Subversion

Eclipse smiled, his plan was complete, it was a simple plan, an elegant one, one that nopony would expect. He figured that the best way to start a war between the Griffon Empire and Equestria would be to somehow cause a Equestrian special operation to go haywire and end disastrously. He had several options to choose from, from having a team sent into a trap, to preforming a hit on who they thought was a threat, yet was actually a government official, or to simply stage a fake assassination attempt. Or, he could use his other multi-staged backup plan which would involve multiple assassins that he would have to hire, but he could afford to do that, especially due to the amount he was getting paid.

Eclipse inhaled, and put on his 'borrowed' Royal Guard armor, it had been easy enough to acquire, nopony had been the wiser for it. As he donned the helm he smiled as his violet coat turned white, the enchantment taking effect, he levitated the package that contained the information he intended to pass off to get the ball rolling. He then took a sword and sheathed it, he wouldn't need it, but it would help make it look urgent and official, not that the package wouldn't be enough. He smiled, and walked out the door to his destination, Princess Twilight Sparkle's castle.

Twilight Sparkle was asleep, or at least she was until a knock on the castle's main door woke her, the magical enchantment on it meant you could be at the farthest point from the door and yet hear it, it could be annoying at times. Twilight sighed, got up, and then tiredly started walking out of her bedroom and to the main door of the castle, but then she remembered she could just teleport herself. There was a flash of light, a noise, and Twilight disappeared- and reappeared behind the castle's main door. She used her magic to open the door, expecting to see one of her friends there. It wasn't one of her friends. It was... a royal guard.

"Hello?" Twilight asked.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle," the guard bowed, "I come bearing urgent news that requires your immediate attention, from Princess Celestia herself, she needs this matter taken care of immediately, and it is within your department to facilitate what must be done." Eclipse then levitated the package over towards Twilight.

"Ugh, it's the middle of the night, what could be so important?"

"I wouldn't know, it's above my pay grade." the guard replied.

Twilight sighed, and took the package in her magic, "I see, thank you, I shall attend to this immediately, dismissed."

The guard saluted Twilight, waited for her to return it, and then started off back to Canterlot.

Twilight watched for a few moments before turning back inside and shutting the door with her magic, it was the middle of the night and she wanted to sleep, but the guard had said it was urgent, so she decided it probably couldn't wait until morning, especially since he had said it was in her department to take care of. At the suggestion of Princess Celestia, a few weeks ago, Twilight took the position as the Director of Special Operations, replacing Princess Luna who formally held the position, Celestia and Luna agrees it would have taken her some adjusting to get used to, but it would be beneficial, of course, for the first while Celestia and Luna gave Twilight advice, but eventually decided she could handle it on her own. Celestia trusted Twilight's decisions, and Luna trusted Celestia. Princess Twilight Sparkle now headed Special Operations alone, Celestia and Luna would only check in every months for a brief report and summary of what had happened, or if there was an emergency.  Twilight Sparkle still had the group of advisers Princess Luna had used to assist her in decision making, Twilight would have to get them to the Castle in secret, or would have to go to the Wonderbolt Academy and assemble the advisers, but they were useful.

Twilight walked into her throne room, and sat down on her throne, it was surrounded by six other thrones, one for each of her closest friends, and spike, of course. She opened the package with her magic, and looked over the file inside of it. The file bore the mark of the ESIA, the Equestian Special Intelligence Agency, something that Twilight had next to no knowledge about, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had told her about it when she had been made Director of Special Operations, but made sure not to go into details about it, but they had mentioned that they get reports quite often from ESIA, providing them with intelligence they needed to be made aware of, such as the return of The Crystal Empire. "Okay, what do we have here..." Twilight said to herself as she began reading the information on the file.

CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET

To Princess Twilight Sparkle, Director of Special Operations,

Urgent action is required to eliminate a threat to the seat of Griffon power, a radical group within the government is planning a coup, they disagree with King Tafkal's views on the Griffon Equestian Alliance, and want to eliminate the king and several ministers and replace them with griffons who will shatter our alliance and would most likely find an excuse to start a war with us, we know this would seem like something to tell the Griffon Empire, but due to how we acquired this information, we can't tell them, we believe the best course of action would be to eliminate the threats at once, special ops teams could get in, eliminate the threats, and get out without anyone being any wiser, more information on the targets is on the next page.

We have reason to believe these threatening elements will act out their coup within a month, we apologize for the short notice, but we only recently became aware of the issue. Due to the sensitivity of the situation, it requires immediate action.

Twilight Sparkle read the file again, and turned to the next page to look at the information provided. "This is not good..." Twilight said under her breath, the seriousness of the issue meant she needed to act fast, there were five targets, and they had limited special operations resources, they needed to act fast or risk an all our war with a nation that currently had the upper hand in military technology and size. She needed to talk with her advisers immediately. She teleported herself and the file into her bedroom, walked over to a wall, and using her magic, revealed a secret room, she stepped inside. She quickly grabbed her crown along with a grayish blue uniform, it was adorned with yellow lining, and bars, along with having Twilight's cutie mark on her front shoulders. She used her magic to put the files inside a pocket specifically  for classified information, and then stepped outside the room and sealed the door with her magic, the door faded into the crystalline architecture of the castle, leaving nothing to indicate it's existence. Twilight then teleported into Spike's room to inform him that she had to do something important and not to tell anypony that asked that she wasn't here, and to let nopony in, She finished by saying she didn't know how long she would be, but she should be back before morning. "I'll be back... sometime." Twilight said and then teleported herself directly to the Wonderbolt Academy, more specifically, the briefing room for the Director of Special Operations, once there she went over to the wall and pressed a red button, it would inform the advisers that they were needed.

Twilight then calmly sat down in her chair at the end of a long table that could seat 12, but there were only 7 chairs, including hers, ironically, most of the time all of those chairs weren't even filled, and she was rarely here as it was, due to her role as a princess, needing to deny valuable information that she was the director, and having a life. She waited in silence for a few moments, knowing that her three main advisers would be here shortly. The door opened, and in stepped the sub director of the Pegasus Special Operations, also the one whom generally ran special operations, except for the ones Twilight was specifically needed for, this was something Celestia had recommended to assist Twilight to help maintain her role as the princess of friendship.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle." General Spitfire saluted Twilight.

Well, that's one down, two left to go... Twilight thought, "At ease general." Twilight said while returning her salute, and General Spitfire took her seat. They sat in silence until the second member arrived, the unicorn general, and sub director of the unicorn special forces, General Ruby.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle, General Spitfire." General Ruby acknowledged and saluted.

"General Ruby." Spitfire acknowledged.

Twilight returned the salute and General Ruby took her seat, now they just need the earth pony general to arrive. Not thirty seconds later, the earth pong general, General Jack, arrived.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle, General Spitfire, General Ruby." General Jack acknowledged and saluted.

Twilight Sparkle returned the salute while the others acknowledged him.

"Princess, what is it that is so urgent that requires we assemble immediately- and in the middle of the night?" Inquired Spitfire.

"This," Twilight levitated the file out of the pocket with her magic, and passed it to General Spitfire, who then read it over before passing it to General Ruby, who read it over carefully, and then gave it to General Jack, who seemed to just skim over it. "This requires immediate attention. I wan't your opinions."

"I can see why you wanted our advice, this is a lot of information, and we do have more experience than you do, and this could cause an international incident... and a war." General Ruby paused, "But perhaps we should each have a copy of this file to look over while we discuss this?"

"That would probably be a good idea." Twilight agreed, and took the file and went over to the copier and made four copies of it, and put the original back in it's pocket, she then returned to her chair and levitated a copy to each of them, and kept one for herself.

"It would seem time is against us, leaving us with little to no room for error, I would suggest using Pegasus Special Forces." General Spitfire suggested. "Even if we do have the most limited special forces..."

"It would take a decent amount of resources to pull this off, General, I'm not sure that Pegasus Special Forces has the resources to pull it off, however, Unicorn Special Forces have the manpower, resources, speed and precision to pull this off." argued General Ruby.

"I see, both are valid arguments, General Jack, what do you have to say in this?" Twilight asked.

"Well, all I can say, is we need speed, precision, and coordination, and while it's true that the Unicorn Special Forces have the precision and manpower, Pegasus Special Forces has all three, but not the manpower. So perhaps it would be wise to use a combination of both, deployed effectively to take out what would be the easiest target for them." General Jack suggested.

"General Jack makes a valid point, but, unfortunately we have scheduled training and operations for most of the pegasus special forces, so perhaps it would be best to use General Ruby's suggestion." General Spitfire conceded.

"I see, it would seem we're going to use Unicorn Special Forces then, we need five teams, what teams do you have available, and how quickly can we launch a coordinated strike?" Twilight asked.

The Crystal Empire has backed out of it's trade arrangements with the Zebra Nation over the spying scandal. Griffon King Tafkal set to arrive in Canterlot next month...