for the crown we found in the Temple of the Lost because those artifacts always have super-dangerous powers. ” Pinkie said. “Have you been listening to what Maud was saying?”
“N-not really, no,” Daring Do admitted. “What is it?”
“Boulder says that one of those bats is hanging right behind you,” Maud said.
“Huh?” Daring do spun her head around to see Joey hanging upside down on the wall.
He raised (or lowered, since he was also upside down) his wing and waved. “Hello.”
“You!” Daring Do scowled at him. “You betrayed us!”
“Well, technically my boss betrayed you,” Joey said. “It wasn’t my call. And he isn’t actually my boss. His boss is my real boss. I’m actually here to help you.”
“Huh?” Pinkie said.
“Okay, let me start over,” the bat said. “My boss, that lizard pony who was ‘helping’ you through the labyrinth had, in reality, set everything up so that you would help him find the crown. Then once you had the crown he double-crossed you, had us bats tie you up and leave you here.”
“Obviously,” Daring Do said. “We kinda just went through all that. Like ten minutes ago. It’s pretty fresh in my memory.”
“Well, he claims that he’s going to deliver the crown to his boss, but he isn’t. He’s gonna double cross his boss and use the crown himself to take over Equestria with an army of lizard ponies. Thing is, I’m sort of a double agent, and I work directly for his boss. And naturally he isn’t too happy that ‘David’, not his real name, obviously, is trying to screw him over. If anyone is going to conquer Equestria it’s gonna be him. So my real boss sent me down here to let you go. I’m sure you can figure out who that is.”
“Oooh, ooh! Let me guess!” Pinkie closed her eyes and scrunched up her face in deep thought.
“Baron Zeppeli,” Maud said.
“I said to let me guess!” Pinkie grumbled. “Why is it always Baron Zeppeli? He always shows up.”
“Actually it isn’t Baron Zeppeli,” Joey said with a wink. “My boss is just borrowing the name for the time being. Anyway, I’ve got to get you guys out of here and get back to the airship, so I can ‘David’s’ face when he finds out who he’s really been working for. I don’t wanna miss that.”
“How is freeing us going to help your boss if he already knows David is going to betray him?” Maud asked. “Doesn’t it seem kind of pointless?”
“Yeah, I think it’s kinda dumb myself.” Joey shrugged. “I mean, I half expected you guys to have already escaped by the time I got back here. This whole acid deathtrap thing is pretty much held together with paper clips, gum, and the power of supervillainous thinking. But all that stuff is way above my pay grade.” He fluttered over to the the chain that held up the three ponies, the alligator and the tiny rock. “You might wanna hold your breath for the next part.” He pulled on a pin and they all dropped into the vat.
“It’s very sticky,” Maud said as she surfaced.
Gummy paddled past her, blowing Kool-Aid bubbles out of his nose as he went.
“Great, now I’m green,” Daring Do muttered. “Oh well, that’s not a problem. We need to find a way onto that airship to recover that crown and find out what power it holds!”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.” Joey flapped over to the wall and hung on a hook in the wall next to a level. “My boss said to let you go, but he also said to make sure you couldn’t interfere with his plans. You might wanna hold your breath for this part too.” He pulled the lever.
The vat made a sound like a gigantic toilet flushing and the Kool-Aid began to drain.
“Hey! Wait a minute!” Pinkie wailed. “You didn’t even tell us who your boss is!”
“I said you could figure it out,” Joey said.
The next thing they knew, they were riding the longest water slide, or rather Kool-Aid slide. It went in spirals and twists and turns and dips and at one point they were pretty sure they went through a loop-de-loop. The slide ended in a shallow Kool-Aid pool. They landed with a sticky splash in a pile.
Daring Do blinked. They were in some sort of cavern, probably hundreds if not thousands of feet underground. The walls were studded with crystals, and the only light that they could see came from some luminescent mushrooms that grew near the walls.
“Well, that’s just great,” she said as she clamored out of the pool. “We’ve got to find our way back to the surface so we can recover that crown! Now we just have to hope that we don’t run into any-”
Before she had finished her sentence, a bright light shone out of a tunnel at the far end of the cavern, casting a row of monstrous shadows on the wall.
“Great, just great,” Daring Do said as the beasts casting the shadows emerged from the tunnel. “Diamond Dogs.”
“Ponies!” The head Diamond Dog growled. “What are ponies doing in our caves? This is Diamond Dog territory! Ponies are not allowed!”
Daring Do moved into her fighting stance. Pinkie also moved into her fighting stance, which to the observer was completely indistinct from her normal stance. Gummy and Boulder were still. Maud took a step forward.
“Rover?” she said.
“Maud?” The Diamond Dog said.
“You know him?” Daring Do said, staring at Maud.
“I studied Diamond Dog ore processing procedures as part of my Rocktorate,” Maud said. “Rover worked in the same mine. It looks like he has gotten a promotion.”
Rover nodded. “I have my own team now. We were just scouting out a location for a new tunnel when we heard you. How’s the Rocktorate coming?”
“I’m just finishing up my dissertation. It’s about the effects of weather manipulation on stalagmite development.”
“I hate to interrupt this little reunion,” Daring Do interrupted, “but we kind of have a lizard-pony invasion to thwart and an ancient artifact to recover, so if you could please show us the way back to the surface, we’d be much obliged.”
“Lizard-ponies!” Rover frowned, and the rest of the Diamond Dogs began to murmur. “We hate Lizard-ponies! They always make a mess of our tunnels and leave bug legs everywhere from their snacks. If you’re going to fight lizard ponies, we’ll help you.”
Daring Do grinned. “I see. In that case, I think we’re going to get along just fine.”
"Now," Daring began. "We need to reach the surface as soon as possible. If the lizard ponies get their, hooves? Claws? Whatever, on that crown, nothing will stop them from gaining ultimate power."
Maud frowned. "Didn't we just go over this?"
"I know," Pinkie chimed in. "It's like we all have terrible short-term memory loss or something."
"Anyway!" Daring ignored them. "We need to get back to the surface and find that airship. But how?"
"We know a secret passage to get you to the nearest exit," Rover growled.
Pinkie clapped her hooves together excitedly. "Great! What is it?"
"Ponies aren't going to like it..."
"Trust us, we've been through worse." Daring fluttered her wings impatiently, tiring of the constant trips under and above ground.
———
"Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrgh!" Daring shouted.
"Weeeeeeeee!!" exclaimed Pinkie.
"Mildly interesting," mused Maud as they sped past stalagmites and stalactites in battered minecarts.
"We told ponies they wouldn't like it," chided Rover through the walky talky Pinkie held in her hoof.
"Speak for yourself! This is almost as fun as last week's tea party with Minty!"
"Now, when you see the third chunk of peridot on your right, you'll see an opening leading downward roughly six feet across."
"Okay now what..." Daring Do began.
"Don't go anywhere near that place. It's full of magma and the screaming souls of undead fire sprites."
"That was very useful information, thank you," Maud deadpanned in a tone that Daring was increasingly comfortable calling sarcasm.
"Head north until you see a pile of dragon bones, swing to your left and you'll come across a path forking in three directions. I... can't remember which one's which, but if you see a chamber with a floating eyeball in the center with a clipboard, you're on track. Tell it "diamond is unbreakable", and you should be fine. That's the current password until midnight, so you've got five minutes before it changes. Drive straight into the nearest wall, if all goes well the spell will let you pass through unharmed. If not, then I'm afraid your most certainly doomed."
"You gotta be bucking kidding me!" the Pegasus screamed.
"And remember, if you don't see any skeletons with crossbows within the next two miles, you've gone too far..."
"Forget this," Maud said emphatically, throwing the communicator against the wall and smashing it to pieces.
"We'll have better luck on our own. Boulder, we need you to be our guide from here on out."She petted the pebble gently, reassured that he knew the way.
———
Two hours later...
The trio plus rock and pet alligator rushed out of the tunnels at last, setting hoof into fresh grass as they broke the surface.
"That's it, no more taking directions from mysterious allies," said Daring.
"Absolutely," Pinkie agreed in an uncharacteristically cynical tone. "I love meeting new friends, but this is getting a tiniest bit ridiculous!"
"Way to go, Boulder," Maud murmured to her favorite mineral-based lifeform, gently tucking it in her pocket.
"So any idea where we are, exactly? Nopony was all that specific about where Joey's boss's airship was actually going. Damn batponies, can't trust them as far as you can throw them, which admittedly is pretty far."
"Let me take a look," Maud said, kneeling down to touch her muzzle to the ground.
She dug her hooves into the ground, reaching beneath the surface layer of grass to the dirt below.
She gave an experimental sniff to the soil, concentrating as best she could.
After some time, she brought her head up to face her companions.
"I have no idea."
"What? Your knowledge of rocks has always helped us out in some inexplicable way ever since we started. How can you not know what to do when we're back to the surface?"
"Look," she said flatly. "There are limits to how far a lifetime of study in a specific niche of geological and geographical science will get you. That, and I'm still going to college to finish my studies."
"Okay, okay, fair enough," the adventurer conceded. "Anypony got any ideas?"
"Beats me," Pinkie shrugged. "What do you think, Gummy?"
The alligator who had been silently following them turned and headed toward the beginnings of a forest.
"Well, what have we got to lose," Daring said in monotone.
"The deadpan delivery's kinda my thing," Maud observed as she followed.
The Pegasus glanced back at Maud as she trotted. "I've been betrayed, doublecrossed, played like a damn fiddle, lied to, booby trapped, and quite possibly bamboozled across this whole misadventure. So please, forgive me if I seem out of sorts. Lying batpony, Joey's probably not a double agent to that David guy at all. A single, maybe. Single-and-a-half, if you're being generous. If I can be back in my cozy cottage by next Tuesday with a bad case of writer's block, I'll be bucking impressed."
"Cheer up DD. I'm sure we'll sort this all out in just a few more chapters!"
"Just so you know, if I see another mysterious ally within the hour, I can't be held responsible for their personal safety."
"Duly noted," Pinkie chirped.
"Um, if you don't mind...well, maybe when this is all over and you might have some free time, I could come over?"
If Daring didn't know better, she could've sworn Maud had mumbled that a bit softer than usual.
She felt herself smile in what felt like a long time. "If we get out of this in one piece, then I think I'll take you up on that offer. Provided we survive, of quartz."
———
(transmission initialized)
Stardate: 5-23-B9RQ
Gummy's Log: Entry No. 372
It has been some time since I've written last. I've found myself strung along on one odd event after another with little time to prepare my mind for the state of calm required to telepathically inscribe my thoughts.
I have survived along with my companions through an incredible persistence of will, endurance, and a strain upon my sanity that has not been tested this strenuously for many cycles.
Now that we have returned to the surface in search of my enemy's airship, the excitement has abated somewhat. I am grateful for this reprieve, short-lived though it must be.
As of now, I remain firm in my convictions, though I confess there is a seed of doubt blooming its unclean blossom in my heart. The lizard ponies have gained access to the crown following our journey through the Temple of the Lost. This cannot be permitted to last.
The imposter Baron and his serpentine kin have allied themselves with the Children of the Night. For what purpose, I no not, yet the result is unchanged.
My suspicion is that the imposter plans to dawn the crown atop the Shrine of Tears, becoming the embodiment of the true Baron's avatar.
My masters and I have struggled long to maintain the seal upon the Gates of Time. The metaphysical barriers have been stretched thin following the recent temporal distortions.
And yet, that is not what troubles me most.
I fear for the security of my companions. Innocent fools, they fail to understand the doom they must soon confront.
Only the creature known as Boulder is aware of the danger. He has led us through many perils, steadfast and with confidence.
When the time comes, I pray that I may display such devotion to our cause as he. At the moment of doom, if the event that the avatar who goes by the name of David within this material plane cannot be stopped, I know that I must step forward to accept the crown's doom myself.
Being a reptilian descendant, I am hopeful that my genetic structure will be close enough to the host that it will accept me as its wielder without being vaporized.
I am ready to receive what punishment may befall me if it ensures my pink familiar and her friends will be saved.
Though my companions are to be sacrificed in the event that my mission is compromised, I cannot so easily shake the bonds of friendship. Knowing if I fail that the stars themselves will tremble at the power unleashed, I refuse to leave this world with any shame with the deaths of my companions.
After many a diversion from the path ahead, I know the destination is not long in waiting. I have risked my cover enough to directly lead these mortals and the mineral-based familiar toward our journey's end. The lizard ponies and their bat-like allies will undoubtedly recognize me for who I am, but there is nothing to be done about that.
I pray to thee goddess Epona for safe passage in these troubling times. Guide your servant with faith.
I know not when another chance to write may present itself, so I have sent my account to my masters, in hopes that they will understand my decisions.
Always with hope,
Gu...
(transmission disrupted)
———
“Oof!” Daring Do, her legs bound and her wings tied to her side, landed on the brig floor with a thump. Then Pinkie, similarly bound, landed on her, eliciting another grunt. Then Maud, likewise bound, landed on both of them, and Daring let out a very undignified, high-pitched squeak.
The soldiers—a mixed team of lizard ponies and bat ponies—sneered at their captives. Their lizard Captain said, “You three are lucky the bosssss wantsssss you alive. But he was insssssissssstent that you be pressssssent for the little ccccccceremony tonight.”
Underneath the two Pie sisters, Daring ducked her head and went to work on the ropes binding her forehooves.
A bat pony stepped forward, clutching Gummy by the tail. “Ey, Cap’n,” he said. “Whatchoo want we should do with the little gator, here?”
“Take him to the bosssss. Thissss little one issss kin. He could be perssssssuaded to join usssss.”
As the bat pony departed, Pinkie shouted, “Stay strong, Gummy! I believe in you!”
Daring continued gnawing at the knot, frantically seeking how to loosen the bonds.
Maud locked eyes on another lizard pony, who was clutching a familiar rock with one foreleg. “You,” she said. “Give Boulder back, please.”
“Nah.” He placed Boulder in his saddlebag.
Maud blinked.
Pinkie, meanwhile, wore enough distress on her face for both of them. “You won’t get away with this, you meanie-heads!” she shouted.
The Captain smirked. “Oh, but we already have.”
“No, you haven’t,” Maud said. “You have the Crown. You have Shrine of Tears. But David hasn’t claimed the Baron’s power yet.”
“Well, I can hardly blame him for wanting to make a ccccccceremony of it.”
“The ceremony depends on a specific alignment of the Earth’s tectonic plates. So it will only work at a specific time. Which means we have until then to stop you.”
“Really? And how do you plan to do that?”
“Well,” Daring said, “for starters, this!”
She climbed atop the prisoner pile, completely unbound. Before any of her captors could react, she leaped at the Captain and knocked him to the ground. Perched on the lizard’s unconscious form, she smirked. “You gotta do a lot better than that to keep me bound. Now, are you ready for round two, boys?”
———
“Oof!” Daring Do, ropes wound tightly around everything below her neck, landed on Maud Pie with a thump.
I think I’ll leave this part out of my next book, Daring thought.
The Captain had a bandage around his head now. “There! Now isss anypony elssssse thinking of esssscaping?”
“Ooh! Ooh!” Pinkie raised her hoof—which was unbound. “I am!” She climbed atop Daring. “You see, you see? I’m really good at unwrapping things. Cannonball!” She leaped onto the soldiers.
———
“Mmmff!” Pinkie, bound just as securely as Daring, and gagged for good measure, landed on the pony prisoner pile with a thump.
“You know what?” the Captain said. “Let’sssss double the bondssss on the gray pony, too, before… she…”
Maud rolled out from underneath Daring. She flexed once, and the ropes around her hooves all snapped. She stood up, then scanned the faces of the soldiers. She locked eyes with the lizard who took Boulder. “You.”
He gulped.
“Get her!” the Captain shouted. Two soldiers rushed Maud. With hooves that could crush granite, she swatted both of them away, then walked forward. A bat pony swooped to attack her from behind, and she bucked him without looking back, without breaking stride. Implacable, she advanced on her target, while wave after wave of attackers rushed forward, only to collapse unconscious under the force of her hooves.
Nopony stood between Maud and that specific lizard pony now. He stepped back, his eyes widening as he stammered, “He-hey now! Let’s be reasonable here…”
Maud drew closer. “Give Boulder back. Please.”
He continued stepping away. “Sure, sure!” He reached back with a shaking hoof-claw and pulled the rock out of his bag. “Whatever you say, just…”
Boulder slipped out of his trembling hoof-claw and rolled across floor a few inches. The lizard, trying to back away from Maud, tripped over the rock and struck his head on the floor.
Maud picked the rock up. “That was very good, Boulder.”
“Niiiice,” Daring Do said. Pinkie mumbled something affirmative through her gag.
“They were tired from fighting you two.” Maud set Boulder atop her sister. “You untie Pinkie.” Then she turned to Daring.
“Alright,” Daring said, “I think the knots are …”
Maud grabbed several ropes and, with teeth that could chew marble, bit straight through.
“Okay, then.” As Maud continued chewing the ropes off her, Daring smirked. “So, Maud, do you have a lot of experience with tied-up mares?” She waggled her eyebrows.
Maud froze and stared at Daring with what might have been her version of embarrassment. Or perhaps it was fear. Or joy. Or indigestion. Or complete apathy. But Daring was reasonably certain it was embarrassment. The explorer just laughed and wriggled free of the few remaining ropes.
Pinkie, meanwhile, stood up and tossed Boulder back to Maud. “Oh boy oh boy oh boy!” Pinkie proclaimed. “We’re deep in the bowels of the enemy airship, with a bunch of unconscious henchponies! You know what this calls for?”
“Stealing their uniforms to disguise ourselves,” Maud said.
“Yep-a-rooney! My favorite part of any adventure! Well, except for the big feast afterwards. And the songs. And the mid-trip snacks. And the occasional Not Safe For Work scene, if you know what I mean. And—”
“Less talking, more disguising!” Daring interjected, while she pulled the armor off an unconscious bat pony. “And I’ve got an idea so they won’t realize we’ve escaped. Pinkie, do you have any more disguise supplies in that freaky hyperdimensional storage space of yours?”
“I don’t have a freaky hyperdimensional storage space. I just keep stuff in my mane!” Pinkie reached deep into her curly hair and pulled out a cardboard box, far too large to logically fit inside her mane. “And all I’ve got in there is cardboard boxes and food coloring.”
Daring nodded. “I think this can work…”
“I love it when a plan comes together!” By now, Pinkie had on the lizard Captain’s full uniform. Then she sighed and looked down at her hooves. “Aww, I just thought about Gummy and made myself sad.”
Maud placed a hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll find him.”
“I just hope he’s okay. The poor little guy must be so scared!”
———
Deep in the bowels of the airship, a bat pony trotted down a sparsely lit corridor, with the net-trapped Gummy slung across his back. Aside from them, the corridor was completely empty. Overhead firefly lamps provided the hall’s only illumination.
The light directly overhead flickered and went out, plunging the bat and the alligator into blackness. There was a cry of surprise, then several clangs and thumps, but nopony was around to hear them.
Gummy plodded out of the darkness. He wore a much-too-large bat pony helmet, and he clutched a rope in his toothless mouth, dragging the bound and gagged soldier behind him.
———
Reynaldo the lizard pony’s head was pounding, but nevertheless the voice of his Captain was enough to snap him fully awake.
“On your hoovesssss, you maggotsssss!” Captain Bob passed Reynaldo, pacing the line of lizards and bats who were now snapping from sleep to full attention. Captain Bob looked slightly different than Reynaldo remembered—his head seemed larger and boxier than before, and there were odd, pink splotches on his hide. And his voice was distinctly higher-pitched and feminine as he said, “Sssssssleeping on the job, are you? Well, it’ssssss a good thing the prisssssonersssss didn’t esssscape during your little nap!”
Captain Bob pointed at the prisoners, and they looked different now, too, with boxy heads, smudgy faces, and those same discolored spots on their bodies.
Oh, well. Reynaldo wasn’t getting paid enough to care.
“Live and learn!” Captain Bob proclaimed. “Now, I need all of you to go outssssside, find sssssome really big rockssssss, and push them back and forth for the ressssst of the day! Except for you two.” He pointed at two bat ponies, who also had unusually boxy heads. “You’re on toilet cleaning detail. Come with me!”
Ah, now there was the Captain Bob everypony knew.
———
Gummy plodded down yet another hallway. This airship had a lot of hallways.
A bat pony soldier passed him. “Hey… uh, Brian,” he said. Was that Brian? he thought. Those stupid lizard ponies all look alike.
———
[Editor’s note: The scene that was supposed to occur here has been lost. In its place, we’ve substituted an excerpt from Quibble Pants’ lengthy review of this fanfic—the portion specific to the missing scene. We apologize for the inconvenience.]
And then the story, no longer content just with making a farce of the Daring Do series, degenerates into a parody of itself! Those old clichés, the “paper-thin disguise” and the “henchponies dumb enough to fall for a paper-thin disguise”, get shoved in the reader’s face over and over, until what little humor they have is completely drained. And when the story isn’t wallowing in jokes about characters being stupid, it’s constantly breaking the fourth wall. For example, when Daring Do says they need to wait for the big plot-important ceremony to begin, Pinkie Pie answers “I’m not very good at waiting. Can’t we just do a jump cut to the ceremony?” At which point the scene ends, and we cut to the ceremony. Oh my goodness, how original.
Things pick up slightly when the protagonists infiltrate the Shrine of Whatever (which the villains have moved to the forecastle of their airship, because the author clearly doesn’t care any more) prior to the ceremony. There’s an attempt at actual intelligence: Daring Do, with physical assistance from Maud Pie, rearranges all the focusing stones to disrupt the ceremony before it even begins. It’s utterly limp-wristed in comparison to the wonderful puzzles from the original canon, but one appreciates the attempt all the same. If the author focused more on that aspect, he’d produce something actually worth reading.
Alas, this is short-lived. The sabotage scene is immediately followed by the aforementioned fourth wall-breaking joke, and then our protagonists disrupt the ceremony with yet another dumb fight scene, one with absolutely no tension at all. Though it pains me to speak ill of the only good OC in this trainwreck, Maud Pie is just too strong for this story. With her fighting at Daring Do’s side, it’s utterly implausible that they could lose.
[Editor’s note: We now return to your regularly scheduled fanfic.]
Daring smirked from her perch atop the small hill of knocked-out henchponies. “It’s over, David!” she called. “Give up the Crown, or we’ll kick your butt from here to Vanhoofer!”
David smirked back. He was, perhaps, the one pony (assuming lizard ponies counted) in the world who could beat Daring in a smug-off. “I think I’d rather not,” he said, holding the Crown over his head.
“That’s not gonna work, you dummy! We rearranged all these focusing stones!”
That wiped the smug grin off David’s face. Daring continued, “Even if your henchponies were still conscious, there isn’t enough time for you to get the stones back in alignment. And without the proper alignment, you’ll only summon a fraction of the Baron’s power. Face it, David: you lost.”
“I underestimated you, Daring Do.” Then David smiled again, even more viciously than before. “But, at the same time, you underestimated me. I don’t need any of the Baron’s power! I want his mind! And now I’ll—whoa!”
David fell forward, losing his grip on the Crown. He tumbled off the dias, revealing the diminutive figure who knocked him off…
“Gummy!” Pinkie Pie shouted.
Gummy blinked at her. Then the Crown landed on his head.
“No! Gummy, no!” Pinkie took a step towards her alligator, but Maud stopped her with a hoof to the shoulder.
“Gummy’s doing something very brave,” Maud said.
“Oh horsefeathers,” Daring said.
A sickly yellow light shone from Gummy’s eyes, then radiated from his entire body. His mouth opened, and the voice that came out was deep, ancient, and unmistakably evil. “Yeeeesss,” the Baron said. “This one’s body may be small, but his mind is powerful. He shall be a suitable vessel.”
He rose into the air as a sphere of light coalesced around him, arcs of electricity flying from its surface to the floor and walls. His gaze swept over Daring, Maud, Pinkie, and David, who all stared back at him with expressions of rapt horror. “And what of you?” The Baron continued. “Have you come to swear your allegiance to the new ruler of the world?”
Daring gulped. Her gaze darted around the room, desperately looking for something to use as a weapon, something to reverse this turn of events.
“My liege!” David crawled up to the base of the dias. “There has been a terrible mistake! Not on your part, of course, but I was intended as the vessel for your return, not that toothless baby alligator! I am your direct male descendant, and he isn’t even the same species!”
A bolt of lightning struck dangerously close to David. “Do you presume to tell your Baron who he can and cannot use as he sees fit?”
“Nnnnooo, but—”
“Hold it right there!” a new but familiar voice cut in. Everyone turned to the source: Joey stood in the chamber doorway. The bat pony zipped over everypony else’s heads and hovered before The Baron. “I’m also your direct male descendant. And I’ll be a much more awesome vessel for your return than either Short Stuff”—he pointed at Gummy—“or Gruff the Magic Drag-On!”—he pointed at David.
“Fascinating,” The Baron said. “You are a Child of the Night, yet you claim me as your ancestor. Do you really expect me to believe my line intermingled like that?”
“Oh, you better believe they did!”
“Aw, dude, that is so awesome! Those bat pony mares are hot as hell.” The Baron extended a pseudopod of light in the vague shape of a hoof-claw. “Come on, bro, don’t leave me hanging.”
David could only stare in disbelief as the ancient evil he’d labored for years to summon, hoof-bumped Joey. “No, no, no…”
“Error. Error,” an inequine voice blared. A robot, very crudely modeled after David, marched stiffly into the room. “Baron-Bot 2000X was constructed to be the perfect chassis for The Baron’s consciousness. Baron-Bot 2000X is far superior to these weak organic beings. Baron-Bot 2000X will destroy all—”
“Now hold it right there, ya dumb bucket o’ bolts!” Another newcomer staggered into the chamber. She was lumpy but vaguely pony-shaped underneath her trench coat, and a wide-brimmed fedora hid her face. She spoke with a distinct rustic accent. “We, I mean, I’m the best vessel for Mr. The Baron. Cuz, uh… the rest o’ y’all are just dumb!”
Another voice came from somewhere inside the trench coat: “Cutie Mark Crusaders Host for Demons, ya—” The sound of some kind of struggle inside the coat cut her off.
Suddenly, there was a flash of plaid light and a fanfare of kazoos and vuvuzelas: the Lord of Chaos, Discord, had arrived. He was dressed like a Romane centurion. “No, I’m Spartacus!” he proclaimed dramatically.
Everyone just stared at him, slack-jawed.
Discord fidgeted with his prop sword. “You know? Spartacus?” No response. “Oh, forget it! Anything beyond the most rudimentary humor is just lost on—”
Three thunderclaps sounded, and another ball of light formed on the far side of the chamber. The stallion who stepped out of it was a zorse: he had the stature and black stripes of a zebra, and the horn, cutie mark, and purple coat of a unicorn pony. He had a very high-tech watch on his right foreleg.
“Hello, everypony,” he said. “I’m Eventide Zeppeli, the son of Baron Zeppeli. And—”
“Let me guess,” David said, “you think you’re best suited to be the Baron’s vessel, too?”
“Pffffft!” Eventide waved a hoof dismissively. “Your Baron is just a lame knockoff of my dad. Heck, I’m pretty sure he’s literally the evil mirror universe version of dad, or something like that. I just wanted to state that for the record.”
“That’s it,” The Baron rumbled. “I’m done. This is all just too stupid for me.” The electric aura around Gummy shrank, and the alligator slowly lowered to the floor. “Next time you chuckleheads want to summon me, get your nonsense sorted out before I get here. Understood? Baron out.”
There was a pop, and The Baron was no more. Gummy blinked, and the Crown fell off his head.
Daring Do and Pinkie Pie both rushed up to him, Pinkie to sweep the alligator into a tight hug, and Daring to snatch up the Crown. Lacking anyplace else to store it, she stuffed the Crown into Pinkie’s mane. Maud slowly made her way to Daring’s side.
“Oh Gummy oh Gummy oh Gummy!” Pinkie said as she held him tight. “Don’t scare me like that again!” Gummy stuck his tongue on her face.
David collapsed to the floor and sighed.
Joey shook his head. “Lame.”
Discord stretched and yawned. “Oh, well. That was amusing enough while it lasted, but it seems I must be going now.” He walked out of the room, grabbing the figure in the trench coat as he went. “Come along, Crusaders! If anything happens to you, I’m sure your sisters will blame me…”
“Well,” Eventide Zeppeli said as he punched a button his watch, “it seems my work here is done.”
Maud said, “You didn’t do anything.”
“Exactly.” He gave the three mares a quick salute before he disappeared into another ball of light and three thunderclaps.
“Baron-Bot 2000X observes the summoning ritual has produced a suboptimal end state.”
“Shut up,” David muttered into the floor.
“Baron-Bot 2000X no longer has a purpose.”
“Great! No one cares.”
“Baron-Bot 2000X is initiating thermonuclear self-destruct sequence. Good-bye.” The robot drooped, and its eyes began blinking red.
David looked up from the floor with a wicked grin on his face. “Hey, Joey,” he said. “I’ll pay you 500 bits to throw that dumb robot out the window.”
There was a whoosh, followed by the sound of shattering glass. “Done!” Joey said. “Am I good, or am I good?”
“Mwahahahaha…”
“So, how about those 500 bits?”
David stood up. “Hahahahaha…”
“...You’re not going to pay me, are you?”
David reared back. “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
“Whatcha laughing at?” Daring said as she flew over. “Did you lose your marbles ’cause the strain of failing was just too much?”
“Hehe… look out that window, Daring Do. You see the hole right beneath this airship? That is a shaft that runs directly to the center of the Earth. And Joey just threw a thermonuclear explosive into it. And now—”
Maud ran for the window with surprising speed. She leaped through without hesitation. Maud didn’t need to hear the rest of David’s monologue to know what catastrophic chain reaction this bomb would set off in the Earth’s core.
She was doing the right thing. She just wished she could have spent a little more time with her family, and with Daring Do.
As the wind whistled past her ears, it even sounded a bit like Daring. “Maud,” it was saying. “Maud, are you crazy? What are you doing?”
Maud turned. She should have been surprised to see Daring Do flying straight down, flapping to catch up with her, but she wasn’t surprised at all.
“I need to stop that robot from exploding and destroying the Earth,” Maud said. “You can’t talk me out of it.”
“Yeah, of course, that’s obvious.” Daring caught up and grabbed Maud’s shoulders from behind. “But you’re not gonna catch up by free falling like this. Too much drag, not enough thrust...”
With one swift motion, Daring ripped Maud’s frock off. Then she wrapped all four legs around Maud’s torso and held tight, pressing her belly into the earth pony’s back. Daring flapped even harder, propelling both of them downward.
Daring leaned forward and gave Maud a quick kiss on the cheek. “For luck,” she said. Then she gave another kiss. “For Luxullianite.”
Maud’s expression and posture didn’t change at all, but Daring could feel her heart beating faster. They passed the tunnel entrance and gained even more speed.
“So, Maud,” Daring said, “where did you learn to defuse exploding robots? I didn’t think that was covered in a geology degree.”
“It wasn’t,” Maud said. “I don’t know how. Boulder knows.”
Daring Do gasped in horror.
“Boulder knows?! Then I shouldn’t have taken your frock off, he was in your pocket!” she exclaimed, realizing her potentially world-destroying mistake. She then paused. “Wait, really? How can a rock know how to defuse an exploding robot?”
“Knowing how to use and defuse explosives is important to rock farming,” Maud explained in her usual calm tone. Her voice then took on a very slight tone of sadness as she continued. “Boulder isn’t in my pocket anymore. He fell out when you took my frock out. He’s falling next to us.” Indeed, the small, unassuming little rock that Maud liked to call Boulder was also in freefall, traveling down next to the two ponies.
“So is Boulder supposed to tell you how to defuse that thing, then?!” Daring demanded, terrified that Maud’s trust in an inanimate object was going to lead the world to destruction.
“No, he knows what to do. I just need to give him a push,” Maud said. She reached a hoof out and smacked Boulder with it, causing the little rock to plummet even faster than the two ponies. Boulder shot down towards the robot and landed right on its left eye with a loud crack that reverberated throughout the shaft.
“Baron-Bot 2000X has aborted the thermonuclear self-destruct sequence. Baron-Bot 2000X has decided to die through burial,” the robot stated in its mechanical voice. Daring Do breathed a sigh of relief, and then began to flap her wings again, this time carrying herself and Maud back up through the shaft. Maud also gave a very slight sigh as Daring Do flew her up, but for her, it was a sigh of deep sorrow. Boulder had saved the world, but she had been forced to help him sacrifice himself in the process.
Back on the airship, Pinkie had David pinned against the wall, her blue eyes blazing with pure rage.
“NO! It’s not over yet! Now tell me, HOW DO YOU STOP THAT ROBOT FROM EXPLODING!!!” Pinkie screamed in his face.
“I didn’t make it! And I have no need for this world anymore!” David roared, and he kicked out at Pinkie’s stomach, causing her to gasp in surprise and pain and fall back on her poofy tail. Joey stared at David, horrified.
“No need for the world?! Just because you can’t have the Baron’s mind?! Is that really worth destroying the world?!” he yelped.
“YES! If I can’t have it, no one can! AHAHAHAAAAAAAH!” David’s triumphant evil laugh quickly turned into a roar of pain as a gigantic peppermint candy shot out of Pinkie’s party cannon like a cannonball and slammed him into the wall.
“NO!! NO GIVING UP ON THE WORLD!” Pinkie shrieked, stomping over to where David was pinned against the wall, struggling against the giant candy on top of him. “Now tell me how to stop that robot or I’ll stuff you so full of cupcakes your stomach will EXPLODE!!”
“That won’t be necessary. The world has been saved, thanks to your inscrutable sister and that Boulder of hers,” said Daring Do, who had come back through the window with Maud just in time to hear Pinkie’s threat.
“MAAAUUUD!!! YAAAAY!!!” Pinkie squealed with delight, springing into the air and giving Maud a flying tackle hug.
“What?! You were able to defuse that robot?! While it was falling through a hole that leads to the center of the planet?!” David exclaimed, staring at the three ponies in disbelief. Joey was also staring at Maud, but his expression was more one of admiration.
“Boulder hit the robot in the eye. That stopped his self-destruct sequence,” Maud said, in what sounded like her usual bland voice to everypony but Pinkie. Pinkie alone could tell there was deep sorrow in Maud’s tone, and tears began to fill her eyes as she realized what a sacrifice her sister had made.
“You mean…Boulder sacrificed himself? WAAAAAHH!!!” Pinkie sobbed, her tears spouting like gushing waterfalls.
“Who’s Boulder?” David wondered aloud, pausing in his struggle to lift the giant candy, and then he remembered. “Oh yeah, that stupid pet rock you’re always carrying around. So you threw it at that stupid robot, big deal.”
“Boulder was Maud’s best friend in the entire world! How would you like it if your best friend had to sacrifice himself?!” Pinkie choked out, feeling a great desire to blast David again with her party cannon just for his callousness towards Boulder.
“Look, you two, I know you’re sad about that pet rock, but how about we get out of here? That Crown needs to go someplace safe where it can’t summon that Baron ever again,” Daring Do said. David shoved the giant peppermint candy off of himself, growling at the three ponies.
“No, the Crown needs to stay with me! I’m going to get the Baron’s brain!” he roared, charging straight at Pinkie, as he knew that it had been stored in her poofy mane. Both Maud and Daring Do jumped in front of Pinkie and kicked David together, sending him crashing back into the wall again. Daring Do grabbed both Pie sisters and flew out the window, setting them down a few feet away from the hole that the robot had been thrown into. They looked around quickly to figure out where they were, which happened to be a desert on the outskirts of Appleoosa.
“I see Appleoosa!” Pinkie called out, and at the same time, David leaped out of the window, determined to get that crown back. Pinkie, Maud, and Daring Do ran as fast as they could towards Appleoosa, where they would be able to find trains that could take them back to the rock farm, a museum in Canterlot, or anywhere else in Equestria they wanted to go that had access to the abundant tracks of the Friendship Express. David ran after them too, but he was thwarted in his attempt to retrieve the Crown by a herd of stampeding buffalo, who blocked his path. By the time he was able to leap over them, he couldn’t see the three ponies anymore. As for the two sisters and the adventurous author, they were safely in the house of Applejack’s cousin Braeburn, who had recognized Pinkie Pie when he saw her out on the street.
“I’m mighty glad to see you visiting Aaaappleoosa again, Pinkie Pie! What brings you around these parts? And who are your new friends? Can’t say I’ve ever seen them before, although one of them looks mighty familiar,” Braeburn said, his last comment referring to Daring Do, who had made a quick costume change so that she was wearing a kerchief instead of her pith helmet. With this appearance, she was the secretive author, A. K. Yearling, and not the famous adventure book heroine, Daring Do.
“It’s a loooong story, Braeburn. But this is my sister, Maud Pie, and A. K. Yearling, who we met on our way here,” Pinkie said. She wasn’t even quite sure how to explain all of the events that had led them to end up in Appleoosa, since she had had her soul sucked out for at least part of that time, but she was pretty sure at least some of it would be ending up in a future Daring Do book. For now, the three ponies were glad to be treated to some fresh, cool apple juice and apple pie. Then the Pie sisters could return home to carve a memorial for Boulder’s sacrifice, and as for Daring Do, she had a Crown to deliver to the Canterlot Museum. It wasn’t quite “happily ever after”, but the world had been saved, not only by Daring Do, but by the stoic and amazing powerhouse, Maud Pie!