"Really? Because to me it seemed more like he was being insulted than he was being defensive about it. You know, after having two ponies tell him he's doing his job wrong to his face and should do it better." Thunder said, not sounding like he found what Iron said to be worth much, "in fact, you don't seem one to talk with how worked up you were getting over how I was towards my armor earlier. Some might say I should apologize over how I was but, hey, with how you seem to be thinking, I had every right to tell you you did your job completely wrong and you should have instead just been setting a better example about it instead of, you know, glaring at me, gritting your teeth, completely disregarding my opinion simply because I don't work as a blacksmith and all that junk, right? Anyway," Thunder turned back to the others and more specifically the door, "I need to go fix my armor by tying it to me with a rope and flying low enough through the streets so as to drag it across the ground." The pegasus trotted to the door, giving Mana, Ryo and Talyserra nods as he went. "Later, love birds. And afternoon to you, night shift." He gave as farewells as he passed the bat pony and left the building.

Mana doubted he meant it. After all, Thunder had paid for the armor to be repaired in the end albeit reluctantly, so the unicorn figured he'd at least keep it in its current condition for a day or two. At least for an afternoon. As for the night guard... Things sure felt awkward now... Mana personally wasn't really going to jump at the opportunity to say anything to try and keep her around since nopony really seemed comfortable after everything thats happened, but at the same time Mana himself would probably have just left along with Thunder had he not wanted to stay with Ryo for as long as he was able, so... "Maybe its best we all left and went for a walk?" He suggested, settling on a kind of middle ground as he let the offer extend to Taly as well ad Ryo so as to let the mares decide their next step and whether the bat pony would be included.

"Ahpapapa!" Thunder said, sorta, as he snapped a hoof up into the air and turned his head in the opposite direction of Iron, dismissing what he was saying as if it was just absurd to think about before considering just bucking his armor right then and there to give it a few dents.

"And its definite way of thinking because its only way of thinking. Wrong bahbies and then me, duh."

"A sisterly kiss is all well and good between friends and family," Mana spoke up much more seriously, Ryo's look at him being missed for a moment, "but when its given to a pony you just met without them being okay with it, that can very easily become an issue regarding a form of assault and is quite illegal. You did know that I assume?" Mana asked, questioning the etiquette of the night guards at this point, "So you either didn't care or didn't know. Which confuses me." A flick of his eyes at Ryo to gauge her current attitude towards all this, her seeming to have been embarrassed by it all and only adding to how he believed that kiss wasn't a good idea. How she was looking at him caused his features to soften however as he was far from.angry with her and didn't want her to think he was.

Thunder was starting to actually get legitimately bothered by how he was being spoken to at this point, particularly with Ironfire, this being evident by the un-amused narrowing of his eyes at the two who thought they could tell him what he could and couldn't do with his armor just because they knew how to bang a hammer against metal.

"Okay, let me say this a little more clearly for you," he said, tone actually seeming to go from sarcastic to legitimately upset for a brief moment, especially after having witnessed another guard walk into the forge, say pretty much the same thing he had when he'd come by with his originally damaged armor but get a free pass just because she was apparently a blacksmith, "I've been doing my job for a long time now, quite a few years in fact, and said job has not entailed the basic duties of wandering up and down corridors in a building where every hoof step echoes for several seconds. I may not be a blacksmith, I admit that I don't know as much as I could about the forging of armor and arms, but when it comes to what armor is capable of actually standing up to when out in the field, don't act like I don't know what I'm talking about. You make the armor, I wear it and witness what it can do. I know when armor can break, and I know when it still has plenty of miles left in its durability. So, despite what you tell yourself you think you know better than me just because you're a blacksmith, I know darn well what I'm talking about. Face down a cyclops, get caught in the middle of a pack of timberwolves, pounced on by a manticore, ambushed by renegade Golden Eagles, and chased by a hydra first, then come tell me when I should get my stuff repaired." The poke from the night guard was ignored, as did the guard herself for the most part, Thunder remaining quite cross with both her and the blacksmith over how, to him, it felt like they were talking down to him at this point.

Mana, not used to seeing his partner get so serious about things, was undecided over if he should stay by Ryo during this moment where she seemed so distressed over the New guards presence, or if he should try to go calm hos friend down instead. Ugh... Today has been a weird, awkward and stressful day... Usually Thunder was the one making things more casual and fun, not being part of the headache... Um... He took a step closer to Ryo, more out of wanting to encourage to relax more as he tried to decide how to talk to Thunder, Mana at the moment trying to catch hos partners eye so as to send a silent message.

"... Whatever..." Thunder replied with a sigh, the stallion recognizing that this conversation was obviously going to go nowhere as he just paid his bits then went back to his suit. Way he saw it, his suit worked fine before it was repaired and had stood out on its own due to it being difficult not too, and the pegasus guard had full confidence it would have continued to perform just fine without being polished up and made all... blegh... shiny... Being spoken to as if he was new to his job didn't make him any happier either, having a blacksmith explain why broken equipment was broken and therefore bad. Duh. Thing was that his armor hadn't been broken. Just dinged up. His helpful suggestion also did little, as armor stands are what retired guards put their money into so as to stare at their suits and sigh while thinking of theur old glory days. And finally, to Thunder at least, if what Iron was saying about his hammer was true, then he was going to lose his grandfather's hammer at some point. The pegasus saw a clear difference between repair and replace, and if you give a hammer a new handle and head while discarding the old, then you don't have that hammer anymore. You have a new hammer that youre trying to have take the old ones place while pretending you hadn't thrown the original one away.

Mana sighed. He knew Thunder would get over this, he always did, but he still didn't like seeing his best friend get so upset over such things. "Anyway," he spoke up to try and move things along, "I hope my gems didn't give you any trouble when they were being pulled out of the boots. Did anything happen magic wise? Any sudden spasms of arcane energy or short lived possessing and animating of nearby tools? I don't see any missing here, so none of them exploded from what I can tell. Not that they would have, of course, but you know, magic can get antsy whenever the mood strikes it."

"Pfft. Whatever," Thunder pouted when Ryo didn't agree with him, the pegasus slowly drifting back over towards his armor as he continued with, "and hammers ain't always the best tools if you ask me, far too brutish and destructive. Sort of like you as a pony when it comes to ruining such art as my suit once was." The guard said to Iron, his wings carrying him over said pony before lazily pulling him through the air and above a vacant space on the floor. "What you need is a more elegant tool! Like me! I'm like a chisel that was in the process of carefully and lovingly sculpting out the smallest and most impressive of details into my metal casing before you two had to go and ruin it." Punctuated with a landing and loud clop of his hooves, Thunder stood as if his point had been made which, as Mana soon pointed out, it hadn't been.

"First off, Thunder, that doesn't make much sense when you keep in mind that the 'care' and 'love' that went into those dings and dents often were just a result of you rushing to get yourself into trouble. And secondly, you do realize that a chisel is often accompanied by a hammer, right?"

"Must you always be so focused on the details, Mana?"

"That sounds like life. Yup, definitely life. Mana! You're going to have a cell mate!" Thunder informed his partner with a glance back over his shoulder towards the unicorn, "she doesn't take too kindly to casual joking around while on the job either. Unless she just can't tell when someone is joking. As for the hot chocolate thing, there's still hope. The Princess might just offer you some, who knows?"

"One of the reasons why stopping for it was silly." Mana chimed in just as Thunder decided to move on with no further chocolate, be it hot, room temperature or cold, related comments. For the moment.

"Were we actually seriously summoned?" The pegasus asked of his partner, "I thought we were just stopping by to report and say hi? I didn't know we were actually coming by for a thing."

"You were there when the messenger told us, Thunder. You were just too busy with skeeball at the time. Yes, the Princess wanted to see us. Would be hard showing up late for something that wasn't an actual appointment."

"Well, gosh, now I might actually be going to the dungeon... Or being forced to work Broken Bit for the week... Or made to answer to her sister..." Thunder listed off the possibilities, the last one obviously carrying a tone that made it note seem as bad as the others while Mana just rolled his eyes.

Returning, once again from speaking with his Princess, the guard, or possibly "Dirk" if Thunder was to be believed, stepped back out into the hall, him nodding to all four of the waiting guards before saying, "The Princess will see you now. All of you. Try not to break anything." A brief narrowing of his eyes at the pegasus of the four made it clear who he was referring to. Mana wasted no time in standing up and heading inside while Thunder took a second to pause next to the guard on his way by to reply with, "Jeez, still holding that over my head? I already apologized. I could still argue that you should have known that glass was a silly choice of material for a sword to carry anyway, but..." That would go nowhere. Shrugging it off, Thunder glanced at the other two guards before following his partner inside, Mana already having taken a position near by the Princess who was sitting at a small table with several scrolls laid out over it, and the aged silver coated and wavy gray maned unicorn stallion she was speaking with, the pony wearing some kind of robe as they carried on with the conversation Mana hadn't had enough time yet to figure out the subject of as he quietly stood at attention waiting to be addressed.

A well dressed blue mare with a neatly styled brown mane, hurriedly scribbling away on a notepad as the other two ponies spoke, took a break in the conversation as an opportunity to flash a quick smile and give a small wave to the two arriving ponies she knew before pushing up her glasses and returning to her scribbling. Thunder and Mana both returned the smile, Thunders being larger since Mana was trying to be more stony in appearance now that he was in the presence of the Princess, as the pegasus came in and took a spot similar to how Mana had, both guards now waiting for the other two and for Celestia to address them.

"... and that's how I saved Hearths Warming Eve."  Thunder said as the conductor left, finishing... whatever completely made up story he'd just rattled off to stall for time. Seeing the conductor take his leave, and how the cargo section was still open for ponies to toss their luggage into, the pegasus jumped back into the air, him flapping his way over to assist his partner and Ryo with the handling of the bag.

"...  Gelatinous beast?" Mana questioned, raising an eyebrow as he trotted up to the train car, his breathing w little heavier now but nothing very noticeable.

"I could see the fear in his eyes, Mana." Thunder replied as he and the unicorn shifted the bag from his back and into their hooves so as to heave it into the car with the rest of the cargo. With both of the stallions working together, the magical assistance from Ryo wasn't entirely needed anymore for this final act of labor, the two guards managing to get the bat up into the car where the staff took over and worked to secure it with the rest of the luggage.

"Well," mana began, turning back to face Ryo while Thunder decided he wante to stand on top of the train car due to not having done that today so why not? "Looks like we got her stuff here on time. Thanks for the help... uh..." Hmm... now what does he say... What were they talking about earlier? Would it even be normal to just go back to that or did the sudden rush make what he was going to say irrelevant somehow? "Um..."

"You two seem tired," Thunder called down to them, regardless of if he was even correct in his assumption, "maybe you guys should take a seat and catch your breath? Could eat some cake too. I understand such a thing doesn't seem readily available at the moment, but by golly, in my experience, if you look hard enough you'll always find cake somewhere."

Thunder had raised a hoof to object as Ryo went to sign the paper, him worried she may have been agreeing to some kind of weirdly worded but binding contract where she would be forced to let the younger pony or somepony else paint her house an ugly color or force her to taste test every new dessert making its way to the city... Actually, that second one sounded kind of amazingly awesome depending on how good the desserts actually were... Thunder suddenly wished he'd signed that paper first, him giving it a look to see if there was any space left for a second name. Seeing Ryo head off to speak with Mana, Thunder gave a small wave with an encouraging smile before looking back to the pony with the clipboard. "So which was it?" He asked, giving one more glance around for any large packages wrapped in colorful paper and tied with a bow, "present or petition? Or were you really recruiting for new sugary taste testers? ... And if so can I still sign up? I'm pretty well versed in sweet treats, you know."

Mana, having begun to slowly march his way forward as he carried the bag of metal on his back, didn't glance back towards the others again, instead just having his ears pivot in that direction when he heard somepony approaching. One set of hooves it sounded like. Whew.... "Hey," he started, sounding casual and even a little excited as he addressed who was sure was his partner without looking back, "that filly? This bag is full of some... kinda metal thing she's working on. I think its a golem, but I didn't get a very good look earlier. That's not the cool part, though. The cool part is that she's got a project going to try and find a way to create an artificial intelligence for this thing. I'm still not certain what exactly she meant, but I don't think she was talking about the simple presence that's found in regular golems. I think she wants to create an actual thinking consciousness!" He paused, smiling and thinking about how cool it would be to succeed at such a thing. "Remember that unicorn I told you about a while back? The one trying to take another ponies mind and see if it can be transfered or extended to some kind of construct? Or, were you just napping with your eyes open again when I brought it up?" He wondered, tone dropping a bit as if expecting a confirmation, but picking back up as he moved on before getting an answer, the unicorn seeming to not think such a thing was either a surprise or a big deal when it came to his friend. "Well, I think it could possibly be kind of like that, but Brash up there kinda clammed up when I tried to ask her more about it, so I-oh! Uh-umm..." Mana had finally decided to glance over his shoulder at the last part of their, so far very one sided, conversation, him being surprised to find not the Pegasus he was expecting, but the mare he wasn't, him almost stumbling slightly from the realization. "U-uh..." Suddenly, it was like somepony had reached into his mouth and tied his tongue into a knot, the guard needing to clear his throat and set his eyes back forward to try to recover. "... Ma'am." He finally addressed, sounding almost as he had earlier as he tried to pull himself back together.

"Ugh..." Thunder groaned in irritation, facehoofing as he saw his partner stumble and trip over his words up ahead of him. He seemed to have been doing so well just a few moments ago... Actually, it looked like he'd been talking up a storm before looking back at Ryo. "He was doing so well... Anyway, what was this all about?" He asked Carri, his many glances confirming that she had not, in fact, brought him any brightly wrapped goodies, "it feels like you're delivering something with that clipboard, but I'm not seeing anything with you... Is it a small envelope or something? Oh! Maybe its a gem, or some kind of shiny jewelry!" His mind wandered again, the Pegasus growing excited once more as he imagined what kind of wonderful gifts could be delivered while only needing a small envelope. "Now, I'm not one for jewelry myself, but I wouldn't exactly turn down a gem laden bracelet or something. Wouldn't such a thing just compliment my incredibly blegh armor?" He asked, again looking down at his temporary suit of- aaaaargh!! Gosh darn this armor! Thunder never knew he could miss something so dearly as he missed his normal armor... Poor thing was probably being hammered out by that 'blacksmith'... More like a brute with a hammer. Ruining such beauty by "repairing" it and making it "safe"...