Lots and lots of stripping

Emily took a deep breath to try and psyche herself up. She still wasn’t completely sure why she’d suggested this.

No, that was a lie, she did know. She wanted to be able to wear something vaguely decent outside over the next couple of weeks. It was just that the long term was considerably easier to think about than the short-term.

The short term that had seen her strip out of the Wonder Woman costume behind a paper-thin divide and put on what could best be described as a poncho. It was long-sleeved and crinkly, like tissue paper, and a touch more see-through than she’d have liked, a slight shadow of the skin beneath rather visible.

It also only barely covered her butt. She awkwardly kept both hands holding it as low as she could without tearing it as she walked out into the lab.

“So, er, how does this work?” Emily said, a little nervous.

“You just stand there,” Teddy said. “I got bored and made a few prototypes while on a HR-mandated retreat, most should resist one or two of the beams, it’s just a matter of finding a way to make one that resists all of them. You just keep changing to the next in the pile, stay in order, and I’ll make notes of what works and what doesn’t.”

“Okay,” Emily said, high-pitched. “Just warn me when you’re going to- AHH!”

There was a flash of yellow and the crinkly poncho turned to dust, leaving Emily with her hands holding onto nothing at the level of her hips. She squealed and snapped her arms back up to cover her breasts, and hurried back behind the partition, butt vanishing from view.

“I said warn me!” she yelped, muffled.

“Next time!” Teddy called.

He made a note, and a minute later a flustered Emily emerged in a near-identical poncho.

“Okay, ready?” Teddy said.

Emily took a deep breath, then crossed her arms over the layer. She nodded.

There was a flash of green that time. She braced herself, but looked down, and saw that the poncho was still in place, covering her top half as well as it even had. She squirmed still, rubbing her bare legs together.

Sighing in relief, she lowered her arms.

“Okay, so this one- AHH!” Emily began.

That time the flash was red, and once more saw the poncho disintegrating. She didn’t even bother to cover with her arms as she sprinted back behind the divide, flailing.

“I warned you we were starting!” Teddy said. “There are a lot of settings, we can’t just test one!”

“Okay, I get it!” Emily squealed.

It took considerably longer for her to emerge in the next identical poncho. She tottered out to the firing area, still holding her hands in front of herself.

“So before we-”

“Fire in the hole!”

Emily squealed as the light flashed blue, then squealed as it was purple, screwing her eyes shut with each beam. She nervously looked down each time. When it flashed red, suddenly she was left wearing just the shreds her hands had been clutching on to.

She wailed and ran back for cover. Teddy made an intrigued note.

“Next!”

It was an hour before the first batch of ponchos had been worked through. Emily pulled on a spare, one that they hadn’t needed to test, and kept pulling it down over her hips as she stood by the desk, fidgeting and shifting her weight from foot to foot as she waited impatiently.

Teddy was collating the results. She really, really hoped they’d actually achieved something from all that.

“Well?” Emily said.

“It’ll be a while,” Teddy said. “I think it’s a good start, if we put together the materials from sample A, sample Q, and sample Eta…”

“Yeah, but we’ll need to work out which configuration,” Ron said.

“Have to test them all. Right, let’s get to work making!” Teddy said.

Emily took a step back, deciding to leave them to it. She was getting kind of tired of wearing ponchos anyway. Quickly she ducked behind the screen, then let out a sigh as she was reminded of how revealing her pre-existing costume was.

A couple of minutes later and Wonder Woman walked out into the lab, still unsteady on her heels. Content something at least was being done, Emily walked out into the office.

“Psssst!”

She tripped on her way to her desk, hastily adjusted her bustier, then straightened.

“Psssssssst! Emily!”

She could’ve sworn she could hear a voice. She frowned, looking around, spotting a few other people also turning on the spot.

Then she saw a green flicker of fire. Emily blinked, and watched as it was promptly extinguished before anyone else could notice. Frowning, Emily hurried to that side of the building, and faltered when she realized it led out onto the balcony. She still remembered what had happened last time she’d gone out there.

“Pssst!”

Though she knew that voice. Glancing over her shoulder to make sure she was alone, Emily ducked outside.

She’d struck up an, ahem, close friendship with Green Fury, one of Charm City’s local superheroines, and if Green Fury was visiting her at work now, that was kinda cool. Sort of a Jimmy Olsen type-

She turned the corner, and found the green-haired heroine crouching behind a potted plant distinctly lacking her usual green costume. Distinctly lacking, well, anything except the vivid green of her hair.

“Supervillain?” Emily said sympathetically.

“Supervillain,” Green Fury muttered. She eyed Emily’s costume for a moment, nodding appreciatively. “You kept that?”

Emily coughed. “So, er, what are you doing here?”

“I heard you were working on something that wouldn’t lead to me needing to fly halfway across the city like this,” Green Fury said, gesturing to herself with one hand.

She was crouched, keeping one hand on the wall to keep her balance, less shy about how much was visible so long as it was just Emily, but judging by her quick sideways glances, very, very wary of being seen by the office.

But, yep, she was naked. Very naked. Emily swallowed, trying to bring her eyes back up.

“We’re, er, trying,” Emily said. “I can see how it’s going?”

“That’d be great,” the superheroine said, with only a modicum of snark.