Author: Gift of Reading

Chapter: Prologue

BETA: none

Story: Strings

Rating: T – violence and swearing, possible blood in future chapters.

Related to: Possibly Rozen Maiden due to the puppets and Avatar: The Last Airbender cause of the elemental control (although only fire and water).

Summary:
What would you do if your school was attacked by a fire puppeteer...fight or run? No matter, this is my story, my choice... and a few mishaps along the way.

P R O L O G U E

(6 weeks ago)

Crap, how did this happen? In front of me stood a fire puppeteer with his deadly puppet "Josher" standing next to him. Flames licking the ground where my class mates had just been occupying, lucky for them a teacher had managed to get them away in time.

Lucky for them, unlucky for me. The teacher didn't see me, who is currently hiding behind a car trying to stay alive. I kept wondering how shit like this happened to me. I hadn't even unlocked my element! Or my puppet!

You're probably wonder what in the world I'm talking about. Well I'm a puppeteer called Yuji. Actually I can't call myself a puppeteer yet; I have yet to even discover my element or my puppet. You all know what an element is right? Well in this world we can only harness two of them and control them; fire and water – personally I'm hoping I'm water.

Puppets are like the physical manifestation of our abilities. They have their 'Power' form where they can access their full power and fight difficult battles. And they have their 'Human' form; they can still use their power but not at full scale, also they look just like normal humans.

Ok, back to the present. This fight was defiantly going in the fire puppeteer's favour. He was against a 16 year old kid with nothing to protect himself or others with. Just for the sake of it he shot fire balls around the cars, just missing me but the heat caused me to yelp out in surprise.

Big mistake. Another fire ball came at me again but this time it knew where it was destined to hit. I scrambled out of the way in an attempt to stay alive. The flame hit the car, causing a massive explosion; blowing me away, forcing me to land on the hard concrete face down.

In the centre of the car park stood a single man. His arms bulging with massive muscles which were littered with ugly tattoos. His head was clear of any hair which allowed him to continue the tattoo over the top of his head, which looked like a giant flame curling around his body.

Beside him was Josher; a massive baboon with its hair on fire. The same tattoos curled over his body too, mainly focused around his tail which was tipped with a deadly looking blade.

'How did I end up fighting a puppeteer?' I asked myself inwardly, hoping to keep the puppeteer focused on the flaming car. Slowly I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees, pain seared around my body signalling damage.

Finally I managed to get myself sitting up and looking at the puppeteer. I knew I could die here but what could I do...

I didn't have a puppet...

Or an element...

Then – as if in slow motion – the puppeteer turned around to me and shot flames at me. I couldn't move, so I closed my eyes and prayed to whoever would help. But the flames never came, in fact; everything felt wet.

I pealed my eyes open and saw a wall of water in front of me. On the other side the puppeteer was fuming, literally.

"You weren't supposed to know how the fuck to do that yet!" He roared in anger, all the while more flames was trying to force their way through my barrier. My barrier? Well, at least I knew I stood a chance.

I slowly stood up, wobbling out of control. I forced the water to wrap itself around my legs, giving them a brace so that I could stand or maybe even run.

"I hope this works," I muttered to myself. Without a second thought I charged forward, keeping the barrier in front of me. I pulled my hand back and wrapped water around it like I did with my legs.

'Now!' I thought as I released my barrier and found myself face-to-face with the fire puppeteer. With all the force I could muster I swung my fist at him, he never had the chance to stop me; my fist made impact in the dead centre of his face – the force shot him into the air.

I watched his flailing body as it came back down to earth at an alarming speed. A sickening crunch shocked my body as his own crumpled in a heap of meat on the other side of the car park. Not far from me Josher gave out a blood chilling scream and turned to dust.

"That's right," I said to myself as I dragged my damaged body home. "A puppet disappears after his puppeteer is killed."

With on final glance back at the fire puppeteer I trudged my way home, already planning on where to run to.