He needed to unravel various conspiracies, navigate the future, and confront the Successor family. He led the Spider Legion in a full-frontal assault and suffered severe injuries in the process. Dr. Octavius Parker asked himself, even if it were Peter Parker from his world out there, he wouldn't have done any better.
Did he do better than Peter Parker?
Perhaps he did, providing people with Mecha, eliminating criminals, and thwarting the threatening Successor Family. That immature boy would never have been this strong.
But, was he still Otto Octavius?
His days as a researcher seemed incredibly distant. The mundane routine of commuting, dealing with tedious experimental data, and the aggravation over his lab assistant's imprecise actions, all vanished in the blink of an eye, like the moonlight in the break of dawn.
What also vanished were the ambitions and dreams that were uniquely Otto's.
When a young him first ignited the reactor, he also imagined that he would be a great scientist, changing the fate of mankind, leaving a vibrant mark on the road to ultimate happiness, just like all the greats in history.
But such thoughts did not last long. He met Spider-Man, his destined opponent.
He started to abandon his ideation as an energy scientist, fixing tentacles, enhancing equipment, even creating a device capable of swapping bodies with Peter Parker.
What a tremendous invention it was. But standing here, Dr. Parker began to recall the joy of discovering he had successfully swapped bodies with Spider-Man.
Was he delighted at this rebirth?
Or was he overjoyed at the prospect of becoming his worst enemy, the foolish boy he used to despise?
This new body gave him limitless vitality, which he used to stand against criminals and upgrade equipment just like Spider-Man, advancing further on this path.
Perhaps this was something to be proud of. However, the middle-aged, average, and somewhat unfortunate energy scientist vanished completely from his cosmos.
Did this world need Otto or Spider-Man more?
Dr. Parker pondered this question as he looked down at the scattered documents on the lab floor.
He walked forward two steps, picking up a paper from the floor. It was filled with data, some of which he himself couldn't completely understand - it seemed to be findings from a solar survey.
"If you want to look through them, the archive room is next door." Otto's voice came from the side. Feeling his arm shake, Dr. Parker moved toward the door along the room's wall.
Upon opening the door, neatly arranged file cabinets lined the wall. Dr. Parker hurriedly walked to them as if desperately searching for an answer.
He began to flip through the documents, pulling out every file, data, blueprints, conclusions, including energy devices ready for production and those already in operation. All the things he could understand, and those he couldn't.
Surrounded by numbers and drawings, the distant memories of a scientist resurfaced.
Once Dr. Parker fully comprehended these things, he realized, in this cosmos, the genius scientist Otto had saved the world in his own way.
The Stellar Energy Extraction Device he designed, with less than three months of actual application, had already extracted energy equal to 30% of the total global coal-powered electricity output. Within the next three years, it was expected to replace the majority of Earth's coal-generated energy - and it was clean, pollution-free, and sustainable.
Dr. Parker set the file down, walked out of the archive room, then pushed open the door to the neighboring lab. That's where the other Spider-Men conducted their experiments. In there, he saw documents for even more projects.
The Lizard Serum project which promised perfect limb regeneration with no side effects, the mechanical equipment project for Mercury Base, the cryo-chamber project for preserving terminally ill people awaiting future treatments…
Every single file in there represented a step toward mankind's ultimate happiness.
Minutes later, Otto saw a silhouette with the same mechanical tentacles reappear at the door. Dr. Parker asked in a hoarse voice, "Where's the Lizard... I mean, where's Dr. Connors?"
"His lab is in the Stark Building. If I'm not mistaken, he is probably conducting experiments right now. You can call Tony Stark, he usually favors people named Peter Parker," Otto's voice dissipated into the moonlight, and the figure with the mechanical tentacles at the door had disappeared.
Inside the lab at the Stark Building, Connors rubbed his wrist and put down his pen. After recording the last set of data, he was about to head home. But as he turned around, a figure with four mechanical tentacles appeared under the moonlight.
"Otto? Oh, you're not Otto. Peter?? You had the mechanical tentacles operation too?" Connors looked at Dr. Parker in surprise.
"I…" Dr. Parker stammered. He looked at Connors, the once cold-blooded and brutal Doctor Lizard, who seemed calmer than he'd expected. For some reason, everyone in this cosmos appeared more focused, consistent, balanced, and there was a sense of relaxation that radiated from within.