Hunters of the Wasteland

Chapter 8

Operation Crab Dinner Begins

(Diamond Dog Town)
(Location: AJ’s Office)

“And that’s pretty much it on my part.” Flare Warden said as Applejack stared at the pegasus with a calm expression on her face.

“Geez, and I thought I had it rough over the past two-hundred years.” She said before taking a swing from her drink. “Shame you had to be woken up during this time where there’s nothing left of Equestria.”

“Like I had a choice in the matter. Kinda glad that Rebecca and her friends found me before I was sent off to who knows where.”

“Are you sure you can trust them? I mean I know they saved you and all, but something tells me that they’re hiding something.”

“I’m sure they have their reasons. Plus aren’t you pretty much doing the same by hiding who you really are with that get up from earlier?” Flare Warden asked as the earth pony chuckled.

“Fair enough. I guess the phrase calling the kettle black applies to me in this case. I’m just making sure that they’re good folks, and not like how most ponies are nowadays. Especially with them raider ponies attacking and pillaging small towns.”

“I can assure you that they’re nothing like that. I mean they do have a researcher from New Appleloosa after all.”

“That is true. But still, you can never be too sure or believe what ponies say.” Applejack said before leaning back in her seat. “I’ll take your word for it seeing how you’re a friend to Twilight back in the days, but I’ll be keeping an eye on them.” She said before hearing the door open as Rebecca and the others entered the room. “Well speak of the devil. I take it you girls got what you needed from Sweetie Belle?”

“Yep, thanks for that by the way.” Rebecca said as she examined her own weapon. “Hard to believe that weapons like these exist outside of our home country.”

“You'll be surprised as to what you’ll find here in the wastelands.” Sunny said before turning her attention onto Applejack. “If you don’t mind me asking, but if you’re alive then that must mean the other leaders' ministries are alive as well?”

“Y...You could say that yes. But I haven’t the foggiest idea on where they might be in this tartarus on equis we call the wastelands. If I did know, then I wouldn't be here as the active mayor of this town.”

“So do you have any idea or clues on where they might be?” She asked as the former farm pony shook her head.

“Been dead for two-hundred years, sugarcube. Can’t help you in trying to find my friends if you’re thinking of doing that, nor do I think some of them want to be found given the state we left Equestria is in.”

“I mean, she’s not wrong about that. I mean sure a lot of what they did was good, but it also did a lot of damage during the war and the aftermath.” Sunny said as she adjusted her glasses. “The biggest impact was the loss of the rulers. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. Without those two, Equestria pretty much spiraled down into what you see now.”

“Yeah, so you can see why some of us don’t want to be noticed by every pony. Some would worship us as they did with the Princesses, try and capture us for their own needs seeing how we’re immortal, or worse.”

“Fair enough. I’m sure we'll find them along the way. But for now we have a mission to do.” Rebecca said as Applejack nodded.

“Again, you lot take care of that giant crab monster and I’ll consider it as your debt paid for what we did to the train.” She said before handing them a map that had the location of where the watering hole was located on it. “I put the location of the watering hole on that map. It’s not that far from here by vehicle, so take one of the spare raider’s jeeps that the dogs were able to repair and tune up. You can even use whatever the jeep has in the trunk if you want?”

“Alright, this shouldn’t be a problem.” Vanessa said as she took the map. “We’ll have this problem of yours taken care of in no time flat!”

“See that you do, and do be careful when dealing with this monster. I don’t want to find out that you were killed due to overconfidence.” She said as Rebecca and her group began to make their way outside of AJ’s office.

(Diamond Dog Town)
(Watering Hole)

In a matter of minutes, the small group of hunters made their way over to where the watering hole was that the monster was seeing using the water as it’s home and source of water. Rebecca began to scan the area that they were in. The ground ripped to sunder by war and time, the soil lifeless and pale, pieces of the earth sticking out of the ground forming misshapen spikes or giant mouths ready to eat anyone or anything that would come near them. As Rebecca continued to scan the area, she noticed a giant skull sticking out of the ground near the watering hole.

“Alright, Zenith Daimyo Hermitaur is currently in the ground near the watering hole. We need to take out the shell on its back so it doesn’t skew us from below when it digs into the ground.” Rebecca said before hopping off the jeep and walking over to the trunk of it. As she opened it, she would find that it was filled to the brim with grenades which took her by surprise. “What the hell? Who carries around a fuck ton of grenades around? Don’t they know that they could’ve blown themselves sky high if someone hits them with a stray bullet or something?”

“Those aren’t regular grenades.” Sunny said after walking over to where Rebecca was. “Those are magical energy grenades.”

“....Care to explain please? Rebecca and I aren’t from around here so we have little knowledge of stuff here in the wastelands.” Vanessa asked as Flare Warden chimed in on the conversation.

“Magical Energy Grenades are made of raw, lethal magic energy. They have a chance of vaporizing enemy combatants, much like any other magical base energy weapons.” She said which caused Rebecca and Vanessa to stare at her for a moment before looking at the grenades. “This stuff was developed during the war by the Ministry of Wartime Technology along with a few other things.”

“So they can vaporize anything upon contact right?” Rebecca asked as Sunny nodded. “....Think we could use them to vaporize a giant skull?”

“I mean, it is possible to do that. But you would have to place them on an area where it will cause enough damage to break the skull. Maybe where you can find a crack on the skull or something?”

“So we’ll have to drop them from above.” Vanessa said as she looked over at Flare Warden. “And it would seem you’ll have to do it. Given how Rebecca can’t fly.”

“Wait, you don’t know how to fly?” Flare asked as Rebecca shook her head. “But...You’re a pegasus. How can you now fly?”

“Um...Well….that’s a...personal reason.” Rebecca said before shaking her head. “Look, the point is that I’m more of a ground pe...pony then I am an air pony. Plus I’m holding a heavy weapon. So even if I could fly, I wouldn't be able to fly properly.” She said which caused Flare to stare at her in judgement. “Don’t fucking judge me! Just take to the air and drop some of the payload onto the giant crab monster when you see an opening.”

“...This conversation isn’t over. We’re going to have much to talk about how you can’t fly.” Flare said as she grabbed a carton of magical grenades. “More specifically, how I’m going to train you on how to fly.” She said before taking off into the air and towards the direction of the monster.

“And what are we supposed to do?” Littlepip asked as Rebecca turned her attention towards the grey unicorn.

“Littlepip will be our sniper from a distance. Sunny Day will cover Littlepip so that no monsters or raiders attack her from behind. I will be the vanguard in getting the monster’s attention, and Vanessa will be my support/coverfire.”

“Does the thing have any weak spots or something?” Sunny asked. “Seeing how it looks like a giant crab, its shell must be hard as steel.”

“The weapons Vanessa and I have will be able to cut through his shell. We’ll be focusing on breaking it’s claws seeing how it’ll use them as shields and it can cause explosions with them when the color on its body turns green. During that time, Littlepip will use Spitfire’s Thunder at Z Daimyo’s joints that connect to its claws.”

“Well that shouldn’t be hard to hit.” Littlepip said as she reached into the jeep to pull out Spitfire’s Thunder. “I’ll try and find a good enough place where it won’t be able to spot me.” She said before running off into the area of the monster as Sunny Day follows after her.

“Guess that leaves us to get its attention huh?” Vanessa asked as she reached into the jeep along with Rebecca to get their weapons.

“Pretty much...hard to believe we ended up in a place like this.”

“A post-apocalyptic world full of monsters from the Monster Hunter series and ponies hungry for blood?”

“Yeah...Sorry about that. Had I known something like this would happen, then I might’ve just gone by myself and left you home to relax.”

“It’s not like being angry at you will solve the mess we’re in. Plus there are some things in life that we can’t control. This is kind of one of those moments...plus I don’t think we can go back home given how we ended up here...I’m pretty sure we died before coming here.”

“Right...wait we died!?”

“I’ll explain later, right now we have a job to do.” Rebecca said as she placed the switch axe onto the holster on her back and began to walk to where the monster was located. “Come along partner, we got ourselves a monster to hunt.”

“But...I...wait how did we die!?” Vanessa asked as she quickly followed after Rebecca in a hurry.