Pavitr quickly made his way to his locker, his head still reeling from the previous events. First, he had woken up sticking to the ceiling of his room, then he had some sort of sensation that warned him to save his friend from slipping. Speaking of which, the sensation came back again and he instinctively moved out of the way, narrowly dodging a fist flung by Falak Thaman. Pavitr swiveled behind his would-be assailant and came face to face with the sneering visage of the bane of his existence. "Guess what time it is, Prabhakar.", asked Falak mockingly, to which Pavitr replied cheekily, "Half-past two?" Falak let out a loud and obnoxious, "Ennnhh! Wrong! It's locker knocker time!" Pavitr flinched when he heard that; "locker knocker time" had been a weekly tradition between him and Falak since they were in elementary school. The long in the short of it was that it involved Pavitr basically being stuffed into a locker and being hit within said locker until his head stopped pounding.

But today was a new day. The day that Pavitr Prabhakar getting his butt kicked by Falak Thaman would be officially done. Falak reached to grab Pavitr, but the tingling sensation warned him to grab Falak's arm and twist it behind him. Next, Pavitr gave him a swift kick to the rear that sent him falling on his face. "I really don't feel like fighting you, Falak.", pleaded Pavitr, but Falak would hear none of it and charged at him. Pavitr was once again warned of the oncoming assault, but this time chose to roll across Falak's back to get behind him. Meera Jain arrived just in time to witness the brawl going down between the two of them and was quick to get in the way. "Falak, stop it!", she yelled, but the brute was deaf to everything except his own rage. So much so, that he actually shoved Meera Jain out of the way causing her to fall to the floor hard. That pushed Pavitr over the edge and he sent his fist flying into Falak's jaw; a sickening snap could be heard as Falak was sent flying down the hall. He skittered to a stop and clutched his jaw, howling in agony. It was clear that his jaw was broken and Pavitr's punch was the one that caused it; as for Pavitr himself he was both amazed and horrified at his sudden show of strength. Meera Jain looked at him with a mixture of concern and fear. Feeling like he was backed into a corner, Pavitr ran outside to try and figure out what was happening to him. The eyes of everyone else followed him as he went.

Pavitr's heart was racing as he ran as far away from the school as possible. This whole day had been one weird situation after another and Pavitr had the feeling it wasn't a coincidence. Never before had he exhibited such strength against Falak before or the ability to stick to walls. They had to be connected somehow; come to think of it, all this craziness had begun when he woke up clinging to the ceiling of his bedroom. Pavitr inspected his hands and came across a great shock. With his improved vision, Pavitr could see tiny hairs forming along his fingertips. He knew from zoology scrolls that these were called "setules" which gave spiders their climbing abilities. This can't be all just one big coincidence., Pavitr thought to himself, The spider bite, that dream with Arachne, all of this has to have some kind of reason behind it. Maybe the spider bite is what's making me do these spectacular things? That's got to be it! Arachne said she wanted a champion, so maybe that was her. Maybe biting me was her giving me her powers!

Pavitr looked from his one of his hands to the wall behind him and placed it on a brick. As he suspected it stuck, so he added his other hand which also stuck. Then he added his feet and before he knew it, Pavitr had attached himself to the wall of the alley. Feeling a swell of confidence within him, Pavitr started to crawl up the wall and scaled it all the way up to the roof. Pavitr then decided to test how high and how far he could jump, running towards the edge of the building. He leaped off and sailed a good few meters into the air towards the next one. Not satisfied with merely leaping from rooftop to rooftop, Pavitr threw in a few acrobatic twists and turns as well. He then pulled up short on one roof. He could see that it was too far for him to reach, even with his newfound agility. The empowered teen looked down at his wrist, remembering the narrow slits in them. I can climb walls like a spider., thought Pavitr, Maybe I can spin webs like one too.

With a look of determination, he thrust out his hand and cried, "GO WEB!", but nothing come of it. Wiggling his wrist, he again tried to get the web to spray out. But it didn't come. He made a fist. Nothing. He closed his thumb and little finger together. Nothing. Finally, just as he was about to give up, he lazily rotated his hand so the palm faced up, extended all five fingers, and brought his ring and middle fingers toward his palm, together. And, just like that, webbing shot out of his wrist and stuck to a lamppost. Pavitr kept a firm grip on the web line and looked down at the yawning chasm before him, his instincts urging him to swing across. He gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and said, "One for the money. Two for the show. Three...uh...because it comes before four. And here I GOOOOO!" Pavitr swung down from his perch, kicking and screaming as he went. Unfortunately, there where no brakes on this ride and he promptly slammed into a wall. Picking himself up and clutching his side in pain, Pavitr thought, Not bad for a first swing.

Next Time: Balancing Act