Sleeping by himself shouldn’t have been a problem: he’d done it for his entire life, after all. But as the ringing of the alarm clock forced him out of sleep, Phillip realized that he desperately missed the familiar warmth and weight of Daring’s body in his forelegs, wished for the sound and smell of her breath brushing against his cheek.
He scrunched his nose. Okay, maybe not the smell.
With a grunt, he hauled himself out of bed and shut the 8:00 alarm off, shaking his mane from his eyes and shivering in the morning cold. He grunted and clutched the shoulder that was still in the sling as pain radiated across the limb. "Fucking griffon," he growled to himself as he climbed out of bed and heading downstairs.
First things first, he’d have to get the coffee machine started…he could already smell the aroma of thick black gold...
He paused, sniffing the air. He could smell coffee from the kitchen. Somepony was in his home. Somepony had gotten past the wards.
Phillip’s heart sped up, and he crouched down, his breath coming slow and steady. He thought of the pistol in the drawer of his bedside table, planned how to get back upstairs silently without alerting the intruder...
But then he heard the mare's voice inside, humming quietly to herself, heard the familiar sounds of her hoofteps on the tile floor, the way her tail flicked to the beat of the tune in her head. And all the tension left him as he recognized her. He pivoted around the threshold and faced the intruder.
“You always this paranoid in the morning?” Daring Do asked dryly, giving him a deadpan stare over her shoulder. “Also, you need more practice. Heard you coming from the top of the stairs.”
"Didn't expect you back this early," Phillip stated.
“Doc gave me a clean bill of health, and let me out,” Daring stated, gingerly touching her still bandaged chest.
Phillip raised an eyebrow, frowning at her. "Okay, so I snuck out," Daring rolled her eyes. "But I'm ready to get back to work."
“You sure that—?” Phillip started to say.
“I’m fine,” Daring interrupted sharply, tossing a fried egg onto a plate. “I’ve been through a lot worse. Did I ever tell you about that one time I got attacked by a shark while raiding a sunken ship off the coast of Manehattan?”
“Seriously?” Phillip asked.
“Yeah, one of my first big treasure-hunting jobs for the Family. We managed to get our hooves on the captain’s journal; it said that there was a pile of ancient gold coins hidden inside one of the barrels,” Daring commented with a small smile. “I found ‘em and got ‘em out; they were these beautiful coins from the Faustian era, I wish I could’ve kept some of them. I was only about twenty years old.” She slid the plate of eggs, bacon, and toast over to Phillip, quickly followed by a cup of hot black coffee.
Phillip ignored the food, staring at Daring for a few moments. She winced slightly as she gathered some more breakfast onto another plate and carried it over to her place.
“Phil, really, I’m fine,” she sighed in annoyance.
“If you’re sure,” Phillip stated quietly, taking a long draught of coffee.
“Still gotta take this potion,” Daring grumbled, taking a plastic pouch of blue powder from a paper bag and scowling at it. “Doctor said that it’s to help my muscles recover faster.”
She poured herself a glass of water and dropped the powder into the water. She stirred the mixture until it formed a solid, dark blue liquid that smelled faintly of rotten fruit. Daring sniffed at the glass, then grimaced.
“Cheers,” she grumbled. Plugging her nose with a wing, she tilted her head back and gulped down the concoction. She nearly gagged as soon as the liquid touched her tongue, her eyes bulging open, but she forced the liquid down, chugging until it was all gone.
“Gah,” she gasped, dropping the glass into the sink. “Why can’t they make medicine that tastes good?” She gulped down some coffee, swished it around her mouth and gargled it to try to get rid of the taste, then spat it into the sink.
Phillip managed to smile as Daring slid into her chair and dug into her breakfast. “So what’s your plan?”
“I’ve got a lead on Bright Sparks and her crew,” Daring replied. “I’m gonna be taking Dash out with me.”
“Right,” Phillip nodded. “Trace and I are going to keep working on the ponies who killed Stone Wall. We find them, we find who’s gonna kill the Mayor.”
“Sounds good,” Daring nodded, scarfing down an entire egg in one go. “Can’t be too many ponies with a scar on their hoof and missing an ear.”
“One would think,” Phillip replied, scarfing down his breakfast with one hoof. “I gotta get going.”
He disappeared upstairs and returned with his green vest and trilby. He strapped his holster on one-hoofed, then swung the vest on like a cape, with only his right hoof through the hole. “Be careful, Daring,” he said, trotting over to give her a kiss.
She embraced him back, returning the kiss with equal passion. “I’m always careful,” she smirked, gently nuzzling him. “You just be careful yourself.”
“I will be. Let’s try to touch base this arvo,” Phillip nodded. And with a final kiss on the nose, he turned and exited, hailing a cab.
Daring finished off her breakfast, then picked up another bag on the floor from an earlier shopping trip. From it, she withdrew an aluminum cigar case, a set of razor blades, a wooden dowel and a box of nails, a shim for opening padlocks, and a box of paperclips. Descending to the basement, she retrieved Phillip’s small toolbox from the closet and brought it back upstairs. From the box, she plucked out a saw, a set of pliers, a drill, and a file.
“Haven’t had to do this in a while,” she muttered to herself, bringing all the collected items into the living room and setting them on the coffee table, pushing the chessboard aside. First, she used the pliers and the file to construct a set of lockpicks and a hoofcuff key from three of the paperclips. These she placed inside the cigar tube, along with the shim and a pair of razor blades.
A knocking at the door interrupted Daring’s work. She walked up to the front door and peered through the window to see Rainbow Dash smiling at her from the other side. Daring unlatched the door and opened it wide.
“Hi, Daring!” Rainbow said, bounding in. “I did what you told me; asked around with the other ponies on the weather team night shift and we found some houses that had green Chevroneigh Sedans.” She handed over a list of addresses, puffing out her chest in pride.
Daring looked it over. “It’s a start. Good job, kid,” she nodded.
“So, what’re we waiting for? Let’s go find some bad guys!” Rainbow Dash shouted, turning to fly out the door.
“Hang on,” Daring Do interrupted, grabbing Rainbow’s tail and halting her. “I gotta get ready first.”
Rainbow balked for a moment, then sighed and lowered herself to the ground. “Okay,” she nodded.
Daring walked back into the kitchen where she’d set up her equipment. She extracted a long nail from the box, then took out the top of the cigar tube and drilled a narrow hole through it. Then she took the dowel and cut it down to the same length as the tube.
“What’s that for?” Rainbow asked.
Daring slid the dowel into the cigar tube, then placed the nail on top so that it was sticking out through the hole in the top. “Makes an effective weapon,” she stated, demonstrating with a few fake stabs.
“Cool,” Rainbow Dash said in awe. “You learned that in the Family?”
Daring scowled and unscrewed the top. “Yeah,” she grunted, placing the nail back inside the tube along with the other escape gear. “I had a bit of a wakeup call: I need to be more ready for shit to happen. Including possibly getting caught, like I might be today.”
She frowned at the tube, tilting it from side to side. “Hang on,” she muttered, trotting back upstairs to their bedroom. She knelt underneath the bed and extracted a hoof locker which she unlatched and opened. She rummaged through the contents, tossing aside a set of hoofcuffs, a coil of black rope, a rubber duck, and a red ball gag.
A soft “eep” of surprise sounded from the door and Daring looked up to see Rainbow Dash standing at the threshold, her face as red as a tomato and her wings spread open wide.
“Think clean thoughts, kid,” Daring scolded, digging into the bottom of the toy chest. She finally found what she was looking for: a light blue squeeze bottle.
“Turn around, kid,” Daring said, taking the bottle and the cigar tube.
“Why?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Because this is going where you think it’s going,” Daring deadpanned, squirting some of the bottle's contents onto the cigar tube.
Rainbow thought for a moment, then blushed even harder and quickly turned away. Daring looked at the makeshift cache and sighed, passing it over to her tail. “Well, it’s not that different from a dildo,” she muttered to herself and braced.
Thankfully, the procedure only took a couple of moments. Daring adjusted for the fit, then double-checked to make sure that her other razor and cuff key were still concealed in her tail, disguised as a tangle in a plastic coating.
“Okay, that’ll do it,” she sighed, returning downstairs. She swung her vest on, made sure her revolver was loaded and strapped on her holster, then placed her pith helmet atop her head.
“All right,” she nodded, giving herself a final patdown to make sure that everything was accounted for. “Let’s go, kid.”
With an excited whoop, Rainbow Dash shot out the door, taking off into the sky with a rush of wind and a blur of colors. Daring locked the door behind her and followed. The sky outside was mostly clear, the morning air cool and smelling faintly of rain and ozone. The rising sun warmed her wings, and she stretched them out wide, flexing the muscles with a contented sigh. The tingle of flight magic filled her up, all the way to the tips of her wings.
Then the muscles in her chest flared in protest and she bit back a wince, shaking her head. For fuck’s sake...I cannot be letting a little cut stop me. She gritted her teeth and ordered the pain to the back of her mind, where it belonged, taking slow, even breaths.
“First place we should hit is near the garage,” Daring said, examining the list of addresses that Rainbow had created and nodding in quiet approval.
“What do we do when we get there?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Taking a close look to see if they’re who we’re looking for,” Daring replied. “If they are, we get the police, and rain down hell on their heads.”
“Cool,” Rainbow nodded.
“All right, first place is down on Jetsam. C’mon.” Daring banked around and put on speed.
“Race ya!” Rainbow shouted, zipping past her.
“Hey!” Daring shouted and chased after the other mare, unable to hide a small grin even as the muscles in her chest protested.
“Well, that’s a bust,” Daring muttered, turning away from the twelfth house on the list, a two-story cottage occupied only by a grumpy, elderly stallion who evidently spent the majority of his days sitting in front of the television with a six-pack in reach. She scowled at the battered dark green Chevroneigh Sedan in the front yard, the bumper held on with duct tape and both the side windows cracked.
“How will you know what you’re looking for?” Rainbow Dash asked, scowling at the oblivious stallion through the window. “I mean, he could be in on it. The whole thing could be an act!”
“Nice idea, kid, but if it is an act, then that guy should be in the Royal Theater Troupe,” Daring replied, rubbing her bandaged chest to try to quell the fires of pain. “There’s no sign of anypony else in there, and judging by all the junk, this guy probably doesn’t leave his house more than once a month.”
Daring glanced down at the list. “Damn; that was all of them.” She crumpled the list up and shoved it in her pocket with a grimace.
"Sorry, Daring," Rainbow Dash said, hanging her head.
Daring sighed. "It's okay, kid: you did your best."
Both mare's stomachs suddenly grumbled. "Hey, I think better on a full stomach," Rainbow Dash smiled.
Daring rolled her eyes a bit. "Okay, but I'm not paying for both of us."
Sugarcube Corner was thankfully nearby, and the two of them both ordered paninis from a smiling Mr. Cake: a tuna mayo for Daring and a cheddar carrot for Rainbow. The two of them sat on the table outside, munching their lunch, musing silently as ponies passed by.
Daring spotted a poster on a nearby lamppost, the paper and ink still fresh. The top part of the poster was taken up by a photograph of Stone Wall (when he was alive, thankfully; the memory of the carved corpse made her wince).
She trotted up to the poster and read the blurb on the bottom. “‘A purple stallion...missing their left ear...ear was pierced with two golden earrings...drove a pale blue Global C series van…’” She nodded. “Well, hopefully somepony recognizes them.”
She returned to the table and finished off her panini, the gears of her mind still turning furiously as she considered the facts. As she licked the last of the tuna off her lips, the letter that she'd found in Sledgehammer's cell flashed into the forefront of her mind; she could still remember the contents exactly as they appeared. "Okay, Sledge, why did you cut that letter up?" Daring muttered. "What was so important...?"
She froze, her eyes widening, then she grimaced and slapped her forehead. "Stupid! Stupid!"
"What?" Rainbow asked.
"The letter!" Daring shouted. "It's a code; first and last letter of every line!" She closed her eyes, picturing the letter in her mind.
"Two...thirty...lilac street!" she cried. "That's not far from here! C'mon, kid!"
The two of them flew westward, hopping over clouds and crossing streets; the air smelled faintly of river water, fish, and car exhaust. They finally reached the address, a two-story light blue cottage that stood near the bottom of a roughly U-shaped side road, with a dense copse of trees on the inside of the U, a stone’s throw away from the target house. A dark green Chevroneigh Sedan, the paint glossy, stood at the top of the sloped driveway. A set of wind chimes that dangled from the porch roof sang out as the two ponies flew overhead. The small backyard, which featured a picnic table and a small flower garden, was hemmed in by a recently constructed picket fence. Daring glanced around at the other houses, all of which were fairly far apart from each other; most of the windows were dark, either covered with curtains or boarded up.
“Okay, I’m gonna take a closer look,” Daring stated, circling around. “If you see somepony coming, caw like a crow.”
Rainbow Dash cleared her throat and made a reasonable impersonation of a crow cawing. “Like that?”
“Close enough,” Daring nodded. She swooped back down and landed behind the picket fence. Crouching down low, she used a mirror to peek over the top of the fence, examining the back windows. There was no sign of any movement from within. She vaulted over the fence and stole up to the back door, climbing up onto the back porch. She reached for the doorknob.
As soon as her hoof touched the knob, the entire door glowed with a bright orange light and a flash of pain not unlike that time she accidentally shocked herself with a storm cloud raced up Daring’s arm, throwing her back.
“Ow!” she grimaced, rubbing her suddenly numb foreleg to try to regain some of the feeling in the limb. She glared at the door, which was still glowing with a shimmering orange light. Faint symbols and arcane letters appeared momentarily amidst the glowing walls, only to disappear a moment later.
“A ward,” she grumbled. “No way I’m getting past that.”
Feeling eyes upon her, she glanced up to see Rainbow Dash peering down at her from an overhanging cloud, head cocked and eyes shining with concern. She gave a wave with her still-numb foreleg to show that she was unhurt. Rainbow Dash ducked back down to hide.
Daring glared at the door, thinking. She’d know that shade of orange magic anywhere. She’d seen those wards years ago: attached to the door of an old, creaky, mostly abandoned mansion on the northern outskirts of the city, the first place that she had truly identified as home. The first hideout of the Family.
“Sparks,” she stated to herself. “You live here now.”
Some of the feeling finally began to return to her foreleg. Daring crept up to a nearby window and peeked into the curtains with her mirror, but found nothing of note; nor, to her mild surprise, any ponies. The recently washed dishes in the kitchen, the scattered books and empty soda cans in the living room, and the rumpled sheets on the couches indicated that ponies did live there, but she didn’t see anypony amidst the dark rooms.
“Where is everypony?” Daring muttered to herself. She looked down at the basement window, which was partially below ground and surrounded by a hole to allow the ponies inside to look out. The curtain was drawn, but there was a narrow gap between the curtain and the edge of the window.
Daring reached into an inner pocket and pulled out a small scrap of black construction paper that had been wrapped and taped into a narrow tube and a clear glass marble. She placed the marble into the end of the tube, then peered through the opposite end of the tube into the gap.
The marble served as a crude but effective fisheye lens, giving her a wide view of the room, the edges of her gaze curved round. With the aid of the enchanted night-vision contacts, she could see that most of the room was taken up by several crates, all closed and locked. A tall mirror stood in the corner, the edges decorated with jewels. Along one wall was a clothes rack with several uniforms and costumes hanging from it, including a reflective jacket, a postal worker's uniform, and a white shirt and apron with a baguette and a bowl of soup stitched onto it. And in the corner sat three shovels, a pickax, and a small stack of wooden beams.
“Hmmm,” Daring muttered, squinting at the tools. The edges of the shovels and the head of the pickaxe were all marked with dark reddish-brown dirt. A color that looked oddly familiar...
She turned around and studied the flower gardens that surrounded most of the perimeter of the inner yard. The dirt was a similar color to that on the tools. That plus the wooden beams…
Daring crouched down low to the ground, examining the dirt. There: a narrow line in the dirt, only about two feet across, where the ground had been turned over, leaving it slightly higher than the rest.
A tunnel; Just like in Hayana Pones and the Caves of Horror, Daring smirked. Nightingale Star really knows her stuff. She lifted her gaze, mentally following the tunnel’s path to a small shed inside the copse of oak trees.
The entrance must be in there, Daring concluded. Now what? She began to pace in a small circle, the wheels turning furiously in her head.
I could go back and just tell Phil and the others that I found them...but that wouldn’t be proof enough to bring in the cops for a raid. I didn’t see Sparks or any of the others here...and, admittedly, she can’t be the only unicorn with orange magic in the world who knows how to make a ward. So it’d take more time to see if Sparks really is here, and even more time to get a raid ready. Time we might not have; if they know we’re onto them, they’ll run. Sparks will have somewhere else to go to, and we’d lose them again. Plus, there’s no way past these wards without a key.
She shook her head. Conclusion: I need hard, definitive proof that Sparks and the others are here, and some more information would always be helpful. And if I’m gonna get that, I need to get inside somehow.
She paused, and looked up at the cloud that Rainbow Dash was using for cover.
And yet, I told the kid off for trying the same thing on Scarlet. She looked back at the door, then down at her right hoof. The cursed scar was still there, the lingering pain beginning to flicker and burn underneath her skin.
Thief. Criminal. Hypocrite. Always and forever.
She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes, mastering herself, mastering the pain, forcing it down. I have to find and stop Sparks and the others. If I can do that, I’m one step closer to stopping Scarlet Letter for good. I don’t have a choice: one illegal act to stop them from hurting more ponies.
It took three seconds for her to convince herself that the justification wasn’t so hollow she could hear her own words echoing inside herself. Then she flew up towards the cloud, glancing around to make sure that nopony else was watching. Rainbow poked her head out of the cloud as she approached.
“I found them,” Daring replied.
Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened in excitement. “You sure?"
“About ninety percent,” Daring nodded. “Kid, find a phone. Call the police and ask for Officer Prowl or Bumblebee or Flash Sentry. Tell them that Daring Do needs them and to come here. Wait for them there, then bring them over here.”
“Got it!” Rainbow Dash said with a sharp salute, and zipped off in a blur of colors.
Okay. She won’t be involved in this. The image of Officer Jade's sightless eyes staring up at the sky flashed across Daring's vision for a moment. Shaking it off with a grunt, she flew over to the shed and examined the door. There shouldn’t be a ward like that on this one: according to Twilight, a ward like that only works on a building that’s considered a home.
The door was secured only with a steel padlock, which Daring easily picked open. The door opened with a creak, revealing a small shed with only a few loose, rusty tools scattered around. Daring stepped inside, sharply stamping her hoof against the floor. Towards the back of the shed, the thud of her hoof against the floor became hollow and echoed faintly. Brushing aside some dust, she spotted a small handle made out of a short length of coarse rope screwed into the floor.
She pulled on the rope with her mouth a bit, just enough to open a narrow door disguised amidst the floorboards. Beneath was a tunnel, yawning open like a three-foot wide mouth of darkness. Peering inside, Daring saw that the tunnel sloped downwards sharply. There was no sign of any tripwires or traps. The scent of mud filled her nose.
“Nothing for it,” she decided and slithered inside the tunnel.
The cramped dirt walls were close, pressing against her sides in a cold, uncomfortable embrace: she felt like a bug looking up at a flyswatter hanging over her head. She had to crawl along, only able to lift her belly a few inches above the ground. Every few feet, thick wooden beams supported the tunnel: glow-in-the-dark paint marked the walls, providing minor illumination that she did not need; with the night vision contacts, she could see the tunnel in perfect lighting.
Including the shafts of dirt that trickled down from the ceiling. Gulping back her nervousness, Daring continued forwards.
Eventually, the tunnel sloped upwards and she reached another trapdoor. She carefully pushed this open a crack and slid her fisheye lens out through the narrow gap. Seeing nopony, Daring pushed the trapdoor all the way open and crawled out, using her tail to gently close the trapdoor behind her.
And then an anvil fell out of the sky and landed on her head. Her entire head lit up with a crushing pain, as though her skull was an egg that had just been cracked; her vision went completely white and she felt herself sprawling onto the floor, her hat tumbling off her head. She tried to roll over and raise her forelegs to defend herself from the attack, but her limbs were slow to respond, as sluggish as though she was trying to wade through a pool full of molasses.
Her vision slowly cleared, but everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. What looked like a blurry, transparent outline of a pony stood over her. Then, before Daring’s eyes, the figure solidified into Dusty Tail, scowling down at her. The pistol that he’d just used to strike her with was aimed right between her eyes, the black barrel covered with a crude silencer made of a plastic bottle filled with steel wool.
Other figures appeared, their camouflage spells dissolving away: the Licorice Twins and Gear Shift. All of them wore a necklace of silver chain with dog tags engraved with runes that glowed with a faint orange light. And all of them were aiming guns equipped with crude silencers at her.
“Aw, fuck,” Daring slurred.
“Hey, Daring,” a familiar, icy voice growled. Daring looked up to see Bright Sparks glaring at her from the head of the room, shifting from hoof to hoof to adjust for the weight of her pregnant belly.
“Hiya, sis,” Daring managed to grin, shaking off the last of the pain. “I just dropped by to check on you and your kid, but--”
She started to roll over back onto her hooves, preparing to charge her attacker, but Dusty Tail stamped down onto her wing, pinning her to the floor. She bit back a yelp of pain and glared at Dusty. “Nice to see that your nose healed up,” she growled at him. The mustachioed unicorn just scowled at her.
“I like those necklaces you made,” Daring commented to Sparks. “Any chance I could get one?”
“I’ve improved a lot of my magic since we last met,” Sparks growled. “Including a new feature to my wards. If somepony tries to sneak inside, I know about it. And that’s when we hide.”
“Look, the cops are already on their way,” Daring said. “You--”
“I doubt that,” another voice growled from the stairway. Daring looked up and her heart plummeted into her stomach.
Sledgehammer, a huge, bald unicorn that served as Sparks’ muscle, was descending the stairs with a vicious grin on his face. And sprawled over his shoulders was Rainbow Dash’s unconscious form, the victim of a powerful stun spell.
Daring’s stomach churned, then a fire ignited in her gut, racing up her veins and filling up her entire body. “You son of a bitch!” she roared, scrabbling to get up.
Dusty’s hoof remained on her wing, pinning her down, and he emphasized the point by sharply jabbing her in the back of the head with his pistol muzzle, knocking her down again. Her head spun and the fire in her gut was extinguished immediately.
“No point worrying about her now,” Bright Sparks grunted, rubbing her belly. She looked down at Daring, scowling heavily, though for a brief moment, Daring saw something flickering behind her hardened eyes.
"You shouldn't have come here, little sis," Sparks said quietly, then closed her eyes and turned away. “Kill them both.”
Daring’s eyes widened and she watched as Sledgehammer tossed Rainbow’s limp form to the floor. He drew a knife from his belt, the blade flashing in the light.
“Wait!” Daring cried, her mouth racing ahead of her mind. “You’re supposed to be the good guys!”
There was a pause while everypony stared at her.
“We are,” Bright Sparks growled at her. “We’re the ones who are going to finally destroy all the corrupt thugs and gangs in this city; tear them apart from within. Do what you can’t!”
“So why are you gonna kill her?” Daring asked.
Bright Sparks paused; Daring saw her right hoof slowly lift off the ground slightly, catching a glimpse of the branded mark.
“Getting rid of the witness?” Daring continued. “Did Mojo teach you that?”
An expression of utter rage crossed Sparks’ face and her horn lit up; a powerful strike like getting punched by a full-grown dragon rammed into Daring’s face, sending her head whiplashing back.
“Don’t you mention him! Don’t you ever compare me to him!” Sparks screamed shrilly. “I am nothing like him! Nothing!”
“Doesn’t look that different from where I’m lying,” Daring replied, her voice thick with a bloodied nose.
Bright Sparks turned to see that Sledgehammer was still bending over Rainbow Dash, his knife held to her throat, looking to her as though awaiting instruction. “She…” Sparks scowled and shook her head, but did not lower her hoof. “We can’t let you go.”
“Look,” Daring said, looking around at all the other ponies. “You all joined up with her because you got cheated by the mob or gangs. You joined because you wanted to make sure that nopony would ever have to go through what you did: like you two losing your shop,” she stated to Black and Red Licorice. “Or you having your home shot up in a gang fight,” she stated to Dusty Tail.
The ponies around her all stared at one another in pensive silence, uncertainty on their faces, though they kept their weapons level. Sledgehammer’s knife slowly fell away from Rainbow’s neck. Bright Sparks’ right front hoof began to twitch slightly; she bit down on her lower lip, hissing quietly in pain.
“You all wanted to try to do right,” Daring Do continued. “So you’re gonna tell me that you’re gonna slit the throat of a nineteen year old kid, dump her body in the river, and then go to bed at night, telling yourselves that you’re still the good guys?”
The silence continued for a few seconds more, the gang ponies all turning towards Sparks. Sparks stared at Daring in silence, then grunted and scowled.
“Tie them up,” she ordered the crew, her jaw clenched. “I’ll decide what to do with them later.”
The other ponies nodded as though satisfied. Sledgehammer put his knife away and used his magic to pull a thick coil of rope out of a crate.
Dusty Tail rolled Daring over onto her back again. “Say good night,” he growled, raising a hoof.
For the fourth time in a row, a heavy blow struck Daring in the head and her vision went white.