Spider-Man Mayhem

[Third Person Pov]

"Guten Tag!" Spider-Man called out cheerfully as he stepped through the swirling orange portal and into the stone courtyard of the sanctum in Nepal. The air here always smelled faintly of incense and old magic, a sharp contrast to the New York streets he had just left.

The second his boots touched the ground, his spidey-senses flared hard enough to make his teeth ache. Danger. Immediate. Overhead.

He snapped his head up.

Clinging to the high stone wall near the ceiling was a massive lion wrought entirely of roaring, living flame. Its mane whipped and cracked like a wildfire given shape. Molten eyes locked onto him. Then it opened its jaws and unleashed a torrent of pure fire straight toward the courtyard.

Peter’s arms crossed in a blur. Twin balls of webbing shot out, striking the two startled students standing too close, and pushed them backward just as the flames slammed into the flagstones where they had been. The stone hissed and melted into glowing slag in a continuous, hungry path.

He flipped backward in a tight series of handsprings, the heat licking at his heels. Another web line snapped out, latched onto a towering pagoda-like structure, and he swung away in a wide arc, putting distance between himself and the blazing predator.

He perched on a high ledge just in time to see half a dozen sorcerers launch into the air. Golden eldritch whips uncoiled from their hands, lashing around the flaming beast and trying to bind it in place. For a moment it seemed to work—the lion thrashed, roaring so loudly the windows rattled.

Then the creature’s chest expanded. An intense heatwave exploded outward. The magical whips glowed white-hot, snapped like overstressed cables, and the sorcerers were hurled across the courtyard in every direction.

Peter dropped from his perch and dove back into the fray.

"Okay," he called out mid-flip, "does someone want to tell me why Mufasa is hot? And I’m not talking about as a ’hear me out.’"

The calm, measured voice of the Ancient One—Yao—spoke directly inside his head.

’A summoning spell went out of control. It accidentally conjured a beast from the dimension of the Faltine.’

"Great. Interdimensional fire-lion. You don’t you see that one everyday"

He landed hard on the top of the wall where the creature had shifted. Twin metal blades shot from the housings on his wrists and became a whirlwind of motion. He slashed through the balls of fire the lion spat at him, leapt high, and raked both claws across its flaming torso.

The blades parted the fire cleanly... and the fire simply flowed back together the instant they passed. No flesh. No blood. Nothing solid to cut.

"Oh boy," Peter muttered.

A massive fiery paw swung. He tried to twist away but still caught the edge of it. The impact launched him off the wall like a missile. He tumbled through the air, twisted, and landed on all fours on a lower rooftop. When he looked down, a glowing red claw mark was burned across the chest of his suit. The heat faded quickly, leaving only a scorched outline.

Yao’s voice returned, calm but urgent.

’Its body is made entirely of the flames of its home dimension. Physical attacks are useless against it.’

"Thank you, inner consciousness," Peter said through gritted teeth, still crouched low. "That information would have been useful four seconds ago!"

He pushed off and began skating across the rooftops in a low, four-limbed crawl, dodging fresh spheres of pure fire that exploded against the tiles behind him. With a focused breath he coated his right leg in shimmering chi, then drove upward in a rising kick that caught the lion under what passed for its torso. The impact lifted the massive creature off its feet and into the air.

Peter’s hands blurred through a rapid series of signs. Glowing magic circles bloomed in the air around him and discharged bolts of crackling blue-white electricity. The Faltine beast shrieked as the energy tore through its flaming form and blasted it backward.

It didn’t stay down.

The lion twisted in midair, landed on its burning paws, and instead of charging again it turned and leapt away from Kamar-Taj in a single powerful bound, clearing rooftops in huge, fiery strides.

’Don’t let it escape,’ Yao warned, her mental voice sharp with insistence. ’It could be disastrous.’

"I’m aware," Peter answered, already sprinting to the edge of the roof.

He launched himself high into the air, webs shooting out to catch the nearest structure, and swung hard after the fleeing creature. Whenever the distance threatened to grow, he snapped open a small portal ahead of himself, shot through it, and came out closer, closing the gap with every swing.

He teleported directly in front of the flaming lion and immediately launched into a blistering series of fast, furious swipes. Below them, the crowded streets erupted in screams as people pointed upward at the impossible battle raging across the rooftops. Both combatants moved with blinding agility, leaping from ledge to ledge, twisting through the air in a deadly dance. Around Peter, various orbs of crackling electricity spun like shifting rings, orbiting his body in tight, protective arcs.

Small spheres of fire, each burning with the intensity of miniature suns, shot toward him in rapid succession. Peter met them head-on, his electric orbs colliding with the flames in midair. The elemental forces crashed against one another in brilliant bursts, painting the vibrant sky in violent streaks of gold, blue, and searing orange.

The shockwaves from the explosions slammed into the surrounding buildings. Cracks spiderwebbed across ancient stone walls. Chunks of rubble tore loose and began raining down toward the terrified civilians below.

Peter’s eyes flared with power. In the next instant he vanished from where he stood, body blurring as he accelerated into super speed. Webs shot from his wrists in rapid succession, anchoring between buildings and stretching into an enormous, multi-layered net that caught the majority of the falling debris before it could reach the street.

He swung through a tight alleyway corner, scooped up a pair of young siblings in one fluid motion, and set them gently on solid ground. Kneeling for half a second, he patted both of their heads.

"Stay safe, my little younglings. Be nice to each other, and always listen to your mother—she’s mostly always right!"

Then he jogged backward, leapt through a newly opened portal, and shouted over his shoulder:

"May the Force be with you!!"

In the far distance the two children could see a new portal opening with Spider-Man exiting out of it, they then turned to each other with shining eyes.

"So cool!" they exclaimed in perfect unison.

Back in the fight, Peter landed in a crouch and rapidly formed a handsign.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

Multiple copies of him burst into existence all around the rooftop. As one, the clones and the original charged the magical lion.

"Come on, Alex! Let’s dance!" they all shouted simultaneously.

Fire roared toward the advancing group, incinerating one clone on contact. Still the rest pressed in, using sheer numbers to overwhelm the beast. They kept it airborne with constant strikes, battering it higher and higher into the sky even as its claws raked through several of them. Each destroyed clone vanished in a burst of static, but enough remained to maintain the pressure.

Two clones fired web lines toward the real Peter and hurled him upward like a living projectile. Mid-flight he glanced down at his web-shooters; a holographic dial of configurations flickered across the surface. He selected the appropriate setting and got to work.

Web after web shot out in rapid succession. He circled the flaming lion at high speed, wrapping it in layer after layer of reinforced webbing. The creature tore at the strands with teeth and claws, ripping sections free, but Peter was spinning them out faster than it could destroy them.

He landed squarely on its back, anchored two thick weblines to the ground far below, and yanked himself downward with all his strength. Just before the lion could smash into the street, a wide portal flared open beneath them.

They tumbled through and slammed back into the courtyard of Kamar-Taj with a thunderous ground-pound that shook the entire sanctum. The impact drove the air from the creature’s flaming lungs in a pained roar. Peter leapt clear as the force of the landing finally tore the remaining webs from its body. The lion struggled to rise, legs trembling.

Peter vanished in a blink, lenses flaring with concentrated bioelectricity. He reappeared directly in front of the beast before it could fully stand and smirked as he pressed one hand firmly against its forehead.

"Pika! Pika!"

A massive surge of electricity erupted from his palm and flooded the creature’s body. A blinding flash lit the courtyard, followed by the sharp crackle of static and the lion’s agonized roars. Residual arcs of electricity whipped outward like living tendrils, striking the ground again and again until Peter finally decided it was enough.

The flaming beast remained upright for one shaky moment, static still racing across its form, before it collapsed heavily onto its side—unconscious at last.

Peter brought his hands together and offered a respectful bow.

"Namaste. Thanks to you, one of my twelve labors has been completed."

A/N: Here’s a fun and interesting challenge for y’all, can you name and catch every reference and Easter egg i left in this Chapter because this one is yam packed with them

************************************************

+5 advance Chapters on: patreon.com/Shadow_D_Monarch3