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[Opening – The Accident]
The day Alex Ward's life ended, the sky looked like a cracked mirror.
Not a poetic cracked mirror—an actual one. Jagged lines of white fire stretched across the clouds, splitting the afternoon sun into dozens of shards. The whole city had stopped to look up, phones raised, murmurs filling the streets.
Alex stood in the parking lot of his dead-end job, holding a half-empty cup of convenience-store coffee and wondering if this was going to make him late for lunch.
A column of light erupted from the river. It wasn't subtle—it was the kind of light that burned the inside of your eyes, a vertical nuclear explosion without the mushroom cloud. Sirens wailed somewhere far away. Then, out of that blinding spear of brilliance, came… something.
He didn't know what to call it. Maybe a ship. Maybe a creature. Maybe both. It was miles wide, all jagged black edges and pulsing red veins, its sheer presence making the air feel heavier.
Alex sipped his coffee. "Cool special effects. We filming a Marvel movie or something?"
That's when the wave hit.
It wasn't sound, not exactly. It was… pressure. Like the world exhaling all at once. Alex felt it push against him, squeeze his skin, crawl into his bones. The cup slipped from his fingers and hit the asphalt, but he didn't notice because the next moment—
Everything went black.
---
[Transformation]
When Alex's eyes opened again, the world looked sharper. Not just "got new glasses" sharper—every detail screamed at him with impossible clarity. He could count the hairs on a pigeon flying two blocks away. He could hear the flutter of its wings.
And he felt… good. Like his body had been rebuilt in a better factory. No aches, no stiffness, no fatigue. His breathing was so effortless it was like he wasn't even trying.
The alien thing was gone, replaced by a smoldering crater in the distance. No cops, no people. Just Alex standing there like the end of a disaster movie.
"Uh… hello?" His voice echoed strangely far, like the air itself was listening.
Then the ground shook—not from an earthquake, but from him shifting his weight. The tiny movement cracked the asphalt under his sneakers.
"What the—"
He glanced down, and without thinking, tapped the side of the cracked pavement with his toe.
The entire parking lot caved in.
---
[First Punch]
Panic made him look for something stable to grab. His eyes fell on a massive chunk of fallen concrete from a nearby building façade. It looked heavy enough to crush a truck. He reached down, grabbed it with one hand—
It crumbled like a stale cookie.
"Okay," Alex said out loud. "Either I'm dreaming, or I just got jacked up on alien steroids."
Experimentally, he wound his arm back and punched the empty air.
The sky broke.
A thin, spiderweb crack spread through the atmosphere itself, not in the clouds but in reality. A faint hum, like an electric guitar string, reverberated through the world. Alex froze, staring at it.
"That's… probably bad."
---
[The Jump to Marvel]
The crack pulsed once—then tore open.
The world on the other side wasn't his. It was night there, with towering skyscrapers and neon billboards flashing over busy streets. But more importantly, there was chaos. A giant, insectoid monster was rampaging through downtown, throwing cars like toys.
And in the middle of it—people he recognized instantly. Not personally, but from every movie marathon he'd ever binged.
Iron Man zipped through the air, missiles launching from his suit. Thor hurled lightning from above. Captain America was coordinating evac, his shield ricocheting off the monster's limbs.
"Oh, hell no," Alex muttered. "This is… that's the Avengers. This is Marvel."
He took a step back—but forgot his foot was now a weapon of mass destruction. The asphalt under him shattered, and before he could react, his body moved. Not ran, not jumped—moved, like a slingshot being released.
One instant, he was in his world. The next, he was slamming into the middle of Times Square.
---
[The Marvel Battle]
Alex hit the ground so hard the shockwave blew the monster off its feet and sent cars tumbling like leaves in the wind. Everyone—heroes included—stared.
Iron Man's voice crackled through external speakers. "Uh… Cap? Did we call for backup?"
"No," Steve said flatly. "Who the hell is this guy?"
The insect monster screeched and lunged for Alex. Its claws were the size of buses, serrated and dripping with some kind of acid.
Alex didn't think—he just swung his arm casually, more like shooing away a fly than throwing a punch.
The monster ceased to exist. Not "flew away," not "knocked unconscious." It was gone. A sonic boom echoed for miles.
The street went dead silent.
Thor floated down, Mjolnir in hand. "Stranger," he said slowly, "what manner of god are you?"
"I… uh… work at a gas station?" Alex offered.
Iron Man hovered closer, scanning him. "No energy readings. No tech. And yet you just—Cap, I'm logging this under 'existential threats.'"
"I'm not a threat," Alex said, holding up his hands. "I think I just… broke something in my world and fell into yours."
Before they could question him further, the crack in the sky began to follow—widening, rumbling. Shapes moved inside it. Big shapes.
---
[Cliffhanger]
The Watcher's voice boomed overhead—not in the air, but in Alex's mind.
"The balance is undone. The Final Punch has been thrown. All worlds will converge."
Thor gripped Mjolnir tighter. "Midgard faces a war it cannot win."
Alex swallowed, glancing at the widening tear. "Yeah, uh… sorry about that."
The first of the things stepped through—a colossal, molten figure that made the Hulk look like a toddler.
Iron Man muttered, "Yup. Definitely putting this under 'existential threats.'"
Alex clenched his fist. "Okay… guess I'm clocking in for overtime."