//------------------------------// // The Hydra. // Story: The Adventures Begin // by Dragon Shimmer //------------------------------// After 4 hours of failing, Sunset lies on the ground while Whitty is healing her. She is very tired now.   "You're really stubborn, don't you?" Whitty asks while keep healing her   "Heh, thank you. Celestia told me the same thing," Sunset lying on the ground due to her tiredness.   "Well, at least I can "pillow" you with no resistance," Whitty hugs the tired Sunset, she has to accept that because she is out of stamina. "So how long will you give up?"    "Well, I don't know, maybe until I succeed," Sunset smiles at him. "I must know if I can break the limit or not." She closes her eyes but does not return to the real world.   "At least you can close your eyes without returning to the real world." Whitty says while he strokes Sunset's mane " Don't worry, I will be here when you are depressed," he smiles at her.   "Thank you, I guess," Sunset feels slightly creepy about him. "I just don't know what will you do when you defeat me? "    "Oh about that, I won't say because you know the answer," Whitty laughs as Sunset confused "Anyway, I advise you to stop that thing called "break the limit" because this may kill you."    "Nah. I'm fine with that," Sunset waves her front hoof to reject making Whitty's face claw at the mare "Besides, I have an ambulance here so I am finer," she teased, making Whitty amused about that.   "Fine, I give up," Whitty moves his head closer to Sunset's neck, making her shiver "but in exchange, you have to allow me to hug you without struggling."   "Deal. Now I need to wake up to prepare things, see you later," Sunset closes her eyes to wake up.     Sunset wakes up to take a turn guarding Matt, she sits and starts meditating to analyze the flow of the mana to try to concentrate the mana into three-point of her body. She creates a fire dragon and feels the mana focus on her left front hoof, and if it needs to stay as long as she wants, she has to make the mana keep flowing onto her left front hoof.   ‘I see, the reason the pony can teleport is they have to focus to make their mana balancing all over the body,’ She thinks and writes on her notes. ‘Now I see why some unicorns can use teleport while they already use levitate on themself to keep the mana covering their body,’... She thinks for a little while…’But if it is simple like that, why only the unicorn use magic while Pegasus and Earth Ponies can't. Geez, I have to think more about this in the future but now I have to start training this idea,’ she starts to create an ice dragon and make it flying with the fire dragon.    The two dragons fly around Sunset's body as she feels she have to keep the mana on two front hooves, she decides to transfer all the mana that focus on her front hooves to her back hooves to see what happens and opens her eyes to see what will happen. The dragons are still there and still flying around her, making her smile. Matt sees that but decides not to interrupt her because he knows she is doing something crazy, which makes him shudder.     "Right. Wherever the mana focuses on the body, the spell can still continue casting," She thought, the fire dragon lands on her hoof, Sunset feels a little hot but not too hot to burn her hoof. Now,  she feels very weird about this; the dragon must burn her while it can burn down an "Ice Turtle".     As Sunset looks down her front hoof, she sees some kind of dragon scale in the middle of her hoof. She now feels so scared, is she slowly changing into a dragon? She doesn't know. Sunset takes a deep inhale to come down to not be so scared, but she is still nervous about what will be a dragon? How can she talk to Celestia when she comes back to Equestria?. She shakes her head to abandon her thought away, "Let's the time answer it, not now," She thinks.   "Something wrong?" Matt asked behind Sunset's back, making her yelp for a surprise.   "Don't scare me like that," she waves her hoof "But anyway, everything is fine?" she lied   "You sure? You look so nervous here." Matt says as he stares at Sunset, makes her drop some sweets and gulp "Anyway, we should be prepared now."   "It's morning already?" Sunset asks as Matt points at the sun rising, Sunset facehoofs "Fine, we should be prepared. My theory of magic is still not done though but it will be later."       Sunset and Matt return to the campfire to reunite Natalie and Lance, they cook some soup and corn the breakfast. As they sit together and eat in a happy mood, Sunset wonders about something that Eldaro asked her before.   " Hey, I just wonder what will we do after we defeat this Arkon?" Sunset asked, make them surprised but they still happy when she asks that   "Honestly, we will still travel around like a beggar. Oh wait, we are already a beggar now," Lance teases and makes Matt lightly punch at his arm. " Come on, I'm just joking"   "Yeah, we still travel around to see many things in this world" Natalie is totally dreaming, making the trio deadpan "I wonder what if we see the Atlantic or something beautiful."   "Cut off your dreaming, Natalie. Remember we nearly died many times since we started this journey. I don't think traveling is not easy. Is anyone here used to stealing?" Sunset asked, make Matt whisper and slowly walk away but Sunset use "Firewall" to block his way   "Fine, fine. I used to steal, ok? Because these days were hard , I must steal food and stuff to survive." Matt sits down beside his teammates.    "Okay, but we are still a beggar team, right? You know we don't join any adventure guild or any alliance. So I call this team a beggar team," Lance explained.  "Then why don't you just join the guild so as not to be a beggar?" Sunset asks. Matt facepalm and she knows the answer now " Fine, but after this journey, we will find some jobs to do."   "Nah, I hate the guilds because they will catch some unnecessary attention when you are in highlight so I think we will stay like this," Matt explain and Sunset know they not gonna changed, she signs but smile because she can't do anything   "Fine, can I join this beggar team?" Sunset tease, make the trio nod and laugh. When the laughter dies down, Sunset starts to discuss the opponent they are going to fight "So you have any information about this Three-head monster."   Lance sighs about this "Sorry but I don't have anything about this monster. But if we don't fight, we won't know what it is. If we can survive."    "Don't worry, we will survive," Matt cheered the trio as the team stand up and go to the gate    The team is in front of the gate. They asks T-86 about how many times they can go in, he says that they can go in anytime they feel right. T-86 pulls the level and the gate is opening. They see a Three-head monster have three dragon heads, have many spikes attract to each head, it has a red scale with an enormous body and the wing-claw seem sharp look like can slash anything that stands in its way, and the tail has some spikes attract on it    "..... I don't know this world have Hydra too," Sunset confused, make the trio surprised   "Hydra? Does that really exist in your world? Then tell-" Lance gets cut off as he has to dodge when one of Hydra's head slams into the middle of the team. The team has to dodge aside, as they stand into the position after that.   Matt and Sunset rush at it while Natalie chants a spell and Lance aims at it with both his gun-blade and a big gun. The Left head and Right head open its mouth and aim at Sunset and Matt, a moment later, the two heads breathe the fire ray at them. Sunset teleports to near the Hydra while Matt has to run away from the ray. Lance has to shoot  "Shockwave" the Left head's chin and Natalie has to use "Ice shard", a shard of ice appeared on it chin and exploded. The Left head roars for pain and has to shut its mouth.     Sunset uses " Ice dragon" on the Middle head but the head breathes fire at the dragon, making it melt. Then it swings its tail to try to hit her. Sunset teleports but the Right head breathes the fire exactly the spot she teleported. Sunset gets hit by the breath and drops to the ground.    "Uh. This is hard when I can't give information about this... Fire breathing Hydra," Sunset complains as she dodges a breath from the Hydra.  "Stop complaining and do something," Lance yells as he aims the Hydra.  The Hydra suddenly spreads its wings and flies into the ground, making the team confused. A moment later, a lot of fireballs dropped into the sky, and it's direct to the team. Sunset and Natalie use "Shield" to defend against it. The Hydra then flies down and slams its body into the ground, making a huge shockwave after landing that is powerful enough to break the shield.   Matt rushes at the Hydra and Sunset teleports on its body while Natalie is analyzing the Hydra and Lance is still aiming at it. All Hydra's heads rush at Matt, Matt slams the sword and leaves it there, keeps rushing, and jumps at the Hydra. An iceberg appeared from the ground, making Matt jump higher than before while the Middle surprised, it slammed into the iceberg and stunned. Matt takes out another sword from his dimension pocket, covers it with a red aura, and try to slam at MIddle head's neck  The Left and Right head's open the mouth and try to breathe at Matt, Sunset teleports to the Left head's chin and uses "Wyvern Slash '' on it, making the head shut its mouth and explode inside, it roars in pain. The Right head breathes fire at Matt but Lance shoots "Shockwave '' above Matt, it explodes windily, making him drop faster and dodge the fire breath. Matt successfully slams at the Middle's head neck and cuts off that head. He then quickly runs and grabs his white sword to the team while Sunset teleports back to the team.  "One down, two more," Matt cheers.  "Not yet" Sunset creates a shield and makes the others confused. The Hydra grows back and the Middle head makes the trio surprised. "Well, I think that's right."   "Why didn't you tell me this before?" Lance said  "Because we can't talk while in combat. Now we have to retreat since I know this monster," Sunset suggest as three heads of Hydra is open their mouths and prepare for a strong attack  "I agree about this but that if we can survive this attack," Natalie points at the Hydra and she raises the shield too, Matt slams the sword and the earth appears in front of the team to make a cover.  The Three heads breathe at them at the same time, enough to create a huge fire blast. The team is trying to hold the attack but it fails, the blast is interacting with them and explodes. Matt and Sunset are still standing but weak now while Natalie and Lance are unconscious.     The Hydra is going to rush at them to finish the battle but suddenly, many smoke grenades shoot into the sky and drop in the middle of the battlefield.  Now the Hydra is blind, try to find the team. Eldaro, T-86, and another person wear metal armor going in and meet the team in the smoke.   "you guy need help?" Eldaro asked Sunset.   "Yeah, carry us out the battlefield. We have to leave now," Sunset says as she is heavily injured and tries to stand up straight.  Eldaro suggests, "Don't strain yourself like that. I will help you," Sunset nods and Eldaro helps her while T-86 carries Natalie and the armored warrior helps Matt and carry Lance. They are quickly walking out of the gate. As they get out the gate, T-86 immediately closes the gate. Sunset sees many tents are already set outside the gate, she sighs and now she wants to take time to rest.