Twilight Sparkle awoke the next morning and was immediately hit with a wave of dread when she remembered what the day likely held for her, and indeed all of Ponyville, more Gabby Gums articles.

It was not a certain thing of course as the townsponies would be on the lookout for anypony with a stack of newspapers, but if Gabby gums had managed to put out a large stack of papers yesterday; there was no reason that she couldn't today. Only two issues had been released and already the town was gripped in panic and fear. Doors were locked, the sales of curtains had risen exponentially the day after the first articles.

Yesterday's incident had taught Twilight something important. She learned that the town would read Gabby Gums as long as she continued to print articles just so they could see if they were the ones being attacked. Their innate curiosity would get the better of them every time it seemed and that really worried Twilight. Gabby Gums only had as much power as the ponies of Ponyville would give her and right now, they were giving her a lot of power. The solution was so simple though! All they had to do was ignore Gabby Gums and she would go away! Was that such a hard concept to grasp!? It seemed so to Twilight.

Twilight looked at the clock on her wall: 9:30 AM. She had slept in a little later than usual today and while it did make her body feel more relaxed, it increased the strain on her mind as she now had less time to complete all of the work that she wanted to do today.

She walked into her kitchen and poured herself a bowl of cereal and began mentally preparing for the events of today. The rational side of her brain told her that she was overreacting to this whole affair and that it would all be over by 5:00 today, once they talked to whoever was writing the new Gabby Gums articles. There wasn't even a real need to involve Princess Celestia in the matter unless there was evidence that the permits had been falsified, then she would feel that it was her duty to get involved. As it was though, when Twilight wrote her a letter telling her about how it had all been solved, then she would tell Twilight how proud she was of her that she was able to diffuse a nasty situation before it got out of hand.

Twilight sighed as she continued to eat her breakfast. Everything would be okay, she assured herself, and nothing would go wrong.

She cleaned up her breakfast dishes and walked out of her house. She had wanted to gather her friends for a meeting to discuss what would be done when Twilight's meeting revealed the real culprit behind the Gabby Gums articles.

She had asked her friends to meet her in the Ponyville park at 10:00 and to her delight, she saw all five of her friends lounging around the park while they waited for Twilight to arrive.

Rainbow Dash was bouncing a ball on her head and Pinkie Pie was eagerly watching every bounce as she kept her eyes on the ball the entire time. Fluttershy was watching in vague interest but Twilight noticed that she seemed a little uneasy today. Twilight could hardly blame her. The Gabby Gums article that had been directed at her had hit her hard and she had spent days inside of her house, crying her eyes out. Applejack and Rarity were having a hushed conversation, presumably about Gabby Gums, and they both looked very worried too.

The group looked up when they saw Twilight approach and they all ran up to greet her.

"Hello girls," said Twilight.

"Hello there Twilight," said Rarity. "It's so good to see you today."

"Have you five been waiting long?" asked Twilight. Applejack shook her head.

"RD and I got here about ten minutes ago and Fluttershy showed up a few minutes after that. Pinkie and Rarity were only here for about a minute before you arrived. Twilight nodded.

"Good," she said before leading her friends towards an open spot of grass on a quiet hill. She stood in front of her friends who sat down on the grass and addressed them. "So, as I'm sure you can imagine, I have called you here today to discuss the recent problem of the return of Gabby Gums. Now as you all know, I have a meeting at the news office in five-and-a-half hours to find out who received the permits to print and distribute Gabby Gums in our town. Until then, we need to protect Ponyville from more articles appearing! I mean, you saw how chaotic it got yesterday, the townsponies will read Gabby Gums for as long as she continues to print papers."

"What do you want us to do?" asked Applejack determinedly.

"We need to patrol this town and try to beat the townsponies to the latest edition of Gabby Gums! If we can find them and destroy any copies before the townsponies do, then we won't have a panic on our hooves like the one we had yesterday," said Twilight. The five friends nodded.

"Well, let's get to it then!" said Rainbow Dash.

Yes, lets," said Twilight. "Applejack, I want you patrolling the town square to see if Gabby Gums appears there. That's where the general area where the last two issues appeared so be on high alert."

"You got it!" said Applejack with a nod.

"Fluttershy, I want you to fly above the clouds and survey the Ponyville marketplace. I doubt that Gabby Gums would try to drop off her latest issue in a place that consistently crowded, but you never know."

"I can do that," said Fluttershy.

"Rarity, I want you to look for anywhere Gabby Gums could be able to print large amounts of newspapers and check those areas out. Ask workers in any stores that deal with printing if they remember if anypony printed Gabby Gums articles, ask Cheerilee if anypony has been using the school's printing press, and ask around large stores to see if anypony has been buying up large quantities of newspapers. Report to me if you find anything useful."

"Of course!" said Rarity.

Twilight sighed and walked up to Pinkie with a very serious look on her face and put a hoof on her shoulder. "Pinkie Pie, if ever there was a need for your Pinkie Sense, the time is now," she said dramatically.

"Well I--"

"The time is now," said Twilight in a dramatic whisper.

"I'll let you know if I get anything," said Pinkie. Twilight nodded before addressing the rest of the group.

"Alright girls, I'll be checking in on each of you periodically throughout the day," said Twilight before looking into the sky. "Now, it is exactly 11:00 which means that my meeting is in just under five hours! Let's move out and stop Gabby Gums!"

The other five ponies gave cheers of agreement and ran towards Ponyville to get to their stations.

The second they got there, they saw a large crowd gathered around a street corner with what were unmistakably newspapers in their hooves. Twilight gave a gasp of shock and tapped the nearest pony, Dr. Whooves, on the shoulder.

"Uh, is that a Gabby Gums paper?" she asked. The Dr. Whooves nodded glumly.

"Derpy found them about ten minutes ago on the corner. She tried to carry them away but she was seen before she could. A few ponies thought that she was dropping them off instead and they...well, let's just say that she was roughed up a bit," said the Dr. Whooves grimly.

"Like how bad?" asked Rarity nervously.

"Uh, bloody nose, a pair of black eyes and she might have cracked a rib. They were trying to get information out of her."

"They did this to DERPY!? One of the nicest and most innocent ponies in town!?" asked a horrified Rainbow Dash.

"The offending ponies were arrested right?" asked Twilight. Dr. Whooves shook his head.

"In the chaos, nopony really could tell who did what. Lyra only barely managed to pull her out of there before things got really nasty for her."

Twilight gave a frustrated sigh.

"I know that this isn't the best situation for everypony, but why in Equestria are they responding this way!? I get being scared and angry, but beating up Derpy just because she was at the wrong place at the wrong time is just too much," said Twilight angrily.

"I completely agree," said Dr. Whooves. "But you have to remember how bad it was for everypony last time around. When Gabby Gums is printing articles, nopony feels safe anywhere, even in the privacy of their own homes and now that it's happening again, I don't think everypony knows how to react to that. Besides, now that we're pretty sure that it isn't the little fillies that did it the first time; everypony knows that the intent is a little more malicious this time. I'll admit that I'm a little scared myself actually."

'Well, who did Gabby Gums write about this time?" asked Fluttershy. Twilight wheeled around and glared at Fluttershy.

"Fluttershy, we can't do that! If we start caring about what Gabby Gums is writing, then Gabby Gums wins!" said Twilight. Fluttershy mumbled an apology but in truth, Twilight could hardly blame her. Her curiosity was about to get the better of her too.

"We have a bigger problem than her 'winning' or 'losing," said Whooves grimly.

"What do you mean?" asked Rarity. Whooves sighed.

"The past two Gabby Gums articles were completely false, something that she just made up to get our attention. However, today's article...well, this one is completely true. I don't mean that it has elements of truth in it, it's completely accurate as far as we know," said Whooves. Twilight's eyes widened and she tore the paper away from Whooves and scanned it.

Filthy Rich has always been a prominent member of Ponyville society. He owns several businesses in the area and while we can all agree that he is a pompous jerk, he hasn't done anything truly despicable...or has he?

A key witness said that Filthy Rich was drinking last night after he heard that one of his businesses was on the road to failure. He got steadily angrier as the night progressed and empty hard cider bottles began to pile up. Tragically, he did hit a breaking point when his daughter Diamond Tiara, a student at the local Ponyville Elementary School, came home complaining about homework that she had to do.

In a fit of anger at Diamond Tiara's whiny attitude, he stood up and hit her twice, sending her crying up to her room with the beginnings of bruises forming. No word yet on whether or not justice has been brought upon him.

Twilight finished the segment and looked to see a photo that clearly showed Filthy Rich's hoof making contact with the back of his daughter's head. She looked up in horror.

"I don't know what disturbs me more," she said. "That filthy Rich did this or that Gabby Gums invaded the privacy of his home to get this. To get this picture, she practically needed to break into his house!"

"I personally think that the filly's injuries are the bigger issue right now, but that doesn't mean that Gabby Gums is off the hook," said Whooves. "What she did to get this is just as illegal as what Filthy Rich did. Now we know that Gabby Gums is perfectly willing to use illegal means to get her stories."

'Is there any way that this photo could have been altered?" asked Applejack.

"Yeah," said Twilight. "It's a pretty simple spell actually. I doubt that even a filly would have trouble with it."

"Uh," said Applejack nervously. "I know that Sweetie Belle is beginnin' to develop her magic. Could she--"

"No!" said Rarity sternly. "Sweetie Belle is in the clear with all of this!"

"I think it's a moot point anyway," said Whooves. "Rumor has it that the police have confirmed the story."

At this, Twilight gave an angry growl and ripped up the paper.

"Exactly!" she said angrily. "RUMORS! These are rumors and until they are determined to be truth, we can't make a big deal about them!"

She burned the scraps and stormed off.

"Where are you going?" asked Rainbow Dash.

"I don't really care if my appointment is for 4:00, I'm getting to the bottom of this NOW!"

The other five ponies looked at each other nervously and slowly followed the fuming unicorn towards the News Office. They heard a commotion behind them and they listened in to hear that the rest of the town seemed to be following them as well.

"She's going to investigate!" said one voice. "She's going to find out who Gabby Gums is!"

"Well then let's follow her!" said another voice. "I have to know!"

The town followed Twilight and within a few minutes, they arrived at the Ponyville News Office. Twilight burst through the doors and her friends followed while the rest of the town thankfully stayed outside, eagerly awaiting the potential reveal of the identity of Gabby Gums.

The receptionist looked up angrily when the six ponies walked in.

"What is the meaning of all of this?" she asked. "Your appointment is for 4:00, not now!"

"Lady," retorted Twilight. "If you wanna stop me from meeting Mr. Exely right now, you are literally going to have to call the cops on me. This is a Ponyville emergency! A newspaper that is being distributed is publishing vicious libel stories and already one innocent pony has been hospitalized so if you want to stop me, make my day! Otherwise, get out of my way!"

"What is all of the commotion out here?" asked a new voice. The six turned to see a brown Earth Pony with a newspaper cutie mark. "I take it that you wish to speak with me?"

"You're Mr. Exely," said a relieved Twilight.

"Indeed I am. What can I do for you?" he asked.

"I need to see your records of ponies who recently obtained a permit to print and distribute a newspaper in this town."

"Certainly," said Exely with a nod. He walked into his office and within a few minutes, he had brought out a thick record book. He put on his glasses and opened it up to the most recent page. "Now then, what is the name of this paper?"

"The New Gabby Gums," said Twilight. "We need to know who has the permit for it!"

"Well, it's not just one pony," said Mr. Exely as he close the book.

"There's more than one?" asked Applejack. Exely nodded.

"You see, it's actually three little fillies that have the permit: Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle. They are the owners and distributors of your questionable paper."