The world lurched into focus, a disorienting swirl of neon-drenched buildings and bizarrely angled streets. My head throbbed, a relentless, insistent hammering that resonated deep within my skull. One moment I was Edward, scrambling to a lecture on the socio-economic impact of urban sprawl, the next… this. This ludicrous, skin-tight green and yellow suit. Sneck. I was Sneck. Newbie Crushing Sneck. The name alone felt like a cosmic joke, a cruel twist of fate.
Of all the heroes in that bizarre, overpowered world, I had to be him? The quintessential example of ineffective heroism, the perennial punchline of online forums, the very embodiment of everything I used to scoff at. The irony wasn't just thick; it was practically a physical entity, pressing down on me with the weight of a thousand failed hero attempts.
Before, Sneck was just a character, a two-dimensional figure I'd casually dismiss, filing him away in the mental drawer labeled "Comic Relief/Utterly Incompetent." I'd rolled my eyes at his over-the-top pronouncements, his theatrical posturing, his signature move – the "Crushing Blow" – which was about as effective as a gentle breeze against a brick wall.
I'd even, in my infinite, armchair-hero wisdom, lumped him together with Tanktop Tiger and Black Hole, those paragons of misplaced confidence and spectacular failure. They were the poster children for everything that was wrong with the Hero Association, a symbol of bureaucratic ineptitude and the triumph of style over substance.
Then the Super Fight arc happened. Something shifted, a subtle but significant recalibration of my internal judgment.
Sneck, despite his glaring limitations, his obvious lack of any real power, had stood his ground. He'd faced an overwhelming, terrifying threat, fully cognizant of the likely outcome – a brutal, humiliating defeat – and yet, he hadn't fled. He hadn't cowered.
He'd faced the abyss, not with strength, but with something else. A flicker of genuine courage, a spark of something almost noble, amidst the bluster and bravado. I'd grudgingly revised my opinion, mentally nudging him a few rungs higher on the ladder of respect. He was no longer in the same category as the Tanktop Brothers. Now, that internal debate seemed utterly absurd, a trivial exercise in comparative analysis. I was Sneck.
"Ribbit! You insignificant worm!" A guttural, booming voice shattered my thoughts. I looked up. A grotesque, oversized amphibian, pulsating with malevolent energy, stood before me. Fighting Bull-Frog. The name echoed in the cavernous spaces of my mind, a chilling reminder of the precarious, absurd situation I'd found myself in.
Memories, alien and yet somehow intimately familiar, flooded my consciousness, a torrent of information crashing against the already strained walls of my skull.
These weren't my memories, not the ones of Edward, the college student. These were Sneck's. I knew this monster. I knew its weaknesses, its attack patterns, the subtle tells that betrayed its next move. I also knew Sneck's fighting style. The "Crushing Blow" was a joke, a theatrical flourish designed to impress rather than inflict actual damage. It was a distraction, a smokescreen. Beneath the surface bravado lay a more grounded, if still limited, skill set.
The Biting Snake Fist. A martial art I'd only ever witnessed through the detached lens of a screen, now surging into my very being, imbuing my muscles with a phantom memory of movement. The stances, the strikes, the fluid transitions between offensive and defensive maneuvers – it was all there, being forcefully downloaded into my brain, a painful, overwhelming influx of information. But the memories weren't coalescing cleanly. They were fragmented, distorted, like shards of a broken mirror reflecting a chaotic, disjointed reality.
The throbbing pain in my head intensified, each pulse a hammer blow against my cranium. It wasn't just a headache; it was as if my skull was too small, too constrained, to contain the sheer volume of information being crammed into it. Flashes of Sneck's life flickered before my eyes: snippets of grueling training montages, moments of inflated ego and boisterous self-promotion, the fleeting glimpses of a life lived on the fringes of heroism, all overlaid with the constant, agonizing pain. I knew Sneck defeated this monster.
I knew it from my obsessive, almost encyclopedic knowledge of the series, from countless hours spent dissecting every panel, every frame, every meticulously crafted fight sequence. But how? The crucial detail, the key to victory, eluded me, obscured by the throbbing, piercing pain that made me gasp for air. It was like trying to grasp a dream the moment you wake, the details slipping through your fingers, leaving only a vague sense of unease. I was trapped.
Trapped in the body of an A-Class hero with a ludicrous name—no, right now I'm still a B-Class hero—a flashy but ultimately useless signature move, a limited and largely untested martial art, a mountain of misplaced confidence, a hazy memory of a future victory, and a splitting headache that threatened to incapacitate me entirely.
I wasn't Saitama. I couldn't just obliterate the threat with a single, earth-shattering punch. I was Sneck. But I also possessed something Sneck didn't, something that Edward, the college student, brought to this bizarre, terrifying reality: my knowledge of the future.
My intimate familiarity with this world, its rules, its characters, its triumphs, and its tragedies. I might be inhabiting the body of a weak, often ridiculed hero, but I still had my wits. I still had the analytical mind of Edward, the student, the observer, the one who had spent countless hours dissecting the intricacies of this fictional world. I might not be able to punch like a god, but maybe, just maybe, I could think my way out of this.
"Crushing Blow!" I yelled, mimicking Sneck's signature move, charging forward. It was a bluff, a theatrical distraction. Fighting Bull-Frog scoffed, his eyes narrowing.
"Pathetic! You think that ridiculous pose will frighten me?" He lunged, a blur of muscle and toxic slime.
My survival, and the survival of whoever this monstrous frog was threatening, depended on it.
Two moves, a fragmented memory of a future victory, a giant, pulsating amphibian, and a head that felt like it was about to explode. I had to make it work.
I had to bridge the gap between Edward's knowledge and Sneck's limited abilities. I had to become Sneck, but a Sneck armed with the knowledge of what was to come. I had to find that flicker of courage within the bluster, the spark of ingenuity within the limitations, and somehow, some way, turn this ridiculous predicament into a victory.
I dodged the slime, the Biting Snake Fist flowing through my limbs, a phantom memory guiding my movements. "You underestimate me, amphibian!" I shouted, a touch of Sneck's bravado leaking into my voice. "You'll find my bite is worse than my bark!"