A month later — N-Tek's secret base.
"He's waking up. Get his mother before he panics."
That was the first voice I heard after the blackout. My eyes cracked open to a room of chrome walls, humming consoles, and machines quietly beeping. Cold. Sterile. Familiar, but wrong.
Last thing I remembered? My room. Static in my hands, silver light in my veins, then nothing.
Now this.
I sat up fast, yanking cables off my chest. "What the hell…"
The door hissed open.
"Jake."
Mom.
Relief hit, but she didn't look like the mom who packed me lunches and kissed my forehead before work. This version stood straighter, sharper. Platinum at the roots of her hair. Jade-green eyes streaked with silver. Military in the way she carried herself.
"How do you feel?" she asked, worry laced under clipped words.
"Irritated. Confused. Kinda freaked out," I admitted.
She sighed and hugged me anyway. For a moment, it almost worked. Then the door opened again.
The guy who stepped in looked like he'd walked out of a comic panel—seven feet tall, barrel chest, armoured in green and white with a bold N stamped on his chest. His cybernetic arm gleamed under the fluorescent lights. White hair. Strong jaw. Familiar eyes I didn't want to recognize.
"Hello, Jake Mc'Grath," he said evenly.
"Mc'… Grath?" My heart stuttered.
"I'm Forge Ferrous-Barnes. Your head of security. And your uncle."
My brain stalled. Barnes. As in Bucky Barnes.
Forge smirked. "You look just like your father."
An Hour Later
Forge hadn't left me alone. He and Mom traded clipped words about "stabilization protocols" and "energy leakage." I caught maybe half of it, but one phrase stuck in my head.
"He's been leaking Turbo energy since puberty," Forge said. "Symptoms match an uncontrolled X-gene hybrid. If we don't link him soon, his body won't hold."
Great. Just what every eighteen-year-old wants to hear.
The tension in my chest kept building, sharper every minute. My reflection flickered silver-blue under my skin, veins glowing faintly like circuitry. My breaths came fast and shallow.
Then it hit.
BOOM.
A pulse of raw power tore through me. I staggered back, clutching my head as my vision exploded into white sparks. My skin lit up like I was burning alive from the inside.
"This is it," I thought. I'm gonna rip apart.
And then something slammed into my chest.
A silvery blur wrapped around me, liquid metal solidifying into sleek armor. The pain vanished, replaced by a steady hum like two engines syncing.
I looked down at myself—plated silver-blue armor, glowing lines racing across it, every movement smooth like it wasn't just on me. It was part of me.
A voice filled my head. Calm. Confident. A little smug.
"Yo. Name's Alloy. I'm your Ultralink. Steel's my dad. And this—" the armor flexed, glowing brighter—"is us."
I staggered, staring at my reflection in a polished console.
"What the actual hell."
Alloy chuckled. "Relax, partner. Think of me as your co-pilot. You've been burning out solo. I'm here to balance you. Together? You're Turbo."
I hesitated. Then smirked. "Fine. Turbo it is."
"Way better branding than what our parents ran with," Alloy said.
And for the first time in weeks, I didn't feel like I was falling apart. I felt whole.
Deadpool bursts back on screen, still tangled in a Meta Police net, muffled but yelling through it:
"SEE?! I TOLD YOU IT WAS SPI—"
ZAP. Shock baton. He convulses, smoke curling off him.
"…Okay, fine," he wheezes. "Maybe it wasn't Spider puberty. Maybe it was alien mutant X-gene turbo puberty placebo nonsense. Whatever."
Dragged off again.
For now.