Gold Plate flinched. He watched in horror as Fulltrot fell to his spine. The elder bucked and panted and struggled to kick away at the ravaging jaws of a reptilian snout bearing down on him.
“Everypony!” Gold Plate shouted to the misty air, grimacing. “There's a giant monster attracking Fulltrot!”
No sooner was this uttered when the beast found itself being impaled by an interrupting prismatic pegasus.
“Hrggghhh!” Rainbow Dash snarled. Gold Plate saw her ruby eyes burning across the fog as she flung her forelimbs around the creature's serpentine throat. “Not... Today...!”
The eel-like creature thrashed and hissed, trying in aggravated futility to toss Rainbow Dash loose. Just then, three large shadows loomed just beyond the nearby trees.
“Look out!” Red Turnip's voice shouted from the sea of collapsed stallions.
“I see 'em!” Rainbow Dash violently twisted her wings. She flung the creature's neck around in time for its face to bear the impact of three more snouts identical to it. Four snake-like craniums collapsed against each other, filling the air with the sickly sound of rattling skulls. All four heads shook dizzily, then snarled after the blue pegasus. They lunged, one after another, snapping the air behind her darting tail with serrated jaws.
Rainbow Dash soared towards the top of the trees, disappearing beyond the haze. All four snakes chased after her, rising up, revealing themselves to be anything but pythons. The four necks were attached to a hulking orange torso with a thashing tail. Stomping over the caravan, the gigantic abomination leapt into the woods, where it disappeared into a hidden cacophony of growling noises, gnashing fangs, and snapping branches.
Gold Plate—summoning a sane breath—galloped over and helped a wincing Fulltrot back to his hooves. “What... What is that thing?”
“Nnngh... a h-hydra,” Fullfrot wheezed. “This smog is worse than I thought. To think it's blanketed our homeland for so long that monstrosities such as that have moved in...”
“What are we going to do?”
“What we came to do,” Fulltrot said. “Deliver the equipment to Windthrow and hope to stave off the smoke from the mountain a little longer.”
“No, I mean about Rainbow Dash!”
Fulltrot's lips curved ever so slighty. “My child, do you actually think that pegasus needs any help?”
Gold Plate fidgeted. A blue figure suddenly plummeted to the earth behind him. He and several ponies spun gasping, watching.
“Aughh... Dang it..” Rainbow Dash sat up, rubbing her posterior. “I really REALLY hate landing on my butt.”
Three giant snouts lunged at her from the mists.
“Waaugh!” She jumped up, hovered over their strikes, kicked the left one away, and grabbed hard onto the one on the right. “You!” She growled and wrestled its jaws shut. “You're the one! I can smell him on you!”
The hydra head merely hissed and jabbed its chin into her. She took the blow directly to her pendant.
“Daaaah!” She shrieked, and for the tinieist moment her voice took on an ethereal quality. She trembled, her body overwhelmed with a sudden dizziness. When she reopened her eyes, they were briefly red-on-yellow specks. A flickering twitch to her vision: the fire immediately flew to her lungs as she yelled and spun to face the hydra-head dead-on. Suddenly, the ruby bolt of her pendant glowed brightly, blinding the one cranium of the creature entirely.
The hydra's head winced, whimpered, and fell limply to the ground. As soon as it landed, Rainbow Dash perched atop his crown. Her pendant no longer glowing, she planted both of her hooves tightly against the monster's eyelids.
The other three heads hovered around, hissed, and lunged down at her.
“Stop!” she shouted at them, frowning. Her hooves squirmed against the one head's eyes with emphasis. “Or—I swear—I'll poke them out! You'll be spending the rest of your lives dragging around a blind brother! How much do you plan to eat with THAT kind of a handicap?”
The three skulls paused just inches from devouring her. They glared, several forked tongues darting in and out of their mouths.
The stallions of the caravan slowly stood up. They gathered at a reasonable distance from this tense scene in the middle of the misty forest.
“They...” Gold Plate thought aloud. “They actually have thinking brains—?”
“Shhh!” Fulltrot uttered harshly. He stared patiently at what was unfolding.
“Now that I've got all of your attention...” Rainbow Dash slapper her hoof across the crown of the head beneath her. The creature groaned in response. She leaned down and growled, “Cough him up!”
The hydra-head snorted.
“I mean it! Do it now, before I get angry!”
There was a guttural hissing sound, then a gurgling noise. Opening its maw wide, the hydra-head coughed, sputtered, and spat up an equine figure covered in slime.
“Snnnkt-gaaaaah!” Ironhoof rolled over, sputtering and panting for breath. He was covered frome mane to tail in green ooze and half-digested gunk. “Nnnngh—Jeeeez, I don't wanna be doing that again!”
“Yo! Dude!” Red Turnip scampered over. So did several other ponies. The air filled with murmuring voices as many of Ironhoof's comrades gathered by his side.
Rainbow Dash smirked proudly. “Whoah!” she rasped as the head hoisted up from underneath her. She hovered at an even level with the four skulls, staring the entirety of the creature down. Satisfied that it wasn't trying to move, she glanced down at Gold Plate. “Hey! That stuff you're carrying! Got any meat left in it?”
Gold Plate glanced at Rainbow Dash, at the hydra, then at Rainbow Dash again. “You can't be serious—”
“Hoof it over!” Rainbow Dash motioned. “Or else this thing is gonna keep nibbling on ponies like us for the next month!”
Gold Plate fidgeted. Reluctantly, he reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a chunk of tanned red jerky. He tossed it up at Rainbow Dash.
The pegasus grabbed the unsavory material. Rather then hold it any second longer, she immediately tossed it to the quartet of fangs in front of her.
All four heads snatched it at once, pulling it into stringy quarters. The hydras dined on the substance, gulped it down, and gave Rainbow Dash on last glare before slowly turning around and marching off into the misty woods.
“You better not let me catch you trying to swallow anypony ever again!” Rainbow Dash called after them, her wings flapping hard as punctuation. “Or I'll tie your necks in a knot so tight, not even your mom could pull you loose!”
“Ummmghnng... Ugh...” Ironhoof spat and moaned in the thundering exit of the wretched beast.
“Hey there, slugger,” Red Turnip uttered as he squatted beside the stallion. “Speak to us.”
“I've seen the light, and it was disgusting.”
“Well, at least you smell better than usual.”
“Heh. Any chance you can toss me back?”
Ha! Nice action sequence. I like these doses of fiction.
Awesome Dash was awesome. This is to be expected.
So... Awesome!
me thinks ironhoof would be dead...lewl who cares! Awesome Dash is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
IIIIIt's Dashie's evaluation time!
This was a great chapter! Rainbow was truly awesome, but I think I speak for all of the readers when I say that there is a part of this chapter that unnerved me. It was when the element of loyalty necklace was struck and Dash's eyes did that weird red on yellow thing again. Perhaps Discord isn't gone after all...These are my thoughts so far.
-MASH
Interrupting prismatic pegasi ftw!
And Dashie was once again amazing. I am not surprised.
I am sooo happy the "action" sequence was reasonably paced and this long. I like long descriptions of settings but tend to zone out when action pieces go on too long.
Also, plus 1 for having cartoon logic. It's way too easy for dark themes and plot to lead to the the monsters being overly scary or the physics too realistic. And that just wouldn't be mlp.
“I mean it! Do it now, before I get angry!”
"You won't like me...when I'm angry..."
Silver out!
Still saying the Element is the only thing keeping her alive at the moment...
And Rainbow Dash is awesome, defeating the hydra in a funny way. This story is so great, I might have to skip commenting on some chapters, just to keep reading. Forcing myself to type a few word takes too long when it's just a single click to move onto another page of glory.
So I remember when RD fought the hydra. That means that we're getting pretty close to the Windthrow arc, an astonishingly large portion of this story, at least in my opinion. I'm kind of excited to get in it, but honestly it's hard to face the fact that the beautiful nondialouge chapters that we all know and love are going to be rapidly dwindling in frequency. So when we get into Windthrow, and say you get bored or something, because I did for a chapter or two, stick with it. Many Austraeoh crazed veterans will tell you that one of the best scenes in this story comes at the end of this arc. Also, two of my favorite mini arcs come right after, and both of these stand very high in my rankings for the entire series, so... yeah. I guess I'm saying this so new people to the story won't get up and leave due to the switch up of story telling technique. Here's some links.
Never mind, its way too hard to find fitting music that isn't three hours long.
Oh, hey, Rainbow Dash is being awesome. Nice.
Okay... I'm probably a little unusual among readers of this. I'd heard of it before, but (being semi-detached from the main thrust of the fandom) I didn't know who you were, so as far as I was concerned, I was reading a story by an unknown author. I'd almost rather it had stayed that way, but c'est la vie. (I won't be more specific, since it seems unfair to others who'd rather not know.) As far as possible, though, I'll comment as I would have done anyway.
This is interesting. Good things first. I actually quite like the idea of a story where you don't find out what's going on for quite a while -- and given that I know there are all those sequels, I suspect that there are still things left unanswered for those who are bang up to date. I love adventure stories, so that's a big plus. Rainbow herself seems more interestingly written than she often is. Another big tick. And the ponies in the caravan seem to have their own secrets as well, so that's intriguing. Most importantly of all, it's doing enough to make me want to keep reading. And that, I guess, is every storyteller's first aim.
Less good things: the language seems a little off, especially at first. It reads... well, like a (good) high-school writer who's determined not to use too many simple words. Flowery language isn't really one of my favourite things, even though I sometimes use it myself. There are a few too many silly typos (either you decided not to proof-read this or didn't have it done very thoroughly) and the occasional plain error. "Uttered", for example, needs to be accompanied by whatever it is that's been uttered; using it as a direct replacement for "said" ain't really on.
As far as the story itself goes, for some reason I didn't find the quarray eel encounter very involving; the hydra one was a good deal more exciting, possibly because of the deep involvement of other ponies by that time. I'm also waiting to see what happens when Rainbow's asked what she's doing, and the questioner doesn't simply accept it when she says nothing. That's happened two or three times already. and it's starting to feel unrealistic. (He said, when talking about a world of talking ponies. But hey ho.)
So, what do I think's going on? A pure guess: Rainbow mentions early on that her voice was used for "yelling", so I'm guessing that she's had a major argument over something, and that this has -- directly or otherwise -- led to her departure. That said, you've drawn too much attention to her loyalty for that to mean nothing, so something may have happened to break up the Mane Six's "Fellowship". Discord seems too obvious, so maybe something entirely new. Possibly, being Dash, something as silly as betting she can find the place where Celestia raises the Sun. It would be in the east, after all!
Right; enough rambling for now. I don't guarantee to read all million-plus words of this saga, and indeed I don't guarantee to read even to the end of this story. But that's my intention right now. There will come a time at which I'll probably give up if there's still no end in sight, even if that end is far off. But I'm certainly not there yet. We shall see what we shall see...
Yeah, but the smog though.
Very interesting. it would appear that the element contains a part of Discord or discordant magic.
That. Was. Awesome. Ironhoof is saved! Thank Moontush that Hydras eat like snakes, swallowing things whole. That was surprisingly funny, and Rainbow is epic in battle. On the note of landing on her ass, does she prefer to land on her face instead? Then again, she's probably more used to it. Now, onwards and upwards!
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Moontush. Hah!
5790168 ...why did I not realize that.
4612876 So how far did you end up getting?
Austraeohaiku
25. Hydra
Hydra vs. Pone
Pone threatens to blind hydra
Ironhoof gets slimed
And thus begins the glorious legacy of giving shoutouts to commenters without ever leaving a comment. That's like... 100 chapters earlier than I remembered, or something.
Also, what a soft, cuddly fight scene. Big honking monsters don't tend to come out of fights with Rainbow in nearly that good of shape later on.
Rainbow shows her skill, and also her merciful side here. It takes strength to fight ones enemies, but even more to let them live.
02/14/2017 19:30 GMT
Hydras are nice.
Hooray, the boi has made it! I was honestly expecting the dude to just blink out like that, guess that would've been a bit too dark this early on.
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...love it
Aw yeah, Rainbow Dash took on a hydra! And lived! And saved another pony! Action! Awesomeness! Red-on-yellow eyes!
I love these things and thus, this chapter.
Super big spoilers for later books (Utaan and onward) below. This comment is for fellow re-readers and the author.
Hey, she seems to be kinda sorta channeling some Fluttershy here, doesn't she? With being able to talk to it. Not only that, but Fluttershy's ghost can sense other living things once she's released from her Yaerfaerda beacon, like how Rainbow senses which hydra head has Ironhoof. Wooooo! I love how stuff like that comes together much later. What a wait to connect those dots but still, very cool.
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and after researching the name of the book you mentioned, I realized how big this saga is, it's just wonderful
Snakes... why'd it have to be snakes?