"Doctor Doom is finally coming."
The excited voice from Adam's phone filled his cramped room as he lay on his bed and watched another Doomsday breakdown video.
Adam liked movies, web novels, powers, monsters, and anything that could pull him out of normal life for a few hours. Real life was too plain. Fiction had better rewards.
He was not the type to sit down and think too hard about his problems. If something went wrong, he joked about it. If someone insulted him, he laughed first. People called him unserious more times than he could count.
On the phone screen, the host was still talking.
"If Doom really appears, the scale of this movie will be insane-"
"Yeah," Adam muttered. "Then everyone will stand around making speeches first."
He grinned at his own joke.
Adam frowned and lifted the phone closer.
The screen wavered. The host's voice stretched strangely, as if it was coming through water. A hard wave of dizziness hit him right after.
He sat up at once.
"What the hell?"
The room tilted.
His stomach tightened. Dark spots crowded his vision.
'Okay. This is not normal.' Adam thought.
He grabbed the mattress, but another wave hit even harder. The fan above him split into two, then three.
The phone slipped from his hand.
The light in the room dimmed.
Or his eyes were failing.
Then darkness swallowed everything.
The bed vanished. The fan vanished. The walls vanished. For one second, Adam felt like he was falling through something cold and endless.
Then rough concrete pressed against his back.
His eyes snapped open.
Adam shot upright and looked around.
He was not in his room anymore.
A narrow alley stretched around him, boxed in by brick walls and damp ground, with a dented trash can and a fire escape overhead. The air smelled like and water.
Adam stood there in silence.
"What?"
He turned once, then again.
There was no bed anywhere around him. There was only the alley.
A few steps ahead, it opened to a busy street. He heard shoes on pavement, someone laughing, a car horn, and the low rumble of traffic.
'Where am I?' Adam thought.
He took one step, then stopped.
Something felt strange on his left wrist.
Adam looked down.
A watch was strapped there.
His eyes widened at once.
It was black and green with the familiar hourglass symbol in the center. Not the first Omnitrix. Not the old prototype. This was the upgraded version from after Ben 10's original series and before the Ultimatrix.
The recalibrated one.
Adam stared at it.
"Since when did I have this?"
He raised his wrist closer to his face.
The watch looked perfectly fitted, like it had always belonged there.
Kidnapping.
The thought came so fast that it made him pause.
'Did somebody kidnap me?' Adam thought. 'And this is what, some weird game, a prank, or a hidden-camera setup?'
He searched the alley walls, windows, pipes, and corners.
There was nothing there. No camera, no speaker, and nothing else that made his prank theory stronger.
He looked toward the street again. Tall buildings stood beyond the alley mouth, packed close together.
"This had better be a dream," he muttered.
But the cold air felt real.
The brick felt real.
And so did the watch.
Before stepping out, Adam inspected it again.
The moment he focused on the dial, a transparent window appeared above it.
Adam flinched.
A small glowing screen hovered just over the watch face.
[System Interface Activated]
Adam blinked.
Then the small screen expanded into a larger one, about the size of his hand.
Words formed across it in clear glowing lines.
[Welcome, Host.]
[You have entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe.]
Adam went still.
"Marvel?"
He looked behind him in disbelief.
No one was there.
When he looked back, more lines had appeared.
[World Risk Assessment: High]
[To improve host survival probability, BOB has provided one Omnitrix.]
[Current Omnitrix Level: 1]
[Upgrade Requirement: Advance to Level 2]
Adam read the lines twice.
Then, despite everything, a weak smile touched his face.
"Right," he said. "Because this wasn't ridiculous enough already."
The window shifted again.
[Starter Pack Available]
[Open Now?]
Adam stared for a second.
This was painfully cliche.
'I have read enough novels to know that.' Adam thought.
Still, he tapped the prompt.
The screen brightened.
[Starter Pack Opened]
[Reward 1: Alien Slot 01 Unlocked]
The next message appeared slowly.
[Important Notice]
[This Omnitrix can unlock only ten aliens.]
[After the tenth alien, no further alien templates will be granted.]
Adam's brows drew together.
"Only ten?"
More text appeared under that.
[Compatibility Notice]
[Host biology and template compatibility differ significantly.]
[Primary setting will preserve the host's human appearance.]
[System will prioritize power transfer over full transformation.]
[Minor appearance changes may occur when required for ability use.]
Adam stared at the lines in silence.
So that was the rule.
He would keep his own face. The watch would try to pass alien powers into that shape instead of fully changing him.
His gaze lifted from the window to the street outside the alley.
People were still moving out there.
The city kept going as if nothing impossible had happened.
But everything had changed.
His old life was gone.
In its place was a Ben 10 watch, a system named BOB, a starter pack, and one terrifying sentence.
You have entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Adam breathed out slowly.
If that was true, then this was no prank.
Marvel meant aliens, monsters, secret agencies, and disasters big enough to swallow cities.
Adam looked at the alley exit, then at the Omnitrix on his arm.
"If this is Marvel," he said quietly, "then where exactly am I?"
His grip tightened around his wrist.
"And what timeline did I just land in?"