Chapter 1
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Wwwwhy? Why am I writing another self insert? This is my third one! I need to be careful man. Not to mention I have a bunch of other fanfics that need love.
Well, the muse is in session.
Ben 10 and Marvel Cinematic Universe. God I love these universes.
I remember being a kid and watching the very first episode of Ben 10. I was so excited, watching a kid become powerful aliens and using them to become a hero. I remember later watching Alien Force, seeing the older, wiser Ben, with a new suite of aliens and a new threat. After that, well... Things went kinda downhill for me personally. Ultimate aliens were cool, but as useful as all that beyond being a ploy to sell toys. As for omniverse and the reboot, not a fan.
Even so, I had mad love for the franchise, and I've always wanted to write a fic for it.
And then we have the MCU... What, am I gonna explain it? It's the MCU. All of us have our first moments realizing the insane awesomeness we were in for when we first saw Iron Man. The movies, the shows, they are often great, sometimes decent, rarely terrible.
So now, a fic. A guy gets dropped into the MCU with an Omnitrix. Have fun, and please let me know what you think.
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July 15, 2018, Portland, Earth Prime Source
I was writing, late at night. Not something uncommon for me. I was working on a new story after a long day, my legs still burning from my leg workout in the afternoon. It had been a good day though. My nephew had come back from a visit to our family in California and as soon as he saw my face, started asking where his DS in that combination of adorable and annoying only a child can. He'd followed up by incessantly showing me every step he took in Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon.
It was super annoying having him ask me to watch him play while I was trying to get work done, and I absolutely loved him for it. Once again, it was something only a kid you actually love can get away with.
He was asleep now. My legs burning and feeling satisfied with my day, I tapped away at the keyboard, idly sending fictional characters on fictional adventures. I'd probably sleep soon. Maybe. Probably. When I felt like it. For now, in the peaceful cool of an Oregon summer night, I was okay.
A face leaned over my shoulder. "My, you really do need someone to teach you proper grammar, don't you?"
I jumped, spinning my chair around in shock. There, in my room, stood a man. He was tall, thin, and had a dignified age about him. He looked about as old as my dad actually. His face was unshaven, hair slicked back and white with age at the sides. He wore a brown vest over a white shirt and black tie, all covered by a lab coat. A pair of safety goggles with green goggles hung around his neck.
I stared at him for a moment. I mean, if the guy had broken in, smashed my apartment door down, I may have been able to respond in some way. I might have been angry, or scared.
As it was, all I could do was stare at this random guy who'd just shown up out of nowhere in my room.
"Well," he said, still reading my computer monitor. "I suppose it doesn't matter too much. You can practice later."
As though his words were some sort of trigger, I snapped up from my chair, reflexively grabbing the nearest thing to a weapon I had close by. "What the fuck!?"
He smiled at that. Stepping back and raising his hands up with a casual slowness that made me feel foolish, he chuckled. "Young man, while I admire your choice of weaponry, I do believe that the Hero of Hyrule is the only one who could possibly use that weapon. Still, I admire the effort," he said in a accent right out of those classy movies from the fifties.
I looked down at the weapon I'd chosen. I'd gotten it at comic con a few months back. It was a replica Master Sword. The edge was blunted, the point sort of sharp, the hilt made of cheap plastic with a cylindrical hilt that would prevent me from knowing where the edge of the blade was without looking. Barring it's near uselessness as a weapon, it was still in it's plastic sheath.
That said, a big metal stick in a plastic sheath is still an effective club. I tightened my grip, and stared at the guy. "Dude... get out of my room."
He laughed. "Ah, 'dude'. I'm afraid I've come here for a reason. And I don't believe you will attack me. Not without a true reason for attacking me. Sad to say, but the sort of violence that would allow you to attack a man who is simply standing in your room is not a part of you my dear boy."
"I...uh," Once again, I felt foolish, and angry because of that feeling. The fact was, he was right. People just aren't built to attack randomly. Not if you've been raised all your life to avoid that instinct. After all, how many times had I seen street fight videos where two guys yelled at each other for four minutes before unleashing punches? It was 2018, and nobody was really ready to just unleash hell on some random person they'd met. Nobody except those trained for it, people from rough homes/neighborhoods, and people who just plain mentally more prepared for that sort of thing. Barring exceptions.
And I wasn't one of those exceptions.
"I do admire the effort however. On a basic level of course," he sat down in my chair. Despite the fact my chair had been just behind me a moment ago.
"Wait," I turned to see my chair was gone. I looked back at him, eyes wide. "How did you... I don't-"
'Goddamnit,' I thought to myself. 'What is going on!?'
"Now, I wish I could explain everything," he swung his left leg over his right, leaning back in my beat up old chair. His smile was sad now, almost pitying. "But, sadly, the nature of my visit means I'll need to send you off as is. So, I am only here to be your, what is the word... oh yes, a ROB," he took out a pocket watch of all things and fiddled with it. Behind me a noise filled the air as blue light filled my dark room. The noise was like a plastic cup being torn apart over and over again. "I wish you best of luck. I suppose you won't forgive me, but it is what is needed."
I turned, and stared in shock at the sight behind me. Instead of my desk and computer resting peacefully, there was a giant glowing blue circle hanging in the air. "Oh shit."
"Indeed," A hand pressed into my back with incredible strength. I stumbled. "My name is Paradox, by the way. Safe travels."
"Oh shiiiii-" I fell into the glowing blue circle, and all the air in my lungs was sucked out.
'I should have hit him with my fucking sword.'
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I fell in a void of blue lights. My body stretched into infinity. But it was also small as an atom. I had infinite understanding, and knew nothing. A whole bunch of other cliché ways to describe traveling through a portal.
I'd been going through that place for a while. I wish I could say it was boring. But it wasn't.
Instead, pain filled my entire body. Knives sliced apart my skin, ripped it from muscle, left my skeleton open to chilling air. My eyes were filled with needles, bit by bit. My limbs flew off of me, wriggling in the void.
Then, in an instant, I was healed again. I knew I'd felt pain. But the memory was only brief, as though I'd read, rather than experienced it. Until happened again.
I had no sense of time, so I had no idea how long I spent in that place. But when it ended, I was still screaming.
I flew into a brick wall in a flash of light. I fell to the ground.
"Ahhhhh!" I screamed, horrified. "Ahhhh! Oh my god, ohmygodohmygod." I screamed and screamed, hugging myself. "No... no. Please. I can't... I can't."
I lay there, in that place, feeling asphalt on my cheeks, tears on my cheeks as rage, horror, and pain left me just...
I never even noticed the watch resting on my left wrist. One with a symbol of two triangles connected at their points. All in green.
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The sun had been up when I arrived in the alleyway. It had gone down by the time I had calmed down. I slowly got into a sitting position, my right cheek and arm still raw from lying on the concrete. I looked around, eyes drying, my muscles clenching in my arms.
I was in an alleyway. It was disgusting, littered with garbage that ranged from simple plastic wrappers to rotten food, with a dumpster a bit away from me. It smelled pretty terrible. But compared to where I'd been, I was okay with it.
I shivered, and looked down at myself. Whereever I was, it was chilly. Not snowy or anything, but the shorts and Tardis t-shirt I was wearing was still not cutting it. Granted, my beard and long hair was protecting me a bit, but it was no replacement for a sweater.
Still shivering, I rose to my bare feet and started walking. I didn't know where I was, what the hell was happening, though I had some theories. Crazy, insane theories.
I needed to... I needed to find a phone. I could call my brother. Shit, what was his number? Who memorizes phone numbers any more? I mean, maybe I could message him on facebook.
I got to a gate at the end of the alley and found it unlocked, opening it with a squeal of noise. I tripped slightly on my way out of the alleyway, but managed to keep walking, still shivering in the cold. Without a hair tie, my hair was in a poof of curls, so I kept brushing it out of the way as I walked. I looked around the city I was in.
The street I was walking on was named W 48th Street, which meant I had no idea where I was. Most likely a big city though. There were all the signs. Trash in the streets, constant noise in the distance, a random blanket on the floor. Apartment building were rising to the sky. Cars were parked all along the street. I passed by an abandoned lot, covered in gravel and dirt.
There was more though. Lots of portions of the city had apparently been hit by some sort of attack the likes of which I couldn't understand. Buildings had great holes dug into them. Detours were set up everywhere, leaving me to avoid certain streets, but I could see men in orange vests cleaning up broken and twisted steel and concrete.
"What the hell happened here?" I stopped at one point and stared at on bit of the work being done. A guy was driving a crane, taking away some massive piece of metal the color of polished bronze. I rubbed at my arms.
"Damnit," I walked away, trying to focus.
Thankfully, thanks to my workouts, I'm a pretty big guy now. I was actually pretty proud of it, since I'd worked so hard on it. So no one seemed willing to bother me. Which was good, because all the signs of a rough neighborhood were right there with the damaged buildings. Graffiti, guys gathered in protective groups while glaring at passersby. Still, the streets were practically empty.
I saw a park and turned to walk into it. It was forested little area, with bushes and a fence blocking it from the rest of the city. The leaves were brown, and the grass dead, but it was a park nonetheless. I strolled through, my feet burning a bit from the cold and the walking on asphalt. I got to the middle of the park, the trees around me blocking the lights of the city. A chilly wind blew some leaves past. It was actually peaceful.
Of course, that was when the whistle noise came from behind me.
I stopped in my tracks and closed my eyes. "Oooooh, this can't end well."
I turned to see four guys walk up to me. They were wearing jean jackets with matches sewn into them in a symbol I recognized. The guy in front of me was bald, his eyes brown and wide. His pale white skin seemed to glow in what little light there was. The other guys were white as well. This was important.
As they came closer, the patches caught my eye once more. Swastika's covered the men vests with the sort of pride the symbol did not deserve.
I don't give a damn about people talking about Holocaust conspiracies and how not all of them are bad, or how all opinions should be listened to. If you're the sort of jerk who wears a swastika and starts blaming people's race, religion, gender, or sexual preference for your problems, if you use those as a reason to hate people, you don't deserve sympathy, you don't deserve an opinion. Ignorance can be cured. But not when it's intentional ignorance.
The men walked up to me, the guy in the lead grinning. "Well well, look at you? Forget your shoes boy?"
I frowned, slowly backing away. "I did. I'm on my way to get them. Can you let me go?"
A knife came out. "Nah," he chuckled. His friends joined him in chuckling. They surrounded me. "I think I'd rather show what happens to immigrant fucks who come to New York."
He leaped forward, knife aimed at my stomach.
------
I wasn't a martial artist. I'd only been trained in some boxing and high school wrestling. Luckily, I was scared as hell.
I'd been shoved into a realm of pain, woke up in a random city, and found myself getting attacked by some of the worst kind of people in the world.
Like I'd said, no one in the modern world is ready to fight someone immediately without the right mentality.
I was finally in the right mentality.
When the guy stabbed at my stomach, I reached out as fast as I could and grabbed his wrist. The knife bounced off my watch, slicing deep into the back of my forearm. I pulled the guy in towards me, shouting.
"Fu-" My other hand rose up. I pulled him forward. My right hand pulled him close. My left snapped forward. I clenched my left hand into a tight fist moments before impact, twisted my hips with the blow, and slammed him with all the force I had. I aimed for his solar plexus, not wanting to break my knuckles on his skull. As the air was driven from the neo-nazi, I spun him around. The guy was a skinny jerk, so even though he was taller than me, he was easy to spin around and pull close. I clenched his wrist tight, pulling him back with me as my other hand wrapped around his neck. My right hand moved from his wrist to his hand, clenching it tight around the knife he was holding. I forced him to point his knife at his own throat.
I almost fell over, stumbling a bit, but I clutched the neo-nazi close and choked him. His friends came closer as I backed off. One guy took out a handgun.
"Let go of him!" He shouted. I ducked, trying to get the guy in between me and his friends.
"Better do it," the guy I was holding laughed, then tried to shake me off. I squeezed harder, trying to keep a hold of him, and I pressed his knife hand into his neck. He stilled at the feeling of it piercing his neck. "You fucking asshole!"
"I just want to go home," I said back to him. My voice cracked. "Seriously, I just..." I trailed off when I saw my watch. The watch I'd never seen before in my life. Scratch that. I knew the watch. But I'd never seen it in a form that wasn't either in cartoon or toy form.
"...Ha!" I let out. The three guys staring at me shared a look. The guy I was holding tried to struggle again. I felt myself go just a little insane. It was kinda nice. Kinda freeing. "Tell you what boys," I reached for the watch, struggling with my 'prisoner' as I did. "How about this? If this doesn't work... I'll let you kill me."
Looking back, I was probably lying. I'd damn well fight back either way. At this point, I was crazy enough to do it.
I grabbed the watch and twisted the face of it. The triangles opened up, and the guy I was holding stared with the same shock I felt when the watch lit up. A image floated from it, a green figure with a head like fire.
"What the..." One of the guys said softly as we all stared at my watch.
"I know right?" I said a bit crazily.
With that, I slammed my hand onto the watch. A flash of green light came from the device, before it enveloped me. I let go of the guy in my arms, shoving him away even as I became a different person.
My bones widened, growing outwards, before they dissolved entirely. Flesh and blood shifted, until only the green of vines remained. My organs began to produce methane in massive amount. My mind changed, connecting to the world around me in a way I didn't understand. In all, the change must have take less than a second, only a blink of time.
When it ended, I stood up tall, stretching my body out and looking at my hands. My body was now green vines and black sections of bark. My feet looked like roots surrounding rocks, allowing me to stand stable on the ground. My hands clenched into green fists. I knew, if I looked at myself, I would have a head shaped like flame, with slit green eyes.
I sighed. My voice sounded different now. Kinda nasally actually.
"Well... Tradition and all that, right," I reared back, crying out one word as proudly as I could. "Swampfire!"
"Holy shit!" the guy I'd shoved away yelled in amazement.
"Kill it!" The guy with the gun started shooting.
Bullets slammed into me, punching through my body to fly behind me. I staggered back, blinking as I felt the odd sensation of bullets going through me. A moment later, he had emptied his handgun. I looked down at myself.
There were a bunch of holes in me. About fifteen or so, tiny. I felt some wind passing through them. As I watched, the holes began to seal themselves. With a bit of concentration, I accelerated the process. Soon, all the holes were gone, leaving smooth plant-life.
"Whoa," I said in that nasally voice. "That is cool."
I felt so powerful. As though I was a hundred times stronger and more powerful than before. I took a deep breath, my massive chest moving with the action.
Then I raised a hand, mimicking the move I'd seen more than once on Cartoon Network. A plume of flame erupted from my palm. The guys crinkled their noses, apparently bother by the smell.
"What the hell!?" The neo-nazis backed away, scared.
So I threw a fireball at the ground in front of them, laughing. The fireball exploded, erupting with a brilliance I found gratifying.
"Run!"
They spun around.
But we were in a park. In a place full of greenery. Swampfire's home turf.
I reached out with my mind, and felt the trees around me. The feeling of the life around me was intoxicating. I struggled to focus, to ignore the way the world suddenly seemed so much larger, as though I was part of a conversation I'd never known was happening around me every day.
The grass grew up into massive stalks as tall as a man. Trees suddenly erupted with branches. A giant green oval sprouted from my chest, which I ripped out and threw in front of the group. The oval object exploded in front of them, turning into a plant that stabbed into the ground with it's roots and began to grow.
In seconds, the work of months or years, even millenia, passed by. When the guys ran, the plant I'd thrown launched out vines. The forest continued to grow and grow at high speed.
"God hel-" The leader, the guy who'd tried to stab me, was silenced when a vine wrapped around his mouth. In seconds, more vines surrounded his arms, legs, and chest, holding him tightly as he released muffled screams.
The other three turned around, trying to escape the other way. I grabbed one, a guy with a beard bigger than mine, by the shoulder.
"Not today!" I lashed out with a green fist as large as watermelon, my knuckles digging into his side before my inhuman strength lifted him up as I felt something like sticks break under my vine fist.
"Ugk!" He grunted as his ribs shattered. He was sent flying back, slamming into a tree. The tree, under my orders, wrapped him in it's branches, leaving him trapped in a wooden cocoon.
The last two guys tried to escape as well. They ran through the growing grass of the lawn next to the walkway. Which meant they were a field under my control. Feeling a bit vindictive, I stood for a moment, watching them run. When they'd gotten about twenty feet away, the grass rustling as they ran towards the nearest exit from the park to the streets, I dramatically raised a hand. For some reason, feeling like I was being a bit ironic, I snapped my fingers. The grass moved, and the two men fell.
"Augh!"
"Crap!"
I felt the grass speaking to me, letting me know they were wrapping around them. Some weeds joined in, growing with immense speed.
I looked over at the leader. He stared at me from the bonds of the plant I'd thrown. "New York City... Good to know." I looked over the men for a moment, then looked down at myself. "Hmm. You know fellas, I am going to need some clothes."
Later, with a bundle of clothing, an empty pistol, knife, and their cell phones and wallets, all stuffed into a bag made of vines, I turned and walked out of the park. Still transformed into Swampfire, flowers began to bloom in the middle of fall, police sirens came closer, and fire burned. Then, with a loud set of beeps and a big flash of red light, I became human again, and walked into the city.
------
Sleeping in a hotel is always a bit disgusting to me. I'm always thinking of how many people use hotels for things I'd prefer not to imagine without supermodels involved. That said, I found a solid place to sleep for the night, and thankfully the neo-nazis had some cash in their wallets, enough to get a room.
I managed to get some sleep, even clean the clothes I'd stolen in the small washer and dryer that came with the room. Granted, the clothes wasn't perfectly my size, but I'd gotten some jeans and shirts. Though I ended up having to rip a few swastika's off at one point.
I distracted myself like that for a bit. Rifling through the guys wallets, folding clothes, showering. All the while, I ignored the object on my wrist. It seemed to weigh me down with every move, a reminder of everything that had happened.
Soon, I had to confront it. I sat on the floor and stared at it, resting against the bed of the hotel room.
The Omnitrix. THE Omnitrix. From the tv show Ben 10.
I felt a smile rise on my face. So freaking cool. I loved that show, and the idea of the Omnitrix, a device that could turn a person into one of a plethora of badass aliens, was exciting as hell. And it was my favorite design too, the one from Alien Force. I reeeeaaaly wanted to play with it, to see just who I could into. Humongosaur? Diamondhead? Oh god, please don't let the Worst be one of my options. Hell, while I'd been freaking out before, turning into Swampfire was freaking awesome. Feeling so powerful, that connection to the plants around me, and the feel of summoning methane and igniting with a thought. Damn it was cool.
I lowered my arm and sighed. But then there was the elephant in the room. Why give me a uber powered watch with limitless potential, then drop me into New York City?
I decided to discard the fact this was all impossible. That the Omnitrix, Professor Paradox, teleportation, and aliens were all fictional, or at least not possible according to the 2018 I knew.
Professor Paradox. He was the key. He had answers, he knew why I was here, why I was given the watch. But most important...
I reached for one of the phones. It was locked. So were the other three. No answers. But they were older models. I couldn't tell if that meant anything.
I decided to wait for the next day to find information. But in the end, sleep wasn't going to come easy.
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The next day, I was in the Columbus Branch Library. I'd been directed there by a kindly older woman. The library was two stories, gray stone, and in between a place called Rey's Deli Grocery on it's right, and an apartment building of some sort on the left. Once inside finding a computer was easy. Looking up recent news took seconds. I scrolled through the stories, some things jumping out at me immediately as weird. But one took my breath away.
It was seeing a picture of Robert Downey Jr, that guy from the movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. He was wearing a dapper suit, a suave smile on his face as he waved from a private jet. The headline made my headspin.
'Tony Stark Makes Plans To Rebuild Stark Tower As The Avengers Headquarters.'
Well, there was only one response I could give to that.
"Since when the fuck did Robert Downey Jr. play Iron Man?"
------
From June 30th, 2018, to November 19, 2013. The day I left my universe and entered the Marvel Universe.
Chapter 2
December 19th, 2013
"Raaagh!" I swung the sledgehammer with all my strength. The metal head smashed into brick, cracking it. My shoulders burning, I felt a grin on my face.
"Kid, you know how creepy it is when you smile like that?" I turned to look behind me, raising a hand to nudge the hard hat on my head back a bit.
"You know one of the signs of old age is repeating crap to people?" I replied.
The older black man behind me grinned. He was a big guy, with massive biceps and a belly that spoke of good eating. His hair was well groomed, though a large mustache bounced with every word he spoke.
He chuckled, his belly bouncing under the blue cotton shirt he was wearing. He was sitting on a cheap folding chair, sipping at a cup of water. "It's more of an insanity thing. But yeah, try not to look like you enjoy hitting things so much."
"Yeah, yeah," I looked over at the city outside.
The building we were standing in was one of many in New York that had been destroyed during an event that was being called, 'The Incident' by people of the city, though it was known worldwide as 'The Battle of New York'. A moment where aliens dropped from a portal in the sky and came down to attack Earth with the help of Loki. Until the Avengers stopped them.
Although finding out about the portal light in the sky made me feel a bit bemused. I'd seen a lot of movies over the years with a portal in the sky, a lot of those superhero movies, from Fan4stic to Suicide Squad. I suppose real life was imitating art in the end.
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All of which I could not understand. I couldn't remember any of these events in the comics, and some of the actors looked like actors I recognized. Captain America and Black Widow had even been in the same movies a bunch of times. Well, their actors. Well, the actors that looked like them.
Whatever the case, it happened. I was standing in a building in the middle of Hell's Kitchen, one with a giant hole in it from what apparently been some sort of giant snake monster thing that had flown through the former apartment building.
As part of my attempt to make a living in this weird version of Marvel Comics I didn't know about, I took a job as a construction worker with a company that didn't ask a lot of questions. With all the damage from the battle, and the funding from StarkTech, Rand International, and various others pouring cash into New York to help rebuild it, construction companies had flooded into New York City, fixing buildings and streets that could be repaired, tearing down buildings that were lost causes so they could be built anew.
Perfect way for an immigrant to make some quick cash with some grunt work from guys who don't care a lot about legality. And, seeing as I was the ultimate immigrant, I managed to get work with a guy in charge of finding muscle for one of the companies in charge of the reconstruction of Hell's Kitchen. Some business called Union Allied Construction.
------
"It's simple work," I admitted. "Just gotta swing a stick and break stuff. It's fun, Sammy."
"Ha!" The man sitting with me replied boisterously. "Well, enjoy it while it lasts. In my experience, guys like you and Eddie over there," he nodded over to the side. In a room that had once been a kitchen, a Hispanic man just a bit shorter than me. He was a skinny guy, but he was taking apart the sink with a wrench, removing the pipes with ease. "Well, paperwork matters to some folk."
I sighed at that thought. Eddie and me both had no legal citizenship in America. For Eddie, it was because he was a Mexican man who crossed into America illegally to help support his mother living in Puerto Rico. For me, it was because an asshole had dropped me into the middle of the city, leaving my paperwork in another universe.
"Well... I'll figure that out later," I reared back and swung my hammer. "Shouldn't you be working, Sammy?"
As brick crumbled and Eddie gently removed the sink in the kitchen, Sammy chuckled. "Nah, you young bucks have it handled. Just let my old ass rest for a bit."
"I have it on good authority that Captain America is older than you, and that guy would probably be right next to me."
Sammy scoffed. "Please youngblood, what do you know about Captain America?" He rose up and moved to pick up his own hammer. He reared back and decimated the brick wall in front of him with a single smooth movement. I coughed a bit as dust rose, and looked over at him as he smiled smugly.
"You're strong, kid," Sammy chuckled. "But it's important to know where to hit, and how fast too."
I blinked at this advice. I raised my own sledgehammer and tried to swing it the way Sammy had. The hammer bounced off the wall with no effect.
Sammy chuckled, leaving me to give him a chagrined look.
"Hey!" We turned around. A man stood there, wearing a polo shirt, khaki shorts, a blue hard hat, and carrying a clipboard. He glared at us, eyes hard, face pinched. Fredric, our boss. "Enough talk. We need the floor cleared by the end of the day."
Sammy and I shared a look before turning and going back to our work.
------
Later that day, we were done. Well, the guys on my shift. More would come in and do some work at night, but for now, my muscles burning from exertion, I was leaving for the day.
"Ahhh," Sammy sighed happily as we exited the construction site, entering the sidewalk. New York is never really quiet, but there was a brief sense of peace as the sun went down in the distance. He stretched, letting his arms reach for the sky.
"Ugh," I reeled back, playfully covering my nose while grabbing the arm nearest to me and pulling it down. "Dude, come on, deodorant!"
"Hmm?" Sammy slapped at me, grinning just a bit. "Little punk."
I smiled back. "Yeah yeah. See you tomorrow, old man."
"Hey, Mackmoud?"
I stopped, turning to look at him. I was using my real name since there wasn't much point in a cover story, but Sammy always slurred it from Mahmoud to 'Mackmoud'.
"What's up?"
"You need a ride?" He waved towards the parking lot his truck was parked in. "It ain't a big deal."
"Nah, I'm good." I smiled just a bit. "I wanna walk for a bit. Thanks though."
He shrugged, unbothered, and went off.
I, meanwhile, walked away. For a couple of blocks.
When I was sure I wasn't being followed, I turned towards the same section of neighborhoods I'd been hammering at the whole day. Technically, it was just buildings to be torn down. But in that section, there were a lot of places a guy could hide.
I left the sidewalk behind to go into an alleyway. From there, I hopped over a fence, then went through another alley. One more fence and I reached home.
A door with a steel lock pad blocked the way inside, with a clearly broken keypad next to it. I tapped on the 'broken' keypad, and the door let out a 'click', allowing me in.
Once inside, the motion sensors read my presence, and the lights turned on.
The place I'd been calling home for the past two months had once been an office building, for some tech company. It had been destroyed when some of the aliens, called the Chitauri, had blown up the upper floors with grenades then sent one of their reptile things through it. The building was up for reconstruction, but I could use it for now as a home. Rent free.
I'd taken the back room that had once been used for paperwork or something, and converted it into living space.
Yep. Mahmoud, the owner of a watch with infinite potential, living as a squatter.
I looked around. A big green thing the size of a closet rested in the corner. It had once been a broken refrigerator I'd found on the streets. It was still a fridge. Sometimes. Most days.
I opened the door and sighed in relief when I found my food cold. Rather than frozen, cooked, or just plain gone.
A steak was soon cooking on a machine that had once been a printer, and I moved to a beat up old couch to use my computer.
Like the fridge and stove, it was also made from parts of other devices. The phones I'd stolen from the neo-nazis two months before, a big TV monitor I'd found at one of the construction sites, some of the computers left behind by the tech company, a few more refrigerators, and three older generation video game consoles.
The computer worked. It worked damn well. Except on Wednesday, when it just put on videos of people laughing at Japanese game shows for hours, and when small children were eating lollipops nearby. Yesterday was a Wednesday. So, I could get some work done today.
The computer was really a supercomputer when it actually worked. I reached over for my keyboard and mouse and quickly switched it on. I got up and grabbed the steak, then went back.
"Okay. What are you up to, Stark?" I said to myself. My monitor glowed with a blue light, showing a sci-fi sort of look to it, with folders floating in a blue field. A wave of my hands would have let me move things around, but I reached for the mouse instead.
A quick click of the mouse opened a back channel I had into the Stark Industries employee memos. Nothing invasive, nothing about their secret projects, just the stuff any employee there would get sent. I read through them a bit but didn't find anything crazy. Another click sent me to the email of one Happy Hogan, Tony Stark's bodyguard. Some lovely messages wishing him well in his recovery. Another one from a company wishing to hire him from Stark Industries. Just a snapchat into the life of a good man.
I leaned back in my seat, slicing into my overcooked steak with a sigh.
Feeling a bit more intrusive than usual, I switched the feed again. I pushed my steak aside and focused. Hacking into the employee stuff at Stark wasn't horrific in terms of danger. And Happy had a regular email as well as a more private one which was blocked by some insane firewalls, and I'd only hacked the regular one. Hacking into SHIELD was another game entirely.
Not to say it was impossible. Alien tech, even alien tech made from human parts, was incredibly powerful. With a bit of time, I could hack almost any computer on the planet. Well, I guessed I could.
But that didn't mean I shouldn't be careful.
I went through some of the messages sent to all SHIELD agents. High priority targets, warnings, some simple guidelines for new recruits.
Then I went deeper. The Daily Cadet, the newspaper for the science school that SHIELD ran, had run an article two days before about two of their Alumni, Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz, had saved a kid named Donnie Gill from being frozen. Good on them.
There wasn't much else, except for Project Insight. I tried to gently find my way in, trawling through employee files, hunting down shipments. I made sure not to go through the same channels I had before.
Apparently, Project Insight was going well. They were building three big ass helicarriers, all powered by Iron Man type tech. Which was cool as shit. I took another bite of steak and shifted in my chair. I went to my other research next, still thinking.
Reports of a skeletal figure on a bike in the south. Apparently, people were thinking it was an urban legend, an explanation for the dead criminals getting burned to death. Ghost Rider.
I switched to a school I'd hacked, looking into their records. Peter Parker was doing well. He had won some science award recently. Good on the kid. Weird, he was only twelve. I didn't look him up for long since hacking into a children's school files made me feel skeevy.
The Baxter Building was still being built, and I couldn't find anything on any Fantastic Four member beyond the point they'd disappeared years back. Some company had hired them, before the company and the four disappeared. No Reed Richards, no Ben Grimm, Sue Storm, or Johnny Storm. That worried me. From the minute I'd found out, I'd left a program chasing any info that could be found on them, anything new. Nothing yet.
I growled in annoyance at that, then flipped to something else. "No mutants," I said with a sigh, looking over my other research. Not a sign of them. I couldn't find Wolverine, Cyclops, Professor X... Wait, I think I found... Uh, I couldn't find... Mutants were... I had to-
I ignored my screen for a moment. Whatever was on it probably didn't matter. After a moment, I went back to it to focus on something more important.
Wakanda was still being listed as a third world nation. Which was probably bullshit. I found myself smiling at the thought of Wakanda. It was weird, I didn't know a lot about Black Panther, but I felt a deep warmth when I thought of that nation. T'Challa was in university, studying the sciences, but that was all.
Finally, I turned on the police radio I had as a program on my computer, sitting back to listen to it.
For about ten minutes, I continued eating my steak as I listened. Whenever a code would get announced, I would look over at the notebook I'd written as a reference to what each code meant. Nothing the cops couldn't handle so far. No robbery in progress or anything. I finished my steak and got up, turning my computer off. Then I walked out of my home, locking it behind me, and headed to the alleyway.
Once there, I looked at my Omnitrix. One of the most powerful objects in all of fiction. Funnily enough, it's creator had developed it with the idea of peace in mind. Azmuth, one of a member of a species of extremely intelligent beings known as the Galvan, had created it to make up for another object he'd made, a sword with the power to destroy planets. It was supposed to allow a person to act as the perfect ambassador. With the ability to transform into any race in the galaxy, a person could interact with the people of the entire galaxy, to understand them and aid them. The ultimate peacekeeping tool.
Instead, he'd made the ultimate weapon. A person who can turn into any alien of the Ben 10 universe is not just powerful, they're versatile. Elemental control, enhanced strength and speed, flight, nuclear power, even time manipulation and reality warping. If there was an alien in Benjamin Tennyson's universe who could do something, the Omnitrix could do the same.
That weapon had landed in the hands of a ten-year-old brat. And that brat had done wondrous things with it. Ben Tennyson was one of my heroes, a kid who rose to the occasion again and again. He'd matured through battle and became a hero worthy of any universe. Ben 10 was awesome.
And now I had his Omnitrix. Ten alien forms, each with their own powers, with some crossover between them in terms of ability. Only ten, out of over a million. But that was enough.
I twisted the face of my watch, and it lit up in a flash of green. An image appeared, floating. Swampfire. He was one of my favorite forms, able to blast out flames from methane gases, control plants, and regenerate from harm with ease. But he wasn't what I needed.
I twisted the face, going through the aliens before I found the form that was best for what I wanted. Then, carefully, I pushed down on the watch.
Immediately, the change came.
My body grew outwards. I was already pretty hefty, but I gained over one hundred pounds of muscle in second. My leg twisted backward, my arms stretched out. Fur grew over my entire body. My fingernails became claws, but feet became massive paws. My nose grew outward, my ears shifted on top of my head as they change shape. My mouth became a muzzle, and my teeth became lethal fangs. I held back the urge to howl my name. Instead, I whispered it, in a voice that was half a growl.
"Blitzwolfer..." I hummed, then lifted my nose, taking a deep whiff of the air. To my human nose, the smell of the city was only sometimes palatable. To Blitzwolfer, the smells of the city were a delight. It was like watching a thousand movies at once and somehow comprehending all of them.
"Time to go," I ran for a nearby building and leaped up about twenty feet. My claws dug into the brick, and I climbed at high speed, going to the top of the six-story building in seconds. Once there, I ran.
There were few things that gave me as much joy as being transformed. Feeling so powerful, running at speeds so fast the world was a blur. My muscles pumped as I ran across the gravel rooftop, legs pushing forward. I was so fast!
I finally released a sound as I leaped to the next roof, a bark of joy. The noise exploded from my lungs, and I grinned at the feel of my simple bark resounding through the air like a bomb, echoing into the distance. More barks responded. It was sort of like listening to a foreign language. I couldn't understand the words, but the emotions carried through. Dogs sharing their own joy, their annoyance at my loudness, their challenges towards my dominance. I barked again, this time at the challengers, and laughed when they just barked the challenges once more.
I leaped to another rooftop, then climbed up to the next building, claws digging into the stone.
I ran around for about twenty minutes, keeping to the shadows and listening closely to the city around me. Blitzwolfer wasn't my best way to track someone down, but his speed, strength, tracking, and sonic powers made him an ideal form to travel in New York City so I could help people.
My decision was justified when I heard something. A loud scream. I took a whiff of the air. Elevated scents I'd learned to tie to fear and excitement, one of them being sweat. Combined with the scream, I had a target.
My right foot slammed into the roof, claws digging into the rocky surface to let me twist around in the middle of my run. I booked it towards the sound.
It was only a minute long run, but I smelled blood float up towards me. I growled in annoyance. Deep inside, a more primal part of me found joy in the smell. Fear, blood, all the signs of prey. Prey to hunt.
Luckily, it was easy to push the urge to hunt down. Blitzwolfer's species, Loboan's, were closer to their animal instincts than humans were, but they were still sentient, so I found it easy to focus.
When I reached the site of the scream, I found five people. Two men, one woman, attacking a young couple, a man and a woman. All different races.
The man was being held down by two of his attackers, a woman with long black hair and a man with inky black skin. He was screaming, a knife wound in his stomach pouring blood, but still struggling to get to his girl.
She was struggling too, crying. The last of the attackers was on top of her, struggling to get her wallet out of her pocket as he grabbed her throat.
I leaped down from the rooftop I was on. I didn't waste time waiting to land.
My mouth opened. In four different directions. It was weird how natural it felt to open my mouth and feel a seam open in the center of my face, running a line down my nose all the way to my chin.
I breathed in. Then I howled. Though that was an understatement.
"AAAHHHWWOOOOO!!!"
A green pulse of energy flew from my mouth, slamming into the two holding the guy down. All five of them screamed in pain, the man on top of the woman falling back and grabbing his ears.
I landed on the ground and sped forward, ignoring the spider-web of cracks I left in my landing. I grabbed the guy who'd been robbing the woman by his shirt and lifted him up. At my full height, I was massive, looming over everyone.
"Hey," I smirked at the terrified look he gave me. I looked over at the other two thugs. "How about you surrender?"
The male and female thugs turned to run. I spun around and threw the guy I was holding at them, running after them at the same time. The guy I'd thrown hit the girl, I grabbed the final guy by his leg.
"God, please no! Please don't do this!" He screamed.
"Arrest you?" I chuckled, pulling to join his friends. They were struggling to rise, but I opened my mouth again.
"AAAHWOOO!"
They were thrown back by the sonic blast. I threw the other guy with them, then looked over the couple. The woman was with her boyfriend. Or husband I supposed. They were trying to run.
"Hey!" The couple froze. I sighed at the look of fear they were giving me. "Relax. I'm going to tie them up, then call the police." The woman didn't seem to listen. She was tugging at her boy as he grunted in pain, his knife wound getting opened further. I rolled my eyes, more annoyed than saddened by their fear. "Stupid Marvel hatred of things they don't understand," I mumbled.
The symbol of the Omnitrix rested on my stomach. I reached a hand for it, tapping the device. It glowed green, my DNA once again undergoing a new change. My fur changed color, going from gray to blue. My arms and legs shifted into more human shaped ones, right up until five fingers turned into four, and five toes became two. Blades sprouted from my forearms and forelegs, made of a bony protrusion. I felt the fur on my face shift, rising into 'horns' from around my eyes. My senses were dulled, but my perception of the world slowed down, as though things were a step behind me.
"Fasttrack."
I ran as soon as I was transformed. First, I went into the street, looking around quickly. I saw some pallets near a shop that were being held together by rope, which I ran over and untied. Went over to the thugs, picking them up and wrapping them in the coarse rope. Once done, I went over to the couple.
The woman was still trying to drag her husband away. I gently moved him over away from her, and ripped his t-shirt off, pressing it into his wound to try and stop the bleeding.
Then I slowed down for a bit.
"What just-" The thugs looked down at themselves, shocked at the sight of the ropes wrapped around their arms and legs.
The woman looked down at her arms, blinking at the disappearance of her husband, then looked at me. "You were killing him," I said softly, pressing the shirt into his wound. The man looked at me, shocked. "I can take you to the hospital in seconds. I can save his life."
She stared at me. The man stared at me. After a moment, she nodded quickly, tears in her eyes.
"Okay," I grabbed my 'patients' arm so that he was holding his shirt to himself, then I picked up the man in a bridal carry. While Fasttrack wasn't as strong as Swampfire or Blitzwolfer, I could still easily carry him. "Get on my back."
"W-What?" She rose up, staring at me. I was taller than her, and pretty bulky for a speedster, but apparently less terrifying than my Blitzwolfer form because she seemed less fearful.
"Honey," the guy in my arms grunted. "Just... let's trust him, okay?" He held the shirt tighter to himself. It was soaked through by now.
She hesitated for a second longer. Then she walked over to me. It was a bit awkward, leaning down to let her leap onto my back while carrying her boyfriend/husband/guy. Once she was on, I rose up again.
"Hold on tight. Very, very tight."
When I was sure she was secure, I booked it towards the nearest hospital. I'd found the couple in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan, in an alleyway off W 14th Street. That made the nearest hospital Lenox Health Greenwich Village. I had no idea how long it would take to get there by car.
But I ran into the street, ducked around a car moving in slow motion. I tried to be careful, but I still had trouble with quick turns, so I had to hold the guy tight and keep making sure the woman was holding tight. Still, what was a moment of adjustment for me, was a microsecond to the couple.
"Yaaaaaaaaa!" The girl screamed in my ear as I ran through the Manhattan streets.
"Hoooo!" The guy replied.
Soon I found the hospital, an interestingly shaped building with weird circular holes on the upper floors walls. Lenox Hospital had an emergency room, so I slowed down and went towards it.
Fasttrack was fast. But not so good at slowing down or turning on a dime.
I rushed the couple past an Asian couple walking out of the doors, going in and screeching to a stop. My feet left long grooves in the linoleum, and the wife leaped off my back.
"Hey!" I called out, gently holding the guy. "He's got a knife wound to the stomach!"
A nurse turned, startled, then stared at me, shocked by my appearance.
"Lady, come save this guy!"
My yell startled her into moving. A gurney was brought over, and he was put on top, the nurses yelling medical terms I didn't understand. I patted the woman as she went to follow.
"Good luck."
She responded with a teary smile. "Thank you so much!"
With that, she was off. I watched the two go, smiling a bit. I felt good. Helping people was something I was new to, but it wasn't a bad feeling to know you'd made a difference.
"G-Get down on the floor!" Said a voice from my left.
It was a security guard. He had a gun out, pointed in fear.
"...No."
I sped away in a flash of blue. It was a matter of another sprint to go back to the alleyway, where the three thugs still were. One of them had gotten loose and was trying to rise to his feet. I ran in and punched him in the face at high speed. As he staggered back, I went through his friend's pockets, stealing their smartphones and the knife they'd cut the guy with.
Another run with the rope to tie them up, then it was on to the police station. The 10th Precinct in fact. I ran in, dropped the three off with a note, and was out in milliseconds.
Good thing. The Omnitrix began to beep, flashing red light. A quick sprint past an alley, then I was back in human form.
I tripped mid-run, the switch from Citrakayah to human perception of speed throwing me off, but I managed to right myself. I strode out of the alley and looked at my Omnitrix. The center was now red, so no transformations for the next few minutes. I had a couple of aliens I wanted to play with later, but for now...
I took out my brand new StarkTech phone and checked it. No security. I activated the e-mail function, logged out of the girls account and signed into mine. From there, I could check on my computer's files at home. I went through them for a bit. Nothing new. I went to my research on Latveria. Still no sign of Doctor Doom being a thing, though some basketball player was making a name in the sport. Then I looked into the Savage Land. Yeah, Antartica was still frozen. Nothing on the mystical realms, but there was not much chance of that information on the internet. Worth a shot.
I sighed, walking down the street on my phone. This had been my pattern after work, saving people's lives, wallets... sometimes saving them from horrors that sickened me.
There were times... there was a woman. She'd been savaged. The guys who'd taken her had been at it for hours.
It was one month into me living in Manhattan. That was the first time I'd ever put a concentrated effort into hurting someone.
Thinking of her, I switched over to the file I had set aside for her case. She was still getting help, for the physical and mental trauma. She was doing her best. Jen Tiller. As for her assailants, they were still in the hospital. I'd shattered their bones, destroyed their bodies. They'd need years before they could actually move, eat, or shit without aid again. I felt a burning guilt for that, a pain at how I'd lost control. But Jen Tiller deserved to know her attackers would never hurt anyone else like that again.
As the Omnitrix changed the color back to green, I checked the time. Well. Maybe I could save one more before the night was over.
I managed to save three more people, then ended the night with my workout before going to sleep.
------
January 10, 2014
"Sammy!" I yelled out. He turned to look at me, then nodded when I gestured towards a kitchen Eddie had emptied out. I went inside and started swinging, thinking to myself as my arms and hips moved to strike.
We were at a new construction site. The last house had been taken down just before New Years. In that time, I'd gone on more patrols, done more workouts, and done more research. I'd gotten into a routine, but soon I'd need to move on. The patrols, in the end, were just me practicing. Using my powers against non-threats, moving about the city, making technology for useful purposes. I'd have to step onto the stage soon. Actually, help people on a large scale, help the Avengers. Well, unless they went all Civil War on me, but there weren't nearly enough superheroes for that to be an issue. Besides, I was on camera enough that even hacking hospital and police security footage wouldn't work forever.
As I lifted the hammer again, my phone began to buzz. And so did my Omnitrix.
I stopped, surprised. Then I felt horrified.
My computer at home had a connection to both my Omnitrix and phone. I hadn't been able to mess with my Omnitrix much since my tech transformation was more of an engineer than a scientist, so none of my attempts to unlock the Master Code had worked. But I got it to respond to very specific things.
I dropped the hammer and hurriedly pulled out my phone.
My stomach fell out from under me. I staggered, trying to understand what I was reading. Then I ran.
"Sammy!" My voice cracked, and I tried to focus. Sammy was standing near the trailer set up at the sight. He turned to look at me as I ran up. "I'm leaving!"
"Kid?" Sammy reached for his head and blinked in confusion.
"Mr. Schahed," Frederic, our pinch-faced boss stepped out from around Sammy. "I must remind you that Union Allied does not pay you for the days work without-"
I stepped forward, cocked my hips forward, and slammed my fist into my bosses chin in an uppercut. "I quit, Frederic."
"I don't think he heard you," Sammy said as I walked by. He watched in shock as I left.
I ran into an alleyway and opened my Omnitrix up. It was an effort of will trying not to slam my palm into the dial, to carefully pick my alien rather than rush into it in my panic. I finally pushed it down and felt the change come.
"Fasttrack!"
I didn't care about cameras now. I sped through the streets passing through town as fast as I could.
Alleyway, fence, alleyway, then hop over another fence, put in my code, rush inside. The smell of burnt food told me my fridge had burned its contents again. I ignored it, putting on my computer. I tapped the Omnitrix and returned to human.
"I... I don't understand what to do with this."
I stood in the middle of my living room, staring at my screen. There, in front of me, were words I just didn't understand.
STEVEN ROGERS IS NOW WANTED FUGITIVE OF SHIELD. ALL SHIELD AGENTS ARE TO REPORT ANY INFORMATION ABOUT HIS WHEREABOUTS AND BRING HIM IN FOR QUESTIONING. THIS IS THE NUMBER ONE PRIORITY FOR ALL AGENTS. FIND STEVE ROGERS, BRING HIM IN.