Just before her crowning moment, Twilight Sparkle's life is derailed by a message from Star Swirl with excerpts from his journal that he swears he's never written... at least, not yet.

Commissioned by Archangel of the Silent.

WARNING: Contains Shenanigans!

Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic and Hero of Equestria was thought lost in the event known as the Canterlot Catastrophe. But when a recon unit lead by Princess Celestia and Luna to see is anything can be salvaged from the castle finds traces of a survivor that leads them to her everything changes. However no one can live through what she has and truly survive intact, what will she do when she is saved? Will she even be the same pony, or something... else?

Monster attacks. Crime. Illegal hallucinogens made from electric fruit.

They say things didn't use to be like this. They say things were different, before Luna came back 60 years ago, but Detective Hard "Hardy" Boiled of the Detrot Police Department has never known any world other than that demarcated by the seedy streets of his beloved decaying metropolis; a world in which the coroners sing and dance, surveillance bugs have personality disorders, and the Chief of Police is a scarier entity than most of the eldritch things the city attracts.

The grey unicorn who turned up dead outside the posh High Step Hotel seemed like just another case, but her missing horn is the pointy tip of a very large and nasty iceberg. It's up to Hardy and his friends - a rejected monster hunter, a psychic cab driver, and an underground antiques heir - to find out what’s going on in an investigation that promises to stick more than a cupcake into the very eye of Detrot.

Especially if Hardy has anything to say about it.

By Popular Demand, there is now a Patreon

Additional editing by coandco Sig_Awesome, Hinds, Clint, and Raccoon!
Featured on EQD - 5 Stars!
Cover art by MisterMech (http://mistermech.deviantart.com/)
Now with TVTropes page here!

When Twilight is stolen from her home, fate intervenes and brings her straight to her destiny. After growing up sheltered and loved by the spirits of the Tree of Harmony, Twilight will grow into her place in Equestria like never before while she searches for the family that raised her and gets to know the one she's lost.

(Unapologetically OP Twilight, if you’re going to nitpick that point then you are welcome to leave at any time.)

Twilight was always fated to be the savior of Equestria, along with her friends. But fate can be so easily altered. What happens in one alternate realm when instead of marrying a unicorn, Twilight's mother had instead married an earth pony, resulting in her daughter being hornless? Without her magic, Twilight's future and destiny are far less certain, as is the destiny of all of Equestria.

However, destiny is not so easily set off course. When the princess of the night returns, can one little earth pony hope to be the one to help her damaged heart?

Now with a TV tropes page! Thanks to redandready45.

There comes a turning point in every civilization where the future is dictated by the smallest decision.  Be it the will of a king or the cascade of changes by a commoner, it rarely matters the source, only the outcome.  So it was that, shortly after banishing Nightmare Moon, Celestia envisioned a world that could have accepted, loved, and embraced her now lost sister; an Equestria that had to cast off the simplicity of agrarianism and stanch traditionalism.

Instead of relying on the old ways as a bedrock for the six tenets of harmony, Celestia pursued this vision by lauding the advancement of magic and technology.  Over the centuries, cities of marble and stone were replaced by steel and glass. Family farms commercialized, business and trade expanded the world over, and the streets brimmed with cars.  The nobility long since traded away the power backed by titles for influence via companies. Megacorporations now dominate the skylines of every Equestrian city, yet Celestia still holds fast to the reins of true power.  Her word is law.

Even centuries after Nightmare Moon’s banishment, harmony is still in the bedrock of Equestrian society, yet one must dig to find it under so much soil and refuse.   There have always been those that chafe against the law and give lip service to harmony. Be they the rich and powerful figureheads of industry, or the scum of the underworld, there are always things these ponies in power need done discreetly, or at least deniably.  Sensitive matters such as these are often handed over to a class of professional criminals as diverse in their skills as they are in their ideologies. The Shadowrunners.

Note: As with my Beyond Equestria story, I am taking a lot of elements from the Shadowrunner series, but it will be written so that anyone unfamiliar with Shadowrunner can understand what's going on and enjoy the fic.

Luna must find a gift, so she creates one.

My modified entry for Iron Author at EFNW 2018, dedicated to Monochromatic and Novel-Idea, both of whom insisted I enter.
A special, heartfelt thanks to Grand_Moff_Pony for handing my entry an honorable mention.
And many thanks to Carapace, Blue, Dreamlag, and many others for their selfless help and encouragement.