Disclaimer - I don’t own any rights to the characters appearing in this story. They belong to their respective owners.

Story 1 : Multiplication Table

Chapter 3 : I have powers? Muahahaha

–Aeon(formerly ??)-- 

When he had jumped in front of that train with nothing more left to lose, he had been content with what he had achieved.

He had finished the goals he had set out to do the day he tried to kill himself and failed. The only regret he had was not telling that fire fighter that he was the reason he had brought change to his community, however small it may be.

You see, he hailed from a rural community in Somalia and while all the news coverage regarding their country only showcased their misery or their pirates in the sea, they actually lived an okay life.

Their tribe in particular was very much isolated from the rest of the tribes mainly due to the fact that most of the tribe was made solely of elders and children. Nobody was left in their tribe that could work. Could provide labour. 

Somehow, almost all capable adults always died in their tribe, no matter the time or efforts taken to protect everyone.

This caused all the other tribes to avoid them out of fear of catching the same imaginary disease that  they supposedly had. So, wherever they went, they were given a wide berth and in rural Somalia, where superstitions ran rampant, he could count himself as one of the lucky ones as the rumours spread were about a disease and not a curse, else he would have found himself cut open and hung on a tree somewhere.

Contrary to what the world might believe, they did get food.

At Least once a day.

So, while hungry, they never starved for long periods of time. That was the life he knew since his childhood.

Find things to eat, eat them, play and then move on to the next location. At that time, life was going well for him.

Until one day, they came.

He didn’t know who they were at the time but he could recognise the guns they wielded along with the trucks they drove.

On that day, as he was hauling ass back towards the cliffs as he was told to do by Grandpa Marc, as some of the soldiers began hunting him like prey, laughing and chatting as they did so, he swore to kill them all.

Kill the people who killed all his friends and all the grandpas and grandmas that showered him with as much as they could.

But, he was just a little 10 year boy, what else could he have done?

Eventually, he reached the cliff but he didn’t know what to do after that. Seeing that he was done running around, one of the soldiers got bored with him and shot him in the arm.

He could still feel the  phantom pain flare up when he lifted weight a particular way but in a way, he was grateful for that shot.
For if that terrorist had never fired upon him, he never would have fallen into the cliff and met his family.

The family for which he would have died.

The family that was now dead.

And what use did he have for his life if his family was dead?

So, he jumped in front of the train, making sure to do so at the last moment so there was no chance in hell he could have survived.

Alas, fate had other things in store for him because the last thing he remembered before opening his blurry eyes was being sucked into a glowing green river and being torn apart before he even had a chance to scream.

As far as he could tell, he was either in hell or  he was trapped in somebody else’s, most likely a baby’s, body.

Huh, maybe the isekai trope does come true then.

He would have laughed out loud in the sheer absurdity of the situation had his brain and vocal cords been developed enough.

As it was, he could barely form coherent thoughts for a minute or two before losing all sense and either going to sleep or feeding mindlessly on something.

Honestly, he was glad he did not have to go through breastfeeding again.

He could still remember that one time his mind sort of woke up, right after dirtying his diaper and he could feel his mind being actively traumatized from that experience.

God, he hated it when that happened. 

Finding out that both his parents were Black was interesting. He had nothing against them, not that he could do anything about it, but he had always been brown and travelling in the desert did give him a tan but after going back to the States, he had become more white than brown.

But from his experience (which was admittedly short), they were the best parents he had ever had. Not that it was a tough bar to cross.

Somehow, he could feel their love for him. Not in the corny sort of way but in a way that he could sense their emotions.

He could sense his mother(?) being in the adjacent room and talking with someone in a bad mood and after the call had ended, coming into his room and then as if a switch had been flipped, her mood changed to  happy.

His father, on the other hand, was not a happy camper with him, at least not at first.

He got a sense that his father was begrudgingly accepting his existence due to his mother but still keeping a close eye on him.

At first, he had no sense of time since there were no visible clocks in the house he was living in. No obvious gadgets to look at either.

It all looked so mundane that he would have believed himself to be born in his home reality again if not for one glaring difference.

The same difference he was trying to summon with his chubby hands right now. The bizarre holographic screens that followed around his parents wherever they went. Sometimes, one popped up right in front of him. He imitated the hand motions that his parents did whenever they opened up their respective holograms.

[At 2 years old] [2000]

A lot had happened since the last time he tried to try and operate the holographic screens he knew his crib had in it. Maybe it had something to do with wireless biometrics of some sort that allowed it to authenticate the person who was trying to operate it and based on that, decide to show the hologram screen or not?
Anyway, his mind and his body had come a long way from only being able to stay awake for a certain period of time. 

Now, he could maintain conscious thought for most of his awake hours which admittedly, were not as much as he would like them to be.

He had asked his  parents about his birthday and while his dad had immediately clammed up, his mother weaved a story so convincing he would have completely believed her if not for his powers to sense their emotions. Something fishy had happened in regards to his birth. At this point, he shouldn't be surprised since his very existence in this world was weird.

K’Mehne Ambuba’s emotions were all over the place so it was not easy to pinpoint a particular emotion and tie it to the story but Bangam’s emotions were very easy to recognise.

It was a mixture of guilt, anxiety, love and resignation along with a twinge of sadness.

So, knowing his birthday was coming near, he decided to do something about his abilities because if he continued to hide it from his very observant parents, it was bound to cause some issues. So, after much internal debate, he decided to walk a week before his birthday.

Unfortunately, that didn’t elicit much of a response from his family. That made him think if that was common or not. Over the next few days, he made sure to follow the emotional shifts between his parents carefully but after almost a week of observation, he was no closer to finding out the reality of this world than before. 

It sucked not having access to the internet. Now would have been one of the few times that having access to the entire world’s data at their fingertip, would be a good thing.

So, he decided to take things a step further and began showing his intelligence. 

He began talking to his parents in complex structured sentences that no 2 year old back in his previous home could ever do. Finishing all the mental exercises given to him within minutes, doing simple arithmetic exercises, pattern recognition training. Everything, he solved at such a level that he would be considered a genius back home.

To his surprise, that worked. His mother and father were both surprised at that but his father actually had a spike of anxiety at the situation before it was quickly suppressed. He wondered what was that about.

Then, he asked, in a very formal way, access to books.

His mother had smiled and then led him to the basement, one of the places in the house he was never given access to since the house had an auto lock feature that put force fields in front of him if he ever tried to access a place that was locked for him.

But once the basement doors opened up and he saw what was inside, he never wanted to leave that place at all. There was nothing stopping his chubby legs from waddling over to one of the hundreds of shelves that were stocked to the brim with books of all sizes, shapes and genres.

“Sweetie, be careful!” His mother’s warning was waved off as he began browsing through the catalogue available to his, apparently, rich family since he was sure that not just anyone could afford a library of this size and calibre, all the while keeping it nice and clean. That was the real challenge.

Maintenance.

If he had learned a thing or two in his admittedly short previous life, it was that building infrastructure of any sort was troublesome enough but maintaining that infrastructure was more trouble than it was worth.

Maybe, they have some sort of technology that allowed everyone to do this for cheap.

Anyway, ignoring his parents as they were sitting on one of the nearby tables with coffee in their hands, he began browsing through the History section of the library, desperate to know something about the world he was thrust into. For some reason, his parents had never taken him out of the house till now. Sure, the backyard but never beyond that.

It was as if they were trying to hide him from something or someone.

As he was going through the list, he froze as he recognised something from the list.

With shaking hands, he clicked on the book titled, “Founding of Wakanda” and ordered it.

Oh, dear God. He was in so much trouble. If what he was reading into was correct, it would seem that he had been transported to the world of Marvel.

Which version of Marvel, he didn’t know. He had never seen the movies or read the comics but being in the periphery of nerds did teach him a thing or two about the wondrous world of Marvel and how it overshadows its death world vibes with sunny feeling superheroes.

He had heard that the movie universe was actually tamer compared to the comics version but he had no idea what universe he was actually in, let alone the version of it.

Maybe, the book was fiction and it was just catalogued in the History section by mistake.

Soon, the book was hand-delivered to him by one  of the overhead passing robot arms. Yeah, it was confirmed now, his parents were loaded.

Titled, the History of Wakanda, it was a pretty bland looking book but from a cursory look over, it seemed pretty legit since it actually had some sort of stamp that looked authentic along with the Book cover, ID, Author notes, everything pointed to it being a real book.

All that was left was to actually read it. But before that, he began going through the list again and what he saw left him aghast.

There were many books depicting not only the history of Wakanda but also the history of the different tribes of Wakanda, the battles Wakanda had fought.

His eyes shone as he promptly checked out all of those books as well. 

Apparently, the robots had the sense to check in with his parents before handing over heavy books to his tiny body because almost immediately after putting in his request, his mom came over and was handed the books.

Her emotions turned to sadness when she realised what books he was trying to read.

Taking the book he had in his hand, she held his other hand and said, “Come on, I’ll make you your favorite sandwich and then I’ll read it to you. Alright?”

He nodded, his thoughts swirling as his theory of him being in the Marvel universe was becoming more and more plausible as time went by.

Well, at least he was rich or at least his parents were and if there was one thing he had learned in life was that the rich people tend to always get the better spoon at the table.

So, even if it was the Marvel universe, there was a chance that he could coast on life with his parent’s money. Not that he would ever do that since it was against his very nature to take money from people who were basically strangers to him but it was  nice to know that he had an option.

[Age 3 years old] [2001]

Welp, it was confirmed now. He was in the Marvel universe.

Apparently, the library didn’t have censorship restrictions for children because the books he had found and read through definitely should not have been within reach of a 2 year old.

It would seem that Wakanda was the place that provided Dr.Lawson, the renegade Kree scientist, with the vibranium required for him to build his lightspeed engine. The subsequent events were captured very well by Wakandan soldiers and it was all documented in their records, which was accessible for all civilians.

Something to do with transparency of whatever the Kingdom was doing.

Hah, as if he could ever be foolish enough to believe what the government was telling him.

The existence of superhumans along with aliens did give him fancy hopes for some time that he too could become a superhero but as he thought about it, that just felt more and more like drag rather than an exciting opportunity.

He even briefly entertained the notion that he was sent here by some ROB and was gifted some powers along the way but so far, aside from the early intelligence and body coordination, he had not seen his powers in function at all.

Also, even if by some stroke of luck, he did have some powers, how was he supposed to find out?

Ofcourse, if the power was too explosive, he would find out upon application but as things stood, he tried meditation, clenching his buttcheeks, finding his internal energy and all sorts of weird bullshit to find if he had some supposedly passive power that would have gotten him labelled as a quirky kid back where he was from but here, all he got was a smile and a head pat.

A completely wanky place. He thought.

Ofcourse, disappearing from his home and sneaking off to the library despite being expressly told not to, was just one of his quirks that his parents found adorable. 

Constantly trying to exert his body beyond the physical limits was one such quirk. Something he had found out through regular parsings of various real life accounts was the fact that humans here, atleast in Wakanda, were a lot hardier than he had expected them to be.

Ofcourse, being born to people who had been in the vicinity of a literal space rock was bound to have some effects but through cursory reading, the effects were neither as pronounced as he had expected nor were they as surprising when he really thought about it.

Due to natural radiation that was emitted by Vibranium to its surrounding, the overall flora and fauna of Wakanda was fundamentally changed anyway. Consuming that flora and fauna was what turned the humans that lived nearby into a slightly better version of humans. 

Not so much that they could be called super soldiers by the outside world but definintely punching above the above-average weight class when it came to basic physical stats. There were also a ton of other benefits of being lucky enough to be born near a space rock.

Enhanced Immunity.

Heightened reflexes.

Shorter recovery period.

Higher neural plasticity.

Accelerated growth cycle.

Basically, Vibranium, especially the Vibranium they had, allowed for good radiation to suffuse its surroundings, allowing any living being near it to become stronger or atleast, allow its progeny to become stronger.

The next generation being slightly better than the last. Take that cycle and run it for a few thousand years and voila, you have Wakandans with much better human physiology than the outside world, especially since the quality of food and water in the outside world had deteriorated to a level that most of the stuff they consume would not be called food in Wakanda.

So, with that in mind, he thought of a really genius way of testing if he had some sort of power that correlated to his body and even if he didn’t have any, it could count as a physical exercise for his growing body.

In his previous life, he had read somewhere that doing 100 Pushups, 100 Sit Ups, 100 Squats and a 10KM Run everyday would bring out the best power within you.

He… didn’t know if it was a hundred percent true but he at this point, he was happy to try anything to stave off the boredom of being confined in a child’s body.

Although that was getting more and more tolerable day by day as his parents realised that he needed a hands off approach when it came to parenting and thus, he found himself with more and more free time on his hands where he did whatever he wanted (He mostly went to the library).

So, began his daily workout. 

Without fail, for a grand total of 3 months, he continued doing his workout. He didn;t know if it would work or not but by the end of the first month, he could feel the workout becoming bearable so he continued doing it out of sheer boredom.

By the end of the third month, he felt the workout becoming easier to the point that it didn’t even hamper his daily energy levels after doing the workout which was astonishing since he was just a three year old.

An abnormal three year old, sure. But still just a three year old.

The fact that his parents thought this was normal was baffling to him but it allowed him to do whatever he wanted so it all worked out for him in the end.

‘Though, what did his parents really do?’ he thought while dangling off the branches of a tree that was in their backyard.

Though, calling it a backyard would be an insult as it was more like a small forest at the back of their mind. It housed all sorts of small creatures along with rare old growth trees that he had only ever seen in the really old national parks he had visited along with the kids at his apartment building.

Speaking of kids and parents, with the puny powers vested in him by his benefactor, he could sometimes sense his parents' emotions becoming muted, if he had to explain that feeling. Over time, he realised that the muted feeling was due to the fact that his parents were going out of his emotional sensing range.

So, he devised a plan and while he was aware that he was being tracked every time he stepped out of the house, he tried to follow his parents on the little toy shuttle car they had gifted him on his 3rd birthday. 

Calling his “doom-mobile” a toy would be an insult to its capabilities since according to the manual, it was capable of traversing across all terrains at speeds exceeding 50 mph. It really was more of a hover car than a regular four wheel car. Though, it was an unspeakable tragedy that he was limited to only ground cruising at speeds not exceeding 10 mph. 

Nevertheless, he set out to follow his mother once she gave him his book from a list he had created and had made sure that he had plenty of snacks so that he'll be occupied for a long time. In hindsight, he should not have been distracted by such an obvious ploy but alas, his three year old body did crave sugar (however natural it may be) and his brain always craved new things to learn and enjoy.

He had almost been bamboozled before he was jolted out of that state because he could no longer sense the emotions of his mother. Hurriedly setting the snacks down, carefully so as to not harm the pristine book covers, he set out towards his very own “doom-mobile”.

Following his mother through a very narrow pathway that he had never noticed before, he found out about a secret pathway that leads to a hatch that presumably leads to some place underground. His plan to find more about it was foiled by a very amused looking K’Mehne standing in front of the hatch, apparently waiting for him.

The scolding he had received in return was not something he wished to have a repeat of. He was questioned about how he was able to track her but he had gotten away with hastily replying with the excuse of following the dirt path and fleeing the crime scene with his doom-mobile.

That was the last time he tried to actively track his parents since the next time he tried that, he might just get a spanking and he was not into that, thank you very much.

Ever since then, his life had been the same. Eat, exercise, read, exercise, sleep, repeat.

He was glad for the opportunity to build his body at such a young age but it did get monotonous after a while.

Currently, he was swinging through his very own jungle gym as if he were Tarzan and this was his kingdom. While it had been exhilarating at first, now the perception of risk and the thrill that came along with it was gone and as such, he was just absentmindedly swinging from one swing to the next when somehow, his hand slipped.

Now, the problem was not his hand slipping from the swing, the problem was the fact that, with the help of his now upgraded all terrain doom-bot, he had made the jungle gym unnecessarily long, never expecting himself to fail.

Especially since, for the first time since making the gym, he had turned off the safety features his father and mother had built into the systems after allowing him to construct the gym according to his whims and fancy.

He could hear the doombot beeping in distress and the winds rushing by as he fell from a height of more than 100 feet. 

God, why did he have to be so obstinate and make this freak show of a jungle gym.

He didn’t want to die so pitifully, especially after he went out with such a huge bang in his previous life.

Suddenly, as if somebody was answering his prayers, he felt something slither inside his body. He didn’t know how to describe it but the closest one would be having tiny droplets of water flowing up your skin. You could definitely feel it but it being uncomfortable was a bit of a stretch.

Whatever it was, the feeling began travelling throughout his body and then, as if it had reached a crescendo, it gathered around his hand and before he could do anything, burst out of his hands. 

As if he was living in a cartoon world, something burst out of his wrist and popped up in front of him. He didn’t even have the time to ponder the fact that it was an exact copy of himself that came out of him before his clone(?) pushed him up clumsily with his tiny hands, reducing some of his momentum and then immediately went poof in smoke.

Alas, his clone(?) didn’t have the necessary strength to slow down his momentum enough for a  safe landing  so the last thing he thought before his head hit the ground and darkness took over was ‘Holy shit! I have powers!’

Word Count - 4197