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The Revolving Door2,665 words
Coco2,913 words
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Serpents

Otto had always been quick for vengeance and time after time it had caused a normally perfectly prepared plan to fall apart. Today was no exception. He had been so determined to make Cherry Bomb pay (who he had no doubt was guilty of the atrocity) that he had not bothered to ask for directions to where her place of business was. With no leads at the moment, he landed on the side of a building and glanced around at the citizens below him who glowed orange in the setting sun.

'I cannot go back and ask, especially after how quickly I rushed out of there,' Spiderman thought as he climbed up onto the corner of the building and hunched over like a gargoyle, narrowing his eyes beneath the mask as he thought. 'However, perhaps I am not entirely without leads. There was that place that I went to pick up Coco's machines. I will start there.'

Webbing shot forth from the wrist of the spider and he began to swing through the city, with his near perfect mind remembering exactly how he had made it to the shop the first time. He did not bother trying to remain hidden while he swung and every once in a while he heard a pony exclaim down below. He paid them little mind as he swung towards his destination, but upon reaching the corner where the store was located he found that someone or thing had beat him to them.

The doors to the store had been torn off their hinges and numerous ponies in cop attire had formed a blockade around the front of the store. Spiderman could feel his skull tingling slightly when he gazed into the store, telling him that there was indeed something very dangerous within the store. Then he saw the edge of a pool of blood and he realized that the situation was far more dangerous than he had believed.

'It is clear that I am needed here. But I have no clue of what is going on,' Otto thought as he glanced down at the cops, who seemed to have no interest of going into the store themselves. A small battle waged between his pride and his desire to know more, but the desire won out and he swung down next to the cops. The citizens and cops alike both gasp as he landed perfectly next to the officer in charge, who Otto had managed to pick out of the group due to the larger badge on their chest.

"What is going on here?" he asked in a no-nonsense tone, while giving the officer a look even with the mask that told he was not to be messed with.

"W-we're not entirely sure ourselves, Mr. Spider," the officer stammered out in an annoying tone that made Otto grind his teeth. "Honestly, we've never had anything like this happen in the city before. There's a lot of bodies in there and the cops we send in don't come back out. None of us want to go in there."

"To protect and serve, eh? Out of my way, I will deal with this," Spiderman snarled as he pushed the fool out of his way and marched into the storefront. While the officer had been blabbering about nothing of use, Spiderman had been scanning the visible part of the store and found no officers laying in a pool of their blood. 'No, whatever caused this has moved deeper into the store, probably where the magic users cannot pester it. Let us see what manner of creature did this.'

Spiderman was cautious to avoid the pools of blood as he walked into the place, but after glancing around to see more bodies than he had originally counted, he leapt onto the ceiling and began his advance from there. With his vantage point he looked through the aisles of the store, with no sign as to what had done all of this.

Yet after a moment one of the bodies provided a clue. Spiderman spied a body that had a blue coat, but the face and neck of the poor pony was white. He lowered himself down next to the body on a thread of webbing, where he could get an up close look without blooding his suit.

His eyes glanced over the strange coloring of the pony's face then to the slight bits of foam that was leaking from the pony's mouth, before glancing at the way the pony's limbs were contorted. He gently rolled the pony over to see that two large puncture marks were on the pony's neck, with red coloring around each of them. With narrowed eyes Spiderman pulled himself back up the web and moved onto the next pony, who had a similar puncture wound inflicted upon them.

'This is either the work of a venomous creature or one of those damned vampires,' Spiderman reasoned before he looked at the large quantity of blood that was on the floor. 'And the vampires that I have fought or killed generally do not waste this much blood. Venomous beast it is and from the looks of the bite marks a snake like one at that. Perhaps it is another of those abominations that have been plaguing the city.'

Movement snapped the spider out of his thoughts and he whipped himself around on his strand of web to see a door leading into the back rooms slowly moving. It had not been moving when he had entered and for a brief second Spiderman cursed himself for not staying hidden better. With the element of surprise gone he crawled over to the door and gingerly pushed it open.

When his spider sense didn't blare, he slipped to the floor and walked into the backroom as quietly as he could. Yet his stealth was impeded slightly by the fact that his hooves made muffled sounds every time he took a step. His spider sense began to tingle slightly and Spiderman knew that whatever had done this was now watching him. He walked amongst the multiple tables filled with machinery and glanced around, but it wasn't until he walked out into the most open area of the room that he finally confronted the beast.

"I know that you are there watching me. And if you have an ounce of intelligence, then you will know that this is your best chance to kill me. So what are you waiting for?" Spiderman asked into the quiet of the room. "Come and get me."

Warning bells rang in Spiderman's head and on instinct alone he leapt into the air to avoid whatever had alerted his senses. A half second later a massive, grey colored creature covered in scales rocketed underneath of him. It cleaved a table in two with its body before slithering off into the shadows of the room, which Spiderman just now realized wasn't fully lit.

'It seems to be an ambush creature,' Spiderman deduced as he leapt up onto the ceiling and began to scan the room. 'Most likely able to sense me even the dark. Hiding would be pointless. Until I know what it can do my best bet is to keep it at a distance and-'

The sense blared once more and Spiderman tossed himself off of the ceiling in time to avoid the beast of scales and claws. He spun in the air and fired twin strands of webbing that pinned the creature to the ceiling, allowing Spiderman a moment to take in his foe.

The beast was a mix between a serpent and a porcupine, giving it a serpents like body with all of its scales sticking out like razor blades. Within a few seconds of struggling the beast sliced through the webbing and feel to the floor in front of Octavius, who narrowed his eyes under the mask as the beast slowly turned an armored head towards him.

This time Otto didn't need his spider sense to leap out of the way, as he saw the tail whip coming from a mile away. He leapt back onto a table only to kick off once more as the snake monster slashed through the table with his tail. As he landed on the wall Otto noticed that the table hadn't been broken by the force of the strike, but sliced clean in two by the razor sharp scales.

'And it's entire body is covered head to toe in those scales,' Otto snarled as the creature slithered back into the darkness once more, leaving Otto to lower himself back to the floor. 'It slices through my webbing and I am certain that any sort of physical assault would put me at a most disadvantageous position. I need to think of a way to-'

The creature sprung forth from the shadows once more and tried to slice through Otto with its scales, but once more the spider sense warned Otto ahead of time and he had already thrown himself out of the way. A frustrated hiss escaped the beasts armored mouth before it tried to slink into the darkness once more, but this time Otto turned and fired a strand of webbing onto the tail of the snake. He knew that it wouldn't last long, but he knew the strength of the webbing would last long enough.

"Not this time," Otto promised the beast as he pulled the monster back with all of his might, which was more than enough to yank the snake back over towards Spiderman. With the creature momentarily stopped, Spiderman picked up one of the machines being repaired and slammed it into the monsters armored face. The piece of junk broke apart almost immediately, but when the snake hissed with pain Otto knew he had scored a hit.

Not one to let the spider get the upper hoof, the snake creature spun around and lashed out with a pair of fangs that sent the spider sense into overdrive. Otto snapped his head to the side to avoid being bitten, but his swift dodge temporarily left him off-balance. Sensing his opponents momentary slip up, the snake spun and slashed at Spiderman with his tail.

"GRAH!" Spiderman roared as the tail raked across his chest and shredded both his suit and his chest. Otto staggered back with pain flooding his mind, but the pain gave into rage a moment later and Spiderman threw himself towards the snake with nothing but wrath. He slammed his hoof into the face of the monster with such force that the scales shattered upon impact, but the blow had the unfortunate side effect of shredding Otto's right hoof.

Gritting his teeth to ignore the pain, Spiderman pressed his attack by following up with an uppercut to the bottom of the snakes jaw. The snakes head was snapped back by the force of the blow, while Spiderman cried out in pain as his left hoof was now sliced.

'Wait a moment...I am an idiot!' Otto roared within his mind before he took aim at his left hoof with his right and fired his hardening webbing around his hoof. After it hardened Spiderman smirked at the protection he had made for his hoof, before he tested it out by driving the webbed hoof into the jaw of the snake. The webbing was shredded by the impact of the blow, but as the scales did not touch him Otto was able to hit the beast with full force.

The impact of the punch sent the snake flying across the room and into one of the walls, where it let out a weak hiss as it slid down. Sensing that his foe was weak, Spiderman flung himself towards the beast with the desire to finish it off in a single blow. Yet as he sailed through the air his spider sense blared once more, but not in time. The snake swung it's head towards Otto and fired two blasts of venom into his exposed chest, causing Spiderman to collapse to the ground as an unending agony tore through his body.

The pain was far beyond anything that Otto had ever felt before, aside from the few times that he had nearly died. His body convulsed as spasms of pain racked his body, with every nerve in his body feeling like it was on fire. He cried out with bellows of agony as he writhed on the ground, barely able to feel his spider sense over the raging of the pain.

"Such an easy kill," the snake whispered as it slowly began to slither towards Spiderman, who was far too gone in the pain to focus on his foe. The serpent open it's mouth far beyond what it's jaw should have been able to achieve, its fangs glistening in the faint light as it prepared to bite down on the spider. "The master was so certain that you would prove to be a challenge. He will be most disappointed."

Otto could barely think through the pain as the fangs got closer to his face, unable to move as the pain continued to prevent him from moving. But despite his body unable to respond, the mind of Octavius was still functioning and he was not ready to die again just yet.

'This will either work...or get me killed once more,' Otto concluded, but then remembered all of his battles with Spiderman over the years. 'No, if this body has a fifth of the resilience that Parker's does, then I will survive. He has been poisoned before and lived. And I will as well.'

"Of course he would be disappointed," Otto spat out weakly, but he made sure that he sounded as cocky as possible. Just as he had predicted, the sheer arrogance in his tone caused the snake to stop its attack and cock its head with interest. "He will be disappointed in himself. If it is so easy to kill me, then that means he is a true failure. If he wasn't, then his first monster would have kill me. Hell, his second was designed to kill me and it failed. If you ask me, not killing me himself shows that he has to rely on others to do his job. How pathetic."

"You stalling," the snake said to Spiderman, who said nothing in reply but instead focused on using all of his mental strength to apply his adhesive ability. "It not save you. Now you will die."

The snake then lashed out with its fangs, but in a swift blur of motion Spiderman's arm shot out and drove a fragment of the snakes armor through his mouth and out of the back of the snakes head. A small gurgle escaped the beasts lips before it collapsed to the ground dead, leaving Spiderman to fall over in weariness and pain.

"I...just needed...a few more moments...for the blood to leave my body" Otto boasted to the corpse of the snake. "That venom of yours...hit a spot where all my blood was leaving my body. So not all of it was absorbed into my blood stream. Thankfully you were too stupid to outright kill me and instead listened to my monologue, buying me just enough time. Another win...for me."

Otto then webbed up his chest and forced himself to stand back up, the sheer resilience of his spider powers helping him to move. He staggered out towards the front entrance, knowing that the reporters were going to have a field day with how he looked.

'But more importantly, I need to get back to the boutique before I can be capture. The last thing I want to do with my second chance on life is spend it behind bars.'

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