Covert Ops

by SnakeFire

Prolouge

COVERT OPS

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An MLP:FIM fanfiction by Snakefire.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MLP:FIM© is a trademark of Hasbro and Lauren Faust.
Don't sue my ass. Seriously, I have no money.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PROLOGUE

18:05 pm. Canterlot castle.

Canterlot at night was as alive as the day. Every nightclub, every pub, every bar and dance hall was full to capacity with ponies from all walks of life looking to cut loose and have some fun after a long day toiling under the hot sun. Ever since her return, princess Luna had been overjoyed by the hundreds of thousands valuing her night. The new world order was set in stone, and it was one of the few changes the estranged princess was firmly in love with.

Looming over Canterlot’s nightlife, tall and majestic in its glory, stood castle Canterlot, the pride of the bustling metropolis below. Here was the seat of power in Equestria; here rested the magic school. The forbidden libraries. The statue of Discord, now contained in a special vault under armed guard. The royal throne room.

And finally, the hall of the elements.

The grand chamber where the Elements of Harmony were sealed was ornate and lavish. Red carpets rolled invitingly over a polished marble floor, strided on both sides by stained glass depicting scenes from Equestria’s history. A single pair of pegasi kept their vigil, pacing up and down the moonlit hall. While others played in the light of the moon, these two guards had no such luxury. Equestria’s greatest weapons, the Elements of Harmony, were a political time bomb. The ponies were peaceful; this was well known, but the potential for another to steal them and misuse them made the neighboring countries fairly unhappy with Equestria’s possession of such a powerful weapon. In light of this, Princess Celestia was out of the country to attend peace talks with a neighboring realm.

She had taken more than half of the royal guards with her, but not by choice. The ESA, the secret service of the country, had more-or-less forced her to take a small personal army along on the trip.

Normally this hall was patrolled by a small squadron of special forces ponies, but with the majority of the royal guard defending the princess at the peace talks, this left only a skeleton crew watching the elements, two pegasi who trudged up and down the velvet carpeting, bored out of their minds.

Unbeknownst to them, they were being watched from the rafters.

If one of them had looked up, he would have seen a small shape, crouching on one of the crossbeams that supported the roof. If he had flown up for a closer look, he would have discovered a pony in a black catsuit, face covered by a fabric mask, squatting on the roof beams. The shape of the mask declared the pony as female, and the lack of a horn declared her as not a unicorn. The catsuit sported two large lumps along the sides of the torso, and tied above that, fastened tightly to a chest harness, was a small black satchel. The pony in the rafters looked down at the guards, and quickly opened up the bag on the harness.

She silently pulled out a small screw with a loop at the end, and shoving with all her might, drove the screw into the beam. With each twist, the screw drove deeper into the wood, creaking slightly. The pony froze at the loud creak, heart cantering.
One of the guards stopped, and turned to his partner.

“Did you hear that, sir?”

The other guard rolled his eyes.

“It’s just the sound of the roof settling. Focus, Jumpstart.”

The pony in the rafters quietly let out the breath she’d been holding in. The screw was tightly wedged in place- with that finished she pulled out a tightly wound coil of black rope, the first of two. The pony wormed one end of the thick nylon climbing rope into the loop at the top of the screw. She paused for a second to glance upwards. Above her and slightly to the left was a skylight, partially ajar, wide enough for a mare her size to squirm through.

The mare shook her head and got back to the task at hoof. The rope successfully threaded, she began to knot the rope as tightly as she could, fashioning a figure eight shape with the long end, and stuffing the short end through a few times. The pulled the rope tight. It made a small noise as it did so, and again the pony froze.

“Seriously, I heard something, sir.”

His partner groaned. Every. Single. Noise. He had had enough of this.

“CORPORAL JUMPSTART! You’re the rookie. I’m the commander. And as such I order you to SHUT THE HELL UP!”

The mare wobbled a little on the crossbeam- the commander had a loud shouting voice, which had caught her rather off-guard. Jumpstart sniffed a little, and looked at the floor while his partner kept marching.

The knot secured, the mare reached out and grabbed her carabiner, clipped to her chest harness. Attached to it was a small device, used in abseiling for controlling the speed of descent. The device popped open and the covering section slid away, allowing the rope to be threaded through all the little kinks and bobs in the contraption. With the device successfully threaded, she snapped it shut and clipped it to her carabiner.

She spun the little lock on the metal clip shut tightly, affixing the abseiling brake in place. With preparations complete, the mare yanked the string on her bag and stood on her hind legs, making herself dizzy. She took a deep breath and waited until the guards had walked just a foot behind the crossbeam. She lifted a hoof up, and stepped out into space.

The pony’s stomach lurched in free-fall before being halted abruptly by a heart-stopping jerk as the rappelling line lost all slack. She was now a black-coated pendulum weight, noiselessly slipping through the air towards the two guards. Neither looked up. Neither turned around. Why would they? All they had heard was the slightest creaking noise; the roof was probably settling. That and the sharp-eared Jumpstart wasn’t about to risk getting bucked in the jaw if he raised his commander’s ire one more time.

The pony spun so that her hind hooves pointed directly at the guards. She leaned as though she sat upon a swing, hind hooves pointed forwards to buck the guards in the back of the head. The wind whistled about her as the guards drew closer….

The pony’s world turned into red-hot fire as pain, hot as pokers and as blunt as bowling balls bucked through her hindlegs. There was a faint clattering noise as the two guards hit the floor, a noise she did not hear but for the pain. She shook her head quickly, vision snapping into focus as she reached the apex of her rappelling cord’s swing. The rope slowly arced back towards the floor, and as the pony sped in reverse she began frantically unthreading her karabiners screw lock. At the point of no return, the point just above the floor, she opened the clip, releasing the rope and allowing gravity to take hold of her. The pony freefell, tumbling and spinning through the air as the ground rushed up to meet her.

She dropped silently on all fours between the two sleeping sentinels of the Elements. Speedily, she rifled her hooves through their saddlebags. She pulled out various objects in the shape of her prize, tossing them aside before resuming her search. One of the guards shuddered as she ran her hooved through his belongings, and the mare’s eyes went wide. The trouble with knocking someone out was, the longer they were unconscious, the greater the risk of brain damage. Knowing this, the mare had gone to great lengths to make sure the ponies in question would avoid serious injury. Unfortunately, that also meant she didn’t have much time. The guards were already beginning to stir.

She reached deep into her bag for a second rope and four fabric lumps, brought especially for this purpose. She positioned the guards so that they were back-to-back before stringing them up as tightly as she could with the tough, fibrous secondary coil. The mare whipped the first lump of fabric and used it to silence the stirring stallion by tying his muzzle shut. the second was treated in much the same fashion. Finally, to avoid them being able to identify her, she tied a blindfold over their eyes.

As a final precaution, she removed the twin saddlebags and carried them a safe distance from her captives. She rooted through them speedily; the pony finally came away with her prize. Resting in the thief’s hooves was a long, carved, spiraling horn. The pony couldn’t sense the raw magic pulsing though the carved ivory rod, but something about it reminded her of soft green grass, blowing breezes across a fresh meadow, and the beautiful sun shining from the sky. At the same time, the rod also pulsed with another set of feelings for her. She also remembered cool nights, shooting stars, constellations a-whirl in the heavens, and the terrifying beauty of an eclipse. The memories faded as quickly as they had come, and the thief shook her head and looked at the guards.

The two royal guards were straining against their ropes and gags, pausing every so often as their heads pounded like a symphony of percussion instruments. She smiled a little as the ropes held fast. The mare had doubted her-knot tying abilities, but it seemed her fears were unfounded.

Her smile slowly faded as she saw one of the weaker knots start to come undone. The mare immediately snapped back to the task at hand. With the carved horn clamped firmly between her teeth, she streaked down the luscious velvet carpet towards the end of the hall.

The end of the hallway was a large wall, twin banners flanking the sides of a large golden vault. The central door of the vault was decorated with long star-shaped rays, converging around a small keyhole in such a way that it resembled the sun. The door was magically sealed shut, and only the key that the mare now held was capable of opening the vault and revealing its contents unto the world.

She tripped on a lump in the carpet and rolled, in a largely successful attempt to avoid smashing her face into the ground. With her goal in sight, she decided to amble the last few feet to the vault door. She looked around, with the door before her, deciding to drink in the moment- her moment of victory.

The moon shone it’s pale light through the stained glass windows. Each one was illuminated on the floor, the pictures reflecting equestrian history. All of them accented the vault’s ancient sun crest as the thief spun round and soundlessly slid the horn into the lock. She turned it, and with a ‘click’ the lock unfurled, arcane catches and bindings coming loose with a sharp blue glow. The thief blocked the light with a hoof, and as it faded it she peered in to the vault and all it contained.

An ornate gilded chest lay on a carved pedestal. Her prize was close, but not yet within reach- not only was the door enchanted shut; the box was sealed tightly with magical chains. A eretheral padlock was threaded through the end loops of the two snaking binds. The pony frowned. The lock was glowing a pale blue, and she reached out to touch it, only to have her hoof pass through it. she reached out to the padlock, key in hoof, and attempted to stick it in.

Same result.

The pony frowned. She trotted back to the guards’ saddlebags, and began to root through the other one. Two locks, one for the sun…..and one for the moon.

The mare deftly pulled an obsidian rod from the sack. Embedded into the bottom of the wand was a tiny hunk of whitish rock. It was fairly dull, and looked rather flawed and craggy- certainly it seemed garishly inappropriate for a stone of the goddesses.

The mare raced back down the hallway. She literally had no time to lose. With nary a flourish, the mare shoved the wand into the lock, turning it with a satisfying “click.”

The padlock snapped open, and then the chains dispelled in a corona of twinkling pale blue light. They slid to the ground, no longer arcane star-metal, landing with a ferrous clank. The ornate chest of power was now free of its bonds, and was ripe for the reaping. The thief grinned as she reached out to grab the chest, and wrapped her hooves around it, pulling it free.

The air was rent with the sound of a mighty rope giving its all and finally failing. The mare spun on the backs of her hooves, chest clasped tightly to her chest, and stared in barely-contained terror at the two royal guards slowly clambering to their feet.

She backed up a step and felt the back of a hoof connect with the foot of the element’s pedestal. A bead of sweat began to form, creation interrupted by the smooth fabric of the tight burglar suit pulled over her. The mare gulped as the two royal guards climbed shakily to their hooves and began to trot towards her. Even if the two of them got on like cats and dogs, they were still Celestia’s soldiers, and were thoroughly trained in a customized martial art that would be more than sufficient to take down the mare.

That is, if she didn’t have a few fancy moved of her own.

She placed the box on the floor, sighing a little as the guards sprinted across the length of the floor. She closed her eyes and assumed a fighting stance, patiently waiting for her foes to traverse the mass of red carpet.

The first guard was finally within striking distance. He tipped a wing to signal to corporal Jumpstart to pause for a fraction of a second. He landed, crouched down, and pushed himself off the ground, wings tucked in. He arced quickly towards the would-be thief, grinning a little when he saw her eyes were still closed.

Then her eyelids suddenly snapped open. The guard felt his hoof clamped suddenly in the vicelike embrace of the mare’s forehooves. In a fraction of a second, the guard went from cocky to flat-out terrified. The mare held tightly to the hoof, bullet time in full effect as she powered through the guard’s inertia, hauling his bulk right back from the direction it came from.

For jumpstart the rookie there was no such thing as bullet time. At normal speed he watched commander Caius dive at the intruder, a blur of white, blue and gold. He gasped as an equally fast black blur snagged the commander’s hoof and slammed him straight into the ground.

Caius hit the floor in front of the mare with the force of a train crash, black seeping into the corners of his vision as he helplessly watched the mare advance on the rookie.

“Mercy…. rookie…. give…” he managed to croak before he lost consciousness.
Jumpstart gulped.

But no mercy would be forthcoming. The rookie was smart enough to not try pouncing her, but that only left him with fisticuffs, which was by no means his strength.

The mare rolled her head a bit, cracking her neck as she slowly paced towards the rookie. Erect on her hind legs, she stood a full two foot taller than him, and the intimidation was enough to make the rookie sweat profusely. He gulped, put on a brave face, and raised his hooves.

The rookie swung his right hoof, jabbing quickly at the mare’s sternum. She nimbly dodged and caught him with a backhoof that bruised his cheek and knocked his helmet clean off. He fluffed his wings, spun, and attempted a high kick, only to watch in horror as the mare snagged his hind leg faster than blinking, and spun him round so that he was facing the floor before smashing him into it like a drumstick on a cymbal.

Jumpstart blacked out the second he hit the floor, limbs going limp under his heavy uniform.

The mare sighed as she looked at the guards. Great. The force of the floorslam had crushed the brass of the armored suits flat against the ground. Furthermore, she had taken out two specially trained guardsponies with her bare hooves. Any investigator with half a brain was going to put two and two together and conclude that she was no ordinary thief, something she was hoping to avoid.

The mare scooped up the elements of harmony chest, neatly dropping it in her sack as she clipped into her rappelling rig. As she slowly winched herself upwards towards freedom, she moaned. The distinctive knockout strategy was unique as a fingerprint, and the cops were undoubtedly going to call in the big guns to come after her. One or two she could doubtlessly handle, but all of them at once...

I hope this was worth it.