Chapter 7 : Spider vs Owls

I don't what happened. I had half written this chapter but then the draft suddenly vanished and it almost broke my heart. you know , spending an hour or two doing something, all for naught. It was very sad experience for me.

Anyway , I gathered my strength and re wrote the chapter but I decided to break the chapter in two part. You will see at last. Next chapter will be the temporary end for the Court of owls .

Let's go back to the story. It starts where we left off last chapter.

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"Spider-Man , for all that troubles caused by you , The Court has Sentenced.You.To.Death."The Talon Declared As he took out a small knife.

The hero had seen it all happening many times already and wasn't even bothered. He just got himself into a fighting stance and said ," Then what are waiting for? Let's see how you implement the judgement."

Then He dashed towards the Talon at blurring speed. When he was two feets away from the assassin he raised his arm and prepared to punch his face right in the center when suddenly The Spider- Senses rang out and he stopped dead in his track and bent his upper body backwards and with inhuman flexibility jumped back and rolled to make more distance between them before coming to stop.

Spider-Man got up, his eyes still set on Talon He felt a small pain on his neck and brought up his fingers to touch the spot. He could feel that the suit there had been ripped. He then looked at his fingers and saw there was blood on the tips. He looked back at his enemy. Talon's stance had changed slightly. The sharp knife in his hand had some blood on it's tip.

Spider-Man tried to process what had happened. And he finally was able to get an answer after few seconds.

' I could have almost died right there. Without even knowing what happened had it not been for the Spider-Senses of his. This Talon, whoever he is , he is definitely not normal. He could sneak up behind me. Can much me in speed and he most probably is trained.'

A silence fell as the two men stared at each other At that moment Spider-man heard Stacy calling him again. " Spider-Man! what happened did you meet those owls again ?"

" Yeah , I'm facing one right now."

" I'll send in a team . Just hold on."

" No!! This guy is a superhuman too . I will handle him. Just be on standby."

Talon heard the man who had invaded his hideout and snorted."You? Handle me? Keep dreaming little spider."

"We will see about that when I bash your head in round 2."

" Oh.But you aren't fighting me. It's them."

As he said this, The entire room lit up brightly. Spider man could see everything clearly .And what he saw filled him with a sense of dread. Around him were 5-6 of those cannibal creatures he had first met. He could make out their appearance clearly. They were humans , atleast before they became like this. Their bodies had multiple surgery marks . Their skin was grey as if without any drop of blood. Eyes bloody red as they kept eyeing him like a prey , growling and gnashing their teeth. To them he was a prey.

' What have they done to these people ?' The local hero couldn't help but think as he turned back towards The Talon. Two more men came to his side dressed in similar attire but without their faces hidden. They had the same dead eyes like those cannibals. Talon wasn't moving at all as he stood back with his hands behind his back.

Spider-Man knew was in trouble , BIG trouble. If his Spidey Tingle was anything to go by. Then he was surrounded by danger from all directions and had nowhere to go. 'Guess I'll have to do this the old fashioned way. Fighting my way out as the strong men said.' He thought and started to charge up his venom blast. And dashed towards the two new Talons again. They followed him and ran towards him with short swords in their hands.

As Spider-man started exchanging blows with The two Talons he found out that these two new Talons were strong too but not as much as him. They weren't fast like their boss over there either. He could keep up with them.He still had to look out for the cannibals and The Boss Talon tho.

Spidey dodged another attack aimed to stab his right eye by Talon-2 and sent a web towards talon-3's legs to restrict his movements while he He grab Talon-2 by the back of his collar and threw him away from himself. He kept an eye out for others present .

His Spider-sense rang out again but he was in tough posture to dodge it and was hit square in the jaw by a punch before a kick was sent at the side of his neck that pushed him away . He felt a bit dizzy and his neck was hurting from that kick . He jumped up and stuck himself to the ceiling before extending both his hands and shot a web strand at each Talon . He shot at very close to them and they weren't able to dodge and spider man pulled them towards him before he did a summersault and planted a foot in both Talons faces. He landed on the ground and tightened his grip on the webs before swinging them around and sending them to the kiss the wall.

As the fight continued the hero started putting more strength in his punches and even was using the venom blast more. He couldn't constantly keep using the blast or he would have tired himself out long ago. But this was the fight where he had to put everything he had.

He blasted one of the two Talons away and sent web bullets towards other one to keep his distance. At that moment his sense alarmed hin of the danger coming from behind . He turned around and punched away a cannibal that was trying to pounce on him from behind. But he was tackled down another cannibal. The other cannibals jumped on him too trying to pin him down on the ground. Spider man struggled to get out of their hold. He was suddenly bitten on the shoulder by one cannibal with enough strength to draw out blood and leave a horrid injury.

" Gahh!!! get off!!" the hero screamed as he sent another venom blast that freed him . But the creatures were persistent they started running on all four limbs and attacked him again. It's like they didn't even feel slight pain from being attacked with heavy punchs and blasts.

The Talons joined the fight again , this time with short knife drawn out. The situation wasn't looking good for the web warrior. He was surrounded from all sides . And even though his Spider sense was helping him to dodge or hit back before someone attacked him, It still wasn't enough. The Talon's weren't much weaker than him and the stab and slice wound from their knifes really hurt. But the biggest problem was the cannibals they were dead set on tearing him apart and eating him whole. His body was riddled with bite wounds with blood coming out. Their was even a claw mark on his mask right under his left eye and blood was leaking from there too.

' This doesn't looks good. There are too many of them I can't handle them all . Especially in such a closed space. It restricts my movements too much. I need to get out of here. '

With that thought He powered up his venom blast and punched the ground that shook the whole room and created a blast big enough to send all the enemies circling around him flying.

He turned to run towards the ceiling hole he had made to enter in here. When suddenly he was hit with a deadly blow to his side that most probably broke a rib or two of his and sent him flying into a wall. Spider-Man turned to look at the one who had attacked him and saw the Boss Talon had moved from his place from the back and was now standing in front of him.

'Fucking drama queen'. The spider thought while clutching the side of his chest that took the punch. It really hurt. But he didn't have time to cry. He raised his hand to send a blast at the Talon again but it was easily dodged by the enemy as he stepped to the side. And he saw another jab coming towards his throat which he dodged too but couldn't save himself from the slice at his chest by knife.

The Talon was fast , strong and highly trained he dodged each of Spider man attacks while sending his own attacks that the hero was having a hard time against. Spider-Man had never fought a battle like this. This guy was hellbent on giving any amount of injury he could on him. If this continued he would die from excessive blood loss. He tried to make some distance and extended his left hand to shoot webs. The Talon saw it and jumped towards him. and raised his knife high and stabbed it into the web shooter and into the wrist leaving the knife stuck in there and sliced at his neck again.

" Aaaargh!!" His hand hurt like hell and he lost his only remaining web shooter . The other one had been broken in his brawl with the cannibals. Spidey somehow dodged the knife aimed for his neck and stumbled back as he continued to hold his hand trying to take the knife out. His scream was met with a hard kick in the gut that bent him down on his knees. The Talon then grabbed him by the neck and lifted him up and banged his head on the ground.

" MY COURT !! MY COURT !! HE IS PREPARED."

At his shouts Spider man opened his eyes. He tried to move but his body didn't move. All his bones felt like they had been hit by a sledgehammer. Everywhere on his body , he could feel a stinging pain from all the stabs and slices. His voice won't come out . He tried hard to turn his head to look at the Direction the Talon was yelling towards and saw many people in high end clothes at the side of the room. Their most notable feature was the white Owl mask that covered their face. He had seen them , In the potraits.They were the ringleaders of the Court of Owls.

The Talon grabbed his suit by the collar and the other hand grabbed him near the stomach and then he lifted spider Man up in the air. " I PRESENT TO YOU —THE SPIDER-MAN."

"How do you wish him to die?" Talon asked his masters. And immediately the masked people started to shout.

" Burn him."

"Maim him "

" Chop of his neck "

They said as his this was an enjoyable experience.

"As you wish." The Talon said as he slammed Spider-Man's body on the ground hard. Again. And then he started to rain out punches on the hero's defeated body. Peter coughed up some blood inside his mask . He was genuinely scared. ' This is a nest of Madmen.' he thought. His only thought was reaching the hole in the ceiling and get out of here.

Suddenly he was kicked away and he landed near a little girl holding a doll. She was part of the teh masked group. Looking at her small body spider man concluded that she must not be older than ten. The girl continued to look down him and he looked into her eyes too that were the only thing not hidden by her mask.

Slowly all shouts died out and one person said." Wait. Let the Littlest decide his fate."

" Yes. Yes. Let her choose . What do you want to see dear ? " A woman's voice spoke.

The little girl continued to stare at Spider man before she crouched down near him. And looked at his left eye that was visible as the lense had broken off sometime during the fight.

" I want to hear him Scream ... More!" She said in such an innocent voice as if she hadn't sentenced someone's death.

"As you wish, My Lady ." The Talon said and then grabbed spider man legs and swung him around to the other side and threw some knifes at his leg.

"Agk." Spider-man didn't even have the strength to scream. All he could think was going back to his aunt May and having some peaceful time with her and his friend. Away from all the spider-Man problems.

And then Spider man felt something cool on his body . He looked up amto see Talon-2 or Talon -3 Had thrown some kind of liquid on his body. H also noticed there was a specific spell of this liquid. It took him a second to realise what it was—Kerosene.

His eyes widened at that realisation and he gained some clarity as he turned to look at the Main Talon throwing some small orbs at him. His Spider- Sense screamed to him . Telling him about the immense danger those orbs held. He tried to move and slowly stood up. But it was too late.

The balls connected to his body and detonated . Engulfing Spider-Man's whole body in flames

A horrifying scream rang out through out the room.

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Authors note :- Well this chapter was supposed be longer and I had hoped to complete the owls arc with this as last chapter but I thought this would be a good cliffhanger. And also the previous accident I didn't really have the mood to write . So let's see what happens next chapter.