The Virus

"I was once a lowly little gerbil in a world of giants. Giants that took one look at us rodents, and thought that we were beneath them in some way. Sometimes, we were pets, like I was unlucky enough to be. But most of the time, we were pests with a reputation for spreading illness. Pests enough that they made entire businesses in creating traps and poisons to get rid of us, and even encouraged their pets to tear us limb from limb. We were nothing but fodder for nearly everyone else.

"But then, the Great Comet blessed me with its power, and I realized that I could level the playing field. If we rodents are disease-ridden pests, I might as well use that to my advantage. They were stupid enough to keep samples of their diseases, so I stole a few of their deadliest and spliced them into a new kind of disease. And I made sure to hone it in on their species specifically.

"Oh, it worked like a dream, and watching them suffer to the point of extinction fed my power to unbelievable new heights. Of course, I realized that there were other players in the game, and so I modified my little virus friend accordingly. One by one, I made sure that those large mammals that would crush or eat us would fall, and the abundance of misery that came from them was so delicious, and so empowering.

"Naturally, with the power I gained from conquering those mammalian beasts, I could subjugate those I couldn't use my Virus on--the birds, the reptiles, and more! I had the power, I was the master, and there was no one who could argue otherwise. Why challenge the one who slew the giants?

"I earned my place as Emperor Licorice. I was the savior of the smallest and lowliest of mammals, and my subjects knew they must bow before me!

"Unless, of course... they wanted to experience The Virus."

Inspired by this piece of music.

I figured October was a good time to give you the story of Licorice's rise to power. That gerbil is a menace.