It didn't take long for the whole team to hate Blueblood. He was shrewd, stubborn, and an extreme narcissist— more so than Gizmo, which even impressed him. Sure, Gizmo may have been a hard one to get along with, but Blueblood was impossible to relate to or even understand. It was as if he lived in some sort of an alternate reality where he was an omnipotent entity, an all-knowing deity. Thankfully, Shining Armor was there to pop his bubble whenever he got too much of an inflated head.

"Is there any champagne?" Blueblood asked Shadow Dancer, who was about to pour a drink for him at the bar.

"No, there's only brandy, vodka, gin, and cognac..." Shadow Dancer groaned; only knowing him for a half hour made her want to rip her hair out.

"Cognac? Ugghh... what a bourgeois drink," Blueblood shivered in disgust, to which Shadow Dancer's eye twitched slightly. "Have you any civilized beverages?"

"You get what you get, Blueblood," Shining Armor said bluntly as he marched over to the bar and poured him a glass of gin.

"Why the hostility, chum? I merely asked for a drink..." Blueblood laughed lightly under his breath as Shining Armor set his drink down on the coffee table in front of him.

"In worst way possible..." Shining Armor muttered to himself as he sat down on the couch adjacent to Blueblood with the others gathered around him. "Why did the Minister send you?"

"Oh, you know moi, it could've been for a number of reasons; devilish good looks, charisma, gravitas... you get the idea," Blueblood smirked as he sniffed his glass. "Uggh, repulsive. I'm not drinking this caustic garbage."

"I will..." Shining Armor sighed as he downed the whole drink in one go. "Anyways, you were getting to the real answer to my question, right?"

"Ah, yes. Well you see, the Minister has taken a liking to me recently; I've gotten on his good side. His wishes are for me to inform him of the goings-on at this establishment to make sure you are all following protocol." Blueblood explained in his usual flippant manner. "If I see an issue, I report it. If I report it, the members of this team will face consequences."

"So they still don't trust us then, right?" Shadow Dancer shook her head in disappointment as she drank straight vodka from a shot glass. "Makes sense I guess..."

"Of course it does, you're all dangerous criminals with abilities that could pose a serious threat to national security. If this team is to succeed it needs order, an order only achievable through the watchful eyes of moi." Blueblood hummed to himself, enjoying the sound of his own voice.

"This sounds like Red Tsar secret police," Blue Thistle scoffed at the cunning stallion as she crossed her arms, leaning up against the wall behind Shadow Dancer.

"Oh, I almost forgot you were here, Blue Star! How is your brother?" Blueblood said in an overly cheery tone of voice.

"My name is Blue Thistle, and my brother is fine," Blue Thistle grumbled as she leaned up against the refrigerator, watching as Shadow Dancer grabbed some ice from the tray and placed it in three glasses; one for herself, one for Blue Thistle, and one for Blaster, who had to refuel a little after the training exercise. Blue Thistle's eyes wandered towards Shadow Dancer's ample rear as she bent over to grab the ice, though, she quickly looked forward as Shadow Dancer got back up. "Uh, you are good at bartending, yes?"

"Well, I'm no professional; any idiot can pick up a drink and pour it into a glass, I just do it more often than others," Shadow Dancer let out a somewhat cold chuckle as she remembered all the times she passed out drunk in her apartment. "I guess that tells you a bit about my character, huh?"

"No, no, it's fine. I get it. My comrades during the war would drink a bit too," Blue Thistle reassured Shadow Dancer. "It can be a release for some ponies."

"Have you ever gotten drunk?" Shadow Dancer wondered as she handed Blue Thistle her gin.

"Niet, never once," Blue Thistle shook her head as she drank her gin. "It takes many drinks to get me off-balance."

"I'd assume so since, well, you know..." Shadow Dancer gestured to all of the giant mare next to her then gasped, believing she had phrased her sentence in an offensive way. "I mean, you're not large in that way, you're just-."

"It is fine, Shadow Dancer..." Blue Thistle laughed as she saw Shadow Dancer's face flush red. "Looks like I made you blush, eh? Is the score now even?"

"Ah, yeah. You got me..." Shadow Dancer turned away suddenly, handing Blaster his drink as an excuse to breathe a little. "Fuck, why am I flirting with her? Why the fuck do I always do this? Why can't I just like a stallion for once?"

"Shadow Dancer, are you okay...?" Blaster could see Shadow Dancer's face twitching violently as she placed his drink out on the coffee table in front of him.

"Fine! Perfectly fine!" Shadow Dancer sang in an eccentric fashion as she waltzed back over to the bar, determined to keep a friendly, platonic conversation with Blue Thistle. "So, how you doin', Blue?"

"Um... okay?" Blue Thistle raised an eyebrow at Shadow Dancer as an uncomfortable grin stretched across the awkward mare's face.

"You look like you have to pee, Dancer!" Fae giggled as she watched them interact from the end of the bar island.

"Oh yes, you must be Fae, correct? I recognized you from that child-like demeanor of yours." Blueblood bowed politely to Fae, greeting her in a sort of passive-aggressive manner. "I look forward to working with you." Blueblood exhaled deeply before walking back to the entrance of the building, dusting off his clothes and rubbing hand sanitizer into his palms. "I best be tending to that dreadful secretary of yours, Shining Armor. She's certainly a klutz, isn't she?"

"Yeah..." Shining Armor turned to Blaster, placing a hand on his shoulder to calm him down before he said anything rash to Blueblood. "You go do that."

"Wow... what an asshole." Shadow Dancer scoffed as she glared at Blueblood, who vanished behind the entryway of the living quarters.

"I certainly wanna give that guy a kick in the junk," Blaster grumbled, hearing Blueblood berate Derpy from afar.

"Should I be mad he called me a child?" Fae asked Shining Armor.

"No, he treats everypony like they're a child." Shining Armor sighed as he leaned back on the couch. "Say... where's Gizmo?"

"Right here," Gizmo replied from under the central computer, fiddling with more wires and mechanisms. "I couldn't bear to hear that insufferable aristocrat drone on for any longer about his presence at various diplomatic meetings."

"If you did that I'd probably kill you by now." Shadow Dancer stated as she sat down at the bar table with her head against the counter. "No hard feelings."

"I'd kill me too," Gizmo said with a screwdriver in his mouth. "I can tolerate boasting, but bragging about diplomatic affairs is beyond stupid. Any mouthpiece can spew exposition about peace and kindness; it takes a real laureate to actually change hearts and minds. Hearing him just made me want to vomit."

This was one of Gizmo's often overlooked traits; his ability to read and understand other ponies instantaneously. Perhaps when he was speaking to the wrong individuals, his rants would not have gone over well, but with the team, this brighter side of Gizmo blossomed. When he aimed his criticisms at the right ponies, it made for great entertainment.

"Couldn't have said it better myself, Gizmo," Shining Armor laughed as he got off the couch, reaching into his pocket to grab his vibrating phone; it was Cadence. "Crap gotta take this... hey, honey." He walked off, leaning up against the pillar that supported the long staircase near the center. "Yeah, I'm fine, Blueblood buggered off a few moments ago, so... I'm just recuperating."

"So, what are you doing down there, Giz?" Shadow Dancer asked as she peeked under the opened panel in the side of the central computer that Gizmo was working in.

"I'm retooling the AI systems— they're incredibly bare-bones. I figured this would be a project to work on as an excuse to avoid conversation." Gizmo pronounced the last two words with extra power as he stared right at Shadow Dancer, implying to her to cease the discussion.

"Oh, um, sorry..." Shadow Dancer did a frantic half-skip back to the lounge area as soon as the memo sunk in, and she sat beside Fae, who was spinning in her seat giggling. "It is not hard to entertain you, huh?"

"Nope!" Fae beamed as she swiveled on her stool around and around. "I love spinny things!"

In a huff, Derpy trudged over to Blaster, sitting down beside him with a stack of files in her hands. "Who thought it was a good idea to give Blueblood power? Who?!"

"What's that...?" Blaster cocked his head from side to side as he took a closer look at the stack of documents filled to the brim with papers.

"Paperwork. I'm sorting each agent's file into alphabetical order, color-coding them, then putting into a filing cabinet. He wants this done tonight!" Derpy removed her glasses and set her head on the stack of files. "I thought this would be fun..."

"You know you're the secretary, right?" Gizmo said from inside the computer.

"I know I am! It sounded much easier on the job description..." Derpy poked out her lower lip as she whimpered on top of the mountain of paper. "He told me he'd fire me if I didn't get it done..."

"Don't worry, I'll help you. I won't let that snot-nosed brat make everypony around him miserable." Blaster offered, a spark of determination in his eyes.

"What the hell? I'll help you out." Shadow Dancer volunteered as she sat down on the adjacent couch.

"I shall as well," Blue Thistle added as she sat beside Shadow Dancer. "But... I don't know how."

"All for one and one for all then, musketeers?" Gizmo said sarcastically as he soldered two wires together, insisting that he stay in his place and tend to the computer.

"What is a file? Is it some kind of bug?" Fae inquired as she plopped down on the loveseat next to Blaster.

"You could call them that I suppose..." Derpy groaned as she handed a stack of papers to each pony. "Place them in piles according to the first letter of the last name, then we'll organize each pile so they're in order as well."

"What? Cadence, run that by me again..." Shining Armor had a hard time processing her sentence.

"They've released me, Shining Armor. If you can't come home, I want to visit you tonight. I haven't seen you in weeks, and your daughter needs to see her father once in a while," Cadence repeated herself with motherly firmness in her voice. "I'll only visit for the afternoon, then I'll go right back home with Flurry Heart after that."

"No, I-... you've got stitches, honey. I can't just-." Images of the explosion flashed before Shining Armor's eyes; he couldn't let something like that happen again.

"I will be fine, sweetheart, trust me." Cadence insisted.

"But what if there's another attack? I can't put you at risk, especially not when Flurry Heart is with you..." Shining Armor shook his head in frustration as the visions of his injured wife kept working their way back into his skull. "If you are, I'm going to have the most elite guards accompanying you to the facility, nothing less. Is that okay?"

"It's fine, honey. I'm not foolish enough to go anywhere without them." Cadence assured her husband. "Your team is as kind and cooperative as you say they are, right?"

"Yeah, I-..." Shining Armor trailed off as he turned to Shadow Dancer and the others laughing together as they sorted through the piles of paper. "Yes, yes they are."

"Then I look forward to my visit," Cadence said confidently in her calm and soothing voice, a voice that always melted Shining Armor's worries. Regardless, he still retained much skepticism in regards to her plan. "And... dear?"

"Yes?" Shining Armor unintentionally mumbled.

"Please don't tell the driver to take us home instead..." Cadence pleaded with her husband; she knew him too well to trust his 'yes'. "I know you're scared, and I think about what happened every day since... but you can't live in fear, not in times like this. I want your daughter to see you— now more than ever. Promise me you won't tell the driver to turn around?"

"I promise..." Shining Armor muttered reluctantly, swallowing his doubts. He smiled as he heard his daughter's sweet voice in the background— a whimsical and innocent little squeak that could slay any dark thought he may harbor. "Is she with you?"

"Yes, would you like to speak to her?" Cadence laughed along with her daughter, who was snickering in the background.

"Yes..." Shining Armor sighed with relief as he heard his daughter's soft breathing as she took the phone.

"Hi, daddy..." Flurry Heart peeped.

"Hi, little mouse..." Shining Armor's grin grew wide as he continued. "How are you?"

"I'm really excited to see you, daddy!" Flurry Heart said with a sort of hum to her voice.

"I am too, sweetheart," Shining Armor chuckled as he waved to Shadow Dancer, who was overjoyed hearing his conversation with his daughter. "You'll love everypony here too, they're really nice."

"That's good. Do I get to meet the big mare who punched that bad robot?!" Flurry Heart became positively ecstatic as she envisioned herself with the team.

"Yes, you will, sweetie," Shining Armor stepped out of the shadows and walked back over to the lounge area, letting the whole team hear his discussion. "You get to meet all of them."

"Yay!" Flurry Heart cheered as she prepared to hang up the phone. "See you later, daddy! I love you!"

"I love you too, sweetie..." Shining Armor hung up, placing the phone in his pocket as he let out a long sigh and sat down on a barstool. "Well, my wife and daughter are coming to visit..."

"What? Really? That's awesome!" Blaster grinned as he tossed a paper into a nearby stack on the coffee table. "When?"

"This afternoon— probably around one or two o' clock." Shining Armor answered him as he overheard Blueblood in the lobby barking at the employees with one of his trademark pseudo-intellectual rants. "Somepony has to keep Blueblood busy while they're here."

"I think he's already doing that on his own..." Shadow Dancer rolled his eyes as she overheard his rant as well. "What a dick."

"Hey, that's a little uncall-...." Shining Armor cut himself off before he went any further with that sentence, realizing who he was about to defend. "Yeah, he's a dick."

Author's Note

Uggh... Blueblood . When I asked myself, "Who'd cause the most anger in the group?", my immediate answer was this clown. Gosh.

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