• Published 14th Sep 2013
  • 1,344 Views, 78 Comments

Daring Do and the Heart of Storms - KitsuneRisu



An accident draws Daring Do from the pages of her book into real life! Rainbow Dash is elated, but she finds that the character she loves from the books isn't the one in front of her, and THIS Daring Do has a few stories of her own to tell...

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The Beginning in the End



Please Note: This Fic was written and conceived before the events of Season 4 episode 4. This fic proceeds under the understanding that Daring Do is a work of fiction by an author who isn't integral to the plot and who also isn't Twilight's mom.



~~~~~


Daring Do stood above the volcano, looking down into its fiery maw as it spat balls of flame in an effort to keep her at bay. But the ledge she was perched on held her weight despite its precariousness as she crawled ever forward on shaking limbs. She had finally made it to the end, and she was one dastardly trap closer to reaching Doctor Rosenthorn’s evil volcano lair.

She was certain that there would be many more trials ahead, but the trap of the crumbling ledges proved no challenge compared to what she had to go through in order to get here. Picking out the one safe path out of many was as easy to her as picking out a red ball from a barrel of blue ones.

And there, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a glint of silver winking out of the crust of the volcano's wall. That was it –the place she had been searching for all this time!

She looked down at the volcano with a tinge of regret in her heart as she recalled the reason why she was there.

The Heart of Storms – that nefarious device she had found on her expedition last month – who would have thought it would have turned out to be something like this?

But with a renewed burst of spirit and sweat on her brow, she kept crawling along the precarious perch that wound its way along the cliff face toward the hidden base that lay beneath, toward the place where the evil Doctor Rosenthorn had installed the stolen relic…


~~~~~

Rainbow Dash let the cover of the book fall shut, not even bothering to shut it herself. The picture under the title looked blurry to her, as if she were staring at it from a long way away. The image of her hero – the stalwart and brave Daring Do – danced on the edge of a fiery volcano, staring furiously at a mechanical device of some kind.

The book’s title, Daring Do and the Heart of Storms, proudly paraded itself across the cover, but the words underneath were what Rainbow couldn't stop focusing on.

'Daring Do's final adventure!' the subtitle claimed, inviting all to witness the last in a long line of novellas.

Rainbow let loose a puff of air, gazing up toward the far wall of her home. She had read this story six times now. The more she read it, the more she felt as if the words had run into streaks of ink across the page, offering no explanation to the one question she had.

What now?

It was the end of an era.

Rainbow Dash scratched distractedly at the melancholy that started to well up once again in the pit of her stomach – a gripping, tightening, turbulent flood of dissatisfaction and pensiveness.

She fumbled with the book in her hooves, tossing it back and forth while considering her next step. It was something she had been considering for a while, but pride fought against logic.

Finally, she let out a sigh that bordered on a groan and shut her eyes, steeling herself for the inevitable.

There was only one pony to whom she could talk to about all this.

Bursting out of the window of her home in the clouds, Rainbow Dash let the cool night air refresh her harrowed face as she spread her wings in majestic flight, the book cradled securely beneath her, clasped in tight legs.

Diving down through the clouds, under the stars that twinkled in their way in the skies above, she made her way to the library.



~ Daring Do and the Heart of Storms ~

Chapter 1 :: The Beginning in the End



"Hey, Twilight, thanks for lending this to me," Rainbow said, tossing the book up onto a stack that was reserved for her and her alone. It landed upon a pony-high tower that consisted of all of the Daring Do series, in order, and one lonely volume of the Galaxy Battles series that Dash didn't really find she enjoyed.

The books, save one, had been borrowed so many times at random that Twilight decided setting them aside in a pile was preferable to always having to go upstairs to the Fiction section and retrieve them.

As long as the pile is neat, Twilight reasoned, and that was enough to help her get over her initial gut-reaction over leaving books on the ground in such a haphazard manner.

A bloom of magic helped adjust the final book to perfect alignment on the very top of the stack.

"No worries," Twilight replied, taking her attention off the tower and refocusing on her guest. "We are a library, after all. You took longer than normal to finish this one. Must have been good, huh?"

"Yeah, it was good! They're always good," Dash said with a level of brash assertion. But even so, there was a dip in the usual level of excitement she had when talking about her favourite series.

"What's up, Rainbow? What’s bothering you?" Twilight asked, picking up on her friend’s mood.

"Hey, is Spike around? How's Spike doing?" The pegasus asked suddenly, ruffling her wings, giving Twilight a half-loaded smile. She looked around, hunting for the little dragon.

"I'm in here!" came a faint voice from the next room. "Just cleaning up!"

"Don't avoid the subject, Rainbow," Twilight said sternly, causing Rainbow’s attention to snap back to her.

"Subject? What subject? I'm not avoiding anything! Nothing's wrong! Who said something was wrong?" Dash stammered out suddenly.

Twilight just waited.

Rainbow Dash was never able to hide anything, despite all her attempts to do so. Her emotions were like oil in a bucket of water; eventually they all ended up rising to the surface. The wry look Twilight was giving her only served to speed the process along.

Rainbow sighed.

"I'm just…" Dash mumbled as her eyes trailed across the spines of the stack of books. "I can't believe they did that."

"Oh! Yes." Twilight nodded, a little less perturbed than Dash was. "It came as a surprise to me as well. I had no idea they were even planning on ending the series. I guess the author just got tired of doing them or something."

"Yeah, you know. I just… I'm kinda bummed out," Dash continued, her gravelly voice sounding even more gravelly than usual. "It's like, I can't believe it, you know? I’m feeling all messed up about it and stuff. It’s weird."

"Oh, you’re just a little upset, Rainbow. Nothing to worry about!"

"W- well, why am I upset, then? Huh?" Rainbow countered, her mind still struggling to accept a very simple, fundamental truth.

"Um… because the series ended?" Twilight offered.

"Well, why'd it have to end, then?" Dash blurted out suddenly, in a loud outburst that heralded a far off thumping in the distance – the sound of a dragon falling off a ladder in shock.

"Calm down, Dash!" Twilight exclaimed, equally shocked at the sudden outpouring of what had to have been a long period of pent-up frustration. "Things end! It’s not that big a deal, is it? I mean… stuff stops, but we move on."

"But not like that! There's… there's so many more stories to tell! There's so many questions to answer! What about… what about in book four?" Dash rushed over to the stack, throwing her hoof at the book in reference. "When they sort of talked about her family but never really said anything after that? O- or book nine? When Daring mentioned her other job? How are we going to find out about that now?”

"Oh Dash, it's up to you to answer those questions," Twilight said with a gentle smile. It warmed her heart to see this particular friend be so passionate about the written word. It wouldn’t be long until Dash would turn into a proper lover of all the literary arts!

"Up to me?"

"Well… look at it this way," Twilight explained gently, taking a step closer to Rainbow. "It's up to us to let them live on in other ways. I mean, you could discuss theories with others, you could… write your own stories, even. It'd just be for you, but that's the idea, isn't it? The books are only as… as alive as you make them, you see."

"Not getting it," Dash said, her eyes as empty as a pair of wells.

"It's like this," Twilight continued, pulling Dash away from the book stack. "The characters in the book… they aren't real. They're only what someone thinks of and puts down on a page, right?"

"I guess so."

"So really, all of Daring Do is just what someone thought of and put down on a page, right?"

"Well, yeah." Dash shrugged. She couldn't argue with that.

"So let's say all these ideas and thoughts were still in that author’s mind, and she never wrote any of it down. They only existed in her head. Does that make Daring Do any less real to you than she is now? All that separates the two is that in one case, these stories have been published in a book."

"What… what's your point, Twilight?"

"If you thought up stories about Daring Do, does it mean it's any less real just because it's not written down?" Twilight leaned closer.

"Well," Rainbow mused slowly, putting a hoof up to her head, mussing her mane. "I mean if you… if you put it that way, then…"

"Yes?" Twilight grinned.

"I… I don't understand the question…" Dash stammered, staring at Twilight's suddenly deflated visage.

"Well, let me put it another way…"

"No! Don't. Stop, alright? Stop." Dash held her hooves up to her temples, groaning in mental defeat. "This is egghead stuff! I don't deal with egghead stuff, you egghead!"

"O- oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

"Anyway, you know what? This has been your fault from the start!" Rainbow exclaimed, pointing a hoof at Twilight's nose.

"Wait, but… how is this my fault?” Twilight asked quizzically, her hoof clutching at her chest in defense.

"You should have never taught me how to read!" Dash yelled.

"Now, Rainbow!" Twilight murmured. “I think blaming me for that is just…”

The room dropped into a well of silence, the swishing of a soft feather brush upon hard leather bindings the only noise as Spike went about his daily duties in the other room.

“Hold on,” Twilight said, softly. “I never… wait… what?”

Rainbow stood there, grinning slyly.

"Rainbow." Twilight rolled her eyes.

"Sorry. Just kidding," Dash apologized, rubbing the back of her neck. "Couldn't help it. I just… I guess I sort of get what you were trying to say. I just don't really wanna think about it that much, you know? I'm not a thinker. That's more your department. But at least I came clean about my feelings, right?"

"At least you gave it a shot, you mean." Twilight shrugged, lips pursed wryly to the side.

"Well, I'm a mare of action!" Dash straightened up, taking in a deep breath, rearing up on her hind legs so that her front ones could participate in a traditional Rainbow Dash flex. "Can't do anything about that! Thinking about it won’t help! I gotta see and feel and do! So if the book are over, then… I guess I’m out of luck, huh."

"Seeing and feeling, hmm?" Twilight asked, looking at Dash with a mixture of guilt and pity.

"Yeah. What about?” Rainbow dropped back down to four hooves, tilting her head slightly.

“You know what?” Twilight sighed, relenting against her better judgement. “I think I can do something for you.”

"W-what?" Rainbow asked, pulling up next to Twilight with a wide-eyed expression.

"I learned a rather interesting spell a few weeks back," Twilight said. "I've been using it for official business, but I don't see why it shouldn't work in this case, too."

"Wait. Are you sure that's a good idea?" Dash asked with scepticism. "You don't exactly have a good track record with messing around with spells."

"I'm going to ignore that," Twilight huffed. "And yes, I’m technically not supposed to use it recklessly, thanks, Princess Celestia, but this one is fool proof. It's a complex but very straightforward sort of spell. The chances of it going wrong are less than one percent."

"So, there's still a chance, then." Rainbow narrowed her eyes.

"It's not going to go wrong!" Twilight groaned with exasperation. "You haven't even heard what the spell is yet!"

"I don't want to hear what the spell is if it's going to go wrong!"

Twilight scrunched up her nose, her bullet-like glare shooting out from her indignant gaze and locking with Rainbow’s. She knew that Rainbow was just being apprehensive about the whole situation, and Rainbow did have a habit of throwing her frustrations over everypony else like wet blankets over a cat.

The two of them stood, seething in silence, glowering at each other for a couple of tense seconds.

Spike walked in, carrying a little stepladder.

"Hi, guys!" he said cheerfully, walking between the two ponies and setting the ladder up against one of the bookcases. “I’m finished over there, Twi.”

Meticulously, he began to swish the feathers across the books, magical dust and other such things coming loose from where they clung.

"Well, alright then," Dash said quietly, eyeing the little dragon.

"Do you want me to do this or not?" Twilight growled.

"Okay, okay!" Dash surrendered, throwing her hooves up in the air. “Tell me what you’re planning!”

"It's a spell that creates an image out of words," Twilight explained. "I learned it to better visualise some of the letters that Princess Celestia sent me. You know, descriptions of complex geometric shapes and complex spell patterns are good up to a certain extent, but sometimes you just need to see things in front of you."

"I don’t think I’d know much about that," Dash muttered.

"Well. What it's going to do is take a selection of text and make an image out of it. Sort of like a… ghost, I guess! It'll be transparent, but you'll get a good view. I'll cast it on a passage of your choice and let you have a little glimpse of Daring Do in the flesh! How about that?"

"You mean I get to see her in front of me? Like, as if she were really here?"

"Yep! Well, she won’t be real, but… you know!"

“How big would it be?”

“Oh, any size, really. I’ll make it life-sized! Just for you!” Twilight explained eagerly.

“And… can I bring her home with me?”

“Ah… no. I’m afraid they don’t last very long, but… a couple of minutes is better than nothing, right?” Twilight grinned hopefully.

“And you say I can pick any passage,” Dash clarified.

“Yep!”

"But… but there's hundreds of cool scenes!" Dash's mouth gaped. "How am I supposed to choose?"

"Well… maybe something from the final book?" Twilight suggested.

Rainbow let loose another sigh, turning her face to the ground.

"And you’re just doing this out of the kindness of your heart, huh?" she asked, voice grumbling low.

"And maybe you’ll be able to get a little closure as well." Twilight grinned sheepishly.

"Well, if you think it’ll help.” Rainbow relented, shoulders dropping a little before she perked up again. “But even then, there's so many cool scenes in the final book! There's that bit at the start where she finds the map, or… or that scene where she valiantly delivers the Heart of Storms over to the museum! Or how about…"

"What's a scene that makes you proud of her?" Twilight asked.

"Proud? Well…” Rainbow trailed off, her eyes flicking to the side as she gave to some thought. “Well, I don’t know. I’ve never really thought of things that way before, but… I guess it’d have to be just before she enters the base at the end. You remember? When she's standing above the ledge that leads down into the volcano?"

"Well, actually, Dash, I haven't read it yet. You borrowed my only copy, remember?"

"Yeah, but I just returned it fifteen minutes ago!"

"And?"

"And why haven't you read it yet?"

"Dash!"

"Sorry!"

"I don't know why I put up with you, sometimes," Twilight bemoaned, yanking the book off the top of the pile. "What page is that scene on?"

"Do you think I remember every page in-"

"What page, Rainbow?"

"Page 158, okay? Sheesh!"

"Okay. Let's see here," Twilight said to herself, flipping to the mentioned page. Right there, in the middle, was the paragraph that Dash mentioned.

Rainbow tapped her hoof on the floor impatiently as Spike dusted another shelf.

"Okay, I think I'm all set," Twilight said, placing the book upright on a little stand on the floor. "Spike, I'm about to cast a spell. Please be ready."

"You got it, Twilight," Spike chortled back, shifting on the ladder to get the far-off bits.

"Are you ready?" Twilight asked Dash, who was already on the other end of the room, just in case that one-percent failure rate decided to bite her.

"Yeah! Go for it!" Rainbow called out.

"Then, let's begin." Twilight nodded, turning toward the open pages in front of her.

And suddenly, the world went white.


A blaze of fire danced within and without Dash's head, a spinning void lacking colour and substance, but the heat… oh the heat! It burned furiously across her eyes and ears.

And when the ringing started, Dash found she had no choice but to pull her hooves away from the sides of her head; the high-pitched whine that began as a far-off siren started to blare loudly from the inside out, and covering her ears only served to keep it in.

Behind tightly shut eyelids, she could smell the acrid scent of something smouldering – a bit of smoke mixed in with a faint chemical-like smell.

But the prickles on her skin reminded her that it was magic that was the spark to this whole explosive mess.

The entire experience was disorienting, and she struggled to find the thought that could describe it adequately. The best she could come up with at the time was that she felt like there was a happy opera-singing pudding bouncing around the inside of her face.

It would have to do.

She peeled herself off the floor, slowly, gently, caution taking hold of her actions as she coughed out the last powdery remains of the smoky air she had inhaled and raised her voice to the room.

"Twilight! I said this was gonna happen, didn’t I? You messed up! Again!" she accused, pushing her way through the dissipating clouds as the storm in her head died down.

"Oh no, I didn't," Twilight responded, chipper. From behind a veil of thick white smog she appeared, the rest of the room following suit.

No damage had been done, that much was clear. The book still lay on the floor in front of Twilight, but so was Spike, lain out, face down, where he had fallen off the ladder. He wasn't moving much, save for a few twitches that showed signs of life.

No, no damage done.

The clouds of magical smoke had definitely come from the book; it was sparking now still, and above it Twilight stood triumphant and haughty.

It was clear that she, too, had been affected by the sudden eruption of noise and light, as her eyes betrayed her with their unfocused dance, but she was attempting to play it calm and steady. She looked back over her shoulder to the approaching Dash, the both of them wobbling on their legs.

Twilight grinned.

"So all this is normal then? Nearly blinding and deafening yourself for a graph?" Rainbow glared, blowing a strand of red hair out of her face.

"Oh, most certainly! Well, alright, the reaction was kind of different. Usually there's not that much smoke. Or noise! Or any of it, actually. But it worked! I cast the spell perfectly!"

"You know, Twilight, I might not be the first to have asked you this but…" Rainbow tilted her head to the side. "How do you know that?"

"Well," Twilight said, walking over to the book and glancing down at it. The pages had begun to shudder, almost as if a gentle breeze was blowing at them. "It's kind of hard to explain, really, but… you just know. That's sort of how magic works. If you mess up, you mess up. And if you do it right, you know you've done it right."

"That's not really an answer," Rainbow countered, stepping up beside Twilight and looking down at the book as well. "Whoa."

The words on the page that Dash had pointed out earlier were shivering. They bounced around on the page, shaking wildly like flies caught under a pane of glass. They seemed almost eager to break free from the constraints of paper, each letter struggling to pull itself away.

"Well, think of it like this," Twilight continued. "If you close your eyes and hold your hoof in front of your face, you still know where your hoof is, right?"

"Yeah…" Dash muttered distractedly. She wasn't really listening any longer.

"It's sort of like that. Even if we don't see the results of the spell, we know where it is. It's based on the casting, you see. When everything goes right, w-"

"Twilight?" Rainbow asked, a tone of reverence in her voice. She was stuck somewhere between wonder and nervousness at the sight unfolding in front of her eyes, an eerie, purple hue casting itself over her face.

It wasn't anything that Twilight hadn't seen before, and she was perhaps a little nonchalant about it all. Perhaps surrounding herself with the wonder and splendour of magic made her take the spectacle of it for granted.

But Dash wasn't accustomed to it, and the low humming of the book, accompanied by the fireworks sparking off the paper, grabbed her attention more than anything else in the room could.

Swirling veins of light started to appear – a tornado of yellow and white lines cascading in the space just in front of the book. All the while, its words shook with such speed that they fell into a blur, small portions of them disappearing and fading off the page.

The book itself jumped and hopped around, nudged by unseen forces, prompting Dash to cast a wary eye toward her friend.

"Oh, that's supposed to happen." Twilight chuckled, waving Dash's concerns away. "Now watch, the image will appear in front of us in just a moment!"

Rainbow nodded in response, turning her attention back toward the swirls.

From within, a ghostly image appeared, the faint sketching of something there, the whisper of an idea taking shape. Letters and words ran across the glimmering form, and, like batteries feeding a grand machine, the image wrapped itself around the writing, drawing upon the power of inspiration.

Rainbow's eyes grew wide.

A few moments more and the image came into focus – the passage from the book was there in front of her, etched out as though it were a statue. But the way it shined and shimmered, it looked to Dash as if it was made out of soap bubbles rather than stone. It was transparent, light, angelic… and also incredibly fragile.

The winds and swirls and noises had stopped, and it remained as a soft projection made of light and air.

And there she was.

Her hero, the brave and honourable Daring Do, was in front of her, splayed out on a rocky ledge that protruded from the floor of the library, craggy shards of volcanic stone creeping up at an angle.

Flickering and flashing with a magical aura, the translucent figure was frozen in a climb up the face of the outcropping, slate-grey mane blowing in a non-existent wind, hat perched precariously on her brow. The smug expression she normally had was present even then as she peered over the side into the volcano that lay beneath.

"Wow, cool," whispered Dash.

"It should stabilize in a second or two," Twilight said, waiting it out. "And… done!"

The image flickered, like static on a television.

"Done?" Twilight repeated. "Uh… done!"

The book shuddered.

"Twilight?" Dash asked, stepping back.

"I didn't mess up! Something's wrong!" Twilight blurted out, eyes darting from the book to the ghostly form and back.

"You didn't mess up, but something's wrong?" Dash repeated. "Yeah, that makes sense!"

"Yes! Something happened, but it wasn't due to my error!" Twilight shouted again. "It should stop in just a few more seconds!"

With another burst of magical glitter, the words written upon the book started to run down the pages, dripping off as if they were wax running down the side of a lit candle. They collected in tiny black mounds at the base of the book and began to inch their way across the floor like living puddles of sludge.

What was once the final chapter of the final book of the Daring Do series was now an amorphous blob of ruinated words in liquid form, and as the two ponies stared in morbid fascination, they could only gape helplessly as the thick black goop started to gather around the base of the image.

"Twilight, what's going on?" Dash asked, watching it unfold but unable to stop it. “Did you just ruin the book? You have another copy, right?”

"No! I mean, this wasn’t supposed to happen," Twilight said, her horn flashing with sparks of its own. "Nothing to worry about, though. I'll just reverse it, and…"

The spell ricocheted off the river of black, splashing harmlessly into the wall behind them.

"Oh boy," Twilight muttered. "Um… don't worry. Nothing to worry about!"

"You said that already!" Dash pointed out.

“It’s… um. I’ll… figure this out! The normal dispel isn’t working! Something must have happened. Maybe the matrices are out of alignment, or…” Twilight muttered, scratching her head. “Well, no harm, though! Why don’t you check out the image? It won’t hurt you! It’s not as clear as I’d have liked, but feel free to go have a look anyway while I figure out what’s going on!”

“Uh, alright. If you say so,” Dash replied, unconvinced.

With all due hesitation, Rainbow walked over to the image that sat comfortably surrounded by a small pool of ink. She hadn't the faintest idea what was going on, but at least she could still try to get some of this closure stuff while Twilight did her little panic dance in the background.

She leaned forward, looking into the eyes of Daring Do, watching her clamber over the stones. It was her last adventure. Her last hurrah. But Dash still couldn't find it in herself to smile at it. All it was to her was her hero’s final walk to the end.

Or crawl, in this case.

The image flickered.

It must have been hot, there, in the volcano. Dash had no idea how close to volcanoes you could get, technically, before you started to roast, but it must have been pretty warm. She imagined the waves of heat rising from underneath and how Daring Do still bravely kept hold of her hat, no matter the weather.

Dash leaned down, her face nearly touching Daring's.

"So…" she said softly to the visage, "just an average day, saving the world, huh?"

A drop of sweat trickled down Daring Do's face.

Rainbow backed up, blinking.

"Hey, Twilight?" she asked, sight still trained on Daring. The sweat stopped in mid-drip, and the image was once again still, save for some odd magical blinking. "The image doesn't move, right?"

"No," Twilight responded as she frantically looked around for some evidence of foul play, which was the next logical step from her making a mistake. "It's just a still image!"

"Huh," Rainbow muttered. Maybe she was just seeing things.

The sweat fell to the rocks beneath, making a small dark mark where it hit the rocks. Rainbow blinked, moving in closer to make sure she saw what she thought she just did. She poked her head right beneath Daring’s, looking down at the clear, wet spot with wide eyes.

“Got it!” Twilight cried from behind Rainbow.

“W-what?” Rainbow stuttered, her eyes flicking upwards once again.

Dash jumped back, her wings semi-extending in a flight response; she was almost ready to run at what she saw.

Daring Do was staring back at her.

“I fixed it! Or at least, I think I did. I mean, the words have stopped… leaking now, for lack of a better term, I guess. I mean… this never really happened before. Oh, I should really find the term for it an-” Twilight chattered from the side, while Rainbow lay crouched down in front of the image of Daring Do, heart beating with slight apprehension.

“Um… Twilight,” Rainbow interjected flatly.

“Oh! Right. Sorry. Yes. It seems to be fixed, for now. Image seems clearer too!”

“Oh, yeah? H-how’d you manage that?” Rainbow called out, mind on other things.

“Well… to be honest, I don’t know what I did. I’ll have to launch a full investigation later to find out the exact syncopa-” Twilight stopped herself abruptly as she finally looked upon her friend. “Dash, what are you doing?”

“Twilight, the thing’s moving!” Dash cried, refusing to blink as she locked eyes with Daring.

“No, that’s just silly,” Twilight responded, walking over to stand next to Dash. She tilted her head as she looked upon the image, which was flickering less now. In fact, it looked rather filled in.

Daring Do blinked.

“Ahh!” Rainbow cried, scooting back and leaping into a low hover. “You saw that, didn’t you? She’s moving!”

“Actually, I did,” Twilight affirmed, amazed. A keen eyebrow shot up at the discovery. “This is… well, this is actually… I might have discovered a variation of the spell which causes the projection to become kinetic! This is… this is really quite… oooh! I have to write the princess about this!”

“Are you sure that’s… all it is?” Rainbow asked as the image of Daring Do blinked her eyes once again. More and more, Rainbow Dash felt like the moving image was actually looking at her rather than just in her direction.

“Oh, I’m certain of it,” Twilight reassured Dash with a smug smile, reaching over to tap the rock three times with a hoof, each rap giving off a sharp ‘clink’. “It’s just an image, you see?”

“Uh, Twilight.”

“Only an… image,” Twilight repeated, rapping on the rock again. It was remarkably solid. Not only in feeling, but as the black pool seeped up and completely faded underneath the image, its colour filled in as well, the bold and robust forms of the volcanic rock erupting forth.

Twilight reached up a hoof slowly, toward the side of Daring Do’s face.

“Twi? What are you doing?” Dash called out, landing next to her.

“I… I’m testing something.”

Dash watched as Twilight moved her hoof closer… closer still… and even closer still to Daring’s cheek, until it was a mere inch away.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!” Daring screamed suddenly, her wings ruffling as she twisted in midair, grabbing Twilight’s leg with the crook of her own and pulling her to the floor of the volcanic outcropping.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!” Twilight screamed in return as she was thrown over the rock roughly, the flat craggy surface scratching her chest. Before she knew it, a leg was pushing her face on the stone, and her leg was locked beside her in a professional hold of some kind.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!” Dash screamed, falling back on her rear in a rare case of being shocked. She was caught in that moment where confusion and shock prevented her from acting as she normally would.

“Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Spike screamed, suddenly awake thanks to all the other screaming.

Panic and pandemonium echoed throughout the library as a multitude of things happened all at once. But it was very clear, after a few moments, that no one present had any idea of what was going on whatsoever.

Twilight’s horn fizzled out as she attempted to cast a spell.

Rainbow scrabbled back to her hooves and put on a determined face.

Daring’s breathing hastened as fear set in, her eyes taking quick, confused glances at her surroundings.

Spike wisely decided to remain on the floor, keeping up his act of unconsciousness.

Who are you?” Daring was the first to speak – or in this case, yell – as she demanded information from Rainbow. “Tell me, or your friend gets it!”

Twilight struggled against the tightening hold of Daring, and any attempt to cast a spell was unsuccessful for some unknown reason. They all resulted in a fizzle, flaccid magical sparks flopping around on the ground like a bag of marbles dropped on a trampoline.

“Leff me go!” she cried, flailing around with her three free limbs.

“No! You! With the rainbow mane! Tell me who you are! Now!” Daring continued yelling.

“L-let her go!” Rainbow replied, suddenly aware of the direness of the scene unfolding.

“No!” Daring yelled.

“Pleef! Leff me go!” Twilight begged, speaking half into the floor.

“No!” Daring repeated. “I’m not going to fall for that! Identify yourselves! Tell me where I am! And then tell me how I got here! Is this the power of the Heart?”

“The H- No!” Rainbow cried out, dropping her shoulders and rubbing her eyes in frustration. “We’re not the enemy, okay? We don’t work for Rosenthorn!”

“But you attacked me!” Daring Do growled.

“I waffn’t attackffing you!” Twilight whined.

“She wasn’t attacking you!” Rainbow reasserted, frowning.

“You were screaming! That is a clear sign of an attacker!” Daring yelled down at Rainbow.

“No! We… I mean, you were screaming too!” Rainbow replied. “Why were you screaming?”

“For the element of surprise!” Daring yelled. “It’s basic fisticuffs!”

“But we only screamed because you screamed!” Rainbow cried.

“No! I screamed because you screamed!” Daring shouted.

Canff we aww stoff screaminph?” Twilight screamed.

Rainbow lowered her hoof. She didn’t even remember when she raised it, but it was, just a moment ago, pointed at Daring Do in a threatening manner. She let her posture drop to one of a less hostile sort and welcomed the short span of silence.

“Alright. Patrician?” Rainbow said, in a regular tone and volume now, at which Daring raised an alert eyebrow.

Rainbow pulled the title straight from the books – it was what all her peers in the Adventuring Academy of Fenwickshire called her according to her adventurer’s rank, and a little respect always went a long way. With any luck, Rainbow could get her attention, and that was all she needed.

“We can explain,” Rainbow continued, noticing how Daring let off the pressure on Twilight’s head slightly when she called her by her title. “You’re not… at Doctor Rosenthorn’s lair anymore, alright? I’m not even sure… how you’re here. This is all a big accident. It’s going to be a weird story, but I promise we’re not the bad guys. Would you please get off my friend’s face there? There’s no danger here.”

“We cnff offerff youff ffuhm tea!” Twilight threw into the bargain.

“Tea?” Daring repeated, looking down at the purple unicorn she was squishing.

Another tense moment passed as Daring Do looked over the two of them, regarded the library itself with even more curiosity, and looked at the ‘unconscious’ figure of Spike with just the tiniest bit of disdain.

“Alright,” she finally said, pulling her hoof off Twilight’s face and getting off her back. “But no cheeky business, you got that?”

There was a properness to her voice that Rainbow couldn’t quite put a hoof on. It was neither boorish nor overly formal – even while making threats she sounded like she was merely issuing a rather austere suggestion.

To Rainbow, her accent sounded as one befitting an aristocrat from a distant land of knights and chivalry. It was true that Daring’s home town was always portrayed as a splice between the days of yore and a modern Trottingham, which, according to the official trivia, it was based upon. But Daring sounded nothing like how Dash portrayed her in her own head while reading the books.

In fact, Rainbow always imagined that Daring sounded a little like herself most of the time.

Rainbow watched with curiosity as Daring Do twirled a small amulet on a chain around her hoof before she slipped it into one of the many pockets on her adventure vest. In the meantime, Twilight tumbled off the rock, rolling unceremoniously back to Dash before she leapt up to her hooves and looked herself over for damage.

It was quick, but Rainbow saw a flash of crimson, the shape of a horn, and the octagonal golden frame that held it, and she widened her eyes as it dawned on her just what that thing was.

“T-that’s the Anti-magic Amulet of Armadale!” Dash gaped, pointing a hoof at Daring. “I can’t believe it!”

“W-what?” Twilight stuttered, still slightly disoriented from the whole ordeal.

“That’s why you couldn’t use your magic! She was pressing it against your face, wasn’t she?” Rainbow yelled gleefully, grabbing at Twilight’s head.

“H-hey!” Twilight batted a pair of curious hooves away, turning her cheek – the one with the weird amulet-shaped imprint on it – away from prying eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Hold, rainbow-head!” Daring Do declared. “You know about the amulet?”

“Yeah! Of course I do! You retrieved it from the Nests of Neblumor!” Rainbow said, her excitement returning as she started to devolve into an excited child. “I can’t believe it works here!”

“Wait… but that’s guild business,” Daring stated. “You’re a member of the guild? Why didn’t you say so bef-”

“Hah! I wish!” Rainbow cried out in glee. “Omigosh, if only I were!”

“Then how do you know of it?” Daring frowned again.

“Of course I know!” Rainbow smirked, flicking her mane over her shoulder. “I’m your biggest fan, after all! I’ve read all your books!”

Daring Do tilted her head. She felt her frustration and suspicions leaving, soon replaced by an odd sensation that she couldn’t quite put her hoof on. A small wave of disorientation hit as she looked to the two ponies that stood before her – normal, unassuming ponies, all things considered, and she couldn’t help but feel that there was something wrong about it all.

The rainbow-head was now staring up at her as if she were looking upon a revered idol, and the unicorn was now covering her eyes with a hoof in embarassment.

The dragon was still pretending to be asleep, face down on the floor, but Daring had noticed him peek at her once in a while when he thought she wasn’t looking.

There were just things that didn’t make sense about this place, little oddities that flicked her in her brain and made her feel uncomfortable.

And that, despite its negative connotations, was something she could take solace in.

It was a silly thing, but she felt more secure when she could feel things. She felt the sudden chill from when she was brought from the volcano to this place. Certainly, teleportation spells were not uncommon, or perhaps this was some sort of variation of the standard Wayfarer Trap, but there was confusion and fear, and she had felt those too.

It made her take comfort in the fact that what was happening was something real, something she could invest in.

There were far more urgent things to worry about, though. She had to get back to the evil Doctor Rosenthorn’s evil volcano lair of evil to thwart his evil plans for world domination – just her regular Tuesday.

But yet… there was something about what rainbow-head had just said that caused her to pause.

Something that itched in the back of her head. Something that she had to address before she continued on her mission. It wouldn’t take too long, she reckoned, and then she’d be on her way.

Daring looked with a newfound sense of determination to Rainbow, staring daggers at her.

“What do you mean… ‘books’?” Daring asked.

“I’ll go make the tea,” the purple one grumbled as she walked off into the next room.

“Um… well. I guess you’d better have a seat,” the rainbow one offered. “This is going to be a pretty unbelievable story.”


To Be Continued ––––––––––––>

Author's Note:

This fic would not have been possible without the help of a few special individuals.

Thank you very, very much to:

Crack Javelin for the original idea ball and working out kinks
Mr. Seldom Needy for being an amazing story doctor
q97randomguy for having the most eagle eyes of all grammarists
Cyne for the support and love

And to all else for everything else. You guys are great, and thanks for reading!