidding," he muttered and raised his weapon to fire at the gun hand of one of the men about to fire at them. He missed and went for the shoulder instead, causing the guy to drop his gun. Moving for cover, he kept the pistol raised as he ran, firing off a few shots. He was limited on ammo, so he had to conserve it.
Jessica
"What can I say?" Jessica asked, shooting webs to snag some of the guns away from the men. "I'm a people person. Oh, and did I happen to mention that these guys are CIA?"
That might have made them less likely to help before, but now that they were in the thick of it, that wouldn't be a problem.
Zero
Zero, ducking behind Dave's door, yelled at her, "NO! What the SQUALL?"
It kind of just made her want to hit them harder, but she really did not like Jessica, so holding it against her it was.
Then it hit her. "The CIA kidnapped my boyfriend??"
Jessica
"People in the government don't like Nick Fury, Nick Fury has a bunch of supersoldiers, the CIA said, 'Hey, we have this kid's blood sample, he has wacky blood stuff that makes cloning him relatively easy, let's have some fun!'" Jessica explained as she bounced around, kicking a couple agents. "I assume that's part of why they took him."
"So he's really dating you?" she asked as that - and a punch - hit her.
Zero
Zero malleted the guy who'd punched Jessica just because he was handy. "Yes. Deal with it." She whacked the guy again for good measure. And once more to grow on.
Isabel
The idea of using her powers in front of the CIA didn't exactly strike Isabel as the greatest idea ever, but being shot wasn't really that much of a better option. Isabel used her powers to send a continuous barrage of whatever she could find towards an agent that was hiding behind a table. "Stay the hell down dumbass."
Kawalsky
Kawalsky really didn't like the CIA. Really, really didn't like the CIA. He hadn't been intending on killing anyone, but now that there were government agents involved, he tucked the pistol in the back of his belt (on the outside, because ouch hot barrel against skin) and went for a more subtle approach.
Well, subtle for Kawalsky. He circled around and grabbed one of the CIA guys from behind, slamming him to the ground and knocking him out with a well-placed strike to the face.
The numbers were thankfully slimming and no one on their side seemed to be too badly hurt yet.
"Girls," he said to Jessica and Zero. "There's plenty of Princess to go around so long as we get him back. Let's-" There was probably going to be more sarcasm involved, but he was distracted by the urge to tackle another CIA guy.
Jessica
"Eww!" Jessica yelled as she webbed an agent to the ceiling. "Mentally, I'm still kind of him. Nothing's going around with me. I just wonder what happened to his taste in women over the past couple years."
Zero
Zero muttered something that sounded like 'brablister' and decided to take out her frustrations on the closest CIA agent. So she tackled some poor guy and started punching. He never knew what hit him.
Isabel
"Hey! I'm just a friend here. Not interested in sharing. At all!" The CIA agent refused to stay down so Isabel ended it by waving away the table and TKing the agent into the wall.
Kawalsky
Kawalsky clobbered the last of the agents in his line of sight, then shook his fist. It stung. "The CIA in this universe kinda sucks."
Tarantula
Just then a door opened up at the top of a flight of stairs. A six-armed creature in a spider-costume rushed out and flung himself down towards the group.
Jessica
"Incoming!" Jessica yelled, firing a web to swing up to that door. "The lab's that way. I'm going to get Peter. You should be able to hold this guy off!"
Zero
Zero looked up at the six-armed creature and gaped. The CIA agent twitched and, reflexively, she punched him one more time without looking. This time he went down for the count. "So that's not good," Zero observed as she scrambled to her feet.
Isabel
"No. Not at all," Isabel agreed backing up out of the way. A flick of her hand sent a large box flying towards the creature.
Tarantula
"Nice trick. Just not an effective one," Tarantula said. With two fists, he punched through the box and landed. Wasting no time, he aimed a jump kick Kawalsky's way.
Kawalsky
Kawalsky wasn't fast enough to dodge it and went flying through the air before skidding on the concrete floor.
Tarantula
With one down for the moment, the clone turned to the one with the powers, picked up a gun that had fallen on the ground, and threw it at her hard before charging.
Isabel
Isabel had turned to make sure Charlie was okay so she didn't catch the movement till the last second. It wasn't enough time to get a shield up, so the gun hit her shoulder. "Bastard," she muttered as she dove out of the way.
Tarantula
"Potty mouth," Tarantula retorted as he leaped over her. He planted two arms on the floor and used his adhesive powers to quickly change momentum, charging towards the girl with the weapon and lining up two right hand punches.
Zero
One of the advantages of being tiny was that when Zero hit the deck to avoid getting punched, she didn't have that far to go. From the floor, she lashed out at any part of the clone she could reach with one foot and her mallet. "Frak you."
Tarantula
Fortunately for Zero, that any part was his leg and the back of his knee, sending him hard down to the ground. He kicked wildly back towards Zero, asking "What's a frak?"
Zero
Zero leapt nimbly out of the way and kicked at him again. "Something you're never getting."
Tarantula
This one was maybe a little too feisty. She was too likely to be a distraction that the other blonde could use. "Turns out, you're boring me," the clone said, springing back from the kicks and leaping back towards Isabel.
Isabel
This time Isabel had been paying attention. He leapt and Isabel raised her hand and attempted to send him flying. "Hopefully that's more entertaining?"
Tarantula
The clone was thrown backwards, but he had been well-trained in his powers and was able to land on his feet. One knee was clearly still a little ginger.
Kawalsky
Kawalsky had pulled himself back up, but was just getting over being winded. "Okay, so this whole fight thing isn't working for me. How about we settle this with a game of poker?" He threw his knife at the tarantula guy with practiced skill.
Tarantula
The clone dodged by ducking backwards. However, that was a lot of body mass to dodge with all those arms. That's why the knife hit him in his middle right forearm. "Gah!" he yelled, pulling the knife out and flinging it back wildly.
Kawalsky
"This is gonna hurt," he muttered and charged, lunging at the tarantula in an attempt to tackle him.
Tarantula
"You're right," the clone said, wrapping five good arms around Kawalsky and squeezing.
This was not a nice hug.
Zero
Zero attempted to employ the same technique she'd used on Scarface back on Fandom and mallet the clone in the head.
Tarantula
The clone shook his head to clear it. The spider-hug's intensity decreased a little as he tried to recover.
He let one arm loose and swung at Zero's legs, trying to take her down.
Zero
Zero wasn't paying enough attention to the arms to dodge and wound up on her back. "Ow. Oi!" She tried to kick him without hitting K, then crawled quickly over to where her mallet had landed.
Kawalsky
At the same time, Kawalsky struggled against the spider's grip. His legs weren't held as tightly as the rest of him, so he joined Zero in kicking out, aiming at the leg he'd noticed the spider guy had been favoring earlier.
Tarantula
"Arrgh!" the clone yelled. "Stop with the kicking!" To emphasize this, he threw Kawalsky towards some boxes.
Kawalsky
You would think that boxes were soft. They weren't. Kawalsky landed hard, coughing from the impact as he tried to roll over. He was going to need a minute to get back up.
Isabel
"How about throwing stuff? Can we keep doing that?" Isabel asked, sending a shower of whatever she could find around the room towards the clone. Some of it was pretty big.
Tarantula
"Crap!" the clone said, rolling backwards. He managed to dodge most of the debris by continually flipping back, but what did hit left him hurting.
Zero
And there was Zero, swinging her mallet at him again. "How about thwacking? Is thwacking good?"
Tarantula
This caused the clone to stagger away. "This isn't going right," he said.
Kawalsky
"You said no to the poker game." Kawalsky was still on the boxes, but had rolled over enough to pull out his gun and aim it at him. "Deal with it." He fired two rapid shots at him.
Tarantula
With the rest of the damage that had already been done, the clone didn't have it in him to dodge. He staggered back a couple steps before falling over.
He'd live. He wouldn't feel comfortable, but he'd live.
Otto Octavius
Moments after the Tarantula left, Octavius turned back to Peter. "Now, your role here is to serve as a farm of genetic material. You've apparently learned a lot at your little school. I can't wait to find out how much better my clones turn out now that you're not quite as much of an idiot child."
Jessica
The door burst open as Jessica charged into the lab. "That's not going to happen."
Otto Octavius
"The prodigal daughter returns," Octavius said. "Scorpion, dispose of her."
Richard
There was a thud that made Octavius turn around. Scorpion was on the ground while Richard stood above him, a dented fire extinguisher in his hands and rage (and, surprisingly, a few more noticable wrinkles) on his face. "You're not going to get away with this, Otto. You're not going to get away with any more of this madness!"
Otto Octavius
"Please, 'Richard'," Octavius scoffed. "You barely have a say in the matter. The one roadblock I still have is that if I push the aging process too much, I haven't found a way to bring it back down to normal. You'll be dead of old age within the hour."
Octavius charged and decked Richard. "If you live that long."
Peter
That was just too much for Peter. "Aargh!" he yelled as he managed to break his restraints and the table he had been restrained to. Dropping to his feet, Peter looked up and said, simply, "I'm going to kill you and I'm going to enjoy it."
He leaped at Octavius.
A metal table knocked him out of the air.
Otto Octavius
"Damn it! I wasn't going to bring it to this level, Parker!" Octavius yelled. Suddenly it seemed that all of the metal in the lab started to move. "I've tried so hard to keep this part of my life a secret!" A tray of tools banded together and flung itself at Jessica on its way to Octavius.
Jessica
Jessica ducked and could only ask, "Are you kidding me?"
Doctor Octopus
"My metal arms, the arms that made you think it was so funny to call me 'Doctor Octopus!'" The metal from around the room started to form into four appendages on Octavius's back. "It wasn't the arms, Peter! It was the metal! I could control the metal!"
Octavius now had four makeshift metal arms coming out of his back. "I'm not going to mess around with you two! Do you understand me?" Doctor Octopus asked, wasting not time to attack with his arms.
Fight!
Metal debris started to soar around the room, promising to cut anyone who wasn't careful. Octopus continued to press his attack, throwing Peter around with some ease. "The two of you together are nothing but--"
"Shush!" Jessica yelled, firing a webline at one of the arms and pulling. "Nobody cares!"
The arm disassembled, throwing Jessica back due to her own pulling force. "The arms aren't still attached," Octopus said. "I just told you that!" Another arm thrust Jessica into a wall as the dismantled arm reformed.
Fight!
Peter recovered and charged towards Octopus, just barely dodging the debris and arms. "Young man," Octopus taunted. "At this point it's just immature not to admit defeat. It's done!"
"Whatever," Peter said dismissively, pressing ever closer.
"Embrace it!" Octopus demanded. "This is what defines you as a man, how you handle just this sort of-"
Peter's only response was to smash one of Octopus's arms, breaking it apart.
"No witty repartee this time?" Octopus asked, sending two more arms after Peter. "That's how I know you're scared, little boy." Peter was just barely dodging and deflecting the blows of the arms.
"No, that's how you know he's serious," Jessica said, flinging herself close enough to land a solid kick on Octopus's face.
Doctor Octopus dropped to the ground, his concentration disrupted and all of the metal in the room falling as well.
Fight!
Doctor Octopus got to his feet, hatred in his eyes. "Why? Why must you always involve yourself in my life's work?" he screamed. The metal in the room lifted again, spinning quickly enough to effectively create a shrapnel tornado as his arms reformed. "Die!"
Peter and Jessica, on opposite ends of the tornado, began to circle around, dodging the debris and arms to the best of their abilities. They worked in silence and in tandem, making their way ever closer to Doctor Octopus in the middle of the storm. He was so distracted between the strain of controlling that much metal and attempting to hit two people very adept at dodging that he didn't realize just how close they were.
Peter landed on an arm and leaped straight at Octopus, fist pulled back for a punch. "Hey, this ain't metal, is it?" he asked.
Jessica duplicated the attack from the other side. "Yeah, or this!"
They were too close. He had nothing that could deflect two human projectiles at this range. And then, in the moment before the punches connected, Doctor Otto Octavius realized how much this was going to hurt.
Peter
With Octavius down, Peter and Jessica took a moment to catch their breath. "That felt good," Peter said.
Jessica
"It's lame that it took two of us," Jessica said.
Peter
"Well, he had six arms," Peter reminded her. "So, you're one of my clones, too?"
Jessica
"Yeah," Jessica confirmed. "Um, look, it's nice to make my acquaintance after all this time, but I should get going before SHIELD gets here. I'm kind of an illegal experiment in most people's eyes and I don't want anyone collecting me as evidence. I'll be in touch."
With that, Jessica headed towards an exit.
Peter
"Okay? See you later?" Peter said.
Jessica
"Definitely. I think we have a lot to talk about," Jessica said. "Oh, by the way, you've got some friends downstairs. But, seriously, what's happened to your taste in women in the past couple years?"
She pulled her mask up and headed out.
Peter
It took Peter a moment to figure out what she was talking about, but then it hit him. He looked over to the unconscious 'Richard.' He was already looking much older. Peter realized that he would be dead shortly. He couldn't stick around to see that. He had already lost his father once, he couldn't deal with this tease.
He reached down and grabbed Octavius by the collar before heading the way the girl clone had entered, dragging Octavius behind him. The clone was right, SHIELD would be here soon. They'd find the other clones eventually, but he wanted to make sure that everyone knew what was going on.
He stopped to write a quick note and clip it to Octavius's tie.
I clone people with CIA permission, ask me how!
Peter
Peter made his way out the door that his female clone (seriously, what the hell?) directed him towards, dragging the unconscious Otto Octavius across the floor behind him. When he walked through the door and saw his friends there, well, it was hard not to be a little touched.
"Hey. Looks like we have some tourists," Peter joked.
Isabel
Isabel smiled, relieved to see him. "You know how it is. Fandom gets boring after a while. We figured we'd come by for a visit."
Peter
"You should call ahead next time," Peter said, leaving Octavius at the top of the stairs and jumping down to his friends.
Zero
Zero grinned at her boyfriend. Then she stopped grinning very quickly. "How do we know you're you and not a clone?"
Peter
"Charlene here gave me a model of the end of the universe the other day," Peter said. "If I was a clone I'd have to be really recent to know that one."
Kawalsky
And he said I was on drugs. Punk." He looked at Zero. "No offense."
Zero
"None taken. This time." Zero flung herself at her boyfriend. "Oh, hooskspider, I was so worried!"
Peter
Peter winced slightly thanks to his fun new bruises, but that didn't stop him from hugging Zero with everything he had left. "You know you have good friends when they travel across dimensions to get to you."
Zero
"And beat up CIA agents," Zero said proudly. She frowned down at one of the unconscious suit-clad forms and added, "They were more trouble than skinheads or Santa."
Peter
"They're trained that way," Peter said. "We should probably get going. SHIELD will show up soon enough and I don't want to deal with their crap."
Kawalsky
"I think they're gonna be pissed we beat up and shot some of their guys." Kawalsky looked up from where he was tying something about the leg of one of the guys he shot to make sure he didn't bleed to death. "They'll be okay, but I get the feeling Sam'll be pretty annoyed if she has to come bail me out for assaulting government officials. What are you gonna do about Legs Eleven there?"
Zero
"I vote we kick him some more," Zero suggested without letting go of Peter.
Kawalsky
"I didn't get to bring my steel-capped boots."
Peter
"SHIELD and the CIA are on opposite sides here. Nick Fury will take care of them. I just want to go home," Peter said.
Zero
"Then home we go," said Zero. She was secretly planning to kick clone boy one more time on the way out. "And it's not my fault you can't pack properly, Charlene," she informed Kawalsky in her best 'prim' voice. It wasn't very prim, but she tried.
Isabel
"Home sounds good," Isabel agreed. And getting out of the crossfire between SHIELD and the CIA sounded even better. Although she was tempted by the idea of staying and decking Nick Fury just for the hell of it.
Peter
Peter took one last look around at all of the unconscious people. He knew that Nick Fury was going to have questions for him. There was somebody else who was going to have questions first, though.
"Let's go," Peter said. He knew that after the past day, he was going to have to tell Aunt May everything.
[OOC: Preplayed with kawalsky, swerval_zero, and izzyalienqueen. NFB, no interaction, distance, etc. BIG HUGE MASSIVE THANKS to those three. So dead of code.
Oh, and very very important note. Some stretches of dialogue and the fight choreography for the big final fight are blatantly lifted from Ultimate Spider-Man #103-104. I bow down to the Bendis.]