29 The child within -27

Knowing that SCP-053 was en route to her containment cell, Alex grew increasingly impatient and excited to receive his reward. It was a rare situation for him; usually, he would only find out about successful containment after the reward appeared. This time, however, he knew it was just hours away.

Like a child before Christmas, he moved around with a skip in his step all day, constantly checking the time. Thankfully, the agents of the Foundation knew what they were doing. Without any problems or delays, they safely brought the girl to SITE-19, which resulted in his system finally granting him a reward.

[Ding! Congratulations to Host for the successful containment of SCP-053! Rewards are being given out!]

[Ding! Congratulations to Host for acquiring the Trait "Childlike"]

The reward was welcome; another trait. While the first hadn't been the most powerful, it was still useful. He had some hope for this one as well, even if the name was a bit underwhelming.

"Well, what does this trait do, system?" He decided to get his answer sooner rather than later.

[Ding! Host's new trait allows Host to turn into a child at will, as well as to revert to the current appearance.]

That was an interesting trait for sure. It was fitting, considering the SCP he had just contained. Its usefulness was debatable and highly dependent on its effectiveness against various SCPs. After all, many SCP objects react differently to adults and children.

 SCP-053 being one such example, only dangerous to beings over the age of three. The question was, would this trait work in such cases? It was an enticing thought, yet hard to test. He couldn't risk trying it with SCP-053 due to its danger.

He would need to find another SCP object that reacted differently and then test it there, an SCP object that was completely safe. This wasn't easy to find, though not impossible. However, given that SCPs were summoned randomly, it could take a while before he could test it.

Aside from which SCP object this reward applied to, it was kind of useless. It was hard to find many uses for it. He didn't have to worry about aging, so using it to stay young forever was out of the question. At best, he might be able to utilize it to disguise himself easily, not that he foresaw needing to do so anytime soon.

"Yep, another useless reward from the system: first half of a trait, then two with barely any use at all," he sighed, frustrated with the system. "But this is the second Euclid class object I've contained so far and the second that gave a trait as a reward. It might be a little early to draw conclusions, but I'm definitely seeing a pattern."

Alex said this with a hint of hope in his voice. After all, there were many Euclid objects he could potentially contain successfully, which meant there were a lot of potential traits. While they were of minor usefulness so far, if he had enough, he could surely find a way to protect his life from the horrors of both the Marvel Universe and SCPs.

"Still, while this trait might be relatively useless, I've got to at least try it out once, right?" he said to himself as he took the elevator up to his chambers. He wanted to use a proper mirror rather than the reflective surfaces of the bunker, and he did have some large mirrors in his room.

Standing in front of the mirror, he saw the reflection of a handsome youth, one who could succeed in a career as a male underwear model, or so he thought.

"Alright, system, how do I use this Childlike trait?"

[Ding! Host just needs to wish it. As long as the Host desires, the trait will be active.]

'Oh, sounds easy enough. Let's give it a try,' Alex thought, imagining and desiring himself to be 12 years old.

As he stared into the mirror, nothing happened. It wasn't until he looked away from the mirror for a moment and then back that a wave of nausea hit him. Looking back from the mirror was an adorable little kid dressed in a tiny suit. This surprised him, as he hadn't even thought about what would happen to his clothes, but it was a welcome surprise nonetheless.

Still, it felt weird looking at himself as a boy. At least his thoughts and memories didn't seem to have changed with his age, something he was very thankful for. After all, if he genuinely ended up regressing to the age of 12, he would be in trouble. At 12, he didn't know a single SCP or the Marvel plot, nor did his Alexander Ricci side know anything about managing a criminal empire.

'Yeah, this could have gone pretty badly now that I think about it.'

He scolded himself a little for his reckless act of trying out this trait so carelessly, but in truth, it was either that or not using it at all. He felt that he couldn't pick an age higher than 12, as the trait seemed to define 12 as the upper limit of childhood.

While he might not fully agree with that, he couldn't argue with a trait, or even his system. He had tried to argue and talk with the system before, but it never responded, at least not unless his questions fell inside a very limited amount of topics.

"Well, it truly is a funny experience being a child again, not to mention I might be able to have some fun with this," Alex said with a grin on his face, which, due to his age, looked pretty cute.

After standing in front of the mirror and scrutinizing his new form, Alex experimented with a few exercises to gauge the capabilities of his childlike physique. As expected, he was significantly weaker and slower, lacking the physical skills typically acquired with age.

The discomfort increased as he tried forms younger than 12. The youngest he managed was 3 years old, which appeared to be the system's definition of the lower limit for 'childlike.'

After a few hours of testing the new trait, Alex felt he had learned as much as he could on his own. For further testing, proper equipment and assistance would be necessary. These weren't immediate priorities, so for now, he considered informing ALPHA-1 about his ability to transform into a child. It would be problematic if they failed to recognize him in such a form.

As Alex pondered over his newfound anomalous ability and wrapped up his work for the day, the world, including the rest of the Foundation and the Mobile Task Force Tau-5, continued its course. Tau-5 had been tasked with acquiring SCP object 11111 and received news that the containment cell was ready.

[Flashback]

[With Hank Pym]

For Hank, it had been a relatively normal day, as normal as it could be since he started working for the mysterious Foundation. He was deeply engrossed in the study of Vibranium's incredible properties and potential.

Each day seemed to reveal new opportunities thanks to the metal, and Hank wished he had more freedom to experiment beyond what was permitted by Doctor Brown.

Initially, the work was thrilling as they explored the abilities of Vibranium. However, it quickly veered in a direction Hank was less comfortable with.

The focus shifted to creating weapons and armor, leveraging the metal for futuristic laser weapons. Having previously worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. and being reluctant to weaponize his Pym Particles and other research, he had a deep disdain for weapon creation.

Hank was disheartened as the Foundation swiftly pursued these avenues, ignoring the myriad other potentials of Vibranium. It was clear that the metal could be used for so much more than just armaments.

Thankfully, While their main focus had shifted, the Foundation was still exploring other aspects of Vibranium, one particular project was the attempt at replicating some of its properties through alternative means.

Then, there were armor or suits of armor made of vibranium. He honestly had to admit that he was somewhat tempted to try and add this stuff to his own ant-man suit, but the required amount was not something he could acquire without bringing the entire fury of this organization down on him.

It was while he was moving between these many different teams, trying to find something that truly clicked with him, that he was called in to speak with Doctor Brown, the SITE director.

"You want to talk about something, Doctor Brown?" Hank asked, a little nervous, as he feared they might have realized that he had used his ants to access parts of the facility where he wasn't allowed.

Sure, they had no doubt done their homework and seemed to be aware of his ability, but securing an entire facility of this size was an enormous task, and there were still many places his little workers could access.

"Ah yes, Mr. Pym, I have an exciting new opportunity for you. While we have enjoyed having you here and continue to enjoy your presence and mind on our works here, we also know that it's not really what you want," SITE Director Brown said from behind her desk.

 "Not to mention that we here at the SITE would enjoy a break from all the ants running around," she teased, clearly letting him know that they were aware of his attempts at spying but had allowed it, at least until now.

"We've always known that our work at SITE-98 might be more interesting to you. We brought you on here since the vibranium research is much less confidential, but we now believe that we can allow you access to a bit more of our secrets."

 She teased him, piquing his curiosity, something she clearly enjoyed doing, not just with him but with all the researchers she worked around.

"And what kind of work do you imagine I may be interested in that you are doing at this SITE-98?" Hank asked, grateful that she hadn't pushed him on the whole spying thing and curious why they decided he could be trusted while knowing he was spying.

"SITE-98 is the headquarters for dimensional research, including the quantum dimension," she said in a tone that clearly conveyed she knew this had piqued his interest.

"The quantum realm, you say? That's very dangerous, Doctor Brown, very dangerous," he warned, his tone serious, not denying his curiosity. This Foundation clearly wasn't like S.H.I.E.L.D., no they were far more careful with everything they did regarding research.

He didn't doubt that they would also be far more careful with something as dangerous and volatile as quantum energy and the quantum dimension. Which meant that perhaps for the first time, he had a tiny bit of hope for being able to push forward his exploration of the quantum realm more and maybe, just maybe, find Janet.

"Oh, we are well aware of the danger of such a thing and do not undertake such research lightly. We've recently encountered a... Well, rather than have me tell you, why don't you just read the file?" she said as she pushed a paper folder from her side of the desk toward where he was standing. "You can just take the folder with you and let me know what you think tomorrow. How does that sound?"

Hank knew that he had been dismissed. He did not blame her; she was busy, without a doubt. "Well, right then, I will give this a read," he said as he picked up the file.

"And then you can just call me tomorrow when you have time, and we can discuss this reassignment to SITE-98. If I'm not interested, I might as well just quit," Hank added.

Doctor Brown agreed with him, promised to talk back later, and then sent him off. Hank couldn't help but recognize a name as he read through it. 'Elihas Starr is a familiar name indeed.' It is someone he had worked with back at S.H.I.E.L.D. now that did bring back memories.

He thought to himself as he kept on reading the file he had gotten; as he did, he got quite a shock as he realized some of this data he was reading had been stolen from SHIELD! Hank knew Shield pretty well, or at least he liked to think he did, which meant he realized that stealing from them wasn't easy at all.