Waking up for a double shift at Za Bay Pizza felt like being hit by a freight train that was also on fire after the late - and painful - night I'd had. My ribs were a mosaic of sickly yellow and brown and the gash on my shoulder ached. The only good thing was that apparently as a superhero, I healed faster than normal. These wounds looked about two weeks old, not eight hours old.

  I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at the circuit tattoos that ran across the backs of my hands. They weren't just black lines anymore; they seemed to have a faint, subcutaneous shimmer, like they were hungry for more than just electricity.

  "Concealer," I muttered, grabbing the heavy-duty waterproof stuff that Yuna had bought me. "Lots and lots of concealer."

  It took twenty minutes to hide the 'hero' parts of me. I pulled on a pair of thick black leggings to hold my bruised thighs together, then slipped on my bright orange pizza polo. I tucked my violet hair under a dorky, mesh-backed ball cap, tucking it back into a ponytail. Then I slipped on a pair of motorcycle gloves, covering up the rest of my hands. By the time I stepped out of the bathroom, I was starting to sweat a little - but you couldn't tell I was a superhero.

  "Normal," I mumbled to myself as I walked into the living room. "You're just Kurumi. You deliver dough. You don't fight robots." Waving to Yuna as I walked out the door, one last thought popped into my head.

  And you definitely don't have a best friend who moans into your ear while you're stuck in a vent while sneaking into a building...

  ---

  The morning rush at the shop was a blur of flour and grease. Kevin, the primary dough-maker and a guy whose personality was 40% yeast and 60% bad internet memes, was leaning over the counter with his phone out, practically vibrating with excitement.

  "I'm telling you, Sora, she's a goddess," Kevin raved, his voice echoing off the stainless steel ovens. "The 'Bin Queen' is the hero this city needs."

  "Kevin, please. I have to finish counting the supplies," Sora sighed, rubbing at her temples.

  "No, look at this angle on this shot!" Kevin shoved his phone toward Sora ... and right into my line of sight.

  I froze. It was a high-definition screencap from the Eye-Bee drone feed. It was the moment I'd tumbled into the recycling bin, legs flailing in the area. Because I was upside down, the shot was ... centered. The glossy, black vinyl of the Mark 2 costume was stretched tight across my groin, shimmering under the streelights, capturing every curve with agonizing clarity.

  "Look at that texture!" Kevin cheered, oblivious to the fact my soul was currently leaving my body. "That's high-grade combat latex! And the way she's just ... displayed like that? It's a statement on the disposability of justice in a corporate world! It's art! You can't tell me that was an accident, it was clearly 100% stage-managed and planned for maximum engagement, and I'm fucking here for it!"

  I stood there, paralyzed, staring at my own crotch on a pizza chef's phone. My face didn't just heat up; it felt like it was going to undergo nuclear fission.

  "I ... I have to go," I squeaked, grabbing my delivery bag and dashing out of the store.

  As soon as I hit the alley, I whipped out my phone and fired off a text to Yuna.

  > Kurumi: THE PIZZA GUY HAS A PHOTO OF MY GROIN ON HIS PHONE. THE BIN SHOT. YUNA WHY IS THIS ON THE INTERNET?!?

  About ten seconds later, I got a reply.

  > Yuna: Calm down. That 'Bin Queen' frame is currently our #1 engagement driver. We've had a 400% spike in new followers since it went viral. Don't be upset, babe. It's just metrics.

  Scowling, I frantically pounded out my reply on the phone's display.

  > Kurumi: IT'S MY VAGINA'S SILHOUETTE, YUNA. NOT A METRIC.

  > Yuna: Fine. It's a high-engagement silhouette of your vagina. Focus on the mission, Sparky.

  Growling, I tucked my phone back into my pocket, hopped on the moped, and puttered out of the alley and into the street. As I started to weave through traffic, the internal crisis I'd been having finally boiled over.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  This is a genre problem, I thought, weaving through the thick Bay City traffic. I've seen enough anime to know where this goes. The tight suit, the manager who stares at me while I'm naked, the viral photos of ...

  Wait. No. I shook my head so hard my cap almost fell off. That is not the genre I'm in. This is not an ecchi superhero isekai. It's not! That's just a series of unfortunate coincidences. This is clearly a standard Shonen Battle Manga. I'm the plucky underdog heroine who goes Weak-to-Strong, and I'll end up saving the day at the end of Volume 7. The 'Bin Queen' thing? That's just comic relief, like when the hero accidentally walks into the girls' bath. It doesn't mean the show is smutty. It's about growth, it's about justice!

  Taking a deep breath, I blew out a gust of air, convinced that I had figured out the issues. It was all a matter of framing. As long as I kept in mind that I was in a Shonen Battle genre, things would be okay. And one of the classic tropes of that was practicing your powers, something Yuna had reminded me to work on.

  Reaching back while driving, I let a tiny, focused pulse of static travel down my arm and into the heating element of the bag, hoping to refresh the battery on it. *Bzzzzt.*

  The pizza didn't just stay warm. A localized magnetic field flared and the pepperoni pieces started to hum as the cheese began to bubble with a violent, violet light.

  "Crap!" I felt the surge backfire into the moped's battery as the bike let out a mechanical scream and lurched forward, jumping from twenty miles an hour to fifty in a second. I screeched around a corner, nearly clipping a pedestrian, as I let out a girlish scream of terror and slammed on the brakes.

  Gasping for breath, I double-checked the pizza. It was fine ... mostly. The bike was smoking. Very shonen, I told myself. The hero always struggles with their power at first. Classic trope.

  ---

  My third delivery took me to an S-Korp logistics hub. From the outside, it was just a standard office building like any other I'd seen out while driving around Bay City, but the lobby felt immediately different. In the corner was a robot like the one I'd fought the night before, silently watching over the elevators.

  I slowly approached the guard at the reception desk, staring at the robot the entire time. "Pizza for ... Thompson?"

  The guard looked up, his eyes lingering on my violet hair peeking out from under the cap. He glanced at the screen behind him - a re-run of the "unknown Super"'s incredibly graceful fall from the second story to a dumpster - and then back at me.

  My heart stopped. I immediately hunched my shoulders, letting my mouth hang open a little in a slack-jawed expression. I could feel myself starting to fidget nervously with the pizza bag while he stared at me intently.

  "Purple hair, huh?," the guard grunted, narrowing his eyes and rising to his feet.

  "It's a ... it's a K-Pop thing," I stammered, putting on my best 'uncomfortable shut-in' voice. "My mom hates it. But, uh, my favorite idol has this color this season. I just want to be pretty like her, you know?"

  The guard snorted, the suspicion vanishing. "Right. Whatever, kid. Just give me the pizza and get out of here."

  I practically ran back to the moped, my lungs burning. That way way too close.

  ---

  The sun was beginning to set when my headset chirped with an incoming phone call.

  "Kurumi, you there?" Yuna's voice was crisp and energetic, and part of me immediately wondered just how many energy drinks she'd consumed today. "We cracked the first layer of encryption around the drive you took. It's got something called a 'Potential Resonator' list - we're not entirely sure what it is, but ... it's a list of people."

  "Of people?" I wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about, but I used the opportunity to pull the moped over, checking for my next order.

  Customer: Park, J. Apartment 4B, The Low-Rises.

  Tapping on the phone, I brought up the navigation to bring me to his apartment. After this, I was done for the day and ready to go home.

  "Yep, a list of people - it calls them candidates. There's even one close by where you're at. Do you think you could swing by and check? See if there's anything weird about the guy?"

  "I don't know, Yuna. I'm really tired, it's been a long day." I pulled my moped up to the street corner of the Low-Rise apartment complex, grabbing the warming bag and heading into the building.

  "Kurumi, my analysis shows he's in the same building you're walking into. Please!" I froze, finger extended to hit the elevator button.

  "What?," I hissed into the headset. "Right here?"

  "Yep! Some guy named Park Ji-hoon in unit 4B. Can you please swing by after you drop your pizza, check on him? See if he's a super or if there's anything else weird about him?"

  I looked at my phone again, confirming the delivery order. "I have his dinner in my hand, Yuna. What am I supposed to do? Hand him a pizza and tell him that a shadowy organization has his name on a list of potential resonators?"

  My voice was thick with sarcasm and I stabbed the button for "4", groaning and resting my head against the elevator wall as it whisked me upward.

  "I don't know, Kurumi. But at least tell me what he's like, so I can see if there's anything we can follow up on." Grumbling my assent, I hung up the phone as the elevator reached the fourth floor. Stepping out, I marched toward unit 4B.