Monster Huntress Diamond

by HappyPillz

12. Hammer Time

“Well, you certainly look… interesting.” Lycadran commented as Rarity neared.

“Not another word,” Rarity growled.

Lycadran shrugged. “Whatever. I don’t give a shit how stupid you look. As long as you don’t get in my way and don’t get us killed, that’s all that matters.” She spared a glance at the bag hanging at Rarity’s side and sneered. I hope you packed enough supplies in your little bag,” she hefted her own large pack in comparison, “because I’m not sharing any of mine.”

Rarity and Cinnamon exchanged significant looks, then Rarity smiled broadly at Lycadran.

“Don’t worry,” Rarity replied sweetly. “I think I’ll manage.”

“Fine. If you’re ready to go then, these are the wingdrake harnesses for the ones trained to go to the desert. All you do is slip your feet into the footholds, make sure the supports are behind your back and butt, give the rope a firm yank, and hold on tight. It’s so easy, even you could do it. Got it?”

“I guess so…” Rarity said hesitantly.

“Good.” Without another word Lycadran stepped into a harness, gave a yank on the rope and took flight, leaving Rarity behind.

“Rude,” Rarity complained.

“Don’t worry, it really isn’t difficult,” Cinnamon assured her. “Go ahead and step in, I’ll make sure you’re in correctly.”

Rarity stepped up to the footholds and looked down. “Uh…” she paused. “Slight problem.”

Cinnamon looked at her in confusion. “How could you have a problem? It’s about as simple as it gets!”

“I have hooves.”

“Well, shit.”

Rarity bent over to inspect the footholds, which normally would have only covered the front half of a human foot.

“It’s closed toe, at least, so I think I can slide my hoof into it at an angle and stand in it that way,” she said. “It’s not likely to be comfortable, but it should at least work to get me there.”

“Sorry about that,” Cinnamon apologized. “I’d let you use the felyne one - it’s made for paws, which are at least a little closer than feet are - but you’re much too big for it.”

“No worries. We’d better get going.” Rarity stepped into the harness uncomfortably and pulled the rope, and gave out a startled yelp as the wingdrake lurched into the sky. She clutched the rope tightly and clenched her eyes shut as she swayed back and forth like a pendulum beneath the wyvern flapping above her. Celestia, I think I’m going to be sick. Pegasi can keep their flying, I’d rather walk.

They soared for hours; Rarity’s stomach finally calmed, and she no longer felt physically ill, nor was she dreadfully afraid, but she did find that she preferred to keep her eyes closed. The combination of the dizzying height, the stinging wind, and the monotonously endless expanse beneath them took its toll, and she found that she’d rather just relax with her thoughts.

It was for this reason that she didn’t hear the frantic voice of Cinnamon shouting across the expanse at her.

“Rarity! You need to jump off the harness to get off the wingdrake! They don’t have a good way to let you off, they just land! Rarity! Can you hear me? Jump off! FOR FUCK’S SAKE JUMP OFF THE HARNESS!”

The wingdrake slowly descended over the sands of the desert, lowering Rarity’s harness to the ground at high speeds while she remained blissfully unaware of the incoming disaster.

The tip of her foothold touched the sand, and within an instant she pitched forward with a scream, eyes wide open and arms outstretched. She impacted the dune forcefully, creating a large divot before bouncing and skidding across the sand for a moment before rolling down a hill.

“Rowrity!” Cinnamon jumped from her own harness and raced down the dune, where she pulled her battered friend up from the sand.

Rarity spit out a mouthful of sand and sat up, then gingerly moved her limbs with a wince. She sucked in a sharp breath as she moved her arm, and turned carefully to Cinnamon.

“Could you…” she gravelly spoke, paused in pain, then coughed roughly, spitting more sand out. “Could you grab me a potion from my bag? I think I broke my arm.”

“Sure, just a second,” Cinnamon assured. She scampered back to the bag, which lay several yards back up the dune.

A shadow fell over Rarity as she sat, and to her dismay Lycadran appeared towering over her, slowly clapping and wearing a severely unimpressed expression.

“That was the most pathetic display I have ever seen, you’re going to get yourself killed without even seeing a monster. And what took you so long? I don’t know how the concept of the harness could be difficult for anyone, but from how much longer it took you to get here, apparently it took you a while to figure out.”

“Shut up, hag,” Rarity coughed. “I don’t have feet, I have hooves. It took a few minutes to figure out how to stand in the harness. And you could have warned me that you have to jump off these things.”

“You know, I think letting you find out on your own was much more fun,” Lycadran grinned evilly. She motioned to Cinnamon, who handed Rarity a potion. “Now pull yourself together. We have a monster to find, and apparently that’s your job.”

Rarity downed the potion and stood, then retrieved and shouldered her pack and made sure all her gear was in place. She rejoined the others, and with a silent glare at Lycadran, lit her horn and concentrated.

She pulsed her horn lightly for a moment, then sighed and brightened her horn and pulsed it again. Lycadran groaned loudly.

“What the hell are you doing?

“I’m trying to find a trace of something, if you don’t mind,” Rarity snapped. “It takes a fair amount of concentration to search far away, and your cawing, grating voice definitely doesn’t help. So, if you would kindly shut up, I can get back to looking!”

“Fine. Search away, freak.”

Rarity closed her eyes once again, brightening her horn even more and sending out yet another pulse. She waited, considering and thinking for several long seconds, before opening her eyes.

“That way.” She pointed beyond a dune toward a relatively nearby rocky mountain line. “I could sense a large mass in that direction, not terribly dense, but spread out over a decently large area. It wasn’t moving, but neither was the last one. It could be sleeping, eating, or just plain standing still.”

“Alright then, move out,” Lycadran ordered.

They headed in the direction that Rarity indicated, and with her rechecking every so often, traveled several miles toward the rocks.

After about an hour of traveling over large dunes under the oppressive heat of the sun, they reached a recess in a craggy wall, where Rarity stopped to reassess her bearings. Her horn lit briefly, and she looked at the stony wall beside them.

“The signal I’m getting is coming from right there,” she said, pointing to a cave in the rock face. Cinnamon ran over to inspect the cave, while Lycadran simply buried her face in her hands.

“Diablos bury themselves in the sand, not in rocks, you stupid shit. You led us all the way out here for nothing?" she growled with aggression. “You’re just making this shit up, aren’t you? Pretend you know where they’re at, throw on a light show, and hope to stumble on something?”

“Oh stuff it, bitch,” Cinnamon yelled from behind her. “She’s not full of shit, there’s machalite ore lining the cave here. Lots of it, along with some crystally stuff, though a lot of it is just broken down nodes now. If you paid attention to anything she said when she was explaining how she found the pukei pukei in the first place, it was when she was trying to find machalite. Well, she just found a bunch.”

“Seriously? You led us to a bunch of worthless ore?”

“I said shut up, asshat!” Cinnamon yelled. “I wasn’t finished! There’s a monster nest here!”

Lycadran immediately stopped talking and moved toward the cave, looking around carefully and taking note of every print and marking there was around. She returned shortly thereafter, and spoke curtly. “Diablos nest. Check the surrounding area, see if you can locate it.”

“Hmph, not even a ‘sorry’? Well, can’t say I’m surprised,” Rarity commented. She lit and pulsed her horn again, concentrating on the results. She pulsed her horn several more times, turning slightly each time. She opened her eyes and nodded towards the dunes.

“There’s something in that direction. And it’s moving.”

Lycadran glared at Rarity, then silently started walking in the direction she indicated with single-minded determination, and Rarity and Cinnamon followed behind shortly after.

They passed over the arid terrain, which had transitioned to a rocky plain bordering the sandy dunes, and Rarity took note of the various flora and fauna surrounding them; contrary to what she would have expected of a desert, it was quite full of life. Cacti were abundant, as were various herbs and other foliage. Large black insects skittered in the distance, and for a fleeting moment she was reminded of changelings. With a shudder, she moved on, passing over a ridge only to see a sandy expanse open in front of them.

She stopped short.

“Hold on,” She said quietly, grabbing Lycadran by the shoulder.

Lycadran wrenched her shoulder away from Rarity’s grip. “You don’t get to give me orders.”

“No, seriously, you ass. I just felt whatever it was. It moved under the sand to that dune in front of us, and now it’s just sitting there.”

Lycadran openly gaped at Rarity. “So the diablos we’re hunting is just sitting under the sand waiting there.” She scoffed. “I’ve hunted diablos plenty of times, you know. They’re not predators, so they’re not going to just sit there and lie in wait. If they attack, it’s to defend their territory, and they usually start by roaring to initially try to frighten off their intruders. When they do go underground, they actively burrow toward you and then burst out of the ground at you to attack and surprise you. The idea that one is sitting there is ridiculous.”

“I’m serious,” Rarity insisted.

“Fine, here.” Lycadran picked up several large rocks and threw them where Rarity had indicated the diablos would be. They fell harmlessly into the sand with muffled thuds, and nothing else happened. “Happy?” Lycadran rolled her eyes and stepped forward, intent on continuing. “I’m done wasting time here. I’m going.”

“I said DON’T!” Rarity yelled. She ran forward as Lycadran reached the rocks she had thrown, leaping forward to catch Lycadran around the shoulders.

As Lycadran’s foot touched the sand near the rock, the ground beneath shifted, becoming more fluid. Her knee buckled, causing her to lose her balance; in the confusion she looked to her side and saw a form in the swirling sands, one that took shape as it emerged from the growing pit it was leaving behind. Traveling toward her quickly were two small black eyes and two massive horns; however, Rarity was already there. She hit Lycadran hard, tackling her with as much force as she could muster and pulling her away from the now exposed diablos which stood above them. Sand trails ran off the beast at all points, and it turned to them and roared horrendously.

“What the hell?” Lycadran yelled, quickly pulling herself up from the ground and pushing Rarity away.

“I told you, you moron!” Rarity shouted. “Of course it’s not like you’re used to! It’s an aberrant, it’s not going to behave like normal!”

Lycadran readied her hunting horn. “Shut up! Don’t lecture me about monsters like you know more about them!”

“Salvage your pride some other time when we’re not about to get killed!” Rarity screamed as she got to her hooves.

“Would you two stop fighting? We’ve got bigger problems on our paws!” Cinnamon yelled. She ran forward, sword drawn, and delivered a slash to the diablos’ hind leg, drawing its attention away from Rarity and Lycadran long enough for them to regain their ground and prepare to fight.

Rarity drew her hammer, choosing to ignore Lycadran for the moment, and ran forward, raising it high and smashing it down heavily on the lowered wing of the diablos, gaining a roar from the beast in return. She flinched away in response, ears folded back in pain from the excruciating noise. Shaking off the headache, she returned to her attack, bringing her hammer back in an upward swing to connect with the wing again, then letting the momentum carry her around and upward to smash down on it from above. The ice elements embedded in her hammer sparkled as they froze portions of the wing with each contact, and the wing crunched satisfyingly under her hammer as it came down.

She landed in the sand under the wing heavily, needing to take a moment to recover her balance and grip in order to attack again, when the monster turned and used its heavy legs and claws to kick her away. With a pained grunt she rolled to the side, her hammer knocked from her hands. The diablos turned more, sweeping its tail and brutally hitting Rarity as she was getting up from the ground, throwing her through the air into a dune, where she crumpled onto the sand.

She painfully pulled herself up, spitting a large mouthful of blood onto the sand. “Shit…” she gasped. She tried to stand, but found she couldn’t manage to find the strength. She grabbed a potion from one of the pockets inside her armor and drank it, feeling some strength return, though she still didn’t feel quite at full strength. Damn, that thing hits hard, if one’s not enough. She downed a second, finally feeling strong enough to continue, before retrieving her hammer and returning to the fray.

“Ok, monster girl, call this thing off NOW!” Lycadran yelled.

“WHAT PART OF THAT LOOKED LIKE IT WAS MY FRIEND, YOU FUCKING PSYCHO?” Rarity screamed.

**********

Lycadran took advantage of the opening that Cinnamon bought her, dashing forward quickly toward the diablos’ head. The beast turned toward her as she approached, and she wasted no time in jumping with her weapon drawn, smashing her hunting horn down on the monster’s own horn. She heard a cracking noise from the fierce blow she dealt it, and gave herself a mental cheer. Landing, she swiped the beast across the snout with another attack, then dashed away before it could retaliate.

“Cat!" she called, “Where’d monster girl go?”

“I am a felyne!” Cinnamon growled. “And Rarity was just off puking blood over there a second ago, but last I saw she looked like she was drinking a potion and getting back up.”

Lycadran shielded her eyes from the sun for a moment. “She looks fine to me. Ok, monster girl! Call this thing off, NOW!”

**********

Rarity ground her teeth and ran back toward the diablos; the monster swung its tail at her again as she neared, but she rolled under it and continued on. With Lycadran and Cinnamon keeping its head busy, her eyes were on its other wing. She pulled her hammer back in preparation, focusing energy into it as Jorahn had shown her with weapon techniques, and as an added bonus channeled some of her own magical force into the hammer as well.

The focus was a risk; it took a long time to charge, and her movement was severely hindered while she did it. If the diablos realized she was there and attacked, or moved too far or too suddenly, then her efforts would have been completely wasted and she would be totally off guard. However, if successful, the gambit was extremely powerful.

The seconds ticked by, and slowly her power grew, until she felt the energy flow reach a maximum. With a feeling of adrenaline, she whipped the hammer upward, the sizzling power surging her along with it far above the wing, until she reached the apex of her jump. She began falling back toward the ground, and as she approached the diablos’ wing, brought the hammer crashing down on it with an immense amount of crippling force, shattering the wing and toppling the diablos to the side. The diablos roared, but Rarity was too busy laughing maniacally to hear.

She ran to the head of the diablos to see Lycadran and Cinnamon still attacking; Lycadran had succeeded in breaking off one of the beasts’ horns, and they were currently taking advantage of its immobility to attack its claws. Rarity joined them as quickly as she could, her hammer and its icy touch helping to break the claws faster than the diablos could recover.

“The hell did you do?” Lycadran demanded.

“Charge attack.” Rarity answered simply. “Took out its wing. Kill now, questions later.”

Lycadran stared at her hard, searching her face as if looking for some sort of deception. Finally she nodded. “Right.”

Rarity smiled slightly and nodded back.

Cinnamon shook her head. “Great, warm fuzzies, it’s getting back up. Get your asses away from it.”

“Shut up, cat.”

“Fuck you.”

The three of them gained some space from it as it rose, then prepared to resume their attack when the monster began digging its way into the sand.

“Shit! Ugh, I hate it when they do this!” Lycadran swore. “It’s like a shitty game of hide and seek where nobody wins and the loser gets a horn in their asshole.”

Rarity lit up her horn immediately. “Just follow me and you won’t get a horn in your ass. Unless you’re into that sort of thing. I won’t hold it against you.” She smirked. She then focused on where the diablos had disappeared, and followed its movements, heading to where they were.

“Ok, run!"

She took off running, then watched as the diablos predictably changed its course to intercept where she was headed. She changed her direction, and the diablos did, too. Every time she changed direction, the diablos moved to cut her off in an endless game.

“Ugh, shit!” Rarity panted, slowing to take a breath. She grabbed a dash juice from a pocket and drank it. “Ok, you guys are going to have to stay back from me. I’m going to have to fake it out to get it to come up.”

“Why do you think it has to be you? I’m plenty capable, you know, and my reflexes are much faster than yours!” Lycadran boasted.

“Because I can see where it is, jackass!” Rarity snapped.

“Oh.”

She resumed her course toward the diablos, which was still lying in wait for her; she picked up speed as she neared the spot, and just as she was about to hit the area she dug her hooves in and threw all her weight into pushing herself back in the opposite direction. In that moment she felt the ground just beyond her pushing against her hooves as the diablos erupted from the sand, its lone horn jutting out like a javelin to spear any hunters foolish enough to run past. Far more frightening than the diablos, its horn, or its sudden appearance, though, was its unearthly purple glow.

Yep. It’s an aberrant.

“Rowrity! Get away from it!” Cinnamon yelled.

“Yeah, I kinda figured that out, thanks!” Rarity yelled back, scrabbling through the sand. The diablos behind her was emerging from the sand quickly, and her time to escape was rapidly dwindling. She gained traction in the sand, running as fast as she could without looking behind her when she heard a loud cracking slap. The only thing she knew for sure was that the expressions on Lycadran’s and Cinnamon’s faces dropped into beleaguered disbelief.

“…the fucking hell?” Lycadran murmured, dumbfoundedly staring ahead.

Then reality seemed to set in.

“GET OUT OF THE WAY!" she yelled. “ GET TO THE SIDE!”

She and Cinnamon both dove to the left and right of Rarity’s intended path, but Rarity was still completely confused and had virtually no time to react to their last second warning. Within moments, Rarity was struck by a fiercely fast and large wave of purple enshrouded sand, violently throwing her nearly twenty feet forward. She impacted the sand roughly, skidding along the surface before coming to a stop another ten feet from where she had originally landed.

Cinnamon ran to her immediately, with Lycadran trailing behind keeping an eye on the diablos, which appeared to be gathering more energy as they moved.

“Rowrity!” Cinnamon tapped her face lightly. She remained unresponsive. Blood trickled from her nose and mouth, and it was obvious she had a broken leg.

“Shit, this is bad…” Lycadran mumbled to herself. “I’ve never seen a diablos summon sand waves by slapping their tails before…” she looked at Rarity. “We can’t lose her. She’s the only one that can track them.”

“Finally figured it out, did you, bitch?”

“SHUT IT, YOU STUPID CAT!” Lycadran snapped. “I get it! She’s almost dead! If it almost killed her then she’s not doing it!" she pulled a small yellow vial from her chest pocket.

“An ancient potion? Those things are super hard to come by…”

“Yeah, don’t remind me,” Lycadran shoved the vial to Rarity’s lips and forced her mouth shut. “Now drink the potion like a good little weirdo, wake up, and help us kill this abomination so we can go home.”

Seconds ticked by as the potion took effect, and Lycadran nervously glanced back and forth between Rarity and the diablos, watching for it to make sure it wasn’t about to unleash another wave at them. It appeared to be biding its time as long as they stayed their distance, likely due to a semblance of its territorial nature staying in check, for which Lycadran was thankful. She turned her attention back to Rarity, who was now beginning to regain consciousness. Her leg was mending, and her bleeding had stopped, all that remained was for her to rebuild her strength over the next few minutes. She gazed around in confusion.

“What happened?”

“You almost died, that’s what.” Lycadran said. “Big ugly over there hit you with a purple sand wave that nearly blew you to pieces. You owe me an ancient potion, by the way.”

“You… saved me?” Rarity said, puzzled.

“Yeah, don’t think about it too much.” Lycadran said.

Rarity smiled slightly, then nodded.

“For fuck’s sake you two, warm fuzzies later, let’s go!” Cinnamon huffed.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, CAT!”

“Fuck you.”

Rarity laughed. “Ok, I could probably get used to you two doing this.” She shouldered her hammer. “Let’s beat down a big ugly.”

The group advanced on the diablos, which roared the moment it saw them invading its territory again. The purple aura around it intensified, and it raised its tail menacingly.

“Get ready!” Lycadran shouted. “You know what’s coming!”

The tail slammed down into the earth, and for the first time Rarity saw what had stolen the breath from Lycadran and Cinnamon when she had been running.

The impact from the diablos’ tail, coupled with whatever unholy energy it had from its purple aura, caused the sand to rupture wildly, spreading instantly into a five foot wide purple wave of sand that steadily grew in height as it sped along the ground toward them. They dodged the wave as it rolled by, then continued their advance, dodging even more waves sent their way as they neared.

“Alright, you take its head. Try to land some solid hits, maybe break its other horn. I’ll take what I can get anywhere else. Cat, keep me company.”

“I hate you.”

“Good. Consistency is good.” Lycadran hauled her hunting horn up and charged toward the front of the diablos’ crippled wing. “Time to introduce you to a bonus of hunting horns!” Lycadran yelled. She swung her weapon several times, generating some odd, unearthly tones as she did so. The notes reverberated around the desert, and Rarity could feel them pulsing through her body, somehow infusing her with a rush of adrenaline and suffusing her with a sense of strength she hadn’t had moments before.

With a grin, she dashed toward the diablos’ head, swinging her hammer overhead in a downward strike as she ran in and catching it right above its eye at the base of its horn. The hammer crackled with frost, and the horn froze at the base and snapped off immediately with the force of the blow. The diablos reeled from the impact, falling to the side heavily and temporarily stunned from the concussive force Rarity had delivered.

Seizing the opportunity, she quickly moved above the beast’s head and began gathering her strength for a charged attack like she had before. She felt her energy coalescing into the hammer, and pressed as much of her magic into it as she could; then, as she thought she was at the limit of the power she could attain, she heard the notes of Lycadran’s horn and felt them penetrating her core, strengthening her past limits she thought were possible.

With a guttural yell, she heaved her hammer skyward, jumping high with it, and came back down, delivering a massively powerful crushing strike directly onto the head of the stunned diablos. The near-impenetrable skull cracked open under the blow, and the purple glow the diablos held faded away.

Rarity stood above the body, breathing hard, and let the hammer fall from her hands.

“That… sweet Celestia, what did we just do?”

“That,” Lycadran walked up to her, clapping her on the shoulder, “was a serious hunt. And you did good - aside from the whole almost dying thing. But, considering you kinda used yourself as bait, I’m not holding that one against ya.”

Rarity took in the entire scene, slowly processing the entire ordeal. The pukei pukei had of course been dangerous, and had been life threatening several times, but this was on an entirely separate level. Not only that, but the diablos was more than twice the size of the pukei pukei; that alone added an intimidation factor that, had she not begun the fight with it submerged in the sand, would have made it much worse. She breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“Alright,” Lycadran broke into Rarity’s silence, “you get the carving rights on this, so go ahead whenever you’re ready, then we can head back.”

“What?” Rarity wheeled around in shock.

Lycadran nodded. “This one’s yours, monster girl. You tracked it, you kept it from immediately spearing my ass, you baited it out, and you landed the killing blow. It’s yours. Did a fucking amazing job beating its ass in, by the way.”

“You’re… giving me the credit… and complimenting me?”

“Weird shit, ain’t it?” Lycadran turned and squatted down, placing her elbows on her knees. “You did good too, Cinnamon.”

“You… what?” Cinnamon replied. “You’re actually going to use my name?”

Lycadran stood up and shrugged. “Well, I don’t need to keep your adrenaline flowing, so…” She burst out laughing, then flipped both her middle fingers at Cinnamon. “Can’t believe you fell for that. C’mon, help me find this thing’s other horn for monster girl, cat.”

Cinnamon narrowed her eyes. “I fucking hate you.”

“Good. Consistency is good.” Lycadran said, already turning away to head where they had fought earlier. “Stay here, then.”

Rarity laughed, then thought for a moment.

“You know, you can just call me Rarity!" she called after Lycadran.

“Nah! You’re monster girl! Just like your sidekick will always be cat!” Lycadran yelled back with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“I’M NOT HER FUCKING SIDEKICK! AND I HAVE A DAMNED NAME YOU ASSHOLE!” Cinnamon yelled.

“C’mon, Cinnamon, help me carve this thing up, I’m gonna need a lot of help. It’s huge.” Rarity said. She was extremely glad Cinnamon didn’t see her grinning.

Comments

[RTStephens]

Nothing like a near death experience to bring out the best and worst of people.