“Oof, now that the scary part’s over maybe that was just what I needed a little exercise to work off all those calories. See you later, girl,” said Eva. Giving Brandy a brief but firm hug.

“Later. See you on Monday,” said Nala. Patting Brandy on the shoulder.

“Er...Yeah. See you guys...Sorry about getting you two caught up in my mess…” said Brandy.

“I apologize as well…” said Ellis. Startling all three girls. He’d immediately put on his facade after calming down and realizing that everything was okay, but the blinding, wonder, of his true-visage was something impossible to unsee.

“Uh...You don’t need to be so serious, mister...Who doesn’t have some beef in this crazy world of ours?” laughed Eva. Looking a little uncomfortable, while refraining from meeting the handsome shopkeeper's yellow-eyed gaze.

“Er...What she said…Like, there’s guys out trying to kill “my” family every other year or so...It’s like normal...Kinda,” said Nala. Blushing.

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I escorted Brandy and her friends back to the academy’s campus. Brandy said goodbye to the two other girls and then she and I returned to our private server. I sighed while looking through the data I’d collected from the scene of the attack, and the data I’d squeezed from the slain attackers' spirits.

“I really am sorry about all this, Ms. Kane,” I said.

“No...It...It’s really okay. You and Jo have done a lot for me and well...Did I ever tell you about a couple of times where I was kinda held hostage?...It’s actually not that interesting a story...It was more like, some guys that my dad worked for wanted to make sure he behaved so they had me live with one of their relatives for a while...Um, anyway, the point is, I understand that sometimes things get messy...And well, I’m not going to leave you guys, just because of a bit of messiness. You and Jo mean too much to me,” said Brandy. Her words warmed the cockles of my cold, black, heart...and unwittingly darkened the fortunes of a certain authoritarian Empire.

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A few weeks, or maybe months, later a heavy fog fell over the entire Violet Empire. Entering the fog just led to the area on the opposite end of the Empire’s outskirts, and absolutely no one had come out from within the Empire in months. The oddest part was that no one knew when this fog had fallen. It was so thick, and all-encompassing, that one would expect there to be some prior mention of it, but until a few weeks ago there was no mention of the fog at all.

The people of Velena-Rana-Perfetta were no stranger to mysterious, and clearly anomalous, weather patterns, but the scale here was something that hadn’t been seen in a while. The great swirling dome of fog captured the imaginations of many of the Violet Empire’s farthest neighbors, and the fears of those who were closest and feared that a change in the wind might blow the fog over onto their lands.

The ones who were most troubled over the phenomena were the famous elites of the land. The warriors and mages that hailed from the nobility, royalty, and clans of great reputation. And how could they not be troubled? How could anyone feel anything but dread, when one’s immortal and semi-immortal patrons all ardently warned you away from looking too deeply into something. The clearer warnings being given with the same sentiments and tone, a parent might give a child who’s strayed too close to a dangerous part of the wilderness.

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Oddly enough, despite all the hubbub taking place in the outside world, the kingdom of Violet was oddly quiet. All the cars and carriages in the street were still. All homes and businesses stood quiet, yet brightly lit, regardless of whether it was night or day. There were no beasts wandering the outskirts of the settlements. There were no people wandering the insides of the settlements. There were few crashed cars, fallen airships, and sunken, or scuttled boats, but even those ultimately had no signs of serious damage, or hard use.

From the largest and most clustered of the empire’s cities, to the smallest and most idyllic of its villages and smaller towns, all was quiet. The plains lands were quiet. The forests were quiet. The coasts were quiet. The only things that were slightly out of place within the great and august Violet were the toys that were scattered everywhere. An eclectic mixture of plush, wooden, and tin dolls that lay on the streets, and in the buildings, and in the closer parts of the wilderness. The dolls, and the hundreds of millions of figments that silently watched over the dolls, were the only things that stood out of place.

The only place in the empire where things weren’t quiet, was the Imperial Palace, within the Imperial Capital. There, every night, a great show was being played. This same show had played every night, for the last 1825 nights. The acts changed, but the show was always the same. A show watched by dolls, where the only “people” were the ringmaster, and the show’s star. Tonight’s main act was a lion taming act. Or maybe it was a lion fighting act. Also, the lions had been replaced by a wretched cross between a big cat, snake, and a sea-anemone, known as the Stinging-Tigon.

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“P-, Please...I understand I was wrong...We….I, we shall never bother you and yours again. Let’s talk this over like men!” said the former Emperor of the Violet Empire. Struggling to catch his breath as he stood at the edge of the stage I’d set up for him. To the old man’s credit, he’d managed to face down the beasts with only a wooden chair. They’d eventually overcome him, like they always did...Every night...But, his skill and resilience were impressive.

“Mhm...How about no?...” I said. Allowing the show to continue as the Stinging-Tigon’s finally shattered the chair, and tore the Emperor to pieces, revealing that instead of flesh and blood, he was filled with stuffing, just like a great many of the now puppetified citizens of his Empire.

I laughed as I listened to the man scream in pain and fear. I clapped as he lay in pieces on the ground. Sobbing softly. Then I waved my hands, and the Stinging-Tigons were returned to my private nature reserve within my private server. Then with a flexing of my will, the Emperor’s body pulled itself back together. Music began to play, and the Emperor found himself draped in a gorgeous robe with large butterfly wings. As the music picked up in tempo, the Emperor began to dance.

That was the show that had been playing every night for the last 5 years within this time-distorted space I’d created over the entire empire. There was a bit of comedy. A bit of action, and then some culture. Real culture, like ballet and folk dancing...Not the internet kind of culture.

“You...You know...This is extremely petty for someone with your kind of power…” said the Emperor. Bellowing at me in futile rage, in between his pirouettes, plies, and graceful leaps.

“Hm, true...Anyway, “someone’s” sounding pretty spirited today...Dance faster,” I said. The music picked up in tempo.

I made the man dance until he fell apart again. His stuffing flew out of him, as his limbs were flung around the room. His groans and sobbing became an accompaniment to the music. However, this time I didn’t will him back together. I let him lie there in pieces. I always let him lie there in pieces. So his family could see. So his allies could see. So his trusted servants, generals, and officers could see. They were the audience. (Well, except for the kids of course...Everyone below a certain age was put into a very deep sleep.)

The Imperial Family, Imperial Court, and all of this nation’s most important nobles and merchants were the dolls who watched us with eyes made of buttons, paint, and shiny stones. Unlike the rest of the Empire, I’d let them stay awake to witness what was happening here. Or rather, they were forced to stay awake. Even when I had no show for them, they were forced to stay awake. Being trapped in a persistently uncomfortable and unfamiliar body, and being forced to stay still for days, weeks, and months, at a time was a kind of torture in and of itself. I never let them rest.

After all, the Empire’s ruling class would learn nothing if I let them sleep through most of my punishment for the Empire as I’d allowed for commoners outside. Sometimes, I’d make some of the generals and nobles get in on the act. Letting them perform in their adorable puppet-forms. Letting fight, tumble out, do comedy skits, and dance, until they were inevitably torn apart. Most of the time though they were stuck as a passive audience. Unable to look away.

“I...I...Surrender...I’ll give you what you want,” said the Emperor. Saying the magic words that I’d been waiting for all this time. Halting my steps, just when I was about to leave the Empire to my figments to make sure that nothing annoying happened, like an outside attack, or someone turning my punishment for this troublesome nation into an opportunity to somehow break through and gain some kind of power.

“Oh…? Is that so? Do you really mean that?” I said. One brow raised. A cold, smug, smirk on my lips.

“Yes...Yes...Damn you!... I surrender. I beg you...Just please...let this end...The Empire is yours...Do with it as you will...Just, please...Let this madness end…” said the Emperor.

“Ah...And you actually, mean it this time…” I said. Chuckling.

“Very well...Unlike you...I’m an honest man. And I’ll keep my word...You’ll finally be allowed to die...and your kingdom will be returned to normal…” I said. Looking down at the fallen ruler.

“... I do hope the rest of you... will remember who will really be running the show from here on out?” I said. Eyeing the other dolls in the room. I was pleased to feel the fear and distress emanating out of their frozen forms. A silence assent, and an assurance that it’d take some time before most of them considered trying to buck my control.

“Excellent…Then the deal is struck,” I said. Teleporting away. Leaving the emperor a rotted, oozing corpse because he’d been dead for ages now and I’d just sort of been trapping him inside his magically taxidermied corpse. Leaving the imperial family and ruling class a crowd of terrified, emaciated wretches, because aside from the kids, I hadn’t been doing nearly as much of the physical upkeep as I had been doing for the common-folk outside.

Meaning that all these lords and ladies had actually been suffering from extreme hunger and thirst all this while. I wasn’t cleaning them either, or keeping their temperatures completely static. I made sure it wasn’t enough to kill them of course, or even really cause them significant pain. I just allowed them to suffer enough to make the experience of being trapped as puppets all the more unpleasant. I’d naturally used data-manipulation and spirit-suppression magic to keep this experience from turning into something that’d make them stronger somehow.

I wasn’t really pulling a “bad-guy leaves at the wrong moment”. I was still nearby, paying super close attention to everything that was happening. Watching as this country’s former rulers raved and wept. I was just letting my figments handle putting things into order, while I watched the imperial family and high nobles pull themselves together.

I wanted to see who’d try to break the bargain I’d made with the Emperor first. That way I could kill a few chickens to scare these monkeys that I’d just bought from the nation’s old ring-master in exchange for the sweet release of death. It was the first of many gambits that I planned to use to keep Violet firmly under my heel.

The Violet Empire had attacked Ms. Kane, thinking they could control me by getting hold of an apparent weak point, so I figured turnabout was fair-play, and it was about time for my little company to get a country under their control. I’ve learned in my time as a villain that Puppet-Nations have oh-so-many uses.

Alas, the good emperor decided to be “stubborn” even after I’d gone to the trouble of showing up at his private office with the heads of the imperial family’s secret ancestors, the Violet military's most powerful elites, and the heads of many of the Empire's other important personnel.

I’d considered adding his skull to the throne of skulls I’d sort of ended up building for the sake of making a strong first impression, but then I had another idea. The Violet Empire would be my puppet-nation one way or the other. I didn’t mind letting it be so in literal terms.