“Here we are!” Dr. Rage exclaimed, somehow louder than before.

The lightning with his voice would never not make Arin’s heart skip twelve beats. Dr. Rage pointed to one of the lockers that appeared to be exactly like all of the other seventy-thousand lockers she had seen along the way. Except this one had a silver number “417” written in the center. 

Dr. Rage banged his fist on the door and the thing flew open. Inside was a collection of red cloth. The cloth wasn’t just red, it was red. It was so red a fire truck would have pulled over for it. It could stop traffic in a sandstorm. It was practically glowing so bright Arin needed to shield her eyes from the purity of the redness. 

“This is your costume,” Dr. Rage said, with a smile that grasped any remaining bits of Arin’s confidence in having made the correct choice and tossed it them the bin. When he pulled the crimson calamity out entirely, Arin realized the full tragedy of her situation. There was a symbol in the center, much like the one from her hoodie, except designed by someone with more artistic talent than Arin possessed. But that wasn’t the problem.

The problem was the thing was a corseted, leotard dress. The top was thin fabric, sleeveless and tight, pulled together with string in the back and golden designs over the breasts, making them far more prominent than Arin’s delightfully flat chest would have liked. The skirt at the bottom was hardly long enough to cover her hips, let alone her admittedly somewhat out-of-shape ass. She could have found something more professional at a party store.

“Oh, hell no.” Arin didn’t even care who was insulted. She’d rather have been struck by vocal-lightning than wear that monstrosity. 

“Try it on,” Dr. Rage insisted. He still sounded giddy, and Arin wasn’t sure if he didn’t hear her, understand her, or just didn’t care.

“That’s going to be a hard no. I haven’t seen my own shoulders in six years and I didn’t shave my legs…or anything else that might show.”

Lightning clashed and shut her up. “You will dress as the council has instructed you to dress.” 

Arin’s glare deepened as she snatched the dress from Dr. Rage’s hand, saying, “Fine. It’s their eyeballs,” and walking around the corner, where there happened to be a changing room. 

After squeezing into the horrific dress, shoving all sorts of body parts into places she was sure they wouldn't fit, and checking a mirror, reluctantly, Arin was surprised to see she looked damn fine in that dinky costume from her own nightmares. It had some sort of magical way of bringing out all of her best features, even though it was only thin, stretchy fabric. She'd have totally been into herself, if she wasn't herself. 

As nice as that was for Arin’s self-confidence, she still wanted to vomit. It didn't matter how good it looked, or how nice the bright red complemented her light, warm complexion. It didn't feel like her, and she was not comfortable wearing it. She could hear the clock of feminism tick backwards. 

"Do I really have to?” Arin asked, walking back to Dr. Rage and her locker. A black, thankfully soft, object flew at her and smacked her face, instead of an answer. The slippery slip of fabric flipped off her palms a few times before she finally got her fingers entangled in it enough to stop gravity from taking it.

“You will wear this at all times,” said Dr. Rage. 

Arin examined what she had in her hands. A mask. A terrible mask, at that. It would have hardly covered any of the prominent features on her face. 

“At. All. Times.” Dr. Rage repeated in the deepest, bellowiest voice Arin had heard from him yet (and that was saying something). “When you are in uniform, you must wear that mask, and you will be in uniform any time you are on these grounds. Your identity is the most important thing you have here. The friends you make today could be the enemies you fight tomorrow. You will let no one, and I mean no one know your identity unless instructed by the council. Is that clear?” 

Arin felt like her costume had already made her weaker. She nodded like a frightened toddler and took a step back from the scary man. 

“Good. Now we need to get you with the other recruits to receive your identity assignments.”

Arin tilted her head to the side. “Isn’t my identity, just, you know…me?”

“And who are you?”

Arin shifted her eyes around like a secret to this obvious trick question was going to be written on the walls or ceiling. “Arin Adams?” 

“And who is Arin Adams?” Dr. Rage shot back. Arin couldn’t think of a good answer to that question and choked trying to answer.

“Exactly.”

Either the awe at the sheer brilliance of Dr. Rage silenced Arin, or the bafflement over the complete lack of brilliance. She wasn’t sure which. 

 “One more thing before we go. Try these on.” Dr. Rage pulled out a set of boots and gloves. Arin did as commanded, completing the horror of her full hero outfit. It didn’t feel as cool as she would have wanted. It felt more uncomfortable and intimidating, and like she was way, way out of her league…while wearing a corseted mini-dress. 

“Try and use your powers. Something not dangerous, please,” Dr. Rage instructed. Arin held out her hand and focused on the lights in the room, trying to turn them off. 

Dr. Rage tapped his fingers along his arms. “Today, Red.” 

“I’m trying. I can’t for some reason.” She focused harder with no success.

“Take off the gloves and try again,”

Again, Arin did as instructed and removed the gloves. She tried the lights one more time, flickering them on and off like she meant to the first time. 

Dr. Rage swiped the gloves from Arin’s hands. With a roar in his throat he said, “How many times am I going to have to tell Janice not to use rubber-elastic based fabric in the gloves of our electricity heroes?” and started marching away.

He didn’t give any hints as to whether Arin should follow, but she had no place better to be so she glued herself to his heels.

Arin couldn’t have recalled how she got there if she wanted to, but they ended up marching down a long white hallway with doors all around them. Dr. Rage found a particular one that pleased him.

 Dr. Rage hit a loud fist against it so hard an average door would have been split in two, especially with the hurricane winds that followed the action. 

“Come in!” rang out the shrill and crackly voice of an old woman. Dr. Rage burst in, swinging the gloves around in the woman’s face.

“Rubber. Again Janice? How many times—” 

“Oh no! You caught me,” Janice said with acting talent equivalent to that seen in a middle school play. “I most certainly did not put the rubber in those gloves on purpose to get the girl down here. Not at all. Why would I do a thing like that?” 

“What?” Dr. Rage let his hand and the glove smack to his side.

Janice winked at Arin before returning to talk to her boss. “Nothing but an honest mistake sir, I assure you. Leave the girl here, and I will fix it before the initiation this afternoon. Promise.”

“Yes. Of course you will. Thank you. I’ll just be on my way to the next student then.” Dr. Rage coughed with a low rumble of thunder and small gust of wind. The second the door shut behind Dr. Rage’s departure, Janice zoomed right up to Arin’s face. 

“You have a scar on your forehead,” she said with her eyes mere centimeters from Arin’s face. 

“Uh huh. I fell out of a tree as a kid.”

“Well then this mask just won’t do, will it?” Janice whipped the mask right off Arin’s face, then studied Arin up and down, making her quite uncomfortable. “Hmm. You’re a pretty young thing, but I saw you on the news. You don’t strike me as the type that wants to be wearing that dinky thing on your debut. Am I wrong?” She winked again.

Arin’s body refilled with the delightful hope Dr. Rage had tossed away. “What else do you have?”

"My dear child, what don't I have?" Janice’s crooked but perfectly white teeth showed through her wrinkled, lipstick-smudged lips.

Hours droned on as Janice created a new piece for Arin, out of the same stretching, obnoxiously red material. Dust clouds flashed behind Janice as she worked at the speed of Dr. Rage's lightning strikes, somehow controlling sewing machines with her mind, or something, and pinning cloth faster than those machines could sew it. The artistry that Janice performed made Arin both fascinated and dizzy.

After the last vibrant, scarlet thread was snipped from the machine, Janice held up the new masterpiece with the same homemade logo displayed on the chest. "Now this is more like it, if I do say so myself, Red Electron." 

Arin couldn't have agreed more.

As the new uniform slipped over her body, with no tiny skirt or golden breastplates to be seen, all Arin could think in this moment was, thank god for Janice... or gods? She didn't really keep up with what existed these days.