There is a flood on the horizon. Equestria's enemies have united, and the coming tide will not only change the course of history on one world, but two, and bring about a monumental meeting that will bring brothers and sisters from those two worlds together.

At long last, the downtrodden will rise.

The battle begins.

It was a night that will forever be burned into the memories of everypony. One fateful night in Equestria everything changed. The princesses who had ruled over the world with kindness and heart were gone, and a new ruler had taken their place.
Years have passed since that event. Ponies have grown up, aged, and moved on with their lives. Equestria has become a very different place over the span of these years.
Our story begins when a face resurfaces in Equestria. When a weathered, scarred, but familiar face steps into the light.

This is the fanfic based on Astringe's Bad Future series on DeviantART. He did some great designs of the characters, so make sure you give that gallery a peruse before you read the fic.

Also worth mentioning, he's been nice enough to plop any pics he does based on chapters I've written into this separate gallery, so there will be less spoilers for readers just jumping in to the story.

NOTE: The canon of my story picks up at the start of Season 3, where it begins to diverge away from the canon of the show. I've never read the IDW comics nor have I seen Equestria Girls, so the events of my story aren't canon at all with them.

Now has it's own TVTropes page!
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/BadFutureCrusaders

This story is a sequel to For the Hive

A few months after the events of Queen Twilight Sparkle's reveal that she and her hive can produce love, the changeling hives find themselves in an arms race. As Aegis Altair watches over her queens haggling with the minotaur emperor, she finds something that just might give Phoenix's Roost the edge it needs to come out on top.

This is a short interlude before hive book 3.

Twilight Sparkle has too much magic, and it will take her decades to learn to control it. Her spectacular loss of control during her entrance exam only proves that fact. She is a danger to herself and others.

After Sunset Shimmer’s disappearance, Princess Celestia needs a new student to bear The Element of Magic to defeat Nightmare Moon. With all of Equestria at stake, Twilight Sparkle…is not the pony she needs.

Princess Celestia seals Twilight Sparkle’s magic with the distant promise of one day teaching her.

But there are two diarchs of Equestria. Amidst a lucid dream, an offer is made.

“Hello, Twilight. Would you like to be my student?”

Cover art provided by Lafiir.

This story is a sequel to Lost into Shadow

Twilight has failed, or rather, she has succeeded. Her darkness is her power, and together with her husband, Queen Twilight has a new plan for all of Equis. The black castle rises to greater power than has ever been seen before. War is brewing while alliances are forged and others are broken. The days of harmony are dead and gone, and all the world will be forced to mobilize against the might of the Nightmare Hordes. Will they prevail in the faces of Wrath and Despair? Do they have any hope of someday returning to a time of peace and love?
....
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Not a chance, because in Chapter 1, Hope dies.

There are consequences to every action, but we can't always predict what they will be. I stay up at night wondering what I could have done differently, but I've already paid the price for my actions. All I can do now is deal with the consequences, and I've got several great friends to help me do it.

Edited by: Neko Majin C, 314, Kleora, Dash The Stampede

Her heart was broken. Her reputation in Ponyville was in ruins. A menace, they called her. Said she wasn't a real hero. Blamed her for the sudden disappearance of their real hero, Mare Do Well. She'd even been abandoned by her five best friends. Everything she thought she could count on was destroyed.

Bent on vengeance and driven by her raw emotions, Rainbow Dash becomes a villain that Ponyville won't soon forget. But she soon finds that not everything in Ponyville is quite what it seems.

Special thanks to DragonShadow, who pre-read and helped me revise this story. Thanks also to JofY, who gave suggestions for the second revision.

The comments are full of unmarked spoilers, so watch out.
Obviously, this contains massive spoilers for the season 2 episode "The Mysterious Mare Do Well," and one must have seen it before this story will make much sense.
Rated Teen for violence and some blood.

Twilight Sparkle has obtained the combined power of all four princesses of Equestria. Wielding this power, she confronts Lord Tirek, but the result of their fight is a tie. When he holds her friends hostage, she is forced to make a difficult choice.

All is not lost, however: one force remains in Equestria that could give her the edge she needs to defeat her foe, save her friends, and restore the world. She need only retrieve it from Zecora and place it around her neck...

Runner-up (one-shots category) in the Twyrant's Kingdom Competition.

Story inspiration: Corruption of a Desperate Mare, by Chris Wöhrer.

Edited by NightWolf289, AugieDog, and Prak. Thanks also to Pascoite for his WRITE review.

Rated teen for gore and dark themes.

Featured on:
Fimfiction.net Feature Box (05/12/14)
Equestria Daily!
The Royal Guard's Fic Spotlight #10.

This story is 100% approved by Twilight's Library!
Approved by Nonpareil Fiction!

Growing up is never an easy thing... Especially for dragons. But when Twilight asks Spike to run some errands for her, the maturing dragon feels that, this time, the mare crossed the line.

[Cover image by Limearts]

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]