The girls were in a fritz over this newfangled security system Leblanc had set up. Another other day, the worst they would have to deal with were a couple of simple rope traps and the occasional brainless surfer-looking goons scattered around the base. It seemed like the Mistress of Mischief had finally caught on to their tactics and renovated her entire hideout.
The Gullwings were on one end of the most insane straight hallway they had ever seen. The opposite end lead to the heart of Leblanc's base. Between Point A and Point B, the floor was a digital checkerboard of pressure plates and plasma screens. The ceiling was a winding complicated network of pipes and vents hanging from more screens. The walls were lit up with a kaleidoscope of laser sensors. The highly sensitive threads of light scanned the room back and forth, up and down, and every which way in seemingly random squiggling lines.
The three nimble Sphere Hunters moved quickly through the psychedelic obstacle course. A week ago, the hall would have been a simple straight walk. Now the girls had to rely on dangerous parkour moves while playing the world's most intense game of Twister just to get anywhere. The slightest misstep would trip the alarms and probably send every hired thug and casino lounge sleazeball in the base storming after them.
Gunner Yuna rolled underneath a stream of sensors just before they scanned her. Warrior Paine glided through the air to avoid the triggers on the floor. Thief Rikku ran sideways along the walls. They all reached the end of the hall at almost the same time.
Just as the Gullwings convinced themselves they were in the clear and started to relax, the sensor ray for the hall's final security checkpoint scanned downward toward their backs. In an instant panic, the girls sucked in their breath, swayed their waists forward, and curled their spines back like they were doing the limbo. The ray passed behind their heads and missed their shoulders by a tiny margin. Paine and Rikku made themselves flexible enough so their bodies and Dressphere accessories stayed out of the sensor's range, but one member of the team reacted just a little too slowly and carried just a little too much cargo. The ray passed under the three girls' shoulders and down their spines. It came to a sudden stop when it met the curved denim surface on the back of a skintight pair of short shorts.
Yuna's butt got them in trouble.
Alarms screamed. The room's lighting changed to blinding red. The screens covering the walls turned into flashing RESTRICTED signs. The hall boomed with the voice of a computerized woman who sounded like she couldn't make up her mind if she was feeling seductive or feeling really bored.
"Intruders detected. Executing Grid Lixiviation procedure."
Before the Gullwings could even blink, the vents directly above their heads opened up and dunked them in hundreds of gallons of steamy mercury sludge. They shrieked in disgust as the liquid metal slathered them from head to toe. The parts of their Dresspheres that got the most drenched with fuming toxic muck started to flicker like holograms becoming fragmented. They may as well have been covered in raw Machina guts.
Enormous industrial hoses descended from the ceiling vents and smothered the Gullwings' soaked forms in a layer of metallic foam. The girls' flailing movements slowed down as the metal concoctions reacted and congealed together. Their surprised yells and disgusted groans slowly faded as their voices weakened.
The hoses retracted back into the ceiling and were replaced with long panel lamps that descended next each near-petrified Gullwing. The panels hummed quietly as their struggling faded and they were bathed in steady purple radiation. The glowing energy warmed up the ions soaking through their skin so the nature of their bodies could change from organic to metallurgic.
Their Dresspheres melded to their bodies in the spots where the fabric didn't disintegrate completely. Their lustrous pink skin tanned into shiny graphite. Frozen on their feet and never making a sound, the Gullwings looked like a trio of silver mannequins covered in glittering soap bubbles. They were in the last stages of transforming into what Leblanc's gang would later call deep baked bimbos.
All in all, it was sort of like being turned into a Black Sabbath song.
The radiation panels switched off and quickly receded back upward on their automated levers. More vents opened on the ceiling and along the base of the walls, releasing clouds of steam that completely engulfed the three ill-fated intruders. It became so dense that the entire room was obscured.
The hall's ventilation system kicked in a minute later. The blanket of steam that had consumed the Gullwings was gradually cleared away. Three dark and sparkling hourglass forms started to be revealed.
The girls had gone the opposite of all-natural. The bare parts of their figures were all smooth chrome surfaces. Their refabricated Dresspheres (still matching the basic equipment stylings of Gunner, Warrior, and Thief) had the appearance of clothes made out of painted aluminum and shrink-wrapped to the corresponding chrome bodies. Yuna's metallic bob cut was sharp enough to cut the fingers off anyone foolish enough to try touching it. Paine's swept over spike kept its shape like it was petrified in 10 tons of hairspray and flickered like electrons passing through a crumpled sheet of zinc. Rikku's dreadlocks looked more like bundles of power cables than actual hair. Their faces were like those of three angels molded out of bronze with eyes made from digital lenses.
Their bodies polished metal. Their Dresspheres were insulation for protecting their digitized parts. Hardened alloy compounds in the shape of their old bodies housed their internal organs, or were synthesized into the organs to replace them completely. Exactly how much was still human woman was a mystery, but the mechanical element was never in any question.
Their shiny faces were cold and emotionless. Paine and Rikku blankly stared toward the exit they had almost reached. Yuna stood in the middle glancing over her shoulder and lightly shaking her hips, making sure the rest of the chemical solution dripped off of her rear creases.
The RESTRICTED screens surrounding the Gullwings suddenly switched to another image. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling were all plastered with enlarged video portraits of Leblanc's face. The slithers of background framing the sides of her head showed part of her office. A narrow waving stream of smoke wafted up near her nose from a tobacco flute resting just off-camera. She was watching them like a witch with a crystal ball.
Her annoyed expression changed to a delightful smirk once she saw what had set off the alarm.
"Well if it isn't the Dodo Warts. I was wondering what hideous little things the system caught this time," the giant projections of her face boomed with a slightly delayed echo. "I'm glad you girls could show up for the dress rehearsal."
Yuna finished brushing off the shorts covering her fenders and looked at the projection covering the doorway along with her other two teammates. Their aloof statuesque faces changed to subtle smiles curled across oil black lips. It was a sign of subservience.
"Gotta say, ionized nanochrome looks great on you," Leblanc's giant heads nodded together. "It's certainly helped improve your personalities. No more 'Icky old Leblanc' from you, Rikku. No more pouty faces from you, Paine. And especially no sassy talk from you, Yuna."
She gently rested the palm against the side of her cheek as she took a whiff of smoke from her elegant pipe. She exhaled with a tiny chuckle.
"The Syndicate needs a few silver belles to keep the crew in order and look cute without breaking a sweat. Seeing as you three tinsel-brained hussies no longer have pores, I think you'll do fine on center stage."
Leblanc's face disappeared from the panels, turning the hallway's walls back into solid gray. The blast doors in front of the Gullwings opened with a pneumatic whoosh so they could finally proceed. Yuna stepped into the bright lights of a weapons cache while Rikku and Paine followed behind her in a tight V formation.
Author's note: Hit the showers, babes.