*Credit goes to NCmares for the NightMares headcanon idea and the cover art!*
Equestria, having established friendships through Twilight with other nations around the world now has extensive trade networks. These budding, undefended trade routes quickly became favorite targets of pirates, looters, and state enemies looking for easy gains. When the Royal Guard went looking for a solution they found it in the far north. The robust Earth-pony tribe roaming the northernmost woods below the tundra did not disappoint, and the mares were augmented into a weapons platform- the NightMare. This story focuses on a very dedicated former NightMare I&T engineer and his favorite NightMare.

An MLP/Warhammer 40K Crossover

The Iron Warriors 38th Company has landed in Equestria, entrenching themselves like a barbed hook. They hunt the aliens of the Tau Empire, intent on destruction and pillage.
A small squad is dispatched on a reconnaissance mission, only to find that there is intelligent life on this world besides the feuding space-farers.
Will these improbably adorable and friendly equine aliens turn the damned warriors of Chaos from their blood-soaked path, cleansing them of their dark legacy with the magic of friendship and harmony?

No.
No, that isn't happening.
EXPLOSIONS!!

(Dark humor warning; limited grimdark themes)
(Cover art by Nicholas Kay)
(This series now has its own TVtropes page!)
(This story is a contestant in the Tournament of Canterlot, a charity event to raise money for Syrian refugees! Go here for details and donations!)
(Featured on Equestria Daily 8/20/15 )

I was always told that the world below was barren and fallow. Poisoned. Unfit for life. I always believed that, trusted that. In my ignorance, I had no recourse but to believe that. Then, one day, I saw for myself that the world below our bountiful field of clouds wasn’t quite so dead as I’d been told. For a mare born without the wings so many around me took for granted, a little dirt under my hooves seemed like an impossible dream.

Abandoning everything I knew to take the plunge, to go down from our cities in the clouds and mountain hideaways and find my home again wasn’t exactly fun, but I don’t regret it.

It was the single best decision of my life.

This story (which can be best described as a Coming-of-Age/Teen Romance/Drama Masquerading as Fallout) takes place about 15 years before the events of Fallout: Equestria, although it contains only a few direct references to events/canon from it. To Bellenast is my attempt to portray a part of the pony world where the apocalypse truly happened nearly two centuries prior, and as such, ponykind--or, at least, those portions of it far away from the most ravaged and blasted ruins of the old world--has grown and moved past those early days of scavenging, abundant hostility, and mere survival. Here, ponies don’t survive, but live. Here, there is peace, there is government, there are treaties and trade roads, medicine and commodities--and banditry, thievery, and wanton violence are the exception, not the norm.

All of this is told through the eyes of one young mare who really would rather have nothing to do with anything exciting or violent. I’ve tried to write it in a way that doesn’t require one to have read the original Fallout: Equestria, although why you might have found yourself here without having read it first, I would be curious to know.

I hope you enjoy the story. As of [November 2023-whenever-2024], I am rewriting some of the most problematic portions of the first half of the story, to better match them thematically and in quality with what I’ve written most recently.

Lookie, lookie, I made a map: Clicky da linky!
Lookie Lookie 2: Electric Boogalookiedoo! An adorable painting of Crystal Dew done by Etyco Filly.
Lookie Lookie 3: Pretty Pretty Pretty!
A commission of Blitz, which contains minor spoilers, but oh well. Don’t click if you don’t want to see.

Character and/or cover art (original here)by the fabulous amazing fantastic generally awesome {all-inclusive adjective of infinite praise here}Amarynceus. Amateur title addition by me.

Sometimes, decades of your life go by without a single pony noticing any of your efforts to move up the ranks. Sometimes, you fall into a hole in the ground, wind up trapped in a political plot, and meet a cute librarian in the middle of it all.
The last part's nice.

Due to the nature of the AU, the story deserves a [Dark] tag, but it's not a good fit for the story's genre. I also strongly hesitated between Mystery and Adventure.
Mild [Profanity] included (but not enough to warrant the tag).

Updates weekly.

Huge thanks go out to: Everfree Pony, for saving this fic in at least a dozen different ways, Sir Mediocre, for holding my writing to a certain standard and correcting my broken English, Aisteru Fìre for pre-reading, and Cyeion, for his detailed and thought-out critique.

"Do you ever feel like you were born… wrong?" 

"Huh?" 

"I mean… I dunno, sometimes I feel like I was meant to be a pegasus. Like you."

Rainbow often wondered what it’d be like to be a pegasus. Too bad she wasn’t born one. A mare can dream, though. Sometimes that’s all she can do.

Thank you to Sir Fiddler for prereading this :)

This isn't how she planned it, but things have gone awry. Surely there is some solution to this flood of Lunas.

Done for Moonwing.

Russian translation provided by Shaddar!

But yeah it probably is. This is going to be my take in the Generic Anon in Equestria trope, freestyled from the beginning of Bridle Gossip at the request of the purchaser. Shennanigans shall most likely ensue. Contains excessive philosophical discussion, pseudoscientific worldbuilding mumbo jumbo, and a light dash of casual humor.

Cover art by Twitter artist Andaluce!

Join our Discord Server here if you want updates as soon as new chapters are posted and dank memes.

If you would like to contribute to the continuation of this story and others like it, you can subscribe to me on Patreon!

Featured seven fucking days running since 2/13/2021 holy shit you guys this is insane :0

Check out a sweet audiobook reading of the first half of the first chapter here, by a wonderful fan ^^.

A kingdom needs a protector to defend it.
A protector needs a weapon to defend the kingdom.
A fundamental truth from the times where Luna was the hero of Equestria instead of a nightmarish fairy tail.
So now that Luna has finally returned, she is in need of a new weapon to protect the kingdom once more.

But when swinging a sword becomes a major obstacle for the princess, is it the fault of the blade, or the one who wields it?

An entry in Imposing Sovereigns III, using the prompt Luna/Kindness.

Pre-read by the always amazing daOtterGuy who as if he wasn't amazing enough, also made the cover art!

Now with a reading by StraightToThePointStudio!: Reading

Tossed through a portal as the last act by Twilight; Chrysalis is all that is left, the sole survivor of a fallen realm. Now she finds herself in a completely mechanized version of Equus, against an enemy with an all too familiar face; her own. Nothing is as it seems, and as more is revealed, Chrysalis finds herself questioning how she ended up like this. The real question is can she handle the answers she unconvers?

A nurse has seen it all. A combat medic has seen even more.

Princess Celestia sends her elite Household Battalion—"Celestia's Own"—south, far beyond the borders of Equestria, to break the slave trade and to free the oppressed. Medic Redheart, a young rookie among the Guard's hardened veterans, is with her Battalion every step of the way.

She's never told anypony her story. Until now.

A side story/prequel to my The Ponies in the Caves and A Story to Relate To, but reads independently.

This story is fantastic. There wasn't a single chapter that didn't give me chills or bring a tear to my eye. The way you describe the selflessness of the soldiers, and Redheart's unrelenting drive to save them, no matter the personal cost, was exemplary. I look forward to more of your work.

-SGTBRONY

Has a Black Company feel to it with the medic POV. Great story so far!

-Lerris

Cover art by Pabbles, by commission. Thanks!

With massive thanks to the folks in the Discord for comments and advice, and Totallynotabrony, Raleigh, Sledge115, and ChudoJogurt for detailed pre-reading, in whole or in part. Any remaining errors are fully my own.

Author's notes and commentary blog, with big spoilers.