章 4: Broken
𝑲𝒏𝒐𝒄𝒌 𝑲𝒏𝒐𝒄𝒌 𝑲𝒏𝒐𝒄𝒌
Three knocks at the front door of his mother's apartment awoke the spider boy from his slumber, followed by the sound of a man speaking his name. "Mr. Parker? Mr. Parker, are you in there? This is the NYPD."
Immediately, the boy's heart felt as if it fell from his chest and into the deepest pit of his body. He sat up from his bed and froze, unable to move until the knocking continued.
𝑲𝒏𝒐𝒄𝒌 𝑲𝒏𝒐𝒄𝒌 𝑲𝒏𝒐𝒄𝒌
As if the knocks put him in a trance, the young man rose from his bed and slowly walked over toward the door. His thunderous heartbeat was loud, feeling as if the heart itself was ready to burst out of his chest. Eventually, he found himself at the front door with his hand hovering over the door knob.
𝑲𝒏𝒐𝒄𝒌 𝑲𝒏𝒐𝒄𝒌 𝑲𝒏𝒐𝒄𝒌
"Mr. Parker?"
The aggressive knocking made the boy jolt, canceling his hesitation. He lowered his hand and grabbed the doorknob, opening it up to see three policemen standing in the hallway. Their expressions were solemn, they were not bearing good news.
"Mr. Parker, my name is Officer Sanchez…" The man hesitated, knowing that the next words to leave his mouth were going to destroy the boy. He couldn't even look at the teenager, averting his eyes before continuing. "Just have a seat, Mr. Parker."
The young man and the police officers made their way to the living room, allowing Eren to sit down on the couch, along with Officer Sanchez, while the other officers stood nearby. Eren's mind raced with possibilities. It was obvious something bad had happened, but the suspense of the unknown was killing him.
The officer removed his hat before making the heartbreaking reveal to the young boy. "I'm sorry, son. Your mother was found dead this evening at a landfill. We're here to ask you a few questions about her, okay?"
Immediately, Eren was unresponsive.
All of his senses shut down.
The officer spoke, though the boy did not hear anything but his muffled voice in the background of his own screaming thoughts.
The officers stood in front of him, though the boy did not see them through his visions of what his mother's last moments might have been like.
The boy wanted to scream, though he could not muster up the energy to open his mouth.
As the broken teen stared forward, blankly, the officers continued to try and get his attention. The voices were muffled as if he were underwater, but one managed to break through.
"Parker!"
Eren's body jolted as he was released from his trance. He then looked over at the officer with dead eyes, causing the officer to nearly tear up himself upon seeing how fast the boy broke.
"Do you know anything? Any enemies? Your mother was a reporter, right? Was she involved in anything that you know of?" The officer asked calmly.
"I don't." Eren answered coldly in his plain and quiet voice.
The officer hesitated, understanding that the boy probably wasn't ready to talk about any of that yet, but he continued on regardless. "Are you sure? This wasn't just a typical murder, kid. It was som-"
"I said. I don't know. Please, just leave me alone." Eren's arms began to discharge electricity, though the officers failed to notice. If they were to ask him any more questions, he was ready to snap.
Luckily, the officers understood that they overstayed their welcome, so they saw themselves out after his response. "Okay, son. I'm sorry. Here's my number, in case you remember anything. We'll uh... We'll go. Come on, guys." The three officers left, leaving the boy alone in the living room.
The boy sat in the same spot, not moving a single muscle for half an hour, alone in his thoughts. He had nothing left, no more family, and nothing else to live for. He thought about killing himself multiple times, wondering if the thoughts of leaving his mother alone were the real reason why he couldn't bring himself to do it in the past.
In the end, he could even bring himself to try it.
It was about 11 PM when the boy finally moved, standing up on his feet before slowly walking into his mother's room like a lifeless machine. The police were useless, he knew this. If he wanted to find out who did what they did to his mother, he knew he had to do it himself and retrace her steps.
'I can't die yet. No, I need the person who did this to suffer. Then I can die at peace.' The boy thought to himself, justifying a reason for him to still live on.
Once in her room, Eren immediately made his way over to her computer before accessing her cloud data. He knew the password, it was simply just his grandmother's name and a few numbers. Scrolling through the cloud, Eren could see many photos and files that involved something that his mother was looking into.
"Project V?" He said to himself as he scrolled through the many files on her computer. His mother, for years, had been looking into this mysterious project. It was her big story, her big break, though it was inevitably the death of her. The people running this so-called Project V didn't want information about it to go out, so they erased her once she got in too deep.
The contents of the Project V folder were horrifying. There were dozens of dead bodies, seemingly drained of their nutrients until they were nothing more than empty husks. Their skin was discolored and they also had sharp teeth like wild animals. One of the contents in the file was a video, so Eren clicked on it.
The video showed a person walking through a dark facility, presumably his mother following a lead on Project V. Suddenly, what looked like a human from inside of a glass cage began slamming their body against the glass like a deranged zombie. Like the others, their skin was discolored and they had sharp fangs. The monstrosity then began to lick the glass, its tongue was about a foot long.
The camera then panned to show an elevator on its way down, prompting the camera person to run behind some boxes and hide from whoever was on their way down. Two men came from inside the elevator, one wearing gauntlets around his suit and one wearing a suit. The suited one was a humanoid, but his skin was grey like a shark's.
"Looks like the freaks are acting up." The larger, yellow-costumed thug said in a gravelly voice.
"They must be hungry, you should jump in, Herman." The suited one teased with a Russian accent.
"How about I throw your skinny ass in there instead. Maybe Fisk will give me your cut."
Upon hearing this, Eren paused the video. "Fisk? Wilson Fisk." Immediately the boy scrolled through the folder to find a picture of Wilson Fisk that he had ignored earlier. It was taken in a rush, but Fisk could be seen shaking a man's hand. The man was not visible, only his hand was seen. He was white and wore a suit. That was the only lead.
"Fisk." Eren muttered as his limbs began to glow brightly with yellow electricity. He stood up, emotionless, and walked out of his mother's room.
He went back to his room and put the costume back on that he wore previously during his stream. He wore a black mask and a pair of glass goggles that he used to use for his science experiments. On his body, he wore a black turtleneck and black pants. On his feet, he wore black timberland boots, and over his clothes, he wore a black trenchcoat.
He looked at himself in the mirror and didn't see himself glaring back at him. It was someone different.
The true Phantom Spider was born.
_____________
It was pouring rain outside as the Phantom Spider aggressively swang through the city to Fisk Tower. His thoughts of how he would take revenge on the man responsible for his mother's death repeated in his head over and over, only being interrupted by the sounds of thunder and lightning roaring in the sky above.
The Phantom Spider had completely lost himself, there would be no holding back. His destination was the skyscraper with the word "FISK" plastered onto it. The vengeful phantom had seen it before, so he knew exactly where it was located.
Eventually, he reached the tower and began climbing it using his sticky hands to reach the top. Fisk, oblivious to what is going to happen to him, sat at his desk smoking a cigar while counting stacks of money.
A lightning strike flashed behind Fisk and in front of him, he could see the shadow of the phantom stalking him from behind. Fisk turned around to look at the window behind him but saw nothing. After investigating the glass for a brief moment, he turned back around and continued to count his stacks on the desk. What he failed to notice was the vengeful ghost crawling out of the vent from above him.
Another lightning strike flashed and the power in the building turned off simultaneously. Before Fisk could react, one more lightning strike illuminated the room and the same shadow from earlier appeared on the ground in front of Fisk, but this time much more imposing. Fisk turned around and saw the Phantom Spider hanging over his head. He looked over at his desk, grabbed a gun, and pointed it where the arachnid was last seen, but it was gone.
"A woman was killed today. Why? Who is responsible?" The demon's cold voice said from somewhere in the room.
Fisk gripped his gun tightly and pointed it in the direction of the voice, though it was immediately webbed away from his grasp.
From the darkness, Fisk could see the silhouette of a phantom slowly approaching him as yellow electricity formed around its arms. The shadow continued to step forward, revealing the Phantom Spider's full form in front of him. Holding up a printed-out version of the picture of the Kingpin shaking hands with a mysterious suited man, the Phantom Spider spoke.
"Who is this man that you're shaking hands with in this photo." As those words left the boy's mouth, a lightning strike flashed behind Fisk and the sound of thunder soon followed.
"I know exactly who that is, and I'm not telling you jackshit. So bug off, brat." Those words from the tubby crime lord infuriated the Phantom Spider, prompting him to leap forward and send an electricity-filled punch to the Kingpin, directly in the jaw with incredible force. If Wilson Fisk wasn't so powerful, at least compared to a regular human, his jaw would have been removed cleanly from his face.
The massive man flew backward, hitting the bulletproof glass behind him and causing it to crack ever so slightly due to the force of his body flying into it. Before he could gather himself, the Phantom Spider webbed the man by the wrists and ankles. With his limbs spread on the glass, unable to move a muscle, the fat man spoke.
"Do what you want, I ain't telling you shit." As the Phantom Spider approached slowly, the Kingpin attempted to spit at him, though the boy easily dodged it.
"You'll tell me." The boy said before unconsciously charging his fists with electricity and punching the massive man in the face. The glass behind him cracked once more and the boy continued his interrogation.
"Who is the man? Who killed the woman? Who ordered you to do so? What is Project V?" The boy reeled his fist back, charging another punch before sending it with full power straight to the man's face.
𝘡𝘛𝘛! 𝑪𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑲!
"I said, I won't tell you. I send them to kill who I want, no one bosses me around." The man lied confidently, but the Phantom Spider saw right through it.
"Who did you send? And I'm not fucking stupid. That man in that picture is related to all of this, I know it. Tell me who he is!" Once again, the rage-filled boy reeled his electric fist back and punched the Kingpin in the face.
𝘡𝘛𝘛! 𝑪𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑲!
Hearing the commotion from outside of the room, Fisk's men attempted to bust down his door, but it was completely webbed shut.
"Kill me, if I tell you who that man is or what Project V is, I'm dead and My family is dead. So do it. Kill me like they killed whatever whore you're here to avenge."
Those words immediately set the boy off, causing the electricity on his limbs to grow brighter before sending a barrage of full-power punches to the Kingpin's face.
𝘡𝘛𝘛! 𝑪𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑲! 𝘡𝘛𝘛! 𝑪𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑲! 𝘡𝘛𝘛! 𝑪𝑹𝑨𝑪𝑲!
The sounds of electricity, melting skin, cracking bones, and screams of agony were heard by all, even by the guards on the other side of the door. With each punch, chunks of the Kingpin's face began to fly off and stain the glass behind him. Eventually, he was dead, and his screams had ceased. However, this did not stop the boy from continuing his onslaught.
The boy's punches began to speed up to the point where they were nothing more than a bright yellow blur of energy, cooking the Kingpin's skin as if he were a boiled egg.
Eventually, the boiled egg popped, leaving a massive bloodstain on the window and on the Phantom Spider's body. With one final punch, he used everything he had to send a powerful blow to Fisk's chest, breaking the glass and causing his headless body to fall from the top floor of his tower, all the way down to the concrete below him.
Kingpin's murderer, standing at the broken window and looking down at the mess he made, could hear a low buzzing sound. He looked over at what was left of a desk and saw a phone illuminating the destruction. He webbed the phone and pulled it towards himself before reading the notification on the screen.
'Job's done boss' The text read, there was also a photo attached. The killer tried to open it, but the phone was locked and asked for a face ID. Eren looked at the screen and then at the mess of what's left of Fisk far beneath him.
"Well, that's not gonna work." He said to himself as he opted for figuring out the password himself. "Let's see…" He began trying random common passwords but none of them worked, the Kingpin was too smart for that.
After searching through Fisk's stuff, he found a picture of Fisk and his daughter at what appeared to be a birthday party. Seeing a date at the bottom of the picture, Eren typed it into the phone and it opened.
"Sorry, kid." The Phantom Spider muttered under his breath before going through Fisk's messages and looking at the latest one. This time he could see the image, It was a picture of one of Fisk's victims. Eren's body shook uncontrollably as he felt anger mixed with other emotions overwhelm him.
"So he sends henchmen to do his dirty work." He continued looking through the messages until he saw the one about his mother, showing her mutilated dead body inside of a black plastic bag. He began shaking with anger once more and tears streamed down his masked face. He almost broke the phone in his hands, but if he wanted revenge, he knew that he'd need it in one piece. He then went through Fisk's banking app and noticed a payment that corresponded perfectly with the time of his mother's death.
"Herman. Schultz." The boy muttered. "This is just the killer, who's the man in the suit?" He asked himself before searching endlessly through the Kingpin's phone. He couldn't find a single lead, only the messages that were sent from Fisk's henchman.
The sounds of police cars and helicopters interrupted the Phantom Spider's search, prompting him to put the phone in his pocket and leave the area.
Not wanting the phone to track him home, the Phantom Spider hid it somewhere that only he could reach before heading back home.
As he swung back home, he noticed that he didn't feel any better after killing Wilson Fisk. He killed one of the men responsible for his mother's death, yet he felt nothing. He wondered if it was because Fisk wasn't the one that pulled the trigger. Regardless, if we wanted to avenge his mother, the ones involved needed to die. Only then could he be at peace.
At least, that's what the boy told himself.
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