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

[Overlords POV]

It had taken three more days to completely sweep the caverns below the mountain home of the arimaspi, but with the addition of the blues casualty's on my side were all but wiped out. In original Overlord style, swarm tactics worked best now, simply overwhelming the enimy with seemingly endless numbers that didn't stay dead.

There were no more arimaspi... which was sad to a degree, as seeing a whole race disappear was never really a fun thing. Then again, I'm pretty sure no one would grumble about mosquitoes vanishing from the world, and the arimaspi were basically large furry mosquitoes to me. Plus I got a lot of gold, iron, meat, fur and I even found the Arcanium Smelter! Seems worth it to me, is all I'm saying.

Plus with this little conquest, my Domain now reaches almost across the whole southern end of Equestria! The only areas that I haven't secured are the Hayseed Swamps and the Forbidden Jungle, once both of those are mine the only way to really expand will be actual war. That is, fighting with actual governments with army's, not near rabid tribesmen with sticks and basic metallurgy.

Or, you know, there was that whole diplomacy thing. I could try doing that for a change... Nah, I'd probably just lose patience and accidentally start a war anyway, I'd rather just mean to start a war then get roped into one.

Anyway, back to the spoils of war, while the arimaspi pelts were rather coarse and smelly at first, one of the changelings found that if you washed it in a pool for about six, seven hours, eventually it became soft and fluffy, almost like some weird mix between silk and wool. Plus, to the surprise of any who had seen a living arimaspi, it was all pure, snow white in color, which meant that dyeing it would be a breeze.

Not to mention with the amount of meat we had gotten, we had needed to get right on curing it or it would have spoiled before we could distribute it to the other towns and dens across the Domain. At least for a few months, no one would be going hungry, I'd make sure of that!

With all the gold, iron and other metals we had found not only was the treasury sure to be overflowing, but production of items by the minions of the tower would skyrocket. With all the gems to use as lifeforce for new minions, in conjunction with the lifeforce gathered from the arena, I had already started to set up the mountain to be a new minion stronghold since more minions were on the way then ever before.

And then there was the Arcanium smelter! As Gnarl once said, the smelter of smelters! Once I got that up and running, made me a full suit of armor and a bad-ass sword I'd be near unstoppable! Not that I was all that beatable now, but I mean that I'd be able to take on fully grown dragons without breaking a sweat, and that was something I was very interested in.

Yes, things were looking up for us... Now I was waiting for the twist, the hook, the thing that would slightly knock us down a peg or even destroy us if it went badly enough.

"You're such a pessimist..." I heard Sarra pout from down in her hive through the Hive Mind. She had been complaining of fatigue lately, so she had taken to staying solely in the hive beneath the Tower. Most of the hives in the badlands were just underground cities at this point, with the Tower being the capital of both the above ground and below ground parts of the Domain.

Aaaand there it is. As I entered the Tower from the base I saw Celestia sitting to the side of the grand staircase leading into the rest of the tower waiting for me. She looked... less than happy at the moment... Might've had something to do with the light glare and aggressive body language.

"Nobody, we need to talk. Now." She said in a tone that all but screamed 'no nonsense'.

"Or not I guess, since you seem to be correct..." I Sarra nervously joked/whimpered.

"Of course, follow me Celestia." I said as calmly to her as I could while silently agreeing with Sarra and simultaneously trying to figure out what Celestia could be angry about...

It couldn't be the arimaspi, they were a threat and nuisance to everyone, she might've had some misgivings about the end of a race but again, mosquitoes.

It might be about my expansion, maybe she thought that I would be giving her the land I took from the arimaspi. If that was the case then I would have to disappoint her, as I had no plans on giving up any land, period.

Had Gnarl sent an... inappropriate letter? I wouldn't put it past him to try sending a threatening letter to a neighboring countries leader in an attempt to force a war between the two of us... That could get ugly, real quick.

Or maybe... some other reason?

"She might want to profess her undying love for you?" Sarra provided.

"Is she giving off any love?" I asked.

"No... But maybe it's just hidden? It is possible to do that you know..."

"Unless pony courtship is incredibly odd, I don't think that Celestia has any romantic feelings for me."

After a few minutes of awkward silence broken only by the sound of heavy foot falls and light hoof falls, we reached a decent sized dinning room that I had decided to use as an emergency diplomatic meeting hall. It was much the same as the rest of my Tower, high ceilings, light stone work, dark velvet curtains and long stain glass windows to let in some natural light. Though it did sport a nice polished ceder wood table surrounded with equally polished matching chairs, nothing to impressive, but considering this room used to be a pile of shit, (literally, the minions latrine had a busted pipe in the roof of this room making it leak everywhere) I thought it was very nice, very well cleaned up. There wasn't even a smell!

Celestia and I sat across from each other at the far end of the room, I had ordered a minion to close the door and keep it closed until I told it otherwise, not even Sarra was allowed in. Now, that couldn't stop her from listening in, but there was no reason to let others know that.

"So Celestia, what was so important that you felt the need to demand to speak to me?" I asked her, still trying to keep my voice calm and not let the small panic attack I was having show.

"Hmm... " She sighed, looking like she was collecting her thoughts. "First, I have to apologize for the actions of my student, she is still learning the meaning of boundaries. It is partially my fault, I never explained the seriousness of boundaries in regard to diplomatic meetings."

I was somewhat confused for a moment, then I remembered when they had visited and Twilight had gone into my lab after I had told her not to. I could use this to my advantage, feign outrage and demand compensation... No, that wouldn't be a good idea, a reputation is more important that what I could borderline steal from others. If I were to seem like I would flip out at any given moment the no one would want to deal with me unless they had no other choice... It would be better to seem forgiving, everyone loved dealing with a nice guy, even if that person wasn't actually a nice guy.

Before I could let Celestia know that I really didn't care about what Twilight did she started speaking again.

"The problem is what she found. While I am upset at her methods, the spell she found is cause for serious concern and for the safety of not only my ponies, but the rest of the world, I have to ask if you plan on using it."

"... What spell?" Celestia's glare intensified, causing me to sigh, sag and lean my hand against my head. "I am not trying to antagonize you Celestia, I really don't know what spell you're referring to."

"The one that could destroy our universe!? The one you came up with!? The one you left in your laboratory witch let Twilight find it in the first place!?!" She all but 'royal canterlot voice'ed at me.

"Look, I've come up with at least seven world ending spells since I got here, all of which are doodles in my lab, so unless you want to tell me specifically which one it is, I think we can move on don't you?" I said while letting the fatigue and annoyance leak through into my voice. Celestia for her part looked like she had just been bitch slapped and called a slut, it was almost the 'deer in the headlights' look, but it had just a bit too much 'What the fuck did he just say?' to match up.

"First, you can't tell me that the idea of magic ending the world has never crossed your mind, making up spells is just how I handle that. If I can understand how a spell works uninterrupted, then I can make a counter-spell. Second, I must tell you that I don't really care about what you all did while you were guests here, short of burning the place down or harming/killing anyone important. Finally, I am both shocked and insulted that you would think I would ever use a spell that could end this world! Such a loss of life would be wholly unethical, unfeasible and non-conducive." I took a breath while noticing that Celestia at least had the good grace to look slightly ashamed "Now, before I ask you to leave, is there anything else you wanted to speak about?"

"Yes..." She started uneasily, slightly fidgeting. "I need your help with something..."

"Oh boy, here we go... Will I get to rest any time soon?"

"Probably not~" Sarra sang to me.