The Sector 7 Research Lab wasn't decommissioned. Not by a long shot.

  As I crouched on the edge of a soot-stained brick chimney three blocks away, I stared through the silver-tinted veil of the Scintilla suit. The building was a concrete monolith, windowless and grim, wrapped in layers of high-end security that didn't belong in this part of the city. My heads-up display was highlighting thermal dampeners that made the air shimmer, biometric scanners on every door, and private security guards with matte-black tactical gear pacing the perimeter with attentive, almost eager stances.

  "I can't get close, Yuna," I whispered into the comms. "The whole place is a dead zone. If I even touch the outer fence, I'll trip a dozen silent alarms."

  "Don't move," Yuna's voice crackled in my ear, sharp and focused. "I'm bringing up the feed shortly. Piper, stop touching the monitors! Kurumi, Eye-Bee is thirty seconds out. I've fitted him with a new long-range spectral lens. Just stay put and let me start scanning."

  A familiar, comforting whir sounded behind me. Eye-Bee drifted into view, its little mechanical body hovering beside my ass before panning around, capturing close in views of my breasts as I rolled my eyes. It bobbed once, almost like a greeting, before its lens extended and it began to sweep the lab.

  "I feel like a voyeur," I muttered, hugging my knees to my chest. The silver fabric of the suit felt alive tonight, humming against my skin as it drank in the ambient static from the city. "There has to be a vent or a rooftop hatch. If I could just-"

  "Negative," Yuna snapped. "Every square inch is pressurized. You break a seal, they know. We wait and keep scanning."

  We waited. Ten minutes turned into twenty. My legs started to cramp and the frustration began to simmer in my gut. I was supposed to be a hero - or a vigilante, or whatever the hell I was - and here I was, hiding in the shadows like a coward while people were in trouble.

  Then, the loading bay doors groaned open and a half-dozen soldiers poured out from the inside of the facility, rifles extended in all directions.

  A sleek black van with tinted windows and no plates rolled out of the darkness and into the bay. My breath hitched as two hooded figures were hauled out of the back by guards. One was tall and slumped, the other was smaller, both stumbling as they were dragged toward the interior elevators.

  In an instant, I was on my feet. "They're taking them in," I hissed, my hand sparking involuntarily against the brick. "Yuna, let me go. I can burst the gates, get in and out before they-"

  "No," Yuna shouted, her voice unusually heavy. "Look at the rooftops, Kurumi. Automated railgun turrets. They'd shred you before you hit the pavement. We have the footage. We have facial recognition running to find the identities of a few guards. That's enough for tonight. Come home, Scintilla. That's an order."

  The bay doors slammed shut, cutting off the light. The figures were gone. My opportunity to act was gone.

  "Dammit," I breathed, slamming a fist against the chimney. The feeling of helplessness was a cold, oily weight in my chest. I felt like a failure. I felt like a fraud in a shiny suit.

  Sighing, I shook out my limbs. "Fine. I'm headed back."

  I didn't use the stairs. I took a running start, leaped off the roof, and reached for the high-voltage lines. I was ready for the snap, the rush of the silver-surf - but I never hit the wire.

  A wall of roaring, orange-white flame erupted directly in my path.

  "Gah!" I yelped, twisting mid-air. I barely managed to ground myself on a flat, warehouse roof, skidding across the gravel as the heat singed the air behind me.

  "Going somewhere, little bird?"

  I looked up. Standing on the edge of the roof was a woman who looked like a high-fantasy commander dropped into the twenty-first century. She was easily six feet tall, with a mane of fiery red hair tied back in an intricate, waist-length warrior's braid. She wore a sleeveless, high-collared forest green vest tucked into a heavy, leather-paneled combat kilt. Her arms were covered in translucent orange sleeves held up by glowing copper bicep-rings and her legs were encased in dark leggings that disappeared into the wrap of her kilt.

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  "Celtic Ember," I whispered. I recognized her from the 'homework' that Yuna had me doing, studying heroes. B-Rank. Fire. From my research, I recalled that she actually hated her heroine name, preferring to go by her real name of Fiona when possible - and that she didn't wear a mask. Apparently, she tried to be authentically super. I rolled my eyes.

  "I've seen your videos," she said, her voice a rich Irish lilt that sounded like it was being squeezed through a grater. She towered over me, taking a step closer. "I expected a rogue talent. Instead, I find a girl who thinks a few silver ribbons and a public display of her anatomy constitutes heroics. You're a shameless harlot playing at vigilante. This outfit ... it's an invitation to a vice raid."

  "Maybe if you spent less time polishing your leather kilt and more time watching that lab, you'd notice S-Korp is kidnapping people and experimenting on them!" I snapped. "But no, you're too busy being a 'professional' and blindly following HeroHub's orders to do anything that actually helps this city."

  Celtic Ember's face went from pale to a shade of red that matched her hair. "How dare you. This is a Battle Priestess tradition! And you're just a stuck-up snob who's mad she doesn't get as many clicks as I do!"

  "You-you!" I sputtered with rage. Fiona didn't blast me with fire, taking a step closer, anger on her face. She reached out and shoved my shoulder, picking a fight. I shoved her back. Hard.

  Before I knew it, we were locked in the world's most undignified scuffle. It was a slap-fest. We were shoving, hair-pulling, and flailing. I hooked a leg around her thigh, tipping the two of us to the gravel rooftop as we rolled, jostling for position.

  The "Battle Priestess" look didn't hold up long in a rooftop wrestling match. As we fought, Celtic Ember's long, thick braid got hopelessly tangled in the glowing copper bicep-ring on her right arm. As she jerked back to punch me, the tension pulled her vest tight across her chest - too tight. The front zipper, stressed by the grappling, gave way with a sharp pop, flying open.

  "Oh!," she gasped, her face turning purple.

  She lunged to hold the vest shut, but her foot caught on the heavy wrap of her leather kilt. A stray silver spark from my fingertips jumped to her, causing the leather cord to snap. The kilt began to unravel and slide down her hips. At the same moment, her panicky flailing hooked into the gossamer-thin silver fabric of my top.

  There was a sickening shloorp sound as my fabric was yanked downward. Suddenly, both of my nipples were staring at the cold night air, while Fiona was standing there in her leggings with her vest flapping wide, her left breast completely bared as she tried to catch her falling kilt.

  We both froze, tangled together, panting and half-exposed.

  And that's when we spotted Eye-Bee, circling us like a hungry vulture, lens whirring. "Yuna, turn it off!," I hissed into the comms.

  "Not a chance," Yuna's voice came back, sounding more alive than she had in weeks. "I am recording every single second of this for the archives. This is tactical data, Kurumi. Pure tactical data. I'm going to review it at length to give recommendations on how to better fight."

  Fiona stared at me, her eye wide as she realized she was currently half-naked while grappling with a 'harlot' on a warehouse roof. Her 'Warrior Queen' facade was dead. She looked like a panicked teenager whose parents had just burst in.

  "Your ... your bit of cloth," she stammered, her voice losing its hard edge. "It's ... it's completely failed."

  "So has yours!," I squeaked, trying to cover myself with one hand while adjusting my veil with the other.

  The Celtic Ember sighed, a weirdly soft sound. She reached out - not to slap me, with but with a strange, almost maternal focus. "Hold still, you idiot."

  To my absolute horror, she didn't just pull the fabric back in place. She used both hands, her fingers brushing directly against my nipples as she tried to hook the silver fabric back in place. Her touch was warm - hot, actually - and my heart rate tripled.

  "There," she muttered," her eyes fixed on her handiwork as she adjusted the shimmering fabric across my nipples. "It's ... it's a terrible suit. Truly." She stayed like that for a second too long, her hands lingering on my chest, her face inches from mine, both of us glowing beet-red.

  A sharp, metallic clank echoed from the roof access door as something heavy slammed into it from the inside. We both snapped our heads to stare at it.

  "Freeze! S-Korp Security! Hands in the air!"

  The spell broke. We both scrambled to our feet, Celtic Ember frantically grabbing her vest and kilt as a squad of tactical guards started rushing through the door, rifles raised.

  "Go!," she hissed, a wall of flame erupting between us and the guards to buy us a second. "Go, before they figure out who we are."

  I didn't need to be told twice. I leaped for the power lines, the silver suit snapping me away into the dark night. As I blurred into a streak of silver lightning, I looked back over my shoulder to see the Celtic Ember launching herself in the opposite direction, a trail of red flames marking her path.

  My chest was still tingling where she'd touched me and my head was spinning.

  "Yuna," I panted as I surfed the wires, headed for home. "Please tell me you're going to delete that."

  "I'll think about it," Yuna replied. "After Piper and I watch the slow-motion replay a few more times."