To be Spider-Man, to be Felix, it was not easy. Constantly fighting and thinking, constantly looking over his shoulder, constantly having Herbie remind of threats and updates.
Felix Faeth woke up in a big grey bed. Leg stretched out, blanket covering him, and Rio laying beside him, asleep, an arm hung over his waist. He smiled and kissed her on the cheek. He rolled his shoulder as he gently pried out of her hold and sat upwards.
That was fun, it really was. But…
"I need to train."
He returned to Puerto Rico to get his mind off things. To remind of the things he loved. Rio, she was that solid bit of normalcy he could always go back to. Always.
The Big Man wouldn't care. A young teenage Reed Richards was the smartest person Felix had ever met: imagine an adult version with no morales and the backing of a futuristic company far beyond his understanding. Whose AIs and firewalls gave Herbie trouble. The Big Man could and would exploit his weaknesses.
Now that pleasure and regrets were behind him, it was time to prepare.
His stomach hungered. Alas, it was not from the need for food but…something else. Hrm. He was already on a diet. However, he needed more testing and more information. 'How do I get rid of this…cannibalism…!'
It was what Gwen grappled with. Chocolate, greens, that was one part of the answer. Doing those helps undeniably helped. Throughout his night with Rio, he never once felt hungry for her in a way that wasn't, uh, negative.
"The Sheath, maybe…?"
It was in Hobie, Maria, and Xina's hands. Hobie mentioned he was going to do full-steam-ahead research now that the portal was finished. Hobie was not Felix, he sincerely doubted he'd be able to harness it like Felix could. He'd make some progress though on how to control it or use it.
He got out of bed and when he instinctively reached for clothes, he stopped himself. He closed his eyes and willed clothes onto him. Threads spilled out his wrists and terraformed his body. First red trousers and then a red tanktop. Felix grunted and it was like draining out webbing, except thrice as thick and feeling…endless. Previously, there was a hard cap of a kilometer of webbing at a time. That didn't seem to exist any longer. He couldn't empirically determine this limitless feeling.
It was just a feeling. Felix exhaled shortly afterward.
This…was much more manual than before too. Before, he asked and Rash filled in the rest. Rash was there, Rash was what he thought up and pulled on when he extracted the thread-like material. But…it was different.
He checked down on his red pants and tanktop. He chuckled a little.
'Good work.'
His head throbbed a little. That echo of thought was a mixture of voices. He didn't like it.
"I really need to properly examine myself."
Pushing past the confusion, he creaked open the door, gave Rio a loving look one last time, and exited. Aaron Davis was standing right, arms crossed.
"You…weren't here the whole time, were you," Felix joked.
"Yeah, yeah, you two had sex. We all heard." Aaron eyed him cautiously. "You came in a hurry. I was a bit worried."
"I'm fine. I am. Thank you for everything you do."
"It's my job."
"How's Miles?" Felix asked.
"Always texting me about boarding school. He's pretty happy, I think."
"You think?"
"Hey, you never know young guys." Aaron shrugged. "But I think he's okay."
That was good. Felix wasn't Miles' father and probably never would be. He was the guy dating his mom. If there was a space for a father role, only Aaron could fill it. Although, by legality, he was probably soon going to be his step-father...
A-anyway, Symbiote! Rash! Cannibalism! The solution!
"I'm going to get some breakfast."
"Then you're leaving? You should at least wait for Rio to wake up," Aaron said.
"...no. There's…"
A thick gravity yanked his voice down. He focused on the Sheath and the Big Man and couldn't. His thoughts snuck toward Aaron's bald head and how he wanted to crack it open. Ugh. Felix lightly hit his temple and disguised it as running his hand through his hair.
"Yeah, no. Tell her I'm sorry and that I'll be back as soon as I can."
"You're that busy?"
"There's...a lot to do, man."
"Hrm. Fine. She's gets lonely without you."
"She has family and friends," Felix said.
"Yeah, but they're not you."
His lips fell. Aaron was right. He should be spending more time with her. Unfortunately...it just wasn't possible, not with what he wanted to do. The business side of things with Oscorp Parker Industries, the portal and the guys from Earth 2099, and now...Felix himself.
Felix couldn't say much except apologize. He walked down the stairs to the massive kitchen, slightly downcast, and picked up a salad from the fridge. He also asked out loud, "Herbie, what's the healthiest possible breakfast I can have?"
"TODAY, MAKE A PLAIN GREEK YOGURT WITH BERRIES AND NUTS," the AI said from the refrigerator monitor and speaker.
Yesterday, on the jet ride to Puerto Rico, he had eggs with avocado and whole-grain toast. Healthy, healthy, healthy. That was key here. He had been coasting on Extremis and his spider-powers to keep him healthy, on top of his workout routines. Workouts alone wouldn't cut it with this particular issue. He needed a strong foundation now.
He sat at the dining table, spooning yogurt, berries, and nuts. "Going from Puerto to New York should be a good warmup." He ate and ate. He couldn't help but look toward the direction of where Rio was. "I'm sorry, Rio. Once this is all done and over with…I'll come back and spend a nice, long vacation with you. You, Miles, me, Rash…"
He expected Rash to agree. To say something. He did not.
***
SIX HOURS LATER - DAXTER BUILDING
His esteemed Daxter Labs was a constant like Rio. A source of comfort when he needed to be Spider-Man. All of it began here: the spider-serum, Extremis, the investigations, and Reed. At Lexington Ave & E 58th St, New York, Reed showed him a whole new world.
The elevator opened.
Entering it, lights blasted at his eyes and upwards of fifty little Herbie robots continued buzzing like bees. Glowing yellow eyes on a monitor wearing a concentrated expression…until he arrived.
"Hello, Master Faeth!"
"Hello, Felix!"
"Greetings, Doctor!"
He smiled. "Hey, everyone. Long time no see."
The Fantastic Computer, the heart of Daxter Lab's operations, grandly waited up ahead. Felix marched to the tunnelled left.
"Hey, Herbie. Are the upgrades ready?"
All those Herbies and all those little arms were working. Three of them repulsor-boosted in front of him. "Just ten more minutes."
"Got it."
There, at the back, was the training chamber. He recalled the gravity training and such that he conducted. Considering his increase in power, it was time to train and run some numbers. Numbers, after all, ruled the world and his own mind. He wouldn't be able to sleep properly without knowing how strong he was now.
The metallic door hissed open and he hopped through. "Remember, I want your eyes on me. X-ray, thermal, all that stuff. I want a full run-down on my physical condition."
"STARTING AT 4GS, MASTER FAETH. FULL COMBAT SEQUENCE ENABLED."
The doors sealed. The atmosphere thickened and it got harder to breathe. Instinct and intuition took over and he managed to muster up his scarlet suit again. The feeling of putting on the suit was like flexing his muscles and spitting with them. A truly inhumane action. The threads wrapped around him and each row and column was visible. It was obvious that this suit was of a Symbiote's doing.
He ducked his head down, avoiding a laser. Then he back-flipped and landed on all fours.
Everything was feeling A-okay. "Hrm." 4Gs of gravity was a light jacket. Nothing close to a burden in combat. Mechanic arms unfolded from the panels in the dark chamber and lasers crisscrossed to touch him.
They never touched him. His Spider-Sense and his speed was too much. These were not at the speed of light. Light inside the fiber optic cable slowed it down to about 10% of that speed (roughly 29,979 kilometers per second). He dodged them though, like a man playing with a toy.
"Increase it, Herbie."
Duck and roll.
"INCREASED TO 8GS."
Dropped to the floor, stayed, and then flung himself up to the ceiling. A mechanical arm was ready and pointed at his temple.
"More."
He flung back down faster than the arm could shoot.
"10GS."
"More."
"12GS—"
"Just keep increasing it by a G every ten seconds," he said, because still, he hardly felt a thing.
The weight increased and soon, he felt a real resistance settling into his bones. His feet found the floor and his shoulder rolled in time to dodge a laser with margin to spare. But he was getting pressured.
"60GS."
While hopping and dodging, he realized he was going to get hit. He caught one of the mechanical-arms upon landing, redirected it with a flick of his wrist into the path of a parallel one, and watched both of them spark and stutter. They were programmed not to hurt each other, after all.
Phew. Another ten seconds, another G of gravity. The average person could handle 2 to 5 Gs and trained fighter pilots wearing G-suits could sustain around over 9 Gs. Officially, the highest G-force a human had ever survived in a controlled test was 101.5Gs, held by Captain America five years back. Unofficially, it was held by John Walker, a teenager found on the streets by SHIELD and used in various experiments in the 90s. He hit 134.4. He died three days later.
The experiment and goals were fundamentally different. For them, it was about pushing the human limit. "Surviving" meant just sitting in a chair while in a G-suit. Felix was not in a G-suit. He was himself. He was the scarlet Symbiote. He was training too. He wasn't sitting.
He reached 150Gs while barely breaking a sweat. Oh sure, he felt something. But it was akin to jogging. Everything before that? Speed-walking.
Soon, the air itself was affected. He took a deep breath and his lungs ballooned. It initially hurt, then the pain subsided. He kept going and going. He wanted to sweat and pant, or at least have trouble. But even while holding his breath and fighting, it just didn't matter.
"MAXIMUM GRAVITY OUTPUT REACHED."
And he reached the end.
"Mm?"
At this point, after hours of incremental increases, he did it. He reached the end of gravity training. He casually side-stepped a laser and said in his head, 'Okay, uh, end all combat manoeuvres and gravity.' Promptly, the mechanical arms folded back inside. Spider-Man exhaled loudly and crossed his arms.
"That's it? This is the max?"
"1000 TIMES EARTH'S GRAVITY, YES. TO COMPARE, THE SUN IS MERELY 25GS OF GRAVITY."
"I know. 1000Gs, in the natural universe, this would be like walking on magnetars." A rare, ultra-dense neutron star."
"VERY RECENTLY, UCLA PSYCHISTS RE-PRODUCED A GRAVITY FIELD 1000 TIMES EARTH'S GRAVITY, JUST LIKE US."
"Really? How?"
"VIA A GLASS SPHERE MEASURING THREE CENTIMETERS OR 1.2 INCHES IN DIAMETER."
Felix snorted. "They have a lot of catching up to do."
To be fair, he had access to Vibranium. After his latest meeting with Shuri and knowing he needed upgrades for this thing, he asked and bought some Vibranium. Even at a thousand times gravity and all this space, the chamber with the pure, added Vibranium wouldn't creak and malfunction.
Really, this wasn't nothing. His legs exerted themselves and the amount of tech put into it was obscene. The blueprint of the gravity training was started by Reed and finished by Felix. He used nanotech, his specialty, in order for those mechanical arms to function.
"DO YOU WISH TO CEASE THE TRAINING SESSION, MASTER FAETH?"
"Sure, sure."
Everything he did here was done via secretly siphoning city energy as well as a secret power source somewhere in the Fantastic Computer. It wasn't infinite energy, alas. As much as he desired for more training, there wasn't any point to it. The chamber powered down and he exhaled normally.
"Gravity affects oxygen and yet, I can still fight." He smiled as the doors hissed open. "I was able to take a huge gulp of air and keep fighting for a long time. Interesting…"
He did the training.
"Herbie, you got all that, didn't you?"
"OF COURSE, MASTER FAETH."
Time for an in-depth analysis.