WHIP AND WING

DARING DO AND THE MEDALLION OF SHADOW

or

INDIANA JONES AND THE MEDALLION OF LIGHT

By Fernin

Daring Do and suchlike are owned by Hasbro and their various minions, and Indiana Jones is owned by Paramount and THEIR various minions. As for me, I don't have any minions. Sadface.

Chapter 12: Epilogue

"Yes, yes. You have done well, my minion. Now, go! I have plans to make… Such plans…"

The final page of the manuscript rustled as Twilight Sparkle lowered the paper and replaced it on the bottom of the stack. She glanced up at the two aspiring authors and gathered her thoughts. How to put this best? "Well… Wait. Dash, are you awake?"

Lyra glanced over to her co-author, Rainbow Dash. The pegasus was snoring gently. Sighing, the sea green unicorn prodded the snoozing pony with a hoof. Dash continued sleeping. Lyra prodded harder and Rainbow leaped to her hooves. "What? What? I'm up. I'm up!"

"As I was saying," Twilight continued with an annoyed glance at her friend, "I think it's… pretty good."

"Just 'pretty good?' Not super-ultra-extreme-awesomazing?" whined Rainbow Dash.

"Could you tell us what you did and didn't like about it?" Lyra said, interrupting the pegasus' complaints before the mare could get into full swing.

Twilight consulted a list of notes she'd made while reading. "This is a good story, especially considering it's your first effort together. I thought the idea of two adventurers in each others' world was very inventive. Good idea using the memory merging, too; it saved a lot of exposition for the reader. Not that exposition is a bad thing, I for one love when something's explained properly…"

"But?" Rainbow prompted.

"I wasn't done yet, Rainbow. But the story does have some big problems. The biggest is, you really shouldn't use Daring Do for one of your characters," Twilight said with a sigh.

The pegasus' jaw dropped. "What? Why not?"

"The character Daring Do already belongs to somepony else," Twilight explained. "If you want to be a published author yourself, you really need to use your own characters and setting; you can't just write this… this… I think it's called 'fan fiction?'"

"What do you mean we can't—" Rainbow Dash started, but Twilight Sparkle cut her off.

"However, I think you did a good job with Daring, and if you get the original author's permission you might be able to publish this," the lavender unicorn said.

Dash brightened. "Oh. Well that should be easy, right?"

Resisting the urge to crush her friend's optimism, Twilight continued. "Now what I was really interested in was what you did with the other adventurer, this 'Indiana Jones.' Somepony like that—"

"Someone," Lyra corrected automatically.

Twilight nodded. "Right. Someone like that has a lot of potential. He has many of the same qualities as Daring Do, but you gave him a very original spin. I definitely liked the idea of a college professor of archeology using his knowledge in the field for the betterment of pony—er, mankind."

"Pffft, you would," chuckled Rainbow Dash.

"Was there anything you thought we could improve about Indiana Jones?" Lyra asked, smiling eagerly. So Twilight had liked her character!

Consulting her notes again, Twilight paused for a moment. "Hmm. If you're looking for constructive criticism, Lyra, there's not a lot I can say on Indiana himself. He's quite the stallion. Er, man, rather. But his villains, the Nasties…"

"Nazis, you mean," Dash interrupted.

"Right. Incidentally, 'Nazi' and 'Nasty?' Nice pun, girls. Very clever. Anyway, they seemed a little flat, honestly. The idea of a militaristic society bent on global domination is a good place to start, but you really didn't bring in their motivation very much. Why do they want to rule the world? Who is this 'Hitler?' And how is he different from 'Himmler?' Their names sound almost the same, so some readers could get confused. You might want to rename one of them, but that's just a suggestion." Twilight shrugged and put down her notes. Seeing the amateur authors' expressions, she hurried to add, "This is a good first draft, though! Don't let my criticism discourage you!"

"All right, Twilight. Thank you for your help. We'll be sure to credit you as an editor," Rainbow Dash said.

"Yes, thank you," echoed Lyra as she levitated the manuscript and tucked it carefully into her saddlebags.

The co-authors trotted out of the Books and Branches Library in silence. It wasn't until the door had closed behind them that Rainbow Dash turned to Lyra with an annoyed glare. "I told you we should have done a ship-fic instead! Those are always popular!"

Lyra rolled her eyes. "Yes, I'm sure everypony would want to read about the amazing romance between Daring Do and Princess Celestia's previously unheard-of sibling. Who was it you suggested again? A blue-pelted, rainbow-maned alicorn mare named 'Chromatic Sprint?'"

"She's a perfectly legitimate and original character!" the pegasus snapped. "Way better than your stupid My Little Person 'Lyle Hartman' stories!"

"Now listen, you feather-brained—" Lyra paused mid-snarl and took a deep breath, smoothing away the angry creases in her expression. "All right. Fine. Look, do you want to keep going with this? Twilight gave us some good input, at least, if we want to improve what we've got."

Rainbow Dash sighed. "Well we did put a lot of work into it so far. I guess I'll keep going with it if you will. See you next Wednesday?"

"Make it Thursday; Bon Bon and I have previous engagements on Wednesday," Lyra replied with a half-smile.

"Heh. Lucky. Anyway, those clouds aren't going to kick themselves. See you later, Lyra!" In an instant, Rainbow Dash was airborne, soaring into the blue. Lyra watched the pegasus go. Well, that hadn't gone too badly. Maybe this author thing was going to work out for them after all. Now if only they could come up with a good pen name to use when they published…

A/N: And this is well and truly THE END.

I categorically deny any and all allegations that I stole this entire manuscript off the ponynet and changed the byline. YOU'LL NEVER CATCH MEEEEE HA HA HA HAAAAAA

Yes, I just couldn't resist sticking a reference to one of my other stories into the epilogue for laughs, heh heh. I would say I'm sorry, but I'm not.

Special thanks go to:

Tzelly-El for the awesome cover art (on FIMFiction)

SapphireStarlight or most of the brainstorming help on this thing & for pre-reading

Rated Ponystar for more brainstorming and for pre-reading

LittleNapoleon for input from the non-Brony demographic

EzeFilly for pre-reading and help with German

Sebbaa for even MORE re-reading and a lot of help with the German!

And to the various others who helped point out typos and such with enough specificity that I was able to find them.

I appreciated your help. Without all of you I probably wouldn't have gotten done with this.

This one actually started life as a random idea while I was exercising one day, and just sort of stuck. Admittedly it was initially going to be a sort of 'buddy comedy' thing with Indy and Daring having to tag-team their combined enemies, but eventually it ended up the way you see it today.

In any event, I hope you enjoyed it, dear reader, for I certainly enjoyed writing this.

…And no, I do not have any sequels planned for this. _ Yes, I always say this, but you know what? IT'S ALWAYS TRUE.

Seriously. No sequels! I have other fics to write.