Brooklyn, 2012
Sahil Hamato was nine years old.
On the surface, Sahil still lived the life of a precocious but quiet kid in Brooklyn. But underneath that civilian mask, he was something far more dangerous.
At 40% assimilation, his Snake Eyes template was beginning to assert itself in every fiber of his body. Sahil now trained with live blades, throwing knives, and semi-automatic pistols — mastering both cold weapons and firearms. He had received precision training from elite marksmen stationed at the Hamato clan's hidden Brooklyn base, an underground stronghold Ryota had personally commissioned to support Sahil's growth. It was disguised as a condemned subway line — but beneath the graffiti and rusted grates lay reinforced training halls, weapon lockers, and a secure lab outfitted with custom equipment.
Karai — his senior by ten years — had been his primary combat partner since he was seven. At first, she toyed with him. Then she tested him. And now, she respected him. She had stopped going easy after he began disarming her during sparring. His strikes were efficient. Fluid. Lethal. And controlled.
Daichi — now fifteen — hated that. He watched silently from the side of the dojo mats, jaw clenched, fists tighter each time Sahil landed a clean throw or outdrew a senior marksman. Daichi's pride had once been built on being the prodigy. Now, he was just another cousin outclassed by a boy five years younger.
Yoshi Hamato, Sahil's grandfather, had seen the change. During one family meeting, he muttered to Ryota:
"The boy's blade is already sharp. It'll cut whoever tries to sheath it."
Ryota, ever the tactician, just nodded. He had long since stopped trying to justify his investment in Sahil. The boy had become the clan's most promising operative — even if Kenji, Sahil's father, remained entirely in the dark. Ryota had honored Sahil's request and kept all clan matters hidden from Kenji, who still believed his son's sleepovers and parkour training were harmless hobbies.
They weren't.
Sahil had also crossed a threshold in the lab. With access to advanced equipment and unrestricted funding from Ryota, his Baxter Stockman template had reached 40% assimilation. His cognitive processing speed had doubled, memory retention sharpened to photographic precision, and his technical prowess now bordered on the genius level. He was no longer just building gadgets — he was refining scalable surveillance systems and anti-interference protocols. Tiny drones disguised as paper scraps. Signal scramblers hidden in wristbands. Beetle-shaped listening devices that transmitted over encrypted microbursts.
Then the sky opened.
May 2012. The Chitauri invasion.
It started with explosions in Midtown. A swirling breach above Stark Tower birthed an alien army — flying beasts of steel, swarms of reptilian soldiers descending like locusts. The city erupted in fire.
Sahil was nowhere near the initial strike zone, but he wasn't idle. Within twenty minutes, he had launched three surveillance drones from his apartment rooftop, each equipped with encrypted cameras and adaptive AI routines. He watched through its camera feed as blue beams split the skyline, and alien Leviathans roared through Manhattan.
The Battle of New York had begun.
The Avengers—Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk, Hawkeye, and Black Widow—were front and center, clashing with the invading Chitauri. But they weren't alone. For the first time since their low-profile return from the Negative Zone, the Fantastic Four had joined the fight. The Human Torch streaked through the sky like a comet, clashing midair with Chitauri gliders. The Thing held the line alongside Hulk, smashing through waves of foot soldiers. Mr. Fantastic stretched across ruined intersections to rescue civilians while the Invisible Woman shielded an evacuation convoy.
Sahil's gaze didn't blink once.
From the rooftops, he watched, recorded, analyzed.
footage streamed to Karai and Ryota in real-time.
After the invasion ended, Damage Control swept in like locusts of a different kind — cordoning off alien wreckage, retrieving technology, and locking down neighborhoods. But something else followed: leaks.
Gangs in the Bronx, Hell's Kitchen, and Queens began showing up with weapons that crackled with Chitauri energy. Plasma rifles. Energy grenades. Power sources no Earth manufacturer could replicate.
Sahil picked up encrypted radio chatter, cross-referenced black-market deals, and built a profile.
The Chitauri had fallen. Their bodies and tech littered the streets for days before being swept up by a government-mandated clean-up organization: Damage Control. What they didn't account for was the vultures—both literal and metaphorical.
Adrian Toomes, had intercepted multiple Damage Control shipments. He was taking alien tech, reverse-engineering it, and selling it to street gangs.
"We need to adjust our operations," the clan leader said grimly. "The streets are evolving."
Sahil nodded. "Then I'll evolve faster."
He wasn't being cocky. He had data, training, and tools — and a clarity of purpose the others lacked.
Back in his lab, he began building detectors that scanned for alien energy residues, portable tech designed to seek out Vulture's black-market clients. He had no plans to confront Toomes — not yet. But he would watch. Record. Analyze. And eventually? Leverage.
Because that was how a force operated.
And Sahil Hamato was a developing anomaly. One raised in shadows, tempered by data and steel, and prepared to challenge a world on the brink of its own evolution.
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