It was six days later, so about a week had passed since Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, had been imprisoned, at the moment the setting was the Old Crystal Empire, for now called the Old Empire to save time, Princess Mi Amora Cadenza, also known as Princess Cadence, was currently overseeing the construction of the newest line of defense and attack golems.

Calling them robots would be more accurate, but since these where so large calling them robots was more fitting than golems, their main body was comprised of a half dome of crystal that looked rather like an old soldiers helmet, with one large pink eye in the center of the 'face' of the machine, under it's 'chin' was a long tube of metal mixed with crystals, it was the machine's main weapon, a magic gem laser, made of various different gems that had been enchanted long before Sombra had taken over, along with tubes of metal and wires inside that made it hum and crackle with electricity, it's legs where twenty feet tall with a large cup like half dome surface that served as the machine's hooves, it had two legs.

Princess Cadence had actually found the plans for these machines in a hidden section of Sombra's old room, he had blueprints of the very machine's she was seeing to the creation of, he had plans to use a special crystal from within the crystal mines called a Core Crystal to power them, he had the crystal ponies slave away in the mines, and had ended up with about a hundred pounds of the baseball sized crystals, while Cadence hated Sombra for what he did, she did have to admit that he was a genius when it came to how to power these machines and make them move.

The weapon that was on the chin of the machines was based on a weapon Sombra had found under the Old Empire in one of the mines when a crystal pony had reported they had dug into a wall, only to encounter metal that their pick axes couldn't break through, so King Sombra himself went into the mine, and blasted a hole into it using his dark magic, and from what she was able to tell from his journal entries, he had found himself in a large metallic room with a door on the other side, blocked in by ruble, but in the room he had found himself in, while rusty and falling apart, there was a table that held the very weapon he had on his table taken apart, and weird tubes that had looked like hale rockets.

While the weapon Sombra had found, was non-functional, he had been able to recreate it using a mix of dark magic, crystals, and various spells to power it, that was the very same device that Cadence was having mounted under the chins of the machines, of course she had them recreated with harmonic magic, rather than dark magic, other than that however she changed little of the design other than to make it look less threatening, the machine's had a Magic attenuation alternated self starter (M.A.A.S.S) it was pretty much a magic battery that would last for 1000 hours or 41 days before it needed a shot of magic again, it was constructed out of the Core Crystals, and Cadence had a program where guards could volunteer for mining duty to mine the Core Crystals.

The machine's, known as Crystal Walkers, had many small runes etched into the very core inside their 'heads' that would tell them what to do, in almost any situation, it was very complicated so only the Old Empire would be able to produce these, but already Princess Celestia had ordered twenty of the machines, the first hundred would be used to protect the Old Empire, then the next twenty would go to Equestria delivered by airships, at the rate these where being built it would take about two more weeks to finish the rest and get Celestia's order finished.

Cadence sighed as she oversaw the construction of the Crystal Walkers, already 45 of them had been completed within the span of a week thanks to Equestrian unicorn magic and levitation, which made the construction process much faster, despite being the most advanced Empire, as far as she knew, when it came to golems and robotics, she was due for a break, and headed back to her study, only to see a pile of letters, two of them marked urgent.

After she opened one of the letters she nearly had a heart attack, it was news about a a new, larger version of her empire, appearing in the Badlands, showing pictures of it taken in the sky by airships, Cadence was already pale when she learned of the technology that was told of in the letter, but she nearly had a seizure when she opened the next letter, which spoke of a war that had broken out between the New Empire, and the Griffon Empire, the griffon's humiliating defeat with little to no effort on part of the New Empire, and then how Queen Chrysalis had joined forces with the New Empire, just thinking of those bugs made Cadence growl, she remembered full well what the Queen had done to her husband, along with how long she had been kept in that cave.

Then Cadence saw a newspaper, with a picture of her sister in law, Twilight, in a pod looking to have been frozen, with a ring on her horn, and her flight feathers clipped, she nearly went into a rage when she saw it, before picking it up and reading it, her heart slowly sunk into her chest as she read on about how Twilight had broken into the New Empire's boarders without permission with the use of a long range teleportation spell, and then Twilight's sentence of jail time, she simply set the paper down, and grabbed a bottle of whisky from under her bed, and drank her heart out, Princess of Love she may be, but Princess of Stress she might as well have been, she had taken two weeks off to oversee the Crystal Walker project, and in doing so had forgot due to stress, to check in and read her mail.

================Lorenzo's Empire=================

I grinned as I watched Astral Starlight, the lead researcher of my Empire's Magic Research Division, show off a small, basketball sized blue heart shaped gem, as it floated up and began to emit a blue glow. "Astral Starlight, you, are, fucking, glorious, you not only managed to create a miniature crystal heart, but you made it so it could work anywhere, so long as there is a being near it that can feel love, it will stay powered, much like the actual crystal heart, there is a raise coming to you sometime soon my friend."

Astral Starlight smiled. "It was possible thanks to you allowing a scan of the crystal heart to be done, if it where not for that I would have never been able to recreate it on such a small scale, now we can set these up outside the crystal hearts protective barrier and in doing so, expand the barrier itself, I will update you on any new data that we get your majesty."

Nodding I patted his head as I walked out of the lab, and right into Chrysalis, whom hugged me. "Good news Chrysalis, those who want to live outside the crystal hearts barrier of love will soon have a constant food source, Astral Starlight made a miniature crystal heart, he plans to make enough to cover ALL the territory the Empire has."

Chrysalis smiled as if she had been given a million bits, and nuzzled my cheek, I had warmed up to her a bit, however it still felt weird, since ya'know...never been nuzzled. "That is glorious news Lorenzo, I can't wait for that to happen so our changelings don't have to make trips to the center of the city, or to the outside limits of the crystal hearts barrier for food."

I nodded. "Yep! Now I don't have to worry about having them swarm through the air to get close enough to the barrier to feed....that causes the automated defenses to try and turn to the flying object, but they can't turn inside the walls...I really need to fix that bug in the system, either way I'm just as glad as you are, now come on, it's time for lunch, and I need myself a two pound cheese filled cheeseburger with onions n pickles."

Chrysalis chuckled. "Yes, and I will have some of those fried potato sticks you call fries, they are quite good." Chrysalis started to follow me as we walked to the dining room to satisfy our cravings, only for me to get a notification on my Pipboy, so I pulled up the camera feed.

I sighed. "Go eat, I'll be over soon enough I guess." Chrysalis nodded and walked off, while I took a closer look at the camera feed, it was ......Flim, and Flam, Trixie, and some strangely tall unicorn mare, she had a black cloak on, but I'd say she was seven to eight feet tall, they where on the super speedy cider squeezie, however it didn't look exactly like I remembered it, the tires where rubber, and while it looked to be the same size, the middle seemingly had been hollowed out somewhat to form a cabin of sorts like a normal car, except it looked to be made of a green magic dome rather than metal and glass like a normal car cabin, so I was able to see through it on the cameras, I also noticed that a few miles behind the magic automotive, was Celestia's royal guards, I sighed once again and relayed to the entrance to the Empire and opened it, with two assaultrons next to me in case it got ugly.

The magic powered abomination of a car came to a stop five feet from the main gate door, and flim stepped out, being anthro he had on clothes, a classic blue and white stripped shirt, a bow tie, and a pair of blue pants. "Hello my good sir! We are in a bit of a....pickle, you see, two friends me and my brother decided to take with us on our trip to your Empire for a new life, are wanted by the royal guardmare's, one for use of dark magic, and the other....well...I don't think I can say, but i assure you she is a very nice mare."

I gave the guy a deadpan. "Look, I don't care who it is, just come in and go through the screening and sign up process like everyone else, no trying to scam others, stealing, murder, etc, you will be informed of the laws within the Empire, and what you are allowed to do, and what NOT to do, so just roll that abomination of a car into the gate and get out."

He looked nervous but motioned to his brother, whom was driving that machine, and it drove into the gate at a snails pace while he followed next to it, and once it was inside, I simply had the gate closed and turned to view the other ponies inside it, Flim motioned for them to get out, to which they did.

Trixie did not do the whole, third person thing, or act all mighty like I expected her to, no she looked rather thin, she had bags under her eyes, she looked horrible, same could be said for the three others now that I noticed, the tall mare in the black cloak seemed to be exausted, but with the hood down I was unable to tell.

Trixie was the first to step up. "I am Trixie Lullamoon, I used to be a showmare and would preform for ponies, telling fantastic tales and showing off my stage magic to entertain crowds of ponies, until six ponies decided they didn't like my show, and challenged me, I beat them, and then they felt I was evil, then two moronic little colts went and dragged a beast from the everfree forest into town, and the town got mad at ME when I was unable to vanquish it! After that, I wanted revenge, they had destroyed my cart, making me homeless, so I bought a dark artifact called the Alicorn Amulet, and used it to get my revenge, until they tricked me to take it off, since then I've been wanted by the guardmare's for willing use of a dark artifact, I along with my friends here, have come to this Empire hoping for a second chance, a new start."

Flam spoke up this time after Trixie. "She is right, we tried to sell our inventions to ponies all across Equestria, but nopony wanted to buy inventions made by a stallion, it always had to be a mare making the product, otherwise nopony would dare touch it for fear that a stallion couldn't do what their OWN CUTIEMARK, my brother's and I's special talents are inventing and selling items, but after so long of nopony buying our inventions, we came up with one bit schemes to get enough money to get by, after awhile every town was notified of our scams, then we weren't even able to sell a tonic for the life of us, so this was the only close option for us to go."

I sighed. "It seems like you all just had a bad case of bad luck, so I'll let ya'll in as citizens, you still need to go through the process though, but food and water, and shelter will be provided, as for you." I turned to the tall cloaked mare. "Whats your story here?"

The tall mare walked up to me, causing me to look up, before she pulled her cloak off, what I saw caused my eyes to widen, it was Nightmare fucking Moon, in the fucking flesh.

Author's Notes:

DUN DUN DUUUUUUNNNNNN, first cliffhanger, thought I'd try something new since I've never done that

What does this mean for the world? Is there more at play here than what was first expected? What will this mean for Lorenzo? His Empire? What do you think is going on in the background while nopony watches? You won't know until I LET you know, but it's always nice to see a comment from a reader whom loves the story