Nolan walked down the sidewalk with total indifference after leaving the coliseum, heading toward his house. He glanced at a humanoid robot sweeping the street and a repair shop where two robots were servicing a car. He passed a small restaurant where every server and cashier was a robot dressed up as an employee in a full uniform. There were robot police officers handing out tickets to cars parked in the wrong spot, and crowds of office workers in sharp suits and ties, their hair slicked back and their faces wearing that smug, arrogant look that just screams "I am made of money."
"Huh... what a insane, annoying world," Nolan muttered to himself.
He pulled his hoodie up and kept a casual pace. Once he cleared the business district—full of skyscrapers, malls, restaurants, and the coliseum—his path led him into the "entertainment" sector. The streets here were lined with rows of shops under the glow of neon signs. The area was packed, mostly with men hovering around storefront displays. When Nolan passed by to see what they were staring at, he saw rows of beautiful women behind the glass—ranging from teenagers to women in their 30s—sitting on chairs with their heads bowed.
They wore thin, flimsy clothes; some were in robes with clearly nothing underneath, and others were in bikinis so skimpy they looked like they were shivering from the cold. Yeah, these were slave shops—not for buying, but for renting. Once you paid, you could do whatever you wanted with them as long as you didn't use violence or kill them. Doing that was a one-way ticket to the "Real" Arena. Nolan took it all in, but in his mind, every woman behind that glass looked like Heidi. He picked up his pace, refusing to look at the other shops, which were all basically the same, though some rented out men.
As he passed an alley between two buildings, a shout rang out from the shadows: "Hey... let go!"
Nolan stopped and glanced from under his hood. He saw three teenagers—clearly high schoolers—cornering a girl who looked about his age. One of the boys, a smirking kid with a buzz cut and a long rattail, was wearing a gladiator's bracket. He was gripping the arm of the girl, who looked undeniably sexy in a shirt with the top buttons undone, revealing her chest. Her eyes were red, but she wasn't backing down; she didn't look scared at all of the three punks trapping her in the alley.
"Here we go again... this is how school kids act because they know they're untouchable by the law... dammit," Nolan said to himself.
"Swifht."
Nolan vanished from the mouth of the alley. Meanwhile, the girl was still struggling to yank her hand away from the delinquent, but it seemed the student with the gladiator bracket was far stronger than her. She started to weaken a bit, though her eyes never stopped glaring at the punk in front of her.
"Hey... hey... hey... don't fight it. Even if you scream, no one is going to help you," the smirking kid with the gladiator bracket said.
"Whoa... these are huge," a skinny kid with a top-knot bun said, reaching out without a shred of decency to grab the girl's chest. The girl gasped and immediately swatted his hand away, sending him stumbling back, though he just kept on smirking. She quickly crossed her arms over her chest to cover herself, her red eyes staring with pure disgust at the three laughing punks in front of her.
Even though her eyes were still fixed sharply on the three punks, the girl started to tremble. The guy holding her arm noticed, and his cruel grin widened. He glanced at his two friends and gave them a nod. Immediately, the skinny kid who had just been touching her grabbed her other arm and pulled, stretching both her arms out wide. The student with the gladiator bracket then handed her off to his other skinny friend—a guy with earrings and wandering eyes that looked like they were already stripping her naked. The two of them dragged the struggling girl deeper into the shadows of the alley.
Once they were deep enough to be sure they were alone, the kid with the gladiator bracket stood in front of her. She was held fast by both arms as he tilted his head and gave her a disgusting smirk.
"What... what do you want?" the girl asked, her voice shaking as tears started to well up in her eyes.
"To enjoy you, obviously, babe," the guy said, starting to undo the belt around his waist.
"Hey, hey... she's terrified. You should really take it slow instead of forcing it like that."
Hearing a voice right in his ear, the guy who was unzipping his pants spun around. He saw Nolan standing right behind him.
"Yo... looks like you guys are having a blast," Nolan said casually.
"Who the hell are you? Since when were you standing behind me?" the punk barked, pointing a finger in Nolan's face.
"I've been here the whole time... just in a different dimension," Nolan replied nonchalantly.
"Huh?" All three punks immediately let go of the girl and surrounded Nolan, who looked completely unfazed.
Nolan pulled back his hood and cleaned out his ear with his pinky, then blew away whatever he found. The three punks looked a bit spooked, but then—"Hiyaaaah!"—the scrawny kid lunged with a punch. Suddenly, his position flipped. "Pow!" His fist slammed right into the face of the leader whose belt was still undone. The skinny kid looked totally baffled; he had suddenly appeared facing the opposite way, hitting his friend instead of Nolan.
"Dammit... why are you hitting me?" the gladiator-bracket punk groaned, clutching his nose in pain.
"So... sorry, man! I don't even know what happened!" the skinny punk stammered.
"What did you do?" the other skinny one with the earrings screamed.
"Huh? Me? Nothing," Nolan replied with a casual smile.
"Screw you!" the kid with the earrings yelled.
He charged Nolan with a punch, but the result was exactly the same. His position shifted in a blur and—"Pow!"—his fist landed on the exact same nose, sending the gladiator-bracket punk tumbling backward. "Kyaaaa!" The girl scrambled out of the way as the leader crashed into a pile of overflowing trash cans. The punk who threw the punch just stared at his own fist, scratching his head in confusion. The kid with the top-knot was equally stunned.
Nolan grabbed the girl's arm and pulled her behind him. Then, he clamped his hands onto the shoulders of the two skinny punks who had their backs to him. They jumped as he leaned his smiling face in between them.
"Yo... listen up, you two. I'm only 17. So if I end your lives right here, it's no big deal. Now choose: you want to die, or you want to leave?" Nolan asked, his voice deep and menacing.
"W-we're leaving, man! Sorry!" the kid with the earrings stammered.
Nolan let go of their shoulders, and the two of them immediately scooped up their unconscious leader, hauling him away. Nolan and the girl watched as they scrambled out of the alley. Nolan let out a sigh and turned to the girl.
"You okay?" Nolan asked casually.
"I... I'm fine," the girl answered, still shaking.
"Alright then. I'm out," Nolan said, turning to leave.
"W-wait! That thing just now... what was it?" she asked.
"Huh? What did I do?" Nolan asked, acting confused.
"You vanished for a second and then came back with incredible speed. I saw it," the girl insisted.
Nolan was shocked because the girl was right—what he'd just done was technically vanish. In reality, he had stepped into the fourth dimension and physically turned the two punks around while time was frozen there, so that when he returned, they ended up hitting their own friend. Nolan studied the girl's face, his jaw tightening; she looked dead serious, and it seemed like she actually knew what he had just done.
He then noticed the large pack on her back—it was obvious she had just arrived in this city from god-knows-where. He looked back at her, determined to find out exactly how much she knew.
"You... you could see me?" Nolan asked coldly.
"Just for a split second... you kind of glitched," she replied.
"I see... well, whatever. I'm going. Be careful next time. Oh yeah... welcome to this shithole city, Pandora," Nolan said, relaxing a bit since it seemed like the girl didn't actually realize what he had just done.
"Wait, how did you know I just got here? What's your name? I'm Nina," the girl asked, introducing herself.
"Grey," Nolan replied.
Without waiting for a response, Nolan raised a hand without looking back and walked away. Nina watched his back until he disappeared. Once Nolan was gone, Nina stood silent for a moment. Then, she raised her palm. "Bwooosh!" A flickering tongue of fire, dancing like it was alive, erupted in the center of her hand. She squeezed her fist, and the fire vanished.
"Huh... those punks got lucky. If Grey hadn't shown up, they'd be nothing but charcoal by now... but who is that Grey guy really? And he said... another dimension," Nina thought to herself, looking back toward the end of the alley.