Monster Hunter Pie

by BronyArmitage

Chapter 7 - The Queen of the Land

Pinkie's day began much as she had expected it to. She was roused from sleep by the bustle coming from outside her home. Children playing in the village center and the adults going about their daily routines. She sat up, tossing her legs over the side of the bed before getting to her feet. Once she stood up, she immediately had to lay back down, ungracefully, in the middle of th floor. It took her a few minutes of crushing pain to remember where this had come from. She was sore and broken from yesterday's hunts. She placed her hands flat on the floor and pushed herself upright, falling into a sitting position, her back leaning against her bed.

"Maybe...Maybe I should take a day off." she stared at the ceiling, beads of sweat formin on her forehead. Her breathing had become very labored, and she was fairly certain that she had some broken bones. She performed a self-diagnosis. Her extremities were all in order. No pulled muscles, though her shoulders were quite sore from the Ludroth throwing her around. Her head was fine, which is to say nothing of its contents. It was physically in working order. Her hand found the offending ribs though, and she drew in a sharp breath when she touched her left side. There was one, maybe two that felt broken. She got shakily to her feet, bracing herself on the bed.

Pinkie walked slowly from her house to Lyra's counter("Office!" Lyra had insisted.). She almost collapsed when she reached her and the girl with the mint hair panicked.

"Pinkie?! Are you okay?" Lyra rushed around the counter, crouching down next to the Hunter, who had dropped to her knees. "Do you need medical attention?" Pinkie could see the worry in her eyes.

"That's...An option?" Pinkie spoke between heaving breaths.

"Of course! Give me a moment." Lyra fell silent as she returned to the other side of the counter. She started writing something down, then Pinkie could hear her begin speaking, seemingly to no one. "This is Lyra Heartstrings. I'm the Guild liaison for Moga Village. I have a Hunter in need of immediate medical attention. Name? Pinkamena Dianne Pie. Rank?" Pinkie heard the shuffling of papers. "She isssss...Guild Rank one. Mmhm. Wonderful. And how soon will they be here? Three minutes? Damn, you guys work fast. See you then."

"Are you ever going to tell me how that works?" Pinkie asked as Lyra came around the corner to check on her.

"I dunno'. Are you ever going to explain to me how you manage to swing around a weapon that's almost as tall as you and probably just as heavy?" Lyra crouched, cocking her head to the left inquisitively.

"I can't explain that." Pinkie said. It was completely true. She'd never had what she considered monstrous strength, but she managed to swing the Switch Axe around with a relative amount of ease. Not that it was weightless, by any means, but it was clear that Lyra felt she would be incapable of performing the same task.

"Then I fear we are at an impasse, dear Hunter." she patted Pinkie on the top of her head, smiling. The Hunter started to make puppy dog eyes, but approaching footsteps drew her attention away. She saw a tall man in a trenchcoat approaching the pair of them.

"Who are you?" Pinkie asked, she would have stood up and tried to look threatening, but that was beyond her at this point.

"The Doctor." his response came calmly, as he crouched down next to her, touching her ribs. He poked and prodded at her, despite her whimpers and the pained look in her eyes.

"Doctor who?"

"Exactly." and he poked at her a few more times. Pinkie noticed that it got less and less painful as he examined her, then he stood up straight. "All done. Lovely to see you as always, Lyra." he smiled and took a bow, a blush warming the liaison's cheeks.

"Same to you, Doctor." she said in a shy voice, her shoes becoming very interesting. Pinkie had looked up at Lyra, and when they both looked back, the Doctor was nowhere in sight.

"Are all you Guild people, like, super magical or something?" Pinkie asked before sneezing, loosing some confetti from her nose. She noticed, once she recovered from the surprise of the sneeze, that her ribs didn't hurt. In fact, nothing did. She stood up and felt good as new. It was like the events of yesterday hasn't even transpired. She looked at Lyra with wide eyes, the liaison just giving her a knowing smile.

"Well then." Lyra clapped her hands together as she went back into her 'office'. After a few moments of digging, she pulled a piece of paper out, reading it. "Oh my...Pinkie, maybe you should take a day off." Lyra said, looking at the Hunter with an apologetic expression.

"Huh? Why?" Pinkie grabbed the paper from her and started reading it. After she'd scanned it, she looked at Lyra over the top of the paper. "Just yesterday, I was hunting Jaggi and Ludroth. Today, they want me to hunt a damn Rathian?!" she slammed the paper down on the counter. The depiction of the Rathian staring up between her fingers. "Difficulty curve got pretty steep, don'tcha think?"

"I don't decide what you do." Lyra raised her hands defensively. "It's just my job to send you out there." Pinkie sighed. She was right. It wasn't her fault and there was no reason to yell at the liaison. The Hunter chewed on her bottom lip before turning over the money to cover the fee. Lyra looked at it, then up at her.

"Are you sure?" Lyra's eyes were laced with concern. Pinkie nodded. She would never get anywhere as a Hunter if she shied away from something like this. Lyra took the fee, placing the money into the drawer under the desk. "Alright. Just...Just be careful." Pinkie nodded and started heading for the hunting grounds.

"Darling!" Pinkie heard Rarity calling for her and stopped. All of a sudden, she felt kind of guilty. She realized she hadn't talked to the shopkeeper much recently. She approached Rarity, trying not to look too ashamed.

"H-hey, Rarity." Pinkie gave a weak smile. "How have you been?"

"Lonely." Rarity's tone had an underlying iciness, which Pinkie picked up on and shrunk away a little bit. "But, do not worry about that. Water under the bridge, if you will." the shopkeeper smiled warmly. "I overheard that a Rathian may be in your near future. Those monsters are dreadful. Simply dreadful. Why, I remember a time when-"

"Um, Rarity? I hate to stop you, but I really need to get going. The Guild is worried that the Rathian may try and attack Moga." Pinkie said.

"Oh my. Right, down to business, then. To put it bluntly, that armor is just not going to cut it against this beast. It is time..." she added a little flourish with her hands, pulling a cloth off the mannequin closest to her. "For an upgrade!" Pinkie stared at the armor. It sparkled beautifully in the sunlight. "It's the newest armor sent directly from the Guild. They say it can sharpen your senses so you'll always know where your target is." Pinkie didn't need to hear anymore. Anything that was going to get her out of drinking Psychoserum was a selling point. She immediately paid Rarity and went to put on the new gear.

Admittedly, she was a little sad to see the leather armor be put in the trunk. It had served her well. Rarity was right, though. She was getting to the point where monsters were going to kill her if she didn't start buying better armor. Having powerful weapons would only get you so far. If you couldn't take a hit when you screwed up, which was an inevitability, then you were as good as dead. She pulled the gloves on, having already adorned the rest of the armor. She flattened her hair down and put on the hat, which was set so it would shade her eyes from the sun. She smiled, looking at herself in the mirror. The metal on the armor shimmered, looking brand new. There were no cuts and blemishes, but that was going to change. She latched the Rough Edge to her back. It was time to begin the hunt.

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Pinkie lifted her head into the air upon leaving the base camp. She took a deep breath through her nose, picking up what she was sure to be the Rathian's scent. It smelled like she was getting closer to the Hunter. Pinkie had moved into the wetlands, seeing the Rathian fly over the top of the mountain into view. The green wyvern started to descend and her feet planted heavily on the ground. The Rathian made the Arzuros look like a puppy. Her green scales glistened in the sunlight. Her tail waved back and forth slowly as she started walking. She turned around and faced Pinkie. Her eyes were golden and fierce. She started making a clicking noise as she approached Pinkie. The Hunter was standing very still as the Rathian drew closer. Rathians and Rathalos were both sight hunters. The problem was that Pinkie had not placed herself strategically. She had been so mezmerized by the majestic wyvern that she had stood out in the open.

In one smooth motion, Pinkie pulled a Flash Bomb from her pouch and threw it hard at the ground. It popped open and a blinding flash filled the area. Pinkie took off to her right as soon as the device had left her fingertips. The Rathian stumbled back a few steps, dazed by the flash. She let out an earsplitting roar that left the Hunter holding her hands over her ears, immobilized. The Rathian scratched at the ground with her right leg, snapping its jaws blindly, and Pinkie could tell her target was still blinded. This was going to be her best opportunity to hurt the monster. Pinkie drew her axe and ran forward. She took a massive swipe at the Rathian's left leg and the wyvern immediately turned her long neck and snapped at the pain. The wyvern had missed, the spike that protruded from her bottom jaw scraping against Pinkie's armor. The Hunter didn't stop her assault, diving in and out of the Rathian's legs as it stomped around, trying to ward off whatever was causing such severe amounts of pain.

The Flash Bomb's effects wore off after a few moments and, as soon as she could see, the Rathian stepped back away from Pinkie, who had struck a bunch of solid blows on the wyvern's legs. After taking three large steps back, the Rathian lowered its body to the ground, opening its wings wide before performing a backflip. Her tail lashed out and caught Pinkie by the legs, and then the chest as the Hunter lost balance. Pinkie was sent so far up in the air that, as she was spiraling helplessly, she actually caught a glimpse of Moga. Her ascent stopped, and her descent began. She could see the Rathian below her, staring up, wings flapping. Pinkie knew she only had one chance of not breaking every bone in her body. Building up speed as she fell, she turned the weapon to sword mode. As soon as she was within range, she took a mighty swing, changing her trajectory mid-air, and catching the Rathian's wing with the slash. The wyvern, who'd only been hovering about ten feet off the ground, let out a shrill cry as she lost her flight balance and collapsed to the ground below, bringing the Hunter down with her, but at a much slower speed than she had been going.

Pinkie hit the ground hard, and was thrown about fifteen feet away from the Rathian, who was flailing on the ground, trying to regain its balance. The Hunter dragged herself upright. In comparison to how that Ludroth had thrown her around yesterday, this wasn't so bad. Out of nowhere, a wave of nausea hit her, and she gripped the hilt of her weapon tightly, using it to support her weight as she vomited up everything she'd eaten in the last two days. Drawing deep, gasping breaths, she could hear the Rathian getting to its feet. Pinkie started to move into a combat stance, but was immediately taken by another wave of nausea, and she began to dry heave.

"What the. Hell. Is going on?" she asked herself, gasping in between every word, beginning to heave again.

"You're poisoned." Lyra's voice rang, matter-of-factly, in her head. "The Rathian's tail secretes a powerful poison. She tagged you pretty good with it." Pinkie reached into her pouch, pulling out an Antidote and downing the very blue contents of the mason jar. She put the empty jar away, and immediately felt better, just in time to get trampled by the Rathian. How could she have been so stupid? She hadn't even been watching the wyvern, and now it had her trapped under its claws. The way it was standing, however, kept it from crushing her. The Rathian glared down at her and reared its head back, before lunging down at her. Pinkie brought the axe head up and the Rathian bit down on it, cracking a few teeth and cutting deep into its tongue. The wyvern recoiled up into the air, flapping its wings and shaking its head. Large droplets of blood scattered about. The Hunter recovered to her feet, having avoided a grisly death. She noticed that the Rathian was staring to ascend, intent on fleeing.

"Hey! Get back down here..." Pinkie took a hop forward. "This..." she placed both hands on the hilt of the Rough Edge. "Instant!" she arced her body and threw the axe. The Rathian turned in time to catch the blade right to the side of her face, and she came crashing down to the ground for the second time. She'd gotten about twenty feet into the air, and after being hit with the weapon, the fall became that much more devastating to the wyvern.

As the Rathian flailed on the ground again, Pinkie ran under her flapping wing, her hands finding the hilt of the axe that had been embedded into the Rathian's face. She loosed it and brought it back down immediately, cutting the spike from the wyvern's chin. The Rathian's wing caught Pinkie in the side of the head as it got to its feet, sending the Hunter staggering away. The monster started to limp away, and some instinct inside Pinkie told her to run through the caves. She picked up the spike she'd removed from the Rathian's face and immediately started sprinting through the caves. Whatever was possessing her to do this obviously knew something she didn't, because she started to hear the faint flapping of massive wings echoing through the cave. A shadow passed over the holes in the top of the cave which let sunlight leak through. Pinkie picked up speed, burning all her stamina as she weaved through the natural catacombs. She hurdled a few rocks, and climbed up two ledges that lead to a smooth, curved path that broke out at a point in the mountain about fifty feet below the summit.

Pinkie stepped out onto the natural cliff and was amazed at what she saw. Besides a sleeping Rathian, there were three nests, each with three to four eggs in it. Wyvern eggs. The Hunter crept up on the sleeping monster, drawing a round, flat object from inside her pouch. She got as close as she could without disturbing the sleeping beast and crouched down, placing the disc on the ground. She pressed two buttons on the side, and the pressure plate popped up, the sound of crackling electricity emitting from it. Pinkie stepped around the Shock Trap and kicked the Rathian in the back. It woke with a start and rolled onto its feet. The wyvern turned, letting out another heinous roar that shook the heavens before charging at Pinkie, who had run far enough away that the Rathian had been forced to step on the Shock Trap, far out of reach of the Hunter. A loud crack was heard and the electricity spread visibly over the monster's body. Pinkie sauntered up to it, a smile on her face.

"Nighty-night." she had a Tranq Bomb in each hand, and she slapped the Rathian on each cheek with one. The puffs of smoke filled the monster's nostrils, and Pinkie watched as the wyvern's eyes got heavy, and it slumped to the ground. It was snoring deeply, its growls echoing off the mountain with each exhale. "Lyra? Can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, Pinkie. Need something?" the liaison asked kindly.

"Uhm...I kinda'...Tranq Bombed the Rathian. It's passed out." Pinkie kicked it a few times.When the creature didn't stir, she spoke again. "Yeah, she's punched out for the day. What's protocol, here?"

"Impressive. Come back to town. I'll inform the Guild and someone will be out there to take the Rathian to base where they can study it more." Lyra had an audible smile, it was one of the things Pinkie enjoyed most about her.

"Alrighty, boss lady. Be back soon." and Pinkie skipped back into the cave, making for the Village.

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Pinkie was greeted at the gate, not by villagers gripped in fear, but by cheers and clapping. A few even whistled loudly. She put a hand on the back of her head, her face flushing with embarrassment. Lyra pushed through the crowd, bringing her the money for the successful hunt.

"You never cease to amaze me, Pinkie!" Lyra had to yell to be heard over the crowd. They finally quieted down after the liaison gave them a death glare that would have made fighting that Rathian a breeze. She turned back to Pinkie. "Since that stumble in Tanzia, you've grown. Now, every time I think you're in over your head, you rise above it and prove me wrong." Lyra put her hands on Pinkie's shoulders. "I don't think there's any other Hunter I'd rather work with."

"Thanks Lyra!" Pinkie's eyes were misty, swimming with tears of joy. "I can't imagine working for anyone but you." a broad grin spread across her face, a few happy tears running down her cheeks. "Now, though, I think we all know what needs to happen."

"A party!" came the unanimous response from everyone in the village.

Comments

[The Serpent Mage]

Aaaand theres the Doctor Who reference that just HAS to be there.

[Chrome Masquerade]

"Who are you?"

"The Doctor."

"Doctor who?"

"Exactly."

[Chrome Masquerade]

Pinkie lifted her head into the air upon leaving the base camp. She took a deep breath through her nose, picking up what she was sure to be the Rathian's scent. It smelled like she was getting closer to the Hunter. Pinkie had moved into the wetlands, seeing the Rathian fly over the top of the mountain into view. The green wyvern started to descend and her feet planted heavily on the ground. The Rathian made the Arzuros look like a puppy. Her green scales glistened in the sunlight. Her tail waved back and forth slowly as she started walking. She turned around and faced Pinkie. Her eyes were golden and fierce. She started making a clicking noise as she approached Pinkie. The Hunter was standing very still as the Rathian drew closer. Rathians and Rathalos were both sight hunters. The problem was that Pinkie had not placed herself strategically. She had been so mezmerized by the majestic wyvern that she had stood out in the open.