chapter one
I had been just watching Iron Man again, for god only knows how many times when I got out to take a smoke break, just outside of my apartment, on the sidewalk. As I lit my last cigarette, I walked down the street, the full moon illuminating the cold, dark street. The street lights had been busted since a week ago and still, no one came to repair them, “tch- Lazy government”
I walked down the street and in front of a gas station. I snuffed out the cigarette and walked inside.
“Ah, Alex, you again?”, the clerk asked, “What do you need this time?”
“Just a new pack of smokes, my last one ran out”, I told him, placing some money on the counter.
“Of course, I’ll do it right away”, Tom the clerk put the money in the cash register and handed me a pack of smokes, “Thank you”, I said, before leaving the gas station again and starting my walk back to my apartment. Halfway there, I heard a loud *Honk Honk*, my head spun around to the source of the noise and I saw a truck spinning out of control towards me. My entire body froze in fear, my mind was shouting at my muscles to move but I couldn’t. I just stood there, like a deer in headlights. Before I knew it, the truck was mere meters away from me and all I could think was, ‘So this is how my life will end… I wish I had lived a more thrilling life, not just going to work or watching movies all day…’
The impact shattered every bone in my body. It felt as if I was getting ripped apart all at once.
Then, the pain just stopped. I was at peace, there was this creepy calmness that overtook me and suddenly, I was in a room. White painted wooden floorboards, stone walls, a window looking out on a beautiful garden, a great grandfather clock was standing at one wall, a desk at another, right in front of the window, with two chairs at it, one behind the desk, in front of the window and one in front of the desk, looking out the window. In the chair behind the desk, sat a man in a black and brown suit, with long, white gloves on his arms. His hair was a deep black like the vast expanse of space and his eyes glowed like a thousand miniature suns. His skin was a dark chocolate brown with white freckles. All in all, it was a very imposing man which made me feel weak in comparison, such great power rolled off him that I had a hard time concentrating, “Who- what are you?”
“I am one of the many gods that govern reincarnation”, he said, his voice booming and soft at the same time, “And you have enough karma to reincarnate. I have already searched out a world you would enjoy, now all you have to do is choose your soul bound object”
“Soul bound-what now? What is that? Am I really dead? I don’t feel dead…”
“Yes you are really dead”, the god responded, “And a soul bound object is something all reincarnators get, it is an object, either real or fictional that is bound to your soul, meaning it can never be stolen, lost or otherwise taken away. I have seen people wish for something as simple as a knife or gun and some as complex as an AI living in their head, which allows them to think at hyper speed, multitask and hack almost everything, now, choose your soul bound object, I have a few more of you mortals to go through before I can call it done for today”
“An object that can’t be taken away… and it can be from fictional worlds? Well then… well why not, can’t go wrong with that, a classic really… okay, I want my soul bound object to be the omnimatrix or omnitrix for short, with master control”
“I can give you the omnitrix but I can’t give you master control. The last time, someone wished for the omnitrix with master control, they destroyed the universe as alien X, but I can make your time between recharges longer. How does one hour between recharge mode sound?”
“Sounds fantastic”, I was getting more and more excited, “by the way, what world are you sending me into”
“Oh, one of the marvel ones, I’m not quite sure which number it is but it exists in the marvel multiverse”, he said, chuckling.
“Fuck, okay, that could be worse but it could also be quite a bit better… whatever, I can do this!” I pumped myself up, raising my hand into the air, “I will live a good life this time around, a life as a Hero!”
“Good luck with that”, the god spoke up and everything went black.
I awoke with a start, in a room that was foreign yet also very familiar. I had the memories of this world’s version of me. I was an orphan living on his own in a crappy apartment in New York, queens, and I went to Midtown high, the same school as Peter Parker, we were both Juniors, both 16 at this point. Ned leeds was also in our year -the mcu version of Ned, not the other version-, as was Harry Osborn. My grades were okay, not the best but good enough to get by. I was a loner in school, not nerdy enough to be part of the nerds, not sport oriented enough to be one of the jocks and not talented enough to be one of the theater kids. All in all, I was just a background character, someone that no one acknowledges and would probably die first if a villain ever attacked because they were disposable.
But now… now I had the omnitrix… I looked down my arm and saw it, the ultimate weapon. It was a black watch with green accents and a green hourglass shape where the clock face should be. I tapped the top of the omnitrix and immediately, a hologram appeared, showing me the different alien options, I swiped and swiped until I came to Grey matter, one of my favorite aliens, I lightly pressed down and with a flash of green light, my old body was gone, replaced with the form of an adolescent galvan, a frog like alien that stood very small and could live for hundreds, if not thousands of years. I could immediately tell that I was a lot smarter. I spent the full hour of my transformation doing homework, which was laughably easy as greymatter. With that done, I transformed back, “Wow, it feels great to transform, it almost makes me feel as if I had been reborn- again…”
“Now, I have to get a good computer… this old thing won’t do”, I clicked my tongue, looking at the crappy computer which sat in my room, it was very old and slow, “I know the exact alien I need for this job… but first, let me get to a place with a lot of material… the dump should be fine”
I walked towards the dump, passing several blocks of buildings on the way there. Once I was inside, I swiped through the aliens and found the one I wanted, “Omnitrix?”
“Yes, user?”
Well, that was useful, “Boot me out of the transformation after five minutes”
“Confirmed”
I pressed down and disappeared only to reappear in a flash of green light, as a red skinned, gremlin-like creature, “Juryrigg!”
I immediately got to disassembling metal and putting it back together, “Disassemble, reassemble! Disassemble, reassemble! FIX FIX FIX FIX!”
After the five minutes were up and the omnitrix forced me to return to human form, I was left with a fully functioning super computer, the size of a normal desktop. I swiped over the options in the omnitrix and changed into XLR8, grabbing the desktop and running to my apartment, where I de-transformed and opened the door, walking in and plugged in my new supercomputer…