The AllSpark had given Kade more than just the ability to make Transformers.
The Secondary Modification tech tree laid itself out in his mind, and what he saw made his pulse kick up:
[Pulse Pistol: 500 AllSpark energy. Base material: Browning handgun. Fires pulse energy rounds. Continuous fire capable. Magazine: 40 rounds. Reload time: 1 second. Ammo cost: 1 AllSpark energy per round.]
[Sensory Gauntlets: LOCKED. Requires AllSpark energy capacity of 2,000.]
[Tactical Optics: LOCKED. Requires AllSpark energy capacity of 3,000.]
[Energy Activator: 1,000 AllSpark energy. Base material: Nuclear-grade element. Spatial compression technology provides AllSpark energy to the host regardless of distance or interference. Each unit increases energy capacity by 1,000 and recovery rate by +1/sec.]
[AllSpark energy capacity exceeding 10,000 unlocks Stage 2 functionality.]
The Energy Activator was clearly the core piece. The key to everything. But "nuclear-grade element" wasn't something you picked up at the shops, and the tech tree didn't say how much he'd need. Problem for later.
The Sensory Gauntlets and Tactical Optics were locked behind energy thresholds he couldn't reach yet. The one thing he could build right now was the Pulse Pistol.
Kade drew the Browning from the dead insurgent's holster and pushed AllSpark energy into it. The transformation happened at the nano-level. Mechanical components shifting, reshaping, changing material entirely. Complex, but over in seconds.
What sat in his hand barely looked like a gun anymore.
Smooth white casing, heavier and thicker than the original. Channels of blue light pulsing beneath the surface in steady rhythms. It looked like a prop from a science fiction movie. Except it wasn't a prop.
He aimed at a sand dune about ten meters out and pulled the trigger.
Almost no recoil. A string of rapid cracks, more like snapping whips than gunfire. The sand dune exploded. A massive crater blown out of the face of it, sand raining down in a wide arc.
One trigger pull. Five rounds.
Forty-round magazine, continuous fire. Full auto would drain it in under ten seconds. But the power. Each round hit harder than anything in a conventional arsenal, and the explosive effect on impact turned every shot into a miniature grenade. Calling it a pistol was underselling it by about three categories.
Stronger than a Desert Eagle. Lower recoil. Continuous fire. Effectively unlimited ammo as long as his energy held. The only real problem was weight. Heavier than any handgun he'd carried, enough that sustained one-handed shooting would tire his arm fast. Two hands mandatory for anything longer than a quick draw.
Still. Better than any firearm he'd ever used.
Kade spent the next hour getting familiar with it. Trigger discipline, burst control, learning the feel until it stopped being a tool and started being part of his hands.
"If I'd had this in my last life," he said quietly, holstering it, "a lot of good people would still be alive."
That thought sat heavy. He let it.
"Mr. Lawson?" Yinsen's voice behind him. "If you have a moment, could I ask you something?"
Over the past two days Yinsen had been working nonstop, treating the wounded with almost nothing, keeping people alive on skill alone when the supplies ran out. Kade respected the man. In a camp full of killers and victims, Yinsen was the only one who'd chosen to be a healer.
"What's on your mind?"
"Is it true that more terrorists are coming?"
"That's my guess. If the military gets here first, great. I'd love to be wrong."
Yinsen caught what Kade wasn't saying. "But you don't think you're wrong."
"Tony built a signal beacon yesterday. Broadcast our position to the US military. That was over twenty hours ago." Kade let that hang. "Haven't seen a single aircraft. So either the signal failed, which I doubt given who built it, or someone on the military side doesn't want Tony found."
What he didn't add was the obvious conclusion. If someone in the military was blocking the rescue, then the leak of Tony's route made a lot more sense. And it meant reinforcements were coming. The wrong kind.
The conversation had gotten heavy. Kade changed direction.
"What about you? If we make it out of here, are you leaving? Tony could set you up somewhere safe."
Yinsen smiled. It was tired and sad. "My family is all dead. This is my home. I'm not leaving."
"Fair enough."
"And you, Mr. Lawson? Will you follow Mr. Stark to America?"
"Yeah. No family, no home. Not in this world anyway. Long story." Kade stared at the desert. "Honestly, it's better that way. When I need to do certain things down the road, I won't have to worry about anyone getting caught in the crossfire."
"That doesn't sound like a good thing."
"It's not. But if I told you that humanity is going to face a series of crises in the coming years, each one bad enough to end the world, would you believe me?"
Yinsen was quiet for a moment. "You're talking about war."
"Not just war. Something worse."
Behind Kade's eyes, images flashed. Fragments of movies from another life. The Chitauri pouring through a hole in the sky over Manhattan. Ultron lifting a city into the atmosphere. Thanos snapping half the universe out of existence.
In the films, the good guys always won. But Kade was standing inside the story now. He couldn't bet his life on plot armor. What if the portal over New York didn't close in time? What if the nuke missed? What if one small thing went wrong at the worst possible moment?
"Every one of those crises will come with massive civilian casualties," Kade said. "I want to change that. I want people to have the ability to protect themselves when it hits."
"How?" Yinsen could feel the weight behind those words. Even standing in the desert sun, he felt cold.
"First, survive them myself. Then make sure more people survive than die."
Yinsen didn't fully understand what Kade was talking about. But he understood conviction when he heard it.
The truth was simple. From the moment Kade realized he'd crossed into the Marvel universe, a clock started ticking. This world was dangerous beyond anything he'd experienced in his previous life, and he'd already thrown a wrench into the timeline just by existing. Tony wasn't building the Mark I in a cave under duress. He was out here in the open, repairing a Transformer, with access to resources and allies.
The ripple effects were unpredictable. Kade couldn't count on events playing out the way he remembered. Once one domino fell wrong, the whole chain could go.
He had to get stronger. Fast. Strong enough to survive the Chitauri invasion at minimum. Ideally, strong enough to fight an alien army head-on.
He looked down at his hands. The AllSpark hummed beneath his skin. Patient, steady, waiting.
"I wonder," he said, "how much energy it takes to turn an aircraft carrier into a Transformer."
PLZ Throw Powerstones.