Hunter of Marvel - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Mid Town High School

The pre-dawn air of New York was a frigid, biting thing. It whipped across the abandoned handball court, carrying the scent of damp concrete and distant exhaust fumes.

Veer was already there, moving in the shadows.

He had slipped out of the apartment before Mark even rolled over in his sleep. Armed with the knowledge of how his system functioned, Veer had come to the park with a singular, grueling purpose. The previous day’s session had been an experiment. Today was a dedicated grind.

His Vitality stat, sitting at a formidable eight points, had transformed his endurance. It now took eight maximum-effort repetitions to drain a single percent of his fatigue. To earn the six EXP required to reach level three, he had to push his body through thousands of perfectly executed movements.

He started with pushups, the rough pavement grinding against his palms. The sheer volume of repetitions required him to slip into a trance-like state, a mental space forged during fifteen years of long, exhausting police stakeouts. He simply locked his mind away and let his body become a machine.

‘Five hundred. Six hundred. Seven hundred.’

By the time the sun began to peek over the jagged skyline of the city, casting long, pale orange shadows across the court, Veer hit the wall. His arms gave out, his chest slammed into the concrete, and the familiar blue light flooded his vision.

‘[Level Up!]’

The instant wash of restorative energy revived him. He didn’t pause. He immediately transitioned to squats, burning through the newly doubled EXP requirement for level four. Thousands of lunges, thousands of squats, thousands of brutal, air-splitting punches.

When he finally collapsed for the second time that morning, the sun was fully up, and the park was beginning to stir with early joggers.

[Level Up!]
[Total EXP Requirement Met.]
[Current Level: 4]

Veer lay on his back, staring up at the pale blue sky, a heavy, satisfied breath leaving his lungs. The magical reset washed over his muscles, erasing the agonizing buildup of lactic acid and repairing the microscopic tears in his fibers.

He sat up, ignoring the dampness of his sweat-soaked hoodie, and opened his interface.

[HP +10]
[AP +1000]
[Free Stat Points: 10]

He had accumulated five points from reaching level three, and another five from level four. Ten points to distribute.

Veer considered his current build. Stacking everything into Vitality had allowed him to grind efficiently, but it was time to establish a solid, well-rounded foundation. A high health pool meant nothing if he was too slow to dodge or too weak to hit back.

He mentally tapped the floating screen, distributing the points evenly. Two into Strength, two into Dexterity, two into Intelligence, and two into Perception.

That left two remaining points. He dropped them into Vitality, bringing the stat up to a perfectly even ten.

The moment the number ticked over into double digits, the system chimed with a new, distinctly sharper sound.

[Threshold Reached: VIT 10]
[Passive Ability Unlocked: Minor Regeneration. Host gains +10 permanent HP and recovers 0.1% of maximum HP per minute.]

Veer’s eyes widened slightly. Before he could fully process the notification, the physical changes hit him.

It wasn’t the warm, localized flush he had felt yesterday. This was a deep, systemic restructuring. His muscles didn’t bulge outward into the grotesque, unnatural proportions of a bodybuilder; instead, they condensed. The fibers wove themselves tighter, pulling taut against his frame. He could feel the fat melting away from his core, leaving behind the sleek, carved musculature of a professional swimmer or a fitness model.

He stood up, rolling his shoulders. He felt incredibly light, yet densely packed.

Then, the two points added to Perception took effect.

The world rushed in. The sound of a car horn three blocks away felt like it was blaring directly in his ear. The smell of a discarded coffee cup in a nearby trash can assaulted his nose with overwhelming intensity. Veer winced, raising his hands to his temples as a sharp headache flared behind his eyes.

“Too much,” he hissed, squeezing his eyes shut.

‘Calm down,’ his older, more experienced mind ordered. ‘It’s just sensory input. Filter it.’

He focused on his breathing. He imagined the overwhelming noise and smell as a physical dial in his mind, and he deliberately reached out and turned it down. To his surprise, it worked. The blaring traffic faded back into a dull hum. The overwhelming stench of the city receded to its normal, background level.

He could control it. If he focused, he could isolate the sound of a specific bird in the trees, or smell the damp earth beneath the concrete. But when he relaxed, his brain automatically filtered the excess data, preventing sensory overload.

More impressively, he realized he wasn’t just hearing and seeing better. He could ‘feel’ the space around him. Without opening his eyes, he knew a jogger was approaching from behind, exactly fifteen feet away, moving at a steady, rhythmic pace. It wasn’t eyes in the back of his head; it was a subtle disturbance in the air, a spatial awareness that painted a rough, three-dimensional map in his mind.

He opened his eyes, pulling up his status screen one last time before heading home.

—

Name: Veer Pratap Singh

Level: 4 (0/15)

Affinity: Specialisation

…

HP: 60/60 [Recover 0.1% per minute]

AP: 5000/5000

Fatigue: 0%

…

STR: 3

DEX: 3

VIT: 10

INT: 3

PER: 3

…

Skill: None

…

[Quest]

[Inventory]

—

Satisfied, Veer closed the panel and jogged back to the apartment.

After a quick shower, he stood in front of the bathroom mirror. The physical transformation was undeniable. The kid he had inherited this body from had been skinny and soft. Now, defined abdominals showed beneath his skin, and his shoulders carried a natural, confident breadth.

He dug through the closet and pulled out a slightly oversized, dark green hoodie and a pair of loose-fitting jeans. The baggy clothes draped comfortably over his new frame, masking the dramatic physical changes. Anyone passing him on the street wouldn’t look twice, but those who knew him well—like Mark—would definitely sense that something about his posture, his sheer physical presence, had shifted.

Half an hour later, Veer and Mark were walking down the bustling sidewalks of Queens, heading toward Midtown Science High School.

“I’m just saying,” Mark babbled, shifting the strap of his messenger bag on his shoulder. “Statistically, she has to acknowledge you. You don’t just sleep with someone and then act like they don’t exist. That’s sociopathic.”

Mark looked exactly the same as he always did: slightly rumpled, wearing a vintage band t-shirt that had seen better days, and sporting a pair of scuffed sneakers. To the casual observer, Mark looked like a kid from a struggling, low-income family.

Veer knew the truth. Mark’s family was obscenely wealthy. His father was a partner at a massive corporate law firm, and his older brother was currently being groomed to take over the family empire. Mark absolutely despised his brother and the stifling, high-pressure environment of his family home. In a fit of teenage rebellion, he had moved out, determined to prove he could live independently.

The hilarious reality, however, was that Mark didn’t have a job. His mother, terrified that her youngest son would starve in the slums of Queens, secretly funneled allowance into a private bank account for him. Mark used the money to pay his half of the rent, buy endless amounts of video games, and occasionally bribe Veer with pizza.

Veer, on the other hand, genuinely needed the cheap rent. He was attending Midtown High—a school largely populated by the children of affluent New Yorkers—on a full academic scholarship. His predecessor had been incredibly gifted at hiding his misery behind textbooks, maintaining straight A’s despite working part-time to survive.

“Mark, listen to me,” Veer said, his tone low and even. He adjusted his backpack, looking straight ahead. “She is going to completely ignore me. And that is exactly what I want her to do. Do not stare at her. Do not bring it up. If word gets out that I slept with Felicia Hardy, her boyfriend is going to make it his personal mission to ruin my life, and the social hierarchy of this school will crush us.”

Mark sighed dramatically, kicking a pebble down the sidewalk. “You have zero sense of drama, Veer. This is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to our apartment.”

“Keep it a secret, Mark. I mean it.”

“Fine, fine. My lips are sealed.”

They approached the sprawling, brick-and-glass facade of Midtown Science High School. The front courtyard was a chaotic sea of teenagers. The sheer volume of hormones, anxiety, and social maneuvering was almost palpable.

Veer picked up the intricate dynamics instantly. He saw the nervous freshmen clutching their schedules, terrified of making a wrong turn. He saw the athletes leaning against the brick walls, laughing loudly and taking up as much space as possible. He saw couples huddled near the bike racks, wrapped in the intense, dramatic bubble of high school romance.

Very few of them looked like they actually cared about the “Science” part of their high school’s name.

Veer and Mark navigated the crowd with practiced ease, slipping through the gaps and avoiding eye contact with the more aggressive cliques. They made their way to their first-period class—Physics.

They walked into the classroom and took their usual seats near the back row, safely out of the teacher’s direct line of sight.

A moment later, Felicia Hardy walked in.

She looked immaculate. Her platinum blonde hair was perfectly styled, her makeup flawless, and she wore a designer jacket that probably cost more than Veer’s monthly rent. She moved with an effortless, untouchable grace, radiating confidence.

She walked down the aisle, her gaze fixed on the front of the room. She passed within inches of Veer’s desk. Her expensive perfume wafted over him, the exact same vanilla scent that had lingered in his bedsheets yesterday morning.

She didn’t blink. She didn’t turn her head. She didn’t acknowledge his existence in any capacity whatsoever. She simply glided past him and took her seat in the front row, immediately pulling out a sleek tablet.

Beneath the desk, Mark’s foot lashed out, kicking the metal leg of Veer’s chair.

Veer glanced over. Mark was covering his mouth with both hands, his shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter, his eyes gleaming with the absolute validation of Veer’s prediction.

Veer merely rolled his eyes, a faint, amused smile touching his lips. He didn’t mind being ignored. In fact, it was a relief. Dealing with a volatile, wealthy teenage girl’s emotional baggage was not on his agenda.

The warning bell rang, cutting through the chatter. Mr. Harrington, a slightly balding, perpetually tired-looking man, walked to the front of the room holding a clipboard.

“Alright, settle down, everyone,” Harrington said, his voice lacking any real authority. “Let’s get through attendance quickly. We have a lot of material to cover today.”

He adjusted his glasses and started reading down the list.

“Adams.”
“Here.”
“Bellantoni.”
“Here.”
“Hardy.”
“Present,” Felicia answered, her voice cool and completely detached.

Harrington continued down the list. Veer half-listened, leaning back in his chair and organizing his notebooks.

“Parker, Peter.”

“Here! I mean, present. Sorry.”

The voice came from two rows ahead. Veer glanced up. The kid who had spoken was fumbling with a stack of textbooks, nearly dropping his pen in the process. He had messy brown hair, wore a slightly faded science pun t-shirt, and possessed an aura of intense, nervous energy.

Veer frowned. ‘Peter Parker?’

He stared at the back of the kid’s head, a strange sense of familiarity washing over him. It wasn’t the familiarity of his inherited memories. It was something else.

“Stacy, Gwen.”

“Present,” a clear, bright voice answered from the opposite side of the room.

Veer shifted his gaze. The girl sitting there had blonde hair pulled back neatly, her posture perfect as she already had her notebook open, actively reviewing the previous day’s material.

Veer’s heart skipped a beat.

He looked closely at Peter, who had turned slightly to grab an eraser from his bag. Then he looked at Gwen.

His thirty-six-year-old mind, rich with the pop culture knowledge of his previous life, slammed the puzzle pieces together with terrifying speed. Peter Parker looked exactly, unequivocally, like a younger Andrew Garfield. And Gwen Stacy was the spitting image of Emma Stone.

Harrington’s voice droned on.

“Thompson, Eugene.”

“It’s Flash, Mr. Harrington,” a large, broad-shouldered kid in a letterman jacket corrected arrogantly from the center of the room. “And I’m here.”

“Watson, Mary Jane.”

“Here.” A girl with striking red hair raised her hand briefly before returning to whatever she was typing on her phone.

Veer sat perfectly still, the blood roaring in his ears. His enhanced Perception, which he had so carefully dialed down, threatened to spike again as his adrenaline surged.

Peter Parker. Gwen Stacy. Flash Thompson. Mary Jane Watson.

He slowly turned his head, his eyes fixing on the back of Felicia Hardy’s platinum blonde hair.

Felicia Hardy. The Black Cat.

She wasn’t just a rich, vindictive high school girl. She was a future world-class cat burglar, a woman who danced across the rooftops of New York with a grappling hook and a bad attitude. Did she already have her skills? Was she already sneaking out at night?

Veer swallowed hard.

When he first woke up and saw the System, he had assumed he was in a normal, mundane parallel universe. A world where he could quietly grind his stats, become superhuman, and live a comfortable, vastly improved life.

He was wrong. He was so incredibly, dangerously wrong.

He hadn’t just reincarnated into a parallel America. He had been dropped directly into the epicenter of the Marvel Universe. The city outside those classroom windows wasn’t just New York; it was a magnet for alien invasions, psychotic billionaires in flying suits, and gods dropping out of the sky with magic hammers.

He needed information. He needed to know exactly what timeline he was dealing with. Were the Avengers already formed? Were aliens already a known threat?

The rest of the physics class passed in an absolute blur. Veer stared blindly at the equations Harrington wrote on the board, his mind racing through endless scenarios and threat assessments.

When the lunch bell finally rang, Veer packed his bag in record time.

“Whoa, slow down,” Mark said, struggling to shove his laptop into his messenger bag. “Cafeteria food is terrible, but it’s not going to run away.”

“Just hurry up,” Veer muttered, heading for the door.

They navigated the crowded hallways and secured a spot at their usual table in the far corner of the sprawling, noisy cafeteria. The Nerd Table. It was a safe distance from the athletes and the popular crowd.

Mark, utilizing his secret wealth, had bypassed the standard lunch line and purchased an entire large pizza from the premium vendor station, dropping the greasy cardboard box onto the center of their table.

“I’m telling you, the graphics engine on this new RPG is insane,” Mark started, immediately launching into a monologue as he pulled a slice of pepperoni away from the pie. “The dynamic lighting alone requires a rig that costs more than my tuition. And the water physics—”

Veer wasn’t listening. He pulled his smartphone out of his pocket, keeping it low beneath the edge of the table to avoid drawing attention from the roaming yard teachers.

He opened the web browser. His fingers flew across the digital keyboard, typing two words into the search bar.

‘Tony Stark.’

He hit search.

The results populated instantly, flooding his screen with thousands of news articles, opinion pieces, and sensationalist headlines. Veer tapped the top result, an article from the New York Bulletin, updated just three hours ago.

He read the headline, his eyes scanning the text rapidly.

STARK INDUSTRIES CEO STILL MISSING: ONE MONTH SINCE AFGHANISTAN AMBUSH.

Veer let out a slow, controlled breath, reading the first paragraph.

‘It has been exactly thirty days since billionaire industrialist Tony Stark’s military convoy was ambushed in the Kunar province of Afghanistan. Despite a massive, ongoing joint operation by the US Military and private Stark Industries contractors, no trace of the weapons magnate has been found. The staggering $100 Million bounty offered by the Stark board of directors for actionable intelligence leading to his recovery remains entirely unclaimed.’

He was in the early days.

Tony Stark was currently sitting in a cave, hammering together a crude suit of armor out of scraps. Iron Man didn’t exist yet. The Avengers didn’t exist yet. The Chitauri invasion was still years away.

He had time. Not a lot of time, considering the sheer scale of the threats looming on the horizon, but enough to establish a foothold. If the System scaled the way he thought it did, and if he dedicated every waking hour to grinding his stats and developing his Hatsu, he might actually survive what was coming.

“Are you even listening to me?” Mark complained, waving his pizza slice in front of Veer’s face, scattering a few crumbs onto the table. “I said, the water physics are revolutionary.”

Veer locked his phone screen and slipped the device back into his pocket. He looked up at Mark, the tension in his shoulders slowly bleeding away, replaced by a cold, calculating determination.

“Revolutionary,” Veer agreed, a faint smile touching his lips. He reached out and grabbed a slice of the hot, greasy pizza, folding it in half. “I’m listening, Mark. Tell me more.”

They sat in the crowded, noisy cafeteria, a billionaire heir pretending to be poor, and a dimensional traveler plotting his survival in a world of gods and monsters, chatting casually while eating pizza.