Celestia's Finest: Old World Blues

[Miltonian]

Gathered in Wire's old room, several decisions lay before the EDF. Their orders are to, if possible, dissuade Chrysalis from her current course and forge an alliance with her. If such a deal cannot be negotiated, both factions will have to make their own, possibly overlapping plans to assault the fortress of Ashtown.

Of course, Chrysalis has been...less than cooperative.

[DigoDragon]

"Meet you at your little pow-wow shortly."

Rose nods and gives him a password to use to enter the office. She also wishes Doctor Violet luck and to take care of herself by building on her confidence. She'll trade passwords with her too. You can't be too careful at the moment.

Skipping the visit to Pins, Rose makes her way back to the office with her zebra guards. She doesn't say much, more taking a look around where everyone is positioned and waiting for the inevitable argument to burst forth.

[D.KnightSpider]

Sniper grappled with his natural resistance to this conversation. If old habits died hard, then this one was effectively immortal; but he had to deal with it. If he wasn't a broken Pegasus then his standing did count for something. It was time to pony up an deal with it.

"Before we can effectively discuss our next move, I think we need to discuss our recent interactions." Sniper said. He took a deep breath. "I get it. Some of you don't trust me and given my recent bad judgments, failures and secret orders I can't blame you for that mistrust. I'm trying very hard to turn a lot of things around and do better. Part of that change means sharing that I don't appreciate the way our last meeting ended.

"If I bucked two of you, delivered an ultimatum and walked out on a strategy meeting, there would have been Tartarus to pay. If we're supposed to be a team then we need to come to a consensus about how we proceed. Even if it means taking the time to do so. We've tried having each of us off doing our own thing and overruling each other. It was a disaster. I don't want to go back to that."

Sniper fell silent and waited for the fallout.

[DigoDragon]

"If I were Wildcat, I'd be perfectly in my right to shove a Big Chicken Dinner in Rose's face," she says with a calm, even tone. "Like, holy crap, you just had your doctor go AWOL. The hell is that about?"

Rose gestures to the door out of the office. "Well, here is why I felt things were different. Chr--the queen is a schemer. If she's not making a gambit pileup then she's probably passed out drunk." Rose avoided using Chrysalis' name for Cabal's sake. She paused as well to word out her next bit of dialog to avoid giving out details in front of Emerald. Mostly for her sake as a believer in the CPI.

"As I understood it from our command, the queen's plan is to replace several gang leaders with her own changeling infiltrators. This will give her the horsepower needed for our planned joint-military exercise later. Command ordered us to consider the queen an ally to this end. However, RT did ask us to try and convince the queen not to go replacing ponies with changeling. While I commend RT for having heart, the queen is going to laugh in our faces for making such a request. Given I received nothing from Love's talks with her, I assume it basically unfolded as such. Well, fine she can have the gang leaders. However, we can and should curb her plans to just those gangs. While negotiations were going on I decided that at the same time to enact Plan B--inform Cabal that the queen also has a plan currently in motion to replace him and several other casino workers with changelings so she can take control of this place. I don't consider that bucking our orders. I consider that prudence because I have no faith that the queen is only going to take what's needed. She's got a self-serving manifest destiny to feed and I think our command is foolish to tell us to play nice-nice with the queen without leveraging a leash on her insatiable desires."

She gestures to Cabal. "And this stallion has a good head on his shoulders to know that if he pulled out his guns and called out the infiltrators, a lot of folks are gonna die. We aren't going to corner a hungry pack of wolves in the house. What we do is throw some meat outside in the direction we want them to move and then see them out before we lock the door behind them. Will the changelings get wise that we know their plans? Yes, they eventually will. But if we work diligently we can walk them out before they do, and thus prevent a fight."

"I fully expect that my report-loving squadmates are going to report all this to command. That's fine, as long as it goes correctly on record why I took those actions; I do not agree with command's one-sided orders to trust the queen and just 'talk' it out with her. I believe playing nice-nice with her is for ponies who get eaten by the wolves. I do not trust the queen and I'll eat that chicken dinner with no regrets."

[D.KnightSpider]

"And while all that is fine, and I agree with much of it, it doesn't give you the right to walk out of a planning meeting or shut down conversation. Yes, I filed an official report that misrepresented your actions because I misinterpreted them. I've taken responsibility for that and I personally corrected the record with Wildcat-- which very nearly cost me this position in the squad."

Breath. Sniper reminded himself to de-escalate.

"If we want to go there, however, my mistakes and the overall situation also don't give you the right to misrepresent my positions-- especially in a public broadcast. I don't want to see any pony replaced with a Changeling. It doesn't matter if they're a gang member or a resident of this casino. I've never advocated blindly trusting Chrysalis.

"Since Chrysalis is conditionally an ally against the CPI, I felt it appropriate that she be given the opportunity to withdraw first. If she didn't, then we would still have the option to talk to Cabal about the infiltration. If by some chance she did agree, we would have the opportunity to make a statement by verifying her promises. We have eyes on her captives. We know the ex-staff. The situation is contained and no pony can leave until the shaft is clear. If we blocked her attempts at deception and backstab, then it would put her on notice not to mess with us and it would give us some teeth in this cooperative venture. Letting Chrysalis have the casino was never an option and I wouldn't have tolerated it. That was the position I was going to advocate before everything fell apart.

"I'm trying to do better about acting on information instead of impulse. I don't know what the result of Love's conversation was, but until it's reported I'm trying to keep an open mind."

[DigoDragon]

"Oh? We know where the infiltrators are keeping the original ponies replaced?" Rose asks with keen interest. "Seems I missed the good part of that meeting. Well, guess that's on me."

She nods visibly to herself at the possibilities of that knowledge. Rose is still acting calm. "Well, we now have identified what our impasse was. You were willing to give the queen the benefit of the doubt, waiting for her to withdraw the plans to take the casino first before acting to verify if Cabal and his staff had been replaced, while I believed we should have immediately moved to determine who was already replaced by changelings, giving no trust to the queen until she's earned it. Doing both at the same time would have been acceptable, as they're not mutually exclusive."

Rose pauses, then turns to Cabal. "Do take your girlfriend in for a check up later. You know, for 'radiation' purposes."

[Elbeyon]

Love is wearing her goggles and researching on the internet. A program is transcribing her conversation with bugbutt.

She looks past Scope when he takes his deep breath to not focus on him too much. "I won't belabor the aside. Scope, I trust you. I've never felt my trust in you misplaced at any point. I see you have been trying very hard despite any difficulties down here, and I hope others know that as well."

"Rose, I felt stepped on by you this morning. We can't report things we don't know, and we can know our team's thoughts by properly discussing matters on hoof. I feel a delicate process was rushed under threat. I, a report-loving squadmate, suggest that you read the reports I spend hours of my day on creating."

Love turns to Scope and offers him a datachip. "Here is my conversation with the Queen. I'll take any criticisms. I didn't fully realize your advice and rushed towards an end. The conversation is still unfinished."

"Cabal, would you show us what you showed Rose? What's the situation? I'd like to hear your story."

[DigoDragon]

"Rose, I felt stepped on by you this morning. We can't report things we don't know, and we can know our team's thoughts by properly discussing matters on hoof. I feel a delicate process was rushed under threat. I, a report-loving squadmate, suggest that you read the reports I spend hours of my day on creating."

"What process was this that was rushed?" Rose asked in a curious voice. "I feel we are belabored to creating these reports for command, as if we are not a military force but a committee needing our hoof held by our superiors. If we sat on our haunches reporting everything and then await new orders, it would likely take us a year before we took any actions."

"...But that is my opinion, and I understand that I am in the minority, both with the sense of urgency I felt to ensure Cabal's safety, and that these multiple long-winded reports are absolute bollocks." That was probably the nicest delivery of an insult Rose had ever given.

[Miltonian]

Cabal lets out a breath. "For the record, this is unlike any staff meeting I've been to before," he says, "Soon as we can get access to the garage crew, we'll bring them in for mandatory radiation scans as well. As for...what I showed to Lt. Rose earlier that convinced her I was not, in fact, a threat..."

Green flames envelop his form and reveal the cheerfully colored chitin below. But only for a moment and then he is back in disguise. "I had heard of Cabal, the 'fastest gunslinger this side of the Western Range', but I never thought I'd run across him. He had two ponies with him, his partner and a kidnapped hostage they planned to ransom off." He looks up and into the distance, calling to mind the encounter.

"When they spotted me, Cabal made it clear he was going to kill me. Challenged me to a draw and thought he would win." He shakes his head. "So did I. But some quirk of fate let me get my gun out first. Both of us were surprised when he was the one who dropped to the ground and died. His partner ran off, I set the hostage free, and decided I'd get a lot less trouble if I went around as Cabal the Gunslinger and not Marrow the Wanderer. Stumbled across a few of Wire's recruiters, they offered me a job as security chief, one which involved trying to stop gunfights instead of starting them, and I accepted. I've been here ever since. Fell in love. Changed my color. And have been avoided any contact with other changelings since."

[D.KnightSpider]

"Yeah, well, you're about a thousand miles from any form of normal competency." Sniper quipped in response to 'Cabal'. It didn't do much to reduce his frustrations. "You managed to get a good deal out of a bad situation. That's awesome."

More and more it looked like the good will around here ran one way: toward Rose. Maybe he was mistaken to try and get RT set up with her. Maybe he was mistaken about relationships after all and the only pony you could trust was yourself. If it hadn't been for Rem and Diamond, the temptation to believe that lie might have snagged him.

Sniper opted to ignore Rose's thorny comments. Calm was the order of the day.

"I think what Love means is that she wasn't able to do her best because you gave her a strict time limit. She had to rush a process that required time and attention." Sniper tried to explain ashe accepted the data card from Love. "I'll review it and get back to you."

He broadened his comments to every pony. "We can't change the past, so can we agree to fully hear each other out in the future? Even if a proposed course of action isn't acted upon, we can at least make sure all of our options and information is properly accounted."

[DigoDragon]

"Well, if we're gonna fully hear each other out, I'd like to mention something," Rose says in response. She points to Love. "Love is the wrong pony to have negotiate with the queen. You need someone who'll show her some tough love and can do so under pressure. Delicate and queen cheese-legs aren't concepts that go together."

[Elbeyon]

Love takes a deep breath and lets go of her frustration.

She looks to Cabal. "This is a very unusual staff meeting. Meetings normally don't happen like this for us either, but the Queen tends to, sometimes purposefully, drive us apart and weaken our teamwork."

Love examines Cabal through her goggles as he changes his forms. Though no one is in the hallway outside, she whispers, "It's nice to meet you, Marrow." Love smiles at him.

After Love hoofs off the data chip to Scope, she says, "Thank you. I'll be expecting your review."

She stands up and moves over to Cabal to start examining him with her gaze. She checks him with the Hound inside of her bag without removing it from said bag.

She calmly says to Rose, "We'll move to a harder line if that's where we need to go next, but I have an idea before that. If you think Queen Chrysalis is bluffing, we need to be prepared to face the consequences to calling her bluff. It's not something that should happen without planning, and we didn't plan what to do if I did call her bluff so that option was off the table during the last round of negotiations."

Love nods along with Scope talking then turns to talk to Rose and in some sense the team. "We need to make sure we're properly communicating though. I feel like you've misunderstood me, and you seem to feel like I misunderstood you. We needed to have that meeting that never took place to get everyone on the same page. Even if we don't always agree with each other, we need to fully understand one another at the very least. If something doesn't make sense, ask about it."

[DigoDragon]

Rose shrugs. "What doesn't make sense to me is that... I feel like the only one who's actively planning on calling out bugbutt's bluff."

[D.KnightSpider]

"Love has it right. If we make an enemy of Chrysalis then we're fighting a war on two sides and we are laughably under-prepared and under-equipped to do so. In that sense, Chrysalis isn't bluffing. If we try to undermine her without being prepared we are going to lose and lose badly."

Sniper held up a hoof to stage off interruption and keep the floor.

"Down to the Wire is inconsequential enough in the long run, no offense Cabal, that I think we can convince Chrysalis to give it up. Or we can secure it. If we can find leverage then we might be able to keep the gang leaders from being replaced and that's where I'd like to hear Love's idea. I can try talking to Chrysalis but, since she read my mind two missions ago, doing so effectively is going to take time that we don't have. Love is a wildcard to Chrysalis and that might be something we can exploit."

[Miltonian]

Cabal clears his throat. "Something...wrong, miss?" he asks Love as she stares at him.

He nods to Sniper. "None...none taken. I'm not sure what the long term fate of this place will be, if I am being brutally honest. But I do know that I prefer not to have to flee again." He pauses. "So what's this about that 'bugbutt' nickname?"

[DigoDragon]

"Oh I got lots of nicknames for the queen of the changelings; Bugbutt, Cheese-Legs, Her Hole-yness... you know, the kind of quaint names you give a friend you aren't close to, but you got a history with," Rose answers.

She shakes her head. "Anyway, seems I am resigned to just not be understood by my teammates."

[Elbeyon]

She says to Rose, "I'm sorry you feel that way. We were starting to discuss that topic when the meeting got canceled. If you feel misunderstood, keep talking til it becomes clear."

Love looks at Cabal as he draws her attention. "Ah, I was interested in your disguise. Please, call me Love. That's what everyone calls me. I think your wings are very beautiful."

"There isn't any extra meaning except what a person points into it, good or ill. I have it on good authority the name shouldn't be used to directly address Queen Chrysalis." She chuckles. Love takes a seat near Cabal as her examination has come to an end.

"I agree with the notion that Queen Chrysalis will release Down to the Wire with minimum resistance. While she will grab every piece available to her, this place doesn't really offer her much in the short-term outside of the bosses. She'll let the employees that she replaced go without a fight. She won't start a fight over the Down to the Wire employees unless drawn into a fight."

"Queen Chrysalis is a survivor. I think that she'll adapt her plans to the current situation, whatever situation arises. The conclusion that I drew from our conversation, free free to draw your own conclusion, is that she fears the bosses' rejection to assist us. The fear of changelings and her kidnapping them is why she thinks that. A previously raised point. She could have gained their aid in other ways, but she went the route that was easiest and most convenient for her, an old routine. The tertiary benefits, her rule, from her approach are just that, tertiary, I believe. So, we simply need to get the big bosses to work with us."

"Cabal, that's why I asked you be here with us. Changelings aren't feared or misjudged everywhere the way they are here. A part of her fear is that the bosses won't accept changelings, but I know the people here can accept changelings. There is a lot of misunderstanding and baseless rumors floating around the wasteland. There is love in people's hearts and a wiliness that people underestimate. If you are willing to take that same bet, I'd ask that you entertain the idea of seeking the acceptance of your fellow employees. You can say: no. We can work out the details to ease everyone into the situation. One at a time with that doctor pony?"

[DigoDragon]

"Why would the gangs help us? It doesn't matter if they like or hate changelings. The plan calls for them taking the hits. That's why she needs the gang leaders, she doesn't have anything to offer them."

[D.KnightSpider]

Sniper took a deep breath and studied the ceiling for a long moment. Celestia give him strength because none of this was working and the harder he tried to make it work the worse everything became. There had to be a way to get the squad back together. For some reason, maybe because it was recently mentioned, his mind turned back to Tartarus and the final confrontation with Chrysalis.

He held up a hoof to request the floor once again.

"Cabal, I'm sorry that you were subjected to this. It... hasn't put us in the best light. I have a suggestion. I'm humbly requesting that we put this entire conversation aside and hold a Sharing Circle. I think we all need to stop worrying about the casino for five minutes and clearly state our feelings so that we can get to the root of these personal issues.

"Yes, I know this is surreal coming from me, but I think we need to come clean with each other. Then we can worry about the casino. I'm willing to go first if that's agreeable." Sniper paused and then chuckled. "Or you can check me for Changeling blood first if you want. I'll understand."

[DigoDragon]

"A sharing circle?" Rose had an eyebrow raised. "Sure, go first since you suggested it."

[userpay]

Ooooh horse apples. Bugbutt really had her claws in just about everything already didn't she? And on top of that Cabal was a changeling, not one under Bugbutt's control but surely she must have some idea? "Well ah guess it's ah good thing ah accidentally set off the explosives connecting the Casino to the garage then... Bugbutt's changelings are forced to keep their victims here thanks to that so we've got that much goin for us."

Brazen presses his hooves together. "The best way to get the gangs to work together is showin what a threat CPI is... But they need it from ah source they can trust. Ain't sure we got that right now considerin and the best evidence we need is in Ashtown which we need their help to get anyway."

"Further, reports smorts. Weren't we formed specifically to make on the fly choices and save the consequences for later? It's how ah got my spot on the squad."

[Elbeyon]

Love puts some stress in her cheek. "You're fine, Scope. I know you are you. Alright, let's table the casino conversation." She looks to Cabal to see his reaction.

[Miltonian]

Cabal is looking more and more nervous. Not the nervousness of someone with something to hide, but more like 'these are the ponies I'm trusting right now?'

He shakes his head. "No. Absolutely not. I am not revealing myself to anyone who doesn't need to know. And those ponies out there don't need to know." He shakes his head. "I've been around here long enough to know a bad bet when I see it."

Star nods at Brazen's words. "Yeah. We are the ones who are supposed to avoid all the bureaucratic mess the other branches get into. With all these reports, it's cut our productivity down dramatically. Sure, Red Tape loves it, but we need to go out there. Be decisive. Take charge of the situation and stick to our guns. Not play the role that others set out for us."

[DigoDragon]

"I agree with Brazen and Star," Rose says in a low tone.

[D.KnightSpider]

Sniper carefully boxed up his emotions.

"Understood." He said. "I'll be less rigorous with making them."

Trying to stick to his guns was what caused this mess. Everything was upside down and inside out and he wasn't sure how to right the ship. It was time to abandon that track and start putting the squad back together. Which meant... sometimes it meant taking the bullet and sometimes it meant taking the blame. That was the only way they were going to get past this.

"And I agree that Cabal revealing himself is a bad idea. Without any lynch pin to negotiate with Chrysalis, I'm advocating a bum position." He looked at Rose. "What's the play?"

[Elbeyon]

The team seemed ready to go do something. Now, they just need to figure out what to do.

Love rubs her mane. "Saying my idea out loud, it does seem pretty bad. Forget the the idea, the shot in the dark. Sorry, Cabal. I didn't mean to worry you so much."

She turns to Rose to hear her thoughts.

[DigoDragon]

"I blame myself for letting you two talk with Chrysalis," Rose says in a sad tone. she looks looks at both Sniper and Love. "She doesn't have the mindset for our love and friendship crap. She has just one singular goal--to capture Hyper Thought and slowly torture him to death so that she can savor every scream and bone snap from his body. Something like that you don't just hug it out. You need intervention. You need to draw lines because she will sacrifice everything to reach that one, single goal in her mind. That includes this casino, the CPI, us, herself, and every settlement between her and Hyper Thought."

Rose fiddles through her comm unit's GUI for something. When she finds it, she raises the volume a little for everyone to hear and presses play.

“Hello ponies. My, my, you do have a bad habit of letting this one get caught, don’t you? Not that I’m complaining. More like making an observation. Now, I want this message passed along directly to Luna. As per our agreement, I’ve infiltrated the facility and made contact with the local changeling population. Their adoring praise of me is a welcome change from prison bars. I’m beginning to feel like my old self again. Maybe I’ll invade Canterlot when all this is over, for old times’ sake.”

“Oh? Does that surprise you, Celestia? That’s right, your dear, devoted sister is the reason I escaped. I can’t wait to see what the fallout from this one is.”

Rose stops the recording. She then fiddles for another file and plays that one.

"So Pins, Needles... why were you all disabling a bomb in the reactor?"

"You sneaky, underhoofed, double-dealing--"

"Flattery will get you nowhere! Oh, we didn't want the reactor going boom when we killed and replaced Wire."

"It doesn't look like you have to worry about that little detail any more."

"I have to feel a bit amused that by killing Wire, I put a wrench in the changeling plan to replace him. So, was there a plan to replace Cabal too? Cause that be the next step if it were my plan."

"Oh yes. I am very grateful they got my friends killed and me crippled. Give me a month so my legs heal a bit and I'll show them just how grateful."

"Yep! That was phase two of the takeover. After that, we lighten restrictions, improve morale, and turn the place into a profitable venture instead of marginally profitable but also one stallion's personal paradise."

Playback stops. Rose lets her comm unit hang there for a second before she speaks again. Her voice deepens with an air of seriousness. "Queen Chrysalis has long been plotting to capture Hyper Thought. Our command ordered us to assume her to be an ally in that unified front. However, there are rules for alliances. And the rule we're tripping ourselves over, is that we don't let Chrysalis do whatever she damn well pleases to get to Hyper. We must draw those lines for her and we cannot act like scared little foals that standing up to her will cause every changeling here to riot. Most of these changelings are infiltrators, not fighters. Maybe they'll take one or two of us down in a straight fight, but Chrysalis would not only lose a lot of her best brood, she will also lose us and those gang leaders. That jeopardizes her plan and as I've stated, she will sacrifice everything for her plan."

"What we do is play the alliance game. Quid pro quo. She wants to take control of the gang leaders? Then we demand sovereignty of the casino. We don't have to advertise it to everyone, we don't have to point guns to anyone. We make our stance perfectly clear and we push back as she's pushed us. Chrysalis responds much better to power than coddling. We tell her she can have the gang leaders, but we're staying put to protect this casino. Quid pro quo. This place isn't needed in her plan, and remember, everything is all about her plan."

Rose sits down, checking her snout with the back of her hoof as if she felt something trickle. She looks around. "If I had put this forth sooner, we'd probably already have secured our part of the bargain and be clearing the last of the elevator shaft. I assumed you all would have climbed aboard this wagon on your own, but it is my fault for making that assumption. You all clearly want this alliance to work and you want Chrysalis to be redeemed. But... now is not the time to attempt friendship with her. For now, we need to secure this place and finish that exit. A lot of ponies died in these two days. Let's ensure no one else needs to."

She looks around, then at the back of her hoof again. "I like sharing circles."

[D.KnightSpider]

Since his emotions were already restricted, Sniper easily shut off the faucet of frustration before it opened into a torrent of anger. He fiddled with the mental knob. Little trickles emerged and evaporated until the well of negativity was dry. The process took a few moments, but it let him process and not immediately react in fury.

He opened up his emotions enough to empathize. Then he kicked the problem over to his tactical side and tried to find a resolution.

"I can take that criticism." He admitted. "Perhaps I haven't balanced long-term and short-term goals successfully. I need to contemplate that one. But, Rose, if you thought we were blinding ourselves to our shortcomings then the time to tell us this was at the meeting, as a concern, before those shortcomings could impact our actions. That's why we have meetings, so that we can check and balance ourselves and our ideas. If we can't hold each other accountable for our weaknesses, then we're not a team and this isn't going to work.

"That's what aggravates me so much. This is the end of our last venture all over again, only this time the horseshoe is on the other hoof. You made an assumption about our intentions and plans, kept it from us, acted on and broadcast that assumption without verifying it with us first. I experienced a tremendous amount of hot water for doing that and now you're doing the same thing.

"I don't hold your going to Cabal against you at this point

.

This is not a referendum on you talking to Cabal. It was never intended to be. I would have preferred that we acted in a different order, but in the long run that doesn't matter much. As you said, our desires weren't mutually exclusive. But we never got the chance to make them mutually inclusive because you shut us down and hamstrung our efforts to negotiate.Throughout this conversation, I tried to the right thing and explain my frustrations and why I was upset. In response, I was met with self-righteous passive-aggression. What was I supposed to do at that point but roll over and let you run the show?

"We can deal with our Chrysalis problem in a moment. I want to get things sorted between us first and foremost." Sniper passed Cabal a look that said 'Sorry for the soap opera, but what can you do?' "Preferably before Cabal decides that we're a bunch of nutcases and he was better off under Wire."

[DigoDragon]

"Like I said, I assumed you two would get on the wagon. I thought you two knew Chrysalis well enough. The evidence was apparent that the queen was doing something under our noses," Rose says, remorse in her voice. "We needed to act on that. Cabal here said his coffee was tasting funny the past few days. I hope you at least know what that eludes to. And we're a group of... what, five, six plus? Why would we take things one step at a time when we could do several actions simultaneously? I figured that one group ensures Cabal's safety while another calls the queen and negotiates. We've done several actions simultaneously before; communicated our actions as we did them... okay, yeah, it's pretty messy at times when we did it that way, but I thought it was a strength because we were able to adapt on the fly. Think on our hooves and prevent the enemy from predicting our moves... that was why we took on the entirety of Tartarus Station ourselves... and won."

Rose rubs her left temple. "And don't get wrong... I can see why we should get together each morning for those meetings and review what we know. What we found out. Yes, that's a smart move. I was stupid for bailing early on that. That's on me. I just... this morning it's like..."

Her horn flashes in a spiral of aquamarine light and Rose takes the illusion form of Sniper. "Here, Rose, I need you to review this report during this meeting. Gotta get this to command so they know our position."

She flashes again to become the illusion form of Love. "Rose, I spent hours on this report, you need to read these things so you know what's going on."

Rose flashes once more time and returns to herself. She pauses, bracing against the floor. Her voice sounds weak now, but sounds almost gutteral. "I. Hate. Your. Reports." She pauses. Rose catches her breath. "That isn't communicating to each other. That's... reports are the crap you send to command every few days to update them. I crave words. Your voices. Just a few minutes ago Love, you gave Sniper another report to look over. What on this good green world has turned you two into Red Tape? I just... I'm sick of reports. Just tell me what you ponies saw and did."

She lets herself flop onto her back. Rose gives up on physically staying upright. "Sigh... I'm not discrediting you two that I acted rashly and didn't communicate what the buck I did down on the casino floor. Yeah that was me not communicating. That was me being a b**** with a double standard. For that I apologize. I'm... acting on my love for the ponies in this casino and I want everyone to be happy now that Wire's gone. I want to work with Cabal so he can right a fair, tight ship and this place can make the workers money and we don't have to sleep out in the sands at night. Gods do I not want to sleep out on the sands. Do you guys realize how it feels getting sand in the cybernetic crevices you don't realize you have?"

"So, if you wanna light me on fire for not telling you proper what I wanted to do, go ahead. At least Cabal is safe now. And so you all know, there is a doctor that works at this casino. She's a cute petite earth pony named Ultra Violet and I trained her to use my scanner so that she can secretly track changelings going through her office for checkups. We know of three security guards replaced thus far and Cabal assigned them to the casino floor where security cameras can track them. So... that's a thing now."

[Miltonian]

Cabal sits back and whistles. "No, no, please continue. I think I prefer this to everyone keeping their opinions to themselves out of fear. Still not entirely decided on that, but it's growing on me a bit."

Star clears her throat. "We don't always have time to call and tell everypony what we did. A short, three bullet point report allows us (or me) to keep running tabs on what's been accomplished with, like, ten seconds of reading instead of a minute of conversation."