EDIT: Sequel is now up! Flying Forward

Rainbow Dash has done it again. She's crashed and hurt herself. But this time it's not just physical injuries that her and her friends have to deal with. Rainbow Dash's brain was severely traumatized so it's up to her friends to nurse her back to health. But can they deal with this new Rainbow Dash?

Warning: Contains mental age regression and everything you would guess that goes with that.

**Featured 5/14** I can't thank you all enough!

The Conversion Bureau never made any sense anyway, but here are some places where it would have made less sense.
Not necessarily worlds where the ponies would lose the fight - just worlds where conversion wouldn't logically work.

Before suggesting a World, read the index to make sure I haven't done it already.

Castling is a special move in chess involving one of the player’s rooks and the player’s king. The move consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook on the player's first rank, then moving the rook to the square over which the king crossed. After this move, the king and the rook end up just next to one another.

And thanks to a friend’s kindness, a certain calculating, chess master filly would have a chance to end up closer to her princess than she ever thought. But can a filly like her truly leave her past behind to find another way? Can you learn to trust another when manipulation is your destiny?
Can a chess player like Cozy Glow learn to be a pawn?

Princess Celestia has retired. Her reign is over, and her stewardship of Equestria is at an end. But that doesn't mean that her little ponies have stopped needing her. Her time as supreme political puppet master has given her a unique set of skills; networking, guiding, mentoring, and of course a little bit of manipulation. So she opens up a new business: Auntie Tia's Matchmaking Service!

Ponies come from far and wide to tell Auntie Tia their romantic woes and ask for her help, and she never turns away a pony in need. But her new clients are among the toughest she has ever faced - have Celestia's matchmaking abilities met their match?

Print copy now available!

Grogar's ancient machinations finally come together as he leads the Legion of Doom against Canterlot. Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow want to rule for themselves, however, and intend to betray him as soon as it's convenient. Can Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash save Equestria?

Other significant characters: Spike, Starlight Glimmer, Sunburst, Trixie, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Cadance, Shining Armor, Student/Young Six. Spoiler characters: Windigos, Mean Twilight Sparkle, King Sombra.

Author's note: I decided to rewrite episodes S9E24 and S9E25 as if Grogar were real and the finale were a four-parter. This story takes everything up to and including S9E23 as canon, and took inspiration from a huge variety of sources, including the finale trailer (though it does not strictly hold canon to the trailer).

I give my deep, heartfelt thanks my kind editors and prereaders, as well as the lovely anons on /mlp/ where I've been posting the first draft. My deepest thanks of all go to triq267, who's been helping me at every stage of the story with ideas and advice.

Featured 1/6/2020, and again 1/14/2020, 8/3/2020, 9/17/2020, 10/3/2021, and 10/25/221! Thank you guys!

The Accursed Alicorn Amulet. An item of great power, capable of giving any pony wearing it the power reserved only for alicorns. The power of a god among mortals. All of that, only at one price; your sanity.

Not an easy decision, isn't it? Sure, a mind is something precious and all that, but the temptation of having such a power can be too much for certain ponies. It was too much for Trixie, and she fell for it. It's a good thing that Twilight Sparkle managed to save her from a life of insanity.

But, what would happen if Trixie's sanity wasn't the only price to pay? What else could the Amulet take from Trixie?

Co-written with nightwalker

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Chapter 1's Live Reading

We walk down our long roads of life, but what of the roads not taken? Twilight and Applejack are carried along a different path, where their fates were bound in new ways. Fresh sorrows and avoided crisis gives friendship's flower a new shape.

This story will make an alternative universe, but will start grounded in the world we know. Have you read my other works? I love canon. I will respect canon, but we are also changing a core fact, and its effects will ripple outward. Our beloved ponies will be changed, as they must. The stream of fate carries them on tides we never witnessed before.

Twilight, Applejack, I hope you're both ready. Come, the water's fine, and I invite you to swim with me. Let us see what would happen if Applejack's mother survived where fate had once demanded her end.

Done for a patron, will update 1/month with 4k chapters.

Cover art by Jowybean!

Trixie is arrested for holding Ponyville hostage under a giant dome. Instead of jail, she chooses to serve her sentence as a member of the Lunar Guard.

It goes about as well as expected.

Concept and prereading by Rated Ponystar.
Editing by Rune Heart
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