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

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!”