"SHAZAM"-Shazam,

I flinch, as I realize the Penguin is deadly serious. If I do not give him a satisfactory answer, I might just die. Irritatingly enough, even in a deadly scenario, the itch on my wrist did not fade but seemingly got itchier and itchier. Somehow the itchiness also got warmer, like it was burning.

I broke out of my thoughts with the sound of the Penguin clearing his throat, finger moving purposefully around his umbrella.

"Now, try that again, and if you lie to me again," he said slowly, miming an explosion with his hand next to his head," let's just say you'll be sleeping with the penguins."

Even though it pains me not to make a joke about the horrendous line he just spoke, with total seriousness, my feeling that getting shot with an umbrella gun would hurt more than not saying a snarky joke.

"My name is Beau -------," I make sure to speak as slowly and calmly as possible, scared of the gun/umbrella (gunbrella?) pointed at my brain. "I am sorry for lying to such an upstanding businessman, I was just in fear of your great deeds, that I said a great hero as well, to try and not be as embarrassed as my small personality." Penguin tenses but slowly moves the gun away from my forehead, so I keep laying on the flattery trying to diminish the mistake I committed, namely not taking a supervillain seriously. I remember the Lexcorp building and decide to go all in about me being in the DCU. "I always felt that you were such a better businessman than Lex Luther, as well, I mean he hasn't done anything compared to your mind for business. And I mean of course-"

I stop as the Penguin stands up suddenly and snaps, causing one of the bodyguards to grab ahold of my chair and lift it back up, allowing me to sit regularly, albeit, tied up in the chair. As the goon walks back to his position he stops to look at the Penguin, back at me, then bows at his boss.

"The kid is trying to flatter you, Sir," The bodyguard says, then finishes his walk back to behind his boss. I'm tempted to call out a mixture of insults, but a glance from Penguin stills my tongue. He lightly whacks the side of the guard with his umbrella, and responds while staring at me, "Why of course he is, he is smart enough to realize when he makes a mistake". That response makes my stomach start to roll as I realize the implications of both of them agreeing to that the Penguin is a better businessman than Lex Luthor. That means that Luthor is real and if he is that sparks a small piece of hope within me. If the villains of DC are real wouldn't that make the heroes real as well? I realize that both the bodyguard, who I label Dickface, cause he's a Dick, and the penguin are looking at my face. I try to school my facial expressions and start to mumble my agreeance when he glances at my driver's license again and asks another question.

"What is your favorite color, Beau?" He asks quickly, striding back and forth in front of my chair, his Gunbrella clicking on the ground. I start to instinctively answer when I pause. Why would he ask me my favorite color? What does that qustion have to do with anything? Suddenly, instead of the gang leader in front of me, I remember a Tyrant with mismatched eyes, asking questions erratically to instill unsteadiness, which he exploited to gain information. My blood runs cold when I realize that the Penguin's demeanor isn't just him being mentally unstable, but a facade to gain more information than he normally would. This isn't just any gang leader, but one who went toe-to-toe with one of the DC's finest.

I take a deep breath then another. I look into the Penguin's eyes and slowly respond.

"My favorite color, why it happens to be purple", again trying to emulate his speech patterns. I can barely see what is a shadow of a smirk on the Penguin's face, but he slowly spins around and starts to converses with his goons. My goal is no longer to try to escape or survive by myself, but to stall, try and wait for rescue. While the police probably would never find me in time, due to the fact I probably don't exist in the Gotham police database, there is another hero I can put faith into. Hopefully, the Dark Knight of Gotham would try to rescue me.

As soon as I resign myself to being rescued, the itching disappears and the burning on my wrist intensifies, almost as if it takes offense to me not acting heroically. I try to look at my wrist, but the chair and ropes prohibit me from doing so. I hesitantly think about trying to deceive my captors and escape and nothing happens. Wait for what? I thought the burning would correspond with the act heroic, but nothing happened? I still. I then commit to the act of escaping on my own ability and merits the burning decreases. Not substantially, but enough that I can definitely tell that my plan changed the burning. I let out another deep breath and then decide to try and join the Penguin's gang, and commit to the plan, and the burning feeling explodes. I muffle a scream, as I can feel some of the skin on my left arm start to cook from the heat. Quickly, I change my intent to waiting for someone to rescue me, but then helping them, after being untied, and the roasting feeling all but disappears. From my short testing, I can guess that whatever is on my wrist or is my wrist, wants me to act heroically, and not villainously.

I am shaken out of my thoughts when the lights above suddenly blink on illuminating my surroundings further. While most of the warehouse is still imperceptible, the increased brightness allows me to see some of the machinery that takes up the floor. Rows of ice-cream machines along with ice makers line up and neat rows, each one speckled with rust. While the theme of ice makes sense for someone called "The Penguin", he seemed a bit close to stealing Mr. Freeze's shtick.

I look back at the Penguin as he slowly walks toward me then starts circling around me all the while tossing out questions, some irrelevant some very personal. I have a sense he is just reading from my driver's license, as a good third is just information that is on that, like height (6"0) and hair color (Brown). I try to keep twisting my head to follow his circling, but whenever he walks directly behind me I can't see him at all. I try not to flinch as he stops right behind me and whispers into my ears,

"What brings you to Gotham? Why would a respectful young man come all the way from... Georgia to this hellhole? I don't want to insult my place of residence, but Gotham's crime rates are absurd this time of year. I mean driving would probably take half a day and that's without any breaks."

Considering I didn't drive to Gotham at all, since in my Universe it did not actually exist, I am willing to take his word for it, even if Gotham could be in Ohio for all I would know. However, the longer I wait between questions, the more I risk him just blowing my brains out with a weaponized umbrella. I have to create a balance between answering slow enough to waste time, but not too slow that he gets bored. Conversely, If I go too fast, I could say information that reveals I'm not a regular citizen of this Earth.

"Well, Gotham's infrastructure has always impressed me when I was a child, having to rebuild every time a villain fails to rob a bank must be...." I trail off realizing I am talking to one of those said villains, and wince, expecting a hit from his umbrella, but nothing happens, just a continuation of rapid-fire questions, and the questions continue to be a random assortment of deeply personal and very superficial.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Grade?"

"I'm a senior,"

"Eye color?"

"Brown"

" How's the relationship with your parents?"

"Uh... Good I suppose, I get into some trouble, but hopefully not too much you know?"

The game of questioning goes on and on, until every topic from my favorite egg-laying mammal (platypus duh), to deepest fear (Orca whales, which gets a chuckle) gets asked, and then answered. I almost think the questions will go on forever, when a distant crash can be heard, which makes all the guards tense, along with the lights flickering on and off. I just thought the building's age and run-down nature is the culprit until I see the Penguin, frown and mumble something that sounds like "Bat".

While on the inside I am happy that that could mean Batman and not just a regular bat, I start to get the feeling that the goons might just kill me and leave, which is not good. The intensity of the burning is slowly climbing as well, which does not do wonders for my anxiety. When I hear "Last question", I freeze but then get more confused than afraid when I hear the actual question.

"What the hell is that watch on your wrist, Is it from WayneTech? LexCorp, Star Labs? The fact that it won't come off of your wrist is impressive, but the color scheme does leave room for improvement"

I'm about to answer with the fact that I don't have a watch on my wrist, so I don't know what he's talking about when an even louder crash is heard, and the lights turn off for an even longer amount of time. By the time the lights come back on, the Penguin is leaning very close to me with a knife directly on my throat.

The good news is that now I am very sure that they meant the Batman, unfortunately, that is slightly offset by the very real possibility that I might get killed by a DC villain via my throat being cut. That possibility contributes greatly to my ability to start talking and do so quickly.

"Look Mr. Cobblepot, sir, um, Mr. Penguin, I do not know what you are talking about, I don't even wear watches, I'm sure this is all one misunderstanding-" I immediately stop talking when the knife pushes just a little deeper into my throat.

His voice dropped very low, and each syllable is pronounced very pointedly, and measuredly.

"Kid, I am talking about the green and black watch on your left arm. The one that can not be taken off. What is it?" He steps back and pulls out a picture and unfolds it and pushes it right in front of my eyes. I look at the picture of a watch and blink. I blink again. I blink twice more, just to make sure I am not hallucinating. Because I do know the watch on that picture, and I can tell that that picture is of my arm. And there is only one word for that watch that I am seeing, and it should be nowhere near my wrist, or even in this universe. And as the photo is shoved closer and closer to my face, I don't say a single word. All I can think of is one question, one even more important than what dimension I am in, or even why I was kidnapped.

How in the Hell is the Omnitrix on my wrist?

The burning on my left arm is even more pronounced now, possibly synced to my realization of what exact piece of alien tech is on my wrist. The Omnitrix, the watch that allows the user to transform into hundreds of aliens, each and every one of them able to fight against deadly villains stuck onto my wrist. I now realize that I can not let the Penguin know what the watch does, or what can the watch do because this universe would suddenly become a whole lot more dangerous for people not under his control. However, as the knife he is holding swings down and lodges itself in my thigh, causing white-hot pain to shoot up my leg, I realize I had waited a bit too long to answer.

"I can see the realization in your eyes of what that watch is" He whispers, each word connected to a slight twitch of his knife, shooting pain throughout my leg. "I can't sense the power contained in that watch, but it has to be powerful when no one here can take it off of you. Tell me what you know, Now"

I can barely speak. My left arm feels like it is on fire, everything from my fingertips to my shoulder ablaze in pain and agony. My head thrice smashed against something harder throbs in pair with my arm. And worse of all, my right leg, Stabbed, pain stronger than anything I've ever felt, made even worse with the occasional twists and movements the knife does. I know by telling him I might make it out alive, but if the knowledge of the Omnitrix is known to The Penguin, or worse the Joker, thousands could die. So I open my eyes and say two words, and try to put all of my pain into them,

"Fuck You".

The Penguin grimaces and slides out the knife from my leg. he steps back and brings up his gunbrella, and lodges it right against my left shoulder. I hear a click.

"Well, if we can't take the watch off of your connected arm, may as well try a disconnected arm. "He sighs as if it pains him to shoot my fucking arm off, and looks into my eyes. "Should've said what you knew."

I close my eyes, waiting for the pain and the loud explosion of a bullet, but as my eyes are clenched shut and a sound like a knife cutting through the air makes me open my eyes. A Batarang, knocking the umbrella just quick enough to save my arm is the only signal, before a dark shadow lands right in front of the Penguin. The sound of rope being cut alerts me to the other member of the Bat crew-Batfamily?, as I can barely make a colorful costume-Robin?- sawing the ropes that are tying me with a Batarang. The abandoned warehouse is silent for a moment, but then a chaotic mix of sounds starts to erupt.

The goons are screaming, some shooting their guns, muzzle flashes, and the sound of gunfire increasing and increasing, as bullets bounce of Batman, and more and more of the goons start to drop. The penguin is screaming, shouting orders, and scrambling for his gun, as Robin behind me tries to help me up. I can barely understand what the Boy Wonder is ordering me to do, trying to escape but everything falls silent when my arms come free and I can finally look at the Omnitrix.

Years of nostalgia crash into me, as the two green triangles stare back up into my eyes. It's clunky, and definitely resembles the original one, and not the future series, but only one thing matters. I slowly reach out, my right-hand trembling as I slowly twist the dial on the Omnitrix. I can feel Robin pulling at me to leave, shouting in my ear, as well as Batman facing off with the Penguin, the majority of the goons unmoving, lying on the ground. None of those details matter, though, as the dial easily turns counterclockwise, showing a hologram figure that I would recognize anywhere. I twist again, but the figure doesn't change. The limitation of only one alien didn't damper my spirits, however, since I knew I only needed one for this situation. As I prepared to slam down, my right hand starting to move, a fact from the original show creeps into my mind, resurfacing from years forgotten-The Omnitrix forces the user into an alien when their life is in danger. The burning and itching wasn't a warning to do good, it was the Omnitrix slowly turning me into an alien.

As my hand presses the dial of the Omnitrix down, a green light flashes. My body changed, my DNA morphing to fit the DNA of the alien I chose, and my wounds disappeared with that flash of light, as my new flesh didn't have the capacity to have wounds. As the temperature surrounding me grew hotter, the very air heating up just by my proximity. there were two things in my mind.

One, even though I was stabbed, teleported into a different dimension, beaten, and kidnapped-I was having a good day again.

The other- to say the name of an alien, something I have wanted to do and have been pretending to do since I saw him in the first episode.

As the green light dissipated, and I saw my hands and my body, no longer flesh but plasma and volcanic rock, I opened my mouth and declared one word, one word that decried the changes in my body, from my body composition to my DNA.

HEATBLAST