Neigh Anything: Shining Armor and Princess Cadance relate the story of how they meet as high-school students at Canterlot Academy to Twilight Sparkle and her friends. Shining during school is a nerd who is stricken by Cadance's beauty and kindness and, with his other nerdy friends, vows to ask her to the upcoming dance before the top school's athlete Buck Withers can. Shining and his friends try to win Cadance over with a rock song, and then try to sabotage Buck during the championship polo match, but both plans backfire. Shining watches heartbroken when Buck asks Cadance to the dance. Cadance, who is also infatuated with Shining on the chance meeting, ditches Buck at the dance at the first chance she gets to catch up to Shining and affirm their shared love. Cadance and Buck are crowned the dance's Queen and King, but as Buck brags and openly humiliates Shining, Cadance, their friends, and the rest of the student body reveal how much of a bully he has been to them, and to cheers from the crowd, Buck is hoisted to the rafters while Shining and Cadance share their first dance and kiss.

Issues 15-16: Twilight finds her books are being eaten by a magical bookworm, while the rest of Ponyville find strange pods around the town. Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity magically enter the books to try to stop the bookworm and repair the damage but become sidetracked when they find themselves enacting various stories and over-embellish the original tales. Eventually, they are trapped in a white void, believing that the worm has completely eaten all their books. Meanwhile, in Ponyville, Applejack and Fluttershy find that the fictional characters from the books are emerging from the pods and plan to take over their world. Twilight and her friends realize they can create their own stories to lure the bookworm to them, while Applejack, Fluttershy, and Spike, trapped by the evil characters, send a message via a comic book to Twilight about their plight. Twilight shows the bookworm the damage its voracious eating has done to their friends, and the bookworm offers to help fix everything. Twilight, her friends and the bookworm return to Ponyville, and the bookworm's recollection of the stories returns the library to normal and wipes the fictional characters away.

Issue 23: Angel Bunny wakes to find Fluttershy missing and the rest of her animals running wild in the cottage. Getting no help from them or the woodland creatures, he goes to Ponyville only to find it empty of ponies. Angel finds the pets owned by the rest of the Mane Six, and Winona follows Fluttershy's scent and leads the group to the town's dam. There they discover a water sprite, whose singing has hypnotized the ponies into doing its bidding to tear down the dam. In order to prevent Ponyville from being flooded, Angel organizes the pets to lead an attack on the sprite. Winona and a growth-enhanced Opalescence scatter the ponies so that Angel and Gummy - flown in by Owlowiscious and Tank - can distract the sprite long enough to break its spell on the ponies. The sprite apologizes, explaining that it was only trying to help weaker sprites reach the ocean. As the ponies start working to find a new way for the sprites to make their journey, the pets are grateful for having had the chance to work together.

Discord in Time: As Fluttershy is getting ready to take the Cutie Mark Crusaders on an animal-watching field trip, a meteorite lands in her front yard. Discord emerges from it to visit her, but he has arrived one week ahead of their scheduled time. Tagging along with the group, he quickly becomes bored and offers to take them into Equestria's past so they can see much more exciting creatures. Their first stop is the civilization of Anugypt, very similar to ancient Egypt, whose ruler Anubis captures the group over an old grudge against Discord. They escape with the help of an army of cats, whose leader is a friend of Discord's, and flee through several other time periods before arriving in the prehistoric era. Here, a roc snatches up the Crusaders before Discord can react, and Fluttershy chastises him for always using his powers just to have fun, rather than to help others. Realizing his mistake, he calls in a favor from an animal friend of his in this time and saves the fillies. Discord understands that he still has much to learn about being a good friend and returns the group to the present day, first making sure that Fluttershy gets to see the beauty of the prehistoric creatures.

The Root of the Problem: When Ponyville is threatened by creatures and plants from the Everfree Forest, the Mane 6 enter it to find that the sentient deer, led by King Aspen and Prince Bramble, have taken to using the forest to take over Equestria. King Aspen points out how part of the forest is being razed by the minotaur business tycoon, Well-To-Do, for the construction of a theme park, and his activities have rendered the plants nearby unable to grow, and so they see their actions as taking back what is rightfully theirs. Twilight and her friends offer to try to negotiate with Well-To-Do, but the minotaur assets his activities are all within Equestrian law, if not morally suspect. One night, Bramble sneaks off to try to figure out what is going on, noticing that a smoothie mix used for the park has plant growth powers, but he is kidnapped by Well-To-Do. The minotaur forces King Aspen to agree to work for Well-To-Do as a park mascot to return Bramble, and Blackthorn, Aspen's second-in-command, decides it is time to fight back, and with help from Fluttershy convincing the creatures of Everfree and the other deer and ponies, they lay an attack on the construction site. Bramble sees more of the smoothie mix and directs their army to knock it over. The mix causes the forest to quickly grow back, ravaging the site, freeing Aspen, and quickly ending the battle. Well-To-Do asserts that he will be back with more equipment, and Aspen realizes that he can't stop him, but the Everfree creatures might, upon which the minotaur is eaten by a hydra. With the situation resolved, the deer apologize to the ponies and offer to help restore Ponyville and other areas affected back to normal.

Ponyville Days: As Twilight takes an overnight trip to Canterlot on royal business, the Ponyville residents gather to prepare for the annual Ponyville Days festival celebrating the founding of the town. Mayor Mare announces that a commemorative plaque will be placed at the site of the town's first structure and that the youngest filly in that family will be crowned Ponyville Days Princess. An argument quickly springs up between Applejack and Filthy Rich over which family should receive the honors. Granny Smith had cultivated the unique Zap Apple strain at Sweet Apple Acres, but Filthy's grandfather had opened a shop to sell the fruit, causing the new settlement to prosper. Since the Carousel Boutique now stands on the site of that first shop, Rarity takes Filthy's side; the town quickly splits into two factions, with Applejack's faction threatening to secede from Ponyville. By the time Twilight returns from her trip, the argument has deteriorated into a melee of flying pies and pioneer outfits. She had spent her time in Canterlot raising interest in the festival but is now ready to cancel it due to all the strife. However, a crowd of tourists is already on its way to Ponyville, leaving her at a loss as to what to do. She decides to visit her friends and other leading citizens individually, persuading them to each focus on one aspect of the festival and work separately from one another. The sheer size of the crowd quickly overwhelms the town, throwing all the events into chaos, and Twilight begs everypony to help each other out as best they can so that the visitors will be happy. The advice works, and even Applejack and Rarity put their differences aside and turn Sweet Apple Acres into a campground for the visitors, using Rarity's unsold pioneer outfits to make tents. As the festival draws to a close, Twilight presents a plaque to each of them - one to mark Ponyville's first residence at Sweet Apple Acres, the other for its first commercial building at what is now the Carousel Boutique.

Night of the Living Apples: After Celestia banished Nightmare Moon from Equestria, the latter sent debris from their battle into space in a fit of rage, vowing to return. In the present day, the debris, now tainted by Nightmare's magic, lands at Sweet Apple Acres and affects the apples there, making them sentient. When Applejack goes outside to investigate, she is attacked by them. The next day, the rest of the Mane 6, Spike, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders discover what has happened and are quickly captured despite their attempts to escape. The apples prove impervious to magic and easily conquer Ponyville; not even Luna can stop them. The Apples soon make plans to conquer all of Equestria, starting with Appleoosa. In hiding from the apples, Twilight temporarily turns Pinkie Pie into an apple to infiltrate Sweet Apple Acres and rescue a captured Spike. Pinkie also discovers an apple prisoner, named Good Apple, who does not share his fellow apples' desire for conquest. Pinkie is forced to leave both Spike and Good Apple behind after her cover is blown. Upon learning of this, Applejack wonders if the vampire fruit bats could be of any help, but Fluttershy expresses doubt of being able to communicate with them. Fortunately, Twilight has a solution. Using hypnosis, Twilight reawakens the thirst for apples Fluttershy gained during the period she was a pony/vampire fruit bat hybrid within her, causing her to transform back into Flutterbat.

However, as she is still unstable, they secure Flutterbat under the watchful eyes of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and Twilight uses a spell to transform herself and the other Mane 6 into vampire bat ponies, with more control of their sense. They fly off and begin to fight against the apples, freeing Spike and Good Apple. They learn that while they might be able to get rid of the meteor, that will not stop the sentient apples. While they are gone, Flutterbat, still struggling to keep control of her Fluttershy self, manages to break her bonds. As the other Mane 6 struggle against the mass of apples, Flutterbat arrives, having successfully contacted the vampire fruit bats, and they begin sucking the apples dry. With the tide turning against them, the lead apple has the others form a giant Spike-like monster to destroy Ponyville, Twilight, Pinkie and Spike let the others tackle the monster while they seek out the meteor. Twilight senses the magic from Celestia and Luna's battle centuries ago and uses some of it to super-charge Spike's fire breath, which he uses to power Pinkie's party cannon to launch the meteor into the depths of space. Meanwhile, as the giant apple monster ravages Ponyville, Rainbow Dash manages to put on a burst of speed to crash through the monster, replacing the bad apple leader that powers the apples with Good Apple. Good Apple is able to convince the others to stop attacking, and the situation is quickly resolved. With Celestia and Luna's help, the apples are relocated to a remote part of Equestria to allow them to develop their own society hidden away from other beings. Good Apple insists that the bad apple leader come with them, and Celestia reflects that everyone can have a bad side but it is knowing how to overcome that is what makes a pony a better being.

Issue 40: Twilight tells the Mane 6 how she first met Spike. On her first day as a student at Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, she was introduced to the same baby dragon she had hatched during her entrance exam. Celestia asked Twilight to take care of him when she is unable to, which soon proves to be a difficult task. Taking care of the baby resulted in a bad shift in Twilight's grades and making her feel overly stressed. Things came to a head when the dragon disrupted an open house banquet. Twilight took the dragon back to their room and after venting out her frustrations in a rant, the dragon began talking to her and Twilight ended up bonding with him over it. Twilight's parents came to check on her and Twilight decided to name the dragon "Spike" due to his attempts at saying "Smarty Pants", the name of Twilight's doll.

Rainbow Dash and the Very Bad Day: Rainbow Dash eagerly wakes up one day, excited for the next Daring Do book to be released. But on her way to the book's opening in Ponyville with Tank, she runs into a wall of cloud bricks, which gets her angry with the construction worker on duty. Her newly acquired bad mood soon spreads all around Ponyville and even to Shining Armor, his old group of high school friends, and the Royal Sisters. Zecora, the only one unaffected by everyone's bad mood, urges Tank to try and snap Rainbow out of it. This results in Rainbow yelling at Tank and making him cry. Seeing Tank cry snaps Rainbow out of it and she apologizes to him and her friends for her bad mood. Soon, everyone starts apologizing to each other, erasing their bad moods, and the Mane 6 hold a book reading party in the park.

A Pinkie Pie Story That Pinkie Pie Kinda Sorta Remembers: Pinkie asks Rarity to help her write a children's book as a gift to someone, the book itself being a parody of The Emperor's New Clothes. They both set to work, but their conflicting ideas for how to make the story from the art style to how it originally was written begin to irritate Rarity. They are eventually able to finish the book and much to Rarity's shock, Pinkie reveals that it was for her as a way of celebrating the day they met. Rarity is touched by the thought and gladly accepts, though Pinkie admits she may have had more fun making it.

Election: The playground Mayor Mare opened is destroyed by an earthquake. After many complaints from Ponyville, Filthy Rich decides to run for mayor, promising to make some changes when he's elected. The Mane Six (joined by Starlight Glimmer) realized they haven't had an election in years, and decide it's right to finally have one. Twilight decides to help Mayor Mare and Rarity decides to help Filthy Rich but both decline. At the debate, it's also revealed that Cheerilee, Time Turner and Lyra Heartstrings decided to run for mayor too. Unfortunately, their method of improving ponies live's were not all that inspiring. In the end, Filthy Rich is elected as mayor, but things don't go well for Ponyville. More earthquakes are happening, Fluttershy's cottage is full of noise from nearby construction workers, taxes are raised, and the new playground falls apart. The Mane six try to go to Ms. Mare for help but she says she's retired. At a town meeting, a stressed out Filthy Rich is pummeled by tomatoes. Ms. Mare comes and tells everypony what it really takes to be a mayor. Suddenly, a Tatzlwurm appears, revealing itself to be the cause of the earthquakes. Ms. Mare develops a plan use noise vibrations to get rid of it. She then helps Filthy Rich with his resigning papers so she can be mayor again.

From the Shadows: After returning from a film with her friends, Twilight Sparkle and Spike return to her castle to find a strange unicorn stallion rifling through her books. Before she can stop him, the unicorn teleports away with three books. As her friends help her to reshelve the books, Twilight finds that three of the books are seemingly ordinary books about Equestria's history. The Mane Six have their doubts as to his intentions, so decide to track them down. Using an enchanted map, the Mane Six and Spike travel to another town before the path of the stallion disappears. The group splits up to try to find info. From the various townsponies, they find that the stallion is Shadow Lock, a unicorn with the ability to erase the text from books and make anyone that had read those books forget what was in them, and now is headed for the town's library. The group race there, disrupting Shadow Lock as he pursues more books. In response, he uses his magic to bring to life monsters from the various books. Shadow Lock explains to Twilight that there is an ancient evil from Equestria's past so dangerous that it cannot be spoken of. Ergo, he is trying to erase its memory from present-day existence. After Shadow Lock flees, Twilight manages to send the monsters back into the books they came from. The Mane 6 decide to split up and protect various places that Shadow Lock could strike next: the Ponyville schoolhouse, a Canterlot newspaper, and a Colonial Whinniesburg re-enactment. Shadow Lock strikes all but the re-enactment, erasing the history articles in each other location. Twilight later explains that Spike has prepared a backup plan: luring Shadow Lock to the Canterlot Museum where a History of Equestria exhibit is on display. Twilight leads him into a trap in the archives and acknowledging that Shadow Lock doesn't want to hurt anyone, she offers him a truce, unaware that Shadow Lock has imprisoned Spike and the rest of the Mane 6 in different eras in the past based on the museum exhibits. Confronted, Shadow Lock admits that about a year prior he discovered that he was related to a villain from a thousand years in Equestria's past. Not wanting to have that known, he studied magic that would allow him to erase that name (and any memories associated with it) from books around Equestria to avoid having to face that past. Meanwhile, the rest of the Mane 6 and Spike figure out that Shadow Lock's magic has stuck them in short, repeating time loops based on the museum exhibits, and find ways to escape the magic. They join Twilight and Shadow Lock as he is revealing his faults, and they give him the idea from when they were trapped that if he doesn't face his history, he will be doomed to repeat it. Shadow Lock admits the error of his ways and promises to try to research his ancestor, in case that should ever come to pass. As the ponies start to return home, Twilight reveals that Shadow Lock never shared with her the name of this villain.

Wings Over Yakyakistan: Since Pinkie became an honorary yak in Not Asking for Trouble, Prince Rutherford has become more interested in learning about other cultures. After the Wonderbolts perform a stunt show for the yaks, the dragons begin attacking Yakyakistan. Taking cover in a nearby cave, Spitfire shows reluctance to fight back, but Rainbow and her parents use a story about Rainbow's first flight competition to inspire her to be brave. With renewed confidence, Spitfire leads the Wonderbolts, Rainbow, and Pinkie in aiding the yaks against the dragons. However, even with the rest of the Mane 6, Spike, and Starlight showing up as reinforcements, the yaks are outnumbered, forcing everyone to retreat. Spike expresses confusion over the situation; he thought that with Ember now leading the dragons as Dragon Lord, the dragons would become kinder. However, much to everyone's shock, they discover that Ember herself is leading the invasion. As it turns out, Ember is angry with the Yaks for breaking a "sacred bond" between them, but she refuses to reveal what that is. With everyone else not willing to talk to the dragons about it due to the dragons having a mostly bad reputation among ponies, Spike goes to Ember and convinces her to tell him what the sacred bond is. As it turns out, long ago, the dragons and yaks fought over the land which would become Yakyakistan, causing damage to it. Eventually, yak Prince Ulysses and Dragon Lord Scintilla made an agreement and Ulysses helped Scintilla find what became the Dragon Lands, while he took the land which became Yakyakistan. In return, Ulysses made Scintilla an honorary yak. Now that Pinkie Pie is an honorary yak, Ember feels that this bond has been violated. The next day, Spike manages to stop the two sides from fighting and calls out the ponies for making generalizations about the dragons, the dragons for reinforcing that view by attacking Yakyakistan, and the yaks for breaking the sacred bond. Prince Rutherford admits that he didn't understand the ancient scroll recounting Ulysses and Scintilla's conflict because of the lousy artwork. Apologies are made and the dragons help to rebuild Yakyakistan. Pinkie offer to give up her honorary yak title, but Ember lets her keep it, commenting that it's time to let go of the past and look to the future.

Apinkalypse Now: Following the episode "Discordant Harmony", Fluttershy takes Discord to visit her animal sanctuary. Unknown to either of them, Pinkie chases Gummy through the portal to Discord's realm and begins to enjoy herself. Eventually, the dimension begins to change to suit Pinkie's style. Back in Equestria, Discord finds that he isn't able to use his powers, so Fluttershy takes him to Twilight and Starlight for help. Twilight and Starlight eventually get the idea to open the portal to Discord's realm by using Discord himself as a conduit and learn about what's happened to Pinkie. Twilight rounds up the rest of the Mane 6 and with Discord, they head into Discord's realm with Starlight acting as an anchor so they can get back. They find that in Discord's absence, the Chaos Dimension locked onto Pinkie's creativity and mischief, explaining why everything is so different. They eventually find Pinkie and learn that she's gone mad with power as a result of her taking over the Chaos Dimension. Pinkie turns herself into an alicorn and prepares to turn Equestria into a land of eternal partying. Realizing that Pinkie's not strong enough to keep her chaos powers outside of the Chaos Dimension, Discord challengers her to a "Cuckoo Cook-Off", where the two conjure up random things to fight each other with and the first one to run out of ideas loses. Discord ultimately wins and Pinkie goes back to normal before Discord sends them all home.

The Vines That Bind: Following the episode "A Health of Information", Twilight, Fluttershy, Zecora, and Cattail discover a series of love notes between Mage Meadowbrook and a pony named Aqua Vine, written around the time where Mage was looking for a flower called the Magenta Bloom, which can possibly cure almost any ailment. They head to Fillydelphia, where Aqua Vine lived, to deliver the notes to the Fillydelphia Hall of Records and learned that a descendant of Aqua's runs a local greenhouse. The descendant reveals Aqua was looking for the Magenta Bloom along with Mage but did it through research instead of directly trying to look for it like Mage did. Now the descendant has started to narrow down where it is and that it will be in bloom within the next couple of weeks. During the search, Cattail is asked about his family history and he tells a story about how Mage cured an entire town of a plague. They eventually make it to where the flower is located: the Coastal Cliffs, where fierce winds prevent Twilight from flying up to retrieve it. Fluttershy and Zecora start to note that Twilight is heavily fixated on the possibilities that the Magenta Bloom could bring, with Fluttershy suggesting that Twilight might want to leave something lasting the way Mage did. Mage was obsessed with finding the Bloom, as well, but she never found it prior to her disappearance. Once the group reaches the top of the cliffs where the pollen and salt blown from the waters are worse, Twilight falls off and is unable to see. After the group pulls her back up, Twilight berates herself for her foolishness, but the others assure her that she has something Mage didn't: friends to help her. The next morning, the group makes a more coordinated attempt to reach the flower and Twilight manages to grab it off the cliffs. As they head back home, Fluttershy assures Twilight that she only had the best of intentions at heart for finding the Bloom and that she can always count on her friends.

The Stars on Our Ponies: The Cutie Mark Crusaders prepare for the first overnight camp-out they've planned for the Cutie Mark Day Camp they opened in "Marks and Recreation". Rarity informs the fillies that Fancy Pants is bringing his niece, Gilded Lily, to the camp, which Rarity sees as an opportunity for the CMC to expand their client base and make business in Canterlot. During the camp, the CMC take notice of Lily's lack of enthusiasm in outdoor activities. They figure that Fancy Pants is putting a lot of pressure on her to represent her family in Canterlot. During a stargazing activity, Lily helps the CMC in pointing out several constellations, resulting in her getting her cutie mark. Lily is horrified by this and privately explains to Scootaloo her fear that her cutie mark will not help her represent Canterlot's social elite as Fancy Pants wishes. When Scootaloo argues that she should learn to do things for herself, Lily points out who Scootaloo always defers to what Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle want to do. The following day, Scootaloo tells her friends that she wants to start a new branch of the CMC dedicated to extreme sports. When Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle think she's leaving the CMC, Scootaloo explains that while she loves being a crusader, it doesn't mean that they have to do the same things together all the time. Later, the CMC help Lily talk to Fancy Pants about her cutie mark, but Fancy Pants assures Lily that her mark will help make her influential in her own way. Weeks later, the CMC are invited to a fundraiser at the Canterlot Observatory hosted by Lily and Fancy Pants, while Scootaloo prepares for the first Extreme Sports Cutie Mark Camp, accompanied by her fellow crusaders.

Convocation of the Creatures!: Princesses Twilight, Celestia and Cadance, and Celestia's aide Raven attend the Convocation of the Creatures, a gathering of delegates from Equestria and the neighboring lands. As the Convocation begins, Raven and the aides to the other species' leaders go to work updating the extensive document archives in the library of the meeting hall, choosing to ignore what they see as a boring political summit. Twilight, however, enjoys the cultural events and persuades the archivists to take a break from their work and join the festivities. The archivists do enjoy themselves, but one of them has found an ancient treaty stating that a large portion of what is now Equestria (including the site of Canterlot) had once belonged to the griffons. Since Equestria apparently never paid for the land under the terms of the treaty, it is technically griffon territory again. With the Equestrian delegation at a loss as to what to do, griffon delegate Goldstone offers two choices: Equestria can either cede the land to Griffonstone and relocate all the ponies who reside there, or pay the agreed-upon sum plus interest – a total that would bankrupt the government. Celestia agrees to return the land, but asks for a brief delay so that Twilight, Raven, and the other archivists can search the files in hopes of finding an alternative. They discover an addendum to the treaty stating that Equestria did indeed pay the griffons for the land, but Goldstone – eager to increase his personal land holdings by forcing Equestria to cede the territory – tries to seize and destroy it. They escape past him and his guards, passing the document among themselves and using the events of the Convocation as distractions, and Raven brings the document to Celestia and the chief griffon delegate just in time. With the crisis resolved and Goldstone arrested on charges of treason, the Equestrian delegation returns home; Raven promises to keep in touch with the other archivists and decides to leave the adventuring to Twilight and her friends.

All in Marederation: A party at Sugarcube Corner is broken up by the arrival of a group calling itself the Anti-Sugar League. Their leader, Temperance Flowerdew, proclaims that sugar is a danger to public health and public morals and wants to ban all sweets. The movement begins to gain ground in Ponyville, with boycotts and protests cropping up all over town; sales at Sugarcube Corner plunge, and Sweet Apple Acres is also affected because Applejack sells her pies in Ponyville. Pinkie Pie tries to throw Temperance a party to change her attitude, but Temperance convinces her that her parties have added to the problem by making ponies sick. Twilight Sparkle receives a letter that leads her to a secret speakeasy at Sweet Apple Acres, where ponies are now gorging themselves on sweets. Returning to town, she is shocked to find that Pinkie has joined the Anti-Sugar League. Pinkie explains that Temperance grew up in a home where sugar was forbidden; she gave in to temptation one day and ate herself sick, and ever since then she has crusaded to ban sugar as bad for ponies' health. Twilight shows Temperance the unhappy ponies around town who have either over-indulged or gone without sugar, and tells her that health is a matter of happiness as well as nutrition. Temperance dissolves the Anti-Sugar League, now understanding the importance of moderation, and enjoys some of the treats at the party Pinkie throws for her.

Queen for One Less Day: In preparation for her annual trip around Equestria, Princess Celestia dons a magical amulet that allows her to transform herself into a Pegasus so she can go about unrecognized. After a number of stops, she arrives in Ponyville, only for her amulet to be stolen by a filly named Scarlet Petal, leaving Celestia trapped in her powerless Pegasus form. Scarlet takes the amulet to her "aunt" Shadowfall, who employs both Scarlet and her brother Winter Comet as thieves, only to discover the amulet's properties; she then flees Shadowfall after being ordered to surrender the amulet. Celestia goes to Twilight for help, and after convincing her of her identity they set off to find Scarlet before the amulet's changeling magic corrupts her. In an ensuing confrontation with Shadowfall, Scarlet realizes that her guardian was just using her and her brother and returns the amulet to Celestia. With her true form and powers restored, Celestia arrests Shadowfall and takes in the youngsters, and decides to travel Equestria in her true form from now on before destroying the amulet.

Applewood Follies: Rarity informs her friends at the Castle of Friendship that a movie is being made based on their Friendship Journal and arranges for them to attend the premiere, though Twilight is unable to attend due to running the School of Friendship. Wormer Horsehooves, the film's director, is frustrated in his efforts to make the film seem true to the events described in the journal, and asks Rarity and the others if they will help to direct it. However, Rarity's recollections of various events clash with those of the others, and in the end, the five each decide to direct their own film. The end result is a horrendous hodgepodge that is received as a comedy by the audience.

Tempest's Tale: Some time after My Little Pony: The Movie, Tempest Shadow bids farewell to Twilight Sparkle in Ponyville and sets out to find a place for herself. After traveling across Equestria, receiving mixed receptions from its inhabitants and doing her best to offer help where she can, Tempest takes the suggestion of a new acquaintance and travels to the Crystal Empire. Following an awkward meeting with Princess Cadance, Tempest agrees to help the arctic patrol with a series of disturbances on the Empire's borders. Her assigned partner proves to be Glitter Drops, one of the two childhood friends who were with her when her horn was broken. While Glitter is ecstatic to see Tempest, Tempest is less enthusiastic; the tension between them continues to build until Tempest accuses Glitter of abandoning her. Discovering a trail that seems to lead to the perpetrator of the recent troubles, Tempest pursues it on her own only to run into an Ursa Minor, the same type of creature that broke her horn.

Confronted with the Ursa, Tempest finds herself unable to move, but Glitter Drops quickly acts to scare the creature away. Enraged to be saved by the pony she feels abandoned her, she nearly attacks Glitter Drops, who then tearfully admits to having carried the guilt for Tempest's broken horn for years. Tempest apologizes for her own anger, and the two rekindle their friendship as they trail the Ursa, which they discover has been separated from its mother, an Ursa Major. Glitter Drops is able to use her magic to lure the Ursa home, but admits to Tempest that both she and their other friend Spring Rain struggled at Princess Celestia's magic school and that she eventually dropped out. Tempest then returns to Princess Cadance, whom she realizes intended for her to reunite with her old friend, and thanks her.

Extreme Bingo: The Golden Horseshoe Gals (featured in the Season 8 episode "Grannies Gone Wild") invite Rainbow Dash to a game night, which proves to be a bingo game that Applejack has been hosting for years. Seeing how bored everypony is, Rainbow invents a variant called "Extreme Bingo," hiding the number balls all over Ponyville for the Gals to find so they can fill out their cards. The Gals have fun searching for the balls, over Applejack's objections, but Rainbow begins to realize that some of her hiding places were a little too extreme. The last few balls are hidden in the Castle of the Two Sisters, and as a storm moves in, Applejack insists that they need to end the game for their own safety. However, Granny Smith sneaks away to keep playing; when she falls from a crumbling staircase, Rainbow flies in to save her. Rainbow and Applejack apologize to the Gals, respectively for not thinking of their safety and for not treating them as grown mares capable of deciding how to spend their time, and the group decides to plan smaller adventures in the future.

Happy Haunts: Twilight’s new students experience Nightmare Night in Ponyville for the first time! Big scares are in store, but things start to get downright dangerous when they wander into a very haunted Castle of the Two Sisters! ^[10]

Pie in the Sky: Following the events of the episode "The Perfect Pear," Applejack comes across an apple pie recipe devised by her mother, Pear Butter (a.k.a. Buttercup) while cleaning out the attic with Apple Bloom and Granny Smith. Granny says it was the best pie she ever had, and Applejack recruits Pinkie Pie to help her re-create the recipe even though they are puzzled about the last ingredient being listed simply as "love." When their first attempt falls short of Granny's recollection, Mrs. Cake suggests that Applejack get her ingredients from the same sources Buttercup used. These merchants share their fond memories of Buttercup and her husband, Bright Mac, with Applejack and her siblings. After the next attempt also comes up short, Applejack mulls over the stories and figures out the last ingredient. She successfully re-creates the pie for Granny, but keeps Buttercup's final touch a secret: a pear mixed in with the apples, symbolizing her love for both the Apple and Pear sides of her family.

Copycats: A mysterious amulet winds up in Fluttershy's animal sanctuary and she unknowingly steps on it. Soon enough, she begins to act like the animals she comes into contact with, soon attracting the attention of her friends and all of Ponyville. Realizing that she's being affected by magic, Twilight goes to the library with Spike for research, while Applejack, Pinkie, and Rainbow head to Fluttershy's cottage, where they find Zephyr Breeze and tell him what is happening. They find a timberwolf with a broken paw at the sanctuary and find that it's acting like Fluttershy. Furthermore, they deduce that Fluttershy is now acting like a timberwolf and head into town to find her. There, they stop her from attacking Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle and give chase. Twilight deduces that Fluttershy is being affected by the Animalulet, a long-lost relic created by Star Swirl the Bearded and she and Spike ask Rarity to help find it. Applejack, Rainbow, and Pinkie corral Fluttershy back to the sanctuary just as Rarity finds the gem. Twilight notes that the only way to free Fluttershy from the amulet's influence is to destroy it, but doesn't know-how. Spike then eats the gem, causing Fluttershy and the animals she swapped traits with to return to normal, although Spike temporarily starts acting like random animals as a side effect caused by the amulet. One week later, Fluttershy releases the timberwolf into the wild back to its family, commenting that the experience gave her more insight into caring for her animals, but she wouldn't want to do it again.

Issue 75: Centuries ago, Discord and another draconequus named Cosmos created chaos together. When Cosmos began to show an obsessive love for him and take her love for chaos too far, Discord turned to the Royal Sisters, Queen Novo, King Aspen, and the King of Abyssinia to help banish her from Equestria and then erases their memory of her existence. In the present day, Rarity finds a mysterious necklace with a purple star on it and gives it to Twilight. After she puts it on, Twilight begins to hear a voice telling her to "find the rest". Later, the necklace projects an image to the Mane 6 and Spike of a heart-shaped constellation called the Andalusian, an arrangement of stars that appeared and disappeared centuries ago. Twilight realizes that her necklace is one of the six stars that made up the constellation and the others fell to Equestria years ago. She becomes obsessed with finding the rest of the stars and the Mane 6 decide to recruit some of their friends to help find them. Unknown to all, however, Cosmos is possessing Twilight through the necklace, and she plans to gather the stars together so she can regain her true form and be with Discord again.

To find the remaining stars, scattered in different locations in and out of Equestria, the group splits up. Pinkie and Big Mac head to Klugetown, Rainbow, Rarity, and Spike to the Crystal Empire, Zecora and the Cutie Mark Crusaders to Griffonstone, Fluttershy to the Everfree Forest, and Applejack and Twilight to Canterlot. At Canterlot, Twilight ignores Applejack's suggestion at telling Celestia and Luna about what they're doing and heads to a secret underground chamber housing several forbidden artifacts, one of which is the second Andalusian star. Applejack soon realizes that Twilight is being controlled and with her cover blown, Cosmos attacks and fights Applejack, eventually locking her inside a cage made from Earth using Twilight's magic. Meanwhile, Fluttershy tells Discord about the quest and Discord informs Fluttershy about who Cosmos is and that the Andalusian stars fell back to Equestria because a shooting star knocked them out of the sky. Discord found one of the stars and buried it to ensure Cosmos would never come back.

Fluttershy convinces Discord to dig up the star he found and take it to Celestia, since he knows more about Cosmos than anyone else. However, once they get to Canterlot, Discord and Fluttershy find that not only is Twilight being possessed by Cosmos, but so is Celestia. Cosmos then steals the third star and uses it to possess Luna, speaking through all three princesses at once. Cosmos wishes to reunite with Discord and keep causing chaos, but upon learning that Discord has been reformed, Cosmos turns Fluttershy into a pony/butterfly hybrid to distract Discord and keep him from warning the others. Discord escapes with Fluttershy while Cosmos waits for the remaining three stars to be found.

Issue 76: In a flashback, Cosmos, while spreading chaos across Equestria with Discord, set a school full of foals and fillies on fire. Discord rescued them, which earned him Cosmos' wrath. It was this incident that compelled Discord to turn to Celestia, Luna, and the other rulers to help him banish Cosmos. In present-day Klugetown, Pinkie and Big Mac meet up with Capper and retrieve the fourth Andalusian star after Pinkie drags Big Mac through a local tournament. In Griffonstone, Zecora and the CMC find the fifth star, but Zecora begins to suspect that something is not right about their mission. When both groups return to Canterlot, the Cosmos-controlled princesses are waiting for them. In the ensuing struggle, Capper is turned into a kitten, and he and the CMC are imprisoned in the same cell as Applejack. Cosmos then uses the two stars the two groups found to possess Big Mac and Zecora. Almost back at full strength, Cosmos decides to go after the final star herself.

Issue 77: In the chaos dimension, Discord tells Fluttershy how he first met Cosmos. More than a thousand years ago, Cosmos fell out of the sky and landed in front of Discord. The two quickly bonded over their shared love for chaos and wreaked havoc across Equestria, with Discord keeping the princesses busy with illusions so that they wouldn't interfere. Over time, however, Discord came to realize that Cosmos was too chaotic even for his liking and helped the royal sisters banish her back to the stars. Fearing that someone may want to use her power, Discord erased everyone's memory of Cosmos and took the fall for her actions, which eventually resulted in his imprisonment. Although she understands why Discord now fears Cosmos, Fluttershy nevertheless convinces him that they have to go back and help their friends, to which Discord reluctantly agrees. When they return, they find Canterlot castle transformed by Cosmos' magic and Applejack, Pinkie, and the CMC imprisoned. After freeing them, they head off to the Crystal Empire, where Rarity, Spike, and Rainbow have teamed up with Cadance to find the final star - they are still unaware of what is happening. They find the star in a market, but as soon as Cadance touches it, she becomes possessed by Cosmos. Cosmos arrives moments later and merges together with the four princesses, Big Mac, and Zecora into a more powerful form. Discord, Fluttershy, Applejack, Pinkie, and the CMC arrive quickly afterward and Cosmos expresses delight in seeing Discord again.

Issue 78: As Cosmos rampages across the Crystal Empire searching for Discord, he and the ponies reason that the only way that Cosmos can be defeated is by removing the Andalusian stars from her. They decide to have Spike eat the stars since they don't seem to affect him like they did the princesses. Pinkie Pie takes control of the attack plan as Cosmos finds them. Over the course of the battle, the ponies succeed in removing all but one of the stars, but the ponies are incapacitated by Cosmos one by one until only Discord, Fluttershy, and Spike are left. Cosmos insists that Discord could never hurt her, but Discord reveals that he intentionally sold her out to Celestia and Luna because he was afraid of her. Realizing how much Discord has changed, Cosmos turns Fluttershy into a statue and Spike a dog before revealing that she is not just a lover of chaos, but the very embodiment of malice. Discord manages to seize the final star and feeds it to Spike, depowering Cosmos and freeing those who were controlled by her. Discord banishes Cosmos to the moon and everything Cosmos affected with her magic turns back to normal. Later, Celestia and Luna award Discord and his friends for their efforts, while Twilight tries to interview everyone about their latest adventure.

Live-Action Role Pony: Get ready to roll a natural 20 as Pinkie Pie and the rest of your favorite ponies gear up for a live-action role-playing game for the ages! With elaborate costumes, captured princes, and one of Pinkie’s famous pies on the line, you can bet things are going to get crazy! ^[11]

Pretty Fly: Rainbow Dash has invited Rumble and Scootaloo to attend Foals and Friends Weekend at the Wonderbolts Academy. During a rehearsal for an aerial parade, Rumble suffers a midair collision and ends up in the infirmary with a sprained wing. Scootaloo volunteers to keep him company since she cannot fly, and the two sneak into the campus museum to pass the time. They are surprised to find a statue of an earth pony wearing a Wonderbolt flight suit, and an officer enters the museum to tell them about Wind Sock, the only earth pony ever to join the team. Hired as a janitor, Wind Sock endured mockery from the pegasi as he worked on designing a machine to let him fly. When one Wonderbolt, Dauntless, became stranded at the bottom of a canyon filled with winds too strong for any pegasus to navigate, Wind Sock built a glider that allowed him to reach Dauntless and airlift him out. Wind Sock was officially inducted into the Wonderbolts for his ingenuity and bravery. The officer telling the story turns out to be Dauntless himself, now a general; he explains that some of Wind Sock's inventions are still being used and that his determination can serve as an example. Inspired by the account, Scootaloo and Rumble build a replica of the glider so Rumble can fly in the parade.

Dog-Dog-Dogged Determination: A dust-up in Ponyville plus an escaped Cerberus equals quite the ruckus for our favorite fillies! When Princess Celestia requests a dog sitter for the high-spirited canine, the task falls to the least-likely of ponies: Rarity! It's going to take some dog-dog-dogged determination, a bit of hard work, and a whole lot of patience to figure this whole dog thing out... but it's sure to be a pawsitively wild adventure! ^[12]

The Strange Case of Silver Blaze: Twilight Sparkle receives a mysterious message about a missing turtle! Only it's not just any turtle-it's the most famed of racing turtles, Silver Blaze! With friendship on the line, it's up to Twilight and Spike (armed with deerstalker caps and capes) to solve the mystery before it's too late! Elementary, my dear fillies! It's a brand-new Pony mystery to solve! Get ready to solve a mystery-Sherlock Holmes-style! ^[13]

No Fear!... Except One: Applejack helps Apple Bloom learn about the meaning of courage when she tells her sister a story about facing the biggest fear she had as a young filly: the water! Will AJ's tale help boost her sister's confidence? Or will it just make Apple Bloom more nervous?! ^[15]

And Then There's Maud: When painfully shy Marble Pie tries to make friends at school, she ends up panicking and agreeing to throw a party instead! Good thing she's got a sister who's known for throwing just about the most amazing parties in all of Equestria-wait, it's not supposed to be Maud! ^[16]

Issue #87: Strap in, sports fans, because it's time for the biggest race in Equestria-the Draytona Breach 500! And where there's a race, there's Rainbow Dash, ready to be trained by the most unlikely of ponies... Big Macintosh?! Meanwhile, a plunderer of ancient antiquities known as Sacks Roamer throws a wrench into the competition when he steals a priceless artifact. It promises to be the fast and the furriest in this brand-new My Little Pony adventure! ^[17]

Issue #88: The conclusion of Ted Anderson's exciting two-part adventure is here! The Draytona Breach has begun! Big McIntosh and Silver Streak are racing to determine the fate of their friendship; Rainbow Dash is racing to prove herself (again!); and Sacks Roamer is racing to retrieve his stolen goods in order to get them across the Yakyakistani border! Who's going to come out on top? ^[18]