In the Spyder's Web

Spyder’s heavy, black, steel-toed boots clacked along the cold tiled floors of Harmony Penitentiary as he followed the guard into the prison’s interrogation rooms. Owl, Spyder’s once best friend now turned archenemy, had demanded his presence. Knowing that he would never get peace until he had come, Spyder had sped off to the prison on his motorcycle. A slick, little thing he had dubbed the Web for the designs along the sides and back of the vehicle.

The guard led him to room 2B, Spyder and Owl’s favorite haunt back in the day. Spyder adjusted his dark blue fedora; occasionally he had to adjust it, as he couldn’t glue it with spirit gum like he did with his dark blue domino mask. He gulped; even if he was one of the toughest members of the Soldiers of Victory, fighting Owl had always been one of the few things that made him cringe.

Arriving at the heavily armored door, three inches of pure steel, the guard typed the code into the small keypad to the right of the door and it swung open with a hiss after a ding of approval from the keypad. The guard stood to the side and let him into the room before it sealed shut behind him with a small click. Spyder was left alone with a murder who once killed a squad of policemen with nothing more than a glass of water and electric tape. A mystery still unsolved to this day.
Owl leaned forward, hunched over the table. The orange prison jumpsuit hung loosely from his lanky body, Owl had always looked like a breeze could blow him over, what he lacked in physical strength he made up for in his knowledge of martial arts, learned from his ability of muscle mimicry, and his superhuman ability to fly. Beneath locks of long, shaggy, dirty blonde hair peered two jade green eyes that crackled with intelligence and malice. Owl cracked his knuckles before leaning back in his seat. Spyder tried to keep an even face, but drops of nervous sweat were beginning to form on his brow.

“Sit on down Billy boy, old buddy, old pal of mine.” Owl cackled, hints of insanity embellishing his every word.

Spyder felt his stomach drop when Owl used his name. The two had been at each other’s throat for a year straight now, and never once had Owl used his name since. He told him during one of their fights that he had to beat him as the Spyder; there was no fun if he just managed to beat him because he came after his alter ego. Pulling the chair out sharply he sat down and started at Owl with a glare of steel.

“So Billy boy how is the old gang? Dynamo? Amazo? They still doing all right? What about Miss Miracle? She still alive and kicking?”

“You didn’t ask me here to talk about people you don’t care about. Get to the point.” Spyder told him bluntly.

Owl leaned forward again, the darkness in his eyes somehow becoming darker, more evident. He smiled a smile that had no joy, light, or anything that made a smile a true smile. “I do care,” he told Spyder ominously. “Your rag tag team are my favorite people, but I need to kill you to save you. That’s the only way you’ll be free at last.”

“Free from what? Lunacy?”

“Look at the town we live in Spyder, Harmony. A failed experiment imposed by the government to see if we couldn’t mix the rich and poor. Remember the street wars when we were twelve? The ratta tat tat of the AK-47’s as they shot bullets into unsuspecting bystanders? The pipebombs that stripped persons of flesh and bone, all for a power supremacy they could never win. Ever notice how empty the town is Billy? This place was made for a population of three hundred thousand, now we have a third of that. All killed off over the course of ten years. Do you remember the fifth of December? When we sat in front of the television watching the tale of Frosty the snowman and a stray bullet whizzed through the siding of the house and took a chunk of meat the size of a cue ball out of your shoulder?”

Billy rolled his shoulder as a reflex to this; he remembered the explosion of the bullet as it entered into his left shoulder and cut most of the muscle and sinew that kept his arm attached to his body. The doctors had been able to barely reattach his arm back to his body, nearly having it amputated twice before he pulled through both times in his drug induced state. He had never gotten one hundred percent usage of his arm back, but it could still do most of what he needed to do. This had been until he and his classmates found the Mystic Rock of Eluvium that had granted them their strange and wondrous powers.

“That’s what we were doing Scott,” he retorted, using the tactic he had used earlier back at him. “We came to be because we wanted to make the city better, remember what the rock said before the lightning bolts hit us?”

“That’s what was said, not what was intended. In the far corners of my mind it spoke to me. Words of death and destruction, nightmares and madness, things that make babes weep in the night and mothers cry. While you frolicked and played your games I was the only one who truly could see the danger in the world. At first I fought it, but then a little got in. Then the seeds began to grow and grow until I understood what kind of world our ancestors had made after they finished borrowing it from us. The world needs an iron hand, a person like the late Margret Thatcher, Genghis Khan, or even a civilization like the Spartans.”

Spyder couldn’t believe what he was hearing; the man was out of his mind.

“Genghis Khan raped and pillaged his way through Asia, cutting pregnant mother’s stomachs open and then mutilating the fetus. He wasn’t an idol he was a barbarian, and you want to craft the world in his image?” Spyder asked as his fists clenched in rage. “You want to finish what Hitler started next? Burn Jewish and gay people in giant furnaces?”

“Oh no Billy boy, I couldn’t do things like that. They’ve already been done but the message is the same.”

“What message? What message could you be talking about you sick piece of filth?”

“All of those leaders inspired fear, but their citizens behaved. They were too afraid to be bad because they would be fed to the fire or slaughtered in droves. That’s why I need you to see my side of things. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve killed before, remember the Bells over Saint Mark?”

Spyder slammed his fists into the metal table as he leaned his head down; closing his eyes he heard the thud of his fist as it slammed into the man’s ribs. The man’s scream when he plummeted off the edge and the squish when he impaled himself on the sharp metal poles.

Spyder’s hand clenched tighter as he looked at Owl with gritted teeth. “That wasn’t my fault,” he growled.

“Just like it wasn’t mine when I punched that man in the throat? Dislodging his Adam’s apple and blocking off his windpipe? You’re just like me, you know it’s true.”

“I’m nothing like you! I made a mistake, I didn’t kill a whole school full of children to, ‘get our attention’.” Spyder raised his hands to do air quotes.

“That’s a pot calling the kettle black.”

“It is nothing like that.”

“You’re just a late bloomer.”

“No, I won’t become anything like you. I still believe in the mission, helping people.”

“I want to help people, my way would just work.”

“Scott, your path involves genocide.”

“No it doesn’t, I like all denominations equally.”

Spyder slammed his fist on the desk. He was filled with rage, wanting to reach out and strangle him until he stopped breathing.

“I can see it within you now, the dragon that sleeps and hides from the daylight. All you have to do is awaken him, and then life becomes clear. Everything makes sense.” Scott said as he reached out with his hands and cupped Spyder’s fist in them.

“There is no dragon, you’re just nuts.” Spyder told him as he yanked his hand away and walked to the door. Waving for the guards to let him out.

“I still have five minutes left. I would suggest you stay.”

Spyder turned around and looked at him. “Why?”

“If you leave one of three buildings will suddenly go up in smoke, an orphanage, a home for the elderly, or an apartment building. I don’t know which one, it is hard to remember when you’re constantly being punched in the face.”

Spyder walked over and grabbed Owl, slamming him onto the table.

“Where is the bomb?” Spyder screamed as he slammed Owl’s head back.

“They will deactivate automatically once your time is up.”

“WHERE ARE THEY?”

“I would think you would be nicer.”

Spyder’s gloved fist pulled back then shot forward, he smashed his fist into Owl’s face. Hearing a crack as his nose broke.

“That’s the Spyder I know.” Owl smirked with bloody teeth as the blood from his nose fell from his nostrils.

Spyder couldn’t stand to listen to him anymore. His hands wrapped around Owl’s windpipe and squeezed.

“You won’t hurt anyone ever again! I’m finishing this!”

“Good.” Owl rasped.

Spyder squeezed and squeezed, he saw Owl starting to turn red. He squeezed tighter; he wanted him to go blue. His mind was a maelstrom of rage and hate, focusing it all on the monster in front of him. Spyder didn’t hear the door slam open and fought the two strong hands that yanked him away from Owl.

Someone pulled him off of Owl. His elbow swung back to hit the person in the face only to feel it erupt in pain. He turned to see who was foolish enough to get between him and Owl. Dynamo stood there in his black boots and white speedo and he looked scared, he almost quaked.

“Spyder, cut it out. I hate this guy as much as you do, but if you kill him what makes you any better than he is?” Dynamo asked.

“Don’t pull that argument on me Dynamo. He needs to die, and he needs to die now.” Spyder growled as he reached over to strangle Owl.

Dynamo grabbed Spyder and pulled him out of the room. He wouldn’t let his friend go down the same path as Owl.

“I’ll kill you! Even if it is the last thing I do!” Spyder roared.

Owl smiled at the two, as Dynamo drug Spyder from the room. He wouldn’t detonate the bomb, not today. He would let Spyder do that when it was his time to join him.