With a flash of light and a gasping of breath, Octavius felt his senses rush back to him in what felt like a torrent of silver water. He sat up swiftly while breathing heavily, shaking his head slightly. A groan escaped from his lips as his vision started to come back to him, along with the memories of what had happened. The success, the failure, his final decision...all of it came flooding back to him.
'But that leaves me with a conundrum. I erased my very being from Parker so that he could save the city...and my Anna. So why am I still...?' Otto's question was answered when he lifted a hand towards his head, only to find that he no longer had hands. Instead he found himself looking at a horses hoof. Otto then glanced down at himself to see that he seemed to be in a horses body, with a tan coat and a brown mane, if the mane tumbling into his eyes was any indication.
The mind of the doctor began to try to comprehend the sudden change in his appearance. Eventually it decided on that he was in the afterlife. 'I am either in purgatory or in hell. Either would be sufficient for the actions that I have done. I suppose that I should investigate to see where I have been damned.'
His willpower returned with his senses and he slowly pushed himself to all fours, finding issues in standing. 'No, I am Doctor Octavius. Learning how to walk will no defeat me!' With his great willpower Otto found himself able to master his new body within a few moments. With his new body starting to obey his will, Octavius turned his attention to the area around him.
He was in a small, grassy field in the middle of nowhere. Yet he squinted his eyes to see that, off in the distance, there appeared to be buildings that reminded him of New York. He then heard the rumbling of thunder and looked up to see clouds overhead, not the godly being he expected to see in the afterlife.
"If this is purgatory or hell, then it is far different that what those charlatans would have the simple minded people of earth believe," Otto muttered to himself before lifting a hoof to push his mane back. 'Why was I placed into this body? Should I not be in my own body or a facsimile of Parker's? Or perhaps they stuck me in this form because I had no form of my own when I died?'
A small puddle off to the side gained his interest and he walked over to it, glancing down at his reflection to get a better look at his new form. 'I am indeed a horse, though my eyes appear to have taken on a more cartoonish nature and my proportions are all wrong. And what is that upon my flank? A tattoo of sorts?' Doctor Octavius pondered as he spied a picture of a brain with tendrils emerging from it on both sides of his flank.
'Feh, the sheer embarrassment of it all. That the great Doctor Octopus would have to be confined into the body of a beast of burden,' Doc Ock snarled as he began to think of dozens of ways to return to his own body. And then perhaps to his own Earth. Then the memories of what he had done and how he had died returned and his conscious put an end to those plans. 'If this is what fate has deemed fitting for my actions, then I suppose I can bear it for a while. But eventually I shall-'
A pain shot through the back of his skull and derailed his train of thoughts. Otto spun around the moment he felt the pain, eyes glancing in every direction for whatever had caused his senses to activate like that. He found nothing behind him, nothing except for a small saddle bag that he knew had not been there when he had first awoken. That was the second most interesting focus of the doctor.
'That was the spider sense,' Octavius realized as he rubbed the back of his head, having spent enough time in his foes body to know it perfectly. 'That means I have retained that power of Parker's. Does that also mean I have retained his other spider powers?'
To see whether his hypothesis was correct of not, Otto then leapt off of the ground with some of his strength. To his amazement he leap nearly seven stories before he finally started to descend. Yet even when he landed he felt no pain as his legs absorbed the impact effortlessly.
'Well, that answers that. Now onto the next question.' Otto then approached the bag, wary of its sudden appearance. But as the bag did not set off the spider sense, he assumed that it was harmless. He still braced himself when he laid a hoof upon the flap and leapt back when he flung the bag open. Yet while there were no traps or tricks within the bag, what Otto saw made him snarl in fury before he threw the flap over the bag once more.
'A prank and a humorless one at that,' Doctor Octavius decided before glancing to the side of the bag to see a piece of paper resting against the bag. The doctor picked it up and found that there were only two words written on the paper in an otherworldly, silver like color.
What now?
'An excellent question indeed,' Otto agreed as he crumpled up the paper while glancing around at his surroundings. 'I do not know where I am, only that I am in a new body and have somehow managed to retain Parkers powers. First I must focus on figuring out the where, then I can turn my full attention to the other questions.'
With no other landmarks to distract his focus, Octavius began to head towards the city that loomed on the horizon. Yet after a few steps his spider sense went off once more, but when he spun around he found that he was still alone. Only this time, the saddle bag was now upon his back instead of where he had left it. Otto turned his gaze towards the sky before scowling up at the heavens.
"You insufferable gods. Very well, I shall carry this until I can dispose of it proper.' Otto then began his walk towards the city, pondering over what kind of creatures he would find within the towering skyscrapers. 'Perhaps there are other creatures there that look the same as me. Will they be inferior to my intellect or will they be akin to an advance alien race...that is a foolish question. No intellect is superior to my own. I am the great-'
Once again the memories returned and once again Octavius found his conscious preventing him from finishing his sentence. The sky finally opened up and unleashed a downpour of rain upon the single pony, who cursed both his luck and the thunder god as he was quickly soaked to the bone. 'It seems that these memories and the guilt are not enough. It seems that heaven will continue to punish me as it sees fit.'
For nearly an hour he walked in the rain, finding new reason every couple of minutes to curse fate. But when he finally reached the city, he found to his disappointment that there was no one in the streets, be them human or pony. 'The rain must have cleared them all out. Seems whatever beings live in this place, they are not on par with New Yorkers.'
"ACHOO!...Wonderful. Even in the afterlife it seems that the limitations of the human body still persist," Otto grumbled as he wiped his much longer nose against his hoof, figuring that he had caught a cold from being out in the rain for too long.
The city did not impress the doctor, though he did concede that perhaps it was because of the downpour that the city did not impress. All he could see through the rain were numerous flickering lights through the buildings and every once in a while he believed that he heard voices coming from the rain, but he could not see the sources of the sound.
Eventually Otto found that he had to take shelter beneath a balcony, the only place where the rain didn't seem to touch him. As he leaned against the wall he wrapped his arms around himself, shivering slightly as the temperature continued to drop.
'This most definitely be hell or some form of eternal damnation. Because I should not have to suffer like...no. Considering my life, I should be grateful this is all that I am forced to endure,' Otto decided as he slid to the ground and let out a sigh, glancing down at his hoof once again. 'Why a horse, though? It is not like horses are animals that I did not care for. If the gods truly wished to infuriate me, they would have transformed me into either a spider or an octopus. Either of those would have been true hell.'
Otto did not know how long he rested underneath the balcony, but after a while he drifted off into a slumber. He was awoken with a start when he heard a scream, followed by the sounds of laughter that he knew all too well. It was a scream for help followed by the laughs of punks that preyed on the weak. He turned his head to the side to see another pony, a female by the sound of her voice, cornered by five different thugs.
'Either I am delusional from the cold or two of those horses have horns...and another has wings,' Otto realized as he gazed at the ponies. The mare continued to back away while still crying out for help, but Otto turned away with a sigh. 'I apologize, but I am no hero. That has been made clear. I would be of no help to you.'
Yet when the mare screamed once again, Otto felt a burning sensation in the back of his head. He was surprised for a moment, since guilt usually came from his heart, but after a few moments the burning sensation became more than he could bear. With a growl Otto pushed himself back up and walked over to the ponies. One of them turned around to see Otto approaching and he let out a laugh.
"Well looky here, another fly has wandered into our web? What's the matter chump, don't like-?" Faster than the horse could register, Otto slammed his hoof into the horses face and nearly took his jaw off. As that pony fell the others spun around to face Otto, who had already begun to move. He slammed his head into the face of another of the thugs, shattering his nose while dropping him. Otto moved like lightning to the third thug and kicked him in the ribs with enough force to shatter that thugs bones.
"What the heck his this guy?!" one of the thugs cried out before Otto was on him, wrapping a hoof around his throat and slamming the pony skull first into the wet cement.
'Spider sense!' Otto realized and he spun around to see that the unicorn was pointing his glowing horn at Otto's chest. Otto leapt up to dodge in a way that Spiderman had done hundreds of times before, but his new body didn't move in the same way and he felt something crack before pain flooded through his body. He crashed into the cement right in time to take a blast of energy to the chest.
Pain lanced through his body as he was hurled down the alleyway, where he crashed into numerous boxes and trash cans. A weak groan escaped Otto's lips as he struggled to push himself back up, but a moment later he felt an invisible force lift him into the air. He forced himself to look through the pain to see that the last thug standing was smirking at him, with his horn glowing the same color that surrounded Ocks body.
The pony threw his head to the side and Otto's body was slammed into a brick wall, cracking his bones as he impacted. Otto bit down hard to keep himself from crying out in pain before he was whipped into the wall opposite of him. He vision began to blacken as he crashed down onto the cement, pain lancing through him as he tasted blood.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the unicorn's horn begin to glow once again and knew that he didn't have that much more in him. 'Another energy attack might finish me off. I need to end this now.' He felt his hoof brush against a trash can lid and a thought came to him. 'I may not have fingers, but if I still retain Parker's powers...'
Otto focused once more and felt his hoof fasten to the lid of the trash can. The moment it was attached he flung it toward the unicorn, who was unable to catch onto what Otto was doing until it was too late. The trash can lid slammed into the side of the pony's head, snapping it to the side slightly and giving Otto his opening. He pushed through the pain and lunged forward, driving his forhoof into the thugs face with as much force as he could must.
The strength of the punch caved in the thugs skull and a sickening crunch could be heard as he fell over without another sound. Otto crashed onto the cement next to him, panting heavily as the pain came flooding back. Otto then turned his head to the side to see the mare he rescued outlined in the pouring rain.
"A...little...help?" he asked her. Instead of helping him, she picked up her bag and ran off as fast as she could, leaving Ock alone in his pain. "I figure...that I deserve that one." Otto then crawled himself over to the nearest wall, leaning up against it as he clutched a hoof to his side and seethed with pain. 'My first day after I die and I very well might die again. Are there layers to this afterlife? Or am I simply going to suffer as a failure for the rest of eternity?'
Octavius decided to stop thinking and rested his head against the brick wall that he had become acquainted with, closing his eyes as the throbbing of the pain quickly blocked out his thoughts. The cold that had begun to take hold of him did not help matters and every few minutes he would sneeze, causing the pain to flare up once again. Time passed as he sat against the wall in the downpour, but while he didn't know how many minutes passed he did know at one point the rain seemed to stop.
'But I can still hear it, so why...?' he wondered slightly as he opened his eyes to find another pony standing over him, holding an umbrella over his head to keep the rain from falling onto him. She had a blue and white mane with a flower in it and there was a tie around her neck. But what drew Otto's eyes were the kindness that blazed in the mares eyes as she looked down at him, the kindness and the sympathy within them.
"Are you alright, sir?" the mare asked with sympathy in every word.
'I...haven't seen a person look at me with such kindness and sympathy...since...Anna...' Otto thought before he closed his eyes and everything went black.