The declassified biography of a zebragus

December 22nd, 96 P.B.E., in the Crystal Empire

Elysium Fields struck at the white-hot metal for what felt like the thousandth time. She was an ambrosia-colored unicorn with an electric blue mane with slate-grey highlights. She was also a scientist who had been hired to make an easily reproducible, mechanical set of wings for unicorns to be able to support the pegasi in battle like they do the earth ponies. She had been working for weeks, scrapping design after design for varying reasons, even being put under house arrest by the king's advisor, a charcoal-grey unicorn named Sombra, until she finished it. As she stuck her almost finished creation into the water to cool it down, she heard the door to her home and smithy slam shut. She quickly threw the now-finished mech wing into her junk pile as she prepared for another meeting with that red-eyed, motherbucking plothole.

"Ms. Fields! How come the wings?" Sombra half yelled, half hissed.

"I have a design that should work, but I still need to figure out how to get it to attach to ones body without-"

"Do it already! and to make sure you get it done in a reasonable amount of time... GUARDS! take her food and bed. Maybe you will work faster without the distractions of food and sleep." Elysium grimaced at the thought of no food, as she worked best when she was well fed. "Maybe when I come back in three days, you will have done your job." Sombra turned around and began walking out. "You know the drill, guards. She is still under house arrest."

Elysium Fields sat back at her workbench, continued working at her wings, all the while with a worried look on her face.

Outside the city

Corporal Jet Stream had been waiting with Commander Umbra for 3 days now. They were waiting for Blitz Spark, or 'Sparky', to return to their camp next to the river that supplied the Crystal Ponies with all their water. Sparky was the obvious choice for reconnaissance, as he was neither a zebra nor a bat-pony, and thus not immediately noticeable. He was just sitting down for a late lunch when Sparky made it back.

"Sparky, good to see you. We were getting worried that you'd been discovered. So, is she here? The one who makes prosthetic limbs?"

"You bet she is. I found 4 pieces of intel concerning her. First, her name is Elysium Fields. Second, She was hired by the Emperor's adviser to make the wings we're hoping to get from her, and placed under house-arrest when she couldn't get it right as soon as he would've liked. Third, with the guards keeping her under house arrest, her workshop is a veritable fortress. Finally, getting the plans will be a problem, as she has a code she writes her notes in, and it's supposedly encrypted in triplicate."

"If we find the key to the code..." Jet and Blitz both jumped at the sudden arrival of their commander, "And she's bound to have one, then we get what we want anyway. This is but a minor setback. We'll attack two nights from now. Until then, we'll enter the city discreetly and examine the place for weaknesses. Dismissed, comrades."

Jet saluted and got about breaking camp, all the while with building anticipation and excitement.