“Garbled Storm Fort” was no name for a city, a military facility maybe but not a highly populated area that was filled with non-military individuals. Spike looked about a bit, what to name it? That was the million spine question at the moment. Spike and Chrysalis were now standing in the cloud city; Spike was busy looking around. Also, Spike was not happy with how accurate he could call out on Garble’s penchant for names, the place was almost as narcissistically named as it was moronically named. Thankfully the place had been evacuated of all Garble’s subordinate dragons.

“What shall we have the city named, Master?” Chrysalis asked in the manner he had grown to enjoy, her voice was so sensual it made him feel like he was getting hard at times.

“I’m trying to think of that,” said Spike, “my siblings and I have a bit of an issue with giving things and places names, have any suggestions?”

Chrysalis took a moment; it looked as if she was thinking, “I’m sorry to say, my lord, that changelings share your plight of lacking proper naming ides.”

“Well it was worth a shot, maybe something will hit me before I do the big meeting thing.”

“According to the records I was able to acquire, both the official and unofficial, Garble had all his subordinate dragons pull out of the area, he also had all critical posts for the city helmed exclusively by subordinate dragons. So basically, the city’s entire infrastructure has been left in shambles because of your acquisition of this city, the same is likely true of other communities you acquired as part of your deal.”

“That sounds like Garble, thinking positions of power are only effective when held by a dragon. It looks like I’m going to have to appoint a lot of ponies to new positions and do something about restoring the infrastructures.”

“The price of being the one in charge, my lord.”

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It was almost two hours since Spike had arrived in the cloud city, it took longer to set things up than had been anticipated. Spike looked around, this square didn’t have nearly as many ponies as he had feared, or hoped, but there were still quite a lot of pegasi gathered around. “First thing is, before all else,” said Spike to the crowd, “Garble no longer has control of this place, as per an agreement of competition, control of this place was ceded to me. I’m aware this city’s infrastructure is in shambles because of Garble’s way of doing things, that is not how I have ever done things. I am the current Dragonlord, Spike, I have no doubt many of you have heard terrible things about me as part of Garble’s propaganda. I can’t speak towards their validity because I haven’t heard what they are just yet, just know that my approach to things is much different.” With that a collection of four dozen buffet tables had their tops pulled off by Chrysalis’s magic to reveal a massive spread of food, “All the food on the tables is here for your enjoyment, none of it contains anything of danger to ponies. I know because ponies made and tested it all the way up to the point that delivery started.”

Chrysalis floated in a collection of boxes that had been enchanted to not fall through the clouds, “And as part of an effort to make you feel more comfortable,” said Chrysalis, “we have brought to you a wide selection of clothing for you to wear in any manner you wish, please enjoy these gifts along with your provided meal. Once you are comfortably attired and have eaten as much as you are can from the provided spread. We regret to inform you that we may not have been able to provide enough for everyone here to be properly sated, but at least there should be enough here to help begin undoing the lack of nourishment you have been given up until now. Take this as your cue to start getting food and clothing, we just ask you to do so in a manner that is respectful to all who are gathered here. Once you are properly fed and attired we will continue with this meeting.”

Also, as part of this meeting, Spike had Spitfire and several of his other pegasi helping to hand out food to all the ponies that approached the tables, three pegasi to manage each table was the policy enacted by Spike. Most of the buffet tables were almost covered by their spreads. Also among the pegasi handing out food was a much healthier looking Rainbow Dash, who had been genuinely surprised when she heard Spike asking for pegasus volunteers for the trip to the cloud city. Also in the background, were some unicorns armed with the cloud walking spell, Twilight and Sunset among them. As much as she was loathsome to teach the spell to Chrysalis, Twilight had complied with the request without being forced into it, the spell was then quickly sent down the line to all the changelings in her hive.

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Three hours, and many dirty dishes later, the massive legion of pegasi that constituted the crowd and nearly devoured everything at the tables, a certain pink maned yellow pegasus mare had caught many there with surprise at just how much she could down in the time the pegasi spent feasting. Rainbow had even commented being surprised the yellow mare could put away. All the pegasi were genuinely surprised to see other pegasi managing the crowd to ensure all the participants got to at least have some of the spread before anyone else came back for more, which many did indeed do. The greatest surprise to all the citizens was the fact Rainbow Dash was there to assist with things and willingly chosen to be a part of all that was going.

Twilight had looked like she wanted to say something but stopped herself quite quickly. All the pegasi were in outfits of varying levels of scanty, but none had any comments for complaints. Fluttershy was in a string bikini, a scandalously small one, after she had gone through the boxes and picked out an outfit, Twilight had a hard time processing that Fluttershy would consciously, and willingly, choose such an outfit for herself. Granted, most of the less revealing outfits had already been pilfered from the boxes before Fluttershy had gotten there but it was still a surprise that out of the literally dozens of boxes Fluttershy had only looked through four before picking out what she saw as the most complete outfit. And it wasn’t just mares that had this sort of revealing dilemma, most of the stallions were also in surprisingly revealing attire as well.

Apparently, Spike likes ponies in skimpy outfits. Twilight wasn’t happy, she just kept the spent the rest of the visit to the cloud city giving Spike the stink eye. Rainbow’s attire, and the term is rather loosely used in this case, consisted of a sports bra and thong, and nothing else at all. All in all, what all the ponies were wearing was still better than nothing.

“Now that you’ve all had some good food go into you,” said Spike, “It’s time to deal with other pressing issues. This city, henceforth, shall be known as Firmament Sanctuary. I want to convey to you that this is a safe place for you all once more.” Spike was usually pretty bad with names, taking a look at most of the names for communities in his territory could easily tell you that, but when he put his mind to thinking about what he wanted to convey for the community he could spit out a few gems. “In the coming weeks citizens will be placed in positions of power within the city’s infrastructure but until then, I will have ponies I have had access to for quite some time overseeing things while I have the appropriate individuals gather the necessary information that will assist in my choosing a more qualified individual from among the populace for each position. Now, before I depart, I will introduce you to your new temporary administrators and do my best to answer questions and address any concerns you have.”

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Five hours, Spike had just spent that long speaking with the residents of his new cloud city, answering questions and the like. It seemed he had opened a massive set of floodgates when he said he would address questions and concerns the ponies of the city had. Thankfully, a few of them expressed gratitude for having the city get a more dignified, and pony sounding, name.

Chrysalis already had changelings going about learning what they could about the entire population of the city. As per his policy, Pinkie was getting a copy of the reports on ponies as well. The pony known as Fluttershy had asked if it was possible to move elsewhere, Spike had not only given her definitive yes but also had an up to date map of his territory, minus the freshly acquired communities, shown to all the ponies there and pointed to each community and gave a brief summary of what they were like, in the case of the town going up next to Macintosh’s farm he stated the town was still being built and what he hoped the community would be like.

Twilight finally got a chance to get a better look at Rainbow’s mark, without coming off a bit of a pervert. Rainbow’s mark in this universe was her distinctive tri-colored bolt in the form of a shield with a spear-shaped lightning bolt composed of three complementary colors to those of the shield crossing over it. It seemed oddly fitting for Rainbow, seeing as she was the most willing to get into a fight back home. That said, Twilight was concerned about the relationship she had with Pinkie in this world.

Regardless, Twilight did approve of Spike’s name for the alternate version of Cloudsdale. The ponies here were in for a bit of a rough transition period. Limited wardrobes aside, all the ponies who called the city home were looking much better.

Author's Note

Yay, Fluttershy made an appearance, sort of, maybe she’ll get a more prominent appearance in the next chapter. I haven’t decided on that just yet.