章 85: The Return of the New Goblin (Harry)
Harry, with his new physique, fur armor, and overgrown hair, stood face to face with Kraven the Hunter in front of a waterfall in ankle-deep water. This was Kraven's final test for Harry. If Harry could beat him, his training would be considered complete.
The two sprinted at each other, kicking the water up from beneath them until they clashed weapons at the center of the stream. As they clashed, water kicked up in between their gazes. Kraven went on the offensive first, swinging his spear at his student with great strength. Harry, using all of his speed and strength, blocked each attack as he stepped backward.
"What's wrong? Are you going to run away? Just like you run from your problems, boy?" The two continued to clash blades as Kraven continued to try and get under Harry's skin. Harry had been emotional and impatient during the entirety of their training. Testing his emotions is also part of the final exam.
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𝘚𝘪𝘹 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘴 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘳...
"Son of Osborn, you cannot let your emotions hinder you." Kraven spoke to his new student as he dodged his telegraphed attack. Harry was visibly frustrated at this point since Kraven struck a nerve by bringing up his best friend's death. "You can keep trying to attack through the anger, but an angry hunter will never win battle. You must keep calm. Keep nerves in check!" Kraven continued to dodge these attacks with ease before blocking one of Harry's strikes with two fingers.
Harry continued to push down with his spear as if more force was going to somehow yield results until Kraven let go and stepped to the side. This caused Harry to fall on his face. He had almost no energy left due to the fact that he hadn't eaten meat in a few days. Kraven told him that he will not be allowed to eat unless he landed a single hit on him in a fight, even if it just barely grazed him.
"I can't do it. I give up." Harry's muffled voice spoke as he lay face-first on the ground. Kraven looked down at him in disappointment, facepalming at the pathetic display in front of him.
"So that's it, rich boy? Just like that, you give up? You were never fit to become hunter."
"I'm not. I wanna go home. I quit." Harry giving up in such a pathetic way irked Kraven. He already spent so much time training him and he didn't want it to go to waste. Kraven crouched down next to Harry and begins speaking again.
"Son of Osborn. Your friend-"
"Don't talk about him anymore..." Harry interrupted. His face was still planted on the ground.
"You still do not understand why I bring up the spider. I am teaching lesson. You are too emotional. Your friend was hero, right? He did not let words control his impulses." Kraven attempted his own form of a pep talk, but it seemingly fell flat. Little did he know, Spider-Man was also once an impulsive boy, just like Harry. In fact, he was one of the most emotional people when he did choose to show them.
"Son of-" Kraven attempted to speak once more, but the feeling of Harry's spear gently hitting him in the face interrupted him.
"I got you. I... landed one..." Harry used the last of his energy to speak as he tapped Kraven with his weapon. "Meat... please."
Kraven chuckled, realizing he'd been outplayed by the city boy using nothing but deception. According to their agreement, all Harry had to do was land one hit and he would be fed, so that's what he did. Kraven stuck to his part of the deal, giving the two of them a feast of the finest Lynx meat from the jungle.
𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘥𝘢𝘺
"This is why your friend, the spider, died. You just sat back and watched him die as you sit back and suck your thumb!" Kraven smiled, knowing this was going to get under Harry's skin once again. "Maybe you should have kept running. You trying to help is what got him killed."
Harry remembered that fight they had six months ago. On the outside, Eren was always calm and collected whenever things went wrong. Even after all Eren went through, he still made sure to choose the best option, right up to the end. If Harry wanted to become a hunter and a hero, he had to be like his image of Eren and not let these false claims get to him.
Harry was able to stop himself from being blinded with rage, however, he still attacked Kraven sloppily as part of himself did still believe the words coming from Kraven's mouth.
"That's not true!" Harry began to use some of the extra strength hidden within him to push Kraven back. The dynamic has shifted, now Harry was the one on the offensive, striking the hunter with his pike. Kraven blocked and dodged these strikes with ease, without even moving his feet.
"He said so himself. It was the only way!" Harry slammed his pike down at the hunter, causing Kraven to block it horizontally with a sly grin.
"He lied. He hated you for it. You got him killed and you both know it." Kraven, now with a serious expression, continued to try and get Harry off of his game. Harry backstepped, causing water to splash up before stabbing toward Kraven.
"No. He was a lot of things, but he wasn't a liar." As Harry said this, Kraven dodged to the side and attempted to stab Harry once again. Harry saw this coming from a mile away and swiped that spear down before stepping on it. The water beneath them splashed upward as Harry attempted to stab the defenseless Kraven with his spear.
Kraven caught the spear in his hand before kicking Harry in the chest and taking the spear for himself. Harry fell backward and rolled through the water, soaking his entire body. Kraven cockily walked toward him, spear in hand as he laughed. "Weak. Just as you were back then."
Harry, with his face covered by his wet and overgrown brown hair, looked up at Kraven as he picks up the other spear and threw it toward the waterfall. Harry, unarmed, got back up on his feet with his fists up. "I'm not weak anymore. I don't need a weapon to prove that to you."
Kraven raised one eyebrow before chuckling. This development was surprising to him. By this point, the Osborn child would have lost his temper if it were a few months ago or perhaps he would've started whining on the ground. However, he was keeping his composer for the most part.
Kraven approached Harry and began sending slashes with his spear. Without giving up any ground, Harry dodged and blocked these strikes using his wrists with ease. Kraven was shocked once more, Harry was proving to have even more latent strength hidden within him now that his back was to the wall. Not expecting him to fight back, Kraven allowed himself to get hit by a right hook to the face, causing him to stumble back.
"Impressive, son of Osborn." Kraven wiped the bit of blood from his cheek as he spoke. "Look, you even drew blood." Kraven began to laugh, but Harry wasn't amused. With his hands balled in fists, Harry stomped over to Kraven and began sending punches at the hunter. These attacks were incredibly quick, even for Kraven.
He was still able to dodge them easily, sending a counterattack with his spear after ducking beneath another right hook. Harry caught this strike with his left hand before attempting to kick Kraven back just as he did to him moments prior.
"Using my own tricks won't save you!" Kraven caught the kick with confidence, glaring at Harry's face for a reaction. Although Harry's long hair was covering most of his face, Kraven could barely see Harry's faint smirk beneath it.
"Yeah. I know." Harry kicked off of the ground with one foot before turning in the air and delivering a kick right to Kraven's jaw. This kick caught Kraven off guard and sent him to the ground and into the water.
Harry picked up the spear and held it up to Kraven's neck as he pinned his teacher down with his foot. Having seen enough, Kraven yielded. Although the fight wasn't technically over if it were a real one, Kraven decided to let Harry pass.
"The winner of the fight is not always the one who is the best fighter. It is the one who does whatever it takes to win. Isn't that right, Kraven? That's what you told me." Harry, for the first time in a year, had a real smile on his face. He extended his arm downward and helped Kraven get back up on his feet.
"You are correct, son of Osborn." Kraven stood back on his feet, feeling like a proud father due to his student finally proving himself. "You are now true hunter."
With that said, Harry had completed his training. By the end of the day, a helicopter had arrived for Harry, picking him up from the Russian forest. As he placed one foot on the copter, he turned around to get one last look at what was his home for the last year. The way he felt about that place was bittersweet. He hated it, however, he did have somewhat fond memories of his training there with Kraven.
He looked over at his teacher and nodded before he continued to climb into the helicopter. Kraven nodded back, looking at Harry as if he were his own son with a massive smile. Surprisingly, the two of them grew rather close over the last year.
As a parting gift, Kraven gave Harry some of his special herbs to grow for himself when he was back home in America. With the herns, Harry could continue to grow stronger on his own, and perhaps they could one day have a rematch where Kraven fights at his full strength.
The helicopter lifted off, and Harry and Kraven waved at each other one last time before it took Harry from the forest to the airport, where Harry then got on his private jet with Bernard and headed back to New York. Upon his arrival at his hometown, Harry took a deep breath of the poor New York air quality and smiled slightly.
He was finally home.
The very next day, after spending the entire afternoon and night prior sleeping in his comfy bed, he went over to Lily's dorm to see her once again after their long year apart. As soon as she opened the door, she sprinted at him and hugged him like a wife welcoming her military husband home.
He lifted her up with ease as she wrapped her legs around him while they locked lips passionately. The two went inside and Harry showed her his new body and what he was now able to do with it in more ways than one.
After spending the whole day with Lily, he headed home and called Cindy to check on her, but received no response. 'I hope she's okay.' He sighed, wanting to do what Eren asked and protect her, but she still wouldn't answer him. 'Maybe she's just busy.'
In the back of an SUV driven by Bernard, he did a quick search of her on the internet and saw that Silk actually made a comeback. In fact, not too long ago, she took down some guy with a fishbowl helmet. Knowing that she was okay put his mind at ease as he headed back to the Osborn residence with Bernard.
He made his way down to the cave beneath the house and smiled once he saw what Cindy had done to the training room. It looked almost the same as her room back home, just with web versions of all of her furniture.
He walked past the training room and walked into the room where the three of them used to keep their gear.
He immediately tried to put his gear on, but due to him gaining so many pounds of pure muscle, he could no longer fit. Using the extra bulletproof material he had lying around in the cave, he created a new costume that looked exactly the same as his other one, just in a different size. As he tried on the new costume in the mirror, he saw a news report about a bank robbery nearby. 'Hmph. Just in time for my debut.'
He hopped on his glider and flew over to the bank, peeking into the building through a skylight. On the inside, there were a few thugs wearing white and pink outfits. Harry frowned under his mask in confusion. 'Seriously? Aren't you supposed to not stick out when you do these things?' Using his visor, Harry marked the enemies in his HUD as if he were playing a video game.
'Looks like there are about ten dudes. Nothing Harry the Hunter can't handle!' There was a brief pause in Harry's mind as he thought this. 'Goblin the Hunter? The Hunting Goblin? I'll just stick to the New Goblin...'
Harry broke the skylight with his fist, causing the glass to shatter. They all look upward at the skylight, shining their flashlights upward at the section where the glass was broken. What they fail to notice, are the smoke grenades below them.
𝘗𝘚𝘚𝘚𝘏
The grenades exploded, filling the area with smoke as more grenades fell and spread even more smoke throughout the room until it was completely filled. For the robbers, the smoke was too thick for any of them to see. For the New Goblin, however, this smoke meant nothing as he could see through it with the infrared setting on his visor.
As the robbers wandered around the smoke-filled room, they heard a thud at the center of the room. "Shhh!" One of them shushed his partners loudly as he backpedal through the smoke in an attempt to get to a safe corner to camp in. As he did this, he ran into something, or rather, someone.
"AAAAH!" The man screamed, causing all of the men to rush into the smoke and toward the noise. After a few seconds, the remaining nine men surround the body. One of them got down and inspected it to see that the man's nose was shattered and his face was bloodied. This immediately struck fear into the robbers. One of them tried to run, however, a grappling hook shot past the eight other robbers and impaled him in the leg before yanking him backward and into the unknown.
The group of eight stared into the nothingness as the smoke cleared, only to see the New Goblin standing over the unconscious body of their partner. "Wh- who are you?" One of the thugs asked, pointing his gun at the vigilante. This prompted the other eight to also point their guns at him.
"The name's New Goblin. See your two buddies? The one next to you and the one over here? They only received... let's call them minor injuries. My entire costume is bulletproof so shooting me is a waste of time, however, if any of you choose to use lethal force..." Harry flicked his right wrist upward, revealing three wrist blades from his black gauntlet. "I'll have to switch to lethal force too."
This is a minor bluff. Unlike Eren, Harry told himself that he would kill if it was necessary in order to prevent what happened with the Green Goblin to happen again, however, these thugs weren't even worth killing to him and he still wasn't sure if he had it in him to take a human life. He simply wanted to scare them to get the word out.
As Harry attempted to warn them, one of the men's trigger fingers began to itch as he put his finger on the trigger of his rifle.
Using his new speed, the New Goblin sprinted over, maintaining eye contact with the gunman until he reached him and placed one of his wrist blades on the man's throat. "You won't live to see another day." Harry spoke coldly as he stared into the man's soul. The blades on the man's neck began to draw blood which then leaked down his neck and onto the floor. "Fire the bullet, you bastard. Test me."
The man dropped his gun, followed by the rest of the crooks dropping their guns and putting their hands up. Upon closer inspection, Harry realized that these guys were just college-aged kids.
"P-please don't kill me! Just take the note on the table over there. We aren't bad guys, we just love Screwball is all. She said she'd give us a bunch of Twitter followers." The boy speaking looked over at a table with a suitcase on it. Harry was confused and questioned him.
"What? A note? Followers? You robbed a bank for Twitter followers?"
"Yes! We weren't here to rob the bank! It was to draw you out. Screwball said on social media that to whoever is willing to go stage a robbery and bring you here, she will reward us. That's all!"
Harry looked at the boy, with an extremely unamused expression. "You guys are idiots, you know that? Backs against the wall, all of you. Except you." Harry pointed at a nearby wall, prompting all but one of the social media clout chasers to stand up against it so they don't pull anything funny.
"I want you to open it." The boy immediately walked over toward the suitcase on the bank teller's desk and opened it. Inside the suitcase was a note, just like the boy said there would be.
Harry shooed the boy away as he unfolded the piece of paper and read the note. His eyebrows furrowed. He couldn't believe the words on the page. It's only been one day as a solo hero, and he'd already been figured out.
"Welcome back from your trip from Russia, Harry Osborn."
-@ScrewBall
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