The tannish-brown pegasus stepped toward what little glimmers of sunlight she could see through the cracks in the tunnel. The archaeologist-adventurer known as Daring Do examined her surroundings. This was certainly not the Sky Temple she had been flying through moments earlier. This place was underground, not above the ground. Also, her four hooves were firmly planted on solid ground, despite not having landed anywhere when she made this apparent transition. She didn’t even remember making a transition.
The young pegasus gave a resolute sigh, adjusted her pith helmet and walked toward the light. Snap! Daring Do gasped and jumped backwards, starting to take to the air. She had activated a booby trap consisting of a row of spears jutting out from a break in the wall. The spears themselves were not nearly as surprising as what was attached to them. Daring Do tried not to scream as she fell back on her flank and covered her mouth with her hoof. The decayed remains of a tall, bipedal creature were impaled by the spears. The creature’s jaw hung open in a silent scream, and even worse, Daring could see where the rotting flesh was starting to peel from the bones, revealing a bloated tongue and ghastly row of teeth.
Daring Do quietly crept past the spears, trying not to look at the corpse. She had never seen such an animal in her life, and could not even identify it. Under different circumstances, she would have loved the opportunity to examine the thing in an autopsy, but she didn’t even know where she was.
Daring continued on, not even surprised when she noticed a flurry of tarantulas beginning to collect on her back. She had seen spiders before, and casually brushed them off, almost smiling as she noticed them scurrying from the nooks and crannies in the wall.
“Señor, please, señor…” a distinctly male voice said from up ahead.
Daring Do cringed upon hearing the unfamiliar voice, partly because he shared a somewhat similar accent to her nefarious arch-nemesis, Ahuizotl. The pegasus trotted ahead, only to find herself staring at another bipedal creature who was very much alive.
It was a tall and haggard looking young male with a greasy black mane and sweaty, dirty clothes. It looked down at the tan pegasus in utter amazement who warily stepped backward. Neither of them had ever seen a being such as the other.
“Uh…hello?” Daring Do said, attempting to be friendly, holding out her hoof.
“Hola…” the male said, curiously rubbing the stubble on his face, and then rubbing his eyes.
“I’m Daring Do.” the pegasus greeted, “What’s your name?”
The male creature, thinking his liquor was getting the best of him, bent down and touched the small creature. Daring Do winced as the male rubbed her mane with his large, clumsy hands, starting to yank her fur.
“Hey! Cut it out! That hurts!” she complained.
When the male was convinced that the small pegasus was indeed real, he gave a devious smirk, believing that he had perhaps found a greater treasure than the artifact that his apparently missing American companion was looking for.
Without warning, Daring felt herself being lifted from the ground and carried in the opposite direction. At first she was too caught off guard to resist, but soon started struggling.
“Hey! Put me down!” she yelled, “Let me go, you creep!”
“Silencio!” the male ordered, trying his best to hold his captive still and run at the same time.
The man soon found himself at the mouth of the temple, looking at the sunlight ahead.. He was starting to become annoyed at the pony’s flapping, kicking, and screaming. Daring finally bit down on his arm, causing him to yelp in pain and release his grip. She began to fly toward the sunlight with the man giving chase, shouting and cursing in Spanish.
Daring Do flew out of the cavern into an unfamiliar jungle. Before she realized it, she had knocked straight into the chest of another bipedal creature, knocking him to the ground. She stepped off the man’s chest and found herself surrounded by a crowd of these strange animals. They wore nothing but cloth skirts around their waist, unlike the other man, and were armed with swords and spears, all aimed at Daring Do.
The man Daring Do had knocked over started to catch his breath, stood up, and brushed himself off. He wore a khaki outfit, not unlike Daring Do’s shirt, and also had his own pith helmet. He placed it back on his head and looked down at the animal that had knocked him over. It was like nothing he had ever laid eyes on. It almost looked like a young horse, but did not have the precise size and shape of an actual foal, not to mention it had the wings of an avian creature, and the shape of a compass rose embedded into its fur.
“What…are you?” the man asked, in an accent different from the male who had grabbed her, but still different than that of Daring Do’s region.
Daring Do placed her own helmet back on her head and looked up at the man. She silently hoped that he was not as unfriendly as the last creature, and the man’s armed companions made her even more nervous.
“Who are you?” she decided to ask, “Where am I?”
“Mon Dieu!” the man said, “It can speak! It speaks English!”
Before the man could ponder further, the man who had nabbed Daring in the temple, angrily stepped forward.
“I found it first, senor!” he argued, “That creature is mine!”
“I do not think so, monsieur.” the other man said, giving an evil smirk, “Unless, that is, you want to share the same fate of your companion.”
The man motioned to yet another sloppily dressed man wearing a hat and shorts who appeared to be standing in front of the natives. The man slumped over and fell face forward, his back riddled with darts from the natives’ blowguns. The other sweaty man warily looked at the corpse of his partner in crime, as did Daring Do.
“Where is Dr. Jones?” the man in the pith helmet inquired.
“Who?” the other man asked.
“The American.” the first man said, “The one you’ve been traveling with.”
“I don’t know, señor.” the second man answered, “He disappeared. I did not even see him leave.”
“Perhaps Dr. Jones has finally met his fate.” the first man suggested, “But then I doubt you would have made it out alive…in any case…I shall be taking this…unique specimen.”
The first man turned to Daring Do, who decided she had put up with these strange, dangerous creatures long enough. She flapped her wings and darted off into the sky as quickly as she could manage.
“After her!” the man in the pith helmet ordered in the natives’ own language, “Shoot her down! But do not kill her!”
The natives threw their spears, shot their arrows, and blew their poison darts, but Daring Do was already at too high an altitude. The pegasus scoured the jungle clearing from her birds-eye-view wondering where in Equestria she would fly next. The trouble was, she began to wonder, she probably wasn’t in Equestria anymore.
Daring noticed a river below her, and the constant flying was making her thirsty. She knew that she was not at a safe enough distance from the bipedal creatures, but she needed some sort of refreshment in order to fly and think clearly.
Daring Do landed on the opposite side of the river bank from the bipedal creatures, bent her head down and began to lap up the water. She noticed yet another bipedal creature in a blue jacket and hat dangling a string attached to a pole in the water. But that wasn’t what really caught her eye.
The man was leaning against a large white structure that Daring couldn’t tell if it was an animal or a building. She stared at it further and realized it was a large metal object with wings and a massive propeller. Despite the apparent danger, Daring Do’s instinctive curiosity kicked in and she fluttered over to the object for a closer look.
Large black letters were printed on the side of the object. “OB-1” she read silently. She wondered if this were some strange sort of cutie mark, and what the letters could possibly mean. Old Bakery? That didn’t make any sense. Judging from the shape of the structure, and the letters, the only explanation Daring could come up with was that the object was a vague metal sculpture of a pegasus.
Daring tapped the object with her hoof, listening to the metallic rattle. She fluttered over top of it and the man in the blue jacket started to notice. Daring lost her concentration when she saw him looking at her and ended up falling into a hole. The hole was actually a cubby built on top of the metal structure and Daring soon discovered that it was a seat.
The man in the blue jacket dropped his fishing rod and started to investigate what had fallen into the rear plane seat when he heard the shout of angry Hovito warriors running toward him out of the jungle. The man hopped inside the pilot seat and fiddled with the controls as the Hovitos began chucking their spears at him. The plane’s front engine made a sharp sparking sound as the propeller started up and the plane skirted across the water.
The pilot turned the throttle toward him and the plane began to ascend. Daring Do lifted herself up by her hooves and peered over the side of the metal object as it raised off the ground. The pegasus felt her stomach churn as the plane’s engine rumbled. She was not used to mechanically-powered flight, and she was not prepared for the large snake that jumped out at her.
The snake started to slither around Daring Do, who tried to wrest it off of her with her hooves.
“Get off of me!” she yelled, “What’s with this place? Where am I?!”
The pilot heard the commotion and turned around.
“Reggie! What are you doing?!” he shouted, “Get away from that thing!”
The pilot hastily grabbed his pet boa constrictor and placed Reggie in his lap. He only could briefly gaze at the other animal stowing away in his plane, thinking it was some kind of hawk. He started to shoo Daring away with his hand, but realized he had to concentrate on his flying. He figured that once he reached a high enough altitude, it would fly away, but his bigger concern was the location of his would-be passenger.
Jock, the pilot, peered over the side of his plane, scouring the ground for signs of his cohort, Indiana Jones. Indiana, or ‘Indy’, occasionally hired him to fly to some remote part of the globe in search of some ancient mumbo-jumbo. For the most part, Indy always made it back in one piece. Jock started to worry that maybe this time, the professor wasn’t so lucky. Jock shook his head as he realized there was no safe place to land, and that he would be killed as well if he tried to search for Indy. He then regretted that he wouldn’t get the other half of his paycheck.