Chapter 3: Yuna's Encounter
The wind on the rooftop was a living thing, tugging at Yuna’s sleek hair and whipping around Lia’s colossal form. It carried the scent of rain on hot concrete, cutting through the electric, ozone-like odor that seemed to emanate from Lia’s green skin.
Yuna took a stumbling step back, her heel scraping against gravel. Her wide eyes tracked the impossible silhouette blocking the glow of the city—the familiar curve of Lia’s face now stretched into an elegant, alien majesty, the auburn hair a wild corona, the body a masterpiece of powerful, emerald-hued muscle barely contained by shredded clothing.
“Lia?” The name was a breathless scrape of sound. “My God. It… it worked on you?”
Lia’s laugh was a low, vibrating hum that Yuna felt in her ribs. “Surprise.” She took a single step forward, the concrete seeming to tremble. “He told you it was just vitamins, didn’t he? Little pick-me-ups. Special deliveries for the special girl.”
“He said it was tailored.” Yuna’s voice gained a thread of steel, a defensive spike. “That it was precise. For my genotype. To help with… my posture. My confidence.” She looked up, and up, her face pale in the security light’s flicker. “This isn’t that.”
“No,” Lia rumbled, her head tilting. “This is what happens when you drink someone else’s magic potion. My bad, I guess.” The sarcasm was there, but it was distant, filtered through a layer of profound, buzzing awe. She flexed one hand, watching the play of tendon and sinew beneath the skin. It was like piloting a battleship. Every movement was a statement.
“He was trying to help me,” Yuna insisted, though her gaze was fixed on Lia’s hands—hands that could probably encompass her entire skull. “I just wanted to feel… bigger in meetings. To not be talked over.”
“And now look at you.” Lia’s voice softened, not with pity, but with a terrible, dawning comprehension. “Still small. Still overlooked. Even by the man making your serum.” She saw the flinch, the truth hitting its mark. Lewis’s secrecy, his furtive labs, his warnings—they hadn’t been about protecting Yuna. They’d been about protecting this. This raw, untested potential. And he’d never once offered it to her.
The jealousy, which had been a sharp, hot knife in her gut for weeks, didn’t vanish. It melted, transmuting into something else: a vast, hungry curiosity. The power in her limbs wasn’t just physical. It was a clarity. The world was simpler from up here. Yuna’s fears seemed quaint.
“He was afraid of this,” Lia said, more to herself. “Afraid of the dose. Afraid of the… deviation.” She looked down at Yuna. “But it feels incredible.”
Yuna wrapped her arms around herself. “Are you… are you in pain?”
“Pain?” Lia considered it. The transformation had been a cataclysm of snapping bone and singing nerve, a fire in every cell. Now there was just a deep, resonant hum, a sense of absolute capacity. “No. I feel real. For the first time.”
Silence stretched between them, filled by the city’s distant sigh. The fear in Yuna’s eyes was slowly being joined by something else—a reluctant, terrifying fascination. She was a scientist’s assistant, after all. She understood the magnitude of the event standing before her.
Lia crouched. It was a slow, deliberate folding of giant limbs, bringing her face level with Yuna’s. The world seemed to shrink to the space between them. She could see the pulse fluttering in Yuna’s throat, the quick rise and fall of her chest.
“He gave you drops,” Lia whispered, her voice like stones grinding. “Teaspoons. Meant to tweak you. Over years. I took the whole source. All at once.” She extended her hand, not in threat, but in offering. Her palm was vast, the lines deep canyons in the strange, verdant skin. “You wanted to feel bigger. This is bigger.”
Yuna stared at the hand. “It’s irreversible. Lewis said… the foundational changes are permanent.”
“Lewis,” Lia said, the name a flat, dismissive syllable, “is currently having a panic attack in my living room. Lewis doesn’t know what this is.” She let her gaze travel over Yuna’s petite, perfect form. A blueprint, waiting. “What if you didn’t need his careful, patient little plan? What if you could just have the result?”
“You’re talking madness.”
“I’m talking choice.” Lia’s green eyes glinted. “He chose for you. I didn’t get a choice. Now you have one.” She nodded toward the empty vial that had rolled near Yuna’s foot. The golden residue at the bottom caught the light. “There’s more. In his lab. I’ve seen it. Vials and vials. He’ll never give it to you. Not like this. He’s too scared.”
Yuna licked her lips. The curiosity was winning, battling the primal fear. This was her coworker, the woman who borrowed her pens and laughed at bad coffee. But she was also something new, something that rewrote the rules. “And you would?”
Lia’s smile was slow, dazzling in its strangeness. “I’m not scared of you.”
It was the wrong reason, or maybe the only one that mattered. The dynamic had been severed. This wasn’t about Lewis anymore. It was about the precipice, and the view from the edge.
Slowly, as if moving through deep water, Yuna reached out. Her small, pale fingers hovered, then brushed against the center of Lia’s palm. The skin was warm, surprisingly smooth, vibrating with a latent energy. The touch sent a jolt through both of them—a circuit completing.
Lia closed her hand, enveloping Yuna’s completely. Not squeezing. Just holding. A anchor point.
“See?” Lia murmured.
Then she stood, pulling Yuna gently forward until they were flush against each other, Yuna’s face level with Lia’s sternum. The difference was absurd, breathtaking. Yuna didn’t pull away. She turned her head, ear pressed against the powerful, resonant thrum of Lia’s heartbeat. It sounded like a drum from another world.
Lia’s other hand came up, curling around Yuna’s back, fingertips spanning her entire rib cage. There was no menace in the grip, only an overwhelming, undeniable possession. A demonstration of scale. Yuna shuddered, a full-body tremor that was part terror, part surrender, part wild exhilaration.
“It’s not about him anymore,” Lia said into her hair, her voice a vibration Yuna felt in her bones. “It’s about what we do next.”
She leaned back, just enough to look down. Yuna’s eyes were shut, her expression one of profound dislocation. Lia bent, the motion fluid and impossibly graceful for her size, and pressed her lips to Yuna’s forehead. The kiss was a brand, a promise, a transfer of heat.
When Yuna opened her eyes, the fear was gone, burned away. Only the fascination remained, hot and bright.
“Show me,” Yuna said, her voice thin but clear.
Lia smiled. It wasn’t a human smile. It was the smile of a new god, pleased with its first disciple. She kept one arm around Yuna, lifting her slightly until her feet barely touched the ground, and turned them toward the rooftop access door. The city glittered, a kingdom of insignificant lights.
“He has a whole lab,” Lia said, starting to walk, her strides eating the distance. “We have a lot to discuss. And you’re going to need a much bigger chair.”