The door rings a bell when I walk out of the sandwich shop. My hooves click and clack as I whistle my way back to Blackwatch HQ. I nod at two passing blue eye goons, who nod back at their fellow Blackwatch soldier. They don’t see the griffon behind this disguise.

Rainbow Dash’s raspy voice chatters in the back of my head. “Not to kill your swagger, but your disguise is pretty obvious.”

“Really?” I glance back at the two blue eyes. They’re still walking the opposite direction. Neither of them is throwing me a dirty look. Other than the nod, they don’t notice me at all. “It fooled those guys. I don’t see a problem with it.”

“Those are lowly grunts. Of course they’ll be fooled by a bad performance. It will only take one keen eye to notice you are walking like a school filly instead as a professional soldier. You won’t make it five steps through the door before a sergeant calls your bluff.”

“Hey, these pony bodies are tiny. I’m used to walking with more stride and less gallop.” Seriously, how do ponies walk with these legs? They’re all squishy and flop all over the place. I’m just glad I can walk at all.

“Then walk with more gallop. I’m embarrassed from watching you move.”

I brush her out of my mind for the moment. I’m about to infiltrate a fortress, and I don’t need a backseat driver in my head. But I do take her advice a little into consideration. I adjust my walk to be a bit more stiff, aiming to imitate a military march. It feels awkward, but I think it’s passable.

“That looks worse. You’re just kicking up into the air.”

I grunt as I shift back to my regular walk. “Why don’t you show me how to do it when I break you out?”

“If you break me out by some miracle. With your acting prowess, I’m not holding my breath.”

Oh for the love of- I don’t remember Rainbow Dash being this nitpicky. Bullheaded, yep. Loud mouthed, sure. Nitpicky? It’s not her style.

I come up to the main gate of the Genicorn building, where a couple of armored blue-eyes are standing guard. I walk up to one and show him my badge. Of course this isn’t my badge. This badge belongs to an earth pony who is currently locked in a bathroom of a sandwich shop while tied up in several rolls of toilet paper. He may or may not have received a few swirlies before I left. Don’t worry, I washed my claws.

The guard glances at my badge and gives an affirmative nod. He pushes a service door open behind him and waves me through. I give him a smile, which he can’t see behind the mask, and walk through the doorway.

The door closes behind me. I’m in.

The compound is loud with military sounds. Commanders yelling, ponies marching around, so on and so forth. The typical stuff. What catches my eye isn’t on the ground, but rising above it. Now at I’m at the base of the tower, I have a chance to truly appreciate its height. I look right up at the sky, and I have trouble seeing the very top of the HQ. I bet this place is higher than the tallest mountain in Griffonstone.

The next thing I notice is, aside from the door guard, no one has noticed my entrance. “Ha,” I laugh defiantly at Rainbow Dash’s ethereal face. “I’m in and my disguise still works.”

“I said you’ll be caught after five steps. You still have two more to go.”

“Pfft. If they haven’t picked me out now, then two steps won’t help them now.”

“You owe me a soda if you’re wrong.”

“Likewise. You’re on.” One free soda for me. I don’t know what’s with Rainbow. She doesn’t have that much confidence in me. That’s unusual for her. She's the kind of girl to root for you no matter what you do, unless you're competing against her. Then again, she’s probably psyching me out so she can beat me in an escape race or something. That sounds like her.

I take two steps-

“Hold it!” I gruff voice shouts at me.

I freeze and look at the large Blackwatch unicorn heading my way. My gut twists up as he closes the distance on me. Are you freaking kidding me?!

“One soda please. I like lemon-lime.”

My muscles tense as the guy approaches. This could be the moment everything turns into Tartarus. However, it may not be too late. If I play this right, I can convince this dude I’m still one of them.

The guy closes the distance between us with a brisk trot towards me. He almost crashes into a different blue-eye who’s carrying a large crate, but he swerves around the obstacle and continues on forward. That’s a very urgent walk.

When he finally comes up to me, he skids to a stop, grabs both my shoulders, and shoves his nose up against mine. “Do you have my sandwich?”

This whole thing has me reeling back to get out of his shoulder hold, but his question alone is the thing that sends me through a loop. “What?”

“Where’s my sandwich, man.” He shakes me a bit when he talks. I can hear a bit of crankiness in his voice. It’s not an old man cranky, but a sleep deprived type of cranky. “I told you, hayseed on rye. Where is my hayseed on rye?”

“I… don’t know?”

He throws his hooves in the air, letting me go, and lets out a long groan. “You gotta be kidding me. I’ve been on duty for twelve hours straight and you can’t get me a damn sandwich. That’s not right. Where you diddling yourself while you were gone? Is that it?”

I let out a breath and relax a bit. At this point my mind is catching back up to what’s happening. I’m not caught, not yet anyways. This stealth plan is still underway. However, I have a pissed off unicorn on my case, or to be more correct, my identity’s case. I still need to play this out.

“The shop’s closed.”

“That shop is open till nine. They’re open for another hour!”

I shrug. “Don’t know what to tell you. They’re closed.”

“Of course it is. And you’re back is hurting so you can’t lift any boxes. And your feet are aching so you can’t walk on patrol. It’s alright, the unicorn can do it all. He has magic! Take your break to sneak off and smoke a joint while I’m loading up the airships by myself. It’s not like I’ve been at this all day.”

Rainbow’s voice echoes in my head in the middle of the unicorn’s rant. “I think he needs a nap.”

Agreed. This situation is not going to defuse itself. I don’t know much about this unicorn and the guy at the sandwich shop, and I didn’t eat the latter so I can’t channel his personality. I’m just going to do what a good buddy might do. Offer free beer.

“The shops closed, there’s nothing I can do about it. Look, ours shifts are going to be over soon. We’ll go to a bar, and you can get whatever you what. Drink your night away. It’s on me.”

The unicorn doesn’t seem excited over the prospect over free beer. In fact, he seems a bit more irritated. “We both have patrol duty tomorrow morning. A bar trip is not getting you out of this.”

“Since when has a school night ever stopped any of us?”

The unicorn gives me a blank stare, or at least I think he does. Those Blackwatch masks are good at hiding emotions. “Fuck it. I’m done with you. I’ll ask Sunny to get my sandwiches next time.”

Yay, workplace drama, the last thing I expected out of Blackwatch. I don’t know why I feel sucky over this. I’m not part of this at all yet a small part of me still feels like shit from this guy yelling at me.

Up above us, a loud speaker sounds across the compound. “Teamsters Crew 40 report to the 87th floor. Teamsters Crew 40 report to the 87th floor.”

The unicorn lets out another long, agonizing groan. “You better not skip out on this or I swear I’ll pound your ass.”

“Wait, that’s for me?”

He throws me a nasty glare. “That’s for us, dumbass. Stop being useless and get up there.”

With that, he turns around and walks away. I can hear him seething as he heads for the big doors leading into the tower. Sheesh, that guy is not having a good day.

Well, that was that. I made it into the compound and I didn’t get caught. Sweet, this is easier than I thought it was going to be.

“You still owe me a soda.”

“What? No way. I made it five steps without being caught. You owe me a soda.”

“I said five steps without being spotted. You were spotted.”

“That doesn’t count. He was looking for the other guy.”

“Whatever lets you sleep at night. Remember, lemon-lime.”

My eyes roll. She definitely owes me that soda. Back on track, I need to get up the tower and get Rainbow Dash.

“Follow your new friend. He’s taking an elevator up.”

“I was just about to suggest that to myself. Thank you for the input.”

I trot after the unicorn in attempt to not fall behind. He knows his way around this place. I don’t. He may be pissed at me, but he’s my best bet in getting up the tower without notice.

“Do you always narrate your life? You think about yourself a lot.”

I shrug. “It helps me keep track of things. I’ve tried not doing it for a day, and my life completely fell apart.”

“How bad can everything go if you stop monologuing for a bit?”

“I met you that day.”

“Hardy har har. At least tone it down. Everything you say is going through our connection and I’m having trouble thinking with all your thoughts.”

“Oh, so you’re getting whatever I think? What am I thinking right now?”

“I can’t see images. I only hear words.”

“It was your Mom. I thought of her wearing a bikini. Thought you might enjoy that.”

Rainbow lets out a sigh. “Just tone down the words.”

I grin as I trot on after my new unicorn pal. “Can’t stop the griffon.”