The Doll Psychos

The rabid doll lunged at Ava, hurling spells wildly, but she dodged them with ease. Just as the doll began charging up, vines erupted from the ground, snaring its legs and sending it crashing down. Ava seized the moment, ending it with a single stab of her backsword.

Ava was currently in an outpost just outside the city. While the inhibitors were generally effective and reliable, they sometimes ran into issues, the biggest being the doll psychos. For some reason, dolls who wear inhibitors would sometimes become disobedient, irrational, and violent in that order. These were referred to as doll psychos, and they were extremely dangerous. Not much was known about this condition and the only known cure was death. Normally these incidents weren’t too difficult to take care of, but the one at this outpost had six dolls go psycho, wiping out most of the personnel there. A unit could be sent to take care of it, but men and dolls were in short supply, and Ava was already in the area for an inspection at a different base, so she just decided to take care of it herself. Not to mention, her ability made her especially effective at dealing with doll psychos.

Ava’s ability, Vinea, granted her the power to create vines. These vines were powerful, being strong enough to immobilize foes and durable enough to tank attacks. However, the vines had a slow startup which meant it lost its usefulness against more skilled opponents, but against the doll psychos who lacked the sense to avoid them, it was incredibly effective.

Three more dolls began charging at Velvet, but their wild, inaccurate spells were easy to dodge, and they were tripped up by Ava’s vines just as easily. With them immobilized, a few powerful, direct spells shattered them all into charred pieces.

That only left two, and she could see one already running at her. Her strategy was exactly the same, a blind charge and some manic casting. However, just as she was about to fall into the vine trap, she jumped. Caught off guard, Ava had been left open for an attack, and as the rabid doll sent a spell directly at her, she panicked and quickly brought up her vines to guard her. However, while the vines blocked the attack, they were badly damaged. Still, wasting no more time, Ava counterattacked, with a spell of her own. Light shone from her hand as she launched an extremely powerful magic projectile at her opponent, completely obliterating her.

Ava had panicked and gone overboard with that final attack, but she was safe now, what that doll did was just a fluke.

But then she heard something, the slightest rustling from behind her. Realizing what it was, she snapped around and started firing off spells wildly, catching the doll that had tried to sneak attack her in her line of fire.

With the battle finally done, she breathed a sigh of relief and sat down. What was supposed to be a simple cleanup had turned into an exhausting battle and her mana was now running low. Not to mention it was late.

“Deputy Commander!” A messenger approached her.

“Yes?”

“There’s a crisis happening at HQ! We’re under attack!”

“What!? Is it the Empire!?”

“No, we don’t think so. It’s just one doll, and she’s destroying everything!”

“Just one doll!?”

“Yes, she can make these giant, black tentacle things that tear people apart!”

Ava’s heart sank, and for the first time in a long time, she felt true fear.

***

Edea left behind another room of freshly killed corpses. Her mana needed a top up, so most of them had had their life force sucked dry by Crinis.

Edea’s Crinis was a powerful ability, perhaps even the most powerful. With it, she was able to summon black tentacles that could suck out the mana of any human, allowing her to utilize it as she sees fit. However, while they did massive damage, they weren’t well-suited to combat since they were quite vulnerable, but against a dysfunctional enemy, their shortcomings were sometimes overpowered by their terrifying psychological effect.

Edea walked down a hallway and smirked as she saw a lineup of soldier-doll units. “Ah, I was wondering where the Doll Corps’ dolls were.”

The sound of gunfire rang out as the dolls prepared their magic, but Edea jumped high and threw a spell directly up into the ceiling, creating a hole that she disappeared through.

The soldiers fired randomly into the ceiling, hoping to even just clip her as the dolls stayed on guard, ready to blow her away as soon as she made a move.

As they kept firing, however, a spell shot through the ceiling, directly hitting a soldier as he was still shooting. The dolls sent magic projectiles flying towards where the attack came from as the other soldiers redirected their fire, but another spell came from a completely different place, nailing another soldier. This then happened again.

“What the hell are you standing around for!? Get up there and kill her!” the captain of the squad furiously ordered the dolls.

With only a “Yes, sir,” they used their magic to blow a hole in the ceiling and give chase.

The dolls arrived on the second floor of the building. It was a mess up there thanks to the gunfire and spellcasting. Much of the room had been destroyed, but Edea was nowhere to be seen.

Surely she was hiding somewhere, waiting to strike. The dolls heard a clunk from behind them. They are turned to it only to find that it was a desk that collapsed, but it wasn’t even a blink later when Edea emerged from behind a collapsed shelf and sent out a volley of powerful spells, wiping out the entire squad dolls.

With that massive attack, the floor could no longer hold and collapsed, burying the soldiers beneath a mountain of debris.

As the dust settled, Edea floated gracefully down, standing atop the mountain of rubble.

“To think that was the Republic’s prestigious Doll Corps. It almost feels too cruel, like bullying a disabled child.” She shrugged. “Well, time to carry on. But first…” Spotting a half buried, barely alive soldier, she summoned a black tentacle and pierced his body, sucking out every bit of his life force.