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.
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 crossed into America illegally to help support his mother 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. And... oh. One sent from Happy to Pepper Potts letting her know how sorry he was about her break up with Tony Stark.
I leaned back in my seat, slicing into my overcooked steak with a sigh.
Damn. That sucked. I mean, in the comics, Happy and Pepper were married, but a lot of stuff back home depicted Tony and her in a relationship, and they seemed close in the news.
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 United 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.
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.
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 crossed into America illegally to help support his mother 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. And... oh. One sent from Happy to Pepper Potts letting her know how sorry he was about her break up with Tony Stark.
I leaned back in my seat, slicing into my overcooked steak with a sigh.
Damn. That sucked. I mean, in the comics, Happy and Pepper were married, but a lot of stuff back home depicted Tony and her in a relationship, and they seemed close in the news.
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 United 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.
