First time I killed someone with my strings, I was twelve. Not the rebar incident - that was messy, prehistoric. This was different. Art. The target was some trust fund baby turned crime lord. Called himself "The Collector." Liked to collect things. People. Children. You get the idea.

My strings were new then. Raw. Like razor wire made of shadow and spite. They moved like living things, hungry things. Each one a whisper of death waiting to happen.

I found him in his penthouse. All marble and mirrors. Pretentious fuck. He saw me coming. Called his guards. Amateur hour.

My strings danced. Blood painted abstract art on pristine walls. Bodies dropped like marionettes with cut strings. Poetic, really. The Collector ran. They always run.

I caught him in his private gallery. Trophies everywhere. Pictures. Videos. Evidence.

"Please," he begged. "I'll give you anything."

My strings wrapped around him. Gentle as a lover's caress. Sharp as betrayal.

"I don't want anything," I whispered. "I just want you to feel it."

The strings tightened. Blood bloomed like roses. His screams? Music. That's when I learned strings could do more than cut. They could drink. Drain. Devour.

I felt his life force flow into me. Hot. Electric. Addictive.

When it was over, nothing remained but an empty husk and a valuable lesson: sometimes the strings get hungry. Best to feed them.

***

Finding Veil wasn't hard. Just had to follow the trail of shattered minds and broken realities.

Guy had a pattern - high-end art galleries, museums, places with lots of glass and mirrors. Narcissist's dream. Each victim left behind a signature: eyes turned to mirrors, reflecting horrors only they could see.

I tracked him through three cities. New York. Paris. Finally, Prague.

The House of Mirrors. Abandoned funhouse on the outskirts. Because apparently every cosmic asshole needs a themed hideout. Place had a history. Built in the 1920s. Closed after a string of disappearances. Kids going in, never coming out. Real subtle, Veil.

Torque's stolen memories painted a picture. Veil wasn't just hiding here - he was feeding. Each mirror a gateway to someone's personal hell. Each reflection a feast of fear and broken sanity.

I stood outside, watching my reflection multiply across the cracked facade. Lightning danced along my strings, casting shadows that shouldn't exist.

Time to crash the party.

I stepped inside. Every surface reflected infinity. My face stared back a thousand times. Each reflection slightly wrong.

"Like what you see?" Veil's voice. Everywhere and nowhere. Smug bastard.

"Must be nice," I called out, voice echoing in the endless reflections. "Surrounding yourself with your own reflection. Got enough mirrors to compensate for something?"

Laughter rippled through the chamber like oil on water. "The puppet master himself. Come to steal what isn't yours."

Veil's first attack wasn't subtle. A blade of pure light materialized behind me, aimed at my spine. Would've bisected me if I'd been where he thought I was.

My strings lashed out, black lightning dancing along their length. They hit nothing but glass. Reflections shattered, multiplied. Each broken piece showed a different version of reality. In one, I was burning. In another, drowning. Creative bastard.

"Can't trust your eyes here," Veil taunted. His image appeared in every shard, a kaleidoscope of smirking faces. "Welcome to my hall of illusions. Let me show you what real fear looks like."

The air itself turned hostile. Oxygen became razors in my lungs. Each breath brought the taste of blood and broken glass. My skin erupted in a thousand cuts, shallow but painful. Death by paper cuts - how fucking poetic.

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I smiled through bloodied teeth. "Cute parlor tricks. But who said I was using my eyes?"

I closed them, letting other senses take over. The subtle shift of air currents. The faint scent of fear-sweat and ozone. The almost imperceptible vibration of footsteps on glass.

Maelstrom's power surged through my veins like liquid lightning. The air crackled with potential, ready to unleash hell. Torque's telekinesis reached out like invisible fingers, feeling for mass, for substance among the shadows.

A section of floor vanished beneath my feet. Vertigo hit like a sledgehammer to the gut. The sensation of falling, falling, falling into an infinite void...

I pushed back with Torque's power, forcing reality to bend to my will. Glass shards froze in mid-air, forming a makeshift platform.

"That all you got?" I spat a mouthful of blood onto a mirror. The reflection showed it turning to maggots. Nice touch.

Veil's laugh turned darker. "Oh, we're just getting started. Illusions aren't just visual, puppet master. Let me show you true horror."

The room twisted like a Rubik's cube made of nightmares. Walls became flesh, pulsing with grotesque life. The floor writhed with tentacles made of mirror-glass and malice. The ceiling wept blood that flowed upward.

I had to admit - guy had style.

"Ever wonder," Veil's voice slithered through the chaos, "what it feels like to be unmade? To have reality itself reject you?"

The air solidified around me. Every molecule became a knife, trying to flay me alive. My skin split open in artistic patterns, blood flowing in impossible directions. Internal organs rearranged themselves in ways that would make a surgeon vomit.

But pain? Pain's just weakness leaving the body. And I've got plenty of weakness to spare.

My strings exploded outward in a web of death and hunger. Each one crackling with stolen lightning, wrapped in telekinetic force. They cut through illusions like they were tissue paper, leaving reality bleeding in their wake.

Glass shattered. Reflections multiplied exponentially. A million versions of me, a million versions of Veil, all dancing our deadly ballet.

He appeared. Disappeared. Phased through solid matter like a ghost with ADHD. Each movement left afterimages, each step distorted space itself.

"You're in my world now," he hissed, hands weaving complex patterns. Reality rippled like a pond in an earthquake. "Let me show you what that means."

The room imploded. Space folded in on itself like cosmic origami. Up became down, inside became outside, forwards went sideways. My brain tried to process angles that shouldn't exist.

I felt blood vessels burst in my eyes, painting my vision crimson. Internal organs screamed as physics took a coffee break. Bones creaked under pressures that shouldn't exist in this dimension.

Perfect.

My strings cut through it all, each one a lifeline to what's real. Lightning arced between them, forming a cage of electric death. Torque's power added another layer, crushing illusions through brute force.

"Found you," I whispered, tasting blood and victory.

One string caught his shoulder, cutting through defensive illusions like they were smoke. Real blood sprayed, turning to crystals in the fractured air. Veil's concentration slipped. Reality hiccuped. For just a moment, I saw him - the real him. Fear bloomed in eyes that had seen too much.

"Wait," he gasped, trying to back away. "You don't understand. The power - it's not meant to be-"

I didn't let him finish. My strings struck as one, a symphony of death and hunger. They pierced flesh, bone, and reality itself.

Veil tried one last desperate trick. His body turned transparent, tried to phase through dimensions. Cute.

But you can't hide from strings that smell fear. They wrapped around his essence, drinking deep. Every illusion he'd ever crafted, every reality he'd ever bent - all of it flowed into me like liquid dreams.

His scream transcended sound, became pure concept. Windows shattered for miles. Reality fractured in sympathy.

When it was over, Veil lay broken on a floor that couldn't decide if it was glass or flesh. Blood pooled around him, each drop containing a different version of truth.

Standing over Veil's body, watching his last breath fade into the stale warehouse air, I smiled. Blood dripped from my knuckles, each drop hitting the concrete like a metronome counting down to revolution.

The student had become the master, but this was more than just a changing of the guard. This was the first domino in a chain reaction that would reshape reality itself.

I could feel Veil's power coursing through my veins, mixing with my own like oil and water - refusing to blend, creating something new, something dangerous. My shadow stretched across the floor, dancing without light, moving without purpose. The strings of fate trembled at my fingertips, begging to be pulled, waiting to be twisted.

His memories flooded my mind. Secret meetings in hidden places. Ancient rituals performed under starless skies. The Fellowship of the Mystic, playing their games of power and control. I saw their faces, learned their names, understood their fears.

Every puppet has its weak points. Every string can be cut.

Maelstrom, master of elements, hiding his insecurities behind storms and earthquakes. Torque, the telekinetic terror, whose grip on power was as fragile as her grip on sanity. Veil, weaver of illusions, whose greatest deception was convincing himself he was in control. And Chronos - the immortal, death's blind spot, the universe's most persistent headache.

One by one, I'd hunt them down. Not just for power, not just for revenge, but for something greater. Something they were too afraid to attempt. The complete rewriting of reality's rules. Why play by the book when you can burn it and write your own?

I flexed my fingers, watching reality ripple like water. Shadows danced across the walls, forming puppets that mimicked my movements. In the corner, Veil's blood began to move, drawing patterns that shouldn't exist in this dimension.

Their power would become mine. Their knowledge, their abilities, their very essence - all tools in my grand performance. Every defeat would make me stronger. Every absorption would bring me closer to my goal. The world wasn't ready for what I was about to unleash.

And anyone who dared to stand in my way? They'd learn why whispers of The Marionette sent shivers down the spines of those who knew better. They'd understand why even the darkness feared my shadows.

In my theater of cruelty, everyone plays their part - willing or not.

After all, in my world, free will is just another string to pull. Reality is just another stage to set. And everyone, from the highest god to the lowest mortal, dances to my tune.

Whether they want to or not.

Time to make forever bleed.