4) Cold Blood, Part 5
Episode 4
Cold Blood, Part 5
The Cure
If there was one thing about being Spider-Girl that Rainbow Dash had truly enjoyed so far, then it would definitively have to be the ability to swing around from place to place.
It was fun, exhilarating, freeing, and most important of all, the closest she had ever come in her life to being able to fly. When she was up there, jumping off buildings or launching herself into the air only to catch herself and swing back up, she felt truly relaxed and way happier than recent events had allowed her to be.
However...the same could not be said for swinging around the city...while also carrying around a big cocooned lizard who was constantly trying to wriggle his way out of her grip like some slippery eel. Not only was he also heavy, but the no small amount of obnoxious hissing and growling he subjected her to didn't help the matter either.
She could only imagine what any passersby who happened to see her right now would think was going on.
Still, even while holding an ill-tempered reptile under her arm, she had made great progress so far. By now, she could even see the CelestiaCorp Tower peak out amongst the buildings around her, and it was coming closer and closer by every swing she took.
'Let's just hope Twilight got that cure ready. I've had just about enough of giant lizards for one day' Rainbow thought as she landed on a nearby building and then launched herself off of it.
The Lizard responded to the accompanied vertigo by wriggling around even more. This time, he was also making some kind of distressed squeaking noise while he was at it.
"You know, Spike? You're making this way harder than it needs to be," Dash commented mid-swing. "If I'd known you were this heavy, I wouldn't have let you run away in the first place. Seriously, you need to loose weight. How about we take a swing over to my dad's gym and get you on a program or something?"
After hearing nothing but more angry reptile noises come out of him, she conceded, "...Or we could just get your sister and shrink you down with a little Miracle Lizard-tonic. That works too, I guess. Still, after all is said and done, can you please do us all a huge favour and try not get yourself turned into a lizard again? That would be great!"
He answered that with another angry growl.
"Good to hear. Wow, you're a great listener, ya know that?"
Meanwhile, inside the building she was heading towards yet completely unaware that she was coming at all, the notorious supervillain known to most only as the Changeling (but preferring to refer to herself by the name 'Chrysalis'), was waiting in the lobby of the CelestiaCorp Tower for the imminent arrival of a certain nerdy teenager while taking on the appearance of said teenager's best friend: Sunset Shimmer.
It was a trap, of course...and a damn well perfect one if Chrysalis had anything to say about it.
Twilight Sparkle was the one loose end she had left to deal with if she had any hopes of getting away with her actions scot-free, and also the person she had intended to test her new lizard formula on in the first place. Spike contracting it and transforming into a monster instead was just an accident...and one that needed correcting.
Good thing Twilight was on her way to where Chrysalis was waiting right now, expecting her good friend 'Sunset Shimmer' to hand over the cure. It gave the villain another chance to accomplish her original plan.
Hidden underneath her lab coat, Chrysalis kept a small mechanical canister loaded with an even more potent version of the cross-species genetics formula than the one Spike ended up inhaling, and was ready to whip it out and spray it in Twilight's face as soon as the oblivious girl got within range. The added potency of the serum was to make the resulting transformation come about a lot quicker than it did for Spike...since she didn't exactly have the same time schedule to work with this time around.
Of course, using it in such close proximity without wearing a gas mask or anything of the sort was risky. If she made a mistake, she might accidentally inhale the formula herself, and with how twisted her genetics were already, she didn't even want to guess what would happen. That's why she made sure to also bring a vial of gene-cleanser with her as well. You could never be too careful.
Now all that was needed was for Twilight to actually show up.
In an attempt to mimic the laid back and rebellious Sunset Shimmer, Chrysalis leaned up against a wall and kept her arms crossed. She heard somewhere that people who were trying to be 'cool' leaned against things that way...not that she could actually describe the person who told her that as being all that 'cool' himself...but that's beside the point.
The point was that her disguise was good enough to hopefully fool Twilight long enough to spring her trap...and to also make it look like Sunset was the culprit in the eyes of the security cameras. A little framing could do a lot of good if you were an evil shapeshifter.
However, her target seemed to be taking her sweet time before getting there, and Chrysalis did not generally consider herself a very patient woman. Rotting in prison for twenty years was hard enough, but then being forced to work under Celestia (the person who put her in that prison in the first place) while pretending to be Dr Silk Mane on top of that didn't help matters either.
So...in order to alleviate her growing boredom, she started doing the same thing she did to pass the time when she was cooped up all alone in her cell back at the Tartarus Institute...
She started talking to herself.
"Eghh...what's taking that maggot so long?!" she cursed in a hushed tone. "Always so much waiting...and waiting...and waiting!
"I could have taken care of Celestia months ago and worn her smug little face like a new hat, but noooooo, that stupid Goblin didn't like that...said it would 'ruin her perfect little plan'," she noted with air-quotes.
Chrysalis rolled her eyes, "Yes, I know she was the one who broke me out of that infernal prison, but since when did that mean I had to do every little thing she told me to do like some sycophantic servant?" ...acting almost like someone else was actually talking to her.
Her sanity had always been rather questionable.
"You know what? This is the last straw! Next chance I get, I'll spring something horrific on that costumed weirdo, and then I'll take over CelestiaCorp all by myself! She will never see me coming..."
A wicked grin once again showed itself on her face as her scheming mind started to come up with a new plan to get rid of her 'business partner' as soon as she got the opportunity.
It was around this time that Twilight finally managed to make it over to the CelestiaCorp Tower entrance.
It had been a long and very stressful night for the poor teenager...and it was only going to get worse from here.
Even though she didn't know it, she was currently stuck between a rock and a hard place. The rock in this instance would be the Changeling in the lobby taking the shape of her best friend Sunset Shimmer, who was planning to unleash a horrible fate on her if she got within reach...while the hard place would be the costumed supervillain tracking her every move from high above on top of her flying death machine, ready to swoop down and snatch her up at a moment's notice.
The only consolation she had was that neither of them had decided to attack yet, but that was only a matter of time.
The Nightmare Goblin could take care of her easily without breaking a sweat...but she didn't, and the only reason why was because she was curious to see what Chrysalis' plan actually was, and if she could manage to pull it off.
However, the second that plan failed, all patience for the Changeling's antics was out the window and she would take the reigns on this entire operation. It's not as if their alliance was meant to last or anything...it all just came down to whoever of the two stabbed the other in the back first.
For now though, the Goblin kept herself out of sight and made due with just watching whatever was going to happen from the safety of her elevated vantage point.
"Now if only I had some popcorn..." she quietly muttered to herself.
Down below, Twilight pushed open the double doors of the lobby entrance and stormed in shouting, "Sunset, you got the gene-cleanser!?"
The fake Sunset gave her a cocky grin and reached into her lab coat to take out and present the object in question. Another reason why she brought the gene-cleanser with her. It made it easier to lure her unwary victim into her trap.
And upon seeing the familiar glass vial in her hand, Twilight's eyes lit up with hope and she predictably started to run over to her with no clue of the danger she was in.
This was going easy as pie.
Chrysalis' excitement grew for every step Twilight took. And she only needed to take a few more until she could unleash her secret weapon. Only a few more steps...and...
Outside, the Nightmare Goblin spotted something in her peripheral vision approach at an alarming speed. She focused her glowing blue eyes on it as best she could, but it was still hard to make out what it could be from this distance.
Whatever it was though...it was...swinging to get around...and it almost looked like a person...or maybe two at a closer inspection.
Only once the object got close enough did that sudden spark of recognition lit up in her head enough to tell her just who exactly this mysterious interloper was.
"Spider-Girl?" she whispered in surprise.
The same wannabe superhero she ran into the other day had decided to involve herself again...and by the looks of it, she was actually carrying around the Lizard that she and Chrysalis had created.
Not really knowing what to do about Spider-Girl's unexpected appearance just yet, the Goblin backed away and kept her distance...choosing rather to wait and see what happened before getting involved with whatever was going on herself.
Twilight was just one step away from being gassed in the face by Chrysalis' reptile cocktail when Rainbow Dash, dressed in her superhero outfit and carrying a large cocooned lizard under her arm, swooped down from her latest swing and kicked open the doors of the CelestiaCorp building so audaciously that it made both Twilight and Chrysalis freeze up and look upon her in surprised awe...while she unceremoniously tripped up her landing and fell down on her back while the Lizard flew out of her arms and rolled over on the floor a few metres away from her.
Tired, battered and disoriented, Rainbow Dash groaned and slowly pushed herself up to sit straight, then turned her head to look at the stunned Twilight Sparkle and moaned out, "Please tell me you got that cure..." in an exhausted tone while she rubbed the back of her neck with a pained wince.
Chrysalis was...confused, to say the least.
As good as one could be as a schemer, there was always one thing that could always derail any plan, no matter how thought out or brilliant it was:
An unexpected element.
She had no idea who this weirdly dressed person was, why she decided to show up now all of a sudden, or how on earth she was able to wrangle up the ferocious Lizard that she had unleashed...and with what looked like a spider's webbing no less. In other words; she was an unknown...and Chrysalis hated the unknown.
"Who the hell are you?!" Chrysalis exclaimed, not momentarily caring whether she was breaking character or not.
"Oh, me? I'm just your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Girl," Dash nonchalantly replied while getting back up on her feet, still sounding a bit tired.
While Rainbow Dash could drop the act and reveal who she was to the girl she thought was Sunset Shimmer, she decided not to. Strangely enough, given her boastful and extroverted nature, Rainbow had made a decision when she first chose to start helping people as the Awesome Spider-Girl...and that decision was to never show her face or reveal her true identity to anyone.
At first it was just to avoid getting into trouble when she tried to pursue a secret career as a masked wrestler, but after what happened to Firefly, she kept the mask on to not risk putting any more of her friends and family in danger. No amount of glory or fame was worth that.
And in this particular instance, she was lucky she had decided to do so given who the 'Sunset Shimmer' in the room just so happened to be.
Twilight, who had just managed to piece together everything that was going on, gave the disguised Changeling an awkward look and said, "It's...a long story. I'll tell you later."
Chrysalis silently groaned, annoyed that Twilight's reply didn't give so much as a hint as to who she was dealing with. Either way, she decided to stay back and keep a weary eye on the mysterious new arrival.
Meanwhile, Twilight turned back to Spider-Girl and answered, "Yes, we got it right here."
Rainbow spotted the vial in 'Sunset's' hands and immediately put two and two together. Then, she didn't waste a second before she connected a sling of cobweb to the object and pulled it out of Chrysalis' grip before she had a chance to respond to this absurd situation.
After the glass container had landed in her hand, Spider-Girl looked down at the Lizard and asked, "So what's the play, Smarty Pants? Do we just pour it on him, or..?"
Having just been rather painfully dropped down face-first onto the cold hard floor while still wrapped up in enough webbing to stop him from using his limbs get back up or out of this mess, the Lizard was beyond pissed at this moment, and started hissing and wriggling even more than normal.
Twilight gulped nervously when she heard...or rather felt the creepy inhuman growl coming from the ferocious creature she had to remind herself was actually her brother. "No, that won't do anything," she explained. "If we want the gene-cleanser to work, he needs to drink it."
Rainbow looked at her friend with an 'are you for real?' kind of expression and asked, "Seriously?"
Twilight nodded. "It's either that or going all the way up to the bio-labs to get us a syringe or a gas canister, and we don't have time for that. If we wait too long, Spike's...'condition' may become irreversible."
"Then there's no time to waste!" Dash urged, taking a firm grip on the vial of gene-cleanser and ran over to where she dropped him.
Chrysalis meanwhile was at a loss for what to do. Her plan had worked perfectly until this...Spider-Girl person, whoever she was...decided to show up out of the blue, effectively derailing the whole operation. She needed to get her out of the equation if she had any hopes of getting away with any of the crimes she had recently committed. But the question was...how? How could she get rid of some strange costumed weirdo she knew barely anything about?
An idea began to form when she noticed Twilight, despite her better judgement, start to approach the Lizard as well, putting the two of them in relatively close proximity. The villain reached her hand into her coat and wrapped her delicate fingers on the lizard gas canister she had hidden there and quietly muttered, "Two birds...one stone..." under her breath before she began to approach them with sinister intentions.
Oblivious to the threat Chrysalis posed, Spider-Girl got down to the Lizard's level and turned him over so he ended up on his back. An act that should have been quick and easy if the beast wasn't aggressively fighting back against her efforts.
She then sat down on his chest and looked him face to face. Seeing nothing but rage and savage animal instinct look back at her made the next part all the less appealing...but she wasn't going to back out now.
Despite logically knowing with all reason that Spike wouldn't understand her in his current state, Twilight nevertheless sat down next to him and said, "I don't know if you're still in there, Spike, but please just...calm down. I know you feel confused about what is happening to you, but I promise you'll feel better if you just relax. Please, can you do that for me, little brother?" Her voice wavered a bit as she spoke, and at the end she looked almost ready to burst into tears.
The Lizard however showed no signs of having understood or even heard her, with his attention firmly being directed at Spider-Girl, with 'anger' being the only noticeable emotion he was showing.
Rainbow gave her friend a sympathetic look...or at least as sympathetic as she could look while wearing a mask. "He'll be fine, Twilight. I promise," she assured her.
Twilight nodded but stayed where she was.
'Okay, Dash, it's all or nothing,' Rainbow thought before she reached a hand over to the webbing covering the Lizard's face and took a tight grip on it.
Then...in the blink of an eye, she ripped it open, popped open the cork on the vial and prepared herself for his next move. Unsurprisingly, the Lizard opened his mouth in an attempt to bite at her as soon as he was free to do so, and that was what Spider-Girl had counted on...because as soon as he did, she immediately jammed the vial straight into his gullet so that the liquid went right down his throat.
Mission accomplished!
However, the gene-cleanser did not work instantaneously, so she had to quickly pull her arm out of there as soon as she could...unless of course she wanted him to bite her hand off. And even after that, she then had to throw away the now empty bottle and use both of her hands to hold him down to the floor as long as it would take for the cure to take effect.
He hissed, growled and spat saliva in Spider-Girl's face as much as he could, but she kept him down no matter what. She was just too close to give up now.
However, as per usual when she was stuck in a situation such as this, an outside element once again decided that now was the perfect time to get involved.
Chrysalis, who had now made her way over to them, pulled out the canister containing the reptile gas and aimed it at such an angle that the resulting spray would hit Twilight, Spider-Girl and the Lizard right in their faces (likely cancelling the effects of the gene-cleanser in the process while transforming the other two into brand new lizards to terrorise the city as well), and moved her finger to press a button on the device that would unleash the serum.
Fortunately though, there was one thing she hadn't accounted for...
Rainbow Dash's spider-sense!
The second she made her move, Dash felt a great reaction spike at the back of her head, and she immediately dropped what she was doing, leapt up on her feet and punched Chrysalis square in the jaw with enough force to knock her off her feet and fall on her back so hard that the canister she was holding flew out of her grip and landed on the floor over on the other side of the room.
However, while Rainbow's quick and violent response did save Twilight's, Spike's, and her own life...from Twilight's perspective, it looked like her friend had just gotten up and clocked Sunset Shimmer in the face for no apparent reason. So she would be forgiven for reacting to the situation by staring at Rainbow with a shocked expression and screaming, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
Rainbow Dash had acted entirely on instinct though and at the moment couldn't even manage to give a straight answer to that question. "Uhhh...I'm not sure," she replied lamely, seemingly just as surprised as Twilight was about what she just did.
"You...miserable...BITCH!" a voice that decidedly did not sound at all like Sunset Shimmer's cursed a few metres away from them.
Both Twilight and Rainbow Dash gave a surprised look at the recently punched Chrysalis, who was currently climbing back up on her feet while glaring daggers at them...all while her disguise flickered back and forth between Sunset's face, her real face, and even Dr Silk Mane's face like a broken light bulb.
Twilight stood up and took a few steps back while Spider-Girl clenched her fists and took on a combat pose, meeting the impostor's glare with one of her own.
"Who the heck are you!?" Dash asked defensively. "And don't say Sunset Shimmer, because you sure don't look like her!"
After giving her head a good shake, Chrysalis finally stopped switching between her various faces and ended up looking like Dr Mane for the moment. "Oh me? I'm just the woman who's going to claw your eyes off for that!"
"Doctor Silk Mane?" Twilight questioned in an uncertain tone.
Chrysalis chuckled, then shed her disguise completely to show off her rather hideously mutated real appearance. "How dense are you, Sparkle? Does this look like the face of Doctor Silk Mane to you?!" she asked while pointing at her own face.
"Well, when you keep changing it like that, it's kinda hard to tell," Spider-Girl pointed out.
"That's the idea, dofus!" Chrysalis responded with a snarl.
Twilight narrowed her eyes at her and asked, "Where's the real Sunset Shimmer?" with a hint of contempt in her voice.
"Hehe, wouldn't you like to know?" Chrysalis mocked. "Now let's make this very simple. I'm walking out of here, you two are going to pretend you never saw me, and then maybe...just maybe...I'll give you a hint as to where I put her."
"After what you did to my brother, you honestly think we're just gonna let you go?!" Twilight angrily declared, trying to approach her but then being stopped half-way there when Spider-Girl defensively put her arm in the way.
Chrysalis' smirk turned unbelievably smug at that question. "Yes I do. Because it's the only way I'll ever tell you where your little girlfriend is. Take it or leav-"
"GRAAAAAAGHHHHH!"
Suddenly, the sound of a roar and something being ripped apart interrupted her proposal and made all three of them turn around and see that, during the time they've been busy dealing with Chrysalis, the Lizard had managed to claw his way out of his cocoon and was now back on his claws and staring at the nearby humans with unrestrained animalistic fury.
With an angry hiss, the creature leapt towards the Spider-Girl with his claws and teeth bared, ready to slash her to pieces. Thinking quickly, Rainbow first pushed Twilight out of range of his attack, then immediately after jumped aside herself, effectively dodging his attack by the skin of her teeth.
However, Chrysalis wasn't nearly as lucky, as the Lizard ended up landing right on top of her, slamming her down to the floor under his impressive weight and painfully knocking the wind out of her. Then he proceeded to pick her up by the tail and throw the supervillain clear across the room and straight through one of the glass walls so hard that it shattered on impact.
While Chrysalis' superhuman physiology made her more resilient than most, and that was likely the only reason her defenestration didn't kill her outright...as it was, it still knocked her out cold and left her lying bloody and bruised on the ground outside surrounded by shards of broken glass. A rather karmic way for her to end at the end of the night, wouldn't you say?
Having just successfully created a way out of there though, the Lizard didn't waste a second before he made a run for it, bolting over on all fours and easily stepping over the broken glass and Chrysalis' unconscious body as he did so.
Spider-Girl immediately gave chase, and so did Twilight...though not nearly as quickly.
As soon as she stepped one foot outside the building, Rainbow attached a web-line to the Lizard's back and pulled back on it as hard as she could in order to stop him in his tracks. Determined to escape at all costs though, the Lizard pushed himself forward harder and harder, not letting up even for a second.
Their battle soon turned into a relentless game of tug of war, and even though she tried her best, it soon became clear that Spider-Girl was fighting a losing battle. She was losing ground rapidly, and by now the Lizard had even managed to physically drag her away from her original position by a few metres despite the fact that she was trying to use her spider-powers to anchor herself to the ground.
Rainbow was just too tired to keep it up.
However...everything changed when Twilight managed to catch up to them and scream out a single word that instantly changed the Lizard's feral and savage demeanour.
"Spike!"
Something deep inside the creature awakened right then and there...and it made him slow down for a second, enough for Rainbow to gain the upper hand and drag him back a metre or so. Though instead of trying to reclaim that distance or resorting to attacking someone, he turned strangely docile and unfocused.
The voice that just spoke to him was simply too distracting to focus on anything else right now.
He sharply turned his head around and fixed his reptilian eyes on the person who said his name, letting out a low growl as he saw her standing a few metres away from him.
Temporarily putting aside her fears and uncertainty, and instead letting her courage and the love she had for her brother guide her, Twilight took a few slow steps towards the Lizard and said, "Spike, just...calm down. It's me...Twilight."
"Twilight, get back here!" Dash demanded from where she was standing.
Twilight held up a hand to her and said, "Stay back, Rainbow...I...I got this," and continued her approach undeterred, though she did sound pretty nervous about doing so.
While keeping her arms up and speaking in the calmest voice as she could muster, she pleaded, "Please, Spike. Just...relax. You know me...don't you?"
The Lizard...or rather, Spike, turned away with a hiss, almost as if he couldn't bring himself to look at her. Probably a sign that she was getting through to him, but she couldn't be sure.
Then, he suddenly began to start clawing himself in the face repeatedly, all while refusing to make eye-contact with her.
"Spike, what're you doing?! You'll hurt yourself!" She cried out in concern.
He wasn't listening to her though, instead he just kept doing it even more frantically...at least until he eventually ended up clenching his skull while curling up into a ball. He was soon shivering uncontrollably while making strange noises that almost sounded like...sobbing, if Twilight had to guess.
She also noticed something else while he was doing this. Some of his scales seemed to break apart and fall off, the sharp claws at the end of his fingers started to shrink back into something that far more resembled human fingernails, and his tail seemed to break down completely in several areas.
He wasn't there yet...but it was starting.
Not able to contain herself any longer, Twilight got down and gave him a hug despite the danger he posed, making Rainbow tense up anxiously in the process.
"It's gonna be okay, Spike. It's gonna be okay..." she whispered into his ear.
Suddenly, Spike uncurled himself, stood up and stared her right in the eyes. Twilight backed away a step and Dash was getting ready to pry them apart if something happened. After what he just did to Chrysalis, she shuddered to think what he could do to Twilight.
However, her fears were soon quelled when Spike opened his mouth and said, "Twi...light?" in a voice that didn't quite sound like his usual one, but at least was it an improvement over his usual growls and hisses.
"Spike! You do know me!" Twilight happily noted, small tears of joy beginning to build up in her eyes while she did so.
Spike just stood there...staring...recognising who he was looking at...and starting to remember who he himself really was, until...he suddenly got some kind of intense reaction and started to convulse and spasm very sporadically as his arms and legs started to grow back to their original sizes, his tail crumbled to dust and fell off completely, his scales fell off his skin like autumn leaves and his face reformed into one vastly more familiar and human-like.
A moment later, Spike fell into his sister's comforting arms out of sheer exhaustion of the transformation itself. Though by the time she caught him, he had gone back to being a perfectly ordinary teenage boy with only his tattered and ruined clothing being the only visible cues that he had ever been a giant reptile to begin with.
And with him finally back to his former self, Twilight cried out, "Thank goodness you're back, Spike!" into his shoulder as she was starting to shed tears of joy.
"Good...to be back..." he tiredly moaned out.
Rainbow let out a sigh of relief and slumped her shoulders in exhaustion. "Good, because I'm so done chasing lizards!" she commented in response.
Spike let out a small chuckle, "Hehe...and I'm definitively done being one."
Twilight broke the hug and looked him in the eye. "Now be honest with me, Spike. How are you feeling?"
He massaged his temples a bit and answered, "A bit queasy...and I got a bit of a headache, and...it's kinda cold...but mostly I'm good. Way better than I felt a moment ago. Man, who knew being a lizard would taste so weird?"
"Wait, you remember what happened when you were...well...you know?"
Spike shrugged, "Eh, only bits and pieces, really," he revealed while cupping his chin in thought. "I...recall something about being choked near the beginning, then...I think I got really angry at a mannequin for some reason, then I slipped on something, and after that all I really remember is being stuck in a weird sticky place for a really long time. It all just kinda blurs together for the most part though."
Feeling a little guilty, Rainbow scratched the back of her neck and confessed, "Oh, the first one was me trying to choke you out, eh, non-lethally of course, then I threw a mannequin at you, and later I tricked you into jumping onto a bowling lane. The last part has got to be when I webbed you up and carried you all the way here. Also, I may have had to kick your brother Shining Armor in the chest at one point. Sorry about all that, by the way."
"You did WHAT?!" Twilight sputtered.
Dash raised her hands and clarified, "Hey, it was either that or let him and his squad shoot Spike in the face! Besides, I'm pretty sure he's fine."
"It's okay, Rainbow, you did just save my life, so who am I to complain?" Spike pointed out...even though Twilight still looked a bit sceptical. Then he looked Dash over and realised something. "Wait...are you doing the superhero thing...for real now?!"
Blushing a bit under her mask, Rainbow admitted, "Yeah...I guess I am." Though at the same time, she did feel a little bit of pride for doing so.
While he was still a bit weak in his arms and legs, Spike made an effort to stand up straight and take in his newly restored human mobility which he'd sorely missed. Though the cold cemented ground underneath his bare feet did make him cringe a little. "Uh...have either of seen my shoes, because this ground is really not all that comfortable to stand on barefoot."
"Sorry, too busy focusing on more important stuff at the time," Dash replied. "I figured saving your life was a bit more important, but I can give you a lift home if...you...want..."
She trailed off as she picked up something approaching on her spider-sense...something a bit...familiar.
Curiously, she looked up in the direction of the object she sensed and saw a small orange metal ball fall from the sky and land on the ground next to the three of them with a small metal clanking noise.
Though as soon as it landed, and Rainbow had gotten a good look at it, a sudden feeling of dread hit her all at once as she instantly recognised it as the same kind of explosive pumpkin that nearly blew her to smithereens the last time she saw it.
In a futile attempt to avoid the resulting explosion she knew was coming, Rainbow quickly grabbed Spike and Twilight and tried to pull them out of the line of fire...but she wasn't fast enough.
With a loud and sudden bang, the tiny metal pumpkin released a massive shockwave that hit the three of them in the face with enough force to knock them all off their feet while also flashing them with a powerful bright light that left them all temporarily blinded as they each landed painfully on the hard cemented ground.
It was a flashbang grenade...which probably meant that the assailant wanted them alive for whatever reason.
Dazed, wounded and confused, Rainbow fumbled around on the ground while trying to make sense of what just happened. Her senses were all in a mess, but she was getting them back slowly and steadily.
Twilight wasn't as lucky, as she was curled up and crying out in unbearable pain while she kept her eyes closed, her glasses having flown away to who knows where...while Spike, being weakened enough as he was, had been knocked completely unconscious.
Rainbow's eyes soon recovered enough to see glimpses of a blurry shape coming down from the sky...while her ringing ears began to pick up on a sinister laugh that was all too familiar.
"Hahahahaha-HAHAHAHA...well, well, well..."
It didn't take long before the horrifying face of the demented Nightmare Goblin appeared right before her, the villain smiling with sadistic glee at the hero's predicament.
"I thought I told you to stay out of my way, Spider," she recounted. "I guess some people never learn."
"You!" Spider-Girl said with a snarl.
Then the Goblin bent down and taunted, "Yes...me. Now...sweet dreams, little insect," before she delivered a quick and decisive punch to the face...and everything went black.
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nice work.
1. I'm so glad that Chrysalis got her comeuppance. Not just once, but twice. I love seeing her suffer.
2. Can't Spider-Girl catch a break? Why does Goblin always seem to show up just to troll her?
3. What exactly does Goblin want with Twilight?
9807663
1. Well, what's the point of making a character so punchable if they're not eventually going to get punched in the face (literally in this case)?
2. Just look at the Goblin's smug little grin in the cover art? Does that not simply scream "u mad?" in the most trollish way possible? Also, given that Rainbow's inherited some of Peter's traditional Parker luck, would you really expect things to always go smoothly for her?
3. You know what? I'm not gonna answer that question. It'll be explained in the next chapter anyway, but what do you think she wants her for?
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1. True.
2. True, but you think she would at least catch a lucky break. Even Peter got one every once in a while. Unless you're going the route of the comics leading up to One More Day and making her life absolutely miserable.
3. Well, I do remember reading in a previous chapter about something called Project Obsidian. So that's probably it. But I doubt Twilight would willingly work with her, so how's Goblin gonna get her to work for her?
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2. Well, after this chaotic night is over...she'll probably have a break...at least until the next crisis comes along. I'll try to find some sort of balance between misery and happiness for her...and nothing is gonna compel me to add anything even slightly resembling One More Day to this story, mark my words!
3. That's a good theory...even if it's not what I had in mind at all, it is a good theory. Personally, I'm still undecided whether or not 'Project Obsidian' actually means something or if it's just a Maguffin to have Spider-Girl and Goblin meet for the first time.
As for the real reason Goblin is after Twilight...well...all I'm willing to reveal just yet is that Twilight isn't the goal...she's leverage.
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2. Thank Celestia. Because to quote Linkara:
3. I get it. She's gonna use her to get to Celestia. That makes sense.