The tip came through Reyes this time—a sign of actual progress. Less "vigilante stumbles into a crisis," more of a real intelligence partnership.
"DODC's been tracking salvage inventory discrepancies for weeks," Reyes said, laying surveillance photos across the diner booth table. "Small amounts, easy to write off as processing errors—except the pattern's too consistent. Someone inside the official salvage operation is skimming Chitauri tech before it ever reaches federal cataloguing. Energy cells, small arms components, the occasional intact weapon."
Adrian's stomach tightened. An uncomfortable memory surfaced—a rooftop garden overlooking a salvage crane weeks ago, a crew of unremarkable men he'd scanned with morbid curiosity, wondering if one of them was someone he remembered from a former life.
Please don't be him. Please let this be someone else's mess.
"Any names?" Adrian asked, keeping his voice neutral.
"Nothing confirmed yet. The skimming happens at the collection point before individual crews get logged," Reyes tapped a photograph—a nondescript panel van parked near a shuttered warehouse district. "But we've traced the buyer's side. Whoever's fencing this stuff has a shipment moving tonight. Bigger than the usual trickle. Someone's cashing out."
"How bad is 'bigger than usual'?"
Reyes's expression answered for him. "Bad enough that if this shipment reaches the buyer, organized crime elements in city limits will be armed with functional alien weaponry. That's a threat level DODC isn't built for yet, and regular police can't handle it without heavy casualties."
They moved that night. Reyes coordinated a loose, unofficial perimeter around the warehouse district while Adrian approached from the rooftops.
His Six Eyes swept the target building, searching for the distinct energy signature of Chitauri tech—a cold, mechanical resonance his enhanced perception had learned to identify weeks ago.
He spotted it in a loading bay at the rear. A panel van was backed up to open doors as four men loaded crates from a hidden floor compartment into the cargo hold. Even from the roof, his Six Eyes caught the faint, luminescent hum of active energy cells inside two of the crates.
Functional, weaponized alien tech.
Adrian dropped directly into the loading bay. The four men scattered into defensive positions instantly—no amateur opportunists here. They were disciplined, armed, and—as the sudden, high-pitched whine of charging energy weapons echoed through the bay—ready to use lethal alien firepower.
The first shot fired fast. A bolt of searing blue-white plasma tore past Adrian, the heat scorching his shoulder as he rolled clear. The blast struck a stack of empty crates behind him, vaporizing wood and metal in an explosive burst.
He closed the distance on the nearest shooter before the man could fire again. A reinforced strike disarmed him, followed by a swift blow to the shoulder that dropped him to the concrete.
The remaining three scattered. One sprinted for the van's cab while the other two provided covering fire, forcing Adrian into a weaving sprint across the floor. He gathered cursed energy densely into his palms.
[CURSED ENERGY DEFLECTION (BASIC) ACTIVATED.]
Adrian caught the next plasma bolt on a reinforced palm, redirecting its trajectory into a steel support beam with a shower of superheated sparks. The impact strained his technique far more than the physical strikes he usually faced.
I need to close the gap before they land a direct hit.
Diving forward through the spray of fire, a glancing blast scorched his ribs, flaring pain through muscle still tender from the Crowd fight. He closed on the two shooters before they could adjust. A reinforced strike shattered the first weapon's casing, rendering it useless. Seeing his partner collapse, the second shooter dropped his weapon and fled into the dark.
The van's engine roared to life. The fourth man threw the vehicle into reverse in a panicked attempt to escape.
Not with two crates of live ordnance inside.
Adrian grabbed the van's rear bumper, planting his feet and pulling back with full, Todo-enhanced strength.
The tires screamed against the concrete. The engine whined in protest, unable to overcome a force no human should possess. Realizing the vehicle wasn't moving, the driver bailed out the side door, sprinting into the shadows.
[ +38 EXP ]
Three down, one escaped. But the shipment is secure.
Reyes arrived twelve minutes later with his vetted agents, securing the scene and the subdued smugglers off the record. He crouched beside the open crates, inspecting the humming weapons with a grim expression.
"These are modified," Reyes said quietly. "Someone's actively weaponizing alien tech beyond its original design."
"Any leads on who's behind it?" Adrian asked.
"The driver who ran met a second vehicle three blocks out. My agents got a partial plate," Reyes said, his voice hard. "Whoever's supplying this has deep resources and buyers lined up. They won't stop just because we intercepted one shipment."
Adrian thought back to the salvage crane, the crew, and a name from a life he barely remembered. Toomes. If he's out there, cutting corners because the system screwed him—is this him? Or just another criminal enterprise?
He kept the thought to himself. Acting on half-remembered plot points without proof was a risk he couldn't take yet.
He returned home past midnight. Sophia was waiting with the first aid kit, her expression a mix of exhaustion and familiarity.
"Alien guns this time," she noted, cleaning the scorch mark on his shoulder. "We've officially moved up from extortionists to sci-fi weaponry."
"Smugglers caught, weapons secured," Adrian said, wincing at the alcohol wipe. "One got away, but Reyes is tracing him."
"And the person running the operation?"
"Still in the shadows." Adrian rested his head back against the couch. "They're careful. This isn't over."
Sophia finished applying the bandage and sat back. "Does it ever actually end?"
"No," Adrian said, offering a tired smile. "But we handle what shows up anyway. One shipment at a time."
Outside, the city continued its quiet, uneven recovery, unaware of the dangerous ordnance now locked in a federal vault—or the unseen supplier still moving through the dark, waiting for the next opportunity.