After my grandfather passed away I inherited a strange staff from him. I discovered that the staff gave me strange visions of a place I had to go to. I experienced visions, day and night, and in the end I decided to follow them to see where they would take me. I did not expect to be taken away from Earth and sent to a place that defies everything I know, and I certainly did not expect to hear that not all the members of my family were human.

Editors are lordofchaos14, Joyjay, The Invisible Man and JBL.

Warning: Contains small amounts of Anthro. Equestria Girls did not happen in this story.

My first fic posted here, told from a 1st person perspective. Rated Teen to begin with, this may change as more ideas develop, but I'll try my best to keep it Teen.

Twilight's had enough to deal with being the newly crowned Princess of Friendship.
However, when someone returns from Equestria's distant past, things begin to turn a bit unusual.
Now she has to deal with this strange mage that has been calling the library home for far longer than she has.
Who exactly is he, and why is he returning now?

Featured on:
12/5/21
12/11/21

Edited: 9/19/22

Ponyville is one of the largest cities in Equestria, a center for trade and finance, a melting pot of many races, tribes, and cultures. It is also a place where corruption is a way of life. Here, the cops that aren't on the take are forever chasing their own tails, citizens live in fear, and gangs battle for control of the streets.

Daring Do has just been released from prison after a year-long sentence for thievery, and no one is about to let her forget her place. Phillip Finder is a local private detective and the bane of the Ponyville Police Department. The new partners quickly find themselves at ground zero of a city-wide gang war; surrounded by dirty cops, mobsters, assassins, and bizarre crimes, they can only rely on each other and a few honest ponies for aid.

They're hardly heroes. Which means they may be exactly what Ponyville needs.

Updates every Wednesday. Proofread by Eagle—Paladin of Shadows

The first story of the Noireverse.

Sex and Gore tags for suggestive content and graphic descriptions.

Check out the theme music by The L-Train by clicking here!

Featured on 1/29/18! Thank you all so much! <3

A bit of background...

Three years ago, I introduced Phillip Finder in my first fanfiction, "The Pony in the Gray Trilby." Over the next many months, I kept writing and eventually turned my first work into a twenty-story series. I learned much and enjoyed the stories' moderate success, but unfortunately, I became dissatisfied with them over time. I realize that it's perhaps a bit of a cliche that many artists end up hating their own work, but for both Tchaikovsky and myself, it is the truth.

I initially planned to write this story as a prequel to the series, focusing on Phillip Finder and Daring Do. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I wanted to improve upon my work, but felt as though I was being held back by the original series. While I am proud of my first stories for what I learned and gained through them, I decided that the best course of action for me, what would make me the happiest, would be to wipe the slate clean and start again from the basic foundations.

That's where this story comes in. A semi-reboot of the original series, the adventures contained herein, set in a vastly different alternate universe and replete with a mixture of reinterpreted and original characters, are the culmination of all the experience that I gained writing the original series. This is Phillip Finder and company as I meant them to be.

I hope that you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoy writing it!

Hollow Shades is a small farming and lumberjacking community, a tiny bubble of Equestria existing on the edge of the Everfree Forest. Things have been hard-going since the lumber mill was closed down and the town is slowly dying out. A young filly named Corn Crib however might have found a solution when she makes a bargin with a talking scarecrow she meets along the road. But who is Lord Barleycorn, and how can he possibly breath life back into Hollow Shades?

This is a lighthearted story that contains lots of OCs outside of Ponyville. The mane six will appear, but not until later chapters.

First time featured was May 23, 2014! I can't believe it! Thank you everyone! =3
Now with its own TVTropes page!
Picture was made by my friend Escopeto. He did a fantastic job of representing my story.

Sombra's takeover took everyone in the Crystal Empire by surprise. No one saw it coming, none were prepared for it, and almost no one got away. Almost.

A few hooffuls of daring souls managed to break out of the city and flee southwards, towards Equestria. Some ran to beg the Princesses for aid, others - just to save themselves and their families from the mad tyrant.

But as the refugees are about to learn, it's the dead of winter outside the Empire's shield, and the crystal ponies are far too used to their warm life in the city. One filly that gets separated from her parents while trying to get away learns that fact all too painfully...

Cover art by Marbo, Allfather of the Snowponies.

Additional tag:snowpony

On a dark night filled with even darker magics, an insane cult attempts to give Nightmare Moon a body and life of her own, utterly separate from Princess Luna. But, when the spell is interrupted by Celestia, something unexpected is created.

Now, a little black alicorn filly named Nyx finds herself living under the care of Twilight Sparkle, only to be haunted by memories and emotions from her past. Is she Nightmare Moon reborn or is she simply a doppelganger with a soul and mind of her own? Can Twilight Sparkle protect Nyx from those who refuse to see past her dragon eyes and black coat?

Or, will Nyx be forced to inherit the sins that may not even be hers and become the greatest evil Equestria has ever known?

I've had my fair share of critics in my line of work. It's understandable—someone with the power to invoke fear in those he touches? Yeah, that's someone I want to watch over me and my children.

But that's what I am now; a Metahuman Agent, using this and the other 'perks' of my unique condition to help my team in taking down the baddie of the day. Of course, it was while taking down the baddie of the day that I fell victim to his malfunctioning machine; a Rift that tossed me, randomly, to a head-scratchingly insane world of magical, talking ponies...

All I can do now is wait, pray I can get home, and try to show them I'm not the monster I appear to be.

(Dread's homeworld is based somewhat on the Little Victory comics by jollyjack; an Earth where metahumans are enlisted and trained by the government to defend the populace from threats, big and small.)