"It's so nice to see you again!" said the thing that was not Celestia. "Oh yes, I know who you are, Twilight Sparkle. I had a taste of your magic the first time we met. Mortals forget things so easily, I find. Allow me to refresh your memory: you tried to kill me. But you failed, Twilight Sparkle. You only mostly killed me. And I guess that makes you one very unlucky little pony."

After breaking free of his stone prison, Discord had some time to go about his business before anypony could get organized. A little chocolate rain isn't the only chaos he managed to produce.

Twilight Sparkle just can't find enough time in the day. She has to study friendship for the Princess, hang out with her five friends, and juggle her own hobbies and interests besides. But when a novel solution presents itself in the form of an experimental new spell, will it solve her time crunch, or will she be distracted even further?

Practicing her sonic rainboom technique on a cool morning in Ponyville with Applejack as her spotter, Rainbow Dash rescues another pegasus from an imfamous Falling Leaf Spin.

Upon recovery, they discover that the young mare had been in posession of an extremely sophisticated camera, now a pile of scrap metal on the ground.

In an attempt to console the distraught pegasus, Dash and AJ search for a solution to her busted optics, only to end with the young pegasus leaving for the manufacturer in a rush of excitement.

Things take a turn for the strange when the same pegasus returns four hours later with a brand new camera... From a round-trip journey of over five thousand miles.

Tempers flare, challenges are issued, and Rainbow Dash's pride is put to the ultimate test.

What is the secret of the photographer known as Dainty Dish?

A horrible Cataclysm has turned all of Equestria into a Wasteland of barren ash and twilight desolation. The Sun and the Moon have been destroyed. Everypony has died--including Princesses Luna and Celestia. But one pony miraculously survives; she is a lone wanderer, the last of her kind, surrounded by menacing creatures that hate her. She navigates the Wastes in an airship and scavenges off the blighted landscape to keep herself alive.

Then one day she meets an old companion who grants her a gift, the chance to go back in time to the warm and sunny days of Ponyville, where her dead friends live in happiness. How far will the last pony venture into this joyous age of Equestria, even if she fully knows that there is no way to change the horrible fate of everypony she loves?

2013 Edition: Smaller Chapters, Better Grammar, and a Few New Scenes

(A shout-out to Vimbert, pre-reader and gentlecolt)

Dainty Dish: The official record holder of the highest sustained speed and altitude over a recognized flight course in Equestria. As well as the holder of the time to climb record for a given altitude. There is no pony in Equestria who can match her abilities.

However, one stallion from from a far off place is determined to catch her. And in a brash attempt to prove himself worthy of her affection, gives chase. Only to fail spectacularly even with months of preparation. So on Hearth's Warming Day he enlists the help of Rainbow Dash, Equestria's foremost expert on speed to help him learn all there is to know about the art of going fast.

Can the mighty Mikoyan Ivanovich Gustaav the Thirty-First catch his dark angel? Or will he be too much stallion for Rainbow Dash- for Equestria to handle?

War comes to Equestria: with despair, with starvation, with suffering and with sacrifice. And the ponies must learn how to keep true to their values while surviving not just the rigors of battle, but the desolation of total war.