Dragon's Feud

Turning to look at the new arrival, Kabra'za's shadow 'blinked' in surprise at the discovery that it wasn't alone... even more surprised about the fact that his company was that of another living shadow. Almost shyly, he raised a hoof in order to offer the new arrival a small, somewhat nervous wave.

.....................................................

Kabra'za himself offered the pink one a quick nod of his head. "I'm good at what I do. Might have an easier time splitting the two of them up into different punch bowls through. Something strong enough to hide both at once would just taste gross."

"I'm terribly sorry for the mess, Miss Rarity..." Atlas apologizes again, before deciding to start cleaning up the mess he made.

Streetwise:

Atlas:
It doesn't look like all the King's horses and all the King's men could put the shop back together how it was, but its easy enough to clean up the big debris and move it outside, and then sweep up whats left. There look to be 7 dresses caught in the destruction: 5 of them are covered in dust and wood splinters, or have minor tears here and there. A dedicated seamstress like Rarity would probably be able to pick them clean and repair them to decent enough condition. 2 of them, though, have been sheared through, and are little more than sequined bundles of scrap. Expensive looking ones, at that. Still though, with those accounted for and the mannequins more or less salvaged, the whole process takes a little over half an hour.

Perhaps halfway into the cleanup, you become curiously aware of... well a lack of noise. Whatever sound you heard at first coming from the basement has not returned since Rarity went back downstairs, nor do there seem to be any other noises coming from the boutique.

Kabra'za and Shadow:
The Pinkie Shadow waves back cheerfully, and then points inquisitively at the potions- one of which is slowly being gnawed on by Gummi, to no real effect.

Pinkie scratches her chin. "I don't know if we have any extra punch made up. Might be easier to get some Hot Cider from Applejack if you need a second bowl. But how will you make sure the Spies will drink both?" She asks, before a curious twitch runs across her body. "Oooh! Look out for opening doors!" She exclaims loudly, and then runs to the front door and swings it open- nearly smacking Chassis in the face as she goes to knock. "Welcome back! Oh, except for you, you're new, in that case not welcome back, but welcome!" She grins to the group arriving from Town Hall.

Kabra'za's shadow blinked at the reptile gnawing on one of the potions before reluctantly reaching over to carefully pluck it off via grasping its shadow. As for the Pink ones shadow asking about the potions, that was a little harder to answer; He had never actually really needed to communicate with a shadow before, but once Gummi was safely out of the way he attempted to communicate via charades what the potions were for and that he was watching over them to prevent anything from tampering with them... and maybe somewhat shyly saying that he thought the pink tone of her shadow made her look pretty.

Kabra'za Shadow Roll:

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Kabra'za considered the question about how to make sure that both potions were sampled... before a wicked idea came to him. "We start off with the bowl of punch while having somewhat salty snack foods on the table to begin with. Then, after a little while we'll bring out the hot cider for a toast to Princess Twilight and make sure that everyone gets a cup for it." Of course, it was around this point that Chassis and a new stallion arrived, tilting his head as he offered a brief wave. "How's the Town Hall looking?"

Night Rain frowned sadly at Pinkie's greeting. "You know who I am, Pinkie, I'm not new..." But he said so quietly, and said nothing else, his head drooping slightly. He looked to Chassis, as she was, as far as he was concerned, in charge...

Chassis blinks and snaps out of her daze at having a door miss her nose by about an inch. It takes another second for her mind to register the zebra's question.

"It's, uh...fine. I think. Twilight was there briefing the Mayor and Rainbbow Dash on soemthing. I gave her the heads-up about the spies, so she should know to watch her back until we're ready for her."

"Two additional pony-units were sighted downstairs," Mossburg chimes in. "They said you had ordered them to Town Hall to begin tonight's preparations."

Pinkie gasps and shoots over to Night Rain, seizing him in an entirely-too-friendly hug. "Of COURSE I know who you are, Nighty-night! You just haven't been here today, so Welcome!" She offers with a wide grin, and then turns to look at Chassis. "Tonight's preparations? There's no party tonight- but there is a party tomorrow morning. Rarity said it should be more like a brunch, but I said instead we should have breakfast and lunch put together, that sounds way more fun!" She continues to grin, oblivious. "Of course, not many ponies are gonna be able to attend that one, so fortunately the Dragon Capture Ja- er, Party will be in the afternoon, and waaaaay more ponies will show up." She darts over to Kabra'za to nudge his side, murmuring conspiratorially "And then you can use the... Ilt-gay otions-pay... and find out who's the big meanies that are spying on us!" She returns to her broom, standing confidently. "I got it all planned out..." She points to her head, and then returns to cleaning the room with a 'la la la~'.

In the Kitchen, 50 Shades of Pink pantomimes a giggle and a "no, stop it" motion, and then takes control of Gummi's shadow. The pink shadow stands upright at attention, salutes, and marches out, pausing to blow a kiss over its shoulder at the Zebra's shadow.

---

Pausing his sweeping for a moment, Atlas tip-toes down to the basement, curious about the lack of noise. "Ms. Rarity? Is everything quite alright?"

Chassis frowns at Mossburg's report, then double-takes at Pinkie's response.

"Uh...you know what? I just remembered I forgot my...thing...back at Town Hall. We should all go back and get it. All of us. Together. At the same time. Right now."

Peony frowns at Chassis. What matter, robot pony? The Pink One not say anything suspicious, has she?

Of course this question is telepathic, as is most of Peony's correspondences with her allies. She values the privacy, and enemy spies can be lurking anywhere.

Chassis is too focused on getting to Town Hall to be fazed by the sudden voice in her head.

If Pinkie's not planning a party for tonight, she thinks back, then we should go back and find out what those ponies were really doing in Town Hall...

But before she can take off, Mossburg steps in front of her.

"Clarification. The preparations are taking place tonight. Not the social function being prepared for."

Chassis stares blinking at Mossburg for a second, as though not quite comprehending what was said.

"Huh?"

Mossburg rolls his eyes, and points a hoof toward the nearby coffee shop.

"Go buy an espresso."

Night Rain takes a moment to follow along, but eventually comprehends. Against his own nature, he turns to Pinkie Pie and asks softly, "...Pinkie, out of curiosity, how many ponies have you told about the party tomorrow morning?"

In a truly over the top manner, Kabra'za Shadow stood up on his hind legs and clutched his chest in an over the top manner at the 'kiss' that the pink shadow had blown him before falling backwards. Once Pinkie's Shadow was gone through, he rolled back onto his legs and went back to keeping watch properly.

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Kabra'za took a back seat to the conversation for a moment, simply listening to the others do the talking and taking everything in. He could see where the concern for the ponies setting up a party in the town hall that night when no one else was around could cause, but he wasn't so inclined to charge in like a Minotaur into a boutique. Sometimes a little cunning went a long way after all. Taking a moment to clear his throat to draw some attention to himself as the rest of his allies were discussing things among themselves, he politely turned to Pinkie Pie before asking "Pinkie, would you be alright if a couple of members of our task force were to assist in the party preparations at the town hall? After all, it seems like a few of us don't have anything to be doing until sometime tomorrow." The tone of voice he asked his question in was telling, suggesting that there was more to his question then he was saying but he wanted the listener to connect the dots themselves.

With Pink:
"It's a surprise party." Pinkie replies to Night Rain first. "All of my Team Coco Loco ponies know about all of my scheduled parties, including the surprise ones, but nopony else should be expecting the party tomorrow." Then she turns to Kabra'za. He blinks, and after he blinks, something he cannot quite grasp seems different about her, like she is more fully there in the room... or something. Nevertheless, she doesn't miss a beat. "If you want to you can, but it should only take the two of them a few minutes, and its not like they're gonna camp out overnight. Not to tell super awesome Twilight's F-word Team how to do their jobs, but couldn't you be using that time to look for the spies you were all so concerned about earlier?"

With Rare:
The basement is more or less in the same state as you left it, three dogs in cages, bandaged up and sitting quiet. Sitting dead silent, actually, as are Rarity and one of her assistants, a surprisingly young pink unicorn filly with a small, ornate crown. Rarity looks over at you in what can only be described as polite shock, while the filly just raises an eyebrow at you. The dogs all perk up as you enter. "Big Bull is back, hello big nice friend!" The lead dog says, sounding a little too painfully joyful. "Can dogs help more?"

"That's been the plan," says Chassis. "We're just checking in on the possible priority targets. We've already been to Town Hall. I briefed Twilight about the spies with Rainbow Dash was standing right there, so they should know to keep an eye out. We were just stopping in to get Stripes before heading over to the Apple farm to check on the dragon..."

"After coffee," Mossburg inserts.

"But..."

Mossburg inches closer to Chassis. "Coffee. First."

Chassis starts to argue, but exhales a sigh and trudges off toward the coffee shop. "Back in a sec."

Actions:

"I, er..." Atlas looks between the dogs and Rarity, then to the filly. Clearly he's wandered into an awkward situation. "...Hello? Er, Miss Rarity, sorry for imposing, but may I have a moment alone to speak with the dogs? And, erm... what's the filly doing here, if you don't mind me asking?"

I just really wanna talk to these dogs? Please?:

Night Rain had paid a lot of attention to Mossburg once the deep-voiced robot had shown up, but he frowned now - why would a robot want coffee? He didn't ask, however, and as he didn't care for coffee himself, he did not follow either the robot or his creator.

He turned his attention back to the rest of the group. "Well... I guess, since I'm new, I don't have any assignments yet." The true meaning of the zebra's words, whatever they were, flew over his head, so he just offered what he could...

Peony is going to sleep now.

The petulant breezie tunes out the conversation and goes to sleep.

Helmaroc sighs, and flutters her wings. ~I can go with the new one... Night Rain, was it?~ She squawks. ~I'm not sure it's a good idea for Peony to be exposed to the dragon again, unless you want to take her along for security.~

Chassis:
You can overhear everything going on in this particular shop- despite the loud buzz of activity from the number of ponies all having discussions, you are able to pick up on just about every topic of every conversation you pass by on your way to order your coffee. A lot of discussions revolve around day to day life, things you would normally hear- who ran into who in the market, this pony is sick or that pony did something at school. You begin to realize that almost nopony (at least nopony present) is really talking about the threat of the dragons. Everyone is more or less going on as if nothing crazy is happening. This could very well be the norm for them now, carrying on through all the weird dangerous nonsense in the past has left the ponies here able to easily adapt to and even outright ignore the so-called feud. Towards the front of the store you finally overhear somepony asking something about the dragons, and as if to confirm your suspicions, the answer comes back, "Well, Twilight is handling it. It's no big deal." The town is such a well organized and well-oiled machine under Twilight's direction, that no major change of lifestyle has even taken place, save for rationing food due to supply shortages.

As you stand in line and contemplate this, you finally happen to pick up on something a little more relevant. "Yeah, Boltcutter has been feeling sick ever since he got back last week. He's always running off to find a bathroom, or heading home early. And he borrowed my map two days ago but I haven't been able to find him to get it back."

Atlas:
Rarity takes in a sharp breath, and then slowly lets it out, relaxing. "Little Diamond Tiara here has actually been quite helpful member of my team." She explains cryptically, while standing. "Very well, you can talk tot he dogs again, but I will be right upstairs. Try not to dawdle, though, we have more work to do..." As she and the filly leave the room she glances back at the dogs over her shoulder, sending them a cold, subdued glare that Atlas fails to pick up on.

Chassis' ears perk at the name "Boltcutter". Seems like she's heard that name before, though she can't seem to place where and when. She answered a lot of questions from curious townsponies; if Boltcutter was one of them, she'd have barely heard his name. If he asked during any of the times she was answering questions on autopilot, it's doubtful she was even looking at him.

Her train of thought breaks when she hears her name being called.

Take coffee, drop a bit in the tip jar, walk back across to Sugar Cube Corner.

"I'm back," she says as she walks in. "Got coffee, so I'm good to go. Before we head anywhere, does anypony happen to know a pony named Boltcutter?"

Mossburg tilts his head and answers, "I do not."

Actions:

"I'll try to be quick," Atlas promises, before turning to the dogs once Rarity is out of earshot. "So, er... I was just wondering if everything's really alright. I know that technically we're on opposite sides of a war and all, but... is there anything I could get you?"

For a moment, Kabra'za let his mind wonder as he tried to remember if he knew this 'Boltcutter'.

Rolls:

Sugarcube:
Kabra'za and Night Rain both know they've heard the name before, at least in passing, though neither can remember meeting him. Fortunately, the walking pink Facehoof Database nearby speaks up. "Well duh, everypony knows who Boltcutter is! He's super nice and friendly even though he's kinda quiet a lot of the time but if you start talking about something he likes then he gets super into it andstartstalkingnonstopallabotuitandgetsreallypassionateandexcitedand-" Pinkie manages to stop herself mid-rant. "Huh, but you know I haven't seen him around either since he came back. You guys should go check on him." She blinks out of the room and then blinks back in with a tray of cupcakes. "And take him these to tell him to get well soon! Here's his address."

Meanwhile, Peony's jar shifts around Helmaroc's neck, causing her to awake with a jolt, buzzing up and smacking her face into the side of the glass comically. Hopefully no one saw that.

Carousel:
The dogs seem rather excitable as Rarity leaves the room, but they bite their lips, seemingly not wanting to say anything, until the leader speaks again. "No no, dogs all good and having great time! But... maybe less questions from po-nees? They want dogs to show them secret cave and we say ok, but we have to dig, and po-nees not let us dig! Show us silly paper map! Dogs can't read map! Dogs can't 'point out' place on paper! Only dig there to show po-nees!" He huffs, clearly quite agitated. "Dogs try to help but can't. Please no more po-nee questions, especially from tiny pony!"

As the tray of cupcakes were bought into the room, Kabra'za looked at Pinkie with a... strange expression. "We'll be more then happy to take those to him. However, while I've heard of him in passing I unfortunately don't really know Boltcutter all that well personally. What is he interested in and where did he just come back from? Just so we have a conversation to help put him at ease when a small group of strange ponies arrive at his door."

"Okay, I'm hearing you. I'll talk to the ponies about that, okay? As long as you cooperate with us I'm sure we can all come out of this peacefully," Atlas promises. Before he leaves to find Rarity, though, he pauses to ask, "Are you sure you're not leaving anything out? I need to know if I'm going to convince Rarity to let you do your thing."

Reaaaaaally?: