“That hat belongs in a museum!” Daring Do quipped, snapping her whip in Demule’s general direction.
“Only over my dead body.” Demule snarled as he jumped back, out of the reach of the mare. From the shadows behind him, two burly stallions leapt into the fray, angling directly towards Daring Do’s throat.
“Now, I’d hate to be a third wheel, here…” The pegasus mare smirked as she spun the whip above her head, catching it’s tip on one of the enormous hat rack’s rungs. In the next split second, she whisked herself out of the way, leaving just enough time for the two lunging guards to slam headlong into one another, collapsing to the ground in a daze. “…but I think you two make a lovely couple.”
“Get her get her get her!” Demule screamed. Daring Do merely laughed, jumping from rung to rung on the hat rack and knocking hats to the ground, taunting the few remaining stallion guards from high above all the way.
“You fellas look lost!” She called, readying her wings for flight just as one of the henchmen managed to throw a particularly heavy-looking and misshapen stone statue at her. It missed her in midair by mere in inches. The famed archaeologist retreated towards the ceiling of the warehouse. “Let me shed some light on the situation.”
With a swift movement of her knife, the pegasus sliced through a solitary cable that ran into the warehouse from the outside. In a flash, power was cut to all the ceiling lights, and the entire room was plunged into sudden darkness.
For a few tense moments, Applejack and Rainbow Dash could hardly see each other, let alone anything else around them. Meanwhile, the agitated shouting of Demule and his henchmen cut through the murk. “I don’t care if you can’t see her, you bumbling idiots! Someone strike a light! Catch her! Catch her!”
“Are you guys ok?” A whisper sounded near Rainbow Dash’s ear. She turned to see her idol crouched next to her, knife still in mouth.
“Boy are we ever!” The prismatic pegasus replied, her voice awash in relief.
“Great. Here.” Daring Do handed her biggest fan the knife, which Rainbow took gladly. “Use this to cut your bindings. There’s no time to waste. I’m going to lead them on a merry chase.”
In another instant, Daring Do was gone, leaving Dash to awkwardly saw at the ropes holding her front hooves.
A sudden blaze of light. One of the henchmen managed to light a lantern, and it swung wildly from his mouth as he glanced around madly in search of the archaeologist-turned-adventurer-turned-rescuer.
The light, of course, merely led the mare straight to him. With all the force of a fully-grown minotaur, she slammed into the large stallion from the back, and he collapsed underneath her, the lantern launching from his mouth and skittering away across the concrete floor. Hearing the sound of the struggle, two more guards dashed towards her, but Daring Do easily saw them coming. They were barely five hooves away from her when she wrapped them up in her trademark whip, tying them together with a neat little bow. “Well, that settles that, I guess.” She smirked, just seconds before feeling the contact of flesh on flesh, as a strong hoof collided against the base of her skull.
As the sounds of the struggle emanated throughout the cavernous warehouse, Rainbow Dash sawed furiously at Applejack’s bindings, having extricated herself only moments before. “Hurry up, Dash. We don’t got much time.” Applejack hissed, still unable to see much of anything.
In a daze, Daring Do stumbled back into the darkness, away from her attacker. “Strong… strong punch you got there, friend.” She called out into the gloom, “But if you want to hit me again, you’ll have to catch me first!” She took off down the aisles of the stacked crates and strange artwork, blinding rushing whichever way her gut told her. She could hear the last remaining stallions behind her in hot pursuit, as she readied her next trap.
“Got it!” Rainbow Dash mumbled around the knife as the last of Applejack’s ropes fell free. The earth mare stood up, now barely able to see Rainbow Dash’s face in front of her in a strange, growing light. She took the opportunity to plant a kiss right on the pegasus’s cheek. She swore she could see a blush tinge her friend’s face in that exact spot.
“Thanks, Sugarcube.” She smiled.
“I don’t think you two are going anywhere.” A voice from behind. The pair spun around, only to be confronted with the looming visage of Demule, directly behind them. Before they could react, he had thrust his forelegs around their necks, crashing their heads together and bringing their ears right up to his mouth. “I have invested far too much time and money to see my plans fall flat at the hooves of a couple fillyfoolers and their overzealous comic-book hero!”
Any witty retort either Rainbow Dash or Applejack might have had died on their lips as they saw what was behind them.
“What, speechless, I assume? What is it, what are you staring at?” The mule craned his neck to look behind him, and his eyes glazed over in horror.
The fallen lantern from before, its glass case shattered, had released its volatile contents of oil all over the floor, waiting only for an errant spark to ignite them. The flames, once they took hold, had spread rapidly, dancing across the ground in every which way, until they reached the base of the towering coat rack. The oil-fed fire had wasted little time in catching hold on the wood frame, and soon spread high into a spiraling tower of flame. Swirling tendrils of long, orange flame licked their way up the wooden structure, eating into the flimsy fabric of numerous hats, charring the intricately carved runes to mere black dust. The onlookers watched in awe as the hat rack became the fodder for a growing inferno.
“No.” Demule cried out as he fell to his knees, “NO!”
“Reference your last rant, Demule.” Daring Do called as she flew into the fire-cast light form somewhere afar, “I don’t think your plans are falling flat, I rather think they’re going up in flames.” She landed behind the prone mule, and without a second thought, spun in her place and delivered a swift, powerful kick to the cult leader with both hind legs. He flailed though the air and collided heavily with the base of his once-proudest creation. The wood structure, so weakened already by tongues of scorching flame, suffered this final blow poorly. With a creak and a heavy groan, the towering, burning hat rack collapsed, landing finally and fatally upon the defeated form of its architect.
Daring Do coughed in the rising cloud of dust and smoke. She turned to Applejack. “I believe I have something of yours.” With a wink, she produced from a saddlebag a very worn, yet very familiar-looking, Stetson, and bestowed in upon it’s rightful owner’s head. The earth mare just stared at her. “Don’t ask me how I got it. Let’s just say I had to fight through a good many more guards before getting here. And you,” She turned to Rainbow Dash, “take good care of your museum.” She winked. “Now, let’s get out of here!”
Bewildered, the two mares could only nod in silent agreement, and the three dashed towards a set of doors, illuminated by the growing conflagration. Mere hooves from their exit and freedom, however, Applejack skidded to a halt. “Wait! We forgot Lightning Dust! Where’s Lightning Dust?”