At full force and top speed I finally managed to get my hooves to take me all the way to Canterlot. It was around a two day run with only four hours of sleep between running. Unfortunately the minecart system that Lyra suggested was out of order, but after all that hard work, I finally had arrived at the gate to the city.

I had never seen Canterlot in person before, but I recall pictures of it from before the war. It was a majestic and colorful city. Now looking at it, it was very bland and run down. I could see in the distance that one of the towers to the castle had fallen long ago, and never got cleaned up.

Encasing the whole city was a barrier that was clearly designed to keep any would be trespassers out. More than likely any hostiles.

Standing at the entrance a guard looked to me and held his firearm in my direction from the top of a tower. Next to him another prepared his weapon. "Please provide your citizen ID." He demanded.

I took a step forward and lowered my hood. "I am not a citizen here." I replied.

He was gruff and to the point with his reply. "Then state your business or leave. Canterlot does not entertain tourism, and by protocol I am required to ask you to leave if you have no business. If you should resist, I am authorized to use deadly force. So what do you want?"

I rolled my eyes. "Sheesh, you're friendly." I commented.

My comment only made him adjust his weapon ready to fire.

"Who runs this place?" I asked.

"The city is controlled by Princess Luna and General Twilight Sparkle." He was very quick with his answers.

I nodded. "Alright, I request an audience with them."

He laughed. "And who do you think you are asking for an audience with the leaders of Canterlot like that?"

"My name is Torch Fires," I answered.

"I don't give a damn what your name is." He growled.

"I came all the way from SkyVale to get here." I added.

He paused and looked to his friend, whispering something. "Are you any relation to Flare of SkyVale?"

I nodded again. "He's my brother."

He paused a second time and then chatted with his friend again. "One moment." He called down as he got on some kind of radio.

I stood patiently for five minutes or so, and before I knew it the gates were opening. A different guard greeted me and lead me inside where the gate closed behind me. "General Sparkle has accepted your invitation for an audience and requests you go directly to the castle. You'll be guided right to her office. From this point forward you will have an armed officer with you at all times, if you engage in any suspicious behavior, we are authorized to neutralize you. Do you understand?"

I nodded. "You boys certainly know how to make a girl feel welcome."

He nudged my side with his weapon, and instead of continually trying to make small talk with him, I decided it was best to adhere to what he said. It looked like they weren't taking any chances on me. The fact that they knew Flare though had me excited. He was here in Canterlot, I knew he made it all the way.

The streets of the city were quite dirty, but substantially better than the ruins outside. It looked like Canterlot had only been partially hit by the effects of this cataclysm I had heard about.

The castle however was kept in relatively good shape on the inside. It must have been cleaned regularly.

The security team didn't ease up for a second, and as expected I was escorted all the way to Twilight's office. Once outside the door, the two guards stood next to it, one opening the door. "The general wishes to speak with you alone. We will wait to escort you when she is finished. Please keep your conversations brief as she is a busy mare."

I shrugged. "I'll see what I can do. I'm not much of a chatterbox though, so I'm sure you'll have little to worry about."

Stepping inside, the door was closed behind me. Sitting at a desk with a mountain of papers in front of her was a purple unicorn with some reading glasses on her nose. Looking up at me, I could see one of her eyes had a scar going through the lids, and that same eye was yellow in color, unlike her other eye which was purple. The yellow one looked terribly unnatural.

"Torch Fires, is it?" She spoke up. For a general she had quite a friendly voice.

I nodded. "Yes ma'am."

She took her glasses off and examined me. "You look a lot like him... Flare's sister, huh?"

"That's right." I responded.

"Well, I had to see it to believe it. Why have you come here to Canterlot though?" She rose a brow.

"Ma'am, I've come looking for my brother. Anywhere he goes, I go. We're family, and if this is where he wants to be, I'll be here with him. Please take me to him, I want to see my brother again." I demanded.

She sighed and nodded. "Very well, please follow me."

She had taken me to the Canterlot garden accompanied by one of her trusted soldiers; a Ms. Vinyl Scratch. She wasn't nearly as friendly as the general and her sense of humor was very childish and rude. I ignored her rudeness as we reached the center of the garden.

"There he is." Twilight gestured to a statue.

I approached and placed my hoof on the marble carving of my brother. The details were phenomenal.

"We found him about a month ago. He had gone out to Ponyville on his own and issued a distress signal on his way back. We tried to get to him with our best doctor, but he was dead for hours before we even made it there." Twilight explained.

"Your brother was a hero, Torch." She added.

A month, that meant that even without the setback of the arena I still would not have made it on time. That meant that I was too late by the time I even left SkyVale.

"Sorry you came all this way for nothing..." Vinyl commented.

I kept my hoof on the statue as my expression turned more serious. Flare was dead, and buried here, but I came anyways. There was only one choice from here. Nodding I turned back around to face Twilight.

"I wish to join the Knights." I spoke.

She blinked. "Errrr, what? Just like that?"

I nodded. "I wish to follow in my brother's hoofsteps. If he was passionate enough to die for the Knights, I am too. I didn't come here for nothing, I came to help Flare, and if this is what he died doing, then its what I want to die doing as well. Where do I sign up?"

Twilight looked as though she was in disbelief. "We normally don't allow many outsiders to join the Knights; Flare was a unique exception... But if you're related to him... I could let you in to honor him."

I grinned. "That would be great."

"Just so you know though, you still have to go through training. Its pretty rough, are you sure you want to do this?" Twilight asked.

I nodded. "I'll start right away."

She sighed. "Very well, we'll issue you to the next training group tomorrow. We'll have a guard assign you a bunk where you can sleep tonight while you wait for your orders. You'll get the chance to join, but you have to survive training first."

"Very well then, I'll hear from you in the morning." I answered.

Standing in the lineup, I readied myself. Twilight had warned me that I was going to be trained as a special operative, and because of that she would be sending her most hardened soldier to teach me. The training program was eight week long, and no doubt was going to put every one of my abilities to the test. I was ready though, there wasn't anything they could throw at me now that could stop me.

Standing there with the rest of the grunts, I inhaled and exhaled. There was no telling what was coming next, but I would have to face it regardless.

As we all stood there in the open, from the building next to us a white unicorn trotted out. Donning a military jacket and hat she walked right to the line up with a cigarette in her maw. I recognized her right away.

"Alright, shitbags. My name is Lieutenant Vinyl Jennifer Scratch. I'll be helping you all get your balls to drop for the next eight weeks." She started as she stared down the first recruit in line.

After she was done sizing him up she took another few slow steps. "I am telling you now, I am not your friend. I have high expectations and I will not tolerate any useless cocksuckers slowing down my lovely little unit here. My job is to weed out the weak and turn the strong into weapons of mass destruction." She paused and stopped to look up and down another stallion. "If you follow my lead, you may actually live."

I kept very still.

"Right now you are all worthless. You're nothing more than meat in a bag of flesh. Only if you survive my training will you be able to be a weapon. For the next eight weeks your pathetic worthless souls belong to me. I am Goddess to you all right now, and you will be faithful." Vinyl continued.

The mare eventually stopped in front of me. A grin grew on her face as her red eyes locked with my eyes. "Well I'll be damned. Twilight stuck you in my unit? How unfortunate..."

"Ma'am, I am honored to be trained by such a master, ma'am!" I responded with a salute.

She laughed. "You'll regret saying that, however I meant unfortunate for you. As for me, I am going to take great pleasure in watching you squirm."

She turned to the others and shouted. "We got ourselves a hero, here ladies. This here is the sister of Flare Fires, come to follow in her brother's hoofsteps." Her statement got a lot of chatter going.

She turned to me and smiled. "What's your name again, maggot?"

"Ma'am, recruit Torch Fires, ma'am!" I quickly answered.

She laughed. "Your new name is Cuntface. I hope you like that name."

I nodded. "Ma'am, yes ma'am!"

She leaned in closer. "Let me make something clear to you Cuntface, your position means nothing to me. I will be riding your ass twice as hard anypony else here because I don't play favorites. I suggest you pray to whatever you worship because it'll take a miracle for you to survive my training."

I saluted again. “Ma'am I look forward to it, ma'am!"

She gave a strange expression. "Cocky little shit, huh? Well, we'll see how well you do with our first exercises, I am going to break you, Cuntface. You're going to love me, I'm sure." She winked with that last part. Her eyes were powerful, she had the stare of a demon about her. I was certain many have trembled looking into her eyes. There was no doubt that if one were to dig through the history of Vinyl Scratch they would find nothing but great horrors.

Vinyl nodded and grinned before stepping away from me. "Okay ladies, I suggest you all get plenty of rest tonight. Come tomorrow, I will be twisting your balls off."

The group stood silent.

"Alright, at ease and go to your barracks. I don't want to see you pukes until four hundred hours tomorrow."

One grunt raised a hoof, to which Vinyl responded by approaching and standing in front of him. "What is it, maggot?"

"Ma'am, the protocol for special ops training is always six hundred hours. With the time allotted, it is impossible for the recruits to get enough sleep to perform adequately, ma'am." He rattled off.

Vinyl slapped him across the face and when he turned from the strike, she thrusted. Hoof under him into the crotch region. He groaned in pain as he fell over gripping the spot.

"What's wrong? Mommy needs to tuck you in? I am calling the shots here, and we will follow my protocol. You will be up and about two hours before the other recruits because I train harder. Out there, the darkness does not wait for you to get your beauty sleep and neither will I. You're going to be worked harder than any other unit, because this is my unit, and if my name is on it I want to have the greatest killing machines produced from it possible. So you do not get nap time under my watch." She had leaned down to speak to him on the ground. "Now anymore insightful input?" She added with a grin.

He shook his head.

"Good, now to the barracks, ladies!" She commanded.

On the way inside, I took notice of the fact that her eyes locked on me at the end of the line. I could already tell that Vinyl was serious about her comment about working me harder than the other recruits. Things just kept getting more and more interesting it seemed.