We will catch you if we can

by proto-alpha

One against an army

Rainbow Dash flew as fast as she could to Ponyville without breaking the sound barrier. Celestia had forbidden her to make a Sonic Rainboom so close to any city or town after breaking (by accident) all of the windows of Canterlot while showing off. Even then, the flight didn't take more than a hour at her speed.

When she arrived at Ponyville, she started to make everything she knew to call the attention of the ponies. She shouted

"Everypony go to the town hall in ten minutes, it's an emergency!", she also wrote in the sky with clouds 'Emergency! Meeting at the town hall', and called the other weather pegasus to help her to spread the word.

The minutes passed and soon every habitant of Ponyville was at the town hall, muttering between themselves about what could be wrong. Rainbow Dash was standing in front of the crowd.

"Okay, I have to tell them as subtle as possible" she thought to herself. The citizens of Ponyville weren't the most calmed ponies in Equestria, and by this point, it didn't take much for them to run and scream for their lives. Rainbow cleared her throat and stared to talk.

"Now that we all are here, let's get to the point" she gave them a moment to prepare themselves and then she continued "Discord has broken free again and brought a creature from who-knows-where. The creature escaped from the castle and is coming here in a train from Canterlot".

When she finished, Rainbow Dash covered her ears and closed the eyes to brace herself from the incoming shrieks of terror, but they never came. She opened one eye and saw that they didn't change their expression.

"That was better than expected" she thought with relief, but then there was a shout

"Run for the hills!" it was Granny Smith, that now was 'running' as fast as possible, that was close to walking at a slow pace. This made the other ponies freak out too, and soon all the town was in complete chaos.

Rainbow Dash blinked when from one second to other the ponies had a nervous breakdown.

"Would you calm... Hey, listen... Shut up!" Rainbow Dash was trying to call their attention, but was utterly failing. She gave an exasperated growl and was about to shout even louder, but stopped when she felt a tap on the shoulder.

"Leave it to me, Dashie!" said Pinkie Pie from her side. Rainbow Dash was confused beyond the charts as to how Pinkie had made it so fast from Canterlot.

"Ho-ho-how d-d-did you..." she couldn't even finish her sentence because of how surprised she was, but luckily to her, Pinkie speaks confunese.

"Well, duh," Pinkie made the face that matched her verbal expression "I fired myself from my Party Cannon!". Rainbow Dash was left with a face that could only be described by what she was mouthing.

"What?"

Some time earlier

The other of the five ponies were exiting the station. Twilight had calculated how much the train would take to arrive to Ponyville and was sure that if they took a chariot, even with the extra weight, they would make it just a little after the train to the town. In the middle of the street, Pinkie remembered that she had brought her Party Cannon and had an idea

"Hey girls, I know a much faster way to get to Ponyville". Twilight stopped too and turned to her, having learned to hear her even if she was a little crazy

"What would that be?" she asked hopefully

"This!" the pink pony answered as she pulled out of nowhere her Party Cannon.

"Your Party Cannon!? How is it supposed to help us?" Twilight asked

"Duh, we just need to get fired to Ponyville" she answered as if it was the most normal thing

"Pinkie, as good as your idea might be, being turned into pony bullets is not a charming idea" commented Rarity

"Aw, come on! It will be fun!" Pinkie tried to convince her friends, but to no avail. She gave up and then said as cheerful as ever "well, then I'll see you all in Ponyville". She took a helmet out of nowhere, put it on and then got into the cannon, her head poking out from the piece of heavy artillery. Not too long after, it fired on its own and Pinkie was sent out flying in the direction of Ponyville, the helmet somehow was left in the air behind. A rope was launched too from the cannon, apparently one part tied to Pinkie Pie, and when it tensed, the cannon was brought to the air, following Pinkie. When the four (I mean three) sane ponies lost sight of their friend, they saw a shine and a *ding* sound.

Back to the present

"Anyway, it doesn't matter. You said that you knew how to call their attention" said Rainbow Dash after shaking the 'what?' feeling and returnint to the main topic. When she finished her sentence, the Party Cannon came and crashed next to Pinkie, creating a hole in the floor of the town hall. Pinkie reached a hoof to the newly formed crater and pulled out a megaphone.

"I have megaphones stashed all over Ponyville in case of megaphone emergency" she said with her usual smile. She activated the megaphone and then she took a deep breath. When she was ready, she shouted so loud, and it was heard even louder, that the ground shook for a moment. "EVERYPONY CALM DOWN!".

This successfully got their attention, and soon they all where to Pinkie Pie. She gave a pat in the back to Rainbow to signal her that she could talk now.

"Well, now that we got your attention, instead of running around like mad ponies, why don't we set up every possible trap we can think about to catch it in ten seconds flat!" when Rainbow Dash finished, they all gave an unison agreement, and then they went to help in this task. Rainbow Dash turned her attention to Pinkie to plan some strategies and didn't notice when some ponies said things like

"We can use some of the traps from when the human came!" or "I had a lot of ideas for that human that I will use now".

Lyra was at her home reading the book that she borrowed from the library. Fernando had remembered her of her secret obsession and after she read some of the paragraphs that were there, and while going through the text that could describe him, she found some lose paper sheets that weren't there before. She took them and found that they were notes that instead of giving a vague description, were fully detailed while describing a being known as a human, and then there was something that surprised her even more.

There, in her magic grasp, was a drawing of the human with a footnote that read 'Fernando', and after it, there was detailed information about the same human that she helped capture. She was reading this part of the notes with so much intensity that the cartoonish scene could be mistaken by one of an anime.

She had her reading interrupted by a sudden shout

"Everypony go to the town hall in ten minutes, it's an emergency!". She recognized the shout as Rainbow Dash's voice. She didn't like the sound of an emergency just a day after a chaotic entity appeared, so she took a saddle bag and stuffed in the notes, planning on getting more responses by taking them to somepony that had more experience with this kind of things.

She arrived at the town hall and heard everything, her fear of a big problem was confirmed, but when she tried to walk up to her, the crowd started to panic and made it impossible for a not so freaked out pony to walk in one direction. After Pinkie's intermission at the town's monthly panic attack, she heard the plan that they had and sighed in relief that at least they had control over the situation. She trotted up to the two Elements, still thinking about the notes to pay attention to what the villagers had to say.

When Pinkie noticed the mint green pony walking up to them, she waved her hoof and greeted her

"Hi Lyra!". Rainbow Dash turned too to look at her and said

"Hey, what's up?"

"Hello girls, I think I got something important" she told them before she showed them the notes. Rainbow Dash took them and read some lines quickly before skipping almost everything, until she got to the drawing

"Hey, it's that animal" Rainbow commented before looking at the footnote. "You named it?" she asked with disbelief. Lyra shook her head in a negative way and responded

"I didn't make those. They simply appeared out of nowhere" she said this without remembering what happened at the train to Trottingham.

"Maybe is one of Discord's clues. He did the same the last time he was free after all!"

Meanwhile, in the train that contains your favorite member of the primate family, Discord sneezed suddenly. He expected to read above Fernando's head something along the lines of 'bless you', but it never appeared.

"Aren't you supposed to say something?" he said to the resting human

"I would do that, but you messed with my life" he answered in what he hopped to be a mocking writing.

"But we are friends!" Discord said cheerily

"You're not my friend" Fernando responded grumpily

"Well, you are my friend, friend." Discord countered, "Anyway, do you know what this sneeze means?"

"That you are allergic to the dust?" he tried to guess

"No, it would have been if I had added an extra 'u' at the 'chuuu'. It means that somepony is talking about me, and that somepony thinks that there is a harmonious pattern to my actions!" he said with a hurt tone before curling up in a ball that to the inexpert eye would appear a cube, and weeping miserably.

"Come on! You're not even hurt by that!" Fernando thought in the direction of the gloomy draconequus, who immediately came back to his normal mood

"See? You know me so well that you know how I act! You ARE my friend!" the chaotic spirit said with a smile before taking out a camera out of nowhere and going up to Fernando. He took him by his shoulder and put the camera in front of their faces. When he pushed the button for the photo to be taken, a punching glove shot out from the lens and his both Fernando and Discord in their faces.

After returning his face to normal, which was comically flat, Discord put out his paw and the photo printed itself from his palm. It showed Discord and Fernando's faces when being hit by the glove and he put it in a frame that read 'Me and my best friend that is not my friend at all'.

"A great memento of a great moment" Discord said before tossing it aside, the sound of a cat being steeped being heard when it hit the floor behind some suitcases.

When Fernando stopped holding his nose from the pain, he thought to himself

"Hey, I can predict the future!"

Back with something actually important, the town of Ponyville looked more like a military field than a town by the dusk. Every building was sheltered to some extent and there were trenches around the streets. Traps were scattered at the alleys and ponies were on the top of buildings, leaving an almost perfect guard at the town. The downside was that the night would make it difficult to see things on the ground, and there weren't enough unicorns to light up more than a spot at the time in every street. Maybe two or three on the biggest streets or tactical points, but nothing more.

Twilight and her friends arrived rather quickly thanks to the lack of two of their friends. They saw the actual state of Ponyville from the sky and they were more than surprised. Applejack let out a whistle and commented

"Looks like Rainbow over did it a little". They landed in front of the town hall, that was covered in barbed wire, and when they entered it, they saw Rainbow Dash in a green military suit giving orders to the other ponies.

"After we find it, you two will lead him to the pit and then..." she had a map of Ponyville hanged from the wall and was using a pointer to signal the places that the ponies would follow.

"Rainbow Dash, what are you doing?" said Twilight

"Oh, hi girls, you arrived earlier than expected" Rainbow greeted them, getting out of character.

"Since Pinkie came here firing herself from her cannon, the carriage was lighter and faster." said Twilight, "Speaking of Pinkie, where is she?"

"She's at Sugar Cube Corner baking some ammo" Rainbow Dash answered. Twilight raised an eyebrow at the mention of ammo, but if it includes Pinkie Pie she better dropped the subject. Rainbow Dash then remembered that Lyra wanted to show the notes to Twilight. "Oh, right. Twilight, Lyra discovered something that you should take a look at". Twilight was exited when she heard that they had discovered something

"Really? What is it?" she asked with an eager smile on her face.

"It's information about that creature that Discord brought. In those notes it even has a silly name on a drawing". When Rainbow answered this, Twilight was already hopping in excitement at the prospect of learning things from an unknown species.

"Where is she? Where is she?" she said while looking around for the other unicorn.

"She's at the library. She said something about searching for more clues" Dash responded before Twilight teleported to her house.

In the giant tree, Lyra was inside a circle of open books, every book was at a random page and Lyra had a frustrated face while reading the book that she had lifted with magic. She gave an irritated growl before tossing aside the book. Twilight appeared in the way of the book and barely had time to dodge it. She looked at Lyra and saw how she was already reading another book with a serious and concentrated face. Twilight trotted up to her and said

"Hi Lyra, what are you doing?", she said this while gently lowering the book that Lyra was reading, trying to calm her down.

"Oh, hello. Sorry Twilight, I got a little carried away with the studies" Lyra responded while looking around, snapping out of her trance.

"Don't worry, I do that all the time" said Twilight. "Anyway, Rainbow Dash told me that you had found something extremely important". This commentary made Lyra remember the notes that she had found on the book.

"I got it here" she said while levitating them from on top of the middle table. "It's information about the humans species, and it even has detailed information about Fernando!" Twilight cocked an eyebrow at the mention of the unknown name

"Who?" she asked

"Oh, right" Lyra said sheepishly. She took the drawing from the middle of the paper sheets and showed it to Twilight "I don't know who did it, but at the bottom there is written in perfect Equestrian writing 'Fernando'". Twilight saw the name, and her eyes widened in surprise

"He got a name?" she asked in disbelief before continuing with a random page "Forms societies, capable of creating tools from useless things..." she stopped, her eyes widened in horror when she read the next sentence "He is omnivorous!?"
she started to freak out "What if he eats somepony, or what if she eats those ponies pets?" she gasped soundly when she remembered Fluttershy's cottage "What if he finds Fluttershy's home?" she thought about all of the tiny animals running for their lives from a blood covered Fernando, while from some distance Fluttershy observed everything, and instead of starting to cry or fainting, she becomes ever crazier than she is right now and kills the human then takes over Equestria and makes all of the ponies pets her pets.

While Twilight freaked out in her own apocalyptic world, she was also saying it out loud and Lyra watched everything. She knew about Twilight's problem of making the worst possible scenery, and when she got enough of watching a pony mentally kill herself, she grabbed her head and looked directly in her eye

"Twilight, calm down! As far as we know, it could eat fish or something like that". This got Twilight to at least stop imagining herself running away with Owlowiscious in her magic grasp. "Good, now that that's sorted out..." she was interrupted by the sound of a train's whistle, and that signaled that soon it would be for Ponyville to be better than the Royal Guard. Suddenly looking very stoic both unicorns, they nodded their heads at the same time and returned with Rainbow Dash for instructions.

Fernando peeked through the window from the wagon and saw how Ponyville was guarded. He took in a big gulp and thought in Discord's direction

"Any suggestions?" Discord came too to the window and when he saw Ponyville, he snickered and said

"I recommend that you learn advanced techniques of sneaking in ten minutes". Fernando hung down his head in acceptation and started to psych up to deal with this.

"It doesn't help that I played the whole Golden Eye shooting the heck out of everything". While thinking of a game experience that could help him in this, he didn't notice the carriage landing on Ponyville.

His thoughts were interrupted after some time when he heard the train's whistle.

"I think you can handle the situation yourself" commented Discord with a mocking smile before going through the wagon's ceiling.

"Okay, I just need to stay hidden in the train. With some luck, I'll be able to be here when it sets off again" he thought when the train arrived at the station. He peeked through the window and saw ten mares and two stallions with a look that could compete with that of the Royal Guard. "Just don't say what I think you'll say"

The doors opened and one of the mares commanded

"Everypony, get out! There is a creature in there and we'll check the train!". The ponies did so, not understanding at all what she meant, but that look and that tone of voice could make anypony obey. Luckily for Fernando, they left thee luggage aboard. unluckily for him was that they were approaching him.

"What am I gonna do?" thought Fernando frantically.

Comments

[Alexd20]

"Will Fernando be found by the Pony's or will his sneaking lvl increase to 75? Find out in the next exciting chapter of We will catch you if we can!"

Ok Now will you leave me alone Discord

HAH you wish

[norsefire]

Pinkie Pie's blasting off again!!!

[jordanwriter]

Poor fernando.... KILL IT WITH PLASMA TV'S

[Lone Wolf]

This is getting good.He reminds me of Jack Sparrow in a way because of the cleverness he has shown throughout the story.

[Copperpug]

lol discord and fernodo friends perfect

[HornyUnicorn]

Why did Lyra not notice her own handwriting? She found the notes on herself right? It seems too convenient, and silly that she would not investigate, or even wonder about the source of the notes, since these are very detailed notes on rarely sighted creatures that were said to live in the Everfree forest (right next to Ponyville), and she heard humans stories from her grandfather.