Jump 181: Spider-Verse

Jump 181: Spider-Verse

Location: Earth-10005, early 1980s
Age: 38
Identity: Spider Totem
Drawbacks: [0] Crossover Continuity, Overtime

[Free]      Team Ups
[200/1000]  Great Minds
[200/1400]  Power Stipend (+400)
[Free]      Basic Spider Package
[300/1400]  Natural Webbing
[400/1400]  Spider-Moon-Man
[600/1400]  Spider-Cyborg
[700/1400]  Weapon of War
[900/1400]  Special Projects
[900/1500]  Item Stipend (+100)
[Free]      Spidey Suit
[1500/1500] Cloning Facility

Suddenly, we go from being a 1970s-esque Spider-Man that aged up to the 1980s, with a habit of harassing Xavier's kids (and who definitely didn't send Apocalypse to Mercury that was just a random coincidence I swear), to being caught up in an epic crossover event! It seems that there are some immortals running around trying to drain the life force of assorted Spider-Men throughout the multiverse!

The Inheriors attack! The Spider-Men mostly run! Except for one that challenges them to mortal kombat! Not having the faintest clue what this is, they accept, viewing it as an amusing way to have fun with their prey. And so they allow 24 hours for the Spider-Man in question to rally his allies for the challenge - fights that are potentially to the death. As though the rules would stop them anyway, but the ultimate value for the long-lived is found in novelty and discovery. And a fighting tournament? This was new enough to be interesting.

They did not expect any of the Spider-Men, once fought one on one, to be as frighteningly competent as the challenger was. Nor for the rules of the tournament to be enforced by the Spider-Man that challenged them - when, for instance, the one called Solus attempted to outright break the rules of the tournament due to his impatience and interfere in the very first round, he did not expect to be shot in the face point-blank and rendered very much dead by the Spider-Man that challenged them to the tournament... who by all rights should have been busy grappling with Jennix, yet somehow he moved quickly enough and produced the weapon out of nowhere. When Jennix laughed it off and said 'you don't know, but he'll return', Spider-Man merely had the name struck from the roster once his fight had ended... by fatality, similarly involving a gun.

When neither of the defeated Inheritors reappeared to spoil the tournament, the others began to get nervous; another Peter Parker had warned that they would only temporarily be killed, but it seemed as though it were otherwise. They were informed that any of them withdrawing from the tournament before its end would act as them ceding it, and thus the entire planet that housed their cloning facility. After all, the tongue-in-cheek challenge had been for the Inheritors' secret base. Nothing was more secret than the Earth populated by brainwashed clones where they would come back to life.

Now that they felt the truth of that statement in their bones, they grew increasingly angry. And so another of them challenged the Spider-Man who had slain two of their kind. When asked whether they all wished to challenge him directly, they answered in the affirmative. And so, with a wide grin, he offered to make it an endurance match. No rest, no pausing, the other dozen able to fight him on condition that they do it successively. And so one was chosen to fight first, and the rest drew lots.

The other Spider-Men, who had resigned to at least dying on their feet rather than potentially having their loved ones as collateral damage, watched as the Inheritors fell one after another. Quips and insults were thrown liberally as they were systematically taken apart, the early-80s Spider-Man ending each opponent after they were beaten senseless with a matte-black pistol of curious make. When one of them attempted to make a break for it, they found their method of interdimensional travel failed; as a result the last four of the Inheritors chose to all attack as one while another of their kind was on the ropes. And, as one, they fell to the weapons fire.

The last Inheritor, bloodied, stared as the Spider-Man advanced, his chunky sidearm at his side. And Bora's eyes widened as she realized something was off, only now being able to come to that conclusion. Something about this Spider-Man was very, very wrong, but only now could she detect it. "You're not just a spider totem! What are you?!"

The Spider-Man in question gripped the edge of his mask and lifted it off. Tossed it to the side. The face was not that of Peter Parker - but one could say it was a jolly old fellow, with a snow white beard and hair, and eyes that twinkled. The smile that he held, though, was a grim one. "What am I? Why, I'm your friendly neighborhood spirit of Christmas, young lady. And you all... you have been on my naughty list for a very long time indeed. And so, a weapon dipped in the blood of a Golden Hind. Every bullet is a magic bullet. Appropriate - it is a magical season, after all."

The sidearm lifted, pointed at her, as the other Spider-Men gaped in disbelief.

"Merry Christmas to all... and to all a good night." A single gunshot forestalled any more words from her.

When the Spider-Men returned home from the... rather unusual turn of events that had occurred... they each found a Christmas tree in their homes, with presents beneath them. This was especially odd because it was nowhere NEAR December yet, not for any of them.

Maybe that crazy Spider-Man had been telling the truth after all.