YOU WORTHLESS MAGGOTS AREN'T EVEN WORTH HITTING WITH A HYPER BEAM

Chapters

YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A MAGGOT, HATCHED FROM A MUTANT MAGGOT EGG
YOU CALL THAT BREAKING MY SPINE? YOU RED TEAM LADIES WOULDN'T KNOW HOW TO BREAK A SPINE IF IT HIT YOU IN THE- AAAAAAAGH MY SPINE!
YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN MY WORLD
GODSPEED, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD
LESS TALK, MORE FIGHT

YOU ARE NOTHING BUT A MAGGOT, HATCHED FROM A MUTANT MAGGOT EGG

Sandra Gardenia was not having a good day. First, though she’d managed to cobble together half of the Gardevoir cosplay she wanted to dress in, the shirt had gone mysteriously missing. Second, the other cosplay she’d prepared for the occasion, a Team Fortress 2 Soldier cosplay, had also been somehow vandalized, missing everything below the torso area. Oh, and the helmet, but she had a top hat stuffed into her bag.

Then, an idea struck her.

Donning the red shirt that went with her Soldier cosplay, working it around (And tearing a hole in the back) the fake gem for her Gardevoir cosplay, she quickly affixed every piece together, coming out with a whole costume that seemed made to fit together.

“Oh yeah,” she muttered to herself, “I make this look good.”

Five minutes later, she was out the door with her spray painted and modified Nerf Gun/Rocket Launcher, ready to kick ass and take names–that is, walk around and buy things.

Or at least she would have been were it not for the massive chunk of yellow metal that chose exactly that moment to slam home into the Earth, creating a crater visible from Mars. That is, it destroyed the whole planet.

Luckily for her, Sandra’s corpse had managed to stay stubbornly clung to a rather large chunk of planet-rubble, buried underneath, and mostly impaled by, a shard of golden, glowing metal. Said metal had also penetrated most of her effects, from her cobbled together prop weapons, to her bags, and, unfortunately, her eyeballs.

Yes, this is a sad sight indeed, but this is not the end of Sandra’s story. For, though frozen and dead and impaled she may be, she is also impaled by a good fifteen pounds of pure, high grade Australium. This, along with several other cosmic factors that just so happened to favor Sandra’s dead body, managed to launch her corpse-carrying rubble piece out of the space-time continuum and into a stable orbit in the Void.

And of course, we all know what lies in the Void.

Enter Aaron Heibai, on vacation from his own storyline, thus marking this as a canonically non-canon cameo.

“Shh! Shut up! I don’t want anyone else to know I’m here, jerkface!”

Rather difficult, considering that I just narrated your existence. Now why don’t you just read off the script and we can get the narration going again, huh?

“Fffffffine…” Aaron sulked, taking out a sheaf of papers and giving them a quick skim. As he did so, he idly nudged Sandra’s final resting place with his foot, bringing it to a halt in front of him.

“Seriously, another Displaced? Really?” Aaron whined, tossing the script behind him. “Alright alright. I’ll play. But if we’re gonna play… we’re gonna play my way. Lights!”

He snapped, floodlights from indeterminable sources spilling out and concentrating upon his shadowed form. “Alright… Ahem…”

And to a quiet song, he began his work, a rainbow of colors stretching from his form and wrapping around the prone corpse of Sandra, by now already starting to deteriorate into Void particles. A soft glow came from both figures, the shattered rubble of the former planet fading away in a haze of particles. And as the glow increased in intensity, Sandra’s body faded with it, becoming shorter and slimmer, skin fading to a porcelain white. Her wig melded to her skull, changing color from green to a vibrant red. The Australium chunk in her chest twisted and bent, becoming smooth and rounded, perfectly attached to her skeleton and nerves. The shirt she had worn became fused to her dress, the both of them resizing, becoming nearly skin tight. An armband appeared with a symbol of a rocket in a circle, wrapping around her left bicep.

At this point, Aaron was waving his arms like a conductor, the swirl of colors completely detached from his body. Sandra’s body was now whole once again, even her eyes repaired, irises replaced and interwoven with shards of Australium. As Sandra’s body finished recovering, Aaron turned his attention to the rest of her effects, repairing her grenade belt and enchanting it with an auto-refill, turning her modified Nerf Gun into a useable weapon, adding a shovel shaped guitar with sharpened edges to her inventory.

Finally, he dusted off the fallen top hat, restoring it and making it nigh indestructible in the process. Song concluded, he placed the top hat upon the unconscious Gardevoir and shook her awake.

“Hey… Hey. Wake up. Yo. Up and at ‘em. Get up. Hello? Dammit. Wake up, lazy ass.”

“Gar… de… Voir? Voir voir garde voir arde ga gar!” Sandra, or rather, Gardevoir shot up immediately, confused and disoriented, three separate facets of existence warring for control in her mind.

Aaron pushed her back down, gently restraining her until she lay still and calmed down. “Hey, hey. Calm thoughts, luv. Calm thoughts. Now, I know you’ve got a splitting headache right now, but I need you to clear your head and think clearly for a moment. Now, use your brain and try to tell me your name.”

Gardevoir shook her head, desperately trying to focus. As she did so, the gem in her chest and her eyes began to pulse, a voice carrying through the Void and into Aaron’s mind.

“Wh-who am I?”

“Oh, that’s interesting…” Aaron mused, idly scanning Gardevoir’s brainwaves, “It appears that the two new facets of your mind have wiped out some vital information about yourself and replaced it with their own. That explains why you can’t speak normally anymore… and why you don’t know your own name.”

“What do you mean ‘facets’?”

“Well you are experiencing flashes of memories that seem to contradict each other, yes?”

“Y-yes, why?”

“Those are the extra two facets in your mind, Sandra. I’m guessing one set of them shows a lot of concrete bunkers and violence while another set shows peaceful living in the woods, yeah?

“Wh- how did you know?”

“Cuz I’m awesome. Okay, point is, I gotta leave in a little bit, so I’m gonna wrap this up and give you the important points. One: You died and I resurrected you because… well… nevermind. Two: You’re now a Gardevoir instead of a human. Three: You have three sets of memories all striving for balance. I’ll help with that, but only once I finish this up. Four: Earth went kablooey and you’ve been tainted by the Void, so I’m gonna have to send you somewhere else to live out your life. Si-wait, no. Five, yes, five: Everything you had on you when you died, I fixed up and made a part of you– that is, they’re yours and no one else can use them. Okay, I think that’s all the important parts. Any questions?”

“... You keep calling me ‘Sandra’... is that who I am?”

“If you wish to choose a different name, you can, but yes, that is who you were before you died. Now, hold still, I’m going to fix your little… problem.” Aaron reached over and, before Sandra could react, slammed his hand wrist deep into her skull.

Sandra screamed in surprise, before falling limp while Aaron shuffled her memories around. Five minutes of weirdness later, he withdrew his hand, apparently satisfied with his mental restructuring. “So, feel better?”

“I-yes, actually. What did you do… and why do some things feel like they’re missing?”

“Well, my dear, I simply fixed your little… mental problem. The missing pieces will come in time, those are just memories that had to be repressed in order for you to continue as you are. Like, for instance, I had to suppress your memory of being human so that your body wouldn’t unconsciously reject your own Gardevoir abilities. I also had to adjust a lot of memories so that your body would be more used to handling your weapons as you are now, instead of as a male mercenary with a brain the size of a peanut.”

“I… that’s… useful?” Gardevoir shrugged, picking up her launcher and noticing its comfortable weight. “It feels like I’ve owned this thing for years… I bet I could disassemble it and reassemble it in less than a minute…”

“Well, kit up Sandra, you’re moving out. You can’t stay in the Void forever, y’know? It’d tear you apart… literally.” Aaron shrugged, as if to say ‘what can ya do?’. Gardevoir nodded, slipping on her grenade belt and slinging her shovel/guitar over her shoulder. She attached her launcher to its strap and hung her shotgun behind her, on her hip. Then she turned back to Aaron.

“Well? How shall I go?”

Aaron grinned and snapped his finger, a red and yellow pokeball appearing and sucking Gardevoir in with a quiet burst of noise. The voidwalker wound up and flung the ball on an arcing path, the ball flying out of sight in mere moments.

“Yo narrator! Ten bucks says she lands in Equestria!”

Sucker bet, idiot. We both read the script.

“Fiiine.”

A beat.

“Welp, I’m gone! Jupiter’s probably getting antsy.” Aaron waved goodbye to the camera and disappeared with a tiny pop!

Far away, in Equestria– “Hah! Called it!”– Shut up Aaron, didn’t you leave?

Ahem.

Far away, in Equestria, a fierce battle raged. Ponies versus the invading forces of Tartarus. Both sides took heavy casualties, the ponies dying far more often than the demons that crawled out of Tartarus. Celestia was at her wits end, she couldn’t be everywhere at once; not while demons probed the land’s defenses from all sides. She tried to make solace with the fact that her sister and her former protegé had several other places well in hoof, as well as the fact that her niece had managed to form a shield large enough to cover all of the evacuated refugees in the Crystal Empire.

Every single citizen of Equestria was, at this point, either fighting and dying in the front lines, or huddled under Cadence’s massive blue shield up north. The demons were, after all used to immolating heat, not frozen cold, despite being mostly dark colors and shades of blue. Celestia shook her head and dodged a swipe from an alpha demon, the beast itself stretching up twenty feet, colored blue and grey with fangs and horns.

As she dodged and parried, a stray blast of fel magick struck her in the side, deflecting off her armor, but distracting her enough that the alpha demon managed to strike her with a solid blow, sending her to the dirt. Celestia looked up in very real fear; a single alpha demon may not be enough to kill her, but if she was incapacitated, she knew that the tide of battle would change for the worse.

The alpha demon rose up, talons outstretched, ready to rend flesh from bone. The claw came down, screaming through the air.

Wait, Celestia thought, that’s not right. The whistling couldn’t be from the claw, as it had stopped in midair as the owner looked for the source of the sound.

And then it happened.

A flaming orb dropped from nowhere, punching a perfect hole straight through the alpha demon’s head, killing it instantly. The ball impacted in front of Celestia, stopping right as the button upon it pressed against her forehoof.

And in a flash of brilliant white light, a whole new player entered the game.

“I don’t know who the hell you are or where the hell I am… but these blue fuckers are going down!”

YOU CALL THAT BREAKING MY SPINE? YOU RED TEAM LADIES WOULDN'T KNOW HOW TO BREAK A SPINE IF IT HIT YOU IN THE- AAAAAAAGH MY SPINE!

“I don’t know who the hell you are or where the hell I am… but these blue fuckers are going down!”

Celestia stared at the red and white figure above her, trying to figure out what it was. All around her, the battle slowed as the combatants nearest to the scene tried to figure out what exactly the figure was and whose side it was on.

Said figure immediately proved its loyalties by striding up to the nearest demon and punching it square in the groin with a psychic cry of “MACH PUNCH!”, sending it to its knees in pain. As the demon fell and screamed in abject misery, the figure pulled a strange rod-like object from its belt and pressed it against the demon’s head.

Gardevoir stared up at the night sky, observing the full moon above. A wicked smirk came upon her face as she focused her energies through her shotgun and fired. “Moonblast.”

A bolt of silvery-white moonlight lanced out of the twin barrels of her shotgun and blasted a hole straight into and through the demon’s head, disintegrating most of it in the process.

Gardevoir shouldered her weapon and turned back to the shocked alicorn princess. “Who are you, where am I, what is your status, and how many of these ugly fuckers can I kill?”

Celestia blinked twice as she got back to her hooves and readied her sword once more. “I’m Princess Celestia of Equestria, we’re due east of the rubble of Manehattan, and kill as many as you can. These creatures are incapable of mercy, and I firmly believe in equal treatment.” A wicked grin crossed her muzzle, righteous fury burning through her at the thought of all the ponies that had fallen.

“No mercy it is.” Gardevoir nodded and shouldered a new weapon, this one large and black, with lines of green running down the length of it. “Full auto. FIRE!”

Fire and death leapt from the quad-barreled monstrosity in her hands, hundreds of tiny, but powerful, rockets exploding all over the battlefield, exploding indiscriminately but failing to harm any but the demons themselves. Some unlucky guards were even hit by the explosives, only to feel no damage, even as the rockets exploded into massive conflagrations of force and shrapnel.

When the barrage ended minutes later, the four barrels of Gardevoir’s rocket launcher were smoking and a gauge on the side flashed red. The oddly dressed pokemon dropped her spent weapon to the side, picking up her shotgun once more. Then, with surprising speed, she leapt into the fray, blasting any unlucky demons in her path with both scattershot and slugs, shadow balls and moonblasts.

Both armies were in complete disarray, the demons having lost most of their power at this point. Gardevoir had killed enough demons at this point that her skin, hair, and clothing seemed to be dyed blue, the only thing left clean was the australium gem in her chest.

The battle concluded not with dying screams, but whimpers, the remnants of the demon army retreating back to the poisonous hole in the ground from whence they came.

Gardevoir stood tall, striding back to Celestia with otherworldly grace for one covered in demon entrails and gore. As she crossed the battlefield, a quick song imprinted itself into the minds of the gathered ponies, ending just as Gardevoir halted in front of Celestia, dropping to one knee in deference.

“Problem solved, your majesty.”

Celestia stepped back a little, flicking the accumulated gore from her golden blade. “Thank you, whoever you are. Without your intervention, this battle would no doubt have been much bloodier.

“No problem, ma’am. Just doing my job.” Gardevoir shook her head, “That being said, I find myself lacking in any sort of funds or housing. Would it be too much to ask if you have enough room for one more Soldier?”

Celestia smiled down at the gore covered pokemon, placing a golden armored hoof upon her shoulder. “Of course we do. But please… Take a bath first.” Celestia removed her now sticky and blue armored hoof from her newest Soldier’s shoulder, shaking off as much of the gore as possible.

“Of course…. uhm… where’s the bath?”

Celestia pointed toward the camp in the distance, a warm campfire trailing a thin stream of smoke into the air from its center. “It’s over there... um… I don’t think I ever caught your name.”

Gardevoir facepalmed with a quick, “Gar!”, puzzling Celestia with the strange sound issuing from her mouth. “I… uh… I don’t have a name. Not really. I know I used to have a name, but the guy that sent me here removed a few memories so I couldn’t accidentally kill myself. Uh… I mean, I’m a Soldier class Gardevoir… if that helps.”

“No name?” Celestia’s heart went out to Gardevoir. Names were precious things, after all. Frowning, she looked around for inspiration, spotting nothing but cinders and recuperating guards. “....”

“What is it? I’m sensing hesitation… are you alright, your majesty?”

Celestia facehoofed with her cleaner boot, rubbing tiny circles around the base of her horn, “Yes, I’m fine… it’s just, I had an idea for a name, but it just sounds so…. childish…”

“Won’t know until we try it, I suppose.”

“True enough… what do you think of the name… Cinder Guard?”

“Cinder… Guard…” Garde–Cinder– rolled her new name around, testing it and seeing if it was worth keeping. “Oh yes… that sounds perfect.”

Cinder stood and rolled her shoulders, saluting at Celestia and gliding off towards her new camp. “I’ll see you later, your highness.”

“Of course, Cinder. Have a nice night.” Celestia turned towards the rest of her troops, offering little words of encouragement and a shoulder to lean on.

Cinder glided into camp with nary a sound, startling a few soldiers in the process. As they scrambled around in surprise, she ignored all of them until she realized that she had no idea where anything was.

Annoyed with herself and hating the reek of demon gore, she reached out and grabbed a guard with her telekinesis, bringing the… female? Yes, female, guard over and asking, as politely as possible, “Yo, know anywhere I can take a bath? I wanna get this shit offa me.”

The surprised mare shakily lifted a hoof and pointed off to Cinder’s left, where a small, steaming pool lay, a divider of simple cardboard separating it into a male and female side. Cinder shrugged and set down her gear, placing her tophat reverently on top of the pile of weapons. She disrobed, dress falling to the side and revealing perfectly white skin all the way down, save for where her face was covered in gore.

She stepped into the steaming pool of water, scrubbing flecks of blue blood and black ichor from herself, idly noting that she didn’t have any soap. Flicking a glob of blood from her hand, she waved over an idling guardsmare, petulantly waiting for the confused mare to respond.

“Oi. You got any soap?”

The guardsmare squeaked, clearly a rookie. “Y-yes ma’am! I-I’ll go fetch some!” She scampered off, leaving Gardevoir to enjoy the hot water. “Mnhh, at least the water is nice…”

Half an hour and a quick scrubbing later, Cinder stood fully dressed and cleaned in front of Princess Celestia, weapons holstered for the moment. She knelt once more, presenting herself to the alabaster alicorn. “Princess.”

“Cinder Guard, by the power vested in me as the diarch of Equestria and mover of the sun, I name you my knight, my guard, my Soldier. Upon your claiming of your new title, you shall hereby serve the crown forevermore, until your dying breath. Now rise, Cinder Guard, and I shall receive your oath.” Celestia’s voice was commanding, waves of authority cascading off of her form as she spoke.

Cinder stood and saluted, “Princess Celestia. Until my dying breath shall I serve the crown. Until the rivers run dry and the earth itself crumbles shall I be your steward, your knight. I, Cinder Guard, hereby pledge my loyalty, my life, my very soulto the crown of Equestria, long may it live. So as my oath is made, so it shall remain unbroken for as long as I live.”

Celestia smiled, “Then, welcome to the Solar Guard Corps, Cinder Guard. We welcome you with open hooves.”

Cinder nodded, a single tear tracing its way across her face. “Thank you ma’am.”

YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN MY WORLD

Cinder awoke to the sound of a bugle, the sun rising slowly from over the horizon in such a way to shine directly in her eyes. She struggled futilely with sleep for a moment longer before giving up and getting out of bed, patting her hair back into its normal helmet-like shape. Cinder yawned, stretching the kinks out of her spine and affixing her weapons to their proper places. As she exited her tent, she took in the sights of the eastern front’s forward defensive camp, each and every pony rushing around, preparing rations, oiling armor joints, polishing spears and crossbows, etc.

The RED Gardevoir pouted as she realized that her rocket launcher would be nigh useless at this point, having run out of ammunition the night before. Of course, since the world didn’t run off of game mechanics, she wouldn’t be able to just find a cabinet that could refill her ammunition automatically, now would she?

“Heh… it’d be funny, but I wonder how that’d work….” she mused to herself, silently gliding around the camp. As she was technically a freelancer at this point, despite her knightly status, she found herself with a remarkable lack of things to do besides the obvious eating and prepping. Silently drifting through the camp with pointed feet, she came across the blacksmith’s forge, pausing at the edge of the much warmer area.

A single pony working the bellows. Another hammering out a dented sword on an anvil. Yet another making arrows and crossbow bolts. Cinder drifted through this, barely making a single, pointed footprint in the dirt. When she came upon an unused anvil with a pile of broken and splintered weapons and shields nearby, she staggered back. Eyes flashing bright golden and chest-gem glowing with great intensity, Cinder clutched her head as hundreds of plans and creations flittered through her mind, until they stopped at two designs: A pair of boots… and a shovel.

“.... I’m just gonna chalk that up to ‘weird shit that Aaron did while messing with my brain’.” Cinder muttered, picking up a pair of shields, one broken and small, the other large and with a crystal stapled to it. “Okay, I’m not even sure if this will work… but memories say so… sooooo…”

With great reluctance, both items were placed upon the anvil and given a single slam from a hammer. A few seconds of tense waiting later, both shields shook and rattled, slammed together, and with a flash of light, a pair of boots– gunboats– appeared, pristine and shining.

“I…. what!?”

Setting aside her boggling for later, Cinder continued following the instructions rushing through her mind, taking a few other pieces of scrap metal and a chunk of wood with a spike through it, placing all three things together and forging herself a new shovel. The Market Gardener.

“Okay, this is just bullshit.” Cinder muttered, picking up the shovel and hefting it to check its weight. She shrugged and slung it onto her back, figuring that the useless guitar in her tent could at least be something worth passing the time with.

She left the forge with nary a sound, most of the ponies there not even noticing that she’d been there.

She returned to her tent with her new weapon, marveling at its extraordinary sharpness and its sturdy construction. As she entered her tent, she set it down on the ground and picked up her new, strangely shaped guitar.

“Well, at least I learned how to play the ukulele and the violin when I was still human… Though how I’m gonna play a guitar with three fingers is beyond me.” Cinder stared at her guitar, idly testing out hand positions and coming to the conclusion that her guitar was completely useless until she learned how to use it properly and with three fingers.

“... Why the hell do I even have this useless piece of shit!?”

Cinder tossed the guitar aside with a psychic push, glaring at it as if she wanted to smash it with her mind. Which she could do, but she just didn’t want to, not yet. A pony’s head poked through the flap of her tent, noting Cinder’s current predicament. “Hey… uh… you okay?”

“No. I have a useless guitar that I can’t play because I don’t have five fingers.” Cinder muttered, turning the guitar over in the air with a gentle application of telekinesis.

The guard, White Knight, stared and gave Cinder the most deadpan look he could. “Wait… so you have telekinesis… and you can’t play a guitar?”

“......” Cinder paused, the guitar freezing in midair, and then she facepalmed herself into her bedroll, groaning in defeat.

“I’m an idiot.”

White Knight shook his head and retreated with a, “Well, suit up, freelancer, we got another wave of demons inbound. They’ll be here in five. Best hurry before you miss all the action.”

Cinder set aside the guitar and shot up, already loading up her weapons, save for her rocket launcher. As she stood, she picked up her Market Gardener and held it by its handle. “Okay, Market Gardener… let’s see what you can do.”

Chaos filled the battlefield today, demons spontaneously bursting into random objects and items whenever they got too close to the camp. Discord had been fluttering around the entire defensive line for the past few weeks, doing everything he could to fight back the demon swarms that invaded his new home. As he flittered around the battlefield, teleporting the wounded to the field medics and unleashing all manners of chaotic hell upon the invaders.

It was through this that Cinder strode, gracefully striding forth with her Market Gardener in her hand. As she spun and ducked around and between demons, she alternated between bashing and slashing, slamming her shovel’s razor edge into and through the demons with relative ease. As she worked up a momentum, she began to twirl and spin, turning her movements into a literal dance of death, running from ballet-like movements to straight up breakdancing, spinning gracefully from pirouette to headspin to flare.

All around Cinder, demons died from caved-in skulls and slit throats, the unlucky ones even being decapitated by her almighty shovel. But, the waves of demons were endless, more and more pouring from the fiery hole in the ground located not six miles further east. The tide of battle became ever more desperate, gore soaking the ground and corpses limiting mobility.

Eventually, even Cinder tired, swings becoming slower and movements becoming sluggish, until she made a single mistake and over-extended a swing, missing her target and causing her to trip and fall. The demon she had tried to kill reared up, mouth full of flames. And with an inevitable certainty of death facing her, Cinder stared up in utter defiance, barely mustering the energy for that.

A wave of fire came crashing down.

Everything went dark and painful.

Cinder awoke to a flash of red and a curious noise, flopping out of nowhere and landing on the ground inside Celestia’s personal tent, her pokeball shutting behind her. She checked over herself, noting that all her weaponry had been refilled and was currently on her. Even her tophat was there.

Outside, the battle raged.

Cinder shrugged and put the thought from her mind. Worry later, demons die first.

She charged back into the fray, Market Gardener gleaming and shotgun roaring.

“GET SOME!”

GODSPEED, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD

Cinder sat idly in her tent, fiddling with the parts of her rocket launcher. As she did, her mind drifted and soon came upon an information cache that had so far remained mostly untouched. This one was all about something concerning a phenomena known as “Displaced”. She scrolled through the memories, hands going on autopilot and mind retreating to her mindscape and looking at all the information present. As she looked, she felt the information rush into her head:

1: She was a Displaced

2: Her Token was a hand grenade with a Mega Stone paint job

3: She could summon people through their Tokens, just as she could be summoned through hers.

4: Her Mega-grenade would force a Mega-transformation upon her arrival, though this was optional if she wished to stay normal.

Cinder shook her head and came back to reality, picking up her reassembled rocket launcher and standing up, a strange feeling flashing through her mind as her gem pulsed with golden light.

“... Well, what fortuitous timing be this!” she thought, jumping into the air and disappearing with a mental shout of, “Go! Gardevoir!”

Just as Cinder appeared from her summoning, she was greeted with a hailstorm of laser fire.

“Wah!” she cried, spinning out of the way gracefully and teleporting to the nearest perceived safe area. Before her was the ruins of what had appeared to be a once mighty city, but now it was nothing but a war zone filled with the most horrendous of creatures. Ponies clad in white and black were doing everything they could to fight back against the monsters, but more and more fell before the beasts.

“... What the fuck kinda fresh hell have I wandered into this time?” Cinder muttered, peeking out from behind cover and aiming her launcher at a dense cluster of monsters. She pulled the trigger with a quiet utter of “Moon Blast” and launched a trio of screaming, white energy blasts at the monsters, creating a massive explosion of cold, white light.

When the light faded, half of the monsters blown to bits. The ponies fighting the let out cheers of renewed sense of victory, charging back into the battle with renewed vigor. Cinder grinned a vicious grin and stepped out from behind cover, psychically boosting herself into the air and coming down upon various monsters as she fired rockets downwards, each explosion immolating a monster and propelling her back into the air.

A loud screech sounded out behind her, causing Cinder to turn… she really wish she hadn’t. A swarm of massive flying mutants were flying right towards her.

“Youuuuuu’ve… gotta be shitting me.” she muttered, teleporting higher and landing on one monster’s back. Sighing to herself and thanking her decent level of experience with handling demons, she pressed the quadruple-barrel of her launcher into the neck of the monster and fired a quartet of Moon Blasts, neatly severing its head and sending her even higher, allowing her to spin in midair, as graceful as a ballerina. She fired off more Moon Blasts, immolating several others of the swarm and propelling her back towards the ground via Newton’s Third Law. As she accelerated downward at terminal velocity, she flipped until she was falling head first, straight towards the unwary back of yet another creature.

She smirked and projected her thoughts to everyone within earshot. “ZEN HEADBUTT!” she cried, smashing her glowing skull straight into and through the monster, bursting from its chest cavity like a pissed off xenomorph chestburster. But that was just the opening another needed to slice down with it’s talons, raking across her back.

“Aaargh!” Cinder fell forward and sank to her knees, managing to boost herself just out of range of the next swipe. Hot tears ran down her face as she crawled backwards, wondering if she would even respawn so far away from her pokéball. The creature wasn’t done with her however, crying out and diving back towards Cinder.

“Look out!” some one cried, shoving Cinder aside as the mutant flew over.

Cinder rolled to a halt a few feet away, shaking her head and wondering just who it was that had saved her. “Whoever you are… thanks… Probably woulda died for real there…” She winced as she sat up, the cut on her back crying out its protest as she moved.

“Hold still,” the voice urged. “You were scraped pretty bad by that E.V.O.” She could feel a strange cream being placed and rubbed on her back, finding it oddly soothing.

“Mnh.. careful!” She flinched as the cream hit, only to relax seconds later. “Ooohhhh~ Hey, that feels pretty nice…” Cinder looked back up, trying to see the face of her savior. She expected to see one of those armored ponies, or maybe just somepony in general, but to her surprise, behind her was a human. His hair was black and spiky, but with a windblown appearance. And his skin was a deep tan that accentuated his brown eyes. His orange jacket flapped slightly in the wind, showing the striped, white t-shirt beneath. His jeans, though torn, still looked perfect for battle.

Cinder flushed, a deep red color splaying across her cheeks as she saw her first man in months. “H-hey… I’m Cinder. What’s your name?”

He smiled at her, adjusting the orange goggles that sat right on his head. “They call me Rex, Rex Masters. Nice to meet you, Cinder. Sorry for calling you into a heated battle, but I kinda got separated from your totem at the last minute.”

“Hey, it’s cool. I’m basically built for battle, y’know, even with my girlish figure.” Cinder chuckled, flipping her shotgun from her belt and one-shotting a nearby E.V.O. in the head with a Focus Blast.

Rex blinked. “Wow, now that’s a girl who means business! I like it!”

Cinder smirked at Rex, falling into a cocky pose that was only minorly ruined by the blush across her face. “Y’like what you see?” She winked flirtatiously, blowing him a kiss while firing more attacks into the crowd of monsters.

A tiny blush appeared on Rex’s cheeks, but his smirk was all he needed. “Hell yeah! With you on our side, these E.V.O.s are goin’ down!” Rex stood back up and looked out to the field, pulling on his goggles. “Need a ride?”

“I could use one.” Cinder clipped her shotgun back to her belt and fired off a Magical Leaf before drawing her Market Gardener from her back and hefting it on her shoulder.

Rex smirked as his legs began to glow with lines of circuitry. Cinder watched in amazement as his entire lower body transformed into a streamlined hover vehicle. “Then get on, lovely!”

“Whoa….” Cinder paused in amazement, then sat on the vehicle behind Rex, holding on for dear life.

“Woo hoo!” Rex shouted as the shot off the top of the building… which was twenty stories up. “Hang on!” he laughed as they started to plummet.

“OH JESUS I IMMEDIATELY REGRET THIS DECISION!” Cinder screamed as they plummeted, somehow managing to retain enough of her faculties to decapitate a monster on the way down with a single swing of her shovel.

Rex pulled up the front of his Ride, just in time to hit the slope of another destroyed building, shooting off into the city. He looked back at Cinder with a smirk. “Havin’ fun?!”

“No not really!” Cinder shouted back, even though her smirk betrayed her true feelings. As the pair rushed past more and more E.V.O.s, she took the opportunity to give each and every one of them a devastating slash to each of them.

“Yeah! That’s how we do it!” he cheered as they plowed through the E.V.O.s ranks. However, a buzzing in Rex’s ear made him refocus. He put his hand to his left ear. “What’s goin’ on, Spike? How’s our progress?”

“Not good,” his friend answered over the comms. “Van Kleiss’ army isn’t giving on this city. Anymore of this and we’ll have to fall back.”

“Fall back?!” Rex repeated. “Spike, this is Ponyville we’re talking about here!! This is our home!”

“It’s hard for me too, kid. Remember that. But we have to live to fight another day. The order is going out in five. Be ready.” The comm clicked off.

Rex growled. “I fucking hate these things.”

“The E.V.O.s or the comms?” Cinder teased, taking the time to empty her rocket clip into a few clusters of monsters. Once empty, she replaced it with another, clipping the spent clip onto her belt and emptying out her spare as well.

“We’re evacuating the city,” Rex informed her. “That means us too…” he went silent for a moment, looking around at the remains of the of the city. “So much for home.”

“Ouch. Well, even if we do have to evacuate, we can still do some major damage, yeah?” Cinder patted Rex’s back even as they sped through the city, launching off a few wide-angle, area-of-effect attacks.

He smirked widely. “I like the way you think!” Rex’s smile widened even more as he saw a massive horde of monsters up ahead. “And I got just the way to blow off some steam.” He pulled the Ride to a stop just ahead of the encroaching army and powered the machine back into him. “Uh… Cinder? You can let go now.”

“...” Cinder flushed and climbed off of Rex’s back, silently mourning the loss of his oh-so comfortable warmth. “R-right…” She shook her head and started charging up an orb of glowing, screeching power. When it was fully charged, she looked at Rex and smirked.

“Hey, Rex?”

“Yeah?” he asked, his left arm glowing with circuitry.

“Two words: Hyper. Beam.” Cinder released the blast, a massive beam of solid white energy tearing from her palm, screeching and whining like a horde of avenging angels, tearing straight through the center of the horde and detonating in a fiery backlash.

“.... Okay, tired now.” Cinder fell to her knees and panted, not used to using such a devastating move.

“Woah,” was all Rex was able to say. “That… that was… that was hot.”

“Whoo… yeah, well, I’m useless for another few minutes. I’m out of ammo too, so can you take care of the rest?”

“Thought you’d never ask.” His arm powered up again, transforming into a massive cannon. The back of the gun launched backwards, taking some of the rouble and ground before retreating back into the barrel. “This how we do it here, Missy!” The cannon started firing repeatedly, each bolt taking E.V.O. after E.V.O., constantly reloading from the rouble of the city. “Ponyville’s fighting back, bitches!”

“Now that’shot…” Cinder shot a thumbs up at Rex as she shakily stood and leaned against a nearby pole. She shamelessly ogled Rex as he fired, she hadn’t seen another guy in over three months, after all.

Rex never once noticed, too busy making sure that every E.V.O. fell for attacking his home. His ear comm buzzed. “Rex, we’re falling back. Now.”

“Are you joking, Spike? Aren’t you seeing what we’re doing out here?”

“Yes, but that’s not saving the other side of the city. Ponyville has fallen, Rex… I’m sorry. Now fall back. That’s an order.”

Rex growled under his breath, retracting his arm cannon, pulling Cinder out of her day dreams. “Huh? We moving already?” Cinder glided over to Rex, a puzzled look on her face.

“The city’s gone,” he said emotionlessly. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her close. “Hang on!” Before she could even ask, out of Rex’s back sprung a twin-turbine jet pack that shot high up into the air.

“WHOA JESUS FECKIN’ CHRIST ASK ME FIRST BEFORE YOU DO THAT!” Cinder screamed mentally, lightly bopping Rex on his head as she hung on for dear life.

He chuckled a little. “Sorry, but when Spike says to go, we gotta go…” Rex trailed off as he looked to the other side of the city. Cinder followed his eyes and was awed and horrified by the sight. Endless amounts of creatures were piling into the city, burning and destroying everything. The screams of those unlucky enough to get left behind could be heard even from that high up. It was awful… just awful.

“God… is this a daily thing?” Cinder whispered, unable to take her eyes off the sight. Not even dealing with the demons in her world prepared her for this. A righteous rage filled her from her core, a burning rage tempered only by Rex’s grip on her. “This… not even the demons back home did this much damage…”

“It’s been going on for years,” Rex said solemnly. “We’ve been able to fight back a lot recently, but… this always happens. Van Kleiss’ army doesn’t have much left to conquer.”

“... I feel your pain… My Equestria’s been reduced to half size… there’s… one of the only things left untouched is the Crystal Empire and Canterlot. Even Ponyville has damage…” Cinder offered a comforting pat on the back to Rex, still hanging on as they flew through the air.

“We’d better get to the Providence base. Don’t need Twilight worrying about me.”

“Right… should probably explain me as well…”

He chuckled a little. “Yeah, Twilight’ll love to meet you. Haven’t had a Displaced actually visit… not since that weirdo shop owner. Hold on to me.” Rex’s turbines fired up to their maximum, shooting off in the opposite direction of Ponyville at nearly mach speeds.

Cinder yelped in surprise and clung tighter to Rex, silently enjoying Rex’s body heat. They flew for several minutes, a massive white building coming into view deep in the Equestrian Bad Lands.

“There it is!” Rex shouted over the roar of the winds. “Providence HQ. The only living resistance to Van Kleiss on the planet.”

“Wow… It’s… bigger than Canterlot Castle… Whiter, too.” Cinder mumbled, staring at it as best as she could from her position. She felt an absurd need to paint it red for some reason.

“Yeah, Luna is obsessed with the color. Twilight says it’s because of her late sister, Celestia,” Rex explained.

“Wait, Celestia is DEAD!?” Cinder couldn’t believe her ears, staring up at Rex with undisguised shock.

Rex was silent. “... I never met her myself. But legends say she was the first E.V.O.”

“...That’s… ouch….” She shook her head, “Anyway, shall we?”

“LZ’s just up ahead.” Rex slowed down as they approached, a landing pad extending out of the building with two others standing there waiting for them. One was a violet unicorn, wearing a lab coat and her navy blue mane tied back in a pony-tail. The other was a purple-scaled dragon wearing black sunglasses and an olive green suit. Rex and Cinder landed right in front of them, his turbines retracting away. “Spike, Doc Twilight, meet Cinder Guard,” he introduced. “She’s one of those Displaced people and was a big help to me during the siege.”

Cinder bowed, “Hello, I’m Cinder Guard. I’m a freelance soldier in Princess Celestia’s army in my home world. A pleasure to meet your acquaintance.”

Spike was, silent looking her over before turning to Rex. “Why is she here and what threat does she pose?”

“Oh Spike,” Twilight sighed, walking up to Cinder. “Not every stranger is a threat, ya know. Just because she looks a little different doesn’t mean we can’t trust her.” She stuck her hand out to Cinder. “I’m Doctor Twilight, head researcher here at Providence. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“..... Nice to meet you, too.” Cinder stared at Spike warily, a slight bit perturbed by the dragon’s demeanor.

“Don’t mind Spike,” Twilight waved off. “He’s just overprotective.”

“I can see that. Does he have some kinda complex or something?” Cinder kept staring at Spike, examining him and performing cursory scans of his surface thoughts. Satisfied that she wouldn’t be attacked anytime soon, she turned back to Twilight. “So… what’s there to do around here?”

“Well, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to examine you.” She forcefully turned Cinder around. “Hmm, oh yes, I’ll need to get you in the lab. We need to make sure that wound of yours isn’t infected with nanites.”

“... I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that there’s gonna be more than just that, isn’t there?” Cinder deadpanned at Twilight, but complied anyway. “I mean, if it’s really necessary, I could just use Rest and sleep it off…”

“Not if you’ve got nanites,” Twilight said as she dragged Cinder into the base. Rex and Spike followed. “We need to check you now, before you end up turning into an E.V.O.”

“Right. That’d probably be for the best.” Cinder removed her arm from Twilight’s grip and glided serenely after her, floating along on a cushion of psychic energy.

“Ooh, clever. Psychic abilities are rare amongst ponies. I can’t wait to get you into the scanners!” Twilight giggled excitedly.

Cinder looked at Rex, slightly worried, “Uh… she’s not gonna vivisect me, right?” She sent the message directly to Rex, rather than just broadcasting it to the whole group.

Rex gave her a calming smile. “Don’t worry about the Doc,” he said. “She just wants to do a body scan. Dissections and the like are against her code. You’ll be just fine.”

“Oh good. Because I really don’t want to be vivisected in a world where I’m not sure I’ll respawn.”

“Ooh, a magic satchel as well,” Twilight said. “Reminds me of Pinkie Pie….” she trailed off. Spike walked up and put his claw on her shoulder. Twilight looked to her old friend and nodded. “Sorry, bad memories.”

“Huh? No, I just keep a bag of rags under my dress. I’d show you, but that would probably count as indecent exposure.” Cinder placed the bloody rag back under her dress, drawing out a fresh one and continuing to wipe down the blade of her shovel. “If you’re wondering, well, a gore covered shovel is a dull shovel. Also, it helps during my… er… ‘monthlies’.”

Twilight and Rex blushed, Spike simply quirking up an eyebrow. The unicorn coughed, getting her flush under control. “Well then… right this way.”

“Of course.” Cinder floated after Twilight as if she hadn’t just mentioned her period cycle.

After a brisk walk, Twilight was soon enough laying Cinder down in what could be called a futuristic CAT scanner. "Okay Ms. Guard, if you just lay still for a few moments. Just need a preliminary test to proceed."

Cinder complied, not moving. “So… this is just a scanner, yeah? This is a really nice looking machine… Pretty cool.”

Just as the machine started, it stopped halfway. Twilight groaned loudly. "It's a nice machine when it works. Rex, little help please?"

"Sure thing, Doc." Rex got down on the floor, sliding under the machine.

"Sorry about this," Twilight told Cinder. "We get mechanical problems a lot. Thankfully, Rex here is a genius mechanic."

“I see. I’m not very good with machines unless I’m breaking them. I didn’t class as Engineer, though I wish I did.” Cinder removed her tophat at this point, setting it on the floor with the rest of her effects.

"Well, I'm more of a mechanical engineer, myself," Rex said as he worked. "Was considered a prodigy on Earth, went to colleges all over the world, learning everything I could."

“Nice. I was… well, I played violin. Not much other than that.” Cinder hummed a nameless tune as she stared at the ceiling, bored out of her mind.

"Well, at least ya got yer looks," Rex laughed.

“That I did, that I did…” Cinder chuckled, then, completely bored, generated a few Shadow Balls and set them orbiting above her head in ever increasingly complex patterns, spinning endlessly around a tightly controlled Confuse Ray. The black and purple orbs danced around a central, roiling rainbow sphere, Cinder’s chest gem and eyes both shining a warm golden color.

Twilight scribbled furiously on a pen pad as she watched Cinder. Several cameras were turned to watch her, getting a look at every angle. Spike was on edge about the show, keeping a claw near his weapon.

After a few minutes, Rex finally pulled himself out from under the machine. "Alright, I think I got it. Let's get the lady checked."

“Ugh, finally. I was about to give up and just blast something unimportant.” Cinder let all her attacks dissipate into the air, laying flat once again.

Twilight activated the scanner again. The machinery moved and spun around Cinder, capturing every part of her body in data. After a few moments it was complete.

"Alright, now we just need to give the computer a couple kilobytes to process the data. Hopefully it'll turn up negative."

Cinder nodded, looking around, only to notice Rex had her launcher. She bolted upright and telekinetically snatched away the launcher, ripping it from his arms and into her grasp with a, “She’s mine!” Cinder cradled the weapon in her arms, checking it over for any dents or scratches. To her horror, a few pieces had broken off when she took it from Rex. “Oh no, I’m so sorry baby!”

Rex walked up, the broken pieces in his hands. "Sorry for not asking. I was just trying to help."

Cinder shot him a glare and held up her as-of-yet unnamed rocket launcher, “Help. Fix this.”

"Well, this is actually what I was doing to it," he said as he got down on his knees. He placed the broken parts near the launcher. To Cinder's amazement, little vines stretched out and grabbed the parts and pulled them into place. When she checked the parts, they were fully attached, without a single scratch anywhere.

“....” Cinder blinked and set down her launcher– Cifer, she decided– carefully and glomped Rex, spewing a wave of thanks and gratitude into his mind. “Oh thank you thank you thank you!”

Rex laughed as Cinder gushed. "Hey I couldn't just leave a beautiful girl without making sure she was fully prepped! Now, no matter what happens, the launcher can always fix itself. It's even regenerative if it goes too long without the parts."

“....” Cinder stared. “You’re serious?”

"Yeah! I just applied a few of my nanites to it and programmed them to keep the launcher active. No big deal."

Cinder grabbed Rex’s shirt and hauled him down to eye level, “Kiss me. Now.”

"Wait, huh?!" Was all Rex had a chance to say before their lips mashed against each other. Cinder was relentless, furiously kissing Rex with as much energy as she could muster. Though, shocked at first, Rex eventually gave in, returning the kiss.

Once they finally broke apart, Rex was fully out of breath. "Holy....hell..."

Cinder fared little better, though her “speech” was much clearer. “That was… pretty damn awesome…”

“I’ll say,” Rex laughed a little, trying to regain his bearings. “Now, uh, wanna tell me why you kissed me?”

Cinder blushed, “Ah… er… you’re hot, you feel like a nice person, you’re hot, you’re the first human male I’ve seen in three months, you’re hot, you fixed Cifer and upgraded her, you’re hot… Need I go on?” She shrank back a little, giggling nervously.

“You said I’m hot four times,” Rex pointed out, still somewhat dazed.

“You’re hot. It’s true.”

“Heh, wow,” Rex blushed, rubbing the back of his head. “Been a long time since a girl has been interested in me.”

“How long?” Cinder asked, idly performing maintenance on Cifer.

Before Rex could answer, Twilight cleared her throat, getting their attention. “Sorry to interrupt the young couple,” she said with a giggle. “But I have your test results, Cinder. You’ve tested negative for any nanites, but just to be safe I’d like for you to stay overnight. If you’re still clean in the morning, you’ll be free to return to your own world.”

“Right, right…” Cinder finished her maintenance and stood, reattaching all her equipment. “So… you got any food around here?”

“Yeah, I can show you to the cafeteria, if you’d like,” Rex offered.

Cinder’s stomach almost roared its approval. She spoke with a heavy blush, “Yeah, that’d be great.”

Rex smiled as he grabbed her hand. “Come on, then! We’ll get ya something to fill that belly.”

“Have fun on your date, you two!” Twilight called after them.

Cinder blushed and psychically slapped Twilight lightly on the back of the head. The mare just laughed it off, rubbing her aching head. “What a cute couple,” she said, getting back to work.

Rex led Cinder to quite the fair sized cafeteria. It had everything one would need to keep a healthy diet. Even meat was available for the griffons and minotaur operatives.

Cinder looked around in awe, taking in the construction. “Y’know, it’s funny. After three months of nothing but rations and the occasional supply drop… this is like heaven to me.”

“Well, everything is free for agents, so… I guess lunch is on me! Anything you want!”

“.....” Cinder’s pupil’s dilated as she made a psychically assisted beeline for the food, shoving agents out of her path and grabbing as much food as she could carry on a single tray, then she floated it behind her and grabbed another. And another. And another.

When all was said and done, she had five trays completely filled with food, some of it even stacked a few plates high. Cinder offered a tray toward Rex, this one with a few slices of assorted pizza. “I wasn’t sure what you’d want, so I just grabbed a few pizza slices. Want some?”

He smiled, taking the tray. “Sounds good to me. There’s a free table over here, care to join me?”

“I’d love to.” Rex led them over to a far off table, one that looked out into the Badlands. He pulled out a chair for Cinder to sit in. “Thanks, Rex.”

Cinder set the trays down and immediately tore into the food with a strange air of dignity and grace, not a single crumb leaving her mouth, not a single motion out of place.

Rex laughed a little, slowly eating his pizza. “Someone’s hungry,” he teased.

“You’d be eating like this too if all you’d had for three months was field rations for two meals a day with no third meal.” Cinder shot back, still stuffing her face gracefully.

He put his hands up in defense. “Hey, I’m not judging…. it’s actually kind of cute.”

She paused, fork halfway to her lips. “Well… that’s a first. Most people just think it’s weird how graceful I make pigging out look.”

“Grace is never something I’ve been able to pick up on. That was more my sister’s thing.”

Cinder shrugged and returned to her meal, pigging out once again. At this point three of her trays were already done, neatly stacked upon each other and off to the side. “Well, it’s not as much of a problem as you may think. All you really need to do is start off slow, then work your way up.”

“Heh, I’ll take your word for it. I’ll leave the grace to the pretty girl in front of me.”

“Oh stop, you’re gonna make me blush.” Cinder finished off her meal, levitating her empty dishes over to the dishwashers in the back.

“I thought that’s what my job was: making the pretty girls blush,” he said with a cocky smile.

Cinder lightly slapped him on the arm, “That was terrible.” She smirked at him, nonetheless, sidling up to him with a flirtatious grin. “So, wanna have a chance to reallymake me blush?”

“...I’m listening,” Rex said in return.

She trailed a finger down his chest and drew little circles on his abdomen, “You, me, tonight… aaaalllll alone~”

Rex was silent for a moment. “Dear gods above, I’ve met the perfect girl.”

“Heh, maybe not perfect, but I like to think I’m damn close.” Cinder smiled up at Rex, “So, whaddya say?”

“I’d say you’re on! But, just so no one gets suspicious, how about I show you around? We’ll be able to get deep into the base where no one will bother us.”

“Of course. So… how about a tour, loverboy?” Cinder clung to Rex’s arm lightly, batting her eyelashes at him.

“As the lovely lady asks,” Rex said with a smile, leading them out of the cafeteria.

They walked along the many walkways of the base, Rex pointing out certain spots and areas. Eventually, they came across a series of windows looking out into a what looked like a wildlife habitat.

“And this is the Zoo,” Rex told her.

“What kinda animals you got?” Cinder stared out over the Zoo, marvelling at the strange forest within.

“Well, the animals aren’t exactly the reason for the Zoo,” Rex said hesitantly.

“....It’s more E.V.O.s isn’t it.” Cinder deadpanned, staring at Rex with a blank expression. “No, don’t tell me. I can already guess the answer.”

Just as Rex was about to answer, a massive E.V.O., reminiscent of a tyrannosaurus rex, roared into view. Cinder facepalmed and sighed. “Eyup. E.V.O.s.”

“They’re permanents,” Rex said sadly. “The ones we haven’t been able to cure.” He pulled Cinder away from the windows and continued away. “We should keep moving. They get restless when prey are near.”

“Right…” Cinder shot one last look of pity at the monsters contained within the Zoo as she followed Rex.

“We’re coming up on one of my favorite spots in the base,” he said as they continued their stroll. “It’s kind of a sad place for some, but I find it inspiring.” They walked through an open door and found themselves in a beautiful garden. Sunlight shone into the room via a massive set of skylights, the light dancing on the plants and ponds all over.

“Wow… how could this be sad for anyone?” Cinder gasped and took in the garden, entranced by its beauty.

“That,” Rex said, pointing to the massive statue in the very center of the garden. It was large and enchanting, depicting a familiar mare cloaked in battle armor. Her mane forever frozen in the wind, an expression of defiance yet care on her muzzle. Rex and Cinder walked up to the statue, Rex reading off the plaque. “In memoriam of Princess Celestia, even in death she guides us all to a brighter future.”

“So she really is dead here….” Cinder mumbled, gently reaching out and touching the statue, as if she were unsure that what she was seeing was real. “I can’t believe it… goddess of the sun… what happened to her?”

“The legends say she tried to stop the original nanite event nearly two thousand years ago. She absorbed the blast, but ended up transforming into the very first E.V.O. It gets a little hazy after that, but the most common theory is that Luna used the Elements of Harmony to destroy her. The results ended up spreading the nanites all over the world, leading to what we have now.”

“I… I see…” Cinder turned, too shocked to keep looking at the statue. “It’s a beautiful garden, nonetheless…”

“So this is our new ally,” a voice spoke from behind the couple.

“Eh!?” Cinder spun again, facing the intruder. “Who are you?”

Standing behind them was a navy blue mare with a flowing starry mane. Her horn was amazingly sharp at the point, but not all that long and her wings laid flat against her back. She wore a pure white dress suit, not a single blemish anywhere to be seen.

“Oh, hey there Luna,” Rex greeted. “Cinder, meet Princess Luna, a.k.a the White Knight of Providence. She created the organization with the purpose of dealing with every E.V.O.”

“Well met, Miss Cinder,” Luna greeted.

Cinder bowed, “Greetings, Princess Luna. Your organization is impressive, to say the least.”

“I appreciate your compliments,” she replied, though her emotionless voice betrayed her feelings. She looked up at the glimmering statue, completely silent. She turned on her heel and started walking away. “Try not to break too much. We don’t have much left.” In a few quick strides, she was gone.

Cinder stood, nonplussed at her cold actions. “.... I get what she’s gone through, but man, she’s scary.”

“She’s also the only thing on the planet devoid entirely of nanites,” Rex said. “She started everything here from the ground up, since Equestria fell into anarchy after Celestia… passed.”

“Y’know, the more I stay here… the more things start to feel… eerilyfamiliar… I swear, there was this one thing back on my earth…” Cinder rubbed her forehead, trying to remember just what it was that felt so familiar.

“Like a TV show, maybe?” Rex asked with a smirk. “Particularly a cartoon?”

“Possibly… it’s been years, so I don’t really remember much. Especially considering what Aaron did to my memories to keep me alive…” Cinder rubbed her forehead harder before giving up. “Ah forget it. It’ll come to me later, I’m sure.”

Rex chuckled. “Yeah, sure. But, trust me, I know the feeling of missing memories. I’m missing about five-ten years of my own memory… and that was about two thousand years ago.”

“Ouch… I’m missing most of my memory of being a human, save for anything that’s ambiguous enough to not cause any disconnect between body and brain. I’m also missing a set of memories from another existence, the ones that give me combat skills… The most intact bits of memory about my life are from this body… a Gardevoir.” Cinder shook her head. “I’ll get them back one day, I know for certain, but sometimes it’s a little difficult when I get flashes of memory of being a mercenary with a brain the size of a peanut… or when I forget that I only have three fingers, not five.”

“Well, in the meantime,” Rex said, bringing Cinder close by the waist. “Care to make some new memories?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” Cinder floated up slightly, kissing Rex on the lips and wrapping her arms around his neck.

The next morning, Doc Twilight walked through the halls of Providence HQ, heading for a specific place. She stopped right in front of the door, knocking lightly. “Rex? Are you awake?” She pressed in the keypad, the door sliding up. “Rex, have you seen Cinde–OH MY CELESTIA!!” the good doctor screamed at the sight within. Her ward, Rex, was in the same bed with their new ally, Cinder… and it was plainly clear neither were wearing anything underneath the cover.

“Gah!” Rex screamed awake from Twilight’s shout. “Whowhatwherewhen?!”

Cinder snapped awake, gently rising to a sitting position with a quiet, “Oh, good morning, Doctor.”

“You...you… you two….” Twilight stutted with a blush growing deeper and deeper.

At that moment, Spike walked into view, his only reaction being a quirked eyebrow. He turned to Twilight. “Cute couple, hmm?”

“Oh shut up, Spike!” Twilight practically screeched. She groaned, putting a hand to her growing headache. “Just… just get down to the examination room as soon as you can. We need to do a final test to make sure you’re clean… might as well throw in an STD scan just to be safe.”

“Hey!” Rex shouted. “Would you two just get out of here?!” He threw his arm forward, transforming into a giant mecha arm that punched out the door controls, slamming it shut. “...well, that was not how I wanted to start my morning.”

Cinder giggled and kissed Rex’s cheek. “Well, it’s better than waking up at three in the morning to fight off a horde of demons, that’s for sure. At least they care, yeah?”

“Yeah, I suppose. Appreciate what you got, as they say,” Rex said as he crawled out of bed. Cinder took the time to appreciate Rex’s form, resting for a moment longer.

As she serenely floated from the bed and returned her dress to its rightful place upon her body, she smiled at Rex and blew him a kiss. “Well? Shall we?”

“After this.” Before she could ask, Rex scooped her up bridal style and planted a deep kiss on her lips. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was plenty to leave Cinder dazed as he set her back down. “That, was thanks for last night.”

Cinder’s mind felt fuzzy, too fuzzy to even communicate properly. A heavy blush set in on her face as she moaned out, “G-gar~”

Rex chuckled as he bust down the broken door. “Come on, beautiful, let’s go. You got a doctor’s appointment to keep.”

“R-right…” Cinder’s “voice” felt static-y and fuzzy, so dazed was she as she gently picked her way through the corridors, blush still present. Despite her stumblings, Rex was able to guide her back to Twilight’s laboratory.

“Welcome back, lovebirds,” the doctor greeted, no longer surprised. She motioned for Cinder to get back into the scanners. Cinder gingerly laid down on the platform, still slightly dazed, though slowly coming back to reality.

As Twilight performed her tests, Spike took Rex off to the side. “What’s up, Spike?”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” the spy asked. “What if she’s an infiltrator? In here to get to you?”

“Spike, that’s nuts! Look, I get it, you don’t want the Circe thing to happen again, but I’ve got a good feeling about this.” Spike quirked an eyebrow. “And no, not because of last night! But because of everything that led up to it and afterward. I care about her.”

He was silent for a moment before putting his claw on Rex’s shoulder. “Then I wish you luck, Rex. With women, you’re gonna need it.”

“Thanks, Spike. That means a lot.” The drake just nodded, letting Rex walk back over to Cinder and Twilight as the scans finished up.

“S-so, doc, how am I doing?” Cinder asked, rubbing her rear as she stood.

“Still negative thankfully. Your completely clear of any harmful nanites… and nothing bad from your ‘adventures’ last night.”

“Well, that’s good.” Cinder winced as she stepped just a hair too quickly. “Say… y’got any ice? I’m a little sore from… uh… yeah.”

Twilight giggled, moving off to the nearby freezer. Rex rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. “Sorry ‘bout that… like I said, it’s been a long while.”

“Never be sorry for fucking your partner metaphorically into the ground and leaving her an giggling mess. That’s talent, right there… Though it’d be nice if I could get some ice cream.” Cinder leaned up against Rex and batted her eyelashes pleadingly, almost begging him for ice cream.

“...by the gods, how does anyone resist you?” He sighed, getting up and going to the same freezer as Twilight handed Cinder her ice. Rex came back a few moments later with a few ice cream sandwiches. He handed one to Twilight, one to Cinder, and tossed another off to Spike who caught without issue. “So the lady asks, so the lady gets as my dad used to say.”

“Thank you~” Cinder sat on the package of ice, bringing the sandwich to her lips and nibbling it adorably.

Rex watched as he ate his own. “How are you so cute, adorable, and beautiful all at the same time? It’s just too much perfection.”

Cinder winked and flipped her hair, “It’s called… being me.”

“Well Cinder,” Twilight said between bites. “With your results negative, you’re free to return home at any time.”

“Thanks, doc.” Cinder nodded appreciatively at Twilight, finishing up her sandwich. “Ahh, that’s nice… haven’t had ice cream in a while…”

Rex looked away, a little downtrodden. “So… I guess this goodbye then, huh?”

“It doesn’t have to be, y’know.” Cinder held out her Token to Rex, the grenade still fresh, as if it hadn’t been used to summon her the day before.

Rex took it in his hand, feeling a bit relieved. “Well then Cinder, I suppose that leaves me with one thing to say to you.”

“Yes?”

He sat down on the table, cupped her chin and pulled her into another deep kiss. When the two broke, he asked, “Wanna be my girlfriend?”

“.....” Cinder flushed red and sank into his chest, mumbling, “Definitely.”

Rex smiled widely, taking a little gear out of his pocket. He took Cinder’s hand and slid it onto her finger. “This is my token, and you can use it to contact me at anytime. It can also take you right back here if you ever want to visit.”

Cinder stared at the gear, almost as if it were a wedding ring. A massive flush spread across her face once again. “I- of course. I’ll be sure to call you. In the meanwhile… here.” She pressed her grenade back into the palm of his hand, closing his fingers around it. “Just take this and call whenever you need my help.”

“I will, I’ll call real soon.” Rex kissed her again gently. “Just don’t forget about me while you’re blasting demons, okay?”

“How could I?” Cinder smirked, “You’re my boyfriend.”

He smiled lovingly, but Twilight ruined the moment. “Aww~, you two are so cute together!!”

Cinder merely flicked a tiny Thunder Wave at Twilight, enough to send a tiny jolt through her system, but not enough to truly paralyze. “Shush, you. Let us have our moment.”

Twilight put her hands up in defeat, walking off to keep Spike company. Rex chuckled. “Well that was somewhat of a moodkiller.”

“Indeed.” Cinder smiled and pulled away slowly. “So… I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah,” he gave her one more sweet kiss. “Hopefully soon.”

“Soon, I promise.” Cinder reciprocated, then, taking a single step back, gracefully spun in a circle, flaring with red light and dissipating into the aether with a quiet humming sound.

Rex leaned back slightly with a sigh. “By the gods… I think I’m in love.”

Cinder spun back into her world, tripped, and fell over onto her bedroll. She gave a quiet squeal of joy. “Oh my god I think I’m in loooove~” Before she could get too into her private celebration, she heard the alarm go off, signalling that a wave of demons was once more approaching the Eastern Front’s forward base.

She sighed,“A girl’s work is never done, it seems. Oh well. Killing time!”

And as she hefted Cifer back onto her shoulder and slung her Market Gardener– Maxwell– over her back, clipping her shotgun– Lucille, because why not– onto her belt.

“ALRIGHT YOU BLUE MOTHERFUCKERS! WHO WANTS A PIECE OF MY FIERY, RED, ASS!?”

LESS TALK, MORE FIGHT

Today was quiet.

This would have been a welcome relief to most, but for Cinder and the forward base camp of the Eastern Front, it was an ominous omen of danger to come. Since Cinder had yet to figure out how to sense the future in any real capacity, ominous omens were about the best she could do.

Still, she figured that doing something productive would be a hell of a lot better than just straight waiting for the next demon incursion. How the hell neither Celestia nor her best mages could figure out a way to keep the demons from escaping Tartarus, she had no idea, but damn if she was going to let it bother her when it didn’t even apply to her at the moment.

This firmly tucked away in her mind, Cinder found herself in the forge, plans and instructions whirling away in her mind. A new weapon formed in her mind, one capable of far exceeding the damage that her beloved Cifer could do, even at a cost of a quarter of the firing rate, triple the recoil, and lower accuracy.

The (somewhat terribly named, in Cinder’s opinion) Rayquaker 9000.

“... Why the hell do I have the plans for a Rayquaza themed rocket launcher in my brain?” Cinder wondered, picking up a hammer and gathering some materials. Thankfully, there wasn’t a whole lot she needed, just a spare rocket, some demon gore (at last, she finally knew why she had kept the stuff in a jar), a few bits of scrap metal, some green paint (where the hell did the paint even come from? Nopony even needed green paint at this point), and a few extra nails.

She sighed to herself and struck the materials with a hammer, a brilliant flash of light filling the area much like it had about two weeks prior, when she made her Market Gardener. When the light cleared, she gasped in awe.

There, shining on the anvil she had forged it upon, was a most glorious rocket launcher. Shimmering metallic green with golden highlights, the open mouth of Rayquaza decorated its muzzle as the rest of its body swirled around and curled through the rest of the launcher. Its carved in eyes glowed with backlit LED fury and its strangely out of place magazine shone with gloss finish. A glowing touchscreen illuminated the spot behind the head, four options displayed upon it: Draco Meteor, Hyper Beam, Dragon Ascent, and Giga Impact.

“Oh my god… this is amazing….” she whispered, reverently taking up the launcher (though really it was, at this point, more of a railgun with explosive ammo) and hefting it to check its weight. “A little heavier than Cifer… not too bad, though.”

She giggled to herself and sped off outside the camp, readying the launcher and taking up a standard firing position there in the dirt. When she tapped the icon for Draco Meteor, a steel ball retracted into the launcher from the magazine, clicking into place with an electronic bleep and a notification upon the screen. “Well… now or never, I suppose,” Cinder mumbled and pressed the trigger, a massive bolt of red-tinged force ripping from the barrel and sending her stumbling back.

The bolt of force roared as it sped out over the packed and dead dirt, tearing up the landscape just from its wake. And when it finally slammed into the boulder she had aimed for, it detonated, tinging the sky red with all the force of a 130 power attack, completely disintegrating the boulder and sending pebbles showering the area. “Holy… fucking… shit.” Cinder stared wide eyed at the wreckage, silently floating over to check the crater.

As she circled the perimeter of the massive hole in the earth, she felt a strange sensation behind her navel. And with a silent pop of displaced air, Cinder vanished in a little puff of rainbow colored smoke.

Cinder came into the new Universe in her standard rainbow explosion, spinning to a halt and allowing the excess energy to coalesce back into her Token as she flared out her Mega-dress and fluffed out her now blue hair. As she looked around, she noticed the glass dome behind her and tapped it in confusion.

“The fuck is this thing?” she wondered, tapping at it with both fist and Market Gardener.

Axel just stared at the... creature that was left behind from the explosions. In confusion, he said, “A pokemon? I didn’t think that was a pokeball that I found. Hello?”

Cinder whirled around and brought her new weapon, the Rayquaker 9000, up and aimed at Axel before slowly relaxing. “Oh… uh… hi. I’m Cinder. Who’re you?”

Axel recoiled somewhat at the unfamiliar... weapon? but replied, “I’m Axe Cop, and this is Changeling Soldier.” He gestured at the mint-colored unicorn next to him, who still had a stunned look on her face. “How did you get here?”

“You activated my Displaced Token, it was a rainbow colored grenade, if you’ll remember. Here, take it.” She held out her reconstituted Token and shouldered her launcher, gliding over to Axel at a serene pace.

Axel accepted the Mega-grenade back and stowed it back in his backpack. “Oh, is that what this thing was? I just thought it was a neat crystal or something. Wait, Displaced Token? Huh?” he asked in confusion. “Does this have anything to do with that weird guy that sold me this axe?” He gestured at the axe on the ground next to his backpack. “I was actually kidding when I asked him if it would send me to another dimension or something.”

“Well, he wasn’t. He’s known as the Merchant and he’s the source for most of us, the Displaced. The technical definition is any human or creature that’s been forced from its home Universe and sent to some other one. Though, to be honest, a fair amount of us were Displaced because we would have died otherwise. I was… well, you know what Australium is?” Cinder tapped at her chest gem and the edges of her eyes.

“Australium... wasn’t that a Team Fortress thing? So, you’re a heavily armed Pokemon?” The pony had recovered by this point and was just taking in the conversation in interest.

Cinder nodded, showing off her armband denoting her as a Soldier. “In short, yes. But anyway, I was Displaced because a chunk of Australium smashed the planet into little chunks and ripped me and some rubble out of existence and into the path of a stray Void Dweller. But that’s enough about my shitty story. Us Displaced can be summoned by means of special Tokens; items containing a message that somehow pull us into the user’s reality, if we’re available. They can be anything, really, just like how mine is a grenade.” Speech done, Cinder took a bow and leaned against the glass bowl covering the town. “Any questions?”

“...Well, if that’s the case, I may have accidentally created a token just after I found yours. You see, I went with some of the ponies up to the Crystal Empire, but we got attacked by some big smoky shadow pony thing. I tried to fight it off with my axe, but all that happened was it caused dark crystals to grow on it. That totally threw off the balance, so I decided I needed a new one. I carved one out of crystal, but it was kind of crappy, so I used it to carve this one,” Axel pulled his crystal axe out of his backpack, “then I used this one to smash that one, but it exploded into a storm of tiny axes.” As Axel finished his speech, a tiny crystal axe popped out of the top of the full-sized one’s head. “Yeah, like that one.”

“...... I just remembered how fucking insane the Axe Cop comic was. You and I are gonna get along just fine, my friend.” Cinder picked up the tiny axe and shoved it into her belt pouch, lightly slapping Axel on the back as she reverted back into her normal RED and white coloring.

“Oh neat, that was a mega form? I heard about those but I didn’t get to play the last gen of Pokemon games.” Axel picked up his backpack and slung it back over his shoulders, shoving both axes back inside afterwards, and patting Cinder on the shoulder. “That psychic-talking thing you have going is pretty cool. I’m sure you can figure out what kind of stuff I can do if you already know Axe Cop, but what kind of things did you get from that mix of yours?”

She shrugged and held up an orb of shadows, playing with it and letting it orbit her form. “I can use every move a Gardevoir could, I can craft the things from Team Fortress using nothing but scrap materials and an anvil, I don’t take damage from rocket jumping, I can respawn at a pokeball… basically, a perfect blend between Pokemon and Team Fortress 2. It’s pretty great.”

Axel looked like he was about to speak again when the pony nudged him in the leg. He looked down at her, and she tilted her head at the giant inverted fishbowl with a look of urgency. With a smack of his forehead, Axel turned back to Cinder exclaimed, “Oh right! I was trying to break that thing when you showed up, but it seems to be impervious to explosives. Too bad, that much glass blowing up would have been pretty cool. You have anything that might be able to break it? It was apparently created by a unicorn powered up by the Alicorn Amulet, if that means anything to you.”

“Well, I could try using my Rayquaker 9000.” Cinder held up her launcher and toggled a few buttons on its touchscreen. “Maybe using Dragon Ascent would work.”

Axel shrugged. “It’s worth a shot. I don’t have anything else to throw at it right now outside of hitting it with an axe, which I can’t really see working. That’s why I went straight to explosives. I also kind of wanted to blow up the unicorn responsible, but Purple Smart said I couldn’t.”

“Awww…. but explosives are fun!”

Axel nodded in agreement, then shrugged. “If you have anything that’s an energy-type of attack that might work better. Since explosives are basically just big impacts, I wouldn’t think they would work unless they’re like, big enough to destroy the surrounding area, and we probably shouldn’t do that. I kinda like this place, don’t want to see it get wrecked.”

Cinder tossed her launcher to the side, holding her hands up the her chest and focusing, a brilliant orb of light forming between her hands. “This is my Hyper Beam. Maybe this will work.” And with a mighty shriek of ionized air, the Hyper Beam slammed into the glass dome with the force of an angry Godzilla-stomp, splashing against its surface for a maximum damage output of…. absolutely nothing at all. Twenty seconds later, Cinder collapsed to the dirt, panting and glaring at the unscathed glass surface with glowing golden eyes.

A few seconds later, the entire glass bubble shimmered and vanished. Axel looked down at Cinder. “Dang, you okay? I wasn’t sure if that would work either, but it looks like that thing was indeed virtually indestructible. I wonder why Trixie never came to see what we were doing...” Axel rubbed his chin in thought. “Once you recover, we should go watch the rematch between Trixie and Sparklebutt. I know what’s supposed to happen, but since we’re here, that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen exactly the same way. Also, we should probably try not to be seen. Changeling Soldier, can you turn into a pegasus and circle around? I might need the two of you to distract Trixie if things go sour.” The pony nodded, and with a flash of golden flames, her horn vanished as wings appeared on her back.

Cinder panted on the ground for a few more seconds before holding out her hand, silently asking for help. Axel gave her a hand in getting up, carefully pulling her to her feet. “Thanks, Axe Cop. Say, what even is your name? I mean before Displacement.”

“I don’t tell anyone here except friends, but it’s Axel. Yes, really. Go ahead and laugh.” Axel got a tight-lipped expression of mild frustration at previous reactions to his name.

“Axel? ….. Oddly appropriate, actually.” Cinder blinked twice, brushing the dirt off her dress and picking up her Rayquaker. “So… shall we?”

“Let’s do this.” Axel signaled Changeling Soldier to go do her part, and he led Cinder to where the rematch was to be held. From the angle they approached, they could see several ponies hiding behind a statue – a large stallion, an old mare, and a filly, all in the same colors as Applejack, and another filly in the same colors as Rarity. As they approached, the little white-coated filly noticed them and started pointing at them, causing the others to turn and look. Axel turned to Cinder and whispered, “Can you selectively broadcast your thought-speech, and can it work the other way around, can you ‘hear’ it if people think at you?”

“Yes to both,” Cinder replied, waving lightly at the ponies.

“Can you do something like a thought network, so a bunch of people can hear each other through you?” Axel thought at Cinder. “If you can, could you hook up this group of ponies here, then add a few more in the crowd over there after we get it explained?”

Cinder concentrated, sending out tendrils of psychic energy and networking the ponies together as best as she was able. “Ngh, it’s a bit straining, but I think I can keep this up as long as nothing breaks my concentration.”

“Thanks Cinder, I really appreciate it. Alright, everypony that can hear me, don’t worry, this is Cinder, she’s a friend. I don’t plan to interfere with what you’re doing, we’re just going to hide here with you.” All the ponies went wide-eyed when I started thinking at them, but they seemed to calm down fairly quickly.

“Hello, I’m Cinder. Nice to meet you.” Cinder waved again from where she and Axel stood.

The ponies looked back and forth briefly between the two Displaced, then at each other, and some random thoughts were partly audible, but nothing understandable. One by one, they all nodded at the two, and they drew closer. “Okay, now that that’s cleared up, can you just link me with the lavender unicorn over by the crowd?” Axel asked, peeking over the statue and pointing.

“Right… it’ll be a little extra, but nothing I can’t handle… hopefully.” She pressed her hands to her head, fins quivering and gemstone pulsing with a soft, golden glow. As she sent out more ribbons of psychic energy, her gem pulsed brighter, alleviating some of her stress and allowing her to link Axel to Twilight with little difficulty.

Axel gave Cinder a smile of gratitude. “Egghead! Don’t react to this, just listen. I’m behind the statue with your friends and a new friend. I’ll introduce you to her properly later, but she’s the one that’s letting me think at you like this. I won’t interfere directly in the duel, but we’re here in case things go south. If you want to respond, just think the words.”

“Axel! I wondered where you had gone! I don’t think there will be a problem, as I have a plan, but thanks for being here anyway just in case. Also thank you to the new friend, I look forward to meeting you in person!” Twilight replied.

At that point, Trixie spoke. “Let's start with a simple age spell, shall we?”

“Let’s.” Twilight replied.

“Snips, Snails,” Trixie commanded. The zapping of magic was heard, followed by the crying of a pair of foals. “An oldie, but a goodie, ha. Now, let's see what your little charm can do.”

“No problem. Um, Applejack, Rarity? Could you help me, please?” Twilight asked.

Both of them replied with, “Huh?” and came closer to the statue.

“Those two will be coming around to this side of the statue shortly, could you just tell them your name and you’re a friend, and I’ll confirm it silently? Sorry for all the mental stress.” Axel thought at Cinder.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Cinder waved Axel off, concentrating even as her chest gem and eyes glowed and pulsed brighter and faster. “I need to work in more psychic practice anyway– haven’t had a lot of opportunity to do so.”

A zap of magic could be heard from the other side of the statue, and amidst a huge cloud of pink smoke, the two fillies could be seen to run around to the front of the statue, while two adult ponies that had the same appearance took their places behind. The white one gaped at Cinder in shock, but the orange one shoved a hoof in her mouth before she could make any sound, glanced at Axel, then looked to Cinder expectantly.

Cinder waved, psychically reaching out to them with a little, “Shhhh~”

Axel threw an arm around Cinder’s shoulder and gave her a one-armed hug, while smiling and nodding at the new arrivals. “Sorry, I couldn’t think of any other easy way to indicate friendship when hand signs are right out.” The two ponies glanced at each other and nodded, the orange one somewhat more enthusiastically.

Once the smoke had cleared more, Trixie could be heard to say, “Oh, ho-hum. So you can do an age spell, big deal.” Multiple further magic blasts could be heard, each followed by another burst of pink smoke and different pairs of ponies running back and forth around the statue. “That's... That's impossible!” Trixie exclaimed.

“That's nothing!” Twilight retorted, and another zap of magic could be heard, further from the statue this time.

Several seconds later, a “Yow!” could be heard from the area of the crowd.

“How did you–” Trixie was interrupted by Twilight.

“Duplication spell. Ever see one pony play ten instruments?” Another magical zap could be heard, followed by the sound of an entire band worth of instruments.

“This... just can't be!” Trixie sounded aghast.

“Ooh, one more. I can turn a mare into a stallion.” With another zap and puff of smoke, the orange-colored stallion switched places with the orange mare.

“Eeyup.” Another zap and cloud and they swapped back again.

“Well, Trixie, looks like my amulet is more powerful than yours– why are you laughing?” Twilight interrupted herself in confusion.

“Did you really think this simple sleight of hoof could fool the Great and Powerful Trixie? She uses more complicated illusions in her stage shows!” Suddenly the statue the ponies and Displaced were hiding behind was enveloped in a red magical glow and shoved aside.

Axel looked at Trixie in shock then turned to Cinder. “Oh crud, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Trixie grinned an evil grin. “With the amount of psychic energy that was being used over here, Trixie couldn’t help but notice you!” Her horn flared with a red glow as she snatched up all the ponies from behind the statue, levitating them in the air above her head.

“Oh shit. That’s not good,” Cinder understated, silently calling up a shadow ball from behind her back.

“Can you distract her? I might be able to get the amulet off if I can sneak up behind her.” Axel thought to Cinder. “Try to minimize collateral damage, if you can.”

“I’ll…. try…” Cinder took aim with her shadow ball, lining it up with Trixie’s head and launching it with deadly efficiency, six more trailing in its shadow. “Though… no promises.”

Trixie’s eyes got wide, she tossed the floating ponies randomly to the sides, and her horn flared brightly as she erected a shield to block the one shadow ball she could see. When it hit, she grunted in pain, and her horn flared even brighter.

As soon as Axel saw that Trixie was distracted, he ran around to get behind her, pulling out his crystal axe in the process. After the last ball hit her shield, Axel swung his axe with a primal scream. A tink! of crystal impacting metal could be heard, followed by a short scraping sound, and Axel followed through with his swing, lopping Trixie’s head off. Looking down at the now-headless body, he grabbed the Alicorn Amulet easily off of her neck stump and tossed it to the zebra in the crowd with a yell of, “Stripes! Catch!” She picked up a nearby wooden box and caught the amulet in it, snapping it closed afterwards.

Twilight glared at Axel. “Didn’t I tell you not to kill her?”

“Awwww I wanted to blow her head off….” Cinder whined, gracefully stepping into view.

“No, you said I couldn’t blow her up, not that I couldn’t kill her. I didn’t mean to anyway, I figured the crystal axe might be able to cut the amulet’s latch, but it just skipped off and hit the thing behind, which happened to be her neck.” Axel scratched the back of his head. “By the way, this is Cinder, she’s the one that was letting me speak to you telepathically. Um... I don’t suppose you could, uh, not tell Celestia about what happened with Trixie?”

“NOT TELL CELESTIA? ARE YOU MAD?” Twilight’s mane and tail rose up, and with a flash of magic, burst into flame, and her coat glowed a bright white.

In the background, Cinder giggled and thought to herself, “Haha, she’s a Ponyta.”

Axel took a step back from the fiery mare. “Wait, wait, wait, I think I can fix this.” Removing his backpack, Axel began to dig around inside. “Come on, where is it, I know I packed a roll to take to the con, damn stuff’s useful everywhere. Aha!” Pulling both hands out of the backpack, Axel held up a short, thick-walled silvery cylinder. “Duct tape! This worked in the comic, I really hope it works here...” Axel scooped up the azure unicorn’s head, lined it up on her neck stump, and wrapped several layers of the duct tape around the joint.

Twilight was stunned. Her mane and tail continued to burn, but the look on her face was unreadable. “You’re just sticking her head back on? How is that supposed–” Twilight stopped as Trixie’s eyes fluttered open and she began to clamber back to her hooves. “What?” Her flaming mane and tail sank back down and extinguished themselves, and her coat reverted to its usual color. “Nope, I’m done. You clean up the mess, I’m going back to the library.”

“Twilight,” Trixie gasped out, causing the lavender mare to pause. “I’m so sorry, after you ran me out of town last time, I became a laughing stock. Everywhere I went I was laughed at and ostracized, and I let my envy get the best of me when I bought that terrible amulet. I just couldn’t control myself. Can you ever forgive me?”

Twilight visibly sighed. “Of course I can forgive you, Trixie, though it’s the rest of Ponyville whose forgiveness you might have trouble getting.” Twilight turned her head and gave Trixie a wan smile. “Maybe I can put in a good word for you with the princess and you can join in the performance for the Saddle Arabian delegates.”

“You’d do that for me, after everything I did?” Tears started to fall from Trixie’s eyes, but she still smiled.

Axel spoke up. “Hey, we didn’t leave you dead. That should tell you something, huh?”

Cinder glided up behind Axel and crossed her arms, casually remarking, “Well, I woulda left her scorched and unconscious for a while, though that’s completely different, now isn’t it?”

“Well yeah, but if we left her too long she’d start to rot. I don’t know how long afterwards duct tape works, they only used it right after in the one comic they used it. Though the kid they used it on grew a second head afterwards.” Upon hearing this, everyone nearby turned to stare at Trixie for a moment. “I dunno how that would work on a pony, though.”

“... Perhaps it’d be better if I used a few healing moves on her?” Cinder muttered, circling around Trixie and examining the duct tape seal. “Hey, what happens if the duct tape comes off?”

Trixie got an intense look of fear and put her hooves to her throat. “Trixie doesn’t want to find out!”

“.... Well,” Cinder poked around the seal keeping Trixie together, noting the feel of the flesh underneath. “It… seems like…. your head is still unattached… but from what I can tell, it looks like it’s healing, albeit very slowly.”

Axel looked between Cinder and Trixie, then nodded. “If you have any healing moves that can be used on others, yeah that would probably be a good idea. I don’t know how well that tape is going to hold with fur, but I know taking it off is gonna hurt.” Trixie cringed a bit, but tried to keep her head as upright as possible.

“Of course, of course… now… lesse….” Cinder mentally scrolled through her move list, finally coming to a stop on Heal Pulse, releasing the move directly at Trixie’s neck in an expanding ripple of pink light and sparkles. “This might work, though I’m not sure how well pokemon moves translate to real world physics…”

Axel prodded gently at the duct tape. “It feels mostly solid, but there’s still a bit of a groove. Can you throw another at her?” Trixie carefully wobbled her head back and forth a bit, then gingerly nodded her agreement.

“Right, right…” Cinder’s eyes glowed as she cast another Heal Pulse, ripples of pink light expanding from her form.

Prodding once more at the tape, Axel nodded firmly. “Feels solid now. Okay Trixie, I’m going to take off the tape, because the longer it’s on there the more fur it’s going to rip out when it comes off. Brace yourself, this is going to hurt.”

“The Humble and Apologetic Trixie isn’t afraid of a little paaaaAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” Axel removed the last of the tape, ripping a strip around Trixie’s neck mostly clear of fur.

Axel leaned over to look more closely at her neck, noting that the exposed skin was a slightly lighter shade of blue than her fur. “Huh, I didn’t expect that. Alright Trixie, you think you can help clean up this mess you made of the town?”

She blushed and lowered her head a bit. “It’s the least I could do after all the trouble I’ve caused.” Looking up to face Axel and Cinder in turn, she continued, “Thank you, whoever you are, for getting that amulet off of me, even though you had to, uh... cut my head off to do it, and thank you both for... reattaching my head.” With a look of determination on her face, she got to her hooves. “Where should Trixie start?” Twilight beckoned for her to follow, and the two walked away.

“Do you want to stick around and help clean up, or do you want to tell me how I send you back to wherever you came from, because I haven’t a clue,” Axel asked Cinder.

“Well, there’s not much back home but a bunch of decently easily repelled demon invasions, so I might as well take the time to relax and see what other Equestrias are like.” She shrugged and moved off, psychically lifting ruined areas back into their proper places. “So… you wanna help?”

Axel moved to follow Cinder. “Dang, you’re lifting more with your mind than I can with my body, or at least more than I could before I got displaced. I haven’t really tested to see if I got Axe Cop’s insane strength,” he said. “I do know I got the sleep pattern, though.” Axel looked around and his eyes fixed on a huge statue of Trixie standing on her hind legs, probably twenty feet tall.

“..... Should we tear that down?” Cinder asked, tapping on it with her shovel.

“Let me try something first.” Axel bent down and wedged his fingers under the edge of the statue, and suddenly lifted it over his head. “Huh. Guess I got the crazy strength, too. Want to try shooting it out of the air?” Flexing his arms up and down a bit, he commented, “This really doesn’t feel as heavy as you’d think from the size. I could probably throw it all the way to Ghastly Gorge.”

“Well, just toss it up and I’ll see what I can do.” She charged up a few attacks, letting them orbit behind her.

With a mighty grunt, Axel sent the statue hurtling over the Everfree Forest, nearly hitting a couple pegasi trying to push errant weather back. “Sorry! Clear the way, there’s more coming!” he called out. The pegasi looked at each other and dove to the ground. He repeated the action with several more similar statues.

Cinder took the opportunity to launch out her attacks on arcing paths, announcing each one as she fired,“Magical Leaf. Moonblast. Shadow Ball. Thunderbolt. Focus Blast. Energy Ball. Psyshock. Charge Beam. Will o’ Wisp. Icy Wind. Shock Wave. Signal Beam.” The sky lit up in rainbow colors as her attacks, repeated and set off in different combinations, slammed into the statues that Axel threw, shattering each and every one into little clouds of dust.

“Well, that was easier than I thought it would be,” Axel said, just then noticing all the ponies in the area had completely stopped what they were doing to gape at the two Displaced. “Okay, maybe that was showing off, just a little. I thought it was fun, though.” Taking another look around, Axel realized that there wasn’t actually much more cleaning up to do. “Looks like Trixie didn’t actually do that much damage, mostly just those statues and the flags with her face on them. I don’t know where she got those huge chunks of stone... maybe from the rock farm she worked at? Eh, whatever, the Everfree and Ghastly Gorge aren’t going to be hurt too much by an influx of fine gravel.” He looked back to Cinder. “You hungry? We could go hit Sugarcube Corner.”

“I’ve only ever heard stories about that place… mostly good ones… except the ones about Pinkie Pie occasionally.” Cinder stretched and flexed, rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck. “Let’s go, then. I want to see what they actually have.”

“But Ponka is the best part! I think my shenanigans frustrate Purple Smart almost as much as hers do.” Axel pointed towards the building, not far off, that looked just like a huge gingerbread house. “It’s right there. As much as it doesn’t match the rest of the town, I still think it fits perfectly.”

“It’s pretty nice looking. It’s not made of real gingerbread, is it? I mean, Equestria has some weird things, so a legit gingerbread house wouldn’t be too surprising.”

“Probably not. If it were, I’m sure they’d have trouble with critters snacking on it.” As they walked in the door, just after the bell rang, a pink blur smacked into Axel, knocking him off his feet, then resolved into a very pink pony, hugging him tightly.

“Axey! You saved Ponyville! And you made a new friend!” She hopped off Axel and moved in front of Cinder, pronking in place as she talked. “Hi! I’ve never seen you before today and that means you’re new to Ponyville and I need to throw you a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party! My name’s Pinkie Pie, what’s yours?” She stopped bouncing and held out a hoof.

“I’m Cinder. Cinder Guard. Nice to meet you.” Cinder shook Pinkie’s hoof gingerly, a little surprised by her exuberance.

Pinkie recoiled slightly and gasped loudly. “Okay Axey, I know what you want, but Cinder, what flavor do you like? Sweet, mint, citrus, mocha, or spice?”

“Hmmm…. I prefer Citrus.” Cinder tapped her chin as she thought.

“Citrus it is!” Pinkie disappeared back into the kitchen in another pink streak.

“It may sound strange, but you really do get used to her antics,” Axel explained as he stood up. “Especially the hugs. Those can come out of nowhere. Let’s go find a seat, she never takes long.” He led Cinder over to the tables, and they sat down. “Funny story, apparently Pinkie reads the Axe Cop comic. I don’t even know how. She totally called me out on not being the real Axe Cop not long after I got here.”

“Huh. Well, that’s interesting. I haven’t met my Pinkie yet… she’s holed up somewhere in Canterlot with the rest of the Elements of Harmony… except Princess Twilight, she’s dealing with the southern front.”

“Holed up? Southern front? And you mentioned demons earlier... man, frankly your Equestria sounds like kind of a hellhole. No offense.”

“It almost is a hellhole. There’s demons invading from the east, west, and south. Half of Equestria is gone, most of the cities are damaged in some way, Ponyville is nearly destroyed, and the Eastern Front is… well… it’s a frontline and one of the only lines of defense at this point. It’s not fun. My friend, Heinrich, is on the west, and from what he’s reported… it’s not much better over there.” Cinder sighed, playing with a spoon, bending it and unbending it with her mind.

“Here comes your snacks!” Pinkie called as she walked out of the kitchen, balancing two trays on her back. On one sat what appeared to be a miniature two-layered cake with white frosting and a lit candle on top shaped like Axe Cop holding up two axes, and on the other was six small, spherical orange puff pastries, each with a twist of matching frosting on top. She sidled up to the table, and with a swing of her hips, both trays slid off and stopped directly in front of their intended recipients. She dropped two fresh bundles of silverware on the table, and with a call of, “Enjoy!” dashed back to the kitchen.

“Wow, she isfast…” Cinder mumbled, picking up a Pokepuff and nibbling at it. “Hey… these are pretty good.”

Axel blew out the candle, pulled a knife out of the silverware, and sliced up his cake. “It’s all part of Pinkie being Pinkie. Heck, as much crazy stuff as she does in peaceful times, she could probably be a terrifying force of destruction in a war.” Picking up a slice, he took a bite. “Mmm, red velvet. That’s a new one. Haven’t had a flavor yet that Pinkie didn’t make fantastic.”

“Hmmmm~” Cinder mumbled around her mouthful, enjoying the citrusy taste of the pastry. “I can totally believe that.”

“I can box some up for you to take back, if you want!” yelled Pinkie from the kitchen.

Cinder called back, hand unnecessarily at her mouth as if to make the words carry farther, “That’d be wonderful, thank you~!”

As Axel finished up his first slice of cake, he looked between Cinder’s hand and mouth with a bit of confusion on his face. “I just realized, I don’t think I’ve heard you actually speak since you got here, only the telepathy thing.”

Cinder froze, eyes widening as she sat ramrod straight. “A-ah… ahah…. you noticed, that, didn’t you… Eheh… ehehehehe….” She shifted immediately into a slight slouch, a massive blush working its way across her face as she scratched the back of her neck. “It’s… kinda embarrassing…”

Cinder could practically see the wheels turning in Axel’s head as he thought this over for a moment, then he gasped lightly and covered his mouth. “Oh geez, it’s the ‘being a pokemon’ thing, isn’t it? I’m sorry for bringing it up. Now that I think about it though, I kinda feel sorry for anyone that got or gets Displaced as a non-psychic type... I can imagine they’d have a heck of a time communicating at all.”

“Lemme tell ya, when someone has mental shields it’s a problem all its own.” Cinder motioned with a fork as she ate, drawing little diagrams in the air with glowing lines of psychic energy. “See, like, they got this whole barrier around their minds which makes normal telepathy a lot more difficult to get through, and sometimes it just bounces off and hits the wrong target. And don’t even get me started on when it bounces right back and the psychic feedback effect happens. Not fun. At all.”

Axel looked a bit confused again. “Wow. I, uh... don’t really have a baseline to compare to psychic feedback. The closest I could think of is audio feedback, like when you have a microphone too close to the same speaker it’s connected to. Wait, you were human, right? From an Earth with technology and all? I’m not sure if they have that kind of thing here, the tech levels are all weird because of the magic.”

“Yeah, I was human. Psychic feedback is… hard to explain. It’s kinda like mixing a hangover, audio feedback, hammers to the skull, and a flashbang to the face, in varying degrees of intensity depending on how bad it is. Usually it’s just a minor annoyance, but as far as my body’s memories go? The worst case scenario is leaking your brain out of your ears.” Cinder shivered, calming her nerves with another bite of Pokepuff.

Axel cringed at that. “I can imagine leaking brain would be... unpleasant, to say the best.” He cut another slice of cake as he continued. “Have you met many other Displaced? Any I should watch out for, in either a good or bad way?”

“I’ve only met one other… and he’s now my boyfriend… so I can’t really tell you a whole lot. Well, I mean, I guess you could tell how a Displaced would generally act based on their wording for their Token Message, but those tend to be… boastful and speech-like and pretty stupid.” Cinder shrugged as she finished her Pokepuffs, casually wiping her mouth with a napkin as she did so.

“Token Message? Great, first I accidentally made a Token, then I don’t know if I actually put a message in it or not.” Axel slumped a bit and took another bite of cake. “How do the messages work, anyway? I don’t remember getting any sort of message from yours.”

“Well, they’re supposed to play automatically when you find a Token, but apparently some of them actually require you to focus on them for the message to play. I guess mine is one of the latter. Hey, Axel, that reminds me, do things here work out like they do in the Axe Cop comic?”

“Depends on exactly what you mean by that. I know I’ve found I can do just about anything that Axe Cop has been shown to do, and when I killed the changeling queen and Cha-” Axel coughed and shook his head, “I mean Lyra, got splashed with the blood, she became part changeling, kind of like Flute Cop with the dinosaur blood. You saw her transform just after you got here. I’m not sure if things just work that way in general here, or just around me, but I can tell you the weirdness has been happening. I’ve also had this compulsion to use weird nicknames for the ponies around me, but I can overcome it if I focus. I don’t usually bother, though.”

“Yup, that’s exactly what I wanted to know. Hmmm… not a whole lot else to do here, is there? I mean, my home is just action day in day out, but I guess a little bit of nothing is cool too.”

“Not really. I mostly help around with general stuff between, uh... episodes.” Axel leaned forward as though to whisper, then leaned back in his seat and just thought it at Cinder instead. “Was this a TV show for you before you got Displaced too? I don’t want to say it out loud; I’ve only told the Element Bearers, and ponies can get pretty panicky.”

“Actually, it was. Well, I say was because the planet got blasted into a trillion little pieces by a Mars sized chunk of Australium.” Cinder nodded, sitting back and lightly patting her stomach.

“Did you watch it? I saw enough that I know what would be happening if I wasn’t here, for about...” Axel rubbed his chin in thought,“the next year and a half or so. They never were too solid with time in the show, and I don’t know exactly how far off it is before Sparklebutt gets turned into an alicorn. Eight episodes or so, but that could be anything from a couple weeks to several months, though I’m leaning toward the longer side.”

“Hmmmm…. I didn’t really watch much of the show, just bits and pieces… I do remember the Twilicorn thing going around on the internet for a while, though.” Cinder tapped her chin thoughtfully, unintentionally making an incredibly adorable gesture.

Axel smirked a bit. “Oh yeah, the nerd rage over that was hilarious. Last I knew there were even people that denied anything from that episode on even existed. I did see another whole season and then some beyond that, though.” Axel continued out loud. “Just thinking about it, I have to wonder if there are any more pokemon Displaced, or maybe trainers, even. Admittedly, it’s kind of weird to meet a real pokemon, when I’ve only ever seen them on screens before.”

Pinkie trotted out from the kitchen with a large pastry box on her back. “Here you go Cinder, a king-sized sampler, one dozen of each flavor! No charge for you guys, because you’re friends. Are you going to be able to stick around long enough for your ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party? I can get it started in two shakes of a pony’s tail if you’re ready!”

Cinder’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the box, a cutesy smile coming to her face as she gasped in delight, “Woooow~! Oh this looks so wonderful~! A-ah! A party? E-eh… I’m sure I can, actually! Yes! I haven’t been to a party in months!”

Pinkie gasped loudly, a look of shock coming to her face. “Months!? We’ll have to remedy that right now, missy! Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back.” She dashed off to the kitchen, and returned without the box. “It’s in the fridge with your name on it, you can come back and get it before you leave. And now...” In what appeared to be an impossible gesture, Pinkie shoved both front hooves deep into her mane, pulled out a blue cannon with pink wheels about the same size as herself, set it on the floor, and reached her hoof towards the trigger button.

Axel looked towards Cinder to try to catch her gaze as he covered his ears. “Cover your ears, quick!”

“Oh shit.” Cinder clapped her hands over her ears, covering herself and Axel with several layers of Light Screen, Protect and Safeguard for good measure. “Ears covered, hitting the deck!” Axel ducked under the table as well.

The moment the trigger button was depressed, an implausible amount of confetti, streamers, and balloons shot out, accompanied by a deafeningly loud party horn sound. The streamers and balloons conveniently fell exactly where they needed to be, covering virtually every surface in Sugarcube Corner’s dining room. Immediately thereafter, Pinkie shoved the cannon back into her mane and dashed out the door in a pink streak. Seconds later, ponies started filing in and began to party.

Cinder released her protective barriers and grimaced when a pile of streamers and confetti fell into her hair and covered her top hat. As she picked the offending paper from her hat band, she psychically cleaned off Axel and made sure none of her weapons would clog due to accidental jamming. “Okay, what the fuckjust happened.”

Axel climbed back into his chair and shrugged. “Party cannon. Not dangerous, but really darn loud if you’re this close when she fires it. Oh, and before you ask how she stores it where she does, don’t. The greatest minds in Equestria have yet to figure it out.”

“.... She kinda scares me now. I like her, but she kinda scares me.” Cinder glided away, mingling with the rest of the crowd as they filed in. Many of the ponies greeted her by name as they entered, along with offering a warm welcome. She gratefully expressed her thanks, though at one point she had circled back to Axel and asked him, “How do they all know my name? It’s kinda weird.”

“Pinkie probably told them when she invited them to the party. That’s her usual M.O. when organizing ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ parties, and anyone Pinkie considers a friend is generally accepted pretty quickly,” Axel explained. “It’s kind of amazing, she says she knows everyone in Ponyville, and she really does. She never misses birthdays or other reasons to throw parties, and she’ll often make up reasons if one can’t be found. There was never a place this friendly back on Earth.”

“You got that right. Best I got after I moved to college was a facebook message from my old friends. Well, if I was home, I got dinner, but that’s about it.” Cinder at this point was drifting on a cloud of positive emotions, the happiness radiating from the ponies lifting her own spirits even higher. “Oh jeez, it’s so happy in here~ If it gets any better I might get a contact high just from the resonance~” Already she had a smile and a light blush permanently glued to her expression, drifting around in a carefree manner.

Axel chuckled. “If you’re getting high off this, just wait until Pinkie gets back, she’ll get you smashed in the best possible way.”

“Ohhhh~ Dear~” Cinder giggled, clearly having the time of her life, “I dunno if I can take any more of this~”

With a cry of, “Come on everypony, LET’S PARTY!” Pinkie came barreling back in the room, pulled a record player from her mane, and started up some lively music, causing most of the party guests to start dancing in various ways. Axel just smiled and bobbed his head to the music.

Meanwhile, as the emotions in the room spiked to an all time high, Cinder spun in a dizzy circle, dancing woozily to the beat with a massive grin stuck permanently to her face.

Axel got up and moved closer to the wobbling pokemon. “You okay there? Looks like you’re using Teeter Dance.” He smirked and danced along with her, careful not to knock into any ponies, and gently directing her to do the same.

“So many happy vibes~! It’s really messing with my heaaaaad~” Cinder giggled and danced with Axel, wobbling back and forth with a massive blush upon her face and unfocused eyes.

After a little while, Pinkie approached Axel with a concerned look on her face. She nudged his leg firmly to get noticed, and he crouched down so he could hear her. “Is your friend okay? She looks, well... drunk, and I’m not serving any booze at this party.”

Axel smiled and shook his head. “She’s fine, or I hope she is anyway. You know how she talks psychically?” Pinkie nodded. “She’s apparently sensitive to strong emotions, and the party is really getting to her. She might need a bed when the party winds down, though.”

Pinkie reared up and wrapped her arms around Axel’s shoulders. “You’re a good friend. You take care of her. There’s not a spare room, but you can put her in my bed upstairs if you need to. It’s the second door on the left.” Axel hugged her back and nodded, then stood back up and continued protecting both Cinder and the ponies from collisions.

As the party went on, Cinder’s condition only continued to deteriorate. She stumbled and weaved, as if she was incredibly drunk, and at one point she had spun in place until she fell over. Axel dashed up as he saw her spinning and just barely caught her. “Come on, let’s get you to a bed, you should probably lay down for a while.”

“Whoooooooo~! Spinny spinny~!” Cinder shouted out, giggling and collapsing into a heap in Axel’s arms.

As Axel carried Cinder upstairs, Pinkie took notice and dashed across the room to the record player. She turned it off, grabbed the horn from it, and announced, “Sorry everypony, party’s over. The guest of honor needs to get some sleep, so we should quiet down.” There were a few groans, but everyone calmed down and made their way out with little protest, with a few lagging behind to buy some sweets to take home.

Upstairs, Axel easily found Pinkie’s room and put Cinder in her bed. “Are you going to be okay? It sounded like Pinkie called off the party when she saw me carrying you up here, so the emotional rush should calm soon.”

“Uuuuhhhhhhhhh my head……..” Cinder moaned out, already suffering from the after-effects of the emotional resonance. “Months of fighting on the front lines and being totally fine…. and I get a contact high from being in the same room as a bunch of partying ponies. What the fuuuuuuck.”

“Do you need anything? Water? Aspirin or something? ...Do they even have painkillers here?”

“No, no… just… ice… Ice would be good… I’d ice my own head, but I can’t even concentrate enough for an Ice Punch right now…” Cinder mumbled, futilely rubbing at her temples.

At that moment, Pinkie walked in the room with a hot water bottle clenched in her teeth. “Ah brah ya sahn ahh.” Setting the bottle down on the edge of the bed, she repeated herself. “I brought you some ice.”

Axel patted Pinkie on the head. “Not a clue how you knew, and I’m not even going to ask.”

Pinkie leaned into the petting. “Well, it was pretty obvious she would want ice, she basically seemed drunk downstairs, and ice often helps that.”

“Thanks…” Cinder grumbled, placing the bottle full of ice under her top hat and miserably sitting in bed. “Well… aside from that damn emotion-high, this has been a really fun visit so far.”

“I have to admit, it’s been nice having company that understands me better than ponies do, no offense, Pink.” Pinkie waved a hoof at Axel dismissively. “Do you think your Equestria is doing alright without you, though? It sounded like they’re having trouble fighting back the demons, and you seem like you’re really strong.”

“Well, if they handled the demons without me for six months, I’m sure they can handle them for another day,” Cinder moaned out, nursing her headache. “But, be that as it may… I think I should probably get home before they run into something worse than an Alpha Demon.”

“Oh dang, yeah that sounds like it could be a problem. So, how do I send you back? ...And is it as explosive as your arrival?” Axel asked.

“Uh… right. Well, just kinda… hmmm…. Okay, repeat after me,” Cinder began, standing gingerly and strapping on her equipment. “Actually wait, we should take a detour for those Pokepuffs.”

“Oh, right. Ponka can go grab the rest of the girls and CS to see you off too, right Pinks?” Pinkie nodded and saluted, turning into a pink streak as she left the room and zipped down the stairs and out the front door. “Come on, we can meet them outside, and I bet she left the box on the counter on her way out.”

“Right, right.” Cinder descended down the stairs, noticing that Pinkie had indeed left the box of Pokepuffs on the counter. She picked it up and glided outside, taking note of each of the ponies approaching to see her off. “Hm, didn’t actually expect much of a proper send off, I’ll admit.”

“Yeah, after the help you gave, and how much of a helpful friend you’ve been to me, I’m sure they didn’t want to miss it,” Axel replied.

Twilight stepped forward. “I’m sorry you had to come at such a troublesome time, and I wish we could have gotten to know you better.” All the others voiced their agreement. “We’d be glad to have you back sometime. Any friend of Axel’s is a friend of ours.” Axel smiled in response to that, then extended a hand to shake Cinder’s.

Cinder took Axel’s hand and gave it a firm shake, backing off and saluting all six ponies and Axel with as much formality as she could muster. “It was an honor to be here.”

Axel returned the salute. “It was an honor to have you, even if it was accidental.” He smirked.

Pinkie called out, “Enjoy those Pokepuffs! Don’t eat ‘em all at once!” She waved a hoof over her head in a flailing manner.

Axel relaxed and scratched the back of his head a bit. “Okay, now how do I do this?”

“Ah! Right! Repeat after me: Cinder Guard, our contract is complete.”

“Alright. Cinder Guard, our contract is complete. Hope to see you again, call me if you need anything.” Axel waved with a smile.

As Cinder faded away in a shower of rainbow sparkles, she smiled and waved goodbye, sending one last salute at Axel. “And call me if you need anything as well. Goodbye Axel, I hope to see you again.”

And with that, she disappeared.