Almost six years have passed since Celestia's defeat at the hooves of Nightmare Moon. In these six years, Queen Nightmare Moon established Equestria's dominance over its neighbors under her iron hoof.
Just one week before the 6th Nox Eterna Festival, there are still underground insurgent groups opposing her. Among them, there is a terrorist known as "Ghost" who has grown increasingly active in the month leading to the festival.
Dusk Shine, pupil of Her Majesty Nightmare Moon, is assigned to aid the Lunar Inquisition in finding the "Ghost" where they last struck: Ponyville.
Edited by EverfreePony(chapters 1-3), Shadowghostalex (chapters 1-3),Cshard (chapter 4), Javarod(chapter 6) and TheAncientPolitzanian(chapter 6).
Cover art by the wonderful Mix-Up! Check out his Deviantart and YouTube channel for more of his art.
It's a decent start so far. I'm not a fan of repetition, but I like the way you use it for the opening sequence. It really helps to reinforce the kind of world being set up.
A couple of things though:
Punctuation should go inside the quotes. Also, you can just put ellipses in quotes, without commas afterwards.
Sorta the same idea as above. The question mark acts as punctuation, so the period isn't really necessary.
There are some spots where characters talk that I think should have their own paragraphs too.
Ex.)
Should probably be something like:
Might just be me, but that just looks a bit better to me.
Besides that, there's not much that I personally find wrong with the chapter. I'd use em-dashes (—) to break up dialogue from a character's actions ("See? I have told I was the one she would entrust the front lines to—" She gestured her hoof towards herself for emphasis. "—while you...) and a few spots could use commas, but so far you've got a pretty good story going! You have my interest
!
8073792 Thanks for the comment. About the quotation punctuation, I could have sworn it was the other way around. but then I reread the writing guide and saw you were correct
.
Anyways, glad I could pique your interest.
8073953 Here I am.
Anyway that one person (madame hellspawn) basically said the same stuff I was going to say dang it. Oh well, I am really enjoying this story of yours so far. I haven't seen very many stories like it, which is a good thing. I will be keeping an eye on it. 
8074754 Happy to see that you enjoyed. Hopefully this story fill a niche that this website lacks.
Good start to your writing career, Relux.
I've never even heard of the word "lockstep" before.
Nice to see the inner workings of the new empire, although a small bit. Hopefully the next day bodes better for Dusk Shine. Eager to see where this will go!
8171606 I think you meant the next night
Sorry, couldn't help it 
"Nightmare Moon" is a proper noun, both words in it should be capitalized.
8175843 But it is capitalized.
Unless I missed a spot.
Poor, poor Nightmare Moon!
Yay! Nighmare Moon rebuilt the City Foreverfree! She'd have MY vote -- well, if Equestria had an electoral system, that was.
Make Equestria Great Again!
Hello!
I really liked this story, I'm eager to see where it goes. I wasn't able to offer any advice to improve its quality. You seem to have a good handle on things as-is. I'd like to continue onward with the narrative a bit more before accepting it, however, if you don't mind.
Thank you very much for the time, effort, and hard work you've put into this creation. Here is a link to my 'review' of it. Review
Damn this is a great story so far, love that the cakes change their names to something else to reflect that. I love the paranoia and mistrust between the characters and having Dusk Shine as an inquisitor for NMM makes it all the more fun. I can't wait to see the next update for this story. If you are interested for a cover art I am open to commissions here is my DeviantArt gallery, PM me if you are ever interested would love to work on a Dusk Shine story.
https://www.deviantart.com/amalgamzaku
Damn I missed when it up dated, I will try to be ready for the next one if there is still plans to update it. Also, if you are looking for a cover art I might be willing to do a cover art for this story, yes for free, you can look up my DA gallery here and my Youtube Channel here, I have plenty of experience in doing cover art, just PM me so that we can talk further.
As for the chapter itself I love that Dusk doesn't have untethered restriction for his investigation, despite being very close to NMM ear, I love the suspicion on everything and having to grill ponies for information and that it seems that the changeling could very much be involved in this story as well. Looks like AJ is still a mare in this story and that she isn't going to be part of the cast of the story and that Mac could be the one to take her place instead with tensions between the Apples and Dusk which is great. I wonder if Celestia will come back and will try to convince this Mane Six are going to conspire to overshow NMM or that they will defeat Celestia instead and maintain the current status coe? I hope there will still be a continuation of this story.
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Glad, you enjoy the paranoia and mistrust in the setting. Also, I definitely plan to continue the story, currently 3k words into the next chapter. I think you are going to like it.
Btw, Applejack still being a mare was revealed in the second chapter with her interaction with Rainbow Dash. (Which you probably forgot since it has been 4 years, I am sorry
)
I wonder fis Dusk's mind is constantly manipulated by NMM with alteration of his breads and such to push him to become more loyal and zealot in following her will?
Other then that not much really happened, Berry Punch doesn't seem to have something really juicy about he. The Mayor and Cockcrow was interesting, he sure seemed to know Ponyville well from before all the development began. I do like the strain relation between Dusk and Cockcrow, but I wonder if the situation will be flipped on his head at some point, or that it will lead to blows between them at some point.
Is it sunset?
Oh damn what happened to cadance and gleaming I think is the r63 name
Haha funny dystopia go nyoooom
He really ate a burger by cutting it, alright every single thing that opposes him and nm im rooting for with my life now.
I don't want bolero or cadance to join NM cause it seems gleaming or someone else was taken from him by her. Would be better to have him as a sort of antagonist to nm and dusk
I'm still confused as to why nmm mentioned her sister in the nightmare. Also Dusk is a huge asshole.
Huge smile constantly... Talking nonstop...
Is Cockcrow this world's Pinkie Pie?
10732179
That could be a very interesting theory actually
doing okay dude?
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Yes, sorry for the delay, as just been busy the past months so progress hasn't been that fast but I am still writing. Now I have little more time so things should speed up.
Also, this chapter is going to be longer than the previous ones due to a pretty lengthy dream sequence at the beginning.
10908673
Looking forward to it
Yo
11174545
Gonna release it this month
11179937
happy to hear it.
Still holding out hope for this dude, hope you are doing well at least.
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The chapter is actually done.(has been for some time) I just hadn't time to edit it and post it because I have been busy with my master's thesis I need to submit next month.
So expect the chapter to drop sometime in February. Sorry for the delays, just have been a bit overwhelmed the past few months.
11465388
congratulations dudes, I wish you luck on your master's thesis, and I am looking forward to your chapter update.
Happy to see an update on this story again after so long and it was very juicy one is finding out how Dusk was rejected as a student to CSfGU and how Nightmare Moon somehow managed to escape early when Dusk was still a colt, and that he contributed greatly to her taking power and overthrow Celestia. I wonder what cemented his loyalty to her, maybe by killing his brother/sister himself perhaps? I am taking the dream sequence was meant to show a nonsensical string of thoughts that is why there wasn't any markers for the different scenes, but when he came back to reality, I think a marker would have been necessary then.
I am guessing that NMM used some kind of mind control magic or used her dream magic to get most of the ponies of the court, wizard court, royal guard and the population to be on her side when she cams to power because it seems that Equestria is mostly long sense accepted that she was in charge and are compliant and still have a good number powerful magic users, for her inquisition, or had a cult that was ready to greet her to grab. I am guessing Dusk is probably one of the the least magically altered, and was rather personally manipulated/ brainwashed by NMM to be completely loyal to her and probably has more freedom of thought then most ponies had. Through I wonder if Dusk was one of her first and loyal followers in NMM's return then how come he is still just her apprentice and has to answer to other ponies above him, like the inquisition, and that there are some who are apparently more powerful and experienced then he is, I suspect that the brain wash magic theory is part of it, because no way NMM could have have enough loyal followers to be part of that group without Dusk being given charge of a lot of the stuff for her in just a decade of power if most of the senor mages and staff of Celestia were violently purged.
I wonder if Cockcrow was originally Pinkie Pie/Bubble Berry. Form the looks of it it seems that Dusk will have a different cast of characters to help fight against this obscure foe, Octavio, Coq Crow, nurse Red hearth seem to be logical choices, and I wonder if Dusk will sell them all out to gain the power defeat this treat of NMM? I wonder how is Octavio's 'sister' Vinyl Scratch maybe could she be a snooty ad the Cake/Gateau's are. I can'T wait to see how Mayor Mare with use Dusk to her benefit and what she will make him do to help get more prestige for herself.
I will very much be looking forward to see the next chapter dude, keep it up.
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Thanks for the comment!
Oops... it seems I was unclear, but NNM didn't escape early. Calls Dusk a "little colt" to belittle him (especially since he still lacks a cutie mark at that point). I probably should change the references around that to refer to him as a "young stallion" in the narration instead.
And about how NMM came to power and how Dusk became loyal to her will definitely be explored.
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Then I take it this takes place much later after the pilot episode then?
11517043
The final part of the flashback is supposed to take place at the same time the first episode took place.
The story itself takes place several years after that
My Little Reviews & Feedback I did your review.