Diamond Cutter Anthology Entries

by Mudpony

The Badass Crossover of Badassitude

Warning: This story will contain EXCESSIVE USE of CAPITAL LETTERS as well as SWEARING. Because REASONS!

---

Diamond Tiara massaged her hind leg. She let out a breath full of contentment, but the moment she ceased her minstritration, the aching feeling returned. She resumed her rubdown, but it was not long before the hoof she was using bothered her more than her leg. She glared at it, upset at its betrayal.

She wasn't meant for this. Living out in the woods like a common thing that lives in the woods. She should be sleeping in her warm room on a fine, goose-down mattress, not curled up shivering inside a hollow, rotten stump. Her coat was covered with muck, dirt, mud, grime, slime, and groil. She wasn't sure if groil was an actual word, but if it wasn't, it should be. It seemed the perfect word to describe some of what covered her. And her mane, her precious mane she always took such care of, had suffered most of all, reduced to a tangled mess.

Even if there hadn't been patrols that passed nearby at seemingly random intervals, searching for any ponies that might have happened to escape, she would probably have hidden herself away regardless with how she currently looked. No way did she want anypony to see her like this. Though, in that situation, she might have risked sneaking into town to get cleaned up, provided it was a particularly dark night. She doubted she had ever looked worse in her entire life.

Of all the worst possible things, this was by—

Her stomach rumbled loudly as it rudely interrupted to remind her that she hadn't eaten anything other than a couple of mouthfuls of moss in the past week.

"Well, if you wanted something to eat, maybe you shouldn't have thrown up that moss up, huh?" she said, casting a glance over at the patch on the floor, her nose crinkled. She'd done her best to clean up the mess, but some of it was still there. Her stomach rumbled again, louder this time, more threateningly.

"Okay. Okay!" Diamond said, backing down. "I suppose I should be glad you threw up instead of…"

Her stomach rumbled again. Diamond Tiara sighed in defeat. She'd need to risk eating something from the woods or else try sneaking into the town again. The last and only time she'd tried to do that, she'd come away empty-hoofed and been lucky to get away at all.

She eyed the mushrooms growing inside her hideout, trying to remember for the upteenth time what exactly Miss Roseluck had said about them during Filly Scouts. They weren't poisonous, she was pretty sure of that, but she was equally sure that Miss Roseluck had insisted that they should not be eaten. Something about loose hall gin, whatever that meant. Those vaguely recalled warnings were the only reason she hadn't eaten any yet.

She decided it didn't matter. Whatever the effect was, even if it was death, it couldn't be worse than the fate that would befall her if she were captured. She'd seen it, that night she had tried to find some food. They were making ponies pull carts and mine and stuff, without the slightest consideration of who the pony was. The Mayor was pulling a cart right alongside Golden Harvest, for Celestia's sake. What the hoof up was up with that? It was like the invaders had no respect for status, no understanding that certain ponies were above such menial labor.

She lifted her head and cautiously sniffed a mushroom, like she had done so many times before. Her mouth watered at the smell, and she could feel a line of drool trickle down her chin, falling upon her leg and mixing with the groil already there. She frowned. She'd better take a bite soon, before she had to come up with a word even more disgusting than groil.

She moved her mouth closer, letting her lips wrap around the mushroom. She halted, just feeling the texture, seeing if there was any immediate reaction. There wasn't, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Next, she was supposed to take a small nibble, but her stomach rumbled again. Throwing caution to to the wind, she tore off a large chunk, swallowing it whole.

She settled down to wait, restraining herself from eating the rest of the mushrooms. She'd at least sort of follow what she had been taught. Out of boredom, she examined one of her forehooves. The last week had been hard on it, she could tell. She'd definitely need the extra deluxe spa treatment for it when things got back to normal.

"Wow. Look at all the pretty colors," she said, her eyes wide in amazement at the dance of shimmering patterns before her. She swayed from side to side, watching, ooh and ah'ing in amazement, before collapsing to the ground.

---

Diamond Tiara snuggled tighter against the source of the warmth. "Oh Twist, cuddling you feels so good on a chilly morning," she mumbled softly, still mostly asleep. Her brain was instantly fully awake. She did not like-like Twist. She didn't even single like Twist. No way. No how. She was Diamond Tiara, the epitome of what it meant to be somepony, and Twist, well, she wasn't as bad as Apple Bloom, but hardly worthy of hanging with the likes of Diamond and Silver Spoon.

It was these conditions, she decided, or maybe the mushrooms were making her crazy. Besides, there was no way what she was pressing against was Twist. It was way too big. But if it wasn't Twist…

She moved her hoof slowly, feeling the strange creature. It seemed to be pretty solid, well muscled, and devoid of hair. Definitely not pony nor one of those animals that yellow one kept. Slowly she opened her eyes.

She scrambled backwards, letting out a scream in fear. The thing shot up, looked at her, roared, and moved to the opposite wall. The two sat there, eyeing each other. Now, Diamond Tiara could make out more about the strange creature. It was grotesque! A mass of muscles to rival Snowflake, with the only hair visible on its entire body being its mane. And it wasn't even a pretty color of mane. Just a rather plain brown. No wonder it covered a bunch of it under a red bandanna. A questionable fashion choice, but better than that mane. But on the bright side, as ugly as it was, it wasn't attacking her. Or trying to eat her. Not yet anyway.

"You're… you're not going to eat me, are you?" Diamond Tiara asked.

That got a reaction from the beast. It raised one its appendages and pointed a claw toward her. "HOLY F*BEEP*BALLS! A talking pony! I must be f*beep*ing dreaming!"

"Keep it down!" Diamond hissed. "They'll hear you!"

The warning didn't seem to phase the creature. "But it's missing something. It needs EXPLOSIONS and a guitar solo!" The thing stretched out its forelegs and began moving its claws rapidly, while making horrid sounds. "Weedly-weedly-WEEE-WEEE-Thum-THUM-thum-Weeeee-SCREEECH!!! KICKASS GUITAR SOLO!"

Diamond Tiara launched herself forward and shoved her hoof into the creature's mouth. "Be quiet!" She pulled her hoof out of the creature's mouth and sat back. It spat several times, and she took advantage of the silence to say more. "If you keep making that much noise, they'll find us."

The creature stopped its spitting and look at her. "Who?"

"The creatures. They came out of the ground about a week ago. All made up of stone and crystals. Nopony expected it. We couldn't stop them, not even the princess, and she once stopped an Ursa with her magic and keeps a dragon for a pet."

"Magic, dragons, and unicorns? FANTAAAAASY!" It did another one of its guitar solos, though this time thankfully it was short and without the annoying sounds. "This dream keeps getting more BADASS!"

Diamond Tiara leaned forward, but stopped her hoof before it got more than an inch off the ground. The creature obviously didn't know the meaning of the word quiet. Besides, if there were any rock creatures anywhere nearby, they'd already be well on their way here by now. That was assuming they actually could hear, of course. Something to consider for later. For now, she continued her story.

"They took over the town and enslaved all the ponies. Not even the pegasi could get away. The rock things had these large birds made of stone that chased them down. And now they've got all the ponies working in the mines, digging up more rocks. I think they might be making more of themselves. They're probably planning on taking over all of Equestria!"

""MOTHERF*BEEP*ING EXPOSITION! All you had to say was there's things that need blowing up!" He seemed prepared to go into another "guitar solo". Diamond gave it her strongest glare. Seeing its claws drop back down to the normal position, Diamond gave it a nod of approval. Perhaps it could be trained enough to be useful.

"I'm Diamond Tiara." When it said nothing, Diamond sighed. Maybe it couldn't trained after all. "And you are?"

The question got a response from the beast, and of course, it wasn't a quiet one. "I'm MISTER TORGUE FLEXINGTOOOOOOOON!, the founder and CEO of Torgue Munitions. When you need something blown the hell up, GO TORGUE!"

"Volume!" Diamond hissed, lowering her hooves away from her ears. Even if the Torgue creature wasn't good at being quiet, there was no reason for it to be that loud.

"Oh, sorry."

He —she had decided, based on its behavior and obsession with blowing things up, as well as the use of mister, that it was most probably a he— sat in contemplation and she decided to just enjoy the moment of silence, before his next bout of screaming. At last, he leaned forward and picked up a stone with his claws. Using the sharp edge, he began to scratch something into the ground.

She watched curiously. It looked like a bunch of lines and circles. None of it made any sense. "What are you doing?"

The Torgue tapped one of his diagrams. "Making plans for some b*beep*ching weapons. We're gonna show these c*beep*ksucking invaders who the true badasses are!" He glanced over at her, then wiped away part of his drawing. "Hooves, not hands. I'm making guns for a f*beep*ing talking pony. Awesome!" Quickly, he drew the parts again, different than before.

---

Diamond exhaled as Torgue pulled a strap tight. "Not so rough!"

"You should eat bacon and drink gasoline so you could have pecs of steel and spit fire like me." Torgue flexed his muscles, though she could barely make them out in the dim morning light. "You sure you're strong enough to carry all this?"

"Of course." No way was she going to let this human, as she'd learned they were called, out-carry her. It was upon her to defend the honor of ponies everywhere. She braced herself as he began attaching the rest of various holsters and holders to her.

The last one in place, he took a step back and looked her over. Finally, he nodded in approval. "You look tough enough to take on a pack of pack of bullymongs on bikes armed with exploding death rays. Are the death rays on the bullymongs or the bikes, you may ask? Do death rays make you explode or do they themselves explode? The answer to both questions: YES! Because death rays are TOO AWESOME to be limited to one thing and you can never have too many EXPLOOOOSIONS!

"Now, if you could do me just one teeeeny little favor… It'd be SWEET if you wear this bandanna."

Diamond extended a hoof toward the bandanna, allowing Torgue to drape it across her leg. It was the one he'd be wearing earlier, looking like something an aging has-been rockstar would wear. And for some reason, it had a pinecone right in the middle of it. If she put this on, then it would stick out like… like a unicorn horn.

She glared at him. "What? An earth pony isn't good enough for you?"

The response was instant and Diamond Tiara threw herself back, cowering, as the human drew himself up to his full height, pointed one of his huge claws — No, wait, that wasn't right. Despite her fear she remembered he'd told her they were called fingers — As he pointed one of his huge fingers at her.

"IT'S NOT LIKE THAT! Mister Torgue don't BROOK no f*beep*ing DISCRIMINATION!" he shouted. "It's just…" He looked down at the ground, seemingly on the verge of crying. "I just really like unicorns, okay?"

Diamond Tiara sat down in shock. This creature was most strange. Not only did it seem to have no ability to talk quietly, not only did it make strange beeping sounds when talking, but its emotions were all over the place. It was almost as kooky as Apple Bloom's granny. Still, it had managed to make a bunch of weapons from stuff in the forest and was willing to help her try and rescue her town. She supposed she could do this small favor. Not like anyone would notice it anyway. They'd be far too busy staring at the rat's nest of a mane.

"Fine," she said with a sigh. "I'll wear it." He brightened at her words, and she brought her hoof down forcefully. "Just this once. I'm an earth pony and proud of it. No way in hoof would I want to be anything else. Got it?"

He nodded, and she fastened the bandanna-horn in place. Truth be told, it wasn't the first time she had worn a horn, though she wasn't going to admit that. Both her and Silver owned Pretty Princess Playset costumes, complete with horn and wings. But that was different. Dressing up as a princess was cool. Everypony knew that. Princesses were special. Unicorns were mundane, and the horns totally got in the way of wearing hats and stuff. Well, she grudgingly admitted to herself, there were a few who could make it work. And if she were a unicorn, she'd totally be one of those. But that wasn't the point, or rather, maybe that was the point, that she didn't need or want a point on forehead.

The weight of Torgue's stare pulled her attention back to the situation at hand. Raising an eyebrow, she asked, "Well?"

"You look totally BADASS!"

Somehow, she doubted it. Red, while her favorite color, had never looked as good on her as she would have liked, bandannas had never been cool, and she was wearing a pinecone. She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Let's just get going."

She stepped outside and looked around. She started off, but halted. That tree looked sort of familiar she decided, though she couldn't be entirely sure in this light, and took a step in its direction.

"You look more lost than a vegetarian in a steakhouse."

Diamond glared at him. She had no idea what a vegetarian or a steakhouse was, but she got the general gist. "I know exactly where I'm going," Diamond said. "It's this way!"

She set off in an entirely new direction. If asked, she'd have said it was due to where the moss grew, but the truth was that she picked the direction that looked easiest. Luckily, it turned out to be the right choice. Through the bushes, she could see a road.

"I told you I knew," Diamond said, giving her companion a smug smile. Without waiting for a response, she turned her attention back to the road, and the smile left her face. Coming down the road was a group of three rock monsters. They moved quickly, despite how awkward their five legged gait looked. Not that their gaits looked any weirder than the rest of the creatures, with their pyramid-shaped body and the single claw-tipped arm that rose from the top. Ducking behind a bush, she pointed toward them. "Rock monsters."

"BORING!" Mister Torgue said, as he crouched beside her.

Diamond gave him a confused look. The creatures were anything but boring. Horrifying, disgusting, or repugnant maybe, but not boring.

"They need a better name, like rock lobsters."

It was Diamond Tiara's turn to frown. She'd seen drawings of lobsters when Sea Swirl had been invited to bore the class with a lesson about why one should never go anywhere near the ocean. Well, technically, about all the stuff that lived in the ocean, but as far as Diamond was concerned, it was the same thing. "They barely look anything like lobsters."

"ROCK LOBSTERS!"

"Fine, fine!" she hissed. "Just be quiet so they don't—" She stopped mid-sentence as the rock lobsters started to head in her direction. "Great. Just great. They're coming this way."

"YOU"RE WELCOME!"

"That wasn't… oh, never mind." She leaped out of the bush and readied a weapon. Time to find out if these weapons would do the trick where everything pony had failed. She braced herself as best she could on three legs and fired. A stream of bullets flew to the right of the monsters, chewing up the ground. Quickly, she corrected her aim, and the first rock lobster exploded into shards.

She dropped the gun and tossed her forelegs around Mister Torgue. "They work!"

"F*beep*k paper! Nothing beats rock like EXPLOSIONS! And while I love talking about ROCK'N"ROOOOOLLLL and explosions, there's two more we need to KILL until they die from it."

"Oh yeah." She dropped back down to the ground and scooped up her rifle. "You get the one on the right; I'll get the left!" Raising the weapon to her shoulder, she fired, proud that her initial shots were much closer to the lobster this time. Her target down, she looked over to see that Mister Torgue had similarly dealt with his.

She grinned at him. "Three down!"

"More incoming from the left!"

Diamond Tiara looked in that direction and froze. That was a lot of rock lobsters, no doubt drawn by the noise of the Torgue weapons. And if the quantity wasn't bad enough, in the middle of the pack was the biggest one she had seen. It was the size of a house! Not her house, of course. If it was that big, then they'd be really, really screwed instead of just screwed. She looked down at her gun and back at the monstrosity. She was going to need a bigger gun. Luckily, she had just the thing.

Rearing up on her hind legs, she reached over her shoulder, and grabbed the one Torgue had called a rocket launcher. Bracing herself, she stared down the sight. Her hoof depressed the firing stud. Flame erupted out the back of the pipe as the rocket shot forth.

Diamond Tiara watched in amazement as the missile spiraled toward the huge rock lobster, slammed into its target, and exploded, obscuring everything in a large ball of flame. When the flame cleared, only chunks of rock remained. The entire enemy unit had been obliterated. It was definitely impressive. But also loud. She wiggled her ears, trying to silence the high pitched whine.

"EXPLOSION!" she could hear Torgue shout.

Diamond Tiara could not help but smile, despite the annoying ringing. No wonder he was always shouting if his world was filled with such weapons. A flash of movement caught her eye and she turned her attention toward it. More rock lobsters, but just regular sized one.

"Three more," she said, switching back to the rifle. "Let's get them!"

Their combined fire quickly reduced the invaders to so much rubble.

"This is just like Assault on Saturn Five!" Torgue shouted.

"Assault on what?" Diamond asked.

"Saturn Five. Only the best shooter ever!" Torgue said with a grin. "It had everything. Weapons, wicked cool explosions, vehicles, exploding vehicles, tunnels, EXPLOSIONS, and exploding tunnels!"

"You said explosions a bunch."

"I like explosions."

She looked around at all the damage in the surrounding terrain. "I noticed."

"HEY! To the right—" Torgue called out.

Diamond spun to the right and fired several rockets.

"—there's a barn," he finished. "I thought maybe we could find some grub and you just BLEW IT THE F*BEEP*K UP!"

Diamond Tiara looked at her handiwork. The barn was almost entirely obliterated. Chunks of wood rained down from the sky. Only a single wall remained standing and as she watched, it slowly teetered and fell over, sending a fresh cloud of dust into the air. She didn't even know why she had done that. She'd just turned around to see the building and fired. She hadn't really meant to shoot a rocket —or six— at it. It had just happened. She braced herself for the tongue lashing that was sure to come. Given how loud he normally was, she hoped her ears could withstand what was to come.

"That was AWESOME!" he declared.

Diamond Tiara looked at him in wonder, raising an eyebrow. Slowly, a wicked grin spread across her face. "It was, wasn't it?" she asked, before sending several more rockets sailing into the wreckage. "EXPLOSIONS!" she shouted.

"EXPLOOOSIONS!" he yelled back.

She slid the rocket launcher onto her back and walked toward the wreckage. Maybe there was something edible in the wreckage. At this point, she'd even be willing to eat an apple without complaining five minutes beforehoof. She swallowed to keep herself from drooling at the thought. Had she sunk so low that the thought of apples could do that? Her stomach rumbled loudly. Yes, yes she had. She added that as number forty-two on her mental list of reasons to blow up every rock lobster she saw.

Her ear twitched and she halted. She'd heard something. Swiveling her ears, she narrowed down the source. There. The door leading to the apple cellar. Something was down there. She signaled to Torgue, letting him know what was up.

Cautiously, the two approached the sealed door. Diamond glanced at her grenades and settled on the one Torgue had called a MIRV. It exploded into multiple bombs, he'd said. It'd be perfect for whatever was in the cellar. She showed it to Torgue. He nodded, then reached to the bar locking the door. Diamond bit down on the pin of the grenade. With a mighty roar, he lifted the bar free with one arm, raising it above his head, using the other to fling open the hatch.

A blur of purple rose out of the hole and Diamond dove forward, slamming into Torgue before he could bring down his improved club on Princess Twilight's head.

"They're friends, Mister Torgue!"

"Diamond?" Diamond recognized the drawl from when her father was doing business here. Sure enough, when she turned around, she found herself facing Applejack. "What are you doing here?"

"Torgue and I are saving Ponyville," she said rather matter of factly.

"But how?" Twilight asked. "They're immune to spears, catapults, and magic. Even pies didn't slow them down."

Diamond tossed one of her pistols to Twilight. "With these. Mister Torgue made them. They're called guns." She gestured to the pile of rubble that had once been a bunch of rock lobsters. "And as you can see, they work quite well."

She watched as Twilight and Applejack studied her weapon. Their examination was interrupted as Apple Bloom shoved her way between the two. Diamond Tiara quickly stepped forward and reclaimed her gun, before the world's most annoying filly could do something stupid like break it or blow somepony's leg off.

"But that's just a stick," Apple Bloom said.

Diamond rolled her eyes. Of course the little baby wouldn't understand anything about guns. Well, truth be told, she didn't either, other than that the hollow end was the part you pointed toward what you wanted to blow up, but she quickly buried that thought. This wasn't about what she didn't know. It was about how she was better than Apple Bloom, the stupid filly who didn't even know that much.

"I don't sense any magic on it. I don't see how we could use this to stop the invaders," Twilight said.

"Well, like, duh," Diamond Tiara said. "These are meant for filly hooves and yours are much too big. And the rest are meant for Mister Torgue and he's got those hand-things, so his wouldn't be any good for you either."

Twilight looked at her strangely, a slight tilt to her head, before she nodded. "Yes, that must be it."

Diamond leaned to the left, trying to see the other ponies that were finally climbing out of the cellar. She saw familiar faces, but not the ones she was hoping to see. "Is my dad or Sil here?" Diamond asked.

Applejack shook her head. "'Fraid not. Sorry, Diamond. Ah'm sure they're alright though, don't you worry."

"They must be in town, working in the mine," Twilight said.

Diamond frowned. With a shrug, she holstered her pistol and started to turn toward the road.

"So what's your plan?" Twilight asked, halting Diamond's progress.

"Well, we're going to go to town, sit their leaders down around a table, and then reasonably discuss a peaceful resolution," Diamond said, with only the slightest hint of sarcasm. "We're going to BLOW the MOTHER F*BEEP*ING S*BEEP* out of them and rescue my father and friends, of course! What did you think we were going to do?"

Diamond Tiara froze in horror at what she had just said, to a princess of all ponies. That wasn't how she talked at all! The human was rubbing off on her. First she started to enjoy blowing things up, like she was slime-covered colt. Now she was making strange beeping sounds while talking. If she wasn't careful, she'd probably wind up walking on her hind legs and doing those screeching noises that didn't sound anything like a guitar at all, no matter what Mister Torgue said.

"We?" Apple Bloom asked.

Diamond Tiara looked over the herd of ponies before her. They looked to be in even worse condition than her. Certainly in no shape to fight. "Me and Mister Torgue, of course. There's no way I'd trust a blank flank like you to save our town."

"You know, you really should be nice to her," Mister Torgue said. "Nothing is more BADASS than treating a blank flank with RESPECT!"

"But she makes it so easy!" Diamond protested, earning a glower from her companion. "Fine," she grumbled. "I'm sorry, Apple Bloom. I didn't really mean it. It's been a rough time for all of us."

The most curious expression settled on Apple Bloom's face. Just like her, thought Diamond. Utterly confused by the apology. Although, come to think of it, this was the first time she had done so.

"There's a lot of mineralites in town."

"Mineralites? That word has too many syllables, not to mention that it's LAAAAAAAAME!" uttered Torgue.

Diamond quickly stepped forward before Torgue could do something to offend the princess. "We've been calling them rock lobsters," Diamond said.

We?" Apple Bloom asked again, shoving her way between her sister and the princess.

"Me and Mister Torgue," Diamond said, gesturing toward her strange companion. Was that farm filly as blind as she was blank? She almost said that outloud, but managed to stop herself just in time. Being respectful to Apple Bloom was going to be hard. Still, as long as she only thought it and didn't actually say it, that counted, right?

"You reckon you got enough of them sticks to finish off the rest of them rock lobsters?" Applejack asked, shoving her little sister protectively behind her.

Diamond looked at the gear she was carrying. She still had all her grenades and plenty of bullets for her guns. Plus there was always the rocket launcher. She whipped it out and padded it proudly. "Worst comes to worst, I'll hit them with some rockets," Diamond said.

Apple Bloom's head popped up between the two adult ponies again. "Why's there a zero carved on that there stick?"

Sweet Sun, she was so annoying! Still, Diamond looked at her rocket launcher. With a growl, she chucked it to the ground in disgust. "Empty. Guess I used up all the ammo when I blew up the—" she stopped herself in time —"the group of rock lobsters. That's what I used all the ammo on. To kill the rock lobsters who destroyed your barn. And now we're leaving. To destroy the rest."

"But, Twilight, you can't send her off all alone against all them monsters!" Apple Bloom said.

Diamond harrumphed. "I'm not alone. I've got Mister Torgue, and he's the most badass badass on the planet."

Mister Torgue flexed proudly. "You're a MAJOR BADASS yourself, Diamond. No way some P*BEEP* C*BEEP*K LOBSTERS are going to f*beep*ing stop us."

"For shizzle!" Diamond declared, using some of the new slang she'd picked up from her strange companion. Then, head held high, they set off the down the road. Behind her, she could hear the princess talking to Apple Bloom.

"I don't like it any more than you do, Apple Bloom. I'd rather stop her from going, but everything else we've tried against them has failed. She's all we've got."

"But she's not well. And she could die!"

Diamond rolled her eyes. Sure, she was hungry, but it wasn't like she was sick. And she was certainly in better shape than the ponies the rock lobsters had enslaved. Plus there was no way she was going to die. The universe wouldn't let it happen. She was much too pretty for that.

"Yes, she isn't. And yes, she could. But she could also save Equestria," Diamond heard Twilight reply. No could about it. She and Mister Torgue would save Equestria or her name wasn't Diamond motherf*beep*ing Dazzle Tiara.

Yup, the human was most definitely rubbing off on her.

The conversation lapsed into silence, and just when Diamond was sure it was over, Apple Bloom spoke again, just barely audible. "Sometimes being a princess isn't much fun, huh?"

Diamond Tiara laughed out loud at that. How could being a princess possibly not be fun?

---

Diamond pressed her back against the stone wall, part of a now mostly demolished house, feeling it vibrate as chunks of rock smashed against it. She risked a quick glance through what had been a window, and her heart sinking at the sight. "There's so many!"

"It's like the zombie hordes in Left 4 Dead Space 51," Torgue replied, his enthusiasm as high as ever.

"How do you stop those?"

"You shoot and then you f*beep*ing shoot more!"

How could they do that? She'd used up her shotgun ammo already. If only she hadn't wasted all her rockets on that barn. But she had, and so they were screwed.

It had all been going so well. They'd freed the enslaved ponies, including the rest of her classmates and her father, and only blown up about half the town in doing so. The enemy had fallen before them and had even begun to retreat. But then the enemy had regrouped, in larger numbers. And so now they found themselves pinned, with lobsters closing in and no way out.

Unless… No. Surely there had to be another way. But she knew there wasn't. With a sigh, she resigned herself to her fate. She reared up, balancing herself on her hind legs. In her right hoof, she held her assault rifle. With her left hoof, she grabbed her pistol. She walked as best she could over to the window and opened fire. It wasn't accurate, but then there were so many rock lobsters that it didn't need to be.

"Die, you c*beep*ksucking MOTHERF*BEEP*ERS!" she yelled, feeling great satisfaction as she watched enemy after enemy blow up.

She let out an insane laugh. She was talking like him again, while walking on her hind legs and enjoying blowing stuff up. Three for four now. But that is where it would stop, she promised herself. No way, no how would she do one of those "guitar solos".

---

The doctor, looking resplendent in her crisp, white coat, flipped through the pages of the clipboard that floated before her. She shook her head and said, "I'm sorry, Mr Rich. There's been no sign of improvement these last few weeks. I'm afraid she may be this way for months or even years."

The sight of Filthy Rich's head lowered to the ground, the hope he had been carefully building over the past weeks demolished.

The doctor winced in sympathy. It was a part of her job she didn't like, but she prefered to tell ponies the truth rather than give them false hope. Still, she wasn't made of stone. Gently, she rested a hoof on a shoulder. "Rest assured we will continue to give her the best possible care."

"I'll make sure of it," the other occupant in the room, Princess Twilight Sparkle, said. "And if there's anything that can be done, it will be. No expense spared. You have the assurances of both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna on that, as well as my own."

Filthy Rich nodded, and left the room, each footstep coming slowly, his head still hung low. Once he was gone, the doctor turned to the princess, flipping through the papers on the clipboard again.

"Such a sad case, for one so young to go so completely bonkers."

Twilight reared up, her eyes flashing sparks as her wings flared out. "Show some respect!"

The doctor screamed and took a step back in fright.

"I'm sorry," Twilight said, as she settled back on the ground, folding her wings away. "You wouldn't understand. You weren't there." She looked through the window, at the filly within. "Somehow, she managed to stop an invasion with nothing more than sticks, pinecones, and a few rocks. Ponies who were there swore she ran around pointing sticks at the invaders and yelling 'ratatatat' and they just exploded into pieces. She'd lob a pinecone and yell 'boom' and they'd shatter, sometimes half-a-dozen at a time.

"She freed the town. And when the enemy regrouped, too numerous for her to take out with a single stick, she reared up and used two at once, one in each hoof. She ran around like that, on two legs, screaming and roaring, until she broke them, sending them scurrying to the mine shaft from whence they came. And she didn't stop there. She went after them. Somehow, she blew up their tunnels."

She could see the doctor's mind working, but shook her head. "No, I don't think they're all insane or having some form of mass delusion. I saw the results of her work. She near leveled three-quarters of the town. I probably wouldn't be here today if it weren't for her." She turned to make her own exit, but stopped to say one more thing to the doctor. "If there's one thing I've learned from my time in Ponyville, it is that earth ponies are capable of some truly amazing things that seem to defy all logic. Never underestimate them, Doctor."

The doctor said nothing, giving one last glance at her patient. She had heard the reports of the attack on Ponyville of course, but had assumed it was just the usual over-hyping by the press to sell more papers. Perhaps there was more to this than meets the eye. Hearing the sounds coming out of the padded room, she shrugged. Or perhaps not. She used her magic to hang the clipboard on the hook next to the door, before turning it on the metal plate, sliding it shut and cutting off the sound of Diamond Tiara's sick guitar solo.