"Barley… this doesn’t look good!” Shriek grunted. She jumped to land a roundhouse kick to the face to the nearest mook she could hit at. Crashing to the ground, two other thugs quickly took his place.

“Yeah, I noticed!” Barley shouted back, ducking under a pipe that nearly collided with his jaw. Swinging his hammer with both hooves gripped on it tight, he sent his attacker packing with a devastating collision between hammer and both the thug’s kidneys. Stepping back to avoid another swipe of a spiked bat, he said, “We need backup, fast!”

Sidestepping a downward slash of a saber and delivery a critical blow with her claws, Shriek asked, “Where are we going to get any? Unless some miracle drops down on us, we’re doomed!”

In the best form of karma to ever befall the pair, their miracle really did drop from the sky. In the form of a surprise attack from a stallion screaming his throat raw as he swung his spear around like a madpony.

“I’m gonna lay a beat down on you bloody bastards!” Blue screamed, descending away from Shriek and Barley and going at it with the onslaught of attacks. With a two-hoofed grip on his spear, Blue swiped and smacked with his weapon with no sign of grace or even basic training. He was just winging it like a crazy pony. “It’s brawling time!”

“Blue’s come to our rescue!” Barley said with glee, while Shriek and even the goons stared with bewilderment at the screaming Blue and his barely concise attacks.

“Hey… he sure did,” Shriek agreed, kicking her back hoof out to impact quite painfully with the groin of a goon that tried to sneak up behind her. Smiling, she glanced down at Barley and asked, “Why don’t we show these thugs the ol’ Alpha team spirit?”

Barley adjusted his hammer onto his shoulder and grinned just as wide. “Thought you’d never ask!”

“Take this!” Blue spun around, clocking about six mooks all at once across their heads with the flat part of his spearhead’s blade, knocking them all back in an instance. Then with a flip of the handle the blunt end of his weapon concked itself right in between the eyes of an incoming bad guy. “And this!” Blue yelled ecstatically, his thoughts no longer coherent. With another swipe the blunt end caught the side of a goon’s face, popping out the entire right row of teeth in his mouth almost instantly. “And also that too!” Turning around quickly, Blue drove and uppercut with the spear to catch a thug right on his back leg, flipping him in the air to land with a thud on his head on the unforgiving alleyway floor. “And especially this!”

“Wow, Shriek, Blue might have ya beat in the badass who kicks ass department,” Barley chuckled, ducking another a swipe from an opponent and then sliding under his legs to bring him crashing to the ground on the other side with a hammer blow to the small of his back.

“Beginner’s luck!” Shriek replied with a bit of resentment. In a move a dancer would almost use, she spin into a field of attackers and used her claws to send a reckoning of scratches, slashes and cuts upon the lot of them. Escaping the now moaning pile of scumbags with not a scratch on her, Shriek huffed on her claws and wiped some of the excess dirt off the clothing of one of the downed thugs. “But the pro’s definitely have the best lucky streak, that’s for sure.”

Barley was about to reply back, except he suddenly felt his throat muscles convulse. Dropping his hammer and grabbing at his neck, Barley was lifted off his hooves from a magical force constricting on his neck. His legs kicked pathetically at empty air.

“Now then,” Scarlet began, holding a dagger to Barley’s throat, “I do believe enough of my men have been injured tonight? Don’t you agree? So, to make things easier for all of us, drop your weapons or tubby here gets it.”

Before Baley could get a word in edgewise, his eyes nearly popped out of his skull while his face grew a sickening blue from the lack of oxygen. “And please, do hurry up. I hate waiting.”

"So do I!" Blue yelled behind her. Turning her head with widened eyes, Scarlet barely moved her head out of the way in time to avoid getting her neck sliced in two from Blue's spearhead cutting through the air. Her cheek still got a nasty gash on it, the pain breaking her concentration of her magic on Barley.

Landing painfully to the ground, Scarlet was down for the count as Blue came at her swinging his spear in a killing blow.

"Blue!" Shriek shouted, halting the spear's path with an outreached claw. Throwing his weapon away, she said, "Snap out of it! We won!"

Blue blinked, looking down at his hooves that were no longer madly gripping his spear. Looking around, he noticed that the dead end was quickly clearing out. Barley was beating back the remainder of the thugs, and now that their leader was incapacitated, just about everypony was making haste to beat it with their tails between their legs.

"Oh... Oh wow," Blue muttered, rubbing his temple as the anslaught of adrenaline slowly left his body. "We did it. We actually did it. Whoa."

"Yeah," Shriek nodded, smiling in relief. Staring around at the unconscious and still moaning bodies of the goons, she chuckled. "I guess we actually did."

Barley came bouncing back to them, still buzzing with energy as he flashed them a toothy grin. "Wasn't that grand, mates? I haven't had a wilder time in my life!" Barley waved his hammer in the air, mimicking the previous fight while getting dangerously close to hitting Blue and Shriek. "They was comin' right at me and then wham and bam and then I gave one of 'em an extra grand slam right—"

"Okay, okay, Barley, we get it," Shriek said, just as she avoided getting her teeth knocked out from his hammer.

"And then Blue came in the nick in time to save our backsides!" Barley pointed out, grabbing ahold of Blue's chest in a death grip hug. "I knew you'd pull through for us, mate! I just knew it!"

"G-great..." Blue gasped, his neck threatening to collapse from Barley's strength. "Is my reward... being allowed to breathe now?”

"Sure thing, good buddy!" Barley released Blue, who greedily gulped in air like a fish out of water. Spreading out his diminutive wing span to full length, Barley saluted his teammates and said, "I'll head to the nearest patrol so we can round up the rest of the baddies. You guys gonna be alright while I'm out?"

Giggling at the sight of Blue turning even more blue than usual at his strained windpipe, Shriek shook her head and said, "Nah, I think we'll be fine, Barley."

Nodding, Barley took to the air in a flash, briefly leaving a dust trail behind himself.

Stretching, Shriek took a seat next to Blue on the ground, the stallion finally catching his breath. Sheathing her claws back into her gauntlet, she gave Blue a sideways glance. "Gotta say, Blue, I'm impressed."

Picking himself from the dirty ground and brushing some dirt off his shoulder, he said, "Oh, are ya now?"

"Well, more impressed than when you ran away," Shriek admitted, hers lips moving downward into a frown.

Blue gulped, brushing a hoof across his muzzle as he tried to think up an excuse. "I... uh... was just..."

Shriek shook her head and looked away. "Blue..."

"What’s your cutie mark mean?" Blue blurted out. Seeing Shriek's strange look, he said, "Before, you never told me what it really was."

"Is this just to avoid what I'm going to ask?"

Sighing, Blue asked, "Please, just tell me."

Looking down at the ground, Shriek remained silent. So long Blue was unsure whether she'd actually answer him. But finally, she said, "You aren't that far off from the bitch remark you always use."

"Really?" Blue asked with a raised brow.

"Yes, really. Back at home, I was even more dedicated to becoming a guard than I am now. I trained constantly, didn't have many friends, and didn't go out much either. And with the friends I did have..." Shriek sighed, taking a quick glance at her cutie mark and wincing. "They just didn't work out. That's when I finally realized I didn't need friends. As long as I became a guard, I didn't need anyone else. That's when my mark appeared. Guess I'm good at being a lone wolf, or something like that." Shriek shrugged. "Special talents are weird."

"Yeah, I getcha," Blue agreed, a small smile appearing on his face. "Truthfully, how I got my mark ain't much better."

Shriek looked at him, but didn't ask him to continue. Blue just licked his lips, mulling over his thoughts before continuing.

"See, my parents are filthy rich. Somethin' 'bout making the weapons and armor to supply the Equestrian guard force. I never grew up in a cave like regular bat pony. Just mansions and fancy pads for this guy."

"But if your family is so rich, why did you become a guard?" Shriek asked.

"Because, I got kicked outta the house. My parents were tired of me bein' a lazy mooch that did nothin' all day. And every other job they tried to get me on failed miserably." Blue groaned and lowered his head. "Whenever I've been given a job or an assignment, I never finish it. And whenever something gets too hard or troublesome, I bail. So my special talent is being a failure. Ain't that a riot?"

"Blue, I'm sure that's not what it means," Shriek said in an attempt to alleviate his troubles.

"Everypony knows that's what it means. You know what my folks did when I told them to screw off and that I'd become a guard to show them up?" Blue snorted. "They laughed. They laughed right in my face!"

Shriek bit her lower lip. "That must be awful."

"So that's why I haven't quit already. I promised myself this would be the one thing in my muck of a life I won't bail on," Blue said, chuckling at the end of his sentence. "But even then, I try my hardest so that they'll kick me outta of the academy anyways. Just so I can go back home and tell 'em that I stuck through it till the very end."

"Blue, that isn't any way to treat the guard force," Shriek told him. "We're supposed to be defenders of Equestria. This shouldn't have just been an exercise for you to prove a point to your parents."

"I know," Blue agreed,shaking his head sadly. "That's why I left you guys. I ain't cut out to be a guard. I just... I just can't do it."

Shriek rested a wing on Blue's shoulder. Blue stared at her in surprise, a tinge of red appearing in his cheeks. "But Blue, you did come back to us," Shriek said, smiling kindly at her teammate. "No matter how scared you were, you still came back."

"I guess I did," Blue chuckled, enjoying the weight of Shriek's wing on his shoulder. "I mean, I couldn't leave you guys to die, could I?"

"Which I'm very thankful for," Shriek laughed.

"And..." Blue shrugged. Staring up to the sky, he noticed the moon shining down on the pair. "I guess I was tired of running away all the time."

"So maybe your special talent isn't running away," Shriek said.

Blue turned his head to her and smiled, staring into her eyes. "And maybe your special isn't being such a loner after all."

"See guys, I told ya!" Barley shouted, suddenly before the pair with a full night guard force backing him up. Pointing to Shriek and Blie while hopping eagerly, he said, "They are an old married couple!"

Quickly the two cadets got to their hooves, Shriek snapping her wing back to her side while Blue looked away with an embarrassed blush appearing on his cheeks.

"Barley, how'd you get so back quick?" Blue asked, scooting away from Shriek.

"Guess who he ran into," Captain Nightblaze said, walking through the group of guards who parted out of his way.

"Cap?" Blue said. "But I thought you were doing inspections!"

"He currently still is," said a very prissy looking unicorn that stood next to the captain. Nightblaze stared at the unicorn official with deep contempt, but kept his mouth shut. The inspector took out his checklist and looked over it. "We were just in the process of checking out the border guards of the city walls when your teammate alerted us of... this."

The trio looked back at the large group of defeated thugs, then back at Nightblaze.

"So... we're in trouble?" Blue asked.

"On the contrary..." Nightblaze broke out into one of his rarely seen grins. "You managed to apprehend one of the notorious gangs in Canterlot. You wouldn't believe how many hours and work has been used to track these guys down. And hey, you even have their leader!" Nightblaze glanced at Scarlet, grimacing when he got a look at the large gash still bleeding on her cheek. "In less than stellar conditions, but still, nice job Alpha squad!"

The cadets stared at their captain with utterly shocked expressions all around. None of them had ever thought they'd actually hear the words 'nice job' and 'Alpha squad' used in the same sentence.

"Looking over the events of tonight and the commendable job of one of your cadet squads managing to take down a criminal gang, I can clearly see that you're running your guard force and academy at a qualified enough performance to pass inspections," the inspector said, nodding his head to the trio of cadets.

"So I get to keep my job for another month," Nightblaze muttered, wiping his forehead in relief. "That's a relief."

"We'll see," the inspector said, departing from the group.

"You heard that, mates?" Barley asked his teammates. "We did good!"

"No doubt," Shriek agreed, hoofbumping Barley's out reached hoof.

"Shut up!" Nightblaze commanded, the squad immediately standing to attention. "Cocky cadets make for poor guards. While you did good, you're still at the bottom of the academy list for performance. Which means I'm not going to let you guys up by a long shot."

Alpha squad all did a simultaneous, "Awwwww."

Looking at their wide eyes and quivering lips, Nightblaze looked deep into his heart and realized how much he really didn't want to deal with the squad for the rest of the night.

"Fine, fine, you get the entire night off," Nightblaze finally grumbled, turning his back to the three as they happily cried out in glee. "The shit I have to put up on a nightly basis with these cadets... ugh."

"So, cadets, where do you wanna celebrate?" Blue asked.

"I do believe someone made a bet earlier about a certain loser paying for drinks at the pub," Shriek reminded him.

"Free booze!" Barley blurted, tongue practically hanging out of his mouth like a dog. "I'm gonna get plastered off the good stuff!"

"Oh... heh, about that..." Blue gulped as he felt his neck prickle when Shriek unsheathed her claws right underneath his adam's apple. "I'd be glad to buy drinks!"

So the three cadets departed to spend the rest of the night in hazy, alcohol-fueled merriment. Well, at least two of them did. It was said later in the night when the tab came in and the mountain of mugs Barley managed to drink through finally reached the ceiling, Blue went to go cry in the corner. At least Shriek got a good laugh out of it.