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.492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡubMOHBvXRA
“We better give you the grand tour,” Rim suggested, fishing something out of the many pockets of her belt. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡisylCy03VP
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. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqVRYhbcFMM
“Awesome….” She simply boarded the vehicle like it was the most normal thing. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMP3VXohHan
“Sit behind me,” she ordered, starting up the engine. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvDYC2PzzrU
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. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDN5viYVBOm
“What about you, Lena?” I asked the wizard girl. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPniNpmxpwZ
She chewed on her stick. “I need to go.” 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4vie7JzV2f
Her face was clouded. I thought it would be best if I didn’t ask where she was going. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi6jBMsrreE
“Okay then, we’ll see you later?” She gave a slight nod. Maybe a nervous half-smile. Rim passed me a helmet. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz7Rx2NpjKn
“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. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCPa1HoxyZk
“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.”492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMBKJoLJTB7
“Supernatural abilities,” I summed up. My eyes probed wildly to get a look at everything. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFP4ZSSXjSY
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.” 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2RvlSDKjAS
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.” 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH6rwMbocWw
She looked back at me. “You getting all this?”492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡno4IcIc7Q7
“Oh sure,” I responded. “Please, go on Professor Rim.” 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUVT1yD3ldH
She scoffed before continuing, pointing to Sector 2. “Chest-naturals have two powers: strength and heart.” 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp902cedLjS
She thought for a moment. “Your friend, Allen. He’s a chest-natural for strength.” 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQqLvkHyTZY
I would never look at Allen the same way again. No wonder that guy could play. I reeled my mind back in. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdls1GEgQYq
“What about hearts?”492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDwRIoUVgvr
“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. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvZa52GsUYU
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.”492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8lgeUCkE1o
“Elastic Rim,” I said, remembering the name the computed had given her. That had to be her super name. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7I14UTPpF8
A thought occurred to me. “No way, are you really….” 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk6K9LEcAMr
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.492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0VCzbRGqYY
“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.492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEC2muFNKoG
“Since before I can remember.” She said evenly.492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOz0GNa7iDU
“You live here?”492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKUhSM0IEWp
“Yep. Here, you have two names. My name is Rim, but Elastic-Rim is my hero name. ” She waved to someone on the street.492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXdok3ay6xT
“That’s Travis,” she explained. “He’s a stomach-natural.” I busted a laugh. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOqqg2ayflt
“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.” 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQnclvKI7Uc
I did. “Throwing up is probably not a problem either, right?”492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWdkiigOfDw
“EW! I’m going to toss you off this thing,” she threatened, turning a street corner. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDpXBbFc4sy
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.492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvKjmLUthD7
“Who lives here?” Rim turned, surprised as if she drove through here a lot and forgot to look at the mess. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpwjqInezMH
“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.”492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTdI6bTEFOi
“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. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQhvfiaL0pO
Rim was silent for a moment. “Ultra-naturals are really rare. They only pop up when the world really needs them.” 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3rC5OQmqAl
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. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtpMWMDFEt7
“What kind of powers are they born with?”492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2q3QRV99tN
“Powers? You never know with ultra-naturals. Time, Natural Forces, Invisibility…..” She caught herself, rushing on. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr6nTzEOxCW
“Basically anything. There hasn’t been an ultra-natural in…a long time. Let’s be happy.”492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ14CtX0qbRh
“What do you mean? It sounds cool. Anyone would want to be one,” I mused.492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ17h3kXg8vD
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.”492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqCIW59pVpT
“Huh?” She stared me down. The electric blue eyes made it intense. “You don’t want to be one.”492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBXdCqcbqXL
“I never said to me!” I defended, half lying because I thought it was cool. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFck8BZ2ywv
“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. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJTxhT3wtUX
I was confused. “Enemies? Like the ones that tried to get me in the gym?”492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3FJtjOOSfr
“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. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzvCRPBRYnF
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. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbJPlCVBP8W
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. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUc0zdAotaL
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. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcsdCnnwk25
I was dreaming. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfOygdVmHcw
I had to be. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0mjT8bOuA8
This wasn’t real. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhyTjXe1tAO
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. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdCB1HDbzyZ
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. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMpP8zJUYMM
“You ready for a surprise?” She asked rhetorically. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9GUwoj70bj
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. 492Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡayOkbq7Gn1
I knew this “quiz” could possibly be code for “your doom”.
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