On the day Yahoo went public, Levi sat in his shabby apartment, staring at the computer screen like the most ordinary retail investor.
The Nasdaq index on the screen jumped wildly. Every flicker represented astronomical sums of wealth changing hands. He was calm—neither excited nor nervous. To him, this had never been a gamble. It was simply a math problem whose answer he had known all along.
When the stock price climbed to the peak etched into his memory, he gently tapped the Enter key.
Sell.
The transaction completed. The familiar six-digit balance in his brokerage account transformed into a brand-new eight-digit figure.
Twelve million dollars.
An amount that would drive any normal person into madness. Levi, however, merely shut down the computer and went to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of cold water. Money had always been just a tool to him—nothing more than a means to pursue something else with greater freedom.
He didn't move. He didn't buy a sports car. He continued living in the same rundown apartment where he could hear his neighbors arguing through the walls. He split the money into several portions and quietly invested them in a few fledgling internet startups still operating out of garages.
One was called Amazon.
Another was called Google.
He knew exactly what kind of towering giants these unremarkable seeds would grow into, what incomprehensible figures they would one day represent. But that no longer mattered.
What he needed was something else.
Hunting season had begun.
---
His first stop was New York.
He didn't go to the neon splendor of Manhattan. Instead, he rented an unremarkable Ford and drove north into Westchester County. Deep in the vast forests there, he found the legendary Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.
He didn't approach recklessly.
Even from dozens of kilometers away, he could sense an immense psychic presence—like an invisible dome—gently yet firmly covering the estate. He knew that before such power, any lie would be laid bare.
He needed the perfect opportunity. A moment that wouldn't raise suspicion.
He stayed in a motel in a nearby town. Every day, he drove to the mountain roads near the school and observed. He cautiously used his newly mastered telepathy, clumsy as a novice thief, to "listen" to the fragmented mental noise that occasionally leaked from the estate—children's laughter, teachers' guidance, and deeper, more complex thoughts.
At last, his chance came.
The school organized an outing. Several yellow school buses rolled out from the gates in a neat line.
Levi started his car and followed the convoy at an unhurried pace. At just the right bend in the road, he gently tapped the accelerator and caused a perfectly blameless, extremely minor rear-end collision. His bumper kissed the tail of the last bus.
No one was hurt. There was barely even a jolt.
He immediately got out, his face filled with the appropriate panic and apology of an ordinary driver. He apologized profusely and offered full compensation. The bus door opened, and a woman with an extraordinary presence stepped down to handle the situation.
Ororo Munroe—Storm.
As she approached and asked if he was injured, Levi let his body naturally brush against hers in a brief, nearly imperceptible contact.
Now.
Copy.
[Copy successful. Acquired ability: Basic Atmospheric Control.]
At the time, Ororo was unconsciously maintaining clear weather, making her power the easiest possible target to "duplicate."
Levi pulled a few hundred dollars in cash from his wallet, pressed it into her hand as compensation, then drove away in the Ford with its crooked bumper—never looking back.
---
He didn't stop.
His next destination was the Louisiana bayou, searching for the rumored Cajun who could turn playing cards into lethal explosives.
He dressed like a backpacking tourist, pretending to be lost. By a campfire, he traded a bottle of fine whiskey for the chance to drink together. At the instant their glasses clinked, the copy completed without a sound.
[Copy successful. Acquired ability: Kinetic Charging.]
Then he went to Chicago.
In a dim, damp underground boxing ring reeking of sweat and hormones, he saw a blue-furred figure moving with simian agility—Beast.
Levi didn't choose a clumsy excuse to hug him backstage. That would have been too obvious. He bought the cheapest standing ticket, and after the match, merged into the chaotic crowd. As the exhausted figure headed backstage, Levi brushed past him in a perfectly natural shoulder-to-shoulder pass.
[Copy successful. Acquired ability: Enhanced Senses and Physicality (Beast Variant).]
He grew more and more adept—like a top-tier hunter lurking in the city's shadows.
He no longer obsessed over only the most top-tier, strategic-level powers. Instead, he assembled abilities like pieces of a massive puzzle, collecting those that made him more complete, harder to track, and better at hiding.
The most critical hunt occurred in Baltimore.
For three full months, he tracked a legend whispered about in mutant underground circles—a "ghost" who could become anyone.
At last, in an abandoned harbor warehouse, he cornered her.
Mystique. Raven Darkhölme.
It was a real fight. No tricks.
Her combat skills far exceeded his expectations. Every strike went straight for vital points. Her flexibility and agility were almost inhuman. Levi was forced to draw on every scrap of battlefield instinct he had forged in war. Only after a dangerous close-quarters struggle did he manage to seize her wrist in an iron grip.
[Copy successful. Acquired ability: Morphological Mimicry.]
It was the most valuable ability he had gained since awakening.
Without hesitation, right there in front of Raven's shocked, distorted gaze, Levi transformed into her exact likeness—then calmly turned and vanished into the warehouse shadows.
From that day on, he truly possessed the ability to hide perfectly in this world.
He could be a street vagrant, a hurried Wall Street white-collar worker, even a blonde, blue-eyed beauty. Nick Fury could tear S.H.I.E.L.D. apart and still never find a single hair of his.
---
Time passed quietly.
Six years slipped by in hunt after hunt.
He traveled widely, met countless strange individuals, and collected a vast array of bizarre abilities—like a girl who could talk to squirrels, or a man whose fingernails grew at visible speed. Useless on the surface, yet Levi accepted them all.
He had a feeling.
That accumulation of quantity would eventually trigger a qualitative transformation.
Throughout it all, his system remained dormant.
The panel labeled "Ability Copier" stayed gray deep within his consciousness. Yet the once-a-week copying ability seemed etched into his soul, an irresistible instinct. Every seven days, an inner hunger would arrive on schedule, driving him to find the next target.
He grew stronger.
And lonelier.
---
Until one night in 2001.
Los Angeles. The same cheap apartment he had never replaced.
Levi sat cross-legged on the cold floor, eyes closed—not meditating, simply emptying himself. In six years, he had collected too many abilities. His body was like an overcrowded warehouse. He needed time to organize, to master each tool.
Suddenly, his eyes flew open.
He hadn't heard or seen anything.
It was a resonance—deep in his blood, undeniable.
The cosmic energy within him, dormant for six years and long since tamed, suddenly boiled.
Like water reaching a rolling boil, violent energy surged through his veins, bringing a searing, familiar pain.
He would never forget this sensation.
Six years ago, in the Pegasus Project hangar, at the instant the light-speed engine exploded—it had felt exactly like this.
He stood at once and strode to the window. He didn't look at the quiet street below. Instead, he lifted his gaze, as if piercing the ceiling, the atmosphere, straight into the endless stars.
His energy perception pushed to its absolute limit.
He saw it.
Against the pitch-black canvas of space, a blazing golden point of light was forcing its way into Earth's gravity well—brutal, unreasonable, unstoppable.
That wasn't a conventional craft.
It was a mass of pure, violent energy, filled with rage and confusion.
Its energy frequency matched his own perfectly.
Carol Danvers.
She had returned.
Levi's expression didn't change. Six years of solitude had smoothed away many things. He calmly watched the golden meteor carve a brilliant, lethal arc across the night sky, plunging toward a place he knew all too well.
The Mojave Desert.
The ruins of Project Pegasus.
She had come back for answers.
And so had he.
He slowly raised his right hand, palm open. A sphere of golden light bloomed in his grasp—stable, refined, pure. In stark contrast to the violent energy storm tearing through the heavens.
"Welcome home, Captain," he murmured.
The air around him warped.
Like a sugar cube dropped into water, his body dissolved and vanished from existence.
---
The Mojave Desert night was cold and silent.
Once heavily guarded, the Pegasus base was now nothing but ruins. Twisted steel and shattered concrete lay under the moonlight like the bones of a giant corpse, silently recounting past glory.
Boom!
A golden meteor smashed into the central plaza with apocalyptic force. The impact kicked up a sandstorm, debris hurled hundreds of meters skyward before raining down.
From the smoking crater, Carol Danvers slowly rose.
She wore a blue-and-green Kree Starforce uniform. Golden hair whipped wildly in the energy aftershocks. Her eyes were filled with confusion, rage—and a sorrow she herself didn't yet recognize.
She scanned the familiar-yet-alien ruins as shattered memories surged like knives through her mind.
She remembered nothing.
Only that this place mattered. That she had lost something here—and gained something too.
"Who are you?"
A calm, unfamiliar voice spoke from the shadows.
Carol spun around, fists instantly wreathed in blazing golden energy. Her body snapped into combat readiness, her gaze sharp as a lioness guarding her cubs.
"Show yourself!" she shouted.
From the darkness stepped a man in a black trench coat. Young. Black hair, black eyes, distinct Asian features. No energy radiated from him—like an ordinary man who had wandered here by accident.
Yet Carol's instincts screamed danger.
This man was extremely dangerous. His calm itself was a threat.
"Who are you?" she demanded. "Kree? Skrull?"
He shook his head, a faint smile touching his lips.
"Neither," he said. "I'm just… a fellow traveler."
"A fellow traveler?" She frowned, confused.
He didn't explain.
He simply raised his right hand and opened his palm.
A brilliant golden light bloomed there—identical in nature, identical in origin. Pure Tesseract energy. The same power raging within her.
The only difference was control.
His energy sphere was stable like a miniature sun.
Hers was a supernova waiting to explode.
Carol's pupils shrank to pinpoints. For the first time, utter shock crossed her face.
How was this possible?
How could there be another person with the same power as hers?
The Kree memories drilled into her—the lies that she was unique, specially chosen—collapsed in that instant.
And at the moment when two identical cosmic energies resonated violently in the air—
Deep within Levi's consciousness, the gray panel dormant for six full years suddenly flashed.
[High-intensity homogenous energy resonance detected…]
[External energy being absorbed…]
[System energy replenishing… 10%… 30%… 70%… 100%…]
[Energy replenishment complete.]
[Rebooting system core modules…]
A cool, familiar data stream flooded his mind like rain on parched land. The sensation of reconnecting with the world made him nearly groan in pleasure.
[Reboot complete.]
A crisp, emotionless voice echoed in his mind.
[Ability Copier is now online.]
[Beginner protection period has ended.]
[New module unlocked: Ability Analysis.]
[Current copy target locked: Carol Danvers.]
[Multiple abilities detected. Please select one to copy:]
[1. Binary Form (Cosmic Energy Manipulation)]
[2. Super Strength (Energy Amplified)]
[3. Super Durability (Energy Amplified)]
[4. Flight]
[5. Energy Absorption and Projection]
A long, crystal-clear list unfolded before him like a lavish menu.
Levi looked at Carol Danvers—still frozen in shock—and the smile on his face grew subtly playful.
Six years.
Finally, business was open again.
And this time—
It started with a feast.
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