Solar Burn only continued laughing until Princess Celestia glared at him. Even then while this silenced him, it did not remove the wicked grin he still possessed as the table quieted down. Nopony said a single word or if they did it was too quiet to be audible. After a moment of this Princess Celestia got up and stated, “We’ll have a short intermission while me and my sister meet with Captain Blood Moon. Please take this time to gather thoughts on the matters at hoof. ”

Whispers surrounded the table as I got up. From what little I did managed to gather it was not of a kind nature. As one would imagine, down the years I had truly gained an infamy of sorts among my fellow officers. Yes, my plans did turn out to work, but they were usually dangerous and quite unorthodox. As a result I was often deemed unpredictable or even crazed by some. But, no matter how hurtful their statements I always seemed to get the last laugh because nopony could deny that I could get results.

As I started walking away I heard somepony scrambling out of their chair behind me. Judging by their frantic hoof steps it most likely was Twilight desiring to speak with me. So I in turn altered my course into a small grouping of trees to my right for the sake of giving us some privacy. I had just made my way to them before I heard somepony say “Get back here you!”

It appeared I was correct in my initial assumptions. It was indeed Twilight trailing behind me, and given her tone, she was less than pleased. So I stopped and sat next to one of the trees right as she stomped to a halt in front of me. Her purple slitted eyes gave off a burning glow as she leered at me. I raised an eyebrow and said “Twilight I know that you are angry with-”

Her eyes narrowed as she growled out “Oooh no no noooo I’m not angry! I’m furious! What do you mean we ‘may not see you again’”?! If you’re trying to get yourself killed I’ve got a right to know!”

I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “Twilight you must understand. There have been certain…developments…that has made me a bit more ‘tight lipped’ if you will. If I tell you what I am planning it could put you at grave risk. I have no desire to see you harmed,” I replied.

“I can take of myself! Now, tell me what you are planning…please,” she said and gently placed a hoof on the side of my face.

I lifted my own forehoof and placed in on hers soon afterward. I then rubbed it up and down her leg a few times before taking another deep breath. “I apologize Twilight, you are right. Perhaps my position as your bodyguard or more likely your lover has clouded my judgment. Surely the Blood Moon sized hole in that Reaper Knight Arena wall is evidence that you can indeed hold your own,” I said smiling before I leaned in and kissed her.

I then hugged her before stating, “However I do not dare speak my plans here. If you wish to hear what I have to say, then please accompany me while I converse with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna in private.” I then paused for a moment and added “Hmm come to think of it. If you could, please locate your brother and Princess Cadence. They have the right to know what they may be getting themselves into as well.”

After about five minutes of waiting with Celestia and Luna in a secluded forest area, Twilight came walking up with Shining Armor and Cadence. Then as everypony got situated I asked Twilight to put an anti-sound ward around us. Right after the sounds of the forest cut off I asked Luna to put an obscurus spell around us as well. She looked puzzled for a moment, but did as I asked. An orb of shadow surrounded us and the only light inside came from Celestia glowing horn.

Luna was the first to speak, “Blood Moon, you are being very irregular even by your normal standards.”

I straightened my back in response and stated “I know this is quite unusual, but I have several important items to mention. I truly do not want anypony else hearing my voice or even reading my lips,” I paused before adding, “But first, before I state what I have to say, are there any other plans to reclaim the city? Besides an all-out invasion I mean?”

Luna and Celestia looked at each other before Celestia shook her head. “Unfortunately we don’t have anything else besides a ground invasion planned. The rogue vampires surprised us and grounded most if not all of our own air ships. They somehow got passed our defenses faster than we could properly respond. And while we have other methods at our disposal, they’d only result in an outright destructive siege on what remains of the city.”

I sighed and rubbed my face. “That is what I was afraid of. I will start from the top then. First and foremost in regards to how fast they struck us. I had conversed with General Black Wing earlier and we believe there to be a traitor among our ranks. However thinking on that point it becomes more worrying," I said as my mind grew uneasy.

“What’d you mean by ‘more worrying’?” Shining Armor questioned.

“Given the evidence, somepony had to be of high rank to know how to bypass our defenses in such a manner. I would bet only a certain few know that the defensive wards around the city have been enhanced after the Changeling invasion. Truth be known I only know about them because I almost got attacked by them moons ago when I discovered a strange new invisible field surrounding the city’s outer walls,” I replied and I saw Celestia, Luna and Shining all purse their lips but said nothing.

“However, it gets worse. In regards to the emergency portal gates, there are only seven ponies that knew about them. Five of them are sitting here, meaning me, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Cadence, and Shining. The only other two are General Black Wing and General Solar Burn. Now being me, Twilight, her friends, and my lieutenants were ambushed by an enemy officer who knew about these very portals the conclusions drawn are troubling,” I said growing even more uneasy.

Cadence leaned in and said “Are you insinuating either Celestia’s or Luna’s own General could be in leagues with the enemy?”

“With all due respect, I do not make my statements lightly, Princess. These are just the facts that I have gathered. Truth be told, I hope I am incorrect in my assessment for multiple reasons,” I replied as a knot formed in my stomach.

Celestia must have sensed my uneasiness. She soon cleared her throat and said “While troubling, I can’t disprove your statements, Blood Moon. However, while we consider those implications, what was this plan of action you talked about earlier?”

That is when I truly became uneasy. I now had to state the horrid little plan that I scraped together on a meeting table using nothing but a rock and the table’s own surface. Beads of sweat started to form on my head as I furiously attempted to gather my thoughts. The addition of my current company only served to exacerbate the issue. However, after I wiped a variable waterfall from my face and fixed my armor’s ring several times did I state, “Alright my plan.”

After a few seconds of complete silence had passed I heard Luna say, “And thy plan is what, Blood Moon?”

“Right...the plan. yes…I…oh please tell me we have something else then this?!” I blurted out.

“What’s wrong?” I heard Twilight say next to me as I nervously started tapping my forehooves together at a rather increasing pace.

My eyes darted around to a few times before I said, “Fine, I will state it! Back at Applejack’s apple orchard we had gathered a large amount of something that absolutely terrifies me. In order to fix the orchard we tipped the scale of life and death heavily towards the side of life. That dark energy that lashed out at us was in reality death energy in its purest form. It is a force of nature that was trying to remove the source of the disruption, my ritual. Now being that you cannot simply destroy energy we stored it in some absorption crystals and put it in a box of energy sealing.”

I wiped more sweat off of my face and continued, “In each living thing resides this energy’s opposite or as we know as ‘life force’. It is the ‘fire’ that keeps us living and some beings like myself and others present can keep it burning beyond regular life spans. But, this force of life is kept in check by ambient levels of ‘death energy’ around us that slowly negate it to prevent dreadful things from happening. My plan is to tip the scale of life and death towards death by opening that same box of energy sealing in the middle of the city.”

Silence reigned supreme for almost a minute before Shining spoke up, “But…but that would…”

“Keep the structures of the city intact while literally sucking the life out of every living thing inside the city walls,” I interjected sweating even more.

Shining paled, which was quite the feat being he had white fur. Everypony else on the other hoof looked to be in various mixtures of unpleasant emotions. Well, all except for Celestia whose eyes showed that the gears were whirling in her mind. She then bit her lip until it bled before saying “What would it take for this plan to work?”

Luna gasped and said, “Sister! You are not surely considering this?! In no dishonor to Blood Moon but this plan would be madness in the highest level!”

“What choice do we have, Luna? This is an act of desperation in desperate times. We've tried to come up with other plans and been left wanting. Either way our subjects will be forced to suffer and there’s little we can do to prevent it. We just have no better option to save the city,” Celestia replied but her steeled composure started to crumble. She then shut her eyes as a single tear flowed out of her right eye. More tears began to flow until Luna put a hoof on her shoulder. The sight of seeing Celestria like this gave me no joy. I could not even begin to fathom the amount of strain she was under. A lesser pony would have easily collapsed under such stress, but she endured. After a few deep breaths Celestia had collected herself enough to say, “Again, what would it take for this plan to work?”

The sight of her burden made my fears and worries seem minute. If she could endure such hardships then I could endure mine. With empowered strength of will, I gathered my thoughts before stating, “First I must ask where is that Box of Energy Sealing being stored, princess?

“We were unsure how dangerous it was so we put it in the forbidden section of the magical archives in a sealed vault. You’ll need me or my sister to unlock it for you,” Celestia replied almost back to her normal self.

After tapping my left fang a few times with a forehoof I narrowed my eyes in thought. “We will need a grand distraction to pull the majority of the rogue units away from royal palace. Unless it is for further evacuation of citizens I would highly advise against any of our forces from entering the city itself. Me and a small group will infiltrate the palace and recover what we seek. Also while in no disrespect to you princess, but as we require stealth for this, I would like to request Princess Luna accompany me,” I said smiling.

Celestia’s mood lighted up as she laughed a bit. “Oh come now. I’m not that flashy am I?” she replied wiping off the last bit of her tears.

Luna half narrowed her eyes in a joking manner and said, “Sister, you can hardly walk through the royal gardens without everypony knowing you are there. In being the Princess of the Sun, you are the exact opposite of the definition of ‘stealth’.”

“She has a point there, Celestia. You do tend to stand out in crowds,” Cadence jokingly added.

I heard Twilight snicker next to me and even Shining smiled before just shrugging. Celestia put her forelegs up in front of herself and laughed before stating, “Alright alright I can take a hint. I’ll spearhead our little ‘distraction’ instead. However while we’re all here anyway, does anypony else have any other suggestions?”

Shining crossed his forelegs and scrunched his face in thought. “I suggest we split our forces into two groups. Canterlot has two main gates into the city. By attacking both at the same time it will pull the the occupying army in two opposite directions,” he said grinning.

Celestia nodded right before Cadence spoke. “Being Luna will be with Blood Moon, Shining and I will lead the second force. In addition, because we don’t know who the traitor is I suggest we make each attacking force a combination of Luna, Solar and Crystal units. Also we should separate the two general just in case. If either of them try something it will be easier to react.”

Luna rubbed the bridge of her nose and then stated, “With heavy reluctance I agree with Cadence. I do not think it possible for Black Wing to do such a thing and Solar Burn, while unpleasant at times, has remained loyal for many moons. Either way we should be vigilant to uncover the identity of this traitor as soon as possible.”

“Any other input?” Celestia said looking around. After a few seconds of silence I nudged Twilight in the side.

“Err umm is there anything me and my friends could help with?” she said nervously.

It was pretty obvious Twilight was not used to planning for war. Yes, she did have some experience in the changeling and the ponyville attacks, but this was very different. I had felt bad for putting her on the spot as such in front of everypony. So right before she started to falter I spoke up, “I would request Twilight and Spike be put on the infiltration force with me. The extra magical might would be quite valuable. In addition, while I know the other Elements are not fully battle trained, they do have had some experience in combat. If nothing else having them on the field would be a grand boost for morale.”

Twilight let out the breath she was holding as I started to think some more. Soon another idea popped into my head. However, It was an idea that I almost did not wish to state, but desperate times call for desperate measures so I said it anyway. I took a deep breath and said, “I have one last suggestion to make. However I am a bit…hesitant…to state it.”

Luna tilted her head and said, “Yes?”

My face scrunched up. “Discord could-” I began to state, but a zipper of some sort appeared at the top of the obscurus spell that surrounded us. It then unzipped about a meter and Discord stuck his head in.

“I heard my name. You know tia and lulu, its impolite to talk behind somepony’s back. Wait this is one of those secret meetings isn't it? Now where did I leave those black robes and candles?” Discord said and rolled his eyes midway through his statements.”

I rubbed my face several times and said “Discord could help with the distraction by using his chaos magic to disrupt our foes…”

Discord’s eyes got quite large as he blurted out “You mean I get to have some fun?! You ponies are so duuuulllll lately. Nothing, but idle chatter and grim faces. Soooo can I can I can I?

Everypony did a collective groan before Celestia said “Fine Discord. However you-”

“SPLENDID! You all can continue your little chatter fest. I got some mayhem to plan bwahahaha!” he said laughing in a quite unpleasant manner. Celestia attempted to say something else, but he zipped the obscurus spell up a moment later.

Celestia closed her eyes and began to rub her temples. Luna and everypony else seemed to mimic her actions. Celestia then took a deep breath and said “I have a feeling we’re all going to regret that. However, If we’re done here, me and Luna need to go speak with a certain draconequus.”

The rest of the night remained uneventful. The meeting from earlier did continue, but Celestia and Luna did most of the talking. They also kept out most of the details regarding what we spoke about. A twinge of guilt seemed to plague me however. While I did not care much of Solar Burn, Black Wing had been more than a general to me, she was a friend. As such I hoped against hope that I was incorrect to doubt her, but I could not be certain. Either way, all that was left to do now was wait until tomorrow where the dawn of battle would soon be upon us.

Ahh desperate plans. Because everyone knows that opening a variable Pandora's Box is an absolute delightful idea...