There was no sound coming from the monitors. Phantom crossed her legs, tapping one finger to her lips. Her eyes rapidly moved over the various monitors. Some of them were older, physical screens. Others were floating panes of information, not truly there but instead existing as a representation of information she was gaining directly from the systems. One or two were flat panes of glass with the information projected onto it.
Someone nearby made a squeaking sound. She jerked her head backwards to see another employee walking in her hobble-skirt and blouse. Phantom narrowed her eyes slightly. The skirt was attractive; a shiny black with a few zippers placed that made it seem high-tech and functional, even if it was neither. It wasn’t the skirt itself, it was its creator. Dovah, a ‘contractor’ and temporary employee, had designed the skirt and the blouse both. And right now, she was running rampant throughout her workplace. Phantom snapped her fingers. The employee nodded and left the room to be gagged and have her outfit changed. She knew the drill.
Most of the employees knew “the drill,” as it were, when a visitor, contractor, or employee escaped. Test subjects could be very powerful. Dovah was a step above most of the heroines and agents that Phantom normally acquired. Of course, those lovely captives were also not normally possessed with powers of magical arts. None of them had the same acumen to focus the arcane into their voices. Not a single one of them had exhibited, for example, the ability to shout so loud that walls would crumble. None of them could breathe and send security bots flying. It was an interesting new dilemma.
Dovah dashed down a corridor. The sub-levels of the building were a veritable maze; a series of elevators connected these endless warrens of workers to the surface levels, where far more mundane business was conducted. But Dovah had never seen the elevators; always being carefully blindfolded, hooded, and ideally kept highly stimulated to prevent her from formulating an escape plan. Phantom sifted through some of the archival footage, curious about how this had even started.
Dovah had managed to get off her gag with a knife. Phantom felt a bit silly for leaving any sharp implements in her craft room, but when she had kidnapped the fashion designer, she realized that Dovah would need at least a modicum of tools. The thick, encompassing plug lay at her feet for a half-second before Dovah exhaled with a mountainous roar, and the cameras fell silent. Others throughout the building picked up on her cacophonous exaltation of arcane fury, rattling as she moved through the first wall.
She couldn’t hear her voice. Dovah didn’t speak. But the way she moved made it seem that she was looking for Phantom’s office. Intriguing.
Staring at the monitors, the executive pursed her lips. Perhaps this could be a boon. She hadn’t had anyone with a power like this loose in the endless hive of her facility before. A smile crept up her face, and she pressed a few keys on a keypad. She was thinking that she’d need to work on her villainous laughter.
----
Dovah sprinted down another hallway. There was a simple stripe on the wall; a bright purple one labeled in plain language that read EXECUTIVE. It might as well have read ‘BITCH’ or ‘CAPTOR.’ Dovah didn’t even think about what it might have meant to be the ‘executive.’ She just knew she had to pursue the stripe until she came to Phantom’s office, where she’d have… words with the woman.
The designer rounded a corner and stopped dead in her tracks. It wasn’t that she was hesitating, no. She’d made up her mind from the moment she broke free. It was that she no longer knew exactly which way that goal was. The purple stripes all seemed to converge on an intersection, wherein every stripe ended, fading into the paint. At the center of the room was a mannequin bearing some of the very gear that Dovah had designed; an open-mouth hood with no holes for her ears or eyes; a pair of latex stockings; a long leotard with sleeves and a corset.
A voice played as she entered the room. It was *her* voice. The voice of that insolent captor. The voice of that indolent prima donna that decided whether or not Dovah’s designs - which were always masterful - were “good enough.”
“If you wish to see the Executive, you need only wear these. Slip on the gag. Kneel. Submit. You’ll be taken to her shortly.”
Dovah shouted with anger. She saw a camera fall to the ground from the force of her words.
----
Phantom leaned back. She wasn’t even quite certain why Dovah had suddenly escaped. She had seemed so satisfied just a few hours ago, happily designing and producing new clothes. Her materials were all on time. Her workspace and living conditions were more than amicable.
She flipped through footage of Dovah’s past few days with one hand, while gently fingering a keypad with the other. She felt the right side of her face upturn into a smile.
---
The hallway was fairly long - at least twenty meters - and didn’t have a single side door, merely the entry and exit on each side. The walls were a stark matte white. Both points of egress were blocked by a pair of well-built women, clad in the dark blue spandex and shining black latex of MirageCorp security. The two took a tentative step forward. Dovah froze, unsure what to do; she couldn’t shout in two directions at once.
The decision was made for her when the walls suddenly shifted! Both guards jolted in surprise when the walls began to close inward. Dovah used their momentary distraction to the best of her ability, channeling her magic to make her move with the speed of wind. She dashed past one guard, diving out of the way of the enclosing walls with seconds to spare.
Before proceeding, she gave herself a moment to glance back at the trap laid for her. The guards were trapped in a single, massive vacuum-packed room; both walls consisting of a stretchy membrane that trapped them in place. It was humiliating, tight, and would have been inescapable. Both guards were now trapped in a triple-layer of gorgeous, shiny latex, their security outfits, and the “walls” all at once. Their curvy features were visible… barely. Dovah took a moment to examine their vacuum-packed bodies. Perhaps this was the next step in her fashion designs… though hopefully her models wouldn’t spend so much time wriggling and groaning in their heavy vacbed encasement.
---
Phantom looked over the various monitors. Scrubbing back and forth through the footage of Dovah’s workshop was boring, but she could play through dozens of days at the same time - controlling the entire operation mentally. Finally, she found it. The moment that Dovah went from an employee to a disgruntled employee. She leaned in and slowed down the tape, squinting her eyes to track every pixel on the screen.
---
Two drones had been re-purposed into security to defend the last hallway before Phantom’s office. Both of them had been coated from head to toe in Phantom’s signature punishment; a thick suit of high-tech polymers that gave off the look and feel of blissfully thick rubber. The two held plastic riot shields in front of their face, with their weaponry at the ready. Thick, solid boots were planted firmly on the ground. Helmets and faceplates obscured their visages - which were of course hooded and firmly plugged anyway. They were for defense, not giving directions. Especially not to any escapee.
Dovah punctured the door with a kick. She was going to have a chat with Phantom, and nobody was going to get in the way! The warrior planted her feet in a wide battle stance, and balled her hands into fists.
The two guards reacted, taking a knee and putting as much of their mass behind their shields as possible. One of them fingered a small metallic sphere. When Dovah began to inhale for a Shout, he let it rip. The sphere whizzed through the air and fell open, revealing a shining blue mass.
Dovah let her shout early. She hadn’t the time to give it the full magical treatment, and it showed. Instead of sending both guards flying, it merely displaced the trajectory of the grenade. No matter; she inhaled and prepared for another arcane shout.
Meanwhile, the bomb arced towards the other drone. She made a loud sound, muffled through her thick gag, stylish hood, and carefully-sculpted helmet. The mass burst, sending sticky tape in all directions. Wide bands of bright blue tape slapped against the walls, coating the poor drone and taping her to her shield! She wiggled slightly, arms and legs now restrained in helpless frustration.
The drone that had acted first quivered. Even under all her conditioning, her pleasure-obsessed brain could still detect danger! She fumbled at her waist for her baton as Dovah approached. The warrioress came very close, preparing to send a shout that would reverberate through the building… and stopped. The drone collapsed into a fearful heap as Dovah entered Phantom’s office.
Who else was sitting there but Phantom herself? Dressed a black pant suit at least a size too small, Phantom was leaning forward. She cradled her chin in her hands. Green eyes judged Dovah as she entered, instantly more calm. Perhaps it was all the expenditure of energy that had worn her down. Or maybe, Phantom mused, it was her presence. After all, if Dovah was angry for the reasons that Phantom surmised, this was all just a misunderstanding.
The dragonborn warrior opened her mouth to speak, but Phantom interrupted. She placed one finger out, instructing her to stop where she was.
“Hold it right there, Dovah,” said Phantom.
Dovah paused.
“I think I know what the issue is.”
Dovah crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.
“Someone took your best shears.”
Dovah’s eyes flicked to the left.
“They were expensive, rune-bound and mastercrafted piece of work. They were yours, and someone switched them with a mundane pair.”
Dovah looked down. She almost looked apologetic, perhaps embarrassed that she’d caused a ruckus over such a thing. She wasn’t going to admit it; she was still something of a brat, and Phantom knew it. But it seemed that she knew the cause of this outburst.
“Now, there we go. It wasn’t really all that awful, was it? Certainly not worth storming through my facility and setting off all my traps. There are men and women who are busy being tied up and teased thanks to you. I wonder how you’d feel if someone had you mummified or encased during an escape attempt?”
The dragonborn blushed slightly and gritted her teeth.
“Now now. I’ll make it up to you. I’ll have the perpetrator this heinous crime bound, gagged, and put in your office as a model,” she said with a mischievous glint in her eye. “I’ll of course have your shears returned to you as well.”
Dovah let a smile crack over her face.
“See? That wasn’t too hard. Now, there’s just one more thing. Come here.”
Dovah walked closer to the desk. Phantom waved her finger in a “come hither” position, reinforcing her words. “Closer.”
Dovah leaned over the desk. Phantom drew her in close… and planted a firm, wet kiss on her nose! Seconds later, a thick black slick of blissfully snug latex was spreading down the lower half of her face, filling her jaw, and sealing her lips in a splendidly sexy sheath of shiny goodness. Dovah grunted, unable to use her Shouts. Her fingers tried and failed to dislodge her new gag.
As the seamstress was restrained and returned to her workshop, Phantom took the time to think about what she was going to do with this particular “contractor.” Especially her promise to offer up the culprit for some “modeling.”
Phantom opened a desk drawer and tapped a finger to her lip. She was staring a marvelous set of rune-encrusted, filigreed shears.