Along Came A Spider

by Onomonopia

The Good Doctor

The Beast snarled in frustration as he leapt out of the way of one of the metal tendrils, only to be swatted in the back by a second one. He flipped in the air and landed on his hooves, but the moment he did so a tendril wrapped itself around his leg and hoisted him back into the air, before slamming him into the ground repeatedly. The Beast kicked himself free of the tendril and leapt out of range of the metal limbs, whole snarling at the smirking face of the doctor controlling them.

"I will admit Otto that I did not expect this out of you," the satyr snarled at Otto while also trying to figure out how the metal limbs worked, all the while staying out of range. "I always thought that you were the one that would continue upon a certain idea until you perfected it. So why give up on your mechanical suit and try these arms? Because the suit was the only chance that you had to defeat me."

"The metal suit was impressive, even by my standards, but with these limbs you can say that I'm...going back to what has worked," Otto admitted with a smile as he slowly began to crawl towards the Beast. "The spider powers never really did it for, especially since they were never mine to begin with. But these artificial limbs? These right here have never failed me. Allow me to show you why!"

The limbs launched themselves towards the science reject who launched himself into the air to avoid the limbs. He began to fire webbing onto the limbs, trying to tie them together so that Otto would not be able to use them. But even as the webbing stuck the limbs together, Otto smiled before he pressed a button on his back. Energy erupted from the tentacles and incinerated the webbing, getting a snarl out of the Beast before he leapt back to avoid another strike.

While the two battled with each other, all Coco could do was watch from the sidelines with fear in her eyes. She had every faith in that Otto would win, but with the Beast wielding the spider powers she still feared for his life. But then she heard the sound of something moving beside her and she glanced over to see a tiny, mechanical spider beginning to cut away at the webbing.

'By now my spider bot should be cutting Coco free of the webbing,' Otto calculated as the tendrils moved him out of the way of a shot of webbing, but he found that unlike all of his previous battles with spider beings, he had almost been struck even though he was at a distance. 'But these limbs are not as efficient as the ones back on Earth. I can only hope they hold out long enough.'

But even as he thought this one of the limbs missed their target and sailed by the Beast's head, causing the satyr to smile before he slammed his fist into the metal limb. Otto snarled as the limb was completely severed, causing the top part to fall to the ground and wiggle for a moment before it went limp. Otto pulled back his tendril to find that it was sparking and beyond damaged, meaning that he was down to three of his metal limbs.

Sensing that Otto had been placed at a disadvantage, the Beast lunged forward and pressed his attack, forcing Otto to play defensive as he tried to dodge both spider enhanced strikes and the webbing that the Beast kept spewing at him. One of the limbs wasn't fast enough to get out of the way of a kick and the metal was dented by the force of the blow. Otto growled before the satyr grabbed hold of the limb and tore it clean from the metallic pack on Otto's back, forcing him to shield his eyes as sparks erupted from the pack.

"Seems that your tried and true method was not as strong as you believe," the Beast mocked Otto as the doctor lowered himself to the ground, switching his limbs around so that he was standing on his hooves and using the metal limbs as his weapons. "While they may have caught me off guard at first, I have adapted to them. Tell me Otto, did you ever best the real Spiderman with these limbs?"

"...no," Otto admitted before he thrust the two limbs at the Beast at the same time, trying to attack him from both sides. But just like all others with the spider powers, the Beast was able to moved out of the way before webbing the two limbs together. Otto snarled as he reached behind him and activated the energy, but the moment he did so the Beast fired a blast of webbing into Otto's chest with such force that the scientist was launched across the ground.

"Then what makes you think that you can beat me?" the Beast mocked Otto as he leapt out of the way of the limbs as they grabbed at him, leaping through their attack and closing the distance to Otto. He forced himself back up to his hooves just in time to see the satyr wind up a punch that held every last ounce of spider strength in it. Otto managed to retract one of his limbs just in time to take the blow for him, but even though the limb shielded him from the blow it also tore the metal limb clean from his pack.

"And then there was one," the Beast smirked as Otto scampered backwards and retracted his last limb over to him, teeth gritted as he tried to think of a possibility that would aid him in the battle. "But you haven't answered my question, Octavius. If your weapons failed to defeat the true Spiderman, then how can they ever hope to best me?"

"The same way I survived all of those battles with Spiderman. I find a way to prevail," Otto spat back as he glanced over at where Coco was, a smile crossing his face when he saw that the mare was practically free. The Beast followed his gaze and his eyes went wide when he saw the mare escaping from his webs, causing him to snarl as he took aim at the freed captive. Knowing that was how the Beast would react, Otto thrust his last limb at the Beast knowing full well that he wouldn't have time to dodge. That was until the Beast did dodge it.

"Fool. I have the spider sense," the Beast reminded Otto as he spun around and fired a shot that struck Otto in the side of the shoulder and sent him spiraling off to the side. He growled in pain as he tried to tear the webbing off of his shoulder, before realizing that the blow had knocked the pack off of his back. The metal limb lay motionless ten feet away from him, but as he glanced over his shoulder and saw the Beast charging towards him he knew that he needed to get to his arm.

A strand of webbing wrapped itself around his leg and yanked him away from his pack, swinging him around before slamming him into the side of the metal tower. Otto cried out in pain as he fell to the ground, where he could feel his bones blazing in agony every time he moved.

'Heh, haven't felt this kind of pain in a long time,' Otto thought with a smirk as he recalled the time he had his bones broken against Spiderman. He shook his head to banish the memories and he glanced over at the Beast to see him marching towards Otto, a smile of victory beneath his mask.

"You've been a worthy opponent, I will give you that much," the Beast said as he picked Otto up by the back of his mane and yanked him to his hooves, getting a growl of pain out of Otto as he glared into the masked face of the satyr. "But in the end, a fool that believes himself a genius can't beat one who is genetically engineered to be the best. Mind over matter, wouldn't you say?"

"You are right. You are stronger than me, more creative than me and...slightly less intelligent than me," Otto replied with a smirk that drew a laugh from the satyr before he wrapped his hands around Otto's throat. "But there is one thing I have with me that you will never have. Something that I have taken for granted for so long."

"And what would that be?" The Beast asked before a metal tendril slammed into the back of his head and sent the satyr flying across the arena, allowing Otto to fall over. Yet before he could hit the ground the tendril picked him up and pulled him over to the mare that was now wearing the metal pack, giving Otto a warm smile that he had come to expect from her.

"Friends. I have friends," Otto finished as he leaned against Coco for support, getting a snarl out of the Beast as he rose to his hooves and began to march towards the pair. But the moment he crossed under the tower that he had made a stallion leapt down from above and landed elbow first onto the Beast. He roared with rage as he swung an arm at whoever who had attacked him, only for his blow to be deflected by the stallion before he punched the satyr in the face.

"Hear that, Coco? All it takes to call us his friends is for us to save his life while the city burns!" Stonewall said with a laugh before he coughed in pain and walked over to the other two. The Beast slowly rose to his hooves with confusion on his face as he stared down at his hand, wondering what was happening.

"Those attacks...I wasn't warned about them," the Beast muttered as he glanced up at Otto, who had the largest and most evil looking smile upon his face. "What did you do to me? You didn't inject me with anything nor did you negate my powers! What did you do?"

"Beast...I have spent a majority of my life battling with the Spiderman. I have been beaten, bloodied, crippled and even killed in my battles with him," Otto admitted with a small chuckle before he removed his glasses and allowed the Beast to look into his eyes. "So you know that for damn sure that I have tried every trick in the book, every counter to him and his powers that I could to beat him. Now, I could never kill him as he had that infernal Peter luck. But you? You have no such luck. And because of that, you have lost."

"But you haven't beaten me! My monsters still roam the city, bringing down all that-!" The Beast stopped his ranting when he heard and explosion of magic, causing him to look up to see an alicorn the color of the moon fly overhead, firing blasts of magic down into the streets with a look of victory upon her face.

"Really? Because I don't hear those monsters winning anymore," Otto said with a small chuckle as he slipped his glasses over his eyes. "See, I may not have been the greatest of heroes when I was Spiderman, but from both my adventures as Spiderman and my time here, I have learned the value of allies. Such as these two you see beside me. Or the Ambassadors and princesses, who I sent a letter to a few hours before I confronted you. Telling them how to beat your monsters and what to expect when they attacked here."

"But why would they listen to you?!"

"They wouldn't listen to Doctor Octopus. But they would listen to the Spider. After all," Otto said with a weak laugh. "I hear that guy's a hero."

The Beasts eyes seemed to glow through his mask and he took a few more steps towards Otto, his seething rage blinding him to the fact that his body wasn't responding as well as it once was. "Do you think that any of this matters to me? I did not claw my way through dozens of my breather just to be beaten by an arrogant scientist that believed himself to be a hero! I will still find a way to prevail! I will create a thousand more monsters if I have to! I...I...?"

The Beast's body the shuddered before he fell to the ground, looking at his hands as he watched as his vision began to go blurry. He then looked up at Otto, who had a pained look on his face. But beneath the pain was an emotion that the Beast had never thought to see on somepony who was looking at him. There was compassion on Otto's face.

"What did you do to me?" the Beast asked Otto as he felt his whole body began to tremble, as his muscles stopped listening to him and he felt his strength draining away. Otto let out a sigh as he stopped leaning on Coco and he walked over to the Beast, sitting down in front of him and placing a hoof on his shoulder.

"That smoke that you believed that I used to simply blind you? It was a toxin. A toxin designed to kill anyone with spider powers," Otto admitted to the Beast, whose eyes widened with horror before he gazed down at his body again. "Parker was able to survive it thanks to his friends saving him and creating an antidote for it. But you have no such friends. And no such way to create the antidote. That it what I meant by you had lost. You lost from the moment you breathed it in."

The Beast gazed down at himself for a moment, before he threw his head back and laughed for a moment until the laugh turned into terrible coughing. "I see. So from the moment I took the spider powers for myself, I was already doomed. But then why did you hide for so long? Why not just confront me with the poison and kill me?"

"...Because you did win for a little while. When I was bested, I simply saw myself as the failure, as the hero that had only failed once again. I had lost the battle, my closest friend and my powers. I thought that I had lost everything," Otto said before he glanced over his shoulder at Coco and Stonewall. "But then a friend reminded me that it was not the powers that made me, but what I did with them. And it reminded me that I had already achieved so much before I ever had the idea to steal Parker's body and powers."

"I...see...but then why does the poison not bother you? I did not rid you of the powers, I only suppressed them."

"Because I know how to make the antidote," Otto reminded the satyr before gazing up as another princess flew by. "With great power comes great responsibility. Words that I will carry with me until I finally die. They defined so many moments in both Parker's life and my life. To use your powers for the benefit of others. To help those without the need for reward or thanks. To save lives...no matter what."

"A nice notion. But surely even you would not be dumb enough to save a monster like me."

"You are right. An intelligent person would let you die and be done with it. And I am an intelligent person."

"Then let me die. have your victory. You have finally proven that you are superior."

Otto then stared at the satyr for a moment before he slammed his hoof into the nose of the of the satyr, knocking him flat on his back and sending him off to dream land. As Coco and Stonewall walked over to Otto, he slipped a vial out of his pocket and emptied the liquid into the mouth of the Beast. After a moment his breathing eased and his muscles seemed to relax, allowing Otto to sigh as he stood up in pain.

"That was kind of you...saving him," Coco said as she walked up to Otto, resting her head on his shoulder as the two of them gazed up at the open sky.

"He is a victim of those who are so similar to me. A monster born from the desires of those who care nothing for life," Otto explained as he glanced down at his own hoof, a smile crossing his face. "But he was still a living being. He deserved to be shown mercy. And I have spent so much of my life simply taking. Simply acting out of my best interest. If I am to be the hero that they see me as...and to be the hero I wish for me to be, then it is time that I stop taking and learn to give."

"Y'know, for a moment there you actually looked like a hero," Stonewall said with a small chuckle as he walked up beside the both of them, joining them as the gazed at the sky, watching as the Ambassadors took down the rest of the army of monsters.

"I find that humorous. Because for a moment there, I actually felt like one."

"The superior hero?" Coco asked.

"...No. I do not wish to be the superior hero. I just wish to be a good one."

Comments

[Amethyst Blade]

Hmmm....Great chapter.

[ConfettiColored]

static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Awww+yeah+son_dae4f2_4016287.jpg

[Friday Knight]

And like that, Doctor Octopus has prevailed against Spider-Satyr

[Voltaje]

Yepperoni Macarroni

[Jonny Bench]

Looks like the good doctor finally managed to beat the spider.

[Animatorsnake]

So what happens now, does Otto take the powers from the Beast and seal or destroy them so they can't be misused by anyone?