Daring Do takes on an adventure of grand proportions, with an unlikely ally.
Daring Do sets out in search of a valuable artifact when requested to be a questionable pony. But, she is quickly thrown into chaos as ancient magic, strange creatures, and stranger ponies are thrown her way.
Even before she met the three-legged pirate, Daring wasn't having the best of luck. It wasn't the sinister scores of poisonous snakes, or the band of bitter biting monster bears, or even the numerous nefarious ninjas that annoyed Daring Do. No, if she had to pick the worst thing that happened to her that day, it would definitely be having to sit through yet another of Ahuizotl's infamous monologues.
Nothing ruined a death trap more than Ahuizotl ranting on and on about how Daring is feeble compared to him, about how the world will soon be his! Yammering seems to be his specialty; failure is a close second, however.
Daring Do was tied up neatly, dangling one hundred feet over shark infested waters of which the aforementioned creatures were outfitted with strange devices at the tops of their heads. It was probably ornamental. Then one of the sharks briefly breached the water, his head pointed at her, when a laser discharged from the device and nearly nicked Daring's neck.
Just my luck, thought Daring.
To her right was the open sea, glittering almost mischievously in the afternoon sun, sea-salt and assorted daffodil delicacies assailed her senses and made her nostalgic. She had spent many a vacation here when she was a filly, and now she was going to meet her doom only a few meters away from the beach; how fitting.
Over to her left was the Arion Temple, sitting at its entrance was Ahuizotl in all of his obnoxious glory. He cackled gleefully, overlooking the hill where the temple was situation on, and down to the waters where the sharks impatiently roamed. With each passing second Daring was dropped a few inches closer to the water.
"Oh, Daring Do, how I've enjoyed this little game of ours," said Ahuizotl, "This cute little… chase we engage in. I the cat, and you the insignificant little mouse."
Dare struggled a little more, causing the rope to be lowered a little faster. The sharks below continued to fire their laser beams, barely missing Dare.
… Just maybe…
"While all of this has been fun, I am afraid this is game over for you," he brandished the artifact that Daring has sought for all this time. Arion's Amulet. "See, as swift and heroic as you may be, you are terribly predictable."
"Oh yeah?" snapped Dare, "Why don't you take me down from this stupid trap and we'll see who's the predictable one!"
She swung sporadically, going side to side and nearly hitting the cliff Ahuizotl laughed, as if Dare was a small creature who had done something amusing for her master.
"Come now, I would expect a pony of your stature to be more graceful in defeat."
"I hate losing, but the good thing about me is-" Daring swung one more time, finally hitting the cliff where she kicked off and swung toward the ocean with gusto. The sharks breeched once more when Dare nearly touched the water with her tail and their lasers went off again, this time, searing the ropes that bonded her.
The ropes broke instantly and Daring temporarily floated above the ocean, now that her wings were free she unfurled them and took flight using the momentum from her swing. Ahuizotl only had enough time to react in pure horror as Daring swooped down, snatched the amulet from his paw and landed in front of him, "I don't lose."
"Get her!"
That was a mighty fine indicator to make herself scarce. Dare galloped opposite of Ahuizotl, she made it halfway down the pier when the screeching of her pursuers shook her eardrums. If this "evil henchcat" business didn't work out for them, they had lovely singing voices.
Rounding the corner she was greeted by the sight of the town only a few feet away.
One henchcat tackled her before she can go, causing her to drop the amulet. It was a massive jaguar that tackled her; he took a moment to look at the dropped amulet. Daring kicked at his gut and using her forelegs, she pushed on the ground and launched herself up – pushing the jaguar off.
He crashed through the shop window but Daring didn't stop to admire her work. She picked up the amulet, placed it inside her hat, and proceeded to run off. After a sufficient running start, Daring took to the winds and flew above the small town.
It was a quiet, rustic town. Completely docile in comparison to the bigger cities.
Overall, the little village seemed to be preoccupied with something as there were no ponies in the streets. It must have been some sort of celebration, as when Daring flew over the town square she noticed a huge line of ponies heading towards the town boundaries to a little farm. It made Daring homesick seeing all of these neighborly ponies chattering amongst each other; they probably didn't want some silly Pegasus ruining all of this fun.
From behind her, the pursuers continued to dog her. Huge cats that seem disturbingly hungry for a little pony like Dare. She flew faster, wanting to fly higher in the skies to reach the clouds but the clouds were too dark and too low. It would've been freezing up there and Daring would've been flying blind, literally.
Lost in her thoughts, Dare didn't notice one of the jaguars launching himself toward her. Tackling her mid-air, pony and cat tumbled downward. Arion's amulet around her neck was let loose and fell toward the line of ponies.
"Ah, pony feathers," Daring muttered as she and the annoying cat crashed into the line. Comically, a dozen ponies were blown by the momentum of the crash and Daring finally managed to untangle herself from her attacker. But, before she could spit the fur out of her mouth she noticed him standing in front of her and he certainly didn't look happy.
"Nice kitty," Daring cooed calmly; she knew this meditative mantra wouldn't calm him, but she needed to bide her time to search for the amulet. They walked slowly in a circle as ponies everywhere panicked and ran about, mostly toward the farm (probably to get ahead in line) and mostly away from this conflict.
"Can't we, uh, talk this out?" she asked. As expected, the jaguar growled and licked his lips; the tasty prospect of Pegasus must have been cooling his temper.
From the corner of her eye, she spotted the sparkle of the precious metal. It gleamed so reassuringly and gave Dare hope, that is, until she saw a great number of Ahuizotl's henchcats, followed by Ahuizotl himself.
"Looks like you were wrong Ms. Do," Ahuizotl purred as he approached the amulet, "It seems you do lose."
He bent to pick up the amulet and in that split second Daring jumped. Dare was never the fastest or fanciest Pegasus in her class, but if given the chance she was the best flyer in all of Equestria. Before Ahuizotl even realized she had moved, Daring had already grabbed the amulet and was making her way past him.
Although her maneuvers were at the professional level, she miscalculated her speed. Her wings couldn't stand the strain of moving so fast at such a low altitude and faltered for a moment; that instance tripped her up. Losing control, Dare fell over her hooves and rolled awkwardly into a fruit stand.
The vender was hardly startled by Dare's sudden entrance and kindly offered her a deep fried crepe with cheery filling. It sounded good but Ahuizotl's screams jolted her back to reality. He and his group made it into the town square just in time to see Daring Do take to the skies.
As she left the humble little town, she could hear Ahuizotl curse her; music to her ears.
~--~
"Ow!" Herpy cried, nursing his bruised shoulder that Daring had reflexively kicked when he tied her bandage a little too tight, "Thank goodness my face wasn't there!"
"Sorry," she muttered. From her little crash she had managed to pull a muscle and injured her right wing and left foreleg. Just a few bruises and minor scratches, she had seen worse after all.
Herpy walked off, looking at the amulet in his usual calculating and distracted manner.
Although a bit eccentric, Herpy was certainly the reliable pony when Daring was in a pickle. He was no adventurer but was practically a walking encyclopedia. His intelligence and enthusiasm was heart-warming, and his ways around magic was certainly impressive as well. The unicorn had been with Daring for years now, sticking with her through thick and thin and she appreciated his loyalty; plus, he makes a mean cup of Joe.
He spoke to himself as the amulet floated in front of him, when he got really focused on his work he would block off the world. Talking to him in this state was harder than, well, evading laser sharks and giant cats.
"It's odd that this is in such pristine condition," Herpy remarked.
"Think it's a fake?" Dare countered, although she didn't have his brains she knew a fake from the original artifact.
"No, no, of course not, just thinking out loud."
"What would he want with that thing anyways?" Daring asked, "It isn't magic, doesn't do anything."
She hopped off the table to follow Herpy. The Royal Canterlot University library was certainly a sight to behold. With over twenty-five thousand books and an increasing number every day, this was a paradise for any bookworm. Although Daring had her own little office on the second floor of the University, she preferred to conduct this little meeting here. Mostly because the library made her comfortable, and mostly because Herpy would've come down here anyways.
As expected, Herpy levitated a book from the Pre-Classical Era shelf and went through its pages so fast Daring wasn't sure if he was actually reading it.
"Even if it isn't magic, this is still an important amulet," Herpy answered, "This is the amulet of Arion, such a thing is priceless! Worth millions Dare!"
"I thought you said it was priceless."
He ignored her and continued to read, "Ah! Here it is!"
Shoving the book in Daring's face, the text read a biography of Arion the Swift.
"'Arion the Swift,'" Herpy recited after pulling the book back, "'Known for his speed and heroism during the Diamond Dog rebellion, Arion was the fastest Earth Pony to ever live. To date, there hasn't been anyone to exceed his top speed of three hundred forty meters per second.'"
"Wow, fast," she remarked, taking the amulet from Herpy, "Arion doesn't seem to be the type to have bling."
"I guess this is going to the museum?" Herpy asked.
Daring thought about it for a second. Though typically, every artifact that Daring had acquired in her travels had gone to the Canterlot Historical Museum as donations, Daring hesitated when it came to Arion's Amulet.
She wasn't sure why, but she wanted to keep the trinket for a little longer.
"No," she answered, "I'll hold on to it for a bit-" she took the amulet and proceeded to the door, "-In case Ahuizotl is still a bit sore about losing it, it'll be in safe hands."
"The security in the museum is top-notch Dare, you should know. You designed it." He objected.
"Can't talk now, I'm late for class. Hey, send me up some of your world class coffee for me."
When she arrived for Equnology, the students were already restless. She walked inside and one student immediately cried, "Ms. Do! Where were you?"
"Probably with Bravado again right?"
"Aren't you guys married?"
"What's with the bandages?"
Dare shot a don't-make-me-fail-you glare at the ponies to shut them up, but they kept giggling. She stood at the front of the class, in front of 50 eager ponies ready to learn.
"What happened to your wing?" one student asked.
Maybe they weren't there to learn about Equinology after all.
"That, Strawberry Roll, is none of your concern," Dare answered, anxious to change the subject, "What should be your concern, as with the rest of you, would be finals."
A collective groan and protest made Daring smile.
"Come on Ms. Do! We're working our butts off to barely pass here, cut us a break?" another student pleaded.
"You should know better Top Heavy, that I, of all professors, am not the pony to ask for a break," her mischievous smile spread across her face. After a stressful morning, this was an excellent way to blow off some steam.
Despite her best efforts to hide her adventures from most ponies, especially her students, it is no longer a secret that Daring is an adventurer. And quite often her students tease her about that aspect and enjoy taking advantage of Daring's tendency to fall into tangents when she recounts her escapades. This has more than once caused her students to produce unfinished tests, absent homework, and blank notepads. Thankfully, Daring is rather lenient about that seeing as she caused those mistakes.
The class went swimmingly with a few outbursts intended to pry into her injuries here and there. Daring was so absorbed into her lecture, however, that she hadn't noticed the pirate at her door.
"Ms. Do," Top Heavy called out.
"I told you Top Heavy," Daring answered facing the blackboard, "You should've gone before class started."
"Aye, the lassie her' has a point!"
She turned and saw Blackmane. Well, it wasn't actually Blackmane, just someone who dressed so similarly that she had to correct herself in calling him out as the infamous pirate. His mane was, of course, black with dirt and brim. His body was black as well with suspicious red stuff caked slovenly all over. His tail, like the rest of his body, was messy and showed no evidence of proper care. The pirate wore typical seafaring clothes that reeked of seaweed and fish, when he smiled he showed exactly three black teeth.
The only difference between him and Blackmane would be his size. The real Blackmane was much bigger and stout, but this imitator was puny (even smaller than Daring), his knees wobbled and his back was bent with time. And the most important detail was that this old pirate had one peg-leg, as far as Daring was concerned, Blackmane didn't have a peg-leg.
"Um," Daring looked at the clock, there would still be ten minutes left of class, "Spend this time reading pages one hundred ten to one hundred thirty in your book. I have some business to attend to, apparently."
The class groaned at the burden of reading - shocker - but Daring went off with the pirate immediately regretting that decision.
"Don't you guys know it's rude to interrupt a class?" Daring asked, annoyed at this pirate's presence, "Seriously! It's like you guys just all collectively decide to ruin class for me."
The pirate blinked, confused at why Daring was reacting this way. Whatever he came to ask Daring to collect didn’t involve listening to her ranting.
Before he could get a word in edgewise, she continued to rant and rave, "Oh, and who are you supposed to be? That Blackmane outfit is terrible by the way, you're missing the beard. What did you want me to collect? Your parrot? Wood polisher for your peg-leg?"
"Nothin' like that lass," he answered, "I just need ya to find a snake."
Night came quickly for Manehattan during these latter months of winter. Darkness clouded the skies and flooded the streets. It wasn't strange, however, to hear city noise even at the dead of night in this metropolis. Being the infamous city that never sleeps, Manehattan is always rife with activity no matter the hour.
The night was always filled with some motion, from the casual midnight shopping to more sinister objectives.
At the corner of east 125th Street and Malcolt X Boulevard stood a tiny, humble dessert shop, The Flying Cupcake; it was a traditionally ran store that sold a variety of treats and, ironically, muffins rather than cupcakes (the owner has reported being allergic to cupcake frosting).
The shattering of windows took precedence over the noise of automobiles and broke through the night. Three large stallions, clad in dark clothes that obscured their cutie marks and faces, quickly hopped through the newly formed entrance.
One went for the register up front, the second went for the back for, presumably, any leftover muffins or cakes, and the third strangely started to snatch the napkins set at each table.
"No alarm," remarked the napkin-thief.
"What can you expect from a place like this?" sneered the unicorn at the register. "Look, thirty-four bits? Geez, why'd you pick out a place like this Rocky?"
"Just shaddup and get this over with!" called out Rocky from the back.
The pillaging only took a few minutes and they left as fast as they arrived. Leaping through the window, the three carefully looked at each end of the street to ensure there was no police response.
Making their way down the street, they muttered amongst themselves in a strange combination of annoyance, pride, and fear.
"So, do you think that… you know, she's around?" asked Rocky.
"No way," snorted the unicorn. "You've got as much chance meeting her than you do winning the Powerball."
They laughed at that prospect, unaware of their stalker shrouded in the night. She stood atop the building, watching the would-be thieves cackling amongst themselves. Her cape billowed in the dry night air, her hat, extravagant and prideful, cast an uneasy shadow on the street. Noticing the shadow, they looked at it and eventually at who was casting it.
The Mysterious Mare Do Well was as imposing as ever. Her mask was a veil of darkness save her expressive eyes which glowed with ghastly power.
"T-that's her!" Rocky cried.
Without another word, they ran off screaming.
Mare Do Well took chase.
Running alongside the building edge, she kept up with them fairly well, but would not be able to capture them unless she was at ground level. With a quick click to her belt, a device the shape and size of a baseball popped from the belt and onto her hoof. Casually, she tossed it at the group. The ball expanded until it became a large net with two heavy counterweights. It collapsed on one of the stallions but Rocky and the unicorn barely dodged it.
Mare Do Well took her chance and leapt from the building, her wings unfurled and leveled out, cushioning her fall. But she didn't take to the skies and instead relied on her acrobatic ability, landing on a lamppost she pulled out a whip from her belt and lashed it out to Rocky. Catching his hind leg, she quickly tied it to the lamppost and proceeded to chase the last thief.
He turned into an alley, only to find a dead-end. Turning around, Mare Do Well blocked his exit. He whimpered but charged his horn with magic.
"B-back off!" warned the unicorn thief, but that did not impede Mare Do Well. She continued to trot toward him.
With two quick magical bolts, he fired at her intending to disable her legs. His magic was, however, parried by a magical shield erected by Mare Do Well.
"It's true? You have wings and magic?" This time he fell on his butt, cowering before the winged unicorn. "What are you?"
Mare Do Well stopped in front of him, pausing as if she were going to say something. But, instead, she conjured up more magic, enchanted some more rope from her belt and neatly wrapped up the unicorn for the police to handle.
When the police finally arrived, an hour later, they had found all three thieves tied up together like a present. Along with that was a bag filled with all of the stolen stuff and a note that read:
"Here you go! Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Mare Do Well!"
~---~
Daylight filtered through the windows, brushing down on the lump huddled up in the bed nearby. The room, save the spot of light created by the window, was absurdly dark. Dust danced and fell like snow in the light, it was depressingly musky. A single dresser stood opposite of the large queen sized bed pushed up against the wall, off to the right was the "writer's corner" with tall stacks of paper, broken, discarded quills, and an old computer model buried underneath the maelstrom of creative stagnation.
Several degrees and pictures were pinned up to the walls, but they were marred with dust and rendered illegible. The ceiling fan pathetically squeaked as it rotated in a quiet, incoherent cadence. And on the bed, the pony shifted uncomfortably and muttered despondently.
The alarm clock atop the nightstand buzzed when the time morphed into 9:23 AM. A tired hoof reached out and clapped the clock, ceasing its incessant screech.
After a few agonizing minutes, she got up from her warm cocoon and trotted over to the dresser.
Felicity Peridot's lime-green mane was an unholy nightmare to those with a penchant for hygiene. Since it was naturally curly, it expanded and frizzed up, going ridiculous lengths to embarrass its owner. Her horn was hidden underneath the mess of hair and glowed a dull green, levitating a brush that tried to undo the horror her mane had created.
The clock read 9:40 by the time she was able to tame that mane. Once satisfied, Felicity went into the kitchen for some breakfast. Her home was a tiny one-room apartment laid smack-dab in the Upper East Side of Manehattan. It wasn't fancy and clearly reflected her salary. There were little to no personal touches to this apartment; no family pictures, no art, not even a plant.
Newspapers and articles laid scattered virtually in every nook and cranny of the apartment. There were a dozen of articles on the enigma Mare Do Well, but there were dozens more on other things, as if Felicity wanted to focus on something other than a crazed, masked vigilante.
At least, that's what the newspaper wanted you to think she was.
The reality is, the Mysterious Mare Do Well wasn't a very mysterious mare at all. She was just a humble reporter, living in the Upper East Side with a sudden craving for Daisy omelets.
It was strange how somepony like Felicity could get into the vigilante business, although it wasn't very heroic to be honest. It wasn't as if she was bitten by a radioactive crocodile, or that her parents were billionaires, she doesn't have a high-tech power-armor, a magical hammer or shield. It all happened one day when a hot-air balloon operator spiraled out of control, it was night at that time and Felicity was the only one out there. She saw the balloon fall and went to action, leaping from building to building to eventually intercept the falling operator, saving her.
Felicity's face, however, was obscured by the darkness and the operator never really saw her. She described Felicity as a swift, heroic and strong mare! She nearly tripped over herself when she heard that description. Felicity wasn't the most graceful of ponies; it was sheer dumb luck that she managed to save that pony. And soon the mysterious, heroic mare was nicknamed (wait for it) The Mysterious Mare Do Well.
After that day, Felicity donned a hoofmade outfit and saved a few more ponies. There was that incident with the out of control carriage carrying conspicuous tourists, that particularly precarious part with the collapsing construction field, and the dangerously destructive damaged dam.
She had gained a reputation and for some reason wanted to continue. It wasn't particularly dangerous, except when criminals are involved, and plus it gave her life a new meaning.
Staring down at her quill-to-paper-and-hat cutie mark, Felicity felt disappointed that journalism would be her destiny. She loved journalism, don't misunderstand, but it made her feel limited, restricted to one talent. With Mare Do Well, she could help ponies and provided some meaning to her talents.
Someponies wouldn't understand that though.
The front door swung open and a tall Minotaur crashed through. This may seem like a strange, if not chaotic, occurrence, but Felicity didn't bat an eye toward the clumsy Minotaur.
He was incredibly large in stature; had snow white fur with grey specks frosted on his coat, bright green eyes and crooked horns. His name was Aberrant Flair, he was Felicity's partner-in-crime and photographer for The Daily Bridle.
Lumbering over to Felicity, Flair's frantic attitude made it difficult to take him seriously. He wore a silly red bowtie, a black waistcoat under a gray jacket and pants that did nothing to cover up his hooves. He was strange amongst Minotaurs, according to him he is much smaller than most Minotaurs his age and he was deemed a deviant in his tribe. Minotaurs ruled with strength, power, and brawn, but Flair wasn't as strong as his kind and he certainly had no interest in fighting but rather books! Minotaurs weren't necessarily intelligent and Flair was a genius compared to them (even compared to most ponies).
Even his name shows how strange he is. Minotaurs are named after one year has passed, their name is decided based on how they behave in that one year and it reflects their personality traits and what is unique to them. Flair took interest in books even at that age and decided to devote himself to the pursuit of knowledge, much to the chagrin of his parents.
"Have you heard?" Flair cried.
"I, uh, just woke up there Flair," Felicity admitted. "If you're referring to my loud alarm clock, then yes, I did hear it."
"No, no, your article is being pulled from this week's column!"
"What?!" Felicity stood suddenly, startling the Minotaur and spilling her breakfast as well, "Why? Who's doing it? I swear if it is Quill Tip-"
"No," Flair put down an article on the table. "Jog decided that this would be much better than your original work."
Felicity looked at the article and rolled her eyes. It was something she had written to please the Editor in Chief, Jog Jockey Jennet (never call him by his last name if you value your life). Ever since Felicity created her alter-ego, The Mysterious Mare Do Well, Jog has been obsessed about her but not in a good way. For some deluded reason, Jog thinks that Mare Do Well is a maniac, a menace, a monster that must be stopped! And using his journalistic connections, he wants to show everypony how much of a menace Mare Do Well is.
Not only that, but Jog is also obsessed about finding out who Mare Do Well is.
"If she's such a hero," he said once. "Then what is she hiding underneath that mask?"
So, now Felicity has to deal with a single-minded boss who will stop at nothing until he unravels the mystery that is Mare Do Well. But there is a silver lining in all of this; Felicity can pretty much cash in on this Mare Do Well controversy. It isn't like she enjoys perpetuating this fiasco, but a journalist like Felicity doesn't exactly have high living standards. Having Flair take a few photos of Mare Do Well, while she writes up something about the alter-ego and bam, she has guaranteed that she is eating breakfast next week.
But not this time. This time, Felicity wanted to write about something other than Mare Do Well, she wanted to cover the upcoming Solar Eclipse that Princess Celestia is producing. She was one of Celestia's private students, and she wanted to honor her teacher in covering the eclipse. Not only that, but eclipses are rare events. As the princess needs to strain herself to create an eclipse that lasts five minutes, she was so spent afterward all the cake in the world wouldn't rouse her.
It was a spectacular event that deserved coverage, and is certainly more important than some silly little mare running around in tights.
"Come on, I've got a bone to pick with him." Felicity stormed out, mane ruffled and everything.
When they had arrived at The Daily Bridle, Jog was having his mid-morning rants about Mare Do Well.
"Thief!" he shouted when Felicity stepped inside, she was so frazzled by her previous anger that she thought Jog was talking about her. "That Mare Do Well needs to be stopped!" Well, technically that was about her.
"She stopped a diamond robbery, singlehoofedly, before the guards could arrive," placated Emerald Klondike, a fellow journalist. Klondike (or as he preferred, Klon), was a tall stallion, a unicorn like Felicity. His coat was pure white and his chocolate brown mane was messy, as usual, but Felicity didn't mind. The way his green eyes twinkled when he talked to her, or when his goofy little mane spilled over his eyes were only a few of the things that she liked about him.
The fact that he was the only pony that treated Felicity with respect also drew her to him. But Felicity's personality usually enjoys sabotaging her. By making her clumsy or silly around him, she couldn't keep her mind straight and become flustered. Just like now.
"Fleece?" Klon asked, "Uh, you okay?"
She blinked and shook her head, embarrassed. "Y-yeah, of course I'm okay. Why wouldn't I be okay? It's a beautiful day out after all."
The windows hummed from the force of the powerful winds and rain, Felicity had a strong urge to stick her head in the sand.
But, to her relief, he laughed. "Yeah, rainy days are nice too."
"What've you got for me Peri?" Jog asked, anxious for another Mare Do Well piece. "Mare Do Well with her hoof in the cookie jar?"
Jog wasn't exactly an intimidating pony. He was stout with a sour, pinched up face, like he ate something bad, and was quite short. Felicity was taller than him by just a bit, but that didn't stop him from causing his workers to cower in fear. What he lacks in size, he makes up with attitude and volume. His voice was gravely, like rocks in a blender, and he spoke with such power it was like listening to someone with a megaphone. Jog's appearance even matched that loud abrasiveness of his voice. His coat was gray with age, his mane was salt and pepper like, and it wouldn't be hard to call him handsome if his perpetual frown went away. He always had stubble, as if either he can't grow a full beard or his razor was just that bad.
His voice managed to get her focused on why she was here. "No, J.J. why did you pull the eclipse story?"
For emphasis, she slammed her article on his desk. "You know how much I wanted you to go with that over the Mare Do Well piece. So, why?"
"You're the only one who has managed to get photos of that bug Mare Do Well," Jog said simply. "You and that Minotaur of yours-"
"Flair," she corrected.
"So, why waste time covering the eclipse? Everyone already knows about it, there's no need for more coverage. I need my best ponies to expose Mare Do Well for what she is, a no-good, self-righteous vigilante! That includes you."
"But-"
"This isn't up for discussion Peri"-- (how she hated that nickname),--"Your eclipse piece, as good as it was, isn't going to be used."
Felicity couldn't believe it. Her alter-ego was stopping her from writing what she wanted! If she wasn't Mare Do Well, she would sock that hat-wearing mare right in the face.
"But, yo-, you can't-"
"I can, and have."
Klon looked at Felicity sympathetically, but she was so angry that she couldn't bring herself to look back. Instead, she just walked out.
Flair was waiting for her outside, the doorway was much too short for his absurd height, "So? How'd it go?"
"It didn't," she answered miserably.
He said nothing. He, after all, knew exactly what kind of pony J.J was, stubborn as a mule.
"Fleece," said Klon as he approached her. "Hey, I'll try to talk to J.J. about your article, try to see if he'll reconsider."
She knew he wouldn't, but the sentiment was nice. "Thanks Klon."
Noticing her mood hadn't improved, Klon tried something else. "I read that eclipse piece by the way. It was good and deserved to be in the front page."
Feeling self-conscious, Felicity mumbled her thanks. When he left them, Felicity felt conflicted, both wanting to punch out J.J. and wanting to hug Klon. Unfortunately, she didn't have the guts to do either.
Trekking through the jungles of South Amareica wasn't exactly an ideal luxury vacation. As Daring had experienced firsthand, it was considerably dangerous and not for the light-hearted. Pushing through dead ferns, the adventurer sighed as she felt her wings grow sticky with sweat. Proper wing maintenance was hard enough without all of this sweat; washing them isn't a very easy task.
The three-legged pirate, whose name was Corkscrew, had told her to find a snake in isolated ruins here. He had been kind enough to offer a map and even a little dinghy. Though the boat wasn't helpful, Daring happily accepted the map. It took half a day to fly over there and after meeting up with a few locals, Daring got herself right on track.
But, after a horrible navigation through these dense, humid forests, Daring came to the bitter conclusion that she was lost.
Pulling out the map, she tried to make sense of it. It didn't help that it was crude and illegible, but if this map was correct, Daring was right in the middle of the ruins that he marked.
She looked around. Tree, tree, tree, spider monkey, and tree. Okay, unless these were the ruins for the ancient Spider Monkeys, Daring figured she wasn't anywhere close to these ruins.
"Maybe it was a scam," Daring pondered. This entire adventure felt like a wild goose chase. Corkscrew wasn't a reputable character; he was shifty and looked nervous when they spoke. He had explained that there were several devious ponies after this snake of his and that it would be wonderful if she could retrieve it in an expedient manner.
The turquoise serpent, he had explained, was a rare treasure and an incredible mythological icon to the native ponies in this land. It was supposedly based off an ancient god and according to the mythology, upon the end of this god's life he was reduced to the stony form of a snake.
It sounded cool and the mythology behind it was intriguing, but Daring was wary of snatching a religious icon from these ponies. She wouldn't want a repeat of that incident with the wooden mask.
The humidity was nightmarish as Daring continued through the jungle; the animal cacophony was her only company and reassurance that she wasn't here alone. The sun soon dipped under the cover of the forest canopy like an elusive carrot.
Daring longed for some water and a dependable map and compass, both of which were rendered useless ten minutes into this adventure. She bit back a curse to three-legged pirates everywhere.
By the time she had made it out of the jungle, it was night-time. The cool air provided little solace to the fact that it was completely dark; like, unable-to-see-your-hoof-in-front-of-you-dark. But her luck must have been improving, because not five steps out of the jungle she had found herself before a massive stone pyramid.
"That's it." It wasn't her expertise or her vast knowledge of exotic pyramids, it was the fact that this was the biggest, and only, landmark that Dare has come across this entire adventure. It would be a silly, yet rational, notion to think that her treasure was in another set of ruins, but the day was beginning to escape her, this is literally her best guess.
She trotted toward the pyramid, annoyed again at the humidity, she tried her best to air dry her wings to no avail. Standing in front of the pyramid betrayed her previous impression of it. She had severely underestimated its size as it stood like a stone monolith, imposing and gleaming archaically at the rising moon.
The steps that ascended up the pyramid were worn down but oddly immaculate. However, for her size, each step was four times her height; she had to glide slightly to reach each step. Since there was no remarkable entrance, she had to check the top of the pyramid to find a way in.
Sweaty and tired, Daring finally made it to the top. It was a luxury to guess that there would be a perfect pony-shaped hole at the top, but Daring could barely afford luxuries like this. So, instead of a pony-shaped hole... there was only a huge gap. The more she observed the hole, the faster she noticed that the hole was not a natural formation; somepony, or something, tore open the top rather viciously.
She didn't spend too long admiring their work and flew inside. The only light to provide solace in this oppressive atmosphere was the moon shining above. It must have been the fact that she wasn't in any of the big cities, but the moon seemed brighter than usual, it glowed beautifully but unnaturally. She didn't complain as the pyramid was pitch black.
Reaching into her backpack, she pulled out a large glow stick. After lighting it up and placing it atop her hat, she marveled at this room.
The ponies that made this pyramid were geniuses of architecture. There were perfectly reserved glyphs resembling pony mythology. Daring wasn't an expert in this field, but she managed to recognize the old pony Titans, and some of the other gods that they worshiped back then. There was the pony goddess of wisdom, the god of the sea and the sky.
It looked like there was a conflict between these gods, she couldn't translate any of it but there were a bunch of the gods combating the goddess of the moon.
It was eerie because the goddess of the moon looked exactly like Nightmare Moon.
She shook her head; it wasn't a coincidence, it was a designed occurrence. Nightmare Moon was based on this goddess and dreamt up with this mythology in mind. There were no such things as pony Titans.
Reassuring herself, Daring moved on. It wasn't very difficult to navigate; the pathways were linear and consequential to each other. She wondered why that ratty old pony Corkscrew couldn't get somepony else to do this.
Then, she met her first trap.
A step had decompressed and hissing assailed her as the all too familiar sense of fear ambushed her. Dodge rolling forward, instinctively; she felt the wind of a dozen arrows fly over her hat. As she landed, another step decompressed and she swore as the floor before her opened up revealing a lava pit underneath.
That trap was too easy to avoid, she simply flew over the lava pit but as she took flight she hit a trip wire which released a thick gas from the ceilings. Temporarily blinded, Daring tried to navigate but the gas got into her body and she began coughing, losing altitude consequently.
Something else was released and Daring folded her wings and rolled to the ground. A giant axe swung over her in a perfect pendulum, nearly nicking her wings.
The exit was only few feet away, so close. Suddenly, the walls on either side of her began to close in. Galloping, Daring raced to the exit. She couldn't afford flight as her flying speed was inadequate. Two feet away and the walls began to scrape against her wings; she dove and nearly got her tail stuck at the enclosing wall behind her. It sealed behind her and Daring soon found herself in some sort of mausoleum.
It was twice the length of the Canterlot library and three times the height. For some reason, as she stepped inside the glyphs carved in the walls glowed green. Magic, Daring decided. This place was probably charmed centuries ago, but the fact that the charm, and death-traps, was still operational was disturbing. Just how good was the magic of these old ponies?
In the middle of the room stood a huge shrine with (of course) huge stone steps leading up to the top. More glyphs were on the steps themselves and there was a large stone snake wrapped around the shrine and had its massive mouth open at the top where, Daring presumed, the turquoise snake lay.
"Okay, easy now," she said aloud.
The climb up wasn't as grueling as the initial one outside, but it wasn't any less tedious.
When she reached the top, she set her eyes upon the important, life-altering relic that will change the course of her life… a small, four inch stone snake, wrapped within itself, sat in front of her. Daring stared at the snake for a few seconds, to make sure that her eyes weren't fooling her. Yep, it's a puny snake. Nope, she isn't going crazy.
It didn't look valuable, heck it wasn't even turquoise! It was stone! It looked like it would shatter in Daring's mouth if she picked it up.
She glanced at the larger snake wrapped around the shrine and wondered if she could take that instead.
After an internal debate, Daring settled for the small fry. Taking the snake in her mouth, she deposited in her hat and started to head down the shrine. The entire room rumbled, nearly knocking Daring off her hooves. Turning to the source of the minor earthquake, the huge snake decoration began to shake and untangled itself from the shrine.
Perfect.
The snake's head was free and it stared at Daring with a curious expression, like, "Why is this puny pony stealing my brother?"
She didn't want to stay for a conversation, so, she jumped. Falling forty feet to the ground is fine if she was in the open sky, but this was a windless room. She wouldn't be catching any air soon, so she extended her wings and flapped.
Managing to create some wind with her passive Pegasus magic and with a little luck, she cushioned the fall slightly but still had that nasty gravity to deal with. Looking behind her, the snake had freed half of its body at this point and wasn't impressed with her flying. The head glowered toward her and snapped.
For a big snake, it could move fast. Daring only had a second to dodge - and it was a stretch to call it dodging instead of awkwardly falling to the ground.
She fell like a stone snake, and barely missed the guardian’s fangs. It wasn't poisonous but that didn't matter, he had the jaws that could swallow this whole pyramid whole if he wanted to.
Daring crashed to the ground, rolling at the last second to save her legs from being snapped like twigs. The snake having more than enough time to recover decided to unravel himself from the shrine entirely. He looked at Daring and hissed darkly, it sounded like a hundred snakes hissing at her at once.
Its eyes were of a dull green and glowed, just like the glyphs. Great, it was a magicsnake.
It lunged at her but she jumped, landing on its right eye and used its momentum to springboard higher. Her speed was excellent if she wanted to splatter into the wall like a bug. Extending her wings, she steered herself toward the exit the snake swiftly at her tail feathers. Gratefully, the doors were magically opened when she grabbed the turquoise snake.
She made it to the door before the snake; it was much too low for its incredible heights and would break apart upon attempting to muscle through.
The door broke like wet paper and the snake hissed again, filling the formerly noiseless corridors with the sound of a thousand tires going out at once. Unfortunately, the traps she had activated before seemed to be inactive, it would've been nice to use them against her pursuer.
She flew desperately through the maze of hallways. She knew there wouldn't be a proper exit but she had a 20 ton battering ram at her disposal. Daring flew into a dead end. The wall was absurdly tall and as thick as the snake. She wouldn't be able to open that even with a dozen ponies helping. Stopping at the wall, she turned around and watched the snake slither to her with incredible speed.
It was a simple plan; bait the snake into rushing into her, roll out of the way at the last second, the wall is then broken down and the snake is either destroyed or damaged. However, simple plans don't go along with Daring Do. Firstly, she miscalculated how fast the snake was moving. In her theoretical situation, the snake was traveling at a measly ten miles per hour. But in real life, he was moving at a startling forty miles per hour.
Startled by this sudden burst of speed, Daring rolled to her left as quickly as possible. The snake, not having time to turn, crashed into the wall as planned but here is her next miscalculation. She figured the snake would be destroyed, or at least damaged, in the impact, but when the smoke cleared the snake glared at her with no so much as a chip out of place.
"Oh come on!" Daring was covered in dust, her legs ached and her wings were sore, but the snake looked like it could go 12 rounds with her!
She raced to the snake's body, jumped on it, and ran up its neck. The snake, not having any of this, turned and lunged at her. Daring flew over the snake's head and dove for the exit.
The night air was thick and humid. The wildlife in the forests were much louder than before, as if the excitement of a giant stone snake combating a puny pegasus made all of them make rushed bets. Daring had a feeling that the odds were stacked against her.
The entire right half of the pyramid exploded as the snake pushed its way through. Daring could get a better impression at this snake's size in the light of the moon; it was just as tall as the pyramid.
"Why did it have to be a snake?" Daring wondered.
The snake tilted its head, opened its mouth, and a column of fire shot out of it.
Its aim was bad, or it was deliberately trying to intimidate her. The fire hit the forest canopy above her and lit the world on fire. Daring had to dodge a few falling flaming branches, but was otherwise okay in spite of how low her morale was.
"Fire-breathing snake, what's next? Acid?"
Sometimes, Daring felt she should seriously keep her mouth shut. The snake tilted its head to the other side and when it opened its mouth, a blob of green mush fell out of its mouth. There was enough of it to fill two swimming pools, and it was headed right for Daring's eyes.
She flew to the right and decided to try outrunning the snake. Racing through the forests, she had to weave to avoid trees and angry spider-monkeys. But flying in the dark while a giant fire-breathing, acid-spewing snake chases after you isn't optimal working conditions.
A wall of fire exploded to her left and she fell out of the skies, crashing through a dead tree. Looking up she noticed that she was surrounded by fire. Okay, she'll just fly up...
The snake's head mischievously popped up in the tree line.
Ah, ponyfeathers.
There was no escape. Surrounded by fire, facing down a giant snake much faster than her, there was nothing she could do.
Dare flew toward it at full speed. The snake opened its mouth, preparing to belch out some more fire. A massive fireball found itself between Daring and the snake. The heat was so intense; closing her eyes wouldn't keep it from blinding her. Her mane felt like it was going to burst into flames, it felt like standing right next to the sun.
Desperately, she flew up and over the fire. Her entire body screamed in pain as she maneuvered over the fireball. Finally, she had cleared the fireball and was tumbling toward the snake. She extended her leg out for a kick, "HYAH!"
Her hoof clinked against his eye, uselessly.
But she wasn't trying to harm, she was getting his attention and boy did she have it.
It opened its mouth again and Daring jumped off and landed on its back. The snake prepared another volley, but instead of fire the acid came out like a nasty snotball. But that was exactly what she wanted.
Rolling for all she's worth, she fell right off the snake's back just as the acid hit - and instantly dissolved - the snake's body. The acid reached up to the snake's head and destroyed it as well. The entire stone body didn't even have time to crumble to the ground properly; it just evaporated in the air, like mist.
The jungle was dead silent, save the crackle of the forest fire and the occasional chirp from the lone insect. Daring had beaten the odds again.
Standing up, Daring's legs were killing her. She quickly examined herself, to see that her clothes were slightly singed; her mane, tail, and even wings were black. Other than a few bruises and cuts, she felt fine.
Removing her hat, she looked at the stone snake. Grimacing at the sight of this simple statue, Daring wondered what was so valuable about it. It felt brittle, like it could break right in her hooves. She didn't know anything about the mythology behind these ruins and the statue, so its relevance was lost to her.
But, she did understand one thing: she had a bone to pick with Corkscrew.
Daring placed the statue back in her hat and turned toward the still burning forest. Perhaps Herpy could be bothered to look up some information about this statue; it was, after all, his job.
A whistling noise cut through the night and before Daring could react, a boomerang-like projectile pierced her hat, pinning it to a tree. Looking toward the attacker, she couldn't believe who it was. To be honest, she couldn't take this pony seriously; the giant snake looked more worthy an opponent.
She stood atop a rock, with the moon behind her, illuminating her entire body. She wore a form-fitting outfit comprised of dark colors; purple, and navy blue. Her cape billowed in the cool air, and her distinctive hat partially concealed a glowing unicorn's horn.
"Why do I always attract the weirdos?" she muttered to herself. "Listen, I'm sure you didn't mean anything by attacking my hat. So, because I'm a nice pony, I'll drop it, okay?"
This mysterious mare was either hard of hearing or simply didn't care. She leapt from the rock, unfurled her wings, and kicked at Daring. Expertly dodging, Daring found herself going hoof-to-hoof with this masked weirdo.
It had been two nights since Felicity learned about her story being pulled, and she still hasn't gotten over it. The city lights made Manehattan glow to absurd lengths; Felicity had night-vision installed in her mask but with this many lights it wasn't helpful.
She was out on patrol, as usual, flying over the city to keep an eye on things. Although the police had announced that Mare Do Well was a dangerous vigilante who needed to be stopped and would try to arrest her on sight, she didn't err on the cautious side.
Felicity was confident that if she was in a chase that she could get away. Although she isn't a Pegasus, her flying skills must be commended. She had Flair produce a pair of lightweight, flexible wings that, when charmed with her magic, can generate passive Pegasus magic so she could manipulate the air currents under her wings. The wings also moved due to her magic; it was awkward at first but thanks to her magic, the control she had over her wings was nearly Zen-like.
Of course, she would never say that around any Pegasus she knew; that was a good way to get trampled to the ground.
Her entire ensemble was reinvented from the first time she wore that ratty hoofmade outfit. She had a fancy utility belt that carried everything from knock-out gas to candy bars. Her boots were charmed with magic so that she was able to stand on, and manipulate, clouds. As mentioned before, she had night-vision in her mask and UV vision; she also had a filter that gets rid of any foreign gases within her proximity. The fabric, as fabulous as it was, was also thick yet flexible, so she was protected against any projectiles and from getting cut.
The only normal thing about her outfit would be her hat; it did nothing but look cool.
"Fleece," Flair's voice crackled in through her headset. "The scanner seems clean, nothing major going on tonight it seems."
Behind the mask, she grimaced slightly. She was still steamed about the whole fiasco with J.J. that she wanted to blow some of this steam by pummeling a few bad guys; it was therapeutic and conducive to crime fighting.
"Whatever, I guess I'll head back," she answered finally.
Radio silence…
"So, how are things going with Klon?" he asked mischievously.
"Flair," she sighed. "I'd like to concentrate on my work. I don't have time for distractions."
It was a total lie and Flair knew it. He was encouraging Felicity to ask Klon out for months now, but she doesn't have the courage to do it and it was baffling. She could happily beat down bad guys but couldn't ask out her crush; go figure.
"Sure, sure," Flair laughed. "Whatever you say. By the way, nice job with the weather comment, real smooth."
Maybe Flair wouldn't mind being Felicity's punching bag. She stopped atop one building and overlooked the streets from the rooftop. From here, she could see the entire Middle Park and even hear some of the animals that lived there. Although Manehattan was the center of contemporary modernization, it was still a beautiful place to live.
The buildings that light up brighter than stars at night, the somehow relaxing noise of Shim-Sham mobiles honking in the distance, the cultural brew that produced a complex, and diverse, smorgasbord of food. It was lovely and intoxicating, and even though she was so far away from her parents and from Celestia, she wouldn't trade this home for anything in Equestria.
"Silent alarm was tripped at a bank nearby," Flair dispatched. "Check it out."
Finally, something interesting.
On Fourth Avenue there was a bank, Ponygroup. The place was well respected and held up to 100,000 bits every day, on good days, it went up to 500,000. Consequently, the security is top-notch and, reportedly, a fly wouldn't be able to enter undetected.
But, if one manages to sneak inside, or break in, they would find themselves in front of a 3 inches thick door whose metal is ten times stronger than most conventional vaults. Behind the vault would be, of course, all of that sweet money.
Four diamond dogs, disguised in dark outfits, slithered behind the teller booths.
The biggest one, Clifford, quickly tore down the door leading to the vault.
"Thanks to you Uggie, the alarm has been tripped, we've only a few minutes," he snarled at the smallest one of them.
"Don't worry," placated a medium-sized diamond dog, whose snow white fur stuck out through his black outfit. "I don't think it'll be that bad."
"But Bolt," grumbled Marley, the second biggest one of the bunch, his speech pattern was slow and deliberate. "What if those ponies show up?"
"That's why you've got me, of course," Clifford answered. "You boys couldn't lead your way out of a paper bag. Plus, I'm the muscle of the group; I ain't seen a pony yet that can take me."
"What of that pegasus?" wondered Bolt. "The one that could outdrink you? What was her name again..."
Clifford turned and slapped Bolt so hard he went flying to the wall behind him. The force was so great, that the wall crumbled under Bolt's impact. But, Bolt stood up, dazed, but otherwise okay.
"Idiot! That was a fluke. And you are not to remind me of that infuriating Pegasus! Now quickly, where is the vault again?"
The diamond dogs grumbled and awkwardly plodded down to the vault while Mare Do Well was hot on their trails. She stuck to the walls, silently following the thieves. Thanks to powerful microscopic hairs at the ends of her hooves that produce a molecular attractive force to anything it touches, she is able to, essentially, climb walls.
"Wow," Flair's shaky voice was made all the more obvious through the radio static. "Real sturdy aren't they?"
"We'll just see about that." Felicity continued to trot in the diamond dog's direction, hoping that her cape wouldn't give away her position like a big awkward bat of the night.
"Wait, Fleece, I think this is too much for you to handle," Flair said. "I mean, those guys are too tough. You're just one mare, no way you can take out four of them. I'm not even sure your rope can handle their kind of weight."
"So, what am I supposed to do? Just wait helplessly for the police to come?"
"No, but-"
"By the time they get here, those diamond dogs will be long gone, they never show up conveniently. Either I stop them here, or they get away."
Flair didn't respond, he knew that Felicity could be legendarily stubborn when she wanted to be and knew that arguing would only serve to give away her location. Besides, there wasn't much he could do to stop her, while she was out fighting crimes, Flair was sitting comfortably in his home, listening to the scanners and providing Felicity feedback. Maybe he could side-kick one day, the Amazing Flying Minotaur, or something.
She had made it inside the vault room, to see the group trying to get through it. In spite of how thin the vault actually was, it was tall; eleven feet tall, easily surpassing Clifford's height. It would be tough to crack it, since it was heavily reinforced. Brute force wouldn't get through so easily, it would take finesse and proper execution.
Felicity laid in wait, anticipating one of the diamond dogs pulling out some highly sophisticated piece of technology that would unlock the door with a few button inputs.
Clifford approached the door, sized it up momentarily, and looked at the security keypad at the side of it. Perhaps he will try to hack it instead.
He reeled his fist back and punched straight through the door as if it were made of papier-mâché.
So much for sophistication.
He tried to pull his fist out, but it was stuck in there good. After a few pulls, he managed to free his paw… along with the door and the frame.
Felicity didn't want to know what kind of damage that punch could do to a small, fleshy pony like herself.
Shouldering multiple bags, the diamond dogs stepped inside the vault.
Approximately 120,000 bits sat in the vault; just looking at all that money made the diamond dogs lustful for it.
"Fill the bags," Clifford ordered. They didn't need any more incentive.
The diamond dogs hoarded so quickly and with such enthusiasm it felt like watching a foal in a candy shop. It only took two minutes for them to fill the bags entirely, too short for Felicity to come up with a decent plan.
"Let's go, the police will be here shortly." They marched out the vault. Felicity's mind raced; if they managed to get outside she wouldn't be able to track them down so fast. Even with her wings, diamond dogs are faster than her. She needed to keep them inside.
Felicity reached down for her belt and clicked what she thought was the button for the net, but instead two metallic boomerangs came out. She rolled her eyes, Flair thought the boomerangs would make for effective weapons but she thought they were too silly. Still, better than nothing.
She tossed the boomerangs at the diamond dogs in front, Clifford and Bolt, and they connected with the backs of their hands. In surprise, they dropped two of the bags and snapped their heads back at Felicity.
"Mare Do Well!" Clifford growled; he probably didn't want to ask for an autograph.
Reaching for the first thing he could find, Clifford threw a few hundred pounds in bits at her with incredible speed. Dropping down from the ceiling, Felicity avoided the impact but the bag exploded from the throw and bits rained down on her.
Uggie and Marley stampeded toward her, both of them extending their hands up in twin hammer strikes. She rolled between Marley's legs while they both dented the ground. Using some strong wire, she wrapped it around their feet, tying them up.
They may be fast and strong, but they were predictable. Uggie and Marley desperately tried to break the wire by separating their feet, but instead tripped themselves up and fell over each other.
She popped another button on her belt and a spray can came out, levitating and activating the can with her magic, foam covered the entangled diamond dogs but it hardened instantly to cement.
Two down, two to go.
She looked back up to see Clifford inches in front of her. His shoulder out, he rammed Felicity and sent her back into the main lobby, crashing through a few sets of booths. The experience was so jarring that she couldn't recall how she got there in the first place.
Her hat flew off in one direction and her head felt like a cow has been using it as a chair.
Clifford scuffed, "Puny pony."
She was too dazed to respond or to even notice that Uggie and Marley broke through her cement foam. The four diamond dogs now began to surround her.
She stood, wobbly at first, and tried to shake the disorientation that she felt.
"So, you are Mare Do Well?" Clifford asked, "I wonder what is so great about you! You are nothing but puny pony with a mask."
Bolt charged, hands held up high for a strike that will no doubt make her head concave.
Mustering up enough magic, she teleported out of the way. Bolt's strike missed its mark entirely and Felicity teleported right behind them.
Who knew that teleportation spell would come in handy? It was the first spell Celestia taught, but it was dangerous to use. Sometimes she would end up in a different place than expected or would end up with her mane burnt off.
Clifford turned faster than expected attempting to knock her block off (literally). She ducked, dodging the attack, but he raised his other fist to generously make her and the ground one. Stepping into the attack, she jumped up, letting him miss his mark, and kicked his jaw. The recoil made his snap upward, as expected, and she prepared her next move.
Clicking her belt, another strip of wire came out but this time it had hooks in it. Hooking one end to Clifford's shoulder, she landed, crouched as low as possible, and ran underneath his legs.
The wire pulled him down so fast he hit the ground hard.
The rest of the gang lined up perfectly for her, they ran toward her attempting to hit her, but she jumped, rolled, and dodged around and through them. With the wire held firmly in her mouth, she had managed to tie all of them up together.
The danger wasn't the fact that they were wired up, but the fact that the wire was so thin and durable that if they moved against it, they would cut themselves deep.
Letting go of the wire, it snapped back into place and slammed all of the diamond dogs into one pile, wrapped up so nicely that she wanted to put a bow on them.
They roared in anger and tried to break the wire but only managed to get themselves more tied up.
"PUNY PONY!" screamed Clifford, "RELEASE ME SO I CAN SMASH YOU!"
Felicity sighed; her head was killing her and she still had double-vision, but hey, she stopped a bank robbery.
Flashing lights poured in from the windows, the colts in blue are finally here! She needed to leave, although she did some good here, they wouldn't appreciate her participation.
She ran opposite of the main door and left from the side door while the police crashed inside the bank. They found four sour diamond dogs tied up and one large purple hat, sitting in an isolated corner; it wouldn't take Fetlock Holmes to deduce that Mare Do Well was here.
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."
Felicity wasn't a happy camper. She sat at the end of the diner, sullenly sipping her banana smoothie with Flair right beside her, snapping off photos of the garden party across the street.
As ordered by J.J., she was to cover the Middle Park garden party. A bunch of famous ponies from Canterlot and some from Manehattan would gather to Middle Park and enjoy an evening of luxurious talk and lovely tea and crumpets. Originally, the party was meant to be held on the eve of the solar eclipse, to celebrate the event. But, as time passed the party became more and more exclusive and now doesn't do anything relevant to the eclipse.
Felicity really didn't want to be here; she didn't want to interview a bunch of posh, stuck-up ponies at such a lame event. But no, thanks to J.J., she's here. And it wasn't like she could just leave to do some crime fighting, she was supposed to document everything that goes on as well; she couldn't just let Flair to do all the work.
After snapping another photo, Flair looked at her and tried for a smile.
"Come on, we should at least check out the party," he flashed his badge which granted both of them entrance to the party. "It looks nice."
She put her head down on the table. "Eh, no thank you. I think I'll just stay here, you can go check it out."
Flair pouted, like he wanted to argue and insist on her going, but instead just stood up to leave. Felicity simply wasn't in any mood to do some journalism. Her meek personality stood in the way of her desires, if she were more aggressive and confident she would definitely tell J.J. off and demand to write what she wants to, but she isn't.
Felicity Peridot may be Mare Do Well, but those two have distinctive personalities. Felicity is quiet, shy and highly introverted; Mare Do Well is confident, brave, swift and strong. That mask gives Felicity the strength she wants, the strength she needs.
She grumbled to herself, asking Mare Do Well for some courage. Her green mane splashed all over her head, like seaweed under the sea; her depression was getting the better of her, and she hated it.
The party was, as expected, excellent! The food was simply exquisite; Flair grabbed as many cupcakes as he could possibly get. Though the music was slower than what he'd prefer, the atmosphere was lovely and calming. He knew Felicity would enjoy a party like this; despite her alter ego's personality, she enjoyed quiet places so she could think.
Someponies were taken aback at Flair's appearance; they weren't readily accustomed to seeing Minotaurs out like this. Minotaurs usually stayed by the countryside or even in wild places, they seldom live amongst the populace.
Flair was used to it, however, after living amongst the ponies for all his life he had to get used to the way ponies looked at him. Some of them were scared of him, while others had an irrational hatred toward him. But it didn't matter, Flair tried to be nice and hospitable, so he could get along with the ponies better.
He met Felicity two years ago; she was the one who introduced him to J.J. and got him the job as a photographer. Felicity was always nice to him, she didn't treat him differently because he was a Minotaur, and she treated him like she would any other pony.
Flair saw a candy stand across the street; he thought maybe Felicity would want some. She has a bit of a sweet tooth, and it was the least he could do to try and cheer her up.
Before he could make his decision, on the main stage a pony approached the microphone and the band stopped their music.
The pony had a dark gray coat with a white mane; his cutie mark, hidden underneath his waistcoat, was a microphone. He smiled brilliantly at the crowd and cleared his throat against the mike.
"Welcome fillies and gentlecolts," he said with a voice as confident as his appearance. "To the Middle Park Garden Party."
A polite applause came from the hundred or so ponies attending.
"As you know, Princess Celestia is producing a solar eclipse in a few days, a wondrous feat that only comes every few years. This party was originally to commemorate that event, but over time its true meaning was forgotten. But, I think that this year we shall remember what this party was for and praise our princess!"
Another polite, but louder, applause echoed through the park.
These parties were such a bore. Flair never really understood how these socialites have fun in events in like these. The Grand Galloping Gala is slightly more entertaining, but was still dreadfully boring. It wasn't in his right to complain, however, so Flair dutifully took a picture of this pony.
Meanwhile, in the diner, the place began to clear out. Everypony wanted to get in on this party despite its exclusivity; they usually just stand by and gawk at the socialites. Felicity stared into her milkshake sullenly; all of this nonsense with the Bridle was making her seriously reconsider her career path. It wasn't making her happy like her mom promised, it just made her frustrated and depressed; how could she be happy in a job where she can't write what she wants? But at the same time, she didn't want to leave Klondike.
Felicity rolled her eyes in spite of herself; it wasn't like Klon and her were an item. He wouldn't notice if she quit. She slammed her head down, giving her a nice little headache, and tried to think things logically.
Even if she quit, there was no guarantee that she would be able to find another job. Her job at the Bridle was a position other ponies would maim for, she only got lucky with her first story being Mare Do Well; if it wasn't for her alter-ego she wouldn't be in the position she's in now.
Speaking of Mare Do Well, how could she expect to continue doing this? Writing in the day and moonlighting as a hero at night wasn't good for her body. Never mind the insomnia, those diamond dogs rattled her a bit too much. Her ribs were still aching and she felt like she could slip into a coma if presented with the idea of sleep.
She couldn't keep doing this for too long, that's for sure.
Despite how dark and desolate the diner was, two ponies entered. Daring Do and Herpy assessed the empty eatery. Daring frowned, she had hoped to get some food; she hadn't eaten since Canterlot.
"I'll go see if there is some food at the party." Herpy suggested, eager to leave. Dare had been dragging Herpy all over Manehattan to find any hint of Mare Do Well. That unicorn, J.J., was hardly helpful. He was happy when Daring had told him she was robbed by Mare Do Well, but provided very little information on her.
He wouldn't even tell them where Mare Do Well's photographer, Flair, was! So, Daring had no leads and had to search all throughout Manehattan. Eventually, Herpy's complaining had penetrated Daring's skull and she stopped at this diner to get some food. But it was empty, nopony was tending to it either, how irresponsible.
Daring nodded at Herpy, giving him permission to go, and sat down at a booth. Across from her was a lone unicorn banging her head on the table, what a strange pony.
While Felicity considered career options, at the party, the speaker continued.
"And it is only thanks to you, the ponies, that we are able to celebrate this. So, thank you," he smiled again, showing off his pearly whites. "But, shall we continue with the festivities?"
As quickly as the party started, however, it was abruptly ended. The music stopped, rudely interrupted, and the ponies gasped as a guest showed up. Standing on his dog-like hind legs and ape-like forelegs, Ahuizotl stood proudly and wickedly beside the speaker pony. His eyes gleamed with mischief and his smile Cheshire.
His henchcats quickly took to the scene along with a few unicorns that disguised themselves in the crowd. They had all surrounded the perimeter and kept any quick-thinking ponies at bay with their magic. Ahuizotl looked at the pony beside him, who quiver with fear, and scuffed.
"Do you mind?" he asked.
The pony shook his head and handed him the microphone. Ahuizotl took it, cleared his throat, and said. "I'm afraid the party must end on account of the rain."
Daring stood up from her spot, upon hearing Ahuizotl's voice. She looked out the window and saw him on the stage while his mooks round up everypony.
Growling, she suddenly forgot all about her quest to find that thieving mare. If Ahuizotl was here… well, things won't be so pretty in a few minutes.
She was about to leave but the bathroom door had opened. Turning, a masked, tights-wearing mare stood almost heroically behind her.
"Oh, this'll be fun." Daring closed the door behind her, and locked it.
Before Felicity could kindly, and heroically, ask Daring to step away from the door, the crazy pegasus karate kicked her! She didn't have time to stop the kick and was sent flying back into the bathroom. Her head slammed against the hoof dryer and she saw stars.
Daring blocked the exit and was seething. "So, you're Mare Do Well?"
She wanted to answer with something witty, like, "No."
"Some ponies think you're some kind of hero, shame I know who exactly you are."
Felicity's heart froze with fear; did this mare really know her?
"A thief!"
Oh, good, she didn't know who she was… wait, what?
Daring jumped at Felicity; rolling back, Felicity reeled back her hind legs and kicked Dare in retaliation. She lay sprawled over the floor, but Felicity didn't give her a chance to recover. Tackling Dare, the two tumbled awkwardly out of the bathroom and right back into the diner.
Judo-flipping Dare, Felicity sent her crashing into one of the tables. Ouch, splinters are never a pleasant experience. But Daring exploded out of the pile of wood and came out swinging. It was all Fleece could do to dodge the punches; Dare must have been some sort of boxer, her hooves were lightning fast!
Felicity swept her legs and Dare crumbled to the floor. She spared a glance outside; Ahuizotl was still out there ravishing on his victory over… high-class socialites? She couldn't figure out why someone would hold this many ponies hostage, and she needed to find out quick.
Daring recovered and spear tackled Felicity at the waist. Pushing her to the ground, Dare's eyes flared dangerously under the low light. "Where's the turquoise serpent?!"
Her horn shimmered with magic and Daring was levitated in the air. She struggled against the magic but was ultimately trapped, Felicity stood, panting, and regarded her.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Felicity said, voice hoarse from Daring's tackle. "While we're fighting, that is going on!"
She pointed Daring toward the window, to show her Ahuizotl's hostage situation.
Suddenly, Daring stopped struggling; her face went a sickly shade of white.
"Herpy," muttered Daring.
Gently, but quickly, Felicity put Daring down and released her from the magic.
"Good, now that you're calm, we can-" Daring interrupted with a quick jab to Felicity's mouth.
"You're still a no-good thieving mare," Dare explained, "That's for stealing from me."
This Pegasus was getting on Felicity's nerves. "Okay! Now that we got that over with, we can calmly assess the situation. I'll go stall that guy-"
"Ahuizotl."
"And you go get the police."
She started to walk out the door, but Daring held her back.
"Whoa, whoa little missie, my friend is there and if you think I'm just going to sit on the side-lines, helpless, you got another thing coming." Argued Dare.
Felicity turned and placed her own hoof on Dare's, she really was getting on her nerves. "You're hot-headed. You'll just end up causing more trouble than you're worth."
"Oh yeah? Why don't you try to stop me?"
This conflict was bound to get out of hoof. Daring Do was much too hot-headed and fiery for Felicity's calm, cool and analytical personality. Felicity wanted to step back and analyze the situation, but Daring looked like she just wanted to rush in, head first, and pummel anything that got in her way.
Felicity instead shrugged her hoof off.
"Whatever, we'll work together this time-"
"Then after this, we'll go back to killing each other."
"Deal."
The two mares stepped outside the diner and started to head to the park, but the sun came out earlier and faster than usual. A bright light exploded in Middle Park, temporarily blinding the duo, when it died down, the light turned out to be a force field created by the unicorns working for Ahuizotl.
A shockwave boomed throughout the park and knocked Daring off her feet; Felicity barely managed to withstand the force and tried to get a closer look at what was happening inside the bubble. All of the ponies began to faint and fall to the ground from the magic of the force field. Even Flair passed out.
She saw Ahuizotl laughing and the force field got brighter and brighter… oh no, she recognized this magic.
Felicity galloped toward the force field but it continued to brighten until it exploded. The force knocked her back, into Daring. When they got up, Middle Park was completely barren; they were gone.
The first five minutes was spent calming Dare down. She was ranting, raving and generally cursing Ahuizotl. Felicity had to keep her back from compromising the crime scene, so Dare just bucked the walls for a little bit while Felicity investigated.
Felicity crouched at the edge of the park, the parts where the force field ended had left the grass burnt. She took a sample of the grass and placed it in a tube; any residual magic left over should help in identifying who did this. Or what…
The magic casted by those ponies was an older brand, one not taught in schools, either these ponies have been brushing up on ancient magic or…
No, the thought was too absurd to consider.
Pocketing her evidence, Felicity stood and glanced at Dare who managed to calm down long enough to inquire about her activities.
"Evidence," answered Felicity. "We need to figure out who did this."
"Why? We already know who did this. Ahuizotl and Corkscrew!"
She stopped. "Corkscrew?"
"This old pirate that sent me to look for something called the turquoise serpent-“
"The thing you claimed that I stole?”
“You mean the thing I know you stole? But yeah, he was here tonight, right next to Ahuizotl, before they all teleported. It's obvious - you don't need to be a detective - they are in cahoots!"
"The who is obvious," admitted Felicity, "But the why isn't. Why did Corkscrew tell you to get this serpent only to end up kidnapping a hundred ponies with Ahuizotl? And, since, I didn't steal your serpent, who did? Why would they masquerade as me? And why is that serpent so important?"
"All good questions," Daring stepped in front of Felicity. "But, I've got one of my own. Who are you?"
Staring into that mask, Daring hoped to extract that information via telepathy. But, before Felicity could answer the police sirens broke through the night. They wouldn't appreciate Mare Do Well being at a crime scene; they would probably try to pin everything on her.
"We'll talk about it later."
They hid in the covers of night.
They had reached her hideout by midnight. Which was good; Daring's hooves were killing her. Felicity had insisted on walking, flying would have attracted too much attention but then again so would a mare who thinks every day is Nightmare Night.
Her 'hideout' was actually just an abandoned warehouse off the outskirts of Manehattan. With a flip of a switch, a cave opened up and the lair of Mare Do Well was revealed to Ms. Do.
The cave was forty feet underground and massive. You could fit three Canterlot universities in here and would still have enough room to fit the racing stadium in. It was simple and rough, indicating that this was merely the prototype version of the Mare Cave.
There was a single huge ring-like platform with super computers set up all around it, complemented by one jumbo screen overlooking the entire cave. Underneath the platform was the lake created by the artificial waterfall to either side of the jumbo screen. Each of the computers seemed to be running something; police radios, news channels, everything so that Mare Do Well was on top of crime.
She walked on the platform and toward the jumbo screen, using her magic she removed her hat and mask and turned to face Daring Do.
"My name is Felicity Peridot; I'm just a journalist for The Daily Bridle. And, I need your help."
"Always nice to make a friend Fleece, I'm Daring Do."
The journalist was a secret hero of the night? She hadn't expected that, to be honest. Daring thought that Mare Do Well was just some eccentric billionaire with a really hefty trust fund, not some quiet writer.
"You must get paid nicely," admired Daring as she looked at the computers. Over to her right were several pods that carried alternate Mare Do Well outfits. One of them had the mask in a different style; the ears were more triangular and bat-like.
Felicity chuckled, almost bitterly. "Nope. Flair had built all of this stuff from scratch, he's a bit of a genius."
Flair reminded her of Herpy. That thought only made Daring more determined to find Ahuizotl and teach that stupid cat obsessed freak a thing or two about messing with Daring Do.
"Right, so, what have you got then Ms. Detective?"
Felicity turned around and raised an eyebrow, confused.
"Detective?" she asked, slightly amused at the thought. "I'm wearing tights, I don't exactly look like a detective."
"I looked you up, or rather Mare Do Well up. And everypony is calling you 'Equestria's Greatest Detective' even better than Fetlock Holmes judging by the way you track most criminals down."
Felicity laughed, almost relieved, as if she feared the public opinion on her alter-ego. Well, it felt a little nice to become comfortable with this masked crusader. Felicity looked like a stressed out pony, and Daring's accusations of her being a thief probably didn't help.
Even if Daring didn't exactly trust her at the moment, she seemed to know a lot more than Daring, and if she wanted to find Herpy, Corkscrew, and Ahuizotl, she would have to team up.
"In regards to your question," Felicity said, turning back to her computer. "I've only got a little bit of information."
She pressed a few buttons and a molecular structure of… something showed up. Dare never did like all of this science stuff, thermodynamics and particle physics ah! That stuff confused her more than ancient ponies, gods, and giant snakes. To be honest, she has a hard time believing all of that science stuff more than mythology.
"Magic, in its simplest form, is merely matter condensed in easily manipulated nanoparticles. Telekinesis, teleportation and other forms of magic can be traced, recorded and explained with science. Having said that, magic is also very distinctive between ponies. Like a cutie mark, there are no two magic signatures; everypony has a different magical signature."
She pointed at the screen. "This is the magic signature of the ponies at the park that produced the force field."
Daring saw nothing special. It was just a blob, a dark purple spherical thing with tentacles coming out of it sporadically. But, Felicity pressed a few more buttons and another figure appeared beside the first illustration. It was a lime-green diamond shaped thing with fancy particle effects on it.
"The emerald shape is my magical signature. Notice the difference?"
The difference was very obvious, her magical signature was very structured, very neat and, well, physically stable. But the first one kept morphing and changing shapes, as if it were unsure of what form it should assume, it was excited and seemed… alive.
"What does that prove though?" Daring asked. "According to what you said, there should be an infinite number of magic signatures. What if that is just unique to this pony?"
"Two reasons," Felicity smiled as if Daring finally asked a good question, she stepped down from the computer and walked up to Dare, like a professor regarding her class. "One, if you compare that specific form to thousands of other ponies, you will find that no matter what there will be nothing similar. Magical signatures may be unique but some similarities can exist between ponies, like ponies within family sharing similarly themed cutie marks. There is no way that amongst millions of magical signatures that one deviant can exist, everything has a certain order, a certain structure."
She stopped in front of Dare, and her eyes sparkled with interest, as if this puzzle really intrigued her despite the imminent danger those ponies were in.
"And two, it wasn't one pony that produced that force field, it was several. So, why is the signature exactly the same between multiple ponies? And finally three-"
"I thought there were only two reasons."
"-This isn't regular pony magic. This is ancient pony magic."
Things were getting too complicated now; Daring's mind swam. Ancient pony civilizations, ancient snake gods, ancient pony magic; Daring wished things were simple again, where Ahuizotl was the enemy and there weren't any secret pony societies to deal with.
Daring shook her head; she was getting dizzy just thinking about it.
"Wait, wait, so, what's ancient pony magic? And what is the significance behind it?" she asked, more tired than when she fought that giant snake.
"Excellent question!" Felicity beamed and galloped over to the bookshelf. After perusing the shelf for a few minutes, she came over levitating a dusty purple book. "Ancient pony magic is quite dangerous and difficult to achieve. Usually you think of unicorns with magic, right?"
Daring nodded. It was simple, unicorns had special magic, pegasi had passive magic to enable them to manipulate clouds and weather, and earth pony had passive magic to communicate with nature.
"Well, ancient pony magic allowed everypony, no, everyone to use magic. You see, that type of magic wasn't channeled through a horn like mine, but instead it was summoned through incantations and rituals."
Great, Felicity just made magic, the first thing taught to foals, complicated!
"The ponies adept in ancient magic often prayed to gods and thought that they had granted them this magic, but that's not important. That magic was so dangerous it often hurt the casters, or worse. And so, after a while, I think in the time of Star Swirled the Bearded, ancient pony magic was banned and ponies like him pioneered the magic we are all accustomed to."
"So, how is it possible for this ancient pony magic to exist if it was banned?" Daring asked.
Felicity opened the book proudly, as if she's been waiting for years for a chance to use this book; she read a few lines, dropped the book, and braced herself. A few moments later, her horn shined but it wasn't dull green like before, it was a black color.
The magic scared Daring, she'll admit. It felt like the entire thing was unnatural, like it shouldn't exist. The entire cave got colder from Felicity's magic and Dare just wanted to hide under her covers and sleep. She isn't afraid of anything, she'll fight giant snakes with no fear; but this, this unnatural display of magic terrified her.
After a few moments, Felicity's shadow literally popped off the ground and stood, entirely three dimensional, in front of Dare. Felicity panted and sweated, exhausted from her spell.
"There are still a few books out there," Felicity admitted. "But, in order to keep them out of the hooves of ponies, I managed to buy a majority of them. So far, there should be only two left in the world."
Felicity's shadow looked around, confused as to why it was brought to life. It looked at Daring with its empty black sockets, titled its head and tackled her. Daring yelped as the shadow quickly overpowered her. Felicity blasted the shadow with more magic and it melted back into the ground and returned to its rightful position.
"Sorry about that," Felicity blushed. "That shadow spell pulls all of the potential and strength of the pony it was casted on. It was a common spell back then, and was used frequently."
"In what? Wars?"
Felicity didn't answer. She turned back to the computer and studied the ancient magic's structure. "So, how does ancient pony magic lead us to Ahuizotl?" asked Daring.
"It doesn't. It shows up what we're up against. I only have a few theories, but there are only a couple of ponies and other magicians capable of ancient magic."
"Like?"
Felicity stopped typing. "W-well, that doesn't really matter, it couldn't be them…"
Noticing that Daring was just as silent as her, Felicity cleared her throat. "Anyways, we have a means of tracking them."
She pressed a few keys and a map of Manehattan appeared with a red dot in the middle of the Broncs.
"Tracking device," Felicity says, preemptively answering Dare's next question. "Flair had one built into his bowtie, in the event he was kidnapped."
"Or if the cleaners threw away his clothes." Mumbled Dare.
"So, we know where they are, let's just go ahead and get them."
"Wait, wait," Daring looked at the map a little closer. "That's like, thirty minutes from here! We won't make it any time soon."
"Oh, ye of little faith," she grinned as she pressed a button on her belt. A section of the cave opened up behind Daring, and her smile widened until it reached its physical limits.
"Oh, I can dig this."
~--~
Gliding over the city of Manehattan was an amazing experience. Sure, Daring often flew everywhere she went and being a pegasus, flying shouldn't be seen as an amazing thing. But flying this way was much cooler than anything Daring could reproduce.
Both Daring and Felicity were standing atop a hover board, gliding well above the city. Felicity had explained, in extra special detail, about the anti-gravitational pads under the board that enable it to glide giving the illusion of flight, but Daring didn't understand any of that; all she knew was that she was flying!.. Well, without her wings, which makes it different.
Felicity held the tracker device in front of her and with that mask and hat on, Daring thought it was a different pony entirely. Mare Do Well was quiet and stoic, but Felicity was eccentric, awkward, and a little cute when she got all riled up on science. When she got excited, she talked and talked even though nopony would be able to understand her.
The two ponies may be the same, but they were entirely different at the same time and, quite frankly, Daring preferred Felicity over Mare Do Well.
Thanks to Felicity's crazy contraption, the two made it to the Broncs in record time. They stopped over a local playground, looking around, Daring didn't notice anything.
"Why are we stopping?" she asked.
Felicity pointed behind the playground which opened up to an amazing park. Under the cover of the night and the surrounding trees, Daring wouldn't have noticed them, but there they were. The several hundred ponies from the party and Ahuizotl watching all of them.
She bit her lips, everypony other than Ahuizotl's goons were on the floor, facedown.
"Calm down," Felicity said. "They're only unconscious."
She showed Daring the tracking device which read Flair's electrical activity.
"Notice his alpha brain waves, they indicate-"
"English." Daring interrupted.
"Essentially, he's sleeping."
It was startling to see how much of a difference there was between Mare Do Well and Felicity. They even spoke differently, Felicity's voice was higher pitch and livelier, while Mare Do Well was sultry, slower and deliberate.
From up here, Daring could see nearly everything. The unicorns from earlier were running around frantic, gathering a bunch of weird things and bringing them to Ahuizotl… no, it wasn't to him, it was to this statue.
The statue was of an alicorn and boy, did she look mad. Her expression was of pure hatred and if looks could kill… well...
Anyways, they were bringing things like a robe, leather necklace, and a stone amulet. Daring didn't recognize any of those things, they weren't things she would find in an equinlogical ruin, they all looked like... personal items, like things this pony owned before she was turned into a statue.
But that's impossible; nopony can be turned into a statue… right?
She looked at Felicity who, despite the mask, looked at the statue with pure fear.
"Who is that?" Dare asked.
"Let's just… go and deal with this as quickly as possible."
They landed the hover board silently and hid in a bush. Peeking their heads out, they could easily hear Ahuizotl roar at the workers.
"Fools!" he said. "That should not go there, it's over here!"
He walked over to the statue, past an annoyed pony, and placed a slipper by her right foreleg, not the left.
"Honestly, good work is so difficult to find these days." He muttered.
But Daring wasn't paying attention to him, she gasped when she saw Herpy unconscious right next to a Minotaur.
"Flair." Felicity said, voice quivering.
"Wait, Flair's a Minotaur?"
"Down!"
She pushed Dare down the bush as one of the ponies came over to investigate the talking bush. He looked at the bush with deep scrutiny, but was unable to see the hiding mares. At the last second, they pulled him into the bush and after a few seconds the rustling stopped.
Pinning the pony down, Daring glared at him, "Where's Dent?!" she asked in a hushed voice.
"What?"
"Sorry, I mean, what are you guys doing here?"
The pony smiled evilly and his horn began to shine. Lighting up the dark park, the pony began to… shape shift. It molded and changed forms, just like that molecular structure, until a black thing was underneath Dare.
It had wings, but they were the wings of a dragonfly, its horn was curved and looked much sharper than a unicorn's horn. Its eyes were the deepest shade of blue.
"Changeling?" Felicity cried.
Without warning, the changeling screeched at such a high frequency it deafened Dare and Felicity. While they were distracted, the changeling jumped, and took flight back to Ahuizotl. He screeched again, communicating what had happened. And Ahuizotl turned to the two mares, smiling all the while.
"Ah, Ms. Do, lovely to see you." He purred, relishing this opportunity to beat up Dare again.
"Sorry to say that the feeling isn't mutual," she shot back.
"I'm afraid you're too late.”
"For what?”
Felicity wasn't in the mood for this back and forth and threw a boomerang at him. Deflecting it with his tail, he laughed.
"You might want to tell your friend there to calm down." He advised, snickering.
"You used changelings. To impersonate me and get Dare off your trail right?" Felicity deduced, a little faster than Daring, which kinda annoyed her.
"Your reputation certainly precedes you," he gestured to a random unicorn who shape shifted into Mare Do Well. "But yes. I had hoped to throw Daring off the trail by sending her to you."
"That obviously failed when you set up your entire operation here, I happen to live in Manehattan you know?" Felicity shot back.
Ahuizotl shrugged. "I'll admit, it wasn't the best laid out plan. But, as mentioned before, you're too late."
Nodding toward another changeling, his horn began to glow until wisps of magic surrounded the entire park. The magic began to surround each of the unconscious ponies, and Flair, and began to go back to the stone statue.
Felicity wouldn't have this. She threw two more boomerangs at the changeling, but his buddies deflected them. Daring rushed him, but was intercepted by Ahuizotl, who slammed downward at her. Rolling out the way, she took out her whip, tied his legs and tripped him up.
Jumping on his body, she used it as a springboard and leapt up to the statue and the changeling. But before she could knock his block off, a force field pushed her back.
Ahuizotl laughed. "Too late! You lose!!"
Felicity, having taken care of the two changelings, turned to see the wisps of magic completely being absorbed into the statue. The ground rumbled and a shockwave was emitted from the statue. Felicity knew what was coming next; her heart dropped as the statue began to crack, revealing a powerful light of magic.
It cracked and crumbled in a matter of seconds, but whoever was in the statue was impatient to wait. Before all of the pieces could fall, the statue exploded.
“I LIVEEEEEEEE!!!!”
Her voice echoed throughout the park and heck, probably throughout all of the Broncs. What stood before them was not an alicorn; it was another changeling.
She was tall, fully grown, and wicked. Unlike the angular bodies of ponies, her body was very smooth and curvy. Her ears were kind of like bunny ears, as they were much larger than any of the changelings around here. She was pure black with a blue hue. Her wings, like other changelings, were like ones of a dragonfly. And she had holes all over her legs. Her mane was long and almost elegant as it was done up in curls, it was a deep purple and glowed with power. Even her tail was fashioned beautifully; in fact, she would have looked beautiful, the most pretties of changelings if it hadn't been for her horn.
It was jagged and cut at the top, as if someone cut her horn in half. Her eyes, a dark blue, had an unseen fire in them, she was enjoying being back to life not because she was happy to see all of her changeling cousins, but because she has been waiting and planning this for… eons.
Daring could see it in her eyes, her patience, and her calm but destructive nature.
All of the changelings assumed their original form and bowed before her. She regarded them calmly before stepping down from the stand; everypony was dead silent, even Ahuizotl didn't bother to gloat.
Finally, this changeling turned to look at Daring and smiled as if they were sharing a joke.
"You are my savior, no?" she asked, turning to Ahuizotl who bowed and groveled like a professional.
"Yes, Princess Danus. I have released you from you prison and-"
"Who are these foals?" she asked, pointing at Daring and Felicity.
Daring stepped back nervously, why was she so afraid of Danus? She couldn't bring herself to say something witty, or do anything; she just wanted to grovel like Ahuizotl.
"Heroes from Celestia?" wondered Danus. "It has been eons since I have tested my mettle against Celestia's best. Tell me, who are you?"
Daring managed to swallow her fear; she ran forward and did the craziest thing in her life. She charged the changeling princess. Jumping up, she executed a perfect dragon kick. "My name's Daring Do! And I don't care for who you are, so shut your mouth!"
The kick would've connected with Danus's head, but her force-field shot Daring back and slammed her into the ground.
"They don't make them like they used to," mused Danus.
Felicity looked at Danus, she was much taller than her; Danus was at least as tall as Celestia. And, if that display of power wasn't enough, she is probably as strong as her.
Corkscrew came up to Danus, holding the turquoise serpent in his hooves, and as he bowed to give it to her, he shape shifted into a changeling. Okay, the pieces are coming together.
"Here, my princess, a gift," Corkscrew said.
She looked at the serpent and smiled darkly. "Excellent! You have done well!"
Felicity took her chance; she rushed Danus, horn glowing with magic, and jumped to tackle her. Ahuizotl got in the way and swiped at her. Teleporting, she ended up above Danus who smiled at her.
"You are impressive, I'll grant you that, but," Danus's magic shot out and collided with Felicity who crumbled to the ground. Her insides felt like they were burning, the pain was so intense she couldn't think straight. "You are still no match for me, posing as an alicorn, humph, a worthy disguise. But shall we see who is under that mask?"
"My princess," Ahuizotl said suddenly upon the sound of police sirens. "More are coming. We should make ourselves scarce."
She turned back to Ahuizotl, her expression contorted into anger. "We? My dear, there is no we, only myself and my changelings!"
The changelings growled with joy at that as they slowly began to surround Ahuizotl.
"I have no further use for you. Actually…" her horn glowed again and a green wisp of magic emerged from Ahuizotl's mouth and straight into Danus's. Ahuizotl's eyes rolled back and he passed out. "Another soul wouldn't hurt the cause."
She then looked down at Felicity, who writhed in pain. "Consider me merciful, if you still draw breath after tonight."
With that, Danus and the other changelings teleported.
Thankfully, Daring, who was playing possum, recovered fast and managed to get Felicity away from the scene as the police arrived. When Felicity snapped back to reality, they were in the subway. Daring had taken off Felicity's outfit, so she wouldn't be awkwardly dragging an unconscious Mare Do Well into the subway.
When she woke up, her head was on Daring's lap. Daring was messing with one of Felicity's boomerangs, but when she woke up, Daring looked down and smiled.
"Ah, she awakens!"
Felicity sat up, head pounding and her insides felt like somepony microwaved them.
"What happened?"
Daring explained everything past Felicity's attempt to stop Danus. The news deflated her confidence.
"B-but, those ponies kidnapped by those changelings are still alive! I checked, they wouldn't wake up but they were still sleeping. The police probably have them now." Daring said, trying to cheer her up.
"Changelings are creatures that feed off of the emotions of ponies. The easiest to obtain - and the most potent - being love. But, Changelings can also simply take the soul of the ponies. It gives them less power than love would, but it is quantity over quality."
"They had gathered one hundred ponies!" cried Daring, piecing it together. "To take all of their souls. All of that would be at least the same quality of a love-struck pony, right?"
Felicity nodded. "All of those ponies were enough to revive Danus."
They sat there, mulling over those news. A powerful changeling princess who is as strong as Princess Celestia is rampaging over Equestria with an army of changelings and a stone serpent.
Daring's head snapped back up. "What about that serpent? What do you think they're doing with that?"
Felicity thought about it for a few seconds. "The serpent is in the same vein as those changelings. Ancient and powerful, the magic of that serpent is probably equal to those changelings. And... think about the mythology behind it. It was formally a god that, before his demise, was transformed into its stone prison and has been that way for centuries."
"But, so what, it isn't like there is a god in that snake. I mean, that's…" she wanted to say impossible, but Daring just witnessed a changeling pop right out of a statue like the serpent's.
"Point is, whatever they plan to do with that serpent isn't going to be to throw a party." Felicity tried to stand up, but her legs felt like jelly, she would've fallen if it wasn't for Dare.
"Whoa there, you look terrible, you should rest."
Felicity shook Dare off. "We need to track Danus, who knows what they'll do."
Daring stepped in front of her. "How? We don't know where they're going."
She smiled, and levitated the tracking device in front of Daring. "Yeah, we do."
"You're good. Mare Do Well gambit, you think of everything huh?"
But, Felicity was more tired than she put on. She nearly collapsed right there, Daring caught her and had to drag her to the train. According to the tracking device, Danus was heading west, to Las Pegasus. They would need a ride.
They took the train over to the Grand Middle Terminal, and got tickets to Las Pegasus. Felicity was unconscious the entire time, man the mare could sleep, she only woke up when they were on the overhead train.
Felicity sat up and gasped. "Where's Danus?!"
Daring had to calm her down before they got kicked off. "Fleece, we're in Grand Middle Terminal. We're going to be following Danus, all right? She's headed to Las Pegasus."
Thankfully, she calmed down and focused on Dare.
"Las Pegasus… why would she be headed there..."
Daring wanted to answer but yawned. Felicity sat up and got a good look at Dare, she looked exhausted.
"You should sleep."
"No, I'm fine." Dare insisted.
"I know a sleep spell, don't make me use it."
Felicity looked serious about the spell, so Daring didn't argue. She leaned her head against Felicity's shoulder and feel into a deep sleep.
Her dream was… well, certainly abnormal than most of her dreams. She was standing in a temple ruin, with a bunch of dancing ponies. The place was built like a fortress, made entirely out of obsidian; it gleamed a wicked purple against the moonlight. The ponies wore black clothing with the simple of the moon where their cutie marks should be.
When Daring looked straight on at these dancing ponies, she could see right through them, but when she looked at them through her peripheral vision, she could see them just fine; they were ghosts.
Creepy! Dare backed up from the dancing ghosts and into a brick wall. Turning, she saw Nightmare Moon.
Wait, Nightmare Moon?!
Jumping back, Daring yelped and prepared for a fight. But Nightmare Moon just stood there, smiling sincerely at her. Her image flickered, like mist, and she could see Princess Luna this time. It was like the ghosts, if she didn't focus on Luna, she could see her perfectly with Nightmare Moon behind her like a hologram.
"Princess Luna?" she asked, bowing instinctively. "You... This isn't real, is it?"
"RISE FAIR DARING- oh, whoops," Luna giggled, embarrassed. "I mean, rise, fair Daring Do."
After Daring's ears recovered, she asked, "You aren't really here, this is a dream right?"
Luna looked at the dancing ponies; they ignored Luna and Dare and just continued to dance eternally. "Yes, and no."
Oh great, another complicated explanation.
"Being princess of the night, my power is at its strongest when the moon is out; consequently, I am able to appear in the dreams of ponies."
"Right…"
Luna laughed at Dare's obvious frustration. "It may sound complicated, but it is quite simple. Just think of me as the Sandmare."
"Okay, well, where is this place? What's with the ghosts? Why have you appeared before me in a dream? What's going on?"
Luna gestured toward the ghosts and the ruins. "This is the Temple of Nightmare Moon. You've been here before."
Daring looked more carefully and recognized the ruins, except, last time she was here it wasn't as… lively.
"Though, quite frankly, this is simply my summer home. The ponies here, bless their hearts, converted the place into a temple to worship Nightmare Moon. These are the ghosts of those worshippers."
The dancing ghosts looked so sad and empty; even though they were all dancing none of them looked like they enjoyed it.
"Right, dancing ghosts," Daring's legs quivered, these ghosts made her nervous, not as much as Nightmare Moon though. "Okay, but why are you here? I mean, no offense Princess Luna, but I don't want to be dreaming about ghosts."
Luna considered the thought for a few seconds; behind her, Nightmare Moon was looking down on Dare, licking her lips as if the tasty prospect of an adventurer was too much for her.
"Nightmare Moon's power grows every night," Luna said finally. "In the winter months, night is much longer than usual, which gives her more time to increase her power and gives her more opportunities to whisper in the ears of ponies."
"Princess," Daring interrupted. "What does that have to do with me? You may have been away for a long time, but things out here aren't great either. The changeling princess Danus is causing chaos out there and she has an ancient artifact that may-"
Princess Luna put up her hoof to stop Daring. "I know this already. And, believe it or not, my problem with Nightmare Moon and yours with Danus are interconnected."
Just then, Daring became entirely transparent. She looked at her hooves but was able to see through them! Glancing back up, she noticed that Luna was transparent as well. Just then, the two mares began to float up to the night sky.
Like flying, this floating sensation was also pretty amazing but terrifying at the same time. Usually, when Dare flies, she is able to control every aspect about it, how fast she's going, where she's going, etc., but in this instance everything was controlled by Luna.
They passed Inti the dragon, trapped in his starry prison. Dare felt obligated to wave or something, but he must have not noticed her as he just roared in excoriating pain. Ten seconds later, they were on the moon.
Landing on the surface, Dare wanted to ask why they were there but Luna simply gestured forward. At first, she couldn't see it; all she saw was the gray surface of the moon. But, like those ghosts from before she wasn't able to see it until she unfocused her eyes.
Dare nearly jumped out of her ghostly skin from what she saw.
On the ground in front of her was a huge black mass that took up three miles, stretching out much farther than she could even see. Her eyes couldn't even see where this mass ended and the moon began; no, she could see it now. The black mass had strange white bracelet-like things at the ends of it that shined so bright she was even able to see one a mile away.
The more she looked at it, the more she saw it for what it really was. The black mass wasn't a mass entirely, it was a pony. Its right hoof was in front of Dare while the head was farther north; the pony was struggled and was trying desperately to get out, as if the moon was sucking it inside.
"Is that…" she breathed finally, for once, she didn't want an answer.
"Nightmare Moon's true form," Luna answered. "Her chains are the stars themselves."
Luna pointed at the monster pony's body, showing a huge chain roped around its body that glowed so intensely that even in ghost form Daring could feel how hot it was. And just to make a point, Nightmare Moon roared in pain and agony and shook the entire moon, Dare wouldn't be surprised if that roar could be heard on Equestria.
"Every passing second she spends trying to break those chains," explained Luna. "I have been able to keep her from breaking free for now. But, I fear that there are those who wish to accelerate her escape."
"Danus," carefully enunciating her name, Daring couldn't believe the scale of things now. Danus wasn't just some pouty princess, she wanted to release this monstrosity. "But, wait, if Nightmare Moon is released, wouldn't you be as well? You can control her."
Smiling, Dare realized just how similar Luna was to Celestia, she may not be as tall but they had the same smile, the same "oh-silly-little-mare-when-will-you-learn" look in their eyes.
"I'm afraid not. Remember the legends; when Nightmare Moon first appeared it took advantage of my jealousy and insecurity and I lost control of it. Nightmare Moon is uncontrollable and too powerful to deal with alone. Though, she and I are one and the same, in theory if Nightmare Moon is released I should be as well."
That gave her a little bit of hope, it might be as Luna says in that she can't control Nightmare Moon, but you can't underestimate the power of a princess.
"We'll have to stop her before then," said Dare, anxious to sock that changeling. "And hey, if push comes to shove we have you on our side."
Luna smiled, but it was a forced one, as if she were withholding something. She looked like she wanted to say it. "Good luck on your journey fair Daring Do. You and Ms. Peridot are our hopes."
The dream faded; the last thing she saw was Nightmare Moon's angered expression, like she looked forward to the coming events.
The train ride was comfortable; well, as comfortable as one could be sitting down on a hard seat. Hey, shelling out for a room isn't easy on a journalist's salary. During one of the stops at Fillydelphia, Felicity called the Bridle to let them know that she would be sick for a week or two and wouldn't make it in. J.J. wasn't happy with that, but Klon had promised he would keep her from getting fired.
Good, if the world wasn't ending she still had a job.
The entire train ride took a day in a half, and in that time Felicity did some research. Borrowing a portable computer, Felicity decided to look up this turquoise serpent thing.
It didn't really offer a lot of information; all that was there was included what Daring had told her before. The real name of this serpent was Xiuhcoatl, a fire god that guides the sun god, Tonatiuh, across the sky. Xiuhcoatl, at the time of his demise, was immortalized in the stone serpent form.
It was all mythology, all hard to believe; after all, gods and demons? It made her uncomfortable that ponies believe in it, it was even more unnerving to think that all of this could be true. After all, she witnessed a changeling princess be released from a statue, who is to say a god that flies across the sky as a representation of the sun isn't plausible?
She closed the computer and set it aside. Looking around, the carriage was depressingly empty save the colt that gave her the computer earlier. Dare woke up a few hours ago, white as a ghost; she probably had a bad dream because she spent a lot of time in the bathroom.
Felicity suddenly wished she was back in her office, working on some scathing story about Mare Do Well, sipping some coffee while J.J. goes on being the loud obnoxious pony he was. Getting caught up in gods and changelings wasn't part of her career plan, so then… why doesn't she go home?
The part of her brain that was still logical kept screaming at her, telling her to ditch Dare, head home and pretend none of this happened. But she couldn't; she couldn't just leave Dare at the mercy of Danus, much less all of Equestria.
Oh, and Flair as well.
Felicity grimaced, in spite of herself, why was Dare the first mare she thought of? Flair was her friend, Dare attacked and accused her of being a thief. Why is it that when danger comes by, her first thought is Dare?"
Hey, sorry about that," Dare grinned, sitting next to Felicity, making her more self-conscious. "Rough night sleep."
"Nightmare?" Felicity asked.
"You could say that…"
Dare explained all about her dream with Princess Luna and Nightmare Moon. The way she described Nightmare Moon was… graphic. Dare seemed legitimately scared of Nightmare Moon, and she had charged Danus without fear!
"All right, the pieces are coming together," mumbled Felicity. "You see, the turquoise serpent was named Xiuhcoatl, some powerful god that moved the sun across the sky. If Danus is going after Nightmare Moon, she's got to get rid of the one thing controlling the sun to both make Nightmare Moon stronger and to get rid of the only one that can combat Nightmare Moon."
"Princess Celestia." Dare finished.
The situation felt hopeless. They were just two mares; one unicorn, one pegasus, against a changeling army and their princess with the strength of a hundred ponies, one Minotaur, and… whatever Ahuizotl was. How could they win in this?
Looking ahead, Felicity saw the generous pony reading a newspaper, the headlines read:
"MARE DO WELL, HERO OR MENACE?"
And underneath it the story described the kidnapping of those ponies from the Middle Park party and how Mare Do Well had orchestrated the entire thing to rob them of their money. Even going as far as to say Mare Do Well was so violent against them, she put everypony into a coma.
Great, add salt to the wound why don't you?
Feeling as miserable as ever, Felicity banged her head against the window.
Not only was she faced with a helpless situation, but J.J. has officially made Mare Do Well a social pariah! He even got somepony to replace her, even before she had called in sick!
The world was ending, and she wasn't going to have a job.
Dare put her hoof in front of Felicity's forehead, stopping her from causing more damage to her brain cells. "Come on, this isn't the Felicity I know."
"What do you know about me?" muttered the suddenly aching unicorn.
"Well, for one thing, you aren't a thief!"
"Great. Thanks."
"And you're an egghead who loves reading obscure books, but you also love writing and want to write about Celestia's solar eclipse more than anything in the world. You're a bit shy but a very determined pony who wants to help other ponies despite her cutie mark being a journalistic one."
Felicity smiled; having Dare cheer her up was nice, because usually it was just a clumsy Minotaur. But, she's right, this isn't Felicity; she can't get depressed over every psychopath changeling that comes around with a convoluted plot to rule the world.
Wait, solar eclipse?
Felicity's sat upright quickly, it's the eclipse!
"The eclipse, the serpent! I got it, I know what they're doing! The eclipse is tonight and what happens during a solar eclipse?"
"Uh, the sun gets blocked."
"Exactly! It gets blocked creating darkness, and who gets powerful in the darkness?"
"Princess Luna, but I don't see-"
"Luna gets stronger when the moon is out, but, if the moon is out eternally then she would never get weaker, she would stand leagues above Celestia and even more so considering that Celestia is straining herself trying to produce the eclipse."
"Danus would be able to acquire the power of Nightmare Moon and, taking advantage of the eclipse, would be able to overpower Celestia?" The thought too disturbing to condense into words. "But wait. The eclipse wouldn't last for hours, at best it would be for a few minutes, there's no way Danus would take advantage of that small window to do what she plans."
"That's where the snake comes in. Xiuhcoatl was in charge of moving the sun across the sky, which means he is the only one, other than Celestia, with that power. If he could somehow keep the sun out and allow the moon to stay longer then they could have all the time in the world." Felicity was getting excited at this point, the fact that she figured this out made her happy, because if she knows what they are doing she knows how to stop them.
"Which means," Felicity continued. "The entire plan revolves around Xiuhcoatl. If we take him out of the equation, the entire thing becomes a lot simpler!"
"Sure, we would only have to deal with a changeling princess and her army," reminded Dare.
"But this is good; we have a plan of action! We can formulate ideas and produce a fitting strategy to counter Danus and we can win!"
"I do like winning," mused Dare.
"We got this now. Yes we got this, we can beat her!"
Dare chuckled. "See, that's the Felicity I know."
They shared a smile and at that moment things didn't seem so hopeless. They had a shot now, a plan. This is no longer impossible, just really difficult.
They got to Las Pegasus in an expedient manner; according to Felicity they were two minutes and forty-three seconds ahead of schedule. They went into Pegasus Center and the city was intimidating. Now, Felicity is a Manehattan mare through and through, she isn't afraid of big cities but this place felt different.
Everything was big but very spread out; in Manehattan, unless you were dumb, a filly could navigate everything with ease because everything had its pattern. But here, everything was confusing, obnoxious and liked to show it off with how spread out everything was.
"You forgot one little important detail," Dare mentioned. "Your costume."
Danus had torn apart her costume in Middle Park; the wings were absolutely ruined, the hooves were shredded to pieces and don't get her started on the hat. She couldn't exactly go gallivanting around like that.
Looking down, Felicity noticed just how plainly she was dressed. She wore a white blouse that barely covered her cutie mark; the blouse was worn out and frayed with more wrinkles than her grandmother. Daring managed to look good in her beige uniform and stylish with that hat of hers.
"Don't worry," answered Felicity. "I've got plenty of backups."
She pointed at her blouse; using her magic, she levitated a disc-like object with a button decompressed in the middle.
"It's a prototype, but Flair has been working on it for a bit." She said, suddenly wistful for that silly Minotaur. But, she cleared her throat; after all this she'll be able to see him again so there is no need to get teary-eyed. "Anyhow. Let's keep moving."
Pocketing the disc, she levitated the tracking device in front of them. The transmitter, which was placed on a changeling, beeped on the map; they were heading north very fast; in fact, it was too fast to be hoof travel...
Looking up, a swarm of changelings flew overhead. Their wings buzzed like insects and from down here they looked like a black mist.
"There!" Felicity pointed at the changelings, Daring turned and saw as well but they couldn't do anything. If Daring went off by herself she would foolishly endanger herself, but it didn't matter, Felicity is still tracking them.
The swarm flew all the way over to the horizon until the disappeared underneath a pyramid.
"The Luxhoof Las Pegasus!" cried Daring. "But why are they going there? It isn't a real pyramid."
"Whatever the case is, we need to head there fast." Felicity hailed a cab and raced toward the pyramid.
Unfortunately, everypony was so excited for the eclipse that the traffic was nightmarish! They were able to see the Luxhoof from where they were, but they were still at least ten minutes away.
"What's going on here?" snapped Dare.
"Celestia's eclipse has gotten everypony in a frenzy," the cabbie answered. "They are hosting a party at the Luxhoof Las Pegasus counting down to the eclipse."
"Great." Felicity sat down, frustrated. By the time they got there, the eclipse would have already started and ended.
Daring pulled a few bits from her coat and tossed it at the cabbie. "Come on," she said turning to Felicity. "We just gotta run for it."
The mares jumped out the cabbie and high-tailed it to the Luxhoof.
Navigating through cabs and ponies alike was hard enough without having to levitate the tracking device in front of her; Felicity nearly tripped over a pony. But, finally, they made it to the Luxhoof and, according to the position of the sun, they only had few minutes!
"Fleece, you gotta change!" Dare called. "I'll meet you at the top."
Felicity nodded and swerved off to the left, into an alley. Levitating the disc in front of her, she took off her blouse, stuffed it in the trash, and pressed the button. A red light emitted from the button, scanned Felicity, then fabric exploded from the disc wrapping her up entirely.
Diametrically opposing her purple outfit, this one was red and black. Over her body black designs covered it, creating a nice aesthetic; on her chest was a Mare Do Well emblem, a circle with a black outline and a red interior and within that was a large "M". Her mask had black eyes over it, with white pupils; her trademark hat was back and matched the outfit's motif of red and black. Her cape matched it as well, red on the outside, black on the inside, and her wings folded in nicely.
This outfit had everything the other one did, except it was charmed with some more… ancient magic. Hopefully, Felicity would get a chance to try out some of that magic.
Taking flight, Felicity stood atop a building and overlooked the crowd below. Her cape billowed in the air, her hat looked immaculate and cool, and despite her costume change, she was instantly recognized by the ponies below.
"Mare Do Well!" one cried.
"What is she doing here?" another asked.
"Isn't she a thief?" asked a third.
"Yeah! Here to ruin the eclipse?!"
But thanks to her bad reputation, everypony began booing her and throwing stuff. Felicity dodged all of the soda cans and tomatoes; she didn't want to get this cool costume dirty. Flying off the building, Felicity made her way up the Luxhoof where, inevitably, Danus stood hoof to hoof against Dare.
Danus laughed evilly as she deflected another one of Dare's kicks, nearly sending her tumbling to the ground. "Foolish little foal! What chance do you think you have against me? You are merely one mare."
"Let's even the odds then!" Felicity flew overhead and dropped three boomerangs along with two bombs. Danus deflected the boomerangs, but the bombs dropped in front of her and exploded, taking down the top of the pyramid.
Felicity caught Daring before she plummeted. "Thanks!" called out Dare.
She flew her inside the actual pyramid and calmly landed inside.
"Think she's done for?" asked Dare.
Danus teleported in front of them, cackling evilly. "Answer your question?" Felicity shot back.
"I'll admit masked mare, you are tougher than you appear. What is your name? History will remember you as the foal that failed to stop me…"
"Mare Do Well, and don't worry princess, you'll be remembered in history as the idiot changeling that was beaten by two foals."
Humming assailed Felicity's senses and a dozen changelings landed in front of them. "If you cannot handle them," said Danus. "You won't even be noteworthy for history."
Danus flew upward to the top of the pyramid while the rest of the changelings growled at them.
"Don't call me Noteworthy." Grumbled Felicity.
The changelings charged the duo and they stood their ground.
Up above, Danus looked at the city below and the ponies gawking at the now damaged pyramid. Corkscrew, the changeling, accompanied Danus.
"Look at these pathetic foals, like cattle they gather to praise an unworthy princess." Danus growled, annoyed at the obedience of these ponies. "We will see how they celebrate when their princess has been dethroned."
Without warning, two large pegasi approached Danus. They wore armor and looked particularly mean; on their shoulders was the emblem for the Las Pegasus Special Forces.
"You there, put your hooves and wings where I can see them!" ordered one pegasus.
Danus sneered, slowly putting up her forelegs and wings. "Oh, you mean like this officer?"
A bolt of lightning discharged from her horn, electrifying both pegasi and they fell out the skies like sacks of cupcakes. The crowd, now carefully watching, gasped in fear as the police ponies were crashing to the ground.
"FOOLISH PONIES!"Danus shouted, addressing the city in the Royal Changeling voice. "YOU CELEBRATE A FALSE PRINCESS AND PARADE LIKE FOALS IN HER HONOR? DO NOT WORRY, FOR THE REAL PRINCESS OF THE SUN HAS ARRIVED!"
Behind her the moon slowly, but surely, eclipsed the sun.
"Ah, ponyfeathers," muttered Felicity.
They kicked and punched their way out of the changeling mosh-pit, but there were too many of them. As soon as two went down, four more popped in their place.
"We don't have time for this," Felicity pressed a button on her belt. "Dare! Fly!"
A small gumball-shaped device popped out of her belt and fell to the ground, at the same time Dare and Felicity floated a bit with their wings.
The ball hit the ground and electricity sprouted out it like tree branches, hitting all of the changelings, electrocuting them. Soon, there were a dozen or so fried changelings.
"Next time, you might want to lead with that," remarked Dare.
They flew up, but what awaited them wouldn't be so hospitable.
Danus and Corkscrew were there, naturally, but what they hadn't expected to be there was that giant egg. Right over the pyramid top was a massive white egg that glowed a sickly green. Felicity didn't have to deduce what was in that egg, "Xiuhcoatl."
"Ah, the mares," Danus said with a big smile on her face. "You are here to witness the birth of a god!"
"Sorry we missed the baby shower," muttered Dare as the two stood before Danus and that giant chicken egg.
Good news was they had an audience. There must have been at least a hundred or two ponies watching, there was even a news crew watching and police ponies came as well. Bad news, Danus's army seemed inexhaustible, they charged the police pony and engaged in all-out war.
More bad news, the egg was starting to hatch.
Felicity tossed Daring a pair of glasses to see well in the solar eclipse; they weren't really her style but she put them on.
"I'll go high," said Felicity.
"I'll go low," responded Dare.
A heartbeat later, the mares charged Danus. Felicity jumped, as expected, and bucked at her head while Dare went for a tackle. Her force field was erected and was going to deflect both of them, but Felicity's horn glowed and the force field shattered.
Surprised, Danus took a kick to the mouth as Dare tackled her legs, bringing her down. The changeling and Pegasus wrestled while Felicity began to fly over them. She pressed a button on her belt and a thin wire was produced; great, she was going to hog-tie Danus and Dare together.
"ENOUGH!" Danus's voice was like a shockwave and lifted Dare up and off the pyramid, Felicity's rope broke from the force and she was pushed back as well. Taking flight, Dare glided over to Felicity.
"This isn't working," remarked Felicity.
"Awesome input."
"Look." Felicity pointed at the skies that began to glow blood red. Lightning streaked the skies and thunder rumbled, shaking the entire pyramid. Looking at giant egg, it began to shake and crack, an eerie red aura was emitted from it shooting up to the sky. It was hatching.
"I'll deal with the snake, you distract Danus," ordered Felicity.
"Wait, distract? How? And how will you deal with a god?" But Felicity didn't answer and began to fly off toward the egg.
Great; she wondered if Danus liked tic-tac-toe.
Danus unfolded her wings and leapt with incredible strength; Dare raced to intercept but she wouldn't make it in time. Turns out, she didn't need to help, Felicity pressed her belt and her hooves began to glow. She somersaulted mid-air and kicked downward at Danus's head. The force was jarring and shook Dare's teeth.
Super strength! Felicity somehow harnessed all the powers of an alicorn; wings, magic, and the super strength of earth ponies! A kick like that should have easily shattered a pony's skull, but Danus must have been particularly hard-headed.
She shot downward, into the pyramid, and crashed through it completely demolishing half of it as a result. She broke through some of the top floors and ended up on the twenty-third floor!
"You wouldn't happen to be unconscious princess?" Daring called.
In response, Danus roared as loud as Inti.
"Just checking."
Dive-bombing down the changeling-shaped hole, Dare found herself in a nice corridor. This hotel was really nice! Dare thought should stay there next time she's in Las Pegasus. The carpet was so lush and soft under Dare's hooves, the chandeliers shimmered in a kaleidoscopic manner, and the light fixtures were beautiful!
Some ponies had left their rooms to investigate what was going on, they saw Daring standing next to a very angry changeling. Some took pictures while others hightailed it, promising to write a bad review.
"Come on," Dare coaxed. "I'm right here princess."
"You will regret this pegasus. I will have to teach you how to conduct yourself in front of royalty."
Fighting Danus wouldn't work out; Daring had learned that the hard way. After a few exchanges, Danus got really mad and began that "I-can-shoot-fireballs-from-my-horn-run-little-pony" thing that forced Dare to make a quick exit.
Running through the corridors, Dare had to dodge fireballs being shot on either side of her. She considered taking the elevator, but being microwaved wasn't on Daring's to-do list. Rolling into the stairway, Dare galloped as fast she could down the flight of stairs hoping that it would slow, or even inconvenience, Danus.
The stairway exploded and Danus came in, flying, with her eyes glowing and her horn burning with magic. She spotted Dare, grinned, and four fireballs came at her.
Jumping over the railing, she felt the heat of the fire on her wings; any closer and she would be on fire. Falling straight down the stairway while it catches on fire was invigorating, but Dare's life didn't flash before her eyes; she didn't receive any existential wisdom from the great beyond, no, the only thought in her mind was, "AHHHH!!"
At the fifth floor she opened her wings but was coming in too fast. She hit the floor hard and crumbled to the ground. Her body was aching so much that laying there was an incredible temptation, but Danus's evil laughter snapped her back to reality.
Getting up, Dare opened the door leading to the lobby. Despite the chaos in the pyramid and the eclipse, there were actually a good number of ponies relaxing here, happy that there isn't a rampaging changeling here to ruin their day.
Dare had a knack of ruining expectations.
"Get out of here!" she cried, galloping into the lobby. "Come on, all of you ponies need to get out!"
They all looked at her strange and she couldn't blame them. Her clothes were singed, her mane was black and had the texture of a forest after a fire, and she smelled really bad.
But, before security could throw her out, the door to the stairway burst into flames and Danus jumped out into the lobby. Screaming, the entire lobby fell into chaos as ponies everywhere tried to make a quick escape, nearly trampling Dare along the way.
Danus reared and slammed her hooves where Dare used to be. Dare managed to back-flip away from it, but the impact was so strong it dented the floor and its resounding aftershock pushed her back into the main desk.
Danus laughed. "You pathetic foal, how much of a threat do you think you are? You are a mere pegasus! No match for me! At least your little friend is clever, I will enjoy destroying her."
Just then, the air pressure dropped incredibly fast; Dare's ears popped and she got goosebumps. Thunder rumbled inside the lobby and a bolt of lightning lined the floor with flames and hit Danus straight on.
She flew across the lobby and outside the hotel. Dare looked at the lightning-hurler to see Felicity there, electricity surrounding her body like so many arms.
"Whoa!" Dare cried, ecstatic at Felicity's sudden power-up. "How are you doing that?!"
Felicity looked at Dare and even though she was wearing a mask, Dare know she was smiling. "Ancient pony magic. Really powerful and dangerous stuff, but that's not important, I've got good news and bad news."
"Bad news?"
"Yeah, the egg hatched."
"WHAT?! Fleece, that isn't bad news, that's catastrophic!"
"Good news, I know how to stop him."
"Oh, well, uh, why didn't you say so-"
"More bad news, I need to touch Danus at least once to do it."
"Great…"
The doors exploded, debris flying everywhere and nearly hitting Dare but Felicity's electricity zapped it to particles.
"Lightning Blitz!" Danus declared. "You poor mimicry, you copy Lightning Blitz's technique so slovenly!"
"Lightning Blitz?" Dare asked.
She could almost see Felicity rolling her eyes. "Remind me to give you a copy of Obscure Pegasus History after this. Lightning Blitz was a Pegasus, no, the pegasus that managed to pioneer and master lightning manipulation. She was able to do it with her hooves freely with powerful magic, magic only seen by unicorns at that time. But, the technique proved to be too dangerous for other pegasi, as a result her spells were locked away."
"I remember Lightning Blitz," chimed Danus. "She was the one who did this to me!"
She pointed at her broken horn with an anguished expression. "But, no matter. For it is I who got the last laugh. Embarrassing the princess by damaging her horn, hmph, well, she felt the same embarrassment when I plucked her wings off.”
A shudder went down Dare's back. This changeling was dangerous and crazy! If she could take down and torture someone as amazing as Lightning Blitz, she didn't want to think what she would do to Dare.
Maybe, in a few hundred or so years when ponies are retelling the Legend of the Turquoise Serpent and they recount about the brave Felicity being on par with an alicorn when they talk about the reckless Daring Do they won't mention how her wings were pulled right off.
She blinked. Wait, she thought there might be a way to be on par with these ponies. I don't have the magic of a unicorn, or the superstrength of an earth pony but…
"Fleece," she said, a bit nervous with her decision. "I'll get you close to her. Just… keep up, okay?"
It was a risky gamble. It could probably backfire entirely or maybe it'll work probably and she'll just destroy herself doing it. But hey, she was in a casino, maybe Fortuna would be looking over her at this moment.
Dare placed a hoof in one of her pockets and pulled out a tiny little amulet, something she had deemed worthless so long ago but is now depending on it to save her life.
She pulled the amulet over her neck. "All right, come on, let's go!"
The amulet glowed, filling Dare's body with warmth and power, like she could run a million miles. Without warning, Daring appeared in front of Danus in less than a second, moving so fast that she kicked her right in the jaw, slamming her into the ceiling. She moved so fast Felicity didn't even notice her moving until Danus crashed back into the ground.
Danus coughed and stood up; man she was sturdy!
"Arion the Swift," Danus remarked bitterly. "I never would have thought I would experience his superspeed again."
"Whoa, you have Arion's amulet?! Wait, why didn't you use it earlier, we could've got here a lot faster than-"
"Fleece, we're kind of on a schedule here."
Danus laughed. "You foals are too late. Xiuhcoatl is already on the move."
On cue, the entire building shook and began to break apart. The roof was torn off, revealing the eclipsed sky and a sun overhead. No, that wasn't the sun. It was a huge vortex! It was sucking up the entire building and right around the building was…
Oh, ponyfeathers.
A snake coiled around the vortex, it was so big that it eclipsed the entire sky. She could hear the snake hiss, it sounded like a massive thunderstorm overhead. Dare ran to the door but began to get sucked up by the vortex. Felicity flew to Dare, tackled her, and teleported away.
They reappeared right outside the building; well, at least the spot where it used to be. The Luxhoof Hotel was gone.
Xiuhcoatl uncoiled himself and began to fly away. "Oh, that's it?" asked Dare.
But she ate her words immediately; Xiuhcoatl began to fly up, higher and higher, until he was at the sun.
"No…"
Even from this far away, they could see Xiuhcoatl grow bigger and bigger until the sun was a gumball to him. He opened his mouth… and swallowed the sun.
The entire world darkened instantly, the only light was from the moon which was depressingly low. It would be impossible for the moon to shine, but it did, it glowed like a small nightlight in a densely dark room.
"Still think your little plan is gonna work?" asked Dare, naïvely trying to hide her shaky voice.
"Y-yes," Felicity cleared her throat. "I mean, yes. I just need to touch Danus and it'll be fine… hopefully."
"Well, that's all I need to hear, try not to slow me down Peri."
Felicity snickered. "Same goes to you Bird Brain."
"You still cling to your naïve hope?" Danus asked, appearing in the darkness as two glowing spheres, no, those were her eyes. "You lost. The sun is mine, and the moon is next. It would be best for you if you simply lie down, maybe then I'll forgive your impertinence."
"Well, there's one thing you gotta know about us." Felicity stepped forward, as confident as ever. "She's very impertinent, I'm very stubborn, and the two of us? We don't lose."
Dare ran forward at the speed of sound and tried to tackle Danus, unfortunately she must have fought (or dated) Arion a lot because she saw her maneuver coming. It didn't matter how fast she was going, Danus side-stepped and kicked Dare. Her momentum sent her sliding through the hot desert ground at the speed of sound.
But it didn't matter, the plan worked.
While Danus was distracted, at the half-second, Felicity teleported behind her, electricity surrounding her, and she pounced on Danus. The electricity burned Danus but didn't seem to bother her as the two wrestled and rolled around until Felicity finally jumped away.
"Got it! Now, keep distracting her please, I'll be back!" Without an explanation, Felicity ran off.
She didn't know what Felicity did, if she mugged Danus or tickled her, but whatever she did must have been important because Danus was steamed.
She glowered with such power; she looked like she could incinerate Felicity with a thought.
Dare ran in front of her and pawed at the ground threateningly. "Sorry princess, gotta deal with me first."
Things were going great so far! Xiuhcoatl had swallowed the sun leaving Equestria at the mercy of Danus; if left unchecked Equestria would probably freeze over soon. No, that wouldn't happen. Felicity looked up and saw Xiuhcoatl in the sky but she was able to see the sun glow inside his mouth as well. The sun is too powerful to be taken down so easily, it would be able to warm the world for a bit, but they are definitely on a schedule at this point.
Xiuhcoatl began to coil himself around the sun, very slowly but as he wrapped himself it got darker and colder. Felicity figured that by the time his entire body was wrapped around it, the sun would be forever blocked.
But, she had a plan! Granted, a reckless plan inspired by those books that spoke about obscure pony magic and could potentially backfire and, if the book was correct, she would lose her very existence.
But it's still a plan!
Felicity glanced down at her hooves; thank Celestia that she managed to touch Danus as fast as she did. Her boots were beginning to burn off, if she continued using Lightning Blitz's magic her boots would've blown up. Optimistically it would have left a few burns; unfortunately, Felicity wasn't that optimistic.
She found an alley a good distance away from Danus; it would take a while for the changeling to find her but just in case. Her horn glowed and a force-field bubbles around the alley; it glowed more intensely and the bubble shrank, only protecting Felicity's body.
She sat down, sitting upright, and looked at her right foreleg. Under her boot was a trail of writing, it was only three inches long and it was written in ancient pony language. This small sliver of text held the key to Xiuhcoatl. Literally.
Felicity had guessed that Danus used a sealing spell to control Xiuhcoatl, because releasing a powerful god like that would be incredibly dangerous because of how unpredictable he would be. With this spell, he would be forced to do her bidding.
When Felicity tackled Danus earlier she charmed her hoof and stole that key; now she was in control of the snake god.
Well, not really. She may have had the key, but she needed to break the connection that Danus had to him and to produce a connection with her. That was the more dangerous part.
Her horn glowed and the words on her hoof began to light up as well. Then suddenly they literally jumped off her hoof and began to float around her. She felt cold, yet warm at the same time, content yet terrified, happy yet depressed. She wasn't going insane; it was the magic filling her body, numbing it.
The words continued to spin around her body but she couldn't get distracted; this was too important. She had to focus on the spell. Suddenly, the words stopped in front of her and jumped right on her forehead.
The force jolted her so much she felt like she was flying. No, wait, she was!
Opening her eyes, Felicity was floating above a beach, except… this wasn't Las Pegasus. In fact, she was sure this wasn't Equestria! The sky was red and the sand looked like rust. The water was pitch black and a huge tornado was off far into the ocean. It looked like was miles away, but it was powerful, Felicity felt like she was being sucked in.
She landed on the sand and looked at the ocean.
Okay… this wasn't what she planned.
She took a tentative step forward; she wanted to test the water. It didn't move like water it moved like it was alive.
"Ah, ah," a voice called out, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
She looked over at the source of the voice and gasped. Felicity thought she had seen enough weird things for a lifetime but this guy took the cake! He had the head of a pony but his body was a mix of everything else. He had a deer antler and a goat horn on top of his head; his pupils were different sizes making it weird and almost hypnotizing to look at.
He had a goat beard and when he smiled she noticed a single long fang jutting from his mouth. His right arm was that of a lion's, his left claw was an eagle's, right leg was a lizard's and left was a goat's and even his wings were mismatched; one was of a bat's and the other of a pegasus.
He reminded her of a chimera, but something was telling her that this guy was a lot more dangerous.
"Well, then again," he continued with his smug smile, "If you were me and I were you, I would definitely go in and push you in as well, or is it the other way around? Ah! Whatever!"
He laughed as though he made a really good joke but it just confused her.
She walked toward him, wary but infinitely curious, when she got close she noticed he was fishing! He was sitting, in the air, with a fishing rod and a line out into the black ocean. Something bit his bait but with a single pull, he yanked the creature out of the water.
Felicity yelped and jumped back as a kraken was pulled out of the water. The line was comically diminutive in that huge kraken's mouth; it was supposed to snap but the line must have been magic as it literally tethered the kraken there.
It roared and splashed, trying to break free and this chimera thing frowned, "Tsk, not good eating."
He snapped his fingers and the beast exploded into a fine mist. No, it didn't explode, the mist fell to the ocean and flew away… he turned it into flies!
"Who… who are you?" Felicity asked, more and more scared of this reality-warper thing.
"I am Discord, Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. But, the better question is, who are you?"
Felicity stopped, Discord? No, this isn't the Discord; he should be encased in stone as a result of the princesses' efforts to stop him.
"You… you can't be Discord, aren't you encased in-"
"Yes, yes, after those infernal mares defeated me with the elements of harmony I was, and still am, encased in my stony prison. Please, ask less obvious questions, the readers will get bored."
"Okay, why and how are you here?" asked Felicity.
"First, my dear, you have to know what this place is!" He gestured broadly to the beach and grinned, "Oh? You don't know? I thought you would, you know, being an egghead and all."
She looked at the black ocean, the red sand, and gulped, "The Sea of Chaos, right?"
"Correct!" Discord teleported beside Felicity, placed an arm around her and pointed at the sea, "This is the place where everything begins and ends. This is where magic was first born, and this is the creator of balance and harmony!"
She shrugged his arm off and glared at him, well, as best she could with her mask, "You just said the Sea of Chaos; it is oxymoronic to say that this place maintains harmony."
Discord wagged his finger, "Tut, tut, tut, my dear. You may think of chaos as a bad thing, but in reality chaos is the thing keeping everything from falling apart."
"Right, because we need krakens in this world to function, right?"
"Your thinking is too narrow. Think about what order is, order is a homogenous categorization of everything and anything. It keeps everything neat, familiar, and, well, orderly."
"Frankly, I'm not seeing the downside."
"You're supposed to be a detective, detect! If everything is the same, if everything is so pathologically organized then there is no room for innovation, no room for change, no room for something different! Imagine, for example, if you ponies managed to evolve into a highly function, efficient race. Without a little disorder, everypony would become that eventually."
"Wow, that sounds terrible," deadpanned Felicity.
"But, if something is at the very pinnacle of perfection then what's the point of anything? You know those products that say it kills ninety-nine percent of germs? Like, it somehow can't snuff out that one percent? If it could effectively kill one hundred percent of germs there would be no need for newer brands, which means no competition, which means a stagnating economy, which means that your little egalitarian society would crumble under the weight of faux-equality."
"Can't say I want to listen to somepony like you about equality."
"Okay, okay, think about this then. Back to my highly functioning pony example. Say, those types of pony no longer needs to eat because they are so efficient. What would happen to the food grown for these ponies?"
"Well, they wouldn't be used or farmed anymore, what's your point?"
"If the food suddenly stops coming in, what happens to the animals that eat that food as well? They starve, but I suppose there is some consolation considering you don't really need those animals anymore for things like milk and eggs. What happens to starving animals? They die off, what happens if they continue to die off they go extinct. And what happens if one species of animal goes extinct? It creates a chain reaction which cripples and destroys entire ecosystems!"
"This is all presumptuous! You're basing all of this on conjecture, things you think might happen."
"No, it will happen my dear; hello, I am the spirit of chaos I am pretty much the residential expert here."
Felicity bowed her head, trying to think; this Discord couldn't be right, all of this was crazy talk!
"So, what are you trying to say, you're responsible for keeping us all alive?"
Suddenly, Discord extended his neck quickly and was instantly nose-to-muzzle with her, his beady eyes bore into her mask and pierced her very soul, "What I am saying is you need to give chaos a chance dearie. That everything you hold near and dear to you will fall apart if it wasn't for me and that the very least you can do is answer my initial question, 'Who are you?'"
"The Mysterious Mare Do Wel-"
"Don't lie to me!" the ground rumbled as thunder groaned throughout the beach, "You may hold this fake identity so close to you that you even managed to maintain it in the wake of the Sea of Chaos, but you and I both know who you really are."
"F-Felicity… Peridot."
Discord smiled, "Good, now you're finally being honest with yourself."
He backed off, stretching and looked out to the sea, "Now I can answer your question. I am the spirit of Chaos and, despite my current condition, I am omnipresent. My presence is beckoned whenever chaos is near, and, considering this is the Sea of Chaos, it is strongest here."
He looked at Felicity with his Cheshire grin, "As to why I'm here, I am here to give you a little friendly advice."
"Advice… from you?"
"Yes, you see, I know of your plan to stop Xiuhcoatl and it is, frankly, suicidal unless you know what to do. That, is something I know and you don't. You see, to control Xiuhcoatl you just have to give up your life."
As expected, the advice was as insane as her plan. She considered turning around but something made her stand there and listen.
"Look."
He pointed at the sea, to the tornado out there, "There is Xiuhcoatl."
Felicity nearly had a heart attack. The tornado was sucking up everything in the sea and was a million times bigger than her, bigger than the form out on the surface world!
"Or, rather a more accurate description would be that is Xiuhcoatl's shadow. I told you that this place is where everything begins and everything ends, to be more accurate, this is the life force of everypony and everything in existence. And the 'shadow' of everything and anything swims in this sea, and those shadows control everything about you. For example."
He stuck his hand in the sea and pulled out a black wispy sheet, wringing it out, he showed it to Felicity. It was her shadow. Her shadow was transparent and the color of pure darkness, it looked exactly like her except it was sleeping.
"This is your shadow Felicity," he said, stating the obvious, "Look at what happens when I do this."
He pointed one sharp eagle claw at her shadow's butt and poked it. A sharp pain shot up from her butt that caused her to jump up and yelp.
"If one manages to obtain the shadow of a pony, they would be able to control them. The same goes for gods and monsters like Xiuhcoatl."
"Right… so, what I have to do essentially is swim out and poked Xiuhcoatl's shadow?"
"Not exactly," he smiled as if he was getting to the good part, "When I told you not to touch the water, I was serious. Only creatures of chaos or Tartarus can manipulate the water freely, things you are not. If anypony tries to touch the water, much less swim in it, they will be torn apart and lost forever in the sea of souls."
"Oh." She squeaked, "That would be bad."
"Danus was able to do it because she is, technically, a creature of chaos. But even she cannot control Xiuhcoatl entirely."
"What do you mean?"
"In order to control a shadow, you have to pour your entire soul into the shadow and overwhelm it until you are able to absorb it. Changelings do this all the time but Xiuhcoatl isn't a pony, as you know. A god is harder to control, unless you're me of course. So, even if she and a thousand changelings try to absorb Xiuhcoatl's shadow, they will be assimilated into his soul."
"And you couldn't let that happen?"
"Oh dear, where's the fun in that? No, I didn't let that happen because they already knew what to do. Danus simply separated a part of her soul, attached it on Xiuhcoatl's shadow and that piece is keeping him anchored on this world, restricting the amount of control he has and giving Danus more control."
She looked at Xiuhcoatl again and noticed that it wasn't trying to destroy the sea, it was trying to escape. There were huge black chains wrapped around him and he struggled against them, trying to break them but to no avail.
Danus had essentially put Xiuhcoatl in a bear trap while using his mouth to bite off any intruders, there is no need to control the entire body; all she needs is his mouth.
"So, what you have to do is simple, going up to Xiuhcoatl's shadow, relinquish Danus's control and substitute your own."
Easy enough.
"But, the first things first. In order to actually swim in the sea, you need to give your life up. Relinquish the illusion of control, only then will you become a creature of chaos."
That didn't sound reassuring. To be honest, it sounded like a trick, something to give Discord a chance to have a little fun. He obviously wasn't interested in helping Equestria, he was the type of pony to enjoy mindless insanity.
She couldn't trust him.
"I will be overseeing your progress, but, for now, ta-ta!"
He turned flat, like literally two-dimensional, and then folded up like a card before poofing away.
Felicity stood before the sea and its swirling destruction. She took a deep breath, though she didn't need to, and jumped right in.
This super speed thing was great. If anypony was wondering how it felt to run at the speed of sound, it's like this: when Daring moved, everything was in slow-motion and she was running normally. Thankfully, the amulet was charmed to protect Dare's body and, thank Celestia, her clothes. Though, she was starving at this point.
However, Danus wasn't amused by this supersonic mare and decided to do something about it.
Dare ran straight to Danus then curved her path to come up to Danus's side. A second before impacting her, Danus grinned, teleported and let Dare ran straight into a building.
A Daring shaped hole appeared at the side of a convenience store she managed to stop before going through the building entirely but she managed to wreck the place. Shaking her head, Dare tried to get rid of her disorientation and smiled; this amulet was good. Normally, she would have been torn up by that crash.
Just then, Danus teleported right in front of Dare.
"You have Arion's speed," admitted Danus. "But not his mastery."
When Dare stood up, her legs felt like jelly. Her entire body felt so weak that it felt like her muscles were melting.
"I commend you, brave Daring Do, but," Danus' horn glowed and Dare began to levitate. "You lose."
She hated being levitated; it made her feel so useless and helpless! Dare tried to run mid-air but couldn't; she was trapped.
"Oh ponyfeathers..."
Suddenly, Dare found herself flying away from Danus and out in the street as fast as, well, sound. Crashing on the ground, she rolled for extra measures scraping her body rather nicely.
"I have more important business to attend to than foalsitting you," Danus explained. Her horn glowed again and magic surrounded her body, she was teleporting!
Dare got up as fast as she could and galloped over to Danus. Danus' teleporting was much faster than Dare's galloping, but she couldn't let Danus get away; she needed to be faster. A second before actually teleporting, Dare leapt and tackled Danus, teleporting with her.
Daring Do fell to the ground and shivered; it was freezing. Dust kicked up and covered Dare, it was like soil but way too sticky. She got up, looking around, where had Danus teleported them at? From here, the sun could still be seen inside of Xiuhcoatl's mouth but that wasn't all she could see, she would also see… the earth?
Blinking, Daring looked down and saw lunar soil at her hooves, turning around she saw… the moon.
Celestia help her. No, even she can't help her, Celestia's sphere of influence ends here, all that is up here that can help is Danus and Nightmare Moon.
"You have gotten on my last nerve!" Danus appeared behind her, horn glowing. A magic bolt shot out of her horn, but it hit nothing. Dare reeled back for a good old fashion headbutt. The impact pushed Danus back; Dare felt a few ribs crack from that attack and, as expected, Danus doubled over and began coughing her lungs out, figuratively.
Her hat managed to protect that already thick skull of hers, but it was dented at the top. Pawing the ground, Dare growled. "Ready for round two?"
Just then, Dare's hooves melted into the ground. Looking down, she noticed that the ground was swallowing her hooves. Danus stood, sneering. "Oh, yes, I really am."
The changeling pummeled and physically abused Daring while she was helpless. Kicking, punching, and magic attacks you name it. The entire endeavor left Daring nearly comatose as she lay there, breathing shallowly. When satisfied, Danus exhaled in relief, "Whew, I feel a lot better."
Unconcerned with the now incapacitated Daring, Danus walked over and past her.
"Now, I have a little business to conduct with Nightmare Moon," chuckled Danus.
Daring's body felt weak, too weak to get up or to even think; even breathing hurt. She just wanted to lay there and rest for a little bit. Just… for a few minutes.
"Fair Daring Do. Please, you must get up!"
Tentatively, her eyes opened and Princess Luna stood before her. She wasn't a ghost, she was a solid mare, and her eyes welled up with concern and fear. She nuzzled Daring, trying to rouse her into staying conscious.
"Please," she begged. "You must get up. Princess Danus is approaching Nightmare Moon's prison!"
"L…Luna," Dare croaked, "How are you here? The seal broke? Or I'm dead…"
Despite this desperate situation, Luna laughed lightly. "No, fair Daring Do, I told you, my power is strongest at night, and since the sun has been eaten it is eternal night. I have enough strength to produce a corporeal form, though not enough to break free and stop Danus; but my strength is growing through each passing minute, which means-"
"Nightmare Moon's power grows as well," Daring struggled to get up but crumbled over her weakness. "I have to… stop her."
Daring tried to get up again and nearly fell over if it wasn't for Luna who caught her. Helping Dare to her feet, Luna let Dare lean on her shoulder, trying to keep her from collapsing again.
"Here," said Luna. "I am no expert in the healing arts, but this will invigorate you."
Luna's horn glowed and touched Daring's forehead and her pain melted away. She felt cool and strong… in fact, she felt really good; a huge burst of energy exploded in Daring's body. It felt like somepony injected her with adrenaline. She could run ten marathons!
"Woo, I-I feel good..." A wave of euphoria washed over Daring's mind, making it a little hard to think. "W-What was that spell?"
"It was originally conceived by my sister, a pick-me-up spell. When we were younger, she used it often on me during our slumber parti-"
"Can'ttalknowgottagostopDanusokaybyethanks!"
Even without Arion's amulet, Daring felt like she could run at the speed of sound. She raced to Danus and caught up instantly. Danus was too close to Nightmare Moon's prison, it's now or never Dare!
Tackling Danus the two went rolling around the lunar soil, Dare pinned Danus but she countered with a few good punches that would've connected had Dare not dodged them all perfectly.
"You'll. Pay. For. That!" Punctuating each dodge, Dare quickly pummeled Danus like a punching bag at supersonic speed.
"Move it!" Danus roared and a wall of force pushed Dare off her and slammed into the ground. Acting fast, Danus got up and stood over Nightmare Moon's prison. "Hello my little pony, did you miss me?"
Nightmare Moon roared in defiance, "YOU?! COME OVER HERE YOU PRETENTIOUS WITCH, I WILL DEVOUR YOU!"
Its voice wasn't like the Nightmare Moon that possessed Luna, it was a voice of pure evil, a true mare of the dark, warped by jealousy and negativity. Even Danus looked unnerved by Nightmare Moon's sudden ability to speak; her power must be growing faster than expected.
Luna came to meet Daring. "Daring Do, you must get up, she intends to release Nightmare Moon!"
"Princess Luna, with all due respect, why don't you stop her?" the euphoria was starting to run out; the pain was starting to come back…
"I cannot. Although I am able to maintain a solid form I am powerless, the seal that has trapped Nightmare Moon has trapped me as well. When Nightmare Moon is freed, I will be as well."
"Wait, would Nightmare Moon come out in… that form?" she couldn't imagine the damage Nightmare Moon would do if that monster was released.
"Unless someone acts as her proxy, yes."
Slowly, Daring realized what Luna was saying. "Wait, in order to control and restrict that… monster, you have to let it possess you? But, Princess Luna, that's crazy and trust me, I know crazy!"
"It is my punishment fair Daring, my jealously allowed Nightmare Moon to grow and become the thing she is today. It is only fitting that I keep Nightmare Moon locked down here and repent on my childishness." Luna sadly explained.
It wasn't fair, it really wasn't. Luna has to sacrifice her body, her life into keeping this monster in check? For one little mistake? Even though she only knew Luna for a little bit, she knew that Luna was a sweet mare; in all honesty, she reminded her of Felicity. Both are very caring, very concerned, and always burden too much responsibility on themselves.
"But-"
"Daring Do," the alicorn interrupted with a firm and authoritative voice. "As your princess, I order you to stop being so foolish and stop the changeling princess before it is too late."
Part of her wanted to let Nightmare Moon be released, just so Luna could have a normal life, but she knew that Luna would be disappointed on account of how the world would be ending.
"You were foolish," Danus muttered to Nightmare Moon. "Possessing and taking advantage of a foal like Luna. Hmph, what a waste of power. I will show you who is worth your strength."
Danus's horn glowed and a powerful lightning bolt shot out and hit the chains that tied Nightmare Moon down. One hoof was free. Danus shot out another bolt and Dare ran toward her at top speed. Another hoof was free and, as fast as thought, Nightmare Moon broke free and clawed at Danus. As the hoof hit, Daring tackled Danus out of the way and took the full brunt of the attack.
Darkness enveloped Daring's sight.
When she was able to see again, Daring nearly threw up from the disorientation.
She could see everything. She could see the chaos ensuing at Las Pegasus, Manehattan and J.J. ranting and raving about Mare Do Well, she could see her house at Canterlot, Calypso calling grooming herself in front of her mirror, everything.
Daring could get used to this omnipresence thing.
But it was a bit confusing as well; she could only see things when she thought about them. Whenever a stray thought comes by, she would instantly see that thought rather than what's in front of her. It's like watching television and every second somepony changes the channel back and forth.
Daring needed to clear her mind; she needed to focus on Danus.
Her line of sight switched to Danus who stomped angrily in front of her, cursing Daring with words she never even heard of.
"You will PAY for that!" screeched Danus.
She looked down and noticed why Danus was so angry. Her legs were wire-thin and she was so much taller. Her coat was now that color of shadows, she felt her wingspan was much bigger than before and even felt the presence of a horn on her forehead. Magic coursed through her body, she had the strength of an alicorn, the strength of a princess; she was Nightmare Moon.
Daring laughed but it wasn't her voice, it was a sultry, mature voice. "Finally! I am free from my prison!"
She looked to the left and saw Princess Luna, glaring at her. "Nightmare Moon! What have you done with Daring Do?"
Wait, what?
She wanted to tell Luna that she still was Daring Do, but the words wouldn't come out. "Oh, don't worry about her," she chuckled, it was like the purr of a lioness. "She is safe in here. I'll admit, for a pegasus, this Daring Do has a powerful will. She has not yet succumbed to the power that would drive ordinary ponies insane."
"Ms. Do is not an ordinary pony and neither am I," threatened Luna. "Now, release her and take me instead!"
"You are still a foal," Nightmare Moon said. "I do not need you anymore. Your will was exceptionally powerful and she fought me the entire time of our… symbiotic relationship. And while Daring Do is strong, her will can be broken."
"Wait!" yelled Danus, looking particularly angry at both Nightmare Moon and Luna. "Do you think you can just get away with this? No, this is far from over. I will handle Nightmare Moon; you just sit there and look pretty Princess Luna, I will deal with you later."
"Princess Danus, we must settle whatever differences we have. You are no match for Nightmare Moon, we must team up to-"
"I don't think so!" snarled Danus. "After you and your sister banished me, I swore never to depend on you weaklings. I didn't need your help back then, and I do not need it now."
"But-"
Danus ignored her and charged Daring. As much as Daring wanted to take down Danus Canterlot-style, she hesitated. She couldn't succumb to the power of Nightmare Moon, she needed to remain defiant in order to keep her sanity.
But her body wouldn't listen to her; she dodged Danus's attack and blasted her with earth-shattering magic. Danus shot downward so fast she created a crater. It is hard to explain, but Daring knew Danus was still alive, she could still feel her presence.
Daring laughed, she laughed so manically that she couldn't tell if it was Nightmare Moon laughing or if it was really her.
Having this much power was intoxicating, she could come up with a thousand ways to beat Danus and each one of them didn't use even a fourth of her power. She could now understand why Luna went a little nuts when she became Nightmare Moon, this power… it felt good!
"AHAHAHA!" Daring flew down and blasted Danus's crater a few times, Luna took flight and kicked her. Daring, tumbling in the sky, turned and glared at Luna, shooting more magic at Luna; she wanted to snuff out her entire existence.
Luna produced a force field and deflected all of those shots at Daring. She had managed to dodge a few but two of them hit. Daring winced, expecting extraordinary pain, but she felt nothing. It didn't even scratch her!
She laughed again; she was unstoppable!
No. She needed to stop, she needed to control herself. Daring was getting drunk on power and slowly losing her mind to Nightmare Moon; as Spidermare once said, 'With great power, comes great responsibili-' Ah ponyfeathers!
Daring barely dodged a huge pillar of fire Danus produced. Taking flight, Danus flew right beside Luna, eyes and horn glowing.
"Fine, for this moment, I will allow you to help me." Danus decided.
"Good of you to see the light." Luna smirked, it was an odd team, but hey, what are you going to do?
With that, the two charged her.
The bout was an epic one; it could probably be seen from Equestria, it was so powerful. The three flew around the moon, blasting each other with magic that, when they hit their mark, exploded like so many fireworks. But none of the attacks were hitting Nightmare Moon.
She dodged and parried each attack with so much ease it was embarrassing. Every attack she did, however, always hit their mark. Luna staggered, Daring prepared a fireball spell but Danus roared and tackled her.
She grappled with Nightmare Moon and managed to keep her in place. "Now!" cried Danus.
Luna didn't hesitate and shot the two. The attack didn't hurt, per se, but it made her dazed for a moment, it was long enough for Danus to take advantage of.
"You're mine!" hissed Danus. Her horn glowed and touched the back of Daring's neck and all of her strength disappeared, she felt like her soul was being torn from her body and put into a jar. She was being absorbed by Danus and she couldn't stop it.
The last thing she heard was Danus's maniacal laughter.
Here is a list of what not to do at the Sea of Chaos:
1. Don't run on the pier.
2. Don't go swimming.
3. Don't eat the sand.
4. Don't listen to Discord.
The experience was indescribable, and no matter how many times she reflected on it, she couldn't concisely put it into words. She felt her memories were slipping away from her; she tried to remember something, anything, but it just sat on the tip of her tongue. That was for her whole life. She was forgetting everything and it was terrifying. For the first time in her life, she felt true fear. She couldn't cry out; all she could do was weep as her entire existence was erased.
Everything was being lost… the first time she met Klondike and got lost in his eyes – how stupid she acted in front of him, babbling about the weather. He had laughed at her silliness. The feeling of when she got her fillyhood dream job at the Bridle and when she got her cutie mark… her first kiss, her family, and even her own name.
Thankfully, she didn't need to breathe in the Sea of Chaos, but that only made things worse; it meant that even afterwards, she would forget everything. She wouldn't even be able to drown herself.
After a while though, she just fell through the sea, falling and falling through the darkness.
She just wanted to sleep…
~--~
Why was I here in the first place anyway?
Something about a… pony?
No, it was a – what do you call those things? Changelings?
Yeah, one was… causing trouble or something like that…
And coming here was going to solve my problems. It was going to… to help ponies right?
There was somepony with me. What was her name?
Indiana… no…
Derring…
No…
Daring Do?
Oh, her.
She was a reckless pony; always enjoyed charging into things without thinking things through. Abrasive, tough, heroic… she'd get mad if she saw me just giving up…
"Get up!" she'd say. "I thought you were stronger than this!"
She wouldn't give up; she would keep fighting until she couldn't.
But I can't fight anymore…
I'm tired. I just want to sleep.
Chuckling interrupted my sleep. I opened my eyes and saw a… what is that? He had the head of a pony and the body made up of… all sorts of things.
"Oh my!" he laughed. "This is priceless!"
He floated alongside me and produced a bag of popcorn, eating it liberally. "I never thought I would see the day that you would give up!"
Give up?
No, no, I'm not… I'm only sleeping.
"Oh, dear, don't lie to me. You have truly and utterly given up and, to be honest, I hadn't expected that from you. You were such a headstrong pony, tsk, tsk. Well, all great heroes eventually fail."
I didn't fail… I can't fail. There are ponies depending on me like… like… Ugh, what's her name again?
A cold shiver went down my spine. I forgot… I think…
"Give it up! Didn't I already tell you this? In chapter ten: you need to realize that you can't control every aspect of reality. That's the only way you won't burn up in the Sea of Chaos!"
Control…
I can't give up control. It's… it's impossible. If I have control, everything would be perfect and nothing wrong. No, this is wrong. Control is good; control keeps everything safe. It keeps everything balanced and orderly.
But… look at where it got me: in this dumb sea, where I can't even remember my own name.
He's right. I don't control everything. I can't, it's impossible and even bad. Chaos is good – well, not total chaos, but a little disorder, a little discord, keeps everything running smoothly. It helps the system, and it can help everypony.
My mind lit up and everything became clearer as memories flooded back. I am the Mysterious Mare Do Well, vigilante. No. My name is Felicity Peridot. That is who I am.
~--~
The sea of swirling foam and wicked waves opened up into a crevice, blasted away by a single pony, one dressed in a strange red and black outfit, bursting out of the sea in a thundering tower of water and lightning.
The entire feat was controlled by Felicity, levitating herself with powerful magic and even controlling the sea to tornado around her. She felt liberated, her mind clear, her thoughts no longer clouded by insecurity. Is this what a creature of chaos feels?
Good, she thought. Now, for that snake.
Xiuhcoatl roared as it struggled against its chains, glaring at Felicity. She felt like she was standing on the dark side of the moon. Such power in a god…
His eyes were weird. Well, as weird as the eyes of any other god would be. No, they looked exactly like Danus's eyes. It's the mind control! Felicity needed to hurry – she didn't know how time traveled at the Sea of Chaos, but knowing her luck, it was probably against her.
She needed to find the seal. Felicity flew toward Xiuhcoatl who didn't take that very lightly. He shifted slightly, throwing a massive wave against her, but Felicity's magic was stronger. With a single thought, she parted the wave and continued to fly.
She needed a way to detain Xiuhcoatl. Thinking quickly, Felicity conjured up more magic and parted the entire Sea of Chaos in half. Xiuhcoatl fell on the dry ground, squirming and struggling. Good, it was as trapped as it could be.
Felicity flew downward and landed on him. If logic serves correctly, the seal should appear right… there! On the underbelly of Xiuhcoatl was the same three inch long piece of writing. She could break it, she had to.
Galloping as fast as she could, she prepared her seal-breaking spell and shot it at the writing. As expected, the writing popped right off his stomach, floated in the air momentarily and then disappeared. Xiuhcoatl stopped struggling.
"Whew, good…" At that moment, Xiuhcoatl had a spasm that could cause earthquakes. He threw Felicity off so fast that her body felt like it was being pressed in by two Diamond Dogs.
She managed to catch herself in mid-air, her wings opening, and she looked at Xiuhcoatl to figure out what was wrong.
His eyes were back to normal; they were dark red and filled with evil contempt. Oh, right, she just freed a god.
He roared and her insides shook. "What now?" she muttered.
"I didn't think you'd really be able to do it, to be frank." She wasn't surprised when Discord appeared floating alongside her, "Actually, I don't want to be Frank. I want to be Tom. Man, that boulder has some class!"
"Discord, I broke Danus's control over Xiuhcoatl. That should have fixed everything, right?"
"Think about it Felicity. Wouldn't you be a little mad if somepony tamed you like some common housedog and you had to be saved by a mare wearing tights?"
Felicity thought about it. She couldn't imagine what Xiuhcoatl must be thinking now – she just hoped he wouldn't go about eating Equestria or anything.
"But don't worry," Discord continued. "He'll be fine. He'll get over it you know? So, all's good – Xiuhcoatl is no longer possessed and you're still alive!"
"Wait, will he let go of the sun?"
"Nope."
"Discord!"
"I'm being serious! If you want him to throw up the sun, you'll need to imprison him again. If he changes back into a statue, everything will be in order… except for, you know, Danus and those changelings."
"But I'm not strong enough to do that. I barely survived the sea!"
Discord shrugged. "It's all about whether you are willful enough or not. You know that whenever you perform magic, it comes from within, and that you expel it physically, like through teleportation or telekinesis or something. Ancient magic was different: it grabbed the magic surrounding the world and manipulated it to produce the proper results. Magic like this takes different methods."
"Surprise, surprise."
"What you've got to do is to pour your soul into Xiuhcoatl and overwhelm it so that it detains his entire soul. That's how you control another – that's how Danus did it."
Felicity was reminded of her checklist from earlier and wondered if she should adhere to it at this point. Then again, he was right about the Sea of Chaos and she did feel… different.
She felt more… grounded, more confident. Usually, it was her Mare Do Well alter-ego that gave her strength, but she felt stronger for a different reason. Seeing Daring triggered something. It gave her the strength to stand back up and fight until she was unable to. Daring never gave up, so what kind of pony would she be if she gave up?
Felicity didn't argue; she didn't want to. All she wanted was get this over with. This overgrown garden snake wouldn't beat her!
Without another word, Felicity dove faster than she ever had before. Somersaulting, she landed safely on his stomach and without missing a beat, she galloped up the leviathan.
The task really wasn't that difficult when conceptualized. All she had to do was scale Xiuhcoatl, go up to his head, do a little dance and mind crush him into submission, but as per Felicity's luck, it didn't go as easily as it should have.
Whenever she passed another hill, she always felt like his head would be right underneath her, but no. Another mile always stretched out before her, teasing her to the goal. The Sisyphean part of the task was that he also rolled his body to make it a bit longer than perceived, making her start back two miles from where she had begun.
She would never get there in time. She couldn't imagine what Daring must be doing now, but it couldn't have been as difficult as this.
Xiuhcoatl shifted once more and raised his tail over her head, the sun blotted out momentarily, and she looked up to see the appendage, the size of a battleship, come down on top of her.
She teleported away to safety…
…right above Xiuhcoatl's face. It felt like being over a massive whirlpool; all of the water from the sea came down to his mouth and, as he inhaled, was powerful enough to send her tumbling in. He was going to eat her!
She couldn't risk flying, the wind too unstable from his breathing, and any devices would be useless, unless…
She pressed a button on her belt and four tablets popped out. Dropping them into his mouth, they entered the chaotic fray and exploded. Covering four miles was a pink, sticky substance that glued his mouth shut. The tornado created by his inhalation ceased instantly, but she was still too close to his mouth. Having no time to create a safe landing, Felicity fell like a sack of bricks.
Thankfully, the cotton-candy saved her; however, Xiuhcoatl enjoyed the sticky-sweet candy. He began to close his mouth, ready to chomp up Felicity, but she jumped, pressed another button, and her boots changed. They had suddenly become rocket-propelled!
The burst of fire that emitted from her boots shot Felicity up and over his nose. She flipped over and stuck a perfect landing between his eyes. Breathing heavily, she felt absolutely exhausted and wanted to say some witty one-liner just before she did the spell, but then, interrupting her thoughts, the snake roared.
So she just cast the spell.
Her horn glowed and she touched it against his skin.
When the spell activated, she found herself on the sun. Thankfully, it was a metaphorical sun, as she didn't burn up instantly and the brightness had been severely lowered. Underneath her was a massive supernova and before her was Xiuhcoatl. The snake, in his stone form, glanced at her with a quiet regard.
To be honest, the snake was a little cute in this form; she certainly preferred it over that Herculean beast.
Xiuhcoatl said something in a different language, much older than English. It was like him, ancient and powerful. For the first two sentences, she couldn't understand him, but suddenly the words became clearer and she understood.
She didn't know if he was really speaking in English or if she had just learned the language magically.
"Masked One of Lightning and Water," he said in a quiet yet deadly voice. "Are you the one who has freed me?"
"Yes, you no longer labor under the changeling princess," Felicity answered. "You must release the sun."
A wave of anger blasted Felicity – maybe telling a god what to do wasn't such a good idea.
"Insolence! Is this common amongst you ponies?"
Felicity chuckled, "More than you know."
"I shall not release the sun. I have been revived after eons of sleep; I must continue with my duty."
"But, wait, you can't just-!"
"Challenge me mare! My word is final, my will be done. You shall not sway me."
Maybe I don't have to, thought Felicity.
She prepared another spell, something she had read when she was a filly. The spell, when used back then, was a disaster; she had shrunk Princess Celestia and thought that she would be banished to a dungeon or exiled.
Maybe it would work again this time.
She shot a beam of magic at Xiuhcoatl, and even if this was a dream, her magic had some influence. Xiuhcoatl roared, "INSOLENT MARE! RELEASE ME, OR I SHALL FEAST UPON YOUR BONES!"
No, thank you, thought Felicity. She continued with the magic and felt this world get smaller and smaller. It was working! She just needed to keep going…
"AHHH!" Felicity screamed as her entire body began to burn up in unimaginable pain. She felt as if her very molecules were catching on fire. She wanted to cry, but her strength was instantly sapped as she continued to scream in agony.
"You are not as invincible as you appear," mused Xiuhcoatl. "I am a god. I will not be defeated by the likes of you!"
The pain had intensified so much that all she saw was red. She was going to die here. Well, if she was going down, he was going to go down with her.
"I have defeated millions of ponies like yourself! Consumed galaxies of flesh and mind!"
She didn't let up with her spell, focusing all of her strength into it. Everything began to black out and she could no longer hear or see anything. She wasn't sure if she was going blind or deaf, but it helped her concentrate.
"No," a quiver shook his voice. "You cannot defeat me with such a rudimentary spell! It is of fillies and foals – you shall not defeat me!"
"I… think… I will!" Each word was nightmarish to say, her lungs feeling like they were being filled with lava, every cell in her body screaming in pain. She. Could. Not. Lose.
"NOOO!"
Everything faded and the last thing she remembered was falling from the sky as a rainbow enveloped her. The sight of the sun made her smile.
Daring Do fell to the ground, retaining her original Pegasus form; the nasty Nightmare Moon was torn from her body very much literally. Before she slammed into the ground, Luna swooped in and caught her. She looked up desperately as Danus transformed.
She laughed insanely as a black mass enveloped her and became assimilated with the changeling's body.
"The true power of the night!" Danus declared. "All mine!!"
She became Nightmare Moon right before Daring's eyes. Danus retained her changeling form; her horn became repaired and her wings remained its normal form but grew two feet longer. Her body was larger and sleeker, legs becoming much stronger and her eyes… they were as cold as the moon.
Armor morphed on her body, covering her head, shoulders, body and legs; they had the symbol of Nightmare Moon on them and a dark purple aura surrounded her body.
Danus/Nightmare Moon laughed and regarded Princess Luna as an insect.
"Oh my," Danus said cruelly, "Princess, from here you look just like a puny little bug!"
From her horn a massive fireball shot out and aimed itself at Luna and Daring. Stepping in front of Daring, Luna erected a force field that absorbed and dispelled the fireball. When the fire died, Luna's shield dissipated.
"Nightmare Moon," she said. "It is so strange seeing you in this form. Though, I must say, your taste in friends is unbecoming."
Danus shuddered as if she just drank something bad, when she spoke, her voice was altered, it was the voice of the real Nightmare Moon. "How cute Luna, trying to protect that Pegasus. Is she one of your pets?"
"Ms. Do is not a pet, she is my friend!" countered Luna.
"Friend?" Nightmare Moon hissed. “You are unworthy of such things. You are hated and who could blame you? Your own sister couldn’t put up with you and banished you to this prison. Quite frankly, I must agree with her decision. Princess Celestia is beloved, she is kind, beautiful and powerful, while you are awkward, unsightly and weak!”
Luna glared at Nightmare Moon; she refused to be manipulated, she needed to remain calm.
"Coming from the mare that is currently possessed by a changeling, I'm not sure your words are legitimate."
Nightmare Moon roared. "NOPONY CONTROLS ME, EVENING HEAVEN, WAIT PRINCESS LUNA, FOR I WILL SHOW YOU THE FOLLY OF YOUR WAYS!"
Then, Nightmare Moon released and condensed so much magic it began to corrupt the entire moon itself. Like powerful gusts, the magic shockwaves would have sent Luna flying if it wasn't for her magic protecting her and Daring. But the magic was thick, powerful and evil. Daring shuddered under Luna's hooves.
Nightmare Moon's eyes began to change; her entire body then began to morph - like a changeling's – but just before a definitive shape could be produced, her entire body shuddered. It was Danus, inside, trying to fight for control.
"No!" cried Nightmare Moon in Danus's voice. "I will not allow some little foal to corrupt me, The changeling princess!"
"You are foolishly naïve changeling!" retorted Nightmare Moon. "Did you really think it simple to control me? Did you think it would be the same as controlling the snake god Xiuhcoatl?"
She chuckled, a sound that brought chills to Luna's back, something dripping in malice and contempt. "You wish to witness the true power of Nightmare Moon? Then I shall show you."
If it were possible, everything got colder and Nightmare Moon froze in her place. After four agonizingly painful seconds, Nightmare Moon screamed in pain, but it wasn't in her voice, it was in Danus's.
She crumbled to the floor and covered her eyes, as if trying to block some horrifying image. Her scream was disturbing to even listen to; it was filled with such pain and sorrow that Luna felt sorry for her.
Luna stood. "Nightmare Moon! Stop! Do not harm her!"
In an eerie and ominous tandem, both Nightmare Moon and Danus spoke. Danus with her bloodcurdling cries and begging for mercy and Nightmare Moon's maniacal laughter.
"You seek to protect the changeling that threatened Equestria? Luna, you have gotten soft over the years!"
"Release her! Take me instead!"
Danus stopped screaming, her voice hoarse and her exhaustion made obvious by how she breathed in to desperately catch her breath.
"You were a fool for offering…" Nightmare Moon said.
Danus's body shuddered disgustingly and from her chest burst out the spirit of Nightmare Moon. It was in its ghostly form, so no physical damage was done to Danus, but Luna couldn't imagine what kind of psychological damage had been inflicted upon her.
Nightmare Moon laughed darkly as she flew toward Luna, ready to possess her. But, just as that moment, the sun emerged and instantly shone over the moon's surface. Nightmare Moon hissed and deflated from the energy of the sun; her power was decreasing! Luna's would too eventually, she needed to act fast.
Using the residual power from the eclipse, Luna zapped Nightmare Moon with all of the power she had. The stars aided in her imprisonment; as they rolled off from the galaxy, huge burning chains were formed and they wrapped around the ghost of Nightmare Moon which soon formed a physical body.
She roared and struggled against the chains which were already tethering her to the moon. "NOOOO! NOT AGAIN!!!"
They continued to wrap until Nightmare Moon was completely detained; everything was tied down and all she could do was struggle in vain and scream in agony as the burning stars sear her flesh.
Luna's power was running out; the sun was sapping it. She needed to hurry. She turned to Daring Do, who still lay unconscious, and zapped her with magic, teleporting her back to whence she came.
As Daring disappeared, Princess Luna's consciousness started to fade, her power disappear. She felt weak; she was going back to her prison as well. But, for the last time, she relished the feeling of the sun, the warmth on her face; it would be the last time she would feel it… until later.
~--~
Daring Do woke up in a castle. She was wrapped in a silky white dress in favor of her traditional uniform; she was lying on a couch that felt like sleeping on a cloud; no, felt better, and a harpist serenaded her slumber with some music. When she opened her eyes, the blinding lights gave her an intense headache and she looked around.
The place was pure white with an expensive and exquisite taste, huge doors with dragon doorknockers stand opposite of her, the harpist behind her, and, in front of her, was a beautiful mahogany table with a bowl of grapes.
"Well, this isn't the moon," she muttered.
"I would hope not," a familiar voice called out. And from the windows, Mare Do Well turned around to look at Daring. She looked terrible; her outfit was burned, her hat nearly torn to shreds and her cape was virtually gone.
But that wasn't the thing that struck her as weird; it was the fact that she was in costume and not, well, herself.
"Fl- er, Mare Do Well, what are we doing here? In fact, where is here?" Daring asked, careful not to mention Felicity's name in front of the harpist.
"This is Princess Celestia's house in Canterlot. We're here on a cordial visit."
Daring must have been messed up last night to have made it from the moon to Canterlot, but Felicity explained everything. She explained about the Sea of Chaos and Xiuhcoatl and how after she imprisoned him she woke up, with the sensation of falling, in the alley she was at initially. And only minutes after her trip to the Sea of Chaos, Daring Do fell from the sky.
Felicity had flown up and caught Daring, managing to save her. After that happened, the changeling army simply became disturbed, as if they knew their princess was defeated, and ran away. Felicity, in no condition to run and carry Daring, prepared a quick escape but the police ponies applauded her. They claimed that they witnessed Daring Do's and Mare Do Well's actions against the changelings and vouched for them.
It was then that Celestia's personal carriage had arrived, picked them up and brought them here. It had been a few hours since then and Daring was asleep the entire time.
"Okay… But why would the princess bring us here-"
"Excuse me," a unicorn stepped inside the room looking down at a clipboard, not paying particular attention to them. She wore thick glasses and had a fiery red mane with a silver coat; her cutie mark was a clipboard. "Are you all right to walk? Because the princess is ready to see you, despite my warnings." She mentioned indignantly.
"Oh, um, yeah," Daring stood up from the couch but nearly stumbled and fell. Felicity was immediately at her side and helped her up; either Daring had lost half her body weight or Felicity was really strong because she held her up with no effort.
"Whoa, you okay?" Felicity asked. Daring's sight cleared, her dizziness subsided but she felt nervous for some reason. Felicity being this close made her... uncomfortable.
She cleared her throat. "Um, yeah, yeah I'm good. We should go though, the princess is waiting, right? Uh…"
"Noteworthy," the unicorn answered. "I am Princess Celestia's personal assistant." She said, puffing out her chest with pride.
"Oh, uh, cool." Daring looked at Felicity and gave her a coy look, like 'can-you-believe-it?'
The two followed Noteworthy into the hallway and up a crazy amount of stairs. Felicity still carried Daring while Noteworthy was in front of them humming to herself. She wasn't out of ear-shot but she wasn't paying attention to them either.
"Has anypony, you know, taken off your mask?" she asked quietly. "You know, while you were in the Sea of Chaos. You were still sitting in that alley, completely vulnerable."
"Don't worry, my secret is safe. Besides, I have back-up system preventing anypony but me from removing the mask."
"Oh, what would happen, a gas comes out to knock them out or something?" Daring laughed but Felicity remained quiet. "Uh, aren't you uh… joking..?"
She looked at Dare and had an obvious smile under her mask. "Something like that."
They finally reached the top of the tower and were led to a door with a crude and frayed sign that said, in a filly's writing it seems. "Princess Celestia's Room"
Princess was misspelled.
Without knocking, Noteworthy just opened the door and walked right in.
Unlike the rest of the castle, this place was the humblest of them all. It was a simple large round room with dark purple wallpaper and carpeting; on the ceiling was a mural of the night sky which included accurate constellations of Orion, Heracles, and the Little Dipper. To the immediate right was a bright pink dresser with a large round mirror on it; on the dresser itself were a bunch of stuffed dolls and pictures of ponies. The pictures were strange, as there was a picture of Felicity as a filly and another of her when she was older, perhaps a teenager.
There were a bunch of clothes strewed all over the floor, a walk in closet to the father right that was slightly ajar; Daring could see a few more clothes just piled up inside. To the left were the windows and another large dresser that had a bunch of scrolls and letters on it. The windows were as tall as the room but the curtains were drawn. And in front of them was the bed; it was a huge super queen sized bed that could probably fit six ponies!
Adhering to the theme in this room, the comforters and blankets were purple -except for the pillows, which were pink. There was a canopy overhead with a, as expected, purple cover. Beside the bed was a night stand that was a complete mess; as half eaten cakes lay littered all over it. And finally, Princess Celestia was sitting on the bed looking like… well, a normal pony.
Whenever Daring saw Celestia, she always had this regal air about her, and it wasn't because she was a princess. She just looked confident, strong, like a born leader. Her perfect figure, her beautiful literally flowing mane, and her elegant eyes that looked like they have seen everything (which Daring didn't doubt).
But now she looked absolutely… normal.
Her mane wasn't flowing and completely flat, plastered to the bed, her eyes were bored and tired, she was slouched reading a good book while simultaneously eating cake and when she looked at Noteworthy and company, she gave a warm and familiar smile; like an older sister greeting her younger sister.
"Oh, hello my little ponies, so lovely to see you here," greeted Celestia warmly.
It was all Daring could do to stop her from saying something stupid.
"Your mane isn't flowing."
Yep, something like that.
Celestia giggled and dismissed Noteworthy who begrudgingly reminded the princess that she needed sleep.
"Whenever I am here," she gestured to the room. "I tend to avoid formalities. My mane being one of them; you have no idea how difficult it is to maintain a flowing mane constantly."
"My princess," Felicity said stiffly. "Might I ask why you brought us here?"
Celestia looked at Felicity. "Come over here Mare Do Well."
Felicity complied and trotted over to the bed.
"I have heard a great deal about you Mare Do Well," Celestia began. "Of your heroics and good deeds in Manehattan. I have even heard your recently endeavor with the turquoise serpent. The reason I called you two here is to personally thank and congratulate you for your heroics."
Daring's face lit up with a smile but Celestia wasn't finished.
"But, as mentioned, in this room, I tend to avoid formalities. So, Mare Do Well, don't not speak to me as your alter ego, but rather as-" as quick as thought, Celestia leaned in, grabbed Felicity's mask with her mouth, and pulled it off; Felicity yelped and jumped back while Daring gasped. "-my star pupil, Felicity Peridot."
"Wait, you were one of her personal students?" asked Daring.
Felicity sheepishly nodded but turned to Celestia. "How did you know it was me?"
Celestia smiled and jutted her chin upwards with pride, "Oh please Fleece. Do you really think I wouldn't be able to recognize you with or without mask?"
Felicity blushed.
"Now then, I think congratulations are in order. I thank you for your services Ms. Peridot and Ms. Do; you have shown exemplary skills in your battles and have proven to be a force to be reckoned with. You will be honored with medals at a ceremony later, but, for now, do you want some cake?"
Daring almost took the offer for cake but stopped herself, "Wait, but what happened to Danus? And Princess Luna? And Nightmare Moon? What's with the moon anyways? Why could I breathe on there? And is that chocolate cake?"
Celestia took another bite of cake. "The changeling princess Danus has been trapped on the moon, with Nightmare Moon, and reverted back to her stony form thanks to Luna's last burst of magic. Consequently, the souls she had taken for her revival had returned to the hosts when she was imprisoned. Luna, being tethered to Nightmare Moon, is, sadly, trapped there as well."
She looked down at the thought of Luna, sad, but she tried to smile bravely. "As for the moon, it is quite simple really. Nightmare Moon's power is so strong that it condenses around the moon to such an extent it created an atmosphere similar to Earth. And yes, this is chocolate cake."
Daring gratefully took the cake and ate it.
"But Princess, what would drive the princess into doing something like this?" Felicity asked. "I mean, how twisted would you have to be to do that?"
"I don't pretend to understand the princess's motives," Celestia answered. "But you must empathize with the princess in order to understand her. Her appearance, firstly, she seems battered and broken; remember her horn. If I had to guess, she may have been mistreated by the ponies of her time which drove her to insanity. Ponies back then weren't very tolerate of changelings, so their mistreatment was common. There was one colt who managed to charm her."
"Who?" Dare asked.
She pointed at Daring's chest. "You are wearing his amulet."
Daring looked at her chest and it was as she said; Arion's amulet hung there comfortably.
"But, she was still warped and obsessed with revenge that upon her imprisonment, she swore to achieve her goal even if it took her eons. Her changeling army must have been working on a revival plan for centuries before finally utilizing it before my solar eclipse."
They let that thought sit for a while. Daring wondered what it would take to drive Danus over the edge, to dedicate her entire life on revenge. It was depressing, and she actually felt bad for Danus. Maybe they could have been friends if they met under different circumstances.
"But, that is enough depressing conversation. We should talk about your rewards."
"What rewards?"
Celestia's eyes twinkled mischievously and Daring got a feeling she would enjoy these rewards.
~--~
In front of the Canterlot castle a press conference was held. Hundreds of ponies gathered and plenty of the media showed up. Celestia showed up as her usual immaculate self, perfect and unattainable. A harmony of pictures snapped as Celestia stepped out in front of the podium with Daring Do and Mare Do Well on either side of her.
Despite Noteworthy's attempts to keep her in bed, Celestia had insisted on holding this conference to honor the heroes worthy herself.
"Fillies and gentlecolts," Celestia's said into the microphone, her voice booming throughout the garden. "Thanks to the efforts of these two mares-" her wings opened to show Mare Do Well and Daring Do, "-The chaos that ensued from the changeling princess, Danus, and her army was swiftly put to a stop. We must honor these heroes, and the first thing that is in order is to pardon Mare Do Well and to note that she is a true hero, not a masked menace."
The ponies clamored and asked a dozen questions about why the changelings would attack and if that would strain Celestia's already shaky relationship with them. Celestia put a hoof up to silence them.
"The details on why the changeling princess would do this will not be discussed, nor my relationship with the changelings. This conference is simply a formality and its intent is to give these two mares what they deserve."
Daring had a feeling that somewhere in Manehattan, J.J.'s mouth dropped to the ground. Having the support of Princess Celestia to continue your heroics and having her officially declare that Mare Do Well isn't a menace to begin with was the most amazing thing Felicity could get!
She looked over at Mare Do Well who stood stoically besides the princess but she knew that underneath that mask was a smile as wide as a mile.
"And, it is a great honor to bestow upon them the Royal Canterlot Distinguished Pony Medal." Noteworthy, approaching Celestia with a box, levitated out of it two gold medals with the Canterlot castle on one side and the impression of Celestia's face on the other.
Celestia took the medals, turned to face the mares, and placed them both around their necks. She leaned forward and whispered. "There, that should help your reputation out some."
She stood straight and winked at the mares, before turning back to the crowd and bowing as the crowd cheered.
"Not bad for a day's work huh?" Daring asked. She turned to look at Felicity but she was gone. The pony crowd gasped as they looked at the top of the Canterlot castle, as the Mysterious Mare Do Well stood atop the highest point, cape fluttering in the wind.
"She loves theatrics..." Dare mumbled.
Felicity then jumped from the castle and flew away heroically, thus solidifying her position as hero of Canterlot.
~--~
After an exhausting party, Daring finally found herself back home. She trotted in her room to find Calypso grooming herself delicately.
"AWWK! Thieving Mare!" Calypso squawked.
"No, turns out she wasn't the thief," Daring answered; she took a cracker from atop a dresser and gave it to Calypso who ate it swiftly. "She was a pretty cool mare."
"AWWK! Egghead!"
"Yeah, Herpy is just fine. Visited him in the hospital, he'll be out in a few days; he's just concerned with his final paper. Once an egghead, always an egghead huh?"
Growing tired of the interrogation, Calypso began to groom her wings again, but not before saying. "AWWK! Thieving Mare!"
Turning around, Daring saw Felicity standing at the door. Not as Mare Do Well, but as Felicity the journalist. Felicity gave her a shy smile but Daring wore a disgruntled expression. "So, you leave me alone at the mercy of those stuck-up ponies, break into my house and sneak up behind me for what, huh?"
She walked up to Felicity and jokingly jabbed her shoulder. "Sheesh, you could've at least taken me with you."
Felicity smiled wider and did something Daring hadn't expected; she hugged her.
"Sorry, I don't do well in crowds," Felicity admitted. "Neither does Mare Do Well."
Daring hugged her back. "It's cool. But hey, what are you doing here? How did you break in my house..."
Felicity winked. "I'm Mare Do Well okay? I can do anything."
"AWWK! Key under the mat!" Calypso explained.
"Which includes finding keys under the mat." The mares laughed. It was nice to finally get some downtime and after saving the entire world; enjoying a laugh with a friend was the best thing they could do.
Before they knew it, the two mares were having a slumber party in her room. They had done makeovers, had s'mores, and played games. It was Felicity's first slumber party, apparently, and it was an absolute joy!
It was relaxing not having to worry about giant snakes trying to eat the sun or crazy changelings trying to destroy the world. Felicity was a good friend; awkward and a bit clumsy, but cool and sweet.
She had explained that J.J. had stopped with the Mare Do Well pieces and allowed Felicity to write whatever she wants. Ironically enough, Felicity wrote about the whole fiasco with the turquoise serpent and Mare Do Well. Flair had quickly recovered, because of his Minotaur size, and was quickly back in the game but was photographing a lot of different things other than Mare Do Well.
"What about you, and the amulet?" Felicity asked. "It is an insanely powerful device, if anypony were to get their hooves on them."
"It is locked up safely in the Canterlot University, where nopony would find it. I hate doing this, but I had a duplicate made so it would be put on display while the real one is hidden. But anyways, what about you? When are you heading back to Manehattan? Are you going to continue this whole Mare Do Well shtick?"
Felicity fiddled with her mane for a few moments before answering. "I'm heading back tomorrow and, yeah, I think I'll continue this hero business for a little while longer."
"It's dangerous though, I mean, you could get seriously hurt," she protested.
Felicity rolled her eyes. "Please, coming from you? Ms. Recklessly-Charge-The-Changeling-Princess?"
"Okay, okay, but I don't go looking for danger, it finds me. What you're doing would require you to literally look and combat danger every night. That's a lot more dangerous."
Standing up and walking to the window, Daring saw a quiet and confident expression on Felicity's face. "I've got to do this. If I have the power to help ponies, I should, you know? Why did you help me with Danus if you knew it would put you in danger?"
"Herpy and all of the other ponies would be in danger if I had let Danus go," Dare explained. "I couldn't just sit by and let her cause havoc."
"Exactly." Felicity looked at Dare with such a serious expression, it was unnerving. "And I couldn't let anypony get in danger. Not Herpy, not Flair, or you. If I have a chance to help ponies, I'm going to do it."
Dare's worries subsided for now. She still wasn't convinced, but she found herself agreeing with Felicity. She wouldn't be able to let her get hurt either.
"Well, just know that if you ever need an adventurer to help, you can always call me. We're the best of friends right?"
Felicity smiled. "Yes, we are."
And for the first time in a long time, Daring had a good night's sleep.
It would come to no surprise to anypony that the Grand Galloping Gala would end in disaster. It seems that this particular event is somehow cursed with bad luck, last year a bunch of mares ruined the Gala trying to achieve their dreams and after a nice show tune, they all went overboard and wrecked everything. This year was perhaps a little worse.
Felicity Peridot didn’t enjoy events like this, she couldn’t get in the mood to dance and sing when she was already nervous. You see, it was her first date with Klondike, after six months the big lug actually asked her out. But, as usual, J.J. decided to ruin her date by asking her to cover it.
Thank Celestia for Aberrant Flair, her photographer and residential genius Minotaur. He had promised to cover the event so that she could enjoy her date with Klon. That hadn’t stopped her from shaking in these rather expensive shoes.
Felicity tugged at her dress for the billionth time tonight, it was uncomfortable and rode up on her flank. She wasn’t used to wearing fancy things like this, the only outfit she would happily wear was kept compressed in her necklace and was a lot more form-fitting than this.
This dress was frilly and poofy to absurd lengths, it was a dark red, to match her coat, and had intricate star designs at the fringe. Her shoes may as well have been made of glass with how uncomfortable they felt. Her lime-green mane was curled and done to perfection by Ponyville’s expert manedresser. She wore star earrings and looked, as Daring Do put it, “like a doll!”
Felicity rolled her eyes, it was hard to believe that she could look anything resembling a doll. Her hooves were sweaty, her mane felt like it was coming apart, the dress as too tight at the waist, and she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
Mostly because Klondike was right next to her, like right next to her.
He looked like a prince compared to her homely she looks.
His chocolate brown mane was combed elegantly; he wore a tuxedo which made him look suave and cool, and a bright blue bowtie which, on him, looked amazing. His eyes twinkled when he talked and..
Wait, what did he say?
“I-I’m sorry, what?” Felicity felt like an idiot.
“I said, ‘Do you want a drink’?” he repeated with a smile.
“Oh, yes, yes I would like something to drink.” She felt like she would need plenty of drinks to get through this night.
A waiter approached and Klon took a drink and handed it to her. She downed it fast, ack, spicy apple cider.
She looked around for Princess Celestia, she wanted to see her but at the same time feared the idea of her being here. Celestia was an amazing mare, don’t misunderstand, but Felicity also knew what she was like. You see, being one of Celestia’s students when she was a filly, she has been victim to Celestia’s teasing for years.
When Felicity got her first boyfriend, Celestia never let her live it down and incessantly messed with Felicity. She was like an overbearing and embarrassing older sister. She would probably retell stories about Felicity’s goof-ups as a filly to Klon if she showed up, ugh, that would be a nightmare!
But, thankfully, Celestia wasn’t around, which was a shame since this party was great! The ballroom was amazing, there were ceiling to floor glass stained windows that depicted great ponies throughout the ages like Starswirl The Bearded, Lightning Blitz The Brave, Arion The Swift and, embarrassingly enough, The Mysterious Mare Do Well along with Daring Do.
The last one was only recently added a month after the huge mess with the changeling princess Danus, and the turquoise serpent. Celestia honored the heroes with a few medals, a statue in the Canterlot garden, and this glass stained window commemorating their victory.
The attention from Celestia gave Mare Do Well a lot of good publicity, well, I suppose if the princess supports you, you’re bound to get benefits out of it. Mare Do Well was no longer seen as a vigilante and she has even been given the support of the police of Manehattan. And, since Mare Do Well was no longer seen as a bad guy, J.J. has given up on exposing her; therefore Felicity has a lot of freedom on what she wants to cover in The Daily Bridle.
And, after a while, she’s been given a promotion! She now has her own office, her own column and even a hefty raise. So far, life has been good for Felicity, crime is down in Manehattan, save a few weirdo ponies here and there, but everything has been going swimmingly!
Felicity literally couldn’t complain about anything at this point, she’s on a date with Klondike at the biggest party of the year (which the princess happily gave invitations to) all she really needed to worry about was looking like an idiot in front of him.
“This music is, uh, great!” Felicity remarked.
“They stopped playing,” Klon said, “But, yeah, they were good.”
Ponyfeathers!
Felicity looked at the musicians and frowned, it was as he said, they had just stopped playing. One of them looked back at her and Felicity shot a “why-did-you-stop-playing-now-the-moment-is-awkward!” look.
She cleared her throat, “Y-yeah, I knew that but I meant in a philosophical way you know? Some ponies theorize that music is the soul of reality and that ponies everywhere are able to produce a unique musical signature that only sensitive ponies are able to pick up but normal ponies everywhere are able to see as personality quirks, therefore I was speaking about the music produced by everypony here and-“
Klondike put a hoof to her mouth, “Fleece, calm down and take a deep breath.”
He released his hoof and Felicity took two deep breaths.
“Good,” he smiled, “Now, let’s just enjoy this party okay?”
Felicity nodded dumbly, she always acted dumb around him and it was infuriating. But he always knew how to calm her down and how to cheer her up, he knew how she ticked and she barely knew anything about him.
It was like he was an enigma, a puzzle that she couldn’t solve because half the pieces were missing. It was ironic that Felicity of all ponies couldn’t deduce her way into Klon’s heart, but then again, even if she doesn’t know much about him, he doesn’t know the entire truth about her.
Another waiter came by and Felicity gratefully took a hors d'oeuvre and munched it, she needed to fill her stomach or something, despite Klon’s efforts she wasn’t calming down.
“Ah, Ms. Peridot, so good to see you.” Without warning, Felicity spat out her hors d’oeuvre onto the face of that poor waiter and looked upon the mare who addressed her.
She cursed herself for not noticing her presence, but then again Princess Celestia could be very sneaky if she wanted to be, and, judging by the look on her face, she appeared quite happy with who Felicity is with.
Klon, and a bunch of other ponies nearby bowed quickly which made Celestia uncomfortable but she gave them her best smile.
“C-Celestia!” Felicity stuttered, earning a few hard looks from the other ponies at her familiarity toward the princess, “I-I thought you had retired for the night!”
Celestia looked at Felicity and smiled in a way a prankster would right before revealing her grand trick, “I had, but I came back after remembering that you, my dearest student, would be attending. I didn’t want to be rude, so, I came by to say ‘hello’. Hello Fleece.”
“You were one of her students?” Klon asked, astonished, Felicity hadn’t shared that piece of information for good reason, “I didn’t know that. Fleece, that’s amazing!”
Felicity blushed, she couldn’t tell why she was blushing either, was it because Klon complimented her or was it because Celestia being here was more embarrassing than her mom being here?
“O-oh, must have slipped my mind.” Felicity needed to calm down, she needed to get a handle on the situation.
“Now, now Fleece,” Celestia giggled, “You shouldn’t be so rude to your boyfriends-“ Felicity turned red hot, “-and to me. Why wouldn’t you tell this gentlecolt all about your dear mentor?”
Managing to get control over her emotions, and the fact that Klon hadn’t denied the whole boyfriend thing, Felicity shot her patented “I-will-get-you-after-this” look at Celesita. But Celestia just relished Felicity’s reactions.
“It’s fine Princess,” Klon said, “I’m sure it honestly slipped her mind.”
Celestia looked at Felicity and raised an eyebrow, “Perhaps, my little student here does have an addled memory. For instance, this one time, when she was a filly, she had overslept and rushed to arrive to class and managed to make it in time… wearing only her pajamas.”
Klondike laughed, but it was a restrained laugh, like he didn’t want to embarrass Felicity but it was far too late for that.
“There was also this one time during gymnastics-“ oh ponyfeathers, Felicity thought, not that story!
Quickly slipping away from the two, Felicity snuck over to the stage and looked at the cello player and did her best taxi whistle. Thankfully, the cello player saw her and Felicity raised an eyebrow and made a circle shape with her hooves, a secret signal that only they knew that would get things going.
The cellist raised an eyebrow and shrugged. Felicity nearly facehoofed. She then made a gesture with her hooves of playing a cello. Finally, she got it and motioned for the band to start playing. Oh thank goodness, she’ll have to hug Octavia later.
Felicity snuck back to Celestia and Klon just in time to hear her say, “-So, there she was, soaking wet, the rubber chicken wrapped around her neck and I still had half a pie left-“
“Oh my, look, the music is back up!” Felicity interrupted, stepping between them, “Klon promised me a dance, you understand don’t you princess Celestia?”
Celestia grinned but didn’t say anything and just trotted away, the crowd before her parted like she were some sort of princess and not a weirdo older sister who pried into her relationship. Now then, where was she-
Wait, what did she just do?
Realization hit her like a truck as she focused on Klon who smiled and held her hooves ready to dance. Her coat turned redder than physically possible as she realized what she- no, what Celestia did. She planned the entire thing to get Felicity to muster up the courage to dance with Klondike?
Looking around, she tried to spot the princess but she was long gone.
“You okay?” Klon asked.
She wanted to say “Yes, perfectly fine,” but it came out like “Uh duh.”
He laughed, “All right then, shall we dance?”
Felicity was drowning in this moment. Liquid happiness poured into her bloodstream and made her feel bubbly yet freezing at the same time, a mosh pit of butterflies decided to organize themselves into rioting against her stomach, she felt lightheaded and could barely hear anything. This was the happiest day of her life-
“AHHHHHH!!”
A blood-curdling scream tore through the quiet ambiance as an explosion shattered Felicity’s world. From the main entrance a strange creature stood with a wicked grin on his face.
“The party must be canceled on account due to inclement weather!”
It was a huge, eight foot tall machine that stood bipedal with strange things where its hooves should be. No, they were hands like on monkeys except they had opposable thumbs. Where the head should have been was a huge dome and within it was a pony grinning madly. The machine must have controlled temperature or something because it was suddenly freezing, at its feet the ground became solid ice.
Ponies everywhere began to scream and scattered, but Felicity just felt really ticked off.
“Fleece, run!” Klon cried.
She stopped herself from rolling her eyes and managed to say, “I’ll meet you outside, get out of here!”
Klon didn’t want to leave Felicity alone, that much was obvious from the look in his eyes, but the pony super-villain made it difficult to argue. Raising his hands, he aimed for Felicity and a heartbeat later a huge blue mist shot out and directed itself toward her.
Thinking quick, Felicity pushed Klon out of the way and, using the momentum of that push, rolled backward. The mist connected with the ground and froze it instantly.
Great, he can freeze things.
“Klon! Get out! I’ll be fine!” Felicity yelled.
He looked torn but ran out of here like she ordered. Felicity stood and faced the villain.
~--~
Thus concludes this chapter preview of En Passant a story I plan to produce later down the line. Optimistically, it shouldn’t take long to pump out the story, but a lot of things tend to get in the way. Anyways, enough on that, I hope you have enjoyed reading Daring Do and the Turquoise Serpent and even this tiny preview of En Passant, after all, this is all for you, the readers, not some glorified journey to conquer the literary world one website at a time; that would be silly.
I would like to thank my editor Ava Nova, for putting up with me for this long and for getting back to me in as expediently as I write. She’s quite the impressive gal to not have told me off after this long, and for fixing all of those semicolons as well, dizzying if you look back on it ^^
And I would also like to thank the readers for hopefully enjoying this story. Even if you didn’t enjoy it and read it, hated it and are currently sitting outside of my house deciding which window to smash, you gave me another traffic hit and that’s all that matters ^^
