Read Nobody Likes Superheroes, Anyways! :: Vol 7 - Short Skirts and Rubber Gloves [Pt 1]

To say Urban City was enormous would not do it justice. The city was a goliath beast-of-a-city, with structures tall enough to make clouds jealous. It was dark and gritty—except for where it was not. And it was grungy and dangerous—except for where it was not. Arin had never stepped foot in the city, and it didn’t take her long after exiting the train to realize she hadn’t been missing out on much.

The whole place smelled like burnt rubber and gym socks; the streets were overly crowded with people going about their daily lives. Down one street, Arin could hear echoing crashes and faint yelling. There were police cars blocking the street and yelling about some big attack going on there with a robotic alien.

Just another day in Urban City.

Arin emerged in the center of it all where there were two very prominent buildings. One had a giant red letter ‘M’ at the top. It was the second tallest building in the city, and Arin knew what it was immediately: Mag.net INC: home of that infamously famous Channel 20 news. There was hardly a soul on Earth who didn’t get their news through them.

The tallest building in center city belonged to the Ultimatum. It was a tall, black building, with windows like mirrors that shot up until it was lost in the atmosphere. About halfway up, there was an illuminated white sign that read ‘UHQ’ in fancy lettering. All sorts of caped vigilantes flew around the top of the building, as well as people riding different kinds of hovering devices and winged creatures.

Arin had never seen a superhero in real life, aside from Dr. Rage. It was odd to be thrown into this place, where they were flying around all willy nilly. She was now pretty positive it was a long stream of bad decisions that landed her here.

Next to Ultimatum HQ there was an itty-bitty little building, like an old elementary school. It was a gross shade of yellow and looked like it might fall apart at any moment.

“This can’t be it,” Arin said to herself, and clicked around on her phone to see if there were any other school-like buildings around. There weren’t.

Arin crept up to the old rickety building cautiously, in case it suddenly collapsed on top of her. Without the chance to place even one good knock...

She fell completely through the ground. She didn’t know how it happened, or why it happened. One knuckle hardly skimmed the door, and then gravity claimed her without warning.

It felt like at least a full minute had passed before she felt herself slow down, like someone slammed the breaks on physics. When she stopped moving, she was sitting on a couch. She didn’t remember hitting the couch; she was just now on a couch.

The room around her was empty, aside from the sofa and one table made of glass so clear it was almost invisible. On top was a huge blue vase with no flowers, directly in her line of sight. She shifted to peer around the vase and met the eyes of Dr. Rage, staring at her from the other side of the room.

“Arin!” Dr. Rage cheered, like all of a sudden they were best college drinking buddies.

Lightning still crashed in this underground lair of sorts when Dr. Rage moved his arms. “You’re late. But we’ll let it slide this time.”

Arin checked her phone: 9:58am.

A whole section of the wall behind Dr. Rage collapsed into the ground, startling Arin. Dr. Rage exited through it without so much as another word. Arin took a moment to regret everything in her life that had brought her to this moment, before she pulled herself together and chased after the strange man.

Through the wall was nothing but a regular locker room no different than any other locker room Arin had ever seen, aside from the fact that it never ended. They walked and walked and walked through the endless rows of cubbies and never saw the opposite side.

None of the lockers were even in numerical order.

Dr. Rage blabbered on for the entire walk. “You’ll be staying on campus here, hope that is all right for you?” ... “You will only use the entrance around back in the shed, would you like me to show you later?” … “You don’t want to be off campus late in Urban City...”

It went on and on, and Arin’s introversion flared up. She wanted to slam herself in a locker and wait to die so she didn’t have to make any more small talk with one of the most powerful beings in Urban City, possibly the universe.