Beams of light shone through the cracks of the silent and ancient ruins when in its centre was the awesome Pegasus slowly regaining consciousness her eyes open but little as she wakes, staring curiously asking herself "Whu-Where am- Ugh!"
She sighed effortlessly whilst rolling her eyes, coincidentally identifying the precious artifact that had sparked this long and tiresome adventure. The artifact in question nestling within overgrowth atop a brittle, clay alter as cautiously as possible the adventurous mare trotted to the alter picking up the artifact, a finely crafted and bejewelling crown, nabbing it quickly from the ivory chains that had overgrown from the fallout of time very nonchalantly packing the crown into her knapsack meanwhile the strain of the ivory bindings being pulled ruptured the alter causing it to shatter into a billion pieces, the daring Pony flinched freezing in her pose momentarily then peeking her eyes open.
“-Oops…” She muttered, remaining still whilst looking around the room, her eyes wide with a look of confusion as she looked around the space with only her head simply waiting as if expecting something to happen.
The risk-taking pony began thinking of a rather dangerous plan to get out of the Maeran ruins, clenching the flap of the knapsack with her teeth to open it up then plonking her snout into it pulling out a stick of dynamite; resting the fuse near a rock she then commenced with whacking her hoof against the rock using the metal-studded pony-shoe of hers as a flint and in a brief moment the fuse was lit hastily picking up the sparkling dynamite with her teeth; launching it towards a wall then leaping far into the opposite end of the space.
Within a few seconds the dynamite blew a gigantic hole into the side of the ruin connecting her to the outside world again but at the same time tearing a crack up the centre of the wall which kept going and going as the curious mare stood and watched only to grit her teeth the once the maeran temple suddenly began to tremor, pieces of old ancient masonry with century-old hieroglyphics were dropping down to the ground shattering with shrapnel flying off yet with a confident smile the brave Pegasus swooped up into the air swirling and twisting in every direction to avoid the falling debris and shrapnel.
The freshly created exit was already becoming blocked up and with that being noticed more and more the Pegasus bolted to what became a small hole with a mere second apart the swift Pegasus made it out just as the exit was sealed off by the falling debris.
As she entered the outside world again she victoriously loop-de-looped but whilst she celebrated her near-death experience with victory aerobatics the Maeran temple collapsed-in on itself, turning to face the ruined ruins the energetic mare whistled, turned and bolted away from the scene.
Passing a coincidentally large sign which reads 'Creeky Mare Canyon' she sped on carelessly, little did she know a new foe was waiting for the nimble Pegasus within the canyon.
Soaring through the peaceful and calm canyon the Pegasus feels reassured of herself when out of nowhere a boulder smashes against the side of the canyon from atop dropping down perfectly into the mares flight-path, grinning she swiftly evades the boulder with brilliant success but falls victim to the distracting boulder and becomes engulfed in a net resulting in the Pegasus to bomb all the way down into the creek at the base of the canyon.
Making contact with the water she immediately paddles to stay afloat despite the constraints of the netting the mare does all she can to keep her snout out of the water and after travelling rapidly down the stream the soaked Pegasus is abruptly taken hostage by a large rat-like creature picking up the net and the Pegasus with ease, the two make silent eye-contact staring longingly at one another until the large rattacus breaks the silences as it bellows a roar at point-blank into the mares face of which the mare tactlessly winces her face in response, wafting a hoof in front of her snout. "Bleh" She exclaims as she does her best to waft away the stinky rattacus breath.
With a heavy thud the poor Pegasus is dropped onto the floor with the rattacus standing guard directly behind the mare to which it salutes a direction leaving the confused Pegasus raising an eyebrow at what this rattacus was doing, her ears twitch as she picks up the sound of light foot-steps accompanied by a slow applause emitting from a nearby cave and as she turns her gaze towards the opening she sees an eerie silhouette approaching her; she leans her head forwards and squints her eyes attempting to make out this mysterious Do-Baddie.
A large paw of a Siberian tiger steps out into the light followed by another large paw, the mare now bored leans back and waits until- The ‘do-baddie’ steps completely into the light the mare’s jaw drops and eyes widen, stood before her was the despicable and does-all-things-bad Artipuss the Dreamer, a gryphon with an unusual coat for his lower lion half it being of a Siberian pattern however his tail was more abnormal than his lions coat for his tail was thick, scaly and green much like a lizards tail and grimly he chuckled at the captured Pegasus looking down on her.
Opening his large beak to speak Artipuss asks in Spikes voice. "Hey Twilight! What’yah doin’?"
An innocent and purple baby dragon stood on the ground floor of the Ponyville library waiting for a response from above to which an irate magical and purple unicorn snapped. "Spike! You’ve made me much up my writing, can’t a mare just write in her diary without being interrupted for once?! Aurgh!"
Poor Spike flinched, apologizing. "Okay! Okay! Sorry! Jeeze!"
Spike walked away, muttering and returned to his chores.
"Okay…Now where was I?" Twilight asked herself whilst removing the last sentence from the paper with a simple eraser spell, she then continued to levitate her quill back into position continuing the story further…
Artipuss opened up his large beak to speak, his posh upbeat voice taking the Pegasus by surprise.
"I say! So you’re this Daring Do, eh? Well, I am Artipuss the Dreamer! A pleasure to meet you, now, that artifact you took… Paw it over, will you?"
With a stubborn glance Daring Do does as she’s told as she’s let out of the net the rattacus holds onto her wings to which Daring Do strikes a venomous glare but takes a deep breath and exhales restraining herself; tossing the knapsack over to Artipuss.
"That’s a good sport! Don’t get many of them these days, I mean, just take me for example! Hah! Pah-hah-har!"
Artipuss utters, gleefully clawing open & practically shredding the knapsack into pieces leaving Daring Do to stomp one front hoof after another against the floor in anger her tick metre rising to critical levels as she’s about to explode but Daring Do takes a deep breath and exhales restraining herself further, Artipuss fails to find any sign of the artifact however his eyes notice a piece of paper amongst the torn knapsack.
"Ooh! A piece of parchment? I hope you don’t mind Daring Do, just being beaky you see!"
With Artipuss distracted Daring-Do quickly and quietly leans forwards then double upper-hooves the rattacus, her wings now free the daring adventurer swoops up and behind the rattacus launching her front hooves into its spine instantly stunning the overgrown rat as it falls onto the floor, she stands on its back triumphantly.
"Look… Up…" States the note, Artipuss looks upwards to see Daring Do stood atop his monstrous henchman as he confusingly exclaims.
"I say!" A fowl grin runs wild on the peculiar gryphon's face
"No matter young mare! Artipuss the Dreamer is always up to a bit of scrap! Tallyho!"
Artipuss charges towards Daring Do, she sighs. "Ugh…
Rolling her eyes in full circulation, completely unimpressed then swoops past Artipuss.
"Nope! Not happening!" With a quick turn of his body Artipuss launches his long lizard tail in Daring Do’s direction, she counters with a turn upwards to which Artipuss swings his tail to follow her, she counters once again with a turn to her left, then her right, her other right and then back down, the gryphon’s tail having followed Daring in every direction she took.
Landing back in front of the tired gryphon, Daring staring back at Artipuss with a snarky smile on her face she lets loose a large grin, the bewildered gryphon asks. "All smiles are we..? Well… Why?"
Daring Do swaps her big grin back to a smile as she looks up; around; everywhere she flew to, Artipuss stares and gasps in awe of being setup by Daring, his tail had hit and weakened the surrounding rocky walls causing several cracks to stream all the way up the canyon damaging it severely, looking back at Daring who mockingly salutes Artipuss.
Before Artipuss is able to lunge himself towards Daring once again the first loose rock drops between the two shaking the ground beneath them, taken by surprise Artipuss the Dreamer and Daring Do look up to witness a whole barrage of rocks descending from various levels of height further up the canyon.
The rocks begin to hit the ground and litter the area but Daring manages to swoop out of the way of each falling obstacle whereas Artipuss barely manages to avoid being crushed. "This is not over Daring Do!"
He exclaims angrily extending and shaking his right eagle claw a rock misses him once again as he lets out a cry. "I had a dream like this once! Ahh!"
Exclaiming whilst he runs into the cave for safety and shortly more rocks tumble down sealing the cave off, Daring Do giggles and swoops off deeper through the canyon.
Eventually making her way out of Creeky Mare Canyon Daring Do stops for a quick breath and removes her hat revealing the artifact, she smiles as she looks at it resting on her head then secures her hat back on her head covering the artifact once more, Daring victoriously lets rip a simple hoof-pump before bolting off into the distance for her next adventure.
‘The End.’
"That ought to do it!" Exclaimed a very happy Twilight Sparkle
"I can’t wait to see what Rainbow Dash thinks of this one, I’m sure she’ll love it!" Levitating the quill into the ink pot she puts the new edition to the Daring Do series onto the shelf with the rest when suddenly she notices Spike walking by on the ground floor as she calls down to ask.
"Oh Spike! I almost forgot! A new copy of the Daring Do series arrived for Rainbow Dash, think you could go let her know?" Tiresomely he requests "Why can’t you do it Twilight?"
Twilight gasped with shock "Err…Hello! I have like a million things to get done today? That’s why!"
With that being said she rushed towards a checklist, snapping books off shelves, checking the names of the books to correspond with the checklist.
Spike, unwilling to argue rolled his eyes and sighs. "Ugh."
