As much as I wanted to hear all about whatever breakthrough Lisa had made in the investigation into Heartbreaker I also desperately needed to get at least a token amount of sleep. I tried to get Lisa to agree to try and get some in as well but I figured she would probably crash before laying down given her excitement.

Getting home I performed my usual nightly ritual of checking on dad before laying down in my own bed and staring up at the ceiling and letting the events of the day bleed off of me. I wasn't used to good things happening to me, even with all my fortune in meeting Stetson my brain still tried to tell me it was a fluke and to always expect the world to be at my throat. But the words of my anxiety rang hollow at the moment.

A sudden buzz from my cellphone drew my attention away from my ceiling, shocking me a bit at first because I had honestly forgotten that I had it for a bit. I quickly scooped it up in my hand and checked the screen only to see four messages on it, one from Amy and the others from a number I didn't recognize.

Amy: Happy to see.

Unknown Number: Hey this is Vicky, or I guess Glory Girl? Amy gave me your number.

Unknown Number: Some of my friends are planning to hit up the mall this weekend, Amy wanted me to check if you wanted to come.

Unknown Number: Don't know why she didn't just ask you herself.

I looked at the screen and for a moment my brain didn't fit the words into anything coherent. The last time anyone had invited me somewhere had been…well before the Trio, most things that I had done with the small social life I had could be divided into before and after those three. Normally hanging out with a group of people I didn't know was about as appealing as cuddling up to Hookwolf, but at the same time I felt like rejecting it offhand would be rude.

Taylor: Yeah that sounds good, do you mind if I bring a friend along?

I turned the phone off and set it aside, figuring that it was probably an ungodly hour for a normal person, even one who fought crime on her days off, to be awake.

Eventually sleep overtook me into a dreamless haze, waking up to the blaring of my alarm clock and wishing desperately to steal away just a few more hours for myself. I briefly toyed with the idea of telling dad I wasn't feeling well so I could miss a day, but given my attendance I didn't want to risk it.

I left my room to find the house empty with a note left by my dad saying he had to head down to the Dock's early for a meeting but saying he would be back for dinner. Which was nice, because it meant I could grab some fruit from the Dollhouse for breakfast and check to see if Lisa had actually gotten any sleep the night before.

With a quick jump to the Dollhouse I confirmed that Lisa had actually gotten to sleep at some point and decided to use my free time to meet up with Riley and make sure she was doing okay. While it had only been a day or so without Stetson I still felt like it was partially my responsibility to make sure that she was doing okay. I had the Dollhouse guide me to her location, finding her inside of the high class hospital type room, a number of surgical tools next to her as she worked on a lifelike human dummy with absolute focus.

I gave a polite cough which earned me a small raised hand to signal she would need a moment. Using the free moment I had a small fruit plate brought in and began to sample from it before Riley sewed up the dummy and let out a sigh of relief.

"Feeling better?" I asked, offering her the plate so she could take some for herself.

"I am now," Riley admitted, taking a slice of apple and munching down on it. "I think I have a new idea on how to improve on some of the enhancements I made in your body, but I'm still not happy with some of the weight issues so I'm trying a few things out."

"Happy to hear." I knew that for Riley there wasn't an option of not tinkering when the urge struck her, as many workarounds as the Dollhouse might have that odd something or other that caused tinker's to rip apart everything around them in order to create wasn't something that could be removed unless we stripped away whatever connection gave Riley her powers in the first place.

Which sadly wasn't an option, or at least not one that could be explored safely. The Dollhouse was sure that it could disconnect a person from whatever interdimensional whatever actually gave people powers, but doing so over a long period of time outside of the Dollhouse itself wasn't feasible. Or would require direct brain surgery.

"I think that Lisa might be afraid of me," Riley said as she sat in one of the chairs in the room, her legs kicking slightly over the open air. "I understand why she would be, but I thought since she was your friend maybe the two of us could be friends too."

My heart did go out to the girl, though I could understand Lisa's trepidation to approach someone who had been one of the most infamous bio-tinkers to exist. I at least had Stetson and access to the full functions of the Dollhouse to take care of that. But at the same time it felt wrong to just ignore something that was clearly bothering her. "Try starting small, eat a meal with her, invite her to play a game, uh…" I realized that despite wanting to help all of my experience recently with making friends had been tied to me lucking out. "Just uh, don't offer to give her extra body parts or gills until you know each other better." I finished lamely.

Riley however seemed to nod along to my words and considered them. "But I think she would look really good with gills. Plus she could breathe underwater!"
"Just, trust me okay?" One day I would figure out how the hell it was easier to mock a villain than it was to have a discussion on making friends with a girl years younger than me. But today probably wasn't that day.

"I should probably get to school," I pinched the bridge of my nose, still feeling more than a bit exhausted. "If Lisa ends up waking up, try and make sure she takes care of herself. She's only been with us for like a day and I don't want her team to think we are torturing her."

Riley gave a thumbs up and I had the Dollhouse bring me about a block from the school, walking forward with a loud yawn as I pulled my bag close to my shoulder.

Given how tired I was, using an accessory would be a dangerous task, falling asleep while having it drain me of blood was a recipe for disaster. Thankfully I still had more than enough experience at dodging my typical problems to deal with one day without being a fly on the wall.

My first steps into the school didn't make any alarms go off or cause a pack of students to descend on me, so I figured things were going well enough for me to get my books out of the locker. I was still early enough that the Trio probably wouldn't be stationed at my locker waiting for the chance to ambush me. But even if they were I was just too tired to care at the moment, moving zombies like to grab my books and close the door.

However before I could start my class someone pushed me against the locker, arms pressing harshly against my shoulders and keeping me there.

Fun fact about my training with Karate Man and how his 'Grandmaster Training' ability works, most of it is drilling reactions and abilities directly into my subconscious, allowing me to react at a moment's notice to threats before my rational mind can catch up. Thus the moment the 'threat' was aimed against me I started to react faster than my exhausted rational mind could catch up.

Start with throwing the enemy off balance, arms are pinned and my legs are too long for a proper kick so instead use what's most readily available, in this case I launched a headbutt that would have hurt a lot more if I was awake enough to feel it. The hold on me loosened which meant my enemy was caught off guard, following up the assault by using their broken balance against them. I hooked a foot behind their foot and gave a solid push to their center of mass and they toppled to the ground.

Before I could continue the fight my brain finally caught up with my instincts and the room became more clear to me. Madison was off to one side with a hand covering her mouth and eyes widened in surprise. All around me were students looking equally shocked, as if unsure of the reality of the situation. But most importantly on the ground looking at all the world like a deer before headlights was my first friend, the girl who I would have trusted before anyone else just a year ago, Emma Barnes.

A teacher broke through the ring of students, which one I couldn't say because I only had eyes for the fallen form of the girl who had tormented me for my entire high school career. "What is going on here?" their voices rose over the confusion of my own thoughts.

The students standing around the scene went quiet and looked everywhere except for the two of us or the teacher. There were very few rules within Winslow that weren't broken everyday, but the golden rule above all was that unless someone pulled out a weapon nobody saw anything. If you thought you saw something and opened your mouth the next ignored detail would probably be you laying on the ground.

"She must have tripped," the lie was out of my mouth before I could really think about it, but in for a penny, in for a pound. "I must not have been paying attention to where my leg was."

I glanced toward Emma, wondering what she would do. She could argue and say that I had attacked her, after all it would be the word of a well respected student against the social freak of the school. But to do so she would have to admit that said freak had laid her out on the floor after trying to pin me to a locker.

After a moment of absolute silence Emma pushed herself up, holding a hand against her head and looking at the teacher. "I must have tripped on her leg, it's fine."

The teacher looked unsure for a moment, but considering the fact that the floors weren't painted in blood and it didn't look like anyone had broken a bone they wrote it off fairly quickly. "Go to the nurse if you feel like you got hurt too badly, otherwise everyone make their way toward your first classes and stop clogging up the hallways."

The students who had been witness to the short fight scattered like insects exposed to light, leaving me with two-thirds of my tormentors. "I don't know what you said to the school to get Sophia in trouble, but you're going to pay for it." Emma's eyes were dead set on me, but I honestly couldn't bring myself to care.

"Can't threaten me with something that would have happened anyway," I walked past them and focused on getting to class and into my homeroom desk. The only person I had talked to about Sophia had been Assault, and as nice as he had been it shocked me to think that he had gone to bat for me despite having only met for a short time. There had to be something else going on, but honestly I was too exhausted to really think about it anymore, so I simply sat down and prepared for a day of hell.

However my expectations were largely subverted, people either gave me a wide berth throughout the day or actually did talk to me. It took some time before I realized I had stumbled upon Winslow rule number two, everyone tends to avoid the person who lays out someone and walks away from it without issue. I couldn't really enjoy the feeling of even minor attention however, whether she deserved it or not Emma and the rest of the Trio weren't the kind of threat my skills had been developed to fight.

I took my lunch at the school to avoid any further suspicion by the Trio for disappearing, though I wanted to check on Lisa and Riley it was simply too big of a risk to do if my sudden absence was being noticed. Turning away people who suddenly wanted to sit with me was annoying, but apparently all it took to get people to leave you alone was the threat of violence.

Before my last period got out the teacher got a message from the office that the principal wanted to see me, sending me on my way with a note. At first I figured Emma or Madison had said something about what had happened earlier, but given that I wasn't being escorted to the office that didn't make a lot of sense.

So instead all I did was give the note to the secretary before taking a seat and waiting. Part of me wanted to dig out a book from my backpack, but as I had no idea what was happening at the time I figured it was best to just wait.

Eventually the principal invited me in, looking at me for only the briefest of moments before focusing on the paperwork on their desk. "I suppose congratulations are in order."

"They are?" I asked as I took a seat, still not even a bit sure of what was supposed to be going on.

"Yes, it seems your request for transfer to Arcadia has gone through," the principal spoke the words conversationally, as if they weren't dropping a massive bombshell on me.

"I'm sorry, what?" My voice might have caught in my throat for a moment, though to be fair this wasn't exactly something I had been expecting to happen today. Which seemed like a running theme of this particular day to be honest.

"Apparently a student was recently removed from the register and your name was at the top of the waiting list," the principal eyed me for a moment. "Unless you've changed your mind?"

"No!" I blurted out, a small blush coming over my face. "I mean…"

"It's quite alright, Arcadia is a distinguished school that only a select few are accepted into despite being obsessively a private school," the principal pushed forward some paperwork toward me. "Have this signed by your parents and fax it to the office and the forwarding for Arcadia's office, after that you will need to wait two weeks so they can set up a small testing program you are otherwise a full student and may stop by once the paperwork is sent to have a look at the facilities and make use of the library and resources to prepare for your test."

I took the paperwork before me and ran over his words in my mind. "Wait, what about classes here?"

The principal gave a small shrug. "Technically you aren't required to attend once the paperwork is sent, until Arcadia can properly place you. I would simply focus on studying for the placement exam they will give you and go from there. You may clean out your locker today if you wish."

Something seemed off about this situation, the fact I was being basically shoved out the door with the school I wanted to go to in my hands and a 'no strings attached' package was troubling, until something clicked in my mind. Arcadia had ties to the PRT and it was an open secret that some of its students were Ward's, not to mention the younger members of New Wave also called the school home. When Assault had told me it would be worth it to stick around I figured maybe he would give a call to the school or write a letter, not fast track me into another school.

The more cynical side of my mind came up with another reason, the PRT was trying to buy my silence in regards to the Shadow Stalker incident from the day before. Given they could have done absolutely nothing to gain the same effect, but they didn't know that.

In terms of a bribe I couldn't argue it wasn't effective, I had suffered worse things than being stalked for an hour by a Ward and had only gotten a ton of repressed emotions out of the deal. But the reason didn't really matter in the end, because regardless of the reason I was finally leaving this place behind.

I cleared what few personal effects I had out of my locker and dropped my books by the library, earning barely a glance from the librarian as they moved them into a pile away from the rest.

At least I had the good sense to have summoned myself to the Dollhouse before letting out a cheer of pure joy, tossing my backpack to the side and holding the folder containing the papers that would finally free me from the hell that was Winslow.

After eventually calming down I had the Dollhouse guide me to Lisa, partially to check on how she was doing, but also wanting to share my good fortune with a friend. The glowing line eventually brought me to a room filled with a variety of board games lined up in neat rows across uncountable shelves and tables for them to be used at.

Sitting at one such table were Lisa and Riley, seemingly in the middle of a card game.

"You're bluffing," Lisa declared confidently, her eyes skimming across from her cards and looking down at a number of cookies by her. "All in." She pushed them to the center of the table where a number of baked goods sat.

"Call," Riley happily matched with her own pile, which to my amusement was double what Lisa had. "Royal Flush." she laid down her hand.

Lisa looked down at her own cards and collapsed to the table with a dramatic sigh. "Okay I admit it, your face is literally impossible to read."

"Near perfect knowledge of the muscular structure," Riley bragged, shuffling the cards back together before noticing my presence. "Taylor!"

I gave a slightly awkward wave to the two before taking a seat, letting Riley deal me in on the next hand and redivide the sweets among all of us as I glanced toward Lisa. "Did you sleep well?"

A small snort was the only answer I got as she looked over the cards she had gotten. "I forgot how painful headaches can be when you down enough caffeine to keep a dorm of college students alive. Thankfully Riley here gave me something for my headache."

Riley shrugged and looked at her own cards. "It was a drug I cooked up to deal with thinker headaches after I got my first one, it isn't perfect but it takes the edge off fairly well so long as you don't continue to strain yourself." she gave a side eye to Lisa who simply shrugged helplessly.

"Come on as if you weren't cheating, miss 'I can read your face muscles and figure out your tick'." Lisa pushed a few of her cards forward and motioned to have them replaced while I just held on. "Fair went out of the equation once you started putting sugar on the board for our bets."

I couldn't help but smile at seeing them talking, I could see that Lisa was still forcing herself to act more casual then she was feeling, but it was a start and that was the most I could really ask for given the situation. "So I got accepted into Arcadia." it probably wasn't the most elegant dive into a conversation, but I was still polishing the rust off my ability to communicate with others.

Lisa smiled and raised a glass of water to me. "Congratulations, hope you are looking forward to actually having to pay attention in class and be a 'presentable member of society'."

"That's great Taylor!" Riley offered a bright grin before starting the betting on our current hand. Once done she turned to Lisa and tilted her head to the side. "Arcadia is a good school, right?"

"Better than Winslow at least." Lisa answered with a snort. "Unless you like being surrounded by gang members in training."

It felt good to have my friends be happy for me, even if their own circumstances made it impossible for them to attend school normally. "Speaking of exciting, any more news on Heartbreaker?"

Lisa smiled and laid out her hand, winning the pot with a small pump of her fist before answering. "I've narrowed the area down after his last few pictures and am comparing notes of people who might be under his control to nail down a firm location. I narrowed it down from double digits to three or four places where he might be keeping the main body of his group while hiding from the Guild. I used some money to pay off a few hunters in the area to do some minor trespassing. Final results should be in by tomorrow," she paused for a moment. "On the off chance I'm wrong I'll start from the top, but Heartbreaker isn't used to being on the run so he isn't great at covering his tracks."

That made sense, one of the reasons that Heartbreaker had been allowed to continue for so long despite his reputation had been the fact that it was impossible to know what sort of sick ideas he had put into god knows how many people. If he was captured people might go on killing sprees until he was freed again, like a human sized Simurgh with just as much chance of leaving bombs wherever he went.

"Speaking of," Riley looked away from the cards for a moment. "Have you thought about how you are actually going to beat that bully up?" a flash of something dangerous crossed her eyes. "I could maybe develop something that could help if you wanted."

I quickly waved my hand at that suggestion. "No, I think I already have a plan worked out. I'll use a Doll specialized in nonlethal takedowns to secure the area he is hiding in, and then another that can break his mind control abilities over others."

Each and every person that Heartbreaker had cast his sick spell over was innocent as far as I was concerned, even if one or two were actual true believers once he mastered them any evil deed they did was solely for Heartbreaker's benefit. Thus I refused to consider an option that might have left them any more injured than they needed to be by the end of things. Thankfully the Dollhouse had a few options that fell on the nonlethal spectrum. And thanks to my access to the Black Box Collection I had happened across a particularly powerful anti-mind control Doll that could free them, but only after Heartbreaker was defeated.

The plan was simple, mainly because it had to be. A lightning assault on whatever hole he had dug himself into, not given enough time to activate any contingency that might force a bargain. The power to break his control had to be done after forcing a sense of defeat onto Heartbreaker. And there was no better measure for defeat than having your entire force knocked out and dragged out of a base like a screaming child.

Lisa let out a low whistle. "Yeah that would do it, of course it would also paint a massive target on your back for pulling off something like that. But at the very least the Undersiders will keep our end of the bargain. Especially if you plan to take down Coil and cover the rest of the bases."

I gave a nod and went over the information that Lisa had given me about the other members of the Undersiders. Regent wanted Heartbreaker taken down for personal reasons, Bitch just wanted a safe place for her dogs and to use violence as an outlet for her anger, Grue needed money and stability to help take care of someone close to them. And of course Lisa wanted Coil in the darkest hole that could be dug.

I was willing to help all of them so long as they helped me.

"As soon as we have the information we'll get to work," I closed my eyes and felt a smile come to my face. "And then we show him how it feels to be broken."

Next chapter we begin the Assault on Heartbreaker.

Blaze1992: Alright got to the latest CH, my first question is what exactly is the dollhouse?
By that I mean is it an original idea created by you or is it from some other fandom?

Lastly it seems she controls the dolls with her blood and using special moves or powers consumes the blood, so could she store her blood from her off days and they use them in the field instead of the blood inside of her?

Me: Thank you for reading through the story so far and far your reviews! To answer your two questions.1- The Dollhouse is an original concept created by me, through certain Doll's and abilities might contain references to other properties, but no more passing references rather then something needed to understand the story.

2- The blood needs to be within her body in order to power the Doll's, which is why she uses the blood pill's that help her 'refuel' so to speak.