I came into work today and Otto was reminding me to head to his lab to see all the other Spider-Gadgets he made for me. Mind you, I got close to no sleep for obvious reasons I shouldn't need to state. At this point I need 4 cups of coffee to get me through the day. I finally got to Otto's lab and he showed me the literal arsenal he made for me. Which consisted of some...interesting additions. So first off, the Impact Webbing. They're additional rigs to my webshooters to make the web pellet that knocks people back while wrapping them up in the webbing. The next gadget was the web mine. A trip mine that has a proximity trigger. Once the trigger is activated, it shoots a web line out and basically web bombs someone to a wall instantly. Again, pretty straight forward and still web related. Next was the taser web. The name sort of explains itself, which is a bit out there but I can still see it. The next one is stretching it a bit and the last two just bring it to absurdity. The next one is a spider-bot, which can either be a taser device or a tiny little mobile unit that can shoot taser blasts. The next gadget after that is...a concussive blast? He explained it was like the Shocker but to a lesser degree. After that was an anti-gravity suspension matrix...which in my opinion is just straight up ridiculous.
So some weird things have been happening lately. There have been attacks around Gotham City, all describing the same thing. A large black creature tearing through a building looking for...something. Although some attacks describe this monster choosing a specific target. The first target was Manuel Dickens; a former hired gun for Carmine Falcone. Guess why that sounds familiar to me. That was the guy I interrogated to get the location of Carmine. Speaking of Carmine, the same creature then proceeded to target and kill him, too! I detect a pattern, wherever I went before with a criminal; this Venom monster arrives a while after me and clean up the place.
What started to unnerve me more was when the monster didn't choose a target. An hour or so after we all left the amusement mile, the monster apparently tore through the place and brutally killed the freakshows. If you want me to describe how brutal, I'll say that there aren't siamese ballerinas anymore. Not only that, but the hospital I was in when I was comatose? Yeah, it tore through there too! I feel like the monster might be looking for me, but my question is why?! The fact that this thing took my brother doesn't settle my mind either, it wants me too for some reason now.
So now, I'm panicking because I can't tell when or where the monster will come for me. I am now terrified to actually go into a dark room, because the reports say the monster tends to excel in the dark where it can move around undetected. I would try to use my spider-sense, but every time I feel like the monster is nearby; I got nothing. If I have to meet this monster face to face, I have no way to counter its ability to move around like its invisible. I sort of um...locked myself into my apartment. I know, I know, it's not healthy in the slightest. However it's my best option right now because I can't see if the monster is nearby.
Bruce has been calling me trying to dispel my paranoia, but I'm confident that the monster might come for me. I keep my computer close by to flip through the Gotham City CCTV system and I occasionally catch a glimpse of the monster. The glimpses I get is when it tosses someone out of a dark alleyway with a black tendril that shoots out of the alley. I found a camera that gave me a good view of how intensely terrifying this monster is. More importantly, I saw what the monster fully looks like.
It's like...9 feet tall, all black, in a constant state of flowing and melting and has a veiny white spider blazed across the chest and stretching around the whole body. He was brutally beating a man who was about to rob a store. Although the strange part is that the store is across the street, which means the monster had to stretch its arm across the street; grab the guy and bring him into the alleyway. With how ungodly long the arms are though, I'm not surprised if that's what the monster did. The monster began to to thrash the man about, before a sickening snap was heard and the man was then left on the ground lifeless while the monster slunk back into the darkness where the camera couldn't see it.
OH GREAT! IT'S LEARNED FROM JASON! I freaked out as I began thinking why the monster took my brother in the first place. Maybe it literally just killed Matt and left him for dead somewhere, never to be seen again. Again, my brain going crazy with the conspiracy thoughts.
So another weird thing has been going on. Someone else is being Spider-Man in Gotham City. Or from what I can understand, someone is giving me credit for stuff they did. The first one I heard about is that apparently Spider-Man stopped a robber?
Fairly confident I didn't do that. I would remember that. Although the lady said it was Spider-Man who saved her. I looked at the security camera footage from the date and location given. It showed...a black and white Spider-Man throwing the robber around until he was unconscious. I say unconscious this time because I didn't hear a snap this time around. The black Spider-Man turned to the lady, said something and swung away. The black Spider-Man seemed like what would happen if the Venom monster controlled itself and turned human looking. Then if that human look started copying me, you have this black spider-man.
I had a thought that might bring me some sense of salvation and ease.
This new black Spider-Man must be Matt! I had that thought because the black spider-man looked like the venom suit...which was always Matt's favorite character. So maybe Matt became a black spider-man to try and bring his character to life, just like how I did with Spider-Man. So I got my suit on and swung out into the city, trying to find this black Spider-Man and hopefully Matt in the process.
I caught occasional glimpses of the black Spider-Man but he would always sneak into the darkness of an alleyway before I could catch him. I started to get frustrated and once I saw him swinging, I started making a crazed beeline for him. Then something weird happened, he shot a black tendril out of his side and swung that way. I got understandably confused, and tried to adjust for the weird swing. This became his normal tactic to keep away from me. I would get close to him, then a random black web line gets shot out of a random spot on his body and he gets yanked into the general direction of where the web was.
I lost him 20 times before I decided to try and experiment. I have web gadgets, so I'll try and use them to try and catch him. I placed web mines around the city, had web bombs on the ready and was ready with Spider-Bots to try and shock him to slow him down. So once I swung up to him again and he did that random web thing again, I threw a web bomb at where he was going to be. Then he did it again midway through the one he was already doing. Then he swung through my web mines. Which excited my because I was about to catch him. Then he twisted and contorted his body to avoid the trip mines trigger areas. He just wasn't able to be stopped!
He flung himself across the city, right into the area of my spider-bots. Which then started shooting him with the electric blasts. I mean...it worked...sort of. He was getting slowed down, but not by much. He then landed on a rooftop to try and get himself back together. To which started to light him up with my electric webbing. He fell to his knees and looked like he was actually hurting. Before I could get close enough to him, he grabbed me. Which made me get shocked along with him. I was stunned enough so he could get away. He disappeared into the city before I could tell what was going on.
Great. Back to square one.
"Spider-Man. You there?" I heard the familiar voice of Barbara ask.
"Barb! Hey! Where are you?" I asked joyfully.
"Bruce set me up in a clock tower with a big supercomputer," She said, pulling an image of herself in said computer tower. It was a video feed, so I could see her move around in the wheelchair; which in and of itself was teched out.
"Neat. So I take it you're going by 'Oracle' now?" I remarked, noticing the name of where the feed was coming from.
"Yep. Thanks to you," Barbara thanked.
"Hey. Can you do me a favor and try to locate this guy?" I asked, showing her an image of the black Spider-Man.
"Hm. Ok. Give me some time so I can try and find him," Barbara said as the tiny video feed went away. I waited on the last rooftop before the black Spider-Man escaped. I heard Barbara's voice chie in again as the video feed appeared again.
"So I looked throughout the city through the cameras. I can't find anything on this guy. Although I found someone else," She said as she pulled up a video feed of a tall skinny man with black scruffy hair.
Matt.
"Where did you find him?" I asked hastily.
"A street or so from your apartment, why?" Barbara responded. I didn't answer her as I quickly swung my way back to my apartment and waited patiently. Soon enough, I heard a knock on the door and rushed over. Before I could try and open the door, I took a few breaths to try and steady myself and calm down. Once I was calm, I slowly opened the door. Once I could see out the door and I saw him. The person I've been waiting years to finally reunite with...my brother.