Five minutes

Emily wandered out onto the office’s balcony, smiling happily to herself and taking a breath of fresh air. It helped her think. While Charm City’s ever-shifting seasons of supervillains were quite an adjustment for someone who grew up only watching heroes soar far, far overhead on their way to very distant locations, she had to admit it had its upsides.

It meant inspiration. She needed to push new ideas, which meant coming up with plans, and new types of villains showing up every few weeks certainly helped with that.

There was a woman’s shriek from the street below. Frowning, Emily leant forwards, craning over the balcony to see if she could see what caused it.

A blur was shooting down the street, flying a few meters above the road. Suddenly it shot up, until it was level with Emily, a figure standing on thin air and dressed in head-to-toe spandex. They tilted their head, stared at Emily through a visor, and then threw their hands out.

A jet of bright light hit her. Emily stumbled back, barely noticing the supervillain shoot off into the distance, bumping into the wall behind her.

Huh, she could feel the stone in much more detail that she expected. Coarse and… a ridge there… and…

Emily looked down, and promptly screamed.

Maybe they weren’t kidding about nudity themed villains after all! Emily stared at herself, falling forwards so she no longer had to feel the office building’s stone wall against her butt, suddenly shivering slightly as she felt the breeze where she’d never wanted to feel the breeze before.

Then she heard wooping. Emily turned around, then screamed again.

Glass windows. Right. She was standing in front of an unobstructed glass doorway with her whole office on the other side and her, out on the balcony, stark naked.

She looked from side to side, slowly becoming aware of how small the balcony was. While it stretched off to either side, most of it was window, the occasional stone only serving to separate the windows and being far too thin for her to hide behind.

She squealed again, remembered to cross her arms over her breasts, and took a deep breath before running into the office. Her feet bare against the carpet, she ran past desk after desk, past her coworkers, past Van’s office, and past Jackie.

“Told you,” the unimpressed bunnygirl said.

Then Emily almost ran headfirst into Teddy and Ron, who were on their way to pay up. She squeaked, flailed her arms to catch her balance, then hastily snatched her arms back closer to hide behind before running between them.

Face hot, Emily fell through the door to her own office, kicked the door shut behind her, and hurried around to crouch under her desk in a doubly private position.

Nudity themed villains. Right. Why had she thought that was so unbelievable? Superheroes existed!

After a few minutes, someone knocked at her door. Emily swallowed and poked her head over the top of her desk.

“Hello?” she said.

Jackie, Ron and Teddy were all in the doorway. She snatched her head back down.

“I don’t suppose anyone brought some spare clothes,” Emily said squeakily.

“Who has spare clothes this season?” Jackie said.

She should’ve figured that.

“Did you see who zapped you?” Ron said. “Totally not because we’re betting on it.”

Emily squirmed. She stayed hunched under her desk, butt on the carpet, hugging her legs and trying very, very hard to forget that she’d just streaked in front of the whole office.

“We saw purple light,” Teddy said. “That narrows it down to three. Of the nudity-causing supervillains in the city, most use rayguns but they’re typically red, green or yellow, purple would be the metas, so it’d be either Red-faced Hood, Big Bare, or the Streak.”

Emily peered out over the top of her desk again, to find Jackie and Ron were also looking at him. Then she ducked back down as soon as any of them looked back at her. She never thought she’d be so self-conscious over her shoulders.

“Dude, you know way too much about them,” Ron said.

“Does it matter?” Emily squeaked.

“Well, yeah,” Teddy said. “Completely different power sets. The Red-faced Hood is a guy in a red helmet that just destroys what you’re wearing. The Streak’s a woman with yellow stripes on her outfit irradiates you with Epsilon Radiation for a few days – you know how most radiation destroys living cells? Epsilon does the opposite, destroys non-living stuff like clothes for as long as you’re affected. Jackie can tell you all about her-”

“We said we’d never talk about that!” Jackie hissed.

“The Big Bare’s some huge women with more grey than anything, and her power tends to have… side effects,” Teddy said.

Emily squeaked. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“So?” Ron said. “Which of them got to you?”