Struggling to control her powers

"This is ridiculous!"

Cinder stormed into her dorm room at Beacon Academy, slamming the door shut behind her. Her three cohorts, Emerald, Mercury, and Neo, were already inside the room, relaxing after a long day of pretending to like the students they surrounded themselves with. Cinder had gone out to get a better sense of the layout of the school, opting to go alone as that'd attract less attention. As she returned home, all three of the others noticed Cinder was furious. They also noticed she was wearing different clothes than when she left.

"Did it happen again?" Emerald asked, feeling sorry for her leader.

"Yes, obviously it happened again," Cinder huffed, sitting down on her bed. "And it always happens at the worst times!"

About a year before the current school year started, Cinder had taken part in an operation alongside Emerald and Mercury to attack the Fall Maiden and steal her powers for herself. Unfortunately, the connection was severed by a irksome huntsman before Cinder could get all the power. That had set there plans back a bit, but things were still proceeding smoothly. Well, mostly.

Initially, Cinder had been able to use her new abilities without much incident. But a new problem began to arise just a few weeks after the operation. Seeing as Cinder had only taken part of the Fall Maiden's powers, the ability to control fire, it could not exist in balance with the other three. As such, it began to flair up and cause...unfortunate situations.

Put simply, the fire would burn Cinder's clothes off, leaving her completely naked. A few times, this happened when Cinder was meeting with certain influential people, and Cinder was **** to intimidate them into cooperating. She had spent many months working to control her powers, and believed she had put that issue to rest by the time she arrived at Beacon.

However, the issue had come back with a vengeance about a month and a half ago. Whereas before, it would only occur every week or two, it now happened multiple times a week. It got so bad that Cinder had made Emerald put together little emergency packs of clothes and hide them around the school. But even that was only a band-aid solution, as they didn't have time to keep putting the packs together, on top of their other plans.

"Hey, at least you're giving people a show," Mercury commented from his own bed, not looking up from the comic he was reading.

"This isn't funny, Mercury," Emerald spit at him, moving to sit next to Cinder. She began to slowly rub Cinder's shoulders.

"Oh, come on. It's a little funny." He sat up and looked at the two of them, grinning. Getting no reaction, he turned to Neo. "You think it's funny, right?"

Neo thought for a moment and then shrugged, giving a so-so gesture.

"Yeah! She gets it," Mercury responded, pointing over to her.

"Mercury..." Emerald grumbled, struggling to contain her anger. "We need to come up with a solution!"

Mercury looked back at her and shrugged.

"I mean...you could become a nudist," he offered.

Cinder lifted her head and glared at him, flames appearing at the edges of her eyes.

"Are you suggesting I...flaunt myself to all of these low-lives? These common...argh!"

Cinder shot up and walked to the other side of the room, putting her hands on her hips and facing away from everyone. Emerald walked over and placed both hands on her shoulders, trying to calm her down.

"Look." Mercury stood and put his hands up in a surrender pose. "All I'm saying is this problem isn't going away on its own. You want to not worry about having your clothes burned off? That's a pretty easy way to do it."

Emerald looked back over her shoulder, narrowing her eyes.

"You're just saying that because you want to see her naked."

"I mean, it'd be a bonus, sure," Mercury laughed. "But it'd also solve your problem."

"Mercury, we don't have time for your perverted-"

"He's right," Cinder said, cutting Emerald off. Both Emerald and Mercury looked at Cinder, shocked at the words she just said.

"Uh...Cinder?" Emerald asked hesitantly.

"He's right," Cinder repeated, turning to face both of them. "It would save us time in the long run, and I would no longer have to worry about showing myself to all of those people if it's all already out there."

"Yes, but...wouldn't it draw too much attention to us? To what we're doing?"

"Hardly. More than anything, it'd draw the attention of mouth-breathing perverts who wouldn't know a real woman if she pushed him down the stairs. I can handle them."

With that, Cinder grabbed the bottom of her shirt and pulled it off, tossing it into the corner. She wasn't wearing a bra underneath, as she didn't want to worry about underwear while struggling to get dressed behind a tree. Cinder then undid her pants and pushed those down to the floor, leaving her completely naked. When that happened, Emerald and Mercury went wide-eyed, staring at her body without shame. Neo viewed all of this from the side, a satisfied smirk on her face.