Marvel:PS - Chapter 2 - A Change in Direction (Patreon)

It's a canon event.

(Word Count: 2,199)

Growing up with an entirely new family was a little bit weird at first. The loss of my old life had hit hard the first year. My friends and family were gone. It’s like they had all died, instead of me. I had eventually come to terms with it, but it never really stopped hurting.

Luckily, my new parents were really loving and it was easy to come to love them as well.

My new family were also Fultons, and somehow I was named the same: Amelia Fulton. I think it was something about the reincarnation package that made the transition easier. My mother’s name was Emily, and my father’s name was Jason.

Growing up it was really hard to try and use my powers every day without being caught. Especially when I was a baby, when I was always being watched. I only had brief moments when they were napping or glancing away to use teleport. My maximum range was 10ft, but to not weird them out I could only teleport within one foot. Most of the time I had to use it on toys or other smaller items which was easier to hide.

Regenerate was the easiest to hide by far, because it had no visible effect, I could just cast it on myself anytime I wanted. Because I didn’t even feel any sort of surge in energy or whatever, I could even cast it subtly on my mom and dad. I did find that I earned more “xp” for the skill when I used it on other people.

As a baby, Disintegrate was a real struggle to hide. I couldn’t exactly use it on anything indoors because I was left with dust. I had to try using it on the soil in potted plants, turning a small portion of the soil into dust, then mixing it back into the soil. It would hurt the plant, but mom was on top of the plants, adding in fertilizer when needed. Then when we went outside, the rare moments I touched grass as a babe I could use it subtly. Unfortunately there were many days where I missed because I didn’t get an opportunity to use it.

One thing that I simply couldn’t hide during the day time was the Shadow Clone. Most of the time I had to summon the clone then dispel it almost instantly, which hardly did anything for my skill. Most of the time, I had to wait until my parents were asleep then use it then to get the full 10 minutes. Even then, it was only when I slept in the same bed. When I was placed in the crib in my own room, I had a baby cam set on me so I couldn’t do anything.

When I finally grew to be a small child I was trusted to be on my own more often, at least when I was indoors, so it gradually became easier and easier to go off and use my skills on my own.

Besides my skill subterfuge, my parents started recognizing that I was remarkably intelligent for a young child. Not that I was super intelligent as an adult, but for a child I could be considered a genius. They were really proud of my reading skills, already reading full novels at 4 years old. They wanted to support my love of learning and basically bought me any book I wanted. So I was now a four year old with a small library in my room. I loved it.

Together, we also often went out to the park to play with a frisbee or went hiking together. One thing I loved was that we also played Pokémon together on Gameboy Advanced SP. I had Ruby, mom had Emerald, and Dad had Sapphire. We would trade pokemon and have weekly pokemon battles. 

But, I knew that my skills weren’t the best right now so I had to try to learn some sort of martial arts. So the very first time I saw a movie with some sort of fighter, I pretended to be amazed and said that I wanted to learn to do that as well. Unfortunately, my mom wouldn’t have it, saying that I was too young and it took me until I was 6 years old before my mom finally relented and took me to a child-friendly kickboxing gym.

By now, I was known to be an adventurous child because I was always wandering off outside to use my skills in secret. Though they thought that I just loved to explore the small thicket of woods behind my neighborhood.

Attack Skill: Disintegrate LVL 1 => 6 (0%)

Description: [+]

Parameters: [-]

Range: [Touch], AoE: [4]in^3, Strength: [1], Cool Down: [1]hr => [50 => 40 => 30]min, Usage Limit: [1 => 2 => 3 => 4]/day

Defense Skill: Barrier Formation LVL 1 => 9 (0%)

Description: [+]

Parameters: [-]

Range: [5]ft, Size Limit: [1]ft^2, Force Limit: [300 => 600]psi, Movement Speed: [0 => 1]m/s, Time: [10 => 30]min => [1]hr, Cool Down: [1]hr => [50 => 40]min, Usage Limit: [1 => 2 => 3 => 4]/day

Mobility Skill: Teleport LVL 1 => 9 (0%)

Description: [+]

Parameters: [-]

Range: [10 => 20]ft, Weight Limit: [200]lbs, Passenger Range: [Touch], Cool Down: [1]hr => [50 => 40 => 30 => 20 => 10]min, Usage Limit: [1 => 2 => 3 => 4]/day

Healing Skill: Regenerate LVL 1 => 9 (0%)

Description: [+]

Parameters: [-]

Range: [Touch], Heal Strength: [1 => 2 => 3 => 4] for [1 => 2 => 3 => 4]min, Cool Down:  [1]hr, Usage Limit:  [1 => 2 => 3 => 4]/day

Utility Skill: Shadow Clone LVL 1 => 4 (0%)

Description: [+]

Parameters: [-]

Clone Number: [1], Spawn Range: [5]ft, Time: [10]min, Cool Down: [1]hr => [50 => 40]min, Usage Limit:  [1 => 2 => 3]/day

As a result, I managed to get my skills leveled up pretty good. I was still very limited on how many times I could use them, but hey, I was still 6. My main strategy was to get everything up to at least 10 times a day, as well as lower the cool down a bit. That way I could get all of my uses in before I had to return home. Except Regenerate, because it was the easiest to use subtly I focused purely on the potency of the healing. I still haven’t tested it out to see just how much I could heal because I wasn’t a masochist. I’ll just need to wait until I get hurt to try it out.

Luckily, Barrier Formation I can now cast a second time while maintaining the first cast because of how the cooldown and duration worked out. So I felt pretty comfortable focusing less on those now and I can work on increasing the actual strength of the shields.

Speaking of training, Shadow Clones. It’s my lowest level because I couldn’t use it nearly as much as a baby. However, I found out that my Shadow Clones can in fact use my skills. I discovered this the first time I wandered off on my own to train because I wanted to use it to grind out my other skills. The downside is that it takes from the same pool of uses, so no matter if I cast disintegrate or a clone does, only 4 disintegrates can be used. The plus side is that it does get around the cooldown period, but only if it wasn't on cooldown beforehand. If another skill was on cooldown, then both the clone and I still have to wait for the remaining time. Once there was no cooldown, then both the clones and I could use the skill at the same time, as long as it doesn't go over the maximum number of uses.

One year later, when I was 7, dad got a job opportunity in New York City! Close to the action, which made me both a little anxious and excited. It will be way easier to get involved in the plots of the MCU there. Specifically, we were moving to 22 Ingram St. in Forest Hills in Queens. Our neighbors were going to be Ben and May Parker, who were taking care of their little nephew Peter Parker.

About 3 hours into the car ride I was really bored and staring out the window. We were passing through a smaller town crossing an intersection. I blinked. On the other side, I felt a large mass coming in quickly with my weak spatial sense. Was that runaway semi? The semi blared its horns as it sped into the intersection.

Time seemed to slow as I conjured a shield in its way, but I belatedly realized that there was no way it would withstand the force of a semi. So I dove forward to touch the shoulders of my parents and teleport out of the car just as the semi smashed into our car.

I breathed out in relief at having escaped, but froze in horror at realizing that neither of my parents came with me. My head whipped around to the scene of the car crash. Our car was crushed on one side and had rolled. The semi had gone on to serve into a building next to the intersection, but my gaze was stuck on the sight of my dad hanging upside down in the driver seat.

He was a bloodied mess.

“Dad! Mom!” I screamed and ran over to help them, falling to my knees beside the window. I immediately cast Regenerate on him, but it didn’t do anything. “No! Dad, please be okay! Please!” I put my fingers to his throat, not caring for the blood. I couldn’t feel a pulse.

“Agh!” a muffled cry came from the other side of the car.

“Mom!” I ran around to the passenger side window, and saw mom opened her eyes, looking at me. She was a mess too, dripping blood.

“Amy, you’re okay.” mom said weakly. “Good…. You’re okay…” She closed her eyes.

“No! Mom! Stay awake!” I lunged forward and tried to cast Regenerate again, but it failed. The cool down was still an hour long. “No! Mom, please!” 

I reached in to try and unbuckle her from the seat, but I couldn’t undo it. I cast Disintegrate on the buckle, holding onto mom as she fell down and pulled her out the window with sheer adrenaline. I frantically looked around and screamed, “HELP! ANYONE, PLEASE!”

A man from nearby on the sidewalk ran over. “My mom! She just went unconscious, I don’t know what to do!”

He tore off his shirt, bunched it up to press it into the large head wound on mom’s forehead. “It’s going to be okay, kid. The ambulance has already been called and they’re on their way. In the meantime, I want you to take some deep breaths for me, okay? You see that pretty lady over there?” He pointed to a woman in the distance, with a young boy. “That’s my wife. I need you to go over there so she can take care of you, okay? You’ve got some bad cuts on your knees, kid. She’ll help you out.”

I took a deep breath to calm down. It was hard, mentally being an adult but in a child's body. Emotions feel much more intense. With the man’s calming words, I snapped out of my panic and pushed my fears aside for the moment, mentally berating myself for losing control like that. “No, I need to stay here with my mom. I won’t be leaving her.”

“Kid, This isn’t a -” The man tried to argue but I interrupted.

“My dad’s probably dead. I couldn’t feel any sort of pulse. He was also on the side of the impact. So my scraped knees can wait until I make sure my mom’s okay.” It was weird, saying that my dad just died, but I was sort of detached at the moment, not fully processing everything that had just happened.

“Fine, then put pressure onto the cut there.” He pointed to a nasty cut on mom’s leg. “You need to press as hard as you can to stop as much bleeding as possible.”

I did as told. The paramedics arrived on scene 10 minutes later. 3 different ambulances and several police cars showed up. Apparently when the semi rolled on to hit the store, it hit two pedestrians as well. 

As the paramedics worked, I stuck by my mom’s feet to stay as far out of their way as possible while still being in contact with her. One on the team confirmed my dad had died, so I wanted to make sure that my mom survived. They loaded her up onto a gurney and into the ambulance, I stayed with them.

While racing through the traffic, one of the paramedics took the time to treat my cuts. It turns out I had cut them pretty badly when I fell to my knees straight onto glass.

Unfortunately, mom died along the way. I had to watch as they tried using the defibrillator several times, but her heart wouldn’t start again. I still had 40 minutes left on the cooldown. I stared at that timer blankly. What do I do now?