Chương 80: The Death of a Hero
𝘾𝙍𝘼𝙎𝙃!
The Green Goblin slammed Silk's face into a brick building, breaking the entire wall down as he still held her by the back of the head with a forceful grip.
Without Eren there, she couldn't beat the Green Goblin with this much strength, it was impossible. The energy that Spider-Man lent her had long run out, leaving Silk to have to fight this new and improved Green Goblin via her own power. However, nothing she tried was working.
𝙎𝙇𝘼𝙈!
Grabbing her by the leg, the Green Goblin slammed Silk onto the ground, causing her to hit the pavement face-first. The Goblin laughed, holding the nearly unconscious girl up to his face with a grotesque smile. He was enjoying this, killing her nice and slow as she was doing to him back when they fought in his lesser state.
𝙎𝙇𝘼𝙈!
Once again, he slammed the girl down, this time slamming her body into the hood of a car. As soon as her head hit the vehicle, the world around Cindy Moon began to spin. It felt almost as if she had a concussion, though she wasn't sure since she'd never experienced one.
Once again, the Green Goblin laughed at her and taunted her. "Without borrowing Parker's power, it seems you're useless!" he told her before throwing her across the street into another parked vehicle.
Cindy tried to get up out of the wreckage, but before she could do so much as push her own body weight up, she was grabbed by the throat by the Green Goblin. As she struggled to breathe, the Green Goblin thought this would be the perfect time to do his villainous monologue.
"Cindy, Cindy, Cindy... such a shame. You know, Norman really liked you. You and that Parker boy. He saw the two of you as like how one would see his niece and nephew. He was thankful that his son Harry found two friends who could be a good influence on him. Keep him out of trouble, keep his head in the books, you know?"
The Green Goblin took his finger and removed Cindy's mask, revealing her pretty face beneath it.
"You're also quite the looker too." The Green Goblin gave her a disgusting smile before continuing.
"But, because you and Parker want to play this... hero bullshit. I have to remove you from the picture. Don't worry, I'll take good care of Harry when the two of you are out of the picture."
"Stay away from Harry..." Silk mumbled, still being held by Green Goblin helplessly.
"Oh? And if I don't? Then what? What'll you do to me?" The Green Goblin tightened his grip on her neck before getting real close to her face with his. "Choose your next words wisely, as they'll be your last."
"Or else- Spider-Man is gonna beat your ass-" As Silk said this, the Green Goblin scowled intensely at her.
Having had his fun with the girl, the Green Goblin decided that it was time to finish her off. Opting to crush her throat with a single hand.
𝘾𝙍𝘼𝘾𝙆!
Cindy's knees hit the ground...
However, she was still breathing, in fact, her breaths were harsh as she tried to regulate her breathing beneath the Green Goblin's hulking figure. She looked up, seeing Spider-Man punching the Green Goblin in the face, charging his fists with Godspeed energy.
Despite how powerful the attack was, the Green Goblin still held his ground, despite dropping Cindy Moon to the ground. "Well, if it isn't-" the Green Goblin threw a powerful punch at Spider-Man, however, Spider-Man simply ducked under the Green Goblin's fist. "Spider-Man!" the Green Goblin finished his sentence as his punch whiffed.
Spider-Man, with his arms glowing brightly with Godspeed energy, delivered an uppercut to the Green Goblin's chin. This time, the Goblin stumbled backward, receiving a quip from Spider-Man to harden the blow. "Thanks for reminding me. My punches hit a lot harder like this, don't they Norman!? Even at your full strength." Spider-Man, using his maximum strength, struck the Green Goblin in the nose with his fist with so much power, he created a shockwave that destroyed the windows behind the Goblin.
𝘾𝙍𝘼𝘾𝙆!
However, the Green Goblin simply stood his ground, causing the firey aura around him to shine even brighter than before. "I never said that 𝙄 was using my full strength."
𝙒𝙃𝙊𝙊𝙎𝙃!
His flame aura expanded, this time radiating about three feet away from his body. Due to its sheer force, Spider-Man and Silk were sent backward as they were before, looking forward with fearful eyes. The flames of the Green Goblin reflected off of Spider-Man's lenses as the man continued to heat up.
"Harry..." Spider-Man spoke into his comms. "Is the cure ready? Now would be a good time."
Spider-Man helped Silk get back on her feet as they watched the Green Goblin continue to power up in front of them like a Shonen antagonist.
"Harry!" Spider-Man repeated, getting no response. "Harry! You there!?"
"Yeah, I'm here." Harry Osborn soared through the air clumsily as he rode on a glider of his own. He was wearing an all-black outfit, including what appeared to be a bulletproof vest and a black mask that covered half of his face. The top half of his face was covered by a visor, which was equipped with multiple gadgets, as was his glider.
He figured, if he couldn't get bitten by a spider or take a serum like his father, he'd just do what other billionaires did. 'As Eren said, Iron Man doesn't have powers.' Harry thought to himself, trying to calm himself down as his life was in a lot of danger at the moment. He didn't take any type of serum, so he was just a normal young man at that point.
His glider was far different from his father's, rather than flying horizontally like a segue, this one flew in a vertical orientation like a snowboard.
"No way…" Eren whispered to himself as he watched his friend haphazardly glide through the air on his glider.
"Harry!?" Cindy was in disbelief.
"Get him, babe!" Lily took Harry's place as Seer back in the base, speaking through the comms of the whole team. She was the one that gave him that final push to get out there and help despite his self-doubt, and so, he did it.
Harry kept this project to himself, only revealing it to Lily just a few moments prior, but it was then the time for him to reveal it to the world.
Before his father could let out a reaction, Harry pressed a button on his glove and began firing bullets out from the bottom of his glider. These bullets, however, weren't just any ordinary bullets, they were designed to kill Avenger-level threats.
"Impossible! How are-" The Goblin tried to blindly block the bullets from hitting his body, but his attempts failed as the bullets passed right through his arm.
"Your own invention, Father…" Harry swooped around, still firing bullets at his father from his glider. His confidence was clear, the moment that he'd been waiting for after finding out his friends were heroes had finally come.
This time, he was the hero.
"Remember those bullets that S.H.I.E.L.D. approached you about?" His father began blindly throwing fireballs at him, but he dodged them clumsily. Silk began webbing the Goblin down in place, preventing him from continuing to attack. Seeing what Harry is trying to do, Eren jumped up onto the board behind Harry and began charging the board with Godspeed energy.
Spider-Man doesn't use guns, however, he'd tested how his powers interacted with them before and he figured out he could transfer his Godspeed energy into them and boost their bullets. As he did this, the gun beneath Harry's glider began firing electric bullets at a blitzing speed, tearing holes into the Green Goblin as if he were made of paper.
"They wanted you to make them in case the Hulk went rogue? Yeah, well guess who's also a big ugly green monster!" Once the board ran out of ammunition, Harry clicked his palm, causing a blade to form at the end of his board. Since Eren was attached to him, the blade began to glow with Godspeed energy.
Harry sped up his board and sent himself toward his father, stabbing him in the chest with his board as both he and Spider-Man jumped off of it. Eren landed on his feet while Harry rolled on the ground, being caught by Cindy before he could roll too far.
"You think these puny blades can hurt me! You foolish boy!" The Goblin laughed blindly at the seemingly futile attempt. If this was all his son had to offer, he still hadn't lost yet.
"No, but those aren't normal blades. They're coated. Coated with a cure that I made myself while these guys were out fighting crime. You'll be going back to normal soon. Father." He frowned underneath his mask and glared at the Goblin with confidence. He felt like a genius and no one could tell him otherwise.
All these years, his father denounced the boy by giving him many labels.
Incompetent.
Stupid.
Useless.
Waste of breath.
Unworthy.
Weak.
But at this moment, he finally was able to prove the man wrong.
"No! You- AAAAAH!" The Goblin's body began to bloat as he spoke, glowing brightly from every single orifice of his body, spewing flames and unknown energy. "I won't let you!"
"Uh… This wasn't in any of the tests." Harry flipped his visor down, which had a biometric scanner inside of it, and began scanning his father's body.
"No, no, no!" Harry stared anxiously at the readings through his visor, never having expected things could go this wrong.
"Oh my god…" Eren could also see the readings through his own mask, he couldn't believe what they were showing.
"What is it?" Silk, out of the loop, stared at the two boys. Their shocked voices and expressions filled her mind with dread. She could feel Eren's fear due to their connection, causing her to feel terrified herself.
Without saying a word, Spider-Man wrapped his arms around the Green Goblin, feeling his own body begin to heat up due to the Goblin's flame aura before sending the entirety of his Godspeed aura down to his two legs.
He'd need to go much faster than Mach 3 for this.
He'd need to run faster than he'd ever run before.
𝘡𝘡𝘛!
𝘽𝙊𝙊𝙈!
Spider-Man took off, pushing the Green Goblin with him as they began heading toward the coast at an extraordinary speed.
"What is it?" Silk looked at Harry with a worried glare, she could tell through his body language that this was something serious.
"My tests worked. I tested it on so many different subjects and it all worked..." Harry stared blankly, beating himself up due to what he viewed as a miscalculation on his part.
"What's different!?" Silk asked him, still not understanding.
"My father... he's turning into a nuke. His body is reaching insane levels of atomic energy. He's going to blow up the entire city. Unless..." Before Silk could even respond to this, Eren interrupted through their communications devices.
"It's okay, Harry. This is still good. We couldn't beat him otherwise. This was the best-case scenario."
"But the city!" The weight of responsibility crushed Harry, he tried to be the hero, but he felt like he was the reason that the city was now in even more danger. However, his cure wasn't what was making Norman react this way. Norman chose to turn his body into a nuclear bomb, this was his Plan D.
"Don't worry, I'm pushing him far away, he won't be able to hurt anyone." Eren's smile could be heard in his voice as he spoke. His friends looked at each other before Cindy cried out into his ear.
"What about you!" Silk's screams were agonizing. Spider-Man laughed a bit, finding humor in the situation to make it less dire for himself.
"What about me?" He calmly uttered as if he weren't about to do the unthinkable. Despite the act he was putting on, he was scared. His chest felt empty, yet, heavy at the same time. His heart was beating rapidly, and aggressively to the point where he could feel his pulse through every part of his body.
"You can't handle a nuke! Drop him and run!" Harry screamed, he knew what Eren was planning but he didn't want that to happen.
"I can't do that. I calculated all of it. I need to get him to a certain distance, based on my speed, I'll barely make it." At this point, Eren had reached the ocean with the Green Goblin. The Goblin did nothing but laugh as his body continued to bloat to the point where he couldn't move.
"What are you saying." Tears were falling down Cindy's face as she cried out to her first love, she knew what he meant, but she was in denial. She didn't want to lose him, not now, not on this day of all days.
Things were going wonderfully, especially after their touching moment on the ice rink. She couldn't let him die, she was going to spend the rest of her life with him, she was certain.
"I'm saying... I'm taking him down with me." Eren put on a voice of confidence, yet, he was scared to death during these last few moments. Cindy could faintly see through the facade and feel his terror.
"No!" Cindy fell to her knees. Harry dropped down to her level and placed his hand on her shoulder to comfort her as Eren continued to speak to them.
"Cindy. Harry. Even Lily, if you want to be the team's new Seer, I'm leaving the city to you. This time for real."
"You can't do that! I'm nothing without you! I can't fight by myself!" Cindy cried, creating small wet spots on the concrete with her tears. Up to this point, a lot of her success as a hero was because of him. Even outside of being a hero, he was the one who was there for her during the hardest times of her life. He gave her the love that no one else could give her and she couldn't see herself going on without him.
"You can, Cindy. You have Harry now. You saw how cool he was, right? From here on out, you two will be the duo that protects New York. Harry. Protect her. If not I'll kill you." Eren grinned slightly as he said this, though it was nothing more than a solemn one.
"Right. I'll do it!" Harry hid his tears and grieving expression beneath his mask and spoke to his best friend confidently. He was going to keep that promise if it was the last thing he did, at least, that's what he told himself at the moment.
"Watch over them both, Lily. Don't take that job lightly."
"I'll do my best, Eren." Lily spoke tearfully through their comms.
"I'm almost there. This is it, guys. I love you. And I'm sorry."
Eren could hear Cindy's cries, causing him to cut off his communications device as he continued sprinting on the water. He couldn't bear to hear them any longer.
He reflected on his actions as a hero and thought of his parents. 'This is it. It was a good run. Those three can do just fine without me. I hope I at least can be with my family once again. If they're watching right now, I hope I made them proud.'
𝘽𝙊𝙊𝙈!
No matter where anyone was in the city, the explosion was clearly visible and they could feel the Earth tremble. He'd made it to just the right distance to where no damage was caused to anyone from the explosion.
Both Cindy and Harry stared at the explosion, illuminating their tear-filled eyes. Cindy, still on her knees, was barely able to comprehend the mixture of emotions that overwhelmed her.
Harry, knowing he had to be a man and keep his composer, comforted her. Although he tried to hold them back, a waterfall of tears fell quietly down his face.
"I can't sense him. He's gone. He's really gone." Cindy was trying to the best of her ability to try and find a trace of Eren's soul, but she couldn't It was all blank. Harry looked through his visor at Eren's feed, as did Lily through the Seer's computer, and saw nothing but static...
He was gone.
.
.
.
"Spider-Man has gone missing after he sent the Green Goblin into the ocean in order to save the city." Chris, the boy that gave Eren the drawing looked at the TV in his living room with tears in his eyes. He began crying in his mother's arms, she comforted him, holding back tears herself as the man who saved her son was gone.
"The Goblin has also been reported missing or dead after releasing a nuclear explosion from his body, presumably blowing both himself and Spider-Man to nothing." Back in the Spider-Cave, Lily watched from one of the monitors, absolutely heartbroken as she watched the broadcast. She wasn't as close to Eren as the other two, but he was still one of her closest friends.
"Rikers prisoners are still running rampant throughout the city, as well as other criminals coming out of the woodworks after realizing that the hero can no longer stop them." The Future Foundation was still keeping tabs on the city during their absence. The family gathered around, watching the broadcast and seeing that their extended family member was gone. "Uncle Eren..." Valeria cried out to him, thinking about the promise he made to her and how he wasn't able to keep it.
"Silk and the hero referring to himself as the New Goblin, riding around on a device similar to the one that the Green Goblin used, is trying to mitigate the damage, but it is barely making a dent in the mayhem. Spider-Man was a true hero. Unfortunately, it took us all too long to find that out." Felicia Hardy stared at her tv with a bitter-sweet expression. It pained her to know he was gone, but she knew that if he were to die, this is the way that he wanted to go down. As a hero.
Hundreds of people gathered in Times Square and watched from one of the giant screens as the newscast ended. The hero that went underappreciated by many, but was beloved by just as many was gone.
The clock struck 12:00 AM, marking the transition into the next day, December 26th, Eren Parker's birthday.
And on that day, Spider-Man was declared dead...
His death rippled through the city of New York, breaking the hearts of many:
Cindy Moon.
Harry Osborn.
Lily Hollister.
Felicia Hardy.
The Future Foundation, seeing the news off-world.
Cameron, the boy he saved from jumping.
The mother he spoke to on the night of the lizard attack.
Chris, the boy that gifted him the drawing.
And the thousands of other people whose lives he impacted in the year he was a hero.
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