The Adventures of Peaches and Mandy

by marmalado

S1E18: Working Hard and Hardly Working

"Ocean? I'm going to get more creature food."

"'Kay! Take your time!"

Fluttershy stretched out her legs before exiting the Creature Room, the fur on her sides rippling as she sighed. It had been a rather long day of chasing, feeding and cleaning up after creatures, including new inductees into the Creature Room, and she was starting to feel exhausted. Still, she figured that getting some fresh air by traversing through Headquarters would do her some good, if she couldn't go on her break early and go outside.

As she descended the stairs, her eyes fell on a large mound of papers that were rustling, as though someone was hiding and wasn't doing a very good job of staying hidden. A muffled scream emanated from it, which startled the Pegasus. "Oh! G-goodness!" she exclaimed, backing up a step or two and feeling her legs begin to shake.

Another muffled scream came forth, which made her eyes widen further as she became paralyzed with fear. Secretly, she wanted to explore the pile to make sure the screaming wasn't coming from a stray creature that had somehow gotten lost, but her fear ultimately took over. Still, she managed to work up the courage to speak.

"W-who's that?! I-is it a paper monster?!"

"Fluttershy?!"

She gave a soft gasp, clearly not expecting the pile to speak back to her but knowing full well who the voice belonged to. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she called out, "Mandy! I-is that you?"

"Help me! I'm..." A pause as the pile rustled in a more fierce way than before. "...kinda stuck over here!"

"Um..." Fluttershy began to hover. "I'll try!"

As she moved closer to the pile, she looked around it for any sign of Mandy's body. To her surprise, there didn't seem to be anything. It would have been the perfect disguise for any unsuspecting villain who was dumber than bricks -- which, to be fair, described a lot of villains in the Toronto area.

"Um, can you give me a hand?" Fluttershy asked, jumping back slightly when a hand suddenly thrust out of the pile like a fast-moving zombie seeking a new victim. "O-okay...I'm gonna pull you. Try and break free!"

"I'm not makin' any guarantees!"

With wings flapping as hard as she could, the Pegasus clasped her hooves around the hand and pulled. For a minute, it didn't seem like Mandy was budging. It was almost like she was stuck to the floor by some mysterious force. Either that, or Fluttershy's strength really wasn't up to snuff.

"I can feel myself comin' loose!" came the elated cry, which spurred Fluttershy to put more effort into her pulling. She grit her teeth, wondering if she was actually pulling the Shapeshifter who had somehow gained the ability to change her weight. But whether it really was the villainess or not, she couldn't help but ask herself if Mandy had gotten heavier.

Of course, she knew better than to ask that aloud. She was the Element of Kindness, and she certainly hadn't forgotten Mandy's wishes of not having agents talk incessantly about her weight.

Finally, with a mighty "Hah!", she yanked Mandy free. The hybrid went up into the air a little ways before crashing down onto her friend, leaving them both splayed on the floor and panting heavily as papers fluttered about in the air.

Once Fluttershy caught her breath, she wriggled herself free, folding her wings in and turning to face Mandy. "Mandy! You look like a mess! And..." She tilted her head. "Why are you buried in papers?"

"I..." Mandy swallowed. "I've been so backed up with work..." She slowly began to get to her feet. "See, there's been a recent surge in Toronto cases and Oprah assigned me with filing paperwork that other agents fill out."

"Don't they have a File Room with a receptionist for that?"

"Yeah. But they've been sick and out of work all week."

Fluttershy bit her lip, noting how Mandy's matted hair and tail, her puffy eyes, and the exposure of her white undershirt made her look more tired than when she was sleep-deprived. "But you have cases to solve and paperwork to file too, don't you? Not to mention all the gadget repairs!" The Pegasus took a few steps forward. "Oh, and you look like you're going to collapse any second!"

"I think we're well beyond that stage..." Mandy said, rubbing her head and groaning as she felt a headache start to come on. "On top of that, I've been having to get up earlier than usual. My sleep's all outta wack now!"

That would explain her appearance. Or mostly explain it, anyway, Fluttershy thought, eyeing her friend up and down. She inhaled, confidence surging through her and a determined expression settling on her face as she straightened and laid her game plan clear on the table.

"Mandy, you need a vacation."

Weak laughter met that proclamation. "Yeah, I do. But ya really think I'll be able to take any time off when I have all this to do?"

"Yes." Fluttershy said. "Because I'll do it for you."

A pause. Mandy's eyes widened. Her expression twisted into one of surprise, and then skepticism, and then right to utter disbelief.

"You?" she said. "You don't even work in Investigation, how do-"

"I may not work in the Investigation department..." Fluttershy raised a hoof. "But I received Investigation training at the Odd Squad Academy, remember? I know how to handle paperwork."

"And the gadget repairs?"

"I'll leave those to Oona and the other Scientists until you come back."

"And what about Oprah? She's gonna yell at you if she finds you doing my work when you're supposed to be in the Creature Room!"

Fluttershy gave a mighty huff. "Let her."

Mandy took a step back. "Wow. You sound...really confident." she uttered, an edge of worry creeping into her voice. "You do know that Oprah's reeeeeeally really strong, right? Like, she can twist you into a pretzel in five seconds flat?"

"I'm aware." Fluttershy nodded. "But I can fend against her. I'm not afraid of her! I'm not the shy pony I once was!"

She was right, of course. Mandy knew that Fluttershy had gotten more confident over the years, thanks to the support of Odd Squad and all of her friends. But she also knew that the mare had quite a ways to go, and with Oprah, it was made even more obvious. A rough-and-tumble leader who ruled an entire branch of a pseudo-government organization with an iron fist didn't necessarily mesh well with a meek but kind Pegasus who was the Bearer of the Element of Kindness.

Fluttershy herself knew this too. But she was too wrapped up in her confidence to care very much about dealing with Oprah. Besides, as far as she was concerned, the Director mostly stayed in her office, and if Mandy was backed up with paperwork, surely she was backed up as well -- meaning her exiting the office was almost a non-issue.

"Heh. Well...don't say I didn't warn ya." Mandy shrugged, before her eyes widened. "Hold on. What about your Creature Room duties?"

"Ocean's a laid-back guy. He'll understand the situation."

Mandy stammered, as though trying to protest further, but ultimately accepted her imminent defeat with a sigh. "All right."

"Now go! Take a vacation!" Fluttershy shouted, stamping a hoof on the ground to emulate the slammed fist of Oprah as well as emulating her loud voice. Still, the mare's volume certainly couldn't compare to her boss's, and she smiled as she spoke more quietly, "I insist."

"Yes, Ms. O." Mandy snickered, and began to make her way down the right hallway. "Have fun!"

Fluttershy waved goodbye with a hoof, then exhaled as she turned to face Mandy's desk and the pile of papers that sat by it still. The confidence didn't ebb away any, and she almost felt like trotting in place to burn off the excess energy she had accrued from sheer motivation.

"Now, where to begin..."

---

Within the hour, Fluttershy had gotten a sizeable amount of paperwork done. A stack of papers sat to her right, and she was working on another O-135 form that had been half-filled.

Mandy regretted to tell her that many of the forms had been half-filled, or a quarter-filled, or not even filled at all. Perhaps that was the source of her strife. After all, who likes things done half-fast?

"If only I were a unicorn...writing with a pencil would be so much easier." she mused aloud to herself, lazily rolling the pencil about as she contemplated taking a break to go and get something to eat, or perhaps a drink to quench her thirst.

The sound of the automatic doors opening put an end to those thoughts, and she turned her head to spot Olive and Otto coming through.

"Oh, hey, Fluttershy." Olive greeted.

"Olive, Otto! Hello."

"Have you seen Mandy?" Otto asked. "Odie's been backed up with gadgets all day and we really need some repaired."

It figures they would ask about Mandy. Fluttershy internally sighed. She wasn't too worried about Olive nor Otto -- they were powerful Directors, sure, but this wasn't their precinct to run, and they wouldn't have the mare's head on a platter just for doing Mandy's job.

She straightened up in the chair. "Mandy...is on vacation."

"On vacation?" Olive blinked. "That's weird. It's not really like her to take vacations."

"It's at my own insistence. Not Oprah's."

"But what if Oprah finds out?" Otto asked, his tone nothing short of panicked. "Olive and I have both witnessed firsthand just how strong she is. And it goes double if she's angry!"

"I'm not concerned about that." Fluttershy shook her head and smiled. "Mandy was so overworked that she was buried in papers when I saw her!"

"And what about your Creature Room duties?"

"I spoke to Ocean and told him what was going on. He was more than happy to run the Creature Room in the meantime."

"But...you work in the Creature Care department, don't you?" Olive tilted her head. "You don't work in Investigation."

Fluttershy was starting to get a sense of deja vu, and it was tiring. She silently sent a prayer to Celestia that no other agent would come along and ask about her sitting at Mandy's desk and doing her friend's paperwork, because she really didn't feel like giving the same old answers to the same old questions over and over again, even if this was just the second time.

"No. But I've received enough training at the Odd Squad Academy to know the ins and outs of paperwork like the back of my hoof." She extended a hoof towards the Lab. "If you need gadgets repaired, go to the Lab and leave them for Oona and the other Scientists. It's a little difficult to repair gadgets without unicorn magic."

The Pegasus's confidence appeared to be lost on Olive and Otto, who were either too preoccupied with what they were doing or just didn't care. "All right." Olive said, giving a shrug as she and Otto began making their way to where Oona was behind the counter, fiddling with a gadget of her own. Fluttershy, meanwhile, quickly returned to work.

---

Peaches stretched her feline body out, her jaws parting in a rather toothy yawn.

"Oh wow. That was one of the best naps I've had in years!" she said, feeling energy begin to return to her as she leaped off of the bed and transformed back to her humanoid form. Deciding to see if Mandy or someone else wanted to hang out, she began to make her way out the door and down the hall.

As she approached the bullpen, she was quick to notice one thing that was particularly off.

"That's definitely odd." Peaches muttered, making her way over and giving a wave. "Hey! Agent Fluttershy!"

"Hm?" The Pegasus swiveled her head to make eye contact with the one who had called her. "Oh, hello, Peaches."

A pause. Peaches squinted, scanning Fluttershy up and down, touching her mane, and booping her hard in the snout. "You're...not Mandy in disguise, are you?" she asked, not bothering to hide her suspicion.

Fluttershy shook her head. "I'm really Fluttershy. Mandy's on vacation."

Peaches blinked. She had expected the Pegasus to tell her that Mandy was out on a case or was sick. A vacation was the last thing she had been expecting, and so, it briefly caught her off guard before her mouth curved upwards into a smile.

"Ha! Mandy, on a vacation?" Peaches held back a snort. "Just last week, she told me that she would never take a vacation because-"

---

"-it'd just be me sleeping for a week or two." Mandy smiled. "I mean don't get me wrong, I loooooove to sleep, but you guys go nuts if I sleep for more than 12 hours!" She patted Peaches on the shoulder. "Besides, Precinct 13579 needs me! I'm not here to kiss the feet of Oprah."

She capped this off with a round of her giggling-snorting laughter, while Peaches nodded in understanding. Or, well, at least the best understanding she could.

---

Fluttershy tilted her head. "Well, I pretty much forced her to take a vacation. The poor thing was buried under a mound of papers, and she looked so worn-out when I rescued her!"

"What was she doing?"

"The receptionist down in the File Room is out sick, so Oprah has been delegating agents' paperwork-filing duties to Mandy." Fluttershy rolled her shoulders in a shrug. "I'm honestly not quite sure why she couldn't just do it herself, but perhaps she's busy with other things."

Peaches' gaze drifted to the two stacks of papers that both looked about ready to topple over. "And you finished it all?"

"Mhm!" Fluttershy nodded enthusiastically. "It was actually easier than I thought it was going to be, even though many agents didn't take the time to do it properly." Her gaze moved towards the left hallway as she sighed. "Now I just have to take them down to the File Room..."

"I can help with that." Peaches offered. "Why don't we do half-and-half? I take down one half, you take the other."

"You'd...really help me?"

"Sure. It's the least I could do while I'm here. Carrying all of these yourself would probably break your back, especially since you don't have any unicorn or alicorn magic to levitate it or anything."

Fluttershy couldn't deny that Peaches was right -- and she really couldn't risk getting injured while Mandy was away. A smile formed on her maw. "Oh, thank you, Peaches!"

As catgirl picked up one stack, mare picked up the other, and together, they traversed down the hallway with papers in tow, both surprised at how lighter the stacks seemed to be than what they were expecting.

A few minutes later, they had arrived at the door to the File Room, which was decorated with a few bins that had plastic folders in it but were certainly not for filing paperwork. Nonetheless, they saw some papers littered throughout the bins, which, to their luck, were all fully completed and ready to be filed.

"Here, I'll get the door." Peaches said. She pressed her body and the stack against the door while her right hand moved towards the doorknob, giving it a quick yank to the right. A stumble brought her back to her senses as she tried to keep the stack steady, but she found her balance rather quickly.

Once she steadied herself, she had a look around the room. Two cabinets sat on the far side, stacked to the brim with gadgets galore. Flanking her on both sides were two more cabinets that also had gadgets and folders sitting on every shelf, with the cabinet on her right boasting a bulky tan-colored machine of some kind that she didn't identify. In the center of the room sat the receptionist's desk, with three bins to sort files into as well as some stray files and all the normal stuff one would find on a desk -- calculator, desk lamp, cup with pens and pencils, and some sort of holder with index cards shoved into it. She didn't know what that was for, if she was being honest.

"Huh. So this is the File Room." Her nose wrinkled. "Looks...smaller than I thought."

"The receptionist specifically asked for a small room." Fluttershy explained, her voice sounding strained as she lifted the stack into the furthermost right basket. Once she set it down, she exhaled and added, "You can set the papers in that machine over there."

That bulky machine? Really? The machine that doesn't look like it does anything? Peaches thought. They really couldn't have come up with some better system, huh?

She gave a couple grunts as she lifted the stack into the machine. To her surprise, the machine came to life the second it was inserted, as it produced an orange widespread beam that scanned the papers with a series of whirs and beeps. The process only took a couple seconds, and once it was complete, the button on the bottom-right glowed green.

"Um...d-does that mean...it's okay?" she asked hesitantly.

"Yes." Fluttershy nodded and pointed to the third bin. "Just take that stack out and put it here."

Peaches did as she was told, which allowed the Pegasus to put her stack into the machine for scanning, where it too got the green light. She then put it right on top of Peaches' stack before landing and folding in her wings to let them take a good long rest.

"Thank you so much for your help." Fluttershy smiled. "Carrying that many papers, all by myself...it would have been such a hassle!"

"Not to mention back-breaking. Literally." Peaches couldn't help but wince as she briefly imagined Fluttershy in a wheelchair with a broken spine, or maybe a slipped...ah, whatever they were called. She couldn't remember. "Anyway, it's no problem. Did you happen to find out where Mandy went on her vacation?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "She never told me. But you can try calling her."

Ah cattails, why didn't I think of that?

As Peaches reached a hand up towards her chest, she groaned as she came to a realization. "I don't have a badge phone. I really have to ask Oprah for one..."

"Here. You can borrow mine."

Peaches glanced at Fluttershy's outstretched hoof, with her own badge phone delicately resting on it. She took it and opened it. "Thank...you?"

A long pause settled in the air. Fluttershy watched Peaches tilt the phone every conceivable way and begin pushing buttons that didn't do anything. For a moment, a thought passed through her mind of letting her fiddle with the phone, and bringing out a sort of trolling side to her no one would have expected. But she threw it into the mental trash -- that was the sort of thing meant for Pinkie Pie, anyway, and she didn't feel like having her kindness and patience tried with Odenbacker again.

"Uh, remind me how this works?"

"I have Mandy on speed dial. Just press 1."

A beep, and then a couple ringback tones began to play, echoing within the tiny room.

Unbeknownst to both mare and child, however, Mandy was busy relaxing at a beach. Her phone was on vibrate, but even though should could very well hear it, she refused to answer it, instead resuming her tan and cranking up the volume on the boombox that sat on the table to her right.

Fluttershy frowned. "No answer." she murmured, as Peaches closed the phone and handed it back to her.

"I guess it's for the best. Mandy deserves to have a vacation, alone, if she wants it. She works so hard for Odd Squad."

"Sometimes too hard."

Peaches concurred with a nod. "Well, if I can't hang with Mandy, I guess I'll go for a walk around the town." She began to head for the door. "See you later, Fluttershy."

"Bye!"

As she walked out, her mind began to fill up with thoughts.

Mandy on vacation...it just doesn't feel right to me. I can't explain it, but I'm getting a sort of bad feeling about this. Like something's going wrong.

Please, cuz, stay safe. Have fun on your vacation, just stay safe.

---

A half-hour into working on some more paperwork that she had found piled up on her friend's desk, Fluttershy's concentration was broken by the booming sound of yet another stack of papers making impact with the desk.

"Eep!"

"Oh, Agent Fluttershy. Sorry about that. I didn't see you there." Oprah apologized, brushing dust off her hands. "Why are you sitting at Mandy's desk?"

A feeling of dread began to settle in the pit of Fluttershy's stomach. She had talked the talk, and now she had to actually walk the walk. The only problem was, she hadn't really thought of any excuses for when Oprah did eventually come out of her office, leading her to devise one on the spot.

"Oh! Um, she...she's...getting a checkup from Dr. O right now and asked me to fill in for her in the meantime."

Sweet Celestia, please don't let my cover be blown!

Oprah looked to ponder this answer for a moment, before she nodded. "Well, it is important to be healthy, I suppose." she said, resting a hand on the stack she had just put down. "When she comes back, can you tell her that this is another batch of paperwork for her to file?" That same hand then moved to ruffle her tied-back hair as best she could, a ragged sigh escaping her. "There are just so many cases that agents have been solving and so many are in a rush to get the paperwork filled that there are tons of blank spots!"

Fluttershy internally breathed a sigh of relief. "Um, sure, but..." She tilted her head. "Forgive me for asking, ma'am, but...is there a reason why you can't fill out the paperwork?"

"I'm busy with my own Director duties. Besides, it's not in the job description of the Management department to do that kind of stuff." Oprah responded. "I know Mandy is very productive and is a very diligent and hard worker with tons of energy, so with that in mind, this should be no problem for her."

Half of Fluttershy had a mind to smack her boss right then and there. The other half, of course, was more rational. It knew better, and instead allowed the mare to settle for a light disapproving frown.

But she has her limits. I understand that. If she wants to take a break, then that's fine with me. Heck, I'll even let her take a vacation. She deserves it!

...Is what I want her to say. But she's not going to. Is she really this blind as to Mandy's wants and needs?

As she berated herself for asking such a rhetoric question, she settled for an "Uh-huh" of incredulity, followed by, "Well, I'll pass the news along to her when I see her."

"Thank you. And you can tell her that if she gets all the paperwork done, I'll reward her with a special juice box."

"Will do."

Those two words were enough to get the Director off of Fluttershy's back, as she turned and began making the journey back to her office upstairs.

Fluttershy gave a scoff, her facial features darkening. "Yeah, she's productive, diligent and hard-working, all right. Apparently she's supposed to be like that all the time without stopping, huh? As if you're not lying about having so much work to do yourself?" She pivoted back around in the chair. "Luckily, she has me to pick up the slack she leaves behind. I'm starting to like doing this."

She quickly returned to work, grabbing a pencil between her teeth and an incomplete form and beginning to fill it out.

---

In the Lab, Olive and Otto were retrieving the last of their gadgets from Oona, now fully repaired and functional.

"Thanks for repairing these gadgets, Oona. We really appreciate it."

"Hey, it's not a problem!" Oona nodded at Olive. "Sorry it took so long. Uh, but might I suggest you two use the double-doors to enter Headquarters instead of...you know, using my back room?"

"But we...didn't..." Otto trailed off, having argued with the Lab Director about this issue thrice now and not being so keen on going for Round Four. He turned to leave, as did his partner. "Fine. Sorry. We'll do that next time."

"Have funnily-doo!" Oona chirped, waving them off before her smile contorted into a frown. "Darn it, I have to work on a better catchphrase..."

Neither Director got very far before their eyes laid upon a mare at work.

"Hey, is...Fluttershy still working?"

"Apparently." Otto said, in response to his partner. "But the stack looks...taller than last time. Did Oprah give her- er, uh, I mean, did she give Mandy more paperwork?"

"Looks like it." Olive scanned the bullpen. "Speaking of...I haven't seen Mandy all day. Maybe we should give her a call and see where she is."

"She's on vacation. What more else do you need?"

"She could be on vacation in a villain's lair, tied up and helpless." Olive sharply retorted, beginning to reach for her badge phone.

"I wouldn't do that."

Both Directors whirled their heads to the right, gadgets in hand and ready to fire. As soon as they saw who it was that was approaching them, however, they relaxed.

"Oh, Peaches! Hi!" Otto waved. "What's going on? Why shouldn't we call Mandy?"

"Because Fluttershy and I tried calling her earlier. We didn't get a response."

"Maybe she has her phone on vibrate? Or silent?"

"Could be." Peaches shrugged. "But really, not bothering Mandy is for the best. It's like I told Fluttershy: she works so hard for Odd Squad that if she wants a vacation, we should let her have it."

Both Olive and Otto concurred, giving murmurs of agreement.

"Have you told Oprah?" Olive asked.

"No, and I'm pretty sure Fluttershy hasn't, either. I'm not sure what she would do to her if she found out."

"She could fire her...or put her on probation..."

Peaches stiffened. "I-I think Fluttershy knows what she's doing, though. She doesn't seem to be worried!" She gave a bout of nervous laughter. "Besides, if I'm being honest...I'm on her side here. I know Mandy's second-in-command, but does Oprah really need to stick her with all of the paperwork duties?"

Olive and Otto exchanged an inquisitive glance.

"It just doesn't seem fair, is all. Mandy's only one person." Peaches sighed. "Whatever. It's out of my hands, anyway. I just hope Mandy's enjoying her vacation...wherever she is."

The ten notes of Odd Squad's theme tune broke through the rather depressing air, and everyone stared at Olive's badge phone as she hesitantly picked it up, opened it, and pressed a button to put the incoming call on speakerphone.

"Go for Olive."

"Mommaaaaaaaa..."

Eyes widened across the board. Fluttershy, working at Mandy's desk nearby, swiveled around in her chair.

"Mandy?! Oh, I-I didn't expect you to call!" Olive said. "Uh, listen, I heard you were on vacation-"

"Hav' I ever toldju m'bout the time...the tiiiime..." A hiccup. "I went water skiin' with...Larissssa Cabreeeera?"

It was then that Olive realized exactly what was going on, and she could feel her heart drop several feet as a flicker of anxiety came to life. She covered the speaker part of the phone with her hand and leaned in closer to Otto and Peaches.

"I, uh...think she's..." She mimed someone chugging a glass of alcohol, complete with silent glug sounds.

Otto managed to catch on rather quickly, giving a long, drawn-out "ohhhh" of realization that curved upwards into a question at the end. Peaches, on the other hand, didn't quite understand, and only gave a meek shrug.

"She's...sick?"

"She..." Olive's expression twisted into a rather ugly-looking smile. "...is drunk."

"That means she's had too much alcohol." Otto explained to Peaches. "It's what adults drink all the time. It's really bad stuff, especially for us kids."

"She hasn't had alcohol, Otto!"

"And thennn we had Slurpeeeees together!" The muffled sound of Mandy's laughter came forth, followed by another hiccup. She rolled around on the hotel bed she was laying on, kicking her feet to and fro -- not that anyone could see it. "That was funnnnnn."

Olive took a deep breath and placed a hand on Peaches' shoulder. "Let me explain. Once in a blue moon -- and I'm not talking about when the moon is actually blue -- Mandy treats herself to root beer. The thing is, she always treats herself to too much root beer." She held up her badge phone. "And when she does..."

Peaches listened to the sound of Mandy's slurred laughter, which only increased after she belched. She was starting to understand exactly what alcohol was, and if Otto's words were any indication, she had to wonder how Mandy had gotten her hands on a drink that was for adults. Perhaps her drinking root beer worked the same was as Oprah drinking juice, which, in and of itself, was likened to an alcoholic drink by passing agents she had eavesdropped on.

"That sounds horrible. Can't she die from that?"

"No. She'll wake up the next day feeling horrible, but she's not gonna die from it." Olive waved her hand. "That's for adults."

On a whim, Peaches leaned closer to the badge phone and said, "Mandy? It's Peaches. Where are you right now?"

"In Unicornia!"

Olive and Otto both raised their eyebrows.

"Yeah, okay, I see how this works now." she said, her voice nearly deadpan. "It's almost like the way she acts when she's sleep-deprived."

"Ah, yes! It's somewhat similar." Olive nodded, happy to find some analogical ground her friend could stand on so she could understand exactly what was going on with Mandy. "Unfortunately, we're not going to get any answers out of her as to where she is or what she's doing. At least not any that are coherent."

Peaches rolled her eyes in disappointment and annoyance.

"Mandy, we're gonna go, okay? Just call me if you need anything."

"Will doooooo!" Mandy laughed. "Y' can tell Missus Butterflutter that Imma gonna be stayin' here for a whooooole month!" More laughter, only this time, it ended in a high-pitched squeal that sounded like the dying noise of a pig. "Iss' so funnnn and, and, iss' got rides n' stuff! And, and, and, Imma gonna make a whoooooole buncha new friendzzzzzz!"

Peaches' eyes widened. So did Otto's. "A month?!"

Olive put forth a nervous laugh that was nothing short of awkward. "Mandy, Mandy, c-can't you stay there for...a week?" she said. "You can always come back! I'll take you there personally."

"But Mooooooom, iss' so much funnnnn!" Mandy whined. "Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, I'm gonna go on the bestestest ride ever! The Aeson Cazzino!"

The phone slipped out of Olive's grip and clattered to the floor.

"She's going to a casino?!" Otto yelled, enough to catch the attention of a few passing agents. "Exactly where did she go to that has a casino?!"

Olive was at an utter loss for words. She looked like a mannequin, with her jaw agape and her hand positioned in such a way that it looked like she could model clothes at an Old Navy Blue store. Her brain had completely shut down at the mention of a casino, and Otto's reaction didn't help matters.

"H-hold on." Peaches said. "It's possible that Mandy is going to an amusement park instead. She did mention the 'bestest'...uh...'est' ride ever."

For a brief moment, Olive made eye contact with the catgirl. To any outside observer, it looked like she was considering her words and using them as a means of calming herself down and reassuring herself that Mandy was not, in fact, going to a casino -- and they would be right. The moral implications of Mandy going to a casino and then either getting her rump catapulted across the parking lot or being let inside but then getting her rump catapulted across the parking lot outweighed her panic and shock the more she thought about them, and it was then that she regained clarity.

"Mandy, that's great!" she said cheerfully, going along with her adopted daughter's skewed mentality as though it was a game she intended to win. "Just don't gamble all your money, okay?"

The hybrid laughed and hiccuped. "Nooooo, don't worry, I'm jus' gonna play some Gooooo Fiiiiish!" Her words were somehow even more slurred, which made everyone do double-takes. "Iss gonna be so much funnnn n' I dunno how I'm gonnaaaaaaaaa..."

A long pause as she trailed off. Olive raised three of her fingers, pulling them down by the second.

When she got to zero, Mandy began the process of destroying an entire forest full of trees and scaring the wildlife away with the loud sawing of wood. Lying on the bed with half of her body hanging off of it, she could have been mistaken for a dead body had she not been making noise.

"She passed out!" Peaches remarked in surprise.

"There we go. Always the staple of Mandy going wild on root beer." Olive closed the badge phone and clipped it back onto her suit, turning to face Otto and Peaches with a knowing smile. "Her passing out within mere minutes of getting drunk."

"That was probably one of the most useless calls to anyone I've ever witnessed." Otto deadpanned.

"But at least we know where she's going!" Peaches tapped her chin. "Aeson Casino."

"Aeson...wow, that's...in the United States." Otto glanced at the catgirl. "Norwall, Montana."

"Is that far?"

"For us?" Otto scoffed. "Nah. No place is too far for us. Except maybe Neptune. That's pretty far. Can't get there with tube travel." His gaze moved to Olive. "Partner, do you really support Mandy going to a casino?"

Olive stared at him as though offended by his question. "What? No! I was playing along! They're not going to let an 11-year-old girl into a casino. Adults are as dumb as bricks, but they have standards."

Far be it from Peaches to know what, exactly, a casino was, but that didn't mean she couldn't pick up on its definition from hearing Olive and Otto talk about it. All in all, she knew it was a place Mandy was not allowed in, if not due to her boisterous personality then due to her age.

After the two Directors said goodbye to Peaches, Olive and Otto began walking to the Tube Lobby.

"I guess all we can do now is hope Oprah doesn't find out about Mandy and Fluttershy."

"And make sure Mandy comes back to us from her vacation in one piece. That too." Olive heaved a sigh. "We should stay out of this issue as much as we can. Even though she's not our boss anymore, the last thing I want is to get in trouble with Oprah for sticking our noses into something that should be Fluttershy's business. Especially if she ends up going to the Big O..."

Otto glanced at the ground. His retreat into his thoughts, laying out a scenario where he and Olive got fired, lasted for only a second before his stomach growled. "Come on, let's head back. I'm hungry."

Olive gave a soft chuckle. "Of course you are."

---

The next day didn't bode any better for Fluttershy.

Particularly since a new stack had been placed on Mandy's desk the second she had finished getting ready for work.

It was a good thing she had overheard the conversation between Olive, Otto and Peaches, and it was a good thing Ocean had allowed her to work in Mandy's stead for six more days. At first, she honestly wasn't sure how she was going to manage it -- between her animal friends at her cottage and the immense stress of keeping her actions a secret, it was a lot to juggle on her plate, and she wondered how she would ever handle both things at the same time. But her motivation to allow her friend the vacation she so very much deserved trumped any indecisiveness she had.

This was going to happen. It was happening right now, and it would continue to happen. She wasn't afraid of the consequences. After all, she had already defied them once.

And now, she was about to do it again.

"Agent Fluttershy? You're here again? Where's Mandy?"

"She is sick, ma'am. Very sick."

Oprah squinted, her expression full of anger, suspicion, and disappointment. "Sick? With what?"

"It's a disease that Odd Squad doctors are still trying to figure out." Fluttershy said, putting on on the best worried face expression she could muster. "It's nothing serious, but Dr. O did say that Mandy must be quarantined in the Bedroom for a week."

"A week?!" Oprah exclaimed, before sighing and taking a sip of the juice box in her hand. "Well, I can always have other agents pick up the slack, I suppose, but...all this paperwork still needs to be done."

An idea came to Fluttershy right then and there. "Um...may I do it, ma'am? I am Mandy's friend, after all."

As though someone had just told her something incredibly obvious, Oprah perked up and turned around, swiveling her head to and fro. "Where's Agent Pinkie Pie? She's Mandy's partner. I can get her to solve this."

Fluttershy's face fell as she realized that Oprah wasn't really listening to her, even though she was speaking in her normal soft-and-firm-at-the-very-same-time voice. Still, she forced herself to remain level with her boss, lest she get in trouble for developing an attitude and weaponizing it.

"Pinkie is in Equestria right now, but I can give her a call and tell her to come back, if you want."

"Please." Oprah turned back around. "Someone in Creature Care can't handle paperwork -- at least, not the same kind of paperwork as what Investigation agents handle. Not only is it not in their job description, but you nor Ocean have the expertise to do paperwork like that."

A flare of anger sparked in Fluttershy's heart. She couldn't stop her eye from twitching as she grit her teeth together in a show of being out-of-character.

Don't have the expertise?! Who does she think filled out all that paperwork yesterday?

The flare died down slightly as her body sagged with the answer to her question, as her hoof reached for her badge phone.

Oh. Right. She thinks Mandy did it. Well, I can't argue with her, of course. She's my boss. "I'll give Pinkie a call right now, ma'am."

"Thank you."

Even after Oprah left and went up the stairs, and even after she had made the call to Pinkie, that flare never really fizzled out. Fluttershy had known her boss to be steely and harsh on the outside, but carry a facet of kindness, resilience, and warmth with her too. Now it just seemed like that facet had dulled, and the Pegasus wasn't sure who could polish it again with a little reminder.

Certainly not her, of course. Perhaps she was too meek, too much of a wallflower to be paid attention to very much.

I took this job from Mandy because I wanted to help her out. She's a friend. And friends help each other out! She huffed. But to disobey Oprah...

A firm look settled on her face. She turned around, picked up a pencil, and went back to filling out another O-135 form.

No. Mandy deserves to have time off! And I'll do whatever it takes to make sure she does!

---

It was only a few minutes later that Agent Pinkie Pie arrived to Headquarters, and it was within that few minutes that Fluttershy's confidence had begun to waver the more she thought about the weight of what she was doing.

"Hey, Fluttershy!" She waved. "What's going on?"

"Pinkie." The Pegasus's voice sounded strained and disheartened. "Pull up a chair and sit next to me. I want to discuss something with you."

Pinkie picked up on her friend's inflection, her brows creasing in worry as she grabbed a chair from a nearby desk and sat across from her.

"So what's the beef? Why are you sitting at Mandy's desk? Ooh, ooh, did she get a case of acute lobster-itis again?"

"No, it's not that." Fluttershy replied. "Mandy is on vacation right now, at my insistence, and I offered to do paperwork for her while she's gone -- paperwork that Oprah keeps giving her because the receptionist down in the File Room is out sick. But Oprah doesn't know that Mandy's on vacation, and so I've been lying to her." She scoffed in disgust. "You want to know what she said?"

"What'd she say?"

"She asked me to call you to do Mandy’s paperwork for her because you’re in the Investigation department, and I’m just in Creature Care! She said that I don’t have the expertise to do paperwork!"

Pinkie leaned back and gasped. "That's so not true! You were a whiz with paperwork when we were at the Academy!"

"I know. But I can't go and confront Oprah." Fluttershy broke eye contact, her ears folding downwards as she attempted to steel herself for her next words. "Admittedly...I'm not really ready to face her yet."

A tilt of the head was her response.

"She's strong, Pinkie. It's no wonder everyone follows her orders!" Fluttershy's voice became quieter but still desperate, as though she was trying to recruit Pinkie to take down a ferocious enemy with all of her might. "I need to...build up more confidence before I can properly tell her off...and I really don't want to get fired from Odd Squad, either."

Pinkie nodded and considered her words for a minute, closing her eyes to allow herself to think.

"Well, if Ms. O wants me to do Mandy's paperwork...then I guess I'll do it." she said. "I'm her partner. It would be wrong of me not to!"

"You're not doing this alone!"

"Huh?"

Pinkie's eyes flew open. They met Fluttershy's bowed head, her eyes squeezed shut. She couldn't help but notice the cracks in the Pegasus's voice as she spoke.

"I'm going to help you!" came the definitive cry. Fluttershy's legs began to shake. As confident as she claimed to be with this whole situation, she was completely and utterly afraid of her boss and the wrath she would incur on the Pegasus if she found out the truth. The mask she had been putting on had crumbled away within seconds, and she hated it. She had barely gotten through the second go-around with her boss, and no one could say whether she would survive a third one with all of the excuses she had written down.

Although granted, she hadn't been expecting to run into her boss twice. But a desk job was a desk job.

"But Fluttershy, you heard what Ms. O said! You can't do Mandy's paperwork!" Pinkie said worryingly.

Slowly, she lifted her head and stared at the pink party pony. Her lungs riled themselves up and prepared to expel words that she hoped were filled with confidence, even in spite of her fear.

"Mandy is my friend. And friends help each other. Now let's get started!"

For a moment, Pinkie was left speechless. She watched as Fluttershy turned in her chair and resumed her work, jaw dropped and eyes bugging out of her skull. A breathy "whoa" left her lungs, but that was as far as speech went for the next few minutes.

At least, up until she formed a few coherent words.

"I guess you really are 'Flutterbold' now if you're willing to stand up to Ms. O, of all people!" she chirped. "Let's work these papers!"

Fluttershy smiled, a few smidges of confidence returning to her now that she had a trusted friend who was in the loop and was willing to back her up.

After all, if Otto and Olive didn't want to stick their noses where they didn't belong, Pinkie Pie could easily take up that mantle.

---

The rest of the days passed for Mandy about as quickly as a car on the freeway. She couldn't count how many times she had gotten drunk off of root beer, toured national parks located within the state, and laughed at countless groups of people who played themselves at games like Skip-Bo, The Game of Life, and funnily enough, Trivial Pursuit.

Perhaps the only disappointing part was being thrown across the parking lot and right onto the windshield of a truck with an angry Rottweiler in the backseat. That had allowed her to learn the lesson of "don't mess with muscly people who are twice your size" pretty good.

"Did you really win?"

"No! Beverly did. Sweet, kind Beverly. You know she makes the bestest apple pie, Momma? It's so heavenly!"

"I'm sure." Olive laughed over the phone. "Well, it's a good thing you didn't win the car. We only have licenses to operate little kid cars, and I'd think you'd prefer to fly rather than drive, anyway."

"The only problem is that the tube entrance is so far away!" Mandy whined, heaving a sigh that caused her to briefly lose altitude and take the bags she was levitating with her. "It's been a half-hour since I left the hotel and my bags are getting so heavy. Feels like I've been flyin' forever!"

"If you need to rest, then rest." Olive said, her words more of a command than a suggestion. "And when you get back, please, make sure to take a shower first thing. I've heard horrible things about hotel showers. I still have nightmares about one hotel shower I went in..." She gave a shudder that Mandy obviously couldn't see.

The hybrid laughed and snorted. "Aww, don't worry, Momma! I was planning on doing that anyway! I really haven't showered in a couple days and I must smell preeeeetty awful." She moved a large bag to the front of her, making sure to keep her eyes peeled to the ground for any sign of her destination. "Oh, by the way, I brought you and Otto some gifts, so I'll be sure to stop by with 'em once I shower and save you from my stink."

"Sounds good. See you soon."

"Bye!"

As Mandy closed her badge phone and clipped it onto her chest, she could feel her wings begin to get tired, and so, she swooped downwards to land and catch a few quick Z's before she continued her search.

---

Following a call from Olive telling her that Mandy was on her way back to Headquarters, Fluttershy began to work on the second half of another stack of paperwork. By this point, she had lost count of how many stacks there had been, but she had managed to dodge the bullet that was Oprah two more times. She liked to attribute those to sheer luck more than wit or smarts.

Her ear swiveled to the right at the distant sound of a slurp. Its source was unmistakable. She quickly dropped the pencil and pretended to stare at the labyrinthine screensaver of Mandy's computer.

"Agent Fluttershy, why are you here again? Where's Agent Pinkie Pie?"

The mare turned to face her boss. "She's, um...she's in the Bathroom." she responded -- the one excuse she had that could actually be proven true, and really was true this time around.

"I see. And why aren't you in the Creature Room?"

Now that question was a little harder to devise a good excuse for, especially since Fluttershy had to up her game for each approach. "Um, uh, I-I'm trying to catch a creature. It..." She looked around. "...made its way into Mandy's desk and I can't find it."

The look in Oprah's eyes worried her. It was almost...knowing. Terrifyingly so.

"Why don't I help you look?"

"L-look?" Fluttershy blinked. "I, um..."

She bit her lip. Mandy would probably be coming back any minute now, and she was going to be a dead mare if Oprah helped her look for a creature that didn't even exist in the first place then saw Mandy.

Still, perhaps she could get this done quickly. Mandy probably wasn't at her usual zippy speed -- vacations did that to people. Fluttershy rode on that hope, because it was the only thing going flawlessly well for her at the moment.

"Sure! I would, um, appreciate the help." She opened a drawer to her right. "It should be around here somewhere..."

"I'm baaaaa-aaaaaack!"

She stiffened.

Oprah turned to look with a confused expression on her face.

"Hiya!"

A thump sound came forth that Fluttershy was too scared to try and identify. It was amazing she could even hear it over the sound of her own racing heartbeat.

Up and down went Oprah's gaze, taking in Mandy's T-shirt, ripped-at-the-knees jeans, and twintails secured by two yellow bows, as well as the bags she had sitting on the floor.

"Mandy," she said, her words slow but icy, "why do you look like you just came back from vacation?"

Suddenly it dawned on the hybrid exactly what was going on. And unlike Fluttershy, making up excuses was not her strong suit. "U-uh...um..." was all she could stammer out, as both she and Fluttershy shared the same thought.

The jig is up.

Fluttershy could have sworn she saw a vein pop out of Oprah's neck as her head whipped around to shoot a glare. She whimpered as she shrunk into a half-hunched position in the chair.

"AGENT FLUTTERSHY!! IN MY OFFICE, NOW!!"

Now the mare was shaking. She didn't even bother to move, let alone peek at her boss going up into her office. A scared yelp eked its way out of her as she buried her face deeper in her hooves.

"F-Fluttershy!" Mandy called, making her way over. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for this to happen, I-"

"No! It's my fault!" Fluttershy yelled, tears streaming down her face. "I was the one who made you go on vacation! I...I was only..."

"Trying to help out a friend?"

Sobs wracked the Pegasus's body as Mandy scooped her up into a tight hug. The pair stayed that way for minute after minute, with Mandy allowing Fluttershy to cry as much as she needed to.

"Fluttershy..." the hybrid murmured. "The vacation I went on was the best vacation of my life, narrow superlative aside. I'm happy that you stepped up when I was in trouble, and I'm happy that you did what you did."

"AGENT FLUTTERSHY!!!" A bellow from the second floor, harsher this time around, very nearly killing the moment cold.

"We're coming, Ms. O!" A response that was just as harsh, hoping to resume the moment and allow Fluttershy to calm down at her own pace.

"I-I told myself t-that I could f-face Ms. O, b-b-but she's so s-scary! I-I underestimated her!" Fluttershy squeaked, before she delved into a series of terrified whimpers as she buried her face deeper into Mandy's shirt.

Before she knew it, she felt air move along her back, which slightly eased her crying as she looked up at her friend. "M-Mandy?"

"I'm coming with you. We're going to see Ms. O together."

Fluttershy's eyes widened. "N-no! W-what if you get in trouble too?!"

"I don't care."

In that moment, Fluttershy looked around, and saw her world rising. It took her a moment to realize that she was ascending the stairs to the second floor. More specifically, to Ms. O's office.

She knew that Mandy was a near-unstoppable force in battle. Outside of combat, however, the same often held true for helping her friends out. When she got going, she really got going, and something told the Pegasus that stopping her hybrid friend would be a fruitless endeavor.

But...Mandy is strong and brave, much more so than I am. And if she's with me, then we can be strong and brave together. After all, that's what partners are for, even if we aren't really partners.

...Yes. We'll sort this out. Everything will be just fine. I don't have to face Ms. O alone. I have a friend with me!

The thoughts put another round of confidence back into Fluttershy's bloodstream. She took a few deep breaths, imagining herself back at her cottage with all of her animal friends crowded around her as a sort of happy place.

"Let's go."

The high pitch was unmistakable. Those were the only two words she needed to begin moving forward.

And so, the pair walked inside, towards the final obstacle of it all, prepared for whatever might come their way.

Or so they thought.

---

"Mandy. I'd like to have a word with you as well. Close the doors."

Wordlessly, the hybrid did as she was told, lighting up her horn and allowing the doors to swing closed.

"Now, have a seat. Both of you."

If Oprah's frosty tone of voice was a gambit to try and shake either Mandy's or Fluttershy's shared confidence, it wasn't working. Both of them kept the same neutral expressions on their faces as they each took a seat in a gold-painted chair.

Oprah took a deep breath. "Agent Fluttershy."

The Pegasus straightened.

"I have not received any creature reports from you over the past week. Usually, one each comes from you and Ocean, twice a day." Oprah's eyes narrowed slightly. "Have you been neglecting your Creature Care duties?"

"N-n-no, ma'am." Fluttershy responded, being unable to stop the stammer that fell from her lips.

Oprah gave a soft hum. "I find it hard to believe your word. Considering you've been lying to me consistently this past week."

Typical response. Don't let your guard down, Fluttershy.

"Nonetheless, I'd like for you to tell me what has been going on. I want to know all the details." Oprah then added pointedly, "All of them."

Over the next minute, Fluttershy recounted the story, keeping her tone as steady as possible.

"You gave Mandy vacation time without my permission?!"

The question was practically a yell, and it, along with Oprah suddenly shooting up from her chair, startled Fluttershy. "Y-yes."

"So you were the one who did all that paperwork..." Oprah slowly sat down. "I knew the handwriting was off, but I couldn't match it to anyone."

Mandy resisted the urge to correct her boss by saying it was hoofwriting, not handwriting -- and on top of that, she refrained from mentioning how Oprah was smart enough to recognize every agent's handwriting and hoofwriting.

"Why did you lie to me?"

Fluttershy tensed. For a moment, her gaze locked onto Mandy's, and the hybrid gave her an assuring nod along with a small smile.

That was all she needed.

She closed her eyes and screamed.

"D-delegating paperwork duties to Mandy isn't fair!!"

A small echo shook the room. Oprah's eyes widened. Fluttershy continued, the words tumbling out of her without thinking.

"It's not fair...she's just one person! How can you possibly expect her to do all that paperwork when she has cases to solve, gadgets to repair, and even her own paperwork to do? Why would you mistreat her like that?!" Tears began pricking at her eyes. She gave a small sniffle. "Mandy's my friend, and I refuse..."

Slowly, she rose to all four hooves. Her wings opened and flared in an attempt to show dominance. The fur on her chest rippled ever so slightly.

"I refuse to let you mistreat her further with your actions!"

Mostly, it was silence pierced the room. The other one-percent came from Fluttershy's breathing, heavy and slow as she remained in her position and glared at her boss.

Oprah's expression grew dark. It was clear to see, even with her bowed head. Blinding-white teeth became bared as a low growl rolled in the chambers of her throat. Nails, though not very long, scraped along the wooden surface of the desk.

"How dare you..."

Fluttershy's eyes widened.

Mandy tentatively reached out a hand. "O-Oprah?"

"How dare you snap at me like that?!" came the grinding screech, as Oprah shot up fast enough to allow her chair to collide with the back wall and topple over onto its side. "Do you think I had a choice?! Mandy is the second-in-command of this precinct, and working in the Investigation department, it's in her job description to do this type of work!"

Her boss's reaction took her by surprise, but Fluttershy wasn't so keen on backing down anytime soon. "'Job description' this, 'job description' that. I'm tired of hearing about your silly little 'job descriptions'! Why don't you have some compassion for your employees for once and stop being so naive?"

"It is my job as an Odd Squad Director to keep this place running!"

"It should also be your job to care for your agents and treat them right!"

By this point, both girls were nose-to-nose, each giving angry growls. Mandy squirmed in her own seat slightly, not feeling so comfortable with being a third wheel and feeling even more uncomfortable with the bad vibes in the air. "Oh dear odd." was all she could squeak out, but after that, she opted for silence.

Oprah's brown eyes flickered with rage. "You lied to me about Mandy's whereabouts so she can get a vacation! A vacation that I never granted her! Do you know how much trouble I could have gotten into with the Big O for vacation time without notice?!"

Fluttershy rested her front hooves on the desk, her cyan eyes shimmering with the same emotion. "Would you get your head out of your job for one second and have some decency? Mandy deserved a vacation if she wanted it, for all you put her through."

"I have a responsibility to protect two things -- my job, and my juice boxes!"

Fluttershy barked a cruel laugh, filled with nothing short of sheer mockery. "Not three things? Not your agents too? How selfish and pathetic!"

Mandy's eyes widened as Oprah began visibly quaking. "You're pushing my buttons, agent."

"I may have been afraid of you before, but that's changed!" Fluttershy reared up. "I don't usually get into physical fights, but...if that's how it's gonna be, then bring it!"

Now Mandy's eyes looked almost like they were about to fall out of their skull. Never in her life did she expect to hear Fluttershy actually willing to physically fight someone, let alone when that someone was the strongest agent in the entire precinct. She honestly wasn't sure the mare would win, even with the advantage of flight -- but at the same time, she didn't think the mare would go through with actually fighting her boss, either.

Oprah thought so too, going by the twitch of her mouth that threatened to curve into a smug smile without any power holding it down.

"No brutality needed." she said, holding her hand up. "Unless...you refuse to turn in your badge?"

Both Mandy's and Fluttershy's hearts plummeted.

For Mandy, she was saved only by a simple plea, from subordinate to leader: "O-Oprah, no! You can't!"

For Fluttershy, it marked the official death of her confident mask as she folded in her wings and sat down. Her eyes shrunk to pinpricks, her face holding nothing but an expression of utter shock. The world and the voices within it became nothing but blurs to her.

"Well?"

Mandy grit her teeth and stared at Fluttershy, realizing that arguing with Oprah wouldn't do anything. Much like adults in the workplace, the Director was set in her decision whenever she fired someone, and no one could sway her into keeping the employee she was firing onto the force, even if the firing was completely unjustified.

"You're fired, Agent Fluttershy. Your badge."

The hand was held out, menacingly. Watching. Mocking her. Waiting for its offering.

Fluttershy felt a clash of emotions stir within her -- sadness, frustration, anger, regret. All of them coalesced into one growl as she wordlessly unclipped her badge, slammed it down on the desk with a thunk, and soared out the door, not bothering to recognize Mandy at all.

Mandy blinked. Like Fluttershy, she too was in a state of shock, but anger shared a throne with it. She could feel it boiling inside of her.

"No...Fluttershy...w-wh-how-I-d-"

Oprah was as cool as a cucumber. She might as well have been told that the grass on her lawn was green. "Speak coherently."

"What have you done?!" Mandy screeched, her eyes brimming with tears.

"I fired Fluttershy for misconduct against me, for disobeying me, and for going behind my back. There was nothing immoral about it." Oprah said. "I abide by the rules. But it's clear that she does not."

"B-but who's gonna- I-" Mandy violently shook her head, trying to regain her composure. She wanted to cry, oh so very much. She wanted to share a cry with Fluttershy, whom she had imagined was feeling quite upset and worried in the aftermath of what had happened. But she wouldn't just let her boss push such a shy and kind pony around like that, especially when that shy and kind pony was her friend. "Fluttershy has a way with animals that Ocean doesn't have. How will he manage?"

"Ocean will be fine. He's had lots of experience working alone."

The ball of anger grew bigger. Mandy sat down and buried her face in her hands, grasping her fingers around her head in an attempt to stop herself from slapping Oprah. One thing was made clear -- her attempts to make the Director see reason were failing spectacularly. But she was a human, and all humans had their weaknesses.

Lucky for her that Mandy just so happened to know Oprah's weakness. Well, one of them, anyway.

"Oprah...if I had asked..." She pulled her hands away from her face, staring at her boss with blue eyes so icy that they could freeze anyone that stared into them long enough. "Would you have given me a vacation?"

"You never take vacations."

"That's besides the point. Answer the question. And answer honestly."

"Honestly?" Oprah cocked an eyebrow. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because we need you. Pinkie needs you." Oprah's eyes shimmered. "I need you."

Yes. There it was. Much like Peaches hunting mice in the park, Mandy was ready to pounce on her prey. It was the perfect gateway, the leg up she needed.

"You need me?" Mandy cracked a small smile. "If you ask me, you’re becoming a little too over-reliant on me. I leave for an entire week and everything turns to mush."

Oprah's eye began to twitch. She barely recognized Mandy placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Oprah. You’ve done great things. You’ve gone on dangerous secret missions, caught bad guys in their traps...and let’s not forget how you became a Director to begin with." The smile on Mandy's face grew bigger. "And you can do more great things by yourself. This precinct will not fall apart without my presence."

More twitching. No verbal response.

Mandy's expression darkened as she said bitterly, "I just wish you realized that before you went off on my best friend."

"B-but I have a job to do here!" Oprah exclaimed. "It's my job to make sure this precinct runs smoothly. I have served as a Director here for decades, and I believe I'm running it right."

The more time passed, the more Mandy made sure to gain the upper hand against Oprah when it came to who was more calm and collected. It helped that she knew she was in the wrong. "If 'running it right' means not bothering to care for your agents, then yes, you are correct. You are running this precinct right."

Like a light switch, Oprah's mood changed from desperation to frustration. Another growl emanated from her as she glared at her agent, who only looked on with a smile of amusement. Just seeing this smile caused her to ball her hand up into a fist and bring it down onto her desk with a mighty slam, enough to create a small crack running down a quarter of the way through. Her words cut through the air like sharp blades.

"I am doing what's right for this precinct! For Odd Squad!"

Mandy wasn't sure what would have gotten her to cackle -- her opponent's facade breaking, or the fact that said opponent was riding on ego and thought she was the Big O of the entire organization. But as much as she wanted to laugh, she settled for an eyebrow raise and an incredulous-sounding "Really?"

Oprah, eyes flaring with volcanic fire that outmatched even the contents of the Volcano Room, watched as Mandy magically unclipped her own badge and held it up to her.

"If this is your definition of 'right', then I want no part of it."

The hybrid's voice audibly quivered, but Oprah was too enraged to notice. Another growl rattled in her throat. "Just...get me a juice box!"

Mandy placed the badge next to Fluttershy's, then pivoted and began walking away. It was only then, with her back turned to the Director, that her eyes welled up with thick tears.

"Get it yourself."

Biting her lip, she barely registered Oprah's next words.

"Agent Mandy, get back here this instant! I WANT A JUICE BOX AND I WANT IT NOW!!"

Silence.

"I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO BE FIRED!!"

"Then it's a good thing I wasn't fired, was I?" Mandy said, the bitterness returning. "Maybe next time you'll reconsider how you treat your agents, and how you're making a big deal over such a simple thing as me going on vacation."

She opened the door.

"But until then..."

A footstep, and then another.

"I quit."

Cavernous lungs filled up to their capacity, and the last thing Mandy heard before the glass door swung closed was a high-pitched scream of raw, unbridled rage that surpassed anything any Director across history had for their own agents.

With the tears falling down her face now, Mandy took a deep breath and began descending the stairs, the scream getting further and further away the more she walked.

"Mandy!"

Her eyes snapped open to find Peaches standing at the bottom of the stairwell.

"What's going on? I heard Oprah scream!"

"I told her off. It's a long story." Mandy responded, quickly wiping her tears away. "Right now, my main priority is getting myself clean."

Peaches' nose wrinkled. "Yeah, you don't really smell too good, if I'm being honest with you."

A sniff of the air told Mandy that her cousin was right. She resisted the urge to gag. "I would suggest you don't go into her office for the time being. She's preeeetty upset."

The sound of a loud boom made both girls jump, Mandy falling into Peaches' arms as her head swiveled around and tilted upwards. She barely registered the catgirl's hair and tail bushing up.

"Holy cattails..."

"Y-Yeah. Spread the word, wouldja? I don't want anyone facing her wrath."

"Will do."

"Thank you." Mandy straightened up as she watched Peaches' hair and tail returned to normal. "Oh, and, um, would you mind borrowing a badge phone and giving Momma and Otto a quick call? I don't need them calling my badge phone when it's up in Oprah's office."

It was then that Peaches noticed something was off. Her gaze drifted to Mandy's chest, and her eyes widened. "Wait, you don't have yours on you!"

"Yeeeeeeah, about that. I quit."

"You quit?!" Peaches yowled, ignoring the stares of agents as they ceased their activities to turn their attention to her and Mandy.

"Mhm. Oprah believes that she's running this precinct correctly by bending it to her liking with minimal to no care for how her agents feel. I told her that I wanted no part of that. So I quit."

Peaches stared at Mandy for so long that one would have thought she had done the living equivalent of a blue-screen. Stammers bubbled forth after that for a few moments before she was able to form something of coherency.

"B-but-"

"Hold that thought." Mandy held her hand up and brushed past her cousin. "I really need to shower, 'kay? Once I'm fresh and clean, we'll go over to Momma and Otto's precinct and talk things out."

"I..." Peaches blinked, and then shook her head to clear her mind. "W-well, all right...I'll be here."

Mandy's horn lit up. She grabbed the bags that were still in the middle of the bullpen from before and soared down the hallway with them. Peaches watched her go, a look of confusion still etched onto her face.

"Mandy...quit...but she would never..."

Another loud thump, followed by a scream, startled her, and she scrambled backwards. She could have sworn she saw the glass doors rattle with the force of that scream, but chalked it up to her seeing things, because no human could have that powerful of a scream. Except maybe Mandy. But the jury was still out on that.

"Maybe it's for the best. I'm sure she knows what she's doing." Peaches mused, her gaze flicking towards the hallway Mandy had gone down. "Now to find a badge phone I can borrow..."

Ignoring the sound of another boom, she began her pursuit for the electronic device, her pace quick as she came to the realization that finding one was something that was better off being done sooner rather than later.

---

Olive bit her lip as force was applied to the pencil she had in a vicegrip. She didn't get halfway down the report she was writing before the pencil broke in two, causing her to give a groan of defeat.

"That's the fifth pencil you've broken, partner." Otto noted from his position beside her, as he sat in his own chair.

Olive heaved a sigh. "I'll admit, I'm a little worried."

"About Peaches?"

"She sounded concerned when we talked. I just hope nothing bad has happened."

The sound of whirring caught their attention, and their heads turned to the right almost in unison. Emerging from their personal tube was Mandy, who flung open the doors with such velocity that it was amazing they didn't fly clear off of the hinges.

"Mandy! You're..."

Olive's smile fell right to a frown as she took note of the hybrid's appearance. Her eyes were partially glazed over with shock and anger, and her body sagged with the weight of some unidentifiable force. But perhaps most strikingly, both her hair and her tail were straightened, in a rare show of emotion that both Olive and Otto had seen before.

Utter depression and despair.

"Aha, well, first of all, before Olive works her way into another tizzy..." Otto glanced over, seeing his partner's eyes grow wide as she looked to be hard-rebooting. "How was your vacation?"

At this question, Mandy straightened with renewed purpose. "It was the greatest time of my life! Oh, I went to so many places, met so many people...it was like I was living on the edge with just adrenaline as my guide! Like what Rainbow Dash does on a daily basis!" she said, her eyes shimmering. "It was awesome!"

"Really?"

"Yeah!" Mandy blinked in realization. "Aww darn, I forgot to bring you guys your gifts..." She shook her head. "Ah, no matter. Next time!"

Otto gestured to the couch on the right. "Why don't you have a seat on the couch?"

"Glad to!"

As Mandy took a seat, Otto's brow furrowed. He couldn't be sure -- not many partner pairs had telepathic powers between each other -- but he was thinking the same thing as Olive.

Something's off about her. She's never happy when her hair and tail are straightened like that.

He watched as Olive shook her head and snapped back to reality, then took initiative, standing up and asking Mandy the ultimate question.

"Is everything okay?"

"'Okay' isn't the adjective I would use."

Her voice lost all of its enthusiasm. It had about the same enthusiasm of your average 9-5 adult in the workforce. Her mirthless laugh was even worse.

Olive and Otto definitely shared the same thought.

Bingo. We got her.

"See, when I came back from my vacation, I found Fluttershy at my desk with a huge stack of papers. Oprah asked me why I looked the way I did and then she called up Fluttershy to her office." Mandy explained. "I know Fluttershy told me that she didn't fear Oprah or what she would do to her if she found out. But...that was a lie."

Otto tilted his head. "A lie?"

"She began blaming herself for what happened, became a nervous wreck all over again. I comforted her and we went to see Oprah together."

The hybrid bit her lip and gripped the legs of her pants. Olive and Otto moved towards the couch she was sitting on, taking seats on both sides of her.

"What happened with Oprah?" Olive asked, her tone holding an edge of urgency and worry.

"She and Fluttershy...they got into a fight. She was told everything about what happened and...m-my friend..." Mandy's voice began to quiver. "She told Oprah that putting all that paperwork on me wasn't fair...that I was just a single person and couldn't do it all. And then-"

A strangled, choked sob left her throat. On sheer instinct, Olive began rubbing her back. Both she and Otto didn't urge her any further than that.

"SHE FIRED HER!!"

Silence. Olive and Otto looked at each other, eyes wide. Mandy began sobbing harder, burying her face in her hands.

"She fired Fluttershy?" whispered Olive.

"S-she said...it was for three reasons..." Mandy gave a rather undignified sniffle. "For misconduct. For disobeying her. And...for going behind her back."

"That's not fair! She can't fire Fluttershy just for that! I-it's-"

"AND THEN I QUIT TOO!!"

Otto sat slack-jawed, partly out of interruption of his sentence, but also partly out of pure shock. Olive, on the other hand, looked like she had just been shot and then stabbed, her eyes wide in shock as she just sat there, staring at Mandy. It took her a long time to begin formulating words.

"Y-y-you...you...you quit? Odd Squad?"

"I wasn't gonna let Oprah have her way!" Mandy's eyes squeezed shut, which allowed a few more tears to fall through. "She wasn’t gonna let me go on a vacation no matter how much I asked, because she’s too clingy! She defended her firing of Fluttershy because she has such a warped view of what is the 'right' way to run her precinct! She had no remorse for what she did!"

Out of pure frustration, Mandy picked up a glass that had been left on the coffee table and hurled it with all her might. It clattered with the predictable sound of glass cracking, and she slumped back down as her body wracked harder and harder with sobs.

Right then, the tubes sounded with the call of arrival. Peaches stepped out, her eyes bearing witness to her cousin sobbing and two of her friends gazing at her with worried but sympathetic looks in their eyes.

"Cuz..."

"H-how could she...how could she do such a thing?!" A hiccup. "All over me going on vacation!"

Olive sprung up from her spot on the couch, an icy aura emanating from her as her expression darkened.

"Partner?"

"I'm going to Oprah's precinct."

Her tone was cold in a way that had never been seen before. Otto knew that she was the type to sometimes fling herself into battle and throw the first punch, but this was a new breed of anger, even for him. In spite of that, however, he knew that no matter how Olive got angry, it was a good idea to stay far away from her as humanly possible when she did.

Unfortunately, Peaches didn't know. "I-I wouldn't do that right now. Oprah's pretty upset and she's throwing around stuff like crazy and-"

"I don't care. I'm going." Olive said, a tinge of fiery-hot anger laced in her voice before she swiveled her head towards Otto. "Otto, you know what to do."

He nodded. "G-got it. Stay safe, Olive."

As he moved back to his chair, Olive was "squishinated" and shot up into the lone tube, going at breakneck speeds to her old boss's office to give her a piece of her mind.

"It'll be okay. Just let it all out." Peaches was rubbing the back of a still-sobbing Mandy, trying to offer the best condolences she could as she held the hybrid tight to her chest.

"Losing a partner...or a friend, in this case...it's one of the most hurtful things an Odd Squad agent can go through."

"Have you gone through this before?"

"I haven't." Otto glanced at the tube. "But Olive has."

"Really? With who?"

"It's...a bit of a sensitive topic. I'm not sure she would like for us to discuss it so casually, and without her present."

Peaches simply nodded in understanding.

"The pain that Mandy must be feeling right now..." Otto's gaze moved to Peaches. "Fluttershy has been with her since we found the two of them as infants. Or, well, not really infants. Fluttershy was a filly and Mandy was a baby. Two totally different things."

Confused by his sheepish but forced laughter, Peaches blinked.

"Anyway, the two of them spent a lot of time together. Out of the six ponies that came here, Mandy would always go back to Fluttershy."

The six ponies that came here? Now Peaches' mind was whirling with questions about her cousin's backstory. However, she forced herself to put them aside for now.

"Huh. I thought she would gravitate more towards Pinkie Pie."

"Nope. I think it was due to Fluttershy's soft and shy nature. Mandy loved that. When she wasn't with Olive, she wanted to go to Fluttershy."

Mandy pushed herself away from Peaches right then, sniffling and giving a small hiccup. Snot ran down her nose and her eyes looked horribly bloodshot.

"Are you gonna be okay?" Otto asked tentatively.

"I'll...I'm..." A hiccup. "I'm fine. It's just...n-not having Fluttershy here, it's..."

"You did the right thing, cuz. None of this is your fault."

"Peaches is right." Otto smiled. "Olive's on her way to talk some sense into Oprah now, and get Fluttershy back into Odd Squad. And I know she'll succeed."

Mandy gave a snot-filled sniffle. She didn't give a smile, but rather, she gazed at Otto with a small flicker of hope in her eyes, her mind only echoing one thought.

She better.

"Hey, you must be exhausted from your trip back here. Why don't you go and take a nap?" Peaches suggested. "It'll help take your mind off of things for a while."

"I guess."

The answer sounded quite noncommittal, to Peaches' and Otto's surprise. They shared a glance as Mandy trudged her way over to the other couch and flopped on it, with her back facing them. She didn't bother to put up a soundproof shield, nor earplugs, nor anything that would allow her to block out the inevitable sound. She felt utterly miserable, but that, combined with the fact that she hadn't napped for that long at Olive's previous insistence, didn't stop her from falling asleep anyway.

In hushed voices, the two children talked about other subjects and shared a few snacks to lighten the mood a little, only glancing at the exposed tube every once in a while for any sign of Olive's return.

---

Her nostrils flared. Heavy, rumbling breaths shook her entire chest down to the ribcage.

She stood and faced a vast wasteland of utter destruction. Broken glass littered her office and the floor outside of it, startling the few agents who walked by and didn't dare say a word. Some, but not all, of the carpet was ripped up and scattered all over every inch of the room. Behind her, her open computer screen carried nothing but silent snow and a large spider-web crack.

Any sense of rationality or sanity had long since gone away. Thoughts of murdering that disgusting, reprehensible rat with wings flickered in her mind. She knew how she would do it too. She would use her hands, slowly wrapping around her neck, choking her ferociously before she was hurled to the ground, where she would promptly receive the gift of a thousand stompings performed by a single pair of Converses. And then, she would go to the nearest river, drop the waste of mass into the water, and wipe her hands clean of any consequences she would rece-

"WHO'S THERE?!"

Her expression softened, moving from anger to shock as she bore witness to her latest visitor.

"Oprah."

"O-Olive! I-I-I wasn't expecting you here!"

"Neither was I." Olive's gaze, like her voice, was as cold as ice and carried not a single trace of niceties. "We need to talk. Now."

Oprah blinked. "Talk?"

"Yes. Talk."

Oprah's head swiveled behind her, and she examined the room. The calamitous damage was beginning to settle in for her, but fixing it wasn't on her list of priorities at the moment. She bit her lip and stayed quiet for a few moments.

"Um...w-well, all right. Sure. Come, um, have a seat. On the couch."

As Oprah moved to clear debris away from the right-side couch, Olive glanced at the aftermath of her rage. It served as a stark reminder for her that while Directors could be strict on their agents, they had to keep their anger in check as well. As an Odd Squad historian, she had read many stories of Directors in countries, states and cities around the world that had police forces and a justice system outside of Odd Squad, who had gotten tried in court on counts of murder or aggravated assault of their own agents. Many had rotted in jail for years, some to the point of death. Others had gotten released on bail. Others had just gotten away with a slap on the wrist, usually in the form of community service.

She didn't want Oprah to be the next one, even in such a province as Ontario, which had no active police force to speak of.

"I might as well cut right to the chase." she said, taking a seat on the debris-free left-side couch while Oprah took a seat on the right one. "I heard about what happened with Mandy and Fluttershy. How Fluttershy has been doing Mandy's paperwork while she's on vacation. How you and Fluttershy got into an altercation and she got fired, followed by Mandy quitting shortly after."

"Y-yes." Oprah cleared her throat in an effort to clear her head, her anger slightly dying down. "I mean, yes. I fired Fluttershy on three grounds: misconduct, disobedience-"

"I don't need to hear why you fired her. As I said, I know everything."

"Oh." Oprah narrowed her eyes slightly and gave a huff. "If you've come to try and get me to change my mind, then you should know that it's not happening. I stand by what I say and what I've done."

"But you doing that has come with a grave consequence, Oprah." Olive responded, her tone carrying just the slightest edge of desperation that threatened to shatter the ice within her. "Your second-in-command has quit Odd Squad for good. You have absolutely no one that can take your position as Director if you get injured or, Sheila forbid, killed. Never mind the fact that Mandy has lifted the spirits of so many agents here." She blinked. "You and I both know that she would never quit Odd Squad. But she did. Because of what you did to Fluttershy."

At this, Oprah growled. Olive didn't budge so much as an inch.

"The mare is right, by the way. Mandy is one person. You putting massive amounts of paperwork on her just because your receptionist is sick isn’t fair to her, or to the receptionist. And that’s not even getting into how you would have refused to let Mandy have a vacation even if she asked."

"Because I need her. This Squad needs her."

"Mandy has learned by now that Precinct 13579 can run just fine without her. Heck, it ran fine without her for an entire week." Olive gave a soft huff. "Oprah, why do you have such an attachment to Mandy? Why do you need her so much?"

The anger rushed back to Oprah like a flood. Her thoughts shifted from murdering Fluttershy to murdering Olive, same exact plan and all. Her teeth ground together, although not hard enough to cause a tooth to crack. She slammed her fist downwards, not reacting when she felt it hit nothing instead of hitting a glass coffee table that had long since been broken.

"What hole is Mandy filling for you?"

Her lungs met their capacity...

"O'DONAHUE, OKAY?! IT'S O'DONAHUE!!"

...and her voice shook the world.

Or, at the very least, it shook the three-dimensional circular fixture hanging just inches away from the back wall of the bullpen.

A choked sob left her. She covered her eyes, as though not looking at anything would take the pain away.

Olive tilted her head. "Your old partner?"

"Ever since he left, it's been..." Oprah grit her teeth together and ground them for a little bit. "It's been so hard on me. I was starting to move on from his disappearance when...when Mandy showed up."

"But O'Donahue doesn't seem anything like Mandy."

She was right, of course. Oprah knew that. O'Donahue was cool and debonair. He had style, he had flair, and he was there for her as a friend and as a partner. Mandy had style, she had flair, she was there for her as a friend, but she was no partner, and "cool" and "debonair" weren't the first two adjectives she'd use to describe the hybrid. If anything, they could probably be used to respectively describe Rainbow Dash and Rarity. They would get along with O'Donahue well, probably.

That is, if he were still here.

Oprah glanced at Olive. "I view Mandy as...as..."

Her gaze moved away.

"As what?"

"As more than a friend." Now, it was back to Olive. "I view her as my partner. Filling the gap that O'Donahue left behind. She may not be anything like him..." Her mouth slowly curved upwards. "...but she's got the same passion and drive that he has. And just as he served as my second-in-command...Mandy does too."

Olive didn't respond right away. Instead, she took a minute or two to think.

"We're not just partners, we're friends"...Otto said those with such conviction when I was framed by Odd Todd. Adults view the term "partner" to mean a lover, but Oprah didn't love O'Donahue. Not romantically, anyway. And she doesn't love Mandy romantically, either. That's just weird.

Still, viewing Mandy as a replacement...it's not healthy. She really hasn't moved on from O'Donahue after all these years.

...Therapy...

By this point, her thoughts were going off on adventurous tangents. She shook her head to snap back to reality. "Did. Past tense. She doesn't work for you anymore. She quit. Because of your actions."

Oprah's eyes slowly closed and her head bobbed a little as she softly murmured, "I know."

A realization occurred to Olive right then. The coldness slightly faded away from her aura, being replaced with just the tiniest sliver of hope.

"Oprah, let me ask you." she said. "Do you want Mandy back in Precinct 13579? Working for you again just as she did for years?"

"I'd do anything."

A heavy sigh edged its way out of the millennia-old corkscrew-ponytailed girl. "Then you're going to have to reinstate Fluttershy as well."

Oprah's eyes flew open. Her head slowly swiveled towards Olive, as though she had just spoken of sin. "Reinstate Fluttershy?"

"You and I both know that Mandy has been fond of Fluttershy since I found both of them. They have a strong bond. When you fired her, it cut Mandy deeper than you thought it did. And that’s why she quit." Olive's eyes flashed with authority. "Bring them both back onto the force."

All Oprah did was stare, her mouth slightly open to the point where it was amazing a trail of drool didn't begin to form. She had fired Fluttershy for three specific reasons, and now, here was her old employee -- her best employee -- telling her she needed to bring the tick with wings back.

O'Donahue wouldn't have done this.

The thought forced its way through. It planted the seeds of a headache, which Oprah could most definitely feel as she rubbed her forehead. Still, even in spite of her throbbing pain, she couldn't help but begin to quiver. That thought, that lone thought, was right on the money. She wouldn't admit it, but it was right on the money.

O'Donahue was cool and debonair, but like her, he was smart and both knew and played by the rules. If he were in Oprah's place, he would have given Fluttershy no more than a slap on the leg and let her walk away after an apology. That was the result of the temper he lacked, and the result of his compassion which endeared Oprah to him to begin with.

Meanwhile, she had yelled at the mare, spewed venom unbecoming of an immortal manageress, and then proceeded to throw a tantrum by destroying her entire office. She had regressed from the kindhearted boss she was now to the downright egregious boss she was in the past, and she hated it.

This didn't feel like her. This felt like something the Shapeshifter would do, or a Party Crasher creature, or any other oddity who was able to imitate her. Something they would do because they didn't know how far she had come in her second chance at leadership.

"You won't have Mandy working for you if you don't bring Fluttershy back as well. It's a package deal."

Silence. Three minutes of agonizing silence. Even the bullpen seemed quiet.

When she didn't get a verbal response from her old boss, Olive turned. "Think about it for a bit. Mandy is at my Headquarters. When you're ready to talk, come over."

The girl began to walk towards the tube, then suddenly stopped after just a few steps.

"But I must warn you."

Oprah looked up with a face full of hopelessness and guilt.

"Even if you bring Mandy back to the force, it may take a while before you earn her full trust. We both know how Mandy acts when someone hurts her." Her head slightly turned. "You are no exception."

The words were like icicle spears that were thrown at Oprah's chest and made direct contact. She watched with her mouth dry and her vocal cords growing tired as Olive got squishinated and sent back home through the tube. She could have sworn the girl shot her one last cold look, but she couldn't be sure.

When she was all alone, the tears began to fall. Sobs increased in volume as her body shivered. At one point, she subconsciously vomited onto one of the pieces of carpet that hadn't been ripped up, then tore off her clothes, not getting any farther than her necklace and jacket before she stopped.

The windup came in the form of her lungs becoming filled with air again until they threatened to burst with one more second of air intake.

The pitch came in the form of an echoing screech of anguish that weaved its way through every inch of Headquarters and pierced the eardrums of every living thing in it.

From there, her brown eyes faded and turned to gray, and she lost complete awareness.

---

Otto honestly wasn't sure how much time had passed. He had gotten a sizeable amount of work done, which took his mind off of things for a little while, but got bored and diverted his attention to listening to Soundcheck tunes in an effort to improve his mood.

Next to him, Peaches was kneading Mr. Jackalope, Oprah's jackalope plushie, with her paws, a purr rumbling about in her throat as she relished the soft feel of the toy's fur.

A bang and the winding-down of a whir brought the duo's attention to the tube, where Olive stepped out.

"Partner!" Otto said, relief washing over him. "How'd it go with Oprah?"

Olive allowed her cool facade to drop as she took a deep breath. "I've said what I've needed to. I think my words struck a chord with her."

"What did she say?" Peaches asked, taking a seat on the top of the couch.

"She sees Mandy as not just an agent. She sees her as O'Donahue's..." Olive's eyes widened. "...replacement."

"Her old partner? But he disappeared forever ago!"

"Oprah misses him." Olive's eyes grew misty as she made eye contact with Otto. "I remember when we were Investigation agents...I could see the pain in her eyes sometimes, beneath her ironclad exterior. Something was hurting her, but it wasn't like I could just go up to her and ask her about it."

Otto realized what his partner was getting at, and nodded slowly. "When you and I became Odd Squad Directors, and got our new Headquarters...then you asked her."

"Yes. And she broke. She told me everything."

"What happened?"

Olive's head swiveled towards Peaches. She stared at the catgirl, as though she had suddenly just appeared and Olive had just noticed her presence. Her mouth curved into a small, but tight, smile.

"It's a bit of a rough and complicated topic. Sometime in the future, maybe, we can discuss it."

The sound of snoring cut into the conversation and cut through the dour air. Gazes fell upon Mandy, still fast asleep on the couch, snoring through her nose and not her mouth as her hands and feet twitched. In stark contrast to how she was in the waking world, she looked rather peaceful as her mind took her through another feature film. Time would tell how long that would last.

"I suggested she take a nap since she was probably exhausted from traveling all the way here." Peaches explained, answering the question that Olive had before it was even formed.

"Guess she didn't stop for much of a rest..." the girl muttered under her breath, before the volume of her voice rose to normal. "Good. Because Oprah may be coming here."

"Why?"

"To talk things out. To spill the beans." Olive made sure to put emphasis on how figurative the metaphor was. "And to rehire Mandy and Fluttershy."

"Wait." Otto blinked. "Speaking of, where's Fluttershy? Where did she go after Oprah fired her?"

"I'm not sure." Olive unclipped her badge phone and opened it, punching in the numbers 1-5-4. "I'll give Pinkie a call. She and Fluttershy are close friends, after all."

As it turned out, Pinkie had no clue where Fluttershy is, but had resolved to find her as soon as she was done working at Sugarcube Corner. Olive spared the fun-loving mare the details of what happened, but she was still able to piece together most of what had happened -- namely that Fluttershy had, indeed, been fired for telling Oprah off. It was then that, out of obligation to Pinkie as Mandy's partner, Olive conceded, spilling everything to her to get her up to speed.

The call had ended abruptly when Pinkie dropped the phone and had, according to Mrs. Cake, galloped off to her bedroom to cry.

Over the next few minutes, Olive had then gone an alternate route and called the rest of the Mane Six to see if they were able to spare some time to comfort their friend. Of course, all of them had been more than happy to either drop whatever they were doing, call Fluttershy, and come right away, or wait until they were done before they called her and met up with her. With that done, Olive could breathe a little easier.

"Okay. Twilight and Rarity are on their way." she said, closing her phone and putting it back onto her suit. "Applejack is busy with farm chores and Rainbow Dash has Wonderbolts practice, so they're a little tied up. They promised to come and help Fluttershy as soon as they were done, though."

Another bang, and then another whir winding down, marked a new arrival to the office. With her loose bun, stained purple shirt, ripped skirt, and face full of dejection, it was clear who it was.

But that didn't mean Peaches, Olive and Otto weren't taken aback by her scruffy appearance.

"Oprah." The name felt weird on Olive's tongue. "You came...your eyes...have you been crying?"

Normally, Oprah would have tried to hide any evidence of weaknesses. Her tear-stained cheeks would have been washed clean, her clothes would have been changed, and her hair would have been placed back up into a bun on a whim, all while she had been standing there. But this time, she hid nothing. With her voice dry and raspy, all she needed to do was speak five words to clue her friends in on what she wanted to do.

"Where are Mandy and Fluttershy?"

---

Mandy awoke to the sound of voices.

Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that the voices woke up her.

Her features contorted into discomfort as she gave a moan and opened her eyes. She could hear words being said, but couldn't quite make them out. As she turned around, her vision slowly became clearer and fixated on one girl in particular.

"Oprah? Why is she here?" she asked herself aloud, making sure to keep her voice quiet. Her mind flashed back to the words Haruko had said to her when she had entered the Magical Grasslands yet again.

---

"Mandy. I sense that Oprah is hiding something. Something...that she does not want you to know."

Mandy blinked in surprise.

"If you wish to repair your relationship, Oprah must be willing to confide in you."

Oprah hiding secrets seemed...well, actually, no, for her it seemed perfectly fitting. But Mandy had surely thought that after all these years, she would be willing to share some of those secrets, even if Mandy was prone to blabbing anything and everything to anyone and everyone.

But part of her figured that's not why she hadn't shared any.

Haruko gazed at her still.

"She must confide in you about how she really feels."

---

How Oprah really feels...

Mandy watched the Director converse a bit more, noting her dirty appearance and dull eyes. It didn't take much brainpower to deduce that she was, at the very least, feeling remorseful about what she did, but to the point where not even her eyes held any life was a surprising new low. When the last time the Director fell into despair like that was, Mandy couldn't remember. But the animosity she had for her old boss stuck around.

She's had one chance too many. Now, I'm gonna really make her think.

With a heavy sigh escaping her, Mandy slid off of the couch and made her way over to the trio.

Oprah's eye caught her immediately, and she stiffened.

"Mandy..."

"Oprah."

The even tone the hybrid adopted was lost on the Director as she sighed shakily. "I...I'm sorry. For everything."

Olive nodded. "Tell her."

Slowly, Oprah nodded in return, swallowing the lump that was beginning to form in her throat. "Mandy...do you know about my old partner, O'Donahue?"

"Yes."

"And how he has been missing for years?"

"Yes."

"I..." Oprah trailed off. She bit her lip until it began to bleed, a metallic taste filling her mouth and providing at least some level of quenching for how dry it was. "I view you as not just a friend. I view you as...O'Donahue's replacement. My partner."

Mandy tilted her head. "Your partner?"

"You may not act exactly like O’Donahue, but..." Oprah smiled, genuinely smiled, for the first time in what seemed like forever. "You mimic his passion. His drive to beat oddness. When you came along, it was like all my worry about him...it lifted away. I felt free for the first time in a long time." A tiny brown flicker of life returned to her eyes. "You work so hard for Odd Squad, Mandy. You push yourself to your limit and would risk life and limb just to save us. I never should have denied you a vacation if you wanted it. And…" She rubbed her arm. "I never should have unloaded all that paperwork on you. I know that Fluttershy offered to help you by doing your paperwork and letting you go on vacation, and I commend her for that. She may be a Creature Care agent, but she would make a good Investigation agent if given the option to be promoted."

At this, Mandy's eyes widened. Would Oprah actually promote Fluttershy to the Investigation department? Would she really rip her away from her destiny just to be an agent in the most populous department of the organization?

Yesterday, she would have told herself that would never happen. But today, the pessimist in her said that it probably would. Still, she forced herself to continue listening.

"I’m really very sorry. For all that’s happened. For firing Fluttershy and for making you quit." Oprah sighed. "If Olive hadn’t come by and talked things out, I never would have realized just how much my actions have hurt you and your coworker. With that being said…"

She reached behind her back and pulled out two badges.

"I would like to rehire you and Fluttershy both back onto Odd Squad. If you accept."

All Mandy could do was stare. For the first time in a long while, she was at a loss for words. She absentmindedly tugged at her straightened hair as her gaze flitted from her badge to Fluttershy's, her mind being filled with thoughts.

She...wants to take me back in. Fluttershy too. She really does feel shame for what she did, huh? Is her past with O'Donahue what she wanted to confide in me about?

This can't be what Haruko was talking about. No way. This is too easy. There's more to this that Oprah isn't telling me.

Friends...partners...they tell each other secrets. Even the deep dark ones that not another soul should be told. Surely that's the same thing Oprah did with O'Donahue, right? From the way she talks about him so lovingly, you'd think they were attached to the hip. They did everything together. They were as much of a dynamic duo as Momma and Otto, without the legendary status-y stuffs.

"Mandy."

The mention of her name made her snap out of her thoughts.

"Oprah is being completely genuine. Precinct 13579 really wouldn't be where it is today without you and her. Please, come back. For me. For all of us"

She stared at Olive, utterly dumbfounded.

Everyone's on her side, huh? Like she didn't just use a facade to sway them over? For all I know, she messed herself up intentionally to make herself look more sympathetic. It was the pessimism from Mandy's depressed state talking, of course, but she didn't care. If I don't accept her offer, maybe she'll become corrupted. I could get Odd Todd to make it happen faster. I could use this as a social experiment for the Big O...see what happens when an Odd Squad agent is pushed dangerously close to the edge, teetering between consciousness and death. See what happens when Odd Squad has a case of suicide on their hands.

See what happens when people don't respect my feelings and needs.

...Wait, no, what am I thinking? That's selfish. And for all that Oprah's done, it's not fair to her.

Mandy took a deep breath to force the bad thoughts out of her head. Friendships have blunders. This is just one of them. She made a mistake, and the blood can be on her hands as she resolves it. But in the meantime, I have to settle for a compromise.

One that will make her return to normal, but satisfy me until she learns her lesson in proper.

From there, she took a couple minutes to think of such a trade-off. The muffled sounds of the bullpen below helped, since she found it hard to think in complete silence. The others watched her with intrigue, waiting patiently until she made up her mind.

Finally, letting out a sigh, she grabbed her badge in her rainbow-colored corona and clipped it back onto her suit.

"I accept. But I want you to give Fluttershy her badge in person, with me as a witness."

Oprah nodded. "That's fine by me."

Was that relief in her voice? Mandy couldn't tell. Her corona grabbed her badge phone next, flipping it open and pressing the 1 button to speed-dial Fluttershy and tell her to come to Headquarters.

Not five minutes later, and the mare had arrived. "I'm here." she announced, before her eyes settled on Oprah and turned icy cold in an instant, along with her voice. "You."

"Fluttershy, I...I want to apologize. I realize now that you were only trying to help Mandy. I never should have snapped at you like I did, and I never should have fired you for doing something so selfless." Her body began to quiver slightly. "I’m sorry. I would happily accept you back on Odd Squad, working in the Creature Care department once more, if you wish."

"I accept."

Mandy's eyes widened with slight surprise, wondering how and why Fluttershy had spat out her answer so quickly. She chalked it up to the Pegasus having thought long and hard about her decision on the way back to Odd Squad from Equestria, and watched with satisfaction as she accepted her badge and clipped it back onto her suit.

"But I hope you've learned your lesson."

"I have. You may return to work in the Creature Room."

"Thank you, ma'am."

With a few flaps of her wings, she soared out of the room. Mandy could have sworn that between that and her voice becoming less and less icy as she spoke, she had forgiven Oprah. Which would make sense to her, because Fluttershy was one of the kindest ponies she had ever met.

Mandy was kind, too. But unlike Fluttershy, she had hit her limit, and it was time she planted the elephant in the room.

She turned and began to head towards the doors.

"Leaving?"

"Oprah." Mandy closed her eyes. "You have a lot of flaws. Flaws that cloud your vision. Flaws that make you jump to conclusions. Flaws that can hurt your friends."

Everyone heard the voice crack on that last sentence, Mandy herself included. She gripped her chest with a hand, balling it up as tightly as she could until it began to ache with the turn of knuckles from tan to white. She didn't dare look back.

"Right now, you should be asking yourself...what you can do to earn my trust and my friendship back." she declared. "I will continue to work under you as an Investigation agent. But not as your second-in-command."

A shaky gasp was heard. The hybrid knew who it belonged to within the second. Without waiting for anyone to respond to her, she left the room and descended the stairs, head hanging low.

Oprah's eyes shrunk. She slumped to the ground, the sound of her knees hitting the floor being nothing but an afterthought in her mind compared to what Mandy had just told her. It was clear that she could not accept the compromise, and it was clear that there were negotiations to be held to decide a better one.

Olive shrugged. "I hate to say 'I told you so', but...I told you so."

"Mandy's not one to easily forgive." Peaches sighed. "I think you should take her words to heart, Oprah. You've committed heinous acts. This is your punishment that is being imposed."

The words tumbled out of Oprah as her brain began to shut down. "But...w-without Mandy as my right-hand agent, how...how will I..."

She remembered what Mandy had told her about her doing great things. About how the precinct wouldn't hit the fan just because she wasn't here. Back then, she had been so blinded by anger that she barely registered the words. She had received them, they had stuck in her brain, but anger shoved them aside and then began forcefully stuffing them into the trashcan like the old-timey classic move of your average school bully.

Now, she realized that Mandy was right.

She was right about everything.

Oh odd, how could she have been so blind?

Her gaze stayed fixated straight ahead of her. Her pupils and irises both quivered, and thick ugly tears began streaming down her face once again. Memories of what had transpired hit her suddenly and repeatedly like battering rams. With it, her body began to tremble, and with that came the abhorrent, ungodly sounds of sobs that threatened to collapse a lung or two -- sounds that no human, not even a human as immortal and as powerful as her, should ever make.

Olive, Peaches and Otto stood behind her, scared for their lives and unsure of how to comfort their friend through what was obviously a moment of severe distress. As much as they didn't want to watch, it was all they could do.

---

Downstairs, Mandy had met up with Rarity and Twilight, who had informed her that after a long talk and a get-together with some tea, Fluttershy had been feeling much better. It was good news for her, and it was, perhaps, that good news that had made her hair and tail return back to its regular poofy, curly state.

"Heya, Mandy!" Pinkie greeted, merrily trotting over to her partner with a big grin and a big change in mood from earlier. "How're you feeling?"

"Been better. Felt better." Mandy sighed in an effort to relieve tension and stress that still weighed on her spine. "It's been a long week. I would rather be buried in paperwork again."

"Weeeeell, I know a good way to cheer you up!" Pinkie reached inside of her mane and pulled out a recipe for a three-layer chocolate cake. "You wanna help me bake the bestest chocolate cake ever?"

It didn't take a second for Mandy's mouth to begin watering. Her stomach cried out for food, and she was more than happy to oblige it. "With you? Absolutely."

"Yes! Let's go!"

Throughout the making of the cake, Pinkie had tried to cheer Mandy up further with stories of parties she threw -- only the best parties, of course, for the best partner, she said. Mandy listened to each and every one of them, feeling more like her old self with every minute that passed, and as she and Pinkie messily but happily ate the finished product, a thought occurred to her that she kept close to her heart.

I don’t need Oprah to be happy. I have my friends and family. Momma. Otto. Peaches. The ponies. With them, life will always be good.

It’s time for Oprah to think long and hard about what she’s done. And it’s time for me to live the bestest life I can!

Throughout the rest of the day, she and Pinkie shared jokes, sung songs, and baked their hearts out. Worries were forgotten, even long after they had gone to bed.

Mandy had woken up the next day with renewed happiness. And even though she had to face her boss repeatedly, that happiness remained within her, and that infectious cat smile never faded away from her face.