PIECES OF ME

Part III

By Tobias Christopher

Spider-Man had been dogpiled by several of students from Midtown High, all of whom had gained spider-powers thanks to Norman Osborn. Osborn had also given the students a dose of goblin serum to make them go insane and trash the city, all in an effort to strike at Peter Parker.

“I can’t hurt these kids,” Spider-Man said to himself as he tried to get away from the students. “I know most of these kids. I pass them in the hallways every day at school. None of them are psychotic like this. I need to get this problem contained so a cure can be found for them.”

Just then, a gym whistle was blown as Spider-Man and the students looked up to see Flash standing there.

“Alright maggots, line up!” Flash shouted, getting into gym teacher mode. “This isn’t how my students act!”

“Flash, get out of here!” Spider-Man shouted. “These kids aren’t in their right mind!”

“They’re still my students and I’m not letting them act like hooligans!” Flash replied as the students stood up and got ready to attack. “You think you can take me, bring it on!”

“He’s lost his mind,” Spider-Man said as he got up and watched Flash take down all eight students without hurting any of them. Once they were all on the ground, Flash looked at them.

“Take a lap, then hit the showers,” Flash told them as Spider-Man quickly webbed them to the ground.

“How did you do that?” asked Spider-Man.

“I’m a military man, it’s what I do,” Flash replied. “Now, why are my students acting like this?”

“I’m still not clear on that, but it has something to do with flu shots,” Spider-Man told him. “Apparently almost every student at Midtown High received one today.”

“Not everyone,” Flash told him. “I know two who weren’t there.”

Spider-Man remembered A.J. and Drew had been absent. “I have to go, you find those two students and keep them safe. Have A.J. and Drew find the other students who weren’t infected!”

Spider-Man extended a line of webbing and took off as Flash pulled out his cell phone, seeing A.J. had left him a message. “I hope you’re all right, kid.”

A.J. reached the Oscorp building and snuck past the guards at the front desk, who were too busy reading the evening edition of the Daily Bugle to pay attention to the teenager who was there late at night.

Reaching the first security door, A.J. reached into his pocket and pulled out the security pass he’d somehow acquired earlier in the day. He’d have to remember to return it when this was all over. He got through the door and started looking for the pharmaceutical department.

“Jordan seemed to be pretty level headed earlier in the evening,” Spider-Man said as he continued to head through the city, looking for more students as he heard his cell phone’s ringtone start sounding. “If he couldn’t keep control, then I doubt any of these kids can.”

“X-Men, X-Men, This is the day! X-Men, X-Men, Coming Your Way!”

“Hello?” Spider-Man said as he picked up his cell phone.

“Dude, what the hell?” Ben asked as he looked at the news report at Aunt May’s house. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I tried, you had your cell phone shut off,” Spider-Man told him. “I had mine off, too, otherwise I’d have had this thing pieced together by now. While I was chasing down false leads, A.J. found out that it was a flu shot that infected everyone.”

“So where did the flu shots come from?” Ben asked as he got into costume.

“I don’t know, the kid turned off his cell phone,” Spider-Man told him. “I’m trying to contain as many of these kids as I can so I don’t have time to follow his trail. I’m hoping that Flash can find him before he gets into trouble.”

“I’m on the way to help,” Ben said as he pulled his mask on.

“I need you go to the ESU lab and work on a cure,” Spider-Man told him. “Maybe we can reverse engineer a cure from a sample of the flu shot. They might still have some left over at the school.”

“How many students do we need to cure?”

“. . . Over a hundred?”

There was a brief pause on Ben’s end. “I really hate our life.”

Drew was looking through the pictures he’d taken with his camera before he dropped them off at the Bugle. He’d taken some pretty good shots, including some of Spider-Man being attacked by some of the spider-powered students.

“Jameson’s going to love these,” Drew said as he stopped on one picture. He looked closer and saw a woman in the background. He zoomed in and couldn’t believe his eyes. “It can’t be . . . Mom?”

“Drew, I’m going out to look for A.J.,” Flash said as he looked in on Drew. “The last voice message he left said he was heading toward the high school.”

“It’s midnight, what’s he doing at the school?” Drew asked.

“I don’t know, but it might have to do with all these kids who suddenly have spider-powers,” Flash told him. “While I’m getting A.J. I need you to find all your friends who haven’t been affected by this.”

“I’m on it,” Drew told him. “Just bring A.J. home safe.”

“I will,” Flash promised as he headed for the door.

As Flash headed outside, the Hobgoblin was waiting on his glider to follow him.

Spider-Man was continuing to go through the city, trying to stop as many of the kids as he could, but it seemed like for every six kids he put down, twelve more took their place.

“This is getting hopeless,” Spider-Man said as his cell phone started ringing again. “Hello?”

“Pete, it’s Ben,” Ben told him. “That strain in the flu shots? I managed to isolate it. It’s . . . goblin serum.”

“Goblin serum? That mean’s our old buddy Osborn’s behind this,” Spider-Man said as he held the phone with one hand, while flipping a student to the ground with the other. “How’s that cure coming?”

“It’s getting there, I’ve almost got it, but finding a cure for both our powers and goblin juice and getting them to work together isn’t easy,” Ben told him.

“Just keep going, you’re the only chance these kids have,” Spider-Man told him. “I’m going to pay Normie a visit and maybe find a way to stop this at the source.”

“Man, supervillains have the worst security,” A.J. said as he found the secret lab underneath Oscorp. “Why would he have the flu shots made in a secret underground lab?”

A.J. snuck in and looked around, seeing the three vats: the red one, the green one and the purple one that combined the two. He got closer and kneeled down to look inside the red tank.

“What is that stuff?” A.J. asked as he was hit in the head from behind, sending him to the ground as he hit his head on the floor. Gwyneth stood over him with a pipe in her hand, ready to strike again. As A.J. rolled over, he felt his forehead bleeding and, as he looked up at her, he recognized her immediately. It was his step-mother. “Mom?”

Osborn was continuing to watch the news when he sensed something on the balcony.

“Come in, Spider-Man,” Osborn told him without turning around. “Care for a drink?”

“What have you done to my students?” Spider-Man asked angrily.

“I’ve given them a gift,” Osborn smirked as he turned around. “I’ve shared the best of both of our worlds with them.”

“You’ve turned them insane!” Spider-Man shouted as he quickly pinned Osborn to the wall with his arm under the man’s throat. “They’re tearing up the city!”

“Yes, well, we can’t all have an Uncle Ben to dispatch sage advice to keep them in check, can we?” Osborn told him.

“You monster, I’ll–” Spider-Man started to say as Osborn started laughing.

“You’ll what, kill me?” Osborn asked. “You and I both know that you won’t go that far. Let’s skip our usual dance and get right to the point of why you’re here. You want to save your students. Well, the truth is that you can’t.”

“You are so full of it, I’ve got a cure being reverse engineered right now,” Spider-Man told him. “And once I do, we’ll trace this whole mess back to you and bring you down.”

“I don’t believe you will,” Osborn told him. “The flu shots were only distributed by OsCorp. They were manufactured by an independent company that has no relation to my company. They’ll be held responsible for the deaths.”

“Deaths?” Spider-Man asked as he stepped back.

“You see, that’s a special strain of goblin serum I had made just for your friends,” Osborn told him with a psychotic grin. “It’s designed to speed up the heart rate after a few hours in their system. Come dawn, every student at Midtown High is going to drop dead from heart failure.”

“You psychotic monster!” Spider-Man shouted as he went to punch Osborn, who caught his fist in his hand and squeezed, cracking his knuckles with his goblin strength.

“Compliments will get you nowhere,” Osborn said as he punched Spider-Man back onto the floor. He picked Spider-Man up and tossed him across the room. He jumped across the room to where Spider-Man had landed, grabbed him by the leg and smashed him into the wall. “This is just the beginning, Mr. Parker. Losing your precious students is only the start of the hell I have planned for you.”

As Spider-Man started to stand up, Osborn punched in the stomach and sent him crashing through a table. “I see that this situation is catching you quite off guard. What’s the matter? Spider sense not focused enough to fight back now that several dozen young lives are at stake? No matter, I’m only letting you live because I find it so very amusing to watch you squirm. If I wanted you dead, you’d already be six feet under. But you’re just a hobby to me . . . something I sit back and laugh at because I find your existence so truly hilarious.”

Spider-Man stood up, dazed as Osborn lifted him by the neck. “Go, try to save your students if you can. I’ll be waiting for you to come back, Parker, so I can kick your ass all over again.”

Osborn laughed as he tossed Spider-Man out of the window before adjusting his jacket and tie. “That was fun.”

Flash had turned nothing up at the high school and was on his way out when he heard a laughing coming from above.

“What the–” Flash said as a smoke grenade landed in front of him. He started coughing as he fell to his knees, unable to see anything. Hobgoblin came up from behind and grabbed Flash by his hair, pulling his head back.

“I don’t know what you did to piss of Norman Osborn, but I don’t really care,” Hobgoblin said as he jammed the needle of serum into Flash’s neck. As Flash passed out, Hobgoblin let him go, letting him fall face first onto the concrete. “Sweet dreams, jerkhole.”

“Mom?” A.J. asked as he tried to crawl away. “It can’t be–”

Gwyneth brought the pipe down on A.J.’s back, sending him to the ground.

“I’m not your mother, you little brat,” Gwyneth told him. “You were never my son, you were just a clingy, worthless bastard. I had to put up with you because I cared for your father, at least until he started drinking. I couldn’t take it anymore so I left. I meant to come back for Drew, but I had other things that I had to take care of and couldn’t bring him with me, so I had to leave him behind.”

A.J. tried to get up as the pipe was brought down on him again.

“I don’t know how you found this place, but that doesn’t really matter,” Gwyneth said as she picked up A.J. by the hair. “You’re never leaver leaving this place alive.”

Gwyneth dragged A.J. over to one of the chemical vats and dunked his head into it, holding him underwater to drown him.