Chapter 1 - Ending World Hunger

Peter Parker woke up one morning with an unbearable headache. It wasn't as if this was the first time this happened; fighting criminals into the wee hours on a regular basis tended to cause a few headaches, both literally and emotionally, though the latter was usually quickly followed by the former if his infamous Parker Luck had anything to say about it; which it usually did. This morning was different however, because he normally remembered exactly why he had a headache shortly after getting up, but not this time. It was as if everything after a certain point in his memory was a hazy blur, and it hurt trying to remember it.

'Come to think of it,' Peter thought to himself. 'A lot of me is in pain right now, even though I feel like I have more energy than ever, it's weird. Just who did I fight last night that left me so wiped out, yet so fresh?' As he slowly got up and tried to work through the pain, a curious and concerning fact brought him to attention.

"This isn't my room." Peter said worriedly, evidently too worriedly, as his entire body received a stiff jolt of pain from tensing up defensively. "...Okay Pete, pull yourself together." He grunted as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Just try and retrace your steps, and see if you can figure out how you got here." Even as he said this, one thing quickly floated to the forefront of his mind. "Oh right, yesterday was Osborn's funeral." Peter muttered in despair. Truthfully, Peter couldn't care less about Norman ending up killing himself, except for the fact that his best friend was in a spiral of depression because of it, and the guilt of not being able to find another way, and the fact that Harry wanted Spider-Man dead for what happened... 'Okay, so maybe I do care about it a little, but at least I can take solace in the fact that the Green Goblin brought this on himself... right?' Peter wasn't so sure, his easily-diagnosed-by-everyone-except-himself-guilt-complex compelling him to take responsibility where it wasn't his place to do so, again.

"So clearly I didn't fight any super villains last night, argh!" He winced as he massaged his temples. "So why do I have such a huge headache, and what did I do last night?" Almost the instant he said that, the answer came to him in a torrent of memories involving copious amounts self-poisoning. "I was... drinking?! Why would I do that?! I know there was wine at the funeral, but even with my best friend's dad dead, and Gwen not... well, leaving Harry for me like we agreed to do. Oh, who am I kidding, anyone would go straight for the drink to try and forget all that. Ohhh, Aunt May is gonna kill me!" He bemoaned his underage drinking as he got out of the bed he was in, only to make several fearful observations in quick succession. "Why am I naked?!" He panicked as he covered himself with the bed sheet as he rooted around for his clothes, only to quickly drop something he grabbed in a panic. "Why is there a bra here?!" His heart and stomach both sank to his feet in dread.

"Go for the panties next." An unfamiliar yet familiar feminine voice teased from behind him. "You were a bit too fast taking them off the first time for me to really enjoy it."

'Ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrap!' Peter panicked as all hope of this just being a really, really, really, really bad dream on his part were disappearing faster than a Houdini illusion. 'I'm going to turn around, and there's gonna be a woman I never met before looking absolutely furious at me, not that I'd be able to blame her.'

"No need to be so jumpy there, handsome." The voice reassured him jokingly, causing him to try and swallow his saliva, only to find his mouth was completely dry. "Take it easy there, Spider, I'm not mad about what happened last night."

That brought Peter upright like a bolt of lightning, turning around at the woman, his fear palpable in his eyes as he gazed upon the short-haired brunette in a fluffy purple bathrobe that rode up a bit too high for his liking. Trying his best to ignore that detail and focus on damage control, he absently wondered just how she managed to - if not find out completely - then at least, hopefully, just get suspicious. It just wouldn't do for a random drunken roll in the hay to find out his secret.

"Spider? What is that, some kind of weird, sex-thing?" He chuckled with far less awkwardness than he actually felt, which meant he was actually lying very well by his standards. "Also, regarding the sex thing, I know it's a long-shot, but could we maybe... kinda... just go our separate ways and forget that any of this ever happened whatsoever?" He begged hopefully.

The woman just sighed tiredly and rolled her eyes. "Peter, we had sex on the ceiling - the CEILING, Peter. If that's not proof positive you're Spider-Man, I don't know what is."

Peter groaned as he flopped on the bed in morbid depression, absently noting some hand print shaped coffee stains on the ceiling, mortifying him even further. "Could this day get any worse?!" He moaned as he took stock of what had happened so far. He wakes up with a hangover, in a room he doesn't recognize, completely naked, and apparently having spent the night having a drunken romp around with a girl he doesn't even know. But worst of all, he probably never called Aunt May, and even if he had, it would have been a drunk dial. Who knows what she would have heard?!

"That depends on how you define worse." The woman remarked casually. "Get dressed, I'll do my best to fill in any blank spots in your memory." She chuckled as Peter began scrambling for his clothes at a break neck pace, leaving the room once she'd seen enough.

"Okay, now that that mortifying moment is over," Peter sighed as he walked, fully clothed, out of the bedroom and into a sparse looking apartment. "It's time for another one, namely, finding out what led up to it." He resigned himself to humiliation as he sat at a table and looked at the woman he'd slept with last night expectantly.

"Well, there's not much to say, really." The woman remarked with a shrug as she set aside her laptop. "You got drunk at the premature celebration of Norman Osborn's death, I abducted you under a clever ruse of knowing you and driving you home, I placed a dummy in your house and let your aunt know that you were so depressed about the funeral that you didn't want to do anything tomorrow to give you a cover, I brought you here, I showed you a few videos, you went for a swing, we had sex, and here we are." She explained casually, sipping her coffee as Peter quickly went from a shocked stare to a furious glare.

"You abducted me-argh!" Peter winced as he held his head in pain. "Stupid hangover." He muttered bitterly. "Also, aside from the whole abducting thing, there are several other things wrong with what you just said." He glared at her weakly.

"Mind explaining to me exactly what was unclear?" The woman asked conversationally. "Please ask only about the specific words that were unclear, or we'll be here all morning."

Stopping to recall her exact words for a minute, Peter responded. "The words premature, celebration, videos, swing, and sex. None of those words make any sense to me in the context you used."

"I'll grant you the other three, but aren't celebration and sex obvious?" The woman remarked in honest confusion.

"Why would I celebrate the death of my best friend's father?" Peter retorted in bitter confusion. "And what I meant was, why the sex?"

"I'll show you the videos." The woman blatantly ignored his remarks, opened up a blog on laptop, and clicked on a video. "The first one should answer most of your questions, and the second should make you wanna kick Harry's ass off a skyscraper."

"I doubt a couple of videos could motivate me to betray my best friend." Peter remarked skeptically, even as he watched the video. It wasn't much to look at anyway, just what looked like a feed from a security camera at an airport. Suddenly though, the black and white picture zoomed in on someone at the departing gate, and enhanced the image. As the close-up came into focus, Peter's jaw dropped at the sight of a very smug looking Norman Osborn. Glancing at the time and date on the lower right corner of the video, he saw that it was dated the day AFTER he supposedly died. To really nail it home, the video even cut to a photo recognition program that compared the man at the airport to a recent photo of Norman Osborn, and aside from the obvious hair dye, it was a perfect match. As the video ended with a clip of the Green Goblin laughing maniacally, Peter's blood began to boil, completely neglecting to wonder where this girl got a clip of the Green Goblin laughing. "Osborn..." The teenage hero seethed at the deception. "Isn't it already bad enough that you're a monster, now you're traumatizing everyone around you by faking your death, including your own son? If I ever get my hands on you, I'm gonna...!" He trailed off as he clenched his hands in a strangling motion.

"And this brings us to your swing question." The woman smirked as she clicked on a photo on the blog to enlarge it.

"Oh... my... God..." Peter gaped in shock at the contents of the photo; the words 'NORMAN OSBORN IS A COWARD' were strung up in a major city intersection in webbing. "I did that? I mean, not that he doesn't deserve to get called out on it, and his ego is definitely not gonna let an insult like this slide without a fight, but... I did that?"

"Sure did." The woman grinned even as she scrolled to another part of her blog. "Even whipped up a special batch of webbing that would last for DAYS to do it. I should know, I helped you make it."

"Really? Huh, you didn't strike me as the scientist type." Peter remarked conversationally.

"While we're on the subject, what type do I strike you as?" The woman asked as she clicked on another video. "Besides an arachnid lover who's really good in the sack?"

"Thanks for reminding me." Peter dragged his hand across his face tiredly as the video buffered. "And just when I had finally managed to put that out of my mind." His focus was quickly taken off his embarrassment when the second video began playing. It was two scenes playing simultaneously on the left and right sides of the feed; one inside a house in a very familiar scene, and one outside it in a far less familiar scene. While Peter would normally be concerned and slightly furious about how exactly she'd managed to get videos of this scene, all he could think about as the scene switched from his confession to Gwen with Harry eavesdropping, to Harry blatantly playing the sympathy card at his fathers' funeral, was to wonder just how far the Harry he used to know had fallen, and just how much further he'd fall before he was satisfied. When the video ended, his face was firmly resting in his hands. "I don't know whether to blame to Goblin Formula for Harry's actions, or the increasingly suspicious Osborn Family Genes. Either way, there's no way I'm gonna let Harry keep on manipulating Gwen like this." He announced with renewed determination as he pulled himself away from the screen.

"Aaand, how exactly do you plan on doing that?" The woman droned sarcastically. "It's not exactly like you have any proof besides this video, and even though I did put it on my blog-which gets like, zero hits a day, BTW-don't you think it'd be just a little bit suspicious if you showed it to them?"

"...You have a point." Peter sighed to himself in resignation before pulling himself back together. "At least somewhat. There's no way I can show this to Harry, I just can't trust him anymore. But Gwen will stand by me, especially when..." He hesitated.

"...Especially when; what, exactly?" The woman led him on.

Peter hesitated answering for several seconds, wondering whether or not this woman could be trusted, before deciding to just go with it for once. "...When I tell her I'm Spider-Man." Peter said resolutely.

"Now we're talking." The woman applauded the hero happily. "I just helped you get through months worth of emotional turmoil and debate in a matter of minutes. You're welcome."

"Now there's just one final matter to discuss." Peter glared at the woman who'd been a massive enigma to him since waking up this morning. "Namely; who are you, why the abduction, why the sex, why the videos, why help me, why any of this? Feel free to answer these in no particular order."

"Straight to the point, I see." The woman remarked casually. "Or rather not, since I've been distracting you with wacky videos and fostering your burning hatred for the Osborn family tree, but I see your point." Pausing to take a contemplative sip of her coffee, she began. "Well, I suppose it all started when I read an online science paper on spiders written by one Dr. Bruce Banner."

"Bruce Banner?" Peter interjected in confusion. "But he's an expert on Gamma Radiation and other energies and their applications. Why would he write a paper on spiders?"

"Because spiders apparently have access to a form of energy long unnoticed to humanity." She continued. "It seems he noticed it during one of his tests with Gamma Radiation on arthropods. He had to do quite a lot of digging in various fields, including magic, to even begin to get an understanding of it. And I know what you're thinking," She held up a hand to stop his objection. "Magic doesn't exist-it's nothing but a bunch of nonsense designed to fool the unintelligent and entertain geeks. Well I've got news for you, it does exist, and if all goes to plan then you're gonna be seeing a lot of it in the future, but more on that later. For now, let's focus on this new energy spiders can access. Of course, even though I say it's energy, it's actually a combination of two separate kinds of energy. Specifically, Chaos and Tantric energies."

"I've never heard of either of those energies." Peter deadpanned. "And believe you me, I know about a lot of different kinds of energies, been hit by a lot of them too."

"Then allow me to begin explaining them both by telling you just why I had sex with you last night, and why you're feeling so energized right now." The woman hinted knowingly. "Tantric energy constantly builds up in all forms of life, but very few kinds of beings are capable of accessing it, and even then, they can only use it when they get it from others in a specific type of ritual." Letting her words soak in for a few seconds, she didn't continue until Peter's eyes began to widen as the realization dawned on him. "It seems you're catching on. That's right, Tantric energy is, in another word, Sex energy, and you my friend, just got a very big helping of it last night."

For several long and awkward seconds Peter could only gape vacantly so intently you'd think he was bitten by a genetically altered fish instead of a spider, if it weren't for the fact that he wouldn't be in this situation in the first place if he weren't bitten by a genetically altered spider. Finally, after several long minutes, he managed to sort out his jumbled thoughts. "Under normal circumstances I'd be very skeptical, but I can't deny just how amazing I'm feeling this morning. Y'know, once I got over the hangover of course, which actually didn't take all that long now that I think about it, which just makes this whole thing make even more sense." He sighed as he facepalmed. "Alright, I'll admit that Tantric Energy probably exists, at least until I can come up with another probable explanation for why I feel like a million bucks. So what's Chaos Energy exactly?" He asked curiously.

"You're not gonna like it~" The woman said in a sing-song tone of voice.

"I barely like the fact that I lost my virginity to you." Peter retorted, subtly confirming that the experience was at least partially enjoyable from his perspective. "Nothing you can say could possibly make this day more scarring for life."

"Murder energy." The woman deadpanned, causing Peter's eyes to widen in alarm. "That's right, just let it soak in for a second." She urged him gently. "It makes sense when you think about it, doesn't it? After all, female spiders typically kill and eat their mate after getting what they need from them, so it's only natural that anyone who looks hard enough, and knows just what to look for would see the connection. Now I'm not saying you have to kill and eat me, per say, but you have a lot of enemies that-"

"Forget it." Peter cut her off firmly as he quickly stood up and slammed his hands on the table. "I'm not killing anyone. That's not me, that's not who I am, or what I stand for. I'm sorry that you did all of this for nothing, and while I'm grateful that you opened my eyes to some major deceptions in my life, if you think that entitles you to make me kill some criminals just for whatever experiments you wanna do, then forget it." Walking over to the door as the woman began panting heavily and clenching and unclenching her hands tensely, he left her some parting words. "This has all been a very weird experience for me, but in light of everything that's been said this morning, I'm willing to move past this and overlook some pretty major laws you broke last night by bringing me here. Still, I think it'd be for the best if we just stayed as far away from each other as possible." Just as he was about to leave, however-

*Spider-Sense!*-You just fucked-up big time!

"WAAHHH!" Peter yelped as he found himself pulled away from the door and slammed violently into the opposite wall by some unseen force. "What the?!-OOF!" He grunted as the woman firmly grabbed him by the shirt and pressed him into the wall, keeping him from getting away with a strength that far surpassed what a woman her size should have.

"You think you have the luxury of just getting up and walking away from this?!" The woman growled with a fury that Peter instinctively knew that no mere human could possibly have, especially since her eyes were glowing with an intense purple energy. "Do you have any idea the kind of loopholes I had to abuse to set the stage for this plan?! How many rules I had to break?! How many forces I had to fight against to get this far?! And you want to ruin everything I've worked to set up over more than half a century out of some deluded and flawed sense of justice and morality?! I should just skip the middleman and-" She paused and took a deep breath, slowly exhaling to calm herself. "Easy there, girl." She murmured to herself. "Remember, you can't afford to slip-up at this stage. You've come too far to blow it now, and you promised yourself that you'd put an end to all the pain and suffering your family causes. He doesn't know, but he can learn." Taking another breath, she looked at Peter with much softer eyes and gently set him down. "Sorry about that, I'm going through a lot of... issues right now."

"...I can tell." Peter remarked hesitantly as he casually noticed that she was floating. "So, do you mind explaining the whole super-powers and voice of legion thing you did just now? I'm willing to listen now."

"I can't explain the whole thing to you." The woman muttered apologetically. "Like I said, I'm breaking enough rules as it is, any more and my dad would kill me."

"Then just explain what you can." Peter reassured her as they both took their seats again. "Clearly there's a lot going on here, and while I wasn't able to follow most of what you said, I was able to understand they you're doing everything you can to help people, and while I don't fully understand your methods, I can at least hear you out."

"You're so sweet." The woman smiled warmly as she wiped a few tears from her eyes. "Here I am, threatening to kill you and wipe out your entire planet, and there you are, focusing on the pain I'm in and how you can help."

"Wipe out the entire WHAT?!" Peter panicked.

"That's not important right now," The woman remarked nonchalantly. "Anyway, as I was saying, I can only tell you a little bit right now, but to sum it up, there are a lot of forces on a lot of planets and in a lot of dimensional planes that pose a great threat to the entire universe as you know it, or at least a galaxy of two. If my plan works, we can take a lot of these problems and threats out of the picture for good, or at least for several hundred-thousand years. However, none of this can even begin to take place unless you knuckle down and kill someone-anyone really, but knowing you, it'd have to be someone who's really, really earned it."

Peter sighed deeply and he pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to soak all this information in at once. From what he could piece together so far, this woman was either an alien, or an escaped mental patient, and judging by her powers, he was leaning more towards the former. Furthermore, he was apparently the center of some massive, inter-stellar conspiracy orchestrated either in-part or whole by this woman, and while his inner geek was bouncing off the walls, his inner scientist was confused and uncertain about how an average guy like him-spider powers excluded-was supposed to fit at the center of all this. So many questions, so few answers, and only one person could provide them as far as he was aware. "Continue." Was all the teen hero could manage to say as he prepared for more bombshells.

"There's not much else I'm allowed to say, really." The woman apologized. "All I can tell you is that Chaos and Tantric energies merging in your body in the crux of everything, and of course, to let you know who I am."

'Oh. My. God.' Peter mentally slapped himself. 'With everything that's been going on, I never even got her name.' While inwardly he was hitting himself for not even knowing the name of the person he lost his virginity to, he did his best to remain outwardly composed, which, contrary to his ability to stay cool under pressure when dealing with super villains, was not so impressive when dealing with people he considered friends. "Well, given our rocky start, I suppose we could-" He was cut off by his Itsy Bitsy Spider ringtone, causing him to blush in embarrassment when to woman started chuckling at it. "Excuse me for a second, I've gotta take this." He apologized as he flipped open his phone. "Hello, you've reached Peter Parker."

{"Dude! Check the title of the chapter before you do anything stupid! Oh, who am I kidding; Spider-Sense or not, you're always gonna find a way to screw things up. DP out!"}

"Who was that, and how did he know who I am?" Peter remarked worriedly once the line went dead.

"That was just Deadpool." The woman sighed tiredly. "I kinda owe him for a whole lot of stuff, so he's gonna be popping up every now and then. And don't worry about him knowing your secret identity, he knows the secret identities of everyone. Just try not to pay him too much attention, it'd gonna save you a lot of headaches in the long run."

"I guess I'm gonna have to take your word for it." Peter sighed as he promptly ignored her advice and added one more thing to his ever growing list of worries, the most prominent of which was the idea that he'd have to murder someone for whatever plan this woman had. "Now before we get any more interruptions, could I please at least get your name? I'm not used to going clueless this long."

"We both know that you usually go much longer being clueless, so don't try to kid yourself." The woman quipped as her eyes began glowing purple again. "As for who I am..."

*Spider-Sense!*-Check yourself before you wreck yourself!

Before Peter could think of any defense or counter against whatever was happening, there was a huge flash of light he had to shield his eyes from. When the light began to die down, Peter slowly and hesitantly lowered his arm, a decision he quickly found himself regretting as he gazed upon a sight most would give up everything they had never to see. Though the form was still clearly the woman he'd been talking to for the last several minutes, Peter knew that very few super powered beings wore that much purple, and even fewer wore such ostentatious headgear.

"I am Galacta." She spoke calmly yet with a power almost none could match, with hundreds of voices that seemed to come from everywhere, yet nowhere, including inside his very mind. "Daughter of the All-Mighty Planet Eater Galactus, and as of last night, the first of your many lovers. Call me Gali."

As Peter gazed fearfully upon one of the most powerful beings in all creation, trying to get even the slightest grasp on all the many, many ways this was horribly, horribly wrong, one thing-against his better judgement-kept coming to the forefront of his mind.

"...Are you trying to make me into some sort of man-whore?" He couldn't stop himself from asking.

"Of course." Galacta grinned as her voice returned to something that didn't make Peter want to immediately start praying to every god that may or may not be listening. "Until you start mixing Chaos Energy with all that Tantric energy you've got, I'm gonna need you to gather up a lot of Tantric energy for me to feed off of if you don't want me to eat the planet."

"So you're saying that the fate of the entire planet literally depends on me getting laid as much as possible?" Peter asked in astonishment and disbelief.

*Spider-Sense!*-You never learn, do you?

"Preferably with as many women as possible." Galacta confirmed casually. "Of course, you can start murdering bad guys at any time to make things easier on yourself. A mixture of Chaos and Tantric energy contains much more nutrients for me than either one alone. Still, I'm eating for two now, so you're gonna need a lot of Tantric energy anyway."

"You're eating for two?!" Peter panicked, his mind shutting down due to being unable to take any more bombshells being dropped, causing him to pass out on the table.

"...I should probably get him back to his aunt's place before she notices he's not really there." Galacta muttered sheepishly as she picked him up tenderly. "Can't risk the linchpin to universal stability getting grounded, after all."