June 15, 2012Midtown High School, New York.
The old gymnasium was Hawk's personal purgatory. The air, thick with the ghosts of a thousand workouts, smelled of rusted iron, stale sweat, and decaying leather. Dust motes danced like frantic spirits in the weak afternoon light that slanted through the grimy, high windows. In the corner, a single fluorescent light flickered erratically, casting long, dancing shadows that made the cavernous room feel both larger and more oppressive. This forgotten corner of Midtown High was his sanctuary and his cage.
For hours, the only sound had been the relentless, percussive rhythm of his fists meeting the heavy bag. It was a brutal metronome counting down the final moments of a three-year ordeal.
Hawk was seventeen, but his body was a testament to a singular, obsessive purpose. He was drenched, his cheap grey t-shirt plastered to his torso like a second skin, heavy with the sheer volume of sweat he had produced. It trickled in stinging rivulets down his temples, carving clean paths through the grime on his face before dripping from his sharp jawline onto the warped wooden floor. His knuckles were raw, the skin split and calloused over so many times they looked like worn stones. A deep, burning ache had settled into his bones—a familiar fire that was both agony and proof of his effort.
Three years ago, he'd been a scrawny teenager, all sharp angles and barely-there muscle. Now, his body was a tightly-wound machine. He wasn't bulky like the jocks who sometimes wandered in here to lift weights. He was lean, corded with the kind of dense, wiry muscle forged not by lifting, but by endless repetition. Every sinew in his back and shoulders rippled with the force of his blows, a visible manifestation of the power he had painstakingly built, one punch at a time. This body was the first and only thing in this life he had truly earned.
His mind, honed by the same discipline, was a steel trap, focusing only on the numbers.
Nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-eight!
Nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine!
He exhaled sharply, his breath a white plume in the cool air. He sidestepped the bag's heavy, retaliatory swing, his feet moving with an ingrained economy of motion. The heavy chains holding the sandbag shrieked in protest, a metallic cry against the percussive thuds that had echoed in this room for 999 consecutive days.
One more to go. The final punch of the day. The final punch before the dawn.
Ten thousand!
This last strike was different. He planted his feet, drawing a deep, shuddering breath. He didn't just put his arm into it; he poured every ounce of his three-year-long frustration, his solitude, his burning hope into a single, explosive point. Power coiled in his core like a compressed spring, surging from his legs, through his torso, and into his clenched fist. He unleashed it all in a single, devastating blow that shot forward like a piston.
CRACK!
The sound wasn't the usual dull thud. It was sharp, definitive, like a rifle shot in the enclosed space. The worn leather of the sandbag, already battered beyond its limits, ruptured violently. The heavy iron chain, stressed by millions of impacts, snapped with a final, ringing report. The bag was launched across the room as if hit by a car, slamming into the floor with a heavy, ground-shaking boom that sent a cloud of dust and sand billowing into the air.
Silence descended, absolute and profound.
"Hah… Hah… Haaah…"
Hawk stood locked in place, his arm still extended. His whole body trembled with reaction, his lungs burning as he gasped for air. A wave of profound exhaustion, held at bay by sheer willpower, crashed over him. His legs felt weak, his arms like lead. But his eyes, sharp and intense, were not on the destroyed bag. They were fixed on the translucent screen floating in his vision, a sight for his eyes only, its cool, blue light a stark contrast to the grime of the gym.
[Cosmo Awakening][Status: Not Activated][Activation Requirement: Ten thousand punches daily for 1,000 consecutive days.][Activation Progress: 999 / 1,000]
Almost there.
A surge of fierce, triumphant anticipation cut through the pain and exhaustion like a lightning bolt. One more day. After three years—1,094 days of this grueling, monastic routine, with only 999 of them counting for the system—it was all coming down to tomorrow.
This strange system had appeared in his mind on September 10th, 2009. He'd never forget the date. He'd been in the school library, trying to finish his homework, when the ground began to tremble. Distant sirens wailed, soon drowned out by a deafening, monstrous roar that seemed to shake the soul. Everyone had crowded around the library's televisions, watching the live news feed in horror. The Hulk and the Abomination were turning Harlem into their personal battlefield.
He watched, paralyzed, as these god-like monsters tossed cars like toys and smashed buildings with casual, terrifying force. He wasn't a native of this world; he was a transmigrator, a soul from a normal Earth reborn here. He knew the script. But seeing it live, feeling the distant tremors of that battle, smelling the smoke on the wind—it was a visceral, horrifying lesson. The heroes and villains of the comic books were real, and their battles didn't care about the mortals caught in the crossfire. In that moment, he understood a critical truth: this world could kill you for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was nothing. Powerless.
It was in that moment of existential dread, of feeling like an ant in a world of giants, that the system flickered into his consciousness. It wasn't a voice or a flash of light. It was just… there. A calm, logical interface offering a single, impossible path forward. A path to power.
From that day on, his life, already spartan, was stripped down to a singular purpose. His excellent grades had earned him a scholarship to Midtown High, but it was the basic model. His grades were good, but they weren't Gwen Stacy good. He saw her in the halls, brilliant and seemingly effortless, collecting awards and accolades while he fought just to keep the scholarship that waived his tuition. It was a constant reminder of the gap between him and the world's elite.
He made it work. As a ward of the state, he received an eight-hundred-dollar federal orphan subsidy and a five-hundred-dollar state grant for attending an elite school. That was thirteen hundred dollars a month. His life became a masterclass in ruthless frugality. Five hundred for his tiny, sterile welfare apartment and the most basic food. The other eight hundred went straight into a savings account—his "war chest."
His daily routine was an ironclad loop. Awake before dawn. Catch the earliest school bus in to avoid the crowds. After the final bell, he wouldn't go home; he'd come straight here, to the gym. He'd train until his body gave out, shower in the cold, echoing locker room, then catch the last school bus home. He had no phone bill, no internet bill—the library computers were free. With no family to call, his life was stripped down to its barest essentials: study, train, survive.
His only real indulgence, a calculated break in the monotony, was a large bucket of cheap fried chicken every now and then. He justified it as fuel for the machine his body had become, a necessary infusion of protein and fat to keep up with the brutal energy expenditure. It was a tiny island of flavor in a sea of bland, functional eating.
Thanks to this unwavering discipline, he'd managed to save over thirty thousand dollars. It was a safety net, a ticket out of town if a Chitauri invasion or something worse ever happened. But he knew it was nothing against the real dangers of this world. Money couldn't stop a falling skyscraper.
He had embraced the pain, the loneliness, and the crushing monotony. His core principle was simple and absolute.
He could skip a meal. He could never skip his ten thousand punches.
Now, standing in the quiet, wrecked gym, the promise of real power, the power to not just survive but to act, was finally within his grasp.
The dawn of victory was finally here. Tomorrow, everything would change.