Joe POV:

There were destroyed Titans all around me, mostly IMC. I was inside a Monarch Titan, fighting alongside my friends. My family. Cooper and Briggs were headed inside the IMC base. We were supposed to hold out, but how could we fight off so many?

"Joe! Get your ass back to the frontline!" Yelled Helen, our unspoken leader. I rushed to the frontline, firing a barrage from my XO-16 Machine gun. I looked to the man I enlisted alongside. Greg was mercilessly gunning down IMC grunts. I turned back to the enemy to see a Ronin with it's blade drawn. It swung it's giant blade downwards, it's blade arcing with electricity. I was too late to warn him. The blade went carving through the metal like it was aluminum. The last thing Greg ever knew was pain and suffering.

His Titan detonated, propelling his body outwards in several directions. I looked at the Ronin to see an Apex Predator symbol on it's hull. I was furious, and unloaded an entire clip into it's face. He grabbed his Leadwall Shotgun, firing all four of its rounds. He ended up blowing the right arm of my Titan off.

"Warning! Critical Damage detected! Eject! Eject! Eject!" Said my Titan. I looked up to see the Ronin towering above me. It raised it's sword, pointing it down at me. I was thinkin about my life, about how nothing but fighting was in it. Then I looked to the corpse of my friend, and remembered all the good times we had. As the Ronin stabbed his blade down, I heard a large slam. I looked up to see Helen holding a fallen Ronin's Broadsword holding the Ronin at bay!

"Get up Miller, you're not done until I say you're done." Helen said after batting away the Ronin. She pulled me up, looking my Titan over. "Can you fight?" She asked. I looked around the cockpit to see the various controls and realized what I could do.

"Just get the enemy Pilots to swarm me." I said. She gave me a thumbs up before ripping the Ronin's Pilot out of it's cockpit. She looked at him for a moment before crushing him in her Titan's hand. I looked over the battlefield to see a large amount of IMC Pilots running towards me.

"Aw yeah! Free batteries and we get to kill a Monarch! Best day ever!" I heard a Pilot yell. I pressed a few buttons in a specific order, and placed my hands on the Eject lever. I waited until the Pilots began to climb up on me. The moment I heard one try to pull a battery out, I pulled the lever.

"Reactor Overload initiated" I heard my Titan say. I saw a small message at the bottom of the visual screen saying "Go get 'em Tiger". I smiled before getting sent 500 ft. in the air. I even saw the enemy pilot on my way up. I pulled out my Smart Pistol and shot him three times in the head. I looked down to see my Titan go up in a massive explosion. But as I landed, I heard a Salvo core activated. I had to watch as my family was murdered by an IMC Tone Titan.

I woke up screaming. I looked out to see a dark forest under a night sky. Then the previous day's events caught up with me. I remembered everything. I stood up and went to the main section of the building. There the seven 'mares' (As I was told to call them) were asleep. I watched over them for a moment before Fluttershy woke up. She looked around before seeing my helmet's glowing visor.

"Oh, hello Joe. Are we going to go now?" She asked. I nodded.

"I'll leave you to wake them up." I said before walking outside. I gazed up at the stars, wondering what the SRS would do when they get here. Would they give the peoples of Equis a place in the Marauder Corps.? Would they just leave Equis to grow on it's own? I didn't know which would be the better choice. I was brought out of my musings by Sunset Shimmer walking out looking like a zombie.

"Why do we have to be up now? It's the middle of the night." She said tiredly. I turned to her, wondering how they got this far.

"Have you never had night operations? Those are arguably the most important! Security will be lackluster at night because of guards sleeping on the job." I stated. She looked at me, raising an eyebrow. "Look, do you want to hurt the IMC or not?" I asked, she nodded slowly. "Then go get the others. We have a heist to do." I said, walking in the direction of an IMC fueling station. How did I know where that was? The big ass shuttles flying in and out of it. You could literally see the fuckers flying in from orbit.

Eventually the seven mares caught up with me, following a trail of knife marks I left on trees. When they did, we were crouching on a hill overlooking the station. I watched as large green battery containers were loaded off and on the shuttles. My eyes eventually followed the trail of batteries back to the source. a bunch of MRVN's (Marvin's) were taking out the batteries and charging them up before putting them back into the containers. Then I looked up at a single watchtower lording over it all. I could swear there was a guard sleeping in a chair with his feet propped up on a console. I looked back to the seven girls.

"I'll take out the tower quietly. When I do, you seven go in and grab as many batteries as you can." I moved, still crouching, to the perimeter fence surrounding the complex. I took out a pair of pliers and went to work. It took three minutes but I'd made a hole in the fence big enough for people to run through. I walked through before deploying my grapple, pulling myself up to the roof of the tower. I leaned over the edge, looking in at the unsuspecting guards, and almost felt pity for them. I pulled out my smart pistol when I had an idea. I put a suppressor on it and readied myself. I took out a shaped charge, placing it in the center of the roof. I then threw a satchel charge as far as I could.

The satchel charge landed on a battery container as it was being loaded onto a shuttle, placed alongside several other containers. I waited until it was far enough away to seem like an accident, and detonated the charge. The only problem? The now crashing shuttle was headed towards the watchtower. I grabbed the shaped charge and leapt off the roof, using my grapple to swing towards the loading bay. As I landed, I took the suppressor off my smart pistol, stealth no longer being an option, and readied myself.

I stood alone as the girls retrieved batteries, firing off instant kill headshots at any and all grunts passing by.

"Joe! We're ready to go!" Yelled Sunset. I turned to look at them just as an IMC Titan landed in front of me. I used my grapple to pull myself onto it, pulling out it's battery, and popping a grenade in the empty tube. It's shields were down and It's health was halved. It turned to look at me before I fired off my charge rifle into it's optic, dooming the Titan. I watched at the pilot ejected, aiming my smart pistol at him. Our gazes must've met for a moment before I fired off three rapid shots, killing the pilot.

After holstering my weapons, I slung the battery over my back. I ran towards the girls, grabbing two batteries, one in each hand. When I got to them, four more hostile Titans landed in the loading area, searching the place for us.

"I'd rather not wait around while they try to find us. I say we head back. Agreed?" I said, getting nods from the girls. We then set out into the forest, lugging several batteries with us.

Aaron POV:

Blisk wanted me to stop tracking the targets and investigate whomever hit a fueling station near the forest. I suggested rebels, but he shot that idea down. Whomever it was, was skilled. Seeing as there was not only a wrecked Titan, but a dead pilot and several dead grunts. They also took out the watchtower and all the camera footage with it.

They weren't alone though, there were X's carved into the trees in a vague path, and a trail of energy residue. The kind left behind by batteries. A lot of batteries. The X's lead deeper into the woods, in the direction of the only possible hideout, I could kill two birds with one stone. But Blisk wanted me to investigate, not engage. If he wants them dealt with, he'll tell me.

In the meanwhile, I'll search through the MRVN optical camera feeds. There's got to be something that can tell us who did all this. The problem is, I don't know which MRVNs were where and when. I'd have to search through them all until I found what I was looking for, and that could take days. Unless...

"Hey, Cinder, I need your help with something." I said over my radio to a simulacrum who'd joined the Apex Predators after Ash. I waited a moment before hearing her response.

"This is Cinder, go ahead." She said in her obviously mechanical voice. I grinned, knowing that a simulacrum could do this task faster than I.

"What do you know about surveying MRVN optical camera feeds?" I asked, hearing a chuckle in response.

"What do you know about Tone Titan weapon systems?" She replied, giving me the answer I was looking for.

I might as well have designed them, seeing as I could've done far better.

Author's Note

Well, there you go! Another chapter in the story. You might be wondering why I changed the name from "Apex Rising" To "Apex Hunter". The answer is "Because I thought the name over in my head and decided this would better suit the story."

Any comments, criticisms or concerns? Let me now in the comments below!

Until next time on Equestria: Apex Hunter!

(Also, I do not own MLP or the Titanfall franchises (Although I wish I did), instead they belong to their respective creators and devealopers.)

-BurningCr0w