January 10th, 2014
For a crazy moment, I felt under-dressed in my blue shirt. I stared at my computer screen, trying to understand what was going. The message was from SHIELD, being sent to all agents through priority channels. Every agent on the planet was getting this. And it was insane.
STEVEN ROGERS IS NOW A WANTED FUGITIVE OF SHIELD. ALL SHIELD AGENTS ARE TO REPORT ANY INFORMATION ABOUT HIS WHEREABOUTS AND BRING HIM IN FOR QUESTIONING.
I ran through every bit of comic book knowledge I had, some of it mere scraps I'd overheard. What was going on? Why was SHIELD hunting Captain America?
Captain America going rogue was actually pretty common when I thought about it. It was true for all superheroes, a moment when the people who were supposed to support them started to think of them as criminals. But in this case, what was happening? Was he being mind controlled? Framed? Did someone trick SHIELD somehow?
Hail Hydra. Said a soft voice in my mind. An image that had actually in the news for a while in my world. Captain America, suddenly saying those two disgusting words. Was it something like that? Some weird pseudo body switch thing?
I needed answers. I needed to find out who were the bad guys.
My feet didn't move. I licked my lips. For all my power, I'd spent months fighting thugs, gangsters, and rapists, all for the sake of practice. To git gud with my powers, to establish a rhythm, to know when my watch would turn off and reset (Though that was still up in the air). All for the day I'd actually fight as an Avenger, to save people from monsters, to do the work I did on patrol of Manhattan on a larger scale. With the Omnitrix, I could save a lot of people.
I'd thought about going home a couple of times. Of making a device to make a portal back somehow. But nothing I tried let me do it. For some reason, I was locked in this universe, or at least, my tech couldn't make the calculations to find my home universe so I could actually make a device that would get me there. So while I was here, I wanted to do some good. To use this gift that was forced/given to me to be a good guy.
At that moment, I thought of Ben. I thought of how much he'd gone through. I thought of Marvel's famous characters. Of what made those heroes. And it was funny. But I found my inspiration from a boy who, in this universe, was only twelve years old.
With Great Power, comes Great Responsibility.
That thought made me step forward. I turned off the blinking message and switched over to my SHIELD link. I didn't hesitate anymore. I needed information. And only one man would tell me the truth, or at least his version of it.
There was a button on my computer, dedicated to one purpose. It was made from the head of a Hulk doll, something of a joke. Some of my forms had their own sense of humor. I wasn't laughing.
I pushed down on the Hulk's head slightlly, but not enough to actually activate it.. Then I stopped to think before pulling my hand away. Not the time to be impulsive. I walked over to another corner of my home and grabbed the pack I had set aside. It was made from tough leather, filled with clothes, some granola bars, a tough canteen of water, a first aid kit, and knives. With a final thought, I threw off my blue shirt and grabbed one I'd saved. A white one, with a black stripe straight through the center. It felt appropriate. Made for anything, up to getting teleported into outer speed. A bug-out bag. I checked the Omnitrix, flipped through my aliens for a moment. Not to transform, just to make sure of what was happening.
The plan had always been this, on some level. I was always waiting for a call to action. I'd spent weeks preparing for the day I would need to step into battle, to join the Avengers or help one of the street level superheroes like me.
I looked around my small home, shrugging my backpack slightly. "I guess... I guess this is goodbye." I'd been planning to leave in a hurry at any time. That's why there were no posters, no movies or video games in my house. But still... Leaving was gonna suck.
Then I sat down at my computer and pressed down on the Hulk's head. It wiggled slightly, his angry snarl bouncing around.
“HULK SMASH!” My computer speakers cried out.
My screen flickered. That was it. Sadly, computer's aren't exactly dramatic when it came to this sort of thing. But in my homemade supercomputer, a program ripped through every firewall in SHIELD. My passive intrusion became an invasion as I pulled every secret they had into my PC. On any other day, this would have been an insane move. No one human can look into the thousands of files belonging to SHIELD without hundreds of hours of time to read through the sort of dark crap no one should read.
I ignored all of it, switching over to the most relevant file. All the work being done in finding one Steven Rogers.
Satellite surveillance, security camera, social network tracking, word of mouth. Everything on the East Coast was trying to find him.
Which meant I was too.
You know the great thing about technology? With a good enough interface, you don't need to be smart. You just let the tech do the job for you. Not many can build smartphones. Almost anyone can use them. And my supercomputer could do the work of teams of hackers and technicians by itself. It separated out data and started using SHIELD's resources for me. I needed to find Captain America, and my computer started tracking him. Simple as a couple of button presses. I called the program 'CapWatch' and left it running. I pulled out my smartphone and connected it to my computer with a cable. I connected the program to my cell phone. With it on, I could keep a watch on Captain Rogers while on the move. The program would work within SHIELD, hidden by alien programming and keeping me informed.
And then my computer beeped. The cameras had found him, at a mall in D.C. I made sure my phone was connected to the CapWatch program, then turned back to the moniter.
“Huh,” I leaned towards the screen, squinting. “He really does look like Chris Evans. But giant.”
It was something I'd always known from the footage, but now it was obvious. When he stood next to Thor and the Hulk, he wasn't that big. On his own? Dude had to be over six feet. He was trying to be low-key, but it's hard for a truck made of super-soldier enhanced and sculpted muscle to hid with a hat and a pair of glasses. He was standing with a woman, in the middle of an Apple computer store. They were tapping away at something. Well, the woman in the hoodie was at least. She was shorter than he was and hiding better. I'd barely half-noticed her. Something about how she was standing just... made her hard to notice. As though she was hiding even as she stood there. It took me a bit to recognize Natasha Romanov. So Captain America was innocent? Or, wait, was Black Widow evil in this universe, just like in the Ultimates? Damnit all, more questions.
As she typed, another alert came through. I checked it.
“Ah... shit.”
The alert was actually two. First, whatever Black Widow had done, it put a level six homing program onto them, which meant SHIELD now knew where they were.
Second, someone had triggered one of the motion sensors around my home.
I ran to the computer and triggered the outer cameras, made from printer and smartphone parts. Eight screens showing everything around the building showed me what was happening.
Men were pouring from black SUV's, guns out. They wore all black uniforms, with bulletproof armor, helmets, and combat boots. They were going down the alley near my home. All with assault rifles out.
“How the hell did they get here so fast?” I grumbled. I knew they would track me once I slammed through their firewalls with the rudeness of a knife to the testes. But I hadn't expected them to be so quick. Or to come with an army. SHIELD may have been under high alert, but I didn't think they would send assault rifles against a hacker.
I made sure my bag was slightly loose on my back. Then I pressed a self-destruct on my computer. It linked with my fridge, stove, and security system. In three minutes, it would explode everything, leaving no trace of who'd lived there.
It sucked ass. I'd made a home in Manhattan. My crappy rundown home, with tech that barely worked, a fridge that burned food, and a supercomputer that played Japanese TV on Wednesday no matter what I did. I pushed the thought away.
I needed to get to Captain America and Black Widow. I was going to help, and I couldn't let SHIELD stop me. Whatever was happening, he was the key.
Then I looked at the computer. The camera outside my door showed the SHIELD agents throwing something. At first, I thought it was a smoke grenade, but why throw that at a closed door. The computer helpfully identified it for me with the use of StarkTech accelerated reality, zooming in and naming the object. I didn't read the whole description. Two words were enough.
Fragmentation Grenade.
My right arm lifted. I twisted the face of the Omnitrix. I didn't look at the watch. No time to choose, any alien was more durable than I was. I just slammed my hand onto the watch, roaring as my palm hit my wrist.
“IT'S HERO TIME!”
BOOM!
------
When the grenade blew up, it destroyed my metal door. Shrapnel flew into the air, some of it as long as knives. Enough to impale me, to even kill me.
But the change had already come. I grew up to nine feet in height. Blue-green crystals grew across my skin, sliding out of my pores, surrounding my fingers, my face. I grew massive spikes on my shoulders. My body was made of crystal.
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“Diamondhead!”
I stood there proudly, ignoring the shrapnel bouncing off the crystal.
“Huh,” my voice was odd in this form, resonating. “I would have preferred to run... but maybe I should throw a punch or two.”
Not really my plan to turn into Diamondhead. I needed to leave, and this form wasn't made for that.
Then again... they'd thrown a grenade at me.
“All right,” I snapped my hands to the side, thinking of Thor for some reason. My crystalline hands shapeshifted, becoming massive blades worthy of any anime. “I said hero time. I'll make good on that.”
I leaped out of my home, my backpack now tight, and roared.
There were twelve men in the little courtyard outside my home. I'm not sure what they expected, but it wasn't a Petrosapien leaping into the air out of the smoke, glowing blue-green in the sunlight and wearing a black and green outfit. Behind me, my home for over three months blew up. I roared, blade arms out, and slammed into the ground.
The men around me started to shoot. Bullets slammed into my form, only to fall to the ground in useless chunks. Diamondhead could survive reentry on his own. Bullets would do nothing. I ignored it and ran towards one of the soldiers. My left sword arm shifted, turning into a fist. Simple. But when your hands are as big and heavy as Diamondhead's, they hit with a hell of a lot of force. I punched his chest, sending him flying. My right arm became a shield. I waded in, pumping my left fist in my best boxing stance and hitting another guy in the leg. I tried to be gentle. These were just soldiers after all.
I blocked another hail of bullets from one man using my right arm shield, hearing loud noises like metal hammers on stone as bullets hit crystal to no avail. I walked towards him swiftly, reaching a hand out and grabbing his gun away from him. He staggered back. I punched him in the rips, tossing him aside. Another SHIELD soldier stepped forward to swing his fist at me, and I let him. His fist broke on my chin. He screamed as he fell to his knees, and I kicked him back. “Sorry, buddy.”
“Take him down!”
That was the only response I got. More assault rifle fire was shot at me, and I growled in annoyance. While I couldn't be hurt by the bullets, the noise of them hitting me in the head and chest was annoying.
I slammed my fist into the floor. Crystal shot into the earth, then exploded outwards around me in a shining imitation of an explosion. I tried to keep the shards dull, but when crystals the size of diamonds erupt upwards at high speed, they hit hard.
The soldiers around me screamed as the crystals slammed into them, sending them flying. I heard more men coming towards us, and I knew I had to go. I couldn't exactly kill the good guys, even if they had thrown a grenade at me.
I turned and swung my arm out, shooting blades of crystal at the ground. As they sank into concrete, they exploded, turning into a massive ramp. I ran for it, sliding on the crystals and launching into the air. As I came close to another building, I threw more crystals. They grew in seconds into a sort of bowl stabbed into the wall, letting me dive into the 'bowl', slide down and fly out of the other side. I landed on a roof and sprinted as hard as I could, hearing the guys behind me yelling at each other. Then the 'whomp, whomp, whomp' of a helicopter's blades flew by. A sigh left my lips when a black helicopter spun around to come in front of me.
“These assholes are persistent.”
No time for niceties. Mid-run, I spun to aim myself at the helicopter, my legs and arms pumping hard. It turned it's right side towards me, the door sliding open. A guy levered a freaking minigun at me. The barrels started turning at high speed.
“All this for a little hacking!?”
The guy pointing the minigun couldn't hear me, considering the helicopter blades were sending a massive ruckus into the air.
The minigun started firing. I lifted a hand up, shapeshifting my arm to turn into a giant shield again. Big bullets the size of thumbs slammed into the shield, sending flattened bullet rounds bouncing on the rooftop as they uselessly tried to break the unbreakable. I sprinted, holding my shield in front of me. My other hand swung outwards and tossed another crystal, a large stone bouncing on the ground before I leaped onto it. The stone grew under my feet, surging upwards and sending me towards the helicopter. My shield became a sword in mid-air.
“Raaugh!” With that cry, I slammed my sword hand deep into the steel of the helicopter, at the point where the tail met the body of the chopper. The sound of metal being sliced by steel was a wailing screech of noise in the air. My sword sprouted a flower of crystals within the helicopter, pushing them to grow as fast as I could make them go. The guy with the minigun stared at me as the section of the helicopter I was hanging from began to sprout blue-green knives from the inside. All along the inside of the chopper, more and more crystals sliced through the seats, the fuel tank, grinding through the aircraft until a massive one rose from the floor. It was as big as a man and forced the guy at the minigun to back up as it crowded the helicopter. The whole thing began to fall, unbalanced and leaking fuel as my crystals sliced into it.
“There's a bar down the street,” I said with a grin at the shocked soldier, still held to the chopper by my sword hand. “I suggest you guys go there after this, drink things off.”
I leaped from the chopper, aiming towards another building nearby. I slammed into the rooftop in a ground pound and hurriedly looked over at the helicopter. The thing was unsteady, about to slam into a building nearby.
I reached my mind into the crystals within the helicopter. Crystals feel like... light. Warmth of the sun on your face, even as you feel a cooling breeze on your arms. I moved that feeling, carefully, my arms swaying in the air as my carved lips curved. As the crystals moved, I dragged the copter through the air. It's rotors screamed, struggling to fight my pull. I grunted with the effort, trying to hold the aircraft, and guided it slowly to the ground. When it came close to the ground, away from any cars, the pilot stopped fighting me. Together, me swaying my arms and the pilot in the street ahead of me moving his joystick, I slowly lowered the chopper to the ground, ignoring the sounds of more men coming up onto the roof behind me for a second. As soon as the chopper was down, I spun around.
More soldiers stood behind me than had appeared at my door. About twenty or so. I stared at them as they pointed their guns at me, my eyes narrowing.
For some reason, this felt... wrong. Opening up with a grenade on a house that could just have held a very stupid hacker. Coming in with guns up, without even speaking to me in some way. I mean, sure, I'd committed a crime, but hackers don't get armies attacking them, they get job offers. All of this felt less like SHIELD, and more like I was fighting an evil army.
The men surrounded me, one in the center barking at me. “Get down, get down now! We will shoot you, you damn freak!”
“Rude,” I grumbled softly.
Guns cocked. I raised my hands.
Assault rifle fire slammed into me. I didn't stagger, my feet having sprouted spikes through the bottom of my shoes to let me stay standing. As the bullets hit my stone skin, my fingers sank into my palms, turning them into flat planes with spikes popping out. I fired an assault of spikes from my new cannon arms. They slammed into the ground in front of the guys shooting at me, erupting into a wall of massive spikes to defend me.
I turned and leaped off the building, reaching for my chest. A massive palm tapped the Omnitrix.
Once more, the change came. My crystal skin became reptilian, scaled and colored brown. My massive form shrank to become far more skinny, aerodynamic. My backpack was stretched to the limit when another growth sprouted on my back, which solidified before a pair of wings snapped out from it. My face became beaked, and my eyesight sharpened as my hands and feet each grew three talons.
In mid-air, falling towards the ground I pointed myself towards the ground. A section of my back came alight with green energy. I screeched for joy as I shot forward at the pavement like a jet engine. Before I hit the ground, I twisted my body upwards in a maneuver that would have snapped a human back, at way too many G's. I rocketed back up into the sky as fast as I could, the organic engine on my back roaring with an unearthly noise. I released a pulse of energy, shooting into the sky at sonic speeds.
I passed the guys on the rooftop chopping away at my crystal formation, spinning upwards and crying out the name.
“Astrodactyl!”
With that cry, I spun around. “Okay! Time to g-screeeech!” I blinked, floating for a moment. “That's weird to get used to, Squaaaawk!” I said, letting another screech of noise out once I'd finished. Sometimes you have to let the form do what it wants. And Astrodactyl like to release loud bird noises when it talked. Hell, I kinda liked it too.
I tapped the Omnitrix again, this time trying to access the GPS. I didn't have much time before the Omnitrix would time out, especially with all the stuff I'd had Diamondhead do, so I quickly accessed the direction of the mall Captain America had been in. A moments orientation and I rocketed away, zooming through the sky with a tremendous boom of noise as I broke the sound barrier.