“ A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark. “
- Dante Alighieri.
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A giant tarantula. A motherfucking giant tarantula had just decided to jump on top of my shoulder.
I panicked.
The visit to the particle accelerator was supposed to be informative, cool and all-around nerdy as shit with all the physics being thrown around. Both figuratively and physically. But I wasn’t expecting this nice, relaxing, and entertaining experience to be screwed over by an enormous spider deciding to climb onto my shoulder!
Normally I don’t fear many things. Insects are actually pretty cool and most of them I can tolerate, but big hairy spiders was a no-no, and the thing on my shoulder was the biggest hairy spider ever. Understandably, out of terror, I slammed my free hand into its side to try and get it off, but the spider seemed to notice it and it bit me.
“FU-” I mouthed, shouting my lungs out before a flash of white blinded me.
Next thing I knew there was an explosion. Or at least I assume it was an explosion since my ears popped and I felt my body being thrown against the nearby wall. I wanted to scream, but it was over before I knew it, and apparently a particle accelerator exploding was something that you weren’t supposed to survive.
Weird, because I found myself feeling how my body disintegrated, only to….Be reformed? It was a weird feeling, like cracking your knuckles a bit too hard so your hands feel a bit iffy or when a numb leg starts to regain feeling.
It was an odd sensation, dying that is.
I always figured it would hurt more.
After what felt like both an eternity and a single blink, I found myself landing on top of a pile of trash inside a garbage dumpster. Weird, considering I was underground just a few minutes ago, dying to what I assumed to be the biggest fuck-off explosion ever in the history of humanity, but no matter.
The first thing I did was check if the spider was still there.
It wasn’t. Thank God.
Next, I figured I should crawl out of the dumpster, which I did while feeling like my entire body was numb as hell. Crawling and awkwardly falling off the side of the dumpster, I looked up to see a starry sky.
Then panic hit me again, and I started to search for any injury or something.
I was perfectly fine, even the spot where the spider bit me wasn’t swelling or anything, it was just slightly bruised and seemed to be in perfectly fine shape. Once my immediate panic for my life started to fade away, I decided that perhaps it was time to ponder as to where in the nine circles of hell I was.
“Okay, so I blew up. This is either the weirdest dream of my life as I’m being disintegrated or I somehow managed to survive? But then again, where am I?” I started to pace back and forth before realizing I had a phone in my pocket.
I took it out and, surprisingly enough, noticed I did have a signal. Small mercies and all that.
I unlocked it with my fingerprint and tried to use the GPS app, which jumped across the digital globe until it showed an error window. I never even knew GPS had an error window. Well, that was not good at all.
I checked my pockets again. I still had my wallet on me, my phone, my pair of earphones and a half-charged portable battery.
“Okay, let’s calm down and go over what I remember.” I took a deep breath and leaned on one of the nearby walls as I stared into my hands.
My name is Valeria Ramirez. I am nineteen years old. I was on a fun visit to the particle accelerator and then a spider fell on me. Then I blew up and now I’m somewhere else.
Good, at least I remembered the gist of my identity.
Then I realized no normal human was meant to survive an explosion like that at ground zero, so I started to worry a little, passing a hand over my forehead to wipe a bit of cold sweat away, then deciding to clean it off on the wall. Normally a human’s hands wouldn’t stick to weird surfaces, so when I tried to pull away and noticed that not only had my hand stuck to the wall, but I could also feel small hairs sticking to it.
“Oh fuck.” I said, calmly.
“OH FUCK!” I repeated, less calmly.
The sensation was weird, but it didn’t feel wrong. I took a deep breath and concentrated, retracting…Whatever those small hairs were and just staring at my hand. It had no visible hairs on it, so maybe they were just microscopic or something? But how could something so small have so much resistance? My head was going in circles, so I just turned around and concentrated again, pushing both of my hands onto the wall.
They stuck firmly, and I pushed myself off the ground.
Nevermind sticking to the wall, I could barely feel my own weight.
“What the fuck happened to me?” I mumbled as I pulled my hand back, this time the motion felt more natural, only to raise it and stick it higher up.
I repeated this until I was actually climbing up the wall with no problems. Then, I felt the same sticky sensation on my feet and knees, so I tried to pull back my hands and, to my surprise, I didn’t fall to the ground. Instead I “stood up” and began casually walking up the wall until I reached the ceiling, climbing on top to sit on the edge and look over the massive city I had arrived at after the explosion.
“Yup, I’m either having delusions or I just confirmed the existence of the multiverse theory.”
I looked down at my hands, noticing there were small dots on my wrists. Out of morbid curiosity, I pressed down on it by instinct and a long strip of…String, no, web shot out from it in front of me like one of those silly string canisters people sometimes buy for parties and the like.
“Yup. I’m a freak now.”
I remained sitting there for the rest of the night, unsure of how to tackle this new reality. Soon enough, the moon set beyond the horizon and the sun made its way up into the sky. And it was the start of a new day for me, a really bad day by the looks of it.
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With the night gone and the day rising, I found myself walking through the streets of the city. Soon enough I arrived at the main avenue, where a good handful of digital screens with advertisements plastered all over them informed me that I was currently walking through the streets of Ark city. They did seem to hold the same 24 hour day cycle so that was great, and they also used the same currency as back home, so I wouldn’t have much trouble handling dollars and stuff.
Well, I probably would have trouble since I had a whole sixty-two to my name and nothing else. Since my GPS backfired I figured the banks wouldn’t have my information, and neither would I have my nationality confirmed.
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I shivered as I walked through the streets. Apparently the day had decided to start with snowfall, and I was wearing spring clothes. Hell, I was lucky to have a moderately thick hoodie on me when the explosion went off.
Since it was too cold to stay in one place for too long, I decided to think on what to do while moving so I wouldn’t freeze to death. I did have my powers but I had no idea how to put them to monetary gain other than robbing a bank or something. And I’d rather not steal from people if I could help it.
So instead I took to the alleyways and the dumpsters of electronic stores. Collecting copper, wires and generally anything that I could sell out to any recycling station or scrap yards outside the city.
With a cloth bag full of copper, I made my way through the streets. I took the scenic view towards the outskirts where I figured the scrap yards would be, since no one would buy from me in the middle of downtown after all. I passed through several parks, seeing other homeless people and giving them an understanding smile.
While this was a really bad situation, it wasn’t the first time I was forced to collect copper to buy food.
But those bad memories are meant for a cup of beer and a fresh wod of cash to spend on more alcohol, not to be retold to myself while I made my way through town.
As I passed by one of the minor banks the city seemed to house, I noticed there was an eerie amount of silence around the area. There were little to no citizens around and the city seemed…Dead, somehow.
With concern in my mind, I peeked around one of the windows and noticed there were several armed men aiming firearms at the clients inside. It was a god damn robbery!
I decided to call the cops, and sure enough had to double-take before dialing the correct one since Ark city used a different number. Making sure I was not seen, I skulked my way to the back of the building to make sure I wasn’t surprised talking to the police. Once they picked up, I proceeded to dump the scoop on them.
“ACPD, what is your emergency?” The operator asked, her voice was actually really calming all things considered.
“There’s a robbery happening at 7th Street, the big bank. There’s like uh…..” I took a peek through another window, getting the number of assailants. “Twelve of them, they got guns.”
Of course they have guns, you idiot! They’re robbing the fucking bank!
I facepalmed really hard as the operator spoke again, clearly more serious this time.
“Understood, remain calm while the patrol cars get there. Are you inside the building right now?” She asked, in a lower volume than before, probably thinking it would make a difference so that the robbers wouldn’t catch whoever was calling from inside.
I took a deep breath to calm myself, this was not a good time to go back to coping with humor.
“No, I’m right outside. Not sure if they’ll stay long though, your guys should hurry.”
“They are already on their way, stay calm and don’t involve yourself. Stay away okay?” The operator seemed to catch something in my voice that I wasn’t very comfortable with.
I mean, I have superpowers! Maybe I could….But then again the hostages….Hummm….
“Sure, I’ll get going now.” I cut off the call and put my phone in the pocket of my hoodie.
I had options here. It was still fairly early in the morning, if the lights went off inside the bank, the small windows wouldn’t give a lot of natural light inside. Maybe I could try and disarm them or distract them until the police came?
Then again, how would I hide my face? I wouldn’t like to get stabbed in the park when I tried to sleep on a bench that night, so I just took off my hoodie for now and put the bag down. The bank had a back exit, so I could still make a run for it when the police arrived.
Nodding to myself, I pressed myself against the wall and made my way up. I had tried to see what I could do with the webbing while I was searching for copper during the morning, so I just moved my hand around my face and a thick covering of spider silk covered the lower half of my face.
“Okay….Calm down….You just need to distract them and slow them down…There’s no need to be too much of a hero, you’re not bulletproof. At least I don’t know…Yet.”
To be honest, I would be dead anyways so I wasn’t having much of an issue making up my mind to give this a try, plus knowing that I somehow survived a particle accelerator did make me feel pretty immortal at the moment.
Instead of worrying myself any more, I just climbed up the wall and made my way to the air ventilation system. Placing my hands against the steel panel, I pulled back with a bit more strength than I used when climbing up, and the whole piece was torn off the system.
I looked at it and then at myself. Super Strength huh? Nice.
I made my way inside and held my breath. The temperature was pretty high but I could handle it, the quality of the air however…Well, it was ventilation for a reason. It was pulling out all the odors and the CO2 from the room below to circulate clean air inside, so it smelled a little foul.
I eventually made my way down until the panel gave way to an opening directly above the armed men and the hostages. I took deep breaths as I pressed my hands against the piece of metal, pushing instead of pulling very gently to not make a lot of noise.
“Alright people! Three minutes and we’re done, don’t do anything stupid and nobody gets shot!” One of them shouted, it made me question what I was doing, but then again I was just there to buy time.
“Hey, chill with the trigger finger, we’re not gonna kill anybody today.” An older man responded, judging by his voice.
“I’m just playing my part dude, get off my back.” I cringed at that, and so did the old man, but they were looking away from the hostages so it was a good chance.
I pushed the panel off without them noticing and put it aside, pushing myself off the opening shoulder first and made my way out. Clinging to the ceiling, one of the children looked up and saw me, I waved and he waved back.
Then the young guy looked up to where the kid was watching, and froze.
I froze for a second.
Then I punched my arm out and shot a web at his gun, pulling it off his grip.
*Twhip!*
Everything slowed down as I “jumped” against the ceiling, forcing myself to fall at the same time I turned around and shot a web at the gun, sticking it to the ventilation tube.
I fell down directly in front of the young man, he still seemed frozen in place, the other armed men turned around at the sound and looked at the rifle stuck to the metallic tube, then back at me.
“It’s a freak, shoot her!” The old man ordered, causing the others to open fire and the young guy to try a punch at my face.
Everything felt a little slow as I stepped to the side, ducking under the punch and awkwardly trying to kick the man’s shin. The bullets flew past me and hit the wall, but a *Crack!* turned me around to notice the man’s shin was bent in a way it didn’t look natural at all.
I grimaced before I kept moving. Things felt fast again as I kept running around the front of the bank, avoiding bullets as I got used to my new reflexes. It was fun!
*Twhip!* *Thwip!* I grabbed one of the big desks with two webs and swung it around to hit the armed guys. The four that remained on the floor level were hit aside and I could hear them mumbling in pain as they tried to stand up again. Instead of waiting for them, I just ran to their guns and stuck them to the walls. Using only webs, mind you, I didn’t want my fingerprints all over an illegal firearm.
“Okay guys! You’ll be waiting right there until the authorities get here, alright?” I smiled as I made my first superhero line, it was bad, but I would be getting better anyways.
“Fuck…you….” One of them complained, and I just *Thwip!* stuck his head to the floor.
“Actually…”
*Thwip!* *Thwip!* *Thwip!*
I just stuck them all under the broken desk so they wouldn’t get away, then turned towards the stairs leading to the vault. I heard some kind of drill, so I rushed down and got startled by the wall of bullets that was shot at me.
I dodged to the side, a few of the bullets grazing my legs as I dove out of the way. As soon as I reached the side of the vault, I rushed them and kicked the first guy’s gun off his hands before hitting him with a headbutt. I was sure that my body would just adapt to not cause myself any dangerous damage, so hitting them like that would make sure to at least limit to concussions instead of broken bones.
*Thwip!* *Thwip!* Two other guns were off the robbers hands, and four of them went down when I hit them back with them as if they were makeshift clubs.
Only four more to go!
“Knock, Knock~!” I teased as I knocked on the door of the vault itself, it was sealed while I fought the other guys so the rest were trapped inside.
“Stay away you freak!” Was the response I got.
“Hey, you’re supposed to say-” I put my hands on the handles of the vault. Comically enough, it seemed to be built like one out of those comic books, with the gear shape handle and all.
“Who’s there?!” I struggled and used a lot more strength, willingly, to rip it open. Sure, repairs would be needed but she figured the bank could take care of those since it was quite literally made out of money.
“Fuck! Alright, alright guns down!” The leader? Shouted, getting his men to lower their weapons and just surrender. Huh….Never saw a bad guy surrender in comics before…
“Just to be sure.” *Thwip!* *Thwip!* *Thwip!* *Thwip!* All four of their rifles were stuck to the ceiling.
“Alright, I’ll get going but you guys will get a good time in jail for the rest of the year. I’d say merry Christmas and happy New Year but I don’t think you’ll get a lot of gifts.” I smiled under the mask as I *Thwip!* them into place.
The sirens of the cops outside started blaring, and I figured it was time for me to go.
I stared at the sacks of money and…Just casually took one of the wods of cash, putting it in my pocket.
“Hey, you’re stealing shit too?” One of them asked, only to get glares from the other guys.
“I’d say I deserve some payment for taking care of you guys. Oh right, the kid up there got his shin broken. He’ll probably be fine, but I figured I’d tell you in case you wanted to rob another bank again.” I winked at them and rushed outside.
On my way to the vents I saw the hostages and gave them a thumbs up, the cops starting to approach the front entrance by now.
“See you, stay safe alright?” I said my goodbye and gave the kiddo a wave as I pushed into the tube and crawled out on the ceiling.
I rushed down the side of the building and picked up my hoodie, putting it on and taking off the web mask, throwing it away as I put the hood up to hide my hair. The patrol cars were parked right outside, so I walked out and gave the officers a wave and a thumbs up before walking away. Or at least I wanted to until one of them approached me from behind.
“So, you’re the one who called I take it?” The same voice from before asked, and I turned around very slowly with a nervous grin on my face.
“Maaaaaaaybe….I’ll just be on my way officer, ma’am, sir.” I turned around again to promptly escape but the woman grabbed my shoulder.
“I’ll need you to testify at the station, kid. It’s a bit strange how nobody saw you when we checked the perimeter, you know?” She smiled.
I smiled.
Eventually I got manipulated into seating inside her patrol car, and when she was driving us away, I remembered I left my hoodie on the back of the bank. Alongside the web mask. And my copper.
“....Fuck…” I mumbled.
“Language.” The officer said, a little grin on her face.
Yup, I was not going to have a good day after that.