Late on Nightmare Night, after the rest of Ponyville has gone to bed, Pinkie Pie descends into the dark and silent basement of Carousel Boutique. She’s determined to make things better with Rarity after a friendship-splintering fight, but there might not be a solution for the troubles she finds once inside the house. Didn’t anypony tell her it’s not safe to venture out alone at night?

5000 years ago, the alicorns invaded the planet for the first time. 1000 years ago, the celestial alicorn sisters staked their claim over the pony tribes. Then the Everfree burned, and now the Empress of Equestria rules alone. Celestia may reign, but she does not rest, for ever are there terrors lurking: Things great, ancient, and inapproachable, older than the alicorns.

It is an age of great advancements in Equestria. Gunpowder, oceanic trade, and new ideologies have shifted the balance of power and pony attitudes to the powers that be. The alicorn ordained hierarchy is challenged daily, as bitterness grow between the insecure knights and nobles, and the resentful burghers and commoners. Though many speak as though as if the Equestrian universal peace is already a dead letter, desperate reformers fight their own battle to preserve their princess's empire.

But it is not by mortal striving alone that the wheel of history is turned. The supernatural adversaries of Celestia's reign have returned at last, to conquer ponykind for themselves. Nightmares return to stalk under moonlit skies, but they are just the first and do not even bear the deepest grudge.

In an age of growing crisis, will the ponies be found wanting? Will the princess herself be found wanting? Will naked ambition, arrogance, and evil shatter the very concord of the tribes? It is a fraught time to live, where the pony world faces both peril and possibility. The ponies, the alicorns, the monsters- all have but one goal, to survive and see the world remade to their desires.

Twilight Velvet has lived in this changing world long enough to despise it, while Twilight Sparkle is just coming of age in it. Shining Armor thought he found his place but discovers all is not as it seems. This pony family, divided by duty, may effect the world more than the even their alicorn sovereign, if they can survive being close to power. Surely fighting ponies and monsters alike is worth it when there is a nation and a future to win.

Author's warnings: This story has many original characters, a fairly complex plot and lore, and is very long. A story that started as me trying to write Game of Thrones with MLP ponies has grown up with me and has come to include many of my interests in political philosophy and history. I'm committed to finishing it before taking what I learned and writing this story in its own setting, however long that takes.

This story is a sequel to Lines and Webs

For four long years, Celestia's apprentice Twilight Sparkle, once a model pony and a hero among heroes, has waged a bitter and secret struggle with her onetime mentor. Though she works from the shadows, directing her forces from the Old Capitol in the Everfree Forest, Twilight Sparkle is unable to gain any advantage,

Likewise, Princess Celestia finds her once-faithful student far more cunning and elusive than she had anticipated, and even now searches for a way to bring Twilight Sparkle's rebellion to its knees.

It is a game of greys, of knives in the dark and of poisoned wine, where pawns are moved and traded and exchanged for greater advantage, all the while drawing both sides nearer to the conflict which shall tear Equestria in two.

At the center of this conflict is a new pawn, one who only wished to see the truth for herself. Drawn into a deadly game whose rules she does not understand, Sweetie Belle must learn to survive in a world where all is darkened, and nopony can be completely trusted.

Because when gods play chess, all pieces are expendable.

A nation will crumble, old enemies shall return in the most unexpected ways, and regardless of who is victorious, only one thing can be certain.

Nothing shall ever be the same.

Followed by Stormsinger.

[Complete! With TVTropes apparently!]
Also, apparently, an animated trailer.

In a world of brass and steam, Twilight Sparkle had thought she had made a life-changing discovery with the invention of the telescope. For better or worse, she was correct.

Now her discovery has not only changed her life, but the lives of those she seeks out in her desperate attempt to contact the only other creature as lonely as Twilight herself.

It all would have been much simpler, but it had to be the one Twilight could only call The Mare on the Moon.

Decidedly not within walking distance, then.

[Featured on EQD before story was meant to be submitted. 4/03/2015]

[Editing team: Southpaw, Wolfvenom, Maskedferret, SwanSong and BluePaladin42, without whom this story would be a fraction of its current state.]
[Special thanks to Novel-Idea for the updated cover]

Twilight becomes alicorn of the stars. This is sort of a problem, because Luna kind of already was alicorn of the stars. Oops!

TV Tropes

Twilight Sparkle was presumed to be dead. Destroyed without even a body to bury, the young victim of a deadly magical surge that claimed the lives of many others along side her. More than a decade later, reports of a violent murder by a pony bearing her name are brought to Celestia and Luna's attention. A trail of carnage leading directly towards Canterlot's doorstep, brought by a pony who strikes without mercy. As Twilight approaches, in service to an unknown master, the Alicorn Sisters desperately try to uncover what happened all those years ago.

Edited by Zintegy and The Pink Mugsy

Chapter Heading Art by KirillK
All Sketches and Artworks can be found HERE

A terrible new day rises when a tragedy, foreseen only by Celestia but preventable by none, occurs right in the middle of Canterlot, turning Twilight Sparkle's world upside-down. Now, all of Equestria is looking to her to hold the broken nation together, all while she tries to pick up the pieces of her shattered life.

Coverart used with permission from: metalpandora

Old coverart may be found here.

A/N: Yes, the title was based of the Dragonforce song of the same name, you may stop postulating about it now.

Twilight lives a comfortable, expected life with the security of being surrounded by her mentors and friends. As she grows into a model unicorn, a dangerous being takes hold of the volatile Brood and drives them to war, breaking a long period of peace. After years of preparation for a higher order, Twilight is chosen to ascend beyond that of a typical sorcerer in a mysterious plan to counter the impending conflict.

During her dark, trying mission Twilight will discover a caged soul and unknowingly set them free, gradually acquiring an affinity for the darkness as a result. As she struggles within deepening conflict, she must push on and fight for what she believes in. With manipulation, deceit, and betrayal storming around, will she be able to contain herself and protect those she loves, or will she succumb to the creeping darkness and abandon everything she stands for?

*Warning: Comments may contain spoilers.*