Chapter 3: At least I know I can lift 25 pounds with ease now. Yippee.

I stared at the web wrapped around the tree before getting up and moving some more. Alright, staying in this park is not a good idea. At least the pain in my fingers and toes had died out and my spider-sense had also shut up.

I remembered my mom telling me that there was some abandoned gym a few blocks away from our house and decided that it would serve as my temporary power testing place. I made my way to the building with my hands in my pockets to hide the claws from people on the sidewalk.

The building was around one story high and the windows were boarded up. I decided not to follow my plan of just shoving the door open and instead decided that the fewer signs of a break-in I left the better. That's why I made my way to a side alley and climbed up it to the roof, where I spotted a vent cover.

Using my new claws I hooked them into the vent's edges, ripped them off, and crawled through the vent as I tried not to breathe through my nose because of all of the dirt and grime that had accumulated in these vents. 

Seriously, it was dustier than a nun's pussy. 

That… didn't make sense. 

Whatever. Anyway, I eventually came into a vent cover that led into a washroom.

Since there wasn't any real space for me to hook my claws and pull the cover off, I pushed down with my right hand on the cover and after a bit, popped the cover off to the floor. Then I crawled out and stuck one of my hands to the ceiling before silently dropping down. I then headed out of the bathroom, idly noting as I left that it was the girl's bathroom.

This gym had seen better days for sure, the paint was flaking, there were boxes all over the place and someone had spray-painted a bunch of stuff on it. I walked over to a box and opened it, finding some dumbbells inside. These wouldn't have the size necessary for me to properly test my strength so I opened every box looking for some barbells.

After opening a dozen boxes, I finally found a large one that had some heavy-looking barbell plates on it but no rod. After a few more minutes of searching, I found one in a separate box. I then put it together and grabbed the barbell with both hands and easily lifted it off the ground. It was like lifting a cardboard box but you know if the cardboard box was metal and a barbell. At least I know I can lift 25 pounds with ease now. Yippee.

I wasn't willing to search this gym for a heavier barbell plate so I moved on to my other abilities and one I had already used. Stickiness. I pressed my hands to a wall and started climbing up it before going onto the ceiling and then standing upside down. Normally when you stand upside down you can feel blood rush to your head but it wasn't like that for me.

Cool. I detached my feet from the ceiling and flipped onto my feet. Next up was spider-sense and I couldn't test that without something to dodge so that would have to be pushed off till I got into a fight for the first time. I'm pretty sure my headache from my claws popping out was my spider-sense but it could just be a lack of sleep. Who knows? Certainly not me.

I then moved to my organic web shooters. It was nice of that Spider-God prick to not make me have to build web shooters. I pointed my hand at a wall and focused on trying to replicate that feeling I had when I first fired the webs. I then felt the new muscle in my arms that produced the webs and 'flexed' them in a sense causing webs to spray out of my wrist and stick to the wall.

I practiced with the web a bit more and learned that I could modify it by thinking about it. So say I wanted a net-shaped web to fire from my wrist instead of a regular web I just needed to think of the shape and it would fire out. I was pretty sure I had a theoretically infinite supply as long as I got enough protein. 

I decided to see how much weight one of my webs could lift by firing one at a dumbbell and then pulling it towards me. I then pulled it with ease so my webs must be pretty durable—that or pretty flexible to not tear. Then I started swinging my web like a lasso before flinging the barbell away. It slammed into a box with a clanging sound and dropped to the floor harmlessly.

I then moved to my last and most painful power. My claws had stopped hurting some time ago and they lacked the white color regular nails did, instead being a dark black. They looked seriously sharp and I didn't doubt that slashing someone with these would probably leave them injured badly if I wasn't careful.

I pulled off my shoes with my feet and shook them till my old nails dropped out of them to the ground. When I was sure they were empty, I gathered up the nails and threw them into a trashcan. I then took my shoes and grabbed a towel, wetted it in the sink, and wiped down my shoes before throwing them off to the side. My new claws made a tapping noise on the floor as I walked but they helped keep my grip onto the floor. 

I headed over to the gym locker room for this test and dragged my talons down one of the lockers causing them to make a high-pitched metallic whine and pierce through the metal before I pulled my hand out of the openings I made in the locker. They looked more like the markings you saw on TV when a wild animal scratched something but dug into the metal instead.

I stuck my hands to the wall and my feet dug into the wall allowing me better leverage. So my feet claws were just as sharp as my hand ones. Goodbye jerking off I guess? Hope that luck with women trickles down to me or it's gonna be a sad life for me. 

So my claws were strong enough to pierce through metal. Some Spider-Men can go invisible and fire blasts of electricity but all I get is sharp claws and organic webs. Wait a second…. Didn't Spider-Man 2099 have organic webs and claws too? Holy shit was I a pseudo-Miguel O'Hara? All I was missing was a Miles Morales to call an anomaly and order to let his father die, then I would literally be him. 

Thank whatever god that was up there that I wasn't actually named that. No offense to Latinos but I'd rather not be named Miguel. That name was as stereotypical as an Asian chick being called Kim. Plus calling my white ass Miguel would be humiliating. Ace was a way better name and I could make better jokes than I could with Miguel. 

You can't make the joke, I'm gonna ace blank, with the name Miguel can you? But you can with Ace. Checkmate Miguels. Yet another win for Ace's worldwide. 

I sighed, what the fuck is wrong with me?

Anyways, my claws/talons were not going to go back into my nails or hide because you know, they popped my nails off. So I'd have to find a way to hide them.

Maybe gloves could work? As long as I focus on not piercing through them, it should be fine. Maybe not though. I'll give it a shot and see if it works well enough. No real way to hide those claws without ripping them off and I've been through enough nail-related torture for one life so no thanks.

After I was done with my little training montage I headed back to the washroom I came from, fired a web at the vent, and pulled myself up into it before making my way out. Once I was out I jumped off the roof and landed on my feet without even feeling any strain from the fall before heading home.

I felt cheery as hell. I had superpowers and sure they weren't all positives, looking at you claws, but they were still, excuse the pun, amazing. I made it back home after a bit just as the sky was darkening and saw the driveway was empty so Mom must have been out. I opened the door with my key and headed inside, before heading up to my room where I threw my backpack onto my bed.

Then I headed over to my closet and changed into some casual clothes before checking it again. Now that I was Spider-Man I'd need a costume. Now my normal pocket money was around 50$ a week. I had around 157$ saved after this week's amount thanks to my rich astronaut dad. I wasn't great at sewing so my first costume would probably be made of my regular clothes.

I could swing a knife vest if I save up. A mask shouldn't be that hard because unlike Peter Parker I wasn't going to add web patterns to my suit. Maybe later I might change the design but for now? A normal mask would work fine. I also grabbed a pair of winter gloves and put them on. They fit well enough and luckily my claws weren't piercing out of them.

I printed out a spider symbol with my computer and grabbed a red sleeveless hoodie along with some spray paint before I began painting my hoodie. My senses had become heightened to a degree above a normal human and thanks to this, I had a nearly perfectly painted spider symbol on the back and front of my jacket because my newly improved eyes could spot any imperfections. In addition to that I had a pair of jeans and some fingerless gloves.

Underneath the hoodie I wore a blue long sleeved shirt that was pretty baggy before but was now way tighter on my new and much larger frame. I also wore some ankle-high red socks topped off with boots that were a darker shade of red. 

The undershirt had some space between it and the wrist to ensure it didn't cover the webshooters inside my wrists. All in all? I was pretty fucking happy with the final result. It was a nice-looking costume and now all that was left was adding some basic protective gear like kneepads…