Four years ago, I woke up in a world that wasn't mine.
Now, I'm leading the Avengers, wearing a suit that costs more than my first apartment, and pretending I belong at a banquet full of people who could buy a small country before breakfast.
I can handle an alien invasion. A cosmic warlord trying to terraform Earth into their personal playground? No problem.
But this?
Smiling for cameras. Shaking hands with senators. Pretending I belong in a room where power comes from money, not merit?
I hate it.
It's not me. Not even close.
The Avengers are the guests of honor tonight—symbols of strength and unity in a new era, as the invitation put it. Twenty years after Thanos, the world still needs heroes.
Some of the old ones are gone.
Some retired.
Some… never came back.
And somehow, out of everyone still standing, I'm the one leading them now.
They're calling it the Avengers: Third Initiative—the next generation stepping up to guide a world still trying to figure out how to exist after Endgame.
I take a slow sip of champagne—not because I like it, but because it gives my hands something to do.
I'm supposed to make a speech later. Shake more hands. Reassure people that the Avengers are still the first and last line of defense. That we're stronger than ever.
That I deserve to be the one standing here.
But that's the thing about this world—nothing is ever planned.
And I sure as hell didn't plan for any of this.
A waiter glides by, refilling glasses. The chandeliers above scatter gold light across plates I'd be too nervous to touch if I wasn't pretending to be comfortable. Laughter drifts through the air. Polite conversations. The soft clink of expensive drinks.
It's all staged.
A performance of power and privilege.
I should be soaking it in. I should be enjoying the perks of the life I've built.
Instead, my mind drifts—like it always does—to a different time. A different version of me.
Like I said… four years ago, I wasn't here.
I wasn't shaking hands with diplomats or getting nods from CEOs who control continents. I wasn't a leader. I wasn't even visible.
I was alone.
Broke.
Lost.
And the first thing I noticed when I woke up… was the hum.
A low, constant vibration that sat beneath my skin. Not painful. Just… present. Like the soft buzz of a power line, but internal. Alive. Threading through my bones. Coiled under my ribs. Waiting to be acknowledged. Waiting to be used.
That was the first hum.
But there was another one too. Quieter. Slower. Heavier. I didn't catch it right away—not until after the store clerk incident. Where the first buzz crackled sharp and fast, this second one sank deeper, like the weight of the world pressing inward from all sides. Not loud. Just… dense. Centered. It made the floor feel closer. Made everything feel slightly off, like space around me bent in ways it wasn't supposed to.
Like I had a storm and a collapsing star living in the same chest cavity, both waiting for their cue.
I didn't understand it. Not then.
Not until danger forced me to.
The second thing I noticed was the alley.
Dark. Wet. The kind of place where things go missing and no one files a report.
I was lying on my back, staring up at a rusted fire escape. My head pounding. My body cold. Like I'd been dropped from orbit or stitched into existence seconds ago.
I sat up, slow. Dizzy. My clothes were soaked through with rain—or something I didn't want to think too hard about—and the air reeked of mold, piss, and city rot.
Broken glass crunched under my palm as I pushed myself upright.
That's when I saw it.
Across the street. Half-obscured by flickering rain and a neon sign that blinked like a dying heart.
STARK INDUSTRIES—towering above the buildings in bold, glowing letters.
I froze.
That name wasn't fiction.
Not here.
Not anymore.
Panic bloomed sharp in my chest. My thoughts scrambled, trying to stitch themselves into order. A dream? A simulation? A breakdown?
I checked my pockets. No ID. No phone. No wallet.
Nothing.
Not even lint.
As far as this world was concerned, I didn't exist.
And if I didn't exist?
I was already dead.
I had two options: figure things out... or starve trying.
The first twenty-four hours were chaos.
I drifted through the city like a ghost. Head down. Eyes open. Watching people live their lives like it was just another Tuesday. I eavesdropped on conversations. Read headlines from smartscreens and print tabs. Absorbed anything I could.
Trying to figure out where—and when—I was.
It looked like New York.
But it wasn't. Not really.It was louder. Faster. Stranger.
Surveillance drones drifted in quiet loops overhead, more public safety than paranoia. Taxis ran on autopilot, weaving through elevated lanes with uncanny precision. And across the skyline, massive holographic billboards played footage of mutant-led disaster relief, Krakoan peace summits, and high-profile press conferences from SABER, S.W.O.R.D., and regional enhanced response teams—each one trying to prove they were the new answer to a post-Avengers world.
By the time the sun dipped beneath the skyline, I was starving.
My stomach cramped so hard it felt like a warning shot.
I started moving through back alleys in Hell's Kitchen, ducking between old support beams and fire exit alcoves. Scanning for anything I could take without getting caught.
A fruit cart left unattended.
A cracked door behind a fusion-powered diner.
Something—anything—that would let me survive another day in a world that didn't even know I was here.
when I learned my first real lesson.
People think New York is just a city.
It's not.
Not here. Not on this Earth.
New York in this world—Earth-116—isn't just the backdrop to a few superhero movies. It's the epicenter. The frontline. A living, breathing battleground carved by gods, monsters, billionaires, and alien invasions. And the scars? They don't fade. They don't get paved over with progress. They fester.
Walk a few blocks in any direction and you'll see what I mean.
Gangs don't sling street-level weapons—they're armed with scavenged alien tech. Chitauri blasters, rigged Stark drones, leftover Oscorp hardware. I passed a guy selling weapons on the corner out of a duffel bag, and I only recognized the blaster because I remembered what it looked like from the movies.
Corporate security drones fly overhead, red-eyed and silent, scanning faces and calculating "threat levels" on the fly. You steal from the wrong bodega? You're not dealing with cops. You're dealing with enhanced private enforcers that can punch through concrete and won't blink twice about it.
This place isn't just more dangerous.
It's more advanced.
More connected. More aggressive. More... real.
And what hit me hardest?
It's not just a different Earth. It's a different time.
The year is 2043.
I wasn't just thrown into another universe—I was flung forward, too. Decades ahead of the world I knew.
And somehow, I'm supposed to survive in it.
Thrive in it.
Lead in it.
But before any of that, I had to figure out the rules of this new reality.
And rule number one?
New York isn't a city anymore.
It's a battlefield with a skyline.
I survived off scraps and stolen moments.
Panhandling when I could. Slipping into corner kiosks and transit hubs to swipe whatever I could reach—protein bars, electrolyte packs, a half-smashed sandwich I fished from a garbage chute behind a drone-run deli. Just enough to stay upright. Just enough not to fall over in the middle of the street and draw attention.
Those first few days were a blur. A cycle of scavenging, dodging facial scans, and staying off the grid. I slept in construction hollows and derelict smart-buildings—abandoned during zoning disputes or damaged by superhuman fallout no one ever bothered to fix. Every structure hummed with its own energy signature. Every wall buzzed with silent surveillance.
The city was always awake.
Always watching.
And through it all, the hum followed me.
Not the city's—mine.
Low. Subtle. Like a vibration in my chest I couldn't shake. A gravitational whisper beneath my bones. I didn't know what it meant yet. I just knew it never left me.
By day four, I was still in the Bronx. But even here—away from the glitz of Midtown or the fortified zones near Stark Tower—the skyline had shifted into something out of a sci-fi novel. The kind that used to feel like fiction.
Now? It was edging closer to the full-blown 2099 aesthetic I'd only seen in comics—layered skyways, glowing architecture, mid-air billboards, and vertical neighborhoods stacked like data chips.
The future had arrived early. And it didn't care if you were ready.
Floating drones zipped between traffic lanes. Skyrails threaded above old tenement rooftops. Augmented billboards flickered mid-air, glitching between ads for Stark-grade security services and Krakoan-grown supplements.
By day four, I was still in the Bronx.
Even here—far from the skyline towers of Midtown and the polished embassies near Krakoa Row—the city felt pulled forward in time. Like the future had unfolded here in layers. Skywalks crisscrossed aging buildings. Drones glided silently above old fire escapes. Augmented graffiti shimmered across brick, reacting to the pulse of passing people. The streets buzzed with language, light, and low-frequency signals you could feel in your teeth.
The city never stopped moving. Never stopped watching.
The shop I found didn't look like much—just a squat retail node bolted into the lower level of a weather-stained vertical plaza. Its façade was patched with old riot foam. Solar shielding peeled from its canopy. A dented face-scanner by the door blinked with a slow, blue pulse.
It looked forgotten. That made it appealing.
I stood under a flickering mesh of street-level holo-ads—cheap overlays promoting biometric insurance.
Kid looked half-fused to his neurocast, wired directly into a stream he barely blinked through. He didn't seem like a threat. More like a body filling a slot.
I crossed the street. Slipped through the door.
The plan was simple: grab something small. Get out fast.
No confrontation. No drama.
I was three steps in when it hit me.
The whole room was wrong.
Two men stood near the back. Too still. Too focused. One of them clutched a can but hadn't moved his arm in a full minute. The other wore a polymer jacket with arms that bulged unnaturally at the wrists—old combat gauntlets, probably third-gen knockoffs. Not polished military-grade, but dirty. Lethal in the right hands. I recognized the faint flicker of a charge humming beneath the surface.
These guys weren't browsing.
They were staging.
I turned to leave.
Too late.
The clerk had noticed me. The stream behind his eyes dimmed. Focus returned.
"You lost, kid?"
His voice wasn't hostile. It wasn't friendly either. Just… watching.
I clocked his gaze shift past me to the two fake shoppers, then to his own hand, which hadn't moved from beneath the counter since I walked in.
That was the first red flag.
Second? The store layout. Too much open space. Cams pointed toward the floor, not the register. Half the shelves looked like they were meant to slow people down, not sell to them.
Third? The silence.
Real corner shops always had noise. Radio. Stream chatter. City bleed.
This one felt… staged.
I tried to play it off. "Honestly? Thought this was a place to buy gum, not get caught in a shootout."
The clerk didn't flinch. But something in his posture shifted.
"You armed?"
"What? No."
"Then listen to me," he said quietly. "Hallway past the coolers. Red door behind the last fridge. Lock it from the inside."
"What's—"
"Don't argue." His voice turned sharp. "That room's lined. If they hit the place, it's the only thing that might stop you from becoming paste."
Click.
Something behind the counter activated.
Metal slammed down over the windows. Hard. Loud. Like a bunker sealing shut. A low, vibrating buzz filled the air as a containment field powered up across the entrance—hazy and flickering with layered energy.
My mouth went dry.
"What the hell is this place?" I asked, backing up toward the hallway.
"Not a damn convenience store," the clerk muttered, pulling a compact rifle from beneath the counter. No brand. No markings. Just clean steel and quiet certainty.
"Go."
I ran.
Down the hall, past the humming drink coolers. Light panels dimmed and shifted red. I hit the end of the row and found the door—matte red with a pressure-sealed handle and old synth-grip tape where someone had clearly patched damage.
I yanked it open. Slammed it shut.
Locked it.
Silence.
Darkness.
Then: breath.
Mine.
Too fast. Too hot. My lungs scraped against the air like they were filing themselves down. I sank to the corner of the room, pressed my back against the wall, heart hammering so hard it felt like it might crack something inside me.
Then came the hum.
Low.
Familiar.
It wasn't coming from the building. Or the room.
It was inside me.
Buzzing beneath my ribs. Crawling through my arms. Like pressure rolling under the skin, searching for a way out.
I pressed my palms to my chest. They were tingling. Sharp. Heat pulsed in my fingertips, then surged up my wrists. I tasted metal in the back of my throat.
Panic spiked.
Was I having a seizure? A stroke?
Or worse—was whatever brought me to this universe finally catching up?
I curled inward.
Then—click.
No sound. Just a sensation.
Like something deep inside me finally aligned—
a lock turning in the dark.
The world didn't go silent.
It went clear.
I wasn't seeing with my eyes anymore. Not really.
The room was pitch black, sealed tight behind the red door. No light. No sound. No movement.
But I could feel everything.
The shape of the walls—metallic and cold, vibrating with distant impact. The containment field outside, low and wide, pressing like a second atmosphere. The electric signatures of the men beyond the wall, flickering across my senses like sparks on water. Even the gravity shifted when they moved—just enough for me to notice.
It was like I'd been born with a sense no one ever named.
The hum I'd felt in my bones since the day I woke up in this world—it wasn't just background noise anymore.
It was a language.
And suddenly, without training, without instruction... I understood it.
I could feel the wires in the walls humming like taut strings on an instrument. Every light fixture overhead—a tone. Every flickering sensor on a motion detector—a whisper. I could feel the voltage dancing through old security cameras and underfloor plates, like memories still trying to spark.
Electricity wasn't just power.
It was motion. Emotion. Life.
And people?
People were walking circuits.
Every heartbeat—a pulse. Every breath—a flutter of impulse traveling through nerves like lightning on skin. Their bodies translated into static and signal, movement and meaning.
I couldn't see their faces.
Couldn't hear their voices.
But I felt them. Every one of them.
The clerk's heartbeat thudded fast and erratic, like a caged bird beating its wings in a storm. His hands trembled, even as he fired again. I felt the feedback arc through the gun—how the discharge traveled down through the polymer grip, across his arms, into the floor beneath his boots. The floor lit up like a live wire in my senses.
He was still standing. Still fighting.
Then came the others.
Two signatures—louder than the rest.
One was unstable. He moved like a malfunctioning circuit—every step lit up the field in jagged, aggressive bursts. I could feel his gauntlet building charge, absorbing energy, forcing the surrounding current to bend. Like he was walking inside a storm that followed him.
The second was different.
Quiet. Precise. No wasted motion. His muscles fired with tight control, like his body ran on military-grade efficiency. Every shift of weight was surgical. Measured. No panic. Just focus.
He wasn't charging in recklessly.
He was waiting for the right opening.
The door wasn't soundproof, but I didn't need sound. The store's electromagnetic field was mapped across my mind like pressure on skin. Their positions bent it. Twisted it. Translated it.
Not into sight.
Into rhythm.
Into direction.
Into intent.
Like sonar—but made of static.
And when the clerk dropped—hard—I felt it.
His current stuttered like a shorted wire. Blood pressure dropped. Pulse staggered.
Still alive.
But barely.
Then—something new.
A spike.
A surge of power so sharp it sent a jolt through my spine.
One of them had overclocked their tech. The kind of charge you only push when you're ready to kill. It rippled across the room like a fault line tearing open.
They were going to finish it.
And I was still behind the door.
Buzzing.
Burning.
Alive.
My skin prickled. My bones itched. My chest felt like it was being filled with lightning that didn't have anywhere else to go.
I didn't know how long I could hold it in.
Or if I should.
The clerk's pulse stammered—too fast, then slowing.
Fast-fast… slower.
Then silence.
Shallow breath.
Too shallow.
He wasn't going to last another hit.
And then—nothing but weak, flickering pulses.
Like a battery bleeding its last drops of life.
The clerk was still alive… but not for long.
I pressed my palm harder to the metal door.
The frame bit back—sparks snapping against my skin, sharp and furious.
The containment field outside still buzzed, still held its shimmer—but I could feel the tension behind it fraying, like thread stretched too thin.
The man on the other side?
His pulse—what was left of it—flared like a dying ember.
Erratic. Unstable. Flickering out.
He tried to help me. He didn't have to.
And now he was going to die for it.
A coil of heat twisted behind my ribs.
The current in my chest churned—no longer a quiet hum, but a screaming core of pressure, rising, cresting, begging to be unleashed.
My fingers twitched. Blue light crackled down my arm in frantic pulses, snaking over bone and skin, collecting at the edges of my hands like impatient lightning.
The electricity wasn't flowing anymore.
It was fighting to get out.
I staggered back from the door, breathing ragged. The darkness wasn't just around me—it was inside me now, wrapped around my heartbeat like a drumbeat of storm.
I didn't know what I was doing.
But I knew what would happen if I did nothing.
The air in the room vibrated—low, high, then low again. My vision blurred. Not from panic. From energy.
My whole body felt like it was sitting in the eye of a hurricane—one made of wires and thunder.
And then I heard it.
A voice, muffled just beyond the door. Low. Cruel.
"Should've stayed retired, old man."
For a second, I swear—it felt like I'd been dropped into a manga arc I half-remembered reading.
The setup. The stakes. The villain was monologuing through the smoke like he rehearsed it.
It was too perfect.
Almost like I'd stumbled into someone else's origin story.
Great.
Please don't tell me I just entered a bargain-bin John Wick setup.
Cold. Smug. That tone you only hear from someone who's done this before.
"Boss said no more warnings. One more backdoor deal, and it's cleanup time."
A pause.
The clerk made a sound—weak. Guttural.
The whine of a gauntlet winding up followed.
"Dumb. Real dumb."
They weren't just here to rob him.
They were here to erase him.
Something inside me snapped.
The pressure turned white-hot.
My fingers glowed—really glowed—like molten steel left in a storm.
My arm pulled back on instinct.
A crackling ribbon of lightning spiraled from my shoulder to my wrist, threading into a concentrated coil of kinetic fury.
I wasn't planning anymore. I wasn't calculating.
This wasn't math.
This was survival.
This was instinct at the speed of thought.
This was the moment everything changed.
If someone had seen me right then, frozen in the darkness, surrounded by static, lightning dancing across my body—
They might've said I looked like I was charging a Kamehameha.
Maybe I was.
But this wasn't a training arc.
This wasn't a warm-up round.
This was the moment the world pushed too hard.
And I pushed back.
I hurled the charge forward with everything I had—
no finesse, no form, just raw, unfiltered force behind a lightning-laced punch.
KRA-KA-THOOM!
The sound wasn't just noise—it was a rupture.
The metal door exploded off its hinges, imploding inward with a burst of force so sharp it split the air.
A thunderclap of white-blue light engulfed the hallway.
Steel twisted and screamed, fragments vaporizing mid-spin as they scattered into the room beyond like meteor shrapnel.
The containment field shorted.
The whole building shuddered like it had just been punched in the gut by a thunder god.
Smoke poured into the hallway, dragging sparks behind it.
The air turned thick with ozone and heat and silence.
No one moved.
Not yet.
But me?
I wasn't hiding anymore.
For a second—just a second—no one moved.
The store held its breath.
The two goons turned toward the blown-out doorway, blinking through smoke and scattered debris. One raised his gauntlet, pulsing unstable blue light from his forearm. The other—tighter, more focused—snapped a glowing pistol up, scanning through the haze like a damn recon drone.
Then—
The smoke lit from within.
Arcs of blue-white electricity flickered like veins through a storm cloud, tracing wild, jagged shapes in the dark.
I stepped out.
My boots crunched glass. Sparks danced across my shoulders. My arms lit up with crawling voltage, fingertips dripping static like they were sweating lightning. I must've looked like a guy mid-breakdown—or mid-detonation.
Didn't matter.
The clerk, collapsed near the back of the store, lifted his head just enough to see me.
His eyes widened.
He saw it too.
I squared up, hands still trembling, chest tight with heat. The crackle of current hummed in my throat when I spoke.
"Two-for-one ass-whooping," I said, "coming right up."
The one with the gauntlet flinched. "Kid's enhanced," he growled to his partner, stepping over the wreckage.
The pistol guy didn't blink. "He wasn't on the list."
"Doesn't matter now," Gauntlet snapped, gauntlet charging with a whine that made the air shimmer. "Witness is a witness."
They split off—smart, wide arc. One took left, weaving through shattered snack shelves. The other moved right, stepping around the endcap of an aisle stacked with what used to be boxed cereal. They were flanking like trained operators, boxing me in with cool, lethal efficiency.
That humming in my chest?
It wasn't fear anymore.
It was power.
The bruiser didn't wait. He charged—boots slamming the tile like war drums. He barreled through a broken snack rack, shoulder-first, and turned it into flying bags of chips and cracked plastic.
I ducked just in time as his gauntlet came down like a sledgehammer.
BOOM.
The counter behind me exploded in a burst of splinters and shattered data screens. A pulse of kinetic force rippled from the impact, slamming into my ribs and launching me like a rag doll. I hit the floor hard, sliding across scuffed tile, sparks sputtering from my skin as instinct flared to cushion the fall.
Pain flared in my side.
No time to feel it.
Pew!
A plasma bolt scorched the air an inch from my head.
It blew a hole in a fridge behind me—melted straight through the door, steam and coolant venting in a loud hiss.
Pistol Guy. Quiet. Precise. Already advancing.
I scrambled behind a knocked-over shelf, my knees crunching shattered display glass. My fingertips were twitching uncontrollably—too much charge, nowhere to send it. My whole body vibrated like a power conduit running too hot.
Overhead lights blinked and fizzed. One shattered outright, raining sparks down. The air reeked of burnt plastic, ozone, and fried metal. Something hissed near the frozen goods section—an energy drink fridge sputtering out its last breath.
I pressed my palm to the metal shelf I was hiding behind.
Let's see if this works.
I focused—dumped current into the shelf like a lightning strike. Electricity jumped through the steel skeleton in a blink.
Just as Gauntlet Guy reached out to steady himself—
CRACK!
The shelf lit up. The discharge blasted into his arm like a thunderbolt. He screamed—a full-body convulsion backlit by blue sparks—and slammed into a row of shelves behind him, collapsing into a rolling storm of powdered donuts and peanut brittle.
"Got one," I muttered.
Too slow.
The other guy was already moving.
I turned—just in time to catch a blast to the upper arm.
Pain flared, white-hot. My jacket burned open, skin blistering. I dropped to the floor, shoulder screaming, just as the next bolt obliterated the register beside me.
Pew! Pew!
Another shot sizzled past as I rolled behind the checkout counter. The plasma fire turned a rack of scratch-off tickets into a flaming waterfall.
I crawled, chest heaving, every breath catching on fire. My palms lit up again—burning little embers of panic and electricity. My boots skidded across scattered gum packs and busted glass.
I ducked behind the fallen freezer—coils exposed, refrigerant venting like smoke from a broken engine.
He was tracking me. Calm. Clean. Professional.
He wasn't missing. He was corralling.
I couldn't keep running.
Not from this guy.
My hands were shaking. My shoulder throbbed with heat and blood. My back slammed against the corner of the freezer. I could hear him moving—slow, methodical steps, no wasted motion.
I needed distance.
Leverage.
Something.
And then—outta nowhere, in my head:
Yusuke Urameshi.
Two fingers up. That cocky little smirk.
Charging up a Spirit Gun.
Firing it point-blank and blasting demons halfway across the screen.
…No way.
But maybe.
I looked down at my hand—still trembling, still crackling with loose electricity. Sparks danced across my fingers, nerves twitching with raw energy I didn't fully understand. My index finger curled. Thumb up.
Just like in the show.
Couldn't help it.
I smiled.
Screw it. Worth a shot.
The store had gone dead quiet—except for the buzzing.
Not from the lights. Not from the shattered electronics or the dying fridges.
From me.
Electricity rippled under my skin, coiling in my hands like something alive. The air felt thick—chewable. A pressure built inside my chest, steady now. Focused.
I crouched behind the collapsed endcap, breath even, vision half-lidded.
And I felt him.
Not saw. Felt. The ripple of his capacitor every time he shifted. The current drag when his gloves flexed. The slow charge building in that pistol of his—one more bolt, locked and ready.
Left aisle. Second shelf from the end. Ten paces. Aiming low.
My hand lifted. Two fingers forward, thumb cocked back.
A low hum built at the center of my palm—rising, winding tighter, tighter, tighter.
This time, I wasn't going to let it explode.
I was going to fire it.
Then I heard him—calm, detached, voice echoing through the haze:
"You know what your problem is, kid?"
Boots crunched closer.
"You showed up. Wrong place, wrong time. That's all it ever takes."
He was talking for himself more than me.
"Doesn't matter if you're good or bad. Strong or weak. One moment... that's all it takes to end you."
He raised his pistol.
You just had the bad luck to be standing here."
The flicker of his muzzle glinted through the smoke.
I exhaled.
My thumb clicked into place.
"Yeah?" I said, voice low. "Then call this karma."
CRACK-THOOM!
The lightning bolt exploded from my fingertips, shrieking through the air like reality itself was tearing.
A flash of white-blue carved through the aisle—so fast, so violent, it left burn marks in the smoke.
It hit him dead center.
BOOM.
His body snapped back like a broken wire. Electricity tore through his gear, lit up every inch of circuitry, overloaded every capacitor in one breathless second. The pistol vaporized in his grip. Armor fried. Sparks poured off him in a screaming storm.
Then he hit the lockdown curtain.
CLANG.
The sound shook the store. Left a dent the size of a man.
He crumpled at the base, twitching once. Then nothing.
Smoke rose from his chest in lazy spirals. The shelves around him half-melted. Plastic burned. My fingertips glowed faint red—filaments cooling.
The hum faded.
Silence returned.
I let my arm drop. Chest heaving. Electricity still whispering under my skin.
"Yeah," I muttered. "That felt good."
Smoke still curled in the air like ghosts too tired to leave. Somewhere beneath the counter, the store clerk groaned—a rough, rattling sound, like a man dragging himself back from the edge.
I stepped over broken glass and scorched tile, every movement slower now, the comedown from the power rush hitting my limbs like sandbags.
The clerk was half-sitting, propped against the ruined counter, face pale, eyes wide.
He stared at me like I was made of lightning.
His shirt was torn, singed around the edges. There was blood crusted along his temple, but he was alive—barely.
I crouched in front of him.
"You good?" I asked, voice low.
He blinked, coughed once, then nodded stiffly.
I glanced around. Half the store looked like it had been hit by a miniature warhead. Freezers sparking. Ceiling tiles dangling. A bottle of neon-pink soda dripped slowly from a busted shelf.
"...Cool," I muttered, looking back to him. "So, uh... you still open?"
His brow twitched like it wanted to form a frown but wasn't sure it had the strength.
"You just… blew my damn door off," he rasped. "Fried my lights. Melted my snack aisle."
I shrugged. "And saved your life."
He opened his mouth—closed it again. Fair point.
"I'm just sayin'..." I rasped, nodding toward the flickering fridge behind him, "if you've got anything left that isn't charred, expired, or leaking radiation—I could really use a sandwich."
He blinked at me like I'd just offered to sell him a spaceship.
A beat passed.
Then, in a hoarse, bone-dry voice:
"You're insane."
I winced, slumping against the nearest upright shelf.
"Maybe. But in my defense," I panted, trying to breathe through the ache in my ribs, "you kinda brought that on yourself. You run a bodega with lockdown shutters and a panic room. This is, like... 20% your fault."
He gave me a look—equal parts confusion and disbelief, blood still trickling down his temple.
I pointed at him with the last bit of dramatic flair I had left.
"By the way… any chance your name happens to be John Wick?"
He blinked. "What?"
"I mean, you don't fight like a guy who sells scratch-offs for a living," I said, sagging to one knee with a grimace. "You got mystery vet energy. Like, ex-something. S.H.I.E.L.D.? CIA? KGB? Maybe one of those off-the-books ops teams that don't technically exist. You've got too much calm for a guy running a corner store."
He coughed—might've been a laugh, or just a broken rib complaining—and muttered, "My middle name is John... but why the hell would my last name be Wick?"
I shrugged, settling against a crate of half-melted sports drinks. "Just curious. You've got the vibe. Hidden arsenal. Silent grit. Protective streak. Honestly, you're a dog away from the full reboot."
He stared at me, lips twitching like he didn't know whether to be amused or just pass out.
"You're cracked," he said at last.
"Yeah," I exhaled. "But I'm the cracked guy who just saved your life."
There was a pause. Then, with a groan, he started to reach behind the counter.
"I think there's an emergency stash of peanut butter sandwiches in the safe," he mumbled.
My head tilted. "Wait—your panic room comes with snacks?"
"Obviously. What kind of lunatic builds a bunker without food?"
I couldn't help it—I grinned through the pain.
"Now that's the most New York thing I've heard all day.
I stood up, the hum finally dimming under my skin, the rush bleeding off into something quieter, like static on a dead channel.
The store was wrecked. The lights were fried. The air stank of ozone and burned plastic. And me?
I was still standing.
Alone in a half-destroyed corner store in the middle of 2043 Bronx, heart still pounding, fingertips still warm from the charge.
That was the first time I used it.
Not by accident. Not out of panic.
I made a choice.
That was the night I stopped surviving… and started fighting.
The night I stopped being a question mark in someone else's universe, and started becoming something new.
Something dangerous.
Something real.
And from that moment on?
I knew—I was never going to be normal again.