I'd been out four more times as Voltana, doing my 'required' hero patrols. Thankfully, I hadn't had any more encounters with obnoxious overpowered heroes like the Winter Tsar and Tundra Rose. Instead, it was the usual grind of petty villains and street-level nonsense. HeroHub still had me listed as a D-Rank hero, but I knew without a doubt that was wrong. Every time I reached for my power, it felt ... heavier. Stronger. Yuna was guessing that I was somewhere in the upper C or lower B range now, just based on the raw feel of the current and the way she'd seen the plasma burns on an alley last night.
Yuna is attributing my power gain to the 'Scintilla Effect ' - the viral video of me in that silver suit is still racking up views, and she's convinced the public's fixation on my breasts is feeding my output. As a result, she's been pestering me for days to go out as Scintilla again, to 'capitalize on the moment,' but I've refused every time. I'm not comfortable in it. I don't want the eyes on me. I'd rather be Voltana, even though I'm not entirely happy with her either.
The vibe in the apartment hasn't helped. Yuna is a permanent cloud of grumpiness, sleeping in her clothes, no sign of the affectionate best friend that I'd loved being around. I miss my happy-go-lucky friend; I just wish I knew what was wrong with her. Then there's Piper. She's a sociology major, not a hero, and she's clearly in over her head. She's swung hard into being the domestic one, determined to pull her own weight. She's cleaning, cooking, doing laundry - basically acting as a manic housewife to prove she isn't a burden on us. It doesn't make Yuna any happier, though. If anything, the sound of Piper humming while she's folding shirts seems to make Yuna's eye twitch.
Between the awkward dinners and the stressful back-alley meetups to buy more tech for Yuna's investigations, we were all on edge, desperate for a lead on the other resonance victims that S-Korp had snatched.
---
The discovery happened almost by accident on a Tuesday night. I'd taken the night off HeroHub duty and pizza deliveries, saying I needed a break.
We were huddled together in the living room while Yuna's monitors hummed with search algorithms and encrypted chat logs. I was slumped on the couch, absent-mindedly idling my power, letting tiny arcs of violet lightning bounce between my fingers to settle my nerves. Yuna was on the ground in front of me, leaning back against the couch, her head between my legs, tablet in hand, typing away in a chat with some of her informants. Piper was sitting on the other side, watching the sparks with an intense, curious look.
"They're so pretty," she murmured, her hand hovering near my sparks.
Usually, my electricity just dissipates. But as Piper's fingers got close, something shifted. She wasn't just touching air; she was channeling it. I felt a weird tug on my power and suddenly, a thick arc of silver lightning jumped from my hand to hers.
Instead of shocking her, the energy seemed to condense. It melted right there in the air, turning into a heavy, pearlescent fluid that splashed onto Piper's hand.
"Oh! It's ... sticky," Piper squeaked, lifting her hand.
It looked exactly like a thick glob of cum - viscous, creamy, and clinging to her skin. Without thinking about it, she tried to shake her hand to dislodge it, and a fairly large globule of the stuff splashed onto Yuna's legs and one arm.
"Piper!," Yuna barked, looking down at the silver mess coating her bare legs and arm. "What the hell is this?"
"I don't know! It just ... happened!" Piper tried to wipe it off Yuna, but it only made things worse, multiplying the fluid and expanding, covering more of Yuna's body in long, gooey strands.
Yuna looked absolutely disgusted. She leaned down, sniffing the stuff. "It smells like burnt sugar." She caught a tiny drop on her finger, her brow furrowing as she poked at the thick texture. She raised her finger to her lips, extending her tongue and tasting it. "Sweet ... but a little salty?"
"Don't taste Piper's mystery goop, Yuna!," I yelled, reaching out to help pull the sticky strands off her. The second my hand - still surging with a stray current - touched the fluid on Yuna's leg, there was a sharp snap. The fluid didn't dry; it hardened instantly into a form of resin.
In the blink of an eye, the "sticky stuff" turned into a rigid, silver-white shell. Yuna gasped, her legs locked together and arm fused to her sides where the splash had hit. She was stuck - frozen like a high-tech statue leaning back against the base of the couch.
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"I can't move," Yuna growled, her eyes wide with fury. "Kurumi, Piper, get this off me! Now"
"I don't know how! It's rock hard!" I panicked, poking at the shell of resin around my friend. It felt like cold, smooth ceramic, but it vibrated with the faint resonance of my own power.
"Oh wow," Piper breathed, leaning over my shoulder. She didn't look nearly as panicked as I was. In fact, she looked fascinated. She reached out and ran a finger along a stray, hardened strand of the resin that had trailed across Yuna's thigh. "Kurumi, did you see that? It reacted to your current. It's like ... a physical manifestation of our partnership. We have such great chemistry, don't you think?"
"Piper! Not the time!," I squeaked, my face heating up.
"It is exactly the time for you to find a solvent!," Yuna barked from the floor. Since she was frozen with her head tilted slightly back toward the couch cushions, she was staring straight up at the ceiling, unable to see us. "I am fused to the floorboards. Piper, if you don't stop flirting with my best friend fixing this, I will-"
"You'll what, Yuna? Scowl at the ceiling harder?" Piper giggled, a sound that made Yuna's teeth literally grind together. Piper turned back to me, her eyes bright. "Kurumi, you're shaking. Your power is all jagged. That's probably why it hardened so fast - you're too tense."
"I'm tense because my best friend is a cum-turned-resin lawn ornament!"
"Exactly." Piper slid behind me on the couch, her hands settling firmly on my shoulders. "If we're going to reverse this, we need you in a flow state. Let me help you relax. For Yuna's sake, of course."
Before I could protest, Piper began to knead the base of my neck. Her thumbs dug into knots I'd been carrying for two weeks and, despite the absolute insanity of the situation, a traitorous groan escaped my throat.
"Piper!" Yuna's voice rose an octave, muffled by a strand of resin near her jaw. "I can hear what's happening! Are you ... are you giving her a massage right now? I'm literally paralyzed on the rug and you're turning this into a spa day?"
"I'm stabilizing the power source, Yuna," Piper said with a playful smirk I could hear in her voice. She leaned in closer toward my ear, her breath warm. "See? Her sparks are already turning back to that soft violet. You're doing so well, Kurumi. Just focus on the feeling of my hands..."
I squeezed my eyes shut, caught between the bliss of the massage and the sheer guilt of Yuna's outraged sputtering from between my legs. "Piper, we really should ... I mean, she's actually stuck."
"She's fine," Piper whispered, her hands moving lower, tracing the line of my collarbone. "She's finally quiet for once. It's almost peaceful, isn't it? Just the two of us ... and the statue."
"I am going to kill you both!" Yuna shrieked, her voice echoing off the ceiling. "I am going to sell your organs on the dark web! Kurumi! Do not let her 'stabilize' anything else!"
The scene was bordering on the surreal - the smell of burnt sugar and ozone, Piper's hands working magic on my shoulders, and Yuna's disembodied fury radiating from the floor. I was just starting to wonder if I actually wanted to free Yuna when the room was punctured by a sharp, rhythmic ping.
The computer desk flared as a high-priority notification pulsed in a bright, neon green across Yuna's monitors.
"The tip!" Yuna's tone shifted instantly from 'homicidal roommate' to 'tactical lead.' "The informant I've been waiting on! Kurumi, get to the monitor! Read it to me!"
Piper's hands stilled. The playful atmosphere evaporated, replaced by a cold, sharp shot of adrenaline. I scrambled over the back of the couch, nearly tripping over Yuna's frozen body, and stared at the screen.
[ENCRYPTED UPLINK: SOURCE 'GHOST-7']
[MESSAGE: S-Korp covert transport moving 'Package 04' to decommissioned Sector 7 Research Lab. Departure in 10 minutes. Hope this helps.]
I felt the blood drain from my face as I read the message out loud.
"Ten minutes." Yuna's voice was cold and focused, the grumpiness replaced by a terrifying clarity. "Kurumi, forget the resin. Forget the massage. Get the silver suit. You - Scintilla - have to go. Now. You have to track them, figure out what they're doing."
I looked at the screen, then at Yuna, who was still helplessly fused to the floor. "I can't just leave you like this!"
"No choice, babe," Yuna snapped, for a brief moment some of her old less-grumpy personality shining through. "Piper can stay here and look for a solvent. You go to Sector 7. If we lose this lead, there's no telling how long until we get another. Go be Scintilla, Kurumi. Figure out what they're doing and report back. This is a stealth mission, not a fighting mission."
Nodding, I grabbed the Scintilla costume from the shelf where it had been sitting and started to change right there in front of the two girls, not having time for modesty. As I slipped my nipples beneath the almost nonexistent bits of fabric, I whispered a prayer that the suit would preserve my modesty a little better this time around. Clipping the veil onto my face, I felt the silver shimmer pulse from my head down to my toes, bleeding away the purple color.
As it did, I felt the resin surrounding Yuna shimmer and melt as she yelped in surprise. Grinning at my success, I gave the girls a thumbs up. Stepping out the window to the fire escape, I quickly climbed to the rooftop, feeling the silver fabric of the suit pulsing against my skin as if it were hungry. I took a deep breath, leaped, and felt the massive magnetic pull of the city's electrical grid. I didn't fall; I snapped upward toward the high-voltage transmission lines. The world blurred into silver streaks as I began to 'surf' the cables, a living rail-gun slug screaming toward Sector 7 and the decommissioned Research Lab.