Respawned in Marvel: The Ultimate Hunter System - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: The Emma Stone Doppelgänger and the Alleyway Waltz

The hallways of Mid-Town High School smelled exactly like an amalgamation of teenage anxiety, cheap Axe body spray, and the faint, lingering scent of floor wax.

For the teenager whose body Veer now inhabited, this place had been a literal house of horrors—a gauntlet of anxiety where every locker slam sounded like a gunshot, and every whispered laugh felt like a targeted attack. But for Veer, strolling through the crowded corridors with his hands shoved deep into his grey hoodie pockets, the entire experience felt incredibly surreal, and more than a little bit absurd.

With his Perception at 3, the chaotic environment was magnified tenfold. He could hear the rapid heartbeats of nervous freshmen, the squeak of rubber soles on linoleum, and the hushed, dramatic gossip of cheerleaders three lockers down. Yet, thanks to his Intelligence stat of 1—the absolute peak of human cognitive baseline—his brain processed the overwhelming sensory data with effortless precision, filing the noise away into the background so he didn’t get a migraine.

He walked to his locker, fully expecting a large, meaty hand to slam the metal door shut the moment he opened it. He braced himself for the inevitable confrontation with Eugene “Flash” Thompson. He had spent the entire morning mentally calibrating his strength, making absolutely sure he wouldn’t accidentally punch a hole through Flash’s chest cavity if the kid tried anything.

But as the warning bell rang and the hallways began to clear, nothing happened. No shoved shoulders, no racial slurs, no impending violence.

“Well, that’s deeply disappointing,” Veer muttered to himself, grabbing his AP Physics textbook. “I spent twenty minutes this morning practicing my ‘Oh no, please don’t hurt me’ face in the mirror for absolutely nothing.”

He shut his locker, only to find someone standing directly behind the metal door.

Veer didn’t flinch. His enhanced senses had already told him she was there—he had heard her light footsteps and smelled a subtle, floral shampoo a solid ten seconds before she stopped next to him.

“Veer. Hey,” a soft, slightly authoritative voice said.

Veer turned. Standing before him was a girl clutching a heavy-looking clipboard against her chest. She had bright, intelligent eyes, a smattering of faint freckles, and blonde hair pulled back neatly.

Veer’s brain experienced a momentary, jarring glitch.

He stared at her, blinking slowly. She looked exactly like Emma Stone. Just… a younger, slightly more stressed-out version of the Hollywood actress from his past life. The resemblance was so uncanny that Veer had to suppress the urge to ask her for an autograph.

“Gwen,” Veer replied, his mind quickly pulling up the relevant data from the teenager’s memories. ‘Gwen Stacy. Class President. Chief overachiever. Daughter of the Police Captain.’

“I was looking for you,” Gwen said, her brow furrowing slightly in concern as she looked at his face. “I wanted to check in. I saw you walking in this morning, and… well, I wanted to make sure you were actually okay after what happened yesterday behind the bleachers. You look remarkably unbruised.”

It was true. Thanks to his Vitality stat crossing the threshold of 10, his passive cellular regeneration had worked overtime through the night. The swelling and the dark purple bruising had faded into a very faint, almost unnoticeable yellowish hue that easily passed for an old, minor bump.

“Oh, you mean my impromptu meeting with Flash’s fists?” Veer asked, leaning his shoulder casually against the lockers. “Yeah, I’m fine. Honestly, I’m just a little upset he stopped when he did. I was halfway hoping he’d finish the job so my parents could sue his family into absolute poverty. I’d make a great tragic martyr, and they could buy a yacht with the settlement money. It’s a win-win, really.”

Gwen stared at him, her large eyes blinking rapidly. She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, and then tried again.

“Veer, that’s… that’s a terrible thing to say,” she stammered, clearly entirely unequipped for his brand of pitch-black humor. “You shouldn’t joke about dying.”

“I’m not joking, Gwen. Have you seen the interest rates on international student loans? A swift, accidental death via high school bully is practically a solid financial strategy at this point,” Veer replied, keeping his face perfectly deadpan.

Gwen shifted her weight, looking profoundly uncomfortable. She tightened her grip on her clipboard. “Okay, well… regardless of your… unique outlook on life, I actually came to give you some news. As Class President, I have to help the faculty mediate these kinds of incidents.”

“Mediate? Did Flash want to schedule his assaults? Because Tuesdays are bad for me,” Veer quipped.

“Veer, please, just listen,” Gwen sighed, though a tiny, almost imperceptible smile tugged at the corner of her lips despite herself. “Mr. Harrison caught the tail end of the altercation yesterday. Flash has been given one full week of after-school detention, starting today. He’s also been benched for the next football game. So, you don’t have to worry about him bothering you. The school is taking it seriously.”

Veer raised an eyebrow. “A whole week of sitting in a quiet room? Wow. That’ll definitely rehabilitate his deep-seated psychological need to assert dominance over people smaller than him. Justice is truly served.”

Gwen let out a long breath, looking at him like he was a puzzle with missing pieces. “You’re really different today, you know that? Usually, you barely say two words to anyone, and now you’re… well, whatever this is.”

“Near-death experiences are great for the personality, Gwen. Highly recommend it. Really puts the ‘AP’ in AP Physics into perspective.”

Before she could respond to that morbid statement, someone rushed past them, tripping over their own shoelaces and sending a stack of textbooks clattering across the linoleum floor.

“Oh, man, sorry! Sorry, excuse me,” a lanky, slightly awkward boy muttered, scrambling on his hands and knees to gather his papers. He had a mop of messy brown hair and thick-rimmed glasses that were currently sliding down his nose.

Veer looked down at him. ‘Peter Parker.’

Just like Gwen, Peter looked exactly like the actor from the movies—Andrew Garfield, just slightly younger and drowning in an oversized flannel shirt. The surreal nature of the universe hit Veer again, but he just shook his head in quiet amusement.

Gwen immediately knelt down to help Peter gather his scattered homework. “Peter, honestly, you need a better backpack. The zipper on that one has been broken since October.”

“I know, I know,” Peter stammered, his face turning a brilliant shade of crimson as Gwen handed him his physics notes. “I’ve been meaning to fix it. Thanks, Gwen. Hey, Veer.”

“Hey, Pete,” Veer said lazily. “Try not to break your neck before first period.”

Peter offered a nervous, confused smile, gathered his things into his chest, and practically sprinted down the hall.

Gwen stood back up, smoothing her skirt. “Anyway. I just wanted to let you know about Flash. Try to stay out of his way, okay? He’s pretty furious about getting benched.”

“I’ll be sure to tremble in fear if I see him,” Veer smiled, a genuine, completely unfazed smile. “Thanks for the heads-up, Gwen. Have a good day.”

“You too, Veer,” she said, still looking at him like he was an alien species as she walked away.

—

The rest of the school day was an exercise in mind-numbing boredom.

Veer sat in his classes, staring blankly at the chalkboards and whiteboards, realizing very quickly just how overpowered the System truly was, even in non-combat situations.

He was already an incredibly smart guy in his past life—you didn’t get selected for an international exchange program to the United States without having top-tier grades and a sharp mind. But the Intelligence stat he possessed now had completely changed the game.

Increasing his INT to 1 didn’t magically download the answers to the universe into his brain. He didn’t suddenly know how to build an arc reactor out of a box of scraps. What it ‘did’ do was optimize his cognitive processing, memory retention, and logical reasoning to the absolute maximum limit of human biology.

During his AP Calculus class, the teacher, a droning man who sounded like he was half-asleep himself, spent forty minutes explaining a complex theorem regarding derivatives. Veer opened the textbook, scanned the pages detailing the theorem, and within three minutes, he understood it completely. His brain absorbed the formulas, cross-referenced them with the basic math he already knew, and filed the information away flawlessly. He didn’t need to take notes. He just looked at the page, understood the core logic, and committed it to perfect memory.

‘If I had this brain back in India,’ Veer thought, resting his chin in his hand and staring out the window, ‘I could have cleared the UPSC exams without even breaking a sweat. I would have been a high-ranking government official instead of carrying cement on my head.’

It was a bittersweet realization, but he didn’t dwell on it. That life was over.

As the hours dragged on, Veer felt a profound sense of wasted time. He was a Super Soldier. He had the potential to harness Nen, the most versatile power system ever conceived. He was living in a universe where gods, aliens, and mutants regularly leveled city blocks. And yet, here he was, sitting in a cramped wooden desk, waiting for a bell to ring so he could eat a soggy tuna sandwich in a loud cafeteria.

By the time the final bell of the day shrieked through the school, Veer was practically vibrating with the need to move.

—

He walked out of the double doors of Mid-Town High, the afternoon sun hitting his face. The cool New York breeze felt good. He adjusted his backpack straps, deciding he would go back to the gym today to push his stamina limits again. He needed to generate more EXP.

He took a shortcut he knew the teenager used to take—a narrow alleyway that cut between a local dry cleaner and a rundown convenience store, leading toward the subway station. It was quiet, shaded from the sun, and smelled faintly of damp cardboard and garbage.

He was halfway down the alley when he heard the heavy, deliberate footsteps.

With Perception 3, he didn’t just hear them; he could analyze the weight distribution of the steps, the slight scraping of the leather soles against the concrete, and the elevated, angry heartbeats of three distinct individuals stepping into the alleyway behind him.

A moment later, another set of footsteps echoed from the opposite end of the alley, blocking his exit.

Veer stopped walking. He didn’t turn around immediately. He just let out a long, theatrical sigh that echoed off the brick walls.

“Hey, Gandhi,” a harsh, familiar voice spat from behind him.

Veer slowly turned around.

Standing ten feet away was Eugene “Flash” Thompson. He was a big kid, easily over six feet tall, built like a brick outhouse, wearing his maroon Mid-Town High letterman jacket. His face was twisted into an ugly, furious sneer. Flanking him were two of his football buddies, large, intimidating kids who looked like they enjoyed breaking things for fun.

Blocking the other end of the alley was a fourth guy, effectively boxing Veer in.

“Flash,” Veer said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion. “I was told you had detention. Skipping it to hang out in a smelly alleyway with me? I’m flattered, really, but you’re not my type.”

Flash’s face turned a dangerous shade of red. He took a heavy step forward, cracking his knuckles. “You think you’re funny, Singh? You think you can snitch to Harrison, get me benched for the biggest game of the season, and just walk away making jokes?”

Veer tilted his head, genuinely bewildered. “Snitch? Flash, you shoved my head into a metal locker in the middle of a crowded hallway. It wasn’t exactly a covert black-ops mission. The janitor saw you, the lunch lady saw you, and I’m pretty sure the school mascot saw you. You got caught because you have the situational awareness of a concussed rhinoceros, not because I snitched.”

“Shut your mouth!” Flash barked, taking another aggressive step closer. “You’re gonna pay for that week of my life. I’m gonna beat you so bad they’re gonna have to send you back to whatever third-world slum you crawled out of in a liquid diet tube.”

Veer stared at the angry teenager. For a brief second, he remembered the absolute terror the original Veer had felt in this exact situation. The racing heart, the cold sweat, the feeling of utter helplessness.

But the man standing in the alley now felt none of that.

He didn’t feel fear. He didn’t even feel anger.

He just felt… incredibly, profoundly bored.

“Flash, listen to me very carefully,” Veer said, his voice dropping into a low, deadpan register. “Are we really doing the back-alley revenge cliché? This is so aggressively unoriginal. I thought you guys would at least upgrade to an abandoned warehouse, maybe kidnap a family member or something. This just feels lazy. You’re peaking in high school, man, and it’s honestly a little sad to watch.”

“Grab him,” Flash snapped, furious beyond words.

The two goons flanking Flash lunged forward, their hands reaching out to grab Veer’s shoulders to pin him against the brick wall.

With Agility 4, the world around Veer simply stopped.

Or, rather, his perception of time slowed to an absolute crawl. He watched the goons moving toward him. He could see the strain in their neck muscles, the beads of sweat on their foreheads, the exact trajectory of their clumsy, uncoordinated hands. They were moving through invisible molasses.

Veer didn’t take a fighting stance. He didn’t raise his fists.

He just lazily shifted his weight to his left foot, stepping slightly to the side.

The first goon’s hands grasped at empty air where Veer’s chest had been a millisecond prior. The sheer momentum of his own lunge carried him forward, sending him crashing face-first into the rough brick wall with a sickening ‘crunch’ of cartilage. He collapsed to the pavement, groaning, holding his bleeding nose.

The second goon, reacting to his friend’s sudden detour into the masonry, tried to adjust his swing, throwing a wild, looping right hook aimed at Veer’s head.

Veer sighed. He casually leaned backward, letting the fist sail a solid three inches past his nose, creating a slight breeze against his face. As the goon’s arm overextended, throwing him off balance, Veer simply reached out with his left hand, extending a single index finger, and tapped the boy on the back of his shoulder.

It was a light tap. He utilized perhaps one percent of his Strength stat.

But one percent of Captain America’s physical force, applied to the unbalanced shoulder of a normal teenager, was devastating.

The goon was instantly propelled forward as if he had been struck by a speeding Vespa. He flew three feet through the air, crashing head-over-heels into a stack of empty cardboard boxes by the dumpster, a tangled mess of limbs and groans.

The alley went dead silent.

Flash froze, his eyes wide, his jaw slacking as he stared at his two largest enforcers lying on the ground, dismantled in less than three seconds without Veer even appearing to move his feet.

The fourth guy blocking the exit at the end of the alley slowly began backing away, deciding he had suddenly remembered he left the oven on at home.

“What… what did you do?” Flash stammered, the anger instantly evaporating, replaced by a deep, primal confusion.

“I literally didn’t do anything,” Veer said, adjusting his backpack strap lazily. “Your friends just have terrible balance. They should really look into yoga. Or maybe physical therapy at this point.”

Flash swallowed hard. His pride, however, was thicker than his survival instinct. With a roar of humiliated rage, he charged forward, throwing his entire body weight behind a massive, desperate haymaker aimed squarely at Veer’s jaw.

Veer watched the fist approaching in slow motion. He saw the terrible form, the lack of hip rotation, the pure, unrefined rage driving the blow. It was pathetic.

Veer didn’t dodge this time. He just stood his ground.

As the fist came within an inch of his face, Veer raised his right hand, keeping his palm open. He caught Flash’s fist dead in the center of his palm.

‘Smack.’

The sound echoed sharply in the alley.

Flash’s entire arm jarred to a violent halt. It was as if he had punched a solid block of reinforced concrete. The momentum of his charge transferred entirely into his own shoulder, sending a shockwave of pain up his arm. He cried out, his knees buckling under the sudden, immovable resistance.

Veer held the fist effortlessly, not even taking a step backward. His dark eyes locked onto Flash’s wide, terrified ones.

“You know, Eugene,” Veer said softly, his voice dangerously calm. “In my old neighborhood, if you swung at a guy, you made sure you had the power to finish it. Because if you didn’t…”

Veer applied a fraction of an ounce of pressure, tightening his fingers just slightly around Flash’s fist. Flash whimpered as the bones in his hand ground together uncomfortably.

“…the consequences were usually fatal,” Veer finished, offering a chilling, completely dead-eyed smile.

He didn’t hit him. He didn’t need to. The sheer, overwhelming disparity in their power was communicating everything that needed to be said.

Veer casually opened his hand, releasing Flash’s fist. Before Flash could pull away, Veer placed his palm flat against the center of Flash’s chest and gave him a gentle, dismissive push.

Flash was lifted off his feet entirely. He flew backward five feet, landing hard on his backside on the dirty asphalt, the wind violently knocked out of his lungs. He sat there, gasping for air, staring up at Veer with a look of absolute, unadulterated terror.

Veer looked down at the three teenagers groaning in the alley. The bully who had caused the original Veer to take his own life was now sitting on the ground, terrified of the very same boy.

It felt incredibly anti-climactic.

“Don’t skip detention again, Flash,” Veer said, his voice light and conversational once more. “It’s bad for your academic record. And frankly, my schedule is way too busy to keep entertaining you. Have a good afternoon.”

Veer stepped over Flash’s outstretched legs, ignoring the whimpering goons, and casually walked out the other end of the alley, his hands shoved back into his hoodie pockets.

He didn’t look back. High school drama was officially over. He needed to get to the gym; he had EXP to grind.