Who the fuck is Enerjak? It was the first thing Ethan thought of seeing that name.
In his entire life, he had never seen or heard of anyone with that name. Which was strange, because it was certainly a very memorable one.
And apparently, he belonged to the Sonic franchise.
Despite not being a big fan of the games, Ethan was more or less informed about the universe of the blue speedster hedgehog outside and inside the comics. Fleetway, Archie and in the end IDW.
Although he had never read any edition of any of the publishers.
But from what he could imagine by the name and the things that appeared regularly in the Sonic universe, Ethan thought that Enerjak should be some other speedster hedgehog enemy of Sonic, because villains always have the most flashy names.
Or, knowing how unlucky he was, he thought that Enerjak could be some scenery character who only appeared once and was forgotten later.
Even if his new system was probably his chance to survive in this universe without clear and super chaotic laws that was Marvel, his natural pessimism prevented him from believing that he had won something good.
[ ... You don't really know Enerjak, right? ]
The voice of the system brought him back to reality once again. It would still take him a while to get used to having a voice other than his inside your head.
"No, is it an important character by any chance? " Ethan asked genuinely curious about the character in question.
Even though he already knew that Enerjak probably wouldn't be someone so important due to his incredible luck.
[ Briefly, Enerjak is a god ]
Silence.
A strange silence took over the room while Ethan remained amazed by that simple sentence.
In his mind, several gears turned non-stop, desperately trying to efficiently process the bomb that had been dropped on their heads, but failing repeatedly.
In his subconscious, the word "god" kept repeating itself like an insistent whisper, trying to reinforce a fact that Ethan still couldn't accept.
How? That was a question inside Ethan's subconscious. How did I, of all the people, how did I get this!?
Ethan has always been unlucky all his life. In every possible sense of the word, he could even be described as the unlucky human being on earth. He was used to everything always going wrong for him, even with this system that allowed him to gain powers from other fictional characters.
So what miracle had God done for him to gain the powers of a character who was described as a literal god? How the hell had such an impossible thing for him become possible overnight?
Could it be that all the good luck he never had decided to come back all at once to accomplish that simple feat? Or was that system making fun of him because of some distorted sense of humor?
In both cases, it was still impossible to believe that it was happening to him.
"That's a joke, isn't it? "
[ I exist to help you, not to play with you. But answering your question, no, this is not a joke ]
"So how?! " Ethan asked raising his voice slightly " Explain to me properly how in my first attempt, I of all people, win a god as a first character? "
[ Maybe you're just very lucky ]
"Don't play with my face! " Ethan replied still keeping the same tone as before, but with more irritation present.
This time, the system didn't answer anything, as if it was tired of continuing that conversation because Ethan was acting like a grumpy child. Which wasn't a lie.
Ethan could feel as if the system was watching him, silently judging while waiting for Ethan to calm down and stop his attack of anger and disbelief.
Seeing that it would be useless to contradict something that had already happened, Ethan took a deep breath and decided to let his emotions control at least for now, because there were more important things to do.
After all, he still needed to understand who Enerjak was and what his skills were. He had never read or played anything from the Sonic franchise, so he didn't know anything about who Enerjak was. And if he was as powerful as he was thinking, then the best thing would be to understand more about him.
Even though he was still discredited that he had won a god as the first character.
"System" Ethan called, seeing the green screen appear in front of him.
[ Am I ready to talk like a normal person? ]
" ... " Ethan had to use all the willpower he had not to respond to that provocation with an insult "I need you to explain to me everything there is to know about Enerjak's character. His history, powers, everything there is to know " He asked the most politely he could.
[OK]
[ Enerjak is one of the main antagonists of Knuckles' stories and also one of the most powerful villains in archie comics, although he has never been shown in his full power ]
[ He is described and presented as the god of the Echidnas, the Knuckles race, and is also said as such a powerful being that he had to be sealed and separated in the Chaos Force, because he was too dangerous to exist in the physical world ]
[ But even sealed, he was still able to manifest himself through his avatars, which served as channels so that he could interact with the normal world. The first Avatar is unknown, but the second was Dimitri and the third Knuckles, all Echidnas ]
[ Among the skills your avatars showed are: improved physical attributes, matter manipulation, energy manipulation, telepathy and telekinesis, flying, and many other skills that you can check on the status screen ]
"Status screen? " Ethan asked, confused.
[ Just say or think status. And now that we're at it, you don't need to use words to communicate with me, I can read your mind so you just need to think ]
Great, now Ethan would also have to worry about that system reading his thoughts at all times of the day. If he already suspected that...
Regardless, Ethan thought about status and a small golden-colored screen appeared in front of him.
———————————————————————————-
[Status]
Ethan Carter.
Physical attributes: trained human
Mental state: Normal
Rank: Common human
Assimilated templates: None
Current template: Enerjak
Fusion rate with the template: 1.50%
[ Skills ]
Enhanced physical attributes
Flight
Reality manipulation
Magic manipulation
Material manipulation
Energy manipulation
Telepathy
Telekinesis
....
———————————————————————————
[ Here is a quick explanation about each of the status screen information ]
[ Physical attributes is the total sum of your strength, endurance, speed and other physical skills ]
[ Mental state analyzes and classifies your mental stability. Depending on the situation, you may appear scared, traumatized, angry, etc. ]
[ Rank represents your position in the power hierarchy of the universe where you are ]
[ Assimilated templates refers to how many templates you have already completed, or that have already reached the 100% mark ]
[ Current template refers to the template you are currently merging with ]
[ Fusion rate represents how much of the skills and powers of the current template you have already assimilated. When you reach 100%, you gain access to the character's total power without any restriction or weakness ]
[ And skills are the powers or capabilities of your current template ]
[ NOTE: the ellipsis at the end of Enerjak's list of skills is to signal that he still has many more skills, but that it was not possible to list all of them ]
Ethan carefully read all the information written there, and before he could ask more about it, a nurse entered his room.
She looked at him for a long time, then left and when she came back, she brought a doctor with her.
The doctor checked his condition, did some tests, saw his head injuries and ended it all by asking some questions about how he felt. It was a bit of a long process, but there was nothing Ethan could do to avoid it.
As for the hospital bills, Ethan discovered that because he was a wounded civilian in the middle of a confrontation between heroes and villains, his bills would be paid by the city. Some law that began to be implemented when it became common for the city to be attacked at least 3 times a month.
Not that Ethan was complaining...
In the end, Ethan ended up forgetting what he wanted to ask.
In the end, two weeks later, Ethan finally left that hospital and started walking towards his new home. Which in this case was the first abandoned building he found.
After all, where else could he run out of money or legal documents?