xXx
The Shroud unfurled from the dimness behind an air conditioning unit, and the spider ghost sprang out. Peter wore the black mesh, with pale eyespots. He turned to Tyrone, who was the Shroud.
"Okay, thanks. Now get out of here, okay?" He turned his back on Tyrone, bounding to the edge of the roof and looking around.
Cops swarming the dojo. Burns along a roof, in an alley. There, across on the next roof; more day-glo green blood, and a hole battered in a stairwell.
The spider ghost easily cleared the leap over the alley, ducked through the hole, following the alien blood. He dropped down to look down the hallway in time to see the hunter drawing back for a strike to take Logan's head clean off.
"This isn't over," he said coldly, and web spat out and hissed the length of the hallway, slopping over the forearm greave that bore the two wicked blades. The hunter spun to face the spider ghost, his mask cut, leg oozing a fluorescent green.
The hunter's mask flicked out three laser sights, and a small device that looked like a hair dryer popped up on the hunter's shoulder. The spider ghost needed no encouragement to spring out of the way back up the steps as a blazing barrage of energy bolts screamed down the corridor and detonated messily all over the stairs that led to the roof. The hunter turned away from Logan and jogged after the spider ghost. Left to his own devices, Logan pushed off the wall and toppled, blood gushing from him, his healing factor desperately kicking into overdrive to staunch the flow.
The spider ghost flipped up through the hole, up to the roof. A succession of blasts behind him blew the door and walls apart, sending a chunk of the roof collapsing into the crater of explosions. The spider ghost landed easily enough, wary, alert as he studied the rubble.
The hunter burst up through the debris as sirens wailed to a halt on the street by the building. The spider ghost wrinkled his nose in distaste at the idea of public fighting in the daytime, especially as police presence would complicate the affair. This thing would mow the police down.
With a single mighty leap, the hunter was free of the shattered stairwell, facing off on the roof. It flexed and settled, ignoring its wounded leg. Fight me it croaked, and a menacing clattering hiss rolled from it.
Peter launched to the side, flexing out golf-ball sized wads of webbing that expanded as they flew. The hunter's cannon shredded the first two, but the third whapped against the hunter's shoulder. Energy bolts trailed destruction as they pounded after the agile spider ghost, who suddenly startled the hunter by springing right at him.
Peter landed a powerful punch right across the face mask, knocking the hunter flat. A fluid gob of web sprayed down over the shoulder cannon, clotting it. Peter hoped that would be enough to put it out of action. Bounding straight up, Peter pointed down and hosed with the webbing, sending thick adhesive raining down over the fallen hunter.
As Peter dropped to perch on a chimney's side, the hunter seemed to struggle in the web, trying to reach his belt. Then a strange hum reverberated from inside the webbing, and a blade slid through the webs as though they were wet tissue paper. The spider ghost stared in horror as the hunter rose, monolithic and deadly, and raised a disc that had five finger-holes in it. Twice the size of a frisbee, the disc hummed with a strange life of its own. The hunter's mask sent its three beams playing over the spider ghost, and the hunter flung the disk.
Peter sprang to the side as the disc effortlessly sheared through the chimney, then banked up steeply and twirled around to hiss down at him again.
He fired webbing at the disc, but the ultra-sharp blade whistled through it; unanchored, the filaments drifted in the pale sky, glistening as they caught the blaze of the sun. Peter ducked under the lethal pass of the disk as it whipped past him and homed in on the hunter, who snatched it out of the air and held it by the five finger holes.
Peter twisted away as the hunter flung the disk again, and it skimmed through his space a lot closer than he wanted it to. Peter sucked in a bit of mesh from the mask and bit it off, leaving himself an opening. He cartwheeled over by the hunter and spat out a thin stream of spit that spattered on the hunter's leg greave.
Too late, Peter noticed that the hunter had a different gadget in his other hand. The hunter flexed, and with a peculiar pop, the snubbish pistol fired at the spider ghost.
Dodging a projectile would have been easy. Off balance, Peter couldn't quite evade the net that whipped out and spun open. He leaped back and to the side, but the net corrected slightly. It lashed across him, then slapped into the concrete wall of the building next door. With a thin whine, the net began to tighten down, and Peter realized the net was contracting between anchor points set in concrete.
He resisted his first idea, to push free. The filaments of the web were very, very sharp; sharper than even his tough body could withstand. Zero leverage. The spider ghost's mind raced as the mesh printed through his mesh and patterned his skin.
"Oh, this just glistens with irony," Peter gritted out.
The hunter raised the hand with the disk, and nodded slightly.
Gunfire crackled from the edge of the roof as Natasha leaned into the assault rifle, pouring a stream of bullets into the hunter. The hunter staggered back, loops and gobs of pale green blood flying clear as the bullets slammed home, knocking the massive creature off his feet to crash down on the roofing.
The gun clattered to empty, and Natasha tossed it aside and whipped a .50 caliber handgun from its holster at her side. The hunter slowly rolled over to brace himself on his elbows and knees. Natasha took aim, fired repeatedly at the hunter. One bullet drew sparks from the mask, two thudded into ribs, another off the greave the creature raised to protect itself. Then the hunter sprang upright, however unsteadily, and toppled off the roof.
Natasha watched alertly through her gunsmoke as the thin whine of the winch drew the net tighter across the spider ghost.
"Help," Peter managed.
Natasha knelt, quickly reloading the assault rifle. Then she lined up, firing on the concrete wall. The bullets pounded the concrete apart, and the anchor points of the net flew free. The spider ghost clung to the wall, limp, as patches of his mesh fluttered away. Most were glued in place with his blood.
"Time to regroup," Natasha said quickly, eyeing the approaching police helicopter.
"Take care of Logan, he's downstairs," Peter replied. Then he dropped out of sight.
Natasha hesitated. But only for a moment. She jumped down onto the rubble, slid on her rear end down through the top of the shattered doorway, and ended up in the hall. She approached Logan where he sprawled on the floor. Frowning, kicked an apartment door open. She dragged him inside, and slammed the door.
Kneeling at his side, she checked for a pulse. Weak, erratic, but there. She slapped him resoundingly, and Logan's eyes drifted lazily open.
"My dead?" he wondered.
"You live," she clarified. "You must focus. You are losing a lot of blood. Work with me. I'll get you back to Stark's place, and we'll get you fixed up."
"Peter?" Logan slurred.
"He's chasing it," Natasha replied. "We drove it off."
Logan smiled faintly, then his head lolled back. She checked again to make sure he hadn't died. Then she whipped a cell phone from her pocket.
"Stark. I need an evac. Now. I can get us out of the building, past the police, but we need a ride. Here's the situation," she began.
xXx
The spider ghost slapped down in an alley. Trembling. He shook off the pain, his body criss-crossed with shallow, painful cuts from the net. Working fast, he sprayed himself with web. He was flexible enough to hit every place he needed to for a quick and dirty bandage fix. The pale fluid contrasted with the black mesh that survived, because it was unpainted. Now a strange mottled gray, the spider ghost bounded at the side of the building and quickly regained the rooftop.
He trotted to the edge of the roof, sniffing. He picked up the strong scent of the phermonal saliva he had planted on the hunter. Suddenly, a roar of fury and pain echoed up from the tenement buildings and concrete canyons of the New York streets below. Narrowing his eyes, Peter dropped off the roof.
Thoughts raced through his mind. Had the hunter met up with cops? No gunshots, so it seemed unlikely the hunter was in a shootout. Maybe he fell. Maybe blood loss affected him, forcing the hunter to go to ground. Following the twists and wafts of the biological tracer, the spider ghost fired out web and swung along the trail of the hunter.
Blood was beginning to seep through the web bandage as Peter dropped down on a roof, regarding the broken wall across the way. A bathroom was spraying water; the stool and sink had been smashed, and green gooey blood was smeared everywhere. As the spider ghost's senses played across the opposite destroyed bathroom, he detected traces of some blue gunk as well, and a horrific smell poured out of the broken room.
The blood trail stopped there.
"He must have patched himself up," Peter muttered. "Let's go."
To track this hunter, blood trails were strictly optional.
The spider ghost whirled into action, following the scent trail. Clearing a building, he looked across several blocks and saw the glittering sheet of the harbor. The docks lie straight ahead along the hunter's path.
"This isn't good," Peter muttered. And he dashed off after the hunter.
A handful of strands carried him across the intervening blocks, the tracer getting stronger as he swung through the hunter's back trail.
Finally, he released the last web and let himself sail down, his spider sense precisely calculating his trajectory. Skidding to a halt in the grungy back alley, he glanced around and saw no one watching.
He sniffed, and his senses unreeled, following the trail to the edge of the dock and over.
"I hate water," the spider ghost muttered. But he followed the trail.
Around and over the edge, the trail moved into a huge concrete drain pipe that vented directly into the harbor. The spider ghost twirled around and dropped into the shallow water in the pipe. Then, he stalked into the dimness, alert, his senses playing all around him to make certain that nothing waited for him, visible or otherwise.
Faint light drifted down from drains, and the occasional bare bulb illuminated the dimness. Peter glanced around frequently.
"Good thing I tagged him," he muttered. "Otherwise, I'd never be able to track him down here." A green, luminescent smear caught his eye, and Peter smiled. "There you are," he murmured, and he followed the wounded hunter ever closer to his lair.
Ten minutes later, he scuttled along the top of the half-flooded tube. The tube opened into darkness, and the spider ghost peered out.
There, partially submerged, a wicked-looking craft was attached to the side of the damp concrete cavern with peculiar grapples. Over thirty meters long, it was as impressive as it was alien. The spider ghost stared for a long moment.
Danger flashed through his mind, and he sprang to the side instinctively.
A long spear thrust up from the water under the spider ghost; instead of spitting him, it rammed through his shin and pinned him to the roof of the concrete tube. The spider ghost cut loose a hoarse scream of pain and rage as the cold trickle of excessive blood loss touched his nerves, the spear shaft already laced with runnels of his blood.
This isn't over hissed the hunter, emerging in a swell from the water below the spider ghost. With a ringing clack, wrist blades popped out, and the hunter drew back for a strike.
The spider ghost fired out a wad of web that slapped over the hunter's mask, hopefully blinding him. The spider ghost gritted his teeth, and jerked at the spear that pinned his leg to the roof. It slid through his flesh, along his bone, and clear with a slithering rasp. The spider ghost could barely stay adhered to the roof, the pain was intense and it swept all rational thought aside.
Spinning, the hunter dove into the filthy water and vanished beneath the surface. Hanging by one leg, the spider ghost jammed the spear into the floor of the tube. Then he pinched the front of his leg wound together, webbed it. Repeated the process with the other side of his leg, then wove a thick band of heavy web to tie tight over the injury. He kept an eye on the spear.
"You're not getting away," he whispered, glancing at the ship. Then he snatched the spear and scuttled along the top of the tube, to the concrete wall, taking his time and clambering along the side of the corridor to approach the ship.
He stilled at once as he saw the hunter clamber out of the water onto the dock, then approach the ship. Tapping at a control on the wrist greave, the hunter seemed to sag with pain and fatigue for just a moment. Then the back of the ship opened, hissing as the hull slid aside to reveal a portal into the unknown.
The spider ghost stared for a long moment. The strange dark fabric of the ship's interior was laced and woven with what looked like runes in a peculiar language. A gleam of light chased through the runes, like impulses in a nervous system. The hunter hopped over to the back of the ship, landing with a thud, and limped into the portal. He triggered a catch on the side, and the hull began to twist shut.
"Hell," grunted the spider ghost. He dug the spear into the wall, then launched across the open space with a mighty kick, landing with a roll and popping up to sail through the closing portal at the last possible moment.
He landed in a tumble, springing to his feet as his heart hammered with nerves. Glancing around, he was gratified to still be alive, knowing full well the possibility this place would be rigged with dozens of traps and security systems.
The air was acrid and bitter, stifling, faintly toxic. The spider ghost coughed slightly, and the hunter turned to regard him.
They both stood in waist-deep mist that slowly churned and twisted around them. As the spider ghost focused on the hunter, his senses unwound to take in the rest of the room at the same time.
Other corridors led off into the ship, which seemed differently shaped on the inside than it had on the outside. The spider ghost's senses couldn't make it all work, so he gave up. The patterns on the wall threw depth perception out the window, and the peculiar atmosphere made thinking difficult.
Along the side wall, the spider ghost registered a trophy case. All sorts of bizarre skulls adorned it, along with some spines; some oblong skulls, others horned and squat, all shapes and sizes.
Including human shapes and sizes.
The spider ghost tightened his jaw as he sensed Kravinoff's skull.
With a hiss, the tube connecting to the hunter's mask disconnected. The hunter pulled another tube clear, then tugged the broken mask off and let it fall to the floor with a non-metallic thud. The spider ghost stared at the visage the mask had hidden.
Small, piggish eyes were sunken in heavy bone sockets. A strange, oval forehead was spotted and greasy, sweeping up above the narrowly placed eyes. The mouth was a peculiar, small, gnashing affair, flanked by mandibles that flexed like clawed, fleshy fingers.
Alien. Definitely alien.
The spider ghost felt weariness coursing through his remaining blood, and his wound stung. His leg would not support him, and he just wanted to lay down and doze. Still, facing off with the hunter, a dark fire blazed in him.
This had to be finished.
He fired out a web line and tugged Kravinoff's skull out of the display, so it slapped home in his hand. He swiftly squirted web to the ceiling, rubbed off the other end on the skull, and released the skull so it slowly spun and dangled on a web cable. Then he stepped to the side, and settled into a combat stance.
The alien nodded curtly, then squared off with the spider ghost.
Fight me the alien hunter hissed. The spider ghost realized that the mouth didn't move; perhaps a playback device? Then the curiosity went away. So did the weariness, the pain, the doubt; everything that could get the spider ghost killed was hushed to silence, and a creature made of focus was ready to battle the hunter.
With unsettling speed, the hunter darted forward and lashed out with the wrist blades. The spider ghost hopped to the side, too badly hurt to be fancy. He caught the hunter's wrist with his adhesive grip, and slung a knee up with shattering force, slamming the blue-gooped bullet wounds in the hunter's chest. A muffled choke coughed out, and green flecked out of the hunter's maw.
Too wound up to even slow down, the spider ghost slammed a heavy backhand across the hunter's head, sending him reeling. He bounded in, kicking the blades out of the way with his good leg and smashing a blow straight down into the hunter's chest, knocking him down so hard the mist was shoved away from the floor for meters in all directions. Rebounding, he twisted in the air as the hunter struggled to sit up. A foot shot down and smashed into the hunter's forehead, knocking him flat with a clang.
Landing in a painful hobble, the spider ghost struggled to get out of reach of whatever trick the hunter might try next. He blinked in surprise as a deep chuckle rolled out of the hunter's playback device. Trembling as though palsied, the hunter managed to raise the greave up, tapping at buttons that responded with a muted chirp.
"I think my work here is finished," the spider ghost growled, claiming Kravinoff's skull. The hunter lay back, arms spread, his obstructed breathing letting bubbles of green goo out of his breached chest. Peter hesitated, wondering if he could accept letting the hunter die here. He hesitantly stepped closer to the hunter, then his senses locked in on the greave.
A countdown?
Cold shudders raced through the injured spider ghost. Turning, he hobbled towards the craft's exit. His senses rolled around the interior corridor, isolating the door switch. He hit it, and the hatch cycled open.
On a bizarre impulse, he hit it again as he hopped out, sealing the dying hunter in his ship. Then he sprang for the wall, and scuttled up to the spear.
The world flexed. The spider ghost barely clung to the wall as dust puffed out of the walls and the water roared up in a whoosh. Light shone from a few seams on the ship, then it slowly listed to the side and began to sink.
By the time the bubbles ceased, the spider ghost was long gone.