• Published 1st Apr 2014
  • 15,303 Views, 1,427 Comments

Puppets of Tragedy - Iridescence T Wind



We all know the story, human from earth goes to Equestria from buying a mystical prop from a mysterious unnamed salesman to attend Comicon. But what you didn't expect was the prop to be a puppeteers crafting kit.

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Adjusting some Strings

Skargor was patient by Ork standards. He understood the requirement for it. The necessity that it was to run a proper Waaagh. As fun as it was to race ahead of the rest of the boys in the army, and feel the enemy firsthand, it was a double sided blade. Those who raced ahead first also died first, while a well organized army who arrived all at the same time however, crushed the enemy.

Victory, however, was not his primary concern. By all rights he had destroyed the remainder of the Equestrian nations, claimed all they once held dear to the horde of Orks who revered him as their god of the Waaagh, and now there was no one left in this universe to fight. He was bitter, Yoko, the one he wanted to kill almost as much as the damned solar monarch. Now they were both gone, without the thrill of the fight. One having blown themselves up, the other...

He stared to the abyss.

It would of been a good fight. One that had been denied by a turncoat. Though that feat itself was no easy thing in of itself. He was now maimed, that made it more of a challenge. Which made the fight harder, and by relation better. But the fight was not in this dead world. Not in this dead universe ruled by the Orks. He felt the connection growing, the only time he had traveled to that turncoats world, he had left the eventual seeds of his invasion.

He stared at the abyss.

He had changed, those cursed Elements of Harmony had broken his godly form. Their last ditch efforts now a horrendous pentagon of scars upon his body, their burned out husks now jagged crystals permanently in his form. He could no more take them out than rip the remainder of his own divinity out. His good fight, however, was not ready for him. He needed something stronger. Orks grew off fighting good fights. No glory to be had to Gork and Mork if you fought and beat a weaker opponent. Would be like beating a Gretchin, not satisfying.

He stared at the abyss and grinned.

No, he would grow this turncoat. His once rival no longer had the tools to hurt him further. His token was already there. A copy squirreled away in the feral tribe of Orks currently living right beneath the damned Puppet's nose. But with his token there, he could call others to fight him. Make his power grow, get rid of annoyances as well. A win win situation. Should the turncoat lose, then he wasn't a challenge worth fighting. His burly hands, charred, gripped a gold necklace. Another person of another multiverse. He would enjoy playing the game of politician.

He stared at the abyss. Where once Equis and its celestial bodies stood, and grinned.

"Oh I know just the roulette of fighters for you Puppet Master. Let the games begin." He raised the gold circular neckband and began the process. Channeling and calling forth his first fighter. "Lets see how you deal with this one."

He stared at the abyss of Equis, as he was dragged into another world, one similarly empty for a completely different reason. Where Equis was cold and dark, where one other being lived in the castle of a kingdom in revolt. Its world devoid of day and night, a perpetual twilight.

Skargor began to laugh.The abyss laughed with him.

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Meanwhile back in Puppets Dimension

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The disadvantage of being an insomniac is that, short of being bone dead tired, is that it is near impossible to go to sleep unless your body let you after hours and hours of laying in bed. I, in preparation for Yoko, began a series of mask maintenance and the creation of spare props while I laid in bed during the night. Several hours passed by before my concentration waned enough to pass out, and with my body getting much needed sleep. It was probably the first night since coming to Equestria that I actually had more than eight hours of sleep, thanks to turning in so early in the evening.

When I woke however, it was three in the morning. Most of it had passed by in a black void of dreamlessness that left me feeling like it had only been fifteen seconds of unconsciousness. The laptops clock, however, told otherwise. I let my body rest some more as I thought about just who I was going to be sparing with. In our youth, Yoko had been a semi reserved childhood friend, only picking up a more unreserved style of play when we had begun first playing Warhammer 40k, Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, and others. In the first one, most of her characters had been melee specialists, with fury to rival a berserker in battle, but an analytical type when involved with planning wars. She preferred hit and run tactics enough that some of the chapters of space marines who preferred such things, as well as some of the races who were specialized in it would of probably of wanted her characters among their ranks.

I on the other-hand would focus on ranged fire characters or technical support wheras I would lead a military to fortify the hell out of everything in sight to the point that a stronghold became its own massive weapon, costing the enemy a good portion of their forces just to advance inch by inch towards it. Our strategies had complimented each other in that past. She would stall the enemy, destroy supply lines and hit then where they weren't before withdrawing at the same rapid pace while I would make the stronghold to break their back upon the walls. We covered each others weaknesses back then. My fortifications would fall eventually if the enemy had a constant supply line for their siege engines, while Yokos forces would of been decimated in a straight up fight, surrounded without a fort to fall back to. It had taken about three planets before the game master of that particular game banned us from taking direct command of military forces. Yoko, had found this hilarious.

There was another factor though that I had to consider, Yoko had fought in at least a war against Orks. Let alone actually having fought any of the other xenos threats that could of lived in that universe. So I was fighting someone who was now a super soldier, with a lot more practical military experience, and as a result a far higher amount of resultant combat experience. So in other words, in an orthodox combat, I was facing a high likely hood of outright failure in a melee. So instead I worked on building a helmet. Specifically one tailored towards a combination of irony as well as hopefully catching her off guard. Renovations also started to occur as I started a pair of helmets. They wouldn't have enough time to dry properly, but it would prove a bit of a surprise if she tried to advance to a 'war game' state with this 'training' she was planning.

In the meantime I was preparing a salvo, and choosing which weapon I was going to go with. The lightsaber was out, we had no way to replace a Chain-sword properly if I cut through it, and I didn't want to risk a slip in either hurting her or myself. That left one of my other pet projects considering my general lack of skill in swordplay. There was the keyblade, which had a rebar center that was then wrapped in various amounts and styles of foam, it was heavy but sturdy. Little better than a baseball bat in my grip... No that wouldn't do very well. I considered my options. Regular training swords would be lost upon Yoko, her immense strength as a space marine would snap a log like a twig. Let alone a wooden practice blades.

Yokos tool she had acquired from her merchant was a heavy bolter alongside eventually a chain sword. A gun in short, while mine was puppets. This was a warrior trying to teach a summoner to sword fight. I had relied on puppets heavily, and the tools I've made. None of what I used personally was a direct melee weapon in comparison. Always figured if I was in melee combat, something had gone seriously wrong. I examined myself.

I was short, not strong, and about average in terms of agility in my size. My legs were far stronger than my arms, more used to fine tuning and carving than heavy manual labor, as well as traveling about the place. Wielding a heavier weapon like the sturdy keyblade would be downright a no. I needed a light weapon then with reach, to keep the enemy away from me. Whips were out, they were useless against armor unless built for overkill, nor did I want to risk hurting myself with the backlash of using one. Spears were easy to counter.

Wait, there was another solution. I grinned, and began searching through more tools I had made in my spare time, mostly since I wanted to have a large variety and during offtime, it was fun to carve out new items from foam and refine my skill. This had lead to me collecting a large selection of gear. Similar to how the cards and keyblade came from kingdom hearts, other tools had also been made from that particular organization. What I was looking for, however, was one item in particular.

Vexan, he was an organization leader with a shield called the Frozen Pride The base material had been cut out with a bit of laser on thin metal action with GLaDOS also bending it into the correct shape before being covered in foam and cut to proper appearance. The Arm guard was also based on the original design, with a modifiable element to it, depending on who was going to wield it. I had briefly during creation had the temptation to give it to Fluttershy for her own protection but its effects and the lore behind the weapon would of been lost on her. That and the foam would require constant maintenance between battles until I learned of a proper way to smith than just using GLaDOS to cut crude metal sheets from wall panels.

The shield itself appeared like a blue upside-down tear drop with two chunks taken out of the side, and another two towards the point of it. A group of four small spikes lined the rounded edge of the teardrop shaped shield with a fifth one in the center that was far larger. It probably wouldn't be able to sustain that gun of hers for very long, but it would work out as a decent defense as a mage type. Defense of my own person should be a decent enough offense considering that the puppets do most of the work for me. So I could multitask as well then with the marionette tool and the shield. I also had to remember that I still wore the rosary shield and the other little tricks, but this was weapon training. Not gimmicks everywhere day.

I took a good chug of two mugs worth of coffee while sitting in bed before cleaning up both the room and myself, alongside swapping my usual robes out for a more gym appropriate workout clothes. Shield, check. Marionette tool, check.
Loose fitting but secured combat pants and shoes? check. As for the different robe, I might as well have some fun with what I was going to be using as a defense weapon for today.

I drug out one last item from the collection of Kingdom hearts memorabilia that I had made and grinned, putting it on over a light shirt and zipping it up nice and snug. Perfect fit. The only thing left was to flip up the hood and I'd be the worlds shortest Organization XIII member. Instead of Black Gloves, I wore the usual ones, and flipped the contents of my robes pockets into this one. It felt right to have the deck of cards especially in this coat. Though now I was really tempted to show Yoko more of my work. I'd show her more later. But for now, I had a few puppets put on some masks and made my way out of my room and headed towards the training room. Yoko wanted me to be there early in the morning.

Once there I began to set up shop proper, I had altered and enlarged the room to support some bleachers near the entrance, as well as a variety of sparing and dueling areas including an obstacle course for the more physically inclined. I set up a throne and began to wait in the center of one of the dueling rooms. Hood up, and waiting for the others to arrive. The shield vanished into thin air for summoning later, as I waited for them to come. The various masks being laid on a set up table next to me.

I knew a lot of them, including the mane six and the princesses already had some knowledge regarding the masks, in hind sight using the Bowser mask in front of them during my debut probably wasn't the best idea. However, they didn't know just how many of my minions WERE masks. Thus the secrecy of keeping this particular training session from Rainbow Dash. In the instance that she went back to her old friends, she wouldn't have this particular bit of information to share to affirm the fact that most of my super powered buddies were indeed puppets. As a result their combat efforts would be mostly restrained, unless the information was completely blown in which case a severe lack of self restraint would begin to be present among all hostile forces that would see me dead in stone.

My mind began to wander as I waited, but soon enough everyone began to gather, and then Yoko walked into the room. My mind went on high alert.

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