Galoria-SEASON 1

#Episode 1: Noah Jones

The morning sun hung low over the rooftops of Crestwood District, painting everything in shades of amber and rose. Noah Jones sat on the curb outside his house, lacing up his worn training shoes for the third time. He wasn’t stalling—not exactly. He was just... waiting. Waiting for the knot in his stomach to untie itself, waiting for the voice in his head to stop whispering that he didn’t belong anywhere near a place like Galoria University.

A familiar whistle cut through the morning quiet.

“Noah! Hey, Noah!”

Noah looked up, and there was Liam—Liam Moran Martinez, his best friend since they were six years old, sprinting down the sidewalk with the kind of reckless joy that only Liam could sustain. His dark hair was a mess, his shirt was untucked, and his grin was so wide it seemed to take up his entire face. He was holding something in his hand—a crumpled letter, waving it like a flag.

“Liam, slow down before you—”

Liam didn’t slow down. He crashed into Noah at full speed, sending them both tumbling backward onto the grass. They landed in a heap of limbs and laughter, exactly the way they’d done a thousand times before. Noah shoved him off, trying to look annoyed, but the smile was already breaking through.

“You’re an idiot,” Noah said.

“I got my power!” Liam shouted, springing to his feet. “I finally got it! Look!” He held out the letter—official Galoria University stationery, the seal embossed with the school’s crest: a shield wreathed in starlight. “The one I wished for when I was nine-Temporal Echo! I can create afterimages of myself, like, three seconds out of sync with reality. It’s SO COOL. Watch!”

Liam concentrated, his face scrunching up in that way it always did when he was trying something new. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, faintly, a shimmering outline of Liam appeared a few feet to his left—transparent, flickering, but undeniably there. It waved. The real Liam waved at the same time, laughing.

Noah’s eyes lit up. “Liam, that’s amazing! You’re going to be the best hero Galoria’s ever seen.”

“We’re going to be the best heroes,” Liam corrected, dropping onto the curb beside him. “You’ll get your power too, Noah. I know it. And when you do, we’ll be unstoppable. Partners.”

“Partners,” Noah echoed, and for a moment, the knot in his stomach loosened. With Liam beside him, anything seemed possible.

They sat in comfortable silence, watching the neighborhood wake up. A delivery drone hummed overhead. Mrs. Patterson’s cat—a fat orange tabby named Marmalade—sauntered across the street with the casual arrogance of a creature that owned the world. The smell of fresh bread drifted from the bakery two blocks over.

“How’s your dad doing?” Liam asked, his voice softer now.

Noah’s smile faded. He fiddled with the hem of his shirt, eyes dropping to the pavement. “...oh. My dad?” The words felt heavy in his mouth. “I think he’s still recovering. The doctors say there’s been some brain activity, but...” He trailed off. one year. His father had been in a coma for one year, ever since that goblin attack in the market district. Gregory Jones had thrown himself in front of a child, taken a blow meant for someone else, and paid for it with half a decade of silence.

“If that goblin hadn’t—”

A sound. A wet, sickening sound that Noah would hear in his nightmares for the rest of his life.

Liam’s sentence stopped mid-word. His eyes went wide—not with surprise, but with a terrible, empty blankness. A shadow spike, blacker than midnight, protruded from the side of his head. It had come from nowhere. It had come from everywhere. Liam’s mouth opened, as if he was about to say something else, but no sound came out.

Then he dropped.

His body hit the pavement with a thud that seemed to shake the entire world. Noah didn’t move. Couldn’t move. His brain refused to process what his eyes were seeing. Liam—his best friend, his partner, the boy who had just discovered his power and was going to be a hero—was lying at his feet, eyes staring at nothing.

And beyond him, in the alley across the street, Noah saw a glimpse. A figure, half-obscured by shadow. And something else—something vast and dark and wrong, a shape that seemed to drink in the light around it. A shadowy figure, watching.

Noah’s legs moved before his mind caught up. He ran. Not toward the danger, not toward the figure—away. Behind his house, through the back gate, into the overgrown garden where his mother used to grow tomatoes before everything fell apart. He collapsed behind the shed, pressed his back against the rotting wood, and tried to remember how to breathe.

Liam was dead.

Liam was dead.

The words circled in his head like vultures, picking at the edges of his sanity. His best friend was dead, murdered by something he didn’t understand, and he had run. He hadn’t fought. He hadn’t even tried. He had just run.

Noah pressed his fists against his eyes until he saw stars. When he finally lowered his hands, something had shifted inside him. The terror was still there, raw and bleeding, but beneath it, something harder was forming. Something sharp.

He would avenge Liam.

No matter what it took. No matter how long. He would find the thing that had killed his best friend, and he would destroy it.

---

**Two Years Later**

Galoria University rose from the cliffs like a cathedral carved from stone and light. Its spires pierced the clouds, its walls gleamed with centuries of history, and its gates—massive things of wrought iron and starlight—stood open to receive the newest class of would-be heroes. Students streamed through in clusters, some laughing, some nervous, all of them carrying the weight of their own ambitions.

Noah Jones walked through those gates alone.

He was taller now, broader in the shoulders, with the lean muscle of someone who had spent two years training every single day. His eyes were different too—sharper, more watchful, always scanning. The boy who had hidden behind the shed was still in there somewhere, but he was buried deep beneath layers of determination and grief.

“New student?” A harried-looking administrator thrust a tablet into his hands. “Name?”

“Noah Jones.”

The administrator’s eyes flicked up, scanning him with the casual assessment of someone who had seen a thousand students come and go. “No power registered. You’re aware that Galoria requires—”

“I know,” Noah said. “I’m a late bloomer.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie. He hadn’t manifested a power yet—not one he could name, anyway. But he’d trained. God, he’d trained. Two years of pushing his body to its limits, learning to fight, learning to survive. He might not have a flashy ability, but he had something else. Something that burned in his chest every time he thought about Liam’s empty eyes.

The administrator shrugged and waved him through.

Noah stepped into the main courtyard and stopped, momentarily overwhelmed. The campus was massive—far larger than it had looked from outside. Buildings stretched in every direction, connected by covered walkways and floating platforms. Training arenas hummed with simulated combat. Students with every kind of power imaginable filled the space: a girl with wings folded against her back, a boy whose skin flickered with electricity, a trio of students levitating a statue for no apparent reason other than they could.

And then there was the memorial.

It stood at the center of the courtyard—a towering obelisk of black stone, carved with thousands of names. Heroes who had fallen in the line of duty. Graduates of Galoria who had given their lives to protect others. Noah’s eyes traced the names, wondering how many more would be added before he left this place.

“That’s a lot of dead people.”

Noah turned. A boy about his age was standing beside him, arms crossed, expression unreadable. He was striking in a way that was almost unsettling—half his face was normal, but the other half was covered in sleek, metallic plating. A robotic eye whirred faintly in the socket. His right arm was entirely mechanical, gleaming with chrome and blue lights.

“I’m Noah,” Noah said, extending a hand.

The boy looked at the hand like it was a foreign object. “Aiden Kirk.” He didn’t shake it. “You’re the one with no power, right? I heard the admin talking.”

Noah lowered his hand, trying not to let the sting show. “Yeah. That’s me.”

“Great.” Aiden’s robotic eye clicked as it focused on him. “Another one who’s going to get themselves killed in the first week.”

“Hey, Aiden!” A new voice cut through the tension. Another boy was approaching, flipping a small clock around his pointer finger with practiced ease. A clock necklace hung around his neck, the hands spinning lazily despite having no apparent power source. His grin was wide and infuriatingly confident. “Stop being an ass to the new kid. It’s literally day one.”

“Max,” Aiden said flatly. “I was hoping you’d gotten lost on the way here.”

“Aw, you’d miss me.” Max clapped Noah on the shoulder. “Don’t mind him. He’s like this with everyone. I’m Max. Time manipulation. Limited, but useful.”

“Noah Jones. And I don’t have a power. Yet.”

“Yet,” Max repeated, nodding approvingly. “I like that. Optimistic. Most people who come here without powers are just hoping to get lucky. You sound like you’ve got a plan.”

“I’ve got something,” Noah said. It wasn’t a plan, exactly. More like a promise he’d made to a dead boy two years ago. But he wasn’t going to explain that to strangers.

A drone hummed overhead—one of Aiden’s, Noah realized, from the way its design matched the plating on his face. It fired a warning shot into the ground near Max’s feet.

“Shut up, Max,” Aiden said, already walking away.

Max laughed, utterly unbothered. “See you around, new kid. Try not to let him get under your skin. He’s actually worse than he seems.”

Noah watched them go, feeling the first tendrils of doubt creeping into his resolve. He’d trained for two years. He’d pushed himself harder than he’d ever thought possible. But standing here, surrounded by people who could fly, who could control time, who could build robots with their minds—he’d never felt more inadequate.

He shook his head, forcing the doubt down. He hadn’t come here to compare himself to others. He’d come here to become strong enough to avenge Liam. Everything else was noise.

Noah approached a bench near the memorial, where a person was sitting with a sketchbook, drawing intently. They looked up as Noah approached—piercing eyes, dark skin, an expression that was more curious than welcoming.

“Hey, I-im Noa—”

“Ka’Mauri.” The person interrupted without looking up from the sketchbook. They were drawing a water bottle. As Noah watched, the drawing shimmered, and a real water bottle materialized on the bench beside them—identical to the one in the sketch, down to the brand label.

Noah stared. “You just... drew that into existence?”

“My power’s to draw whatever and it’s real.” Ka’Mauri finally looked up, studying Noah with an artist’s eye. “You?”

“I don’t know my power yet,” Noah muttered.

Ka’Mauri’s expression didn’t change. “That’s rough. This school eats people without powers alive. Literally, sometimes.”

“That’s... comforting.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.” Ka’Mauri returned to their sketchbook. “I’ve seen three students wash out already, and classes haven’t even started. One of them was a kid who could turn invisible. He just... disappeared. No pun intended.”

Noah sat down heavily on the bench. The weight of everything—Liam’s death, two years of training, the overwhelming reality of Galoria—pressed down on him all at once. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you look like someone who needs to hear it.” Ka’Mauri’s pencil moved in quick, precise strokes. “You’re not the first person to come here hoping to discover something in themselves. Most of them fail. But the ones who succeed...” They tore the page out of the sketchbook and handed it to Noah. It was a drawing of Noah himself—but different. In the drawing, he was standing tall, surrounded by light, facing down something dark and massive. “The ones who succeed are the ones who don’t give up.”

Noah stared at the drawing. “I don’t know if I’m one of those.”

“No one does until they are.” Ka’Mauri stood, tucking their sketchbook under their arm. “Good luck, Noah. Try not to die.”

---

The explosion came without warning.

One moment, Noah was walking toward the dorms, still clutching Ka’Mauri’s drawing. The next, the gas station across the street erupted in a fireball that shook the ground and sent shards of glass raining down like deadly confetti.

“Agh—” A figure shot out of the flames, spinning like a human drill. Lorenzo Alvarez, known to everyone as “Drill Boy,” was a stocky kid with arms that could transform into whirring metal augers. He was fighting something—something massive and red and roaring with primal fury.

Mateo. The Crimson Giant. A monster that had been terrorizing the outer districts for weeks, growing larger and more powerful with every attack.

Lorenzo leaped, his arms merging into a single massive drill that screamed toward Mateo’s chest. For a moment, it looked like he might actually land the hit. But Mateo was faster than something his size had any right to be. He sidestepped, grabbed Lorenzo’s leg, and squeezed.

The crack of bone was audible even from Noah’s position.

Lorenzo screamed. Mateo kicked him, sending him crashing into the side of a building. Then, before Lorenzo could recover, the giant raised both fists and brought them down with the force of a meteor strike.

Noah looked away, but he couldn’t block out the sound.

When he looked back, Lorenzo was gone. Nothing remained but a dark stain on the concrete and the lingering echo of a scream.

Aiden and Max appeared at the scene almost instantly. Max grabbed his clock necklace, and the world around him flickered—time rewinding, rewinding, until Mateo was preparing his slam again. But this time, a laser shot through Mateo’s arm before he could deliver the killing blow. Aiden’s drone hovered overhead, its barrel still glowing.

Mateo roared, clutching his wounded arm. He turned and ran, each step cracking the pavement, causing destruction that spread in his wake like ripples in a pond. Aiden tapped the headband on his head—a control interface—and two sleek robots emerged from compartments on his back, immediately beginning to repair the damage.

Noah ran toward them, his heart pounding. “How did you do that?!”

Max flipped his clock again, the motion casual and practiced. “We practice. We get good. And we’re able to take immediate foes like that easily.” His grin was back, but there was something tired behind it. “Helps to have powers, too.”

Aiden turned to Noah, his robotic arms making a slight creaking noise. “What’s your power?”

“...I don’t know my power yet.”

“Then you will never become a hero.” Aiden’s voice was flat, clinical, utterly without mercy. “Stop wishing.”

He walked away. Max hesitated, glancing between Aiden’s retreating back and Noah’s stricken face. “He’s... not wrong about the power thing. But he’s also kind of an asshole. Don’t let it get to you.” Then he followed Aiden, leaving Noah alone with the memory of Lorenzo’s death and the weight of Aiden’s words.

Noah watched them go, fists clenched. “..I...wont be a hero? No, I..”

He took a deep breath, forcing the despair back down into the pit where he kept everything he couldn’t deal with. He thought about Liam—about the promise he’d made behind the shed, two years ago. “I’ll make sure your sacrifice won’t be in vain... Liam Moran Martinez.”

Across the courtyard, a figure was kneeling beside Lorenzo’s remains. Noah didn’t see him at first—the chaos had scattered everyone, and the cleanup robots were obscuring the view. But then the figure raised his hands, and something impossible happened.

Light. Warm, golden light, pouring from the stranger’s palms and washing over the stain on the concrete. The light coalesced, took shape, and when it faded, Lorenzo was there. Whole. Alive. Gasping for breath and looking around with the wide-eyed terror of someone who had just been dead.

The stranger stood. He was tall, with dark skin and an expression of profound exhaustion. His name was Darius Okonkwo. And his power was resurrection—at a cost that no one else could see.

The first day at Galoria University had barely begun, and already the body count was rising. But in the shadow of the memorial obelisk, Noah made a silent vow: he would survive this place. He would find his power. And he would become the hero that Liam had believed he could be.

Or he would die trying.

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