Daring Do and the Order of the Eagle

by Arkansandragon

The New Book

It all started the day Rainbow Dash broke down Ponyville's library door.

"Twilight! Oh my gosh - you're not gonna believe how AWESOME this is!" yelled the electric blue pegasus, skidding to a halt in mid-air and prancing around with excitement.

"OK... Well it must be good if you had to break down my door just to tell me about it," said a confused Twilight Sparkle. The scholarly pale purple unicorn marked her place in the book she was reading, then went to said door to inspect the damage.

"Huh? Oh that. We can fix it later," Rainbow said dismissively, brushing her namesake colored mane from her face before starting up again. "Anyway - " she paused for dramatic effect, took a huge breath, and blurted out " - THERE'S A NEW DARING DO BOOK COMING OUT!"

"I know," Twilight said cheerfully, wincing from the noise, but smiling back at her friend all the same.

"I know right?! Isn't it gr - ! Wait. You knew?! How could you know about it before I did?!"

"I pre-ordered my copy a few weeks ago," she said, using her magic to levitate the book she'd been reading so that it hovered in front of Rainbow. "It just came in this morning."

The aerial athlete could only stare, wide-eyed and opened-mouthed, at the treasure floating before her. This went on for several minutes, to the point where Twilight was starting to worry whether her friend was still breathing, when a new voice suddenly broke in.

"Hey Twlight, do you know why our door's blown off its - whoa! What'd you do to Rainbow? I haven't seen her sit this still since - well, ever!" It was Spike, a purple and green baby dragon who served as Twilight's personal assistant in her studies as protégée to the ruling alicorn sisters, Princesses Celestia and Luna.

"I was just showing her the new Daring Do book I got this morning," said Twilight, poking a still-stunned Rainbow with her hoof. Not getting a response, she turned back to Spike and asked, "Did you finish sending out the invitations?"

"Yep," said Spike, grinning, "the others said they'd be over ASAP. They were just as excited about this as I was!" Then he noticed the trouble she was having with Rainbow, and snapped his claws in the pegasus's face.

This finally got a response as she yelped and fell over backwards. "Huh?" she shook her head, confused, then spotted the book again, which Twilight still held aloft. "Whoa..." she sighed happily. "Just look at that amazing cover! I gotta know where Daring ends up this time! And who are those weird hooded guys with her?"

Daring Do, the "Indiana Jones" of the pony world and heroine in question, was a mustard-colored pegasus with a grayscale rainbow-patterned mane, and a compass rose cutie mark. She also never went anywhere without her trademark green jungle explorer's shirt and pith helmet.

The cover of this particular story, titled Daring Do and the Order of the Eagle, had Daring crouched and baring her teeth at silhouettes of armed attackers which surrounded her in the foreground. Backed flank-to-flank with her and appearing to be allies, were several four-legged creatures in hooded white robes. Each of them wore a red sash around their waist, and all were armed with some sort of bladed weapon or bow, including what seemed to be bayonets attached to forelimb bracers. Some of them had wings, and others seemed to be unicorns, judging by the extra weapons magically floating before them, but the robes made it almost impossible to tell how many where actually ponies. One of them even looked like a griffin.

Finally, in the background, a full moon hung in the cloudy sky. Sneering down at the cornered group from within the white orb was the semi-transparent face of Daring Do's archenemy, the strange, midnight blue, dog-like creature known as Ahuizotl.

"I'm not really sure who those are..." mused Twilight, taking the book in her hooves for a closer look. "I haven't gotten that far yet."

"Can I borrow it?" Rainbow asked suddenly, her eyes pleading. "Pleeeease? I've gotta know what happens to Daring!"

"You won't have to!" said Twilight with a laugh. "That's why I sent Spike out earlier. I was inviting you girls over here so I could read it to you."

"Awesome!" squealed Rainbow, flopping down on the nearest pillow to get comfortable.

Meanwhile, Spike was busy putting the door back together - only to be flattened by the hyperactive pink earth pony who bounced through it a second later!

"I'm-here!-Am-I-late?-Oh-I-hope-I'm-not-late!-I-got-here-as-fast-as-I-could!-Are-you-gonna-read-the-story-now,-Twilight?-*GASP*-Ooh!-Can-we-have-popcorn?!-I-LOVE-popcorn!-Almost-as-much-as-good-stories!-And-you-know-what-else-I-love-beside-good-stories-..."

Eventually the party pony known as Pinkie Pie had to stop and catch her breath, shaking out her thick mane of bouncy raspberry curls. This gave Twilight the time she needed to actually process what Pinkie had been asking.

"No... You're not late, Pinkie. Actually you're early. Yes I'm going to read the story, but we're still waiting for Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy. And of course you can make some popcorn! That actually sounds like a great idea!" said Twilight, unable to help but smile at her friend's randomness. "How 'bout it Spike? Want some popcorn? Spike?"

"Over here..." groaned the baby dragon, pulling himself out from under the door. "I'm OK! But remind me to wear a hard hat next time..."

Author's Note:

I know everybody here will most likely know who everypony is in the story without all of the discriptions, but I originally wrote this for Fanfiction.net, and since this is my first "mlp: fim" story, my other readers there might not be as familar with the show. I thought it might be good to post here too, but I'm too lazy to re-write the whole thing and take out the extra discriptions, although I did remove the footnotes for this version. Please bear with me on this, and I hope you like the story anyway.