CHAPTER 3. NODES
(Damien's POV)
"whoo-whoo-whoo, whoo-whoo-whoo, whoo..." My whistling of the Spiderman theme song had a little less rythm than when I was younger. Now, the most recent theme songs in my mind were those of famed anime titles.
I had made it to the top of the building, free from the yelling and was now planning to officially make my first jump.
"Can't believe I'm about to swing across all those buildings like its nothing." I doubted as I surveyed the buildings on all my sides. They had different shapes and sizes, and were made of different materials: some glass and other stones or bricks, or concrete reinforced with iron.
However, the city looked enchanting as ever beneath the sun's light. The heightened sounds of hooting vehicles and human chatters made me feel as if I was down on the streets experiencing every second of it.
"First, to check if I can even shoot web lines." I flicked my middle fingers to no particular target, and web a shot out.
"Not webs. Give me a web line." Not disappointed, I tried again.
I flicked, and another web shot out, leaving me to sigh. "Spiderman always made it look so easy. He could shoot webs and web lines depending on what he needed, with so much ease."
However, I didn't give up as I started to shoot with both hands, without success.
"What's the secret?" Frustration was mildly getting to me. "Web-shooters?"
I stopped to think about it while studying both my wrists, my senses heightening to a different kind of perception.
It felt as if I was sensing something different in the air. Something benign, and ethereal. And just like the wind blows through your skin, I felt its breeze all around, and within me.
"I think I know what's missing." I analyzed my situation while subjecting it to the ether in the wind. "But that might change everything I think I know about my spider powers."
Taking a deep breath and looking before me like I was intending to do something reckless, I darted on the concrete floor, and before reason could stop me, I let loose on the edge and my body started to plummet.
"You better be right Damien. Because that pavement doesnt look like its a soft cushion for your skull." I was honestly freaking out as my body aimed for the ground with my head.
"Okay, okay." I was lucky I had been on the peak of a really tall building. Otherwise my delayed attempts at composure wouldn't have had the time to cook. "Golden webs, gold-coloured spider, the ether all around me..."
"This might be the greatest gamble in my life." I wanted to scream as the veins in my head nearly popped with the increased blood flow, but I was already executing my gamble.
"Here goes everything." I flicked my right fingers and targeted the wall of the very next building just to be safe. However, the wall wasn't my primary target, but the ether imbued in its structure.
As soon as the web hit the target, a web line formed on my right wrist, and desperately, I grabbed on it with both my hands. My body re-inverted as I swung with the web line, and my legs nearly hit a pedestrian in the way.
"Wooo-hoo-hooo." My heart tumultuously pumping in my chest, I celebrated excitedly as the wind's breeze unhooded me as I glided against it.
Careful not to smash into the building I was hurling to, I freed my left hand and shot another web to a specific point in the opposite building.
Before losing the former web, I pulled the new web line back to increase its tension, then released the former web line altogether as I let the new web line pull me a bit higher while guiding me toward the latter building.
"Aaawesome." My heart was getting used to the idea of swinging freely as I neared the latter building, before sticking to the building's war with my sticky-ness.
"That was the riskiest thing I've ever done. I think-" My inner voice reminded me of something much more reckless. "I've really got to stop adrenaline from making life-decisions for me."
The swinging I had done was amateur compared to what Spiderman usually did, but it took a lot of precision to perform even the first swing, and I was honestly beyond impressed at my ability to do it.
I had been right to think that my theory could change everything I knew about my spider powers, and I was mostly right. The web lines I had created and used to swing with were not your standard spider webs.
That is to say, they were not organically made from web fluid, or inorganically synthesized via technology. They were made of ether, and I was beginning to think that was the case with all the spider powers I had.
"Of course the gold-glare was an ever indication of the ethereal nature!" I excitedly pointed out to myself. "It's Eldritch energy!"
"And the swinging..- Oh my god!" I elated with disbelief that I had actually been able to do it in the first place while using ethereal spider powers.
The swinging had to be exact, skillful, and perfectly timed if it was to work. But in my case, I had chosen to go with luck, and it worked out perfectly.
There is always ether in the air. That is to say, magic is always flowing around us. Naturally, it's flow is orderly, organized, and unconsolidated.
From its point of origin, it flows like water in a pipe, and divides at certain points, which we can refer to as nodes, where it consolidates, before it continues to flow.
And as it channels all around existence, it webs around like one giant, magical spider web - within, and without.
However, I didn't need that technical knowledge to feel and know that attaching my webs to nodes (points where magic is concentrated in matter) could create a web line for me to swing with.
Neither did I need to jump off without testing the theory first, but what's the fun in that?
If anything, I had been rewarded by feeling a kind of excitement I had ever experienced before, and the once extreme pumping in my heart and blood vessels could testify to that.
"And now, for the even riskier part." My body was not 100% recovered from the shock of my recklessness as I jumped from the building wall to the air with no particular intention.
However, once in the air, I shot another web and made a wish to lady luck to be its guide as it soared in the air, with no physical object along its trajectory.
At the center air space between the high floors of the two buildings on the opposite sides of the streets, the gold-coloured web attached to a node, allowing me a swing in the air, from a web attached to no physical object.
"Holly Sh**t!" I couldn't suppress my wonder as I looked to the web above me. "This is some crazy sh*** I'm doing."
Letting go with a flip, I unleashed two simultaneous web lines to throw me higher in the air.
"Here comes another lucky web." I flicked and pulled on another web line while using my momentum to swing to the next street by taking a sharp right turn.
"It's like I'm swinging on web lines attached to one giant web existing everywhere." I made another swing that pulled me to a building, ran along it for a while, then shot another lucky web.
"It's like an invisible magic net on the buildings, the air, or maybe even people." I made the observation, and hypothesis, without being practical about attaching to people.
However, besides my fascination with my lucky webs, I found swinging around and across the buildings to be a freeing experience. I enjoyed every second of letting my body fall, before pulling it back up into the air and repeating the process.
Agility spiced it up as I landed on building tops (spider-like), cat-wheeled and did something else that excited me like a flip from the buildings into the air space above the streets, before swinging further away.
By the time I was thinking of stopping, I was nowhere near exhaustion or satisfaction, and I felt like I wanted to swing around forever.
However, my stomach had other plans, and I was forced to halt on top of a building to access my situation.
"Swinging is probably better than flying. I can do this forever." I had never felt so alive that I even took off my hoodie to experience the breeze and take refreshing breaths. "Is this what the therapist meant by living in-"
Grumble..
"Oh come on." I reacted to the untimely nature of my stomach. I was enjoying myself but I was feeling really hungry. It felt like, if I didn't eat something within that very minute, I would collapse and die of starvation.
My memories of this world showed that I had had a hearty lunch at a restaurant, but my stomach seemed to have digested all of it in two hours.
"Guess all this fat didn't come from some health condition." My body hadn't been a hindrance for exploring my spider powers, but I still thought it to be visually unappealing.
However, as much as I wanted to starve myself and shed some fat, the idea of a chicken burger with crispy, golden fries, a hot dog loaded with onions and mustard, some nuggets and a frosty, creamy milk shake, seemed more inviting, and I found myself swinging toward a specific restaurant, more motivated than before.