In the depth of the Everfree Forest, the legendary pony known as Daring Do ran through the vines of the forest on her way to another old temple she had heard of in this very forest. There, inside the temple is an old artifact believed to possibly be four thousand years old, and was also said to be a weapon of destruction. So she had to get to that temple before her enemy Ahuizotl does. But just about a mile from the area in the Everfree Forest where the temple was suppose to be, she began to find tracks leading towards the same direction.
She took a look at them and saw these were not like any kind of tracks she was familiar with. They were longer (about three to four inches longer), but also narrower and it was a sign that this creature wears shoes, so it was a civilized creature. Each step was a good foot from each other, showing that whatever the creature is a runner. She then followed the prints down the trail and there to her surprise was the ancient temple she had heard about, but when she looked down at the tracks, they did not continue on to the temple. She soon heard a rustling noise coming from some nearby bushes.
"Hello?" She said to whoever or whatever was behind the bushes, but when she held out her hooves to open the bushes, all of a sudden a figure jumped out of the bushes and attacked her. Daring struggled to fight off the figure. But she managed to kick the figure off of her and started to fly up into the air. The figure tried to reach her before she could get up high enough, but it didn't move quick enough. Daring soon got within a hundred feet from the ground.
'What is that?' She thought to herself as flew off towards the temple. The creature followed her, but when it got close to the exit of the forest, it stopped and turned back into the darkness of the Everfree Forest. Daring was stunned at this. 'It must hate the sunlight,' she thought again, but looking at the sun she noticed that she won't have much time until she comes back for more. So she rushed into the temple and tried to find the artifact.
(Theme song plays)
(End theme song)
Meanwhile...
Kate the chaser stopped to a distance where she could wait for the sun to completely go down, chase that Pegasus pony into the temple, and then kill her. She knew that she had been in the dark for too long so she can not step into the sunlight anymore. But after waiting for about an hour for it to finally fade away, there was enough darkness for her to move into the temple and find that Pegasus. She started running as fast as a Cheetah trying to catch up with it's meat. But the pony was far ahead in the temple and she had no clue on what was inside the temple either.
Back with Daring, she was following the hallway, while lighting torches along the way. She also had to be careful though, every temple is always rigged with booby-traps to keep ponies away from the artifact and to protect their tombs. So she took the safer route by flying through the hallways. And everything was going smoothly, until she began to hear loud steps coming towards her direction. And suddenly there was the creature running towards her very quickly.
It wasn't even paying any attention to any possible traps in the hallway, but when she suddenly stepped on a pressure pad and was about to fall into a pit of sharp spikes, she somehow immediately stopped falling. She looked up and saw Daring had grabbed her hand and was now dangling over the spike filled pit. "Hang on," she said to the creature pulling her up. When she pulled the creature up out of the pit, she let go of it.
"Thank you," the creature said.
"Uh, you're welcome," Daring said not knowing that the creature could talk, "My name is Daring Do, but you can call me Daring if you wish."
"My name is Kate, Kate the Chaser," she said to her.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Kate the Chaser, but may I ask why were you trying to attack me?" The Pegasus asked her.
"Because it's what my master has declared," Kate replied to her.
"And who is your master?"
"That is an answer for another day," she simply replied.
"But now that you understand as much as I can and since I helped you, maybe you can help me," Daring said.
"With what pray-tell?" Kate asked.
"I'm here to get an artifact from this temple," the Pegasus explained to her, "And it's said that it may have destructive powers, powers that may destroy Equestria, so I can not let that artifact fall into the wrong hooves."
"How do I fit into this then?" She asked the Pegasus pony.
"You are fast and more used to the dark," Daring replied to Kate. Kate was saved by this Pegasus and believes that she owed her at least that much.
"Alright then, I'll help you," she nodded as the two walked deeper into the temple while trying to evade traps along the way. But being human, Kate could not fly like Darkng could which meant that Daring would have to help her across large gaps that were impossible for her to jump across.
"So Kate, tell me about yourself," Daring requested to her, "We're you always like this?"
"Well, no I wasn't," Kate replied to her as she explained her past to the Pegasus, "I was just a normal kid with a great friends, but things began to happen to me as time went on."
"What kind of things exactly?" The Pegasus asked her curiously.
"It's personal," replied Kate, "All I can say that my master made me into what I am now." Daring was about to ask something when they finally made it to the sanctuary of the temple, and where the artifact was kept.
"This is it," Daring said as she noticed that the artifact was in the shape of a pony's head with Pegasus wings. It stood about a foot tall and each of the two wings were at least seven inches long.
"Well, let's get the thing and get the heck out of here," Kate commented as she was about to blindly walk towards the artifact when Daring stopped her.
"Wait a minute, it's too easy," she stated as she grabbed a torch from a wall, pressed down on a pressure pad, and suddenly, a poison arrow came out of the darkness of the sanctuary, "Be careful here."
She got up from the ground and slowly flew towards the artifact. Kate slowly and carefully walked to the side of the pressure pads following the Pegasus towards the artifact. When they got closer to the artifact, Daring looked around the stand that this thing was placed upon. "Well, it looks like that if we randomly grabbed it, another trap might go off, and this one might be much worse than the others," she stated looking at Kate.
"How much does this artifact weigh exactly?" The Chaser asked her.
"Maybe about eight to ten pounds at the least, why?" The Pegasus replied as she watched Kate grab a rock from a small pile.
"I have an idea," she replied as she released one of her hands from the Rock and grabbed the artifact with it while still holding the rock with the other hand. She took a deep breath as she said, "Let's just hope for the best." Quickly, Kate moved the artifact and replaced it with the rock.
Daring and Kate flinched, thinking that the trap might go off at any second, but it didn't. They both let out a sigh of relief and began to walk out of the Temple. Suddenly, the ground began to shake. "Uh-oh," the Pegasus gasped, "I say we run."
"Good idea," the chaser agreed as they ran like hell out of the temple.
As they were running for their lives, the temple's structure began to collapse piece by piece. But then the floor behind them started to fall. "The temple is starting to fall apart," Daring said.
"You think?" Kate exclaimed as they continued to run towards the exit. They soon jumped and managed to get out of the temple.
But unfortunately it was short lived because standing before them was Ahuizotl and twelve of his pony tribe warriors. "Well, Daring Do, I must thank you and your little friend here for getting this artifact for me," he said to them as his warriors surrounded the two, "Now, give me that artifact and nopony gets hurt." Kate felt anger inside of her for being threatened and immediately attacked Ahuizotl.
"I will kill you!" She yelled as they began a struggle, but he managed to kick her off of him.
"Very well then," he said nodding to his warriors to kill them, but suddenly Kate pulled out a knife and struck one of the warriors in the neck with such speed before kicking him in the face and off of her knife.
Daring watched as her friend fought off and killed the warrior tribesponies. One by one, they started falling to the ground like dominos. With the last warrior killed, Kate turned her attention to Ahuizotl. "Looks like I must leave," he said as he ran off into the forest.
Kate was about to go after him when Daring stopped her and said, "Let him go Kate, we have the artifact."
Kate calmed down and followed Daring back to her house. There, the artifact would be safe from the wrong hooves and can be closely studied on what it can actually do. Kate made sure there wouldn't be any surprises so she stayed outside. But she felt her master's presence in this world but she had no idea where he was and had to wait until they could meet again. The question for her though was when will they meet again?
Till next chapter...