[Sheption village: late morning]

I was sitting on my throne, using the monitoring spell to watch the town as the train came in from Equestria. With how underdeveloped the town had looked when I first found it, I was very surprised to find out that the sheeple had fixed the old, dilapidated train station in order to encourage trade and ease transportation. Now it was being used for the second one, as it was bringing some uninvited dignitaries to the town, mostly to see what kind of land I'm running and to see if they needed to kill/imprison me.

While it wasn't outright stated by the sheeple that they hated ponies, it was abundantly clear that they did not appreciate their presence. Everywhere they looked the ponies saw angry glares or upturned noses, and those were from the polite ones. When the mane six and the Princesses tried to get a table at the nearby restaurant, the waiters first sat them at the worst table in the building aside from the restrooms and then got their orders wrong five times, on purpose, and charged them one third more than was normal due to wasting so much food.

In fact the only ones who didn't treat them with outright contempt were the Diamond Dogs and the Changelings, who either ignored them or apologized for the behavior of the residents of the town. One Changeling even offered to carry Rarity's luggage free of charge, to excuse the rudeness of his sheep buddy, who had dropped what he was holding in order to make a large cloud of dust and getting her dirty.

While I didn't like this behavior, as it would make me being a not-so-bad guy less believable, I could understand. After all, the ponies had basically promised to protect them, and when they needed their help the most they weren't there. I would still need to have the mayors of all the townships talk to their people, as driving away the ponies would only make things harder in the long run.

It would take them the better part of a day to get to the tower, even counting Rainbow getting impatient and speeding ahead to get here first. As such, I was going to need to make sure we all put on a good face, starting with Gnarl as he was the one I was most worried about doing something rash while two physical goddesses and all seven parts of a super weapon were under my roof.

If I had one thing to complain about in regards to this observation spell, it would be that while it doesn't take long to send it somewhere you can't just end the spell and be sent back to your body. It actually won't let you end the spell while the orb was more than ten feet away from your body, as a fail safe to avoid very inconvenient out of body experience.

[The Tower: a minute or two later]

After entering the requisite distance to end the spell I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck. Sitting on the throne for hours on end was not the best thing in the world for my back... or my legs, arms, neck, and other body parts. I just don't understand how Arthas did it for five to six years with no breaks, I mean I don't like to move around at the best of times but this was just silly. Maybe I needed a cushion for my throne? I knew that Celestia had one, and if it worked for her it should work for me... just needed to make sure it match's with the rest of the room... I'll get someone else to do it, I have a horrible fashion sense.

Gnarl wasn't in the throne room like he normally was, which while odd wasn't unimaginable, as he often went down to the minion pits to, as he called it, 'Evaluate the Troops' which basically just meant tormenting the other minions until his evil urges were satisfied. While I had made it a point to drain most of the creatures in my tower of their evil energy, he was one of the few I had not, at his own request. He had said something along the lines of being worried that it might affect his mind in some way, and that while it was fine if the minions were a little brain damaged from the procedure that was fine, it wasn't like they were using it all that much anyway, but he actually needed his head in order to do his job.

I was tempted to put his theory to the test, but he was right and while I may not agree with him on everything he was still a very good administrator.

As I was headed down to the minion pits I ran into Sarra who had taken up residence in the mid level of the tower, it looked like she was headed up to the throne room. My hunch was confirmed when she stopped me to inform me of the ponies in the town, her changelings had let her know and were waiting for any orders, such as to ignore them or capture them. She was looking for me as she had wanted to know what I had planed in regards to them.

I told her that they were to be treated with respect, but not to overdo it. We really didn't want to make them enemy's until we had some way of either overpowering or negating the Elements of Harmony, not to mention that their leaders were living goddesses. It would be foolish to even try being hostile with them right now, not to mention that we were the new guy so no one would support us even if we tried at this point.

What I didn't tell her was that I hoped that we never had to find a reason to fight them, as one: they still looked cute and squishy even now that they looked real, and two: the ponies as a set of races were ridiculously overpowered. If they all worked together then even once I found the Blues, there was little chance of anything good happening for me at any acceptable speed, at most I could see it becoming a stalemate.

After she nodded and walked away I continued down to the Pits, noting how upset and scared the minions patrolling the halls looked. I supposed that Gnarl had been going a bit overboard lately... I would need to stop him before he did anything that would permanently damage the moral of the minions, the last thing I needed was them to decide that because I let Gnarl do horrible things to them they wanted to follow someone else. Of course I could just crush down their free will using the connection, but I would never do that. Choice was very important, after all if someone is told to do something they'll usually just do the minimum amount necessary, but if they choose to 'help you' then they will usually put a little more effort into it.

I found Gnarl in the Browns area of the minion pits holding a wooden staff with several unconscious/near-dead Browns. Gnarl himself looked relatively unhurt, though he was leaning on his staff... but that might've just been because he was old and was exerting himself in his exercise.

"Gnarl, I need to talk with you. Now. I'll expect you in the throne room, where we'll have some privacy." I told him, causing him to perk up at my commanding tone as he, for some reason, responded the best to orders as opposed to requests.

"Yes, Sire! I'll just finish up here and get right up to the throne room, uh, shall I get the Changeling Queen as well?" Gnarl asked, picking himself up and readying for one last bout.

"No, Gnarl. Not after one more, now. And as for Sarra, she already knows what I have to tell you, now get moving." I told him, taking a step toward him for emphasis.

He flinched, but he still bowed and began to walk back to the stairway. By the time he had begun to walk away I had already used my short to mid range teleport to get back the throne room. It was much faster, but hey you miss things if you just teleport everywhere.

[Shepton village: late afternoon]

"So, what does everypony think so far?" Twilight asked her friends.

They were all gathered in a circle in their room at the hotel they were staying at. Why were they at a hotel, I hear you ask? Well, It's because while Shepton village is the closest to my tower in the macintosh hills and was basically my capital city, it was still a full day of travel to get to and from my tower mostly because I didn't like the idea of an express way into my home that anybody could use. You needed to use dark magic to use the tower portals, so the chances of that happening were slim to none, and even if someone was dumb/desperate enough to do it they would be taken directly in front of me and I could kill them before they could try anything.

"Well, aside from the horrible behavior of the sheep, I'd say that just about everypony here is quite pleasant. Who knew that changelings could be such gentle ponies?" Rarity replied to Twilight.

"I agree, the changelings here are much nicer that the ones who attacked the wedding... They look much healthier to..." Fluttershy said with a small smile.

"Hey, what's with that? I mean, I thought that changelings eat love, right? So shouldn't everypony here be drained dry by now?" Rainbow said from her perch on the dresser.

"I was wondering about that to! It just don't make any sense to me... I didn't think that changeling Queen was lying when she said that overfeeding could turn ponies into changelings..." Applejack took a breath and gave a deep sigh "But then she had already fooled me once so what do I know."

"Hmm... So she blames herself for not noticing the 'lie' that was Chrysalis's disguise... I have options with that, but what way to go..."

"Applejack, just stop. None of us blame you and holding onto this unreasonable guilt is not necessary, or healthy. We all already apologised to each other, it's over now and at this point you're just being stubborn about it." Twilight said in a tone that told me that they had been going over this for multiple days now and she was losing patience.

"Or not... But it seems like there could be some tension there for Applejack... must just be a side effect of being a stubborn person."

"Moving on, I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation as to why everypony looks fine here, the thing that I noticed was something I didn't expect. Nopony here has any kind of mind magic on them at all." Twilight said sounding both surprised and somewhat... frustrated? ...This was, of course, after a group hug focused on Applejack ended.

"Why did you think that somepony would be using mind magic on the ponies here? I mean, I could maybe see it with the changelings, but there's no way anypony would let them live in their town if they were... right?" Rainbow asked looking confused and then suspicious, eyeing the room around her like she thought a changeling would jump out of nowhere and mind control her.

"Well, if the Overlord of this place was some new bad guy that we needed to take down then it would make sense for him to pacify the populace with mind control of some kind, the fact that he hasn't means that everypony here if following him of their own free will. That could mean one of two things, either one: the Overlord is actually not that bad of a guy and he's just very intimidating, or two: The Overlord is a bad guy and has somehow convinced all of the ponies here and throughout his 'Domain' to follow him by giving them actual good reasons to do so, and if it's the second one then it makes him possibly one of the most dangerous things we've ever fought, seeing as even Crissalis could only keep her position because of fear and the fact that she had to find food for her people." Twilight said while looking in between her friends and staring out into space.

"Well, I'm going to say that it's number one, and when we see him I'll throw him a big ol' party! Nopony can resist being a friend after a Pinky Pie PartyTM!" Pinky said brightly, pulling her party cannon out of hammerspace and firing confetti out of it in an attempt to get more cheer back into the room. It worked a little, as all of the girls laughed a bit... but it was quiet and strained.

"They really are worried about meeting me... I mean, I can understand why but... This really isn't giving me a nice feeling, It makes me feel like I really am the bad guy... ... ...Ah well. If I am the bad guy then I'll just have to make it for a good reason, wouldn't want them to learn the wrong lesson from beating me. Not that I want that or anything, hell I'll probably stack the deck in my favor long before even trying anything."

"Well, once the Princesses get back from their meeting with the mayor of the town we'll get some rest and then tomorrow the mayor will take us out to the Overlord's home." Twilight said, looking like she was more saying it to herself than to the others, but they listened anyway.

"Why does he live so far away from his capital anyway? I mean, I didn't even see any roads leading out of the town when I was flying over it. It's like he came here, took over and left!" Rainbow half yelled.

"It's probably so that nosey ponies can't find him as easily. I noticed that there is a string of alert wards around the town, they probably tell him if the town is under attack and then he comes to the rescue. I doubt that this 'Overlord' would abandon ponies that he took the time to save." Rarity said in a board tone while looking at her hoof as though she was inspecting it.

"Wow, I thought I was the only one to see that!" Said Twilight with an excited smile.

"You're not the only one to do any magical studying! I do like to learn some new spells every now and then." Rarity said with a smug grin and before Twilight could apologize she cut her off, saying "Don't worry darling, I was just teasing you a little! This may be a very important mission, but if all we focus on is how big and important it is we'll be to wound up to do anything right."

"Ugh, you're right. It's barely three and I feel like I could sleep for a full day!" Twilight said with a yawn.

The rest of the girls agreed with varying amounts of fatigue as a spell I had cast took effect. It was proven that being tired made you more irritable, so if they were all well rested the chances of them freaking out over something in my home would go down. That and I couldn't spend all day watching them walk around the town and cause their usual brand of chaos for my citizens, even with how fun that would be, yet I didn't trust them not to get into something they shouldn't while I wasn't watching.

With that they all fell asleep in an adorable little pile of possible death for me, and I went back to my body to set up the welcome wagon. I had a feeling that everything was going to be okay, but my feelings have lied to me before so I was going to make sure that everything would be fine.

My shoulders and neck cracked when I got up. I really needed that cushion.

Author's Note

Merry Christmas!

Probably not going to write anymore until next year so...

Here's the songs I was listening to while I wrote this, as an apology.

Hope you liked it! Give me feedback! Like! Other things! Or don't! Whatever!