In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
Daring Do moaned from pain as she woke up. When the golden yellow pegasus mare opened her eyes, she realized that, sadly, what she hoped was just a nightmare was reality.
They - she, her little sister, Star Do, their big brother, Kombat Do, his girlfriend Daisy Shine, and their two other friends, Tripping Joe and Lilydrop - came to Ponynesia to celebrate Star's joining the Wonderbolts. For few days, the six friends spend their time on islands drinking, exploring the islands, drinking, partying, drinking, swimming, and drinking. They would be still doing all of that, if not for what happened in the morning.
They had just landed on a deserted beach on one of the islands, were suddenly another motorboat appeared in their sight. Thinking that those were just tourist, like them, they paid them no mind, even when it was clear they were heading towards their beach. It wasn't until those Diamond Dogs jumped from behind the trees of the jungle that they noticed that something was wrong.
Daring had troubles remembering what happened after that, other that she was quickly knocked out. Now she could see that she was inside a bamboo cage, had her fronthoooves tied up above her head, there was some rag inside her mouth...
...and her wings were broken.
She forced back her tears that came to her eyes upon that realization when she noticed that her brother was here with her. Sure, the tan pegasus with black mane and two spears crossed in front of a shield as a cutie mark was tied up like her, and his wings were also broken, guessing by the bandage, but still, the thought of Kombat being near comforted her a bit. It was a pity that he was still unconscious, otherwise they could...
"Oh, looks like the 'sleeping beauty' is awake!"
Daring turned her head to the source of the sound. Outside of the cage stood a pony looking-like creature, except his neck was a bit longer than it should, he had two small horns-like things sprouting from his head, and his neck and legs had white-and-black stripes on them. The rest of his body was light brown, and his mane slightly darker, was much smaller than pony's, and was kept in mohawk style.
"Is he some kind of half-zebra nutjob?" Daring thought as the creep leaned closer to the cage.
"So, what do we have here?" he asked with light voice as he glanced at something he hold in his hoof; Daring realized that those were hers and Kombat's documents. "Kombat and Daring, from Los Pegasus, huh? Huh?" he looked at them as if waiting for answer, and the continued: "Well, I hope your mama and your papa really love you, because you two featherbrains look very expensive. And that's good," he said, suddenly coming closer to Daring, "because I like expensive things."
The strange zebra-thingy reached with his hoof through the cage and put it on the inner side of Daring's legs, causing her to move away in fear. Immediately, incredible pain shook her as her injured wings brushed the cage's bars. The fact that the creep that imprisoned them moved his hoof closer to her private area was not helping.
At that moment, her brother started to growl angrily through the gag.
"I'm sorry, what did you say?" the creep said, moving to Kombat, and taking his hoof with him. "What did you say?"
Kombat growled once more.
"Did you want me to slice you open like I did your friend?" their captor shouted in response, although, what scarred Daring most was that he didn't seemed as angry as his words indicated. "Shut the fuck up, okay? I'm the one with the fucking dick."
By that point, Kombat was no longer looking at him, clearly disgusted.
"Look at me, look me in the fucking eye. Hey! You fuck!" he screamed as her Daring's brother continued to ignore him. "Look me in the eye!" Kombat finally glanced at him. "You're my bitch. I rule this fucking kingdom. Shut the fuck up! Or you’ll die."
Daring was terrified as she looked at them, worried that in his rage, that their captor would kill Kombat.
And then she would be alone.
"What is it, Daring?" their captor asked her, noticing her worried gaze."Daring, what is it? Why aren't you laughing like what you did on the beach? What, is this not fun anymore? Have I failed to entertain you?! You see, the thing is that you pegasi always think that up there, you have a chance way up in the fucking skies, thinking that up there, you have your hoof on the pussy trigger. But hermana, down here..." he paused and picked some sand from the ground, scattering it around, "... down here...? You hit the ground."
"Hey, Vas" a sudden and stern voice interrupted the zebra-like freak.
Daring turned her head towards the source of the voice and saw, to her surprise, that it didn't belong to either of the two approaching Diamond Dogs, but rather, to the dark coated unicorn that stood between them. Her assumption that he was another prisoner, like them, was proven wrong as the unicorn addressed their captor:
"Stops scarring the prisoners." he ordered. "I need you to take care of the rejects."
"Is he his boss?" Daring thought, dismayed that a pony could be behind all of this. At the same time, she wondered: "What does he mean by 'rejects'?"
Their captor: - Vas - rose and followed the retreating unicorn.
“I hope you two are going to be more fun than those fuckers." he told them as he was leaving, eyeing Daring.
She hung her head down as she realized what he meant. Daring couldn't believe this all was happening. At one moment, she was having a time of her life with her siblings and friends, and in the other, she was in a cage, tied up, wings broken, and about to be raped by a freak and Celestia knows how many of his underlings.
Tears began to form in her eyes and one of them began to run down her cheek... only to be brushed away by a familiar hoof.
Daring looked up in disbelieve as her brother, free from his bonds, took the gag from her mouth and began to work on the ropes holding her hooves, while muttering angrily:
"Motherfucker..."
As soon as Kombat untied her hooves, Daring wrapped them around him, sobbing.
"Shh..." her brother tried to calm her, putting her head. "Don't worry, everything will be alright now, I promise."
Kombat moved her away and glanced around. Their cage was within some kind of outpost, in the middle of the jungle. There was one Diamond Dogs guarding them, but he wasn't looking in their direction.
"We need to get out of here."
"How?" Daring asked her brother.
He didn't need much time to get an idea.
"Call the guard." Kombat told her as he moved back to the spot he was tied up to earlier.
"What?"
"Just do it." he said, while raising his hooves up above him, as if they were still tied up, and signaling her to do the same.
Reluctantly, Daring did as he asked. With her hooves up, she called:
"Hey, um, guard! Come here!"
The Diamond Dog turned around and walked up to the cage.
"What is it?" he asked as he leaned closer to it.
Kombat immediately threw his hooves through the bars and wrapped them around the Dog's neck, silencing him and suffocating at the same time. Daring look as the guard fell dead on the ground.
"You... you killed him!" she whispered in disbelieve.
"That's what they teach you in the royal guard." her brother replied as he picked up the keys from the corpse and opened the cage's gate. "Stay close to me."
Later, Daring could never recall how they managed to get pass four other Diamond Dogs as they made their escape. She only remembered that following Kombat, and that she kept wishing they could just fly away. While nowhere near Star's or Kombat's level, she was still an adept flyer and could easily get away, even if there were griffons here if those feathers Daring saw here and there were any indication.
She did recalled what they saw as they stopped in the shack their captors used as the storage.
"Grab our stuff, and that map, too." Kombat told her as he glanced through the window, making sure there were no guards nearby. "Take that radio, we might be able to hear what their saying between themselves later."
As Daring did as her brother said, she heard his whisper:
"Oh Celestia, no..."
Despite knowing that whatever it was he saw was something horrible, she looked through the window.
"So that's what he meant by 'rejects'..." she thought as she puked after seeing Vas slit throats of three ponies, thankfully, none of them were her friends.
Daring felt her brother's hoof pat her delicately on her back.
"Come on, we need to get moving."
"I can't..." she rasped, on a verge of tears. "I... I..."
"Look at me." Kombat commended softly, lifting her head so that they would look into each other's eyes. "I can't find Star and the others without you. So pull it together."
As much as she wished to just curl up in the corner, Kombat's words reminded her that they still didn't know where the others were. And as much as Daring knew that Star would probably freed herself, she was still her little sister, and Daring couldn't bear the thought of her meeting that insane bastard.
"Okay." she told her brother, reluctantly, but firmly.
"Your better with maps, where are we?" Kombat asked her ten minutes later, after they finally left their captors' hideout.
"Give me moment..."
Daring glanced at the map, thinking that she never thought that her love for traveling and outing would come in handy in such way. She quickly found the place where they were abducted, trying not to think about two more Diamond Dogs Kombat killed during sneaking out, or that she would have been spotted if her brother didn't throw a rock to distract another one.
"This is the beach they attacked us, so we must be... " Daring paused to check the stars, recalling how they looked the other way. Looking back at the map, she poked at one of the marked outpost that was most likely to be the place they were now. "Here. It doesn't say where the Star is, thought..."
"Listen, we're gonna find him, we're gonna free the other's, and then we're going home." Kombat told her, and immediately as he finished speaking Daring heard a loud bang, followed by her brother falling on the ground with a small hole in the throat which was bleeding rapidly.
"What? Huh?" she heard somewhere behind them the angry voice of their captor, Vas. Despite her mind telling her to get the buck away from there, she pressed her hooves at the wound, trying to stop her brother’s life fluid from leaving his body.
"Hang in there, Kombat!" she told him, her eyes pouring tears like a waterfall, as Kombat struggled at the ground; trying to speak, but failing, and patting her on her shoulder. "Oh Celestia, don't die, please! Hang in there, Kombat!"
As she was desperately trying to stop her brother's death, Vas continued to speak.
"What, you want to run? Huh, you want to run, to disrespect me? You want to fuck with me? I mean, you come here, with your pretty filly face, and your pretty filly stuff, and your dimwit brother, and you want to fuck with me? You want to fuck with me."
Her brother's struggle was becoming less violent.
"No, Kombat, don't die!" she screamed, and at that moment, the struggle had ceased completely. "Kombat!"
Her brother was dead.
"You promised me everything would be alright."
"I like that. No, I respect that." she heard Vas speak and she twisted her head to glance at him, sure he was going to either kill her now, or rape her, then kill her.
She didn't care anymore.
"I'm gonna give you thirty seconds." the freak, surrounded by a bunch of Diamond Dogs, stood ten meters away from her as he said that. In his hoof, Daring noticed a strange object, with a smoke coming out from the end of it. "Thirty seconds, and if this jungle doesn't eat you up alive, I will." he paused to whistle, as if she was a dog. "Go, go. What, are you fucking deaf? I said get the fuck outta here you chicken fuck!"
Part of her wanted to stay here. She wanted to let this all end, to die near her big brother, who always protected her since she was little. But there was the other part - the part that recalled that she had a little sister left.
So Daring rose and, glancing one last time at the dead body of her brother, the sight which would hunt her for the rest of her life, she began to make her way into the jungle. Behind her she could hear the taunting words of Kombat's killer:
"Run, chicken, run!"
To say that this run through the jungle at night was crazy would be an understatement. No words could describe the fear Daring felt that night as she heard the Diamond Dogs chasing her, with spears and arrows flying above her head, with occasional loud bangs, like the one that sounded at the moment of Kombat's death. At one point, Daring hoped she lost them, by squeezing through a small passage in the rocks. As soon after she left it, a Diamond Dog jumped from above, tackling her to the ground.
"I found her!" he yowled as lowered his paws to her, trying to grab her.
Daring didn't knew why or how she did that but somehow, she slipped from his grasp, took the knife he had hoisted to his jacket, and pierced his throat with it.
"Oh, Celestia..." she said as she realized what she just did.
She just killed a living being!
Daring knew that she didn't have the time to puke, so she spun around and continued to run. She began to think that she might have left her pursuers behind, when she saw something on her right.
"Oh, it's just a bear." she thought, calming down.
For a moment...
"Wait, a bear?!?"
Panicky rising, she speeded up, entering a not very stable bridge which is built above a running river far below it. Daring crossed the half way of it, when suddenly griffins appeared who were laughing as they cut off the lines, causing the bridge - and her along with it- to fall down.
The water was ice cold. The river carried Daring off to somewhere. Where? She didn't know, nor did she care. It was over. She outlived her brother by few minutes. She apologized in her mind to Star and their friends that she couldn't saved them. Why it couldn't be her that got killed, and Kombat the one that got a chance to escape? He was stronger, he was a royal guard, and he would have made it. Daring Do cursed the strange fate, the bad luck that caused them all to be captured.
As she was passing out, she could have sworn she saw a hoof reaching down from the surface of water.
"Kombat?" she thought sheepishly.
Daring grabbed the hoof and her world was filled with darkness.
