Mirror of the World

"The Green Goblin, Norman Osborn, was found dead after reportedly having fought Spider-Man once again. No one knows how he returned as witnesses described it as he simply appeared out of thin air in the middle of the same street where his corpse was found.

Many believe that Spider-Man was the one who took the Green Goblin's life, confusing many as it was seemingly done in a very horrific and graphic manner. Some people have reported seeing the hero wearing an all-black suit, one that looked familiar to the mysterious monster that has been devouring humans late at night.

There have been rumors that this monster and Spider-Man were linked in some way, and now, it seems that they may in fact be one and the same..."

Eren found himself inside the Baxter Building, surrounded by machines and gadgets amongst the everyday furniture inside it as a TV played the news in the background. He was alone, pacing back and forth as he wore his red and blue Spider-Man costume, wondering what the next step in his grand plan would be. He knew what the next step should have been, it was the first thing he'd come up with before forming the plan backward in order to make sure everything would lead up perfectly to that very moment.

However, once he had reached the finish line, he began to hesitate.

"Paaarkeeeeer..." A voice spoke out to him, calling his own name. It was a voice he recognized, yet it was foreign to him simultaneously. It sounded like his own voice, though a more sinister, psychotic, demonic version of it.

"Paaaarkeeeer." the voice spoke out once more, causing Eren to look around frantically to find the source of it.

"Who's there? Come out!" Eren demanded, readying himself to fight whoever it was that was stalking him in the shadows, however, he would soon find something he wouldn't have ever expected.

"I'm over here." The voice spoke out, drawing Eren's attention to a very reflective window where he could see his own reflection in it. However, the reflection was distorted, showing a version of himself wearing the all-black costume with his mask removed, showing a contorted grin on his own face.

"What?" Eren questioned, blinking twice as if that would make his mirror image disappear, but it did not.

"Parker, Parker, Parker. Don't tell me you're really thinking about getting rid of me after all we've been through..." his reflection spoke in a taunting, gaudy, and raspy voice.

"What are you talking about?" Eren asked his reflection as he inched closer to the window, having a concerned look on his face that contrasted with the hallucination in front of him.

"Oh, don't act like you're so clueless, Parker. I gave you the thing you craved more than anything. Power!" the reflection proclaimed this with bold confidence as it smiled at Eren Parker, causing the boy to stop in his tracks with furrowed eyebrows.

"I don't crave power. I don't need power." Eren told his reflection, whether this be fact or fiction would only be known to the boy himself.

"Our relationship has given us a shared consciousness, Parker. I know everything you feel, everything you think. I know what you desire, I know what you love, and I know what you despise..." his reflection chuckled at the boy, having the sense that he truly did know everything about the hero.

"You don't know the-" Before Eren could finish the sentence, his mirror image finished it for him.

"-first thing about you? Oh, I know it all, Eren. I know how you truly felt about Norman, how badly you wanted him dead. Not just Norman, but the criminals of New York. You wished that someone would just come along and erase the worst of the worst from existence. You wished that God himself would somehow smite them. Or would it be Bast that you believe in now, right? That's the only true way you could save everyone. If you wait for the killers to kill, that's at least one person you failed at saving." his mirror image cackled once more before jumping onto a couch to sit with his legs up on the arm of it.

"You play the hero, but what's inside can't hide from me, Parker. What you needed was to be pushed to do what you thought would really solve your problems. So you used my power and we did just that."

"I didn't need you. I didn't want to kill those criminals, they died because I needed to feed you." Eren told his reflection, despite knowing he needed that symbiote more than anything if he wanted to win, but he didn't want to admit it to the monster itself.

"Oh, but you did... you even said it yourself many, many times. Without me, there's no killer instinct. There's no drive to do what needs to be done! And most importantly, there's no Godspeed. Your body can't handle it." the reflection once again taunted the boy, spitting truth after truth at him.

"I don't need Godspeed and I don't need you!" Eren shouted, prompting the reflection to lean up and shout back at him.

"You do need me, Parker! You felt like a god, didn't you!? You felt unstoppable! You felt like you were the most powerful being on this planet, no, you 𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙬 that you were the most powerful being on Earth! With my strength combined with your Godspeed, we are invincible, Parker! You can do whatever you want!"

"You're right." Eren told his reflection. "I did feel like a god. I felt fantastic. It felt so satisfying to tear Norman apart. It was honestly euphoric. Even now, I don't feel hurt or disgusted by myself like when I killed Fisk. He deserved to die, there was nothing redeeming about him in the slightest. Even being a father didn't get him any sympathy from me. However, I know that I shouldn't feel happy about it either... I shouldn't feel envigorated because I took a man's life or because I have the power to destroy a city in minutes. That's why I'm getting rid of you once and for all."

"Alright, alright. Don't come crawling back to me when you need me in the future, Parker. You know you'll need me again." the reflection proclaimed, crossing his arms confidently.

"I'll make sure that'll never happen." Eren muttered coldly, making his reflection laugh in the process.

"And how will you do that, Parker? Are you going to hide me under your bed?"

"No..." Eren told his reflection, staring back at him with an icy glare. "I'm going to kill you."

Eren walked away from the window hastily, however, the voice didn't stop as he walked into one of the main labs to find the machine that was used to test Johnny Storm's limits. "You can't rid yourself of me, Parker! I'm too important to you!"

The cylindric chamber the Eren found himself in front of could withstand heat that was hotter than any sun. Eren modified the machine to house a miniature version of Dr. Otto Octavius's machine that generated a miniature sun at his presentation, using some Tritium that he stole from Oscorp.

Not only was the power of the sun now at his disposal but the machine was also equipped with a high-frequency sound generator.

Eren stepped inside the cylinder as the symbiote still spoke to him. "What are you doing? What is this!?" the symbiote questioned, having no recollection of Eren ever thinking about this machine. That was because Eren repressed the memory of creating it up until that moment, which was the first thing he did before stealing the symbiote from its facility.

The door closed behind Eren and the cylinder began to heat up slowly. "My other selves either kept the symbiote for its power by wearing it or hiding it somewhere. This just led to the symbiote taking them over, which led to them becoming Venom and destroying the world despite wanting to do the right thing. The other ones, well they tried getting rid of you in other ways. One entered a flaming building while wearing you, hoping that'd be enough. Many knocked themselves against bell towers to remove you, though that didn't defeat you, it only removed you from Eren Parker himself. Some even tried drowning themselves, but that didn't stop you, did it?"

A high-frequency sound began to play, compelling Eren to cover his ears and the symbiote to begin to scream and wriggle off of his body as if it were trying to escape, yet hold on at the same time. "BUT I WILL NOT ALLOW EVEN A SINGLE CELL OF YOU TO LIVE ON! THIS WAS THE FINAL STEP ALL ALONG, KILLING NORMAN WAS NOTHING MORE THAN THE CLIMAX TO THIS STORY. THIS IS WHERE THE FATE OF THE TIMELINE SEALS ITSELF!" Eren screamed through the high-pitched sounds and shrieks from the symbiote, still covering his ears as his passionate voice reverberated off of the walls.

"YOU SYMBIOTES HAVE TWO WEAKNESSES: FIRE AND SOUND! THIS IS THE HIGHEST FREQUENCY THAT YOUR KIND IS CAPABLE OF HEARING. I ALSO HAVE THE POWER OF THE SUN IN MY HANDS, A SUN SO POWERFUL YOU WILL BE ERADICATED BY ITS FLAMES!" Just as Eren proclaimed this, a miniature sun formed in front of him before it began expanding in size to fill the cylindric chamber.

"SPIDER-MATTER IS CAPABLE OF WITHSTANDING THE HUMAN TORCH'S FLAMES, THEREFORE I WILL BE PROTECTED FROM THE BURNING OF THE SUN, YET YOU WILL DIE!" the mini sun grew, covering both Spider-Man and the symbiote with its flames, causing both of them to scream in agony.

Eren wasn't being burned by the sun, at least, not to the point he should have been if it were actually coming into contact with his skin. It felt more like he was being nearly boiled alive. It hurt like hell, but it wasn't killing him. He only needed to hold out for a few seconds to make sure that not a single trace of the symbiote remained on his body.

After several seconds that felt like an eternity, the miniature sun dispersed, leaving Spider-Man to fall to his knees as steam began pouring off of his costume. He was breathing heavily on his knees, looking down at his red-gloved hands as he began to feel the world around him spin due to his lightheadedness.

He knew the symbiote was gone, he could tell by the way that his brain no longer felt as if someone was picking around inside of it. His thoughts were all his own, and that feeling of needing to devour humans was gone.

"It's over..." he whispered, inspecting his entire body for any trace of the symbiote.

It was completely gone.

"Thank God..." Eren whispered before the secondary high-pitched frequency played once more, a precaution made to make sure every trace of the symbiote was erased.

The door opened, allowing Eren to step out and look at his reflection of himself in one of the mirrors in the lab. He saw himself, Eren Parker.

He looked down at his hands again and tried to use Godspeed once more, but he could only generate small sparks of electricity. He was nothing more than a boy who could stick to walls and shoot webs, but he didn't care. It was worth sacrificing his greatest power for the timeline's safety.

Due to living with a man made of literal fire, Reed had developed a serum to cure burns just in case Johnny accidentally scorched someone or if anyone was burned during sparing. Eren grabbed one for himself and injected himself with it, immediately feeling his body being soothed of all burns.

Without a second thought, he left the Baxter Building and swung home. He entered from the skylight and landed softly in the center of his tiny apartment to find Cindy Moon sitting on their bed, looking at him with a shocked expression on her face.

He didn't have to tell her, she knew what was happening. All of that dark energy that surrounded him before that she could sense was finally gone. Those feelings of being afraid of her lover were finally gone, she knew that only Eren Parker remained.

He retracted his mask, smiling softly at her before finally telling her the words she'd been waiting to hear for so long. "It's over, Cindy. And I'm back."

Cindy lept off of the bed and hugged Eren tightly, weeping silently on his shoulder as if he'd just come back from being lost in time again. "I thought that thing had taken you over completely. I was so afraid of losing the real you." she told him, revealing to him her true reasoning for wanting to stop him from going after Norman.

She understood that he had to do what had to be done to Norman if that's what saved the timeline, however, she didn't want Eren to become a monster in the process.

"I know. I'm sorry for everything that I put you through ever since I came back. It's done now. The symbiote is gone and I'll never wear it again. I promise." Eren told her, finally making a promise that he intended to keep.