> A New Empire War And Peace > by Shadowflameking > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I grinned looking at Crystal Prime, the name of the Liberty Prime like robot pony that had been constructed to defend the Empire at a moments notice. It was 40 feet tall, not including the horn. Which added another twenty feet to it, and made of blue crystals with bits of metal here and there, it had every weapon you could think of. Mini guns, missiles, plasma, lasers, gamma guns, but the main weapon it had was its horn, which shot a larger version of the assaultron head laser, and had two assaultron rifles modified to pop off its shoulders and shoot at targets in the air or on the ground. It could lay down plasma mines, take down planes and airships, it could pretty much do anything you'd need a giant ass combat robot to do, and it was about to be activated again. The first time it was tested, I decided not to go, as I had just not felt like it, but now it had been upgraded and the bugs worked out, now it was ready for front line combat. The heavy fighters had also been upgraded, their older lasers replaced with a beam barrel from the Alien assault rifle, just scaled up. I had 5 or so of those, so making more was no problem for my scientists, and these had been outfitted with heavy gems so they would fire as long as the gem had a source of magic near it. Say, a unicorn to charge it once it had been fired for two minutes straight, they shot beams of blue energy in a stream, pretty much a plasma cannon just hold the trigger down and whatever you aim at is as good as dead, since they had been upgraded they could now go at twice the speed of sound. Much faster than the first versions, these where the refined versions, still had the classic teardrop shape however. I grinned watching Crystal Prime power up moving around for the second time in its short life and just as I had told them, it could speak, when it did its voice was so loud it could make your ears ring with the force and power behind that voice. "Crystal Prime online, directive, the protection of the Crystal Empire, and the aid of her allies by any means necessary." With a psychotic grin I looked at the pony responsible for this development. "HAHAHA! your fucking glorious Blue Gadget, I would marry you, but that'd be gay since your male and while I have nothing against that, I prefer females." I hugged the stallion in question, he was responsible for most of the systems found in the robot, he squeaked and just held still till I let go. But once I did he was grinning like a madman and cackled watching his creation. This robot along with the upgraded fighters would be a great help for this short war, as Equestrian forces where being slaughtered by the diamond dogs, mustard gas, nightmare mist, bullets, flamethrowers, however, my forces would not be so easy to kill. Gas would have no effect on my robots, and bullets would just annoy them, the best those dogs could hope to do is destroy the joints of the robots I was going to bring, I would come to Equestria's aid. Along to the aid of the other kingdoms, the only ones that have had any victories had been the Minotaur Kingdom. Due to their shear size and the thickness of their armor and their gatling guns, they had been able to mostly mow down diamond dogs before they got close and, to my surprise I had been told they had upgraded their gatling guns to 50 caliber ones so that meant they would pack a hard punch, to the minotaur however it was weak. They could hold it and shoot like it was an assault rifle, that tells you how strong they are. I had also had the airships upgraded, they where like my fighters as they still had the same shape they did before, just no balloon filled with gas anymore. Now it was kept up with lofite and heat gems, they looked like large long blue crystal rods, since every section now had lofite on them, most had been converted into troop transport airships. Mainly for robots, but they could fit ponies as well, you just had to sit on the floor and the floor WAS padded, so its not like just sitting on a piece of cold metal, it would still feel like sitting on a chair or couch, but the floor was still somewhat hard, had to be otherwise my robots would just get stuck. There had also been more development in the Empire on a grand scale, the farms that had been above ground had been destroyed and moved to a large underground vault, thanks to Vault Tec workshop I was able to make a large underground community rather quickly, and half of that was greenhouses and hydroponic systems of all sorts, the changelings tended to the plants and would harvest them when it was time, and deliver them to the markets. I watched as Crystal Prime stomp around for a bit, destroying test targets that had been set up, with his various weapon systems, several older airships set to be destroyed where shot out of the sky by a salvo of missiles, automatic gauss weaponry, and several blasts from the deathray that was Crystal Prime's massive horn. I stepped onto the upgraded airship Crystal Hope, and looked at the captain Winter Gust. "Set a course for the Diamond Dog Empire, and make sure we have enough ships to tow Crystal Prime with us." She saluted, still cute. "As you command, Your Majesty." With that she turned around and began to mess with the ships controls, causing it to lift into the sky. I saw Crystal Prime being lifted up via four strong diamond mesh wires as thick as a tree, by four other crystal command ships like the one I was in, however the one I was in was at the head of the fleet. Two of the other four carried crystal fighters while mine, and the other two, carried combat assaultrons painted blue and purple, the standard colors of the Crystal Empire's flag, with the Snowflake of the Empire's flag on their chest where normally in game you'd see the USA white star symbol. Winter Gust stood looking at the radars display and a map of the landscape with which we where flying above, and turned to me. "At the speed we are going Your Majesty, it should take us about half an hour to arrive at the Diamond Dog Empire." Ah yes, Bonejaw had broadcasted on the radio that he had renamed his little kingdom to an empire, now, some of you may remember I mentioned I have the relays used to teleport synths in game, so why was I not using it? Quite simple, I couldn't. His empire has ONE antenna poking out of the ground, if I tried to relay in with troops we'd get stuck under the rock and stone, or teleport on top of them, we wouldn't have enough time to even fight back before diamond dogs popped up outta the ground under us and began to kill us with their shotguns and gas. Speaking of that little nasty gas, I had my armor modified, no skin as left exposed, the helmet was airtight, and fitted to act like a gas mask, but it still looked the same. Soon enough Bonejaw's little empire came into view and despite most of the empire being under the ground, below rock and stone, some buildings had been built above ground for things like trading, defenses, and other things, the exits where all blocked off with machine gunners and gas landmines. Looking to the left a bit I saw the Equestrian and Minotaur forces defending themselves against diamond dog soldiers, the dogs seemed to prefer light armor and more mobility rather than heavy metal armor, they had light bronze plates in some areas like the arm or knees, and a helmet, other than that, they where mostly unarmored. Bodies of all species present littered the ground as well as sinkholes that had apparently been made to destroy the land as Allied Equestrian forces walked on it. The allied forces looked up in shock and awe at the large fleet of airships but mostly what four of those ships was carrying. A large golem made of crystal and metal, one that looked like it could destroy cities. Air raid alarms started going off from Bonejaw's empire, and a section of ground opened up and to everyone's surprise, fokker D7's flew off a small makeshift runway, and started shooting their machine guns at my fleet, two of the carrier airships opened up and my crystal fighters flew out to meet the fokker D7's. The fokker D7's, about twenty aircraft in total went head to head with my 80 crystal fighters, shooting their machine guns and R48 rockets, while those weapons did some damage to the crystal fighters, they where made of thick crystal, the windshield alone was made of hardened diamond glass, so they did little damage. The fokker's however didn't fare so well against standard beam fire, setting some of their fighters on fire mid flight as they crashed into the ground. Thankfully the Equestrians where smart enough to put up a shield spell to surround them, so no planes crashing would kill them all after being there for two or so weeks fighting for their kingdoms. I grabbed a radio. "Drop Crystal Prime." Without a word more the wires holding the giant robot twenty feet into the air snapped off and the robot fell to the ground causing a massive shock wave, most likely causing some damage to the city underneath us as well, if the large cracks in the ground are any indication. Crystal Prime did the one thing he was brought here to do, drill a hole in the ground into the main city of the Diamond Dog Empire. And thats just what he did, he aimed his horn at the ground and shot a large red beam of pure heat into the ground, nonstop till a large 40 by 40 foot circle was in the ground, the laser was so bright the soldiers closest to it, thankfully Bonejaw's soldiers, had gone blind from the shear light of the laser, while the rest had been temporarily blinded. With Bonejaws troops out of commission for the moment, the Equestrians and Minotaur forces took that as their signal and charged into the hole, most of them where pegasi and the minotaur just roped down on large ropes, with another press of a button my airships got within 15 feet of the ground, and the back cargo bay doors opened up letting a flood of combat ready assaultrons out in a wave that looked more like a wave of metal than soldiers running into combat. The asaultrons had all charged their head lasers and jumped into the hole and I joined them, careful to use one of the ropes that the minotaur had, cause unlike my robots I couldn't withstand a 50 foot fall straight with no way to stop myself. With my beam rifle in my hands I got to watch as diamond dog soldiers where forced to fight on their own territory, civilians fled to their homes and businesses. However the robots had been ordered not to attack anything that was not a soldier unless attacked first, even then they'd use non lethal ways to take out hostiles that where not part of Bonejaw's army, with an escort of six assaultrons I made my way to his castle, more like a mansion than a castle, but I'm still calling it a castle cause thats what most rulers here live in. The guards there took down two of my assaultrons before I killed them with my beam rifle, but it was well worth the lost of the robots as I finally made it to what could only be described as an office, Bonejaw standing with a bottle of rum in one paw, and a revolver in the other pointed at me. I could smell the alcohol on him from here, he reeked of it. "You ruined everything I've worked so hard to accomplish....you've destroyed my empire, my city and home, and have killed my soldiers....why? WHY do you help the ponies and not us? You could have benefited far more from helping my empire, rather than those moronic little ponies, I had the balls to do what they couldn't, exterminate those flying gekos." His speech was slurred, his eyes unfocused. Grinning behind my helmet I spoke. "Because unlike you, I don't betray my friends in arms, or friends in general, you can't just betray every kingdom on the planet and try to rule the world, there was once a man quite like you on my world, 70 or so years ago, his name as Adolf Hitler, he wanted to control and rule the world with an iron fist, quite like you do. He was winning for a few years, had what he wanted mostly, then his forces suddenly started to loose, were pushed back into their capital of Berlin and before the enemies he had fought so hard to eradicate got to the doorstep of his bunker, he shot himself, not willing to pay for what he had done, unlike him you actually tried to fight, your ready to shoot me at any moment, but just like him, you won't win. You never had a real chance, I only waited so you'd drop your guard, and I could just fly in here with little resistance. Sorry to say Bone's, but the Game was rigged from the start." Bonejaw's eyes gained a look of rage, before he shot at me with his revolver. The rounds just denting my armor some as the cartridges he was using was apparently of low quality. However that one to my helmets eye plate damaged the Plexiglass that was used to cover the eyes, with my left eye out of the picture since I couldn't see through the cracked and damaged glass. I grabbed my assaultron blade and rushed at him stabbing him in the throat, and with that, I ripped his head off as his body fell to the floor lifeless. I walked outside and held up Bonejaw's head for everyone to see, blood splattering everywhere as I did so and yelled. "Your leader is dead! Slain by my hands! Surrender now or you will all be eradicated or arrested for crimes against the other kingdoms, You can come peacefully or you can go to an early grave, you can choose." Diamond dogs that had rifles, machine guns, pistols, swords, shotguns, any weapon you could think of, dropped them and raised their paws into the air at the sight of the meanest alpha ever known to have ruled diamond dogs dead, his head still in my hands held by his hair, it was good to be king, not for Bonejaw however, for him it sucked harder than disco. > Chapter 2 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was about two or so days after the war, if you could even call two weeks of battle a real war. Even if the minotaur and Equestrians had lost a few dozen soldiers. Already the Diamond Dog Empire had been punished swiftly, military leaders placed on trial for war crimes and reparations. Since I had been the one to kill Bonejaw, I was given his hoards of gems by default in diamond dog culture and the other kingdoms had respected that. However I was not one to be greedy, so I spread it evenly between the known kingdoms. To my surprise, from the fanfics I had read, and yes I did read some every now and again back on Earth, no one, and I mean no kingdoms knew if Zebrica was inhabited, or if a kingdom had formed there. It had been over two thousand years since anyone had been there, for all anyone knew it was untapped land that could yield many things, like gold, silver, and other random things kingdoms need to function, maybe even oil. If their was oil I could sell it to the other kingdoms, since mine didn't really use oil. Other kingdoms had given me the go-ahead to explore the forgotten land of Zebrica, only Celestia even remembered it, she had mentioned the last time she had been there it was nothing more than a few tribes around a big river. I was thinking if zebras still inhabited the land, they would be like Zecora was in the show tribal, mostly wild living in forests in grass huts or somethin, that's not racist right? I hope its not, anyway onto the main point of all this explaining, I was getting into one of the older model crystal fighters, the ones that could only go half the speed of sound, because I didn't feel like accidentally crashing into a mountain....yeah I'm not gonna explain that one, that one sentence explains it all, on its own. Turns out, I can't actually die, which is good since if I was able to then my sudden intimacy with a mountain at half the speed of sound would have spelled the end of my reign. Ah fuck it, I'll explain it anyways, with a flashback! -------------------------------------------------------Two Weeks Ago------------------------------------------------ I grinned like a madman as I zoomed through the sky looking out of the cockpit, pulling myself into a tight turn. Only for something to go wrong with one of the engines which began to splutter smoke like a fire, causing the aircraft to spiral out of control and I screamed in pure terror as Mount Crystal grew closer and closer in my view, before everything went black as the aircraft splattered on the mountain like a drop of paint on canvas. I thought I had honestly died, but I opened my eyes and saw the same respawn menu you'd see in game, and a mere moment later I was standing back in my crystal palace. I looked at my surroundings then at my hands, they where shaking violently. A moment later I broke down laughing as tears streamed down my face, looking up at the ceiling as I fell to my knees. "Hah! Take that God you PRICK! I CAN'T DIE!" I stayed there like that for ten minutes, before dragging myself to my throne and sitting down, the shaking having slowly stopped. Then began to ponder, being immortal meant I could plan for the long, long run. ---------------End Flashback--------------------- I stepped into the fighter and got at the controls before taking off like a jet to the north west, it would take me two or so hours to arrive there since this was a slower fighter than the other updated ones. So in the time it takes me to get to Zebrica, I will be explaining a few things. For one, Crystal Prime was brought back to the Empire and repaired of the minor dents given to it by the bullets that had been shot at it, and my Empire had the worlds most advanced computer systems. Just the Robco terminals updated with my own knowledge of computers, and re branded CrystalCo, and since I had left my robotic factories on auto build, I had around 10 million robots, combined of assaultrons, sentrybots, and eyebot scouts, I stopped the factories a little to late, so most the bots where just left outside of the walls, guarding, or in the inner city, protectrons acted like a police force, guarding things like banks. I had also found out that Equestria had weird little tanks, they looked kinda like Sherman tanks, but they called them manticore mark two's, invented to actually be mobile artillery, rather than a offensive weapon they created them to be defensive, they had a 20 mm cannon and no machine guns. Other kingdoms saw no use for such a thing, so only Equestria really had those, to my knowledge, so after showing some more modern styled tank designs to my team of scientists I was having them create two kinds of tanks, one that had a 40 mm beam barrel and rockets, and one that would fire a 4 foot by 4 foot assaultron laser, and have rockets as well. The rockets would just be to defend against lightly armored targets, or ground troops trying to pry the tank open. It was designed to look like an M1 Abram, but the armor was an alloy of steel, titanium, and diamond crystals melted down all into one plate, pressed into the shape of the tank, I am sure once the prototypes are tested and refined that nothing would be able to beat those, still thinking of what to call em though. I had also introduced television to the other kingdoms, and most don't know this, but the classic radiation king TV from fallout 3, has a color dial wheel, you can change it from color, to black and white, however I think the game developers made any scenes on the tv's black n white to keep that scifi 50's to 60's style, make it fit in more with the universe. I was just closing in on the continent of Zebrica, it was rather far from most civilizations after all, about an hour and a half had passed, so I had arrived ahead of the time I thought I was going to, and what I saw shocked me as I brought the fighter to a hover. Pyramids, and fucking large ones at that. All arranged in a star shape with the largest one being in the center, and around them was a city built of sandstone, I couldn't believe it. This entire time, a Egyptian style civilization had been here for at least, more than a thousand years, and not one kingdom had known, most likely because from the looks of the technology these zebra had never attempted to make contact with anyone outside of their own empire or kingdom. I was about to start landing when I was shot with beams of blue magic, to my surprise looking at the ground there were zebra guards in a goldish armor shooting magic at me, with SPEARS. I kept watching, careful to avoid the shots when I could, and noticed them taking little blue vials and sticking them into the center of the spear near the head of the spear, and when they 'reloaded' the vial would be empty, I didn't want to hurt any of them, since for all I knew they thought I was a dragon, so I did the next best thing. Scare the fuck outta em by shooting near them with the beam cannons! They scrambled trying to get away from shots that were never going to hit them to begin with causing me to laugh lightly, I stopped shooting after five seconds and all the zebras who had witnessed it did something I did not expect. They bowed which confused me, deciding that they where no longer a threat I slowly landed the fighter. As I did so they all crowded around it, once I had walked out of the hatch, they all gasped at the sight of me, I had my mechanist armor and sentybot helm on, as almost always, I closed the hatch and locked it, didn't want these guys getting inside it after all, and as I turned around again. I saw they where all once again, bowing, which confused me to no end, they seemed afraid to get up. When I'd look at one they'd cower as if I had pointed a gun at them, I wanted to give them a little scare to make them stop shooting at my fighter, not terrorize them for fucks sake. Soon enough after about 3 minutes of me standing there, and the zebras just staying in a bowing position, a weird throne on a platform was walked up, with a rather weird looking zebra mare on it. She had the body shape of the pink bitch we all know and hate, but she had on a golden headdress along with a almost see through green dress on. The zebras carrying her throne on their backs, there was six of them, all bowed so she could get off the throne, only for her to walk to me, and bow as well, what she said next surprised me. "You have come to us, god of the sun." I had no chance to get a single word in as I was picked up by many zebras and placed into the throne she had arrived in before being carted off to what looked to be the main pyramid, I am confused as fuck....I hope they don't try to sacrifice me or some shit. > Chapter 3 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I was carted off on a throne carried by four zebras to what seemed to be the main pyramid in the center of the other four, but unlike what I remember from history these where not great tombs. But large castles or something alone those lines, and after we had gotten to the inside main throne room I was dumped into a throne. Again at this point I was still too fucking confused to speak as a crowed of zebras, most likely the entire city of them was standing outside the pyramid castle thing. To be clear, the pyramids looked just like they did in movies about ancient Egypt, just not degraded and they had a square entrance at each side, aside from this one, this one only had one and the throne I was in was facing the entrance which had stairs that went down to the main city level. Currently a fuckton of zebras where placing things like gold, wine, fruits, foods, anything anyone could want? was being placed on those stairs, and I will remain confused until someone does something normal. That Egyptian queen looking zebra walked up, forgot to mention these guys where a mix of using of walking on all fours, and walking on their hind legs, and stood with her back facing me. "Today is a glorious day! The god of the sun has presented himself as the legends foretold! He is here in the flesh, and we shall do all we can to appease him and do what he wishes, if any zebra who did not believe before is present, behold and look at the very god that has been talked about for the past thousand years!" She stepped aside and the zebras cheered as they saw me, again FUCKING CONFUSED, so I turned to the zebra queen and spoke. "Who are you, and why am I on a throne when I already have a throne? I reallllly don't feel like ruling two separate empires." She bowed, that was getting weird now. "I am Queen Kaliwa, queen of the Zebrican Empire, servant to you Your Holiness, I am very sorry about the guards that had shot at you before with their magispears, they had thought you might have been a flying beast like a dragon, may we know the name of the sun god at last?" Well, I was right about them thinking I was a dragon, but to think I am a god? just what kinda fuckin bullshittery is going on here? I decided, I was not going to deal with this, as clearly telling them no would just piss them off, since my armor most likely couldn't withstand those weird plasma spears, they had energy weapons when it took me giving Equestria crappy laser weapons for them to even develop energy weapons. Yet from what I have seen, these zebras don't even have guns, so I just stood up, and attempted to contact my Empire to relay in forces with the radio, but all I got was static, seems I was to far out of range, with a sigh I sat back onto the throne just giving up, my empire would come find me if I didn't come back within a week, as I had instructed them to do so. "I am Lorenzo, king of the Crystal Empire to the north." Queen Kaliwa grinned. "Just as the legends spoke, you truly are a god of great power, to now rule two empire's at the same time, for that you have my respect, but you are now ruler of the Zebrican Empire, as the mages had predicted, you arrived at the time you where said to, you shall be the one to lead this empire into glory, a new golden age of prosperity, for now partake of the offerings brought to you by the many zebras of the Empire, I shall return shortly after informing the mages that you have arrived as predicted." With that, she gave me no chance to get a word in after she spoke as she left. I find this is bullshit, completely, my god how do I get so lucky yet unlucky at the same time? Any power hungry moron would jump into a fire for a chance like this, but I was already happy with the power I HAD to begin with! How the fuck am I supposed to rule two separate empires? My god things are just getting way to complicated for me at the moment, I sighed again and placed down a robot workbench causing many zebras to gasp as it built a mister handy before I despawned it and they watched in awe as the robot floated over to the offerings that had been left on the stairs, and brought me a plate of, to my surprise, a large entire grilled chicken and some fancy looking bottle of wine, if I was going to be stuck here, I might as well fucking enjoy it, so I took a bite of the chicken, and ho-ly shit, this was twenty times better than anything I had ever had before in terms of chicken, and that says something since chicken just happens to be one of my favorite foods. I just sat and ate, drinking the wine strait from the bottle as I ate, keep in mind this plate had a whole grilled chicken on it, so it was a lot of chicken to eat, it was spiced and seasoned nicely, however it coulda used some BBQ sauce or ketchup...mmm ketchup, as I finished eating and took a long gulp of the cherry wine, a little zebra colt ran up the stares and straight over to me causing the crowed to gasp, one zebra mare in particular looked horrified and frozen in fear and terror. I looked down at the little zebra, his stripes where green and not the normal black on white color, he just smiled up at me. "Hello! I'm Kiwi Stripes!" He was so small and energetic, very adorable. I coulda just picked em up n hugged him he was that adorable, as in, Fluttershy had nothin on this lil fella. "Hello there little zebra, what brings you to me today?" I smiled behind my helmet, kids can be so fun, yet so clueless. "I wanted to say hi before I had to go back home, since I don't go out often other than to play with the other fillies and colts." He beamed a smile at me, I bent down and picked em up. "You are so adorable, name one thing you want, and I think I'll give it to ya." I smiled under my helmet, it was always fun to make a kid happy, even if the kid was another species, plus I literally have everything I could possibly fucking want right in front of me. He somehow grinned wider and pointed to the mister handy, so I called it over and with a quick reprogramming session from my pipboy directed up to the robot, it turned to him. "Hello Kiwi Stripes, you are my new master, I am a Mister Handy robotic butler, at your service, I can clean dishes, cook food, walk the dog, trim the hedges, anything you need done, I can do." The colt squealed and walked back to his mother, who as I had expected before, was the mare terrified stiff, she was broken out of that fear when her kid walked up to her with a floating metal ball with three arms and eyes, greeting her as mam. Funny to see her tilt her head at my, now Kiwi's, robotic butler, I am sure she'd be happy she'd never have to clean again. > Chapter 4 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I watched zebras bowing as I just sat on that, rather comfy I had to admit, throne I was dumped onto when I had gotten inside to this room, and I was growing bored, and as you all know, I hate to be bored, a lot, so just as I was about to stand up and see what there was to do, a zebra in a red robe trimmed with yellow, who had red stripes and runes etched into his fur, also red, walked up, before bowing and then standing back up. "I am Cherry Wave, at your service Lorenzo, god of the sun." I rolled my eyes under my helmet, yeah I still had that on, I was about to ask what the hell was up with all this 'god of the sun' crap when large bells started going off, and everyone had a look of horror on their faces, as Cherry Wave spoke up. "By the sun god not again! the caribou are attacking again!" He grabbed a staff from under his cloak, how he hid it there I have no clue so don't ask, and ran out of the pyramid, I decided this was something to cure my boredom and chased after em, my beam rifle in hand so I could shoot anything I wanted or needed to. As we got to the outside, I saw large deer like beings carrying axes, swords, shields, and bows and arrows trying to charge into the pyramid I was just in, I saw zebras using the same spears as before to shoot the caribou leaving large holes in them, I took aim with my beam rifle and fired, everyone stopped fighting the moment I fired that beam rifle into the crowed of armed caribou, I however did not notice that at the time as I was busy laughing and killing those brown furry bastards, as I have explained before, this is a beam rifle with a beam barrel, meaning until I let go of the trigger, it will continue to fire until there is no more energy inside the cell placed into the ammo slot of the gun, however I had modified it to accept fusion core's, of which I found I could get as many as I wanted by spawning in fusion core generators and then having the generators scrapped after I took the fusion cores out, a fusion core gave you 700 shots, of normal one shot pulling the trigger like a normal automatic rifle, however, with the beam barrel...I could fire for almost 3 minutes strait and not run out of ammo, added to the fact this rifle made a kick ass bass sound when you fired the beam barrel, everyone was shocked into silence as I turned the invading caribou to ash, while some managed to retreat and flee for their lives. I pulled my finger off the trigger, and grinned at my handy work, some caribou had been wearing armor, the beam rifle turned that armor to molten slag that stuck to flesh and burned it to the bone, the smell of victory, also the same smell of cooking caribou meat it seemed, it was a shame most species on this world where sentient, as it would make things so much simpler if there was only a handful of species able to form a civilization, but alas its not like I care to much about it, more species that want to be violent just means more fun for me to have when I have to fight them in the end, at the moment however I realized every zebra within a mile radius was staring right at me, with a look of awe or joy on most of their faces, I just realized maybe fighting with a weapon like mine wouldn't help me in convincing them I was not a god, FUCK. Fuck it, if they wanna think I'm a god who the hell is gonna make em stop? after creating what they deem life, and stopping their home from being invaded, I might as well be one since I did almost 90% of the work, since the zebras had been struggling under the shear number of caribou trying to charge them, as I was about to turn around and try to find my crystal fighter, they cheered and I let out a yelp as I was carried by a sea of bodies back to the main pyramid and sat back onto the throne, I decided out of boredom once again, to build a sentry bot to patrol the area, and also a large radio antenna, once the sentry bot, painted the classic blue and purple standard on all military robots of my kingdom, was active I turned the robot workbench off and despawned it, and watched the zebras trying to poke at the sentry bot, this was a default one with one gatling gun, a rocket launcher on its left hand, and two mortar launchers on the back, as a zebra poked it it turned around and took aim with its gun. The poor zebra stallion froze in place as the sentry bot scanned him with a bluish light, before it spoke. "Threat analysis... green. Standing down. Resuming standard patrol pattern." It rolled around on its three wheels, just patrolling the area of the pyramid palace it was in, after I had set up my radio antenna I attempted to get into contact with my empire, and to my luck, I was able to do so, on screen was my second in command, P.A.M, as an explanation, I had found out I could use console commands, however I had to actually know the commands to do so, I couldn't just think, 'I want extra ammo' and have it poof into existence, I only knew a certain few console commands, thankfully P.A.M was one of em, she would predict things however she did not predict this. "Pam, I need you to teleport in some construction crew protectrons and get a portal gate set up and running, alone with active defenses here asap, as the area I am in has possible hostile caribou, and I don't exactly feel like leaving these people undefended." Pam turned to the screen. "I thought something may have been up when you did not radio in as you said you would do so within two hours of arrival at zebrica, as expected you somehow fucked something up and are stuck there, I will do as requested and activate the relays." As an explanation of WHY she is my second in command, no one actually knows that but me, she is just there to control the robots should I myself not be there to do the job and defend the empire, she is able to almost perfectly calculate the future to a certain fault, she can't predict what she does not know, for instance she didn't know about the caribou, or the zebras having an entire kingdom or empire here, she was pretty much a good version of skynet, if need be I had a kill code I could use the moment she turned evil, it would fry her systems by setting off EMP devices implanted into her, she had no control over said devices. With a bright blue flash the things I had asked for had flashed into existence near the pyramid, the utility protectrons wasting no time getting to work assembling it, it was a large circle that had part of the bottom cut out so it could stand on a platform on the ground, it was a teleportation gate, an Equestrian concept actually, but it was the Crystal Empire's gem magic ammo cells that where used to power it, just bigger buffer versions, like the gem version of a fusion core, zebras watched in shock as the protectrons went about building the teleportation gate, paying them no mind except when they got to close, the queen of this place, walked up to me with a look of awe on her face before she sat and started to speak. "How is it your able to create such things from nothing? the legends never spoke of those powers, just your powerful solar attacks." I turned to her and chuckled. "Because I'm not who you thought I was, I am no god, but I am kind of like one in some regards, as I have technology no nation or empire on this planet could ever hope to compete with, and since you kinda made me the ruler here...by default I have to rule over this land as well as my own, so defenses will be built, walls created and defenses will be put into place just like my own empire, however until the walls are completed, robots shall work to protect this empire, however I will be staying in my own empire for the time being, the portal will remain open, and guarded, once everything gets set up here you can contact me over the radio, or just come to my palace should you really need to, however, you and your people will know nothing about how to create the technology I am having defend you, as it took the crystal ponies awhile to even learn how to make an energy cell for the weapons I give them, unlike my empire all your defenses will be automated, no need for zebras or ponies to put their lives on the line, the only thing not automated in my defense is the ponies who have joined my royal guard, they are just meant to protect the city should something get in and past the robots." She had a look of utter confusion on her face, that I laughed lightly at as I watched the teleportation gate power up and activate, showing a field just outside my Empire's city limits, just about on one of the crystal roads. Robots poured out of the gate, mainly assaultrons, who started marching in a formation around the Zebican Empire, around twenty thousand, the gate I had forgotten to mention, was about the size of a school bus tall, and the same in width, it was just a large round metal and stone construct with gems sticking out of it at seemingly random, aside from the 40 or so sharp diamonds used to focus the energy into the center of the teleportation gate, and without giving Queen Kaliwa a chance to respond, I walked through the portal, and back to my own damned palace, of course I had taken the gifts that had been given to me, O.B.M.S.U was a useful tool, I was thankful my pipboy had that, as I sat on my throne in what felt like forever I got a notification that my crystal fighter was towed back through the portal, so I'd be able to use it again if I had ever felt like it, god I nearly forgot I left that there, could you imagine what would have happened if some moron got into that thing? Ah well, might as well not worry about something that would never happen, since I had a tight lock on those fighters. > Chapter 5 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It had been one month, and much had happened in that rather short time, first up it had been a full year since I had arrived here, to think time could pass so quickly, but to begin with what had happened, the Diamond Dog Empire that had fallen a month ago was now integrated into Equestria, as no one else wanted to even offer aid to the diamond dogs, aside from me that is. I had also 'created' a few initiative companies, meaning I just took companies from the fallout universe and some of their logo's, like for example, Med-Tek, HalluciGEN, and others, now as for why? simple, I was not going to produce all the goods my Empire needed or wanted, they could do so themselves with the help of machines I have made. Even having just opened a few companies from the pre war version of Fallout they have already produced some amazing things, for example my Crystal Empire version of HalluciGen had created a non lethal gas that could knock out even a Minotaur for up to five hours, they also have 'discovered' tear gas, after I told them about it and how it worked, they devised their own formula for it. I had also made improvements to the RobCo Terminals, with my own knowledge of computers I have upgraded them to be easier for someone to use, for ponies at least, they had buttons three times bigger than before, you could choose the color of the text and pictures on screen, from green, yellow, blue, orange, red, and so on, but I had something that no other kingdom would have unless I allowed them connection to it, the internet, but unlike the modern internet, this didn't have information from all around the world, just information from the Crystal Empire's library and my own information added, such as information about the companies and the robots I had, the terminals had been re-branded CrystalCo, and don't ask me why I was changing the names of some companies, I guess it just felt right to change some to fit better into this world, like how I renamed General Atomics to Crystal Atomics, they made Mister Handy model robots for ponies to buy, at 30 bits per robot, I had also some up with a name for my tanks, they would be known as L-17 Tempest's, for now at least, unless I could think of a better name to use. I was sitting in my throne room when a mailpony came in, and as the normal tradition, I gave him a carrot, while he gave me my mail, Celestia had sent me a letter, now nice, reading it I found something interesting, she wanted to see if Twilight Sparkle could come and visit as she has been quote 'asking non stop so please say yes make it stoooop', ha, I wrote back to her saying that while yes, she could visit, she would not be allowed to take anything from the empire such as a robot, unless she bought it herself, and she would not be allowed to just teleport anywhere she felt like, she would follow rules like everyone else had to in my Empire, I was just about to send the letter I wrote back, when I noticed that it also asked if Cadence could some along, I groaned and signed yes to both, we all knew what would happen if the pink bitch tried anything after all. As I wondered why she had not simple called me over the radio like she had before, there was a bright purple flash as Twilight and Cadence teleported into the throne room, causing my robotic guards to go into defensive mode and clicks sounded as their weapons loaded ready to fire at the slightest twitch, that was until I laughed causing them to go back to guard mode, it was just two assaultrons with a blade arm, and a laser rifle for one arm, just a normal colored assaultron that if painted white, could pass for a novatron, for those who don't know, a novatron is just a white and gold painted assaultron with a blue laser rifle for the right or left hand and a blade for another hand, common in the RobCo Galactic Battle Zone. Twilight looked up, looked around at the robots in awe for a few moments, before she straitened up and bowed. "It is an honor you allowed us to come here your majesty, more so after I have learned what my sister in law Cadence has done to your Empire." She stopped bowing and stood on 4 legs. I chuckled. "No need to be so formal, any friend of Celestia is a friend of mine, except for your little pink friend, she will be kept on a tight leash while she is here, as I do not want a repeat of last time, you however are welcome to explore the Empire unguarded, given you don't try to go into restricted areas such as the testing fields." Cadence was just glaring at me, while Twilight nodded and walked outside of the castle, her pink friend following her, and two eye bots following them, they would act like flying cameras when needed, and mobile speakers. Twilight trotted out of the crystal castle, with Cadence following close behind her with two weird metal balls floating after them, seemingly to keep an eye on them, she didn't mind to much, after all she was here to explore an empire that had been gone for almost over a thousand years, and then the technology that had been created here in such a short time, was nothing short of amazing. Twilight turned to Cadence. "Isn't this place amazing Cadence? an entire empire with technology of which the likes nopony has ever even dreamed of except in a science fiction show or comic!" Cadence rolled her eyes, a sour expression on her face. "I know Twilight, this empire should be mine, I was born here after all, Celestia managed to save me as a foal from this place before Umbra made the Empire vanish, I should be the one ruling over these ponies, for Celestia's sake! my cutiemark is the crystal heart itself!." Twilight flinched lightly, before she smiled and patted Cadence on the back. "Well, there is no use crying over spilt milk after all, I'm sure there is nothing we can do to change King Lorenzo's mind, he wouldn't just hand over his Empire like that, besides, we are here to have a little fun, plus I kinda want to study the technology here if I'm allowed to, we have plenty of spending money, just go buy yourself something nice, and remember to get something for Shining Armor to!" Twilight trotted off, strait into a library of course, leaving Cadence alone in the streets with two eye bots floating next to her. As Twilight got into the library she noticed something weird, ponies were using slabs and seemingly reading with them, she trotted up to the main librarian, a elderly mare behind a desk with a rather poofy mane and tail. "Excuse me miss, but what are those ponies over there using to read?" She asked. The more looked up and smiled. "Those are Pip-Pads dear, digital books and music, you can read any book from the library with em since they are all stored on a 'mainframe' and you can use the library terminals to use the mainframe, you just have to plug your Pip-Pad in and download the books you wanna read, was there anythin else ya needed dear?" Twilight grinned. "Yes actually, would it be possible to buy one of these Pip-Pads? or two? I'd like to have one." She mare chuckled and grabbed two Pip-Pads from a box and handed them to Twilight. "We don't charge to let others take em, its policy to let anypony who wants to take one or two, to jus take em, so they can share the books with anypony they want to, like somepony who can't make it to a library often, just use the terminal over there to transfer any books you want to the Pip-Pad hun." The mare went back to checking files for non digital books, as some ponies still preferred to read a book they could hold and turn the page. Twilight walked up to the terminal and plugged the Pip-Pad she had planned to keep, and grinned when she saw there was an option to download everything, she clicked it and sat waiting for the download to finish, she would have every book in this entire Empire at her hoof tips, and it would be great to read them. Cadence looked back at the two eye bots following her and rolled her eyes, deciding she wanted something to eat she trotted around looking for a place to get a meal, she saw a little dinner that was named 'Handy Eats!' and decided that was good enough, and trotted inside, she was met with a weird little floating ball that had three arms, and three weird stalk like eyes. "Welcome to Handy Eats! where serving you is our code! table for one?" "Yes, table for one please." Cadence stared at the robot as it floated over to a table and sat her down, then gave her a menu, taking a look she noticed some things she had never heard of, but that she was sure was meat, she settled on a 'Nuka Cola Classic' and a bowl of Blamco Mac and Cheese, after placing her order another Mister Handy floated into a back room, seemingly a kitchen, and after 20 or so minutes brought her the requested items. As Cadence ate her meal, she took a sip of the Nuka Cola, and paused when the taste hit her tongue, it was surprisingly sweet, unlike the Colt Cola she had grown up loving, drinking it with most meals, when she had heard that the company had gone bankrupt she was saddened, as she had lost a drink she grew up with, however the cola she had just tasted seemed to be ten times better in terms of flavor, she took another sip, then a gulp, then the entire bottle was gone, she left some bits on the table to pay for her meal, and left the dinner. Cadence saw Twilight walking into some weird looking arena, so she followed her, only to be stopped by a protectron. "Ticket please." Cadence tilted her head at the machine, it looked a lot like the Ponytron she had been given to act as a 24/7 guard to her room at the Canterlot Castle. "I don't have a ticket, but I am a princess so I am sure I can go through." Cadence tried to walk past the protectron, only to get shoved back rather violently by the machine. "You need a ticket to enter the CrystalCo Battle Zone, I will not ask again, further attempts to enter without a ticket will result in lawful use of deadly force, to acquire a ticket you may insert one bit into the ticket terminal to your left on the side wall." Cadence huffed, and did as the machine wanted, and showed her the ticket. "Happy now you stupid machine?" "Ticket accepted, have a lovely day." It took the ticket and let her through, she spotted Twilight rather quickly, and saw her looking into the arena with a look of awe, she sat with her and looked to see what all the fuss was about, only for her jaw to drop as a novatron and a space sentry fought, lasers and plasma flying everywhere, before the novatron ended it with a shot from its head laser to the space sentry's fusion core's that had been exposed as it over heated, causing it to explode rather violently. "Oh hi Cadence! isn't this place interesting? they televise robot battles here, and also have live viewers, these robots are much more advanced than the ones we are just beginning to create back in Equestria, they are meant for combat! while ours are just meant to act as guards for doors, and at best a small and slow police force." Crystal ponies cheered as the novatron ripped the head off the space sentry, smashing the dome of yellow glass it had on its head in doing so. "I must say Twilight, I didn't expect this, I expected them to be gladiator ponies like the stories Celestia told me, seems with the new robots they have, they just want to watch them smash one another." Cadence looked as a new contender entered the wring, a glalactron, a white and gold version of a protectron, try and take on the same novatron from before, only to get its head dome smashed and its robotic innards torn out from that hole. Twilight nodded and started walking off out of the arena. "Yeah, I took pictures and notes, hopefully I can somewhat recreate the effects those robots are able to do, as sadly I was told by the staff here I can't just buy one, only non military robots are for sale and those are at the Crystal Atomics Galleria, I plan to buy any robot I am able to." They both walked out of the arena, and down the road, to come across a large statue of a Mister Handy in the center of what seemed to be a large shopping center, and walked into a store selling robots. As they walked inside, a Mister Handy floated over and greeted them. "Oh! your just in time for the product show today! you two follow me, right this way please!" He floated over to some pods, they followed and watched as three Mister Handy units activated, across from them was three green versions of the Mister Handy. "Mister Handy expertly preforms many duties! such as, accounting, cleaning, comforting, cooking, foal care, entertaining, elderly care, grocery delivery, grooming, mane cutting, make up application, marital advice, pet care, pet grooming, personal assistance, and many more! there is no task too big for Mr. Handy to handle! for a Mister Handy its always a pleasure to serve you!" Twilight grinned, while Cadence just looked bored. "How much for one or two of them? and one of those little eye bots I see floating around random places advertising things?" Twilight asked the robot. "40 bits for two Mister Handy units and ten bits for one eye bot unit." The robot grabbed the three requested robots, all in boxes of course, assembly was required after all, Twilight hoofed over the bits and the Mister Handy rang her purchase up, and Twilight floated the boxes behind her as her and Cadence left on the next train to Canterlot, to show Celestia what she had seen, and bought with her bits, this would surely make Celestia happy, the two eye bots following Cadence stopped after they bought tickets and got onto the train. > Chapter 6 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another month had passed, and in that time I had made a few decisions, every weapon manned by the Empire that used energy crystals to operate, would switch over to fusion cells and fusion cores, or fission batteries, as I had realized we had been replying on magic far to much, I had also solved a few problems, for one the weapons on my crystal airships and crystal fighters now only used magic to move and fly, the weapons where powered by fusion core's, or plasma cartridges, each weapon used its respective ammo. As an explanation as to why I was doing this, I remembered Tirek, from that one episode, I had no idea what season of the show I was actually in, only thing I knew was I was at the gala last year, and Twilight was a Princess, she never spoke of a crystal castle, or anything like that, not that I had bothered to ask, but that was besides the point, if Tirek showed up, he would just eat the magic some weapons would shoot at him, so from now on it was back to nuclear power for the weapons of war I had, and as to how I found a way to mass produce fusion cores and fusion cells, and plasma cartridges and almost every other ammo, it was rather simple, I had the ammo factory mod installed before I was sent here remember? I just never really had to use it since my crystal ponies had developed their own way to power the weapons given to them. I also had another surprise for Equestria, as I felt like they would need it, griffons to if they wanted it, power armor, I had realized a few things, for one, I had power armor pieces with me when I arrived here, and they sat in my inventory just waiting to be studied, I mainly kept X-01 pieces, as I'd outfit my settlers in power armor suits and give them energy weapons or mini guns, because nothing says kill like overkill, now, I had in fact read Fallout Equestria back when I was on Earth, and had looked at fan art, I already had design ideas in mind when I got here, but held off on it until I could think of a way to keep the suit from dying, so to solve that problem, I simply made an enchanted fusion core, to be clear I just had a unicorn enchant a fusion core, it took a lot out of that poor fella, but the result was a fusion core that would constantly charge while the pony in the suit of power armor was not moving, however the suit did not allow a pony to stand on two legs like my crystal ponies normally did, so to I also recreated a battle saddle, armed with two mini guns, you could also replace the two mini guns with any weapon my army used. I planned to bring these to the next meeting of rulers, which was in two days, and tomorrow was the next Gala, Celestia had set the meeting up the day after the Gala like she had last time, which I found funny, and I wondered if anyone would bring anything new to the table, aside from me that is, I knew what I was taking after all, however this time I required a living pony to go with me, I had just grabbed a random guard and told him he was to stay by my crystal fighter for the time being, I had parked it next to the castle and it was guarded with non lethal turrets, meaning they would just stun a pony who got to close, but there was a line of red paint around the craft so others knew to stay away from the line. I had decided to go with the same suit as last year, repaired of course, can't have a wine stained and ripped tux to show up to a fancy ass party in, I would of course bring the guard I was going to have help demonstrate the new armor at the meeting, but for the gala he could just party, granted he didn't get to drunk or try to bed a mare, I would not allow that to happen during a visit to Canterlot, I also had a few more things to explain to you all before I wrap up my day and head to sleep. As you may all know, once a fusion core in game is empty it just poofs away, that was not true with the weapons my ponies used, so I had created a way to recharge the fusion cores, I needed power to recharge them so I had made a facility that automated the process, robotic arms would plug a dead fusion core into a receptor and wait five minutes, then the fusion core would start to give off power and a robotic arm, like a mister handy claw, would remove it and pack it to send it back to the troops of the Empire, or to stores that sold them, as most houses had a fusion core generator in them in the event a power outage could occur, the chance was very low, but it was always better to have it and not need it, to need it and not have it, and the gamma rifles have come along nicely, they went from looking like the gamma gun itself, makeshift junk, unstable, to a viable military weapon, they had a nice black outer plastic casing so the wires and circuits where no longer exposed like the testing models of the gamma rifle, we also had gamma repeaters, which was just a gatling laser with a gamma gun dish on the end, two of them to be exact, it was an automatic radiation spitting mini gun, it was tested on a caribou who had been trying to sneak through the teleportation gate, and his flesh had melted after only 5 seconds of being constantly hit with it, we had even given him armor to see if it would still have great effect when in armor, and it did, he was a puddle of flesh and bones, I had that area decontaminated before testing continued. I went to sleep soon after making sure the guard knew he could actually come into the castle and sleep in a guest room before we left tomorrow, and I had the strangest dream, something about blue balls of plasma or something, eh I don't really remember dreams so I'm sure it didn't matter to much, it might have just been a dream about new weapons my ponies had been creating every day. I woke up the next day, at around 11 AM, I got my tux on and woke up the guard, who donned his power armor, now keep in mind, I was not giving fusion cores to anyone, those where for my Empire's use only, so as an alternative I had opted to have a gem cut into the shape of a fusion core, and enchanted with a simple lightning enchantment, it would power the armor all the same, and we got into a top of the line, modern crystal fighter, after all I wanted to get to Canterlot as quickly as possible, cause I am sure the gala already had started, as we flew faster than the speed of sound, I noticed something strange about Equestria, there was surprisingly more small airships than normally would be in Equestrian airspace, it seemed those airship designs I had given to them had been not only used as military craft, but for civilian use as well, good for them, I landed my fighter in the same place as last time, this time it had been painted to look like my Empire's flag, to let others know this was where the crystal king parked I guess, hah, or to mark where I should land. I told the guard he could go about the gala, but to stay out of his armor, if he was seen in it before tomorrow I'd punish him for it, as I wanted it to be a surprise, so much so that I had installed a stealth boy unit into the armor so he could pop up outta nowhere, which would be funny to watch the reaction of the other rulers for sure, lets just hope none of them shoot at him thinking he is hostile. As I had expected the gala was set to last all day and night, it had already begin and a band was playing classical music, not my favorite brand of music, as I preferred rock or rap, but if one plays fallout for as long as I have, you tend to start enjoying it, I walked up to the buffet and grabbed some bacon, again this party was for all species, so of course they had meat out for those who could enjoy and eat it, I ate a few bites of bacon after sitting at a table before I felt someone tap my shoulder, I turned around and to my surprise, I saw Razorclaw, who had a plate of steak and a mug of beer. He sat down at the table I was at and grinned at me. "Ay Lorenzo, good to see you again my friend." He took a chunk out of his steak and popped it into his mouth, and swallowed before continuing. "We need to meet more often than when Celestia calls a meeting, its rather boring sitting on a throne all day or doing paper work all the time." I nodded. "I feel ya there bud, I mainly keep myself sane by walking around my Empire, checking new weapons my changelings and ponies have created, reading, and listening to music." He grinned and took a sip of his beer. "Ay, everything is so fucking boring without a book or music, thankfully those radio's you gave to us, are working perfectly, however while yours are powered by some, unknown or barely known energy, ours have to be powered by gems enchanted with a lightning enchantment, which honestly I don't really care, but just found it odd we can't tell what powers your empire's electric grids and such." I rolled my eyes. "I've told you all before, ya'll just keep forgetting, my empire is powered by 5 nuclear reactors." He chuckled. "And as I've said before, we don't know what a 'nuclear reactor' even is, even when you explained it, it made no sense to us." He finished his steak, and walked off to get more, I assumed at least, as he had left his half empty beer on the table. I noticed Applejack talking to Filthy Rich like last year, except when she was done she started heading towards me, I just watched as she walked up and sat at the table across from me, before she tilted her had. "Hello, a'hm Applejack, I run Sweet Apple Acers, a large farm located just outside of Ponyville, and I wanted to offer you a business deal." She looked nervous, I could see why given the fact I was one, another species, and two, the ruler of an entire Empire, well, by now two empires, what with the whole zebras thinking I'm some kind of god, and just handing me the throne, I swear my fucking luck, others would kill for the chances and crap I've gotten to do and I was already fine with the power I had. "Well, what kind of deal did you have in mind?" It was a good question in all reality, I don't know what she could possibly want from me. "Ah wanted to buy some of those fancy robots, like the one Twilight had, she called it a 'Mister Handy', she named it Jeff, it cleans her castle, organizes things, and if Spike ain't there, cooks for her, and recently the farm needs more hooves to help with the harvest of not only the apples, but the other crops as well, such as wheat, corn, potatoes, things like that, and only three ponies are there to work the farm, me, my brother Big Mac, and my lil sis Applebloom, Granny Smith, the founder of the farm, has jus' gotten to old to work the land like she used to, its to much of a strain on her, and with some of those fancy robots ya'll have, I could have the farm working at 100% efficiency again, we are not even able to bring the farm up to half as good in terms of production as it used to be." I guess that made sense, they wouldn't be forced to hire others to help them, which would just end up costing more than doing it themselves in the long run. "Alright, how many Mister Handy units did you want for your farm? they are 20 bits each." Applejack looked at a note she had taken out of her hat. "About 50 or so, Granny said that would be more than enough, but uh...I only have two hundred bits, Granny is bein tight on savins since the farm didn't do so well last year cause of a fruit bat infestation, but I am sure we can work out a monthly payment plan or somethin." She looked nervous again. I simply chuckled and shook my head. "You don't even really need to pay for the robots, I can just give them to you, I have to many robots as is." The look of shock on her face, priceless, but she smiled nonetheless and tipped her hat to me. "I'll find a way to pay ya back, even if It takes years, can I get the shipment of them tomorrow sometime?" I sent an order from my Pipboy to one of the automatic trains to send a shipment of Mister Handy units, 60 of them, to be delivered to Ponyville, and for the robots to just go to the farm themselves. "And done, your shipment should arrive at 12 pm tomorrow, they will come to the farm themselves." Applejack looked ecstatic as she walked over and hugged me, catching me by surprise, but I shrugged and returned the hug, and soon enough she let go, and went back into the crowed, most likely to tell her friends of what just happened, I watched a few drunk noble ponies stumble around still trying to dance, by now the party had progressed late into the night, it was around 11 pm by this point, and I decided it would most likely be a good idea to head to the guest room I was given for the night. I walked past drunken ponies, I had more than one mare grabbing at my legs to try and life themselves up, but I just continued walking after leaving the ones that did asleep thanks to some Calmer, a tranquilizer, and walked down the hall to a room with the Crystal Empire's flag on it, Celestia had rooms set up for all rulers of the other kingdoms, she hadn't had a chance to set one up for Bonejaw before he decided to turn on us and try to wage a one army one man war. Walking inside I closed and locked the door behind me, the guard I brought with me was sleeping in my crystal fighter as I had instructed him to do so, however I did provide a bed in there for him, and as I got into the bed, I felt like I was being watched, however I knew it was just some lunar guards that had been instructed to watch all rulers visiting, to protect them if anyone tried to get into the rooms and attempt something, however if someone tried that with me, they'd get a sawed off shotgun blast to the face, both barrels of lead slug to the head would surely kill any intruder unless they had on armor. About I don't know how many hours later, I woke up at around ten, to be exact 9:50 AM, the meeting started at ten, so I headed over to the fields we were going to test things in again, and I saw Steel Horns, King Razorclaw, and Celestia just sitting there enjoying Nuka Cola along with some small snacks, along with an artillery piece aimed up at the fields, I wondered why it was aimed like that, but, I guess I'd find out sooner or later during the meeting, so I took my place on a chair and the meeting began. Celestia stood up, again she only walked on four legs, as walking on two legs would be to awkward for her to do without smashing her face into a wall. "Now that Lorenzo is here, we may begin a bit early, Steel Horns shall go first, you may demonstrate your item now." King Steel Horns stood up and took a tarp off of a gatling gun, this one however had three barrels and was much larger than the last one as well. "During our short time fighting the diamond dogs, we developed a 50 caliber version of our gatling gun, plans for the weapon and the ammo it uses will be included." One of his guards took aim at a diamond dog shapped target, even had the same armor the diamond dogs had during the battles, and he cranked the crank as hard and fast as he could, causing the gun to spin rapidly as it shot 400 rounds of 50 caliber ammo into the target within the span of a minute, impressive for it being cranked, and by the time he was done the target was nothing more than twisted metal and wood, more akin to modern art than a test dummy. King Razorclaw stood up next, and took a tarp off a artillery shell, it looked like a normal shell to me, before he spoke. "This shell looks like a normal artillery shell, however once it gets close to the ground it will explode into a bunch of tiny pieces, sending metal flying everywhere, it is called a shrapnel shell, useful against enemy troops, like diamond dogs, and teenage dragons, or other creatures." A griffon guard loaded the shell into the cannon before it was fired, once it got about twenty feet near the ground it exploded in a rather violent fashion, ripping apart the ground that the pieces struck like tissue paper. Celestia stood up and spoke again. "My prize student Twilight Sparkle, Princess Of Friendship, has invented something just by looking at a robotic battle zone in the Crystal Empire, once she realized the ponytrons we had were mostly just useful as door guards, slow, unable to chase their targets, she created a second version, she calls it the assault class ponytron, or the ponytron class A, or PCA for short." With her magic, she pulled a tarp off a pony shaped object, and to my surprise, it looked like a ponified novatron! It was a greyish white, with yellow, and on its flank where a ponies cutiemark would be, was stamped in yellow paint 01. The PCA looked up, and Celestia pointed to a target of a diamond dog, and it went into attack mode, a blue laser charging instead of the classic red you'd see on a novatron, or assaultron, before it shot causing the target to turn to burning embers and molten slag, since it was made of metal and wood, if that had been flesh and metal, you get the idea of how painful that would be. The other rulers looked to me causing me to chuckle since they saw I had nothing with me, before Celestia spoke up again. "Lorenzo, did you bring anything to show or share?" Wow when she said that I felt kinda like this was 3rd grade show and tell in class, hah. I chuckled yet again, and with a quick touch to my pipboy and a message to the guard, who had in fact been standing next to me in his power armor, turned visible again, he has been using a stealth boy, this caused the others to gasp. "Yes in fact I have, I present to you the peak of plate armor design, power armor, armor so heavy it needs to have a frame inside and be powered for the user to move around within the armor." The guard in the power armor trotted around for a bit before stopping at the range for a target. "As you can see, this guard stallion has two mini guns on his sides, he is able to control them from within the suit he has on, I will be giving these plans to all of you, but for griffons and Minotaur, its up to you to design your own units for your species, we will now watch as he takes out a target." The pony turned to a target and fired his mini guns, from his battle saddle, causing flashes of light to glint off the armor as the bullets bounced to the ground and onto the grass, while the target seemed to be disintegrating into nothing. I laughed at the faces each of them made, as I handed them the blueprints and possible designs for griffon and Minotaur variants of the armor, after the guard showed off what he was able to, I had him take the armor off and hand it over to the Equestrians. Twenty minutes later the meeting was over, and I was just headed back to the crystal fighter I used to get here, and Celestia stopped me. "Will you be attending the Friendship Festival in three weeks?" I thought about it, before I shrugged. "Sure I guess, exactly three weeks time yeah?" She nodded, I patted her and got into the fighter with the guard, who fell asleep instantly on the bed I had placed into it, and took off headed for the Crystal Empire once again, I had preparations to make after all. > Chapter 7 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was two weeks later, I had about a week before the friendship festival happened, and I was going to prepare Equestria for it by any means needed, now, for those too slow or just plain dumb, or just never watched the movie, if not go watch it now, during the friendship festival, the Storm King invaded, and tried to take over Equestria with a weird staff, I forgot what its called as my memory is fucking FAR from perfect, however it was decent enough to let me remember these things, the important stuff. I had informed Celestia of what I thought was going to happen, and I was met with concern, when she asked how I thought something could happen, I had explained to her that my drones, just eyebots that flew really high, had detected weird ships flying around at fast speeds, that hadn't been a lie in all reality, they had been detecting weird ships, however I did not know if they where the Storm King's or not, as this universe was a bit different to the one I had seen in the show, semi anthro ponies and zebras, guns, cars, minor robotics, and a female Sombra to top that small list off, added to the fact in the show there was no griffon kingdom , true for here however it was the Griffon Empire. Speaking of the Griffon Empire, King Razorclaw had sent a message to my Empire, and Equestria, to ask for aid as the land the Griffon Empire sat upon was no longer able to sustain wheat, the land was to dry and rocky, even with the ability to move clouds and pour water onto areas the land just dried back up within a few minutes due to how hot it was out there, so as a friend, I sent him several crates of razorgrain, and, for those who don't know anything about Fallout 4, razorgain pretty much replaces wheat, it can grow in a wasteland I am sure it can grow in heat that can melt plastic bottles. As another explanation, when I came to this world, I had everything I had in game, all my settlements included in terms of items, with me, that included all the crops I could plant in game, and since its been over a year since I was sent here, I had plenty of time to plant these things, keep in mind, under the Empire was a large vault, pretty much its own city in all rights, it filtered all water and waste in the Empire, held massive underground hydroponic labs and greenhouses, and while normal crops from this world such as crystal berries, wheat, potatoes, and other such crops where grown in bulk, with soil being re fertilized every two months, it also grew things like razorgrain, tarberries, mutfruit, and tatos, since all of these where grown in a radiation free environment they had no traces of radiation in them, perfectly safe to consume, and I also had a lot of mirelurk eggs on me when I arrived as well, as I loved to make omlets with them for dinners in my settlements. Long story short, I had a lot of shit goin on in my Empire that would be impossible elsewhere, but razorgrain would help Razorclaw's empire out quite a lot, as demonstrated when he sent thanks in the form of a letter that pretty much said I could ask for anything from him and he'd do everything in his power to give it to me, simply because I sent him a train full of razorgrain and razorgrain seeds. Now some of you may wonder who staffed these large underground farms, simple, changelings, they loved to live underground, I don't know the reason why, but most of the changelings that hadn't found jobs either in the guard or elsewhere, had decided to join the workforce for the hydroponics section of the giant underground city under the Empire, I had a LOT of changelings working there, they where payed of course, they also had rooms to live in there, they had the option of a 4 bed shared room, or a single bed single changeling room, most didn't care and just slept with each other in the shared rooms, only a select few decided to live in the rooms with only one bed, as for how the stuff was processed, any bulk was put into food processor machines that turned it into things like Blamco Mac and Cheese, or Sugar Bombs, meat, and yes there was a meat farm down there using a mini Nuka-gen generator, was turned into cram or Saddleup Salbury steaks, the rest was packaged and sent to stores around the empire for sales, same for the rest of the crops, and while the beef used for the SSS, was from cows that where not intelligent, they where still treated humanely, same for the pigs that where turned into cram, I liked cram, it was like spam just a little less salt. Anyway it's seemed I've rambled and gotten off point, I explained to Celestia about what my drones, controled by my version of the DIA, the CIA of the fallout world, had found weird ships flying at fast speeds, speeds that could possibly match the older crystal fighters that had been produced when I first created them, which worried me slightly, as we didn't actually know how fast those weird ships could go, for all we knew they where much faster than anything I had, and if they where we'd have a problem, however the good thing was that these things where about the size of a normal passenger airship, so if they did show up they'd at least be a large target. Now, I am sure some of you may wonder just why none of the royalty, baring a few exceptions, are not greedy fuckers who want to rule everything? It's really quite simple, Celestia, if someone was to just say, declare war on Equestria, invade, and try to say, take over, she'd literally just drop a solar flare on that stupid motherfucker who tried, however she did not like doing so as it caused massive damage to the environment and in doing so she may kill ponies, that is why I am helping them beef up their technology and weapons, now despite the fact I don't want to give them the power of nuclear energy, as we all know what happened in the Fallout universe and the Fallout Equestria universe, unlike those two universes there was actually someone on the planet who knows how to control that technology, me. So I had told Celestia that after the guests arrived, to set up a bubble shield like Shining Armor did at Canterlot the day of his wedding, to have guards and robots ready to fight, now keep in mind, I told her to continue with the festival of friendship, but to actually have guards ...well GUARDING the place, as it was their fucking job after all, till then however I had my own troops, crystal ponies and some robots, on standby, because if the Equestrian troops failed, I'd have my forces relay into the city and defend it to the last pony, the last robot, most likely that won't happen, but with the unknown of what kind of technology the Storm King may have, it was never a bad thing to be careful and cautious about these kinds of things. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------one week later-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I was ready for the festival, however I would not be in a fancy suit, I'd be in my armor without the helmet, I had also painted my armor to be purple, as I loved that color, I no longer looked like the mechanist, every joint had armor except for my head, the helmet, a sentry bot helmet, was supposed to glow red when I had it on, giving a slight intimidation factor to those who did not know me, it was on my hip, strapped to the waste of my armor, at the moment however I was in a chariot to the festival, I was going to take a crystal fighter, but Celestia pulled the same stunt she did last year at the Gala and sent this chariot without warning me, and it'd be a pretty shitty thing to turn down the two pegasi who kept the thing in the air. From what I had understood from the written invitation I had been given, every known species was invited to join, only a few even sent back replies to Equestria, most said they where unable to attend, so it would mainly be ponies at this event, like in the movie I had watched not to long ago actually, my memory may not have been perfect but I was able to clearly remember most of the movie and show, which would be a great help, with me I had my beam rifle as my main weapon yet again. It took about three hours for the pegasi to get us to the festival, once we arrived they landed and I was let out of the chariot, stepping onto a landing platform made just for those chariots I yawned and then looked around, ponies absolutely everywhere, I watched the mane six's little song and dance thing, before I was noticed by ponies, some of which who bowed, however I don't know why since I'm not one of their rulers, I guess it's possibly just a sign of respect, I watched the part go on for about 20 minutes, just enjoying a slice of hot apple pie with vanilla ice cream on it, and looked up to the sky through the yellow dome shield Celestia had raised, as I had told her to do so. As the festival continued on I watched as black clouds of mist began to slowly close in on Canterlot, just like in the movie, except...something was a bit off, they seemed to be moving faster than what the ships shown in the movie should have been able to, I radioed Celestia on my pipboy and had her ready her guards, I expected the ships clouded in black mist to try and dock, what I didn't expect was the large laser shot at the shield shattering it, causing ponies to panic and flee, hiding where they could, with the shield shattered one ship landed, no longer clouded by black smog, I realized something. The Storm King's ships....they did not look anything like they had in the movie, no, these looked like reverse engineered ZETAN ships, or somewhat reverse engineered, the base of the ships still seemed to be wood, but the engines they had at the back, looked like the engine you'd see on the crashed zetan recon aircraft in Fallout 4, and the bottom of the ships hull had glowing circles on them, most likely an anti gravity engine, since zetan aircrafts had those. As I expected Tempest slowly walked out of the ship that had landed, causing several pillars to crack and smash to the ground, I carefully took aim and fired with my beam rifle as she threw one of those obsidian orbs, didn't know if that was the name of those little orbs, but thats what I was callin em for now, my aim held true and the orb shattered, just as she was about to kick it nontheless, so she was frozen in black stone, seemingly that was all the storm creatures needed as they started marching out of other airships, and from what I could see, they had on complete suits of armor and where holding alien rifles, like the ones from the Fallout 3 Mothership Zeta DLC, however unlike the ones from the DLC these had the same reload method as my beam rifle, on the side of each gun sat a power cell, unlike mine however their weapons seemed to be powered by magic crystals shaped into the shape of a alien power cell. The royal guard shot their magical laser rifles at the invaders, only for their armor to absorb the magic, or deflect it, it seems the metal used to make their shields in the movie, had been used to make their armor, assault class ponytron's shot their lasers at the invaders as well, only causing damage to the surrounding area as the blasts deflected off in many directions, one of the storm creatures pulled out a device that by now, I realized was a drone controlling device, once again from the Mothership Zeta DLC from Fallout 3, and after pressing a button and placing it back into a pocket of it's armor, something I never expected happened. A fucking PANZERHUND, from fucking WOLFENSTIEN sulked out of some of the ships, about 15 or so of them, unlike the ones from the wolfenstien game however, these had no Nazi swastikas, or anything of the such, they where painted black and on their head where a normal dogs eyes might be, was the Storm King's symbol, and for those who don't know what a panzerhund it, it was a deadly giant robotic dog created by the Nazi's in Wolfenstien that was large enough to ride it like a large horse, and at the moment one of them was tearing into a ACP, also known as an Assault Class Ponytron, thankfully these seemed to not have the same armor as the storm creatures, that at the moment I was shooting almost non stop with my beam rifle, with a quick motion on my pipboy, my own forced relayed in with a bright blue flash. Instantly the storm creatures took to attacking my assaultrons and sentry bots, while my combat ready ponies helped get other ponies to a safer area, I placed my sentry bot helmet on and it began to glow a violent red from the eyeplates as I charged into the fray, shooting panzerhunds and storm creatures with my beam rifle, a weapon that had quite a large bass sound to it when fired, the storm creatures where about the size of a sentry bot, except they had full plate armor on, my robots could move much quicker than them as some fell to a wall of lead and rockets, while some fell to a wall of deadly lasers from my assaultrons. Royal guards had switched from using their magical weapons, to normal ballistic weapons, which had much more effect on the storm creatures, a minotaur gatling gun did wonders against groups of 5 to 7, however I was more focused on the mane six who at the moment, where fleeing Canterlot, I made sure they escaped this chaos by having a few robots attack any storm creatures that had gotten to close, a group of royal guards screamed as they where turned to black stone by an obsidian orb, seemingly the rest of the storm creatures had these things as well, I relayed in more robotic forces and pulled out my assaultron blade, and went to town tearing into these ugly motherfuckers like a knife through butter, my sword easily pierced their armor, it seemed the armor was super thin, meant to only really protect against something like a knife and magical lasers, not a full fledged sword or bullets stronger than a .32 round, I was shot more times than I could count by this point, bleeding as I injected a super stimpack into myself before I continued fighting. The battle lasted much longer than I had thought, with the storm creatures fighting to the last ....creature, my robots had some tesla weapon modifications on certain ones, those ones made short work of the panzerhunds, that I later found out where called Storm Hounds, it was at this point the big baddy himself showed up, the Storm King, seemingly he had been with the invasion force and wanted to watch as his invasion played out, and it seemed like he was not happy with the way things had been turning out, so he decided to enter the fight himself, he was clad in the same armor his troops wore, except obviously modeled for him to wear it. I was the first one he saw seemingly, that or he had been watching as I killed his army off slowly but surely, and charged at me with one of those alien rifles in his hands....paws? whatever the fuck ya wanna call what his limbs where, I got a blast directly to the helmet causing me to stagger back, seemingly he saw this as a chance to jump on me and start beating the shit out of my head with his fists, I laughed however when his first punch caused his armored hand to crumble beneath the force of that punch, my sentry bot helmet was much stronger than his flimsy metal armor it seemed as he yelped and held his hand, I pulled out my assaultron blade and stabbed him in the chest, before pulling out my ten millimeter pistol and putting it under his chin, without giving any warning I shot 16 bullets through his skull and into his brain, after the third shot the rounds just went strait through with no resistance flying out the other hole in his skull. I pushed the fat bastards body off me and stood up, seeing the rest of the storm creatures dead, and the storm hounds either disabled or unable to move missing two or three legs, I shot any storm creatures I saw still moving, the Equestrian guards took notice of this and did the same, sparing none of the creatures, as the bodies where being cleaned up, and keep in mind this battle took FIVE fucking hours, so there was a LOT of blood and bodies, some of the bodies where ponies, even my own crystal ponies had some KIA, the remaining ships that had landed to let troops out had been ransacked by the guards, however the largest one, the one the Storm King had come from, I had my robots block it off from anyone but me, I was going to get to the bottom of this shit. Walking into the ship, I saw much of it was wood and metal on the inside, and I saw something that would be of immense help to getting rid of the Storm Empire, a map of all his territory, to be specific the places he had taken over prior to trying to take Equestria, I had one of my robots auto pilot that thing to my Empire, after getting out of it and watching the mane six show up looking ready to fight, with the same band they had back in the movie, except the anthro parrots, remember in the movie Tempest destroyed their ship, without that happening they where easily able to take them to mount Eris, hopefully nothing else would be to different, as I had SERIOUSLY not expected those zetan tech filled ships, this would send every kingdom that was allowed access to these technologies, up at least 5 tiers on the technological scale of this world, I had the map on me that had been in the Storm King's personal ship, and with it I planned an invasion of my own, I'm sure with their king dead they'd comply rather quickly to the demands I was going to place, when I was done there would be no Storm Empire, and hopefully those living in said Empire, would willingly allow me to do what I wanted, I was going to raid any facilities containing zetan tech, if any existed, and I was sure some did since they had these weird ships, I don't think anyone could just build these on their own without some zetan technology to reverse engineer it from. > Chapter 8 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It has been three months, in that long period of time, a lot of shit had happened, and I mean a LOT of shit, first off was my raid on the Storm Empire's scientific centers, their research facilities, and what I found was nothing short of amazing. They had a zetan ship, about a thousand feet long and wide, of course they had gutted the thing while studying it, but what had been most interesting was the fact that the creatures who had been studying it, seemed to have reverse engineered their weapons, shields, engines, even their terminals and other technology, anti gravity engines and shields being the best they where able to do, they had found through heavy research that the alien generators where actually PLASMA generators, about half as powerful as a vault-tec super reactor, but still better than your basic vault reactor. But since the plasma technology had been a little TOO complicated, they had opted to make their own 'arcane' reactors, simply put they created magic generators, powerful little things to, for them at least, they had the exact power output of a normal vault tec reactor, but there had been other things the zetans never had, and I know that for a fact. For instance, they had the fucking railgun rifle from GTA5, and panzerhunds, of course they called them stormhounds, I found out just how they had these things to begin with when I was going over their notes, they had tampered with the little portal teleporters the zetans used to move around sections of their ship, and fucking opened a multi dimensional portal, it switched from certain worlds, I quickly had that destroyed, all research into that device had been detonated in a nuclear explosion the size of a skyscraper, I did that by just placing a shitton of mininukes in one area and setting a timer on one. From what I had seen, they had plans to make more railgun rifles, I say rifle, cause it was about the size of a rifle, and they had made their own stormhounds, and controlled them using the drone control device that zetans used on their defense drones, but the best thing they had done with all that zetan technology? They made their own versions of the deathray, while keeping the original from the zetan ship intact, I would like to mention that this ship was not mothership zeta, nor was it near as large as that mothership, this one WAS the size of a small town yes, but the mothership in the game had been the size of a large city, this one was smaller. After my raid had been completed, I took the entire ship and everything they had done, and planned, with all that technology I planned to make my own space ship, hell it was already under construction, it was modeled after one of the ships from the UNSC from Halo, it would be about two thousand feet long, and 900 feet wide, I had already taken the plans for the railgun and beefed it up, it would have a railgun in the center of it that would shoot out of the nose of the ship, it would have nuclear missiles, plasma weaponry, beam weaponry, like my beam rifle or like my crystal fighters had, but it would also have more than one of those deathrays, I planned to have it all powered by twenty vault-tec super reactors. Another side effect of the raid on the Storm Empire, is that without a king, citizens flocked to other kingdoms or empires, mine was the main choice since I had been the one to kill their, shall we say, not so nice leader, the same thing had happened after Bonejaw's little empire fell, diamond dogs by nature, follow a pack mentality, its ingrained in their DNA, so they opted to follow the guy who killed the last alpha, you guessed it, me, they where a bit mad when they had been told there was no digging permitted unless it was in mining areas, as I didn't want someone to tunnel into the underground super structure I had made, but there was also a larger variety of species than just crystal ponies, changelings, and diamond dogs, such as weird anthro style cats, I still don't know what their species name is however. Before all this had happened, my Empire had a population of 96,000, including changelings, but not including the combat robots I had, now with all the crap that had been going on, all of Bonejaw's empire had fled to be ruled under my name as said before, so that beefed up the numbers by 3,000, while the other species from the Storm Empire beefed that up another 50,000, so now my empire had 149,000, keep in mind each of them are kept track of, they have ID's, information on them is found in the Crystal Empire Citizen Archive, that only I and Pam have the ability to use, as to how I housed and fed these new citizens, I just had more crops planted and the hydroponic section of the underground city underneath the Empire expanded by three miles. I had also learned that aside from the solitary Yaks, I alone controlled most of the frozen north, its own continent, so I had decided to expand the Empire's boarders, as for how I did this without the snow and ice killing citizens, it was rather simple, within the span of three months I had my own zetan style energy shields, I had one encase the entire Empire, those shields had their own reactors separate from the ones that powered things like lights and heating, the dome shield was just a foot above the shield the Crystal Heart produced. Since I had almost complete control over the frozen north, I had expanded by quite a lot, using zetan shields as high as the one on the top of the point of the crystal castle, simply placed on tall pillars of concrete I made, covered areas and protected large masses of the landscape from the snow, wind, and cold, after that it was just a matter of having loyal diamond dogs dig in those areas to mine for items like ore and gems, that took about a month itself, along with making another wall to surround that new section of the Empire, before I expanded the Empire had been about, ten thousand miles long and wide, since it was a perfect circle, now it was 30,000 miles large, I don't know how wide it was however, and I honestly didn't feel like finding out, and to give you an example of how large my empire was compared to Equestria, Equestria was 80,000 or so miles large, so my Empire was still TINY compared to that kingdom. After the land had been mined for everything it was worth, concrete had been poured and the ground flattened, a few minor military bunkers and barracks had been constructed after the concrete dried, then roads where outlined and homes where built, still mostly made of crystal but with metal and wood mixed in, there was also apartment buildings, motels, for the rare visitor to the Empire, shops, and other such stores for things one would need like food, and that took up the last two months, only yesterday did the last house finish construction, after it had been finished the last of my new citizens moved into it, as it was a house that could hold a family of ten, as for how citizens got around my empire? It was rather simple, cars, as mentioned before I had the use of console commands, but I actually had to KNOW the command, and I actually remembered the commands to summon a bunch of the Pre war versions of cars from Fallout 4, so I had a few options for the cars themselves, I modified some to be pony friendly, and left normal ones for the bipedal species to use, I of course ripped out the nuclear engines and replaced them with enchanted crystals to power them, as nuclear powered cars where just to easy to explode and kill or maim others. Equestria and most other kingdoms had their own little bout of advancement from the raids I had conducted on the Storm Empire, along with a new empire being added to the list of ones that where official, Mount Eris, and Seaquestria was its own kingdom, ruled by a seapony called 'Queen Novo' It would be interestin to see what happened with that empire or kingdom, it was unclear what it was called exactly, so for now I was going with kingdom, but aside from that, ponies, griffons, and minotaur had taken schematics I had given them for the new arcane reactors, reverse engineered zetan weapons, zetan teleporters, and shield technology, and had started using it for their own benefit, already Equestrian airships had shields on them now, even a dragon would have a hard time getting through those shields, the only technology I didn't give them was the plans for the normal alien plasma generator, or the railgun, they had full access to the rest, and that included the magic powered deathray. But when the raid had finished I didn't just find the ship and the technology that had been being worked on, I also found the zetans themselves, all of them where dead however, dissected like lab rats, a few zetan brains had been placed into a weird biogel sealed into jars, it seemed to have the same abilities as the biogel in the robobrains I was able to create, jar after jar of zetan organs and brains, while their skeletons had been cleaned and stood on display, I had taken those as well, but I did something that either could be seen as a good thing, or a bad thing, I took one of the zetan brains and hooked it into a robobrain chassis head, and set a computer AI, just a basic one meant to do the one task I gave it, to decoding the zetans language and memories into visual files for me to read, and watch later. What with the new species living within my empire, some of course wanted to join the guard, and I let them, it was much simpler to design power armor for bipeds than ponies, since I just needed to modify the legs, arms, and helmet per species, and not actually change the power armor frame in any way, shape, or form. I had also been upgrading my wall's defenses, no longer did a pony need to aim any of the wall mounted weapons and fire, I had automated them by attaching a Mister Gutsy unit to the weapons, taking out their vocal units and hover thruster and their arms, and simply programmed them to asses a target, and shoot as needed, however there was one weapon I had new, and it would most likely be able to damage the shields of any ship it hit, and if said ship had no shields, it would most likely destroy it, the railgun rifle as I mentioned before, I had made beefed up versions of said weapon, mounted them on my walls, and did the same to them as I did with the rest of the weaponry, added a Mister Gutsy unit with the previously mentioned modifications. I had also solved a problem Equestria and most other kingdoms had been facing before with normal ballistic weaponry, they had almost exclusively used revolvers, said revolvers only held 6 shots of the worldwide used standard .45 bullet, so I had my scientists work to design a semi auto handgun that would use that round, and would hold at least 16 shots, what they invented looked a lot like a M1911, but it was different in a few ways, for one it was longer and better gripped for both claws, hands, and hooves, for ponies the trigger would be extended with no trigger guard, for minotaur and griffons it had a trigger guard, and it was completely metal, no plastic or anything like that, since they wouldn't be able to do something like make rubber grips, I mean, I'm sure they could, but they liked things simple and easy to do and use, however that was not the only pistol my ponies designed, I had them design an upgraded ten mm pistol, not for pony use however, for use by the bipedal species that had joined my army, for ponies the somewhat clunky original was perfect for use with hooves, but for those who actually had hands, or whatever their respective species called them, a sleeker design was needed, and it came in the form of the ten mm MK 2, advanced even by modern US standards. There had also been one thing I wouldn't be sharing with anyone but my own empire, the advanced Zetan communication technology far outdid anything normal radio could hope to do, it sent weak waves of plasma, so weak it wasn't even really detectable unless you knew the wavelength of the EXACT pulse being sent out, within that pulse you could send messages, detect craft, and many other useful little things, however I'd like to make it clear this was NOT a weapon. I grinned thinking of how the world would change with this new technology, as I said before I already had plans for a large space ship, however I was surprised to learn Equestria actually had a space program, called the ESP, or Equestrian Space Program, they where working on rockets to send ponies to the moon, and suits to allow them to walk in the vacuum of space, however with the new anti gravity engines, they would achieve their goal within a few weeks at most, they had no plans to actually weaponize any space craft. Some may not know this, but Celestia and Luna have complete control over the entire solar system we reside in, they are mostly known for rasing the sun and moon, however they do much more than that daily, during Discord's reign of chaos, he tossed the system into chaos, destabilized orbits and even crashed a few planets into one another, there used to be 12 planets in the solar system, now remained ten, along with an asteroid belt created when two planets smashed into one another, I planned to mine that field and use it to my own advantage at some point, but that was likely far into the future, for now however I would continue to advance the world, I was just about to try and catch some sleep, since by now it was one AM, when I got a message over the radio, a text message this time, opening it I saw something that confused me, it read. "Dear Lorenzo, your presence is required at Canterlot, as requested by the rulers of the Changeling Empire, who have recently made themselves known, they have asked for a meeting with you to be set up at Canterlot Castle, please arrive by 3 PM." Well fuck yet another empire, lets hope this one ain't evil like Bonejaw's or the Storm Empire was, otherwise they will learn why you don't bring a sword to a gunfight. > Chapter 9 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- As I was getting ready to go to this meeting, I thought I should mention some things while I am flown there in a new all metal fighter, I was already in said fighter and we where flying at a rather slow pace, due to this I'd have about an hour or so to explain some more things that I hadn't bothered to get into last time. For one, I didn't even mention half of the technological innovations that had been going on within my Empire, nor did I explain something pretty important, I was still expanding the Empire as far as I could do so, as I had said before I alone controlled most of the frozen north, the Yaks where pretty solitary, mostly keeping to themselves, they didn't actually want or need a lot of land, they controlled about a quarter of the frozen north, I controlled the rest, all I had to do was claim it, and I was slowly doing so, even now I had robots setting up shields and mining areas that I deemed perfect, there was also the fact a quarter of my Empire was for complete military use, like testing new robot designs and weapons. Due to the fact I had complete control over most of the frozen north, that meant I'd have the ability to use the sea as well, since despite the land being pretty frozen, there was still water around the shores, so I had begun construction of battleships, about 30 or so, each one would have beam weapons, plasma, tesla, you get the point, as for how I was paying for all of that along with the spaceship I was having built, that itself was rather simple, my sales of titanium and nuka cola to the other kingdoms or empire's, was pure profit for me, I simply got to keep those bits, but I decided to spend them within my Empire, making the economy and all that crap grow larger. However, the best innovation in my own personal opinion, would be the holographic style smart phones that Blue Gadget had invented, I had told him about smart phones, Iphones, and all that jazz, and he got the smart idea to make one using a combination of zetan tech, and a small slab of clear crystal, it looked like a phone sized and shaped pane of glass two millimeters thick, when in reality it was the most complicated communication device on the planet, even on Earth it would out class anything made there, it used the plasma technology I mentioned before to find other phones and talk with them, it was about the size of my old phone, a MotoG6, for any who wanted to know. But the best thing pulled out of that gutted ship, was something that was super fucking hard to remove from the ship to begin with, the massive super computers that calculated everything the ship did before it actually did it, after hooking it up to Pam, almost everything on it had been decoded, plans for weapons, shields, maps of solar systems, hell even a map of the zetans OWN solar system, long story short that computer had been scanned and rebuilt, I had ten of them under the castle in the center of the Crystal Empire. After checking the time, I realized it would be about five or so minutes before we got to Canterlot, yep I could see the city in the distance, as we quickly closed the distance I noticed as the fighter was landed by the pilot, that a weird looking airship was docked in the port that hung just off the edge of the castle, it was completely black, with glowing green sections being seen, most likely that was the airship the changelings had come on, from what I could see there was several large crystals that stuck out of the front and sides like cannons, possibly crystal style lasers or something. I stepped out of the fighter, after making sure the pilot knew to stay inside that is, and two royal guards in power armor escorted me to a meeting room, normally a room other rulers and I would meet if the weather was not clear to demonstrate weapons, as I sat down in a provided chair, Celestia, and two unknown changelings walked in, one was female and the other was male, each one had different colored eyes and wings however. Celestia sat with her horn glowing lightly, most likely either recording this, or to jump in if they turn out to be hostile, the blue one, female, stepped up first. "I am Queen Seelii, ruler over the blue hive in the Changeling Empire, on behalf of all changelings, we would like to form an alliance with your empire." I raised an eyebrow. "And just who is that guy." I pointed to the yellow changeling. "And why would you want an alliance with my empire?" I had an idea why they would, however I wanted to hear it from these guys. "That is King Chitin, ruler of the yellow hive, he's only here because it was his airship that we used to get here." Queen Seelii sat down across from me, while King Chitin just sorta stood there, looking bored. "Alright I guess, tell me why you want to make an alliance." I watched the King a littler closer, he really did just seem bored as hell to be here. Queen Seelii sighed lightly. "Your entire empire, is surrounded by a dome of love, never ending food for us, unlike my moronic sister Chrysalis, we would rather make an alliance for food, than attack and invade, because I personally know what would happen if Celestia just cut loose once with her power, as for what you get out of this alliance, we are willing to offer any drones you may need for basic work, such as building houses, gold, rare metals, or gems we have, excluding the green and pink ones, since we do not use gems or gold, or metals, the only gems we use are green and pink ones, for the fact green ones can store changeling magic, and the pink ones can store love, in return for allowing us to feed off the love your empire emits, we will hoof over all of these materials to you." I thought about it for a few moments, from what I was just told, all I'd have to do is let them feed of the love, uhg,,,still feel weird sayin that, from my empire, in return I get riches? That seemed rather simple to me, however I had an idea that would save all of us time. "I agree to your alliance, however, I will not be needing your drones, I have my own workforce, and I'd like to sweeten the deal a bit for you." Queen Seelii raised an eyebrow and tilted her head. "How would you do that exactly?." I grinned. "You said PINK gems can contain love yes?" I was laughing like a madman in my head, because I am surprised I didn't think of this sooner. She nodded. "Indeed I did, what about it?" She asked with a confused voice. "Well, what if I get a bunch of pink gems together, and have them filled to the brim with love? Then just hand them off to you while we trade, once the gems are empty just come back and I can have them refilled, ." Her eyes lit up and she grinned. "That, is a glorious idea, however I have one more matter to attend to before this meeting is over." Her horn lit up and a roll of parchment was floated over to me. Looking at the parchment I took it, and opened it, after reading for a little while I grinned yet again, long story short, it basically stated since I had killed Chrysalis, taken her changelings as my own, and fed them like family, that due to an old changeling law, I now had control over what was once Chrysalis's section of the Changeling Empire, and that included her old hive. "This is a very pleasant surprise, I did not expect something like this, I thought you'd have been pissed I killed Chrysalis." In all honesty, I did in fact think that once other changeling hives found out, I'd be gutted like a fish, then respawn, yeah I found I could respawn, remember that time I told ya'll I crashed into a mountain? ....Yeah that was not fun, but at least I learned something new and important. Queen Seelii laughed lightly. "Hardly, she was a fool, a complete power hungry moron, in fact she kept most of the love her hive collected to make herself more powerful, I am quite glad she was dealt with before me or King Chitin had to do so, or goddess forbid, Blackfang, he would have completely turned her to paste if he had known what she was doing, however I won't keep you any longer, and I thank you once again for agreeing to this alliance, we shall get in touch with a 'radio' as Celestia calls it." With that she and Chitin trotted out of the room, leaving me and Celestia alone. "So Celestia, you also had something to tell me? Other than inviting me here for tea of course." While the meeting had gone on, Celestia had a maid bring in a pot of tea, and two cups, and a small bowl of sugar cubes, we'd have tea every now and again, mostly in Canterlot. "Yes actually, thanks to those weird little energy weapon rifles, we have altered some and modified a few to a certain extent that they shoot plasma, rather than a magical laser." She took a sip of her tea, I did the same. "Nice, now ya have plasma weapons, and those large death rays, and those anti gravity engines, you get the idea heh." I finished my cup of tea off. "Well, I best be off, I have prototypes to witness back at the empire, if I make any progress on anything I'll let you know." I patted her head, she was still adorable, plus we where more like friends than actual rulers to each other. As I was walking down the hallways when Luna of all ponies, rammed into me at full speed, causing me to go crashing into a wall, while she just kept running, not even stopping to check to see if I was alright, fucking rude, and weird, but whatever, she might just be running off to tell her sister of some emergency, thankfully I was helped up by a guard, I had left a fucking indent in the wall in the exact shape of me, how this world still has some cartoon logic is something I will have to figure out at a later date, after getting back to the aircraft docks, before being flown back to the Empire, after only an hour of being back at the Empire, I was having ponies store as much love as they could shove into pink gems about the size of a baseball, I didn't know when Queen Seelii would contact me, so I thought it best to be ready, however I'd like to mention the ride back here was much quicker since the pilot was allowed to use the new fighters full flight capabilities. > Chapter 10 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Four months, four months had gone by, in that time, like the last time a lot of crap happened, but this time there was a little more than the first time, for instance, the Crystal Lorenzo, the giant ass space ship that I was having robots build, was due to be completed any time now, and speaking of robots, I had actually done something by accident. You know those synth relay grenades you get in the game if you do enough things for the institute? Well, I wanted to test and see if they would work with my own robotic forces, so I could quickly relay them in, instead I got a bunch of angry gen 1 and gen 2 synths, they had been quickly killed, or dismantled, however most of them had been relatively intact, after having a few scanned, the robot work benches could produce gen one, and gen two synths, I stuck to gen two's, since the gen one's voice was annoying as fuck, they acted as a repair crew for things that a mister handy, or protectron couldn't do, such as fine manipulation of small tools, like a screwdriver. The Crystal Lorenzo, and no I didn't name it, the crystal ponies did, as two thousand miles long, and 900 miles wide, it was made of a super strong steel tungsten alloy, every piece of this ship was enchanted to enhance how strong it was, now let's get into the details on weapons, troops, and all that jazz that the ship had. Its main weapon was a massive rail gun build into the ship itself, it would shoot a 36 inch rail gun round out the nose of the ship, it was a rapid fire weapon. There was also the many smaller, but still deadly weapons, I shall name them off now, it had 20 inch beam barrels all around the ship, on each side, 40 mm gamma cannons, 30 mm point defense plasma weaponry, tesla weaponry as long and wide as a school bus. It also had many different kinds of missiles, from the ones you'd see from a normal fallout missile launcher, to nuka nuke ones, with the warhead of a nuka nuke, but scaled up to be about the size of the warhead you find in Fallout 3's Megaton, larger missile than a normal one, there was also the EMP missiles, meant to disable hostile electronics, the larger missiles had their own protective energy shields, to protect them from laser or plasma fire, however a beam weapon would easily take those out, but there was one more thing in the ships arsenal, long 40 foot long, one foot wide, tungsten rods, these where to be used for orbital bombardment only, they had much less force than the first atomic bomb, that was kinda the point, they where meant to be a weapon that could take out massive ground troops in a few strikes, with no fallout, the official class of the airship was Z-S8 Behemoth, that was the type of ship, not the name of the ship itself. There was also my troop carriers, and fighters, I had decided to name the fighters TJO4 Phantoms, because due to their energy shields, they would not appear on radar, the troop carriers where called WR-3F Fortresses, since they where pretty much flying mobile bases, but that they could carry troops, in addition to their normal weaponry however they had a rather recent addition, you all know the firework mortar from the contraptions DLC? Well recently I had a few of those firework rockets that controlled the weather, placed into the Fortress troop carriers, there was three options, rain, radstorm, and clear, they where very useful, at least the rain one was, just use it and the Empire had a nice little rain storm, however the radstorm one and the clear one, was the one used for combat against an area full of hostiles, they would vomit their own organs out from the radiation, since most things on this planet had no resistance to it. I had found out what that species of anthroish cat was called, Neko's, strange species name, but meh I didn't name em, during the four months that had passed, I had expanded more and had finally reached the frozen coast, in doing so I had an actual city built, not just small homes, skyscrapers, not to large however, just 40 floors high was the limit, not nearly as tall as the crystal palace, I made that a rule because I don't want to have to expand the shields more than I already do, now my empire was larger than Equestria, since the frozen north was a lot of land, as such the battleships I had, had been completed, they where manned completely by gen 2 synths, with a mister gutsy being the captain, for each one, I cut down the order from 30, to 15, cutting it in half, and saving steel and other resources. The Empire also had a metro system, underground trains that would take you almost anywhere in the Empire you needed to go, built into the pre made underground super structure, the Empire had expanded 60,000 miles, so now the entire empire was about 90,000 miles large, only a thousand miles larger than Equestria, and most of that was small skyscrapers, houses, shops, a few small military bases, and parks, I had certain areas turned into medium sized parks, where foals could play, and adults could relax, have a BBQ, a picnic, whatever families in this world did for fun, they'd be able to do there, there was also a museum of technology, showing the progress the Empire had made since the time I took over. Trade with the Changeling Empire had been going good as well, they kept bringing the items they said they would, and in return I have their gems refilled with love energy from the crystal heart when they return them, it only takes about two hours to refill them all, now something I may have forgotten to mention, some of you all might be wondering why I had skyscrapers built? Because of the waves of zebras that where moving into the Empire at an alarmingly fast rate, and more than a few griffons and minotaur had decided to move in as well, my Empire's population went from 149,000, to half a million, in other terms, just little over five hundred thousand beings living in my Empire, still, Equestria has three million ponies living there, so my Empire while larger, was still smaller in terms of population, but military wise? My Empire had the largest damned military force on the entire PLANET! Mainly because I have a few million combat robots, I did have a few billion, but I had them scrapped for parts, since they kinda just took up to much space. When the zebras flocked here, I had asked why, and they had simply told me that the Caribou kept attacking, despite the robotic defenses I had set into place, some still managed to kill a few zebras, and the zebras had simply gotten tired of it, they just packed up everything valuable, and torched the rest after coming through the portal gate, nearly overloading the poor gate, I left my robots there to keep the place up, keep it from, falling apart, ya'know? So for right now, I was just sitting on my throne, bored out of my fucking mind, when my pipboy went off, showing me an alert that some kinda crime or something was happening in the park just two blocks away, so with a quick press of a button, I relayed into the park. Once I relayed in, I saw something that shocked me, two nobles from Canterlot, and a crew of construction ponies, whom where trying to tear down, the park I MYSELF built to celebrate the day I liberated the Crystal Empire from Umbra, grabbing my beam rifle and putting in a call for some Military assistance I stormed over, I walked right up to the unicorn, he was male, with grey fur, blue eyes, small glasses, and he had some weird green polo shirt on. "Just what the FUCK do you think your doing!?" I loaded a new fusion core into my beam rifle, causing it to hum with power. The unicorn looked up at me from some blueprints. "I am Jet Set, and I plan to build a summer home here for vacations away from Canterlot, now shoo peasant, I have better things to do than talk to some weird abomination of an ape." The unicorn mare, I presume his wife, snorted and gave me a look of disgust. "Yes, begone beast, you are making me gag." "You two don't know who I am, do you? Of course not, otherwise you'd be shaking and begging not to die right now, I am Lorenzo, Ruler of the Crystal Empire, and you are destroying public property, trying to claim land, and insulting the ruler of the empire you currently reside in, anything else I should add to the list?" I grinned. The two rolled their eyes before Jet Set spoke up. "Likely story ape, now begone, your mucking up the area I plan to build a pool in." I growled and just as my luck would have it, power armored ponies, diamond dogs, nekos, and some zebras, damn they brought twenty soldiers, stormed up with their weapons ready, a mix of automatic laser rifles, plasma rifles, gamma rifles, and some normal ballistic weapons, like the splatter cannon, I watched their faces go pale before they tried to run for it, only to get tasered by one of the soldiers using a non lethal weapon, I walked up to the two stunned morons. "You two are hereby imprisoned for destruction of public property, attempted theft of land, insulting the ruler of another Empire." Looking at the park I saw parts and bits had been destroyed, and....what the fuck? They pushed over an ELDERLY mare, like think GRANNY SMITH elderly! I had a two soldiers give her medical aid, since she couldn't stand back up on her own. "And assault of an elderly mare." She was a purple crystal batpony, with a poofy white mane and tail. "I as King of this Empire, sentence you two to 50 years in maximum security prison." They both paled again. Jet Set growled. "You can't do that! Do you KNOW who we are!? We are FAR more important than some elderly PEASANT, who should have DIED when she could no longer SERVE those who are above her!" My face went deathly calm, before I beat the shit out of that sack of shit, once I was done, he had a broken snout, and three broken ribs, or so I was told, as an explanation, my Empire DID have a maximum security prison, but there where no cells, no food breaks, nothing, due to the fact those who where sent there are cryogenicly frozen until their time is up, keep in mind they could see everything going on, they would go insane from boredom if I didn't leave radios by the pods, I found it fitting to punish those who would hurt someone who couldn't even fight back, and I would not tolerate it, however I had a few Caribou to deal with now, I wanted to put an end to that little thorn, since they had killed over a hundred zebras in their raids, I would get revenge for them, by letting the zebras in power armor join the raid on their empire, see how they like it when their city burns and they are the ones being slaughter, keep in mind I wasn't going to allow them to kill young, females, the elderly, just hostile soldiers. > Chapter 11 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was a day later, and I had a few surprises in store for those damned caribou, like for instance, remember the drone cannon from the Mothership Zeta DLC? Well, zetan technology once again was integrated into my own army, the drone cannon was downsized, upgraded, and made into a portable plasma grenade launcher, aim up, and fire near a target, it will explode mid air, it was the perfect artillery weapon for ground troops, unless they could hide under the ground that was, but it replaced normal artillery within the Empire, like all heavy energy weapons it was powered via a fusion core. From the information the zebra warriors had known, and seen, the caribou possessed minor metal making abilities, like iron swords, spears, crossbows, and metal armor, along with magic, they seemed to mostly use lightning based spells, for combat at least, the zebra knew little of the actual caribou's abilities in magic other than shield spells, lightning attacks, and their basic healing spells, they knew where the caribou resided, it was much like Rome in terms of stile from what I've heard, but on a smaller scale, made of normal stone, rather than concrete, rather than taking the teleportation gate, and risk it shattering due to the amount of soldiers coming with me on this little adventure, we'd be taking one of the troop carriers and flying to the Caribou Kingdom. As we got loaded up, zebras had the chance to grab any weapon that suited them, from plasma rifles, laser rifles, to tesla rifles, they had full access to anything in the armory, I myself was carrying a gamma rifle, this was an automatic version, less damage but with a faster rate of fire, it didn't really matter much, anything that was hit with this would die of radiation poisoning within minutes, seconds if I kept shooting, While the fortress was being flown to the Caribou Kingdom, lets talk some details shall we? Everyone remembers the DIA , or the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA of the Fallout universe? Well, I had that as well, but mine did a few different things rather than just monitor possible hostile kingdoms, they had a network of changeling spies, another job changelings excelled at was the art of deception and misdirection, it was their very nature to be like that, however all I really did was use my spies to gather Intel on how things had been going on in Seaquestria, since I didn't know much about that kingdom, as for how the changelings I had sent there stayed hidden, and under water to begin with, they are CHANGELINGS, one of the most adaptable species on the planet, they can grow thick armor, larger horns, sharper wings, venom sacks, even porcupine needles, gills were hardly a challenge due to the amount of love available for them to soak up. I had them spy on Seaquestria for about, a month and a half, to judge their technology, and how likely they would be to attacking others, seemingly however they had no guns, of any kind, and mostly relied on swords, spears, and other such things, it made sense if you really thought about it, they used to live underwater, gunpowder would just clump together if it was completely wet, however I don't actually understand how they managed to forge swords and shit underwater, that was the part that confused me, but anyways back to the point, after getting Intel on the new kingdom, I had them come back. I had stealth soldiers as well as hard hitters, like the zebras with me in power armor, followed by sentry bots, the stealthy ones where given 100 small, quarter sized fallout 3 style stealth boys, a stainless steal knife, and a silenced ten millimeter pistol, and anything else they needed upon request, with reason of course, they where the assassins of the Empire, they could kill someone in a crowed and they would never be found, even if someone where to know what to look for, they had surprisingly agility and luck. As we passed what was once Zebrica, we flew into what looked like something from a Mario game, the desert transformed in a perfect line into a jungle, a perfect line clear and strait as a fucking postcard, even a year later this world still finds ways to fuck with my sanity, either way soon enough we came upon something that looked like what Rome may have looked like, before it was destroyed, in the center sat a large dome of stone and glass, seemingly the capital or castle, whatever you wanna call it, as we started to land the fortress to actually let the troops file out, caribou guards tried to rush up with spears and swords in their mouths, thankfully I had thought about troop defenses and had a pair of .80 cal heavy machine gun turrets, built into the sides of the door that let troops out, opened fire on the caribou rushing the fortress, shredding their iron armor and turning them into bloody swiss cheese. I turned to the soldiers that had wanted to join this battle, about 30 or so zebra stallions, all decked in X0-1 power armor, of course modified as needed per species, it was pony shaped, they had various weapons strapped to their battle saddles, from mini guns, to gamma rifles, as I explained before any weapon within my Empire that was hoof, or claw held, was able to be strapped and fitted to these battle saddles. "Alright men! This is what you wanted! Revenge for the zebras that have fallen to the hoof of these violent caribou, but now they will fall to your hooves! Just remember the rules I set in place, harming any caribou aside from the soldiers trying to attack you, will result in you being dishonorably discharged and placed in prison for up to two hundred years in cryo stasis, other than those rules, go absolutely fuckin nuts." With that, and the press of a button, the door on the back of the fortress opened up and the zebras charged out, their weapons shooting the caribou still trying to approach the fortress. The caribou didn't even get within ten feet of the zebra soldiers, let alone the sentry bots I had with us, caribou guards where being slaughtered, either melted with gamma guns, plasma, or turned to paste by battle saddles with missile salvo launchers, or simply by the walls of lead my sentry bots where laying down with their mini gun, missile shooter, and mortars, some had a drone cannon modification where the missile launcher arm was supposed to be, we slowly made our way to the castle the king would reside in, as I said before it looked like a large dome of stone and glass, so I had no actual idea what this thing was called, I'm just calling it a castle for simplicity's sake, I didn't even really have to shoot, I just let the zebras have all the fun as we smashed our way into the throne room, only to see a BEHEMOTH of a caribou sitting on the throne, when I say behemoth, I mean 5 fucking times CELESTIA'S size. A caribou guard, in fancy looking armor, the captain of their military I presume, stepped up in front of his ruler. "You DARE attack the caribou kingdom?! And you bring our sworn enemy as well! just who the hell do you think you are coming into our home and invading us?" He didn't get the response he wanted, as I don't think he wanted a missile to the face, courtesy of one of the zebras. I walked up to the throne and looked up at this behemoth. "I presume you are the leader of the caribou that have been attacking these kind zebras? If so then you are kinda screwed." I had my beam rifle in my hands, no doubt it would kill this thing, just not as fast as it does with NORMAL sized targets. "I am King Ma'al, and you are a fool to think you can just rid of me as simple as one would rid of a rotten fruit." What he did next surprised the hell outta me, he pulled out a weird looking staff and aimed it at my soldiers, and it shot LIGHTNING at them, thankfully all this did was force the power armor to go into shutdown mode to bleed off excess power, my robots however where not so lucky, if them exploding and spazzing out from the power overload was any indication, I quickly replaced my beam rifle with a fatman, to be exact a nuka nuke launcher, and fired, the nuka nuke hit him in the face, melting half of it off, but not causing him to die as he let out a primal scream of unbridled rage as he LEAPED from his throne with speed no living creature of his size should possibly have, and stabbed me in the chest with one of his horns, thankfully my armor took most of the blow, however it still hurt like a bitch to have a long, sharp, horn, through your chest, and out through your back, with half his skull destroyed it showed his brain to the air, I pulled out a combat knife and threw it like a throwing star, stabbing it deep into his exposed brain, causing his body to spasm and twitch before he fell lifeless, ON TOP OF ME nonetheless. After about 15 minutes of laying trapped in agony bleeding out, a zebrican soldier trotted up and with the help of a few others, pulled the large fat bastard off of me, once that was done I quickly took three super stimpacks and three syringes of Med-X, and to be safe, some X-cell, once that was done, we looted this kingdom, keep in mind however, we only took from the castle itself, we did not break into others homes and just steal their shit Viking style, I had rules in place to prevent shit like that, and we came off with quite a haul of gold, gems, and other goodies, it would be sorted later after we got back to the Empire, ammo counted, and weapons and gear checked over for damage done in battle, mainly due to the fact I wanted to make sure that fucking lightning staff hadn't permanently damaged their power armor, speaking of I nabbed that staff for myself. The staff would go to the magical research division of my military scientists, while my Empire relied HEAVILY on technology like laser and plasma rifles, combat magic was still a thing, and so was magical artifacts that certain spells could use as a boost, that staff would certainly help with making a spell to fry electronics with little effort by the user, and tomorrow would be a day of celebration, for the Crystal Lorenzo had been completed, plus it was the anniversary of the day I had liberated the Crystal Empire from Umbra, and freed the crystal ponies in doing so. > Chapter 12 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was the Liberation Day, the anniversary of the day I had killed Umbra, freeing the crystal ponies, and the day I had brought this Empire into a new, golden age, making it from the most primitive, compared to Equestria the moment it came back into existence with outdated technology, to the most advanced and powerful Empire on the planet. I watched as fireworks went off, in all colors, the main ones being white, purple, blue, and gold, during this night, and the day after, it would be all one big party, with almost the entire Empire joining in, aside from those who just didn't feel like joining, I grinned watching as the celebration went from a normal large party, to a damned rave, it was a good week so far, and much had been accomplished, despite yesterday being the day we had destroyed the Caribou Kingdom, the zebras that had come with me for that battle, had been praised and treated as heroes, not just by the other zebras, but by the fellow creatures that inhabited the Crystal Empire, as once it had been learned of what the caribou had done to the zebra, many, for the lack of a better term, wanted the caribou brought to justice and held accountable for what they had done, and they got what they had wanted, swiftly. While the citizens of my Empire partied the night away, I was working on a new project of mine, an upgraded robobrain, one that would have a more humanoid, it would have the same head as a normal robobrain, but everything else was changed, the shape of the body, its weaponry, and all that jazz, I was working late into the night on this, when energy readings began to go off the charts around the Empire, so with a quick relay I was back outside, just outside the crystal palace, watching in confusion, others doing the same as the noise of the nation wide party died out rather quickly, at the sight of a giant....tear, for the lack of a better way to describe it, in the fabric of the sky, seemingly the very fabric of reality itself was being torn apart, either this is a prank by Discord, or something else, the Empire's automated wall defenses took aim and began to shoot, mistaking the large tear for some large hostile aircraft, or something along those lines. The shots that hit, just seemed to be absorbed into the tear, I set off air raid alarms causing citizens to flee into the underground structure under the Empire, while I myself activated the energy shields, they had been turned off to view the night sky, and watched as the dome of blue protective energy formed around the Empire, however it didn't do much as the crystal heart itself began to spin within the housing that had been built around it to protect it, and the aurora beam that blew away all the snow and ice the first time the heart was reactivated went off, overloading the shields and causing them to fail, and for the beam to fly straight into the tear, causing it to widen and rather violently, everything began to shake as I fell to the ground from the intense magical, and gravitational forces at work. I could feel this was being done deliberately, it was not something random, as for how, every creature that has ever been exposed to magic, will know after a certain time the difference between natural magic, say a cloud turning into a storm cloud, and unnatural magic, like a unicorn levitating something, when I say natural and unnatural, I only mean something that can't happen unless something like a unicorn or another species, makes it happen, before everything went into a blinding white light and I blacked out. From across the globe a surge of energy was felt, by every being with even a little magic sensitivity as the Crystal Empire, vanished from the face of the planet, leaving a rather large crater in its wake, over 100 miles deep, and over ten thousand miles wide and long, a section of Equis was just gone, with little to no warning, taking with it the most advanced Empire seen in the world. An unknown amount of time later, with a violent flash of energies in colors no being aside one from the void could possibly have any hope of describing, a new landmass was deposited and securely tied to the ground beneath an ocean, while the Empire that sat upon that land, was rather shaken up, but still mostly intact aside from a few collapsed houses and a few small injuries, such as a broken ankle, or a bloody snout, mainly from being forced to black out with no warning. Across the new world, this event was felt by almost all creatures, and within an alternate version of Canterlot, Celestia looked up from a scroll she had been reading, taking a moment to close it off with a ribbon she set it aside on a table and grabbed her tiara with her hand, and set it firmly onto her head, before Luna barged into the room. "Sister! Did you feel that ripple in the magical energies of the world as well as I have?" Luna walked over, she had on a black dress and her normal silver tiara, and some metal shoes on her hooves. Celestia nodded, she was in rather simple clothes since she had been in her room at the time, and since it was night, she was just in a pair of yellow and purple pajamas. "I have sister, I hope this is not something bad, for I would hate to have yet another threat just come out of nowhere, but from the energy readings I am getting through the magic of the world, the energy being emitted seems to almost perfectly match that of the Crystal Empire, however impossible that should be, due to the fact only one crystal heart had ever been created, I will be sending some airships to take a closer look at it soon enough." Luna chuckled. "Once we get some proper information, we can then plot a plan of action of what to do, I do like the way you think sometimes sister, I can tell whatever this is, its big, possibly even bigger than the time you almost caused a war with diamond dogs over how you refused to eat gems with their leader, before you had to explain that ponies couldn't eat gems like a diamond dog." That had been a rather....eventful time. The shields of the Crystal Empire, slowly flickered back to life as the reactors that powered them, booted back up, automated systems slowly reactivating and going about their normal business, while creatures within the Empire itself where still blacked out, most had been taken care of due to automated emergency medical services, such as medic protectrons, and a few gen 2 synths that acted as fast responding medics, the King however was taken directly to a special room within the crystal palace, one meant just for him to recover, once he woke up however, it was going to be a shitshow once he realized what had happened to his Empire, and where they now where. > Chapter 13 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Celestia watched as her loyal guardmare's loaded up onto a battle ready airship, she had to make sure her guards could actually protect themselves after all, she had no idea if this new landmass within the Badlands was hostile or not, or if it was some changeling trick devised to fool her and her guards, however she doubted that since she knew nothing on this planet, aside from maybe Discord himself could cause what she had felt was full of power, possibly more than even Discord had, that thought itself scared her slightly, while Celestia herself was not lacking in the power department, the consequences of USING that power is what scared her, for fear of what might happen to her ponies, and others that did not deserve her solar wrath. The airship was rather large, about 200 feet long, and 70 feet wide, it looked like a WW1 German zeppelin, but had some differences as well, for one the bottom hull seemed to be thicker, having stationary cannons placed all around it at angles for either air to air, or air to ground attacks, it was one of the most advanced airships in the entire Equestrian Royal Air Force, or the ERAF, for short, it had 36 inch cannons, Hale missiles, the most advanced engines possible for the time of this airship, by all means it was the pride of the ERAF, and it was closing in on a new landmass that had taken a chunk out of the badlands, every guardmare was on edge, as they had no idea what to expect with nothing but the orders to not start any hostilities and to only shoot their cannons off if they needed to defend themselves. As the new landmass came into view, many jaws dropped as they saw it seemed to be a seemingly MUCH larger version of the Crystal Empire some of them had seen in the frozen north, it seemed over 50 times larger than the one in the frozen tundras of the north, a large city with strange blue shield spells surrounding it all, as they where about to send a radio message, a rather large lime green dragon flew into view, seemingly either its rest was disturbed or its home had been destroyed once this Empire had taken its place on the Badlands, and it let out a roar of the likes the many guardmare's that crewed the ship had never thought possible, and some got their cannons ready, as if stone cannonballs would do anything against a dragons thick scales, however it seemed to ignore them and head for the new Empire, and one of the many weird looking cannons on the wall that surrounded the ENTIRE empire, aimed up and with no warning, fired, the railgun projectile tore into the dragons hide like paper, it shot three times, once in the chest, one in the wing, and another in the head before the dragon fell dead to the sands bellow with a large crash. Captain Cloud Charge, a dark blue pegasus mare with yellow eyes, and a light blue mane and tail, with a weird uniform on, like the ones you'd see during the civil war, it was completely made of yellow cloth,the current pony in command of the airship Celestial Might, grabbed a radio speaker from a counsel and clicked it before speaking. "Be on alert mares! We have no idea if this thing will shoot at us also, I will be sending a radio message and setting it to repeat, if they turn out to be hostile, shoot to cause as much damage as possible." With that, the guards rushed to their battle stations, holding their breath as they awaited for orders. Captain Cloud Charge looked down at the Empire, seeing what LOOKED like radio antenna, so she could only hope that this worked, and that this new Empire was not hostile as she grabbed the radio again and clicked before once again speaking. "This is Captain Cloud Charge, captain of the Celestial Might of the ERAF, we are requesting clearance to land and investigate the off the charts energy readings that we got about five hours ago." She took her thumb off the button on the radio and set the message to repeat. It only took five minutes for her to get a response, one she had not expected in all honesty, a male voice spoke up through the radio and what he said next surprised her. "This is King Lorenzo, Ruler of the Crystal Empire, you are permitted to land in the section marked with red lights, I will meet you at the landing site within five minutes." What he said should have been impossible, no male had been leader except a thousand years ago when King Sombra violently took over the Crystal Kingdom, she was calling the normal Crystal Empire the Crystal Kingdom to save time and so to not confuse these two Empire's, regardless of what she thought personally she did as told and started to fly through the shields, seemingly they allowed the airship through as she flew over a large circle of red lights, and the petrol propellers aimed upward, forcing the airship to land inside the marked area, with that done she ordered her guardmare's to disarm the cannons, but keep their muskets or pistols on them, in case the need arised where they needed to defend themselves. Cloud Charge watched as a weird bull-less carriage that was a mint green color with white colored tires, pulled up, and much to her shock two armored stallions stepped out of the carriage and one opened one of the doors on the back of it, and out stepped a creature she had never seen before in her entire time in the guard, and that was no easy feat since she had been to most kingdoms or empire's on the planet during her active duty to protect the Princess from any and all threats while she was visiting other kingdoms, the ponies themselves looked weird, they had a different body shape compared to her, or any other stallion she had ever seen, as for how she was able to tell they where stallions when they had on what seemed to be full suits of armor, was the fact the muzzles on the armor where completely square, mares had round muzzles, while the creature itself wearing a silver crown with three red gems in it, seemingly this 'King Lorenzo' looked MOSTLY like a pony, but was missing a few key features, for one the lack of fur aside from the mane on his head, and the lack of a muzzle, fur, and tail, and weirdly shaped hooves. I sighed as I got into the corvega four door sedan with two guards, I had woken up only two hours ago, to find much to my surprise, aside from a few broken bones, and some collapsed buildings, everything was relatively intact throughout the Empire itself, the underground super structure thank fuck wasn't damaged, that woulda been a clusterfuck of a nightmare to deal with, from the radio message, and from what the cameras on the wall had shown me, I was in a completely different fucking world, if this was the work of Discord, I would personally hunt that bastard down, and saw his dick and balls off with a rusty combat knife, cook them, then FEED THEM TO HIM BY SHOVING THEM DOWN HIS GOD DAMNED THROAT! To say I was pissed about this unscheduled moving day would be the understatement of the CENTURY, all the plans I had for the world I WAS in before, where ruined, I had planned to bring Equestria into a space faring age, colonizing the other planets within the solar system, now that plan was ruined, and now I wouldn't be able to have a relaxing visit with MY version of Celestia, I knew JACK SHIT about this world other than the ponies here where full on anthro, unlike my semi anthro ponies, who could walk on either two legs, or all four if they so choose. After about five minutes, just as I said, we arrived at one of the smaller landing pads, meant for the old crystal airships before those became outdated by the fortress troop carriers and gunships, and from what I could see, this airship was a little more than different to the ones used by the Equestria I was used to, it looked more like a world war one zeppelin rather than the wood,metal, and cloth airships the Equestria I knew used, plus it's cannons where stationary, rather than on turrets like a normal airship. I watched as the captain of this weird airship walked down a ramp with two guardmare's, strange since most guards in the normal Equestria where male, her two guards each had a flintlock musket with a bayonet attached to the end of it, before she stopped less than 10 feet away from me. "You are King Lorenzo, yes?" She sounded very....confused, strange considering I should. I nodded. "Yes I am King Lorenzo, what exactly was it that I could help you with?" I was curious, it was less than a day later before this Equestria, of which I will just call Equestria to save time, investigated my Empire, and the differences I could see in technology, made me a little disappointed all that effort to beef up Equestrias military was something I'd never get to see how far they advanced on their own now, however hopefully the Empire disappearing didn't destroy the planet or something. She looked to be in deep thought for a few moments before she got her composer back. "I am going to need you to come with me, Princess Celestia will want to meet you, and most likely she will have many questions to ask." She looked nervous, as if I was just going to shoot her for speaking. I shrugged. "Sure I can come, however I will be taking these two guards with me." The two stallions in power armor had their mini guns rev up before they stopped spinning, I just grinned at those two. Cloud Charge seemed conflicted for a few moments, before she hesitantly nodded. "I suppose that is acceptable, please follow me your majesty." She walked back up the ramp with her two guards following, and I followed along with my guards, after sending a message over the plasma communicators PAM was left in charge of the Empire for now, and I was taken into what I assumed, was a staff break room as there where a few couches, a small radio, a pool table, a fridge with food and drinks in it, and a few books, I was getting weird stares by the guardmare's that had already been inside the room before the captain brought me here, my two guards where also getting weird looks as well, but if they noticed, they didn't show it, since they kinda had helmets on, that kinda makes it hard to see what someone may or may not be thinking. > Chapter 14 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I watched as Canterlot slowly came into view, the ride had only taken an hour and a half, still slower than a normal airship, but still fast enough that it wasn't annoying to wait, during said wait I just played on my pipboy playing Red Menace, while me and my two guards had still been getting weird looks, my two guards had taken off their helmets to eat their ration, it was just a can of cram, a thick chocolate bar that wouldn't melt, and some water, soldiers got to choose their own rations, within reason of course, you can't be an effective soldier on the battlefield if all you eat is chocolate and nuka cola after all. A few of the guardmare's had tried to make small talk with my guards as we flew to Canterlot, but where swiftly ignored as after they finished their rations, they clicked their helmets back into place on their power armor frames, which caused me to laugh lightly, these mares kept trying to talk to me as well, but I ignored them just as my guards did, not because I was trying to be rude, but because they where trying, and failing hard, to flirt with me and my guards, as we closed in on Canterlot, a group of armored guardmare pegasi flew in a jet formation side by side with our airship, seemingly as an escort once the captain of this primitive yet somewhat modern at the same time, airship, radioed in for an escort or something, I don't know exactly. As we started to land, I noticed something strange yet again, no guard stallions, I was beginning to assume there WHERE no stallions here, but that'd be completely stupid, since without stallions this population of ponies woulda just...died off before I ever got here, however the fuck I got here, still had ponies investigating that, we finally landed after some pre landing checks, and I stood with no less than 6 Equestrian guards, and my two armored stallion, I started walking down the ramp after it was clicked into a small section of the floor. I was extremely tired from the events that had occurred, so I had taken a few cups of coffee to even stand up without falling asleep, I didn't know how much longer I could do this for, so I hopped this shit ended soon enough, we where escorted to the throne room, walking past I noticed some asshat I had killed back in MY world, Blueblood, however he seemed different...shy I guess? But he had three large, buff looking guardmare's following him, two at his sides, and one behind him, I noticed all his personal guards had a wheel lock pistol. The wheel lock mechanism was outdated by the time the flint and steel came along, since it was harder to make and costly to use since over time it broke, however seemingly here they got around those problems since they are using wheel lock pistols, and from what I can see, wheel lock muskets as well, the six guards turned to two, so four of them left, while my two guards stayed with me at all times, their power armor shining slightly in the light as I was brought before a large set of double doors, the throne room, and the door was opened for me, and I and my guards, walked inside. Celestia was having a hard time processing what she had been told over the radio from captain Cloud Charge, from what she had told me, there was another Crystal Empire, in the badlands, one that is larger than Equestria itself, taking up HALF of the badlands, and while doing so, no changeling hives known in the area had been destroyed, they had cannons that could easily kill a fully grown elder dragon, and their leader was male, there had been no male leaders since well over a thousand years ago, not counting Sombra since he had actually been a shadow pony, but regardless of the gender of this ruler, he still had a very powerful Empire from the report she had been given, she'd have to tread lightly as she did not want to start a war like the griffons have been trying to do. After only about 15 minutes of waiting, her throne room doors opened and in stepped the three she had been told about, she had been told what they looked like, but it still came as a shock to her when two stallions dressed in what was clearly super heavy full plate armor with the weirdest being the being they stood side by side with, King Lorenzo, he looked much like a pony did, but as said before in the report, he lacked a snout, his ears where on the side of his head, his eyes seemed much to small, and the lack of fur seemed weird as well, since every creature aside from those who had scales or lived under the water had a fur coat of some kind, truly his species was a mystery. I watched as Celestia studied my guards, then me as well, she spent more time studying me than she did my guards however, so I did the same with her as well, and studied her, she looked almost exactly the same as the Celestia I knew and had tea with sometimes, aside from the clear difference in body shape and type, she looked more like what some pervs would call an amazon woman, she was about 7'6 feet tall, she was 6 foot something, but the horn added another foot n a half, with a nice gold sundress on, along with her normal crown, my guards just stood still as ever, like stone they didn't move unless I commanded them to do so, or I let them off on a break like I did back inside the airship as we where being flown to Canterlot, they where very loyal, as any good soldier should be. We had studied each other, in under the span of two minutes, before Celestia spoke up, still sitting on her throne. "So...I don't mean to be rude, so please don't take it this way, but what exactly are you? You look almost like no species I've ever seen in my long lifespan, other questions can come after that." I chuckled, this was the exact same question Celestia asked me in private when she first met me, it was amusing to think they would be so alike in that regard. "I am a human, the scientific name for my species is Homo Sapien, however everything you could possibly want to know, is in this little device." I handed her a small round metallic circle, no larger than a quarter, yet it was one of the best storage devices within my empire, it stored images, video, sound, music, and displayed it like a hologram, it was one of three created so far, for military use only for storage of classified data, however this one had basic knowledge that everyone inside my empire knew, like the fortress troop carriers, fighters, robots, soldiers and their weapons, the products that you could get within the Empire, however none of it was explained enough that someone could just try to jury rig their own versions of the items shown, it even included cars that had been created by my factories, they where completely automated aside from the workers there to make sure none of the machines just stopped producing items. Celestia took the small disk in her hand, before pressing the blue button on the top, causing the pre mentioned things I spoke about to appear, causing her to gasp lightly, seemingly because the device used no magic she could detect, I just watched chuckling lightly as she went through the images on the holographic screen like a 5 year old would do with a smartphone, after about 15 minutes of looking through the disk, her horn glew as the sun set slowly. "I am so sorry, I forgot how late it was due to the recent events happening, you are welcome to stay the night in a royal guest room if you wish to do so." I nodded. "Sure seems good enough for me, I'm tired as hell as it is anyways." That, was rather true, like I said before, I've only had two hours asleep, and I was tired enough to smash a wall into dust, and sleep on the dust, what I said however just caused Celestia to chuckle before she rang a small bell, and a mare in a maid uniform quickly walked up, and gave a small bow before standing back up. "I would like you to escort King Lorenzo to a royal guest room, anything he needs you shall provide for him." Celestia motioned to me, and the maid quickly took me to a rather large guest room, with a bed that could fit, about 6 ponies on it. I looked up at the maid. "You may go now, I don't really need anything right now." She seemed....oddly sad when I said that, but nodded anyway and walks off, seemingly to do something, I don't know what she does, possibly just cleaning or somethin, since she IS a maid after all, and before I forget to describe her, she was chocolate brown with a milk white mane n tail, and bright pink eyes, and a pair of fluffy looking wings on her back, and as said before, in a maid uniform, the old fashioned kind, I just turned to the bed, and flopped onto it with the grace of an elephant flying a blimp, and fell asleep, my two guards sleeping in the next room over to this one. > Chapter 15 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I woke up with a rather weird sounding yawn, like when you start to yawn and it just turns into a scream, yet not as loud...or something like that, fuck if I know how to describe shit, I just woke up, fuck off with your logic for now, I need my coffee first before I can fully process shit going on around me, so with that said I got up and stumbled outside of the door to the room I had been given, and with a quick message to my two guards, they had been given the day off, but had the orders to not leave the castle whatsoever unless they wanted to be punished for it. I yawned again, normally this time as I made my way down the hall, and I was about to look for the kitchen or dining room, when the same maid from before walked up and stopped me, she still had on the same uniform as before, but this time she had a tray in her hands. "Sir? Did you need something? You could have just rang the small rope bell system next to your bed built into the wall." Truth be told I did see that, however I just ignored it since I had no idea what it was for to begin with, I was escorted back to my room, and I sat down tiredly on the bed I had been provided with as I tried to slowly wake up, a task nearly impossible without the black gold known as coffee, so I spoke up since the maid, who's name I have yet to learn, was still here. "I still don't know your name, you never introduced yourself, I'd also like to ask if you could bring me a large mug of black coffee, no cream, no sugar, no sweeteners, just plain black coffee." She just smirked, which somewhat confused me. "I am Vanilla Coco, and yes I can get you what you wanted, so please just wait here while I get it, try not to leave, as unless you know the layout of the castle, you will get lost and may end up in a place your not supposed to be." She left the room after she finished speaking, leaving me alone, checking the time I realized it was 5 am....fuck my fucking life I hated mornings, I really hate em, I also just realized due to all this shit that the battleships and the Crystal Lorenzo had yet to be launched due to the drama of the past two days, damn it. After about five minutes, Vanilla Coco came back with the requested item, the beverage of the gods, black gold, plain, black, coffee, within five seconds of having the 12 ounce cup of liquid ambrosia I had drained the cup completely, much to Vanilla Coco's surprise, she took the cup and placed it back onto the small tray she had brought it on. "Breakfast is in two hours, please remain here until then, when it is time I will be sent to escort you to breakfast." She walked out of the room again, not even giving me a chance to reply now that I was somewhat awake due to the coffee. I was thinking about how the battleships and the Crystal Lorenzo hadn't been launched due to the chaos that the world displacement thing had caused, I'd need to learn more about the militaries of this world, for now I knew they had muskets, so I didn't have to worry much in the gun department if a battle ever took place, however I was fairly certain anything I had would outclass anything brought against my Empire, aside from Celestia's fuck you cannon, aka her solar beam blasts. I sighed, I'd have to authorize the launch of the battleships and make a speech for the launch of the Crystal Lorenzo, due to demand from the citizens of the Empire, the launch of the Crystal Lorenzo was to be a celebration of great joy, the crowning achievement of the Empire, for now that was secondary however, I had to get a network of information that I had in my world, up and running within this world to monitor other kingdoms and empire's, in doing so Pam would be able to predict what may or may not happen, therefor allowing me and the Empire to prepare for the worst of the worst to happen. Checking the time I saw it was 6:30 AM, time passes slowly when its morning, or fast? I don't know which one it was this time, either way I was now fully awake and aware, I was able to actually think clearly, with this new world I was already beginning to create plans for this world like I had the last one, all the while I had my Empire's ERD looking into portal technology, for those who don't know by now, sections of research are divided into parts within the Empire, ERD stands for Experimental Research Department, hell even now Blue Gadget was working on a larger version of Crystal Prime, I was just going to let him do his own thing, since in the end it was ultimately for the benefit of the Empire as a whole. I got up and went into the bathroom of the room I had been provided, and I must say, it looked like a normal bathroom you'd see on Earth, if it was from a rather fancy hotel, after closing and locking the door, out of habit, I hopped into the shower after turning it onto scorching hot, just the way I liked it, and cleaned myself of the sweat and filth that had built up so far from the lack of taking a proper shower for over a day, that itself took about 15 minutes, after that I dried off and put on my clothes once again, and stepped outside of the bathroom after making sure to open a window so the steam wouldn't keep the room fogged up TO long, and saw Vanilla Coco waiting for me. "It's time for breakfast sir, if you would please follow me to the dining room." She seemed...different, meeker, than she was before, I just chucked it off as her being tired or something, or overly worked, since she didn't seem to have slept this entire time I was here, that I know of, I followed her out of the room, passing a few hallways that made no sense to me, since one was dedicated to just pictures of cake. I realized rather quickly that we where not doing into the dining room as I was led into a rather poorly lit room, it appeared to be some kind of large storage closet or something, and before I knew what was happening Vanilla Coco was gone in a flash of green fire, along with the two guards who had been following me, changelings, each one female, and each one seeming to think they had an advantage over me since two of them had wheel-lock pistols pointed at my chest, the one that had once been Vanilla Coco stepped up. "Now that we have you alone, you can either come with us to the Queen, or we can do this by force, its your choice to make, however I'd choose wisely if I where you, since you are outnumbered and outgunned." My blank emotionless look, how I often look in the morning till I've had my coffee and eaten something, slowly morphed into a psychotic grin, this caused her and her two little friends to falter slightly since they could sense no fear from me, since I was not afraid. "I'm afraid you misunderstand just what kinda predicament you've just willingly placed yourselves into." I summoned my classic ten mm pistol. "I'm not trapped in here with you, YOUR trapped in here with ME so this can go either two ways, option 1, I walk out of here, you three fuck off, and I don't brutally paint these lovely walls with your blood, or option 2, I splatter all your organs on the walls here and laugh while I do so, choose option 2, I'm bored anyways." I kept my grin on this entire time, however by this point two where shaking, while one of them just snarled and raised her wheel-lock pistol up and pointed it at my chest, and fired. Despite the massive stab of pain I had from being shot in the chest, my pip-boy auto injected a stimpack, pushing the lead ball out of the hole that had once been in my chest, and since the bullet was a round ball, it had destroyed the fabric of my shirt, so they where able to see the wound close up easily, I aimed my ten millimeter pistol up at the one who had shot me. "My turn now little bug." I pulled the trigger, aiming for her shoulders, elbows, any joint that was not vital to her survival, was shot, they seemed surprised I had more than one shot, that alone seemed to surprise them, however it's when I turned to the other two did they realize just how badly they had fucked up, and the other goon who had a pistol dropped it and raised her arms up into the air in surrender, while the other slowly did the same, the screaming from the changeling that had been shot more than 15 times, caused the REAL royal guardmare's to show up, only to see two changelings that looked ready to piss themselves, and one that was bleeding green everywhere from her joints, and me smiling calm as ya please like it was just an average day. "Ladies, these three changelings impersonated two of your comrades, while the other impersonated a maid, whom I was told was named Vanilla Coco, I managed to scare them enough into surrender, after shooting up their friend so badly that she will be confined to a wheelchair for a few months." The guardmare's brought out a two pairs of handcuffs, while another one, a unicorn, scanned me, most likely to see if I was a changeling or not, after deeming I was clean, I was asked a few questions, and escorted to the dining room, of which I was late by twenty minutes due to the little detour I had been forced to take, once I got inside I saw a Celestia with a worried face relax slightly. "King Lorenzo! There you are, I was beginning to get worried that something may have happened." I chuckled. "Something DID happen as a matter of fact, three changelings attempted to kidnap me, and failed so miserably that one will be confined to a wheelchair for a few months for her efforts in shooting me in the chest." It was then Celestia realized the hole in the center of my shirt, and the now dried blood, but before she got up with a gasp, I raised a hand to stop her. "I am completely fine, being shot is just slightly painful for me, but I can quickly heal due to the stimpacks shown in the little disk I gave you, there is no need to worry, let us just enjoy breakfast before we can talk about other details or questions you may have." I sat down at the table, no one aside from me and Celestia where present in the dining room, I thought this worlds Luna might be here, but she is nocturnal after all, so it wasn't to unexpected. Celestia looked conflicted for a few moments, before she nodded and her horn glew a light yellow, and a maid stepped in, this one was an earthpony with white fur, yellow eyes, along with a yellow mane and tail, she gave a small bow before she spoke. "What can I get you two for breakfast today?" What Celestia said nearly made me laugh and choke on air. "I will have a slice of chocolate cake, with some green tea." The maid had written down what Celestia ordered, and looked to me. "And what can I get for you sir?" "I will have two slices of golden brown toast with butter, hash browns, and two fried eggs, please provide ketchup for the hash browns." I loved hash browns, mainly with a little butter, some cheese, and ketchup, the maid nodded and walked off into what I assumed was the kitchen, nothing was said in the 15 minutes it took for the food to arrive, me and Celestia ate in silence, after we had both finished, Celestia was the one to speak up first. "I'd like to see what you think of Equestria's military grade firearms, since I saw the kinds your Empire uses, and if you could help us in any department you deem needed, you will be compensated for this of course, within reason." I had expected something like this, so last night I had taken apart one of the bullets that went to my ten millimeter pistol, and poured the powder out, and written the formula for smokeless powder, the kind that Razorclaw's scientists had invented a little while before the displacement thing happened, and I simply handed her a small vial of the powder, and the formula. "Look, I already know what kinds of weapons your military uses, and while yes they are super primitive compared to the weapons my Empire uses and is developing every day, I don't know you well enough to just give you things like rifles that my Empire uses, however I can give you smokeless gunpowder, it will improve the power of your firearms, however anything other than this, you will have to do on your own." Celestia looked slightly miffed, but nonetheless nodded her head and accepted the items I presented to her. "That is alright I suppose, I can understand your reasoning behind the decision." With a small flash of her magic, the items where gone, either to her room or to a section of the castle that had ponies working on weapon development, or something along those lines at least. "Would it be alright to ask you to demonstrate some of the weapons from your empire at the shooting range the royal guard uses to train however? As some of my guards simply think I am lying to them when I showed them the weapons shown in the disk you gave me." I thought about it for a moment, before I shrugged. "I guess that is alright, lets go, sooner this is done, the sooner I can get back to my throne room and take care of problems going on due to the world displacement." Celestia nodded and stood up. "Please follow me." She walked down the halls, to a large field outside behind the castle, away from the gardens and other crap, this walk took us 15 minutes, wow this place was to large, after we got to the field I saw row after row of target's, mainly hay-bales with classic bulls-eye targets set up into them, at various ranges, there I saw guardmare's shooting their wheel-lock muskets, and pistols at targets, one section seemed just to be teaching how to quickly reload, we walked to a section that had no guards shooting and Celestia motioned for me to go ahead, so I did. I pulled out a standard plasma rifle and took aim at the target, about 60 feet away, very hard to hit with a musket, however for the plasma rifle it was no challenge as molten hot plasma struck the target, setting it on fire, I did this with a few more targets, and a few more weapons, such as a gamma rifle, and a laser rifle, to say Celestia, and any guards who had been watching, where impressed, would be an understatement, some of the guards looked ready to try and BUY my own guns off me, which I found funny since King Razorclaw had wanted to do the same thing, I had been showing off the weapons I had on me, a lot of them, for about an hour when Celestia got a message on a radio she had carried with her, a walkie-talkie I think, and she got a worried look on her face. "I am sorry King Lorenzo, we will have to cut this demonstration short, as the Griffon Hightalon will be arriving on her own personal airship, seemingly she has questions about your Empire as well, or something along those lines, so I will be speaking with her, please feel free to stay within the castle, or if need be, you can be flown back to your own Empire in little time." Before I was even able to get a response out and actually process what she had told me, she was gone in a flash of yellow light, leaving me confused to process the information I had been given. > Chapter 16 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- As I watched Celestia teleported away in a bright yellow flash of light, not unlike my relay teleportation systems, but yellow and not blue, just like the last Celestia she seemed to have great abilities in terms of magic, so for now I was going to assume they where just the same in terms of power, I activated a relay and teleported into the throne room, much to the surprise of Celestia herself, and seemingly her new guest, who I assumed was the Hightalon of the Griffon Empire, she looked like a Brute of a Griffiness, standing at a massive 6 feet tall, and built like a brick shithouse. She kinda looked like a genderbent version of Razorclaw, black feathers, gold colored eyes and beak, but her 'hair' aka the feathers atop her head, where a whiteish grey color, however her and her two guards had weapons I didn't expect to see aimed at me, what LOOKED like two revolving rifles, and a walker texas revolver, looking closer they all looked like cap n ball weapons, meaning they used percussion caps to light the black powder within the weapons, so still no self contained fully metallic ammunition yet, that I know about, regardless with a quick burst of magic from Celestia, they where all disarmed and she spoke up. "Hightalon Shimmering Feathers, this is the ruler of the larger Crystal Empire your scouting airships have photographed, this is King Lorenzo, King Lorenzo, this is Hightalon Shimmering Feathers, Ruler of the Griffon Empire, currently from what she has told me she has ships surrounding your Empire to take photos, and to see just what exactly appeared on our world." Well shit, if any of those ships FIRED at the shields around my Empire, the automated defenses would shoot back, over a thousand times harder since I had railguns while these fucks used black powder smooth bore cannons, so I decided to speak up. "Look, you can have all the ships you want NEAR my Empire, but you are not allowed to attempt to land by force, or anything like that, unless you are given permission from air traffic control to land, otherwise the automated defenses will fire apon your ships if you try to enter by force, like that dragon that was killed did, no, thats not a threat or a promise, just a warning, I don't control the automated defenses." Hightalon Shimmering Feathers was looking at me with a look that screamed 'I will do something to you that you will not like unless I get my way' or something along those lines before she spoke up. "I am sure you didn't know this, but we recently made a deal with the Changeling Empire to drill where your Empire currently sits for oil, I am afraid you will have to allow us to drill within your Empire to reach said oil, since the land belongs to the Griffon Empire." She kinda sounded like Gilda, if you beefed her voice up a bit. I just laughed. "If you think I'm just going to let you drill into the underground superstructure that took me fucking months to build then you are OUT OF YOUR MIND, now, I do understand the need for oil and coal, however my Empire uses no such things, all of it is nuclear energy that powers everything within my Empire, better yet, I don't think you should be making any threats whatsoever, due to the fact I out gun you in every aspect, as I don't think your airships can reach speeds only dreamed of, or up to the vastness that is space, I don't want to have any conflict on this planet for now, if your worried we are just going to keep the land, don't, I already have my top scientists working on a way to take me and my Empire back to MY world, where it belongs, until then however its tough shit, I can't do jack about it, nor can I do jack about the oil under my Empire currently, you can't use it, not yet, you must wait until I either allow it, or the Empire is returned to its rightful place back on my planet, until then I don't know what to tell you other than a firm no." I shrugged. I nearly died laughing from the face she made, seemingly she was used to always getting her way, her two guards however seemingly did not like me talking to her like that, as they aimed their revolving rifles at me, so with the press of a button my two guards teleported next to me, and took aim with their mini guns, revving them up threateningly, before what she said next surprised me, but I didn't let that show hah. "Guards, lower your revolving muskets, as for you King Lorenzo, I am sorry if I acted rude or anything of the such, but that oil is needed to help my Empire stay alive and grow, for now I invite you to come to my Empire anytime to the capital of Griffonstone, until then I will leave your Empire alone, for now I shall take my leave as this has given me the answers I came here for, guards! With me." She turned around and walked out of the doors that lead into the throne room, and me, Celestia, her guards, and my guards, watched as the large double doors closed. Celestia looked shocked, which made me wonder, thankfully I didn't have to ask however before she spoke up. "That is unusual....normally Hightalon Shimmering Feathers would have challenged you to a duel, or just flat out shot you for speaking to her in such a manner, so I'd be wary around her if I where you, however I am not you, so do what you wish when the time comes, whatever may happen." Well, now I knew what those weapons where, revolving muskets, just like a revolving rifle, but no rifling within the barrel of the gun, so it would, or SHOULD have the same amount of accuracy as the muskets used by Equestria, just more shots per soldier rather than one or two a minute, but either way from what Celestia said, it was not normal for that brute of a griffiness. "Alright, I think we have had enough time here however, I will be returning to my Empire post haste, within ten minutes I can be back there, I just need to be in an open area to send the signal." Celestia looked confused yet again for a few moments, before she nodded and we, along with my guards, where teleported back to the open field I had just been at less than 20 minutes ago, and I threw down what looked like a relay grenade, except it was not a relay grenade, it was a signal grenade that would activate one of the fortress troop carriers and have it teleport into the sky above us, and thats just what it did, with a violent blue flash and the crack of noise that sounded like thunder, the gigantic troop carrier teleported into the skies above us, causing some guards to gasp and seemingly some pegasi to shoot at it from the sky, however the pilot ignored those shots since they would do nothing to the troop carrier itself, and I nodded to Celestia with a grin, her mouth was stuck open in shock, and me along with my two guards relayed into the troop carrier. It was fun watching the chaos that I had just caused, but alas I could not stay to watch as I had to give orders to the pilot to fly back to the Empire, that would take around ten minutes, it COULD be done instantly, however I didn't feel like throwing up my organs at the moment, so for now top speed of mach 9 would do. Princess Celestia, co-ruler of the kingdom of Equestria, was stuck staring in awe at the size of the airship that had simply teleported into the sky with no warning, and promptly left after King Lorenzo and his two guards had been teleported onto it, she could sense no magic from the teleportation, which should have been impossible, but aside from that, that airship had been massive compared to any from any other kingdom, nation, or empire she had ever been to or seen in her long life, truly Lorenzo's Empire was powerful, a powerful ally, or if the worst happened, a powerful enemy, Celestia would do everything within her power to make sure this new Empire was an ally, rather than a new foe for Equestria to face. As the WR-3F Fortress landed on the designated landing pad within the Crystal Empire, just 15 minutes later, I was notified a being from this world had actually come to sign up for citizenship, as a little explanation, so long as you had an ID of some kind, and allowed for DNA to be taken for the system, you could become a citizen of my Empire, unless of course you where just blatantly trying to infiltrate, it was determined with a lot of questions, a lie detector test, and many mind reading spells to see if you where lying or held malicious intent for the Empire, so imagine my surprise when I show up to the building that you need to go to, in order so sign up for citizenship, only to see none other than an anthro version of Starlight Glimmer, she looked ragged, as if she had not rested in weeks and had been running for her life for the past few weeks, her clothes and everything where in tatters, and because I liked her, no not like that you fucking perverts, I meant her character, and due to the fact purple was the best color in my opinion, I let her join as a citizen, under the condition she worked for me and used her magic for the benefit of the Empire as a whole. Meanwhile unknown to me, rulers around the world had been informed about my Empire via radio messages, and they had already begun planning something, of course each one had their OWN plan, no plans where shared between the Empire's and Kingdom's that got this news, but each one of them had a plan of their own, and they intended to get what they wanted, most of them at least, only a select few of them didn't even make plans for my Empire, some of them where content to just sit back and watch what happened, unless it would become a direct threat to them, their kingdom or empire, and their people. > Chapter 17 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I sighed as I sent a few repair robots to fix damaged areas of the Empire, within two more days everything would be fixed back up, while meanwhile I still had airships from around the world surrounding my Empire, some of which my automated defenses didn't recognize so they took aim and waited for them to shoot first, however a few dragons that had flown near the Empire in the day that had passed, had swiftly been shot at by the railguns on the wall, which I am sure deterred any who had hostile intentions for my Empire, for now at least. I was thinking about that invitation to the Griffon Empire that Hightalon Shimmering Feathers had given me, and I had decided I would go, I would also make note of city locations as I did so, just to see what kinda cities this world had compared to mine, Earth I meant, I missed Earth, but I wouldn't trade my Empire and the citizens within it, for anything in the world. The battleships had been launched, and seemingly they had already destroyed a number of sea serpents and weird ironclad style ships, they looked like the civil war SS Virginia, one of the first ironclads used in war, however these had been made of steel, and they belonged to the changelings, if the scans of the burning wrecks and bodies where anything to go off of, they had broadside cannons that shot steel cannonballs, and where powered by steam with coal, seemingly they had a mix of modern and pre modern tech, for instance these ships had radio, basic radar and sonar, along with temperature control inside the ship, but still used coal for steam power, they had petrol engines, so I wondered why they simply did not use those. The launch of the Crystal Lorenzo was scheduled for later today, after my visit to the Griffon Empire, which I had a small speech ready for that, since due to popular demand, it was to be a celebration of a new age in the Crystal Empire's technology, a new golden age, despite the fact the Empire was ALREADY in a golden age not rivaled by any civilization on either of the planets it had been on. I grinned as I stepped into a fortress troop carrier, which as mentioned before also served as large gunships like normal airships tended to do, and blasted through the shields surrounding the Empire at speeds that caused some of the other airships that surrounded the shields to take pictures, to spin slightly as they fought to fix their stability. I had Starlight, now General Starlight Glimmer, working on my DIA black ops project COP, also known as the Cybernetic Organism Project, I flat out had plans for cyborg ponies and diamond dogs, along with other species that lived in my Empire, a few had been completed, volunteer of course, I'm not a monster after all, unless you piss me off that is, like Jet Set did, he damned well learned his lesson, that I am sure of. We passed a few small towns, but seemingly there where only three or four actual cities within the Griffon Empire, just like Equestria, well not really, Equestria had more land and cities, but that land was mostly forest or swamps, while the Griffon Empire was mostly a desert, hot and dry as any other large plot of sand in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, aside from lakes and rivers, it was mostly sand, despite this I noticed a few things right away once I was flown past the boarders into this new empire, roads, like ones you'd drive a car on, and what did I see on those roads? You guessed it right if you said cars, to be specific they looked to be cars you'd see in the 1900's, even saw coal power plants spewing smoke high into the air. As Griffonstone came into view, it was much different than what was shown on the show, as to be expected it was a city, however the buildings where no more than 8 stories tall, while the castle was 15 stories tall from the look of it, it looked semi modern, electric lights and the roads, but I saw no traffic lights, just basic signs that moved that told you to go, or stop. The troop carrier landed on a rather large patch of land that had been lit up via what seemed to be strings of lights to mark the area, glowing red, and as it landed a car pulled up to a part of the road that led straight to where the makeshift landing pad was, abit it cut off just a few feet away, and I exited, this time I had come alone, no guards, no pilot, just a synth that could fly the troop carrier, this one was for my personal use, no use to make robots to replace pilots as it would be pointless and just make more ponies jobless, hell there are no jobless ponies within my Empire except for the foals and super elderly, plus even if you didn't have a job they could live off the MBI, or the Minimum Basic Income, provided by yourself truly as a program to help those who simply where unable to work, either due to a medical condition, or family reasons. As I finished getting out of the troop carrier the back door closed back up two griffinesses? I don't know if that is the correct term, they where female guards stepped out, and a door in the back of the primitive car was opened and I was sit inside, before the doors closed and the car was turned around and driven down the road at a somewhat slow pace, yet it still was faster than the bull carriages I saw Equestrians using, so at the least it wasn't slower than a horse n buggy from the time before cars in my world, however I wondered just how fuel efficient these cars where, as from what I have heard the griffons use up coal, oil, and natural gas at a rate that is just completely stupid. After about 15 minutes we arrived at the castle, and drove through the gates as they finished opening to allow us inside, and I was escorted to what seemed to be a rather comfy room, meaning it had sofas, recliner chairs, a coffee table that had wine, coffee, tea, juice, and some small snacks such as small cookies, sitting on one of the sofas was Hightalon Shimmering Feathers herself, and then another griffiness I didn't know, she was much smaller than Shimmering, being a short 5'7 feet compared to Shimmering's 6'2 feet tall, she was much sleeker, seemingly built for speed rather than to be a brute like Shimmering was, I sat down across from them, and Shimmering was the first to speak up. "This is my daughter Czarina Dark Feather, one day she will rule this Empire like I am now, until then however she shall remain as my daughter, anyways King Lorenzo, I am glad you decided to take me up on the offer to visit the capital of the mighty Griffon Empire, we plan to make a few more cities and set up some more mining operations in the desert, aside from that, is anything of interest going on within your Empire that you'd like to share?" She handed me a glass of red wine, taking a sip from her own, meanwhile her daughter was drinking a cup of tea, and had remained quite this entire time. "Yes actually, just today I had 15 battleships launched, as I had been delaying it due to the whole....new world thing, and later today I plan to give a speech for the launch of the Crystal Lorenzo." I wanted to see what she would think of my little project, a show of power you could say, after all no species on this planet had the ability to go into space, nor had any interest in doing so, so this would be interesting to see what she would do upon learning of the news, its not like I could hide it anyways since all those ships surrounding the Empire would take photos of the Crystal Lorenzo as it launched into space. She raised an eyebrow. "I presume the Crystal Lorenzo is another battleship?" She seemed to look confused, before with a subtle nod, I almost didn't catch it, her daughter got up and left the room. "Sort of, its a massive battleship yes, but not for the sea or air, its for space, it will be launched later today to map this entire planet, so that I can update the world maps of my Empire for now due to the fact the old maps no longer apply to this planet." Her eyes went wide, almost creepily so, they where already large to begin with, now they just looked unnatural in doing so, however that was just a small part of my brain telling me that this entire world was not natural, I mostly ignored it since I knew the world was real, since I could feel pain, I could get tired, I could get thirsty and hungry, and other such things, however as her eyes went wide I felt a blade pressed to my throat, and saw Shimmering grin before she stood up. "I'm afraid it has come to this Lorenzo, and so fast as well, I assumed my daughter would take at least an hour to get ready for this, however your Empire sits upon a massive reserve of oil, oil that belongs to the Griffon Empire due to deals struck with the changelings, of which you have destroyed 3 of the Changeling Empire's steam powered steel clad ships, and as their ally it is my duty to come to their aid when they ask, and they have asked for my aid in getting rid of you, the benefit is I get to send drillers to your Empire to harvest the oil, while the changelings can just feed off the crystal heart." I had honestly expected something like this, so in all honesty it was no surprise when she turned on me, or when I had a knife pressed to my throat, with a quick movement with speed something should not have unless said something had taken a gallon of jet, I grabbed Czarina Dark feather from behind me, and flipped her over onto the table and stood up as I pulled out a ripper. "You my friend, have just made the biggest mistake of your life, however, I won't kill you here, no I will show you just how badly you have fucked up, as any ruler, you care about your citizens, despite the fact you are a bitch I can see you actually care bout those who live in the Empire due to the fact I have seen no homeless, no one that I can see is poor enough to be unable to live a decent life, however what will happen when I take that all away from you with the push of a button? Did you think I came here unguarded, as a test? No I came here without guards because simply put? You cannot kill me, nothing can, trust me I've died and just flat out came back seconds later, however you will not be so lucky if your citizens decide to revolt after I am done with this pathetic empire." With that I relayed back to the troop carrier, and said troop carrier teleported into Crystal Empire airspace, where once again, I teleported into my throne room. My throne room was my command room, I could control all defenses from there, and I was choosing what city to lock onto for a little gift to Hightalon Shimmering Feathers and her citizens, one that they would never forget, even if they tried to do so, after a few minutes I choose a target, Talonburg, just 15 miles away from the capital, my little gift would sure to be seen by that bitch, now some of you may be wondering, what was my gift? That was rather simple, a few simple missiles with tactical nuclear warheads, they would not cause much death due to the fact they where small, but they certainly would cause enough to get the message across, you don't fuck with me, or my empire, and get away with it without getting a kick in the teeth first. > Chapter 18 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- With a few commands sent in, and the targets located and selected, I pressed a small red button and about, twenty small missiles flew from one of the automated defense turrets on the wall, and whizzed passed the airships that stuck around my Empire, I'd like to mention, that these where NOT full out full power nuclear missiles, they where about 10 feet long and a foot wide, they where about ten times more powerful than a mini nuke, but not nearly powerful enough to turn a city to glass and dust, as for the targets? That was rather simple, Hightalon Shimmering Feathers had tried to kill me over some simple oil, oil that after awhile of digging to test how deep it was under my Empire, or if it had been destroyed when the Empire was set here, I would have been completely willing to give to the Griffon Empire, with no charge to boot! The targets where their oil refineries and coal power plants in Talonburg, a city that produced most of the power the Empire used, since it was only about three to five cities and some smaller villages, this would do major damage to the state of the Griffon Empire, with minimal loss of life, as for why I was not using normal warheads or even the fighters for this? Once again that was simple, a show of power, this would prove to Hightalon Shimmering Feathers that I could destroy anything I wanted to if I so wished, the sooner she learnt that, the sooner I could continue with my plans for this new world, while meanwhile my top magical scientists where working on a way to get us back to our world. The missiles flew at super sonic speeds as they raced past airships, and flying creatures such as pegasi, and griffons watched as these weird missiles, compared to their hale rockets that is, flew past at speeds no one could hope to match, and sailed straight into Talonburg at twice the speed of sound, and took aim at the line of power plants, and the five oil refineries that had been placed next to one another, for efficiency and transportation of the oil and coal, and flew straight into them, with blinding flashes of light and heat the power plants and the oil refineries where instantly annihilated, and with them the workers that had been inside the buildings, seven power plants and five oil refineries, killed about 3,300 workers, since each one had around 300 staff members on site at all times while the plants where running, while the warheads had been small, they produced quite the light show, seen throughout most of the Griffon Empire, Hightalon Shimmering Feathers could only watch on in horror as the power flickered on and off, before cutting off, only flickering back on as the other three power plants within another city struggled trying to make up for the sudden loss in the power grid. Hightalon Shimmering Feathers horror slowly turns to anger, than to pure rage as she grabbed a radio that her generals had a connection to. "Attention, we are going to war with the new Crystal Empire, I want the soldiers and troops ready within a week, and I want the power up in the same time!" Hightalon Shimmering Feathers daughter Czarina Dark Feather just sighed, she had suspected something like this may happen when her mother had invited the ruler of the new Empire that had come from thin air, so she walked off to get those loyal to her, it was time for a change around here, she would no longer allow her mother to be a tyrant, however it would take time, time they might not have anymore. I grinned watching the lights within most of the Griffon Empire flash on and off before most flickered off, the power plants offline meant that not enough power was being produced to power their electric grid, which until now I had just realized was kinda like power grids you'd see in 1950 or so, from what I saw, either way now was not the time to watch the chaos of what I had done play out, it was about time for the launch of the Crystal Lorenzo, checking the time I saw it was juuuuust about time for my speech before the ship would be launched, so I relayed onto a stage that had been set up in a field, with the Crystal Lorenzo in the background full of crew members. I watched thousands of citizens from around the Empire go quiet as I relayed in, seemingly they had decided to arrive a little to early, like those weirdos on Black Friday. I stepped up to a microphone with the Empire's flag flowing on either side of me, I also saw that this was being televised, as I had expected, I waited for everything to go completely quiet before I spoke. "Citizens of the Crystal Empire, despite the delays of recent events, today is a day of celebration! The launch of the Crystal Lorenzo marks a new era in the Empire's history! We shall continue to march on no matter what the universe throws at us, and we will do so with a smile as we are battered and bloody, today is a day that marks a new age for the lives of everyone here today, one where we may expand the Empire into the very stars you all look upon at night! Let the Crystal Lorenzo, take its first flight into the vastness of space!" Citizens cheered loudly as the Crystal Lorenzo's engines started up, casting a neon blue glow under and behind the craft as it lifted up, and in an instant shot into the atmosphere at the speed of light, less than a second later it was showing images of space on the screens around the stage I was standing on, and this caused the cheers to grow louder. I grinned watching as the citizens of the Empire cheered, and the Crystal Lorenzo deployed the satellites that I had produced, they looked like eyebots, but there where a few key differences,they where three times larger than a normal eyebot, the use of anti gravity engines to keep them in one place, a large plasma communication dish on the bottom where a laser would normally go, and two boxes on the side of the satellites, said boxes held four small mini nuke sized nuclear warheads, the missiles themselves where the size of the missiles you could launch from missile launchers, mainly just to protect them if they encounter something that is hostile to them. This would be interesting, I hopped that Hightalon Shimmering Feathers had learned her lesson, because if not, then I'd be completely willing to full out nuke a city to get the point across, with a full sized quantum infused nuclear missile, one that would turn a city to complete dust, and guess what? I just launched a ship into space that could do just that, with one missile, I really wonder what goes on in the head of someone who thinks they can just try and take my empire over if I die, really now? You'd have to be stupid to think the crystal ponies and other species that live here, would just bow down and beg for mercy if you somehow managed to kill me, and that was if you could even get close to the empire without the automated defenses shooting you into pieces. Tomorrow would be interesting, that much was for sure, I had a weird feeling about something, like I was being watched or somethin, but that would be impossible since an enchantment on my helmet would tell me if someone was spying on me via magic, thanks to my assistant Sunbeam Cuddle, who surprisingly enough knew some advanced magic. > Chapter 19 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was two days later, and at the moment the scene was at some unknown location within Canterlot, an old warehouse somewhere within Canterlot itself, long since shut down, but used as a meeting place for the worst of nobles within Equestria, said nobles where sitting at a round table while their own personal guards kept an eye out for any royal guardmare's, armed with seemingly much better weapons than the royal guards themselves, they seemed to have griffon revolving muskets rather than the wheel lock muskets the normal guards used. The nobles where around the table sitting in basic folding chairs as the meeting was called into action, Steel Hoof a 56 year old earth pony stallion with a sunset yellow coat, a black mane and tail, sapphire blue eyes and his cutiemark is a sword and a map, at the moment he had on a basic suit, black with a red tie, the worlds best illegal weapons trader, was currently at the head of the table, now that everypony was quiet he began to speak. "I have good news, and I have bad news, the bad news everypony, is that I was unable to get into the New Crystal Empire, its screenings are just to thorough, even for me, so that means we won't be getting any of their advanced technology sadly, however, I do have some good news!" Steel Hoof pulled out a long weapon, with a bolt on the side of it. "Fresh from the still 'undiscovered' Abyssinian Empire, what they called a Mauser rifle, I have tested this thing myself and I must say, these will make us almost unstoppable! They have a much longer range than even our muskets and a faster rate of fire at that, they have self contained ammunition, something that every known kingdom has been trying to develop, for years, now however it is within our grasp to turn the tides and put those who SHOULD be in power, in power, the nobles rather than those pathetic princesses." Silver Lining, a pegasus mare with pale red fur and a navy blue mane and tail, teal eyes, a bit split down the middle as her cutiemark, and her feathers fade into a silvery grey at the tips, the largest funder of illegal activities, grinned. "And just how many bits would it take to get more of these weapons across the border?" Steel Hoof didn't even have to pause. "Twenty thousand bits should be enough for my contact in the Abyssinian Empire to get those across their borders and into the hands of my ponies, the only problem is that new Crystal Empire and the fact the Griffon Empire declared war on them, whomever wins will most likely become the next world super power, and as greedy as griffons are, they don't bother others about whom rulers their land, so It would be a safe bet to ship the plans for some of these to the Griffon Empire, along with a number of the weapons themselves, which would be easy enough, they could just be sent on a train with markings only my contact in the Griffon Empire knows." Silver Lining nodded. "Consider it done, the bits will be transferred to your account within the hour, since that is the only reason you summoned me here, I will take my leave, just check back with your bank in about an hour and the funds will be in your account." After she finished speaking, she wrote a check out for Steel Hoof, and handed it to him, before taking flight and being careful not to be seen, flew off. Steel Hoof looked to the rest of the nobles. "So what do you all think of this plan?" He asked with a small grin. Stone Chain, an earth pony stallion, with blue fur and a stone grey mane and tail, toxic green eyes, a collar made of stone with ornate carvings as his cutie mark who was a bigger than the average earth pony, was grinning ear to ear. "I'd say I'll have some new merchandise if the war turns out in the griffons favor, new exotic slaves from another world? I wonder what their meat will taste like, will it taste like the mares and stallions that live here? Or will be be a completely new exotic flavor? Oh I am just bursting with excitement at the idea of having a new source of fresh meat, and slave labor to work in my mines!" Dirty Bit, an earth pony mare, with silvery grey fur and a bronze like orange mane and tail, light grey eyes, seven bits in a ring as her cutiemark, the noble who organized most illegal activities and movements, was grinning ear to ear as Stone Chain had. "Indeed, if we do this correctly than Stone Chain's enchanted collars should be able to completely control those two sluts on the throne, once we get control of them? Everything we've been working to accomplish these past years, will finally bear some fruit, and then we can run this kingdom how WE want, how it SHOULD be ran, and I am also excited about the idea of new exotic meats being served to me, its already a bitch and a half to get the meat Stone Chain does, but with this new supply, we will never have to eat a meal without meat again! It still pisses me off that the griffons, the largest producers of meat products, refuse to ship or sell any to ANY equestrian or outside nation or kingdom, no matter how much is offered to them, but soon enough that won't be a problem, for now let us enjoy the meal that I had my servants bring to us." Said servants, had been cooking in a small makeshift kitchen that had been set up in a side room of the warehouse, and on the menu tonight was fresh stallion, slabs of meat from the poor pony had been cooked medium rare, and served with a nice pale ale. As Steel Hoof raised his glass in a toast, everypony began to eat their meal, having their plans for the future of Equestria playing in their heads, soon enough in their own minds, they would rule Equestria with an iron fist, not knowing they just all agreed to fuel a fire, a fire that could never be put out. Princess Celestia sighed looking at the news report she had gotten, the Griffon Empire from what her spies had told her, had acted FAR out of line and tried to have King Lorenzo, assassinated within their own castle, in return King Lorenzo had seemingly targeted the Griffon Empire's main source of power and fuel, their oil refineries and coal power plants, and in retaliation Hightalon Shimmering Feathers had declared war on Lorenzo's Empire, Celestia knew this would end badly for the Griffon Empire, just from the technology she had seen alone would be enough to just turn any foe to glass and ruble. "I seriously wonder what goes on in that head of hers...I mean really? Declaring war after she tried to have King Lorenzo assassinated? I'm rather surprised he only targeted her power plants and refineries rather than just flat out destroy her Empire completely." Celestia paused for a few seconds. "Why am I even saying this out loud? I'm the only one inside this room." Said room was Celestia's study, mainly just a place to relax and read, listen to the radio, or watch one of the few TV shows on her television. Princess Celestia sighed again, before she teleported to a rather...run down house, in the lower sections of Canterlot, which she still found strange since the pony who lived here could most likely afford a rather nice mansion, due to his work with alternating current that helped advance Equestria's, and subsequently every other, electric grid in the world, the pony was a neon blue unicorn stallion with electric yellow eyes and an electric yellow mane and tail, who's name was Tesla, a very....strange pony, after fixing her tiara to her head properly, she knocked and waited. It was only five seconds before the door was opened and a middle aged stallion opened the door, and looked up at Celestia before he grinned widely. "So you've come back at last to once again ask for my help? As it couldn't be anything else, since you NEVER come over just to visit and have tea." Princess Celestia nodded, not even trying to hide the fact she was there to once again, ask for help, like she had with Equestria's hydro electric dams, power systems, and airship engines, causing Telsa to grin. "Then come on in! I have what your looking for..I think, you are looking for a weapon to replace the muskets we use, yes?" Another nod from Celestia caused Tesla's grin to get even larger, which in turn made him look insane as Celestia stepped inside the cluttered home, notes and papers everywhere, plans for different devices scattered about, small tesla coils lighting light bulbs wirelessly. Tesla grabbed a weird looking device off of a table with notes and other random bits and bobs around it, it looked rather like a musket, or at least the back of it did, the rest looked like a weird amalgamation of electronics, tubes, and at the end on the left side, a glass cylinder with a basic lightning gem inside, just a gem enchanted to give off power for machines when a plug was not available. "I call this a Tesla Gun, harmless to ponies due to our natural resistance to electricity, however to any other race? It is far more deadly than musket balls, it contains 15 shots before you need to replace the gem cylinder on the side, it shoots highly concentrated bolts of electricity for up to twenty feet, a great feat in magical engineering if I do say so myself! Built completely by hand this is the result of two months of almost non stop work!" Telsa took aim at a small target, fittingly a griffon shaped target, and fired, causing a violent bolt of neon blue electricity to shoot out of the end and arch to the target causing it to explode from the overload of electricity and set on fire, which Princess Celestia quickly put out with her magic. "I also have plans for an anti air cannon version that would be stuck in place, but able to take down hundreds of airships if it continued to fire, the plans to build these are yours under one condition Celestia." Princess Celestia raised an eyebrow. "And what would that condition be Tesla?" Celestia questioned. "I want to work on this with your top scientists, I want full control over the project, what I say goes, or you won't get these weapons from me, do we have a deal Celestia?" Tesla held out his hand. Princess Celestia nodded. "You have a deal Tesla." She shook Tesla's hand, and thus a new deal had been struck, one that would no doubt benefit Equestria for years to come. I grinned sitting on my throne, watching a screen that was a bunch of mini screens, live feed from the satellites in orbit around this planet, they had already mapped most of the world, and I had found somethin rather surprising, an entire Empire, unknown as far as I knew, to the rest of the world, run by Abyssinians, the name for that anthro cat species, as it turns out the cat who had told me the name of his species, had been QUITE drunk at the time... either way, it was great to know the name of the species so I don't accidentally fuck somethin up with em, from the close ups my satellites had taken of the Abyssinian Empire, they where MUCH more advanced than most kingdoms or nations, seemingly they keep to themselves mainly just minding their own business, not interested in other kingdoms or nations, they have a lot of world war one style weapons, one looked like a QF 1 pounder, universally known as the pom-pom, a 37 millimeter anti air weapon from the first world war. I planned to make contact with this new Empire soon enough, get an idea of what they where like, but other than that, Hightalon Shimmering Feathers had declared 'war' on my Empire, the idea that she thought she was a threat to me, was laughable, my Empire is completely self sufficient, I have nearly unlimited manpower with the fact I can send wave after wave of robots, robots who don't need food, water, shelter, or heat to function like a normal soldier does, added to the fact I have a wall with HUNDREDS of weapons on it, all automated nonetheless, and ENERGY SHIELDS around my Empire that even Celestia would have a hard time getting through without the use of her solar beam, to put it simply my Empire was a power house that would be completely impossible to take over or destroy, and I flat out knew it, I didn't even try to hide that fact about my Empire to those I met from other kingdoms or nations, a show of power, without really even showing the power my Empire held within its walls. I grinned thinking about the troop carrier I'd be taking to the Abyssinian Empire tomorrow to meet their ruler, by surprise of course, and as for how I knew it was called the Abyssinian Empire? Simple, my satellites could also spy on radio and satellite based communication, they had television like most other empire's or kingdom's, and they where in a complete desert, hotter than even the badlands I am surprised something with FUR could live in a desert and NOT die instantly of heat stroke, I knew nothing of their political or social standings, but I'd find all that out tomorrow, and tomorrow would be an interesting day indeed. Princess Twilight Sparkle, also known now as the Princess of Friendship, was absolutely confused at the moment, as the map in the center of her throne room, had her cutiemark, in the badlands, seemingly hovering over a larger version of the Crystal Empire, that seemed to be well defended if the large wall that surrounded the Empire on the map was any indication, she sighed, she still didn't know how this mapped worked even after hours of studying it, but nonetheless she had to do as the map said, and started packing her stuff for tomorrow. > Chapter 20 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hightalon Shimmering Feathers was not having a good week so far, troop training was going great, as many griffons had signed up to join their military once they where attacked, the output of the remaining plants and refineries was increased to make up for the loss in power of the other plants, so power was back on, barely, and fuel would be a slight problem for a few more weeks, thankfully their armored cars and troop carrier airships would have enough fuel to work properly for the next three months, more than enough to last them through the shortage, to save on fuel public transport was now mandatory to get to work or the store, unless you lived close to where you could buy food, or worked. Hightalon Shimmering Feathers sighed as she watched her troops train in various forms of combat, early this morning she had gotten a weird shipment of 'Mauser' rifles, and seemingly a lot of ammo for them as well, along with the plans on how to make both, their revolving muskets had been replaced with these weapons, her troops where training to use them, and where doing so far beyond what she had expected, with these new weapons and their smokeless gunpowder, she'd be able to take on Lorenzo's troops much better than before, it may have only been a day but her griffons work fast, as she already had a armored car with a larger version of the mauser strapped to the center of it ready to fire a 20 mm bullet at the Empire's walls. After having contacted her allies, the changelings, she had been told the changelings would be willing to help assault the Empire with her since they had taken a large chunk of Changeling Empire territory, while thankfully not harming any underground cities, that would boost her numbers up from 50,000 soldiers to 90,000, so numbers wouldn't be a problem in terms of fighting, the changelings however would have to rely on their magic and swarming tactics, as she would never be able to produce enough of the mauser rifles for all of those troops, she THANKFULLY barely had enough for the troops she had so far, plus a thousand in reserve, in a weeks time she would be sending her troops to storm the New Crystal Empire, along with most of the RGAF, Royal Griffon Air Force, mainly just zeppelins, that now used pointed projectiles with experimental rifling in their cannons, like she said before, griffons work fast, almost as fast as changelings, sadly for her griffons however they didn't have the advantage of a hive mind like the changelings did. Her top generals also had brilliant ideas on how to keep the troops fed, normally they'd have to take refrigerated armored trucks that would be filled with various foods such as beef, chicken, pork, vegetables, bread, milk, and other such items, now however there would be no need for that due to dried and salted meats, hard tack, powdered minotaur milk, and dried vegetables and fruits, each soldier got a tough bag filled with their rations for the day, with their name on it, each day they'd eat their rations, turn in their bag, and then tomorrow they'd get their field rations again. Princess Twilight Sparkle grinned as she got onto her hot air balloon, she had made some modifications to it so it was more like a mini airship than a hot air balloon, it was sleeker, and with its petrol engines she would be able to get to this new Empire within, half an hour, due to how small it was it could go faster than a normal airship, and since it only held one pony, and her two bags for the trip, mainly food and such and bits, she would have a field day in this New Crystal Empire, she still didn't understand why exactly the map was sending her there, but she was sure whatever it was it had to be important, just like it had sent her and her friends to Starlight's village, and they had ended up saving the town in the end. As she had calculated it had only taken 30 minutes to get within view of the New Crystal Empire, she took pictures, notes, and wrote down what might be different to this Empire than the Old Crystal Empire, aside from the clear diffrences like the wall, the shields around it, and their cannons aiming at her, and thei- THEIR CANNONS AIMING AT HER!? Twilight nearly had a heart attack as the Empire's wall mounted plasma cannons took aim at her airship, scanning it before they lowered again causing her to sigh with relief, before she let out a yelp as a large blue beam of light shined on her little airship balloon and her engines cut out as her airship was slowly pulled through the Empire's blue barrier shields and plopped down onto a small landing pad. Twilight had absolutely no idea how that had just happened, as she detected no magic from the beam when it had grabbed her ship, but she did know that she was now inside the New Crystal Empire, and she could finally begin her mission to look for what the map wanted her to correct, so she grabbed her two bags with her magic and stepped out of her airship balloon, only to come face to face with a pony she thought she'd never see again, Starlight Glimmer, whom was wearing a black uniform with a few metals on it, with a weird flat hat that had the New Empire's flag symbol on it, upon seeing Starlight, Twilight instantly went into attack mode and shot a violent magenta beam at Starlight, only for it to be blocked by a massive ten foot tall power armored Minotaur guard, whom was carrying a plasma rifle, and was aiming it at her. "You are under arrest for attempted murder of the head general of the Crystal Empire's military." The guard made a move as if to reach for her, but Starlight raised her hand, instantly causing the guard to stop and lower his plasma rifle with a nod. "Hello Sparkle, seems you remember me, if your hostile response was anything to go by, either way, the King sends me to meet those who land here, you are not authorized to be within the Empire at the moment, as the King is leaving on a trip to make a new ally, he does not allow anyone to enter his Empire unless he is here to directly see them, some weird judge of character I guess, regardless his orders where quite clear, no visitors to the Empire, so you will have to leave or face trial for trespassing on restricted airspace." Starlight smirked. Twilight frowned. "I am a Princess, and thus you will respect me as such, regardless I am not here of my own will, the map in my castle sent me here, I am not able to just ignore it Starlight Glimmer, so regardless of what your King says, I have to do what the Tree Of Harmony wants me to, so if you will excuse me." Twilight simply tried to walk around them, only to be stopped by Starlight's other minotaur guard. "The General has spoken, and the orders of the King cannot simply be denied because of some pathetic tree, so either you leave or I will personally shove my plasma rifle so far up your ass, THAT YOU WILL NEED TO SAY 'AH' FOR ME TO SHOOT IT! DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR YOU LITTLE PURPLE BITCH!?" The minotaur guard jammed the tip of his plasma rifle into Twilight's throat threateningly, before he was pulled back by Starlight's magic. "Private Iron! You are overstepping your bounds! If this continues I will have your horns mounted on my wall! STAND DOWN! That is a direct order, failing to do so will result in your death by firing squad, ON MY ORDER!" The minotaur guard bowed and nodded before lowering his plasma rifle completely, keeping it pointed at the ground. "I am sorry General Starlight, but the way she expected us to just let her through as if the King's orders did not matter, because of a tree, was just completely moronic and set me off, I won't let it happen again." Twilight was taken aback, her life had been threatened because of what she had tried to do in the name of harmony, if Starlight hadn't stopped that Minotaur, she was sure she'd be dead around now, with a growl she turned around and got back into her airship, Princess Celestia would hear about this, that much she was sure of, she would also see to it Starlight was punished for what she did back in that village, as tampering with a ponies cutiemark, was high treason and punishable by death via banishment to the nearest volcano. As Twilight flew off in her little airship, she watched a long tube float up into the air, turn and then shoot off at incredible speeds, that was another thing Twilight would just have to report to Princess Celestia. I grinned as my personal troop carrier flew at mach seven, not even half the speed one of my aircraft that used the zetan anti-gravity engines could go, we would be arriving at the Abyssinian Empire within five minutes, as we crossed into the Abyssinian Empire, a few bandit airships tried to fire upon my personal troop carrier, but those where shot out of the sky rather quickly by blasts from the plasma cannons on my troop carrier, as for how I knew they where bandits? All bandits flew a black flag with a cat skull on it, much like pirates of the high seas back in the old times on my world. The capital looked like a modern Arabian city, while other cities looked like slightly older Arabian cities, about 50 years behind the capital city in terms of technology, however the second my troop carrier stopped to just hover for me to send a message of peace and good will out, the QF 1-pounder pom-pom's that surrounded the castle in the center of this great city started shooting at my troop carrier, its shields would be able to take a nuke, so this was really nothing, so I just continued on and grabbed a radioplasma communicator, it was the plasma tech but it would be able to message radios however. "This is King Lorenzo of the New Crystal Empire, I am here to offer peace and goodwill, I wish to become allies, or at the least, make an accord with your Empire, I do not come to bring war or death, I come to bring peace and hope for all." It took five minutes after my message was sent, for the QF 1-pounder pom-pom's to stop shooting at in their futile attempts to harm my troop carrier, and another twenty to get a reply, the voice sounded.....stupidly young. "This is Carnelia, the Abyssinian Queen, you are permitted to land in the castle court yard and will be escorted to my throne room by two of my best guards, to ensure no bandits attempt anything." The message cut out after that, so I nodded to the synth flying my troop carrier, and it did as instructed and landed in the castle's court yard, before the back door on the carrier opened and I stepped out with two gen two synth guards, one had a combat rifle, with a full stock and long bayonet, while the other had a combat shotgun with a marksman stock and a 35 round drum magazine, both weapons where standard in the Empire's forces that used normal ballistic weaponry, each synth had full suits of heavy combat armor on, repainted to be a light blue and purple color, same as the crystals in the center of my Empire. I watched with some...interest, as my two escorts appeared....they had on world war one German uniforms, grey with tall black leather boots, with a red outline and gold colored buttons on them, and a standard German style world war one helmet, the completely smooth one, not the one with the one spike in the center, but aside from that, what they where carrying was what was most interesting to me, they seemed to have...Luger rifles, seemingly like the ones from Battlefield 1, to be exact from what I remember the rifle was known as Luger 1906 semiauto rifle, in my world it was chambered in 8 millimeter Mauser, but from the looks of the barrel it was a 9 millimeter, now an interesting fact, this rifle was invented for the German army during world war one, but only a few prototypes had ever been built, seemingly in this world they had become at least from what I could see, the main rifle of the Abyssinian military, I could also see Luger P08's in their holsters on their right sides each, they nodded to be and one of them spoke up. "Please follow us to the Queen's throne room." I nodded and my guards along with I, followed them into the castle, it was rather normal for a castle, a few paintings here or there, some furniture, a few fountains for water or decoration, of which I didn't know what one it was for the ones I saw, and some guards, each carrying the same gear as the two escorting us to the throne room. It took 15 minutes to get to the throne room, 15 minutes of just walking through this maze of a castle, before we got to the throne room doors, and the two guards opened the double doors and nodded to me and my guards, before I went inside, my guards following me, for now I'd stop saying what they where doing, as they WHERE just gen two synths, they where not really important, so for now until they did something relevant, I was just gonna stop sayin what they where doin, anyways, upon the throne sat a young Queen, no more than 17-18 at most, who had on a simple white dress, with a tiara in it with a orange gem in the center of it her fur colors where orange fur, blue eyes, and white paws. "Hello, as I said in my reply to your message, I am Carnelia, the Abyssinian Queen, and I'd like to offer my apologies for my soldiers shooting upon your airship with their anti-air cannons, as compensation I am willing to offer you anything you wish to repay for damages that may have been caused to your airship." I chuckled. "That's quite alright, my airships energy shields where able to take the beating with little more than a scratch given to my shields." That was bullshit my shields didn't even drop 1% during the entire time it was being shot at, but it wasn't like I was going to let her know that, after all in a game of poker you don't just show all your cards, gotta keep some hidden aces. She nodded. "Alright then, either way I welcome you to the Abyssinian Empire, and hope we can both benefit one another, I find it funny you found us before we found you, as I issued an order to announce ourselves as an Empire over radio and with our airships to visit other kingdoms and Empire's just yesterday, just two hours ago I sent out airships with a message of peace to every known Empire or Kingdom that we where able to find, so you are the first to send us a message rather than the other way around." She laughed lightly. I laughed as well, that would explain the airship aside from the bandit ones, that my troop carrier had zoomed past fast enough to slowly blow it to the side. She spoke up again however before I was able to say anything. "I would like to invite you to dine with me and the guards, as I am sure your journey here has made you hungry, the same for your guards as well." I grinned. "My guards don't need food, water, or even air to function, but sure I could go for a bite to eat." She looked a little alarmed when I said my guards didn't need food, water, or air, but that was to be expected, after all I'm sure she's never seen a robot, even if a gen-2 synth looks more like a human than a robot, and we walked down into a dining room to enjoy a nice meal. > Chapter 21 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was two weeks later, off by only a day since I met with Carnelia, the Abyssinian Queen, in that time I had learned a few things, for one smugglers and bandits where a real problem in that Empire, since seemingly they smuggled weapons and weapon designs to the Griffon Empire, and seemingly they had killed Carnelia's mother in an air raid on their private royal airship, I simply sent a few troop carriers and gave them orders to use all their weaponry as needed to deal with the bandits. However in destroying the bandits, we, as in me and Carnelia learned of something truly horrifying, to her at least, the bandits had not simply been just randomly stealing shit, they where being PAYED to by a kingdom of short, anthro wild boar like pigs, every weapon stolen, designs gone missing and never recovered, plans for 'advanced' radar, I say advanced with quotes because it still was not nearly as good as world war two radar, but still a step up from no radar at all, either way this kingdom of wild pigs had become a super power within its own right. The bad thing about this new and unknown empire or kingdom, was the fact they where like the Nazi's, they wanted to expand their lands at a rapid pace, and did so using brutal military forces, another surprising thing was that this took up a nice sized chunk of Zebrica, or as the locals call it, the New Zebrican Republic, they where kinda like the NCR in some respect, aside from how their leader was chosen, and of course they're technology, it was chosen with a brutal hand to hand combat for leadership with the other tribes, as the NZR was mainly just a bunch of tribes that had chosen to unite under the best warrior they had. Now that I think about it those wild boars where like the legion with how brutal they where, however their average height was 4 to 5 feet tall, compared to the zebra's average height of 5'7 to 6 feet tall, they where tiny, that helped somewhat since they kept trying to invade, since the zebras had been fighting them for a year unknown to the other kingdoms, simply due to the fact they had never thought to ask for aid, that or simply didn't want to draw unwanted attention to the NZR while it was in a war so as to not be blind sided by another kingdom or empire looking for easy pickins, either way my point was, due to the fighting having gone on for a full year, the zebras have stolen some of the boars stolen tech, and begun to produce it themselves, abit at a lower quality than even the boars stolen and damaged goods. From the information I was able to gather, the New Zebrican Republic came about after five years of brutal war against the zebrican warlords, leaders of zebra tribes who where as brutal as possible in order to kill the other tribes and steal their riches or resources, or to simply exterminate the other tribes for the hell of it. Back to the griffons Hightalon Shimmering Feather's forces had been trying to invade my Empire's airspace with light and fast airships, that failed miserably for them as the automated defenses took aim and shot them down before they even for within twenty miles of the Empire's walls, all I had to do in this 'war' was wait, if they kept sending forces they'd just get terminated by the walls automated cannons and other weaponry, like the small missiles that exploded in bursts of plasma, so far they only sent out five groups of twenty armed airships, so I assumed a larger force would try to show up soon enough, only then would I use the new weapon Blue Gadget had developed. Remember when I mentioned that Blue Gadget was making a larger version of Crystal Prime? Well he finished it, it was 400 feet tall, with hooves the size of a small house, completely made of metal rather than the mix of metal and crystal that Crystal Prime was made from, it was completely metal, lightweight and strong alloy's, and the most advanced combat AI in the entire Empire aside from Pam, it had zetan super computers inside it to calculate everything it did, it could react like any living being would, except it would do so without emotions, without remorse or anything to hold it back aside from commands directly from me or Pam, or Starlight, now you may be wondering what Blue Gadget named that beast of a robot yes? He named it Defender Prime, or just Defender for short. To give you a small idea of just how LARGE this thing was, Crystal Prime was 40-50 feet tall MAX, the walls around the Empire where 150 feet tall and 20 feet thick, Defender would be able to step over the walls without any effort on it's part, it was so large that it required twenty upgraded fusion vault tec super reactors to power the damned thing, its weapon systems alone would use as much power as the entire wall's weapons combined around the entire Empire, it was possible, otherwise it wouldn't have been built, but it was still a huge power house, it had full sized versions of the zetan death ray for its main weapon, it's massive horn able to shoot beams of deadly energy just like the zetan death ray, and other than it's main weapon, there where to many weapons for me to name them all off, we'd be here for fucking weeks due to how many weapons where jammed into that thing, either way it was an army killer that I don't think anything short of a pissed Celestia would be able to take down, if the griffons showed up with a large enough force, I'd have the auto defenses ignore them and just let Defender deal with them, seeing that huge ass fucker or a robot would be enough of a show of force to the griffons. After my first encounter with the changelings, I have had no problems with them as of late, their ships stayed away from my battleships, they didn't wander close enough to the walls for the automated defenses to deem them a threat, they could hit them from well over a hundred miles away, they stayed away from the walls and tried to keep out of the air, other than that I had been informed that a summit of the world rulers, not including Queen Carnelia, as she just did not want to go, nor had the time to do so due to the military in her Empire gearing up for a war with the boars, all the while the boars kept trying to destroy the NZR, which would keep the ruler of the zebras busy. I however was invited, and had been given a list of the rulers, what they looked like, and their names by Celestia, who thankfully was not like the one from my world when it came to sudden meetings, and actually let me prepare for it, not that there was much to do to actually prepare for it, other than remember that the griffon Hightalon would be there as well, and she would most likely demand I surrender or some stupid shit like that. While other rulers would be there already, I would be teleporting in with the Empire's relay system, I just had Celestia set up a radio antenna inside the meeting room and give me the number on the side of the radio antenna system that all radios had, and to also warn the other's attending this meeting, and with a quick press of a button on my Pipboy, I was gone in a flash of blue light, only to appear in a rather nice meeting room, I will go into detail about the rulers in a bit. The meeting room was rather fancy looking, a large C shaped table with chairs at which rulers sat at, as I expected my sudden entrance with a flash of non magical light had caused a few to gasp as I took my seat, now to mention who was here in this little summit, as I expected Hightalon Shimmering Feathers was here, and you all know what she looks like, so I don't really have a need to explain in detail what she looks like, but for the rest, there was Pathfinder Evergreen Meadow a lean, 5'9 inch Female Doe of the Caribou Kingdom, as per normal she had brown fur, a whiteish mane and had on a tiara made of silver with green gems in it, next there was Denmother Green Ruby a short 4'5 lean and athletic looking diamond dog with light green fur, teal eyes, and black hair, she had on just a plain red dress, yet it was a short dress, one you'd be able to run and jump n crap in. Then we had Chieftess Silverhorn a grey tipped silver furred monster of a female Minotaur with green eyes, she was 6'8 feet tall, and from the information I had been told about her, she fought her way to the position of Chieftess of the Minotaur clans and proudly shows her scars for all to see, she had on simple leather clothing with padded cloth under the leather, and then at the middle-front of the large C shaped table, was Princess Celestia, the pony we all know rulers Equestria, and much to my surprise, next to her was Twilight, the Princess of Friendship, who's ass was fucking glowing like a Christmas tree at midnight, rather weird. Celestia seeing that I was here after 3 minutes of having them wait, finally spoke up, starting the summit. "I am glad to call the summit of rulers once again this year, as every year we will discuss trade, how to keep the peace, and other such things, I am sad to say the ruler of Zebrica is not able to be present for this meeting, since it would have been the first meeting they would have been able to have joined, but sadly they are simply not available, you may go on and ask one another questions as normal." Twilight glared at me before she spoke up. "Why did you let Starlight Glimmer be general of your army? Let alone let her into your Empire after what she did, and I know that you where told what she did, as I was given a very close look at your Empire's citizenship sign up process I'd also like to know why I was denied entry despite the fact the Tree of Harmony sent me." "That was due to the fact she showed up at my Empire's doors, hungry, alone, and in need of help, when you sign up for citizenship you take a test to see what you are best at, she is great at being a military strategist and is able to command my armies for me when I am not able to do so, as for why you where denied entry, it was because I ordered it that no visitors be allowed into the Empire while I was gone, and either way I don't care what sent you to my Empire, be it a tree, some weird chaos spirit, or anything of the such, you wanted to get into my Empire when it's borders where on complete lock down, you are lucky the automated defenses where able to identify you where not hostile, otherwise you would have been shot down if you where deemed hostile." That seemed to shut her up as she paled slightly, before Hightalon Shimmering Feathers glared at me, harder than Twilight did, and she spoke up with a slight hint of anger in her voice. "I want you to stop destroying the forces I send to your Empire, and to surrender to the Griffon Empire for punishment for attacking my Empire's source of life, oil and coal." I laughed, hard. "That won't be happening, as long as you have hostile intentions my defenses will continue to take down your airships, there is no way to wage war with my Empire, as it is completely self sufficient, it's not even a war, I just have to sit back, relax, and watch as my automated defenses take care of your forces for me, unlike your airships, they will never run out of ammunition, they don't need sleep, rest, food, water, or air to function, they can run for centuries without any input from me, I don't want to wage a war, and I won't ever really HAVE to do so due to how much of a power house my Empire is, like I told you before when I first met you, my only interest is getting my Empire back to its proper world, MY world, away from the chaos of this one." Hightalon Shimmering Feathers growled, before Celestia spoke up with a glare of her own directed to the griffon. "Hightalon Shimmering Feathers, May I remind you this summit is about Peace, and Trade, not war? If I need to do so then I think it would be best you leave until you can learn how to act as a ruler without trying to bring in conflict that you dragged your own empire into." This shut her up rather nicely. Chieftess Silverhorn spoke up next. "King Lorenzo, most other kingdoms import minotaur milk due to the shortage of viable milking cows, would your Empire have any need for such a thing? It can be delivered fresh or as powdered milk." I shook my head. "No, like I said before my Empire is completely self sufficient, anything it needs can be created inside the Empire's walls themselves, so I won't be needing minotaur milk, the cows being milked daily at the Empire's farms do well enough to give every person within my Empire a 12 ounce glass of milk every day, if it wasn't being used for other food products aside from just gallon jugs of milk." She nodded. "Very well King Lorenzo." She started talking to Celestia, and the rest of the meeting went on rather...quickly, Shimmering feathers stayed quiet this entire time after Celestia talked to her, and a few trade deals where struck with every kingdom, or empire, aside from mine, since I had no real need for what they offered me, grain, wine, fruits, and other things like that, could easily be created with the use of the underground hydroponics section. > Chapter 22 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was only a day later after the meeting, the ruler of the caribou, Pathfinder Evergreen Meadow, had been rather quiet, mainly just watching me as I calmly talked to Celestia about items she was interested in within my Empire, mainly the old terminals that the people within my Empire used to use before the zetan terminals, once again modified to how I liked them, where given to them as replacements and all files transferred before being deleted, and as for a side note, I call those who reside within my empire, people, due to the fact there are just so many fucking species living there now aside from crystal ponies, naming every creature off would take to long, so everyone said things like everyone, somebody, to save time and simply make it easier to remember things. I'd also like to mention that when I left Celestia's castle after the meeting, I did the same as I did last time, large troop carrier, instant teleport, and then poof I'm gone, but as I walked through the halls I noticed something that was odd, aside from the low number of female maids, most of the cleaning and cooking staff where stallions, each one had some frilly uniform on, while the mares had the more practical ones on, I hope to god this is not a world where all stallions are gay, or just gayish, nothin wrong with that, but just would be annoying if I tried to make a friend with a stallion, only for said stallion to be all gay and fru fru, once again nothing against it, just not someone I wanna hang around as it tends to get annoyin. Currently I was just watching some screens that showed me a complete view of the outside wall around my entire Empire, from the view point of the automated defenses, normally the defenses where as I've always talked about, automated, but on rare occasions I'd take control of a unit myself and have a little fun shooting targets close to the Empire, such as hostile griffon airships, of which they had seemingly stopped sending, however I wasn't stupid, I knew more would come in time, I had only destroyed twenty airships after all, at the moment I also had the Crystal Lorenzo gathering ore from chunks of rock in space, more gold, iron, titanium, and zinc, than had ever been mined in human history, if I wanted I could flat out destroy any nations economy with the press of a button. Speaking of economy, my Empire was held to the gold standard, and I made sure to not let inflation be a thing, my Empire DID use bits, however they where almost nothing like the ones the rest of the world used, they are not half inch thick coins made of complete solid gold, they are quarter sized coins, same size, shape, and thickness of a US quarter, they come in a few variants, gold is equivalent to one US dollar, copper ones are like pennies, silver ones are worth ten gold ones, and platinum bits are worth one hundred, the same went for the rest of the world, aside from the thickness of the coin and what was printed on them. Also, some may have a few questions about the Crystal Lorenzo, like, who is the captain? Why are you having it gather all that metal? Well my friends, that was quite simple, remember when I froze Tempest in her own obsidian orb just as she was about to kick it back on my world? I unfroze her using a few unicorns and struck up a deal, fix her horn and she'd work for me, say hello to the cybernetic Tempest, only things different was her cybernetic horn and her right eye replaced at her request, no idea why she wanted her right eye replaced, but with her robotic horn she'd be able to use any spell she wanted within limits of her own energy, and since she was a natural military leader, I made her the captain of the Crystal Lorenzo, as for what I need all that metal for, I was having a larger version of the Crystal Lorenzo built, named Crystal City. The reason it would be named Crystal City, was because it pretty much WOULD be a giant city in space, it would be eight thousand feet long, two thousand feet wide, a 400 foot wide rail-gun in the nose, it was pretty much just a larger version of the Crystal Lorenzo in terms of shape, and weaponry, aside from having more powerful weapons due to the ability to jam more fusion reactors into the hull of the ship, and speaking of weapons, remember those drone cannons I mentioned where upsized and then used as artillery? I had changed the name from simple drone cannons, to plasma artillery, and unlike the drone cannons in fallout 3, the balls had two settings before you fired, it could either detonate on contact or explode mid air, showering the area with plasma rain, very deadly. Blue Gadget had invented a few other lil goodies when he was making Defender Prime, he invented a 50 MM grenade launcher, that was currently able to fire any of the standard used Empire grenades, which included plasma, gamma burst, cryogenic, gas grenades, filled with nightmare mist, pulse grenades, nuclear grenades, quantum infused nuclear grenades, and simple fragmentation grenades, since it was a 50 MM grenade launcher, only minotaur could use the damned thing, if any other species did they'd risk breaking every bone in their arms. I had also introduced a few new flavors of Nuka Cola due to popular request after I made a few test batches, the new flavors where lemon, mango, raspberry, melon, carrot, and berry bananza! a mix of cherry, raspberry, grape, and orange Nuka cola to make a mixed fruit cocktail flavored cola. I also had a few questions randomly as to how I trained what little organic soldiers I actually do have, simple, virtual reality pods much like the ones from fallout three, the worlds where realistic and could throw my soldiers into any number of situations, and trust me, I planned for everything, from aliens, to standard zombie outbreaks, to fucking necromorph outbreaks, soldiers would train for a month, during said month they'd go through hell, literally at some point if the simulation about Doom's hell I helped make would be any indication. Hightalon Shimmering Feathers was not having a great day, she had recently learned that due to malnutrition, the 40,000 changeling warriors she had been promised, would no longer be assisting her Empire, so she was back down to 50,000 soldiers to attack the New Empire, but in the long run that shouldn't matter, not with how she planned to win this war, she would send out all military airships, new, old, falling apart, shining with new paint, it didn't matter, if it was a military airship, it would be sent, all together that would be about twenty thousand airships, each one carrying hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of shells and powder, for the semi modern ones that would mean thousands of pounds of self contained shells and breach loading rifled cannons, surely with that amount of fire power, she'd overwhelm Lorenzo's 'automated' defenses. After she dealt with the New Empire and had destroyed it, she would deal with the changelings, if they could not be of use to her, she would turn them into slaves to work for the benefit of her empire, so after speaking into, a rather bulky, radio she had on her, the new orders where given, launch all military airships to the New Empire for an all out assault, and ready the ground troops to attack the changelings while they where weak, she didn't exactly care about the changelings to begin with, they just supplied her with goods they had no need for since the bugs had no industry of their own, gems, gold ore, iron, copper, etc, when digging out their underground cities they found these things in abundance, and thus traded for things like muskets, powder, swords, and other such equipment that was now, as far as Shimmering Feathers was concerned, outdated. With the orders given, twenty thousand RGAF airships began their journey to the New Empire, ready for an all out assault on the Empire, while the ground troops got into their troop carrier trucks and jeeps, ready with their new mausers and even a few new maxims that been delivered via train, either the bugs would work for the good of the Griffon Empire, or be fertilizer for their crops. It took three hours of constant flight to get close enough to the New Empire for the griffon airships to see the city, and the wall surrounding it, they took aim with their cannons and fired, shelling the shield and wall, leaving not even a dent. I was woken up from my nap by the little alarm going off next to me, I had fallen asleep on my throne, so I set a motion detector to wake me up once something was close enough to the walls, and what I saw made me grin, a large fleet of airships, each one trying to shell my Empire with either cannon balls, or what looked like semi normal artillery projectiles, I had turned the automated defenses off so I would be able to do something fucking amazing, I pressed a big, red button, which activated Defender Prime. Griffons aboard the airships, regardless of age, or how many years they had been in their military, nearly died of a heart attack when a large flat and empty section of the New Empire, two large slabs of metal peeled away and slid into the ground that surrounded them, before a platform raised something from the depths of Equis, it was a behemoth, a giant metal pony with a large slit for an eye, and a horn large enough to stab one of their airships clean in half, however what scared them the most, was when it spoke, its voice held the power of an enraged god about to bring its wrath upon those it deemed worthy of such destruction. "DEFENDER PRIME ONLINE, ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL, PRIME DIRECTIVE, DESTROY ANY AND ALL THREATS TO THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE AND HER ALLIES, INITIATING DIRECTIVE 7. 3. 9. 5. DESTROY ALL HOSTILES TO THE EMPIRE, GET READY TO DIE BITCHES." It's large head turned to the fleet of airships before it shot a violent blue beam of energy at the closest airship, causing it to instantly explode into burning metal and molten slag. Defender Prime started walking, shaking the very ground beneath him with every step as he casually walked over the wall, through the energy shields, and stepped onto the other side, before griffon airships tried to shell him, only to not even make a dent since the metal he was made of alone was thick enough to take the full force of a shot from a low scale zetan death ray, in return to being shelled, Defender Prime launched a salvo of missiles at the nearest airship, causing it to explode rather violently like the last one that had been struck down, If I'm being honest, I had to give it to these griffons, despite how many of them had already been killed they continued to fight. Despite their efforts and their bravery, in my opinion more like stupidity, they stood no chance as airship after airship was taken down as violently as possible, some of them just swatted out of the air with one of Defender Prime's large metal hooves, as the numbers slowly dwindled from twenty thousand, to a few thousand, to a few hundred, to a few dozen, till only seven airships remained from the battle, they had decided to retreat and live another day, knowing they would never have a victory, of course Defender Prime sent a few low yield explosive missiles after them to cripple their hulls, but otherwise they would remain unharmed. Another three hours later, the remaining crippled griffon airships where within rage to send messages via radio, so the commander of the head ship in what was left of the once mighty fleet, begged for forgiveness as the mission had failed and they had lost almost all their military airships, only to get the shock of a lifetime when Shimmering Feathers daughter spoke through the radio rather than her mother. "This is Czarina Dark feather, the new Hightalon of the Griffon Empire, my mother has been disposed of, I personally saw to her death by my own claws while she was distracted waiting for the fleet to return, I myself will see to it that a diplomatic solution to the war my mother created, is found, unfortunately due to how great changelings are in the art of espionage they got wind of my mothers plans for them and fled, to where I don't know." Queen Chrysalis, the once mighty Queen of the Changelings, was starving to death, all her children where, she had given what she could to her hive of two million, only half the population of Equestria as a whole, but it would only last them another two days at most, while the griffons could provide basic items and military weaponry, they could not provide the changelings with love, refusing to give any griffons to have drained slightly, her only option was the very Empire that had attacked her naval ships, and her old ally the Griffon Empire, an ally for three hundred years until they decided to betray the changelings while they where weak, she could only hope that the New Empire would accept her or at the least, her hive. It had taken the changelings four hours of non stop flying leaving them, her more so, exausted as she fell to the ground near the New Empire's walls, she could feel the amount of pure love energy just twenty or so feet on the other side of the wall, two medic changelings helped her up, and tried to offer a little glob of pink goo, but she refused it. "Save it for those who need it more than myself." Was what she said to her two drones, who reluctantly nodded, she and her changelings had landed near a giant door like structure to the inside of the New Empire, however it was closed, she shakily walked to the door, and knocked. Less than a minute later, the doors opened and before her stood a being that she had no knowledge of, and that said something considering changelings knew of every species on the planet, but there was no time for that, as from the description she had been given from the Griffon Empire, this was King Lorenzo, the ruler of this New Empire. Chrysalis, a being known for being evil, cunning, and overall downright nasty to other species, begged, she begged for King Lorenzo to save her changelings, even if it meant she had to die for it to happen, what she said next seemed to surprise him moreso than the last few words she had said however. "I beg of you, if you take my changelings in and allow them to feed from the love that permeates the very air you breathe in, I will dedicate myself to you, mind, body, and soul, please do not allow my species to fall into extinction..." I was having a hard time processing this if I was being honest, first off I got to watch Defender Prime fucking destroy the griffon fleets like they where made of paper, then a few hours later two fucking million changelings show up, and this worlds version of Chrysalis is begging me to let her lings inside so they don't starve to death, and in doing so becomes my bitch.....Life is so fucking complicated at times, sometimes more so than what I'd like it to be, but I was not heartless, its not like I'd turn her into a maid or something, so for now I'd just go along with it. "Alright, you and your changelings may come into the city, but stay behind the fence on the inside until all of you have been given an ID and a place of residence has been found for you, it won't take long, there are plenty of sky scrapers that have apartments that need to be filled, don't worry about currency, everyone within the Empire gets a basic UBI of a thousand bits per month." I smiled as I watched the hopeless looks on the changeling's faces, turn to joy, but before I knew what hit me I was tackled by Queen Cheese legs being hugged and...embarrassingly enough getting my face covered in teal colored lipstick, god help me now. > Chapter 23 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hightalon Czarina Dark Feather sighed as she looked over the treaty she had written up for their terms of complete and total surrender to the New Empire, the official name she had given the treaty was the White Feather Concordat, it was only a day after the defeat of the griffon's air force, barely a day even, it was currently about 6:30 AM, a ruler always had to be up and about before her people after all, moreso when she was finalizing the treaty that would effectively make her empire weak for the next hundred years. The White Feather Concordat outlined how the Griffon Empire would be willing to pay reparations for resources wasted on the war on the end of the New Empire, and that in return the Griffon Empire would make monthly payments of two thousand standard gold bits, and in doing so also asking for aid with the power systems that kept failing due to the damage done to them, along with a few other small things that would slowly help her Empire come back from the recession that her mother had caused. -------------------------------------------------------------------Lorenzo's Empire---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I woke up automatically at the same time I always did, even before I was sent to a new planet I always woke up at around 6:40 AM every day. Every. Damned. Day. It made sleeping in a nearly impossible task to do, regardless a Mister Handy would always be by my bedside with a mug of black gold ready to be consumed, however strangely enough the Mister Handy was not there, and instead in his place was Queen Chrysalis, I had forgotten in my half asleep state about what happened yesterday, until I took a few seconds to think about it and sighed before I took the 20 ounce cup of black ambrosia from her and sat up, before chugging the entire thing in less than five seconds. "Why are you up so early Chrysalis?" It was a good question, last I remember I had reluctantly let her sleep in the same bed as I did, thankfully said bed was no pun intended, a queen sized bed with comfortable soft sheets n pillows. Chrysalis grinned. "Your robotic butler awoke me to ask if I wished for anything to eat or drink, while holding your normal morning beverage, how you managed to drink that in under a minute I don't think I wish to know, as for why I'm holding your coffee, I wanted to surprise you my king." She frowned slightly. "That thing creeped me out when I first saw it, I thought it was a robotic squid like from the Power Pony comics some of my, now your, subjects like to read." I simple face palmed and set my large mug on the side table by the bed, and turned on the lamp. "I had another question for you, why where all of your changelings nude when you showed up?" Yeah that had been awkward, I didn't notice it at first due to the fact I was busy trying to pry Chrysalis off myself and once I did I noticed that changelings....didn't wear clothes like ponies did, they went in the nude. Chrysalis chuckled lightly before sitting on the side of the bed. "We changelings don't have a nudity taboo like most species do, since we live in a hot desert climate, along with pretty much being in contact with one another on a regular basis, there simply was no need for any item of clothing aside from armor, as for why I myself wear clothes, it would simply be unfit for a queen to not look the part." I simply chuckled lightly. "I guess that makes sense when you think about it, now let me see what's on my list of crap to do today." I grabbed a holopad, a holographic tablet that was just a larger version of the phones Blue Gadget created, just unable to make calls with them, and checked the list of crap I had to do today, the list is as follows, get every changeling an ID and enter them into the Empire's Citizen Identification System, Get every changeling a place to live, Get them clothes, as nudity unless you where a pony, was illegal and even then, ponies in the Empire tended to wear pants, or a shirt, or just even a hat and tie, next on the list was checking up on the construction of the Crystal City space ship being built, after that check up on Commander Tempest over the plasma communicators and see how progress on the asteroid mining was going so I'd get a good idea of when the Crystal City would be roughly completed. Turning back to Chrysalis I spoke up again. "I had another question, why did I see no male changelings when they where entering the gate into the citizenship sign up process?" Another good point, during the entire five hours I had taken to make sure every last changeling got into the Empire's gates before having them sealed off, not once did I see a single male drone. Chrysalis simply broke out laughing as if I had told the funniest joke in history, before she wiped a tear from her eye. "Forgive me for laughing my king, but that question just sounded so ridiculous to me due to the fact most species know about changelings and how we do and don't work, either way I shall explain, there are no male changelings, only females, it's always been that way, for what reason I don't know, but either way it makes it so my species requires the male of another species to reproduce, I suspect it was a biological block placed upon our species when we first arrived into this world as a way to ensure we didn't just wipe out all species on the planet, however that was millennia ago when the first sentient races appeared on the planet, so records of times before my mothers rule are not very clear, as before then no one thought about keeping records, just surviving." Taking a minute to process the information I had just been given, I sighed and walked over to the couch on the side of the room and clicked the television on, Chrysalis joined me and I almost laughed when I saw what was on the screen, at the moment it was on a commercial, but the commercial itself made me nearly laugh cause it meant I had been successful in creating someone from fallout 4 and giving them their own company. On the screen was an average looking Mister Handy holding a glass bottle of lemonade. "Try Deezer's lemonade today! My quality lemonade is guaranteed to be the best lemonade you've ever tried, and the most refreshing, or your money back guaranteed!" Yep that was right, I had built a Mister Handy unit, named em Deezer, and made him obsessed with selling lemonade, and gave him a fucking company called Deezer's Lemonade, the damned robot was raking in bits due to people liking the many varieties of lemonade he was providing, strawberry, lime, blackberry, raspberry, mint, peach, mango, and for changelings a glowing pink love flavored one. The morning continued on slowly as I started going through the list of shit I had to do, while Chrysalis stayed behind at the Crystal Palace, first on the list making sure all the changelings got an ID and registered in the system, that pretty much meant just watching as 5 mister handy robots took their pictures, blood samples, names and identification, for two hours, it was super fucking boring, but it was necessary to become a citizen of the Empire, the reason I had to be here is because of the shear amount of changelings that had joined with Chrysalis, the process had been going on all night so I'd have to watch the security camera footage later as well to verify everything. After that was done I just had to make sure there where available living spaces for the changelings, they had been given clothes upon their verification as citizens of the Empire, if they wanted something different they'd have to use some of their UBI that they got once they where registered, finding them all living spaces actually took about 30 minutes due to the fact I still had twenty sky scrapers that where pretty much full of apartments, they could just move right in, no need to pay rent or anything like that, the Empire provided free housing, electricity, water, heat, air conditioning, and as I've mentioned, a monthly UBI of a thousand bits per month. I was about to head up and check on the construction of the Crystal City, when a small alarm started going off on my pipboy alerting me to magical teleportation within the Empire, impossible since no crystal unicorn knew the spell for teleportation, the only way to teleport in the empire without using magic was with the relay system I had in place, but that was for military and police use only, with a flash of blue I was near one of the walls just inside the Empire, and I saw none other than Twilight Sparkle, along with her friends, with the elements of harmony, I nearly died of laughing right then and there from the looks on their faces as I teleported in without the use of magic, I stopped and my face went cold as I looked at Twilight. "You my little purple friend have royally fucked up, knowing you, you thought you could just come in here with your elements and blast whatever you felt the tree wanted you to fix, even after I told you the boarders of the Empire where closed off for the time being, also knowing you, you managed to talk your friends into doing this under the guise of doing it in the name of harmony due to the tree once again, I gave you a chance last time, I WILL NOT give you another one." Twilight tried to speak up, but I beat her to the punch. "Shut the FUCK UP! I don't give a shit about what the tree or that magical coffee table wants you to do, you have broken the law and as such will be treated like any criminal, I don't make exceptions in my Empire, you break the law, you pay the fucking price." With a quick message on the plasma communicators minotaur in power armor teleported in and shot them all with non lethal stun weapons, Twilight's friends where taken to a guest room in the Crystal Palace under STRICT guard of no less than four high class legendary assaultron units, while Twilight herself was jammed into a cryo-pod right next to Jet Set and his bitch of a wife, unlike those two dickwads her sentence would be much lower, yet still a little harsh, she was to be locked Cryo for six months, a fine of 40 thousand bits, before throwing her back over the boarder with her flight feathers clipped, a horn ring on her horn and just a dagger to defend herself with, Not that there was much to defend herself against, it was the Badlands after all, barely any life could survive here. Unlike Twilight, who broke in willingly knowing she was not supposed to, her friends would be treated as royal guests unless they caused problems, as for how she teleported them in without being detected sooner by the automated defenses, I don't know, regardless I was going to have some unicorns carve anti teleportation runes into the inside of the walls now, as I'd like to prevent another indecent like this in the future. After that I continued on with my day, construction was ahead of the Crystal City was ahead of schedule due to Tempest making regular deliveries of house sized chunks of meteorite, speaking of Tempest, I grabbed a plasma communicator, fuck I needed a better name for those, and called Tempest, it rang three times before a holographic version of tempest stood in front of me. "Captain Tempest, I want a status report and a mission update." She bowed slightly before standing back up properly. "Your majesty, the Crystal Lorenzo is doing fine, all systems are working well within the set parameters for functionality, the harvesting operation is going well aside from a few synths being crushed because they got to close to the twenty ton chunks of rock before they where securely tied down to the cargo hold, within around three hours I will be having the payload of rocks delivered to the designated drop off site for pickup by your construction protectrons and sentry bots." I grinned. "That is great news Tempest! Keep up the great work, I also wanted to how, how are the cybernetics working for you? Any phantom pain or bugs you've seen in their systems that you'd want fixed?" Tempest shook her head. "No your majesty, the cybernetics are working flawlessly, once again I must thank you for allowing my horn to be fixed, and my right eye to be replaced." I tilted my head before I continued. "Speaking of which, why DID you want your right eye replaced? aside from the scar on the outside of your eye it looked completely fine." Tempest sighed. "While the eye itself may have been undamaged by the ursa minor that attacked me when I was a filly, it was the damage done to the eyelid that bugged me every time I moved my eye, with this cybernetic one I don't need to worry about that irritating feeling." I shrugged. "Ah, alright then I guess that makes sense, see any aliens in the solar system lately?" I asked in a joking manner. Only to get the shock of my life with what she said next. "Yes actually the Crystal Lorenzo's sensors have detected a small craft on the edge of the solar system moving at a snails pace, about 400 to 500 feet long, and an estimated 200-300 feet tall, and I know what your thinking, no it's not the Zetans, the craft is not even remotely disk shaped like the craft you briefed me about before I was allowed to captain this ship." "How long do you think before they are within visual range of your ship if you stay by the moon?" I asked Tempest with a serious look on my face, as this could either be good, or bad. "About two weeks before it reaches visual range if I where to keep the ship close to the moon, seven if I where to be closer to the planet, when they are within visual range I will attempt communication on the plasma and radio communicators, if they turn out to be hostile, I will do what needs to be done." I sighed. "If they turn out hostile, destroy them but try to keep the ship intact as much as possible, if they are hostile we can use their star charts and maps to locate their home planet and send a warning about hostilities to the Empire, if they are not hostile I want to be notified immediately, for now keep an eye out." She bowed again. "It will be done your majesty, Captain Tempest out, end communication." The screen went black as the transmission ended, I think I was just going to call the plasma communicators phones, since that was what they where shaped like and acted like, only much more advanced. I began to walk to a Handy Eats Dinner to get a late lunch, when I got a notification on my pipboy, checking the cameras I saw an envoy of griffons approaching the walled gate with trucks you'd see in the 1920's to the 1930's, the reason I got a notification was because the automated defenses wanted permission to attack since the griffons had white flags on their trucks, not their normal Empire's flag, and I almost gave them permission, could I have more than five minutes to myself for fucking once today!? Nearly giving a growl I relayed to just outside the gate, surprising the griffons, however I didn't expect to see Czarina Dark Feather, and not her mother, I just sighed again before speaking up. "What is it? I'm fucking busy as shit today with other important crap to do, just what is it that you want? My surrender again? Or is it something else I gotta shoot?" Hightalon Czarina Dark Feather frowned slightly, but she brought out a good sized scroll if paper and handed it to me. "I have disposed of my mother with my own claws, and wish to end this war with a diplomatic solution, this is the White Feather Concordat, it outlines our terms of surrender." She looked hopeful. I read through the White Feather Concordat as she called it, and it outlined the terms of them surrendering completely to my Empire, how they would give monthly payments of two thousand bits per month for a hundred years or until I deemed the 'damages for resources wasted on the war effort' payed off, and the only thing they asked for in return was help repairing the power systems I had damaged with my missiles, rather simple, so after reading it carefully I took out a pen and signed the bottom, which had Czarina's signature as well, seeing me sign it caused her to let out a sigh of relief. "You do not know how joyed I am that you have accepted the terms within the White Feather Concordat, I was afraid for a moment that you'd laugh in my face and shoot us." She looked relieved, as if a five ton weight had been lifted off her shoulders. I shrugged. "I'm not evil, you don't try to shoot me I don't try to shoot you, it's simple as that, I live on a live and let live policy, don't fuck with me? I won't fuck with you, it's quite simple, yet some morons seem to be unable to grasp such a simple concept, and no offense but your mother was one of them, I'm sorry you had to kill her, I'd like to have done that myself, but what's done is done, robots will be sent to the power plants to get them back up and running and decontaminate the area so it's safe for griffons to be within it again." She grinned. "Thank you King Lorenzo, once again I am sorry for the actions of my mother, but rest assured I will not let such a thing happen so long as I am in power of the Griffon Empire, I shall leave you for now, the payment will arrive tomorrow on a military delivery truck." With that she hopped back into the truck she was in, and the two that had followed her turned around as she was driven off escorted her side by side with her truck. If I'm being honest I didn't expect this, I expected that I'd have to go to the capital of the Griffon Empire, Griffonstone, myself, and gut that bitch of a Hightalon with my own ripper....kinda wish it worked out that way, but eh I won't be picky about victories, if you can even call that a victory since I did jack shit aside from let a massive killer robot loose on the Griffon's air force, I sent news of Twilight's imprisonment to Princess Celestia over the radio and with a picture of her in the cryo-pod locked up tight. ----------------------------------------------------In Canterlot Castle throne room, 8 PM----------------------------------------------------------------- Princess Celestia was sitting on her throne, a small table next to her with a metal tray that held a teapot, two tea cups, a bowl of sugar and a small spoon, and the teapot held her favorite tea, a simple hot peach tea with two spoonfuls of sugar, she was drinking her tea when the radio next to her, it acted as a radio and a small fax machine for pictures or reports for Celestia to read instantly, used for guards to get in touch with her if needed, went off. "This is a message from King Lorenzo, for Princess Celestia, Princess Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, was arrested earlier today due to breaking into the Empire's borders via teleportation with the rest of her friends known as the Elements Of Harmony, due to this Princess Twilight Sparkle, Equestrian Princess of Friendship, will be locked Cryo for six months, and pay a fine of 40 thousand bits upon being released, after that she will be banned from entering the Empire's borders for the rest of her life, do not worry about her friends, they have been sedated and will be treated as guests to stay for one week if they do wish to do so, they will not be held prisoner." A picture of Princess Twilight Sparkle with her flight feathers clipped, a anti magic ring on her horn, and frozen in a metal glass tube like pod, was printed out on the side of the machine. Princess Celestia spit out her tea in shock before she coughed and grabbed the picture before frowning at it. "Damn the Maker Twilight, I told you not to screw around with Lorenzo's Empire, but no you just had to do what the tree wanted, with no concern for international policies or conflicts, you single handedly could have caused a war...I thank the Maker that King Lorenzo is not cruel, greedy, or evil, otherwise I am sure this would have ended with a war between our two nations, a war Equestria would never win, not without a high cost, one that I am not willing to do again like I did so long ago." Celestia got up from her throne, and with a quick blast of magic the tea she had spit onto the floor was cleaned up, and her tea set was gone in a flash of yellow magic as well, she would have to explain to Luna why Twilight would be unable to watch the strange ship Lorenzo had in space with their high powered magic telescope again like they had been for the past few weeks, but for now she would head to the royal dinning room to have dinner, then to sleep, she could tell Luna tomorrow in the morning, and also finish reading the letter Cadence had sent her about new magical defending golems, much like Lorenzo's own automated defenders, except using magic and not the technology Lorenzo preferred over magic. > Chapter 24 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was six days later, so about a week had passed since Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, had been imprisoned, at the moment the setting was the Old Crystal Empire, for now called the Old Empire to save time, Princess Mi Amora Cadenza, also known as Princess Cadence, was currently overseeing the construction of the newest line of defense and attack golems. Calling them robots would be more accurate, but since these where so large calling them robots was more fitting than golems, their main body was comprised of a half dome of crystal that looked rather like an old soldiers helmet, with one large pink eye in the center of the 'face' of the machine, under it's 'chin' was a long tube of metal mixed with crystals, it was the machine's main weapon, a magic gem laser, made of various different gems that had been enchanted long before Sombra had taken over, along with tubes of metal and wires inside that made it hum and crackle with electricity, it's legs where twenty feet tall with a large cup like half dome surface that served as the machine's hooves, it had two legs. Princess Cadence had actually found the plans for these machines in a hidden section of Sombra's old room, he had blueprints of the very machine's she was seeing to the creation of, he had plans to use a special crystal from within the crystal mines called a Core Crystal to power them, he had the crystal ponies slave away in the mines, and had ended up with about a hundred pounds of the baseball sized crystals, while Cadence hated Sombra for what he did, she did have to admit that he was a genius when it came to how to power these machines and make them move. The weapon that was on the chin of the machines was based on a weapon Sombra had found under the Old Empire in one of the mines when a crystal pony had reported they had dug into a wall, only to encounter metal that their pick axes couldn't break through, so King Sombra himself went into the mine, and blasted a hole into it using his dark magic, and from what she was able to tell from his journal entries, he had found himself in a large metallic room with a door on the other side, blocked in by ruble, but in the room he had found himself in, while rusty and falling apart, there was a table that held the very weapon he had on his table taken apart, and weird tubes that had looked like hale rockets. While the weapon Sombra had found, was non-functional, he had been able to recreate it using a mix of dark magic, crystals, and various spells to power it, that was the very same device that Cadence was having mounted under the chins of the machines, of course she had them recreated with harmonic magic, rather than dark magic, other than that however she changed little of the design other than to make it look less threatening, the machine's had a Magic attenuation alternated self starter (M.A.A.S.S) it was pretty much a magic battery that would last for 1000 hours or 41 days before it needed a shot of magic again, it was constructed out of the Core Crystals, and Cadence had a program where guards could volunteer for mining duty to mine the Core Crystals. The machine's, known as Crystal Walkers, had many small runes etched into the very core inside their 'heads' that would tell them what to do, in almost any situation, it was very complicated so only the Old Empire would be able to produce these, but already Princess Celestia had ordered twenty of the machines, the first hundred would be used to protect the Old Empire, then the next twenty would go to Equestria delivered by airships, at the rate these where being built it would take about two more weeks to finish the rest and get Celestia's order finished. Cadence sighed as she oversaw the construction of the Crystal Walkers, already 45 of them had been completed within the span of a week thanks to Equestrian unicorn magic and levitation, which made the construction process much faster, despite being the most advanced Empire, as far as she knew, when it came to golems and robotics, she was due for a break, and headed back to her study, only to see a pile of letters, two of them marked urgent. After she opened one of the letters she nearly had a heart attack, it was news about a a new, larger version of her empire, appearing in the Badlands, showing pictures of it taken in the sky by airships, Cadence was already pale when she learned of the technology that was told of in the letter, but she nearly had a seizure when she opened the next letter, which spoke of a war that had broken out between the New Empire, and the Griffon Empire, the griffon's humiliating defeat with little to no effort on part of the New Empire, and then how Queen Chrysalis had joined forces with the New Empire, just thinking of those bugs made Cadence growl, she remembered full well what the Queen had done to her husband, along with how long she had been kept in that cave. Then Cadence saw a newspaper, with a picture of her sister in law, Twilight, in a pod looking to have been frozen, with a ring on her horn, and her flight feathers clipped, she nearly went into a rage when she saw it, before picking it up and reading it, her heart slowly sunk into her chest as she read on about how Twilight had broken into the New Empire's boarders without permission with the use of a long range teleportation spell, and then Twilight's sentence of jail time, she simply set the paper down, and grabbed a bottle of whisky from under her bed, and drank her heart out, Princess of Love she may be, but Princess of Stress she might as well have been, she had taken two weeks off to oversee the Crystal Walker project, and in doing so had forgot due to stress, to check in and read her mail. ================Lorenzo's Empire================= I grinned as I watched Astral Starlight, the lead researcher of my Empire's Magic Research Division, show off a small, basketball sized blue heart shaped gem, as it floated up and began to emit a blue glow. "Astral Starlight, you, are, fucking, glorious, you not only managed to create a miniature crystal heart, but you made it so it could work anywhere, so long as there is a being near it that can feel love, it will stay powered, much like the actual crystal heart, there is a raise coming to you sometime soon my friend." Astral Starlight smiled. "It was possible thanks to you allowing a scan of the crystal heart to be done, if it where not for that I would have never been able to recreate it on such a small scale, now we can set these up outside the crystal hearts protective barrier and in doing so, expand the barrier itself, I will update you on any new data that we get your majesty." Nodding I patted his head as I walked out of the lab, and right into Chrysalis, whom hugged me. "Good news Chrysalis, those who want to live outside the crystal hearts barrier of love will soon have a constant food source, Astral Starlight made a miniature crystal heart, he plans to make enough to cover ALL the territory the Empire has." Chrysalis smiled as if she had been given a million bits, and nuzzled my cheek, I had warmed up to her a bit, however it still felt weird, since ya'know...never been nuzzled. "That is glorious news Lorenzo, I can't wait for that to happen so our changelings don't have to make trips to the center of the city, or to the outside limits of the crystal hearts barrier for food." I nodded. "Yep! Now I don't have to worry about having them swarm through the air to get close enough to the barrier to feed....that causes the automated defenses to try and turn to the flying object, but they can't turn inside the walls...I really need to fix that bug in the system, either way I'm just as glad as you are, now come on, it's time for lunch, and I need myself a two pound cheese filled cheeseburger with onions n pickles." Chrysalis chuckled. "Yes, and I will have some of those fried potato sticks you call fries, they are quite good." Chrysalis started to follow me as we walked to the dining room to satisfy our cravings, only for me to get a notification on my Pipboy, so I pulled up the camera feed. I sighed. "Go eat, I'll be over soon enough I guess." Chrysalis nodded and walked off, while I took a closer look at the camera feed, it was ......Flim, and Flam, Trixie, and some strangely tall unicorn mare, she had a black cloak on, but I'd say she was seven to eight feet tall, they where on the super speedy cider squeezie, however it didn't look exactly like I remembered it, the tires where rubber, and while it looked to be the same size, the middle seemingly had been hollowed out somewhat to form a cabin of sorts like a normal car, except it looked to be made of a green magic dome rather than metal and glass like a normal car cabin, so I was able to see through it on the cameras, I also noticed that a few miles behind the magic automotive, was Celestia's royal guards, I sighed once again and relayed to the entrance to the Empire and opened it, with two assaultrons next to me in case it got ugly. The magic powered abomination of a car came to a stop five feet from the main gate door, and flim stepped out, being anthro he had on clothes, a classic blue and white stripped shirt, a bow tie, and a pair of blue pants. "Hello my good sir! We are in a bit of a....pickle, you see, two friends me and my brother decided to take with us on our trip to your Empire for a new life, are wanted by the royal guardmare's, one for use of dark magic, and the other....well...I don't think I can say, but i assure you she is a very nice mare." I gave the guy a deadpan. "Look, I don't care who it is, just come in and go through the screening and sign up process like everyone else, no trying to scam others, stealing, murder, etc, you will be informed of the laws within the Empire, and what you are allowed to do, and what NOT to do, so just roll that abomination of a car into the gate and get out." He looked nervous but motioned to his brother, whom was driving that machine, and it drove into the gate at a snails pace while he followed next to it, and once it was inside, I simply had the gate closed and turned to view the other ponies inside it, Flim motioned for them to get out, to which they did. Trixie did not do the whole, third person thing, or act all mighty like I expected her to, no she looked rather thin, she had bags under her eyes, she looked horrible, same could be said for the three others now that I noticed, the tall mare in the black cloak seemed to be exausted, but with the hood down I was unable to tell. Trixie was the first to step up. "I am Trixie Lullamoon, I used to be a showmare and would preform for ponies, telling fantastic tales and showing off my stage magic to entertain crowds of ponies, until six ponies decided they didn't like my show, and challenged me, I beat them, and then they felt I was evil, then two moronic little colts went and dragged a beast from the everfree forest into town, and the town got mad at ME when I was unable to vanquish it! After that, I wanted revenge, they had destroyed my cart, making me homeless, so I bought a dark artifact called the Alicorn Amulet, and used it to get my revenge, until they tricked me to take it off, since then I've been wanted by the guardmare's for willing use of a dark artifact, I along with my friends here, have come to this Empire hoping for a second chance, a new start." Flam spoke up this time after Trixie. "She is right, we tried to sell our inventions to ponies all across Equestria, but nopony wanted to buy inventions made by a stallion, it always had to be a mare making the product, otherwise nopony would dare touch it for fear that a stallion couldn't do what their OWN CUTIEMARK, my brother's and I's special talents are inventing and selling items, but after so long of nopony buying our inventions, we came up with one bit schemes to get enough money to get by, after awhile every town was notified of our scams, then we weren't even able to sell a tonic for the life of us, so this was the only close option for us to go." I sighed. "It seems like you all just had a bad case of bad luck, so I'll let ya'll in as citizens, you still need to go through the process though, but food and water, and shelter will be provided, as for you." I turned to the tall cloaked mare. "Whats your story here?" The tall mare walked up to me, causing me to look up, before she pulled her cloak off, what I saw caused my eyes to widen, it was Nightmare fucking Moon, in the fucking flesh. > Chapter 25 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The moment I saw Nightmare Moon the two assaultrons I had with me instantly went into attack mode, charging their head lasers as they awaited my command to fire, I held up my hand causing them to stand down, as for why I was doing this? Simple, if Nightmare Moon was still evil, the crystal heart woulda punted her ass halfway across the badlands as a fine powder, as it tended to do with dark magic. "I am....or rather WAS Nightmare Moon, now I just go by Moon, since I am no longer part of Luna, I find myself unable to control the moon, but I can still enter the dream realm with ease." Nightmare Moon, rather just Moon now apparently, sat on a makeshift chair of a wooden box and just looked at me waiting for my reply. Raising my right eyebrow I decided after a few seconds to speak up. "From what I know, you where destroyed by the elements of harmony, so why is it you are here in your own body? I thought when you where hit with the elements that they purged you and destroyed you." It was an honest question after all, from what we saw in the show she was turned into dust. Moon sighed. "While the elements did purge me from Luna's system, it didn't destroy me, it forced me to see the wrong I had almost caused, a world that was frozen while the other half was molten rock and magma, where all species except alicorns went extinct, I was nothing but a shadow of what I once was after the elements had their way with me, it took a few years but slowly I started to reform in the corner that my armor had been left in, three years after that I had a body again, yet not even a quarter of the power of what I once had, another few years after just living in the everfree." "Alright, and what did you do after that to end up here?" I had checked the time on my pipboy, it would be a late lunch but either way, I'd eat soon. Moon started to look sad as she spoke. "I tried to make amends, yet was chased off by the guards before I could get a word in, I almost got hit by a weird tube like weapon that shot lead and made a loud sound when fired, like a crossbow if it was beefed up heavily." "So they shot at you with guns? Strange I didn't take the royal guardmare's to be the violent type, but what do I know." I shrugged. "I've only been in this world for less than a month, for all I know the guards could be power hungry morons, either way, I do understand why you came here at least, the good news is no one should fear you here so you can live a semi normal life." She seemed to perk up slightly at that. "I'd like to have a normal life, but I still wish to rule, do you think that would be possible?" I face palmed. "Not unless you wanna fight Chrysalis for me, because at the moment she dedicated herself to me cause I saved her hive, even though I told her she didn't actually have to do that." That was true, after Chrysalis and her hive had been fully moved in, I explained to her that she did not in fact, need to dedicate herself to me, but despite that she still went with it anyways. I expected Moon to say something along the lines of 'but it must be so, I am a queen am I not?' or some crap like that, what I didn't expect was for Chrysalis to pop up from nowhere. "Now now, who says we have to fight? Can't we all just...share?" Chrysalis gave a coy grin and I simply gave her a deadpan look. "Really? Just really? Your gonna go and do that? By this point you may as well be saying 'hey this is an open invitation! Come join the party!" I kept the deadpan look up, if this continued I'd need to make a rule about asking me first. "You can do what you like with Moon, but I don't think I want another mare added to the relationship, least not yet, my species normally keeps it to one guy, an one girl, I'm not against more, but I don't feel like that at the moment." I was saved when a small alarm started going off on my pipboy. "Well look at the time ladies! Looks like I'm needed! See ya!" With a flash of blue I teleported outside the Empire's walls by the main gate to greet the royal guardmare's "Hello, can I help you ladies with anything?" I had nearly forgotten that the royal guard had been following the ponies that ended up inside my Empire at the moment, until the proximity alarm started going off alerting me on the camera feed about them. A guardmare stepped up, unlike the rest her armor was a purpleish color mixed in with the gold, rather than the plain gold color normal guards wore, they also all held weird weapons...looked like tesla guns actually. "I am Captain Spring Dancer, and from the reports I've been given by my pegasus scout you are currently giving asylum to fugitives wanted by the Equestrian Royal Guard and Government, as such I request you turn them over to us for processing in the judicial system for trial and sentencing." I laughed. "Most certainly not! They already signed up for citizenship and where accepted into the system, I don't allow citizens of MY Empire to be threatened by another, so I am going to have to ask you lot to leave." Captain Spring Dancer, along with her other six guardmare's frowned and she spoke up again. "I will repeat myself, you WILL turn them over to us for processing in the judicial system for trial and sentencing, this is the last time I will ask before I use force." With a nod her guards aimed their weird tesla guns at me, which was a mistake. The second they took aim at me a small military base within the Empire got an alert, and four minotaur in X0-1 power armor, holding a .80 cal machine gun each, teleported in with the use of the relay system, with a violent flash of blue I was surrounded by said minotaur guards, whom in turn to being aimed at, took aim. Instantly the guardmares shot my minotaur, who responded by shooting non lethal rubber rounds at them, causing dents in their armor and most likely breaking a rib or two, I held my hand up and the shooting stopped, a minotaur gathered the strange tesla guns they had dropped due to massive amounts of pain, before I nodded and he relayed away. "Lets try that again, and next time I'll authorize the use of LETHAL rounds, you will leave, and you won't come back, I will be telling Princess Celestia about this attempted attack against myself, along with the fact you blatantly disrespected the ruler of another Empire." As the guards where flying away, I forgot to mention they where pegasi, I took out a silenced ten millimeter pistol, and once they where a fare bit away, took aim at Spring Dancer, and shot her, straight in the ass, left cheek, causing her to yelp loudly and almost fall out of the sky, I simply laughed and relayed into a communication room, as I was about to call Celestia over the radio a screen popped up with the message {URGENT}, so I opened it and to my surprise it was Tempest. Tempest bowed, before standing back up, her right eye glowing a menacing red. "I wanted to report that the ship has started sending out signals, most likely a sensor of some sort to map the solar system, they are close enough now that the ships sensors can scan them, however I will keep the ship cloaked for the time being, if they want to make first contact it will be up to them, I have an array of programs going to translate language along with as many translation spells as I know of, and that's about 41." I nodded. "Alright Tempest, keep me updated, you have the ability to message my personal phone, so remember to call that and not the main communication array room, as I may not always be in here, that is all for now Tempest, keep an eye out on that ship, end communication." The screen went black, and I went back to doing random things, for instance, trying to make a cannon that could launch bottles of Nuka Cola. ============================================ Deep into the solar system================================ As an unknown ship approached the center of the Solar system slowly, it's captain, Saverak Keska (Sav-Er-Ak Kes-Ka), a humanoid lizard like being, was staring out the port window with shock clear on his face, unlike normal solar systems, where all planets orbit a sun, there was a blue and green planet in the center of the solar system, with the sun orbiting it. Saverak Keska looked over at the navigation computer while others where helping to pilot the ship, speaking of the ship, it's official name was the RRU-1701 'Intrepid Explorer'. The first of her line, the ship is the 'Tip of the Spear' in every sense of the term. She has large flaring engines at the rear that's connected to a tapering Hull towards the front of the ship. The front of the ship has a large opening in which the end of the barrel of her Spinal mounted Plasmatic Lance protrudes from and along the Hall are grouped batteries of Point Defense weapons and Rapid fire Chain Guns. Saverak Keska turned to Mongesk Sespine (Mon-Gesk Ses-Pine) "Executive officer, I want you to tell the soldiers to be ready for a fight, I also want you to make sure they know that under NO circumstances stances that they will fire first, we want this to be a peaceful first contact!" She nodded. "Yes Captain, anything else before I do as asked?" She held a rather....modern looking tablet in her 'hand' while typing into it. Sevarak Keska nodded. "Yes, I've noticed on the scanners that there are satellites around the planet, I want to see if we can hook into one of those and get some information on either this system, or those whom inhabit it, as from what I'm able to see they have no colony worlds within this system, if need be wake the computer analyst from cryo sleep, I want a connection to those satellites and I want information on the inhabitants of this planet so we know what we are getting into before we make first contact." Mongesk Sespine nodded again. "As you wish Captain." She hurried off typing into her tablet. while Sevarak Keska turned back to the view port, the planet within sight as they slowly got closer to the planets moon, as they where about to pass the moon however, the ships alarms started going off as an absolutely massive ship seemed to teleport into their view, but what happened in reality was that the ship had uncloaked, the ship was strange in shape and had a weird blue light surrounding the entire thing, and weapon after weapon could be seen, all aimed at his ship. ============================on board the Crystal Lorenzo============================ Tempest kept a neutral face as her ship, the Crystal Lorenzo, uncloaked to prevent the unknown...and rather phallic looking alien ship, from reaching the planet, and the Empire, until it was deemed safe, she would prevent it from making it any closer to the planet, she grabbed a plasma communicator, it was hooked into a zetan super computer that had been enchanted to have a multitude of translation spells, along with having built in programs that would help immensely in translating anything almost instantly, she clicked the on button and the screen lit up. "This is Captain Tempest of the Crystal Lorenzo, state your business within our solar system." It took a few minutes, but she eventually got a response, the screen lit up as a lizard like alien appeared on screen, it's slitted eyes seeming to dart around studying her for a few moments, before it, seemingly a HE spoke. "This is Captain Sevarak Keska, captain of the Intrepid Explorer, our intentions where merely exploration of other solar systems in search for life, and as it seems, we have found what we hoped to, we wish to open peaceful relations between our two species, and will ensure it happens at all costs, we wish not for war, but for peace and allies in the vastness of space as we explore and colonize new worlds." Tempest grabbed a personal phone, and called Lorenzo, seemingly talking to him for a few minutes, she nodded and hung up before turning back to the alien on screen. "King Lorenzo has deemed it safe enough to allow your ship to land in a port within the Empire, with escort of the Crystal Lorenzo, follow this ship, and do not deviate, do I make myself clear?" Her right eye flashed red, while she was acting tough, she was secretly glad that computer's programs and translation spells worked well enough that she could understand the aliens. Sevarak Keska nodded. "As you wish, we shall follow you and await your command." Tempest nodded and synths running the ship, turned it around, slowly the Crystal Lorenzo entered the atmosphere, closely behind it was the alien vessel, within 15 minutes the Crystal Lorenzo was hovering over its normal landing port, and landed as normal, while the smaller alien vessel landed less than twenty feet away from it, on a standard troop carrier landing pad. History would be made as for the first time, an alien stepped foot onto Equis, and thus, a new era was to begin that would forever change the face of the planet, at the moment that didn't matter to Tempest however, due to the fact she was talking to Lorenzo on the phone again. "Yes, yes, just bring them to the crystal palace throne room, don't let them wander off, escorts will be sent, don't let them bring weapons, pretty much the standard procedures for when an ally ruler is visiting the Empire." I grinned, aliens, actual fuckin aliens aside from the zetans, this would prove to be interesting. > Chapter 26 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Captain Sevarak Keska, his name from what Tempest has told me, would arrive at the crystal palace within, about 5 minutes, as the landing pad for the Crystal Lorenzo was relatively close to the palace, I was waiting patiently on my throne, which I had modified quite a bit, it didn't look all that different aside from a small panel on the inside right armrest of the throne, and the bottom being more curved like a half bowl, yep, I made it so my throne could fuckin hover like one of my fighters, it was still attached to the floor however, with a press of a button from a holografic interface from the small panel I mentioned before, it will eject from the floor and I can hover around in it, so now I don't have to walk everywhere or get in a car, hahahaha, I just imagined that old guy from Futurama. I was waiting for the Captain to arrive, I had some technology I would be able to trade for alien technology, for example a fusion cell, a fusion core, and other random bits n bops of technology, as I'd want to see what kinda alien weaponry and robotics they'd have, also I'd like to mention that due to the zetan blasters found from that site, energy pistols where now much more compact than the bulky classic laser and plasma pistols, so that meant sleeker, more powerful designs, for example an alien atomizer with a slicer barrel, it fired a blast of energy in the shape of a half moon, it was designed to slice limbs off, you can most likely guess where I got inspiration for that, and another weapon that I was happy to now have, a plasma defender pistol, a small, sleek plasma pistol, it fired green plasma and used small crystals as ammo, it was a rather nice sidearm to have, I kept it in my inventory slot next to my ten millimeter pistol. Soon enough Sevarak Keska was escorted into the throne room, he had a muted red scale color, one blue eye and one red eye and he has a tattoo over his left eye in the design of what most would call a Celtic Knot, other than that he was mostly humanoid, two legs, two arms, hands or some sort, you get the idea, but what I found interesting was a case he had with him, it looked like a high tech suitcase meant to carry enough stuff to last someone a night or two, much to my surprise he bowed, as most tended simply to not do that regardless of whether or not they where from my Empire, or just visiting. "Greetings your Majesty, I am Captain Sevarak Keska, captain of the ship that your vessel stopped in orbit of the planet, I wish to extend peace between our two planets, and civilizations, and to become trade partners and allies in the vastness of space." He handed me the case he was holding, so I opened it. What was inside was blueprints for alien technology like their ion engines, something I had no use for, but someone else I know might, their Plasmatic Lance, seemingly a super weapon that could only fire once due to their limited ability to store energy on their ships, along with some other bits n bobs, I closed the case and set it aside. "I'd like to accept your peace and trade, I myself have some items that you could most likely use as well." I handed him a box that contained a few fusion cells, three fusion cores, a few fission cores, and some old laser pistols that no longer had use within the Empire, due to the new designs. This went on for awhile, he talked about many things, how their people thought their entire planet was a goddess, and thus they had united as a species rather early on, due to that their weaponry was not all that impressive, except for their self contained energy bullets, it was a standard round of ammunition, but it fired off a beam of energy rather than a solid lead projectile, all this information was pretty damn interesting, along with useful, so I had a holotape recording everything on my pipboy, it would later be uploaded to a terminal and upgraded into a digital format for storage on a storage disk. This all took about five hours itself, during that time I'd had a chair brought in for him while we talked, and after it was all said and done, trades struck, and a few other small details, he was let back into his ship, and as we agreed, it would stay grounded until the zetan FTL had been installed into it so he could go back to his home system and give the glorious news to the rulers of his planet, thats right, just two, I think two, he never gave me a number, ruled over his entire planet, and their solar system, quite astounding, I wonder just what Humanity would be able to achieve if they put aside their petty differences and just worked together for a common goal? I'm taking like I'm not part of humanity, and to be honest? I knew I was different to most people, now not all people are bad, far from it, but from my experience on Earth, those in power tended to be greedy, spiteful, and a few other not so nice things, that tended to bring in more bad people, and then it just goes on, unlike most I'm not a greedy power hungry maniac, can you honestly tell me if some random psychopath with a power boner came to this planet, to this empire, before me, that it wouldn't turn out worse? Oh look I'm ramblin again, this is all besides the point, the main point was that the meeting took 5 to 6 hours before everything was said and done. I got up off my throne, intending to get myself some grub before going to sleep, I had missed lunch due to the meeting, since it started at about 12, and I planned to go to sleep early cause it was exhausting going over every little detail for trade, peace, and alliance of military units if needed, but it was a win-win situation in the end. As I walked into a small, private dining room, meant just for 5 or so people, in the event I didn't want to just use the stupidly lavish dining room, and sat down, as normal there was a mister handy just patiently waiting for me to order something, it was a lot like a restaurant actually, I had gotten bored of trying to think of something to eat every day or night, so I'd had a menu created so I could just go through, and choose, new things where added to it every day, so I'd always have new selections of foods to try, I'd decided on something I'd come to enjoy more and more, a one pound cheese burger with onions, pickles, lettuce, tomato, and a side of onion rings, a classic nuka cola, and some ketchup to go with it all. In less than twenty minutes my food was given to me, and I ate slowly, talking about an hour to eat everything, once I did I walked to my room, well Chrysalis, Moon's, and my room now seemingly, thankfully Chrysalis had been smart enough to have a larger bed replace our old one, as she was currently cuddling Moon on it, leaving the other half for me, without taking my clothes off, due to being to damned lazy to do so, I just layed down, and within seconds I was asleep, into the land of dreams. Right away I noticed something was off with my dream, for one I knew it was a dream, which was extremely rare to begin with, but I could recognize the place I was in, it was that blue void of stars that Luna took ponies to when she was in their dreams, and thats when I saw her, Luna I mean, she was standing there looking at me with a strange look in her eyes, she had on a black dress, along with her normal tiara and other crap, she didn't look happy, I wonder why? Luna glared at me. "I have heard news of the imprisonment of my friend and fellow princess, Twilight Sparkle, I demand you release her this instant and drop any and all charges of her name, and pay reparations for damages caused to her being." I raised an eyebrow. "Why are you just NOW getting to invading my dreams and demanding something? That happened over a week ago." Twas true, it's been little over a week since the 'Twilight incident' happened. Her eyes narrowed. "It matters not why I was not here sooner, what matters is that you will release Twilight, along with that parasite Nightmare Moon, and Chrysalis, into Equestrian custody, or face the wrath of the night." Her horn started to glow white. I just laughed. "I will be doing no such thing, there is nothing you can do to scare me, go on and try it! I'd love to see what you can come up with, I love horrifying things and scary monsters and the like, so do your worst." It was true, I'd loved horror games back on earth, notably Dead Space, and Alien Isolation, and some others. Luna grinned. "Lets see you face the horrors that my ponies have created to scare themselves, shall we?" Her horn glew again and a few zombies popped up, but not normal zombies, just....green ponies with green eyes and fur.....no blood? Rotting skin and fur? No exposed bones? Boring, as such I rolled my eyes, and she tried again, this time it was large spiders, that once again, did not scare me, so I held up my hand causing the summoned things to vanish. Luna was frowning by this point. "Fine then, if I cannot scare you into doing that I want, then I shall take my leave." She turned around and made a motion as if to open a door, only for absolutely nothing to happen, her eyes widened as she turned around. "What did you do!? I am unable to leave your dream, something that should not be possible!" I kept a neutral face as I spoke up. "You see, this is MY head, and I've just locked all the exits." Luna frowned. "It matters not, all I have to do is wake you from your sleep, and I will be free." She seemed rather smug in that assumption, but I'll be the first to shatter it. I grinned, a normal grin, that turned slowly into something the Joker himself would be proud to see. "Wrong again Lulu, once I fall asleep, I don't wake up until my body's automated response kicks in and I get up at the same time I do every day, and I just fell asleep, so we are gonna have tons of fun together!" The scene shifted from empty blue space, to a dark black void of stars and planets as a ship formed around us. "You tried to give me nightmares? I've seen things that'll make you scream and beg for death, only you won't get that." The screams of ponies was what Luna heard next as she saw mutilated ponies, with large scythe like bones where their hands should have been, slashing into other ponies, brutally killing any whom they targeted. Luna looked from the gory scene back to me with wide eyes as I grinned. "Have fun Luna! Lets see how long you survive the hoards, shall we?" With a small poof I was gone, now able to watch the dream, no not a nightmare, I loved horror and always dreamed of things like this, and watched the chaos unfold with a smile on my face. Luna tried to summon up her magic to leave, but like I had told her, I locked ALL the exits, she would only get out if I let her, or if I woke up, the pony necromorphs turned their attention away from the slaughtered ponies, to her, their eyes milky white, skin torn and rotten, large jagged teeth and no bottom jaws, a classic from Dead Space one, they lifted their scythe like bones up, and charged her. Luna did something she thought she'd never have to do in a dream, she ran, she ran for her life, down halls, past other bodies, some in worse shape than others, she quickly ran into an empty room, that had a vent inside it, and nothing else, the door slammed shut behind her, as she was about to relax the doors had something large, and heavy slam into them, as two blades pushed their way through the doors center, and pried it open, Luna growled realizing a mistake she had made, she should have nothing to fear! This was only a dream, she should be able to just will it away and be free, so Luna tried once again to will away the nightmare before her, only for nothing to happen....well, nothing aside from the necromorph slicing her in half spilling her organs and blood everywhere. Luna's eyes shot open as she awoke on another section of the dark and damaged ship within the void of space, and Luna realized she would not be free so easily, she didn't have much time to think about why she was in another section of this weird ship, before she heard a hiss behind her, slowly turning her head she saw a black, faceless monster staring back at her, it's jaws open to reveal a smaller mouth inside it's main mouth, she had only a second to think before the second inner jaw of a Xenomorph shot through her skull, once again resetting the 'level' that she was in. The funny thing about all this was the fact this was just one of the simulations my soldiers went through for training, and they handled it much better than Luna currently was, who may I add was screaming in agony as another horrific creature tore her apart. This would teach her not to go screwing with me, it may be a bit evil yeah, but it would teach her a lesson she'd never forget. > Chapter 27 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- You know, the interesting thing about torturing ponies in their dreams, is that they can be exposed to much greater amounts of pain and suffering than they could withstand while awake, if a pony was awake, they would pass out from too much pain but you can't pass out if you're already sleeping, or knocked out, and a pony can brought to the edge of fear induced death by reliving the same horrors a thousand times, with no hope of escape. That is exactly what Luna went through, and I laughed every time it happened, since she was an alicorn, therefor immortal, she couldn't die, not that easily, but it damn well scared the fuck outta her pretty well, now, I will go, for I'm waking up, to Luna I've been putting her through hell for a week, when in reality it was hours, thanks to the fact time passes slower in your dreams while your sleeping. If I was being honest the thing that really made this funny to me? This was all just a minor part of the simulations my soldiers train through, and the best part? I wouldn't be telling Luna that, I wanted her to think these things where REAL, and that if I wanted to, I'd unleash them on her, or at the very least, make her think they where just real, out there, waiting for the right time to attack her. Luna woke up screaming in horror, her sister, Celestia, was standing at her bedside, as Luna had started screaming like she was being murdered about twenty minutes after she fell asleep, Celestia quickly hugged her. "Luna! Tell me whats wrong! What happened?" Luna stopped screaming, her eyes bloodshot, her fur pale, and her mane sticking out at random places. "I tried to get Lorenzo....to release Twilight, as she is one of my only real friends....and I tried to give him nightmares to make him release her..." Luna sounded dead....hollow, emotionless, as if she had been burnt out. Celestia's eyes widened as she listened closely. "Go on Lulu, it's alright for now, just tell me what happened." Celestia said, a bit of worry creeping into her voice, as Lorenzo may very well declare war over this. "He subjected me to such horrors....bodies that wouldn't die, mutated ponies whom only moments ago enjoyed conversation with friends, only to die and mutate so quickly, then to kill their own friends, family....foals...demons made of black ink, a demonic dancing clown that ate foals....black creatures designed to kill, sharp tails, a mouth filled with teeth, and a second mouth on their tongues that easily pierced bone and brain matter...." Luna was unable to continue, and Celestia just hugged her. "Take all the time you need Luna, I'm sorry but I need to deal with a few things, just rest for now, I'll send for somepony to wake you up during lunch so we can talk in more detail about what happened." Celestia nuzzled Luna's cheek before teleporting into her throne room. Princess Celestia looked down at the mare that had caused the most recent annoyance to her, Spring Dancer, former captain of a squad of guardmare's, she was a lean, athletic pegasus mare mare with a rather large chest and a thick ass, her fur was an autumn gold color, while her eyes where a light hazelnut brown, her mane and tail where a mix of gold, white, and brown, currently under threat of the death penalty for treason, or another option, one that would prevent a war from happening. "You have been presented with two options Spring Dancer, your very life may be in the hands of another, choose now, or I'll choose for you." Celestia's tone was flat, no kindness could be found in her voice, and some may even say it was borderline threatening. Spring Dancer nearly pissed herself from fear, looking over the two options she had been given, she didn't quite like either of them, but option two was much better, at the very least she had a better chance of living, at the very least she could beg to live if he turned down the offer Celestia was going to give him, with that logic in mind, she spoke. "I choose option two...your highness." Princess Celestia nodded and summoned a pen and parchment, before writing a letter, and closing it with a seal of red wax, along with an enchantment. "You are to take this letter to King Lorenzo, only he may open it due to the enchantment I have placed upon it, go now, for you are no longer welcome in Equestria after you cross the border, you know what will happen if you come back." Spring Dancer nearly cried as she nodded, and flew off as fast as she could out of the throne room, and to the train station to await for a train. After Spring Dancer was gone from the throne room, Celestia seemed to deflate like a tire being popped, she was tired of dealing with stressing crap like this and had to have a much stricter list of rules for her guardmare's to follow, as if Lorenzo had been any other ruler, then surely war would have been the outcome, however Celestia was not stupid, far from it, she knew the reason her guardmare's acted out of line with King Lorenzo was due to the fact he was male, the only real known male ruler, and males tended to be expected to upkeep the house, raise foals, cook in the kitchens, and other things like that, not all where like that, mainly stallions from the apple family, but due to the rarity of stallions in Equestria, she'd had to make it illegal for stallions to not make a herd at some point. Princess Celestia sighed, she remembered when the population was almost completely 50/50, but that had been well over three thousand years ago, since then stallions started dying off, soon after a few minor battles had taken place against monsters, and at the time, hostile kingdoms, stallions had died in the thousands, soon enough it got to the point where Celestia had been forced to act on the matter, making it so only mares could join the guard, she feared war not only for the lives of her guardmare's and everyday ponies, but for stallions, if they where killed off her kingdom that she had worked well over a thousand years to keep safe, and thriving, would die like a pony stepping on an ant. ----------------Old Empire----------- Princess Cadence had noticed in the last few years of her controlling the Crystal Empire, that the crystal heart had begun to loose power, she also realized that it was due to her censoring of the crystal ponies culture, but it wasn't much of a culture, it was books about bloody battles and graphic details about ponies doing.....sexual..things to one another, books about knights defeating horrible beasts and dragging the bloody and battered corpses home as a trophy to show off to others, paintings of the same things, she outlawed jousting, dueling, and banned crystal stallions from joining the guard, following Princess Celestia's lead, she tried to make it much like Equestria in terms of how the other gender should treat one another, she expected stallions to do what they did back in Equestria, and she had collected all of those books, paintings, statues, and other such 'culture' and had them pilled outside of the crystal palace, it was going to be a public event that after years, she'd finally let the crystal ponies start anew, and forget about their violent and depressing past. Cadence stood on the balcony that was built into the crystal palace with spells placed around it so whatever she said would be amplified ten times her normal speaking voice. "Crystal Ponies! Today is the day we have all been waiting for! The day where you can all start anew, and forget the depressing past that you all lived with for so long, today is a celebration! Today we burn the depressing, and gory books that hold your sad past, and then we shall move onto a brighter future!" Cadence's horn lit up, aimed to set a pile of books, paintings, and other things like that, on fire. Before Cadence could shoot the pile with a spell intended to set fire to almost anything, she was tackled by one of her own guardmare's, much to the gratefulness of the crowed of assembled crystal ponies. "WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS! I AM YOUR PRINCESS! RELEASE ME AT ONCE OR FACE ATTEMPTED TREASON!" Cadence all but yelled into the guardmare's face. The guardmare's face went stony, before she lifted one of her armored hands, and started beating the absolute shit out of Cadence, and screamed, each word accompanied by a punch. "TREASON!? YOU BETRAYED US A WEEK AFTER YOU CAME INTO RULE! YOU MAY HAVE HELPED STOP SOMBRA! BUT YOU WILL NO LONGER RULE US! YOU COME INTO OUR EMPIRE, TAKE OVER WITHOUT EVEN ASKING US, AND ON TOP OF THAT!? YOU TRY TO FUCKING DESTROY OVER A THOUSAND YEARS WORTH OF CULTURE BECAUSE YOU THINK ITS DEPRESSING!" By the time she was done, Cadence's snout was broken as fuck, she had a black eye, her horn was cracked, and she was missing about 15 of her teeth. Shining Armor, Cadence, and any other Equestrians where quickly gathered into the throne room, and locked in after being tied up and having horn rings shoved onto their horns, since most of them had been unicorns, and left to rot while crystal ponies, crystal guardmare's, and general citizens of the empire gathered all of their belongings, paintings, an entire library worth of books, paintings, small statues, a few old dragon skulls, they reluctantly left the crystal heart on its pedestal under the crystal palace, while they may have hated the Equestrians, they where not cruel enough to let them die in the harsh cold, despite what Cadence had tried to do for the past few years, plus most of them knew Cadence was related to Celestia in one way or another, so if she was killed then they knew not even the crystal heart at full power would be able to save them from her solar might. The entire empire's worth of crystal ponies gathered at the train station, taking 5 trains to fit them all, along with the items they had taken with them, which itself took up two trains, all of this had taken about 3 hours, by now surely the Equestrians would have broken out of the palace throne room, and to the warehouses containing those giant metal abominations, based on Sombra's designs, after everypony and every important object had been loaded up, the trains set off. ------------------Lorenzo's Empire--------- I grinned watching Sunbeam Cuddle do a little dance, she had taken to tap dancing, which was a bit weird to watch, but it was still absolutely adorable. "As always your adorable Sunbeam, it's good to see you have hobbies outside of being the pony who deals with incoming electronic main and organizing my schedules for the day to day things." Sunbeam was grinning. "I'm happy that you still keep my employed when what I do could be done by a robot hehe." She laughed lightly. I rolled my eyes. "Nonsense your better than any ole robot Sunbeam, don't you forget it! I'm off now as you know, I got crap I need to do, sadly, but you should join me for a drink sometime, I don't have many actual friends, and your one of em, so it would be nice to hang out more often!" I relayed into the throne room after I finished speaking and she nodded, it was nice to see her happy working for me, after all a happy pony is a productive pony, and due to the fact she looks adorable with a smile on her muzzle. It was just a little after lunch time, so while chatting with Sunbeam I had decided to get us some food, she had a sandwich, I had myself a BLT with extra bacon, yum, either way I was sitting on my throne bored out of my damned mind, I didn't have to do anything for the next three or so hours other than going over recommendations from soldiers on how to improve quality of life within the military, and I did so happily, accepting a few things that made sense, and denying the things that where just plain fuckin stupid, like mandatory party day, no one likes going to a party if it's mandatory, that and it was just stupid. As I was going over a few things, as I mentioned, when a glowing portal opened in the center of my throne room and wouldn't ya guess it, none other than Discord popped his mix n match'ed ass outta it, I'd say it was this worlds Discord, but he had the same general body shape as an anthro, so I knew this was my worlds Discord. "Lorenzo my buddy! I've finally found you!" He floated down and hugged me hard enough to make my back crack. I'll admit it, I yelped. "Gah! Where the fuck have ya been!" That was an honest question, cause I knew he could go through other dimensions, but not actually find somethin specific. He chuckled and set me back down on my throne. "Celestia's been throwing a hissy fit since your empire up and VANISHED leaving a rather large crater in the frozen north, since I owe you a favor, and Celestia asked me to, I've been searching for you for awhile! I'm glad I found ya!" I nodded. "I am as well! This means there is a way back to my world after all! Once we get you the needed magic from one of my magic generators!" His happy mood seemed to sour a bit. "Sorry Lorenzo, even if I wanted to, there is some weird magic surrounding your Empire, it's FAR stronger than mine, something that shouldn't be possible, so while I may be able to visit, I can't do shit about moving your Empire back to its rightful place, not much I can do I'm afraid." He shrugged. I frowned. "Well fuck then, just remember how to get back here, and let Celestia know everything is fine at the moment, my scientists are working on a way to send my Empire back as we speak, making very little progress in doing so, but some effort is better than none." He nodded. "Alright will do, now that I know how to get here, her top mages can also begin to work on a way to bring you back! Till then I leave you with this little gift, keep it on you at all times! It'll allow me to get back here quicker!" He handed me a......fucking twilicane.......god fucking damn it Discord. I looked at the twilicane, then back to him. "God damn it...really dude? Just fuckin really?" I said with a deadpan look on my face. He nodded with a laugh and with a flash of yellow he was gone without another word, while I stored that abomination of a cane in my inventory, I was so tempted to jam the thing down his throat because of how many memes where made back on Earth using that thing. I sighed, now I at least knew there was a way back, and I'd get there, even if I had to cut my Empire into tiny bite sized chunks to do so, as this planet was beginning to go fuckin nuts, hell I had other rulers trying to win me over with gifts of gems, chocolate, whine, and other crap, what do I look like to them? A lonely woman with an addiction to booze and chocolate? Hell some of em sent chocolate covered flowers, keep in mind not all of em where doin this, the Griffon Empire wasn't, it was mainly the caribou and minotaur doin that, tryin to get in my good graces or whatever the hell it is they wanted. I also had some news from the medical side of research that was going on at Med-Tek about a mile away from the palace, the zebras where adept in using potions to cure things like a broken tooth, mane loss, and cancer....YEP thats right, the zebras had a fucking cure for cancer in a drinkable form, if anyone on Earth ever got their greedy fuckin hands on that they'd try to sell it for millions, then governments, ones without free health care that is, would up the price so those who had cancer would either have to pay up or die, or just die from lack of money to buy it, unlike greedy fucks like that, chems where cheap as hell, one copper bit could get ya 3 chems, if you went to a hospital in need of medical aid everything was free, food, housing for awhile till you could leave, medication, everythin, I came from the US before I ended up with my own Empire, and I can tell ya just how stupidly fuckin expensive health care was, those Canadians had it good. The alien's ship had been upgraded with a fusion plant, energy shields, and a zetan FTL device so they'd be able to go back to their star system or whatever and give the news to whomever they answer to personally, in other news aside from that Crystal Prime was being upgraded with energy shields, like Defender Prime had, after he was upgraded he'd be sent to help Defender Prime with building a wall around the badlands, since I now effectively owned that land since it belonged to Chrysalis, but since she answers to me now, it was official, I now owned an Empire the size of a continent, so yay I guess, more land, resources, places to build more cities and homes, plant a few forests for ponies and others to enjoy a walk through, without worry of bears or wild animals attacking. The Crystal City ship was coming along nicely, along with four more versions of Defender Prime, the first one would be the leader, while the new four ones would just act as general defense against things like tatzleworms, nasty bastards those are, and you may be wondering how I had sky scrapers and roads, and a bunch of other things made within months, that was due to the fact my Empire didn't use normal cement or concrete, it used the roman concrete and cement, mainly the kind that sea water made harder, so unlike modern concrete from Earth, mine would last for thousands of years, it would kinda need to since I was plannin for the long run. I was about to head off, to check on the development of the Crystal City, when I got a notification about a train that had pulled up close to the Empire, a train station had been allowed to be built by the Equestrians, but not directly into the Empire itself, I learned that lesson after the Blueblood incident to not allow any trains into the Empire's walls unless it was the metro trains under the city, either way the train only had two ponies inside it, a pegasus mare, and the conductor whom simply continued on her way with the train after the pegasus had gotten off, with a quick scan my scanners told me she had nothing on her but her clothes, a letter, and some water, so I pressed a button and she was relayed into the throne room. "Yes how may I help you today?" Holy crap I just felt like a shitty fast food employee saying that, I nearly died inside hahaha. The mare bowed. "I am...or was, Spring Dancer, the guardmare that almost caused an international incident, and for that I have been punished, my life is literally in your hands, with that I give you a letter written by Princess Celestia herself, only you can open it due to the enchantment she placed upon the scroll." She handed me an old fashioned scroll. I opened the scroll, and to say I was surprised, would be like saying shooting tnt was dangerous, actually no it would be like saying 'hey lets smash atoms together and stand in front of it, it'll be fun!', only then, would it not be an understatement, the letter read as such. To His Royal Majesty, King of the Crystal Empire, Protector of His Realm, The first of His name, King Lorenzo. On behalf of Equestria and it's people, I extend to you the mare beholding this letter as an offer of peace. She Dishonored herself, the Guard she was apart of and her nation by trying to attack you in your own home. For this she has been convicted of Treason, The only crime in Equestria worthy of Death or Exile. I as princess of Equestria and Head of the Solar Guard Defacto, have decided to commute her sentence if she agrees to the following conditions. 1. She gives up her Rank and all future obligations to the Guard. 2. She agrees to be dishonorably discharged from her branch of service. 3. She Agrees to be Harmony Bound to you in Marriage. With this Marriage I hope to secure peace between our nations. But should you decline, I will be forced to execute her as is her punishment for her crime. I hope you will make the right choice in all this, her life is in your hands. Her Royal Highness, Princess of Equestria, Sol Invictus, The Thousand Year Sage, Princess Celestia. I read the letter a few times, looked up at the mare, down at the letter, then back up, before I face palmed and pulled out my phone, calling a certain number. "Chrysalis, get your ass down to the throne room, now, no I don't care that your currently 'busy' with Moon, this is more important." I hung up and waited for about 5 minutes before Chrysalis walked into the throne room. She looked rather sweaty and was panting, most likely either from her 'fun' with Moon, or running here, most likely both hehehe, either way she didn't look very happy. "What did you want Lorenzo? You know how I get when I'm having my fun." Without saying a word I trusted the letter into her face and she took it, and read it, before she looked to the mare, and broke out laughing, hard. "By the Maker! Celestia must be desperate for peace if this is what she did! I guess we can keep her, she ain't gettin no royal power however." I shrugged, at this point I didn't care about others being added to the herd so long as Chrysalis was fine with it, mainly cause she was the only one having 'fun' with those she wanted to join, at the moment it was just her and Moon, now I had another one in the lot.....damn it soon enough my entire palace will be filled with mares, I don't want that. "Alright miss Spring Dancer, you may stay here." She seemed to brighten up at that and Chrysalis led her off to the bedroom, most likely to continue her fun with Moon. I grabbed a piece of paper and began writing on it, after about a minute I was done, and tossed it into a relay tube that teleported it directly to Celestia's throne room. ------------------Canterlot Castle Throne Room----------- Celestia was enjoying the fact day court had finally ended, and she was free to do as she wished, when with a violent blue flash a letter smacked her in the snout, she opened it and it read as such. Dear Princess Celestia Dafaq? I accepted the marriage thing, but don't pull crap like that again, I don't want a palace full of mares, thanks, King Lorenzo, Ruler of the Crystal Empire, and Fucker Up of Shit. Celestia broke out laughing hard, took her about 5 minutes of wheezing non stop for her to calm down enough to smile. "That was entertaining." > Chapter 28 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was about, two weeks since the 'marriage' incident as Chrysalis has taken to calling it, winter was here, for Equestria at least, the perks of having many mini crystal hearts and just generally being in a desert had the perk of not dealing with ice fuckin cold snow n sleet, thankfully. A few things had happened, for one the Crystal City was complete, so my robotic factories where producing upgraded gen-2 synths by the thousands to staff it, when I say upgraded, I mean better intelligence, more sturdy, for example replacing their plastic bits with solid metal alloys enchanted to be as light as a feather, their skin was still rubber however, but that was not the only development to occur within the time span of two weeks, a massive migration of this worlds crystal ponies had seemingly come to my Empire, twenty thousand of them. Yep, that was right, twenty thousand crystal ponies just up and moved to my Empire, and the kicker for WHY they did this? Quite simple, seemingly this worlds version of the pink bitch was just as stupid as mine, sadly enough, as she had been trying to CENSOR an ENTIRE CULTURE because she thought it was 'depressing' and 'gory' , and your damned well right it was gory! These guys where like this worlds version of the Romans! They had gladiatorial fights, public bath houses, harsh punishment for the smallest of things, and it was glorious, and seemingly these ponies where much taller than their Equestrian counter parts, about 10-14 feet tall was normal for them, so about the size of my minotaur soldiers and citizens, it was now official, my Empire had a population of 2529859, the exact count, since the Citizen Identification System kept track of ALL of em. Unlike the crystal ponies whom lived within my Empire there where no crystal pegasi or crystal bat ponies, I forget what the main term for them is, sorry, but either way despite them just being standard, by this world at least, crystal earth ponies, they where as I mentioned before, fucking huge! They acted mainly like Romans and their culture was like that of the Romans in many aspects, for example they believed in more than one god, a god of war, a god of technology, etc I forgot to mention, but the gen-2 synths where not the only robotic units to get an upgrade within my robotic forces, sentry bots were being upgraded and enchanted with magic so they wouldn't over heat in battle, or just on patrol, which was a great thing since they tended to explode if someone shoots their exposed fusion cores, they where still able to open up and vent heat if needed, since the enchanted frost gem stuck and welded to their chassis on the inside near the fusion cores could become damaged if a bullet hits it, destroying the enchantment. Cadence was throwing a hissy fit last I knew, trying to locate 'her' citizens to punish them, and whomever was hiding them from her, wait till she finds out they are in my Empire, she won't stand a fucking chance if she tries anything, some other news is that there is seemingly a Winter Gala, which is a day before Hearths Warming Eve, it was today, and I was invited to attend, for whatever reason. My Empire celebrated things like Thanksgiving, Halloween, a version of Christmas called 'The Winter Festival' and a few other smaller holidays, mainly because after telling a few of my citizens about those holidays they wanted in on that, they also shared an Equestrian holiday known as Hearts N Hooves day, like valentines day but with less massacres. I was going to attend it, mainly just due to the fact I had nothing to really do this week since all there was to do, was oversee the robot factories pump out robotic units to man the Crystal City, and that got old pretty quickly, so I was dressed up in the classic tuxedo for every fancy occasion, I wore it to my worlds gala, I may as well wear it to this one, as well as a simple crown, it was grey with a common diamond in the center, It was made of steel rather than any precious metal, and the gem was common due to the fact, I was not one for fancy things, but alas it came with the territory of ruling an entire Empire. Sometimes I think of what I'd be doing if I was back on Earth, doing the mundane job I had been working at for the past three years, no family, few friends, really going to this world, the first one that was, and to this Empire, was a miracle if I'd ever seen one, shit I was rambling again, sorry bout that, seems to be happenin a lot lately, either way, back to the point, I was ready to go this this Winter Gala, it was exactly seven PM, the time the gala started, so I pressed a button on my pipboy and was relayed into Canterlot near instantly, the perks of teleportation that uses none of the users energy, wonderful. I ignored the stares and gasps of shock when I teleported in, as one tended to get used to that happening after awhile, since that was literally the only reaction I got from someone not expecting me to teleport near them, as expected there where a lot of ponies, all dressed up fancy n crap, mares, stallions, yet no fillies or colts, I guess that made sense since this gala was supposed to have booze, wine, beer, and other forms of alcohol. Since I was royalty, despite the fact I wanted to decline, I was allowed, pretty much forced, to skip the line and go straight into the ballroom, I think that's what it's called? I'm not very sure about what the room was called, it was large, roundish, etc, ya get the idea, it was a fuckin ballroom, I head to the bar almost instantly after I saw it, and took a look at the menu they had, all of it was rather....overdone fancy crap, but they did have something I liked. The bartender was a unicorn mare with dark grey fur and a deep orange mane and tail, dark red eyes and magic aura, a bottle of green brandy as her cutie mark and a longer than average horn, as for how I was able to see her cutiemark without seeing her ass? The anthro ponies had their cutiemark printed on their clothes on the right shoulder, the second she noticed me her eyes seemed to light up like a firebomb over Iraq. "Hey your that guy! King Lorenzo! Ruler of that larger crystal empire!" She sounded excited, yet something was off about her....I decided to quick save, so if something happened I'd respawn in that spot. "Yes that would be me." I nodded at her. "Why? Was there something you wanted from me?" I tilted my head as I sat on a bar stool. She nodded, before she gave me a look I know all to well, it's the look Chrysalis gives Moon or Spring before she pounces on them for fun times, that instantly set off a few red flags. "Your the ruler of a kingdom, and I wanna be a queen sooo....wanna fuck after my shift is over?" I shook my head. "I'm sorry but no, aside from the fact I am not interested, I'm in a relationship at the moment, so I'll have to decline and just order a whisky." The happy look on her face....turned to anger, before she turned around and grabbed a bottle of whiskey, and since she was turned around, all I heard was the whisky being poured into a low ball glass before she turned around, suddenly happy again. "Here you go sir, that'll be 3 bits." I handed her 5 bits. "Keep the change." After that, I drank my drink, and seconds after it went down my throat I knew something was wrong, I found out a second later what is was as I started to cough up blood, then I began to absolutely VOMIT blood and bile everywhere, while she was smiling and other guests where screaming or gasping in horror or disgust, before I fell to whatever the fuck it was she put into my drink, I pulled out a sawed off shotgun and shot her right between the eyes, the look on her face as those two barrels raised up at her head was priceless, before it was blown off her face, rather violently, and thus I died vomiting my guts on up on the floor, falling back into the puddle of blood and guts. I was dead for about 14 seconds before I respawned and yawned, as I was used to dying by this point, since it happened more often than you'd think, but seemingly the other guests where not used to seeing someone just come back from the dead all fine and dandy as if nothing ever happened as paramedics were on me in an instant, checking my blood pressure, getting a blood sample, fucking. everything. Within a few seconds they where trying to strap me to a stretcher, before I backed the hell up. "OI! I'm fine! check on the mare who's skull met my shotgun shells, she fuckin poisoned me, so I shot her right in the fuckin dome." The medics turned to the mares body, to see the front half of her skull destroyed, it was just gone, they took the body away on the stretcher, and sensing the stress still in the room, I just causally walked out and into the gardens, only to bump into someone I didn't expect to see at a party like this, Scootaloo, however she didn't look like a little filly, she looked like she was 16 or 17, around that age. She just looked up at me with wide eyes, despite her assumed age, I was still two feet taller than her, damn that mare is short, either way she was just looking at me, before she asked something I would have never expected to come from her mouth. "Can you make it so I can fly?" I was taken aback by this, as I had always assumed she just had stunted wings that would grow as she got older, seemingly this was wrong however, but since I had the Cybernetic Organism Project, COP, I knew that cybernetic wings where an ease to give a pegasus with damaged wings, or a unicorn a new horn, even replacing an entire set of legs, so I nodded. "Yes I do have something that would make it so you could have the ability of flight, however to be allowed access to that you'd need to be a citizen of my Empire." Scootaloo seemed to think for a few seconds. "How can I become a citizen of your Empire?" She tilted her head and flicked one ear down....FUCKING HELL even anthro ponies doin that was heart attack inducing adorable! HNNNNNHG! After getting my heart back under control from the overdose of DAWWW, I chuckled. "You take a few tests, say a few oaths, and then get an ID, fill out some paperwork, and blam, your a citizen, able to get all the benefits that come with it, for example, free health care, free housing and electricity, water, the whole nine yards, a ubi of 1000 bits per month, what you do with the bits is up to you, however getting a job is purely your own job." Scootaloo thought for a minute. "Alright, I'll sign up to become a citizen sometime tomorrow, see you King Lorenzo." She walked off, strange considering I never told her my name, then again I guess I am in more than a few news papers or magazines that show life within the Empire itself, so It shouldn't be much of a surprise that she knew who I was. I shrugged and sat down on a bench looking over some fancy floral arrangements and hedges trimmed to look like Celestia, what I didn't expect five minutes into watching birds flutter around, was for someone's large, white fluffy wings, to wrap around me causing me to yelp slightly. Celestia chuckled. "Got'cha!" She sat down next to me and wrapped a wing around me, I wasn't gonna complain, those wings where soft as fuck. "What brings you to me Celestia? Ya need somethin?" I tilted my head, it was an honest question as far as I knew. Celestia nodded. "Yes I'd like to apologize about the mare that tried to poison you... I'm so very sorry that these incidents keep happening between our two kingdoms... I'm just so worried your going to think this is some plot to assassinate you or something, and start a war with my Equestria, something I above all else, will do anything to prevent..." I just chuckled, which seemed to confuse Celestia. "Listen Celestia, you don't need to worry about a war, so long as you don't outright declare war on my Empire and start blastin the shields with solar blasts, we're good, okay?" Celestia's worried expression melted away and she smiled. "Yes, I understand Lorenzo, thank you for calming my worries, I've just felt as lately if Equestria was to go into a conflict I'd be unable to prevent or stop it before to many died." Celestia leaned forward and hugged me, I hugged back, and behind us I saw the flash of moonlight on metal, to be specific, a fucking rifle. "GET THE FUCK DOWN!" I pushed Celestia off me and onto the ground before pulling out a standard hunting rifle, with a scope, and took aim in vats, having a 67% chance at hitting the target I put all my AP points into it, and shot them three times, once in the shoulder, and twice in the head, Celestia yelped but after I made sure the bastard was dead, I helped her back up. "Sorry, but there was a sniper behind us aiming at you or me." I pointed to the body less than 20 feet away hidden slightly behind some tall hedges. Celestia gasped and then did something that surprised me, she fuckin hugged me hard enough to crack my back, causing ME to yelp yet again. "Lorenzo, while I may be immortal, I can still bleed, and go comatose if I loose enough blood or are injured enough, you may very well have just saved my life!" She set me down after my back cried 'I SURRENDER! DON'T SHOOT!' causing me to groan. "Damn mare! You work out? Ya damn near turned my back into dust!" I grinned seeing her blush from that comment. "Anyways! I hope you enjoy the rest of your time here at the Winter Gala, but I must be off Lorenzo, I hope to see you again at some point, we should write to one another every now and again." She teleported off, taking the body with her, I just chuckled and watched as winter colored fireworks went off in the sky. > Chapter 29 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was a day after the Winter Gala, Scootaloo was at the train station with her two friends, Sweetie Belle, and Applebloom, they had decided, if Scootaloo was going to go? They'd all go, and it's not like their sisters or parents could go and do anything about it since they where by all means, in pony culture, considered to be old enough to live on their own and make their own choices, at the age of 15 you where considered an adult and allowed to do what you wished, within the law of course. Despite that both Applebloom and Sweetie Belle knew that their sisters would most likely try to track them down, and it would be pretty easy to do so, they did not hide where they where going, they each left notes, by the time they'd find them however it would be a little to late to stop them, except Scootaloo, whom had talked to Rainbow Dash about joining the Empire so that she could finally be able to fly, and Rainbow Dash had, much to Scootaloo's surprise, encouraged her to go and join. Each filly had two suit cases filled with the possessions they'd wished to take with them, Applebloom had brought some outfits, basic things like a toothbrush, water, a few scrap books filled with photos of various family members, her diary, those kinda things, while Sweetie Belle had brought pretty much the same, except for her bringing her various walkmare music tapes, along with her walkmare tape player and headphones to listen to them along with blank tapes she could put messages or music onto with the use of her walkmare's microphone setting, Scootaloo only had one bag however, filled with clothes and the few personal items she owned. The Friendship Express slowly pulled into the station, after it came to a complete stop the CMC boarded the steam locomotive after presenting their VIP tickets, they'd pooled their bits together to get a VIP car all to themselves, overall 60 bits, while pricey, it came with it's own toilet and bunks, something they'd need since the train ride was going to be ten hours long, the Empire was south rather than north, due to some weird teleportation from what everypony knew, so it would be awhile before they got to the badlands. The train started rolling off the tracks after letting out a loud hiss of steam, it was seven AM, it would be near 5 pm by the time the train arrived at the Empire, so they decided to waste some time reading or listening to music or just napping. Meanwhile back at Sweet Apple Acers, Applejack was knocking on Applebloom's bedroom door "Come on Applebloom! It's time to wake up! Ya'll are gonna be late and miss breakfast!" Applejack knocked again, before pretty much saying screw it, and opened the door, only to find the room empty of Applebloom, and a few of her personal items, looking around she noticed a note on the bed, and picked it up. Dear Applejack I have decided to go to the new Crystal Empire with Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle, I know you most likely won't be happy about this, but I'm old enough to make my own decisions, once I get there I'll write you a letter to let you know how everything is going. Applejack stood staring at the note before she face palmed. "Celestia damn it Applebloom....Celestia fucking damn it...." ------------------Ten Hours Later------------------- The train came to a screeching halt, to which Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Applebloom grabbed their bags and got off onto a rather barren station, even then the station was a mile or so away from the actual gates of the Empire, something that had been made apparent as a long road of black concrete had been constructed, and a bus station placed next to it, the CMC dragged their bags to the station and sat on the bench there. "What do you think the Empire will be like?" Sweetie Belle asked, turning to Scootaloo. Scootaloo shrugged. "From the magazines I've seen, it's better than anywhere else that's for sure, I don't know all the details, just those published in news papers and magazines." She shrugged again. Applebloom nodded. "My sister went there and said it was like a paradise, everypony could get anything they wanted or needed, within reason that is, fancy robots n stuff like that was common, and there was more than jus crystal ponies, she saw diamond dogs, minotaur, zebras, and changelings." Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow. "Changelings? I thought they where evil." Applebloom shrugged. "I dunno bout that, but it looks like the bus is here." It was true, an automated bus that you'd mistake for an average metro bus had pulled up, aside from it's wheels being white and it having round headlights, and no driver, it looked like a bus you'd see somewhere in a large city taking people to and from places for cheap, aside from the mentioned details and the two laser turrets build into the door of the bus to prevent hostiles from boarding, the CMC boarded the bus and seated themselves, they where the only three on the bus itself. The ride only took about 15 minutes before the gates of the Empire came into view, they where built into a large, tall, and most likely thick, wall of metal and concrete that had a shimmering blue field surrounding the outside of it, the large gate opened as the bus pulled up, and then inside, before it closed again and the sound of large locks was heard and the gate sealed itself shut from all potential attacks. The bus doors opened and the CMC got off with their bags, while the bus just seemed to stay put as the doors to it closed up, and a mister handy floated up. "Visitors or are you here to sign up for Citizenship?" It was holding a pen and a clipboard. Scootaloo spoke up. "We are all here to sign up for citizenship." Applebloom and Sweetie Belle nodded in confirmation. One of it's eyes nodded. "This way then to the Citizen Sign Up Process, CSUP, for short." The mister handy floated through a door into a room filled with tables, pens, papers, and terminals, the new holographic kind. "You three are to fill out the relevant information asked on the terminals, go over the rules and laws of the Empire, the perks of being a citizen, what you have to do once you join, your employment options based on, or your lack of, cutiemarks, please press the red button that is labeled 'press for assistance' after you are finished, or have any questions." The handy floated out of the room, to where nopony would know, unless they followed it only to find it at a desk sorting through papers, because it had nothing else to do. The CMC each went to their own terminal, and began the long process of filling out the needed information, taking some tests, learning some of the Empire's history, enough that they wouldn't need to blindly stumble around when they where granted entrance, this took three hours, during 15 minutes of which they where provided with basic sandwiches and water and juice since it had been hours since they had last eaten. After the process of filling out information and going over a few things had been done, they where lead by two gen 2 synths carrying Empire standard combat rifles, marksman stalk, bayonet, extended magazine in .308, etc, and wearing Fallout 4 marine combat armor, they where taken to a room that had another mister handy in it, along with chairs and tables, more like desks than tables, and they where seated at a desk each. "Please pick up the lie detection crystals and repeat after me." They grabbed the green crystals they had been presented with. "I swear to uphold the values of this Empire, to cause no harm to citizens unless in self defense." "I swear to uphold the values of this Empire, to cause no harm to citizens unless in self defense." The crystals glowed green, showing they where telling the truth. The mister handy continued. "I swear to follow the laws presented to me to live within the Empire, I accept any responsibilities placed upon me when or if I seek employment, either by civilian businesses or by the Empire government itself." "I swear to follow the laws presented to me to live within the Empire, I accept any responsibilities placed upon me when or if I seek employment, either by civilian businesses or by the Empire government itself." Once again a green flash. "That will be all, you may place the crystals down and go to the DNA and Identification room to get your blood samples taken, and ID's issued to you, along with charge cards for your bank accounts, of which the amount of 1000 standard bits will be placed for you to use as needed each, unless you wish for a shared account, then 3000 bits will be placed into one." They where lead to a room that held a nurse handy robot, pretty much a miss nanny robot but with a red medical cross painted on it, and called a nurse handy, within seconds each of the CMC had one vial of blood taken from them before they where given stimpacks, causing the needle hole to close up, then a short walk later they each had a picture of themselves for the Citizen Identification System. All of this took most of the day, and once they where done, they where now legal citizens of the Crystal Empire, ready to begin their new lives as such. > Chapter 30 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was three days after the Cutiemark Crusaders had joined my Empire, after they where given Citizenship I personally went down to welcome them into the ranks of my Empire's citizens, and saw to Scootaloo getting her cybernetic wings, she'd take a few days to get used to them, then she'd be able to fly as if she had the ability to do so when she was first born. I had decided to make a few changes with random things, for one gen-2 synths, would now be called androids, no gen 2 or anything since they where my own versions of them, the other changes I didn't actually have a say in doing, remember those miniature crystal hearts I had being set up everywhere so the entire Empire had a barrier like the one the main crystal heart produced? As it turns out, those hearts connected to one another in some sort of wireless hub with the main heart, boosting their power along with the power of the normal crystal heart, and in doing so everything was altered... as in, the concrete, now looked like grey crystals, samples where taken from the cement and concrete, and an inch under it was the same, but for the rest? It had transformed into this super strong yet durable crystal, now the rest of the Empire matched the center where my Crystal Palace stood, before I had everything expanded. Blue Gadget and Astral Starlight had worked together, and with the help of Flim and Flam, they created a laser rifle, but it was about three times as powerful as your standard semi automatic AER9 laser rifle, it looked about the same, but it was made to be lighter, it's beam was purple rather than the deep red you'd expect it to be, due to the crystal arrays used to focus the energy into a beam, they designated it the AER-10 laser rifle, and with a few tests, it was shown to be effective against dragon scales, something that no normal laser would be able to do, it used fusion cores for ammo the same way a AER9 would use fusion cells, so that it would have three times as many shots before needing to reload, it would be classed as a medium weapon due to it's use of fusion cores as ammo. The AER-10 would NOT be replacing standard AER9 laser rifles, but it would be issued to new android units as their standard weapon, after it went into mass production with the use of the machines placed in factories due to the Contraptions DLC, they would then work off game logic, never needing to be cleaned, never breaking, over heating, you get the idea, in other news Moon had to go to therapy due to ...issues, she was very emotionally unstable, she could be fine one moment, then the next she'd be ripping apart the robot that asked her if she wanted sugar with her tea, other times Chrysalis would find her sobbing in our room alone, thus it was decided she needed therapy. Spring Dancer acted more like a general servant than anything else, but mainly just followed Chrysalis around or did what she wanted, she actually seemed happy to be here, which is not something I expected, like, at all, I expected her to be miserable here since she was pretty much forced to choose coming here, or dying, but no she seemed happy as can be, I swear sometimes I will never understand ponies, from either world. As I was about to finish working on my little robobrain project, which was almost complete after all this time, the crystal heart started to spin rapidly again, which had been happening lately so it was just seen as it bleeding off excess power from all the positive emotion it was having to absorb, before as expected it shot a beam of positive emotions, given form in the shape of a blue, yellow, and purple beam, into the air that soon made an aurora affect, but them something strange happened, unlike normal where the aurora effect would just wave around in the air making a pretty light show, it shot off to the north, something I found weird, but shrugged it off, the thing acted weird all the time, not like there was anything I'd care to do about it so long as it didn't hurt the Empire. ------------Old Crystal Empire--------- Princess Cadence, the Princess of Love itself, was in horrible condition, despite the time that had passed, and all the medical spells placed upon her, her snout was not completely healed, and one of her eyes was still swollen and sealed shut from the build up of fluid caused when it was punched by a metal fist three times as big as her fist, she was now the ruler of an empty empire, sure there where the few Equestrian unicorns she had employed, but they didn't actually live full time in the crystal empire, they'd be leaving within a week once their contract ended and they'd have no reason to stay. The crystal heart had been acting up as well, trying to power up to make a beam like it did when Spike first helped free the empire, but it just simply didn't have the power to do so, and its center had begun to dull, almost a greyish blackish color, she had tried to help the heart power up several times, but it just wasn't enough, she had just given up on fixing the heart, when the most unexpected thing happened, a beam of positive energy was shot directly into the crystal palace, and therefore, into the crystal heart, causing it to spin at a rapid pace, before it suddenly stopped, and a beam of black, blue, purple, and yellow energy shot in front of her, causing her to jump back in shock as something she never expected within a million years to happen, happened. The beam formed a pony, but it was no normal pony, it was the infamous King Sombra, full with his armor, cape, crown, yet strangely enough his eyes where not green and red pits with purple smoke leaking from them, however Cadence didn't care about that at the moment, and shot a beam of magic at Sombra, only for the crystal heart to counter it with another beam of energy, now bright as ever and seemingly at full power. Cadence growled. "What is the meaning of this! What did you do to the crystal heart!" Her horn lit up again in preparation to fire another spell at this beast. King Sombra merely raised an eyebrow at how....beat up, for the lack of a better term, that Cadence seemed to have had a war hammer taken to her face, but shrugged that off, knowing what he had to do, as shown by the crystal heart while it had recreated a body for him. "I did nothing to the crystal heart, however it did do some things to me, shown me...what I've done wrong, and how to make amends with those whom I've hurt." Cadence simply frowned. "I won't fall for your tricks, I will end you like I should have when I first came here!" She launched herself at Sombra, her horn aglow with a violent blue light, only for the most epic bitch slap in existence, to take place punting her pink ass back 15 feet. Sombra turned to the heart, a weird look in his eyes as he reached INTO the heart like it was made of fluid, and pulled out a black, heart shaped item from it. "I will make amends, and I will being her back, I promise you this, whatever it is you are exactly, as from what you've shown me, you are far more than a simple magic artifact.." With that Sombra pulled one of his classic moves, turning into a living shadow before he was gone with a breeze from the wind, his magic leading him to the south. A messenger came up to Cadence less than 15 minutes later, by then she had stood up and had a large black and blue bruise on the left side of her face, despite this the messenger mare showed no concern, since it was not her job to care, nor did she want to be here stuck in the middle of bumfuck nowhere in the north in an old empire that was no longer relevant, either way she handed Cadence a letter, before flying off back to her post. Cadence glared at the mare as she just flew off, not a word of concern for her health or how the princess was doing at the moment, as some ponies should have cared, but most simply didn't, they viewed her with the same contempt the crystal ponies did once they learned of what she was actually going to do, regardless she opened the letter and found much to her surprise, shock, and anger, that her crystal ponies had been found, as citizens of the New Crystal Empire. She was so pissed, she was nearly frothing at the mouth, how dare her crystal ponies just up and abandon her? Then to add insult to injury they joined ANOTHER VERSION of her empire! They may as well be spitting in her face and telling her to go fuck herself, she knew that while it was in hindsight wrong, to attempt to destroy their culture and start new, but honestly! All that blood, gore....the skulls kept as 'trophies' it was sickening to her, Cadence with a quick burst of magic was inside her throne room, and the guard next to her, an Equestrian guardmare, whom 50 or so had been transported to the empire via train after her guard abandoned her, was tapped on the shoulder. "Guard, I wish for you to write a letter, write exactly as I say, then have it delivered to the badlands Empire." The guard nodded and pulled out a pen and parchment. ----------------------------------------------Lorenzo's Empire, 4 hours later------------------------- I was just stuck in shock staring at what I assumed was this worlds version of King Sombra, whom had TELEPORTED into my THRONE ROOM, let that sink in, there where runes CARVED INTO THE VERY WALLS AROUND THE EMPIRE to COMPLETELY PREVENT teleportation of the magical kind, now keep in mind that only allied 20 feet into the empire itself and only blocked teleportation INTO the empire, unicorns could still learn the spell and teleport out and then get stuck outside the walls, military sites had the same runes etched into their walls to prevent civilians accidentally teleporting in, or doing so with a not so nice agenda. Regardless the main reason I'm in shock is what he just explained to me, seemingly this worlds crystal heart, didn't DESTROY HIM by turning him into dust like it was shown on the show, rather it had actually contained him within itself and forced him to see all the pain and suffering he had caused, in a sense reforming him without actually taking away his powers, and he wanted to make amends by bringing back Queen Amora, whom from what I can remember from the comics, was the first ruler of the crystal empire, the reason this was shocking? The crystal heart had told him most of her shards but one had been collected and pieces back together in a room filled with strange medical equipment. I had in secret had my changeling agents use little crystals that could detect Sombras crystallized magic, and find her shards, most where actually already collected by the changelings since they had hopped if they brought her back, she'd be able to help them with their food shortages, so the changeling agents where already out looking long before I got control of their hive, all had come back with something, be it a small shard the side of a coin, or chunks the size of a large soup can. The only piece they had been unable to find was a weird heart shaped thing she wore around her chest/neck area, so the statue of Amore was complete aside from that chunk, and for the moment was stored in a room within the castle under constant guard, and here he shows up, proclaiming to be reformed, ready to bring her back, literally HOLDING the last chunk needed to do so, so doing what any sane person does, I shot myself to see if I was dreaming, as when I shoot myself in a dream I tend to wake up cause the world thinks I need to respawn but then corrects itself. Turns out I wasn't dreaming, if the horrified look on Sombreros face was anything to go off of, so I stood up. "Alright, either way if you had been evil still, my crystal heart would have punted your ass halfway across the badlands as a fine powder, so you gotta be telling the truth, follow me." I walked down a few hallways, with a horrified Sombra following me, before I walked into a room that had a vault tech style sliding doors that slid into the ceiling and ground, anyone who's played the vault 81 dlc know's what I'm talking about, either way in the center of the room was Queen Amores statue hooked into a bunch of electrodes that themselves where connected to those mini crystal hearts. Sombra seemed to...wilt at the sight of her, her face was stuck in a horrified scream while her hands where up trying to block whatever it was she saw before she was turned to crystal, Sombra slowly walked up and placed the heart shaped chunk into its place, it fit perfectly, and I nodded to two crystal unicorns, the four legged ones, and they shot the mini crystal hearts with some of their magic, causing them to spin rapidly and the wires connected to them forced their energy into the statue of Amore, the lines on her crystally prison began to glow blue, purple, and yellow, before the crystal shattered revealing Amore on the ground, knocked out hard, turning to two guards I spoke up. "You two, take her to the medical ward, if need be have doctors nearby ready to sedate her, she may go into a terror filled panic and we need a way to keep her calm, so give her some liquefied day tripper if you need to, but make sure she stays calm." They saluted. "Yes your Majesty." They picked her up, careful to not hurt her, and rushed off down the halls to my own personal medical room, one meant for me if I where to say, fall into a short coma or simply black out hard during the middle of the day due to some injury. I turned to Sombra. "You may wanna get ready for this, those whom have gone through it DO get used to it, but it is nothing like magical teleportation." He nodded and I pressed a button, causing us to relay back into my throne room, I sat on my throne and he sat on a chair provided for him, as per my instruction for when we'd be back. "What do you plan to do once she wakes up? What after that? Are you going to attempt to stay here, or somewhere else?" "If you will allow it, I will stay here, and make amends with the crystal ponies, the ones from....the other empire, and with Amore, if she will allow it, but as I've come to seen she will hold no power here, this is YOUR empire, even if your world had a version of Amore, I doubt the crystal ponies of either empire would just up and abandon your rule to go with her if she decided to take back her empire." I shrugged. "You can stay, but just like everybody else you gotta go through the Citizenship Sign Up process like everybody else, you will also need to stay within the palace if you do sign up, as seeing you may cause a panic within the current population of crystal ponies, from both sides, since you look so similar to Umbra." Sombra nodded. "I understand, I will sign up, and as you wish, I will stay within the crystal palace." It was then an Equestrian mailmare flew in, and handed me a letter, opening it I saw it was from this worlds Cadence, what I was surprised about was the letters contents however. Dear 'King' Lorenzo You are to hereby return my subjects to me within 24 hours, or this will be a declaration of war From, Princess Cadence, Princess of Love and Hope, Ruler of the Crystal Empire. I just simply broke out laughing, this was so damn funny I nearly puked with how hard I was laughing, I decided to write her a response, so I had the mailmare stay, after about 30 seconds I was done, and handed her a letter to take back, and told her I'd be teleporting her there, before giving her a chance to respond I pressed a button and she was relayed back to Cadence's Empty Empire. --------------Old Crystal Empire--------- With a flash that scared the crap out of her, though she'd never admit it, her mailmare was standing before her throne holding a letter for her, after handing her the letter and flying off, Princess Cadence opened it, eager to see the reply she had gotten for her demanding her citizens back as was her right. Dear Pink Cunt of Shit Go Fuck Yourself, no seriously, go fuck yourself you daft cunt I will not be 'returning' quote 'your' citizens, they have all signed up for citizenship of MY empire and legally been accepted, so you hold no power over them, furthermore, war? You must be off your fuckin rocker if you think thats a good idea, as said before, go fuck yourself Signed, King Lorenzo, fucker up of shit, and the guy who will personally beat your face into the ground if you try jack shit. Princess Cadence's anger was almost strong enough to turn her blue magic aurora red as the letter burned to ash in her telekinetic grip, before she teleported herself down to the warehouse that stores the crystal walkers, and turned to an Equestrian unicorn scientist who had been signed onto the project to help with the magic half of things involving these crystal walkers. "Activate the walkers, we are at war." The unicorn mare's face showed panic for a moment, before she nodded and her horn lit up, and she shot a beam into a plug receptor for the crystal walkers, that connected each of them, it only took the tiniest spark of magical energy to cause a chain reaction of jump starting their (MASS) causing them to activate, their single eye glowing pink, and their weapons charging up. > Chapter 31 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I was going over my choices in armor for the upcoming fight, I had decided, that I would beat Cadence's face into the ground, personally, when Sombra spoke up. "Lorenzo, I may have a set of armor that will help you far better than any sets of 'power armor' as you call them, due to the fact this armor will allow you to fly like a pegasus, unlike your power armor's jetpack units which only let a soldier boost up for a few seconds at best." Turning to Sombra I raised an eyebrow. "Explain, because I don't think any armor you have, could be better than X0-1 advanced power armor." It was a real concern if he actually had the ability to make armor better than power armor. Sombra grinned and his horn lit up with the sickly black, green, and red colored magic he used, before with a flash of black smoke, or something that looked like smoke, a set of armor was next to him, it was colored a plain dark grey, red, and had a slot for something I easily recognized, the fucking alicorn amulet. "I will need to modify it a bit for your 'feet' and lack of tail, but otherwise it should fit you since we are about the same size, I show you a creation I only created a day before my defeat at the hands of the celestial sisters, the alicorn armor!" He seemed excited, so I guess this was a good thing. "Alright but how is it better than power armor? And isn't that slot for the alicorn amulet? If that's the case won't it try to corrupt me like it does with anyone who uses it?" A real concern since I don't wanna go all evil an shit. Sombra shook his head. "The corruption is a defense mechanism I designed into the amulet itself, when used on it's own it would slowly make you go insane, however when plugged into the armor, it powers it and boosts the users magic tenfold, I don't know what it will do for you in terms of magic, but it SHOULD do something since I can just feel all that magic you've been soaking up since you've gotten here...or to your world, either way it's a lot, you most likely won't be able to do spells unless it's something basic, for awhile unless you train or something." That came as quite a shock, first of all, Sombra created the alicorn amulet, however looking at the design of it and his armor, I could see that, and the armor itself looks very intimidating, so I shrugged and placed it into my inventory, scaring the crap out of Sombra in doing so, and equipped it, since fuck taking the time to put on plate armor piece by piece, once it was on me, Sombra pulled the alicorn amulet out of his pocket, and locked it into the slot meant for it on the chest of the armor, just bellow the neck. The alicorn armor hummed to life like a suit of power armor, the amulet glowing an eerie red for a moment before it stopped glowing, and then I got the surprise of my life when wings made of LITERAL FUCKING FIRE burst from the armors back, and I could FEEL THEM LIKE THEY WHERE MY OWN LIMBS, fucking trippy. "The fuck?" Was all I was able to say. Sombra just laughed. "I said it wouls give you the ability to fly like a pegasus, did I not? Anyways a little cheat I built into the armor is that the wings connect to your nerves, you can control them as if you where born with them, the armor itself is enchanted to direct energy attacks away from the user." Huh like tesla power armor but with wings, and not as bulky, alright I guess. I flapped the wings a couple of times, causing me to lift into the air. "Damn this feels weird....but I like it..." A mister handy floated up. "Sir, Amore is waking up currently and I was told to come get you." I landed, without planting my face into the floor thankfully, if only barely, causing Sombra to snicker, before I folded the wings on my back, and I and Sombra walked into the medical room I had Amore put into, she was on a typical hospital bed, but was restrained with plastic clamps, in case she had a panic attack she wouldn't go ballistic and hurt someone or herself. I had Sombra stay outside of the room, and I placed the armor back into my inventory after putting it on a tab I could easily get to it in seconds, now just wearing a suit, as I walked into the room I saw Amore was fully awake now, and was looking directly at me, I sat in a chair next to the bed. "Hello Amore, I am King Lorenzo, ruler of an alternate version of the Crystal Empire from my world, a few months ago my empire was brought here, and the changelings collected your shards to revive you in the hopes you would help them, a little while before that your subjects, from YOUR empire, fled to mine as their current ruler has become a tyrant." I let that sink in, see if she can actually speak. She just stared at me for a few moments, before slowly speaking. "How long have I been gone for? What happened to Sombra and my Empire?" I went on to explain how Sombra had been reformed by the crystal heart, and about the pink cunt trying to destroy the crystal ponies culture, how it's been well over a thousand years, and how my empire was different than hers, getting her completely up to date. "Now that your up to date, once your back to full health, we can get you back to your empire so you may take over once again and push that tyrant wanna be off your throne." What she said next surprised me. "It...has been to long, to long for me to take rule again, I spent over a thousand years, not knowing where I was, in constant agony, unable to die...I just wish, to rest for now, I have no desire to take my empire back, if my ponies are content to live under your rule, so be it, but I just wish to rest, after so long being unable to even blink...." I nodded as I undid the plastic clamps on her legs and arms so she could move freely. "If you need something just press that red button on the side of your bed, I must go now, and later when you are in better health, you may inform the crystal ponies yourself of your decision." I walked out of the room after making she she wasn't gonna just, kill herself, I also forgot to mention, but she was like her crystal ponies, 11-15 feet tall, about 17 feet tall more like it, she was the tallest living thing in my Empire at the moment, as even minotaur only get up to a max 15 and a half feet tall. Sombra went in after me, I left them to talk, I didn't want to intrude on their conversation, or whatever they where talking about in there, but let it be known I had turrets inside that room, that would attack Sombra or Amore if they tried to kill one another, they where loaded with rubber bullets so they wouldn't die, just get some bruises. I grabbed my own personal railgun for the battle that would come, I didn't plan to kill Cadence, just beat her shit in, but anything she brought with her? I'd shoot that with no hesitation like someone would shoot a target at a shooting range, the railgun was called Old World Power, and held a 20 round drum magazine, if I have to mention that this railgun, like all railguns that where not inside a ship as a weapon system, looked just like the classic one from GTA5, I will be disappointed with you all, as by now I've established this almost every time I brought up railguns, so this would be the last time I brought it up, the railgun shot capsule cores, tungsten rounds, the difference between normal railgun ammunition and capsule cores, is basically the tip of the round is hollow and inside of it is something like a mini nuke core, like some Demented High Explosive Round, known as DHER for short. This type of railgun ammo was what my ships used, and my space ships used, they where meant to pierce even energy shields, even if the first shots didn't get through, the next hundred would, they could take out a tank with one shot, same for any hostile airship, and a fully grown dragon would be no problem with this baby, and Chrysalis had a surprise for me once the battle started, she was going to play some song over the speakers around the empire used for announcements, so I wondered what song she'd pick. By this point a few hours had passed, and I had re-equipped that armor Sombra gave me, I was just outside the walls, waiting in a chair sippin some sweet tea and munching a sandwich, when the proximity alarm started going off, checking the cameras I grinned, a mile away was a herd of those crystal walkers I had seen in news papers and the crystal ponies had told me about, 50 or so of them, steadily marching their way to my Empire's main gate, and guess who was sitting on top of one of em? You guessed it, the Pink Bitch herself, my only question was how she got them here within two hours, otherwise I didn't care. I waited a few more minutes, before using the relay system to teleport, Chrysalis was watching so she started the song, and I'll be dammed, it was Indestructible from Disturbed, appropriate I guess, I watched Cadence fly down about 15 feet away from me. "Surrender now Lorenzo, and return my subjects peacefully, or I will be forced to take violent action to get them back!" Cadence looked horrible, Sombra's bitch slap musta been somethin to witness, yeah he told me about that, and I laughed hard when he did. I said nothing as I put on my helmet, which was just a standard Far Harbor marine armor helmet painted to match the armor I wore, and raised my railgun up to the nearest walker. "I warned you once." My voice emotionless as I shot causing an explosion of twisted metal and magic as the walker exploded into scrap. "Your not gonna get another one." I grinned from inside my helmet as I watched her fly up to try and protect herself. "Hello said the spider to the fly, where do you think YOUR going? You wanted a fight? COME AND GET SOME YOU PINK BITCH!" The armor's wings unfolded and I flew up leaving a trail of flames behind me as I pulled out a stungun, just a tesla rifle with less voltage, and shot at her, but she raised a shield. Grinning again I pulled out Old World Power and shot the edge of her shield, causing it to shatter and her to fall to the ground dazed from the magic feedback, and after seeing their princess fall in battle, the crystal walkers aimed up, and shot beams of lightning at me, thankfully however the armor protected me, and let me redistribute the energy through the gauntlets, so I went sith lord on their robotic asses and shot lightning at them from my hands, causing a few to short out, before Old World Power took care of the rest, I only reloaded three times, each shot hit was a kill, this 'battle' only took 15 fucking minutes, pathetic really, I landed, once again just barely not falling onto my face, and grabbed Cadence, whom was holding her head in pain. "You've fucked up for the last time, cunt." The last thing Cadence saw was my fist heading to her face before I knocked her the fuck out. "That....was stupidly easy, hell even a sentry bot woulda been more of a threat than your pathetic robots..." Seriously, two legged giant robots? Just aim for the joints and it's down for the count, assaultrons didn't count for that cause they had ARMS and could and did, if need be, drag their broken bodies into battle to fight, same for the androids. I called in a few scrap teams and took the armor off, before teleporting into Celestia's throne room while holding an unconscious Cadence by her mane. "I believe this belongs to you?" I said sarcastically as possible. Celestia just face palmed and sighed before teleporting Cadence away, to I assume, a medical ward or something within the castle. "I honestly don't know what to say, other than thank you for not killing her when she tried to wage war on you." She shrugged, seemingly just tired of bullshit. "I have some good news, Celestia, I have decided what I will trade with you, and what I want in return for it." I actually was going to message Celestia sometime today before I got that letter from Cadence. Celestia seemed to perk up at that. "And what would those be?" I pulled out a list. "I can currently trade, razor grain, bloodleaf tea, steel, as my steel makes yours look like tinfoil, I know I had it tested, canned meats such as cram and corned beef since now I have more than enough to trade, titanium, and thats about it, in return for this I want a large forested area of land, and I want the mining rights, lumber rights, and drilling rights to said land, in return I will send you the items mentioned, in bulk until the land is deemed no longer useful to the Empire, do we have a deal?" Celestia nodded. "Yes actually there is a rather large unexplored section of land that is at what ponies call 'the end of the line', it's where the train tracks stop, the land is unexplored and as of now, nopony has shown interest in the land, it's called the Peaks Of Peril, you may have this land." Celestia pointed out on a map where the area of land was, and it was a sizable chunk of land, about 500 miles or so large. "Alright, you've got yourself a deal, I'll talk to you later Celestia." I relayed back into my throne room, which was by now, empty, cause it was now effectively 10 pm, by now most people where asleep, I was sitting on my throne to take advantage of another game mechanic to come with me from fallout, waiting for hours in one spot, for less than half the time it would actually take in reality, I set the time to 7 am, and within minutes, and thankfully I had an Atomic Punch energy drink to keep me awake. If your wondering, Atomic Punch is Nuka Cola's version of an energy drink, I made it myself and it sells in cans that look kinda like redbull cans, pretty much a fruit flavored energy drink that would keep me up another, 5-8 hours, and unlike morons back on Earth trying to kill people, the caffeine content was CLEARLY labeled,in the EXACT dosage of caffeine you'd get from drinking it. Once it hit 7 AM, I had a drone sent to my new land, and it dropped a beacon I could relay to, so I did, I wanted to take a look at the area before I decided what to do, I was hoping to take all the trees, and replant them in an empty and still undeveloped section of the badlands that I now owned, I wanted to have a forest for others to enjoy, like a national park, except you didn't have to worry about animals attacking you, as for the drilling rights and mining rights, that was just somethin extra on the side, looking around I saw that the area was mostly just forest, a few clearings, you get the idea, I didn't go to deep before I had robots relayed in that would dig up the trees and have them shipped back to the Empire. The robots digging the trees up where just modified protectrons with clamp arms, and other ones had digging drills and shovels for arms, while they got to work on the trees just in front of them, I decided I'd explore deeper, see if anything interesting was inside this forest. Walking through a few bushes and some random shrubs, I started to notice a path, which from what Celestia had told me, shouldn't be possible since nopony lives here, or has even explored this area since Equestrias founding, so I put on a suit of marine armor, cause it's completely sealed, and I didn't feel like getting something weird on me, and started following the path, while holding a sawed off in my hands, I saw a few nice looking blue flowers, so I tucked a few bushels of those into my inventory, another five minutes of walking and I found something absolutely shocking, a species I hadn't even seen on the show! However to be fair, I did get transported to MY equis before the show was over, like, just after that episode about a venom rip off, known as the pony of shadows. Using a stealth boy to stay hidden, I observed this new species, they where.....tall, like the crystal ponies, seemingly like the changelings they didn't wear clothes, however due to the hot humid environment and their fur, I can see why they'd rather be in the nude, as embarrassing as it may be for me to watch them, anyways as I was saying, they had the general shape of a pony, but they all had horns, long tails with tufts of fur on the end, and this weird lion like mane around their head and chest, their horns looked extremely weird, like gnarled branches or something. I walked closer into this weird little village, careful to make no noise as I scanned the buildings, simple huts made of wood, hay, grass, large leaves, you get the idea, what confused me is they seemingly had glass, metal, and plastic, yet I see no signs of the modern industry needed to make these items, glass is easy to make, and I guess metal can be to if you know how, but plastic? That requires some fancy tech to turn oil into plastic, or turn something else into plastic. As I was thinking about this, standing just 15 feet away from the main village, as I didn't actually go inside, it was only twenty or so huts, my stealth boy wore off, and I hadn't realized it till I was being stared at by like, 40 of these weird pony dragon lookin hybrids, at least, I didn't realize it till I felt something tap me on the shoulder, and I turned around to see it, since I was facing away from the village ready to leave, only to see this tall...whatever their called, she was about 18 feet tall....damn talk about tall, her fur was some weird greyish color, her mane and the tuft of fur on the end of her tail where a light greenish cyan color, and her eyes where red, same for her horn, I didn't have much time to think about this before I was dog pilled by these creatures and smacked my head on a rock in the process, knocking me out, fuck I hope this doesn't turn out like that one movie where someone finds a lost tribe in the Amazon, only to get killed and eaten. > Chapter 32 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- When I woke up, about a day had passed from what my pipboy told me, however what confused me was the fact I still had my armor, minus the helmet, on, and I was on some kind of bed, funny enough it wasn't made out of leaves, ferns, whatever the hell you'd expect a bed in the middle of the forest to be made out of, it was like any other cheap bed, soft fabric, a pillow, some weirdly thick blanket, you get the idea, regardless I had the mother of all fuckin migraines at the moment. A quick shot of Med-X helped that quite a bit, and looking around I realized, I was not alone, creepy that I only just now noticed it, that large grey hybrid thing was sitting across from me on some chair, she was the large one I mentioned before, well, larger than the others that is, I still don't fuckin know what they're called....if they're called dracony's I owe someone ten bucks...then again that person is on Earth, so they can go fuck off. What I expected was some sort of tribal language I had no hope at understanding, short of a translation spell, but no I was pleasantly surprised to learn these creatures spoke English, or as people on this plant call it, equish. "Hello, I'd like to ask you a few questions.." Her voice surprised me, it seemed like a mix of Fluttershy, and Twilight, I dunno how to explain it, it just sounded like that to me. I shrugged. "Sure, shoot." I turned to the left and saw my helmet on a small table, a dent had been placed into it, good thing I had it on, otherwise that woulda cracked my skull open, what I find strange is that the helmet is dented by a rock, yet automatic fire from a combat rifle using .45 just scratched it, eh, the fucked up logic of this world. "What where you doing in my village?" The strange hybrid asked me. "I recently acquired the rights to this land, and was going to have the forest moved to my Empire, tree by tree, plant by plant, then simply mine the area of any useful items, like oil, ore, you get the idea." I shrugged, no point in lying, this WAS my land now, but if someone lived here, then I'd just charge em rent. She tilted her head, raising an eyebrow. "And how did you acquire the rights to this land exactly?" I just chuckled. "I don't know if you know this, but your currently in land that once was part of Equestria, a large nation, in return for trade, I was given this land to do what I pleased with." A look of 'oh' came to her face. "I see, and where does that leave us? If we cannot live here then we have no home." She was taking that rather well, I thought she was gonna ask me to just leave. I shrugged. "Ya'll can just move into my Empire if you want, or I could just not deforest this area for the next one hundred miles, your choice." The mare seemed to think for a few minutes, so I just sat there on the bed waiting, before she finally spoke up. "Me and my kin will move to your Empire, as of late we have gotten tired of the constant predators here, do you have any questions you'd like to ask yourself?" I nodded. "Yes, for one what are you? Your species name I mean, and secondly, your name? And last but not least, why are you all nude?" I decided to just ask all my questions in one go, as it would save time, rather than just waste time asking them back and forth. She chuckled, which may I mention, was adorable? Regardless she spoke up. "We are known as Kirin, my name is Rain Shine, the leader of these kirin, as for our choice of nudity? That is a complicated question, there are plenty of reasons to be nude for us, for one our thick fur, and the hot climate we live in, secondly clothes tend to just combust once we get angry, then turning into a nirik, a being of pure anger and flames hot as the sun." Well that was a lot to take in, imagine turning into a ball of fire every time you got pissed? People with anger problems would literally go Dragon Ball Z on some poor ass motherfucker. "Alright that makes sense, so about me being knocked out?" Rain Shine looked sheepish. "Well, that is a rather funny little story actually..." ---------------------------------------------Equestria, Canterlot Castle, Dungeon-------------------------- Princess Celestia was glaring at a now mostly healed Cadence, she was no longer considered the Princess of Love, having been striped of that title, and any authority she had after she was healed. "Cadence.... I am very disappointed in you, not only of recent actions of yours that have come to light, but also because of the actions you took when you couldn't handle the consequences of your actions." Cadence frowned. "I shouldn't be punished for trying to take back what is rightfully mine Celestia, you know that." Princess Celestia's glare deepened, something that was rather rare for her to do, hell it was rare for her to so much as FROWN. "Cadence, you are no longer the princess of love, nor will you have any power, once I am done dealing with the aftermath of the chaos YOU caused, I will be stripping you of your horn and turning you back into a pegasus, it seems I made a mistake in having you ascend to alicornhood." Cadence was screaming at Celestia about how it was unfair to do this to her, that she had done nothing wrong, Princess Celestia ignored it and calmly walked out of the dungeon, calm as you please, before she walked down to the kitchen and snagged herself a slice of chocolate pie. "It seems to me everypony is just going completely insane lately..." She nommed on her slice of pie. ---------------------------------------------------------------Old Crystal Empire-------------------------- As per my orders, robotic strike teams of androids and Humvee style vehicles and troop transport trucks where sent to the old crystal empire, as for why? It's quite simple, to the victor go the spoils of war, and I was going to use the relay to teleport chunks of the empire into empty sections of mine, mainly just the bath houses, and community houses that the crystal ponies from this empire missed, as for how I was doing that, I had androids hammer in metal rods that had actually been receptors for the relay's signals, and it would teleport anything within that area of four rods. As for why I had them on Humvee's? rather simple, they would be using a new weapon, it looked somewhat like an MK2 browning 50 cal heavy machine gun, but it was an elongated plasma rifle, beefed up, and it had a barrel that would fit a .80 cal bullet, but since it was a plasma machine gun, it shot large blasts of molten hot plasma at those crystal walkers, as Cadence had left SOME of them to guard her empire, their main objective however was to retrieve the crystal heart. About, 3 hours had passed since I woke up at that kirin village, and to my surprise, most had been extremely happy to be getting out of there, mainly because tatzle wurms kept attacking the village, and would sometimes make off with an unlucky kirin in it's maw, so I'd have Crystal Prime stationed here till the forest was gone, as while he may be an older model, he was still damned well effective in combat. After being told about them being relocated to my Empire, a few kirin even jumped with joy, while others simply started packing up their items, I had a teleportation gate set up in the entrance to the village that led to the testing rooms for citizenship signup, Rain Shine seemed to just...follow me, offering me weird exotic fruits and other stuff, I excepted the fruit, cause yum fruit, and plus it gave me the chance to have more fruits and plants planted in the empire's hydroponic gardens, one of em tasted like a lemon lime mix, like sprite, but a fruit, delicious. I turned around and looked up at Rain Shine. "Why you keep following me? I don't mind I just thought I'd ask." She looked sheepish again, which as said before, adorable. "You are the first to even visit this village within two hundred years, and you didn't attack us like the last one did, your offering us a safer place to live, and you didn't try to jump the females here like the last male visitor did." I nearly choked in a fruit I was eating. "TWO HUNDRED YEARS?!" That was a real damn concern, if the lifespan of these things was like that, then damn. She just giggled and nodded. "Kirin can live for thousands, if not millions of years, we rarely ever need to mate and make more kirin due to that, it's also why we only go into heat every thousand years, and if we so choose, we can ignore that heat easily." I face palmed. "So this last guy, tried to jump the females here?" She nodded. "Yes, he was gelded quite quickly by a female warrior using a bone knife, he did not enjoy that, he vowed one day he'd get vengeance on us for it, but ponies don't live that long, a hundred years at most, but since you didn't try to rape the females upon seeing them, I have taken an interest in you, since you are so different from any species I've ever seen, that and your handsome." I face palmed again before I just signed and accepted it, not like I could change someone's feelings about me, so I'd just have to introduce her to Chrysalis once I got back to my Empire's crystal palace. "Alright, I'll talk to Chrysalis, and Moon about that, till then however I dunno what to tell you" Rain Shine nodded. "I understand Lorenzo." ------------------------------------------------------------------------3 Hours later, Lorenzo's Empire, throne room----------------- Welp, Chrysalis and Moon had accepted Rain Shine into the herd, rather happily I may add, other than that I had just gotten a bit of interesting news, the NZR was calling for aid to fight the boars, since even with the help of the Abyssinians they had been loosing horribly for the past few years, and where all but about to be conquered by them, the letter was basically their leader asking for help, and that in return they could have whatever they wished, but that it was urgent they get help within the next few days, or else all would be lost. Being the good person I am, I decided I'd help them myself, with hundreds of androids, tanks, aircraft, you get the idea, and I was getting my troops ready for that right now, only the tank crews and pilots would be living, the rest where androids, machines, at the moment Humvee's loaded with MK43 Heavy Plasma Machine Gun, the weapon I mentioned earlier, unlike a normal plasma rifle it would not use a plasma cartridge, it used a plasma cell, a glowing green tube the size of a fusion core but it looked more like a beefed up alien power cell, with metal caps on the end, and green not blue. I've gotten off point by mistake, anyways as I was saying, Humvee's, tanks, and aircraft, where being loaded into modified troop carriers, they'd simply be able to drive out since they where backed into it. This all took about 30 minutes, the tanks I'd be taking where strictly the railgun variant of the tanks I had, that was because I had been told the boars had fucking tanks, however from the pictures and drawings I've seen, they are like the British tanks of world war one. The reasoning I had for using the railgun variants of my tanks, was simple efficiency, regardless of the armor the boars tanks used, they'd be no match for railgun rounds, so I'd be taking no chances, within less than an hour, everything was ready to go, so the troop carriers took off, rather than teleport they just went mach 7. It only took an hour to get to NZR territory, their capital was in sight, and it seems the situation was worse than what they described, boars where attacking their capital with fucking artillery, while defenders launched their own shells back at them, as the troop carriers where landing the boars took notice of it, and attempted to rush them, only for the same turrets that killed caribou, to open fire on them, letting tanks, and humvee's roll out , about 20 tanks, and 40 humvee's, each humvee equipped with with a MK43 HPMG. I simply teleported into the castle of the ruler here, causing her to nearly have a heart attack, she was a tall zebra, 6'7, built like a concrete wall, she did not wear some fancy dress, just simple leather and cloth clothing, enough to stay decent but not enough that her clothes hid her scars, which she had many of, her stripes had a rust color to them, and her eyes where the same crimson of blood, she had on a crown, one that looked like you could ram into someone head first and stab them to death with it, everything she had, was combat ready, that included the rifle she had aimed at me. "I am here aiding your forces, and you aim a rifle at me? Maybe I should go." I wouldn't really go, it was obvious by the time anyone else replied to her call for help, there would be nopony....nozebra? left to help. She lowered her rifle. "Forgive me, I thought this was a surprise attack from the boars...I am glad you answered my call for help, we have not formally met, I am Queen Zulu, and you are?" I chuckled. "I am King Lorenzo, ruler of the Alternate Crystal Empire that now resides within the badlands, which have become part of my Empire's territory and will soon be surrounded by a wall to prove that point." Her eyes widened. "I did not know the ruler of an Empire such as yours, would show up them self, normally if aid is requested, rulers will just send some soldiers or airships to aid those who need it, not fight themselves." I just laughed at that. "Well as you can see! I'm not like most, I like to fight alongside my troops, for now however I'll let them handle whats going on outside, so while that goes on, let us talk about what you meant by 'anything they want' in the letter, as I'd hate to just, take something you actually need." We continued our conversation, while my troops, and the zebra troops fought against the boars, the boars who had been winning for the past few months, suddenly had to deal with tanks that could easily destroy theirs, soldiers that would not stop after getting shot, scary for them, for the zebras it boosted moral highly. Androids driving humvee's drove right up to the front lines, the gunner attending their MK43 HPMG's letting loose thousands upon thousands of bolts of plasma, the boar soldiers, whom had on simple metal body armor, and where using bolt action rifles, while some had light machine guns, where no match for the onslaught of plasma and railgun rounds, let alone the zebras own standard ballistic rounds, the boars tanks stood no chance against railgun projectiles, their futile attempts at harming Empire standard tanks was laughable at best, pathetic at worst as they got blown apart. Within three hours all boar soldiers, combat units, and fighting vehicles either lay destroyed or abandoned, along with their supplies, a victory if there ever was one, and the zebras couldn't be happier, offering androids various forms of booze, only to be disappointed when it was shown that androids can not in fact, get drunk. Back within the palace, castle, whatever I don't know what its called, I was sitting with the Zebra Queen, watching the glorious battle take place, and she was shocked at the efficiency of my troops, funny thing? I didn't even need to use my fighters in the air, the boars just fled as fast as they could, getting the hell outta dodge. As the last boar was seen to be killed via plasma fire, Queen Zulu turned to me. "As the battle is over, and your troops continue to chase them, what is it you would like for helping my nation in a time of need and war?" I shrugged and simply smiled before speaking up. "Absolutely nothing, ya see, I don't help others because I get something out of it, I do so because its the right thing to do, for instance if someone needed water, they'd get water, or food, you get the idea, I helped because I wanted to and felt like it, you owe me nothing for this assistance, and rest assured I will not be stopping here, I will be going to the very capital of the boars and putting a stop to this war." Queen Zulu seemed absolutely shocked, she tried to speak, only for nothing to come out of her mouth, so I just waited as I sat in a chair, for her to compose herself, which took a stupidly long amount of time, ten minutes, after that she spoke up. "How can you not want some form of compensation for MILITARY AID!? Any ruler would ask that at LEAST a few thousand bits be payed for treating their soldiers wounds! The time it took to get here, the ammunition used in the fight, any troops lost!" I chuckled. "I'm not like other rulers, like I said before, I help to help, not for monetary gain, or gain of anything else other than allies and friends." She laughed. "Well you've certainly gained an ally for anything your Empire may need!" I grinned. "Glad to hear it! Drink?" I offered a Nuka Cola, after all I gotta sell this stuff to anyone who's willing to buy it, more bits for the Empire, and consumers get a tasty beverage for it. ------------------------Boar Empire Capital, the king's castle------------------- The boar king looked like the pig king from the angry birds movie, if you gave him tusks and brown shaggy fur, and slightly longer legs and arms, with hands rather than hooves for hands, he was King Bernt, ruler of the Boar Empire, and at the moment he was receiving some troubling news, news about how his forces had been brutally pushed back by some ally of the Zebras that had shown up during the siege of their capital, the last city they'd need to take to completely break the zebras spirits and hope of victory. An adviser, who looked ready to shit himself spoke up after his king shot near his legs with a pistol after being told the bad news. "My King...I believe the only hope we have to defeat this new enemy would be to utilize the new bombs." The King seemed to think for a few moments, before he spoke up. "Yes....that...I can see that working." He turned to a boar guard in rather shiny metal armor carrying a bolt action rifle. "Inform the generals I am hereby authorizing the use of the arcane bombs, A-Bomb, for short, and to stay clear of the designated detonation zones, NOW." The guard saluted before rushing off, and the King smiled, a wicked grin spreading across his face. "Soon those zebras will regret fighting back against me, and so will those cats." His thoughts about the destruction that was to come, made him giddy with glee. > Chapter 33 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Only a day had passed since I had helped repel the boars from taking the NZR capital, and my troops where quickly advancing to the capital of the Boar Empire, these cities didn't actually have names, just numbers, like one, two, three, you get the idea, and I had agreed to help the Zebras with things like food, water, medicine, until they where stable, free of charge, as like I said before, I help others, to help others, not be a greedy fuckwad, already canned goods and canned water was being sent in via troop carrier. Other than that I mainly watched my troops advance upon the boars with scary efficiency, and that's when something fucking weird, and somewhat bad happened, one of my Humvee's was driving over a path left by the boars as they ran, it's MK43 HPMG shooting thousands upon thousands of plasma bolts a minute, simply exploded as the ground under it blew up in a fashion not unlike a somewhat scaled up mini nuke, soon after that the wreck of the Humvee was shown after the dust settled, it was mangled to all hell, it's android driver missing their lower half as it crawled from the wreckage holding a rifle, still shooting at the boars, gotta give it to em, these bots do their job till they are completely dead. The Humvee I was in, I was on top in the gunner turret aiming my new toy out, as I had been helping kill boars, exploded as well after it passed the one that had already exploded, and lemme tell ya, IT FUCKING HURTS TO BLOW UP, after respawning I sat aside on a chair I pulled from my inventory, and messaged the androids, giving the command to stop the charge for now, and called Pam for some automated air support, yep that's right, I had automated fighters, they where faster than the ones that had living pilots since they could take full advantage of their anti gravity engines, and the computers inside them allowed them to react hundreds of times faster than a pony could, which is why the manned fighters where locked at mach 15 for their max speed, while these could go mach 30. The automated fighters also looked nothing like the bulky tear drop shaped manned fighters I had, they looked like a crescent moon shape, which made em look bad ass as they flew through the air, their wingspan was about 50 feet, they where quite large because they'd also serve as bombers, as well as fighters, if need be, they had all the same weapons as a standard fighter, however they had a new weapon as well, plasma mini-guns that where 20 mm, two of em exactly, they'd pop outta the wings, just like any weapons they had, they where hidden inside until they needed to fire them. I was getting off point, I had them called in to carpet bomb the roads ahead of us with simple little bombs that would blow up any remaining hidden explosive devices, I watched the fighters go into a dive bomb, letting out hundreds of grenade sized bombs in a line clear across the entire field and road, for their effort they got 15 more of those weird bombs to go off with explosions of red light, some kind of bomb I guess, I'd find out once we took the capital however. Now that those bombs had been dealt with I got into a new Humvee and with my command, the rest of the troops started moving again, the capital was in sight, it was....boring to say the least, I expected some tall black castle with fire everywhere, but no it was just a simple castle, walls made of concrete. After getting into the town, my soldiers came under fire from boar soldiers, however a few shots from the tanks, and the humvee's HPMG's silenced them pretty damned quickly, now that the city was undefended, this was about to get fun. My convoy of troops plowed through any whom dared to stand in our way, mainly just boar soldiers in plate armor using their well known bolt action rifles, a few pistols, and a few machine guns, as the castle grew closer the boars seemed to just...give up, running away realizing just how pointless it was to try and fight my troops, that was a first, normally the enemy tries to win no matter what, seems these boar had SOME common sense after all, even if their ruler clearly didn't. The castle as I said before, looked boring, but before we got close enough for the guns to start shooting and actually have a chance to hit us, the 5 tanks I had with us shot their missiles out of the missile pods on the sides of each tank, destroying the battlements of the castle wall, and taking out large chunks of the walls, before I lifted an arm up, holding my assaultron blade, and aimed it at the castle, causing the troops to move forward with a battle cry. It was glorious to watch my troops in action, using their AER-10 laser rifles, and plasma rifles, a few had missile launchers, while others had combat shotguns, it was pure carnage, and it was lovely, as my troops delt with the boars within the walls, I walked through the castle doors, and after getting some directions from a guard, whom left as quickly as possible after I got said directions, and walked into the throne room, to see the boar king, in all his hammy glory, pun intended. "So you arrive at last! Seemingly my pathetic guards need better training if they couldn't deal with your forces." He pulled out a pistol from his belt, it was a luger p08, as expected because remember, these guys stole all their shit from the cats, and aimed at me, I simply let him shoot me, before respawning, much to his horror. "You try to kill me? I'd like to see you try! You can take my life but I'll fail to die, but I bet the same can't be said for you, can it?" I nearly broke out laughing at the look of horror on his face as I failed to die when he shot me. "You are a demon! One I must put down!, for the greater good of all boa-" He was cut off once I shot him in the chest with a .308 bullet, right into his heart, causing him to kneel over and cough up some blood, before falling to the floor, dead, honestly why he thought he was a threat to me, will be a mystery forever, oh well. I went over and sawed his head off using my assaultron blade, gotta collect the skull for my trophy room after all, damn room was getting stuffed, I had Umbra's skull, Chrysalis's skull, the one from my world not this one, a dragons skull, Bonejaw's skull, the Storm King's skull, even if I had to have it repaired in certain areas, the skull of that massive caribou king, and the skull of that one elk king that thought he could tell me and my empire to fuck off and move outta the north. I'd have my androids go through this entire capital, taking any advanced technology they'd find, and giving it back to the cats, or using it if it was deemed useful to the Empire. ----------------Canterlot Castle, Throne Room---------------- The throne room had been set up like a court house, with Princess Celestia as the judge, Cadence sat at a table with a cup of water next to her, a horn ring, and wing binders on, looking defeated as Celestia read her charges out loud. "Mi Amora Cadenza, you are hereby accused of the following, attempted cultural genocide, attempted destruction of countless, priceless cultural artifacts, attempted abuse of power as a ruler, abuse of those whom you have ruled over, and overall, abuse of alicornhood, being an alicorn does not entitle you to anything you want, it does not mean you are immune to the laws, you are hereby convicted as guilty of these charges, not even adding on attempted murder of another ruler, your punishment is the loss of any authority you have, and you will be stripped of your alicornhood." As Celestia finished talking, her horn began to glow with a brilliant white, her eyes glowing in the same manner, as the glow surrounded Cadence, and with a flash, her horn fell off, nothing but dead bone. The magical feedback caused by the spell, ripping away Cadence's magic, her horn, and her immortality, caused her to black out, Celestia nodded to a guardmare, whom took Cadence to the Canterlot Central Hospital, to be treated for magic shock, while the attendants of the court filed out in a calm manner, after everyone was gone, Celestia just sighed. "Everything is getting out of hand these days...." Celestia teleported to somewhere she could always relax, the kitchen, with a giant chocolate cake sitting there, if cakes where alive, Celestia would be their worst nightmare. Shining Armor had been at the trial, and he had heard what his wife had done, she had convinced him that what she was doing was right, even if it didn't feel right, and now, Shining Armor was not so sure he could continue being with her, if she was just going to lie and manipulate him, then she was no better than Chrysalis had been on their wedding day, after realizing this, he went down to a court house, and filed for a divorce, he wouldn't deal with a mare that lied to him, tricked him, and acted like nothing was wrong about that, it's why when those robots showed up in the empire, he didn't fight them, he let them take what they wanted, and let them leave without any fight, he was the one to get the Equestrians on the train back to Equestria before the crystal heart was taken, what was going to happen next, he didn't know, but he damn well knew he wouldn't stand for Cadence's bullshit any longer. > Chapter 34 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was about a month after the fall of the Boar King, I had his skull in my trophy room, white as...well, a skull, while I had raided his castle with my troops, I found something that could prove useful, arcane bombs, A-bombs for short, I nearly had a heart attack when I found the plans with only the name A-bomb on the front page, for a minute I had thought these moronic boars somehow got their hands on an atom bomb, or the plans to build one at least, turns out those arcane bombs can be as small or as large as you wanted, if you knew what you where doing, so in truth they actually could be used to make magic nukes. A few things had happened in that month, for one, as promised I sent food, water, and basic medication to the NZR, for those whom have forgotten, is the New Zebrican Republic. However that was not the only thing to have gone on, my little robobrain project was finished, I now have humanoid robobrain generals that are 7-8 feet tall, with the body shape of a human, all armored as well, they had built in railguns in their hands, which had long claw like grabbers, like the ones from fallout 3 and new vegas. They had other weapons built in but it would take to long to mention them all here, another weapon development was gamma grenades, easy to irradiate an area for a long time due to the gamma weapons my Empire uses, so I had spells created to cleanse radiation away like radaway or rad-x does, another gamma weapon that had been invented, was gamma artillery with a barrel that was 190 mm large, it used fission cores as ammunition and each core was spent after it was fired once, it lobbed radiation seven miles in an arc that due to in game logic, would only affect the area it hit, rather than leave a trail of radiation. Another weapon had also been developed due to the robobrains, the mesmetron rifle, a non lethal way to deal with a combatant, it was just an AER-9 laser rifle with the mesmetron dish added to the end like the one's the robobrains had, one hit from that weapon could knock out any target, no matter their armor, and Blue Gadget was looking into making a microwave gun, despite me telling him he's most likely just gonna get himself cooked. I've gotten some questions about things within my Empire, to be specific, do I produce everything my citizens use, and the answer was FUCK NO, I produced the basic things, like toothpaste, soap, canned meats, basic food staples, a few products that where never in fallout, like corned beef, powdered milk, condensed milk, canned deathclaw meat, you get the idea. As for who produced everything else? There where plenty of businesses I supplied with basic goods they needed to function, I shall name them off now, so I stop getting asked those annoying fucking questions. Crystal Burger, a joint like a Mcdonald's but their food wasn't processed cardboard, and actually used real food, I know because I supplied these places, I supplied them with the raw ingredients they needed to make money and sell the food, beef, potatoes, you get the idea, Northern Shakes, a dinner that looked like a dinner from the 50's, or the 60's, their main attraction was their glowing milkshakes. Griffin Groceries, a store run by a griffon that moved to my Empire before the displacement ended us in a new world, they mainly sell raw meats and some vegetables, the meat processors only use parts of the meat needed for cram, and other products, it leaves a lot left over, which can be packaged and sent to those who want to sell it, rotten meat, produce, etc, gets turned into a slurry mixed with the organs no one wants to eat, and then the blood is added from the latest batches of meat, it's then mixed into the soil as a thick paste that helps the plants in the hydroponic and green house sections grow better. The Iron Hoof, the place told custom made swords, knives, and axes, they sent orders for metal, and it was sent to them to where they forged pretty nice blades from it. The Dizzy Barrel was a nice little pub that televised robotic battles from the CrystalCo Galactic Battle Arena. The Beef Slate, which was a butcher shop, quite self explanatory. Gadgets Gear, electronics such as fission batteries, fusion cells, power crystals, toasters, tablets, phones, radios, computers, yep that's right folks, Blue Gadget owns a fuckin electronics shop, funny thing is he runs it for the hell of it, since those under my employment are payed rather well. Otto’s Auto Riffles and Blasters, a nice little gun shop with a rather large gun range inside. Another bit of interesting news, was I had some more Nuka Cola flavors created, after making more test batches and getting high demand for the flavors I'm about to mention, the flavors created are, Lime, cherry vanilla, vanilla, Nuka Crystal! A clear version of Nuka Cola that is lemon lime flavor, like sprite, grapefruit, classic bubblegum flavor, popular with the young citizens of the Empire, Nuka Black, a coffee flavored version of Nuka Cola, Nuka dragon, a dragon fruit flavored Nuka cola. And speaking of cola, the crystal ponies, the anthro ones that is, actually had a soda of their own, Crystal Cola, it was like pepsi, and I hated pepsi, however I allowed it to be sold, under the condition I knew the recipe, and the bottling plant was one of mine, altered for Crystal Cola, as it was sold in generic bottles, rarely anyone bought it but the anthro crystal ponies, so it was no threat to my Nuka Empire, The owner of the brand Crystal Cola, was Crystal Light, a crystal stallion, with green crystal fur, a yellow and red striped mane and tail, purple eyes, his cutie mark is that of a red sun, as for how I knew his cutie mark without looking at his ass? Every crystal pony had their cutie mark in two places, on their shoulder, and on their ass. Another bit of news, was that I was having a mini Nuka World built in an empty part of the badlands the empire wasn't using, it would be nowhere near the size of the Nuka World in the game, but it would be a pretty large amusement park, water park, and a mall as well, just a few rides, a small mall, and a large water park. The reforesting efforts went well, and the Empire now had a national park that was 500 miles long, with picnic areas, and plenty of trees and plants, and some birds. I grinned thinking about how the new robobrain generals would help much more in battle than the old models, as I was walking to Slocum Joe's, yep another business from fallout was made a reality, however unlike the one's you'd find in game, the mascot was a mister handy holding a cup of coffee, you can guess what I named em, Slocum Joe, he owned the joint, it was also not just a coffee and doughnut shop, it was still that yes, but it was more like a Denny's, and it was open 24/7, so anyone could enjoy a coffee and meal at any time of the day or night, and at the moment I needed me some black gold. ------------------------------ Dragon lands----------------------------- The dragons had not been having the best of luck lately, one of the few predators that could actually kill and eat, a fully grown dragon, tatzlewurms, had been attacking more frequently, it had gotten to the point that the dragon population was at an all time low, almost half of what there was less than two years ago, unfortunately for Kristam, the Queen of dragons, no nation had weapons that could kill a tatzlewurm, without wasting so many soldiers lives, so she was unable to ask for aid in terminating these creatures from her kingdom, Kristam had ice-blue scales reminiscent of clear Topaz. Her spines are sharply swept back and partly translucent, with a slight dark-pinkish shine to them, her eyes are slitted with red irises, her claws are a dull golden color, she has two ice-like horns that curl backwards, much like that of a ram, she is smaller than most other dragons, but that doesn't mean that her claws aren't sharper than theirs, her wings, unlike the wings of most other dragons, have iridescent feather-like scales on them. She did have some hope however, as some dragons had reported seeing a giant metal four legged pony killing tatzlewurms in a forested area that was being dug up, and seemingly it had done so with ease, she had dragons scout the known world to find whom that beast belonged to, and after a few weeks of searching they had found it, an empire within the badlands, protected by the strongest weapons ever conceived, or so she was told. Kristam had sent a diplomat to the Badlands to try and negotiate for one of those giant ponies, to kill the tatzlewurms attacking her kingdom, her dragons, their eggs, and their hoards, hopefully it would end well, rather than in violence like when she tried to ask the griffons for help a few months back. ---------------------------------------------Lorenzo's Empire------------------------------- I was enjoying my coffee, and a raspberry jelly filled frosted doughnut, when the proximity alarm went off, I set certain species to trigger the defenses, but said defenses needed my permission to fire, so I looked at the camera feed on my pipboy, and you will bet, I was fucking surprised by what I saw, a motherfuckin dragon, a small one however, rather than the mountain sized behemoths dragons where known to be, I decided I'd actually see what it wanted, rather than just let the defenses shoot it, so I relayed outside the walls to where it was, and I looked up, it was still large, about the size of a deathclaw, maybe bigger, it was yellow, male seemingly by the voice, and what it said next confused me. He looked down at me. "I am a diplomat sent by Queen Kristam, queen and dragonlord of the dragonlands, to request aid in the form of a giant pony, we are willing to trade anything desired for said pony." My mind went blank, and all I was able to say, was. "Wat." > Chapter 35 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Four weeks had passed since I encountered Golden Flames, the dragon diplomat whom Queen Kristam, Queen and Dragonlord of the Dragon lands had sent. Seemingly they wanted help with the annoying pest known as tatzulwurms, I had agreed to help them, however I would NOT be selling them one of the large robotic ponies I had, rather I'd just send in androids with railguns to kill them, if they could punch through dragon scales, I knew it would be easy to kill those worms. And I was right, just 40 androids with standard marine armor and railguns, took out a nest of 60 tatzlewurms, a few where lost yes, but the androids numbers didn't dip below 30, so I was happy with that, and I made sure to have them collect samples of the blood, meat, and bone of those worms, along with collecting any dead android and their weapon, just in case someone came along and decided to try and reverse engineer it, that was done for any battle, can't be to careful. In return for doing this, despite me saying she didn't have to, Queen Kristam gave my androids 3 tons of gold, gems, and other shiny metals to bring back to the Empire just for me, which they ended up needing a transport carrier to pick them, and the gold up, as they couldn't teleport the small hoard into the Empire without the proper container for it. Celestia had sent me a little gift, Cadence's horn, seemingly she had stripped Cadence of her alicornhood for 'abuse of power' I had shown the anthro crystal ponies, and they had been delighted, they had also been ecstatic to see their old ruler, Amore, but had been slightly sad to learn she did not want to ruler anymore, abit they understood why, them being banished for a thousand years would have been a vacation compared to the hell Amore went through, so at the least they weren't mad. For those whom don't remember, I had a Sunset Sarsaparilla vending machine mod installed as well, I mentioned it awhile ago, but never really had to use it, cause my Nuka Cola idea was a huge hit, however I had decided my Empire needed more variety, each one was made with pure sugar, rather than the artificial corn syrup most big brands used, the label of the bottle for Sunset Sarsaparilla was changed as well, from since 1918, to since 2295, since that was the year the Empire was set to, I had just used the in game date, and added a few years, I also now sold Vim and it's many other flavors, all of these had 'Product Of Nuka Cola' somewhere on the bottle. A few weapon developments had been made, we all know the cryolator from in the game, right? Well that had been beefed up and turned into a sleek machine gun just like the HPMG, it was called the HCMG, or heavy cryogenic machine gun, it shot blasts of...something, I don't know what to call it other than ice blasts, that would freeze anyone hit by it after a few shots, and the cryolator also had been turned into a mini gun as well, with the same design as the plasma mini gun's, just like the normal cryolator these used cryocells for ammunition, another development had been the laser bazooka, it was an assaultron head attached to a long tube that looked somewhat like a rocket launcher, but with seemingly random bits n bobs of wires, and other things, and at the end was a slot for a fusion core, this thing ATE through fusion cores like I drank Nuka Cola, it's beam would last about the same time as a standard assaultrons beam, it was classified as a heavy weapon due to that. Another idea that Blue Gadget had, was to make a sodastream style device, as I had told him more about soda from Earth, and how some people preferred to make their own at home using a sodastream machine, so he, without informing me, made a Nuka-Stream Machine, NSM, for short, and it was exactly like a sodastream machine, aside from the shape of the bottle and the canister of gas used to carbonate the water was on the outside on the right side of the machine, and the fact you could use ANY 12 ounce sized bottle, it was about as large as an average coffee machine, but the kicker was that it was meant to be installed INTO a wall, and after getting my approval, he had all flavors of Nuka Cola, in syrup form, so pretty much just the various syrups used to make the many flavors of Nuka Cola, he also did the same for the other sodas I had recently put on the market, as for why he made it a wall installed device rather than like a normal sodastream machine being able to go anywhere you wanted it? So someone couldn't just take it and use it wherever they damned well wanted, it was for offices and factories that needed to save space as much as possible, therefore couldn't have a Nuka Cola vending machine installed, perfect for tight, small spaces, I liked the way Blue Gadget thought sometimes, other times I thought he was insane. I also sold these, and all the flavors of Nuka Cola, in 12 ounce cans made of standard aluminum, the tabs where slightly elevated more than a tab you'd find on a cola can on Earth, so those with hooves would be able to open them as well. I also had plans to acquire some Equestrian brands of soda, and I learned something interesting in my search for brands to buy. Most companies rarely sold their soda in bottles! Equestria was still in the early 'Soda Fountain' stage of soft drinks, so I had a monopoly on the bottled soda business, despite that most RARELY sold soda in bottles, some still did so, as rarely does not imply none, so I'd still have some competition from brands I was unable to buy. Another bit of interesting news was that Twilight Sparkle's sentence was up, however she wouldn't just be thrown back over the Empire's boarder, I'd launch her at Canterlot like a missile, IN a missile actually, she'd be completely safe due to the shielding I had placed upon the pod containing her, and once she was safely 20 feet away from the pod, it would explode into molten metal, destroying it, so I grinned as she screamed once the thing was launched, because she had no idea about the shielding, and she still had her wings clipped and an anti magic ring on her horn, preventing her from casting any kind of spell, I'm pretty sure at some point she pissed herself as she was launched, that was quite the laugh I got from that. She would be fine however, I saw to it, I wasn't cruel enough to just smash her into the ground like a pancake, in other news...Chrysalis was fucking pregnant, I didn't expect that to happen when we did the deed, but the rest of the herd is so excited, this happened about two weeks ago, now she was in a dedicated egg laying room being tended to by nurse drones 24/7, I'm just as shocked as you all are, however Chrysalis assured me they would be changelings, and not a hybrid, and to my surprise we wouldn't even be the ones taking care of the nymphs, the nurse drones would, it was just the way changeling society worked, thank god I didn't feel like caring for 20 hyper children. Yep, 20, she somehow KNEW how many eggs she was going to lay, her stomach was bloated as her nurse drones worked around the clock to construct an egg sack for her out of changeling goop and chitin, that would attach to her, Xenomorph queen style, creepy, yet cool at the same time, and as a side note, that is somewhat horrifying, the eggs she would lay? Would be the size of a damned basket ball, that HAD to be painful as hell, so I gave her med-x to take whenever she needed it, along with addictol to cure any addiction she'd get if she took to much med-x. My Museum Of Technology had gotten a new exhibit, the Gauss Rifle, was added to the long list of weapons, as the outdated, but the great grandfather of the Empire's railguns, despite that not being true at all, it was believable due to how the gauss rifle worked, robots still used them sometimes, built into their arms, mainly sentry bots did, but those where slowly being replaced with railguns built into their arms. Moon's therapy sessions had been going well, she no longer had random outbursts of rage or sobbing, and she had taken a liking to Spring Dancer, they where rather cute when they cuddled, seemingly Spring Dancer had been a friend for Moon, and as a side note, when I did the deed with Chrysalis, I did the same with the rest of the herd, thank GOD only changelings can get pregnant outside of their heat season, as I hadn't really thought about it, and thankfully I was not genetically compatible with the rest, as changelings where the exception, they could mate with ANYTHING and produce healthy offspring, yeah, just let that sink in for a minute. --------------------------Canterlot Castle Gardens--------------- Celestia watched as the missile carrying Twilight grew closer to Canterlot, she had been told by Lorenzo, where it would land, and what would happen after Twilight for far enough away from the pod, so she had any animals directed away from the area to prevent death, just as she was pondering this, the pod crashed into the gardens with a small shock wave of heat, which barely affected her, being in control of the sun she would take much worse than that. Celestia watched as the pod opened up and Twilight was launched out, she was shivering and seemingly had bits of frost on her. After teleporting Twilight to her side, she watched the pod melt as if it where chocolate left out in the sun for a day by some careless foal, truely she was glad Lorenzo was an ally, as even with her solar might she doubted she could destroy everything sent her way, but the hardest part was yet to come, as she still had to punish Twilight for what she had done, so after casting a few spells, returning the half frozen princess to normal and hugging her, she gave Twilight a sad look. "Twilight, while I know you have just gone through quite the ordeal, I'm going to be forced to punish you further by stripping you of your power for three months while you attend mandatory classes to learn how to act around other rulers, and about international policies so you don't almost cause another war, you are quite lucky that Lorenzo is not one to attack for no reason, and that he is rational, had you done this to say, the griffons, or minotaur when their boarders where on lock down, we'd be in a full out war right now, so thank the maker." Twilight looked like a kicked puppy as she nodded and spoke in barely a whisper. "I'll do anything...just don't put me back into one of those pods....it was so cold, I could see everything but not move my eyes...hearing everything going on around me, unable to even breathe..." Celestia hugged her harder. "Don't worry Twilight, I won't do that to you." She nuzzled the purple alicorn and wrapped a wing around her as she teleported them both into the medical wing of the castle to give Twilight a more thorough medical checkup. ---------------Lorenzo's Empire------------ Chrysalis grinned as her nurse drones finished making her egg sack, now after about two hours, she could begin laying the eggs, that, was a part she did not look forward to, however Lorenzo had foreseen this and given her Med-X, something that would numb any pain she'd feel, she was thankful he had thought about that, as honestly she had given no mind to the chems she could have used to lessen the pain of laying twenty basketball sized eggs into a sack filled with mostly liquefied love fluid, or nectar as most changelings would call it. The egg laying room was an old crystal ballroom long since forgotten, it was cleaned up and redecorated to Chrysalis's liking, and she was just laying on a sort of beanbag chair on her back as her body prepared to lay eggs before the day was over. Rain Shine, Moon, and Spring Dancer, where in the room as well, sitting on a large sofa to watch, and to chat about just how Rain Shine and Chrysalis had drained Lorenzo, sure they all got a shot at him, but those two, they had taken the most out of the guy, despite that, Spring Dancer still had to use a hoverchair to get around for a day and a half before she could feel her legs again, the mares within the herd considered it the best six hours of their relationship with Lorenzo, not that the rest of the time wasn't good, Lorenzo had to take something he called X-Cell, to not drop from exhaustion after the first three hours. The herd talked for awhile, while nurse drones where prepping for the eggs to be layed, making small nests on the ground of changeling goo and resin, and nymph proofing any dangerous objects within the room, soon enough this room would be a nursery for any eggs the queen might lay. > Chapter 36 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Applebloom looked up from her terminal at Sweetie Belle, whom had just gotten back from her job, she had been invited to quite a few radio stations to sing and record some songs she was actually making a good amount of bits doing that. "Whats up Sweetie Belle? Another gig?"  Sweetie nodded. "Mhm, these ponies may look somewhat weird, having four legs, yet still walking on two most of the time, but they are actually quite friendly, and the changeling's are not half bad either very friendly, not like what Twilight described at all as evil and cruel, but I can't speak for all of them, since I've only met around five." She shrugged and plopped down onto the sofa next to Applebloom. Scootaloo was not present, as she was currently under the employment of the Empire's military, to repair things like fighters,  tanks, check ammunition consumption on said vehicles, and other such things, however she was not doing that 24/7, as she still lived with her two friends, but she was there every day or so.  Applebloom went back to her terminal, checking if anyone else needed help with their problems, she had been quite good at using these terminals and finding problems others had in them, or just flat out teaching someone to use them and how, so in that sense she was like Tech Support, but did so on her own free time for no bits, as in her eyes it was just helping someone.  “I can see that, I’ve met a few myself, and by the way we need to go downtown and try that changeling pizza joint, I think it was called  Cheezy's Pizzeria, I wanted to try that since I’ve never heard of pizza until I saw one of their ads for it on the television, and it looked like somethin Pinkie would make, except with real food rather than cupcakes.”  Sweetie Belle nodded. “Alright, I don’t have anything else to do today, so we can take the car down and try it, I saw the ads for it to and it did look interesting, to say the least, from what I was told it was something Lorenzo created, or recreated from where he came from, so sure we can try it, anything keepin ya here right now?”  Applebloom shook her head no. “No, seems I don’t have anyone else to help for now, so let us go check it out, I drive, as you still suck at that.” Sweetie pouted at the jab, but nodded as the two walked out the door, locking it, and got into Applebloom’s orange Atomic V8, the car came to life with the hum you’d expect from an electric car. The drive only lasted for ten minutes as they pulled into the parking lot of the ‘Pizzeria’ as it was called, and got out before walking into the joint. Applebloom looked around at the red brick and concrete of the building and whistled. “Well this is different from what I was expectin, that's for sure.”  Sweetie Belle nodded. “Yeah I expected it to look like the dinners you see scattered around everywhere, this is a nice change though.” They walked over and sat in one of the booths, and a holographic menu popped up from the center of their table showing each pony the many things you could put on a pizza, the type of crust, sauce, cheese, and other random things, along with sides, like garlic bread, breadsticks, hot wings, various dipping sauces, and many salad types. Once again Applebloom whistled. “Damn thats a lot of different things, what one ya wanna try Sweetie? That pepperoni pizza looks pretty good to me.”  “Well, actually I was thinking of trying this spinach and kale crust pizza.” Sweetie said putting a hand on her chin. Applebloom shrugged. “How bout we compromise? We get a pizza with that crust, but the toppings are cheese and pepperoni?”  Smiling Sweetie said. “Alright, I guess that will work.” She said with a shrug. With what they were going to order concluded, a changeling, the four legged kind, came up to their table wearing a yellow uniform that had red circles on it, making it look like pepperoni. “I’m Wobbles! What will you be ordering today?”  Applebloom tilted her head, it having been the first time she had seen a four legged changeling from the Empire, regardless she shrugged and told him their order. Wobbles nodded while he wrote down the order. “Alright, anything to drink? We have every flavor of Nuka Cola, along with Deezer’s lemonade.”  Sitting up straight and messing with her mane Sweetie Belle spoke. “O-oh, I would like t-to try the lemonade.” she said with a blush and not meeting his eyes.  Applebloom just shrugged. “I’ll just try some Nuka Orange, I’ve been wantin’ ta try that one.” Wobbles nodded and wobbled off to get their orders, chittering to himself as he walked up to one of the walls and through a hole that lead to the kitchen, not that they knew that they just saw him walk through a wall. Applebloom just stared at the hole for a few moments. “These changelings are weird, nice, but weird.”  With her eyes fluttering Sweetie said. ”I find them cute.” She said with a longing sigh. Applebloom facepalmed. “Maker damn it Sweetie Belle, Maker Damn it.” She just shrugged after a minute, if Sweetie Belle wanted to be interested in changelings, she could, it wasn't her business. Their food came shortly after, with it their drinks, the two friends ate, finding they liked the dish, and their drinks.  -----------------Lorenzo’s POV-----------  About two days had passed since Chrysalis had laid her eggs, and unknown to me she was being milked daily by a nurse drone, and said milk was being stored in the fridges of the royal kitchens until the little ones hatched....you can see where this is going, I accidently drank some of that milk, being honest I should have known something was wrong when it was slightly yellow and glowing fucking PINK, but I don't care about that now, it was damned good milk, so I had some set aside to be made into vanilla ice cream. Another thing had happened recently, after having the crystal heart from the empire here studied for awhile, it was placed next to my crystal heart, and they ....kinda fuckin fused into one larger heart, I shit you not, they just flat out fused like plastic being melted together, the result was a large, stronger crystal heart, that needed a bigger containment shield, to prevent theft of course, it's power could still flow through it, another result was the network of crystal hearts that had been formed was boosted. The Griffon Empire had also stopped making monthly payments of bits this month, as I had forgotten about it and the bits where just sort of...piling up, so I messaged them, letting them know they have repaid any damages done. I found out rather recently Blue Gadget had a colt, that's right, he had a son, and guess what? That damned colt as just as smart as his father, if not more so, since he had already invented a few things from spare parts back at his dad's place, like a damned spider drone with an assaultron laser under it.....yeah I had him hired, he was 15 so he was legally allowed to work, and Blue Gadget was happy to have his son on the team. Another bit of random news I had found out about, was that Shining Armor had DIVORCED Cadence, and moved to my Empire! The best part? Not two days later he was seen dating a changeling, the anthro kind, I found that ironic. I only found this out since the Citizen Identification System, CIS, was updated recently, and I'm notified of all updates via pipboy. Another bit of news I had decided to have any homeless and orphans from Equestria moved into my Empire, after giving checks for criminal backgrounds to the homeless, and everyone was given medical examinations, it only took a full day surprisingly enough since few orphans even existed within Equestria, it was less than a thousand, and they quickly found homes within the Empire with those whom couldn't have a kid, like a diamond dog and pony couple, you get the idea, the homeless numbered less than 20 thousand, only a few had to be rejected due to criminal activities, like drug dealing, stabbing someone for some petty reason like they didn't like your salads, that was one weird mare. I also forgot if I had told you this, but the Empire standard combat rifle was recently changed and updated, it now had a drum magazine so the soldiers wouldn't have to reload as often, and for minotaur it came in a .50 cal version, the minotaur used a lot of heavy weapons, like 20 mm combat shotguns, I WASN'T gonna give em a 20 mm combat rifle, so they settled for a .50 caliber version, as they had found it just to weak to use the standard .308 rounds, and one last bit of information, I lent Celestia my general, Starlight Glimmer, to help them come up with better battle tactics, as they still used the damned musket formations despite now having rifles and machine guns, if they went to war they'd be murdered easily due to that, so she was sent there to talk with Celestia on how to better use her troops and weapons. -----------------------------------------------------------------------Celestia's POV--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Celestia sighed sadly as she watched Cadence being dragged into a prison cell, the cell was padded, as at the moment Cadence was not mentally stable, she was in a straightjacket and had been sedated, her last cell has been a regular one, but after bashing her head into it trying to get out, it had been decided to move her to a block for the more....insane, inmates, she was by all means, sane, she was still aware of what she did, but she just didn't seem to care, in her mind she was justified for what she had done, and had attempted to do, Celestia had planned to have Cadence attend mandatory therapy for the next two years of her sentence, before she would be released back into the public. For now however she had a meeting with Lorenzo's general, Starlight Glimmer, to talk about better strategies to use with the newer weapons they had gotten from the cats. Unknown to anyone aside from the most corrupt however, an elite of the most wicked, cruel, and downright evil nobles waited, watching, and they were pissed about the homeless populations of cities for the most part, being pulled away, away from where they could influence them, or use them, so they sat, awaiting for the time they could strike and take what they have wanted for so long from those they see as undeserving of the power they hold. > Chapter 37 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few weeks had passed, and now it was time to make their move, Steel Hoof, Silver Lining, Dirty Bit, and the head of the group, Stone Chain, sat in a warehouse within Canterlots slums, their loyal lackies awaiting the command to begin their raid on the city, and the castle. Stone Chain looked to the others. "It's been confirmed that Princess Luna has been taken out, she is still alive, but she won't be doing much anymore being in a coma, and once this collar is on Celestia's pretty little throat." Stone Chain held up the collar, intricate in its design it was also styled in a way that made it look like something you'd see in some lost tomb, made of obsidian with black gems lining it that shown somewhat in the light of the ceiling lamp that shown on them all. "She will do anything we say, even kill her own sister and smile if we command it!" Dirty Bit grinned. "I can't wait for this to finally be over, then we can do whatever we damn well please! No more red tape! No more watching out for guards! Because we'll OWN the guards!" Steel hoof nodded in agreement. "Yes, that and the fact that once we have complete and total power over Equestria we can also begin making meat factories to harvest ponies from, along with slowly expanding our borders past what they are now, Equestria has sat idle for to long, it's been so long since we actually took land over and I want to bring back those days, the glorious days of old!" Silver Lining nodded as well. "Yes, then I won't have to counterfeit bits anymore, because we'll own the royal treasury! We will be so much richer than we are now, that our old bank accounts will look like pocket change!" Stone Chain looked to a royal guardmare whom had been captures less than 15 minutes ago, with a small, slim collar slapped around her throat, it looked more like the small black band you'd see on a maids uniform, it had to be small and hard to notice so that she could slip past unnoticed that something had been done to her, her eyes slightly glassy but otherwise normal, no glow or anything of the such. "I want you to take this collar to Celestia, and place it on her, do so CAREFULLY, and once it's on come back here instantly!" The guardmare nodded and took the collar, slipping it into her pack before she grabbed her rifle and marched off to go back through her normal patrol root like she had been before, which would end with her in Princess Celestia's throne room, this would take a few hours however, as she had to follow patrol normally like nothing had happened, she couldn't just rush into Celestia's throne room, she would be spotted instantly and the guards would know something was wrong. -------------------------------------------------------Lorenzo's Empire-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- General Starlight had something....commissioned, from the robotics design team, something that disturbed me, she had them build a Mr.Handy, designed....to....have dildos at the end of its arms, 5 dildos and 3 vibrators.....I am so disappointed in her, however she spent her own bits on this, rather than military funds, so I couldn't tell her off for it, but I realize she has needs and I can't tell her to just ignore them, another small bit of news is I found out she and Trixie have been going on small dates, which I found cute. Secondly Flim and Flam had started their own soda company, called FusionColaCo! Their sodas where not really cola however..., it was more like Fanta than anything else, they had made fruit flavored sodas, from cherry, grape, watermelon, blueberry, grapefruit, kiwi, you get the idea, as for how it was named, they just named it fusion cola. Their beverage was doing rather well, not nearly as well as Nuka Cola, but it was still selling, so I had to give em that, and I had their formulas investigated to make sure they where not cutting corners with production or anything, as despite them being somewhat trustworthy they COULD still be seedy bastards when they wanted to be. Thankfully they hadn't cut corners and used harmful chemicals or anything, and where following the standards I set forth for food and drinks that were being manufactured within the Empire's borders, so they opened their own bottling plant a few weeks back, the bottles looked like standard root beer bottles, like how sunset sarsaparilla was sold in, the logo had been this standard flat text that read Fusion Cola, and then the flavor of the drink, like grape, apple, again you get the idea, they produced many flavors of that, a few had inspired flavors of Nuka Cola, like Nuka Strawberry, Nuka Kiwi, etc. As I was about to taste the first of the new Nuka Cola flavors, mainly Nuka Strawberry, when Discord, this worlds Discord, popped up into my throne room with no warning, and a grave look on his face. "Lorenzo, while I know I haven't really talked much to you, I have something I want to show you." I raised an eyebrow at that. "Um...alright dude, what is it exactly?" I got up from my throne as he held up some weird magic screen that showed me Canterlot, except...it was on fire, or parts of it where, while its citizens where being herded into cages by guards with guns, before the screen changed to show Princess Luna with her horn sawed off, while magic leaked from the stub, and Princess Celestia, the goddess of the sun, with a collar as black as night on her throat while her eyes glew a vibrant red, then....he showed me the worst parts.....some group of I assume, nobles, eating.....a newborn foal after it had been roasted like a ham.... Discord grinned seeing the reaction Lorenzo had given to the images on screen, exactly what he had hoped for, Lorenzo's eyes quite literally, glew red with anger, nearly every changeling within a one mile radius nearly blacked out from the wave of pure, unfiltered rage that flew through the air at the speed of sound. Within seconds he watched lorenzo equip his 'alicorn armor' as he liked to call it, and Discord stepped aside after opening a direct line into Canterlot for him, he had done his part, showing Lorenzo every sin those bastards had committed, his powers wouldn't allow him to kill another, but the rules said nothing about having someone else do it for him. All I saw was red, no joke, a red haze covered everything as I rushed through a glowing doorway Discord had summoned up, I had two rippers, one in each hand, as I near instantly targeted one of the goons carrying rifles, and ripped her to pieces in mere seconds, another goon tried to shoot me with their rifle, I don't know if the shot connected with me, all I could see was red, I felt no pain as I rushed through the storm of gunfire and grabbed her head before slamming it into my knee with such force her head shattered like a rotten watermelon, I then grabbed one of the shards of her jaw and slit the throat of another goon coming at me with a knife, before jamming it through their eye. After a few seconds of fighting I began to feel the pain, so to fix that I injected myself with my own concoction of chems, all the chems that helped in battle in game, mixed into one needle, everything slowed down as I began to kill faster. The goons were panicking as a grey and red blur ran through most of them, some watched their friends violently get killed, with the body part of another friend, a horn snapped off and slammed through the eye socket of another, one of them cut clean in half while the ribs where pulled out and used as makeshift knives to slit throats, blood pooled in the streets where the fighting occurred, even machine gun fire didn't seem to do anything to this....this monster, even after being shot in the head he got back up after mere seconds. The group of nobles was in the long disused Canterlot War room, with their own personal guards in the room to protect them, it had been minutes since they were informed of the psychopath murdering their goons, they had come here about ten minutes ago, thinking they were safe, they were oh so very wrong once the door slammed open, crushing one of the guards whom had been standing to close. That however was not the worst part, the worst part was when the ruler of the New Empire, slowly walked in, armor riddled with bullet holes, and dripping in blood, a psychotic grin on his face as his eyes glew red, while dragging the dead mangled body of a mare behind him, one of their top generals, her horn snapped off and stabbed through her eye. Stone Chain tried to shoot Lorenzo with his own luger rifle, only for him to grunt and turn to him, the same unnerving grin on his face as the door slammed shut as he walked into the room fully and the guards took aim at him with their weapons. "It's time to play~! Time to play!~ Time to PLAY with your insides!~" The others were distracted trying to find a way to escape the room, leaving Stone Chain open for Lorenzo to have his fun with. I rushed the fucker who decided to shoot me first, pulling out my assaultron blade as I carved him up like a ham, just like he did to that little foal, I sliced his stomach, and jammed my hands inside before I grinned feeling through the organs, a hard rod, I grabbed as hard as I could to that spine and SNAPPED it, the crunch of bone could be heard as I tore him in half with nothing but pure rage and chems fueling me in my rampage, most of their goons had fled, I'd only killed 40 or so of the three hundred here, I let them go, they were not my main target, these fucks where. Silver Lining screamed in pure terror as she watched Stone Chain, the strongest earthpony she had ever known, be ripped in half like a foal would to a toy in anger, and her scream caught my attention, I only knew their names because of Discord, he had shown me Every. Single. Fucked. Up. Thing. this group had done, they deserved no mercy, no sympathy, and as such, Silver lining got none as I rammed her into a wall, smashing her face first into the stone of the walls before I grabbed her wings, and PULLED as hard as possible, her scream was glass shattering as I ripped her wings out, and she continued to scream until I jammed one of the broken wings through her skull, she fell to the floor bleeding and twitching as the life faded from her eyes near instantly. Dirty Bit pulled out a luger and tried to shoot me, sure a few of the shots connected, but a quick stimpack, combined with my anger and rage towards these fuckers, meant I felt none of it, my rage for these bastards burned inside me with the intensity of a thousand angry suns, I grabbed her by the throat and stabbed her in the chest repeatedly with the other broken wing from Silver Lining, I used the sharp bone of the wing to gut her like a fish, I sliced open her stomach and strangled her with her own intestines with glee as she feebly tried to struggle against me, before going limp, to be sure I put five ten millimeter rounds in her skull. As I finished offing her, Steel Hoof tried to get the jump on me, stabbing me in the gut through holes in my armor as well as punching me in the face as hard as he could, I just grinned while spitting out some blood as his face of anger, turned to pure terror, my voice almost demonic as I spoke. "My turn!~" I grabbed him by the arm, and swung my assaultron blade chopping his arm off at the shoulder, causing him to wail in agony, his wailing didn't last long however as I impaled his throat with his own arm, I watched him gurgle blood weakly as he fell to the floor, as my last fuck you to him, I pulled out a flamer, and lit the fucker up, hearing his attempts at screaming with a destroyed throat as his lungs filled with blood and his flesh burned was glorious music to my ears, I burned the rest of the bodies as well. With Stone Chain dead his mind control collar had no source of magic, and thus shattered like glass, causing Celestia to fall to the floor dazed, while I helped her up, she had a complete look of shock on her face as she saw me covered in enough bullet holes to make my armor look like swiss cheese, and covered in enough blood to fill 5 bodies at least, I had stopped seeing red at this point, and medical personnel came to help Luna, it was surprising to me that I found out, in this universe, horns grow back, so while it would take a few months, Luna would recover with the proper medications, and her alicorn healing factor. > Chapter 38 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few weeks had passed since my little....rampage, yeah that had made headlines, and not in a very nice way, yet at the same time in a nice way? I was shown as a hero but pictures of bodies so horribly mutilated don't exactly do one's reputation any favors, regardless of why they were in such a state. At the moment I was overseeing the production of new Nuka Cola flavors, and I had actually acquired a few brands of soda from Equestria, as for how? Simple, damn near anyone can be bought out, so that's exactly what I did, the brands are as follows, Aunt Orange's Orange Cream Soda, Aunt Orange's Orange Blast Soda, Vanko Splash, a blackberry flavored soda, the motto of the guy who owned the brand before I bought it was 'I'm gonna splash ya!' which was silly as hell to me. Another few brands I bought are the following, Dr.Filly, and yep, it tasted exactly like Dr Pepper, I liked it, Dr Pepper always just tasted like cola, root beer, and vanilla mixed into one, to me at least, and last but not least, Cherry jubilee's Very Cherry Soda! Comes in three flavors, standard cherry flavor, dark cherry vanilla flavor, or yellow cherry flavor. I'd like to mention that these, all remained the SAME, except they were bottled and labeled as 'Product of The Nuka Cola Corporation', as such they remained the same in name, and ingredients and only actually changed in brand, which before was named the same as the sodas, like Dr.Filly's Soda Co, etc. The new Nuka Cola flavors being plopped into production after demand for them surged, to explain how this is possible, I hold temporary sales of flavors, and if they are demanded enough, they become official Nuka Cola flavors, I don't just have these things created to add more flavors to the list, these are things citizens who live within my Empire actually WANT. Regardless, with that small explanation aside, the new flavors are the following, Nuka Pineapple, Nuka peach Nuka Crystal Apple! Flavored using the empire's native apples, called crystal apples due to the fact they look like red rubies in the shape of an apple, and are quite tasty, Nuka plumb, Nuka Love, a love flavored Nuka Cola that glows a bright pink, in the same manner Quantum glows blue, it was filled with love for changelings to enjoy it more and actually get something from it. While changelings can in fact eat normal food, digest it and such, it gives them nothing but the ability to make changeling resign, the green goo they can spit, love is the only thing that actually sustains them, as such, I decided to actually give them a drink that could give them a small boost. Getting back on topic, the remaining flavors are Nuka Sunrise, a cherry and blood orange mix of Nuka Cola, Nuka midnight, a mix of blueberry and passion fruit, Nuka Nightmare, which contained citric acid blueberry strawberry and lime a sour drink, Nuka Volt A pinch of citric acid, strawberries cherries, watermelon, apple extract, once again, a SOUR Nuka Cola, which was no small feat considering the amount of sugar used to sweeten the drink. Nuka Berry, different from berry bonanza, as it contains no whole large fruits, it contains only blackberries, raspberries, crystal berries, strawberries, and blueberries, Nuka Dream, crystal berries, watermelon, and lime flavors mixed into nuka cola. And now onto the newest, and more, unique ones, some have suggested for new and exotic flavors, to make a unique bottle, so I had done so, Nuka Bolt, a transparent bottle with a blue lightning bolt under the Nuka Cola logo on a yellow label, a yellow cap with a red bolt on the top and lightning bolts instead of the usual fins, filled with a sparking orange liquid, It's a mix of elderberries, cherries, green apples and cactus. Nuka Legend, a brightly glowing green bottle with a green radioactive symbol under the Nuka Cola logo on a grey label, a grey cap with a yellow radioactive symbol on the top and sentry bot legs instead of the usual fins, filled with a fuming neon green liquid, It's a mix of fly agaric, strawberries, ground tea leaves and mint, along with the normal Nuka Cola flavorings. Nuka Mystic, a glowing red bottle with a red dragonskull under the Nuka Cola logo on a white label, a white cap with a black skull on the top and skeleton legs instead of the usual fins, filled with a crackling crimson liquid, It's a mix of ground coffee beans, ghost peppers, dragon fruit and Nuka Dark, as such its popular in bars and other places that serve alcohol in the Empire. Nuka Cola Chameleon, a glowing white bottle with a brown Trenchcoat and fedora in the shape of a human leaning on the Nuka Cola logo on a black label, a black cap with a a fedora on the bottom of the cap and revolvers instead of the usual fins, filled with a swirling green blue and red liquid, It's a mix of oranges, red apples, chocolate and banana, along with standard Nuka Cola flavorings, I'm going to stop mentioning how its all mixed with the normal flavorings, I thin by this point you can all understand that will remain the same for any variant of Nuka Cola created under my supervision. Nuka Cola Primal, a brown bottle with a large blackish grey colored gorilla breaking apart the Nuka Cola logo printed onto the covering, a dull pink screw-on cap with a red balled up fist on top of it. filled with a white liquid, its a mix of Nuka Quartz, Vim Cola, and it has a spicy kick due to rainbow peppers, white food coloring is used to keep it white, rather than rainbow colored. With that out of the way, I was sitting in my lounge room with Chrysalis, as for how I oversaw the flavors as well as sitting here, comfy, with my head mare? I have fucking cameras which can connect to my own tablet, that's how,I also had my pipboy modified, it looked exactly the same, except now it was a touchscreen device, so it was quicker to use it than before. I grinned looking at Chrysalis. "I'm still surprised about what happened, I mean, I didn't expect you to do that in public with Moon so openly!" I was laughing on the inside, it had been a funny thing to see. Chrysalis could only give a coy grin. "The stallion wanted a show, so I gave it to him, along with the mare he was with, their lust was so thick I was tempted to feed from it, it's just so funny seeing non changelings squirm in embarrassment." She snagged a fry from the mess on the plate, the fries were piled high with chili sauce, processed cheese sauce, salt, pepper, and jalapenos, she sure loved her spicy foods. Nodding I simply booped her on the snout, causing her to go crosseyed and scrunch her snout, which never failed to make her look adorable. "Still, I would suggest you remain decent about such things outside the palace walls, never know if someone would try to blackmail my Queen, but that's not the point, ya need to be more careful, what if Moon had gone and had a breakdown like she did that one time?" It was true, Moon had a small...breakdown, mentally before in public, the poor mare that had been the target of her temporary rage had to be given a LOT of chems and potions to walk again, she was the same shade of purple as Twilight was, didn't help she was a unicorn. Chrysalis nodded. "I get that, and I do agree, we don't want...THAT happening again, so I'll tone it down." Chrysalis rubbed her snout, before continuing to dig into the mountain of chilli cheese fries before her, while gulping down some classic Deezer's Lemonade, After a few bites, and downing half her drink, Chrysalis continued on. "I am surprised you actually passed that law that changelings wanted." I sighed, THAT law. "Well, they made a pension, and got the signatures for it, and I wouldn't just deny them since they went through all the necessary steps to get a law to my table, and support for it, so I signed it in after altering it a bit, if they want public nudity to be legal, not much I can do to stop them without looking like a tyrant, but I did have a public announcement about it, and how I would also be enacting a 'common sense law', which as you know pretty much means, don't fuck in public, and if your male, keep it sheathed, not that hard to do unless you need to use a bathroom." I shrugged and decided to snag a few fries for myself, this last week had been interesting to say the least. A small alarm had gone off, letting me know I had visitors awaiting me in the throne room, so I slapped on a normal suit an tie, my crown, and teleported onto my throne using the relay, only to nearly scream in pure terror as a giant, fucking spider, with a collar and leash on it, was standing next to...Sunset Shimmer? Yep, Sunset Shimmer, however I wasn't focused on her, I was mainly focused on the giant, spider, when I say giant, imagine this, a spider the size of a full grown American Stallion, plus arachnophobia, long story short it meant I wanted to scream and hide for a few centuries, I didn't do that however, and managed to calm myself down enough to, NOT shoot it, and everything that twitched. Sunset Shimmer bowed, to which I nodded and she rose. "I am Lady Sunset Shimmer, ambassador of the Thestral Empire of Everglow, here to begin diplomatic relations and trade between the Thestral Empire of Everglow, and the Crystal Empire, as such I have brought gifts from them, to you, including one of their valuable and prized Acromantula mounts." Her horn glew yellow as the leash, to my dismay, floated over to me, and as to not be rude, I accepted it, having a Mr Handy hold onto it while it hovered next to my throne, while the spider skittered over in a way that made my damned body shiver as it 'sat' next to my throne like a dog might, if a dog was a creature that belonged only in a horror film. I tried to keep my mind off the giant death machine next to me as I spoke. "I accept your seeking of diplomatic relations between our two Empires, what exactly is it the Thestral Empire of Everglow." Damn what a fucking mouthful to say in one go. "Wishes to trade for and trade with?" This was an honest question, I didn't know what sort of goods and such could be produced UNDERGROUND and not be weird lookin or somethin. A list floated over to me, so I plucked it from the magic holding it aloft in the air, and read. The basics of what they wanted where different exotic meats, hydroponics so they can grow stuff in caves that would need sunlight to grow, forging and blacksmith training for their people who do it, artificing training (working with gems and crystals for foci and stuff) and trade deals for Empire products, after reading the list and seeing what they could offer in return, I looked up from it. "I think you and I have a deal Lady Sunset Shimmer, will this be all for now?" Sunset shook her head. "No, I was told to tell you the spiders bond to their rider and it boosts their Intelligence. The downside is that should the Rider die so will the mount, though the rider has to DIE and the spirit has to leave the mortal realm, so I don’t know how it will work with you due to the fact you are immortal in every sense of the word, just like Princess Celestia, Luna, and Discord." She shrugged. I tilted my head to the side and raised an eyebrow. "Boost their intelligence by how much exactly?" I feared what I would be told. Sunset Shimmer smirked slightly as she spoke. "In the past, certain bonding have caused the spider to change. At one point a Former council member had its bonded Mount gain a MASSIVE intelligence boost to the point it could talk, and keep in mind, these 'mutations' as some would call them, will be passed down to its children should it have any." That would be problematic then, if the same was to happen with my ...mount, then I'd have to give it citizenship....it would be like a human riding a horse that could talk and hold a conversation with you, which would be weird as hell, but regardless, citizenship would be granted if that became the case, so I nodded. "Alright, that will be all for now, you are free to leave, or stay awhile and explore the Empire as any citizen could." She nodded, bowed again, and left with a puft of teleportation magic. I looked over to the giant spider, and patted it, abit I felt like slicing my hand off after doing so, but it seemed to like it as it....fucking purred, yep, it was purring, what has this world come to. I was about to head out and grab myself something to eat at a local food joint, as it was near lunch, when a dragonfire scroll poofed into existence in front of me, an outdated, but still widely used way of getting messages to someone quickly, I opened it and found myself invited to Saddle Arabia. With a sigh I read on, seeing that....transport would be there shortly to grab me for the trip, well that fucking sucked harder than Chrysalis did that one time after watching me screw Rain Shine....I feel phantom pain between my legs at the thought. ----------------------------------About 3 hours later, location Saddle Arabia, capital of the Saddle Arabian Empire----------------------------- I was inside some large palace, like you'd see in a place like Dubai or something, at the moment I was being escorted to a meeting room or something along those lines, by guards that where using weapons like the cats had, Luger pistols, but rather than the semi auto luger rifles, they had older, bolt action mausers. The doors to a large room has been opened by the two guardmares escorting me, and I was ushered inside before they closed, with the guardmares outside. The mare before me sitting on a rather plush chair, looked to be eight foot tall mare of Arabian descent, she had a brown spotted white coat, a silver blond mane and tail with a stripe of Dark green. She was currently wearing a flowing gold and green trimmed short Abaya modified for Desert combat, and on her head tiara of white gold, inlaid into sockets are three Sun Diamonds, which shone in the light like small stars. I took a seat, and then she spoke. "I am Queen Najam Alsahra, Master of The Dune Seas, or more famously known by all around the world, The Coffee Queen." I tilted my head at that. "I am King Lorenzo, ruler of the Crystal Empire, and the many species within, known as the guy who takes no crap from anyone, if I may be so bold as to ask, why are you called 'the coffee queen'?" I had a pretty good idea why, but I thought I'd still ask, confirm what I thought for sure. Najam Alsahra raised an eyebrow at my question. "I sometimes forget your empire suddenly appeared out of the blue, for it it had originated on this world you'd have known this, as such I shall explain in detail why I, along with those before me have held the 'Queen Of Coffee' title regardless of how long they ruled." She took a drink of water as she continued to speak. "You see, Saddle arabia is the only place on this entire planet, that coffee is grown, due to this, it is expensive around the world, and as such, is a major cash crop for my Empire, which it needs to sustain itself, we also produce fine gems, pure gold, and fine silks and rare spices, but the bulk of money that my empire receives comes from the sale of roasted coffee beans, all beans leaving this empire are roasted, so no chance of them being replanted elsewhere would be possible. That is where you come in, as it seems, your empire produces quite a large amount of coffee, enough to the point from what I've been told, that its just two bits per 12 ounce cup, I have invited you here today to ask that you NOT sell coffee in bulk to those outside your Empire, for if you did so, economic collapse would result for my empire." She took another drink of water. I facepalmed inside my head, this was exactly what I had thought, despite being another world, these cultures tended to mirror ones back home, and this mirrored ancient arabia, we talked for a bit, and I agreed I wouldn't sell any coffee in bulk to any one kingdom or empire, so that the Saddle Arabians could maintain their stranglehold on the crop, mainly because I just wasn't interested in destroying an economy, and due to the fact coffee was consumed daily around my Empire, I'm not sure citizens would want to share HAHAH! After about an hour of talking, I was told I could stay the night, and decided to actually accept that, as I was tired as is, and was just feeling far to lazy to call in a transport, since I was out of relay range, as such I was escorted to a rather nice fancy looking room, and was just beginning to change into my night clothes (Thank god for my inventory) when a bunch of.....mares came in, barely clothed may I add, and they tried to 'belly dance', but I held up a hand, stopping them, much to their disappointment. "I'm sorry to deny this, but I have a herd, and as such I don't feel like having my cock and balls ripped off by an angry changeling queen because I got a little excited watching you lovely mares dance." With a groan of disappointment they walked back out of the room, and after doing so, I closed the door and locked it, before headed to the bed to sleep. Unknown to me, the Abyssinian Empire, had been selling their OLD weapons and gear, in bulk to other kingdoms, along with patents that allowed them to produce self contained ammunition, abit at a much lower quality than what the cats themselves produced, and they were in full gear. Meaning they had been rapidly developing new weapons and technology, I'd learn later from reports they invented this worlds first assault rifle, the STG-44, to replace their semi auto luger rifles, and had begun a rocket program, but the most powerful weapons they where building at the time, where large cannons, like the Gustav gun the nazis had, just simply google that or type it into youtube, and you will realize how much damage those things could do to a target, and from what I later learned, the cats had 5 of these built! With plans to build 15 more! After the Boars had pulled their shit, it seems Queen Carnelia wasn't fucking around. > Chapter 39 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was about a month since I learned about the cats rapid advancement, as such I decided to help them, they had technology a lot like the nazis did, and had actually been developing jet engines. Since I know quite a lot of random shit, I helped them design their jet engines and the aircraft that would use said engines, it could go mach one. It had swept back wings and a lot of fancy shit, it could shoot their new air to air R4M rockets, or use the 40 millimeter autocannons in the nose, honestly the most advanced air to air or air to ground fighter, aside from mine of course. I had given the abyssinians the ability to produce transistors and microchips for their terminals, which had just about reached 90's levels of computing power, they hadn't invented a primitive form of the internet yet, but I'll let ya'll know if they do, besides this their capital had been turned into a megafortress, huge concrete walls, 600 millimeter artillery around the entire capital aiming out, and damn these things where like the german super railguns used in world war two, railguns meaning they where towed by train and shot while still on the tracks, these however couldn't be moved, Carnelia's explanation on that amount and size of the cannons, was to deal with dragons, which made sense, not all dragons where kind. Rather recently while digging a new area out for concrete to be poured, something had been brought to me that had been dug up, it looked like a baseball sized orb which held a static looking galaxy within it, when Chrysalis saw it she flipped out, seemingly they are called 'Galaxy' or 'Universe' gems and are VERY rare, so I had it plopped into my crown as the center gem, which made her laugh, as for how rare these things where, you could get several billions bits, PER GEM, if they where real, it seems these only form when concentrated bursts of magic strike the planet from the sun, sort of like an EMP would from our own sun on Earth. The Griffon Empire, in an attempt to keep up with the cats, whom had begun producing tanks, King Tiger tanks for any whom are wondering, and yes I did give them the designs for them, had begun to produce tanks like the ones the british had in world war one, the Mark series of tanks, along with the FT renault light tanks, and they where mass producing them at a rapid rate, and selling them to any kingdom or empire who had the coin to pay for these things. I have been getting some questions lately, so I thought I'd enlighten you all, some of you wonder what civilians use for air transport since the military grade aircraft are clearly off limits, they used lofite airships like my old air force did, large and bulky, but fast as well, of course these had no weapons, and would ferry citizens across the empire whom simply didn't feel like driving or taking a teleportation gate. They where not like airliners on Earth either, you had a LOT of room to move around, kinda had to when species you fly around can get as big as a minotaur, whom can be up to 15 feet tall or less, they didn't go high enough that food tasted like shit, so dining services where available as well, like Hydra Steaks. Each passenger airliner had its own kitchen area so all the food was prepared in flight, and speedy to boot thanks to the use of MagiHeaters to cook the food, think like a magical stove and microwave combination, sept it didn't make food taste like shit when you cooked in it, unlike a microwave, Magiheaters where my Empires version of the microwave, but magic, nearly every household had one. Another thing had come to my attention in my research of this world, seemingly just like MY Equestria, this one didn't know about a lot of foods, like cheesecake or peanut butter, so I decided to rectify that by entering the Annual Canterlot Baking Contest, the gist of it went like this, you bake something and bring it to the contest for Celestia herself to try, and you could make up to seven items. I had decided on my own recipe for a Crystal Berry cheesecake, No Bake cookies, and a Chocolate Fudge cake with chocolate frosting and peanut brittle on top to decorate it, I had already arrived about 15 minutes ago and set up at the table provided. I had been getting a lot of stares likely due to who I am, because of the rare gem now in my crown that glew slightly with a white light, and because of how 'exotic' the things I had made seemed to ponies whom had never thought or heard of them, when asked to try some, I denied any whom asked, I would be waiting until Celestia herself came to judge my treats. Another 15 minutes later Princess Celestia had come out and was beginning to sample the various pastries and cakes, there was even a chocolate moose that some bald donkey had made, didn't look half bad, then one guy made a replica of canterlot using doughnuts and ice cream which looked good I will admit, overall it took about another half an hour before Princess Celestia got to my table, seems she decided to pick me last, I looked over to see Pinkie Pie had a confident smirk on her face, from what I had been told, she won every year, with her crazy cake recipe she had won the Goddess of the very Sun itself over with her skills of baking. Due to that not many new people/ponies entered the contest, the rare few that did always gave up after two years of not winning, unless they had some will and kept trying new family recipes to try n win the Princesses taste buds. Celestia looked down at the small assortment of treats I had produced, her eyes slightly glittering with curiosity and wonder before she looked up at me and spoke. "Lorenzo? I didn't expect you to be here, let alone join the contest, regardless, these look rather good, care to explain what they are?" I smirked and nodded. "Indeed I shall, this." I pointed to the cheesecake. "Is a Crystal Berry Cheesecake, and no I know what your thinking, its not actually MADE of cheese, its called that due to the color of the treat before adding the berries, this." I pointed to the no bake cookies. "Are no bake cookies, and just as the name implies, no baking is necessary and you can have cookies in 40 minutes if you know what your doing, and that." I pointed to the last delectable. "Is a fudge peanut butter cake with chocolate frosting and peanut brittle crushed and sprinkled on top." Celestia seemed amazed for a few moments, unable to say anything, before her horn lit up and she cut herself a piece of the fudge cake, and took a small bite, the small bite turned into her CRAMMING the entire slice into her mouth with a hum of satisfaction which just caused me to laugh, making her face turn red for a moment, before she composed herself and tried a no bake cookie, the same result ensued. "I take it you like my treats so far?" Celestia could only nod as she took a slice of the crystal berry cheesecake, and took a bite, the instant the flavor hit her tongue her eyes went wide, VERY wide, which I found rather creepy, before she swallowed and announced. "And the winner of the Annual Canterlot Baking Contest has been decided, King Lorenzo is declared the winner!" She handed me a metal, and then crammed the rest of my treats down her maw before she grinned at me in a way that looked...off, and before I knew what was happening I had been teleported into her bedroom, or whatever you want to call it. I gave a confused look as I landed on the bed. "What the hell was that for?" All I got in response was a grin, and she pounced > Chapter 40 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I was just sort of sitting in Princess Celestia's bed, I had my clothes on again, however, she didn't, and she was looking VERY damn happy. I had given her the recipes to the treats I had made, as she had more than earned those, heh, regardless, as I was about to get up and head back to my Empire for important matters, none other than Twilight friggin Sparkle walked into the room, didn't even bother to knock. She took one look at her ruler, naked, covered in goo, and grinning like a madmare, before she turned red and her horn lit up along with her eyes glowing purple before I was shot through a wall by a blast of magic, FUCKING HELL THAT SHIT HURT. Thankfully Princess Celestia had dealt with her by the time I respawned. (The impact had shattered my fucking neck.) And I got to watch Celestia yeet Twilight out of the room before she closed and locked the door with her magic. It was official now, we were 'friends with benefits' as most would call it. I wasn't complaining, and I knew Chrysalis along with the rest of the herd would be fine with it, because damn they are perverts in their own rights. Onto other matters I activated the relay once the satellite locked onto my position, and with a flash I was back within my Empire, to be specific, my throne room, it was damn well time my alicorn armor had been repaired, Sombra had spent the past month fixing it since my little rampage, since it had been stabbed, shot, burned, crushed, and even crunched, the only thing that wasn't damaged was the Alicorn Amulet itself, which would power the suit. Nodding to Sombra I grinned as I placed my armor back on using my inventory. "Thanks for repairing this damned thing, I might have to add some sort of shield or somethin to prevent this later on." Sombra just shrugged. "Alright, I will look into it if you actually want that added into the armor, for now however, I've got a date with Amore, so I shall see you later Lorenzo." And with a puff of black smoke, he was gone. As it turned out him and Amore had hit it off rather well after they got over what happened in the past, so that was rather neat, another interesting little detail is the anthro lings began calling me 'daddy', when I questioned some of them about this, their logic ran like this. Queen Chrysalis is their mother, And I am her King, as such, I am their father, even if not biologically.... Changelings confuse the hell out of me. Flim and Flam had recently begun to sell more of their soft drinks, and began to patent small inventions, like heated socks, which became rather popular quicker than you'd think, and Trixie and Starlight Glimmer had actually began to go on a few dates, again, adorable, but I had to make it absolutely clear to General Glimmer that she was not to tell any military shit to Trixie, even made her sign a contact. Now onto the important matters I had to begin doing today, I was going to visit the section of the underground superstructure beneath my Empire which controlled the flow of electricity, the water recycling section, the hydroponics and greenhouse areas, and then I could do whatever the hell I wanted....well to be fair, I already can do what I want, but I thought it best to check in on these areas, see if there was anything that needed to be fixed or added. I snagged myself a ride down to the Power Plant section by getting onto a metro that lead down deeper into the superstructure, the ride overall took about an hour and a half, not very long considering how fast the metro was going. I hopped off once I was at the correct stop, and took a 15 minute walk to the facility which produced all the power used in my Empire, I needed no to give no verification to the guards, which consisted of two four legged lings in power armor, and two androids with mesmetron rifles set to kill, which would cause a seizure if you where hit by it, this damned place was heavily guarded against sabotage, if such a thing where to be attempted. I walked into the room as the door broke in half and slide up into the ceiling and into the floor, the classic vault tec doors, and walked up to a holographic computer which would show me the status of every cold fusion reactor down here, along with the hundreds of backup power systems, and the backup arcane reactors if all else failed, and clicked, nothing wrong here, so I nodded to the changelings keeping everything going 24/7 and took a small tram to the Water Recycling Plant, same guard setup as before, each of these places HAD to be guarded at all costs, if someone with bad intentions could just walk into these areas, my entire Empire would be at high risk. Once again, the computer had shown me everything was fine in this area, as for what it did, just as the name says, it recycles all water in my Empire, back to Spring Water quality, waste water, shower water, every drop that came through here was sanitized, filtered, and pumped back into the pipes that ran through the Empire's network of pipes. Once confirming everything was working as it should, I nodded to the workers as I had the last 5 inspections, and headed to the Greenhouse/Hydroponics section. As the last two times, everything was just as it should be, so I decided to walk around the Superstructure for a bit, perhaps I should explain in detail just exactly what this 'Superstructure' is, as to clear up any confusion remaining about it? Yes I think I'll do that. You see, this place is NOT like one giant Vault-Tec Vault, however it is very similar to one, unlike Vaults from in game, the doors where five times as big, as to allow species like minotaur comfortable passage, the hallways are about 40 feet tall, and 20 feet wide, allowing for large crowds to go through them without smashing into a wall or one another, and all of these areas where connected by tram or metro lines, to get to other areas of the superstructure, as trying to walk the entire thing would be plain stupid, or take a lot of willpower, as it spanned the entire civilian side of my Empire. By all rights, this place was its own little underground city, it had hospitals, parks, restaurants, bars, and businesses, areas for pegasi, batponies, and changelings, along with other flying species, to actually use their wings, the lighting down here simulated actual sunlight, you wouldn't know you where underground unless it wasn't for the place having no windows in the halls which connected to solid stone and concrete. All over the Empire there where entry points and metro tunnels leading into the Superstructure, in the event of the need to get to shelter quickly, all citizens could take those tunnels or teleportation gates into the structure quickly, and the entrances would close off in that classic Vault-Tec style with the gear shaped thick door, unlike in game, the door was made out of titanium, steel, and tungsten, and lined on the outside with small shield generators, to enhance it further, nothing short of a direct atomic blast would get through those. Since I was no longer needed down here, I decided to relay back into my room, and was met with my herd, Chrysalis just grinned at me and shook her head. "I planted a camera on you, and me and the girls here got to watch you Rail Celestias ass harder than a minotaur smashing something with a hammer." Oh boy this was gonna get fun...I'd better take some chems to keep from passing out. -----------------------------------------------------------------Outside the Abyssinian Empire--------------------------------------------------------------------- Queen Aspid, the Changeling Queen of the Yellow hive, her bronze colored chitin and bright yellow mane, tail, wings and her wasp like stinger, while her orange eyes glew, she grinned while watching the Abyssinians go about their daily lives, not knowing the changes that would be coming very soon, as for how these changelings differ from the ones of the Empire, Her hive has thinner and longer wings, longer and slimmer legs and arms, solid yellow eyes, a wasp like stinger, and an overall lither body frame than the other two hives. Queen Gypsy, the Changeling Queen of the Blue Hive, her light grey colored chitin with a thick greyish fur coat over it, an ice blue mane, tail, wings, she was grinning as well and her pure white eyes glew the same as Aspids had, she fluttered her four moth like wings, as for how her hive differs from the other two, Her hive has four large wings, thick snow-white fur over their chitin, and a larger overall body frame than that of the other hives. Aspid looked over to Gypsy. "Soon it will be time for us to go through with the plan, then the months it took to place those spies in key areas will have been worth it, and our hives shall become the main force within this little empire." Gypsy nodded. "Agreed sister, once that pesky Queen is dealt with, this empire shall be ours to do what with as we please." > Chapter 41 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I grinned, it had only been a week since my fun with Celestia, Blue Gadgets foal, who was named Speedy Gadget, I forgot if I had mentioned his name or not, had actually came up with somethin that I could give to other kingdoms or empires, an automatic gauss machine gun, AGMG, shooting 7.56 mm ElectroMagnetic rounds, it had a drum which you'd hook to the side of the gun, which held 600 rounds. I was very impressed with Speedy Gadget, and before I forget to mention, the kid was a small green crystal earthpony with spiky yellow hair, and a set of electric yellow eyes, his cutiemark being a screwdriver and a box that looked like a terminal. As for why I said I could give this to other kingdoms and nations, is because while VERY powerful by their standards, its nowhere near as powerful as the automatic railguns you could find fixed to vehicles, the most it would do against my forces would be chip their power armor. And speaking of power armor, I decided to have my own suit of XO-4 made, I designated the power armor used by my forces, XO-3, mine would have built in weapons such as a .90 cal machine guns which would slide out of the sides of my wrists, and various other weapons, which I won't go into detail due to me wanting to keep most of the goodies inside a surprise, but it would make me three times the size I am now while inside it, as such I'd be a behemoth. Some more important news, I my spider thing is speaking now....so yeah it got citizenship, but one of the other things, was the crystal heart, which had merged with the other heart, was....alive, I got the shock of my life yesterday when I went an walked up to it, jus to check on it, as ya do, an a fucking holographic mare, the four legged kind, appeared from it like a holoprojector might, damn near giving me a heart attack. She called herself 'Crystal' which was fitting, she said she had been slowly growing in power, and that she was happy where she was now, rather than a dying land the anthro empire had been, citizens being unhappy actually hurt her like someone stabbing you would hurt you or I. She told me she had reformed Sombra, which I already knew, an she was connected to all the mini crystal hearts around the empire, so she could go anywhere they where, which was damn near everywhere, in other news Crystal Prime had been upgraded with a new fusion plant, to replace the old Arcane one he had been using to power his weapons and critical systems. And Blue Gadget had invented something that would be completely useless to my empire, hydrogen car and jet engines, when I asked why he dedicated any resources to these when we already had much better technology, he stated 'he was bored and wanted a challenge', I had the designs logged and the working ones stored away, who knows maybe I'll give these to this worlds empires and kingdoms before I go? In other news, a project I had in development had come to fruition, a flying aircraft carrier which would be able to carry thousands of troop carriers and fighters! It was six miles long, two miles wide, with six MASSIVE anti gravity engines to keep the damned thing flying, since the aircraft my empire used are anti gravity, they didn't need a runway, so the top was just a long flat roof anti gravity craft could land and hook into with maglocks, magnetic locks which would prevent them from sliding off or falling off, because they dug into the hull at designated areas and activated once 5 feet inside. It was to be piloted by Winter Gust, and dubbed, 'Empires Might', she was ecstatic to get to pilot such a craft, though of course other pilots would be at the helm as well, along with AI meant to help if they couldn't get to the controls. A new invention had come to light recently, USC's, also known as Universal Storage Crystals, can store any information on em, be it books, music, even connect to a terminal and it can store all the information on the HUMAN internet should it have to do so, I had big plans for those lil things, it was no larger than a mouse for a computer back on Earth would be, but could store and process so much information in such a short time, glorious. Another....lewder, bit of news, is some of the Kirin had decided to open a restaurant, an your likely thinking to yourself 'Oh Lorenzo! You moron! How can that be lewd?', Well, I'll tell ya, its called Hellfire's Barbeque, and its cut into two sections, the family friendly side, which is the same as any BBQ joint, aside from the kirin server's nudity, and an 18 plus adult section, where kirin would cook food on their naked bodies using cookin oil, in front of the customer, for their viewing pleasure, afterwards they'd stay and act like a plate, so you ate OFF them, turns out when their in a normal state of mind, kirin can actually control how hot they can become, as such they make living grills, it was very kinky to watch. This place specialized in spicy food, which I LOVED, it was ran by a kirin named Hellfire, she was bright orange with a red mane and tail, with bits of yellow mixed into her mane making it look like a static fire, her eyes where a deep crimson, her food was like her personality, Hot n Spicy, which made her adorable at times. I and my herd had been invited to be the first customers since it had opened only a few days ago, and I hadn't been informed about how the kirin cook food in the adult section, so it was a very weird thing to witness, I panicked and was flipping the fuck out at first about to grab my cryolater to put out the flame, till I was told kirin don't worry about fire as they can swim in pure magma or molten metal if they wanted, with no harm to them, I'm so glad a few of those guys joined the military, they'd be useful as flamer units. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Outside The Empire, Twilight's Castle---------------------------------------- Twilight Sparkle grinned like a madmare as she stared at the plan she had written out on a whiteboard, it was perfect! First she'd use a teleportation rune to hijack one of those portal gates, and set off her device, her device would set everything right, she would not fail harmony a third time, she refused to allow herself to fail harmony, Celestia, again. The device she planned to use looked like a basketball sized ball made of metal with random wires and crystals jutting out at weird angles, it glew a violet color like her magic when it was in use, it would fix what the map had desired of her, or what she thought it wanted, without a second thought she lit the runic circle drawn onto the wall, which burned into the crystal of her Crystal Tree Castle...thing, and it sparked violently as it began to spiral with energy and a portal opened, showing her desired location, near the crystal palace, so she flew in without thought of the consequences for what might happen should she fail...no, she WOULDN'T fail, she would not allow it. Twilight flew high as she could, not even half of the crystal palaces height, but it would do for now, so she flipped the device around in her hands and opened a latch on the back, and flipped several switches and inserted a power crystal, before closing it and THROWING it as hard as she could. Twilight Sparkle, watched the device fall for several seconds before it activated and blew up, sending a huge pulse of violet colored magic in all directions, for several miles it went, before dissipating, unknown to her, it did not have the desired effect, rather than rid of Lorenzo like it had been designed to, it had made all changelings in the empire go into a sudden heat. This would not be a fun day, moreso when the sky began to violently glow and a strike of purple lightning struck Twilight from the sky, causing her to crash to the ground below as a holographic looking version of herself appeared, crystally looking and radiating harmonic power as its eyes glew with pure white magic. "Twilight Sparkle! I am the Tree Of Harmony! And you have failed my test! You have constantly failed and now you have caused harm to innocent! From this day henceforth you will no longer be the element of magic, nor an alicorn!" Its horn lit up with a radiant white and blue magic as Twilight felt herself being ripped apart and put back together, weaker than before, and she fell to the ground, her wings and horn gone, shorter by several inches, no longer an alicorn, nor even a unicorn, she was weaker than any species of pony, for she didn't even have the natural enhancements an earthpony has. The Tree spoke again. "I guess I shall have to bestow the element of magic upon another, you are unworthy of it, I have made a mistake in trusting you with its grand power, now, BEGONE!" Twilight was teleported back to outside her Castle, and watched in horror, shock and disbelief as it crumbled into dust before her eyes, and fluttered away in the wind, leaving her nothing. -----------------------------------------------------------------------Back To Lorenzo--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alarms where going off, someone had hijacked a portal gate, then set off some magic bomb in the center of my empire which was effecting changelings in a very...nsfw way, lings where pouncing on citizens to have 'fun' with them, of course they did ask consent, but I relayed to the source of this problem and saw ....Twilight? She looked all glowy n shit, see through somewhat as well...Before I could even pull out my rifle and shoot this purple bitch she looked at me, and spoke INSIDE MY FUCKING HEAD. "I am sorry for the disturbance my former bearer has had upon your land, the effects will only last a day, my interference has made the damage minimal, for her crimes against your people and your kingdom, I give you this gem as an apology." Her horn lit up as some weird white gem formed in my hand, about the size of a baseball, an it felt weird to hold it, I could jus fucking feel the pure magical power within this thing. I looked up and gave this....thing, a confused look. "What exactly does this thing do?" I stored it into my inventory. It grinned, which looked weird as she was somewhat translucent and I could see the walls n shit behind her. "In a time of woe and anger, plug the gem into the heart, and watch its power flow throughout your Empire, protecting all within its grasp." Was all she said before with a puft of sparkle lookin dust she was gone, I just looked at the gem in my inventory. I gave the area she had been a stare for a few moments "The fuck does that mean?" --------------------------------------------------------Equestria, Canterlot Castle Gates--------------------------------- Thousands of stallions, likely all the stallions in Equestria in one location, where rioting at the gates of Canterlot Castle, rioting violently for equal rights, tired and sick of being unable to do certain things, and being treated like fragile morons due to the rarity of males within Equestria compared to Mares born. "We want equal rights for both mares and stallions! Make the laws and government fare!" A few yelled in unison, throwing rocks at the gate, forcing the guardmares to raise their shields, they where NOT permitted to fire upon stallions, only taser them, and even then on stun rather than lethal, stallions where to rare to kill or harm in any real way, Equestria had 5 million ponies in it, only about 5 thousand of those were stallions, and all of them where at the gates of the castle ready to storm in and beat the shit out of anyone in their way, to get what they wanted. As more rocks were thrown, a guardmare panicked and fired into the crowd of stallions with her luger rifle, killing one instantly. Within an instant the stallions surged forward in a swarm and began to mercilessly beat the guardmare with rocks, stones, sticks, even makeshift clubs, this was going to be a violent revolution if they did not get what they wanted. > Chapter 42 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It had been one day, ONE day since Twilight fucking set off the horny bomb in the center of my Empire. Every changeling had gone into heat. Every. Last. One. My god the amount of eggs they are likely going to lay will boost my Empire's population into the Millions, rather than just past a million like I had now. Regardless, this also meant Chrysalis was affected, for Changeling Queens, everything was ten times as it was for a normal ling, their power (which was really only limited by how much love they could consume), their transformation abilities are more fluid, but that also meant, heat season was ten times worse, and she already had a libido that would make any male beg for it to end, I'm so fucking lucky I can't die, otherwise I'd have been dead the first 5 hours in. At the moment I was just in my...our? Yeah our, as we all slept in it, since it was huge, bed, with Chrysalis, Moon, and Rainshine, Spring Dancer was out and about, she still liked to visit the random places you could in the Empire. Regardless, I was cuddled up to Moon and Chrysalis, while Rain cuddled up to moon on the other side, since our little act of fun had gone for a few hours, the bed was covered in sweat, and other bodily fluids I shall not name, despite this, cuddling was still nice. I had boxers on, I managed to slip a pair on using my inventory, Moon, Chrysalis, and Rain however where nude as they day they had been born, or hatched, in Chrysalis's case, hehe, I looked over at Chrysalis and booped her snout causing her to go crosseyed and scrunch her snout before she looked at me. "I thought I told you not to do that, It feels weird." She said in a fake pouty tone. Moon just looked over and laughed lightly. "Oh shush Chrysalis, we all know you like it, just how I like it when he preens my wings, or when he massages them, that always feels heavenly, by Faust it does." She grinned, which was cute with her fangs, without that helmet we see her wear in the show, her mane flowed freely, and as it always did, it moved in some unseen magical wind. I laughed at that. "I tell you again, I didn't know a wing massage would make you cum, I'm not versed in alicorn or even pegasus biology past 'flappy wings means flight' heh." All three of em laughed at that, then Rain spoke up. "I must say, living here took some getting used to, as did the lovely attention Lorenzo gives me, like he does with you two wonderful mares, but he certainly knows how to make a mare confortable, and happy, that much I'll say with no doubt, but his reaction to my old subjects restaurant was hilarious." She said with a smirk looking at me, causing me to pout. Moon grinned. "Oh yeah I remember how that went." And I could swear, a fucking flashback began. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------FlashBack-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was a day like any other, from Moons point of view anyways, doing her day to day activities and swimming around in the Crystal Palace's large indoor pool was always a fun way to pass the time if nothing good was on the television or if she had no new books to read, which was a rarity itself due to the thousands of books around to pick up and read in the royal library. It was like any other day, until Lorenzo came up with the rest of the herd, Chrysalis, Rainshine, and Spring Dancer, and asked her if she'd like to join them in going to some new restaurant that had just opened, and invited them as VIP's to be the first customers. She of course agreed to go, a new place was always interesting, the car ride had been 30 minutes worth of time, said car was rather large as well, it was able to fit minotaur inside, which is actually what it did, as a minotaur was the driver, once arriving at the place, it looked like a barbeque joint, and Moon always loved a good plate of meaty ribs slathered in thick barbeque sauce. Once the herd had piled out of the car and actually walked into the place, Moon was taken aback at the nudity of the servers, but didn't take long to remember that while nudity was also legal, the Kirin had it taught to them from an early age, due to how....combustive, they could be, clothes where not worth the effort since more often than not, they'd go up in ashes. They where herded past a metal door with two bouncers, which she had found strange, but once they where seated at the table the real show began after they had ordered from the menu, She was to have Deathclaw Ribs with jalapeno BBq sauce, and a Nuka Cola, Rainshine wanted fried codfish with fries, and Chrysalis had wanted a rainbow burger, one of their spiciest foods. That was besides the actual point, the show began when a kirin was rolled in on a metal tray an had cooking oil poured onto her, which confused all of them, meanwhile Lorenzo was red as a tomato, until the kirin was lit aflame and he began to panic. Lorenzo had almost shot the Kirin mare with something he'd told her was a 'cryolator' and talking about putting the fire out and getting her to a hospital, until the cook, Hellfire, the owner of the place, explained to him about Kirin's natural immunity to flame and heat, in which he calmed down and she cooked the food as requested, it was a site to watch, she'd never forget, we all sat and watched in awe, the meat that was placed on her body sizzled and cooked itself, i couldn’t believe my eyes and the smell? I was surprised at the cornucopia of scents as the seasoned meats grew closer to being done, when we learned the Kirin mare was also supposed to be the plate we ate from, another round of blushing came from mostly Spring Dancer, it was a very weird experience, Chrysalis didn't bat an eye at it, while Rainshine didn't find it weird either, Spring Dancer and Lorenzo on the other hand, had been blushing beat red since the Kirin mare had been wheeled in, it was funny to watch, and it would be even funnier to tease them about it later, for now, they'd enjoy their meal. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------EndFlashback----------------------------------------------------------------- I sighed. "I'd try to deny the fact I was embarrassed, but I can't because I was, an I ain't even gonna try to lie because that would be pointless, but, ya can't blame me for forgetting about their fire immunity, burger was good though, a little colorful, but spicy as ever, I'm gonna have to go back again sometime, their food is tasty, despite the weird plate, heh." I chuckled. Chrysalis laughed and just gave me a peck on the cheek as she got up. "While that will be fun to tease you about for the next thousand years, I have to oversee the changelings whom have gotten pregnant, I'm just glad we all used that potion before I jumped you, as much as I like birthing hives, I don't want to lay a few thousand eggs, thank Faust for those little four legged Zebras, their miracle workers, I'll see you later Lorenzo, till then, take a shower you smell." And with that Chrysalis had walked out of the room. I looked to Rainshine, who spoke up with a yawn. "I'm just going to nap, I may be larger than you, but hot damn honey, you know how to wear a mare out." She nuzzled me before rolling onto her side to sleep, while moon got up, ....licked my face, and went to go take a shower, that was weird. I simply went into another room, and shot myself in the head, and respawned clean as ever, thank god for that, I got dressed and got ready to address the day. Not 15 minutes after I sat on my throne to look through reports on 'the project' something so secret only 5 living beings within the Empire knew about it, one of them being me, I got a call from Celestia, it was marked urgent, so I picked up. "Yes?" I spoke into the phone. Celestia sounded stressed as hell. "Lorenzo I need your help, stallions are rioting at the gates of Canterlot Castle, and already several stallions and mares have died, either due to accidents, or rioters turning angry, and I am at a loss of what to do!" She all but shrieked into my ears. I sighed again. "First of all, TONE THE VOLUME DOWN, your gonna burst my ears, secondly what is it the rioters want and why are they all stallions?" That was an honest question, couldn't help if I didn't know all the details. "While I'm not sure if all stallions in Equestria are here, a good lot of them are, they want equal rights for both mares and stallions, as the law has long favored mares more than stallions, due to how rare they are, for every stallion born, twenty mares are birthed, as such there are FAR more mares than stallions." I facepalmed, one of THOSE Equestrias....now that I think about it, that makes a lot of sense from what I've seen, no male guards, yet male maids and such, god. "First off, give them what they want, its only right, and give me some time to make a list of ways to fix your population problem, if its magic, genetic, or just shitty luck, I'm sure someone in my Empire, a zebra most likely, can help fix the problem, but GIVE THEM EQUAL RIGHTS, and do so BEFORE more die off." I said flatly. Celestia sighed on the other end of the line. "Very well Lorenzo, I do not know how badly this will impact the traditions we have held for a thousand years, but, change is necessary I suppose, even if it will be a drastic one upon our society, I thank you Lorenzo, I see you not as just a fellow ruler, but also a friend, and someone to fuck when I'm in the mood, speaking of, does next Monday work for you?" I laughed. "Yeah, next Monday is fine, till then Celestia, I bid you farewell and goodluck with your rioters." I hung the phone up, that was fucking hilarious. Before I forget to mention a few things, a few weapon developments had been made, a plasma missile launcher for instance, an automatic mininuke launcher, the second one was mounted on the walls, and on the Antigrav aircraft carrier only, if I tried to have handheld versions made, even a minotaur would shatter their arms, the first one was fine though, and I won't even explain as the name says it all, and no, I don't know how it works. In other shocking news, some of my scientists are trying to miniaturize the plasmatic lance and make it fire at normal speeds, and turn it into a fucking plasma rifle, from what I know this is weeks, or months away, but once its complete.....it'll be the most powerful hand held weapon my Empire has, aside from railguns. I was told this would me a 'smart gun', it would have some sort of system inside it that wouldn't allow it to fire at citizens or soldiers of the Empire, for any reason, of course that wouldn't work if said citizen or soldiers was undead, then the weapon would work, how it did this, I have no fucking clue, I could find out later, for now, I wanted some breakfast. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------Night Light and Twilight Velvets House, Canterlot----------------------- Twilight Sparkle was sitting on the couch inside her foalhood home, she had nowhere else to go, she knew for a fact her friends wouldn't let her inside their own homes, not after what she did, how she lied, and how she put their lives in very, VERY, real danger, her mother walked up and gave her a cup of coco, which she gladly accepted. Velvet sat down across from her daughter, a mug of coco for herself. "Remember what I said Twilight, regardless of what happens, your always welcome here, and if you'd like to know, Shining Armor is doing well, he writes often, and his new Marefriend is nice as well, from what she writes anyways." Twilight nodded and sipped her coco. "I just don't know what to do anymore mom, I have no wings, no horn, no magic, and no cutiemark....what am I supposed to do now? I failed the Tree, I failed Celestia, I failed my friends and I failed harmony." Nightlight, whom had a glass of brandy in his hand with some ice in it, and was sat next to Velvet just signed as he sipped. "From everything you've told us, its high time you try to make amends with your friends, and then with King Lorenzo, as unlikely as it is from your point of view, everything we've heard about the guy, he's nice, he's kind, and he helps others when they ask, just look at what he did for Canterlot that one day, sure he may have used violence, but how many innocent ponies would have died had he not stepped in? Likely thousands, try to make amends, and I'm sure everything will be fine, all wounds heal with time sweetheart, till then, your welcome here anytime, and your room is still the way ya left it." Twilight teared up as she sniffled, and hugged her parents, a hug they returned with honest love for their daughter. "Thanks..I needed that, and I will try, I'll try my hardest to make everything right again." Twilight's eyes sparkled in a way they hadn't since she lost her friends, for the first time in a long while, she had hope, hope for a better future, hope that with time, her friends would forgive her for her mistakes, and that they could all be friends once again. -------------------------------------------------------------Abyssinian Empire----------------------------------------------- The Two changeling queens looked to one another, it was time to begin, finally after all this preparation, it was time to begin their plan, in an instant changeling implants began to do the tasks required of them, and soon enough, they'd have this empire under their complete and total control, after an hour, the city of Catsburg, went up in an explosion of purple light as a mushroom cloud formed, tainted purple, the signature of a large scale arcane bomb, small skyscrapers flattened into dust instantly as the fireball rose into the sky further and further, while the shockwave slammed through the city with no mercy, the heat that came with it, vaporized those unlucky enough to be to close, for those even more unlucky, they suffered 3-4th degree burns across any surface of their body the wave could touch, thousands dead instantly. The two queens laughed, soon, very soon, once they got their hands on the pathetic excuse of a queen the cats where loyal to, they'd get whatever they wanted, and this little show of power in one of their smaller cities, would show they could back up their words. ---------------------------------------------------------Lorenzo's Empire----------------------------------- I had decided what I would do on this fine day, I'd cash in my favor with my Discord, what did I ask for you might be asking? Simple, I was going back to MY Earth, for three days I would go back, what I would do there I had already planned. Discord grinned as a golden vortex formed and it showed an alleyway. "This spell will wear off in three days time, and you will be dragged back here, if you need to come back before that, kill yourself, your respawn point is set here to your throne, so you'll appear here." I nodded, the herd had already been informed of this, and in my absence, Moon and Chrysalis, along with General Glimmer, where in charge till I got back. I stepped in, making sure I was wearing normal clothes, jeans, black shoes, sunglasses, and a plaid t-shirt. The vortex closed behind me with no sound. Already I could tell something was off, the gravity felt lighter, then again...I think I should have expected that, Equis, both of them, had been about six times Earths size from what I remembered, my satellites told me as much. I grinned, I was back, and I had shit to do, this was going to get fun, as such I began the walk from the ally, to my house down the block. I walked up to the first person I saw. "Hey dude, can you tell me the date? I can't remember and I forgot my phone somewhere." The man looked surprised for a minute, before looking at his phone and saying. "Uh...its 5/25/2018." He slid his phone back into his pants pocket. I nodded in thanks and went upon my way, like I had said, I had already planned what I was going to be doing here, first step, get my shit, I walked down three blocks and took a left, and saw my house, just as I had left it, I walked up and grabbed the door handle and squeezed to turn it, only to be left in shock as the stainless steel doorknob was crushed in my hand like tinfoil....what the FUCK? I looked down at it, then at my hand, and yanked, which yanked the entire door off its hinges.....this was going to be both fun and scary. I walked inside, and aside from the power not being on, everything was as I had left it, first I nabbed my computer, all my movies, games, the food in the fridge was long rotten, I knew as much by the smell of the house. I walked upstairs into my room, and grabbed my long dead phone, bluetooth headphones, and my recipe book, unlike store bought ones, this was just a book of recipes I had written down over the years, after I had gathered all the shit I wanted, I grabbed my door and slid it back against the doorframe, no one would notice unless they looked a little to close, since I flipped it and as such, the doorknob on that side had not been crushed. I began to cross the road, and I headed into a Starbucks, their coffee sucked ass, but they had wifi, which was what I needed, I had taken my wallet as well, which still had 500 or so bucks inside, so I got a simple black coffee, no cream, no sugar, and drank as I sat down and pulled out my old tablet, and plugged a USC into the port meant for a charger, and watched with glee as the tablet lit up and unlocked, and I was given a few options, I picked the one I had brought this crystal for, it would download all useful information from the internet, documentaries, wikipedia, the likes, then it would download movies, music, books, and most useful youtube videos. I only had to wait 15 minutes, with the tablet heating up to the point it began to glow cherry red, and the crystal beeped, as such I unplugged it and stored it into my inventory, and watched the tablet melt in my hands as I dropped it. Thankfully no one noticed, and the table was the same shit it always was, artificial wood, so it didn't burn, but did get plastic melted to it, I walked out leaving people to later find that and wonder how a simple android tablet could heat to such levels that it would melt to a table. My next stop, was Walmart, not the best store in the world, but they had everything I needed all in one place, I began to cross the street again, when this time I was blindsided by a car and tossed 30 feet and smashed across the pavement, blacking out. What I didn't know, was I had crumpled the front end of the car that hit me. > Chapter 43 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I let out a groan as I slowly woke up, I heard a constant beeping noise, along with the feeling of a needle in my arm, my eyes shot open, I was in a hospital bed. It took a few moments for me to remember what had happened, crossing the street, the sudden impact and slamming against the concrete.....that had hurt, sure, but damn well not the worst thing I've had happen to me. Sitting up in the hospital bed revealed I was in a hospital gown and nothing else, along with a wristband they attach to people, I yanked the IV out of my arm and injected myself with a stimpack to be safe, ripped off the wristband and checked my inventory for my normal clothes, they were gone......oh for fucks sake the must have cut them off! The moment I pulled off the clip thing on one of my fingers the heartbeat monitor flatline and it took all of five seconds for a nurse to rush in, seeing I was awake she went pale as a ghost and quickly rushed out of the room, I stood up and began to scroll through my inventory quickly....shit shit shit I hadn't thought to take anything but one outfit and my alicorn armor.....god damn it I guess I have to put the armor on, I slapped it on using my inventory and instantly felt better, unless I was in my room at the palace, I did NOT like being nude where others could see me, my herd excluded from that for obvious reasons. Another two minutes later, a doctor walked into the room, he was african american with black hair, light blue eyes, and a beard, overall I forgot what most humans looked like, weird to see one up close after so long, the phone guy not counting since I didn't look at his face for to long. "Sir, I have no idea how your standing right now, let alone even alive, you where hit by a truck going 40 miles per hour, and tossed thirty feet across the pavement, along with the fact we had you on the strongest pain killers we have, you should NOT have woken up, not for about five more hours, so I'm going to have to ask you to return to your bed." I shook my head and smirked as I put my sunglasses on. "No can do Doc, I got places to be, and not a whole lotta time!" If he noticed my armor, he didn't show it at first, until about 15 seconds of looking at me, his eyes went wide at the gunmetal grey of the metal, and the crimson red gemstones within as well, I tried to walk past him, and he tried to block me. "Sir, regardless of places you have to be, there are two jents from the FBI who'd like to speak with you." He walked out of the room quickly as two almost identical people walked into the room, they both had on a classic suit, black tie, sunglasses, the works you'd expect from some uppity federal worker. The moment the doctor was gone one of them pulled a 9 millimeter pistol and took aim at my chest. "I am agent Blake, FBI, and we're going to have a little chat, so why don't you sit down before an accident happens?" The other one remained silent, holding a small pump action shotgun. I laughed, which seemed to set them on edge, before I activated the wings of my armor and flared them, casting the hospital room in an aerie red orange glow, and causing the one with the shotgun to panic and shoot me in the chest, thankfully this armor is decent enough to protect me from basic bird shot, which is what the guy seemed to be using, so I pulled out my Plasma Defender pistol and shot, leaving a hole in the mans shoulder, while the one with the pistol seemed to be radioing in for backup, I shot the radio out of his hands using vats, and slowly walked up to him as he took aim with the pistol again. Before he was able to shoot however I grabbed it from his hands, and made a show of crushing it into scrap before tossing it to the side. "Here's whats going to happen, I'm going to walk out of this door, and your not going to follow me, if someone does, they die." To my surprise the agent pissed himself....pathetic. I smashed him over the head with my armored fist, same for the other guy, knocking both the dumb fucks out, and walked out of the room, my wings still active, but folded on the armors back, I got gasps from patients, nurses, and doctors, I ignored them and began to make my way from the hospital, I was walking past the children's section of the hospital when I felt someone grab my leg, and looked down thinking someone had brought a pet into the hospital. Only it wasn't a pet, it was a small human child that looked deathly thin, and had almost no hair on his little head, he also looked pale as hell. "Tom! Honey please come back to mommy!" I heard a woman frantically yelling as she came around the corner, the moment she saw me she froze up in terror once she saw her little one was still hugging my leg, the kid couldn't be more than, 8-9, Tom, seemingly his name, looked up at me, at the wings folded on my back, and back up to me. "Are you an angel like the ones in the book mommy reads to me?" I honestly didn't know how to react at first, before I slowly flared the armors wings and knelt down, and put on a smile. "Yes, Yes I am little one, I was sent here to grant you one wish, whatever you may desire, I will grant it." Hell I may as well be a little nice, the kid looked like he was gonna kick the bucket and I thought I might have somethin that could help em, I kept potions my zebras made on me at all times in the Aid section of my inventory. Tom looked at me with amazement in his little beady eyes, before he spoke again. "I want to not be sick anymore, to make mommy stop crying, I wanna go back to school and play with my friends Mister Angel!" He spoke with excitement in his voice, before he let out a few nasty sounding coughs. I scrolled through my inventory and pulled out a glowing red vial, popped the cap off, and handed it to the kid. "Drink this then, it will make you feel better after awhile." Meanwhile the mother was still just staring in complete shock as the kid took it and drank, it was raspberry flavored so people wouldn't spit it out, and thus waste it. Hearing shout down the hallway I looked to the mother and made the 'shhh' gesture with a finger as I popped a stealthboy and turned invisible, just in time too, as several agents in suits ran past. I almost chuckled to myself and made my way out of the hospital, careful to avoid bumping into anything or anyone, and grinned as I walked outside the doors of the main lobby. Several black vans and cars had been parked at random areas around the parking lot, with agents holding various firearms, I ignored them, as they couldn't see me, and I took flight, it felt weird being back on Earth, so close to what had once been my home, the home I lived alone in, with no friends, no family, no one to chat with except online, I grinned, I was glad I didn't live on this shitball of a planet anymore, but for now, I had a few tasks to do, so I flapped my wings and shot off to the nearest walmart, and walked inside, popping another stealthboy to remain unseen, I headed to the tech department. Once I was in the tech section of the store, I snagged a few blank DVD's, a few cheap DVD players, some tablets, large ones, not the smaller ones, a Dell computer that looked like it was from 1995, a lot of random movies on DVD, and a few DVD recorder cameras, before I walked out of the place, and my stealthboy wore off without me realizing it, I did realize it when the man in front of me screams from me popping out of what likely seemed like nowhere to him, so I took flight once again. People had pulled out their phones, or cameras, and began to take pictures and record me, I flew off quickly, headed to a seedier part of the town, and landed next to a rundown gun shop, which had a few bullet holes on the outside concrete walls, this was the worst neighborhood in town, which was exactly what I needed, I strolled in not giving a damn and had my wings flared, the owner aimed a rifle at my chest in short order. "Don't ya come any closer or I'll be puttin a nice sized hole in that chest of yours son." I rolled my eyes and tossed him a sack of coins, which spilled out, showering the counter with half inch thick solid gold coins, you could almost see the dollar signs in his eyes as he put the rifle away. "Sorry bout that, what'll ya have? Names John." I grinned and snagged several items off the shelf, all of them would come in handy for both my Equestria, and the one my Empire currently sat upon, and walked out of the store with three BARs, or Browning Automatic Rifles, a few government issue 1911 pistols, several small automatic shotguns, and three boxes of ammunition for each, the moment I walked out of the shop I had several SWAT members aiming assault rifles at me, along with a few snipers, all of them behind cover, one held up a megaphone and shouted. "DROP ANY AND ALL WEAPONS AND GET ON THE GROUND! IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY FORCE WILL BE USED! some very high up people would like to speak with you, NOW." I shrugged and thought 'what the hell why the fuck not' because one, I was going back in two days regardless of whatever cell these fuckers tried to put me into, secondly all I had to do was die to go back now, of course I wasn't gonna clear my inventory. A black helicopter slowly landed on the pavement and I was rushed inside. --------------------------------------------------------------------back at the hospital---------------------------------------------------------------- The same doctor that had went into Lorenzo's room, walked into the room with a clipboard in his hand, and a look of pure shock on his face as he looked at the little boy on the bed, whose condition was already improving at an unprecedented rapid rate, already he looked less like a skeleton, his skin had returned to normal color, his eyes no longer sunken into his eye sockets, and his face finally having color back to it. The Doctor looked to the clipboard in his hands one last time before looking at the blond woman sitting in a chair next to the bed. "Miss....Marry, if I remember correctly...I don't know what happened exactly, but by every test we've run, the tumor in his brainstem is gone, its not there anymore, nor is there any of the cells it was producing in his blood, whatever happened to this boy, its a miracle." Tom beamed at the doctor. "The angel gave me something to make me better! Right mommy?!" The kid looked to his mother, whom was just in shock, tears of joy slowly flowing from her eyes as she nodded and hugged her son with joy she had not been seen with since she began to come in every day or so to visit her kid since he was admitted last month to the hospital. Doctor Alex tilted his head. "Angel you say? What did it look like?" He asked the small child while picking up a mostly empty vial from the floor, it still contained what looked to be juice of some sort. "The angel gave me that drink and said it would make me feel better! And he was right!" Tom went on to explain what the angel looked like, and the doctor slowly turned pale realizing the description exactly fit the strange man whom had escaped the hospital and shot a federal agent in the shoulder with something that burned as hot as a fire. " Doctor Alex rushed off to view the CCTV footage, and once he did he was in utter shock. "My god..." > Chapter 44 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The helicopter took a few hours of flying, which to me was FAR to long, seeing as I was used to either teleporting, or having aircraft that could go mach 8-15, as such this flight was very slow to me. I had asked 5 minutes into the flight where exactly we were going, and I found our destination to be the Pentagon, so I slapped on my crown, which almost got me shot, before the soldier inside the compartment with me was ordered to stand down. As the Pentagon came into view the Black Hawk helicopter slowly began to land at a designated pad, and with a short jolt, we had landed, and I was helped out, I tried to look regal, as such I flared the wings on my armor, once again casting the orange yellowish glow, and freaking out a few newer soldiers, it seems I had a four guard escort to wherever the fuck they where taking me. Within five long minutes of walking, I was escorted into some large office where what looked to be a General was sitting on a large swivel chair, he motioned to the less fancy wooden chair in front of his desk, as such I sat down, and waited, I wanted to see where this was going. The General spoke up, his tone flat, and bored. "I am General Mark A. Milley Chief of Staff of the Army of the United States of America, and we want to know who you are, what you want, and if you pose a threat to national security in anyway, shape, or form, if you do, you will be killed on the spot." I flared my wings once again. "I am King Lorenzo, Ruler of the Crystal Empire, you should do well to respect the ruler of an Empire strong enough to glass this planet." One of Mark's eyebrows rose up. "And do you have any actual proof of these claims? Or are you just shitting out your mouth?" He questioned, as I expected that. I grinned, I had planned for this, and held up my pipboy and watched as the modifications I had made long ago take action, a holographic map of my Empire floated into view, causing the General's eyes to widen, as much as a humans eyes COULD widen, which was small compared to the species I was now long used to, I then showed him a video of the test firing of the plasmatic lance on a dead barren rocky world, much like mars, and yes, I did have it tested, what kind of stupid fuck, would I be to not have the main weapon on a starship tested? Seems General Mark A. Milley was getting nervous at that little display, though he barely showed it, only letting sweat drip down his face and neck before he spoke, in a more respectful and reserved tone. "I....see, I apologize, your Majesty, but its simply a matter of national security due to seeing that, I'm afraid we're going to have to ask you hand over any and all advanced technology, under direct orders from the President himself, please hand anything over you have on you." I gave him a deadpan look, a look that screamed. 'Dude are you fucking stupid, high, drunk, or all three?' Which after a solid four minutes of me staring I laughed before speaking in the most flat, monotone, no I won't take your bullshit voice. "Thats going to be a flat No. Do ya understand that word? No? Spelled N. O. Giving your nation my technology would spark another cold war, along with the fact me giving you my technology would be like you giving a toddler a loaded pistol, meaning bad shit would happen." The look on his face went from calm and collected, to slightly angry. "I think you fail to realize whom you are speaking with, and who's orders these are, and the weight he can throw around, I'd think very carefully if I were you." His tone indicated anger, as I expected. I kept the flat look as I spoke again. "You fail to realize, I could give two shits if the tooth fairy gave you these orders, my duty is first to my Empire, its citizens, and the well being and happiness of said citizens, and if you threaten me again, I FUCKING WILL, set an assaultron on your ass and watch as your turned to burning ashes, I have already helped your country by giving a little boy a cure for his cancer, and making sure there'd be enough for the doctor watching after him, to synthesize more, the ingredients are rather common here, so it sort of surprises me you didn't find the cure for cancer before." I said with complete honesty. The Generals face went to anger, confusion, anger, then confusion again. "You say you cured a little boy of cancer? How is that possible? No known cure has ever been found, you must be lying." I grinned like the fucking Joker. "Nope, and if you want proof, go back to that hospital, and pull up the footage from the CCTV, I'm sure you'll find all the proof you want there, now if you'll excuse me, I have crap to do." I stood up to leave, and as I did the General pressed a button on the top of his desk. General Mark gave me a small smirk as two guards entered the room in full body armor carrying assault rifles. "I'm sorry but I can't allow you to leave until we get the advanced technology you have at your disposal, so either you can hand it over, or one of these fine gentlemen can shoot you and we can pry it from your cold, dead, corpse." The two soldiers aimed their assault rifles at me, and I laughed, an insane laugh that would make even the Joker slowly back away in pure terror, which caused the guards to falter slightly, that was all I needed to see. I walked up to the nearest one and placed the barrel of the rifle against my head. "Go on. Shoot me then. You can do it, shoot me." He failed to pull the trigger, shaking slightly, I began to yell. "GO ON, PULL THE FUCKING TRIGGER YOU LITTLE BITCH, DO IT." To my utter amusement the guard dropped the rifle and ran out of the room, while the other one was looking to the General, then to me, before he slowly tossed his rifle to the ground. "FUCK this, I quit." Was all he said before he calmly walked out of the room, while the General blanched at the utter incompetence of his own trained soldiers. I turned around and looked at the General. "Time to have some fun, don'tcha think? Time sure flies fast! I'll see you again...hmmm.. never." I used a stealthboy and jumped up and flapped the wings of my armor, smashing through a window and flying as fast as I possibly could away from that sideshow, I damn near busted a gut I wanted to laugh so badly. For the next two days I was there, I had been slowly supplying hospitals and medical labs with chems like Med-X, stimpacks, Rad-x and Radaway, most people may be assholes, but that don't mean I'm not gonna help Humanity as a whole with medical shit, I was in a small town, only about 20-30 buildings, some houses, a small hospital, a few food joints, and stores, 25 or so houses, a police station, overall, it was a small town in the middle of almost assend nowhere. When the two days had finally been up, I was glad to feel myself being yanked back to my Empire, only to find later on, the town came with me....GOD DAMN IT DISCORD! > Chapter 45 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I let out a yelp as my face smacked into my throne, which Moon was sitting on when I did, so I ended up crashing face first into her tits, causing HER to yelp before she began to laugh and set me to the side. "I was wondering when you'd be back, the sensors are going off the charts, some new small landmass is now a few thousand miles away from any city, along with the forest, I'm suspecting you or Discord had something to do with it, but for now, no time for that." She stood up and I plopped onto my throne. I raised an eyebrow at her. "And why is there no time for that?" I asked, it was an honest question to me. Moon looked down at me, I sometimes forgot she was taller than me....slightly taller than Princess Celestia, and spoke. "For one while you were gone, the Abyssinian Empire was attacked with large scale arcane bombs, destroying entire cities in one blast, their Queen and several hundred citizens fled here with their jumbo jet transport planes, with minor fighter craft support, while two Changeling queens led by the Storm King have taken control of the capital and are currently attacking the Griffon Empire with their new toys and mind controlled Abyssinians, which puts a lot of kingdoms at risk." My eyes widened before I pulled up a holographic map of my Empires troop capacity, and readiness for military strikes. "How soon will we be able to knock those bugs and that ugly yeti thing down? I'd rather not waste the investments I've made into the Abyssinian Empire." I watched a few prototype robots flash onto the screen, and swiped them away. Moon shrugged. "We are ready to launch various weapon systems to beat those bugs to the ground, but they are making demands from us, seemingly the 'Storm King' as he proclaims himself to be, offered in return for them aiding his war efforts, the Crystal Heart from this Empire." I facepalmed, hard. "You'd think by this point people wouldn't be stupid enough to try and make demands from me, but nooo this world has to be fucking FILLED with morons! How is Queen Carnelia? Did she or any of the other cats require medical attention upon arrival?" Moon shook her head. "No medical attention was required by any, but we of course had them scanned to see if they themselves had been changelings, our own lings didn't detect anything, nor did the lie detector crystals, at the moment the Queen would like to speak with you as soon as possible Lorenzo, she seemed rather distraught, and why shouldn't she? The nation she grew up in and ruled, is under attack from within and most of it has fallen, those whom resist to hard get bombed." I sighed and rubbed my temples, and groaned. "Okay, okay....first, I want the new L-90 Thunderclap Antigravity aircraft carrier to be loaded with a few hundred WR-3F Fortress troop carries, robotic soldiers only, the advanced ones with the new sensors, and I want several thousand X-C6 Scourge automated fighters loaded onto it as well, and I want it done yesterday! Now, send in Queen Carnelia, I wish to talk to her, as now that I'm here, I can do that at the least, also have some one of the smaller factories produce some fuel for their aircraft so in the event they need to, they may return to their Empire." Moon nodded, and walked out of the room relaying the commands I had given over the ADN, Automated Defense Network, and about three minutes later, Carnelia walked in, and up to the throne, and bowed as a sign of respect, before rising. "I wanted to thank you...and your Empire, for offering complete and total military aid seeing as my military and most of my air force is now under the unwilling control of the changelings from the Storm King." I nodded. "Of course, we are allies, if need be, we help one another, plus, we're friends! Friends gotta help friends eh? Don't worry to much, we should get your Empire back with minimal loss of life for your cats, the robotic units going on the ground will be using stun weapons or non lethal weaponry, like knockout gas, for the changelings, tesla weapons are rather effective at stunning them for about an hour or two, with little to no damage actually done to the ling, of course of things get more violent lethal force shall be authorized." Queen Carnelia's eyes widened a bit before she raised an eyebrow. "You would try to use non lethal weapons against my troops under mind control? Why? They are still a threat to your troops, and as such I thought you'd know full well any violent action requires lethal force to stop completely, the stun weapons may not work, despite my doubts, I am grateful for your attempts to not kill my entire military off like flies...but I don't think I'd be fit to rule after this is over, I have failed my empire, and its citizens by not seeing the threat within." I patted her on the shoulder. "Look, not many can actually detect changelings, moreso if they don't have sensors like the ones I use, or magic, and you had neither, so don't go kicking yourself in the teeth for this, they pulled the same shit at Canterlot, abit it was a different hive, changelings are masters of lying, manipulation, and getting what they want by pulling at the shadows, its why all lings in my empire are still kept in the Hivemind Chrysalis had before she joined me, if one plots against the Empire, she will know and notify me." Carnelia nodded in agreement. "I suppose one can't be ready for everything, regardless of this I'd like to ask, if you do end up winning, to move my Empire here, or, a chunk of it anyways, as my citizens will no longer feel safe where they currently are, even just allowing us to build outside the walls would be enough." I grinned and nodded. "Of course I'd allow that, again, allies protect allies, and it means the Automated Air Defenses would shoot down anything trying to shoot at YOUR territory, since they'd be within reach." She nodded again. "Thats why I thought of having such a thing done, now, I must go for a little while. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------Town Of Raspberry------------------------------------------------- Chief of Police Johnson was looking at the report he had just been given, and looked up to the officer. "Are you completely sure? No Internet signal? No satellites? No radio or TV signals? Are you COMPLETELY sure about this?" Officer Brian nodded. "I am, several people on the street complained there phones are not working, nor are their TV's, radios, even car radios just have static." Brian was about to go on, but the TV in the lobby next to the office they where in flicked violently before it received a signal, its speakers screamed in protest for a few moments, as the image was all fucked up, before it cleared up, and a....small horse....was seen on screen, it looked like a news station. The miniature horse had bright blue fur, and a cloudy grey mane, with yellow eyes. "This is Swift Bolt reporting in for Channel 1 News, your 24/7 news station for everything going on in the Crystal Empire, anytime, anywhere, 24/7, we'll be there, an update has recently gotten to the station, the King has returned from his trip, and now we can fully begin helping our Abyssian allies with the invasion they are currently going through, Queen Carnelia could not be reached for an interview. However she was reported when leaving the throne room to be ecstatic and full of joy, some more news is a heavy rain shower is set to go off at exactly 9 pm tonight, so keep the foals inside, it'll be cleared away at about 5 am or so, till then stay dry and stay inside." The Tv went black as someone pressed the power button on the remote. Johnson looked at the TV, then back to the guy with the remote. "Did one of you fuckers slip LSD into my coffee this morning?" When he got a round of 'no sir's', he sighed. "I think we're going to need to bring out the big guns to prevent people from rioting or panicing, grab the M4 Carbines, the 870 pump actions, and some tear gas, I want a helicopter flying over the city to survey what may be going on, NOW." > Chapter 46 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I stood within the central cockpit for the L-90 Thunderclap Anti-gravity Aircraft Carrier, aside from the Starships in current use, this was one of the largest flying craft my Empire had at its disposal. As for why I didn't just bombard the fuckers from orbit, it was because I actually wanted to prevent the death of as many cats as possible, I know thats not their species name, but I'm gonna just start callin em cats for now, or nekos, don't like it? To bad. Suck it up Buttercup. Regardless, this cockpit was massive, miles in diamiter and made of 40 foot thick enchanted crystal enhanced with thin energy shields, the whole craft had energy shields, and could house thousands WR-3F Fortress Anti-Gravity Troop carriers, but I didn't actually have more than about, 795 of them, and a few thousand X-C6 Scourge Automated Fighter craft, which I actually did have a few thousand lying around waiting to be used. The robots I'd be sending in as ground troops, would be special ones, while looking like normal sentry bots, these had specialized sensors within their chassis to detect changelings and other species, so it would only actually shoot changelings with automatic railgun rounds, while the cats would be shot with either electric stun weapons, or flat out sprayed with knockout gas. Winter Gust saluted me, seeing as she was the head captain of the Empire's Might, which is what the antigrav carrier was called, and went back to the main controls, which had several android and organic pilots as well, seeing to Point Defense Weapon systems, mostly automatic 50 caliber railguns and supersonic missile systems. It DID have other defense weapons of course, but it shouldn't need them for this short trip, as such the carrier took off smooth as butter, and once the artificial gravity generators where active, we shot off instantly at Mach 10. As an explanation, the artificial gravity generators are what prevented pilots of my starships and fightercraft from.... splattering, like an egg, inside their cockpits, the same applied to passengers. Within 15 minutes we arrived at a city....well, what had once been a city, it had been destroyed by an arcane bomb, buildings melted into slag, others completely vaporized into dust and ruble, while factories burned, spewing black smog into the air due to being in fire and half destroyed, the flames burning a bright neon purple. Looking closely one could see charred bodies, burnt out husks of vehicles and other such crap. It was a sad sight to say the least. I watched as cat jets screamed past, much to my own surprise, my pipboy had them marked as friendlies so the Point Defense Weapons didn't shoot them out of the sky like a hunter shooting ducks, the jets engines wailed as they shot past, and they each let loose several R4M rockets at a large Storm Empire airship, striking its sides and exploding with brilliant orange flashes of flame as the gas lit from within, and caused the airship itself to go up in a ball of flames and scrap metal. More airships where in view as well, the jets turned around and landed on the antigrav carriers roof, it being flat it could act as a runway, despite not actually being designed to do so, and they got refueled, I had prepared to fuel powerplants and perhaps cars, so I had fuel for their jets, 17 jets landed for fuel, and while they where busy refueling, the ships defenses decided to knock a few of those Storm Empire airships from the sky, missiles fired in a spiraling arc, spinning around one another, and slammed into the airship two miles away, these had been plasma missiles, just a small missile with a plasma warhead, and since the gas keeping those airships afloat was flammable, the airship went up in a brilliant display of neon green and orange, the shockwave from the blast rattled other nearby airships. I grabbed a radio and spoke into it, broadcasting to the remaining fleet of airships. "This is King Lorenzo, Ruler of the Crystal Empire. I hereby order you to cease all hostilities against the Abyssinian Empire and immediately vacate this Empires territory, or you will be stricken down where you are, I will not tolerate anything less than what I have stated." I set the radio down, letting the button go, and waited. I didn't have to wait long, as the voice I recognized as the Storm King's came through the radio speaker, however, he didn't sound like I remembered, he sounded serious. "This is the Storm King, ruler of the glorious Storm Empire and all its territories, this Empire now belongs to me, as such I will not have my forces vacate it, you shall leave now, or face the might of my military, air force, and the wrath of our arcane bombs." Facepalming I pressed a button, and the antigrav carrier released its troop carriers, they shot off to various cities in this empire, things where about to get interesting, that much was for sure. -----------------------------------------------------------------------Town of Raspberry------------------------------------------------------------------ Chief of Police, Johnson was looking over some new reports. "God damn it! We only have enough diesel to last 25 days? That's not even a month!" He slammed the papers down onto his desk. The officer that had brought the reports shrugged. Greg looked at the now scattered reports on the wooden desk. "Like I said sir, we are not on Earth anymore, we just fuckin can't be, you saw that shit on the television and heard it on the radio, hell, people are even beginning to panic, the statement we made about the new world thing only excited some scifi nerds, and the old people brushed it off, not believing a single word out of our mouths....but the more important thing here, is what do we do if we encounter some sort of alien life?" Johnson sighed. "Try to make a peaceful first contact, don't shoot unless shot at, the three gas stations in town are to be blocked off from civilians, we will need all that diesel for the powerplant at the edge of town, its only a miracle the power didn't shut off the moment we got here, as such we should ration the power itself, the 4 water towers scattered around town will keep people with drinking water for about three months, if rationed, we'll just have to do with what we've got, the cattle and wheat farm will be our most valuable source of food for now, once the canned and store bought good runs out. For now however, I want one of our choppers to scout around, see if there's anything near us." Greg nodded, and relayed those orders to the three men trained to fly the helicopter, whom quickly took off after fueling the craft, and preforming some pre flight checks. The police helicopter quickly gained speed and flew from the town of Raspberry, and flew for three miles before the very edge of a massive city came into view. "Dear god....its massive, it has to be hundreds of miles, if not more, from us, and yet we can still see the buildings clear as day from here, some of those half to be half a mile tall or more!" The co pilot nodded and pulled out his smartphone and zoomed in, snapping a few photos. "Chief is gonna wanna see these, this is big news." He put the phone back into his uniforms pocket. "We better not fly to high or close, otherwise their radar, or whatever they use, may detect us and shoot us down, we still don't know if anything here is hostile, but if their civilized and advanced enough to build such skyscrapers, then I'd say we have a decent chance for first contact, but better to not risk it." Unknown to the co-pilot or the pilot, they had been detected the moment they got into the air, and soon enough something would be coming out to greet them. > Chapter 47 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- While my robotic forces would be dealing with other cities, I myself would deal with the bugs n storm beasts occupying the capital, of course I'd have my own robots with me, several androids and the new sentry bot models. I looked down at the city below me, it was still intact, and some buildings had been destroyed, yes, but it was clear no arcane bomb was used here, the massive guns on the walls began to go off, trying to take down the carrier I was in, but because of its energy shields, the massive shells that could touch the very edge of the atmosphere, while doing some damage, would take a few hundred to take down the shields, so I opened a door and jumped out. I would not die, as I was in my own custom suit of power armor, much more advanced than what the standard is at the moment, this would be sort of a field test, building power armor with built in weapon systems was a new concept, and was untested, my set of Advanced XO-4 power armor, was made of the most advanced technologies within the Empire, and if it suffered no massive malfunctions during this test, it would become the new standard and faze out the older power armor. The ground grew closer and closer before I landed with a powerful smash, the concrete under me was smashed into small chunks of rock as I landed with enough force to take out a tank. Due to game logic, I assumed the same position you'd fall into if you jumped off a high building in fallout 4, I fucking loved game logic. Standing up the new sensors within my helmet activated, several dots began to glow red, indicating changelings, or storm beasts, cats had been marked as blue and would be dealt with, without using lethal force unless absolutely necessary. Changeling guards, all female like I had assumed, looked UP at me, yes, up, this power armor made me 10 fucking feet tall, I could take on a super-mutant and likely win with just the hydraulics in this armor. I grinned behind my helmet as they raised their stolen or copies of cat STG-44's and opened fire, the rounds just bouncing off my armor, I clenched my fist, causing four, per hand, .90 cal machine guns to slide out of the armors forearm plates, and I held my hands up, and clenched harder, causing the guns to fire. Changelings panicked visibly as their comrades got violently gunned down in front of them, the rounds so large it tore some of them in half, not cleanly however, green blood and gore spreading across the cracked pavement, one round would go through several changelings at a time, and finally stop after one unlucky fucker was the last one to slow the round down. A storm beast with a large knife got to close for my comfort, so I picked it up by the throat and my armors eyes glew red. "You call that little slab of steel a knife?" I held up my right arm and a green blade of plasma sprung from it, a foot long and curved, it worked on the same principle as you'd expect the energy sword from halo to work with, as such thats about as far as I'm gonna bother explaining it. "Now this, THIS, is a fucking knife." I jammed the glowing blade into the storm beasts chest, and let go of its throat, its own weight dragged the blade from its chest all the way past its skull, splitting it in half from the chest upwards, before falling to the ground with a crunch and very little blood leaking from the corpse, the hot plasma had cauterized the wound as it happened, leaving almost no time for blood to seep out. "Hmm...." I said to myself looking at my handiwork. "Very effective, I think Astral Starlight will be pleased with the results." I turned away from the body to continue my slaughter. The lings began to send in Abyssinian soldiers, since they had been marked as allies in the armors computer system, it switched to non lethal weapons and sort of just, tazed em all, or used a small automatic syringer rifle built into the armor, that held knockout darts, when they realized I wasn't killing the cats, they tried to shape-shift into cat soldiers, but because the specialized sensors within my armors helmet, and in the robots I had fighting in other parts of the city, I could tell who was who, and only shot changelings and storm beasts, or stabbed em. That's when a new robot that had been undergoing tests for months, was released onto the battlefield. Skeletal looking androids with sharp teeth, glowing red pits for eyes, and fucking curved swords for arms, well, hands more like it, let out in unison an unholy sounding shriek, like the souls of the damned screaming for revenge, causing the few changelings and storm beasts near them to turn and run in terror, only to be chased and brutally ended, those whom surrendered, very few, where spared, those whom did not, got gutted, or worse. I had slaughtered my way to the castle, a few sentry bots shooting their Automatic Railguns helping me along the way, before a changeling popped up a 20 feet away holding a long tube and aimed it at me....oh for fucks sake thats a Panzerschreck. The ling fired the Anti-Tank rocket and it slammed into the chest of my power armor, knocking me back onto my ass and leaving a nice dent in the armor, after I got knocked down the sentry bots with me took aim and fired their railguns, the sandbag and concrete barrier was no match for projectiles being lobbed at it going mach 8, as such the changeling was quickly turned to paste. I got up with a groan and looked down at the new dent my armor had in it, damn I was gonna have to have the composites improved, damned thing got through 3 layers of the 9 layer protection. I grinned seeing storm beasts and lings raise their arms in surrender as I got closer, some of them, to my surprised, looked depressed at surrendering, I shrugged it off and had several normal androids herd them away while I blew the doors of the castle by shooting a small missile into them. The doors burst from their hinges, the wood and metal being twisted, snapped, and bent under the small warhead, and walked inside. I sliced a changelings head clean off its shoulders before the bug even knew what hit it, the body falling to the floor. It was rather boring from that point on for awhile, going through the castle, killing bugs n storm beasts, knockin out cats, it was about an hour of just doing that, before I made my way to the throne room, and saw a line of changeling soldiers holding rifles, pistols, and STG-44's, I rushed forward with the plasma blades shooting out from my arms, and sliced into them. I picked one up by the head, sliced into her rib cage, ripped one of the ribs out and stabbed to one trying to rush at me from behind in the throat before using it to stab her through the eye into her brain, ending her. Another one got her gun broken in half and the barrel jammed into her stomach and throat stabbed with the magazine, after a few seconds of this, the last two lings simply fled, I shot them in the back with a shotgun that slid out of my armor. Turning around to deal with the two bug queens behind this I saw something rather startling, they where fucking naked and grinning at me. A Yellow on with what looked like a wasp or bee stinger thing attached to her ass, four arms, and one who looked more like a moth, fluffy as fuck, looking at me, the yellow one spoke. "My Sister and I found that little display of dominance, very....alluring, and as such we'd like to mate with you in hopes to produce offspring even a quarter as powerful as that." Wat. "Wat." She facepalmed. "We're joining you so long as we can watch the Storm King die, and we wanna fuck, bang, smash, mate, get it now?" I stared blankly at them for a few moments. "....Alright then....come this way, to the carrier so we can actually get to the Storm King..." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Storm Empire----------------------------------------------------------------------- The Storm King looked down from his throne at his head general. "Repeat what you just said to me, I think I misheard you." He said, his voice deathly calm. The Storm Beast with several medals around his chest-fur did so. "The Empire is lost your majesty, any airship we send up is shot down by the long tubes hovering in the sky, and once they found where our military installations where, they bombarded them with unseen precision, our armies and air force are decimated, and our stockpile of Arcane Bombs was vaporized in the attacks, our forces attacking the Griffon Empire have been destroyed by the same craft as the ones within our skies now, we have no hope to win, our only option is to surrender and hope for the best." The Storm King nodded for a few seconds, before pulling out a Luger and shooting the General in the head, watching as the lifeless body fell to the ground. "Anyone else have any smart ideas they wanna pass by me?" His other generals shook their heads no and where about to leave, before a section of the roof was smashed in. I jumped through the hole in the roof the mini-nuke had caused, and grinned seeing the two queens flutter in behind me, I looked at the throne and saw like, 3 storm beasts with some weird military decoration, I shot forward and picked one up, and slammed it into the other two, knocking them back, before a tube slid out of one of my arms, I aimed it, and fired. Green plasma flames shot out and burned them alive, it was a rather quick death, as they stopped screaming after about a minute, and I looked to the Storm King, a cold expression on my face behind my helmet. "You destroyed a nation taking its first steps into the modern age, a nation that has only existed for 80 years, now? Now, I'll destroy yours, for every cat you killed, I shall kill one of your own, your pathetic empire shall end today." Before he was able to reply, I shot him in the shoulder with the 90 cal, blowing his arm off, he howled in agony, but I wasn't gonna let em die. Not fucking yet by a long shot, so I jammed a stimpack into his shoulder, causing the stump to heal, and grinned at him from behind my helmet. "Time to play~" Unknown to me the two queens behind me had found a nice couch and dragged it over, and where masturbating to me slowly and violently killing the Storm King, I didn't realize this because my back was turned. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------Lorenzo's Empire----------------------------------------------------------------------- The police helicopter swung around and had began to fly back to the station, when several aircraft shot into view with no warning. "FUCKING HELL WHAT THE FUCK ARE THOSE!?" The main pilot screamed as he tried to twist his helicopter out of the path of one of em, and thankfully didn't slam into the crescent shaped craft. The co pilot looked outside to his left. "Hell if I know, but they don't seem to be using any engine I'm familiar with...and that says a lot because I have watched countless documentaries on the history of aviation from biplanes, to helicopters and rocket powered aircraft." He once again pulled out his smartphone and snapped a few photos. The helicopters radio screamed in protest for a few seconds, before static, and then, a voice. "This is Ember Flames, you are hereby ordered to return to where you came from and we shall follow." The co pilot and pilot looked at one another, before looking at the guy who was supposed to be recording all this audio, and nodded before grabbing the radio. "Acknowledged." And swung the chopper into the correct direction and headed off. Two hours later, the helicopter landed on the helipad at the police station, while the four aircraft following it hovered nearby, the pilot had already been instructed what to do, and did so, having radioed in an hour ago the Chief had everyone in town gathered up near the station, the orders had been clear, everyone was going to be scanned for diseases, then some supplies would be left, and later on officials would show up and actually speak to the one in charge, which was the Chief, the towns several hundred residents crowded around the station, before one of the craft scanned them all with a blue light, and beeped a few times. After it beeped green, one of the craft landed on the spare helipad, and a Kirin in a tight rubber suit stepped out, a pistol clearly strapped to the side of her hip, looking more advanced than a simple firearm, it was a railgun pistol, shooting .22 railgun rounds. Ember Flames was holding a holotablet typing information into it, from the scan the zebras already had cures for most diseases, and potions meant for others would work for most here, several people had ran off once the craft landed, she hadn't cared, she already got the information she had needed, no disease here would cause a pandemic for the Empire, she was simply to observe these humans for awhile. One guy looked to his buddy. "Dude its an awesome day to be a furry, look at that chick! Her tits have to be larger than watermelons!" The pervert exclaimed with excitement. Fred slapped Joe upside the head. "Fucking moron don't be rude! Ya see the piece she has? That clearly ain't no normal 9 millimetre, you go pissin her off your gonna end up with more than one hole in ya, sure she's hot, not gonna lie an say I wouldn't tap that, but she also has FEELINGS you dumb fuck, don't treat her like an object because she ain't human." Joe rubbed the part of his head that had been slapped. "Slap me again and I'll go down n grab my shotgun n shoot your fuckin kneecaps ya bastard, law be damned! No one slaps me, got it?" In response he got slapped again. > Chapter 48 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ember Flames was typing more information into her holotablet, she had clear instructions on what to do, she fidgeted slightly, not liking the tight rubber suit she had been made to wear, but, the rules set forth by the King were law, and while on the clock she wouldn't be allowed to be nude, so she'd have to wait till she could leave, go to her home, and peel the suit off. She hadn't noticed the human male walking up to her, eyes red and puffy looking, bloodshot more like it, skin pale an clammy, blood dripping from his nose, nor the psychotic grin he had on his face. The officers standing nearby did however, and yelled for him to halt, rushing at him, he noticed this, which caused him to run up to the kirin, whom now noticed him and was looking down at him, her being 8 feet tall, with a raised eyebrow, all he could do in his drug filled haze was continue to grin as he quickly pulled out a 9 millimeter pistol and jammed it into her stomach, shooting, five shots where let off before Ember Flames got her own pistol aimed at the psychotic man, clutching her stomach she took aim and fired, the mans head popped like a balloon from the railgun round going through it at mach 2. The mans lifeless body fell to the floor, blood spilling out from the stump that had once been his head like a crimson waterfall, while Ember Flames quickly injected herself with a cocktail of a stimpack, jet, and Med-x, the wound closing and pushing out the five metallic bullets making her grunt in agony for a few seconds, it was FAR from a painless process. The crowed who had watched this, many screamed in terror, some rushed up to the Kirin, the ones who did wore EMT uniforms, while officers tried to get control over the crowed, Ember Flames still on the ground in agony as the cocktail of chems took effect beyond the stimpack. While the EMT's where attending to Ember Flames one of the other craft got close to the ground and several androids in their heavy marine armor hopped out, holding up their ARRMK2's, and took formation around the Kirin, and looked at the other humans approaching, some civvies, some officers, one of the androids spoke, its voice harshly synthetic and male. "Further hostile actions against Doctor Ember Flames will result in the immediate termination of the one, or ones responsible. You are now required to stand back a minimum of 15 feet, failing to do so will result in being shot at." As if to make a point the android aimed its ARRMK2 at an officer who approached, causing him to step back a bit. The officer held up his hands as he stepped forward. "Sir, we wish to help the EMT's in assisting your commander, or whatever she is to you, all we wish to do is help." As to prove a point, the officer took his pistol, dropped it onto the floor after checking the safety was on, and kicked it to the android, whom stepped on it, causing it to crunch as it was flattened beneath its metallic armored foot, and nodded. "Proceed." It lowered its AARMK2, not fully, but enough that it was clear it wouldn't shoot the officer. Officer Michael rushed up and crouched alongside the EMT's whom had cleaned the blood from Ember Flames suit, having expected a horrible wound, only to find smooth fur and flesh, abit she seemed to be gasping for a minute before she calmed down and sat up, before finally standing up, much to the EMT's disapproval, Officer Michael looked down at the floor to see several bloody spent bullets. "How in the hell did you get those out and heal so quickly?" Ember Flames glared at the body of the man who had shot her, and kicked it, hard, breaking several of the corpses ribs, before sighing and responding. "A chem cocktail, stimpack, jet and med-x, these chems will become commonplace here once this town is integrated into the Empire." Officer Michael raised an eyebrow. "And if we don't want to integrate into this empire of yours?" He asked with curiosity. Ember Flames laughed. "Your town will have no choice but to do so, you are in Empire territory, within its walls, on its land, unless you want to be tossed over the wall and left to fend for yourself, or stay here and slowly starve to death or die of thirst or from lack of power, you really don't have any other viable options, I don't mean to sound like a cunt when I say this, but its the honest truth." Micheal lowered his raised eyebrow. "A few folk here will resist, not many people like change and a lot of em where fiercely loyal to the United States of America and call themselves proud American Citizens." Ember Flames rolled her eyes. "They may resist, some may resist, but, in time they will either become citizens of the Empire, it is inevitable as with all due respect, unintentional as it may have been, your entire town is technically trespassing." ---------------------------------------------------------------------Lorenzos Throne Room-------------------------------------------------------- Queen Chrysalis was laughing, hard, so hard in fact she almost blacked out from lack of oxygen. "So let me get this straight, you slaughtered a few dozen changelings and Storm Beasts, got to the throne room, killed several more, and the two behind it, where nude, and asked to fuck? Oh Faust my sides!" Chrysalis sat down in a chair to avoid falling over onto the floor and rolling around laughing like a loon. I gave her a deadpan look, the two queens across from her and me. "Yeah yeah, laugh it up, the thing is, with them joining us in the Empire, about 14 million changelings, from both of their hives combined, are now in the process of becoming citizens of the Empire, I want you to connect them to your hive-mind like you did with the feral Chrysalis's changelings." Chrysalis managed to calm down long enough to nod. "Yeah, I think I can do that, but what will we do with those two?" She pointed to the two weird looking changelings, she was still surprised her hive was not the last, as she had been thinking that for the past two thousand five hundred years of her ruling it, having never come across another hive, only the remnants of hives long dead had ever been found. I shrugged. "They wanna join the Empire, either by joining the herd, or as citizens, leaving their positions of power, either way they wanna get railed by me, which I don't know about, so I guess for now they can join the herd? And if it doesn't work out we can always just make em normal citizens? They have been informed on all the laws and rules of my....Our, Empire, as such I think they'd do well to follow them, cause if they do on a killin spree the androids in the police force are likely to use their mesmatron rifles set to kill on em, and that wouldn't be pretty, at all." Chrysalis nodded. "Makes sense I guess, in the long run anyways, if they misbehave I can always break out the riding crop." She grinned. I facepalmed. "Stop being kinky all the time or I swear to god, I will build an autofucker machine and leave you strapped into it for a week set to maximum." To my dismay she only grinned wider, before with a flash of green she was gone, the two queens with her, I plopped into my throne with a sigh. I had held up to my word, for every citizen cat that the Storm Kings forces had killed, I had one of his top soldiers killed, I tortured that fucker for an hour, after having shot his arm off and healing it, I flayed him alive like a fish, more stimpack, sawed his horns off, stimpack again, it went on like that for hours, before I got tired of it and stabbed him in the throat and sliced his head off, his skull now sat in my trophy room, polished white. Abyssinian citizens, and military personnel where being shipped to set up shop outside the walls, a few miles away, thankfully they didn't have the ability to build skyscrapers yet, potentially blocking the automatic guns on the walls from shooting their targets if they where low to the ground, so that was an upside, they'd be hooked into the Empires power and water recycle system, when I had gotten back I had seen I had several letters from one Twilight Sparkle, apologizing and wanting to meet in person to say it in person, in pony? Whatever equines would call it, I decided to write back, I'd give her the benefit of a doubt. My Antigrav Carrier had returned, bringing the troop carriers it had ferried with it, along with prisoners who would be offered two choices, join the Empire, or be given 100 bits, a weeks worth of food and water, and tossed onto a train that lead to the end of my territory and be tossed off beyond my boarders, I also sighed reading the report of the human town that had been dragged here with me, and decided I'd have to deal with that today as well, so I slapped on my new suit of power armor after having it repaired, thankfully the auto repair robots I have on standby 24/7 had done their job quickly. I wouldn't KILL anyone of course, it was just for intimidation to prevent some stupid fuck from shooting me, after all what moron shoots a guy in power armor strong enough to lift a small car and toss it like a fuckin small rock? > Chapter 49 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ember Flames stood still, face frozen in shock at the message she had received on her holotablet, the King himself would be arriving rather soon. She had seen the King once before and only once, when he came to her old village and peacefully integrated them into his Empire, she was proud to be a citizen of the Empire, and during her short time as a citizen she had landed a nice job as a biological researcher and a Doctor, being perfect for the job of going into infectious areas due to her species natural ability to burst into flames hotter than anything natural could produce, a sort of organic decontamination. She had the hole in her suit from where she had been shot patched as best she could, using latex spray to seal the hole, it was still rather clear it wasn't part of her suit before, but it would do for now, the 'Chief of Police' walked up to her, the androids knowing not to shoot the cops. "So, your King is on his way here, now?" Johnson asked, his eyebrow raised. Ember Flames nodded. "Yes, soon the King shall grace this small town with his presence, I do hope you remembered the correct way of greeting him I showed you? I would hate for the King to take offense for a misunderstanding, but then again he is rather lax with things like that, regardless its better to be safe than sorry." She said, scrolling through the Empires online news feed to see how the short battle with the Storm Empire had gone. After a moment she nodded and put the tablet away, what she had read was satisfactory to her question about how it had gone. Chief of Police, Johnson, nodded, his hair fadded and grey, having been the Chief of Police since he was 40, it had been a solid 30 years of being an active part of keeping his hometown of Raspberry safe. "I indeed do remember, Bow, say 'Your Majesty' and introduce myself, from there let the King speak, I do have to say your way of government is rather surprising for us, as a whole." He said, taking a sip from his mug of coffee, something that was in rather short supply now that the stores in town would no longer receive any deliveries of the black gold. Ember Flames cocked her head to the side, one ear flopping down as her right eyebrow rose, looking down at the small, compared to her, man. "How so? It has been this way for thousands of years, a royal ruler, be it king, queen, prince, or princess, any respectable Kingdom or Empire always has a royal at the head of it all, its always been that way for the most part." She asked with curiosity in her voice. Johnson did a spit take, dropping his mug in shock, causing it to shatter and splatter his shoes with its contents, he coughed for a few moments, pounding at his chest with a fist before getting his lungs under control and looking back up at Ember Flames with widened eyes. "Did....did you just say 'thousands' of years?" He asked with shock clear in his voice. Ember nodded. "Yes, the Crystal Empire has been around, 4 thousand years, my species recently joined the Empire less than two years ago, and since then its been nothing but an improvement over our old ways of life." She answered with complete honesty. Chief of Police, Johnson, was having a hard time processing what he had just been told, thousands of years? By God Almighty this Empire his town was now smack dab in the middle of, was older than his country by quite a lot, he'd never thought an Empire could last for a Thousand years, even when reading history books about Hitler, thinking if he had succeeded in his war effort, that it all would have fallen the moment he was dead, regardless, he'd have to get over the fact this ruler was likely a good deal older than him, so he straightened his hat with the large gold colored badge on it, and he sighed. "Our country is only 242 years old, so, its quite a shock to learn we're now inside an empire thats FAR older than I ever thought possible for a country to be, so that sort of explains why your so much more advanced than us, four thousand years ago I think people where beginning to enter the Bronze Age." Ember Flames laughed. "Actually it was only about five years ago after the King freed the Empire from the clutches of the Tyrant known as Umbra Queen of Shadows, did advancements in technology go beyond simple crystal based armor and weapons, under the Empires top scientific minds and the guidance of our King, we have become the most advanced Empire on this planet, and soon, other planets, if our current rate of advancement is anything to go from, we already have Faster Than Light starships able to hold the entire population of the Empire if need be." Johnson stared at Ember Flames for a few moments, before pulling out a small flask he kept for when work got a little to stressful, opened it, and took a swig, the vodka burning as it went down before with a sigh he capped it and with much internal struggle, placed it back into his pocket. "Miss.....our nation only recently landed people on the moon, in 1969, I was eleven when it happened, a small boy, I remember watching it on the small television my parents owned at the time, we have yet to land a man on another planet beyond the moon, and your telling me your empire can go anywhere it wants in the galaxy, and would do so if your King commanded it?" Ember Flames nodded. "Of course, what the King says, happens, he is the highest authority within the Empire, he has advisors and the like to help him make choices, but if he decides he wants something done, it gets done, he controls all throughout the Empire, his kindness is almost unmatched aside from his brutality to protect his citizens and what is rightfully his, he saved this Empire from a tyrant, he brought it into a golden age, and made us the most powerful to exist, he has done so much for this Empire that to refuse even the smallest request would be seen as an insult to citizens around the Empire, this is my own opinion of course, some will have a different opinion, but mine is the majority, there are a few who get unhappy time to time, sure, but there isn't really much to complain about with how good we got it." She shrugged. Johnson wiped the coffee that had stuck to his white mustache during his fit of coughing from shock. "I'm....honestly unsure what to think right now, I mean, its not exactly normal for an entire town to just end up on a whole other planet, I'm not certain I'm actually awake right now and that someone drugged me and that I'm having some sort of extremely realistic hallucination at this point." He said rubbing his forehead with a hand. Ember Flames patted him on the shoulder, having to bend down to do so, since Johnson was only 5'8. "I understand this as well, when I first joined the Empire, I was confused about how it worked, and why everything was done the way it was, since I had come from a simple colony of Kirin, but given a few months to learn, I got used to it, and even to love it, I am sure if you give it a chance and try to learn as well, you will have just as much love for the Empire as I currently do." She said with a honest smile on her face. It was at that moment that a small personal troop carrier, meant to hold perhaps, 35 occupants at most, hovered into view, its engines eerily, to Johnson, silent unlike Earth aircraft would be, and Ember Flames gasped and tried to make herself presentable. Johnson could see she clearly cared about her home, and her ruler, so he patted himself down to get any wrinkles out of his uniform and made sure his gun had its safety on. It had taken 30 minutes but the androids finally stopped trying to destroy any human firearm that got near the Kirin, so long as it was an Officer with the weapon. As the long stubby looking tube with round port like windows on the sides like some old passenger propeller airliners used to have, Johnson watched as a hatch on the side opened up, and after a few moments, a massive looking person stepped out, in some sort of scifi looking power armor, sort of like that Fallout 3 video game his grandson showed him from time to time, the figure, supposedly the King of the empire his town sat in, was by his estimates, a whopping ten friggin feet tall, Sweet Jesus Johnson didn't want to offend that hulk of a person, if he even was a person, from how Ember Flames as she had introduced herself told him, this guy was a human male. As the King was making his way over, his armors weight became apparent as with each step the sound of metal smacking into concrete grew louder and louder, he was just glad the stage he was on had been made 3 years prior out of concrete to replace the rotting wooden stage the town had been using since its founding 70 years ago, because Johnson didn't think a wooden stage would support that sort of weight. ------------------------------------------Lorenzo's POV------------------------------ As my personal carrier landed I looked into the body mirror I had, making sure my armor didn't have blood or gore on it any longer, it had been polished so the black metal shined slightly when light hit it, and my weapons had been disabled unless I was shot at. It took all of 15 seconds for the carrier to land and so, I stepped out, fearing the worst, an hoping for the best. I saw the small stage that had been set up, Researcher Ember Flames standing next to an elderly looking man in a police uniform, the yellow badge on his hat declaring him the chief, I inspected Ember closer, my helmets visor zooming in, she had been shot in the stomach, that was in the report she had sent, but it seems the cocktail of chems she had taken had done the trick, I'd have her checked out by a doctor specialized in Kirin biology later on however, never can be to safe. I walked over, and carefully up the concrete steps onto the stage, testing to see if it would bare my weight, and to my surprise, it did, so I stepped onto it and walked over to Ember Flames, and 'Johnson' as I had been told his name was in her report, guy looked about 70 or so years old, damn. As I got within about 7 feet, he bowed to me, the bones in his back audibly cracking and making popping noises. "Your Majesty, I am Chief of Police, Johnson Aberdale, the current guy in charge of the town for the moment, seeing as we have no mayor." I held up a hand. "You likely shouldn't bow, those cracks and pops didn't sound very painless, if you need I can have one of the medics on the team with Ember, mechanical as they may be, take a look at you to help you with any pain that bow may have just caused you." It was an honest concern, guy shouldn't go around doin shit like that, even if I am a King, old folk shouldn't bow, or kneel, or any of that shit, a simple nod would do, or even a small wave. Johnson looked surprised for a moment, before nodding. "I will be fine, its not the first time I've bent down to do somethin, and it certainly won't be the last, ain't painful nuff for me to even decide to take pain medication for it, so don't worry about that none." He straightened himself. "Regardless, its an honor to meet you Your Majesty." I nodded as well and took my power armor helmet off, strapping it to my hip with a maglock. "Its nice to meet you as well, I'd like to begin the process of offering any of your towns residents full citizenship to my Empire, so long as they go through the same process anyone joining would have to, or the option to get on a train to a Kingdom or Empire of their choice, because as it stands, this place is to far out to set up to the Empires water recycling plants, along with the electrical grid, perhaps once a few more cities pop up nearby, then it could be done, but that will likely be months, or more likely, a few years away from happening, and I'm sure your diesel plant won't have fuel for that long." Johnson nodded. "I understand that, we have enough fuel to last us 25 days if rationed for the plant, and enough water to last awhile if rationed as well, the farm downtown has enough to feed folk for a few weeks after the canned and non canned goods from the stores are gone as well, so people will have about just under a month to decide if they wanna join ya or leave, seein as we ain't a large town, we tend to make most decisions as a community." He shrugged. I nodded my head. "That's reasonable, you seem to be handling this whole situation rather well, being on another world I mean." That was honest, he seemed to be holding together rather well for all the information he's been told. Johnson laughed. "Like hell I am! I'm freakin the fuck out, pardon my language, but I'm doin it on the inside, can't freak the town out with the one who's supposed to be the calmest of all in this situation right now, by havin a panic attack and flipping out, I'll get my turn to panic later on when I'm alone in my home, but for now I have to be the definition of calm and collected, less people begin to riot and panic themselves." I chuckled. "I know that feeling, sometimes I want to just lock myself into my own vault and hide for a century and be left alone to not have to do anything, but heavy is the head that wears the crown as some would say." I looked over to Ember Flames. "Ember Flames, your report and duty has been exceptional for this stressing situation, you are relived of duty and I'm giving you a month of paid vacation should you choose to take it, you have served your Empire well, I'm also requiring you to go to a doctor to get better looked at for that gunshot wound you closed up with the chem cocktail issued to you, just in case." Ember Flames's face lit up with ecstatic joy, and bowed. "Yes Your Majesty! Glory to the Empire and her ruler." She stood up and pretty much skipped off with joy, causing me to chuckle once again, that was fucking adorable. Johnson watched as Ember Flames skipped off, almost light as air, she acted as if she had just spoke to the Lord himself and he said she had nice eyes or something of the like, then again from the way she spoke, King Lorenzo may as well be the Lord in her eyes, he shrugged to himself, he'd let people think or believe whatever they wanted to believe in, unlike most folk his age, he knew people had a right to choose what they thought about the divine, and religion altogether. I looked back to Johnson. "So shall we begin?" I asked with an eyebrow raised. Chief of Police, Johnson Aberdale, nodded in agreement. "Suppose we should get it done already, keepin people waitin is like settin a lit match near a powder-keg, jus waitin for a disaster to happen." And with that, I stood at the microphone that had been hooked up to speakers on the stage, normally only brought out for the annual Raspberry Harvest Festival, and spoke. I had put my helmet back on before speaking. "Citizens of Raspberry, today is a day of great opportunity, you have but only two choices, you can join my Empire as a citizen with all the rights and perks that come with it, or you can be given 400 of the local currency and put onto a train to a Kingdom or Empire of your choosing, for there are no other real options, your town being to far to hook into our electric and water systems, and for the fact your vehicles will not have fuel as cars in my Empire are Fusion powered only, no gasoline or diesel." Several Cameras flashed, either actual cameras or smartphones and even iphones flashing, some holding up to record me as I spoke, before someone spoke up. "Why are there no other options?! What if we want to stay here? This is our home, we can't just up and leave!" A few nods of agreement were seen throughout the crowd of people. I sighed. "I have gone over almost all possibilities, these two options are your best bets, as you likely know by now, you are no longer on Earth, I have no idea how the hell you got here, or how the fuck I can send ya back, so these are the best options for your town at the moment, your town sits on land I own, and I can not, and will not, permit the use of petroleum based fuels beyond the 25 days your power plant has fuel for, as it pollutes the air and makes it to hot given enough time, I'm not trying to rush anything, you have exactly 25 days to decide, that;s almost a month, which should be plenty of time for you all to get together, and vote on this matter, because regardless of what your choice is, you can not stay here, there is no way it is able to happen, not only because of your limited supply of food, water, and fuel, but because this is land I own, land I had plans for, I can't have you all just building more homes or anything like that, as such I shall leave you 25 days to decide what to do." I took a breath. "For those whom wish to join and wish to do so now, you can speak to the yellow colored android called 1478, You can find it standing outside the police station, just submit your request to become a citizen to him, meaning just ask, and you will be taken to do the proper process at the facility that handles such matters, I eagerly await your decisions." I set the microphone down, and walked off the stage, patting Johnson on the back, careful not to break the guys bones seeing as I was in power armor. Freddy looked to Fred and Joe. "While you two dorks where busy gawking at him, I realized something rather startling." Fred looked at Freddy raising one of his eyebrows. "And what would that be bro?" Joe leaned in as well. Freddy chuckled. "Dudes power armor looked a LOT like the XO-1 from Fallout 4, but clearly much more advanced, I think things are gonna get interesting real soon my guys." Joe laughed. "I don't give a damn about the guys power armor, I'm gonna sign up for citizenship, maybe I can meet a nice catgirl or somethin." Fred facepalmed. "Once a pervert, always a pervert it seems with Joe." He said with a bored tone, as if he'd said it plenty of times before. joe glared. "Oi nimrod, I don't care what you think of me, I wanna get laid by some alien chick." Fred just nodded. "Of course you do, of course you do." Before walking away with Freddy, leaving Joe alone in the crowed of people now talking amongst themselves. > Chapter 50 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A week or so had passed since my visit to the human town of Raspberry, so far only 15 people have joined. I'm getting some resistance to leaving or joining, but those are the two options I have presented them, they can either take one, or the other, for I shall give them no other choice. Humans aside from me, being on this planet, complicates things by quite a bit, far more so then I thought possible. Seeing as that town came from my old country of the USA, its citizens own a variety of guns, from pistols, to fucking heavy machine guns, by Faust will that be a pain in the ass to deal with. Citizens in my Empire are allowed to have firearms, true, but each one can be tracked and traced to the owner, due to having their magical signature imprinted on the weapon, and therefore, the ammunition that fires from the weapon, just a slight deterrent to prevent shootings from happening. It's far more complicated than this, but I don't think I'll be going into further detail for now, perhaps later in a few millennia. Now onto other matters, I had recently had a 2 millimeter railgun pistol made standard to replace the outdated clunky fallout 4 styled ten millimeter pistols my military currently used, smaller ammunition size so they could carry more, and secondly, more punch than a normal bullet. Now when I say replace, I don't mean I would be getting rid of the ten millimeter pistols, nor the advanced mark two ten millimeter pistols, just that I would no longer be producing more unless absolutely needed. In five minutes my meeting with Twilight Sparkle would begin, seeing as I had invited her here to actually speak to me in person, as such I had a small room set up, just a table, a few chairs, some water or Nuka Cola to drink, and waited. Within 3 minutes Twilight Sparkle had been escorted in by an Android carrying a plasma rifle, a new, sleeker design that would slowly replace the fallout styled plasma rifle, regardless, lets get to this and hope it doesn't end up with me shootin the purple mare. Twilight Sparkle sat down, and nodded at me. "It's nice to see you again....our last few times of seeing one another, haven't really gone without me getting my flanks handed to me, so I'd like to apologize for the trouble I've caused you, and your Empire." Twilight was beginning to get her hopes up, if he didn't accept, she honestly didn't know what she would be able to do, to make things right with this Ruler, and his Empire. I nodded back. "I agree quite a bit, and after much thought, and talking with Chrysalis, Moon, and Rainshine, I have decided to accept your apology, so lets shake on it." Since she was less than 3 feet away, I offered my hand to Twilight, and when she smiled and gripped it, the moment our hands made contact the room filled with a bright flash causing me to go blind and causing the Androids just outside the door guarding the room to burst in and take aim at what had caused the disturbance. That fucking glowy version of Twilight was back, sept this version of her was still an alicorn from the looks of it, the Androids tried to shoot her with their ARRMK2's, but the 5.56 millimeter railgun rounds just peppered her, and....sort of just teleported away. After a few moments of this her eyes glew white and she spoke. "Enough!" And with a flash of her horn, the Androids stopped shooting, no longer having a weapon to shoot with, they each pulled out a plasma knife and got ready to charge, but I held up my hand, calling them off. Glowy Twilight looked over to me. "Thank you for calling your guards off, as robotic as they may be, I'd still feel bad if I harmed them." I gave it a blank look. "Allllllllrighty then...the hell are you here for again?" I asked, the blank look staying on my face. Glowy Twilight looked to Real Twilight, ignoring me. "After months, you have finally past my test Twilight Sparkle, you see, this has been the test all along, there was no friendship problem, I wanted to test your friendship not only with your friends, but with your mentor, your parents, your brother, all of them." Twilight Sparkle gave Glowy Twilight a confused, and somewhat pissed look. "So you ruined my life, for what? A test?" Glowy Twilight nodded. "It was a test to see if the bonds of your friendships could be rebuilt, even after you had screwed up so badly most would abandon you, when you rekindled your friendships with Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Spike, Shining Armor, Celestia, and Lorenzo, you passed the test, the test to see if no matter what, you would remain true to friendship and not turn to bitterness like Cadence had, and in apologizing to Lorenzo, the last step is complete, now all that remains, is do you wish to be an Element of Harmony and an alicorn once more? Are you ready to once again hold those responsibilities and not abuse them for your own sake?" Guess I'll just sit here being ignored, in my own Empire, for fucks sake if this thing couldn't splatter half my Empire I'd have tried shooting it by now. As such I just sat in my chair, slowly drinking a bottle of Nuka Cola, while Twilight, the non glowy one, responded. "I would like to be an Element of Harmony, and my alicorn self once more, but I want your word, your absolute word, you will never do anything like this again, you ruined my life, just to watch me rebuild it from the ashes? That's fucked up, excuse my language, but that's just completely fucked." Huh, I think for once I agreed with Twilight. The Tree only grinned. "Harmony works in ways you will not always understand, Twilight Sparkle, remember that, and never forget." The glowy Twilight began to glow again, this time its entire body, before with a bright flash which acted much like a flash-bang grenade, it was gone, my eyes felt like someone had stabbed them, and Twilight was on the floor in pain as her wings regrew near instantly, same for her horn, and with another small flash, her cutiemark was plopped back onto her ass and the back of her hand. I nearly died, if the bar on my HUD was anything to go by, as such the pipboy auto injected me with a stimpack, and I stood up. After a few moments, I injected Twilight with a stimpack, and helped her up as well, her wings flopping about for a few moments as she readjusted to them. "So, your a Princess again, ya got your wings, and your magic, what ya gonna do now?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. Twilight looked herself over, and then blushed hard, seeing as becoming an alicorn again upped her entire body by half a foot, and thickened her out a little more than the skinny non earthpony she had been less than a minute ago, she was back to how she was before she had her magic and shit taken away, meaning her clothes BARELY fit her. I just facepalmed and handed her a solid green dress, the same you'd get in game from a suitcase or some random ass container, and yeeted her into the closet to change. Three minutes later, she came out looking less embarrassed. "For one, if the castle isn't back, I'm going to have it rebuilt, I likely can do so with the correct spell, secondly, once I get a home again, see if Spike wants to come live with me again, he's getting tired of the animals at Fluttershy's, I can tell as much." I nodded. "Seems sensible, your ride here will also be your ride back, just get into the same personal carrier and it'll take you back to where you wanna be." She nodded and teleported off, I assume to the carrier pad. So I got ready for the second meeting I'd be doing today, I'd be visiting my alien allies, known as the Ss’ket. I had been invited by the Red River Unions two rulers, both royalty like myself, so they would be expecting me. Within a moment I had relayed to the Crystal City Starship, it was only 8:45 AM planet side, so this shouldn't take more than perhaps a day thanks to the ships advanced FTL system. Looking over to Tempest I grinned, she had been made captain of this ship when it was completed, while the Crystal Lorenzo was to be piloted by another captain. I sat in a chair that overlooked the vastness of space, and spoke. "Initialize the FTL drives, set a course for the Ss’ket's Solar Sytem, its already programmed into the ships map, so just press it with a hoof and turn the drives on." Tempest saluted. "Yes your Majesty." She did as instructed, pressed the location on the holographic map, and turned the drive on by pushing a button, within mere seconds the Ss’ket's bright blue star was in view, their solar system larger than Equis's by quite a bit, several asteroid belts and the like, more planets, three habitable planets, our goal was the second habitable planet from that bright blue star, their home world. I stood up from my chair and got into a specialized pod, it would take me to their palace, as that had been where I was told to go, the Starship would stay here, if it entered this solar system it could cause so many problems for the locals I didn't even want to bother with that. The pod shot off, on a pre plotted course I had been given, to avoid crashing or slamming into any of their own spacecraft or starships, that wouldn't harm me however, since....fucking energy shields, but, they don't have such shields, so it was best to go the course given to me. It took all of 20 minutes before the pod autolanded itself on the area they had designated for me. After a few moments of Ss’ket in military uniforms spraying down the outside of my pod with some sort of anti fire foam, which was pointless, I stepped out and much to my surprise, they bowed. I gave a confused look before one of them stood up and spoke. "Seeing as you are Royalty, it is only proper to bow as a sign of respect." I nodded, and two of them began to escort me, carrying their weird little bolt action styled rifles. That was part of the reason I was invited here actually. I was escorted into the Palace, which was rather nice looking, and taken to a private dinning room for the royals. Hituzz Skin had light brown scaling and jet black hair, being 5'8 feet tall, and Shihezz Skim, he had dark green scaling, and dyed red hair, the bowed to me, and as such I bowed back before sitting down. The meal was surprisingly close to something I'd eat back in the Empire, fried fish, of course from this planet, and vegetable sides. Seeing as these things did not evolve on Equis, and thus also not on Earth, things from Equis being copies from Earth for the most part, like the air, grass, etc, I could taste the difference from anything back home, it was a nice meal, if a bit semi exotic, for dessert there was a caviar pie, which was lovely. Once the meal was over, business came. Shihezz was the one to speak first. "I'd like to ask about the weapons we asked you to bring, and the designs for them as well, do you have them?" His slit eyes looking at me with curiosity. I nodded. "Indeed I do have em, here ya go, as we talked about, a basic automatic combat rifle in 5.56, adjustable for your species ammunition." I pulled the Rapid Combat Rifle out of my inventory, along with basic blueprints on how it worked and how to build more, and slid them over to him, he looked on in approval and nodded his head. "Yes, Yes....these will do nicely, we can finally begin replacing the bolt actions, and you also have the designs for those 'hydrogen jet engines' as you put it? I'd like to begin replacing our multi role push prop craft as soon as possible, these same engines would also be used for civilian craft, which is Hituzz's field, mine is peace and war time military technology." Hituzz nodded. "Indeed, with these advancements we will also be able to improve civilian life more than we already have thanks to the previous technologies you gave us upon our first visit to your Empire." I grinned. "I got em right here, along with how different flying a jetcraft is from a propeller aircraft, both in terms of civilian and military pilots, tactics, and how it gives you much better range and fuel efficiency, moreso when you can just pump hydrogen into the fuel tank and be ready to go." I slid the plans, a copy for military, and civilian versions of the engines, along with how to produce liquid hydrogen in an environmentally friendly way for them to fuel em. Remember this species believes their planet is a goddess, so I don't wanna fuck their planet up less they declare war. They nodded, and for the rest of the time I visited, I was allowed to collect samples of things like local fish, fruits, and plants, and I went back with several Ss’ket that wanted to see what life in my Empire was like, if all went well they'd sign up for citizenship, it would be nice to have alien citizens, heh, they might be the first, but they certainly wouldn't be the last, I knew that much for sure, I had plans for my Equis's universe, big, big plans. > Chapter 51 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another week had passed, for the people within the town of Raspberry it was the last day they'd be living within this town. People had voted, and the majority won, they'd join the Empire and continue to hold hope for a year or two that they'd be able to go back to Earth at some point, for now however it was time to say goodbye. Some didn’t want to go, others were enthusiastic about such a new opportunity, about 75 of the citizens happy to go to the point all they took was a suitcase with the bare necessities and perhaps a few small personal belongings, where either Scifi nerds, furries or bronies, or all three.  People that didn’t wish to join, gave light resistance, but, in the end they had no choice, people were allowed to pack whatever they wanted to go with them, hell if they asked they could have the entire contents of their house, minus things like the fridge and stove, packed up for them by androids onto a flatbed hovercraft. Overall, it took less than two days to move everyone out of that town, into a city within the Empire, and given citizenship, a charge card, and DNA and photo entered into the Citizen Identification System. I sighed, some people didn’t like the change at all, but like I had told them, there was no other choice. For now it was settled, some disgruntled people here or there, but it was relatively minor compared to the majority.  Weapons had to be taken upon becoming a citizen, pistols, assault rifles, a bolt action here or there…..a fucking Military Issue 50 caliber machine gun, my god. This was a pain in the ass to deal with, but people soon realized they had no choice, that and they could just buy a gun once within the Empire and set up in a home. Only the most avid of collectors were allowed to keep their rare collections, under the rule that the triggers and firing pin be removed, which the few who had collections agreed to. Another thing to note, everyone went through the same sign up process everyone else who ever joined my Empire had to as well, as such they were informed about the various laws for my Empire and how to avoid breaking them. Every human that signed up also had to go through a mandatory medical exam, and take some potions and chems to cure them of any diseases they may have, and slightly alter their biochemical makeup a small bit, nothing drastic, just altered their bodies to be able to take a LOT of sugar, perhaps not as much as say, the average crystal pony, but still, without that modification people would be dying from sugar induced diseases within a month, they where informed of this and consented to it. In less stressful news, several more Starships had been finished, these would only be a mile long, and 160 feet wide. These had the goal of being transports and scouts for new colonization efforts once back on my Equis, and therefore, universe. They had the same shape as the Crystal Lorenzo, and Crystal City Starships, I was going to keep that shape as it was just the one I liked the most, but if I wanted I could make a starship in the shape of a fucking banana hahaha. These were armed with a rapid fire 80 mm railgun in the nose of the starship, DHER rounds only, and for y'all who forget all the time, DHER stands for Demented High Explosive Rounds, pretty much a tungsten railgun shell hollowed out and a fucking nuke put into the nose, the universes most violent armor penetrating bullet, fires at mach 15, up to 45 if NEED be and the gun is overclocked, several small deathrays for AA defenses, automatic plasma cannons, and various small, fast, and agile missiles, from Cold Fusion Bombs, Emp, and even Plasma warheads. Protected by energy shields the same as any Starship should be, various cold fusion reactors, with backup plasma and arcane reactors, just like the other starships it had generators to separately power things like weapons, shields, however, they were all connected with inactive connections, that if need be could be made active to share power between the systems in the event of an emergency from the bridge of the starship.  Twenty Five of these had been made, so I now had a small fleet of Starships, waiting to be used, these had been in construction for months which is why Crystal City had been working hauling fucktons of space rock into the Empire to be processed for their raw metals and ores, which worked out nicely since it was a large ship and could haul in chunks large enough to destroy the planet if they impacted anywhere, chunks of rock several hundred miles large. Those were to be broken into smaller chunks for processing by the automatic factories designed just to refine metals and ores from these chunks of floating rock.The fleet would be named The Crystal Empire Star Defense, While these factories may be automated, they did have organic supervisors in the rare event a machine broke down from overuse, or from simply being unable to process the amount of raw material being sent through it. Another bit of interesting news was I recently began to have all organic troops of mine connected with pipboys of my own design, touch screen, health bar and all that jazz.  The most important features would be that they’d all be connected, and show who was friendly and who was hostile, I called the network the pipboys would be connected to BDAAN, Battle Defense And Attack Network. Strictly on military servers only, cutting edge technology in all honesty, and even better is even my robotic soldiers would be tapped into this network, so they’d be able to update it, and get updates from it, in real time on the battlefield. These were almost nothing like the Pipboy I myself owned, despite my modifications to it it was still using the basic shell the in game pipboy used, these would be slim, thin, yet durable and more computing power than any normal pipboy from Fallout could ever hope to have This network had slowly been built up and tested various times over the course of a few months as well while the Starship fleet had been built, and something else to mention, I had generalized foods like Cram, Pork n Beans, Blamco Mac n cheese, etc, the shit you’d find in fallout, and some of my own creations, sold under the brand name Empire Standard Foods, every company that wanted to produce food of any sort was required to keep it at Empire Standard levels of safety, meaning proper non confusing labels and exact information, and strict guidelines of what they could, or could not, add or put in their foods, for example corn syrup was banned. Except for certain candies of course, or recipes that actually needed the goop.  A few humans had tried to sign up for military service, most of them failed within the first five minutes inside a simulator pod, and thus where deemed unfit for service, however a human named Hunter had been exceedingly good as a fighter pilot in the simulation pod, if his training went well he’d become the Empires first human pilot.  ------------------------------------- Jinks looked around, the city larger than anything he’d ever expected to see in his life, he had just been moved into a home, more like large apartment, two days ago, it didn’t feel right calling it an apartment, as you tended to pay rent and utilities, he was pleasantly surprised to find out paying for water, and electricity was nonexistent here, and about the Universal Basic Income, or UBI of a thousand bits per month, bits being the currency used, and most of it was digital so he got this place’s version of a credit card wired right into his account, and only he could use it thankfully. A tall person, at 6’2, and his skinny frame only seemed to exaggerate his height more than would be normal, at the moment he had on a simple grey hoodie and sweatpants. Being around lunch time, he had decided to go into a restaurant or something for a bite to eat. He made the mistake of walking into a brothel and came out three minutes later, face beat red. “Never again.”  Fred, Freddy, and Joe, had moved into one large apartment with one another on the 5th floor of a 35 floor skyscraper, and Joe had already gotten arrested for grabbing some anthro pegasi’s tits without asking, he also got sent to the hospital with a broken jaw, nose, and a black eye. Fred and Freddy just shook their heads as they stood by their friends hospital bed as he was being injected with various chems. “I fucking told you to just ASK first, but no, your stupid and horny, dumbass.” Fred said with a deadpan look.  Joe looked up from his hospital bed, jaw broken for the moment but soon to be fixed thanks to the advanced medical technology within his new home. “Phuk yop.” Joe pretty much gurgled out with a look of anger in his eyes as his two friends left the hospital room to get some lunch.  --------------------Crystal Palace------------------ I looked at the reports I had been given by Astral Starlight, whom was standing in front of me as I sat on my throne. “So the results were good enough that you want to mass produce those plasmablades for full military use on robots, and as combat knives?”  Astral Starlight nodded. “Indeed I do Your Majesty, I have done some more testing and research and refined them even further, to the point that I redesigned them to suck in magic for power, as such, no recharge, no batteries, ever.”  Looking over the progress reports one more time, I nodded. “Alright, you may begin mass producing these for military use only.” I handed the reports back to him and he tucked them away in the pocket of his lab coat, bowed and left, and Blue Gadget walked in.  Blue Gadget bowed, and hoofed me a report. “The progress upgrading Defender Prime to stay up to current standards has been completed, as well as the same for Crystal Prime, outdated as it may now be despite only being a few years old.”  I grinned. “No matter how many times we must upgrade them, we shall do so, now, anything else to report?”  Blue Gadget nodded. “I’ve gotten the performance and lethality of plasma grenades up by 45% after overclocking the circuits within, which with your permission will become the new standard for plasma grenades and mines.” I gave him the greenlight to change the standards of Plasma mines and grenades, which happened to be the most common type of grenade used by my forces. As such, Blue Gadget bowed, and left after being handed back the report he had given, my pipboy logged them the moment I finished reading them, so I had no need to keep the physical file itself.  The Abyssinian Empire, had been relocated to outside southwest of my Empire, just a few miles away from the walls on the military section of the Empire, and had all been informed by their ruler they where not to go beyond the small line of concrete walls I had constructed, for their own safety, and they were not allowed to build buildings taller than 5 stories, less the guns need to shoot at something over there and not smash buildings into dust. I had also given them the hydrogen car and jet engines, along with an efficient process to extract it from water for fiel, to replace their fossil fuel burning jets n cars, I had construction crews still building them homes and the like, their national currency was still bits, so no need to fix anything there.  Another weapon development had been made, a rapid fire, almost automatic, missile launcher, with new missile warheads available for it, from mininuke, pretty much what it says, to plasma, standard ballistic, and EMP warheads, more would be added later on as the weapon was developed more and its uses on the battlefield shown, it held 15 missiles, and was surprisingly lightweight due to enchantments, not TOO bulky, but still having some heft to it, it would fire rapidly one after another and these missiles would track the target they had been locked onto, so unless whatever they had been aimed at could go faster than mach 3, it, he, she, whatever, would be completely and utterly fucked.  After making completely sure the town of Raspberry was empty of both humans, pets, and anything aside from insects, I pressed a button on my pipboy, and the town went up with a bright mushroom cloud as the cold fusion warhead detonated above the town, flattening it and vaporizing anything that had once been there, now the land could be used for its proper purposes, and since it was a cold fusion bomb, no radioactive fallout! After that and getting the reports cleanup team would be sent in an hour later, I decided to take a walk in the Palace gardens for a bit, just to relax and see what the gardeners had planted since I’d last came into the garden, within five minutes of my walk I tripped on a rock and landed face first into a patch of some dark blue flower, which caused me to sneeze as I stood up. “Damn….the guy who planted those is gonna be pissed….” I had accidentally crushed several of the flowers, some of the blue petals sticking to my shirt and a few to my face as I wiped them off, and continued with my day, not knowing just what those flowers where, as I could swear I had seen them somewhere before, oh well, can’t be too important. > Chapter 52 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I woke up to screaming, and shot up like a rocket, slamming into the ceiling....which shouldn't have been possible since it was about 15 feet higher than it needed to be. I fell back into the bed in a heap and looked up seeing Chrysalis looking shocked. "Lorenzo, is that you?" She had the pistol I had given her aimed at my chest.  This, despite the fact I could respawn, still alarmed me, it was never fun getting shot. "Jesus FUCK CHRYSALIS, Calm the fuck down! What the hell did you scream for!?" I all but screeched.  Chrysalis calmed down considerably after hearing my own voice and scanning me with her magic. “Alright…..so when we all went to sleep, you were normal, Moon woke up and almost had a panic attack so she woke me, while Rainshine had already left to do some shopping with Spring Dancer, and you…..your…..”  I tilted my head, an ear flopping to the side on instinct. “I’m what?” I asked, raising one of my eyebrows.  Chrysalis sighed and handed me the hand held mirror she kept around to touch up on her eyeliner or lipstick if she needed to do so, I looked into it and in shock dropped it. “WHAT THE FUCK!?” I stood up, in my boxers, and ran to the bathroom to look at myself in the body mirror I had installed. I was a FUCKING ALICORN, royal purple fur, same emerald green eyes I’ve always had, no beard or musache which made me sad, and my mane…..it seemed to be the same jetblack hair I always had. I unfurled the large fluffy wings on my back, instinct once more as I flared them in surprise, they had alternating patterns of purple and emerald green, making them sort of look like neon flames or something, oh god that looks weird. I stepped out of the bathroom, tossing on some clothes. “Alright, I’m going to Canterlot, maybe Celestia knows what happened and can fix it, because I have no fuckin idea how this even went down, so I doubt my zebras or chemists would be able to fix this, she has lived thousands of years, she’s bound to know somethin.” I grabbed a few items as I tossed on my clothes, like my railgun and tossed it into my inventory.  Chrysalis nodded. “Alright, I’ll inform Moon, Rainshine, and Spring, maybe we’ll have a mare's day.” She chuckled at the thought.  I facepalmed. “You're in a herd, to the ruler of an Empire that has the ability to go to entirely other planets, you can do whatever the hell ya want to while I’m gone so long as you don’t break laws!” I relayed into my own carrier, and called Celestia. Within a matter of seconds I was connected to her on the phone. “Celestia, I have a situation, I’m on my way to show you what exactly happened, to see if you're able to help me, as I have no idea how, but I changed species overnight.”  Celestia’s voice came through the phone's speaker. “Okay, I’ll cancel day court, and await your arrival.” An artificial click signified the call had ended, and I looked over to the android who was going to be piloting my small carrier. “Move it! I want to be at Canterlot, YESTERDAY!” I commanded, and being the good machine it was, it nodded and we took off after I got into my seat. I signed pulling out a bottle of wine and pouring myself a glass, as well as pulling out a nice, small metal box, and opened it pulling out a fat cigar, held up my flip lighter and lit it, before taking a few puffs as well as drinking my wine to help calm my nerves.  It took longer than I’d expected to get to Canterlot, due to civilian air travel becoming more popular, so the android had to slow the craft down to avoid slamming through primitive airships like a railgun round through cardboard. The carrier...I really had to think of a better name for this thing, swung around and plopped itself onto a landing pad within short order, and I stepped out, the moment I did I knew I should have popped a stealthboy as every guardmare turned their head to look at me, ones with wings blushed and their wings flared out, while unicorns and earthponies simply stared, red as a tomato, for fucks sake. Within moments I had several guardmares trying to jump at me, as such, I dropped a tear gas grenade, and popped a stealthboy to hide as I slipped through the crowded room, and down the hall closer to the throne room.  After everything looked clear, I turned the stealthboy off, with more than half of the time left on it, I could reuse it if I needed to, just as I was turning around, I saw Luna, who promptly dragged me into her room.  --------------------------Crystal Empire----------------------------- Johnny grinned. He was enjoying being a mechanic in his new home, these cars were so much more advanced yet so simple if you actually studied them a bit. Johnny was slightly chubby yet thick person, having ice blue eyes and a shaved head to simply prevent any from getting caught in the machinery of a car, with thin circle glasses you’d expect an 80 year old man to wear, and skin pale enough to become crispy after five minutes in the sun, thankfully that was easy to take care of with a potion. Johnny looked over from under the hood of the Atomic-8 Sedan as it was called. “Ay lassy, I found your problem right ere, one of these thick wires was shorted out, it’ll be rather simple to replace it, so the cost of repair will come to about 13 bits.”  The green crystal mare grinned. “Thanks darlin, I simply didn’t know why it would lose power faster than before, I’ll be giving you 25 bits, extra for bein so kind to an old mare like me.” She smiled at him, him being only slightly taller than her at 5’2.  Johnny nodded. “As ye say lassy.” He replaced the fried wire, it only took five minutes to do so, and once he was done, he got his pay, and waved the mare off as she hopped into her car and drove off, to wherever she was going, with a sigh, he plopped down into a chair and pulled out a Crystal Mountain Beer, and took a sip, he was going to enjoy this new gig. And later on after three pm, he couldn’t wait to meet his friend Damascus Plate at the bar for a drink and some grub, he was a minotaur, and quite friendly once ya got past how large he was compared to a normal sized person.  Checking the clock he saw it was only 1:45 PM, and thought ‘Oh fuck it, I can close early anyway I have no more appointments’ and close he did. Then he drove himself a mile down the road to his home to wait for his friend to get off work as well, and made himself a sandwich. Alex looked up from her couch over to the door, and grinned. Opening it she was glad to see the pizzaling with her order, and took it, the ling had red eyes and wings for some reason, but from what she knew of MLP lore, changelings could change their chitin colors at will to anything they wanted, she paid, and he left, leaving her the extra meaty pizza she had ordered, the 2 liter of Classic Nuka Cola, and hot wings.  -------Canterlot castle------------- Three hours later, I was fully dressed again...leaving a, satisfied Luna, on her bed, as I was walking out she asked. “Before you go, I’d like to know your name, now that I realise I never got it from you.”  I grinned inside my head, and gave her a grin that the Joker would be proud of. “Why Luna darling! Your words wound me so, did you really forget the last time we had fun together in my dreams? Those lovely blood curdling screams you let loose always delighted me! It’s Lorenzo honey.” Her face went from dark blue, to pale as snow, despite having fucking fur, and her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she blacked out. And thus, I made my way to the throne room, and all but slammed the doors open to see a startled Celestia. “Alright! I’m here, this the damned problem I wanted to talk to you about.” I sighed. Celestia just broke out laughing, much to my dismay. > Chapter 53 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Several weeks had passed since my last update, so I got the cure from Princess Celestia, which turned out to be an herbal bath, and I feel fucking stupid for not remembering what those blasted blue flowers were, that much you can be sure of.  And a bit of an update on the new changelings which now citizens of the Empire, the yellow ones, where more wasp like, thinner wings, even going so far as to have a stinger on the end of their asses like a bee or wasp would, however, unlike either insect, their sting would inject the one stung, with some sort of powerful aphrodisiac, as such, a lot of them made a killing just selling their venom, hah. The blue moth like ones, sold their fluff every now and again for bits, as they had to cut it every once and awhile like you or I do for our hair, and that fluff is some of the softest things ever in my opinion, so I was having a blanket made out of it.  Another interesting bit of information, on the military aspect of things, Hunter had become a pilot, and several other humans managed to get through training, and attempts to miniaturize the plasmatic lance and slap it into a decent slim plasma rifle, have begun to show signs of success, the first prototypes are to be tested later today at a specialized shooting range. So if these proved to work they would begin to replace the old pre war styled plasma rifles, not completely of course. I grinned looking at my schedule for the day, twas going to be a fun time.  Three hours later, the time, 3:35PM, I stood at the altar with Sweetie Belle and Wobbles, Her being in a wedding dress, and him, being in a white suit, and I spoke. “Do you, Wobbles take Sweetie Belle as your lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forth, for better or worse, for richer, or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish until death do you part?”  Wobbles nodded. “I do.” He grinned, adjusting his tie. I turned to Sweetie Belle. “And do you, Sweetie Belle, take Wobbles, as your lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forth, for better or worse, for richer, or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish until death do you part?”  Sweetie Belle grinned ear to ear. “I do, by Celestia’s tits I do.” This caused a few laughs from those attending, mostly from Scootaloo and Applebloom.  I backed up, giving them space. “Then Wobbles, you may kiss the bride.” And as such, Wobbles and Sweetie Belle kissed indeed, rather…..sloppily, note to self, changelings have long tongues, it’s not just Chrysalis. I nodded at Scootaloo, who grinned and slammed her fist onto the red button next to her, causing gold, purple, and green, fireworks to go off.  As the party began, the cake being cut, the champagne and all that being brought out along with the food, I stepped out, I had done my part, I made their marriage official in the eyes of the Empire, the ring Wobbles had gotten her was rather lovely as well, a purple gem cut into the shape of a heart, with a platinum band for the ‘ring’ part of the ring. Sweetie Belle had told me a week ago how she had met him, it was at the Pizza Joint I helped one of my citizens open, and I found that to be adorable, since first meeting him, she had told me something clicked, and they had been dating for the past few months, and decided to make it official with a wedding and all the fancy stuff that comes with it. I was more than happy to marry the two.  Now, the two changeling queens whom had joined me, being in the herd didn’t work out, they just didn’t want to do so, they where more than happy to remain fuckbuddies with Chrysalis, me, and the rest of the mares however, they have gotten jobs, and do still have a room within the Palace, so that was good. Another bit of important news, was the Abyssians were beginning to finally resettle, and taking well to the hydrogen jet and car engines to replace their wasteful petroleum based fuels, making them cleaner and overall, more efficient. Their greenhouses, after a few weeks of growing stuff, finally got to the point they could harvest the crops, more food for themselves and their livestock. Earth movies had been getting popular, mostly ones about world war one, and world war two, my citizens seemed fascinated about an entire planet, or most of it, at war. Which I found odd, but hey, people like what they like for movies.   I looked at the clock, it was close to the ‘me time’ I had set aside for today, as such,  I made my way to the Crystal Palace.  ---------------------------------------Canterlot Weapons Development Lab---------------------------- Tesla grinned looking over to Celestia, whom was inspecting his newest prototype tesla weapon. “So, you say this can fry almost any electronic we aim it at? And that mounting it on a griffon tank was the most effective way of moving it?” Celestia asked, her right eyebrow raised.  Tesla nodded, his mane frizzy from having been shocked a few too many times. “Indeed Princess, Indeed, with the tank chassis, its mobile, more so than strapping it to a motorcar, since it can handle mud and terrain that normal tires would either pop or sink into.”  Celestia nodded after thinking about it for a few moments. “How long till we can have, say, 45 of these?”  Tesla put a hand on his chin in thought. “I’d say, a month, if we up production capacity with more workers.”  Princess Celestia nodded. “Consider it done." -----------------------------------Lorenzo’s Empire------------------------------------- I sighed, looking at the mares. “So, ya’ll really want to know how I lived back when I was on Earth, and who my family was?” I got a round of nods, and signed again. “Alright, this ain’t a happy tale however, it all began when I was born.” I sat down as they all looked at me from across the couch, except Spring, she was taking a nap, because she had a little too much to drink awhile ago, and was sleeping it off. “I didn’t have a family, more like, caretakers, my biological incubator and sperm donor gave me up at birth, and I sat in that orphanage for 18 years, left to rot, till I reached the age of 18 and by law, they had to kick me out, it took a few years, but I managed to scrape a decent life together for myself, and at the age of 13 I was told why I was given up at birth, my biological ‘parents’ didn’t want to give up their party all the time lifestyle, drinking, partying, sometimes doing drugs, the only reason I was able to find this out, was because I was a nosy little fucker and went into the main office and looked at my own file.”  Chrysalis’s eyes were glowing green, while Moon’s mane looked like a galaxy decided it was high time to implode, meanwhile Rainshine’s mane was JUST beginning to take on the classic white nirik flames. “Clam down, I ain’t done yet.” And thus, with a few moments, they did calm themselves down. “After I scraped myself a life, at the age of 23, I got a call from my biological sperm donor, their lifestyle of drinking and partying nonstop, had caught up to them, and my incubators kidney was beginning to fail, they had the absolute nerve to keep my medical records from birth, so they knew I’d be a match for her, and begged me to forgive them, to donate my kidney, and meet with them so that we could be a family, I told him over the phone in the coldest voice I had ever spoken in, so cold I’m sure ice formed on their end of the phone.” I took a sip of Nuka Cola, then continued. “Chrysalis, I think this one is best to see and hear as if it happened now, do that spell you told me about, the one to project someone's memories onto the nearest surface.” She nodded, and did so, causing what looked like a holographic version of the memory to pop up into the middle of the room.  I had just finished hearing them asking for my help, the rage I felt swelling within my very core, was so violent and immense, that I was surprised I didn’t kill someone or smash something, before my tone went cold, and emotionless. "Twenty three years, TWENTY THREE FUCKING YEARS. You had to contact me, you never did, not one email, letter, phonecall, nothing. You didn't give a shit then and you don't now, you only called me because you need help, you abandoned me, left me to rot in a hell worse than hell, so you could PARTY AND DRINK, and the consequences have finally caught up to you, and you have the absolute nerve to contact me for help? I couldn’t care less about you, you may be related to me by blood, but nothing else, you are nothing to me but a sperm donor and an incubator we are not family, you can rot like you left me to rot. If you ever contact me again, I will find you, and I will strangle you myself until the life fades from your horrid eyes, and I’ll smile while I do it." I hung up with a click. Chrysalis cut the spell off, while looking horrified. “By Faust, I have never felt such…..such anger, how the hell did you manage to not kill someone or yourself?”  I laughed, a bitter laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. “Simple, I got drunk!” Rainshine had gone full Nirik by this point and burned the chair she was on into ash, while Moon’s eyes glew white as the moon itself, and she picked me up in her magic. “Okay. No more work for you today, we’re all going to cuddle, and if you wanna complain I’ll jam my mane into your mouth.” I didn’t get to say anything after that as cuddles of the fluffy kind commenced.  -------------------------------Apartment Complex---------------- Trevor grinned, holding a little black book in his hand with a golden cross on it, and knocked on the door, waiting with a smile. The door opened, the owner being a fluffy batmare. “Hello miss! Could I take just 15 minutes to tell you about our lord and savior Jesus Christ?” He promptly got the door slammed in his face, these ponies believed in an immortal alicorn they called Faust, he’d help them see the light, even if not all of them wanted to be saved. So he went to the next apartment, and knocked, the same result over, and over, and over, doors being closed in his face, some apologetic, most not, three hours of trying to bring the light of God to these ignorant people, with no luck, Trevor's anger began to grow with each door closed in his face, one more time, he said to himself in his head.  With one more knock, an elderly minotaur opened the door. “Yes? Is it time for my medication? You're nor the normal delivery ling.” Trevor grinned. “Sir, I’d like to take 15 minutes of your time to tell you about our lord and savior Jesus Christ.”  The elderly minotaur shook his head. “Sorry sunny, I got my own religion, not interested.” He began to close the door. This was the tipping point for Trevor, he tossed the book of God aside, and sucker punched the minotaur right in the snout, a resounding crack of bones snapping echoed throughout the hallway, before Trevor fell onto the ground screaming as his fingers had been broken, the minotaur just laughed. “Ay kiddo! It’s been quite some time since I’ve been hit like that! Shame your bones were unable to handle it though, see ya later.” And the door finished closing, locking with a resounding click.  A medical android would take him to the hospital 5 minutes later. > Chapter 54 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Several weeks had passed, and I had some random news, in these past few weeks my Empire had helped the Abyssinian Empire regain its military footing, by producing tanks, aircraft, and other such things of their design, all using hydrogen as fuel. I had upgraded their tanks however, having scanned the entire net of information on Earth that humans called the Internet, I had several designs for tanks that improved over their own, so I had decided to have the Empires factories produce Leopard 2A5's using their own technology and the hydrogen engines, they already had plans to produce these after I handed over the designs, but the Storm Empire invasion had put a stop to that before the first one had even been completed to faze out their older King Tiger tanks. For now my Empire produced everything for the Abyssinians, their own industrial capacity was only beginning to recover due to the attack, and having to be moved, and upgraded to standards just beginning to be enforced before the invasion. At the moment I was in Fillydelphia, close to the coast, the reason for why? Every kingdom and empire, that was not hostile to Equestria or one another, had been invited to do a military demonstration show, show off the various empires and kingdoms military ground vehicle technology. Dummy targets had been set up, including the WW1 styled Mark tanks, which had ammunition and fuel in them, all turned on, these would be paid for of course, these where to be targets for our own tanks to test their weaponry on. I watched as a griffon make mark tank, rolled up slowly before its two cannons fired, landing a hit on the Equestrian model, causing a rather large hole in the side as the tank itself burst into flame as its fuel and ammunition cooked off, causing it to explode a second time. Next up was one of the new Equestrian Mark tanks, arching with electricity as rather than cannon, it sported several pointed tesla coils in place of cannon, however it still had a machine gun mounted in the nose, and it fires, arches of electricity slammed into the older model Equestrian tank, and fried the primitive electronics within, and the electric current running through it caused the fuel to go off in a brilliant explosion of fire, Princess Celestia nodded in satisfaction. The Minotaur processed no tanks of their own, however what they did have was 20 millimeter Luger Rifles, simply up-scaled versions of the rifles they had received at first, and one minotaur put hers to good effect when shooting at their mark tank, after two shots the fuel began to leak from it, and one more near it caused sparks from the metals meeting, lighting the fuel, causing this tank to alight with flame, perhaps not as effective as another tank, but if more than one minotaur had been shooting, I don't doubt that the tank woulda been Swiss cheese, extra crispy. Next, Queen Carnelia ordered her Leopard tank forward, the crew within listened and acted quickly, the machine driving in circles around the mark tank while aiming its 120 millimeter smooth bore cannon and fired three times in rapid succession, the tank lit up on the second shell, the third one struck the ammunition storage and caused the tank to blow up tossing burning slabs of metal nearby, while Celestia, and the Griffons and Minotaur whom had joined to show their nations abilities, tried to pick their jaws off the floor, it was hilarious. Carnelia grinned at me, and thus it was my Empire's turn. A Dragonslayer tank rolled up, the size of a World War Two Maus tank due to the 400 millimeter railgun cannon acting as its main weapon, deemed it needed to make the tank larger, I had smaller 150 millimeter railgun tanks that were about the size of the rest of them, this however was my largest tank in service by the Empire, one of the most powerful. It rolled along even faster than the cats tank had, and launched several small missiles at it from the pod on the right of the tank, slamming into the main guns of the dummy mark tank, destroying them in the process while the 400 millimeter railgun swung around and fired two shells, the tank was no longer a tank, just a burning pile of scrap and fuel as the ammunition blew up instantly upon contact with the tungsten shell going mach 9 slammed into the ammunition storage. Queen Carnelia didn't act surprised at all, having seen how effective these very tanks had been in recorded battlefield footage of my forces storming through her ruined Empire and destroying bugs and storm beast alike, the rest however, seemed to be very shocked Celestia looking rather pale, while Chieftess Silverhorn seemed to almost be afraid, however doing her best now to show such weakness, and Hightalon Czarina Dark Feather, didn't bother to hide the fear in her voice as she spoke. "You.....with just one of these, could have decimated our capital and we'd have had no chance to stop it if you had decided to invade when my mother declared war....by the Gods..." I just laughed. "These normally are not meant to deal with tanks, however suited to the job they are, these are multi role tanks meant to deal with dragons, or perhaps giant monsters like a bugbear, and deal with them quickly. That gun is a semi automatic version of the fully automatic railgun cannons on the walls of the Empire which act as automated and automatic defenses against large targets." Hightalon Czarina Dark Feather slowly nodded. "I...see." She had known King Lorenzo's Empire, was one of the most powerful in terms of technology, but had she realized the scope of just how much more advanced his Empire was in terms of technology sooner, and warned her mother, she didn't think even her power hungry late mother would have been stupid enough to declare war on the New Crystal Empire. Princess Celestia took a few moments to regain composure. "Now onto, the infantry weapons and soldiers themselves." With a wave of her hand several Equestrian Royal Guardmares rushed up, some carrying Tesla rifles, some carrying Luger Rifles, they took aim at several wooden targets and fired, peppering them with holes and scorch marks from the tesla rifles, before one pulled out a bulky looking ball about the size of a grenade, and pressed a button on the top before tossing it, after it landed it went off in a display of electric arcs, and Celestia grinned. Griffon soldiers where up next, unlike Equestria the Griffon Empire allowed males to join the Military, so it was a mix of males and female soldiers who ran up, carrying Luger rifles, and light machine guns as they fired into the wooden targets, peppering them with holes, having no grenades to throw, they just continued to shoot until the targets had been turned into wood chips. Hightalon Czarina Dark Feather nodded in approval. Minotaur soldiers walked up in heavy metal armor, stainless steel as far as I could tell, some carrying those 20 mm luger rifles, a few carrying heavy machine guns as if they where assault rifles, and fired, less than 15 seconds later the wooden targets had been reduced to almost sawdust. And Chieftess Silverhorn grinned, showing her approval of her own soldiers. The Abyssinian soldiers rushed into combat without a word, their pressed steel German styled helmets dully shined, the black paint on them mostly absorbing the light hitting them, one hefted up a MG-34 with a drum attached to the side and fired, while the two cats with STG-44's provided covering fire from either side, the MG-34's noise was deafening, the large rounds taking huge chunks out of the targets it was aimed at, while the STG-44's shot smaller chunks out at the same time, within five seconds the dozen wooden soldiers, had been reduced to scrap wood and sawdust, and the cats hadn't even gone through the entire drum for the MG-34. Carnelia nodded with approval, her troops next to mine, proved to outmatch the rest so far. I grinned before speaking. "Behold, the Combat Android, the top of the line in light robotic soldiers, issued Heavy Marine Armor to protect them from small arms fire, and some rifle calibers, they are programmed for various combat conditions and their AI adapts to the conditions they are thrown into, they will complete their orders without question, without hesitation, without fear." Several androids walked up, one carrying an ARRMK2, and one with a sleek looking laser rifle that seemed to have a blue coloration to it, and one carrying a prototype Plasmatic plasma rifle, called PPRV2, or Plasmatic Plasma Rifle Version 2. The blue laser rifle was an AER-11, Quantum infused focusing lenses allowed much more power per shot than the AER-9, and the AER-10 combined. I had instructed to be given steel targets for this, mixed in with the wooden ones, the android carrying the AER-11 took aim and fired in automatic mode, the wooden targets bursting to ash wherever the lasers struck, while the android with the ARRMK2 fired a short burst of automatic 5.56 railgun rounds, the metal and wooden targets struck got blasted backwards before falling over, and the two shooting stopped. They backed up for the one carrying the PPRV2, and everyone, even Carnelia watched with awe as it took aim and fired, the miniaturized plasmatic lance shooting plasma so hot, and so rapidly, that the steel targets hit melted into slag the moment they where struck with it, even setting the grass on fire. I looked over at the others with stunned looks. "Well, in terms of power, I'd say my troops win." > Chapter 55 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few weeks had passed since the military demonstration friendly kingdoms participated in, about three. In that time a few interesting things had happened, for one the Plasmatic Plasma Rifle Version 2, had been finalized and was sleek, and elegant in its design, and it was no longer called the PPRV2, it was called the Solar Plasma Rifle Mark 3, due to the fact the plasma it shot was so hot it was pure white, not tinged by any color, and could melt through anything it shot at, as mentioned before the gun was 'smart' in a sense that it wouldn't work when pointed at Empire citizens or soldiers, and like all weapons if a hostile picked it up and tried to use it or study it, it would explode with the force of a M45 Tactical nuclear warhead, or as most people know those by, a mini-nuke. Another interesting bit of news was one of the gas giants in this solar system was found to be rich in several useful gasses, such as hydrogen, Helium-3, and others I won't bother to name, the helium-3 was what was most interesting after all, a few starships using specially designed suction hoses where beginning to siphon off the gasses from the planet at a slow rate, however due to this the Empire now had several thousand tanks of helium-3. Astral Starlight had found the helium-3 boosted fusion cores and fusion cells by almost 700% and begin to produce prototype cores called BFC's or Boosted Fusion Cores, and H3FCs, or Helium-3 Fusion Cells. One fusion core for a laser weapon like the AER-10 or AER-11 gave the weapon 150 shots, with the prototype cores it gave the weapon exactly 1050, a staggering amount since the newer laser rifles from the AER-10 and up could switch to automatic and semi auto fire with the small flip of a switch located next to the trigger. Some have asked, so I guess I'll explain, civilian energy weapons are indeed a thing, however they use fusion batteries for power rather than fusion cells, and can only accept fusion batteries, making the weapons 35% weaker than even the old AER-9's, this was to prevent them from being used as deadly weapons against say, the police, as their standard issue civilian combat armor would protect them from it rather well, someone without armor could still be hurt however, these AER-8 laser rifles as I called em, where mostly used for sport shooting and competitions. Something else that has come to light, is that the androids employed by the Empire for military usage, are more akin to the T-800 terminator from the first movie than the ones we see called Gen-1 and Gen-2 Synths in Fallout 4, civilian androids stayed the same as Gen-2 in Fallout 4, with the option to change their voices to whatever you wanted with a bunch of pre-set options and personality modes, this realization was brought up to my by Blue Gadget after he watched the 1984 movie The Terminator. As for how the military grade androids are more like the T-800? Rather simple, they were not made of a mix of plastics and metals like civilian ones are, they are made of a composite alloy of tungsten, and titanium, durable, strong, and rather fast and agile for something made of metal and electronics, they still had the rubber skin of the Gen-2's, because I liked the way it looked, however without the synthetic skin it was rather clear how similar the two robotic soldiers where. Dark Sunrise walked into my throne room with a grin on his snout, he was the head of the RRAD, or Robotics Research And Development a crystal thestral, grey fur, bright green eyes, grey mane n tail, sept the tail had a white strip through it, and his wings where oddly colored as well, black outline of the parts with bones in em, but the flaps that actually made his bat wings up were white as snow, all in all he's the one who helps oversee, and develop sometimes, new robotic systems and the like. He saluted, standing on his hind legs as most feral crystal ponies tended to do over walking on all fours, and hoofed me his report. "The new Heavy Sentry Bot models are functioning perfectly and simulated combat testing has shown very promising results, these will be much better at dealing with minotaur or small dragons, or group after group of normal infantry and even some armored vehicles." I nodded. "Good, continue production, I want 500 of these by this time next week ready for combat." I grinned thinking of the new design, putting the old ones to shame. Dark Sunrise saluted. "Yes Your Majesty." And walked out to continue his work. I liked him he often tried to improve upon older designs. The Heavy Sentry Bot's, would be four times the size of the current ones, and have several upgrades over older Empire standard models. They would have an assaultron head as a head to allow them the use of the assaultron laser, several backup camera eyes around their chassis, a 20 millimeter automatic railgun cannon in their right arm, and a rapid fire plasma cannon in the left, their backs where a normal sentry bots mortar launchers would go, would be small missile launchers primed and ready to fire rapidly, these could target aircraft, ground targets, and others, the combat AI was better as well, these bots would keep distance until they had to get close, in which case simple tungsten blades would pike those who got too close for the bots guns to be used without possible harm to the bot. Now, some people have been asking for some odd reason, I thought I've said this before, but I will explain again, the cars used by the Empire, are modified versions of the ones seen pre war in Fallout-4, rather than fission or their normal engines, they used fusion cores for fuel, and could last up to a month on one core, they where made with a mix of steel and titanium, and the glass, was not glass, rather thin strong crystal grown and cut to shape and size then polished, able to take several shots from a gun before cracking, all glass in the Empire was actually crystal, aside from a few types of bottles. The cars had standard air condition and heating systems, and air filters, all of these powered by one fusion core, aside from those changes, they did look exactly like the cars in game, sept the truck, those had been modified to have four seats, the one seat cars except for the Cherry-bomb, where not in production due to being completely stupid in terms of design. Semi-Trucks did not use the fusion core system, it drained the cores far too fast, so instead they where the only civilian vehicle allowed to use a MicroFusion Plant, pretty much a fusion reactor the size of a car battery, able to last hundreds of years without needing a recharge, no need to refuel was a huge advantage in military vehicles, but the semi-trucks where used to haul goods all across the Empire, sometimes if the goods needed to be kept cold, or frozen, refrigerated cars would be hooked to the trucks power supply. With that out of the way, I'm going to go watch a movie with the Herd in the Palace's private theater, ah the perks of being King, the movie we where going to watch would be Alien, from 1979, Chrysalis and Moon had decided on the movie. -------------------------------------------------------------Trevor-------------------------------------------------------------------- Trevor was running, he had gotten into, a few to many fistfights trying to spread the word of god to these people, and thus at last someone called the cops, the androids shouting for him to halt and get in the ground, the police cars siren wailing as it tailed him. Without thinking he turned down an alleyway and to his great surprise and luck it lead across a couple of buildings, sadly this had been predicted by the law enforcement androids and just as he was going to rush out the other end of the alleyway, another cop car rolled up to prevent him from escape, be turned around only to see the same at the entrance he had ran into, and the androids wearing blue combat armor got out of the car and took aim with a sleek tesla rifle set to stun before speaking, its voice harshly synthetic. "Halt. You will put your hands in the air and get on your knees or we will shoot." Trevor did so, slowly, he knew how cops had been back in America, who knew what these ones would do since they had fucking energy weapons of all things. An android walked up and cuffed him before tossing him into the back of the car, and it sped off. It took less than a day for him to be sentenced by a judge, one year prison sentence, this terrified Trevor, he had been to prison before, for assault of all things like he was now, and his time in the prison was absolute hell, food not fit to be called that, small cot no blanket or pillow, no air conditioning, no free time, nothing to read, just stuck in a cell and only being allowed out for food, and mandatory exercise. Within an hour after his sentence his home was locked up, the items on his person taken, and placed within the walls of an Empire Prison, it......didn't look like Trevor had expected, the walls where still concrete and the like, but there was no barbed wire on the tops, just some blue energy shield covering the entire ceiling of the Prison, made sense he guessed, since some species had wings, and weird ruins carved into the walls from the outside, he guessed prevented unicorns and the like from using magic to escape. Trevor learned rather quickly that this would be nothing like his time in prison before, the food was decent, sure not the best, but it certainly beat the prison food he had been all but forced to eat before, the cells where a decent size, beds a tad small, but they came with one pillow and one blanket each, so it was better than nothing, within a week he had gotten used to this weird system, rather than being locked into a cell, prisoners where encouraged to do various activities such as fishing, pottery, reading, writing, cooking, cleaning, being taught various useful skills, rather than be a hole to toss people into and forget about to let them rot, it seemed prisons in this Empire focused on reformation and the idea that if you make someone a useful part of society they are not likely to commit crimes again, wasn't all good however, still had to go to your cell past a certain time, and be locked in, but, still better than his last experience with prison. ----------------------------------------------------------Empire Citizenship Sign Up---------------------------------------------------------------- Zecora looked at the Mr.Handy who had handed her, and the other two mares with her, Octavia Melody, and Vinyl Scratch, their Identification cards, charge cards, set up their separate bank accounts, Zecora was going to go into the potion research section, in the medical center of the Empire to compare her own recipes for potions and the like with the ones from here, perhaps she could learn something, or perhaps she could teach something as well, either one would be fine with her. Octavia Melody and Vinyl Scratch would themselves, be going into the music business, their odd combination of dubstep and classical music was likely to do well here, and it was high time they had a change of scenery, music here was said to have many more varieties and styles than back in Equestria. Octavia looked over to Scratch. "Well Vinyl, we're here, any specific type of home you wan to move into?" Vinyl grinned checking out the digital listing of available places to be moved into right away, all they had to do was mark it as theirs and they would be taken to it, it was pre furnished, 5th floor of a large skyscraper. "That one Tavy, large enough for two mares, one extra room if we have somepony over, and if not, it can be a storage room for our equipment!" Octavia nodded. "Alright this seems like a good choice, we'll go with that then." Octavia selected the home in the picture, well apartment more like it, but you didn't pay rent or bills, so she didn't know what to call it, and it lit up green, before turning bright red, marking it as claimed, meaning she had taken it and it was thus removed from the lists, and the Mr.Handy would have grinned if it had a mouth. "Perfect! You two get on the bus and be on your way, your zebra friend already left 15 minutes ago, don't forget your pin numbers, and your two phones." And thus they where on their way. Octavia looked at the Nukatron outside the entrance to their new home building before looking at Scratch. "Do you have any idea what Nuka Cranberry is?" > Chapter 56 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few of my top military commanders had brought up a rather decent point to me recently, if something like a hostile alien invasion were to occur, the only real defense in space that would stand a chance against a species with energy shields, and energy weapons, would be the Crystal City, and to a lesser extent, the Crystal Lorenzo. As such I was having a fleet of 35 new starships produced, these would be fully automated with advanced combat AI, and the same size as the manned starships I recently had finished, once again a mile long, and 160 feet wide, I was having two types produced. One type would be what amounts to a huge assaultron laser in the nose of the starship which actually looked like the head of the ship, this starship would be long, tube like, round, unlike the blocky manned starships, the other variant would be the Plasma Beam version, which would use an Empire version of the Zetan Deathray, both of these had energy shields, anti gravity engines, point defenses and nuclear missiles as well, the same for any starship manned or not. I grinned upon seeing a completed version of each starship, these where to be tested later in another solar system with no life, for now however, I closed the video feed, and looked at the crowed gathered for General Starlight Glimmer and Trixie Lulamoon's wedding, I would be making another marriage official, I liked doing that. In a rather adorable fashion, Starlight Glimmer was wearing a wedding dress the color of Trixie's fur, while Trixie was wearing one the color of Starlight's fur, Trixie had proposed to her less than two days ago, and due to Starlight's rank as Head General of my organic forces, per paycheck was more than enough to cover three weddings, let alone the fact I was doing this one for free, seeing as I helped set everything up. I stood at the altar with the two mares, and looked at Starlight Glimmer. “Do you, Starlight Glimmer take Trixie Lulamoon as your lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forth, for better or worse, for richer, or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish until death do you part?” Starlight Glimmer's smile was ecstatic as she spoke, standing straight and at attention as if I had just walked in on her commanding soldiers. "I do." I looked to Trixie, whom was almost as red as a tomato by this point. “And do you, Trixie Lulamoon, take Starlight Glimmer, as your lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forth, for better or worse, for richer, or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish until death do you part?” Trixie looked at Starlight, and smiled. "I do." And thus I stepped back. "Then you may kiss the bride." And they did, unlike the one at Sweetie Belle's wedding, this wasn't a long sloppy thing, just a short peck, and Trixie's horn lit up, before fireworks shot up from the stage, purple and blue. Starlight pressed a button on her phone, which was connected to the speakers around the area, and 'Ola I'm in love' began to play, I damn near laughed at that. The citizens in attendance clapped for the newly wed couple, even one of the androids did, I'd have to keep an eye on that one, now before they had gone through with this, I had told General Glimmer, and Trixie, how if Trixie accepted, she'd have to have her own personal guards 24/7 like Starlight did, and they both agreed, the guards were just Androids with AER-11's, using the new boosted fusion cores. I'd stay for the reception, but I had other matters to attend to, so I slipped away quietly rather than use the loud flashy relay to ensure the attention stayed on the newly wed. I looked over the reports from the CEMRRAD, or the Crystal Empire Military Ration Research And Development, I had decided to order a pony, meaning hoof friendly, MRE be created for the field, since soldiers wanted more choices for foods to take into combat, what was created looked somewhat like an MRE and a TV dinner combined, a metal tray made of titanium, with foil over the top of it and a pull tab for easy use by hands, paws, or hooves, on the side was a small red gem which you pressed before opening it, which heated the meal and would fall out, you then pulled back and enjoyed, each tray had 5 slots, one for a main meal, 3 for sides, and one for a desert item, they had been termed MRE's as I didn't feel like thinking of anything else to call em, however normal canned goods still made up the bulk of the rations my troops ate for now, that would slowly change through the production of more MRE's, which had great reviews in the field. Electric propeller planes and helicopters had become rather popular for civilian usage, so that was something interesting, for now however since I was away from the wedding, I relayed into RRAD, into the testing chamber and looked at Dark Sunrise. "You wanted to show me some things?" I asked, he hadn't really told me, other than he had a few important developments I had to see first hand for approval. Dark Sunrise nodded. "Yes, I've taken notice of the Royal Assaultron guards whom guard your throne room and the room the other royals sleep in, and I've noticed they have a prototype weapon on their left arm, in place of a hand they have an automatic high power laser weapon for ranged combat aside from their laser, which is always charged, and I realized this would be rather useful for in combat to give assaultrons something besides their claws to use in combat once their laser is fired and recharging." I raised an eyebrow at Dark. "Alright, go on then." Seemingly this was actually something important and not just some new robotic design he wanted me to approve for no reason other than to test it. He saluted. "As I was saying, why not give the assaultron a secondary weapon? Our modern laser rifles are much more compact with their automatic function, unlike the first automatic laser rifles used, taking the miniaturized automatic components from what you called 'institute' laser rifles, as you know we've upgraded them and use them in the AER-10 and AER-11 with boosted power due to the components being upgraded and set to replace all older bulky automatic laser rifles by next month, I have developed several side weapons for assaultrons, such as the compact automatic AER-10, and a ten millimeter sub machine gun in the hand, I'd like to show you the prototypes, as by my own testing, they increase the assaultrons combat efficiency by an astounding 15%, it may not seem like much, but they already had a success rate of 75%" I nodded. "Alright, show me these prototypes then." He bowed and pressed a button, two assaultrons walked out from an automatic sliding door that lead to the room the two had been in before, these had been painted black and yellow in stripes to indicate they where prototypes, one took aim at several moving targets, like you'd see in a gun range, and fired, its automatic AER-10 hand doing some rather decent damage, before it stopped and stood to the side while the one with the ten millimeter sub machine gun did the same as it had before, taking aim and shooting at moving targets with relative accuracy and ease, and I grinned rather happily. "I am proud to say I am happy I picked you to be the head of RRAD, your drive to innovate and improve already existing designs shows me you are the right stallion for the job, I'm giving full authorization to upgrade all existing assaultrons to these, since its just adding another weapon all we'd really have to do is replace their current left arm, which would be easy to do." Dark Sunrise saluted once more. "Yes Your Majesty, I am glad you have deemed my research and work worth your time, and that you are happy to have me in my current position, I am going to issue the orders to have the assaultrons upgraded now." He walked out of the room, and I thought while I was here, I may as well visit Pam, she had wanted to speak lately but I had been busy and hadn't had the time, now I was free for now. With a blue flash I was in the center of the DIA, the very core of it being Pam, her assaultron torso half stuck into the floor, connected to the supercomputers beneath her which had the floor built over. Pam's chassis turned to look at me, and if she had a mouth I'd assume she'd be smiling. "Lorenzo, it is good to see you finally made the time to visit, I may be able to communicate with you over the wireless network, but I vastly prefer face to face communication." I nodded and sat on a couch that rose from the floor. "Alright, so what was it you wanted to speak about?" Pam's happy tone went serious. "The Zetans, I recently finished going over the data recovered from the Storm Empire, and the data recovered from your improvised robobrain head using a zetan brain recovered, as it turns out that had been their Captain, a high ranking one within their ranks, and with the information taken from their computers I have estimated they have 17 million combat starships, each one armed with one deathray and energy shields, I estimate a 89% chance they will attack at some point after we return, if they have not done so already, and am suggesting you up automated starship production more than you have already, and to have units created with small plasmatic lances." "Alright Pam, I shall do so, your normally right when it comes to these things." She normally was as well, seeing as it was what she was designed to do, a fortune teller thats actually correct most of the time, she was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for a damned good reason, robotic as she may be, she did the job well. Pam nodded. "Good, and a bit of an update, Project Phoenix is going as planned, I estimate it will be complete by the end of this year, the automated factories and robot workers are going non stop, I am just glad no one has questioned where the largest chunk of raw metals being dragged in has been going to as I predicted." I nodded once again. "Good....good, it is indeed fortunate that no has caught on, and only three beings know of Project Phoenix, one being you, me and Chrysalis, remember to keep me updated on that project, once its complete it would completely change how the Empire does things." Pam saluted, and I relayed out into my bedroom to grab Moon, she had been a little mopey lately so I decided to take her on a short three day trip to Saddle Arabia, Chrysalis would watch things while I was away, and Rainshine would keep civilian matters running smoothly should something go wrong, Spring Dancer, was jus training in the combat arena for troops to get some exercise in. Moon was dressed rather casual, just a purple shirt and a pair of sweatpants. "Ready to go?" I asked Moon as I simply changed into some jeans and a t-shirt, the wonders of my inventory shall never be underloved. Moon nodded. "Yeah, I'm excited to see Saddle Arabia, I heard they have rather interesting foods." She wrapped a wing around me and thus, I relayed, within seconds we where in Saddle Arabia, I set a small relay beacon here in the ground so I could show up if I wanted without having to use a carrier or other transport. Moon instantly wanted to shop after seeing the exotic goods such as fine silks and a cart filled with books caught her eye near instantly, so she walked over with me following, and purchased several books, one called 'The Road To A Happy Garden' being the one she seemed most excited about, and that made sense, she loved to mill about in the Crystal Palace's royal gardens and tend to the plants, even planted some of her own, it was one of her main hobbies. After several hours of shopping, we decided to go to a local outdoors type eatery and I got some Kofta, while she ordered some pita bread with hummus and chopped grilled lamb, she liked it, and the Kofta wasn't bad either. Midway through the meal a mare approached and poked moon before asking "Excuse me Miss, how much for the male?" Moon damn near choked on her food, and so did I for a moment before I spoke up, an annoyed tone. "Excuse me but just who do you think you are? I'm not some piece of property, I'm not just a cabbage you can pick and then sell, now begone, we are trying to enjoy our meal." The mare gave me a look like I had insulted her dead mother and looked to Moon. "Do you always let your male speak like that to others?" Moon began to glare as well, but at her as her eyes began to glow white. "You will respect King Lorenzo, If you insult him or act like he is property one more time, I doubt you'll be anything but a red pile of paste once he's done with you." The mare's eyes widened as she saw moon flare her wings, eyes glowing and fangs snarled into a scowl, before she looked at me, and I just grinned. "Indeed she is correct, I'm the ruler of what you would call the New Crystal Empire." With a look of pure terror she bowed. "Accept my deepest apologies Your Majesty, I hadn't known you where a foreign ruler, and simply assumed you to be an exotic male." I rolled my eyes. "Is this how males are treated around here?" The mare nodded. "Yes, stallions are expected to cook, clean, do the house work, stay at home, if a stallion is caught wondering about without his mare, he is returned to their home, if caught more than twice, they are sentenced to a month of jail as punishment for breaking the laws repeatedly, a stallion may not work, own property or a business, stallions are property and can be sold on a dime for any number of reasons, does it not work this way in your Empire?" I shook my head in disgust. "I'm going to have to have words with Queen Najam Alsahra about this disgusting lack of equality." The mare skittered off at the anger in my tone. Moon nodded. "Yes I do agree, this is rather....disturbing." > Chapter 57 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I simply relayed into Queen Najam Alsahra's throne room, I had gotten permission prior to do this in the event I needed to speak to the Queen, so a section had been set aside for me to relay to anytime I needed. Queen Najam Alsahra looked rather surprised at first, seeing me, and Moon side by side, however after seeing the face Moon was making she raised an eyebrow. "I assume you wish to speak somewhere more.....private?" Moon only nodded, while I did the same, as such we went to the same room we had when making our deal. I sat down, as did Moon next to me, wrapping her right wing around me, fluffy, and I spoke. "I have a serious issue with the way males are treated here, I didn't find out until now due to the fact the only time I came here, was to speak with you, once, I decided to visit here with Moon, and there was a little 'incident' at one of the outdoor eateries, where a mare came up, and offered, to PURCHASE ME, and then went on to explain, that stallions are pretty much slaves in all but name here, I want that to change." Moon nodded, her mane flowing about, looking like a galaxy held within in turmoil as they spun slowly and waved with her mane's natural movements. "I agree with Lorenzo, the way males are treated here makes me absolutely sick." Queen Najam Alsahra sighed, and facepalmed. "It has been our tradition for thousands of years, stallions deserve no rights, their place is either in the fields, or in the home caring for foals and cleaning and attending to their mares wants and needs, I will not simply change because you, and other kingdoms demand stallions be mares equals, it isn't going to happen, Equestria, the Minotaur Kingdom, even the Griffon Empire are demanding the same thing, and I will tell you the same thing I told them, no." I grinned, I had already thought of her saying such a thing, so I prepared several options. "Alright, if thats how you want to play this little game, I give you two options, you can let the stallions who want a better life, come back with me to my Empire to live as they desire, or, I can begin the mass exporting of coffee, which I know makes up about 85% of this kingdoms income, without your coffee crop, you'd go bankrupt, I can afford to just give away 5 pound bags of coffee for 2 bits a bag, you can not, your coffee is already expensive as hell to begin with, once other kingdoms and empires see the prices at which I am willing to sell high quality coffee, they'll never go back to you for it." Moon's eyes lit up as she realized my plan, and she grinned as well, her fangs shining slightly in the light of the overhead ceiling lamp. While Queen Najam Alsahra's face soured at that, it looked like someone had jammed a whole peeled lemon into her mouth and forced her to chew. "That would mean war!" Rolling my eyes, I continued. "You damn well know that I sent you footage from the military show held awhile ago, and you know my Empire is the most technologically advanced, do you honestly think your bolt actions, water cooled machine guns, and even more primitive artillery will be something I can't have dealt with from orbit? You know war would mean your economy would be ruined, your military would be decimated, your Kingdom, in utter ruin, why do you suggest war for something so simple? Give stallions a choice for once? Really? You want to declare war over that? Even I'm not that petty, I just wish to give those who seek a better life, a better damned life, so how about you stop acting like a toddler and grow the fuck up and act like a decent ruler?" Queen Najam Alsahra's eyes narrowed almost to slits as she hissed out. "Fine. You have one day, after that, you are to never show your face in my Kingdom again." Moon nodded, as did I. "Works for me." And it truly did, I didn't care if I could come back to this place again. It took two hours after calling in civilian grade transport craft, to get about several thousand stallions out of this nightmare of a kingdom, some brought mares who agreed stallions should get the same rights, very few did however, some tried to fight this, but they simply got tasered, these males would get a choice, and they damn well fucking took it, a decent chunk of the male population, 5,678 stallions left and already had begun the process needed to become a citizen of my Empire, an Empire they'd have rights, some of them had been in a sad state, beaten for not following orders, others had been simply abused in horrific ways for refusing to follow the unjust laws set against them just because they had a cock between their legs. Moon was happy to escort these stallions to the Citizen Sign Up building, while I blacklisted this kingdom from the Empires automated trade system. The Automated Trade System, was a set of automatic antigravity craft which would haul goods between other kingdoms and empires that I allowed trade with, before this little problem popped up, Saddle Arabia had been receiving fine gems, Nuka Cola, wines, cheeses, and other food items, well I wouldn't allow trade with a ruler who let her citizens abuse others. Within 9 hours the stallions, and few mares, who left for a better life, had finally been granted full citizenship, Charge Cards, ID cards, and the likes, it was about, 8 pm at this point, so I plopped onto my throne while Moon went to take a shower with Rainshine and talk about what happened, and I pulled an item from my inventory, a yellow paper with I.O.U written on it, Discord, the anthro one, had given me this after my rampage at Canterlot, saving Luna, which he turned out to be dating, don't remember if I mentioned that or not, he gave me a paper with an I.O.U good for one favor, anything within his chaotic power, which was quite a lot. As instructed, I ripped the paper in half causing it go glow colors I couldn't even begin to describe, and Discord popped into existence where the paper had once been. I gave him a serious look, as what I was going to ask, was absolutely no joke, and given a few weeks to a few months of studying it, would revolutionize how certain things got produced. Discord looked down at me, as he was floating as normal. "I see you've finally called in your I owe you, so what do ya want Lorenzo old pal?" Discord said with a grin and a yellow glint in his eyes. My voice, normally overall, nice, was flat, and to the point. "Discord, I am calling on the favor you owe me for saving Princess Luna during my Canterlot Rampage, I'm sending you to collect a working Sierra Madre vending machine, and some of the chips that go with it." I handed him a photo I had gotten from the data slowly being released from the Human internet, things like Fallout and MLP related items, would not be released of course. "You are to bring me back a working, functional machine, along with a few blocks of Saturnite, its a space age metallic-ceramic alloy, I want no jokes, I want no pranks or bullshit of any kind, being me these items as requested, remember, you owe me." Discord Nodded with his smile, a fucking world war two American GI uniform appearing on him in a flash “Yes-sir Mon General!” Before with a snap of his talons, he popped out of existence with a white flash. Fallout Universe #eRrOR2131cLoUD, Year 2077. With a pop and a shower of confetti Discord appeared over the Sierra Madre, he looked around and discovered he had overshot his destination in the timeline by a, quite a long fucking time, almost over one hundred and fifty seven years by his estimate! Discord raised one of his eyebrows, which flew off before re appearing on his face. "Strange...but I can work with this, I think.." With a snap of his claws he turned himself invisible and floated down to the Sierra Madre proper and began to look around. With another click of his talons and a wave of rainbow colored magic, Discord hmm'd to himself. "Seems I'm the only living being within the Madre….well other than the rats….and the bugs. Uhg, disgusting." As Discord looked around he noticed that the place is rather clean and the sky is rather blue for the supposed post nuclear universe. So he brought his talon up for for another snap and in mid air appears the date, August 21st 2077, It took Discord a few moments before he blinked, pulled out his eyeballs, polished them on his chest and stuck them back into his head before looking back at the date to confirm what he saw. He was a full TWO MONTHS before the bombs dropped, he had also overshot the time period he wanted by two hundred and four years! With this thought in mind, Discord began looking around the Casino and the surrounding Villa, after a bit he sighed, other than fully stocked stores and some fancy ahem Gentlemen's clubs, there was a seeming lack of Vending machines to be had, He knew this would likely be the case. Discord snapped his talons and an overstuffed chair appeared in the air to sit in, once he sat down he began to ponder the situation. He couldn’t go back without the Vending Machine as that would break his word and if there was one thing that he wouldn’t do it was break his word, but again there were none here that he could find…..well that’s not really true, there were likely some in the Casino itself. but again those were likely integrated into the Casino itself and to take one would be noticed this late into the Timeline, so that was a no go too. Discord began to think, hard, the sounds of a steam engine chugging as steam blew from his ears as he thought, It’s not like he could….just….., and suddenly it came to him, he grinned, a chaotic grin with a glint in his eyes that held untold amounts of chaotic power. With that thought, a bright Light Bulb appeared over his head. Which he promptly pulled down and ate, savoring the crunch of the glass and thin metal like a fancy Canterlot noble might savor a glass of red wine, He could just copy the ENTIRE Casino AND Villa! Chaos knows he owed Lorenzo a veritable lifetime of favors for saving his Luna. With a snap of his talons the chair exploded into a murder of crows and he started to ascend higher above the Madre, once he is high enough to see the entire compound he begins gathering Chaos magic into his right Talon. After a minute his Talon is glowing and giving off chocolate colored steam, he snaps it and the entire Madre and Villa glows and ascended into the air towards him with a ghostly translucent look. And once it reached him it began to shrink until it’s was the size of his paw, with a mouse like sound it solidified into a small copy of his target. And once more, he grinned, laughing at his brilliant idea. With his work done and making sure the Vault lock down and Security Holograms where disabled or removed he floated back down to the streets. With one last look around, a click of his paw and a bit of graffiti was left behind saying 'Discord Wuz Here' he popped away with a white light and whoopee Cushion sound. With a bright yellow and white flash, I damn near had a heart attack as Discord popped back into this reality, a grin on his face which made me wary. "Did you accomplish the task given to you Discord?" Discord grinned wider. "Even better Lorenzo my old Chum! I accidentally overshot myself and ended up in what you'd call Pre-War, exactly August 21st 2077, I couldn't find a stationary vending machine to pluck, so I just made a copy of the ENTIRE casino! Don't worry, I took out the hologram security, the lock down system, and that big canister of red gas in the basement, I didn't copy the power source, too complicated, so instead I've hooked it into your Empires water and power supply, its just East of this main city, and there is an entire room with 25 pound bars of Saturnite, I've produced a map of the layout and everything for your convenience!" With a flourish like some king handing his most trusted weapon to a knight, he handed me a map, which did indeed show the plans and rooms of the casino. "Its a few miles East from here, to prevent civilians from just waltzing in, should give your scientists enough time to study the machines within, and with this, I bid you adu, arrivederci!" And without giving me a chance to respond, he was gone with a puff of cotton candy, which then grew wings and flew off like a damned bird. I just sat on my throne for a few moments, before I sighed. "Alright....I can work with that....then after the technology is studied I'm sending my starships back into orbit." For now I had called all starships hauling in asteroids for metals and the like, to return for their monthly maintenance check, so they had been loaded into the underground hangar in the military section of my Empire for repairs, scans, and generally to see if anything needed to be replaced, fixed, or restocked, such as food. I had called them in two days ago, and the testing of the newer automated starships would have to wait for now. ----------------Edge Of Equis Solar System--------- Fleetlord Issit looked through the armorglass bridge of the Flagship 175th Emperor Reffet, viewing Epona-3 through an electronic microscope. "Such a shame a bright star like Epona hatched so chilly an egg, but it will serve the Empire well, don't you think so Shiplord Trid?" Issit turned an eyeturret to the Shiplord, a rank below him, Fleetlord, being in absolute command of the fleet, each ship had a Shiplord to command and carry out his orders. Shiplord Trid waggled one eyeturret. "Yes Superior Sir, places around Epona-3's equator should serve us well, and by our current speed, it should take us about 15 hours to arrive at the planet, 20 if we slow down further than we already have." Fleetlord Issit waggled an eyeturret in response. "Bring up the image of the Eponite warrior for us again." Shiplord Trid waggled an eyeturret. "Yes Superior Sir." With a few clicks of his fingerclaws on the keys of the computer, a semi holographic image popped into the center of the Bridge, a stallion with gold armor, short sword, a wooden shield, another with wings on its back, and a crossbow within its grasp. Fleetlord Issit looked to the assembled Shiplords. "This is the fiercest warrior produced by this Epona-3, its very recent as well, only two thousand years old, so very recent indeed." One Shiplord spoke up. "I wonder how they will do against our automatic rifles and Killercraft to deal with the winged ones, and to take out ground targets, or our Landcruisers to smash their primitive stone walls into dust." Fleetlord Issit waggled an eyeturret once again. "Indeed, this is a truth, these primitives are ill equipped to deal with anything of our technological might, so this Conquest should go smoothly, with few infantrymales lost." He was waggled both eyeturrets at the assembled Shiplords "Dismissed." Before not even five minutes later he was back in his Fleetlord Quarters, busy with the infinite boredom that accompanied command when his door buzzer hissed for his attention. Fleetlord Issit looked up from the computer screen in surprise, abit it was hard to see that since his species didn't have mobile faces, no one was scheduled to interrupt him at this time, and the Akun did not lightly break routine, an emergency in space was unlikely for most of the time, but who would dare disturb him for anything less? “Enter.” he growled, his snout changing to a bright orange to show his annoyance, not that anyone who did enter could see it, his body paint which noted his rank, being highly detailed and ornate, also covered the part of his snout which changed colors to show emotions, only the Fleetlord and Emperor had such bodypaint on their snouts to prevent others from reading their current emotions and taking advantage of them. The junior officer who came into the Fleetlord's Quarters looked nervous, his tail twitched and his eyes swiveled quickly, this way and that, as if he were scanning the room for danger. “Exalted Fleetlord, kinsmale of the Emperor, as you know, we draw very near the Epona system,” he said, his voice hardly louder than a whisper. Issit gave the junior officer a glare. “I had better know that.” Issit said with heavy sarcasm, was this male addled? “Y-yes, Exalted Fleetlord.” The junior officer, almost on the point of bolting, his snout blue with fear, he visibly gathered himself before continuing, hoping to avoid the wrath of the Fleetlord. “Exalted Fleetlord, I am Subleader Drod, from the communications section, for the past few hours I have detected unusual radio transmissions coming from the system." He took a breath before continuing. "These appear to be artificial in nature, the signal frequency appear to be emanating from Epona-3.” Drod said quietly in an attempt to not anger the Fleetlord. In fact, the fleetlord was too startled to be angry at the unscheduled interruption. “That is ridiculous.” Issit declared as if it was plain fact, to him it was plain fact. “How dare you presume to tell me that the primitive savages our probes photographed have moved in the historic swivel of an eye turret up to electronics when we required tens of millennia for the same advance?” He all but screeched, now that shock had worn off, anger welled within him that this junior officer had the nerve to pull a prank of this sort, moreso when the Conquest fleet was closing in on its intended target. “Exalted Fleetlord, I presume nothing,” Drod quivered, his snout remaining blue to show his fear. “I merely report to you anomalous data which may be of import to our mission and therefore to the Akun.” Issit facepalmed. “Get out, now.” Issit said, his voice flat and deadly dangerous. Drod fled, the fleetlord glared after him. The report was ridiculous, on the face of it. The Akun changed but slowly, in tiny sensible increments, though the Letera were conquered before they developed radio, they had had comparably long, comparably leisurely developments. Surely that was the norm among intelligent races. Issit spoke to his computer. "Bring up data on anomalous radio transmissions from Epona-3." The data the subleader had mentioned came up on his screen, Issit studied them, asked the machine for their implications. The implications were as Drod had said, all signs pointed that those were artificial radio signals coming from Epona-3. "Hmm..." He'd have to call another meeting with the Shiplords to converse about the best way to go about this Conquest, if the primitive Eponites knew how to produce radios and electronics, what else did they know? > Chapter 58 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I sighed, unable to sleep, as such I simply went over the reports from the research team I had sent to the Casino Discord plopped down. So far reports had been promising, several of the vending machines had been ripped out of the wall and scanned to see how they function, the very core of the technology was beginning to be understood, so this was good progress, once everything was studied and the like, I'd have all the machines removed and it turned into a normal Casino. After reading the reports about the Madre, I read the reports about progress with the Automatic Heavy Railgun Cannons for mounting on vehicles like tanks, and jeeps, it was a 50 caliber railgun, long, sleek, holographic targeting sights, could hold 500 rounds before needing a reload, they had begun mass production two weeks ago, and I was checking the reports on how well they did against simulated targets, and animals such as deathclaws automatic turret versions also existed for easy defense in areas that needed to be guarded. Starship maintenance was going good so far, reports from my automated navy had nothing to report aside from shooting a few birds trying to land on the decks, so I had them dock a few hours earlier simply to resupply them with fresh missiles and railgun ammunition, but besides that there wasn't much to do at the moment for them. Speaking of Deathclaws, I had a select few modified to be sentient at last, they could speak, think, and act, like any person, they had more in common with perhaps a dragon than a person, but that was besides the point, this itself happened a few days ago, these new Deathclaws had undergone several tests to test their mental abilities and capacity for thought, and had been found to be as smart as an average pony, given enough time they would become citizens of the Empire once it was known they wouldn't just go on a killing rampage, they did not get treated like lab animals either they where treated rather well. Saturnite alloy blocks from the Sierra Madre had been collected, and had been surprisingly easy to reproduce, now I just had to wait to see what sort of applications the metal would be useful for, I remembered it could retain heat for hours on end, glowing cherry red and never flaking, so maybe something to do with machinery that requires high levels of heat? I am unsure for now, I'm sure Astral Starlight would find some use for the metal alloy at some point. The Stallions, Colts, and Mares who had left Saddle Arabia to join my Empire, had all been assigned homes, which for the next year would each get a random wellness check by certified medical staff at random points in time, they would not be informed beforehand, so if someone was breaking the law about how to treat males, they wouldn't have time to cover it up. Several humans had been imprisoned so far for attempting to force others to convert to their religions and not liking when they got told no, the reason for imprisonment was they had destroyed private property when told no, such as someones car having several dents bashed into it, much to the humans surprise the windows didn't smash when a rock was thrown at it, or even when bashed with a baseball bat, about 15 people, that left a few hundred more humans still able to walk about free, it would be another month before they got released. Very few had to stay longer than a month so far, a rare few who assaulted others for not converting however, got up to 1-5 years. I recently learned as well, that Equestria was threatening to cut all trade off with Saddle Arabia unless they gave stallions rights, and enforced said rights, and that wouldn't be good for Saddle Arabia because Equestria was the breadbasket that they ate from, most food was imported from Equestria, true they did grow some of their own, but not nearly enough to feed everyone there currently, so their Queen was under quite a bit of pressure to do that. I get keeping traditions and all, my crystal ponies still kept up the gladiatorial styled battles for entertainment sometimes, but there is a difference between a tradition and simply abusing someone, so I backed Princess Celestia 100% on her decision, if worse came to worse, I could simply evacuate the colts n stallions from Saddle Arabia and drop several tons worth of food and leave the Mares non sympathetic to the abuse the males had been going through, to either change, or fester in their outdated ways. ----------------Equestria, Canterlot Castle--------------------- Princess Luna strode into her sisters room, Celestia had been going over a few scrolls about new laws and the like, and to finalize her threat against Saddle Arabia if they did not change how they treated males within one months time. "Sister, the stars have been acting strangely as of late." Princess Celestia looked up from her work, putting down the pen as she raised an eyebrow. "Have they? What exactly have you noticed?" Princess Luna shrugged before continuing. "They have been moving in strange, erratic patterns as of late, I just assume it is uhg...Lorenzo's...what did he call them again? Starships? Yes, his starships, since those have been moving around quite a bit lately." Princess Celestia nodded. "It is likely just that, he informed me he would be doing some testing of some newer smaller starships, so it is likely just that, however I will call him later and ask, since his Empire is currently the only one with the ability to go beyond the atmosphere in any meaningful way and come back with ease, I'll call him in an hour after I finish these scrolls." Princess Luna nodded. "Alright, I'm going to be at Discord's home for awhile, so if you need me just use the dragonfire jar he gave you." Before Celestia could tease her like she always did about dating Discord, Luna teleported away with a flash of white. Princess Celestia looked at the spot her sister had been mere seconds ago, before smirking. "Oh Luna..." Celestia giggled to herself for a moment before going back to work. ------------------------------------------Equis, high orbit------------------------------- Exalted Fleetlord Issit looked over the hologram of Epona-3, three large splotches glowing blue, a color considered weak by the Akun due to it meaning fear. "You say these scans show the most technologically advanced Eponite empires?" He turned one eyeturret to Shiplord Trid. Shiplord Trid waggled an eyeturret in agreement. "Yes Exalted Fleetlord, our satellites show detailed images, their radio communication hubs, power plants, primitive as they may be, we have not detected any signs of atomic power-plants, so they must not have atomic weaponry from what we see, otherwise we'd have detected the trace radioactivity." Exalted Fleetlord Issit turned both eyeturrets to Shiplord Trid. "No signs of atomics you say? Then they wouldn't have any shielded electronics, not knowing the need for them, unlike our own, theirs would be unshielded and could be completely disabled with a few well place atomic blasts high above their atmosphere." Shiplord Trid's eyeturrets both shot to Fleetlord Issit. "By the Emperor, that is a brilliant idea!" All Akun within the room lowered their eyeturrets in reverence at the mention of their Emperor, as they had been taught to do so from birth. Exalted Fleetlord Issit waggled his eyeturrets at a communications officer, the one from before, Drod. "I want several atomic shells launched and set to detonate once they get close to the planets atmosphere, the resulting electromagnetic waves should disable all their primitive electronics and completely scramble their communications, and destroy those primitive ball shaped satellites in orbit." Primitive as they may have looked, somehow they had been so primitive that their own networks couldn't connect to them, when they tried they got no responses. Drod ,still somewhat frightened by his Superior waggled an eyeturret. "Yes Superior Sir, it shall be done." He turned his head back to the controls at his disposal and pressed a button to broadcast to all starships in the fleet armed with atomic shells. "This is Junior Officer Drod from Communications, Exalted Fleetlord Issit has ordered the usage of atomic shells to detonate as they get close to Epona-3's atmosphere, I am sending you all the expected time to fire now so you may coordinate this." Drod pressed a button on the computer and within seconds each starship got a firing solution ready. Each Starship with atomic shells was set to launch two shells each. It took only 15 minutes before the ships had gotten into the correct positions around the planet Epona-3, two large cannon poking out from just under the bridge of them as they slid out of their housing from within. As shown by the computer to time all the shells, when the timer hit zero, each starships two cannons fired, their blasts pushing the starships back a small bit as their 280 millimeter atomic shells left their barrels like a bat screaming out of hell, the shells raced closer and closer to the planets atmosphere, and just before they'd have entered it, they blew with the force of 15 kilotons each, their blasts easily visible from those on the planet due to just how many had been fired, and how bright they had been, the satellites in orbit began to spark and dance with blue waves of energy, before they exploded with the force of a small bomb each. Across the globe electronics began to flicker and fail, Equestrian Hydro-Electric dams suffered the worst damage as the turbines began to spark and stutter from the EMP before stopping completely, leaving a quarter of the Equestrian Empire without electricity. Exalted Fleetlord Issit let his mouth fall open silently in the Akun's version of a laugh, letting his small sharp teeth show as the others laughed with him. "That should leave them on their tails scrambling in panic, now I want the conquest to focus on the three most technologically advanced powers, once they are taken out, we can focus on the even more primitive savages of Epona-3." Shiplord Yuhluh spoke up. "With all due respect Exalted Fleetlord, if the Eponites have electronics, and have advanced in such a small time, only a thousand of the local years, then I think it would be best to batter them with atomic shells until they pose no threat to the Akun Empire as a whole." Exalted Fleetlord Issit glared at Shiplord Yuhluh, his snout turning red under the body paint covering the part of his snout which changed colors. "Are you completely addled! That would wreck Epona-3 and leave a dead world for the Colonization Fleet to arrive to in 48 years! You know as well as I that the Colonization Fleet should be well on its way to this system, they where set to launch after we arrived within the system, our messages beaming back at Vanov despite being at the speed of light, will still take 20 years to arrive, we can not sit and wait for orders we are on our own here and as Exalted Fleetlord I was ordered by the Emperor to take this planet and I intend to do it!" They all lowered their eyes at the mention of the Emperor. Shiplord Yuhluh bowed his head in respect. "I meant no disrespect superior sir, I just thought it might be best, despite the fact these Eponite Empires having existed for far less than our own True Empire, they discovered functional radios and electronics within two thousand years, when for us it took 15 thousand to achieve the same thing, our Empire is five hundred thousand years old, millennia older than these young pathetic excuses for empires yet they have advanced at an astounding rate, I merely suggest what I thought was best for the Akun, because if they have advanced so fast in so little time, who knows where they will be in another two thousand years?" Exalted Fleetlord Issit waggled both eyeturrets. "Your concerns are noted, now go back to your station and continue your work, I want to hear no more of this nonsense, their discovering of electronics was just an anomalous fluke, it could be nothing else." Shiplord Yuhluh skittered off, Issit never liked that male, he always tried to contradict what he said even before leaving Vanov and entering coldsleep, Yuhluh had tried to argue he should be Exalted Fleetlord and was more qualified, his argument was shut down rather quickly when the Emperor himself had told him to shut his mouth unless he didn't want to join the Conquest fleet. With that little conversation over, Exalted Fleetlord Issit could watch as six starships began to make course and enter the atmosphere of Epona-3, they'd land in the Empires they'd conquer, then unfold themselves into airstrips and into a mobile military, and connect, giving them a base for which the Akun could further plan the Conquest of Epona-3. ------------------------------------Lorenzo's Empire----------------------------- I looked at the holographic screen which had popped up in front of me from my throne, it showed the feed to the satellites I had tossed into orbit when the Crystal Lorenzo had first launched, each one was offline, and the automatic up-link to them went down at the exact same time each one reporting catastrophic failure on every component within, turning the fusion cores held within into small bombs. "What the absolute FUCK?!" I growled and typed a few commands in, before the computer reported several large electromagnetic pulses had just taken place in the higher atmosphere of Equis, I'm glad I left the shields up, and had it standard to have shielded electronics, I thought I had just been paranoid since no one else on this planet was even close to an atomic bomb, let alone even knowing what uranium was, but the scans show several small nuclear devices, and I do fucking mean small, as in 15 kilotons small, the same as the first nuke dropped on Japan nicknamed 'littleboy' had gone off in the higher atmosphere. I looked at the scan report for a few moments in just, disbelief, before I clicked a few buttons and brought the Empires defenses to RED. The Empire had several stages that the automated defenses would use to know what to shoot at, green meant incoming projectiles and nothing else, yellow meant hostile aircraft and the like, and RED, meant anything not known as allied and that couldn't get contacted and confirmation that it was allied or at the very least, neutral, would be shot down. The PDS's , or Plasma Detection Systems, began going completely bonkers, locating two objects exactly 2640 foot long starships, 588 feet wide each, for those too stupid to know, 2640 feet was just about half a mile large, so these where NOT small by any means, I was about to authorize the AA guns to fire but several missiles slammed into the Empires energy shields as I was about to, looking at a camera that showed outside, citizens began to panic as large flashes of explosives began to pepper the shields protecting the entire Empire, and the moment the missiles hit the Automatic Anti Air Railgun systems took aim and fired their 20 millimeter railgun rounds at a rate that would make a machine gun blush. The screen showed the shots connecting and slamming right through the apparent starships that had invaded Empire airspace and impact against the shields, further damaging them. I pressed a button which would contact General Starlight Glimmer. "I want aircraft up there, NOW, I want survivors, if there are any, taken into questioning, if they have injured, have them tended to, I need answers and I want them NOW." General Glimmers voice came through the speaker on my pipboy. "At once Your Majesty" Before the line went dead as the communication ended. Unknown to me, Two starships the exact same size had landed near Detrot in Equestria and had already begun to set up shop, same for the Griffon Empire in the city of Eggsburg. Had both of their communications not been down my radio would be screaming wondering what the hell was going on. ------------------------------------------Upper Orbit Equis------------------------------ Exalted Fleetlord Issit glared at Drod who dared to tell him something so impossible. "What do you mean two of our starships that where set to land in the larger Eponite Empire have been shot down!?" Issit wanted to claw the male's eyeturrets out. Junior Officer Drod quivered, his snout turning completely ice blue in terror. "E-Exactly as I reported Exalted Fleetlord! I simply watched the radar and communications and the two starships sent to that Eponite Empire suddenly stopped responding, and are not acknowledging my or anyone else's attempts to hale them and get a report!" Exalted Fleetlord Issit continued to glare. "I want several Killercraft dropped into the atmosphere to take a look at this for themselves!" Junior Officer Drod waggled both eyeturrets so fast he almost made himself dizzy. "Yes Exalted Fleetlord! At once Exalted Fleetlord!" Drod pressed the button on his radio. "Seven Killercraft have been ordered to drop in atmosphere from a starship to investigate the loss of two Akun starships near the east continental mass next to the unnaturally large Eponite Ocean!" That was sort of true, to the Akun who where used to land surrounding small salty bodies of water, the Eponite Ocean seemed, too large, unnatural, never on their home world had such a large amount of water ever just sat around in such large quantities. Five minutes later a starship had entered the atmosphere just past the point things entering would burn, and several Killercraft screamed out, their jet engines wailing as their turbofans took in oxygen for the first time in centuries since the last Conquest, and the Starship remained to hover in atmosphere to pick the Killercraft up once they had completed the task given to them. Within seconds they had accelerated to mach 2 and shot towards the location coordinates given to them, Flightleader Astroth pressed the radio button for his flight helmet, the speakers within small and compact, aligned perfectly with his hearing diaphragms. "Alright fellow Killercraft pilots! As you know we are to investigate and destroy whatever took down our two starships, and by the Emperor we shall do so!" Unlike Akun who worked on the ground, or in starships, Killercraft pilots had been trained to not lower their eyes in reverence of the Emperor unless on the ground, to prevent accidents from occurring. The Killercraft began to close in on a giant walled section of land, which had been their target, within seconds they where within missile range and fired, aiming at what looked like AA guns on the walls, only to be horrified when their missiles got knocked from the sky like a pest, then to their horror, one Killercraft went up in a bright blue explosion as the hydrogen tank within got struck and brewed up instantly, killing the unfortunate Pilot within. Flightleader Astroth screeched into his radio. "Evasive maneuvers! I want those guns taken out!" The remaining 6 Killercraft obeyed wordlessly, twisting and turning while shooting more missiles, and even their radar guided cannons, another Killercraft went up, then another and another, the last two males who's Killercraft got taken out so quickly and brutally had been lucky enough to hit the ejection button on their control panels, causing the top of their Killercraft to pop off with a hiss and the seats they sat on to eject, a parachute deploying seconds later while the Killercraft crashed into what looked like a translucent blueish shield. Flightleader Pilot Astroth looked at the last two Wingmales he had with him on his radar. "I am ordering a retr!" His transmission to the others got cut off as a railgun round slammed through the Killercraft cockpit, turning him into a fine red mist, while his Killercraft slammed into the ground and exploded with a brilliant blue light, another one did the same soon after, only one Killercraft managed to get away and make its way back to the starship that had been awaiting seven Killercraft to return to it. ---------------------------------------Lorenzo's Empire--------------------------------- I watched as the automated Anti Air Railguns ripped several lizard jets from the sky, and lizards is the correct term, small ones to, all of these where about four and a half feet tall, each one being marched along the streets to a secure facility in which they'd be kept and questioned, the pilots who had ejected from their aircraft had been picked up by Crystal Pegasi armed with automatic plasma rifles, and where separated to be questioned differently. The remains of the two starships had been slowly lowered into an empty field and scanned, before being fed power and being connected to a computer system which would scan any data they had, and that was rather easy, for all their apparent advanced technology, what with crossing the stars and invading, their computers are about the same as the ones Humanity had in the fucking early 1990's. Within mere minutes the scan was complete and power was cut from the starships, their primitive fusion reactors being sliced out and then hauled off on military trucks for study. I looked over the data, and I was not impressed, not very much anyways, as I looked over the data the computer automatically set to translating their language as I was reading it, so what I read was in English, or as some would call it, Equish, their computer systems where not compartmentalized, cocky fuckers, this meant anyone that could connect to their networks, could hack into their shit if they knew how, or plant a virus or some other shit like that, they didn't even bother encrypting the data! I looked at the scan of the starships structure itself, from the looks of it, this species hadn't discovered antigravity craft yet either, since it had several rocket boosters on the sides and bottom which would push it into space, and keep it hovering in atmosphere. The computer let out a ding before it popped out a small crystal disk, of which I plugged into my pipboy, and with a jolt that felt like a thousand angry hornets stabbing the inside of my skull I screamed in agony for a few moments before the process was complete. I gasped on the ground and shakily stood up, and grinned hard, that little spell and and technology combined, allowed me to implant their language into my own brain like adding code to a computer, the downside is it hurt like an absolute fucking CUNT to do so, Jesus fuck the migraine I had made me want to blow my head off, instead I took several doses of Med-X right from my inventory, and sighed with relief as the throbbing pain died down to a mild annoyance rather than something I'd shoot myself over. The robotic networks already got updated the moment the language was fully translated and could therefore, understand the little scaly fuckers. For organic troops and the like, a translator talisman, it would function by using magic to translate the language into Equish, which was going to be much easier since the computer already translated it, it just had to upload that information into the talismans I'd be having handed out. I strode over to the interrogation room after taking a short car ride to the building, my legs a bit shaky due to what I had done to implant their language into my memory, without knowing it, it sounded like random hissing, clicks, pops and coughs, but since I now knew it, I could understand the Lizard Prisoners, which called themselves the Akun, they where about four and a half feet tall, and had three claws fingers and a clawed thumb, their faces where for the most part, immobile, their heads actually looking a lot like a chameleon, with their weird turreted eyes, one of the prisoners whom had been recovered from the starship was seated across from me while I gave it a cold look, and spoke. "I am King Lorenzo, Ruler of the Crystal Empire, and you my little scaled friend, are going to tell me exactly what I want to know, or I'll have to use force to get what I want from that little lizard brain of yours." An android wheeled in a tray with several sharp tools, a hammer, pliers, even a few small knives with serrated edges. The one of the lizards eyeturrets shot to the tools of pain before it looked back at me with both eyeturrets. "I obey, Superior sir." That surprised me, I expected at least SOME resistance from this thing, but to so willingly just offer to tell anything I wanted? It couldn't know that the green crystal built into the center of the table was a changeling lie detector crystal, flawless every time to tell if someone was lying or not, so if it did lie, I would know. I raised an eyebrow as I spoke, curious to see if this thing would actually try to lie, or if it would tell the truth. "I want to know why your Conquest Fleet decided to invade Equis, or as you'd call it, Epona-3." I kept an eye on the crystal, if this thing lied, it would beep loudly and glow green, if it didn't, the crystal would remain the dull dark green color it was. The lizard lowered his eyes, his snout turning white, signifying stress if I remember the data correctly. "We are here to spread the Light of the Emperor and the culture and civility of the Akun to the primitive Eponites, as is the will of the Emperor, I am but a tool in his glorious plans." I lowered my eyebrow. "How do you view this Emperor of yours?" I asked, I wanted to see what exactly these guys thought of their ruler. The lizard raised both eyeturrets to me. "The Emperor is to forever be obeyed, he is the protector and ruler of the Akun, without the Emperor we are nothing, we would perish, and when we do perish, I shall serve the Spirits of Emperors Past as every member of the Akun has done so before me." So they viewed their Emperor as some sort of deity? That somewhat made sense from the data I had read from their ships computers after it had been translated. So I spoke up again. "What is your name and rank." The lizard looked up at me, its snout changing to a deep royal purple, meaning surprise, I guess he hadn't expected me to give a fuck about his name. "I am Chater, I was to be the Head Medical Professional when the base set itself up, to give orders to those below me in my station, however as you know, that failed rather miserably, that is a truth." I chuckled, which seemed to confuse Chater for a few moments, before I stopped. "Alright, Chater, your going to go with this fellow here." I pointed to the android in a full suit of marine armor, hefting an AER-11 laser rifle. "To help with your wounded in the sickbay nearby, it would be best to have someone there who actually knows how to help." Chater waggled his eyeturrets at me. "Yes Superior Sir." He got up, and the Android led him out, he was so tiny compared to the 6'8 android, it was adorable, I also found the fact their snouts changed colors to be absolutely fucking cute, it made me wanna pet them, I refrained from doing such a thing however, I think that would be viewed as VERY rude, and would get me bitten. ----------------------------------------------------------Equestria, Detrot-------------------------------------------------------- The Akun starships that had been ordered to setup shop, had done so very quickly, the two starships unfolding and connecting to one another, while a chunk of the main starship remained building like, to have a place to house Akun Infantrymales and Killercraft Pilots, and Landcruiser crews, another chunk was used as storage for their landcruisers and another for their Killercraft. Already Shiplord Ranzaer, in command of the base, had ordered several Killercraft to attack the primitive trash the locals had in the air. Several civilian airships had been shot down, and the city bombarded with missiles and bullets, while Landcruisers rolled along almost silently before their 150 millimeter cannons fired, taking out several Equestrian Tesla Tanks in one shot, Commander Ohed stood up from the cupola and his snout turned a neon green color, to signal happiness. "This is easy as a female in heat!" The driver agreed, as did the gunner, Ohed watched as a Killercraft shot past, letting a missile fly loose to strike another primitive local airship, it was indeed going to be easy as a female in heat he thought to himself, before those thoughts where quickly ended as a bullet found its mark between his eyeturrets and he fell over dead slumping in the cupola, an Equestrian Pegasus guardmare grinned, and worked the bolt on her bolt action rifle, looking for another target to hit. To her amusement one Killercraft made the mistake of flying through a pegasus cloud home and instantly went up in flame as it smashed into the objects held within, and resulting in the aircraft blowing up with bright blue flames destroying the home which she happened to know was empty because it was her home, a cloud home was easily replaced anyways. ------------------------Griffon Empire, City Of Eggsburg----------------------- Like the Akun starships sent to Detrot, the ones sent here to Eggsburg had set up shop within the hour, an entire airstrip and barracks, airstrip, aircraft hangars and the like, and the commander here had commanded the exact same thing, several civilian airships got struck from the sky, even a few military ones. A griffon biplane tried to take down a Killercraft, but was destroyed using the Killercrafts radar guided cannon, the pilot not bothering to waste a guided missile on such a small and insignificant target. Landcruisers rumbled along, a griffon Renault tank opened fire with its machine gun taking down a few of the infantrymales that had been walking with the tank, in return the landcruisers machine gun opened up and tore huge holes into the thin plate metal of the griffon light tank, while the remaining infantrymales fired their automatic rifles as well in return. A griffon mark tank rolled up and aimed, before shooting with its cannons, the shells bouncing off the Akun Landcruiser. Landcruiser Commander Eivoll spoke into the radio to the gunner. "High Explosive shell." The Gunner obeyed. "High Explosive Shell!" He selected the shell to be loaded and the auto loader system, the same as the ones inside the starships which shot nuclear shells, but much, much smaller, had it loaded within seconds, before he fired as ordered, the primitive landcruiser which had the nerve to shoot at them, went up in flames, black smoke and yellow fire as its ammunition cooked off and blew a second time, the crew had no chance to escape as the Mark Tank was turned into pure scrap metal and fire. ----------------------------------------------------------Lorenzo's Empire------------------------------------------------------- I stood in the Bridge of the starship Crystal City, ready to launch, and checked the numbers I had gotten, the Akun had 857 starships, I had taken two out, so that left 854, each one the same size and shape, only 150 of them had atomic cannons, yep, CANNONS, almost like the fucking American M65 Atomic Cannon the US developed in the 19 fucking 50's, I think it was time to have a little chat with their Fleetlord. Maintenance had been completed and the ship was released from the massive maglocks which kept it locked in place to prevent it from moving about, and the platform which it sat on began to rise from the depths of the ground and rose to the platform which it launched from the first time, before Captain Tempest nodded and her crew sat at their stations keeping an eye on the ships systems as Captain Tempest activated the starship. One of the crew members began speaking. "Artificial gravity generators online, antigravity engines online, Dampeners online, Air circulation systems, online, power systems, online, energy shields, online, main weapons charged and ready to fire, we're go for takeoff." Captain Tempest gave a grin that would make a wolf piss itself and slammed the button in front of her, and pushed the lever forward, causing the starship to life off, and shoot into the atmosphere. ----------------------------------------------Akun Fleet, Exalted Fleetlord's Starship---------------------------------- Exalted Fleetlord Issit was about to have a seizure, he was sure of it, less than five seconds ago there hadn't been a massive starship within plain view of his starships bridge's armorglass port, yet now there sat a starship so massive he wondered how their scans missed such a massive thing, the holographic projector screeched in protest as a signal was forced through it mere seconds after the starship had appeared, and to the surprise of everyone aboard, before a hologram of what looked like a deformed Eponite appeared, wearing a weird metal ring on its head that held what looked to be several gemstones. "I am King Lorenzo, Ruler of the Crystal Empire, Your starships attempts at attacking my Empire, have failed, I had them shot down with such speed that they never knew what hit them, your Killercraft had the same fate. You will recall your forces from this planet and leave, now. Or you will regret the day you where hatched." The Eponites voice sent chills down Exalted Fleetlord Issit's spine, his snout turning ice blue beneath his body paint, the tone in which the supposed Eponite Emperor had spoken was cold, emotionless, calculating, but, it was his duty to see the Conquest succeed. Exalted Fleetlord Issit pushed Drod out of the seat and took control of the radio set in which he had been using, and pressed the button before speaking. "This is Exalted Fleetlord Issit, Kinsmale of the True Emperor and the one true Empire, the Akun Empire, you are hereby ordered to surrender yourself, your starship, and your Empire to the rightful rule of the Akun, you have one minute to comply before we shoot you down." He feared even with all their atomic shells they may not shoot down that beast of a starship, it was frakin massive! But, it was his sworn duty to carry out the orders given by his Emperor. The hologram of the Eponite Emperor made a weird motion with its mouth, its mobile face's mouth curling up and showing its teeth before it spoke, amusement clear in its voice. "No." Exalted Fleetlord Issit gave command of the radio set back to Junior Officer Drod. "Order all starships with atomic cannons to fire upon that starship! I want it done YESTERDAY!" He screeched. Junior Officer Drod obeyed. "All starships with atomic cannons fire at that starship! Do it now! As commanded by the Exalted Fleetlord!" He stopped pressing the button and turned around in his swivel chair to watch the aftermath. All 150 Akun starships turned from their various orbits, and fired their atomic shells at the Eponite starship, well out of range of the EMP blast of the shells, let alone the actual nuclear blast, the shells impacted with the force of 15 kilotons each, several shells missed and blew up close to the planet, the flash was immense, forcing all who watched to look away for the few moments the Eponite Starship was engulfed with atomic fire and flame. Exalted Fleetlord Issit looked on in pure terror, his snout turning yellow to signify as such, when the flames and light died down to show the Eponite starship unharmed. "By the Emperor that isn't possible! This isn't possible!" He, along with the rest of the Akun, where so terrified that they didn't even bother to lower their eyes in reverence for their Emperor. -----------------------------Lorenzo's Point Of View-------------------------------- I looked at Captain Tempest. "Fire the deathray, low power, cleave about a dozen of their ships into scrap, but do not aim for the one with their Fleetlord, only he can order them to surrender." Captain Tempest nodded and took control of one of the deathrays and brought up the targeting sights. "Yes Your Majesty, with pleasure." She took aim, and fired, moving the deathray in a wide line 65 Akun starships got sliced through and several blew into scrap as the beam sliced through their primitive fusion reactors, Tempest laughing like a madmare, I think she was enjoying this a bit to much, after a few seconds, she turned off the deathray and stopped firing, the result was exactly, 65 Akun starships completely ruined, crews dead or dying from lack of oxygen. I glared at Captain Tempest. "God fucking damn it Tempest! I SAID A DOZEN NOT SEVERAL DOZEN! If you can't obey orders I will find someone who can!" Tempest seemed to wilt, her ears flopping down. "Sorry Your Majesty, It won't happen again Your Majesty." ----------------------------------------------Akun Fleet, Exalted Fleetlord's Starship---------------------- Exalted Fleetlord Issit looked on in pure horror and terror as a beam of green light sliced through a decent chunk of his Conquest Fleet, destroying them near instantly, melting through their metal armor and their insides and causing several to explode, very few escape pods rocketed away from the ruined starships, some didn't release any at all, which caused him severe stress and sadness, several thousand Akun Males, gone in an instant, lives wasted and instantly made pointless when the beam fired and killed them, he grabbed the radio away from Drod, and with much hesitation, spoke into it. "We...We surrender, I Only ask you spare the remaining ships within orbit, I will order my forces planetside to surrender to the empires they sit within as well." Fleetlord Issit looked down to the ground with both eyeturrets in shame, he had been sent here and hoped to be remembered as Fleetlord Issit, Conqueror of Epona-3, instead he found himself horribly outmatched, by one lone starship. > Chapter 59 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Exalted Fleetlord, as he said he would, sent a message aimed at the forces that had been sent down, pressing the button for the radio he spoke, sadness clear in his voice. "This is Exalted Fleetlord Issit, I am ordering all Akun to surrender, or our entire Conquest Fleet will be annihilated, you are to surrender to the Eponite forces you are currently facing." Chatter on the radio was chaotic for the next half hour, but as ordered the Akun in Detrot, and Eggsburg, surrendered. Equestria was more than happy to take prisoners, the Griffon Empire however, was not, within several minutes of the Akun surrendering they had all been herded into a large camp which was actually a prison that had been completed a week earlier and set to open in another week once staff could be trained and hired, however it would serve well to keep Lizards in line while Griffon Scientists worked to teach them Equish so they could speak one on one, then once they got all the information they wanted about the technology, then the Hightalon would have to decide, let them live, or slaughter the pests. Exalted Fleetlord Issit aimed a new message at the large Eponite Starship, which blocked out a massive chunk of Epona, what the Akun had named the star that sat within the system. "I have done as you have commanded...." With much hesitation, he said. "Superior Sir." At the end of his first sentence. "What demands do you have so that the males I command may live and remain breathing?" Issit's snout had no clue what color to change to, currently it was rapidly switching between white for stress and yellow for pure terror, and even blue. The Hologram of the Eponite Emperor, its eyes seemed to narrow and glare at Exalted Fleetlord Issit, despite the fact that should have been impossible, for the projector allowed things to be seen, not the other way around. "Yes, prepare to be boarded, I will be coming to relieve you of your command and then you are to come with me, there's unfinished business we both need to attend to." The Eponite said in the language of the Akun, which, now that Exalted Fleetlord Issit thought about it, shouldn't have been possible, because it would take time to teach the Eponites the proper way to speak. Exalted Fleetlord Issit spoke into the radio once more. "How will you board? I do not think your shuttlecraft would be compatible with our docking bays." Which was an honest concern. The Eponite on the hologram lifted the corners of its mouth and bared its teeth once more. "You shouldn't need to worry about that, I won't be using a shuttlecraft to board your ship, just stand back from the center of the bridge." The projector began to spark and sputter before it cut out. As commanded Exalted Fleetlord, and those within the command bridge of the Flagship of the Conquest Fleet the 175th Emperor Reffet, stood back against the walls. ---------------------------------------------------------Crystal City Starship------------------------------------------------- I looked over at Captain....Commander? I'd iron out the details of that later and decide on what one sounded better. "I want the Crystal Lorenzo notified and up in orbit to keep an eye on our little guests while I attend to the Flagship of this little fleet." I said with a small grin on my face, I opened my inventory and decided I'd equip something I rarely used, it was something that had been plucked from the royal vault of the now abandoned Anthro Crystal Empire. The Wendigo King's Crown, once worn by the Wendigo which had ruled and commanded their entire species, it now held the power of what remained after he had been slain by the Fire of Friendship during the 4th or so Hearths Warming celebration, it was a silver colored crown with several ice blue round gems within, 5 to be exact, it gave whomever wore it the power over ice and snow. Now, I knew this because Amore had simply told me after I cleaned out the abandoned empires royal vaults, she was the one who cataloged and numbered the artifacts brought from within the depths of the abandoned crystal palace. Sombra had told me I had a manapool, and thats all this crown required to function, I couldn't preform complex spells or shit like that, I just had to 'will' what I wanted to happen, and the crown with its limited abilities would do the best it could for what I wanted, so far Amore had over the course of a few months since I recovered this artifact, taught me to shoot powerful blasts of snow, and small ice spikes, I could create blizzards with winds up to 175 miles per hour if I wanted to, abit I could only keep up such a feat like that for an hour and a half before I depleted my manapool, as an example a normal unicorn could keep it up for about 5 hours nonstop if they wanted to, so that was to be used as a last resort to keep the Empire protected. Now before someone bitches and whines and moans, about why I never brought this up before, is because one, I don't fucking have too, secondly, I gotta keep SOME secrets till I need em, eh? My reason for using it during this little trip, was because the Akun ABSOLUTELY fucking hated the cold, they are warm blooded despite being lizard like, but they think weather in something like 95 degrees fahrenheit was NICE weather. So if some felt feisty I'd just rapidly lower the temperature within the room and cause them severe discomfort, best part was since I used my inventory to equip it, it had game logic applied to it, meaning only I could take it off, it couldn't be shot off, or knocked off by mistake, to take it off I had to go into my inventory and unequip it. I watched the Crystal Lorenzo float into view almost as fast as a speeding bullet, as once second it wasn't there, the next it was, and I grinned before latching onto two androids, each holding an AER-11 Laser rifle with Boosted Cores, and activated the relay, which the ship had several, a large one, and several smaller backup ones, and with a bright flash and the sound of thunder, I relayed into the center of the Flagships command bridge, with the two androids with me, which absolutely scared the crap out of the Akun within since their snouts kept switching between purple and yellow before finally deciding for most, on purple. Before one of them spoke up, the one with body paint on his snout, so I knew which one he was. "How....How is that possible? What did you just do?" God it was hot in here, it was almost like a sauna but without the steam, just a dry heat, very little humidity. I gave Fleetlord Issit a toothy grin. "It's commonly referred to as the Molecular Relay, I often just refer to it as the relay, It works by De-materializing you in one place, and then it re-materializes you in another I'm sure that sounds crazy since I've seen how slow your species advances, but it's a reality, and its something my Empire uses to its full advantage." Fleetlord Issit's eyeturrets both shot to me in what I assumed, was surprise, seeing as I can't see the color of his snout to see that, several others however, I could see their snouts flash to complete and total purple, one of them, body paint just a little less ornate than Fleetlord Issit's spoke up. "Forgive my interruption Superior Sir, I am Shiplord Trid, second in command to Exalted Fleetlord Issit, what you speak of should be completely impossible, how do you acquire the vast amounts of energy to do such a feat?" I rolled my eyes. "Very Efficient Cold Fusion Reactors, now onto why I am within the bridge of this starship." I pulled out a Nuka Raspberry and took a few swigs before setting it down and continuing. "I am here to order you land all starships in this area designated for them in my Empire." I held up my pipboy which a holographic map popped to life and a large paved, and I mean large as in several hundred miles, 875 to be exact, slab of ground in the military section of my Empire. "You are then to hand over any weapons, disarm any nuclear shells, hand them over, and follow the soldiers who coordinate all of this for processing, nothing harmful I promise that much, as for YOU Fleetlord, your to order this, and then you will be coming with me." I said, my voice leaving no room for argument, if these little shits didn't do as I commanded now I'd have them blasted from orbit. Exalted Fleetlord Issit looked up at me, I was several feet taller than him after all, and waggled his eyeturrets. "With much...hesitation, It shall be done Superior Sir, Our eggs are in your basket, and I shall do as asked to prevent you from smashing them." He lowered his eyeturrets to look at the ground and waggled one at an Akun sitting in what looked like a communications station of the bridge. Junior Officer Drod waggled an eyeturret in return, before pressing the transmit button to address the entire...well, almost the entire Conquest Fleet, he still saw the ruined wrecks of those that had been destroyed and wasted. "It is with great sadness I order the Conquest Fleet to land at the given coordinates, as commanded by the Exalted Fleetlord, and to follow the instructions being transmitted to your computers now." Several calls came over the radio to ask what was going on, and so Drod responded to all of them with the following sentence. "We, have failed, we sought to conquer the primitives of this planet, and with little effort they hurt us so badly we are being forced to do as they command, less we wish to loose not only the Conquest Fleet, but the Colonization Fleet when they arrive." That shut up the calls and shrieks for what was going on rather quickly, every starship except the 175th Emperor Reffet began to lower themselves into the atmosphere while I looked over at Fleetlord Issit. "Alright, Issit, your going to be coming with me, once me and Issit are gone, you are to land this starship like the others." I said looking at Shiplord Trid. Trid waggled his eyeturrets, the Akun's version of nodding. "Yes Superior Sir." And with that, the two androids I had brought grabbed one of my arms to relay with me, and I grabbed Issit's small arm like you might a toddler, before I relayed back into the bridge of the Crystal City, Issit wobbled about and fell onto the floor, dizzy as he was not used to the effects of the molecular relay as I was, just as he was standing up, I realized I left my fucking Nuka Raspberry back on the Flagship, god damn it....oh well I can always just pop open another one. I looked at, for now I decided, Commander Tempest. "I want orders relayed to the Crystal Lorenzo to begin collecting the wrecks of those Akun starships, and the bodies, if any remain not blasted to bits by the sudden and violent decompression of their starships, we can salvage them." Tempest saluted, her metallic horn shining in the light from the overhead ceiling light tiles built into the roof of the bridge, her cybernetic eye glowing red as she nodded. "At once Your Majesty." She grabbed a PCD, Plasma Communications Device, and activated it instantly sending a signal to the captain of the Crystal Lorenzo. "His Majesty King Lorenzo has ordered all Akun starships destroyed remaining in orbit be collected for salvage, and bodies collected as well." Without a word the Crystal Lorenzo began to move closer to the wrecked starships, still dwarfed by the size of even the Crystal Lorenzo, and began using its tractor beam, once again a reverse engineered zetan technology, to drag the broken and busted starships into its storage bay, and I just grinned. I looked down at...well, no longer Fleetlord, Issit. "It's time to pay your home world a little visit my friend." Issit looked up at me so fast, that I knew he was either surprised or panicked. "You know the location of Vanov?!" Issit screeched in his hissy language. I nodded. "Of course I do, I scanned the computer systems of the starships I shot down, they had been mostly intact, a few damaged sections, true, but the computers and data within them had mostly been unaffected due to how rugged you little guys built em, gotta give ya credit for that." Issit continued to look at me, one eyeturret flicking to look around the massive bridge of the Crystal City Starship a few times. "How....how have you advanced to the point you can do all this, in so little time? In one thousand local years! That is but a swivel of an eyeturret in our own history!" I laughed. "Issit, my Empire has come this far, in seven years, just seven years." Issit's jaw dropped, not in a laugh, but in complete and total shock as he just sat on the floor and curled up into, what looked like a fetal position. I just looked over at Commander Tempest. "The coordinates for their solar system should be uploaded to the ships mainframes by now, along with the location of their colony world Letera-2, I want a communication drone sent there so the message I declare to their home world can be seen by both worlds instantly." They had named the species there the Letera....as you could tell the Akun are not exactly clever when it comes to naming species. Tempest nodded. "At once your majesty." She selected a few buttons and a communication drone shot out, before activating its FTL drive and launching itself into the Letera system. While I strapped Former Exalted Fleetlord Issit, into a chair to prevent em from flailing and hurting himself or someone else, he DID have claws after all, before I myself sat in a spot that gave me a perfect view of the outside of the ship from the command bridge, and grinned when the entirety of space glowed blue for half a second before the dim red star at the center of this solar system came into view and as such, so did the planet Vanov. ------------------------------Vanov, Capital of The Akun Empire, Imperial City of Vonolla, Emperor Ranzaer----------------- Emperor Ranzaer was sat upon his throne, within his Imperial Palace. His golden body paint shining lightly in the glow of the electric lights hanging from the ceiling in an intricate manner and he was glad to have finally launched the Colonization Fleet a week ago, by now the Epona System would be mostly under the control of the Conquest Fleet. As Emperor Ranzaer pondered ordering one of his servants to fetch him a glass of spirits to take the edge off a normal day and relax him a tad, his phone hissed for his attention, no one would call him unless authorized, as such he picked up since it had to be an emergency, likely another sandstorm headed Vonollas way, before he was even able to ask what was going on, some male screamed into his hearing diaphragms. "Emperor Ranzaer! Forgive my interruption of what his Greatness had been doing, but you need to get to your bunker immediately! An unidentifiable starship of absolutely enormous scale has just appeared close to Vanov with no warning!" Emperor Ranzaer's eyeturrets swiveled to his two royal guards, the only members of the Akun who held firearms to protect him if the need arised. One of them bent into the posture of respect lowing his eyeturrets as he spoke. "My Emperor I am not worthy to speak in your presence, but we must make haste if we are go get to the bunker in a reasonable time." Emperor Ranzaer waggled his eyeturrets, he did quite agree now was not the time for formality, and stood up, his two royal guards flanking either side of him as he made his way to a room just behind his throne room and entered an open elevator, before pressing the button causing it to close with a hiss and a pop. The digital dial began to count down, the bunker was 40 feet below the palace surrounded by hardened concrete and several of the life support systems you'd expect to find in a starship, even its own water recycling systems in place so he wouldn't go without water or a shower. The doors opened with a pop and he strode into the bunker, his two guards standing guard at the elevator entrance to the bunker. The phone in the bunker hooked into the wall began to hiss for his attention, and as such be picked it up, and pressed a button on the side to activate the screen function on the monitor built into the wall next to the phone. At once one of the head of his royal guard popped into view on the screen, the phone held to the side of his head. "My Emperor, exactly five minutes ago a starship with such grand size that it dwarfs out a chunk of our star appeared over the planet, what are our plans for this?" Emperor Ranzaer kept both eyeturrets on the Head of the royal guard. "We do not have plans for something such as this, it was never expected that anything could possibly be advanced enough to come here, let alone in the size which you describe, I'm afraid I have no idea what we shall do, attempt to make contact and see what this starship wants." The Head of the royal guard bowed his head and lowered his eyeturrets. "It shall be done My Emperor." The callfeed cut out without another word, while Emperor Ranzaer sat in a comfortable chair with his Harem just arriving at the bunker as well, the only bloodline that would ever be known would be the Emperors, as such he had his own harem to ensure his bloodline continued and his species would have a proper ruler, outside of his bloodline, no others mattered. -----------------------------------------Outside------------------------------------------------- Akun citizens where beginning to panic, trying to search on their computers for what to do, when nothing came up, most simply fled to the bunkers which would hold a few thousand Akun in the event of a level 15 sandstorm, however only a few thousand could actually fit into the bunkers at a time, that left billions with no defenses but their own homes. Citizens across the globe turned on their televisors, and rapidly punched in the numbers for the Global Empire News Station. With a few flickers as a live broadcast was put out, the Newsmale came into the feed, holding a microphone with cameras that showed the massive orbiting starship above Vanov. "The most likely answer is that this is the flagship of a Conquest Fleet from another Empire who ran into our Conquest Fleet in the middle of space." The male stated, his eyeturrets looking at the screen telling him what to say off to the side, while keeping one eyeturret on the camera. A reporter held up a microphone to the Newsmale and spoke, his snout white. "Could they be here to Conquer us?" The Reporter asked while holding the microphone just out of reach of the Newsmale so he couldn't swipe it away. The Newsmale let his mouth fall open, showing rows of tiny needle like teeth, the Akun version of laughing, before he continued speaking. "No, of course not, we are the Akun, the most powerful and advanced civilization to ever grace the universe." The Newsmale said taking a sip of warm water from a bottle. "They may actually be here to work out a deal to unify our empires together into an even larger and stronger one, of course, the Akun would be the head of this new, merged Empire." The Reporter waggled an eyeturret in agreement. "That is the most likely possibility." He turned an eyeturret up to the starship which, due to its massive size and how close it was to Vanov, was easily visible from orbit. Both of the Newsmale's eyeturrets shot to the teleprompter, before he quickly had one swivel back to the camera to address those watching. "I'm just getting word that the starship is broadcasting a message for all the Akun, and to the Emperor himself! We shall play it now." The feed cut out to show what looked like the bridge of the starship floating in orbit. What was on screen should have been impossible, it looked like a deformed and ugly Eponite, it could be nothing else. It stood up from the chair it had been sitting in, standing to its full height, wearing black wrappings with what looked to be a light purple strip hanging down from its throat, and silver colored strip of spiked metal on its head with several blue stones held tightly within, a second later it began to speak, much to the astonishment of anyone watching, in the proper language of the Akun. "I am King Lorenzo, Ruler of The Crystal Empire on the planet you call Epona-3, I am here to speak with Emperor Ranzaer about the surrender of the Akun Empire, to the Crystal Empire, your Conquest Fleet has been stopped, defeated, and now belongs to me. Sixty five of your Conquest Fleet's starships got destroyed within less than a minute by one weapon, your stand no chance of fairing any better should you fail to comply, your starships fired their atomic shells, and they did absolutely nothing, you are so arrogant as to have no standing military to protect your home planet, thinking your the largest most powerful force in the universe, well this is a wake up call, your not. If you do not respond within five minutes, I will make a little show of power." The screen went back to the Newsmale, who's snout had turned yellow. "I.....I have absolutely no idea what to say nor does the male who operates the prompter.....Wait, wait, I've just received a transmission.." The Newsmale took a few moments to watch it on a small screen to the side out of the cameras view. "Oh...Oh BY THE EMPEROR!" He screeched, terror clear in his voice, before the news station played it, it was footage of the Conquest Fleet having several starships torn apart by what appeared to be a beam of greenish energy, from the point of view of the command bridge of the massive starship. Emperor Ranzaer sat within his bunker, thinking very hard and trying to find a way for the Akun Empire to come out on top, and he saw no possible way to have his Empire come out on top, not when footage of the apparent battle showed this Eponite Empire, had somehow weaponized energy. Emperor Ranzaer Seemingly took too long to respond, as the cameras pointed at the starship had their operators scream in terror as the starship fired a massive beam of energy just like the one that had sliced so many starships into scrap, into an empty section of Vanov, the resulting shock wave shattered windows several hundred miles away in less than thirty seconds. Emperor Ranzaer grabbed the phone and dialed, the Head Male of the royal guard picked up at once. "I want a direct call sent to that starship." He ordered. The Head Male of the royal guard lowered his eyeturrets. "At once My Emperor." The screen went blank for a few seconds, before the Eponite Emperor was on screen, sitting once more in that chair. Emperor Ranzaer's snout was yellow, if anyone had been able to see it beneath his body paint. "This is Emperor Ranzaer, speaking to the Eponite Emperor, I am surrendering, I see no other option that does not end with my species being wiped from the face of the universe like a mere Eili that made the mistake of buzzing around a lamps light." While no one could really see it, Emperor Ranzaer was absolutely terrified, would this Eponite Emperor even accept? Would it just wipe his Empire, and his species and the subject species of the Letera from the face of the galaxy into nothing? The Eponite Emperor's mobile mouth curved upwards baring its teeth. "Alright, I accept your surrender, I expect you to be in your palace throne room, your going to announce the new ruler to the rest of your Empire, I already have a probe in orbit of Letera-2, so this broadcast is being shown there as well as here, the instant it happens." Emperor Ranzaer's eyeturrets waggled with hatred, and then, resignation, he had no choice unless he wanted to be the last Akun to draw breath. "It Shall Be Done....Superior Sir..." Him calling the Eponite Emperor Superior Sir caused the royal guards, and even his own harem within the bunker, to hiss with displeasure, he was the Emperor! No one was supposed to be superior to him. Following authority had been something instilled onto all members of the Akun Empire from the moment they could learn and become proper civilized beings, but, from what Emperor Ranzaer had seen, his own empire was like that of a hatchling still wet from its egg, while this new Eponite Empire, was the adult with its claws and teeth ready to tear into the hatchling before it even opened its eyeturrets and skittered off. His two royal guards flanked him on either side with their automatic rifles as he went into the throne room from the elevator, and stood at either size of his throne as he sat and awaited the Eponite Emperor. -------------------------------------------------------------------Crystal City Starship------------------------------------------------ I had watched as over the course of a few minutes, most Akun shuttlecraft began to land, either out of panic or just because they had been ordered too do so, I didn't care, I made sure my suit was on correctly, it had been the same one I wore to the first Gala in Canterlot on my Equis all those years ago, I had spent two years in this anthro world, and five on my Equis. I grinned and looked at the crown I had on my head in the little hand held mirror I was using, before I plopped the mirror back into my inventory and looked at Tempest. "Relay me down." She saluted, and with a flash I was no longer standing within my starship, but in the throne room of the Akun Imperial Palace, two androids with me, one armed with an AER-11, another holding a camera set to the frequencies the Akun used for television, as for how I knew where it was? The call had been transmitted from a wall mounted phone on the far end of the throne room, and was coming from under the castle so I had assumed that their Emperor had been taken to their version of a fortified bunker for their ruler. I grinned, seeing as within a few minutes, I would own two whole worlds, these little shits provided me a perfect idea the moment I scanned their computer networks, and their own audio logs. "Emperor Ranzaer, it is time to formally surrender." Emperor Ranzaer sighed in resignation, before one of his royal guard's snout turned a bright crimson color, which meant rage, normal red was anger, this was pure rage, without warning he aimed up and peppered me with bullets causing me to fall onto the ground, several holes in my chest, and one in my throat, I just grinned at him as blood seeped from my body before I died, and five seconds later respawned, still grinning, his snout went from crimson, to yellow in a near instant, as did the other royal guard who was on the other side of the throne, he tossed his weapon down and raised his clawed hands, I ignored him, I was going to just make a little show of the one who had shot me. "My turn little geko!~" I said gleefully as I held out my hand, the gems within the crown I wore began to glow blue, before without another second of warning, a blast of air so cold and freezing shot out of my hand that the moment it touched him, he froze solid, I then pulled out my Advanced Mark 2 ten millimeter pistol, and shot, causing the frozen lizard to shatter into thousands of little chunks before I put the pistol away. I looked back at the other royal guard. "I assume your not as stupid as he was?" He shook his eyeturrets side to side, and I nodded in approval. "Good, Leave." He did so, skittering as fast as his small legs could carry him, almost running on all fours as he fled. Turning back to Emperor Ranzaer I began to speak. "Now like I said, its time for you to inform the empire of its new management." Soon to not be Emperor Ranzaer lowered his eyeturrets before looking at the camera, which I had switched on seconds ago, across the two worlds of the Akun Empire citizens watched in shock as their former ruler spoke. "It is with a heavy liver that I must inform my former empire, that the empire shall be under new management....the empire now belongs to Emperor Lorenzo, and is now his property....you are to follow him as you would follow me, that is my last order as acting Emperor of Vanov, of the Akun Empire, honor this order as if it was your life." He stood up from the throne, and I sat in his place, uncomfortable but it would serve well to get the point across, as he bent into the posture of respect. Now the real fun was going to begin. The broadcast then cut off, and I presented former Exalted Fleetlord Issit, to Former Emperor Ranzaer. The former Fleetlord lowered his eyeturrets. "I am sorry I failed you so, My Emperor, I regret that this is my fault, and I have no meaningful way to apologize for this but to put my life in your claws..." Former Emperor Ranzaer patted him on the shoulder. "No Exalted Fleetlord, Issit, none of the blame rests on your head, it was I who ordered the Conquest Fleet to be constructed, it was I alone who ordered Epona-3 be brought under the Empire's rule, these events are not your fault, Know this, and as I have commanded...serve this new ruler as you would myself." Issit lowered his eyeturrets. "As you command...." He turned to me, and spoke, resignation in his voice clear. "What are your orders....My Emperor?" I chuckled. "First, call me King Lorenzo, secondly you are to simply find out where in space your Colonization Fleet is, so I can have them boosted to Equis and then to my Empires landing sites ahead of their planned time." Former Fleetlord Issit lowered his eyeturrets. "It shall be done, My King." He skittered off to get the requested information from the computers that had set the launch and plotted the course of the actual starships. Several hours went by in almost the blink of an eye, the Akun, having it ingrained too much into their mentality to do as their ruler commanded, put up almost no resistance, even Akun police forces had been helping keep order and peace, in that time I had several of the smaller starships that had been produced so far, show up in orbit and in orbit around Letera-2, to solidify my rule over the two planets. I had portal gates opened in every city in locations all around that lead to the main city of my Empire, each one with two Heavy Sentry Bot guards each, if the Akun and Letera coming through wanted to cause trouble, they'd be stopped rather quickly, it took several hours, but due to the Akun now following my orders as if I had been their ruler the entire time, even if it was with some pretty good hesitance, they submitted the proper paperwork and blood work very quickly, doctors had medical records and the like which also helped log their DNA faxed over as well, so their ID's would work in the Empires Citizen Identification System, abit it would take a short while to log it all, another three hours at most. Five hours after I sent him to fetch me the information I wanted, Issit returned with the expected coordinates, so I sent the Crystal City to snag em and plop em down into an empty field of the Empire back on Equis. I was rather glad this species, and the Letera which they had taken into their rule 25 thousand years ago, local years, for Equis, that would be about 50 thousand years, had no standing military outside of the Conquest Fleet, which only ever existed when the Akun wanted to add a planet to their, now my, Empire, they had only sent one before, and Equis was supposed to be the second conquest in their history. I learned by searching through their own computer records, that their species had been unified for five hundred thousand years, local years, calculating it with Equis years, which are the same as Earths more or less and twice as long as the Akun's years.....this species has been unified for exactly one million fucking years, and they haven't advanced much beyond simple technology like jet aircraft and starships that travel half the speed of light? By Faust's Milky Teats! This species was conservative I knew that much from the data recovered from the destroyed starship, but thats just pathetic. Now, some may be wondering, why did I just take over an Empire older than fuckin dirt? It was rather simple, from the mentality these creatures had, they'd keep building and sending Conquest Fleets, they where fanatics when following the orders of their Emperor, of which I now was, abit I was just gonna have em call me King Lorenzo like everyone else. If their Emperor commanded them to all jump into a pool of lava, they'd do so, they view their leaders as an ACTUAL god, and seeing their 'god' submit to me, means their entire empire would as well, therefore preventing more death on their end. I watched Chrysalis stroll through one of the portal gates, and grinned at her. She would watch over this palace and redirect anyone who wanted to speak with me, through a portal gate with instructions to the Crystal Palace throne room, and since she could handle herself I knew she would be alright, plus I left two Heavy Sentry bots by the throne, and she had her own magic and an automatic AER-11 to use if she needed. Now the real work began. > Chapter 60 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Several months had gone by since the Akun Empire was assimilated into the Crystal Empire, or, My Empire, as I like to call it, hehe, about two and a half months have gone by. I'll catch you all up on what has happened the past months, first of all the Colonization Feet was indeed snagged at the expected coordinates, and then simply scooped into the Crystal City's cargo bay. The Colonization Fleet was three hundred thousand colony ships, each one four miles long, a mile and a half wide, and eight stories tall inside. They had woken up from Cryostasis confused as to why they had arrived so early, and more surprised to find their Empire had been conquered, they didn't want to actually believe it at first, so I played the recording the former Emperor had made at my request, and when I sat on their throne and he bowed to me, they shut up quickly and got to work, however I could tell some had been upset. When I say get to work, I mean get to work moving into homes, and finding jobs under the occupations they had planned to work in while they set up the colony, which wouldn't be happening now. My Empire had more than enough room for the Six Billion Akun that had been in the colonization fleet, the entire population of the two planets now under my rule was 56 billion combined, the population evenly spread for the most part on the two planets, most Akun, about just over a quarter chunk being Letera. I don't think I've mentioned what the Letera look like, have I? Well, now is a good a time as any I suppose. The Letera had been what the Akun call a Subject Species of the Akun Empire, the Letera, named after what the Akun named their star, from the planet Letera-2, they are biologically very close to the Akun, very close in body shape, their fingers are longer, thinner, still ending in sharp claws, their tails tend to be about the same size as the Akun, their scales being almost neon green in color, they don't have turreted eyes however, they have eyestalks much like that of a snail but far more advanced. They got conquered before they even got out of their own stone age 25 thousand years ago, their stone spears and knives made not even a close match against the Akun's fully automatic rifles, so that conquest went with only the loss of 15 Akun soldiers, the Letera had their culture and language erased, their own history deleted from the books of history to be replaced with the 'proper' culture and way to do this, in the Akun's eyes, they are happy citizens of the empire, and taught from birth the moment they can learn to thank the Spirits of Emperors past that the Emperor of the time decided to spread his light and wisdom throughout their primitive species. I put a stop to the thanking the ones who took their planet and destroyed the local ecosystem with their own plants and animals, they, along with the Akun, would get an Empire Education, I wouldn't erase their culture, history, or even language, but they'd learn not to treat others like 'inferior' species. Speaking of language, my changeling scientists found a rather clever way around that barrier! Changelings can implant memories into their victims brains to prevent reports to the royal guard, I just had them put their own knowledge of Equish and Reading it, into a memory crystal, and put into a focused beam device, which when used on an Akun's or Letera's head, would instantly implant the language into their brain, and the ability to read and write in it, abit this did cause a headache, but not nearly as bad as the one I got from the way I did it. The same went for the rest of the Empire with the Akun's language, which they just called 'the language of the Akun' for some stupid reason, the few 195 Ss’ket who had become citizens of my Empire had been shocked to find out how long the Akun had been around, and even moreso when they found out just how stagnant their technology had been for the past several hundreds of thousands of years. For those who don't remember, the Ss’ket are the species which make up the one other alien empire which I have allied with. Now you might remember how the Akun bases that set themselves up in Equestria and the Griffon Empire had surrendered? Well seeing as the Akun are now, MY citizens, I simply told both rulers of their empires, that I needed the akun they had taken prisoner, back, and their technology, the Griffon Empire did so without complaint, as their Hightalon knew what my Empire could do if I wanted. Equestria however, wanted to keep some of the items like a few tanks and other items for study, I decided that was fine, what they wanted to study was mostly just the tanks, the akun automatic weapons, and a few of their more complex electronics such as long range radar, and their radio systems, I allowed that, it would be several years before they could even begin to copy the electronics, and another 30 I estimated before they could even come close to copying the tanks, even with magic. I also had the dead akun returned, and bodies sent back to their home world for proper cremation, as was the akun's way of being rid of bodies. I tried to ask how the families would react, however it seemed the Akun have no concept of family units, they don't even care for their hatchlings, they just lay their eggs, bury em, and fuck off. It's only after 3 years, Equis years, that their hatchlings needed to be taught anything, since they could defend themselves and hunt right after hatching, and instinctively avoided adults or anything larger than themselves for primal fear of being eaten. Now, some may be wondering why I had the Akun starships land rather than toss em back into their home system, it was rather simple, they belonged to me now and I was going to make use of them. It was rather easy to begin upgrading them to Empire standards, they had done the hard work by building the starships themselves. I just had to replace a few things, rip out the cryopods, add some more things, and they could be pressed into service. The first step was replacing their primitive rocket boosters and replacing them with antigravity engines, ripping out their old fusion reactors and replacing them with Empire ones, which had been more efficient to begin with, along with arcane reactors, artificial gravity generators, replace their nuclear cannons with three 20 millimeter railguns in a gatling configuration, one gatling railgun to replace each atomic cannon. Then replacing their missiles with standard hypersonic missiles. Then came to upgrading their computer systems, I didn't do much beyond compartmentalization of the databanks and power systems, then a simple upgrade and they had holographic computers with touchscreen capabilities, cooling and heating system to regulate the temperature within the starship, upgraded plumbing system, and then FTL drives installed. The machines from the Madre had been studied, and replicated a month ago, and now each starship was being outfitted with several, the 'coins' you'd use for the sierra madre vending machines, however, did not, I had the machines designed to have the coins internally, thousands of em. These starships had both arcane and Cold Fusion reactors, because they had been designed with a new prototype energy shield configuration, my Empire didn't use the smooth shields the zetans did, despite the fact our shield tech was based on theirs, it was an upgraded version, the shields rather than being flat and smooth with rounded curves around the starships, had a hexagon shape which would round the entire starship, this increased its ability to absorb blasts of energy three times than standard Zetan shields, the difference between the shields on something like the Crystal City, and the new modified starships, was that they could sandwich shields in layers, a layer of the normal ones, then ones powered by the arcane generators, which tinged them purple, then another layer of the normal ones, three times the protection already given. This along with the fact they had been built into the wall, meant no longer would starships need to carry fresh food, or even water, they did still carry water but they could make more easily, I will explain how these machines work, the Sierra Madre Vending machines, within the very core of the vending machines was a self-contained matter transformation device, it can create any item programmed into the machine, provided it could get a scanned sample of the item or items in question so it would know how to reproduce it, and the main use for starships would be food, water, and medical supplies, the metal coins that the machine internally had ready to use when needed, are not some form of nanotech feedstock, but simple alloys of common and fissionable elements, which can be easily manufactured out of common junk. This meant they are efficient little things, these machines used fusion to transform matter, and could create anything I authorized to be programmed into them, from food, chems and potions, even booze. The mains things allowed had been meals, both ones you'd eat in the Empire, and ones the Akun had been used to, medical supplies such as chems and potions, water, various juices and drinks from both Akun, and Equis, and a selection of random booze from vodka, to whisky and wine. Each akun starship that was finished being modified quickly found a its old crew, plus some Empire crew added as well, even the Colonization Fleet starships had been modified into military starships as well, being larger they held more weapons after being modified and armed for service. Those starships had been meant to hold twenty thousand colonists in cryostasis, as such they mostly had cryopods in them, I had those removed, and a good chunk of the space they had left behind after being removed, for reactors, new rooms, places for crew to sleep, a mess hall, and the basics any starship with living crew needs. These had several zetan deathrays, which could only be operated unless in an emergency, by the androids manning the two front facing deathrays. The automatic 20 millimeter railgun AA defenses that bad been installed are completely independent of the firing controls of the akun's systems, they are just meant to defend the starship from incoming small craft or missiles and could react faster than someone in the bridge might be able to authorize them to fire. Now, the Akun had been adapting to the new way of things, not very quickly, this species was slow as fuck, but, it was better than nothing, given 175 years, I'm sure they would be used to this, seeing as they live 400 years, which is two hundred of their own. The Letera had lifespans of about 275 years, Equis years. Now, the animals on the Akun's two worlds, surprisingly enough no mammals existed, all reptile like, they had weird little fat round lizard creatures which shared the same turreted eyes they had, with stumpy legs, despite this these creatures are rather agile, they are kept as pets and called Akakos, they made a rather adorable little 'beep!' noise. These little things could defend themselves as well, they are about the size of a cat and are actually able to defend against things like dogs, and normal cats sand no chance, their little claws and very sharp teeth, along with their thick scales made a great defense against anything that tried to make them a snack, Akakos had taken well to canned dog food when a few Empire citizens wanted one as a pet. Despite this, the Akakos are not completely safe, the Akun also keep the Akakos natural predator as pets as well, Qaviks, the natural predator of the Akako's, they are agile, sleek, and fast, their snouts being long and pointed with long tails they can use to whip animals that get too close they make a strange series of hisses, clicking noises, and chirps, these creatures are about the size of a German Shepard, for reference to their size, they are used to help herd Thalaill, much like how some species of dogs are used to help herd sheep. The Imperial Palace, had been turned into a museum, I left several Akun Conquest Fleet starships as is, and had once placed in my Empires Museum Of Technology on display, you would be able to walk around inside it, and gave seven unaltered starships to the Abyssinian Empire, with instructions on how to use them, the only modifications I actually did, was replace the computers with the ones the cats used, so they could read what was on screen, and replace the atomic cannons with tubes to fire their arcane warhead missiles from, the rest stayed the same, Queen Carnelia had been very happy at that, they had repainted them and had their own Empires symbol put on em, which if ya didn't remember, was the swastika. Now the Abyssians are the only nation on this planet besides my own Empire, which could get into space in any reasonable manner. --------------------------------------------------------Unclaimed Home----------------------------------- Michael looked over at Franklin while keeping his hand made shotgun close. "When will those little fuckers be arriving?" Franklin looked up from the box of dark chocolate candy bars he had been packing. "Fuck if I know homie, jus keep an eye out and don't blast em if they do show up, thats not good for profits if you kill all your customers." Michael nodded, and double checked his makeshift shotgun, it was just a simple short pipe with a shotgun shell inserted into the back, and a crude hinge mechanism and trigger to fire, but it was certainly more deadly than the civilian weapons allowed here. 15 Minutes later a knock came at the door, Michael opened it slowly, and looked down before he grinned to see the ugly little lizard had showed up like he said he would. "Come on in." Michael stepped back and allowed the lizard to skitter inside before closing the door and locking it with a click. The lizard's turreted eyes looked every which way before settling on the box Franklin had been packing with Dark Chocolate. "You have what I requested?" Franklin nodded and tossed a bar of the candy to the lizard, who caught it with his clawed hand. "You damn right we do lil homie, you can taste it for yourself." The lizard peeled the wrapper off the almost black chocolate bar, and took a bite, before he froze up for a few seconds, then he jammed the rest of the bar into his mouth and quickly swallowed it. "By The Emperor these things make me feel so good inside! As agreed, I will transfer the credits to your own accounts, four thousand each." The lizard pulled out a tablet, something it wasn't used to but found handy for these deals, and typed some information into it and a minute later, the credits had been transferred. "Now please give me the rest." Franklin wheeled the box of chocolate over, it being a wooden, cooled box with wheels on the bottom, he waved as the lizard skittered out wheeling the box with him. "Damn if those little bastards don't creep me the fuck out man, but who'd have thought dark fuckin chocolate of all things was like cocaine for a man?" Michael laughed. "Who gives a fuck? So long as no one finds out about our little operation here, we're gonna be raking in dough! And if we do get caught, you and I both know what needs to be done." Franklin nodded. "Course Michael, I ain't stupid." Franklin looked to the makeshift explosives which he had set up around the small building, if that day came, well, he didn't want to think about that. > Chapter 61 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another week had passed or so, and so far, everything had been going swell. Deathclaws, the altered ones at any rate, got citizenship, the unaltered ones produced by the Replicator would remain as food. Several Akun damn near fainted when a Deathclaw strolled through the portal gate to take a look around. Thankfully they didn't own firearms otherwise I think they'd have shot him, the Deathclaws name was Dave, funny enough, he had named himself after taking a look at a list of popular names. Several Akun meats had become popular in the Empire, something new to try, so I had several of the Akuns foodstuff animals added into the Replicators system so it could just clone more from the top specimens collected. I'll name off the new animals that have been added into the Empire's diet, Noawei a fat round lizard like species, same turreted eyes as most species on the Akun's home planet of Vanov, this one tasted quite like pork, very salty, and tasty. Thalaill, they are thick looking lizards about three times the size of an average cow, sleek and somewhat rounded, they have long necks and the same turreted eyes as is common on Vanov of most species, these tasted a LOT like turkey, or chicken. Iczai an aquatic species which shares a very strange uncanny resemblance to Earth's extinct trilobites, cooked like Lobster might for anyone who does not know what a trilobite looks like, akun have to use special tools to break the shell and eat the tasty meat within once its cooked. Soktaks are a soft shell turtle like creature of the Ruzet sea, It has an assortment of tendrils above its mouth to help identify prey, which gives the strange little creature the appearance of having a Stalin mustache, funny I know, it was mostly used in soups and stews. These had all been tested to see if they would pose any harm to the species which already made up my Empire before the Akun became absorbed into it, a little on the salty side, otherwise they are all perfectly fine to eat, provided you COOK them properly. Several of those animals are seafood, and as it turns out, the akun I currently had living within the Empire absolutely went bonkers for things like Mirelurk Cakes, fried crawler meat, grilled hermit crab, and loved mirelurk cakes made from Queen Mirelurk meat the most. Another interesting note more on the military side, it would be a waste to just completely scrap the current weapons, and vehicles used by the Akun that had been brought with the Conquest Fleet. As such I was having a lot of them converted to Empire standards, replacing the hydrogen engines and fuel tanks within the tanks, jeeps, armored personal carriers, and other land vehicles with the fusion plant standard within my Empire's military vehicles, as for aircraft, their helicopters are a lot like the Russian Mil Mi-24, nicknamed Hind, their killercraft however are like the F-14 Tomcat before upgrades. I decided to just replace their fuel tanks and hydrogen turbofan engines with Fusion Turbofan engines and the fuel tanks with an aircraft grade fusion plant, this would effectively mean they could run purely on fusion and remain functional just as they had been before. The other thing I did, was upgrade their killercraft a little more beyond the fuel source, I made them into what people would call 'jump jets' meaning they could take off and land like a helicopter if they needed to do so. Their automatic weapons are decent, for their size, and they had a lot of bullets ready to go with them as well, so I didn't need to produce any. Once they ran out of ammunition for their own hand held weapons, they'd be removed from service and more standard Empire ballistics would replace them, for now however their own weapons would do. Same for their missiles and the like, they had thousands upon thousands of em, from their own truck pulled Surface to Air Missiles, SAM's, to the radar and heat seeking guided missiles on their killercraft and transport killercraft. Their radar was decent, I simply had those upgraded to Plasma Detection Systems, their radios as well had been upgraded to PDS's, wasn't hard to do, it was just a simple conversion, and if the PDS's failed they could switch back to their old radio systems, but the PDS's would be set as every system default. Their artillery would actually be of use to the Empire, their artillery was all self propelled 175 millimeter cannon, however what made this artillery special was they had radar which would tell where an enemy shell had come from, and the computer within would program that into the shell and fire it, the chip in the shell altering its own course once it could detect the target, self aiming artillery, all someone had to do was drive and fire the thing, the shell would do the rest, I was having that self guidance chip studied like hell. I also had Combat Armor, Gas Masks, and Power Armor developed rather quickly for Akun Infantrymen, or as they called them, Infantrymales, those guys would be wielding an automatic Empire version of the Zetan Energy Rifle, using fusion cells rather than alien power cells for ammunition and the stalk cut off, these made perfect weapons for the little terrors. New ways of delivering chems like stimpacks and Med-X had to be devised because the Akun have scales, so a new version injector design was created, it was just a small thin round tube with a button on the top, Green for stimpack, Purple for Med-X, when pressed several needles so strong and thin, that they could pierce the scales and into the flesh without shattering the scales, would push out from the flat bottom of the new design before injecting whatever chem was inside as needed, and could be tossed away just like a normal stimpack or Med-x syringe. These are bound to replace the current syringes for Med-X and Stimpacks, since they are more efficient. I looked at the time and my eyes widened before I laughed. "Hot damn almost time for that Meeting of Kingdoms!" As such I went off to get ready, simply take a shower, put on my suit, my non magical crown, the basics. -----------------------------------------------------------Former Shiplord Trid--------------------------------------------- Former Shiplord Trid, was no longer a Shiplord, once the Conquest Fleet landed he had decided he wouldn't retake the position of second in command for the flagship that had once been the absolute command center of the Conquest Fleet. Rather Trid had decided he wanted to explore for awhile, and perhaps if he was allowed to after he was finished exploring this New capital of the New Empire which had absorbed the one he once served under, he would rejoin the fleet, perhaps as a technician or advisor, he had the skills. For now however he was skittering around, the weather being a bit chilly for him, but it didn't matter much as he made his way into what the Eponites called a 'fast food' restaurant. The bright purple sign on the tall metal pole which was lit up named the place 'Crystal Burger', he had heard several colonists had liked the food served here, and even that the taste of Vanov was being added to the menu slowly, for now however he would settle for Eponite food. Skittering up to the counter, he had to stand back a bit and look up with his eyeturrets to see the menu, after a few moments he turned an eyeturret to the hairless Eponite, who looked quite like his new Emperor did, and ordered. "I'll have...a 'Cheeseburger' and some 'french fries' Extra salt on the fries please, and a warm Nuka Raspberry." Joe nodded and punched the order into his machine. "That'll be 8 bits sir." Joe smiled but inside he was growling, he hated this damned job, sure the pay was decent, and he got to see a few mares or others who walked in nude sometimes to order and eat, but so far he had been unable to find ANYONE willing to smash! Madness in his eyes. Trid held out his charge card, the hairless Eponite took it and swiped it through a machine not unlike the paycard machines back on Vanov or Letera-2. The machine beeped and he took his card back before skittering over to the other end of the counter to await his meal, he had been here before once and knew what to do. He watched several Eponites who wore no wrappings sitting at a table eating their own meal, he had wondered why some Eponites wore wrappings while some did not, and thus be was thoroughly confused when it was explained about Legal Nudity and how before it was mandatory to wear wrappings. Within minutes his food was done and he skittered over to a small one seat table and set his goodies down. The Cheeseburger had been something he hadn't tried yet, Trid opened his maw and took a bite. His eyeturrets widened the small amount that was possible for them to do, before he continued to eat, its flavor was exotic like many of the Eponite foods he had tried so far, the most familiar to a taste of home besides food from Vanov, was the french fries with extra salt, they tasted like fried Cao Root, except he had seen the plants in which these had been made from, they are pitifully small compared to a Cao Root, but almost the exact same taste, just add enough salt and it was the same. Within moments he had finished his meal and walked out of Crystal Burger, carrying his drink in his clawed hand sipping the lukewarm Raspberry flavored Nuka Cola, he had taken quite the liking to the stuff after finding an opened mostly full bottle of it just set onto a computer console within the flagship. He was still amazed at such simple plants like trees, and grass, on Vanov water was just far too rare for plants to become to lush and green, the plants he was used to went from various shades of brown all the way to black but rarely ever was a plant on Vanov green unless diseased with fungus. ------------------------------------------------------------Canterlot Royal Palace, Meeting Room, Lorenzo------------------------ I looked around at those seated at the table, the ruler of every known kingdom or nation, aside from the dragons of course, they didn't give a fuck about anything outside their own territory. Princess Celestia was at the head seat which overlooked the others, given it was higher than the other chairs. Princess Celestia spoke up. "Alright the Meeting Of Kingdoms may now begin that all attendees are present." Celestia sat back down in her chair and folded her wings on her back. "Now we can begin to discus political matters and matters of trade." Near Instantly Queen Najam Alsahra glared at Princess Celestia, Me, and Hightalon Czarina Dark Feather, before she settled on Princess Celestia. "Due to you cutting trade off with my Empire, I have no choice but to abide by your forced killing of traditions which my Empire has held for several hundred years, I do not do this willingly, but I shall not let my ponies starve as you would." Najam Alsahra spat with about as much venom as a cobra. Princess Celestia simply gave a sweet smile. "I'm glad to hear you will begin to make it mandatory to treat stallions correctly, rather than as tools or property, we used to think of stallions like that, and it backfired rather horribly, the same was bound to happen to your male population once they realized how restricted they are and had been in the past." Hightalon Czarina Dark Feather looked over at me. "I'd like to bring up the matter of Alien Midget wingless Dragons showing up, invading and setting up a base, killing several hundred civilians and military personal within the matter of a few hours, and absolutely turning a city into unlivable rubble and dust, only for them to surrender, then you demand them, why is that?" She asked raising an eyebrow. I looked at her. "The Akun, what they call themselves, tried to invade my Empire as they did the same time yours and Equestria, my automated defenses shot down their starships before they landed and I simply destroyed their ships until they surrendered, with a scan of their computer systems I had the location of their home world, and simply went over there and absorbed their empire into Mine. The would have just kept sending Conquest Fleets until they won otherwise, they viewed their Emperor as an absolute divine god, and watching him bow to me while I sat on his throne got the message I was stronger than them across rather well, they are taught from birth to do as their Emperor commands, and as I am their new Emperor, they follow my commands now, they are my citizens now, all of them." Hightalon Czarina Dark Feather actually glared. "And why did you remove all of their technology from my empire while letting the Equestrian Empire keep some of the technology they managed to salvage? Let alone why you gave the Abyssinians several of their starships, they broadcasted that rather publicly and smugly." The hatred in her voice was clear as she looked to Queen Carnelia. I shrugged. "Rather simple, even with their magic, I will be providing no help, nor will the Akun, in how their technology works, as is Equestrian technology is far too primitive in comparison to Akun technology to even begin copying it for another 30 or 40 years, as for the starships? Simple, The Abyssians are trusted allies of my Empire, their technology was already at the pace they could send living things into space with one of their rockets, I just saved them the time." Hightalon Czarina Dark Feather sighed. "If I was my mother I'd screech and screech about how this was unfair to leave out the Griffon Empire and how if you didn't give the technology over I'd ruin your Empire to ruble, however I am not my mother, and will ask instead if you'd be willing to trade for their technology." I chuckled. "For their military technology, certainly not, however their civilian tech is decades, perhaps a few hundred decades, above your own, I'll trade stuff for that." That was true, due to being time tested again and again, the Akun's basic electronics are reliable as fuck, and built to last a minimum of a thousand years, for them five hundred. Denmother Green Ruby looked over at me. "My empire is willing to trade several tons worth of gems in order to get permission to begin hauling crystal from the now uninhabited Crystal Empire that lies within the frozen north." I raised an eyebrow. "You don't need to trade me anything to do that, take the place, I don't want it, nor do I have any need for it or what remains there." Denmother Green Ruby looked pleased at this, and went back to the paperwork she had brought along, putting a checkmark in one section. The talks then went on for several hours, not much really happened, no new trade deals with my Empire besides Equestrian Weather Technology being traded for akun civilian technology, I had great plans for how to use that weather technology, rather great and grand plans indeed. > Chapter 62 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Former Emperor Ranzaer of the Akun Empire stared at the televisor within his room, he had been removed from power and now was forced to stay within a room at the Crystal Palace as the local Eponites called it. If he was being honest it was rather impressive, made completely of some crystal like substance and being a mile in height, and four miles wide making it a truly impressive palace, since it used no stone, no concrete or wood, just crystal and metal. He was disgusted with himself, how would he ever think anything the Eponites had created to be impressive? When his Empire was supposed to be the most advanced within the entire known universe, his Empire was supposed to be the point from which culture and civility flowed throughout the galaxy, to civilize primitive barbaric species and teach them the proper ways of the Akun. Ranzaer sighed, no longer even allowed to wear his golden body paint to signify his place as Emperor, he truly had no power left, worse yet he hadn't yet been able to sire a clutch of eggs with his former harem to produce an heir to the throne, Lorenzo had forbade it and simply removed him from his harem before locking him into this room, it was more like a small apartment for one with rather good plumbing, and automatic food dispensing systems, but still. Ranzaer signed again, thinking back to that fateful day 48 eponite years ago. Emperor Ranzaer looked down at Issit as he skittered into the Imperial Palace's throne room, without command Issit bent himself into the proper position of respect and lowered his eyeturrets to the floor, he held this until Emperor Ranzaer spoke. "Stand yourself up, I wish to discuss something of great importance with you Issit." Issit stood up, keeping his eyeturrets to the floor. "Yes My Emperor, what is your will?" Issit kept his voice submissive as he had been taught to when taught about addressing the Emperor. Emperor Ranzaer looked Issit over, before he continued. "I have decided you will be the Exalted Fleetlord of the Conquest Fleet, I entrust to you something only one other male of the Akun has ever done, and from your record I know you will not fail me." Issit's eyeturrets both shot up to Emperor Ranzaer before they quickly looked back at the floor. "I thank you my Emperor for allowing me to be within your presence, let alone how unworthy I am to be Exalted Fleetlord of the Conquest Fleet, your will shall be done my Emperor." Emperor Ranzaer waggled one of his eyeturrets. "It shall, now go, I've already sent forth the proper official to apply your new body paint patterns and a book about what they mean you can and can not do, and how to have someone else apply the paint for you after the Conquest Fleet has left." Issit bent himself into the position of respect once more. "At once my Emperor, your will shall be done and it will be swift." Issit skittered out of the throne room after getting permission to do so. He had to ready himself for his new responsibilities. He was given a task by his Emperor and he was going to complete it. He had declared it time to take another planet into the Empire, the Conquest Fleet would spread his light and glory to another planet, a planet filled with fur covered savages, Epona being the star system, and the Eponites would be brought into the Empire as happy subjects just as the Letera had 25 thousand years ago. They now served the Empire as any Akun male or female would. Of course, they where blocked from gaining any position in a government or military force, otherwise any job they wished to pursue was open for them to do so. By the time the Conquest Fleet was done with the primitive spear and sword using savages he was likely to be of very old age, already being old by Akun standards, his scales less vibrant and duller, once it was estimated the Conquest Fleet would be done wiping the floor with the Eponites, he would sire a clutch of eggs with his Harem, too carry on his genetic line for his was the only that mattered in the grand scheme of things. He looked out upon his grand throne room, and his snout turned green beneath his golden body paint, he was where he belonged, doing what he was hatched to do, this would be his entire life, as would the first male hatchling that used its egg tooth to break the shell of its egg and skittered into the world still wet with the juices of its egg. He would be taught when he was properly able to learn how to be the Emperor, how to rule the Akun Empire, history, culture, proper etiquette. Then he stopped remembering as the bell to the door which held him within the room buzzed, before sliding open. Meal time again, at least he could order what he wanted, and thankfully the taste of home was easy to get his clawed hands on. A large platter of Thalaill ribs seasoned with falcane peppers and various other spices and herbs from Vanov. Along with a fancy glass of the wine he enjoyed with every evening meal. Despite being held here until his death, which he'd estimate would be rather soon due to his age now, he at least was treated with decency and even like an important guest. The strange ball of metal with three long eyestalks not unlike mechanical versions of a Letera's eyes set the tray down on a small table he had been provided with, before hovering out of the room causing the doors to close with the resounding click of a maglock. -------------------------------------------------------Canterlot Castle, Princess Celestia------------------------------------------------------------ Princess Celestia was looking over some X-rays taken of dead Akun with Princess Luna. "I expected life on other worlds to be a possibility since we couldn't possibly be alone in the universe, but to think that they could show up here and be hostile as well? It truly was a shock to me that a species advanced enough to travel the grand distance between the stars could be hostile." Celestia said as she set down the X-ray. Princess Luna rolled her eyes. "You're too optimistic sister, remember intelligence is often the mark of a predator, of which this small species clearly is." Princess Celestia looked over to Luna and flicked one ear to the side of her head. "You're likely correct sister, I'm just glad Lorenzo had taken care of them before I'd have to have done so, I don't like the thought of me having to travel to their home world only to glass it with a blast from my sun, but if thats what I'd have to do to keep Equis safe, I'd do so without hesitation." Luna nodded. "I know this sister, even Discord would step in should something horrible have happened, I may despise Lorenzo but he has proved useful to us, I find it strange he allowed us to keep the military technology we captured, or some of it at any rate, while refusing the same for the Griffon Empire." Luna sat down in a comfortable recliner. Celestia chuckled. "I think he did so because he knows just what I can do, but also because Equestria and the Crystal Empire are allies, perhaps not as good as the Abyssinian Empire, but better allies than the Griffon Empire has been to his Empire so far, remember Luna it wasn't even a few years ago they attacked him with everything they had, he isn't going to just trust them with military technology, not with how fast they can advance themselves if given a reason." Luna just shrugged and popped open a bottle of wine before taking a swig. "I can see the logic behind that, we have not attacked him yet, and as far as I know have no plans to do so, it wouldn't be wise to even complain about the Abyssinian Empire getting Akun Starships for their own use, for our ponies have little desire to leave their own cities and villages, let alone the planet they inhabit." Princess Celestia nodded. "Indeed, however this was a rather rude wake up call, we can't sit idle like we have before, we have to advance faster than we did before the past two thousand years combined if we want to advance to the point we stand a good chance of going hand to hand with some alien invaders from beyond the stars, their tanks armor and main gun are eons ahead of our own and we are trying our absolute best to understand them and their aircraft we obtained, their radar blows ours out of the water! Their own automatic rifles blow anything the Abyssians have right out of the water as well, but they likely are getting better weapons from Lorenzo now, since they are his first real allies on this planet, and they have done quite a bit for him in terms of trade." Celestia knew Lorenzo's Empire didn't NEED to trade with any kingdom, empire, country, or nation on Equis, it could always produce what it needed and wanted, but sometimes trade was just beneficial to both parties, from what her spies had found out the only thing the Abyssians had been trading Lorenzo for in return for the technological help he was giving them was simply rare and exotic foods and fruits they kept and grew in the desert climates. Princess Luna nodded. "I quite agree, we need to advance faster to defend ourselves, it almost makes me think Lorenzo's Empire advances because it, or at the least, he, knows of some great threat on the horizon or something like that, I'd go into his dreams and simply pry the information I want from his skull.....but, I'm never making the mistake of entering his head again...never." Luna shivered as her face went a tad pale before she took a rather large gulp of wine to calm herself. Celestia chuckled. "I told you doing that was bound to end up with you being put into an unpleasant situation one way or another, now I must be off little sister, I actually booked a short day long trip to the Akun's home world of Vanov to see what its like and see their own culture!" Luna shrugged. "Alright, then I will be off to sleep, so I may commence my duties tonight, farewell sister and enjoy your trip." With a flash of white magic Princess Luna had teleported into her own royal chambers to slumber the day away. Princess Celestia just smirked as she checked the time, it was only 7:30 AM, she had already eaten a light breakfast of Cake and Tea, not something she did as often as she'd like, however that didn't matter at the moment as her horn lit up with a golden glow, and with a flash she was gone, standing next to Lorenzo, and scaring the absolute crap out of him causing Celestia to just giggle and Lorenzo to roll his eyes. King Lorenzo looked over to her, his emerald green eyes glaring into her very soul. "Oh grow up Celestia, you act like a foal over half the time I swear...now, take this." He handed her some sort of pin to put on the chest of her shirt. "It'll inform the Akun your a VIP, and as such will mostly do what you want unless its unreasonable, your transfer of bits has gone through and you have about 3 thousand bits to spend, on Vanov, be warned its rather hot on their planet, almost being a complete desert for the entire planet with only the polar caps having any amount of snow." Princess Celestia nodded. "Of Course King Lorenzo, I shall be off then, I'll inform you before I go back to Canterlot." Since the conversation was over, she stepped through the portal gate hooked into a wall, the turrets sticking out on either side of it continuing to swivel about in their emplacements on the device, as if to shoot something that came through without authorization. The two large robotic soldiers being what she recalled to be named 'sentry bots' ignoring her as she stepped through, two more in the exact same position sat on the other side as well, protecting both ends of the gate. Akun stared at her, she was obviously strange to them, seeing as how she was almost eight feet tall, that was with the horn which was a foot and a half long, while they where a measly four and a half feet tall, they where the size of a three year old foal to her and she wanted to pick one up and pet it, she refrained from doing so however. Upon exiting the portal gate and onto an entirely new world, she almost didn't notice the difference in temperature, sure it was hotter, but she was used to much hotter temperatures than this, she controlled an entire star after all. One Akun, female by the likes of it due to the shorter tail, skittered up holding a picture of her. "You are." She looked down to the paper again. "Princess Celestia?" It spoke Equish much to Celestia's surprise, she nodded without much thought. The female looked pleased at this. "Good...good, please come with me, I have been instructed to take you to any location you desire to see with the use of an automobile which will be able to hold you comfortably." She skittered off and Celestia followed. The car she was brought to did indeed fit her, the back was opened in a manner that Celestia could sit and have a good chunk of her torso poke out from the vehicle, the seat had been modified as well, since Akun seats had an indent for their tails. "Where too first Princess Celestia? And before I forget, my name is Vilo, you're personal guide." Princess Celestia smiled, which seemed to just confuse Vilo, before she spoke. "I'd like to see your most interesting sights." Vilo waggled one eyeturret and spoke. "It shall be done Superior Female." Vilo started the car and the hum of the hydrogen engine pleased her as she began to drive, this would be an interesting day indeed Celestia thought looking at the uniform cube like buildings which drew closer, having no decoration on the outside, being in the capital of Vanov however the Akun's more Ancient buildings still stood through the test of time, such as the Imperial Palace which happened to be their first stop. Vilo turned an eyeturret to the palace. "This has been the home of Emperors all the way from before the unification of Vanov into a single unified effective government five hundred thousand years ago, um...in eponite years that would roughly be one million." Princess Celestia's eyes widened in shock and surprise for a few moments, before she pulled out a camera and took a photo of the palace. "This is rather interesting Vilo, my old castle is in ruins and looks almost nothing like this Palace." Vilo waggled an eyeturret. "Emperors have lived and died here for hundreds of thousands of years, each one has been cremated and is in the Hall Of Past Emperors, for the most part no one is allowed within this hall, for respect of the Spirits of Emperors Past." Celestia nodded. "Alright, this is interesting, moreso than I expected when I left this morning." Vilo turned the car off the side of the road and went back to driving. "Now I will show you a factory which produces telivisors and other consumer goods, then the fusion power station which produces the hydrogen our vehicles run on." ------------------------------------------Lorenzo's Empire, Candy Shop------------------------------- Sweetroll watched as an Akun skittered into her store, she smiled kindly at the little fella. He seemed to absolutely love dark chocolate and every time she made more he'd always somehow know when it was ready and come in to purchase it, so as normal she had begun to set aside a bag containing 25 medium sized chocolate bars of the stuff for him. "Here ya go darlin." She bent down and hoofed him the bag filled with the chocolate delights he seemed to enjoy so much. Zoroill reached out and took the bag before handing her his charge card, letting her scan it and charge him for the appropriate amount required to buy the treats, had she known just why he wanted so much dark chocolate all the time Zoroill doubted he'd sell to him, so he kept his maw shut and took his card back after she had scanned it and skittered out of the candy shop. When he got around the corner and ducked down into an ally he pulled one of the delights from the bag and carefully peeled back the wrapper before tossing it aside and jamming the entire dark chocolate bar into his maw. Near instantly the effects began to take place as he felt like he was the mightiest of all Akun and could take on anything standing in his way, ideas coming and going with such speed he thought he might out do a computer, he knew it was only the chocolate making him think and feel these things, he knew it was in his head, but he didn't care it felt good. ---------------------------------------------Lorenzo's Throne Room----------------------------------------- I watched as Blue Gadget barged his way into my throne room without warning, almost HALF of his fur completely gone leaving pink flesh behind! I also could smell the burnt fur and hair. "Lorenzo! I finally completed my Microwave Gun!" He held up the device, which looked like a pipe with a satellite dish on the end and a fusion cell on the side like an old AER-9 laser rifle, and several wires and tubes hooked into the back of the dish. I facepalmed. "Oh Faust Damn it Blue Gadget I told you not to make that!" ----------------------------------------------------Diamond Dog Empire, 50 miles from Equestrian Boarder--------------------- Denmother Green Ruby looked over at the researchers and scientists whom had informed her their first detonation was ready to commence, and one of them handed her a pare of goggles which acted as very powerful sunglasses. A lean white furred diamond dog male looked over to Denmother Green Ruby. "Denmother these will help protect your eyes, just remember you can't look directly at the blast for the first five seconds unless you wish to go completely blind." Denmother Green Ruby nodded and slid the goggles onto her eyes and then hunkered down with the other scientists in the tunnel that had been dug, 15 miles away sat a round ball filled with wires, tubes, circuitry, all hooked up onto a tall 50 foot high metal tower. The white diamond dog pressed a button, and with a bright flash a yellow mushroom cloud began to rise into the sky, and several seconds later Denmother Green Ruby and the other scientists and military personal looked up and over to the explosion and grinned in awe at the powerful atomic blast. Denmother Green Ruby looked over to the white diamond dog. "Oppenpaws, You have outdone yourself." She also wondered how the mining teams sent to the abandoned Crystal Empire had been doing, but for now this was more important than a few dogs with mining gear. > Chapter 63 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A month had gone by since Blue Gadget damn near Microwaved himself into a crispy overcooked pony flavored TV dinner, and I grinned watching some Akun soldiers fire their weaponry down range at several moving targets, each one hitting their mark. They had finally mastered almost every weapon in the Empire's arsenal that they could carry and use, the ones being used now had been the alien energy rifles, which I myself had named the Type-Z Plasma Rifle, or just Type-z, normal plasma rifles had the designation of 18-B because they had been based on the unique Experiment-18 A Plasma Rifle you could get from the institute. In sadder news, for the Akun, Former Emperor Ranzaer of the Akun Empire had passed away a week ago in his sleep, thus ending the bloodline that held for almost over a million years, I allowed him to go through their traditional way of honoring the death of an Emperor. It involved cremating him, and even grinding his bones into powder to add to the ashes before those ashes would be placed with a photo of him in the Hall Of Past Emperors within a ceramic urn, and two days of not working or really doing anything but praying for their departed Emperor. As for why I allowed this was rather simple, it would be the last time they'd ever preform this ceremony since I can't die. The Diamond Dog Empire had gotten primitive fission bombs, that had damn near caused be to have a heart attack. That was before I realized they have no aircraft or missiles in which to deliver the bombs, even their heavy airships couldn't life 25 tons worth of bomb, so they'd have to dig tunnels to whatever target they wanted gone, and somehow roll or drag or push the bomb to the site before blowing it. Meaning nukes wouldn't start going off at random without warning since diamond dogs made the ground vibrate quite a bit when they dug. Speaking of Nukes, the Akun nuclear shells with the payload of 15 kilotons had been simply upgraded using Quantum and like the mini-nukes, or the M45 Tactical Nuclear Warheads as their called, this doubled their power, so 30 kilotons of power all by adding a little crystallized quantum to the inside of the atomic shell. I'm so glad for game logic sometimes. Chrysalis was left on Vanov to continue to govern there while I maintained the main section of my Empire, while Moon was sent to Letera to govern there as well, this would only last a few months until the Akun finally got used to being a part of my Empire, another two or three months would do it I think, they had been adjusting well, if a bit miffed as to how I could have made their God Emperor bow to me, but since I had there was no doubt that I was stronger than him, of which I was even without my Empire and game logic, I mean come on the dude was four and a half feet tall, I'm six foot one for fucks sake it would be like an adult kicking a toddler, easy as hell. The Akun starships, vehicles, aircraft and other things had finally been fully upgraded with new fusion power plants and for the jets and helicopters, Fusion Turbofan Jet Engines, thus their full integration into the Empire's military was completed within a matter of days after the upgrades had been completed. It wasn't hard to train the Akun who already had been trained for their own aircraft and the like to use them with the new upgrades to their systems, just took a bit of explaining and testing for them to get the hang of it. --------------------------------------------------------------Diamond Dog Dig Team, Old Crystal Empire---------------------------- Rover looked over at the blueprints he had set in front of him hung on the bare crystal and stone wall of the tunnel they had been in, if they had been correct an ancient vault would lay close by, in which he was ordered by the Denmother to crack into this vault and take any of the valuables within for the Diamond Dog Empire. He would do so gladly as it would mean he would be paid rather well, before he could think further on the matter of what to do with all the goodies he would certainly get to keep for himself after handing most over to the Denmother, one of his workers called out. "I think I've found it!" Rover called back. "Stop digging then! I want to come witness this myself!" And thus he bounded down the tunnel on all fours, diamonds dogs are bipedal yes, but are best at running on all fours. Within a few moments he was standing with the rest of the team, overall 15 dogs with mining helmets and sharpened claws for digging. Before them stood a massive door absolutely covered in runes and sealed shut, this had to be the vault he was instructed to fine and crack so he looked to Mutt, it wasn't his real name but everyone called em Mutt, so Mutt he was. "I want you to place the explosives on the door at each corner and in the center in an X pattern, once we get far enough away from the door we'll blow it." Mutt nodded. "Alright sir." Before turning to the wooden crate and grabbing several sticks of dynamite and sticking them to the door one by one using heavy duty duct tape while another dog began to make a long fuse which would lead to the sticks of dynamite, each bundle of dynamite holding 6 sticks each it was bound to be a large boom. After setting it all up correctly and making sure each bundle would stay in place, Mutt ran down the tunnel to the rest of the team and looked to Rover, who grinned and lit a match. Rovers grin almost reached ear to ear as he lit a match from the matchbook he kept in his pocket. "Its Boom time boys!" Bending down he set the match to the fuse and watched it rapidly burn, a small flicker of light traveling down the tunnel before the tunnel shook as the large explosion rocked the ground itself, thankfully his orders and instructions to reinforce the tunnels had worked as they DIDN'T collapse onto their heads and crush them like an egg being tossed from the roof of a tall building. The ancient runes on the stone door had been damaged heavily in the blast, and the arcane energy flowing through them destabilized and caused further explosion as the door shattered into fragments. A shadowy mist leaking from the once strong barrier, now free after millennium something from within spoke. "Yesss.....We are finally free after so long, go forth my children, bring about our rightful retribution against those who dared to lock us away forever!" Ponies made of...Shadows, began to flood out of the tunnel where the door had once been. Rover and his crew looked on in horror at the flood of shadows heading towards them and opened fire with their small arms, mostly pistols and one rifle, however it did nothing as the projectiles passed through the shadow beings before they struck, Rover screamed in horror at watching his teammates fall one by one each diamond dog that fell dead became a shriveled mummified husk of what had once been a healthy living being. Before they could reach him Rover put his pistol into his mouth and fired, splattering his brains and bits of skull and splatters of blood across the wall of the cave he had been standing next to, his body falling dead and lifeless to the floor with a wet squelch. The shadows parted for their leader, a tall black mare with slit crimson eyes and long crooked horn, she grinned with a mouth full of fangs. "Those who dared to lock us away forever shall fall, it shall rain crimson upon the land like it did so many eons ago, it is time my children, to bring retribution." Her solid form melted as shadow like mist overtook her form and she flew forward like a gust of wind, her children following her the moment she did so. > Chapter 64 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Denmother Green Ruby paced around her throne room, the Dig Team supervisor was supposed to report twice daily, once in the afternoon and once at night before work would stop and repeat again, for the past three days no radio contact has been made despite constant attempts to hail them over the radio, and she was beginning to worry they hadn't reinforced the tunnels enough and had caused a cave in, which if that happened certainly would have killed them. She sighed, her Empire's tunnels which lead all the way to the abandoned Crystal Empire remained quiet, not even a telegraph sent down the wire which had been laid down in the event the radio broke or got busted, which was highly likely since she knew her species wasn't exactly the most graceful species, and some dogs more often than not are rather clumsy. The tunnel was just outside her underground city, it had railroad tracks built into it so they could use a train to haul the chunks of rock and gem from the Old Empire more easily, since it was rather far, so she just had to hope the Dig Team would make contact soon. Eight hours later Denmother Green Ruby was running, she had been instructed to head to the royal bunker and she damn well intended to do so, within moments she was sealed within the bunker, five royal guards armed with a luger rifle with her. She wondered what in the name of Faust she had done to deserve this. Throughout the underground city diamond dogs where fleeing, screaming, or dying, sometimes all three. Soldiers shot their machine guns and rifles at the shadows killing their friends and fellow dogs, but the bullets would just pass through. One dog commander stood up. "Retreat! I SAID RETREAT DAM-" He was cut off as one of the Umbrum passed through him, leaving him a husk, falling to the ground with the crunch of bones so old they may as well be dust, he was now a sack shriveled dry skin and tattered fur that clung to bones. Despite this soldiers fought on, to protect their pups and mates back deeper within the city. They only provided a distraction for a few minutes while diamond dogs boarded the few airships their Empire held and cast off for their only allied kingdom, the Minotaur. Despite this, several thousand diamond dogs where slaughtered within a matter of hours, the fighting so one sided it wasn't even funny, Oppenpaws looked outside from within his laboratory and the Uranium processing facility, realizing there was no hope he set the one remaining nuclear device on a timer for thirty minutes, hopefully long enough to allow more dogs to escape, before grabbing a pill from his pocket and tossing it into his maw and swallowing, within seconds he began to foam at the mouth as the cyanide took effect and he slumped to the floor, spamming and choking before 15 seconds later his now bloodshot eyes rolled into the back of his skull and he went still, dead. His fellow researchers doing the same, while several tried to flee and got turned into husks for their efforts. The royal guards fought violently, their base instinct to protect their leader, their alpha. "I want those things dead YESTERDAY!" One commander barked, pun intended, as he aimed a machine gun at the invaders, using armor penetrating rounds, and to his dismay, having no effect, he watched soldier after soldier fall to the shadows, becoming a dead husk so violently and quick he wouldn't know what soldier was who if it wasn't for the tags around their now decayed throats, before he himself was grabbed by one of the shadows. He tried to scream as he felt his very soul being drained away, but was unable to do anything beyond open his mouth before his eyes sunk into his skull and his muscle dried and bones became brittle, the Umbrum Queen tossed aside the pathetic sack of flesh and fur she had just killed and strode her way down to the royal bunker grinning all the while, stupid dogs marked where it was, which would end badly for them. Denmother Green Ruby stared in horror at the three foot thick solid steel door as cracks began to appear with black crystals growing from them before the door shattered into pieces, her royal guards began to shoot, their rifles barking with each shot. Their bullets where more than useless as several shadows rushed in and slammed into her guards, Denmother Green Ruby screamed in terror and absolute horror as her finest royal guards shriveled into husks that looked to be thousands of years old, before the shadows receded and made way for a tall black mare, her crimson eyes staring directly into Green Ruby's soul. The mare grinned, her fangs shining in the light of the overhead ceiling fans lamp, she spoke, her voice was cold, hollow and dead, yet somehow happy. "I really must thank you pathetic fleabags, after three thousand years you freed my people, but your flesh and blood, and all whom are made of flesh and blood shall feel our wrath for being sealed away for so long, eons have gone past, locked in eternal darkness, an eternal void with no concept of time, and barely enough magic to keep us alive, now your bodies will be our feast, your lives ours to do with as we please, and I choose to end yours, you pathetic sack of flesh." The shadow queen grabbed Denmother Green Ruby, and bit into her throat and watched with glee as the dog struggled and tried to shriek before she shriveled up like the rest, and tossed her aside like the trash she was. The mare's grin was psychotic and almost euphoric "Yesss...It's been so long since I've tasted the flesh of the living, glori-" She was cut off as from deep within the city a bright flash and explosion went off, destroying several miles of the city she was in and, to her own horror, something she had not felt since she and her children had been sealed away, every one of her children within the blast had been destroyed, the pure heat and light having destroyed them instantly. "That...That should be impossible! Only the strongest of Mage's could have hoped to do this! And no one was left alive!" She looked to one of her children. "I want to know what has just happened! Go and report it to me immediately!" The shadow bowed and was gone like a puff of smoke. Within ten minutes her child was back, and he didn't look like he had good news, whatever the news was, she wouldn't strike her own. "Mother....they're just......gone, the flash from the weapon destroyed it, but in the process killed several thousands of us and the few remaining meat bags, its light so bright and blinding, what remains of them is just stains of shadow on the floor my Mother..." The mare looked down at her child, an adult by pony standards seeing as it was over several thousand years old, and adult as it may be by umbrum standards it was still her child, and smiled sadly. "We shall just have to take further steps to prevent this from occurring again my child, now let us look at the map this civilization of mutts has created to see who is next for us to attack" She looked over a map on the stone table which had, and grinned seeing a nation called the Caribou Empire, this would do nicely, it would only take a few days for them to prepare themselves to make their way to the surface after so long of having been locked deep below the ground. > Chapter 65 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pathfinder Evergreen Meadow looked up as the airships where being loaded, she had been able to sense the dark powers approaching her empire before they arrived, however they didn't have long. They would be here within a matter of minutes, the mages would do everything in their power with their nature magic to hold them at bay while civilians and key military personal evacuated, her own Daughter, second in command, would go with them as well, she hugged Soft Breeze. "May the Goddess of Nature grant us both strength to face our tasks, now go, your airships must leave now if you are to survive this." She spoke calmly, she knew there was no avoiding what was to come, but perhaps they could delay the abominations long enough to give a decent chunk of her empire's population a chance at life. Soft Breeze nodded and let go of her mother before rushing to the lead airship and boarding, the moment she was aboard it took off. As did the others, their propellers screeching as their power increased before they lifted off and forwards. Pathfinder Evergreen Meadow looked forward back at the city which now was beginning to burn, black flames which seemed to suck the very life and light from whatever they touched she growled, putting on a helmet and her antlers glowing bright green before a beam of nature magic shot forth and sliced several Umbrum clean in half, killing them. Shadow as they may be they could still be harmed. Around her several mages had been doing the same, and for the most part keeping most of them at bay. But it only took one getting through for their line of mages to fall. She watched as one by one her mages fell, some letting their magic destabilize to take their enemy with them in bright green explosions of arcane energy, while some fell as husks, civilians screaming in horror as they too fell pray to the Shadows before them, conventional firearms completely useless. Pathfinder Evergreen Meadow charged her antlers again and shot another beam of green energy, before a shadow larger than the others shot forward and snapped her horns off, causing her to screech in agony before the shadow solidified into a mare with black fur, crimson eyes and a long crooked blood red horn. "Little doe wants to fight back does she?~ Too bad, you shall fall like the rest have." The mare held Pathfinder Evergreen Meadow up by the throat, squeezing. Evergreen glared down at the shadow before her. "You disgusting Abomination!" She spat into the mares face, which the mare didn't take kindly to as she quickly twisted her head an entire 360 degrees so fast and violently that Evergreen hadn't known she had died when it happened. The Shadow Queen glared at the corpse before draining the remaining life from within, leaving it a broken and shattered husk. She tossed the husk aside and grinned watching her children feast on those who remained, she even laughed watching one fawn scream over the husk of what had once been its mother, before the fawn had become food for her children as well. She had attacked the Caribou not only because they had been the next closest empire to the one her children had emerged from, but also because she remembered their Nature Magic, she remembered well since the Caribou had helped Amore and the Ponies seal her species away, to be locked away forever and forgotten, she grinned larger. They would never be forgotten after this, no, her species would be the only ones free to walk the surface once they where done. ---------------------------------------------------------------Equestria, Canterlot Castle----------------------------------------- Princess Celestia looked over to her sister Luna. "Sister I fear something terrible is about to occur, I've been having reoccurring dreams these past few days about living shadows, like Sombra." Luna shrugged, one ear flopping down. "You know as well as I that Sombra was the result of dark magics not before seen in his time, he was the only of his kind to be birthed before the magics ceased to exist due to, from if what the records say is true, the efforts of the Crystal Empire, Caribou, and Ancient Pre Unification ponies, however I do find it strange that as of late we have had no contact with the Diamond Dog Empire, normally they are always on schedule for our monthly trade of supplies and goods, no hails over the radio have worked so far." Princess Celestia nodded. "I too have noticed this oddity, I've already sent a messenger to make contact with them yesterday, hopefully it will go well and its just their radios being unreliable, moreso than our own at any rate, diamond dogs are perfect for mining and digging, and can build a few good reliable things, but complex electronics are rather hard for them to grasp, which is why their detonation of a weapon close, even if it pales in comparison to what King Lorenzo's Empire may have most certainly surprised me." Celestia sat down, beginning to relax with a cup of tea. This didn't last long however as the radio she had on her began to scream so she picked it up. "Yes?" The voice which came through the other end of the speaker on her device was frantic, panicked, and breathing heavily. "My Princess! I....I can't begin to describe the horrors of which I have seen here! I went to the Diamond Dog Empire as instructed to make simple contact, but there is no diamond dog empire anymore! Their all dead, dried husks! The shadows are alive and I fear I may too meet an end soon! I'm going to attempt to come ba-" The transmission cut out from normal speaking, to blood curdling screaming causing Princess Celestia to toss the radio in shock against a wall, shattering the device with the force which it was thrown. Luna's eyes where wide. "By Faust! We must ready the Equestrian Empire and warn others!" Princess Celestia nodded. "We must do so quickly, you ready the guard forces and I will make an announcement to the civilians and other Empires." Celestia watched Luna teleport away, before she herself teleported with a flash of yellow magic, if this was as serious as she thought and as violent as she had been seeing in her latest night terrors, there was absolutely no time to waste. > Chapter 66 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hightalon Czarina Dark Feather glared at the radio which had just stopped playing an emergency broadcast, each kingdom, empire, nation, or country, had one specialized radio which they could send everyone messages if need be to other kingdoms, empires, or nations. The message she had just received was troubling to say the least, beings of pure shadows where set to attack the entire world and anyone living. If this was to be true she would be completely stupid to ignore it, as such she turned to her general and spoke. "I want you to begin the evacuation of all griffons, and key personal along with myself to our fallback on the Griffon islands, our foes as described can't use tools or aircraft, so we shall simply flee to where they cannot follow, I want this done within the hour, go now." As for why she actually took the message seriously rather than disregarding it? Rather simple, Princess Celestia may be known for pranks sometimes, but the Solar Princess wouldn't dare risk international relations for a prank, let alone something supposedly serious. Her Head General Stormclaw saluted. "Yes Hightalon Czarina!" He spread his wings and took flight out of an open window in the throne room, while Hightalon Czarina Dark Feather grabbed a few of her important items and headed to the head airship of the fleet and boarded, some of her soldiers would remain to fight the foes using their experimental arcane rifles which had actually been prototype designs stolen from Equestrian laboratories, these had been taken, and tinkered with for the past several months, and where nowhere near ready for implementation, but desperate times required untested solutions. Beings made of shadows would laugh in the face of grenades and rifles and machine guns, but energy blasts would likely be effective against them as logic would likely prevail in that aspect. She watched from the bridge of the airship as griffon military personal rushed to and fro, and civilians began to be herded onto the airships, some of the females clutching eggs in a cloth pouch, so unborn young would be brought as well. Several massive lines of civilians where being herded over to the civilian transport airships, with several griffon soldiers each keeping order, a soldier waved to the airship as if to get the civilians to move faster. "Come on! We need to be out of here as soon as possible, everyone get into the damned airship already! Orders from the Hightalon is to be loaded and gone within an hour!" The line of civilians hurried their pace to comply with the order, that griffon held a gun after all, and the fact it was an order from the Hightalon. Not all would go, some had to be forced, a good majority would be left behind simply due to lack of time to force everyone onto airships, those who stayed would die as they wished, their punishment for being stubborn in the face of an enemy they'd have no hope to defeat in one blow. As sad as it was a good chunk of the griffons would die unless they fled to the clouds, this was a choice that Hightalon Czarina Dark Feather was given no choice in if she wished to see even a fraction of her empire survive this. Mark tanks with experimental arcane cannon rolled up, they would be a last ditch effort to protect the civilians and military personal, trucks loaded with barrel after barrel of Diesel rolled onto one of the heavier military transport airships, this fuel would be needed to make the trip to the Griffon Islands. Troops carrying their experimental arcane rifles, and some carrying normal bolt actions and luger rifles marched around, they would also defend the airships for as long as possible should the enemy show up before they had been ready to leave. It would take a matter of hours after all, even when rushing. The ones holding normal ballistics had mostly been there to make the civilians feel better, and themselves feel better about the threat that was to come, but she wasn't stupid and as mentioned before, knew ballistics would be all but useless. If all went as planned, they'd be gone by the time the enemy showed up, leaving only a few hundred soldiers and a couple tanks to protect their city, their capital, and the citizens who refused or simply couldn't board the airships. -----------------------------------------------Saddle Arabia-------------------------------------------- Queen Najam Alsahra rolled her eyes at the message which she had play over her personal emergency radio a few moments ago, likely just another Equestrian trick to fool her empire into fleeing, leaving behind their goods such as fine silks, and most importantly leaving their coffee trees unguarded and open for harvesting by some greedy enemy so they could plant their own. Her advisor looked up at her from a lower section of the throne room. "My Queen I think we should heed this warning, even Princess Celestia wouldn't joke about matters such as this, and it would be wise to heed her and her sister Princess Luna in this warning." Queen Najam Alsahra glared down at her advisor, the mare beginning to cower under her gaze. "I will not fall for Celestia's pathetic little tricks and attempts to undermine my authority and claim to land of which belongs to us, begone of all your willing to do is play into their little tricks." The advisor bowed and quickly left in a hurry. Queen Najam Alsahra glanced at the clock on the wall, which read just past noon. As such she clapped her hands and a servant walked up and bowed. "Yes My Queen?" She asked, before standing back up but keeping her head bowed down in respect of her ruler. Najam Alsahra rolled her eyes as if the servant hadn't been doing this for several years. "It is time for my late evening meal, I wish for several slices of petabread and hummus, along with a glass of carrot juice, unsweetened." The servant bowed again. "Yes my Queen, at once my Queen." And rushed off to get her Queen the desired items. Najam Alsahra glared at the radio once more as it began to replay the message. "As I stated before, this is Princess Celestia, ruler of the Kingdom of Equestria, we have received confirmation that living shadows have begun to attack every living thing they can get their claws on, I advise all nations and kingdoms to take measures to defend and protect themse-" Najam had clicked the power button for the radio and sighed happily as it died a second later without power, before saying to herself. "Such foolishness." -----------------------------------------------------Lorenzo's Empire------------------------------------ I had gotten a message from Princess Celestia over the radio I had in my pipboy about beings made of living shadows, which instantly made me think of my old pal Sombra, as such I had him called in. We had a long conversation which ended up with me wanting to beat the fuck out of Amore, since apparently she had known about the vault hidden deep below the crystal palace back in the abandoned Crystal Empire, and simply never thought to mention it, before I remembered her memories had been fragmented so horribly from what had been done to her, that she was still remembering things every day. Being turned into obsidian and then shattered to the corners of the globe does not do well for ones mental health, so I decided not to find her and scream at her while beating her face in with a powerfist. Instead I took Celestia's warning and mandated the evacuation of all non military personal to the Crystal City starship, a few had tried to resist this, however I left no room for argument as any who refused to evacuate would be taken by force, the two jails within the Empire locked down and all robotic staff remained on alert with old Automatic Scattershot AER-9 laser rifles. The few who where allowed to ignore this evacuation order where those who could and would fight for the Empire regardless of the danger, however key military personal had been evacuated to give orders from orbit. The portal gates used to board the starship where beginning to spark, but all civilians who wouldn't hold weapons and use them against the enemy to come, was sent through and the portals closed, the portals to the Letera and Akun home worlds closed as well, but FTL communication kept both planets in contact with the starship fleet in orbit, I made sure Sunbeam Cuddle, and her husband Rewrite, a blue unicorn, he also worked for me, editing emails and the like the same as Sunbeam Cuddle did. I had the underground superstructure sealed off and the reactors below activate their own defenses, if they got damaged in the battle, they'd eject like a missile into low orbit and blow to prevent damaging the superstructure or the ground above. The Abyssians had actually done something which surprised me, they decided to do the exact same with their small fleet of ships to get their entire population off the planet. Each Akun Conquest Fleet starship could hold a couple thousand each with their cryogenic sleep pods, and then they had facilities to hold workers and soldiers outside of cryosleep, which the Abyssinians took full advantage of using the cryogenic pods to store their own civilians and taking to orbit, their population wasn't that big since they had been moved closer to my Empire, they even had their own mini crystal heart to help protect them from the weather and other such things, which I had authorized them to have, so at the moment the city that sat outside my Empire sat empty, which would mean that the Abyssians would suffer no losses. I sighed checking the energy shields readings, the only living things left within the Empire had been soldiers and the few civilians willing to fight, the rest was combat robots using energy weapons, seeing as ballistics would be useless against things that had no flesh in which to punch through. Even the Akun soldiers had been switched to all energy weapons for this short time, I wouldn't allow ballistics. If the need came their aircraft would take off and drop cluster bombs which would drop small plasma grenades, thousands of them per cluster bomb. > Chapter 67 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hightalon Czarina Dark Feather listened to the panicked cries coming in from the radio console in the bridge of her airship as it, along with the others, finally took off. They had gotten away just in time it seemed since the reports screamed about the shadows attacking, with one order the airships engines took off at maximum power and lifted them into the sky and forward rapidly. There would be losses as she had expected, but more than enough griffons would survive this to allow their empire to continue, they already had infrastructure on the Griffon Islands, mostly a few aircraft runways, and some landing bays for their airships, a small military base, and a power plant to power said base, thankfully the islands had a dedicated oil refinery on them, so fuel would be no issue, the fuel brought however would still be of help as to not strain the refinery's capacity. Hightalon Czarina Dark Feather grabbed a specialized radio and clicked the button. "This is the Hightalon of the Griffon Empire, the Shadows have attacked, we have made a successful evacuation before they arrived, your kingdoms are likely about to be attacked next, I'd advise you to take the precautions needed to survive this, if need be you may evacuate to the Griffon Islands, we will welcome you with open wings and arms, and happily help you until this pandemic is over." She let go of the button, letting the radio go back to its static state. As she finished the call, she got several reports that evacuations in other cities of the Griffon Empire had gone off as well, almost all had gone well as ordered, several did fail however as the shadows overran the military protecting the airships before they could touch off, however as instructed each one detonated its airbags to prevent enemy capture, it also had the side effect of setting the fuel on fire further causing damage. Griffon soldiers kept to the air as it was their main advantage against the shadows, one of their only advantages if they didn't have the arcane rifles. Their arcane rifles barked with the sound a unicorn might make when hurling a blast of magic downrange at a target, some of the arcane rifles, being an untested concept, malfunctioned and either refused to fire for the luckier ones, or blew up in their hands dropping them from the sky dead. Civilians mostly managed to get away fleeing to clouds, since griffons could stand on them like pegasi, several however had not been so lucky, not even managing a scream as they had their life drained instantly, their muscle, organs, and flesh, mummifying within seconds, leaving a husk behind of what had once been a living being. One griffon soldier grinned watching the Umbrum fall to arcane rifle fire, taking aim to fire again, pressing the trigger however resulted in his arcane rifle blowing up mere inches away from his face, his dead body falling to the ground with a wet crunch. Modified mark tanks rolled up and fired as well, their arcane cannon booming and adding to the sounds of violence and death while the city began to burn, the umbrum having set fire with their magic to the wood and thatch buildings, causing black fire to rage into the skies. The soldiers flying didn't actually last too long, the umbrum shot blasts of magic upwards, which if it struck a living creature would quickly and violently begin to grow black crystals into their flesh which would burrow and destroy flesh, bone, muscle, and organs within a matter of moments, leaving them to fall and shatter like morbid gory glass to the concrete below. Those on clouds however remained safe, since clouds could be dragged higher than the Umbrum's beams could reach. Within a single hour the Griffon Empire had been shattered. Those who did not flee from the cities died a violent and sudden death. Several hundreds who knew they would not survive choose rather to end their own lives in a variety of ways, from bullets to the head, to poison in their tea and other beverages, to simply jumping off clouds and not flapping their wings and smashing against the hard, cold, unforgiving ground with a crunch and a wet meaty squelch as their bodies turned to what amounted to roadkill. ------------------------------------------------------------------------Equestria-------------------------------------------------- Cloudsdale was being absolutely flooded with ponies looking to find some safe haven away from the chaos down below, black smoke bellowed into the skies above, flames as dark as midnight with no moon being the cause. Ponies fled in terror, some screamed, some tried to fight back, most failed, however special squads of pegasi had weaponized the weather factory and began to drop tornadoes and bottled lightning causing massive damages to their enemy. Umbrum where made of shadow, a strong wind would keep them at bay if one tried, from the reports coming in to Spitfire, other kingdoms are being attacked at the same moment to make the chance higher of winning. On the ground earth pony soldiers fired their tesla rifles, while unicorns either fired blasts of magic, or raised shields to protect not only themselves, but their fellow soldiers in arms. An Equestrian Telsa Mark tank rolled up, and began to fire a constant stream of electric energy at the umbrum trying to approach it, and sadly for the crew within the tank, it had to stop and let the cannon recharge for five seconds. That five seconds was all it took for the umbrum to slam themselves against the tank, their shadowy forms finding cracks and holes within the armor and seeping in, the crew never knew what hit them as they got turned into husks like anyone else who faced the umbrum unprotected by strong harmonic magics. Princess Celestia herself was busy in the skies of Equestria, using solar fire to burn the abominations from her lands, scorching the ground as she did so, wings glared, her eyes glowing pure white as she glared down at the shadows that dared to harm her ponies, the mourning star in her hand aflame as she swung it, a magical flail enchanted to grow hot enough to melt steel and set itself aflame with white fire. Luna on the other hand was using her shadow daggers to slice through umbrum as if they had never been there to begin with, seeing as the knives had been designed to fight dark magic beings, they where useful against the umbrum. Unknown to them however these where just forces to distract them from the true target, the Tree Of Harmony, and the Crystal Heart. Meanwhile in the now abandoned city the Abyssians had left behind for the safety of high Equis orbit, the Queen of Shadows grinned looking at the small, miniature crystal heart, and her horn lit with unholy black flames before she touched the baseball sized crystal heart with her horn, watching it turn black and purple, rapidly and violently as it stopped spinning for a few moments, and then continued to spin after it had been corrupted. "Yes...this will do nicely." The Shadow Queen's eyes glinted in joy as she watched the arcane trail which had once been love, corrupt into her own magic and could feel as it began to infect each crystal heart connected to this small one. Soon. > Chapter 68 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Tree Of Harmony flared with power, a shield popping into existence as umbrum crashed against its harmonic shield in waves, with another flare of power the umbrum where repelled with little effort, the trees image grinned at the enraged umbrum. "Your kind holds no power here, begone from Equestria or you will face my wrath tenfold." The response the tree got was more umbrum slamming into the shield, so the tree altered it, the next slamming wave of shadows shrieked and wailed as they impaled themselves upon spikes of pure harmonic magic which had formed from the shield, turning it into a sort of spiked dome. An Equestrian Tesla tank rolled up upon Ponyville, and began to fire as umbrum tried to swarm it, thankfully the Equestrians had learned and began to use infantry with tesla rifles to help protect the tank while it recharged for the five seconds it needed for its cannons to fire again. Pegasi flew by at rapid speeds as they dropped bottled lightning onto large areas filled with umbrum, some however had the unfortunate fate of being shot down, the magic hitting them solidifying into jagged black crystals, causing them to fall to the ground, to either die from the fall or an umbrum catching them and turning them into a husk. Surprisingly few buildings where on fire during the chaos, at least for this small town. Thankfully most of the towns residence had been evacuated to Cloudsdale, this included the former Elements Of Harmony, so it was only guardmares within the town fighting tooth and nail for the town to remain Equestrian and undestroyed by these abominations of magic. ---------------------------------------------------Abyssinian Fleet, High Equis Orbit----------------------------- Queen Carnelia looked at the images being displayed to her by one of the satellites that had been deployed from the starship, taking up close detailed video and images of the battles happening below. Her top general walked up next to her. "My Queen, while we are safe in orbit, we should lend assistance via our arcane warheads, the modifications to launch them from high orbit, and space itself, are complete and ready for use, we have 157 warheads we can arm and launch, though we should obviously not launch them all at one time." The flagship, which had been named Carnelia's Might floated in high orbit, its computers keeping it stable automatically, the bright black on white swastika painted onto the sides and top. Queen Carnelia nodded. "Agreed, the situation in Saddle Arabia seems to be the worst of the bunch, I'm authorizing the launch of five high yield boosted arcane warheads in that area, they have been overrun and the umbrum are cocky that this city is now safe for them to reside in, lets prove them wrong shall we General Katze?" Carnelia grinned sitting in her chair. General Katze saluted. "At once my Queen, may the Abyssinian Empire remain strong in our efforts against the shadows." The General walked over to the firing station and typed in a few authorization codes, and entered the coordinates as instructed, before looking back to the Queen who nodded, and thus he flipped the switch. Within seconds the cannons which had once been used to fire nuclear shells, long modified to shoot missiles instead, barked. Missiles long and fat in their shape flew from them at three times the speed of sound and entered atmosphere within mere moments, on the video feed Queen Carnelia watched the missiles streak closer and closer to their intended target, before they blew with brilliant purple mushroom clouds above what had once been Saddle Arabia, blowing the umbrum there to nonexistent ash as their shadowy forms burned instantly in the bright purple light and heat of the bombs. Queen Carnelia smiled, a savage smile, a smile of a predator, it was sometimes easy to forget a species so fluffy and adorable was actually a deadly predator when most of the time, they simply didn't act like it, but the instincts where there. "Good....the more of that filth we cleanse from Equis, the better, once the shadows are gone we may reclaim our one city, and expand further with the help of our allies such as the Crystal Empire." General Katze sat down in his own commanders chair and nodded, lighting a cigarette. "Agreed my Queen, completely agreed." He took a long drag, finishing the cigarette in one go before putting it out in the ash tray, and grinning as well, the light from the lamps built into the ceiling of the starship making his teeth glow. -------------------------------------------------Abandoned Abyssinian City------------------------------------------ The Shadow Queen hissed in displeasure feeling more of her children die suddenly, she was connected to each and every one of them in a sort of hive mind, and to feel their voices go silent at once was disturbing to her, but for now she would deal with the task at hand. And she'd do so in style since on their way here they had snagged a nice trump card. She watched as black crystal spread from the arcane network that went through the massive wall, before a section of the wall was covered and broke under the strain of the crystal growing on its surface and beneath the surface. The crystal growing to freeze or damage the wall mounted cannons, or what looked like cannon at any rate, she wasn't exactly sure, but better safe than sorry. With a large snapping noise, the section of the wall that had been broken by the strain of the crystal fell to the ground with a crash, and the Shadow Queen lit her horn with a sickly green glow, she grinned widely as she did so, her fangs white as pearls as a ground shattering roar broke through the air shattering the silence. An elder dragon flew into view, its body covered in random spots of black crystals, while its eyes glowed with a sickly green glow in them, yes, this would be a nice trump card to employ. ------------------------------------------------------Lorenzo's Empire------------------------------ I sat within a sort of, command center in my throne room looking at the cameras, the feed I was getting now I did not like whatsoever, a dragon that from what the scans showed me, was 315 feet long with a wingspan of more than a thousand feet was now heading for my Empire's busted and broken wall. The wall had been broken at the only entrance, and somehow the wall mounted guns where unable to move from their positions to fire at it, so I pressed a button and watched several salvos of small missiles fly out and strike it, the dragon roaring in annoyance before the real plan showed up. From the ground two massive slabs of metal slid into the ground and Defender Prime arose like a god from some long buried temple, I grinned. This wouldn't be easy, sure, but if the dragon could be taken out it would be much easier. --------------------------------------------------------Umbrum----------------------------------------------------- The Shadow Queen watched with wide eyes as a four legged pony that near matched her corrupted elder dragon in sheer size stomped over the cracked and damaged section of wall before its horn lit up with brilliant blue light and began to spin in its metal case before shooting a beam of pure energy at her dragon, knocking it back violently, its eyes glowing red. "Time to DIE you overgrown geko." The Battle of Titans was about to commence, and it wouldn't be pretty. > Chapter 69 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Defender Prime LEAPED with speed something his size shouldn't have had, the ground beneath his massive robotic hooves shattering as he did so, before punching the corrupted elder dragon right in the snout much to its own anger. To show this anger it tried to claw at Defender Prime's chassis, and spat corrupted flame onto the machine, in return Defender Prime grabbed the dragons throat and began to headbutt it over, and over, and over, before the dragon managed to toss Defender Prime off of it and into the wall, further damaging it while umbrum flooded in through the large hole in the wall. The dragon roared once again, in return Defender Prime let out a roar of its own, a deep, rumbling mechanical roar of several missile salvos with M45 tactical nuclear warheads. The warheads slammed into the dragons face taking out one of its eyes and causing it to roar in anger and charge Defender Prime, which was exactly what the robot wanted as a long plasma blade sprung from one of its hooves and raised it just as the dragon slammed into the massive machine. The blade being made of plasma shaped by a magnetic field it was hot, very fucking hot. The blade sliced through the dragon scales and crystal as if it hadn't existed in the first place, the dragon roared and clawed at Defender Prime's face but only managed to damage its left eye, which being robotic didn't hurt it, however it did piss Defender off as it lifted a hoof to the now broken eye before its right one narrowed onto the dragons face, flaring red with anger. "You shouldn't have done that." Prime lifted the plasma blade to the dragons face and jammed it through its right eye socket and dragged it downwards, slicing its throat apart like a fish being filleted. -----------------------------Behind the walls--------------------- Former Chief of Police for the town of Raspberry, Johnson Aberdale checked his old uniform, he may no longer have been in charge of the police department but he was going to be damned if he let his new home be attacked and not do his duty to protect those who couldn't protect themselves, as such when he told the androids he would be staying to fight he was handed an AER-11 with a scattershot modification, turning it into an automatic laser shotgun. He stood with several other species, each one armed with some energy weapon, while an Akun chopper flew overhead, a Heavy Plasma Machine Gun mounted out of its door. They where closer to the inner city, the first wave of umbrum would be taken head on by the fancy robotic soldiers this Empire had, he was rather impressed by those. Vomo, a member of the Akun species stood with Johnson Aberdale holding what looked to be a plasma rifle with the stock cut off. "I fear the coming battle, for we are but flesh against shadow." The Infantrymale's snout beginning to turn blue. Johnson patted his shoulder, having to bend down. "Don't worry friend, we'll make it through this, one way or another." Vomo waggled an eyeturret. "Indeed, I thank you for the kind, if foolish words my friend, if I am to die this day, know I am glad to have found a friend in you." Johnson grinned. "As am I, Vomo, As am I." He went silent and made sure his AER-11 shotgun was loaded with a boosted core, which would give em 1050 shots if he remembered correctly. Just inside the walls the umbrum swarmed like flies, only to encounter something in which they hadn't expected, strange beings of metal and wire, but the most terrifying of them had long energy blades for arms, and glowing red eyes. The Nightmare Androids looked at the Umbrum, and let their jaws fall slack, and let out a a unanimous wail that may as well have been the damned themselves for the noise was unholy in nature, before charging the umbrum along with assaultrons and sentry bots, even the older Mr.Gutsy's being pulled out of storage for this. The network of hearts began to turn black, each heart connected to the network going corrupt one by one, before the main heart was reached, and the corruption met resistance at last, Crystal, what the main sapient crystal heart named itself, screamed in agony as the corruption began trying to eat away at her very core, with much effort she stopped it, but her outer core was now covered in black crystals with a sickly green purple blow pulsing like the meaty veins of a real heart, the corruption was attempting to push deeper into her very core and erase her from existence itself, leaving nothing but a husk. Crystal growled and fought against it with all the might she had, the love energy stored within herself bursting forth and forcing the corruption out, but she had to keep all focus on keeping it out, otherwise she'd be corrupted to the core, and there was no telling if she could recover from such a thing. Johnson watched the Akun chopper float off to the front line of the fighting, and could see the green flashes as the gunner, a member of the akun species of course seeing how their machines inside where just too damned small for anything but a ten year old human kid to fit in, as the heavy plasma machine gun fired its volley of scorching hot death at the umbrum, only to be struck in several locations by beams of dark magic which grew crystals wherever they struck. Within mere minutes of taking fire like that the choppers engines crystallized, and with a sound like a dying motor the helicopter keeled onto its side midair and slammed to the ground causing a decent sized explosion as the fusion plant within was destabilized after being punctured by crystals, then slamming into the ground. He swore, mostly to himself, it wasn't the only aircraft to be hovering, but they couldn't all be up at the same time or too close, but several more akun helicopters took off, lifting from the ground and flying forward. A few minutes later, they appeared, horrific in how they looked, the akun and other species using long range energy weapons fired first, Vomo blasting away with his plasma rifle with the skill of a marksman, which was impressive considering it was an automatic weapon he was using, several grenade launchers went off, their payloads being plasmatic and normal plasma grenades which went off doing significant damage, before a few moments later close ranged energy weapons began to go off, mostly plasma shotguns and laser shotguns blasting huge chunks out of the hoard when combined with several HPMG's mounted onto the barricades that had been erected. Johnson was swearing, not only to himself, but sort of just screaming swears at the shadows who dared to attack his new home, shooting for all he was worth, his Scattershot AER-11 bucking with each shot, and with each shot five beams of death where spat from the barrel killing or injuring any umbrum hit by them, unluckily for him one umbrum managed to get too close and before he had knew what hit him, Johnson Aberdale's weapon fell to the cement, as did his husk which made a crunch noise as it landed on the ground. Vomo had seen this and his snout turned red with rage. "MAY YOU HAVE AN EMPERORLESS AFTERLIFE!" He screeched swinging his plasma rifle over and peppering the umbrum whom had killed his friend with deadly plasma shots. From that point in the battle Vomo was running on pure unfiltered rage at the death of his only friend so far on this new planet, his plasma rifle spitting shot after shot of pure hot green plasma. Michael glared at the shadows as Franklin looked back at him, and the umbrum standing in the doorway, his makeshift shotgun being useless against them, before he looked to Franklin. "Do it." He threw a makeshift molotov cocktail, keeping them at bay for just another few precious seconds. Franklin gave a bitter laugh. "For what its worth homie, its been good knowin ya, I'll see you in hell." He pressed the detonator held in his hand, blowing the various makeshift bombs that had been set around the buildings base and supports. The skyscraper lurched to the side before falling over, taking several dozen more with it in a domino effect as one falling would cause another to fall, before finally it stopped after 15 buildings destroyed, all of them thankfully empty. Soldiers in Tesla Power Armor hefted up large energy weapons that had been plugged into their armor, and mowed down any umbrum that tried to get close, making way for the medics to take care of those whom had been injured when several buildings fell down one after another like a stack of domino's, Jinks was one of the medics carrying an Empire Standard Military Medical Kit, and injected one minotaur with a cocktail of Med-X, and a super stimpack. The Umbrum trying to invade the western half of the Empire, which was one massive military base, fared far, far worse than those trying to take the civilian section of the Empire they had been in, they managed to get in, and damage several vehicles, aircraft, and kill several dozens of soldiers, but for every one they killed, a dozen of their own was the price, this was only counting organic soldiers, not robotic ones, the robots fared well against the umbrum when they had an energy weapon of some sort, for instance the assaultrons head laser and secondary weapon an automatic laser rifle in the arm. A Heavy Laser tank rolled up to the civilian section and fired, its beam cutting through dozens of umbrum, and its plasma machine gun firing to provide itself support, sadly however it didn't have machine guns on the side, or infantry supporting it, so once the umbrum got inside the crew was each turned into a husk, much to the surprise of the umbrum, once the crew was dead the tank was only silent for five seconds before it fired again, the Basic Combat AI within taking control of the tank, its dead crew rattling around within as it fired another red beam of death, the Umbrum had no possible way to counter something which wasn't alive aside from crystallizing sections of it, so thats what they did. The tanks treads froze up as back crystals formed on them, but it kept trying to move, before the turret was crystallized, the AI inside the tank decided the best course of action was to self destruct and take as many enemies with it. As such it destabilized its fusion power plant and went up like a bomb, also killing several Empire soldiers in the process of killing a dozen umbrum or more, but it wasn't the AI's job to think of such things, it wasn't its job to think of anything anymore, as basic as it may have been. Something interesting was learned that day, Niriks where immune to the huskification that the Umbrum seemed so fond of, due to the shear heat from the white and black flames being emitted by them, meaning no nirik soldier or kirin soldier, niriks just being pissed kirin, lost their lives, rather they where one of the only species able to harm the umbrum without so much as weapon and just their own bodies being a weapon for use against them. Crystal screamed with the effort it took to keep the corruption out, but she could feel it slowly seeping in, the other, smaller corrupted crystal hearts beginning to spread black crystal across the entire Empire, causing structural damage to other buildings and causing some to fall, anyone who touched the crystals would have it spread across their flesh in a horrifically painful and agonizing way before they would be killed, their organs growing crystals inside them, and their own brain having crystals pierce their grey matter like magical brain tumors. The feed to my pipboy activated and a hologram of Crystal began to scream at me. "Lorenzo! I don't know how much longer I can stop this corruption, we need to use the gem!" She screeched, her holographic body becoming staticy. The gem? OH HOT FUCK THE GEM! I had almost forgotten I had this damned thing! I rushed my way down the palace floors in such a state of hurry that I flat out forgot to even think of using the molecular relay to just teleport, and made my way up to the containment unit that held the heart, it was to prevent theft, and jammed the thing you use on the pipboy to first unlock vault 111 from within, and watched the case pop open. Oh Jesus Christ the heart was covered in a layer of black crystal with what looked like purple veins on it, just as I pulled the gem out of my inventory I was grabbed and yanked back and tossed into the ground. I stood up bringing out my beam rifle to use, and saw a black mare with red slit eyes, fangs, and the same horn you'd see on Sombra any normal day, she was glaring at me. "I can't allow you to do that sweetie, now run along before I decide to use you as a meal as well." She turned around and reached for the heart, causing it to pulse faster, before I shot her. The shot didn't kill her, but it certainly did get her attention as she spun around and sort of, walked right through me, she seemed rather shocked that nothing was happening, before she tried again, and again, before I shot her in the shoulder and leaped over to the crystal heart, and jammed the white gem against it. There was a bright flash as everything went white, then black. The Tree Of Harmony's image, a transparent Twilight Sparkle, grinned watching the blast wave ripple across Equis, it could feel the effects of the blast as umbrum where torn to shreds by it, finally the Tree had another spot from which it could influence events and people to suit its needs, along with the needs of Equis. For now however, it would be content to sit in its place as it always had done before, for thousands of years, and for thousands more it would sit, wait, observe and grow, spread its power throughout Equis as a whole, rather than just Equestria, all the world would be united not in name, but in Harmony Itself. -----------------------------------------------------Three Days Later, King Lorenzo's Point Of View------------------------------ I woke up to the sound of beeping, and opened my eyes to see myself in the hospital room I had constructed to give myself, or members of the herd medical attention if it was needed at any time, rather than go to a public hospital and either get mobbed, or bothered by ponies or other species who wouldn't take a no. Looking to my side I saw a needle in my arm, and pulled it out before injecting myself with a stimpack, and looking over to see Chrysalis next to the hospital bed, she smiled at me before speaking, her tone serious. "Lorenzo, whatever it is you did, it worked, the Umbrum are gone not only from the Empire, but from Equis itself, aside from Sombra, but....I have bad news, several dozen buildings got destroyed in the fight, and we have taken 35 thousand losses, 35 thousand soldiers, each one gone, and 25 civilian casualties as well." I waited a few moments, before sitting up and rubbing my forehead. "God damn it this could have never been easy, alright I want a memorial for those who where lost in the fighting to be constructed, and I want the ruble cleared away and the buildings rebuilt." I stood up, my legs somewhat shaking due to not having used them for what I assumed, was more than a single day. Chrysalis nodded. "That's already being done, it turns out two humans blew the building they where in up in an effort to kill the Umbrum attacking them, causing a massive amount of damage as the building slammed into another, then another, you get the idea, this isn't going to be something that can be fixed in a few weeks, this is going to take about a year if the estimates given to me are correct, as well as the loss of life taking its toll on those whom are in the military, many are tired and worn out, some have developed PTSD from this, and have already begun seeing various doctors for treatment for it." She said with a heavy sigh. I sighed as well. "Alright, anything else?" I asked not wanting to hear anything else horrible. Chrysalis nodded. "Yes actually the Abyssinians have landed back in their city, and have begun to repair the damage done to it, the damage to the wall is being worked on 24/7 by a fully robotic repair team, the wall should be repaired in a month, at best, two at worst, and aside from this, we got off lightly, Equestria, Griffons, and Diamond Dogs suffered millions of losses because they couldn't evacuate all their civilians like we and the Abyssinians managed, thankfully sealing off the underground superstructure seems to have worked, as its fully operational, so food won't be a problem, nor water and electricity." I sat down in a nearby chair with a sigh again. "I thank God that we managed to get the civilians out of the danger for the most part, alright, its time to begin the slow process of repairing an rebuilding, once we're rebuilt we can offer aid to the other kingdoms." I looked up, only to see everything was white. "What the hell?...." I stood up and looked behind me, only to see my chair was gone as well, before I heard a giggle behind me, so I turned around to see a tall feral, meaning four legged, alicorn with bright blue eyes, a cherry red mane and tail, and when I mean tall, I mean she was about five times the size of MY Celestia from back on my Equis. The Alicorn sat down, and without warning a chair appeared beneath me. "Hello Maxwell, or, Lorenzo as you call yourself now." I raised an eyebrow. "Who are you, where am I, and how the absolute hell did you know my name from before I went to my Equis?" The Alicorn laughed, bright and bubbly. "Simple my little human, I was the one who brought you to Equis to begin with, I was the one to give you the powers you have, and have allowed you to keep and use, and it seems I made the correct choice in doing so, since you could deal with the Umbrum, you are suited for the task I brought you to your original Equis for." I tilted my head in confusion. "What task would this be? Also, don't ignore the first question, just who the hell are you?" She smiled. "I am Faust, as for the task, well you'll find out soon enough little human, for now I must go back to tending the multiverse, but I will be keeping a special eye on you and your universe." Her horn lit up with a bright white magic before everything went black. Faust smiled as she carefully put the Crystal Empire back into its spot in the Frozen North, having to make some more room to fit the additional land Lorenzo had gotten from the Changelings, such a silly little human, always striving to advance, to overcome what hasn't been done before, she smiled again, she had picked well, now it came down to watching what happened.