I swung through the air, overly cautious of my surroundings despite the ease with which my spider-sense could see all. My eyes scanned below carefully, searching for signs of danger. There was none yet. But who knew when that would change.
Would I even be ready for it if it did? No was what the voice in the back of my head was telling me. A loud, resounding no. I clenched my jaw in frustration. I needed to focus, but there were too many thoughts and feelings to deal with. All resting atop the deep fear that’d settled in my stomach the second this patrol had started.
But I had to get through this. I’d chosen to do it. Because it was the right thing to do. Even if it felt like self-inflicted torture right now, I’d get used to it. I would. I just had to hang on.
“Spider?” Emi called out.
“Huh?” I said, glancing up at her.
She pointed out a building slightly ahead and motioned that we land. I nodded in response and moved towards it. We landed quickly and I turned to her confused.
“What’s wrong?”
“That’s what I was gonna ask you” she responded.
“What? Nothing’s wrong” I lied.
“You sure? I was calling out to you for like a minute. Plus, your eyes were all twitchy. I think your mask is broken” she said. “Couldn’t you feel it?”
“Ah” I mumbled in response. Hadn’t realised the masks could do that. I guess it was kind of cool. Minus the part where everyone could see the anguish written clearly across my face.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. Just nervous” I chuckled awkwardly.
“We can stop if you want to”
“No” I said firmly. “If I stop now it’ll just be harder to start again”
With a quick shake of the head I dispelled the negative thoughts, then forced a smile. “Come on let’s go”
Before Emi could respond, I started forwards. With a huge leap off the building, I flew into the air and fired off a web, smoothly entering into a swing. Emi followed behind me, flying nearby.
“So, you enjoying it here?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“This earth I mean”
“Uh… yeah. It’s kind of weird sometimes, looking around and not seeing what I’m used to”
“Yeah, Cindy mentioned that you were thrown by it when you went to Times Square”
“Yeah. This place is similar but it’s got a whole different history. Like you’ve got big ones like, Johnsons instead of MacDonalds, and Northerns instead of the Yanks, but there’re tonnes of small differences I’m starting to notice too.” I said.
“Like what?”
“I didn’t even notice it back home, but there was tonnes of red in adverts and stuff. Here everything’s blue, Plus your date’s different. We’ve got month day year and you’ve got year month day”
“Those don’t sound like small things”
“Fair. They’re just less obvious. Oh, I should probably try to talk with the others about this. I said I’d tell them about all of it yesterday and then completely forgot”
“They’ll love that. They’ll probably ask if you knew any of them back on your world” she chuckled. I went silent. “Oh shit. I didn’t- uh- sorry”
“No, it’s ok” I responded. We continued to fly above the streets, silent.
“So… uh… the burger place was nice, right?” Emi said awkwardly.
“Yeah. Thanks for reminding me about that place. When I get back I’ll take Yerin with me. She really likes trying new places”
“Yerin? You’re girlfriend?”
“Yeah. She’s awesome. Really smart like Gwen. She’s going to ESU on a full ride after summer. Loves physics and stuff. There was this scientist that visited our school that she loves, and she was so excited about it. We were supposed to go to the talk together before…”I trailed off silently, furrowing my brow.
I’d tried not to think about it too much, but what exactly was happening back home? I mean the other me was there. Was he impersonating me? What about my family? Had he spoken to them? Given that I’d gone straight to his family then probably.
But maybe things were different for him. I’d only gone because of Jamie and he had bad blood with everyone for some weird reason. Maybe he was avoiding them back on my world too. Or maybe he just had enough sense not to intrude. Still, me just not talking to anyone would cause a lot of worry. But wait, what if he wasn’t even there? What if he’d been sent off to some other universe?
Then I’d just upped and vanished without a trace. Was that worse? I didn’t know. It’d probably freaked Eric out though.
“You okay?” Emi asked.
“Yeah, just thinking about home”
“Gwen’ll get you home soon. She’s smart” she said “You’ll be fine”
Before I could respond the sound of a siren cut through the air. Our heads whipped forwards, and our eyes looked down. Two vans raced past the street. A police car followed. Holy shit, something was actually happening. My pulse now thudding loudly in my head, I turned looking to Emi wide eyed.
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“You want to…” she didn’t finish her sentence, leaving the possibility hanging in the air. She was giving me the option to back out. My stomach shifted, butterflies fluttering around dangerously. I shook my head and squashed the fear.
We’d been out here for a reason. I couldn’t let fear change that. There was no point practicing fighting if I didn’t put anything to use. Sure, I’d just started today, but now was as good a time as any to beat my fear. Probably.
“Spider?” Emi said, a note of concern in her voice.
“Yeah. Let’s do this” I said. Emi smiled at me and then zipped down towards the ground, her pace blisteringly fast. I needed to keep up. I swung my legs forwards, releasing the web and fell into a dive. The air pressed me back as I hurtled towards the chaos, heart in my mouth. Emi slowed as she neared the ground and I shot past her, continuing down as she shot forwards. The asphalt grew closer by the second and an extra edge of fear pressed itself to my neck.
“Trust your senses, trustyoursenses, trustyoursenses” I mumbled quickly.
Then the beautiful buzz came. I fired a web out at lightning speed, and it went taught almost instantly. My body was jerked forwards and I swung beautifully through the street, my feet low enough to skim the pavement. Releasing the web I shot forwards, firing the next one as I turned the corner.
I let loose an exhilarated laugh, before remembering I was supposed to be chasing criminals. I looked forwards, relying less on my spider-sense and locked eyes with the two vans. Money fluttered out the back of one of them from a bag caught under the door.
A bank robbery. Ok, this shouldn’t be too bad. I glanced to the police cruiser that chased after them. It’d failed to make any head way. The vans were likely altered in some way. That just meant swinging fast. No biggie. I had this in the bag.
Suddenly gunshots rang out, and I felt my heart drop. A crook from one of the vans was firing up at Emi. She dodged them effortlessly, the aim poor, and the ones that did reach her simply pinged off her shiny armoured skin. I looked back to the van, spotting the crook leaning out the window, AR pointed at the sky.
They hadn’t seen me yet. But they’d at fire me when they did, wouldn’t they? A shiver passed down my spine, and my swinging slowed.
“Seriously? Why guns?” I mumbled. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. As the vans reached the next corner they split, heading in opposite directions. Shit.
“Spider!” Emi shouted back to me.
“I-I’ve got left!” I shouted back, picking up the pace. She flashed a thumbs up and veered off, right. I swung the other way, the police cruiser swerving left too. Phew. At least I didn’t have to do this alone.
I continued to swing, watching as the police cruiser struggled to catch the van. They weren’t catching any time soon. But I was faster than the cops. That meant if someone was going to stop these guys, then it’d probably have to be me. Crap. Guess I was going in.
With a new burst of speed I swung forwards, practically catapulting myself through the air. In a split second I passed the cops and landed hard against the back of the van, denting the door.
“Ow” I mumbled. I pulled myself out of the door, holding the surface tightly, then peeked around the side of the van. In a slow crawl, I moved forwards. I just had to pull them out of the vehicle or web the break down or something. I’d be fine. Fine and dandy.
Once I reached the passenger side window I peered through the glass. Two criminals in ski masks sat in the van, their bodies tense as they stared at the road ahead. One glanced to the side at me before I could think of what to do and angled their gun at my head.
My spider sense blared and I leapt up, off the van instinctively as the window shattered in a spray of glass. I flailed then fired a web, quickly resuming swinging. But it was subdued. Slower than it needed to be given the urgency of the situation. The police car shot past and the van pulled away, the passenger continuing to fire shots out of roof. They sounded a lot louder all of a sudden.
“Get a grip man. Get a grip”
I shook my head violently, trying to shed the nerves, then picked up the pace again, turning the corner with the van and police cruiser. Suddenly the van braked hard. Not expecting it the police car swerved as it tried to slow down, then flipped towards the sidewalk.
I slowed and fired out webs at it, catching it in a net between a building and a streetlight. It creaked loudly before coming to a stop, having only narrowly missed the heads of a few pedestrians. Phew.
I turned my attention back towards the van as it continued, swerving violently around the corner. Shit. Guess I was doing this alone. No pressure. No pressure at all. I took to the sky swinging forwards again quickly. I reached the van, but trailed behind.
“You can do this” I mumbled. “You can do this”
It didn’t matter if they had guns. I could disarm them and stop the vehicle. I could. I let out a breath, psyching myself up then pushed forward, swinging closer once again. I landed against the driver side of the vehicle this time, heart beating hard in my chest. My spider blared as the driver struggled to lean out the car and aim their gun at me, whilst simultaneously driving. We swerved recklessly, the van tilting for a moment.
“Eyes on the road!” I shouted, yanking the pistol away with a web. It crashed through a storefront as we zipped by and a few pedestrians screamed out in panic. Oops.
Before I could say anything, the car swerved around a corner dangerously quickly. My feet, not properly stuck, were yanked away from the van with the rest of my body. I held on tightly with my hands as we continued to swerve, my body now in the way of oncoming traffic. Crying out, I pulled my legs back to my chest as the van stopped turning and picked up speed.
Most of my body missed the oncoming car. Most. My toe clipped the wing mirror, and at the speed of the van it was more than enough to shear it clean off. I winced, clutching myself to the van tightly now, before glancing back.
“S-sorry!” I shouted back, my voice taken by the wind.
I shook my head. No point focusing on stuff like that. I had to stop these two first. But how? My spider-sense buzzed and I looked forwards to see the driver, now with the other crook’s AR, attempting to fit it out the window to fire at me. I yanked it away, this time to myself, before webbing it to the side of the van.
No more guns. Unless there was another pistol or something. He’d have a much clearer shot if I just poked my head up to the window again. My crawl slowed to a stop. Shit. This wasn’t the time to be coming up with made up scenarios. I pondered for a second, then glanced at the back wheels. Oh.
I fired webs at the wheel, and it grinded to a halt as the van began to swerve. Oh crap. Should’ve done both. I leapt over the van and fired webs at the second back wheel, jamming it too. I hit the ground and tumbled before looking up quickly. The van slowed, but continued to swerve dangerously, the tires smoking against the asphalt. I fired webs and grabbed the back of the van, only succeeding in yanking the doors of the hinges. Shit. I rushed forwards, preparing to swing in chase of the van. But it was unnecessary. The van ground to a halt, the back wheels finished.
Oh. I’d done it. I’d actually done it.
The criminals stepped out of the van, hands raised in defeat as the people around watched enraptured, some cheering in support. I glanced around and gave an awkward nod and wave before stepping forwards and webbing the crooks hands behind their backs.
“You have to web them down, or they run away before the cops come” a voice said from above. I looked up to Emi as she landed grinning stupidly.
“Right” I said, quickly webbing them to the side of the van.
“Seriously? This is inhumane” one of them grumbled.
“Hey, you’re the ones that tried to rob a bank” Emi retorted.
He grumbled in response, then looked to the floor. Emi patted me on the shoulder, then gestured to the sky.
“Come on, let’s go”
“Wait we can just leave?”
“Yeah, the police will take care of the rest of it” she said. Right. Dumb question. I nodded and we took to the skies. She floated next to me, grinning stupidly.
“What?”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Well, I did break some things, and the guns were scary but… yeah. I guess.”
“Come on! You just stopped some bank robbers a day after getting back into things. You should be proud!” she said laughing.
I felt a small smile form beneath the mask. I guess I did have something to be proud of.