Hunters of the Wasteland

Chapter 5

Train Ride

(Part Three)

“.....This is just wrong on so many levels.” Littlepip said as she watched Rebecca feed the White Nargacuga of the slavers they killed. “Why couldn’t we just throw them out of the train?”

“Poor guy was hungry. I couldn’t just leave him like this. Plus he did help us, so why not?”

“I guess...but it’s still wrong on so many levels when you think about it.”

“Yeah well there’s no rules saying that we can’t let this happen, nor will we be in trouble for this.” The pegasus said as she began to make her way out of the room. Littlepip shivered upon hearing the sounds of bone being crushed before following after Rebecca into the next room.

“Hey, I have a question to ask.” Littlepip asked as Rebecca looked over at her with a raised eyebrow. “Do you have a...picture of what you looked like before your so call transformation from human to pony?” The pegasus paused for a moment before facepalming herself at the sudden realization. She quickly reached into her bag to pull out her wallet to see if she has it. To her surprise she did have it as she opens it and pulls out a picture of what she and Vanessa looked like before the transformation. “Why is your skin the same color as chocolate?” The mare asked as the pegasus momentarily stopped after hearing that. “Oh Celestia did I say something offensive?”

“N-No, no you didn’t say anything offensive or anything. It’s just the way you said it that took me by surprise that’s all.” Rebecca said before putting the picture back into her wallet and her wallet into her pocket. “To answer your question I’m African American.”

“Oh, okay. So how come your friend isn’t the same color as you are?”

“She’s white.”

“Are all human brown and white?”

“In a way yes. What? You thought that all humans were the same color or something?”

“Well I never met your kind before until now. You can’t blame me for wondering that.”

“Yeah good point I guess...Wait, why did you think my skin was brown?”

“Uh, well I figured that you ate too much chocolate when you were just a little filly and your skin turned to the same color as chocolate.” There was a moment of silence hanging in the air for a moment before Rebecca busted out laughing upon hearing Littlepip’s reply. Littlepip blushed in embarrassment from this as she glares at Rebecca. “W-What’s so funny!?”

“That’s the most stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of in my entire life! What kind of human turns black just by eating nothing but chocolate for the rest of his or her life!?”

“B-Buck you jerk! Stop laughing at me for being curious!”

“Sorry, S-Sorry. B-But you can’t expect someone not to laugh at something like that?” The pegasus said as her laughing fit began to shimmer down a bit while whipping away the tears from her eyes.

“....I get the feeling that you’re going to do that a lot.”

“Only if it’s as absurd as what you said, then I might laugh more.” She said as she reached for the door to the next room. “Come on, let’s go and get this over with Littlepip.” Upon opening the door the two mares walked into the next room, only to pause upon seeing that they’re inside a kitchen. A very somewhat old and beat up kitchen that you would see in a silent hill movie. Just without the monsters and having the environment change every few hours or so. “Geez, you think they would keep this place up to date?”

“Given how this train is looking, it doesn’t really surprise me in the slightest that they wouldn’t keep up with cleaning it.” She said before looking up in front of her. The mare’s skin color turned pale upon what she saw as she tugged on Rebecca’s shoulder. “We got trouble.”

“What do you-?” Before the pegasus could ask, a gunshot echoed past her head as she and Littlepip hid behind a nearby kitchen counter.

“That’s far enough bitches!” Rebecca poked her head around the corner of the counter to see three earth ponies and two unicorns levitating a rifle and shotgun above them aimed at the two of them. “We heard the gunshots from here, and if you think you’re going to take our cargo away from us, then you got another thing coming!”

“I really hate the wasteland.” Rebecca said as she pulled her head back behind the counter to avoid another bullet coming at her. “Hey, how much ammo do you have in that gun of yours?”

“You mean little macintosh? About five rounds now thanks to the loot we got from the slavers in the room we were just in.”

“Okay, and how many ponies are trying to kill us right now?”

“Five, last time I checked.” Littlepip said as Rebecca kicked open the bottom cabinet in front of her to pull out a frying pan. “Um I don’t think this is a good time for cooking?”

“I’m not gonna cook Littlepip, but I will need to borrow your gun for a second or two.” The pegasus said as she took the gun from Littlepip, tosses the frying pan into the air, and fired two shot into the pan. Once it hit, the bullets bounce off of the frying pan and hit the two unicorns in the head causing them to fall to the ground as the frying pan fell to the ground at the same time. Littlepip looked over at the dead unicorns for a moment before looking back at Rebecca. “Two down three to go.” She said before tossing back little macintosh to Littlepip.

“Could’ve asked to borrow it you know?”

“I don’t think asking to borrow stuff in the middle of a fight is required.” Rebecca said as she felt an oncoming kitchen knife heading pass her head that was thrown by Littlepip. The pegasus glared and was about to say something to the stable pony, only for her to hear a yelp coming from behind her as the earth pony from the group was a few inches away from delivering an axe to Rebecca’s head as the colt fell to the ground.

“You’re welcome~”

“Dammit! How are we losing to a pair of sluts!?” Yelled one of the slavers as the two of them quickly took cover behind a pair of portable stoves.

“How should I know! Just kill them with the grenade!”

“But shouldn’t we capture them for ourselves?”

“Just kill the bitches! We can get more on the way to where we’re going.” He said as his partner reached for a grenade from his waist and tosses it over to Rebecca and Littlepip. The two mares let out a frantic scream as they quickly jumped out of the way of the oncoming explosion...the only problem was that there wasn’t an explosion to come after waiting for a good few second. “...You remember to pull the pin off right.”

“Oh….shit.” Rebecca and Littlepip looked at each other for a moment before looking at the grenade then back at the slaver with deadpan expression. The pegasus quickly picked up the grenade and unpinned it. “Run stupid!” The colt yelled as the two tried to make it to the door over to their left.

“Batter up Pip!” Rebecca tossed the grenade into the air as Littlepip quickly picked up the same frying pan from before and hits the grenade like a baseball as it flies over to the fleeing colts. The grenade flies past them as it bounces off the door and rolls in front of the two earth ponies. Both colts hold each other and began to yell for a good few seconds before the two were engulfed by said explosion and their limbs and organs scatter around the entrance area of the room.

“Oh dear Celestia, I think I’m going to be sick.” Littlepip said as she gags a bit from the remains of the slavers exploded bodies.

“The smell doesn’t help either.” Rebecca said as she began to make her way over to the slavers bodies as she began to make her way over to the door. “But we better go before the smell makes you throw up.”

(Train)
(Engine Room)

“Keep shoveling that coal slave! We need to get to Old Appaloosa within a week so we can make the shipment on time.” Yelled an overweight unicorn as she whipped a pair of ponies shoveling coal into the fire of the engine.

“Y-Yes ma’am!” The colt yelled, only to get whipped by the unicorn causing him to fall to the ground in pain.

“Hey, who said you can rest!? Get back to work slave.”

“P-Please ma’am, I just need a minute or two to rest.” The downed earth pony said as she tried to pull himself up, but falls back onto the floor screaming in pain from the gash on his back. The unicorn brought her whip up and was about to hit the poor colt again, only for it to be stopped by a mare with blue mane and tail and a orange fur color as she grabbed it before it could hit him.

“Hitting us won’t make us move any faster jerk. Especially when one of us is injured due to you whipping us!” She said before releasing her hold on the whip. The mare reeled it back as she glared at the mare for a moment before a smirk appeared on her face.

“You’re right. I am so sorry for hurting your friend there.” The unicorn’s horn glowed as she picked the earth pony from the ground. “Here, let me help him out.” her smirk quickly vanish as she threw the pony into the fire of the engine room. The mare’s eyes widen upon seeing this as she was about to try and get the pony out of there, only for the mare to use her magic to hold the pegasus down onto the floor.

“What the buck are you doing!?” The Mare yelled as she tried her best to pull herself up, but to no avail. “He’s going to die if I don’t pull him out!”

“Let him. A useless pony is only good for fuel for the fire. Shame really. Would’ve been nice to buck him one last time before he retired.” The screams of the burning colt follow by the sounds of him hitting the metal of the furnace echoed throughout the room for a good minute before they began to slow. As the screams and banging stopped, the mare could hear the colt utter one last word before he died.

“M...Mommy…” Tears began to roll down the mare’s face in anger as she looked over at the unicorn with anger and malice in her eyes.

“You monster...he was only a kid.”

“So what? You think anypony would care for a weakling like him? This is the wasteland bitch. There are no rules here. It’s survival of the fittest, and only the strong survive.” She said before pulling her up by her neck with her magic. “The only reason why you’re alive is because you have some information that might be of interest to Red Eye. To think that the Zebra’s were willing to trade Flare Warden for five million caps. Makes sense seeing how you hold information of where he might be due to you being second in command and all.”

“Why the hell would I tell you or this Red Eye anything about where the captain is?” Flare said as she felt the magic around her neck squeeze harder around her as she began to choke a bit from this.

“I might want to. Especially seeing how we have ways on dealing with stubborn ponies like you.” She said before reaching for a rod iron and opening the furnace to stick it in there. “Better yet, why don’t I just do it for him? He might give me even more caps then what I got from accepting this job.” She said before pulling the iron rod out and placed it near Flare’s face. Flare gritted her teeth as she lowered her face to the side due to the heat coming off of it. “Would be a shame to hurt such a nice pretty mare like yourself. So I suggest you tell me what I need to know or-” Before the unicorn could finish, both she and Flare heard a knock coming from the door. “What is it!? Can’t you see I’m busy!?”

“We have a problem! The monster that we caught is waking up, and we don’t have anymore sedatives to keep it asleep or calm it down! It already bit the head off of two of the minotaurs we got to come with us!” said a rather raspy voice coming from behind the door. The unicorn groaned in annoyance before dropping Flare Warden onto the ground gasping for air and coughing.

“I’ll deal with you later. Right now you better get to shoveling more coal into the fire, or else I’ll not just rape you, but I will break you into being a good sex slave.” She said while making her way towards the door. “How the hell can that monster kill two of our strongest mercenaries? More importantly, how did it get out of the chains-” Upon opening the door, the unicorn was stopped mid sentence as Rebecca impaled her with her longsword in her chest.

“That would be because of us.” Rebecca answered as she slowly pulled her sword out of her chest. The unicorn coughed up some blood as she gripped her blood cover chest before falling to the ground face first. “Not the brightest bunch of ponies on this train, but I’m not complaining so long as the job is done.” She said before walking over the dead body of the fat unicorn, only to pause upon seeing Flare Warden looking at her with tears in her eyes. “Um...greetings pony. We come to take over your train so we can get to New Appaloosa… At least I hope this train does lead there.”

“....If you’re going to kill me...just...make it quick.” Flare said with a defeat tone in her voice. Rebecca looked at the mare for a moment, then the chains, then at the dead unicorn next to her.

“We’re not here to kill you or anything...um?”

“Flare Warden.”

“That’s a weird name.”

“Better then what your name has to be.”

“Rebecca Walker is my name.” The pegasus said as she jerks a thumb over at Littlepip. “And the mare looting that dead slaver is named Littlepip.”

“Oh, um. Hi?” Littlepip said as she waved at Flare awkwardly who in turns waves back at her.

“...And you’re saying my name is weird.”

“Whatever.” Rebecca said as she kneels down towards Flare and gave her one of her potions to drink. “Drink it, it’ll help you with any injuries that you may have gotten.” She said as Flare began to drink it. Once she was finish, the blue mane pegasus quickly stood up upon feeling a surge of energy flowing through her body, as if she was a brand new mare. “Feel better?”

“A-A little bit, but not completely.” She said as she look over her wings which were tied and covered in a strange green substance. “My wings are in cased in this green substance and no matter how hard I hit it, it won’t come off. Not even when...BellHop was trying to help me.” She said looking over at the fire in the furnace causing her shake her head and look over at Rebecca and Littlepip. “A-Are there more than just the two of you on this train?”

“Vanessa and Sunny Day, who might be finished doing their part in dealing with the remaining slavers on the train. Question, does this train lead to New Appaloosa?”

“It does, but we would have to go through Diamond Dog Town. Which I would suggest that we stop there.”

“Why is that?” Littlepip asked as she walked over to Flare Warden with a set of keys as she began to take the chains off of her.

“Thanks.” She said while rubbing her wrists. “To answer your question, we have slaves on this train that need medical attention. And I promised them that I would help them the moment I could free myself to get help.” She said before looking over at the dead unicorn. “Which by Faust’s grace and favor, you came in the nick of time seeing how you’re not slavers or raiders from the way you two look.”

“I’ll...take that as a compliment, but are you sure Diamond Dog Town is safe to stop into?” Littlepip asked. “I mean from what I’ve read in books. Diamond Dogs aren’t really much fans of us ponies and treated us as their personal slaves.”

“Maybe back then, but now they pretty much try to help some ponies out when they can or if they can for some of them. Plus I don’t think the injured ponies will last a couple of days in the state they’re in.”

“She has a point.” Rebecca said as she hands Littlepip her bag. “Go see if Vanessa and Sunny Day are okay. If you see anypony that are injured or sick, give them a potion or antidote to help heal them a bit.” Littlepip nodded as she headed off in the direction of the two unicorns. Rebecca soon looked over at Flare as she helped her back to her feet. “Can you drive this train?”

“I can, but I’ll need you to shovel coal into the furnace so that we don’t lose speed...fair warning, my friend is inside there so don’t be freaked out by what you see.”

“I take it the mare I killed was the one that did it?” She asked as Flare nodded hesitantly. “Okay, thanks for the warning Flare.”