Chapter 4

At the Neo Heroes training camp.

Drax just made it into the cafeteria. The food was good by the looks of it, a great selection and everything appeared fresh and well attended to. Unlike the cafeteria food at school! Drax entered the room with all the other kids, he found a table to sit at. However, before he could eat, Josh appeared. "Where the hell were you? Huh? Chickened out already, hid in the bathroom?" he laughed.

Drax didn't answer him, he started to eat since he was starving. All that hard work, not to mention going toe to toe with Shaw stimulated his appetite. "HEY! I'm talking to you asshole!" his tone caught everyone's attention that time. The room froze as the kids paused but then began to whisper.

"It's that kid from earlier…"

"The one Raiden took off to the side!"

"No one saw him since, but he was taken down to the Neo Heroes training facility…"

Josh began to pick up on the tones of the other kids. "Wait… you got to go to the REAL training facility for the Neo Heroes?" he demanded.

The question was answered with Ran and Shaw entered and took a seat next to Drax. "Great spar sessions today, next time, don't hold back. I know you were!" Shaw insisted.

Ran however glared at Josh. "Is there something we can help you with?"

The kid shook his head no and quickly retreated. They just sat down to eat, when an alarm went off. "All Neo Heroes, report to head base… All Neo Heroes"

"Damn it, and I just got this…" With a sigh, Shaw shovelled everything he could into his mouth, Ran followed suit, as they were quick to answer the call. TVs began to turn on in the cafeteria, they reported of two mysterious beings in the area of City H. One dubbed Mirror-Mirror, the other Veins.

"Veins has since vanished, Mirror-Mirror has also vanished for the moment, we are advising all in City H to remain on alert. If there are those in the movie industry, remain indoors. Go home. The mysterious being Mirror-Mirror is targeting movie studios and their actors."

Drax shook his head to it all. He couldn't shake the feeling Veins was familiar to him. There were no clear pictures to verify, and yet deep in his mind, he knew him from somewhere. Also it didn't make sense. The news didn't report of this creature attacking people. It was merely seen. If it were working with Mirror-Mirror, it would have done some sort of damage.

"YOU!"

Drax broke from his train of thought. He saw bigger and stronger looking kids surround him. "We heard that Raiden took you off to the side to a different training facility… what makes you so special?"

The kid was easily twice his side, sixteen years old if he would have to guess. Yet lingering behind them of course was Josh grinning from ear to ear. Drax figured he must not have measured up to these guys in the training facility and is hoping a fight breaks out to either expel them or at least harm them. 'That's it huh? Make me the hit man, fine, be that way' Drax thought. He turned to the older kids. "I have mastered a martial art at the time only really known by former A Class Hero Biting Snake Fist Snek, he was a good friend of my mom back in the day. Since then, I have trained myself and perfected it." He took his stance and showed how firm he stood. "Now, if I were to strike you, there's what… six of you here… It would be easy for me to do so. In fact…"

Drax made his move, he wasn't going to hit them, instead he kept in his hand a single packet of sauce from his lunch. He managed to get the tip of it open and use it on the six who surrounded him. None knew what happened. They felt a whoosh of air come pass them, and then they found the marking of sauce on their face, arms and stomach. Just a small dot of it. "Now, did you see me do that?" Drax questioned.

Suddenly, the six froze. "Whoa…" the sixteen year old whispered. He called off the other kids. "I get it, don't mess with him!" he announced.

A relief came over him, he wouldn't have to fight his way out of it. Yet as the teens backed off, Josh began to yell. "He made fools out of you!"

The oldest of the teens paused and turned. "No, you nearly made a fool out of us… you knew what this kid could do, didn't you?" he demanded. Suddenly, Josh found himself surrounded. "You were going to have this kid hurt us, weren't you? You punk ass…"

"Enough!" roared Drax. The teens paused. "What does it matter anymore, you now know his intentions, his motives and now what he is capable of. Move past it, besides. He would have made fools of you again if you struck him down. Wasting time and energy on someone like him, it's not worth getting expelled from here is it?"

The teens froze, the oldest turned and sneered at Josh. "The kid is right, you are nothing but a waste of time and effort. Come on boys, let's go finish our lunch." Drax turned to go back to his table. "Hey… strong kid… wanna sit with us?"

He froze to the offer, but Drax smiled and accepted.

#

"No way!"

"Seriously, that's how you got in? How strong are you?"

The teenagers were taking their turns explaining how they got into the camp, when it came to Drax's turn. They froze at the story. "I heard a rumour about that, Raiden offered to test a kid's strength but refused claiming he could break his arm. All of us here tested our power against him, punching him once in the palm of his hands, he was able to determine if he could work with us or not." said the teen Musashi. "So you were the one who refused, claiming he could break Raiden's arm huh?" He laughed at the story, unable to believe it was true at first, but after speaking with Drax, he began to believe it

Drax blushed at the notion but nodded. "Yeah… they brought a machine instead for me to test my strength. I broke it…"

The table fell silent to him. "You… broke a punching machine?"

"Are they really that hard to break?"

The table froze. "Dude, they use to use those at the heroes association to gauge the strength of potential heroes!" said Musashi. He was the tallest out of the group, he has short black hair yet very muscular. His friends were the similar in size to him too, yet Drax was impressed to how welcoming they were. Reminded him of the manga he read from Pac, Mob Psycho 100.

"Wow… well I didn't really know they would take my warning so seriously, either way though…"

"Say Drax is it?" asked Jun. second tallest in the group yet with medium length brown hair. He wasn't as strong looking as Musashi, but was a close second. "Did anyone tell you, you kinda look like a hero?" he asked.

Inside, Drax was trembling. Shaking at the thought of it all, despite no one else figuring out who his father is, these complete strangers were cluing in! "Yeah…" he lied. "I do get that a lot. In fact, funny story. Last day of school last year, I thought for the hell of it I would dress as Snek when he was an A Class hero. Apparently I was the spitting image of him!"

The group squinted. "Yeah… you do have his look sort of. But everyone knows he never married or had a kid, he was too devoted to being an A Class hero" said the shortest Ryohei.

Drax was laughing. "You guys really remind me of a manga I read all the time. Mob Psycho 100!"

The guys laughed. "That's where our names came from!" said Musashi. He leaned in and whispered. "We don't use our real names, but these ones inspire us to work hard. Their teamwork is inspiring!" he explained.

"Nice!"

Within an hour, the Neo Heroes returned. Ran and Shaw were quick to flag down Drax. "Come on kid!" called Shaw.

"I got to go, it was nice meeting you!"

"Say… Drax. Far be it from me to be asking, but… can you… teach us some stuff?" asked Jun.

He was stunned to the request. "You want to learn from me?"

"Yeah, it you don't want us to ask, that's cool too. But, you seem like a guy who knows what the hell he's doing around here! Not to mention to be invited to train with the Heroes themselves, that's something! What do you say?" asked Musashi.

He smiled. "I'll be happy to!"

The table celebrated as Drax took his tray away and went to meet Shaw and Ran. The two smiled. "Ah, new friends I see? I heard about those kids, great potential, wonderful team work too." Said Shaw.

"Yeah, they are decent guys."

"WAIT A MINUTE!"

The room froze as Josh stood up. "HOW COME HE GETS SPECIAL TREATMENT! WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL WITH HIM GETTING TO TRAIN WITH THE NEO HEROES ONE ON ONE!"

The room froze as some of the kids began to share their voice concerns. "Hey! Back off, the kid is a lot stronger than us! He's got skills that none of us possess!" shouted Musashi.

"THEN PROVE IT!" Josh yelled. "PROVE IT, PROVE IT, PROVE IT!" he got the room chanting it. Shaw sighed aloud as he turned down to Drax.

"Very well!" Shaw called. "Everyone in training room A!" The kids began to leave the room, yet Shaw leaned down and whispered to Drax. "You know when I said don't hold back… now is the time to go all out. Understand?"

He nodded, he has to in order to get Josh to shut the hell up!