After the Changeling invasion, Celestia and Luna make the decision to have Twilight investigate the Elements of Harmony and solve the mystery of their power.
A thousand years later, Rainbow Dash awakens in a world she does not recognize. She has no idea how or why she came to be there. She does not know the language, the geography or any of the rules of this new time. She soon finds allies in Star Fall, a scholarly pegasus whose Talent is Magic, and Astrid, Star Fall's Griffin guardian. Together they set out to discover why Dash has been sent to the future, and how she might return to when she belongs.
War threatens the nations, a Nightmare stalks the shadows, and Rainbow Dash's arrival has turned her into a wild card in a deadly game that pits the law on both sides of a broken Equestria against a mysterious criminal figure, Max Cash. Yet the stakes are higher than anyone knows, for in her research Twilight Sparkle discovered a dark secret about the Elements, something that will shake the foundations of the world.
I am intrigued and I implore you to continue.
1239751
Agreed...
This is awesome! Loving every second, keep it up!
Seriously, best line ever! I was dying of laughter
ponyfictionarchive.net/images/gallery/galleries/Macros%20-%20Fluttershy/fluttershy%20you're%20awesome.jpg
Honestly, this is a pretty friggen sweet story you've got going on here; I am hooked! You're characterization of Rainbow is excellent, enough bravado without being overly arrogant or annoying and retains all the logic and streets smarts required for someone who is an athlete and head/only weather pony. Seriously, I can't tell you how many times I see stories where Dash is an idiot or just an egomaniac. She's a responsible civic leader with a cloud mansion who over and over again is shown effectively, if not over enthusiastically, leading others! You can't have those things without being capable and showing a good temperament. Good show and great job not falling into that "oh noez future!" trope. I, as always, look forward to more and only hope you keep up the release pace; I'm dying to read more.
1276977
I second the best line ever.
What you did there, I see it.
Awesome chapter! Great world-building and now I demand you provide more as soon as possible. Please?
As for a little analysis: I figure we're leading up to getting another 5 elements of harmony, perhaps, as a way to either fix the storm or send Dash home, I'm hoping she gets home, anyway. That, or Dash gets all the ponies to calm themselves and start with the friendship stuff again (and then she goes home... right?). Meantime, I am loving the journey.
Keep up the great work!!!
This is awesome, you are awesome.
There are SO many implications! Doubt! Intrigue! Is Dash, Dash!? Is it some genetic experiment gone wrong? Did James Bay accidentially bring Dash forward in time? If Dash was at the wedding does that mean she'll forget about future travels?
I can't wait another week for an update, I might die.
Amazing. How is this fic not more popular?
Interesting and extremely underrated story.
RD will have a lot to say when she meets either one of the princesses.
1393792
Unbelievably underrated! This story deserves so much feature box attention it's not even funny, especially considering what actually is in the feature box.
--
The excerpt this chapter is, as always, foreboding. However, I can't help but feel like they're all making the same point still, long-winded much, Twilight?
I, too, am interested in these key fundamentals that Dash seems to have trouble with. I'm glad you mentioned things starting to pick up soon, I'm ready for a little exposition, there's so much promise in the concepts you've introduced!
I just marathoned this story, and so far? It's awesome. I'm hooked and I can't wait to see more!
This requires more views!
It's downright amazing!
Love it!
This story is just great. I really need to catch up so I can favorite it.
I like how Rainbow is totally fine with the idea of killing animals.
It makes sense seeing as she was childhood friends with Gilda.
> Her mentor, Twinkle Shine, would say it stems from a lack of self-discipline. Her guard, Astrid, would say it's because she used too much space to pack other things.
You have some mismatched tense here -- it should read "would say it stemmed" and "would say it was because".
Other than that, I'm quite enjoying it so far and am looking forward to seeing where it goes :)
1425233
Well caught, thanks!
> "What's for lunch, mom?" He asked, sitting down at the table.
"He" shouldn't be capitalized here, unless we're talking royalty or a deity or something.
> "For Luna's sake, Strongheart, you're more than old enough to make your own sandwiches!" The rose-coloured Earth Pony mare declared, exasperated.
Same thing with the "the" right after the quote -- you're not starting a new sentence, you're continuing the one started with the dialogue.
> "Strongheart! Don't call them that!" She admonished, even as she returned his embrace.
Once again, with "She".
> "But he said it had so many features!" She protested, picking up the used plate and taking it over to the sink.
And again.
> "And yet," Astrid said again, snickering. "You just said her learning Solar this quick is impossible. Maybe you're using that word wrong, huh?"
Two things:
1) Since the first bit is effectively one large sentence, it would probably read better as: "And yet," Astrid said again, snickering, "you just said her learning...
2) Nice Princess Bride reference. "Inconceivable!" "You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
> "I... don't know that either. But it totally does, somehow. And when you use them together it makes a big rainbow, and fixes everything. And I bet that's what Nightmare Umbra sent me here to stop!"
...wait, what? Dash thinks that Nightmare Umbra sent her? Where did that come from? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, and I don't see anything leading to that conclusion.
1425587
Dash is grasping at straws here. She's making an assumption based on the literary tropes she's been exposed to, specifically that the bad guy shot her into the future to get her out of the way in order to complete the evil plan (mouhahaha).
To your continued finding of my grammatical errors: Thank you, it's good to know. The ?"-then capital thing I do a lot (I was unaware that it was wrong until recently), and I'll get around to fixing it eventually. The "And yet," is actually a sentence on its own, independent of the one following. It would be a shortened, conversational version of "And yet here it is".
Thanks for reading, I hope you're enjoying it!
> Blaze shrugged. "Didn't. But when you've got a rampaging magic-fuelled undead Ursa on one side and the opportunity to imitate a lawn dart on the other, well, I'd go for lawn darts every time."
Love the phrasing here.
> Calumn considered his options. He could try to infiltrate this group, to go with them, but his orders were for Dash specifically.
Hmm. Given that this is the first time Calumn has had a name to put to the description of his quarry, shouldn't he be a bit less comfortable referring to her as such? Maybe something like: 'but his orders were for this "Dash" specifically.'
> Blaze set down the rope. "Well, look whose back among us!"
"Whose" should be "who's", since expanded the sentence would read "Well, look who is back among us!"
> "Holly," he said, and love flowed into Calumn, making him gasp.
...is it just me, or does this sound vaguely dirty? I suppose I should get my mind out of the gutter.
> "Not really," Astrid said. "We'll be using a cover name. Until we get the okay, you're now Firefly."
i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/002/102/29xxiiw.jpg
> And to that I'm all like, 'well, do you taste this stuff?
You should probably capitalize the "well" there, since most of the rest of your sentence-starts in that paragraph are capitalized. I realize it's a stream-of-consciousness sort of thing, but it'd look better if it was consistent.
And now, right on the heels of your most recent fic, I come across another epic adventure that seems to bode just as well as the quality of your other work would have me imagine. Oh, to have the time to both do my own writing and read this right now...
I'll probably break and come back to this later. In the meantime, I'll be watching you.
Not like...I mean, it's just what they call the button and...you get it.
1425675
Sorry if I'm getting annoying -- I'm a bit anal-retentive about grammar. For what it's worth, I'm absolutely loving the worldbuilding and tone you've got going on here. I found the story via EqD's featuring of The Archer and The Smith, which I though was amazing enough to look up other stories (well, story) by the same author. Keep up the good work!
> The sun had fallen below the horizon, stars spreading through the sky as the last fingers of twilight receded into the west.
Traditionally, isn't it frowned on to use the word "fingers" as a description in set-in-Equestria stories?
> "That eugenics projects aren't just for Griffins anymore?" She asked, unsure.
Another instance of capitalization after a quote.
>*** "I'm betraying you" ***
...well, that was odd. There doesn't appear to be any context for how that's supposed to be interpreted. Is it a chapter heading? Someone sending a psychic message?
Favorited! I usually don't like Dark stories, but the first chapter poses some questions I've been wondering about since I first found this site...
I'm hoping this one turns out to be as good as CyborgSamurai's The Powers of Harmony.
Apparently detectives are similar no matter which kind of body they wear...
Do they get paid to be suspicious all the time or something?! 
A thousand years after the Mane 6?! And Luna reimprisoned?? The animal hair is approaching the rotary cooling device now...!!
1425587 It doesn't make sense to me either; she sounds like the villain of this whole piece, honestly.
1428226
What really threw me off about it was that there isn't any warning of it -- just an assertion made out of the blue. No insight into Dash's thought processes -- it seems like "Maybe Nightmare Umbra sent me here" should be a prerequisite concept to "This is why she sent me here". Instead, that's skipped and we go directly to the second thing. It might be better if a lantern was hung on it, such as by having one of the other characters noticeably react to the jump in logic, but they just accept it and move on.
A stroke of genius, there... Make the guy who eats love like we eat food look like someone you love, then...!!
Trail Blazer's related to Pinkie Pie somehow, isn't he?!
Even talks like her...! This is great stuff.
i just wanted to say that waaay back when they used to speak like luna, thy/thee/thou/thine was used by the nobility to speak DOWN to people below their station. therefore, luna would NEVER talk like that to celestia. she would be more informal and use you/your/you're. like, if she was in the olden days, trixie would use thy/thee/etc because she thought she was better than everyone else.
it's a really common mistake, though. nearly everyone gets it wrong.
i just loooooooooove this story. can't wait for chapter 9!!!!
Congratulations Blaze, your the new Pinkie Pie!
For some reason I read Blaze with a slight southern accent.
I have no idea why...
Immediately brought this to mind:
I can't wait for Dash to see a car!
Yay! More! Do please continue.
I understand that the Everstorm was the height of action, but the story does seem a bit slow now, maybe by contrast?
Can we have more Dash fight scenes soon please? That was really good.
This story is amazing. I marathoned the entire thing today, and loved every bit of it. Well, maybe not every bit. The prologue was a little slow in the beginning until Luna actually got to her point, but each and every subsequent bit was loved to the maximum levels of Changeling exploding enjoyment.
Basically, I read The Archer and The Smith, was completely blown away by how good it was, and went looking for more. Well this moar and I couldn't be more satisfied with it. You've done an excellent job.
Liked, Favorited, followed, all the things.
...If I'm right, it would make sense; creating strife between ponies who are loyal to each other as can be was (is?) definitely his favorite M. O. (method of operation, that is)...
...wow... can you say underrated? Every now and then I will come across a wonderful story that doesn't get NEARLY enough attention... a story with great descriptions, good pacing, good characters, and interesting plot, and just all round a well written story... and then other stories that aren't nearly as well crafted receive so much more attention. Not that the other stories are bad mind you, just not on the same level of writing. Ah well... I guess that's just part of life isn't it?
But hey! 181 views isn't bad!
And 32 green to 1 red is also really good so it's not like you're getting NO attention... just I think you should get more. 
...then again I ALWAYS want the authors I like to get lots of attention! 
Anyways, I'm really looking forward to seeing how this story develops!
Very much looking forward to future chapters. This is great so far.
You're back with an update! Today is best day!
What a fantastic update! Loving Gamma, and seriously loving how this is all coalescing with the conspiracy, Dash and pos-schism Equestria. So when do we meet Spike?
Woo, been waiting on this so badly!
-Minty
(I blame Pilate.)
Edit: Okay, I just finished reading that chapter and I have to say, it was AMAZING.
Subject: Rainbow Dash
Prefix Title Obtained: The One and Only
(Totally starting titles on this story.)
Yay update!
Okay... seems this "Agent Gamma" is a duty-obsessed jerk, among other things. No doubt he (she?) is very devoted to his country's security, but the fact remains it seems to me like "his country" shouldn't even exist in its present form...
And what does this have to do with sibling rivalry between Celestia and Luna, the fact that "Solar" doesn't even recognize Discord as a concept, much less an entity, and Twilight's research into the Elements of Harmony (which it seems took a very dark turn somewhere in the millennium-thick fog between classic Equestria and the Solar Kingdom/Lunar Republic setup where Dash has found herself stranded)??
...in other words, the same set of questions I found myself asking a
Keep writing and hopefully we'll all get to some answers... 
monthweek or two ago.Gamma was a little close to getting a knock to the muzzle.
Dash is freaken unstoppable.
1548141 I don't know whether that would have been a good idea... not that I disagree with you about whether Gamma deserves it.
1548175
I don't know, I'm rather fond of Gamma. A typical personality for a pony used to being smarter than others. The fact that with the limited information she had Gamma was able to piece together a very large portion of the previous events of the story means that she is a rather powerful pony with a lot of resources at her disposal. A very well done character in my opinion, a solid 9/10.
1548205
Very apt description of her. She didn't get to her position by not being smart.
i love this story
i really do
Yay! Awesome chapter.
Predictions for gamma 70% chance of becoming a major antagonist. 30% chance of being awesome and helpful.
Thank you thank you for the action