Tarantula (Spider-Man)

Night of the Lizard

   Valerie and Harry are falling asleep in their fort of pillows and blankets when something shakes the apartment, causing dust to fall from the ceiling above. Valerie gets up, turning off the television which was rolling the end credits of 500 Days of Summer. Was that an earthquake? But, having grown up in San Francisco, she knows it was too much too fast to be an earthquake. Another shake, and Valerie coughs as some of the descending dust comes right down onto her. Maybe there’s some construction going on outside. She pulls back the curtains to reveal a man in a police uniform with disproportionate muscles, patches of scaly green skin and a elongated tongue clinging to the window. She jumps back just in time for the lizard-man to jump through the window, shattering the glass.

“What the hell?!” Harry stifles awake, jumping out of the fort and knocking it over.

Valerie turns around to face him, “Run Harry!”

He complies, making a mad dash for the front door, Valerie close behind. She makes sure he’s halfway down the first flight of stairs before slamming the door behind him, locking it. She whips around to see the lizard-man lunge at her. She rolls out of the way, leaving him to smash into the wall. The monster turns to her, and she quickly charges up a blast and fires, knocking the lizard-man out the window. What was that? She looks out the window and sees more lizard-men, all in police uniforms, are out trashing the streets, and scaling buildings.

She runs into her bedroom and grabs the silver case behind her dresser. Kicking open her bedroom window, she jumps out head first, sky-diving towards the ground. She falls behind the apartment building, concealing her from view, and by the time she hits the concrete street, she’s Tarantula. Throwing the case into a nearby alley, the first thing that catches her eye is a lizard-man who’s pounding on a car in the middle of the street, with its passengers screaming inside. She sprints toward them, bounding up, spinning mid-air, and kicking the lizard-man in the jaw. Spiraling back to the ground, she shoots a web, pulling the lizard-man away from the car as he collapses. She sees that the passengers are still trapped in the car, the lizard-man having crushed the cover in. Jumping on top of the car, she rips open the already fragile top and pulls the two passengers out.

“Get off of the streets!” she commands them, before shooting a web and swinging away.

Getting to higher ground, she looks down, trying to spot Harry. Did he make it out alright?

She spots Harry, running to his car, just as a figure in red drops down onto him. God damnit. She leaps after him, spreading her webbed wings and letting the wind carry her across the street to Harry and Deadpool. He has a gun to his head, and Tarantula’s heart races, hoping he won’t see her coming. As she nears them, she flips back, just in time for her feet to kick Deadpool in the face, knocking him back into the apartment building glass. She lands gracefully, retracting her webbed wings. She turns around to face Harry.

“You’re…” he points, practically speechless.

“Not Spider-Man? No worries, people get me and him confused a lot.”

There’s a crashing sound nearby, and an explosion can be seen from only a couple of blocks away. She smiles, “Well, duty calls. Nice meeting you, Mr. Osborn.” she looks over at Deadpool, and picks him up, “And I need to do something about you.”

    “Oh, really?! C’mon, I’ve done some pretty heinous stuff, but this...this is just embarrassing.” Deadpool cries as he hangs from a streetlight, completely tied up in a tight mass of webs.

“Don’t worry, you won’t be there for long, the police will be here to pick you up shortly.” she tells him as she glides away.

Deadpool rolls his eyes through his mask, “Yeah, like the police are going to do anything about me.”

Tarantula patrols the streets practically all night, saving civilians and defeating more lizard-men. She wonders why all of the lizard-men are wearing police uniforms, did the Lizard specifically target police officers? She’s pulling several people out of a fire, throwing them out of the burning building and onto a bouncy net of webbing below when a blue blast explodes from the Oscorp tower, showering the city in a light blue mist. The mist not only douses the fire, but also returns the lizard-men back to their human form. Tarantula climbs to the top of the building to get a better look. From her vantage point, she can see a red and blue speck and a green speck that’s rapidly shrinking. Guess whatever the blue mist is, it’s working on the Lizard as well.

Tarantula soars into her room just as the sun begins to rise, completely exhausted. She’d stayed out hours after the actual Lizard had been taken down, rescuing people from ravaged buildings, stopping looters trying to take advantage of the lack of police force, etc, etc. She pulls her mask off over her head, letting it hang on her back like a hoodie. She almosts dozes off in her costume when her phone rings. She slowly stumbles toward her cell, picking it up,

“...hello?”

“Valerie? Norman here, I just saw what you’ve been doing on the news, excellent work girl!”

Drowsy, she doesn’t quite pick up on what he’s saying, “Wha...what work?”

“What do you mean, ‘what work’? Just turn on the news and see what I mean!”

Stripping out of her costume, she walks over to the television. She spots her broken window and sighs, that’ll have to be fixed. She also sees the remains of the fort she and Harry had made, as well as the empty bowl and cups. She smiles, it was fun while it lasted. Turning the TV on to the news, the first thing she sees is a shakily shot video of her saving those people from the burning building last night, with the news headline: Tarantula Saves Dozens, Spider-Man No Where To Be Seen After Incident.

That is true, where was Spidey after that blue mist turned everyone back to normal? Maybe he just decided to call it a day, and considering he was going head-to-head with the Lizard, she doesn’t blame him.

There’s a knock at her door, and Valerie switches off the TV, and quickly gets dressed and throws her costume back into the metal case, tucking into its hiding place. She opens the door to reveal a hyperventilating Harry, dark shadows under his eyes, “Where were you?” he asks angrily.

Shoot…

“I’m...so sorry Harry. That, that lizard...thingie cornered me, trapping me in the apartment. He grabbed me and...and took me all the way to Time Square. I...barely escaped. I just got home.”

He grabs her, pulling her into a tight hug, “You scared me.”

“I should’ve called, it’s just, I don’t have your number.” she tells him.

She pulls her out of the hug, but he keeps his arms around her, “Seriously? That needs to be fixed right away.”

“But first...I need to get ready for school.” Valerie concludes, walking back into the apartment.

“What? You’re still going to school after what happened?” he asks in disbelief, leaning his arm against the doorway.

She nods, picking up a few photo frames that’d fallen during her fight with the lizard-man, “Of course, it’s not like the school’s issued any kind of statement that they’d be closed today. And I’d hate to be that one kid who thought that school was cancelled just because there was an attack by mutated lizard people.”

Harry’s phone rings in his pocket, and he looks at it, “Oh, just got a text from Peter. No school today.” he smiles triumphantly, putting his phone back into his pocket.

“He showed up early, didn’t he?” Valerie asks, even after a major fight, Peter can’t break old habits.

He nods, walking into her apartment, “So...how about first, we get this window patched up, and then, we can finish our sleepover properly...with breakfast?”