Super Natropolis was massive. It was in the shape of a snowflake. A central citadel was surrounded by six divisions, each stranger looking than the next. One had tall buildings with a large base. Another’s buildings were circular.552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡycLvhyabbu
“We better give you the grand tour,” Rim suggested, fishing something out of the many pockets of her belt. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU37ZrIYpKS
She picked out something the size of a microchip and tossed it in the air. It folded out and expanded until it became a small motor scooter. I stared at it for a long time, completely stunned. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ776axqAL6X
“Awesome….” She simply boarded the vehicle like it was the most normal thing. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY57R41Q5Nk
“Sit behind me,” she ordered, starting up the engine. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmvR9yH4xD5
I did as I was told, swinging my legs to sit behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist. It felt awkward, as I didn’t know her well, but I had a feeling this thing might leave me in the dust if I so much as let go. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAbepXuj9F2
“What about you, Lena?” I asked the wizard girl. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoXLnAHyqiP
She chewed on her stick. “I need to go.” 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡexdfPjEoJv
Her face was clouded. I thought it would be best if I didn’t ask where she was going. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7XRoXhbefW
“Okay then, we’ll see you later?” She gave a slight nod. Maybe a nervous half-smile. Rim passed me a helmet. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfrLwji6mAY
“You might need this.” I barely had time to put on my new headgear before we were off. Rim looked around as she drove, making me wonder how safe the bike was. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWEvGR1hd4O
“Welcome to Super Natroplis, home of the Super Naturals. You see, every once in awhile, babies, or people in general, are born with advanced abilities in certain areas of the body. There’s a legend that says it started a long time ago when some mad scientist tried to enhance his DNA to make himself ultra-powerful. Apparently, it didn’t go as planned, but it was passed on through his genealogy, and thus the term Super Naturals was born.”552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡov3Xy8PUwp
“Supernatural abilities,” I summed up. My eyes probed wildly to get a look at everything. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRDQSCtXYeg
Rim nodded and continued. “Sometimes it’s really common, like when some people are better in class than in the gym or vice versa. Here, we divide it up into six sections.” 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡETeCN5my5c
She pointed to the first sector. “Head is the largest, as it has the most abilities linked to it. The brain-naturals are sometimes linked to things such as intelligence, telepathic commutation, physic visioning, healing, telekinesis, magic, and so on. Then you have the other head things, such as the nose. I’m not kidding. My friend is a nose-natural, and his sonic sneezes are explosive. You also have ears-naturals, who can hear from far distances and eye-naturals with X-ray and laser vision.” 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSElZySqYHK
She looked back at me. “You getting all this?”552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjhDV3OLDXk
“Oh sure,” I responded. “Please, go on Professor Rim.” 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGsze9Uo6O7
She scoffed before continuing, pointing to Sector 2. “Chest-naturals have two powers: strength and heart.” 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ77JUUhkGLd
She thought for a moment. “Your friend, Allen. He’s a chest-natural for strength.” 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHZ0b71e24J
I would never look at Allen the same way again. No wonder that guy could play. I reeled my mind back in. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYtV817cS6a
“What about hearts?”552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3J4sxprBNN
“Don’t mess with them. They’re obsessed with beauty and romance and they’re good at it too. They love gossip.” Rim snickered like she remembered a related comic moment. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡidwiMIdh5w
She pointed to the next sector with tall buildings with a wide base. “Next is leg-naturals, like yours truly. We specialize in speed and flexibility.”552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFOdpqRrkG8
“Elastic Rim,” I said, remembering the name the computed had given her. That had to be her super name. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1ccVVjBbpV
A thought occurred to me. “No way, are you really….” 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6xxxPLmAQi
She grinned and without breaking a sweat, kicked out her leg, which wrapped around a lamppost. It stretched like rubber as it circled around the lamppost before retracting. I stared as her leg went back to normal.552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNZtaEhnY5T
“That’s how you switched with Lena in the car. You’re ultra-flexible?” She nodded. I asked her how long she’s known about it.552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9UYZx6QvcU
“Since before I can remember.” She said evenly.552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpUw9dmDi7U
“You live here?”552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTySsdf8f3C
“Yep. Here, you have two names. My name is Rim, but Elastic-Rim is my hero name. ” She waved to someone on the street.552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDJMN29OyrO
“That’s Travis,” she explained. “He’s a stomach-natural.” I busted a laugh. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSttJFPG2Sz
“I’m serious! They’re resistant to natural hunger and thirst! Don’t judge! You’d dream of having that if you were on a deserted island. Think about it.” 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqNdK0uZ3o7
I did. “Throwing up is probably not a problem either, right?”552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡepOsGX5YxQ
“EW! I’m going to toss you off this thing,” she threatened, turning a street corner. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡohRgL6kqEt
We began to drive through an old rickety town. The paint job was messy and some of the weird-shaped buildings looked almost rusty as if no one wanted to fix it. I wrinkled my nose.552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEvogpWl9uX
“Who lives here?” Rim turned, surprised as if she drove through here a lot and forgot to look at the mess. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc4VNJ23BL7
“This is the Ultra-natural part of town.” She said the name as some type of virus. “Ultra-naturals are extremely powerful. They often have one or more extreme powers. Exceedingly dangerous.”552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUThF9oBIwZ
“So….why don’t they use their quote “extreme powers” to clean up the place? It looks almost…deserted.” I pointed to the nearest street, which looked like the residence of a hurricane victim. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLMql6luQyD
Rim was silent for a moment. “Ultra-naturals are really rare. They only pop up when the world really needs them.” 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzMf22eS5gP
I got a crazy image of a really muscular guy in a jumpsuit popping out of the ground, shaking my head. I tried to think of something educated to say. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAGN4wAVdQ4
“What kind of powers are they born with?”552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoPeHuwUk2L
“Powers? You never know with ultra-naturals. Time, Natural Forces, Invisibility…..” She caught herself, rushing on. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyPH1NK7ZWe
“Basically anything. There hasn’t been an ultra-natural in…a long time. Let’s be happy.”552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡS3V9Mlchye
“What do you mean? It sounds cool. Anyone would want to be one,” I mused.552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWTiHCdamlN
With that, she slammed the brakes. I raised an eyebrow. She turns to me and grabs me by the shoulders. “You don’t mean that.”552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL6Ohz6vTvD
“Huh?” She stared me down. The electric blue eyes made it intense. “You don’t want to be one.”552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbmppjbrVc5
“I never said to me!” I defended, half lying because I thought it was cool. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcI5T0Uq7p7
“You said ‘anyone’ as in ‘you.’” She sighed painfully. “Look, it’s dangerous. You get hunted, you get caught, and the thing about ultras….they don’t last long. Put in horrible danger by our enemies.” Her expression was sad. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBvrsICzJi3
I was confused. “Enemies? Like the ones that tried to get me in the gym?”552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1fpOligdxL
“It’s not safe to talk about them here. Come on. This place scares me.” She bit her lip and turned her key, the engine of her scooter humming to life. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJK1DudKSwX
She wouldn’t talk to me for the rest of the trip. Was it something I said? I still didn’t understand how I belonged here. It was all so bizarre, like something out of a fairytale. I looked at my own hands. They didn’t look like something….not human. In fact, they looked weak and less powerful than I expected. I wasn’t a superhero. I was just a regular kid. A kid named Blake, who had a mother and a father. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡE0qqb1sthG
Well, he never knew his father, but that was another story. He went to school and played volleyball and skateboarded with his buddy Allen. I could never be one of these. I realized fully for the first time that Allen was a super natural. I mean, it made sense and all. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4QxEjiJMaz
He was strong and undefeated in volleyball. That kid I met in the gym with the sports goggles…..he was something else. This? This wasn’t something I was expecting. I pinched myself in the arm, hard. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7O8v1Tj1Xy
I was dreaming. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDVyTdOVeot
I had to be. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2F6dNcAJDl
This wasn’t real. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7IrM8KmMwv
I looked at some kids hanging out by a café. Two boys were trying to grab their sodas out of the air, while a girl laughed, a weird glow settling around her, her fingers touching the sides of her head as if she was levitating them. The weird just gets weirder. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwbMhSmu9qL
Along with the residential buildings, Super Natropolis also had some awesome places to have fun, like rock climbing walls the size of skyscrapers, and big fields and parks. I glanced at Rim in the rearview mirror. She looked angry and hurt, but she wouldn’t let me ask what was bothering her. She shut me out and kept driving. Something pops up on her dashboard, but I can’t see what it is. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqchq2QZNmD
“You ready for a surprise?” She asked rhetorically. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMpPlPGyuk5
I asked her what it is. She told me it was time for me to take a pop quiz. Judging by the powers in the town, I wasn’t particularly excited. 552Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIblAKw7gy4
I knew this “quiz” could possibly be code for “your doom”.
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