Flurry Heart was shaking with anticipation, running past her mother as she entered to visit with her father's new team in the lounge area. She bounced about the couches and tables, frantically introducing herself to each group member.

"Hi, I'm Flurry Heart! Hi, I'm Flurry Heart! Hi, I'm Flurry Heart! Hi, I'm Flurry Heart!" She ricocheted from pony to pony, hopping like a rabbit on a spring morning. Although, she stopped dead in her tracks as she saw Blue Thistle. "Oooo...." Flurry Heart was positively ecstatic as she ran over to see the giantess, awe-struck by her sheer size. She sat next to Blue Thistle by the bar fridge, climbing her like a tree.

"Young lady, that's not how we introduce ourselves!" Cadence scolded the young filly, to which she obeyed without question and jumped down onto the floor.

"Sorry, mommy..." Flurry Heart tapped her fingers together in embarrassment as she stood before Blue Thistle and the others, giving them all a polite curtsey and a bow like an upper-class lady would. "Hello, everypony. My name is Flurry Heart. It's a pleasure to meet you." Truth be told, she didn't seem very enthusiastic with her greeting.

"Oh, aren't you the cutest thing?!" Fae giggled as she picked Flurry Heart up and nuzzled her snout against hers. "My name is Fae!"

"He, he, he!" Flurry Heart beamed as Fae hovered in the air for a moment, spinning rapidly. "Wee!"

"I'm certain you all know who I am, but just in case, my name is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. I rule the Crystal Empire with my husband, Shining Armor. It's a pleasure to meet you all. I've heard good things about everypony, and I thank you for assisting my fellow princesses." Cadence bowed to the team as she sat near the central computer, practically glowing with graceful brilliance and beauty. "What a lovely establishment you have built, dear."

Cadence was certainly a Princess of Love alright; her smile lit up the entire room, her slender yet shapely figure was shown off well in her long sequin, cyan dress, and her long, predominantly pink hair was combed and had a natural sheen to it. She walked with the poise of Celestia and Luna, yet somehow she managed to make her strides her own, unique to her own personality. One could tell right away that she had a very adventurous nature, a spark in her eye, one that Shining Armor was drawn to from the very first moment he met her. As everypony acknowledged her greeting, she sat down on the couch next to Blaster, attentively examining the stacks of papers on the coffee table.

"Wow, the Princess of the Crystal Empire is sitting next to me..." Blasters brow was almost sweaty.

"You know, I'm technically the Prince, right?" Shining Armor mentioned, hungry for a little recognition.

"Yeah, well, you aren't as pretty as her," Shadow Dancer joked, to which Shining Armor scrunched up his face at her.

"Oh my, you flatter me..." Cadence gave an embarrassed laugh as Shining Armor handed her a glass of white wine. "You are Shadow Dancer, correct?"

"Yep, the one and only..." Shadow Dancer grinned as she rested her hoof on one knee as she laid back on the couch across from Cadence. "How did a mare like you end up with a guy like Shiny Pants over here?"

"Oh, it's a long story. We grew up together— I used to take care of Twilight when she was much younger, and Shining Armor here would often admire me in the background." Cadence poked fun at Shining Armor as he poured himself a drink.

"Hey, the admiring was mutual," Shining Armor interjected. "Eventually we became closer once I became Captain of the Guard and she became royalty..."

"One thing led to another, and here we are— we've going strong for seven years," Cadence said as he took a small sip from her wine glass.

"Can you pick me up?" Flurry Heart jumped up and down with her arms outstretched, begging Blue Thistle, who still stood beside the fridge in a stoic manner.

"Um... I'm not-..." Blue Thistle looked up at Cadence for assurance, and she nodded enthusiastically. "Okay..." Blue Thistle grabbed Flurry Heart under the shoulders and lifted her high into the air, pretending she was a plane of some sort, soaring through the sky.

"Huh... my father used to do that with me," Derpy said warmly to Blaster as she saw the wide grin on Flurry Heart's face.

"Wee!" Flurry Heart roared as Blue Thistle made propeller noises with her lips, running around the living area with a smile on her face.

"She has a strong maternal side to her..." Cadence smiled as she watched her daughter shriek and giggle with delight.

"You look as if you are in deep thought. Is something troubling you, your majesty?" Gizmo spoke up, noticing her odd expression.

"Oh, nothing, I'm merely daydreaming. You must be... Gizmo, correct?" Cadence guessed.

"Correct," Gizmo pointed to her wings in a very blunt manner. "May I inquire how you acquired those appendages?"

"Oh, my wings?" Cadence raised a brow at him as she unfurled her right wing. "These were gifted to me to me by my Celestia."

"Celestia you say? Interesting..." Gizmo mumbled to himself as he brought out a notepad from the inside pocket of his blazer, writing at an incredible pace.

"Are you intending to study alicorns?" Cadence inquired.

"Something like that..." Gizmo muttered, still scribbling.

"Forgive him, he's a bit of a quack," Shadow Dancer sighed, watching as Gizmo got up and paced around the central computer in deep thought.

"No, it's fine. I've dealt with ponies like him before..." Cadence assured her, thinking back to her experiences with a young Twilight. She then got up off the couch and shuffled over to Shining Armor. "Where's the washroom...?"

"Just over there," Shining Armor replied as he pointed to the sliding door behind the staircase. "Use the furthest stall , please?" As Cadence scurried over to the washroom, Shadow Dancer followed, giving Shining Armor a long, awkward glance as she entered. "What are you-?"

"I'm just going to the washroom, geez." Shadow Dancer said, almost blurting her words out as she closed the sliding door.

"What's that all about?" Shining Armor shrugged his shoulders as he sat down in Cadence's spot on the couch, smiling as his daughter hugged his leg tightly as soon as his rear touched the seat. "Hey, pumpkin. How's it going?"

"Blue Thistle is really nice and really, really tall!" Flurry Heart whispered to her father as she waved to Blue Thistle, who stood in front of the bar, waving back hesitantly with a half smile on her face. "Where's mommy?"

"She went to the bathroom, sweetie, she'll be out soon. In the meantime, let's help Ditzy with her paperwork, okay?" Shining Armor answered her, handing her a file. "Here, I need you to sort out this document in alphabetical order. Can you do that for me?"

"Aye, aye, Captain!" Flurry Heart put on a serious face as she saluted her father, grabbing the file and hopping up onto the loveseat.

Shadow Dancer carefully made her way to the furthest stall in the washroom, entering the stall right beside it, trying her best to make it appear as if she genuinely wished to go to the bathroom. As she sat down on the toilet, she heard Cadence shuffle a bit; this made Shadow Dancer a little uneasy. She began tapping her hoof against the floor tiles, trying to distract herself from the awkward situation. A hundred questions of what to ask her echoed in Shadow Dancer's mind, jumbling up into an unorganized mess of frustration and doubt.

"Shadow Dancer? Is that you?" Cadence piped up, recognizing the hooves in the stall next to her.

"Uh, yeah... I had to go as well I guess..." Shadow Dancer let out an almost desperate laugh as she worked up the nerve to ask her a burning question. "Hey, Cadence...? You're the Princess of Love, right? That's what they call you?"

"Yes, why?" Cadence raised an eyebrow at the strangeness of her question.

"Well... can you 'fix' who a pony likes and dislikes? And by that I mean, can you change the chemistry of a pony? Their preferences?" Shadow Dancer wondered, twiddling her thumbs neurotically.

"I'm not sure who told you that, but I can't do something like that," Cadence replied. "Why would you wish to do such a thing?"

"Well, I've been having... feelings lately, those kind..." Shadow Dancer kept fighting with herself to just go ahead and tell Cadence what she's been feeling. "I've had my eyes on somepony... and that somepony just so happens to... well, not be a stallion...?"

"I see... and is there an issue with this?" Cadence pondered.

"No, no, no... I have no problem with other mares doing... you know..." Shadow Dancer panicked, trying to defend herself. "It's just-... I'm not that mare..."

"I think you aren't being true to yourself, Shadow Dancer. I can hear it in your voice," Cadence deduced. "Why do you resist who you are?"

"I don't, I-..." Shadow Dancer fell silent as she stared down at the ground. "I'm a mare... I'm supposed to like stallions..." Tears began to pool in her eyes. "I've tried to... do stuff with stallions again and again— to fix me. I just-... fuck."

Admittedly, Cadence took a peek at Shadow Dancer's file during her two weeks in the hospital, reading over her bio and background. Evidently, Shadow Dancer was an oddity. Out of the seventy-seven clones, Shadow Dancer was the only female— the result of an error in the chromosomal organization process during cloning. She was meant to be male. Cadence postured that perhaps this was why she felt so conflicted with her own emotions, that perhaps she thought what she felt was synthetic.

"Shadow Dancer, you mustn't fret about something like that. If you keep denying what you feel, you'll just tear yourself apart. If you like mares, you like mares. I can't change that and neither can you," Cadence thought back to the lounge; she had noticed Shadow Dancer giving Blue Thistle brief but longing glances. "And I don't mean to pry, but... is the mare you're interested in Blue Thistle by chance?"

"Yeah..." Shadow Dancer said shamefully as she exited her stall along with Cadence, and they both washed their hands at the large 'sink' tray with six nozzles that stretched from the exit to Cadence's stall; both toilets had automatically flushed as they closed their stall door. "I don't know what to do. I mean... we're supposed to be professional, right?"

"When the situation demands it, yes. But... it wasn't professional between Shining Armor and I when we were dating; at that time he was still Captain of the Guard and I was still a princess." Cadence replied, trying her best to reassure the confused mare. "We still rule together, though, he's a bit more occupied with other commitments nowadays."

"I know it's none of my business, but... I can sometimes see a lot of fear in his eyes— Shining Armor's. The attempt on your life really tore him up I think..." Shadow Dancer said calmly as she grabbed a handful of paper towel from the dispenser on the wall.

"I know, he's been through this before, but... not like this. He'll get over it eventually, but in the meantime, we all just have to cope with his worrisome self," Cadence stopped Shadow Dancer just before she grabbed the door handle. "Hey, remember what I said." Cadence gave Shadow Dancer a wink and a grin. "You can have a little fun on the side, right?"

"Yeah... I get ya," Shadow Dancer laughed as she exited, wiping off the remaining moisture on her hands on her blue jeans.

She felt a hand grab her shoulder as she closed the door behind her; it was Blueblood. "Ah, Shadow Dancer! Just the mare I was looking for! Could I speak to you in private for a moment?"

"Um... sure...?" Shadow Dancer replied, a little uncomfortable.

****

"Do it again, Gizmo, do it again!" Flurry Heart clapped as she excitedly pointed towards the nearest object on the bar table; a glass of apple juice that Blue Thistle had just filled.

"Alright..." Gizmo grumbled from the recliner right of the television as he cocked back his fist, aiming at the glass. With a thrust of his mechanical arm, his hand rapidly extended from his wrist like a tendril and grabbed the glass. His hand retracted, popping back into place, and he handed the drink to Flurry Heart. "Here you go..."

"That's so cool!" Flurry Heart beamed as she drank her glass full of the sweet, amber liquid.

"How did you manage to implement such advanced machinery in your body?" Cadence asked, scratching her head at Gizmo's cybernetic limbs.

"Most of my augments were self-implanted. I used nanobots to do most of the minuscule work— restructuring my flesh and blood to cooperate with my tech. Then I amputated my organic appendages and replaced them." Gizmo replied as his right hand spun in his wrist like a propeller.

"That sounds... painful..." Derpy cringed as she gripped her shoulder, imagining what life would be like without her precious appendages.

"Hardly," Gizmo sighed as his hand locked back into place. "It's like my father always used to say to me, 'There's nothing a little morphine can't fix'."

"And yet you were arrested for corporate theft and tax evasion?" Shining Armor chuckled as he took a sip of his white wine. "Say, where's Shadow Dancer...?"

"I'm not sure... she exited the washroom just a few minutes before me. Perhaps she decided to take a walk?" Cadence postured.

"Yeah, maybe..." Shining Armor muttered to himself, looking over towards the entryway of the living area; it wasn't like her to just wander off.

"Well... I'm done," Derpy groaned loudly as she slumped over on the couch, staring blankly at the organized stacks of files on the coffee table. "I think I'll fall into a coma now."

****

Shadow Dancer was escorted into a separate room on the second floor, a briefing room for agents. The room was simplistic, decorated with various stock artwork one would find at a typical, cheap furniture store, and the large round table in the center had eight black chairs all around it. Shadow Dancer sat down on the chair closest to the entrance, and Blueblood sat down right across from her, grabbing a touch tablet out of the inside pocket of his jacket and setting it on the table. He tapped a few buttons, then presented an image to Shadow Dancer. It was some pony in an extensive black combat suit, a unicorn to be sure. Though, the low quality of the image and the dark background made it hard to discern the pony's gender. The long cape and hood shrouding the figure also made it tricky, as no fur or other distinct features could be made out, save for the pony's glowing white eyes.

"What am I looking at right now?" Shadow Dancer wondered, puzzled by the image.

"You are looking at a local legend of Manehattan, Shadow Dancer, a ghost story that's been going around for the past six months. They call this pony The Raven, and this is the only picture we have of whoever this pony is." Blueblood leaned back in his chair as he continued. "This unidentified pony appeared in Manehattan suddenly, taking out street thugs and drug dealers. But lately this pony has gotten bold, and he's knocked out various crime lords all across the city. The streets of Manehattan are abuzz with talk of this vigilante, and various organizations have put a bounty on this pony's head; innocent ponies are getting caught in the crossfire."

"Sounds heavy... why tell me?" Shadow Dancer asked, still examining the picture.

"Because you know the inner-workings of the criminal underworld, Miss Dancer. You may have been stationed in Las Pegasus for a time, but your former employers have ties to Manehattan." Blueblood answered her as he placed the tablet back in his pocket. "The crime world doesn't know you're on this team yet, and I'd like to keep it that way for this mission. I want you to do some digging— find out what you can about this pony, then apprehend him using any means necessary. I wish to recruit this vigilante into our ranks."

"This seems awful shady... what's your angle, Blueblood?" Shadow Dancer raised an eyebrow at him; he didn't seem like a very trustworthy pony.

"Please, call me Vladimir. And there's no angle, I can assure you, Miss Dancer." Blueblood stood up, putting his hand out for a shake. "Does this task sound acceptable?"

Shadow Dancer took a moment to think. She knew she had the best chance at finding the vigilante given her extensive espionage capabilities, and she had nothing better to do. But admittedly, she felt a little torn. She wanted to spend a little more time with her team, especially Blue Thistle. But she couldn't stand idly by and let innocents get gunned down over a wild goose-chase. If the pony in question was as good as Blueblood thought, she'd have to step in.

Shadow Dancer shook Blueblood's hand somewhat hesitantly. "When do I start?"

"Today if you wish," Blueblood replied as he stood at the door. "I can have you flown in this afternoon."

"Alright... you got yourself a spy, Vlad," Shadow Dancer nodded as she got out of her chair. "You better not be pulling the wool over my eyes with this one."

Author's Note

This is where Shadow Dancer's side mission begins! It's just one of many that will occur in this series, and many more characters will be introduced as the series progresses.

As always, I hope you enjoyed! See you in the next chapter!