The Adventures of Danger Do

by Neospace0900

Danger Do and the Blood Letter

Chapter 1: Danger Do and the Blood Letter

The sun slowly rose over Cloudsdale on a warm autumn morning. As it peeked its way above the floating city, the light had gone through a window on one of the houses that decorated the city. The light made its way though a magnifying glass that was hanging from the ceiling, sending a concentrated beam of light into the eyes of the pegasus passed out on a bed. The pegasus' eyes shot open, causing his head to jerk back in pain from the sudden blast of light.

"Gah! Oh sweet Celestia, that hurts!" he yelled. His hooves shot up to block the light. When he could see again, he climbed out of his bed. He then stretched out his wings, flapping them to make sure the still worked after sleeping in a very awkward position. As he suspected, he hovered lightly over the clouds that made up his carpet. He flew over to the magnifying glass that was still delivering a beam of light to the pillows.

"I really need to find a new way to wake up early in the morning. I'm sure to go blind if I keep this up." Deep in thought about his dilemma, he grabbed the saddlebags hanging in the corner of the room. The green bags worked well with his sandy-brown coat and grey mane. It also complimented his cutie mark, which was a very detailed map. Delicately stitched onto the bags was the name "Danger Do."

Allowing his hooves to touch the ground again, he stood in front of a mirror to fix his bedhead. As a morning ritual, he also recited the Cloudsdale mailpony creed: "Rain, sleet, snow, or hail, as a true hero of the Equestrian ponies, we will deliver your mail."

Having finished his morning routine, he went downstairs to make some breakfast before he left for his job. When he entered the dining room, his eyes were drawn to the various things decorating the walls. Many artifacts decorated the walls, all of them reminders of the adventures that his mother went on when she was his age. Placed near the top of the wall, just above the sapphire statue was her trademark pith helmet, slowly collecting dust. She happened to be sitting at the table, writing something, most likely a novel about her adventures.

"I see you're up early this morning," she said, not looking up from the paper.

"Yeah. Cloud Kicker had to take off for a wedding today, so I need to cover her route too."

Daring stopped writing and looked up from the mess of papers. "And just where is her route?" she asked very seriously.

"I think she covers the northern shopping district as well as area surrounding the Cloudosseum," he replied. He then paused to think about it for a second. "Yeah, that's the place."

"I don't want you to cover her route."

"And just why shouldn't I do that?" he questioned. He knew all too well where she was going to go with this, but he wanted to be certain.

"I've been there before. That place is way to dangerous for you," she responded.

"Of course you would be the one to say that," he said with an angry tone, looking away. She had said similar things to him before, but this was the first time that he had fought back.

"And just what do you mean by that?"

All of his built-up aggression was ready to be unleashed. "You, THE Daring Do, claim that the northern shopping district and Cloudosseum areas are too dangerous. You, the one who had more brushes with death than anypony else in Equestria, think that those areas are too dangerous for your own son. Do you know how much 'dangerous' stuff I've missed out on because of you? That's right: just about everything. I should be lucky that you even let me have this job where the only dangerous thing about it is the fact you could get a paper cut. What's the point of being Danger Do if I can't even do anything remotely dangerous?"

Daring was stunned. "I... I just wanted to protect you."

"Protect me from what? Aluizotl? He's been dead since before I was born! How can you even live with yourself knowing that you have an entire wall showcasing your multitude of adventures all over Equestria and yet your son has yet to leave the city he was born in? You shouldn't even be allowed to call yourself 'Daring.'"

She was seriously hurt by his words to the point of letting a tear run down her face. "Why are you doing this? Please, just why?"

"I hate you." Not wanting to have anything more to do with his mother at the time, he left the house, slamming the door behind him. Daring remained in her seat, overcome by various emotions: sadness, grief, remorse, and to top it off: regret.

"What did I do wrong?"
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A few minutes later: (At the Cloudsdale mail center)

Daring strolled through the doors of the mail center, mumbling to himself about that morning's events. "What did she expect? I'm growing up! How could I take advantage of my special talent of exploration when she won't let me explore?" He walked into his office to retrieve his mail for the day. The walls were lined with a variety of maps, detailing every explored region of Equestria. He had highlighted his route in blue. Many areas were circled in a red marker, indicating places Danger was planning on visiting in the future. Seeing as how it may not be the best idea to live at home anymore, now would be the perfect time to go on an adventure of his own.

A giant sack filled with letters sat on his desk, which otherwise was rather barren, outside of a nameplate and a picture or two. Some words on it read, "To the Wonderbolts [handle with care]." After glancing inside, he noticed that over half of the letters looked exactly the same. Upon closer inspection, they all looked to be fan mail from a filly named Rainbow Dash, just judging from the sloppy hoof-writing and excessive use of crayons. It was then that he noticed a note for him sitting on his desk.

Thanks again for covering my route for me today. The rest of the letters are in a bag on my desk. You're lucky I remembered to sort out the Wonderbolts' letters, otherwise you might never leave the office! I'll see you tomorrow! -Cloud Kicker Below was the address for the Wonderbolts' estate.

Judging by the size of the sack of letters, he decided to take care of that before starting his routes. He tied up the sack of letters and dragged it out of the office. He had to drag the sack a good three miles before he finally reached the address that was listed in the note. When he arrived at the estate, he knocked on the giant wooden doors and patiently awaited a response.

After waiting around for a few minutes, one of the doors slowly creaked open. A stallion in a tuxedo-like outfit stepped outside. "I'm sorry," he said in a sophisticated manner, "but the masters are not in at the moment. They should be returning from practice in a few hours." As he said this, he didn't bother opening his eyes, as if he didn't want to look upon some of the less civilized fans of the Wonderbolts.

"Oh. I just came to deliver some mail for them."

The sophisticated stallion was confused as to why it was another stallion's voice delivering the mail. He opened his eyes to see just who was delivering the mail, only to be delightfully surprised when he saw it was Danger. "Ah! You must by Ms. Daring's son. My masters call me Withers. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Whenever he brought up his mother's name, Danger had a look of disgust on his face. "Yeah, that's me. My name's Danger. Danger Do. Nice to meet you."

"With a name like that and a mother like Daring, I'm sure you've been on plenty of exciting adventures."

"Pfft. I wish. This is probably the farthest away from home that I've been since I was born."

Withers suddenly regretted bringing up what seemed to be a sore subject. "Do you know why this might be?"

"Yeah. The ever adventurous Daring Do doesn't let me do anything!" Danger started yelling. "No matter how hard I try, I can't ever leave! The only reason I got a job like this was because I managed to sneak out and get it without her knowing. When she found out, she demanded that I quit immediately."

"If that's true, how is it that you are delivering the mail right now?" he asked.

"It took awhile, but I managed to convince her to let me keep it, so long as my route kept me as close to home as possible and I was back inside before the sun went down. This is the only way I can leave the house, and I hate it!"

"I realize that there is something going on between the two of you that needs to be worked out, and it would probably be in my best interest not to get involved, but I feel that I must say something. Your mother was simply trying to protect you. I would know from experience that adventuring can make you more enemies than you can count." He lifted up one of his sleeves, revealing many scars. "When you have as big an adventurer as your mother, you can bet your bits that she has an army of ponies wanting her head on a wall. If they found out that she had a son, they would do anything to make sure he were to suffer. She's done a good job of staying incognito, but she can only do so much to make sure that you don't get hurt because of her."

Danger stood in silence, thinking about what Withers had explained. The more he thought about it, the more guilty he felt about what he said to her. "Are you telling the truth?"

"I wasn't always planning on being a butler, you know. Yes, I am telling you the truth as I see it."

Danger sighed. "She can't stop me from adventuring, but... I guess I should go and apologize to her."

"I understand. I will make sure the masters get the mail."

"Thanks."

With that, Danger finished up his routes as quickly as he could. When he arrived at home, it was nearly time for dinner. For some reason, a number of ponies had gathered around the house, including several royal guards. Danger pushed his way through the crowds to get inside. When he explained that he lived here, they allowed him to go inside. Upon entering, he found the inside a wreck. Almost all of the furniture had turned itself over, anything fragile had broken, and there were signs of a struggle wherever he looked. Some intelligent looking ponies seemed to be conducting an investigation.

Out of instinct, he quickly ran into the kitchen, which seemed to be untouched by the investigators. Many of the artifacts that Daring had collected were missing, as well as her pith helmet. He found that someone had decided to write a message on the walls.

With Daring Do out of the way, the world will suffer mightily at my hands. I AM VICTORIOUS!

Upon closer inspection, he saw that the message was written in blood, most likely Daring's. Backing up in fear, he accidentally bumped the table, dropping a compass onto the floor. When he looked at the compass, he noticed that the needle was pointing west, as compared to the typical north. He turned it over to find a small message scratched into the back.

Your first adventure starts here. -Mom

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Note from the author: Any comments, questions, critiques, etc. are greatly appreciated. It also wouldn't hurt to like or favorite. I'm going to try to make an update for one of my stories every weekend. The keyword in that sentence was try, so don't hold me to it.

Comments

[Fernin]

Hmm. Interesting idea. I'd like to see where you go with this.