A/N: Ok, so I was writing a super light-hearted, weird-ass, asinine (whatever the hell that even means) chapter, then I thought, FUCK IT. IT'S FIGHTING TIME AGAIN!

Quint, Fionna, and Marshall Lee: Woo!

Me: Gumball's coming along too!

Them: Awwww…

PG: What?

Fionna: Nothing!

Quint and ML: We were saying 'awwww' because we heard you had to come with us to kill stuff.

PG: Hey!

Me: Just kidding! GTFO, PG!

Fionna: You're not nice.

Me: Damn right! Now let me answer a review.

LessThanThreexoxo: I can see you like my story. Thanks for all the feedback. And no he did not adopt himself. Is that even possible? Who he did get adopted by… well, it's REALLY plot relevant, and it might not even be revealed in this story. I don't feel much like delving into Quint's past, because the story isn't about that. And his past is BIG. And dark.

Quint: Oh Glob.

Me: *laughs evilly as he goes to write this*

A/N: Man, I'm easily distracted…

It's Hydra Fighting Time!

It was another late night in Aaa, just a couple of days after the events of Quint's fight with the wyvern. The same trio was lying in the grass just staring at the stars.

"This is nice." Quint said quietly, smiling. "I've always loved staring at the stars." Unbidden, another memory of him staring at the stars flashed in front of his eyes. Staring up at the stars, his vision began to fade. He saw darkness. He wondered if he was going to die. Everything faded to black. Suddenly he felt as though he were rising suddenly, his consciousness being shot from the center of the Earth (he swore he could even see the chunk missing) towards his body at ridiculously high speeds. He slammed back into his body with a start and bolted upright, eyes wide.

"What's wrong?" Fionna asked.

"Nothing." Quint lied easily. He was used to keeping this secret with his life. Not even his closest friends knew his background.

"Dude, seriously?" Marshall Lee asked, raising an eyebrow.

"What?" Quint asked, raising his own eyebrow.

"You've been having a seizure for the past minute." Marshall Lee replied flatly.

Quint swore under his breath. And I mean a really bad swear, from a foreign language. It was actually such an awful swear word, it put words like 'fuck' to shame. It's such an awful word that the people who came up with it never created a written version, because it was just THAT bad. In some places it's a capital offense to utter the word aloud. As such, he said it VERY quietly. But now you have an idea of what raced through his head at that particular moment. Or maybe I overelaborated and you didn't get, or worse you skipped this part entirely.

Moving on, Quint had a stony look on his face, a blank mask that revealed nothing of the turmoil inside his mind. "It's from the Shadow Realm. Nightmares have chased me from that realm and stayed with me. It's nothing to worry about." Quint wasn't exactly lying this time; they were usually confined to his dreams before his expedition. However, Quint's past had been… scarring at best, and he suffered permanent mental damage. His trait of overlooking the obvious? That's not always for kicks. But for the most part, he was fine. He wasn't a psychopathic killer, which was always a plus. Or so he reminded himself every once in a while.

"Maybe you should see a doctor…" Fionna suggested, her voice trailing off with uncertainty.

"I don't think it'll help. Now can we change the subject?" Quint asked, eager to shift the focus of attention away from himself.

Marshall Lee both gave him weird looks, but refrained from further pursuing the subject.

"Let's go kill stuff." Quint suggested, still a little distant, pondering what had just happened. I guess that's just the nature of The Crawler. Not many who've met him can tell of the tale. I should consider myself lucky to be alive, even if I'm Glob knows how far from home.

While he was deep in thought, Fionna and ML had agreed to the idea and already started walking away, talking about a their next jam session, and, when they realized Quint was lost among the stars, about how he was kinda weird.

"I think Quint has issues." Marshall Lee said, lowering his voice.

"You saw what it was like in the Shadow Realm. I think it's incredible that he doesn't have poo brain from all that!" Fionna replied, voice lowered as well.

"I just think he's got issues." Marshall Lee said, deadpan this time. "Maybe it's genetic." He added with a smirk.

"What?" Fionna asked, confused. Not always the smartest, Marshall's insult flew right over head.

Meanwhile Quinterus's thoughts were in a deeper place. He longed for some action to take his mind off things. He remembered back to the old days, where he fought monsters solo, with nothing but his axe and his knife. Those were the days. Sure it was dangerous, but he didn't give a fuck at that point. Then he flashed back to one of the most dangerous creatures he had ever fought. Strangely enough, he hadn't been with the Guild at this time. Irony.

The Hydra. One of the most dangerous dragons to ever roam the face of the Earth. It had nearly killed him. He had just gotten lucky, and managed to survive the encounter. He came back and slew the beast later, again sheer luck on his side. And then he had fought another one. This beast was truly the most dangerous dragon he had ever encountered. Acid, fire, poison gas, ice, sharp objects, buffeting winds (which also smelled bad), and explosive fireballs were the weapons of this creature. Each of the original heads have this power, you see, but when you chop it off, two grow back in its place, each with the power of the original. Eventually you had quite a problem on your hands. It had the weapons of all the dragons, rolled into one. He didn't know why, but thinking about this beast almost made him long to fight one. Except that he didn't want to die, because he was fresh out of several of his larger explosives and had no fire on hand, a rarity for him.

A pyromaniac, that's Quint. He was a violent guy, and he loved putting together high powered explosives, and then firing them at deadly beasts. He was kind of a legend where he came from, a dragon fighter. With nothing but his axe, he killed dragons that slaughtered armies like they were nothing. Wrecked villages of one hundred people. He fought his foes with a determination, and never lost. People said there was not a creature alive that could best him. Quint, however, knew this to be far from true. Quint was well educated, and that was widely known. Why he fought instead of seeking a nobler, intellectual life was unknown. Many said he just loved to fight, that he was a violent man at heart and would be bored to death with any other profession. Some said that he did lead an intellectual life, he simply studied larger animals on the field and discovered and practiced more practical fighting styles. Others still said he was just very prideful; a glory seeker. All of these things are partially true, but they are not the reason he fights dragons and monsters. He has the same hero blood that runs through Fionna's veins, and he too has vowed to fight to defend the people from that which they cannot defend themselves against.

But enough on Quint's past for now, because I don't want to elaborate too much into this yet. The three of them were looking for trouble, or at least a suitable evil monster to fight. Suddenly, Quinterus put up his hand, signaling them to stop and be very quiet. The flapping of wings could be heard overhead, but they were very faint. Quint stared into the distance, and he could just make out wings. A dragon, definitely.

"Look," he said quietly "a dragon!"

"You wanna kill it?" Fionna asked.

"I may be out of explosives, but I can still do it." Quint replied. Marshall Lee and Quint took out their axes and Fionna drew her sword.

"Axes for the win!" Quint said and high-fived Marshall.

"Yeah!" He agreed, grinning.

"Axes are LAME! Swords are where it's AT!" Fionna yelled.

"No, axes!" Marshall Lee shouted back.

"Swords!"

"Axes!"

"Swords!"

"Axes!"

"Swords!"

"Axes!"

"Swor-"

Just then, the dragon roared, loudly. It was closer now, and it was flying straight towards them. It hovered above, them, and they suddenly realized how much bigger it was up close.

"Wait a second, that's…" Quint said in wonder.

"What is it?" Fionna asked.

Then the dragon pulled into a steep dive and landed on the ground in front of them with a huge thump, sending dust everywhere.

"HYDRA!" Quint yelled, rapidly backing away. "Don't turn your back on the blasted thing!"

All three of them backed away from the hydra, weapons raised. One head snapped at Fionna, and without thinking, her warrior reflexes took over and she sliced its head off.

Big mistake.

Two more heads grew back in its place. Quint swore loudly. What a day NOT to have fire, huh Quint? He thought to himself. Of course the traditional method of using fire wasn't the only method, but it was one of the best. The only other way to kill the thing was to kill the actual body, but that was much easier said than done, considering it had seven heads, and each one of its necks were long enough to reach the tip of its tail, even when it was fully extended.

"Let's kill this thing!" Fionna shouted enthusiastically, obviously not realizing the grave danger of the situation at hand.

"I think we're screwed…" Quint said loudly, dodging some acid. The hydra then began a full assault, launching fire, gas, acid, ice, winds, sharp tooth-like objects, and explosives everywhere. Fionna, Quint, and Marshall Lee were doing their best to avoid it all, but couldn't help but take hits. The one advantage that Fionna and Marshall Lee had was that the hydra seemed to direct most of its fury at Quinterus, who had had a lot more practice in dodging these things. Even so, all three were in peril.

Marshall Lee somehow flew straight through all of the heads, and with amazing dexterity, landed a hit on the hydra's actual body. It bellowed in rage and all of the heads turned towards Marshall Lee and started attacking him. This gave Fionna and Quint an opportunity to strike at it. Fionna was closer, however, and reached it first and immediately stabbed it in the heart, her sword plunging in all the way to the hilt. Unfortunately the hydra has a lot of covering over its heart, and the lungs are behind the heart, so Fionna's blow, far from being fatal, only served one purpose: to further enrage the beast. It swung all but two of its heads forward, growing ever wiser to their tricks. Most of them started attacking Quint, but two attacked Fionna. Marshall, Fi, and Quint were once again on the defensive, and slowly being pushed back.

Try as they might, the trio of the greatest warriors in all of Aaa could not best the hydra.

"We need to get out of here!" Quint yelled unnecessarily, as at this point they were all of the same opinion. Think Quint, think! Quint's mind raced, trying to think of how to get away. He concluded nothing short of a miracle would deliver them through this, because he doubted his ability to kill this hydra. He had never fought one with explosives before, so it wasn't that he was thinking of, it was just that this hydra seemed wise to any of the tricks he employed. He knew all dragons were intelligent, they were too dangerous not to be, but this was a whole new level, almost as if someone had formally trained it. And then proceeded to send it after Quint.

Trained hydras? If that's true, then I was totally right in thinking that this place is a lot stranger than anything I've seen before. He hacked with his tomahawk straight at one of the hydra's faces, but did not sever it. He was pleased to see that work. It wouldn't regenerate because it wasn't severed, but it would get in the hydra's way. It still wasn't enough, even with all of them fighting their hardest. They were surely doomed to fail. As they fought, they couldn't help but sever a head every once in a while, whether it be by accident or because they had no choice.

Somehow he ended up back to back with Marshall, heads attacking from all sides.

"Can you fly out of here Marshall?" he asked, yelling over the incredible din of the combat.

"Maybe!" He screamed in response as it got louder.

"Can you take Fionna?" he screamed in reply, the noise now deafening.

"Yeah, but not you!" He yelled back.

"Go!" he yelled. "I'll be fine!" Man Quint's gotta get this lying thing under control. I mean, come on! That one was really obvious.

Marshall obliged anyway, swiftly darting through heads, getting bitten a lot, and grabbed Fionna and yanked her away, flying as fast as he could. Fionna struggled, trying to get out of Marshall Lee's grasp.

"HE'LL DIE!" She screamed at Marshall. "HE'S MY ONLY BLOOD FAMILY AND YOU'RE LEAVING HIM TO DIE!"

Marshall just grimaced, knowing this was all true, and continued to fly, and continued to hold on to Fionna as she screamed horrible things at him. (A/N: Is Marshall getting OOC? Can he even get OOC seeing as he's never had a speaking part? I dunno, but I'll cut back on this violence next chapter and build up relationships between people and stuff like that.)

Quint faced the hydra down, axe in hand as its heads slowly withdrew. The hydra was waiting for him to turn and run. If he did, as soon as he showed his back, death was a certainty. Suddenly Quint was struck with an idea. He rushed up to the hydra at full sprint, hacking at heads left and right as they attacked him, not caring if he severed them. If this failed, he was certainly doomed. As he reached the torso he flipped out his knife. Time seemed to slow down in that instant. The six-inch, curved, wicked sharp blade glinted from the fire behind Quint as he brought it up straight into the wound Fionna had made with her sword. He plunged his arm all the way up through that hole, knife in hand. His blade managed to go through the hydra's heart. He hastily pulled his arm, and of course his precious knife from the hydra so he would not be crushed when it fell. He quickly ran out, slashing with his knife and hacking with his axe all the way. At this point all of the heads Quint had made on his way in had become an unintentional advantage, as the massive amount of heads required more oxygen, which could not be obtained because the heart did not beat, so blood couldn't carry oxygen to them. As such, the movements of the heads were slowed, and when he hacked a head off, it was very slow to regrow. Too slow, in fact because as he turned around to backpedal away, (he still knew it could kill him if it could get at his back) he saw it fall with a colossal thud.

He could have cried in relief. Not many people who have seen a hydra have lived to tell the tale. He had not only seen, but killed three hydras now. He couldn't believe, his luck, he had expected to die.

Still in a state of numb shock, he trudged back to Marshall Lee's house, because he figured Fionna and Marshall Lee would be there, the latter probably very beat up by the former. When he opened the door, he saw Fionna look up, and saw a look of joy spread across her face. He saw a beat up Marshall sitting in the corner a look of wonder in his eyes. (Man, he was REALLY beat up. Don't piss off Fionna!)

"I'm not killing stuff with you guys anymore. What else do you guys do for fun around here?" Quint asked tiredly.

"And where is the bloody shower?"

A/N: Not much to say here except deepest apologies for the long time between this update and the last. Also, I have close to 400 views (holy shit!) and only 5 reviews. Come on people, don't be shy!

Peace out,

-hydraex2