Marvel: Shadow Monarch

The morning sun was climbing higher as I jogged the final stretch back to Murphy's Last Stop, my breathing steady and controlled despite the extended twenty-kilometer run.

The familiar sight of the weathered gas station and attached motel was a welcome relief after my encounter with Bucky and the compromised Spider-Man.

The distance felt like little more than a warm-up, but maintaining the appearance of normal human limitations required careful performance.

Can't have Granny asking why I'm not even winded.

Grandma Murphy was restocking the coffee station when I pushed through the front door, the familiar chime announcing my arrival. Her sharp eyes immediately tracked to me, taking in my appearance with that calculating gaze that missed nothing.

"Well, well," she said, not looking up from her work but clearly addressing me. "Look what the cat dragged in. You've been gone quite a while for a morning jog, haven't you?"

I grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler, using the motion to buy myself a moment to craft my response. "Went on a longer run than usual. Lost track of time in the forest."

"Uh-huh." Grandma Murphy's tone suggested she found my explanation about as convincing as my previous attempts at lying. "Must have been some forest to keep you occupied for two hours."

Two hours? Had it really been that long? The fight with Spider-Man, the conversation with Bucky, the walk back and roaming around a bit—time had a way of getting away from you.

"Time flies when you're enjoying yourself," I said, hoping my casual tone would discourage further questioning.

Anna appeared from behind the counter where she'd been organizing inventory, and I immediately noticed the way her eyes studied my face.

Unlike Grandma Murphy's suspicious curiosity, Anna's gaze held something sharper—the focused attention of someone who knew me well enough to spot inconsistencies.

She caught on to the lie.

That much was obvious from her expression, though she was smart enough not to call me out in front of our employer.

"Lucien," Anna said, her voice carefully neutral, "could you help me look for my hairpin? I think I dropped it in our room earlier."

It was a transparent excuse—Anna was meticulous about her belongings and would never lose track of something as important as her hairpin. But it served its purpose, giving us a reason to speak privately without arousing Grandma Murphy's legendary nosiness.

"Sure," I replied, following her toward the motel section.

Grandma Murphy watched us go with that knowing expression of someone who'd raised four children and wasn't fooled by teenage attempts at subtlety. "Don't make too much noise looking for that 'hairpin,'" she called after us with obvious amusement.

The moment our room door closed behind us, Anna's careful composure dropped like a discarded mask. She crossed her arms and fixed me with a look that would have made a SHIELD interrogator proud.

"So," she said, her Southern accent lending a dangerous sweetness to the word, "tell me what really happened, sugar."

I settled onto the edge of the bed, recognizing that my 'girlfriend' wasn't going to be satisfied with half-truths or deflection. Anna had been through too much to tolerate being kept in the dark about situations that might affect our safety.

"Well, I had an encounter with Spider-Man," I began.

What followed was a comprehensive account of the morning's events—finding Bucky Barnes being threatened by a mind-controlled Spider-Man, the revelation that Otto Octavius had somehow taken over Peter Parker's body, the fight that had been disappointingly one-sided, and the subsequent conversation with the Winter Soldier that had revealed SHIELD's knowledge of our escape from the facility.

Anna listened without interruption, her expression growing more serious as the implications became clear. When I finished, she was quiet for a long moment, processing everything I'd told her.

"So there are others like us?" she finally asked, her voice soft with a mixture of concern and sadness. "Other mutants who were captured?"

"That's what SHIELD suspects," I confirmed. "Bucky mentioned rumors of other facilities, though apparently they haven't been able to confirm their existence. Most of the captures happened during the chaos of M-Day, when everyone was too busy figuring out what the hell was happening."

The thought of other facilities filled with frightened mutants was sobering.

How many kids like us were currently sitting in sterile cells, being treated like lab rats by people who saw them as nothing more than interesting specimens to study?

"I'll learn more when I meet with Bucky again," I continued. "He promised to investigate who was running our facility."

A splash from the bathroom interrupted our conversation, followed by the distinctive sound of something considerably larger than expected moving through water. Both of us turned toward the sound with expressions of growing concern.

Jeff emerged from the bathroom with his characteristic waddle, but there was no mistaking that our adorable land shark companion had grown significantly larger overnight.

What had been a chubby creature the size of a small dog was now approaching the dimensions of a medium-sized pig, his stubby legs struggling slightly to support his increased bulk.

"Well, that's not good," Anna muttered, staring at our rapidly expanding pet.

I had to agree.

Jeff's growth rate was far beyond what we'd anticipated, and his current size was already pushing the limits of what we could reasonably conceal from Grandma Murphy.

If he continued growing at this pace, we'd have a land shark the size of a motorcycle parked in our bathtub within a week.

We won't be able to hide him much longer.

The thought was accompanied by a mental image of Grandma Murphy's reaction to discovering a several-hundred-pound shark creature in her motel room. It would probably involve shotguns and very pointed questions about our "pet fish."

"Anna!" Grandma Murphy's voice carried clearly from the front desk, interrupting my contemplation of our logistical problems.

"I'll be right back," Anna said, giving Jeff's enlarged form one last worried look before heading for the door.

Alone with my thoughts and an oversized land shark, I found myself returning to something Bucky had mentioned during our conversation. SHIELD had detected two energy signatures this week—one at the research facility, and another in the jungle where we'd first encountered each other.

So the dungeons' energy signatures can be detected.

The realization was both surprising and concerning.

The first energy signature would have been from the dungeon I'd entered during my escape from the facility—that initial E-rank dungeon filled with zombies that had provided my first real taste of combat and power growth.

The second signature was from yesterday's dungeon in the jungle, another E-rank space populated with dire wolves that I'd cleared after receiving the dungeon key as a reward.

I'd assumed the dungeons were somehow separate from the normal world, invisible to conventional detection methods. Learning that government agencies could track their energy signatures introduced a new variable into my plans for power growth.

But would it actually stop me?

I considered the implications carefully.

SHIELD could apparently detect when dungeons appeared, but that didn't mean they could predict where they'd manifest or interfere with my access to them. The detection seemed to be after-the-fact analysis rather than real-time monitoring.

They could identify that something unusual had happened in a specific location, but they couldn't detect and stop me before I entered a dungeon. The energy signatures were probably residual traces left behind after the dimensional space collapsed, not something that could be monitored in real-time.

Even if they can detect them, what difference would that make?

I would still clear dungeons when opportunities arose, still accumulate power and resources, still work toward whatever transformation the system had in store for me.

If anything, knowing about the detection might be useful.

It meant I could potentially use dungeon appearances to mislead or misdirect anyone trying to track my movements. Clear a dungeon in one location while making sure I had an alibi for being somewhere else entirely.

Jeff wandered over and nuzzled against my leg with obvious affection, apparently unbothered by his dramatic growth spurt. The land shark's contentment was oddly reassuring—at least some things remained simple and straightforward.

I scratched behind Jeff's fins, earning a rumbling purr that was definitely louder than it had been yesterday. "You're going to be a problem, aren't you, buddy?"

Jeff's response was to open his mouth in what might have been a grin, showing off rows of sharp teeth that had also grown proportionally larger. The message was clear: he was going to be exactly as much of a problem as he wanted to be, and he was going to enjoy every minute of it.

At least someone's having fun with this situation.

The sound of Anna's footsteps in the hallway prompted me to stand and head for the bathroom. I needed a shower before she goes to take one. 

SHIELD's knowledge of my existence changed the game, but it didn't necessarily make it more dangerous. If anything, having a potential line of communication with legitimate authorities might prove useful as my power continued to grow and attract attention.

But first, I needed to figure out what to do about our rapidly expanding land shark before Grandma Murphy decided to investigate the increasingly loud splashing sounds coming from our bathroom.

Some problems are more immediate than others.

.....

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