The Training of Elastica.

The Training of Elastica.

“You call this a tasteful costume?”  It was only Aline’s first day as a superheroine and already she was finding reasons to regret that particular decision.  Eliza looked at the outfit laid out before the two of them and shrugged.  

“What’s wrong with it?  It is made out of materials that will stretch with you, it’s insulated, should present at least some form of protection against extreme heat, cold, or electricity, and I made sure to get it in your favorite colors, white and green.”  Aline picked up the green sleeveless vest which would make up the upper half of the uniform.

It was, to put it politely, completely devoid of fabric around a certain portion of her anatomy.  “Perhaps I should have been more specific when I said ‘tasteful’ I meant ‘completely covers my breasts’ is that clear enough?”  Eliza shrugged mightily.  “Look why don’t you try it on, then you can complain about it.”  

Aline waved the outfit back and forth.  “Why, so we can use a ruler to figure out exactly how much flesh I’m showing off?”  Eliza comfortingly put a hand on her friend’s shoulder.  “I know it’s a double standard, but have you ever considered just how useful this kind of thing can be?  

Believe me, we’ve actually done tests which rank average male reaction time against the amount of flesh displayed.  Long story made sort, that outfit displays the scientific determined perfect amount of cleavage for the task of defending the innocent from vicious criminals.  If you don’t like it, well it’s part of the job, so put up or quit.”  

Aline continued to glare at the triangle of missing fabric.  “By the way, how come there isn’t a bra along with this costume?”  Eliza looked down at the costume and then up at the area of Aline’s body it would fail to cover.  “Well if you were wearing one then you wouldn’t be showing of any bare flesh.  Don’t worry, your costume is designed so that your girls will be held in place.  Stretch any way you want and don’t worry about having ‘wardrobe malfunction’ popping up, or popping out as the case may be.  

Seriously, try it out and tell me you don’t like it.”  Aline was still brooding however.  "Hey, if it’s so great why don’t you go into that bathroom and put it on?”  Eliza glanced in the direction of the door in question and then back at her friend.  “Well it wouldn’t look good on me, I don’t have superpowers.  

Besides, if it helps you’re not just doing this for the money, you’re doing it to help make the world a better place, and a shitload of money.  Now, if you can’t put on this costume then you’ll never make it as superheroine, and while by no means can I legally make you do it, there’s also no particular legal reason why I have to let you live with me.”  


Aline stretched out her arms, (momentarily having them slip out of her sleeves) to gather up the entire costume in them.  “You know that’s low, really low.”  Eliza didn’t seem to be concerned in the least.  “Sorry, it’s a result of the training, find a foe’s weakness and then exploit it mercilessly.  

Look on the bright side, you haven’t shown any signs of the most common side-effect of being exposed to formula 31888.”   Aline raised an eyebrow suspiciously.  “Which is what exactly?”  Eliza pointed towards the other woman’s chest.  “Increased breast size, on average roughly 60% of the subjects, go up a full cup size, some of the ones who were more inconspicuously-endowed to start with go up two sizes.”  

Aline watched Eliza’s face very careful, as if expecting the other woman to burst into laughter at any moment.  “What, you think I’m kidding?  Believe me, you can’t just pull numbers like these out of thin air.  Anyway, switch into costume and then we’ll begin your training.”  

Since she couldn’t bring herself to turn back at this point, Aline walked into the bathroom, changed into the outfit, and walked out.  “What do you think?” Eliza was waiting for her hold and holding up a large mirror that she slowly shifted up and down so that Aline could get a full view of her body.  

The lower half of the costume was just fine, even if the fact that there was no clear distinction between the white leggings and the boots of the same color (other than a small purple circle in the fabric) made them look somewhat like the pajama bottoms if it wasn’t for the fact that they were made of tight-clinging material instead of loose puffy fabric.  

Then of course came the area of the green vest that she had already commented on to a considerable degree.  After that, her arms were bare to the elbow, but she had extra-long purple gloves on that covered the rest of them.  Finally, there was the mask. It was purple, though as masks went it felt incredibly small.  

“Are you sure that this thing will keep people from realizing who I am?  I mean don’t you think I should tie my hair in a pony tail or something to keep people from realizing who I am?”  Eliza put one hand on Aline’s shoulder, and another on her chest, just below the triangle of absent fabric.  “Relax, to reiterate the obvious, no one is going to be looking at your face.  

Besides, do you seriously think there are that many people who are going to be looking at you in any condition?  You’re not a famous billionaire, or a reporter, good old-fashioned anonymity and a regular identify so utterly and completely boring that no one would ever care about it, will keep your secret one perfectly safe.  

Speaking of secret identities you’ve had plenty of time to think it over, have you decided you what your superheroine name is going to be.”  “Elastica.”  There was a long pause.  “What?”  Eliza looked down at the floor.  “Nothing.”  Aline tapped her hands on her shoulders.  “Yeah, exactly come on, you could say something about my name?”  Another long silence.  “It’s appropriate.”  A third long silence, though this time around it was waiting for Aline to say something.  “Well it’s nice of you to say that.”  


“Well now that we’ve got the costume and the name, let’s get down to training, follow me.”  Eliza walked over to an elevator and Aline followed after her, twisting her head around to look back at the closet she had just left.  “Um, what about my clothes?”  Of course as one might expect, walking in one direction while you’re looking in the exact opposite one can result in accidents.  

In this particular case when Eliza stopped in front of the elevator, Aline kept right on walking and proceeded to bowl her friend over.  Reacting with trained instinct, Eliza threw her hands outward, intending to land on them rather than her jaw.  Neither happened however, because Aline shot out her torso, wrapping it around her friend and twisting her around in midair, so that the first thing to hit the ground was Aline’s back with Eliza’s following a few moments later, the former acting as a cushion for the latter.  

After taking one moment to catch her breath Eliza calmly grabbed Aline’s arms and lifted them upwards and away from her body like she was removing the safety bar after going on an amusement park ride.  “Your clothing will still be there when we come back here.  Also, do me the favor of only moving in the general direction your looking from now on.”  Aline nodded apologetically, realized her head was currently behind Eliza’s head, so she returned her body to its normal appearance before nodding a second time.  

“Got it.  By the way, aren’t people going to start asking those inconvenient questions you detest so much if they see me walking around the building like this?  Granted I haven’t been here long enough to know just how seriously the company takes the entire ‘casual Fridays’ trend.”  The elevator door opened, and as Aline entered it, Eliza put a hand on her shoulder.  

“You don’t have to worry about it.  Your official cover story is going to be as follows; you were working for Dunfar Technologies when there was a freak industrial accident which resulted in you gaining superpowers.  You being a kind-hearted person decided to become a superheroine and do good with your powers, and we, being a kind-hearted company, will support you with the appropriate resources at our disposal.  

As far as John or Jane Q Public knows, you’re a more or less a giant publicity stunt to help show that Dunfar Technologies cares about the people of this community.  Also, I’m your official press agent which is why I’ll be hanging out with you and keeping nosy reporters at bay.  Believe me, between dealing with journalists and supervillains, you’ve got the easy job.”  

Aline personally doubted that, but since she was the one with superpowers there wasn’t much in the way of opportunity for them to switch careers.  In fact, before she could say anything, the elevator’s doors opened and as she followed Eliza out she found herself in a large empty room with walls painted a unappealing uniform grey.  “

This is one of the many on-site firing ranges.”  She walked up to a table, picked up a pair of headphones and put them on over her ears, before donning a pair of goggles as well.  Aline carefully examined the room, she could see the firing line and the almost desk-like objects that divided up the room so that people didn’t end up firing at the same target, but much like with her costume, what was there only made what wasn’t all the more glaring.  

“Where are we suppose to use for targets?”  Eliza looked at her, scoffed, walked over to a locker and opened it before pulling out an automatic pistol in one hand and two clips of ammunition in the other.  “Let me make this clear, ‘we’ are not going to be doing any shooting today.  I am going to be the only one whose finger pulls a trigger in here.  As for what my target will be, I’m looking right at it.”  

Aline wasn’t foolish enough to turn around in case there was some more suitable target that just happened to have suddenly sprung into existence behind her head.  “Wait a minute, you’re going to shoot me?  Listen I promise I’ll stop pestering you about the costume design, and I already trust you that it’s bulletproof, no reason to prove it!”  Eliza calmly inserted the clip into the gun  then yanked back its slide, chambering a round.  

“Listen, you don’t need to be afraid of what guns will do to you, you need to be afraid of what guns will do to the people around you.  Now like I said, step onto the target line in front of firing station number seven, you’ll see why once you get there.”  Aline yet again repeated her silent mantra about how there was no going back on her promise to be a superheroine at this point, then headed out onto the range so that her best friend could shoot her, probably several times.  

“Okay then, what is this grand revelation that you have in store for me?”  Eliza stepped up to the firing station and ran her hand along a large section of clear material.  “This is bulletproof glass.”  She then held up the gun towards Aline so that she could clearly see Eliza switch the safety into the off position.  “This is a Glock, which is only one pull of the trigger away from dealing death.”  

She pressed the gun through a small hole in the bulletproof glass screen that had apparently been designed with just this function in mind.  “This is an entire clip fired from a proper two-handed grip.”  She pulled the trigger, there was an explosion of sound and Aline felt like she’d been punched in the gut for about two seconds, and then she somehow ‘got over it’ just as quickly as it had happened.  

Eliza held the gun steady and kept jerking the trigger until she did it one last time and the gun simply went “click” proving the chamber was now empty.  She laid the gun down on the firing station and pointed a finger towards a particular “mark” in the glass.  “This scratch, Aline, is what you get when a bullet ricochets off your elastic body and gets slingshotted back at the person who was shooting at you.  

That kind of thing makes for bad press.  Even worse, depending upon what part of your body gets shot, the bullets can end up getting bounced in a number of different directions, possibly into the path of innocent people.  Starting to see why training is so essential?  If some crook tries to shoot you, and the bullet ends up harming a random civilian, you can be sure it will create a lot of two things: lawsuits, and angst.  Neither of those are conducive to you being an effective superheroine.  

So before you do any serious work on the street I want to make sure that you can properly dodge bullets.”  Aline looked at her friend in disbelief.  “How exactly am I supposed to do that?”  Eliza ejected the spent clip and began to load in the second one.  “How do you think?  By not being where the bullets are!”  

There was a third very long pause between the two old friends.  “Really?  Jeez, I wonder how that secret bit of wisdom has managed to escape soldiers the world over.”  Eliza pressed the gun through the opening in the bullet proof class.  “Simple: they can’t, but you can.  Aline, Elastica, I’ve seen you stretch, you can do it fast enough to avoid bullets, if you apply yourself.  

Remember, they might be fast, but they also have to travel in a straight line. If you spend enough time starring down the gun barrel you’ll get a feeling for where the bullet will go when the trigger is pulled.  If you start showing promise when it comes to dealing with these things, then we’ll start practicing with three-round bursts, and with any luck within a month we’ll be working on fully automatic.”  It certainly was easy for Eliza to say those things when she was the one with her finger on the trigger.

----


After a tough day of having more rounds pumped into her a than an alcoholic in a coma with a living will which made some ‘unique’ requests concerning what his IV line was to be filled with, the two were driving back home.  Aline was demurely watching the scenery fly by until it came to a screeching halt as Eliza suddenly parked their car for no apparent reason.  

“Okay, what’s going on?”  Eliza’s eyes glittered as she lowered their windows.  “I do believe that we’ve got your first official crime to deal with.”  Aline looked around, but she saw no men brandishing firearms, old ladies in distress, or any of the other hallmarks of illegality taking place nearby.  “This crime that I’m going to stop, where is it exactly?”  

Eliza leaned out her window and pointed.  Aline looked out hers in the direction, but still didn’t see anything.  “Look are we going to play real-life ‘Where’s Waldo’ or are we going to fight crime?  Just tell me what I’m supposed to be looking for!”  Eliza sighed mightily, and jabbed with her finger in the direction she was pointing.  

“You know you were right, that mask doesn’t suit you at all.  I’ll make sure you get a new one which has a pair of lenses built in since your eyesight clearly is something less than twenty- twenty.  Anyway, if you looked closely enough, you’d have noticed that there’s a guy up on that billboard with a can of spray paint who is defacing it as we speak!”  

Aline just raised her eyebrows and staired back at her friend.  “Seriously?”  Eliza shrugged and smiled.  “Hey, any crime you stop is one official crime you’ve stopped.  Besides, do you think being a superheroine is the one job in the world where you can start at the top?  

The secret to staying alive and unhurt is don’t get in over your head.  Think about it, at this point in your superheroine career do you honestly want to be taking on a shadowy organizations who have overly-complex plots to destroy the world and a veritable army of mindless minions who will throw themselves at you given half a chance?

On the other hand, one guy armed with a can of spray paint, that seems to be just about spot-on when it comes to the level of vileness I consider you capable of handling at the moment.”  Aline was understandably rather irked.  “Well I’m proud to see that you ut so much faith in my abilities.  Still, how exactly do you want me to deal with him, I’m not in costume at the moment.”  

Eliza reached into the backseat and held up the very same trashbag with a hole in it which had transported the erstwhile Elastica back to the Dunfar Technologies building when she hadn’t been able to control her powers.  “Your costume is right in here.”  Aline glowered at Eliza.  “What, are you suggesting I should change in here, it’s bad enough that the costume doesn’t fully cover my boobs but now you want me to give out free strip-teases to anyone who is lucky enough to drive by in the next minute or so?”

Eliza tapped the trashbag yet again.  “No I don’t want you to change in here, I want you to change in here.”  Aline just staired in amazement.  “Seriously?”  “Hey, come on, you know that you’ll fit.  You slide in here and out of your clothing,  then into your costume, presto-changeo, you’re ready to fight crime.  

Of course, you should also consider this an important lesson in why when I saw that the costume is designed to fit underneath your civilian clothing, you should wear it underneath your civilian clothing.  Now get in the bag, get in your costume and go right the wrongs of the world.”  As she spoke, Eliza opened up the bag so that Aline could get a good look at her costume.  

“I’m not doing this in any way that could lead to someone seeing me naked, give it to me.” Aline took it, and slipped it up underneath her legs.  Then she slowly began to compact her body  as she pulled the trashbag up over herself until, sure enough, she could fit her entire being inside of it.  

Then like a snake rising from its charmer’s basket she emerged from the trashbag, Elastica, scourge of those who dared deface public property everywhere!  “Looking good, now why don’t you go grab him and give him the scare of his life?  Oops too late.”  Aline turned to look and her eyes went wide.

Part of the billboard that the criminal they’d be watching had been holding onto had given way, and now he was currently hanging onto the billboard for dear life.  “HELP!  HELP!”  Aline might not have noticed him at first, but she could sure as hell hear him now.  “HELP, SOMEBODY, ANYBODY HELP ME!”  

Without a second thought Aline easily stretched out her entire upper body until she was able to easily wrap her arm around the guy a few times.  “You can let go now, I’ve got you.”  The guy looked back at her, looked at the arms wrapped around him and his eyes went wide with surprise.  “If.. if you say so...”

He let go and allowed his body to be fully supported by Aline’s hands.  Of course this also caused him to promptly drop a few feet since she needed some time to adjust for his weight, but before he could even get started on yet another scream of fright, her grip was one hundred percent secure.  She then to a moment to turn him around so that were looking into each other’s eyes.  

“So, what exactly do you think you were doing?”  The guy who seemed to be more or less the exact same age Aline was went pale as a sheet for a moment.  It was extremely obvious that he’d been busy using his can of spray paint to superimpose the image of a nude female figure on top of the billboard in question, though he’d only worked his way down to her belly button before he’d taken his fall.

“Well, I was just creating a message so that my friends would be able to see how high up I got...”  Aline twisted the guy slightly for a second time so that he could see how long a drop it would be if she let go of him.  “I take it now you know why you should never, ever, ever do that again?”  

The guy nodded as rapidly and vigorously as the human neck could without snapping off in the process.  “Yes I promise I’ll never ever do anything like that again... but, you know, if you could help my find my can of spray paint and took me to a taller building, I’d be glad to let everyone in the city know just how thankful I am that you caught me!”

-----

Eliza raised an eyebrow as Aline once again managed to get her entire body inside the car.  “Well that wasn’t very nice.”  Aline shrugged.  “I figure that the odds are he won’t end going to jail, so he can consider the time he spends up there his punishment.  
“COME BACK!  I WAS JOKING!”

Eliza shifted the car out of park and maneuvered back on the road.  “You tested that weather vane first before you left him out there, right?”  “Don’t worry, it’s perfectly steady.”  

Eliza now shifted the car from reverse to drive.  “All right then, because if he died, that’d put a damper on the whole thing.  By the way, remind me to call up rescue services when we get home.”  Aline drummed her gloved fingers on the dashboard and nodded.  “No problem.  I’m glad to see you approve of his punishment, after all how exactly did that he even plan to write me a proper ‘thank you’ note when he hadn’t even asked my name first?”