The next morning, Twilight and Spike were awakened by a servant of the castle.
"The breakfast will be ready in thirty minutes" she said before returning to her duties at the kitchen. Twilight rose from the bed, tired from yesterday's events, and proceeded to make herself look presentable. Spike just mumbled in his sleep and rolled over in his bed.
When Twilight was ready, she started to walk to the dinning room for her food.
"Spike, don't you wanna eat?" she said as she was exiting the room. At the mention of the action of introducing food in the mouth, Spike was wide awake and already running past Twilight.
"Come on, Twilight! You don't want to be late, right?" he said before disappearing in a door. Twilight rolled her eyes, knowing her assistant very well.
When Twilight and Spike arrived to the kitchen, both princesses and Applejack where already there. They greeted them and sat down, and while Twilight awaited politely for the others, Spike was already halfway through his ruby and sapphire cereal. They talked a little during breakfast about random topics, and not to long after the rest of their friends were arriving. First was Pinkie, then Rarity and after a little more time, entered Rainbow. Every sound ceases to exist in the moment that Fluttershy entered. She didn't have that unnerving smile, but a normal one.
"So, Fluttershy, you're not upset anymore, right?" Rainbow asked. Twilight gave her a scowl, thinking that this subject was rather delicate, but to her surprise, Fluttershy didn't react in a bad way.
"No, Rainbow, I was never upset" she answered with the same smile. "I just overreacted a little, that's all"
"Fine then" Rainbow said, not really satisfied with the answer. Nopony believed her and had the same thought
"A little? Really?"
Pushing this matter aside, the Princess Celestia started to talk about the actual problem
"Now that all of us is here, I'll tell you our priorities with our problem. First of all, we have to localize and capture that human before it gets in contact with the ponies out there". At that moment, Pinkie lifted her hoof in the air as if she was at the school, "yes, Pinkie?" asked the princess.
"I can find the hiu-man with my eyes closed" she suddenly pulled out a detective hat from nowhere, and put it on, and a magnifying glass. "Just leave it to me" she finished before darting out of the room. Everypony was silent for a moment, and they all silently agreed to ignore the random action. Celestia continued to talk then
"After we catch it, Discord surely will try to free it again, and this time I'll personally guard the cage" she had a determined look on her face, that soon was all over the faces of the ponies, except Fluttershy, who continued to smile.
In an alley in the middle of Canterlot, Fernando awoke uncomfortable from his slumber. He had slept on a decent bed for the past days, and returning to the cold ground of the city was not his idea of comfort. Discord awoke too, but he was high in the sky, in a king size bed hanged like hammock from two poles made out of cotton candy clouds. He yawned and stretched himself. He took a parachute out of nowhere and put on goggles that were under his pillow, and proceeded to jump out from the bed.
He fell at an increasing speed, and wasn't seen thanks to the early hour of the day, and that it was a sunday. When he was nearing the ground, he pulled the string of the parachute, but instead of the usual canopy, an anvil popped out, but surprisingly it started to stop his fall.
Back in the alley, Fernando saw a piece of paper fall in front of him. He took it and saw an arrow that pointed to some clouds. Understanding the meaning, he looked up and saw Discord parachuting with an anvil waving his hand. He returned the gesture without enthusiasm and continued to further awake himself. He saw after some moments Discord landing next to him, and saw how the anvil landed gently over his foot. At that moment he would have yelled in pain, feeling the piece, of actually heavy still, crush his toes. He managed to get his foot back from beneath the anvil and proceeded to jump around comically while trying to take off his shoe, with a lot of pain.
He saw that thanks to the ground, that wasn't very firm, he won't lose his toes, but they still hurt a lot. He angrily looked at Discord, who was rolling in the air while laughing.
"Are you crazy?" he asked, wanting to strangle him. He laughed some more, read his thoughts, and then responded while laughing some more
"Yep, how did you know?". Fernando gave an unfriendly growl while going away from Discord.
When he was about to round the corner, he heard hoofsteps, and took a glance to see the pony. He saw Pinkie in a detective costume and a magnifying glass checking the floor, but her head at just some centimeters from the floor, and the magnifying glass looked like it was touching the floor. He didn't want to know more and he continued his path.
Pinkie had found some abnormal hoofprints on her search for the human. The clue had lead her to the alley where he had slept, but she still didn't know that. She continued to investigate the hoofprints and on the way she bumped into something. She looked up and saw Discord laughing while rolling in the air.
"Discord!" she exclaimed. Discord stopped his moment of happiness and looked to the pony
"Hi there" he said, chuckling a little.
"What are you doing here? Where is that human?" she asked to the draconequus.
"He went over there" he said while pointing where Fernando got out of sight, not giving the pony much importance, and proceeding to appear his breakfast in front of him, that consisted of a plate of fruit salad, and started to eat the plate instead of the fruit. Pinkie stood there, giving her unusual glare, not quite trusting him.
"How do I know that you're not lying to me?" she asked. He swallowed the mouthful of plate and answered
"Dear, I'm a draconequus that is having breakfast. Everypony knows that the draconequus that are having breakfast can't lie". Pinkie believed in his flawless logic and said
"Well then, I have a persecution to do" she said before starting to run.
Fernando had made several turns in the alley to lose Pinkie Pie. He stopped a little to catch his breath, and in that moment he heard a set of hoofs approaching to where he was.
"I can't just try to outrun that pony, I have to think of something!" he thought. It wasn't long before he had to start to run again. Pinkie had already seen him and was running even faster. Fernando observed that at some points, there were some alleys that had an exit to the streets. In one of those he saw a pony, that looked like a generic barber, take out the remains of somepony's facial hair and deposit them in a trash can. "Well, if I tricked her before, this may work".
The pony reentered his barber shop, and Fernando took that moment to go get the hair. Pinkie Pie lost sight of him for some seconds, and when she turned the corner where she saw him go, all she only saw a creature with a mustache.
Fernando's POV
I stood there, looking as innocent as a random guy with a mustache can be. I was holding the facial hair with my upper lip because my hand would be suspicious. Pinkie Pie approached me, apparently my plan worked, and asked me.
"Excuse me mister, have you seen a creature that looks just like you, just without a mustache?". Since she couldn't hear my voice, I pointed to the street. "Okay mister, thank you!" she then continued to walk. I slowly retreated back to the alley, when I was stopped by a hoof to the shoulder. "Excuse me again, but the hoofsteps of that hiu-man seem to lead to you" she was glaring at me now. It wasn't like Fluttershy's stare, but I was starting to sweat a little.
My biggest mistake was to 'laugh' nervously. I felt how the fake mustache fell from my face. I caught it in mid air and tried to return it to my face, but I wasn't convincing her anymore. In a last attempt at getting away, I threw my disguise to her face. She yelled
"Aaah! Wild mustache!". She threw herself to the floor and started to roll around trying to get the facial hair out of her face. I watched the scene with a blank look and backed away slowly. After I was some meters away, I started to run.
"That was a brave mustache" I thought while running.
After some time, I stop to catch my breath yet again. While I do that I remember that she had been able to track me down thanks to my footprints.
"Well, let's confuse her" I thought mischievously as I take of my shoes.
Third person POV
Pinkie Pie was able to take off her assailant after some time. When she did so, she stood up and had a big frown on her face.
"So attacking me with your disguise, huh?" she said to nopony in particular.
She took again her magnifying glass and started to follow the footprints again. After some time, she had to stop to do a double take. She looked in front of her and saw that the left and right foot started to make a crossing pattern.
"Well, he does walk chaotically" she commented, before following the footprints again. After some more meters, the tracks started to walk in an erratic pattern, making big curves and loops, and then they started to point in every direction, as if he was doing a weird dance while walking. As the prints were starting to make less sense, she arched more her eyebrow, until it was in danger of popping out from her face. She looked up to her eyebrow and put it back to it's place with her hoof and continued her search.
She was focusing so much in the footprints that she didn't saw the pipe that came down from the adjacent building. She started to feel her tail curl up, but didn't knew what it meant
"A new twitch! What does it mean?" she thought as she continued walking. She ended up hitting her head, and while rubbing it she answered herself "Look where you walk". She shook her head and saw that while the left footprint walked to the left of the pipe, the right print walked to the right. She froze in place with a perplex look, and after some seconds she continued to walk.
The tracks made a sudden turn and they started to go up vertically on a ladder. Pinkie just followed them and didn't notice that instead of climbing the ladder, she was walking it up. It wasn't a tall building, perhaps, two and a half meters, and was at the top in no time. She continued to follow the tracks but didn't stop when there were no more prints... nor roof. She stopped suddenly in mid air and asked to herself
"Now, what was I supposed to do when I'm in the air?". She had a thinking look on her face. To help her thinking, she took out a glass of lemonade from her mane and drank from it, and then returned the glass. She smiled when she remembered. "Oh, I know... wait" she then fell.
At the gates of the castle, Twilight was giving instructions to the remaining four ponies.
"Rainbow, you search from the sky for any chaotic activity" Rainbow saluted military style before darting to the sky.
"Applejack, have ready your lasso at every moment" Applejack took out her rope and she it on reach from her back.
"Rarity, walk to the left of the street while I walk to the right to have a better chance of stopping this creature" Rarity nodded.
"And will I do?" asked Fluttershy, still with the same smile that for some reason freaked out everypony.
"Fluttershy, you... um... you'll make sure it doesn't escape after we catch it" Twilight responded. She tried very hard to act normal around Fluttershy, like the others, but it wasn't easy when she looked straight at your eyes with an uncharacteristic unnatural glint in her eyes. "Okay, now that everything is settled, let's go!".
The ponies had made it to the center of Canterlot without seeing anything
"Nothing yet, Rainbow?" Twilight asked to Rainbow Dash
"No, everything is normal!" she responded
"Do you think that we can find it?" asked Applejack
"As I've said before, it's just an animal. It can't..." she was interrupted by a yell.
"AAAAH!" it was Pinkie Pie, that fell on top of her. When Pinkie noticed that she was on top of Twilight, she said "Hi Twilight!".
"Hi Pinkie" responded Twilight, "you wouldn't mind getting off of me, right?" she asked her from below her
"No problem!" she exclaimed. She got off of her and Applejack asked her
"What where you doing up there?"
"I was following the hiu-man, but he got away" Pinkie responded her. Applejack arched an eyebrow
"How do you know that it's a he?" she asked her
"Discord called him a he" she responded
"What!? He didn't do anything to you, right?" she asked, readying her lasso in case she had to hold her down.
"No, he was too busy having breakfast to do anything" Pinkie responded.
"Anyway, you said that you found it..." asked Twilight
"Him" corrected Pinkie
"... Him, where was he?" finished Twilight
"He was in those alleys" Pinkie answered while pointing to the nearest entrance to the alleys
"Then we must hurry!" Twilight remembered something "hey, do you remember what we said in the breakfast about the sudden feeling from yesterday?" everypony nodded "It may apply to you too" she said this to Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie.
Back in the alleys, Fernando was walking away from the building where Pinkie fell. His stomach started to growl while walking.
"I wonder if there is a restaurant near?" he thought
"There's no need for that" Discord said from behind him. Fernando jumped at the sudden appearance of the draconequus. He turned to see him and thought
"Why do you always have to appear so suddenly?
"Because oatmeal" he responded
"Oatmeal?"
"Oatmeal". Fernando did a face palmed and just returned to the topic
"What were you saying about not needing a restaurant?". Discord took a chef hat from behind him and said
"It's simple, I'll give you food". Fernando looked at him with a distrusting look
"What's the catch?" he asked him
"You have to eat everything" he emphasized 'everything'. Fernando didn't liked how that sounded, but another growl came from his stomach, and he agreed with the idea. Discord snapped his fingers and a table and chair suddenly appeared. Fernando took a seat and Discord handed him a menu. He looked over it, and the food seemed normal
"Don't you have meat?" he asked
"I have the stomachs of a cow, I don't eat meat and won't serve it" Discord answered.
"Okay, then I'll have a bowl of chocolate flavored cereal" the menu disappeared and in front of him appeared a bowl of cereal and some milk was poured in it. "Still nothing suspicious" he thought before Discord handed him a spoon.
He finished the cereal and drank all of the milk and was about to stand up when he discovered that he was glued to the chair
"You still haven't finished everything" Discord said with a smirk
"But there's no more cereal nor milk" responded Fernando. Discord looked to the bowl and then to Fernando again, still with the smirk. Fernando looked to the bowl and reality struck him hard. "You expect me to eat a bowl!" Fernando mentally yelled
"And the spoon" Discord added. Fernando looked at him like he had lost his mind, if he had one in the first place, and asked
"Are they even edible?"
"Probably" was Discord's only response. With a sigh, Fernando reached for the bowl and found that it was rather easy to take a bite from it.