We both leaped into action, Jen rocketing ahead of me and grabbing the crusaders and Twist in her arms and rocketing away at extreme speeds. I drew my sword as I charged , bringing it to bear across the side of the hydra's leg. I spread my wings again and grabbed Snips, Snails, and Button and rushed to get clear as the hydra collapsed behind me. I saw Jen flying back at the hydra and I set the colts down with the crusaders and Twist before following Jen back to the angered hydra. It had pushed itself back up and was unsteadily standing with enraged expressions. I yelled to Jen as she darted around it.

"Jen! We gotta draw it away from the town and back towards the forest!"

She nodded and nailed one of its faces with a  beam of energy. It roared at her, only then to turn back to where the town was and start for it. I dove onto its back and slashed one of its four heads with my sword. It turned and all four heads started snapping at me. Jen dove below me and transformed one of her arms into a laser cannon. She blasted the leg I had already cut, and the hydra went down again. I was caught off guard as it grabbed my leg in one of its heads and thrown as it went down. I recovered in midair with only a minor cut on my leg. I landed on the ground in time for Twilight to run up.

"Kyth! What's going on?!"

"Some foals pissed off a hydra! We can't lure it off though, and Jen and I aren't experienced enough with our new forms to handle a long battle with something like this. We're gonna have to put it down, or else it could do some serious damage to the town."

She nodded resolutely. I opened my wings and drew my sword. I yelled to Jen when I got airborne.

"Jen! We gotta put this thing down! Get it into the air and I can get him with my sword!"

She nodded and dove, getting below it before it realized what was happening. Jen spread her wings and grabbed it, lifting it into the air. I flew down to the ground as Jen rocketed downward with it, planting my sword into its chest. It roared in anger and pain. I brought my sword down and tore out of it. With a final roar the hydra collapsed, its upper half landing in the forest. I exhaled and Jen landed next to me. We looked at each other for a moment before yelling.

"Yeah! We came, we saw, and we kicked its ass!"

We both whooped and high-fived, before hearing the cheers of foals.

"Whoa!"

We turned and saw the foals we had saved rush up to us. The crusaders and Twist charged up to Jen, and the colts to me. Snips spoke to me first.

"Holy shoot! You took down that hydra in two moves mister!"

Snails nodded ecstatically and cheered.

"Yeah! That was awesome!"

Button yelled in excitement.

"That was so cool! You were all 'pshing!' and then it was all 'raaaaar!' and then she was all 'KAPEW!' Who are you guys!?"

Around Jen the Crusaders spoke up, first Applebloom then Sweetie Belle. I looked up and saw Jen getting a bit wigged while silently preparing a response.

"That was awesome!"

"Yeah! How'd you shoot all those magic blasts and stuff?"

Scootaloo spoke up next, looking at us with wide eyes and was followed by Twist.

"You looked like you were as fast as Rainbow Dash!"

"That wath really thump'thin! Who are you guyth?"

She looked up at me with a nervous expression, clearly wigged out from all the foals swarming around, and I decided to take the lead in this. Jen always did get a bit bugged out by being surrounded by too many people in a crowd, and it seemed that them being ponies made little difference. As I spoke up I reached out and put an arm around her shoulders like I would've on Earth to help her calm down.

"Greetings foals of Ponyville! I am Cthulhu and this is my special someone Jenny XJ9! I'm a knight questing for a power which was stolen from me by becoming a true hero and Jen is a robotic warrior and a defender of the innocent!"

All of the foals gave us ecstatic looks of excitement.

"Cool!"

The foals barraged us with questions but Jen cut them off, now recovered.

"Wait a second! Why did you have a hydra chasing you in the first place?"

They all lost their excitement and looked bashful.

"Ehehehheheheh... We kinda... sorta... may have been looking for if it had a hoard of treasure."

Jen and I both facepalmed.

"Why did you think that a hydra would have treasure?"

I said slowly. I was actually curious as to their thought process.

"Well dragons keep hoards, right? And a hydra is sorta like a dragon so we thought that maybe it would have cool treasure and stuff too. And we figured it would be best to have a bunch of ponies to get it so..."

Jen spoke next in a parental 'we are not mad just disappointed voice'.

"Well we're going to have to tell your families what you've been up to. One of you could have gotten hurt from this!"

I put a hand on her shoulder and she sighed.

"Though at least you had the sense to try and get help. Well might as well tell us who you kids are."

The crusaders spoke first.

"I'm Sweetie Belle!"

"I'm Applebloom!"

"I'm Scootaloo!"

"And we're..."

Jen bent her pigtails over where her ears would be and I attempted to do the same with two of the tentacles on my face.

"THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!"

I looked behind us and saw a number of ponies hiding upon hearing them nearby. The rest of the foals spoke next.

"I'm Snips!"

"I'm Snails!"

"I'm Twitht!"

"I'm Button Mash!"

Twilight walked up and told us she would take the crusaders to their sisters (Scootaloo went to Rainbow Dash oddly, as Scoots got defensive whenever her parents were talked about and thusly Rainbow Dash was the only mare who could take her home) and then left us to take the rest of the foals. After that Jen and I took the rest of the foals. First Button Mash, whose mom looked ready to murder me for holding Button on my shoulder. Button managed to cut her off though before she attacked me for holding her child.

"No wait mom! It's okay! These two saved me and the other foals from a hydra!"

"They saved you from a WHAT!?"

A short explanation later Buttons mom had sent him to his room and came back to talk to us.

"Sorry for my son, sometimes he doesn't realize how dangerous things can be."

Jen laughed and  spoke.

"It's alright ma'am. We're just dropping off the foals and making sure their parents know what happened."

She nodded.

"Well thank you for what it's worth. And I will definitely be having a talk with Button about this."

Most of the encounters with the foals' families went this way, with their parents nearly killing us but then having their foals explain we weren't monsters and that we'd saved them. From this we learned that Bon-Bon as she was called was Twist's aunt and Snips was raised by a mare named Sugar Mill (a small earth pony mare with a white coat and an orange mane similar to Snips) and Snails by a mare named Spice Mix (a unicorn mare with the same coat as snails but a brown mane). A few minutes later Jen and I nearly died laughing when we realized that Snips and Snails were raised by Sugar and Spice. After that we headed to the library to meet with Spike and Twilight, and tomorrow Jen and I planned to go with Spike to fill out the paperwork for us to get citizenship. As it was Twilight still thought we were part of the test but Spike was cool with us and had promised to talk with Celestia to help us get situated. As it turned out Spike was smarter than the show made him out to be, and was smart enough to know some of what we would need to live here in Equestria. It was late afternoon and into the evening when we were finally back at the library after dropping off the foals, and I decided to take a look into reading about magic. I figured that if Cthulhu had magic in the game, then maybe I could adapt some Equestrian magic for me to use myself. While I was reading in one of the guest rooms, sitting in a recliner Jen talked with Spike about what we'd do tomorrow. After a few minutes Jen entered the room and sat down in my lap and we talked about what I'd learned from the book, and then I remembered something.

"Oh yeah Jen I just remembered!"

"What?"

I took out Sombra's horn from my pocket.

"This!"

"Holy crap I thought that was destroyed..."

"Yeah but in the show it just shows it flying off with the rest of him. But in the show his horn was all kinds of magical. The tip could make crystals, and he could regenerate it when it was cut off. I grabbed it from the air when he got exploded though, so if it has the ability to regenerate him then we can keep him imprisoned."

"And if not?"

"If it doesn't remake him then I'm gonna make a wand or something out of it."

She laughed at this and I put the horn back in my pocket. The two of us sat there a while, Jen holding the book and me holding her. At some point Jen fell asleep (or into sleep mode or whatever) and I sighed contently and did the same.

I didn't know then all that would lie ahead.

But as long as I had Jen, I knew that everything would be alright. Next Chapter: Chapter Five: Home is Where The Lump Which Pumps That Black Sludge Is Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours, 41 Minutes