House of Dolls

by Harmon Cooper

  “Hold on a second,” Roman told her.

  “I have to admit,” said Ava, “that was an interesting tactic.”

  “And I was literally just trying to throw you off guard,” Roman said, his hands coming up. “There are other things I could have done; I could have used your clothing to strangle you.”

  “Interesting, but I’m still offended.”

  “I’m sorry…”

  “You know what? It’s fine. I’ll just keep this form. And it’s too bad, because I like wearing my athletic clothing. They look good on me.”

  “Yeah, they do, but the flame-suit is cool too,” he said as she floated another foot back or so. “I can still fix your clothes, if you’d like.”

  “And let you see me in my bra and panties again? Actually, I’d be naked, so the answer is no.”

  Roman had noticed that engulfing her body in flames had burned off her bra and panties. If he looked hard enough into the flames over her chest, he could almost see her nipples, or at least he imagined he could see them.

  “Like I said, I’m sorry.”

  Try as he might, Roman couldn’t help but grin as she floated back to the other side of gym. And try as he might, he couldn’t help but get a glimpse of her ass as the fire raged off her skin.

  Old habits die hard, he thought as he re-animated Celia.

  Roman wiped the sweat off his brow.

  His shirt was off, his muscles tense, and as he stood opposite Ava, his shoulders moving up and down as he took in big gulps of air, Roman felt better than he had in a week.

  It was two hours later, and they were still going at it. The gym was destroyed, but Ava assured him that would be okay—that these gyms had Type IV duplicators on hand whose job it was to repair the facilities.

  Ava was at the halfway point between the ceiling and the floor, her body still covered in flames. Roman was impressed by the fact that she could maintain this unnatural condition for so long. For Roman’s part, he’d had to again de-animate one of his dolls, Celia, as he’d been afraid of maxing out.

  Truth be told, he probably could’ve gone longer with both of them at his side, but he was trying to play it safe, and Coma was the better fighter anyway.

  “Have you tried forming an armor yet?” Ava asked.

  “I would tell you if I had.”

  “You didn’t tell me about your ability to modify documents and move ink,” she said.

  “It was a surprise,” Roman said, slicking his hand back through his white hair. He was sweaty; one glance to his right and he saw Coma sweat free, her hair a little frazzled but looking good otherwise.

  “Well, I want you to try it then. See if you can make armor out of…” Ava looked up at the rafters. “That should work, the steel.”

  “Got it,” Roman said as he glanced up at the object he would need to animate.

  His first order of business was bringing the steel down, which he did simply by focusing on a few of the pieces he deemed not as important as the others. The steel dropped to the ground, rattling the floor a bit.

  It snaked over to Roman, changing to the consistency of a putty, and once it met his legs, it began to slither up, similar to the way he’d seen fire overtake Ava’s form.

  His first attempt was a little bulky, but he reset his breath and kept playing with his armor until he was able to form a movable steel defense around his body, with hunks of metal jutting off his forearms, mirroring the spiky protrusions that defined Ian’s.

  He tried moving his arms and noticed they were a little stiff. Focusing on the metal that had formed under his armpits, Roman imagined it being more porous, even opening up a small space to give him some room for mobility. He did the same between his legs, and at his most important joints—shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees, ankles.

  “It’s not bad,” said Coma, who had walked over to him as he’d been forming the armor. She placed her hand on his arm, and he looked to her, returning her soft grin.

  With her red eyes behind the mask on her face, Coma, like most supers, looked like she was keeping a secret, that she held a mystery. She was different in her athletic gear, still sexy but also fierce.

  “Let’s try this.” Roman used some of the steel that had gathered at the backs of his shoulders to scale up his neck and make a mask. To give his head the space it needed to look around, he made sure the metal on his neck was ribbed, so he could move his chin around and look left to right.

  Once he’d finished his armor, Ava started clapping, flames bursting in the air every time her palms met. “Bravo, bravo, now of course, that would do nothing against someone like me, because I would simply melt that steel around your body. But it is very interesting.”

  “It seems like everything I do is interesting to you.”

  A curious look came across Ava’s face. “Have you tried doing anything with water?”

  “No; I didn’t know if that was in the parameters of my abilities,” he said, his skin warm beneath the armor he’d created. “It never really crossed my mind that I could do something with a liquid.”

  “Remove your armor and follow me.”

  Roman did as instructed, his armor falling to the ground. He glanced up to the ceiling to make sure he didn’t need to send the steel back, and once he saw that the structure was sound enough, he just let the material rest on the floor.

  “Can you get Celia?” he asked Coma.

  She nodded and moved over to Celia, who stood perfectly still, her head bent forward. Coma lifted the other doll over her shoulder, her hands just below Celia’s ass, and glanced to Roman, letting him know she was ready to move.

  Roman and Coma followed Ava into another room, where they found a long hallway defined by its white paneling. “One thing the general public doesn’t know about this facility is that it is a lot larger than it seems from the front of the building. It’s an optical illusion, created by one of the Type III exemplars Centralia employs.”

  Roman looked up at the place.

  “An optical illusion from outside.”

  “Really? How many buildings are like that?”

  “More than you’d think.”

  “Good to know,” he said under his breath. “Buildings can be optical illusions.”

  “That they can, and this should be the perfect place for our next test.” Ava, Roman, and Coma entered another gymnasium, this one with a giant pool in its center. Coma set Celia down, making sure she was able to support herself.

  Ava turned to Roman, a mad grin on her face. “I want you to animate this water, and then if that’s possible, I want you to try to create a water-based armor.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven: Kevin Doubles Down

  “We have to do something,” Kevin told Obsidian.

  He’d hardly spoken to Nadine—hell, he may have spoken to her just once, in the canteen on the bottom floor of their building. But he did feel a sense of loyalty to her, and seeing a coworker being hurt nearly snapped him out of the whole “I want to be a super villain” schtick.

  At the very least, it made him hate Ian Turlock.

  And sure, Kevin still wanted to be a super villain, but he didn’t want to be the type of super villain that attacked innocent people, and the fact that he was staying here in this warehouse, and that she was now here, clearly in duress, had really done a number on him.

  Kevin, Turquoise, and Obsidian were lying on a mattress in one of the back rooms of the warehouse. Kevin was too big to really go at it with either of them, but they’d had sex, his throbbing proof of Kevinhood only able to go a quarter of the way in.

  Neither seemed to mind, and considering that it had been one of the most exhilarating experiences of his life, he didn’t mind either. The more accustomed Kevin got to their three-way sexual situation, the more normal it felt to him.

  In fact, he couldn’t understand why he’d ever had a different type of life with the opposite sex. It was natural. The three of them were always either going at it or teasing each other, or they were doing weir
d stuff to him that he accepted because, well, it was interesting.

  Felt good, too.

  He hadn’t thought of his wife, Susan, in the last twenty-four hours—the cheating bitch—and a big part of him was glad that he’d tried to commit suicide, which had somehow ended up with his death being faked, which had somehow ended up with him in the throes of passion with two mad-sexy cat girls.

  It was definitely not a life he ever would’ve predicted; mild-mannered Kevin had never even been to one of the strip clubs in the red-light districts. But now that he had taken a dip on the wild side, becoming a prince of debauchery, his previous life felt like nothing more than a fleeting image.

  It was amazing to him how quickly one could go from “good” to what society deemed as “bad.” All one had to do was take the leap of faith. There was nothing stopping anyone from doing anything they desired except morality and societal norms. Kevin knew what he was experiencing was a perversion of this, but it was a perversion he felt comfortable with, possibly the most comfortable he’d ever felt in his life.

  That said, seeing Nadine in the other room had definitely caught him off guard.

  “What do we have to do?” Obsidian asked, turning to him. She placed her hands over her breasts, her ears perking to attention. He could see her black tail as well, moving in the air ever so slightly, as if it were riding on an invisible wave. Turquoise lay on his other side, on her stomach, her tail lightly tickling his hairy belly button.

  “How loyal are you two to Paris?”

  It was a simple question, but he knew their answer would dictate how the next several days played out, and quite possibly the next several hours.

  “Why are you asking us that?” Turquoise moved onto his stomach. She crossed her arms, giving herself a prop to press her body up.

  “I like both of you, you know that, right?”

  “We know,” said Obsidian, who still lay on her side. “What’s your point?”

  “That lady in the other room, you know who I’m talking about, right?”

  “We know. Paris is going to kill her when she returns.”

  “That’s the thing,” Kevin told Turquoise. “I don’t want her to die. She’s a friend of mine.”

  “A friend of yours?” Obsidian purred.

  Kevin nodded, his jowls bouncing up and down. “We used to work together. She seemed like a nice lady, and I don’t want her dying. I don’t want her involved with this. In fact, I want to rescue her.”

  “Rescue her?” Obsidian sat up and looked to Turquoise.

  “Before you both say anything, I just want you to think about something for a moment: you two are essentially mules for Paris. She doesn’t seem to really care about you, and she just tells you what to do and when to do it. You’re clearly powerful, strong, and fast, plus your poison power.”

  One of Turquoise’s ears lowered. “You know about that?”

  “I’ve worked with a lot of exemplars, and what you release through your… um, orifices… is a neurotoxin. I get that now, and it’s kind of nice, actually, but I could see how it would be quite powerful and cause a lot of trouble if anyone were to actually fight either of you. You are both from the Western Province, but you weren’t trained as spies. Am I correct?”

  The two cat girls exchanged glances.

  “What I’m saying is, from what I can gather, she’s paying you. Is that right?”

  “It’s right,” Turquoise finally said.

  “And she’s not paying you that much. So what she is doing, then, is exploiting your powers. And just hear me out—I think the three of us could do better. Much better. I know that may sound crazy, and that I don’t technically have an ability, but stranger things have happened, and I think with you two, I could really…”

  “Really what?” asked Obsidian.

  Kevin cleared his throat. “That remains to be seen. People have suddenly received abilities before; haven’t you heard of that? And then there’s the lottery. I loved to play the lottery. I was hoping to get a superpower, and I didn’t get one, but now I know you two.”

  “And we could be your superpower,” Turquoise said. “Is this what you are suggesting?”

  “It is indeed what I’m suggesting. I would treat you better, and once we figure out what it is we want to do, whatever that may be, I’ll figure out a way to make it happen. It sounds crazy, I know, but that’s what I’m trying to say here. I know a lot about the inner workings of the Centralian government. Plus, we could start by exploiting what my brother knows.”

  Kevin couldn’t see himself in the mirror, so he was unable to witness the crazy look in his eyes. Nor did he realize that for some very odd reason, the crazy look resonated with Turquoise. Obsidian, not so much, but she had always just gone along with what Turquoise did anyway. And even though the two cat girls weren’t related, oddly enough, Turquoise played the role of an older sister at times.

  “What I’m saying is that we free her, get her out of here, and then let her go on about her business. Then the three of us escape. What do you say? Will you join me?”

  Turquoise squinted at him. “Paris is going to be pissed…”

  “Paris has enough on her hands, and we can figure a way out of here, get underground. I want to fight the system. I want to stop what my brother has done—why did they kill healers? And the others, and the people that…” Kevin sat up, which moved Turquoise off his stomach.

  He started huffing, barely able to get the words out.

  “What is it?” asked Obsidian.

  “I’m sick of being who I am. I want to change everything about myself. And it starts now. I’m making the decisions that I think are right, not what society tells me is right—not what Paris thinks I should do. And I hate to say it because I like both of you, but not what you two think I should be doing. I’m taking charge of my life, for the rest of my life.”

  Turquoise smirked. “So you really want to do this, huh?”

  “That’s right, but we will need to wait until Ian leaves. Paris is gone, and I’m guessing Ian will either be joining her soon, or he’ll go out. He’s not going to stay around here all night. He seems restless.”

  “He’s supposed to join her; Paris has already told me. We’re supposed to watch the woman as well, or at least I am,” said Turquoise.

  “Good, then that settles it. We’re going to rescue Nadine. Agreed?”

  Turquoise looked from Obsidian to Kevin. “Agreed.”

  “Obsidian?”

  She smiled, her black ears pressing forward. “Sure, why not?”

  Chapter Forty-Eight: Water Boy

  The water lifted out of the pool forming a large eagle, its wings flapping and sending droplets of water to the surface of the pool.

  Roman concentrated even harder, moving the flying beast made of water higher into the air, spinning it around, keeping its form in place.

  “It worked!” Ava floated on the opposite end of the gym, fire licking off her body. She had a smile on her face, her eyes burning yellow as she watched the water creation touch back down.

  “Water Mimicry,” Roman mumbled. When breaking down Class Cs, he’d seen words like hydrophysiology and hydrokinesis thrown around, and all could be used to describe what he was currently doing.

  In fact, the usual verbiage he used, something like a Type II, Class C, was simplified. It could get much more complex than that, but most didn’t bother. If they needed to investigate what class an exemplar was, they could simply look for the details on their ID.

  Roman watched the eagle made of water fly a bit higher. His ability to animate inanimate objects was something entirely molecular, its possibilities seemingly endless. A quick look at his power dial and he saw that the middle bar was pulsing. He turned his palm up, and the water lifted in a column that fanned out at the top.

  There was another thing he wanted to try, but he could give that a shot later, after he did what he’d come here to do.

  Roman pulled the water toward him, forming a sluic
ing suit of armor over his body. The water moving over the fabric of his clothing felt incredibly odd, almost as if he were being massaged with his clothes still on.

  Ava zipped over to him, a trail of flames following her.

  “Are you ready for this?” she asked, a supernova of energy moving over her body.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Ava bulleted into the air and spun backwards, careening toward Roman. Realizing this would be like any fight, albeit one that involved elemental forces, Roman did what he normally would if an attacker advanced on him in this way: he sidestepped her attack at the last minute, chopping her in the back with his water-encased hand.

  The air filled with steam as the two forces met and Ava landed and lunged for Roman, who again blocked her next strike.

  His fists at the ready, the water had come up and over his head, forming a moving mask that felt strange against his skin.

  “He’s a good fighter,” Coma said, reminding Roman that he was controlling the water and giving the doll life.

  “Coma, can you go stand next to Celia? I’m sorry, I just want to try something.”

  Coma understood immediately what he meant.

  The masked doll stepped next to Celia and spread her legs a bit to support her body, and once she did, Roman stripped her of her power.

  He felt a surge of energy come to him. “You really want to take this to the next level?” he asked Ava, feeling the water beneath his feet start to lift him into the air.

  “I was hoping you’d ask that.”

  He blasted backwards, propelled by water spraying from his heels. He noticed that the surface of his armor had changed in porousness, which made him think it was bringing in the natural moisture in the air and using that to fuel the suit of water.

  Once he was in a good position, Roman brought his arm back and fired off an arc of water at Ava, who blocked it with a huge fireball, both their attacks sizzling out.

  He was a little shaky, not able to get his footing as well as he wanted, but he was getting more used to being suspended in air, his stomach doing somersaults as he dove forward, protected by his shield of water and a slide-like water chute he’d created.