ARCHETYPE (Slowburn Superhero Progression)

I breathed in a lungful of crisp night air which had that extra vapory quality which followed in the aftermath of rain.

Snap stood hugging her waist with her hands at her elbows. And Clang was breathing bright white wisps of steam with every exhale.

I looked to the palm of my hand and willed the power to instigate my idea.

A ball of resin bubbled up from the pads of my open right palm.

Interestingly, I noticed the part of my mind which had been occupied by Slip, who resonated when speaking inside my head, was no longer there. What part of the power inside my psyche Slip belonged to was contained within the resin-ball held in my palm.

"Let's try a staff," I said.

Right away the resin-ball spread out left and right, forming in the air as if rapidly freezing water into ice.

The resin inside my body poured into the resin-ball, which in turn shaped into a full staff.

Naturally, I began to twirl the staff around to get a feel for it. I'd gotten a lot of practice twirling sticks around when I played alone growing up.

I chucked the staff over my head, and it was then I noticed there was more to my holding it than I initially anticipated. A thread of resin, like a single spider-web, had remained attached to my palm and the base of the resin-staff.

Instinctually, I willed the resin-thread to draw back into my hand; just like how I had drawn the resin-ball back into my hand to reintegrate with the resin-blood circulating throughout my transformed body.

SLIP!

I caught the resin staff which, thanks to the thread pulling it back, had landed with enough force that a regular human hand might have fractured from the impact.

"What are you gonna do?" said Snap, wryly, "Pole-vault your way around the police?"

"Just gimme a minute," I said.

But she did have a point.

I then willed my intent into the resin-staff, and by extension into Slip's mind within it too.

I aimed the right end of the resin-staff towards the wet field grass, and then a spray of wet resin poured out. Rapidly the liquid-resin formed into a resin-surfboard, as if the resin were foaming due to exposure to the open air.

It's about half the size of an actual surfboard, I thought as I stepped onto it.

The resin-board was warm against the soles of my feet, and right away I was able to make the adhesion of my feet against the surfboard incredibly strong, using the same adhesive capabilities which, back at the mansion, had allowed me to walk along the ceiling.

I looked back to Clang and Snap who were both watching me with increasingly amused looks.

"It'll work," I said, defensively.

Snap made a face, and Clang, seeing the face Snap just made, broke into metallic sounding laughter.

Ignoring them, I looked ahead, and tapped into more of the power within myself. The mental drain had already tugged a little when I first created the resin-staff, and that tugging increased a little more as I asked the power to bestow me with increased focus, on top of making sure all my senses were heightened to the nth degree. The sounds and visual splendour of the night climbed, as if I had just taken off sunglasses and headphones to take in the world the way it was supposed to be enjoyed.

Trying to ignore how silly I felt doing so, I held out the staff in front of me.

I closed my eyes, and made an effort to think back to a memory I would have rather forgotten.

I recalled the moment when, back at the Putsley Bay petrol station, the police officer had tased me. I remembered the sudden pop of the taser gun as the dart shot out of the gun and into me, and the intense electric shock which had followed.

I focused my mind on the taser gun itself, and that pop which had occurred when the trigger had been pulled.

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"Slip?" said Snap, with a hint of worry in her tone.

"I'm fine, just thinking," I said, keeping my eyes closed.

It was then I figured out the general idea of what I wanted to try next with my power. Since I had an audience in Snap and Clang, I decided to let them in on what I was thinking. I opened my eyes and turned to face them, setting one end of the resin-staff onto the grass.

"Okay," I said, "Here's what I'm thinking."

I looked over my shoulder to the low stone wall further off which the three of us would have to go over to continue on our way towards London and, somewhere further off, the police blockade also lurked.

"I'm going to use the resin-board to get around," I said, "It's got a super-slippery resin coating along the bottom so, in theory, it'll sail across the ground with minimal friction."

"The problem," I said, "Is maintaining speed and maneuverability."

To demonstrate what I meant, I held out the staff horizontally, as if I were holding a long handlebar.

"So, what I could do is this," I said.

I swung the resin-staff, aiming one end of the staff at the low stone wall.

SLIP!

As if I had just used a fishing rod, a resin-thread sailed through the air and stuck to the low stone wall. It had taken about a second for the resin to reach the wall. Upon contact with one of the blocks of piled stone, the resin's adhesive qualities kicked in, forming a super-strong tethering.

"The resin-threads are sticky," I said, "And watch this."

I willed the resin-staff to draw in the thread connected to the low stone wall. What slack had been in the resin-thread vanished, as if I had suddenly caught a huge fish on a line. Because I was standing on the resin-board with its super slippery resin coating along the bottom, I started to move off on the board at a sprinting speed towards the low stone wall.

Because the resin-thread attached to the wall was still connected to the resin-staff, which in turn was still being held by me, I was able to will the thread to detach from the wall and to zip back into the resin-staff. Even before the first resin-thread had been reabsorbed into the resin-staff, I swung the staff again and let out another thread, this time aimed at Clang.

Clang had seen the thread coming, and had caught hold of it. His metallic weight made for a good tether for the resin-thread to adhere to and to zip me forwards.

And again I created a zipping line which caused the resin-board to sail soundlessly over the wet grass at an ever-increasing speed.

I then lent backwards and willed for the slippery-resin coating of the board to lessen, and in turn my speed diminished until I was within arm's reach of Clang and Snap. I detached the resin-thread from Clang, and with a zipping sound the thread returned to the resin-staff.

I took one foot off the board and kicked off, finding it rather nice to sail over the ground atop the resin-board even at a relatively slow glide. The board eased over the grass in a way which was smoother and slipperier than if I were surfing across a body of water. After circling back to face the low stone wall ahead, I pointed my staff ahead of me.

I thought back to the taser gun memory, specifically that pop, and used what I knew about the resin I had created to my advantage.

Because there was something else special about the resin, among its other qualities.

Pap!

The tip of the resin-staff burst open from within, with a small powdery wisp of resin-dust catching in the firm night breeze.

"Oh, I get it," Clang's voice rang.

"Ooooh," Snap said.

A resin-thread had shot out of the resin-staff at high speed, because an explosive force from the staff had propelled it onwards to the low-stone wall.

It was like combining a gun with a fishing rod.

"How'd you do that?" said Snap.

I turned back to her and grinned.

"The resin can channel the power I put into it in different ways," I said, "Heat is one of them. And with Slip's help managing the finer details, I'm able to add in pockets of air and gas into the resin to create little explosive bursts."

ZIP!

I willed for the resin-thread to zip back into the staff again, and again I shot off at a sprinting speed which picked up faster and faster, until it seemed as if the low stone wall were rapidly nearing as if it were about to fall on top of me.

Clang and Snap would see me leaning away from the wall and turning left, continuing at an ever-increasing speed along the wall.

Even steering the resin-board would have been impossible if not for Slip handling the finer details of control; from continually changing the degree of slippery resin beneath the board, to quickly changing aspects of the board's shape for better movement; to working in tandem with my own bodyweight and intuitive movements.

Pap!

Another thumb width-sized chunk of the staff exploded and turned to powder as yet another resin-thread shot out and attached to a nearby tree.

Zip!

The breakneck speed of everything passing me by; from the ivy green grass, gray-and-black stone wall, and the ink of the night sky, would have been rendered little more than a blur were it not for my superhuman perceptiveness.

I had to fight the urge to let out an exhilarated yell, on account of the police presence somewhere further ahead, because sailing so fast across the land atop the resin-board was easily the most fun I had ever had with the power.

Pap!

Zip!

Pap!

Zip!

Swinging the staff and holding on as the threads zipped me onwards was so much fun it felt like I should get in trouble for it.

I reached the far corner of the field in seconds, turned, and started on my way back to Snap and Clang.

I was thankful for my resin-visor, because the air-resistance at my incredible speed had also picked up considerably with my new speed.

I reached Snap and Clang and sailed past them with a buttery-smooth glide.

"Let's go!" I whisper-shouted.

Pap!

Zip!

I sailed across the wet grass and veered round again, keeping the barely broken momentum to shoot towards the low stone wall.

Snap had already started to bound ahead, using the substantial boost of the blood-rubber orbs at her feet to propel her forwards.

And Clang was running so fast and pushing his body so hard a trail of steam rose out of his back as if he were a human engine.