They thought that Misty Rose, being the daughter of Blueblood and Pinkie Pie would be an amazing baker.
They thought wrong.
"That's not what the recipe says!" Anarchy, Luna and Discord's daughter shrieked, fur on her chest floofing up indigently. The hybrid was hovering in the air, looking about an inch away from a mental breakdown.
Said hybrid was currently fretting over her lover, Misty, who was frowning at a cup of overflowing salt. The earth pony shrugged, before dumping the entire thing into the mixing bowl. "Okay, so, if we add this is in, it should counteract any bad effects" she announces proudly.
"There's only supposed to be a pinch of salt! That's too much!" Anarchy reaches out and grasps Ink Blot, dragon claws digging into the Zebra's skin. To his credit, he only flinched a little.
"There's never too much salt, Annie, you should know that by now." Misty looks a little too smug as she stirs the horrible concoction. Sun is certain that she ate half of the sugar from the bowl, judging by her maniacal smile. "Sunshine, be a dear and hand me the coffee."
Under normal circumstances, he might of have snarled at the ridiculous nickname, but he was slightly too scared for his life to do that. Instead, he telekinetically gave a small cup of coffee over to her. Without hesitating, Misty grabbed it and chugged it all in one go.
Annie is watching her with more than a bit of horror. "Misty," she says in her warning voice, and Misty smirks in response, stirring the bowl with even more vigor.
"It's not technically illegal." She assures the hybrid, and Sun Shield suddenly didn't want to know. Like, at all.
"I'm not bailing you out."
"If you don't, I will use my gang connections to put a hit out on you."
"You don't have gang connections!"
"Not yet, but I will when my only love doesn't bail me out and I go to jail."
The beeping of an oven drags Sun's attention away from the disturbing conversation, and he sees Ink fiddling with the oven. "I'm just gonna' go ahead and turn this down," he calls, and Misty wheels around, jabbing a hoof in his direction furiously.
"Don't you dare! I set it too five hundred for a specific reason!"
Sun drags Ink out of the room before Misty can kill him; as much as he wants to see that girl in jail, trying to find a new partner is time consuming.
Ink Blot likes Anarchy; he likes her calm, steadfast nature, her ability to keep Misty Rose from killing everypony in a fit of rage, and he especially likes her refusal to use her chaos magic on others.
But.
But,but,but.
The girl is vicious when angry. He forgets sometimes, that for all her sweetness she is still Luna and Discord daughter, two very powerful creatures. He forgets that she's easily three times a stallions height when she's standing on all fours, that she has very sharp claws and teeth, until said teeth are inches away from his face in an argument.
Even that pales in comparison to what she does after the argument that you have to worry. She had a vindictive streak a mile wide, and will mess you up if you mess with her.
So when, two days after a particularly brutal argument between Sun Shield and Misty Rose and Anarchy, she comes floating into the MPD with a giant smile, every nerve in Ink's body screams at him to run.
He is in the middle of a discussion with Sun Shield when she peeks her head in, and gives them a plate full of cookies. "Here you guys go" she says brightly "I accidentally baked too many cookies, so I thought you guys might enjoy them," her smile grew to show off all her very sharp teeth "enjoy" she says, before ripping a hole through space and vanishing.
The two stallions look down at the plate of cookies.
"How . . nice of her," Ink says, taking a small step backwards.
"I suddenly don't feel very hungry," Sun eyes the cookies like they're about to explode, a fair assumption.
Barricade, walking by, sees the cookies, and a smile takes over his usually somber face. "Oh, chocolate chip, my favorite!" He reaches out a hoof, to pick one up.
"Anarchy made them," Ink warns.
The hoof drops the cookie like it's burning. "You know, I actually have a meeting I need to get to" he glances around, before hurrying to the bathroom "just gonna' wash this hoof."
Barricade smells smoke and sighs.
He had been having such a nice day too.
The stallion swings around his hocks, heading towards the kitchen, and can hear very familiar voices coming from it.
"-gonna' kill you, seriously, I have the key to your house and everything."
Barri rounds the corner to see a scene that is simultaneously better and worse than he expected. Flour is everywhere, turning Ink Blot from a Zebra to a snow white pony, and batter is smeared against the walls like a foal was trying to draw shapes with it. He is pouting at Sun Shield, who is frowning at a recipe book like it personally offended him. It probably did.
Ink notices him first, and a sheepish smile crosses his face. "It's not what it looks like," he says, shuffling his hooves like a colt caught with his hoof in the cookie jar.
"I don't . . actually know what this looks like" the Captain of the Manehatten Police Department says helplessly.
"Let me tell you!" Sun Shield, who can somehow be fired up even when it comes to baking, spins around and points a very sharp knife at him.
Barri processes this for a moment, before shaking his head and backing away. "I do not want to know. The less I know, the less I can tell in court." With that, he leaves the two maniacs to their business.
It's the main team of Misty Rose, Anarchy, Sun Shield and Ink Blot that smell the smoke this time. It's late, the MPD is about to close, and somepony is trying to make something in the tiny kitchen on the second floor. Misty does not want to deal with this today, she is tired and hungry, and she knows who is in the kitchen.
Sure enough, when they turn the corner, they see their boss, Barricade, standing sheepishly, clutching a spatula close to his chest like a weapon. Sun takes a couple of steps forwards, and frowns at the cake. "It doesn't look that bad," he offers, and Misty grabs the spatula, flipping the cake over and revealing the charred mess that it the bottom.
"Oh," Sun says faintly.
Anarchy is fascinated "how did you even do that?" She asks, and Barri slowly puts his head in his hooves. "My dad could not have done worse." The sounds amused, admiring even.
"There is no way somepony would be able to create that amount of damage to a cake," Ink added, poking the cake, and Misty is almost certain she heard it growl.
"Happy birthday Sun Shield" Barricade said, shamefaced.
"A burnt birthday cake, a kitchen in ruins and a surprise party ruined" Misty sighed "this is why we can't have nice things.
"Listen up ponies, I'm only going to say this once. The frosting is green for Heartswarming trees not grinches, lizards or Yoda. You guys got that?" Sun Shield asked as he paced around the kitchen.
The rest of the MPD had unanimously decided that either he, Anarchy, Ink, Misty or Barri was allowed to set a hoof in the kitchen, instead delegating them all to icing all Hartswarming Eve Cookies, the one thing you couldn't screw up.
Not for lack of trying, of course.
"What about a zombie?"
"Heartswarming, Misty, not Nightmare Night."
Anarchy grabbed one of her lizard cookies and shoved it in her mouth. "Zombies like Heartswarming too. Zombiest."
"Oh!" Ink claps his front hooves together, inspired "we should make zombie elves!" Barricade's ears prick up, and he reaches for the nearest green icing bag.
Sun slaps his boss' hoof away. "No" he says, and is slightly worried about the hesitation before that word, because he can see zombie elves, and they're right, they would look amazing.
"Anarchy!" Barricade yells from across the kitchen. "Stop eating the cookies! We need those!"
"We were going to eat it anyway!"
"Please excuse me while I slam my head against the wall," Sun says.
"Only if you do it quietly; I am concentrating" Misty says pleasantly, before holding up one of the cookies for all to see.
" . .Is that a demon?"
"It's an angel with fangs! A very sensitive angel with fangs!"
"Need I remind you that we have over five hundred cookies to ice by tomorrow, and we're not even halfway there yet? Stop talking and start working, unless you want to be arrested for interfering with official police business" Sun grits out.
"You can't do that" Barricade reminds him mildly "unless it's fruitcake. What? What's wrong with fruitcake?"
"What isn't?" Ink mutters, and the others nod slowly.
"Okay, so Yoda is off the table, but what about a zombie-lizard-yoda-angel?" Barricade asks, leaning in, and everypony stops to stare at him.
"That" Sun says slowly "is like the next level. Let's do this!"
Author's Note
What a weird group of friends.
Thought I should probabl give these five some more screentime. Basic personalities;
Anarchy is a serious creature, most of the time, but she can be just as silly as the others at times
Misty is a devil may care mare who loves annoying Sun Shield
Sun Shield is a hothead who is caught between liking Misty and hating her
Ink Blot is a creative, sensitive stallion who adores both Misty and Annie
Barricade tries to be stoic, but the mask can crack fairly often