Treasure hunters of Equestria

Chapter 3 - Daring Duo

(From the perspective of Daring Do)

((If you're getting sick of the song in chapter 1: The Adventures of Daring Do song, by mandopony))

   I think my would-be colt-friend just fell down the stairs. First of all, I would like to explain some things. I'm usually a lot more awesome than this, but lately I've been having some financial problems, and only kids and weird adults seem to care to listen to my adventures now-a-days. But then this guy just showed up and simultaneously ruined everything and made everything cooler. I mean, I wasn't in too great of a mood to find out he's the pony who almost drowned me, but I've never met anyone who was so much like me in my life! I've got an eye for treasure, and this stallion is worth keeping around.

  Suddenly, I hear a loud thump. That must have been him hitting the ground. I can feel myself speeding up, I need to get down these stupid stairs and make sure he's ok! There's just no end to them though! I can't imagine he didn't break some bones after falling this far! I wonder what he'd been saying about those Romane ruins, Romanian things have always fascinated me. I guess that's not important right now though.

   Finally, I find him. Of course, he's in a cage. There are about 10 weird ponies in robes standing around him in a circle, chanting something. It's a good thing they wear their hoods so low, because they didn't seem to notice me walk in. Dart looks hurt, he's got blood all over him and his back-left leg is bent weird. He doesn't seem to notice me, or even the ponies in red for that matter. His head seems to be whizzing about, looking all over the place. I look around myself, and suddenly I understand.

     Besides the tacky hearth's warming eve decorations, there was treasure. Plot-loads of it. From golden statues of discord to stolen artifacts from Everfree (the old capitol of Equestria, before discord fell). More treasure than we could possibly carry back! We'd have to make a few trips up and down that stupid staircase though, that won't be fun. Oh right, I've still got to save Dart. Now how am I going to do that?........ Immediately I notice that there's another of the red ponies sitting down near me. I almost scream....but upon closer inspection, he's unconscious. Without wasting any more time, I slip on his robes and walk on up to the friendly committee of discord cultists. They stop the weird chanting and one of them speaks.

"Ah! Brother! You are awake! Join us in summoning the god of chaos to burn the infidel!" I try my best to mimic a stallion's voice.

"Um..yes brother! Lead us to...um...glorious chaos!" Dart grins at me, understanding the situation fully. My stallion impression must not have been very good because one of the other cultists stopped me.

"Brother! You sound strange! Is something wrong?"

"No I um....my throat is sore." He slants his head a little in confusion.

"But it was fine 10 minutes ago!" I decide to make an assumption.

"But then I got bucked into a wall by that infidel!" I point a hoof at Dart, who grins. I can't tell if I assumed right or not. The other pony only shrugs, and returns to the circle. I follow. As they start chanting, Dart interrupts them.

"So where is this god of chaos guy? I'd like to meet him." The head cultist frowns.

"Silence! All will be answered soon!"

"But how can you expect answers in chaos?" The cultist considers this for a moment.

"The answers are implied! Now silence!" Dart looks amused. I hope he doesn't try anything stupid.

"Make me." There we go. Something stupid. The cultist throws off his hood and scowls. He's an old unicorn with dirty white fur and a red mane, and he has these HUGE purple crescents under his eyes, like he hasn't slept for days!

"Somepony silence him! We can not do the chant with these interruptions!" I decide to volunteer.

"I will!" The head cultist nods.

    Maybe I can use this to help him escape somehow. Hopefully he's smart enough to work with it. He's pretty badly wounded though, so I reach my hooves through the bars so I look like I'm trying to strangle him. He simply slides away. The head cultist face-hoofs.

"Brother! Might I suggest you use the stick of pain?" He holds up a spear with his unicorn magic. Wow, real creative.

"Sure! I could always use a......stick of pain." I grab the stick of pain with my mouth, and point it at Dart. He's agile though, and simply slides around the cage, while I have to pull it out from between the bars after every jab. Hopefully he can keep this up. Suddenly, I get an idea.

"He's too agile. Perhaps we need to open the cage so that we may apply the stick of pain?" The head cultist nods again, and two of the other cultists open the cage. Dart grins, and I jab at the nearest cultist with the stick of pain. He yelps and runs for it. Dart springs to his feet (wincing in pain in the process, it probably wasn't the best idea), and does sort of an awkward one legged buck to one of the cultists who opened the door. Dart is pretty strong though, and the pony goes flying regardless. No time to swoon though, the other cultists seem to have their own sticks of pain (Wow, am I really going to call them that now?). I duck a spearhead, which rips off part of my hood, showing them my awesome face. The head cultist looks shocked at first, but then grins.

"Look here brothers! Daring Do, an adventurous hero of Equestria! And what is it we do to Heroes of Equestria again?" I'm frightened, but I try not to let on.

"Stay back or I'll stick you....with pain!" The head cultist only sighs and uses his horn to take away the stick. Now I'm completely defenseless. Dart steps in front of me, but he's standing on three hoofs, and limping on his fourth.

"What are you doing? You're wounded!" Dart just ignores me, and the head cultist gives off a loud evil laugh.

"Look here brothers! It seems Daring Do has found herself a colt-friend to protect her! Now isn't that just cute-" Dart bucks him, with both legs this time. I imagine the shiny metal hoofs really hurt, because he doesn't even try to get up. I grab his stick of pain, and point it at the remaining 7 cultists. With their hoods off, they didn't look like a very tough bunch, and they backed away.

"Owwww....." Dart is now regretting using both hooves. One of the cultists points at him.

"He's a monster! Look at his hooves!" I find myself also staring at his hooves. They ARE kind of weird. The cultists run for the staircase, I start to fly after them with my stick of pain, but Dart stops me.

"Hey! We've got treasure to loot! Get back here!"

"But they're getting away!" Dart shrugs.

"They aren't bad ponies, just weird ones. They technically didn't do anything wrong."

"Because putting you in a cage and trying to sacrifice you to the god of chaos isn't wrong?" I say in my 'matter-of-fact' voice. Dart considers this.

"Fair enough, but either way, we've hit the jackpot here. Grab my saddlebag, will you?"  I toss it to him, and he catches it in his mouth, then proceeds to empty it out, dynamite and all. I guess he's got to make room for the treasure somehow.

   As I was stuffing my hat with treasure, Dart walked up. His leg seemed to have healed enough to walk on, but I was just amazed that he didn't break anything. He cleared his throat, but then he talked very quietly and very quickly.

"I uh........thanks I guess."

"What was that? I didn't quite hear you." I lied.

"Thanks. I don't think I could have made it without you." I grinned. A plot (the idea kind) forming in my head.

"Want to make it up to me?"  He frowned at this.

"I already gave you the pendant. Don't push it." I put on the cutest face I could.

"Pleeeeeease? I DID save your life!" His scowl disappeared. Nopony can scowl when I look at them like that. He sighed.

"Fine. What is it?"

(From Dart's point of view)

   I know she saved me and all, but I really wished I hadn't agreed. The deal was that I had to appear on stage with her and help her sell the treasure we found to museums, so I could (and I quote her exact words) "Finish the adventure we started." I had tried to say no, but she just kept making that face the whole way up the stairs, and it was too much. What a load of crap though, she just wanted me to help with the after-chores. Before I knew it, I found myself on stage with her in Canterlot, standing next to her while she told about the discordian cultists and her brave rescue mission. (She bent the details a bit so it would sound more adventurous. Mostly small details like doubling the amount of cultists, excluding the part about me falling down the stairs, and completely forgetting to mention the stick of pain.)

   Canterlot was really beautiful this time of year, there was snow everywhere and giant candy canes and gingerbread houses decorated the city. There was a really big hearth's warming eve tree behind us that shined all different colors.

   As she was taking questions, a little filly in the front row raised her hoof. She was called upon, and asked me a question that begun a chain reaction I wouldn't soon forget.

"Mister, are you going to go on more adventures with Daring now?" I started to say 'No! Never again!' but Daring answered before me.

"Of course he is! He's my new partner! We're the Daring Duo!" My jaw dropped. This was NOT part of the deal. I tried to protest, but she was busy answering questions from all over the crowd, and pretended not to hear me. People started to yelling questions to me too. A cute mare in the back yelled:

"What's your name?"

"Dart Dash." But before she could respond to that I kept getting more questions, and some demands. Mostly things like:

"Show us your cutie mark!" (I reluctantly complied.)

"How'd you get it?" (I told the short version of the story: 'I discovered my love for treasure hunting!')

"What's wrong with your hooves?" (I ignored that one.)

"Did Daring really save you?" ('Yeah, I guess so.')

"Your leg seems fine!" (I ignored this guy too, but I wasn't too sure why that was myself.)

Finally, a question came to Daring Do from some reporter.

"Do you have anything else to say about Dart?" Suddenly, there was a brief silence. All other questions ceased. I turned towards her.

"Yeah." She said finally. "Just one thing." She stepped forward and kissed me, completely catching me by surprise.

Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea... I thought. It was definitely the best hearth's warming eve gift I'd ever received. We received a mixture of whistles, stomping, and a few boo's from some obnoxious fan-boys. Once she pulled away, I fell over backwards onto my plot, just like she had when I showed her the treasure I found when we met on the stage. She grinned widely, then turned towards the crowd.

"No more questions tonight guys! We've got adventuring to do, so we need our sleep! C'mon Dart!" And so we flew off towards ponyville, a new settlement to the south-west of Canterlot.