//------------------------------// // Haunted hunters // Story: We will catch you if we can // by proto-alpha //------------------------------// At the next morning, Fernando woke up the next morning to the shine of the sun. "Well, I better get to a more hidden place" he thought as he looked for a good place to hide. He went for a closet in a part of the building that looked very old and dark, but he still stayed near the ponies to go for the less crowded train, but he wont have that much luck. Not too long after he was under cover, the first ponies started to arrive to take their transport and the ponies that were in charge of the trains were preparing them, but one of them, who Fernando thought was the manager of the station, made an announcement "To all the ponies that are going to aboard the trains before the two o'clock in the afternoon, the princess Celestia has decreed that no trains before that hour would depart until the issue with the human is resolved. Sorry for the inconvenient." this was received by the ponies with some complains and mutters about all the problems that Fernando was causing, and Fernando could only think "Damn, she always has to make everything more difficult" He turned to go deeper in the old part of the station, and failed to hear the second part of the announcement. "But we're taking this opportunity to fix the older part of the station, so we'll be adding a new cafeteria and some other platforms to the station by the next month" this at least made some of the ponies cheer up a little, probably because they didn't like the food of the majority of the trains. A full team of pegasus, unicorns and earth ponies in uniform then started to walk dramatically slow to the soon to be cafeteria, making every step as loud as possible "Why are you doing this?" asked the manager arching an eyebrow "This job is very boring" answered one of the pegasus "Yeah, at least let us do this our way" continued a unicorn. The manager rolled his eyes and returned to what probably was his office. At a deep part of the old station, Fernando could hear the hoofsteps approaching his location and got confused. He shook his head and looked for a good place to hide. He found a hole in a wall and entered it, shaking off the spider webs that he got on him. When they were passing by him, he heard some of them say something about a 'cafeteria' and 'fixing the place'. "That must be it, they're renovating this place, but I can't get away while there are so many ponies around" Fernando thought in desperation with his imminent capture, that is when inspiration hit him. "Wait... old place, check; people... err, ponies wanting to fix it, check; person that wants them away, check. he thought, making a mental list of his plan. Then, with a mischievous smile, he went deeper behind the wall, thanking that it was wide enough for him. Back with the workers, the one that was in charge of the team started to give different tasks to the members. He was done with a half, that was already going to their destination, but stopped when they heard a deep voice coming from everywhere. "Awaaaay, go awaaaay" it said. The ponies were looking for the source of the voice, and everypony but one looked scared. The stallion shouted "Nails, is this another one of your jokes?", but received the response from his right "Uhm... Timber, I'm right here". Timber turned to see a cowering stallion that was covering his eyes with his hoofs. "Oh, okay then" Timber took a deep breath and then let out a girly scream "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!". This made the rest of the group start to scream in the same way, but they shut up when the voice started to say the same again the same thing, but this time multiple times. Then they saw how some pieces of furniture, some old chairs, started to float. This was everything they could take before they were running to the well lit part of the building. When they were gone, Fernando dropped himself from a nearby hole in the ceiling, holding a rusted can in one hand and in the other, if you forced your sight, he was holding some very thin strings, probably some twisted spider webs. Apparently, he was the one that was saying, and still says "Go awaaaay, go awaaaay". It sounded very deep because he was talking through the can. When he was sure that they were gone, he stopped and tried his hardest to not laugh his lungs out. "Well, that should keep them away by now he thought as he started to set traps that would make the place look haunted. "I just hope that rumors don't spread fast in this place". And as per usual, the gossip about the ghost from the station was so fast that it even got to a late morning newspaper, that happened to be the one that the uncle of Applejack read every morning. The mane six, plus Lyra and Spike were about to continue their search when Applejack's uncle stopped them to tell Applejack something he just read at the newspaper "Applejack, whatever all of you do, don't go close to the train station, just this morning there was ghostly manifestation while a group of ponies were fixing the old part of that building, and it could be dangerous" at the mention of the ghost, everypony except Twilight got a scared look "No offense Mr. Orange, but aren't you a little too grown up to still believe in that sort of things?" asked Twilight, with a serious tone and facial expression. "Miss Twilight, usually I wouldn't, but since it's in the newspaper, it must be true" answered the stallion "Not only because of that it must be true. It's not like that was written by a trustworthy author" Twilight said, before she left, followed by the rest of the mares and Spike. Once outside, Spike made a question "So how are we going to search for Fernando today?" "Well, everypony here except for you and Lyra had experienced his trickery personally, so it wouldn't surprise me if he was the one behind the ghost incident" when she said this, everyone looked at her, worried about what she was about to say, "so we're going to investigate that immediately". They arrived at the train station not too long after, and after entering it, they went directly for the old part. They were stopped by the manager before they could go too deep in the dark. "Wait, you can't go in there, the ghost will harm you if you do" he said, trying to convince them to decist "Sir, there is not such things as ghosts, so we're going in there. I might know who is behind all of this" Twilight responded without doubt in her voice. "But some of our workers could hear him talk to them, and even saw some pieces of furniture float without any kind of glow moving them" this statement got scared the HHT, except Twilight, who was still skeptical about this and continued. "Well, I'm not scared and neither is my team, is that right?" as a response, she got some negative mumbles, and growling she forced all of them with her magic to continue. They walked some time until the area were the workers team had first arrived before they had divided. Twilight stopped in the connection of three corridors that connected, from left to right, the old restrooms, the antique lobby and the ancient offices. "Okay, we'll have to separate to search for clues as to were Fernando might be. I'll go for the middle corridor. You can go in any corridor in anypony you want, just make sure that we are equally proportioned" Twilight commanded this. "We still don't know for sure if this really is Fernando" said Applejack, "and I prefer to not take any chances with something supernatural". Twilight was doing her best to not explain to them ALL the reasons as to why there can't be ghosts. "Just get divided" she said as she turned and went down the hallway. She heard some hoofsteps behind her and stopped, irritated. She expected hoofsteps behind her, but not that many. She turned and saw everyone behind her. "So... why are you all coming this way?" she said emphasizing the word all "Oh, well, you know, to make sure you were alright" said Rainbow Dash with a bad poker face "Uh-hu" said Twilight, not buying it. She let out a big sigh and said "looks like you need me for everything, right?" everypony agreed, believing that they were permitted to go with the only one no scared of them. "Well, then lets divide you!" Twilight exclaimed with a smile of fake excitement and getting groans from the others. "Okay, I'll go in one team, Rarity in other and Lyra in the third. Rainbow Dash, you'll go with Lyra and you too, Pinkie. Fluttershy, you'll go with Rarity, and Applejack you're going with Rarity and Fluttershy" Spike felt a little left out and asked "What about me?" he felt better when Twilight answered him "You're coming with me" she then looked to everypony, "Rarity, your team will go to those offices and Lyra, yours will go to those restrooms". Nopony felt safe with how Twilight had divided them. Even she should know that this was one of the biggest mistakes to do as known from the horror books, well... except for Rainbow Dash, that refused to read anything that wasn't Daring Do related. Fernando was observing everything from the darkness, he was having so much fun only watching them right now that he was impatient for them to fall in his traps. "Well, let's start with the restroom he thought as he went in that direction. He had already decorated the restroom like what you would expect from a bloody scene in a terror movie. On his way, he picked up an old pole that used to be in an old fashioned sofa. He observed from a safe distance how the ponies were approaching the restroom, and covered his ears before the blood chilling scream was, well... screamed. He heard a thud, signaling that one of those ponies had fainted. He approached a little, and could see thanks to the light from the unicorn, while still being hidden. "Ha, not so brave, are we Rainbow?" he thought as he saw the blue figure on the floor. "Well, you go first" said Lyra to Pinkie. "No, no, no, I insist that you get the honor of searching here for Fernando" replied Pinkie. They were just outside the restroom, next to the inert Rainbow Dash, arguing about who should enter the restroom. Unknown to them, Fernando had used the rust from some metallic objects to make 'dried blood'. "Okay, we'll enter at the same time" said Lyra when she had enought. They both counted up to three and entered the restroom. To their bad luck, they failed to notice the mirror, that was in the same wall that of the door, that read 'RUN WHILE YOU CAN'. When they noticed it, they screamed again, even if they didn't understand it, because, come on, who wouldn't be scared when you see what you think is blood forming patterns in a mirror. Fernando took his chance and rubbed the pole all over the body of Rainbow Dash, making her look very bloody. He then pushed her inside the restroom and hided. He heard another two thuds before grinning and going victoriously to his next victims. He ran silently to catch up with Rarity's team. He slowed down when he saw the shine of a horn. When he was close enough to observe what was going on, he saw how they were observing the things that were left there some decades ago. He approached a hole behind a big sign that before would have some class of phrase that would encourage the workers to do their work. He climbed the inside of the wall with a makeshift stair made out from the remains of the sustenance of the wall, reaching the ceiling and with that, some strings that happened to be the same from before. Rarity and Applejack were going through the old documents, searching for something that could lead them to Fernando. It was Rarity the one that, with her eye for the details, found a black semi-long hair. "Ah-ha!" she exclaimed triumphal "We now know that Fernando is here" she said turning to the other two mares, holding the hair with her magic. "Well, I'm glad that at the end there is no ghost" Applejack said very relieved. "What do you think, Fluttershy?" asked Rarity to the pegasus for her opinion about the subject, but when she didn't got a response, she got worried "what's wrong, darling?" she asked concerned to Fluttershy, but the later only stared behind her, a look that they had never seen. A look of pure shock, so much shock that she couldn't even faint. Rarity turned to see some pieces of furniture floating, and said confidently "Don't worry, Fluttershy, that's just Fernando playing with our minds". She then made her horn glow gradually brighter, but to her surprise, she didn't found any ropes attached to them, and soon she was too scared out of her mind. Applejack meanwhile, was the one to react first and took in her hooves the task of pushing the other two back to the safety of the light of the day. When they were gone, Fernando returned to the floor, and went for his last goal. If he could do this right, he would shake them off enough time to aboard a train, and there is no one that gets more scared than the one that sees what he, or she in this case, thinks is not real. Twilight was going through the lobby, casting every spell she knew that could reveal a presence but to no avail. That is because the lobby was the only place that Fernando didn't went to, considering it big enough to only play mind tricks from a safe distance. Spike was always at the back of Twilight, but as for now he had his eyes closed, refusing to see the wasted place. Fernando entered, but didn't let the door close without a great sound when he hid behind some furniture. Twilight turned to see and flashed a flashlight-like light from her horn to the door. "Hello?" she said "Is it one of you girls?" but she didn't got any response. "Go awaaaay, go awaaaay!" Fernando was talking again through his can, but Twilight was unfazed. "Is that you, Fernando? If it is you we can get to an agreement!" she tried to reason "Ha, I've heard better convincing from a video game character" Fernando thought, thinking that she was trying to trick him. He then approached her silently, careful with his pole and to not step on anything. When he was behind her, he extended the rod and pushed a chair to her right. Almost instantly he retreated his tool and jumped to get cover. Twilight turned, but didn't saw anything. She was considering that he might have done some kind of movement spell, when she remembered "He can't use magic" this made her get uncomfortable in the dark, and tried to make her horn glow brighter, but thanks to her uneasiness, it wasn't enough. Fernando did the same to her left and got the same result, getting her more scared with each trick he played over her. "Go awaaaay, or suffer the consequences!" Fernando said again, noting that she now was trembling "Wh-wh-what c-c-consequences?" she dared to ask "Suffering... Sorrow... Pain... Death..." he said, saying everything he could think of that sounded like it was from a real curse. Twilight was on the edge, and with a scream, she launched a wave of magic to everything around her, successfully throwing everything, and then darted to the door, Spike clinging to her neck from fear for his life. If she had stopped she would have seen Fernando creeping out from some stacked chairs that fell on top of him "Owww... Well I kinda deserved that" he then went to the exit, but not too fast, as to not catch up with the ponies. Back at the road to the light, Applejack was returning with the other three ponies from the bathroom after they didn't show in quite some time when she saw Twilight was also running for her life. "Sooo... Twilight, did you see the ghost?" she asked her, half concerned, half wanting to rub on her face the existence of a ghost "Well, it kind of wanted to get revenge for disturbing it" she said before noticing Rainbow Dash and gasping "What happened to her?" she asked as she approached said pegasus "I don't know, she was like this when I found these three" answered Applejack. Twilight reached her hoof to touch Rainbow Dash to see if she was really injured, but the thing that was on her didn't resembled the blood that she had studied. In fact, now that they were approaching the light she noticed that this wasn't the tone for blood nor dried blood. "Applejack, this is not blood, I think this is just rust!" she said while feeling more of the substance. "Really, Twilight?" Applejack asked, relieved that nothing bad had happened to her best friend. They reached Rarity and Fluttershy and Rarity, who was thinking rationally again, ran up to Twilight and showed her the hair that she had kept with her as if her life depended on it. "Look, Twilight! I think it might be from Fernando" she said as Twilight was already examining the sample. When she determined it was, indeed, from the head of their favorite and most hated human, she had a look of defeat on her face "Well, looks like we got beaten again" she said as she and the others waited for the remaining three to wake up. Some time passed and at last the first trains were starting to depart. The HHT had already talked with the manager about the fake ghost, and it wasn't a surprise that he was enraged. "So, you're telling me that this morning was wasted, not for a ghost's fault, but for that animal the princess talked about yesterday?" he said, at first not believing it. When he had heard everything, he called all the team and then started to give the news. "As you know, this morning half of you got 'attacked' by a ghost this morning. Well, that wasn't a ghost, but the animal that princess Celestia wants, so to catch up with today's work, what do you say about destroying that place? Surely the human will appear and we'll get the reward, so we can afford a new building entirely". The part of Fernando being the ghost enraged the majority of the ponies, and the part of getting him by destroying the place was more than effective to get them to work. Fernando was still in the dark when he saw the ponies coming his way, so he quickly hid himself, but he then heard a lot of commotion and looked what it was about. He saw the ponies destroying every wall, not letting anything get away complete. "Not good. At this rate I'll be cornered in a matter of minutes" he though as he ran again to the darkness, aided by his glowing rocks. He looked everywhere, but all of the windows were heavily blocked, that was the reason for the darkness, and he couldn't see another exit. "There must be something somewhere" he though as he was again at the dark lobby. He would have gone for what he thought was the old door, but it was too blocked, and now was unreachable because of the magic of Twilight. He ran from side to side of the room, searching for an escape route, but he didn't saw anything. He was hearing the ponies get closer when he also noticed a sudden hollow sound when he ran over some specific tiles on the floor. He stopped to tap them with his fist, and surely, under them there was a sound of a void space. He started to hit it with some remains of a table and got successfully through the tiles. Under it there was what looked like a tunnel. It was in direction of the incoming group, but he didn't care. "Probably they don't know about this yet he thought as he entered and found that he had to crawl through it. Not too long after, the ponies were already there. The leader, that has studied the blueprints of the old section of the station, said to his comrades. "This is the last part of the station, if he's not here then he was already squashed by our work" this got the ponies that were scared by Fernando with a big grin of revenge. Unknown to them, Fernando was already half the way to the actual station when they had finished destroying the place, and then were starting to search for a body that they would never find. The Human Hunters Team was waiting for news outside of the old part of the station. They got forbid to go to the work area of the pony workers. "Do you think that they could probably bury him under some rubble?" asked Rainbow Dash, grinning at the idea of their problems solved "Well, that is a little possible, but knowing him, he won't get killed today" Twilight answered. She too was mad at Fernando, but was even more angry with herself for falling for his mind tricks. "I hope that he's not harmed" said Fluttershy, even now she wouldn't want revenge of any kind. They were so concentrated in waiting for the group of workers that they didn't notice some tiles moving from their place some meters behind them, except for Lyra, that saw how Fernando was coming out from a hole in the floor. Seeing the creature that she always dreamed of studying, she ran for him, forgetting to give advise to the others because of the excitement. She ran, full intent of catching him, but he was to far to stop him with levitation, so the best she could do was follow him in a train that was about to start its trip. They were unnoticed by the others because there were a lot of trains that were departing at the same time, but in different directions. Back with the others, Pinkie noted the lack of a third unicorn and said "Hey, where is Lyra?" this brought the attention of the other five mares and Spike, who now noticed the hole and the absence of their companion. They connected two and two (and two) and were immediately at the search of Lyra and Fernando. They were too late, because the train in which they were was already gone. It didn't help the fact that there were multiple trains going out at the same time. "Now what? They could be in any of them!" Rainbow Dash said "Don't worry, those trains only go to the bigger cities of Equestria, without doing a stop in Ponyville in Canterlot case, so we will just divide ourselves as planed" responded Twilight, trusting one hundred percent in her plan "How do you know that?" asked again Rainbow "Because yesterday I memorized all of the train schedules and I got notice of the princess plan to stop the trains as much as she could" she said with a proud smile. With that they went to get tickets for their cities, and then they waited for their trains to arrive.