"Anon, that might be a touch out of your league… and quite impossible."
Out of your league? How hard could it be?
"Come on, all you have to do is look at the obvious lesson to be learned and preach it...and what do you mean by impossible?"
"Well, how could we possibly solve this problem when we have no idea where she is?"
No idea? Wait..
"Well, that's easy to find out right? Can't you just do some magic and figure out where she is like you did Queen Chrysalis?"
Discord shook his head. "I didn't use my magic to find the changelings, I only had to look at the most dark, dank, and dreary place in Equestria and there they were. I've never met Starlight Glimmer. I don't know anything about her. I certainly have no way of tracking her."
That's right. the only way he was able to track Tirek was huge fluxes of magic. Unless Starlight was doing anything Tirek tier, you were shit out of luck. "There's really nothing you can do?"
Discord shook his head "Sorry Anon, we'll have to start smaller. Namely, with a pony with a listed address" Discord holds up envelopes with various names on them. "One that I could easily track."
Oh lordy "Do you always pry through ponies' mail like that?"
Discord starts looking through them "Only the interesting ones"
Ha, you can't help but laugh at that. But… to the matter at hand. A pony with friendship problems. Not Moondancer… not… uhh, Cheese Sandwich, not… waaaaaaaaaiiiiiiit.
"Discord I got it… a pony who has to have a mailing address and would have friendship problems."
"Who?"
"Suri Polomare, if I remember correctly. She lost that competition in that episode where, uhh, Rarity makes dresses... She just upped and disappeared, Hell, even her assistant bailed on her. I bet my bits that she's having some sort of issue."
Discord reaches his arm into a portal and pulls out a pawful of letters "Let's see… hmnn… Sapphire Shores, Coco Pommel, Fleur dis li… AHHH here we are… Suri Polomare. Oh Anon, are you sure you're picking the right pony?"
"Why? What's wrong with picking her? It's not like I can pick Gilda, Pinkie already fixed her."
Discord begins looking and reading her mail "Yes but, judging by this mail, she seems to think she's some high class snob. Do you really think she's going to listen to a little colt and the spirit of chaos? No matter how handsome I may be, I'm no miracle worker when it comes to friendship"
Would it hurt to try? It's not like there'd be too big a consequence. She's all the way in Manehatten. What could possibly happen? "Come on Discord, let's just give it a shot. It could be fun, or it might not be. But let's look at it this way, we'd be making a pony's life better if we accomplish this."
"Is that supposed to convince me?"
You shrug. "A little, I mean. If we fuck up we fuck up, Suri was a bitch anyway so it might not matter in the end. Or it could turn out to be like Diamond Tiara. There could be a reason behind it. Aren't you the least bit curious?"
Discord shook his head "No… but you seem very dead set on this. And since this could actually prove a challenge to my friendship solving skills. Then who am I are to argue? I'll simply have to think positive and be optimistic. "
"So we're doing this?"
Discord puts on some sunglasses, and then poofs some sunglasses on to you "We are… Let's go make some friends..."
You lift your sunglasses, and stare at him. "That was terrible..."
Discord lifts his sunglasses and leers at you "Better than "But now it's all lame""
Egh. "Ok, point taken."
A portal opened up in front of you. Beyond it you could see a city. A city of ponies, lights, business, trends, and entertainment. Manehatten.
Before stepping through, you looked at Discord, and scanned your eyes up and down on him. You knew Manehatten wasn't Ponyville, and that his presence might be unwanted. "Uhhh, Discord, actually. Wouldn't the ponies in this city freak out if they just saw you wandering around?"
Discord hadn't given that a thought, he didn't actually care if they did. "And?"
"Won't that make what we're doing problematic if Suri just slams her door in our faces and screams in terror, while other ponies run and hide?"
Discord smirked "You think they would?"
You sigh, it seems he cared mostly about the reputation in Ponyville than Equestria in general. "That's not the point, Discord. Remember? You want ponies to like you? Fluttershy. That whole thing?"
Discord raised his talon to try to refute that point, and then stopped "Hmm… You have a point. I suppose word of my appearance would come down to Ponyville and then there could be all kinds of nasty rumors"
Discord snapped his talons, and transformed before your eyes into the pony form he donned in the tirek episodes. "This better?"
Yeah, not like they knew who he turned into to. "Yep, so, what's the plan of action?"
Discord shook his hoof at you "Ah ah Anon, this is your operation. You're going to have to be the one to come up with the plan."
Ahh shit. "Uhhmm… Well, then uhh… logically, I guess we should spy on her and find out what kind of problems she has"
"Ohhhh, we're going to sneak about? I like this plan already."
"Well, it's not like we're gonna find out by asking her. I’ll figure the rest out while we go along… but uhh Discord, you're gonna have to take us to where she is at. I have no clue where she lives."
Discord holds up her mail and shows it to you "It's right here on her mail Anon"
"...Discord, I have no idea how to get around Manehatten"
Discord took the mail and threw it up. causing it to expand and reshape into a portal that lead right to… a crummy looking apartment.
"Is that better? I really hope you learn your locations when you go to school Anon. Because it troubles me to think what would happen to you without me"
Heh… he might be right about that. If you ended up lost in a city, You wouldn't know what to do. Ponies in Manehatten didn't seem as nice as the ones in Ponyville. If going by the show. But this place… "Discord, what is this place?"
"Where do you think it is?"
This was where Suri was living at? Christ. The walls were peeling, the bed looked lumpy, the furniture looked old and decrepit… "This is where Suri is living?"
Discord nodded as he stepped into the portal "It seems so, come on, let's poke our heads in and see what we can find"
You follow Discord, looking around as the portal closes behind the both of you and changes back into Suri's mail. You could see bugs crawling along a few of the walls. "Christ, what the fuck happened?"
"Wouldn't you know Anon? Or are you assuming I've actually sat down to watch all the episodes of the show?" Discord said as he poked the bed "I might take this, my old bed needs replacing"
"Yeah but, the episode she appeared in. She just… never showed up in the last half. The only way I could think this could have happened was that she got found out and ousted from the fashion world. This whole room is a dump"
Discord was scooching a few bugs into a jar to keep for later. "Oh, I wouldn't go that far, it's much nicer than my room. No matter how hard I try I can't get my pillow to get stiff anymore..."
Discord pushed the pillow on the bed to the ground… it clanked. "And yet she's managed to keep this one as hard as a rock"
That wasn't a good thing. She didn't appear to be home either… Time to snoop.
"Ok, since you say I'm heading this operation. We're gonna have to play a little detective. We need to find anything that points to why she's here and what trouble she might be in."
Discord immediately drops a good sized folder on the bed and smirks at you "Done and done"
Really? Well, you shouldn't complain. This was another pony's life you were dealing with. You just wanted to do some actual info gathering and looking around . It sounded like fun anyway. "Ok then, I guess we don't have to look..."
You walk over to the folder and start sifting through it… photos, newspaper clippings, letters… You then look over to Discord. "This is everything?"
“Everything in the apartment..." Discord went over and looked through the window. "I suppose I'll keep an eye out for our target while you do your "Detective" work."
That was a good idea actually. it would be pretty bad if she just showed up out of nowhere.
You got up on the bed to start looking through the folders comfortably… or you thought it would be. This bed really sucked. "Let's see...."
You sift through the newspaper clippings first. They are mostly of fashion competitions. You don't see Suri's name on any of them though. Just results of ponies who got picked up by ponies like Sapphire Shores or whose fashion lines became the flavor of the month. Then you find a certain article, this one was of Suri...."Fresh Fashionista turns out to be rotten cheat" Harsh, but… deserving… all things considering.
It seems Coco did indeed rat her out. Good for her… Suri treated her like shit. You continued investigating. You could see applications in the folder… most of the earliest ones were of… what you think… of big name fashion producers… but as you go up to more recent applications… they are of desk jobs or other menial work. "Seems she's having trouble finding work. I guess being found out to be a fraud would make things hard. Sounds kind of like what happened with Trixie..."
Hmmm, how far did this rabbit hole go? With each article you looked through, all you could see was how Suri pretty much ruined her own life by trying to ruin Rarity's… Then you find a an interesting piece of mail.
"Huh… Hey..." It's from Coco Pommel. "Discord, check this out. It's from Coco..."
"Hmmm?" Discord moves away from the window and goes over to look at the envelope "Anon, are you seriously going to sift through her mail?"
"You sift through mail, why do you have a problem if I do it?"
"Because you're my son. If anypony knew you were a dirty little snoop, why… what would they think? What would Fluttershy think? They'd expect that from me… but from you? Tsk, tsk, it's shameful."
"I'm sure they'd think that my "Father" was being a bad influence. And I'm sure Fluttershy would take me in for awhile and personally teach me right from wrong… and I wouldn't mind that at all." You smirk at Discord as you try to get the letter out, but you had trouble gripping it.
"Come on… It shouldn't be that hard to pull a letter out of an envelope." Discord's horn lit up and the letter easily slid out of the envelope and onto the bed "There we are."
You just stare at Discord for a moment before you begrudgingly began to look at the letter. "Yeah yeah, if I had magic I could do that too"
Discord frowned. "Well, no need for attitude Anon. I was only trying to help"
Mnnn. He didn't do anything rude or make fun of you when he pulled the letter out.
"Sorry... I thought you were showing me up. Thanks Discord..."
"No problem at all Anon, now then… what does that letter say?"
"Give me a sec… Hnn." Why would Coco even send a letter to Suri, you'd think she would stay far away from her or something. But no, as you read the letter. It actually shows to be quite the opposite. Coco seemed to had found out about the miserable state Suri was in, and offered her a job. Well that's good… until you look at the date of the letter. "Shit… Coco offered her a job"
Discord notes your reaction, and is puzzled by it "And...that's a bad thing because?"
You show him the letter. "This letter is old… I don't think Suri ever took her up on that offer."
Discord was confused by that "Why wouldn't she take it? I love her taste in decor, but I noticed her taste in food is deplorable. And she barely has any to begin with. I know you need money to buy food… Hrnnn… Well now, it's been awhile since the insensible has actually stumped me."
You started to think of a few reasons an antagonist might have. "Could be a number of things. Pride, hate, anger… shame. Though I think we found what we need to solve the problem"
"Really? That was quick. This would have taken Twilight a whole day to figure out something like this. Color me impressed" Discord literally turned green right there and then. But you were too focused to react to it.
"Don't get excited yet. We still need to talk to Suri. And… not let her know that we know."
"What?! Why can't we let her know? Isn't acting the fool actually detrimental to this whole friendship problem thing?"
"Because I doubt she'd be willing to talk to us at all if she knew we dug through her stuff and raided her room."
"I doubt she'd want to talk to us at all period." Discord was having his own look through the articles. "This Suri Polomare doesn't seem to be the type that would associate with the likes of us."
He's probably right… Why would she want to talk to a colt and a stranger about… her… "Holy shit Discord, you're a genius!"
"Oh, I already knew that..." Discord then got confused "What am I a genius about?"
"Think about it, she wouldn't waste her time with us… But she would LOVE to be in the company of some upper crust fashion designer."
"Ahhh I see… But Anon..aren't you a little young to be a fashion designer?"
"You can't just make me older?"
Discord shook his head "I could… but I couldn't sustain it"
Wut? "Why not? It should be simple for you, right?"
"Normally, but you see… do you remember when Twilight used a spell on you to reveal your true form?"
You nod. "Yeah, but it didn't work because of that magic mirror stuff you did. You said It was because I was a natural pony"
Discord nods "Right, You see… when my magic fused with the natural magics of Equestria. It made it impossible for me to actually change your form for any good period of time."
...wait, what… WHAT?!?!
"WHAT?! WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?! D-D-DISCORD?!..DONT FUCKING TELL ME I'M GONNA BE A COLT FOREVER!"
Discord raised his hoof and then lowered it slowly, shushing you "No need to panic Anon, like I said. You are a natural pony, you can even get a cutie mark like anypony else. It's just you happen to be naturally infused with some of my chaos as well. To put it simply, your form is also a small chunk of chaos that I can't change due to the fact that it became a form of chaos that happens to be in the order of things. And causing disorder to it would actually be a form of some obtuse sense of order that can't be sustained by my power..." Discord chuckles "So… I suppose in a sense you really are my son, born from the world's order and my own personal brand of chaos"
...Oh good god. You put your hoof to your face. "You realize what this means right?"
Discord shakes his head "Haven't the slightest… but it's good to see you're taking that bit of information well."
Well, yeah. It didn't really change anything as far as your life went… as long as you weren't stuck as a kid forever. Though… if you had chaos in you… no… you'd save that question for later.
"It means… That you're gonna have to be the big name fashion pony"
"Come again?" Discord blinked, utterly confused