The Legend of Daring Do

by The Red Parade

Daring Do and the End of Time

“Rainbow?”

I vaguely hear somepony calling out my name. I try to move, but my body doesn’t cooperate. I groan, holding a hoof to my head. Somepony keeps shaking me. “Rainbow! Get up!” I try to open my eyes, only to be blinded by a blast of sunlight.

“What happened?” I ask groggily. As my eyes readjust to the light, I can see Daring sitting beside me, shaking me with concern.

She lets out a sigh of relief. “I don’t know. We got separated from the others. Are you okay?”

I sit up, shaking off the drowsiness. “I think so. Nothing hurts, except for my head.”

“Good.” Daring stands up, looking around us. “You hit the ground pretty hard there.”

“I’ve had worse crashes,” I reply as I get to my hooves. “This is nothing I can’t handle.” I shake the dust out of my wings and glance around. Sure enough, there’s no sign of the others. I can’t see the town anymore either.

“We should probably get going. I don’t want to deal with any more giant bugs,” Daring says.

I nod my head in agreement, and we take off to the sky. I scan the horizon, but don’t see anypony. Just a bunch of cacti and sand. I glance at my sister and realize she’s pretty tense. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

She blinks and stares at me. “Nothing. You just crashed pretty hard, that’s all.”

I raise an eyebrow at that. “Sis, you’ve seen me wipe out a lot harder than that while practicing.”

“I know! I just got scared when I lost you.” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “In the dust, I mean. When your hoof fell out of mine. I thought you were gone, Rainbow.”

I put a hoof on her shoulder. “Hey, don’t worry about me. That’s my job, okay? I’m fine.”

She opens her eyes and shudders. “Rainbow… I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I just went out and died on you. I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you.”

“Daring, look. These past few days I’ve had a lot of ponies telling me that what happened wasn’t my fault. I never thought I’d need to tell you this, but it isn’t your fault either. It was an accident, and it was stupid, but it wasn’t anypony’s fault.”

My sister looks at me skeptically. “But, if I hadn’t gone on that trip--”

“If you’re going to blame someone, blame me,” I tell her. “If I reached out and realized that you needed help, maybe you’d still be alive. But blaming each other isn’t going to solve anything. It won’t bring you back.”

My sister wipes at her eye with a hoof. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. But I never meant to put you guys through this.”

“We know,” I affirm. “And we don’t love you any less.”

With a few deep breaths, Daring straightens herself out and confidence returns to her eyes. “Right. Okay, we need to find the others. Shout if you see anything.”

We fly on for a little bit, climbing higher to give us a better view of the area.

“Hey, Rainbow,” Daring asks after a bit. “Have you spoken to Mom and Dad recently?”

“I’m going to go visit tomorrow,” I answer. “Why?”

She shrugs. “No reason. I was just wondering how they’ve been doing.”

“They’re fine,” I reassure her. “They miss you a lot, but they’re the same as ever. Still supportive of everything I do, to the point where it’s kind of annoying. I mean, I love them and all, but sometimes they can be a bit overprotective.”

Daring considers that. “They probably don’t want to lose another daughter,” she observes quietly. “And your line of work isn’t exactly safe.”

I pause to reflect on that for a second. “You’re probably right,” I admit. “But I don’t want to be a weather manager forever.”

“I’m sure you won’t,” Daring answers. “But it must be hard for them. On one hoof they want to support you no matter what you want to do, but on the other they don’t want to lose you like they lost me.”

We fly on in silence, with that note weighing in my mind. I never really stopped to wonder how hard losing Daring was for them. I mean sure, I noticed some tension and arguments between them from time to time, but nothing too serious. But then again, I wasn’t exactly the most attentive pony in the world. I wonder how much more I’ve missed picking up.

“Rainbow, do you see that?” Daring interrupts my thoughts by pointing out a pummel of dust rising into the air.

“Yeah, but what the hay is it?” I reply. We speed down towards the dust, ready for anything.

As we near the disturbance, I feel my jaw drop. Standing in the middle of the sand is a giant moving cactus, covered with spikes and swinging its arms around. It's also got a huge pink flower on its head, and while it doesn’t have eyes, it’s got two huge fangs sticking out of its mouth. I was definitely not expecting this. “Uh… what?”

Daring rolls her eyes. “I, uh, ran out of ideas,” she muttered.

Looking closer, I realize that the cactus is attacking something. I see the forms of Slow Burn, Minute Maker, Redblood, and Free Fall, desperately trying to fight it off. “There they are!”

“Got any ideas?” Daring asks, running her eyes up and down the oversized plant.

I shrug. “No, but we better get its attention before it crushes them.”

“Good call,” Daring answers. We fly towards it, circling around its head.

Even if it doesn’t have eyes, the cactus seems to notice us, growling through its fangs. It swings an arm at us, forcing us to seperate.

I glance down again to see Minute fire a spell only to have it get absorbed by the cactus. They can’t do anything against it, I realize. Looks like it's up to us. I search the sky until I find my sister, who keeps flying a pattern around it, trying to draw it away from the others.

My eyes run over the cactus again, searching for any weak points. If Redblood’s laser, Minute’s magic, and Slow’s gun can’t do anything against it, then I doubt stabbing or punching it will work. And those spikes all over its body would mean that a direct attack would end up being extremely painful.

The cactus roars again and swipes at me, breaking my concentration. The arm is so huge that I have to drop my altitude quickly to avoid being slammed out of the sky. As I regain control, I notice something. The cactus doesn’t seem to have spikes on its head. That gives me an idea.

I quickly fly over to the others. “Glad to see you’re still alive,” Minute shouts. “Got a plan?”

“Just one,” I answer. “How have you guys been doing against it?”

“Not well,” Redblood answers. “Laser blasts and bullets just go right through it, and it’s too big for us to do any damage. It also just absorbs anything Minute throws at it.”

“Goes through it, huh?” A plan comes together in my mind. “Okay. I think I know what to do. You guys might want to get clear.”

I shoot up into the sky again and fly over to Daring. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Can you keep it distracted?”

“Yeah, what’re you thinking?” Daring asks.

“I think I’m going to need a lot of speed,” I answer.

My sister raises an eyebrow but doesn’t try to stop me. “Alright, if you’re sure. Good luck.”

I nod in thanks and speed off, flying away from the cactus. I build up speed, feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline mixed with the wind in my ears. The ground beneath me becomes a blur as cacti and rocks whiz by far below. As the world warps around me, I angle myself upwards before turning back around.

The wind’s almost deafening now. Water fills my eyes, but I squint and push through. Colors start to blur around me, and I push myself harder. Soon I have the giant cactus monster in sight. It senses me coming and turns to face me, but it’s way too slow. I smile, narrowing my eyes at it. “Eat shit, bastard!”

There’s a boom as I break through the sound barrier in a wave of color. I slam hooves first into the front of its head…

… and go straight through. As I punch through to the other side, I hear it screaming out in pain through the wind. I glance back to see it stumbling around before falling to the ground, kicking up a huge cloud of dust and sand.

It takes me a while to lose all of my momentum, but eventually I slow down enough to land. I stumble before collapsing onto the ground myself, trying to catch my breath. I roll onto my back, a goofy smile on my face. I close my eyes, resting under the sun while I recover.

Eventually the others catch up to me. “Now that’s what Ah’m talkin’ about!” Slow cheers.

“You went right through him! Knocked him the buck out!” Minute agrees.

Redblood kneels beside me, offering a canteen of water. I gladly accept it and chug it down. “You alright?” she asks.

I wipe my mouth after finishing off the water. “Never better,” I gasp.

“Good,” she says with a smile. “Because I think you might be useful after all.”

Daring lands besides me and gives me a punch on the shoulder. “That was awesome! Way to go, Rainbow!”

I smile at all the praise from the others. As they chatter and laugh amongst themselves, Daring extends a hoof to me. I bump it and laugh. “You think you could come up with that for a book?”

“Never in a million years,” she answers. “Because I don’t think there’s anypony in the world besides you that could pull that off.”

We look at each other and smile, and just for a second, everything’s okay again.