Daring Do and The Turquoise Serpent

by Time Pony Victorious

Chapter 5

V

DARING

The Mysterious Mare Do Well

Despite how well off Daring Do is, she doesn't necessarily enjoy accommodations of the luxurious flavour; having said that, her house in Canterlot was an impressive and beautiful wonder. It wasn't her choice, to be honest; it was due to the combined efforts of Herpy and Derring, her sister.

They had insisted on her living here; their arguments weren't exactly solidified in concrete but Derring had ways to manipulate her younger sister.

"Think of all the other unfortunate ponies who are unable to live in luxury," she had said, "Don't you think that with your status and fame that it would be insulting if you tried to live like them?"

When Derring poked and prodded, she hit all the right buttons every time. Daring had no choice but to concede and since then she has spent two years living there. Though, it wasn't like Daring actually lives there. No, she seldom spends anytime there and often sleeps in the Canterlot university leaving the actual home to Calypso, her pet macaw.

Her home was in Elysium, a neighboring community close to the Canterlot university and castle. The richest of the rich lived here and it was so exclusive stray animals aren't allowed in without clearance.

Appropriately, her home was the biggest one in the community and stood atop the Olympus Hill, where it overlooked the entire neighborhood and had a wonderful view of the ocean behind it. It was four stories tall and was settled in a twenty-four acre land with an assortment of trees and a seawater fountain out front.

The house was gold in color and looks like it was ablaze when the sun hits it. It had five bathrooms and a pool outback, and although it has seven bedrooms she doesn't use any of the rooms when she sleeps here. Her room is actually her roof; a sectioned off part of it at least. There is a glass bubble covering the room, in case of inclement weather, and is entirely transparent so she can view the stars in peace.

But, like Daring, her room is simple in taste. There is a bed, several bookshelves filled with, well, books, a little section for Calypso and a television if she gets bored, which is often.

Right now, Daring was stomping around her room, ranting and raving. Her condition seems to have worsened from her trip to South Amareica. There were dark circles around her eyes, her mane was an entire mess, and there were bandages nearly everywhere. Herpy had been in charge for first aid and it showed; the bandages were frayed or tied too loosely and hung awkwardly.

"That no good, thieving mare!" she growled punching her wall leaving a nice hoof-shaped dent.

"Thieving mare!" Calypso squawked.

"So, you're seriously telling me that a masked pony stole the snake from you?" Herpy asked, trying to keep a straight face.

"It wasn't just a pony, she was an alicorn. Magic, wings, and everything!" Daring moaned. "How am I supposed to compete with that?"

"Do you know why she would steal from you?" He asked, "I mean, from what you said, the snake didn't look very impressive."

No, indeed the snake wasn't impressive. Even as it fell out of her hat, it landed on the grass with a pathetic "clunk". With the blazing forest behind her and the thief right in front of her, she didn't have much choice in escape.

Glancing at the costumed mare, Daring could notice a pair of wings wrapped in the spandex outfit. She didn't want to take a chance at losing this hard-earned treasure in a race. The mare tilted her head and stared, almost inquisitively, at the hat.

"You really think you're getting this?" Daring had asked, this thief certainly was confident.

But she had said nothing in response, instead, she pressed one of the buttons on her belt and another boomerang was produced from it. She tossed it at Daring while charging her. Daring strafed opposite of her, ducking to avoid the boomerang, then changed course to charge her head on.

The mare jumped over Daring, opened her wings, and briefly flew toward the hat. That was definitely her main objective; biting back a curse, Daring skidded to slow her run and galloped back.

Before the mare could reach the hat, Daring was right behind her and she jumped. Drop-kicking the thief, she could only block and roll back from the hit. Daring stood over her hat and glanced down, the snake was still there. Without removing her gaze at the thief, she picked up her hat, snake and all, and placed it on her head.

"Could I at least have the name of the mare stealing from me?" she asked.

Instead, the thief's hat floated off her head, revealing a horn, and a bolt of magic was blasted toward Daring. Rolling out of the way, Daring mumbled sour words about alicorns everywhere.

More bolts of magic streaked toward her, it was all she could do to dodge the magic as they hit, and disintegrated, the trees. Daring couldn't stay on the defensive for long, she needed to get in close; it was the best option against a unicorn's magic. She hated the best options.

Hiding behind a tree, Daring could still hear the mysterious mare fire off her magic at the forest. But none of them were close to Daring, either that mask obscures her vision, or her aim was bad; either way it gave Daring an opportunity.

She ran from behind her cover and galloped with all her might. She could see the mare standing right outside the forest just blasting it with her magic; she hadn't noticed Daring, good.

Daring burst out of the forest, the mare turned and charged her magic but Daring wouldn't give her a clear shot. She jumped as she approached her, causing the mare to miss her magic, and tackled her.

The mares rolled and wrestled on the ground, kicking up a lot of dirt and getting very muddy. Daring tried to pin the mare down, but she had good reflexes and continually rolled and squirmed out of Daring's grasp. Finally, the mare managed to get out of the tussle and even managed to kick Daring in the stomach as she rolled out.

Getting to her feet, Daring felt dizzy and coughed and gasped, that kick was stronger than expected. As Daring recuperated, the mare did a cool flying kick aimed at her head. Recovering her wits, Daring dodged and grabbed the attacking leg. She swung the thief over her shoulder and slammed her into the ground.

Jumping on top of her, she tried to hold her down but she must have been a professional fighter or something. She wouldn't allow Daring to get on her back and spun around so that they were muzzle to muzzle.

She then reeled and kicked Daring in the exact same spot she was kicked before. Daring was unable to block any of the attacks and was forced to jump off. Okay, that close-quarters plan failed miserably.

The mare wouldn't allow Daring any breathing room, she came at her again. This time she jumped up, in hopes of tackling Daring. But, the trick was obvious, Daring turned at the last second and kicked with all of her might.

It connected right at the thief's jaw causing her to recoil back. She fell, her back slamming into the ground where she lay perfectly still.

Daring took this chance to catch her breath. Her head was pounding mercilessly; her ribs felt like gelatin; there would probably be a few cracked ones. And she just felt dead tired, she just wanted to lie down and sleep right in the middle of this burning forest.

But, she decided against that lovely thought and approached the unconscious mare.

"Now then, I'll ask you again," she said as she stood over her. "Who are you?"

Suddenly, the mare's head snapped up, her legs wrapped around Daring's shoulder, and she said, "Mare Do Well."

Her horn glowed with such intensity Daring had to shut her eyes. The light made Daring more weary than ever; it made her muscles relax too quickly and her mind rebelled uselessly. She was losing consciousness, she tried to struggle but she was so tired that it was hopeless. The horn touched Daring's forehead and the world faded to black.

When Daring had awoken, it was morning, the fire was out and she was alone. As expected, her hat was completely empty; she had lost.

As she finished her recollection, Herpy noted that thief’s name.

"I heard that name before," he remarked.

"Tsk, sounds like some lame Saturday morning villain." She grumbled, nursing her hurt hoof.

"No, no, look," he turned on the television and skipped a few channels. "Come on… where is it?"

He went through a dozen of news channel but to no avail. Daring wondered what exactly he was looking for; it wasn't like a news report covering what he was talking about exactly would just conveniently appear to prove his point.

"Ah! Here!"

Or maybe it will.

A newspony appeared on TV, he was standing in front of a bank as police came down the stairs with four diamond dogs handcuffed and tied up by some wire. "Our residential hero, Ms. Mare Do Well, had captured these thieves late last night just as they were breaking into the vault. When police had arrived, all that was left were the diamond dogs tied up and this hat."

He turned slightly so that the camera could get a police pony in the background holding Mare Do Well's hat in his hooves.

"But, it seems that she has, once again, done the police's job."

A picture of Mare Do Well appeared at the bottom right. It was the same pony that ambushed Daring two nights ago. The picture was credited to Aberrant Flair, photographer for The Daily Bridle.

Underneath the picture was the caption, "The terror that trots in the night."

"Huh, a hero? I wouldn't have expected that." Herpy mumbled.

Daring slammed her hoof down on her coffee table, cracking it slightly, "That no-good thief," she smiled dangerously. "Herpy, we're heading to Manehattan."

"Thieving mare!" added Calypso.

"Wait, maybe it was a different mare!" argued Herpy as Daring walked off toward her closet. "I mean, this one looks like a hero, there's no way that a hero would go out of her way to rob you!"

"There aren't a lot of alicorns who dress up like a creeper of the night," Daring countered pulling out a bunch of clothes and throwing them on her bed. "Besides, even if it wasn't her I can just have a nice little chat with this Mare Do Well."

"Wait, wait, but shouldn't you try looking for Corkscrew? Or the snake!"

"Corkscrew pretty much disappeared, I have no means to contact him and right now Mare Do Well is the closest link to that snake and, hopefully, Corkscrew." She looked at Herpy with a devious expression. "And you're gonna help."

Daring then walked right out of her room leaving Herpy with Calypso.

"How do I get mixed up in all of this?" he wondered.

"AWWK! No good mare!" reminded Calypso.

"Thanks."

After dropping off Calypso at Derring's place, Dare and Herpy headed for Manehattan. The entire trip was spent with Herpy begging Daring to reconsider this and to head back for another lead while she ignored him.

A few minutes after he gave up convincing her, Daring finally spoke. "There's no way that a snake like that isn't dangerous. It was protected by a giant snake and a bunch of magical traps, not to mention the fact that this Mare Do Well wants it so badly as well. There is more to this snake than we are led to believe."

By the time they had arrived, it was mid-afternoon. Daring thanked the pegasi that brought them there and stepped out to look at the city.

It was beautiful but loud. Hundreds of ponies trotted on the sidewalks and automobiles honked and grumbled down the streets creating a disjointed symphony of incoherent noise. Daring was used to this type of noise due to her time spent in pastures; cows can get loud and incoherent when they want to.

"Great," Herpy sighed, "Now that we're here, where do we go? We don't know anyone in this city, and even less on Mare Do Well!"

"Easy, my bespectacled friend; we head for The Daily Bridle and look for this Flair character, he's the one who took the picture of Mare Do Well after all."

The Daily Bridle was all the way uptown, so it took them twenty minutes getting there. The building was tall, easily a hundred stories. It was jutted out of another building in the middle of Hour Triangle with the surrounding buildings lit up in colors making the Bridle stand out.

"That wasn't that bad," Daring remarked.

Herpy, however, was a bookworm and was already out of breath and tired when they had arrived. He couldn't even formulate an excuse as to why he didn't want to be here.

They headed inside and were directed by a nice receptionist to the twentieth floor. It was a great big mess up there. A bunch of ponies were running around yelling at each other and a dozen more were hammering away at the typewriters and computers. It was a chaotic place and she couldn't imagine the big headache she would get working here, no thank you, ancient ruins and giant snakes were enough for her.

A big office was in the back and a meeting was apparently taking place. They walked up to the office where a big Minotaur stood outside, looking through the window. Despite his stature, Daring had to stop herself from laughing at his silly outfit.

He wore a business suit that was a bit too small for him and he wore weird shoes over his hooves. But the silliest was his polka-dotted bowtie.

"Uh, 'cuse me," Daring said politely.

The Minotaur jumped slightly and looked at Daring. His eyes were nervous and wide and his legs were shaking.

"Oh, um, sorry I scared you," she said awkwardly. "But um, I'm looking for whoever's in charge around here."

"And you might be?" he asked.

Before she could give him her name, the door slammed open, nearly hitting her, and an angry unicorn walked out. Her coat was pure red with a bright green mane, and when Daring looked below her outfit she saw a quill-to-paper cutie mark.

"You hear me Peri?" the unicorn inside yelled. "I want you covering that garden party!"

But the unicorn kept walking, ignoring her boss, the Minotaur tried to call out to her but she ignored him as well.

"Wow, what's her deal?" asked Daring.

"Oh, um, nothing really. But Felicity writes a lot of Mare Do Well pieces but this time she wanted to write about Princess Celestia's solar eclipse, but J.J.-" he pointed at the unicorn inside the office, "-Doesn't want her to do it. And now he's trying to keep her busy, by making her cover the party at Middle Park tonight. Naturally, she's a bit steamed at that."

"Sounds like a bad gig," Daring sympathized, she knew what it was like to have to do something you didn't want to do.

"Hopefully she'll calm down soon, but, uh, I pretty go make sure she doesn't break something." He turned to follow Felicity. "By the way, if you're gonna talk to J.J. it's best not to get on his bad side!"

"We'll keep that in mind," muttered Herpy.

They stepped inside.

J.J. was distracted with something on the computer and didn't look up at them.

"Uh, excuse me."

"You here from Cloudsdale?" he asked, still not looking at them.

"No."

"You got pictures of Mare Do Well?"

"No."

Finally, he looked up, obviously annoyed, "Then why, in all of Equestria, have you decided to barge in my office?"

Daring decided she didn't like this pony, but she needed to get on his good side. She leaned forward, placed her hooves on his desk, and said, "I'm looking for Mare Do Well. She stole something from me."