Ch. 4- The Race

The students of class 2-C went to the changing rooms to wear their tracksuits, then proceeded outside, to the center of the field, where they stood in a horizontal line facing Mr. Lee, their trainer, who was an electro-martial artist.

"Now everyone, listen carefully," he said. "In this academy we strive to become the greatest fighters and for that you need to master both electro arts and martial arts. Understood?"

"Yes Sir!" they shouted.

"Now first of all, you need to improve your electro skills to use them against opponents in fights, otherwise you won't be able to fight properly.

"We all are born with electric powers, but not everyone can use them for fights or even basic things like flying and super speed, as it requires training and honing your electro skills and techniques for fighting.

"As for the basic things you need to learn how to control your power otherwise you may run at a faster speed than what you want or won't be able to stop running which would result in accidents usually, and the same goes for flying."

One of the students said, "But sir, wouldn't it be ineffective if we used electrical attacks because we are all immune to them and they would only be effective against humans and other races?"

"Yes, that's true and that's why we use weapons and martial arts for combat against each other instead of electro arts. Our electric powers are only used for basic purposes like charging our smartphones and laptops or powering up other electronics and appliances in our homes. If the power runs out that is, which would never happen on electro--"

"But it can happen on earth!" Alex interrupted.

Everyone laughed.

Another student said sarcastically while laughing, "Haha. Yeah guys, next time you go on a trip to earth and the power runs out, don't forget to power up the damn homes for those weaklings,"

Then another one said, "Yeah and don't forget to bring some batteries and energy drinks because it won't be enough. Pfft...hahaha,"

"Enough!" barked Mr. Lee with an aggravated face.

Everyone stopped.

"Stop making fun of humans, they are nice people to us. Anymore mocking won't be tolerated. Now let's continue.

"So another use of our electric powers would be for charging electric cars in case they run out of charge. Electric cars aren't that high on demand and the only electric car manufacturer here in Plus is RhodoSport because many of us who have trained and know basic electro arts, not the ones used for combat, will be able to control their flying and super speed when running.

"Only those who didn't train or know the basics or just don't want to waste their energy by running might use an electric car.

"According to their prices, electric cars run at different speeds and so do we. We all run or fly at different speeds according to how much power we have so it won't finish fast.

"Some of us run at the speed of horses, which is funny because that's the slowest speed an electro human could run, but that's usually for the elderly so it's fine. Some at the speed of a leopard, the speed of sound, the speed of a bullet or the speed of lightning, which is the highest and most unstable speed here. It's not allowed, even though it's common."

"Uhh, Sir? We already studied that in physics so no need to explain it to us." John said.

"Also, is this related to what we're going to study or train for, today?" Alex asked.

"Yes, it will be about assessing each of your speeds and showing you how to control them.

"We are starting with basics and then the combat. That's why I explained this to you."

"So speed is one of the basics?" Luna asked.

"Yes of course. According to your speed I will decide whether to reduce or increase it until it reaches a stable level. That's how we are going to control it.

"We are also going to focus on efficiency, so you won't waste your energy fast when running.

"Are there anymore questions?"

"No Sir," they yelled.

"Good, then let's start training."

Everyone was split up into two groups and each went and sat at the left and right sides of the race track respectively, which was in a loop wrapped around the field itself.

There were five rows of ten chairs each on a stadium stand right near the middle of the left and right sides of the track.

The race road was made of gray asphalt, divided into four lanes by three lines as well as the start and end lines in the middle of the left and right sides of the track respectively, all drawn with light-blue paint.

On the left side of the track, John and Pico were sitting in the second row while Luna and Pika were sitting in the first, which was mostly girls while the third row was full of boys.

"What happened to your face, Pico? There's a slap mark on your face," John asked.

"H-Huh? O-Oh! Y-You mean this?" he said nervously while pointing at the mark, "T-That's just...I-It's nothing really...,"

"Oh come on. I know something happened,"

All the boys from the back demanded, "Yeah, tell us what happened."

"Why are you guys so eager to know?" Pika asked.

One of the boys in the back said, "Oh. oh. oh! I know. You were trying to apologize and explain to Luna that it was a misunderstanding and she slapped you."

Then another boy said, "Or maybe he tried kissing her or something and she slapped him,"

Luna and Pico blushed.

"No, you stupid. He wouldn't do something so insane and idiotic right after being rejected. He knows he'll be slapped if he tries it," John replied.

"Yeah, but he did something even worse than that." Pika said.

"Like what?"

There was a short pause of silence as Pika refused to tell him and turned her face again to the front.

John tried grabbing her left shoulder in an attempt to force her to talk. "Hey, are you going to tell me or--"

"It's from me, because this idiot was trying to peek into the girls' locker room!" said Luna.

He immediately retreated and shouted along with the boys in the back, "W-What!?"

"Nah, you can't be serious." John said.

"If you don't believe her then ask him." Pika replied, pointing her thumb to the rear.

John slowly turned his face to Pico, "Did you really do it?"

"N-No," he frowned, his lips trembling, "N-Not really...P-Please let me explain...I-It was just a misunderstanding...I was just...," he waved his hands and crossed them while blushing.

"We all saw you, don't lie." Luna said.

"N-No!" he cried, tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Pico. How dare you go without telling me. I'm so disappointed." John said.

"Yeah, how dare you not tell us, Pico!" the other boys backed him up.

"What?" Pico exclaimed with wide eyes.

Realizing what he just heard, Pico was surprised by the answer, as he didn't expect them to say that. Usually, he's the only perverted guy in the class, so it made no sense for them to want this.

Luna, at this point, was furious. She stood up and turned, "You guys, can you please shut up," she shouted.

All the boys were silenced.

"And John,"

"What?" he replied with a dull face.

"You pervert!" she slapped him. She sat again and folded her arms with a pouting face. "Hmph! And here I thought you were different from Pico." She said quietly and sighed.

Meanwhile, Alex was sitting on the last chair at the right side of the second row, looking at his brother with envy, trying to find a way to make him feel weak.

A minute after, and it was time to select the first racer to take the test.

Mr. Lee was standing right near the start line with a stop watch and an SPMD; a speed and power measurement device that is shaped like a camera with a small screen on it's back showing the speed.

"Okay guys, I gave you enough time. I hope you all are prepared for the test?" he asked.

"Yes Sir," they replied.

"So who's first?"

"I think John should start first since he was bragging a lot." said Pico.

"Yeah. You can do it, John." Some of the back boys supported him—in sarcasm.

"Wait, what? I didn't even know it was preparation time!" he said while rubbing his cheek.

"Yes it was. If you are not ready then Pico will take it first." Mr. Lee said.

Pico was afraid to go first because he wasn't prepared either, so he barked nervously, "W-What? I-I didn't--"

Alex came forward and announced, "It's alright, I'll go first."

"Too bad, I thought you were overconfident you'll do it first, John." Pico said.

"Yeah me too, but even the best need some time to prepare, you know." He replied.

Alex was getting ready to charge up and start running at super speed.

At the start line, he stood, closed his eyes, trying to focus all his energy on his feet. The electric currents were flowing round and round all over his body. They all went straight to his legs and from there to his feet, where all the electric energy was stored in. His feet started glowing with a vibrant blue color.

He crouched and continued to release endless sparks of electricity.

Then Mr.Lee said slowly, "Ready...Set...Go!"

At that moment, Alex opened his eyes immediately and his legs started accelerating with a burst as the whole crowd and Mr. Lee was struck with a strong wind.

Once he reached the curve, his mind, of course, accelerated as well and the time seemed to slow down as he drifted his legs and feet right towards the curve without touching it and burst once again to the other side of the curve as the time slowed again for him to drift and burst straight forward to the other side of the track.

He did the same process as he encountered the second curve on the opposite side of the first one and continued forward on the side he started with till he reached the start line once again.

That was a full lap in a split second that landed at approximately 465 meter per second or roughly around 1050 miles per hour on the speed and power measurement device that Mr. Lee was holding. That's 232.5 meter per split second.

"Very impressive. You surpassed the speed of sound easily," Mr. Lee exclaimed as he saw the numbers on the device.

Alex halted at the line with a drift and jumped a bit as he staggered. He slowed down, and bowed in exhaustion.

He puffed for a few seconds, and rose up with an arrogant smirk, "Of course it's impressive, hmph." He said.

While he was going back to his seat and everyone was cheering him on, John said to him, "Good job, brother."

"Yeah, let's see how you'll do, overconfident nerd." He challenged him.

"Okay, you'll see. I'll show you that I'm as fast and strong as you."

"Hmph," he clenched his teeth and looked at him in irritation. "Tsk, whatever." He turned his face and continued to his seat.

"Your brother seems to hate you now. What happened between you two?" Pico asked.

John's face turned annoyed as well, "Why does it matter to you? It's because of you that we fought to begin with. If it weren't for your stupid flirting with that silver-haired brat we wouldn't have hated each other now." He rebuked him.

"So you're blaming me now for this? If it weren't for your egotistical brother, you wouldn't have fought with him or blamed me for this. Now everyone thinks I'm a curse to them."

"Ugh...No. You're not. You're just a handsome weakling like me, Pico."

Pico blushed, "W-Wait, what? Was that a compliment? Or are you really not that interested in girls, that you—"

John placed his arm over his neck and shoulders, "Nah, don't worry. I think it was too much blushing for you today," he smirked.

"John, you're really weird, you know that?" said Pico with a nervous face.

"Yeah, I know that. Anyways, I'll go next to prove for my brother that I'm faster than him, so you don't have to worry."

John got up and went to the coach.

"So, who's next?" Mr. Lee asked.

"It's me," John replied.

"Are you sure you're prepared? You don't want Pico to be next?"

"Nah, I don't think he's in a good state right now to do it."

Mr. Lee prepared his device, "Okay then, get ready...," he said.

John crouched and closed his eyes while focusing every bit of energy into his legs and feet. He processed the paths of the circuits in his body that lead to them, for the electrical energy to travel through.

Mr. Lee was pointing the device's camera at him and the power meter on the screen was rising higher than Alex's, at approximately 480 kilowatts per hour or 133.3 watts per second.

John was surely going to be faster with more power that he was charging compared to Alex.

However, this may not be the case as sometimes charging more power may not guarantee faster speed and could, sometimes, result in accidents and injuries instead if the person can't control the overwhelming power that he or she charged from his or her energy.

Mr. Lee continued, "Set..."

John was breathing slowly and thinking, Okay, It'll be alright. Now focus properly..., as his legs and feet were glowing with energy and emitting high amounts of electricity.

He opened his eyes the moment Mr. Lee shouted, "Go!"

He immediately burst with full force and started accelerating at an insane speed.

The wind this time wasn't the only thing that nearly swept everyone away, but even the sound barrier was broken two times compared to his brother and yet it still didn't affect him at all.

When he encountered the curved line, he tried drifting, but he couldn't at all and his feet touched and crossed it, so he tried to stop for a second, but that didn't work either. It was as if his legs were moving on their own.

He wasn't able to control his power and therefore his speed because he reached his limit and as a result his accelerated mind-processing became slower and time became faster.

He continued running while his heart was beating fast, till he reached the school fence. He closed his eyes and crossed his arms in front of his face as he crashed into it and fell down on his face, with shattered pieces of rocks falling on his back.

He coughed as he woke up from the rubble, with dust on his face and hair. Red lines of tiredness appeared on the cornea part of his eyes as he teared up from the dust.

It was fatal, but he only got minor injuries on his arms and legs so he tried healing some of it, which consumed a lot of energy from him.

Usually, it's impossible to heal major injuries and only minor ones can be healed which itself takes a lot of energy and not many can do it except for those with the capacity to carry out large amounts of energy.

Electro-humans can store more than one billion joules of energy, most of which can easily be spent by using any of the five main abilities, like healing. Therefore, in order to regenerate their energy, they need a lot of joules that could only be consumed from extremely high energy drinks and foods. Humans probably won't be able to provide them with these, given that they don't consume too much energy at all —maybe ten to thirty joules maximum— and so the ingredients bought from earth-humans are usually insufficient and instead, electro-humans tend to grow special crops on their lands that cater to their needs.

Their bodies are designed to handle high energy due to the balance between work and energy in their everyday life. In other words, an extreme amount of energy equals a lot of it being consumed because of too much work being performed when using any of the five main electro-abilities. Those abilities are what distinguishes them from earth-humans to begin with.

They also have really high body capacitance of over one million pF (picofarads) and electrical resistance of over one billion ohms, both of which are almost infinite, but they still degrade with time. That's why most of them have varied capacitance and resistance according to age.

"Are you alright," Mr. Lee shouted.

"Yes, I'm alright," John shouted back from a long distance.

He struggled to stand at first, and it took him a minute or so till he recovered partially, but then he ran even with some injuries and reached the track.

He did the race again, but it wasn't as fast as the first one, so he got a less score than Alex.

"Hmm...Your speed was really high at first, but now it has decreased drastically." Mr. Lee said while looking at the device's screen.

"Because it took me a lot of energy to heal myself."

His speed dropped to around 630 miles per hour or 279 meters per second.

As he went back to his seat with a sad face, Alex mocked him, "Yeah, loser. Hahaha. This'll teach you that I'm always stronger than you,"

"Can you please shut up. It's not even funny." Luna said.

"Oh, what happened? You seem to care about him all of a sudden."

"No. It's just that you always make fun of people when they lose to you."

"Okay, enough. Now who will go next?" Mr. Lee asked.

"Let Pico go next, so we can see him lose as well. Hahaha," laughed Alex in his idiotic voice.

"You are annoying, you know that?" Luna huffed.

"Okay, it's fine by me." Pico said in a nonchalant tone, and went to the start line.

"But, didn't you want more time to prepare?" John asked.

"It's fine, I'll be good."

He finished the lap in a second with a speed of around 700 miles per hour or 310 meter per second. Way lower than Alex but a bit higher than John's final score.

Luna went after he finished and got a score close to his.

Pika, on the other hand, got a score that was nearly similar to Alex's at about 434 meters per second or 980 miles per hour.

Watch me, Alex. I will get to you one day, my love. She thought with a smug face as she went back to her seat.

After everyone finished, they gathered once again in front of Mr. Lee.

He stared at his watch for a moment, before facing them and saying, "Well. That's it for today, I guess, since it's going to be home time any second. You can head back now, see you tomorrow,"

The students walked back to the building's side entrance and through the hallway to enter the changing rooms. After wearing their school uniforms they headed out from the front entrance of the building.