404: Signal not found

by Royale With Cheese

Rating: teen
Tags: Other, Adventure, Random, Princess Celestia, Alternate Universe, Human, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 8441

When Joshua Budd shuts down Equestria Daily as a prank for the bronies, weird things happen

When a 17 year old boy shuts down three pony related websites, he didn't know one of them was ran by the pony government and unknown consequences start to follow.

(My first fanfic)

Published 2015-03-24 04:20:02 UTC
Last updated 2016-12-31 01:21:29 UTC

The signal

The signal

Friday afternoon with about 10 minutes left in high school before Spring Break and everybody was getting jittery and excited about the big break especially about the guy in this story, Joshua Budd, pretty much excited like everybody else but not as excited as the three bronies in the class named Jordan, Oscar and Xavier, as they stood I there own 3 man group.

Out of nowhere, Jordan shouts "Can't wait for tomorrow, woo!"

As the whole class all of a sudden quieted down at one of the most loudest people in the school.

"Tomorrow? Whatcha doing man? Losing your virginity to a plush pony?" A classmate jokingly said then right after the whole class roared with laughter.

Then Jordan put his head down slightly "No... Season 5 of that show...".

Even though everyone knows that the watch My Little Pony, the gang refers to it as "That show" since they are embarrassed to call it by the actual name.

There is a total of 27 bronies in the 1500 person highschool and they are one of the most loudest and annoying people in the school and of course at Halloween they all dress up as there favorite character.

As Joshua took a couple steps towards them and said (Luckily the teacher was out of the class getting something while this was all happening) "Such an unmanly pedophile ponyfag"

As the sound of a bell and a bunch of classmates wooing and saying damn combined, the three bronies sat down and looked at the floor.

"Dude, you just roasted those guys!" As his friend Daniel said as they both walked out the school. "Hey, any plans after school? Wanna hangout?".

Josh replied "Sorry, I got exciting plans by myself... Over the past month or two, I have been planning hacking and shutting down a My Little Pony website, a My Little Pony Wiki and the Pony Facebook fanpage, so I can't wait to do that!"

"No way man, are you serious?! What if the damn FBI comes after you?" Daniel worriedly questioned.

"No they won't, besides, it's not like hacking and shutting down Google or a government website" Josh explained.

"Good point... Hey, my mom is here to pick me up, text me when your done 'your operation' "

Josh nodded his head and made his way home.

As soon as he got home, he greeted his mom, grabbed an after school snack and went to the computer, he decided to open three tabs for the three websites to try and shut down at the same time so the shutdown for all three will be quicker but the set ups will be long, two hours of set up for each website, it was time to get started.

-6 hours later-

"Finally..." As Josh said to himself, as the three websites had the 'Shutdown' option. He counted down from three quietly and tapped that button on all three websites and closed them completely.

He texted Daniel "hey go to Equestriadaily.com".

A couple minutes later, he replied back saying "Dude! It says the damn website has been seized! You the man!"

Josh looked at the text and smiled then his mom called him down for dinner, not knowing this will be the last dinner with his family for a long time...

~

-in Celestias castle-

Celestia was on her throne, just reading some letters, then out of nowhere a sharp pain rang through her head for a few seconds "Aaarrrrgghh" as she painfully groaned. "Wh-what was that..." A few seconds later her horn started flashing the colour blue "...This doesn't look good...".

Then a guard rushed in and bowed to her "Your highness, the signal has been seized..."

"Wait... The signal of Equestria Daily?" She turned and grabbed a scroll that read 'Equestria Daily' and her eyes glided down to section 7 that read 'Problems with signal' then she read down a little further "and read to herself "if the website for the humans has been stolen, hacked or seized upon, teleport to the human earth and search for the occupant, and capture him, put him in prison for life" As Celestia read. "Shining Armor... Get the microphone ready..."

Shining bowed down "Yes your highness" before Shining would go out of the room Celestia stopped him.

"And Shining Armor, you will be in this mission too"

Shining bowed down once more "Of course your highness" and walked out of the room.

A few minutes later, Celestia walks down to the look out of Canterlot where the microphone was ready, "Shining Armor, click on the World Wide Switch, every pony needs to know about this". Then Shining flicked the switch up.

"Let's get this started" as Shining Armor spoke to himself.

"Flick the on switch in 10" Celestia demanded, then Armor counted slowly in his head.

When the microphone was turned on, she spoke the news, "Mares and gentlecolts, stop what your all doing, I have news, the news is that the Equestria Daily signal has been seized, the biggest signal we have, it gives out all of our news to the humans of earth, I don't who the suspect is but I'll get the name tomorrow, and again tomorrow, we will go down to human earth and capture the suspect. It's your own choice if you want to capture this being with us, you can come or not, if your planning to come, be at my castle before 1:25PM tomorrow afternoon, we will be leaving at exactly 1:30PM. That is all I have, I'll announce more news if there is more to come, thanks for listening and you can now carry on to whatever you were doing, thank you".

As the six ponies were in the middle of a picnic as the news was said. "That was the weirdest but craziest news ever! Twilight explained. "It's pretty much impossible for us to get that signal up and running again"

"Unless..." Rainbow Dash continued ..."if we get him scared enough so he fixes it up and doesn't be a goof about it, it'll be fine"

"Princess Celestia will obviously want us there... So who's with me?" Twilight said.

"Yea!" As the five ponies and Spike shouted in unison, then continued with there picnic.

Ready or not here they come

Ready or not here they come

The next morning, Twilight woke up and walked downstairs where she saw Spike packing for him and her.

"Oh hey Twi!" Spike greeted "I packed our stuff for the big weird trip!"

Twilights ears drooped down a little "...Don't you mean my stuff?"

"What? What's the matter?" Spike said worriedly

"Sit down Spike, we need to talk..."

Spike then urgently grabbed a chair and sat in it in front of Twilight.

"You can't go on this mission..."

"But..." Spike interrupted

"Don't say anything Spike..." Twilight interrupted him back "I think it'll be best for you to not go. I did a little research on the planet were going to... And it looks and sounds pretty dangerous, it's not a peaceful place, there is usually a lot of wars, attacks on places and civilians, and a lot more, but I don't know how that whole planet will react to a bunch of us coming there... Spike, I'm not trying to scare you or anything... But... This might be the last time I'll see you..."

Spikes eyes started to tear up, opened his mouth trying to say something but instead he got out of the chair and hugged twilight as she hugged back "I'll be careful just for you Spike"

A few hours later, the six ponies took the train to Canterlot and walked up to Celestia's castle where they met up with the Wonderbolts and about 60 other ponies. "Not a big group, but not too small either, it's just right" Twilight exclaimed.

"Twily!"

Twilight excitedly looked around and locked eyes on her brother who was trotting up to her "Shining!"

The walked up to each other and hugged.

"Are you going on the mission?" Twilight asked

"Yea, I was pretty much the first one to get invited by Celestia" Shining said.

Twilight nodded and saw Celestia trotting the front of the castle ready to speak. "Here she is!"

"Ahem! Mares and gentlecolts, whoever is coming on this trip, listen to me, I have done a little research on the suspect. A 17 year old goes by the name Joshua Budd, the one that just yesterday, shut down our signal, the signal means everything to us and we need it to get it up and running!"

The ponies cheered to Celestia

Celestia continued "But we need to be careful when we go to this planet, it's not as peaceful as it is here. Now it's time for instructions, when we first get there, we will be teleported in the front yard of the White House, which is the President of the United States' house, we go to him and get him to report about us hunting down Mr. Budd, then it will be world wide news. If you need to get ready, do it now, we're leaving in 30!"

Then Celestia motioned the six ponies to come to her, they came to her and bowed down.

"Girls, don't disappoint me, this is your biggest challenge yet" Celestia boldly said and the six nodded there heads

"We always never disappoint ya, Celestia, even when it is our biggest challenge" Applejack said.

"It feels like we're missing someone..." Pinkie Pie said

Celestia then saw a huge cloud of dust in the background "He's here, he's the one that we need"

Everyone then saw what Celestia was seeing, as it came closer, the shape of the figure in a mysterious rectangular yellow box became obvious to everypony.

The big steel yellow box with wheels came to a stop in front of the castle.

"Doesn't everyone like field trips? Ah I miss those days" he said

"Heheh yea right... And Discord what's this... Big yellow steely wheely thing?" Rainbow Dash asked

"It's a school bus, it's a thing the human children ride to school with, but we won't be needing that today" Discord said as he snapped his fingers and the school bus disappeared.

Everypony then continued what they were doing.

"Hey Dash!" Spitfire said as walking up to her

"Hey Spitfire! What's up?" Rainbow Dash asked

"The Wonderbolts need one more Pegasus to be an air sweeper, we will pretty much look down from the sky to find the suspect, are you up for that?" Spitfire asked

"Yes! I'll be glad to help" Dash excitedly said

"Awesome, see you there!" Spitfire said

"Mares and gentlecolts, please look up here" Celestia demanded

Everypony stopped what they were doing and looked up at her

"I have gotten the picture of the suspect, but I have to use a special type of magic to show you the picture of him, I only have ten seconds to show you it from my horn since my head will be pounding from pain, get much of this picture into your head as much as possible, here we go..." Celestia said.

As Celestia's horn started to glow for a few seconds, she took a deep breath, and emitted a breath taking unseen picture of the 17 year old they were trying to capture, everypony deeply looked at it then after it was over, the picture disappeared then Celestia fell to her hunches breathig heavily.

Shining Armor ran over to her "You alright Celestia?"

"Yes, just give me a few moments" Celestia said as she rubbed her head

She then got up and went to the microphone and looked up at the clock "Mares and gentlecolts... It's almost time, say your goodbyes, you'll be gone from here for a long time"

Twilight then turned to Spike and immediately hugged him, then the next five hugged him

"I'll miss you Twilight"

"I'll miss you too Spike, I'll be careful, take care of the library when I'm gone... Even if I don't come back" Twilight said sadly

"Listen up again" Celestia back on the microphone "Go into this circle and in five minutes, you'll be teleported, the hunt will begin at 9:30AM earth time"

Then everypony gave there last hugs and went into the circle. A few minutes later, Celestia was the last one in the circle.

"Let Operation 404 begin" Discord said as he, Celestia and the other ponies disappeared from the circle

Wake up call

Wake up call

"Josh! Josh! Josh!" Savannah, his 18 year old sister said as she was trying to wake him

Josh finally woke up with sleepy eyes "What?! This better not be another damn joke!"

"This isn't a joke, if you came downstairs and see what's on the news, it might look like a joke but it's not..." She said and ran off out of his room

He slowly got out of his bed and went downstairs "Ok what's on this n...e...w...s..." He said as voice trailed off, he couldn't believe what he was seeing. He saw president Barack Obama speaking and at the bottom it read "BREAKING NEWS: My Little Ponies come down to earth to hunt down, 17 year Joshua Budd"

"Honey... This isn't a dream" his mom worriedly said

"I know" Josh said in a monotone voice

"We called the FBI..." His dad said

"Why?!" Josh immediately replied

"Just to keep you safe, earlier the news said that these ponies will start at 9:30... That's in half an hour" his dad explained

Moments later there was a knock at the door, his mom then opened the door

"FBI" they both showed there badges "We were both ordered to take and keep your son safe from the events that are going on now, Joshua Budd, you need to get ready, fast"

Josh nodded then went back upstairs and got dressed, took his wallet and went back downstairs where he hugged his parents and sister

He put his shoes on but one of the agents interrupted him

"It'll be safe for you to put on the Nikes runners just in case if you get into a running situation" He explained

Then Josh put the Nikes on and walked towards the door

"Be safe" Savannah said

"I will" Josh replied back and the agents motioned him towards their car and he got in it and they took off to the headquarters

"Put the sirens on, we need to get to those headquarters fast, who knows what these cartoons can do" said one of the agents

The driver turned on the sirens and ripped down the road

As soon as they get to the headquarters, they looked around and took Josh quickly into the headquarters.

As they went inside, Josh immediately got taken to the meeting room where they ask all the questions, this was going to get interesting.

As he walked in he saw a table, a chair and across the chair was an agent waiting and he motioned "Come and have a seat Mr Budd" he said

Josh walked over and sat down in the chair

"You can call me Agent O'Connell" O'Connel greeted

"I only have one important question... Do you even know how this happened?"

Josh took a deep breath and told him the story of how he made fun of a brony then he went home and hacked and shutdown the MLP Facebook fanpage, the MLP wiki and some pony related website called Equestria Daily

O'Connell looked at him and said "This is the most fucked up thing I have ever had to work for in the 35 years I have been as an FBI agent, and I don't know anything about the context, it's pretty much you who knows everything, let's end here and follow me to the meeting room"

Josh followed O'Connell to the meeting room, as they got there, the window blinds were closed and as O'Connel opened the door, there was a few agents in there and they were watching a show, but it ended, but it looked like they were watching My Little Pony and the agents had notebooks and pens, they had notes on the paper.

Josh sat down in a chair and the light got switched on

"Showtime is over" O'Connell said "Okay, so you all watched as I said only 2 episodes of this cartoon show... Who wants to share the notes and information we need"

An agent put his hand, O'Connell chose him and the agent stood up and spoke what he had on the paper.

"Okay, there were three types of pony characters, there were ones that could fly, do magic spells and ones that have no special ability, the ponies with the wings will always be in the air probably, so keep your head up at times, the ponies or I should say in this case, unicorns, they can almost do anything, they can teleport, levitate stuff and much more, and the ponies with no special ability, so that means that they can only run but probably really, they have two more legs than us, that's pretty I have. And..." He took the remote a showed a picture of the mane 6 "These six is what you have to look out for... That's all I have to say"

"Alright thanks Tim, Josh could I speak with you for a moment" O'Connell said as he opened the door for the meeting room

Josh walked out "Ya what's up?"

"First things first, you need to have my cell number in your phone, you need to take instructions from me, where you need to go and what you need to do" O'Connell said as he pulled out a card with his number on it and gave it to Josh

"Alright thanks" Josh put the card in his pocket "But what do you mean by giving instructions of where need to go?" Josh asked

"You'll be leaving the headquarters tomorrow, you can't stay here longer, but it'll be fine, do the instructions right and you'll be fine" O'Connell said

"Alright, this is going to be some wild journey" Josh said

"It will be" O'Connell nodded ..."Oh and one more thing..." He took out another card "You will needing this, it's a FBI service card, if you need food, new clothes or new shoes just show the cashier this and they'll know who are and what you are into"

Josh took both cards and put them in his wallet "Thanks, so what can I do until tomorrow" he asked

"Just stay in and hangout around here" O'Connell replied

-Outside the Whitehouse, Washington D.C-

"Umm... Princess Celestia, I have a map of the United States and its incredibly huge! How are we supposed to know where Joshie is?" Rarity said

"I was actually about to tell you all that Joshua Budd lives in New York City, gather around me and we will be teleported there" Celestia said

Everypony gathered around Princess Celestia and teleported to New York City

There was a news reporter standing behind hearing and seeing all the commotion

"Ladies and gentleman, breaking news, the ponies have teleported, yes I said teleported, to New York City and that's approximately where their suspect, Joshua Budd is"

Before midnight

Before midnight

-10:15AM-

Josh has just received news that the ponies have been seen in New York City

"I'll leave midnight" Josh pacing back and forth then stopped "Because I could run and plan everything ahead"

"Ok, I'll drive you to downtown that time, in the meantime, stay touch with the news" O'Connell said as he walked away

-In New York City, in some area

The ponies appeared out of nowhere

"Where are we?" Fluttershy asked

"We're in New York City, at Ground Zero" Celestia said "Alright, we need to get this hunt started, look all around the city as best as we can, we will stop hunting at 10:30PM and we will continue in the morning. This area will be our base camp, I have put a force field, where us ponies could only get through around this area so we won't have any unwanted guests, you will have walkie talkies strapped to you" she then used magic to put a walkie talkie on everypony. "Let's get started, everypony take your positions and go!"

All the ponies then scattered off, air and ground

-12:30PM

"Any news yet?" O'Connell asked

"They set base camp at Ground Zero" Josh replied ..."They said, the only thing to fix this problem is that I need some super technological computer to fix the website, and those computers are hard to find"

"Oh wow, want to go to the cafe area and get some lunch, my treat" O'Connell said

"Sure" Josh replied

They got to the cafe and Josh got a ham and Swiss sandwich with chocolate milk

"You know, you might need a thousand of those cartons of chocolate milk, that stuff could get more energy than a red bull" O'Connell told him

"Yep, I'll be running like a pony with six legs" Josh jokingly said

"Heheh... Holy shit! Look!" O'Connell said as he was caught in surprise

Just outside the window, three Pegasi ponies were slowly flying past the windows

"Oh... My... Goodness... Those bastards" Josh said as he looked on

"You'll be fine, just stay away from open areas and Ground Zero, we can't keep you for more than 24 hours" O'Connell said

"I'm always fine" Josh replied

-10:00PM at Ground Zero-

All the ponies came back to base camp

"Any luck?" Celestia asked

"No, but I took a look around at the fashion items, they looked fabulous but the looks I was getting from others..." Rarity said

"Ah almost got mugged" Applejack worriedly said

"I saw an old lady get robbed..." Spitfire said

"And you didn't save her or anything?!..." Soarin yelled

"The guy had a gun! I didn't wanna get shot!" Spitfire shot back

Then all the ponies all started talking at once

"Stop talking!" Twilight shouted and everypony stopped "Just what Celestia said before we got here, it's not as peaceful as it is back home, guess what, we are in the same place a tragedy happened here 14 years ago... There used to be two towers here, a terrorist attack happened here, they crashed planes in the towers. Do the people of New York City still complain about this? No, they couldn't do anything about it back then but a new tower is being built, old problems build new solutions, think about it, go to sleep, we'll continue our hunt in the morning"

-11:55PM-

O'Connell woke up Josh from the couch he was sleeping in and they got in his car, then O'Connell dropped him off in the heart of Times Square

"Stay safe, try to walk over to ground zero, to take a peak at the group, if you need anything, just text me" O'Connell said

Josh nodded and took off, it was time to get started.

After midnight

After midnight

-12:01AM-

Josh was walking to the bike rental store, you couldn't usually rent a bike at this time, but with the FBI service card that O'Connell gave him, you can.

Josh put the barcode on the bike scanner and it gave him a maximum of ten hours to rent the bike, no money spent.

Josh pulled out the GPS in his phone and put in the directions to Ground Zero

He rode on the usual busy streets of downtown New York

As soon as he got there, he stopped and got off his bike around the corner.

Then he took a peak around the corner, and there they were, all sound asleep.

"All this for hacking a stupid website, the other two got fixed fine, but for this one, it won't be" He whispered to himself.

He stayed peaking for a few moments then went back to his bike, took out his phone and texted O'Connell

"Hey it's Josh, I counted 66 ponies" he texted

He then rode off and looked for destinations like lookouts, hideouts, restaurants and motels that he thinks that the ponies won't find him there.

He wanted to go to his house but it was too far and confusing to get there from Times Square.

It was 4 o'clock in the morning and he was pretty much done everything that he was supposed to do, and it was a lot for one early morning. He decided to take the bike back and headed to one of the motels on his list.

-10:00AM

All the ponies woke up

"Day two, let's get huntin!" Applejack said and they all went off

Josh went out of the motel, being aware of his surroundings, looking up in the sky for the flying ponies, and looking back and forth for the ponies who are on the ground.

He was going for a private interview with a reporter at an IHOP, O'Connell texted him to get ready.

As soon as he got there, he looked around before going in, then a brunette woman waved to him. He then walked over

"Hi, I'm Bethany Laing, I'm a writer and news reporter for the New York Times, we're going to the restaurants break room just for you to be safe and sound from the windows"

Then he followed Bethany to the break room and put a tape recorder on the table and turned it on.

"Bethany Laing here, doing an interview and a report with Joshua Budd." As she said on the tape recorder. "First question, what did you ever do, to ever make this happen?"

Josh replied "If I had a dollar, every time someone asked me that, I would probably be rich and have enough money to buy that pony franchise. All I did was hack the Equestria Daily website, and this happened."

"And why did you hack the website?" Bethany asked

"It was just fun and games, it doesn't feel that way anymore" He replied

"Right, next question, are you scared?" She asked

Josh leaned in closer and said "Scared? Why would I be scared of colourful small horses? If was scared of them, my name would be 'Scaredy cat' or 'Chicken'... But it's not"

"Next question" Bethany said and then asked "What would you do if you get caught? I mean there's like 20 poni..."

"66... I counted them ten hours ago" Josh interrupted

"Right..." Bethany continued "There's like 66 ponies against one"

Josh replied "Gee... Remember the 2012 NHL playoffs? Everybody said that the Chicago Blackhawks would dominate the Phoenix Coyotes in the first round... The Coyotes won that series in six games and went all the way to the third round of those playoffs and lost in that round, right now, there is no third round, it's only two rounds. There's always room for the underdogs"

"Well... That's all I have to ask you, you pretty much put that in good context, thanks" she said

"Always a pleasure" he replied

Then Bethany turned the recorder off and she went out of the restaurant, Josh stayed to have breakfast

After breakfast, Josh went back out, and everybody was looking up, he decided to check it out and it was two Pegasi flying, he decided to walk away the different direction

He was walking on Broadway, turned the corner and met eyes with a familiar orange cowpony within a few feet, turned around and ran as fast as he can.

Then Applejack turned on her Walkie talkie and ran after him

"Ah got contact with him! We're on Broadway! We're on Broadway!"

The Needy Nerdy Plan

Josh then turned into an alleyway with Applejack right behind him.

He then turned another corner in the alleyway and slipped a little which led Applejack have some time to try and capture

He continued running, there was a tall chain link fence up ahead

Applejack then also saw what was ahead "Ah okay buddy, you stop now or you get trapped" Applejack said as she ran

Josh then quickly jumped and climbed the fence and got to the other said and saw Applejack trying to do the same thing but not succeeding.

"Not today, not ever" Josh said then ran off

Applejack then got off her walkie talkie "Yall have sight on him, I lost him" She said

"No... Not really...nope.." Were the responses she got, Applejack then hoof punched the fence and walked off

Josh was in a taxi cab, he told the driver what was going on and the driver was just going to drive him around for a while.

Josh then phoned O'Connell

"Hello?" O'Connell said

"O'Connell, this is Josh, I almost got caught"

"Almost caught? At least you didn't get caught" O'Connell replied "I was actually about to call you. I want you to go to the Union Square Cafe, I have people who you want to so hi to"

"Alright" Josh replied then got off the phone

"Union Square Cafe" he said to the cab driver, the driver nodded and drove him to his destination

He looked around before getting out of the car and going into the cafe

He was looking around and saw his Mom, dad and his sister, Savannah and ran up to them

"Oh honey, we miss you" His mom said as the family group hugged him

Then they sat down "So, how are things holding up?" His mom said

"Good, I almost got caught, I outran a pony" Josh said "Could I go home? I think it'll be a good hiding spot"

"Not really" Savannah replied "There's like these guard ponies who keep an eye on our house, they somehow know where we live, and they all also somehow knew, that we we're in New York"

Josh sighed "I need to get that website back and running, I don't know or what has that high tech computer"

Savannah quickly replied "Ryder Shore! He's the biggest nerd in our school, he obviously might have one of those computers"

A few seconds later a woman came up to them and said "Ryder Shore? I'm his mom, Lilian Shore, he does have a high tech computer, it costed thousands of dollars, if you need help, here's my address" She printed her address on a napkin and have it to Josh

"Give Ryder my number and tell him to text me so we can make a plan, thank you" Josh said

"You're welcome, I gotta head out, I bet I'll see you later" Lilian replied and went out of the cafe

Josh talked to his family more before hugging and kissing goodbye.

He then went back to the motel, an hour and a half later, he got a text

"Hey, Ryder here, 3rd floor of the New York Library, let's meet there at 2PM"

Josh felt relieved, this almost was over

-10:00PM at Ground Zero-

"How did you lose him?!" Dash said

"Ah tried mah best! He went over some big fence, ah don't have fingers! Or some hooves with a check mark on them!" Applejack shot back

"Quiet!" Twilight shouted "That was the first time one of us chased him and almost got him, were always not lucky on our firsts"

Likewise

Josh hears his name from above, he looks and sees blue and orange figure coming down at him really fast. He jumps out of the way and makes a run down the busy streets of New York

"You're dead meat, Budd!" Spitfire calling out, flying slowly not trying to get anyone in her way injured.

Twilight comes flying out of the library to also give chase.

"Twilight here!" She says on her walkie talkie. "Joshua Budd is running down the New York Public library!"

Josh is almost running out of breath and dives into the usual slow traffic of downtown New York and tries to sneakily get into a cab.

Spitfire sees him "Oh, Josh, you think you're sneaky?" Spitfire snickers as she approaches the taxi cab.

Josh then sees the pegasus approach the cab so he sneaks out and enters another taxi cab.

Spitfire didn't notice, but is pretending to not know where he is until back up arrives.

Soon then, Fleetfoot and Rainbow Dash come flying around.

"Where is he?" Dash asks.

"In that cab" she points. "What we're going to do is lift up the cab and take it to the roof of a building, so Josh doesn't can't go anywhere."

The two pegasus' and alicorn nod and they all approach the cab and they lift it up and go up to the top the building with the yellow car.

"Come on out Josh! You have no getaway!" Twilight says

Soon then a distraught taxi driver gets out of the car "I'm not Josh! D-don't hurt me! He's not in here!"

"Check the car" Twilight says to the pegasi.

The check the front seat, back seats and the trunk of the car, no Josh.

"Thpitfire, you thaid he wath in here!" Fleetfoot belts.

"He was! He left after 10 seconds of being inside, I don't know where he went off too though" the taxi driver said.

"Son of a bitch!" Spitfire angrily says. "Ok, let's get this guy and his cab back on the ground"

The four ponies replace the cab from the roof to the ground.

"I had him!" Spitfire says, the four ponies slowly fly in the air looking for Josh.

"This is way tougher than I thought, he's escaped like three times now" Twilight exclaims.

"Maybe, you should use your magic on him, like, shoot some laser beams at him" Dash said.

"No, we can't. We need him alive, and plus, we can't do any damage to the city" Twilight says.

"All we can do now ith to keep looking" Fleetfoot said.

The four ponies nodded and split up.

Meanwhile, Josh is in a cab. He told the driver just to drive. If he didn't think of sneaking off into another cab, he would've gotten caught.

He told the driver to drive him to the nearest hotel, that was too much for one afternoon.

The following week has been hell for Josh, almost getting caught chase after chase, it seemed like the ponies are getting closer towards catching him.

He got cornered by a fairly shy pony with a yellow coat, pink hair and tail.

"P-please don't hurt me, I-I just need to catch you so..."

"You think you're gonna catch me? Please, in your dreams" Josh said wittingly

Fluttershy trotted towards him.

Josh walked up also and and gave a fake punch which caused Fluttershy to flinch.

"One more step, you'll actually get it" Josh warned

"O-ok, you can go" Fluttershy said while quivering.

Josh then ran past the scared pony and went off.

A few minutes later, Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow Dash came to her location.

"Where did he go?" Dash asks.

"H-he threatened to punch me in the f-face, so I let him go" Fluttershy said.

"That bastard" Applejack angrily said.

"Don't worry dear, we're getting closer to catching him every time, I almost caught him yesterday" Rarity said.

"Yah, if ain't for yer little obsession for pretty dresses in windows, we could've had caught him" Applejack scolded.

"Pardon me?! These dresses are giving me a bit of inspiration for me to make back at home!" Rarity responded. "And says the one who's worried about Applebloom back home" then she starts to impersonate Applejack. "'Oh Applebloom, I miss her so much, oh Applebloom! Oh Applebloom..."

"At least ah care about mah sister more than you!" Applejack interrupted then acted like Rarity. '"Look at my pretty dress that I just made, a dress that is too ugly for anyone too buy!'"

"How could you?!" Rarity gives Applejack a shove

"Yer gonna regret that!" Applejack then tackles Rarity on the ground.

"Guys, stop!" Rainbow gets Applejack off of Rarity. "You're making Fluttershy cry..."

In the corner, Fluttershy is sobbing while watching the commotion.

"Now, can we just get along, but first... apologize to one another." Dash sternly said to them both.

Rarity looks at Applejack "I'm sorry, Applejack, I should've not made fun of you loving your sister like that, that was very unkind of me"

"Ahm sorry Rarity, this whole hunt has been stressing me out, ahm sorry for tackling you down to the ground like that, how about I bake you an apple pie when we get back home?" Applejack said

"Any apology that has to do with an apple pie is an apology accepted" Rarity replied.

Applejack nodded then trots towards Fluttershy. "We're sorry for fighting, Flutters."

"I-It's fine" Fluttershy said as she looked at the time on her walkie talkie. "I think it's time for us to head to base camp"

The four ponies then headed to basecamp.

-8:15PM the next night-

Josh had a scheduled meeting with Jordan and Ryder at a Hot Topic clothing store in downtown New York. Jordan was the guy who he insulted before the last bell rang for spring break. He wanted to talk about the ponies and how he can escape from them, but first, in order to do that, he needed to apologize.

He also wanted to talk to Ryder on the process of the operation that's bringing the site up.

He walks into Hot Topic and Ryder was at the front talking to an employee and the employee stops and looks at Josh.

"Oh my god, you're the guy that's getting chased by the cartoon ponies!" she said

"Glad to see I have fans" Josh replied.

"Hey Josh" Jordan walks up.

"Hey" Josh greets. "I just wanna apologize for what I said before spring break..."

"Dude, its fine, by the way, the insults towards us bronies are kind of getting old now, so they don't bother us" Jordan interrupted. "Lets sit down at the benches where the shoes are"

"Actually, I need some clothes, I've been wearing 2 pairs of clothes in the past 5 days, and I can't get back to my house." Josh said.

"No problem, let's start with the pants" Jordan said. "So, what are some questions you have?"

"What are some of the ponies' weaknesses? I mean, I've been almost caught from the past 3 days." Josh added. "Actually, I got off free from a pony who was a pretty big softy, yellow skin, pink hair and tail?"

"Oh, Fluttershy, she's easy, she won't hurt anybody" Jordan said pulling out his iPad and having a page with all the characters on it. "Now tell me who've you ran into"

Ryder comes from behind and points to a certain purple pony. "Hey, I recognize her"

"Twilight Sparkle? She has no weakness" Jordan said.

"How about a pony with orange hair and wears some like, blue track suit?" Josh asks as he takes a pair of pants from the shelf.

"Oh, Spitfire. Captain of the Wonderbolts" Jordan exclaims.

"Captain of the what now?" Josh asks walking towards to shirt section.

"The Wonderbolts, they are some aerial acrobatics team, they're pretty fast flyers" Jordan explains.

"Not fast enough for me" Josh chuckled as he looks at some shirts then peaks at the screen of the iPad and sees a long figure "Wait, scroll back. Who's that?"

"Oh, that's Discord, I've only seen him once. I'm warning you, he can be anywhere" Jordan warned.

"Looks interesting" Josh said.

"He is" Jordan said as he sees a yellow color appear at the corner of his eye and turns to see a yellow shirt with a smiley face.

"Uh, Josh, how about this shirt?" Jordan asks picking up the shirt.

"The plain old original smiley face t-shirt? Why that?" Josh asks with a chuckle

Jordan then looks at Josh with a look of confusion.

"Jordan, what is it?" Josh asks.

"You remember when I said that Discord can be anywhere?" Jordan asks

"Uh yes..." Josh said looking around. "You saw him? Where?"

"Josh, run..."

"Where is he?"

As soon as he asked that, the shirt started to glow.

"JOSH, RUN!" Jordan shouted as a threw the shirt as far as he can but it didn't get very far.

Josh then ran out of the store.

The shirt then turned into the snake like figure and looks at Jordan "I have ears you know, and now, where did your little friend go? He's the life of the party right now" Discord said as he excited the store.

Josh jogged down the street, not knowing that an aerial acrobatics group were above.

"He'th right there!" Fleetfoot points down.

"This is Spitfire, requesting backup in the middle of Times Square! I repeat, Times Square!" Spitfire then looked at both of her alternate captains. "You both better give a good formation to catch this guy"

Both Soarin and Fleetfoot nodded and took off to different directions.

"Oh, hey it's Josh! Josh, come here! Look at this huge cake in this bakery! Big enough for us to share when I visit you in Canterlot Prison!" Pinkie Pie said as she was just about 20 feet away.

"Shit!" Josh said as he crossed the street but is seen by the first pony he got chased after.

"Come here you!" Applejack said while running

Josh is running in slow traffic but is getting chased by the fast cowpony. He zigzagged through the traffic, the only thing he can do is find an alleyway to get to another part of the city.

But down the road, is a whole bunch of other ponies.

He turns down to the nearest alley way with two directions for escape.

He goes straight but is stopped by a Wonderbolt as he lands a few feet away from Josh.

Josh then turns around and turns the other way but is stopped by the teleportation spell of Twilight Sparkle.

"It's over Josh! There's no escape!" Twilight warns Josh

Josh then turns around again and tries to escape from the way he came from but is stopped by Applejack.

"Shit..." Josh said in defeat

"It's over Josh" Applejack said as the other ponies formed behind.

A big white alicorn lands beside Applejack and with her magic, hands over Soarin handcuffs.

Soarin takes the handcuffs and walks over to Josh.

"Joshua Budd, I am arresting you for the suspicion under the special category of Equestrian Law, law rule section 7, category 1."

Soarin then walks Josh out of the alleyway and onto the street of Times Square, which was already blocked off by police and spectators nearby.

Soarin continues "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you under your choice"

"I need to say bye to my family..." Josh looks around

"We will send your family down to the Canterlot courthouse using a special teleportation spell on the day of the trial" Celestia appointed.

Josh looked around for one last look at New York. It was night time and all the billboards and police sirens just lit up the the street.

Celestia lit up her horn to send everybody back to Equestria but is interrupted by commotion.

"Stop! Stop!"

"Hey kid! Stop right there" an officer said trying to stop a teenage boy.

Ryder ran up to the group of ponies and said "The signal... it's back up!"

"Ya kid, we all know you're trying to defend your friend here... sorry, he has to go" Soarin said whilst placing a hoof to stop him from getting closer.

"He's right" Celestia said with her horn glowing orange, and uses her magic to take off the handcuffs off of Josh.

"Princess Celestia..." Twilight then gets interrupted by the hoof of Celestia.

"We'll let you go off the hook this time Joshua, but if you commit another offense to our signal, you will be prosecuted, is that clear?" Celestia sternly asks.

"Yes ma'am" Josh nods.

Celestia turns to Twilight "Princess Twilight, you wanna have a few words?"

Twilight nods "Mr. Budd, were, well, I'm not sure for all of us, but I think we're sorry for causing a huge commotion. But you know, it's our job to keep our place and the princess safe, as well, the signal. The signal is very important to us. You don't have to accept the apology and you can just walk off, but if you have a few words, please say them"

Josh turned his head to the ponies a couple times, and shared his words "You know, I was actually just gonna walk off without saying anything, but I do accept your apology. Actually, I'm sorry for starting this commotion in the first place, it started off with fun and games, but somehow, cartoons actually came down to this earth. It's been a wild ride, I would've regretted it if I didn't accept your apology. I'll remember this past week for the rest of my life. I would relive it, to be honest"

"Very kind of you to say that, Josh" Celestia said. "We have to go back to our respectful location." Celestia then stuck out her hoof

Josh then wrapped his hand around her hoof and shook it

"Josh, it'll be an honor for us all to be remembered by you..." Her horn started glowing and all the ponies started to rise up into the sky. "And hopefully, it'll be an honor you to be remembered by us." She said as her and the other ponies rise up into the sky. "As I remember a short quote I read, I forgot the figure's name though, but it said 'Stay hungry, stay foolish'"

As soon as she finished the sentence, an explosion is heard in the sky. Rainbow colors all drifted through the air, matching with the colors of the billboards and police sirens down below.

Josh, looking up with his hand still in the same position when it met with Princess Celestia's hoof, just simply smiling.

"Likewise."

Keep your head up, Budd

-10:00AM New York Library-

Josh wanted to be at the library as early as he can, so he won't be caught going in during a later time.

As soon as he gets there, he goes to the 3rd floor as he was told by Ryder. He goes on one of the computers, farthest away from the 3rd floor entrance but him facing it just in case if it's Ryder or one of the ponies.

He goes onto Google and types in 'My Little Pony' and tons of news stories came up about how cartoon ponies invade New York, science journals trying to explain the theory of other universes coming into ours, news stories about how we should let ponies do their job, wait, what? "They're hunting me down for god sakes" Josh whispered to himself.

He read on. He then stumbled on a New York Times article wrote by a pretty familiar name, Bethany Laing. It was a text version about the interview Josh had with her in IHOP, and there was an edit to the news page saying that about exactly 4 ponies checked the IHOP restaurant top and bottom about an hour after the news story was published.

Josh had about three more hours to spare in the library, so he walked around in the library always peaking at the entrance, read a couple books and went on the computer reading updated news stories.

Then it was two o'clock, Ryder walked onto the third floor and Josh waved him over.

"Hey" Ryder greeted "If someone told you to 'stay golden pony boy', then it would make sense" Ryder chuckled.

Josh laughed "Sit down, let's talk"

Ryder sat down "Alright, lets do the talking" he said.

"Yeah, so, how do we fix this site?" Josh asked.

"Okay, so..." Then Ryder went on talking about how to fix the so called 'impossible 404'.

"Wow, so I have to wait 3-7 days until the site goes back up?" Josh asked

"Yeah, it'll be a long wait, but it'll be worth it..." Ryder laughed

Meanwhile outside the library, Twilight Sparkle stands just outside to the entrance of the library. "Wow, this is bigger than my library..." She says in amazement.

"Nerd problems, huh Sparkle?" Spitfire chuckles. "Hey, go in take a look, we need a break from searching, I'll be on the roof taking a nap" Spitfire says before flying up onto the roof of the library.

Twilight walks inside the library, ignoring the looks coming from others. "Woooow, this looks amazing..." She then sees a sign that reads 'New updated books about space and stars constellations, 3rd floor'

"Looks like I know which floor I'm going too" Twilight giggles to herself

She then walks up to the third floor, looks around and asks the librarian which gave her a bizarre look.

"Excuse me ma'am, but where are the new space and star constellation books?" Twilight asks.

"Uhh... umm, I... uh, where the, uh, last set of computers are" She slowly answered.

Twilight looks around confused and asks "Uh, what's a computer?"

Meanwhile at the last set of computers, Ryder notices a purple figure at the corner of his eye. "Josh"

"What?" He then turns around and sees the pony.

"Those things... with the brightly colored screens... the books will be around where those... two boys are..."

Twilight turns around and sees Josh and starts running towards "Stop right there!" She yells

"Oh crap!" Josh leaps out of his chair

"Go! I'll cover you" Ryder replied

Josh then tries to run off without being cornered.

As soon as Twilight runs to there destination spot, Ryder pushes a chair in front of Twilight which causes her to trip over it which gave Josh time to run out of the third floor.

"Oh shoot, I'm so sorry" Ryder acts like he tripped her on accident. "Here, let me help you up..." then pretends to trip over the leg of the chair and lands on Twilight "Oh crap, I'm really, really sorry"

"Get off of me!" Twilight then uses her magic to take Ryder off of her. "Spitfire! Wake up, he'll be running out of the library any second now." She says through her walkie talkie, then gives Ryder a stern look before trotting off.

"On it" Spitfire responds, then spreads a group message through the walkie talkie "Spitfire here, Joshua Budd is at the library, ready to pounce on him"

Josh then exits the library and quickly walks off like nothing happened.

"Hey Budd!" He hears from above.

Author's Note

I'll be hoping to write more for this story again, and hopefully, longer chapters will come