I was used to waking up in pain. This wasn’t because of anything specific, just a combination of factors. I was used to having muscles sore from workouts, bruises from training, some… stuff from Jen that we both never ended up regretting.

But I’d never woken up with pain shooting up my arm like fire. It blew up in my head with blinding whiteness. I was soaked, my legs felt cold, and I felt like I’d been both drugged and somehow not drugged enough.

“F-Fuck! What the hell?!” I moaned around a mouthful that felt like blood. My head was spinning as I blearily opened my eyes. I felt like I was being stabbed over and over in my arm, the anguish hitting me in waves. The pain in my head didn’t help either. I coughed up some water, with tasted just a bit bloody. My helmet had snapped on at some point. That had probably saved my life, if I’d ended up in the river. My armor had a small supply of air that it could it could provide me even without power to use the rebreather.

When I finally was able to see, I looked down at myself.

“...Shit,” I mumbled quietly.

My right forearm was broken. It was bent at an unnatural angle, almost at the center of my arm. It was going purple at the bend. I instinctively tried to bend my fingers.

“Fuck!” it felt like lightning flowing into my body from my arm, carving chunks out of my nerves. My eyes snapped closed as I took big deep breaths of air. Damn. Damn. Damn.

I tried to rise up, to sit up. I felt a rush of relief at the fact I could move. When my legs felt cold I’d been worried I’d snapped my back as well as my arm. Even if it would have been temporary with the help of the Omnitrix to let me shift into Swampfire to heal, I was still-

My thoughts stopped when I got a good look at myself. My armor was just… ravaged, I suppose would be the word. It looked like it had been melted while it was on top of my skin, with pieces gone where it would have protected my thighs, stomach, lower arms, and portions of my feet. I still had my clothes underneath, but even my helmet looked like it had been through a lava pit.

What the hell!? Why was my armor melted? Why was the rest of me fine, what… oh fuck. Anti-Metal. Somehow, someway, I’d encountered anti-metal. And if my armor was like this...

“Oh no,” raising a hand to my ear, I began to speak quickly. “Creel, Fantasma, can you guys hear me?” Not even static. “BRIDGE! Hello, anyone, this is Dial! Can anyone copy?!”

Nothing. My HUD didn’t pop up to show me anything either. No GPS to follow, no radio on either my quantum comm or normal comm. Whatever had melted my armor had also taken apart the computer.

I struggled to sit up completely as I thought fast. Okay, my armor was gone. My arm was broken. And-

The Omnitrix rested on my arm. It had been through hell. Portions were devoured, melted, pitted. It was still attached to me, but the portions that functioned as the main watch were a wreck. And the light… it was white. Bright and pulsing.

What the hell does that mean?!

I tried to use my right arm, only to bite back a scream at the pain. Since the Omnitrix rested on my left hand, this was a problem. I forced myself to bring my left arm to my right, but even with the Omnitrix right next to it I couldn’t force my fingers to move without wanting to scream, and even then, only about a centimeter. Instead, I brought the Omnitrix up to my face. Feeling almost childish, I pressed the Omnitrix to my forehead. Nothing. I brought it to my mouth and tried to twist it. Other than aching teeth and the flavor of alien metal in my mouth, I got nothing. In a fit of frustration, I pressed the Omnitrix against a rock.

“Come on you dick! Don’t quit on me now-” I slipped, hitting my broken arm on the ground. “AHHHHH!”

Okay… focus. Don’t let the pain distract you.

I was lost in the jungle. My focus had to be on survival first and foremost. If I couldn’t use the Omnitrix right now, my easy out to any of this (Swampfire to heal, Astrodactyl to get back to the cliff, NRG to nuke anything that stopped me). I had training in how to deal with broken arms. Best to put it into play.

I pulled myself to my feet, wincing at the feel of water dripping from my jeans. That was gonna be itchy.

A small laugh bubbled out of me. Armor and Omnitrix melted, arm broken, lost in the jungle, and I was worried about my legs getting itchy? Freaking ridiculous.

What was first? I had to set my arm. Thankfully, I was friends with a pair of good doctors.

------

Flashback

“If you must do it,” Jemma Simmons said with slightly sour look on her face. “And if there is no actual doctor around…”

“Jemma, I promise, if there is a doctor, I’ll have the professional set my bones,” I said with a grin.

We were sitting in her lab with Bruce working nearby. I’d come to bother the two in my continuing bid to learn as many useful skills as I could for hero work.

Jemma sighed in relief, which I found slightly offensive. “Okay, I can teach you then. The first thing you want to do is make sure there is nothing protruding from the skin. If the arm is bent…”

------

Take your arm and straighten it back into place as carefully as you can. Get ready for a shit ton of pain.

I took my right hand in my left. The sting that followed was enough to make me hesitate. I looked up at the blue sky through the trees above, trying to let the beauty of the jungle and the sound of the river. With a solid movement, I brought my arm back into place.

“AGGGGGHHH!”

When the spots left my eyes, I was lying back in the mud again. “...I’m clearly doing this wrong.”

The jungle didn’t give me any response. Dick.

I rose back up to sit up, reaching for the sword on my back. When I took it off and brought to look at, I found myself wincing at the sight of my trusty blade.

It looked less like a sci-fi longsword and more like a beat-up machete with the tip have melted.

“Damn it,” I looked over the blade. “I loved this sword, man. Not enough to name it, but still.”

Still… If it was sharp.

As an afterthought, I also pulled my gun off my back, only to wince. Yeah. That was even worse. It was pretty much a big piece of square metal melted around plastic. I was probably lucky the magnets in my armor were still working.

I got up to get to work. I fought off my frustration with the situation all the while.

The first ingredient to taking care of a broken arm. Two pieces of wood, preferably flat. A bit of hacking with my half-melted sword got me two sections off the side of a big jungle tree. It kind of sucked, just slicing out two chunks of wood, but I’d worry about the ethics of it when I wasn’t trying to survive.

Once I had two pieces of wood as long as my forearm, it was time for the second ingredient. Pieces of cloth, long enough to wrap around a limb several times. I took my sword and after a hell of a lot of trouble working around the melted sections of sword and armor, I got the bottoms of my jeans cut off without slicing myself.

I had to be careful about getting cut. Jungles were cesspools of disease. And this being the Savage Land, I was probably surrounded by viruses that no one had ever heard of in millions of years.

Once I had the raggedly cut sections of jeans in my hands, I cut them into several long strips. I tried to be careful, but also fast. Getting my right arm secured was important. But getting it done before night fell was even more important. I only had a few hours of sunlight to see in.

The second I had several long strips of denim, I took the two pieces of wood and placed one on the back and one on the underside of my forearm. The fucked up thing about my arm was that, based on what I could feel of the break, both bones in that arm had been cleanly snapped. I don’t want to explain what it’s like to take a hold of your arm and feel the bones just… cut into two pieces under your fingertips.

“That is so gross,” I mumbled. It was still kind of interesting to feel that.

I wrapped the arm once the pieces of wood were placed, looping the denim around and around while making sure none of the pressure went on the spot that had been fractured. Enough to keep my arm still without furthering my injuries.

I messed up the tie at one point. Working with only one arm, ya know? I cursed quietly, untied it, then put it back. Once done, I made a crappy sling out of the remains of denim.

It was a shit splint and sling. But it would work until I could get to safety.

I took stock of everything. Okay. Armor and Omnitrix weren’t working. Well, unless…

Taking a moment to rub the Omnitrix against a tree to try and turn or activate the dial got me nothing. And it was still White?! What the fuck did that mean?!

Whatever. I’d have Tony or Fitz take a look at it, if it didn’t just fix itself… Please fix yourself.

I didn’t want to get depressed while in the middle of survival. But the thought of the Omnitrix being broken, the fact it wasn’t responding at all? Goddammit. What was I worth without the Omnitrix?

------

Flashback

“You need to stop thinking that,” Nat said as I lay on the mat. She’d kicked my ass once again, as always, and had stopped to let me take a breath.

“What, that the only reason I’m an Avenger is that I have the Omnitrix?” I asked Nat.

She scowled down at me. I shrugged while lying down. “What? It’s true. If I didn’t have this thing, Maria would have me in a room just writing notes on upcoming threats everyday. I wouldn’t be an Avenger, I’d be a desk jockey.”

My favorite redhead squatted to look down at me. She was upside down from my perspective, but still face to face with me. “If you keep thinking of yourself as useless without the Omnitrix, why are you even trying to train?”

“...I don’t want to be useless,” I admitted. “I want to be worthy of this life I’ve got now.”

Nat stared down at me. “...Then shut up. Stop whining about how useless you are without that watch and start doing something about it.”

“Yes, sensei,” I tried to joke.

Nat grinned, flicking my nose.

------

Stop being depressed and do something useful. Maybe not the healthiest thing mentally speaking, but it would work for the jungle.

Okay. My armor was useless technologically speaking, but I still had hunks of metal protecting my body. Melted hunks, but better than nothing. My sword was melted, but it was still good enough to slice things even with the tip having been turned to a big chunk of metal. And I had clothes. Which, despite what you think, is a big deal. My simple shirt and jeans (Well, jean shorts now) were protection from the elements.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I was trying to think only on the bright side.

I needed a better weapon. Something to make up for my melted sword. But that would be a waste of time right now. Better to focus on getting home. I’d floated down the river. So walking upstream should get me home. If I found something like bamboo, or maybe a good straight sapling, I could make a spear.

I started walking, my sword out in front of me. I stayed close to the river, trying to keep in the open where a quinjet would be able to see me, and got ready for the hard walk ahead of me.

------

Walking through the jungle was hell. It was hot as fuck even when I had to risk walking through the water. Several times I had to use my sword as a makeshift machete to hack through the undergrowth, which was exhausting. Chopping into wood takes energy you could be using for other things. Sweat dripped off my beard and shirt. My broken arm was a hassle. I was working under half my power.

As I moved, I ‘blazed’ a tree every once in a while. Blazing was the practice of slicing just a bit of either side of a tree with your blade, always at eye height. It’s usually done to mark where a hiking trail was. In my case, I was trying to make sure of two things. First, that the jungle didn’t confuse me to the point I ended up circling around. Second, that anyone following me would know where I was headed.

“Fuck me,” I said to myself. “Fuck me, fuck this jungle, fuck the Savage Land…” A buzzing sound drew my attention upwards. “...Fuck.”

A bigass bug was flying near me. I lifted my sword up hesitantly. It looked like a mosquito for a moment. I prayed that it wasn’t. Not because it was big, well partly cause that, but because they carry diseases.

It flew down lower. I breathed easier when I realize it was a dragonfly. A dragonfly with meter-long wings. It was almost pretty. Its wings, while clear, fluttered a rainbow of color when the sun passed them, and its thorax was a bright fluorescent blue-green. It drifted down towards me. I raised my sword, only to blink when it landed on the melted tip with its spindly legs. It was heavier than I expected. It was also kinda… cute. Its wings fluttered as I watched it before it took off.

I continued on.

Further down, another bigass bug scared the hell out of me. It came zooming out of the forest like a bullet out of a gun, rushing past. I stared at it as it went. It looked like a moving carpet of segmented scales, with dozens of small legs under it. It was fast as hell, dodging the rocks and trees easily. I watched it zoom off into the undergrowth with a sigh of relief. It was huge, man. Longer than I was tall. Maybe it had been a herbivore and that's why it hadn’t attacked me. Either way, it was tense seeing an insect with that many legs as big as a person go rushing by.

As I walked, I kept remembering everything I’d learned about jungle survival.

------

Flashback:

Nat and I were standing in the lab with Bucky. The former Winter Soldier and current Avenger was speaking while a hologram floated in front of us. “Your first issue with survival in the jungle is not the poisonous animals like snakes or predators like jaguars and crocodiles. You should be careful about them, sure. Even the smallest animal can cause serious harm or even kill ya.”

He waved a hand. The image of a small brightly colored frog popped into life. “You touch one of these, for example? You spend the next few hours hallucinating before you die from the poison that entered your bloodstream.”

He glowered at me. “You can get dehydrated when the humidity and heat bleed you dry. If you’re injured, that gets worse. The body starts spending calories and water to heal itself. Then there are diseases like malaria to make it worse. Walking through the jungle is worse. The combination of undergrowth and constantly checking for poisonous or dangerous wildlife is a horror show.”

“...Why is it whenever you describe something, it’s like I’m getting training advice from Satan?” I asked with wide eyes. Nat chuckled behind me.

“Because I’ve actually been to hell,” Bucky growled. “And if you listen, I can help you learn how to get out,” he swiped the air, the hologram shifting again. “The jungle. The jungle is the enemy. More than anyone hunting you, more than any animal. The jungle is first. It will surround you in green hell, disorient you, hide threats and help alike in its foliage,” I was starting to get flashbacks to Jumanji. “So focus on the fundamentals. Water. More important than anything when it comes to survival. In the jungle, you don’t want to get it from rivers without boiling it first. So instead, you get it out of trees first and foremost, leaving the option of boiling for later.”

------

Remembering that advice, I kept an eye out for the plants around me. While doing that, I ended up encountering more wildlife.

A scorpion. An inky-black scorpion the size of my leg. And it was busy.

I stared at the thing as it stood atop a rock. In its pincers was a rat as large as a cat. The thing was twitching in the big arachnids pincers. The scorpion's beady eyes watched unfeeling as its prey died in its pincers, that massive stinger raised high.

I hesitated on seeing it. The scorpion didn’t seem to see me. But all I could think about, seeing it, was food.

Scorpions are full of protein. Protein is probably one of the best things you can possibly eat out here in the jungle. They also use venom to dissolve their prey and suck up the remains, which means they don’t carry tapeworms or other parasites. But the fact it was the size of my leg and had a stinger the size of a carpenter nail made me hesitate.

I could have tried to chase it off and eat its prey instead, but the rat was currently full of venom as it was. The scorpion, oddly enough, was the better option.

“...Fuck you jungle,” I finally said quietly.

Okay. How to catch a scorpion? Bucky had run me through that… on normal scorpions. Not giant things like this. If I’d had another hand, I could have held down its tail with a long stick and stabbed it in the head with my sword while it was pinned. Well, crushed its head in with the pointed tip, I mean. The sword may not have been pointy anymore, but it was basically a hammer right now. But with my arm broken, my options were limited.

The fact was, I was lucky. This scorpion was probably waiting for its prey to die before dragging it to its lair to let it dissolve into goop it would suck in. I wasn’t sure why it hadn’t picked somewhere more secluded to wait but I wasn’t going to complain.

Bucky had taught me to see scorpions as food. Now I had to take advantage of that. No time for traps. My armor was thickest on my legs. With that in mind, I came up with a plan.

I crept closer, slowly, small bits of shooting pain coming from my arm whenever it got jostled. It was a struggle to keep calm. Everything about the situation felt so stupid. Attacking a scorpion, a venom-filled ball of armor and rage, with plans to eat it, knowing it could kill me. But I’d rather eat it than anything else. I didn’t know what plants in the Savage Land were poisonous, so I couldn’t risk eating any nuts or berries, I needed food now, so eating a rat or other mammal that could be full of bacteria raw was dumb when scorpion was so much safer to eat raw. And it was here. That was the biggest thing. The scorpion was here, I was hungry, and I needed calories to move through the jungle.

I got about fifteen feet behind it, making sure to check the area around me before I crouched. Last thing I wanted was to sit on the primeval equivalent of poison ivy. Or the gympie gympie plant, that nightmare so intense they named it twice.

I raised my sword. I had to do this in one smooth move. Incapacitate the tail, stab down with the melted sword. Incapacitate, stab.

I took a deep breath in. “...Okay.”

I rushed out. The scorpion, startled by the loud motion I made behind it, raised its tail and turned around in a rush, dropping the rat, which continued to twitch as it landed on the rock and rolled off. The scorpion's black armor glistened in the light. It made a sound, something like a hssss sound. I was on it in moments. I tried not to scream as I moved, focused on breathing instead.

Oh shit, it was huge! It was getting ready to stab me, it’s tail tensing. I needed to stop it now!

I kicked out first. My foot smashed into the tail. The tail hit the tree, stinger section wiggling under my foot. The scorpion hissed. I stabbed down at it in a panic. My sword bounced off the rock instead. The tail wiggled under my foot again, the scorpion flaring pincers at me, the right pincer scratching against my armor.

“GRAAAGH!” With another scream, I brought the sword down again. It crunched against the scorpion's armor, barely scratching it. It scratched at the rock, tail wiggling. I lost my mind, stabbing down at its head again and again, hitting it as hard as I could while keeping my boot pressed against the tail to try and keep its tail pinned. “Die, just die already, come on!”

One, two, three times, I kept hitting it until I lost count, the sound of a clump of metal bashing into armor filled the air. Then there was a crack. The scorpion let out another hiss. One of it’s pincers caught in my melted armor, scratching my leg. I brought the sword up again, stabbing down. The armor collapsed under this blow, crushing the things head at last. I raised the sword again and stabbed down one more time. My sword went through the head, scratching the stone beneath. The scorpion wiggled for about a minute before stilling at last.

“...Fuck me,” I said one more time. Better be careful. I might have been getting repetitive.

The laugh that came from that internal joke sounded a little insane coming from my lips. I kept my boot where it was a moment longer. When I removed it, the tail fell limply to the ground.

I stared down at the corpse for a moment. My stomach was feeling tight and sore, so the thing was looking a lot more appetizing than gross, even with its head crushed and white, almost cream-colored, goo pouring from the wound. Still, the civilized human in me hesitant at the thought of eating a bug.

Still. Bucky had told me a thousand times. If you have food in front of you, eat it. Don’t expect it to pop up again.

With that thought in mind, I raised my sword and sliced at the tail, aiming for just under where the venom glands would be on a normal scorpion, right at one of the joints where the armor was gone. The edge of my sword was sharp enough that I managed to slice off that section of the tail in a single chop. Venom poured out of both sections, but it stopped very quickly. I was going to have to be careful. The venom lost any of its ability to be, well, venomous, when it was cooked, but I still might be allergic to it. Last thing I needed. I tossed aside the stinger section and lifted the body of the scorpion too look it over. I needed something small to eat. The claws would do.

I took the right claw and chopped it off, then smashed it open on the rock. I stared at the creamy flesh inside. After a moment of disgust, I grabbed a piece out and shoved it into my mouth.

It didn’t really have a flavor. But god, the texture was just awful. Like swallowing warm wet pieces of carpet. I forced it down, then kept eating, keeping my head on a swivel. Didn’t want some allosaurus to sneak up on me as I chowed down. Soon I had emptied out the entire claw.

“...Slimy, yet satisfying,” I chuckled to myself.

My stomach felt much better. Still hungry, but not starving.

The sun was still pretty high in the sky. I had to keep moving. One it started to come down, I’d worry about fire. What I needed now was water.

I took off my belt and wrapped it around the tail and claw so I could carry the body, then moved on.

------

Further on down the river, I was starting to wonder what the hell was going on.

First, I couldn’t see the cliff I’d fallen off of no matter how far upstream I went. Second, I hadn’t seen nor heard the quinjet, which had to be looking for me. Hell, Fantasma had magic! Why hadn’t she just done a tracking spell or something to find me?

I kept moving. Worrying about it when I couldn’t do anything was fruitless. I knew I had to go upstream. As long as I kept moving, I would be able to get to the cliff. Just keep steady. Cut through the undergrowth, keep moving.

About an hour of walking later, I found treasure.

Bamboo. Wonderful, wonderful bamboo! The greatest thing someone lost in the jungle could find that wasn’t a fully stocked kitchen attached to a machine gun.

“Oh baby,” I mumbled to myself, rushing toward the thicket as carefully as someone could rush. I kept clear of any leaves, and kept an eye out on the area while I walked up and pressed a hand to the side of that cool green stalk, one as big around as a large jar. Pressing an ear to the bamboo, I shook it. The sound of water sloshing around inside was a godsend.

I took out my sword and began to chop at the side of the thing. Bamboo is sometimes full of water. Clean water, water you don’t need to boil.

There is no way to explain how relieved I was to see liquid splash across my blade. I sliced it in half and watched the whole thing fall down. I hefted it up and cut a small hole in the side with a couple chops. Bamboo is set up in sections, like… I don’t know, like a bunch of pipes that were closed off from each other and left as stacked chambers?

Whatever the case, I tipped the bamboo over and felt water pour into my mouth. If felt so cool, slipping over my lips, filling my cheeks, and slipping down my throat with each swallow. I drank the whole of that chamber, then cut a hole from the next one and emptied that as well. When I was done, I felt amazing.

Okay. Dehydration wasn’t a problem now. I had food at my side. And with the bamboo, I could make a weapon. Nothing fancy, but with bamboo I didn’t have to make something fancy.

I took my sword and choose a bamboo stalk that wasn’t thicker than my wrist or thinner than my fingers, just big enough to hold easily. Once I was sure it was a healthy stalk that wasn’t rotted through or something, I sliced it off. I cut it to be just a little shorter than me. After some thought, I decided against cutting holes out to drink more water from. I did this to another one. Cleaning off any branches and rubbing off the leaves where they grew off the seams, I soon had two long sticks of bamboo.

Next I took my sword and brought the edge against the end of one of them. It was tough working one-handed, but with plenty of water and my scorpion meat to keep me full and hydrated, I was able to keep focused on the task.

Once I had one side split into different sections, I took off one of my shoelaces.

------

Flashback:

“My shoelace?” I asked Nat, confused. She was currently watching as I bench pressed. With a lot of work and constant effort while Steve shouted at me to work in the nicest way anyone had ever shouted at me, I was very proud to say that my bench press had gotten to three hundred pounds. And my pecs looked a lot more like they were actually made of muscle, so bonus!

“Yeah,” she said, pacing back and forth. “When you live like we do, you never know what will end up being useful in someway. One part of my training is that whenever I wear boots, I use 550 paracord instead of normal shoelaces.”

I lifted the weight off my chest with a big breath out. “That’s an awesome idea!”

She moved to smirk down at me. “Glad you think so. You gonna start carrying a knife around now?”

I shook my head. “Nah. I’ve always got my sword.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Idiot. Also, this is too easy for you now.”

“What do you-oof!”

Nat hopped up to sit on the bar. While I was holding it.

My arms shook for a moment under the added weight. “Are you crazy?!”

“Be prepared for anything, remember,” she said, sounding amused. “Besides, you knew I was going to do it.”

“...still though.”

------

Not gonna lie. My sword was great, but having a much less cumbersome knife would have been great. Still, that might well have melted as well. At least I had the paracord to fall back on.

550 paracord isn’t some new thing that came out of Starktech. It’s been around for a while. Pretty much every survival guy in the world recommends having it over any random sort of nylon rope. It’s immensely strong, for one thing. For another, it has a casing surrounding seven nylon strands of cord. The casing can hold 200 pounds of weight. The strands can each hold about 40 lbs, to make 550… Wait, my math might be off. Damnit. Well, look, the point is, the stuff is tough, from casing to all seven strands and it's easy to take the paracord apart for a thousand different applications. And because of it’s design, you get three times as much cord as you would if you carried most any other type of rope.

I took mine out of my left boot and cut off a long section of the lace. I needed it for several things, but thankfully my loving and very mean mentor had me tie in PLENTY of cord.

I put my boot back together, then took that length of cord. Putting a small ring of bamboo in the spear I was making, I tied it together around the core I made out of that ring, making sure the prongs I’d made were sticking out nice and solid. After they were secure, I sharpened each prong with my sword as carefully as I could. It was a bitch to do one-handed, but soon I had a four-pronged spear. I took the other side and simply chopped it at an angle, sharpening that further. I didn’t waste time with the prongs on the other stalk, only cutting it at an angle. I did it to another, and another, until I had about twelve long spears of wood. Leaving the pronged one aside, I stabbed the rest outward in a half-circle.

Night was coming. I had to make a shelter. Better to be in the bamboo, where there was water and supplies, than to continue on in hopes I’d find my way home in the middle of the night.

I worked as fast as I could. Cutting more big bamboo down, I broke them open and laid them down until I had a crappy green bed made of chopped up bamboo laid down for me. Running out of time as I looked up to see the sun slowly lower in the distance, I used my rope and some more big bamboo as a frame and flattened out the rest, laying those over where I’d placed my bed. It should have been fairly waterproof, though I didn’t hold out hope.

Fire. I needed fire.

Once again, my arm being broken was going to make it a bitch. It was still sending lightning through my body whenever it got jostled, so I had to work around it.

First, I grabbed a bunch of dry wood in one arm. I couldn’t use just the bamboo, since, while it was thankfully full of water, that same water made it almost fireproof. But I got some dry sticks after a quick search, placing them in a bundle, and brought them over to my shelter. With the sticks and a bunch of small pieces of dry tinder, I prepared the next part. First, I dug out a small pit next to my shelter, placing sticks and tinder inside that. Then I placed the leftover tinder, basically tiny pieces of bark, leaves, and straw, on top of a rock, placed half a piece of bamboo on top of that tinder so that it was laying almost entirely on top of the tinder, and got the other half. Placing the other half with one edge on the bamboo, I used my left boot to keep the half covering the tinder still.

The idea was simple. I’d rub a piece of bamboo on the other fast and hard, making sure to keep it to the same spot. Over time, friction would create heat, and that heat went would transfer from the bamboo to the tinder underneath.

It was hard as hell. I found myself sweating soon, my left arm sore from the constant movement while pressing down, my fingers tight on the bamboo. I sang to myself under my breath.

“Getting hot in here… take off all yo clothes, I am… getting so hot… The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire! Don’t get no water…”

Somewhere into the middle of me just singing ‘fire’ to myself (I ran out of songs), I raised the bamboo.

The tinder was smoking on one small spot. My heart leapt. I lifted the tinder and gently pulled it together to make a small ‘home’ for the spot that was smoking. Gently as I could, I blew into the embers I’d created. When Nat and Bucky had me practice at home, I’d gotten this down to an artform. But my heart was still beating like a drum as I tried to stay calm while the embers smoked, but didn’t quite become fire.

Then it lit up. I smiled with glee at the fire, the dry heat against my hand making me want to dance with glee, before bringing it to my makeshift fire pit. Things were still tense. If I made one mistake, the fire would die out. The sun had fallen by now. If this didn’t work, I’d be stuck even further in hell than I was.

The fire held onto the tinder. The sticks began to smoke. I laughed.

“Oh shit! YES!” I snapped my hands upward. “YES! FIRE!” I looked around while laughing. “Wooo!”

------

After some more work, I had a makeshift bamboo spit over the fire, which I placed bits of scorpion meat on. As it cooked, I took some pieces of denim, wrapped it around more tinder, and placed it inside a bamboo, making a torch to hold. I couldn’t quite remove my clothes, since my armor had melted over my shirt and waist, but I was able to get my boots and socks off. My feet were thankfully unhurt if soaking wet from sweat and river water. I laid them out to dry next to the fire, though still close enough to grab in a hurry if I had to run.

The scorpion ended up being more useful than I thought. Being a meter long, it had a very large thorax. And it’s armor had held up under several blows. So once I had the armor hollowed out of all meat, I was able to make it into a makeshift bag of sorts, running a cord through where the legs had been.

But that was it. I didn’t have the energy for anything else. I just sat next to the fire, drinking bamboo water and eating scorpion. I had my helmet on again. Despite my faceplate being mostly gone to leave my good looks exposed, and the rest of it half-melted crap, I felt better with a helmet on. Felt a little ridiculous, sitting next to a fire with my feet bare and a helmet on. But I had to look on the bright side of all this.

I was lucky I had the training to survive. I found food, I found water, and I found bamboo. My sword had been intact enough to do its job. I was lucky.

I mean, if I’d been really lucky, I would have landed without my Omnitrix getting anti-metaled.

That had to have been what had happened. When I fell off the cliff and into the water, I must have ended up drifting near an Anti-Metal deposit. Otherwise known as Antarctic Vibranium. Metal that could dissolve the bonds of other metals. The stuff was dangerous. Not just because it could turn other metals into liquid either. Stay close to that stuff, and the iron in your blood would dissolve as well, which any doctor will tell you is bad.

That was my guess on what happened to the Omnitrix. Alien genius or not, it was made of metal. I’m sure if Azmuth had known that Anti-Metal was a thing he would have designed protection for the Omnitrix from the stuff. He seemed to have protections installed for most everything anyways. I suppose Anti-Metal was just different enough to slip through the cracks and make it glow white. The fact it could even do that instead of just being a pile of useless mulch was actually proof of how tough the thing was.

Fucking sucked though. I didn’t want to be out here. I wanted to be home. With my fridge full of food, the power of the universe on my wrist, and a working weapon.

“...I wonder if they’re still looking for me,” I said to the forest, the heat and smell of the fire on my face, scorpion meat crackling over the flame. I pulled the spit off the fire and began to eat once more.

Creel and Fantasma had to be searching for me. And if BRIDGE could get a message to the mainland, everyone would want to find me. X would want to find me. Nat, Tony, Steve, Thor… huh. All of them would want to find me.

And Jen… I missed Jen. I’d only been lost for a day. Why did I miss her this much? I wanted my big green nerd girl talking constantly about lawyer work as I laid my head in her lap. Or to have her head in my lap while I talked about my own nerd stuff. I missed her hair. That was weird. She just had such… long and curly hair, reaching almost to her waist it seemed like. And it was so soft. I liked running my hands through it. Granted, I loved a lot about her, but I couldn’t get my mind off her hair.

Jen said she liked my muscles. I was half sure she was making fun of me when she said it while pressing her palms against me, but it was nice to hear.

I sat in the light of the fire, lost in my thoughts.

There was a sudden rush. Then a shadow leaped from the bamboo, going over the bamboo spears I’d set up as a defense. I didn’t have time to move before hundreds of pounds of flesh hit me from the front. I caught sight of flashing teeth as I shouted in horror. My broken arm, which had calmed to a dull ache, screamed in pain again. A sudden pressure hit me right over my heart. When I looked down, a single long toe claw was pressed against my armor where it was protecting my heart. The creature on top of me snarled.

Then the adrenaline hit. I grabbed my sword off the ground and swung upward. My sword, battered but still sharp on the edge, hit the creature on its jaw. Blood sprayed outwards, the creature screaming in pain. The claw scratched at my chest armor, flaking off the melted pieces that had once been catoms.

“Fuck off me!” I shouted, kicking upwards and slicing at the face of the thing. I took a portion of flesh off before I hit bone. The animal leaped back, whining in pain. I got up and faced it.

Another one rushed out of the bamboo forest, coming towards me. It made the mistake of ignoring my bamboo stakes. The sickening sound of bamboo stabbing through scales and flesh filled the air.

“SKREEEE!!!” the bipedal thing shouted in agony, falling back with a bamboo stake in its chest.

The one that had attacked me first backed away. I didn’t lower my blade, simply facing him. He snarled at me, the fire letting me get a good look at both my attackers.

Velociraptors. Well, not real ones, I guess. Over the years if felt like scientists were putting every effort to make dinosaurs less cool than they looked in Jurassic Park. Doing things like saying ‘oh, they have feathers, they’re actually a lot more fat, they sound more like squeaking turkeys, and they weally wuv you and want to give you cuddles’. Adorable.

Granted, that was all the annoyed 12 year old inside me that had been so awed by cool looking dinosaurs that I didn’t like anything tarnishing that image.

Regardless of all that, the ones trying to kill me right now looked more like the ones I’d once seen on the big screen. Though there were a few differences.

For one, they were more muscular than the ones in movies. These guys were built like damn linebackers, muscles flowing under their scales in armored plates. Their scales were almost a bright tan color, spotted with darker orangeish stripes. They still had feathers, but only on their arms and legs. Everything else though? The long toe claw on each foot that twitched as it prepared to slice into flesh. The long jaw filled with needle sharp teeth as beady little eyes glared at me.

Velociraptors. They’d become near legendary in the eyes of the public as the most savage and mean predators you could ever face. In some ways people thought the idea of facing a T-Rex was less daunting than taking one of these guys on.

And now I was facing one. One, because the other had stabbed himself on one of the spears I’d placed. He fell back, blood pouring around the bamboo in his chest. In a fit of panic, it pulled back, the spear coming out of it with a loud ‘schluck’ sound. That was a mistake. Any doctor will tell you that removing an object stabbed into you is a bad idea when you have no way to deal with the blood loss that will follow.

The velociraptor began to bleed out immediately. Screeching in pain, it fell weakly to the ground.

The one that had initially jumped looked over at me. It’s jaw had strips of flesh cut off from when I’d slashed at it with my sword. I raised my blade, trying to remember as much as I could from animal behavior.

Two. Just two. They’d ambushed me from the front. What did I remember about ambush pack predators? They-

I leaped to the side blindly, not thinking about it. As I did, something slammed into my bamboo shelter, trying to use it as a ramp to leap towards me. Another velociraptor landed in the dirt where I had been, screeching.

“Fuck!” I shouted. I hit the ground rolling. A shadow moved in the forest. Probably another one. I had to move now.

Stop responding to attacks. Velociraptors are ambush predators. They like to strike when you least expect it. But that also meant they liked having the initiative. I had to take that.

The fire was sputtering from the dirt being tossed up into the air as I rolled to my feet. I leaped up from a crouch, jumping forward.

Toward the first velociraptor.

The thing screeched in shock when I tackled. I wrapped my good arm around it as we rolled together. My broken arm screamed at me as I pressed myself to warm scales, the long tail whipping as scrambled for a good angle while me and the raptor hit the ground hard. It raised a clawed hand and scratched at my chest. It’s claws bounced off my armor and went lower, to where my unprotected stomach lay. Three white-hot lines sliced into my skin.

Everything had come to a crawl to my vision. Even though I knew it was all going at high-speed, I felt adrenaline pumping through me. I landed on top of the velociraptor, legs on either side of it. In a crazed part of my mind, I imagined the other two surviving raptors rushing me from behind. The fear and rage pumping through me made want to scream.

I brought my sword down on the velociraptor’s neck, slicing deep into the scales before getting stuck in the spine. It choked on the blood filling its lungs. I didn’t have time to worry about that, leaving the blade stuck there.

The raptor who’d leaped over my shelter hissed while rushing me from my back.

Thank you Nat for attacking me from behind. Long training had taught me how to deal with it. She’d had me run attack drills with everyone faster than me. Her, Bucky, Steve. And the fastest person we knew, if only a couple times. I still couldn’t dodge him even when I knew he was coming.

But this raptor wasn’t as fast as Quicksilver.

I rolled aside at the last instant, right when the raptor was most committed to the attack. His toe-claw still slashed into my hip, cutting through the skin. I imagined I could hear the sound of the claw skipping off my hip bone as it passed, a dull ‘clunk’. Better than dying.

I reached out as I landed. My palm wrapped around warm green wood. One of the bamboo spears I’d left as defense. Ripping it out of the ground, I spun to face my attackers.

The one that had been in the shadows came rushing me head on. I almost despaired when I saw two more in the forest. I raised the spear and held my ground while stabbing forward, right arm hanging limply at my side.

The spear of bamboo went into the raptors chest and out of it’s back. It hit me like a train even then. I held my ground as best as I could, legs sliding in the dirt. It slid down the spear with a squeal. I shoved it aside and hastily reached for another spear, ripping that out of the earth to face the velociraptor that had initially leaped over my home.

The one left over stared at me. Behind it, I could hear the forest moving. More. I couldn’t guess how many. And it had taken everything I had to kill three.

I panted in and out, my breath feeling cold against my lips. Sweat was pouring from my lips. I lifted my spear. Shit. Shit. I was going to die. If they kept coming like this-

Don’t show weakness.

Natasha’s advice filled me. I lowered into a crouch. God, I was going to die. I took my breaths, facing the raptors. I tried my best to roar, channeling every alien I’d ever become.

“C-” I coughed, regrouped. “Come on you fuckers! I’m an Avenger! You want to take me, you need to do better than that!”

Like a drug, shouting out at the raptor growling in front of me felt good. I roared wordlessly, laughing. “You can’t kill me! HYDRA, robot monkeys, dinosaurs, I’ll kill them all! I’m fucking Dial!!!”

I coughed at the end of that little speech. In the heat of the moment, it felt good. Later I felt a little ridiculous, shouting at an animal that had no idea what the hell I was talking about. But it felt good.

A series of barking filled the air. The raptor I could see growled, slowly retreating backwards, it’s head low to the ground. In the shadows, flickering scales moved around. They were hard to see, even when I knew they were there. I counted five though. Including the one moving away and the three I’d killed, that made a pack of nine.

Fuck.

I moved forward as the raptor stepped back, heading toward my fire. The raptor kept it’s eyes on me. I didn’t stop watching it until it had stepped back into the shadows. A rushing sound came from the bamboo. Then the sound of leaves getting trampled, shadows flittering away.

I kept still a moment longer, my spear pointed out. I didn’t dare hope. My head was on a swivel.

But… Nothing. I wasn’t attacked. I wasn’t hurt. I waited for a good moment longer before I dropped to my knees in exhaustion.

“La ilaha illa Allah Muhammed asul Allah,” I mumbled to myself. The prayer my dad always told me that Muslims are told to do before death. A little late, now that I was actually alive. It had been ringing in my mind, underneath all the useful advice about survival.

My arm was killing me. Oh god, it was worse now. At some point in the fight, it had bounced out of its sling to hang limply at my side while my left arm clutched at my spear. I felt warm blood from the cut in my hip pouring down my leg, and my whole body ached. I needed to take care of my wounds. But with the adrenaline leaving me, I just wanted to sleep.

I forced myself to rise once more. The agony that followed would have had me want to curse if I had the energy.

A small pinprick came from my neck. I almost wanted to roll my eyes at the thought of a mosquito bite reaching me through the pain. I couldn’t seem to keep my eyesight straight actually. I was drifting as I reached for my fire. Maybe I could caut-cauterize-

My knees hit the floor of their own volition. I stared at the fire as I fell to my stomach in front of it. Things got fuzzy. I reached for my neck weakly, felt something stuck in my skin, but was too weak to take it out.

“Three dead,” someone said. “Rest ran off… well. You’ll do.”

A humanoid shape stepped into view. The last thing I saw was the fire and the bamboo forest before I passed out.

------

Director Maria Hill of BRIDGE

Maria stood with her arms crossed in her office in the Avengers Tower, staring at the screen in front of her calmly. “How is it, that with all the technology at our disposal, some of the best-trained soldiers on Earth, and a magician working together, we can’t find Dial anywhere?”

On the screen, an image of Fantasma and Creel were standing inside of a quinjet. The Russian Witch bristled. “We’re trying everything! All of us! He just disappeared-”

“I know,” Maria cut her off. “That wasn’t an indictment on your abilities. I’m asking this literally. How did he just disappear? Was he taken? I hate to be dark but if he was dead, or eaten, then we’d have found some sign, wouldn’t we?”

“He can’t die,” Creel said desperately. The tall bald man was staring at the ground, fists clenched. “He’s told me before. The watch has a safety feature. If he’s about to die, it turns him into something that can survive it.”

Maria noted that mentally. She’d never heard of that little feature. While she knew that Creel and Dial spent time together working out, she hadn’t known they were that close.

“If that’s true, he’d have flown over to the cliff in one of his fliers,” Maria pointed out.

“So what do we do?” Creel said, almost spitting the words out.

“Find him,” Maria said simply.

“We’ve been trying, we told you,” Fantasma said.

“So we don’t stop,” Maria crossed her arms. “I’ve been on these kinds of searches. He’s been missing for only two days, and we have the best in the world trying to find him. We aren’t giving up hope. Take a moment to sleep, then keep looking. I’ll go through everything we’ve got here and send people out to aid in the search.”

“Can we at least get satellite tracking?” Creel asked.

She shook her head. “Shuri is working on it. But right now, we’re blind. Any help I send is going to be physical.”

“And how about the other Avengers?” Creel asked. “Do they know Dial’s missing?”

“...No.”

“Why not?!” Fantasma asked, her face twisting in horror.

“Because they’re on missions,” Maria spat back. “They all have assignments to work on. Some of them possibly life-threatening, like Rio patrols. We have multiple jobs to do, and I have to think about the full picture. Dial is important. But the people of this Earth of a whole are much more so. The second they’re free, I’ll let them all know.”

“Jen is going to kill you,” Fantasma said softly.

“She’ll have to get in line,” Maria scowled. “Get some rest, then keep looking for our boy. That’s an order.”

She swiped a hand through the air, dismissing the screen. She stood for a moment, frustration filling her, before leaving the room.

A while back, Tony had been gracious enough to give her an office of her own in the Avengers Tower for her to work in as needed. Of course, Tony being Tony, he charged her rent for it. 20 dollars a month. She wasn’t sure how to feel about the incredibly minuscule amount he was charging her. Insulted, maybe?

Whatever the case, as soon as she left she headed for the labs. Entering into Shuri’s lab, she ignored Ruby and Ayo to focus on the young princess working on her computer. Shuri was wearing a blue dress. The same dress as the day before, Maria noted. “They still haven’t found him. Any luck with piercing the Veil?”

Shuri looked up at her sadly. “Nothing. I’ve been trying with everything we have, but the only thing we can do is enter the Savage Land. Which still requires us to be quite close.”

Maria kept her anger from her face. Shuri was trying. Fantasma and Creel were trying. Getting angry at them for the helplessness she was feeling was useless.

“Okay,” Maria said as gently as she could. “Then keep me posted.”

“Can I go?” Ruby asked.

“...Go?” Maria asked, confused. She looked the tiny teen over.

Ruby was wearing some combat boots that were too big for her, military pants, a leather jacket, and a green tank top. In other words, she looked…

“No, you can’t.”

The blonde glared at her. “Why can’t I?! I want to find him too!”

“Because you aren’t trained for it.”

“I am! I’m more trained than Dial was even! I can find him.”

Maria shook her head. “No. We have everyone we can possibly send to find him already, we can’t-”

“Ugh!” Ruby spitefully spun on her heel and headed for the door. Maria looked over at Ayo. The bald woman shrugged, nodding towards Shuri.

Maria knew what Ayo meant. ‘I already have one to worry about, that one is all yours.’

The Director of BRIDGE held in a sigh. “If you need any help, Shuri, let me know.”

“Yes, yes,” Shuri waved a hand dismissively. “I can’t get work done if you keep staring over my shoulder. Please leave.”

Maria held in the annoyance all adults felt after one too many damn teenagers got on their nerves and simply left the room to let Shuri work. She had just stepped out when a voice surprised her.

“You haven’t sent everyone,” Maria looked over at the speaker.

“...Mikhail. You’re supposed to be getting ready to leave for home,” she noted.

The tall Russian, dressed in his full uniform, had somehow snuck up on her. A tough prospect even if he hadn’t been one of the biggest men she’d ever met baring superhuman forms. Sneaking up on a spy of all people was never easy.

“I was planning to inform you of my departure… the young man. He is still missing, yes?” Mikhail asked seriously. “Then I suggest you use everyone you have at your disposal.”

Maria crossed her arms. “I don’t have time to play around, Mikhail. Who are you implying?”

Mikhail chuckled, though there was a dark edge to it. “You must track someone who has become lost in the jungle. Isn’t that, in essence, a hunt?”

“...Oh goddamn it,” Maria sighed.

------

Mikhail was already on the plane to Russia when Maria made the call from her office. After a moment of a holo-screen blankly ringing, the screen lit up.

“Hello, Director Hill,” Boris said as soon as the screen lit up, giving her a small smile. The Russian official was standing in his own office, wearing his usual business suit. “Is there something you need? I trust that Fantasma is well, and Crimson has said she is doing good work.”

“Yes to both of those questions. But that isn’t why I called. I’m on a tight schedule. 48 hours, to be specific,” Maria said. “Dial is missing.”

Boris recoiled, surprised. “He is? Mikhail has not informed me of that.”

“He knows about it, but I’m keeping it close to the chest,” Maria explained. “Not just because the news of an Avenger going missing is big. But because of where he went missing.”

With that, Maria began to explain the Savage Land. Boris listened closely, interrupting to ask questions. But not once did he treat her as though she was crazy. She had to wonder why. Even with all that she’d seen, the Savage Land had still thrown her for a loop. Still, it was to her benefit now.

“-it’s been a full two days,” Maria said solemnly. “And I need to get him back.”

Dial was important. Not more or less than any of the other members of BRIDGE and the Avengers, but even pragmatically speaking, he was valuable. And honestly? After losing Trip and Sharon? Maria was starting to take missing BRIDGE members as a personal insult.

“So you want me to send one of our operatives to aid you,” Boris finished for her. His face had become incredibly still. “Into the jungle. Not just any jungle. A jungle that is full of the most dangerous creatures the world has ever developed naturally. Dinosaurs. Beasts so massive and powerful… do you realize what you’ve done, Director Hill?” Boris looked haunted. “If I ask this man, he won’t even wait for those in charge of the Winter Guard to allow it. He’s going to say-”

“I accept!” in the background, the sound of a man roaring as he ran could be heard, the voice of Kraven the Hunter drifting into the distance. “Boris, I’m headed to the airport! I have some smuggler friends, they’ll drop me off!”

“Kraven, you can’t just-” Boris held out a hand towards the door, only to drop it slowly. He looked like he was resigned to his fate. “He’s gone.”

Boris walked over to his door, the holoscreen turning to follow him as Maria continued to watch, the director wondering what the heck she was watching.

Chernobog walked up to the door just as Boris got to it. The massive dark god looked odd for a moment. Maria stared at him for a moment before realising what was wrong. Chernobog, in all the time she’d seen footage or photos of him, had usually had a very smug appearance on his shadowy face. Here he looked…

Confused as hell?

“Hey, so… Kraven just passed me in the hall?” Chernobog said, pointing behind himself with his thumb. “He was grinning like a loon. It was creepy.”

“You were creeped out?” Boris said in surprise. Then he shook his head. “Look, Director Hill, I’ll send Kraven out as soon as possible. Please send me everything we need,” he turned to meet eyes with her. “If anyone can find him-”

“Oh, hello Miss Hill,” Chernobog said politely, waving.

“...Kraven can,” Boris said, looking like he was on the edge of a heart attack. “I’ll make sure he understands the mission.”

“Thank you, Boris,” Maria said sympathetically.

Superheroes. Useful. But crazy, every last one of them.

With that, she sent Boris mission file through a secure email. As the file left, a sound came from nearby.

Maria looked around, confused. It sounded like… well, like a rocket blasting off? But none of the Towers security measures had activated. “Jarvis, what is that noise?”

The Avengers Tower AI responded immediately. “That was X, ma’am.”

She calmed. Maria Hill was many things. But she wasn’t an idiot. “He’s headed to the Savage Land.”

“Yes ma’am,” Jarvis said politely.

Maria turned to look out of the window, walking up to it. New York City spread out in front of her as she stared outward.

“Kraven the Hunter and X the android are going out to the Savage Land…” Maria sighed. “I guess we’ll have to hope this all doesn’t end as chaotically as I think it will.”

But she didn’t hold much hope for that.

------

X

When a message came from the Savage Land two days ago, X had been watching over the Avengers Tower network. He’d known it would take a while for a message to get back, so he was rather surprised by how fast the first had arrived. After all, thanks to the Veil, if someone wanted to send a message to the mainland, they had to leave the Savage Land, making communication with those within a chore.

X had watched as Creel appeared on screen, speaking to Maria Hill on the emergency line, informing her of Dial’s disappearance. The moment he had gained the gist of the events in question, X left a subroutine to continue to watch. The rest of him prepared.

Dinosaurs. While X sympathized with the need to protect endangered life, he knew he needed something powerful to take them down. He rolled through a digital file of the current arms available to him. A jungle with all the undergrowth that entailed. So something handheld he could reach easily, while still capable of doing immense damage. And something large he could carry on his back in case he had to kill something large or destroy a building containing Dial.

He quickly found the correct designs. Including a simple requisition order for a machete as well, he entered his android body and rose from the seat in his lab, walking to get them.

Now. How to get there. He had an android body now after all. The Veil could become a problem. Very well. Prepare to back himself up on a server and load his primary ‘self’ completely within his android form. That would take a full day, as he was quite a large AI if he said so himself.

Probabilities of surviving after 24 hours in a hostile environment wer- Disengage line of inquiry.

Transportation. Well, he didn’t need a plane. Just a way to lift himself across the ocean. Months ago, Dial had created armor for Skye in his Jury Rigg form, including powerful jetboots. He’d recently made something based on those designs. Increasing the size of those jets and focusing them into a single unit became his new jetpack. With some improvements, it was even able to carry his hefty form.

Then, X waited. There were two reasons for this.

First, it would take time for his preparations to- Probabilities of survival after- Disengage line of inquiry. It would take time for his preparations to be complete. The weapons needed to be fine-tuned, and the jet pack refined. His AI mind had to be uploaded and backed up. Not to mention the tasks he pushed himself to complete before leaving.

Some would have seen the sudden need to complete as many tasks as possible as a way for X to distract himself. Those people would have had a fundamental lack of understanding into how AI were able to logically function in every situation.

Probabilities of survival in the Savage Land for Dial after a day and a half, with the possibility of dea- DISENGAGING INQUIRY.

The second reason X waited was to see if Mahmoud would be found. If Fantasma, Creel, and the BRIDGE soldiers found him, then this would all be unneeded. 48 hours. They had that long.

When Creel and Fantasma called back after that time had passed, X took a look at them. One read of their body language later, and he was entering the hanger.

In the corner he’d set up for himself, his weapons had been placed on a table. Without looking, he picked up a machete and place it on his hip. Then he took a massive revolver off the table, taking a pair of belts with pouches to hold bullets. While revolvers were less efficient than more modern handguns such as the Glock 19, X had no need for a Glock. His body had enough power that a Glock was unnecessary. This revolver, sized specifically for him to fire bullets so large the recoil would have shattered the wrists and forearms of anyone mortal attempting to use it? It was for those moments where X needed to kill something and they were just out of arm's reach.

Once the revolver was magnetically attached to his hip and the belts of ammo were wrapped around his waist, he lifted his final weapon. The one he’d selected for the most massive of enemies. A double-barrel rifle made to fire bullets as big as three fingers across. He placed this giant of a weapon on his chest. His back would be carrying something during the trip.

He looked at his transport. A jetpack. That was wider across than he was, with rockets the size of trash cans. It would do.

X lifted it up and placed it on. After a moment's thought, he placed on a pair of aviator goggles. If any rain or snow fell on the way, he didn’t want his vision receptors impeded.

Dial was alive. He knew it, even if the probabilities didn’t.

Lowered into a crouch, X began a mental countdown from five. On three, the jets ignited. On one, they released plumes of green-blue light. He rocketed forward, moving his hands to grip the jetpack strap. For a moment, he flew over the steel floor of the hanger. Then he was in the open air of New York City. The jets truly blasted off then.

“FWOOOOOO!!!!”

With that loud clap of noise, X flew past city limits. Freed from the possibility of hurting others, the jets went into overdrive. The sound of a sonic boom could be heard in the distance as X disappeared.

He would save Dial. If not… well. There was a reason they were called the Avengers.