Chapter Nine: Where To Go

Twilight and I left the library, to gather up Rainbow. I had no idea where we could go have an intriguing, but short adventure that wouldn't be dangerous; the fiction works I had read, seen and played were rarely bright or safe, and the ones that were didn't come to my mind very easily.

"Didn't you say in one of your letters that our universe has been portrayed before in fiction in your universe? Something you said was often called 'first generation' in brony terms?" Twilight asked, dropping the idea right into my head. That's somewhere we could go, but I didn't know anything about it other than that it wasn't nearly as good as the current rendition of My Little Pony and that it was mostly about really stereotypically-girly things, things even Rarity might consider silly.

"Yeah, but I don't really know anything about it. Let's see where Rainbow wants to go next." I knew the answer to this; she probably still wanted to meet Daring Do.

I looked up at the sky. Pegasi were moving clouds into a growing clump overhead. Twilight noticed my distraction.

"The pegasi are going to make it rain tomorrow."

"Where's Rainbow?"

"I don't know. She's usually helping out the other pegasi on a day like this. Of course, if she was, then the clouds would already be in place. I wonder where she is."

"Let's check out Sugarcube Corner. Maybe she's there."

"Good idea," Twilight agreed.

We walked into Sugarcube Corner to be greeted by Mrs. Cake.

"Hello, Twilight, hello... Zach, is it?"

"Yes, that's my name. We were wondering if you've seen-"

A pink blur entered the room, and the energetic pony I knew as Pinkie Pie had placed herself in front of me.

"Hi, Pinkie."

"Zach! How've you been? Is your eye okay? It looks like it hurts. I heard you and Twilight and Rainbow had a big adventure and you guys saved a lot of people! Is that true?" The excited earth pony was exuding her regular air of happiness. I smiled, as was inevitable when dealing with the party pony.

"It is, Pinkie. Have you seen Rainbow Dash around?" Twilight answered her questions for me.

"Oh, yeah, she's at home, reading one of her Daring Do books!"

"How do you know that? Doesn't Rainbow live in the sky?" Every logical fiber of my being told me that she couldn't have any idea what Rainbow was doing if she lived in the middle of the sky. Of course, logic does not apply to Pinkie Pie unless she wants it to.

"Yep!" As I thought.

"I'll teleport over there and get her," Twilight volunteered. In a purple flash, she was gone. I envied her magical ability, such power she commanded, yet she never used it for evil. Remarkable. Almost any person would abuse it, including myself, probably. She can teleport, shield herself and others from bullets, emit potent magical blasts, and has potent telekinesis. All of these powers were free for her to use at will, with few limits. She was far more powerful than any human could ever be, yet, despite all of her power, she was unquestionably pure of corruption, which almost always comes with power. Then again, this universe isn't prone to such things as corruption, it was prone to such things as magic and rainbows. This place was pretty utopian, really.

A few moments later, Twilight and Rainbow walked into the bakery.

"Hey, everypony and Zach, what's up?"

"Well, Luna hasn't found the other human yet, so we've got some time on our hooves."

"Luna suggested that we go to other universes in the meantime, and I can't think of anything, really... you still want to go meet Daring Do, right?"

"Well, yeah! Can you take us to that universe?"

"I can. Pinkie, do you want to come too?"

"No thanks, I'm trying out some new recipes this evening, they're going to be just like the MMM, but in cupcake form!"

"Sounds like a good plan, Pinkie. Good luck with that."

I left the bakery, Twilight and Rainbow followed.

"So when do we go? Now?" Rainbow was already impatient.

"Wouldn't Spike like to go with us?"

"No, he doesn't really like Daring Do, and he's really afraid of traps, temples, and snakes. It's my opinion that it's far too unlikely to encounter such a thing. Besides, the adventures in the books must be the most dangerous ones, right?" Twilight had a reasonable argument, but from what I saw of 'fictional universes', everything in these universes was real, which meant that every single temple or reliquary could be assumed to be full of traps and whatnot, just waiting for some clever, intrepid pony to circumvent them.

"In this universe, that might be so, but that universe is different; the Fallout universe had almost every single aspect of the game's world in it, so we can assume that Daring Do's adventures follow the same scheme as they do in the books; everything is dangerous, all escapes are narrow, et cetera," I reasoned.

"I guess you're right. We'll just be careful, then." Twilight was hiding some excitement. She was about as big a fan of the book series as Rainbow was, and was just itching to meet the intrepid pony they'd read about. It reminded me of some of the bronies that had, after the universe-breach incident a few weeks ago, had written about going through portals similar to the ones I could create and what they would do in Equestria if it were actually possible. Since it was now clear that it was, in a way that only Discord and I knew about, the number of these stories increased exponentially, and had become more numerous than any other type of story combined. The ways some bronies explained it in their stories were similar to how it actually was, almost eerily so. A familiar notion returned to my mind. This is quite a bit like those self-insert fics other bronies write.

"Now, how are we going to find Daring when we get there?" I asked.

"She's world-famous in the novels, I think somepony will know where we can find her."

"Okay, that makes sense. Let's go prepare, and this time, you two can tell me about what going to this universe is going to be like."

We proceeded toward the library. On the way, I wondered how I'd manage to get home so I could go to bed and go to school for tomorrow. This adventure wasn't important, so I had no reason to miss school over it. I'd cross that bridge when I reached it. For now, it was time to learn all about Daring Do and her awesome adventures through exotic lands and ancient temples.