Chapter 6
"No, if you put me in a courtroom, all you'll see is another freak show!" the Green Goblin shouted, "I've spent my whole life refusing to be a spectacle for others' amusement! Never again!"
The Green Goblin twisted his body, trying to find a way to break free.
—Perhaps this was also related to the fact that the webbing Peter had shot earlier hadn't fully restrained him.
Peter, however, simply shot another strand of webbing, firmly pinning his body to the wall.
"No one can lock me in a cage again!" The Green Goblin was furious, his emotions becoming extremely unstable. His tragic past kept assaulting him, stimulating his nerves.
Peter just looked at him.
Although he had decided not to kill the Green Goblin and instead send him to court to let him fight it out with those people, to be killed by others, and to feel pain before his death.
But now, seeing him struggle on the edge of agony, Peter felt waves of satisfaction in his heart.
No, perhaps that was the emotion passed on from the Shadow Spider-Man's part... right?
Thud!
Not far away came the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground.
A figure slowly walked toward the Green Goblin.
It was, astonishingly, Kraven the Hunter, covered in venomous spiders!
He stumbled toward the Green Goblin: "Osborn, save me, save me..."
"No, don't come near me, you ugly freak monster!" the Green Goblin screamed in terror.
But his hands were stuck to the wall by the webbing, and he couldn't break free for the moment.
And so, Kraven the Hunter, covered in spiders, crashed into the Green Goblin's arms.
The venomous spiders, like a contagious disease, quickly spread from Kraven's body to the Green Goblin's, into his mouth, and completely engulfed him.
"Aaah—"
The underground passage was filled with desperate screams.
Peter lightly leaped to the ceiling of the passage.
With his hands and feet clinging to the ceiling, he turned to look at the ground.
These spiders, as if they were the vengeful spirits of a newspaper reporter codenamed "Spider" before his death, had finally found their target for revenge, tearing into the flesh of Kraven the Hunter and the Green Goblin.
Soon, they reduced the two to mere skeletons.
After finishing this, the venomous spiders scattered in all directions, disappearing into the underground passage.
Peter stared at the scene, murmuring to himself.
"Did I do the right thing? Just watching him be devoured by spiders?"
"You're still a teenager, aren't you?"
"...Yes."
"A few years ago, when I was still a teenager, um, probably about your age, Uncle Ben took me to see Frankenstein, and it gave me nightmares. When I woke up, Uncle Ben held me in his arms."
"I hoped Uncle Ben would tell me there were no monsters in the world, but Uncle Ben thought I was old enough to learn about the 'monsters' of this world. Uncle Ben told me that all he could do was protect me from the monsters."
"Monsters? It's not just about monsters, is it?"
"Yeah, sometimes there are monsters hidden in people's hearts, maybe even more monstrous than monsters. Beware of people's hearts, Peter."
"Thank you, Peter."
Peter slowly closed his eyes.
After a while, when he opened them again, his gaze became sharp and somber.
He thought for a moment, a smile curling at the corner of his mouth: "I should thank you too, Peter, for facing it with me during my toughest moments..."
Then, he took one last look at the two skeletons on the ground and nimbly climbed out of the underground passage.
He had one final thing to do to put a perfect end to all this.
Queens, New York.
Peter opened his eyes and sat up abruptly from his bed.
He first touched his body; he was wearing his own pajamas, and his body had returned to his relatively "petite" frame.
Well, I haven't fully developed yet. In a few years, I'll be as tall as him.
And even more handsome!
Peter encouraged himself.
At that moment, he noticed some changes in his body.
It seemed... his spider abilities were more intuitive?
Was it because he had experienced them firsthand in the fully developed body of the Shadow Spider-Man?
Or was it due to some deeper reason?
Peter pondered.
Checking the time, he realized it was almost six in the morning.
It seemed that when he went to the Shadow Spider-Man's world, the flow of time in both worlds was indeed synchronized.
He had spent nearly three hours in that world, and nearly three hours had passed here too!
In a few hours, the famous Iron Man would visit his home.
Peter thought about it and decided not to sleep.
If someone came while he was still asleep, that would be too impolite and might leave a bad impression.
But Iron Man is a capitalist, isn't he?
The Stark Industries isn't small, is it?
Does he exploit his employees?
Is Stark Industries a sweatshop?
Should I secretly gather some information, just in case...
Peter shook his head vigorously, momentarily speechless.
"Is this a side effect of briefly merging with a private-detective, brooding-style Spider-Man? Good thing it was only three hours. If it was three days, three months, or three years..."
But Peter also realized that, aside from this instinctive aversion to capitalists, his current state was likely one of the benefits of the fusion.
His ability to observe and analyze things had become sharper. In the past, he was quick-witted but hadn't specifically studied such skills.
But the Shadow Spider-Man, as a private-detective-style newspaper reporter, had been well-trained in these abilities by Urich, and so Peter had learned a lot.
A simple example.
Take a shoe. Someone without relevant knowledge would see it and only know it's a shoe, perhaps noting its style—like sneakers or slippers—and its color.
But now, Peter could judge the owner's approximate height from the shoe's length, their walking posture from the wear on the inner and outer sides, and even deduce their profession, preferences, or personality from the shoe's style and color.
Finally, by combining all these factors, he could narrow down the owner to a specific range and, with further detailed screening, find the true owner!
This ability was undoubtedly a great boost for his aspiration to become a superhero.
He vaguely felt there were more benefits, but he hadn't discovered them yet. He'd see in the future!
Peter closed his eyes again to "look" at the web in his mind and found that the glowing point representing the Shadow Spider-Man was no longer glowing.
Perhaps the next time it glowed, he could go back!
And these nodes on the web—did they mean that each node represented a Spider-Man from a different world?