"Commander, it's time to wake up," said a foreign voice, waking Marcus up from the worst hangover of his life, with a splitting headache and pained grunt.
Something was wrong, he thought in confusion, even though it was extremely difficult to think with the throbbing headache that threatened to break his head. He had never felt like that before, even when he had gone to a legendary bender after they had managed their territory against the alliance of three major mafia families, having the greatest celebration of his life.
"Maybe I'm getting too old," Marcus murmured, only to find his own voice unfamiliar. And it wasn't just the dryness making his voice gritter. On the contrary, his voice was thinner than it had been since he had gone through puberty.
He opened his eyes, which made him notice another extraordinary thing. He was in a tent, filled with a bunch of ancient junk. Moreover, he could see a tall man, decked in full armor that reminded him of medieval cosplayers. It was an excellent prank, he supposed. He decided to congratulate his men for the great prank they had pulled…
Only to receive another, but much greater, surprise once he stood up. Or more accurately, when he tried to stand up, as somehow, his legs had managed to connect on the ground sooner than he had expected, making him stumble. "Fuck it," he groaned in shock, trying to keep himself from falling, only to fail spectacularly, because his limbs somehow didn't work as expected.
He hit on the floor, but the pain didn't even register, because he finally caught the mirror.
A different face was staring back…
He didn't know for how long he looked at the mirror, trying to get a bearing of the situation, his mind not registering anything, but it took the man that woke him up initially to speak once again to pull him out of his funk. "Commander, are you okay?"
His voice was like a lifeline to Marcus. Rather than focusing on what had happened to him, he focused on the voice. And what he had found surprised him. The was speaking a completely different language. The man was speaking a different language, yet Marcus understood him perfectly. Compared to that, and the fact that he was in a different body, the other details shouldn't have mattered. Still, Marcus found himself focusing on the man's tone.
He spoke with derision.
How dare him, Marcus thought angrily as he pushed himself up to his feet. How dare a subordinate of him could speak him with that tone. He didn't build one of the scariest Mafia the World had ever seen by accepting barely-hidden insults from his subordinates, and he had no intention of starting it right now. "Enough," he spoke sharply, instinctively using the same tongue the man was using, but it felt uncomfortable. Not because of the language itself, but somehow, the body was resisting the desire to give the order, like habits trying to establish themselves.
How awkward, he thought, even as the man in front of him —Antonius, his memory supplied somewhat despite never meeting the man before— jumped to attention, surprised by the tone almost as much as Marcus was feeling surprised. Marcus found it weird, as according to his disjointed memories, this man supposed to be his aide-de-camp, the soldier that was responsible for handling all his daily necessities in a mixture of servant and bodyguard, so it shouldn't be surprising to be spoken harshly by his commander.
But somehow, he felt so…
Maybe because it was something he could actually focus on, one that he felt confident in handling, because ignoring that he was suddenly in a different body, in a completely different environment that reminded him ancient past sounded really attractive.
"Is the discipline grew so lax that you're talking to your commander like that?" Marcus lashed out, only for Antonius to look at him in shock. Interestingly, it wasn't the shock of a soldier that realized he had just insulted his military superior, but more reminiscent of a lion that was just slapped by a rabbit.
"N-no," he stammered in shock.
"No, what!" Marcus asked, his tone even sharper as he stood straight, looking down at him. It was one good benefit of his new body, an idle part of his mind realized, that he was finally tall enough to look down on people. It was one of the things that annoyed him during his earlier days as a mafia boss. It was always harder to intimidate people when looking from below.
Luckily, he had been good enough to succeed even with such a handicap. He guessed that smashing a traitor's head with his bare fists might have played a small role on that. The reputation he gained from that event was certainly worth wearing casts for the rest of that year.
Antonius looked at him in shock, no doubt trying to process the sudden change of pacing. "No, sir," he finally managed to say.
"So, you're saying that you're the only incompetent soldier under my rule?" Marcus countered, not even giving him a chance to reply. Even as he said so, he was carefully examining the expression on Antonius' eyes, which flashed in fury, not fear, telling Marcus all that he needed to know about the relationship between them. If a soldier's first reaction against his commander was to feel anger, it meant that the situation was fucked.
Excellent, he thought sarcastically. Not only he managed to wake up in a completely different body, but he also managed to find himself in the middle of a potential mutiny.
The day was quickly shaping up to be the third-worst Monday he had ever experienced…