Character Practice - Animator vs. Animation

~ A Gathering ~

No picture this time, unfortunately!


Minor warning for a bit of hurt.


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He'd been waiting. Observing all this time.

Now that the battle was brought to a close, he made his move and followed along his target's painful-looking trajectory.

He crossed a hill, then a ginormous pit, with his battered target lying directly in the middle.

Lifting the broken figure, who was barely larger than half his size, he was surprised to notice that it was still awake despite the fact that it was basically falling apart. Or, half awake, at least.

It muttered a few unintelligible sounds and stared up at him with nearly-closed eyes, almost completely filled with tears. He might've heard the word 'Chosen' before the figure completely passed out.

Well then.


--


The figure shuddered violently, and woke itself. 

Was it... strapped to a table... with a bunch of cords connected to it?

Did something happen with the cords that caused the burst of cold which resulted in its awakening?

It felt far too tired to deal with any of this right now. It was just going to go to sleep as if nothing had interrupted it in the first place, so it closed its eyes back.

Then a harsher cold swept over it and it opened its eyes in fury.

A dark orange stick figure wearing a crown was typing something on a computer, then looked directly at the other with the calmest, most authoritative, yet somehow also second smuggest looking face it'd ever seen.

"Ah. So The Dark Lord's finally awake."

Who was this random stick? Probably one of the many he'd terrorized across the internet considering the other knew his name. He didn't bother to remember them all.

The Dark Lord attempted to speak, but his mouth was too exhausted to open.

"You must have quite a lot of questions about me and this place, but rest assured, all of them will be answered in due time."

Dark blinked slowly. His body just wanted to sleep, but now his mind wasn't interested in rest. Especially not with this unknown watching him.

"Too weak to speak, hmm?"

Weak? That word caught his attention. He rallied the little, tiny amount of strength that was in his body for speech alone, then other continued talking.

"I am not your enemy. I saved your life, in fact, so relax. You may call me King."

'King?' That's decently egotistical for a name. (Though, his own name was 'The Dark Lord,' so they're not unlike each other,) he supposed.

One thing that caught his eye, was the red-tinted staff with a cube at the top sitting next to an empty glass beside King's computer. Dark knew that King saw him eyeing the staff, yet probably intentionally didn't offer any explanation about what it was.

King's claims of saving his life just hit him, then all of his memories flooded back.

It was overwhelming.

His eyes began to water threateningly, despite fighting back the tears.

King seemed to notice his distress despite Dark's best efforts to keep it hidden, and picked up his staff to do who knows what with.

Maybe Dark was still half asleep, but he saw what looked like some bizarre code and an odd line connecting the strange cube atop the stave and the empty glass.

Before he knew it, King was standing next to Dark, holding out to him a glass filled with water. Dark's limbs were no longer held to the table, nor were the cords connected to him anymore, so he attempted to raise his arms. It took a massive effort to even get them to budge even slightly. Was receiving this glass physically the hardest thing he'd ever done? Though he didn't want to exaggerate, he felt like the answer was an instant 'yes'.

But after an agonizing and awkward thirty seconds of trying to snatch that stupid cup, lo and behold, Dark grasped it, almost dropping it immediately. All while those horrible, smug, commanding eyes just kept watching him without saying a word.

He was able to sit up enough to take a sip without spilling it. He was relishing the water, in fact, when the dark orange stick figure abruptly interrupted him. Since that other stick figure was assisting him with his health, Dark decided to let it slide.

"I assume you're wondering what exactly you're doing here," King started as he straightened, making himself appear almost royal enough to fit his name. "As you know, I was the one responsible for delaying your meeting with the afterlife. Not only that, but I'm also willing to aid you in revenge against your orange adversary. Along with returning any other injustices."

What.

Dark used the little energy that remained from sipping his water to attempt to form a coherent sentence. "And... what's in it for you?" He rasped, almost surprised that the other stick knew he wanted such vengeance.

A slight, yet still notable smile came across the mango one's face at the sound of The Dark Lord's shaky voice. Which Dark despised immensely. "Well, a part of my reward comes from the little orange one's downfall, much like yours, however, the rest of their multicolored squad's... eradication is a part of my agenda as well. What I want from you specifically, is your talent in coding and weapon-making. Along with your general abilities, of course."

Uh-huh.

Did Dark really need to take this offer? No. Of course not. Yet... again, considering the other had and continues to help him... Dark couldn't really imagine what he would do on his lonesome. He could barely even move at the current time.

Oh, his glass was empty.

Dark lied back to ponder this. He felt as though 'King' wasn't telling him everything.

He could accept the proposition, he supposed, if only for the current time. But he did not want to just go around taking orders from this abnormally tall pumpkin man. Perhaps Dark could just use this stick figure until his recovery was complete, or somehow gain control over this 'King' so he  would be calling the shots.

A slight nod was all the red stick made to seal the deal.

"Excellent. There is one more member of my little team. Though, seeing as to how faint you seem right now, that meeting is going to have to wait."

Faint? King didn't have the slightest idea how faint his body felt right now. Especially now that he was laying down again. His mind was awake, however, and that was all that mattered.

Wait, Dark's eyes were closing. Was he falling asleep again...? No, he can't be... Not... yet...

--


Busily, yet peacefully, Purple was harvesting and replanting his crops. King had told him to do so as preparation for a feast as soon as the 'dark lord' awoke again. He didn't really mind much in all honesty. He could be making more progress faster though if King let him borrow the staff, but Purple knew better by now than to ask about it.

One thing that did surprise him, though, was how underwhelming this dark lord looked. For starters, he was a lot smaller than Purple had expected, especially compared to King. Then there was how miserably broken the stick had appeared. All of it combined just didn't seem very dark or lordly. Maybe his perception of the red stick would change once that dark lord was actually conscious and Purple was able to speak to him.


-


Purple sat down to the spread he'd prepared. He felt relatively proud of it, considering he'd never really thought of himself as that great of a cook. Despite that, the violet stick usually did most of the cooking. The dark orange one did too occasionally, though Purple was convinced that it wasn't because King actually wanted to, but instead that he just didn't want to taste the food that Purple would put together. Though, Purple still didn't mind his role as the chef much in all honesty. It was practice. He just hoped that it would make a decent enough impression upon that dark lord.

The aforementioned dark lord looked almost completely healed somehow, despite being on the verge of death only a week ago. Just tired-looking now, really. And hungry. Very hungry, as he was devouring everything as if it was the best thing he'd ever tasted which admittedly pleased Purple quite a bit.

King sat in his throne-chair and cleared his throat. "Allow me to introduce you to that third member I mentioned earlier. Meet Purple."

"So, you're the dark lord that I've been hearing so much about."

The bright red stick figure paused his devouring. "The one and only."

"May I ask your name?"

"The Dark Lord."

" 'The dark lord' is your name?"

This... 'dark lord' gave him a stare that was beyond flat. "What do you think?"

"I... see."

"I'm referred to as 'Dark' for short."

"Oh. Well, it's nice to meet you, Dark."

"Charmed."




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For context, this takes place in an AU where The Second Coming and the rest defeated Purple and King in 'The Ultimate Weapon,' but they both managed to get away through a nether portal - with the command block too!