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.353Please respect copyright.PENANAvKuCoHbXTC
“We better give you the grand tour,” Rim suggested, fishing something out of the many pockets of her belt. 353Please respect copyright.PENANARSLLNdDDux
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. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAZEWYohtbmt
“Awesome….” She simply boarded the vehicle like it was the most normal thing. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAwc9gO2fdyL
“Sit behind me,” she ordered, starting up the engine. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAMyTfr2yV4H
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. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAhCNlv06Gda
“What about you, Lena?” I asked the wizard girl. 353Please respect copyright.PENANA6FJyYcvHFF
She chewed on her stick. “I need to go.” 353Please respect copyright.PENANAf3iz4wEQ9R
Her face was clouded. I thought it would be best if I didn’t ask where she was going. 353Please respect copyright.PENANA9QVO6vi1Sd
“Okay then, we’ll see you later?” She gave a slight nod. Maybe a nervous half-smile. Rim passed me a helmet. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAIIzE7HTvuL
“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. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAt7o2AVMQlu
“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.”353Please respect copyright.PENANAWeSP23y6XL
“Supernatural abilities,” I summed up. My eyes probed wildly to get a look at everything. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAc7n2W506cV
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.” 353Please respect copyright.PENANAIfaORgF3kD
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.” 353Please respect copyright.PENANAJK6PkRAgej
She looked back at me. “You getting all this?”353Please respect copyright.PENANAzLT0hQgjgg
“Oh sure,” I responded. “Please, go on Professor Rim.” 353Please respect copyright.PENANAI1xMh4zZgM
She scoffed before continuing, pointing to Sector 2. “Chest-naturals have two powers: strength and heart.” 353Please respect copyright.PENANAwpOKu98SRj
She thought for a moment. “Your friend, Allen. He’s a chest-natural for strength.” 353Please respect copyright.PENANAnNjnIpI29r
I would never look at Allen the same way again. No wonder that guy could play. I reeled my mind back in. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAqEvJSgpi9q
“What about hearts?”353Please respect copyright.PENANAEGOQAEqA02
“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. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAUrPNT2w019
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.”353Please respect copyright.PENANAzSdrtiF1YS
“Elastic Rim,” I said, remembering the name the computed had given her. That had to be her super name. 353Please respect copyright.PENANA4oqWW0K9r9
A thought occurred to me. “No way, are you really….” 353Please respect copyright.PENANAhc2bexgeqw
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.353Please respect copyright.PENANA9fNwFn8dIn
“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.353Please respect copyright.PENANAVdLT9ny8Go
“Since before I can remember.” She said evenly.353Please respect copyright.PENANAMhmOw02GYh
“You live here?”353Please respect copyright.PENANA7D6ZoyjfE8
“Yep. Here, you have two names. My name is Rim, but Elastic-Rim is my hero name. ” She waved to someone on the street.353Please respect copyright.PENANAJKjW377jNY
“That’s Travis,” she explained. “He’s a stomach-natural.” I busted a laugh. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAgIFxyHGku9
“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.” 353Please respect copyright.PENANAAsIUNyYHUP
I did. “Throwing up is probably not a problem either, right?”353Please respect copyright.PENANAIqOMv40YGf
“EW! I’m going to toss you off this thing,” she threatened, turning a street corner. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAXgHlWOde07
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.353Please respect copyright.PENANAynBDnaMoEN
“Who lives here?” Rim turned, surprised as if she drove through here a lot and forgot to look at the mess. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAMNAzFGfrfk
“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.”353Please respect copyright.PENANAuCjbca3e64
“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. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAAEt6N9oLbV
Rim was silent for a moment. “Ultra-naturals are really rare. They only pop up when the world really needs them.” 353Please respect copyright.PENANAxKy9miuLTI
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. 353Please respect copyright.PENANA54X6svT1nq
“What kind of powers are they born with?”353Please respect copyright.PENANA9na4XITFTF
“Powers? You never know with ultra-naturals. Time, Natural Forces, Invisibility…..” She caught herself, rushing on. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAKxryMGzqdV
“Basically anything. There hasn’t been an ultra-natural in…a long time. Let’s be happy.”353Please respect copyright.PENANASzWxU1frv0
“What do you mean? It sounds cool. Anyone would want to be one,” I mused.353Please respect copyright.PENANAdWfT826SVy
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.”353Please respect copyright.PENANA18ddTfmgOo
“Huh?” She stared me down. The electric blue eyes made it intense. “You don’t want to be one.”353Please respect copyright.PENANApHEcCmYscL
“I never said to me!” I defended, half lying because I thought it was cool. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAkCX24PW7p7
“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. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAR5VTc1n8Pa
I was confused. “Enemies? Like the ones that tried to get me in the gym?”353Please respect copyright.PENANAomQpTKngkS
“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. 353Please respect copyright.PENANANNnY9FJ0ec
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. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAv21ynTacUn
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. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAiShrtRBqCu
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. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAyZV43b1Z5J
I was dreaming. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAU5wStbMfsr
I had to be. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAc7XFNX16uM
This wasn’t real. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAIG1QLAKr6K
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. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAnHPRll7oUS
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. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAGuaThOxxTE
“You ready for a surprise?” She asked rhetorically. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAwQWi8cJBrC
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. 353Please respect copyright.PENANAVENY3hxZkb
I knew this “quiz” could possibly be code for “your doom”.
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