We will catch you if we can

by proto-alpha


Here we go again

In the castle of Canterlot, there was a flash of light and from it appeared Fernando and the ponies and dragon that were with him. Fernando was a little dizzy and some parts of his clothes appeared to be a little burned. The ponies noticed him like that and Celestia said
"Sorry about that, but it appears that the things from where you come are not meant to be teleported"
"Well, there goes the dream of thousands of the invention of a teleport machine" he thought a little demotivated. "Putting that aside, how much time did you said that it would be before I can get back to my home?" he then said
"Some days. Maybe three or four," the princess answered, "but I'll need the help of my sister for that, so for now go and explore the castle. I'll send the letters to the other elements and Luna communicating that you're here"
"But what do I do if a guard sees me?" the homo sapiens asked again
"Mmm... I know. Twilight, you and Spike give him a tour around since you already know here and because if you're with him then there shouldn't be a problem until I give the announcement of your 'capture'. Lyra Heartstrings, you're free to go with them, or if you want, you can return to your home" the princess said
"I'll go with them" she announced, then the group exited.

Three days passed before Celestia had the spell ready. It was a warm morning, just after the breakfast that she told Fernando that he could be back to his home before noon. During those days, he had managed to don't get dismembered by Rainbow Dash, mauled by Luna or get caught in other 'knowledge time', as named by Lyra, with Twilight or the musical pony.
He, Celestia and Luna, who by now had already given up on mending her pride, went to the room that was prepared for the spell. In this room there were some books scattered around the floor, and in the center there was a white circle painted on the floor with some runes around it.
"Is that really necessary?" Fernando asked, not trusting in the circle
"No, but it helps to get more concentration if the scenery is well decorated" Celestia responded while grinning. Fernando still didn't trust it, but he decided to continue with this
"Okay, what do I have to do?" he asked
"Just enter the portal when it shows your home. The portal works in a way that it shows the home of the pony, or person in this case, who is seeing it" Luna answered, happy that she would be away from him.
The princesses proceeded to start the spell. They stood in opposite places around the circle, and the their horns started to shine a little, but then a beam was shot from each horn and it collided in the center of the circle. It then started to form a circular shape that was growing slowly. When it was as big as the princess of the Sun, it formed an image in it of a some houses.
Fernando couldn't believe that he was at last returning to his home. He slowly walked up to the portal and then, when he was about to cross it, he collided with an invisible wall. Rubbing his nose with one hand, he examined the wall with the other.
"Are you sure this is not just some kind of spell that shows my home?" he asked to the princesses. Without stopping the spell, Celestia answered, quickly getting tired
"No, it is supposed to be a portal". The portal was quickly draining their energy, and when they couldn't take it anymore, they stopped the spell and fell to the floor, panting from the exhaustion.
"What happened, why it didn't work?" Fernando asked again, but this time neither Celestia nor Luna answered, but it was a masculine voice coming from the air
"That would be my doing". Fernando jumped when he heard the voice
"Who are you? Why did you do this?" he questioned the voice
"In a reverse order, I did this for fun, and for the first question, I'd prefer to show myself". When he heard this, he saw how a lion paw came from the thin air, and then, like it was pulling something, it pulled out a horned head, of what appeared to be a goat, but the horns weren't of the same animal. The head was followed by a body of different color from the one of the head. The other arm of the creature was that of an eagle, and at the end there were another two legs that didn't correspond with the body, one being from a reptile while the other was of a hoofed animal. It had one wing of a pony and a wing of a bat, and the tail of a dragon.
It would be intimidating if it wasn't for the fact that it barely reached his hip. The princess Celestia gasped while still on the floor
"Discord! What are you doing free again?" she asked, surprised that he was free and angry that she couldn't do anything to imprison him.
"I was passing by and decided to pay my old enemy a friendly visit" he said with a look of malice in his face.
"Be serious for once... and why are you so tiny?" Celestia responded angrily to his sarcasm, and really confused asked.
"It's the most I can do without having my magic weakened even more" he said, but now he appeared to be just annoyed with his situation.
Fernando, after recovering from the surprise of seeing something so ridiculous, asked really angry
"Why did you stopped me from returning to my home?". Discord responded with a mocking grin
"Why else than to entertain me?"
"What!?" Fernando yelled, preparing himself to squash the thing
"Well, you see." he put his arms as if he was opening a window. He did the action and then there appeared a screen "After being imprisoned by the full power of the elements of harmony" the screen showed how he was being shoot with a rainbow beam coming from six members of the HHT, "my full powers were locked for the rest of the eternity. You would think that being turned into stone would be fun, but it is not. Now, thanks to the chaos that happened in the last days, I was able to create an image of myself with some of my power" in the screen appeared the state in which Trottingham was, the train station from Manehattan and the traps around the different cities that still were being cleaned up.
"I was able to see your actions from the past thanks to my powers, and they were indeed very funny. It was as if I wasn't needed anymore to torment these ponies" he said very humored. "So I thought of giving you another challenge"
"What do you mean by that?" Fernando asked, considering him more of a threat now
"It's simple. I do this" he stuck out his arm as if he was trying to take something from a box and pulled Twilight out from thin air. She was knocked out, as if the trip wasn't a good one.
Discord did the same, bringing every integrant of the HHT, even Spike. Then he snapped his fingers and the HHT opened their eyes, but they were spinning as if they were dizzy. The same happened to the princesses. After that, all of them closed their eyes again.
"What did you do?" Fernando asked, starting to freak out
"I simply erased all of their memories from the past days" Discord answered with a maniacal smile
"I'll just tell them. This whole story is too elaborated to be just made up" he told Discord, trusting in his abilities to tell stories
"But how will you do that?" Discord countered
"What do you..." he didn't finish his sentence. He got confused and started to make motions of yelling. Discord started to laugh very hard
"What are you saying, that you accept my challenge?" Fernando was getting really irritated, angry and mad at Discord at the same time.
"Okay, if you insist, this is what you have to do" he then took a roll of parchment from his back and unrolled it. He showed it to Fernando and he saw an image of a drawing stick figures made by a three years old. "First, you have to reach again a distance equivalent to the first time you were running away" he pointed to the first figure that was running. "Second, you can't get caught, if you do, you have to start all over again", he pointed to the second that showed a figure in jail first, and then it was being carried out by Discord. It was suspicious that the image Discord was the only well drawn. "If you can do this I'l return their memories and if you want I'll erase everything about the challenge from their memories".
Fernando sighed and thought
"If I don't play along it'll only get worse"
"Yes, you're right" Discord said. Fernando got surprised when he responded to his thoughts.
"How did you do that?" he mentally asked. The creature pointed above him. Fernando looked up, and floating over his head there were some letters native from Equestria
"Those letters can only be seen by me" Discord commented. Just then, there were multiple groans, and ten corpses raised at the same time. The first to regain consciousness about their surroundings was Celestia. When she saw Discord next to Fernando, she asked really surprised
"Discord, what are you doing out of your prison?" Discord answered 'innocently'
"Oh, nothing. I just brought this human from another dimension that might or might not cause chaos" he then whispered to Fernando, "good luck". With that he snapped his fingers and disappeared.
Celestia was staring at where Discord was before turning to Fernando. The other ponies finally returned to normal and heard what Discord said.
"Oh god, why me" he thought before darting out of the room. Celestia then commanded
"Quick, catch it!". With that, all of them started chasing him.

Meanwhile, Discord was erasing the memories from the guards and the servants of the castle with an irritated face
"This would be faster if I had all of my powers" he thought while continuing with his task of making everything harder for Fernando.