Puppeteer

Puppeteer during his debut.

Puppeteer is Lin Sanjiu's mortal enemy and sometimes ally. One of the most famous and powerful posthumans in the apocalyptic worlds, he was set on getting the Grand Prize, unaware that the manifestation of it is Ji Shanqing. Now he is hell-bent on getting his revenge on The Veda and Gong Daoyi.

## Appearance

He is effeminate and gloomy-looking, possessing pasty white skin that loooks as if it rarely ever sees the sun and a tall but thin body. His black hair is shoulder length and hangs in a fringe. His expressions usually range from solemness, sneering or gentle smiles that hold coldness and danger. There is color changing glitter (most likely based on his mood) encircling his eyes.

In each of his appearanes, Puppeteer is adorned in odd-styled clothing, one particular outfit looking as if it had been thrown into a blender. The black leather jacket he always wears was taken from a 'Vindice'.

## Personality

Puppeteer is infamous all across the apocalyptic worlds for his temper, known for his pettiness, vengefulness, and narrow-mindedness. This could be seen when he put a bounty on Lin Sanjiu’s head after an incident where she embarrassed him.

He is also a self-proclaimed man of his word, and rightly so. No matter how much he threatened to go back on his words of not killing Lin Sanjiu, he never followed through, keeping his promise even when he had many opportunities to break it or get around it.

Despite everything, Puppeteer is not someone who doesn’t know when to show gratitude. Following the events of The Olympics, where Puppeteer was unconscious multiple times or in a state of dependency, he puppetized Maxin and Polva’s fingers in thanks for saving him. The metal fingers were widely recognized in the 12 Worlds Centrum as his “mark”, putting them under his protection and bringing them many benefits.

Puppeteer, no matter how powerful or strong, has also been proven to be not-so-bright at times. He constantly mocks Lin Sanjiu and insults her intelligence, but except for being more experienced than her, which does, in fact, give him a lot of advantage, he is not much more clever than her. He despise her hero-complex, calling it disgusting.

## Evolving Ability

### Puppets

* Able to turn mannequins, toys, and humans into puppets that do all that he wills.

### Pestilence

* Making people go through various stages of different diseases and sicknesses.
* Forensic Pathology

### Astronaut

* Making someone balloon up and float into the sky.

## Special Items

* Green Dragon Crescent Blade
* Parchment Contract
* PHOTOSHOP/CS6
* Sequelae Of Sleep Deprivation
* Spirit Of Film Crew
* Fluidity

## Past

A boy born by the name of Yun, he was a resident of Mistral's Sector 9 during the time it went through the attacks of the AI robots known as the “Vindice”. As a growth-type, Yun's ability was much weaker than others' initially, only being able to control mannequins. Each assault by the Vindice would land heavy casualties on the posthumans' side.

Fed up with feeling helpless and defenseless to the Vindice, Yun and his companions left Sector 9 to go to Sector 1 in an attempt to rescue and retrieve the President of Mistral and save Sector 9 from the Vindice.

They succeeded in rescuing him and were lauded as heroes by the residents of Sector 9. The president, Yunqian, sent groups of posthumans, among which was Gong Daoyi, to Sector 1 to retrieve a command box that he used to take over the Vindice and have them drastically improve the lives of the Sector 9 folk.

Unbeknownst to the residents, however, Yunqian had taken both of Yun's companions hostage and sexually abused Yun repeatedly for months. He emotionally blackmailed Yun, making him believe it was all payment for the citizens' improved lives, and refused to let him see his friends. He also forcibly modified Yun's body to be genderless and applied non-removable glitter to his eyes. Having no idea of the fate of his friends and becoming depressed with his own pridacament, Yun shut himself in the presidential mansion more and more, and even developed a fear of sunlight.

After Yun's ability evolved, allowing him to control intelligent beings like the Vindice, he overpowered and tortured the president. He was then given a tape by Gong Daoyi that showed the latter torturing his companions Yanjoe and Steven, then tricking Steven into killing Yanjoe.

Having watched the tape, Yun found that Gong Daoyi had turned all the people of Sector 9 against him, telling them he was a traitor that killed the president, their savior. Before departing, Gong Daoyi gave Yun the control box for the AI.

Yun offered the people of Sector 9 two options:

1. Yun would become the new president and the AI would continue to work for the people, but everyone would have to watch Yunqian be paraded on the streets
2. The death of Yun and the the destruction of the control box

After the people chose the first option, Yun used the control box to kill all the people in Sector 9 and began to walk the dark path that gained him fame as Puppeteer across the 12 Worlds Centrum.

## Mistral's Destruction

Unlike most other worlds, Mistral never went through an apocalypse, rather:

* Mistral developed advanced AI robots called "Vindice"
* AI took over all jobs aside from politicians
* Governments began to notice that people were a needless drain on resources that contributed nothing - as AI did all jobs
* Governments started to crack down on people
	+ They made any crime a capital offense
	+ They required a 'Breeding license' for all reproduction
	+ AI began to replace people everywhere
	+ Protesting became a capital offense
* One day, post-humans began to appear

## Story

### Hyperthermal Hell

Puppeteer first met Lin Sanjiu while searching for a consular officer in Hyperthermal Hell. He rounded up her, her friends, and about 200 other posthumans with his Beret Men puppets and life-sized Barbie Dolls armed with weapons from the Munitions Factory. According to Shen Lianqi, a veteran posthuman who stood in front of Lin Sanjiu in the crowd, Puppeteer had come to such a low level world to make himself some posthuman puppets, as the 12 Worlds Centrum would not allow him to easily do so.

Puppeteer, standing on a podium, asked the crowd if they knew where he could find a consular officer, and when they remained silent, he went down the lines and checked each posthuman one by one to make sure no consular officer was hiding amongst them. When Lin Sanjiu’s turn came, Puppeteer realized she was afflicted with Versu Poison and used another method that didn't require touching her to check. In the hopes that he would give up and leave, Lin Sanjiu confessed that the consular officer of the area, Fang Dan, had already died. Unfortunately, Puppeteer, irked that she made him stand “like an idiot“ on the podium before, gave his puppets the go to kill all the posthumans so he could turn them into puppets.

Shen Lianqi used a device from the Munitions Factory to escape from the massacre, and Puppeteer, being petty to the last, was unwilling to let a single person go. When he learned that only Lin Sanjiu had seen his face, he gave her another look and realized she was a growth-type, just like him. Believing growth-types to be a species of posthumans superior to all others, he believed himself to be better fit to be her companion than her current ones—Hu Changzai, B. Rabbit, Hai Tianqing—and offered her to join him. But first, she had to prove her sincerity by killing the other three.

Lin Sanjiu instead used [A Twinkle In The Sky] to kick each of the three out of danger, but not before Hai Tianqing managed to use his [Treadmill] on Puppeteer. Using That Spring, When The Cherry Blossoms Fell, Your Sweet Laughter Melted My World to give herself time to run, Lin Sanjiu inadvertently found out that the item only worked for half the amount of time because Puppeteer was only 50% male. When Puppeteer snapped out of its affects, he had nothing but killing intent toward Lin Sanjiu and tried to give chase, only to be stopped by Hai Tianqing's invisible treadmill. His puppets were unable to stop Sanjiu, so he resigned himself to putting a bounty on her head, unwilling to let the humiliation go.

### Kisaragi Station

Puppeteer did not make an appearance in this world's arc; however, Lin Sanjiu, from a run in with Reno and Rena, learned from the pair of siblings that she was known in the 12 Worlds Centrum for being on every consular officer's watch list to inform Puppeteer about her whereabouts. For this fact alone, the Supreme Alliance, which was made up of growth-types and was an enemy of Puppeteer, was willing to shelter and support her.

### Red Nautilus

Lin Sanjiu found the exit of the forum she was in barred by Santa Claus, who was searching for growth-types that had come into contact with Puppeteer in the past. Santa killed the growth-types who only came into contact with Puppeteer's followers or had brief, unmeaningful encounters with him, so Lin Sanjiu, sensing that Santa was unsatisfied with their stories, confessed to the grudge between them and the bounty on her head. Satisfied with finding a person who fit all the criteria for his plans, Santa Claus took her and the remaining growth types to the Starry Carnival Pocket Dimension, which only growth-types could enter.

Lin Sanjiu was meant to be the bait to lure out Puppeteer to Santa Claus, but she, coming into contact with the Supreme Alliance and learning from them that Puppeteer knew about the whereabouts of Reno and Rena, decided to find Puppeteer on her own, thinking herself to be much stronger than when they first met, especially after taking some of Hei Zeji‘s training. Unfortunately, Puppeteer found her first and launched an attack on her, showing her that she was still no match for him in terms of power or Special Items. She managed to hold her own against Puppeteer for quite a while, mainly because he underestimated her, and Hei Zeji’s new training gave her an edge. Using the luck-based power the Pygmalion Choker granted her, Lin Sanjiu inadvertently managed to get the pocket dimension to alter its rules to be in her favor, thus also shifting the tides of the battle.

Puppeteer was on the verge of giving up his limbs in payment for the damages the dimension was forcing him to pay for when Lin Sanjiu offered to pay with her own points in return for a truce and the promise that he’d strop trying to kill her. Puppeteer reluctantly obliged, and the two started an unsteady alliance. From Lin Sanjiu, Puppeteer learned that the Supreme Alliance had set things up so that he would meet Santa Claus and fight him. And from Puppeteer, Lin Sanjiu learned that he did not have the siblings and that the Supreme Alliance had lied to her and been making use of her.

They then teamed up against Santa Claus, who had a grudge against Puppeteer because the latter had long ago stolen an important special item, Parchment Contract, from him. After killing him, they were in weakened states when Geran arrived, revealing to them how Santa Claus and Puppeteer’s meeting and fight had all been part of his plan, and that his people were coming to end Puppeteer and Lin Sanjiu. To all three’s shock, however, Geran’s people that arrived were “worn” by the Souls, led by Soulsqn and Meowie Hu, the latter of which was Lin Sanjiu’s friend. In the bustle, Geran escaped before Lin Sanjiu could interrogate him about Reno and Rena’s whereabouts. Coming to the conclusion that he also intended to go after the carnival’s Grand Prize, which was rumored to be a wish, Lin Sanjiu and Puppeteer decided to part ways to earn more points and meet up at the final stop later. They ended up meeting much earlier when Lin Sanjiu accumulated enough points for both of them and transferred some to Puppeteer for nothing, much to his puzzlement.

In the mirror maze, they got separated and did not find each other again, as Puppeteer's time to transport to another world came and he ended up in another world's mirror maze. He inadvertently took Soulsqn, all of the souls and Meowie Hu along with him, as he had transformed them into partial puppets at Lin Sanjiu's request so that they would be able to move about the dimension freely without needing to pay the cost required (by becoming items instead of post-humans).

### Salvation of God

Having heard that Lin Sanjiu succeeded in getting the Grand Prize and confident that she would not have the heart or malice to unwrap the humanoid present, Puppeteer began to search for her, putting another bounty on her. Under the alias Peppy Lil' Sesame on eBay, he put up a notice that he possessed a product called “Uterus Project“ that could bring inanimate objects to life, successfully attracting the attention of Lin Sanjiu, who wanted to use it to make her Grand Prize, Ji Shanqing, become more human than object. Finding her in the Salvation of God, he sold Lin Sanjiu’s whereabouts to Bohemia, who was also looking for her, before making his way there. Upon arriving, he partially puppetized a lesser god, Sanduria, and gave her one of his powerful posthuman puppets to use as a “warrior” to help her kill other gods and grow stronger. Through this method, Sanduria became a Titan puppet at his disposal and helped him look for Lin Sanjiu.

Upon encountering Puppeteer and learning that he wanted her Grand Prize, Lin Sanjiu repeatedly denied possessing it and lied that the prize had only contained the [Scrooge McDuck Power], not the rumored wish he sought. Puppeteer didn’t believe her and revealed that he had a way to tell if she had lied and to what extent, bringing out Hu Changzai for his lie-detecting abilities, unaware that he was one of Lin Sanjiu’s longest-time friends. Hu Changzai, aware of the falsity in Lin Sanjiu’s words and although afraid of Puppeteer, still lied on her behalf. Nevertheless, Puppeteer didn’t fully trust him and sent him away, summoning out Soulsqn and the Souls instead to make trouble for Sanjiu. Having hidden a Special Item that worked like a camera on Lin Sanjiu at some unknown point, Puppeteer gave her a warning and some threats before leaving to go watch her movements while in hiding, hoping she would lead him to the Grand Prize.

Things went out of his expectation, however, when Lin Sanjiu and Soulsqn ended up flying up above the clouds while following one of the Potato Brothers. Puppeteer followed them and got captured by the Veda too. Along with Lin Sanjiu, he was trapped in a Kwik-E-mart Pocket Dimension that the Veda had modified. Unaware of the rules of the Pocket Dimension or how to clear it, they were accidentally turned into potato chip bags and found mobility harder to manage with each passing minute. Lin Sanjiu managed to turn back to human in time and chose not to save Puppeteer, who had completely frozen in his chips form, convinced it was for the better for her and her friends. As soon as she crashed through the mart’s window and exited, however, she found a mobile fully-human Puppeteer form standing outside. Unaware that this Puppeteer was a fake coded by the Veda, she was plagued with guilt at not trying to save him before and gave a heart-felt apology, to which he shoved away. He led her to the next simulation, which was a fragment of the real Puppeteer’s memories in Mistral, his origin world, and the tragedies that befell him.

Meanwhile, the Veda forced the real Puppeteer to watch Lin Sanjiu in the simulation and to relive his past in Mistral. Filled with grief, he wanted to end things right there, so when the Veda offered to let him be an immigrant and become a Veda—cutting off all his emotion and sense of pain—he agreed but requested to meet Lin Sanjiu first. Coming face to face with her, he revealed that now that she knew his history and seen it all with her eyes, he wished to kill her, but she was now third on his kill list, right after the Veda and Gong Daoyi, who he finally learned the name of from Lin Sanjiu. Having learned of his past tragedies, she emotionally apologized for abandoning him, which had allowed the Veda to be able to capture him and extract his memories to make him relive them, and vowed to help him enact his revenge on both the Veda and Gong Daoyi.

Together along with Soulsqn, they teamed up in an effort to escape the Veda and encountered Ji Shanqing at the exit, who Puppeteer was unaware of the true identity of, and ultimately separated when Lin Sanjiu traveled to The Olympics.

### The Olympics

Puppeteer and Ji Shanqing ended up falling near each other and, sharing the same goal of finding Lin Sanjiu, begrudgingly formed a team together. When they discovered that they could sign up for the games under another world they had been to in the past that wasn't their last one, under Ji Shanqing's advice, they both signed up under Red Nautilus instead of Salvation of God to better hide from the Veda, assuming that Lin Sanjiu had thought of the same thing. However, she ended up signing up herself and Soulsqn under the Salvation of God instead, pitting them against the former two in the games. Seeing Lin Sanjiu running while carrying Soulsqn and another contestant, Polva, on her shoulders, he felt resentful at her hero-complex again and commanded his puppets and the other contestants in the Red Nautilus shooting game to all aim at her, “fulfilling her death wish.” When a distressed Ji Shanqing questioned why he would do that to Lin Sanjiu when they had already cleared the grudges between them, he answered that Lin Sanjiu somehow always managed to turn a situation around. Lin Sanjiu proved this statement to be true when she survived all the shots despite all the odds.

Later in the night, the four all met up after the games to discuss their plans on what to do next. Puppeteer vocalized his plans to return to the Data Stream Library and get revenge on the Veda. They decided the best way was to continuously win their respective games to meet Zeus, the highest god, who they suspected was in cahoots with the Veda. Unexpectedly, the next morning, each of them were detained by ’Zeus’ and taken to a sea arena to fight in a chess game for a meeting with the highest god. Puppeteer was put on the white team while Lin Sanjiu, Ji Shanqing and Soulsqn were in the black team. When Puppeteer made his way to the enemy territory and came upon Ji Shanqing and Soulsqn, he received the news of Lin Sanjiu’s supposed death with astonishment. At learning that there was a possibility she was still alive and could be saved, he expressed that he was willing to try to bring her back. However, when he learned from the Zeuses that Ji Shanqing was Lin Sanjiu’s Grand Prize, which he had for so long sought, he made it clear that he was more than willing to let Lin Sanjiu die if it meant he could ”unwrap” the grand prize. Nonethless, he decided to take the chance to defeat Zeus Lin and bring back Lin Sanjiu, even while aware that Ji Shanqing was trying to stall him. The battle ended with a revived Lin Sanjiu unwrapping the Grand Prize herself and freeing him, thus enraging Puppeteer, who felt that she had wasted his “only chance”.

In the following battle against the real Zeus, Puppeteer was knocked unconscious due to his injuries from the previous fight and his Pestilence ability suddenly evolving. In that time, he was mostly lugged around by Polva in the Furniture Cemetery Pocket Dimension until Lin Sanjiu found them. Upon waking up, he used his newly evolved ability to easily decimate the monsters that had been giving the rest of the party a hard time. Activating Lin Sanjiu’s choker by giving her the Veda’s code writing ability, Puppeteer and the group finally escaped the furniture cemetery pocket dimension. Before leaving back to the Data Stream Library, Puppeteer gave Maxin and Polva his “mark” in thanks for all they did to help him in the Olympics, hence making it known to anyone who saw the marks that they were under his protection.

Upon arriving in the Data Stream Library, Puppeteer, Lin Sanjiu, and Soulsqn were attacked by Zeus, who possessed similar but slightly inferior abilities to the Veda, making the three no match for him. However, the appearance of a revived Ji Shanqing, who had now become a Veda, shocked all of them and frightened Zeus, revealing that he was, in fact, not on good terms with the Veda. The Veda caught onto their arrival in their domain and gave chase, trying to add all of them to their database. Puppeteer and Soulsqn eluded them using the latter’s illusion abilities and managed to save Lin Sanjiu before she was fully integrated into the Veda’s database. A battle ensued and Puppeteer’s strings that were attached to his puppets were severed by the Veda, but he sprung an attack on them with some Zeuses he had captured in the Olympics. Regardless, he was still overpowered and brought to an empty planet with no oxygen along with Lin Sanjiu and Soulsqn. Unaware that Ji Shanqing had used his new code-writing abilities to make the planet habitable for them, he used an ability to switch places with one of them puppets he had left behind in the Salvation of God to escape.

## Gallery

Puppeteer in Hyperthermal HellPuppeteer as a cat (fanfiction)