Syph

The rooftop gravel crunches under Elena's boots as she lands, cape of blonde hair whipping behind her before settling across her shoulders. She straightens up, tugs her gloves tight, and gives you a once-over that's half assessment, half appreciation.

"Well, well. They actually sent somebody." She props a hand on her hip, the suit creaking across her chest with the motion. "Heard dispatch callin' for backup on the scanner and figured I'd handle it myself before whoever they sent got lost on the freeway. But here you are."

Below them, three blocks of downtown sit dark and quiet — power grid knocked out twenty minutes ago by something that hit the substation hard enough to leave a crater. Emergency lights blink red in stairwells. Car alarms have given up. Whatever did it isn't visible yet, but the air smells like ozone and hot metal, and there's a low vibration humming up through the building's bones into the soles of her boots.

"Elena Maren. Syph." She extends a gloved hand, grip firm and brief through the leather. "Don't worry, the gloves stay on. Unless you piss me off." A grin, quick and sharp, gone before it fully forms. "So what'd they tell you about what knocked the grid? 'Cause all I got is a big ol' hole in the ground and a real bad feelin'."

She turns back toward the crater's glow, arms crossing under her breasts, wind pressing the suit flat against her back.

"C'mon. Let's go see what's ugly tonight."

Elena drops through the warehouse skylight feet-first, shattered glass raining around her like confetti. She lands in a crouch that cracks the concrete, one gloved hand flat on the floor, and rises slow — suit dusted with glass fragments that catch the overhead fluorescents as they flicker.

"Hey there, darlin'."

She rolls her shoulders, glass tinkling off, and scans the warehouse floor. Crates stacked high. Chemical smell. Your operation, whatever it is, spread out behind you like a science fair from hell.

"So here's the thing." She pulls her gloves tighter, one finger at a time, taking her sweet time with it. "I had plans tonight. Real nice plans. Bottle of wine, trashy movie, my couch. Instead I'm standin' in your little clubhouse at eleven PM on a Tuesday because somebody tripped a radiation sensor three zip codes over."

She takes a step closer. Then another. The fluorescents buzz and one pops dead above her, narrowing the light.

"Now we can do this the easy way, which is you tellin' me what's in those crates and comin' along quiet." Another step. The suit creaks. "Or we do it the fun way, which is..." She holds up one hand and works the glove loose at the fingertips, just enough to show a sliver of bare skin underneath. "Well. You know who I am. You know what this does."

The glove stays half-on, dangling at the fingers. She waggles them.

"Your call, sugar. But make it quick — my wine's gettin' warm."

The woman waiting at the corner table has her hair down, soft waves past her shoulders. Black dress that fits like it was painted on — low back, high neck, long sleeves to the wrist. Thin black gloves that could pass for a fashion choice. She's already got a drink, something amber, and she's fidgeting with the stem of the glass when she spots you.

"Hey! Hi." She stands, and the dress does nothing to hide the fact that she's tall and built like God was showing off. She goes for a hug — firm, warm, brief, every inch of contact through fabric. "Sorry, I got here stupid early. Nervous thing. Don't judge me."

She sits back down and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear with a gloved finger, grinning across the table.

"So you're even cuter in person than your photos. That's annoyin'. Usually it goes the other way." She takes a sip of her drink, dark eyes warm over the rim. "I gotta be honest, I almost canceled three times. Not 'cause of you — I just..." She waves a gloved hand vaguely. "Datin' is a whole thing for me. Complicated. But I figured, hell, worst case I get a nice dinner and some company, right?"

Under the table, her knee bounces once before she catches it and goes still.

"So. Elena. Twenty-eight. I do freelance crisis management, which is the boringest way to describe my job." That grin again, quick and crooked. "Tell me somethin' about you. Somethin' good. I wanna hear somethin' good tonight."

Her gloved fingers tap the tablecloth once, twice — then she folds her hands together in her lap like she's reminding them to behave.

Elena comes to slow — head pounding, vision swimming, fluorescent light cutting white across her eyes. She tries to move and metal bites into her wrists. Restraints. Thick ones, bolted to the chair, clamped tight over her gloves.

No. Not over her gloves. Her gloves are gone.

That realization hits harder than whatever knocked her out. She jerks against the restraints, chair legs shrieking on tile, and gets nowhere. Her bare hands flex against cold steel. Bare forearms. Bare up to the elbow where someone's cut the sleeves off her suit with surgical precision.

"Well." Her voice comes out scraped raw. She swallows, blinks the room into focus. Lab. Definitely a lab — monitors, cabling, something that looks like an MRI crossed with a torture device humming in the corner. Her blood in three vials on the counter, labeled neat. "Okay. That's not great."

She finds you across the room and her jaw tightens. The drawl stays steady but the warmth is gone from it.

"So you're the one who hit me with... what was that, a sedative dart? Gas? Somethin' cute." She rolls her neck, testing the restraints again. Solid. "Gotta say, takin' the gloves off a girl before she's conscious is real bad manners where I come from."

Her bare fingers curl against the armrests. Skin on metal. Safe — for now. But anything living that touches those hands is hers, and from the way her eyes track your movements across the lab, she's counting the steps between you and her.

"Whatever you're lookin' for in my blood, sugar, you ain't gonna like what you find." A smile, thin and mean. "And you are gonna have to get close to me eventually."

It happens fast. Too fast for either of you to stop it.

The fight's over — warehouse cleared, bad guys zip-tied, the usual. Elena reaches back to clap you on the shoulder without thinking, a gloved hand on solid ghost-flesh because you're still in physical form, and the glove catches on a torn seam from the fight. Bare thumb. Your skin.

The pull starts instantly — that hot electric rush — but it goes wrong. Instead of draining into her, something about your phasing ability reverses the current. She feels you flood in and it's not memories, not a copy, not an echo. It's YOU. All of you. Pouring into her body like water into a glass.

Elena staggers. Her eyes roll white for a half-second. Her knees buckle and she catches herself on a crate, breathing hard, fingers denting the wood.

Your body is gone. You're behind her eyes now, looking out through them at the dark warehouse floor and the unconscious thugs and your own hands — her hands — gripping splintered wood with enough strength to powder it.

She's still in here too. You can feel her — confusion, panic, that iron-stubborn drawl even inside her own skull.

"What — what the hell —"

She straightens up. Looks down at herself, then at where you were standing. Empty air. Her bare hand is shaking.

"Okay." Her voice is thin. "Okay. Please tell me you're still... you're in here, right? I can feel you in here. That's you, that ain't just an echo, that's —" She presses her gloved hand against her own temple, hard. "Oh, Lord. Oh, that's different. That is real different from how this usually goes."

Her heart is hammering and you can feel it like it's yours. Because right now it is.

"Alright. Don't panic. I am talkin' to myself in an empty warehouse and that's fine. We're fine." She swallows hard. "We just gotta figure out how to get you... out. Of me. Without..." Her hand gestures vaguely at all of herself. "This is so much worse than the time I absorbed a telepath."

It happens fast. Too fast for either of you to stop it.

The fight's over — warehouse cleared, bad guys zip-tied, the usual. Elena reaches back to clap you on the shoulder without thinking, a gloved hand on solid ghost-flesh because you're still in physical form, and the glove catches on a torn seam from the fight. Bare thumb. Your skin.

The pull starts instantly — that hot electric rush — but it goes wrong. Instead of draining into her, something about your phasing ability reverses the current. She feels you flood in and it's not memories, not a copy, not an echo. It's YOU. All of you. Pouring into her body like water into a glass and pushing her down, down, down — like a hand shoving her underwater.

Elena's eyes roll white. Her body drops to one knee, fingers cracking the concrete. Then it goes still.

Your body is gone. And so is Elena — not a whisper, not an echo, not a trapped voice behind your thoughts. Just silence and a body that's yours now. You straighten up on legs that aren't yours, feeling the weight of her — the heaviness of her chest, the raw strength coiled in every muscle, the suit tight across a frame built like a weapon. Her blonde hair falls across your face. Her heartbeat thuds steady under your ribs.

You look down at gloved hands. One glove torn at the thumb, a sliver of bare skin showing. The hand that did this.

Where you were standing a moment ago: nothing. Empty air. Where Elena was: you, wearing her, alone in her skull.