The training zone was a massive steel cube in the middle of a field of wheat, far from the towns at the edge of the kingdom. Walking in, Noboru saw giant slabs of steel down the main hall that led to the reception area. On each slab there were framed pictures of heroes throughout decades of history. Each had a plaque written underneath with the three greatest feats of each hero before their death.
On the first slab was a masked woman who had the power of fire manipulation. Her greatest feats were unlike any normal fire user, stopping a fire vortex the size of a skyscraper from swallowing a part of the kingdom. On a different plaque was a man with the ability to create steel out of his bare hands; his largest feat was building this and every facility on his own, with his own blueprints and ingenious ideas.
Slab after slab, Noboru just kept getting more and more impressed by how each hero contributed their own strengths in their own ways, showing the pure variety and potential a simple power can hold.
At the end of the hall, the glass doors slowly opened as he walked through. Pillars stretched towards the ceilings that seemed far too high, chandeliers under each arch that bridged the gaps between these pillars. He lowered his eyes towards the main reception and walked over. Instantly, the receptionist saw the Monarch looming behind Noboru and she froze. It wasn't common to see someone that influential at even these high-quality training zones.
"Good morning, sir. What brings you this far into the north?" she asked with a warm but weary smile.
The Monarch slapped Noboru's back, pushing him forward. "I've come to enlist this young lad in a hero training programme. We were recommended to come here."
"Ah, then let's get all the details out of the way and we'll provide him with a dorm key and card. Will you be training him, or would you like us to supply a personal trainer?"
"For the first week he can train on his own because I'll be busy. Then I'll train him when I'm back, so don't worry about a trainer."
"Of course, sir." And within the next hour, Noboru was given a card and keys for his room in the upper half of the facility.
On his way up the stairs, the Monarch stopped and waved goodbye. This next week, Noboru would have to work his ass off, because he wouldn't let himself disappoint the Monarch.
Later that evening, it was time for his first training session. The Monarch had given the facility instructions on what to set up, and Noboru worked his way down the stairs and through strangely built halls until he finally found the room.
Inside, sat against the leftmost wall, was a boy and girl who looked about his age. The boy was asleep, slumped against the wall, drooling as he slept. His short black hair, with random dark green highlights, fell just above his eyes. His hands looked rough, the type a skilled blacksmith would have. His skin was pale and his body limp, as if he lacked proper nutrition.
The girl, however, looked awake and alert. Her eyes glistened amber as she locked eyes with Noboru. Her white hair was long, black with white streaks. She also had pale skin like the other boy, but she wasn't as thin, healthier-looking in a way.
The girl stood and walked over. "Hi. I'm Amber. What about you?" A small smile formed on her face.
"Uh, oh—I'm Kawata Noboru. So you two are the people I'm supposed to train with," Noboru said with slight disappointment in his voice as he glanced at the sleeping boy. How could he train and grow if his teammate was asleep?
She smiled. "Yeah, the one back there is Markus," she said, pointing a thumb over her shoulder at him. "He's a tad lazy, but he's really strong, so don't be disappointed."
Markus stirred awake, yawning. "Sup, Prince." And he dozed off.
Amber turned to Noboru with wide eyes. "I knew I recognised you from somewhere—Prince of the East, the one with super speed."
Noboru grinned. "The one and only. One of the pros in my kingdom saw potential in me, so he brought me here since my father would try to interfere if I stayed in the East."
Markus slowly rose at this revelation. "So a runaway royal? Guess the instructors were right when they said the world's changing fast. Welcome, I guess. Like she said, name's Markus Carbona. Ice is my shit." He held out his palm as frost travelled up it and an icicle formed in his hand.
Amber chimed in. "He can make anything with ice. He mostly stays on defence whenever we do practice spars. My power is partial probability manipulation. I can alter the chance of something happening slightly, so my power is more of a gamble. If I do something good with it, something bad will happen somewhere else in the world at the same time or in the future, and vice versa."
"So you both have high-class powers," Noboru concluded. "That's so cool. Is it just scenarios you can control, or like the probability of anything, like death?"
"It is anything, but if I did something like change the probability someone dies, I can only change it a bit, meaning they could still die. I can also only change the probability of three things at a time, so if I want to do a fourth, I have to wait for the outcome of one of them to happen, or else my influence will disappear on a random one."
This explanation seemed satisfying to Noboru—an OP power with a reasonable limit. With this, he turned to Markus. "So what do you use your ice for? Since you stay mostly on defence, would it be like ice pillars as barriers, or an ice wall, or maybe an igloo?"
Markus released a small chuckle. "Yeah, mostly walls, or thin but dense ice armour around me, since my body can handle the cold."
"Well," Noboru continued, "mine's super speed. I run fast and eat faster. My limiter is food—I need to eat a lot or my powers stop working. So I keep a lot of gel packs on me when I run or train."
With all this out of the way, they turned to the training exercise in front of them: an array of swinging objects, sharp turns, and mimic bots ready to attack them. Their goal—make it across the green line on the other side of the hall before the timer hit zero.
"Your bougie ass probably never seen stuff like this, right?" Markus smirked. "They're called mimics. They're robots that can simply mimic powers—only simple stuff though, like my ice and your speed, but not her reality manipulation. The super-rich or royals pay elite heroes to spar with. Us more elite middle class got these. Don't worry about breaking them—there's loads, and the broken ones get recycled into new ones with what's left."
Noboru simply nodded and stayed focused on the task ahead. Above them, a large board loaded a countdown. On the left panel was a list of records; on the right, objective scenarios—fastest escape, fastest hostage rescue, fastest enemy submission—all records Noboru planned to break.
First was the escape. As a team, they needed to reach the end of the hall. If one person failed, they all did. Breaking or fighting mimics was allowed and accumulated points for this test.
As the clock ticked to the last three seconds, they readied up. Noboru relaxed, Markus tensed as frost started to appear around his boots, and Amber simply got into a starting sprint position.
3… 2… 1! GO GO GO!!!
With that, time seemed to slow as the three of them moved, the cameras catching their first steps. Already Noboru was far ahead, dodging up and down, left and right, as mimics shot fire, ice, wind, water, metal, energy, and blasted random lasers at him. One even slightly matched his speed for a few seconds, catching him off guard and preventing him from noticing the fireball flying at his head—before an ice spike seemed to grow from the mimic's chest. Noboru glanced back and saw Markus standing there with the blade in his hand and the mimic at his feet, while Amber stood beside him, panting, her hand outstretched towards him.
Markus had impaled the mimic, and Amber had lowered the chances of the fireball hitting him.
"You dickhead," Markus snarled. "Did you not read the rules? This is a team challenge." He jumped back from the mimic and slammed the ground with his hand, causing an ice spike to shoot upward through the bot, but his eyes never left Noboru. "Just because you're fast enough to get to the end doesn't mean we are. I could probably get there, but she won't be able to dodge everything," he said, pointing at Amber. "And using her power drains her like we all do, so even with it she won't stand a chance alone."
The room's lights flared red.
Challenge Failed!
All team members heal up if injured. If not, head to the start and try again.
Without a word, Markus turned back, pulling Amber with him. "Hurry up, dude, and don't mess it up this time. I didn't come here to become some backline hero—I came to be number one."
The entire time, the lights were gone in Noboru's eyes—just a small flicker of red hue and nothing more. Not once had he ever thought about this. He had always wanted to save people, maybe with a team of his own one day, but it never occurred to him that he might need to save his team, or that they would need to save him. He didn't think of what would happen if he ever failed, the consequence of a mistake. His OP power, alongside the praise and protection from his home, had made him numb to this.
Then he remembered the building, the Monarch holding it up, his task to save everyone—and yet because of his mistake, his lack of effort and skill, a woman had died. If it wasn't for the random guy in the crowd, he and the daughter would have died as well. His focus had been off at the time. He simply tried to get everyone out. He didn't think to go all out. He thought he alone could do it. And then he realised—even then, he wasn't alone. The Monarch had held up the building. If he hadn't, Noboru wouldn't have been able to save even half the people he did.
"Now you're spacing out."
Noboru snapped out of his trance and looked up to see Markus, but this time he wasn't angry. Instead, a smirk had entered his face. "I know I was harsh, but come on, dude. Can't have been that bad to mentally knock you out. Hurry up and let's go again. Me and Amber got an actual plan now that includes your dumbass."
He turned back and jogged over to Amber as Noboru followed behind. For once—once in his life—someone was here to give it to him straight. Not tell him he was crazy strong or that he'd make a great hero. And this—this was what he needed.
As he crossed the line, the red lights faded out and the broken mimics were pulled away by arms extending from the roof and walls as new mimics took their spots.
Markus clasped his hands. "OK, here's the plan. We move in a line—you at the front, me in the back, and Amber in the middle. You dash forward slightly and take out a few mimics, then come back. I'll toss ice spears at any you miss or any on the sides, and Amber will be on standby to alter the chances of anything hitting us."
The three turned and glanced down the hall. The hum of the mimics' mechanisms was ominous.
Noboru and Markus glanced at each other and locked eyes—the same goal, both in sync.
3… 2… 1! GO GO GO!!!
As Noboru took the first step over the line, he felt his teammates' eyes on him. As he darted forward and struck a mimic in the jaw, he could feel the cold drop in temperature behind him as ice crackled and the sound of bending metal echoed while ice spears pierced the mimics. He didn't turn—he trusted Markus. He trusted Amber. He trusted his team.
Striking mimics left and right, dodging their random attacks, he could hear Amber panting behind him every time he narrowly avoided a hit, knowing it was all thanks to her.
The three of them stepped over the end line in unison. The room's lights flickered green and the scoreboard lit up—3 minutes 12 seconds. Not the worst, but not the best score. The analysis screen gave Markus an extra 20 points for accuracy, Amber an extra 10 for support, and Noboru 20 for the most mimics destroyed.
The next test was to get to the start line without destroying a single mimic. Destroying them would result in point deductions.
"So what's the plan?" Noboru turned to Amber and Markus.
"No idea. I could freeze most of the hallway, but some mimics may take damage from the pressure of the ice on them." Markus rubbed his chin. "That would lose me points, though."
Amber smiled. "Good thing you got so many. Take one for the team and do that freezing idea while we get to the other side."
"Harsh," Markus smirked, "but sure, why not."
The three of them turned around and faced the hallway as the robotic arms retracted back into the walls with broken mimic fragments.
Markus took the first step over the line, causing the timer to start. Instantly, ice and frost spread from where he stepped down the hall and around the walls about halfway down.
"GO, QUICK," Markus said as Noboru picked up Amber.
"What on earth are you doing?" she asked.
"What? You said quick." Noboru smirked and ran down the hall, his sheer speed cracking the ice around them as Amber wrapped her arms around him, looking like she was about to hurl.
He sprinted over the line and Amber clung to him, her eyes dizzy as she gagged, holding back vomit. Noboru looked back and saw Markus skating on his ice, dodging both frozen and unfrozen mimics at a fast pace before crossing the line.
Noboru: 45 seconds
Amber: 45 seconds
Markus: 1 minute 15 seconds
Total team cross time: 1 minute 15 seconds
Markus was deducted 10 points for damaging some of the robots. Noboru gained 20 points for the fastest time to cross the line, as did Amber.
Markus panted. "So, I think that went as well as we could hope. What's next?"
"Well, we have to wait in the common rooms until our next session. We'll probably get to meet other trainees," Amber said, still dizzy, using Noboru to steady herself.
All three of them walked out of the training zone and up a set of stairs to a main lobby area with food and drinks, other course takers walking around and socialising.
"Yo, you guys new?" A boy with dark green hair and bright eyes walked over. "Haven't seen you around before. Name's Nathan."
"Hey, nice to meet you. I'm Kawata Noboru. That's Markus, and the dizzy one here is Amber." Amber gave a tired wave and Markus simply nodded.
"You're the Eastern Prince, right? Mr. Super Speed," the boy beamed.
Noboru couldn't help but smile. "You know me?"
"Who doesn't? Everyone's heard about the Monarch showing up with the Prince. You his student?"
"Hopefully. He said he would teach me, so I hope I'm up to his standards," Noboru muttered.
"You know, now that I think about it, there was a story published a few hours ago about a kid in the West using super speed. Heard he was hella strong and crazy fast. You know him?" Nathan asked, intrigued.
Noboru looked confused. No—he had never heard of me. I had no powers for most of my life, so he didn't know what Nathan was talking about.
"No, I don't think I do," Noboru shrugged. "I've never actually been out of the Eastern Kingdom, so being here is a new experience for me in itself."
Before Nathan could ask more, the doors swung open and a man dressed all in white walked in—white suit and tie, white gloves, even his hair and beard a bright white matching his pale skin.