Together at Last / Scavenger
Dr. Emmett Slott, a physiatrist at Ravencroft Institute for the Criminally Insane, must deal with six very different costumed criminals with one thing in common, their sinister fates were set in stone by a particular wall-crawling vigilante.
Emmett looks down at his clipboard, red pen in hand "Now let's see, do we have everyone?" He looks up to the six figures in front of him, five in prison jumpsuits, one in a straightjacket.
"James Natale." The scrawny, bleached blonde haired man in the straightjacket and muzzle, James "Jimmy" Natale aka The Vulture, swiftly cocks his head to the right of him in a similar manner to his namesake, "I'm here." he says, his naturally raspy voice muffled by the rusted muzzle strapped tightly around his face.
"Flint Marko." The built, very intimidating looking man sitting in the chair to the right of Jimmy, Flint Marko aka Sandman, cracks his knuckles as he says "Present", some grains of sand spill from the openings of his closed fist.
"Quentin Beck." The clearly anxious man with messy brown hair, Quentin Beck aka Mysterio, rubs his fingers through his greasy hair and mumbles "Here." His pale arms faintly shaking from anxiety.
"Francine Frye." The mocha-skinned, black haired woman, Francine Frye aka Electro, plays with a spark of yellow lighting in-between her slim fingers, she just looks over at Emmett and teasingly sticks her tongue out at him.
"Sergi Kravinoff." The chiseled, tattooed covered man, Sergi Kravinoff aka Kraven the Hunter, fondles a custom-made shank in his hands as he says "Here." a faint Russian accent can be heard by the others around him.
"And finally, Otto Octavius." The bespectacled, stern-faced man, Otto Octavius aka Doctor Octopus, just exclaims "Doctor."
Emmett exhales and corrects himself "Dr. Otto Octavius." The physiatrist adjusts his glasses and calmly says "Now the reason I have organized this session with all of you because you all claim that Spider-Man has made you the way you are, is that true?"
Octavius replies "Yes."
"That's what I thought, now we're going to go around the room and each of you can tell me how Spider-Man drove you to adopt these alter-egos." Emmett smiles warmly, hoping that these criminals and psychopaths can trust him to a degree. The six villains nod in comprehension to Dr. Slott's proposal.
Emmett nods back and looks over at Jimmy, who is looking down at the marble floor below him. "James, we'll start with you." Jimmy continues to look at the ground, Emmett repeats himself "James." Flint lightly taps Jimmy's shoulder to get his attention "W-wha-what?" Jimmy looks over at Emmett as he says "Would you like to tell us your first encounter with Spider-Man?"
Jimmy hesitatingly replies with "Sure but somebody needs to take this fucking muzzle off me." Emmett questions "And why is that?" Jimmy sighs "It's a visual aid." Emmett agrees to Jimmy's plea "Alright then. Flint, could you take James's muzzle off?" Flint replies "Yeah." James looks down again allowing Flint to unbuckle the back of the muzzle, letting it fall to the floor with a loud CLANK.
James looks back up at everyone, revealing mandibles and two large slits horizontally placed across his cheeks, connecting to the ends of his lips all the way to his ears. The slits are extremely blood stained with staples and stitches holding his jaw together. The others stare at him, appalled by his disfigurement. "DUUUUDE, what happened to your face?" Flint exclaims, nervously chuckling. "I can explain." Jimmy replies.
"Oh do tell why your face looks like a toddler who got into a makeup bag." Francine sarcastically remarks. "Okay, okay I will, just shut up." Jimmy defensively barks.
The others look at him as he prepares to tell his story. "So in case you all were wondering, I was born like this. The elf ears, the mandibles, all of it. But Spider-Man made it all worse."
"How so?" Emmett asks, preparing to write down notes. "Well a few years back, I was a fixer for the Maggia." Flint questions "The Maggia? Like the most powerful mob in New York Maggia?" Jimmy answers "Yeah, that Maggia, I was a fixer, it's a pretty important job but 'cause of my deformities, people didn't treat me with up-most respect. All the guys made fun of me, called me names." Emmett questions "What names did the call you?" Jimmy replies "Freakshow, werido, ritardare which meant.. retard in Italian." He shakes his head regretfully. "But the name that stuck was Vulture." Flint solemnly asks "Wow, that sucks, man. Why didn't you leave?" Jimmy tears up a bit before saying "They wouldn't let me. They kept me around not cause they wanted to, cause needed to. To them, my life meant nothing. I was just the guy that threw corpses into the river. I just wanted to help in some way, wanted to be apart of something. Then I thought I was gonna my chance.... when Spider-Man raided the place. He found the warehouse we were hiding out in, all the guys tried to take him on but they were losing. So I picked up one of there pistols, ran towards him and BANG!!" The room is eerily quiet until Flint says "Did you shoot him?" Jimmy looks over at Flint "No.... he shot me. I held the gun point blank to his face but he turned the gun towards me, broke my wrist. My finger must have slipped when it broke and BOOM. My jaw just shot off. After he got the info he needed, he left. The other guys found me after they gave up searching for him, I was bleeding out on the floor, missing some of my teeth, and you know what they did? You know what they FUCKING DID?! They laughed at me, they just laughed at me. Suddenly, I felt something rise up inside of me, anger. And that anger... turned into acid." Francine interrupts him "Woah, woah, woah. So you can puke acid? Did you puke on them?" Jimmy answers "Yes and yes." Francine shudders in disgust, Jimmy continues his story "I melted his arm off to be more exact. He dropped to the floor, wailing, screaming in agony, I just watched, I-I liked it." Emmett scribbles down some more notes then say "So James, let's review. Your deformities caused you to be ostracized from the Maggia, causing you to?" Jimmy finishes his sentence "Puke on them and eat them." Emmett says "So you are saying that when Spider-Man broke your jaw, it awoken your cannibalistic tendencies?" Jimmy answers "Awoken yes, the teasing solidified them." Emmett writes some additional notes "Interesting. Well I'm sorry for how those people treated you." Jimmy cracks a small grin "Thanks doc." Flint kindly pats his shoulder as Francine asks "What did you do after that?" Jimmy replies "Well, the other goons chased me out of the warehouse, where I found a flight suit in the dumpster so I used that to fly away. Then, I went to some guy named Stillwell, he put stitches and staples on to hold my jaw in place. During the operation, I told him about what happened and he said "You have gifts, powerful gifts, use them to punish the people who mock them." I took that to heart, I made it my mission to prey on the powerful, the popular, the mockers as a service to the less fortunate." Kraven scoffs at Jimmy's statement "What?" Jimmy sternly replies "For a man who calls himself the Vulture, you aren't much of a scavenger. Protecting the weak against the strong, pathetic." Kraven slanders. Jimmy hisses "How about I melt that goatee right of your face?! Then you'll see how fucking pathetic I am!" Jimmy is about to pounce onto Kraven but Flint holds him back. Emmett tries to calm him "James, settle down." Jimmy calms himself and adjusts himself back into his seat.
"Okay then. Flint, how about you go next."