Note: Sorry for the late update for anyone actually reading this, as you can see this fanfic has some major flaws but that was the point I needed a trail fic to see what may need fixing before I start anything serious....was really looking for comments to give me a few pointers
.....................
Three days after the loading bay. Twenty days since the Omnitrix.
Three days of observation, rooftop in civilian clothes, watching the new pattern Intergang had shifted to after he'd hit them twice. Fewer handoffs, tighter schedules, rolling transfers between vehicles. They were adapting. So was he.
'Smaller operation this time. Better timer management. Full duration going in, leave before the warning pulse. And stop assuming you know what nine minutes means.'
He'd thought about the form. Prism had escalated the last operation immediately. the moment they'd seen it they'd gone for the Apokolips weapon. Brawler was big but more familiar in shape, faster in a close space, and the four arms created a problem for anyone trying to engage simultaneously.
He set the dial to Brawler and went out the window.
....
He found the alley operation at 11:22 PM.
Except it wasn't five people.
Three vehicles had backed into the loading bay at Carlin and Perry. Two panel vans and a flatbed truck he hadn't seen in any of his three days of observation. The flatbed was half loaded with crates being passed down a human chain of nine operatives. Four more stood perimeter on the street entrances.
Thirteen people. A flatbed he hadn't anticipated.
'Bigger than the pattern suggested. They changed something.'
Thirteen. He checked the timer. Full duration.
'Flatbed first. Vans second. The hardware doesn't move if the transport doesn't move.'
He pressed the dial.
Brawler dropped from the rooftop.
....
The landing cracked the pavement and every head in the loading bay turned.
Brawler was already moving. Three strides to the flatbed, upper right fist through the engine block from the side. The hood buckled. Metal shrieked. Flatbed done.
The human chain broke. Six of the nine dropped their crates and ran without a second look, which was the correct decision and Brawler had no argument with it. The three who stayed lasted about two more seconds before the lower left arm swept a crate off the loading bed and the sound it made hitting the concrete changed their minds.
Nine gone. Four perimeter guards left.
Two came in with batons. First baton hit Brawler's forearm and shattered. The operative stopped mid-stride to look at what he was holding. Second baton connected with Brawler's shoulder and achieved the same result. Both men looked at their broken weapons, looked at Brawler, and left.
'Earth hardware. They might as well throw paper.'
Third perimeter guard tried a tackle. He hit Brawler's legs with genuine effort and Brawler didn't move at all. The man bounced off and sat on the ground looking confused.
"Stay down," Brawler said.
The man stayed down.
Eleven handled. Two left, by the panel vans, and these two had a crate open. Something coming out of it that was not a baton and not a conventional firearm. Surface texture wrong. Geometry wrong. Apokolips hardware.
'Crew lead. He's been watching to see what this is before deciding. Move before it charges.'
Brawler closed the distance in two strides. The weapon came up. Not quite charged. the barrel still cycling through its power sequence. He got his upper left hand on the barrel before it completed.
The weapon discharged anyway.
The blast went sideways into the loading bay wall rather than into Brawler, which was the best available outcome. But the discharge had gone through his palm and the sensation was significant. a deep sustained burn in the alien flesh of his hand that was going to carry through the reversion.
'Four arms. One hand compromised. Three still functional. Continue.'
Brawler bent the weapon barrel with his right hand. The crew lead let go and ran. The thirteenth operative watched all of this from beside the second panel van, made eye contact with Brawler, looked at the bent weapon, and walked away at pace.
Brawler looked at his left palm. Closed the hand. Opened it. Full function. It would bruise and blister but nothing was broken.
He moved to the second panel van. Fist through the engine. Done.
Both vehicles immobilized. Crates in the loading bay. Engagement time: under four minutes.
'Four minutes. Thirteen people. One injury, non-critical. That's what this form is supposed to look like against conventional hardware.'
The Omnitrix pulsed. Two quick beats. something nearby worth noticing.
Brawler looked toward the west entrance.
A woman was standing there with her phone raised. She hadn't run when the batons shattered. She hadn't run when the Apokolips weapon discharged. She was recording and she had the composed expression of someone who had planned to be exactly here.
....
Brawler walked toward the west entrance. She didn't move.
He came out onto Perry Street and stopped. Press badge on a lanyard. Daily Planet. LANE, LOIS.
'Of course.'
"Lois Lane, Daily Planet," she said, flat and certain.
"I know who you are," Brawler said.
"Then you know I'm writing this regardless," Lois said.
"Yeah," Brawler said.
"One question," Lois said.
"One," Brawler said.
"What do you call yourself?" Lois asked.
Twenty days of not deciding. The name had been sitting in the back of his head since the first week and he hadn't committed because committing meant deciding what he was and he hadn't fully decided that yet.
She was recording. The loading bay behind him had two immobilized vehicles and scattered hardware. Somewhere nearby eleven operatives were regrouping and one of them had bent Apokolips hardware that was potentially still partially functional.
'Say it or don't say it.'
"Shift," Brawler said.
She typed with her thumb without lowering the phone.
"Shift. One word?" Lois asked.
"One word," Brawler said, and walked away.
She called after him. "Anything else? Origin? Affiliation?"
He turned the corner onto Carlin and kept walking.
'She has it. The second you said it, it stopped being just yours.'
He found a rooftop three blocks away and let the timer run out with four minutes to spare. Recharge cleared green. He hadn't pushed Brawler near its limits.
He sat on the rooftop and thought about the name.
'Shift. That's what you are now. By morning that's what Metropolis is going to call you.'
He went home. Stood in the bathroom under the light. Left palm: red from the partial discharge, a circular burn about the size of a coin, blistering at the edges. He ran it under cold water for two minutes.
'Apokolips hardware leaves a mark even on alien hands. And it carries through the reversion. Add that.'
He sat at his desk. Opened the notebook. Wrote the operation, wrote LOIS LANE WAS THERE underlined, wrote the name.
SHIFT.
Looked at it. Right.
'By morning this name belongs to Metropolis. It was mine for about thirty seconds. That has to be enough.'
Somewhere across town, in a building with a golden globe on its roof, a reporter was writing a story.