0-01: Idle Hooves Are The Devil's Work
Our daring heroine leaped across massive, collapsing pieces of debris with swiftness and grace, flipping and turning and doing all kinds of crazy-
"Wait......I can fly. Shit." I tore off the unfinished page from my typewriter, sighing and tossing it into the trash. I've been trying to write this book for weeks now, and it's just not coming together. Usually my writing is based on real adventures I went on, but Equestria is peaceful now thanks to Twilight Sparkle and her squad of edgelords. Simply put, here's no more adventures for me because Princess Main Character and her magic bullshit is taking care of everything before I as much as smell it. I mean, I should be happy about that but I'm really not. In a boring and monotonously peaceful time where all your problems are solved before they even exist, Equestria needs my exciting adventure stories more than anything, but I can't write them without some realistic experiences. After all, all fiction are based on reality one way or another.
So for the next 30 minutes I sat there, rethinking what I should do for a living and contemplating a possible assassination, then I realized that I'm out of badger poison after I ate the last of it before my weekly jungle streaking session (for the sake of fitness), and headed for the shopping center.
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Baltimare Plaza, the best worst place in Equestria. Creatures of all types gather here for fun, profit, or just out of necessity like me right now. From ponies to griffons, and dragons to yaks, on a busy day, this place almost hurts to look at from all the intermingled colors. So there I was at Rosie Posey's Plague Emporium buying a pound of their strongest badger poison, when out of nowhere the whole fucking store just exploded. I was launched across the plaza by the shockwave, giving me the opportunity to do a few aerial flips before my body smashed into the cold concrete, which immediately became warm with my blood and other bodily fluids. There goes another 2000 bits in hospital bills. Due to my constant encounters with cursed artifacts and badger poison, my nervous system had been pretty much completely numbed so I didn't even feel a thing when my bones got so broken my head literally went up my ass. So I laid there, chilling and waiting for either the sweet release of death or for somepony to notice and help, when a giant-ass talon or something grabbed me and untied my mangled body.
"Hey, I know you......you're that adventure mare they have in books or some shit." Whatever dark nightmarish monster that just attacked a pest poison store for whatever the fuck reason (I couldn't see clearly with all the blood in my eyes) spoke to me in a deep, growling voice, like if the Batmare smoked 10,000 cigarette and then drank a gallon of drain cleaner.
"Yup. That's me. Daring Do, Adventuring Extraordinaire." I said, but it sounded more like a malfunctioning toilet that flushed for the first time in 2 centuries because of all the blood pouring out of my mouth.
"Wow, you really are her! Nice to meet you." Then, the monster, after recognizing me and saying it's a good thing we met, actually had the audacity to throw me all the way across the street and into the glass window of a flower store, breaking said window, the store owner's neck, and my heart. There's nothing worse to a famous writer than getting recognition from fans and then immediately being told that nobody actually gives a shit. By this point I really should be dead, out of sadness and dissatisfaction if anything, but I wasn't. With all the willpower I could muster, I began dragging myself back across the street with my last functional limb, swearing revenge upon the blurry shadow monster and all that it stands for. Of course, the same shadow monster, being the total dickweed that he is, slammed a chunk of cement right dab on the top of my head just as I got close enough for a final attack.
0-02: At Last I See The Light, And It Felt Like My Brain Was Missing
To my disappointment, I came back to consciousness in a hospital, my body filled with pain of every describable type. If my jaw wasn't broken and unhinged I would've begged any divine or higher power whom I haven't destroyed the temple of to kill me right then and there. And for a second there it seemed that my prayers were fulfilled, as Princess Luna bursted into the room I was in, decked in full battle regalia. Immediately afterwards, I realized that she had a worried expression and cute teary eyes, and all bets were off.
Miss MoonButt McAlicorn expressed her concerns via telepathy, and I tried to force smile and get her to stop adding her sorrow and stress to mine, but once again my lower jaw felt like an alien object shoved into my mouth. To be fair though, she pointed out the thing that hurt me the most in that entire fight that almost resulted in my premature end. She probably experienced something similar in her brief but eventful mangaka career, and we always felt each other deeply when it comes to completely not relatable indie author problems.
I mentally chuckled, reply to the Princess in a casual manner. Truth to be told, I have a very personal relationship with the Princesses, being the Official Magical Artifact Retriever Of Equestria and all. And yes, that is the full name of my job. "Adventurer" is not a real career but something other authors made up to make the idea of putting your ass on the line day and night for something that's not even remotely your problem sound more appealing to gullible youngsters such as Filly Me.
Anyways, Luna seemed pleased of my response, and then took out a scroll from her saddle-bag. That's when I nearly died out of annoyance alone. It's not just any scroll she took out, but it's the "Emotionless Official Legal Business Scroll". Those things are the motherfucking bane of my existence, because my work requires a lot of freedom and time, since it mostly involves me tapping into ancient powers nopony is meant to ever touch again let along control, and the Princesses usually understand this. However, Princess Sunbutt, being the smart cookie that she is, set up a convoluted system of political checks and balances so that Equestria can run on auto-pilot if anything happened to her, and it just so happens that this new artificial government system was built with the critical design flaw known as a paranoid desire to monitor and control everything that goes on everywhere. That means endless "Official Scrolls" and "Official Visits" rushing me to turn ancient sacred idols into weapons of mass destruction. Celestia had realized that she made the critical mistake of turning on something that she can never turn off without a total bloodbath, but it's too late already and now she lost a massive chunk of control to her own country. But I know if you'd rather read about somepony complaining how corrupt the nature of Equestria's government is while also pointing out major benefits of that system at the same time, you'd be reading a different series of stories all together, so all that you need to know right now is that Fancy Official Scrolls equal bad news for me. Now, bear with me and let's find out what Moonbutt's Scroll has to say.
"Now, Daring, while I do understand the fact that you literally just woke up and has about 30 broken bones, I need to attend to a crisis, as you've probably witnessed already, so I can't exactly stay here. However, this Royal Order here needs to be read before I go. I know how much you hate these, but it's my sister's idea this time, so hopefully it's not as bad as usual." Luna disabled our mental link and explained to me verbally, skimming through her Scroll, "Ah, yes. A.K. Yearling of Baltimare, based on your skills in magical artifact pacification and knowledge in exotic creatures, you have been selected as part of a collective effort to reform a hijacked Changeling biological super weapon before it destroys our land and everything we care about. Thank you for your contributions." Luna read aloud in her "Canterlot Voice", and it took me a long moment to process what I just heard. So long, in fact, that I passed out again.
