"This… this food is ambrosia!" Ethan declared, his voice full of genuine reverence as he scraped the last morsel from his plate.
Across the table, Colossus watched as Ethan stood up to get food for the thirtieth time. The fork in Piotr's hand, laden with a piece of roasted potato, remained suspended in mid-air, forgotten. The mountain of empty plates stacked precariously on their table was already a local landmark in the bustling cafeteria, drawing curious and disbelieving glances from other students. Each of Ethan's servings was a platter heaped high enough to satisfy a grown man. He had just consumed enough food to feed a small village, and now, he was going back for more.
"He just said he was only a fifth of the way full," Piotr murmured to himself, his mind struggling to process the physics of the situation.
"See? I told you!" little Pietro announced proudly to the stunned Colossus, his chest puffed out. "Ethan's strength doesn't just come from training. It comes from eating! I am certain his mutant ability is having a stomach that is also a gateway to a hungry dimension!"
Colossus managed a weak, dazed smile and shook his head. "Well," he said, finally lowering his fork. "Our dear Mr. Yuge is going to be earning his salary tonight."
At the buffet line, the man in question, a portly chef named Yuge with a magnificent mustache, watched Ethan's approach with the weary resignation of a fortress commander seeing the return of an invincible dragon. Sweat beaded on his brow as his telekinetically-controlled ladles and spoons danced, serving the other students.
"Kid, do you have any idea…" Yuge began, covering his forehead with a dough-dusted hand as Ethan arrived. "You have, by yourself, consumed nearly the entire projected food supply for the whole school for today!"
"Is that because the food you cook is so magnificent, Chef?" Ethan asked, his compliment so earnest it momentarily disarmed the beleaguered cook. Ethan's eyes darted past him, watching in fascination as carrots and onions diced themselves in mid-air and floated into a simmering pot. "This is incredible. Your ability is telekinesis, yes?"
Yuge's chest swelled with a bit of pride, his annoyance momentarily forgotten. "Mind control, yes, but nothing compared to Professor Jean," he clarified, gesturing with a thumb. "My gift, even at its peak, is for the kitchen. I can only control objects weighing a few kilograms. Perfect for cooking, not so perfect for fighting Sentinels."
"It's still amazing," Ethan said, holding out his plate. "Thank you, Chef. I think… yes, I think another thirty servings should be enough to get me full. I appreciate your hard work."
The friendly reminder was delivered with such sincere politeness that it somehow made it worse. Yuge felt his head begin to throb as he stared at the plate. He had come to this school for one primary reason: to have enough food to satisfy his own considerable appetite. Being polite wasn't going to get him there.
He watched the ladles begin to scoop again, a resigned sigh escaping his lips. "I am going to have to place a very, very large order tomorrow morning," he muttered.
Half an hour later, the cafeteria was mostly empty. Ethan leaned back in his chair, a deep, satisfied groan rumbling in his chest. For the first time since he had been reborn into this world, he was truly, completely, blissfully full. His cells felt supercharged, humming with a vast reserve of latent energy. This was the feeling he'd been chasing. This was the fuel for the fire.
As he, Wanda, Pietro, and the still-reeling Colossus walked back towards their rooms, a thought pricked at Ethan's contented haze. "The professors don't usually eat with us?" he asked casually. The head table, where he'd expected to see Xavier and the others, had remained conspicuously empty the entire evening.
Colossus's brow furrowed. "They usually do. It is strange they were not here tonight."
Ethan's body tensed slightly. That, combined with the memory of Storm's solemn, urgent expression when they first arrived… Trouble on my first day? he thought with a surge of irritation. He mentally filed it away. He'd hold off on any extreme physical training for a few days, at least until he had a better feel for the school's rhythm and potential dangers. He had learned from Goku's memories that recklessness was a luxury even the strong could not always afford.
Not long after they had left, the cafeteria doors swung open again. A man strode in, his heavy boots thudding against the floor. He was shorter than Colossus but built like a fire hydrant, with a wild mane of dark hair, thick sideburns, and a perpetual scowl. He wore a worn leather jacket, and the pungent, earthy scent of a cheap cigar cut through the lingering smell of food.
"Hey, Yuge," the man growled, his voice like gravel. "Got any grub for me?"
Yuge's face lit up. "Logan! When did you get back? You finish your business?"
"Just got in a few hours ago. And no," Logan grumbled, pulling a cigar from his jacket and tossing it to the chef. "Mission was a bust. Place the Professor sent me to was a dead end. Came back hopin' he could help me poke around in my own head for some answers, but he'd already taken off. Left me a note sayin' I gotta play nanny around here for a few days."
Yuge lit the cigar, taking a thoughtful puff. "Ah, that explains why I did not see the professors tonight. My friend, I am sorry, but you have come too late. We had a new student arrive today. A boy with an appetite that would make a black hole seem picky. He has… well, he has eaten everything."
Logan stared at the sparklingly clean buffet trays, then let out a long-suffering sigh. "Figures. Guess I'll go see if there's a frozen burrito lurkin' in the back of a freezer somewhere." He turned and stalked out, the hunger in his gut a familiar, annoying companion.
Back in his room, after a warm-up of several hundred exercises, Ethan sat cross-legged on his bed, the door to the adjoined bathroom open and steaming. He had decided against physical extremes, but that didn't mean he would be idle. He would train his Qi.
He held up his hand, focusing his entire will on the tip of his middle finger. He drew upon the feeling from Goku's memories—not a thought, but a sensation, like flexing a muscle he never knew he had. A low hum filled the room, and a tiny, wavering ball of white light, no bigger than a pearl, flickered into existence. It sputtered and died. He tried again. This time it held for a second before vanishing.
Qi was life energy. Everything had it. Kame-Sennin's art was the discipline of gathering one's own Qi and focusing it into a destructive blast. He knew he didn't have the physical stamina for a full Kamehameha yet, but this—this was practice. He could master the simple Qi Bomb first. Later, when his body was stronger and his control more refined, he could try to reverse-engineer the other techniques. Yamcha's Spirit Ball, Tien's Solar Flare, Krillin's Destructo Disc… they were all just different applications of the same fundamental principles. The possibilities were endless.
He focused again. The pearl of light appeared, wavered, but this time, it stabilized, a perfect, humming marble of energy balanced on his fingertip.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound made him jump, and the Qi bomb winked out of existence. He sighed, got up, and opened the door.
Wanda and Pietro stood in the hallway, dressed in their pajamas, each clutching a pillow like a shield. Their faces were small and fearful in the dim light of the corridor.
"Ethan," Wanda whispered, her lower lip trembling slightly. "We can't sleep. Can… can we stay with you?"
His focus on power and training melted away instantly, replaced by a wave of protective affection. They were just ten years old, in a strange, massive castle, in a foreign country, surrounded by strangers. Of course, they were scared.
He knelt down, touching their heads gently. "Come on in," he said, his voice soft. "There's plenty of room."
THROW SOME POWER STONES
Words filler don't read down here
Ignore this chapter this is word filler
The first sound was not a sound at all. It was a pressure wave, a deep-throated CRUMP that vibrated through the plush mattress and rattled his teeth in his skull. Ethan's eyes shot open. The air, thick with the acrid stench of cordite, tasted like dust.
A guttural groan ripped from his throat. "Who the hell is setting off fireworks at…"
His voice trailed off. This wasn't his room.
Instead of the cracked plaster and water-stained ceiling of his cheap, old rental, he was staring up at ornate white molding. He sat bolt upright, the silk sheets pooling around a waist that felt far too narrow. The room was vast and opulent, all dark, carved mahogany and blood-red velvet curtains. Dust motes danced in the single sliver of gray light piercing the gloom. A full day off. A mythical creature for a 996 corporate drone like him, and it had been murdered in its sleep by… what?
His gaze fell upon his hands. They were impossibly small, the hands of a child, pale and without a single callus. A cold dread, slick and oily, slithered down his spine. He scrambled out of the massive bed, his bare feet hitting the hard, cool wood of the floor with a soft thud.
The mirror confirmed the nightmare.
Staring back at him was his own face, but stripped of two decades of exhaustion and cynicism. He was a boy of eleven, maybe twelve, with wide, terrified eyes. The face was his, but the memory wasn't. At this age, he'd been in a spartan boarding school dormitory that smelled of floor polish and old socks, not a palace.
BOOM!
This one was closer. The floor shuddered, and the tinkling of shattered glass echoed from somewhere outside. The sound, raw and violent, pulled him forward like a fish on a line. He reached the window, his small hands fumbling with the heavy velvet of the curtains. He tugged them aside.
And his stomach tried to crawl up his throat.
What he saw wasn't a celebration. It was an open wound. The city was a panorama of jagged skeletons that were once apartment blocks, bleeding greasy black smoke into the pale morning sky. The street below was a canvas of horror: cratered asphalt, twisted metal, and still forms sprawled in sickeningly crimson stains. A jet screamed overhead, its shadow a fleeting promise of death, followed by the distant, staccato rat-tat-tat of artillery fire.
The sounds he'd mistaken for firecrackers were the percussion of a war.
A single, primal thought screamed through his mind: Run. His body jolted, ready to flee, but his brain slammed on the brakes. Run where?
He was a child, alone in a foreign city that was actively being torn apart.
Option A: Stay here. Pray a missile doesn't decide this particular gorgeous room is its final destination.
Option B: Run outside. Try to navigate a maze of rubble and shrapnel while actively being hunted.
Both paths led to a game of Russian Roulette with a fully loaded cylinder. He was trapped, a rat in a gilded cage, and the walls were closing in.
Just as a wave of helpless nausea crested, something flickered into existence before his eyes. It was a rectangle of cold, blue light, hovering in the air and casting an ethereal glow on his face. Stark white text materialized with a soft, electronic chime.
[The Protagonist Template Random Drawing Device is activated. You have one (1) free chance to draw. Do you choose to draw?]
[YES / NO]
There was no room for disbelief. The questions of how and why were luxuries for the living. Survival was the only currency that mattered now. His finger, trembling slightly, jabbed at the glowing [YES].
The panel dissolved into a frantic, strobing kaleidoscope of light, a silent disco celebrating his potential salvation or doom. It spun for a breathless moment before snapping back into a stable rectangle.
[Drawing complete. The Protagonist Template drawn is: SUN GOKU (DRAGON BALL WORLD, AGE 13). Do you wish to load this template?]
Hope, fierce and desperate, punched through his terror. Goku at thirteen. Post-Roshi training. The World Martial Arts Tournament. A body that could treat bullets like annoying insects.
He didn't hesitate. He slammed his finger on [YES].
[Template loading: Sun Wukong (Age 13). Duration: 1 Hour. Cooldown: 24 Hours. User will temporarily gain the template's abilities, skills, and base personality traits.]
The change was instantaneous. It wasn't a painful morphing, but a seismic shift, as if his very cells, once fragile glass, had been reforged into tempered steel. A current of pure, unadulterated power thrummed beneath his skin. At the same time, a flood of memories—not his own—cascaded into his mind: the feel of a tail, the taste of a giant fish cooked over an open fire, the satisfying crunch of a well-landed kick, the simple, unwavering loyalty to friends.
He glanced back at the mirror. His face was the same, his height unchanged. But his hair now defied gravity, a wild forest of black spikes. The thin pajamas had vanished, replaced by a bright orange martial arts gi with the "Kame" symbol emblazoned on the chest and back. A smooth, red staff was now strapped diagonally across his shoulders.
One hour. The thought was a sharp, clarifying beacon. The priority hadn't changed: find a safe place. But the method of finding it had.
He burst from the room. A quick scan confirmed the rest of the grand house was eerily empty. He didn't linger. In a blur of motion that left his old self in the dust, he was out the front door and on the street.
Gunfire was louder to the east, so he bolted west. The ground crunched under his boots as he moved with a speed that felt both alien and perfectly natural. He wasn't just running; he was flowing over the debris, a river of orange in a landscape of gray. The plan was simple: get out of the city. He could clear the warzone entirely in an hour.
He rounded a corner and skidded to a halt.
Not twenty feet away, two soldiers in mismatched uniforms were locked in a desperate, clumsy struggle. Their rifles lay discarded, empty. They were grunting, swinging tired fists, their boots scraping on the rubble.
The logical part of his brain, the part that was Ethan the 996 worker, screamed at him. Turn around. This isn't your fight. You're on a clock.
But that part of him was being drowned out by a joyous, surging tide of pure excitement. His blood didn't just boil; it sang. A wide, uncontrollable grin split his face. The fear was gone, replaced by an electrifying thrill. These men weren't a threat. They were a challenge.
His body, now acting on an instinct far older and more primal than his own, coiled like a spring.
"Are you competing?" he yelled, his voice bright with an energy that didn't belong to him. "Count me in!"
Before they could even turn, he was a blur of orange. A sharp chop to the neck of the first soldier. A precise, powerful kick to the side of the second.
Thump. Thump.
Five seconds. Two bodies lay unconscious on the ground.
Ethan stood over them, the grin fading as a profound sense of dislocation washed over him. He looked at his hands, truly looked at them, and a shocking thought crystallized in his mind.
This wasn't just a power-up. It was a possession.
"Is this...?" he murmured to the smoking ruins around him. "Did I not only get his strength, but his personality, too?"
The first sound was not a sound at all. It was a pressure wave, a deep-throated CRUMP that vibrated through the plush mattress and rattled his teeth in his skull. Ethan's eyes shot open. The air, thick with the acrid stench of cordite, tasted like dust.
A guttural groan ripped from his throat. "Who the hell is setting off fireworks at…"
His voice trailed off. This wasn't his room.
Instead of the cracked plaster and water-stained ceiling of his cheap, old rental, he was staring up at ornate white molding. He sat bolt upright, the silk sheets pooling around a waist that felt far too narrow. The room was vast and opulent, all dark, carved mahogany and blood-red velvet curtains. Dust motes danced in the single sliver of gray light piercing the gloom. A full day off. A mythical creature for a 996 corporate drone like him, and it had been murdered in its sleep by… what?
His gaze fell upon his hands. They were impossibly small, the hands of a child, pale and without a single callus. A cold dread, slick and oily, slithered down his spine. He scrambled out of the massive bed, his bare feet hitting the hard, cool wood of the floor with a soft thud.
The mirror confirmed the nightmare.
Staring back at him was his own face, but stripped of two decades of exhaustion and cynicism. He was a boy of eleven, maybe twelve, with wide, terrified eyes. The face was his, but the memory wasn't. At this age, he'd been in a spartan boarding school dormitory that smelled of floor polish and old socks, not a palace.
BOOM!
This one was closer. The floor shuddered, and the tinkling of shattered glass echoed from somewhere outside. The sound, raw and violent, pulled him forward like a fish on a line. He reached the window, his small hands fumbling with the heavy velvet of the curtains. He tugged them aside.
And his stomach tried to crawl up his throat.
What he saw wasn't a celebration. It was an open wound. The city was a panorama of jagged skeletons that were once apartment blocks, bleeding greasy black smoke into the pale morning sky. The street below was a canvas of horror: cratered asphalt, twisted metal, and still forms sprawled in sickeningly crimson stains. A jet screamed overhead, its shadow a fleeting promise of death, followed by the distant, staccato rat-tat-tat of artillery fire.
The sounds he'd mistaken for firecrackers were the percussion of a war.
A single, primal thought screamed through his mind: Run. His body jolted, ready to flee, but his brain slammed on the brakes. Run where?
He was a child, alone in a foreign city that was actively being torn apart.
Option A: Stay here. Pray a missile doesn't decide this particular gorgeous room is its final destination.
Option B: Run outside. Try to navigate a maze of rubble and shrapnel while actively being hunted.
Both paths led to a game of Russian Roulette with a fully loaded cylinder. He was trapped, a rat in a gilded cage, and the walls were closing in.
Just as a wave of helpless nausea crested, something flickered into existence before his eyes. It was a rectangle of cold, blue light, hovering in the air and casting an ethereal glow on his face. Stark white text materialized with a soft, electronic chime.
[The Protagonist Template Random Drawing Device is activated. You have one (1) free chance to draw. Do you choose to draw?]
[YES / NO]
There was no room for disbelief. The questions of how and why were luxuries for the living. Survival was the only currency that mattered now. His finger, trembling slightly, jabbed at the glowing [YES].
The panel dissolved into a frantic, strobing kaleidoscope of light, a silent disco celebrating his potential salvation or doom. It spun for a breathless moment before snapping back into a stable rectangle.
[Drawing complete. The Protagonist Template drawn is: SUN GOKU (DRAGON BALL WORLD, AGE 13). Do you wish to load this template?]
Hope, fierce and desperate, punched through his terror. Goku at thirteen. Post-Roshi training. The World Martial Arts Tournament. A body that could treat bullets like annoying insects.
He didn't hesitate. He slammed his finger on [YES].
[Template loading: Sun Wukong (Age 13). Duration: 1 Hour. Cooldown: 24 Hours. User will temporarily gain the template's abilities, skills, and base personality traits.]
The change was instantaneous. It wasn't a painful morphing, but a seismic shift, as if his very cells, once fragile glass, had been reforged into tempered steel. A current of pure, unadulterated power thrummed beneath his skin. At the same time, a flood of memories—not his own—cascaded into his mind: the feel of a tail, the taste of a giant fish cooked over an open fire, the satisfying crunch of a well-landed kick, the simple, unwavering loyalty to friends.
He glanced back at the mirror. His face was the same, his height unchanged. But his hair now defied gravity, a wild forest of black spikes. The thin pajamas had vanished, replaced by a bright orange martial arts gi with the "Kame" symbol emblazoned on the chest and back. A smooth, red staff was now strapped diagonally across his shoulders.
One hour. The thought was a sharp, clarifying beacon. The priority hadn't changed: find a safe place. But the method of finding it had.
He burst from the room. A quick scan confirmed the rest of the grand house was eerily empty. He didn't linger. In a blur of motion that left his old self in the dust, he was out the front door and on the street.
Gunfire was louder to the east, so he bolted west. The ground crunched under his boots as he moved with a speed that felt both alien and perfectly natural. He wasn't just running; he was flowing over the debris, a river of orange in a landscape of gray. The plan was simple: get out of the city. He could clear the warzone entirely in an hour.
He rounded a corner and skidded to a halt.
Not twenty feet away, two soldiers in mismatched uniforms were locked in a desperate, clumsy struggle. Their rifles lay discarded, empty. They were grunting, swinging tired fists, their boots scraping on the rubble.
The logical part of his brain, the part that was Ethan the 996 worker, screamed at him. Turn around. This isn't your fight. You're on a clock.
But that part of him was being drowned out by a joyous, surging tide of pure excitement. His blood didn't just boil; it sang. A wide, uncontrollable grin split his face. The fear was gone, replaced by an electrifying thrill. These men weren't a threat. They were a challenge.
His body, now acting on an instinct far older and more primal than his own, coiled like a spring.
"Are you competing?" he yelled, his voice bright with an energy that didn't belong to him. "Count me in!"
Before they could even turn, he was a blur of orange. A sharp chop to the neck of the first soldier. A precise, powerful kick to the side of the second.
Thump. Thump.
Five seconds. Two bodies lay unconscious on the ground.
Ethan stood over them, the grin fading as a profound sense of dislocation washed over him. He looked at his hands, truly looked at them, and a shocking thought crystallized in his mind.
This wasn't just a power-up. It was a possession.
"Is this...?" he murmured to the smoking ruins around him. "Did I not only get his strength, but his personality, too?"
The first sound was not a sound at all. It was a pressure wave, a deep-throated CRUMP that vibrated through the plush mattress and rattled his teeth in his skull. Ethan's eyes shot open. The air, thick with the acrid stench of cordite, tasted like dust.
A guttural groan ripped from his throat. "Who the hell is setting off fireworks at…"
His voice trailed off. This wasn't his room.
Instead of the cracked plaster and water-stained ceiling of his cheap, old rental, he was staring up at ornate white molding. He sat bolt upright, the silk sheets pooling around a waist that felt far too narrow. The room was vast and opulent, all dark, carved mahogany and blood-red velvet curtains. Dust motes danced in the single sliver of gray light piercing the gloom. A full day off. A mythical creature for a 996 corporate drone like him, and it had been murdered in its sleep by… what?
His gaze fell upon his hands. They were impossibly small, the hands of a child, pale and without a single callus. A cold dread, slick and oily, slithered down his spine. He scrambled out of the massive bed, his bare feet hitting the hard, cool wood of the floor with a soft thud.
The mirror confirmed the nightmare.
Staring back at him was his own face, but stripped of two decades of exhaustion and cynicism. He was a boy of eleven, maybe twelve, with wide, terrified eyes. The face was his, but the memory wasn't. At this age, he'd been in a spartan boarding school dormitory that smelled of floor polish and old socks, not a palace.
BOOM!
This one was closer. The floor shuddered, and the tinkling of shattered glass echoed from somewhere outside. The sound, raw and violent, pulled him forward like a fish on a line. He reached the window, his small hands fumbling with the heavy velvet of the curtains. He tugged them aside.
And his stomach tried to crawl up his throat.
What he saw wasn't a celebration. It was an open wound. The city was a panorama of jagged skeletons that were once apartment blocks, bleeding greasy black smoke into the pale morning sky. The street below was a canvas of horror: cratered asphalt, twisted metal, and still forms sprawled in sickeningly crimson stains. A jet screamed overhead, its shadow a fleeting promise of death, followed by the distant, staccato rat-tat-tat of artillery fire.
The sounds he'd mistaken for firecrackers were the percussion of a war.
A single, primal thought screamed through his mind: Run. His body jolted, ready to flee, but his brain slammed on the brakes. Run where?
He was a child, alone in a foreign city that was actively being torn apart.
Option A: Stay here. Pray a missile doesn't decide this particular gorgeous room is its final destination.
Option B: Run outside. Try to navigate a maze of rubble and shrapnel while actively being hunted.
Both paths led to a game of Russian Roulette with a fully loaded cylinder. He was trapped, a rat in a gilded cage, and the walls were closing in.
Just as a wave of helpless nausea crested, something flickered into existence before his eyes. It was a rectangle of cold, blue light, hovering in the air and casting an ethereal glow on his face. Stark white text materialized with a soft, electronic chime.
[The Protagonist Template Random Drawing Device is activated. You have one (1) free chance to draw. Do you choose to draw?]
[YES / NO]
There was no room for disbelief. The questions of how and why were luxuries for the living. Survival was the only currency that mattered now. His finger, trembling slightly, jabbed at the glowing [YES].
The panel dissolved into a frantic, strobing kaleidoscope of light, a silent disco celebrating his potential salvation or doom. It spun for a breathless moment before snapping back into a stable rectangle.
[Drawing complete. The Protagonist Template drawn is: SUN GOKU (DRAGON BALL WORLD, AGE 13). Do you wish to load this template?]
Hope, fierce and desperate, punched through his terror. Goku at thirteen. Post-Roshi training. The World Martial Arts Tournament. A body that could treat bullets like annoying insects.
He didn't hesitate. He slammed his finger on [YES].
[Template loading: Sun Wukong (Age 13). Duration: 1 Hour. Cooldown: 24 Hours. User will temporarily gain the template's abilities, skills, and base personality traits.]
The change was instantaneous. It wasn't a painful morphing, but a seismic shift, as if his very cells, once fragile glass, had been reforged into tempered steel. A current of pure, unadulterated power thrummed beneath his skin. At the same time, a flood of memories—not his own—cascaded into his mind: the feel of a tail, the taste of a giant fish cooked over an open fire, the satisfying crunch of a well-landed kick, the simple, unwavering loyalty to friends.
He glanced back at the mirror. His face was the same, his height unchanged. But his hair now defied gravity, a wild forest of black spikes. The thin pajamas had vanished, replaced by a bright orange martial arts gi with the "Kame" symbol emblazoned on the chest and back. A smooth, red staff was now strapped diagonally across his shoulders.
One hour. The thought was a sharp, clarifying beacon. The priority hadn't changed: find a safe place. But the method of finding it had.
He burst from the room. A quick scan confirmed the rest of the grand house was eerily empty. He didn't linger. In a blur of motion that left his old self in the dust, he was out the front door and on the street.
Gunfire was louder to the east, so he bolted west. The ground crunched under his boots as he moved with a speed that felt both alien and perfectly natural. He wasn't just running; he was flowing over the debris, a river of orange in a landscape of gray. The plan was simple: get out of the city. He could clear the warzone entirely in an hour.
He rounded a corner and skidded to a halt.
Not twenty feet away, two soldiers in mismatched uniforms were locked in a desperate, clumsy struggle. Their rifles lay discarded, empty. They were grunting, swinging tired fists, their boots scraping on the rubble.
The logical part of his brain, the part that was Ethan the 996 worker, screamed at him. Turn around. This isn't your fight. You're on a clock.
But that part of him was being drowned out by a joyous, surging tide of pure excitement. His blood didn't just boil; it sang. A wide, uncontrollable grin split his face. The fear was gone, replaced by an electrifying thrill. These men weren't a threat. They were a challenge.
His body, now acting on an instinct far older and more primal than his own, coiled like a spring.
"Are you competing?" he yelled, his voice bright with an energy that didn't belong to him. "Count me in!"
Before they could even turn, he was a blur of orange. A sharp chop to the neck of the first soldier. A precise, powerful kick to the side of the second.
Thump. Thump.
Five seconds. Two bodies lay unconscious on the ground.
Ethan stood over them, the grin fading as a profound sense of dislocation washed over him. He looked at his hands, truly looked at them, and a shocking thought crystallized in his mind.
This wasn't just a power-up. It was a possession.
"Is this...?" he murmured to the smoking ruins around him. "Did I not only get his strength, but his personality, too?"
The first sound was not a sound at all. It was a pressure wave, a deep-throated CRUMP that vibrated through the plush mattress and rattled his teeth in his skull. Ethan's eyes shot open. The air, thick with the acrid stench of cordite, tasted like dust.
A guttural groan ripped from his throat. "Who the hell is setting off fireworks at…"
His voice trailed off. This wasn't his room.
Instead of the cracked plaster and water-stained ceiling of his cheap, old rental, he was staring up at ornate white molding. He sat bolt upright, the silk sheets pooling around a waist that felt far too narrow. The room was vast and opulent, all dark, carved mahogany and blood-red velvet curtains. Dust motes danced in the single sliver of gray light piercing the gloom. A full day off. A mythical creature for a 996 corporate drone like him, and it had been murdered in its sleep by… what?
His gaze fell upon his hands. They were impossibly small, the hands of a child, pale and without a single callus. A cold dread, slick and oily, slithered down his spine. He scrambled out of the massive bed, his bare feet hitting the hard, cool wood of the floor with a soft thud.
The mirror confirmed the nightmare.
Staring back at him was his own face, but stripped of two decades of exhaustion and cynicism. He was a boy of eleven, maybe twelve, with wide, terrified eyes. The face was his, but the memory wasn't. At this age, he'd been in a spartan boarding school dormitory that smelled of floor polish and old socks, not a palace.
BOOM!
This one was closer. The floor shuddered, and the tinkling of shattered glass echoed from somewhere outside. The sound, raw and violent, pulled him forward like a fish on a line. He reached the window, his small hands fumbling with the heavy velvet of the curtains. He tugged them aside.
And his stomach tried to crawl up his throat.
What he saw wasn't a celebration. It was an open wound. The city was a panorama of jagged skeletons that were once apartment blocks, bleeding greasy black smoke into the pale morning sky. The street below was a canvas of horror: cratered asphalt, twisted metal, and still forms sprawled in sickeningly crimson stains. A jet screamed overhead, its shadow a fleeting promise of death, followed by the distant, staccato rat-tat-tat of artillery fire.
The sounds he'd mistaken for firecrackers were the percussion of a war.
A single, primal thought screamed through his mind: Run. His body jolted, ready to flee, but his brain slammed on the brakes. Run where?
He was a child, alone in a foreign city that was actively being torn apart.
Option A: Stay here. Pray a missile doesn't decide this particular gorgeous room is its final destination.
Option B: Run outside. Try to navigate a maze of rubble and shrapnel while actively being hunted.
Both paths led to a game of Russian Roulette with a fully loaded cylinder. He was trapped, a rat in a gilded cage, and the walls were closing in.
Just as a wave of helpless nausea crested, something flickered into existence before his eyes. It was a rectangle of cold, blue light, hovering in the air and casting an ethereal glow on his face. Stark white text materialized with a soft, electronic chime.
[The Protagonist Template Random Drawing Device is activated. You have one (1) free chance to draw. Do you choose to draw?]
[YES / NO]
There was no room for disbelief. The questions of how and why were luxuries for the living. Survival was the only currency that mattered now. His finger, trembling slightly, jabbed at the glowing [YES].
The panel dissolved into a frantic, strobing kaleidoscope of light, a silent disco celebrating his potential salvation or doom. It spun for a breathless moment before snapping back into a stable rectangle.
[Drawing complete. The Protagonist Template drawn is: SUN GOKU (DRAGON BALL WORLD, AGE 13). Do you wish to load this template?]
Hope, fierce and desperate, punched through his terror. Goku at thirteen. Post-Roshi training. The World Martial Arts Tournament. A body that could treat bullets like annoying insects.
He didn't hesitate. He slammed his finger on [YES].
[Template loading: Sun Wukong (Age 13). Duration: 1 Hour. Cooldown: 24 Hours. User will temporarily gain the template's abilities, skills, and base personality traits.]
The change was instantaneous. It wasn't a painful morphing, but a seismic shift, as if his very cells, once fragile glass, had been reforged into tempered steel. A current of pure, unadulterated power thrummed beneath his skin. At the same time, a flood of memories—not his own—cascaded into his mind: the feel of a tail, the taste of a giant fish cooked over an open fire, the satisfying crunch of a well-landed kick, the simple, unwavering loyalty to friends.
He glanced back at the mirror. His face was the same, his height unchanged. But his hair now defied gravity, a wild forest of black spikes. The thin pajamas had vanished, replaced by a bright orange martial arts gi with the "Kame" symbol emblazoned on the chest and back. A smooth, red staff was now strapped diagonally across his shoulders.
One hour. The thought was a sharp, clarifying beacon. The priority hadn't changed: find a safe place. But the method of finding it had.
He burst from the room. A quick scan confirmed the rest of the grand house was eerily empty. He didn't linger. In a blur of motion that left his old self in the dust, he was out the front door and on the street.
Gunfire was louder to the east, so he bolted west. The ground crunched under his boots as he moved with a speed that felt both alien and perfectly natural. He wasn't just running; he was flowing over the debris, a river of orange in a landscape of gray. The plan was simple: get out of the city. He could clear the warzone entirely in an hour.
He rounded a corner and skidded to a halt.
Not twenty feet away, two soldiers in mismatched uniforms were locked in a desperate, clumsy struggle. Their rifles lay discarded, empty. They were grunting, swinging tired fists, their boots scraping on the rubble.
The logical part of his brain, the part that was Ethan the 996 worker, screamed at him. Turn around. This isn't your fight. You're on a clock.
But that part of him was being drowned out by a joyous, surging tide of pure excitement. His blood didn't just boil; it sang. A wide, uncontrollable grin split his face. The fear was gone, replaced by an electrifying thrill. These men weren't a threat. They were a challenge.
His body, now acting on an instinct far older and more primal than his own, coiled like a spring.
"Are you competing?" he yelled, his voice bright with an energy that didn't belong to him. "Count me in!"
Before they could even turn, he was a blur of orange. A sharp chop to the neck of the first soldier. A precise, powerful kick to the side of the second.
Thump. Thump.
Five seconds. Two bodies lay unconscious on the ground.
Ethan stood over them, the grin fading as a profound sense of dislocation washed over him. He looked at his hands, truly looked at them, and a shocking thought crystallized in his mind.
This wasn't just a power-up. It was a possession.
"Is this...?" he murmured to the smoking ruins around him. "Did I not only get his strength, but his personality, too?"
The first sound was not a sound at all. It was a pressure wave, a deep-throated CRUMP that vibrated through the plush mattress and rattled his teeth in his skull. Ethan's eyes shot open. The air, thick with the acrid stench of cordite, tasted like dust.
A guttural groan ripped from his throat. "Who the hell is setting off fireworks at…"
His voice trailed off. This wasn't his room.
Instead of the cracked plaster and water-stained ceiling of his cheap, old rental, he was staring up at ornate white molding. He sat bolt upright, the silk sheets pooling around a waist that felt far too narrow. The room was vast and opulent, all dark, carved mahogany and blood-red velvet curtains. Dust motes danced in the single sliver of gray light piercing the gloom. A full day off. A mythical creature for a 996 corporate drone like him, and it had been murdered in its sleep by… what?
His gaze fell upon his hands. They were impossibly small, the hands of a child, pale and without a single callus. A cold dread, slick and oily, slithered down his spine. He scrambled out of the massive bed, his bare feet hitting the hard, cool wood of the floor with a soft thud.
The mirror confirmed the nightmare.
Staring back at him was his own face, but stripped of two decades of exhaustion and cynicism. He was a boy of eleven, maybe twelve, with wide, terrified eyes. The face was his, but the memory wasn't. At this age, he'd been in a spartan boarding school dormitory that smelled of floor polish and old socks, not a palace.
BOOM!
This one was closer. The floor shuddered, and the tinkling of shattered glass echoed from somewhere outside. The sound, raw and violent, pulled him forward like a fish on a line. He reached the window, his small hands fumbling with the heavy velvet of the curtains. He tugged them aside.
And his stomach tried to crawl up his throat.
What he saw wasn't a celebration. It was an open wound. The city was a panorama of jagged skeletons that were once apartment blocks, bleeding greasy black smoke into the pale morning sky. The street below was a canvas of horror: cratered asphalt, twisted metal, and still forms sprawled in sickeningly crimson stains. A jet screamed overhead, its shadow a fleeting promise of death, followed by the distant, staccato rat-tat-tat of artillery fire.
The sounds he'd mistaken for firecrackers were the percussion of a war.
A single, primal thought screamed through his mind: Run. His body jolted, ready to flee, but his brain slammed on the brakes. Run where?
He was a child, alone in a foreign city that was actively being torn apart.
Option A: Stay here. Pray a missile doesn't decide this particular gorgeous room is its final destination.
Option B: Run outside. Try to navigate a maze of rubble and shrapnel while actively being hunted.
Both paths led to a game of Russian Roulette with a fully loaded cylinder. He was trapped, a rat in a gilded cage, and the walls were closing in.
Just as a wave of helpless nausea crested, something flickered into existence before his eyes. It was a rectangle of cold, blue light, hovering in the air and casting an ethereal glow on his face. Stark white text materialized with a soft, electronic chime.
[The Protagonist Template Random Drawing Device is activated. You have one (1) free chance to draw. Do you choose to draw?]
[YES / NO]
There was no room for disbelief. The questions of how and why were luxuries for the living. Survival was the only currency that mattered now. His finger, trembling slightly, jabbed at the glowing [YES].
The panel dissolved into a frantic, strobing kaleidoscope of light, a silent disco celebrating his potential salvation or doom. It spun for a breathless moment before snapping back into a stable rectangle.
[Drawing complete. The Protagonist Template drawn is: SUN GOKU (DRAGON BALL WORLD, AGE 13). Do you wish to load this template?]
Hope, fierce and desperate, punched through his terror. Goku at thirteen. Post-Roshi training. The World Martial Arts Tournament. A body that could treat bullets like annoying insects.
He didn't hesitate. He slammed his finger on [YES].
[Template loading: Sun Wukong (Age 13). Duration: 1 Hour. Cooldown: 24 Hours. User will temporarily gain the template's abilities, skills, and base personality traits.]
The change was instantaneous. It wasn't a painful morphing, but a seismic shift, as if his very cells, once fragile glass, had been reforged into tempered steel. A current of pure, unadulterated power thrummed beneath his skin. At the same time, a flood of memories—not his own—cascaded into his mind: the feel of a tail, the taste of a giant fish cooked over an open fire, the satisfying crunch of a well-landed kick, the simple, unwavering loyalty to friends.
He glanced back at the mirror. His face was the same, his height unchanged. But his hair now defied gravity, a wild forest of black spikes. The thin pajamas had vanished, replaced by a bright orange martial arts gi with the "Kame" symbol emblazoned on the chest and back. A smooth, red staff was now strapped diagonally across his shoulders.
One hour. The thought was a sharp, clarifying beacon. The priority hadn't changed: find a safe place. But the method of finding it had.
He burst from the room. A quick scan confirmed the rest of the grand house was eerily empty. He didn't linger. In a blur of motion that left his old self in the dust, he was out the front door and on the street.
Gunfire was louder to the east, so he bolted west. The ground crunched under his boots as he moved with a speed that felt both alien and perfectly natural. He wasn't just running; he was flowing over the debris, a river of orange in a landscape of gray. The plan was simple: get out of the city. He could clear the warzone entirely in an hour.
He rounded a corner and skidded to a halt.
Not twenty feet away, two soldiers in mismatched uniforms were locked in a desperate, clumsy struggle. Their rifles lay discarded, empty. They were grunting, swinging tired fists, their boots scraping on the rubble.
The logical part of his brain, the part that was Ethan the 996 worker, screamed at him. Turn around. This isn't your fight. You're on a clock.
But that part of him was being drowned out by a joyous, surging tide of pure excitement. His blood didn't just boil; it sang. A wide, uncontrollable grin split his face. The fear was gone, replaced by an electrifying thrill. These men weren't a threat. They were a challenge.
His body, now acting on an instinct far older and more primal than his own, coiled like a spring.
"Are you competing?" he yelled, his voice bright with an energy that didn't belong to him. "Count me in!"
Before they could even turn, he was a blur of orange. A sharp chop to the neck of the first soldier. A precise, powerful kick to the side of the second.
Thump. Thump.
Five seconds. Two bodies lay unconscious on the ground.
Ethan stood over them, the grin fading as a profound sense of dislocation washed over him. He looked at his hands, truly looked at them, and a shocking thought crystallized in his mind.
This wasn't just a power-up. It was a possession.
"Is this...?" he murmured to the smoking ruins around him. "Did I not only get his strength, but his personality, too?"
The first sound was not a sound at all. It was a pressure wave, a deep-throated CRUMP that vibrated through the plush mattress and rattled his teeth in his skull. Ethan's eyes shot open. The air, thick with the acrid stench of cordite, tasted like dust.
A guttural groan ripped from his throat. "Who the hell is setting off fireworks at…"
His voice trailed off. This wasn't his room.
Instead of the cracked plaster and water-stained ceiling of his cheap, old rental, he was staring up at ornate white molding. He sat bolt upright, the silk sheets pooling around a waist that felt far too narrow. The room was vast and opulent, all dark, carved mahogany and blood-red velvet curtains. Dust motes danced in the single sliver of gray light piercing the gloom. A full day off. A mythical creature for a 996 corporate drone like him, and it had been murdered in its sleep by… what?
His gaze fell upon his hands. They were impossibly small, the hands of a child, pale and without a single callus. A cold dread, slick and oily, slithered down his spine. He scrambled out of the massive bed, his bare feet hitting the hard, cool wood of the floor with a soft thud.
The mirror confirmed the nightmare.
Staring back at him was his own face, but stripped of two decades of exhaustion and cynicism. He was a boy of eleven, maybe twelve, with wide, terrified eyes. The face was his, but the memory wasn't. At this age, he'd been in a spartan boarding school dormitory that smelled of floor polish and old socks, not a palace.
BOOM!
This one was closer. The floor shuddered, and the tinkling of shattered glass echoed from somewhere outside. The sound, raw and violent, pulled him forward like a fish on a line. He reached the window, his small hands fumbling with the heavy velvet of the curtains. He tugged them aside.
And his stomach tried to crawl up his throat.
What he saw wasn't a celebration. It was an open wound. The city was a panorama of jagged skeletons that were once apartment blocks, bleeding greasy black smoke into the pale morning sky. The street below was a canvas of horror: cratered asphalt, twisted metal, and still forms sprawled in sickeningly crimson stains. A jet screamed overhead, its shadow a fleeting promise of death, followed by the distant, staccato rat-tat-tat of artillery fire.
The sounds he'd mistaken for firecrackers were the percussion of a war.
A single, primal thought screamed through his mind: Run. His body jolted, ready to flee, but his brain slammed on the brakes. Run where?
He was a child, alone in a foreign city that was actively being torn apart.
Option A: Stay here. Pray a missile doesn't decide this particular gorgeous room is its final destination.
Option B: Run outside. Try to navigate a maze of rubble and shrapnel while actively being hunted.
Both paths led to a game of Russian Roulette with a fully loaded cylinder. He was trapped, a rat in a gilded cage, and the walls were closing in.
Just as a wave of helpless nausea crested, something flickered into existence before his eyes. It was a rectangle of cold, blue light, hovering in the air and casting an ethereal glow on his face. Stark white text materialized with a soft, electronic chime.
[The Protagonist Template Random Drawing Device is activated. You have one (1) free chance to draw. Do you choose to draw?]
[YES / NO]
There was no room for disbelief. The questions of how and why were luxuries for the living. Survival was the only currency that mattered now. His finger, trembling slightly, jabbed at the glowing [YES].
The panel dissolved into a frantic, strobing kaleidoscope of light, a silent disco celebrating his potential salvation or doom. It spun for a breathless moment before snapping back into a stable rectangle.
[Drawing complete. The Protagonist Template drawn is: SUN GOKU (DRAGON BALL WORLD, AGE 13). Do you wish to load this template?]
Hope, fierce and desperate, punched through his terror. Goku at thirteen. Post-Roshi training. The World Martial Arts Tournament. A body that could treat bullets like annoying insects.
He didn't hesitate. He slammed his finger on [YES].
[Template loading: Sun Wukong (Age 13). Duration: 1 Hour. Cooldown: 24 Hours. User will temporarily gain the template's abilities, skills, and base personality traits.]
The change was instantaneous. It wasn't a painful morphing, but a seismic shift, as if his very cells, once fragile glass, had been reforged into tempered steel. A current of pure, unadulterated power thrummed beneath his skin. At the same time, a flood of memories—not his own—cascaded into his mind: the feel of a tail, the taste of a giant fish cooked over an open fire, the satisfying crunch of a well-landed kick, the simple, unwavering loyalty to friends.
He glanced back at the mirror. His face was the same, his height unchanged. But his hair now defied gravity, a wild forest of black spikes. The thin pajamas had vanished, replaced by a bright orange martial arts gi with the "Kame" symbol emblazoned on the chest and back. A smooth, red staff was now strapped diagonally across his shoulders.
One hour. The thought was a sharp, clarifying beacon. The priority hadn't changed: find a safe place. But the method of finding it had.
He burst from the room. A quick scan confirmed the rest of the grand house was eerily empty. He didn't linger. In a blur of motion that left his old self in the dust, he was out the front door and on the street.
Gunfire was louder to the east, so he bolted west. The ground crunched under his boots as he moved with a speed that felt both alien and perfectly natural. He wasn't just running; he was flowing over the debris, a river of orange in a landscape of gray. The plan was simple: get out of the city. He could clear the warzone entirely in an hour.
He rounded a corner and skidded to a halt.
Not twenty feet away, two soldiers in mismatched uniforms were locked in a desperate, clumsy struggle. Their rifles lay discarded, empty. They were grunting, swinging tired fists, their boots scraping on the rubble.
The logical part of his brain, the part that was Ethan the 996 worker, screamed at him. Turn around. This isn't your fight. You're on a clock.
But that part of him was being drowned out by a joyous, surging tide of pure excitement. His blood didn't just boil; it sang. A wide, uncontrollable grin split his face. The fear was gone, replaced by an electrifying thrill. These men weren't a threat. They were a challenge.
His body, now acting on an instinct far older and more primal than his own, coiled like a spring.
"Are you competing?" he yelled, his voice bright with an energy that didn't belong to him. "Count me in!"
Before they could even turn, he was a blur of orange. A sharp chop to the neck of the first soldier. A precise, powerful kick to the side of the second.
Thump. Thump.
Five seconds. Two bodies lay unconscious on the ground.
Ethan stood over them, the grin fading as a profound sense of dislocation washed over him. He looked at his hands, truly looked at them, and a shocking thought crystallized in his mind.
This wasn't just a power-up. It was a possession.
"Is this...?" he murmured to the smoking ruins around him. "Did I not only get his strength, but his personality, too?"