When my parents told my sister and I that we would be moving to Canterlot, Virginia, I thought it would be a chance for a fresh start. Finding out that Canterlot was populated by cartoon characters put a dent in that plan, and being the only one who noticed for some reason didn't help. On the plus side, I made two new friends! Sure, they might be a little insane eccentric, but at least they haven't ghosted and/or knifed me yet.

Cover Image

This story is a sequel to Rider on the Storm

For the briefest of moments, Anonymous wielded absolute power. He single-handedly destroyed the city of Canterlot, laid waste to Ponyville, decimated the Everfree Forest, and came dangerously close to annihilating the very Tree of Harmony itself. And he had an absolutely fantastic time doing it.
Right up until he lost.
Now he's stuck as a statue under the watch of the princesses he tried to subjugate, awaiting the time he'll be locked away forever, with the key no doubt thrown into a volcano. But from the very beginning, Anonymous suspected that the shenanigans of the good guys would cost him his victory at the last moment, and so he laid plans with his most loyal of subjects—all former soldiers of the Storm King he betrayed to obtain his power—to arrange for his release should the opportunity arise.
Unfortunately, he wasn't counting on the ponies calling in help from a faraway land. Enter the Four Princes of Zebrica, all wielding the same exact power that Anonymous did, and knowing a thing or two about how to put bad apples like him away for good. This is made even worse by the sorry state of Anonymous's storm beast forces, having hit hard times in the months since his defeat.
But not all is lost for the petrified supervillain. Because in a rare twist of luck, the Princes just so happen to unknowingly bring with them a zebra criminal with his own dirty little secret. A secret that not only secures Anonymous's release from captivity, but just might be the start of a horrifying new partnership, and with it, the birth of a new force of evil.
And of course, with all that going on, there's always the matter of the nascent Legion of Doom, plotting to bring their own age of darkness to Equestria as well...

Takes place during the final two seasons of Friendship Is Magic. With a few alterations here and there, because I HATE THE ANTI-FIM I HATE THE ANTI-FIM :bread:
Reading Rider on the Storm is strongly advised if you want any idea of what the hell is happening in this story.

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.

The Unity Crystals had been acting oddly for a few days, piquing Sunny and her group’s interest. The artifacts' power was unknown, holding untold secrets of the ancient world within them, but what it bestows upon them is beyond any of their wildest imagination. With endless questions, and an absolute need for more information, the ponies begin a journey to find some kind of an answer.

Leading them to the forgotten ends of Equestria, the path to their goal sends them through the ancient world where the foundations of friendship itself were laid. Though the answers they search for may be better off unanswered.

Sunny knew of the ancient world, the Elements of Harmony, and the six ponies that saved Equestria time and time again. She'd learned how the Element bearers' stories started, and how they ended, all except one - Twilight Sparkle. She always dreamed about learning more of her hero, but never would have imagined how she and her friends would soon become entwined in her tale.

Time can do many things, and for the idol of friendship, it can be her undoing.

This story was started and heavily planned when only Chapter 2 of Make Your Mark was available.

Full Resolution Cover Art Here

Thanks to Enigmatic Otaku and Gonderlane for helping edit the story!

Story cover art by: SyrupyyyArt

Conflict has been boiling between the two Apple siblings for a while now, but when the trouble between them seems to reach it’s climax, an unexpected twist leaves them back at square one. Big Macintosh, the hardworking backbone of Sweet Apple Acres, claims he isn’t Big Mac. He denies being himself, and denies being the big brother to Applejack.

At an impasse on what to do, Ponyville’s local psychiatrist is called to help find out what happened to Big Macintosh. Can she find out what is going on with him? Whatever the truth is, the mind inside of Big Macintosh makes one thing perfectly clear. “I Am Not Big Mac.”

Content Warnings: Discussion of Death, Loss, Grief. Explicit Language.

WARNING: Spoilers in the comments.

Ragar the Ageless has seen many things in his non-life. He has seen fields of cotton candy, the wails of the soon-to-be-dead chanting in chorus. Once he even saw a unicorn. Well, there are a lot of those in Equestria, so maybe that one was less noteworthy. But still, he's seen a lot. Now he wants others to see him in all his glorious evil. The only issue is he's not so good at it.

** EDIT **

Well crap, featured with every chapter. I feel all special and stuff. So let me give you all some love. You're all wonderful people, trees or whatever internet capable folks have been reading.

Dang, look at all those likes. I'm feeling the love. Thank all of you for enjoying my wonderful trip through insane necromancy.

Many Thanks to Locke_Jaw for his wonderful artwork that is my new cover.

No one was prepared for the second Chernobyl disaster.

The first one was already bad enough, scaring and poisoning the land with no possibility of future habitation. The second one was infinitely worse. In an instant, the ancient Ukrainian forests and decaying Soviet apartment blocks were made into something wholly other. Local wildlife was twisted and mutated beyond recognition, none residing within the zone at the time survived. A new unseen force moved throughout the landscape, twisting reality on a whim. And still, there are those either brave, stupid, or desperate enough to travel into this forsaken place. Their ideologies vary greatly, some seek to understand the Zone. Other's seek to destroy it in order to protect the outside world. And other's seek simply to profit off of it.

Regardless of their goals, they all go by the same broad term.

Stalkers.

One such Stalker, a man by the name of Nikolai, suddenly finds himself thrown into an entirely different kind of zone. One that you cannot escape from, and with a completely different set of hazards than the one he is used to.

The Equestrian Wasteland.

Isolated from her friends and taken prisoner in the middle of a war, Twilight must deal with the very real dangers of being percieved as an enemy as well as the nightmares of her arrival on 'Earth'. Can she overcome her own fears and the fears of her captors? Will the wayward unicorn's assistance be a boon or a curse to the 'humans?' Most importantly, will she ever find her way home?

"In short, it's a story of friendship and plasma rifles, with the emphasis on the friendship. The characters are well written, the XCOM setting is fleshed out very well, and the story is compelling. If you love XCOM, you'll love the story, but even if you've never heard of it, it's more than worth giving the first 3 chapters a read.

There's excellent action later on, but the real strength lies in the collision between the friendly and naive world of Twilight Sparkle and the desperate world of humans fighting a losing war for survival and willing to do anything to turn the tide."

--Arzoo

(XCOM/FiM crossover)
(Cover art commissioned by a friend and created by the magnificent FoxInShadow!)
(Original cover art by the amazing Carnelian can be viewed here!)
(Gore tag for blood and some violence)
(Many thanks to the studius OminousTen, Arzoo, xXFluttershyForeverXx and finally Setokaiva for giving my rambles a once-over)
(Now with it's own TV Tropes page! Get to tropin' folks!)

Shortly after Queen Chrysalis' defeat at Canterlot, her army is demoralised and hungry, and the Queen herself is at her wits end - having locked herself in her bedroom, presumably to spare her subjects from her upcoming mental break in a short moment of compassion.

The Queen that leaves the room is far different from the one that entered it.

Queen Chrysalis, seemingly revitalised in her entirety, declares a change in course for her and her subjects. She promises to lead them to a new battlefield... and she swears victory in her name.

Adam Inns has always been a simple man. For him, whiling his days away in a log cabin with a good book and a good view is a life well spent, no matter which planet he inhabits. But one day, after a misunderstanding with a Royal Guard gets Celestia involved, she decides to have a little fun at Adam's expense, and he suddenly finds himself as the proud owner and sovereign of a brand-new country, his to do with as he pleases.

However, the joke slowly finds a life of its own, as the poor and outcast find themselves on Inns' doorstep, with nowhere else to go and little reason to love Equestria. As the new state begins to grow into its own, Adam discovers that the calculus of rulership is not as forgiving as he once thought - and as the Equestrian system shudders under the weight of a thousand years of status quo coming to an abrupt end, his newfound convictions soon put him on a collision course with his friend, Celestia... a course neither may be willing to correct.

Can harmony and friendship really prevail against cold, hard realpolitik?