When Twilight stepped out to get a better look of things she saw a sight that was almost familiar, one she found similar to when she was younger. She was at the site of what should have been Canterlot’s secondary archive; the main one was much closer to the castle. When looked outside she was treated to a sight most unfamiliar, ponies going about in next to nothing. They all had bands that ranged from tin and copper to something a bit less common for adornment like iron. Twilight and Pinkie were both adorned with bronze, an alloy that was highly prized.

Taking a closer look at things she spotted rings on the horns of the unicorns of similar metals, Twilight instinctively reached up and felt along her horn. She felt what had to be a silver ring, why was her ring a different metal than her band. After taking in the sight she reentered the archive, she was unfamiliar with this alternate Canterlot she figured it best to get a map first to compare things.

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Four hours, Twilight had gone through everything in the archive in four hours and found nothing of use. On the plus side, she had set a new record for going through the second largest archive in the city, or at least one of its many parallels, but on the downside, there wasn’t a single map of the city anywhere to be found. This place needed more updating than she thought, or was this all intentional? Twilight honestly couldn’t tell at the moment.

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Pinkie could sense the presence of her Pinkie Cave, despite the fact it should have been in Ponyville. She spent a few hours in the kitchen making confections that she either ate or put on the conveyor belt that led into a trot-in refrigerator. She would have loved to explore the fridge, but she felt she should get things under control and have a chat with Twilight.

After she had spent a few hours baking, storing, and occasionally eating, she went to where she sensed the presence of entrance to the Pinkie Cave. Her Pinkie senses were still a little off; she hadn’t even noticed Rarity’s presence until she heard her voice.

Once she was in the cave she got to work; she noticed the filing was a bit different than she had back in Ponyville. The whole place was broken into two distinctive groups, “Dragons” and “Ponies” and Pinkie was left wondering why, there must be some pieces to the puzzle she wasn’t getting.

She decided to start with the “Dragons” section and went looking for Spike. She finally found him, under the dragons of “House Emerald Flame” and was pleasantly surprised by what she found. Firstly, the image she had was a near perfect match for the dragon she recently spoke to, seems this version of Spike had won the position of Dragonlord was ruling from where Canterlot was supposed to be. His territory was pretty vast, most of the new additions were made as a result of his victories in duels, interestingly enough. This alternate Canterlot was called Dragon Crown, for now. Dragon Crown was the name given to the city that the Dragonlord ruled from, and Spike had won the position over three-hundred years ago.

The accounts also stated he had done quite a few things in relation to other ponies, such as making Rarity one of his highest placed ponies. The accounts of this other Pinkie spoke being collared by him as one of the greatest joys in life. Pinkie didn’t mind waking up naked in an apron, she was prone to doing stranger things in her sleep, but she had never really considered wearing any sort of collar. She put the file back and went looking for mirror, she found a full body mirror right there in the cave, next to table covered with cookies and cupcakes under glass with the words “Emergency Snacks” in big bold bubble letters, and saw that she was indeed wearing a collar with her name on it. She was also a bit more plump in the belly and plot than she remembered, not that she minded it at all.

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Thankfully, for Twilight, the layout of Dragon Crown was almost identical to that of Canterlot. That still made things a little unnerving though, especially with drastically different establishments than the ones she remembered. The shop that was supposed to be Pony Joe’s donut shop was a jewelry store that had an approval plaque that had an insignia of four tightly grouped dark indigo diamonds and what should have been her favorite bookstore was a petshop of some kind.

When she got to what should have been Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns she found the complex had a nearly identical structure but was labeled as the “Pony Processing and Mental Readjusting Facility” and instead of the six statues that were meant to represent the virtues of knowledge there were statues that showed four dragons and ponies in somewhat suggestive positions, made ever more evident by the fact none of the ponies were in no attire other than a collar that seemed to be a different material than the rest of statue. Among the figures of the ponies, all of whom were mares; there was a unicorn, an earth pony, a pegasus, and what looked like a cast of Celestia.

Twilight had a bad feeling about this but decided to continue on. She got another surprise when she entered, a pony receptionist next to a dragon receptionist, both female, were there to greet visitors. She trotted right up to the reception desk with some apprehension. The dragoness had dark pink scales and ocean blue spines.

“Ah, Ms. Sparkle, it’s been ages since we’ve seen you,” said the dragoness, “for what reason are you here,” her eyes jumped to the band on Twilight’s arm. Twilight took a closer look at the reception pony, they appeared to be mare version of Blueblood in a very revealing bathing suit and a pewter band on their right arm.

“Um, yes,” said Twilight, “I was in one of the archives,” the dragoness rolled her eyes, it was clear this was a common fact about this world’s Twilight, “and it seems to not have any up to date maps, the most recent one I could find was from a thousand years ago. I just need a copy of the most recent maps of the city and country.”

“Is that all? Very well,” said the dragoness, “Azure, if you would be a darling and retrieve the materials Twilight has requested; and let her brother know about her visit, I’m sure he would like to see his little sister.”

Twilight managed to hide her surprise, this is where the alternate version of Shining was. She decided to mine a bit more info, if she could, “Interesting helper you have there, reminds me a bit of a stallion I had some less than pleasant dealings with.”

“Ah yes, I almost forgot Azure Claret was a stallion before a few years ago. He acted rather overly entitled, thought being a stallion made him better than most of the ponies here or something like that, I really didn’t pay attention to his pointless prattles. He was rather high ranked among his prior dragon’s collection, and well-liked by that dragon as well, it made him a bit of an egoist. When I gained access to him I had to do an extensive re-education, nothing stuck until I gave him that gender reassignment potion. Thanks again for that, I know you didn’t ask about it, of course with you that’s pretty common.”

Wait a minute, thought Twilight, that mare used to be Blueblood, and he was an egotistical prick, I guess there is some justice in the multiverse. And I had a hand in turning him into a mare, the only thing I’m concerned about is this ‘re-education’ she spoke of. That said, he probably deserved worse than what he got.

A few minutes later “Azure” returned holding two scrolls, with Shining Armor following close behind. He gave a bow to the dragoness, and big grin when he saw Twilight. The grin was immediately followed by a mild look of disappointment. He was in what looked like a black gladiator’s outfit, complete with straps that went across his naked chest and shorts so short they might as well have gone with a skirt design, Twilight could even see a slight bulge where his junk was.

“Madame Lance, it’s always a pleasure,” said Shining with a bow, he then turned his attention to Twilight as she received her requested documents from the mare known as Azure Claret, “it’s been a while, Twili, how are things?”

“Decided to take a break from research and update the archives as best I can,” said Twilight, she figured that would be an acceptable excuse for moving about the city without raising suspicions, and one of them really did need updating from what she had seen, “I thought I would start with maps and move on from there. Besides, I recently learned of an item duplication spell.”

“Oh, that sounds wonderful,” said the dragoness known as Lance, “be sure to tell Spike about it so that your ring can be adjusted accordingly. We could use something like that to save on production costs.”

“Twili is even more of a great spell prodigy than I thought,” said Shining, “I was worried her talents weren’t being fully utilized for a moment.”

A few minutes later Twilight was out the door, on her way back she spotted a four-story building modeled after a circular cake that had Pinkie’s balloons stamped on it. But the balloons were layered over a cake; she decided to enter and find out what the deal was there.

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Pinkie heard the doorbell for the shop ring and rushed back up to the main level of the facility; she needed to greet the customers after all. She saw it was Twilight, in a tattered robe of some kind, and instinctively said, “Hi Twilight, what do you think of my new shop?”

Author's Note

And here we got a better look at this world’s version Canterlot

Quick note, my policy on materials I provide is you are free to use them so long as you give me a heads up. If you make any artwork around my work please send me a link to it or a copy.