Run Chad RUN! #2.2

Commissioned by [ChaosUntold] on P*treon.

Disclaimer - I don’t own nor claim to own any of the IP of the giant multi Billion Dollar companies that might appear here. I just own any OCs that you see.

Manhattan [May 2011]

–Chad Tannings–

“You have a special connection to a force that is quite literally outside of our cluster of multiverses, which is why adding any other energy manipulation to the mix might just result in the conduit, i.e., you exploding and contaminating this universe with the foreign energy, resulting in untold devastation to the fabric of reality.” The Ancient One informed him and wasn’t that a bummer?

“So, I’m a bomb?” He asked, just to be sure. 

“In a manner of speaking, yes.” The Ancient One nodded before continuing, “But that is only if you tamper with any other source of energy that is domestic to this universe, and on a scale that it starts suffusing your entire body with it.”

“So,” He leaned back into the chair, feeling bummed out, “No Sorcery for me?”

“No.”

“Not even just the portals?”

“Especially the portals since the energy you have within every cell in you already have a space-time conceptual connection to it, and doing any spatial manipulation with any other energy is bound to, as you so aptly said before, turn you into a bomb.”

“I see.” He nodded and sipped on the tea. At Least that was still nice, warm, and heavenly in taste. “This is really good, by the way.”

“Thank you, I have spent centuries perfecting my craft.” 

Yup, that she clearly had, having had biological immortality as a perk.

“Why bring me here then?” He asked the question that was on his mind since she did not seem to be talking type and simply sat there, patiently waiting for him to speak.

“I’m glad you asked,” She flickered her hands as a number of projections appeared around the table, “You see, Mr.Tannings, your arrival in this universe did not go unnoticed. While by yourself, you are not anything impressive, at least not to the forces of the universe and beyond that, the energy you brought here was nothing but impressive, and dangerous.”

The energy constructs changed, showing a universe, with a streak of red entering from outside, drawing eyes to it. Like, literal eyes sprouted out of nowhere, watching the red streak. That continued, until the red streak hit Earth.

“As you can tell, the attention of beings so much stronger than you is never a good sign. The only reason you have not been kidnapped is because of two things.” 

The projection shifted once more, rewinding a bit as the red streak flew through empty space with giant eyes following it. The eyes seemed to increase and also come closer to the red streak as time went by, right up until the red streak passed an invisible boundary, something that stopped the eyes from sprouting any more.

“That,” She pointed at the small golden line that appeared, “is the official agreed upon boundary of the Nine Realms. From there, begins the domain of Asgard and there is no power foolish enough to challenge the might of Asgard, atleast at this point of time.”

“And secondly,” She continued, the projection zooming in on the red streak, finally reaching the Earth but this time, the Earth was covered in an orange shield, bearing the Seal of the Vishanti, “That is the second layer of protection that has been afforded to you, just so you can live freely.”

“Wow,” He swallowed, “Did not know I was such a big deal.”

“Let me assure you then, you’re not,” Way to bring him down a notch, “But the energy to which you have a direct connection to? That is a much bigger deal than you realise.”

“Soi,” he began, suddenly much more afraid of the whole scenario, “What will happen to me?”

“To you? Nothing. What will happen through you? A lot of things. Important things. And for that, you need training.”

“B-but you just said that–”

“Kamar Taj does not have a monopoly on Sorcery, nor does Sorcery have a monopoly on Kamar Taj. It will all be cleared once you have your first lesson, in Kamar Taj.”

“So, this was what? An invitation?” He asked, a little irritated at all the ups and downs he was experiencing in such a short period of time.

“No,” She said as her hand was raised from its resting position, forming a snapping gesture, “This was an order.” 

Then he heard the sound of fingers snapping and before he could say anything about that incredibly arrogant statement, he found himself standing, in front of the gates of the Sanctum.

Now, he could have banged the doors, outright used the speed force to increase the force, to make them listen to him, or otherwise thrown a tantrum and he might have even raised a fist in preparation to do just that, but thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and he stuffed his hands into his pockets and stalked off.

During said stalking off, he found something. A piece of paper in his pants. Opening it up, he found a note saying : ‘Tomorrow, New York Sanctum. Sharp 4 AM. DO NOT BE LATE’.

Before he could express a tiny portion of his anger on the poor piece of paper, it withered straight out of his hands, disintegrating into ash which disappeared a moment later as well.

Grumbling in anger, he decided to head into an alley and then flash out of said alley in his red armour, brimming with anger and in search of a stupid criminal with violent crimes underway. 

Alas, it would seem that his fame of being openly active throughout the day in Manhattan meant that no violent crimes occurred. A bunch of robberies, a couple of muggings, some traffic incidents, and even some drug deals. All of that were busted by yours truly but in the end, he did not find a single criminal worthy of his pent up anger, which, honestly, had simmered down by the end of the day, cooled by the flow of time.

So, with the sky darkening and needing to prepare himself, if not physically then mentally, for the day tomorrow, he decided to call it a day around 7 and headed back home. To his home sweet home : The rusty trailer that would be a living hazard for anyone else but him.

Enhanced immune system for the win BABY!

Eating the last protein bar for the day, he guzzled it down with a water bottle he got from the same convenience store. Stocking up on toiletries, he packed it all up, paid in cash, as usual, did not ask for the cashier’s name, also as usual, and went on his way.

He had about 6 more hours before he had to wake up and head to the Giant’s Den, to get ready for the no doubt grueling training that awaited him at Kamar Taj.

He barely needed more than 2 hours of sleep so he was going to spend the rest of his time doing something entertaining. Some Me time, if you will.

Because he had no doubt that the Ancient One would train him heavily and it would be such a shock to his daily routine that he would not be able to stand by the end of the day, which was good training but not good for his easy going lazy lifestyle.

So, reading it is. He had a bunch of books he bought used during one of the book fairs in the city, in one of the public libraries, one of the few places he had been to that did not judge him for being a hobo or something like that. He ended up giving the librarians a bunch of cash, aside from the inflated price for the books.

The way their faces lit up was still fresh in his mind. Far better than giving money to anyone else, in his opinion. After all, he knew that anyone still working as a librarian, despite the job becoming more and more hectic day by day, was doing it for the passion.

Because they truly loved the job, despite the pay that came with it. The world was like that, exploiting people’s passion to save a few bucks.

Well, he did not like that, not one bit. Maybe it’s time he decided those libraries once more. To do some good, aside from the good he did with his powers.

Because not all problems could be solved by super speed and a good ol’ punch to the face. Some problems could be solved by themselves, if only the people rushing to do the job had the means to do so.

Relaxing into one of the rickety mattresses he had salvaged from places, he began reading in the dim glow of the overhead lamp. Not using the Speed Force for reading, he settled in at a nice pace, faster than most people’s normal reading speed and yet, not supernatural in any sense, since he wanted to enjoy the books and not just devour them as fast as possible.

Halfway through the first volume, the overhead lamp dimmed and brightened in a cycle a few times before dying out, leaving him in pitch darkness.

Not wanting to get up to turn on the much brighter lamps and also not wanting to read in the more hostile lighting, he switched on his trusty speed force. Not so much so that he slipped into Flash time but enough for it to generate a nice red glow around his skin.

It was harsh at first, the glow, but with some fine tuning, he brought it down to levels comparable to the dim glow he had before. As expected, the Speed Force truly was a very versatile thing.

____xx____

[~A Few Hours Later~]

His eyes snapped open, as he took in the pitch black darkness in his trailer before sighing and getting up. His eyes had long since adjusted themselves to the dark as he walked to the sink and splashed his face with ice cold water, more as a routine and less as a need to fully wake himself up.

Packing his clothes that he needed, along with all the cash he had in this place, he got out of the trailer and began walking out, fully cognizant of the fact that there were probably more cameras and sensors pointed at his trailer than the rest of the trailer camp. 

His eyes finally caught one and he purposefully went there and gave them the middle finger before running off into the woods, as red armour formed over his skin, giving him a further boost over his powers.

He disappeared from the place and apparead in the parking lot of the Giant’s Den.

____xx____

Some SHIELD Monitoring station, India (Because even SHIELD was not spared the whole outsourcing trend) [Same Time]

–Senior Analyst 1–

He woke up from his sleep, clutching onto the pillow he had in his lap as the alarm blared, signalling movement from the motion sensors of the target.

Scrambling to get his hands on the desk because that was part of the KPIs, the speed at which he can respond to any alert from the vast surveillance that the organisation carried out around the world, he immediately logged in and found that the target assigned to him, a category 9 being, one of the most dangerous ones on the planet, had begun moving.

Last he logged the reports, the target was reading Pride and Prejudice, while dozing off to sleep. He did not understand why SHIELD did not just move in at that time and take the target but that was not his question to ask.

He watched the readings from the motion sensors, as the man walked to the place that was tagged to be the sink, probably to freshen himself before he began moving around the cramped space, taking out something to stuff into a small duffel bag.

Tapping the Flight Risk button, he sent an alert to his supervisor about it, and continued to write a report on the whole series of movements. The video feeds turned on as the target stopped outside of his van.

Energy readings continued to be stable as the target began taking the path to exit the park. As reported from the motion sensor data, the target had a medium sized black duffle bag, partially filled.

Taking steady steps on the fastest path out of the park, the target stopped suddenly. His fingers hovered above the keyboard, waiting to see what the target would do whilst keeping an eye on the energy readings when suddenly, the target turned to the other side.

Switching feeds, he could see the target smiling, which was quite creepy in his opinion before the target began walking straight towards one of the streetlight poles, the ones that were long since turned off due to bills not being paid for maintenance of common utilities. 

The target walked straight up to the pole, which was not lit, and then…

His eye twitched as the target gave the pole the finger, the middle finger, to be precise before running off into the woods, as a surge in energy reading coincided with an absence of any readings from the hundreds of motion sensors in the park. 

He assumed that the target wished to give the middle finger to the person keeping an eye on him, i.e, him but he was grossly mistaken in the positioning of the camera and ended up swearing at an innocent streetlight pole.

Once again, he asked himself, why did they not have this idiot arrested?

Category 9 threat? His ass.

___xx____

Giant’s Den[2.10 AM]

–Chad Tannings–

“Sup, Diane,” he greeted the giant of a man at the reception, receiving a nod in return before he went into the showers, to do his business, most probably, for the last time in this place since he knew Kamar Taj was a completely on campus course, with full romo and boarding included, for free, which was neat.

Taking his time to do his business, he finished his showers, didn’t put clothes into the laundry hamper this time around, packed what clothes he had in the gym locker into the duffle bag he had brought with him and went out, only instead of leaving directly, he went straight to Diane.

“You’re not due until the 3rd of next month,” The man replied before he could even say anything.

He smiled and put his duffle bag on the counter, which was noticeably fuller than it was before.

Diane took a side glance at the bag before looking at him. Even sitting, the man could talk face to face with him, incredible.

“What’s up? Something wrong with the laundry here?”

“No, nothing like that. Actually,” He removed a wad of cash from the bag and placed it on the counter, “I would like to cancel my subscription, please.”

That was the first time he had seen the man show expression in a long time, and he had been here for a long time, seeing Diane on the daily, for almost a year.

“Did something happen? Is there a warrant out for you? Is someone threatening you? Because I can–”

“No. Nothing like that,” HE smiled as he fought through the tears. “It’s nothing like that. I-I, just got a job, in Manhattan.”

“Oh.” The man said with a neutral tone, which was like utter despair when it came to Diane.

“-And it comes with nice pay, along with room. So, I–”

“No, I understand. Hey, you gotta go when you gotta go.” Diane turned to the side a bit and he smiled as he went around the counter and hugged the man, who hugged him back, which he definitely felt because the man was built like a brick.

After an appropriate amount of time, he disengaged from the hug, subtly wiped his tears, and turned around, smiling, as if nothing happened. Diane did the same before asking him, “So, you’re leaving now?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed as he pushed the cash towards Diane, who pushed it back, acting as if he did not see the cash. He pushed it back, and so did Diane, until eventually, the cash was squashed between both of their hands.

God, his hands looked so small compared to Diane’s.

“What are you doing? Just take the money.”

“I don’t need it.” Diane smiled and pushed the cash, overwhelming his grip with startling ease, especially since he was really strong now, courtesy of the Speed Force. He did not want to use his enhanced strength so he was keeping it under wraps but this time, he would not be defeated!

“Just consider it a thank you,” He said as he pushed, and was rewarded with the bewildered sight of Diane looking at his hands, wondering where all that power came from.

“No!” Diane’s face turned an alarming shade of red as he began pushing back as well. At this time, the cash was completely crumpled and they were now both pushing each other with a single fist, knuckle to knuckle, which was a deeply uncomfortable pose to do arm wrestling but hey, neither of them were willing to back out.

Such was the scene that an unsuspecting customer came to, in the middle of the night, watching two grown men yell as they pushed each other’s arms, knuckle to knuckle.

“Excuse me?”

Both of them stopped and mechanically turned to the side as a buff dude looked at the scene before stepping back, “I’ll come back later.”

Then, both he and Diane looked at each other and burst out in laughter. He collapsed on the ground, laughing his guts off as Diane fell back in his chair, as the sound of hearty laughter echoed in the empty lobby.

Ah, this was so much fun.