A Maretonia Tyranny

"Maretonia! I have some surprising news for you. Your duke and duchess have perished in a terrible accident. As the heir to the throne, I will be your new ruler!" I announce to a large crowd of ponies. "As your new leader, I have taken it upon myself to make a few... Rule changes. I am going to write them and have them issued to all the towns and cities of Maretonia, but you will know what they are by the end of today. That is all." I finish. Ponies look terrified and confused. I hadn't given them much information, and the speech had ended rather abruptly. But there wasn't much for me to say.

"AZI!" I shout, as she rushes to my feet. As I could take care of myself and no longer needed supervision, Azi had been promoted to my assistant.

"Yes, Jameil?" She asks.

"I'd like these sent to the mayors of every city and town in Maretonia." I say, as I hand her a list. As she reads over the list of changes, she looks concerned.

"Jameil, these changes are a bit... Extreme. Taking the firstborn of every family in an effort to triple the armed forces and guard isn't really necessary. We got along fine before with the size we have now, and many of these rules could cause disharmony all throughout Maretonia and also cause ponies to rebel."

"And your point is?" I say impatiently.

"My point is that many of the things on this list are very bad ideas and I refuse to publish them." She argues defiantly. I shoot her an icy glare, and then smile.

"GUARDS!" I shout. Two guards rush immediately to my side. "Bring her to the dungeon. No cell mate." I order. They grab her and walk her out of the room, with her struggling and kicking.

As I eat dinner later that day, a guard comes to my side. "Should I go feed the prisoners now?" He asks, as I nod.

He is nearly out the door when I add, "Oh, but don't give anything to Azi. If she asks, just ignore her." He nods and walks out the door.

The same orders are given the next day. On the morning of the third day, I order someone to bring her out. She is brought to me in my throne room. Her mane is a tangled mess and she has fresh tear tracks running down her face. She looks tired. "J-Jameil, I-I am s-s-so sorry for disobeying you. I-I promise it won't happen again," she stammers.

"What are you going to do with these changes I've issued?" I ask, making sure that two days of starvation was enough to change her mind about disagreeing with me.

"P-publish them." She choked out.

"Wrong. It's already been done. You will approve of them, and you will set up these rankings I have written for the castle gaurd and staff." I order.

"R-right away, your majesty."

"Good. Breakfast is waiting for you in the dining hall." I tell her.

"Th-thank you." She says, and rushes to the dining hall.

I had created a ranking system in the staff. Bronze being the lowest level, consisting of the guards stationed at the gates, to gold for the higher ups like Azi. I would be diamond, and there were a couple ponies responsible for order in the palace that were called emeralds. They could issue small orders to their subordinates but never overrule a decision made by me. The two other ranks were copper and silver, silver being the main staff like butlers and chefs and copper being the royal guard stationed indoors. Each pony was given a bracelet to symbolize their ranks, and ranks also determine the quality of their food and possessions.

"AZI!" I shout. It was a few weeks after. By now, the color of my magic was completely black, but this never bothered me. The darker it got, the stronger it seemed to get. I started just ignoring it. I had just finished writing blueprints for a renovation in the castle.

"Yes?" She asks.

"Give these to the builder ponies. Tell them I want it done within 3 years." I say. She quickly glances over them.

"What's it for?" She asks.

"I'm creating a defense system ensuring that nothing can get to me." I inform her.

"How will these help?" She asks.

"Well, one's an underground bunker for a secret army of pegusi, who will create a new rank, sapphire, and tunnels so they can hide above the roof of any room in the palace. I will be able to call on any number of them to hide above any or every room for a surprise attack at any time, for an instant win. The other is an underground bunker for a secret army of unicorns, who will create a new rank called ruby, and will all be specially trained for magic. Especially the blank flanks, until they finally do get a cutie mark in magic. If they can't, they'll go to the silver rank and become chefs or maids or whatever they CAN get a cutie mark in. They will all be able to teleport, and so be able to get wherever I need them in the building whenever I want. It's a fail safe system for whoever could get past the guards at the gates." I told her. She looked scared because she knew that this can only mean that I would be in power for a long time, as a system this powerful would be nearly impossible to get through.

"Yes, right away..." She said sheepishly as she ran away with the blueprints. I sighed in content.

"Hey!" I shout. I got the attention of one of the more respected emeralds. "Bring me all the fillies without cutie marks in military training. I need to see them in the ballroom." I tell him. He immediately teleports away, and within a minute, an emerald that had been on break took his place. I waited in the ballroom.

Once I was informed that everypony was there, I started. "Hello. Today a very large project has been started. A project that will involve all of you. In 3 years, it will be done. But in 3 years, quite a lot of you will be getting your cutie marks, right? I need that cutie mark to allow you to do magic for unicorns and flight for pegusi. A lot of you you being taught baking isn't going to help the plan, now is it? You see, I'm enrolling all of you in an academy to teach you magic. But that academy will be finished being built in 3 years. That is a problem. Every time one of you gets a cutie mark in something I don't need, we lose a soldier. So I have created an alternative that will work as long as we need it. Schedules will be made, classes will be done, you will all have an education. More information on this program will be given to you soon. All questions will be answered later. That is all." Some ponies look, scared, others exited, some even mad. But they all know the gist, ant that was all I needed. They are ushered out of the room.

"My queen! You need to see this!" An emerald pony comes rushing to my side. He rushes me to the surveillance cameras and points to the one showing outside of the castle. It shows about 100 ponies banging on the gates, about half carrying signs protesting my rule.

"If we use our real Ruby and Sapphire guard, they could know it exists. We still need to keep that a secret." He tells me.

"You don't think I know that?" I say sternly. "Get all of our guards on the inside of the castle. There should be about 230. Leave one in the dungeons, 1outside my throne room, and 3 for my bedroom. That should be enough." I tell him calmly. He nods and teleports out.

I watch the scene through my throne room window. Pegasus guards held the rebels down while unicorns put on full hoof cuffs on them. That tied their hooves together and held their backs in position. Then a separate team of unicorns levitated them by their tails and one by one led them into the castle, for them to, I can only assume, be carried into the dungeon. When a guard alerts me that everypony that was rioting had been put into the dungeon, I leave.

I went to the dungeon to talk to the rebels. “Oh, how nice of you to join us! Too bad all the good rooms are taken.” I told them with a smirk.

“You're never… Ever going to… Win…” One of the ponies says, panting. “I just did.” I replied.

“Ponies will eventually stop rioting and rebelling.” I said.

“Are you sure about that? Ponies will never stop resisting! You WILL fail one day!” A Pegasus stallion retorted.

“Have you ever considered this? There won't be enough to resist. About 60 percent are too terrified to be any help in the resistance, 10 percent are on my side, 5 percent are either depressed or suicidals, and 10 percent have too much to lose and wouldn't risk their lives to be part of some kind of resistance. The other 5 percent are ponies like you. Eventually, that 5 percent will be gone. And don't forget that my armies are double the size of whatever you put together. You can't win!” I explain. Half if the ponies get more and more terrified with every word I speak, and some get madder. “So I would like you to choose your fate. Electrocution, burning, starvation, or dissection?” I finish.

“None! I will never succumb to you!” He shouts with his eyes full of determination.

“Burning it is. You know, that’s one of my personal favorites. It has a lot of symbolism behind it. When striking two rocks together to see which is stronger, sometimes you will create a spark. In the right environment, that spark will become a flame. That flame can be easily put out with water, or if you blow on it. But when that flame gets bigger, both of those things will just make the flame bigger and hotter. Then, you need a fire extinguisher or something of the sort. I guess I let the flame get too big, and what I was doing was just fanning the flame. But now, it looks like I have to fight fire with fire.” I explain, and then use a spell to set a small fire on the tip of his tail. He panics and tries to put it out before I tell him. “The spell I just used sets a fire that can only be put out by a certain other spell.” The fire creeps up his tail and eventually reached his body. He screamed in pain as others hid their eyes, screamed along with him, or just cried. When the fire reached his rib cage, I cast as spell to pause it. “Are you willing to obey my every command?” I ask him.

“Yes! Yes! Anything! Please get it off!” He says, crying and screaming.

“It's too late.” I started the flame again and watched as he soon became nothing but a pile of bloody ashes.