In an apartment building, a twenty-two-year-old unemployed man lay on his sleeping mattress, living alone after his father's death. To cover the sadness and emptiness he felt, he scrolled through his phone with no intention of stopping.
Then he came across an interesting video. It was an Inferno Jae video about choosing between the powers of four fictional characters: Peter Parker, Midoriya Izuku, Mark Grayson, and Bruce Wayne (Absolute), with the catch that you would have to fight their villains.
He started thinking about the best choice based on the ceiling of power he could achieve, as well as the risk of facing each character's villains.
After a few minutes, he decided Mark Grayson was the best choice in his opinion. You got the basic Superman package, without any Kryptonian-specific abilities, plus Smart Atoms, which granted the user reactive adaptation.
Compared to the other three, they were either too underwhelming or too risky, even with the powers provided to fight the villains.
With that thought in mind, he began leaving a comment under the video.
[HanmaBaki: I'd rather choose Mark since you could train yourself to get stronger with time and survive all those fights.]
Right after leaving the comment, he decided to read a few of the others. He nodded as he scrolled through them, then opened the newest comments. He noticed one so idiotic he felt the need to reply, and he did.
[SpiderGod8: I'd pick Peter because if Peter could handle it, I can. And most of the problems can be handled by killing his enemies.]
[HanmaBaki: Bro, are you for real? You can't handle it. You're forgetting something: his villains include herald-tier enemies and cosmic beings, like Knull.]
After that comment, he decided to scroll again. But then a notification appeared. He checked it. It was a reply to his message. As he read it, he felt his temper rise, and the comment replies began.
[SpiderGod8: And?]
[HanmaBaki: You're delusional, bro.]
[SpiderGod8: No, I'm not. I'm pretty sure I can survive as Peter Parker.]
[HanmaBaki: Do you even understand the hypothetical we're having? We choose their powers, not become them. Bro, you're dumb.]
[SpiderGod8: And? I'm still confident I can survive his villains. They're not that strong.]
[HanmaBaki: Morlun? Knull? Venom? Carnage? Mephisto?]
Then the guy suddenly went silent. Notifications didn't come as fast as they had before. He smirked and let out a small chuckle, already knowing he had won the argument.
'Haha, he backed down. He's got no counterargument.'
Suddenly, notifications popped up again. The guy replied, not finished with the debate, and even challenged him this time.
[SpiderGod8: If you're so confident, I bet you can't survive in Mark's place.]
[HanmaBaki: I can survive even better in Mark's place and get far stronger than Mark ever could, and faster.]
[SpiderGod8: Let's see about that.]
He stared at the comment, confused. Why did the guy say it like that, like he could actually do something to him? But in the back of his mind, he felt a slight twinge of worry that the guy might track him. He glanced at the time on his phone and saw it was currently 3:35 AM.
'It's too late. I need to sleep and find a job.'
He decided not to scroll anymore after the debate he had just had with a random person. He shook his head, annoyed that he had gotten so heated with someone so idiotic in his opinion. He closed his phone and rolled onto his side, letting the familiar quiet of the empty apartment settle over him. Sleep came peacefully, and he didn't give the conversation another thought. This was just a normal day for him.
. . . .
"Why is it so bright? Who the hell turned on the light?"
A seventeen-year-old male with black hair muttered as the sun kissed his face through the window, shining directly into his eyes. The bright light stung as he covered his face and began wiping his eyes.
"Argh."
He sat up, annoyed and now unable to go back to sleep after being ambushed by the sun. Then he finally noticed something wrong. The whole room felt cool, and his house only had a fan.
As he looked around, he was confused as hell. He was somewhere he didn't recognize. This was not the living room. He was sitting on a bed with a blanket draped over it. Next to the bed was a bedside table cluttered with random items. At the foot of the bed stood a drawer cabinet. Posters hung around the walls, and most importantly, the room was messy.
"Where the hell is this?"
His current situation baffled him because it seemed impossible. Every logical reason he thought of couldn't explain why he was here. He felt like this was one of those fanfics he used to read.
With that epiphany, only a few explanations remained. He quickly ran to the window on his right to check his reflection. He instantly noticed the difference in his face and his body.
"That is not me."
He began touching his face, his hair, and his body in surprise. One fantasy scenario had just happened in real life, something he had imagined in the past. Transmigration.
'I'm not fat anymore, and most importantly, I don't have a receding hairline.'
He smirked, but then worry seeped into his mind. If this was really happening, what world was he in? Who was he? He didn't know what kind of danger he would face in the future.
In a hurry, he began searching for a wallet to find an ID belonging to the body he currently inhabited. He quickly started rummaging and, at the same time, tidied the room so it would be easier to find things.
"Found it."
He pulled out the wallet from a pair of pants, then took out the ID to see who he was. He felt a twinge of anxiety about who he had become in this world.
"Markus Sebastian Grayson."
He tilted his head, eyebrows scrunched, and began thinking about which fictional character had this name. Before he could find the answer on his own, the door to his room was opened by someone.
It was a woman who shared a resemblance to his face. The body's mother. She had black hair tied up in a bun and wore earrings. It was Deborah Grayson, known as Debbie.
"Oh, Mark, you're already awake? Get ready. You'll be late for school," Debbie reminded him as she headed back downstairs.
The name she called him instantly clicked in his mind. He now knew who he had become, and he also knew who the likely perpetrator was that sent him here.
"This can't be happening."
He was shocked but smiling either way, because this was a dream come true. It basically fixed his trashy life, the result of his own incompetent actions and having no pillar of support left in his past life.
'Thanks. I'm very glad I had that debate with you, even if you are an idiot. Now I can have a new life, and an easy one. But first, I need to make a plan to survive as Mark.'
He accepted his new identity, burying the old one deep in his heart. Excitement grew within him, as he never thought this could actually happen.
"I can live with this and become Mark Grayson."
He sounded a bit too eager, regardless of the future that would depend on his hard work and discipline, which would shape him into a new person.