Terran Energy
.....................
saturates everything. The air. The ground. Every living organism on the planet. It's the water in the bucket, the faucet that never stops running, the fundamental force connecting all life to Terra itself.
Every living being receives it. From the moment of birth to the final breath, Terran Energy flows through cells, through blood, through bone. It's passive. Ambient. Like breathing—you don't think about it, you simply do it. The bucket fills naturally, the water circulates, the system maintains itself without conscious effort.
For eighty percent of Terra's population, that's where the story ends. The energy exists. It sustains. Nothing more.
For the other twenty percent, the story becomes something else entirely.
Gears aren't just powers. They're biological constructs, DNA-locked, unique as fingerprints. They're evolutionary mutations written into genetic code, passed down through bloodlines or manifesting spontaneously in individuals whose biology decided to rewrite the rules. They turn passive energy into active force, transforming the ambient flow into something weaponizable, something extraordinary, something that separates the ordinary from the exceptional.
Some Gears are common. Fire manipulation. Minor telekinesis. Enhanced reflexes. Basic applications that thousands of Terrans possess in varying degrees of competency.
Some Gears are rare. Weather control. Gravity manipulation. Molecular reconstruction. Abilities that appear in perhaps one in every hundred thousand Gear users.
And some Gears are unique.
Speed Drive is an S+ grade Inner-Enhancement type Gear. The classification alone tells you everything you need to know about its rarity. S+ grade Gears number in the dozens globally. Inner-Enhancement types that don't just augment the body but fundamentally restructure how it processes motion, perception, and physics itself are even rarer.
Speed Drive belongs to the Loid Clan. It has belonged to them for seven hundred years.
The Fifth Application—that's what the ancient Loid martial artists called it. The theoretical fifth stage of their combat philosophy, a level of speed and perception so far beyond normal Terran capability that achieving it was considered myth. For centuries, it remained theoretical. Masters trained their entire lives trying to grasp even a fraction of what the Fifth Application represented.
Then one day, approximately seven hundred years ago, a Loid warrior was born with it already integrated into their DNA.
Evolution doesn't ask permission. It simply happens.
Speed Drive became hereditary. Not guaranteed—genetics are messy, unpredictable—but possible. The Gear passed through generations, appearing in some children and skipping others, refining itself with each iteration as the bloodline adapted to accommodate forces that would tear apart ordinary biology.
Which brings us to the Current wielder
Hasan Hilal Loid. Age seventeen as of March 2155. Third recorded instance of the Gear manifesting in his generation of the clan.
Technical specifications are straightforward. Baseline sustained velocity: Mach 2. That's his comfortable cruising speed, the level he can maintain for extended periods without significant metabolic drain. Peak burst velocity: Mach 45. That's the absolute limit, the speed he can achieve in short bursts before his body begins tearing itself apart from the internal stress.
But here's what makes Hasan's manifestation of Speed Drive unprecedented in the entire seven-hundred-year history of the Gear:
His perceptual processing operates at light-speed equivalent.
Most Speed Drive users throughout history experienced the world at accelerated rates proportional to their velocity. Move at Mach 10, perceive things ten times faster than normal. Move at Mach 20, perceive things twenty times faster. The ratio remained consistent—speed and perception scaled together.
Hasan broke that ratio.
At Mach 45, the world around him doesn't just slow down. It freezes. Individual raindrops hang suspended in the air. Dust particles drift with the lethargy of continental plates. Sound becomes a distorted crawl, stretching syllables into incomprehensible bass rumbles. Light trails linger in his vision like neon afterimages burned into reality itself.
He processes information faster than he can physically move. Even at his absolute maximum velocity, everything appears to be moving in extreme slow motion from his perspective.
This is not normal. This is not how Speed Drive is supposed to work. The clan's historical records contain no documentation of any previous wielder experiencing perception on this scale.
Hasan Hilal Loid is, objectively speaking, the fastest Terran alive. Uncontested. Undisputed. No other being on the planet can match his velocity or his perceptual processing speed.
There is, of course, a cost.
All Gears have costs. The water analogy breaks down when you push it too hard—draw too much from the bucket, drain the faucet faster than it can refill, and the system collapses. For Speed Drive specifically, the cost is metabolic. Moving at Mach 45 burns through Hasan's energy reserves at catastrophic rates. Thirty seconds at peak velocity can leave him functionally comatose for hours. Extended use above Mach 35 causes systemic damage—muscle fiber tears, bone microfractures, cellular breakdown from internal friction.
The Gear makes him the fastest thing alive. It doesn't make him invincible.
----
But on a clear morning in March 2155, in a small café in North Valor's commercial district, these technical specifications are irrelevant.
Hasan isn't moving at Mach anything. He's sitting at a corner table, watching his friend be rude to service staff over a coffee order.
The café is moderately crowded. Mid-morning rush, mostly office workers grabbing caffeine before disappearing into their respective corporate buildings. The ambient noise is pleasant—conversations blending into white noise, espresso machines hissing, chairs scraping against tile flooring.
Miyu Yamashita is currently destroying that pleasant atmosphere.
"Are you serious right now?" Her voice cuts through the ambient noise like a blade. Sharp. Precise. Absolutely dripping with the kind of condescension that only teenagers who've never been told 'no' can properly achieve. "I specifically said extra sweet. Do you not understand Terric, or—"
The barista is young. Maybe nineteen. Clearly new to customer service, clearly not equipped to handle whatever this situation is rapidly becoming. "I-I'm sorry, miss, I can remake it—"
"Yeah, you can, because that's literally your job—"
Hasan reaches across the table without warning. His hand moves with the casual precision of someone who's performed this exact action dozens of times before. Fingers close around both of Miyu's cheeks, squishing them together with just enough pressure to be annoying without actually hurting.
He holds her there. Looks at her. Says nothing.
"Hm."
It's not a word. It's barely a sound. But Miyu understands it perfectly because she's known him long enough to have developed a comprehensive internal dictionary of Hasan's various grunts and hums.
Translation: Stop that.
The anger evaporates. Not gradually—instantly. Like someone flipped a switch in her brain and all that carefully cultivated fury just... turned off.
She can't maintain rage when he does this. Never could. Never will. It's physically impossible. The indignation, the self-righteous fury, the genuine offense at receiving incorrect coffee—all of it dissolves the moment his fingers close around her face.
"Be nice miyu."
"Okay, okay—" Her voice is muffled through squished cheeks, consonants distorted into something vaguely comical. "I'll stop—"
Hasan releases her.
Miyu turns back to the barista, significantly calmer, though her pride clearly hasn't recovered enough to make actual eye contact. "...Sorry. Just remake it when you can. Thank you."
The barista escapes gratefully, disappearing behind the counter like prey successfully evading a predator.
Hasan watches Miyu settle back into her chair. She's wearing expensive clothes—not ostentatiously so, but the kind of expensive that people who actually have money understand. Casual designer pieces that cost more than most Terrans make in a week but look unremarkable to anyone who doesn't know how to read brand tags. Black fitted jacket over a white shirt, dark pants that probably cost more than the café's entire inventory, boots that are simultaneously practical and absurdly well-crafted.
There's a black choker around her neck. Small teardrop pendant hanging from it. Hasan doesn't know what it is. Miyu's never explained it. He's never asked.
She catches him looking. Raises an eyebrow. "What?"
"Hm." (Translation: You were being mean.)
"I was not being mean. I was being accurate. There's a difference."
"Hm?." (Translation: your sure?)
Miyu rolls her eyes but doesn't argue further. She knows she's wrong. She also knows Hasan knows she knows she's wrong. They've had this exact conversation seventeen times in the past month alone.
Her posture shifts slightly. Less aggressive, more comfortable. She leans back in her chair with the casual confidence of someone who's used to being obeyed, used to commanding spaces just by existing in them. It's subtle—most people wouldn't notice it—but Hasan's known her long enough to recognize the shift.
She's was wealthy. Extremely wealthy. The kind of wealthy where rudeness to service staff doesn't have consequences because money insulates you from social accountability.
He doesn't know the specifics. Doesn't need to. It's none of his business.
He has only known her for a month and a half at current point
The corrected coffee arrives. Extra sweet, exactly as ordered. Miyu accepts it with a quiet "thank you" that sounds almost genuine. The barista retreats again.
Hasan sips his own drink. Black coffee. No sugar. No cream. Simple.
"So," Miyu says, stirring her coffee with unnecessary vigor, "how's training?"
"Fine."
"Just fine?"
"Hm." (Translation: Yes, just fine.)
She grins. "Mine's brutal. Marlon's trying to kill me. I'm convinced."
Hasan glances at her. Waits.
"Yesterday he made me punch a tree for three hours."
"Did it help?"
"The tree died."
"oh wow."
" So to answer your question yes it did...technically."
They finish their drinks in comfortable silence. The café's ambient noise fills the gaps where conversation would normally go. Neither of them feels the need to fill every moment with words. They've been friends long enough that silence isn't awkward—it's just another form of communication.
Miyu checks her phone. Grimaces. "We should probably head out soon. Aliyah's going to lecture us if we're late again."
"Hm." (Translation: I rather not deal with that)
Hasan stands. Miyu follows. They leave exact change on the table—Hasan's contribution, because Miyu would absolutely leave either nothing or an absurdly large tip with no middle ground—and exit into North Valor's late morning streets.
The commercial district transitions into residential areas gradually. Office buildings give way to apartment complexes, which give way to smaller storefronts, which eventually dissolve into tree-lined streets with actual houses instead of vertical concrete towers.
They're not walking anywhere specific. Just burning time before training, moving with the aimless quality of people who don't have anywhere to be for at least another hour.
Miyu breaks the silence first. "We're both Pending Youth, right?"
"Yeah."
"Like—officially. Can't deploy for real until we hit seventeen." She kicks a pebble, watches it skitter. "Which is stupid, by the way. Completely stupid."
"Hm."
"Your birthday's next month. April ninth."
"Mhm."
"And mine's May twenty-first. So we're just—what, sitting around doing nothing until then? That's over a month of wasted time because the Empire has arbitrary age restrictions."
Hasan glances at her. "You're sixteen."
"I know I'm sixteen, Hasan. That's my entire point. I'm sixteen, you're sixteen, and we're stuck doing training drills while everyone else gets actual missions." She groans, dragging her hands down her face. "It's humiliating. Do you know how embarrassing it is when Aliyah gets to do field work and I'm stuck running laps?"
"Not really."
"Of course you don't." Miyu elbows him lightly in the ribs—he doesn't react. "You don't get embarrassed about anything."
"I get embarrassed."
"Name one time."
"..."
"Exactly." She grins, triumphant. "You're like—emotionally immune to shame or something. It's weird."
They walk another block in comfortable quiet. The residential streets are empty this time of day—most people working, kids at school, the whole district drowsy and slow in that mid-morning lull where nothing happens and time stretches.
Miyu speaks again, softer. "Marlon says I need to work on emotional regulation."
"Yeah."
"Rude." She shoots him a look, but she's smiling. "He keeps making me meditate. Do you have any idea how boring meditation is?"
"Does it help?"
"...Maybe. I don't know. Probably." She scuffs her boot against the pavement. "I just hate sitting still. It makes me think too much."
"Thinking's good."
The screaming starts three blocks away.
Both of them freeze mid-step. The sound is distant but distinct—multiple voices, panic-sharp, cutting through the residential quiet like an alarm.
Then comes the mechanical grinding. Metal against metal. Something large tearing, structural supports failing under stress they weren't designed to handle.
"That's—" Miyu starts.
"Train," Hasan finishes.
They don't discuss it. Don't strategize. Don't waste time on confirmation when they both already know.
Hasan's gone.
One moment he's standing beside her. The next he just—isn't. No blur, no wind, no sonic boom. He's just somewhere else now.
Miyu blinks.
Looks left. Looks right.
Empty sidewalk.
(Seriously? He didn't even say anything—)
She feels the irritation spike before she can stop it. "I hate when he does that," she mutters, already breaking into a sprint.
Miyu runs.
She can't match Hasan's speed—nobody can—but Brute Force doesn't just amplify strength. Emotional stress enhances everything. Right now she's pissed off that Hasan left without her and terrified for people she hasn't even seen yet, which means her legs are moving approximately four times faster than any normal Terran's.
She crosses three blocks in under thirty seconds.
The elevated train track looms ahead—North Valor Transit Line 7, one of the major commuter rails connecting the commercial district to the outer residential zones. The track runs twenty meters above street level, supported by massive concrete pillars spaced every fifty meters.
One of the passenger cars is detaching.
The coupling mechanisms—heavy-duty connectors designed to keep train cars linked during motion—are shearing apart. Metal screaming against metal. Bolts snapping. The entire rear section sliding backward as physics does what it always does when structural integrity fails.
Forty tons of passenger car. Sliding. Gaining speed. Heading directly toward the platform below where civilians are waiting, completely unaware that several tons of metal are about to flatten them.
Miyu's heart slams into her throat.
She doesn't think.
She just runs.
Hasan is already gone.
Already moving.
The world slows.
It always does.
Train car—falling. Forty tons. Trajectory: straight down. Velocity: accelerating. Platform below: twenty-three people. Mostly stationary. Two moving toward the stairs. One holding a child.
Time to impact: ninety seconds.
(From Hasan's perspective, that's forever.)
He doesn't calculate metabolic cost or acceptable risk threshold. He doesn't think should I do this or what if I get hurt.
His brain just goes: people gonna die if I don't move.
So he moves.
The world slows.
It doesn't slow gradually—it slams into slow motion like hitting a wall. One moment reality is operating at normal speed. The next moment everything is moving through molasses.
This is what Hasan experiences at Mach 45.
Individual raindrops from this morning's brief shower hang suspended in the air, each one a perfect sphere frozen mid-fall. Dust particles drift with geological slowness. The screaming civilians on the platform below have their mouths open, sound waves stretching into incomprehensible bass rumbles that take subjective minutes to complete single syllables.
The passenger car is sliding backward at approximately forty kilometers per hour objective time. From Hasan's perspective, it's barely moving. Drifting. Floating. Glacial.
He has, subjectively, over two minutes to figure out how to stop it.
though when it comes to Hasan
he doesn't like to overthink these type of these
He can't stop it. That's the immediate realization. He's not strong enough. Speed Drive doesn't enhance strength—it enhances velocity and perception. His physical strength is normal Terran standard, maybe slightly above due to conditioning but nothing exceptional.
He can't stop forty tons. But he can redirect it.
Hasan moves ahead of the sliding car. Plants his feet against one of the track support beams. Reaches up. Grabs the front coupling with both hands.
The metal is cold. Solid. Ridiculously heavy even when moving at what appears to be centimeters per second from his distorted perception.
He doesn't pull backward. He pushes sideways.
Angling the trajectory. Degree by degree. Using the car's existing momentum against itself, applying lateral force at precise intervals to gradually shift the direction of travel away from the platform and toward the emergency track section twenty meters east.
It's not elegant. It's not clean. It's barely controlled physics applied through brute-force manual intervention.
But it works.
The passenger car grinds sideways. Metal screeches against metal. The emergency track section—designed specifically for this kind of catastrophic coupling failure—catches the displaced car and brings it to a halt through a series of increasingly aggressive friction brakes.
The car stops.
The passengers inside experience violent shaking. Someone's coffee spills. A few people fall out of their seats. Nobody dies.
Hasan stumbles.
His legs are shaking. His breathing is hard, irregular, cardiovascular system struggling to compensate for the metabolic drain. His hands hurt—not injured, just strained from gripping metal while moving at velocities that make friction a legitimate concern.
Thirty seconds objective time. Two minutes seventeen seconds subjective time.
Moderate metabolic drain. Minor muscle strain. Acceptable cost.
He deactivates Speed Drive.
not fully
the Speed Drive is automatic and cant be turned off
but Hasan can turn down how much it is affecting him
Reality snaps back to normal speed. The world stops being frozen. Sound returns to comprehensible frequencies. Time moves forward at its regular pace.
Hasan leans against the track support and tries to remember how to breathe normally.
His hands aren't shaking. They should be—most people's would after moving that fast, that hard, for that long. But Speed Drive doesn't leave him with tremors. Just exhaustion. The deep, bone-level kind that settles in after you've burned through more energy than you should've in a single burst.
(Train car. Twenty-three people. Kid in someone's arms. All safe now.)
He takes a slow breath. Lets it out.
(Good.)
Miyu reaches the separated track approximately forty seconds after Hasan vanished.
The train engine is still moving forward—momentum carrying it toward the gap where the passenger car used to be attached, braking systems struggling to compensate for the sudden loss of weight.
She sees it immediately. Sees the gap. Sees the engine heading straight for it. Sees the exact moment the conductor realizes what's about to happen.
She doesn't think.
She acts.
Miyu Yamashita's Gear is called Brute Force.
The name is not metaphorical.
Grade: A+
Category: Inner-Enhancement
Function: Amplifies physical strength and speed proportional to emotional stress. Peak trigger: anger. Limitation: body remains biological—can exceed structural limits and cause severe self-harm if pushed beyond safe thresholds.
Current emotional state: Protective fury. Civilians in danger. Lives at stake. The kind of anger that isn't petty or selfish or based on someone annoying her—the kind that burns clean and righteous and makes her capable of things normal biology shouldn't allow.
Amplification estimate: Four hundred percent baseline strength.
Miyu doesn't try to catch the engine.
She punches the track support beneath it.
IMPACT.
The sound is catastrophic. Metal doesn't bend—it folds. Like paper. Like something fundamentally incapable of resisting the force being applied to it.
Concrete cracks. Fractures spiderweb outward from the impact point. The entire support column shifts, tilts, structural integrity compromised at a fundamental level.
The emergency braking system triggers automatically. Sensors detect the structural damage, interpret it as catastrophic failure, and engage every available brake simultaneously.
The train engine screeches to a halt fifteen meters from the gap.
Miyu's right arm is broken.
Fractured radius. Severe bruising already spreading from wrist to elbow. Pain receptors screaming information her brain is currently choosing to ignore because adrenaline and Brute Force's emotional amplification create a temporary pain tolerance that borders on inhuman.
She'll feel it later.
Right now? She grins.
(Hell yeah.)
The civilians on the platform below are staring. Phones out. Recording. Questions shouting over each other in an incomprehensible wall of noise.
Miyu's grin widens despite the broken arm dangling at her side.
(Mission accomplished.)
Hasan's phone buzzes.
He pulls it from his pocket with hands that have finally stopped trembling. The caller ID reads "Aliyah - DON'T IGNORE."
He answers.
"Were you two planning to identify yourselves, or were you going for the mysterious vigilante aesthetic?"
Aliyah's voice is annoyed. Not angry—annoyed. The specific tone she uses when they've done something technically correct but procedurally frustrating.
"...Hi, Aliyah."
"The train rescue. North Valor Transit Line 7. That was you two, wasn't it?"
Hasan pauses. Glances at the wreckage. The crowd gathering below. Miyu walking toward him with her arm held against her side and a grin that suggests she finds this entire situation hilarious.
"...Yeah."
"Get back to base. Now. And next time you decide to perform heroics in broad daylight, identify yourselves properly. We need the publicity."
The call ends.
Hasan stares at his phone for a second.
(She's mad.)
He looks at Miyu, who's closer now, still grinning like an idiot despite the fact that her arm is very obviously broken.
"She's mad, isn't she?" Miyu says, way too cheerful for someone with a fractured radius.
"Yeah."
"Good. Keeps things interesting." She shifts her weight, winces slightly, then immediately pretends she didn't. "You good?"
"Hm."
"Cool. 'Cause I think we're about to get swarmed."
She's right.
The crowd is growing. More phones out. More questions.
"Who are you?"
"Are you with a Family Unit?"
"What's your team called?"
Miyu and Hasan exchange a glance.
The kind of glance that contains an entire conversation compressed into half a second of eye contact.
(We should probably tell them.)
(Yeah.)
(You do it.)
(Why me?)
(You like talking.)
(I really don't—)
(More than me.)
(...Fair.)
Miyu steps forward. Broken arm held carefully against her side, grin still plastered across her face despite the pain starting to break through her adrenaline-fueled numbness.
She straightens her shoulders. Stands tall. Projects confidence even though her arm feels like it's on fire.
"We're the Lion Cubs," she announces, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Hasan nods once beside her.
"Hm." (Translation: What she said.)
Miyu's grin sharpens.
(Yeah. That's right. Remember the name.)
The crowd erupts in questions. Followup inquiries. Requests for autographs. Someone asking if they do birthday parties.
Miyu and Hasan turn and leave.
Miyu's still grinning. Hasan's steady as ever, breathing finally returning to normal, hands shoved in his pockets like nothing unusual just happened.
They make it half a block before Hasan speaks.
"Y'know... stopping a train on your first mission is pretty impressive."
miyu glances at him. "First mission?"
Miyu blinks.
Then it hits her.
"Holy shit—you're right. That was our first actual mission." She laughs, bright and loud. "We just saved a train full of people and we're not even officially deployed yet."
"Hm." (Translation: Technically true.)
"Marlon's gonna lose his mind. In a good way. Probably." She shifts her broken arm slightly, winces, pretends she didn't. "What, you expected less? I'm Miyu Yamashita."
"Didn't expect less."
"Good answer."
There's a pause. Comfortable. Easy.
Then Hasan says, "You were gonna yell at the barista."
Miyu's grin falters. "Was not."
"Were."
"I was being polite—"
"You grabbed the counter."
"That doesn't mean anything—"
"Hm." (Translation: It absolutely does.)
Miyu groans, but she's smiling. "Okay, fine. Maybe I was a little annoyed. But she messed up my order twice—"
"Still not worth it."
"You're so annoying." She elbows him lightly—he doesn't react. "You grabbed my face because you knew I was about to escalate."
"Hm." (Translation: I will admit nothing.)
Miyu laughs.
It's a good sound. Genuine. The kind of laugh that doesn't happen when she's trying to be impressive or maintain a specific image. Just pure amusement at the absurdity of arguing about coffee shop etiquette immediately after preventing a train disaster.
Hasan doesn't laugh—he never laughs—but there's that subtle shift in his expression again. The one Miyu's learned to recognize as contentment.
They walk back toward the Lion Cubs' base.
Miyu's arm is definitely broken. Hasan's legs are still heavy from metabolic drain, though it's fading fast now that he's stopped moving at hypersonic speeds. Neither of them mentions it.
Aliyah is going to yell at them for not identifying themselves immediately. Marlon is going to lecture Miyu about emotional regulation, then shout very loudly about how proud he is of them. Someone—probably Aliyah again—is going to insist they file official incident reports.
They'll deal with it when they get there.
For now, they walk.
Two sixteen-year-olds who just saved approximately two dozen civilians and introduced themselves to North Valor as the Lion Cubs.
The fastest Terran alive and the girl who punches through concrete.
Everything is about to change.
But they don't know that yet.