Daring Do and the Tome of Insanity
The ruins were not a very hospitable place for anypony. A sand-colored pegasus mare gritted her teeth in displeasure as she stared at the mess of rubble that lay in front of her. “Great, I really didn’t need this to be any more difficult.”
She’d been lead there by an old story known as the Legend of Lunacy. The tale spoke of a book filled with lore from an ancient society. Nopony really knew what sort of knowledge it might contain, but it was said that reading too much from it could cause a pony to lose their mind.
An artifact like that was valuable to somepony. If nothing else, Daring wanted to keep it out of the hooves of those who would use it for evil. She slowly picked her way through the debris towards the center of the ruins.
A stone chamber showed itself and Daring entered. The mare stopped as soon as she crossed the threshold. As if she was looking at a perfectly placed movie set, there was a leather-bound book resting on a pedestal in the center of the room.
Wary of traps, Daring slowly crept towards her prize. Cautiously touching the book, she lifted it from its resting place. Nothing fell on her, and the floor didn’t open up to reveal a pool of lava, so she figured it was safe.
Glancing down, Daring saw that the book was very old. That fit the legend. She was tempted to open it, but had seen her share of malicious magic artifacts and had no desire to expose herself to something like that.
There was a rumble that seemed to shake the ground beneath Daring. She looked up, head swiveling to look for danger.
A giant boulder crashed through the ceiling and slid towards the frightened mare. Daring jumped out of the way, wings flaring to make a speedy exit. A small chunk of stone flung from the crashing boulder hit her in the back, tumbling Daring out the door and into a heap.
At least it was safe here. Daring sat up, not feeling too injured. Her eyes fell on the book, which had flopped open.
There once was a magical city called Ponyville. Every thousandth year, an invasion was launched by bees from the potato fields surrounding the town. They would typically fly through Ponyville and steal fresh-baked pumpernickel bread that ponies had worked hard to make. The bees fleeing the confines of the fields they normally inhabited was called by the residents of the town, “The big RAPE”(Rowdy Agricultural Pests Escaping)
“Well, that didn’t seem too insane,” Daring noted, quickly closing the book. She got up, brushing herself off with her wings, and headed for the exit.
Several large beasts blocked the end of the passageway. Daring stopped short, staring with concern at a couple of fierce jungle cats. There was no way they would normally be teaming up to attack her, and that meant her old archenemy had returned.
Daring shouted, “Ahuizotl! Show yourself!”
A malevolent chuckle greeted her ears as a much less pleasant greeting was received by her eyes. Ahuizotl, a strange chimera of creatures, walked in. “We meet again, Daring Do. And once again, you have something that belongs to me.”
Daring rolled her eyes. This kind of thing happened with surprising regularity. “Just what are you planning to do with this book?”
“Hmm, I think I’ll test it first.” Ahuizotl grinned.
“But you’ll have to catch me!” The passageway left no room for flying, but Daring would not give up so easily. As she turned, more hostile cats showed themselves from behind her. It seemed that Ahuizotl had doubled his security forces.
“Well, that was easy,” snickered the villain.
It wasn’t long before Daring was bound and left lying carelessly on the floor. Having some experience with situations like this, she began to cautiously work the ropes binding her with a sharp rock that she’d landed on. Ahuizotl held up the book. “Now, let’s try this out.”
He read through the part about the bees. The next section was about the solution to the problem of them stealing the pumpernickel.
There was a mare named Twilight who proposed the totalitarian solution of, “Twin torpedos, brandishing a big slick six shooter with twin outboard engines inside a coffee grinder.” It was a mystery why she said this. It wasn’t like her mind was wheedling from Ponyville being under the effects of radioactive fallout or anything.
“I don’t understand,” questioned Daring. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
Ahuizotl glared at her. “Quiet.”
It was clear that something was wrong with Twilight and a solution had to be found. With a burst of antidisestablishmentarianism and some string, her friend Applejack began to bake a nice chimicherrychunga.
“A what?” asked Daring.
Enraged, Ahuizotl threw the book across the room. “Shut up! It isn’t my fault you decided to go after the most worthless legendary artifact in existence!”
“You followed me here,” contested Daring. Ahuizotl started towards her angrily. The ropes she’d been working on fell free and Daring kicked him in his weird little face. Grabbing the book, she dashed for the exit.
Ahuizotl still seemed to be apt at catching fleeing ponies even when mildly injured. As his grasp closed over Daring’s hind legs, she wondered if perhaps that ability would lessen if the wound she’d inflicted was more severe.
In her experience with magic items, Daring knew that sometimes their effect depended on who was attempting to use them. As Ahuizotl began to drag her backwards, she flipped open the book and began to read aloud.
The famous chimicherrychunga did not work, and other methods for curing Twilight were sought. While swallowing sandwiches at lunch, a friend named Fluttershy suggested fawnication, but Twilight said that she was not too hot for deer sex, claiming that such techniques only worked on robots anyway.
A renowned rapmaster was brought in to talk some sense into Twilight with verse. Derp was not only her name, but her game. The mare managed to rhyme “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” “hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia,” “raxacorcofallapatorius,” and the lovely “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.” It was quite a feat, for a non-zebra.
“I’m not listening!” warned Ahuizotl. Daring read faster, hoping to somehow figure out how the book worked.
After entertaining a whole thousand ponies, literally a kilopone, the rap concert ended with Twilight still not assimilated. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and thirteen spaceship-mounted gauss rifles with secret lasers were ordered into position. Twilight insisted that cookies and Judaism were to blame, not to mention eighty-seven specific incidences of nuclear insubordination among the 69th New York Irish Regiment. Such a proclamation promptly caused all missiles and bombs launched from the aforementioned spaceships to unfollow orders and return themselves to sender. Things looked bleak.
And they did for Daring Do, too. Ahuizotol finished returning her to the chamber where the book had been found and began preparing more rope. Trying a different tactic, Daring said, “Aren’t you going to question what I’m reading? Maybe we can work out the meaning of this together.”
Ahuizotol gave her an unfriendly look. “I’d rather not. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go make preparations to kill you.”
Daring was left alone for a few minutes. She turned her eyes back to the book, wondering if perhaps finishing it would finally unlock its mystery.
“Hello, bacon!” called Iron Will the minotaur. Warming up the frying pan, he didn’t notice a creeper stealthily lifting his kitchen window. After swiftly clubbing Iron over the head, his assailant celebrated the small victory by carrying the unconscious minotaur outside and to a waiting submarine. After a long ride, they transferred to a train at a station. The head-clubber smiled. She liked trains.
Temped to ride the rails some more, but unwilling to procrastinate, she pulled Iron away from the station into a small town known locally as “The Forbidden Planet” since Twilight had renamed it. On most maps, it was called Ponyville.
“Gak!” shrieked Twilight as she beheld the newcomer and her snoozing cargo of Iron Will. “You whoremonger! Wasn’t the Crystal Empire or the Fudge Utopia good enough for you? Now you go polluting this area with your vitae of anthropomorphism among bulls!”
“Actually, Iron Will isn’t anthropomorphic at all. He’s just a minotaur.”
“Regardless, Rarity,” fumed Twilight, addressing her rival for the first time, “I didn’t think you went for the circumsized.”
The other mare gasped. “Your misogyny will not phase me! Twilight, despite your degree in Thermomagical Physics, your insanity must be stopped!”
“Banana-zucchini pie!” insisted Twilight. Her comment threw Rarity off for just long enough to let Twilight whip up a master sandstorm spell to conceal what she was actually doing.
Rarity coughed through the blowing sand, and bumped into somepony. “Terribly sorry—myself?”
It was a clone. She jumped back, the horrors of agastopia written on her face. Twilight jumped out of the sandstorm but tripped, her hoof banging a rock with a sound like “tunk.”
Not pausing to consider the consequences of her actions or what possible minerals the strange stone might contain, or even what Iron Will might do with Rarity’s clone when he awakened, Twilight ordered, “Go hug a lycan in a haberdashery!”
Caught in echolalia, Rarity replied, “Not even with koalas’ testosterone.”
The two mares looked at each other, neither quite sure what to make of the situation. “I…I think I may have overdone it,” admitted Twilight.
Her original statement of “Twin torpedos, brandishing a big slick six shooter with twin outboard engines inside a coffee grinder,” turned out to be quite correct, however, and the day was saved from the bees.
Daring turned the page, finding the next one blank. The rest of the book revealed no new words. “That’s it?” she murmured in shock.
Ahuizotol came back into the room. The last thing he expected was to get hit in the face with a very heavy book.
“This is useless!” shouted Daring as Ahuizotol rubbed his head and appeared to come to a sudden realization.
“Hey,” he said. “Why the heck are my eyes where my nose is supposed to be? What kind of God or evolutionary process would allow that?”
And then Daring lost her mind.
“This is terrible, Pinkie,” said Rainbow. “I mean, I’ve read some horrible fanfics in my time, including by that one guy what’s-his-name, but I think this is the single worst story I’ve ever seen.”
“What’s-his-name?” asked Pinkie. “Didn’t he keep insisting that he wasn’t a bro pony?”
“Well, he portmanteau’d it into ‘brony’ and claimed that he totally wasn’t one.” Rainbow sighed. “I don’t even know where a username like that comes from.”
Pinkie shrugged. “Well anyway, I’m just about to post this to the ponynet.”
“Are you sure?” asked Rainbow. “You asked me to have an editing party for a reason. As your editor, I advise you not to post it. It would be a bigger disaster than when Twilight was writing about shipping with real ships.”
“Silly, ‘editing party’ actually means ‘Pinkie Private Party.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “I know. Every time you invite me to one of these, we end up sleeping together.”
“Do you mind?”
“Just no fanfiction in bed, please.”
