The coffee machine took a slow eternity to fill the cup. Gold Star slouched half-awake next to the oversized vending machine, poking at the selection buttons as if to hurry the machine up. He grumbled to himself about how the old fashioned percolator in the office had worked so much better, none of this automated mocha-latte-grande-vente nonsense, and how it was criminal having to pay a bit every morning for his cup of Joe. The watch ponies in the office politely ignored him.
Not that anyone in the City Watch building would have understood him had they listened; the entire diatribe about the injustice of fancy schmancy coffeematics was delivered in Gold Star's well known it's-what-o'clock-in-the-morning incomprehensible grumble. Loyal to his duty or not, in all his years Gold Star had never gotten over his resentment at having to get up with the sun, and his coworkers and subordinates had learned to take his mandatory early morning growling litany with good humor.

The styrofoam cup finally filled up. Fumbling, Gold Star picked it up in the crook of his wing. Coffee retrieval achieved, he shuffled his way to his office in a half-sleepwalk- they could make him rise, but by the powers that be, they could never make him shine- and slid behind his desk. There. At long last he could begin the process of truly waking up. He pulled his coffee to him, oh bittersweet nectar of life, and took a long sip. Before the first sip was done his eyes were already starting to open.
It was indeed unfortunate what his newly opened eyes fell upon first.

"Commish!" Cookie Spritzer said, pronking into the office through the open door, his wings flapping excitedly. "You're not gonna believe this-!" He parted his forelock, revealing his horn.

Horn...? A fine mist of coffee sprayed over his desk blotter.

It had been an inevitable bit of fallout, what with all the interviews, interrogations, and reports that had to be conducted with all of them that they should be about the place, but since the debacle with the Mayor, and the subsequent loss of their not-so-secret lair, the Nobody's Fools had taken to hanging about (Gold Star resisted the impulse to think the word "loitering") around the City Watch building. Gold Star suspected it was sort of their way of making peace with the Watchponies for whom they had been such a nuisance for so long. The troops seemed to have taken a little bit of a liking to the scamps; it was kind of hard not to, really. Even the ones who'd been given the most grief- and bruises- had thawed out towards them a bit. He still found himself hoping to high heaven they'd find a new clubhouse soon, though... their presence could be a little disruptive at times.

Disruptive, he decided as he gawped at the pegasus graffiti artist's new horn, was a horrible underestimation on his part.

"... and there was a big flash of light and then, bam! This!" The colt was saying. "I can't believe it, can you?" Before Gold Star could re-hinge his jaw and respond, there came a clippity-clop of galloping hooves from outside and Crackerjack came skidding through the door.

"Commish, commish, you ain't gonna believe this-" the little red colt's new wings flapped in the wind from the desk fan.
"Holy cow, you too?" Spritzer yelped in glee. Gold Star's eyes bugged out.

Then Softy, Presto and Bowser tumbled in. Wings and horns on all of them.

"Mister Commissioner Gold Star, sir, I think we need to see the Princess-!"

Presto doffed his belled hat, looking up at his horn gleefully. "...I can't wait to see what I can do with THIS-"

"Awooo!"

Wheezer staggered in. He leaned against the door with one hoof and pointed back and forth at his new horn and wings, gasping for air...

Foster galloped in next, his face a comedy of alarm, his eyes crossed and staring in shock at his obviously very new horn. "Commish, I think I need to report myself for grand theft species...!"

Commissioner Gold Star's shriek of horror would have been the pride of any movie scream queen.

There was a blinding flash of light. Gold Star choked in mid-scream. It was Fledge; the gryphon pup was hovering in the doorway, an enormous camera in his claws and a crap-eating grin on his face... and a horn sticking out of the feathers on his forehead. "Gee, it must be catching," he said blithely, looking up at his horn.

Gold Star gaped like a stunned flounder. "Whaaaaaa...?" He glared with bulging eyes at Foster, who was grinning like a cat in cream. The others were just as bad off; several were turning red and threatening to explode. He leaned over his desk and glared at Foster's forehead. "Is that GLUE?"

That did it; the dam burst. The Nobody's Fools exploded into howls of laughter. Several of them collapsed to the floor, fake horns askew, wings of dyed chicken feathers flopping loose and rapidly shedding plumage. Spritzer and Crackerjack disappeared entirely below the line of the desk top, rising into view every now and then with tears rolling down their faces only to sink out of sight again as they succumbed. Fledge had fallen out of the air like a gunshot buzzard and was lying on his back next to Foster, both of them bicycling their back feet in the air. "Best... Prank... EVER!" Fledge squawked.

"How are we EVER going to top THIS one?" Foster lamented, giggling like a maniac.

"Dunno," Fledge answered, looking gleefully at his camera, "But I'm gonna make a MINT selling prints of this photo-!"

Gold Star rested his forehead on his desk. "I hate you all, you know that," he said wearily.

"Aww, you know you love us," Foster said, placing a danish and, thank all heavens, a fresh cup of coffee on the desk in front of him. Gold Star took both with ill grace and glared at them all.

"Haven't you all found a new clubhouse yet?"