It was a rare occurrence that Discord went missing unannounced.

It was often that he’d disappear, but he would always let somepony know to avoid any panic that it might stir up from the thought that he’d gone back to his old ways. His friends never thought it would happen, of course, but some ponies of Ponyville were still getting over his chaotic personality.

But, as uncommon and nonsensical as it was, he had vanished without a trace this time. Not even his self-proclaimed carer, Fluttershy, had been told about it.

Fortunately, Fluttershy had told her friends as soon as she’d noticed him gone, and they’d all rallied together to form a search party to find him again. They’d even recruited a few happy-go-lucky volunteers that had come to accept Discord and his haphazard personality.

Currently, princess Twilight Sparkle was organising this search party into an efficient system that would hopefully make this search last no more than an hour at best. The plan was simple; to split into groups of two that would then fan out across the town. If one group located Discord, they would bring him back to the starting point and wait for the rest of the search party to return, maybe even find a way to notify the others that the search needn’t continue.

To make this run even more smoothly, the ever-precise Rarity had given out maps with each group’s allotted segment of Ponyville marked down. To make matters even easier, she’d also given out clipboards and quills to mark off where was searched. She’d even put those quills in flashy holders that she’d put together hastily when she’d thought the idea up.

“Alright,” said Twilight Sparkle, running through her checklist of the plan again quickly. “So now that all of us know what we’re doing, should we get this underway?”

“Oh yes please,” Fluttershy put in quietly. “I really hope he’s okay or… or I just wouldn’t know what I’d do.”

“Aw, he’s probably just playing hide-n-seek and forgot to tell us!” Rainbow Dash put in confidently. “I was great at that game! We’ll find him in no time!”

“Then let’s go find Discord, everyone!” Twilight exclaimed loudly, drawing a little cheer of agreement out of two of the volunteers and her friend, Pinkie Pie.

With that, they all went their separate ways to scour the town in search of the draconequus.

Little did they know how disappointed they would be.

-=-=-=-=-

A few hours later, the search party regrouped back where they had started.

The emotions they brought with them were less than desired.

“W-we can’t f-find him,” Fluttershy stammered, on the verge of tears. “W-what if h-he has gone b-back to his old w-ways?”

“Fluttershy, you worry way too much,” Rainbow Dash growled, giving of a violent air of aggression and anger. “He’s playing a prank on us and when he shows up again, I’m gonna kick his head into the ground!”

Twilight, looking much more flustered than any of her friends and the rest of the search party, sighed and looked around at the worried crowd that’d been drawn since the first group, Rainbow Dash’s, got back.

“Well,” she breathed, drawing her slightly bloodshot eyes up to her search party. “Thank you, everypony, for helping us search! Since it’s only been a few hours since we last saw him, we can’t really involve any other ponies like the guard unless we get volunteers that are willing to give up their free time to help us cover more ground!”

“What if we can’t find him in time to stop him creating chaos again?!” yelled somepony in the back of the crowd.

Of course, this drew some whispered ideas from the crowd that could easily be at least half the townsfolk. They’d all heard the rumour that Discord had gone missing and had been drawn to the ponies in the search party while they waited for the rest to come back with their result.

“N-no!” Twilight yelled. “No no! He won’t go back to his evil ways! He’s our friend and he won’t betray us again!”

“He’s already done it before!” shouted another pony. This one almost sounded the same as the first, just with a higher pitched voice. “What’s to say he won’t do it again?”

More hushed conspiracies were thrown about the crowd. Some ponies shifted on their hooves uncomfortably or turned to look over their shoulder.

“W-well…” Twilight stammered, eyes darting to each of her friends for assistance. “He realised what he was doing was wrong! He won’t do it again!”

“He’s a blasted spirit of chaos, I say!” another pony in the crowd. Again, they sounded the same as the first, just with a stronger accent. “What’s to say his own being hasn’t taken hold to send him tumbling right back to some dishonest treachery?”

For the third time, venomous thoughts were passed around but much more openly this time.

“He…” Twilight stopped for a second and squinted at the crowd, hovering a little to search for whoever was yelling these things. “Who is that? You’re just trying to scare everyone, aren’t you? You can’t fool me like that!”

“Oh, I’ll fool you no longer,” said a voice from behind Twilight, the same but it sounded much older this time.

It drew a collective gasp from the crowd as they noticed this newcomer for the first time. Twilight spun to face them, greeted by the sight of a lump of red, tattered cloth with what looked like skeletal claws coming from what could only be sleeves of this cloak.

“H-how did you…?” Twilight trailed off, staring in awe at this creature’s appearance.

It whispered something to itself, something that Twilight couldn’t make out, but she did hear something about souls for sure. Maybe she was just listening for the wrong kind of thing.

“Who are you?!” Rainbow yelled, advancing towards the pile of crimson rags. “How did you get there without me seeing you?! Don’t tell me you snuck up on us ‘cause I was looking that way this whole time!”

“Boo,” something invisible behind Rainbow Dash’s head said darkly.

She yelped in fear and spun around with her hooves flailing at the voice’s source. When she was met with nothing at all, the crowd piped up again. Twilight’s friends started whispering anxiously to themselves as well.

Twilight, however, only had eyes for whoever was under that cloak. She took a step closer, pushing the clamours of the crowd behind her to the back of her mind. She reached up to pull the cloak away, but someone else beat her to it.

“Swoosh!” yelled a tall, bipedal creature as it ripped the cloak off of what turned out to be nothing. “Oh look! Nothing’s there! And you got scared about that?”

A few members of the crowd screamed at the sudden appearance of a creature that would no doubt appear alien to them, but to Twilight, it looked similar to something she had seen before.

It looked human.

“What is that thing?!” yelled somepony different to the first few voices that’d shouted out of the crowd.

“Discord really has gone back to chaos!” another pony shouted.

“Everyone, run for your lives!!” screamed another.

The panic that the humanoid creature had stirred up was enough to get most of the crowd to follow this panicked order. Within seconds, there was nothing but a panicked mass of screaming, fleeing and terrified bodies. If anything, this panic was just making the situation even more dangerous; somepony was bound to get hurt or trampled in this carnage.

“Wow, I see what he was getting at,” said the humanoid creature, now leaning on Twilight’s back nonchalantly. “This IS fun!”

“What are you doing?!” Twilight yelled, jumping away from the human that remained in the air in a leaning position. “Somepony’s going to get hurt soon!” She turned to her friends that were trying to calm the crowd, albeit with no luck. “Girls, we’ll make sure nopony gets hurt! Fluttershy, you try to talk to this thing that Discord might’ve brought here!”

Fluttershy went pale and stammered something incomprehensibly, but Twilight had already left her to help placate the havoc.

“Fluttershy, was it?” the human said, appearing by Fluttershy’s side. “Nice to meet you. I hear you’re the nice one.”

“P-p-please d-don’t hurt m-me…” she whimpered, shaking like a leaf. “I… I was your m-master’s f-f-friend… c-can w-we be friends?”

“Oh, don’t be so scared!” he chuckled loudly. “You took assertiveness lessons, right? That’s what I’ve heard! Use those lessons and be brave!”

Fluttershy shrunk down a little bit, but gulped and put on a brave face.

“Y-you’re right!” she said firmly, stomping a hoof on the ground. “Y-you should stop this right now or somepony could end up really badly hurt!”

“Oh, bravo!” the humanoid congratulated, taking a step back in awe. “That was very courageous of you! You should be proud of yourself!”

“Um… thank you?” Fluttershy replied unsurely. This only drew another chuckle from him.

“You’re welcome,” he said with a dark smile on his face. He looked back at the chaos behind them and sniggered to himself. “I’ve had my fun; I’ll stop this madness now.”

There was a pop beside them, making Fluttershy jump and spin to face the sudden firework that was the source of the noise. The fuse sparked and lit as the human pointed at it and, in a few seconds, it flew up into the air with a whistle and exploded with a colourful pop.

Almost immediately, the crowd went silent and turned to the source of the cheery explosion in the sky. The human, who was still looking up to where the sparks had faded, whistled appreciatively.

“Always loved those things,” he mumbled to himself. He then turned back to face the crowd. “Citizens of Ponyland!”

“Ponyville!” Pinkie Pie corrected, suddenly much cheerier than she’d been only seconds before.

“Right, citizens of Ponyville!” yelled the human happily, spreading his arms wide. “Fear not for your lives, for I mean you no harm! I come to thee bearing words of great interest and wonder!

“Is this guy for real?” Rainbow Dash asked furiously, still steaming from the chaos he had caused. “I say we kick his hide in for starting this whole thing!”

“You seem to be all about violence, feisty one!” the human yelled back with a smirk. “I wouldn't advise it though. If you did that, I might not tell you where your friend has disappeared to!”

“You know where our friend is?” Fluttershy asked, stepping forward hopefully. “Where is he? Can you take us to him?”

“Indeed, I can!” the human shouted loud enough for the whole crowd to hear. “I can take you, dear Fluttershy, and your friends to find your chaotic companion! Would that not please you?”

“Yes, that would please us more than I can ever say!” Fluttershy piped up, scampering towards the human with her eyes wide and beaming. “We’re all so worried about him and we’ve been searching for him all day!”

The human chuckled to himself darkly again.

“Won’t this be fun…” he whispered to himself with a hint of melancholy. “Then come along!” He vanished with a puff of smoke and reappeared some few feet away. “Do keep up!”

He disappeared yet again, leaving the crowd of still panicked ponies and the six bringers of calm behind. The six shared a hurried glance between one another and charged in the direction the human had been heading.

-=-=-=-=-

After a few wrong turns, backtracks and practical jokes, the humanoid creature finally stopped in a clearing somewhere inside the Everfree forest. Despite some protests against venturing in too deep, the human insisted that they would find him somewhere within the forest.

Regardless of this, there was still no sign of Discord, but the human had declared that he could go no further.

“Well, where is he then?” Rainbow asked angrily.

“Ooh!” Pinkie Pie perked up, ever eager to cheer up her friends. “Maybe he’s hiding and we just have to find him ourselves now!”

“Ah don’t mean to sound cynical, sugarcube” said Applejack, leaning in to talk to her friend. “But ah really don’t think any of us are willin’ to look for him again.”

Pinkie Pie sagged a little bit at the denied cheer-up of her friends, but tried keeping an air of happiness about her.

“Oh, he’s here alright,” the human said with grim satisfaction.

“Then where the heck is he?!” Rainbow yelled, rounding on the human that had maintained its almost uncaring smile. “’Cause I sure don’t see him!”

“Oh, calm down, feisty,” the human said calmly. “He’s not that hard to miss, is he?”

“Well ah want ya to point him out to us ‘cause ah don’t see him either,” Applejack snapped at him, turning to face him.

“Wow, Fluttershy, are all of your friends this snappy?” the human asked Fluttershy as he appeared right beside her. “Or is that just the ones that look like they might take things a bit too seriously?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Applejack shot back, taking a threatening step closer. “If ah were you, ah’d tell us where our friend is so we don’t do somethin’ we’ll all regret!”

The human vanished with a pop and reappeared above Applejack’s head, hovering in the air. She could barely register his sudden presence before he grabbed her hat off her head and spun it onto his own.

“You’re the honest one, aren’t you?” he asked, looking down at her with a bored expression and floating just out of her reach. “I won’t take that as an empty threat then. My fun’s been had already anyway, so I see no point in keeping it from you any longer.”

“Then where is he?” Twilight put in, half aggressive and half hopeful.

“Oh, I do hate being the bearer of bad news…” the human whispered gravely. He dropped back to the ground beside Applejack and pushed her hat back onto her head. “I won’t ask for you to forgive me for this because I know that this news may be very hard on you.”

Before the girls could say anything, a large mirror snapped into existence where the human pointed. He stepped in front of it and beckoned them all closer as he turned to face his reflection. Slowly and unsurely, Fluttershy and her friends moved in to look in the mirror.

When they did, there was silence for a few short seconds.

“What… what am I looking at?” Twilight asked, staring at the mirror with growing trepidation.

“Is that…?” Rarity whispered, looking between the human and his very inaccurate reflection.

“This is a joke, right?!” Rainbow yelled, spinning to face the human angrily. “Stop making a joke out of this! This is serious! Our friend is missing!”

“Oh, I wish it were so, feisty,” the human chuckled sadly, never breaking eye contact with his own reflection. “I would’ve preferred to stay at home with my own family and friends, but fate is cruel. What you see is the truth. If you don’t believe it, that’s fine. I don’t much believe it either.”

“But that’s Discord!” Rainbow exclaimed, shaking her head disbelievingly. “You don’t even look like him! Why do you think this is so funny?!”

“I don’t,” the human replied sharply, turning to stare her right in the eyes. “It’s very hard to explain all of it, as I’m sure you can figure out.”

“Then try to explain it as best as you can!” Twilight yelled, breaking her stunned gaze from the reflection of Discord in the mirror. “We really need to get to the bottom of this!”

“Very well,” the human said. He vanished for a second and reappeared a few feet away in an armchair with a book in his hands and a smoking pipe in his mouth. “I will now tell you the story of how Discord and I became one. Are you standing comfortably?”

“What do you mean by became one?” asked Twilight, tilting her head to one side.

“Shhh!” the human shushed, putting a finger over his mouth to quieten her. “I’m telling the story now! All questions can wait until I’m done! Do you want this to be explained or not?”

“Yeah, Twilight, I wanna hear the story!” Pinkie Pie put in, a little too happily for the situation. She dropped into a laying position and turned to face the human in his armchair.

With some hesitation, her friends took up the most comfortable position to listen to this story. Regardless of their reluctance to hear the story, it was a step in the right direction, whatever that may be in this situation.

“Then I’ll begin,” the human said, opening the book up to read. “This, dear ladies, is the story of how I came to Equestria and how Discord disappeared.”

Author's Note

Proofread by me so expect mistakes.
Cover art comprised of images found on Google and not created by me. I only glued them together or something.