CHAPTER THREE: VS. HYDRA
“Trixie,” I said, as we headed into the Everfree Forest, “what kind of magic do you use?”
“The Great and Powerful Trixie's special talent involves manipulating light. Trixie is also a skilled illusionist and has dabbled a bit in enchanting.”
Olivia groaned from above us, swooping down to walk alongside us flightless ponies. “Trixie, a little self-confidence is good, but do you really have to refer to yourself in the third person? And as 'The Great and Powerful'?”
Trixie frowned shamefully. “Trix- I apologize. It's just... a habit.”
“Don't worry about it, RG has all sorts of weird quirks- that just makes you seem like a sociopath or something.”
I was about to wonder if she had used the term 'sociopath' correctly, when I realized that I didn't know what exactly a Hydra was. I got the feeling that it had something to do with water, and the adjective 'heady' came to mind. I was very confused, because I was rather certain that 'heady' had something to do with alcohol.
“Alright, I want some expositional dialogue on hydras.”
“You could just say “tell me about Hydras” or something, you know,” Olivia grumbled.
“Or you could have used 'info-dump' instead of 'expositional dialogue'. Much less of a mouthful,” Trixie said.
“Okay, let's see here,” Olivia muttered, before launching into a description that sounded like it should have been coming from a tiny red box-thing called “Dexter”.
“Hydra, the “Water Serpent” Monster.
The Hydra is found in lakes and other bodies of fresh water. The Hydra is thought by many to be a dragon with four heads, when it is in fact a snake that just happens to have two legs, a torso, and four heads that just so happen to resemble those of a dragon.
Also, the Hydra is orange, but also incredibly smelly, which is odd, because things that are orange are usually very not-smelly.
Not to be confused with the Warthog, Puma, or Chupa-thingy- the primary differences are: the Hydra does not have little hooks that look like tusks, is not made up, and does not enjoy eating goats, respectively.”
“That's funny,” Trixie said, “Trix- I could have sworn that Hydras loved goats.”
“Olivia, where did that come from?”
“Unlike some ponies, I actually read at the library,” she retorted. It is probably not worthy of note that she had flown upside down during her recital of the Hydra's expositional dialogue.
We stepped out of the trees and into a very unhygienic-looking swamp, which we did not notice was unhygienic-looking at the time because we found the Hydra- and it was fighting itself. Well, not so much fighting as 'each head glared at another head, so that each head was simultaneously glaring and being glared at'. It was especially distracting because it was easily twice the size of the tallest tree in the surrounding area (though the trees did get increasingly diminutive as we got closer and closer to the swamp).
“Celestia's mane,” Olivia swore.
“Bucking Tartarus,” Trixie swore.
“How dare he/they/it be so tall?!” I raged.
“If I bite me/ then I'll bite me/ and that'll mean I'll bite me/ and I'll end up biting me,” the Hydra rumbled to itself/each other.
“There's got to be a name for this,” one head lamented.
“IT'S CALLED AN APPLEOOSION STANDOFF!!!” Trixie shouted.
“Thanks, little speck,” another head replied, before the heads went back to arguing about something.
Olivia landed. “How are we supposed to kill this thing?”
“I'd suggest drowning... but we don't have nearly enough bowls to scoop up that much magma- not to mention the lack of magma.”
Trixie nodded. “You're right. There isn't a volcano for miles.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Usually, your plans amount to... how did you put it? Oh, right- “railgun to the face”- that's a quote, mind you, not a paraphrase.”
“Of course,” I agreed eagerly, “Railgun to the face! Why didn't I think of that earlier? It's foolproof.”
“The Great and Pow- I mean, I can manipulate light well enough to make a beam comparable to a high-powered laser,” Trixie said.
I turned to look Trixie in the eye. “You're a laser pony...” My heart fluttered. Not in the you're-gonna-die way, but in the metaphorical (mostly) and romantic way. “I think I'm in love.”
“And you were powerful enough to cancel a spell cast by Twilight Sparkle- she's an alicorn, and her special talent is magic!”
Olivia groaned. “As much as I approve you ceasing your asexual tendencies, could you two save the weird pseudo-romance crap for after we kill this big orange not-dragon?”
“Sure, yeah,” I said.
“Trix- I don't see why not,” Trixie concurred.
I used my super-unicorn telekinesis powers to lift a couple of coins- 'bits,' I reminded myself- from my saddlebags, and Trixie adjusted her wizard hat. Olivia pulled a battle-axe from her saddlebags, then wielded it -impressively- in her mouth.
“Okay,” I said, “Trixie and I will attack on three. Olivia, you can axe them whatever questions you want afterward.” I snickered at my pun.
“Everypony ready?” Olivia asked. Trixie and I nodded. “Alright... One... Two... THREE!”
I mentally thanked Princess Luna as I performed what I had just realized was my signature attack.
“Railgun” I stated, charging the coin and the air around it as was appropriate, in preparation for the attack, “SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!” The coin flew forth so quickly that it caused the air around it to burn with 'electrical fire', or... something like that. It was hard to tell- the coin moved so fast as to be invisible to the eye, and it had penetrated the head I had targeted before I was even aware of the fact that the attack had been successful.
Needless to say, I felt pretty froody, calling my attack like a professional (which, coincidentally, I was- I was getting paid to hunt monsters, after all). I readied the next coin in case I needed to fire, but Trixie's attack had happened already by the time I actually had it ready.
“PRISMATIC BEAM!” Trixie cried, shooting a rainbow lance of photons at one of the Hydra's heads- more specifically, the one that had been staring at the one that I had railgun'd.
The Hydra reeled from the combination money-and-rainbow-attack. Olivia went to town. “Alright... Let's do this! OOOOOOLLLIIIIIIIVIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAA!!! LLLLEEEEEAAAAFFF!!!” After her battle-cry that sounded suspiciously familiar to me, she proceeded to axe the Hydra a lot of questions, many of which would make an Ursa Major say “Whoa, dude, chill the buck out.” The coolest part is that she did it whilst there was a battle-axe bigger than her in her mouth.
'I learned something today.
You don't buck with Olivia.
She axes waaaayyy too many questions.'
After Olivia finished, we prepared a 'Viking-pony burial' for the orange not-a-dragon. I constructed the boat, Olivia sang battle hymns, and Trixie got the gruesome task of collecting 'proof of bounty' from the poor soul(s?).
When all of those things were done, the Viking-pony burial was performed. We ignited the Hydra's boat/pyre and pushed it off into the swamp, where it quickly ignited a gas bubble and exploded.
It was bucking awesome.
I did kinda feel bad about the mangled state my railgun attack had left the head I'd targeted in- at least Trixie had punched a clean hole through hers, killing it in a relatively clean-ish way.
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“RG,” Trixie said as she pitched her tent, “do you know what your cutie mark means? Trix- I mean, I'm curious; I know you don't remember how you got it, but... Tr-” She sighed. “I'm not quite certain what it's supposed to symbolize.”
I looked up from the campfire, which I had been staring at rather intently, only to offer her my best 'quizzical' look.
“My what-now?”
Olivia slapped a hoof into her forehead. “Your cutie mark. The symbol that appears on your flank when you first discover your special talent. You got yours when you were in that fancy magic school in Canterlot. Apparently, you were supposed to hatch a dragon egg with magic- you decided that the best way to “hatch” the egg was throwing a couple of bits at it.” Olivia chuckled. “To make a long story short, you accidentally discovered your 'railgun' thing.”
I looked back at my flank. It was two circles- they were... spirally and made up of a lot of lines- one was black, the other was white. They kind of merged together, but at the same time, they didn't. Lightning bolts passed through the centers of each circle, converged in the middle, and then went straight down as a single bolt.
“What the buck? I mean, the lightning makes sense, but what's up with the circle-thingies?”
Olivia shook her flank. “See, my cutie mark is simple- a battle-axe and an encyclopedia.”
I blinked several times. Then I blinked some more. “That,” I mused, “explains a lot.”
Trixie wiggled her flank. “Mine symbolizes magic,” she said. I couldn't tell you what her cutie mark actually was- I was rather distracted by the flank-wiggling.
I realized what I was staring at, and felt the blood running into my cheeks. 'Control yourself,' I thought, and I did. I directed my gaze to the sky, where the moon was hanging lazily, lighting the night to the point where a pony could see just well enough to get by.
“You should pitch your tent,” Olivia commented, “there's a storm scheduled for tomorrow morning.”
“Scheduled?”
Trixie and Olivia both shot me confused looks. “The pegasi who control the weather operate on a schedule, you know,” Olivia said, “they can't just make it rain all willy-nilly. Can you imagine that? How would anypony schedule anything?”
“I suppose they'd just have to risk it,” Trixie thought aloud.
I rummaged through my saddlebags. “Do I actually have a tent?”
Olivia thought for a moment. “No, actually.” She laughed awkwardly. “You must be a bad influence- it slipped my mind.”
“We could share,” Trixie suggested, “Trixie's- I mean, my tent was made with large earth ponies in mind. I bought it because it was at a discount.”
Olivia shrugged. “My tent was made for pegasi, so... unless you want to get really intimate with me...”
Trixie raised an eyebrow. “You're quite large for a pegasus, aren't you?”
“Yeah, I'm about the same size as the average unicorn- meaning I'm quite a bit larger than RG.” She snickered. For some reason, that really offended me.
I levitated my bedding, which was essentially a fluffy blanket-thing, over to Trixie's tent. With only some mild rearrangements, we managed to fit both of our 'beds' into her tent side-by-side. The result was something like a two-pony 'bed'.
We slipped inside, and Trixie blushed and smiled at me, lighting the interior of the tent with her horn. “Could... could we sleep with our horns crossed?” She nervously faked a cough. “I mean... you don't have to if you don't want to, but-”
I tilted my head slightly to one side. “Why? Is it to keep us from accidentally stabbing one another with our horns?”
She shook her head. “I-it's romantic. Pegasi sleep side-by-side and cover each other with their wings, earth ponies sleep belly-to-back, and unicorns sleep with their horns crossed.”
I blushed. “O-oh... o-okay.” 'Wow, I thought, I sound even more nervous than she does... I should probably be pretty impressed with myself, but... this is happening really fast...'
“You're not very good at dealing with other ponies, are you? I mean- that whole ordeal with Twilight- Trixie's never seen her so... I don't know what to call it. Suspicious? Afraid?”
I frowned. “I don't know yet, not for sure- I haven't talked to all that many ponies... I get the feeling that I don't really fit in. I was trying to avoid telling her about... whatever it is that happened to me... but I didn't want to say with certainty that which I was uncertain of.”
“It seems to me that most ponies tend to state their thoughts and opinions as fact,” Trixie said, “no matter how informed they are on a subject. If they don't understand something, they tend to hate or fear it.”
“It almost sounds like a defense mechanism,” I noted, “rejecting things that are unfamiliar and unknown... like a survival instinct of some sort. They see that something is different, and their mind perceives it as being wrong and unnatural, so they shun or avoid it.”
Trixie nodded. “Like the Everfree Forest. It's a strange place filled with strange things- and ponies avoid it like the plague.”
“And they're probably right to do so. If we had fought that Hydra head-on, I don't know that we would have survived...”
“You're very smart, aren't you?”
I shrugged. “I think so. For all I know, I'm completely average, or insane, or... I don't even know. I feel like I make a lot of mistakes. I don't remember, but... it's like I have a sense of what I'm like, as if I am inherently aware of my ponyality... while simultaneously feeling like I have no clue.”
“You go for long periods of time without saying anything, or showing any sort of emotion at all,” Trixie said, “like when we were looking for the Hydra- you only started talking when we were almost to the swamp. Then, all of a sudden, you were really talkative, and very... quirky. I mean, who decides to give a Hydra a 'Viking-pony burial' out of the blue, anyways? You were completely serious afterward, and didn't say a thing until we got back to camp.”
“I dunno,” I admitted, “maybe I can only be interesting in spurts? You're right, though, now that I think about it- I go between extreme stoicism and extreme... whatever... almost spontaneously.”
“I wonder if you've always been like that, or it's a side-effect of your whole... ordeal.”
“Hmm...”
“We're quite the bunch, aren't we?”
“Yeah...” I agreed, as a thought occurred to me. “Why do- err, why did you speak in the third person?”
Trixie yawned, dispelling the glow from her horn. “Whoo, colt, is it late? I am exhausted.”
I took the hint- at least, I assumed it was a hint. “Yeah, I guess...” Honestly, the most strenuous thing I'd done that day was pushing the Hydra's pyre/boat off of the shore, and that wasn't much work.
I placed my horn on top of hers, and felt a strange connection. It was almost as if my horn was picking up on her horn's magic, and her horn was doing the same in return. It was... strangely intimate.
“Trixie will tell you about it later,” she whispered.
I was comforted by that, and I quickly fell asleep.
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“Sweet dreams, my little pony,” Princess Luna said, greeting me with a pleasant smile.
“Um... good night?”
She laughed. “It's confusing, I know.”
I was in the same black void as before, but it felt a lot less ominous, somehow. “You seem more upbeat than you were before, Princess,” I commented.
“That, my little pony, is because you have already exceeded my expectations.”
“What did I do?”
“You have already met another pony who is an echo of another, a shadow. You are like a magnet, drawing others like us to you. Your positive disposition towards Trixie proves it- you were comfortable around her, and she was comfortable too.”
“Trixie's... what exactly does that mean? I don't understand.”
Luna inclined her head gracefully. “You have met the pony she mirrors,” she said, “my sister's dearest student, Twilight Sparkle. They are as much alike as they are different. Think about it.”
I did, and she was right. “Where do ponies like us come from?”
“It is different every time. Twilight and Trixie are particularly interesting, in that both the reflection and the 'original' exist simultaneously. They earned their cutie marks at the same time, and both learned that their special talents were magic- their circumstances, however, were completely different. Trixie could be seen as an ironic version of Twilight, in a sense. While Twilight's talent caused her to quickly rise to the top, Trixie's talent very nearly doomed her to a dreadful fate.”
Luna beamed. “And then you came along. You changed her fate, just by meeting her. Nopony has ever done that before. And you did it without even trying!”
“How do you know I changed her fate? What if this was her fate all along?” I grimaced. “What is fate, really? I don't understand.”
“It is difficult to explain. Like my sister, I can... I can sense fate, in a way. I cannot see into the future, but I can sense how a pony's life is going to turn out- the overall tone, if you will. You changed Trixie's fate. I sensed a future of bitter sadness, and then...” The Moon Princess smiled coyly. “I think I'll let you find out on your own.”
I nodded, accepting that I'd rather experience my fate- I didn't see the fun in knowing beforehoof what would happen to me. A thought occurred to me. “Princess?”
“Yes?”
“Can you tell me about... well, me?”
“I suppose... you're very intelligent, and...” She frowned slightly. “You're a very unique pony. Hard to understand.” Her smile returned. “I am no therapist, but I'm sure that you could find one, if you feel that you need help.”
“No... I don't... I'm not- I'm not broken. I don't need someone to fix me, I just... I want to understand. I don't even remember who I was before. I don't know who I am, why I act the way I act- or even how I act.”
“Perhaps,” she said thoughtfully, “that is the trouble with being different. When there's nopony quite like you, there's nopony who can completely understand you.”
“That makes sense, but it doesn't really make me feel any better.”
“Everypony will probably expect a lot from you. When they learn that you're a genius, they think of genius ponies that they read about in books or see in shows- ponies with an IQ of “four-hundred” or “five-thousand” who are easily capable of performing ridiculous calculations in their minds, speak entirely in scientific jargon, remember everything that they have ever witnessed, and are so socially unaware that they can't even tell when somepony is insulting them.”
“And I'll disappoint them...”
“I don't think so. As much as you don't understand them- or yourself- they don't understand you. It's not ideal, but you should be as civil and friendly with them as you now with me. If anypony messes with you, ignore them- if they become violent... well, I think you should probably avoid retaliation if at all possible... you carry yourself like a fighter, and I think you're devious enough to fight unfairly if you please. I'd lecture you on self-control next, but I think you're probably the last pony who needs a lecture on that... and I'm probably the worst pony to get that lecture from.”
“Why's that?”
“... I think it would be best if we avoided talking about it. It's a bit of a touchy subject for me.”
“Oh. Sorry,” I said sheepishly.
“Don't worry about it,” she said. “You don't remember, and that makes these conversations far easier than they would be if you did...” She paused. “No,” she amended, “I don't think that's true. You don't seem like the type to judge somepony on their past, let alone rumors and stories.”
“I don't know anypony's past yet, Princess,” I pointed out, “and I haven't heard any rumors or stories about anypony yet, either.”
Princess Luna yawned. “Well, I'm rather tired. We'll talk again tomorrow night- same time, same place.” She giggled.
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