//------------------------------// // Sleepless night // Story: We will catch you if we can // by proto-alpha //------------------------------// The princess Celestia was sleeping in her room. There was no sound that disturbed her, and her face was as calm as it was when she was awake. With a rapid succession knocks at her door the peace was stopped, as well as Celestia's slumber. She opened her eyes, very annoyed that she has been awakened, and grumbling while getting up and going to open the door. Before opening it, she quickly put on her best serious face to not give a bad impression. The sight she had when she opened the door was certainly not what she expected. In front of her there was one of her guards, balancing on his hoofs as if the task of standing still was more than what his brain could handle and with a goofy smile on his face. "What is my presence required for?" Celestia asked, wanting nothing else more than returning to her bed. "Priiiiincessss, how are you doing? *chuckle* I was just passing by *very long laugh* and said, let's visit my favorite princess in aaaaall the world!" he continued to giggle while inviting himself to the princess bedroom. In normal circumstances, the princess would be very upset for her slumber being interrupted, but the way the guard was acting made alarms ring in her head. She watched how the stallion walked to her bed, jumped on it and started to bounce while laughing as much as Pinkie Pie. She then remembered that he was one of the guards that were guarding the creature. "Why are you here instead of guarding the human's cage?" she started to suspect of a certain chaotic being, but she wanted to be sure before awakening the whole castle. The guard giggled at the question as if it was an obvious one. "I already told you, I was passing by and wanted to say hi!". Celestia sighed irritated. "This might take a while" she thought as she continued to question the guard. Fernando and Discord were wandering the corridors of the last basement of the castle before the first floor. On the way Discord was, yet again, rambling about random things. Fernando learned to ignore him after the first hour, leaving the draconequus to his one-sided conversation. They stopped when they had an encounter with more guards, but these were black stallions, with dark blue armor and bat wings. Those were the six guards that were supposed to replace the guards that were immobilized and drugged. All of them stood there for some seconds, neither doing any kind of movement. Discord was the first one to say something. "You're on your own!" he said cheerily while patting him on the back. He snapped his fingers and disappeared in an implosion. For his part, Fernando smiled innocently and waved a greeting with his hand. With five deadpan looks as a response, one from the back of the group waved back, he turned around and started to run. The six guards reacted quickly by running to catch him. Fernando was running in the search of a hiding spot, but the guards that were less than three meters away from him and diminishing the distance at a relative quick pace, was starting to lose options. Since the he was almost at a hoof of distance from the guards, he picked a random door to enter. He quickly closed it and he quickly used, what he hoped, was the lock of the door. It was successful, because the guards couldn't open the door, but soon they were ramming it. "Come on, think!" he looked around the room, but there wasn't much that he could use. "I can't make barricade with these!" in the room there were only some boxes, old brooms, a bucket and a second door. "I hope that playing as Snake in Super Smash Bros Brawl justifies the use of his tactic" he thought as he hid under a box. Once inside the box, he heard how the ponies finally broke down the door. He heard some hoofsteps and a closing door. He was about to lift the box when he heard more hoofs getting closer. Whoever the owner of these hoofs was, was inspecting all of the room. Fernando held his breath when he heard the hoofsteps stop right in front of his box. He prepared himself to run for the door. The pony lifted the box and immediately Fernando ran for the door, without even looking at the one that lifted his box, but he was soon stopped when he was help by the shirt. "Wait, how is a pony holding my shirt with a hoof?" he thought before turning his head. When he did so, he discovered who had found him. The 'pony' was just Discord that was standing on his only hoof. Said draconequus had a smug smile on his face "Did I scare you?" he said mockingly. Fernando growled for a second before thinking calmly "Hey Discord, do you wanna hear a secret?" Discord nodded his head, eagerly to know this secret. "Yes, even if I can't keep a secret!" he said excited "No problem" responded Fernando. He leaned over as if he was whispering and thought, "you... tick me off". Discord started to laugh frantically at Fernando's commentary. "It's always a pleasure to do so" he said with a mocking smile. Fernando sighed and returned to his main objective of getting out of the castle. "Okay, one more time" said a frustrated Celestia "You had a reason to leave your position, you weren't ordered to do so, you were bored, you went for a dandelion sandwich, and then you came here to say hi. What was the action that originated all of that" the guard laughed, then giggled, then laughed some more before responding "Oh, you should've started from there, he he he. My companion who had the key gave it to that Discord, and since our task was to guard the key and the cage, we didn't believe necessary our task anymore since he liberated the creature". When the guard finished, he fell to the floor laughing at the look the princess had on her face. She had her eyes as wide as possible, her pupils were just tiny spots on her eyes from the shock and her mouth was hanging from her face. She took some minutes to process this, the guard in the meantime pushed back and forth the hanging mouth of the princess. When she came to her senses, she immediately yelled with the Royal Canterlot Voice at maximum volume, shattering her window in the process. "EVERYPONY, WAKE UP. DISCORD IS IN THE CASTLE AND HE HAS SET FREE THE HUMAN!" When the announcement reached the ears of the sleeping Twilight, she fell to the floor startled. She groggily stood up, trying to register in her half sleep mind what the princess had just yelled. When she found sense in those words, her eyes widened, she took Spike, who was too on the floor, and quickly left her room. "What's happening?" asked Spike, still confused. "Discord came back, and he set free the human!" Twilight responded while running. She ran in the direction of the room of the princess Celestia, wanting more information about what just happened. On the way, Pinkie, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy caught up with them. When they reached Celestia's room, they found Celestia and Luna giving orders to the guards to search for the human. "Princess Celestia, what did Discord do now?" Twilight asked when she was next to the princess. Said princess gave the order for the guards to start their search before responding to Twilight "It looks like he drugged the guards of the human's cage, and already managed to escape from the guards of the night". Twilight looked surprised by this "Did Discord teleport him or something?" she asked "No. By their testimony, Discord left it alone before the chase started, so it's a possibility that the human got away by his own means" the princess responded. "If they're still here in the castle, we'll catch them for sure!" said Rainbow Dash with confidence. The other ponies voiced their agreement with Rainbow statement. Celestia smiled at their enthusiasm and said "Very well, then you'll be another searching party apart from the guards". With that said, the six ponies went in different directions in the search of Fernando. Celestia got a little confused when she saw Twilight going through a random door. "Wasn't Spike with her when she came here?" she thought while looking around. She found the dragon talking with the still drunk guard, apparently humored by his current state. "I'll let him be, after all, he's just a kid" she thought before turning to her sister. "Luna, we both should help in the search. You search from the sky since the night is your advantage while I go and tell the guards to shut every possible escape route" she told to Luna. Luna nodded at the plan and immediately teleported to the sky to start her search. Celestia teleported too, but she went to the gates to give the order of closing them. A little before the shout, Fernando and Discord were at the second floor. "Who got the idea of making the access to the basements from a second floor?" Fernando asked, annoyed with the local architecture "It was my idea" replied Discord. Fernando looked at him puzzled before saying "Your idea?" "Yep, my idea. You see, some time after the foundation of Equestria I appeared and took control over it. I needed a place that honored me, so I made them build this castle. I was young back then, so that's why this castle looks so, ugh, normal" Discord responded, disgusted for the mention of the n-word. That is when they heard Celestia's shout. Fernando jumped a little when he heard that, while Discord flinched and checked for permanent ear damage "I think she should try again, I think she didn't wake up the ponies from Ponyville" Discord said, as a response, Fernando rolled his eyes. He stared some second at Discord, and the spirit felt as if he was trying to see into his very chaotic soul. "What are you staring at?" he asked after a while. "Aren't you supposed to leave me on my own when something like this happens?" Fernando responded. Discord faked being hurt by his words "How dare you? I would never do such a thing" he said before turning his back to him. They both then heard hoofs approaching from one side of the corridor. "Except now" Discord said with a grin before snapping his fingers and appearing in front of him a door. He entered it and after he did so, the door disappeared with an explosion of smoke. Fernando 'coughed' a little when he inhaled the smoke, but he could hear on the other side the guards talking "What was that?" he heard one "It must be Discord!" exclaimed another one. He heard them approaching and he was about to run to the other direction, but he thought of a best idea. The guards ran through all the corridor, but they didn't find anything, so they kept on running. The smoke of the corridor was pushed by a breeze that came from an open window, and surely there wasn't a sign of any human, but if you looked closely to the window you would two sets of four fingers hanging there. With some effort, Fernando climbed again the window, but unknown to him, the princess Luna had seen him and was now diving at full speed for the window where Fernando had just reentered the castle. Just before continuing his path, Fernando felt a chilly breeze. He shivered a little and turned to close the window. "The autumn must be close" he thought to himself. He still had his hands on the window's frame when he saw the face of the princess Luna slam with full force with the crystal. "I must make Celestia reconsider the magically reinforced windows" Luna said before falling unconscious and then falling to the ground. Fernando was, to say the least, surprised by this. He pushed the random event aside and then started to walk to where the guards had appeared. "I hope I don't run into anyone from the Human Hunters Team" he thought while walking. Twilight was running through the castle room while using her see-through spell. When she ran in the room under Fernando's location, she found the princess Luna unconscious outside the castle. She gasped and went to the closer window. She stuck out her head and levitated Luna's body back inside. She then shook her gently to wake her up. Luna groaned a little and slowly opened her eyes. "Wha-what happened?" the princess asked "That's what I want to know, princess" Twilight said "I remember seeing the human hanging from a window. He entered and I dived to catch him, but then I don't know what happened" Luna said confused. Twilight looked at her worried, and then she looked horrified to the princess' head. To the right of the princess' horn, there was a lump of half the heigh of the horn. "What? Do I have something on the face?" Luna asked when she saw Twilight's look. "Oh, no no no no no, you got nothing!" she said. As always, she wasn't a good liar. "But if you saw the human on the second floor, then we can corner him!" the unicorn tried to change the subject, and luckily, it worked. "You're right, Twilight Sparkle! I'll block the stairs, you get reinforcements!" the alicorn commanded before going to the stairs, walking in an erratical pattern along the way. Twilight looked at her a little concerned before going to get more help, and some ice.