Translucent green with red blobs floating within it, it stood over twelve stories tall (the fourteen-story American Financial building barely topped it on its far side), it held three large white, misshapen eyes near the top of its roundish head (there was no neck below that) and a mouth that was a gaping hole instead of a clean, lip-lined orifice, below that an astounding number of tentacles of all shapes and sizes, similar only in that they were each tipped with a small bulge like the cap of a morel mushroom, which waved about like a hundred gigantic snakes, slapping the (empty) bus to Gregory’s right away like it was a child’s toy (considering the behemoth’s enormous size, the comparison was more than apt, it was literal) and another ramming into the mailbox to Gregory’s left, piercing it without apparent effort or resistance.

The slamming metallic sounds awakened Gregory’s muscles and he turned to run, but got only a couple of steps when a large tentacle darted past him on the left, curved and passed him again on the right and then he was being encircled by the large, long, slime-coated appendage, and being bodily lifted up into the air.

Gregory yelled then, but another “SKREEEEE-AAAAAAAHHHH-WHUH-WHUH-WHUH-WHUH-WHUH-WHUH!”from the alien (Gregory hoped it wasn’t any sort of local talent, at least!) drowned him out utterly. Gregory watched and struggled helplessly as the huge whip of living matter that enchained him was joined by others as he was carried up to within a few feet of the monstrous alien’s mouth and eyes. He closed his eyes, his only remaining defense. He was about to be eaten, and didn’t want to know just when it was coming. His lips tried to form a prayer but that wasn’t something he’d done much of ever since puberty and his words were only a hopeless mumbling sound. His clothing, an elegant suit of Italian silk, sleek-looking but not especially durable, was ripping itself into rags as the various tentacles pulled at his clothing. There seemed to be a bit of dissolving going on as well for his pants and shirt and briefs and t-shirt to sunder themselves so easily for there were no claws, he only saw and felt blunt nubs of the tentacle-heads touching against his body, rubbing across him, like a dozen or twenty heads of purring cats stroking up against you might feel. Oh, God, if only....

And there he was! A flash of yellow with red piping and on his chest, a brave, blue, arc-limbed “E” emblem in the center of the broad, massive chest of the sort Gregory dreamed of having, flying to his rescue! Element Man! He could make the air support him, water obey him, fire flare up for him, earth erupt for him. If anyone could save him, it would be Element Man!

“Element Man! Over here!” he shouted. “Help!”

Element Man swerved down and came toward the behemoth being that held Gregory in its thrall. God, his bare skin was touching those tentacles now! His clothing from his chest to his knees were either gone or in tatters too small to matter. Now the bulbous tips of the limbs were brushing his skin, feeling him, stroking him, touching him...touching him there! Oh, God!

Element Man fired a blast of raw fire from his fingertips toward the blob, the fire splattered (away from Gregory) and the tentacles...were unaffected. Any searing of the flesh of the creature was absorbed or discarded without affecting the rest of the body! The tentacles that held Gregory didn’t even stop their intimate exploration of his body!

Element Man swooped around the huge monster, firing other blasts, bigger blasts, to no greater effect. Gregory saw it all from his front row seat, the creature moving down the street, strewing destruction and chaos before him, while Element Man was flailing away ineffectually, no more than a human-sized gnat to this monster.

Element Man was trying water now, jetting water up from a broken fire hydrant to slap at the creature. This did no better than the one before, though the body of the monster wavered beneath the pelting of the high-powered jet Element Man was wielding toward him.

And one of the tentacles about Gregory had found his anus! Oh, jeez, it was probing and digging, trying to push its way in! Was it one of the smaller ones? Or one of those monstrous ones that held him up in mid-air!

Air now came into play, hurricane force winds whipped around the beast, Element Man had now given up trying to stop the creature, now he was trying to free Gregory from the tentacles’ grip by bending back the tentacles.

The air’s force did this much, it caught the gigantic monster’s attention. Element Man was closing in, the air was blowing harder, so hard that if the thing did relax its grip, Gregory would go flying upwards at a high rate of speed. Element Man would surely fly up and catch him, but....

And Gregory watched as a tentacle came around and caught Element Man! “Look out!” he shouted as the tentacle contacted that yellow-clad form, and whipped about his waist as quickly as one had on Gregory!

Element Man blazed in fire all about his body as the tentacle was joined by another, and then a third and fourth, these last two caught his arms and held them away helpless to aim his powers. My God, it was overpowering Element Man!

And the tentacle at Gregory’s ass drove into his sphincter! Oh, God! This was no dinky probe like the one now encircling his penis! This was bigger, much bigger! He could barely accommodate this bulbous tip, barely keep from screaming!

Element Man was now brought up to face him, the face that Gregory had seen time and again splashed across the newspaper below a banner headline in big, fat type. Element Man was now wriggling as helpless as he was, his curly brown hair in a disarray that belied Gregory’s personal belief that Element Man never had a hair out of place.

And Element Man’s costume was as vulnerable to the tentacle’s dissolving/destroying touch as his own Italian silk had been.

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