ZET-MAN! (Re-Imagined)

~ Omniscient Pov, The next Day ~

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Carter climbed out of the training room, his boots clunking against the grated flooring as he ran a hand through his hair. The weight of Alex's words still lingered in him, heavy and undeniable. Patterns, grids, distances—it all lined up too perfectly. Too purposefully. And if Alex was right—and Carter had a sinking feeling he was—then they were walking into something way bigger than they'd ever hoped to prepare for...

But he couldn't dwell on it now. The hideout, as secure as it was, wasn't the place to start digging into all the alien mess. At least, not with Alex around. The kid was incredibly sharp, no question about it, but Carter wasn't about to risk exposing Alex to the others just yet... Alex was his responsibility, his secret. The fewer people who knew about him, the better...

Still, it didn't make him feel too good to keep it from them, 'I feel like an asshole for not trusting my own team...' He thought, but he had to push it aside for now. Sometimes, it's the people close to you that end up screwing you over in the end.

With a sigh, Carter grabbed his work jacket off a nearby chair, shrugging it on as he moved toward the main exit. The logo for "Plumb Perfect Solutions" was stitched onto the back—a decent cover for someone who needed to move around unnoticed. In a world that didn't blink twice at plumbing vans or repair tools, Carter had found it surprisingly effective.

And it let him keep a pulse on the kinds of locations where any activity cropped up.

Grabbing his tool belt and fake invoice clipboard, Carter made his way out of the hideout. The heavy steel door slid shut behind him with a soft hiss, blending seamlessly into the rocky wall of the abandoned industrial building that served as their entrance...

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The old van rattled as Carter navigated through the narrow streets of the city. It was late afternoon, and the usual traffic was thick, horns blaring and engines humming as the workday dragged on. His mind wandered as he drove, replaying Alex's words in his head. Thirty-by-thirty-mile grids... preparing for something... bigger than just random attacks.

The realization chewed at him. If Alex could piece it together, why hadn't anyone else noticed? And more importantly, what did it mean? He needed answers—soon.

Pulling into the parking lot of a run-down strip mall, Carter grabbed his phone and scrolled through his contact list until he found the encrypted messaging app his team used. It wasn't foolproof, but it was secure enough for their purposes. He thumbed out a quick message to the group.

Carter: Spotted something weird. Grids and patterns in recent activity—too clean to be random. Will explain at base later. Stay sharp.

The message sent with a soft ping. Carter tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and leaned back, running a hand over his face. His team would see it soon enough. They were good people—capable, experienced—but this was different. If Alex was right, they weren't dealing with just another isolated alien threat. They were dealing with something coordinated.

And coordinated aliens were a whole new level of dangerous.

Later that evening, Carter arrived at one of their secondary bases—a dingy storage unit outfitted with just enough tech to pass for a cheap surveillance setup. It was the kind of place you wouldn't look twice at unless you knew what to look for.

When he stepped inside, the familiar faces of his team greeted him. There was Morgan, their tech specialist, hunched over a battered laptop. Her dark hair was pulled back into a messy bun, and her fingers danced over the keys with p

What seemed like years of precision. Beside her was Javier, their logistics guy, stacking a pile of files onto the workbench. And finally, Riley, their field tactician, leaned against the far wall with her arms crossed, her sharp eyes scanning the room...

"Carter," Morgan called without looking up. "You're late."

The man in quesrioned sighed, "Yeah, well–" Carter said, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it onto a chair, "I had pending emergencies to handle. What else is new?"

Riley raised an eyebrow, pushing off the wall. "Anyways, what about the grids? What's all this about patterns? Because if you're about to tell me we've been missing something this obvious, I'm going to be hella pissed."

Carter smirked faintly, but his tone turned a bit serious. "Look, I don't have all the details just yet, but I think I found something we probably need to dig into. The locations of the alien sightings, hideouts, and incidents over the past few months—they're not random. They form a pattern. Which brings me to the grids, evenly spaced, all within a specific radius."

Javier frowned, setting down the files he was carrying. "And you're just now noticing this?"

"Hey, I've had a lot on my plate," Carter shot back. "But yeah, it didn't click until recently. Someone—or something—is organizing these attacks, these hideouts. It's like they're marking territory. Or preparing for something..."

Morgan finally looked up from her laptop, her expression skeptical. "And you're sure it's not just coincidence? Aliens aren't exactly known for their subtlety."

"Trust me," Carter said, his voice firm. "This isn't coincidence. It's deliberate."

Riley crossed her arms again, her gaze narrowing. "Alright. So what's your theory?"

Carter hesitated for a split second, thinking of Alex. He couldn't mention the kid—not yet at least. "I don't have one. Not yet. But I'm working on it. What I need is for you all to dig into the data—cross-reference locations, sightings, anything that might give us a clearer picture."

Morgan nodded, already typing again. "I'll see what I can pull. If there's something there, I'll find it."

"Good," Carter said. "Because if this is what I think it is, we don't have a lot of time."

Javier tilted his head, studying Carter. "You seem... tense. More than usual, you ok?"

"Yeah," Carter said quietly, his eyes distant. "Because this time, it feels like we're the ones being hunted here."

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Back at the hideout, Alex sat cross-legged on the floor quietly, his wrists still weighed down by the bracelets as he flipped through an old book...

"I can't keep playing this off anymore..." He dropped the book to the side, as if frustrated.

'I feel like a damn prisoner. I hardly even go outside anymore.' He rubbed his temples for a moment, before sighing. 'It feels cool to have the abilities i do, but whats the use of having it if well, I couldn't even use it?'

He stood up, strecthing a bit, he looked down towards his arms, chest and finally his legs; Making a complicated expression...

'No, I should just be real with myself... That isn't the real issue. It just feels weird to face the fact that I've practically hit a limit in my physical growth.'

'Ever since this month, my progress, despite being steady at first, started to decline sharply after the middle of the month. If this continues... I'll stop growing by the next month tops. But, what's even causing this crap?'

He kept asking that same question for the past month, but he couldn't seem to figure out a solution.

He thought of his origins. Being made up of thousands of aliens, he knew that much. Carter explained in detail actually. He was a project to bring out the peak of evolution in singular species.

In theory, he knew he was supposed to be the evolution theory walking, breathing and talking... But maybe that's where his problem actually was... 'What's evolution in the first place?' He asked himself.

Alex stared at the wall, the question lingering in his mind like an itch he couldn't begin scratch. What's evolution, really? He knew the textbook answers, of course—he'd read enough to parrot them back perfectly. But now? The word felt heavier, more significant than he had realized... It wasn't just about change or survival; it was about why things had to change in the first place.

Before he realized, he began pacing the room, his weighted bracelets clinking softly with each step... 'Evolution is simply the process of something adapting to survive it's environment. Simple, but definitive...' he thought, trying to order his thoughts a bit. '–Organisms needed to face a sort of challenge in their environment to grow. The ones that survive pass on their traits, and over generations, those traits get better at handling said challenges.' He concluded.

His brow then furrowed. "But that's the thing," he mumbled. "I'm not progressing here... In fact, I'm just halting, completely static even."

Alex paused for a moment. His understanding of evolution suddenly felt too shallow, too simplistic. He started pulling at the threads, dissecting the idea with the same precision he used to solve puzzles...

'Evolution isn't just about survival.' He thought, 'It's also about pressure. Without challenges—without something pushing you to adapt—you stop changing. Stagnation happens when there's no threat, no reason for growth.'

He looked down at his arms, flexing his fingers as he felt the strain of the weights. His muscles were stronger than they'd ever been, but he knew that wouldn't last.

For weeks now, his progress had slowed to a crawl, each gain was now becoming smaller than the last. It wasn't just frustrating—it felt, wrong. He was supposed to be the pinnacle of evolution, wasn't he? A living example of how adaptation or mutation worked at their peak. So why was he stalling?

The realization hit him like a slap. 'There's no real pressure...'

His environment, while harsh in its own ways, wasn't truly challenging him anymore. The walls of the hideout, the weights, the repetitive training—it was all controlled. Safe. Predictable. He was essentially adapting to a closed system, and once he reached its limits, there was nowhere else to go.

But that wasn't the complete answer.

Alex sat back down on the floor, the epiphany settling in his chest like a lead weight. "It's not just about getting stronger... It's about having a true obstacle." he said softly himself. "It's about why I'm getting stronger. I need something to fight against. Something unpredictable. Something that forces me to change."

He thought about Carter's words earlier, the cautious way he talked about the aliens. How they seemed organized, coordinated. A bigger threat than anyone had realized. "Maybe that's what I'm missing. The unpredictability of something real... I can't evolve based on something that could be real, because if it can be; it can equally not be too... heh..." he chuckled to himself.

But even as the idea sparked something in him, he felt a flicker of doubt, 'I couldn't just throw himself into danger like a fool... Carter had been clear: I was a secret, his responsibility. For now, staying hidden was practically non-negotiable. Still, the thought of sitting in this damned hideout, waiting, doing nothing while my growth stagnats—its gnawing the hell out of me.'

For once in a very long time, Alex was genuinly annoyed at his current situation... To grow, he needed an actual challenge. He knew why he would never grow past this, hurdle. It was simple too; All because he didnt need to do so.

He hasn't encountered anything or anyone that needed to push him further than this verison of himself, so his body wasn't going to work itself for nothing. For now, he was at his peak, or close to it until he is put in a situation where he needs to actually grow.

He smiled, finally understanding why, "Why should a man train knowing that there is nothing that lays beyond him?" The principle was really that simple, yet rediculously profound... Being at a nessecary level of physicality means that his body will never truly grow past this level...

Realizing this, he sighed one last time, "Sorry Carter, I can't stay cooped up in this place any longer."

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END