Part 2: The Blue Box
He sat on the edge of the bed for the next hour, staring at the hole in the wall. He didn't panic. Panic was a luxury he couldn't afford. He was in the MCU. He had apparently been gifted with low-level super strength just for showing up. He had no identity, no money, and no plan.
And then, finally, the screen appeared.
It wasn't flashy. It wasn't a video game HUD. It was a simple, translucent blue rectangle that hovered in the center of his vision, like a command prompt on an old CRT monitor.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE.]
[Host: Noah Kim (Designation: "The Correction")]
[Dimensional Anchor: Earth-199999]
[Core Function: Anime Template Emulation]
Noah exhaled. "Thank you," he breathed. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
He read the next lines carefully. They didn't auto-scroll. He had to think about scrolling, and the text obeyed.
[Status: Passive Integration]
[Current Template Slot: EMPTY]
[Passive Buff Active: "Otherworldly Metabolism" - Host body is fortified against local dimensional stress. Increased durability, stamina, and sensory perception relative to baseline human of Earth-199999.]
That explains the wall, Noah thought. He wasn't superhuman by MCU standards—not like Steve Rogers—but he was probably closer to a peak human from the comics. A very confused, very scared peak human.
[Tutorial: Template Acquisition]
[The System provides access to the "Lattice of Heroes." This is a conceptual archive of narrative archetypes from a source dimension (Designation: "Anime").]
[Due to low energy reserves, System cannot grant permanent access to a Template.]
[Initial Mode: "Draw."]
[The Host may draw ONE (1) Template from the Lattice per cycle.]
[Current Draw Available: YES.]
[Duration: Unknown / Variable. Cooldown: Variable.]
That was the catch. It wasn't a "pick your favorite character" situation. It was a gacha. A slot machine of superpowers. And he only got one pull to start.
"What happens if I get... I don't know, the guy from Excel Saga?" Noah muttered. "I need something that can keep me alive when a Chitauri whale falls on my head."
He stood up. He walked to the center of the small apartment. He took a deep breath, the smell of old brick and hot garbage filling his lungs. He focused on the blue screen.
[Draw Template? YES / NO]
Noah thought: YES.
The screen vanished. For a moment, there was nothing. Then the world broke.
It wasn't a flash of light. It was a collapse of perspective. The walls of the apartment stretched away from him, warping like a fisheye lens. The sounds of the city—the sirens, the horns, the rumble of the subway beneath the street—were sucked out of the room, replaced by a roaring, profound silence. It was the silence of a vacuum. The silence of space.
And then the weight hit him.
Noah's knees buckled. He didn't fall gracefully; he crashed down onto all fours, the floorboards groaning in protest. It wasn't just the physical weight of his own body feeling ten times heavier. It was a conceptual weight. It was the pressure of a billion exploding suns, the gravity of a dying planet, the endless, screaming determination of a warrior who refused to stay dead.
Images flooded his mind. Not clear pictures, but impressions. A tail wrapped around a waist. Orange gi stained with blood. The taste of Senzu Beans. A face looking up at a full moon, eyes turning red. The sound of a voice, high-pitched and full of cheerful naivety, screaming with a fury that shook the heavens.
[Template Acquisition Successful.]
[Template: Son Goku (Dragon Ball Z - Saiyan Saga)]
[Template Synchronization: 2.7%... 5.1%... 11.4%...]
The number was climbing slowly, but the pressure in the room was not. Noah gritted his teeth. He felt like his bones were going to snap. This wasn't just "getting Goku's powers." This was trying to pour the Pacific Ocean into a teacup. His body was the teacup.
He saw a flicker of the System's warning in the corner of his eye, but it was hard to read through the pain.
[WARNING: Template Overload Imminent. Host Vessel Incompatible with Full Template Integration.]
[Compensation: Limiter Engaged. Template Output Capped at 0.0001% of Source Strength.]
The pressure vanished.
Noah gasped, sucking in air like a drowning man. He was drenched in sweat. The floor around him was cracked in a spiderweb pattern, as if something very heavy had been pressing down exactly where he was kneeling. He shakily pushed himself back up to sit against the bed frame.
He looked at the blue screen, his vision still blurry with tears of pain.
[Template Active: Son Goku (Restricted)]
[Time Remaining: Unknown (Fluctuating).]
[Active Abilities Granted (Current Threshold):]
· Enhanced Saiyan Physiology (Dormant): Passive strength and durability increased 500x. Reaction speed adapted to high-velocity combat.
· Ki Sense (Rudimentary): Host can now perceive the "life force" of other beings within a 50-foot radius. It manifests as a faint, color-coded pressure in the mind. (Currently: 47 signatures in the building. Mostly weak. One slightly stronger on the floor above. A dog?)
· Afterimage Technique (Instinctual): Host can move at speeds that leave brief, tangible afterimages.
That was it. No Kamehameha. No flight. No Instant Transmission. He had the body of a Saiyan infant, effectively. He was, by the standards of Dragon Ball Z, so weak he would be laughed out of a World Tournament prelim match. But by the standards of Earth-199999 in 2008? He had just become one of the most physically dangerous beings on the planet.
Noah sat there, breathing. He could feel them now. The little lights. Forty-seven of them. Mrs. Kowalski in 2B had a faint, flickering light, like a candle in a draft—probably age and a bad heart. The guy above him was a solid, greenish glow. The dog was a tiny, frantic, bright yellow spark.
He flexed his hand. He didn't feel strong. He felt... light. The air itself felt different. It was heavy and full, like swimming through a thin syrup. He realized that with a tiny push, he could probably move faster than a car on the highway.
He stood up. He took a step toward the window. His body blurred. He was suddenly standing at the window, his nose almost touching the glass. He looked back. There was a faint, translucent outline of himself still standing by the bed. It faded after half a second.
"Holy shit," he whispered.