As much as it annoyed her to do so, Twilight was working with Sunset on a number of projects, not just the transdimensional device. She was assisting in creating a set of helmets that would allow the users to make use of her memory sharing spell, with numerous safeguards and security measures to ensure misuse from the intended function was much more difficult. Twilight really wanted to get the interdimensional beacon device up and running, but it seemed they were having issues producing some of the parts.

Twilight was laying on her bed in the nude, she would be doing it in her nightgown but the collar’s magic made that option an impossibility, staring at the ceiling wondering just how far she and Pinkie would sink into depravity here before getting back home. As she stared at the ceiling, she heard the sound of Shining and Cadance rutting each other, again, and did her best to tune it out, with minimal success. That was at home, right now she was experiencing her second night on the train, the relative simplicity and minor vibrations of the train car as it moved over the tracks was a nice respite from the intense opulence that was Twilight’s home in this world.

Twilight’s plans went sideways when she was informed she would be joining Spike on a trip to Ember’s territory, Twilight didn’t like the implications of things when you took a look at what the Spike in this universe was like. She had barely caught a glimpse of Ember on her short visit, now she was on a train with Spike heading north. Twilight didn’t think much of it, that is until she recalled Spike mentioning that he had offered to help Ember with a project to see if they could grow crystal plants outside their usual place. The only place crystal plants that Twilight could think of was the Crystal Empire, she suddenly started wondering how Ember had gotten control of the Crystal Empire.

That line of thinking got her wondering how Ember had managed to best King Sombra. Twilight started wondering just how Sombra was bested by a dragon when everything she knew about fighting him said a lone dragon shouldn’t be enough to defeat Sombra. She magicked a bathrobe over to her and tightened the belt for insurance, she didn’t want to be caught in the buff as she moved about the train.

The ride was about as fast as she was used to, taking two to three days to get to the Crystal Empire. Spike, Chrysalis, and Twilight had boarded the train just two days ago. The Crystal Empire should be coming up on their stopping route within the next few hours. That all said, Twilight still didn’t understand why Spike insisted she come along on this trip.

She needed to be back helping with the device, even if Sunset was being distracted by her and actively trying to distract her as well. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a good idea to have Twilight and Sunset in the same set of rooms together, seems Spike had paired them up during the rebuilding of Sunset’s abode just so he could get an idea what the two them in the same general area for extended periods of time was like. And, chances were, Sunset would likely make an active movement to find Twilight if they were in the same city for the time being.

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

When Twilight was finally dressed and could see the Crystal Empire gleaming on their way to the gleaming city. From what she could see, there was nothing different from what she was used to, at a distance anyway. When they pulled into the station she saw towering, gleaming statues of Ember, completely naked, covering the city. The statues were erected in much the same way Spike’s was back home, but at least his statue had something protecting his modesty.

Almost ten minutes after Twilight had spotted the first set of statues the train pulled into the station and she got off with Spike and Chrysalis, there was no one at the station to greet them. Thankfully, the 3 of them didn’t have any luggage, the closest thing to luggage any of them had was Chrysalis’s clipboard with notes and a set of writing implements in her immediate reach. Looking around Twilight noticed the crystal ponies were following a similar attire scheme to that of the alternate Canterlot, just a bit more glittery and with more naked ponies. The three made their way to the castle after confirming all their traveling companions were at or near the platform.

“I’m guessing Ember defeated King Sombra,” said Twilight as they made their way through the city.

“Yup, she pummeled and collared him,” said Spike without a hint of snark or irony, “he’s one of her ‘special’ appropriations. Not to mention, his abilities are quite useful.”

“What abilities?” said Twilight in surprise, “all I really know about him is that he was a practitioner of dark magic and it corrupted him into becoming a shadow when he was defeated in the world I’m familiar with.”

“Well,” said Chrysalis as they were making their way to the castle, “according to records I was given on this place, Sombra was the reigning dictator before Ember bested him and took this place as her territory. I don’t know anything about dark magic, but according to what Ember has shared he has some sort of innate magic that allows him to grow and manipulate crystals. It is the presence of this ability, and the properties of the crystal and jeweled produce are the reasons for her intense power among most of the ruling dragons.”

“If I remember correctly, Ember was a chief contender for Dragonlord. The way I remember things, Spike managed to claim the scepter then turned it over Ember and said she could have the job.”

“Well, it’s nice to hear how things were for another me,” said Spike with amusement, “but in this world I managed to beat Ember and Garble by a sizeable margin, Ember bowed to it with the kind of grace one who enjoys a good competition would but Garble didn’t take it well, hence our pointless rivalry. Did your Spike do anything amusing in his brief few minutes as Dragonlord?”

“I wasn’t there personally,” said Twilight, “but I heard from the Ember Pinkie and I know that Spike ordered Garble to give immense hugs to a number of dragons and was not permitted say how or why he was doing it. Now, I know you don’t want to use the power of the scepter to command other dragons to do things they might be against, but maybe you could at least use its power to make Garble less hostile or something to that effect.”

“I will consider it,” said Spike, “at the very least, I might be able to actually relax a bit more if I do decide to pull that off. Also, that sounds like immense comedic gold; I’ll have to get the details from the Spike you’re familiar with.”

A few minutes later they were coming up on the castle; guards appeared to be crystal earth ponies, in very revealing armor for some odd reason, Twilight could do more than make out the bulges that evidence of where their penises were. Now, Twilight would never admit this to anyone, especially herself, but she was conflicted over her attractions to the anatomically superior proportioning of muscle on the earth pony stallion figure, in that one set of notes she wrote on what she wanted in the ideal partner that she immediately burned and resolved to never reference or speak of again, and the anatomical layout that is the wings of pegasus stallions. Admittedly, both her brother and Applejack also seemed to have an attraction to wings in a manner that might just be more than a fetish. But for Twilight, it was an attraction to both the forms of the male earth pony and pegasus for slightly different reasons that drew her initial attention. And this place was just making those thoughts more pronounced, especially when they were in armor that had more to do appealing to unrealistic Fantasy settings and erotic imagery.

It seemed Spike and Ember had similar tastes in how they had the ponies under their command attired; Twilight really didn’t want to think about the implications of such things, especially with specimens that the sight of which were making her have to fight erotic thoughts of her own. Twilight was very concerned about what the psyches of Pinkie and herself would be like when they finally managed to get home, more than she wanted to contemplate thinking about.

Author's Note

Well, what do you think is coming next?

I think it’s just about time for this story to wrap up, just a few more chapters now.