A team of unicorns can raise the sun...but Nightmare Moon will rush to strike them down.

How many ponies does it take to KEEP the sun up for an entire day, keep the crops growing, and keep hope alive?

And what will they do tomorrow?

(Cover picture is an MLP screencap, edited a little.)

Really, you can ignore the rest of this stuff before the actual story, except that this story is an AU about a world in which Nightmare Moon won and Celestia lost...

(...and that this story really wasn't the best fit for a story contest about a computer game in which people pretend to be fighting WW2 style nations against each other.)

If you are reading this story as an entry in The Fourth Annual Equestria at War Writing Contest:

• I came to the contest for this year's theme: "A normal being's point of view and life amidst global events." I wanted to write about creatures who are "a normal being (i.e. not a country leader or general) at any point in the world".
• The contest rules say: "The story should fit into the Equestria at War universe. (Don’t worry too much, we’re very lenient with this.)" Because this story is about ordinary ponies trying to resist Nightmare Moon in a time before Equestria was equipped with lots of firearms and mechanized war vehicles, I am looking forward to the "very lenient" part of the rules.
• The contest rules say "All submissions must be submitted to moderation before the deadline, and be in the 2021 Contest folder up to seven days after deadline at the latest." I am definitely submitting this story to the contest folder less than seven days before the deadline.

When faced with an impossible request, what will Spike choose to do? To make matters worse, that request comes from his elderly brother in all but blood, Shining Amor. Will he agree to protect the most prized treasure of his brother?

*If you are feeling generous you can buy me a Ko-Fi! or leave something on my tip Tip Jar!

*Couldn't find a better cover art. We lack more pics with Shining Armor and Spike bonding as siblings*

After her failure with the clones Chrysalis decides that she needs to learn more about the element bearers, Spike and Starlight before she comes up with her next plan. To bad for her no matter what disguise she picks it seems to be a mistake.

(Warning: There are a lot of sexual base humor in this but not the act it self.)

Now edited by ShadowSpider

In order to create the statue of her and her friends seen at the beginning of 'The Last Problem', Twilight makes a big decision, which was destined to have far bigger ramifications than she thought possible...

To put it mildly now.

Spike's always come up short on his luck with mares. All that's about to change. Probably not for the better. Oh, and there is that whole thing with the Changeling capitulation deal, which is unlikely to affect Spike. Nope, not at all.

Primary Cast: Spike, Pleiades (she's back, baby!)
Secondary Cast: Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Chrysalis, and more.

Set about ten years after the end of Season 4.

Note: This story is set in an alternate universe, where very little past season 4 will be referenced, and the changeling changes with Thorax and friends are retconned to hell!

Update: Dark tag added for some of the humor.

After a long night in the Everfree forest, Twilight, somehow, gets a date!

Now, she's doing everything she can to make sure that date will go perfectly.
But this time, she's going to deal with the big stuff first.

Like a 1000 year prophecy of certain vengeance by an ancient Earth pony queen.
Or a slight drought that may destroy Ponyville.
Or Discord being up to something.
Or the Yaks declaring war after Pinkie Pie doesn't eat a muffin.
Or spontaneous baldness.

Spike, on the other hand, has some errands to run and games to play.
Oh, and a paranoid princess to keep alive.

After years of being the runt of the litter (despite having no siblings), Spike finally comes into his own and starts to grow up and mature. The result is a unique bit of magic all his own, or so the theory goes: He awakens one morning to find words hanging overhead that call him [The Gamer], along with powers that let him 'live life as though it were a game'.

How he decides to handle all of this, and where things go from there? That would be a spoiler, and you all know how we feel about spoilers around here...

Frequently asked questions will be answered from time to time, and those answers linked here for the curious:
The First FAQ

The Mane 6 Leave Starlight in charge while they're off on a Friendship quest, so she does the responsible thing and call's Spike and Trixie to come and watch the world burn

This story is a sequel to Three Hoofwidths To The Left

There's nothing like a surprise library inspection for discovering code violations, especially when the pony conducting that examination is determined to find something. But Twilight keeps the tree running to her own standards, and that means true offenses are hard to come by. Really, there's just one little potential issue.

'Little' as in 'the crests come up slightly short of your spine. Oh, and it breathes fire.'

For some strange reason, the local trotting incarnation of bureaucracy has a problem with this.

(A stand-alone, no-prior-reading necessary part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group. New members and trope edits welcome. While this story takes place after the linked piece, no knowledge of those events is required.)

Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.

This story is a sequel to Triptych

He can't sleep. It was hard enough just getting Twilight back to bed and now that she's resting, all he can do is toss, turn, and completely fail to find a better placement for the basket. So as long as he's up anyway and trying to avoid disturbing his sister, there are worse things to do than take a quiet stroll around his sleeping town. Seeing what the world is like when he's the only one moving through it.

But there is one who knows that quiet world better than anypony, who isn't willing to let him travel without company.

And when two who share a secret meet under Moon, time becomes just one more thing to move through.

(Part of the Triptych Continuum, which has its own TVTropes page and FIMFiction group. New members and trope edits welcome.)

Now with author Patreon and Ko-Fi pages.

Cover art by Foxy Noxy, used under open permission.