The Bridge Between Worlds

by Artemis Orion

Chapter 20: The Rise Of The Hydra

Musical Suggestion: Go choose your own music! Don't let me make you listen to stuff! (Kidding. I'm just tired.)
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The Rise Of The Hydra

We were about to set off once more, breaking camp at the break of dawn. The rays of the sun became brighter with every passing minute.

Everything was packed, linked up and ready to move. With the urge to not be stuck in the basket throughout the entire day, I tested walking and moving my injured arm and shoulder. I could walk straight with less effort now. The buff of advanced healing was really effective. Although I still had a slight limp, I felt perfectly fine. But knowing somepony, They wouldn't let me off of that Caravan until they were sure I could at least run.

"Hey Rainbow Dash? Mind if I hitch a ride?" I threw the rest of my stuff into the basket.

"Aw, d'ya have to?"

"C'mon! It's better than being stuck in that basket all day! I'll be better to scout ahead with anyway." I reached into the one of the supply sacks and pulled out a metal, handheld telescope.

"Fine. But you're probably just going to slow me down!"

I ignored her reluctant look as I mounted her, just like we had experimented the first time.

"Hope you can handle the speed, pal. We don't need you blacking out again!"

Before I could make any form of a witty comeback, she launched herself into the sky. It surprised me, but not as much as it did to the others. The wind pressed me down to lean in on the cyan pegasus' back, the velocity steadily increasing. Fluttershy watched in suppressed worry.

"Don't fall off there, Cowboy!" Applejack yelled to stay within earshot.

"Don't worry! We're on clouds aren't we?"

I could only hope she had heard me before Rainbow Dash raised the altitude, and brought us to circle the Cloud Caravan.

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"Hey, Dash?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, what's up?"

I figured it would be best to ask Rainbow Dash about Fluttershy, seeing as they were friends longer than the rest of the Mane Six. And what better time than when flying alone with said Pegasus?

"Has Fluttershy always been this quiet?"

"Well, kind of. But she's not as quiet now as she was when we were in High School."

"I'm guessing you know about her and Big Mac?"

"Psht. Please, that hardly lasted long enough to be counted as a 'thing'."

"Okay okay. Guess I shouldn't have brought that up yesterday then..."

"You brought it up?! You're such an idiot!" She shot me an annoyed glance, never losing concentration on flying.

"How was I to know?!" I shot back, a little pissed off myself.

"Look, Keith. Maybe you don't know this, but she hasn't seen her family in years. She failed her final flight test, and chose to live on the ground. She rarely returns to Cloudsdale and hasn't heard from her Parent's since. Ever thought there was a reason she surrounds herself with animals? Knowing her, she misses her folks. She's lonely."

"I never knew all this..."I let out a sigh. "But you're right. Maybe I shouldn't have. I should at least apologize to her."

"You'd better! If you do anything else to hurt her, remember that I still owe you a beating!" A menacing grin appeared on her face.

"God, what is with you and beating people up?!" I rolled my eyes. "Look, it's getting dark. Let's get back."

We flew back down to our friends, our backs to the red, cloudless sunset.

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That night, when everyone left to sleep, I went to find Fluttershy. She was on her cloud, staring at the moon with a bored, sad look on her face. I called out to her at a soft volume.

"Fluttershy?" Even in the quiet it startled her. After she turned to see who it was, she glided off her perch slowly, avoiding any form of eye contact.

"Alright. Uh..." I stammered, scratching the oncoming itch at the back of my head.

Damnit, I suck at apologies.

Fluttershy looked down, kicking up the slightest amount of cloud. In the dark, I couldn't tell whether she was blushing either. It was as quiet as it was awkward. And it was really quiet.

"Dude, just man up. You're talking to a yellow pegasus while standing on clouds in an alternate universe. What else could you screw up?"

I took a deep breath.

"Look, I'm sorry alright? I shouldn't have brought anything up, I shouldn't have assumed anything when I got here, and I shouldn't go around teasing other peopl- I mean ponies like that. Especially not you." I sat down, and stared into the adorable pegasus' face. "Because it's going to break a lot more hearts than yours or mine to see you sad. Remember, you have a whole fan community that loves you, Fluttershy. Well, given that you can't see them, but they do! And-"

I was interrupted by legs wrapping around my neck in a nice warm hug.

"It's okay, Keith. I forgive you. A-And's it not really that big a deal, really..."

"Seriously? Because I was planning to rabble on for a few more minutes." I giggled and returned the embrace, and remained there for a moment. I was just thinking about how fortunate I was right there and then for being able to hug Fluttershy, and the rest of the Mane Six for that matter!

"Um... Keith, you can let go now..."

"Oh right, sorry." I stood back up, a blush obvious on both our faces.

"Well, it's getting late. Goodnight, 'Shy!" I turned around and headed back to the campsite.

"Goodnight... and thanks." She mumbled as she flew back up to her cloud.

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It was the third day since we had officially begun our journey. My injuries were no longer painful, so I took the opportunity to finally abandon the confines of the caravan. It felt great to able to move freely again!

I had linked myself up to the balloon as well, helping to pull it just a little bit. At least that way, I didn't feel like a deadweight.

"According to the map, we should be coming up to a mountainous area...", Twilight said, with her face buried into the map.

I shaded my eyes, searching the skyward plain.

"I don't see any mountains. Perhaps you read the map wrong?"

"Impossible! I coordinated with this map at least five times!" Twilight smiled sheepishly. "Not that it makes much of a difference..."

Just then, a streak of rainbow flew in our direction, followed by a yellow speck. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy returned from scouting ahead.

"Found anything, Rainbow Dash?"

"We sure did! You guys might wanna see this." She pointed a hoof into the distance. I pulled out the telescope and extended its viewing range. Through the fish-eyed lens, I spotted a gap in the Sky Desert. The tip of of what looked like a huge rock stuck out of the center of it.

"Uh, Twilight? I think we found your mountain..."

"I told you it was right!" She magicked the telescope from my grasp and looked through it herself. "Huh... the clouds seem a light... off colour there..."

"Curious are we?" Rarity said wearily. "Are you sure that's the best of ideas at this time, Twilight?"

"LET'S GO!" Pinkie Pie zoomed ahead, only to be stopped by the restrains of the Air Balloon. "C'MON C'MON C'MON! ADVENTUUUUUUUUUURRE!"

Applejack chuckled. "There ain't no stoppin' that pony once she gets her mind on somethin'. C'mon let's get a closer look!"

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It didn't take long to reach the dark-clouded area, and it was a lot bigger than we had thought it was.

Cutting off an entire section of the Sky Desert, the clouds outlined the openings to the mountains. The one we had seen was the tallest one, poking through the surface. The icy blue peak was an eyesore when contrasted with the green, murky clouds. It was like a canyon in the sky, only it wasn't as hot and it wasn't red or orange.

The green clouds were smaller and more dispersed than the normal clouds, and they smelled worse. Cloud walking around on those looked hard, but they cut off our route.

"Gas Spores..." Twilight examined one, making sure not to touch it. "A collection of concentrated gases. Flammable." She proceeded to poke it, it bounced off lightly, but didn't disperse. "And they smell horrible!" She concluded her little explanation.

"We can't walk across these." Rainbow Dash lightly landed on one, and took off again before the cloud could fall apart into smaller forms. "They don't break on contact, but they can't take our weight either. We'll have to fly across."

"We can't do that either. We can't go any higher and raising the altitude anymore will make it hard to breathe. And we can't go through it because at the gas concentration up here, there's a high chance that our Air Ballon might... well... explode."

I pried an opening in the plain-clouded surface and looked below.

"Girls, there's a swamp at the feet of these mountains."

Looking down, dense vegetation, and discoloured water could be seen. The trees around the area were a different shade of green compared to the other trees, and could clearly be seen from our topographical position. I didn't realize how high we were.

"Now that is a strange geographical position. A dingy little swamp at the feet of these mountainous alps?" Rarity didn't step anywhere near the green gaseous globs that floated around us. "I'm not even going near these little horrors, so you can forget about crossing from here!"

"Then Ah guess the only way from here is down. Gases ain't so concentrated down there, and we can get across safely. And besides, that swamp is hardly 'little'!" Applejack's suggestion seemed like the only sensible one. We climbed aboard into the Air Balloon, still linked.

"Bye Dashie! Bye Fluttershy! We'll see ya on the other side!" Pinkie Pie waved hysterically at the two pegasi.

"Careful, girls! You know what can lurk in swamps!" Those were Fluttershy's last words before we made our slow descent to a decent enough height of passing.

We grew closer to the ground and the world became enlarged from the view we had seen it as. The swamps and mountains were gigantic to what we had assumed earlier!

"A few more meters... and..." Twilight was magically controlling the flame that controlled the balloon. I never saw it, but she said that the flame burned from a luminescent magical firestone. We slowed, and then came to a stop from our descent.

"There! This should be safe enough!" Twilight exclaimed in triumph.

We began to drift lazily over the pungent marshlands. The water was blown and the leaves a distinctive lack of green. Every once in a while, a bubble would rise to the gunky surface, and pop soon after.

"This is absolutely disgusting!" Rarity shuddered, taking in the sight from the basket. "Good thing we have no need to descend any further!"

The gunky bubbles stopped immediately. It ceased without any apparent reason... or so we thought.

Silence swept over the landscape, only to be interrupted by gusts of wind. The swamp stood still. The ponies looked over the edge of the basket with worried faces. Everything had become quiet. Too quiet...

I facepalmed. Everything was a tell-tale sign that something was going to happen.

The bubbles quickly returned, but more rapidly and in grater numbers. Along with it came ripples and trembles that shook the depths of the brown water and the nearby vegetation. The ripples came from the center of the lake-sized water hole. Water rose like a fountain!

"Rarity, you spoke too soon..." I said with an exasperated sigh.

From that point, a scaly, hammer-shaped head burst through the surface. A deafening, shrill roar came from its monstrous jaws. It was followed by another head. And another.

It surfaced to a certain point, where it was obviously visible enough to see that the three heads were connected to one, large body. The three heads were no more than a few tens of meters away from us!

The three identical heads stretched skyward, followed by three long necks. The monsters were the same colour as the water it camouflaged in; muddy brown, with greenish-yellow eyes.

The four ponies shrieked in terror.I felt the colour drain from my face, too frightened to emit any sound. This wasn't a creature that was new to me either, but that didn't make it less deadly. Especially since it was coming closer...

"HYYDRAAAA!!!!"

Comments

[Artemis Orion]

Things have been a little boring lately, huh? I know the first two parts are a little cheesy. At least they are in my opinion.

So how does one fight in midair without falling to one's death, or eaten by a Hydra? And how does one prevent one's comrades and air-based caravan from harm in the process? Well, we'll just wait and see.

LET THE BATTLE BEGIN!

Artemis Orion

[Chill Mists(Chilly)]

MOOOOOOOORRRRRRRTAAALLLLLLLL KOMBAAAAATTTTTTT! I eagerly await the next chapter.

[Primordial Deomontus]

can't wait for next chapter

[ArtyTheReader]

I know this is a bit late to say but it really creeps me out that the ponies are ~5ft 6in tall in your story O.O. In the show they are ~3ft tall if you didnt know. At any rate, this was a great chapter and I eagerly await more!

[Phoenixfire92]

That means in this story the ponies are as tall me almost...cool..but weird....

Anyway, Maybe Aura can help.....Just sayin,,,,

they said i could listen to any music i wanted to so i chose reliant k

[avatoa]

Oh, horse manure. Wait a second, did you say that the Hydra had 3 heads? When we saw one in the show, that one had four heads. So that means this one shouldn't be as dangerous as the one in the show, right? In your opinion, does the number does the of heads on a hydra symbolize it's power, age, experience, or wisdom?

[Happy Thoughts]

Just MOAR! 'nuff said.

[Artemis Orion]

161827
I know. It seems a little strange, but I used the real measurement of ponies for them. (Approx. 150cm) Since this is sort of a self-insert, I'm about 170, so i estimated about shoulder height. Yes, they may be bigger, but I think its more adorable. Also, think of the bigger hugs

163662
I think you can be both right and wrong. It could be less dangerous than the one in the show, but we can't say it gets more experience or wisdom from number of heads (those two are time-reliant in my opinion.). If it is that way, I can have my character cut off the Hydra's heads, have them split into more, and say its smarter. But the scale of lethality (Don't think that's a word) is effected by the numbers. Cooperation between the heads, however, is variable.

Artemis Orion

[EvilEnchantress]

161717 nuff said

[Chill Mists(Chilly)]

181263 Okay then!

[Ignis Infinitus]

I just realized, desserts are usually dry but the sky dessert is made of water