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

The integration of the changelings into the domain was going very smoothly, almost none of them had been assaulted in the streets in the past three days! Another good thing about this was that once everyone got used to each other, we could begin to try and remake the badlands. For now it was basically a large empty expanse of land that was just unlivable unless you didn't need normal food, and while that was fine for changelings it did make getting said meal a tad more difficult.

How nice would it look once everything was green and alive? Hmm... how confusing would it be when others got here? I mean most of the time when an 'evil' guy is in charge the land looks all dead and gross, but here I was, evil by most of this worlds standards, and I was trying to make the land green and lush! I can just imagine the confused look Rainbow would give at finding me, all spiny and dark, sitting in the middle of a garden watering flowers! Ha!

On a related note, my garden was growing very well! The plants were all playing nice and not strangling the life out of each other, like normal plants would when planted so close together. It was the second greenest place in the Tower, after where the Green nest was placed. It was rather odd that a being with so much corruption inside them self could care for any living thing so well, but I suppose weirder things have happened.

The gardening was mostly to relieve boredom, as I had little to do outside of the duty's I had given myself. The minions that had gone down the door in the basement had returned yesterday with news of what was down there, absolutely nothing. It was an empty spiral staircase with multiple places for openings, but where a door would go was just a solid rock wall. Many people would be disappointed at the lack of any dragons or undead, but I saw this as a good thing. One, I wouldn't have to fight something way beyond me just to get something that was already under my tower, and two, now I could design the room and what it would be used for! And I knew just what to make...

This all related to the garden because when I was bored I would normally read, but there were little to no books in the Tower as a vast majority of the minions couldn't read. I had already burned through all of the books in the Tower and a large portion of books in the surrounding townships, and thus the gardening. So, in an effort to end my boredom as well as score some brownie points with Twilight when she eventually shows up, I was having the library dug out immediately. I would also need to order some books to stock it... Maybe I should look into making a music library? I'm sure it was bound to make someone happy, at least me.

While the library was being built I had decided to learn more about magic, Gnarl (who had been getting rather distant lately) had gotten me started but I wouldn't get very far by just throwing my magic at whatever was in the way. I needed to know how magic worked and how to manipulate it, luckily I had just subjugated a race that was around seventy percent magic. What? How else would eating emotions and altering their physical forms so drastically make any sense?

When I asked Sarra to teach me magic she gave me a blank stare for several minutes before face palming. I think she was embarrassed to find out that her whole species was defeated by someone who didn't really know how to use their own magic, by overpowering them using magic. Anyway, after getting her to agree, which didn't take much as all she wanted was some love, we began our lessons. It started with little things like fire balls, ice spears and lightning bolts, but quickly grew into things like short range teleportation or 'blinking', magical shields and, one that I found very useful, a spying spell.

It worked like that one quest in World of Warcraft, when your a death knight and you have to spy on the scarlet crusade, by making a big ol' eye in the sky. I could control it from my throne, basically launching a giant blue eye from the top of my Tower, going invisible at will and moving where I wished. There was no limit on where I could go, or the speed which I went to get there, as such I obviously made it invisible and sent it to Ponyville to see what the mane six were up to. I was certain that if the spell were affected by movement the same way anything else was, it would have just done a sonic rainboom at least twice due to course correction.

The gist of the area was known to me by studying maps and I was able to find it fairly quickly, but one thing I couldn't find, or rather six things I couldn't find, were the girls. I could find just about everyone else in the town, there were the flower sisters selling their namesakes, over there was Time Turner, or Dr. Hooves whatever, who was talking with Derpy, the CMC talking with a Red, Big Mac tending the fields.

Wait.

Let's go back one.

The CMC. Talking with a Red. In their wooden tree house. Without adult supervision.

Oh god, they were going to burn down all of Ponyville! Where was the popcorn when you needed it!?

But seriously, how did this even happen? Where were the other Reds? Or their hive? Why was there a large pinkish shield over Canterlot with lots of small black dots on it?... Oh, so that's were Chrysalis went... Oh no.

"I have a very bad feeling about this..."

I was in the main hall of the castle in the blink of an eye, and yup, there was chrysalis, just being reviled to be a changeling. Her monologue was relatively unchanged, however when she said "And as Queen of the changelings, it is my duty to find food for them" she added in "Food and protection for them" and at the whole "Equestria has more love than any place I've ever seen!" part, she said "We'll become more powerful than ever, and then we'll defeat that monster, securing our rightful place at the top of the food chain!" after that was a lot of laughing and things went as they would normally from there. But the damage was done for me, the first impression that the Equestrians had of me was a monster that displaced another monster.

I would need a plan to give myself a chance, otherwise I would most likely become a lawn ornament... and I think I have one that might work, at the least it would give them pause when it came to petrifying me.

[Third person; the next day]

The Everfree was burning, already the inferno had consumed almost the same amount of acreage as the whole of Sweet Apple Acres. By this point the fire had even begun to spread into areas outside the Everfree. Due to the closeness of the forest to Ponyville, as well as the worries of several prominent citizens, the ponies of Ponyville generally kept forest fires down to safe, healthy levels, of which this was not. The fire was so out of control that several ponies had already needed to be hospitalized for burns and/or heat exhaustion, including Vinyl Scratch, Octavia (while trying to get to Vinyl) and the one's who first stumbled upon the fire (and were the most hurt by the flames), the flower trio.

The fire wouldn't have been such a large problem for the residents of Ponyville, if only they would stay put out. Many unicorns were doing their best to smother the flames as the others did what they could as well, but the many small new creatures that seemed to be made of the fire relighted the flames almost faster than they could put them out. Several ponies, upon seeing the new creatures, froze and simply stared as they ran around almost frantically, wearing grins that could give Pinky a run for her bits.

The only ponies who weren't confused by the appearance of the new creatures were three little filly's who were trying to convince them to stop burning things down, with little to no effect on any of them as the most any did was slow down to listen to them for a moment. The creatures were borderline ignoring the ponies that had come into the forest to stop their rampage, but something in their heads made them try to stay away from a purple unicorn and her friends, even with their random movements it was noticeable that they were giving the mane six a wide birth.

Three of the mane six broke off with a shout to collect their respective family member, and while there were some protests at the sudden loss of position, the filly's accepted their fate, though not without still trying to help where they could.

As such when Twilight asked "What are these things? I've never seen anything like them!" One of the crusaders was happy to tell her.

"They're called Reds! They said that they were waiting for their Overlord to find them so that they could serve him, or at least that's what I think Sparky said." said Sweety Bell after getting all of the girls attention.

"What! You talked with one!? Sweety, do you realize how dangerous that could have been!?" said Rarity, as she hugged her little sister closer to herself.

"Hey, their not mean or anything! I mean, yes they do set stuff on fire, but it's not like they want to hurt anypony!" said Scootaloo, not complaining as she pressed into the hug that Rainbow Dash had her in, but still standing up for her new friend.

Twilight was about to say something, but was promptly left speechless when there was a small explosion of pure magic. Or, more accurately, she was left speechless by the being who stepped out of the proverbial eye of the storm, a giant, clad head to toe in plait mail and welding a mace that was larger than her head.

At his arrival there was a sudden increase in the energy of the Reds, as they began to shout and scream in happiness, saying phrases like "The Master! He here! He here!" and "We burn for the Master!" before they were all silenced and stopped by a single stomp by the Overlord.

It was like someone had flipped a switch, there was movement everywhere and then they were as still as statues, all looking to their Overlord for directions. With a wave of his hand they got those directions, immediately putting out all of the fires and carrying a large, oddly shaped structure over to where the Overlord had come from.

None of the ponies could believe their eyes, aside from three filly's who had already seen this trick. One second they were in the middle of a raging inferno, the next they were standing in the burnt out remains of a good portion of the Everfree and some of Sweet Apple Acres.

As the Reds placed the strange structure on the spot the Overlord had come from, he was busy looking at the damage the Reds had caused. Once the Red hive had been sent back, a massive bag appeared, filled to the brim with gold and being carried by twelve Browns. It was taken over to the SAA side of the fence and dropped, then, having not said a word the whole time, the Overlord left back through the way he had arrived, taking all of the minions with him.

"Aww, I didn't get to throw him a 'Thank-you-for-helping-us-not-burn-down-the-Everfree' party!" said Pinky Pie, the only one who had been unfazed by the sudden arrival and departure of the Overlord.

[Back to Overlord]

"Whelp, that's all I can do. They either think that I'm still evil and need to die, or think that I just have a bad public image. Either way, they know what I look like now... let's see what happen's next."