By then, a lot of people were already behind him, including office workers, shop staff, an older man being helped along, and children pressed between adults.
Adam could feel all of them at his back.
The use-loss warning had not left him. He did not know if the cost would catch up before the battle ended.
'What happens if this shuts off again at the wrong time?' Adam thought.
He did not get the chance to think any farther.
More Chitauri were coming. Some charged in from the road ahead. Others dropped from ledges and broken building fronts toward the covered stretch he had just made.
Before Adam could strike, Clint's arrows dropped three of them almost back to back. Then a fourth fell, and then one more dropped off a ledge with an arrow through its throat.
Adam did not even look up toward the roofline.
"Thanks, Clint," he said into the comm while keeping his eyes ahead.
Clint answered with a laugh in his voice. "You don't have to make it sound Formal."
The next wave came fast.
Adam thrust one hand forward.
Crystal spikes tore up from the road in front of the charging Chitauri and ripped through them hard enough to stop the whole push. One body was thrown sideways. Two more were left hanging where the spikes had caught them through the chest.
Adam shifted his other hand at the same time.
While one side of his focus stayed on killing the enemies ahead, the other stayed on the structure around the civilians. The side walls thickened, the upper layer spread farther, and the covered road kept extending as Adam moved.
He was not just making one dome anymore. He was building a path.
The farther he walked, the farther the crystal stretched with him. It thickened along the sides, rose above the crowd, and sealed more of the road into a heavy tunnel-like shelter. Debris kept falling on top of it, and Chitauri kept attacking from outside.
If this battle was going to last, then he could not build it thin.
He pushed the roof lower in some places and higher in others, adjusting it around wrecked cars and debris piles without breaking the walking path underneath. The crowd behind him kept moving because he kept moving.
Another Chitauri dropped down from above.
Adam turned, flicked his hand, and a narrow spike punched up through the alien before it could fire.
He heard a few shocked breaths behind him, but nobody screamed now.
The structure had started at around ten meters when he first made it. By now, it had stretched to nearly fifty.
The attack on top kept getting worse.
Adam could feel it through the structure itself, each hit running through the crystal like a dull vibration in his bones. Some attackers got too close, but then Iron Man tore overhead and blasted them off the top.
He kept moving.
More civilians joined the path from side openings as he passed them. Adam pointed them inward, kept the walls growing, and killed anything that got too close from the front.
Then the sound he had been dreading hit his ears.
The Omnitrix started beeping.
Red light flashed across his wrist.
Adam's whole body went cold.
"No, no, no," he muttered.
The people nearest him saw the watch at once. Adam backed toward them immediately.
"Back up," he said. "Move back."
The crystal tunnel still stretched several meters ahead, but the front was open, and that was the weak point. Adam had learned how to build this, not how to take it down, so all he could do was buy time.
Adam planted both feet and pushed both hands toward the open end of the tunnel.
Crystal surged forward and started sealing the front.
The opening narrowed.
Light still leaked through the gaps because the shape was not clean yet.
Adam pushed harder.
Then the transformation ended.
His height dropped. The added muscle vanished. The crystal pattern over his skin faded away, and all the dense strength in his body disappeared with it.
He nearly stumbled from the sudden weakness.
People behind him stared.
"What are you doing?" one man asked.
Adam did not turn around. He had to keep the crowd under control.
"Nobody talk," he said sharply. "Stay quiet."
"They react fast when they notice movement," Adam said. "So stay calm and keep quiet."
Most of them had no idea whether that was true or not, but fear was enough to make them listen.
Then one young woman near the middle of the group spoke up before the panic could return.
"He's right," she said. "We have to stay calm. There are kids here."
The rest of the crowd settled again.
Adam stayed at the very front and looked down at his wrist.
'Come on,' Adam thought. 'Just give me one minute.'
The front layer of the sealed tunnel shuddered.
Small cracks had started showing in it.
The Chitauri on the other side were still firing.
Then a voice came through the comm.
"Your power already cut out again?" Tony asked.
That was loud enough for the others on the line to hear too. Adam closed his eyes for one second. There was no point hiding it.
"I just need one minute," he said. "My power has to recharge. Give me one minute, and I can hold it again."
Steve answered immediately.
"Thor, buy Adam one minute."
Adam heard the answer a second later.
There was a crack of thunder outside.
Then lightning hit the crystal-choked entrance so hard that the whole structure shook. The blast did not hit Adam's tunnel directly. It hit the Chitauri gathered outside it, tore through the attack point, and cleared the pressure away from the sealed front.
Thor's voice came through the comm after that.
"You have your minute."