Twilight stood on the other side of the door to the training simulation arena, head bowed. She had racked her brain about training scenarios for the conundrum incarnate that was Pinkie Pie. Never before had she had a more difficult task. She had read and reread and rereread her personnel file trying to fathom the soundless depths that were Pinkie's mind. She'd served all across the Imperial military in every role from military police, to drop ship trooper, to pastry chef, and now she was a pilot.
The trickiest part of Twilight's problem was that Pinkie had never directly disobeyed an order. Everywhere she was placed she did well in what she did. It's just when she did the things well she did them in such a bass ackwards way that she couldn't be allowed to continue doing them. If anyone else had pulled half the shit Pinkie had they would've been dishonorably discharged, if not executed. When she was in the military police guarding an intelligence facility, she uncovered a major coup in the works. By giving the infiltrator an in depth tour of the facility, and the head of the facility just happened to recognize the infiltrator's face when they barreled into his office. When she was a drop ship trooper she successfully took out an anti-aircraft point defence launcher, by landing on it. Her defence was "I didn't want to have to walk all the way from the landing site." She was fired from her job of pastry chef because on the lord general's birthday she baked him a cake. A rather large cake. A rather large cake with a stripper in it. The stripper was Pinkie Pie. The general was very pleased mind you, but his heart was no longer strong enough for either surprises, or sexual arousal and he died on the spot with a smile on his face. The cake was delicious.
"And now I have to take this woman and make her one of the most elite pilots in the galaxy." She began to gently bang her head on the door. She inhaled sharply and pumped herself up. She was Twilight Sparkle! She was the third strongest psychic in the known galaxy! She could find the use in anyone. She remembered the words of Applejack: "Ain't no such thing as a no win situation." She would make this work! She opened the door and immediately got hit with an Apple Pie directly in the face. The members of her squad stared in horror as the tin slowly flopped off of her face and rattled noisily on the floor. She slowly carefully opened her eyes and looked at the mess all over her spiffy uniform. Applejack took out a red and white polka dotted handkerchief and sheepishly presented it to her commanding officer. "Heh heh. Sorry Twi. Pinkie n Ah were havin a discussion about different recipes and uhh." She stopped when Twilight turned her head ever so slowly towards her. Applejack could see the barely contained rage through the holes in the mess where her eyes were. Twilight started to glow all over and each member of her squad started to slowly back away, uncertain of what was going to happen. The pie mess very slowly began to lift off of her face and uniform. She gathered the tin and spilt remnants off of the floor and seamlessly put the pie back together.
She levitated it onto the table and spoke in a murderous calm. "Please keep all food and drink in designated eating areas." She turned smartly and exited the room. The members of squad Sparkle looked at each other uncertainly. None of them could see her but Twilight had decided to blow off some steam. She'd teleported into the void with a psychic bubble surrounding her. She loosed a wave of energy similar to Celestia's, but on a much smaller scale. She screamed into the void as she incinerated several metric tons of space debris.
Several minutes later she reentered the observation room, making certain to not be behind the door when it opened. She glanced inside and luckily there was not a repeat of the earlier incident. She wreaked of ozone, but she had a satisfied air about her. "Alright we're running late, let's get started."
Twilight decided to go over several different exercises to see how Pinkie faired in each. She had no idea what to expect so she gave both of them a full service loadout including las rifle with grenade launcher, side arm, several different types of grenades, a machete, and a dagger. She wanted to give Pinkie room to be comfortable. She ran the same simulation she had with Rainbow Dash. The countdown started and Twilight tensed herself to rush the opposition's position. Before the count down had finished Pinkie Pie lobbed a hand grenade at the other side. Twilight flinched and stumbled forward.
Twilight shouted in undisguised annoyance. "Pinkie! What the hell are you~?!"
"SIMULATION COMPLETE." The synthetic voice from the ceiling chimed in. Twilight went slack, her face dropped into a flabbergasted expression. She turned her head slowly towards the other side of the ring as it faded away.
All Twilight could manage to say was a weak, "Huh?" She pulled up the video footage of the simulation . She saw that Pinkie had perfectly thrown the grenade to the other side of the ring where the training dummies were arranged, then it went off exactly after the countdown had ended, killing them all. She turned slowly in a mix of confusion and mild terror to see Pinkie Pie carelessly cleaning an ear with her service dagger.
The next simulation was the same one her and Applejack had undergone. Pinkie simply threw all of her grenades down the hall and the voice from the ceiling again chimed in, "SIMULATION COMPLETE."
Twilight brought up the next simulation and went into the loadout parameters and removed grenades. She petulantly snapped, "Use the rest of your gear this time!" She wanted Pinkie to actually have to move this round. The simulation Rarity had undergone appeared and Pinkie immediately began sprinting for cover. Twilight was surprised but followed quickly. This was better. This is how a soldier should fight. Pinkie silently signaled for Twilight to take point, and she broke forward, rifle at the ready.
Pinkie suddenly called out. "ON YOUR LEFT!" Twilight snapped her rifle to her left and sent a volley of las fire into the space where a training dummy had only started to walk into after she'd begun firing. Twilight took a second to wonder how Pinkie had known that dummy was going to be there, but her reflections were interrupted by Pinkie opening up on full auto on the three dummies in front of her. Twilight dove for cover and the two of them picked off the three dummies.
Twilight began to voice her approval of the situation, but Pinkie called in a worried tone, "COME ON WE GOTTA MOVE!" Twilight shook herself out of cover and darted after her. Pinkie called out "Twilight! I need you up there, cover me!" Twilight decided to follow Pinkie's advice and levitated herself to the top of the obstacle. She peered through the scope of the rifle and picked off another two training dummies. She had trouble tracking Pinkie Pie as she sprinted between cover. She was making for something at top speed and Twilight could see she'd dropped her rifle in the need for haste. Twilight moved to a different cover and saw that the remaining two dummies were waiting for Pinkie to come around the corner. Twilight couldn't get a good angle on them in time and she tried to call out, but right as Pinkie Pie reached the corner she slid on her side using the machete to hack at the nearer dummy's leg.
She slid to her feet and Twilight held her breath as the other dummy turned to fire. Before she knew what was happening Pinkie just skipped jauntily past the dummy that had a bead on her and nonchalantly executed the dummy on the ground with her side arm. Twilight stood there confused. Why hadn't the last dummy fired? As the voice from the ceiling chimed in, "SIMULATION COMPLETE" the other training dummy finally toppled backwards, Pinkie's dagger sticking out of its forehead.
Twilight dropped her fading rifle in shock. The only thought that could gain any purchase in her mind was, "Who throws a knife?" Twilight felt several things at once: confusion, awe, pride, joy, and had she had any experience in the field, arousal. She couldn't help but laugh out loud as she flew towards Pinkie. As the simulation faded entirely she snatched her off of her feet and spun her around laughing for sheer joy. Pinkie was surprised, but still happy about the reaction she'd gotten.
Twilight shouted as she shook Pinkie around. "YOU DID SO GOOD!" She heard a throat cleared from the entrance. She glanced over and saw the rest of her squad giving her a knowing look. She blushed bright red and put Pinkie Pie down. "Ahem. Well yes. Excellently done! I'm thoroughly impressed." The rest of her squad proceeded to congratulate her on her performance in their own various ways.
Pinkie giggled until she snorted. "Yeah I mean I thought I was gonna mess up right there at the end and not use the knife or the sword! THAT would've been embarrassing."
Twilight gave Pinkie an odd look. "Why would that have been embarrassing?"
Pinkie Pie snorted. "Well duh I wouldn't wanna fail would I?"
The rest of the squad stood there in shocked silence. It fell to Rarity to break it to her. " Pinkie darling . . . You weren't required to use it. You were just given it in case you needed it."
Pinkie Pie blinked for a few seconds. "But I like the sword." The rest of the squad couldn't help but laugh. Twilight made a few notes to a file and sent it to the motor pool. In big flashing bold letters it read. ONE OF EVERYTHING. LEAVE ROOM FOR EXPLOSIVES.