//------------------------------// // Daring Do and the Yoshi Island // Story: "Lots Of Things..." // by WezzaHD //------------------------------// "Are you okay in there Bill?" Chrysalis popped her head through the door, but raised her hoof over her eyes. "Can't talk Chryssie, I'm working!" Bill was examining the amulet that was now inside his physical mechanical chest for the umpteenth time. "If I can just purify the dark magic in it then it'll finally be complete." "Is Bill finished yet?" Giffany asked in her new and still unfinished body. "Not yet, but I intend to fix that." Chrysalis scrunched her face. "You've been working for hours on that thing Bill. You need to take a break." "Sorry, but I need the amulet to be up and running." Bill replied. "I have a feeling that there'll be some pretty big battles coming up, and having the magical strength of an alicorn wouldn't hurt either. Not to mention that I have my other pet projects to work on." It had been two weeks since Symbol left, and Bill was juggling multiple projects. "Queen Chrysalis, it's time for-" Switcheroo entered as well, and stopped when he laid his eyes on Bill's workshop. "Wow, so this is everything he's been working on?" His mouth was agape. He couldn't even imagine all of the things he was seeing. "What are all of these?" He looked at the cybernetic bodies. "What are all of these?" Bill sighed as he put down his tools. "Those are what would be called robots. They're inorganic bodies for the others to inhabit." He gestured to the four on the tables. "Bill." Chrysalis said. "Yeah?" "I believe that you may be overworking yourself. Take a break, it'll be good for you." Some of the drones have found a island not far from the badlands." Bill paused for a moment, considering Chrysalis's offer. "I guess." "Okay." Chrysalis smiled. "Let's go. I have a free day today." "Here we are, my Queen. This is the island." The first drone said as they landed. The island was dry floral, and full of trees. It had a very cheerful feeling to it. "Shall we explore Bill?" Chrysalis asked. "Sure. Let's go." He turned a around and flew into a tree. "Watch out for the trees!" He said as he pulled his horn out. "Gotta say, this island looks familiar though..." He looked around one more time. "Oh, well." He flew in after Chrysalis. "This is rather peaceful, isn't it?" The queen commented as they went deeper into the island. Bill had to admit, she was right. It was rather relaxing. Just them, the drones and the trees around them. Soon, they found a spot to relax and stopped what they were doing until they heard a rustling in the bushes. "What's that?" One of the drones asked. The rustling continued until large reptile jumped out. It had huge eyes and blunt spines as well as a small shell on its back. It had a round nore and also appeared to be wearing shoes. It walked towards them cautiously. "Ah, now I know why this place seemed familiar." Bill beamed. "This place holds another one of my bunkers. It has a lot of Yoshis and Koopa Troopas. They must've gotten out and made their home on the island." "Ugh, will we have to fight anything?" Chrysalis had wanted a break, away from both of their duties. "No, I didn't make them to fight, they're really peaceful actually. I made them because they're just so uplifting." Bill replied cheerfully. At that, Chrysalis sighed in relief. "Don't worry. We mean no harm." Bill told the Yoshi. "Oh, that's a relief." The Yoshi sighed. "There was a bit of a conflict here recently, so our people have been rather on edge." "No, we just came here to relax." Chrysalis informed the Yoshi. "Hey, while we're here I'd like to check one of my bunkers. Some of my research is there." "You mean the underground cave? Very well. Allow me to lead you back to my tribe." The Yoshi lead them back to their grounds, where many other Yoshis were present. They turned their heads toward the foreigners in curiosity. There were many mounds and small hills where they were, and it appeared that their guide was leading them deeper. "Here are the caves." He stopped outside the entrance. Bill could see a broken- down rusty old door. The 'cave' was teaming with overgrowth. "Who are these foreigners?" They turned to see an Orange Yoshi with feathers in her ear. "They wish to look inside the cave to search for something." "Look for something? In there? That place is a maze, they'll get lost before they know it." The orange one scoffed. "Besides, that pony from a few days ago already went in there searching for something as well." This caused Bill to turn his head. She now had his full attention. "Pony?" Bill questioned. "Hey, what did they look like?" "Well, she had yellow fur and a grey mane. I'm pretty sure she had wings as well." "Well, that settles it. I'm going in. Like hell Im letting any pony steal my research." "Bill?" Chrysalis butted in. "I came here to relax, the last thing I want is to get lost in some underground maze." "Oh, don't worry Chryssie." Bill stepped through the entrance. "I have a trick up my sleeve that will prevent us from getting lost." "And what would that be?" Chrysalis raised her eyebrow. "Miracle Eye!" Daring Do trotted through the tunnels. She had been pleasantly surprised when she found out about the cave; it was more adventure for her and more material for her next book. Finding this island and meeting its inhabitants was amazing enough, plus she even stopped Ahuizotl again, though she was pretty sure that he was also down here. Another interesting thing here had been the plant life here. She had found a large flower that was abundant here and when she ate it, she found herself able to control fire. She also found mushrooms that could either make her bigger or smaller. It wasn't just the plants either, there were feathers that could increase her durability and speed. The islanders had been kind enough to let her keep a few. They would come in handy later, after all. She had found a lot of notes and symbols that mainly consisted of some sort of star. "I'll take those off of our hooves for you miss Do." She stopped and looked around. She tried to pinpoint where the voice was coming from, but couldn't seem to manage. "And who might you be?" She asked. A laugh echoed throughout the cave. "Just the rightful owner of that stuff you stole. Now drop it all on the ground and leave." "Yeah sorry mystery voice, but I'm not going to do that." She grinned. There was silence for a moment before she was lifted up off of the ground with a levitation spell. She heard the trotting of hooves and saw a singular glowing eye in the darkness. Soon out of that darkness came a yellow stallion in a top had with a silver mane and tail. He also appeared to be wearing a top hat and bowtie. An eyepatch rested on his left eye as the right continued to glow. His cutie mark was an eye surrounded by a triangle inside a wheel. The magic aura around his horn looked less like a regular magic aura and more like a blue fire. This wasn't what caught Daring off guard however. What caught her off guard was the addition of wings as well as a horn. An alicorn was standing in front of her. "Sorry tuts, but you don't have a say in the matter." He grinned as he levitated the bag away from her, but she grabbed on to it in a futile attempt to keep it with her. After a brief tug of war with the bag, Bill got the bag in his grasp, now not before Daring snagged something out of it. She got the large red and yellow flower and ate it. "Now, let's see how much you were able to get..." Bill was about to open the saddlebag when a hoof slammed into his face. He was blown back into a wall. When he looked up he saw Daring Do, but there was a heat coming off of her and her clothes were white and red. "I'm taking this stuff with me." She glared at him. "Ugh, she's using the fire flower." Bill thought. "I'd hoped that she didn't know how to use them but it seems like this'll be a bit more difficult than I thought, especially since the amulet still needs work. I can't use the magic fully yet." "Fine, but don't say I didn't warn ya." He chuckled as he shot forward, with Daring doing the same. They collided, ending up on opposite sides of the fields once again. They ran at each other a second time, but at the last minute, Bill flew up and smcked her down with his electrical hooves. He tried to fly down to finish the job, but a huge windy heat- wave forced him furtther up while the pegasus hit him in the stomach. She couldn't explain it, but she felt stronger and faster than she ever had when she ate that flower. She grinned as she instinctively formed fire in her hooves and shot it at the alicorn, but he made a shield to block it. In all her adventures, she had of course learned how to fight and applied it to whatever power she had received from that plant. "Hey, who exactly am I walking to?" She asked, while the alicorn stopped and began to think. "I'm... Cipher Code. Yeah, that's a pretty good name." Bill smiled darkly. As Daring got close, he let out a small magical surge to stun her before throwing her into a wall with his levitation. Daring's body was literally flaming hot, so Bill shot his freeze rays from his horn at her. She rolled her eyes as she used her new powers to get rid of all the ice, but soon she was surrounded by steam and Cipher gave her a powerful blow to the face. She tried to shoot more fire but found that the ability was gone. Her eyes widened as she quickly searched for another random item in the bag. Bill used his Miracle Eye to find her but couldn't see her rugby tackle him down. When he looked up he saw Daring as she was before she ate the fire flower, but she had a yellow cape that wasn't there before. The two flew at each other, clashing several times before Cipher began chasing after Daring through the cave, who avoided him slamming his electrified hooves on the ground where she was before retaliating with a kick. "Alright, that's it." His horn glowed, and she slowly felt herself becoming unconscious. "You should have listened to me." Queen Chrysalis sat quietly among the Yoshi village that they had lead her to. They were a peaceful, calm, loving race. It tasted pretty good too. She was curious when she saw the yellow bipedal turtles with red and green shells, but they seemed to be alright, but her mind was changed when she saw a few that were black and grey with spikes on their shells. Apparently it was new to their own kind as well since they earned some more stares. They appeared to be trying to intimidate the others while they walked by. However, this simple intimidation stopped when they saw Chrysalis and her changelings. They lunged at the changelings, ready to fight. Two took on her drones, while the last and darkest one set its sight on Chrysalis. She scoffed at the turtle before it jumped into the air with an attempt to kick her, but she ducked and sent a blast of magic at it. The Koopa was thrown in the air but came back down with the back of its shell facing the changeling queen. She moved to the side and gave the Koopa another magical blast, which it dodged. "What do you know about Cipher?!" It snapped. "What do you want to know?" Chrysalis asked, narrowing her eyes. "Let us start with everything." It chuckled. "And we'll just say that you'll regret it if you don't." Chrysalis was suddenly surrounded by the other two and she looked at her unconscious drones. "Is this all?" The queen grinned. She bucked the one behind her while blasting one in the left and creating a shield to block the third one, who shot towards her in its shell. She let the shield down, but didn't notice the magic blast coming her way until it hit the back of her head. She growled and let out a surge of magic, knocking all the offending koopas away. However they soon lost their spikes and dark colours; reverting back into standard koopas. She could sense confusion coming off from them as they looked around. They were as lost as she and everyone else was. "What just happened?" "So wait, evil koopas attacked you and the drones?" Bill asked. "Yes, you didn't intend for that to happen, did you?" "No, both the Yoshis and Koopas were meant to be pacifists who only attacked when they absolutely needed to." The demon put his hoof on his chin for a moment. "But it has been over 1,000 years, I guess things change. I encountered some problems myself or rather. a problem, but she should be waking up by now." He smiled as he looked at his bag of notes, then back to Chrysalis. "Sorry you couldn't have a day off by the way." "I'm the queen of a struggling hive." Chrysalis sighed. "I shouldn't expect to have many days of relaxation with me." They flew away with the now- conscious drones.