8/22/2006 Bomb Shelter #209 It's pretty hard to get your homeschooling done when your home has been destroyed. Fortunately, Marshall has a very powerful mother with very good resources, and the home was replaced with an even better one. So after spending a few weeks without the proper tools, the boy finally got the means to put together an exact replica of the death ray. Now he stands, once again, outside the door to Otto Octavius' hovel and knocks loudly, waiting for a response. He carries two briefcases this time, one being the original weapon and the other being his replication. Let's see if the good doctor can tell the difference! As busy as Octavius is with his other projects these days -- busy enough that it's a wonder he has any time to sleep -- it's a wonder that Marshall's been as lucky as he has, to always catch the doctor at home when he makes these unannounced visits. The luck of the devil, or something else? In any case, the heavy door slides open a few moments after the half-demon announces himself. Marshall comes down the steps two at a time, a well-groomed Afghan at his heels. "Well, it took some time thanks to recent events but I believe you'll be satisfied with my results," he comments as he carries both briefcases to a table. Once again he is wearing the guise of a nerdy-looking lab assistant. The bunker is much as it was the last time Marshall visited; there are different bits of scientific paraphenelia on the work table, the picture of May Parker remains missing, and the bathroom mirror's been replaced. Dressed rather shabbily in wifebeater and workpants, Dr. Octavius doesn't look up from the tiny device he's tinkering with. The object's the size of a dime, and the hair-fine tools he's using are being held by two of his tentacles. The third triggers the control to close the door behind Marshall, while the forth remains in an at-ready pose, business end curved high into the air and focused on the two visitors. "Nothing about you satisfies me, Marshall," says the scientist in a growling, gravelly voice, his eyes hidden behind the specialized goggles. "Least of all your control over your pet." With his signature smile permanently fixed in his face, Marshall slowly looks back at the Afghan, then forward again at Octavius. "Is something wrong, scholar?" A second tentacle, having taken care of its task with the door control, joins the other 'staring' at Marshall and his hell-hound. The doctor himself still hasn't looked up from his work. "I told you to keep that beast of yours away from May Parker." The undercurrent of anger in his voice is audible underneath the layer of concentration and forced calm. Marshall quietly stares at the tentacles hovering before him, his cheeks still set in that boyish smile of innocence. "Yes. And I have very much instructed my /beast/ not to let so much as a strand of fur be left on her lawn." The Afghan settles on its haunches before lowering to the floor with a lazy yawn. Otto pauses in his work, the tool-bearing tentacles withdrawing slightly as he turns to scowl at the pair. "Do you honestly expect me to take your word for it?" The tools are set down as Octavius pushes back on the chair and stands up, and now all four adamantium arms have their claws pointed at the pair of hell-spawn. "Do you think I'm a /fool/?" He all but spits on the last word. Marshall basks in the presence of Otto's discontent, barely containing his glee at the mad scientist's misery. "Doctor Octavius," he begins calmly, "I believe that in all this city, there are few, if any, minds who could accomplish anything close to what you could technologically. However, where you were gifted in that respect, you were diminished in other areas of proper reasoning. I am your student--your pupil." He throws up his hands. "What could I possibly gain from raising your ire as I attempt to absorb some of your genius?" The soothing words and appeal to the ego might have served Marshall better had he not, in the past, taunted the easily-nettled scientist. Octavius has a long memory where perceived humiliation is concerned. "You insolent little IMP," he snarls, and all four tentacles slam forward, quick as a striking cobra and with the force of a speeding locomotive -- two for Marshall, and two for the hellhound. In daydreams, Marshall has wondered whether or not he would survive such an assault from Octavius' well-tuned limbs. However, today he doesn't feel like finding out. Both he and his dog leap to opposite sides of the room and keep an eye on the tentacles assigned to chase them. The Afghan's fur burns away to reveal its unnaturally exposed muscle tissue which immediately catches flame, searing the blood that drips from it before it has a chance to touch the ground and threatening to burn through the very floor it stands on. Marshall remains the same, including that awful, taunting smile of his. "You may wish to calm yourself, Doctor," he calls. "It is quite possible to kill me, but I assure you my dog is a much harder murder." His smile diminishes and his voice gains a gruff tone of threat. "And if you do not calm down, I will have him explode in this room in a heat hot enough to recreate Pompei, boiling your precious brain on the spot." Adamanium slams into concrete -- everything's concrete, walls and floor and ceiling -- a fraction of a nanosecond after Marshall and his pet leap out of their path. Tentacle-sized craters are left behind as the limbs withdraw -- two in the wall behind the half-demon and another, larger one right where the hellhound was standing. The limbs curve high at either side of Octavius, again taking on the appearance of snakes. His lips are peeled back from his teeth in an ugly grimace, and his whole posture -- from furrowed brow to clenched fists to spread feet, knees slightly bent in preparation for movement -- telegraphs anger and attack-readiness, like a rattler's hiss or a cat's lashing tail. "I will not be mocked," he grates, as the tentacles sway in the air threateningly, claws spread in attack position. He's thinking of the special addition to the sprinkler system, but has no proof that the tactic would work... or work quickly enough to prevent his annihilation. "And I will not /tolerate/ being /toyed/ with." "My dear Doctor, you are mocked every pathetic day of your pathetic life!" Marshall fills the room with his laughter, the sound echoing in a deeper, demonic tone. "Look at you! Have you no decency? Have you no real sense of pride? You live paranoid in a bomb shelter and court a woman old enough to be /your mother/! If anyone has issues worth being mocked, heir doctor, it is /you/." He smirks, folding his arms across his chest. "I would say more, but need I really? Here I was, ready to give you enough money to fill your pathetic hovel with all the canned goods you plan on living off of for the rest of your miserable days, and you have the unmitigated afrontery to accuse me of not keeping a handle on my creature. Then try to attack me with your handicaps? Well that's fine, good doctor. I suppose now our business is through, though I doubt you'll shed tears over the loss." The hellhound growls fiercely, filling the room with uncomfortably warm air and the scent of gasoline. There's a moment -- several, really -- when Otto's rage comes within a breath, a blink, of overriding his sense of self-preservation, when the claws snap open and the tentacles twist savagely in the air in violent, slashing arcs; the force of will by which he holds himself back from more than his display of ferocity is just as savage. Red-faced and white-knuckled, he growls, "Get out," his voice thick with anger. Marshall makes a sweeping bow and turns for the stairway in the same fluid motion. His hellhound walks backwards behind him, keeping its gaze and fierce growl of warning focused on Otto and his tentacles. As he goes, the boy takes up one of the briefcases he brought. He'll leave the original, but he made the other, thus he feels it's his rightful property. Otto has enough presence of mind to work the door control to let the pair depart without incident, never letting up on his apocalyptic glare (and an unkind observer might well imagine that the multi-armed menace is about to pop a blood vessel). The dog continues to walk backwards behind its master, not missing a step as they both move up to the entryway. Once there, however, the hellhound turns around while Marshall stops. "I always have perfect control over my creature, Doctor Octavius," he comments, not bothering to look back. "Everything it does, it does with my will of permission, and for my amusement. Think on that, and remember it, the next time you go courting your precious mother." They step into the shadows of the abandoned tunnel, and disappear. An instant after the door -- designed to withstand a nuclear blast -- closes behind Marshall and his pet, Octavius unleashes his rage upon the room. "GrrrAAARRGH!" His arms smash craters in the wall, sweep worktable and instruments to the floor, tear the cot in twain, shatter porcelain and savage stainless steel. Half a minute later, he stands panting in the center of the wreckage, looking around. Every object within the shelter has been destroyed, and the walls sport new dents where his arms have struck them. Otto is, however, unconcerned, quite calm in the aftermath of the holocaust. His arms settle into a relaxed position at either side of him as he turns away from the door and walks to the far end of the ruined shelter, carelessly stepping on the device he was pretending to work on when Marshall came in. A hidden control is touched, and an equally hidden door opens, with more steps downward. As Doctor Octopus descends into his /real/ laboratory, he utters a low, throaty chuckle; the sound is cut off by the door sliding smoothly back into place and vanishing from view.