The first thing Noah Mercer noticed when he opened his eyes was the ceiling.
White paint.
A faint crack above the window.
A water stain near the corner that vaguely resembled a continent nobody had ever discovered.
The second thing he noticed was the smell of clean sheets, old wood, and autumn air drifting through an open window.
The third thing was that he could hear a squirrel chewing something outside.
Not approximately.
Not vaguely.
He could hear its teeth moving.
Noah remained motionless beneath the blanket.
That is not normal.
The squirrel stopped chewing.
Its claws scratched against bark.
Somewhere farther away, a car changed gears on the road.
A bird fluttered between branches.
Beyond the trees, a man was arguing with a woman two houses away, their voices clear enough that Noah could distinguish individual words.
He slowly lifted one hand in front of his face.
Five fingers.
A faint scar near the thumb.
Pale skin, youthful features, and the lean frame of a teenager who had not yet finished growing.
He flexed his fingers, then his wrist, then his arm.
Every movement was precise.
Too precise.
He had the strange impression that his body had been waiting for him to wake up, like a machine that had been switched off and had finally received a command to start.
Noah sat upright.
His head did not hurt.
He felt no dizziness, no nausea, and no disorientation beyond the obvious fact that he was no longer in the place where he remembered falling asleep.
He looked toward the bedside table.
A digital clock displayed 6:17 AM.
Beside it lay a phone, a half-empty glass of water, and a school textbook with a handwritten name on the front.
NOAH MERCER.
He stared at the name.
Then the memories arrived.
Not all at once.
They came in fragments, like pages from two books being pressed together.
An old life.
A different world.
The memory of a young man who had spent years watching television dramas, reading novels, and occasionally wondering what he would do if he woke up inside one of those fictional worlds.
Then there was this life: a childhood spent in a quiet American town, a family that had changed after a terrible accident, school, friends, ordinary arguments, and a persistent sense of being the only unremarkable person in a remarkable household.
A second memory surfaced with unusual clarity.
A laboratory.
A white light.
A small container marked with a single letter.
V.
And a message that had appeared before the boy’s eighth birthday.
Gift delivered.
Physical evolution initiated.
There had been no explanation, no friendly voice, and no lengthy tutorial.
The system had given the child something extraordinary and then vanished from his life.
Over the following years, the boy’s body had changed.
He became stronger, faster, harder to injure, and increasingly capable of controlling those changes.
His senses expanded.
His injuries healed with unnatural speed.
He discovered that he could jump higher than anyone should, lift objects no child could lift, and remain entirely untroubled beneath the summer sun.
Eventually, he learned to conceal everything.
The rest of his family had gained strange abilities in an accident.
Their transformation was known within the household, even if it was hidden from the world.
When Noah failed to display any obvious ability of his own after that incident, they accepted the simplest explanation.
He was ordinary.
The family’s muggle.
It was a useful mistake, and the original boy had been sensible enough not to correct it.
Noah closed his eyes.
So I have transmigrated into a teenager who already has Homelander-level powers.
Strength, speed, flight, durability, heat vision, enhanced senses.
He could feel the potential within this body, controlled and obedient, as though every ability had been designed for him rather than bolted onto him.
He was not struggling to contain an uncontrollable force.
He did not feel an urge to dominate the world, nor did he hear voices whispering that he was superior to everyone else.
His body simply obeyed.
That was the important part.
A knock sounded against the door.
“Noah?” a woman called.
“You’re going to be late if you don’t get up.”
“Coming, Mom.”
The answer emerged naturally.
His voice was young, clear, and familiar to the memories he now possessed.
“Breakfast in ten minutes.”
“I heard you.”
“Then prove it by getting dressed.”
Footsteps moved away.
Noah glanced down at himself, then toward the mirror across the room.
A seventeen-year-old boy looked back at him: dark hair, grey eyes, a lean athletic frame, and a face that could have belonged to any ordinary high-school student in Virginia.
He looked entirely human.
That was good.
He crossed the room and stood in front of the mirror.
“Let’s establish the basics.”
He whispered it quietly, partly out of habit and partly because speaking aloud helped him organise his thoughts.
He was in Mystic Falls, Virginia.
The town was familiar from the television series he remembered.
Vampires.
Witches.
Werewolves.
Ancient bloodlines, cursed families, magical objects, and people who regarded the laws of nature as suggestions.
If his memories were accurate, the events of The Vampire Diaries had not yet begun.
Elena Gilbert was still living her ordinary life.
Stefan Salvatore had not returned to town.
Damon was still somewhere in the world, doing whatever Damon Salvatore did when he was not busy making other people’s lives miserable.
The exact timeline mattered less than one fact.
Noah had time.
Time to understand his abilities.
Time to develop the new powers he suspected might be coming.
Time to become strong enough that discovering the supernatural world would not immediately turn him into somebody else’s victim.
A strange calm settled over him.
He had not inherited a kingdom.
No ancient vampire had handed him an army.
No god had declared him the chosen one.
He had a powerful body, a quiet house, a family that believed him ordinary, and knowledge of a world that had not yet noticed him.
It was a better starting position than most transmigrators received.
Noah smiled faintly at his reflection.
“Then let’s stay ordinary.”
Outside, the squirrel resumed chewing.
Noah heard every bite.
And for the first time in his new life, he decided that being underestimated might be the most valuable power he possessed.