Hero Super

"Hm." Calvin's eyes looked between the building in front of him and the map in his holowatch. He looked around, comparing his surroundings to make sure he was in the right place. Sure enough, he was. "I really should be used to this by now."

In front of him was a building they were supposed to meet at. He wasn't sure what kind of building it was, as this was the very first building of its kind he had ever encountered.

"It's just a cube." He described the structure, still utterly fascinated by its oddness. "Really big cube."

A gigantic gray block, no visible doors or windows in its street-facing side. No vent, no pipes, no anything. Just the default cube sitting in the middle of the city.

Calvin: I'm outside.

He sent a message to the group chat. Moments later, he got a reply from the two.

Ina: w8

Quinn: CALVIN!!!!!

Ina: cmin out

Ina: 2 get u

In a second, a white seam appeared on the wall at the far end of the building. A person-sized slice of whatever the gray material was slid forwards, sliding to the side like a shower door. Out came Ina, wearing a loose gray tracksuit. She looked left and right on the sidewalk, crossing her arms until she spotted Calvin.

"What are you doing over there?" She asked, gesturing for him to come.

Calvin smiled, jogging to where she was. "It's not like there's a sign pointing to the entrance."

"Oh. Yeah, it gets confusing with this building." She nodded then grabbed his wrist and dragged him in. "Quinn's already here."

The door slid close after the two entered, making no sound but a pleasant hum.

Inside was just as Calvin suspected. An empty gray room, as tall as the building itself. Architecturally, according to his surface-level knowledge of physics, this building should be folding in on itself right now because of the lack of pillars. But this world's physics are apparently also superpowered.

In the middle of the place was a pink-haired girl laying down like a starfish. She suddenly sat up as they came closer, beaming a smile towards them.

"Calvin!" Quinn jumped up and ran to him, both arms in the air as she charged.

Calvin calmly returned the gesture, the two food enjoyers performed a double high-five as a greeting. "Hey, Quinn. Didn't think you'd be here earlier than me."

"We go to the same school, you know?" She crossed her arms, smirking towards him. "Of course I'd be here before you!"

"You were complaining all the way." Ina pinched her cheek. "Saying you didn't want to sweat."

"But I want to hang out with you guys." She hugged Ina.

"This is training." Ina peeled her off.

With a tap on her holowatch, a podium made of the same gray-stuff as the walls raised from the ground. A holographic display appeared and Ina started pressing buttons and turning knobs.

Instantly, the building came to life. Undulating waves appeared from the floor as a boxing ring rose from the ground in front of them. Calvin felt the ring was familiar until he recognized it as the same one in the fight club.

A couple more seconds later, their surroundings were filled with different paraphernalia. Weapon racks, weights, treadmills, arm bars, tables, chairs, and weirdly a vending machine.

"Are we going to use all these today?" Calvin suddenly felt nervous for his barely-developed muscles.

"No, but eventually." She shrugged. "Also I'm going to give you two access so you can come here any time."

"Oh wow. Thanks." He felt grateful. He finally had access to a gym.

"Ah yeah," Ina turned to him and produced a grey tracksuit from her pocket, tossing it over to him. "You should probably change."

Super Equip

Super Gear: Training Tracksuit detected. Equip?

Yes No

"Huh." He was surprised, she was freely tossing him Tinker Tech. 'How rich is she?'

With another push of a button and wave of her hand, Calvin was surrounded by four grey walls. Taking this chance, he undressed using a feature from the new pocket Dox had given him. In a few seconds, his clothes turned to a white light and popped into thin air, leaving him in his red boxers.

"That's really useful." He muttered, looking at the pocket's description.

Super Help

Eye-Socket Pocket Locket

A functional bionic eye connected to a rusty chain, designed to contain a pocket dimension that is accessible to its wearer. Contains a 10.3 meter-cubed pocket dimension. Accessing the pocket dimension has a delay of at least a second. Additional functions include; Automatic Wardrobe, Minor Bio-decay reduction.

It was pretty creepy, given it's a literal eye inside a locket hanging from the rusty chain Sam gave him, but it was useful.

With another thought, he equipped the tracksuit using the system. The clothing turned to light and instantly reformed on his body, the synthetic cloth feeling like smooth silk flowing on his skin.

Super Help

Training Tracksuit

A tracksuit made from synthetic threads, designed to absorb low-level impact from external sources. Automatically conforms to the Super's preferred dimensions.

"Neat." He commented after reading the panel.

He debated whether to keep wearing the [Plain White Shirt] or not, but figured he should do as he always does in morning exercises.

"I'm good." He said, knocking on the wall just in case she couldn't hear.

The walls came down and the three of them were now wearing similar clothing. Calvin smiled, wondering if this was what P.E. class felt like.

"Hm," he looked down at the grey tracksuit.

"What?" Ina turned to him. "Something wrong with the suit?"

"I don't know, I'm not feeling it." He tutted, pulling on his [Color Control] power to turn the tracksuit from gray with white stripes into white with red stripes. "Better."

"Ugh, my eyes." Ina looked away.

"Woah! What? How did you do that?!" Quinn rushed to him, grabbing his tracksuit.

Calvin sent a confused look to Ina. "You didn't tell her?"

"It's your power." She gestured like it was obvious.

"Huh, thanks." He smiled sincerely. "My power isn't sprouting moustaches, it's this."

He waved his hand unnecessarily and changed Quinn's tracksuit into a hue of pink that he thinks would match with her hair. He wanted to put some cute designs on it, but in all his training so far, all he could make was blobs and paint splatters.

'Maybe I should get to that too.' He thought, thinking about adding to his power training.

"Wow!" She looked at her tracksuit before turning to Ina with pleading eyes.

Ina sighed and summoned a mirror using the console. Quinn jumped up and twirled, looking at the mirror in multiple angles, her eyes twinkling as she admired the tracksuit.

"How long does it last?" Ina asked while watching Quinn.

"No idea yet. So far the first thing I've changed color hasn't changed back, so it might be permanent." He said, recalling asking Dox a day ago about the neon yellow flask.

"Permanence prefix. Interesting." She muttered.

"Oh no," Calvin watched as Ina sunk back to internal theory-crafting while Quinn had summoned a drone-thing and started taking pictures of herself while striking poses.

Thankfully both of them broke out of their own worlds just minutes after.

"First thing's first, let's warm up." Ina controlled the console and made a track appear around the edge of the room. "Well? What are you waiting for? Start joging!

"Haah... how are you still going?" Calvin complained while he breathed heavily on the floor.

Ina was still in the ring, performing basic punches and kicks towards a holographic projection of a person without any features. She sent jabs, hooks, high kicks, feints, and whatever the hell else she did that Calvin didn't know the name of.

The projection didn't react, but it was a useful guide that showed her where to hit properly.

"I do this everyday." She waved the hologram away, summoning a towel to wipe off her sweat. "You okay there, Queenie?"

Queenie was unresponsive, just dazedly staring at the ceiling while lying down next to Calvin. He was honestly impressed with her, despite the numerous complaints she spouted in training, she didn't slow down in any way.

Calvin glanced at his holowatch. "That was two hours of just punching."

"You said you never trained before, right?" She asked, nodded as Calvin did. "Your form was good, better by the end. You'll need endurance more than anything, Queenie too."

"I already exercise every morning." He sat up, grabbing a towel from the stack Ina had summoned.

"Then keep at it. Maybe you'll be able to reach my level someday." She grinned.

He was too tired to even roll his eyes, opting to shake his head lightly as he leaned his head back.

"Why? Are you disappointed?"

"I wanted to twirl around and smack people with sticks."

"It is pretty fun doing that." Her smile turned a hint maniacal. "You need to build some muscle and endurance if you want to do that too."

"I know." He raised his arm. He wasn't as thin as two weeks ago, but that amount of time wasn't enough for a qualitative change.

"I beat him with technique and planning, you know?" She started explaining. "You saw how Lightspeed used his power, right? Straight lines. He didn't curve, and he was too obvious. He literally looked towards where he was going to dash to."

"So you took advantage of that?"

"I surprised him. Tricked him. Took advantage of the fact that he's not really going to hurt me. That's what you gotta do when fighting someone stronger." She gestured towards him. "A lot of people are going to be stronger than you."

"I know."

He remembered the fight he had with the motorcycle helmet guy. The only reason he beat him was exactly the same way. He surprised, tricked, and took advantage of his anger.

"Why am I doing this again?" He muttered to himself.

"To get stronger? To learn how to fight? I don't know, that's a bit too philosophical for me."

"No, not that. The punching. Why are we just punching? I don't think fist-fighting is very viable for supers?"

"You'd be surprised." She chuckled. "Remember Lightspeed didn't use a weapon."

"Ah yeah, that asshat has weapons though. Knuckle dusters." He remembered the gold knucks he had on.

"He does?" She seemed surprised. "Still, it's hand to hand. It's important basics that can extend to techniques you'll learn or invent when you find yourself a weapon or use your power as a weapon. All supers should know how to smack each other, regardless of power."

"What if I want a gun?"

"Then you'd know how to smack people properly with a gun."

"Fair enough."

As they cooled down and rested, Calvin started messing around with the colors of whatever object he could see in the room. He had gotten used to practicing it whenever there was a lull in activity, since the power wasn't at all draining mentally or physically.

"Can you only do single colors?" Ina asked, sitting beside him and watching the objects in front of her change colors. There was an unknowable glint in her eye as she looked at the show.

"I still haven't gone around to practice making more complex stuff. Look." He pointed to a wall and tried to make a striped pattern of blue and white, but the lines looked too squiggly, like those drawn by a child. Or someone with Parkinson's.

"You said you got it last week?"

"Yeah?"

She narrowed her eyes, looking between him and the colorful surroundings. "Were you practicing your power the entire time since?"

"Every chance I get." He smiled, remembering the state of Sam's apartment. "It doesn't take too much out of me anyway."

"Can you turn things invisible?"

"Invisible isn't a color."

"It can be if you believe hard enough."

"Sadly I'm not as delusional as you." He chuckled.

"How are you going to use it?" She asked, her eyes twinkling.

"I have some ideas-" He turned to her, seeing her barely holding on to blurting out suggestions. "-but you could give me some more."

She started giving him suggestions, from the obvious active camouflage to the less obvious optical illusions. Calvin started taking note of some of her ideas that had merit, and completely laughing at the absurdity of the others.

"Okay, how would I punch someone using a color?"

"I don't know, maybe you could?"

"What, just gather up color like it was water and smack people with it?" He rolled his eyes.

"Use pink. Pink is the strongest." Quinn mumbled from the side.

"You never know, maybe your power evolves that way." She shrugged. "Some powers are like that, they evolve weird."

"I really hope not." He wanted something cooler than 'rainbow punch'. "How do powers evolve anyway?"

"I don't know? I couldn't find anything about it. Maybe just use it a lot." She laid her head back and stared at the ceiling. "I'm going to the bathroom."

She stood up and jogged towards the back of the room, where an inconspicuous door similar to the entrance appeared and slid open. Ina stepped through and disappeared behind the door, leaving Calvin to his thoughts.

There was a measurable amount of silence as he just continued practicing his color power. A silence broken by the other person in the room.

"Don't hurt her, Calvin." Quinn suddenly spoke.

"What?" He turned to the girl laying on the floor.

"Ina may not look like it, but she's a very lonely person." She sat up, looking towards where her closest friend disappeared. "You're the first friend she'd made in years. First genuine friend."

"Thanks?" He felt odd at the girl's change in character.

"I mean it." She smiled towards him much more sincerely than he'd seen before. "You're too naïve to have an agenda and too ignorant to take advantage of her. You keep this wall of mystery between us, but it's too weak to be something you want to keep up."

Calvin gulped. "Everyone has secrets."

"Not everyone keeps it the way you do." She shrugged. "But you're right. I wasn't going to pry anyway. We all have our own, after all."

"Apparently." He raised a brow at her.

Quinn chuckled. "I like you, Calvin. Genuinely. And I am really glad you're our friend, despite how suspicious you are. But if you hurt my most precious friend, I swear I will find a way to vibrate you until your insides turn to soup."

"I'll keep that in mind." He smiled back at her.

Ina came back jogging, having finished doing her business. Apparently also having finished taking a shower.

"What's up?" She asked, looking towards Quinn. "Oh, you're alive, Queenie."

"I'm still melting." She grumbled. "And sticky."

"Take a shower." Ina summoned a towel and dropped it on friend.

"Carry me~" She raised hands.

The rich delinquent rolled her eyes, grabbing onto her friend and tossing her on her shoulder. She then marched on, carrying the pink starfish-person like a sack of potatoes about to be washed.

"Friends, huh."