//------------------------------// // Chapter Thirteen, Salve Searching: Hydra-ted ingredients. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -The next day, Jade- Coconut had a texture that I didn’t like and Jacky could agree with me on that, still mom always did get me to eat extra vegetables and I didn’t complain as I had a full stomach at the end of the night. Now today I was outside Froggy Bottom Bog, with Fizzle in tow. If you were wondering, the jackalope has already grown his antlers back. The overnight recovery was ridiculous, the wolpertinger was around and its antlers were going to take a while to grow back. At least I could tell the difference in the antler coloration, still the wolpertinger antlers could prove useful so I kept them. I could have chosen an easier thing to go after today, but no. I was choosing to go after hydra scales right now and it was dangerous for me to do this, given how big and dangerous hydra could get. I wanted to do this alone, but Fizzle wasn’t about to let me go anywhere by myself. At least she was bright enough to know I was going to get into trouble today, just not what kind of trouble. She was the only one here with me and I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a complaint about what we were doing here. The brown bubbling muck looked as it smelled, that being horrendously bad. We were sticking close to the swamp trees and the solid ground outside the swamp, my reasoning is that a hydra couldn’t bite through the trees. Also trees would slow a giant hydra down. Smaller ones, not so much. “Jade, what are the chances we get swallowed whole trying to get some scales off a live hydra?” Turning to a very alert Fizzle, I answered her worries with a kiss to the right cheek. “Don’t worry Fizzy, we just need to find a sleeping hydra and collect its scales carefully without it waking up. It’s that simple.” At least I hoped it was, it’ll certainly be harder than getting salamander scales. Fizzle was blushing and looking a bit shy, it was just so easy to get cute reactions out of her. “This won’t be too hard… I think. I mean collecting salamander scales wasn’t hard right?” We still needed to test the salamander scales or at least mom would do that today, if they were anything like fish scales then we’d have fire breathing down as a new magical alchemy sustain by the end of the day. Unless dragon scales give us fire breathing then I don’t know what salamander scales would actually do. So many magical alchemy things to test, so little time to test it personally. “Bucket of water to the mouth, hold mouth shut because they can’t open them very well like a crocodile and shave off a few scales.” The method Fizzle was describing was what we did to get some salamanders scales before the salamanders were thrown back where they belong, which is somewhere around Ghastly Gorge. “I doubt we’d be able to do the same thing to a cragadile and hydra get far bigger than those things! Even a one headed hydra is dangerous to meet Jade, they are bigger than a bear.” “Two legs, a tail and one head, I’m pretty sure that we can take at least something like that Fizzy.” I was either brave, stupid or a combination of both with an added sense of crazy. We were out here looking for hydra to mess with and they weren’t pleasant creatures by any stretch of the imagination. “Then don’t mind me when I say I told you so Jade.” You were still going to follow and help me on this Fizzle. So really, you’re just as bad as I am. “So are you going to take Maries up on that offer of a date? They just want to go fishing with you.” “I’m considering it, it’s been a while since I went tail fishing. Just so long as we don’t fish anywhere where there’s bat-acudas.” We walked along the trees looking at the swamp pits for any sign of movement and our ears were alert for the sound of large stomping feet. We were getting nothing so far, were there even hydra around at this time of day? It was still morning, a nice quick trip in The Ardent Survivor got us here quite fast. “Aren’t they technically called bite-acudas? You know, because of their big snapping jaws.” Really Fizzle, were we seriously going to have one of those discussions? “It would be bat-acudas, they have tiny bat wings that allow them to fly out of the water at you!” I would defend to the death that they were bat-acudas. They looked like the cross between a bat and a fish, so really calling those fish bite-acudas is dumb because barracudas are already known for their aggressive behaviors! The word ‘bite’ was superfluous, where bat wasn’t and was a descriptor. “I never agreed to call them anything else, barracudas are aggressive and are already known for biting. So why would you have a similar species using bite, when they have bat like features that allow them temporary flight like flying fish?” “When you think about it, they are more like bat-ranhas. You know, because they swarm like piranhas… which makes even less sense that they are called bite-acudas in the first place.” Oh good so you weren’t going to get into one of those discussions Fizzle, you were just going to confuse the issue even further about what bite-acudas were. “Barracudas are sea fish, bite-acudas are river fish and seem to have little to do with barracudas on the whole. So why do they have that kind of name?” “Well I want to lay into whoever named that particular brand of river fish with a sock to the jaw, but yeah fishing with Maries wouldn’t be so bad.” I stopped and looked about. We saw no movement through the trees and only heard the croaking of frogs, the trills of birds and the bubbling of the nearby bogs. This place felt absolutely calm. I decided to continue on with our conversation. “Bat-ranha sounds closer to what they actually are… do you suppose it was a pony that named them bite barracudas?” “Maybe, but now that I’ve thought on it more, I think they are called bite-acudas because they are like bite sized barracudas.” Stopping to tap a hoof against her chin, Fizzlepop looked to start getting slightly aggravated by our topic of discussion. “Okay that’s still kind of dumb, barracudas that swarm like piranhas and… okay now I too am angry at whoever named them that! I think I’m right, they’d be more like bat-ranhas than bite-acudas.” “See,you get where I’m coming from with this Fizzle!" We continued to scout the general area, I wonder if the population of hydra was small around here. "Except I still prefer the term bat-acudas.” This place was technically outside of the Ever Free Forest, but still quite dangerous territory and we shouldn’t be getting too relaxed like we were. I passed right by Froggy Bottom Bog on my way into Ponyville the first time, never actually came here before this though. Kind of like how I passed by Flame Geyser Swamp and met Maries, but never actually went into the swamp itself. “I’m not seeing anything out this way Jade, are you sure there are hydra here?” Yes Fizzle, I was quite sure there had to be one around here somewhere. “I’m getting a bad feeling about this just from being here, it’s a bit quiet. That was never a good sign when I was on my own.” I was going to scrape a few scales off of one hydra, I need at least ten if they’re small. If they’re big, then I’ll just need five. At least enough for magical alchemy testing and to see if Zecora could use it in zebra alchemy to fix Fizzle’s horn. I wasn’t about to get Fizzle’s hopes up though, so I didn’t even explain why we were doing this. Just that I was going to do it. “Yeah, I can see that being a thing.” So I was just going to throw this out there while we search for an elusive bog monster. “How was it being all alone?” “I personally don’t like it, but I could survive being alone again.” One long pause from Fizzle. “Provided that I had friends and a home to come back to, knowing that everyone I care about will be waiting there for me.” “Sounds good Fizzle.” My idle comment was met with a dry chuckle, I was about to continue looking about when I froze and realized something. “Fizzy… I have an important question to ask.” “What is it Jade?” I carefully reached over and grabbed her by the broken stub to direct her attention to several things. “Why are you grabbing…” “Quick question, does the hill we’re currently on have any trees or grass on it?” I cut her off with a sense of urgency in my voice. “No, but what does that have to do with anything?” Instead of answering Fizzle, I pointed her into looking at several other hills which were covered in swamp grass or trees. The hill we were currently on was made out of thick dry and hardened mud, a large lump of it in the middle of the open ground near the edge of the swamp. Giving it a second to kick in for her, I watched as Fizzle’s pupils shrunk to tiny dots before returning to their normal adorably large size. “We’re standing on one… we are... standing on a hydra.” It took us both a moment to recognize it, but the hill was shifting slightly. This hill wasn’t so much a hill, it was a mud covered hydra that was currently sleeping. Nice to know what to look for now when it comes to being careful of the surrounding terrain, frankly we tried not to make any sudden movements. “I think I see the necks leading to the heads, you see those holes those are what it’s breathing through. I think I can see some teeth in that one, so it’s sleeping with a mouth open.” I pointed it out to Fizzle and she nodded once she saw the breathing holes for the hydra, any creature looking to make a shelter in its mouth was in for a nasty surprise. “This is perfect, we’re exactly in the right position to get some hydra scales.” “Can you do that without waking it up though? This hydra is kind of big Jade.” Ignoring Fizzle’s worries, I started to carefully dig at the mud with my hands. Once I shifted enough mud out of the way I could see its scale beneath mud. “Don’t honestly know, we’re about the size of ticks to it Fizzy.” I started to uncover more of the hydra, the scales weren’t going to be hard to get. It’s getting away with it that will be the hard part. “We have a slight problem here.” “What is it?” Turning to Fizzle I gave her a weak grin. “This isn’t the two legged variety of hydra… this is a four legged one.” I pointed at the blue scales to confirm this fact. “A Blue Back Hydra to be specific, four legged hydras are much faster and deadlier. So… we definitely do not want to wake this thing up. Two legged hydra are clumsy and easy to confuse or outrun, in this case we’d be hard pressed or lucky to even escape a hydra that is both fast on land and in water.” “Then just don’t wake it then.” Sure no pressure Fizzle. Just a deadly four legged beast with multiple heads that we’re clearly in for a lot of trouble with if I just so happen to wake it up. “I wish we had some anesthetic right about now so it wouldn’t be able to feel what I’m about to do.” I cleared enough of the mud away to gain access to a number of scales I needed. I looked at Fizzle and then turned back to the scales and started to carefully pry at one with my knife. A hydra was a hydra right? It’s not like species mattered when it came to having the correct ingredient for fixing Fizzle’s horn, heck I didn’t even know if this would help in the first place. It was just a supposition about how hydra make extra heads having incredible regeneration powers that could feasibly help Fizzle recover her horn. If it did matter, and Zecora told me so later, then I would know for certain that this world absolutely hated me or Fizzle. It didn't matter who the world hated, just that it hated one of us. “Quick question, what do we do if something else wakes up the hydra?” Looking to Fizzle from my position where I’ve managed to pry up a single scale without the slumbering monster waking up, I saw an oddly panicked look on her eyes. “We run as fast and as far away as we can get or find the nearest place to hide safely from it under a really sturdy tree.” I looked back down and started cutting another large blue scale off of the hydra’s back, at this rate and because of their size I would only need about four scales from this creature. Please world, don’t ask me to do this again with a two legged yellow hydra. “Why did you ask that?” “Because I can see another hydra coming to attack this one.” Fizzle stated bluntly. Standing up and looking over the rise of the fake hill, I saw a vaguely smaller three headed, two legged, yellow hyrda slowly stomping its way towards the hill we were on. “Do you think it saw us?” I asked as I hurriedly pried away another scale from the blue hydra’s back, that was three scales and I was almost finished. “No, I’m pretty sure it’s going to attack the hydra we’re currently sitting on. It’s already rearing back one of its heads to lung forward and it’s not currently looking at us.” Yeah, that was something you didn’t need to say Fizzle. I could even hear it growling loudly and it sounded hungry. “We are so dead aren’t we?” “Not necessarily, they’re going to be too busy fighting one another to worry about eating any fast food. However we may get caught up in the scuffle if we’re still here when it...” I didn’t get to finish my line of thought. Two of the heads of the yellow hydra roared a challenge as its middle head dove into the mud and the entire hydra shifted. The yellow hydra had grabbed one of the blue hydra’s heads by the neck, thus waking it up. The muddy hill shifted, it cracked and slowly the hydra we were on top of started to stand, its other heads snapped out to attack the yellow hydra. “Hurry up Jade, we’re about to become part of a horrible territorial dispute.” Believe me Fizzle, I know. I was already working on the two scales at once just to speed things up. I had plenty of water to fight off a head or two from attacking us, but three canteens of chilled water wasn’t going to do a single thing to stop two hydra. Once I pried the scales free, the blue hydra was standing and already swinging its tail for the other.