We rolled through the swamps of Florida for a long while, Pandora and Daltry talking to each other at a rapid pace. Well, Pandora was talking at a rapid pace. Daltry was just trying to catch up.

I was thinking to myself. While I could have easily covered the trip in seconds using Fasttrack or Astrodactyl, I really wanted a moment to myself, and a car ride was perfect for it.

There was so much crap going on in my life right now. So many things to keep track of all at once. Telling Jen and X about it was helping. Having the Avengers and BRIDGE alongside me for all of it was making things easier.

But I had so much on my plate. I felt… compelled to involve myself in every bit of it. But I felt like I needed a vacation. My life had become my work, everything focused on trying to save the world. I had to keep it all straight, keep it from tearing me apart mentally.

And for a moment, the thought of the Nexus filled me.

“That’s where Manny hangs out,” Daltry interrupted my thoughts to point at a random section of swamp as we drove past. “Well, not there, specifically, but in that direction.”

“I’ll have to visit it later,” Pandora said absentmindedly.

“You don’t want to see it now?” Daltry asked, surprised.

“Actually, I want to take a look at your town's history. I want to see if legends about the Nexus existed before Man-Thing was created. There should be something in the past of Citrusville’s history that can help me put a few things in context.”

“Ah… Well, go ahead and pull over. I wanna see if I can talk to Man-Thing.”

“WHAT!?” Pandora screeched in surprise, spinning to look at me. She winced and touched her neck, and I worried that she’d pulled something from turning too fast. “Stop the car!”

Daltry, to his credit, didn’t panic at the screaming woman next to him, instead pulling over with a very calm look on his face. Yeesh. The guy really had a cool demeanor to him.

“You can talk to him?” Pandora said so fast that the words almost ran together.

“I… maybe? I mean, I can’t exactly promise that, but I figure it’s worth a shot? Swampfire has a connection to plant-life, can communicate with it, so I’m hoping that Swampfire can find something in Man-Thing. Something he can talk too.”

“I want to see,” Pandora said. Her voice was filled with the insane determination to accumulate knowledge that turned regular scientists into mad ones for centuries.

“What, I can’t have a private talk with him, plant monster to plant monster?” I asked teasingly.

To my surprise, Pandora winced. “O-Oh. I’m sorry. I just got so excited-”

I was reminded very heavily of my sister. Then again, any woman reminded me of her in the right circumstance. I booped her nose, sending Pandora into a sputter. “Nah, you’re good. Come on, let’s go make friends.”

“I suppose I just wait here?” Daltry asked.

“You can come, but no touching the exhibit.”

“Great, a comedian,” Daltry still exited the car along with Pandora and I.

I twisted the dial and pushed down. In a flash of green light, I became the first Alien Force alien once again.

“Swampfire!”

I grinned as soon as I was back in the mean and green form. I opened my mouth to speak, then froze.

Since I first turned into Swampfire, I’d always felt the plants around me. It was like touching a keyboard or mouse. Feeling that you had complete control of something, that all you needed was to push the right way, and you could manipulate the world in front of you. Not the best description, but it’s one that works.

Now though, it felt like the plants around me were more ‘alive’ somehow. No. Not all the plants…

I started walking through the swamp. I released my spores as I walked, the green mist coming off my body to flow through plants. With a hint of a push, I guided the bushes and branches to move aside, letting me through. Pandora and Daltry followed along.

“This is amazing,” Pandora mumbled, touching one of the plants that had moved aside. “Are you sure this form doesn’t have magic? This reminds me of some fae spells I’ve heard of.”

“Not unless someone lied to me,” I said with a grunt.

It didn’t take us long to reach the spot we wanted to get to. With my powers making a path, it was easy as hell.

Then, the fog began to roll in. No. The fog was just becoming thicker and thicker. The plant-life was more of a chore to push aside. But it felt like a beacon was shining in the center of it.

We stopped at the edge of a pool. The fog continued to flow around us, mixing with the green mist I was emitting from my body, green and white swirling.

Pandora and Daltry stared at my back. I didn’t say anything. He was coming.

The water stirred. A pair of red spots slowly rose up. The water wavered around them, before the green plants around it rose up with them.

He strode out of the waters, coming to a stop in front of me. I looked him up and down, taking in the sight. Man-Thing, standing as tall as my own eight-foot form.

“Uh… hey Manny,” I said, cocking my head. “How’s it going?”

I don’t know what I expected. A telepathic message, maybe?

Instead, I felt a mind against my own. It was powerful, echoing in my head. An emotion that wasn’t my own. It was like I was being forced to feel it, and then had to replace that feeling with my own to comprehend it.

[CURIOUS]

That was… powerful. I could usually get impressions from plants, but this was like the difference between a firecracker and a grenade.

“So uh, my name is Dial. I’m able to turn into different aliens, and this one can communicate with plants.”

[CURIOUS]

“...You don’t understand speech, do you?”

“What’s happening?” Pandora whispered behind me.

“I can feel his emotions, but nothing else. And they’re loud.”

“Really?” Daltry asked. “How’s Manny doing?”

[FOND]

Huh?

“Daltry, ask him a question?”

“What?” Daltry blinked, then shrugged. “Uh… you doing all right, Manny?”

[FOND]

“Huh. I think he likes you.”

“He does?” Daltry and Pandora said in unison, Daltry confused and Pandora excited.

“What else does he feel!?” Pandora added excitedly.

[ANNOYED]

“Oh, what is he doing now!? Is he excited? Happy? Sad?” Pandora shouted.

[ANNOYED] Man-Thing shifted slightly.

“I think you’re too loud,” I said gently.

“Really!? I theorized about his mental capacity and ability to process his emotions but-” she blinked, suddenly realizing what I said. “I’ll be quiet,” she whispered.

I walked forward, trying a different tactic. Instead of speaking, I pushed my mind against the one I felt. For a moment, I was reminded of the way I felt when I’d been fighting Ares. That piece of power inside of me, waiting for me to crack it and discover something in me that I hadn’t understood. Not the same, but similar.

I tried to send feelings of greeting. The feeling I felt when I saw Steve, Creel, or Tony, the warmth when I was reading next to Jen and Ruby, or eating on the Avengers rooftop with Nat and Clint while our legs dangled over the city and we joked around.

[WARM]

Man-Thing’s eyes dimmed and brightened a bit as the thought came. He raised a hand and brushed me aside, walking past all of us. As he did, I felt more emotions slowly pour out of him.

[GOOD][DUTY]

“I guess he’s finished?” I said, confused.

I was wrong. He was just checking on something. In that slow pondering gait, he moved to stand before pressing a leafed hand outward.

“Here we go again,” Daltry grumbled to himself.

The air rippled like Man-Thing had pressed his palm on water. I stared at the way the world around us seemed to pull apart for a moment. I realized what I was seeing.

The presence of the Nexus of All Realities.

“That’s incredible,” Pandora whispered. “Oh! I need to take photos! I’ll be right back!”

She spun and started running back to the car.

“Mrs. Peters-” Daltry cursed, moving to follow. “Fool girl’s gonna get lost in this damn swamp. Are you-”

“I’ll be okay,” I said absentmindedly.

Daltry gave me an odd look before cursing in that cowboy way and rushing after Pandora.

I didn’t take my eyes off of the place where I’d seen the ripple. The Nexus of All Realities. A way home.

Back to my world. And yeah, my world wasn’t perfect. It had so many issues. But it had my family. My brothers, sister, nephew, and niece… my sister had been pregnant when I left. Did I have another little one waiting for me? Were my parents worried about me? My friends?

If I went back as I was, there was so much I could do. So many ways to help my Earth. With the Omnitrix, I could make so many changes in so many places. I was doing a lot here. What could I do there? More than that… who could stop me?

I pushed aside the sudden megalomania I was feeling

For a crazy moment, I felt the urge to step forward. Like being on the edge of a roof, and knowing all you needed that one step to know if you had it in you to fly.

[CAUTION]

Man-Thing’s emotions pushed at me. I looked at him and realized I’d been projecting unconsciously. I clenched my green fists. “I just… I have so much back there. And so much here. I miss my world. But this is my world too…I-” I raised a hand, stopped.

I couldn’t do it. Not because I didn’t want to. God I wanted to. But the Nexus wasn’t guaranteed to be a way home.

The multiverse is massive. Full of worlds dark, bright, grim, and noble. Places that could help or destroy me in equal measure. If I fell into that mystical portal, there was no telling where I would end up. And then, there was the dimensional viewer. When I’d tried to look at my Earth, I’d been unable to pierce whatever veil blocked it from me. If I tried to go there, would that same veil stop me? Maybe even break me apart?

But that wasn’t what held me back. As much as the danger made me cautious, I was confident I could withstand most any threat.

It was just that, when I thought of all the good things in my former life, the things I loved about my current one came into mind. The Avengers, once idols, now family. Natasha, my good and badass teacher. Jen…

I turned my back on the Nexus. Not today. Not until I could find a way back and forth. I would have both worlds.

Man-Thing was still standing there, placidly watching me.

“Do you need anything, man?” I asked, trying to send that message as much through my emotions as my words. “You… want me to say anything to Barbara?”

Man-Thing turned and began to stride into the waters of his swamp. His mind continued to press against mine.

[DUTY][SATISFIED][DONE]

I stared at the sinking form of the monster of Citrusville.

“...I’ll let her know.”

[despair]

That last one hit me like a hammer. I stepped forward, surprised, only to lower my hand as he disappeared. I shook my head. “Okay. Bye, Ted.”

“Aww!” A voice said behind me. I turned to see Pandora carrying a textbook and camera. “He left!”

Daltry was behind her, looking a little harried. Pandora ignored him to run forward and reach experimentally in the air, finding nothing. “Darn it,” the dejected researcher looked over at me. “Can you ask him to make it again?”

I turned to where Man-Thing had gone. Somehow, he’d disappeared entirely from my mind. Despite the fact that I’d been able to sense him from hundreds of feet away earlier.

When I shook my head, Pandora sighed dejectedly. “I’ll have to try again later.”

“Meantime, we better get into town,” Daltry said.

“Yeah… Yeah,” I stared at the empty space around us. The Nexus was still there. I could feel it, even if I couldn’t see it. I pushed the thought away and tapped the Omnitrix, becoming my human form once more. And yet, I still felt kind of a connection to the plants around me. “Let’s go.”

------

When we got to Citrusville proper, the small town reminded me of a lot of other small towns I’d been in. Very homey, small, with people in shorts and shirts walking about in the humid air. I found myself tossing aside my jacket. New York tended to be very cold in comparison to the Everglades. We drove through town for a while, people waving happily at Daltry as we went past. It was kinda cute, seeing the grin on Daltry’s Sam Elliot looking face as little kids waved at him happily.

For a town right next to the door of realities and a giant swamp monster, Citrusville was a very normal looking place.

We soon reached a part of town that I noticed happened to be relatively close to where Man-Thing made his home, even if that was in only because the swamp was closer to it. Daltry drove up to a building and pulled to a stop in the parking lot. We stepped out of the car to look at the building together. It was small, squat, and square, more of a single room than a real building. On the door was a few words.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission: Citrusville Office

“Is there anyone inside?” I asked while Pandora led us inside the doors. The office inside was painfully boring. The kind of place you’d see in a sitcom where a guy kept giving sarcastic looks to the camera. It was also empty.

“I handpicked a group of people to help me with this, but only three people should be in there. The rest will be arriving one by one. I have to be covert about this. We’ll be working to defend the Nexus, establish a research station for magic, and keep Man-Thing from killing others indiscriminately,” for a moment, she reminded me a lot of Fury and Maria. It was in the way her eyes set while talking about her job.

“How you folks gonna do all that from this dinky little office?” Daltry poked at a computer that looked like it came from the 1950’s. And no, I wasn’t getting the decade wrong, the thing was just THAT old and grimy looking. I think there was blood on the corner of it…

“Well cowboy, that would be a bad idea,” I snarked. We walked towards the back, to a supply closet that was out of the view of the door or windows. “Which is why this place is just for show.”

Pandora opened the door to the closet. As she entered, I knew what was happening. A small scanner in the ceiling was looking her over, comparing her to the BRIDGE database. Pandora scratched her hip. The scanner read the movement, and pegged it as the access command.

The back shelf, covered in cleaning supplies and ironic dust, slid apart in a violently fast movement. Pandora stepped through the new opening as Daltry stared.

“Welcome to spy school,” I joked.

“...I better get that gun Coulson had,” Daltry mumbled. “If I’m going to be dealing with all this spy shit, I mean.”

The three of us entered the opening and went down a set of stairs.

“You folks built a basement in a swamp?” Daltry asked.

“Yeah. The contractor was pissed that he had to do it,” I said with a sigh. Building a basement in marshland is hard as hell. The soil is insanely wet and hard to push back, for one. For two, it’s damn near impossible to guarantee that you can keep that basement dry.

“But he’s apparently the only one who can perform miracles of building for BRIDGE,” I finished.

A series of lights turned on, revealing the space before us as we got to the bottom of the stairs. It had been built for work, but the section to our right still had a basic kitchen for people to relax in. To our left was a basic armory, with guns, knives, and various chemicals and minerals that could fight magic, like various kinds of salt, and uranium bullets ground to powder in plastic tubs.

Further back, there was a library empty of any books, and across from it was a laboratory, complete with much more advanced computers than the ones upstairs. Each section was blocked off from the others by thick and strong clear walls, the kind that could take bullet hits.

There was also a door far in the back, though that one was made of extremely thick steel.

Pandora looked around for a moment. She tensed a bit. “I… wow.”

“You okay?” I asked her.

She swallowed nervously, rubbing her hands together with a sigh. “Just… it’s real, you know? I’m going to be in charge. It’s overwhelming,” Pandora looked over at us. “I uh… guess you guys don’t know anything about that?”

Daltry and I stared at her.

“...I was a normal sheriff before all this crap. Believe me darlin, I know about feeling overwhelmed.”

“I turn into aliens now,” I didn’t have to add anything to that.

Pandora blushed. “Oh. Right. I suppose we all have a lot to live up to.”

In the back, the thick steel door opened. Three people came out of it.

Two of them were BRIDGE guards, severe looking men in bulletproof uniforms.

In between them was their prisoner. She was about my height, wearing a black dress, high heels, and a pair of handcuffs. Her long red hair was pulled into a ponytail. She was also… well, very busty. She was also a dead ringer for the beautiful Christina Hendricks.

Except that half her face was melted on the right side. Barbara Bannister. Apparently the fate of Ellen Brandt had become hers. I wish I’d been able to stop that. Even with her crimes, she didn’t deserve that.

I was able to keep my eyes on hers relatively easily as she came up to us, the guards behind her. Frankenstrike looked worse after all. “Hello, Mrs. Bannister.”

“Hi,” she said with a smile that twisted her face a bit more. “Hell, John.”

“Barbara,” I looked over at Daltry. He had a very boyish smile on his face. I hid a little grin.

“Are the handcuffs necessary?” Pandora said to the guards.

“Protocol, ma’am,” one of the severe men said.

Pandora crossed her arms, cocking an eyebrow. “She’s an untrained woman in a room with two trained soldiers, a sheriff, and an Avenger. Take the handcuffs off of her.”

“Uh… Yes ma’am,” the guards coughed in near unison as they uncuffed Barbara’s hands.

“You understand the deal you have with BRIDGE, Mrs. Bannister?” Pandora said.

“I’ll give you all the information I have on HAMMER. And in the meantime, I work for you to repay my debts,” the redhead rubbed her wrists, smiling a little. “Honestly, I’ve never heard of someone doing that as a secretary.”

“Agent Phil Coulson, Agent Skye, and Sheriff Daltry all spoke on your behalf,” Pandora smiled briefly, then became serious. “But not enough to give you true freedom.”

“...I know,” Barbara said sadly. “I won’t be allowed to leave this facility unless I’m under guard. Right?”

“And you’ll be tracked at all times,” Pandora said with some ice. Then she sighed. “But besides that… I hope to have a good time working with you.”

“I’ll do everything I can,” Barbara whispered.

“I know you will, sweetheart,” Daltry said comfortingly, getting a smile from her.

I, meanwhile, was watching all of this with some trepidation. It felt like I was seeing the beginning of something special. But hey, it was going to be pretty impressive.

Looked like Citrusville had some new defenders. But just in case that wasn’t enough...

I raised a hand and placed it on a scanner placed on a wall. With some beeps, WAND’s systems were connected to the Avengers Emergency Line. Pandora smiled at me, knowing what I was doing.

If Citrusville needed it, the Avengers would be there to help them. But in the meantime, I needed to get to training. Ares wouldn’t want me to be late for my first lesson.

Also. WAND? What was with SHIELD’s, now BRIDGE’s, obsession with perfect acronyms? In my world, it had been because comic book writers did it on purpose, so I wondered what was going on here.

As I considered that little mystery of the universe, my face started to feel kinda itchy. I scratched my cheek only to wince. A pimple. Huh. Not something heroes usually had to deal with in the comics...