Chapter 4
The descent into the New York City sewer system was a sensory nightmare. For a normal human, it was a damp, foul-smelling labyrinth. For Alex, whose senses were now tuned to the frequency of the cosmos and the precision of Neo-Gotham tech, it was an overwhelming data stream.
He moved through the tunnels, his boots making no sound on the slime-covered brickwork. The liquid silver coating his Batman suit didn't just provide protection; it acted as a giant antenna. He could feel the vibrations of the subway trains miles above, the flow of the city's waste, and the jagged, hot signature of a creature that shouldn't exist.
[...Integration: 5.2% (Silver Surfer)...]
[...Suit Status: Hybrid Form (Chrome-Knight)...]
[...Detective Vision: Filtering reptilian pheromone trails...]
"Peter, do you have a visual?" Alex asked, his voice echoing with a double-layered resonance—the metallic rasp of the Bat-mask and a strange, melodic chime from the Power Cosmic.
"I have... a lot of smell," Peter's voice crackled over the comms. He was several tunnels over, sticking to the ceiling to avoid the sludge. "My spider-sense is buzzing like a hornet's nest. He's close, Alex. And he's bigger than he was at the lab."
"He's absorbing the nutrients in the runoff," Alex analyzed. "Rapid cellular growth. The Lizard isn't just a transformation; it's an apex predator being built in real-time."
Alex stopped. Ahead of him, the tunnel opened into a massive junction where four pipes converged into a deep basin. In the center, perched atop a rusted iron grating, was Dr. Curt Connors.
Except he wasn't Dr. Connors anymore.
He was nearly nine feet tall now, a mountain of emerald scales and corded muscle. His lab coat was nothing but a few white rags caught in the spikes of his spine. He was hunched over the carcass of something—likely a stray dog or a massive sewer rat—his long, forked tongue flicking the air.
The Lizard turned, his yellow eyes glowing with a feral intelligence. He didn't hiss; he spoke, his voice a wet, guttural growl that vibrated in Alex's chest.
"The... Silver... Shadow," the Lizard rasped. "I can smell the stars on you. Cold. Sterile. Unlike the warmth of the blood."
"Dr. Connors, stop," Alex said, stepping into the dim light of the basin. The silver of his suit caught the faint bioluminescence of the algae, making him look like a ghost made of mercury. "I know the man is still in there. The lizard is a parasite. We can fix this."
"Fix?!" the Lizard roared, standing at his full, terrifying height. "I am whole! For the first time in my life, I am not a cripple! I am the next step of evolution!"
He lunged.
The speed was incredible. The Lizard cleared twenty feet in a single bound, his claws outstretched. Alex didn't dodge; he wanted to test the integrity of the silver-hybrid armor.
He crossed his arms, and the Power Cosmic flared.
CLANG.
The Lizard's claws struck the silver plating and sparked as if hitting an anvil. Alex didn't move an inch, but the force of the blow cracked the concrete beneath his feet. He felt the impact, but the suit's internal dampeners—bolstered by molecular density manipulation—absorbed the kinetic energy and fed it back into the suit's reserves.
"My turn," Alex said.
He delivered a palm strike to the Lizard's chest. It wasn't just a physical hit; he released a micro-burst of cosmic energy at the moment of contact. The Lizard was sent flying backward, his heavy body crashing through a brick wall and into the next tunnel section.
"Whoa! Cannonball!" Peter yelled, swinging down from a pipe and landing next to Alex. "You just punched a dinosaur through a wall! Note to self: do not get on your bad side."
"He's regenerating, Peter. Look."
Through the dust, they could see the Lizard climbing out of the debris. The massive bruise on his chest was already fading, the scales knitting back together with sickening speed.
"We can't win a war of attrition," Alex said, his mind racing with Bruce Wayne's tactical efficiency. "We need to neutralize the serum in his blood. Peter, did you bring the centrifuge we built?"
"In my backpack," Peter said, patting the reinforced bag. "But I need a clean sample of his DNA. The stuff from the lab was too degraded."
"I'll get it for you. Keep him busy. Try to web his tail—that's his primary balance point."
Peter nodded, his mask lenses narrowing. "You got it, Chrome-Dome."
Peter went high, using his agility to weave a web-net between the pipes. "Hey, Lizard-Lips! Over here! I bet you taste like chicken!"
As the Lizard turned his fury on the annoying red-and-blue pest, Alex moved into the shadows. He didn't use the cloak; he used the Surfer's ability to blend his molecular vibration with the air around him. He became functionally invisible to the Lizard's thermal and predatory senses.
He watched for an opening.
The Lizard swung his tail, shattering a support pillar that Peter had been perched on. Peter flipped through the air, firing a barrage of web-grenades that stuck to the Lizard's face.
"I can't see! Sssspider!" the creature shrieked, clawing at the sticky webbing.
Alex reappeared behind him. He reached out, his gauntlet transforming. The liquid silver flowed, forming a long, surgical needle at the tip of his index finger. He drove the needle into the soft tissue beneath the Lizard's shoulder blade.
[...Sampling Complete...]
[...DNA sequence mapped...]
[...Transmitting to Spider-Man...]
"Got it, Peter! Check your HUD!" Alex shouted.
The Lizard roared, spinning around and catching Alex with a sweeping claw that sent him skidding across the wet floor.
"I will... tear the metal from your bones!" the Lizard hissed. He grabbed a massive iron pipe, ripping it from the ceiling, and began swinging it like a club.
Alex stood his ground, the silver on his suit shimmering. He could feel the Power Cosmic wanting to erupt—to simply vaporize the creature in front of him. But he held it back. He wasn't a killer. He was a student of the greatest detective who ever lived.
"Peter, how long?" Alex asked, parrying a blow from the iron pipe that would have crushed a car.
"I'm working as fast as I can! The molecular bonds are stubborn! I need... I need a catalyst! Something to speed up the reaction!"
Alex looked at his hands. He had the catalyst.
"Throw the canister to me!"
Peter tossed a small, glass vial through the air. Alex caught it. He closed his eyes, focusing his will on the liquid inside. He didn't just see the chemical; he saw the electrons. He reached out with the Power Cosmic, gently nudging the molecules, forcing the anti-serum to stabilize and concentrate.
The liquid in the vial turned from a murky gray to a brilliant, glowing blue.
"Here goes nothing," Alex muttered.
He didn't throw it. He moved.
He used the thrusters in his boots for a sudden burst of speed, sliding between the Lizard's legs as the iron pipe smashed into the ground behind him. He leaped onto the creature's back, wrapping his legs around its thick neck.
The Lizard thrashed, trying to slam Alex against the tunnel walls, but the silver armor acted like a magnet, keeping him locked in place. Alex jammed the vial into the specialized port in his gauntlet and pressed his palm against the Lizard's neck.
"Sleep, Doc," Alex whispered.
He triggered the injection. The blue liquid was pumped directly into the Lizard's carotid artery.
For a moment, the creature went stiff. A horrific, bone-deep shudder ran through its massive frame. Then, the screaming began—not of rage, but of agony as the DNA began to revert.
The scales began to slough off in wet clumps. The tail shriveled, and the massive muscles deflated. Alex held on, shielding the man from the hard concrete as he fell.
Within minutes, the Lizard was gone. On the floor of the sewer, shivering and unconscious, lay Dr. Curt Connors. His right arm was gone once again, back to a stump.
Peter landed softly beside them, his shoulders sagging with relief. "We did it. Is he... is he okay?"
Alex checked Connors' vitals. "He's alive. Exhausted, but the lizard DNA is dormant. For now."
[...Integration: 6.0% (Silver Surfer)...]
[...New Skill Unlocked: Molecular Healing (Minor)...]
Alex placed a hand on Connors' chest. A soft, violet warmth spread through the man's body, stabilizing his heart rate and dulling the pain of the transition.
"We have to get him out of here before the police arrive," Alex said.
"I'll take him to the clinic near his house," Peter said. "I can drop him off on the roof. He won't know it was us."
"Go," Alex said. "I'll clean up the site. I don't want any of those scales left behind for SHIELD to find."
Peter picked up the doctor, his spider-strength making the task easy. He looked at Alex, the silver knight standing in the dark. "Hey, Alex? That silver stuff... it's pretty cool. You look like a localized supernova."
"Just a work in progress, Pete. Get moving."
As Peter vanished into the upper pipes, Alex stood alone in the silence of the sewer. He looked at his silver hands.
[...Warning: High-level energy signature detected at the surface...]
[...Source: Stark Industries - Iron Man Mark 7 detected...]
Alex's white lenses narrowed. "Tony."
He didn't want a fight. Not yet. He wasn't ready to explain himself to the man who thought he owned the future.
He triggered the cloaking device, the silver and black fading into the shadows just as a streak of red and gold light flew over the manhole cover above.
"Thirty days," Alex whispered to the dark. "And the world is already getting too small."
He turned and began the long walk home, his mind already calculating the materials he would need for the next stage. The Lizard was just the beginning. The real storm was still on the horizon.
The next morning, Midtown High felt like a different world. To the other students, it was just another Tuesday, but to Alex and Peter, the air felt charged, as if the walls themselves were hummed with the secrets of the previous night.
Peter was leaning against his locker, nursing a coffee with a hand that was still slightly trembling. He had a small bandage on his cheek where a sewer pipe had grazed him, but otherwise, he looked exhilarated.
"He's stable," Peter whispered as Alex approached. "I checked the news. Dr. Connors was found on a hospital roof this morning. He's claiming total amnesia about the last twelve hours. The police think he was kidnapped by that 'Lizard' thing."
"Good," Alex said, his voice low and steady. "The less he remembers, the safer he is. SHIELD is going to be all over that lab today. Did you scrub the data?"
"Wiped it clean," Peter smirked. "Even Tony Stark would have a hard time finding a digital footprint in that mess. But Alex... the suit. That silver layer. It wasn't just metal. It was moving. It felt like it was alive."
Alex adjusted his backpack, feeling the dense weight of the system-integrated body. "It's a work in progress, Pete. It's adaptive. The more I encounter, the more it evolves."
"Well, it's giving the Daily Bugle a field day. They're calling you the 'Silver Bat.' Jonah Jameson spent ten minutes this morning screaming that you're an outer-space menace sent to pave the way for an invasion."
Alex let out a short, dry laugh. "He's more right than he knows."
The school day passed in a haze of normalcy that felt increasingly artificial. Alex found himself solving complex calculus problems in seconds, his "Cosmic Awareness" treating the equations like simple nursery rhymes. During lunch, he caught a falling apple before it even slipped from a girl's hand, his reflexes so fast it looked like the fruit had simply teleported into his palm.
When he finally got home, he expected the usual chaos of Maya playing and his mother's clinical talk. Instead, he found the house strangely quiet.
He walked into the living room to find Sarah sitting on the sofa. She wasn't sketching. She wasn't painting. She was holding a small, glowing shard of violet crystal—a byproduct of the transmutation Alex had performed in the garage the night before.
"Where did you find that?" Alex asked, his heart skipping a beat.
Sarah looked up, her face pale. "In the garage. Under the tarp with the... the gold, Alex. Fifty kilograms of pure gold? And this?" She held up the crystal. It pulsed with a faint, rhythmic light, mimicking a heartbeat. "This isn't technology. I've seen enough sci-fi movies to know that technology doesn't grow like a gemstone."
Alex closed the door behind him and sat in the armchair opposite her. He knew he couldn't lie his way out of this one. Sarah was an artist; she noticed the details, the shifts in light and energy that others ignored.
"It's part of me now, Sarah," he said, his voice dropping the "student" facade.
"What are you, Alex?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "I went into the garage to find some old canvas, and I felt... I felt the air vibrating. I touched the gold, and it was warm. Not 'sitting-in-the-sun' warm, but alive. Like it was breathing."
"I'm a protector," Alex said firmly. "The gold is just a byproduct of the energy I'm learning to control. I'm using it to build things—things that will keep this family safe when the world starts to fall apart."
Sarah stood up, the violet shard still in her hand. "The world isn't falling apart, Alex! It's just... it's changing. And you're changing with it. But you're seventeen! You should be worrying about prom and college, not turning lead into gold and fighting monsters in the sewers!"
"I don't have that luxury," Alex said, standing up to meet her gaze. "I've seen what's coming. I've seen things that would make your nightmares look like fairy tales. I have a gift, Sarah. I have the strongest template for survival ever created. Would you rather I just sit here and watch when the sky opens up?"
Sarah looked at the shard, then at her brother. She saw the metallic sheen in his eyes and the absolute, unshakeable resolve in his posture. She realized then that the brother she had grown up with was gone, replaced by something ancient and powerful hidden beneath a teenage skin.
"Does Mom know?" she asked.
"No. And she can't. Not yet. She'd try to treat me like a patient, or worse, she'd try to stop me out of fear. I need you to keep this between us, Sarah. Please."
Sarah was silent for a long time. Then, she walked over and pressed the violet shard into his hand. "Fine. But I'm not just going to sit by. If you're going to be a hero, you're going to need a better cover than 'oddly buff student.' I'm an artist, Alex. I know how to create identities. If you need someone to manage the 'image' of the Silver Bat, I'm in. But you tell me everything."
Alex felt a surge of relief. "Deal."
[...Integration: 6.5% (Silver Surfer)...]
[...New Directive: Stabilize Energy Signature...]
That night, Alex returned to the basement. With Sarah now acting as his "intelligence" officer—or at least his secret-keeper—the pressure felt slightly lessened. He spent hours meditating, focusing on the violet core of energy within him.
He began to realize that the Batman Beyond template was the "body," providing the tactical mind and the physical hardware, while the Silver Surfer template was the "soul," providing the raw, cosmic power. They weren't fighting for dominance; they were merging.
He reached out to his workbench and picked up a piece of scrap iron. He didn't turn it into gold this time. He focused on the molecular structure, willing it to become harder, lighter, and more conductive.
The iron shimmered, turning a dull, matte black that seemed to absorb the light.
"System," Alex thought. "Is this what Norrin Radd felt? The ability to reshape the world?"
[...Norrin Radd saw the world as a tapestry of energy. You are seeing it as a puzzle to be solved. The intent defines the power...]
Suddenly, his "Cosmic Awareness" spiked. A cold, sharp sensation at the base of his brain. It wasn't the Lizard, and it wasn't the Goblin. It was something... mechanical.
He pulled up the city's satellite feeds on his monitor, bypassing the encryption of the Department of Defense with a flick of his mind. He zoomed in on the outskirts of the city, near an industrial park in New Jersey.
A massive, armored transport had been flipped on its side. Around it, the air was distorted by high-frequency vibrations. A man in a bulky, yellow-and-brown suit was standing in the middle of the road, his hands encased in massive, vibrating gauntlets.
"Herman Schultz," Alex muttered. "The Shocker."
But it wasn't just the Shocker. Standing next to him was a man in a sophisticated flight suit with massive, mechanical wings tipped with razor-sharp blades.
"The Vulture," Alex whispered. "They're teaming up."
He felt the suit manifest around him before he even consciously made the decision. The black nanotech flowed over his skin, followed by the liquid silver plating.
"Sarah!" he yelled up the stairs.
"Yeah?" she shouted back.
"I'm going out. If Mom asks, I'm at Peter's doing a late-night study session for the SATs."
"Got it! Don't get the silver scratched!"
Alex stepped onto the roof, the wings of the Beyond suit snapping open. This time, he didn't just glide. He tapped into the 6.5% of the Power Cosmic, and the world became a blur. He broke the sound barrier with a silent, violet-tinted boom, a silver streak cutting through the midnight sky.
The age of the solo villain was over. The Sinister Six were starting to form, and the Batman was the only one who knew the play.
The industrial park was a wasteland of corrugated steel and flickering sodium lights. The air hummed with a violent, rhythmic thrum—the signature of Herman Schultz's vibrating gauntlets. Every few seconds, a shockwave would ripple outward, shattering the windows of nearby warehouses and turning the asphalt into a fine powder.
Alex hovered a thousand feet above, his silver-plated suit perfectly reflecting the night sky, making him invisible to the naked eye.
[...Target Analysis: Herman Schultz (Shocker)...]
[...Equipment: Vibro-Smash Gauntlets. Frequency: 450-600 Hz...]
[...Target Analysis: Adrian Toomes (Vulture)...]
[...Equipment: Magnetic Wing Harness. Material: Reinforced Steel/Titanium Alloy...]
"System," Alex whispered, his voice lost in the wind. "Can I dampen the vibration?"
[...The Silver Surfer template allows for Molecular Kinetic Dampening. By matching the frequency and inverted phase, you can neutralize the shockwaves...]
Alex dived. He didn't use his wings to steer; he manipulated the gravitational pull around his body, dropping like a silver meteor.
Below, Shocker was laughing, his gauntlets glowing with a yellow, kinetic energy. "Come on, Toomes! Grab the crates and let's go! I can't keep the perimeter clear forever!"
Vulture swept down, his massive wings cutting through the air like scythes. "Patience, Herman. These Stark-tech power cells are delicate. If you rattle them too hard, we both go up in smoke."
THUD.
Alex landed between them, the impact creating a crater that stopped both villains in their tracks. The liquid silver on his suit rippled, the crimson bat on his chest glowing with an ominous intensity.
"The Silver Bat," Vulture hissed, his mechanical wings flaring to their full twenty-foot span. "I heard what you did to the Lizard. You're a long way from home, boy."
"And you're a long way from a retirement home, Toomes," Alex retorted.
Shocker didn't waste time with words. He leveled both gauntlets at Alex. "Let's see how that shiny suit handles a level-five tremor!"
He fired. A massive cone of compressed air and kinetic vibration slammed into Alex. Under normal circumstances, it would have turned a human's internal organs into jelly. But Alex didn't even flinch.
He raised his hand. A violet aura erupted around his palm. As the vibration hit him, the Power Cosmic analyzed the frequency. In a nanosecond, Alex projected an opposing wave. The two forces collided, canceling each other out with a dull thump that left the air strangely still.
Shocker's eyes widened behind his quilted mask. "What? No one stands up to a full blast!"
"I'm not 'no one,'" Alex said.
He didn't use a batarang. He used his speed. He blurred forward, appearing in front of Shocker. Instead of a punch, he touched the gauntlets.
[...Scanning Technology...]
[...Blueprint Copied: Kinetic Vibration Arrays...]
[...System Directive: Overload initiated...]
Alex channeled a surge of cosmic energy directly into the gauntlets' circuitry. The devices began to whine, the yellow light turning a sickly, overloaded orange.
"They're gonna blow!" Shocker screamed, desperately trying to rip the gauntlets off his arms.
"Heads up, Herman!" Vulture dived from above, his razor-sharp wingtips aimed at Alex's neck.
Alex flipped backward with the acrobatic grace of Terry McGinnis, his boots' thrusters giving him an extra boost. He caught Vulture's wing in mid-air with his silver-plated hand. The metal groaned under his grip.
"Your tech is outdated, Adrian," Alex said.
He felt the magnetic field keeping the wings aloft. With the Surfer's power, he reached into that field and simply... turned it off. The electromagnetism holding the harness together flickered and died.
Vulture plummeted, his wings becoming dead weight. He crashed into a stack of empty pallets, groaning as the mechanical limbs lay limp around him.
Shocker finally managed to ditch his gauntlets just as they exploded in a burst of sparks and smoke. He looked at his hands, then at the silver figure standing over him, and did the only sensible thing: he turned and ran.
Alex didn't chase him. He felt a sharp, localized spike in his "Cosmic Awareness."
"Peter," he whispered.
Across the city, at the Parker house, something was wrong. His sensors weren't picking up the Shocker or the Vulture anymore; they were picking up a massive energy surge in the sewers beneath Queens.
[...Warning: Seismic activity detected...]
[...Signature: Non-biological. Machine-based...]
Alex turned his back on the downed Vulture. "Police will be here in five minutes, Toomes. Stay for the retirement party."
He blasted into the sky, the violet energy of the Surfer template merging with the blue flames of the Beyond suit. He wasn't just fast; he was a streak of light.
He reached Queens in less than a minute. He landed in the alleyway behind Peter's house and scanned the ground.
[...Molecular Scan: Large-scale tunneling detected...]
Suddenly, the ground erupted.
A massive, mechanical tentacle, made of reinforced carbon-steel and powered by a miniature fusion reactor, burst through the asphalt. It was followed by three more, each moving with the precision of a cobra.
In the center of the mechanical nightmare stood a man with disheveled hair and goggles, his face twisted in a mixture of awe and madness.
"The power of the sun... in the palm of my hand," the man muttered.
"Otto Octavius," Alex breathed.
But Doc Ock wasn't alone. From the hole in the ground, a massive man made entirely of living sand began to reform, his size increasing as he drew material from the foundation of the houses.
"The Bat!" Sandman growled, his voice like grinding rocks. "Octavius said you'd show up."
Alex stood his ground, the silver on his suit shimmering as he prepared for a two-on-one fight. But his heart sank as he saw Peter—Spider-Man—being held aloft by one of Otto's tentacles, his suit torn and his mask half-ripped.
"Alex... run..." Peter wheezed.
Alex's white lenses narrowed. The violet light in his hands turned into a deep, aggressive purple.
"You should have stayed in the lab, Otto," Alex said, his voice cold enough to freeze the air. "Because now, I'm going to have to take those toys away."
[...Integration: 8.0% (Silver Surfer)...]
[...New Skill Unlocked: Matter Manipulation (Transmutation of Solids)...]
Alex looked at the Sandman. He didn't see a monster; he saw silicon dioxide. And he knew exactly how to turn sand into glass.
The mechanical limbs of Doctor Octopus hissed, the hydraulic fluid whining as they coiled like pythons. Flint Marko, the Sandman, towered over the alleyway, his lower half a churning vortex of grit and sediment. Between them, the neighborhood that Alex had called home for seventeen years was being ground into dust.
"You're a fascinating specimen, vigilante," Octavius said, his goggles reflecting the violet shimmer of Alex's armor. "My sensors cannot decide if you are a man in a suit or a star fallen to Earth. Either way, you are an obstacle to progress."
"Let me crush him, Doc," Sandman rumbled, his arm swelling into a massive, jagged mace of compressed sandstone. "I want to see if that silver skin cracks."
Alex checked Peter's vitals through his HUD. Peter was unconscious, pinned by Otto's upper-right tentacle. If Alex moved too aggressively, Otto would simply snap Peter's spine.
"Peter is off-limits," Alex said, his voice a low, dangerous hum. "Let him go, and maybe I'll let you walk back to your cells."
"Walk?" Otto laughed, a shrill, hysterical sound. "I am a god of mechanics! And Flint is a god of the earth! We do not walk—we conquer!"
Sandman lunged, his mace-arm swinging with enough force to level a building. Alex didn't dodge. He stood his ground, his mind diving into the 8% of the Power Cosmic. He didn't see Sandman as a person; he saw the crystalline structure of SiO_{2}—Silicon Dioxide.
As the sand mace touched Alex's silver chest, he didn't feel the impact. He felt the vibration of the grains. He reached out with both hands, grabbing the massive arm.
"It's just glass, Flint," Alex whispered.
A shockwave of intense, focused heat radiated from Alex's palms. The Power Cosmic surged, raising the temperature of the sand to over 1700°C in a localized burst. The air screamed as the moisture evaporated instantly.
Flint Marko let out a gargantuan roar of agony as his arm—from the elbow down—fused together. The loose, shifting grains were forced into a solid, transparent state. The mace was no longer sand; it was a five-hundred-pound block of jagged, obsidian-sharp glass.
"My arm! What did you do to my arm?!" Sandman shrieked, stumbling back as the weight of the solid glass threw him off balance. He tried to pull the sand back into his body, but the molecular bonds were now permanent. The glass stayed glass.
"I changed your state of matter," Alex said, his eyes glowing with a fierce violet light.
Otto Octavius froze. His calculated mind was screaming at him that the laws of physics were being rewritten in front of him. He tightened his grip on Peter, his tentacles clicking in a defensive perimeter.
"Stay back! I'll crush the boy!"
Alex didn't blink. He utilized the Batman Beyond "Liquid Cable" system. From his wrist gauntlets, two black, high-tensile wires shot out, but they weren't aimed at Otto. They were aimed at the miniature fusion reactor on Otto's back.
As the cables attached, Alex didn't pull. He fed energy in.
"You like the power of the sun, Otto?" Alex asked. "Let's see how you handle a solar flare."
He funneled a precise pulse of cosmic energy through the cables. It wasn't enough to explode the reactor, but it was enough to create a feedback loop in the neural interface. Otto's mechanical arms began to twitch and spark, their AI-driven brains confused by the sudden influx of pure, raw power.
The tentacle holding Peter went limp.
Alex moved. He blurred across the alley, catching Peter before he hit the ground. With his other hand, he delivered a focused sonic burst from his palm directly into Otto's chest plate. The vibration knocked the wind out of the doctor, sending him sprawling into the hole he'd dug.
Sandman, struggling with his glass limb, tried to reform into a sandstorm to escape.
"Not today, Flint," Alex said.
He slammed his fist into the ground. A ring of violet energy expanded outward, a molecular anchor. The shifting sand was suddenly held in place by a localized gravitational field. Flint couldn't move; he was pinned to the earth, his body becoming sluggish and heavy.
[...Integration: 8.5% (Silver Surfer)...]
[...Combat Efficiency: 98%...]
Alex stood over the two fallen villains. He looked at Peter, who was starting to stir. The neighborhood was quiet again, though the alley was a ruin of glass shards and scorched earth.
"System," Alex thought. "Signal the authorities. Use the untraceable SHIELD frequency."
[...Message Sent. ETA: 2 minutes...]
Alex turned to Peter, who was rubbing his head through his mask. "You okay, Pete?"
"Alex? Did... did a building fall on me?" Peter groaned, looking around. He saw the glass arm of the Sandman and his eyes went wide. "Whoa. Did you do that? That's... that's intense, man."
"We need to go," Alex said, grabbing Peter's arm. "Coulson and his team are on the way. They find us here, and the 'slice of life' is over for both our families."
He triggered his thrusters, carrying both of them up to the rooftops just as the black SUVs of SHIELD screeched into the alley below.
From a safe distance, they watched as the agents secured Otto and the partially-vitrified Sandman. Phil Coulson stepped out of the lead vehicle, looking at the glass-mace with a look of profound, weary headache.
"The world is getting stranger by the hour," Peter whispered, crouching next to Alex on a chimney stack.
"It's going to get stranger," Alex replied, his silver armor retracting into the sub-spatial pocket, leaving him in his civilian clothes. "The Sinister Six... they're not just a theory anymore. Someone is organizing them."
"Who?"
Alex looked toward the Manhattan skyline, toward the gleaming tower of Oscorp. "Someone with a lot of money and a very green grudge."
He felt the system pulse one last time for the night.
[...Integration: 10% Milestone Approaching...]
[...Warning: Galactic Signature Detected on the Moon...]
Alex stiffened. The Silver Surfer's "Cosmic Awareness" was screaming. He looked up at the moon, and for a split second, he didn't see a rock. He saw a shadow. A herald of something much bigger than a doctor with extra arms.
"Peter," Alex said, his voice grave. "I think the neighborhood is about to get a lot bigger."
"How big?"
"Universal."