Bzzt. Bzzt.

“…hey, careful with that hammer…”

Bzzt. Bzzt.

“…the sea monkeys have my money…”

Bzzt. Bzzt.

“…yes, I’m a natural blue - akk!”

Peter Parker awoke to discover a hand about his throat. Actually, it would be fair to say that it was the hand about his throat that had awoken him. Sometimes that’s just the way life works.

A face, pinched and tart beneath a wax of wheat-fair hair, loomed in close. “Peter,” Doctor Alistair Smythe said, icily, “please be aware that if you don’t stop talking in your sleep and answer your intercom right now I’m going to have to rip off one of your arms and beat you to bloody death with it.”

Peter blinked, then glanced down at his desk. There was indeed a flashing red light on the intercom. And, of course: Bzzt. Bzzt.

Peter looked back at the man who was throttling him. “I’d better answer that,” he said.

Doctor Smythe scowled. Tall, thin and appropriately rather insect-like in appearance, he was the resident chief Professor attached to the Entomology and Arachnology Department at ESZI, the Empire State Zoological Institute in New York City, and Peter was his assistant. Good assistants were hard to come by, even if they did keep dropping off at their desks in the middle of their working day. This was possibly the reason why Smythe decided not to commit murder, by dismemberment or otherwise, and instead stalked away with his lab coat swishing about his skinny hips.

Peter breathed deeply and answered his intercom. Or, to be precise, he picked up the handset and opened his mouth to speak. But he didn’t get the chance.

“There’s someone on their way up to see you,” a female voice snapped. “A woman.”

“A… what?”

“A woman, Peter. You know? Two legs, instead of eight? You remember what a woman is, Mister ‘I’m so interested in spiders I sometimes completely-maybe-sorta-utterly forget about my girlfriend’ Parker?”

Peter pursed his lips. “Ah. Did… did I forget something? Because - ”

“How about my birthday?”

Peter paled. Oh, God. “It… what? It’s your birthday today?”

“No. But it could have been. And you wouldn’t have remembered.”

“I wouldn’t… what? So… it’s not your birthday, but I’m in trouble anyway?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“And she’s blonde, Peter. Blonde. You told me you preferred redheads!”

“I… blonde? I do prefer redheads. You’re a redhead.”

“I know!!” the female voice shrieked, and then the intercom went dead as the result of what could only have been a furious slam. Peter simply stood there a while, staring at his handset, mouth gaping. He? But? What? Who? Wh -

“Hello? Mister Parker? Sorry if this is a bad time, the receptionist told me I should come straight up.”

Peter turned to look at the woman who was standing in the doorway of his laboratory. She was indeed blonde, and quite pretty in a way that was difficult to pin down, and young, although there was a stiff formality to her clothes - ivory blouse, charcoal pencil skirt, flat shoes, lightweight lilac raincoat draped over one arm - that made her seem plainer and older. She was holding out a hand in greeting. Peter shook it, grimacing.

“She’s my girlfriend.”

“The receptionist?” The blonde girl raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry. Oh, that is… well, no, I’m not sorry that she’s your girlfriend, that sounds awful, I’m sorry that… that…”

She faltered. “Actually,” she said, “I don’t know why I’m sorry.”

Peter sighed and nodded. “Yeah. Trust me, I know exactly how you feel. What can I do for you, miss…?”

“Stacy. Gwendolyn Stacy.” She smiled, her delicate blue eyes shining. “I’m an investigative journalist with The Daily Bugle, and I wanted to know if I could ask you a few questions.”

“About ESZI? I think Doctor Smythe would be more - ”

“No, it’s not about the Institute. Although your work here is of certain interest.” Gwen Stacy inclined her head, and suddenly there was no mistaking the intelligence in those eyes. Peter suddenly felt uneasy.

“Spiders?”

“Spiders. You see, according to official police witness statements, you were present in Central Park at a recent incident where a man named Silvio Francesco Manfredi was murdered, is that correct?”

“Uh… yeah. But what’s that got to do with - ”

“Mister Parker, I was just wondering, what with your expert knowledge of arachnids - what are your thoughts about the masked vigilante the authorities are calling Spider-Man…?”

“…just keep swimming, just keep swimming…”

Bzzt. Bzzt.

“…I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy…”

Bzzt. Bzzt.

“…maybe he only speaks Whale. Mmmmooowaaaaah - akk!”

Just like Peter Parker, Ash Kennedy awoke abruptly and in rather hazardous circumstances. Unlike in Peter’s case, however, these circumstances weren’t all bluff and bluster. The threat to Ash’s life was all too real.

Ash was lying on his back staring up at two men clad in white, silver and gold battlesuits and white helmets, each armed with silver and black rifles attached to their forearms by loops of hydraulic coils. The white helmets were fronted with reflective black visors, obscuring the men’s faces. Incidentally, Ash’s features were also hidden behind a mask of his own, a brash red with diagonal teardrop lenses over the eyes, just as his body was sheathed in a distinctively styled black and red costume. And it was because the men with the guns couldn’t see that Ash’s eyes were open that he wasn’t dead yet.

“See? He’s alive!” barked one of the soldiers. “I told you I thought I heard him murmuring. How the hell does someone survive a point blank concussion blast to the head?”

The other man grunted and aimed the tripod nozzle of his weapon. “Some kind of freak. Who knows what he’s capable of? Best to put him out of his misery once and - unnhh!”

A boot shot up and connected with the soldier’s groin, causing him to collapse like a deck of cards whilst he staggered backwards. In the same instant the second man - whose reactions were so finely honed that he was already bringing his gun to bear - was suddenly engulfed in a mist of silvery netting that contracted tightly about his upper torso, pinning his arms to his side. No - not a net. A web.

“I say, I say, I say… are you discussing me?” Spider-Man cried, as he leapt to his feet and then sprang straight up in the air, all from his previously prone position, with quite impossible reflexes. “Wasn’t it Wilde who said that the only thing worse than being talked about was not being talked about? Hmm? And people call me uneducated… I’m not the one standing around making homicidal plans and letting the guy at my feet catch his breath, now am I?”

Spider-Man somersaulted over the head of the soldier struggling in his web and kicked out once more at his other adversary, cracking him square in the side of the helmet and knocking him unconscious. He then whirled back towards the first man and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck.

“Just the two of you left, huh?” he snapped. “Presumably guarding the elevators instead of for my benefit, considering you thought I was already dead. Right? So, that slinky silver sally who blasted me - where’d she go?”

The soldier made a snorting noise behind his visor. Spider-Man sighed at his own reflection in the mirrored black. “Figures,” he muttered. “Not willing to give up the boss, right? What an inspiring show of loyalty. But I’d more impressed if my head wasn’t currently ringing like a freaking bell after she held me down and shot me, Do you have any idea how this feels? It’s like a hundred migraines all at once. Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt… tell me, will my brain ever stop reverberating in my skull?”

“You should just be happy you’re still breathing,” the soldier sneered. “Silver Scourge usually doesn’t make that mistake.”

“Silver Scourge. Right. Wasn’t that a Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor film?”

“No, that was - ”

“Oh, hush. I was being facetious. Which, with a headache like this, is far too much hard work, so I’m going to quit now. Just tell me where she is, okay?”

“And if I don’t?”

Ash scowled beneath his mask. “Well,” he said, slowly, “here’s the thing. I’m new at this, right? And it’s so exhilarating, what with all the jumping and springing and whirly-twirly stuff, that I sometimes forget - like I did earlier, when it would have been really useful to remember - that I am, in all sincerity, a human spider. Dude, I can spin webs. Like the one you’re currently trussed up in like a holiday Turkey. But I’ve been experimenting these past few weeks, and you know what? The webs aren’t permanent. They’re strong and elasticised enough to swing on and support my weight, but only for a limited time - about an hour, give or take.”

“So?”

“So, how’s about this. Look over there. You see? You and your Wally Pack - ”

“Wild Pack.”

“Whatever. You’ve gone and bust open a great big hole in the outer wall of this office, right? Now, if I just drag you over here…”

Pulling the captive soldier along behind him, Spider-Man skipped across the room where, earlier, he had fought a brief but intense battle with a dozen of these armoured thugs. There was indeed a gaping cavity in the office wall, opening out fourteen storeys above street level, and just beyond the hole there loomed a polished, featureless silver-dome of an uncanny, semi-spherical craft, adhered to the side of the building.

“Nice spaceship,” Spider-Man commented. “The Day The Earth Stood Still? Klaatu barada nikto!”

“It’s an anti-gravity vessel.”

“Ooh. Personally I always wanted an Aston Martin, but, you know. I can see the attraction.”

“What are you going to do? Drop me? You wouldn’t dare.”

“You think so?” Spider-Man said, his voice subdued. “What… because you know me, right? You know exactly what I’m capable of? Or is it because you think I’m some kind of hero? That’s what a couple of newspapers are calling me. Of course, there’s others that claim I’m a murdering menace. You want to take that chance?”

Spider-Man extended one arm, hand cocked, and loosed a thread of silvery webbing from an aperture in the wrist of his costume. One end of the webbing attached to a cornice ledge that jutted out above the row of office windows. Spider-Man looped the other about the struggling soldier’s waist, then leaned in close to the side of the man’s helmet, in the approximate vicinity of his ear.

“Remember what I said about the webbing,” he hissed. “One hour. You’ll hang here for one hour. Give or take. And then… snap. Have you ever seen King Kong? Any version, original, remake, whatever. They all end the same. Monkey climbs. Monkey gets shot. Monkey falls. Anne Darrow cries. I mean, okay, this isn’t the Empire State Building, but even so. You’re still going to make one big mess when you hit sidewalk. And, trust me, Naomi Watts isn’t going to be weeping for you. Or Fay Wray. We won’t mention Jessica Lange, okay? Okay. Anyway, that street looks awfully small down there to me, how about you? And, the worst thing is, you’ll have an hour to think about exactly what’ll happen…”

The soldier squealed behind his faceplate. Ash Kennedy grimaced.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Tell me where Scourge went and I’ll reel you in.”

For a moment the man in the battlesuit was silent. Then, with a heavy sigh, he slumped.

“Up,” he muttered. “She went up. Just one floor. The executive offices for Hessler-Strucker Finance. But the information won’t do you any good. If she sees that elevator begin to operate she’ll have ten guns pointed at your head before the doors slide open. And there won’t be any hesitation this time. You’re quick, but you’re not that quick.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But I wasn’t thinking about the elevator.”

True to his word, Spider-Man hauled the solider back through the window and then stuffed him under a desk, covering him - and his fellow mercenary - with more webbing just for safety. Then he returned to the outer ledge, swinging his body out into open air and then back towards the concrete, steel and glass fascia… where he stuck, firm, by his hands and feet, the muscles in his arms, legs and shoulders corded hard and powerful beneath the sheath of the his black and red costume. Behind his mirrored visor, the soldier looked on in mute astonishment.

He’d been telling the truth. A human spider.

He was going to ascend to the fifteenth floor by climbing the outside wall of the building!

The old man collapsed in a fit of coughing, doubled forward over his executive desk. His frail body was wracked so fiercely it appeared he might splinter like kindling, but not one of the thirty-seven employees present in the HSF office suite that morning rushed to his aid. This was understandable. After all, they were being kept at bay by a shock troop of gunmen in battlesuits, and they’d already had a brutal demonstration of what could happen if they decided not to follow the direct orders they’d been given: A middle-aged man in shirt and tie was curled in a ball upon the floor, cowering between a filing cabinet and a potted plant. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even bleeding. But one could only guess at the internal injuries he’d suffered after attempting to wrest one of the soldier’s guns away only to receive a brief but violent concussion blast to the gut for his trouble.

“No one else plays the hero, understand?” a female voice barked. “The majority of you have families, loved ones. It’s not my wish to take you away from them. But if anyone interferes with my undertaking here today I will not hesitate to issue punishment.”

The woman spoke with a smooth tone, edged with an Eastern European accent. She was small and slight of stature but lithe, and she carried herself with perfect poise. When she moved she gleamed, her curves seemingly poured into a sleek, silver armoured bodysuit. Her hair, a wash of platinum blonde coils and ringlets, fell across her shoulders where it was initially swept back from a silver helmet; however, when she removed the headpiece with its mirrored visor, that hair fell forward to frame a face that was round and pale as a Mediterranean moon, and surprisingly alluring. But there was something about the eyes - ice grey glass, so lacking in warmth - that stripped away any illusions of beauty.

The Silver Scourge was not a woman who toyed with men’s hearts. She simply removed them.

“Do you know who I am, Herr Strucker?”

Gathering breath in his rattling lungs, the old man looked up. He was balding and withered, trembling… but his eyes were hard too. Tiny fragments of flint. There was understanding there - and hate.

“A brief history lesson for those inclined to listen,” Scourge said, loud enough that all present could hear. “World War II was officially declared when Nazi Germany, aided by the Red Army of the Soviet Union, invaded Poland on the first day of September, 1939. What the textbooks fail to disclose, however, is that a far smaller nation fell to the Nazis three months previous to that date in what amounted - to them - as nothing more than a trial run for certain weapons and tactical deployment to be utilised in the Polish incursion and occupation. The nation in question - a hitherto peaceful and overlooked sovereign state a quarter of the size of modern Luxembourg and for the past seventy years designated simply as part of Germany’s southern borderland, with no record of its previous existence - was named Symkaria.

“It’s been estimated that 150,000 Polish civilians were slaughtered in the first six weeks of Nazi occupation, many by ritual execution, and four times that number were detained in war camps. Over the course of the war, five and a half million Poles - almost a fifth of the entire population - lost their lives. Six million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and members of ethnic minorities were annihilated in the Holocaust. Another five and a half million civilian casualties of war were caused by Japan following their involvement in the conflict. Tens. Of Millions.

“Symkaria’s population at the time of the Nazi incursion totalled little more than 15,000. It’s no wonder, considering also the insular nature of the state, that these deaths were ignored in the shadow of what was to come. But the truth of the matter is that the Nazi regime committed genocide in that small, insignificant nation, and that a bare handful of civilians survived. What does any of this have to do with what is happening here, today?”

Silver Scourge stared the old man in the eye, her hatred every bit as strong as his.

“I am a descendant of one of those survivors,” she whispered. “One of a precious few vessels of Symkarian blood. And this man - this seemingly simple, elderly man, an executive director of the finance corporation where you are all employed - is Wolfgang von Strucker, once a member of Nazi Germany’s elite Einsatzgruppen paramilitary death squads, answerable to the unholy trinity of Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Hitler and Johann Schmidt. Herr Strucker’s ties to the Third Reich were never proven in the court of a war trial and he has remained free and unanswerable to his crimes for over half a century. But I have made it my mission to visit vengeance upon this evil man, and others of his ilk. Justice must be served. And now, here, with all as witness - so it shall.”

The Silver Scourge reached to her waist and detached what appeared to be a curved, silver knuckle-guard from her belt. But it was actually a sword hilt - and when she rolled a hidden switch with her thumb a sudden crackle and flash established a slender, three-foot blade not of steel but of pure energy.

“Your head, von Strucker,” Scourge hissed, “belongs to me.”

“Actually, I think I’ve heard just about everything I need to…”

The Silver Scourge whirled as she heard a voice behind her, pale eyes narrowed. When she spotted a familiar form across the breadth of the executive office suite, clad in black and red and dangling upside down from the ceiling on a wire-thin strand of webbing, those eyes flared wide.

“You!” she snapped, incredulous. “But how…?”

“Klaatu barada nikto.”

“What?”

“Sorry. Actually, it was an open window,” said the amazing Spider-Man. He jerked a gloved thumb back over his shoulder. “Someone was kind enough to let me in, otherwise I could have been out there for ages, tap-tap-tap. This reinforced glass, it’s not like the movies, you know, where a hero can come smashing through with a big ta-daaaa!”

Scourge glared accusingly at the pack of office workers nearest the offending window through which Spider-Man had crawled, un-noticed, at some point in the last few minutes. “Hey, don’t blame them,” the man in the red and black declared. “Remember what you said about playing hero? Some of just can’t help ourselves. Now, truth is, I’ve never considered myself particularly heroic, and I have to admit my first thought upon waking up downstairs was that I should get as far away from you and your loon pack as soon as possible before you had another chance to try and turn me into cornflakes with those concussion rifles of yours. After all, you took care of me in all of… what? Ten seconds, in our first encounter? Totally embarrassing, there’s no getting away from it.”

“So why not run?” Scourge sneered.

“Because… because… ah, well, okay, it’s probably because, first and foremost, I’m a bit thick. Hands up to that one, you got me. But, it’s also because I know that I’m still really new at all this, and that you took me by surprise when I first saw you - that slinky silver number you’re wearing is highly distracting, did you know that? - and that, last but not least, I didn’t even have a chance to do… this.”

In the blink of an eye Spider-Man whipped out one arm, wrist angled, and loosed a spooling string of webbing. Scourge flinched, her incredible reflexes instinctively carrying her backwards and to one side as she anticipated the web in her eyes, but instead the thread attached itself to the energy sword in her hands - and then snatched it away!

“Ooh, look at this!” Spider-Man whistled as he gathered the weapon. “Personal mercenary force dressed as stormtroopers, a funky-doody version of a lightsabre… say, does someone round here have a fixation on a certain classic 70s sci-fi movie? Do they? Anyone? Anyone? Because that would strike me as terribly ironic, in the circumstances. Because, if we can all look past the posters of Han Solo and Leia in a copper plate bikini covering the walls and think about it for a moment, wasn’t the whole stormtrooper symbolism based on - wait for it - the Nazis? And, tell me, how is you with your gun-toting shock force invading a private domain and callously dismissing the lives of innocents as expendable any different from any other kind of terrorism?”

“You think you can lecture me on morality? Thousands died by this fiend’s hands! Thousands!”

“And if you have evidence of that, enough to convince you of his guilt, then it should also be enough for an international war crimes tribunal. Let justice take its course.”

“I am justice!” Scourge retorted, screaming now.

Ash Kennedy’s eyes sharpened behind his mask. “Not any kind of justice I’m willing to be part of,” he said, quietly. “And, lady, just to warn you - when you kicked my ass seven ways from Sunday downstairs? You caught me on the hop. Quite literally, if I remember rightly. Now? Now I’m ready for you.”

The Silver Scourge’s Wild Pack were evidently well-trained in allowing their commander to take the lead in all situations, which was why they hadn’t directly engaged Spider-Man up until that moment. At the briefest decree, however - an angry wave from Scourge’s gloved hand - they acted, locking on to their target and making to unleash pulse after pulse of concussive vibration. Despite his incredible agility the costumed interloper wouldn’t have lasted ten seconds beneath such a barrage… if not for his webs. Spider-Man was speaking the truth. This time he was ready.

Springing sideways and twisting in mid-air the hero snapped out one arm and then the other in rapid succession, almost too quick for the human eye to follow. With each flail he released globs and strings of webbing from his wrists, and each strike hit home with uncanny accuracy - but he wasn’t aiming at the soldiers or their weapons. He hadn’t spent the past few minutes simply listening to Scourge’s monologue; instead, he’d been planning. Each silver web thread attached itself to an object of appropriate size and weight - computer monitors, heavy desk files, chairs, even a snowglobe paperweight from Wolfgang von Strucker’s desk - and, dislodged through Spider-Man’s general momentum as well as a systematic flexing of his upper arm muscles, these missiles suddenly became airborne at high velocity.

A monitor screen cracked squarely into the back of one soldier’s head like a slab of black stone, trailing power cords in its wake, pitching the victim forward into a wall. A chair smashed into another man’s face, sending him careening into a fellow and upending both. A potted plant whipped into the gut of another. The snowglobe rocketed across the room like a cannonball, shattering the black visor of another soldier and imbedding into the face beyond with a crunch of splintering bone. And, all the while, Spider-Man never stopped moving, dodging concussive bursts whilst simultaneously flicking out a leg here and a fist there to tag an enemy with a devastating blow.

One floor below, in his previous fight with the Wild Pack, Spider-Man had neglected to treat his situation with the seriousness it probably deserved. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. This time there were no jokes, no showboating, no grabbing weapons and playing whack-a-mole (although, to be honest, that had been fun). Of course, it wasn’t the stormtroopers who had cleaned his clock downstairs - it was The Silver Scourge. And when she entered this return bout her presence once again proved to be considerable.

Spider-Man glimpsed Scourge from the corner of his eye as she vaulted up onto Strucker’s desk, pirouetting with admirable grace and releasing a handful of her silver half-moon throwing discs, but the hero wasn’t relying on sight, It was his spider-sense that kept him one step ahead, an application of pure intuition and environmental sensory perception, and although this had failed him before this time his instincts were concentrated to a far greater degree.

He ducked and shimmied past the rain of silver discs, belted a soldier - the last one remaining on his feet - with an afterthought of a punch, then somersaulted in Scourge’s direction. The woman slipped beneath him with a sound that was half-grunt, half cry of triumph, then lashed out with a semi-closed fist. There were razor edges pressing up between her fingers where she was clutching one of her throwing weapons and the points grazed across Spider-Man’s abdomen as he passed, but not enough to carve through the reinforced fabric of his costume. In return, he kicked out a foot at the last moment and clubbed Scourge beneath the jaw with the sole of his boot, snapping her head backwards. She fell from the desk but righted herself with a sway of the hips, landing on her feet and instantly launching a new offensive.

To those watching - the employees of HSF, alternately cowering and cheering, and even in some instances converging on the fallen soldiers and beginning to give them a hard, much-deserved kicking - the conflict between Spider-Man and The Silver Scourge was akin to observing some mesmerizing dance, so terribly violent and yet so beautiful. Both combatants were fast, Spider-Man more so, but Scourge’s movement was cleverer, relying more on expertise than instinct, rendering this an even match. Even when her costumed foe attempted to snag her with threads of webbing the silver-clad woman seemed more than equal to the task of steering clear, feinting like a matador and then sweeping away at the last second before being caught. In fact she could even be seen grinning, her eyes bright and fierce, as if she were enjoying the duel.

Spider-Man cartwheeled, flicking out both legs in one direction and then twisting his body in the other, as Scourge aimed a flying kick towards his masked face. She missed, but even as she passed she was stabbing down with her hand against the surface of a desk to alter her trajectory, and then hooking her trailing leg back around her to clip Spider-Man behind the knees as he skipped above her. The hero flipped, whipping an elbow backwards to catch Scourge in the shoulder, punting her sideways before she could regain perfect balance and administer a far more lethal blow.

The Silver Scourge rolled into a crouch, facing her adversary across the floor of the suite. Her blonde hair was dishevelled and her face was lightly flushed. She was breathing heavily. But those pale eyes were still ember-bright and alive, and a smile still played at her lips.

“You’re good,” she murmured. “Very good. What kind of man are you beneath that mask?”

“More Han than Luke,” said Spider-Man. “But definitely not Annikin…”

Scourge made to move once, ready to leap back into the fray, but then hesitated at the last moment. Her attention had been drawn to something at her feet. It was the paperweight, the one Spider-Man had catapulted at some unfortunate soldier’s face. Inside, rather than some anodyne commercial design, there was a personalised photograph. It depicted two young faces, a boy and girl, late teens. Both fair-haired, both beautiful, both smiling. Nigh identical features. Scourge picked up the globe and stared at the joyous faces within.

“These are your grandchildren, aren’t they?” she said, softly, glancing to one side where Wolfgang von Strucker was hunched against his desk. “Twins. Their names are in the file on you I had commissioned. Andreas and Adelaide von Strucker.”

The old man glared up, eyes still bright with hate. The Silver Scourge looked at him, then looked across at Spider-Man. Then, back to von Strucker. Her attention was torn - but ultimately, inevitably, one was more important than the other.

“I never knew my grandparents,” she whispered. “There aren’t even any records to tell me how they died. Firing squad? Tortured? Starved? Buried alive in some unmarked mass grave yet to be unearthed?”

She raised her fist. She was still clutching one of her throwing discs, the points stabbing up between her fingers.

“Justice will be served,” she hissed. And then she lunged forward, whipping out her arm, her edged knuckles angled towards her intended victim’s throat. Von Strucker.

“No!”

Ash Kennedy, the amazing Spider-Man, was thinking of another elderly fellow, a white-haired man by the name of Silvio Manfredi. He was thinking of the man’s daughter, Alicia, screaming, weeping. He was thinking of how he failed. He wasn’t going to fail again.

Spider-Man snapped out an arm and released a jet of webbing. The thread snagged Scourge’s hand an inch away from von Strucker’s neck and pulled taut, wrenching the killing blow aside before it could land. The Silver Scourge shrieked, spinning on her heels and grabbing out at the web that had denied her, but Spider-Man was already there, connecting with a solid uppercut. Scourge crashed back to the floor, skidding away with the force of the blow. The hero made a move to follow her, fists raised to finish the job if it wasn’t already, when he felt a hand upon his ankle - weak, frail, almost not there at all. It belonged, of course, to von Strucker.

The old man looked up as Spider-Man looked down. “Thank you,” he said, his voice rasping. “She would have murdered me… if not for you.”

Behind his mask, Ash Kennedy’s face was contorted with a flood of emotions. “Yeah,” he said, flatly. “She would. She would have served her version of justice. But, you know, maybe… maybe that would have been the right outcome? I mean, all those things she said - all those crimes she claimed you committed. Crimes against humanity. Was she telling the truth? Strip away the veneer of the old man, regress you sixty years, stick you in a uniform and jack-boots… is that you? Were you a Nazi executioner, responsible for all those deaths?”

Von Strucker said nothing. Ash grimaced. Yeah. He kicked his leg angrily, displacing the old man’s grasp as if it were diseased.

It was at this point that Spider-Man became aware of his tingling senses alerting him to something important - but it was something that was far too late for him to do anything about. He turned to look at where he’d last seen Scourge, but she was gone. A quick glance at the closed elevator doors next to where she’d been sprawled, and the lit number display above them indicating that the lift had already reached the floor below, was enough to confirm his suspicions.

“Dammit,” he muttered, launching himself across the room to the open window through which he’d entered. “Dammit, dammit, da - ”

Far, far too late. Through the glass he saw the strange, semi-spherical silver craft that had been attached to the outer wall of the HSF building now drifting past, righting itself via the array of anti-gravity pods on its flat underside… and then, without a heartbeat’s further hesitation, it ascended rapidly, into the skies, vanishing into the glare of the sun, undoubtedly with The Silver Scourge aboard. She’d abandoned her defeated Wild Pack to police custody to save herself.

Spider-Man had made an enemy today, he knew that. Another one. A woman with a homicidal mission to serve justice upon those she believed deserved it, who seemingly didn’t care about living her life as a fugitive and known terrorist, and who was prepared to instigate an incursion of a building in the middle of the city to achieve her ends. And now she was out there, somewhere, still at large - and he, Spider-Man, was on her list.

“You know,” he muttered, under his breath, “why is it that even when I win… I lose?”

Cell pressed to his ear, Peter Parker fished in his jacket pocket for his keys then unlocked the front door of his apartment and went inside.

“…there was this woman at the Institute this morning. Well, no, maybe she was more of a girl. Or maybe woman. Or… whichever. You know the type who just seem, I don’t know… ageless? And I don’t mean in a Celine Dion way…”

Peter took off his jacket and deposited his bag in the hallway then wandered into the kitchen.

“…anyway, she was asking questions. About the day in the Park? Because she’s some kind of journalist. The Bugle. Our favourite tabloid, right…?”

Cell cramped between ear and shoulder, Peter opened his refrigerator and removed a carton of milk. He then left then kitchen, kicked off his shoes, and padded into the lounge.

“…I didn’t tell her anything that I hadn’t told the police, of course, but… there was just something about her. Her eyes, you know? Piercing. Like she was looking straight through me. She… she…”

Peter faltered. The cell fell away from his ear. Then he dropped the carton of milk. It spilled all over the coffee table, but he wasn’t paying attention.

He was focused solely on the strange man who was standing over by the lounge windows, his massive frame silhouetted against the midday sun streaming through the blinds. A tall man. A broad man. A man with rook black hair and a scarred face, and wearing an outfit that appeared to be fashioned from stitched furs and animal hides.

A man cradling a slender black rifle.

“Who…?” Peter croaked, his throat dry. “How…?”

“I’m disappointed,” the dark man murmured, his voice harsh and fleshed with a trace of accent. “I expected more. A show of bravado, at least. Happy enough to act the part when wearing your mask, yes? When wearing your witch-skin. But, whatever guise you wear, you cannot fool my senses. I followed your spoor, your essence. Tracked you here, to your nest.”

Peter’s eyes widened and a sudden realisation crawled upon him. “Oh, God. Oh man. I know what you want. I know who you want. You - ”

The man raised the rifle and pulled the trigger. Peter screamed, and staggered. Then he looked down at his chest. And then he fell.

The man with the rook black hair, swathed in hide, stalked forward and gazed upon his victim, still cast in a bright halo of sunlight.

“I am The Huntsman,” breathed Sergei Alyosha Kravinoff. “And you, Skinwalker witch - he who calls himself Spider-Man - you are my prey. You are my destiny. And I have been waiting for this moment - the moment I strip that malignant skin from your bones - for so very long…”

And then The Huntsman put down his rifle, reached into the folds of his furs, and produced a very, very sharp knife.

Finally… Spider-Man versus The Hunstman!

Okay, yes, sorry. This has been a ridiculously long time coming. About three months I think. And this issue would have been on the block much sooner if I could have kept to the 3000 word length I was initially aiming for, but in the end it’s clocked in at 6000.

Seriously, once I start, I honestly can’t shut up. Have you noticed?

Anyway, finally, we’re almost getting somewhere. The Silver Scourge has been vanquished - for now - and The Hunstman has made his move. How’s that for a cliffhanger? And Gwen’s back! If only briefly. I promise, she’ll be far more important to the storyline from hereon.

As always, comments (and complaints) always welcomed at ameriades@hotmail.co.uk . On this note, a much overdue and deserved shout-out to Gregory Cruikshank (especially), Jared Milne, Kage Logan and Anthony Crute, who have taken the time to mail me about this series (and Ultimate Defenders), as well as those who have commented on the M2K boards. Guys, I’m often atrocious about answering these mails on time, but a huge thank you for your patience and perseverance with these stories. I can’t tell you how much it’s appreciated. Writing is hard work (however fun), and without you there’d be little point to any of this. Thank you!!

Cheers, Meri

If you’d like to give feedback on this series, positive or critical, please don’t hesitate to drop a line to ameriades@hotmail.com

For those interested, a list of my fanfiction can be found at http://meriadesfiction.livejournal.com

Thanks for reading!

- Meriades Rai