Marvel-ous Ninjutsu

00160. A weird feeling.

The sound of fists hitting flesh could be heard as two boys fought with each other. It wasn't a normal school yard fight though, since both boys flickered around the training area faster than the eye could see. And both of them traded more blows with each other in a minute, then professional fighters would during an entire fight.

The high speed fight was watched over by a handful of other kids who tracked the boys with practiced ease. The fight didn't seem to have a clear winner at first, but as it dragged on, it became clear one of the boys was losing steam. After another minute or so the boy collapsed on the ground, completely exhausted.

Theo stood over his defeated foe and let out a tired sigh before he asked, “Why can't you be like the others?”

The other boy used the last bit of his strength to roll over as he said, “Because your skills are lacking. Besides, you only won because you have more chakra!”

“And you fighting with me till you collapse helps me in what way exactly?” Theo asked.

“The longer we fight the faster you improve.”

Theo reached down and helped the other boy up as he said, “Don't use that as an excuse, you’re just a battle maniac, Madara.”

“Pretty much. Even in a completely new world you haven't changed one bit.” Hashirama said.

“It's just the power of youth! With our new bodies it burns even brighter than normal!” A boy in green spandex said.

Theo glanced over to his new training partners and couldn’t help but smile slightly. After the first group were given time to adjust to their bodies. Theo basically started a fight club with a handful of them. The group only had nine members currently if he included himself,  but would definitely grow in time.

The only reason the group was currently so small, was that the first group mostly contained non combatants. Plus the second and larger group were still adjusting to their new bodies. It would be another few weeks before they were ready for any type of combat focused chakra training.

Theo glanced at the boy in green spandex as he said, “You're up, Guy.”

“Yosh! Let's show everyone a brilliant display of youth!” Guy said as he gave a thumbs up with his brilliant smile.

A blonde haired boy chuckled before he said, “This is the last spar, then you need to practice fuinjutsu.”

“You also have magic practice after that.” Tao said from her study area, where she was drinking tea and reading a book.

Theo let out a tired sigh before moving out to the middle of the sparring area and squared off against Guy. They shared a nod before they disappeared and met each other with their fists.

It took about half an hour before Guy ran out of chakra and was forced to stop. Unlike Madara, Guy at least stopped before he collapsed, but it was still close. Next Theo started his fuinjutsu lessons with Ashina Uzumaki, Minato, Tobirama, Mito and Kushina.

There were a few more Uzumaki seal masters Theo planned to study under. But they were part of the second group or haven't been given a body yet. As for his training, he was mostly forced to practice his penmanship with chakra infusion.

He didn't need to practice his Shodo or Calligraphy though, it had more to do with precise chakra control that he focused on. As for the writing, characters and patterns, they were more there to guide a new and inexperienced seal maker. Once someone became a seal master they normally created their own fuinjutsu scripts and perfected it. It was a lot like how sorcerers created their own magic system once they passed a certain skill level.

Theo could already make the most basic explosive tags, but if he wanted to make anything else. He would first need to improve his chakra control and ink infusion to an appropriate level. Otherwise any seal he attempted to make would either fail, break easily or blow up while he made it.

Fuinjutsu practice lasted for a couple of hours and Theo used clones to help improve his learning efficiency. Once it was completed, the clones continued while Theo himself moved on to magic training with Tao and Agatha.

Magic training was basically more sparring at this point. Except Theo could only use magic to defend himself with, while Tao could use anything she wanted. If Theo wanted to move, attack, dodge or anything else? He needed to use magic to make it happen.

As for studying from books and learning more? Theo used clones for most of that, since it was mainly reading. Since only Theo could use magic, Tao forced him to practice every day and to put into use whatever his clones read about the day before.

Once magic practice was completed, it was almost three in the morning. So after being healed up by Tsunade, Theo took a quick shower before he switched places with his clone and went to sleep. Why take a shower and not just use a spell? There was just something about a nice hot shower after a long, tough workout.

Besides going to school in the morning, helping out at the shop in the afternoon, then dinner and hanging out with his family. That was what Theo's daily routine turned into. He still visited Hela at least once a week and checked in with Tony too. Along with his responsibilities in running the group he created.

The months passed quickly and Theo’s routine didn't change much. During that time he focused mostly on training and giving more people bodies. He estimated it would be a couple years before everyone who wanted a body had one. Because after the second batch, it took even longer than they thought for his soul to heal completely. So he took it slower and only created a hundred bodies every couple weeks now.

As for other projects he was working on, the cell phones and tablets he created with Tony, had turned into a bigger success then he predicted. Most of it had to do with Vibe and how it was integrated into the device. The other factor was the network infrastructure they created. The fact people could easily stream high quality videos on their phones helped out a lot.

While other companies were now trying to rush their own cell phones to market, Tony had launched a bunch of smart home automation devices. All of which worked seamlessly with the phones and tablets he created. Since other companies were also in the process of trying to create phones, Theo decided to check on them.

He mostly hacked into each company's servers to check their progress and designs. As for the few that kept their project files located off line, Theo just teleported into the company to look at them. He didn't care that much about the competition, he mostly wanted to see how far behind they were. While some of the phones were decent spec wise, the software for all of them was terrible.

He even tested out a few of the prototypes and could only shake his head in pity. With what they wanted to bring to market, Theo was sure most of the companies would give up after a year or two. A couple of them would definitely tough it out and try to take some of the market share. But unless something drastic happened, Tony's phones would always hold the lion's share of the mobile market.

As for the phone project for the US government, it was still being worked on. The amount of paid government employees was ridiculous and Theo was positive half of their jobs didn't need to exist. So far all of the higher up positions in the government had phones, the main issue was everyone else. He focused on the federal government first, then state and local last.

Once that was completed he planned to branch out to government agencies. Then law enforcement, first responders and others. Tony fought back against the idea a bit, since the contracts weren't going to make much money. But he agreed to have Stark Industry's bid for all the contracts they could, since Theo promised him more alien technology.

As for expanding the phones into other countries and governments, that was a slow process. A few were already in talks, but a lot of them were on the fence since they were made by a US based government contractor. While China, Russia and a few other countries flat out refused even talking with Stark.

Theo didn't mind though because no country banned the cell phones outright. Since that was the case, it couldn't stop him from sending phones as gifts to import people in power. So sooner or later they would end up in the hands of most government officials of every country. It was a more roundabout way, but if it worked, Theo would complain.

vvvvv

It was a Friday and something felt off to Theo. It started just after he woke up and he couldn’t figure out why. Breakfast with his family, school and then helping out at his dad’s shop. All day he felt weird, it was if someone or something was watching him. He used a couple spells when he was alone to figure out what was going on, but he found nothing abnormal. 

When he finally returned home with his family was when that weird feeling finally peaked. Something about his house was off, like someone had been inside the house while his family was out. Nothing looked out of place and Theo didn’t see anything wrong, but he knew someone else had entered the house. Theo used a few spells on the house to make sure nothing was wrong and sent a quick text message to Tao and Agatha asking them to look into it themselves before he joined his family for dinner.

At dinner the feeling lingered and for the first time since Theo put protection spells on his family, he regretted not doing something to the house itself. He considered it of course, but his main concern at the time was making sure his family was okay if something happened. Well and the fact that large scale protection spells on a stationary object like a house could have unintended consequences. The main one is it lights up the whole place like a Christmas tree to people who can sense magic. Sure if he had Tao build them, she could negate or fix most of the issues, like she did for the bases and Genosha. But when Theo brought up the idea, she refused because she wanted Theo to do it as a new form of training.

Theo ended up giving up on the idea at the time, since he had a lot of other projects going on at the time that were more important. It would also take up most of his time to learn the skills properly since it involved rune magic engraving, magical item creation and a few other skills Theo only touched on. In hindsight Theo should have at least added a sensor spell or two, or maybe even a clone to watch over the house.

As he ate dinner with his family, he thought of different things he could implement going forward and wondered if Tao and Agatha found anything. He already planned to switch with a clone after dinner so he could talk with them and also brainstorm a few ideas on how to safeguard his family's home going forward until his main projects to protect his family were completed.

Once he finished dinner, Theo helped with the dishes before he went downstairs to his room and created a clone. As the clone headed upstairs, Theo moved to his closet and transported to his training room. When he appeared in the room he turned towards Tao’s area and froze.

A man’s voice rang out as he said, “Good to see you Ezekiel. Or should I just call you Theodore or do you prefer Theo more?”

Theo’s eyes narrowed and his voice was raised as he asked, “How did you find me?”