Warehouse Section, Undersiders Base
"Will this do?" Lisa Wilbourn, otherwise known as the villainess Tattletale, asked her new teammate, Taylor Hebert. The girl, dressed in jeans and a sweater, was a bit plain looking, but the Thinker could tell that she had a good heart and had been screwed over rather badly by the authorities several times, fairly recently as well.
The two girls were standing in front of a large pile of old wood, metal, fabric, straw, sand and other items that Taylor had asked for. The girl could control dolls with her mind, a Master power, but when she had fought against Lung the previous week, the Dragon of Kyushu had ripped all but one of her thirty dolls apart and burned them to ashes before the Undersiders had intervened.
"This'll do nicely." Taylor said with a nod as she pushed her glasses up with one finger, "My last dolls weren't made of such good materials, which is why Lung tore through them so quickly."
Lisa eyed the sole remaining doll that Taylor had left. It was the size of an adult human, with a white mask on its head that was grinning sinisterly like a twisted version of the mask of comedy. The rest of the doll was made out of black fabric stuffed with what looked like cotton wool, although the ends of its arms bore a pair of shields and its feet had in-line skates. Covering it was an ankle-length cape.
"You didn't have much to work with when you made them, did you?" Lisa observed.
"I wasn't expecting to fight Lung of all people when I went out last week." Taylor replied irritably, "This one only survived because it was my personal guard. It's a shame to have to retire it, but my current max is thirty human-sized dolls. Better than it was three months ago though; I could only control five."
"What about smaller ones?" the more experienced villainess asked curiously.
"Depends. If I'm controlling my maximum amount of human sized dolls, I can control about ten dolls the size of a Rottweiler or fifty the size of a Barbie doll." Taylor answered absently as she inspected the goods with a practiced eye, "If I'm not controlling human-sized dolls, I can control about fifty medium-sized dolls or about a hundred Barbie-sized dolls."
Lisa suddenly had a vision of the Wards getting swarmed by a bunch of Barbie dolls and started to snicker, sharing the joke with Taylor, who also chortled at the vision.
"Thing is, I can control regular dolls, but they're a bit useless in a fight. Distractions at best." The bespectacled Cape confessed after she stopped laughing, "Making my own dolls is the best route, because…well, there's a good reason why Defender here survived where the others didn't."
"How? I didn't actually see it do anything." Lisa had just seen the doll carrying Taylor, in her black costume and silver face mask, away from Lung most of the fight once the Undersiders joined in.
"Watch."
Saying so, Taylor made her Defender doll stand up straight from the slouched position it had been in and bring up its arms, crossing them so the shield overlapped. She then picked up a small lump of iron and threw it at Defender, dodging out of the way at once.
As the iron lump reached Defender, a blue barrier flickered into life in front of the doll before the lump was rebounded back along its original course, slamming into a wall like a bullet.
"Holy shit! You're a Trump!" Lisa breathed, "You can give your dolls powers!"
"Yeah, I'm a bit like Dauntless like that." Taylor nodded, "Actually, clothing and equipment can be empowered like that as well, but not many. Say, ten separate pieces at a time. The majority of my power is to do with creating and controlling my dolls, with a little left over that lets me empower clothes and armour. Not sure about weapons. Again, it's better if I make them than use store-bought stuff."
"Yeah, but this is still a big deal Taylor." Lisa said seriously, "Usually, Trumps can do a specific thing to do with powers. They can be the Eidolon-type, bestowing/altering their own powers, the Othala-type, altering/bestowing powers onto others or the Dauntless-type, altering/bestowing powers onto inanimate objects. Can other people use the Trump-items you make?"
"Dunno; lets test it out." The other girl replied and pointed at the stack of fabric. A roll of purple fabric not dissimilar to the shade used in Lisa's Tattletale costume floated up and started to glow. Needles and thread rose up as a pattern formed in the fabric and broke free; gloves. As Taylor manipulated the items, the other girl kept silent.
'She's like a souped-up version of Parian.' The blond thought, 'Especially since Parian is restricted to fabric only and Taylor can use almost anything as a base for her creations.'
Parian was a Rogue Cape who ran a clothing store. She had nothing to do with Hero/Villain fights, stating her neutrality in all things. Her power over cloth was not what one would call powerful, as any of the Villain Capes could tear her cloth golems to pieces, much as Lung had done to Taylor's dolls.
In fact…
"Why do you call them dolls rather than golems?" Lisa asked aloud, "Golem would surely fit them better than doll."
"Because if I do, my power stops working on them." Taylor stated, "I thought like you when I first got my powers. Called them golems and they all fell to the ground, useless. Once I called them dolls again, my power started working again. The concepts of 'doll', 'toy', 'marionette' and 'puppet' work on my creations; 'golem', 'avatar', 'idol' and 'effigy' do not. Oddly enough, the effect of my power changes depending on which concept I apply to it."
"What happens?"
"You've seen 'Doll', so there's no need to go into it." Taylor plucked the finished gloves out of the air and started inspecting them, "'Toy' means I can only control small creations, but I can control a lot of them. 'Marionette' reduces me to controlling four human-sized or medium-sized creations at a time, but the effects of my Trump ability are greatly enhanced. Finally, 'Puppet' reduces me to controlling one human-sized creation at a time, but my Trump powers bestowed on the single creation are significantly boosted. I muse 'Doll' the most because it's a reasonable median between my powersets."
"You can use two of the three Trump types…you are so broken." Lisa said in disbelief.
"On the flipside, I'm about as vulnerable without my dolls as you are." Taylor pointed out reasonably, "Right, try these on for size."
The bond pulled the gloves on, raising her eyebrows at how well they fit her hands. Not too snug and not too loose. Perfect.
"Good." Taylor said after Lisa had said so, "Now give them back so I can Trump them. What do you want in them? Both have to have the same effect, I'm afraid."
"Can you give me a Brute rating?" Lisa asked hopefully.
"Hmm…doable…but you have to choose between durability and strength." The bespectacled girl replied after a moment of thought, "I can't do both on a single item."
"Durability." Lisa said immediately, "I'll take protection over offence any day of the week."
"Right you are then." Taylor focussed on the gloves, which started to glow blue for a moment. Once the glow faded away, the back of the hand area of each glove gained half a white face, one of a laughing man, one of a crying man.
Lisa took the gloves when offered, flexing them as they went on. There was no noticeable difference.
"What Brute rating did you give them?" she asked.
"Enough that a grown man could punch you and you'd not be hurt." Taylor replied, "Defender, punch her in the stomach."
The doll sprung forward at its creator's command and drove a fist into Lisa's stomach before she could do more than widen her eyes in shock. Strangely enough, she didn't feel any pain and she hadn't even moved to fold herself over the limb that had struck her.
"Wow…that was Brute 2 just for the resilience." The Thinker said as she stepped back from the doll, "Is it alright if I show these to the rest of the gang?"
"Sure, but I can only make…five more pieces of equipment." The doll master said as she turned her attention to the pile of materials, which rose up at her mind's command, "After I finish making more dolls."
"Of course." Lisa agreed, heading for the annex area where the rest of her team waited, "Just so I know, is there any limitation to the item empowerment?"
"Umm…I can empower them with Brute, Shaker, Mover, Thinker, Blaster, Striker and weak Master ratings easily enough." Taylor replied distractedly, "Never tried Tinker, Trump or Stranger before. Ditto for my dolls. Oh, and I need to charge them with my power once a month. That's just about everything."
'I am glad she's on our side.' The villainess thought as she headed up the stairs, 'Once she learns how to empower more items, she'll be scary; once she grows to be able to control more than fifty human sized dolls, she'll be fucking terrifying!'
Later
Whoa…" Brian LaBorne, AKA Grue, said involuntarily as he and the rest of the Undersiders came down from the annex at Taylor's request. Alec, AKA Regent, whistled in an impressed way and Rachel, AKA Bitch, snarled slightly.
Standing before them were thirty human-sized dolls lined up in three rows of ten, each slightly unique, but all wearing a white mask that Lisa had told the others was a mark that indicated that Taylor had used her Trump abilities on it.
Standing at the forefront of the squad of dolls, Taylor stood in her repaired costume, a black one-piece bodysuit with numerous laugh/smiling/sad/crying faces on it, a pair of silver gloves with white masks on the back of the hands, a silver mask shaped to look like a blindfolded Lady Justice, with a white hooded cape that Brian knew had a face similar to her mask on the back.
"The Bal Masqué is ready to dance." Masquerade said with a short bow.
"Holy shit." Alec said, "It's only been two hours since you started!"
Masquerade shrugged. "The only reason it took me three months to make thirty dolls before now was that I had to scrounge around for the sheer amount of materials. I perfected the process of making dolls the fifth time I did it. All I needed to learn was mass production of the basic bodies, which took half an hour of multitasking trial and error. The rest, attaching their individual arms and armour and endowing them with their powers, took up the rest of the time."
"So what can they all do?" Brian asked curiously as Lisa came down the stairs.
Five blurs zoomed past him and he turned to see them surrounding Lisa, Edward Scissorhands style hands pointed at her.
"Zip, Zoom, Zap, Blur and Whizzer are primarily speedster-type Movers, with slight Brute durability." The doll master said, "While over here, Atlas, Hercules, Heracles, Goliath and Samson are pure Brutes, built to smash the enemy apart."
The second series of dolls she pointed out had distinctly larger limbs than their siblings.
"OK. What about the rest?" Alec asked.
Ten of the dolls took flight. Five had glowing hands while the other five had glowing eyes.
"Erg, Joule, Volt, Watt and Therm here are flying Blasters, while Boxer, Smasher, Ripper, Pummel and Knockout are flying Strikers." Masquerade continued, gesturing at the flying dolls in order, "The last ten are unnamed as of yet. All of them are jack-of-all-trades, with a little Brute strength, a little Mover speed and a dollop of Master powers to control various substances. They are the ones I'm thinking of erasing the last set of powers from."
"Why?" Alec asked, "Seems a kick-ass set of powers to me."
"Except that Dolls don't have any will of their own, so unless I consciously exert my will to take control of them, their powers are useless." The silver-masked Cape said with a shrug, "I'll remodel two into Defender-type dolls and remove the Master powers from the rest."
The flying dolls landed as she spoke and the Movers zipped over to stand to one side as the rest did, bar two who slumped over onto their knees, their hands detaching from their arms and reforming as Masquerade's gloves glowed.
"Blaster ability?" Lisa mused aloud, "No…you're giving yourself a Master ability to shape matter as you see fit using those gloves."
"It is…draining to use though." Masquerade ground out as the hands flowed as shields made from metal were inserted into them, "I only use it if it's a small or medium large section that needs reforming."
"Because it's a second Master power and it's drawing from your reserves directly." Lisa nodded.
"…why do you need a team again?" Brian asked Masquerade honestly, "You have these guys that out-muscle us fairly easily."
Masquerade finished her modification to the new Defender-type dolls and removed her mask, pulling her glasses out of a pocket in her cape and placing them back on her face.
"Because no matter how good they are, they are only dolls." Taylor said as she turned to look at Brian directly, "They are completely reliant on me to move or do anything. If I go down, they go down. With a team to support me, it isn't nearly as much of a worry. Lung showed me that."
Privately, Brian was relieved that Taylor wanted to remain on the team. With her help, the Undersiders could accomplish a lot more than they had been able to up until this point. The way that Lisa was so…reluctant to talk about their boss made him nervous. Lisa wasn't easily unnerved by anything, so the fact that their unknown-to-him boss made her nervous wasn't comforting.
Sure, he didn't mind being a villain. It certainly paid better than being a Ward! What he wasn't eager about was the fact that the boss knew his identity and could pressure him regarding his sister's situation if he wanted. Rachel could be pressured by threatening the dogs she rescued, while Alec…he was in it for the money, pure and simple. The boss didn't have to blackmail him.
"So anyway," Lisa said cheerfully, "It's a good thing that you've got your private army up and running; the boss just sent us some orders."
"What's the job?" Brian asked.
"He wants us to rob Brockton Bay Central bank in two days' time." Lisa replied.
Brian had a bad feeling about this.
As you might be able to tell, some of this chapter is inspired by becuzitswrong's fic 'A Propensity for Wrath' without the emotional component. I have no confidence in being able to write a fic like this up to his level, but if I finish one of my other stories, I might pick this up, who knows?
Master: 7 (Able to manipulate and control anything that she can apply the terms 'Doll', 'Toy', 'Marionette' or 'Puppet' to. The number she can control depends entirely on the size of the dolls. Human-sized dolls have a limit of thirty; medium-sized dolls have a limit of fifty; regular dolls have a limit of a hundred. Her range is four city blocks. She can manipulate them with a great deal of control and finesse, even at maximum capacity.)
Thinker: 3 (Able to know the location of all of her creations, even if not actively controlling them. She can see through any eyes that are on the dolls, as well as know any damage dealt to the dolls.)
Shaker: 5 (Able to manipulate any substance aside from flesh to create her dolls or equipment. In the case of hard substances, she can liquefy them and shape them as she pleases. Once the dolls form is set, however, this power no longer works on them and they must be repaired either by hand or with another Master/Shaker power.)
Trump: 5 (Able to bestow powers onto her completed creations, manifesting as an all but indestructible white mask on their heads (if they have any) or elsewhere on their bodies. There is a set limit to the level of bestowment that Taylor can do. Blaster: 4, Striker: 4, Brute: 5 (either strength or durability if a piece of equipment), Mover: 4, Shaker: 5, Master: 3, Stranger: 3, Tinker: 2, Thinker: 5, Trump: 1. She can also alter her own power to exemplify different concepts of her power, switching from 'Doll' to either 'Puppet', 'Marionette' or 'Toy'.)