It's been a year now since Twilight vanished after attempting a sonic rainboom. She's spent her time fighting in WWII alongside her brothers in arms. Now, after a bad jump, she finds herself back in Equestria. After a well deserved rest, a nice, warm bath, and the most unusual breakfast, she begins to tell her story.

Even the tiniest change can alter the future in ways you can't imagine.

The battle with Lord Tirek did not end the way it was supposed to. The centaur was still sent back to Tartarus as he should have been and Equestria and all of its' ponies were saved, but thanks to one final act of defiance, Twilight vanished without a trace not long afterwards.

One month after her disappearance, Twilight has returned to Equestria, but not in a state anypony was expecting her to. Now they're all filled with questions about what has happened to her, but what tale does she have to share with them? What is she willing and unwilling to tell them?

Can a battered phoenix still rise from the ashes?

Based on Visiden Visidane's Upheaval series, which begins in Breaking Point, this story is non-canon with that story but written as a fan tribute to the series. I highly recommend checking out the canon series if you're a fan of adventure and military exploits.

Equestria is a peaceful realm, but one that has been kept in the dark about the price of that peace. The Heartland, as it is called, has been protected for generations by the Barrier Lands, a realm outside of Equestria that is occupied by ponies who make up a large army known as the Legion, controlled by the brother of the Princesses, Prince Terrato. This Legion has been fighting an ongoing war for centuries against a host of deadly enemy species that would gladly destroy Equestria if not for the Legion's efforts to keep them at bay.

After a series of events leads Twilight Sparkle and her friends to discover all this, the Barrier Lands and the Heartland are reunited, and the peaceful Equestrians told the truth. However this reunification is not entirely smooth and has with it a terrible price of its own; the draft. Equestrains who have never known a day of violence in their lives must now serve in the Legion, whether they want to or not.

Trixie Lulamoon, Blossomforth, and Coco Pommel are three such ponies, drafted into the Legion and sent to the Western Barrier Lands, where the dangerous bear-like race known as the ursans rule a vast realm of mountains and forest. Though their posting at Beartrap Fortress is meant to be a quiet one, out of the way of the main fighting, these three mares suddenly find themselves stuck in the forefront of an unexpected invasion. Ursans gather in numbers not seen in centuries under the rule of a new warchief, and it seems Beartrap Fortress is directly in the path of this new assault.

To make matters worse it seems there is an even deadlier new threat lurking in the shadows behind this invasion, one that could change the very dynamic of the Legion's struggle to protect Equestria.

Can a single company of raw, inexperienced Equestrian draftees make a difference in such a battle? Its time for the Legionnaires of Equestria to find out what they're made of, one way or another.

Diplomacy has failed. Six years have passed Equestria's crowning of the princess of friendship, ushering in a supposed unprecedented age of peace and harmony. The concept of warfare is, to most ponies, nothing more than an unfathomable legend. They have let their guard down.

An unknown enemy has seized the opportunity to attack Equestria with terrifying new weapons of war, bent on taking the fertile land and restoring an ancient order. The valiant efforts of the Royal Guard have given Princess Twilight and her arcane scientists time to research and develop a response to their attackers, and the time has come for that response to be implemented. Utilizing weapons and tactics borrowed from another world, five squads under the command of Princess Luna will infiltrate the forests of the Equestrian Northwest to destroy a revolutionary magical matrix that Twilight refers to as the "radio" - a tool that allows enemy ponies to communicate across vast distances instantly.

Nightmare Two is comprised of three foalhood friends who, rather than be separated from each other in the draft, volunteer to become one of the five Nightmare squads. With their bodies forever altered to suit the needs of their mission, the three young mares join legions of ponies armed with powerful weapons to partake in a horrifying new breed of warfare - Equestria's first in over one thousand years.

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Heads up, folks. If you wouldn't mind leaving a comment alongside the thumbs-down, I'd appreciate it. This is my first foray into fan fiction and although it's a hobby I nonetheless wish to get better. :)

Got some FAQ's for you guys as well!

- Alternate universe in which the events of "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" did not occur. (As much as I loved it! :D)

- Numerical age tends to vary with headcanon, but the CMC here were just getting started with their adult lives when the draft went into effect.

- The war is pony v. pony, utilizing firearms and the Equestrian equivalent of a tank. The underlying headcanon is that ponies used firearms similar to muskets and tracked armored vehicles akin to our tanks in times of old, and what the enemy currently employs is essentially the natural progression of these technologies.

- There are no real-world weapons or equipment i.e. "Panzer IV," or "M16 assault rifle." Particularly acute details such as the caliber of weapons are also absent.

- Technology is based on that of WWI with some WWII elements. Firearms are primarily bolt-action.

- The "radio" spell matrix functions as what we know to be a radio, but is not identical.

- All four of a Night Mare's legs are permanently replaced by the augments.

- Night Mares are female. Stallions proved unable to properly animate the limbs.

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Hold up, now - fanart? You guys rock. Like, for real. Thanks a lot!

1. A great YouTube video coming from The_Pegasus_Box. Thanks, bud!
Check it out!

2. Click here for the collection on DArt.

3. https://derpibooru.org/740375?scope=scpeac921b191f688d04521575f31608785cbc3bbaa1
[img]https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2014/10/10/740375__safe_anthro_apple+bloom_gun_artist-colon-pusspuss_night+mares.png[/img]

This is the first book of The Humanity Within Trilogy. Its sequel is What I've Done.

I wasn't always like this, a monster, running through the woods on an alien planet. I was once a man. I had dreams, a girlfriend, and a great job.
Then They came. In the middle of the night, They scooped me from my home, and... changed me.

Now I'm a beast, a demon the like of which the world I've become stranded on has never seen before, scraping by on the fringes of society, hiding from the natives, and doing my best to avoid notice.

After all, who could ever be friends with a monster?

Cover Image done by the very talented PaintSplotch! You can find his FimFic account here.
And here is his DeviantArt Account!
Now 100% approved by Twilight's Library!
Mad props to my prereaders:
ThatPonyWithASword.
Admiral Applejack.
JXWheeler

Octavia has always been obsessed with the occult, specifically vampires. She dreams of being a creature of the night, soaring through the air, sucking the blood from her victims.That's all it ever was though, a dream.
Or at least it was until she met Vinyl Scratch. Now Octavia is the servant of the all powerful vampire. In return for services rendered, Vinyl will make Octavia's dream into a reality.

A reality Vinyl wants no part of, but she does have to admit, Octavia has her uses.
artist megarexatera

TV TROPES PAGE! Show it the love, people!

Tartarus: the fabled prison said to hold all of the demons of Equus at bay.

Few truly know what lies behind the impenetrable doors Cerberus guards. Some say that it is a pit, infinite in it's depth and darkness, from which there is no return. Other claim it to be a hellish plain, filled with fire and pain and suffering, to punish the demons for their sins.

All of them are wrong.

Tartarus is small. An inescapable cell for a single prisoner. But the tales about it's purpose are not false.

For this captive human holds the key to unleashing upon Equestria forces which have not been seen for centuries, forces which predate Equestria by many an age.

And soon, he shall be free.

EDIT: Featured on 5/25/14! SUH-WEEEEET!

[img]http://i.imgur.com/6MrWqNZ.png[/img]

It has been said that nothing lived on the land of Equestria before the three pony tribes became one and settled there. It has also been said that ponies cultivated and created Equestria with their own hooves.

This is wrong.

Thousands of years after the cultivation of Equestria, Zachery a human soldier whose sole task is to protect the human race is allowed to take a leave of absence. It has been thousands of years since the last pony sighting and being in constant state of wartime is deemed too stressful for both the militants and civilians involved.
While this is happening, Twilight Sparkle an alicorn princess of Equestria unearths information on a lost race that lived in Equestia thousands of years ago. Unknowingly to the both her and Zachery, she slowly sets into motion the events that will cause the two species that had violently divided to once again meet. For better or for worse.

[Second-Person] [Human in Equestria] [I know the image is human, but the ponies are anthro.]
After five months of living in Equestria, more specifically in Canterlot Castle, it finally feels like the constant staring is long gone. You've gotten acquainted with a handful of guards, and even had a good friendship with two civilians. Life is starting to become a lot better, until somepony makes an off-hand comment about Nurse Redheart's paper on your health.

Rated Teen for: Language
An asterisk next to the chapter name means that it has been edited.

A huge thank you to HumanSVD for the proofreading, editing, and creative input!

This story is a sequel to Wild Card

Back by popular demand, Ace continues his misadventures across Equestria and surrounding lands. Along the way he must deal with Black Brew Smugglers, the Equestrian authorities, an old foe returning and his quickly dwindling supply of tobacco. At the end of the day though, there remains only two important questions:
Can he get away with this?
and
How much fun can he have whilst doing so?

Part of the Chess Game of the Gods universe
Cover art is by the ever-awesome Kaze1121