Dealing With A Mugger & Meeting An Alien

(A/n - Just a heads-up, I changed the ending from the last chapter a little bit. Instead of being between two gangs shooting at each other, Jasper's instead being mugged in a dark alley. Classic DC shenanigans.)

That first bullet wasn't the last. I was shot one more time, the dirty revolver the mugger was using firing in slow motion at my torso. I looked at my attacker and saw a Caucasian male, middle-aged, with a messy beard and beady brown eyes. He was dressed how you'd expect a mugger to dress; in dark clothes that had most definitely seen better days.

My attention was taken away from my attackers clothes as I looked at the bullets moving through the air at a snail's pace. Curiosity got the better of me as I took a few steps forth and lifted a hand to catch one of them.

I was awestruck by the feeling of power in my body. The speed, the strength, the toughness--everything dialed to a hundred and it felt exhilarating.

Which is why I took a step forth and plucked a bullet out of the air when my instincts were screaming at me to duck out of the way. Instincts instilled into me through years and years of drills as a soldier followed by just as many years of active combat. But they were proven wrong when I caught the bullet.

It felt like grasping air. I barely even felt the impact, just like when the first bullet hit my forehead.

I brought my hand back and turned it so my palm-side was facing me and opened my hand. I looked at the bullet in my hand.

These things had killed me in my past life. Injured me more than I could count too.

And now they were as harmless as a nerf dart. Hell, even more harmless than that seeing as one of them things could damage you eye. Bullets might as well be air to me now. I looked back up at the mugger, still pulling on the trigger to fire another bullet. Everything was moving so slowly and I could sense everything that was happening. The mugger heart rate, the firing mechanism and hammer moving to knock another bullet my way...I could smell what the mugger had had for breakfast this morning, the amount glucose in his blood and how it'd increased due to stress hormones being released in his brain.

I could sense everything about this man and this situation. Best of all, I knew I could sense more. I was holding back these senses, making them work at a small percentage of what they could really do when I let them fire on all cylinders and I found myself awestruck.

...Even if this is a dream, I don't want to ever wake up.

Tossing the bullet to the side, I sidestepped the muggers aim and walked up to him. With impeccable control brought on by a highly enhanced nervous system, I lifted a hand and held the mugger's carotid arteries on either side of his windpipe. Time resumed a more normal pace and the mugger's eyes flew wide open at my sudden movement to his side. It took him a further second to realize what I was doing.

He brought his gun hand to my face and pulled the trigger. Once, twice, thrice--all the bullets impacted my face...and did nothing. Terror flooded the man's eyes, his face going red as he tried to pry my fingers off his neck, to get away from me--anything and everything was what he did to try and release himself.

I didn't lift him up. That'd just break his neck or at least risk it because even with the near-complete control brought to me by Daredevil's powerset, I wasn't entirely used to my new strength. Ten seconds passed and the man's eyes rolled up, his body going completely limp.

Dropping him, I kneeled next to him and made sure he was still breathing. My hearing was so impressive that I could tell the arteries in his neck weren't permanently harmed by what I'd done.

A stark realization struck me. A realization of how easy it would be just to kill him. A bit more pressure, for ten seconds longer and he'd suffer permanent damage. Thirty seconds and he'd be gone from lack of oxygen to the brain or at very least he'd suffer from terrible brain damage. I was a soldier but even I found myself frozen solid at the realization.

I'd killed people. It came with my job. Even had to get close and gritty with it on certain ops where a gunshot, silenced or otherwise, wasn't allowed until a certain point so I had to use a knife. So I was no spring chicken when it came to killing. But even I didn't want to announce my arrival to this world with the death of some poor sod. Mugger or not, attempted murder or not, it didn't matter. Besides, it'd be for the best if I don't get used to killing for convenience or because of minor slights.

Injustice Superman comes to mind when I think of what I could become if I let this new strength corrupt me.

This twat wasn't worth it either. He'd wanted to kill me but he couldn't. I was fine.

Standing up, I left the passed out mugger behind me and walked onto the street. Even if I don't kill him, being passed out in a dark alleyway is basically dancing with death. He'll get what's coming to him eventually.

Especially seeing as I know where I am. At least being in this new body gives me some memories and information; I'm in Gotham. The body I inhabit is also called Jasper Wright but this version of myself is a bit younger at 23-years-old compared to the mid-thirties I'd just came from. Luckily, this body--my body, I guess--belongs to an orphan. So no awkward family ties I have to put up with. Bit of a loner as well, seeing as he has basically no friends and the only friends he does have are pretty much acquaintances.

Money-wise, he's like everyone else in Gotham. Flat-fucking-broke. Job-wise? Also like most people in Gotham. He's a petty criminal. Yikes, what a rewarding second life I've been given. Thanks, Orion.

Well, at least I've got powers, right? Whatever, let's just roll with it and I can look at trying to get some money soon enough. The street was filled with people, the sky was cloudy and grey, and the air was filled with smog. No one spared me any glances, even after the multiple gunshots that originated from behind me earlier, and they went about their lives in a way only people who lived in Gotham could.

Putting my hands in my pockets, I moved into the herd of people and walked my way back to my apartment.

What the hell am I gonna do now?

. . .

"Okay, Jasper, you can do this," I slapped my cheeks to psyche myself up, "You've done parachute training exercises before, man...even if you don't have a parachute now, it's cool, it's okay--just do it!" I continued to speak to myself all while looking over the small cliff edge I was using for this test.

You see, learning how to fly is hard as shit. No amount of willing myself to fly had done anything over the week I'd spent in Gotham and the few days I'd spent in upstate New York for a bit of a rest from the chaotic city. After all, when you have super speed, picking pockets and stealing expensive watches is as easy as taking candy from a baby.

But I digress. Flying. I'd been trying ever since I got back to my apartment on the night I'd found myself in Gotham, recently transmigrated by a God. But nothing was working.

So...I decided to put a bit of risk into the whole ordeal. I mean, of course I knew a drop from this height wouldn't kill me. Hell, it'd probably do nothing but dirty my clothes. Yet human instincts had followed me to my next life and while I'd gotten over most of them, long drops off cliffs were still cemented in my head as 'dangerous'. Which is I'm at the Adirondack Mountain range getting ready to throw myself off a cliff.

If this doesn't work, nothing will.

Taking a deep breath, I brought my gaze away from looking down the perilous drop and looked straight ahead. I closed my eyes and exhaled before taking the dive.

Instantly, the weightlessness hit me like a ton of bricks, the wind whipping across my face and ears, my stomach doing flips and twists like an advanced gymnastic routine--but I pushed all that out. I focused. I tricked my brain into thinking this was a life or death situation and now it had no choice but to offer flight up on a platter or accept 'death'.

Nothing happened at first but I did feel a little tingle at the base of my skull and deep within my ears. I opened my eyes and saw the rapidly approaching ground and willed myself to think quicker, everything slowing to a crawl as I delved deeper into that tingling feeling. I cut everything else out. My hearing, my sense of touch, my sense of smell--everything. As much as I complained about the powers not being instinctive, when I did get a hold of them they became rapidly assimilated into me.

My strength, for instance, became extremely easy to control once I put it to work. That was partly because of my nervous system, yeah, but there was something else at work there. The same could be said about my bone manipulation powers - which were much easier to figure out compared to flight - because as soon as I got them to work, I instantly knew what to do and how to do it.

It seems that it's the same with flight. The only thing I had to do was draw it out.

The tingling turned into a flood of raw force that exuded out of me and forcibly severed gravity's hold over me. I opened my eyes and I was floating.

"Ha," I let out an audible but singular laugh in the face of physics before my inner child took over and I started laughing in joy. Super strength? Cool. Super speed? Also cool. But unaided flight? Actually awesome. So awesome in fact that I pulled on the new sensation and shot upward with enough speed to shatter the sound barrier behind me. I continued upward, a smile stretched across my lips as I enjoyed the unique and genuinely indescribable feeling of flying with nothing helping you to do so.

I shot up above the clouds and continued on, my gripes with heights completely forgotten. I didn't stop until I physically felt the thinning air and when I got to that point, I just...took it all in.

The sky above had turned black, stars twinkling dimly as the sun's light blocked them all out. I looked down at the Earth, the blues and the greens and the browns--this was my home now. Not the Earth I would've preferred but mine nonetheless. I didn't want to be a hero - too much dressing up and posturing, really - but I could respect the idea of it. Respect the people who do take up the mantle. I don't agree with some of the stuff DC heroes choose to do but respect is different to agreeing to everything something stands for.

Their stupid 'no kill' rule aside, I respect the determination and strong morals it takes to be a hero in such a messed up world like DC.

...And if some shit happens on my front door, it wouldn't be too bad to put an end to it if only to preserve the beauty of the planet I'm looking at right now. I might be more Viltrumite than Human now, but at heart I'll always be a true-blooded Human to the day I die. Again. With that comes a desire to make sure Earth doesn't get destroyed.

But seriously, screw being a costume wearing supe. How do they not cringe wearing those costumes, man? Like, Batman. Coldest motherfucker on the planet. Absolute badass. Yet he prowls the night dressed in a costume themed after an animal that's basically a rodent with wings.

Don't even get me started on ol' Boy Scout with his red underwear over his spandex.

Still, they're doing what they thinks best for Earth and as far as my memories of this new life show...they've done a pretty damn good job at protecting it. So maybe I'll lay off the ridicule a little. Verbally, anyway.

As the thoughts ended in my head, I felt something. Something was...weird. My senses couldn't really pick anything up, being so far up in Earth's atmosphere, but I just 'felt' something.

Looking up, I quickly figured out what I was somehow feeling.

A crashing spaceship. How quaint.

Am I living in a fucking comic now? Introspection, then action. Jesus, my life has devolved into a literal plot. I hovered out of the way of the ship, fire spurting out of it as fuel escaped whatever container it was in and was set alight by the layer of plasma covering the ship as it entered the atmosphere at blisteringly fast speeds. It rocketed straight down to where I'd once been on Earth and was curiously shaped.

Like an aerodynamic bean.

As soon as it came by me, it left just as quickly. I thought for a second before my better and oh so righteous nature got a hold of me and I sped after it.

...I wanted to see just how fast I could fly really. Added benefit of saving what could potentially be a superpowered alien. The more of those I have owing me favors, the better. Besides, it'd be a shame to have a crashing ship ruin the gorgeous view of the Adirondacks, you know?

Like I said before, as well, this was a good test for myself. How fast was I? How strong was I? Just HOW durable was I? I couldn't stop myself and before I knew it I was right on the ship's tail.

It seemed the thrusters were still working as it continued at a rapid pace despite the thicker atmosphere and the white hot air around it was still flickering with plasma. Pushing my newly discovered flight, I got right up behind the ship and put my hands on it as a test. I could tell it was hot. Very, very hot. But it didn't burn or even blister my skin. It felt like touching a plate that was uncomfortably warm.

My t-shirt on the other hand? That wasn't quite so heat resistant.

...Moving on--with my ludicrous sense of touch I could basically tell what was inside the ship.

A single humanoid female. Or at least female from my perspective. Who knows what type of weird aliens exist in this universe.

Next, I put my strength to the test and gripped the hull of the ship. The material it was made out of warped under my fingers as they forcibly carved grooves into it, my fingers slipping into the metal like it was made of clay and not the presumably ultra-hard metal it actually was. Pulling on it, I flicked my momentum in reverse and instead of matching the ships velocity, I basically kicked my flight into reverse.

The very thought of that nearly made me chuckle. After all, who knew I'd ever be mentioning 'flight' and 'reverse' in the same sentence when referring to myself? Not me, that's for damn sure.

I slowed down pretty quickly, the ship being forced to follow suit even as the hull creaked and warped further from the sudden change in momentum. By this point I could see the ground below pretty clearly and we were slow enough for me to just hover in the air. Hoisting the ship up onto my shoulder and steadying it with one hand, I flew down to a nearby mountain top and settled it down.

"Now, let's see what exactly is in here..." I said to myself as I looked over the ship for anything resembling a door or a hatch. The whole thing was about three meters long and two meters wide, so it wasn't a proper ship. More like an escape pod.

To a normal person's eye, the hull would've looked completely smooth. One metal shell with no cracks or crevices to imply that was the opening for someone to enter and exit from. But to my eyes, it only took a brief glance around the ship to see where parts slotted together like a piece of IKEA furniture. I worked my fingernails into one of these gaps and gave a testing pull. The metal creaked in protest, so I stopped - not the door then.

I poked and prodded it in places that seemed softer than other parts but nothing happened. Must just be padding for rough landings. I don't know.

With enough messing about, I found the ticket as I pulled at the top part of the ship's hull and with a hiss it began to crack open to reveal the person inside. As the hull moved out of the way, my senses could finally get some solid info on the person inside the ship - they were definitely a woman. Suspiciously human-like characteristics, that's pretty evident. At least externally. Inside is a bit different.

I could hear blood passing through a wildly different circulatory system to a humans. Even my own. It passed through organs I was definitely sure humans didn't have. "What use are those...wait--are those stomachs?" I whispered under my breath as I heard the and smelt the acid inside the organs of questionable origin. "Nine? Really? Talk about redundancy," I huffed as I turned my senses from her internals to the external again. She was definitely a gorgeous woman, regardless of her alien origin.

She looked vaguely Asian but definitely a coincident. Her eyes were kinda angular with thick eyelashes, her skin was a dark tan that bordered on orange and she had kinda small, violet eyebrows. Pretty tall too, by human women standards--definitely above six-foot but shorter than me. Very, well, filled out and curvaceous as well yet still lithe and slender in other places.

"Kinda familiar," I continued talking to myself as I looked over the alien woman. Long black hair that seemed around waist-length, with short bangs barely hanging over her forehead.

I'd definitely seen her in something before. I could feel the distant memory scratching to be free at the back of my mind but it just never clicked. I'm not surprised either. I'm aware of DC and it's animated variant but I'm by no means some sort of super dedicated fan who read the wikis back to front. The fact I even find her familiar is surprising. Definitely from an animated show then, seeing as that's where most of my time partaking in DC stuff was spent.

Shrugging, I put the thought on hold for a moment as I bent over into the ship and carefully picked the woman up. She was alive but I could hear some internal damage inside her, so I did my best not to make it worse. Thankfully she seemed a whole lot tougher than a human, whatever she is, so there's a positive.

Floating away from the ship that was still leaking some fuel, I laid her down on some softer earth and turned back to the ship. The thrusters had thankfully cut out before I put it down, so there wasn't much of a chance that they could set the fuel alight but I really don't wanna deal with the possibility of an explosion no matter how small a chance it could be. I looked at the ship and then to the sky, "Well, the alien chick can yell at me all she wants later. I'm not dealing with an explosion because of a burst fuel line," I resolved myself and picked the ship up.

Then I threw it into the sky as hard as I could.

I watched it go and damn, did it go. Straight out the atmosphere and away from Earth's gravitational pull. Once again, Jasper, you've saved nature. What a hero you are.

Smiling to myself at my own internal joke, I turned back to the alien just in time to see her eyelids flutter open and reveal some pretty stunning violet eyes the same color as her eyebrows.

Oh. Elevated heart rate, sudden increase in...well, every activity in here body--panic. Ah, how comforting to know alien species aren't so different to the rest of us. Oblivious to my thoughts, the woman sat up ramrod straight, looking around her surroundings before her eyes landed on me. Then she hunched over, clutching at her abdominal area, an expression of pain flaring across her face. I flashed over to her side and forcibly pushed her back down into a lying position slowly. Moving about would only make the injury worse.

I could tell it was healing at a faster than human speed, so it probably wasn't lethal. Better to be safe than to be sorry, though.

She put up a fight, even socking me right in the face, which actually hurt a little but she soon gave up out of exhaustion. She was definitely injured prior to getting in her ship--a fight maybe? It's possible. Minor bone fractures around the orbitals and jawline, spider-web fractures along the bones in her forearm which are most likely from suffering massive amounts of blunt force...Yep. Definitely had a fight prior to this. Internal damage in her stomach seems to be from punches as well. Burst blood vessels around the stomach area suggest that anyway.

"@##^&!?" the woman said something in a very alien language but I could tell from the tone it was something along the lines of 'Unhand me!' or something. I didn't. I held her down before she hurt herself more. She struggled a little more before giving up and giving into the exhaustion, going limp. More alien words were slung at me, the bite and sharpness of them either being insults, warnings or both.

The both of us stayed there for a little while longer before I was sure the internal injuries had healed enough for movement. Or as healed as I assumed them to be; I wasn't a learned man in Alien biology.

A pair of athletic but still feminine arms found themselves around my neck as I was checking her injuries and in my surprise, I looked up at the alien. She was trying to explain something to me while trying to tug me toward her. What? Some sort of thank you? An alien ritual that'd steal my life force? Yeah, no thank you.

"Uh, no, thank you," I replied putting my hands against her shoulders and pushing her away. Her brows scrunched up in confusion and then frustration before she put more force into her arms. She really was strong, just not strong enough to force me to do anything. Holding her at bay with one hand, I used the other to pry her arms off of me.

Aliens, man, what can you do? Weird customs.

Her violet eyes took on a very bright appearance, glowing bright like a flood light, her full-lips turning into a deep frown. She said some more things before her eyes dimmed back to a normal level of brightness, gesturing between our lips and then speaking. She wants to kiss me? I'm flattered but no. Alien diseases must be a thing and while I trust my healing factor and immune system, I don't want to tempt date.

I stood up and backed away, she soon followed and stood. She continued gesturing at me but growled in frustration before lunging at me. I dodged out of the way with ease which only seemed to implore her to lunge faster.

So began a game of intergalactic kiss tag.

...What has my life turned into?