//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 - The Spears // Story: The Enemy Of My Enemy // by Emo Rainbow //------------------------------// Several hours earlier "Come on Stone! We need to hurry!" An orange Pegasus clad in silver guard armor by the name of Flash said as he pushed himself against the harsh winds on the outskirts of the Crystal Colony with one hoof raised up to block the fierce snow from clouding his vision any more than it already had. He looked back to see if his partner, Stone, was still following him and was shocked to see vast sheets of snow with his partner nowhere in sight. He looked all around until he did a one-eighty turn and came face to face with the grey mare in question, her half-lidded eyes and expressionless face catching him off guard just as it always had. "Gah!" He shrieked as he recoiled and opened his wings on reflex. As he did so, the wind nearly carried him off until Stone's iron hoof grabbed onto him and kept him in place. With an embarrassed cough, Flash sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. "Thanks stone. Now come on! we need to pick up the pace." He said, quickly trying to get back on track. "According to my unerring natural sense of distance and direction the hatch isn't for another three miles. We don't have any more time to waste." He said as he looked upwards with confidence. He felt a nudge on his side and turned to see Stone pointing to something nearby. Following her direction he squinted his eyes and saw the hatch they had been looking for only a few steps away to their left. "Oh...well, uh, that's what I meant. Three paces." Flash said awkwardly as he shrunk away from his triumphant pose. Stone nodded her head and lead the way at a brisk jog while Flash trudged his way closer at the speed of a snail. After a few minutes the two had made their way to the wooden hatch where they knocked on the top of it, mimicking a certain melody that was meant to be a passcode. Once they had finished they stepped back and waited for the response, but as they did so, Flash noticed that Stone had begun staring at him quite intensely. "Uhh...you're really staring into my soul there. What is it?" He asked the silent mare who just blinked ever so slowly in response. To anypony else it may have looked like a normal occurrence, as normal as a total lack of emotion could look at any rate, but to Flash it meant something else entirely. "Of course I did it right!" He said feeling offended. "It's da-da-da-da-DA, da-da-da-da-da right?" He said mimicking the melody that he had just knocked. Stone shook her head no and proceeded to knock on wooden hatch herself. "No no, you're doing it all wrong!” He interjected and proceeded to knock on the hatch the correct way, however before he got more than a few knocks in he was interrupted by Stone knocking on it at the same time. He shot her a glare as he continued to knock, this time even faster due to a burst of spite he had begun feeling. Stone seemed to feel the same way if her rapid knocking was any indication, despite her obviously not showing it. They continued their antics for a few minutes until a violent rumbling beneath them caught both of their attentions. Suddenly the hatch burst open with a shower of brown dirt and rocks revealing a familiar light brown diamond dog wearing orange lensed goggles and covered in bits of dirt staring right at them. She leaned in to get a closer look through her blurry and cracked goggles, grabbing a hold of them and pushing them outwards as if they would focus. “Could you two please stop all that racket?” She asked politely before gasping in surprise as if she had just realized something. "Hey!" She yelled accusingly while pointing at the both of them. "Where's the pie? You are the pizza ponies aren't you?" Flash made a few short noises of confusion while Stone gave a very unamused blink in response. Flash growled and wrapped his left hoof around Stone, pulling her blank-faced self close to him and moving right up to the diamond dogs snow-covered goggles. "Lottie! It's us! Flash and Stone! We have urgent news for the spears!" Lottie rubbed her goggles lenses with a finger and looked at the two of them back and forth before gasping and nodding. "Nope! I have no idea who you are!" She said while she was still smiling and nodding. Running out of patience Flash barked at her to move aside which she promptly agreed to with a dopey salute. Flash and Stone crawled into the hatch which led to a long tunnel leading into the base. The ponies, with the diamond dog in tow, crawled through the tunnel for a few minutes until the familiar warmth of the base began to reach them, signifying their close proximity. Finally the two ponies tumbled out of a hole in the compacted dirt wall and into a massive, expertly crafted cave dug deep beneath the ground of the former Crystal Empire boundaries. The dirt floor was covered in thermoplastic mats that protected bunches of wires that ran to all of the lights all over the field base. The cave had various pillars of rock and hardened wood supporting the ceiling every few feet, spread apart so as to not take up too much space. In addition the headquarters was filled with creatures of all kinds, exchanging information, reporting in, maintaining their equipment, and training for their missions. There were griffins, diamond dogs, changelings, only about three minotaurs total, and a horde of ponies all running around frantically. They heard some scratching from behind them as Lottie sealed up the tunnel and flipped onto the floor on her back looking up at them. "So, what are a couple of pizza ponies like yourselves in such a hurry for?" She asked with a dopey smile and her tongue sticking out. Flash looked over to Stone who nodded and began charging a spell, the light of which making the goofy canine ooh and aww as she saw it. Not long after she had begun charging the spell a flash of light conjured a set of documents out of thin air and into her magical grasp. "We need to take this to the commander, it's urgent!" Flash said with a voice full of worry. "Can I see it?" Lottie asked innocently while reaching her hands into the air and squeezing them in a childlike grabbing gesture. "Ughh never mind! Come on Stone, even if she's in a meeting she needs to know now!" Flash said hastily, getting a curt nod from Stone in response. The two rushed through the crowd of spears, apologizing for each one they ran into along the way, and made their way through the halls to the back conference rooms where they hoped to find the commander. They rounded the corner to their left and ran down the hall towards the conference room's metal doors where they saw two of the bases three minotaurs standing guard on the outside. The minotaur on the left was about seven feet tall with light brown fur covering him from his waist up and deep brown fur covering him from his waist down. He wore a simple leather jacket that had various symbols and insignias on it, and the back of which had a holster for his unreasonably large battle-ax. Well unreasonable for Flash, but entirely reasonable for a menacing minotaur. He had a short snout and small beady eyes as well as enormous arms that were bulging with muscles from every angle. His legs, while naturally smaller than his upper body, were still quite large and very powerful. Finally, his most distinct feature was the horns on his head, with the left horn pointing upwards and the right horn pointing downwards. The minotaur on the right, a female minotaur, was much thinner than the other but still extremely muscular and intimidating. Unlike the other she had dark blue fur covering her upper body and black fur covering her lower body. Her features were nearly identical to the other minotaur, save for the horns, choice of weapon, and choice of clothes. She wore a dark leather cuirass decorated with various throwing knives, and on her back was a gigantic war hammer. Her horns were much smaller than the other minotaur and both pointed upwards. Needless to say, these two were excellent choices for guard duty. "Halt!" The guard on the left said, sticking out his large hand to stop them. "You know the rules Sentry, the commander is in a personal conference. No one goes in there until she's done." He said with a deep and heavily accented voice. "I understand Tauro, but this is too urgent to wait! The commander needs to know now!" Tauro raised an eyebrow at the frantic stallion and looked as if he was contemplating letting them in. "Well…" He trailed off as he placed his hand on his chin in thought. Before he could finish the thought though, the other minotaur sighed loudly and shook her head. "Tauro, you need to stop being so gullible. How many times has Flash barged in because you let him? Only for it to be a false alarm, which in turn gets us both in trouble?" The female minotaur said in a raspy, yet feminine voice. Tauro continued to grab his chin and began thinking even harder, and with him preoccupied the other guard turned to Flash and Stone. "Listen Flash, I know you may think it's super urgent, but it can probably wait until she's done." She said with a bit of attitude while still sounding like she meant well. "Morgan, hey! You're looking good." The minotaur just crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. "Listen, I know I don't have the best track record when it comes to urgent news, but me and Stone are the only castle infiltrators available. Any information we find is of the utmost importance!" He pointed to the file and documents in Stones magical grasp. "Especially now! This time we...we found something truly terrifying." He said with a shiver as the memory of what they had found, and what they had seen replayed in his mind. Morgan looked at him for a moment, then back to her intensely thinking brother who was too preoccupied to open the door for them. She let out a heavy snort through her nostrils and squinted at the duo. "Listen, this is the last time okay? If I find out you pissed off the commander one more time," She unholstered her hammer and held it in her hands menacingly. "Then you and I are going to have a little talk." Flash nodded in understanding and turned to grab the documents while Morgan unlocked the large metal door. He reached for the file with his mouth and bit down, but all he got was a mouthful of air as Stone moved the file to the other side of her head. "Come on Stone. Hoof it over so I can brief the commander." She shook her head no and continued to move it away after every attempt he made to catch it. "Grrr, come on! You've been there every time she's chewed us out for a decision I made. If she somehow sees this as nonurgent then I don't want you to deal with miss hammer over there too." Morgan scoffed as she continued to unlock the door, but ultimately ignored the two pony's quarrel. Flash continued to try and catch the file, but each time Stone had thwarted him, until eventually he was out of breath and on his flank panting heavily. As he sat down to catch his breath Stone sat down right in front of him and stared just as she always did. Flash looked deep into her eyes and chuckled while shaking his head in disbelief. "You are one weird pony Stone." Stone continued to give him the same blank stare, and Flash in turn lifted his hooves up defensively. "Okay, okay! We're a couple of weird pony's." Stone blinked in satisfaction and stood back up before offering Flash a hoof. He accepted it and stood back up himself, but strangely enough Stone wouldn't let go of his hoof. He looked at her strangely, her blank face giving him nothing to work with, and continued watching as she slowly and awkwardly tried to wrap a hoof around him. "Are you...are you trying to give me a hug?" He asked confusedly. She gave a quick nod that made him smile. "Come on Stone, that's not how you hug," He grabbed onto her and pulled her into a large bear hug, spinning her around and lifting her slightly as he did. "This is how you hug!" He said before gently setting her back down. He could see that the look on her face remained ever unchanging, but for a split second, before it had disappeared, he could have sworn he saw a hint of joy in her eyes. They were torn away from their little moment as they heard the loud sound of the doors locks disengaging. "Make it quick you two," Morgan said quietly as she held the door open for them, looking around cautiously as she did so. The two ponies were about to make their way inside until they heard a loud crotchety voice shouting at them. "What in da blazes do ya think yer doin!?" Shouted a voice that made all present parties freeze with terror, and slowly the ponies turned around to see the third minotaur of the base, He was quite small compared to the other minotaurs, coming up to about an average pony's eye level. He was much older and had a long flowing beard, as well as graying blue fur that further showed his age. One of his eyes was permanently squinted, and his face was wrinkled through years of stress and anger that had persisted his entire life. He wasn't strong enough to walk on his own, so he had a small cane that he was using to support himself. The small minotaur looked at the two ponies then hobbled his way over while pointing at Morgan. "Morgan! You best be shuttin that door before I shut it for ya!" He yelled with his signature strange accent. Morgan looked at him with wide eyes before smiling as widely as she could and closing the heavy door. She stood back at attention and did a double-take as she saw her brother Tauro still intensely thinking, she could practically hear the gears turning in his head. She laughed nervously and gave him a good kick to grab his attention. "Huh, what?" He looked down and saw the scowling face of the tiny graying minotaur. Wasting no time he snapped to attention just like his sister and only focused on looking forward so as to avoid the gaze of his intimidating elder. The old minotaur looked over the two youngsters before stepping in front of the door and turning to face the pair of ponies. "Now! You two best be leaving. The last thing the commander needs is a couple a troublemakers takin up her time when she's in the middle of a meetin!" He said with a stomp of his cane for emphasis. "Frolo! You don't understand we-" "No you don't understand! Every time! You come to er with some nonsense!" He said while pointing at Flash accusingly. "But if you'd just-" Again Flash was cut off from trying to show Frolo the files as they were batted away with his cane. "But nuthin, I don't care! It's me an me kin's duty to keep rabble-rousers like you two out of the commanders…" He stopped for a moment as he thought to himself. "Well she doesn't have hair, but you still can't go in. That's final." Seeing no way past the old cooks stubbornness Flash turned around in defeat and started to head towards the hallway. "Come on Stone, let's get out of here." Despite his call, he didn't hear the familiar hoofsteps of his partner clinging to him like his shadow. "Stone?" He asked questioningly as he turned back to see the grey unicorn standing mightily in front of Frolo. "Ho-ho! Ya really want to test yer mettle eh?" He dropped his cane and cracked his fists, legs, and neck. "Or are ya really too daft to realize when you're outmatched?" Flash ran up to his partner, her face still blank, but even so he could tell that her eyes had narrowed even if only slightly. Her horn crackled to life with magenta magic, and her stance became slightly lower as she prepared to do the unthinkable. "Stone, please!" He said pleadingly, grabbing her attention in the process. "I don't want you to get hurt...or worse." He looked over at Frolo who was leaning backward and jutting out his fists in a comical fashion. "We'll find another way, trust me." Stone blinked a couple of times before dropping her magic and giving a quick nod. Flash sighed in relief as he pushed her away from the would-be confrontation and headed back into the halls. He didn't need to look back in order to feel the gaze of the elderly minotaur lasering its way into the back of his head. The two ponies reentered the main area of the base and walked off towards a very small rest section where only a couple of other agents had been sitting. The area was comprised of only a handful of tables and chairs, as well as a couple of dispensers filled with basic foods like cereal and bagels. With so much going on and every creature trying their best to keep up with their duties, there was little time to rest amidst the chaos, but thankfully it was there for those who found they had at least a little time for themselves. The duo sat down, Flash looking extremely upset and Stone looking like...Stone, and watched as all of the other agents in the cave as they continued on with their work. "This is nonsense!" He said suddenly, drawing slight attention from the two other ponies sitting at a table to their left. "Heh, sorry guys," Flash said sheepishly, eventually getting the other agents to return to their food. "That stubborn old coot, if he knew what we knew then he'd let us in there in a heartbeat! This can't wait, right Stone!" He looked to his partner for confirmation who just continued to stare at him loyally like she'd always done. "Yeah, we need a plan. How are we gonna get in there with the trio guarding the doors?" He asked himself as he brought a hoof to his chin. Suddenly there was a loud crash that caught the attention of nearly everypony nearby. Looking over to the entrance of the rest area, Flash and Stone saw the same diamond dog from before tussling with a griffon in an attempt to take his bag. She was down on her hands and feet like a large wolf and growling as she tried to tear the bag away from him with her mouth. The two continued to struggle for a minute or two until eventually the Griffin broke free and hovered a few inches above the ground, his talon outstretched in the universal gesture of halt. "Lottie! No!" The grey griffon said nervously as the diamond dog slowly approached him with a hungry look on her face. "Come on, I know you got it. Just give it to me, GIVE IT!" She screamed as she lunged at the griffon once more. Despite his quick reflexes, Lottie had managed to grab the bag while laughing maniacally. She jammed her face into the bag and began rummaging through it before emerging with a mouthful of marshmallows and a satisfied smile. The griffon however had fallen to his knees and had his talons reaching out towards her in sorrow. "Those were my favorites." He whispered softly before holding his face in his claws. At this point almost all of the other agents had gone back to their normal duties, writing this off as just another day on the job, but to Stone and Flash this was exactly what they needed. Slowly the two turned and looked at each other, Flash with a knowing smile, and Stone with a tiny little curve at the very edge of her mouth. With a quick whistle Lottie's ears perked up and swiveled towards the two ponies, her head following shortly after. "Oh Lottie! Come here girl!" Flash said while patting his legs. Slowly Lottie crawled her way over to them and sat down with her legs crossed, her head tilted in confusion as she watched them. "Yeah?" She asked innocently. There was a pause as Flash turned his head away from her, then in one swift motion he faced her with a big smile. "Who's a good girl Lottie?" He asked with a voice somepony would make towards a normal housepet. Lottie looked confused for a second before looking behind herself, then back to the strange stallion. "I like to think I'm a good girl." She replied with uncertainty. "Who's a good girl Lottie?" Flash repeated with more and more excitement in his voice. Due to this it achieved his goal of making Lottie very excited as well. "Is it me? Am I a good girl?" She asked as she stood up, her tail beginning to wag ever so slightly. Flash discreetly nudged Stones side, prompting her to hide one of her hooves behind her back. Lottie was immediately drawn to this motion and ran circles around Stone in an attempt to see what she was hiding. "What is it, what is it, what is it, what is it?" She repeated ad nauseam the longer she went without seeing it. "It's a very special treat, for good girls like you Lottie." Lottie looked at Flash silently, slightly adjusting her goggles as she did so. "But if you want this super, magnificent, awe-inspiring, splendiferously awesome treat," Each adjective he added made Lottie's eyes grow wider under the orange lenses of her goggles. "Then you have to do a little something for us first." He said with a devious grin. Lottie wordlessly nodded her head and ignored the obvious red flag, as if only the idea of a reward was enough to get her on board for anything the two could have wanted. Luckily for her though, they knew exactly what they wanted her to do. In the darkness of the conference room there was only one bright light. This light was the green hue of the messenger beetles atop the conference table, used to communicate with other cells in the insurgency, the Spears of Sunlight. Currently the commander of the Crystal cell was Knave, a small changeling with pink eyes, a green membrane on her head that mimicked the appearance of hair, and large chitin armor covering most of her body minus the helmet. She was currently leaning over the table and conversing with the other cell leaders in a joint decision brief with their joint commander. The conference had been going on for quite some time, but luckily for the changeling it seemed to be getting closer and closer to the end. "With all due respect sir, the colony is a much higher priority than the appleloosan logistics stations." Knave said as the visual feed from the beetles shifted to the image of a pure white unicorn stallion with a partially light and dark blue mane wearing purple old guard armor. He donned a contemplative look while another voice in the feed scoffed. "Not at all! Sure they get power Crystals from the colony, but they could get them from anywhere else! These logistics stations are solely responsible for supplying their badland forces, and with them out of the way we could easily allow the Storm King's forces an opening to attack Nightmare Moon's troops." Said a large muscular earth pony stallion with a mustache and cowboy hat as the feed shifted to show his form as well. Soon another voice entered the fray, once again making the visual feed smaller to fit all of them at once. "Hardly! The last thing we need right now is the Storm King to gain any more influence than he already does! What we need to do is intercept Cloudsdale and use its high mobility as a new base of operations. Not to mention the offensive capabilities that could be used for its weather factories!" Replied a female thestral with a high society accent. "We don't have the time, nor the resources, to maintain an entire CITY as a new base Butusov! The entire reason we're hiding in frickin tunnels is because if the princess were to find our location, we'd be dead in seconds. The last thing we need is to make ourselves a target inside of Cloudsdale." Knave shouted in frustration towards the thestral on the screen. "Finally! Something we agree on." Said the cowpony as he looked to the side accusingly. "And you!" Knave yelled as she pointed to the stallion. "Those logistics stations are some of the most heavily guarded areas in western Equestria specifically because they're so vital to the troops there. How in Celestia's name do you propose we even begin to destroy them?" Knave asked the shocked stallion. "Pffft! That's easy! We just bum rush em as fast as we can, good old fashioned blitzkrieg. They can't stop all of us." The thestral snickered quite loudly and covered her mouth with a hoof. "What's so funny?" Asked the stallion. "Oh nothing, I just think that if you spent half as much time thinking of plans as you do maintaining that hairy caterpillar on your lip then maybe this war could have been won already. Or maybe just your sector at the least." The stallion growled and seemed to be ready to continue throwing insults until the joint commander halted them all. "That's enough!" The group fell silent as the unicorn looked at the screen with determination. "All of your plans have merit, as well as their own shortcomings, but we only have enough resources for one mounted attack, and we still haven't heard from Sunburst or Capper either." The subordinates nodded in understanding as the unicorn let out an elongated sigh. "Return to your respective missions, until then I'll take your ideas into consideration and relay them to the princess. Good luck to you all." The commander said with a salute that the others returned. "To you as well sir." The trio said in unison as the commanders feed cut off. An uneasy silence fell on the group that was still left in the conference until a snooty huff broke it. "Well, I still think Cloudsdale's a good idea. Good luck changing my mind." The thestral said as her feed ended. Knave was about to ask her colleague if he had any idea what made that thestral so stubborn when she was again beaten to the punch. "Seriously, they wouldn't be able to stop ALL of us. That'd be absurd." The stallion said while cutting off his feed as well. Knave let out a long sigh as she stared at the green static in the comm line above the table, her exhaustion finally catching up with her after the long day and even longer conference. Deactivating the beetles, Knave pushed them off to the side of the metal table before sitting down for a much-needed rest. She leaned back in the chair with a sigh as she massaged her temples and lazily looked over the unkempt papers left strewn about on top of the table. She inspected an old image of a group of Equestrians loading nondescript cargo into the trains near the colony, large rounded crates that looked eerily like sarcophagi. Every time she saw the image she would get a chill up her spine, but in the months that followed the capture they hadn't found a single thing indicating what they were doing within the colony, what it was they were shipping to Equestria. Her best guess was a new type of crystal that required such a drastically different containment unit, but realistically it could be almost anything. She had tried multiple times to get somepony inside to figure things out, but every time she had anypony get close to the colony they were almost always discovered too soon. The only two ponies she had actually managed to get inside undetected were at their best decent and at their worst more often than she'd liked. After months of having them undercover they had turned up with bust after bust, and it was beginning to try her patience. Despite having this area under her influence, she found that she could influence absolutely nothing within the territory itself. Knave sighed in frustration as she pushed the picture to the side and leaned back in her chair once more. She looked up at the dimly lit dirt ceiling of the conference room and thought hard about her next course of action. She knew that the Crystal Colony had more to it than the others knew, but she couldn't go in without the Colonel's support. All she needed was something to prove her point, undeniable proof that the Crystal Colony needed to be dealt with as soon as possible. As she mulled things over her thoughts were interrupted by an audible scratching noise coming from up above. She followed the sound until her gaze focused on a patch of dirt directly above her shifting around unnaturally, so with a feeling of dread she tried to get up and run. Her reaction times must have been shot after staying up for so long without eating since by the time she had gotten up to move it was already too late. The roof caved in, sending a shower of moist dirt and rocks down onto the changeling followed by a weighty brown diamond dog who had flopped onto the ground face first. Lottie looked around in confusion until she felt the dirt mound beneath her start to move and speak. "Get. The heck. Off of me!" Lottie gasped and scrambled to her feet as the commanders head and forehooves popped out of the mound. "Lottie! What have I told you about digging in the base!?" Knave yelled angrily while glaring at the normally well-behaved diamond dog. She tried to pull herself out of the mound, but each time she only seemed to be getting more stuck. "Are you just going to stand there? Help me!" She said while looking up at Lottie in annoyance, prompting Lottie to nod frantically and help pull the changeling back up to her hooves. "Sorry ma'am! I just really wanted the prize." Lottie said feeling just a bit guilty as she helped the commander dust the dirt out of her holes. As they both continued Knave stopped and thought to herself as Lotties words quickly registered with her. "Prize?" Knave questioned, but before Lottie could respond another rustle from the hole in the ceiling caught both of their attention. The two of them looked up just in time to see a pair of ponies fall out of the hole and onto the mound below where they bounced and landed on the cold hard floor next to it. The first to hit the ground was an orange pegasus stallion, followed shortly by his grey unicorn partner falling on top of him and crushing him with her rump. The two ponies laid there in pain for a moment while Knave just face hoofed at the sight of her incompetent infiltrators. Flash dizzily looked up and saw the disappointed gaze of his CO looking down at him and Stone. Wasting no time, he quickly rolled Stone off of his back and stood at attention while saluting the changeling. "Ma'am! If we could please just have a moment of your-!" He was about to finish his sentence until he felt a quick rush of blood to his head due to his quick recovery from the ground, making him feel nauseous to the point of almost falling back down. Knave watched as the stallion clumsily righted himself, and as the grey mare slowly stood up and took her place at his side. She sighed and looked back over to Lottie who by now had begun fidgeting very anxiously. "Lottie?" Knave started softly. "Yes ma'am?" Lottie responded carefully. "Have you gotten your prize from these two yet?" She asked with sincerity. Lottie shook her head no, which prompted the commander to look back to the two agents and stare at them for a few moments. "Well?" She questioned while gesturing towards Lottie with her head. Flash laughed and smiled nervously as he nudged Stone with his hoof, getting a nod from the mare in response before she slowly walked up to the excited diamond dog and presented her with a small spool of red sewing thread. Lottie gasped in excitement as her eyes widened beneath her cracked goggles. "Yay!" Lottie screamed ecstatically as she picked up the spool and fell to the ground in playful joy, messing around with the thread-like a newborn pup. "See? She's being well compensated." Flash justified as the diamond dog in question continued to roll around in a fit of giggles on the floor. Commander Knave looked down at Lottie and let out a heavy sigh at the childish antics of her crew, before falling back down into one of the chairs that were not covered in debris. She placed her head in her hooves as the exhaustion of hunger and sleep deprivation continued to take their toll. “Um...well to be fair ma’am, we wouldn’t have had to do this if Frolo wasn’t so harsh. Right Stone?” He looked down at his companion hopefully who just stared back at him unblinking. “Ugh, well You don’t need to be so vocal about it,” Flash said with a roll of his eyes. “Besides, I know for a fact that this was both of our ideas. Don't try to deny it." He finished with an accusing point of his hoof, to which Stone responded with a quick head butt. The action wasn’t exactly painful, but it was more than enough to send a message. The antics of the two infiltrators were cut off as the commander took in a very loud deep breath and raised her head once more. "J-just tell me what you want already. Get it over with so I can go and eat." Knave said with deep frustration evident in her voice. He gave a quick nod of understanding and looked over to Stone, who promptly conjured their pilfered file and levitated over to Flash’s outstretched hoof dramatically. Knave’s eyes widened with curiosity as she watched the dramatic exchange occur, until the file was quickly handed to her. “So do you mind giving me an explanation as to what this is?” She asked as she opened it up and began to read.   “Of...course.” She heard the hesitation in his voice and suddenly felt a sense of dread, a feeling that told her she should be taking this a little more seriously. She sat up and fell silent as she continued to read the documents within the file. “You see ma’am, as you already know there have been recent reports of small groups of Crystal Ponies disappearing. Upon further inspection though, we have come to discover that this has been going on for years. Hundreds, if not thou-” Suddenly the door swung open as the three minotaurs outside rushed in as quickly as they could without warning. Tauro Tackled Flash to the ground and held him in a headlock as both Morgan and Frolo strolled inside calmly. "Sorry commander. It seems no matter how well we try, these two are still determined to bother you no matter what." Morgan said as she felt another smash to her knees from the elder minotaur's cane. "I oughtta have you two tossed in the snow for the Yalfors!" Frolo shouted angrily as he approached the still grappled Flash. "Sorry about the commotion ma’am, what do you want to do with em?" He asked as he looked up at the commander with closed eyes and a calm smile. There was a moment of silence as nobody in the room made a sound, so curiously Frolo opened his eyes and noticed that Morgan, Stone, Tauro, and even Flash were all staring at the commander. Even Lottie, who was for some reason still in the room and covered in red thread no less, was stood to her full height and staring at the commander. Finally Frolo followed their gaze and let out a confused noise as he saw the changeling staring down at the documents and reading through them with unnatural speed. Her eyes were darting left and right furiously, and it seemed that every few seconds she was flipping through another paper and moving onto the next one. "Ma'am?" He asked with concern as her hooves began to shake. Suddenly she closed the file, and the look on her face was like she had just seen a ghost. "Frolo...let them go and prepare all of our fighters for combat." She said as she slowly placed the file down on the table. The elder minotaur looked confused for the first time in years and just tilted his head at her. "Did I stutter? We don't have time for this! We need to stop the Crystal Colony's next…" Knave paused in disgust for a moment before continuing. "Shipment." Still a bit confused, but determined to serve, Frolo quickly whacked Tauros’ hand to loosen the grip he had on Flash’s head. “You heard the commander! Get your grubby mitts off of that damned pony and get ready to crack some skulls!” He screamed as he quickly rushed the two behemoths out of the room, and even though he had left the sound dampening walls of the conference room they could still hear his screams and orders echoing through the cave base. Stone helped Flash back up to his hooves as he worked on catching his breath, and looked at the commander blankly. Knave was about to speak but stopped as she tried to figure out what the unicorn had meant. She looked over to Flash for help, so he quickly cleared his throat and recomposed himself. “What do you want us to do?” He asked, with Stone nodding in agreement. Knave nodded in understanding, despite not understanding in the slightest how he could not only comprehend that mares lack of expression but even translate it into words. "Right...well thank you for bringing this information to my attention, we'll need to move quickly if we want to stop this." She started to place the beetles back into communication formation on the table and activated it with her magic. "Right now you're the only infiltrators I have inside, so take these with you." She tossed two of the beetles to the ponies, and as they made contact the stone-like beetles suddenly sprung to life and crawled beneath their manes where they were hidden. Flash made a bit of a nervous laugh as the beetle disappeared, the sensations of its cold appendages making him shiver awkwardly. "S-s-so ma'am...not to question your judgment, but these are going to help us how exactly?" He said nervously as he felt a small stinging sensation when the beetle had latched onto his scalp. "These beetles help cross-communication over long distances. Portable versions take a lot of magic to run without an array and are only reserved for the most vital of agents," She activated the remaining set of beetles on the table which sent a large bubble of swirling green energy up above it then turned around to face the two once more. "And it looks like you two are it." Stone and Flash looked at each other for a moment before donning looks of confusion, at least in Flash's part. "So why did you give Stone one?" He asked plainly, his silent partner nodding in agreement. Knave looked to him, then to her, then she promptly face hoofed. "Tilleadh!" She called in a strange tongue that made the beetle from beneath Stone's mane jump out and return to its master. "I swear THIS is what happens when I don't get a proper meal, I can't think straight!" As she gently placed the bug back on the table Flash cleared his throat to regain her attention. "Moving on. What's our plan exactly?" Flash asked curiously. Knave hummed in thought for a moment and began twisting the remaining beetles around to find a frequency. "We're going to prepare for an attack on the colony. We're going to need the support of the Colonel's forces in order to stand a chance against the Crystal Colony forces, and with these files you've given me I'm sure we can get it." Finally as she set the frequency and waited for a response she finally wrapped up her plan with the two vital pieces beside her. "You two need to head back to the castle and forge some documents explaining recent malfunctions with the equestrian Express. Nothing too fancy, just something that would keep any average equestrian satiated if they didn't look too hard. All we need is a day at the most for the Colonels forces to arrive." As she explained the two infiltrators once again shared a look of confusion. Regardless the commander continued. "While you're at it, I need you to knock out as many of their communications and alarm systems under the radar, we don't want them calling for help when we commence the raid." "Okay, that part makes sense, but why the forged documents?" Flash questioned for the both of them. "Because, we want to stop their next shipment as soon as possible, and time is of the essence. With the documents in place to 'explain' the trains malfunctions we can avoid them learning of our sabotage before it's too late. While you handle that..." Knave walked over to Lottie who was still sitting in her corner and half paying attention to the whole ordeal. "Our resident demolitions expert and engineer is going to, very discreetly I might add, sabotage the Equestrian Express. Halting it's latest shipment." She said as she placed a hoof on Lotties shoulder. Lottie's ears twitched and suddenly all previous remaining interest in the thread was tossed aside in favor of this. "You mean I get to blow stuff up!?" She asked with so much excitement that she began to shake her and Knave in place. "No! No, no, no. No explosions. They need to think this is like a...track or engine error." Lottie nodded in agreement and jumped to her feet while striking a heroic pose and pointing her right arm towards the wall in front of her. "Of course! I just need to disintegrate the front locomotive! Genius tactic ma'am!" Lottie said with a happy smile. Knave quickly waved her hooves in front of the dog dismissively while fighting back the urge to scream. "No! This needs to be covert, and you're the only one who understands how this new model works…somehow." She added at the end under her breath. "Just make sure they can't tell it's sabotage until it's too late. Clip a few wires, I don't know! Just no disintegration." She finished sternly while pointing to the hyperactive, and possibly psychotic, diamond dog. "As you wish," Lottie said while looking down slightly. With that squared away Knave let out a relieved sigh before giving Lottie a knowing look. "Just in case, make sure you take two others with you before you go." Lottie nodded reluctantly before sulking out of the conference room. "As for you two. Report back to me when you plant the information, then I'll be able to give you further instructions. If everything goes well, and we have no surprises along the way, then we'll have the Colony and the ponies within set free before the end of the week." "Yes ma'am!" Flash said with determination as both he and Stone placed their silver guard helmets on in unison. "What do you say Stone? Are you ready?" She looked up at him, her blank eyes glistening ever so slightly, in a way that made Flash laugh. "Yeah I know. Always ready." The two turned and left the room, shutting the door behind them. As the heavy doors slammed shut the feed from the comms on the table finally reached through, as a familiar voice responded. "Major? I hope you have a good reason for calling so soon on this frequency." The Colonel said in annoyance as he approached the screen. "I do sir. I have urgent news that was just reported in by my infiltrators from within the Crystal Colony. It's of the utmost importance, and it is incredibly grave. The lives of many of the Crystal Ponies could be at stake." She answered, getting a raised eyebrow from the colonel in response. Before he could verbally respond however, a second feminine voice responded to the commander as a pink alicorn entered the frame next to the white stallion. "Then by all means, relay this information immediately. It had better be worth our time though." The mare said with a stern no-nonsense look. Knave gulped nervously as the image of the supreme leader of the Spears of Sunlight looked down at her expectantly. "Yes princess."