Set only a week after the banishment of Princess Luna to the moon, the realm of Equestria is in a state of upheaval. Celestia's royal guard attempt to regain control over the vast empire once ruled by dual monarchs, and the young alicorn's actions as a ruler have become a subject of scrutiny after her sister's attempted coup. Two factions have risen in the turmoil: The Knights of the Sun and The Bright Moon.

Far away from the political infighting and sword rattling exists a small mining town on the outskirts of Equestrian territory. Where once the royal guard would have no trouble fending off raids from bandits or other criminals, the panic of the capitol has caused a withdrawal of military forces to more essential cities and trading ports. Completely undefended and without a spell or sword amongst them, this town was soon overrun by a band of bi-pedal canines calling themselves the Diamond Dogs. As brutal as they are lazy, the Diamond Dogs have forced the local population to work until collapse to collect gems from the town mine.

Outraged by his inability to fend off these bandits and thieves, a young unicorn named Bone Marrow tries with all of his might to find his purpose in life - his cutie mark - and hopes that it will be enough to drive off the invaders of his home. He will soon discover that his special talent is far more than he bargained for.

((A Sequel will begin for this story as soon as I finish I Am a Pet Changeling. Stay tuned on Discord! https://discord.gg/nDXd3AB ))

[Rationalfic Deconstruction / Subversion of Displaced]
You’ve read the stories of people from Earth being “Displaced”: Their bodies are changed, their minds are warped, and they’re thrown across the multiverse, to whatever world and timeline their supernal "Displacers" decide upon.  Well, this story isn’t one of them...

...because when they tried to remake me, I didn’t let them.

A Rationalist Horror story, in which an Occultist from some version of Earth (implied to be the World of Darkness) undermines her own Displacement and ends up as a Self-Modifying Construct. Scientific Inquiry, Philosophical Debate, Rational Discussion, Body Horror, and Existential Hijinks ensue. Themes, Concepts, and Style inspired by HP Lovecraft, Elizer Yudkowsky, Gordon R Dickson, Edgar Allen Poe, Modern Prometheus (Frankenstein), Dresden Codak, World of Darkness, and Friendship is Optimal.
^{Front page on JUL 28th, AUG 12th, OCT 30, and every update after that.}

Your story breaks the shitty norm that most displaced stories have in common by being an 'actually interesting story' instead of a powertrip for a horny teen.

This is like brain porn. My head hurts but in a good way.

Author’s Notes

I often find Displaced fics to be more often Miss than Hit with me. Often, they're generic, poorly written, or just do not do anything worth reading with the concept.  This is an experiment to trt out a few other concepts which aren’t used often, even by me, including some which directly subvert Displaced as a genre, and maybe even come up with some advice for those authors. This is also a crossover with the upcoming Dragon: The Oroboroi Chronicles, a World of Darkness rulebook which I lead the development team for.

I hope you all enjoy this, and I implore you to leave some feedback in the comments section: I'll experimenting with a few uncommon concepts here, and I'd like to know how people feel about how they're coming across. :3

FAQ

Because people keep bringing these things up...

Horror/Dark Tags

I've had multiple people ask "how bad does it get?" Note the lack of the "gore", "sad", or "mature" tags or anything like that. Yes, there is blood and death at some point in this story, but the real horror of this story comes from the philosophical and scientific quandaries the characters go through: this is "intellectual horror", not "visceral horror".

Length

In the interest of this NOT becoming one of those long, sprawling fics, I plan to keep this limited to a manageable 10 chapter limit, not counting Prologue and Epilogue. No one wants to read something that long, and I'd rather not be stressing over this 6 months from now.

Sequel

The Sequel is already in the works, with scenes already written. It will be a more episodic story revolving around world optimization and interplanar hijinks.

Crossovers

To be clear, I do plan on having the main character make one of those "Token" things, but as they often get in the way of actual stories, that won't happen until the end of the story. The Sequel will be crossover-heavy.

When I first met Princess Twilight, she was confused, lost. Adrift in an alien world. I thought of her as a rich eccentric, certainly a foreigner. I humored her as much as I believed her, really. Even when she dragged me to the very ends of the world in her mad quest for a mythic well, I really did it all for her. I figured it would help her find some closure, and we could go home.

I was right, in a way.

Based roughly on the game 80 Days.

Equestria. A world plagued by monsters. Their cities protected by magical shields, ponies afraid to step beyond the borders.

Four mares, friends for years and students of the powerful alicorn princesses, they possess the means to fight back.

And at their side, a dragon of unparalleled power. Sealed away for a thousand years, he is awakened by the very mares he now fights beside. But can he be trusted?

And what does he mean by "I'm not really a dragon?"

My own entry for the 'Displaced' series of fics. While I know they tend to have a dubious reputation, I'll try my best to provide you all with an enjoyable fic that brings the worlds of MLP FiM and Final Fantasy together.

Swords, sorcery and an awesome story. What more could you want?

Generously edited by Thadius0 he also providded much inspiration for this fic.

Edit: Featured the same day I posted the fic ; 6/02/16. Thanks so much guys and girls. I love you all~

An English knight married a kindly woman, touched in the head, who thought she was an alicorn. She was right.

Then one day Cecilia disappeared.

He knew that Cecilia vanished into the side of the statue, the same place she lamented the 'mirror closing' two and a half years ago. He threw a rock at it... and it vanished. It was true. He had to find her.

He didn't care about Cecilia's madness, about this 'Equestria' or her obsession with ponies. He loved her. He loved her enough to walk into Hell itself. He would bring her back, no matter what.

TV Tropes page

Non-canon chapters 8-12

Edited by: John Hood, OkemosBrony, Legion222 & Katherine Kerensky (Chapters 1-12)
Guest Editor: refferree

Bellikos. Odd golems from an EverQuest expansion released long after the game had any relevance. The players helped them turn against their divine creator. Landshark is one of these creatures. Since those events, years have passed. She has traveled far and built herself a life among mortals, far from the divine domains of her creation. Now she's stranded in Equestria.

By instinct, she distrusts gods, and the ageless alicorns seem to be just that. She can't ask beings of such power to break through into other worlds to return the construct to more familiar places. So Landshark tries to make the best of her current situation and settle into Equestria to 'retire' and make friends.

(That's the pitch. If you want to know more about bellikos in the actual EverQuest game, click More.)

But what even is a bellikos? They're an enemy type from EverQuest's 16th expansion, Underfoot. But they're not just mooks that screech like rusty hinges and try to bite you. They're that, too, but they had a story.

Brell Serilis runs the Underfoot, populated by his servants and by the souls of worthy worshippers. He created most of the subterranean sapients. But his unique First Creation secretly turned against him. The First created hosts of servants, the elite of which were the Bellikos. Not primarily meant to fight, the Bellikos were sent out into the Underfoot to preach the ideals of freedom and the absolute supremacy of the Self over the needs of society. They were meant to be relatable, charming and cunning to aid in their purpose. It's not clear why they needed jaws like bear traps. Pictures do not do justice to how far these things can open up their maws to chomp at enemies.

The secret goal: Disrupt the ordered workings of Brell's realm, where every being has its duty and its purpose, or is a former mortal experiencing their afterlife reward.

But some Bellikos started believing what they preached. With the aid of mortal champions (following a quest line and doing an instanced raid), they discovered that the First's other servants were taught only obedience and sacrifice in preparation for open war with Brell's divided followers. This sparked a fight to share the knowledge of self with the First's slaves and reveal his plans to the rest of the Underfoot.

Landshark, then still known by the name she was crafted with, was one of these renegades, fighting to share the idea of free will among the First's slaves and sabotage his evil plans for the divine realm.

I do not own MLP or any intellectual property related to EverQuest.

XCOM Record: Operation: Rising Star
11:52 am, 18th Febuary, 2016
Northwestern Territories, Canada.

Summary: Witness reports contact with extra-terrestrial creature. X-ray is unconcious and unresponsive. X-ray does not match description of previously observed species.

Response: Strike-One dispatched on high alert, orders are to recover X-ray alive. Alien Containment prepared for the new arrival.

***

The war ended. They were beaten back, their mothership destroyed, their command structure in ruins. Lost ships and soldiers continued in vain, but thanks to XCOM, humanity won, and the world was saved. The Volunteer saw to that - everything changed because of one man.

And then suddenly, everything changed again. Only this time, it's not a man's doing - it's a mare's.

Proofreading by the aweome Setokaiva, entirely without me asking!
Tagged Dark and rated Teen: Gore, because there is going to be some blood shed by the end of this.

This story is a sequel to Foal Necromancer

I got as far as I could. I wish I had more free time, but I need to face the music.
This project is dead. Feel free to have your laugh and then do better if you have an excess of free time.

By sequel, I mean rework. A re-adaptation. A different take on an already well-acclaimed story...

Please bear with me now.

I might've been talking big about wanting to make a better iteration. None of that was bragging at all, and none of that necesarily suggests that I should create a version the same as the original, only refined and polished.

That's not going to happen. I'm not Kytranis 2.0. I got my own shtick. And frankly, there are a lot of things that Kytra did that I do not agree with. Similarly, there are a lot of things I myself will do that the die-hard fans of the original will not care for either. Also, there's nothing wrong with wanting to surpass your predecessor, for the LOVE OF FU-

I will try a different take on the same central themes and general starting circumstances as the original, but everything else after that is going to be my own thing. A new shot aiming for the same target.

I don't actually owe the fans of the original anything in particular. All I owe is that for my own sake, and for the sake of anyone who might potentially take time out of their schedule to read my work, I need to create the best thing I personally can, through what means I personally can. That means through my own vision, not through someone else's vision.

The young are defined by moving ever forward and making mistakes, which they either learn from or disregard. You don't survive long if you don't learn from your shortcomings and adapt.

The Living Lich survived for a very long time. He has much to look back on and reflect on, before he can understand what happened and move on.

Princess Luna has had an even longer life than one can imagine. She forgot more things than most mortals experience in their lifetimes. She ventures to teach the necromancer a new way of life, but knowledge can be shared both ways.

Angela was just a petty thief at a convention. All she wanted was to grab a few things, leave, and make a few bucks off of them. She had no idea just how complicated her situation would become because of it. And now, the ponies inhabiting the town of Hollow Shades will find themselves at odds with what many would call a living nightmare.

First attempt at a displaced fic, featuring a blend of the game Evolve and My Little Pony.
If you don't like that sort of thing, then don't read.

Tags may be added later on. Gore tag for mild gore, nothing too overt.

Featured 4/25/16

Beasts roam the streets of Yharnam. The hunters dream gives refuge to chosen hunters. An old hunter watches over the dream. Now, it is Equestria that needs to be watched over.

Gehrman was many things. Some deemed him a hero, others a teacher and friend. Good thing Equestria is full of friendship.

Some knowledge of Bloodborne is advised.

Takes place after season two.

Edited by the awesome editor: XIII Hearts.

I own nothing.