Waking up was a struggle against two conflicting forces: the physical exhaustion of the last several days - hero patrols, fighting a robot, falling out of a window - and the electric memory of Yuna's bare skin pressed against my back. Every time I shifted under the covers, the phantom sensation of her breasts against my shoulder blades made my own skin feel ten degrees too hot.

  "It was just a snuggle," I told my reflection as I splashed cold water on my face. "A platonic, weighted blanket, zero-stakes snuggle between two girls who are definitely just roommates and business partners."

  The reflection didn't look convinced. The violet circuits on my collarbone seemed to pulse in a rhythmic, almost mocking beat.

  It had to be just a snuggle, right? There's no way it could have meant anything more. That was just wis- no, that was just me being confused. Misreading the situation. I'd seen too much pervy anime, it had me misunderstanding what was going on with Yuna. With my friend.

  With a sigh, I finished getting dressed and walked back out into the empty apartment. Yuna had left early, bouncing off the walls after her third energy drink and determined to buy "everything we need" for my new second secret identity's costume. I missed her presence in the apartment, even though I was about to leave and go to work myself. Was I really that needy? Shaking my head, I turned and left, locking the door behind me as I headed to work.

  ---

  The morning at Za Bay Pizza was a special kind of hell. It was slow, not a lot of deliveries, so I spent more time than I wanted listening to Kevin's ranting as he stood over the industrial mixer like it was his personal pulpit.

  "I'm telling you, I've done the math," Kevin said, waving his phone at the rest of us. "I've posted on it on the Voltana-Yeowang boards last night under my secret handle, DoughLord007. I'm a level 5 poster over there now - my thread on 'Conductive Anatomy' has three hundred upvotes."

  "Yeowang?" I couldn't help myself, not as familiar with the Korean slang even though I didn't want to encourage Kevin any further.

  "Queen," he clarified. "Voltana is our queen. The way the light reflects off the vinyl in frame 402 of the Bin-Queen clip?" Kevin's eyes went wide with fervor as he settled in to talk about his new favorite subject. "That's not just luck - or her labia. It suggests her suit is designed to create a bio-electric feedback loop with the observer's limbic system. It's science, guys! She's basically a walking thirst-trap for justice!"

  I felt a piece of my soul wither and die. I did not need Kevin talking about my labia to a group of coworkers. I pulled out my phone and fired off a quick text to Yuna.

  > Kurumi: Can you find user 'DoughLord007' on the Voltana boards?

  > Yuna: Yeah, he's great. He's the one who suggested we sell thigh-pressured pizza dough in our fan store. Why?

  > Kurumi: Nuke his IP. Ban him. Burn the digital ground he walks on.

  I dropped the phone back into my pocket and cursed. Why wasn't anyone needing pizza delivered right now? I had to get out of here.

  ---

  When I got home, the apartment was transformed. The air smelled of ozone and hot solder. Laid out on the couch was something that looked less like a superhero suit and more like a collection of high-end, futuristic jewelry.

  "Meet Scintilla," Yuna said, stepping out from behind her monitors. She looked tired, but her eyes were still bright with a manic, creative energy. "Scintilla means 'Spark', which is great for you, Sparky."

  The suit was a single, continuous band of polished chrome. It started at a thick collar - almost a torc - that locked at my throat. Two razor-thin strips of chrome fabric ran down from the collar before meeting in a sharp V. A pair of polished chrome thigh-high boots lay alongside the jewelry.

  "Uhm, Yuna," I whispered, my face heating up. "Where's the rest of it? This is just three strips of tinfoil and some boots."

  "This is all of it! It's Smart-Metal, Kurumi. It acts as a Farady cage for your vital organs while allowing your skin - your primary conductor - maximum contact with the air for heat dissipation as well as fighting output. The Scintilla build pushes your voltage higher than the Voltana Mark 2 suit. If we covered up more of your skin, you'd literally cook yourself from the inside out."

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Internal cooking," I mumbled, latching onto her logic - although I wasn't entirely convinced. "Right. Safety first. Thermal management..."

  "Exactly. Safety first. Now, get in. We need to calibrate the bio-sync on the suit."

  The fitting was an exercise in pure, unadulterated torture. First, I took the 'costume' to the bathroom where I stripped fully nude in order to put it on. It took a lot longer than I would have thought, especially considering how little fabric it had. There was a small patch of chrome that covered my pussy, a thin chrome string between my ass cheeks, and two strands that connected from my groin to the collar that just barely were wide enough to conceal my nipples. With how big this new body's breasts were, the strings looked ludicrous.

  When I walked back out into the living room, Yuna's face turned beet red and she struggled to breathe, her eyes bouncing back and forth between my groin and breasts in an insane ping-pong for several long minutes until I finally cleared my throat. Some friend she is, I scoffed. Can't even make eye contact after she puts me in this insane outfit.

  Finally, Yuna walked over to me and mumbled something about "needing to ensure the fit is perfect." She had me perform a variety of exercises - leaning over and touching my toes while she walked around and checked from all angles, jumping jacks, squats, a few punching and kicking moves. Throughout the entire process, her face continued to get redder and redder until I was about to say something - if only to ask her to turn on the air conditioning. Despite the fact that I had literally no clothing on, the temperature in the apartment felt boiling.

  "Hold still," she murmured. She dropped to her knees on the floor, her hands sliding down my ribs to the impossibly high-cut edge of the chrome fabric. I flinched as her thumbs hooked into the material, tugging it lower over my hips to align what were apparently some sensors on the suit with my femoral arteries.

  Her hands were cool, but everywhere she touched felt like it was being branded. She stayed there for a beat too long, her face inches from my bare stomach, her breath ghosting over my skin. In the reflection of my own chrome boots, I could see her pupils - wide with excitement - reflecting the violet shimmer of my tattoos.

  "Yuna?" My voice cracked, almost a squeak.

  "Almost done, babe," she whispered, her voice a little raspier than usual. She stood up, reaching for a silver headband. "Now, the veil."

  As Yuna clicked the headband in place, an electronic shimmer flared to life - a veil surrounding my head. It didn't just drape over my face, it changed my hair; Yuna explained that it temporarily stripped the pigment from my hair by saturating them with silver ions. I didn't understand what she meant, but as I stared in the mirror, my hair began to bleach silver at the roots, then cascading down to the tips until my waist-length purple hair as was now a shimmering silver color.

  We watched as the veil's polarity inverter activated, my mysterious black-and-purple tattoos also changing color - seeming to fill with a silvery color, almost like liquid mercury. And finally, a pixelated hard-light projection created a half-face veil that draped down, revealing the curve of my lips but concealing the rest of my face, except for glowing silver eyes that shone through.

  Looking into the mirror, I didn't see Kurumi anymore. I didn't even see Voltana. I saw a new person - an incredibly busty ghost made of chrome and static that looked like the envy of any hentai artist. Shit, I thought frantically. I am NOT a hentai character.

  "It's ... it's a stealth build," I mumbled to myself, my brain desperately clawing for an excuse. "Less clothing surface area means less radar detection, as skin is better for bouncing it back. The collar is a dampener to help me control electricity. This is ... basically the same as Naruto, right? I'm just a ninja with very specific cooling requirements. This isn't a porn game."

  "Whatever helps you sleep, Sparky," Yuna said with a smirk as she took a handful of pictures of me before handing me an oversized, grime-stained grey hoodie and pair of baggy cargo joggers. "But put these on. That way you can blend in with the street until you ditch the layers. And take Eye-Bee - I fixed the damage from when he got fried by the electrical surge and added a little shielding. He's also in a stealth shell."

  "Got it," I said with a nod and quickly threw on the clothes, gasping in relief as I covered up my body. Yuna seemed disappointed, but she pulled out her phone, apparently checking the quality of the pictures she'd been taking. "So what's the plan?"

  "We know there are three targets living nearby to one another," Yuna said as she shifted back into mission mode. "And we suspect that S-Korp is going to try to abduct one or more of them. I don't think we want to physically intervene, but you should definitely be on site to record the abduction, gather what information we can."

  "You don't want me to intervene?" Confused, I glanced at Yuna. "But ... if they're kidnapping people ... ?"

  She shook her head viciously, "No way, babe. I don't want you to get into a fight with S-Korp, it's way too dangerous, even with the new secret identity. We need to gather intelligence and try to figure out what they're doing in order to expose them. Causing a fight only will bring down all of their attention. Don't do it. I know it sucks for the people they're grabbing, but the best thing we can do is try to go public with the info and force S-Korp to release them."

  "Okay, fine," I muttered, staring down at my chrome-clad feet. It wasn't the decision I was hoping for, but I did see her logic. "Time to get going. I'll see you when I'm back."

  "Stay safe, babe. I'll be watching over you," Yuna said with a smile as she put on her headset, Eye-Bee immediately lifting into the air and assuming his usual spot behind me, camera centered on my ass. With a sigh, I shook my head and left the apartment.