Of Aliens, Magic, and Superheroes

A-1 | C-0 | Prologue

Of Aliens, Magic, and Superheroes

CHAPTER 0: Prologue!

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"You can let that one loss define you, or you can learn from it."

— Azmuth

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Note: Just a quick heads-up before you start reading. This Self-Insert does not know anything about Marvel. He grew up with Ben 10, but Marvel simply doesn't exist in his original world. As far as he's concerned, this is just another universe he woke up in.

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A sharp gasp left my lips as I jolted awake.

For a few seconds I just laid there, staring at the ceiling. Something about it felt weird—and it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out why. I could see the texture of the paint. Every uneven bump, every streak where the roller had lifted too early.

That's... not normal.

I sat up slowly and immediately noticed something else was wrong. My body felt unfamiliar in a way that was hard to place. My arms were longer. My legs were longer. Heck—everything was longer.

Did I... grow? No way, a growth spurt in my twenties? Yeah, no.

I pushed the blanket off and that's when I really noticed it. I wasn't just taller—I was built. AYO?! Did I go to the gym in my sleep? Did I do a real life timeskip? Did I skip the fucking winter arc?

Don't get me wrong, I was never overweight but I wasn't a gym rat either. Heck this was beyond gym rat, I looked like a fucking Greek statue. Da Vinci-Chan, here I come. Sculpt me like those statues you always wanted to make.

And the senses. God, the senses. I could hear the ventilation humming through the walls. I could smell what I was pretty sure were unwashed dishes sitting in the basin downstairs. And again, I could see the paint texture from across the room.

I was bloody superhuman.

As I tried to stand up, pain hammered through my skull, making me lose my balance and fall off the bed.

WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING TO ME!?

Memories flooded my mind. Then another life's. Then another one.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS DJ KHALED BULLSHIT?

Three sets of memories. All bombarding my brain at the same damn time. Of course my head's fucked.

I remembered dying. The screech of tires, the rush of steel, and the dark.

I remembered being Ben Tennyson. Finding the Omnitrix. Fighting Vilgax, Aggregor, and so many more. Twenty years of it.

I remembered living in New York. Finishing high school. My parents dying in a car accident. Twenty quiet years of a normal man's life.

All of it felt real and fake simultaneously—like I had just watched a detailed biopic where I was somehow both the audience and the guy on screen.