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

[Nobles area: Canterlot]

This was turning out to be more and more of a horrible week. First the Changelings invade Canterlot, then the biggest forest fire on record happens in Ponyville, home of the Elements of Harmony and the biggest producer of apple products within a reasonable distance from Canterlot and now it turns out that some new country has been expanding on the southern border of Equestria. If Prince Blueblood didn't know any better, he'd say that they were just a few disasters from the end of the world!

Luckily he knew that if there was a real problem his aunty would let him know, after all his company provided a majority of the funds and equipment needed for the military. She would need to let him know so that he could allocate the funds properly. Although...

"She didn't let me know about the Changelings attacking, did they surprise her? It would be very bad if they did, not to mention what that Queen said about some 'monster'... and then there's this new country, where they apparently let changelings just walk around and have even domesticated Diamond Dogs... Who or what could do that? What's next, Dragons submitting to whoever is in charge of that place? And will they set their eyes on us next?" The prince thought.

It was more than a little frustrating to have such little information about something, the most he had at the moment was that some... thing had recently gone around and made multiple groups bow to him and that the fire in Ponyville was somehow connected to him. He wanted to dismiss the reports of multi-color bipedal creatures roughly the size of the average ten year old colt or filly, but with how things were going it seemed to be more and more plausible.

"No, I won't worry about it. I'll keep an eye on it, and if she asks then I'll tell aunty about it, but until she tells me otherwise she still has everything planned out and there is nothing to worry about." The prince thought to himself to keep calm, much like many other's in the room though with much less assuredness, just faith.

"Ahem, Prince Blueblood?" asked a guard who had walked quietly to him, so as to not disturb the others.

"Yes, what is it guard? Has my attendant gotten lost somewhere?" The Prince joked, as his attendant was known to lose track of his surroundings quite often.

"No your majesty, Princess Celestia has requested your presence in her personal quarters." the guard informed him.

The Prince felt his blood freeze.

"Oh no." was all he thought as he walked as slowly as he dared to his aunt's quarters.

[Sweet Apple Acres: Ponyville]

"Apple Bloom! You open that door and get out of that tree house right now!! I'll give you five seconds and then I'm breaking that door down!!" Applejack yelled up to the tree house in her orchard.

All of the girls were there with her, half of them were very worried for the fillys in the tree house as there was one 'Red' in there with them. The other half were still worried for the fillys, but they weren't panicking as hard as Applejack... though nopony was really panicking like Applejack. Rarity and Rainbow were both upset and feared for their sisters, but the longer that the tree house didn't burst into flame the more calm yet confused they became.

"We aren't letting you take Sparky away! He ain't done nothing wrong!" I yelled down at my sister. I could almost hear her teeth grinding from here.

"We aren't going to take him away if he hasn't done anything, but we need to make sure that he isn't going to do anything dangerous!" called up Twilight. Apparently I wasn't the only one who wasn't expecting that, as I could hear Rainbow, Rarity and most loudly Applejack all whispering something to Twilight.

"What do you think girls? Should we trust them?" I asked Sweety and Scootaloo.

Sweety looked back at Sparky who was standing in the corner before turning back to me and shaking her head no. Scootaloo bit her lower lip before glancing at Sweety and nodding her head yes. So I was going to be the tie breaker...

"Girls? Please come down, we are just worried about you!" Twilight said up at us.

I opened the door and climbed down with the other girls and Sparky. Applejack was huffing and puffing, it was obvious that I was going to be grounded for a long time. Rarity and Rainbow both looked upset yet they still looked somewhat fine, if somewhat uncomfortable with Sparky, but Applejack was practically growling at him.

"Alright, now we're just going to ask... uh, Sparky here some questions, okay?" asked Twilight while constantly glancing at him.

Before any of us could say anything Rainbow flew in close to Sparky and gave him the stink eye while asking "Why did you stay behind when all of the others left? Are you a spy or something?"

Sparky just looked at her funny and said "Master not call sparky back, so Sparky stay. Master not need Sparky to see what ponies doing."

That last part seemed to worry all of them more than the idea that he was a spy and Rainbow just quietly went back to stand with the others. Fluttershy was the next one to ask something in her usual whispery way.

"Umm, if you don't mind, could you tell us what you are? A-and how you make the fires happen, then go away? If that's okay..." she asked while trying to not hide in her mane as much as she normally would.

"Sparky is minion! Minions serve Overlord! Aaahhh... Reds.... burn...? Spit out fire... breath in fire, make go away... ehh??" he turned to us for help and apparently Scootaloo knew what he was trying to say, I barely understood that he was speaking what with his accent.

"I think what he's trying to say is that Reds, his species, are all like dragons, like, they have fire inside them! And when they need to, they can just breath the fire in to get rid of it, or move it or something... Maybe..." She said looking confidant at first and then getting more and more nervous as everypony stared at her.

"Yeah! Yeah! What pony said! Yeah!" Sparky said while clapping and hopping from one foot to the other.

"Oh my, and, um, how many kinds of, um, 'minion' are there? If you don't mind me asking?" Fluttershy asked looking a little more cautious of Sparky. She was afraid of dragons after all, and Sparky was basically a small flightless dragon... a lot like Spike actually, I wonder if they are related in any way...

"Reds burn, Blues magic, Greens smell and Browns fight! Overlord tell minions what to do, we do it! All for Overlord!" Sparky said, getting a little brighter when he talked about his 'Overlord'.

"Sparky," Twilight cut in "What does your Overlord want? Was that him, out in the forest? Are there more than one Overlord? Please, we need to know."

Sparky glanced at Fluttershy and us before turning back to Twilight to answer her.

[Ponyville public library: later]

As we all got back to the library I could tell that the girls were worried, heck I was worried, but right now we needed to focus. We needed to let the Princesses know what we had found out and we needed to find out more about this 'Overlord', whether he would be a friend or an enemy to Equestria...

"So... do you believe that stuff he said? Like about how his master didn't need anypony there to spy on ponies?" asked Rainbow Dash.

"Dash, there are a lot, and I mean a LOT, of ways to spy on ponies, some of which aren't even traceable... at least not to the average unicorn. If there was anything trying to peep on me in here, nine times out of ten I'd catch it. And even then, the only reason I wouldn't catch it would be because whatever was doing the spying wouldn't be malicious. So, yes, I do believe 'Sparky' when he said that his master didn't need him to spy on us." I explained to her.

"Oh, okay. That doesn't make me feel any better, but... Hey, do you think he was spying on us during the wedding? I mean, I was doing very well, until we all got beaten and stuff, but even then maybe he saw how hard Chrysalis got her flank kicked and now he's to scared to do anything!" Rainbow said, uncomfortable and fidgety at first but relaxing at her idea...

"Aww! I don't want to scare away a new friend! Maybe we should give him a gift basket or something? Would he like cheese? Hmm..." Pinkie said, at first to us and then drifting off to just herself, mumbling something about 'exotic cheeses vs exotic butters' before rejoining the conversation and staring at me like she expected me to say something.

"What? What are you looking at me like that for?" I asked, confused by her strange silence as she waited for me to say... whatever it was she thought I would say.

"Oh, umm, I just thought that you'd say something like 'He's not a friend' or 'He could be dangerous and we shouldn't be trying to just instantly make friends with him without knowing what he wants' or something like that..." She said with a sheepish grin.

I blinked at her and said "While the second point has some merit, as we don't know what he wants and should be careful that we're not walking into a trap, the first one doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't we at least try to be friends with him first? We know next to nothing about him, just that changelings don't like him, which enough for me to like him just by osmosis and we shouldn't just assume that he's going to be violent when we meet him."

"Umm, Sweetie?" Rarity cut in, "You must have misspoke, you said 'When' we meet him, surly you meant 'If', right?" She was wearing a hopeful yet strained grin when she finished her question, and it made me feel a little bad to answer her with the truth.

"Sorry Rarity, but as the Elements of Harmony we need to go when the Princesses go to greet him, in case he is violent and needs the Elements to beat him." I said making Rarity's ears fold back. Everypony else looked... not quite scared, but still worried. "Alright," I said with a sigh, "there is a lot we need to think about so... let's all go home and make preparations, I'll send a letter to the Princess letting her know what we've learned and tomorrow we'll all meet at the train station."

"Just another day of savin' the world, eh?" Applejack said, trying to lighten the mood with her lame joke... I'm glad it worked and that everypony left with a smile, even if only a small one.

"Spike!" I called, getting ready to either make a new friend, or face another threat to the safety of Equestria.

[Canterlot palace: midnight]

My sister was still awake which, while not uncommon, was worrying. It wasn't the thought that she might be to tired to raise the sun when day broke, nor was it that she might be pushing herself to hard for no reason. It was that some... thing had arrived, out of nowhere and with no warning, and had somehow formed a small country to the south of us with creatures we had never seen before and nopony knew how.

Not even Tia could figure out how this... 'Overlord' had come to be. It would be frightening to most mortals, but to an immortal like Tia and I? For something to happen without even the hint of it reaching us was unheard of, for some ponies it seemed like Tia had the ability to see the future. The truth was that after a long enough time, you start to get good at guessing what will happen and why. Tia may have looked the same as she always did when she called in Prince Blueblood, but the truth is that she is almost ready to start pulling on her hair if something doesn't fit into place soon.

At both my and her students suggestion, tomorrow we were going to take a train ride down to this 'Domain' and attempt to learn something about it's leader before we go to meet him personally. Hopefully we will be able to determine his true nature, and whether or not Tia's worries are founded...

Truth be told, I think we are both rather excited by this, something new! Unexpected! Anything could happen! We just need to see.

Tomorrow...