Puppets of Tragedy

by Iridescence T Wind


I'm Knot a Daemon

"Finish them, Puppet Master!" the Ork god called out, momentary panic rising. He had seen the sudden pause in combat, and the shift in the tones. No longer were the puppets attacking the marines, but rather defending against them and not making further aggressive moves. What was once a wave, was now a tide in retreat. Providing a bubble around the marines which neither his orks could shoot through, nor the warriors could slice out of.

The Puppet Master was speechless, his eyes locked upon the face of his friend. Evaluating the situation among the chaotic fighting was proving futile, but he knew one thing for sure, and that was that nothing was what it seemed. He threw a new plan into action, puppets suddenly enclosing on all of them, as more and more multiplied into existence, waves upon waves of puppets now overwhelming the outer forces of the Orks, as a thin shadow of a hand reached up and grabbed the abandoned summoning trinket that had been used to bring him here in the first place. Taking it with him, he used his own trinket as a pathway backwards, dragging with him, the combined groups of a dozen space marines along with himself. Deciding to delay further action until he could safely determine it himself.

The Ork god looked on enraged at the sudden disappearance, reaching for the mask that had been stolen while he was distracted. Discovering the ploy he shouted in rage against the Space Marines and Puppet Master, as the ever closing gap between his palace and the sun shrunk. He vanished, among that bright light, right as the fires hit, and the world shattered. Consumed within the orb of fire as its massive gravity continued to grow and fires hotter than anything could hope to achieve, consumed all. His echoing screams resounded throughout that roaring fire, that he would be back. And both the Marines and the one he had summoned would pay for their actions that day.

The world consumed in fire as they warped away, before it had been cramped, as the Puppet Master was shoved through the first time, now so, it was even more so, and the degree of influence he had over their exit location was generalized. In the end he managed to drop the party of puppets, half ton marines, and himself in a scattering spray of humanoid cannonballs, as they exited. Skidding into the training room of one of the dozens of floors within his base. Thankful that he hadn't brought this war into his own world's Canterlot throne room.

Everyone groaned, from either their own discomfort from traveling between universes, or the rough landing. A dozen marines, and Yoko splayed out in various positions, quickly recovering as was their creed. Once again the puppets had been separated from their masks, an effect that the Puppet Master noted, for future travels as he slowly stood back up. Glados was back up and running again, as he stretched, and held out a hand for Yoko, who looked questioningly at him, "The hell did you just do?"

"Giant ball of fire, heading towards us from out the window, learning that your best friend from your childhood who you were previously thought never to see again was fighting your new buddy, and then trying to save you and your evident friends not a good move?"

"About as good a move as an Ork psyker stealing displaced tokens. Never expected you to be one as well, though." Yoko replied, getting up, before staring me dead in the eyes, "Are you really my Xander?"

"As assured as Deargon went working for the Tau." I said, dropping a little inside joke that only she would really know, "Shame we couldn't meet at the con. Did Discord get you too?"

"No, actually. The merchant did." Yoko replied, casually, "You got a prop from Discord? Thought you made all your own stuff. Cheater."

"I was actually shopping for a replacement tool for my kit. Can't carve foam with a broken Dremel. Picked up a lesson on forming Dissy's horn and got warped to Equestria to show the worth of Tragic villains, so that they wouldn't keep getting murdered by the elements of harmony." I explained hurriedly, "What about you? You had someone else? A Merchant?"

"Yeah, long story about that," she shrugged, "I was looking for a new bolter prop because I wanted to show off when we met again next con, but the-"

The buzzing of chainblades, cackling of thunder-spewing hammers, and whirling of axes cut her off as the group of half ton armored marines came at us, or well me. "Get the Daemon!" One of them yelled, joined by the others as they took up holy yelling. I deadpanned, portals openning beneath their feet and appearing again once more at the far end of the room. Once more they went sprawling, yelling turned into confused screams, before more angry yelling. Portals closed before they could use them to regain the distance.

Turning back to Yoko I asked, "Were they part of your world before or AFTER you came into it?"

She sighed, "Sadly, after it, they're a bit less xenophobic than the lore ones, but I did fill them up with tales of our group, both from the table top and later on in the war. Sadly they seem to be running out of worlds, since that Ork guy came in roughly at the same time I did on the opposite end of the earth. Unluckily he won in the end, as you can tell."

"In a war, no one is a winner," I quoted, not sure from who, but it sounded like something a smart person once said, "Mind telling them to stop charging at me before I need to use force? Though the portals may keep them occupied for a while." I said this as I rose a wall in time to block a thrown power axe. Which tore a rather unsettlingly large hole into the wall, before stopping.

Yoko, didn't answer me but turned to face her compatriots and yell, "Hold! This man is no enemy!"

"But he's a daemon!" one of them yelled before promptly falling into yet another portal, having made it half way to me before slipping up on a sudden portal mine field that had spawned in order to stop their rather fast charge.

"He is no more a Daemon than I am an Ork!" She yelled in response, "This is Inquisitor Deargon you fools."

I rose an nonexistent Eyebrow, "Calling me after my Character?" I asked.

"Trust me, its easier to go with that persona than try to explain to them that we role played what we actually did in that world." She responded, a look of wearyness present in her eyes, twinged with happiness, "It's been a long war, and I'd rather not have them think that I started as a complete nerd after all thats happened."

"That midget is Deargon?!" another marine shouted, delayed as he had to run back within earshot again.

I shook my hand at him, "I'm not a midget!"

"In all fairness you are short." Yoko smirked, "Probably should of drank your milk when you were growing up."

"Really?!" I exclaimed, "You're making that reference, now?!"

She gave a small laugh at my anger, "Yep, you're definitely my childhood friend." raising her voice again she shouted, "Thrones sake, Stop fighting, you're only embarrassing yourselves!"

Slowly the group of marines stopped charging, and I smiled as they put away their weapons. Finally able to let them within radius of me, walls rose once more and this time allowed the towering marines to crouch through the portals and rejoin us."

"As I was saying, boys. This is Inquistor Deargon, though he also goes by Xander." Yoko introduced me, properly, as I stared up at them. Somewhat irritated by the lack of my own height in comparison to the seven foot of the shortest of the marines. Even Yoko was taller than I last remembered. In comparison to their heights, I was a young child, barely four foot. I was all too aware of the plights of short characters, and my eye twitched once more as one commented.

"I thought he'd be taller..." The front most of the group, bearing heavier and rarer armor of a terminator Marine. Their armor was much bulkier but protective and treasured in a chapter, as it was built to withstand punishment that would make some tanks go to shame.

"Size is not the name of the game. As I'm sure you have noticed." I replied in turn, and asked, "So who're your friends?"

Yoko nodded, at the request, and replied in turn, "We tend to use a lot of code names, so in respect for their privacy. The Terminator is Captain Bronco." She gestured at the marine who had commented about my size, and he shrugged. Unlike most of the marines his melee weapon was a pair of power fists, which were massive armored gloves that would crackle with power when activated.

"Private Lion," She pointed at a marine decorated in holy scriptures to the empire, his armor was less scratched up than the others, though he bore roughly twelve smoking marks from bolters all located in one of his legs, "Don't mind the leg wounds, he gets shot there almost every time we get his armor fully repaired."

"Guilty as charged!" Lion cheerfully injected, placing a hand over the injury, already pulling out a few spare parts from his pack now that the fighting had stopped.

"Commissar Cipher," she pointed out to a marine decorated with a book sigil, and who was carrying a rather large tome in addition to his sword, remarkably uncharred in comparison to the rest of him, which was covered in various amounts of blood and gore. I recalled that the Commissar's role was to maintain the morale and improve the standings within the troops. The fact that one had become a space marine while maintaining the rank of a person usually reserved within the imperial guard was a curiosity. The marine in question nodded at me before opening his book and staring into it.

"Sharp Shooter Dead." She pointed at another marine, who was the most scrawny of the group, as well as the shortest, but who wore seals like a cape behind him, his armor surrounded in a tattered cloak, that flickered in an out of view almost constantly. He had a knife as long as my arm, which was now being used to clear gunk and gore out of his armor, "Boss, I need a new gun."

"We all do Dead." Yoko muttered to me afterwards, "He wanted his name tags when collected to be a sort of grim joke for whoever collected them."

I nodded as Yoko continue to call out names and point at their respective owners, mentally I had my puppet take pictures of each of them and write down a name so that I could recall it later on, aside from Lion, Cipher, Dead, and Bronco; there was Cat and Dog, twins who were inseparable, apparently. Onion, a chatterbox who had their audio disabled in order to keep the rest of their team sane. Speaking of sanity there was a particularly worrisome looking marine who was turning Ork blood into war paint for his helmet, repeating a V shape into it to make his helmet look eternally angry, who was called "Gogo."

Aside from them we still had Needles, the medic of the group. Circuit, who bore a large communication device attached to his pack, which was sadly useless now that it was in my universe. Polanski, who I had a creeping feeling that they could break the fourth wall if there was one. Ghost was an odd member as well, bearing pure white armor in comparison to the rest of the universal black of the chapter, which the true color only was shown as he started clearing off all the muck that had sullied his armor.

Then there was a tech priest, who referred to himself as Bronze Leaf. I'd have to keep an eye on him to make sure he didn't get into anything he shouldn't of. Already he was trying to fiddle with the edges of a portal, some innate curiosity driving him to ignore the rest of the introductions and study the non-real edge of the opening, an mechanical third arm extending over his shoulder and bringing a variety of strange tools to bear as he examined it. Shutting it on him had caused him to become aware of reality again, and with a short apology he had introduced himself, thus leading to my suspicions.

The final member, introduced himself before Yoko could, his armor decorated in seals and carvings only second to Yoko herself out of the group, instead of a helmet he wore a peaked cap with the inquisitorial symbol on its top. It was a dark red I with a skull surrounded by an almost trident like prong of three rectangles on each side. Just from the holier-than-thou tone of his voice, "I am the Chapter Master's honor guard, Hawkens." I could tell I wasn't going to like him already, his eyes measured me up almost predator like.

Great. So many new faces, "Well... Then..." I said, gesturing my way towards the elevator that lead the way both up and down my main base, "Lets find a place for you all to settle down for now and relax, it seems your chapter master and I have some catching up to do.

At Yoko's nod of assent the rest of the marines trodded on towards the elevator. One which I had to rapidly reinforce to deal with approximately six and a half tons of weight, as Yoko and I joined them last, she whispered to me, "They aren't like the normal marines, made the chapter a bit less religious, but some guys, like Hawken and Cipher follow my world's version of the Codex a bit closer than normal. Just a warning."

"As long as your Commissar doesn't shoot allies to encourage obedience, it should be fine. Not that there is much war going on yet in this world." I replied casually, before realizing, after all the excitement, "Oh god, the court case."

In the excitement and violence, I had completely forgotten the court case, and judging from the outside, how the sun was setting, it was long over. Yoko's look of confusion was amplified as I sent a puppet to check on what had happened to Melody and the other sirens as well as the results of Sharp's trial