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.

Author's Notes:

Hiya all! lemme know how ya like the story so far, and some of you had some questions about why meat is rare as it is in equestria, so that why not just use the chickens and pigs that remain as meat for food? quite simple! cows are used to produce milk, while bulls are used to pull carts, they are just normal animals, meaning they can't think and talk like you or I, chickens are used only for egg production since eggs are pretty vital to equestrian diets, and pigs are mainly used for finding truffles, as such only the really rich use them, meat is a rare delicacy in this equestria, mainly saved for special holidays, even celestia only gets to eat meat once or twice a year, and as another side note, despite their tech, equestria, the griffon empire, the minotaur kingdom/empire *have not decided on a name for that yet* the diamond dog empire, etc, don't know what canning is, sure they know how to make jam and jelly, but beyond basic jared foods, mainly made by farmers themselves to get through winter, there IS no canning for military rations

here are the weapons lorenzo mentioned

the combat shotgun, modified to the empire's standard of a 35 shot drum magazine, and a marksman stock

the combat rifle, standard aside from the full stock, it fires .308 rounds, but if need be it can also fire .38 .45 and 5.56 mm rounds

here is the combat rifle the empire uses! Full stock, large bayonet, sighted with the sight ring at the end, etc, used in only 308

and here is the Luger semiauto rifle the cats use

also! here are the cars the empire uses, just not the small one person ones, because lorenzo feels as if they are a waste of resources and energy to produce. also I'd like to mention they all look the same, aside from having more colors the cars are, and they are all powered by fusion core's, other than that? They look the same

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVgibPBVCMo