Run Chad RUN! #2.1

Commissioned by @ChaosUntold on Patreon.

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–

“Bye bye, Agent Coulson. Please do come again with another feast!” He waved at the departing wave of blacked out SHIELD SUVs in his uniform, which was a giant suit of red lightning given form. He could see some agents clicking his photos so he made sure to give them nice muscular poses for that.

It was all very cathartic, to mess with them. The second they were out of his visual range, he disappeared from the spot, running around in circles around the city to metabolise the food so he could get out the trackers they had no doubt put in his food. He could phase them out but then, it would also waste the food he was so generously given.

Mama might have raised a bitch but she did not raise a food waster. So, he ran.

Fun thing about his powers was that aside from allowing him to eat anything that had calories in them, edible, it also allowed him to digest that food, like really quickly. So, within a minute of him running circles around the city, his food was gone and then came the neat part, in between one step and the other, he phased and he was hit with a really odd sensation of something that came alarmingly close to shitting as he turned around and saw about 4 pieces of black metal floating mid air, having been dispelled from his body.

He gagged, used a lightning construct to zap them into oblivion before fleeing the scene. He did not want to touch those, ever. 

So, with that out of the way, he began his rounds of the city, encompassing all five boroughs, zipping past everyone and everything, making sure that no crime occurred because most of the drug drop offs to the last mile delivery mechanism, i.e., the drug dealers happened really early in the morning.

That is what he was targeting at the moment because, for the life of him, he could not accurately track the motherlode of these factories and bring them down because no matter how many houses he raided that were acting as distributorships for these chemicals, he could not shut the whole thing down.

It was as if the whole drug distribution enterprise was a highly decentralised operation with high risk and high rewards, hence the secrecy. Now, he did not go around acting as the bad cop and torturing people for information, even though some really deserved it, but his scary visage along with the whole glowing red eyes acted as enough intimidation for the criminals to confess to their crimes themselves.

Even then, he had no luck in finding the place where these things were either coming through or being made. Because the amount of drugs he confiscated and destroyed daily, it was not possible to manufacture them without some sort of factory, at least not to the level of purity that he found them in.

His best guess was that some of it was manufactured locally but the vast majority of it must be coming from someplace else, either another city in the States or from overseas. Stopping yet another drug deal from happening, he gathered all the drugs in the trunks of the guy’s car, placed it to the side, zapped all three of them with a light dose of lightning that knocked them out, turned back to the drugs and zapped them with a much bigger dose of lightning, burning it all out.

Then, he slowed time down, took the phone from the drug dealer, called 911, and replied in his usual cheeky tone, “Hello, fellow overworked and underpaid worker, I, the great Red Blur have come to you with yet another drug bust. Please note down the following address.”

“You! You have no idea what–”

“2740 Webster Avenue, Bronx, NY 10458. Three males, all caucasian, and I am leaving enough untouched that they can go to jail. The rest, I have burned. Bye!”

“Wai-” And the line went dead as he dropped the phone and disappeared from the spot before the phone could touch the ground. From the quality of it, there will be a dozen pieces of it once it impacts the ground but will also miraculously start working once it is assembled properly.

Soon, the first rays of the sun hit his armour as the drug deals began thinning, as if they were the vampiric equivalent of crime. In the year that he had been in this reality and the 6-7 months that he had been actively fighting crime, drug deals in particular have gone down drastically and yet, the amount of drugs he can find on criminals did not go down, at all.

That told him one thing. The deals were not disappearing, they were just moving underground. The people he could find were just small fries it would seem, because the number of drug busts he was having were reducing, as was the amount of drugs.

It would seem that he might have to go to the one person capable of wrangling the entire city’s drug trade into submission and creating order around it.

Fisk.

Sighing, he stopped in front of a Deli to get his fix. The entry of a giant red armoured being should have drawn something more than just a raised eyebrow but alas, it was New York and the locals could neither be scared easily nor could they be surprised by most things because they had seen most things.

From huge rats, to people biting people, to Giant Humanoid Red beings visiting to get food. All of it.

“What do you want?” the man behind the counter asked him, a hand reaching underneath the counter, probably for a gun, with the other holding onto a newspaper, with no change in his expression whatsoever. Man, he liked this guy.

So, he took a step back, and ordered, “3 Ham sandwiches, please. With extra Mustard.”

The man eyed him with suspicion, but after a moment of staring, hollered to the back where the chef probably was. After just 2 minutes, he had his order packed, and the store owner had his cash as he zipped out of the store, not before catching some Spanish grumbling.

He did not know Spanish so he just figured the man was grumbling at the entire situation. 

Running to the top of a building, letting his feet dangle on the roof as he began munching down on the delicious sandwiches. “Mmm,” He muttered as the mustard this time was particularly spicy, which was a nice surprise. If he did not have a rule of not favouring any single outlet for long, he might have eaten at this place, every day, for the rest of the week, at the very least.

Alas, he could not let innocent people be targeted because of him, which is why the Giant’s Den was the only thing he went to, on the regular and even that was compromised because Coulson found out about it.

Man, they must have figured out his energy signature from all the close contact and seeing him in action, otherwise they would not have been able to track him that accurately. He might have to figure out a way to—

The second the sound of something behind him hit his ears, he slipped into FlashSpeed, and turned around, Sandwich forgotten as he saw the telltale signs of a portal opening behind him, the Sorcery King, meaning the Ancient One has finally decided to make contact with him.

Well, when confronted with a being beyond him that fleeing was just not going to work, he just turned around, grabbed the sandwich from Mid-air, turned around, and began munching on it, as the flow of time resumed for him.

He stopped biting into the sandwich when he saw that the portal was not opening but rather closing, as the Ancient One’s bald head came into view right behind the portal that closed.

She could do that?

“Greetings, Mr.Tannings, We have a lot to talk about.”

“Um,” His brain and his mouth failed him at the most important time as he did the only thing he could think of at the moment. He offered the half eaten sandwich to the Ancient One, “Ham?”

She eyed the offered sandwich with obvious disinterest before he pulled the offending offer back and stuffed the sandwich into his mouth in a single bite, bloating his face even more. 

Wow, this was not going well, like, at all.

____xx____

–Phil Coulson–

“So, we lost the signal then?” He asked the techs, working out a mobile station, built into the back of an unassuming looking van.

“Yes, sir. It would seem that the target was aware of the food being laced with trackers as the first thing he did was run circles around the city, probably in a bid to burn out the trackers. That went on for a minute before the trackers just stopped responding, sir.”

“And due to his speed, we don’t know what happened to them accurately, right?”

“Actually, we have recent reports coming in from the NYPD. I think I know how he could have disabled those trackers. The drug dealers were knocked out but there was no visible sign as to how that could have happened. Coupled with what we know of his lightning, I think our target can manipulate the lighting he can exude to either knock people out or–”

“Fry out electronics.” He finished the thought and it made sense, because the lightning was the one thing that was consistent with the man.

“Good work. Keep updating me on his location.” 

He ordered the man before moving out. He had a report to give to the Director. They had finally made some progress with their target. While the erratic movement pattern of Mr.Tannings made it impossible to keep a constant lock on him, the energy signature he gave off could be targeted and that way, they would be able to figure out the rough locality where he was operating in.

Real time tracking was proving to be impossible because of the sheer speed but rough tracking was still possible. They had to divert classified SHIELD assets for that but normal spectrometers were just not advanced enough to get even a whiff of the energy signature they had recorded after being in close proximity with the man for quite a while.

Moving into another van, he closed it as the monitors came to life. Doing the usual five step authentication that was required to communicate with any other agent above his clearance level, he called the Director.

“Tell me you have good news, Coulson.”

He smiled and began reporting. Hopefully, he would be able to get a good working relationship with Mr.Tannings before he had to leave for his next assignment.

___xx___

New York Sanctum Sanctorum

–Chad Tannings–

“Whoa! This is so cool! And freaky.” He said, grinning as he ran and ran and ran, and yet, did not seem to cover any distance at all. The Ancient One invited him for a cup of tea and then brought him here, to a Sanctum instead of Kamar Taj so naturally, the first thing he did, despite it being incredibly stupid was test the Sanctum’s defenses.

Yes, yes, he knew that it was a really fast way of getting himself chopped in pieces or getting stuck in some hellish dimension but come on, he was the fastest man alive, or so he hoped. Plus, the Ancient One was nearby, and she could save him.

So, there he was, just running, at full tilt, as if he was running on a treadmill and yet, he was in the same spot. 

“Mr.Tannings,” he turned to see the Ancient One standing right next to a tea sipping area, with a table and two seats, in the corner of the room that most definitely did not exist a moment before, “If you are quite done testing the Sanctum’s defense systems.”

He shrugged, and came to a stop, as the feeling of walking on a different space altogether left his surroundings. He normally walked over and sat down. Within the time it took for him to blink, there was a teapot along with two cups on the table that did not exist when he was walking over.

“Man, magic really is a cheat.” He said as the Ancient One poured tea for him, the smell of which was heavenly. “I really hope you brought me here to teach me magic.”

After all, it would make stuff really easy for him.

Unfortunately, for him, the Ancient One just had to rain all over his parade, “Unfortunately, no. Mr.Tannings, you are quite literally one of the few beings in the universe who cannot learn our particular brand of sorcery.”

Huh. Well, that was one way of rejecting him. Then why bring him here in the first place?

The question must have been really visible on his face as she answered his unasked question.

“You see, Mr.Tannings…”