Chapter Eleven: Dare to Do With Daring Do

"I wonder where this universe's Rainbow Dash is," I wondered aloud. Twilight looked up at the sky.

"Well, seeing as how the clouds have been arranged for the scheduled rain tomorrow, I think that Rainbow Dash is either hanging out with her friends or at home," she answered.

"In other words, probably off being awesome somewhere," Rainbow added, "I wonder which one of us is faster."

"Rainbow, this universe's Rainbow Dash is exactly like you, probably," I said.

We approached the historian's home, and knocked on the door. The brown earth pony with an hourglass cutie mark opened the door.

"Hello. What brings you to my home?" He stared at me for a moment. "Who might you be?"

"No, Time Piece. We're here to see Daring Do. This is Zach, he's from a very distant land," Twilight explained, covering my true identity. I had to remember to thank her for that later. If Time Piece knew where I was actually from, he'd have countless questions, like the other Twilight did.

"Hello," I said, pleasantly.

"Pleased to meet you. Is Daring expecting you?" Time Piece questioned.

"No, but we're only here to talk to her," I explained.

"Come on in, make yourself at home."

The interior of his house had many bookshelves, and several display cases showing several obviously ancient and historically-relevant artifacts. He led us to the study, where the treasure hunter could be seen, reading a thick book.

"Oh-my-gosh-oh-my-gosh-oh-my-gosh!" Rainbow sped toward the pegasus, who stood up. Twilight facehoofed.

The pair stared at each other for a moment. Rainbow with an expression of great excitement, and Daring with a surprised look which soon faded to a small smile.

"Hello, Daring, please excuse my friend, she was looking forward to meeting you," Twilight said, courteously.

"I can see that. Hey, Twilight, looking for your book so soon? Who's the other guy?" Daring asked, casually.

"I'll just leave you four here. I must ask you not to make a mess, though." Time Piece left the room, off to tend to his own buisness.

"It isn't about the book, Daring. You see, I'm not the same Twilight Sparkle you borrowed the book from, I'm from a different universe, and this is Zach. He's from another universe too," Twilight explained, rather non-chalantly. She was keeping her cool to get a good impression on the pegasus.

"That's preposterous! There are no other universes, that's filly-foolery!" Daring laughed. "Seriously, though, why are you here?"

"She's dead serious. Do I have to demonstrate?" I said.

"No, no, save your silly magic. Tell me, though, even if you are from a different universe, why are you here?"

"We wanted to meet you, of course! You're just so... awesome!" Rainbow explained.

"And... if you wish, assist you with any quest you are undertaking," Twilight added, with a smile. She wanted to go on an adventure with the one and only Daring Do, despite the dangers involved. I sighed.

"You sure? You three don't look like the most adventurous, except for you, Rainbow Dash, is it? I've heard of you, you're that pegasus that saved the Wonderbolts and that unicorn from falling. You're good! No offense, Twilight and Zach, but I think you two should sit out on this one, it's a particularly tricky one, but no match for my abilities," Daring said, with pride. She was really similar to Rainbow Dash, with the same overconfidence that was sometimes justified, and the same brave look in her eyes.

"Yes! Wait, what? You don't think Twilight can do it? If any unicorn is qualified, it's Twilight. She can teleport, move stuff, she can do almost anything with her magic!" Rainbow said, successfully convincing the palette-swapped pegasus.

"All right, Twilight, you can come. Zach..." she looked me over, "you clearly are not an adventurer, it's far too dangerous for you."

"Zach's saved the entire universe! He can handle an adventure, I'm sure of it," Twilight said. Darn. As much as I would never want to leave the ponies in a dangerous situation in another universe without me, going into an undoubtedly dangerous dungeon full of traps and maybe monsters of some sort wasn't my cup of tea, not at all. In fact, it might've been more fitting for me to just sit around doing nothing, instead of all of this aventuring we'd been doing. On the other hand, I was, like many of my generation, pretty much a slave to my technology, and doing something other than going on interesting adventures like these, and hanging out in this pre-industrial world, would probably get boring really quickly. So I decided; if Twilight and company were going, I was too.

If motivated by a cause, like rescuing a lost person in a different universe, I was completely willing to go on these adventures. A cause is a powerful thing, and fun is lost in the equation when such a powerful cause as saving lives or universes- in my case, both- motivates you to accomplish a goal. Despite what I'd been told, these adventures didn't make me any more worthy of appreciation. Anything I'd done, another person could have with ease. True, I was the only one of our group with knowledge of Fallout, but any major gamer could fulfill my role in that case. In battle, Twilight and Rainbow usually dished out the blows, and when, as had been happening an annoyingly large amount, I had to fight the two, I only emerged alive and victorious because of a powerful weapon to use, and even then I got the tar beaten out of me. I'm still not a hero, I'm just the kid with universe portal powers.

"What? The universe has never been in danger, Twilight, you, of all ponies, should know that!" Daring laughed.

"I'm serious! Zach can open a portal to our Equestria if you want to ask somepony there."

"Well, it looks like if one of us is going, we're all going. It's your call, Daring. Can we come, or not?" I said, flatly, silently half-hoping that she'd just refuse us and send us packing. She brought her hoof to her chin.

"Hmm, do you even know what we're going to go look for?" Daring looked at each of us. I shrugged. "Okay, I'll tell you. The artifact we're going to find is in an ancient griffon temple hidden deep in the Everfree Forest. Of course, since it's still known to be hidden, nopony's found it yet. I, however, have this book." Daring gestured toward her borrowed book.

"Ruins in the Everfree? I've heard of some of those before," Twilight said before Daring could continue.

"This book can tell us exactly where to look in the forest for the temple, it'll help us a lot. Now, for the artifact. It's an ancient, stupidly-rare gem that is said to be able to control- get this- time. Time Piece, for some reason, is more interested in the ruins themselves, and has promised to let me keep the gem if I explore the ruin for him. It seemed like a good idea to me. I don't want the gem, really, but there's an adventure to be had! The ruin is called Temporal Temple, a fitting name," Daring continued. Even if she shared Dash's brashness and courage, she was smarter than she looked.

"Temporal Temple? I know exactly where it is! In our universe it's a known archeological site. I've been there once, but it's been abandoned, and the path would be swallowed up by now," Twilight said.

"You know where it is?! Great! There's no time to lose, let's go!" Daring collected her saddlebags, the book, and her other equipment and bolted for the door. We followed promptly.

"What? Leaving already? Uh, be careful out there, be safe!" Time Piece called as we left.

Daring had decided to run there, and the ponies kept pace with her for a while until they realized I was too slow to keep up. They slowed to a walk, and I caught up.

"I can't believe I'm going on an adventure with the one and only Daring Do!" I heard Rainbow say. Daring chuckled.

"There's no rush, you know, the Everfree isn't very far," I said, somewhat annoyed.

"But the sun sets soon, don't you know what comes out at night in the Everfree Forest?" Daring reminded me.

"Manticores and cockatrices," I replied, flatly.

"And you aren't worried about them?"

I put my backpack on the ground, opened one of the pockets, and pulled the components of my laser rifle from it, and the three microfusion cells I had left.

"No," I said, putting together the rifle. "And besides, Twilight and Rainbow could both take on one of those alone."

"What is that?" Daring asked, pointing a hoof at the piece of human technology.

"A laser rifle. It fires beams of focused light out of one end. This is another one of the reasons I'm not afraid of cockatrices or manticores."

"Yeah, I'm not afraid of them either, they're light fare compared to what I've faced down. Come on!"

The forest was near now. I thought about why the temple might have remained un-found by other ponies in this universe, but not in the other.

"Wait, let's go into the temple from the other universe, I think it'll be safer," I said.

"Why do you think that?" Daring asked.

"Because, in this universe, temples and the like are always hard to find and dangerous to explore. In the other Equestria, though, this 'Temporal Temple' is just an archeological site. I'm also assuming the Everfree is safer in the other universe as well."

"Zach's got a point, there. In Rainbow and I's universe, your adventures appear as stories, and actual ruins are far more tame, but don't contain legendary treasure nearly as often," Twilight said.

"All right, let's go. This is safe, right?"

"Of course." I opened the portal, and the three ponies and I stepped in.

There was an identical scene before us as we came through the portal.

"Okay, let's get going," I said, as Daring looked around.

"Nothing looks any different," she said.

"Of course not, the only real differences between your universe and this one are that you're real in that one and you're not in this one, and that there are fewer monster-infested, trap-ridden ruins," I explained.

"Wow. So you can move between universes."

"Why would I lie?"

The group continued onward, into the Everfree Forest as the sun began to set.