A Beautiful Lie (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Become a Totalitarian Dictator)

Chapters

Tom the Dark Lord-To-Be
Magic 101
The Dynamic Mind-Dominating Duo
An Extremely Long Rant
Godmode Engaged
The (Incredibly-Short) Siege Of The Crystal Empire
We Have So Many Questions

Tom the Dark Lord-To-Be

On a fine summer afternoon, a unicorn stallion of a violet complexion and a chestnut-brown mane and tail, both trimmed to a sensible length, sat in the study of a cottage he rented not that long ago. He was wearing the Alicorn Amulet and, befitting his newfound power, was reading a list of things a budding evil overlord should and should not do.

“Number 35,” the unicorn muttered to himself, “I will not grow a goatee. Good advice.”

Suddenly, Twilight and the two formerly royal sisters booted down his door and pointed their horns at him.

“Uh...what are you doing?” the unicorn casually asked, “Pretty sure absorbing your magic was like the second thing I did after acquiring the amulet.”

“You will release our subjects at once!” Luna demanded.

“You mean Twilight’s subjects,” the unicorn replied as he pointed to Twilight, “And even then, they’re no longer her subjects because I used the combination of spells Starlight used in Every Little Thing She Does.”

The princesses gave the surprisingly savvy unicorn a befuddled look.

“Are you talking about that time Starlight used a mix of Cogeria, Fiducia Compelus, and Persuadere on my friends?” Twilight asked, “Because if you are, how did you know about that?”

“Magic,” the unicorn replied before snorting.

Twilight shot the unicorn a bemused look.

“Alright-y, then,” the unicorn said as he got up and stretched his legs, “Time to succeed where Starlight and Accord had failed.”

“Wait, what if I can convince you that what you’re doing is wrong?!” Twilight frantically exclaimed.

The unicorn chuckled, “I’m flattered you actually took the time of day to reason with me, considering how half-assed your efforts with Cozy Glow were. Granted, she was a little psychopath but what’s the difference between her and a cult leader guilty of messing with the space-time continuum, eh?”

“Speaking of which, I’m still annoyed you didn’t come to us during the Pony of Shadows incident,” Luna stated to Twilight, “My sister and I barely had anything to do when we were ruling Equestria and we could have informed Star-Swirl about how outdated his ‘once a villain, always a villain’ attitude was.”

“I...wouldn’t consider it that outdated," the unicorn butted in, "But then again, I know what I’m doing is wrong and yet I do it anyway because it is necessary to bring order to an otherwise orderless universe. Plus, being convinced to abandon their cause is the reason why Starlight and Accord failed in their respective goals in the first place.”

“I don’t know what it was that caused you to be this way but-” Twilight said before being interrupted.

“This isn’t the way?” the unicorn interrupted Twilight, “I don’t have to do this? Some other cliched crap like that? Trust me, what I’m doing is the only way for Equestria to be the paradise it needs to be. But as unwise as it is, I will tell you why I decided to become Equestria’s dictator. And trust me when I say it isn’t some pathetic sob story about how me and a friend drifted apart because of our differences.”

The unicorn sat back down in his comfy chair, “Once upon a time, there was a wee lad named Tom…”

The night was pitch-black as Tom drunkenly staggered his way back home. Were it not for the bar brawl he bore witness to, he would have stuck around and hoped that one pint of beer would eventually be his last. Now he had to go back to his apartment and listen to the woman next door constantly telling her dog to shut up, even though for the two years he lived in that apartment, that dog never listened. She was about as moronic as some of the teachers in school. Actually, probably even more moronic because he assumed the teachers actually did have qualifications to teach while the lady next door was most likely unemployed.

He wasn’t always like this. He used to be a super-friendly guy that was voted “Most Likely To Succeed” in high school. He once considered being a politician before realizing he’d have to pick a side. And he hated picking sides, considering one side is usually no better than the other. Even those who call themselves good had their own flaws, in that they had nasty tempers and/or a penchant for insulting their enemies either in front of them or behind their backs. Whatever happened to turning the other cheek, he will never know.

Not even the ponies in his favourite show, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, was immune to this. Despite the show’s insistence on how friendship is magic, it had the basic good vs evil conflict where a majority of the villains cackled more often than not and usually explained their plans to the heroes or made serious errors in judgement that eventually caused their downfall. Wouldn’t be so bad if even the ones that had reformed had a penchant for doing all of those things as well, including those you were meant to sympathize with and rejoice when they turn over a new leaf. He understood that the show was made for little girls in a bid to sell toys but he wondered how the human race could survive another decade or so if they're being coddled at such a young age. He learned from experience that people can’t just be categorized into good or bad, especially since what’s right and wrong had long since been blurred even though it should have been clear from the get-go.

“Bah!” Tom exclaimed in his inebriated state, “It’s all bullshit!”

As he wandered about, a thought occurred to him. He needed to pee. Badly.

He looked around and saw a statue of a horse in front of a high school much like the one he used to go to. The lights in the building were off so he assumed the janitor had gone home. Believing there’s no possible way he’d wind up of the sex offender list for this, he pulled down his pants, whipped his pecker out, and took a deep relaxing piss under the statue.

“Ah,” Tom sighed in relief.

In his intoxicated state, Tom felt so relaxed, he toppled over and fell under the statue. As if he was in a dream, he was taken to the light.

A beautiful lie.

Author's Note

I can't believe I'm making another longfic even though I have plenty of other stories to get on with. :rainbowlaugh:

But, to be fair to myself, a funny story about a guy fed up with the bullshit of the world taking over Equestria with magic and knowledge does seem like something worth more than just one chapter.

BTW, rooting for Tom is entirely optional because, point or not, you got to admit he's an arse-hole. A funny arse-hole but an arse-hole nonetheless.

Magic 101

“Ow, my head.”

Tom struggled to get up from his latest hangover. He had absolutely no idea where he was nor was he sober enough to figure it out for himself. He looked down at himself and, through his blurred vision, he saw that he was more hairier than usual. Not only that but his body was a violet colour. He lifted up his arm and noticed that his hand was missing.

“What the hell?” Tom muttered to himself.

“Are you okay?” a familiar voice asked Tom.

Tom turned his head towards the door of the room and found a purple alicorn standing at the doorway. He could tell from the way her mane was styled and how she was shorter than the other princesses that it was none other than Twilight Sparkle. In spite of his inebriated state of mind, it did not take Tom long to realize that he was in Equestria and that he had turned into a pony.

Please be a unicorn, Tom thought to himself as he lifted his hooves up to touch his forehead, Please be a unicorn, please be a unicorn.

As Tom felt up his new head, he found a hard, bone-like thing that he hoped was a unicorn horn and not a compound elevated skull fracture from falling under the statue. Though, given the way the horn felt, he would most likely be dead or severely brain-damaged if it was a skull fracture.

“Never felt better,” Tom happily replied.

“That’s good to hear,” Twilight said, “And just between the two of us, I know how disorienting those portals can be the first time around.”

“True but it’sh worth it to escape the human world,” Tom casually slurred.

Twilight shot Tom a befuddled look, “Did you say you’re from the human world?”

“Yep,” Tom replied, “Where did you think I wash from?”

“Well, I kinda thought you were a pony like me considering most humans freak out when being turned into ponies,” Twilight replied.

“No, I think it’s jusht your human counterpart that doesh that,” Tom casually slurred as he got up, “Also, I’m a bit washted-faced.”

Tom collapsed onto the floor, a consequence of trying to control his new pony body while struggling through a hangover.

“You got a bucket?” Tom asked, “I think I’m gonna puke.”

After spending an hour bedridden due to his attempts at walking making him dizzy and causing him to vomit everywhere, even and especially after he had some breakfast served to him, Tom finally got out of the bed and gentilly stood on all four of his legs. Since that walking was going to be a huge pain in his ass, Tom decided to practice levitation magic. Specifically, practicing it on himself. After all, if a baby unicorn can levitate himself, why not him? He closed his eyes and concentrated his magic on lifting himself.

He immediately shat himself from concentrating too hard.

“Okay, that was embarrassing,” Tom said as he turned around to face the semi-solid mess he left on the floor, “Time to do what the witches and wizards of old did when they needed to relieve themselves.”

Hoping his next attempt at magic doesn’t result in another shitty mess on the floor, Tom focused on the puddle of shit and made it disappear with his magic. He knew he couldn’t just make things disappear since he was just a simple unicorn, he just picked a random place to teleport his shit. If it wound up in somepony’s mane, that would have been both the most disgusting and hilarious thing he ever saw.

Surprisingly, his attempt at cleaning up his own mess actually worked.

“Okay, what the fuck?” Tom asked himself as the shit vanished without a trace.

Knowing he could do teleportation magic, Tom decided to turn it up a notch. He pictured the Castle of Friendship’s library in his mind and focused on teleporting himself there. Surprisingly, he materialized smack dab in the centre and not in the middle of a bookshelf like he initially feared. Finding it weird that he could teleport himself but not lift himself, he tried using his magic to levitate in the air again. And if he messed up, he could always teleport the mess away.

In a surprising twist of events, and as if the author of this fic remembered he was supposed to be setting up a punchline, Tom effortlessly floated in the air.

“Okay, this is bullshit,” Tom said to himself, “There’s no way I would have mastered all of these spells that quickly! Unless...”

A disturbing thought occurred to Tom. There were two logical explanations as to why and how he managed to perfect his magical skills so easily and none of them were good. The first one was that he was a Gary Stu while the second one, which was more plausible, was that he was an overpowered bad-guy. Despite the second one making more sense than the first, he refused to entertain the possibility that he might be a bad-guy destined to be reformed because it was usually the most overpowered bad guys that turned over a new leaf and the ones that didn’t reform suffer a fate worse than death at the hands of the writers, which was having their smarts stripped away and being reduced to pathetic and easily-defeatable shells of their former selves.

“Nah, it's fine,” Tom reassured himself as he gently floated back down, “Just because I’m good at teleportation and levitation doesn’t mean I’m like a mini-Sombra or a gender-bent Starlight. I’m just overthinking things like I always do. Lots of unicorns are good at levitating and teleportation. Doesn’t mean they’re destined to be supervillains. Though it wouldn’t hurt to read up on something more complicated like a mind-control spell or two.”

Tom levitated a random book towards himself and flicked to a random page to see if he would randomly come across the Fiducia Compelus spell or something like that. Unsurprisingly, it worked. And on the next page was the Cogeria and Persuadere spells. While he did find it concerning that Twilight didn’t ban those spells after Starlight’s little mishap, he wasn’t surprised since this was the same Twilight that would have reformed Discord by force if he hadn’t eaten all of her reformation spells.

“How would a reforming spell even work?” Tom asked himself, “Meh, questions for later.”

Suddenly, Tom heard hoofsteps and turned around to find Starlight entering the library.

“Eek!” Tom squeaked as he accidentally blasted a bolt of magic at Starlight.

The room flashed a bright white after Tom’s little accident. After the second blinding light he had to deal with this week faded away, Tom noticed something was off about Starlight. She had a blank expression on her face and her irises had shrunk. It did not take long for Tom to realize he accidentally cast the mind-control spells on her.

“Uh...karma much?” Tom said before giggling nervously.

Author's Note

I bet a lot of you are now thinking "this is the titular totalitarian dictator?! You gotta be shitting me!" and...well...how familiar are you with character development and do you think it would be enough to turn a pathetic drunken loser into the ruler of Equestria? :twilightsmile:

The Dynamic Mind-Dominating Duo

Tom stared at the entranced Starlight. As the initial shock of dominating someone’s mind as easily as sneezing faded away, Tom couldn’t help but find this particular predicament to be very amusing. A former cult leader guilty of using both magical and mundane methods of mental domination now a puppet herself. Then again, Tom did watch The Beginning Of The End so it wasn’t all that surprising that Starlight would be under the enthral of somepony more powerful than her. Still, Tom was not going to let this opportunity go to waste.

“So…” Tom said awkwardly, “You wanna give me the grand tour of the castle? And I’d prefer it if you teleported us around because I haven’t quite got used to walking on four legs.”

“Sure,” Starlight replied monotonously.

And in a flash, Tom and Starlight were in a completely different room. The throne room, to be exact.

“This is the throne room of the Castle of Friendship,” Starlight emotionlessly exposited, “It’s where we go to discuss stuff and eat chocolate fondue.”

At the corner of his eye, Tom saw what appeared to be the Alicorn Amulet dangling around a big crystal.

“And what might that be?” Tom asked as he pointed at the amulet.

“That’s the Alicorn Amulet,” Starlight replied, “We were supposed to put it safe but, because there’s usually something going on every week or so, we never got around to it.”

After exactly five seconds of thought, Tom shrugged and levitated over the amulet. It felt tighter than he thought it would.

“Be honest, how do I look?” Tom asked as he flashed a pose.

“I don’t know,” Starlight answered honestly, “Fashion is usually Rarity’s expertise.”

Tom shrugged, “Fair enough. Now then, is there any chance we can cut this tour short and have a tour around...Canterlot? And once again, have us teleport around Canterlot while giving the tour.”

“Okay,” Starlight replied as she teleported herself and Tom to the Canterlot Theatre.

“This is the Canterlot Theatre,” Starlight exposited in the exact same emotionless tone as before, “It is currently showing a production of Springtime For Aryanne, a satirical masterpiece that serves to make fun of any ardent national socialists that would rather watch Canterlot freeze than make friends with the other pony races.”

A random audience member shushed at Starlight.

“Are we allowed to be in here?” Tom asked.

“Of course,” Starlight replied as she held up two tickets, “Trixie bought tickets for us to watch tonight. Apparently, she wanted to see if there were any national socialists in the audience so she could kick them.”

Tom gave Starlight a befuddled look. Since when was Trixie interested in kicking Nazis? If anything, she was more likely to kick rival magicians for robbing her of her narcissistic supply. But rather than let good tickets go to waste, Tom sat down and watched the show.