A Wild Tentacle Monster Appears!

Chapter 1

Peter felt the familiar, faint tingling at the base of his skull and knew there was a threat nearby.

"Awww," he whined piteously.

He set down his freshly unwrapped Delmar's sandwich and pulled the mask of his spider-suit down to cover his face. With a last regretful look at his dinner, Peter shot a web to the rooftop opposite the one he was on and used it to propel himself towards downtown and the apparent danger.

When he arrived at the place where his spider-sense felt strongest, it wasn't immediately apparent to Peter what the trouble was. He webbed himself down to land in the alley. As Peter emerged onto the sidewalk, he nearly collided with a pretty blonde woman who happened to be walking past. The woman screamed.

"No! Ma'am, uh... miss, it's okay! I'm Spider-man. I'm not some creep," he said loudly enough for passersby to hear. He held his hands up non-threateningly as he continued.

"I felt like there may be trouble nearby so I came to, uh, I came to check it out...," he finished lamely

When Peter stopped talking, he realized the woman wasn't looking at him at all. She was looking just past his feet at the ground behind him. Peter followed her line of vision to see a large, bizarre-looking golden amulet which was sprouting thick, slimy pink cords that swelled and they inched forward.

"Whoa, nasty!" Peter said in disgust as he jumped in front of the woman to create a barrier between her and the foreign object.

The woman clutched at the back of his suit, cowering behind him slightly.

"What the hell is that thing?" she said, staring, without blinking, at the still growing tendrils from over his shoulder.

Before Peter could think of a response, two of the pink ropes of flesh diverged from the path the larger group was taking as if to go around Peter to get to the woman.

"Miss, you should go. You gotta go," Peter stuttered, pushing her away from him and down the sidewalk. She stumbled backward for a moment, still not taking her eyes off of the creature, before finally turning and running away down the block.

When Peter turned back around the tendrils were even closer.

"Uh-uh, NO!" he said, panicking and blasting the tentacles with web to keep them at bay.

"Get. Back. In. That. Weird. Necklace," he said, gritting his teeth and punctuating every word with another shot.

Peter finally managed to contain the creature. Once they were completely covered in Peter's web, the tendrils struggled and thrashed violently before shrinking down and retreating back into the amulet.

Peter shot the necklace with web one last time for good measure. Then he grabbed the lid from one of the trashcans in the alley and pressed it down onto the blob of adhesive. When he pulled the lid back up, the web and the amulet were stuck fast to its underside. He let out a sigh of relief. As he turned to leave the alley, Peter realized a small crowd of people had formed to watch his progress with the tentacle thing. He chuckled and rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed.

"All in a day's work, folks," he said sheepishly.

He raised the bin lid slightly. A few people gasped and the crowd parted for him.

"So yeah, I'll just take this and uhh...," he shot a web and made his awkward escape without another word.

As soon as he made it back to his rooftop lookout, he tossed the lid a small distance away from him, rushed to his backpack pulled out a small container of hand sanitizer and doused his hands in the clear liquid through the suit. "What was that thing?" he thought shuddering slightly. Next, he pulled out his phone and called his "point guy" as Mr. Stark called him, Happy Hogan. The call went to voicemail.