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“Ah, you're awake, my dear. We have need of you.”
Joule had only barely opened her eyes, and she already didn't know where she was, what was happening, or who the man in front of her was. He looked young, only a little older than her 13, he had purple hair with points, one of them white, and a dark purple coat with gold trimmings. He was smiling, relaxed, but Joule could tell he was nothing but evil. She tried to struggle, escape, run far away as all of her instincts were screaming at her to do, but she couldn't. Turning her head to her wrists, she could see she was bound to a table, upright. “What do you want from me?”
The man; no, boy, approached her, holding out his right hand with fingers outstretched, getting uncomfortably close and running his fingers up her chin, pulling her head up to face him. “You have much untapped potential. Do you know what an Adept is?”
She knew, of course. Everyone knew Adepts, humans with powers beyond normal capability. The Sumeragi Group had branded them terrorists, most of their powers were combat based and could cause terrible destruction, their mere existence was enough reason for humans to fear, especially the electrical line known as Azure Strikers. But something was telling her this wasn't a question that she should answer because it didn't sound good. It didn't matter that she didn't say anything, the boy kept talking himself. “Humans with Septima, the power to control. Most will use it for attack and cause fear, but you have something else. The Muse, the Septima with the power to control Adepts. I hope you realize why we seek this power.”
“B-but I'm not an Adept,” Joule objected. “I've never used Septima! Let me go!”
The boy laughed heartily. “Do you really think we'd have gone through the effort to retrieve you if we weren't sure you possessed the Muse? You just need...persuasion to awaken your Septima. That's where Zonda comes in,” he said, gesturing for something to his left to come forth.
Zonda walked in to the right of Joule's view, who somehow didn't see Zonda before now. The...unidentifiable gendered person, dressed similarly to the boy in its coat, but with a dress exposing one leg and long pink hair. They looked at Joule and smiled in a way that made Joule uncomfortable and scared. “You don't wish to use Mind Melder on this beauty, Nova?”
“No, that's unnecessary. She just needs a little coaxing to bring out her full power. You've got the light touch necessary for this.”
Zonda stroked xer face happily. “Very well, Nova. I'll make this little girl shout.” Nova walked out of Joule's sight as Zonda approached with a saunter. “So, where are your sensitive spots, darling?” Zonda ran xer fingers down Joule's body, down her face and chest. "What a beautiful body you have, like a newborn baby. But not for long..." Xer hand started glowing a black and pink aura as xhe pulled it back, soon enveloping xer whole body. “If you won't play nice, I can force that Septima out of you.” Zonda began undergoing a transformation, protrusions forming on xer shoulders. Joule was breathing heavy already, but as soon as the morphing started, she closed her eyes as tight as possible and screamed, terrified of what was about to happen to her.
Jolting upwards, Joule opened her eyes, still screaming. But now, the room looked entirely different. The room with Nova was dark, but in an ominous way, this was just lack of light. The room was also much smaller, and Joule was sitting upright. She moved her hands to confirm she wasn't bound, and they rose from under a blanket. Now it was clear, she was safe in bed, just awoken from a dream.
Another figure appeared beside the bed, and spoke to Joule softly. “Another nightmare, Joule?” It was Joule's Septima, Lumen the Muse projected as human form, awakened through Joule's fear. Lumen took the body of an adult woman with long blonde hair, a white shirt that exposed ample cleavage, a shiny and almost glowing blue skirt with tall white socks, and blue butterfly wings that sometimes materialized.
Joule sighed, a little relieved it was just a dream, but still shaken up. “Yeah, just remembering...when I discovered you.”
“Do you think you'll be alright? Gunvolt isn't home yet.” Gunvolt was a freelance bounty hunter that had rescued Joule from the Sumeragi Group, using her Muse to control Adepts, and had taken her in. Joule checked a clock near the bed, his bed, and it was close to 2 in the morning.
“Why would he still be out this late? Is he all right, Lumen?”
Lumen's gaze shifted from eye contact with Joule, down to her legs under the blankets, and her eyes widened. “I'm sure he's fine. It's probably better he's gone right now, you need to worry about yourself.”
Joule didn't know what Lumen was talking about, but her Septima referring to her lower body brought her attention away from her panic to said part, when she realized how cold it felt. It was always cold in the apartment, but it felt really cold between her legs. Incredibly nervous, she placed a shaking hand on her lap, and she felt just what she was afraid of; wetness, a puddle soaked into the blanket. “Jitt,” she swore.
“You're still wetting the bed,” Lumen helpfully elaborated. Joule had this issue many nights as a Sumeragi captive. But the trauma hadn't gone away in the few days since being recovered by Gunvolt, and Gunvolt was going to come home, maybe soon. “Gack! Joule, we need to clean this up now.”
Joule was thinking the same thing. “Do we know where the laundry is here,” she asked while swinging her legs from under the blanket, turning the bedside lamp on. Lumen wouldn't know anything Joule didn't, but maybe she'd be better at recalling it.
“We can worry about that once the blanket's off the bed.” She looked at Joule, wearing her short blue dress that went just slightly down her legs, more like a t-shirt just a couple sizes too big, that she used as both day and night wear. “But change your clothes first.”
Joule looked down at herself, and saw a small dark stain on the front of her dress. It could only be worse on the rear side and she didn't want to see it, so she pulled the dress over her head, yanking it off quickly at the end to avoid her face or hair touching the wet spots. She dropped it on the floor and followed up by pulling down her panties, a light purple pair with cartoon butterflies printed on that matched Lumen's motif. She had no reason to be ashamed of being nude around her other half, especially when she had significantly less to hide compared to Lumen.
Still, it was imperative she get redressed first, just in case Gunvolt walked in unexpectedly. Even on a bounty hunter's pay, he still took Joule to buy more clothes than the one outfit she was wearing when he found her. It just so happened that she wanted the same clothes she already had, she liked blue and butterflies, so the outfit she assembled was nearly identical to the last one. She pulled a new pair of panties on, though they got a little wet from the residual urine stuck to her, and slipped another dress on over her head.
Now, Joule needed to clean the bed. She grabbed the wool blanket at the point closest to her, when she felt a shock, her strained nerves causing her to yelp and jump back. Lumen flew back a little too, but she recognized it faster as an outsider. “Calm down, Joule! It was just a static shock, it's fine.”
Joule was holding her right wrist like she had been injured, but when all she was met with was silence, she had to accept what Lumen said. “Yeah...yeah, I guess it was.” She'd probably have to get used to electrical discharge living with Gunvolt. Recovered, she grabbed the blanket again in her fist and ripped it off, throwing it down onto the floor with her discarded clothes. She could now see the sheet below, on which the pee soaking was far more evident. She felt a pang of embarrassment seeing it, all the more reason to get it out of her sight and onto the floor quickly.
All that was left now was the mattress, the one that'd be impossible to clean. Joule bent over a little to look at it closer, with Lumen joining in over her back. “It doesn't look like it soaked in,” the Muse observed. “Touch a dry part of the mattress.” Joule did as she was told and found it very smooth. “So it's kinda plastic-y. Let's get a towel or something to clean it off.”
“I really don't want to get something else dirty...” Joule looked around and once again found herself looking at the pile of bed makings on the floor. Wordlessly, she grabbed the sheet she just put down and put a dry part onto the mattress puddle. She knew Lumen didn't fully get this, so she explained. “It's already dirty, no real harm in adding to it.”
“I-I guess...” Joule kept mopping the puddle, until a lot more of the sheet was dyed yellow and wet, but the mattress looked alright. “Okay, it's done. Maybe there's some dryer outside or downstairs. Do you have any Zenny?”
“No...” That was bad, without money, laundry wasn't getting done. A new plan was needed now, some way to get all this washed before Gunvolt found out. There had to be some alternative, some other means of cleaning, and Joule thought of it. “We can use the shower, couldn't we?”
It sounded like a pretty good idea to Lumen. The apartment had its own bathroom with a personal shower, it'd probably work. “Good idea, let's hurry.” Joule grabbed everything on the floor in a wide hug-like grip, and she accidentally grabbed a wet portion in her right hand. She was visibly disgusted, but she didn't let go, she just waddled into the bathroom, flipping the light switch with her elbow.
The first thing she saw in the room, over the top of her pile of sheets, was the toilet, a bad reminder of how this came to pass. The small shower on the left was her actual target, which she opened by pressing her side against the handle and pulling outwards. She dumped the pile into the shower, using her foot to move it out of the way of the drain, and going back to the sink to wash her hands.
Lumen followed in just as Joule had turned on the shower head, keeping her distance to stay dry this time. As the water crashed onto the sheet, blanket, and old outfit, turning it dark and translucent, Lumen suddenly had a thought, one that would have been useful to consider earlier. “What are we going to do about drying these?”
Joule, currently tossing the sheet on the top to the side to allow the water to reach the blanket easily, stopped dead in her tracks as Lumen's advice sunk in. Her face scrunched up and she started crying, a little weep at first before descending into a full-out wail. “Jitt,” she shouted as she buried her face in her hands, wet once more.
Lumen wasn't expecting that to crack Joule. “Hey, it's not really a big deal...we'll figure something out, same as we've been doing.” She went to pat Joule on the back, more for the kind gesture than the feeling because she lacked the capability to physically interact with others.
“That's not the problem,” Joule replied, choking back her sobs. “This shouldn't have happened at all! Isn't 13 old enough that bed wetting shouldn't be a concern anymore?! I have you, this huge power, and I can't avoid having an accident like a little girl because of some nightmare! Someone like Gunvolt, he's just a year older than me, and he's doing super cool stuff while I'm being pathetic, crying on the bathroom floor washing my peed clothes and bed stuff in the shower!”
“Oh, so that's what's going on in here.”
Joule felt her heart skip a beat, a masculine voice like that could only be one. Shaking and slowly, she turned around to look outside the bathroom, and she saw him. A tall, blond teen boy with a braid in his hair, stunning blue full outfit, and a gun on his belt. “G-Gunvolt! I didn't hear you come in.”
“Well, yeah. What kind of hunter would I be if I could be heard coming?” Though a legitimate point, he still revealed the true answer. “I didn't want to wake you up, though I suppose that wasn't a concern.”
“You heard all of that, didn't you?” Joule couldn't even keep eye contact with Gunvolt, he knew all about her shame and that thought mortified her. She didn't need his answer, she started crying again, still on her knees on the cold tile floor. “I'm sorry! I really didn't expect this to keep happening living here.”
“You were being held captive by Sumeragi, right?” Gunvolt knew the answer, but he still waited for Joule to nod. “Being traumatized is the best-case scenario after dealing with Sumeragi. They tried to torture me.”
Joule wanted to agree. She was never assaulted or scarred under Sumeragi, but was that enough to excuse her incontinence? Hold on...“Tried to torture you?”
“Real bright idea doing it with electricity. I got the spare stuff to make a bed in the closet.” He reached in and turned the shower off. “You take care of that, I got this.”
Joule wiped her eyes and stood up, squeezing past Gunvolt out of the room, Lumen following by phasing through Gunvolt. She slowly walked to the closet just outside the bathroom and found blankets and sheets on one of the shelves, just high enough that it was trouble to grab it, but she did and carried it to the bed, closing the door behind her with her foot. Silently, she put the sheet on the mattress, lifting the corners to stretch it over, and tucking an end of the blanket under the foot of the mattress.
Lumen was the one to break the silence. “I guess it turned out all right?”
“No! Maybe Gunvolt's right, that this may not be unusual after what I've been through, but it doesn't change the fact that I should be better than this. He's so much more accomplished than me, and he's only a year older! How come he gets to be strong while I wet the bed?” She collapsed face first onto the bed and let the natural sound muffling take care of things.
“...You know, there are times the fight is too much for me, and even someone as 'strong' as me falls.” Joule turned her head to the left, her cheek resting on the blanket, and she could see Gunvolt sitting next to her, though facing away. “And you know what gets me back up? Thinking of your music gives me strength to keep fighting.”
Joule's heart may have skipped several beats that time. Her music was enough to make Gunvolt keep fighting? And unless he didn't differentiate between the two, he meant her singing, not Lumen's that was designed to appeal to Adepts. It was enough to make Lumen disappear, now that she felt secure and no longer needed Septima activated for protection. “When have you heard my singing?”
“You're not as quiet singing as you think you are.” Joule blushed, though it was a very comparatively small thing to be embarrassed of. “Might as well go to sleep now, and then we can wake up and it'll be like this never happened.” He stood up to free the bed so Joule, after taking some time to compose herself, could tuck herself back in.
Once she was back in and soft, Gunvolt reached to turn the light off, when Joule had an idea. Though Gunvolt's reassurance helped, a lot actually, the thought of going back to sleep and having that nightmare again filled her with dread. She needed some kind of insurance, a way to know nothing bad could happen to her. “Gunvolt...would you mind sharing the bed with me?” She also just wanted to sleep with Gunvolt, as a way to answer her new feelings toward him, the way he made her feel when he looked past what she did.
In an uncharacteristic move, Gunvolt hesitated. He had only known this girl for a few days, and while he welcomed her into his tiny home, he would have preferred to keep some distance for personal space for a while longer, at least. Still, Joule's face looked so...not “pathetic”, but needing and sad, like a puppy in the cold during a storm. He couldn't, in good conscience, refuse her request, so long as no one else ever knew. The guys at QUILL would probably have many questions for him if they knew he would do this. “Alright, then. Move over and give me room.”
Joule was really not expecting him to agree. Still, her gambit worked, so she had to go through with it, sliding closer to the wall to fit two in the small bed. Gunvolt, who she noticed had removed his gun, climbed under the blanket with Joule, keeping distance from her, though the small bed meant he was still close enough for Joule to feel his heat. Joule closed her eyes to allow sleep to return, but it wasn't enough, so she rolled to face Gunvolt and hugged him like a stuffed animal. He didn't resist, so Joule relaxed, singing a lullaby to herself.
You are the one to turn my dreams into hope
You are my final shooting star
This new world, don't give up or mope
Your world, the fights you won, your battle-weary scars