Strings of Fate

Chapter 9: Trouble Brewing

After a few days half the town had a power cut in the middle of the night making Jasmine sleep in.

Blade always being up at the crack of dawn looked over at the nearest non digital clock.

"She's late." He said jumping out of the trunk, the others still peacefully sleeping.

He walked over to where Jasmine's room was, the door not fully closed so he carefully walked in and was greeted by warmth and a still sleeping Jasmine.

After some effort he was able to climb onto her bed.

Jasmine was fast asleep when she felt something sit on her chest.

She opened he eyes looking right at Blade, before Blade could point at the clock Jasmine bolted upright.

"BLADE! GET OUT OF MY ROOM!" she yelled, Blade quickly jumping down and bolted out the door.

"Pervy bugger." She muttered before seeing the clock flashing 12:00.

"Crap power cut I'm gonna be late!"

She rushed to get ready and within five minutes was out the door.

"What just happened?" Tunneler asked waking up.

"Jasmine overslept and she didn't like my wake up call." Blade said, he, Jester and Pinhead the only ones to call Jasmine by name instead of calling her master or mistress.

"Better then Torchy waking her." Jester said stretching and got a growl from Torch in response.

"Don't call me that."

"Will you two shut up and go back to sleep? Sun ain't even out yet." Six Shooter grumbled, he had started sleeping on the sofa, much more comfy than Toulon's trunk.

"Six if you took your hat off your face you'd see the sun is already out." Blade said.

Jester looked at the trunk, surprisingly Pinhead was still asleep though over the years he had learned to tune his brothers out first thing in the morning something Jester wished he could do.

Eventually it was quiet again, the puppets doing different things to do to pass the time.

However a knock on the door stopped them dead in their tracks

A few hours later at Jasmine's work policemen arrived looking for her.

Jasmine went over worried, her first thought was Torch had burned the place down.

Not long after she received the second whack to the head she decided she would try to get on Torch's good side and with some effort and secrecy had been able to fix his flamethrower, telling Torch not to make her regret her choice and not to let the others know.

Surprisingly he seemed a lot more calm around her and was getting into fights with Blade less.

She shook the thought out of her mind and confirmed she was who the police wanted to speak with.

Her heart dropped hearing what came next.

Someone had broken into her home and there was signs of a struggle.

After telling her boss what happened she ran back to her home as fast as humanly possible the normally twenty minute journey in ten minutes.

Her heart was pounding by the time she reached the stairs, her legs ready to give out on her but she forced herself onwards almost at the point of collapsing.

By now the police had left and as she unlocked the door her stomach dropped.

The whole place had been ransacked

Finally her legs gave up and she fell to her knees.

She had failed as a master, she had failed her grandfather and she had failed her friends.

In a fit of rage she punched Toulon's trunk only looking at it when there was a thunk as a secret space in the back of the trunk opened.

Jasmine's eyes went wide as she picked up a puppet dressed like an Archer.

"You're not in the book. Who are you?"

The Archer puppet must of been no taller than Blade and had pail peach skin, it's body clearly female and was wearing a dark green cloak, the hood covering the top half of her face. There was a white shirt underneath the cloak, black trousers and black shoes. Upon taking down the hood Jasmine saw the Archer had short brown hair and deep blue eyes.

Jasmine smiled to herself seeing she even had a steel bow and arrows set in with her.

After catching her breath and not being able to find the puppets Jasmine grabbed a backpack and placed the Archer puppet in it along with a small vile of formula she was able to find and picked up her bow and arrow set.

Had Jasmine thought more about the puppet she would of noticed how similar it was to her.

Jasmine was about to leave to where she didn't know but she noticed a scrap of paper on her bedroom dresser that the police had seemed to miss, but then again weirdly her room had been relatively untouched.

The paper only had a single instruction.

Come to the abandoned factory, bring nobody.

Jasmine nodded concealing the bow and arrows under her coat and without a second thought raced off as fast as her body would allow her.