It was a chilly morning and Sapphire Heart and Lavender Astrology went inside the bunker to warm up. But their time inside was cut short when they heard gunfire.

Lavender, Rocky, Sapphire, Rainy, Critical, Flared, and Hailing galloped out of the central bunker and went over to the south-facing slope to see about a hundred and twenty Judgement Hour mercs coming up charging them.

The Lawponies and the Guardians had the high ground but there's only a total of sixty Lawponies not adding Lavender and his friends and wife.

This is gonna be interesting, Lavender thought, I'm calling for help.

Lavender used his magic and got the walkie-talkie he has.

"Dry Lighting this is Leader 1," said Lavender. "Dry Lighting come in!"

***

On board the Dry Lighting.

Snow Blue was playing solitaire on board the Dry Lighting's bridge and she was humming.

I should've asked for seconds, Snow Blue thought, I'm still hungry.

Snow Blue heard Purple's voice come over the radio so she got up and went over to the radio.

"General Purple," said Snow Blue. "What do you want?"

Lavender calmly replied, "Need immediate support at Hill Hitch. Got a ton of mercs and there's too many of them we need support ASAP!"

Snow Blue replied, "What kind of support is due to need?"

Lavender replied, "Any kind! I don't care if it's reinforcements or air support! The Judgement Hour mercs are coming up the south slope and there's just too many of them."

***

Lavender put his walkie-talkie away and reloaded his 7.62mm battle rifle.

A Judgement Hour merc tried to stab Sapphire Heart only to miss and his knife got stuck in the wood. Sapphire Heart used the Balk Automatic Rifle she had and broke the mercenary's neck.

Critical went on the top of the main bunker and did his job as the team's sniper. But Flared Blizzard was with him as a scout and to protect him if any Judgment Hour mercenaries got close.

Rainy and Hailing were in-between the main concrete bunker and the small wooden bunker where Lavender and Sapphire Heart were and Double Tap was inside of the bunker nursing her wounds.

The Judgement Hour mercs were smart and attacked in waves with the first wave having about one hundred and twenty armed with the crappiest weapons the wasteland has to offer because they're rookies in the Judgment Hour Mercenaries group.

The mercs thought it would be easy to kick them off and kill them but under Lavender's leadership they ain't budging an inch off of that hill.

Lavender pulled out his .45 Auto Pistol and said while shooting, "One a time take a number!"

The only reason Lavender said that was because the mercs were coming to try to beat the duo to death due to the fact that their weapons were terrible and didn't work properly.

The first wave was easily taken down but soon the summit of the hill got bombarded with artillery. The Wasteland Guardians and Grand Pony Enclave the Judgement Hour mercs had artillery as well.

The shelling stopped and the Guardians and the Lawponies had to fight off a second wave and they're not rookies but they're still weak though.

"Hey Purple?" asked Sapphire Heart, "Why did you leave your Stable? I'd mean you were safe and sound in it with family and friends who adore you,"

Lavender replied, "Because when my dad 'died' I somewhat blamed myself and well dumbass Arsen fully blamed me for it. But I'm the type who wanna taste love and pain and wanna feel pride and shame. For me, I'd rather lose my pride and take the fall than my dumbass brother and sister rather take the fall and keep their pride. Damn cocksuckers."

Sapphire Heart replied, "So you don't like your brother and sister?"

Lavender replied, "My brother Arsen besides taking the names of three deceased baseball players he believes mares are inferior to stallions and Arsen sees all mares as breeding stock. My sister Blue Watershed? She would rather believe her abusive, alcoholic husband over the rest of her family. Last of what I heard of her was that she cut off me, Arsen, our parents and my mother. She had enough of her and permanently exiled her out of the Stable. Hope a Hellhound tears her apart."

The second wave of Judgement Hour mercs hit like a freight train but they faced the same amount of resistance. But this time Lavender switched to both his IF-37 Police Shotgun and Super 45 Semi-auto combat shotgun.

Right now I'd wish I had my power armor, Sentinel Glace and his team with us, Sapphire Heart thought, And some more help than what we have. But it's life in this fudging world.

"That fucker is dead," said Critical Shot. "And that motherfucker is dead."

Flared Blizzard found a box of frag grenades and he chucked them like it's going out of style.

"At least Hellhounds haven't shown up yet," said Hailing Rain, "That's good."

Rainy replied, "Keep your mouth shut sis. Remember how you told me to lie to dad to prevent us from getting into trouble but what did you do? He still gave us tanning."

It's kinda funny that during the pre-war days there was a group called Equestrian Equality Emancipation and Education group, Sapphire Heart thought, Funny. Wait, why I'm I thinking about this now?

A merc tried to stab Lavender only to miss his body and stab his hoof. Lavender to pulled the rifle out, knocked the merc down, get on top of the merc, and punched the merc in the face three times very hard and said in anger, "Fuck you fucking fuck!"

Double Tap came out only for the steel bunker door to hit her. She reopened the door and left after closing it. She went up to where Critical Shot and Flared Blizzard were but she had a 9mm SMG and fired in bursts.

The mercenaries stopped coming and the ground was bombarded for a second time but everyone else was unscathed. They came back with better-armed mercs but armed with submachine guns, semi-automatic rifles, grenades, and automatic rifles.

Sapphire Heart took Lavender's Commando assault rifle and M.S.P.C.S shotgun but she and Lavender didn't leave the trench in the small wooden bunker even though the new company of Judgment Hour Mercenaries are trained to fight in close quarters and had grenades to flush enemies out of trenches.

"And your dead mate," said Critical Shot before firing his sniper rifle.

The gunfire was intense but they were able to hold on and kill off the entire wave without any casualties.

The summit of the hill was bombarded again but it lasted longer than the previous couple of times and it was intense and Critical, Flared, and Double Tap got off and went inside of the central bunker. Lavender used his body as a shield to protect Sapphire Heart from the shrapnel.

The artillery fire temporarily ceased when a group of Lawponies got up to check the damage. The artillery barrage continued and a 155m artillery round landed right on top of them leaving a pool of their blood leaving no body parts.

Rainy and Haling shielded their eyes so as not to see the blood. It didn't help that a severed hind leg landed on the twin sisters and it made them both jump up and scream like a filly.

The two went their own ways but had the common goal to defend the hilltop.

There was a loud mechanical sound and they saw a pair of tanks which Purple called a "Landship." They're a rhomboid vehicle with a long track length with their main armaments in the right and left sponsons and a machine gun in the center.

The good news is that the "Landships" are going five MPH and the other news is that Flared Blizzard found a wooden crate full of 66mm LATL's and both Double Tap and Flared Blizzard.

"They have twenty mercs escorting the landships!" yelled Lavender, "Sapphire, Rocky, Rainy, Hailing, Critical, and Double Tap and I will focus on the mercs! Flared you knock out the landships!"

Rainy replied, "WILCO, Lavender!"

Flared replied while cracking his wings, frontal legs, and neck, "Set up those things and I'll knock them down!"

Hailing replied, "For the Enclave!"

Critical replied, "Yay more fuckers to kill."

Double Tap replied, "More loot for us to loot."

Rocky replied, "Do they have an endless supply of them?"

Out of the blue Twyla and Opel joined them and they almost got blown up if it wasn't for Critical saying something.

"Don't shoot," said Critical, "The Grand Pony Enclave already whipped their asses more times than they wanted to count."

The mercs arrived at the top and they were mowed down literally because they didn't know where to go first because they were ordered to "take the hill" but they weren't ordered to kill or to capture them. They were even split with half wanting to kill them and the other half wanting to capture them.

The "Landships" took longer than expected to reach the summit but Flared Blizzard fired one 66mm LATL and it pierced through the thin armor blowing up from the inside out. He got the second launcher and he extended the tube, and aimed it.

"Say hi to Tartarus for me," said Flared Blizzard. "Tell'em I'll be there soon to be their new overlord when I die and be sent there."

Flared Blizzard fired the Anti-Tank launcher, blowing up the second land tank.

Everyone ran for cover again not long after the summit of the hill got bombarded to death with every square inch of the summit being bombarded with 105mm and 155mm artillery shells.

"I can't take this anymore!" exclaimed Sapphire Heart, "Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop!"

The only ones that were unaffected by the constant shelling were Lavender, Rainy, Hailing, and Flared Blizzard. Lavender was unaffected because Arsen's room and his room were next to each other and either heard him having sex with a random mare or a date with his hoof by touching himself so hearing him hit the wall got annoying but got used to it real quick.

Flared were unaffected by it because of being in the Grand Pegasus Enclave special operations command. Rainy and Hailing were unaffected because of them being a part of the Grand Pegasus Enclave Army.
***

Two hours later.

The mercs came and it's now brutal hoof-to-hoof combat.

One mercenary tried to bayonet Sapphire Heart only for Lavender to take the rifle and stab the mercenary with his own bayonet.

Flared Blizzard picked two up and threw them off of the bunker face first.

Critical hit them with the stock of his .30-06 sniper rifle or Jumper rifle.

Right now will be a great time for help, Everyone thought, Better happen soon.

There was the sound of vertibucks mostly the AV-1 Gunship Vertibuck and they shot up the hill killing the mercenaries on the hill before flying away back to the Dry Lighting. A few more V-1, & V-7 Vertibucks came to drop off Grand Pegasus Enclave soldiers on board the Dry Lighting into the fight.

They took care of the mercenaries and they got a flight back to the Dry Lighting.

During the flight they asked Lavender to tell another story.

Author's Note

The 9mm SMG is the M3 Grease Gun