Commander Twilight Sparkle galloped through the halls of the Castle, Stonewall doing his best to keep up but Twilight was faster than a normal pony do to her cybernetic augmentation. The mare wore a wide smile though it was not the one she wore when having fun, it was the same sort the Princess most likely wore when she figured something out, which was why the Commander wore it now.

Reaching the Princess’ room the military mare burst through the door without bothering to knock and startled the princess from her reading to the point she leapt into the air and held the open book as a shield while hovering in the air. ”What are you do—“The Princess began only to be cut off by Twilight.

“I figured out how they did it!” Twilight exclaimed galloping up to the Princess as she landed just as Stonewall reached the door and saw that Twilight hadn’t bother turning the knob and just kicked the door in.

“Figured what out?” The Princess asked in confusion and noticed the smell of alcohol on the unicorns breath, she had been drinking it seemed though from the smell it was just hard cider.

“How the enemy did it!” The mare said and switched to being a biped as she grabbed the Princess and spun her around the room, while she wasn’t drunk she definitely was buzzed. “I was trying to figure out how anyone could create a blast like a nuke without it being a nuke that would create the Badlands and it hit me!” She exclaimed one more stopping and tossing the Princess like she was a sack of flour back into her chair as she started to pace with one hand behind her back while one rested on her chin as she thought. “It is very impressive what they did and it means out enemy very intelligent.” She said. “And if they could make a simple amulet that does that it means they are way more dangerous then I thought.”

“What? How did they do it? “The Princess asked perking up as it was something she had been wondering as well.

The Soldier looked at her with a wide smile, one now slightly the one she wore when enjoying herself. “Life.” She said and the Princess look at her in confusion and the mare looked at her trying to contain her joy at the idea of such a device having been created, well amulet but it still opened so many interesting possibilities, at least for fantasies. “How could anyone make a spell that powerful without it being noticed? And how could they cast it so fast?” She asked the Princess but didn’t wait for an answer. “Simple, you can’t, unless the spell is only powers by a small bit of magic. “She said and grabbed the Princess and leaned in close here pupils shrunk as small as they could be while she wore a wide smile. “It clicked because that spy said they made a sacrifice, that is a very specific word and at first I thought it meant that their own died in the blast but that didn’t make any sense as he said they needed to make a greater sacrifice.”

Twilight let the Princess go and actually struck a pose that consisted of her facing the ceiling with one of her hooves pointe dup at it. “The answer to all questions is Life! The spell was very small but designed to draw on the life force of everything around where its cast, the plants, the animals and the ponies and use it as fuel for the blast!” She said triumphantly towards the ceiling.

It took her a moment to notice the room was dead silent and when she looked at the Princess she saw the alicorn had gone deathly pale and the smile dropped on her face, she forgot the alicorn wasn’t the Major and come to think of it the spell is pretty horrible even if the possibilities are interesting, though only to herself shed imagine.

Looking back twilight saw even Stonewall had turned even more white then how he normally was in his armor. “That’s……that’s……”The Princess stood and galloped to her bathroom and Twilight calmed her excitement and stood with her hands behind her back to wait for the Princess to recover somewhat.

After a few moments Twilight heard the faucet turn on a moment after she heard the flush and a minute elater the Princess walked out still slightly pale. “That’s….that’s the most horrible thing I have ever heard…” She said finishing what she had been trying to say before as she walked back to her seat.

Twilight nodded. “Be that as it may it tells us a lot about our enemy, both their conviction and what they are capable of because of it as well as that we have some time.” Twilight said and the Princess looked at her. “Think about it, why haven’t they used the same spell already drain this city and the surrounding area and blown up all you alicorns?” Twilight asked the Princess rubbed her chin in thought as she furred her brow in thought. After a few minutes Twilight answered her own question. “The answer is because they don’t know how, what I think happened is only a few people knew how to craft the spell and they all died when it was set off. Which means we have some time as the enemy most likely doesn’t have the spell though we can bet they are working on it.”

The Princess nodded and Twilight looked at her. “Which means it would be a very good idea for us to neutralize them before they rediscover that spell.” She said firmly, while she would love to study that spell the idea of it being in the hooves of fanatics like the Purifiers actually made her worried. Even with the info from the spy there were still a lot of unknowns as either the spy didn’t know anything else or had done a good enough job at hiding it that normal torture methods failed, if only she had been alone with him, she’d have known everything he had known right down to the first word he ever spoke in his life. Though there was no way she could do it now as the spy suddenly dyeing would raise to many suspicions and with Celestia already displeased with her she had to be careful.

The Princess sighed and though she still looked pale she seemed to have recovered somewhat. “Yes….while I’d rather the Purifiers surrender…..if they are willing to do that then I don’t think Equestria, much less the world would be safe as long as they are around.” She said a bit hesitantly and Twilight looked at her, she seriously just agreed with her, didn’t try to come up with an alternative or a plan to reform them. The Princess of Friendship just agreed that the Purifiers needed to die. That was both good and bad in Twilight’s mind.

However she merely nodded in agreement and looked around the room. “So then Princess got any food here? Me and Stonewall didn’t exactly get to eat dinner as I ran over here as soon as I figured it out.”

The Princess looked at her for a few moments before sighing, she knew why the Commander didn’t just go to the dining hall and get food, he and Stonewall had been drinking again. “Yes I have some stuff her to make basic meals.” She informed Twilight who nodded.

“Alright, that will do.” Twilight said as she made her way to the small kitchen in the room.

The next morning Commander Twilight woke up in the same place she had slept the night before, meaning in a chair in the Princess’ apartment at the castle. The Princess had suggested she ask for a room as there were plenty of guest rooms in the castle but Twilight had counter with asking if she hated having sleepovers. That had caused the Princess to sputter as she tried to say she liked having sleepovers with her friends but Twilight had slept there the night before. So Twilight asked if she was kicking her out in the middle of the night to go wonder on her own. Once more the Princess sputtered as she tried to come up with an argument, it was all very amusing to Twilight. In the end the Princess conceded defeated as she realized Twilight had an entire list of counter arguments read, literally she wrote a list up and it was in her pocket. The Princess got to see it when she tried a third argument and Twilight pulled it out to read her scripted response. The Princess stopped talking at that point and just went to make herself a late night snack while Twilight tried to get Stonewall to high five with her; damn stallion left her hanging, then get him to pay up as he lost their bet.

There was an actual reason for Twilight staying in the Princess’ room besides not wanting to deal with room assignment and her own amusement. The Spy had been disguised as a servant of the castle and it meant there could be more within the castle. While Princess Celestia and Luna could handle themselves quiet well and had guards with them. The Princess was young and inexperienced and thus did not completely recognize the threat; in short she was an easy target for kidnapping or assassination by the Purifiers. So Twilight slept in the main room as anyone wanting to get to the Princess would have to go through her first and that would alert the entire castle as gunshots had a way of waking up people.

Twilight, Stonewall and the Princess were enjoying a light breakfast in the alicorns apartment what Celestia decided to drop by and Twilight had to stop herself from snapping to attention as her chewing out was still fresh in her mind, though her rational mind was able to convince her body this Celestia was not her superior. However she did sit straighter in her chair.

Celestia was surprised to find Twilight in the Princess’ room, seemed she had asked the castle staff where she had been staying and since Twilight had never spoken to them about a room assignment the staff had no idea where Twilight was. So she had come to ask the Princess and found Twilight.

“Well Commander I had not expected you to be staying with Twilight.” Celestia said and Twilight nodded.

“Better then dealing with room assignments.” Twilight replied as she went back to eating.

Celestia merely nodded and took a seat at the table while the Princess seemed to be offering her refreshments, or food, or anything a bit more franticly then she normally did, did something happen that she missed between the two of them?

“Commander I wished to speak to you concerning your privileges.” Celestia said and Twilight stiffened even more, had Celestia somehow found out Twilight was involved in that bar fight? Was she being further restricted? The only thing left really was to confine her to the castle or to a room in the castle. “I am hereby granting you your privileges once more.”

Say what? Twilight blinked several times behind her sunglasses before she removed them and proceeded to punch herself across the face. Yup that hurt which meant she was awake. Ignoring her throbbing jaw and replacing her sunglasses Twilight looked at the bewildered Princess, Stonewall and Sunglasses who sat staring at her. “Come again?” She finally said for the first time since Celestia spoke.

“I am granting you your privilege to walk around without an escort again.” Celestia repeated and Twilight nodded and noticed the Princess seemed to be both happy and scared at the same time; did she have something to do with this?

“Thank you Celestia.” Twilight said with a slight bow, best to do her best to stay on the Solar Princess’ good side so as to avoid future issues. “I do have one request though.” She said and Celestia arched an eye brown. Twilight pointed behind herself at Stonewall. “Can I keep him?”

Celestia blinked. “You want to continue to have an escort?”

“No no, not as an escort, more of an assistant, Stonewall here has proven an able body and I trust him.” Twilight explained.

Celestia weighed the question for a short time before speaking. “I suppose I can have Guard Stonewall remain with you as an aide of sorts.”

Twilight bowed once more. “Thank you Celestia.” She said respectfully once more before she rose

Celestia nodded as she watched Twilight rise and then spoke once more. “You have Twilight to thank for your privileges being returned Commander, she argued on your behalf. However I will not tolerate any undue harm befalling ponies whether they are an enemy of the state or not. Do you understand?” Celestia said firmly and Twilight nodded. “Good, I have also decided to give you another chance at training the Royal Guard as they have been released from the infirmary. However what you did for the first lesson will not be tolerated by anypony in this castle.”

Twilight nodded. “Understood, I hadn’t planned on doing another lesson like that.” Twilight explained. “I was just going to run them through some standard training done at Camp Mendez. Shouldn’t be too bad.”

Celestia nodded once more. “Very well then Commander, I shall leave you to it then. The Guards will be ready this afternoon.” She turned to Twilight. “I have matters of the court to attend to so I will say goodbye now Twilight.”

The Princess nodded and bid her former mentor goodbye seeming relived and after the Sun Princess had left Twilight turned to the Princess. “Well then suppose I should thank you Princess, without you I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of work as at some point the Guard would have taken Stonewall off his assignment. I owe you one.” Twilight said and whether the Princess wanted her to or not, Twilight always settled her debts.

The Princess looked a bit uncomfortable at this but she nodded all the same and Twilight headed for the door gesturing for her new aide to follow. “Where are you going?” The Princess asked confused.

“You heard Celestia; I got till this afternoon to set somethings up for the guards I am to train.” Twilight said looking back. “So catch you later.” She said and slipped out of the room.

That Afternoon Princess Twilight Sparkle made her way to one of the castle’s court yards as she was curious what the Commander had needed to set up for the next phase of her training regimen for the Royal Guard. As she entered the court yard she saw a crowd of castle servants and other Royal Guard had gathered at the edge of the court yard, thankfully they made way for her when they saw her. When she reached the head of the crowd she found her brother and his wife present as well as Princess Luna and the guards the Commander were to train.

Everypony was staring at the courtyard and even Twilight found herself staring. Running the length of the courtyard was some sort of obstacle course consisting of bridges made of ropes, some sort of nets that looked like they were meant to be climbed to platforms then swing across pits of water. There was a wall with a rope hanging down one side for climbing and after that was a narrow wooden beam over a bit of mud with large logs swinging back and forth over it. After that there was what looked like wired fencing lying close to the ground and it looked like the only way around it was to crawl under it and once more there was a thin layer of mud under it.

Twilight saw there were several standard training dummies on some sort of spring system that seemed to be blocking the path and would need to be pushed back. The Commander had even found tires and set them up in a zig zagging pattern and at the far end of the course was a simple bell

And right at the head of it with a broad smile while speaking to Stonewall was the Commander. She finished speaking to her aide and he made his way to the far end of the course while the Commander, walking like a pony and with a spring in her step, walked over to where the guards she was training stood. “Welcome you pathetic excuses for ponies to todays’ first activity. A simple obstacle course I threw together in a few hours.” She said gesturing to the course. Twilight questioned how the mare had built all of this in just a few hours.

“Now seeing as you pieces of shit have never seen standard Equestrian Defense Force training I will be nice enough to demonstrate how to properly get through this course.” She said as she trotted to what twilight realized was a starting line. “Pay attention as I’m only doing this once!” She yelled harshly and the Guards all stood at attention.

Nodding to Stonewall who stood beside the bell the stallion raised a trumpet to his lips and blew one long solid note. And with that the Commander shot off like a bullet galloping for the first of the obstacles, a set of beams laid across the path just above the height of an average pony’s chest. The unicorn reached them and leapt up, placed her front hooves on the beam and then swung her rear legs up and over the beam. She did this for the next seven beams. Then came the small bridge mad eof rope over the pool of water and the Commander never slowed down as she galloped across the bridge adjusting to the bridge as it shifted under her hooves. After that came the wheel on the ground. The mare ran through them making sure each hoof went into a wheel till she reached the narrow beam with the swinging logs. Here the mare slowly only slightly so she could time the swings of the logs as she ran along the beam easily avoiding the logs.

Next she climb the net ladder up to the plat form and grabbed the rope that lay waiting and had to use her fingers as she didn’t have the innate magic in her hooves, to swing around the gap. She used a pole that was set up to slide down to the ground and ran for the wall with a rope on one side. Jumping as high as she could the Commander grabbed the rope and with her rear hooved on the wall she climbed the wall with the use of the rope and jump down the other side.

Next was the training dummies and the Commander threw her shoulder into the one she came to and pushed it back rabidly and the second she finished the spring system snapped the dummy back where it had been. Lastly was the fencing obstacle, Twilight thought you were supposed to run over it like the wheels but the Commander dropped to the ground and lay as low as she could as she crawled in her stomach under the fencing through the mud. Clearing that obstacle quickly the mare crossed the finish line and used a small rope to ring the bell once.

Stonewall who had been watching the entire time with a stopwatch blinked as he read the time. The Commander just smirked at him and said something Twilight couldn’t hear before using a spell to clean the mud off of herself. With her usual smirk the Commander walked back over to the guards she was training.

“Ok so you know how to do it now for the other part of the training.” The mare said and she pulled ten sets of saddlebags from her pocket dimension. “You have to do the course wearing these.” She said and walked over to the guards. “This is an improvised version of EDF physical training gear from back home. These are based of what EDF recon train with so they are exactly seventy-five pounds each.” She said and the guards stared at her and she shrugged. “Hey last set of PT gear is two hundred pounds and every soldier has to go through PT training.” She said as she used her magic to place the packs on the guards. Twilight noticed the bags made it so the pegasi couldn’t use their wings. “And for you unicorns.” She said pulling out inhibitor rings and placing them on each unicorn horn. “There we go now there is no chance of cheating.” She said. “Now to the line you worthless bags of flesh!”

The guards galloped to the starting line as fast as they could with the added weight, the Commander had yet to tell them to remove their armor. Twilight watched as the group stood ready while the Commander smiled. “Ready!” She shouted. “Set!” Two strange guns appeared in her hands, both of them thing and topped with some sort of bubble and she nodded to Stone wall who blew the trumpet.

The guards took off at a full gallop like the Commander had; only they were much slower than the mare had been. From the start the guards had issues as the added weight made it hard for them to get over the beams but slowly they were able to climb over. It was then Twilight saw the Commander raise the two strange guns and before anyone could react she pulled the triggers. Twilight had expected to hear the normal bang of the Commander’s weapons but all this did was make quiet pop sound and two of the guards in the back yelped in pain as a blue mark appeared on their flank. “Move your asses!” The commander yelled as she started to move alongside the obstacle course and throw insults at the guards as they ran the course. Every time one wasn’t moving fast enough for her taste she fired on them with the strange guns and if a guard was doing too well at one of the obstacles they got the same treatment to break their concentration.

When the first guard tried to swing across the rope the Commander fired on them and caused them to lose their grip and fall into the water, which seemed to be ice cold based on the reaction. The commander yelled at the guard to try again before firing on the next guard to try it. Only three guards made it across the rope without having to retry but two of them got knocked into the mud pit by the swinging logs while one missed his step and failed.

The entire time the Commander was running back and forth alongside the course yelling insults at those running it and firing on them, only pausing to reload the guns with another bubble of the paintballs. When they got to the climbing wall the mare actually started pinging them in the side of the helmets making the helmet ring like a bell and all the guards lost their grips and fell.

It seemed that despite the fact the Commander had easily pushed the test dummies back the guards had trouble as the spring’s resister being compressed and the Commander shooting them all with paintballs didn’t help. When they got to what Twilight thought was the easier part of the course, crawling under the fencing, things changed, the Commander griped the paintball guns in her magic to fire on the guards who hadn’t reached the obstacle course yet. And replaced them with two weapons that looked somewhat like her sidearm but small and the mags were longer. The Commander aimed them at the ground and the court yard was filled with the sound of automatic weapons fire as the unicorn fired her machine pistols in random bursts. This startled the two guards crawling under the fencing and they automatically tried to shoot to their hooves, only for the fencing to stop them and it was then Twilight realized the fencing had small extremely sharp points on it that cut the guards and clung to their fur. The Commander showed them no sympathy as she yelled for them to keep moving as she fired on them with the paintball gun as she yelled about how worthless they were.

Slowly the guards tore themselves free from the razorwire and crawled through the obstacle course till they reached the end and rang the bell, it was only then did the Commander stopped yelling at them as she went to yelling at the other guards still on the course. The guard in last got the worst of the insults and twilight saw everpony listing’s ears were plastered to their heads as they looked on in shock at the things the Commander was yelling at the guard. Twilight had never known just how colorful the Commander’s langue was till that moment and she questioned where she could have possible learned such langue much less where to speak to another pony that way.

Finally the last guard rang the bell and the Commander’s guns vanished as she looked over the tired, muddy and in some cases bleeding guards who stood panting by the bell. The commander looked them over with absolute disgust. “Stonewall time!” She called out.

“Fifteen minutes, forty-eight seconds ma’am.” Stonewall dutifully read off the stop watch.

The commander shook her head and looked at the guards. “Fifteen minutes and forty-eight seconds. That has to be the worst time I have ever heard, my grandmother could run faster than you lot.” She shook head. “And you call your selves Royal Guards; I wonder how Celestia and Luna are even still alive with guards like you around.” She said then looked them over again. “Guess you will just have to run it again.” She said simply.

The Guards groaned and one spoke up. “What? But we just ran it; we haven’t even had a chance to rest or clean ourselves up!” The guard called out.

The Commander smiled and Twilight’s eyes widened, she knew that smile well, it was the smile the mare wore when somepony said something she wanted them to so she could do something she found amusing. “Oh? You need to clean up?” The Commander asked in a friendly tone and Twilight saw Stonewall disappeared under a nearby tarp. “Scared of a little mud are you?” The commander said as she walked over to the tarp, that same friendly tone of voice and the friendliest smile Twilight had ever seen on another pony.

When she reached the tarp she grabbed it and yanked it off, reveling one of the Canterlot Fire Brigade’s water engines, a hose leading into the pond behind it while Stonewall worked the pump. “Well then I got just the thing for you lot to help you get clean!” The unicorn said as she picked up the second hose and aimed it. The guards had enough time for their eyes to widened in realization before the Commander turned on the hose and the high pressure water shot out. The guards were thrown off their hooves by the force of the water and the commander swept her aim back and forth making sure to get every single one of them. The force of the water pushing the guards along the ground till they were stopped by the wall.

After about three minutes the Commander shut off the water and replaced the hose as Stonewall stopped pumping. The Commander walked over to where the guards lay in the large puddle of water against the castle wall. “There we go nice and clean!” She said cheerfully.

“What in Tartarus is wrong with you? You can’t train troops this way!” A guard said from the pile and the Commander’s smile dropped.

Several of the nearby guards tried to scoot away from the guard who spoke up as the Commander approached. She reached down and grabbed a hand full of his mane, the stallion’s helmet having been blown off by the water and lifted his head up. “This is just basic training my own soldier go through, wait till we get to the more advanced training.” The Commander said and her smile reappeared as she shoved the guards face into the puddle before she stood and looked at the guards. “To the line! We are doing it again!” She yelled.

Nopony said a word as they scrambled to their hooves and galloped to the line as fast as they could go and the Commander calmly walked back to the start. “Ready!” She yelled. “Set!’ The paintball guns reappeared and she smirked as the starting trumpet sounded.

Twilight watched as it all began again, the commander throwing more insults at the guards, never the same one twice, and shooting them randomly. Twilight could only watch and question whether this counted as the Commander keeping her promise to Celestia or not. All she was sure about was Commander had a very unique idea of what training was and could only wonder where she picked it up from.

Author's Notes:

Whelp we have some more info about the Purifiers and we got to see a bit of how the EDF trains its soldiers.