"Woah there, stallion! What's the hurry?"
"I must speak with Captain Spitfire immediately!"
"... And you are?"
"Guard Upper Class Flash Sentry, sir! This is urgent, time is of the essence!"
"I'm sorry, Guard, but the Captain is very busy with paperwork right now. Perhaps it could wait until she's finished for the day?"
"No, sir, it can't wait! This is a threat to the very existence of the Wonderbolts as a whole!"
"With all due respect, Guard, I've heard too many crank theories to take what you're saying... hey, stop that!"
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His patience having worn out, Guard Upper Class Flash Sentry decides to simply muscle aside Tight Ship, the coordinator stallion that had been guarding the entry of the Cloudsdale office where the Wonderbolts were currently working at, and charge straight into the hallways, startling a few Wonderbolts in the process as he zoomed by. Tight Ship, growling at the indignity and inconvenience this posed, gritted his teeth and chased after the young Guard member.
A few twists and turns down the hallways, and moments later Flash rams his way through the door, interrupting Captain Spitfire and Lead Wingpony Soarin busy with processing the day's paperwork. Tight Ship peeks out behind him, making an overexaggerated eyeroll in hopes of clearly demonstrating this wasn't his fault.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Spitfire shouts in indignity at her meeting being interrupted, prompting Soarin beside her to take a step back.
"I'm sorry Captain, but this news simply will not wait for anypony! There is a new group meeting in Cloudsdale's backrooms that threaten the existence of both the Wonderbolts and the Royal Guard!" Flash Sentry blasts out in return.
"And why should I care what a young buck in the lower ranks of the E.U.P. has to say about frustrated stallions you just managed to catch whispers of?" Spitfire asks dismissively, her tone showing she had no interest in listening to anything the Guard Upper Class had to say.
"But their numbers are already in the dozens, ma'am!" Flash Sentry tries explaining. "Each and every one of them has taken a personal vow to have nothing to ever do with the Wonderbolts or the Guard for the rest of their lives! I've seen foals in the crowd, Captain. And at one point they were all chanting in unison, and there was this miasma coming off of them and being drawn in by the stallions addressing them..."
"What nonsense are you talking about, young stallion? Are you out of your head?" Spitfire abruptly interrupts.
A charged, awkward silence follows, no pony seeming to dare speak. But Flash Sentry can see the Wonderbolt Captain's eyes betray her apparent lack of interest - confusion, then fear. And Flash Sentry knows exactly what that fear is - fear of knowing she can't afford to be wrong again, of what she stands to lose if she makes the wrong choice. He knows the Wonderbolts stand in a precarious position from her previous wrong decision, and that being wrong again would doom the entire organization. The fear becomes anger, and Flash's heart sinks in a vague uncertainty.
"Come back when you have something more solid to show me, stallion. I'm not going to act on hearsay and rumor when it has already cost me so much. Tight Ship, get him out of here so we can continue our meeting." Spitfire coldly orders.
"Aye, Captain." Tight Ship answers, and although Flash does not resist the escort out his plaintive warnings continue to echo through the office hallways.
Soarin, who had silently watched the whole incident, now gives a curious stare in Spitfire's direction, and he observes the same primal fear Flash had glimpsed - a quietly alarming fact as if there was something to the young stallion's claims it would hinder any response to them. The Wonderbolts had already bet wrong once, and badly suffered for it. But at the same time, he was reminded of the saying about what happens when good ponies do - or say - nothing.
"That stallion shouldn't come around again without hard evidence, otherwise I'm going to assume he's simply parroting the constant swirl of rumors..." Spitfire warns her main subordinate, the glare in her eyes a serious warning against objecting. Soarin is sure she can see the dismay in his own expression, but knows there is little he can do to affect the situation...
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MEANWHILE, IN CANTERLOT...
"Mr. Mule, did Chiton deliver the story promised last night?" Mrs. Spoiled Rich anxiously asks the earth pony lawyer as she and her husband once again sit in conference in the lawyer's office.
"Yes, indeed, Mrs. Rich, and the story is quite a juicy one." Mr. Mule replies. "According to Chiton, it appears that Twilight Sparkle's erratic behavior was amplified by a 'viral agent' released by the entity Discord that infected her at some point during her fight against him."
"But I heard the official report was that..." Mr. Filthy Rich begins to object.
"The official report comes from a source that is personally biased in Twilight Sparkle's favor, Filthy. It is not to be trusted!" Spoiled Rich snaps out at her husband, cowing him into silence again.
"Indeed, no source that comes from Canterlot Castle is to be trusted without outside verification. Chiton says his source in Ponyville extensively interviewed many of the town's residents and they all confirmed the effects of a 'chaotic viral agent' infecting her mind." Mr. Mule adds.
"It's too bad the family was in Canterlot for business, I would've loved to give my own account of what happened... So are we going public with this info? In the papers and magazines?" Spoiled Rich impatiently asks.
"Yes, because we can't trust Princess Celestia to be truthful about what has happened." Mr. Mule affirms. "Once I can get Chiton to flesh out his report a little more, we'll forward it to all the papers and magazines. I trust that you will use both your company and your filly to warn about a potential epidemic of the viral agent?"
"We will, don't you worry about it." Spoiled Rich affirms in turn, at the same time giving a sidelong glare to her husband that keeps him quiet.
"Very good, we can spend the rest of the afternoon composing the warnings to be distributed out..." Mr. Mule comments, starting into an eager back-and-forth between the lawyer and the wife of the businesspony.
Meanwhile, Mr. Filthy Rich himself sits sullenly, nursing his growing worries as his wife goes further and further down this track he suspects will lead to no good. He cannot object, however, as long as his daughter and "heir" was held in thrall of what his wife wanted her to be...