In an instant I stick my fingers in my ears, “Luna, can you cause temporary deafness? Both of us need to be deaf. NOW.”

I’m lucky I didn’t already forget everything. I have no clue how these things actually work, I never encountered one as a player or a DM, but I watched some videos on it. Luna moves her mouth but I obviously can’t hear her. After a second or two it seems she finally understands the gravity of the situation and I see her horn ignite. Another few seconds pass and she nods towards me. Removing my fingers I talk and don’t hear anything, then I point a finger at her head and then point at my own head, rapidly switching between which head I’m pointing at.

She gets the message and an instant later I hear her voice in my head. “Will you please explain what’s going on now?”

“It’s called a False Hydra. It feasts on living creatures in plain sight and relies on its secret weapon to stay hidden. It’s constantly singing a silent lullaby that charms any creature within 5 miles and basically causes them to forget they saw or even know about the false hydra's existence. As it consumes it grows more heads and once it reaches 7 it matures and is capable of wiping out entire countries. When it consumes a creature it wipes out all memories of that creature from anyone that remembers it. When you had those interviews scheduled and then it turned out that you forgot to actually pick the applicants to interview? They were likely the first victims. The spouses that had their loved ones eaten must’ve woken up and wondered why there was guard equipment in their house, but their brain just put together pieces of information and decided their spouse MUST be a guard but since they aren’t around they MUST’VE gone on the expedition to the badlands with the Princess. Your interviews like 2 weeks ago there’s no telling how much damage this thing has done. We need to find it and kill it, right now.”

As I speak I watch her expression darken until I’m finally done. “Then this filly wasn’t abandoned by her parents…”

“No, she likely watched them die. You probably couldn’t even see the hydra in her dream because of its influence. We should gather a squad of guards, get them deafened, and go hunt this fucker down.”

“Take my hoof. I’m teleporting us to the throne room.”

Doing as she says I grasp the hoof being held out towards me and with a flash we’re in the throne room.

Looking around I don’t see Celestia, but I see several guards and at least thirty civilians. I see Luna’s horn engulf itself with a blue aura and instantly every guard in the chamber turns their head towards her. An instant later I hear a cacophony of voices talking over each other in my head before Luna silences them all. “Silence. As of this instant I have dulled your ability to hear and placed you in a telepathic connection with myself and my paladin. Where is my sister?”

Once again several voices begin talking over each other in my head before Luna raises her mental voice again. “One at a time. Please!”

“Princess Celestia just stepped out for lunch, Ma’am! What’s going on?!”

“Our capital is under grave threat from a deadly creature hiding among us. My paladin, Ignis, will explain while we move to the dining hall. Follow me, everypony.”

As we march out of the throne room I explain all of the same details to the guards following us. As I finish up the details of what’s happening we enter the dining hall. Something is wrong though. When we enter the dining hall there are 4 royal guards that I recognize as being part of Celestia’s personal squadron, Shining Armor is with the 4 of them and all 5 of them are standing at the end of the room facing us. Celestia herself is also there, standing behind them. They all look….hostile? Did the hydra finally figure out that it’s been outed and somehow issue commands to Celestia? This is so much worse now…

Luna attempts to cast her deafening spell but Celestia’s horn flashes and Luna winces in pain. Was that a counterspell?! It seems she was only able to prevent Luna's spell from targeting herself and her royal guards because Cadence and LT Force look over towards us in concern and slowly back away from the table. I hear Luna in my head again and she gives a brief explanation to Cadence and her new personal knight. From her explanation it would seem she’s also gathered that Celestia and the guards are under some deeper level of mental compulsion from the hydra.

Luna looks over to me. “Take Force and most of the guards behind you to the sewer. I’ve been sending echo spells out over the city and something massive is sitting in the central sewer chamber under the city. I’ll stay here with a few guards plus Cadence and we’ll hold my sister at bay so she doesn’t hurt anypony. Be quick Ignis, I’m not sure how long I can hold her back without also causing injuries to her.”

After a quick nod from the former Lieutenant I point out 7 guards to stay behind and quickly start sprinting towards the exit of the castle. While we run I attempt to store a Haste spell in my Moonblade so I can stack my normal buff spells once we get to the Hydras domain, but nothing happens. I remember the scream I heard from the blade when I channeled that strengthened smite into the sword and realize I must have damaged the ancient soul residing within.

“I haven't had a chance to mention this yet, Ignis. You absolutely must not use mana. You strained your inner mana channels quite severely during your stunt with Chrysalis, and continuing to use mana when they’re in this state will likely lead to you being unable to use magic for the rest of your life. It’ll likely be months before you can continue practicing magic. Please be careful, my paladin.” Luna randomly informs me over the telepathic link as I make it out of the castle and into Canterlot proper. Well. That blows.

Our group of 26 made our way through the busy streets of the city and once we’re a few blocks away from the manhole we were planning to use as our entry point, the entire mountain began to rumble and shake.

“Look alive, it’s coming to us!” I call out over the group mind link.

3rd Person POV (A/N: Seriously, there’s way too many fuckin people to use initiative order)

Just as the elf predicted, seconds later cracks and fissures erupted all over the ground as stark white tendrils protruded through the gravel roads. An instant later a massive sinkhole opened and seven white stalks erupted from it. Each neck was wider than a pony and decorated with mouths and eyes. Although the combatants couldn’t hear it, each mouth on the neck was muttering out distorted mimicry of somepony’s final words. The beast let out an ear piercing screech as the seven pony heads atop each neck flailed around trying to determine which creature would be its next meal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S0QhGGO1gQ

The all too familiar aura of a bladesong engulfs Ignis as he stacks the haste buff on top of it. Every guard present except for the new Knight of Love freezes in fear the sheer size of the beast. Force takes to the sky and with a flick of her wings both limbs are covered in razor sharp blades. She flies off to the left before turning and flying towards the hydra, Ignis runs to the right for a few steps before sprinting towards the creature from the opposite side. The far left head of the hydra cocks its head towards the incoming living projectile and attempts to bite at her, but she reacts far too quickly. Performing a barrel roll to the side, the head whiz’s past her as her rapidly rotating form slightly angles her wings to the right and leaves a series of lacerations along the length of the neck she flies next to.

At the same time the far right head arches its neck up into the air before launching itself, with its mouth open, directly towards the elf currently sprinting towards it. Ignis skids a stop and does a small jump backwards as the head crashes into the road, burying itself slightly. The bladesinger then leaps up onto the neck and he runs up the hydra. Once he’s a few steps up the neck the beast pulls its head out of the ground causing the elf to stumble a bit. After passing an athletics check Ignis steadies him before pulling back the Moonblade and stabbing directly at the neck under his feet. With a loud chink noise the point of sword veers off to the side, unable to pierce the creatures neck. Whether he just didn’t put enough force into it or he lacked the force due to his unstable footing, it’s anyone's guess.

Gritting his teeth he jumps into the air and lets out a roar as he aims to deliver a horizontal slash longways across the neck. The blade connects and right as it makes contact a bright flash of silver light erupts across the blade and the cut erupts with the sound of an explosion. The blade cuts right through and decapitates the head as Ignis connects with level 4 smite Critical Hit. With a reactionary Feather Fall the elf lands gracefully on the ground at the same time as the decapitated head.

Both of these wounds happen at the same time and the result is instant. All of the remaining heads let out a cry of pain before instantly launching themselves into the non-moving crowd of guards. They arch down towards the ground as if they’re going to bury themselves the same way the far right head did, but right before they hit the ground they turn all of their momentum horizontal. Looking like a bunch of pure white bullets the head fly towards the crowd just above the ground and although all of the guards at the front of the formations are quick enough to dodge, the ones in the 2nd and 3rd ranks are not so lucky.

In an instant the 26 creature entourage is reduced to 20. One of the heads was quick enough to snatch up two guards in the same bite. Everyone present watches with horror as lumps appear in five of the necks that seem to slowly move back towards the sinkhole all of the heads erupted from. They can do nothing but watch in real time as 6 of their comrades are swallowed, slowly.

Quickly getting over the initial shock the frozen guards finally begin to run and spread out, firing off magical bolts, throwing spears. Suddenly a loud crack sounds off in the air and everyone looks up to see Force blitzing down towards the sinkhole. She hasn’t quite broken the sound barrier but there’s a pulsing red cone in front of her. Her irises flashing pink as a glowing light can be seen exuding out from under her armor where her cutie mark would be.

One of the guards calls out over the telepathic link, “It’s her special talent! I never thought I’d get to see it in the flesh!” Her special talent? Ignis’ mind flashes back to when he recovered her unarmored form from the changeling pod, her cutie mark looked similar to a magic missile but larger. “Does she become the missile?! Unstoppable Force, duh.” He can’t help but let out a soft chuckle as he puts the pieces together. He watches as her form disappears into the sinkhole.

An instant later a bright red light flashes and the entire body of the hydra slowly emerges out of the sinkhole. A second later and the entire hydra is above ground, with a red missile pushing into the belly of the beast, lifting it even higher. She lets out a motivating roar as she continues to lift the entire hydra into the air above Canterlot, but of course none of the combatants can hear it.

Eventually the light fades out and they all watch in awe as the colossal amalgamation picks up speed and starts to fall back down to earth. When the hydra impacts with the ground dust and dirt kicks up into a massive cloud, and although unheard by everyone around, the beast releases a loud squelch of pain the contents of its stomach was unleashed onto the ground.

Once the dust fades everyone lets out a mental cheer as they see the 6 guards that were devoured slowly rise to their feet, covered in icky goop. “Everypony focus up. I can only do that once.” Her mental speech is clear but Force is panting for breath as she hovers in the air where she dropped the hydra. Drops of sweat all over her head and body.

With renewed vigor the guards all send out another volley, when suddenly Luna calls out over the link. “Ignis, my sister and her guards are back to normal. We’re headed over now but be careful! If it released control on her it must be planning something.”

Ignis cannot respond as he watches in horror. Six civilians appear from nowhere and jump in front of the oncoming barrage of magic bolts. Thinking quickly he upcasts Scorching Ray to 5th level and sends a spear of fire to intercept all bolts. “No one else will die to this monster!” Each spear of fire connects with the magical bolts and they explode inches from the mind controlled civilians. They all land on the ground with some minor injuries, but seem to be okay as they look around confused.

The bladesong aura intensifies as he sprints over to the currently prone form of the hydra. The heads all flail about as it tries to turn its body back into an upright position. Ignis quickly unleashes two slashes into the neck that was already left with several cuts from the pegasus’ barrel roll. They both leave deep gashes that let out claps of thunderous roar from smite. The second gash causes a bright green fire to explode out and creep up the neck of the monster as the flame jumps over and starts to consume a 2nd neck. It would seem each head counts as a separate creature for Green-Flame Blade. After a couple seconds of the burning the first neck seems to turn to ash as the head falls away from the body and disintegrates.

Two down. Ignis thinks to himself.

Even more civilians start running into the fray as Ignis pivots and turns his body towards the head still covered in green flame. With a slash that's almost too fast to see a wave of light erupts as a long and deep slicing wound appears on the neck.

3 level one spell slots, 1 level two slot, 1 level three slot, and 2 level four slots left. Should be plenty.

Suddenly two beams of blinding light shoot down from the sky and instantly cut off two more heads. One of the beams is a pure silver and the other is a bright orange. Two alicorns land behind the elf. Ignis looks to the left and see’s over 50 small blue shields surrounding all the civilians in sight. They look confused as the shields start to slowly move and push all of the ponies away from the fight.

Suddenly a smaller but equally bright beam of pink light erupts as another head is blasted off of the beast. All the remaining heads let out a scream of pain before going limp on the ground, and Cadence lands a few feet away from the trio with her knight next to her. A few seconds later the gift of hearing is returned to everyone that was just locked in combat.

“Glad you all showed up when you did. We were just barely managing but things were close to going sideways.” Ignis calls out to the new arrivals.

“Were there any casualties?” Celestia questions the Lunar Knight.

“Almost, but Cadence's knight pulled off a spectacular move and saved six guards. How about on your end?”

Force interrupts, “Hey, don’t sell yourself short! That was some quick thinking to save those civilians. I would’ve never thought anypony could intercept magic like that!”

Luna smiles at the elf when she hears the pegasus and answers his original question. “A few bruises but we held our own pretty well.” She looks around at all the damage to the nearby buildings and the road before sighing. “Let’s take a few hours to recuperate and get started on fixing all of this.”

Before anyone can reply the ground starts to violently shake. Everyone turns to look at the deceased hydra in shock as Celestia yells out, “What’s going on?! I confirmed that it was dead!”

Even Ignis is a bit confused because he was awarded XP when all the heads went limp. His face crumples in thought for a second before the realization hits. “Death Throes! Everyone back up, this isn’t ov-”

All the severed heads on that hydra instantly regrow and before he can finish his warning all the heads whip around and scream as pure destruction is unleashed on the city. A cloud of dust obscures everyone's vision as anything close to the hydra is knocked back with a massive blow. Wood can be heard splintering and cracking as all the buildings on this block are destroyed and whipped by the frantic flailing of the dying hydra.

Ignis raises his head and sees that he’s over 30 feet away from where was previously standing. Looking around he sees Luna and Celestia slowly stagger to their feet, just to the left of them Cadence is still lying on the ground. Where buildings once stood there’s now just piles of rubble as prone and unconscious ponies litter the ground. He tries to stand but with a quick shock he drops down onto his back.

I failed the concentration check on Haste. Getting stunned for 1 turn is so brutal for one bad dice roll. Wait. I saw Luna, Celestia, and Cadence, but where’s Lieuten… Knight.. For…? Who?

A deep look of panic and confusion strikes his face. He knows someone else important was with them, but can’t remember their name… He looks at the colossal monster and sees a lump slowly moving down one of the necks of the creature.

NO!

Ignis calls out the alicorns as he rises to his feet, applying Haste to himself one more time. “You three get everyone out of harm's way. I’m going to end this.”

As they attempt to question what he plans they’re interrupted by two screeching heads launching straight towards the elf. He lowers himself down into a stance as he readies himself to meet the hydra head-on. A silver light erupts from the elf as all the wounds on his body glow and close themselves shut.

For the second time today. Ignis levels up.

He sprints straight towards the heads and jumps into the air, watching as they both speed under him. Quicker than sound he unleashes two slashes and two level 4 smites. Both heads are instantly severed.

Ignis lands on the limp necks and continues to run towards the hydra, the quick act of brutality has caused everyone present to stare at the elf, they all can’t help but wonder what they’re about to see.

He flourishes his blade once more and then with a flash of light he’s gone. Suddenly like a blur it appears like he’s in five places at once. Five quick flashes of light appear and to the naked eye it seems like he’s teleporting between the five heads, bright silver lines appear on each neck.

Suddenly he appears on the ground just a few feet away from the hydra and he slides his Moonblade back into its scabbard. As soon as the blade clicks into place all five remaining heads on the hydra disconnect from the body.

The elf then quickly runs over to the disembodied neck that contained the lump of his friend and he watches as a white pegasus rolls out of the limb and onto the ground, covered in mucus. Disregarding the sticky substance he immediately lunges onto the guard and wraps his arms around her. “Knight of Love, Unstoppable Force! Lieutenant Force! That’s your name!”

She just looks confused as she lets out a laugh, wiping her eyes clear.

“Yes sir, that’s me!”

Author's Note

I said this was going to be a super short arc! Hopefully you guys aren't too disappointed with how quickly the hydra went down. Realistically I could've had Ignis instantly forget and come up with some way for him to get a note from himself to go to the everfree with Luna so they'd be far enough away from the hydra and then had them figure everything out and deafen themselves to return to Canterlot, but that just seemed like a roundabout unnecessary way to get things done.

A couple tweaks I gave to the hydra before anyone questions the mechanics.

https://www.worldanvil.com/block/1309409

This is the statblock I used as my base, but I tweaked a few things. Lowered its AC to 18, increased its HP to 478, made the part where victims are forgotten an inherent trait to the hydra and NOT part of it's magical song, and then added a huge AoE explosion to the activation of it's death throes. Any questions about interactions in this chapter or mechanics or why something didn't work like you think it should just ask in the comments and I'll be happy to explain either my thought process for why i had the interaction work that way or I'll just smile and say woops I forgot that part, haha.

Lastly, Steel Wind Strike is such a cool fucking spell and I'm so happy we get to finally see it in action.

Thanks for reading!