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

It had been about two weeks since the assault on the yellow hive, and I was nearing total victory. There was only one hive left, Arachnid, aside from Chrysalis's hive... when we had found where her hive was there was nothing but some scraps of resin on the walls, otherwise there was nothing to even suggest that there had been a hive.

The changelings who had belonged to the Queens i had killed were more than a little angry, some were just confused and others were afraid that I would just kill all of them. Of course I would not, that would be stupid for multiple reasons. One, I was conquering them in order to rule them, not kill them. Two, even if I had come to kill them all, they were just to useful, they had too much potential for me to kill them instead of use them. Third and finally,... they were actually pretty adorable, like, just in how they went about their day and the tasks they did. It could damn near give you diabetes, but what would you expect from a species that eats love? That they would be cruel to each other?

Anyway, after the main hive had settled down I went home to rest. One of the first things I had done after getting back to the Tower after the fight was to inspect myself. I wasn't Death the Kid levels of OCD, but I would have ~~needed to snap off a few of the spines if they weren't symmetrical~~ been very upset if they were asymmetrical. Luckily the universe was fine with giving me one nice thing for free, and all of my spines and other protrusions were were nice and symmetrical. I had gone down to the arena to test my body, I found that my speed had around tripled and my strength had almost quadrupled. On the mental front, aside from a new sense of ability and the knowledge of how to increase said ability, there was no real change... at this point I was thinking Gnarl was right about the corruption.

After a bit more looking at myself, I realized that I looked... well, evil for lack of a better descriptor. It was like my being was turning everything... darker. My armor had started out being a nice, almost white gray, like a brighter steel color. Now it was dark gray, almost on the edge of being a lighter shade of black. If any of the equestrians saw me then they would most likely assume I was a bad guy... you know, if the whole 'three fourths of my domain are made of dark creatures' didn't make them think that first. Luckily I had figured out a way to hide the signs of corruption, made the spines and horns go away, everything got a lot lighter around me, the whole shebang.

Unfortunately, it also suppressed the benefits that the corruption gave, when it was hidden I was slower and weaker. I was still better than normal, that is if I didn't have any corruption, but I could very much feel the difference. While the hiding spell was active it was like someone replaced the air with molasses... I hope that Discord can't read minds while he's in stone and that he's not paying too much attention to me. It also had the unhappy effect of making it painful to undo the spell, as in when the spell was undone all of the spines would push out of wherever they came from all at once... explosively. There was a small burst of magic to boot. It hurt so bad that the first time I did it I almost blacked out... and the second time... and the third... by the thirtieth it just made me a little unsteady and by now it barely hurt at all. Had to practice it if I wanted to have any chance of not being turned to stone on sight once the equestrians found me, even if it hurt like hell.

There had been some unrest in the Dolly-Drums at the mention of changelings living in the area freely and with my blessing. There were even several factions who formed in opposition of the idea, I had to gather the leaders of the groups together to talk them into letting it happen. They were all to happy to change their ideas when I offered them compensation for any harm they would cause, especially so after one leader demanded that I send them away, so I smashed his head like a ripe melon. Of course, this was only after I gave him six offers of compensation in increasing value, which was one more than I usually give as I hated causing my people harm. Coincidentally, that was why I destroyed his head, he was dead before he even knew I had swung.

Other than that, there were a few more towns in the surrounding area had decided that they wanted my protection as well and had joined my domain willingly, it included around ten dog dens and twenty seven sheeple townships, meaning there were on average two people per changeling, counting the ones who hadn't become a part of the domain yet. There were some problems with the new dog dens, specifically, they had slaves of many different species... and I don't tolerate any slavery. Those who wanted to leave were given supplies and put on the right track to get home, otherwise they were given a small amount of money to start over and several new buildings had been built in most towns to shelter the homeless by my order.

In the meantime, my tower had been decorated as the Diamond Dog masons had promised, they had brought over several plans a few days before getting to work. By now I had some very nice decorations, both in stonework and and cloth, as I had gone to several small stores in order to furnish my Tower properly. In the throne room I had basically gone with the same design as the game when you choose Rose as your mistress, nice red carpet, statues of nondescript humanoids holding swords pointed down lining the room, the 'Imperial Throne' as I had always liked that form better, but I had kept the hell hounds at the base of the throne instead of the 'chimeras', which were just lions with wings. In my personal wing it was basically the complete opposite of the throne room, mostly being the Velvet rout, nice long curtains lining the walls and draped in between pillars, the main difference was that instead of a torture room I had gone with the garden, gathering plants from around the Dolly-Drums and the Badlands and even what few plants grew around the Tower and turning the room into a nice little place to calmly think.

However, now wasn't the time for gardening, as the assault on the last changeling hive, aside from Chrysalis's who, again, was missing, was still going on. I had been having my minions 'farm' life force by using the arena in the dungeon, as it could infinitely spawn any creatures that I, or any other Overlord, had fought before. as such I had been having them fight beetles to increase the amount of minions we had since they were almost contently dying. And for getting seventy five life force per battle? It was a steal.

The last three Queens had basically 'sensed' that the others had died, and began to pull their forces back to protect themselves. Apparently most changelings could 'feel' where other changelings were regardless of which hive they belonged to, and the last Queen had all but made children into solders to defend herself after feeling the second to last Queen bite the dust. I had decided to sit out the long, arduous... well siege, for lack of a better term for it and had decided to do some administrative work while the minions did their job and got me closer to the enemy leaders. Once the minions had beaten back the defenders to the point I could directly attack a Queen I appeared to do so, using the same method I had used on the previous Queens to quickly end them while still increasing my power.

When I arrived at the last hive to conquer I found that most of the defenses were shattered and solders from both sides were strewn about, the changelings who weren't dead were hurt in such a way that they couldn't resist, and minions were only that still if they were asleep or dead, and minions only slept in the minion pits.

I walked forward, past the signs of battle and deeper into the hive, looking for the Queens chamber. On the way I saw many dead or hurt changelings, some were only lightly scuffed while others only had their head, torso and maybe a limb or two... and those were just the ones who had passed.

The screams made me... upset. The idea of a leader forcing inexperienced civilians to fight an armed and trained fighting force was just wrong. For one thing, it was terribly inconsiderate. So many would die, how was anyone supposed to pick up the pieces after the war was done and actually make use of the area if everyone was dead or so mentally broken that they couldn't do anything? For a second thing, if you couldn't protect your people with your military, with diplomacy, or by any other means, then you didn't deserve the right to call yourself a leader.

I found a large group of minions gathered outside a rather impressive free standing structure. It appeared that a Green was the one who was in charge of this group, with how much minions tended to look alike he stood out as his tail was a stump and he was missing a finger on his left hand.

"Master! Queen in there! We found! Haha!" He said, it might have been broken english, but it was still much better than most minions. I would have to keep an eye on this one.

"What is your name, minion?" I asked him while getting ready to end this war.

"Me Scratch! Me serve Overlord!" he said with a light giggle of happiness at the attention and as good a salute as I have ever seen a minion give.

"Definitely have to keep an eye on this one, he shows great promise even if only as a spy." I thought as i turned to enter the final Queen's chamber.

The first thing I noticed was the smell, it was every good thing I had ever smelled and some I hadn't rolled up in one. Next was the temperature, which was warm but not oppressively so, just enough to make you drowsy without putting you to sleep. The light level was perfect as well, my eyes were somewhat photosensitive even now and even a somewhat cloudy day made it feel like two ice picks were being stabbed into my eyes. It wasn't dark, but it also had little actual light and was just the right amount of gray... and it was quiet. not 'someone just died' quiet, more like 'there is someone here, but it's fine just enjoy you time' quiet. Comforting silence, I suppose would be the best way to put it.

I was the first one to break the silence by saying "Come out, I can sense that you're still here." In the quiet of the room, my voice was almost deafening with how loud it was, even though I had only talked at an indoor volume.

"Very well... my lord." said a very seductive female voice.

The Queen all but sauntered over to me, looking like she was trying to get as close to me as possible before talking to me. I have to say, for a quadruped she was actually fairly attractive and I had no doubt that she had altered herself to look even more attractive. She got on her back hooves and wrapped her fore hooves around my shoulders, when I didn't hug her back she made the second most adorable pouty face I had ever seen.

"Please, Lord, won't you hug me back?" She asked me, batting her eyes and snuggling closer to me.

I wrapped my arms around her causing her to sigh in contentedness. I enjoyed the warmth of the Queen for a moment before saying "I saw your horns light before you walked around the corner. It takes much stronger mind magic than that to fool me."

Once my words had registered in her head the Queen began to struggle, biting and kicking, trying any way to escape from the death trap she had put herself in. At this point I was strong enough that it was like holding an upset toddler, all squirming and no real force or chance to escape. After a few moments she had stopped struggling and was just sobbing at me.

"Please, let me live! I'll serve you! Anything! I'll do anything you ask! Please! Please!" and other variations of this were all that she could choke out.

"I might've been persuaded to spare you before, but, unfortunately, I've already decided who will live and who will die. And your on the die list." I said with some sympathy in my voice, as no one likes telling someone else that they were going to die, especially when it's a crying girl.

A few moments later the sobbing stopped, as did everything else. The room we had been in was an illusion, it was little more than a trashed hotel room without much light, and it smelled twice as bad. I placed her body on her bed for her people to do with what they would.

"I must say, I'm impressed. There are few males who could resist her charms, much less her crying voice. Most would offer anything to make her stop, all part of her magic though. Good thing you don't have any real preference when it comes to mates or you might've turned on me." said an increasingly normal voice behind me.

"And with this no more changelings will die from us, they will have good lives from here on out as long as I have a say in it." I said, turning and motioning for the yellow Queen, Sarra, to follow me.

"Time to go home?" She asked.

"For now, they will need time to rebuild and settle into things. Once that is done I will begin to introduce them into the rest of the domain." I told her walking back to the portal to the Tower, just happy to stop killing my people. It was bad to break your possessions.