Everything laid within ruins; ground was upheaved, displaying the foundations of the grass twaned and shattered, pallid boulders of soil were now displaced and strewn upon the desolated land. Even the trees in the distance, now blackened and embellished with still-burning cinder, had their leaves respectively layered upon the darkened ground, burnt into crisps and beyond recognition.

Suddenly, the loot-interface flared up before the Main Character. The Summoner giddy, expecting whatever to have dropped from the eel to be worth it, was promptly disappointed as he was met with the text ‘No Loot Gained’ apparent on the interface. “Aw!” The Summoner frustratedly stomped the ground. “We gained nothing, and we didn’t even level up.”

“Woah… kinda puts Vodahmin’s staff to shame, huh?” Malideus asked, only a little sarcastically, still surveying the ruined environment as the interface window flickered out of existence.

“You know what, Malideus? It does put it to shame.” Ral grinned, pulling the Trident out of the ground with a grunt.

“Only because we’re not Vodahmin. Supposedly, he’s the only one who knew how to really use the damned thing… Hmm…” Malideus snarked, drifting off into thought.

Suddenly, Ral stared at the Trident, realizing something as he scratched his chin with his hand.

“You know, I don’t think we actually got a name for this…” Ral frowned as he motioned his way towards a nearby charred boulder.

Closing the distance between the MC and it, careful as to avoid the still burning, smoldering rocks on his way, he sat upon it.

“Lightning Channeler’s Trident!” Malideus blurted out, before anyone could speak up, flaring his arms overhead as he sat.

“No!” Everyone cried in unison, causing Malideus to mentally flinch, forcing him to shrink back a bit.

“Only joking…” Malideus muttered almost in a whisper. “Fine then. Why don’t any of you scrubs try naming it?” he motioned both the MC’s arms in a circle in a casually slow swirl.

“Why not ask the friggen merpony what the name of the thing is?” Vaati suggested.

The embers waltzed vivace with their glow as they fluttered into the air, ascending from the ground--only to dissipate in the cooling, evening air. The skies have dullened their color, falling into an abysmal shade of black--still, the slight hue of blue were still apparent; it wasn’t night, but it was soon to be.

“Nyet, elf! I would keep forced contact with them to a minimum, if you please!” Malideus growled.

“Maybe someone should keep an eye on them… you know, to make sure they do as we say?” the Overlord suggested, borderline suspiciously, but the others nodded solemnly, knowing it had to be done. But how?

Suddenly, the Summoner popped in, an idea in his head.

“Hey, I’ve an idea! Since the rules of video games apply here, let’s boot him!” the Summoner, without much emotion in his tone save for optimism.

“... What?” Malideus said, dumbfounded.

“I shall repeat what Malideus just said,” Ral stated. “What?”

“Threaten me with exclusion, and I shall threaten you with pain.” The Overlord growled, taking slight offense.

Quickly, The Summoner corrected himself.

“No, no, not exclusion, per say, just temporary bifurcation. You leave the host to take over a pony and watch through them, and we do this by basically voting you out.” The Summoner explained, only to be cut off by Audrey;

“I vote Malideus!”

“Shut it, cake whore!” Malideus snapped back, his snarl-like tone threatening to initiate another round of banter.

However, it was soon interrupted by The Summoner, in all his wisdom. “While I think the majority of us would all love to see the two of you have a go at it with words, now’s not the time. We have to go on with my suggestion.”

“... By kicking one of our teammates for no reason?” Malideus asked, earning a facepalm from The Summoner

“We’ve not much of a choice…” the Summoner retorted . “We need someone to not only oversee our dominion here, once we establish it anyways, we also need someone to maintain our army here.”

The Overlord quickly spoke up, agreeing with him. “I agree, then. If this plan is to succeed, we need assurance. And I volunteer to be that assurance.”

“In summary,” the Summoner spoke up, “What we’re doing is going to random Equestrias, establish an army under one collective banner, kill the Celestia of that Equestria, repeat that process until we’ve amassed so much that we can actually threaten True Biatch.”

The Summoner courtly bowed. “I know, I know. I should be given a nobel award for sheer cunning.”

Vaati spoke up with furrowed brows and a hint of skepticism in his voice, “You should receive a nobel award for being a narcissistic idiot.”

“Hey!” The Summoner instinctively jerked a bit.

“I agree. All you suggested was something any RTS player could think of with their brain turned off.” Malideus snarked.

Ral spoke up, “Expansion would be helpful in our endeavors…”

Next, came the Fat Friar.

“Indeed. It seems quite a sound strategy, if not the only one we have left.” Audrey just shrugged.

“We can probably recruit more people somehow…” the Summoner hushedly muttered.

“But how? We barely figured out how to get YOU back when you passed out.” Malideus said.

“We have an inventory system, a party system, and a leveling system.” The Summoner concluded affirmingly, “If we have all that, then by all means, we’re going to be able to recruit more party members.”

Malideus was silent, as were the others.

“... Seems a sound thought.” Malideus concluded, only a little fazed.

Ral struggled with himself, uttering out snippets of unintelligible words. Shrugging, he spoke up, “I want to argue with that. But it seems to… be too logical. It’s illogically logical!”

“Don’t care. Can we eat soon?” Audrey said, earning an indirect glare from a few party members.

“Enough wasting of time,” the Overlord’s voice thumped like a bass drop. “Boot me already, and let’s be done with this.”

“Let’s see if this works…” the Summoner muttered half-heartedly as he delved within his mind, closing his eyes. Opening his eyelids, he exclaimed, “Commence vote to kick Overlord out of body!”

“All in favor, say aye!” Malideus said, kicking the process off.

“Aye,” the Summoner pitched in his voice.

“Aye,” The Fat friar said, shifting a bit.

“Pie!” Audrey exclaimed, her figure flaring a bit. “Oh--whatever. That was my hunger talking.”

“Aye…” Vaati trailed off, somewhat bemused by Audrey.

“Aye. You’ve got my vote.” Ricky said, eager to boot the Overlord.

“Aye!” Malideus exclaimed, happy to be involved.

“Aye,” Ral finally added.

“Good, motion is unanimous. It carries,” The Summoner said, and in a blinding flash, The Overlord’s presence left the body, and text filled the vision of the rest: “Player The_Overlord has left your server”

Resonating, light engulfed the MC’s body, bathing everything in a tempest of white flames. Suddenly, the MC’s body twitched, convulsing and wringing rapidly. The Overlord’s wick began to die out, his presence vanishing from the presence.

Forming like a sphere of charcoal-black fire with bright orange embers running along it, the Overlord hovered around in front of the MC.

“I will need to ‘borrow’ some unfortunate being of its body.” The Overlord, in his usual evil tone before hovering off into the distance, gradually disappearing from sight.

“Now… What next?” Malideus asked, confused, while The Overlord whipped away from the MC, eager to find himself a host. Suddenly, an arrow whizzed by them, answering the question for them.

“Right. Running now!” Ricky said, and the MC took off running, hopefully away from whoever was trying to kill them.