What If Spider-Man And Gwen Stacy Had A Daughter?

Rebirth

Sarah's journey down the dark and forbidding stairway was a long and tense one, but eventually, she reached the bottom, which opened out into a long metal corridor. Continuing to stick to the walls and ceiling, Spider-Girl proceeded down the passage, when she became aware of the faint sound of voices from ahead. Keeping as quiet as she could, Sarah moved towards the source of the voices, which was coming from a room ahead. Peering through the open doorway, Spider-Girl's eyes widened behind her mask lenses in surprise at what she saw in the room.

The room was a large chamber with various machines and computers lined against the walls, whilst two large glass cylinders filled with some kind of liquid dominated the centre of the large area. Inside each of the two cylinders was the figure of a man, who was linked to some kind of life support unit by various tubes and wires, including some particular ones that adhered to the forehead. The two figures were decidedly different from each other, with one looking like a rotting corpse, whilst the other looked like a quite handsome man in his mid-thirties, who seemed to have his own set of metal octopus tentacles connected to his sides.

Manning the computers next to the glass tanks was a miserable-looking Professor Warren, who was being watched very closely by a diligent Lady Octopus, the ends of her tentacles waving menacingly near the Professor's person.

"This had better work, Professor," said Lady Octopus malignly. "Because if dear Otto in there doesn't make it to his new body, your precious students will be hunted down like vermin and become history."

The Professor looked at Trainer earnestly. "I implore you, let me stop this now! This whole process is... is monstrous!"

"No, my dear Professor, it is glorious!" retorted Lady Octopus. "This experiment is the key to immortality for the one and only Doctor Octopus!"

"Say what?!" Spider-Girl thought to herself in surprise, not quite understanding what was happening. She had expected to find Lady Octopus building some new doomsday weapon, not playing Dr Frankenstein with the unwilling Professor! And did Trainer really say that one of those figures in those tanks was the original Doctor Octopus?

Sarah had certainly heard of Otto Octavius, as he had very nearly caused the death of her grandfather, Police Captain George Stacy, during a battle with Sarah's dad. But Doctor Octopus had disappeared years ago, after a failed attempt to swap bodies with Spider-Man, and with no clue as to where he was hiding, everyone eventually assumed that Octavius had finally expired.

"I don't get what the blazes is going on here," Spider-Girl thought to herself. "But the Professor needs rescuing pronto!"

Stealthily, Spider-Girl crawled along the walls while everyone's backs were turned and began to edge her way towards Lady Octopus to launch a surprise attack. Unfortunately, Lady Octopus spotted Spider-Girl's reflection in the glass tanks, and she whirled around with a snarl, sending her tentacles shooting out towards the young hero.

"Yikes!" yelped Spider-Girl as she just managed to dodge the metal tentacles that almost smashed her into the metal wall she had been sticking to. Evading the mechanical appendages, she then made some super-fast cartwheels up the wall towards the high ceiling, hoping that she would be able to put some distance between herself and the grasp of Lady Octopus.

"Foolish girl!" roared Lady Octopus. "It doesn't matter how fast you can move! Eventually, my tentacles will catch you and squash you like a bug!"

Spider-Girl hated to admit it, but it seemed like Trainer was right. Having managed to get to the ceiling, she was only just out of the tentacles' reach and was now effectively trapped!

"Now what am I going to do?" Sarah thought frantically to herself. "I can't stay up here forever, and if I try to get out my short-circuit gadget, she's bound to spot it from where she is and stop me from using it!"

Spider-Girl frantically looked around for anything that could give her an advantage, however small, when she caught sight of a large junction box on the other side of the room.

"Say, that gives me an idea," thought Spider-Girl with a cunning smile. Before Lady Octopus knew what was happening, Spider-Girl launched herself off the ceiling and landed on one of the tentacles, which she then ran along, straight towards Trainer! Taking advantage of her opponent being taken by surprise, Spider-Girl then fired a web blast, which splattered all over Trainer's eyes, blinding her!

"Gah! Get this off me!" shrieked Lady Octopus as she tried fruitlessly to pull off the webbing with her hands, whilst also managing to throw Spider-Girl off her tentacle. Landing in front of the junction box she had spotted before, Spider-Girl called out to the villainess:

"Yo! Squid girl! Catch me if you can!"

With a enraged cry, Lady Octopus quickly extended her telescopic tentacles in the direction of Spider-Girl's voice, but the superhero speedily leapt out of the way, and the ends of the tentacles smashed through the panel of the junction box instead, whereupon they made contact with the live cables inside. Bolts of bright and powerful electricity shot out of the box and danced along the titanium-steel limbs, before making contact with Lady Octopus, who shrieked in pain as the electric charge blasted her entire body! As her tentacles broke off contact with the cables and went droopy, Trainer's eyelids closed and she collapsed to the floor, the powerful electric charge having sent her out like a light.

"Phew! That was a close one!" breathed Spider-Girl as she quickly made sure that her defeated enemy was not too badly hurt, before turning to Professor Warren. "You okay, Prof?"

"Yes, but we must shut down this machine before it's too late!" said Warren as he raced over to the computers next to the two glass cylinders. But upon seeing the readouts on the screen, his face turned pale with dread.

"Oh no, it's too late. Transference is complete!"

"Transference?" echoed a puzzled Spider-Girl. "What does that mean? And what's all this got to do with the original Doctor Octopus?"

Warren bitterly pointed to the tank containing the decrepit body. "That is, or was, Doctor Octopus. But he was dying, so he forced me to create a new healthy clone body for him to transfer his mind into. And now the process is complete!"

"Wait, hold on a second there! You mean this other dude is a clone and has Doc Ock's mind in his brain?" asked Spider-Girl as she looked at the currently slumbering figure in the other tank.

"I'm afraid so. And he's going to wake up at any moment now!"

As though on cue, the eyes of the clone in the tank snapped open and the metal tentacles attached to his body jerked into life, smashing his glass container apart from within! Instinctively, Spider-Girl grabbed the Professor and launched themselves to the other side of the room, away from the flying glass fragments that would otherwise have cut them to ribbons, while the liquid from the tank sprayed all over the floor. As Spider-Girl and her passenger landed on one of the walls near the doorway, they watched with a mixture of shock and fascination as the clone stepped confidently out of the remains of the tank, his tentacles waving about excitedly as an evil smile crept across his lips.

"At last!" he cried with triumph. "I am free! Free of that rotting carcass and all the excruciating pain it brought me! Now, the world should beware, because at long last, Doctor Octopus is reborn!'

"Listen to that," sighed Spider-Girl wearily. "He's only been out of that tank for a few seconds, and already he's full of hot air."

Only just now realising that he was not alone, Otto Octavius took in the scene around him, first catching sight of the unconscious Carolyn Trainer sprawled out across the floor, then spotting Spider-Girl sticking to the wall with the nervous Professor in her arms.

"So! You must be this 'Spider-Girl' that Carolyn informed me about," snarled Doctor Octopus. "I see that you are just as flippant and foolhardy as your father is. Well, now you shall be the first to feel my wrath!"