Her pace quickened at the sound of porcelain shattering against the wall behind her. At a thought, silk gloves weighed with ball bearings and roofing nails smashed through the more human-like wax figures ahead of her, and she did her best not to think about the smears of red left on their knuckles. The instant the doll maker's outraged shout reached her ears, she dove for cover behind the stone fountain, holes punched into its basin by the spray of bullets creating cracks that began to leak water onto her sleeve (great, she'd just had this dry cleaned).

The cloth humanoid nearby took its fair share of holes, too, but it didn't break stride in its charge toward the man shooting at her. It slammed into him, sending his weapon clattering to the ground and getting a strangled squawk out of her assailant. Its hands seized his neck, intent on squeezing until he fainted- only for his head to pop clean off with an echo of mocking laughter and the doll's body to explode under her humanoid, earning a wince from her as she tumbled around the corner of the fountain to hide from another gunshot as another fake appeared. She may not have felt it like a real user would, but her wallet certainly would the next time she dropped by the local clothing store's discount bin.

"Hyuk-hyuk-hyuk! Give it up already! I've got more dolls than you have brain cells in that pretty little head of yours!" The doll took another step forward, and its foot tugged the tripwire thread strung across that alleyway, a brick gripped by the attached glove sailing clean into and through its head. Smoke shot out from the doll, and a trio of feminine figures- two donning nurse outfits, a third in a bunnysuit, all three weidling rifles marched out from it to keep up the assault.

"Do me a little favor- make sure they hit you in the torso, I'd hate for your face to be damaged! It's always a pain to fix-" And all at once, the assorted dolls froze, his voice cut off by a harsh choke punctuated by the smaller nesting dolls smashing against the ground. She smirked.

"You know, you're not the only one with a long-ranged ability." She idly brushed the dust from her shoulder. "So I spread my influence to a thread on each your dolls' clothing during all this run and gun fun to track their positions through this whole chase. Given everywhere we've been, either you were moving around in broad daylight to keep up, which a spineless prick like you wouldn't be caught dead doing if you didn't have to, or you were hiding somewhere in one specific building."

Her cloth figure stood, tattered but not destroyed, and smacked the guns out of the hands of the remaining three dolls in the town square. She rose from her hiding place and tipped her glasses up, letting him get a good, long look at her expression as she spoke. "A little tip for the next life: don't try this crap on someone with the home field advantage."

"Y-you-" His voice shook. "Y-YOU-!"




"-are a keeper, hyuk-hyuk-hyuk!" On pure instinct, she flung herself to the side, and hissed as a flashbang painted her world white and her ears screamed. The cloth figure immediately took the heads of the dolls around it and slithered back to her side, pilfered guns in hand, prepared to open fire on any that approached down the wired alleyways. Even as she got her wits about her and sent her orders, she could feel the cloth she'd thought seized her foe rip through the neck it'd squeezed around- of course he'd have more dolls with him.

"Things are getting a little too claustrophobic for me, so I'll be taking my leave for now! But next time, I~! Won't~! Lose~!"

She stayed in her cover as she waited for her sight and hearing to come back, threads spreading out from her in a web in case another doll slipped in. After a moment, she was confident enough he was gone to poke her head out. She slipped her glasses back into place and straightened herself out, raising a hand toward the roof above her. Sirens were in the distance and getting louder, and she didn't feel like explaining what happened to whoever had come to investigate. Her raised glove slipped upward on a coil of thread and grabbed the roof's ledge, pulling her up even as her assorted planted traps snaked upward out of sight alongside her.




Despite his confident crowing before bidding her 'adieu', he couldn't help but swing between silent fuming and nervous laughter as he made his escape. Seeing his dolls being broken hadn't shaken him- infuriated him and made him dread the amount of time he'd need to spend collecting new 'materials', sure, but not shaken. Having to cut his losses didn't, either. Quick escapes were a specialty of his.

It was because he recognized her. Not her specifically, this had been their first real meeting. But the moment he'd seen her picture there was something eating at him, and that odd case of deja vu had followed him the entire job. As he saw her expression when she thought she had him, though, it finally clicked.

It was the same expression his last employer wore when someone made the mistake of displeasing him.

Grimacing at the memory of that whole debacle, he briefly reconsidered a life of pacifism instead. "...naaaaah! That'll just make the reward that much sweeter!" He slipped into the rental car serving as his escape vehicle. "Sorry Jodie! You were just born under an unlucky 'Joe-star'! Hyuk-hyuk-hyuk!"