Puppets of Tragedy

by Iridescence T Wind

Terror In Terror Town

After about an hour of interrogation, Davy Jones was leading a small pack of fish-pirates down beneath the waters of the islands with Melody, while Aku was beginning to head up the soon to be unfortunate pyramid like ruins from the inside with a very paranoid Amber in tow. I had sent Davy Jones below the water with the siren, to preemptively cause damage control as well as fulfill the purpose of confirming the disturbing news that had been revealed to me.

Naught but traps and the occasional female guard awaited Aku as he climbed, so Davy Jones had the spotlight of my mind. He was mostly silent, as was I studying the creatures while I myself dug through my laptops recently acquired wikipedia of creatures for information on sirens back in my office. However, a few other objects were coming into play in secret while I scanned through the information regarding them.

Female after female, one after another. Not one male to be found. She took Davy Jones through the underwater fish tank that made up their society. A delicate and self contained biosphere that was only able to thrive based on a tightly controlled population of not only food, living space, animals, and plant life. But on a controlled population. A population of only female Sirens.

One king, and a city full of females, sure it was a mans dream at first, as well as a way to make sure that numbers stayed where they were, but the implications was dangerous, if not outright enraging. This was a sealed society, meaning there was no leaving this complex underwater cave network of stone and rock. No place to put the males. With none around, that meant one thing...

He had their men killed off when they were born, perhaps even before that point with what little I knew of magic. This, made my vision swim a very manly shade of bright pink.

Red. Brain.

Shut up, I know what I'm seeing.

The more I looked, the more the truth of this was evident. Run down buildings, and tired, exhausted workers. A good portion of them even had scars and bruises that weren't either old or accidental. A population of three hundred women. That was what this cave system was able to support alongside their king. Each one working day in and day out like machines under his rule. To what hope did they have, though, for a freedom? When even if they could expel or kill their king, they would of been doomed to a life of extinction due to the only male of their people also being their tyrant king? It was all too easy to dehumanize him, and create a monster in my head.

But then I reminded myself that he was indeed, a sentient, thinking individual too. That self reminder transformed barely bridled wrath into something a bit more manageable but vastly more driving. Pure and directed anger. The roof of the cave slowly started to shake as the plan went underway. This siren couldn't be all knowing or omnipotent, else his guards would of been more prepared as Aku all but overwhelmed each patrol as he happened across it. My hands itched towards my chest of tools, that was slowly growing with each day, but I withheld the urge based on my tacticians approach. To reveal all my tools now, and their scope would be foolish, I knew the real strategy to winning in a sterotypical fantasy plot would be to have the most cards hidden in your sleeves as possible. These were the things that drove plot along in not only games but actual shows and and stories as well. Things like Princess Buy-our-toys and Captain Plot Armor deus ex machina changeling repulsing blast, or Davy Jone's heart.

As equally bad as the slaughter of newly made/born men was what happened when a female was given birth while their population was still at the maximum capacity, their oldest member, any excess higher than ten a year, or one deemed unable to work any longer would be summarily slaughtered like live-stock to be replaced by the newborn. That newborn would be expected to start working by the time she could think, talk, and swim by herself. By the laptops reckoning, that was about the age of five. Melody said that there wasn't one Siren on this island other than the king over thirty years old. Which means that ten pointless deaths happened per year on the female side, along side that of the males uncountable numbers. In short, at the sheer minimum, over a thousand some odd years he had killed ten thousand of the female population, and an estimated same number of men alongside whatever havoc he had created for Equestria so long ago.

Melody was oddly quiet beyond what I had told her of my plan. With what she had told me being clearly confirmed, I took out all the stops regarding the puppets I had currently active. On the laptop, however, I was learning something new about sirens. Sirens had affinities similar to changelings, in the way that they could charge their magic with emotions, but also had a ponies natural regenerative magic to go along side. That said, their magic itself was elemental based, rather than just being pure sound. This affinity usually took form in one of three shapes, with a fourth extremely rare one.

From what I've learned, the common three forms from the order of most common to least common was water, which made up the majority of these sirens, as they were primarily an aquatic species, but still were amphibious in regard to evolution. Their magic was more on the lines of stereotypical elemental magic in regards it was the healing class of the sirens in terms of use. Which is what allowed them to be so hard worked in the first place without eventually dying from exhaustion and injury all these long years. The second most common was Air. These sirens could fly through the air similar to pegasus ponies, but were also able to swim in water just as fine. Melody herself as well as most of the guard and the three sirens that were with the king before they were banished by Starswirl The Bearded.

Physical appearance wise, the water variant had smoother and more dynamic fins for water based travel while the air variant had fins that were closer to a dragons wing and ears in fin design. The third, which was the least common in the standard races were the earth pony equivalent, who could literally swim in rock, but Melody as well as the book said that the breed that could swim in that substance was unable to live in water, sinking like, well... rocks and requiring a lot of resources that were usually very hard to acquire with a majority water race. I put the king under here, because it was the obvious choice for being able to sink a mountain, something of which I had my own doubts to still.

The fourth variant was a hybrid race between a dragon and a earth variant, the flame variant, but those, Melody had thought upon being confronted with this, was extinct. Primarily due to no dragons living in the cave, and that the only instances of that race had been before the tyrant had sunken the city. If he did do this, I would have to classify him as stronger than a dragon or the ice wraith of a windigo king that had caused me so much trouble, but still weaker than Twilight Sparkle or the princesses. I mean come on, Celestia and Luna raise the moon and sun in this world, and Twilight is supposedly stronger in magic than Starswirl was and could barely lift an Ursa Minor, the same Starswirl who took out the kings top three in his command by himself as legend has it.

Something was off though, was it just me or was the water getting warmer? I at first had ignored it due to thinking its just Davy Jones getting used to the water, but it was now growing past room temperatures. Soon enough I had yet another big worry that sent my plan into overtime and caused me to drag out a mask and crown from my chest, just in case... Well that might explain some stuff, I guess. But I felt something was off here.

I wouldn't know the truth until the inevitable fighting began though, and that meant the key word to every victory. Preparation. Aku himself was approaching a large set of stone doors as Amber caught up, and I slowed myself down to a casual walk. Not only to prepare for the rest of my plan, but to allow Amber to catch her breath. The griffoness was angry for the same reasons I was, as best as I could tell. While she respected a strong man, she couldn't tolerate any of the 'shark jumping minotaur turd' that had been transpiring down here either.

After a short rest, and once everything was in position, Aku made his way into the throne room to confront the murderous tyrant king that was Sharp Opera.

Comments

[Omega Delta]

[Iridescence T Wind]

5422970 It is said he shouted the previous king to pieces- So more like Atlantean Ulfric Lannister Drawing on about six or seven different inspirations for this next guy, though it was largely inspired by the 'Little Mermaid', Fallout Vault 69 (a vault with 999 women, and 1 man at time of sealing), as well as a few other corrupt government systems I've seen a while ago. The concept of a corrupt leader is hardly new, and overall, hoping to prepare this villain as something to use in the long run as well as a bit of insight into what sort of values the Puppet Master has when put into action rather than just thinking about them.

[rikusorasephiroth]

I expect a scene of this.

Puppet master in Goku's poition.

[Cauchemar]

Part dragon varriants...warm water....shout to pieces ..he's a flame varriant dragonborn

[Mad Maudlin]

So.. should he kill the current king, would that mean he now has a harem of 300 fish women?

[The writing on the wall]

5423012 Kill current king and face problem of species of fish ponies dying out, or let king live but face problem of his interference later.
Also why do I get a sort of "alicorn" fish pony from your whole comparing Wikipedia info page while heading to meet the king?
Either way I love the chapters, clean, clear and coherent.

Hope to read from you soon!
sign
The writing on the wall.

P.S. Mad Maudlin`s point is a critical one if you do go down the path you did with the windigo king. if you do it will be interesting if he absorbs the magic correctly or ends up with a fiery lava hand to go with his cold crystal one.

[Iridescence T Wind]

5424610 There's an evident problem in comparison to the Windigo king, for one, the windigo king could be considered a possessed object, or animate one in comparison to the actual living immortal being. Alongside that the orc god himself had to save the puppet master the first time around at a cost. However, I wouldn't discount your theory thus far, but remember, the Puppet Master is still heavily injured at this point in time. So that's gonna be fun.

[The writing on the wall]

5425174 If it thinks and feels, plus hold a original conversation it is a living sentient being. Regardless, his whole "no killing" is gong to back fire at one point or another. Hopefully its not the climax of this story.

On a side note: all I can think of is puppet master putting his face on one of his puppet but having taken form as female version of himself....

What!?

Its ever mans dream at one point or another to have breast attached to them, just ask dead pools split personalities.