Hey, all you hepcats out there, it’s me, the one and only Hypno-Hustler!

Why are all of you wanting to read the adventures of that lame poser, Spider-Man, when you’ve got me, baby! I’ve got the moves and grooves to put that web-slinger out of business if he ever tries to mess with me again. Ain’t no masked man gonna take down the grand master of funk!

That’s right, baby! I’m lean, I’m mean, and I’m going to give you what you need, the way you need it, so just sit back, grab a drink, and take in the stone cold grooves that I’m gonna lay out for you…

VEGAS HUSTLE

Part II

By Tobias Christopher

Peter ran into the hotel room wearing only his boxer shorts and a pair of white socks. Leaning back against the door, he breathed a sigh of relief from having finally getting to his room. Now all he had to do was get his costume on and get back to the casino before the Hypno-Hustler struck.

“I hope that the saying’s true and that whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” said Peter as he saw his bag sitting on the bed. He opened it up and pulled out his Spider-Man costume. “I just hope that Felicia spots the Hypno-Hustler and holds him off until I can get there.”

Flash and Felicia were sitting in the audience as the curtains went up and the lights went down. Standing on the stage was the Hypno-Hustler & the Mercy Killers.

“Where’s Pete at?” asked Flash as he looked at his watch. “He should have been back by now.”

“Maybe he ran into something, you know how Peter is,” replied Felicia as the waiter brought them their drinks. Or Spider-Man, anyway…maybe I should make an excuse to ditch Flash to go back and get my Black Cat costume for some fun!

“All too well,” replied Flash with a laugh. “In fact, I’m almost willing to bet that, right now, Pete’s in some embarrassing situation that he can’t talk himself out of.”

“You two seem to be really close. You really care about Peter, don’t you?” asked Felicia as she looked at him.

“Are you kidding? Pete’s my bro,” replied Flash. “He’s helped me through the worst times of my life when he didn’t have to, when nobody else would give me a second glance. I owe him my life. Back in high school, I used to torment and bully Pete. He never had any reason in the world to give me a helping hand, but every single time I needed someone to lift me up, there he was. So, what about you? Why are you suddenly so chummy with him? You know him and MJ are going to get back together sooner or later.”

Felicia was about to answer as the music started playing and the hypnotizing melodies of the Hypno-Hustler filled the room.

“Yeah,” said Hypno-Hustler as he talked into the mic. “Let the Hypno-Hustler’s voice soothe you while my soulful melodies make sweet, sweet, love to your ears, and your souls give birth to my musical babies.”

“That music,” said Flash as the hypnotic effects started taking over the crowd. Felicia looked up to the stage but it was too late. Like Peter, she’d left all of her Black Cat related equipment back at the hotel, thinking that for just one night she could get away from the costumed life.

“Now, while you cats are digging my grooves, I want you to give all that glorious cash ya’ll have been scoring in the casino to me,” said the Hypno-Hustler as he sang into the mic. “Except for twenty bucks, because I need ya’ll to buy my new CD in the gift shop. Then I want all the guys out there to take that special lady of yours home and make sweet, sweet love to her all night long.”

Hypno-Hustler watched as the people started heading toward the stage, ready to give up all their winnings to him.

“I actually wish you had forgotten the lyrics because it was such a pointless performance to be honest with you,” said Spider-Man in a fake Simon Cowell accent as he swung through, kicking the Hypno-Hustler in the back. “My only issue with you, besides trying to rob everyone blind, is that I don’t think you have, at the moment, any star quality.”

“Spider-Man?! Come to fight your number one enemy?” asked Hypno-Hustler as a pair of knives sprung from the toes of his boots.

“Number one? That’s funny because when I thought of you I instantly thought of number two,” replied Spider-Man as he dodged the Hypno-Hustler as the man kicked at him in an attempt to stab him. This was met by a quick punch, sending him flying back. Spider-Man stomped on the knives, breaking them off. “I’m kind of disappointed you haven’t learned any new tricks since the last time, though.”

“Oh, yeah?” asked the Hypno-Hustler as he reached a hand into his afro and pulled out a baseball bat. He went swinging at Spider-Man who easily ducked the blows before grabbing the bat and breaking it over his knee, then watched as the Hypno-Hustler reached back into his afro and pulled out a sword.

“All right, I am curious as to how you’re doing that?” asked Spider-Man as he jumped over the Hypno-Hustler and kicked him from behind. “You must have been doing business with the Tinkerer!”

“The man’s got some stone cold groovy gadgets,” replied the Hypno-Hustler as he motioned for the Mercy Killers to rush forward towards the hero so he could make his getaway.

“He must have put a new band under his control,” said Spider-Man as he thought about it. “If it’s like the last time, I just have to remove their headphones.”

Using his web-shooters, Spider-Man pulled the headphones off of the band member’s heads, freeing them from the Hypno-Hustler’s control. “And now for the main act. I just hope I don’t lose him in the crowd.”

New York

Drew Michaels was sitting across the desk from J. Jonah Jameson as the old man looked at the pictures Drew had brought him for the evening edition.

“They’re not horrible, but they’re still far from great,” replied Jameson. “But it’s better than nothing. As for you, Michaels, I have another assignment for you.”

“Spider-Man hasn’t been seen in days,” said Drew innocently. “I’ve been all over town to every disaster, but–”

“That web crawling psycho’s probably just planning his next big hit,” replied Jonah as he looked at the young man. “Your photography still leaves a lot to be desired, but you’re the best I have. I need you to go down to the F.E.A.S.T. Project and get some pictures. They’ve just reopened and I want it to be tomorrow morning’s big story. Don’t screw this one up, Michaels.”

“I’ll go down there right now,” replied Drew as he stood up, holding his camera in his hands. “I’ll be back with your pictures.”

“The kid’s trying, Jonah,” Robbie told him as Drew left the office.

“I need him to try, I need him to deliver great pictures,” replied Jonah. “Spider-Man might have blackmailed me into giving the kid a job, but he’s going to have to work to keep it. I expect nothing less than the best from people in my employ.”

Las Vegas

Spider-Man was running through the casino, giving chase to the Hypno-Hustler. No one seemed to notice Spidey, since it was a superhero themed casino. As he was running through, he thought he saw Black Cat and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Thank goodness! Come on, they Hypno-Hustler’s–” as the woman turned around, Spidey got a shock seeing that it was a large black man that resembled Mike Tyson, right down to the face tattoo, dressed in the Black Cat costume. “Uh, sorry, wrong person.”

“Looks like the right person to me, baby,” lisped the man, smiling.

“Yikes,” said Spider-Man as he looked around and let his spider-sense guide him toward the Hypno-Hustler and it was pointing him toward another large room marked ‘Elvis Convention’.

“Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to pick him out from a bunch of–” Spidey burst through the door and into the room. “Aw, crap.”

In the room were two dozen Elvis impersonators, all of them under Hypno-Hustler’s mind control.

New York

At the F.E.A.S.T. Project Headquarters, May Parker was making care packages along with her next door neighbor, Rhett Carson. She’d asked the young man to volunteer to help out to make the lives of the less fortunate a little better. “See how good it feels to help those in need?” asked May as she looked over at Rhett.

“Actually, yeah, it does feel pretty good, thanks for asking me to help out,” replied Rhett. “It…reminds me of when my mother used to take me to the church to volunteer on holidays.”

“You don’t speak much about your family,” said May.

“We’re just… estranged,” said Rhett as he continued folding blankets. “We’re going to need more supplies. I’ll go to the supply closet and get some.”

As Rhett walked into the back, Drew entered, camera in hand. He looked around, trying to decide where to start taking pictures. Meanwhile, a car pulled up outside, waiting for the right moment the men inside to make their entrance. They were given strict orders on how this operation was supposed to go down, as well as a time frame to perform it.

Drew started snapping a few pictures, getting the best shots that he could and was getting ready to approach May when three masked men walked in, guns in hand. They fired a few shots into the air to get everyone’s attention. “Nobody move!” the first man shouted. “This is a hold up!”

Rhett came back to the front just in time to see the men with the guns. The second gunman saw him and aimed his gun at the young man, firing a bullet into his chest. Rhett fell back against the wall, feeling the sting of the bullet.

“No!” shouted May as she rushed to Rhett’s side.

“Get the news on the phone,” said the first gunman as he talked to the third man. “Give them our demands. Tell them we’ve already shot one hostage so they know we’re playing around. And if Spider-Man isn’t here in one hour, another person dies!”

Las Vegas

The Hypno-Hustler was standing at the front of two dozen hypnotized Elvis impersonators as Spider-Man rubbed the bridge of his masked nose with his gloved fingers.

“It’s hard to imagine that this could possibly get any more ridiculous,” sighed Spidey. Then Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ started playing on the loudspeakers as Hypno-Hustler and the Elvis impersonators started doing the ‘Thriller’ zombie dance. “This…this is so far from what I expected to happen to me in Vegas.”

Spidey jumped onto the wall as the Elvis army charged, firing his webs to pin some of them down. “I expected to maybe do a little gambling,” said Spider-Man as he jumped past several of the Elvi in an attempt to get to the Hypno-Hustler, “maybe meet Wayne Newton, get in trouble with a lost baby, a stolen tiger and an Asian guy stuffed in the back of the trunk…”

The Elvis army surrounded the hero as he a shot a web straight up to the ceiling and pulled himself up. “Now, here I am, fighting a thirty second-rate villain and an army of Elvis clones. Not the kind of wacky Vegas hi-jinks I expected.”

Spotting the Hypno-Hustler running through another set of doors, Spider-Man shot a stream of webbing at the ceiling and swung off after him as the Elvi gave chase like a horde of rhinestone-jumpsuit clad zombies. Swinging through the door and back into the casino, Spider-Man saw the Hypno-Hustler and fired a stream of webbing directly above him.

“Just have to give one good pull,” said Spider-Man, having attached the webbing to a large pot strung from the ceiling, filled with foam pieces of gold. Giving it one good yank, he pulled it down, causing it to fall onto the Hypno-Hustler, pinning him to the ground. Spider-Man walked up to him, pinning the pot to the ground with his webbing so the villain couldn’t escape. “Face it, tiger, the jackpot just hit you.”

New York

A.J. was sitting at home, watching the news while he was strumming his guitar. He was feeling a little stronger, but not by much. He was hardly paying attention to the news when he heard the F.E.A.S.T. Project mentioned. He’d gotten a text earlier that Drew was going to be there for the Bugle. That meant he had the apartment to himself for a few hours, plenty of time to work on his music.

As he turned up the volume, he heard the reporter talking about the hostage crisis going on. “And the gunmen say that if Spider-Man doesn’t show up within the hour, another hostage will be executed–”

“Oh, shit!” shouted A.J. as he started to panic. Spider-Man’s not even in town! Okay, A.J., don’t panic, Ben Reilly’s around, he’ll—

“And in other news, we now go live to the scene of the Defenders fighting live from Upstate New York–”

Okay, A.J., NOW you can panic…

Las Vegas

It was nearly dawn as the police led the Hypno-Hustler out of the casino and to the squad car.

“You haven’t seen the last of me, Spider-Man! You and me, we’re destined to do this disco dance forever, baby!” shouted the villain, laughing all the way.

“Why do I always get stuck with the nutjob rogues?” sighed Spider-Man as he looked at his watch. “Better find Flash and Felicia. Wonder if they snapped out of the Hypno-Hustler’s trance? That would explain why Felicia didn’t try to help me nab him.”

Spider-Man looked at his watch again. “On the other hand…the breakfast buffet’s about to open and I did work up an appetite.”

Spider-Man saw the Mike Tysonish Black Cat impersonator and shook his head. “Come on, let’s grab something to eat and you can tell me your obviously fascinating backstory.”

Meanwhile, back at the hotel, clothes were tossed all around the bedroom as the sun started to rise. As they lay under the covers, both Flash and Felicia started to awake at the same time. After a few seconds of staring at each other, it dawned on the both of them what was going on…