I had promised myself that this was going to be a short and comfortable run before heading back home and trying to get some studying done, and at the start I really was following that promise to the letter. I did about half my normal route, having tossed on a hoodie to deal with the overly moist weather that had gripped the Bay. And yet somehow I had managed to run into a life or death situation and gotten thrown into the middle of it.
Not that one could have planned for Hookwolf to suddenly be rampaging down the streets, screaming out something about how the 'bastard who took out his boss' would pay and until they came out he would continue to kill openly in the streets. I could already see the carved up bodies he had left in his wake, the cape having already taken on his combat form with hundreds of interlocking metal blades making up a wolf-like form.
There were plenty of reasons not to get involved, I didn't have anything other than a hood from my aged jacket to actually protect my identity, and on top of that I was still healing from the last fight that I had been involved in. But even if given a hundred good reasons for why not to get involved I knew in my heart that it was a foregone conclusion the moment I ran into the neo-nazi cape.
"Dollhouse, Inventory Select."
Command from authorized user accepted
Instantly my mind was filled with the massive catalog of the Dollhouse, information that could fill a library the size of New York trying to squish its way into my head. If I still had my original brain in my head it was likely that it would have melted from the stress.
I made a note to worry about how okay I was going to be with the fact that I had a new brain in my body at another point.
That being said even with my enhanced brain it was impossible for me to grasp the sheer volume that the Dollhouse held, luckily I could cheat. "Open Search."
Enter parameters for search.
"Strong physical fighter, easy control, low blood cost." I muttered under my breath, dipping into an alleyway to hopefully avoid the rampaging cape for a few more moments. I knew that other people were in danger, but until I had a doll active I was just as prone to being stabbed and ripped to pieces as the next person.
Search Results: Karate Man, Sister Mercy, Princess Overcome, World Champion, and thirty other results.
I quickly ran through the top selections from the search. Karate Man was better against well trained foes who used a specific style of fighting. Another scream pulled my attention away from the process and I made a quick selection on Sister Mercy.
The world shifted as the Dollhouse moved to her command, breaking the barrier that kept the pocket dimension from overwriting reality for just long enough to drop off my selection behind me.
The first thing that struck me was that Sister Mercy was tall, easily about seven feet if not a few inches over and seemed thin. Its body was doll-like, gleaming as the sun reflected off its form which was painted to resemble a young black woman clothed in a nun's habit and tunic, hands clapped together and head lowered.
"Blood Brain Connection."
Confirmed.
Small slits that had been built into my head when I had my brain replaced opened up allowing strands of blood to flow from myself to Sister Mercy, the puppet's form shaking to life, painted eyes blinking open as my blood formed the link that would give her life.
Well not life per say, unlike some of the Dollhouse creations Sister Mercy didn't have any form of personality, but even without the ability to talk I could feel the skill that had been written into her come active. Now she just needed direction.
I took a breath and stepped around the corner and whistled toward Hookwolf. It was slightly funny despite the horrific situation to see the monstrous cape turn with a slight bit of confusion toward me. "I'm going to give you one chance to give up, after that I'll have to fight you." I tried to pitch up my voice, make it sound more threatening. I had my doubts it would work but I at least kept any tremble from my throat as I did.
The metallic beast that Hookwolf had turned into gave a laugh that sounded like a car crash and took a step forward, sinking knife-like claws into the ground as he moved forward. "None of these dickless cowards have given me anything to remember, for a dead girl you have guts," his eyes briefly tracked to Sister Mercy by my side, a scoff escaping him. "I'm going to shred that toy and teach you your place!" and with that he leaped directly at Sister Mercy.
Which of course was a dangerous mistake on his end.
The doll moved forward and raised its arms, catching the full mass of Hookwolf as if he weighed nothing at all, tossing the mass of metal that made up his form into a nearby building with a simple turn as if throwing away garbage. I figured that if Hookwolf had the ability to give an expression at the moment confusion would most likely rule over all, quickly followed by anger as the mass that made up his monstrous form rose again with a hateful howl.
However he had already lost the initiative of the fight, something that I directed Sister Mercy to take full advantage of. Moving forward at a speed that would have given most Olympic sprinters pause she closed the gap and delivered a downward fist into the wolf head that stood at the front of Hookwolf's form, the sound of metal crumpling ringing out over the noise of people running for their lives.
Not one to take a beating laying down Hookwolf opened his jaws to bite down on the doll, only for her to extend her hands and force his jaws to remain open, lifeless eyes looking into the villains center for a moment before metal blades suddenly jutted out, like a dragon breathing forth a storm of swords instead of fire. However much like his teeth were unable to bite into the skin of the doll, these newly projected weapons did little more than strike against the hardened body of the combat doll. The most damage done was to the outfit, through thankfully the doll had nothing to hide under it.
Still from where I sat this was nothing but a standstill, so with a quick mental command I had Sister Mercy disengage from the battle and come back to my side. The blades jutting from Hookwolf's mouth slowly retracted back into him.
"You bitch," Hookwolf rose back onto four limbs and glared down both myself and Sister Mercy with a look that could best be described as murderous. "When I'm done with you there won't be enough to feed to my dogs."
His threat might have rattled me before, but by this point he wasn't in the top ten most terrifying things I had seen so I could only really offer a small shrug. "Or you could give up?" it was a genuine offer, I knew he couldn't beat me and the idea of a fight for its own sake didn't really interest me.
My words seemed to only spawn further anger as he charged toward me in a berserk rage, but before he could get close Sister Mercy scooped me up and moved me away from the action, setting me on my feet as I scrambled for an actual plan. "Denting the metal doesn't seem to work," if his body had followed the basic rules then the dent that Sister Mercy had left on his head would have put him out of the fight. However inspiration struck me as I sent Sister Mercy toward the villain for another round.
The doll charged toward Hookwolf as he pulled out from his previous charge, only making it just in time to see the doll leap onto his back and grasp at the various chains and hooks on his back, tightening her grip until the metal squealed in protest before yanking at it like a stubborn hair, ripping them out and tossing them to the side. From the yell of anger that seemed to do something, so I focused on my new plan. If I couldn't use blunt force to defeat Hookwolf I would just have to do the next best thing. I would have to rip him apart until he stopped fighting.
What happened next was a strange battle, Sister Mercy would dodge out of the way of an attack and bury its fingers into the metal of Hookwolf's form, ripping off clumps of metal and tossing them aside, and Hookwolf in turn would try and land a blow with his massive form only to find his target gone before he could focus in on it. Whenever too large of a chunk of metal was destroyed it would be replaced, but with each replacement the villain became slower and his breathing became louder.
Unfortunately I was running on my own clock, Sister Mercy's drain wasn't as bad as some of the creations within the Dollhouse, but that didn't mean it was nothing. The longer I kept up this battle the more blood I would lose. Already I was starting to feel a bit faint, but I could keep going if needed.
"Give up already, you can't win this!" I shouted out, trying to disguise just how weak I felt at the moment.
How good of a job I did was debatable however, as Hookwolf simply turned toward me. "I heard a rumor, everyone says that Armsmaster was the one who took down Lung, but those cross-eyed freaks said that he fought someone else, a freaky angel and some tall bitch in a hoodie. If you think you can take me down because you fought some up-jumped Asain then I'll have to show you that a wolf is much more dangerous then some fucking lizard."
He charged directly at me, his speed taking both Sister Mercy and myself by surprise, my best guess was that he had reduced his density to focus on an all out attack. Even with its enhanced speed my doll wouldn't be able to reach him in time, not before he barreled into me.
I tried to turn to run, but my body rebelled as my vision became fuzzy and my head felt light. The last time I had fought for this long I had time to fall back and use one of Riley's packs. But I hadn't been planning to fight in the first place, so the best I could do was try and raise my arms to protect myself from the mass of metal and blades that was about to hit me.
I expected there to be pain beyond description, but before the blow could land a gust of wind exploded in front of me as a new figure appeared. It stood about six feet and was clothed in dusty brown leather and a coon-skin cap on its head, leveling an old fashioned rifle toward Hookwolf. When it fired the explosion and taste of the gunpowder were all I could sense, but it was quickly followed by a scream of pain and a loud crash of metal hitting the floor.
The figure turned around and revealed an unpainted wooden face, its head tilted to the side in a show of concern.
"I'm fine," I managed to get out between long gulps of breath.
"On that we must very much disagree child," the kind voice of my teacher spoke as he approached from behind me, putting a hand on my shoulder and looking toward the wooden doll. He was an older man, my best guess was sixties but whenever I had asked he had simply smirked and waved one hand. He had a slight hunch and a hook-like nose that held up a pair of wide circle frames. He looked like a grandparent who would give out hard candies when kids came around.
"Please go ensure our metal friend won't be getting back up. Nonlethally if you would Freischütz."
As the doll moved forward I was given my first sight of the true Hookwolf, a tall and muscular man gripping his shoulder, blood pooling around where he tried to apply pressure to his wound. "Fuck, fuck you stupid bitches I fucking k-" before he could finish his threat Freischütz raised his rifle and brought down its butt onto the villains head, rendering him unconscious.
The sound of sirens rang out in the distance, and it really did figure that help would arrive after everything was said and done, but I was in no condition to complain.
"Dollhouse, end contact."
Command Received, returning item to storage
Sister Mercy disappeared with the same speed as she had arrived, leaving only my teacher, his own doll, the defeated supervillain, and myself on the street.
My teacher sighed and lifted his glasses to rub at his nose, a common enough sign that he was bothered. "I won't scold you for fighting for others, but please consider what should be done before you start doing. It's enough to give an old man like myself gray hairs," he brought his hand up to run along his completely bald head, and despite myself I couldn't help but let out a relieved laugh.
"I couldn't just let him hurt people…but I really should have thought it through, I'm sorry." he was the last person I ever wanted to disappoint, as he had been the first person in years to ever have faith in me.
For a moment he said nothing, but evidently he knew that pressing the subject would likely do no further good and simply snapped his fingers. "We need to get you a check up, Riley should be awake by this hour."
I bit my lip and looked at the destruction that had been wrought by our fight. The street was in tatters and multiple storefronts would need to be replaced from where Sister Mercy had tossed Hookwolf around. Sticking around to explain all of this would have been the responsible thing to do.
"Yes please." I said in a small voice. While it was the responsible thing to do I was utterly exhausted and wouldn't risk my teacher ire by denying him.
"Dollhouse, reverse summoning if you would," a blue light surrounded us for a moment as he put a hand comfortingly on my shoulder. "Let's get you fixed up Taylor, afterward I'll brew some tea and you can tell me all about this little brawl."
"Yes sir," I slurred a bit, glad of his presence to help hold me up.
In a moment the two of us no longer stood in the middle of a destroyed street, but in a foyer that was decorated with paintings of various dolls in regal clothing in various poses. Any single piece could be displayed in a museum and draw the eye, but here they sat as if the most ordinary things in the world.
"Riley, I do hope you are awake because we have a guest." my teacher called out, his voice traveling across the almost empty room. "I swear she works herself to exhaustion and sleeps until noon, there is a reason I never had kids of my own you know." he took off his glasses and ran a cloth over them, a nervous tick he had developed whenever Riley of myself was causing him some sort of stress.
"No, I'm awake!" a door opened from one side of the room, a small blonde girl in a beautiful blue dress came running in, a first aid box in her hands. Behind her trailed a teddy bear that dressed as a nurse that was easily over nine feet tall, moving with all the grace its odd body could perform. "Oh big sis is here, did you get injured again?" an odd flash crossed her eyes. "Did some mean person hurt you?" a dangerous tone flew under those words, promising revenge for anything that might have happened to her.
"I'm fine Riley, just a bit drawn out," I tapped my head and she gave a nod of understanding before glancing toward my teacher.
"I'm going to take her to the medical room, medical staff only you hear?" she put her hands to her hips and my teacher could only helplessly laugh and hold up a hand in mock surrender. "Okay, come on let's get you checked out." she took my hand and dragged me along, the mobile stuffed animal following right behind.
Just another day in my life with a former member of the Slaughterhouse 9 acting as my primary care doctor, and a man who controlled an armory strong enough to battle the world and win as my teacher.
And so long as I could keep that all a secret from my dad things would be great.