Commander Twilight Sparkle walked down the halls of Canterlot Castle, her hands griped behind her back as was her custom when her cybernetic legs were set to biped mode, which they usually were when she was on duty as it gave her height over everyone but a few ponies and changelings and allowed her to pick up objects without her magic as the innate magic in pony hooves did not carry over to the mare’s cybernetic limbs.

The mare wore the standard uniform of the Equestrian Defense Force, her own little slice of the military and the force called in when the Royal Guard couldn’t hand the situation. The uniform had been designed by the unicorn mare’s close friends Rarity and was dark green with two large pockets on the chest and three smaller ones running down the shoulder. On the side about where one would put saddle bags was another pair of pockets. Upon the mare’s head sat a military cap and over her eyes she wore a dark pair of aviator sunglasses she rarely took off as she liked being able to look around the room without people knowing where she was looking, gave her an advantage over them.

Behind the Sunglasses rested a scared face, the left side was a mass of smaller scars wile over her right eye was a single ling scar, both injuries had claimed the unicorns eyes and they had been replaced just like all four of her legs had been by cybernetic implants.

The eyes matched her old eyes in color but still were obviously not organic while her legs were painted a shade of purple that didn’t quite match her coat, the mare did not care as they were her legs and eyes are far as she was concerned and were just as much a part of her as the scars that covered her body from gunshots, knife slashes, explosions going off near her and the her time as a “specimen” known as P438-29T in a hellhole called Demanil Labs, there is where she got the one scar that had hurt her the most.

On the mare’s right hip and flank rested a holster with a pistol in it, and beneath that was a square of scar tissue where her Cutie Mark had been surgically removed against her will. That was the one single scar that hurt the most but she had come to terms with it long ago, it helped she fed the one responsible for her being in that hell for a month into an automated autopsy machine want watched as her was dissected alive. That was one of the Commander’s happiest memories and it never failed to bring a smile to her muzzle as she remembered the doctor’s screams.

The mare had only escaped the labs thanks to the help of a group of rebels fighting agent the government of that planet when they attacked the lab and ended up taking her with them. She had gotten to know several of them and eventually joined their fight for justice and that was how she began losing body parts. Twilight didn’t see anything wrong with her new limbs and in fact found them to be far better to her old ones for what she had to do.

Twilight had other souvenirs from her time away, for one she had a personal army of weapons not designed to be used by ponies as they were meant for creatures with opposable thumbs, hence why she had finger when walking as a biped.

Granted the weapons of the EDF were designed to be used by ponies and were based of her guns and with special saddles built to allow non-unicorns to wield them. The mare had spent the last three years building up the Army into a force that can keep Equestria safe from all threats and they had bases across the country and garrisons in every city.

Do to this they had an ongoing rivalry with the Royal Guard on who was better, normally it was just heated words and the occasional bar fight and Twilight was fine with that as both forces pushed themselves to be better than the other which made both groups better and the fact the Royal Guard weren’t above admitting when they couldn’t handle a situation and called in the EDF while they fell back to support. Both groups actually worked well together despite the rivalry.

For the most part the EDF handles large scale monster attacks while the Royal Guard handled basic protection and law enforcement. Though the Royal guard had it a bit easier in life as the Nobles were on their side do to the tradition of having the Royal Guard where Twilight had to fight to get the army what they needed as only a handful of Nobles supported the EDF, even after Tirek most nobles were against the army but more had come to support them after so many of their soldier had died fighting Tirek, one simply had to step outside the castle gate to see the Memorial to the Fallen, a simple polished obsidian wall adorn with over two hundred and fifty thousand names, both pony and changeling who died to protect the nation from a being the equivalent of a god.

Before the wall was the twisted and burned out remains of an Equestrian main battle tank that had been destroyed protecting Celestia’s School for gifted Unicorns, disobeying order to fall back to the castle as they found foals were hiding in the school after being separated from their evacuation group and went to the only place they knew in the city. The tank crew had bought enough time for the foals to escape from the school and not be drained by Tirek as so many others had before them.

Twilight was drawn from her thoughts as one of the two machines hovering beside her spoke up. “Are you alright commander?” the synthesized voice said.

Twilight looked at the hovering ball with the Gatling gun bellow it, its body had a hand full of gem imbedded into its armor as they had been upgraded since Twilight returned home and had access to magical items, this machine could be identified by the word CELSTIA stilted onto the front of it. “Yeah I’m fine.” She said.

“You just don’t want to meet with the Nobles. “Anther voice said on the other side of the mare, and Twilight looked at an exact copy of the first machine though this one had LUNA on the front “I don’t blame you, they are very annoying.”

Twilight had to laugh at the sentry’s assessment of the Nobles, though her laughter was cut off by Celestiabot. “Sister, you should watch what you say; the commander needs them to be on her side if she wants to get anything done in a timely manner.”

“I’m just stating the obvious sister” Lunabot replied.

“That maybe, but you should still watch your words in case it gets back to them and they call for our deactivation again, they already hate us because of our designation, don’t give them any more reason to dislike us.” Celestiabot replied.

The other bot gave a huff. “Fine sister, I’ll play nice with the annoying quadrupeds.”

Celestiabot just sighed and Twilight had to suppress a laugh at the antics of the two machines, for artificial intelligences they behaved like actual siblings and formed opinions, Twilight still wasn’t sure how she got them like this when she programed them but she didn’t mind as it was fun talking to them or watching them talk to each other.

“Anyways, it is as Luna says, I’m not looking forward to this meeting cause as you both know I hate politics.” She said.

“Yes we know Commander.” Celestiabot said. “This shouldn’t take long, it’s just handing in this month’s budge report, and you actually managed to cut down of the military’s spending by 5% so they should be happy.”

Twilight snorted. “Yeah right I wish, those pompous asses won’t be happy unless the EDF budget goes into their own pockets.” She said with a laugh, one Lunabot joined in on while Celestiabot just gave a sort of nod in agreement, while she was more polite she still agreed with the assessment.

Twilight was cut off as she felt a thread of magic that was familiar touch her. She stopped abruptly and dropped to quadruped mode so she was a less noticeable target as she scanned the hall for the unicorn using the magic while her mind analyzed the magic to see who it was as it was very familiar.

The mare saw no one but the thread was growing rapidly. “Is something wrong?” Celestiabot asked as both sentries adjusted their weapons, giving them test spins as Lunabot looked behind them while Celestiabot watched their front.

“I don’t know.” Twilight said. “Some on with a very familiar magical signature is casting a spell; I’m trying to figure out what it is.” Twilight answered slowly as she watched the hall and kept trying to identify the spell.

Suddenly she notices a glowing yellow energy around her body. “The hell?” She said as unknown spell grew stronger, and the she identified it, it was a teleportation spell. “oh fu—“ The Commander vanished in a flash of light before she could finished speaking leaving the two sentries to beep loudly in alarm and Celetiabot to fly off to get help while Lunabot locked down the hallway.

Author's Notes:

So then we come to the sequel to Soldier of Magic, for those who are reading this story first, welcome, I gave a small recap of what happened in the first story though it is a very small summery.

to those who come from the previous story, a good part of this prologue is old news but still good to get a refresher.

as it said this takes place three years after Twilight's return to Equestria and I will be talking about what happened in that time that wasn't cover in SoM's interludes.

and I still don't know if this story's interludes will follow what happened in those three years or what is happening with the EDF with Twilight missing.

we shall see.