Puppets of Tragedy

by Iridescence T Wind

The (Re)Shattering

The castle shook from the burst. Discord was sent hurling back, colliding into a wall but as much as those present followed the motion, he was still falling from wall to ground as the attention in the room was taken to the blinding light of magic fluctuating in the room. A mere moment ago, Discord had defied the way of the world before their very eyes, returning from stone the mask and essence of the Puppet Master, a broken mask having formed momentarily whole, as the spiraling mass of energy tried to reconnect broken bonds. These bonds didn't last but a moment, as the masked inhuman figure spasmed, clutching its chest, the humanoid form distorting and warping, overlayed with the start of the monsterous form of winter returned. The magic screamed, howling winds and a noise that drove cracks into the stone below it, magic that wanted to return to their original owners all pulling each other away from their intended destinations.

Luna tried to raise a shield spell against it, but quickly abandoned the effort as the spell started immediately to drain, a suction far more powerful than the spread, as the magic was clawing at itself. The mortal frame so very much wishing to die, when all those involved wanted very much to live. The strength of its possessors desire, conflicting with its very source. At this point it was too bright for most to stare, even closing ones eyes didn't help, as it pierced through their eyelids, they could only shield themselves with the most barebones of tactics. One element of harmony could take over the world, if used properly. This had been common knowledge to the Alicorn Sisters, their rule cemented by a source of power only the worthy was able to wield. Fear struck into their hearts, for this was going to be a death unlike any before, on a grander scale of even that of Clover the Clever and Commander Hurricane, two ponies whom brought an end to Equestrias natural weather in their death.

Unlike the magic of two powerful ponies, this mess, as far as those present could tell, was far greater. Six Elements of Harmony had been absorbed, alongside magic from several people who could match or surpass the ancient duo on their own. The sight before them was in scale that Luna briefly wondered if someone had managed to bring Celestias Sun onto the face of Equis. Those present were trying now to yell to each other, but the words drowned underneath the force of the cold wind, bitter and far sharper than any felt before, as the magic began to break apart in accordance to their laws.

Magic would flow, naturally, to the course of least resistance. Magical items composed more than half of the power collected, and thus magical items must be made. But so too was life, in the equation. The masks of fallen props around the ground began to rise, somehow despite the intense winds and cold, and a shrieking vaguely of that in anger could be heard atop the already screaming winds as the fragments of Xanders own mask flew to each one. Luna tried to recall their names.

The mask of Bowser, a king of a turtle like race called Koopas. a fragment of Xanders jaw floated onto the surface of it, and seemed to fuse there, as a form began to take shape. Alongside him, other masks, she identified in short order. Doctor Viktor Freeze, a tale most tragic recounted to her by Princess Cadence many a time over the past few weeks. Aku, the ever present seeming shadow by Xanders side, an apparent emperor himself, though of what lands was unknown to her. Tanya was a less familiar sight, but hailed by Prince Blueblood in his letters to her and Tia that she was an extraordinarily ruthless instructor by Equestrian standards. Nox, a man whom wanted his family back, but was doomed never to get it, as neither Wakfu, nor Ogrest existed in Equestria from what she had seen of Xanders Dreams. How he had escaped death after turning into sand was beyond her knowledge, no matter how she dug. A less common one which surprised her was the mask of the Ice King, a figure whom lost his mind to his cursed crown to survive for ages without his beloved wife.

The last mask to make up the six, was one she didn't recognize, more a helmet than a face covering, Luna had seen him try to put it on to no avail after the other five hadn't worked, but there was something positively evil about its design, as it was somehow a hybrid of a skull, with dark sunken features, and a crown of black metal like plastic, arranged into a ring of spikes above it. If she were to pin it in a novel, she'd place it to a demon lord or fallen paladins sort of helmet meant for heavy plate armor. But as the mask shards fused with their props, she couldn't continue to see as the light grew impossibly brighter, and the cold wind forced them further back, the barely audible screams above the wind bringing those in the far distance an echo of the will of the dying.

The greed of a dragons magic, demanded life to continue, as it pulled to consume the energy back.

The Envy of a changeling horde, great but empty of substance, seeking to fill itself.

The Gluttony of an Android, a being of another world, seeking that which wasn't its to consume.

The Pride and Sloth of a Siren King, demanding what wasn't earned.

Then... The source that tried to take over once Xander was gone, the Wrath of the King of Windiegos, demanding all to submit.

These six mixed essences of magic pulled on the fleeing essences of harmony. trying and consuming portions of it as the essence of life tried to pull itself together with those in mind. To her vague sense of relief, the magic snapped, only a tail end, and a third total of the magic together staying together as the masks were knocked seperate from each other in the resulting blast of pain and cold. The elements of harmony fainted, as did Shining armor, and the container holding celestia shattered from the cold, having fallen from the combination of being frozen and blasted with so much pressure. Prince Blueblood and his men planted their shields to cover the helpless, and she felt two more hooves brace her as they tried to say something, the meaning lost in the wind again.

Six dolls began to rise, their motions like that of someone being brought back to life by a stroke of lightning, and all at once the wind stopped shrieking, the room having been blown into a mess in all the chaos, tables upended, chairs shattered, and food adorned the walls with streamers and decorations as if a tornado had passed through. Which it had, Luna noted. A layer of frost coated the ground, a circle around where the magic had expelled itself. Whatever brief hope that Xander had taken control of it all, died in an instant, as they moved, not together in the manner he controlled them, but to secure their own bearings on the world around them. Fog radiated off the central mass of magic, and she felt her heart shudder as suddenly the world ceased to move.

The puppet of Nox moved in a jerky fashion, trying limbs it never had before, his fingers interlocked in a duo loop reminiscent of the infinity symbol, a momentary effort as Luna began to shrug if off as though swimming in deep water, sluggishly. To their surprise, the other dolls present were also already starting to free themselves of the effect, but Nox had already begun an escape plan, first walking then running he went around the shields, and grabbed hold of Twilight Sparkle, desperation in his voice he said, "You and I are going to have a talk." and to the alarm of everyone, no one was able to stop him as the purple mare and Nox vanished, having teleported, and chaos filled the room again.

A white hand reached out, of the fog covered pillar, scaled and sharp with claws like a dragon as it barely missed grabbing hold of the Ice King. The later laughed, as he flew away, defying physics on his beard, and grabbing Princess Cadence of all ponies on his way out, the young Alicorn screaming as he took her away, narrowing avoiding the blast of Mr.Freeze who instead froze a window solid just moments after the Ice King flew through it. Luna ducked as a yellow scaled claw battered aside her would be protectors and the others around the room, grabbing hold of both Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, before throwing himself out a window, a clown faced copter carrying him off to the distance. Luna went to save them, but was stopped by Aku, the shadow shifting monster grinning and setting its sights on the Alicorn of the Night, "And where do you think you're goi-"

His gloating was interrupted as the same white claw that had tried to grab the Ice King pierced him, and to all of their horror, he began to freeze solid, before shattering. an outstretched hand turning to try and catch a shard of mask. Luna caught it before it could, instincts screaming at her, as telekinesis stopped its descent into the claws, and brought it to her.
Her eyes locked with the creature inside, as Rarity screamed, grabbed roughly by a figure in black armor by the hair of her mane.

The figure had skin that was primarily humanoid in shape but twice in its former height to that it matched with her sister by the tip of her horn. Its body was white as marble, with thin blue cracks that ran like molten lava across the chest and into the upper arms and legs. Draconic claws rubbed together as it ground the powder that had resulted from Akus body into icy dust. Its legs were like that of Xanders, human in shape and construction, but the feet ended in similar claws as the hands. A long tail that reminded her of Android 21 adorned it, only ribbed with a hole filled membrane as a mix between the Sirens and Chrysalis's hair. Its head was adorned with the horns of both a dragon forming a crown upon its brow, and that of the mane of a windiego, transparent but full like she was staring at ice. Most unnerving, however, was its face.

With eyes of the windiego King, a light solid blue and a gaze that embodied the worst of a winters wrath. a face quite similar to that of Xanders was present but completely different at the same time. For it was mostly flat, with a thin nose that barely protruded from the face, a jaw that was as wide as a creshire cats but adorned with teeth of a dragon filled its mouth.

"Luna, dearest, would you please hand me that portion of my face back?" the thing that was definitely not Xander asked, "I rather need it at the moment."

Her eyes scanned the rest of the room as Rarity shrieked again. The black coated figure pulling her away and down the hall as it left, Applejack, dazed in the hands of Tanya as the later flew off with a look of confusion and alarm. Rainbow Dash had eluded her grip, and after being whacked with the butt of a rifle had left the pegasus behind.

Most of the guards present were now unconscious, having been taken advantage of before they could of fully recovered from Nox's control of time.

"I don't think I will." Luna stated, looking a lot more brave than she felt.

"It wasn't a request, dearest." The thing that wasn't Xander stated. and he reached back as he collected energy in the palms of his hands, Luna preparing for combat.

What a skirmish it would never be as a wall of ice erupted between them, having been caused by the same said laser that had frozen a window trying to stop the Ice King, "Get out of here!" Mr.Freeze yelled, and she saw the man, with Shining Armor draped over his shoulder.

Starswirl entered the hall, as Luna ran towards both the only villain to stay, "Why are you helping us?"

"You mistake me, princess, for I am helping him." He tilted his head to the unconcious Shining Armor, "Take him and flee this place, save his lover and save the world."

"And what are you going to do?" Starswirl yelled, the ice was cracking, slowly changing as it formed, only held back as more ice joined the mass and needed to have control aserted over it.

"Stall for time." He said, coldly.

Luna looked towards the guards scattered around her, the ponies who were caught up in this mess, Rainbow Dash was drained, she wasn't flying anymore, nor did it look like she could if she wanted to. A dozen guards including her apparent distant nephew Prince Blueblood were out cold on the ground, ice slowly gathering on their armor. Xanders own henchwoman, Cassette was starting to rise as well, but wasn't in any state to fight. Celestia was across the room, stunned from the impact of dropping so abruptly, but she was slowly recovering, "What are you going to do? Give him more magic?!" Luna yelled despite herself, the facade of certainty having cracked.

"Nay, we shall try our best to destroy him." Starswirl stated, his beard of flame glowing just the slightest bit more.

"Then this is a suicide charge. Let me not be the coward here who fled while her mentor tried to flee the line." Luna snorted, turning about face.

"Equestria needs you far more than us." Starswirl spoke with stern certainty, "Save it. I think we both live on borrowed time, here, unlike you."

"Count me in, I feel out of breathe but I'm not about to stop and let this jerk take over." Rainbow Dash was a bit more words than action though, she was barely better off than the guards who were slowly rousing themselves form collapse.

She was about to protest but the four of them were startled as a yellow glow surrounded them and the unconscious. The source of it was clear as day, as her sisters magic enveloped them. The wall of ice obstructing her words as she cast a spell.

"No!" Luna yelled, but guards, ponies, and doll alike vanished in that instant. Teleported.

"Where did you send them?" the creature hissed, outraged to Celestia.

"Somewhere you won't find them." The solar monarch of the sisters spat.

"He knows about the Hippogriffs Tia." Discord groaned, his fur coated in ice as he clutched his gut.

The alarm on her face would of been sweet nectar to the spirit of disharmony had it not been the circumstances.

"With the amount of magic you've used, they should still be in the city." the thing spoke more to itself than them, it casually grabbed Celestia by the horn, and held it before she could cast another spell, "Do that again and the citizens of Equestria shall begin to die." He threatened, and she jerked, before wincing in pain as the pressure increased.

"I shall bring the sun down on you if you dare to hurt those in Canterlot." Celestia coldly warned back.

"You underestimate my scale." The creature spoke back unphased, I still bear enough magic to conquer this world several times over, or render it unto an eternal winter Celestia. As well as the lack of care to preserve it."

"Ending the world would mete your own destruction with it." Celestia looked alarm, but her reasons were inaccurate.

"That's where you are so drastically wrong." His grin was absolute evil, as Discord was shaking his head, "Just as that pink lizard like menace was able to invade this world, so too will I be able to do just the same in other worlds."

"How much of Xander is there in your head?" Discord asked, disbelief tinged with pain as the spirit brought himself up into sitting position.

"Copies of memory, things that you can't take since I was able to witness them, or rather a part of me was. I am not him, but something..." He chuckled, "Divine."

"A god, you are not." Discord snorted, "Like me, more li-"

His words were cut off as the figure strode past, dragging Celestia with him as the alicorn let out a pained cry and Discord was ceased by the throat, the creatures voice low with hate, "Count yourselves lucky that you aren't dead yet, for the power of the sun is something I do not want to take, and you have answers that I need. These are the only reasons why both of you are alive." Discord fell limp, about as strong as a newborn as magic was drained to the point of just keeping the spirit of disharmony alive and aware before he tossed the spirit back down onto the ground before dragging Celestia back onto her feet and then off the ground by her horn to meet her at eye level without stooping.

"If you harbor any doubts, than this shall convince you." Ice propelled a burnt looking tool, a mannequin on strings to act like a puppet. As he took a grip on it, a doll formed from the air before him, and he immediately blasted its head into wearing a cube of ice, perfectly flat and reflective, of a deep and solid blue onto its head. The creature gave an evil grin, "Let us see your sister leave the city, shall we... Though you two should be honored."

Celestia fought the pain to ask, "And Why is that?"

"Its not everyday that an Angel arrives on the mortal plane." the creature cackled its teeth chattering together with the action, as the puppet leapt from the window, and a giant blue cube began to fill the sky.

Author's Note:

Welcome to our new villain, and new plot. Consider the timeline from now on completely destroyed Now I can throw away the corny dialog of the next few seasons that were driving me nuts. Yay! I'm still work shopping his name, but expect to see a lot of alarming things happening in the next few chapters as well.

Comments

[The A I]

This, was a chaotic scene and a half. Quite the conundrum equestria ha son it's hands

[Jirodyne]

Eh, the story was interesting with a Semi Villain/herp puppet master that could bring and control puppets to life, and the ponies dealing with that.

But This? This is boring. Boring and Uninteresting now. How slow it is to release each chapter just hurts it even more so.

[Cerilex]

I'm very confused as to what's going on, but I'm hesitantly on board.

[Scolipede]

Definitely a very confusing scene with a lot of characters doing a lot of things all at the same time, and the introduction of a “new” character. I feel like describing his body was intended to be a vague description of a tragic villain Xander could never get to work or something, but I’m lost as to what that could be. Also, wasn’t Xander supposed to be returned here? Or are we just ignoring that and letting the physical happenings of the stuff going on prevent him from existing again? It was kinda difficult to define Xander’s “death” so it’s difficult to define just how alive he could be when brought back by the Merchant.

Okay rant over. Good to see Mr. Freeze maintains his loyalty.

[Soluna Eclipse]

10780980

10780998

If I'm understanding it right..

It appears that the magic of every foe he drained merged together into a new super villain, one with no actual emotion to it beyond the ones that fueled the spells of there original holders and free of Xander's control. Meanwhile Xander himself has been shattered and spread to the six (now five) masks he always had on him, leaving him alive but also trapped playing the roles of each villain he's now mixed with until his own mask can be reforged.

Or at least, that's how I read this chapter's events, I could be way off.

[Bold Promise]

[Animatorsnake]

I'm really loving the story, but before I continue further on, I recognize some of the masks/faces on the cover page, and I'm gonna list those I know or guess:
Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty
Jafar from Aladdin
Bowser from the Super Mario Bros franchise
GLADOS from Portal
Mr Freeze from DC's Batman series
Ice King from Adventure Time
Overlord from the Overlord franchise
Aku from Samurai Jack
and the last one I don't know their name but I know them come from the Wakfu franchise

I wonder what wondrous villains will make their appearance?
Out of these villains four - from personal experience and knowledge - are misunderstood villains, the rest in some way to my understanding are evil or ambitious to their own desires.

[Iridescence T Wind]

10781062
Eeyup.

[Iridescence T Wind]

10780998
I suppose my foreshadowing the chapter earlier might need some clarity, in the line the Merchant tells Xander before he makes a choice. Particularly,

His smile was completely gone, "Ah, you decided against it? Good. Its written all over you that was unacceptable, so tell you what, pick one and when you get yourself together, if, you can get it."

as well as earlier with the line

Well. You could choose to go back, but it would be fairly painful, for your immediate future, with the possibility of staying that way in quite the high regards.

and most blatantly

Well... your meddler, decided the best course of action for saving your universe from your King of the Wendiegos taking over your currently stateless body, was to break the power into fragments, using you. If you go back, you're facing having your mind fractured until they can get enough of the parts together to reforge your mind back to when it was intact. If they can do it, mind. Even then, there's the problem of your old body as well."

... less foreshadowing and the events occuring just like he said it would. To be honest... Uh. Don't mean to sound rude, but wanted to clear it up, if it helps.

[Scolipede]

10781899
Yeah, okay. I didn’t mean to make it sound rude either, I’m just bad with putting emotion into text.

Thanks for the clarity. It helps.

[Iridescence T Wind]

Going to respond to quite a few of these for once.

10782966
To answer this question requires a bit of knowledge of how Orks work in Warhammer 40k.
Orks in Warhammer 40k are not made of traditional flesh and meat, but rather a form of fungi, and do not have genders. The fungi they are made from, is, long story short, genetically made to produce what the orks need in order to 'infect' any worlds where they go, as over the course of an orks life, they spread spores capable of creating new orks and in the moment of death, tend to release more. It is this reason, that the orkoid species has a massive reproductive capability, as it is incredibly hard in most cases to fully wipe out an Ork army, without it popping back up every few years, at least not without turning the planet into something similar to a life barren planet of burnt matter by literally coating everywhere they have ever been (and a good area beyond that) in a sea of flame to make sure not even a single spore survives.

So our Ork God brings orks in, by simply existing on the day to day, and being invited to other worlds, essentially abusing the 'guest' system and taking a minor feature that only people invested in WH40k's lore, would know, and as a result, plunge another universe into Orkoid hands. As for how he gets there itself, is a matter of the Orks gestalt warp known as the Waagh, which I won't get into, but it amounts to: If Orks believe it will work, or enough Orks believe something is true, then it becomes true/working. So eventually, unless handled relatively swiftly, the Orkoid snowball of a population, combined with the power of the Waagh lets him not need the guest system anymore, and the more universes he takes over, the more orks there are and the easier it gets to repeat it.

This gets more and more disastrously scary when one considers that each person he 'meets' for a friendly conversation at first, also has their own set of tokens from other people(yikes), thus, essentially, giving him a door to summon someone, infect their clothes with spores, and send em back after saying hello, or flat out killing them if they're hostile and letting their corpse return to its own dimension to infect that persons universe. Conversation is preferred, since people seem to be more than willing to talk about other displaced for some reason I don't know. (like seriously, how many displaced just talk about other displaced. I see it way too often whenever I read displace-verse fics. Everyone likes networking, sure, but its a tad... I don't know, vulnerable? I don't know about them, but I'd be a tad suspicious if someone asked who I made friends with so far right out the bat when they're a complete stranger. But then again, there was a war afoot a few years ago in the displaced verse. So who knows.)

10781969
Yeah, I think I'm better off sticking to 1st person rather than 2nd or 3rd person. Not my cup of tea to do rapid perspective shifts in the same scene, or a series of scenes I guess. But practice makes... well not perfect, but improvement. Comparing my earlier fics, and even the long duration that I've wrote this one, I'd like to think that I've improved somewhat... However, there is still a fair bit of wordplay I don't think I'm good with quite yet. Let alone making each perspective unique. These next... series of chapters should let me improve in that regard, hopefully, as I am more or less trying to push myself out of the comfort zone of writing a mindset I'm more familiar with, and move into pre-existing characters that I've changed somewhat. It kinda shows that whenever I do a 2nd or 3rd person scene, that the flow is too awkward, and that I tend to struggle with the 1st person habits that I've built up.

I would apologize that my update rate has fallen so far behind in comparison to a few years back, but between my college hobby writing days and the present, I wasn't really expecting life to be so exhausting with all the... horrible stuff going on. Most of the time, now, I write chapters when I find that moment I can truly have a good creative mood, alongside a decent amount of both energy and time, but sadly that is rare these days.

10783531
Also, really glad you like it so much.

10781510
That is a great summary.

10783213
Aku for Celestia, given her role in making the Mane Six come together in a sort of, relatively forced way.
I had to scrap most of my lesson plans as I realized how (Uncomfortably) forced I would of had to make them, and then revised it a fair bit as some old ideas no longer quite fit as I sort of realized how twisted it would go over the course of many revisions and rewrites in various scraps of paper I had. Things got... kinda horror monster ish, and that wasn't the tone I wanted for Puppet Master/Xander. Unfortunately the longer I wrote and the more episodes that came out, the more the writers of the show gave me things with absolutely horrible implications to work with instead. I blame the combination of the reformation spells in public access, Cadences love spell, and the abundance of mind altering spells in general for derailing the original plot I had planned as I began my writing way earlier on before even half of the seasons were made.

10782279
Prince Blueblood needs more love, Ngl. He's a goddamn prince but he doesn't even get anything to do unlike fellow prince Shining Armor.

10743434
ah curses, To be fair, FF's extensive lore is not something I'm extremely versed in. Most of my knowledge comes from casual play of IV, Tactics Advanced, VI(Mostly watched this one for kefka, ngl), XII(Vaan gives me nightmares with how dense he is.), XIII-2 (never got the chance to play XIII-1 sadly.), Dissidia, and XIV. Of them, I only really paid attention to IV and Tactics Advanced since they were my main FF games growing up. My lack of knowledge in XII I hope is understandable, as its the only one of those I haven't really completed all the way through, or paid much mind to, after a certain point. (I got bored of grinding), and it felt way grindier than IV, and had a lot less options in my opinion than Tactics. I remember tactics gameplay the best since I liked making combos there of classes and subclasses, and most of my item knowledge comes from that game due to how learning skills worked in it. (I'm a sucker for Golbez, though, clad in darkness is still my favorite jam when I'm writing villains, and he is one of the reasons I came to adore tragic villains/redeemable villains so much.) I do wish people would pay the other FF's more attention than whatever is most recent or VII (Cloud and sephy are so overused they might as well be moogles at this point.)

[CrAzY FaLcOn]

expect to see a lot of alarming things

Alarming is right

[Animatorsnake]

So let me put together what I just witnessed (spoilers by the way):

Nox has taken Twilight away; Ice King took away Cadence; Bowser kidnapped Pinkie and Fluttershy; the armored giant (I think that's Sauron, if not, my other guess is the Overlord from the Overlord games) took Rarity away; Tanya took away Applejack; Aku got wrecked early, meaning Luna has one of six pieces of Xander's mask already.

As to Luna's allies right now, Blueblood and his elite military team, a now conscious Mr Freeze, Shining Armor (unconscious), Cass, and Rainbow Dash.

My only question is... What happened to Chrysalis?

[Silas5399]

Anyone know where a story that is like this is i can't remember the namr but it is very much like this one