My sister and I are nothing alike. She's a model, I'm a stunt flyer. She wears fancy clothes, I wear flight suits. She travels the world, strutting down runways and pouting for cameras. I make tornados for a living. Her name is Runway Project. I'm Lightning Dust. Totally different ponies.

So why does everypony have trouble telling us apart?

And what does she mean, she's here to stay?

I saw this character design and absolutely had to write a story about this chick. Cause DAYUM.

It's been a couple of weeks and way more than a couple of games since Pinkie Pie introduced the Mane Six to the joys of playing the classic real-time strategy title, Age of Empires II. Unanswered questions surround this mysterious game: where did it come from? Who made it? Why is there so much killing?

Never mind all that - Twilight Sparkle and her friends have a game to play!

NOTE: Though I've tried to make the story more about the relationships between the four gamers (no Rarity or Fluttershy, sorry!) than about the game itself, some rudimentary knowledge about Age of Empires II is required if you want to understand what is going on. I wrote this as a short-ish story so I'm not really going to go into technical details much.

=====INFO AFTER BREAK=====
References consulted while writing story:
ZeroEmpires (Commentary on Competitive AoE II matches)
wikiHow (5 Ways to Make Your Economy Boom in Age of Empires II)
Wikipedia (for info on Byzantines, Moon & Vikings)
Luttwak, E. "The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire" (Harvard University Press, USA), 2009 (Byzantine military strategy)

Youtube links:
Prologue - PakAttack95 (Youtube Channel)
Main Menu and Victory Music - mikec1000 Civilization Themes

Cover Image:
Wikipedia
Age of Empires II
Cutie Mark Vectors by Hawk9mm (deviantART page)

Ebeneezer Knighty is visited by 3 Brony Spirits who warn him that his bitcoin hoarding is numbing him to the true spirit of Christmas

Memories hurt; she knows this. A thousand years on the moon with nothing but your own thoughts is torture upon a level no pony could ever achieve. Sometimes, the easiest thing to do is hope, and pretend they never existed. But nothing can change the past.

And sometimes, those memories don't want to be forgotten.

Twilight Velvet has a few choice words about A K Yearling's new book, and they aren't very nice thoughts.

Collab with Rainbowbob

Edited by: The Abyss

Ponyville is a small, friendly, tight-knit community where children play, the secret police watch, and hooded figures lurk in the abandoned laundromat after dark. Welcome... to Ponyville.

Crossover with Welcome to Night Vale.

Fancy Pants and his lovely wife Fleur are quite possibly Canterlot's most heroic duet. Together they conquered countless events, faced hordes of snobbish socialites, and emerged victorious from the most dire of faux pas. May their bravery and finesse be forever remembered on parties to come!

There is a missing element in their perfect life, though: the joy of having a child and becoming a family. When conventional methods fail, will the couple muster enough courage to seek out the alternative, or will they stay a duet forever?

Enter Chestnut—a daring filly from beyond Equestria, out of their social stratum, and definitely exceeding their boldest expectations.

For better or worse.

*Despite the cover art this is not a human turned into a pony story.*

On his way to a meeting in the next town over, Lee James Harrison almost gets thrown off a snowy mid December road by a speeding pick up truck. After he was able to successfully evade said truck, he noticed something rather peculiar out of the corner of his eye right before he slammed into it and drove into a nearby ditch.

Waking up in a bed in a strange room, Lee Harrison finds himself torn from his family life and placed into a new life as a butler, working for a ruler of a species he's never seen before.

Cover art drawn by myself, digitized by RandomReader-001

Beginning Chapters and so on edited by: Bruceman360

*Character tags will be added as the story progresses*

Discord has been reformed— mostly. Still, Princess Celestia seems to have trouble controlling what appears to be a seething hatred for him whenever nopony else is around.

When the Princess approaches him one day before a royal ball, Discord begins to see the situation a bit better.

Applejack tries to sleep but she can't. Trying to ease her mind, she starts to think of her parents but it leads to more problems.

Dark tag is there for a reason.

Pre-read by: Skeeter the Lurker

Edited by: The Abyss, Pearple Prose, SolidFire, Mikemeiers