Nightmare Moon's return was not without incident and injury. Those that were chosen by the Elements suffered and were pained in the attempt to save Celestia's younger sister. While they succeeded, the trial left scars.

Princess Celestia sees this as everything going as planned and is ready to use the new Bearers for anything she needs taken care of.

Princess Luna thinks the group should be protected and only used when the situation is at it's most dire.

A compromise is made and Luna is allowed to form a team to deal with threats that do not require an orbital strike from a friendship canon. Provided she can find those willing.

With the memory of Nightmare Moon still fresh in every ponies mind, Luna is unable to find ponies who are willing to serve her readily.

So what is a Princess of the Night to do?

Not recruit ponies obviously.

[ Story has my usually Lewd jokes and comments but no sex and thus the warning is here. Story not affiliated with TGaP or SiS. It's just yet another idea i had. ]

This story is a sequel to Before the Storm: The Rise of Firefly

Three hundred years after Luna's banishment, an uneasy peace has collapsed and war erupts between the United Tribes of Equestria and the growing Gryphon Empire, who seek to supplant Princess Celestia as ruler of the heavens and claim the rich lands of the pony nation for their own. With the border defenses shattered, Canterlot endangered and the armed forces unable to stem the onslaught, who can stop the relentless Gryphon war machine as it overruns province after province, scoring victory after victory as it closes in on the Equestrian capital city?

In this time of peril, when the entire pony nation teeters on the brink of defeat, a champion will rise to lead the resistance to the gryphon invasion, becoming not just the commander of an elite force, but a symbol of Equestrian valor and fighting spirit. A born warrior and leader, the name of Firefly will be one day revered as not just the founder of the Wonderbolts, but as Equestria's greatest hero...

Taking place seven hundred years before present and canon to both the Gentlemanverse and Turnabout Storm novelization, this is the story of Rainbow Dash's ancestor, the founding of the Wonderbolts, and their role in the bloodiest conflict of Equestrian history. It is a multistory Magnum Opus consisting of several discrete stories, as described below:

Book 1: The War Begins

The Gryphon Empire invasion of Equestria launches at dawn with an all-out assault on the Equestrian Army and Aerial Corps border bases, accompanied by deep-strike raids against Cloudsdale and the Royal Guard training base of Fort Spur.

Will Princess Celestia unleash her enormous power to end the war quickly? Can Outpost Epsilon withstand the onslaught long enough for the much-maligned Royal Navy to reach them? And can the civilian populace of Cloudsdale resist a massive and determined air attack by the Imperial elite against its all-important weather factories and storm cloud production facilities?

Book 2: Rally and Recover

With the border defenses crushed and the remains of Outpost Epsilon evacuated, both sides lick their wounds, hastily reorganizing and preparing for the next Imperial offensive aimed deeper into Equestria.

Can missing Cloudsdale be located near the borders of Thestralslovakia? Will the once-disloyal and still-distrusted bat-ponies that live there side with Equestria or the Empire? What is the Imperial invasion plan? What role will the Changelings play in the conflict? And what will happen when a sixteen-year old gryphon cub faces off with the gryphon-hating pony named Thunderbolt; one of the most lethal and bloodthirsty beings to ever live...?

Book 3: Second Offensive

While the fate of Cloudsdale is negotiated and Firefly's forces prepare for additional action, the second Imperial offensive begins with an assault against the badly outnumbered Equestrian Army at Maresk two hundred miles inside Equestria, attempting to pocket and destroy the thousands of sorely-needed soldiers based there.

Can an out-of-favor earth pony Colonel rally his regiment to save the city and an entire Army Corps? Or will the city's soldiers and civilians alike face the fate of the border bases, becoming yet another crushing defeat in the Imperial drive on Canterlot?

• Writers: Denim_Blue and Firesight with occassional writing assists from Leo Archon and AJ_Aficionado
• Prereaders: AJ_Aficionado, SilentWoodFire, TheGoldCrow, Denim_Blue
• Guest Writers: AJ_Aficionado, Denim_Blue

Maps of Equestria and Equis: https://www.fimfiction.net/chapter/1105220

Twilight had never questioned the nature of the Tree of Harmony. To her at least, it stood as a sentinel, a silent guardian watching over Equestria and keeping disharmony at bay.

She soon starts to have questions and misgivings when she inadvertently witnesses the horrifying fate of hers and the rest of her friend's twisted doppelgängers. Did something happen to the Tree of Harmony, or was it always this way?

Twilight aims to resolve this mystery once and for all. Little does she realize that this mystery goes far deeper—the truth far more terrifying than she can imagine.

Will she be able to solve this nightmarish mystery with her sanity intact, or will she surrender and be lost to madness?

After some deliberation I chose to put a Crossover tag as the whole story uses many assets from several stories in the Cthulhu Mythos (most of them written by authors other than Lovecraft).

Fantastic cover art done by Mix-up!

Steady Hoof, like most ponies, has a cutie mark. However, unlike most ponies, her cutie mark represents something... not quite on the right side of the law. Given her circumstances, she has been hired on as a personal assassin for Princess Luna.

She's not happy about it.

She thinks?

When I moved to Ponyville, I was lost. Then I met her, and I began to realise that there was more to my cutie mark than I could have possibly imagined.

Edited by:
Gara The Author, Nova Quill, RoMS
Thank you three for being my intrepid pre-readers and editors!

The School of Friendship has new Teacher Assistants!

The Cutie Mark Crusaders have been welcomed into staff on a probationary basis in order to assist their sisters (and Rainbow Dash) with their classes. Today just happens to be the day for the School Trip to Canterlot Castle for a certain group.

When things go wrong and our characters are flung into the Void and come out in one of many worlds at war, what kind of challenges will they have to face? And if they survive... what will they bring back with them to Equestria?

Many thanks to Petrichord and GapJaxie for their feedback and assistance.

Shattered Skies has lived quite some time. He had done well for himself over the past few thousand years; staying out of the public eye and remaining generally uninvolved from pony society while he tended his forests.

Who wouldn't want that, right?

His job came with excellent security and fringe benefits, but after he was betrayed by a princess he trusted, all he wants to do is to live a normal life even if the world tells him otherwise.

Oc disclaimer: The original characters that appear in the story that are not my own have been obtained from the original owners via written permission.

When a major magical mishap leaves Discord homeless and seemingly without his powers, he gets it in his head that he can simply stay with Twilight until he has somewhere else to go. He's rather insistent, too.

But hey, having an annoying and presumptuous roommate that causes ridiculous and unpredictable things to happen all around them simply by existing can't be all that terrible, can it?

...on second thought, maybe don't answer that. Just pray she doesn't end up falling in love with the fool.

This is an alternate timeline set in the same universe as The Ties that Bind -- a "what if?" scenario, or "sister story" if you will. Reading The Ties that Bind is not required, but it is recommended.

On a cold winter night, tragedy befalls Twilight's family and she barely manages to escape with her life. Now she's lost and alone in a place she doesn't recognize.

She's left to wander aimlessly with nothing but the dark memory of that night to keep her company, but that's about to change.

Something awoke in the lavender filly that night -- a new kind of magic she's never had a chance to study before, and she soon finds she's not the only filly with dark memories and something new to learn.

Thankfully they both come across a strange town with a pony that just might be able to cultivate their new talents.

Tragedy strikes the Sparkle estate one winter evening and Twilight finds herself cold, alone, and far from home.

Fortunately she stumbles across two fillies who may have more in common with her than she realizes. With no place else to go, nopony else to turn to, and no clear way back home, Twilight decides to stay with the fillies and their caretaker while she tries to piece together the mysteries of what happened to her family and why.

Bonds will be forged.

Secrets will be unraveled.

And a great journey will be undertaken.

Additional tags: Sad, Slice of Life (I don't care if it contradicts the Adventure tag, things are gonna get Slice-of-Life-y)