The rooftop overlooked Hell's Kitchen like a watchtower surveying a battlefield. From their vantage point several blocks away, the notorious neighborhood sprawled below them like a black stain against the city's constellation of lights. Where most of Manhattan blazed with neon and streetlights, Hell's Kitchen seemed to absorb illumination, creating pockets of shadow that moved and shifted like living things.
Ben crouched beside Peter, who was carefully positioning Matt Murdock's unconscious form against a ventilation unit. The Daredevil's breathing was steady and strong—the healing serum had done its work perfectly—but Ben wanted to keep him sedated until they understood exactly what they were dealing with.
"How are we going to find this Mummy now?" Peter asked, peering into the darkness below. "Hell's Kitchen is huge, and if he can really hide from enhanced senses..."
"I have a solution," Ben said, raising his wrist to study the Omnitrix's interface. "Sometimes the best way to track a predator is to become a better predator."
The alien silhouette scrolled across the device's display until Ben found what he was looking for. The silhouette that appeared looked distinctly canine, though the proportions suggested something far larger and more formidable than any earthly dog.
Ben slammed his palm down on the watch face, and emerald light erupted around him.
When the transformation completed, Peter found himself staring at a creature that defied easy categorization. Ben had transformed into something that resembled a massive, wolf-like beast—though clearly not of Earthly origin. His body was covered in thick, orange fur, coarse and dense like armor. Powerful limbs ended in clawed digits built for both speed and aggression. Where eyes should have been, there were only smooth patches of skin—blank, unseeing. Instead, a set of gill-like slits lined the sides of his head, twitching and flaring as they picked up sound, heat, and scent with stunning precision. These alien sensory organs moved like living radar, giving Ben an eerie, primal awareness of everything around him.
"Wow, you've turned into a giant dog!" Peter exclaimed, unable to contain his amazement.
The response was immediately unmistakably animal. Ben's massive paw swatted Peter with just enough force to send him sprawling onto his back. A deep, guttural growl rumbled from Wildmutt's throat, radiating a level of irritation that transcended language.
He asked for my help, Ben thought, even as his alien vocal cords could only produce feral snarls and grunts. And he still treats me like a pet. I'm Wildmutt—a Vulpimancer, not some oversized mutt from a backyard kennel.
After making his point about proper respect, Ben immediately began his investigation. The transformation into Wildmutt had heightened his physical senses to alien extremes—and unexpectedly created a strange harmony with his spider-sense. Together, they allowed him to perceive Hell's Kitchen in a way no human—or most aliens—could even begin to understand.
The specialized sensory slits along his head flared open, releasing low-frequency pulses that bounced off surrounding surfaces, constructing a detailed three-dimensional map in his mind. Every rooftop, every shadowed alley, every concealed ledge within six blocks emerged in sharp relief. But more than that, his powerful sense of smell caught faint traces of gunpowder, blood, sweat, and fear—each scent painting a picture of the violence that had unfolded during the night.
The scent signatures told a story of organized chaos. Multiple blood types, the acrid bite of cordite from discharged firearms, and the sharp metallic tang of bladed weapons all hung in the air. But beneath it all was something else—something wrong. A scent that didn't belong. It didn't emit a new odor so much as erase others, creating dead zones in his olfactory map.
That's not natural, Ben realized. Something's actively masking its presence.
Peter watched in fascination as Ben's massive, quadrupedal form tensed, then launched into motion with fluid, animalistic grace. Wildmutt's powerful limbs and dense musculature hurled him across the rooftop in a single bound. His claws—razor-sharp and instinctively controlled—dug into the brick wall of the adjacent building, letting him scale the vertical surface with ease, as naturally as running across level ground.
"Wait up!" Peter called, preparing to follow with his web-shooters. But then he glanced back at Matt's unconscious form and hesitated. Leaving Daredevil alone and vulnerable went against every heroic instinct he possessed.
Ben was already three blocks away, his enhanced senses painting a vivid, multilayered map of Hell's Kitchen's hidden underbelly. Wildmutt's natural predatory instincts, fused with Ben's human awareness, gave him a tracking ability that bordered on the supernatural. Every scent carried history, every footfall whispered intent, and even the faintest tremors through concrete and steel added nuance to the picture forming in his mind.
But as he closed in on the source of the anomalous scent, something began to shift in his perception.
The building ahead was a crumbling tenement long abandoned, its shattered windows and graffiti-covered walls marking it as just another relic of urban decay. But Wildmutt's senses told a different story—one far more disturbing. The metallic stench of blood here was so thick, so saturated, it seemed to warp the air itself. It created a bubble of dread, a microclimate of horror, where every breath felt like an intrusion into something profoundly wrong.
He shattered the front door with a single swipe of his claws and bounded inside.
The assault on his senses was immediate—and brutal. Blood. Gallons of it. It coated the walls in intricate, deliberate patterns, more like a gallery exhibit than a crime scene. The scent was so thick, so saturated with iron and decay, that it bypassed instinct and triggered something deeper—something visceral. Pain receptors flared in Ben's alien nervous system, ones he hadn't even realized existed in this form.
But worse than the overwhelming stench was what happened next.
His subsonic mapping—normally a flawless sense that filled in the world with clarity—suddenly collapsed. The pulses he emitted were swallowed by the space around him, vanishing without echo. It was as if the building had become a void, a sensory dead zone. His orientation faltered. For the first time since taking on Wildmutt's form, he felt ungrounded, disoriented. The floor beneath him felt wrong—too soft, too unstable—like it wasn't entirely real.
Something in this place was devouring perception.
It's like being inside a sensory black hole, Ben thought, fighting against rising panic. Something here is actively negating enhanced perception.
Wildmutt's predatory instincts screamed silent warnings as he forced himself to examine the room more carefully. The blood on the walls hadn't been spilled in chaos—it had been applied with chilling precision, forming patterns and images that disturbed him on an instinctive level, even without the benefit of sight. Something in the flow, the structure, the intent behind the strokes—it hurt to comprehend, like art made to be felt by something inhuman. In one corner, a fresh corpse—still warm—offered undeniable proof of the artist's most recent creation.
What Ben couldn't see was the figure standing less than ten feet away from him.
Muse observed the alien creature with professional interest, noting how it moved with the confidence of a natural predator despite its obvious sensory difficulties. The artist in him appreciated the creature's aesthetic qualities—the flowing musculature, the predatory grace, the way starlight caught the edges of its alien features.
But this was not the audience he had been preparing for.
Muse's physiology—or whatever passed for it—created what could only be described as a perception void. Light bent subtly around him, as if reluctant to reflect off his form. Sounds became muffled or warped in his presence, and scent particles didn't cling to him—they disappeared, absorbed into some impossible dead zone. Whether his abilities came from a rare neurological anomaly, experimental tampering, or something far darker, no one could say for certain. But the effect was clear: to those with enhanced senses, Muse didn't hide—he simply failed to exist.
Worse still, his influence extended beyond his own body. It was as if he carried a bubble of sensory distortion with him, large enough to cloak entire rooms. His hideout wasn't invisible in the traditional sense—it was simply overlooked, like a place that didn't matter. No lingering smell of blood, no vibration of movement, no ambient noise for even the sharpest radar sense to detect. It wasn't just a trick of stealth—it was a disruption of awareness itself.
A beast has no appreciation for true art, Muse thought, studying the creature that continued to search for threats it could never detect. This masterpiece requires a more... sophisticated observer.
The bandaged figure moved with the grace of a seasoned predator, slipping through the darkness with the intent to vanish—just as he had done countless times before. But in that moment, even the subtlest shift in posture disrupted the delicate equilibrium of the room's sensory void.
Ben felt it instantly.
It was like a network signal returning after prolonged interference—a sudden reactivation of instincts that had been muted moments before. The floodgates opened. Sound, scent, subtle vibrations—everything surged back at once. His subsonic mapping lit up the room in a cascade of mental impressions. The air no longer felt dead. The blank space was filled.
Invisible enemy, Ben realized. Not truly invisible—just undetectable to enhanced senses. But when it moves...
The realization gave him hope. Vulpimancers were natural hunters—solitary by necessity, but equipped with finely tuned instincts for tracking, stalking, and adapting to prey far more dangerous than themselves. Their alien biology compensated for blindness with hyper-evolved senses and a predator's cunning. This enemy's abilities were formidable, but they weren't insurmountable.
Ben was still formulating his strategy when two figures crashed through the skylight above.
Peter had convinced Matt to accompany him despite the vigilante's obvious reluctance to work with unknown allies. Daredevil's enhanced senses had been compromised earlier, but his tactical experience and fighting skills remained intact. Together, they rappelled down guide lines—Peter using his web-shooters, Matt employing the grappling features of his billy clubs.
Matt landed in a perfect combat stance, immediately assessing the room for threats. The massive alien creature registered as the most obvious danger, and his tactical training kicked in automatically. Without pausing to identify the beast's intentions, he launched a preemptive strike with his billy clubs.
"Wait!" Peter shouted, recognizing the impending disaster.
"Don't worry about it," Matt called back, his voice carrying absolute confidence. "I'll keep it alive for questioning!"
The next moment, a paw the size of a dinner plate swatted Matt with casual force, sending him sprawling across the blood-stained floor. The blow was precisely calibrated—enough to demonstrate overwhelming superiority without causing serious injury.
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