This was the day of my victory. The final moment when months of planning finally came together. Soon, I would have an army at my back. Now, if only I could keep myself from breaking into a totally ironic version of “This Day Aria,” everything really would be perfect.

“High-General Wright!” I turned to the changeling saluting me, his eyes stern, a couple of lash marks across his forehoof from the last time he forgot the salute. I wanted to cringe, but suppressed it. It pained me to put another sapient creature in pain, but how else was I going to get the professional army I so badly needed? Especially when we were dealing with an enemy that had no such compunctions?

“Yes, Commander Nictis?” I asked.

“We have the loyalists surrounded, sir. Just like you predicted: Chrysalis had all her forces concentrated on protecting the keep. Other than a few stragglers, they’re all caught inside.”

I chuckled wickedly, and though a part of me was pained at the wince the chuckle earned from the changeling next to me, the rest of me rejoiced. For once, the creatures of this world shrank back from me. For once, I inspired fear, not the other way around. Soon, Equestria would know that fear. But right now, I had to consolidate my power, and that meant removing anyone who might question me.

Over the last few months, I’d been climbing the ladder, working my way through the changelings’ military hierarchy, making it until Chrysalis was the only one left between me and total power in the Badlands. Now, she was the last obstacle, the last thing I needed to take down before the Badlands were mine and mine alone.

She thought she was so smart. She thought I was her finest boon: humans, as it turned out, made incredible love batteries. Something about us, maybe that our lives tended to be harder than the average pony’s? Something about the struggle of “survival of the fittest” hardening that love? Maybe. Could explain my treatment in Ponyville, too. Either way, I apparently had enough love energy in my body to equal an entire pony village, and she was using me to rebuild her strength after her failure in Canterlot.

I found this all out from her personal diary two months ago. One and a half months ago, I started consolidating my forces and poisoning myself with some experimental herbs. Not enough for her to detect but enough to build up in her system through the love transfer. It was perfect, but for one side-effect.

I lifted my gas mask and scratched at the blotch of dry, irritated skin on my cheek. Eczema. Can you believe that? The stuff I found was poison to changelings, but in humans, was little more than a mild allergic reaction, easily covered up with a sudden penchant for wearing a mask wherever I went. The effect was two-fold: covering up the rashes on my face and neck, and inspiring fear with a single glare from the flat, featureless lenses. Even Chrysalis took a step back from me that first time she saw me walk onto the training grounds with it, though she’d never admit it.

Now, with her strength failing and her forces concentrated on her Keep for her birthday, I had launched my attack. The day of her hatching would now be the last day she ruled as Queen. My forces already had the walls lining the castle, only the Keep remained.

“Have we taken any casualties yet?” I asked.

“A few scrapes, one of us got hit by a boulder scaling the walls, doesn’t look like he’ll last the night,” Nictis shrugged. “Other than that, we’ve got the forces required for the next stage.”

“Good, good,” that one changeling was a damn shame, but it could’ve been a helluva lot worse. “When this is all over, give me a full report of the dead. For both sides. I want to honor any and all fallen brethren.”

“Y-yes, High-General.”

I sighed and popped my neck, using my hand to massage a few extra cricks out. “Well, no sense wasting any more time,” I smiled at him, though the smile was completely lost behind the mask. “Let’s go see the birthday girl.”

The tunnel under the Keep’s walls took weeks to dig. Biggest thing was keeping all that dirt a secret, but hey, what’s a few extra gardening projects to the royal budget-keepers? Now, one might expect me to use something like that to sneak my own ass in there and launch some sort of commando raid on the Keep, but where would the sense be in that, really? No, my purposes for this tunnel came straight from the pages of a book on medieval sieges I’d read a long time ago.

We stood at the mouth of a dank cave. A few yards in, I could just barely make out the wooden supports marking where we’d artificially expanded it. A couple hundred yards uphill from where we stood, the Keep remained perched atop its high hill, a few fire arrows flying from the upper battlements to show us there was still someone alive in there. I gazed back into the entrance and grinned. Such an amazing marvel, dug right into the rock, leading under the line of the Keep’s western wall. All supported by some wooden beams doused in kerosene and wreathed with gun cotton.

“Sir,” Nictis handed me a torch, already lit. “We take it you wish to do the honors?”

I grinned and gladly accepted, raising the torch high over my head. “Our forces stand ready just outside the walls, correct?”

“As you ordered sire, so it has been done.”

“Good,” and just like that, I tossed the torch into the darkness. There was a quick sputtering of flame and a bright-orange flicker, then two jets of fire spurted into life, the first couple beams flaring up in a heartbeat. A titanic fireball bloomed in the distant darkness, lighting up the cave’s interior with an eerie, green glow. It faded after only a few seconds, but it’d done its job. Every support beam maintaining the tunnel had collapsed at that point. Just as planned.

We all bolted upright as an entire wall of the Keep disappeared in a titanic cloud of dust, which came blasting out the cave entrance. All right before the massive crash of a few tons of stone falling right out of the sky and the screams of the poor bastards that had been standing on them. Even I had to pause and stare in shock, watching a massive hole appear where an ancient, moss-covered battlement had been standing just a few moments earlier. Then, I nearly collapsed with euphoria. The walls of Chrysalis’s Keep hadn’t been breached in centuries. I had just succeeded where hundreds before me had failed.

My army poured into the hole I’d created, clashing with the shocked, mostly-unprepared loyalists inside. Screaming in rage, I joined them, bounding uphill to become part of the clashing, writhing black mass on Chrysalis’s doorstep. Before ducking in, my musket rose to my shoulder and caught a loyalist right across the chest with rubber pellets, sending them to the ground in agony. Except it wasn’t a loyalist. At the moment I squeezed the trigger, it was Rainbow Dash, prepping another thunderbolt to interrupt a once-peaceful day with a few moments of cruel pain. In that moment, it was Rarity, her mouth just beginning to form the word ‘beast’ before instead morphing into a cry of surprise and hurt. In that moment, it was Applejack, barreling towards me with her hind legs tensing for another unwarranted blow to the chest.

With those images in my head I grinned behind my true face, and then I descended upon the mass, my musket now a club to bash my way through. It was a riot, a chaotic growth of flailing limbs and clashing weapons, but through it all I kept my eyes on the prize. Chrysalis was near the back, fighting off any stragglers while keeping herself protected from the worst of it, or so she thought.

I paused just long enough for her to notice me. It didn’t take long: a five-and-a-half foot biped in a gas mask stood out no matter the situation, even during a battle to determine the fate of a kingdom. Her eyes locked with mine, and for an instant she froze in fear, her jaw working up and down. In that instant, she was Applejack and Rarity and Pinkie and Fluttershy and all those other little bitches that ever spat on me and tortured me from on high.

I struck so suddenly and so quickly it became hard to recall later just because my mind couldn’t keep up. In a heartbeat, I darted across to her, stepping over her loyalist guards like they were nothing, just little stepping stones on my way to the Queen. I figured she knew I was grinning behind that mask just from the fear in her eyes. Fear which turned to hate real quick.

She side-stepped, parrying my first blow, but I was quick to retaliate with a new one, slashing across for a good hit to her long, slender neck. She ducked, but not fast enough to avoid a decent hit to the jaw, a fang flying from her mouth in a small jet of emerald blood. Nearly feral with rage, her horn flared with magic, trying to use what little my poison had left for her. She might as well have been trying to ward off a rabid grizzly with a pea shooter. Not that it wasn’t enough to give me some of that ol’ nostalgia of Rainbow’s lightning blasts.

Howling with rage behind my mask, I dropped the musket and leapt upon her, raining a flurry of punches to her head, neck and chest. I screamed as I hit, pounding away, frothing spittle flying out my respirator, steam building on my lenses, my knuckles screaming with pain I wouldn’t feel until later. I regained myself after a few minutes, after green ichor covered the rock beneath us and after her face was pulp beneath my fist and my clothes were soaked through. I sat there, breathing heavily as the fighting abated around us. Chrysalis was defeated. Living or dead didn’t matter, I’d won. The Badlands were mine.

I checked for a pulse, though there wasn’t any need. If the comics from my world were to be believed, she was damn near invulnerable. And that was right: her heart still beat strong under my hand, though I did notice the gasp that went through the changelings around me at my placing my hand over her throat. Oh yeah, that probably looked nasty. Oh well.

“Get the medics up here to tend to the wounded,” I said without looking up, my eyes still on Chrysalis, still not quite ready to accept that I’d finally won something. “Especially her, she’s in bad shape.”

“Sir?” One of my soldiers stepped out of the crowd of beaten, bloody changelings surrounding me. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

I chuckled behind my mask, and the crowd all took a quick step backwards. I waved them off. “Yes, yes, she can be useful to us. You know the honor code. She’s already been beaten once, she is unfit to rule now, and I see no other challengers rising to…”

I took my eyes off her to address the crowd, make some threatening gestures, really cement my position. I was a fool. I shouldn’t have taken my eyes off Chrysalis, I shouldn’t have just assumed my victory meant she would be my pet forever. In her final moments of consciousness, her eyes opened to slits and she managed a final bolt of magic. Not directed at me, though, but at the stalactite above me. Clever bitch.

There was a crack of rock, one of my soldiers barking for me to get down. Stupidly, I whirled in place, thinking Chrysalis might be charging. That at least got my head out of the way of the falling spike of rock. Mostly.

There was a flash of pain down my face, white-light exploding in my vision, the crunch of plastic and latex as my lenses shattered, and then all was stillness and darkness.

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I glare Twilight down, drinking in the utter shock and surprise on her face at the long, jagged scar running down the side of my head, running over a single, milky-white eye and twisting the corner of my lip. I replace my true face, my mask, using one hand while keeping the knife in Pinkie’s mouth with the other. “You fucking heard me!” I scream. “Unless you want her coming out looking worse than me, drop ‘em now!”

The ponies look around, confused, partially because of my strange threat since most still haven’t seen my face, mostly because this isn’t part of the plan. Yeah, if shit hits the fan ponies aren’t usually the best to go to for calm, steady governance. Fortunately, Twilight’s panic does that job for them.

“D-do it!” She screams, tears in her massive eyes. “For Celestia’s sake, drop your weapons everypony!”

There’s a further moment of confusion, guards eyeing one another, looking around for some other instruction. Then, a spear hits the ground. That cinches it, and shields and armor hit the tile, royal guards kneeling and tearing off armor, bowing at my soldiers’ hooves.

I grin behind my face, and turn to the ponies standing around the throne. I squeeze the pink form in my grip and step up the pressure on the knife enough to hurt, but not break skin. Trust me; I know how much pressure that takes. The ponies’ eyes all widen, then submit. Rarity and Twilight bow their heads, allowing the changelings nearest to them to secure their horns in more of my goop. Fluttershy, followed quickly by Rainbow Dash, sinks to the floor and curls her wings to her side. Rainbow Dash glares at me the entire time her wings are being wrapped in more goop. Applejack is the last to submit, staring down the mob of changelings around her, but after seeing Dash go down, she bows her head and doesn’t move, twitching only once or twice as the changelings around her secure her hooves in layer after layer of goop.

With that finished, I pull the blade out of Pinkie’s mouth, letting her cough and sob. I drop her without a second look, leaving her to moan on the tile, a twitching, harmless bunch of pink on the ground that the changelings have no trouble with. Her friends start screaming, shouting things, threatening me in a way that’s so much white noise in the background. For me, right now, the only thing that matters is the throne.

I keep my stride under control through sheer force of will, stopping myself from dashing into the seat and wrapping the throne in my arms, touching it, feeling it to make sure it’s real. It’s real enough when I finally turn to face out and descend onto its soft, velvety surface, slowly lowering myself in. I lean forward, propping my elbows up on my knees while settling into the princess’s former seat.

This. This is it. I’ve really done it.

I look out over the ponies, and raise my hand to silence them, only now realizing I never let go of the knife. Well, that won’t do for the new King of Equestria, now will it? I start to pocket the knife…no, better idea. I toss the knife, gripping it by the flat of the blade and throwing it, embedding it in the wall by a captured guard’s head. He whimpers. I just smile and turn to the six ponies pinned to the floor.

“Why hello again, girls,” I smile gently. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Two years, by my count.”

No response, just glares. Me oh my, ponies must have atrocious memories. They’ll remember. They’ll all remember.

I’m pulled out of my ruminations by a desperate plea from my side, bought back to reality by the former queen still in chains, only now desperately pulling herself to me. “M-My liege, let me…” she starts.

“Think not on it, governess,” I say, waving her off. “You did your best given the circumstances, if anyone is to blame for what nearly happened just now, it’s myself. You did your best.”

I grin at the expressions on the ponies’ faces, the absolute shock and confusion, that accompanies Chrysalis bowing at my feet. Oh yeah, bitches. Things have changed since you saw me. Now, I’m the one in control, I’m the one who says whether or not you eat tonight.

I hope you know that. And I hope knowing you’re so helpless makes you want to scream. I know that’s how it made me feel. Because this isn’t just for me: it’s for every brony who thinks about you, and loves you, and dreams of the day they might have the privilege of meeting you. This is for how badly you’ve let them all down. This is for how far you’ve fallen short of what you could’ve been.

“Welp,” I yell, clapping my hands, earning a wince from every pony and changeling in the room. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?”

“And what business would that be, monster!?” Twilight spits from her imprisonment on the floor. The room freezes. Everything shuts down for a second, the changelings all turning to me, most biting their lips, some shivering. I just grin in my mask, striding down from my throne with a little chortle.

“For the trial, my silly little pony,” I reply, reaching out to scratch behind her ears, running my fingers over her face despite the furious glares she’s shooting my way. “That would be the whole point of what we’re doing here. Oh, and princess?”

No response, just a continued glare. Oh no, bitch, ignoring me isn’t going to make me go away this time. I seize her chin and force her to stare right into my eyes, my grip iron around her face, the flat lenses of my mask lending no expression or hint of the horrible grin I’m wearing. Judging by the racing pulse I feel through my hand and the frozen, deer-in-the-headlights way she’s making eye contact, it has exactly my desired effect.

“That’s your one freebie. Next time, you get punished. Except for you, I won’t just slice out your tongue,” I whisper, delighting in the fear welling up in her eyes and the way her muzzle quakes in my grip. “Call me a monster again, and I’ll rip the pink cunt’s tongue out with my bare hands, and yes, I will make you watch. I will chain you down right where you’re standing, and you will watch, because if you don’t watch, I will grab another one of your friends and punish them.”

I raise my voice, letting all the little ponies hear me. “What do you think? Should I clip little Miss Dash’s wings?” I bellow. “Slash the tendons in Miss Applejack’s legs? Or maybe I’ll rip Miss Rarity’s hairdo out by the root, one chunk of hair at a time.”

Finally, that gets what I want. She whimpers in my grasp, and I feel her chin quivering. “Please…” she whispers.

“Call me your Emperor.”

“Wh-what?”

My grip tightens. “Do it.”

Still whimpering, she whispers. “Please, m-my…my Emperor…”

That earns gasps of shock from the room, my grin broadens. “Very good,” I whisper. I release her jaw and run my fingers through her mane. “Very, very good. Good behavior will only help your case in the trial.”

She doesn’t even have the spirit to ask what I’m talking about. She just whimpers as I finally turn away, listening to her body hit the tile behind me before my changelings drag her off.

One down. Five to go.