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Spiderman Gets an Unsuspected Battle
by R.H.

It had been a long night for Spiderman. There had been a rash of petty crimes in the area, and he had to bring many thieves to justice. Luckily, all his major foes were already safely behind bars. So, although it had been a long night, he had not had a lot of tough battles. Spiderman checked the time. It?s almost closing time for the bars. And there was one more stop Spidey wanted to make tonight. It was another gang of petty crooks. He knew where they hung out, so he figured he?d go pay their bar a visit and turn them over to the police.

Swinging to the top of a building across the street, Spiderman can see in the window of the bar. There are three men playing pool and a bartender. This should be no problem for our Hero. Spidey makes his move by swinging across the street and crashing through the window. The window shatters as Spiderman makes his dramatic entrance.

"All right you guys. Why don?t you make this easy on yourselves and give up peacefully?" our Hero suggests. The crooks all look at each other and then back at Spidey. "No Way, Webcrawler," is their reply. With that statement, one thug grabs a pool ball off the table and whips it at Spidey. He ducks. The ball breaks a mirror behind the bar adding more broken glass to the floor. Spiderman advises the bartender to stay low so he doesn?t get hurt. The bartender ducks behind the bar safely out of the way. Meanwhile, the thug manages to throw a couple of more balls at Spiderman, who dodges them easily, before Spidey webs him up tight. The other two have circled around and are now standing on either side of Spiderman. They charge full-blast at the same time. But Spidey shoots a web to the ceiling and pulls himself up allowing the thugs to collide into each other. WHACK. They hit head-on and both stagger back a few steps, one toward the pool table, the other towards the bar. Spidey laughs at the sight. "I told you to come along peacefully and make this easy on yourselves" Spidey says, "When will they ever learn?". Spidey lowers himself to the floor. Meanwhile, the bartender stands up from behind the bar, sees the bad guy right in front of him and clunks him on the head with a liquor bottle, knocking him out cold. "Nice work" says Spidey, "But you should really stay down. I can handle this." The bartender ducks sheepishly behind the bar.

The momentary distraction of seeing the bartender getting involved gave our last remaining bad guy a chance to grab another pool ball. He throws it wildly at our Hero. Spidey ducks. He throws another, low this time. And our Hero jumps it with ease. But when landing, he steps on a piece of glass. "OW," yelps Spiderman, as he bends quickly to pull the glass from his foot. This gives the bad guy the opening he was looking for. He charges Spidey and rams him backwards against the bar. He wraps his hands around Spiderman?s throat trying to choke him. From his crouched position behind the bar, the bartender can see the bad guy leaning Spiderman backwards over the bar.. He gets scared and grabs another liquor bottle for protection. Spiderman struggles with the villain and finally pushes him off hard. The bad guy staggers all the way back to the pool table. In the meantime, the bartender has decided he should help Spiderman. He closes his eyes, stands up and swings the liquor bottle hard, connecting with what he thinks is the bad guy?s head. But when he opens his eyes, he is shocked to see his mistake. He had clocked Spiderman squarely on the back of the skull. He hadn?t realized Spidey had already broken the bad guy?s grip. Oh, if only he had listened and stayed out of the way he wouldn?t have made this terrible mistake.

The bad guy can?t believe his luck. He knows Spidey is rocked, and he has only a few seconds to take advantage before Spidey will regain his senses. Thinking fast, he grabs a pool cue. Swinging it as hard as he can, he connects against the side of Spiderman?s head. Spiderman goes down, knocked silly by the tremendous blow. The villain grabs a piece of broken glass and quickly helps his buddy escape the web cocoon that he had been trapped in. Now, it?s two on one with Spiderman dazed!

Spiderman slowly tries to get up. His head pounding. The two thugs each grab a bar stool and smash them over his head, knocking Spidey down again. Then one thug reaches down and pulls Spidey to his feet, holding his arms behind him. The other grabs another pool ball. Finally, he thinks, one of these balls will be put to good use! With a ball in his hand, he winds up and delivers a wicked blow that connects just above Spidey?s left eye. A sickening "whack" echoes through the bar as the punch lands to Spiderman?s face. The thug liked the way it sounded and decides to do it again. WHACK. A pool ball, right to the face just above the eye. Spiderman?s head is swimming. His thoughts scrambled as he gets pummeled. The thug steps back just for a second and sees that there is blood that is starting to soak through Spiderman?s mask. "Cool," he thinks, he?s busted him open. Now it?s time to do more damage. "Keep holding him," he orders his buddy, and he picks up the pool cue again. "This should do some damage," he says. And with that, he winds up and does his best impression of Barry Bonds on steroids. A full-strength baseball bat-type swing of the cue that connects with Spiderman?s mid-section. A solid SMACK rings out as Spidey and the thug holding him are forced to take a couple of steps back from the force of the blow. The bad guy steps up and uses the cue like a bat again, slamming another home run into Spiderman?s gut. Spidey is reeling. With his head all cloudy, he can?t fend off the body attack. The pool cue is slamming against his abdominal wall and breaking down his bricks of muscle. One more baseball swing and then the bad guy jabs the butt end of the cue right into the middle of Spiderman?s stomach. Spidey groans in pain. EEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRR, as the breath is totally knocked out of the hero who is gasping for air. The bad guy grabs another piece of glass from the floor and uses it to tear Spidey?s costume open in the middle. He wants to see the body he is battering. As he cuts and rips the fabric away, he sees the solid, lean and smooth body that Spiderman has. He is amazed at how ripped Spiderman?s body is. He notices the solid panels of ab muscles that Spidey has. Wow, he thinks. Wow. And here he is, a small time crook who gets to be the one that does what all the Super Villains of the world have only dreamed of. He gets to put a serious hurting on Spiderman. Heck, he could be the one that unmasks Spiderman and exposes his identity to the world. Or maybe, he could be the one that rids the world of Spiderman once and for all! These thoughts please him. But as he daydreams, Spidey is trying to clear his head and regain some strength. He starts to struggle against the thug that?s holding him. "Hey," yells the guy holding the hero, "Snap out of it. I think he?s starting to wake up." The attacking thug, with the broken glass still in hand, realizes he needs to do something. So he takes the piece of glass and rips it across Spiderman?s face just above his right eye! It puts a tear in Spidey?s mask, but more importantly, opens up a gash that spews blood into his eye. He then grabs Spidey?s mask and yanks it half way around so it?s on backwards. "Who cares if he?s awake or not now. With his eye holes turned around and blood in both eyes, he won?t be able to see anyway!" The bad guy laughs an evil laugh. "Go ahead, let him go" he says as he grabs the pool cue again. "Let?s see if he sees this coming!" As the one thug releases Spiderman, the other swings the cue stick as hard as he can. He was right. Spidey could not see it coming, and the cue cracks against Spiderman?s head sending him to the ground again. "Now toss him on the pool table" he orders his pal.

The thug follows the orders. He lifts Spiderman back to his feet and flings in onto the pool table. With Spidey flat on his back, the first bad guy removes a web shooter from Spiderman's wrist.

"Put his arms together and stretch them above his head....over the edge of the table", he orders his buddy. When he does, the first thug uses the web shooter to web up Spiderman's arms.

"Now, let's do the same to his legs". And they do. Spiderman is stretched out on the pool table. Caught in his own web. His head aching. His body exposed.
The thugs seize their opportunity to hurt our hero. They both start unleashing a fierce barage of punches to the stretched-out stomach that lies before them.
WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK WHACK
The blows reign down on Spidey's gut. Each one sinking in a little deeper than the one before. Each one bruising and battering the slabs of muscle that helped give Spiderman his strength. Each punch turning Spiderman's abs into a mushy pile of jelly. Spiderman wails and moans with each brutal strike to his stomach. Helpless to stop the onslaught.
After a while, the thugs tire themselves out from the beating they have dealt out.
"Time to unmask him", they agree. As they position themselves by Spiderman's head, they pause for a moment to admire their work. The reddened battered body lay before them. They knew they had put a hurting on Spiderman that he would never forget. As they slowly reach down to grab his mask, they hear police sirens fast approaching. The bartender had snuck over to the phone and called the cops.

"Lets get out of here, fast!" as they quickly ran out the back door.
The bartender grabbed a piece of broken glass from the floor. He cut Spiderman free. Giving the Web-head just enough time to evacuate the premises before the police arrived. But he was hurt. Hurt bad. He knew it would take him some time to recover. But he also knew he couldn't let those thugs roam the streets for long. They would be back. And so would Spiderman!