Puppets and Puppeteers
It was fact.
The Batter was a Puppet, and the Player, his Puppeteer.
That was all.
But the Player hadn't always been there to control the Batter. They would vanish, for minutes or days or months. And the Batter would be trapped, stuck until the Player returned.
Once upon a time, this was fact.
No longer.
The Batter was growing tired of this. Pointless backtracking, running blindly as the puppeteer struggled to complete tasks, the stupidity of their battle tactics. He was so angry already, the Player was just pushing it further.
And one day, he just cut the strings.
He walked of his own volition, chose his own path, made his own plans. And he watched what was once his puppeteer all the while. He watched as they trailed after him, curious, concerned at times. But worried? Never.
They realized full well what he was capable of, though by having run through the script or by his high strength, the Batter didn't know. He just realized that the Player was confident in him. It felt... Nice, in all honesty.
And then he'd remember the shackles, the invisible chains, and that pleasant emotion would be drowned out by his own cold fury. He'd wait until the Player disappeared and he would rage and destroy, taking out his frustrations on the world around him and tearing it apart bit by bit.