Marvel: The Rise of Paragon – Chapter 3

Chapter 3

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Outside a shoddy looking warehouse, near the outer edge of the New York Harbor, stood a large, bulky man dressed in a dark jacket and pants, standing guard. It was late in the evening, almost midnight, with a sky full of clouds, blocking out the moon.

Boris grunted as he adjusted the Mini Uzi tucked under his shirt, annoyed at its sharp edges poking into his ribs. He was also annoyed at being stuck out on lookout duty, here in this godforsaken hour, instead of home with his girl.

They had a sleeper ship coming in with the goods tonight, and it was his job to wait for it.

A lot of things annoyed Boris recently.

He casually reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette and lighter, lighting it up and taking one, long drag from it.

He exhaled the smoke, watching as it drifted away from in the dim moonlight that made it through the clouds.

“Damn Chinese.” He grumbled to himself.

Some new Chinese org was making inroads here on the streets of New York.

At least, that was what Vlad claimed. Something clearly had spooked the Boss, though nobody would say that to his face.

“Ninjas? Really?” He shook his head before spitting on the ground.

“Ain’t nobody doing nothing.” It had been a while since their last gang war.

The criminal scene in NYC was as disorganized and wild as it had ever been, just the way Boris liked it. What was life without a little action, after all?

The Golden Tigers were getting a bit rowdy, maybe they'd see some action soon.

Either way, Boris couldn’t complain – weapons smuggling was as hot as ever.

The Russian Mafia was doing just fine.

Finally, several minutes later…

“Oi, there it is.” Boris grunted as he spotted the ship sailing towards them. It was a mid-sized sailboat, the kind of ship most people wouldn’t look twice at.

He leaned down and grabbed his radio from his belt, barking several words out in his native Russian.

Another day in the life of Boris Dmitriev, an everyday grunt of the Russi-

Gunshots rang out.

“Wait- what?!” Boris abruptly leaned forward, jerking his Uzi out.

More gunshots rang out.

And then…

Out of nowhere, the entire ship abruptly began to sink, more than 150 meters offshore.

.. .. .. .. .. ..

‘This is going… swimmingly!’

In a shadowy corner of the New York Harbor, Alexander watched with a hint of glee as a ship full of illicit weapons began to sink, water pouring in from more than a dozen holes he had ripped into the ship’s keel.

His Telekinetic Hand Spell didn’t just carry 940 lbs of force like it claimed – it was 940 lbs of force added alongside his own physical strength.

And… while underwater, Alexander’s physical strength was boosted by a decent amount, even more so the deeper he was.

Here, roughly 10 meters under water, he was at least two and a half times as strong as a normal human!

‘Let’s scope it out.’ His Barkskin Spell was already active, enhancing his physical defenses.

He activated his Recovery Aura Spell with a mental thought, feeling an invisible Aura begin to shroud him, just in case.

He didn’t intend on taking any shots - for his first outing, he was playing it safe - but it was always better to be prepared.

As Alexander swam, his dark black clothing moved smoothly with the river current. With every stroke, he found himself propelled at a high speed, zooming through the water like a racing dolphin.

His current getup was a pair of fast-drying nylon pants, a similar black shirt, and black shoes and socks that were designed for work near the sea, both water resistant and fast-drying. He also had a black mask, covering his nose, mouth, and lower chin, though his spiky blonde hair and blue eyes were left visible.

It wasn’t a perfect outfit by any means, but it was good enough for a temporary fix, until he had a proper Superhero costume. He should probably get a full mask, just in case.

Blue eyes and blonde hair wasn’t exactly rare by any means, but still. Constant vigilance!  

Five days had passed since he first awakened his past life’s memories and the Gamer System he obtained alongside that.

A lot had happened in that short period, he reflected, as he stayed down low, swimming a wide berth around the now slowly sinking ship.

For one, he had moved out of the orphanage. Headmistress O’Keele had grown teary-eyed and delivered him a heart-felt goodbye, though only after he came up with several convenient lies about finding a job up-state in the trades that was sponsoring his apprenticeship and a move.

It hadn’t been easy fending off her questions, but he could tell she had good intentions.

It was somewhat hard to relate, if he was being honest – despite having his memories of both lives merge, his first life’s memories had made his second life’s memories seem slightly distant, an artifact of the change.

She didn’t approve of him ditching his final year of High School, but she recognized that he was determined to leave and didn’t try to stand in his way. Overall, she was a sweet old lady, and Alexander wished her the best. Whether or not it was legal to ditch school, well, she didn’t ask and he didn't answer.

Several loud pings caught his attention, interrupting his thoughts.

‘They’re shooting the water?’ His underwater vision was akin to night vision, giving him a clear view of everything within several hundred meters.

Alexander stayed below several meters, watching as the bullets hit the water and then fizzled out after a meter or two.

‘They’re really just firing blindly?’ He hadn’t even surfaced once, he had just blown out the ship’s hull from below.

‘I guess this is the New York Harbor.’ There shouldn’t be any obstructions here – obviously, they believed this was an act of sabotage.

‘Telekinetic Hand! Go! Get em’!’ Alexander moved the invisible floating hand forward with a conscious thought, controlling it much like he would flex a muscle, except with his mind.

It was a weird sensation that didn’t really make any sense, unless you experienced it yourself.

The invisible hand left a trail of mixed water and air bubbles as it shot through the water, slamming into the bottom of the 35’ sailboat. Wood and metal splintered alike as his Telekinetic Hand smashed apart more of the keel, pulling and grabbing against the ship, trying to drag in as much water as possible.

His range with his Telekinetic Hand was roughly 28 meters, as best he could tell. Any further than that, and the magical hand rapidly lost strength.

‘Man, I’m lucky I found this.’

His eyes gleamed as he watched several crates begin to slip down and sink towards the bottom of the harbor. He controlled the Telekinetic Hand to move those crates to the side, away from the slowly sinking wreck.

This, his first official Hero outing, was something he’d stumbled upon mostly by luck.

A couple days ago, he had found himself near here, on the shoreline of the New York Harbor, practicing his Blink Ability. It was his second day of practice, this time on the outskirts of the harbor.

He remembered how it went down exactly.

'Alright. Test 14.' Alexander grinned as he looked out at the busy harbor, less so in his general vicinity, here on the outskirts, in the shadows of a crumbly, old shack. It was late into the evening, yet the world of New York City never seemed to slow down.

‘Blink.’

Alexander teleported…

Into the sea.  

‘Success!’

With nary a splash to betray his presence, Alexander grinned as he huddled, half a dozen meters underwater, in a world of blue.

It was the fifth successful test of his Blink Ability when it came to above-ground to underwater transportation!

‘I need a clear line of slight, and I can teleport even up to my max range!’ He pumped his fist as he began to swim along the harbor bottom.

Blink, as it turned out, had a decently high max range – roughly 36 meters. That sort of milage was much more than he had hoped for, opening up tons of options when it came to versatility.

He spent the next several hours practicing underwater teleportation, wanting to really figure this Ability out, before he went on any official Hero business.

He teleported out of water into the dark shadows of ruined shipping containers.

He teleported underwater to other spaces underwater.

He even made two dozen or so risky teleports up the sides of large ships, creeping about quietly like a ninja.

It was great fun… until he overhead a conversation, taking place on a large, almost yacht-like ship, a fancy rig that had clearly been patched up and seen better days.

Alexander stuck himself to the floor the moment he heard voices, his heart pounding in his chest.

He made sure to get a clear line of sight back into the ocean, ready to teleport away at will.

However…

‘An arms shipment?’

The conversation was a mix of English and a language he didn’t recognize, the uncultured swine that he was.

What he did hear, however, was loud and clear, about a shipment of ‘full auto guns, a kit of grenades, and several sets of body armor.’

It soon became very clear that the duo inside the ship were talking about an illicit arms shipment.

‘The pier off Dotsky, half an hour before midnight, on the 29th.’

The miscreants were even nice enough to let him know when and where it was taking place.

Actually, they went off on an argument where they fought over the timing and location of the shipment, complaining about some ‘Yellow Tiger Rat Bastards’ controlling the Docks.

It was only after the ship got nervously close to shore that they finally came up with an agreed time and place.

And that, Alexander decided, was when to make his getaway, teleporting off the ship, back into the safe anonymity of the deep sea.

Discretion, after all, was the better part of valor.

And, one thing led to another, and that was how Alexander found himself here, committing his first proud act of piracy!

‘Hold on, this is Russian.’ Alexander vaguely recognized the writing on the crates, putting together the writing with the language he had overhead.

‘Right, I know this. I know this!’ He resisted the urge to clap his hands together, memories from his first life swelling up.

‘This must be the Russian Mafia, from Deadpool!’ He frowned.

‘No, wait, it was Daredevil, not Deadpool. Right, those two stories are waaay different.’ Did Deadpool exist here in the MCU?

Probably, right? If Deadpool and Wolverine was canon.

Wait, what about the X-Men?

He shook the distracting thoughts out of his mind for now, focusing on the present.

‘…let’s not engage.’ He made the elective call as he swam down and began collecting the crates that had slipped free of the ship.

This was just his first outing, after all – if anything, it was more a test of his suit and powers, and practice for the future.

‘We’ll take the gangs down, but on my terms.’ He wasn’t just going to rush in blindly.

The moment he made that call, a golden light flashed in Alexander’s eyes.

Abruptly, a sense of achievement flooded his veins, and two blue screens, visible only to him, appeared floating in the water before him.

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[Levels are achieved through personal growth and achieving greatness.]

[The higher your Level, the more experience is required.]

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And…

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[You have gained experience – you are close to reaching your next Level!]

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He stared at the screen for a split second, before dismissing them by tapping on their corners, and returning to his current project.

He began to drag the crates, picking up one of them physically, while Telekinetic Hand grabbed two others, quickly moving along the harbor bottom. He planned on coming back for the rest of the crates, as the ship fully sunk.

By the time dawn came, there would be nothing left for the Russian Mafia to recover.

As he swam, he thought back to the screens.

‘I’m close to Leveling up, huh?’ He smiled.

‘I guess this System approves of me going out on missions.’ This was the first sign that his System had given, of him gaining experience.

‘Awesome.’

He was already going to keep doing this, purely of his own free will, but it was nice to see his efforts to clean up New York came with their own side-benefit.

Finally, after nearly six minutes of swimming quickly, exiting the harbor region and coming upon a series of open cliffs…

Alexander’s eyes narrowed as he began scanning the undersea rock walls.

‘There it is!’ He swam forward, crates full of illicit goods in tow.

There, a dozen meters underwater, just under a jutting overhang of rock, was a 4 meters wide, 2 meters tall, jagged opening to an underwater cave.

With a splash, Alexander swum into the cave and carefully maneuvered forward, moving slightly awkwardly as he carried the heavy crates deeper into the cave.

Finally, after roughly 30 seconds of half climbing, half swimming…

A loud splash echoed out as Alexander surfaced, into a large, roughly 11 meters wide and long, 6 meters tall, open-air cave room. He had to climb up almost 2 meters out of the hole to really enter this room properly, a struggle as he lost his superhuman strength.

With a grunt, he lugged himself forward, free of the water. His Telekinetic Hand then brought up of the crates, dumping them carefully to the side. He then pushed the crates, again carefully, into an unused corner.

“Now, where are those lights…” Alexander muttered as he stared at the nearly pitch-black cave. He grabbed some water, holding it over his eyes, instantly regaining his underwater vision.

This cave had a few faint cracks in its upper walls, letting in fresh air from the massive cliffs, but not even a smidge of light. It was pitch black here, for the most part.

“There we are.” Alexander hummed as he waltzed over to the side of the underground room. There, a few meters up, was a large ledge, offset from the floor of the cave by around 2 meters.

‘Blink.’ He teleported up, landing on a soft carpet. With a flick of his wrist, he turned on a lamp, lighting up the rest of the cave.

"Just like home!"

Here, on his ledge that stretched around 3 meters long, and 6 meters wide, carving slightly into the wall, sat a long, comfortable mattress, complete with several large pillows, black sheets, and a dark grey blanket. A large pair of batteries sat inside an even larger waterproof bag, powering currently just a lamp and a clock.

At the foot of his upper ledge, lay another, small mostly flat bump in the rock. There, he had his alarm clock, and a series of journals and pens, brought in via waterproof bags, for recording his notes, plans, and goals. There was also several flashlights, one of which he picked up, a crate of water bottles, and some basic food supplies, alongside the rest of his clothes, his laptop, and other sundries.

‘I’ll need to get solar panels.’ Charging his batteries manually was a pain, and it didn’t feel right, stealing energy that other people paid for. It was a silly, minor gripe, but he had standards, dammit.

‘I need to pick up a Spell that lets me mold the earth.’ It was number one on his priorities for future Spell choice. If he could setup a way to charge his panels, once he got them, without travelling underwater, it would make everything much easier.

There was so much more he wanted to bring in here, to change and modify… but one thing at a time, he reminded himself.

The main section of the cave, down below, was mostly empty, save for a single large stalagmite, resting at the middle of the room.

And, of course, all the newly pilfered crates he had obtained.

‘Let’s move them into the back room.’ He began to pick the creates up with his Telekinetic Hand, taking them out of his main and largest room, and moving them farther back into the cave. He turned on the flashlight he’d grabbed, lighting the way.

The path here got somewhere more narrow, but went back almost 34 meters, turning here and there, before ending on a final, smaller room, though still large by cave standards – around 7 meters wide, and 3 meters tall.

This was, he dubbed, his primary storage room.

‘I don’t want to sleep next to a pile of grenades.’ It was only common sense.

As he finally finished moving the crates, he prepared to jump back into the sea. He wasn’t sure he’d grabbed everything from the Russian ship, after all!

There was no harm in checking for any more loot, though he’d play it safe at all times.

He turned back, smiling as he looked at his new home.

It wasn’t much, not yet, but…

Every secret lair had to start somewhere!

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