Great, I'm the New Bad Guy...

I arrived back at the badlands after a full nights rest with a full squad of minions, around thirty. Half were Greens who would leap onto the opponents back, and the Browns would charge in and tank the brunt of the damage. Since I hated not having fully outfitted minions, for the last few days I had been having the forge make iron equipment for them. They even installed a second forge to speed up the process! As such, the minions were a sea of pikes and pole arms followed by iron claws, a very good set of equipment for this stage if I do say so myself.

We exited the portal to find a large amount of changelings in full armor, with medium to large weapons and horns lit up. At a glance, it looked like there were around sixty to seventy of them. They all attacked at once, either swinging their weapons or shooting their magic at us. I didn't even have time to give the minions their orders before they all jumped into action, pun somewhat intended. Within moments, due to the coordination of the Browns attacking the same changelings that the Greens had leaped onto, quickly killing them by acting as a team.

I myself killed more than I did before, taking down three with an... almost... thick (?) crunch... like when you split a watermelon. I had caught them in the air as they were leaping at me, crushing their heads with one swing. One of their weapons, a curved blade like you would see from an ancient Egyptian statue or something only bright green with a black hilt, still nicked me as they fell. I wouldn't have even noticed if I hadn't seen it happen, which worried me as I was a bit of a klutz. I got it from my mother, we always seemed to have a bruise somewhere.

I managed to drain a few more changelings of their evil energy, like I had with the changeling Queen yesterday, only this was harder as they were not surprised that I could even do magic. I had no doubt that the Queen had warned the others about my technique for weakening them, and that the queens would warn their troops about it as well.

I had come up with the idea for it a few days after taking over the Dolly-drums, it worked by essentially 'throwing' your magic at the other guy and attaching it to their magic. After that it was tug of war, you either won all the magic, or you lost all the magic. An added bonus was you could choose which kind of magic you were taking by sending that kind of magic at your opponent, so you had the choice of evil energy, regular good old magic, or as it's usually called, arcane magic, and light magic to round it off.

The fight had lasted around ten minutes, and I had lost ten of my thirty which were immediately replaced. There were no survivors on the changeling side, none had retreated or surrendered to me. I had no doubt that it was at the order of their Queens, that they would throw their own lives away. Oh well, time to move on, places to be, Queens to kill, all that jazz.

We set off on the same path that we had gone the day before, though it wasn't all that hard to follow the path back to the hive as the correct path was swarming with changelings every few feet. In the usual idiot bad guy fashion, the changeling troopers got progressively harder as we went towards the hive, as opposed to the smart idea of sending the regular troops and if they fail immediately sending the elite troops. Add to that how narrow the pass we were in was, it was basically a meat grinder.

One changeling had managed to stick me with a spear, by which I mean he tried to stab me but instead broke his spear on my armor. It had still managed to get the tip stuck in the crack it had made, but it was minor damage compared to what it could have been if I was still wearing my iron armor.

We had killed around... maybe a little over a hundred? More? Less? I didn't know or care, they were trying to attack me and my minions. Yes, I was trying to take over their lands, and I was in the wrong here, but... um... what was I talking about?

Anyway, we had reached the entrance to the bee hive, which was connected to all the other hives underground, as all hives were. There was another group of changelings gathered at the entrance, all of which were better equipped than the ones who had tried to ambush us when we first appeared. They also looked more than a little starved, and their battle performance and moral suffered for it. I knew that they were in such a state because of the Queen draining them in order to fight me, because what other answer could it realistically be in this world? Sure, they could be having a sudden food shortage, but that wouldn't explain why they all looked so healthy yesterday.

The battle went much the same as the last one, Greens leaping at the backs of the defenders, Browns keeping them from being able to focus on the Greens and me, smashing my way through any 'lings that got in my way. The only difference was that this time some of the changelings surrendered and/or ran away, I spared the ones who dropped their weapons but many were still killed. By the time the last changeling fell or stopped fighting, the tunnel was coated in changeling blood and viscera, a mostly green color with a little blue in patches.

There were not many military Changelings in the hive proper, the non-combatants all either ran at the sight of us or cowered in a corner. I had my minions ignore any and all civilians just like the soldiers in the entrance, after all you can't really have a domain without people to live in it. Otherwise it would just be an empty place that you live in. I even spared the military changelings in the hive who ran away, though whether it was to warn others or just to get away I didn't know.

Nothing of much note happened as we made our way to the Queens chamber until we were just outside, when a small changeling, "a changeling kid?" I realized with some surprise, charged at me despite his mothers screams for him to stay put. My minions were about to impale him like any other enemy, but I sent a pulse through the link which connected us causing them to stand down. The child flew up to my breastplate and began to punch and kick at it, to the horrified gaze of the nearby onlookers.

"Go away you big meanie! I won't let you hurt the Queen!" The kid yelled at me as he hurt himself more than the breastplate, "You can't just come here and hurt changelings for no reason!"

"From where I'm standing, your Queen is the mean one." I said to the kid but also loud enough for the onlookers to hear.

"Huh? What are you talking about, your the one who started this!" he yelled, confused and angry but still listening.

"Well you see, I came here in the first place because I had heard that you were hungry. I wanted to offer you food and shelter in my lands, free and open with no reason or need to hide. I took back a smelter that was mine and had to hurt some changelings who were hurting some of my people, but other than that I've been very reasonable. And now, only the second time I've been here and after your Queen promised that she would accept my terms because I can't just give things away for free, I find a group of soldiers waiting to hurt me and my people when I arrive." I said watching the crowd more than the kid, they all seemed more than a little surprised, some still looked suspicious of me but others looked like they were doubting their Queen's judgment.

"But-but, what about all the guards you hurt on the way here! We could hear them yelling!" He said, not really yelling at this point but still having a raised voice.

"I only hurt the people who break deals, or try to hurt me and mine. They were doing the second one, as were you just now..." as I said this his eyes went wide, as did the eyes of those around us, but they all sighed when I lightly flicked the kid in the forehead, "And I only hurt others proportionate to the amount they hurt me."

"Perpor-wha?" He said with adorable confusion on his face as he rubbed the spot I had flicked.

"It means equal to the amount of whatever your comparing it to." I told him.

With that I grabbed him out of the air and returned him to his mother, who just stared at me with tears still flowing down her face as she quietly sobbed, without saying any more.

Once the crowed that had formed dispersed I gathered my minions, who had for some reason began cuddling and hugging some of the changelings and headed toward the Queens chamber. The guards at the front just asked me to "Please spare our Queen, that's all we ask of you." and stood aside. I didn't even respond to them, sometimes it was good to keep people in suspense.

When I got to the main chamber I found not one, not two, but four Queens waiting for me.

"Good," I thought "I won't have to waste time hunting for them."