Daring Di and the Dastardly Duo

"Do we have to?" Diamond Tiara asked.

"Spoon picked the last thing we did, and you got to pick before her," Alula said.  "It's my turn now.  And I wanna play Daring Do."

Diamond Tiara growled in frustration.  Whenever they played dress-up and it was Alula's turn, the pegasus always chose Daring Do.  Well, that or something swashbuckley like Marel Flynn.  And that meant Diamond and Silver always had to play the bad guys.  Normally, she was fine with that.  After all, the bad guys were usually pretty cool.  It meant they could invent wild backstories and give them silly accents.  Today though, she wasn't in the mood to play the bad guy.

Alas, there was nothing Diamond could do about it.  The three of them had agreed long ago that they would alternate who picked what they did after the Pretty Pony Princess Playset incident that had seen all of them grounded for a month.  Okay, it had actually only been for a week and she'd managed to talk her dad into cutting it short by two days, but it had felt like a month.  She didn't want to go through that again.

"Fine," she sighed, turning to look toward the agreement.  There it hung on the wall, in its frame.  The simple contract with its three hoofprints on the bottom, binding the three fillies.  It was ironclad, Diamond's mom had said when she'd finished formatting the rough agreement the fillies had come up with into perfect legalese.  Since her mother was the most feared lawyer in all of Equestria, Diamond saw no reason to doubt that.

Diamond continued to stare at the contract as Alula and Silver Spoon started to dig through the costume closet, looking for suitable things to wear.

"I vill be da evil Russian treasure hunter Ivana Pillagekov," Silver Spoon declared.  "Rich, noble heiress who works for others searching the globe to find priceless treasures, also so she can afford a huge mansion."  She stopped, her hoof shooting into the air as she had an idea.  "No, vait.  Mansions.  One on each continent, and two in Mother Russia," she blurted out, losing her accent in her excitement.  She nodded, satisfied, as she pulled the faux-fur hat tightly down upon her head.  "Da!  Dat vill be me.  How about you, Diamond?  Decided who you vill be?"

Diamond shifted her gaze to her hooves.  She [i]really[/i] didn't feel like being a bad guy right now.  If only she could be the hero.  Her eyes popped wide open, and she looked back at the framed contract.  Slowly, a smile spread across her face, and she declared, "Daring Do."

Alula froze, halfway through slipping into the shirt, the pith helmet already on her head.  "But," she said, "I'm Daring Do."

"I'm invoking Section Four," Diamond said.

Both Silver Spoon and Alula gasped.  Nopony invoked Section Four.  It just wasn't done.  In all the time since the agreement had been signed, Section Four had only been invoked once, with near disastrous results.  After that, nopony had dared to use it again.  But it also hadn't been struck from the agreement, and so Diamond decided to take full advantage of it.  She was going to be the hero.

"But you can't even fly!"

"Well, duh.  My wings got hurt, obviously.  It only happens in every book."

"Sil!  Tell her she can't be Daring Do!" Alula pleaded.

"Can too," Diamond declared.

Silver Spoon walked over to the agreement and read it carefully.  She shook her head at Alula.  "She's, like, totally right, Alula.  Section Four so says that the pony who last got to pick the game gets to make first choice of character."  She turned her head towards Diamond Tiara.  "Unless you change your mind, Diamond?"

"No."  Diamond brought her hoof down hard for added emphasis.  "I get to be Daring this time."

Alula glared at Diamond, her face scrunched up in anger.  "Fine!  Then I'm going to be Crystal Headpiece, the brattiest brat in the whole world who always has to have her way."  She flung the Daring Do costume onto the ground in front of Diamond and selected a large, clear crown from the closet, settling it upon her head at an angle.  "Tis I, Crystal Headpiece, and I am the most beautificus pony ever.  I, Crystal Headpiece, only eat the finest imported hay.  And when I'm in the place that the hay I, Crystal Headpiece, eat is grown, it will have to be exported just so it can be imported."

Diamond growled menacingly, but Alula took no notice.  She had caught sight of something else.  Reaching into the closet, she pulled out the gaudy gold-painted sceptre.  Alula brandished it mightily, as if it were worthy of a princess and not something Diamond had found lying abandoned in an alley.  "And I, Crystal Headpiece, always carry this!"

Diamond did her best to keep her scowl in place, but alas, the battle was lost the moment Alula brought forth the mighty power of the sceptre.  Still, she tried to fight, and the result was a snort, followed by another, and then she gave in and broke into laughter, quickly joined by her two friends.

"Awesome villain, Alula," Silver Spoon declared, once she caught her breath.

"Yeah," Alula said, bouncing around happily.  "This villain thing is kinda fun!  I, Crystal Headpiece, will totally beat you to… um… What are we going for?"

Diamond looked up from fitting on a pair of pink wings.  She might not be able to fly, but Daring Do had wings, and therefore so would she.  Anything worth doing was worth doing well, after all.  And Daring Do would also need a worthwhile artefact to retrieve.

"Hmm…"  She sat down and pondered.  "Oooh, I know!"

She ran over to her toy chest and started tossing toys onto the ground.  At last, she found what she was looking for and held it up.  The glass gem was the size of her hoof, and where light struck it, reflected rays of blues.  "Behold, the Sacred Sapphire of…"

"Of Sea Serpentia!" Silver Spoon finished.  "The fabled gem of the ancient Sea Ponies, believed to be a divine gift from their cruel sea serpent god Stavumagned.  The temple was lost when a mighty volcano lifted the entire city out of the water."

"You're the best at making up those histories, Silver," Alula said, stopping her own search through the costume closet long enough to clap her hooves together.

"It's 'cause of all those history books she reads," Diamond said.

"You should wear these, Diamond," Alula said, holding out a pair of sunglasses.  "They're the same type Spitfire wears!  They'll no doubt go awesomely with the Daring Do costume."

Diamond wasn't so sure, but she tried them on anyway.  She walked over to the mirror and checked herself out.  Surprisingly, Alula was right.  They did look rather good.  A "Styling!" from Silver Spoon indicated she thought so as well.

Unfortunately, being sunglasses, they also made everything darker, and since daylight was already fading, that was a big drawback.  Slipping them off, she handed them back to Alula with a shrug.  "Too dark."

"But they looked so splendorific," Alula protested.

Diamond nodded.  "Next time, if it isn't so dark, we'll so have to use them."  She picked up the gem.  "I'm gonna put this in the living room.  That's big enough to be the temple."

Diamond left her bedroom, tuning out Silver Spoon's questioning of Alula about Crystal Headpiece.  Diamond Tiara swore that half the fun Silver Spoon had with these games was with coming up with complete backgrounds for everything.  She didn't mind though.  It made it all the more fun.

Down the stairs she went and toward the main living room, taking note of the closed door to the study.  Her father almost always left the door open, if only on a crack.  If it was closed, that meant her mom was in there as well, no doubt working on her latest case.  That fit with how quickly her mother had left the table after dinner was finished.

Arriving in the living room, she looked around for a suitable place to hide the prize.  The cabinet looked like a good choice, she decided.  It could be an altar, with the two vases upon it serving the role of stone idols.  She looked at both 'idols', reaching her hoof toward the vase on the left, but stopped before lifting it.  She knew that Silver knew that she usually preferred the option on the left, but she also suspected that Silver knew that she knew that.  She lifted the right vase up, but then she wondered if Silver might suspect that she suspected.

"Gah!  Screw this!" she said, opening up a drawer, the one on the left side, of course, and dumping the gem inside it instead.  "There, hidden."

Job done, she turned around and returned to her room.  Silver Spoon was now answering questions about her own character, as Alula had turned the tables on her.  Both looked her way as she entered.

"I'm back," she said, though they both knew that, obviously.  "Study is off-limits.  I think my mom's there working on stuff."

Both of her friends nodded.  They knew better than to disturb Diamond's mom when she was working.  The Pretty Pony Princess Playset incident might have been a while ago, but not so long that they had forgotten it.  They'd probably never forget it, actually, though in time, they might laugh about it, but only if they were sure Diamond's mother was nowhere in the immediate vicinity.

"Are we all, like, ready?" Silver Spoon asked.

"3-2-1, go!"  Diamond counted down very quickly, and that along with her proximity to the door gave her a head start.

"She is getting away!  Follow her!" she heard Alula yell behind her.  She looked over her shoulder to see her friends pour out of her room, limbs flying as they cornered, but they managed to recover and head her way.  She squealed with delight, ducking down the stairs.

"She vent datta way!" Silver Spoon said, her atrocious accent applied even more thickly than ever.

Diamond rushed toward the living room, sliding to a stop.  Looking at the two fillies heading toward her, Diamond waved a hoof at the living room floor.  "The tiles are lava from the volcano," she declared.  "The rug's a stone platform.  And I'm swinging over on the only vine long enough."  

Diamond Tiara raced across to the safety of the rug.  She pretended to tie her vine up so it couldn't be used by her pursuers.  Vine secured, she turned toward the cabinet.  "Behold, the altar containing the legendary Sacred Sapphire of Sea Serpantera."

"Serpentia," Silver Spoon corrected.

"Whatever.  I got it, and you can't catch me, because of the lava," Diamond taunted, sticking her tongue out.

"Drat!," Alula said.  "That gem must be mine!  It would look so perfect on the end of my sceptre instead of this red one!  I, Crystal Headpiece, must have it!"  She turned to Silver Spoon.  "What do I pay you for?  Do something, Ivana!"

"I fly over," Silver Spoon said, taking a step forward.

"You can't fly!" Diamond protested.

"Can too.  Because… Ivana is griffon."

"Yeah, she totally decided she was a griffon while you were hiding the gem."

"Nuh-uh!  You don't even have wings!"

Silver Spoon craned her neck around and frowned.  Quick as a wink, she did a one-eighty and raced down the hall and up the stairs.

"I have wings!" Alula declared.  "I mean, I, Crystal Headpiece, the bestest, most wonderful pony in all of ponydom, have wings!"  She reared up dramatically, extending her wings out fully.  "All should worship my spendorific feathery goodness and despair!  Muhahaaa— Oof!"

Her forehooves hit the ground as Silver Spoon pushed her aside.

"Come, Crystal Headpiece, let's fly!" Silver Spoon declared, turning sideways to show off the dark blue Pretty Pony Princess wings she now wore.  "For I am griffon, da?  Squawk, I say, squawk!"

Silver Spoon winked at Alula, who grinned back.  Silver swished her tail back and forth, doing her best to emulate a cat, while Alula pawed the floor.

"Prepare to meet your doom, Daring Do!" Alula said.  

Both she and Silver Spoon dropped down low, like a cat ready to pounce, and then flung themselves forward into the room, bounding across the floor.  Diamond backpedaled, looking around frantically for a way out.  Quickly, her friends tackled Diamond Tiara and dragged her to the ground.

"Ve have you now!" Silver Spoon declared, as she released Diamond.  "Pretend you're tied up, okay?"

Alula sat up, rubbing her hooves together in front of her face in true villain fashion.  "Now you will tell me, Crystal Headpiece, where the gem is located within the altar so that I, Crystal Headpiece, might add it to the many treasures that are mine.  For it is beautiful, and all beautiful things should belong to me, Crystal Headpiece, the most beautiful mare in the history of, um, ever?"

"Never!" Diamond said, struggling against the imaginary ropes.  "I will never tell you!  It belongs in a museum."

"Den ve vill have to use…" —Silver Spoon let the pause hang ominously, before finishing—  "da tickle torture!"

"Not the tickle torture," Diamond Tiara squeaked.

"Oh yes," Alula said as she advanced while walking upon her hind legs, cane stashed underneath one of her wings, her forelegs waving menacingly, "the tickle torture!"

Duces Tecum carefully blotted what she had just written, before dipping her quill into the inkwell and starting on the next line.  Just a couple more of those and she'd be done with this page.  And after that, only twenty-three more to go.  She really should have made the associate write all these papers, and ordinarily she would have, if the case hadn't been so important.  Oh, and if it hadn't been the associate's birthday today.  She supposed that mattered as well, to some ponies at least.  Just one more—

Her head swung in panic as the scream sliced through the air.

She let out an exasperated sigh.  The quill had left a line all the way across the page.  She pursed her lips as she crumpled up the paper and tossed it into the garbage can.  Reaching for a fresh piece, she prepared to start anew.  A second scream, almost as loud as the first, stopped her from reaching for the quill.

"Dear?" she said, looking over at her husband.  His nose was still buried within his book, as he sat near the fireplace, a glass of sherry at his side, seeming oblivious to his daughter's screams or her own attempt to get his attention.  She fished the paper she had just discarded out of the garbage can and flung it at his head.

"Hmm?" Filthy Rich asked, looking up from his book, puzzled at the interruption.  Another loud screech clued him in.  "Oh, that.  No problem, dear.  I'll take care of it."  Preparing himself, he took a deep breath, and Duces covered her ears.  "Diamond!" he yelled, stretching his daughter's name in the way that has been used to grab the attention of misbehaving children since the dawn of time.

It only took a little bit before the door cracked open and her daughter's head peeked in.  "Yes, daddy?" she asked.

"I know you and your friends are having fun, but your mom's trying to get some important work done.  Could you please keep it down a little, princess?"

"Okay, daddy."  And just like that, she was gone, leaving the door open a crack in her wake.

"Door!" Rich called out, and the door dutifully closed.

Duces Tecum shook her head affectionately at the closed door, gave her husband a little nod, and returned to her work.

"Okay, where were we?" Diamond asked.

"You vere tied and we waz tickling you."

"Okay, well, let's pretend that I distracted you and got free," Diamond suggested.

"And then what?" Alula asked.

"I took this!" Diamond said, holding up the sceptre she had swiped.

"My family sceptre!" Alula screeched, but not too loudly, the warning still fresh.  She took a step toward Diamond Tiara.

Diamond dangled the sceptre out past the edge of the rug.  "Not one step closer, or I'll drop it!"

Alula's body froze, other than a single foreleg which she used to stop Silver Spoon's forward movement.  "If she drops it, tickle her to death, Ivana."

"It vill be my pleasure," Silver Spoon said, crouching low, ready to pounce.

"I'm untying the vine and swinging back," Diamond said, running out of the living room.

"My sceptre!" Alula yelled, quickly sticking a hoof in her mouth.  "Sorry," she said softly.

Diamond froze, but when no parental yelling happened, turned back toward Alula.  "Pretend I threw it high and you have to catch it," she said, sliding the sceptre across the floor.

Her two friends rushed toward the sceptre and went down in a flailing pile of limbs, giggling insanely.  Diamond took a second to laugh, almost tempted to join in, but she remembered her mission.  Turning tail, she raced away, back to her room.  Once there, she set the gem on top of her nightstand.

"Like, best story ever!" Silver Spoon decreed.

"Totally awesomelicious," Alula agreed.

"They should totally use our ideas for the next book," Diamond decreed.  "And pay us for them, of course."  No way she'd give up her ideas for free.

"So, now what?" Silver Spoon asked Diamond Tiara, as the three of them stripped out of the costumes, tossing them in a pile on the floor.

Diamond Tiara pondered, then looked at Alula's mane.  As usual, it was a bit on the messy side.  Time for another traditional activity for their sleepovers, she decided.  "Makeover!"

"I'm the mane-stylist," Alula said.  "I've always wanted to try that."

"Okay, then I'm the beautician," Silver Spoon said.  She pointed a hoof at Diamond.  "And that means you're the customer."

Diamond took a step back.  That wasn't how they played the game.  Silver Spoon always did Alula's mane, while Diamond got to apply the make-up.  After all, Alula needed it.  She always looked so much prettier after it was done.  "But…" Diamond started to protest, only for her friends to cut her off.

"Section Four!" the two chimed in together, giggling.