"What?! Come on, man, that's not funny. I don't know how you became Spider-Man, but there's only one Peter Parker who became Spider-Man, and that's me."
The Spider-Man in the nanotech suit said it to Peter with complete certainty.
"You're not the only Peter."
"You don't get it..."
"Peter Parker, eighteen years old, student at Midtown High, incredibly talented in science, got bitten by a radioactive spider and ended up becoming Spider-Man. Motto: Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Oh, and you live with May Parker too..."
Peter confidently rattled off the standard information shared by just about every Peter Parker Spider-Man, hoping that would make the other guy believe him.
Unfortunately, it did not work.
"That stuff's been all over the media already. Who doesn't know that?!"
"Okay, fair enough..."
Peter suddenly felt like this was impossible to explain.
To be fair, this world's Spider-Man really was in a terrible spot. His identity had been exposed, and he did not even have a normal life anymore.
"Another Peter?!"
Doctor Octopus narrowed his eyes and kept looking back and forth between the nanotech Spider-Man and Peter, full of confusion.
"Hi, Otto."
Peter curiously looked the man over.
According to the movie storyline, Doctor Octopus should have died.
That meant the one in front of him had probably been pulled here from some parallel universe belonging to the same "movie dimension," or to put it another way, he was a counterpart from a parallel universe.
That made things much more interesting.
"Wait, you know him?!"
"You could say that..."
Peter nodded and walked forward.
Doctor Octopus looked at Peter too, letting him approach to within ten feet without attacking.
Otto took off his sunglasses and looked at Peter. A dark smile slowly appeared on his face as he asked, "How are you, my boy?"
"Trying to be better."
"But sorry, Otto. I'm not the same Peter you know. We're two different people. That said, I think we do happen to know the same Harry..."
Peter said with a smile.
"The Osborn kid, right? I remember him. I worked for Norman before. But what do you mean, you're not the Peter I know? What kind of nonsense is that?"
From the voice alone, Otto could already tell this wasn't his Peter.
But what exactly was this kid talking about?
"Doesn't matter which Peter you are. I'm still going to kill you."
He gave up trying to understand and decided not to bother thinking about it anymore.
Doctor Octopus glared coldly at Peter, and his mechanical tentacles shot toward him.
"Wow, that's some nonsense right there."
"Right?! I don't even know him, and he already jumped me!"
The nanotech Spider-Man nodded with heartfelt agreement.
But Peter was slightly faster than Otto. Before the tentacles even reached him, two strands of webbing shot out and pinned them in place midair.
"Just so we're clear, I'm really strong."
Peter suddenly exerted force, yanking hard on the webs and trying to rip the mechanical arms right off.
Otto braced himself using his other two tentacles, anchoring himself to the ground. Each tentacle could exert around eight tons of force.
But against Peter's strength, that resistance meant nothing at all.
Otto and all four tentacles got dragged straight toward him.
All right.
The material of these tentacles really was much tougher than the version from the other universe. He couldn't tear them off.
"That's impossible!"
Otto looked genuinely panicked.
"The impossible part is right here."
Bang!
Peter punched him in the forehead, then flicked his wrist with a burst of skill, tangling the mechanical arms together, wrapping them around him once, and turning him into a perfect human dumpling.
Then he added a few more layers of webbing.
That settled it.
The nanotech Spider-Man stood off to the side, still frozen in the stance he had been about to launch from, only to realize the fight was already over.
For a moment, he was completely dumbfounded.
"That's... it?!"
Peter casually tossed the Doctor Octopus burrito to the side, then turned around and said with a grin, "What, did you expect me to trade blows with him for ten minutes? If you can solve something quickly with force, then dragging it out only creates more unnecessary problems. Isn't that worse?"
"It's just... this..."
The nanotech Spider-Man still looked like he couldn't believe it.
Up to this point, his fights had always involved dragging things out, looking for an opening, or throwing enough trash talk at the enemy until they slipped up and revealed a weakness.
He had never seen someone fight this cleanly and directly.
Peter shrugged and said helplessly, "Honestly, this is me going easy. Normally I'd just kill people like him in one move. I just didn't kill this guy because I'm interested in him."
The truth was, Peter knew Doctor Octopus was really just being controlled by a damaged inhibitor chip. He was already wondering whether fixing that chip might let him recruit Otto into the Antihero Multiverse Squad.
A scientific genius like this absolutely could not be wasted.
And besides, Peter had always liked this version of Doctor Octopus a lot, even before crossing over.
So he had spared him.
"Kill people? You're not some kind of villain, are you?!"
"I can swear to heaven, I'm definitely not a villain. That said, I'm not a superhero either."
Peter said it seriously.
He could understand the fear in the other Spider-Man's eyes.
After all, there were countless Spider-Universes, and some Spider-Men really had turned evil.
Ghost-Spider, Spider-Assassin, Superior Spider-Man variants, and plenty more.
Those countless alternate versions really had brought terror to their own universes.
"Then what are you supposed to be?!"
"Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man."
"Hey, that's my line!"
"Whoever says it gets to use it. I don't care if you said it first."
"So who are you really?! And why are you carrying a backpack? You're not seriously a student too, are you?!"
The nanotech Spider-Man asked, clearly dying of curiosity.
The backpack on Peter's shoulders was just too eye-catching, especially because it looked so similar to his own.
Peter rummaged through it, then took out a student ID and held it in front of him.
"This should prove who I am, right?"
"You're seriously Peter Parker?! And you go to Midtown High too?! Dude, how have I never seen you before?!"
The student ID looked almost identical to his own. All the information matched perfectly.
The only thing different was the photo.
"Wait, your birthday's the same as mine too?!"
"Come on, look closer and you'll see our home address is the same too. I'm Peter, all right..."
Peter said, thoroughly speechless.
"Yeah..."
"But if you're Peter, then who am I?! Don't tell me I'm your clone or something?!"
Truly god-tier brainstorming.
"Explaining this is annoying, and honestly I don't fully get it either. All I know is that I was heading to school with Gwen this morning, then suddenly fell into some kind of hole and ended up here..."
"Wait, who's Gwen?!"
"You don't know her?!"
Peter asked suspiciously.
"I've never met her in my life."
"Then your girlfriend isn't Mary Jane?!"
"Don't know her either! But my girlfriend's initials are MJ. Her name's Michelle Jones. And I've got a best friend named Ned. Oh right, that reminds me, I actually came here for a reason. This is about them."
"About them?"
"Because of me, they might not get into college. I need to fix that."
"College? What, Empire State University?"
"No, no, we're trying to get into MIT."
"Huh. So that's different too..."
"What are you talking about?"
"Nothing..."
Off to the side, Doctor Octopus, still wrapped like a human dumpling and half-dazed from that punch, suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to die.
He already knew Peter Parker was the type who talked way too much.
But he had absolutely never imagined having to listen to two of them at the same time.
Listening to two chatterboxes go back and forth like this was pure torture.
Honestly, getting knocked out with one punch would've been more merciful.
(End of Chapter)
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