As soon as Nigel had finished off the King, the black crystals all arrayed around the room, embedded into the furniture, the chains of the captive ponies and the walls themselves shattered, the remaining fragments fading into dust. The ponies previously attached to the walls fell to the ground and the ones chained to the throne were released, their bonds broken as the dead King’s magic dissipated. The ponies all looked upon Nigel in fright, the person in question prodding the King’s corpse with his foot. Nigel stopped his investigation of the dead King and began to move towards the throne, the five mares in front of him scattering as he approached. He sat down on the throne, his form melting into it as if it had been made for him, the black crystal absorbing his body heat and amplifying it, giving the cold, hard throne the feeling of a comfortable chair. Nigel was so preoccupied with settling into his new throne that he didn’t notice all of the ponies running out the doors until they were almost all out of the room

“Hey, can someone bring me some more cheese, my first batch kind of got ruined and killing things makes me peckish!” He yelled out after them, the ponies already long gone.

Nigel began to tap his fingers on the throne and swing his feet, waiting patiently for his cheese to arrive. One of his bare feet suddenly made contact with a soft furry object, and Nigel looked down to the bottom of the throne. Lying down, Nigel somehow having missed it earlier was another pony, a gash in its head slowly leaking vital fluid onto the crystal floor. He stared at the gash, before finally coming to the conclusion that he might have to do something about it as every other one of the ponies had vacated the room in haste.

He sighed; evidently he would have to do everything around here

“And here I was thinking that an Emperor had servants and butlers, now where the hell am I going to find a bandage around here?”

Nigel scanned the room from the comfort of his chair, until his eyes landed upon the body of Sombra, or rather the flowing red cape that was sprawled over the corpse

“Well, I already killed him, so I may well loot the corpse,” Nigel spoke, lifting himself out of the throne and walking over towards the fallen King. He reached down and tore a strip of red fabric from the cape before giving the cooling body one last kick. He returned to the throne before fastening the bandage around the gash on the mare’s head, the red fabric stopping the flow of blood. Nigel sat back in his chair, his task complete and continued to await the arrival of his sustenance

‘I really hope they have crackers to go with the cheese.’

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sparkling Scroll opened her eyes, blinking her right rapidly to try to clear the dried blood from her vision. Her head really hurt, but she couldn’t remember what caused it to hurt so much, did she fall down? She shook her head, causing the pain to flare up, eliciting a wince from her. This did clear some of the fog from her mind however, and she could now see her surrounds much more vividly. She could see that she was still in the throne room; however all the other ponies appeared to be gone, the chains attached to the walls were empty. Her eyes glazed over the rest of the wide room before coming to a stop upon a black and red shape lying in the middle of the floor. She leaned forward slightly, raising herself up on her front hooves, her rump still planted on the floor, fearing that if she got up she would aggravate whatever was causing the pain in her head.

“AAAHHHHHH!”

She drew back quickly upon realising that she was looking at the dead body of a pony, King Sombra no less, a pool of blood surrounding him. The momentum of her startled retreat caused her to topple over onto her back, the rear of her head smacking against two fleshy objects, her legs spread-eagled around her.

“Ow”

She rubbed her head with a hoof, the hoof coming into contact with some form of fabric wrapped around her head. She traced the strange cloth with the hoof, jerking it back as it came into contacted with a wet section of the cloth, finding the source of her headache, a wound just above her right eye. The strange thing was, there was no-other pony in the room and the King was dead, so who…

Sparkling Scroll suddenly remembered all of the previous events that had happened in the Throne room, from the strange biped, the conversation it had with Sombra all the way to when it killed the King with a piece of furniture. She shuddered as she remembered the brutal act of violence, the biped seemingly genuinely amused as it destroyed the once-feared despot. What had happened to the biped, had it left to continue its reign of terror elsewhere, snatching up lone foals for a quick snack? Sparkling Scroll shuddered at this thought, the very idea of being in close proximity of the Monster sending a chill up her spine. A chill that was countered by the warmth spreading through her back through the two objects she was resting against, two, long fleshy objects much like…

Two warm bipedal legs.

Sparkling Scroll ever-so-slowly tilted her head back, praying that when she looked up it would not be what she thought it was. She traced the two long white trunks up to a piece of blue fabric, continuing onwards towards a white cloth garment before her vision stopped, her eyes looking into two orbs, the irises seemingly coloured with winter itself

“Sup?” Questioned the biped as it flashed Sparkling Scroll a smile, its mouth filled with rows of teeth

Sparkling Scroll once again slipped into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness, her head once again impacting with the legs of the biped.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Nigel kept staring at the mare with the pony in question having passed out, no doubt because of his amazing Royal visage, a sight which was unfit for mere mortals.

“Great,” grumbled Nigel, nudging the unconscious mare with his foot, causing it to roll over, returning it to a more decent position, the evidence of its gender now less noticeable from before from when it was on its back

“And I still don’t have any cheese!” lamented Nigel, rising from his chair, stepping over the prone form of the mare before striding out the main door, seeking a source of curdled dairy product

“There’s got to be some more around here somewhere, god help these ponies if I don’t find some soon.”

After a long time of cheese-less searching Nigel stumbled upon the palace kitchens, large Crystal stoves accompanied by Crystal benches covered with spoons made out of, you guessed it, Crystal.

“Come on, for once make something out of wood or plastic, this place has more Crystal then a bad rap video.”

Nigel was starting to get sick of all the crystal, his only consolation being that at least the ponies weren’t made out of shining substance, because that would be just plain retarded.

“Bingo!” Nigel exclaimed as he noticed a door with the label ‘Pantry’ on it, no doubt this would be were the ponies kept the goods. He rushed over towards the door, flinging open the barrier with much enthusiasm. Gazing into the depths of the pantry his eyes began to water with tears of manly joy and he dropped to his knees, throwing open his arms and looking towards the ceiling

“YES! YEEEEEEES!”

Situated on a rack at the back of the food storage area was a row of majestical wheels of cheese, all different sizes and types, surrounded by packets of dry crackers, framing the dairy products like a shrine to God himself

“Best. Day. Ever,” said Nigel happily as he rushed into the pantry to raid the delicacies within.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sparkling awoke to the sound of munching and groans of contentment. She picked herself off the floor, the pain in her head having diminished to a dull throb, pulsing in time with her heart. She swivelled around to face the noise, the monstrous biped from before was sitting right behind her, devouring a piece of cheese with a content look on its face. The biped stopped the consumption of its meal and looked right at her, causing her body to freeze and her mind to blank as its baleful gaze focused on her.

“Oh, you’re up again,” the biped observed, casually plopping a piece of cheese into its mouth, chewing the morsel before continuing, “listen, next time you faint, do you think you could do it over in the corner over there,” the biped gestured over towards a corner at the back of the room, “having to step over you every time I want to move is really becoming quite a chore.”

Sparkling was speechless; the biped continued its rant

“I mean, I know I have a smoking bod”, the biped looked down at itself, large spots of blood still prevalent on its garments, “but really, fainting? I’m not even the same species as you but I guess when you look at King Sombrero over there,” Sparkling glanced at the corpse before turning back round, “It looks like you ponies really are pressed when it comes to finding a good-looking ruler, would you like some cheese?”

The sudden change of subject snapped Sparkling out of her daze and she noticed that the biped was holding out a slice of cheddar cheese in one of its claws, evidently having washed Sombra’s blood off of it earlier.

“N-n-no than-k yo-u,” she stammered, the biped shrugging and taking a bite out of the slice

“Suit yourself, means more for me anyway,” The biped continued to eat the cheese, downing the entire slice.
“So, do you have a job or do you just hang around castles all day fainting whenever a charming gentleman arrives and kills the former ruler?”

“No, I worked as the King’s assistant before…” She once again glanced at Sombra “well, before you came.”

“Assistant you say?” The biped replied, rubbing its chin in thought with a claw “Tell you what, go home for the day, if you come back in the morning I’ll give you your old job back, except this time without all of the slavery.”

Sparkling was shocked, did this biped just offer her a job, could she really work for a creature that barely an hour ago had brained the most feared pony in the empire to death?

“I guess I could Mister?” Sparkling was beginning to build up the confidence needed to converse with the creature

“Just call me Nigel; since you’ll be working for me as my assistant I don’t expect you to call me Emperor all the time.”

“Okay… Nigel,” Sparkling felt weird saying the name, having expected the creature be named something more… evil. Actually when she thought about it he didn’t really seem that malicious towards her at all, he was certainly nicer than her old Boss, Sombra. Sparkling began to exit the Throne Room before realising that she didn’t remember where she lived

“Um, Nigel, Sir?” She questioned,, turning once again to face the new Emperor

“Yes my little pony, what can the all-powerful Emperor Chalmers do for you?” Nigel chuckled, obviously enjoying his new title

“I don’t really remember where I live, everything before today is a little fuzzy.”

Nigel leaned back in the throne, deep in thought

“I’m sure that this place has plenty of bedrooms, just pick one and you can have it until your head feels a little better.”

“Thankyou Sir,” she replied, surprised by Nigel’s generosity before she left the throne room in search of a bed.
Nigel watched the mare disappear, only to realise that he had forgotten to ask her name

“Eh, she’ll be back in the morning, I can just ask her then,” he muttered out loud before looking towards the ex-king “As for you dear Sir, I have the perfect idea” he said as he once again left the Throne room, heading towards the kitchen

“All I need is a sharp knife…”

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Northern Wastes
Hours later

“Shining come on, we have to make it to the Crystal Empire as soon as possible!”

Shining Armour mimicked his wife under his breath as he continued to trudge through the snow after Cadence, him and the four Royal Guard Pegasi assigned to accompany the guard Captain and his wife struggling to keep up with the pink alicorn in the snowy blizzard. Cadence seemed filled with a desperate energy, and she had been like this ever since Princess Celestia had announced that she felt the presence of the Crystal Empire once again.

“SHINING!” He stopped; his wife’s commanding voice ringing out from the front, piercing through the noise of the blizzard. He lifted his head, cloaked under a dull brown hood so to protect his head from the snow and spotted Cadence, the Alicorn looking at him sternly from under her own pink hood

“We have to hurry up, with our chariot grounded Sombra could have already arrived before us, who knows what evils he is subjecting the poor Crystal ponies too!”

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Crystal Empire

“Ahhhhhh,” Nigel moaned in pleasure as he dug his feet into his new rug, the warm material providing a comfortable buffer between his feet and the floor, who knew that pony fur could be so nice and soft? The Sombra rug sat at the foot of his throne, the red cape having been removed and flung over Nigel’s shoulders after he had given it a wash to rid it of the blood of its former owner. The silver crown was planted firmly on Nigel’s head and the silver armour was piled up in a back corner, Nigel planning to have it smelted down later. He had disposed of the rest of Sombra down a toilet, the hole seemingly going on forever into the ground, the inky blackness swallowing up the skinless corpse.

He glanced down at the rug, his feet resting on what the pony equivalent of shoulders were, withers he believed they were called. With his feet warmed by his new furniture and the crystal throne bathing him in warmth he drifted happily off into slumber, his dreams filled with fire and chaos, causing him to smile in his sleep, awaiting the coming day.