[Olivia Octavius’s POV]
I crash into my laboratory, barely keeping my balance as my chanical arms carry my failing body forward. The pristine equipnt and organized workstations mock my deteriorating condition. These once-magnificent appendages that gave such power now serve as my life support, the only things keeping my withered fra upright.
With a howl of frustration, I slam one of my tal arms down on the nearest desk. The reinforced steel surface crumples like paper, sending beakers and precision instrunts flying across the room in a shower of glass and sparks.
"God damn it!" My voice erges distorted through the respirator built into my suit. The sound echoes off the sterile walls of my hidden facility beneath Manhattan. "To think Spider-Woman was one of my first interns! One of the brightest minds I'd ever encountered!"
I hurl a nearby lab table across the room with another chanical arm, watching it shatter against the wall. The crash brings no satisfaction, only the painful reminder of my own fragility as my lungs spasm in protest at the exertion.
Wheezing through damaged tissue, I drag myself to my primary workstation. The dical readouts displayed on the monitor confirm what I already know, my condition is deteriorating faster than anticipated. The constant beatings over the years from Spider-Woman have cost everything.
"I don't have much ti left," I mutter to myself, scrolling through the data with one tal claw. "And I'm running out of options."
The irony doesn't escape . I created these arms to revolutionize scientific exploration, to reach places humans couldn't safely go. Now they're the only thing keeping alive, feeding nutrients, administering dication, and supporting my crumbling skeleton.
My plan had been so elegant in its simplicity. Capture the spider, force her to engage with my neural interface device, and challenge her intellect directly, mind against mind in the ultimate battle of wits. If I had prevailed, I would have transferred my consciousness into her young, healthy body, discarding this failing husk like the obsolete shell it is. I would have beco truly Superior in every way, Olivia Octavius's brilliant mind housed in Spider-Woman's perfect physiology.
But now I know her true identity. Piper Parker. The one who showed such promise before apparently betraying with her sanctimonious morality.
I sink into my reinforced chair, the tal arms curling around protectively as my own limbs tremble with exhaustion.
"Parker," I whisper, the na like acid on my tongue. "All this ti, it was you."
A mory surfaces through the fog of my deteriorating brain. Parker wasn't alone during her internship. There was soone else... a boyfriend who would wait for her after lab hours. A young man with striking red hair. What was his na?
I pull up my research database, fingers shaking as I command one of my chanical arms to interface with the system. The neural link pulses with information as I access our old laboratory records.
"Mario," I wheeze, the mory crystallizing. "Mario Jane."
My chanical arms dance across multiple screens, pulling up surveillance footage from Parker's internship days. There he is, waiting outside the lab, his striking red hair unmistakable. I connect to the facial recognition database I appropriated from A.I.M. during our last disagreent.
The scan runs quickly, cross-referencing against social dia, traffic caras, and public records. Multiple hits appear, tracking his movents across the city over recent months. The Empire State University performing arts program. A coffee shop near campus. An apartnt in Brooklyn.
"Perfect."
The solution unfolds before with elegant simplicity. If I can't capture Parker directly, I'll acquire the necessary leverage to make her co to willingly. A trade, her boyfriend's life for her submission to my neural battle. We will finally learn who the smartest in the room truly is!
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