Going Native
Spider-Man was ignoring calls and grateful that he was already in the habit of silencing his phones. In the time that he had been listening to the conversation, he found several things that he could use to his advantage, including the fact that one of the men was Sandman, as he had feared, and the other unidentified bull boy was calling himself ‘Rhino’. He tended to be more independent than other villains, but it was easy to see why both of them were working with Electro. It had already crossed his mind that he could turn a fire hydrant bolt with his bare hands and redirect the water into the basement, using it as a conductor. Unfortunately, both of the enemies were basically immune to their partner’s electricity. Sandman was not going to be harmed in the slightest and the Rhino had apparently run through powerlines before without any issue. That might be his armor, though. I can’t estimate how effective it would be while he wears none. If I tried to use Electro’s powers against him, there’s the risk that he dies in the process.
Though he suspected that his approach to fighting the agents of injustice was more violent than Parker’s, especially when it came to normal humans, since the paper was surprised at the amount of people he had injured in the drug bust, he knew it was not like him to drop bodies, which was something of a relief. He had been concerned that the entire time he had occupied the costume, he was just playing the part of a hero, but perhaps he was already something close to that.
The villains left and went their separate ways, leaving him to decide which one to follow.
Electro was not the brains of the operation; though he was clever enough, he was too much of a team player and got pushed around by Rhino, who was used to being independent. At the same time, it made the most sense to go after the one who had just broken parole because he had stolen the glider and Spider-Man already had a reason to know that he was out on the streets. Without him, the others have to recalibrate their plans significantly. They had planned a three-pronged assault on Oscorp that probably would have killed hundreds of people.
Going up to the roof, he stole the glider back and waited for his enemies to surface on the rooftop of a nearby building. Electro would most likely give up on the mode of transportation, but he would be concerned that an old enemy of his might have found out what he was doing there. It made sense to wait and see how the three of them would react.
Sandman left first, and, noticing no irregularities, walked off to the north. He knew that he could mark the direction, but there was a good chance that his enemy was simply walking to get to some form of public transportation, so there was no guarantee that he would find him by looking that way later.
“Where in all the fiery hells is my glider?” Electro asked as soon as he came out of the front business. Spider-Man supposed that the business might not be entirely a front, but that was how they were using it. He also noticed that the parole breaker’s diction changed, not for the first time. It seemed he was content to spend half the time speaking like the others, and the other half speaking like a strange, nineteenth century poet, or rather, a character from a poem.
“I don’t know,” Rhino said. “You came here on a glider?”
“I stole it from Spider-Man. I have reason, frightfully certain reason, to believe he has taken up my trail. Has he followed me hither?”
“This is the wrong part of town. I coulda stolen your glider.”
“You could have, perhaps. Either the Goblin or the Spider, however, installed an electric security measure. It was a surprise, but nothing noxious to me.”
If the verbiage of the message was difficult for the Rhino to decode, the intent was the opposite. At the same time, the other villain shrugged. It makes sense for him to demonstrate a lack of concern.
“We can do it without your glider. You didn’t even bring it up when we were making plans.”
“My primary reason for absconding with it was to retard Spider-Man. If someone else has stolen it, I may yet have succeeded. In either case, no flying apparatus will save him from my electricity.”
That was true enough. Even if he could not use his powers to levitate, bolts of lightning were almost impossible to avoid, even with the early warning system inherent to his arachnid abilities. It was bizarre to him how it was even possible, but then, there was also the Sorcerer Supreme living in Greenwich Village. He had been advised to contact the master of the mystic arts regarding his current predicament, but he was in the middle of a job and he had never wanted to rely on something he could not understand.
The villains in front of him separated without another word. I have roused Electro’s suspicions. I should be careful not to follow him too closely. This time, however, I have him in my sight.
Without making a sound, he crawled along the side of the building where he had hidden the glider, touching the next with his outstretched fingertips and carrying himself to its edge rather than jumping. He doubted that the enemy had superhuman senses, but if anyone saw him, the parole breaker would probably spin around and fry him before he could do anything. He had to avoid an open confrontation, for his own safety if not for that of the people still on the streets at that time of night.
Electro appeared to be unobservant, but that was easy to fake; he did it all the time when not in costume. It was refreshing to put it on, now that he thought of it, it was a chance to test the limits of his abilities and fight. It was probably not a terrible shock to anyone that he felt more like himself while wearing it than while dressed normally, and that was more of a disguise than anything else, but strangely even though he had not designed the costume and was trying to keep up with the branding as much as was reasonable, the result was the same. Even though he had at least partially created the persona of Matches Malone, he still felt more like himself in the persona that Parker had designed, even if he currently wore a custom costume.
He had some idea that he had been a businessman, or rather, he had to have been, but the face he put forward was a lot more like what he had shown to Stark the one time the two of them had exchanged words. I called myself Bruce at the time. Is that my real name?
Perhaps there was something that would make him remember things, or perhaps he had been remembering things here and there without realizing it, but there was no time to focus on that sort of thing at the present. His quarry was ducking into an alley. My electronic disruption technology would not have any effect on him; he has no electronics to explain his electricity. It seemed there were those who were just fine with having things not explained to them.
Electro looked around before ducking into a basement window, which meant some subsidiary of Fisk had offered to put him up for however long it would take to destroy Oscorp. With Iron Man having announced another Avengers mission, it was probably not the only building they were going to try to destroy as long as they had the chance. Waiting a few minutes, he briefly scanned the basement, seeing nothing at first, but withdrawing at a sound. There was no way that the parole-breaker was not tired after a long day, btu he was not sleeping in plain sight. Parker must rarely have time to track down some of his recurring villains. I must be taking advantage of a rare moment of peace in which I can prioritize long-term advantages.
Borrowing a rusted steel cable he found in the alley, he entered through the window, finding his enemy had prepared for his arrival all the same. Dodging the first bolt of lightning, he guessed that something had simply not sat right with Electro and he elected to just attack whatever came through the window or door in case someone was after him. Rolling out of the way of another bolt, he found an exposed foundational rebar and looped the cable around it before dodging again.
“Foolish move, Spider. You should never have allowed yourself to become stuck down here with me,” his enemy threatened.
“Basements make for convenient hiding places,” he said, suffering a glancing blow. Fortunately, there was enough rubber in his costume to insulate him from the voltage. “They also make it easy to ground a live wire.” The next bolt hit the steel cable and harmlessly ran through it. Spider-Man took the chance to web the door shut, as well as the window through which he had entered.
“You fool!”
Hurling another thunderbolt, it met with the steel cable while it was in the air and the electricity passed through without appearing to harm anything. Reacting to an observation, he webbed the cable to the opposite wall, giving him a way of dodging the bolts no matter where they were going. Staying on the wall directly opposite his opponent, Spider-Man was protected from the next bolt as well. Gradually, there was more of a break between each bolt as he kept firing them in futility. It looked like he was trying to avoid hitting the conductor, but someone as agile as his enemy was easily able to put it between himself and the source of the voltage.
“Wrong on two counts, Dillon,” he said, wishing he had a bat coated in rubber. “I know exactly what I'm doing down here- and you’re trapped in here with me.”
The most powerful bolt so far followed, and the parole-breaker looked like he was nearly out of breath, which might have been a new experience for him. Another bolt followed, and it was weaker.
“What?” he managed, stepping out of the antiquated diction.
“You’re someone who relies on his power overwhelming the enemy. You’re not used to dealing with someone who isn’t afraid of you. The truth is, your approach made you a one-trick pony in the worst possible sense.” He webbed Electro, and with difficulty, the webbing was burned through.
“It’s going to take more than that, Spider-Man,” he said. “No one’s ever taken me down except for you- and you’re off your game.”
“You should be more worried about your being out of breath. The fact that your voltage travels through you before it travels through the air means that you can’t control where it leaves you.”
“No!” the parole-breaker shouted as he approached with the steel cable, wrapping it around him. Spider-Man suffered a small amount of voltage in the process, but he responded by hitting the villain in the feet with a stomp of his boot. Electro screamed and for once he stopped putting out electricity. He took a turn to be grateful that he was strong enough to tie knots in steel cable.
“Don’t know why you’re objecting, Dillon,” he said, remembering the name from the warning on police radio. “You’ve clearly lost. You’re clearly not capable of getting out of here. In a matter of minutes, the police are going to be here. After that, you’re going to prison for a long time.”
“They’ll kill me,” he said, as if trying to disagree with the assessment in some way, though for what purpose he could not imagine what. “The moment they see me-”
“Why, because you’ll kill them?” he asked for the sake of argument. “Because you’ve killed people before? Because that’s all you ever do?” He planted a boot in the villain’s midsection while he was tied up on the ground. ”The truth is, I wouldn’t blame them. Your life is of virtually no value. Whether or not you can kill yourself by continuing to put your own electrical charge into the ground, I don’t know. It wouldn’t really be my fault.”
“You’re different. Last time you wrapped me up in a rubber hose-”
“I’m sure that I did. The problem was, that I didn’t have nearly enough time to build a case against you, and you ended up without an appropriate sentence. Somewhere down the line, it got knocked down to life with the possibility of parole. That’s not going to happen again. You’re going to confess to everything you’ve ever done, and everything you know.”
If Electro could form words after being kicked in the midsection, he would probably have refused based on the look in his eyes. It’s going to be the hard way, then. He broke a finger with the slightest effort.
“I need you to understand how easy this is for someone like myself. You didn’t lose by a slight margin or because of some strange coincidence, I came after you in a place of your own choosing and destroyed you in a matter of minutes. To me, you’re basically a normal guy; your electric abilities are an afterthought.”
“No...” the parole breaker managed at a wheeze. Again, Spider-Man was not sure what he was denying, other than the reality of the situation. It seemed doubtful that he had seen through the lie. He had learned long ago, however, that he was better off not repeating himself.
“You seem to have realized that you only have any hope when you surround yourself with backup, but you have to realize that you can’t stick with them for every waking moment. Even if you could, though, they’re never going to let you go anywhere near them for the rest of your miserable life. I know all your plans and I can recite them to you right now. If you don’t say anything, then your cronies will still assume you spilled all your plans to me. That’s what I intend to tell the papers, anyway.”
Electro looked betrayed. However he thought that the game was supposed to work, this was not it. Rather than simply repeating that there was something different about Spider-Man, however, he seemed to be lost in thought. One way or another, the other criminals would regard him as a snitch. His enemy was going to arrange an interview with a crime journalist and explain the plan in detail. Sandman would know he had not said anything, and the same would be true for Rhino.
There really was no way out of being counted a snitch, because no one would have any reason to believe that the hero would make up getting the information out of a villain; there was no greater honor in it than having eavesdropped and picking up the same in that manner. It was a given that he would deny telling Spider-Man anything, but whether he denied it in the police station, on the witness stand, or in prison while being beaten half to death in a rubber suit, it was doubtful that anyone would believe him.
“The police are going to want to know how you got away from the parole officers. They’re going to want to know who else is involved. If you tell them everything they want to know, they just might put you in a lower security prison if it can be argued that you’re not dangerous if they take the appropriate precautions. You won’t be with Sandman and Rhino when they end up in the same place.”
Electro was sweating bullets; it was obvious that he was trying to think of some way of getting out of spilling everything. If they had all the evidence they needed against him and knew more than just that he had been causing trouble and endangering people, he would have to count himself lucky he was not in a capital punishment state. Though Spider-Man could not say how he knew, most trials involving superheroes were ordinarily quite complicated because the chief witness could never appear, because no one would be able to verify his identity. Sentences ended up getting knocked down due to suspicious circumstances.
“The people you killed left families behind, Dillon. They're willing to believe and spread whatever negative thing they hear about you; they don’t really care if it’s true or not. There’s a middle-aged woman named Elzbeth Watt who writes an opinion column for Northwestern Financials' subsidiary and you electrocuted her husband. I intend to tell the papers and the cops that you pissed yourself and went on and on about a plan involving Sandman and Rhino. Those two will probably hear about it before they see the police barricade around Oscorp.”
“You don’t kill people,” Electro managed.
“That’s true. I wouldn’t really consider myself responsible for it if the court decides that you should go to the same prison that they do, though. That's up to you. Make yourself valuable to the State of New York. If you tell them everything you know, substantially more than I tell them you told me, then they might have some reason to spare you. That is literally your only hope. If you ever get out of prison, you’re going to find yourself in an even worse situation than you are right now.”
“I can’t...”
“I’d sleep on it before coming to a decision,” he said, knocking the villain out.
Spider-Man had lied about a few things, but he really did carry out his part of the plan before the evening was up. Contacting the local police on a pay phone, he told them what he knew so far, acting as promised, as if the parole-breaker had told him. That should tighten things up in the courts. Anyone who worked with Electro in the past is going to have a wealth of evidence against him next time I arrest him. I couldn’t do this with the Goblin because he was too badly injured.
Evidence gained under torture or the threat thereof was inadmissible and not useful, but it did not really count if the ones who were going to kill him were other prisoners, though he really wished he could do something about the incredible danger they faced; it might have been useful when threatening a criminal, but it was basically an additional punishment on top of what they were sentenced to endure, and there was no way of knowing its nature. Even those who cared nothing for what the guilty suffered had reason to want them to know what to expect.
Fundamentally, for a criminal justice system to work, the criminal had to be able to know what to expect at every stage, before committing the crime, before getting caught, before going to trial, and before being sentenced, and in all cases, compliance with the law had to present a better deal. It was only the supremely well-motivated who were going to continue in their defiance if the structure of incentives were set up properly.
Spider-Man only sighed before going back to the auto repair shop; he was sure he had missed calls, but he could deal with those in the morning. On the way back, he was happy to have regained the glider, but transportation was still the least of his worries. In order to set up for criminals to go away easier in the future, he had sacrificed his element of surprise; Sandman and Rhino would be aware that their plan was no longer viable.
When he woke up, he checked his phone to find that he had only missed one meeting, and there were a few calls, but he could answer them on the way to the city. At the very least, he would have an idea of what he needed to make up for. Being Spider-Man presents unique challenges. He’s surrounded by other heroes, some in an entirely different weight class, but frequently, they couldn’t help him even if he asked; they all have their own problems.
There was one, however, whom he would ask for help, whenever he could get around to helping. Jumping off the glider before it automatically landed and knocking on the door of the strange mansion, he had no expectations. There was very little he could do other than explain the situation as accurately as possible, as with any other doctor.
“Enter.”
It was something of a surprise, he supposed, that such a quick, curt greeting would be offered to one he might have counted as a friend, but it completed the picture of a mysterious, aloof master. The sorcerer was floating in what looked like meditation. Spider-Man walked in without hesitation.
“Have I caught you at a bad time?”
“No, you were just the man I wanted to see, though you still wear a false face.” He had been figured out, at least partially.
“My apologies, none of this was my idea.”
“That much I did not know. I did, however, detect an unfamiliar presence.” Doctor Strange floated down before casting some sort of spell on him, and it took everything he had not to simply get out of the way until it could be explained what was being done to him and why. He felt a truly bizarre sensation of floating for a moment, and looked around to find that his body, or the one he had been using, was seated on the floor. To his even greater surprise, the spiritual form which he had just taken looked nothing like it.
“Is this who I really am?” he asked, not sure if it was an obvious question or one that his ally would even be able to answer. He was wearing a black suit with a cape and several tools and weapons at the belt, but the details were unimportant.
“Yes, and I have never seen you before. From whence did you come?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t remember anything from before I seemed to wake up in control of this body. I’m inclined to think he’s in my world.”
“That may be. You are aware, then, that this is a world entirely different from your own?”
“Yes. All the people are different. The history, the culture-”
“I see. You must not have known to come to me with this kind of problem. Have you been trying to masquerade as Spider-Man, to prevent anyone else from catching on?”
“I... this may sound strange, but I think it’s what he would want me to do. I don’t think it’s a good idea for everyone in the world to hear about this, and the Avengers-”
“Have been quite helpful in dealing with certain matters that I could not have handled myself. You will forgive me if I did not rush to your aid as soon as I detected an unfamiliar presence, but I have been otherwise occupied and it seemed that you were as well. As long as you were content to convince the world that you were Spider-Man, then I would not, for the moment, have to respond. Am I to assume this has to do with the dimensional rift that was meant to be investigated?”
“It may,” he said. “When I looked around, I was in the area. I didn’t know anyone I could trust.” For a moment, it seemed Doctor Strange was sympathetic. Perhaps he had been in other worlds himself. “I am only coming to you now because it seems unlikely anyone else would be able to determine what the problem is.”
“I see. Tell me, have you ever heard the name Zalmoxis?”