Shinobu Miyake was an ordinary girl. It was practically engraved onto her forehead. Granted, that was not exactly an ordinary thing in and of itself, but still. The only quality that anyone could argue was odd about her was her relationship with Ataru Moroboshi, hot contender for worst non-abusive boyfriend on planet Earth.
Also her ridiculous strength, which was easily twice that of almost every other girl in Tomobiki. Which she only used when she was angry. Which was quite often because of her relationship with Ataru Moroboshi.
So. Yeah. She didn't like acknowledging that second thing, but it was really kind of hard to. You know the old saying, you don't know what you've got until it's gone? Well, right now Shinobu was having trouble opening doors. She had to really throw her weight into them to get them open. Needless to say, this was far from an ideal arrangement, which is why she was heading on over to her ex-boyfriend's house, stomping on the ground and not even disturbing the dirt beneath her feet. Which was making her feel more frustrated. How were you supposed to get a good stomp going if you didn't have a dust cloud?
"Oh, hello Shinobu," Mrs Moroboshi said when she - eventually - got the door open. "If you're looking for Ataru, he's been sent to the sahara desert for an hour by Lum as punishment for dating some weird girl."
"Actually, I'm here to see Lum."
"Ah," Mrs Moroboshi said. "Well, I guess that explains that. She's in Ataru's room."
Ataru's room. It wasn't really Ataru's room anymore, was it? It was Ataru and Lum's room. Ooh, this alien girl! She'd brought nothing but trouble ever since she tried to take over the world. That friend of hers had completely sapped Shinobu's strength. And that was before she got into the aggressive alien homosexuality that made Shinobu’s lips tingle and her legs feel even weaker. She was normal.
"Welcome, Miss. It appears that you desire something of me?"
And it didn't fucking help that Lum was lounging around in her stupid fucking bikini absently twirling around a stray lock of hair while playing the innocent in a room that had been quite deliberately set up to be as ominously lit as possible. There was a light shining underneath Lum and everything, purely for effect.
"Cut this nonsense out, you know why I'm here," Shinobu seethed. She closed the door and stormed to the middle of the room. "What do I have to do to get my strength back?!"
"Eh? Your strength?" Lum asked coyishly. "I thought you were an ordinary girl. Ordinary girls aren't monstrously strong, are they?"
"Not. In the mood. For games!"
A faint smile crossed Lum's lips. "Well, that's the trouble with you Earth girls. We Oni are always in the mood for games! Now, let's see... Ran said you were in denial about your obvious bisexual tendencies."
"I'm straight!"
"And I'm a pink fluffy cloud from the planet of sentient trench coats." Oh! What was she insinuating here? Smirking like that with those pretty kissable lips and standing around in that - in that far too revealing bikini! "Alright. So there are two things I, err, Ran wants to see from you before she will give your strength back. The first is -"
She held out a hangar. On it was a replica of Lum's bikini. Replete with a pair of oni horns with a bit of adhesive on the bottom, and a multicolored wig. Shinobu stared at it, long and hard, then swallowed. Put that on?
"Darling won't be back for at least half an hour," Lum said. "If you'd like I could lock the door. Nobody would see it but me. No pictures, no evidence, just you wearing this."
"You want me to cosplay as you?!"
"I don't think the term cosplay was around in the 1970s or 1980s, but sure," Lum said. "I'll pay for the fourth wall, you just get changed now. Okay?"
Shinobu took the hangar and stared at it. Really? This is what she had to do? Put on a stupid cosplay costume?
"This won't cling to my body, and I won't be able to take it off or something stupid like that. Right?"
"Huh," Lum muttered. "Ran would probably have liked that... But no, it's not set up to do that. I just want to get back at you a little for your anti-alien attitude."
Well. It's rather hard to not be anti-alien when one shows up being all smouldering hot and seductive in front of your boyfriend, then threatens to take over the planet, then forces herself into a relationship with your boyfriend. Then leads to your boyfriend becoming your ex-boyfriend. And then brings a fuckton of weirdness into your life that you didn't ask for! Ohhh!
"Fine!" Shinobu grumbled. "No peeking!"
"I'm straight, wouldn't get anything out of it even if I did," Lum huffed.
Right. Sure. After the big deal Ran made about how being gay wasn't a big thing in outer space, someone with a body like that and no problem showing it off was straight, she just so happened to be forcing her to put on this stupid sexy - surprisingly comfortable and warm outfit. Huh. If she wasn't touching her bare stomach with her hands, she wouldn't even know she was wearing something that exposed her midriff so obviously. Her legs felt covered too, going by heat, but they definitely weren't.
Of course, the bikini was the easy part. She'd worn bikinis like this before. Okay, maybe not quite so revealing, but... The wig and the oni horns was something else entirely. After a moment of hesitation she closed her eyes and pulled the wig on, making sure it was nice and secure, wouldn't come off easily. Then she took the oni horns and fastened them to her head.
...
Fastened them... to her...
"Uh, could you help me with these? I'm a little too weak to properly get these on."
"Tscha, since you asked so nicely."
Lum pushed a little harder on Shinobu's head than was probably strictly necessary to make these things stick. Geeze! She didn't have to be that rough, did she?! Ooh! Dusting off her hands like that, like it was a job well done!
"Come here!" Lum said, grabbing Shinobu's hand and leading her over to Ataru's closet. She opened it up, and - "Ta da! We look almost like sisters, don't we? Tee hee!"
Huh. Wow. She didn't recognise herself there. She looked pretty good, done up like this. Shinobu gave a bit of a twirl, her figure filled this out better than she thought it would. She laughed a bit despite herself, and flicked her fingers through the wig, striking a cool sexy pose. Nice!
"Here," Lum said, passing Shinobu a pair of gogo boots. "You don't have to wear them if you don't want to, but if you're okay with completing the look."
Shinobu took them without complaint. Gosh, feel this fabric. It really is like nothing on Earth. Without putting any second thought into it, she said "Thank you," and sat down so she could properly pull the boots on, all the way up her leg. It wasn't like any boots she'd put on before. Well, for one thing these were a bit bigger than the boots she normally wore. Not by much, but still bigger. It was more like - well, the boots were sort of auto-correcting themselves to properly fit her legs. The cloth comfortably adjusted to her toes, seperating them and keeping them snug and warm and secure.
By the time that she had the second boot on Shinobu was feeling a little bit woozy. Good, but woozy. Her attention turned to the mirror, and she suddenly noticed what she was sitting on.
Nothing. Or, to be more precise, air. She was floating.
"Huh...?" Shinobu asked, blinking slowly. Weird. It was kind of hard to put word to the thought.
"Oh, the bikini is designed to replicate my oni abilities," Lum said. "Try saying 'Darling'."
"Darling," Shinobu said, and a small burst of electricity shot out of her fingertips. Woah! That felt kind of nice! "Darling!" she said again, and another jolt came out. "Dahling!" pop, pop, spark, spark! "Tcha, that's quite a rush. Didn't you want me to do a second thing before you gave my strength back."
"Hrm, yes, but we'll get to that in a bit," Lum said. Huh. Okay, that sounded fair. Shinobu could wait a little bit longer to find out. She was actually having a lot of fun cosplaying as Lum. "it's something you'll be doing for me off and on, and I think you'll really come to enjoy it."
Sat Jun 27 16:58:26 2020