Twilight spent some time in the city’s main archive before heading down to the palace; she confirmed even the primary archives were in need of a massive update. She also found evidence of an item duplication spell, that was much cruder than the one Starlight had shown her, and a hard-magic construct spell, that was only in the theoretical stage despite being several centuries old. Spike in this universe really was terrible at keeping things up to date; she missed her Spike terribly.

Twilight arrived at the castle three hours earlier than agreed, which probably was a good thing and wouldn’t matter given Spike’s tendencies in this universe. She decided to wear one of her formal robes, and really hated the magic in her collar barred her from wearing undergarments, and decided to go with an ocean blue one with copper trimming. She had also done some research on her old Canterlot friends, and the end results weren’t anywhere close to what she was hoping.

For one, Minuette was often seen saying something about keeping time, and basically came off as the town crazy for some reason, her mark in this universe was five crisscrossing hourglasses that make a sort of star shape. Moondancer was working in the Processing Center and had her mark in this universe as some sort of brass ring and black mask of some kind. Lemon Hearts was working at the museum and had her mark was a pink diamond on the forehead of a blue cat statue. Twinkleshine was apparently in the service of a theatre and had her mark appearing as a big green star with popcorn inside it. In short, all her Canterlot friends were living drastically different lives, and the only supposedly viable option she had found was the one who had an actual profile go on about how the mare wasn’t right in the head for a paragraph and half.

“Oh good, I caught you,” said Twilight to Spike as she spotted him, “just a reminder, I’ll be with you for the next few days as an impromptu aide until we find someone better suited or qualified so I can get back to my duties as your prime magic researcher.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Spike, “I vaguely remember that conversation,” that wasn’t a good sign. “Did you look into any possible candidates?” The sooner she could recommend them the sooner he could make a show of interviewing them then thank them for their time.

“About that,” said Twilight, “I found a mare in the city that might work, but her work history and psychological analysis give me a few worries,” to Spike that sounded perfect, a pony that provided legitimate excuses for being turned down in her work history and mental breakdown.

“I would like to see her file, and arrange an interview,” said Spike, “Oh, and make the interview discreet.”

“So, set up a bunch of tests and tell her to complete them without informing her why she’s being tested,” said Twilight with surprise, “won’t that be a little...problematic?”

“I’m the Dragonlord,” said Spike, “all applicants need to be suited for less than common occurrences, I’ll be giving the actual interview at the last portion of it all.”

“Of course,” said Twilight in an unsure voice, “I’ll see about working out the particulars of it all with a party I know will probably be well suited for this.”

“That sounds great,” said Spike, “and do your best to make it nonlethal, we don’t want to cause the applicants to get too much harm.”

Twilight almost ground to a halt, just what kind of tests did Spike expect her and Pinkie to be making? She was not very happy about the implications of what Spike had said. She decided to just leave thinking about that for a much later time and went on to inquire about the rest of Spike’s supposed schedule for the day. “Alright,” said Twilight, “I’ll see what we can come up with, do you have any meetings or appearances that need to be taken care of today?”

“I have business to discuss with Shining Armor,” said Spike, “where is your brother today?”

“Last I saw him,” said Twilight, “he was in the manor next to mine; basically he was just at home. I don’t know if he’s still there, seeing as I don’t keep tabs on his affairs or schedules.”

“Then we can start there,” said Spike, “and if everything turns out well today, I might give you a ‘special’ reward. Anything I need to be aware of before we go?”

“I think I’ve covered everything I’m aware needed addressing,” said Twilight, “Let’s get this over with.”

*********************************

I half hour of walking later, with no guards for some reason, they arrived at Shining Armor’s residence in this world and Twilight rang the bell. What met her next surprised her a bit too much, and not the way she would have preferred. Misty Fly answered the door, in an erotic maid outfit. A quick look at her cutie mark showed a sword made of lightning with a shield made of clouds, which was definitely not what her mark was back home.

“Oh, mister Spike,” said Misty in a voice that was half business and half bubbly greeter, “are you here to see Shining Armor?”

“Indeed I am,” said Spike, “is he in?”

“Of course,” said Misty, “but he’s a bit...preoccupied.”

“It’s supposed to be quick,” said Spike, “so I’ll probably only marginally interrupt.” With that, the yellow mare let the two of them in.

“Nice to see, Ms. Twilight,” said Misty as she passed the mare by, “your brother is looking forward to a face to face meeting with you.” The mare closed the door behind them.

“Thank, Misty Fly, right?”

“Icy Mist, actually,” said the mare as she guided Twilight and Spike to Shining Armor, “but I don’t take too much offense, plenty of other folks make that same mistake.”

As they made their way through the manor the sounds of a mare, who was clearly not Cadance, moaning in ecstasy could be heard as they approached a common area in the manor. The sight made Twilight’s eyes go wide, and almost caused her jaw to drop; her brother was rutting Spitfire while Cadance, Jetstream, and Surprise all watched with smiles on their faces.

Aside from Cadance’s silver band, all the mares had steel bands; this was especially noticeable on Spitfire. Her CCC-Cup breasts rocked back and forth to the rhythm of her pounding from Shining Armor. What made it all worse was the fact everyone there was perfectly okay with it all, some were even looking at the act like they expected to be next.

Shining wasn’t joking when he said Cadance was more than a little kinky thought Twilight, but for her to be okay with Shining mating with another mare while she’s in the room, she must be pretty depraved in this world

“Sorry about this,” said shining as he continued to pound Spitfire, “but she’s a bit of an exhibitionist, she just can’t get in the mood without an audience.”

And, apparently, so is Spitfire. Seriously, are all the ponies that are socially high ranking in my world sexually depraved in this one?

“Sorry to interrupt,” said Spike, with an amused smile on his face.

“Not at all,” said Shining as he continued his intercourse with Spitfire, “if anything, you spiced things up a bit. So, what brings the illustrious Dragonlord here today?”

“Grumble issued another challenge,” said Spike, “a four on one match. The winner doesn’t just get bragging rights.”

“What are the stakes,” inquired Twilight, “we’re going to need to know.”

“If his choices win then he can challenge me for the right to be Dragonlord…”

“Again,” whined surprise, “he’s been making that every other win condition for him for the past decade now.”

Spike nodded before continuing, “but if my champion wins I get his champions. I figured my best bet would be the glistening star of the Magi.”

Twilight was confused; she had never heard this term before. “Chances are,” said Shining, “he’ll try to hedge his bets with a mix of different gladiators, an idea who he will be sending out?”

“No,” said Spike, “we both are in agreement that the combatants we send towards the other will not be announced until the match actually starts. So, to keep things interesting you will be showing up to the arena with the Wonderbolts, the rest of the Magi, and the Landshakers.”

“Great, we haven’t seen Mac in ages,” said Jetstream with a little excitement in her voice.

“And it will be his last appearance,” said Spike, Twilight blinked a bit in surprise, she hadn’t realized how things could be so different from home until now, “he got out of the gladiator game three years ago, I'm going to have quite the challenge just getting him to put in this last appearance.”

“A little last hoorah for the crowds,” said Surprise with a smirk, “I think we can all live with that, good luck.”

“Besides,” said Twilight, “you’re not his type. From what I’ve been able to gather on him, he only has that sort of attraction to unicorn mares.”

“Well, that explains a few things,” giggled Jetstream.

“What will we get as compensation for my victory? I can’t do this just for show,” said Shining.

“I really didn’t think that far ahead,” said Spike.

“No surprise there,” huffed Twilight, “seeing as you didn’t bother to tell me or any of your staff of this challenge between dragons.” She fixed Spike with a stern stare, “and I’m supposed to be your aide until a more permanent one is found and properly informed of what is required of them. How about this, you give Shining and Cadance a grand wedding ceremony and we make part of the ceremony the rest of the mares he has here part of an official herd, maybe even throw in actual breeding capacity for all members of the herd for the following month or so." In her study on the collars, Twilight had found collars did indeed not affect mental behaviors and actions of those that wore them but also suspended reproductive capabilities of all those wearing them until explicitly stated otherwise by the dragon that had genuine ownership over said collar wearers. “And as for the other supporting individuals intended to act as a smoke screen, they could get a minor compensation as well.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” said Spike, “I’ll leave it to you to determine what those compensations are, for the time being.”

“I’m not familiar with everyone you have coming in for this event, so I’ll require a list of who they are and their designation, I’ll work out some interviews to see what kind of compensation for their doing this they require.” Twilight also needed the names so she could do some research on all of them to see just what they were like in this world.

“So, when is this match supposed to go down,” inquired Shining.

“Four month’s time, Garble wants to make sure we can provide a suitably effective fighting arena, and I want to make sure there’s nothing potentially problematic about the fighting arena.”

Author's Note

And we just got a set up for seeing what’s outside the city, a little more set up and some more info on the collars.