Jack was dreaming.
But it didn't feel like a normal dream.
It felt like memories.
Scenes flashed through his mind, one after another.
A different world. Cities. Technology. Movies.
Comics about superheroes.
Iron Man.
Captain America.
Thor.
The Hulk.
The Avengers.
Jack jolted awake.
"Haah—!"
He sat up in bed, breathing hard.
Sweat covered his face. His heart was going crazy.
"What the hell..."
His head hurt. Not like a normal headache.
It felt like someone had forced thousands of thoughts into his brain all at once.
Memories.
Two full sets of them.
One from this life.
One from somewhere else.
Slowly, the pain faded.
His mind went quiet.
Jack stared at the wall of his small apartment room.
"...I died."
He remembered now.
In his past life, he was just a regular guy.
He spent his free time reading novels, watching anime, browsing the internet.
Nothing special.
Then one day — an accident.
After that, darkness.
And then... he was born again.
Jack rubbed his eyes.
"I've been living here for eighteen years..."
He looked down at his hands.
Young hands. Strong. Eighteen years old.
"And I only remember my past life now?"
That was strange.
In most reincarnation stories the memories came back right away.
His took eighteen years.
He walked to the mirror.
A young man looked back at him.
Black hair. Sharp eyes. Lean build.
Not bad.
"At least the reincarnation wasn't ugly."
But then something hit him.
Something in those memories that made his chest feel tight.
This world.
He knew this world.
He walked to his desk and turned on the small TV.
The news was playing.
And on the screen was a very familiar face.
Tony Stark.
The billionaire. The genius. The playboy.
Jack sat down slowly.
"So it really is Marvel..."
He had grown up in this world for eighteen years. He already knew some things.
Tony Stark was famous worldwide.
There were stories of a war hero from World War Two called Captain America.
The public records called him just a soldier. No mention of super powers.
Of course the government would hide that.
Jack leaned back in his chair.
The year was 2008.
Which meant one very important thing.
"This is the year Iron Man starts."
The beginning of everything.
Gods. Aliens. Monsters. World-ending disasters.
And at the end of all of it — Thanos.
Any normal person would be shaking right now.
But Jack felt calm.
Maybe because this was already his home. He had lived here his whole life.
And now he had one advantage nobody else had.
He knew what was coming.
Jack stood up and stretched.
"Knowing the future is great... but it doesn't make me strong."
He was still just a human. If an alien invasion happened tomorrow he would die like everyone else.
"Reincarnating without powers is basically useless."
But right at that moment —
Something appeared.
A blue screen. Floating in the air. Right in front of his face.
Jack froze.
"What..."
The screen flickered. Then text appeared.
[ Player Memory Detected ]
[ Reincarnation Confirmed ]
[ Karma Reward — Initializing... ]
"...A system?"
Before he could say anything else —
A burst of green light flashed.
Something heavy landed on his wrist.
Jack looked down.
A black and green watch sat on his arm. The symbol on the dial was a glowing white hourglass.
His heart nearly stopped.
"...No way."
"Omnitrix."
The device created by the greatest mind in the universe — Azmuth.
A watch that could turn the user into any alien species stored in its database.
Powerful enough to change the fate of an entire universe.
Jack stared at it. His brain went blank for a full second.
The system screen came back.
[ Omnitrix Bound to Host ]
[ Starter Alien — Available ]
[ Unlock more aliens through Hero Points ]
Jack looked at the last line.
"Hero Points."
He tapped the screen in his mind. More information loaded.
Hero Points were earned by doing heroic things.
Stopping crimes. Saving lives. Protecting people.
Spend them to unlock new aliens.
Clear enough.
He pushed that aside for now.
Because the Omnitrix was sitting on his wrist and it was very real.
It looked different from the classic cartoon version. Sleeker. Smaller.
More like the Alien Force model.
Jack touched the dial carefully.
*KRR-CHAK!*
The Omnitrix lit up. A green hologram appeared.
One alien available. A dark silhouette. He didn't recognize it.
He looked at the door. Locked.
He looked at the window. Curtains closed.
Good enough.
His heart was pounding. His hands were shaking slightly.
But his face had a huge grin on it.
He raised his arm. Pressed the dial. And shouted the words.
"IT'S HERO TIME!"
The dial slammed down.
Green light filled the entire room.
His bones shifted.
His shape twisted.
Everything changed at once.
Then the light faded.
"...Did it work?"
His voice sounded wrong. Too high. Too strange.
He walked to the mirror.
And froze.
Looking back at him was not a human.
It was a tiny blue alien.
Fish-like. Small fins for arms. Thin legs.
A dorsal fin on its back. Big green eyes blinking at him.
Jack stared.
"...Seriously?"
He knew this alien.
"Walkatrout."
The most useless alien in the entire Omnitrix.
Jack closed his eyes. Took a slow breath.
"My heroic new life... starts with a slippery fish."
But even so —
A small smile appeared on his face.
Because this was proof.
The Omnitrix was real.
The system was real.
His new life in the Marvel Universe had just begun.
And it was going to get interesting.