Her fiery red hair, usually a chaotic halo of life and rebellion, was plastered to her temples with sweat. Her face, which I could picture so clearly laughing over a cheap slice of pizza just last night, was slack, beatific. A placid mask of devotion. Her lips moved, a silent prayer in the deafening roar. I didn't need my enhanced senses to know what she was saying. I had been dreading it for the last ten minutes.
Then, a lull in the music, a breath held by ten thousand lungs. In the sudden quiet, her voice, amplified by some unseen microphone, drifted up, glassy and clear. A single, reverent whisper that echoed across the vast space.
"Hustler…"
The name was a shard of ice in my gut. My grip on the steel truss slackened, the world tilting precariously. Below, the name was picked up, a murmur becoming a chant, the chant becoming a roar. "HUS-TLER! HUS-TLER! HUS-TLER!"
The man himself emerged from a cloud of theatrical smoke, seizing the moment. He wasn't just walking; he was strutting, a messiah basking in the light of his own manufactured divinity. He wore a sequined jacket over bare, chiseled abs, but my eyes were locked on the belt cinched at his waist. It was a wide leather strap, studded with what looked like oversized crystals. With every pulse of the music, they blazed with an unnatural inner light, casting hypnotic patterns across the adoring faces. As the chant reached a fever pitch, the crystals flared, and the very structure I was clinging to began to shudder.
My knees buckled. Not from the vibration, but from the raw, soul-deep despair of hearing her voice say his name with such worship. I saw her face in my mind—the way she smiled when I brought her flowers, the fierce loyalty in her eyes when she defended my constant "disappearances." All of it was gone, scrubbed clean and replaced with this hollow adoration.
I forced myself straight, my knuckles white against the cold metal. The despair was an anchor, trying to drag me down into the abyss. But anger was a fire, and I fanned the flames.
"Not her," I whispered into the thunderous noise, a vow to myself. "Not tonight."
Hustler drank in the adulation, his arms spread wide. Then, with a grin that was all predator, he pointed a single, theatrical finger into the heart of the crowd. Directly at Elaine. It wasn't a command; it was an invitation. An anointing. And the crowd responded.
Like a dam breaking, the mesmerized fans surged forward, their placid expressions twisting into a unified, possessive snarl. They weren't trying to get to the stage; they were a living barrier, a wall of flesh to keep me from it. To keep me from her.
I dropped from the rafters, a silent red-and-blue blur. A web-line caught a speaker tower, and I swung down into the fray. There was no malice in them, only a mindless, programmed aggression. A woman with a "Hustler is Love" t-shirt swung a clumsy fist at my head. I ducked under it, shot a web at her feet and the feet of the man next to her, sticking them firmly to the floor. They stumbled, disoriented but harmless.
My mind raced, a frantic triage. Immobilize, not injure. Disarm, not destroy. These weren't thugs or super-criminals; they were victims. Dentists, students, grandmothers, all caught in his sonic net.
I leaped, my body a blur of motion. I vaulted over a line of charging concert-goers, firing a wide web-net that snagged a dozen of them at once, pulling them into a harmless, sticky pile. I swung from a lighting rig, my legs scissoring out to kick over a massive roadie case, creating a makeshift barricade that briefly stemmed the tide. The sheer numbers were staggering. For every one I neutralized, three more took their place. Their hands clawed at me, grabbing at my suit, their collective weight threatening to drag me down and crush me under a pile of enthralled bodies. My spider-sense was a deafening, non-stop scream in the back of my skull, a migraine of generalized danger with no single point of origin.
And through it all, I never lost sight of Elaine.
The crowd, so violent toward me, parted for her. It was like watching a biblical scene play out in a mosh pit. She moved with a slow, zombie-like grace, her path to the stage miraculously clear, as if she were a holy offering being presented to a dark god. Every step she took toward him was another twist of the knife in my chest.
I managed to web a whole section of the front row to the stage scaffolding, creating a pocket of breathing room. I landed on the barricade, panting, every muscle screaming. I looked past the sea of blank faces to the man at the center of it all.
Hustler hadn't moved. He was just watching the show, a conductor enjoying his symphony of chaos.
"Why fight it, Spider-Man?" His voice boomed through the PA system, smooth as silk and sharp as glass. The rhythm behind him softened, becoming a low, seductive thrum. "She's happier this way. Look at her. No worries. No anxieties. They all are. I've taken their burdens away."
I could see Elaine's face clearly now. She was only twenty feet from the stage. She looked peaceful. Serene. Empty.
"You're not giving them happiness—you're stealing it," I yelled back, my voice raw. "You're a thief, trading their free will for a cheap high. Real joy comes from choice, Hustler. From the struggle. Not from chains." I took a step closer, planting my feet. "You're just too scared to face a crowd without a leash."
For a fraction of a second, the mask slipped. The messianic grin faltered, replaced by a flash of raw, narcissistic fury. He'd built his entire persona on being loved, adored, worshipped. To suggest it wasn't genuine, that it was coerced… it was the one attack he wasn't prepared for.