I woke up to my alarm and the weight of a hundred years of knowledge settling into my brain like it had always been there.
The nosebleed had stopped sometime in the night. The blood was dried on my pillowcase, a dark stain that I'd have to clean later. My eyes still felt a little raw, but the headache was gone, replaced by a clarity that made everything seem sharper, brighter, more real.
I sat up and stretched. My body moved differently now—not just because of the muscle, but because of the knowledge. I understood biomechanics now. I knew exactly how each joint should move, how each muscle should fire. The martial arts training had given me the instinct, but the engineering knowledge gave me the theory.
I showered, dressed in the new clothes, and made breakfast. A receipt for a diner breakfast—pancakes, eggs, bacon, orange juice—and I was eating within minutes. The food tasted better now, or maybe I just appreciated it more. Either way, I ate until I was full and then ate a little more.
The backpack was packed from yesterday. Notebooks, pens, calculator, a few textbooks I didn't need. I checked it twice, then slung it over my shoulder and headed out.
The walk to school was ordinary.
The sun was up, the sky was clear, and the city was waking up around me. Cars rolled past, people walked their dogs, shopkeepers opened their doors. Normal life. The kind of life I'd been ignoring for weeks.
I thought about the receipts in my lockbox. About the knowledge in my head. About the drones waiting in my apartment. All of that was real, but so was this. The sidewalk under my feet. The cool morning air. The sound of birds that didn't care about Viltrumites or Cursed Energy or any of it.
I decided, right then, that I was going to enjoy today.
No training. No scheming. No planning for the end of the world. Just... school. Being a kid. Figuring out what that even meant anymore.
The front doors of Reginald V. High School were the same as yesterday. Students milled around, laughing, talking, living their lives. I walked through the crowd, and people moved out of my way without thinking about it. At six-two and two hundred twenty pounds, I had a presence now that I hadn't had before.
I found my locker—number 347, near the science wing—and spun the combination. The lock clicked open on the first try. I put my backpack inside, pulled out the notebook I needed for first period, and closed the door.
"Hey! Ren!"
I turned. Mark Grayson was walking toward me, a backpack slung over one shoulder, a smile on his face. He was shorter than me—a lot shorter—but he moved with an easy confidence that made him seem bigger than he was.
"Hey, Mark."
"You're here early." He stopped next to me, looking up at my face. "Dude, you're tall. I didn't notice yesterday."
"Late growth spurt."
"Lucky. I've been waiting for mine for like two years." He grinned. "You want to walk to class together? We've got English first, right?"
"Right."
We walked down the hall together, and I felt something I hadn't expected. Comfort. Mark was easy to be around. He didn't stare at my arms or ask about my workout routine or try to recruit me for a sports team. He just... talked.
"So," he said, "what do you think of the school so far?"
"It's a school."
"Wow. Glowing review." He laughed. "No, I mean, like, the people. Have you met anyone interesting?"
"Some jocks tried to recruit me for football yesterday."
"Classic. Derek Stillman?"
"Yeah."
"He does that. He recruited me for football too, and I'm half your size." Mark shook his head. "He's a good guy, though. A little intense, but good."
We turned the corner and walked into Room 204. The classroom was half-empty, students scattered across the desks. Mark headed for a seat near the middle, and I followed, sitting down next to him.
"This is where I usually sit," he said, gesturing to the desk on his left. "William sits there, but he's not here yet. He's always late."
"William?"
"My best friend. William Clockwell. You'll like him. He's... a lot. But you'll like him."
William arrived two minutes before the bell.
He was shorter than Mark, with brown skin, dark hair, and the kind of energy that filled a room. He burst through the door like he was late for everything, spotted Mark, and beelined for the desk next to him.
"Sorry sorry sorry," he said, dropping his bag on the floor. "My mom's car wouldn't start and I had to take the bus and the bus was late and—" He stopped, noticing me. "Who's this?"
"Ren," Mark said. "New kid. Well, not new. He was out for a while. Now he's back."
William looked me up and down. His eyes widened slightly when he took in my size, but he recovered quickly. "William Clockwell. Professional best friend. Amateur everything else."
"Ren Akiyama. Professional student. Amateur... nothing, really."
William laughed. "I like him. Can we keep him?"
Mark shrugged. "He seems house-trained."
The teacher walked in, and the conversation stopped. But I could feel William's eyes on me throughout the period, curious, assessing. He was trying to figure me out. I didn't mind. Let him try.
Second period was math.
Mark and I had the same class again, and this time William was there too. We sat together in the back row, and I watched the teacher write equations on the board that I could have solved in my sleep.
"Hey," William whispered, leaning over. "You play video games?"
"Sometimes."
"What do you play?"
"I haven't played much lately. Been busy."
"Busy doing what?"
I thought about it. Building drones. Selling weapons. Learning a hundred years of engineering in an afternoon. "Lifting things. Opening jars."
William snorted. "That's a weird hobby."
"Very weird," Mark agreed.
I shrugged. "It keeps me out of trouble."
"Does it, though?" William's eyes glinted. "Because you look like the kind of guy who gets into trouble just by existing."
I didn't have an answer for that. Mostly because he wasn't wrong.
Lunch was in the cafeteria.
Mark led me to the table near the windows—the one he'd pointed out yesterday—and introduced me to the rest of his friends. There was Eve, a girl with green eyes and an easy smile who seemed smarter than everyone else in the room. There was Rick, a quiet kid with glasses who nodded at me and went back to his book. There were a few others whose names I forgot immediately.
"So," William said, sliding into the seat across from me, "tell us everything. Where did you come from? Where have you been? Why are you so tall? I need answers."
"I came from an apartment. I've been there. And I'm tall because I drink milk."
"That's not answers. That's evasion."
"I'm an evasive person."
William pointed a french fry at me. "I'm watching you, Ren Akiyama. I'm watching you very closely."
Mark laughed. "Leave him alone, William. He just got here."
"He's mysterious, Mark. Mysterious people are interesting. Interesting people are worth watching."
Eve rolled her eyes. "You think everyone is interesting."
"Because everyone is interesting. Except Mr. Connelly. He's boring."
"Mr. Connelly is the principal," Mark explained. "William got sent to his office last week for setting off a stink bomb in the chemistry lab."
"It was an experiment," William said. "The scientific method requires testing."
"The scientific method does not require stink bombs."
"Counterpoint: it definitely does."
I found myself smiling. Real smiling, not the kind I did when I was scheming or planning or pretending. Just... smiling. Because these kids were funny. Because they were normal. Because for a few minutes, I wasn't Ren Akiyama, the kid with thirteen drones and a hundred years of knowledge. I was just Ren, the new guy, eating lunch with people who didn't know what I was capable of.
It was nice.
The rest of the lunch period was a blur of conversation.
William asked me a hundred questions, most of which I answered vaguely. Mark talked about a comic book he was reading. Eve mentioned something about a project she was working on—something artistic, I wasn't really paying attention. Rick showed me a book he was reading, some sci-fi novel I'd never heard of.
At one point, Derek the football jock walked by and clapped me on the shoulder. "Ren! You think about what I said?"
"I'm thinking about it."
"Think faster. Season starts in two months." He walked off before I could respond.
William stared after him. "Derek Stillman just touched you. Do you know how rare that is? He doesn't touch people he doesn't respect."
"He wants me to play football."
"Ah. That makes sense." William nodded sagely. "You've got the build for it. Big, tall, strong. You'd make a good lineman."
"I don't know anything about football."
"Neither do I. But I know people who do." He pointed at Mark. "Mark knows everything about football. He's obsessed."
"I'm not obsessed," Mark said. "I just... appreciate the strategy."
"He watches game recordings for fun."
"Strategy is fun."
Eve snorted. "You two are impossible."
I leaned back in my chair and listened to them argue about sports versus art versus whatever else came up. The noise of the cafeteria faded into the background. The sun streamed through the windows. And for a little while, I forgot about Viltrumites and Cursed Energy and the weight of everything I was carrying.
The afternoon classes were uneventful.
History. Science. A study hall where I pretended to read a textbook while actually designing a new drone in my head. Mark was in my study hall, and we sat next to each other, not really talking, just existing in the same space.
"You're quiet," he said at one point.
"I'm thinking."
"About what?"
"Lots of things."
He nodded, accepting the non-answer. "You know, you're different."
"Different how?"
"I don't know. You just... seem like you're not really here. Like you're somewhere else in your head."
I looked at him. Really looked at him. Mark Grayson, fourteen years old, son of the most powerful being on the planet. He had no idea what was coming. No idea what his father was. No idea that in a few years, everything he knew would be destroyed.
"I'm here," I said. "I'm just... figuring things out."
"Figured anything out yet?"
"Not really. But I'm working on it."
He smiled. It was a good smile, genuine and warm. "Well, if you need help figuring anything out, let me know. I'm good at listening."
"Thanks, Mark."
"No problem."
The final bell rang at 3:15.
I packed my bag, said goodbye to Mark and William, and headed for the front doors. The day had been... good. Better than good, actually. I'd talked to people. Laughed at jokes. Felt like a normal kid for a few hours.
It wouldn't last. I knew that. But for now, for this one day, I let myself enjoy it.
I walked down the front steps and onto the sidewalk, heading toward the bus stop. The street was busy—cars, pedestrians, the usual after-school crowd. I pulled out my phone, checked the time, and started walking.
That's when the wall exploded.
The sound was deafening.
Glass shattered. Brick crumbled. A shockwave slammed into me, pushing me back a step, and debris flew through the air in a cloud of dust and smoke. People screamed. Cars screeched to a halt. The street turned into chaos in the span of a heartbeat.
I looked at the building. It was a jewelry store—small, family-owned, the kind of place that had been there for decades. The front wall was gone, reduced to rubble, and through the dust I could see figures moving inside.
Two of them. Maybe three. Dressed in dark clothes, masks over their faces. One of them was holding a bag, stuffing it with jewelry from the display cases. The other was waving a gun at the terrified employees.
Robbers. Just robbers. In a world of superheroes and aliens, this was small-time. Ordinary.
But the debris was still falling.
I saw it before anyone else did. A chunk of brick, the size of a cinder block, falling toward a woman who was frozen in the middle of the street. She wasn't moving. Wasn't running. Just standing there, her mouth open, her eyes wide, watching death fall toward her.
I reached out with Sky Manipulation.
The technique came easier now than it ever had before. The hundred years of knowledge in my head didn't apply directly to Cursed Energy—it was a different system, a different logic. But the cognitive enhancement that came with Puppet Manipulation had made my mind sharper, faster, more capable of processing complex information. And Sky Manipulation was all about information. The pressure of the air. The trajectory of falling objects. The exact amount of force needed to redirect a brick without crushing the person it was falling toward while also giving me a more inadept perception of how wrongly i was treating my cursed energy that made it feel like abuse if it was a leaving entity .
I wrapped the brick in a layer of compressed air and pushed.
The brick veered left, missing the woman by inches, and crashed into the sidewalk instead. She stumbled backward, fell, scrambled to her feet, and ran.
No one noticed me. No one saw the brick change direction. The chaos was too loud, the dust too thick, the screaming too constant.
I pulled my hood up and walked away.
The alley was dark and narrow, the kind of place where shadows lived.
I stood with my back against the wall, my heart pounding, my breath coming in short gasps. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a cold clarity.
I could walk away. No one had seen me. No one knew what I'd done. I could go home, work on my drones, study my textbooks, and pretend this had never happened.
But the woman was safe. The debris had missed her. That was enough. That had to be enough.
I started walking toward the other end of the alley, toward the street that would take me home.
And then I heard it.
A sound. Small. Quiet. Coming from behind a dumpster at the far end of the alley.
Crying.
I stopped. Turned. Walked toward the sound.
Behind the dumpster, huddled against the wall, was a little girl. Maybe seven years old. Dark hair, dark eyes, a pink backpack with cartoon characters on it. Her face was streaked with tears, her hands were shaking, and she was staring at the alley entrance like she expected something terrible to come through it.
She'd been walking home from school. The jewelry store was on her route. She'd seen the explosion, seen the debris, seen the chaos. And she'd run. Run into the alley, hidden behind the dumpster, and waited for someone to save her.
No one was coming.
I stood there for a long moment, looking at her. At her fear. At her helplessness.
I thought about the woman in the alley. The one I'd saved from those men. I thought about how I'd felt afterward—empty, detached, like it didn't matter. But this was different. This was a child. A little girl who needed someone to be brave.
I couldn't walk away.
I pulled out my phone and sent a command to my drones. Thirteen of them, scattered across the city, responding to my call. They'd be here in minutes.
Then I reached into my backpack and pulled out a receipt. A hoodie—plain, black, nondescript. The kind of thing I'd bought yesterday and kept the receipt for. I pushed my Cursed Energy into it, and the hoodie appeared in my hands. I pulled it on over my clothes, zipped it up, and pulled the hood over my head.
The little girl looked up at me. Her eyes were wide, scared.
"It's okay," I said, keeping my voice low, calm. "I'm going to help you. But I need you to stay here, stay quiet, and don't come out until I come back. Can you do that?"
She nodded slowly.
"Good girl."
I turned and walked toward the street. The sounds of chaos were still there—sirens, screaming, the distant pop of gunfire. The robbers were still inside the jewelry store, still threatening the employees, still thinking they were going to get away.
They were wrong.
I stepped out of the alley and into the chaos. My drones were approaching—I could feel them through the Puppet Manipulation connection, thirteen sets of eyes, thirteen weapons, thirteen extensions of my will.
The fight was about to begin.
And for the first time since I'd woken up in this world, I wasn't fighting for myself.
I was fighting for her.