Chapter 4: The Green Goblin

"Ha!" Felicia Hardy sneered. "I didn't ask Spider-Man to help me with this dirty work."

"After witnessing Ben Urich being shot by Jonah Jameson, I took a gun and went to Jameson's office and shot him dead!"

"I think I didn't miss," she said, turning to look at the caged Jameson. "But why is he still alive?"

"That's just a despicable imposter!" the caged Jameson shouted, struggling to stand up.

"An imposter?" Felicia was shocked.

"Yes," the Green Goblin's voice came from behind. "Unfortunately, that was one of my men."

The hunter Kraven stood nearby, gritting his teeth as he glared at Felicia. "My foolish brother...killed by a woman!"

The Green Goblin grabbed Felicia. "I'm sorry, dear, I really value our relationship, but the Chameleon is one of us. This can't be overlooked, or I won't be able to explain it to them!"

"Don't touch me!" Felicia pushed the Green Goblin away and slapped him.

As a woman, her strength was surprising, mainly due to her years of dedicated training.

But the next moment, Kraven grabbed her hair and pinned her to the ground.

"You killed my dear brother. How do you want to die?"

The Green Goblin's skin cracked, and he angrily covered the cracked area, looking at Felicia on the ground. "You've angered me! I wanted this to end quickly and easily, but you keep doing things that annoy me. You know the consequences of angering me!"

"Kraven, bring her over here!"

Kraven dragged Felicia up by her hair.

The three came to a glass container crawling with hideous, ugly venomous spiders.

The Green Goblin grabbed Felicia's hair and pressed her against the glass. "You like spiders, woman? Avenging Urich's spider?"

"Now open your eyes and watch closely. When the Vulture brings the Parker boy here, I'll let him watch you embrace the spiders!"

"I'm sorry, the Vulture only let me bring his apologies." 

A voice rang out in time.

Then, the Dark Spider-Man descended from above, shooting webbing from his hands. "He's been permanently detained!"

Whoosh! Whoosh! Two globs of webbing hit the two nearest Green Goblin henchmen, trapping them in webbing.

Peter noticed this Dark Spider-Man's web-shooting method was different from his own. Peter used synthetic webbing, while the Dark Spider-Man shot webbing directly from his wrists.

The advantage of this was that the Dark Spider-Man could shoot webs as he willed, unlike Peter's preset web-shooter patterns.

Perhaps when he returned, Peter could modify his web-shooters based on this method?

The Green Goblin and Kraven below were startled. Kraven quickly drew his gun and fired at Peter.

Zzzing~ Peter's spider-sense triggered automatically.

Peter dropped to the ground, dodging the bullet with a lithe twist. He instinctively drew his revolver to return fire.

But as he was about to pull the trigger, he hesitated.

Partly because the high school Peter had the upper hand in his consciousness, and partly because he remembered what Aunt May had said.

"Wow, Spider-Man hesitating? This is unprecedented!" Kraven mocked.

"You fool, what are you doing? Why don't you shoot him?" the caged Jonah also shouted.

The Green Goblin laughed. "You must be an imposter!"

"Hmph!" Suddenly, Peter stretched out his hand, snagging Kraven with a web and pulling him close before punching him in the face.

Wham! Kraven's mouth was instantly filled with blood, most of his teeth knocked out, and his prominent nose bent askew.

The tremendous force left him dazed.

Peter landed two more punches to Kraven's shoulder blades, shattering them.

With the current level of surgery, even if they could be patched up, those arms would be useless for any serious exertion.

For a hunter like Kraven, that was worse than death.

This was the compromise between Peter's "good" and "evil" sides.

The "evil" Peter wanted to kill these men, while the "good" Peter couldn't bring himself to do it.

So their merged consciousness decided to cripple Kraven instead.

Peter released Kraven, carelessly tossing him aside.

Kraven lay there limply, the intense pain triggering his body's defensive mechanism and rendering him unconscious.

Rattle rattle! At that moment, the sound of chains hitting the floor came from the nearby cage.

The Green Goblin had opened the cage holding a white tiger while Peter was dealing with the henchmen and Kraven.

The white tiger was nearly four meters long and extremely ferocious.

More importantly, the cage didn't open outwards, but towards Jonah's adjacent cage! 

The Green Goblin sneered. "Feeding time!"

"Ahhh!" Jonah screamed in terror, backing away.

But his feet were chained, limiting his movement in the small cage.

The tiger, starved for days, immediately locked its glowing, fierce eyes on Jonah and pounced.

At the critical moment, Peter shot out two web nets, ensnaring the tiger's upper and lower body, then pulled hard.

The 400-pound white tiger was jerked back, dangling upside-down at the cage's edge.

Peter transferred the webbing to his right hand, drew his revolver, and shoved the barrel into the tiger's ear canal.

Bang bang!

Two shots fired in rapid succession.

Though the tiger's skull was thick, it couldn't withstand the bullets fired point-blank into its ear.

The two high-velocity spinning bullets tore into its brain, reducing it to mush.

Yeeeooowww---

The tiger let out a final agonized wail before dropping dead.

"Thank you, but don't worry about me, go save your girlfriend!" Jonah shouted.

Peter knew he meant Felicia Hardy, though she wasn't his girlfriend.

He didn't argue, instead turning towards where the Green Goblin had stood.

The Green Goblin had opened an underground passage, dragging Felicia inside with a gun pressed to her head.

"If you follow, I'll blow her brains out!" the Green Goblin threatened before disappearing underground with Felicia.

"spider, the widow is - "

As Peter prepared to give chase, his spider-sense warned him again. A figure leapt at him from behind, shouting.

(End of chapter)