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 WOKONG (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.
Hawking 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?"