Chapter 10: The Past (4)
CRRRRNNNNK.
The Goblin Mech's armor groaned as it stepped forward again—shaking the city to its core.
But high along its back, clinging to smoldering steel and exposed joints—
Five shadows moved.
Peter Parker led them. His hand bleeding from where molten metal had burned through his glove. But he didn't stop. Couldn't.
Behind him: Four elite rebels, grim and silent. No names. Just their weapons, their grit, and their devotion.
"There," Peter pointed, breath ragged.
A ventilation shaft barely visible, half-hidden between retracting armor plates.
"On my mark. When I pull it open, you drop in. No hesitation."
They nodded.
The Mech jerked again rattling the plating beneath them. One false move and they'd be flung to their deaths.
"Three…"
"Two…"
"NOW!"
Peter ripped the panel loose—
One by one, the rebels dove in.
Peter followed last sliding down a scorching chute, landing in a dim maintenance corridor deep inside the beast.
Interior: The Goblin Mech – Sub-Core Level
The inside was worse than expected.
Steam hissed from pressure valves.
Exposed wires crackled with unstable energy.
Red emergency lights strobed every few seconds.
And worse—
Drones.
Sleek, spider-like machines, patrolling narrow catwalks with glowing green eyes. The Goblin's personal AI defense units Goblin-Bots.
Peter crouched low.
"EMP coils ready?"
The rebel with the charge gave a thumbs-up, slipping a device from his pack.
The second rebel covered the rear with Francis's rifle.
The third held their combat knife tight.
The fourth silent rigged plasma mines along the walls as they crept deeper.
They moved in perfect sync shadows in a burning throat.
Up ahead: a central reactor node. Glowing. Pulsing.
The mech's power heart.
Exactly what they came for.
Peter whispered.
"There's our kill switch. We overload it, this thing goes down—hard."
Suddenly—
ALERT SCREECH.
One of the Goblin-Bots turned sharply—spotted them.
"DOWN!"
Gunfire erupted.
Peter dove behind a pipe, blasting energy from his hand—BOOM!
One bot exploded.
The rebels fanned out.
The knife-wielder jumped over the railing, slicing through a bot's optic lens.
The rifle-wielder picked off another with three clean shots.
But one rebel the one rigging explosives—
"ARGHH—!!"
Was impaled by a bot's arm-blade.
Peter turned. Too late.
The rebel choked then smiled with bloody teeth.
"Light it up…"
BOOM!!!
The mine detonated with him—taking out three more drones.
The corridor quaked.
Three left now.
Peter. The rifleman. And the silent one with the EMP.
Over intercoms, the Goblin's voice echoed, mechanical and gleeful:
"You thought you could sneak inside my masterpiece?"
"Let me show you what happens to insects in my web."
KLAXONS sounded.
The core locked itself behind sliding blast doors.
Peter gritted his teeth.
"We're running out of time."
The silent rebel stepped forward.
His hand on the EMP.
"I'll open it."
Peter blinked.
"You'll die if you get close to that lock. It's rigged with thermal feedback."
The rebel turned to him.
And finally spoke.
"Then don't let it be for nothing."
As The mech groaned and shuddered, steam hissing violently from every crevice. The red emergency lights bathed the corridor in pulses of dread.
The blast doors before them loomed like the jaws of a beast.
Inside: the reactor core pulsing, unstable.
The heart of the Goblin's monster.
The last place they'd ever see.
The one-eyed veteran, face scorched and tired, stood in front of the control panel, fingers hovering above the manual override.
He glanced at Peter jaw set.
"You still have time to leave, Peter…"
"Let us handle this."
He said it like a farewell.
Like he'd already accepted the price.
Peter didn't move.
Didn't blink.
He looked at the three rebels who had followed him through hell.
At the one who already gave his life in the hallway.
At the wreckage of dreams they all stood in.
And his voice came like a whisper of fire:
"No."
"I'm not leaving."
He took one step forward his body barely holding together, chest rising and falling in short gasps.
"I die with you."
"I don't like leaving my friends behind."
"I'd rather die."
The silence that followed wasn't empty.
It was sacred.
The kind of silence only heroes earn.
The one-eyed veteran stared at him—then nodded once, deeply, like a salute.
The other two rebels smiled through tears.
"Together, then," one of them said.
Peter stepped to the panel, resting his bloody hand on it.
"Let's make this count."
Outside, the Goblin Mech roared again arching its back, aiming its cannon at the last surviving block of civilians in Chicago.
In the cockpit, Norman Osborn's mechanical face twisted in joy.
"Goodbye, rebels."
But just as his finger hovered over the trigger—
His entire mech shook.
Lights dimmed.
Warning sirens flared inside his HUD.
**>> INTERNAL CORE BREACH DETECTED.
EXPLOSIVE SIGNATURE CONFIRMED.
OVERRIDE DISABLED.
YOU'RE TOO LATE.**
Norman's laughter stopped.
"No… No no NO!!"
He slammed his fists into the console.
"PETER!!!!"
WARNING. WARNING.
The reactor inside the Goblin Mech pulsed erratically unstable, overloading, seconds from a full-core detonation.
Flames erupted from the walls. Gears exploded from the ceiling. The mech's frame spasmed like a dying animal.
The one-eyed rebel slammed the final explosive into place beside the glowing reactor. His hand trembled, but he smiled.
"That's it. Timer set."
15 seconds.
Peter turned
"Let's move—!"
But they didn't.
The rebels… just stood there.
Blocking the exit route.
Their weapons drawn not against him.
But against the path behind him.
"No," said the rifleman, gently.
"You get out. That's the whole point."
Peter's heart dropped.
"What are you—what are you doing!?"
"You said it yourself," the one-eyed vet said, voice calm, accepting.
"You're not leaving anyone behind."
"But we are."
He pressed a detonator into Peter's palm.
"You have a chance. Take it."
Peter's eyes blurred. His voice cracked.
"Don't do this—"
But the rebels smiled.
"It's already done."
And with one sudden shove they launched Peter into an emergency chute that flared to life behind him.
He crashed through a vent tunnel, twisting, burning his hands on the descent—
As the blast door sealed above him.
The reactor went white.
And then—
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
The Goblin Mech exploded in midair, its entire upper half detonating in a mushroom of green and orange fire.
The sound shattered windows for miles.
The fireball engulfed buildings, painting the Chicago night in a violent, roaring bloom.
The shockwave rippled outward, flattening nearby ruins.
Amid the collapsing wreckage—
A panel on the mech's side shot open.
Peter tumbled out, coughing violently, face scorched, uniform torn apart.
In his arms—
Norman Osborn.
His Goblin armor was shredded, his body mangled from the overload.
But he was breathing.
Barely.
Peter collapsed to his knees, cradling Norman's ruined frame.
"You're lucky they cared about me..."
"...more than they cared about surviving."
Norman stirred weakly, whispering through blood:
"You... idiot..."
"You should've let me burn..."
Peter didn't answer.
He just stared at the crater behind him.
At what used to be the mech.
At where rebels had given their lives.
And the one who never made it past the hallway.
Tears mixed with ash on Peter's face.
Not because of pain.
But because of the ones who stayed behind.
He whispered—
"You're going to live, Norman."
"You're going to see the damage you've done."
"And you're going to answer for it."
And then—
SHHNK.
A flash of silver metal.
Something pierced straight through Peter's lower back—bursting out of his stomach.
"AGHH—!!"
His eyes widened as blood sprayed from his mouth, hot and red and sudden. The pain was instant. White-hot. Paralyzing.
He looked down—
A blade. A serrated talon.
His knees buckled.
He collapsed.
A shadow hovered above him, cloaked in high-tech wings and lined with emerald feathers of sharpened metal.
The Vulture.
Sleek. Cybernetic. Cold.
His mask resembled a steel bird skull, voice distorted like a hiss of wind through bone.
"You're bleeding, Norman Osborn…"
He turned his head slightly, visor glowing red.
"…but you're still breathing."
Norman, half-conscious, struggled to sit up
His voice rasped with fury:
"You… You Fucker!"
The Vulture ignored Peter's gasping.
He crouched beside Norman, pulling out a slim black comm device from his wrist.
"Target secured."
"The Leader still wants you alive."
Peter tried to move to lift his hand but the pain sent him into convulsions.
Blood pooled beneath him.
His vision blurred. The sky darkened.
The Vulture glanced at him.
"He's no longer a threat. Let him bleed."
He grabbed Norman by the collar, activating his jetpack.
Blades whirled open from his wings, ready to slice through the air.
But then
Norman coughed.
And muttered, barely audible:
"…Don't touch him."
"He is just a kid."
The Vulture paused.
"You're still soft. That's why you fell."
He looked down at Peter again.
The rebel who destroyed the mech.
The rebel who made the city believe in heroes again.
And left him in the dirt.
FWOOSH—!!
The Vulture soared into the sky dragging Norman Osborn with him, disappearing into the smoke and moonlight.
Peter's hand twitched.
His blood soaked the concrete beneath him. His body trembled, fighting—but failing—to hold on.
His eyes stared up at the ruined sky.
A city still burning. A mech now ash. And wings that vanished into the smoke, taking his enemy and his second chance away.
His mouth opened dry, trembling.
"…not again…"
His mind screamed louder than his lungs.
(No... I can't die here…)
(Not yet…)
*(There's still so much I need to do—)
And then—
The pain faded.
Replaced by light.
Memories.
Flashing like fireflies across the darkness.
A boy on a rooftop, staring at the stars.
Ben Parker handing him a model rocket and saying, "Aim higher than the sky, kid."
Laughing with Harry and MJ in a classroom that no longer exists.
His first crush.
His first fight.
The quiet sound of a basketball bouncing in a street he used to call home.
Then came the pain.
The war.
The serum.
The rebellion.
The weight.
Always the weight.
But in all that—
There was one face.
One voice.
One anchor.
Aunt May.
He saw her sitting in her kitchen, warm light hitting her silvering hair.
Wearing that faded blue sweater.
Smiling at him like he wasn't a soldier.
Like he was still her boy.
Her voice echoed like the softest lullaby:
"With great power, Peter… comes great responsibility."
Peter's lip quivered.
His thoughts dimmed.
His fingers loosened.
(Aunt May…)
(I'm sorry…)
Then the world spun.
The light cracked apart.
And everything went black.
Peter Parker is Dead
To be continue