No answer came.
Adam waited a second longer, still staring at the floating screen above the Omnitrix.
Nothing changed. No location appeared, no timeline showed up, and there was definitely no helpful system message saying, Welcome to Manhattan, please try not to die.
"Wow," Adam muttered. "Very useful. Truly a premium service."
The screen stayed silent.
Adam clicked his tongue and started walking toward the alley exit.
If the system was done talking, then standing here would not help. He needed information, and the fastest way to get it was to look outside and figure out where exactly in Marvel he had landed.
His steps were cautious at first.
Then a sudden blue glow flashed across the alley walls.
Adam stopped.
The light was bright enough to paint the brick in cold color for one sharp moment. He turned toward the street immediately.
A second later, a deep rumble rolled through the air.
It did not sound like normal traffic.
Adam moved faster.
When he reached the mouth of the alley, he saw it.
A massive blue beam had shot into the sky from the top of a distant tower. It looked almost solid, like a pillar of energy cutting through the city. Then the sky above it twisted.
A hole opened, blue at the edges and dark at the center, with energy rippling around it like torn glass.
Adam's eyes widened.
He knew that scene.
For one second, his mind refused to accept it.
Then the memory clicked into place.
The tower, the blue beam, the portal, Loki, Selvig, and the Chitauri.
'Hold on. No way.' Adam thought.
Then his face changed.
'No, I know this.' Adam thought. 'I know this scene.'
His heartbeat sped up.
"The Avengers," he whispered.
Not just any part either. This was The Avengers 2012, the Battle of New York.
Adam started moving before the thought had fully settled.
He stepped out of the alley and into the open sidewalk with everyone else.
People all around him had stopped walking. Some were frozen in place. Some were pointing upward. Some were pulling out their phones with shaking hands. A taxi had halted badly in the street. Two men nearly bumped into each other because neither was looking where he was going.
No one was calm.
Adam barely noticed them.
His eyes were locked on the skyline. There it was: Stark Tower.
He recognized it almost at once.
And near it, cutting across the air in red and gold, was Iron Man.
Tony Stark was already moving upward.
Adam stared for half a second, then almost looked offended.
"You've got to be kidding me," he said.
A woman beside him turned. "What?"
Adam pointed upward without looking at her. "I missed it."
"Missed what?"
"The suit-up scene," Adam said automatically. "The falling one. I missed it live. Historic loss."
The woman stared at him as if he had lost his mind.
That was fair.
Even Adam knew it was the wrong thing to focus on while a giant portal was opening over the city.
He still focused on it for one extra second anyway.
'Seriously. Of all the moments to miss, I missed that one.' Adam thought.
Then reality caught up to him again.
His grin vanished.
This was not a movie now.
This was real.
And if this was really the opening of the Battle of New York, then things were about to become very bad, very fast.
Adam looked up at the portal again, mind racing.
He remembered enough.
The Chitauri were not the most terrifying aliens in fiction. One on one, plenty of stronger things existed. But that did not matter when hundreds came pouring into a city. Then thousands. They had numbers, weapons, flying carriers, and a battlefield full of civilians.
And once it started, it would not stop quickly.
Not until the nuke.
Not until Tony carried the missile through the portal.
Which meant the city was about to become hell for hours.
'Great,' Adam thought. 'First day in Marvel and I spawn straight into a city-wide alien invasion. Amazing luck. Top-tier welcome package.'
A loud crack split the air above.
More screams followed it.
The crowd shifted at once. Some people stumbled back from the street. Others kept staring upward in shock. One man laughed nervously and said it had to be some kind of stunt until the person beside him snapped at him to shut up.
Adam's hand tightened around his left wrist.
The Omnitrix sat there quietly on his wrist, heavy, real, and hopefully useful.
That was the problem.
He still did not know what alien had been unlocked.
Slot One was open. Good.
But open to what?
Something useless at the worst possible moment?
He did not know.
And he did not have time to stand here and complain about that either.
If he was really here, really in this moment, then he would have to work with whatever he had.
Adam took a slow breath.
"Okay," he told himself. "Rule one, don't panic. Rule two, panic later."
A teenager a few steps away actually heard that and looked at him in disbelief.
"Did you just tell yourself not to panic?"
Adam glanced at him. "Yes. I'm trying to set a professional tone."
The boy opened his mouth, then looked back at the sky and decided he did not want this conversation.
Fair again.
Adam rolled his shoulders once and kept thinking.
He had almost no information, no base, no allies, no money, and no clue what exact alien power he had.
But he did have one huge advantage.
He knew what was coming. Maybe not every second and maybe not every street, but enough.
He knew enough to understand one thing clearly: if he wanted to survive in Marvel, his first lesson had arrived early and loud.
The portal widened.
The blue light around it flared harder.
All across the street, phones rose higher. Voices grew louder. People started stepping backward without taking their eyes off the sky.
Adam did the opposite.
He stepped forward, not because he was fearless and not because he was stupid.
Mostly because his brain had fully accepted one terrible truth.
This was the Battle of New York.
And somewhere in that battle was his first real test.
His fingers brushed the Omnitrix dial.
'Please don't give me something useless.' Adam thought.
High above, shapes began moving inside the portal.
Adam looked up at them, jaw tightening.
Whatever alien the Omnitrix had given him, he was about to find out the hard way.