Puppets of Tragedy

by Iridescence T Wind

Knight-Bane

The Roar had awoken most of the inhabitants of the base I had made my home. Somehow I got the feeling I knew what it belonged to, and as I sat there in bed awake, my senses turned to the cameras that GLaDOS operated and found my suspicion to be correct.

As large as a several elephants stacked on top of one another, and red as blood. With scales that if legends foretold correctly, could turn back the sharpest of blades and prevent arrows from piercing its skin. Wings that could unleash hurricanes of force and claws that could tear armored men asunder. Fire rose from its mouth as it roared in anger, smoke pouring from its nose as yellow slitted eyes narrowed in absolute fury at the wall in front of the old cave entrance. It was a dragon, and unlike the rest of Equestria's inhabitants, it had retained its original shape in the show. Perhaps it had to do something with its sheer size. But I took one hard look at it, and the ruckus it was causing and thought, "Was this what I want to deal with today?"

The answer, without a cup of coffee and a good morning shower first was a resounding, 'No'.

It began to yell something as I drug on my clothes over the pajamas, something long winded and self egotistical, something about bringing fire and death upon the houses of those who dared touch its treasures. Something about being death incarnate and that it will make whoever took its treasure pay a thousandfold for every tiny piece they dared to touch. I ignored him. Focusing instead, putting on a simple mask on one of my puppets, who in turn appeared in the same grumpy disrupted sleep pose that I was in, looking about as annoyed as I was feeling. And as the dragon finished its speech and rose it claw to attack the aperture door, three things happened that the dragon did not expect.

First, as the dragons fist tried to meet the wall, the wall moved out of the way and smacked it in the face. Second, as it reeled in shock that a mere wall had dared to defy it, the floor dropped from under it, and the wall closed upon it like a giant trap door, launching the dragon downward. Third, as the dragon tried to open its wings and catch itself from its sudden fall, a green turtle about two and a half times its size pile drived it into the training center floor. The dragon confused, injured, and suddenly about two hundred feet underground lacked a witty reply as the next puppet took over.

"FOOLISH DRAGON WARRIOR.", yelled the voice of Aku into the dragons ear, causing the winded dragon to flinch backwards from the sheer volume as the shadow raised into the giant towering form of the master of shape-changing, "FOR A THOUSAND YEARS I HAVE SLUMBERED BENEATH THIS MOUN-"

"Uh, what?" A voice asked confused, and I looked down through a camera, a rather annoyed looking griffon was standing there next to Aku, and in my sleepy daze I considered what she must of just witnessed and giggled to myself.

Both the dragon in the room, Aku, and Bowser stared at Amber, who in turned stared at the mess.

Amber looked to the dragon, and then back at the two puppets and shook her crossbow at us like we were being ruffians, which I guess we were, "Hey I'm tryin' to train here!"

Tiredly I interjected with Aku, "One Moment. Then you can resume."

The Dragon tried to interject, "YOU THINK YOU CAN TRA-"

He was promptly socked in the gut by the king of koopas. Breathless the dragon wheezed out an incomprehensible finish. Which was oddly strange. I knew Bowser hit like a truck, but a truck wouldn't of done much to such a creature, was it the effect of...? I didn't care at the moment, all I knew was that the dragon was going to be causing more of a ruckus and that ruckus was stopping me from sleeping in.

I started up the coffee maker as the dragon continued to struggle, before ultimately being taken down and restrained by both puppets. It seemed dragon fire didn't stand a chance against a being who swam in lava as a giant, and another who literally had flaming eyebrows. But he didn't stop struggling, even as futile as it was. So I sighed, opened up a portal in the ground in front of him, and dived through.

"Listen." I told the dragon as I came in, "You're being a pest."

Telling a dragon it was a pest was probably a bad idea, but I'll roll with it. I was supposed to be a big ol' villain. That meant naturally of course defending claimed territory, even if that territory was once, if I suspected correctly this dragons. The dragon on its part tried to fry me alive with a gout of fire. I braced for impact, but the Rosary shield held against it. Mildly shocked at the sudden gout, both of us paused in surprise. No wonder, I had just taken a breathe of dragon fire to the face and survived unharmed. It readied itself for another gout when I leapt into action. I may of been lucky so far, but no need to test the limits. I jumped up a set of cards flying up my sleeves as they expanded and landed on its face, right past the steaming smoking nose and stared it in the eye while it stared back up at me. I recalled a few months back that Fluttershy had landed in much a similar spot in the show, and used the stare to subdue the dragon into leaving without its horde. Which had lead to my current spot.

I didn't have the stare though to subdue a dragon. Instead I did the next best thing, and drained it. Like a leech the dragons power was immense, but not so much in comparison to what had been drained previously. Both the Windigeo crystal and Sharp Opera had a greater reserve than this dragon individually. While a sharp yellow scaled ban formed on my arm within the white lines, it was far far thinner then the rest, almost like a string in comparison to a ribbon that had been the siren kings energy. However, funnily enough the dragon did change to a far greater degree than Sharp did. Wheras Sharp started to look lack luster, the dragon began to shrink, and continued to shrink as I took away every bit of magic he had tried to use to either bully or kill me into submission. Soon, he reached the size of Spike, and looked a lot like him, only with more triangular spines and intact, if albeit useless wings.

The now child-fied dragon didn't faint, or become scared, instead it became an angry ball of fangs about as deadly as a grumpy old housecat, if housecats could spew curse words. Seeing as the dragon was now suicidally mad, I did what any reasonable human being when faced with a raging lizard-man would do.

I dumped him into the badlands.

I was reasonably sure that the badlands were somewhat close to the dragonlands. If only by sheer geographical coincidence. Nor had I ever been to either lands before then, but it was a reasonable enough place to dump the unruly dragon. Especially one that likely had a grudge against ponies for his forced retreat earlier in the year. Guess he came back for his treasure before he took that hundred year nap, but on well not my problem anymore.

"Teach them to mess with my sleep and coffee." I grumbled aloud as the puppets went back to their stations.

Amber just stared at this all in mild confusion, and after a few moments of walking away she asked, "Coffee? Mind if I get a drink?"

"As long as you don't mind going by portal. I still can't get much sleep with the sirens by the door." I grumbled, "Wish they'd lay off already."

"You could tell them to scram boss." Amber replied to be met with a haggard glare.

"Talking to women who want to interrupt you every five seconds with praise and high glory about taking care of a tyrant is rather difficult Amber. Especially when their species are known for magic through sound." I looked her in the eye, "Especially if you don't have much experience turning down women. Its like an introverts worst nightmare."

Amber chuckled, "Right, want me to handle them then boss?"

"After coffee." I grumbled, "Stinkin' dragons. I just managed to get some sleep too."

"To the coffee machine boss." Amber nudged me on, and I reluctantly opened the portal back to my room again. Traveling through it, I pointedly ignored my bed before it dragged me back to dreamland and went towards the coffee machine that I had left out before dealing with the dragon.

Two mugs and several chugs of heavily creamed delightful energy caffeine later, and I was feeling more like myself to finally realize, "Wait..."

"Yeah boss?"

"Did I just take down a dragon?"

"Yes boss."

"What?"

Amber rolled her eyes, "Well technically your minions did the hard work, you sorta finished it off, so yeah boss you kinda did."

I paused, took another sip of coffee and almost did a spit take before stopping myself and taking a deep swallow before continuing, "I am... to say the least... very surprised with this."

Just how much magic did I have to cow a dragon like that? I hadn't really used my magic proper since the fight with Sharp Opera, let alone considered it. Meeting Yoko I hadn't noticed the effect because of the chaos involved in Orks and Space Marines fighting each other with a sun consuming the planet rapidly. How much did the dragons add to it? Questions I had no answer to. The Ork god was no longer a friend, so I couldn't ask him for help clarifying the matter, nor did I know enough about magic to be able to get a gauge. I was snapped out of my pondering silence as Amber asked me question.

"So Boss, what are you going to do now?" The griffon was looking quizzically at my pondering expression, and I took a moment to consider.

"Anything we can do to mess with Shining Armor?" I asked.

"If I recall today he is doing his duties with the royal guard, so short of assaulting the princesses castle, no." Amber replied, taking another drink of her mug of coffee.

"Any Griffon artifacts that need recovery still?" I asked, and again Amber shook her head in negative.

"Boss you got the largest museum of magical artifacts in this country already, any more is just overkill. You could turn them over to my homeland, but currently that is amidst civil strife until a new leader is crowned. Besides most folk there are a bit..." she shook her hand in a chancy gesture, "rude."

"There must be something to do..." I mulled over it. Major events notwithstanding, I didn't want to mess with too many episodes continuity, lest it become unraveled and the events more unclear. Messing with the Mane six perhaps? I checked in, and low and behold they were amidst the mysterious Mare do Well as a masked vigilante of a changing race raced around town in probably the poorest conceived notion to curb Rainbow Dash's ego that I could think of. Out showboating a showboat to get her to not showboat? Silly and stupid. Immediately I wanted to change the course of events.

Resisting the urge was extremely difficult. There was an opportunity here, one that could turn Rainbow Dash against her friends for using the act of Mare do Well to try and teach her a lesson by betraying the trust of the element of loyalty. One could easily make this a lesson on how not to treat your friends. The lesson was there, and it was mouth watering as Rainbow dash was trumped by Mare do Well again and again. Surely she noticed as the race of Mare do well changed, from that of an earth pony to both a unicorn and a pegasus on different encounters. I could turn the heroic Rainbow dash into a spiteful villain by preying upon this moment of weakness to convince her of the truth and shatter the Element bearers unity.

I turned myself from those thoughts, Discord still needed to be freed. As tempting as it is to disrupt the episode with a silver tongue and a bit of luring. But those thoughts came back again, what if I puposely mislead rainbow dash into learning the stories of the tragic villains through this? To make her second guess villains and put Mare do Well into a different less morally harmful light. Now that, was an idea worth acting on.

"Amber, I'd ask you to let everyone know to stay clear of the bottom floors. I'm going to be having an unexpected guest over soon, and I need the room for a bit of mayhem."

"Whatever you say boss, I'm going to keep training then. Make sure to say hello to Trixie and Cass sometime today."

Ideas sprang as I put my plan into action, beginning a long collection of things I'd need to put it into action as well as watching the rest of the Mane six studiously as well. This should go according to plan. Heh.

Comments

[Chaos Nightmare]

the chapter Is almost all Bold.

[Iridescence T Wind]

8628873
Woops, forgot the slight change between the bold and the center font types. Half the time I swear they end themselves if more than one enter hits the screen. Thanks for the catch!

[Royal7]

As large as a several elephants stacked on top of one another, and red as blood. With scales that if legends foretold correctly, could turn back the sharpest of blades and prevent arrows from piercing its skin. Wings that could unleash hurricanes of force and claws that could tear armored men asunder. Fire rose from its mouth as it roared in anger, smoke pouring from its nose as yellow slitted eyes narrowed in absolute fury at the wall in front of the old cave entrance. It was a dragon, and unlike the rest of Equestria's inhabitants, it had retained its original shape in the show. Perhaps it had to do something with its sheer size. But I took one hard look at it, and the ruckus it was causing and thought, "Was this what I want to deal with today?"

erase the “a”

Just how much magic did I have to cow a dragon like that? I hadn't really used my magic proper since the fight with Sharp Opera, let alone considered it. Meeting Yoko I hadn't noticed the effect because of the chaos involved in Orks and Space Marines fighting each other with a sun consuming the planet rapidly. How much did the dragons add to it? Questions I had no answer to. The Ork god was no longer a friend, so I couldn't ask him for help clarifying the matter, nor did I know enough about magic to be able to get a gauge. I was snapped out of my pondering silence as Amber asked me question.

cow a dragon???
Wait, the ork god is dead isn't he?