Winter in Manehattan. Only one more night till Hearth's Warming. The night. The night they’d planned for since last Winter Wrap Up, the night that had to go perfectly otherwise it would in an almost literal sense spell their doom.
But nopony said he couldn’t have a little fun first!
And even if they had, Johnnycake would just have ignored them.
Too bad the last ferry had come and gone hours ago. Always nice to have an audience, especially tourists who hadn’t become jaded to the whole super scene, but hay, not like there was a shortage of ponies on the island who’d be out and about to see it.
The Horseshoe Torch reached inside and gunned whatever strange engine the cosmic rays had built there, putting on a last burst of speed to cover the distance between the edge of the city and the Statue of Destiny. Busy shoppers took a second to point hooves, talons, and other appendages at the fiery streak, burning in defiance of the falling snow.
Which promptly went out. With less than half a mile to go to Lady Destiny, Johnny cut the engine, momentum carrying him a little bit before he actually slowed, like a cartoon or something. Then gravity woke up and began to pull him towards the icy, somewhat rusty water like the world’s most boyishly good looking anvil.
“Aaand…flame on!”
His flame form snapped back on, a spine-searing six feet above oblivion. It would have been four for the sake of the brand, but he needed the room to manoeuvre. He took a second, enjoying the sensation of speed and the streaks of mist the heat, his heat, was causing to rise off the surface of the water.
Arcing up, the Torch course corrected back towards the landmark, shooting out two streams of flame from his outstretched hooves, and a third from his mouth for good measure. They continued to burn independently and followed him like a flock of nepotistic streamers. Once the loop-de-loop was complete, Johnny gesticulated like a conductor, directing each stream to stretch and curve juuust right. Completing the picture. But it still needed something.
Like the cartoon delinquent everypony assumed he’d been at childhood, (as if one could not develop stylish penponyship for the sheer joy of it!) Johnny sprouted a tiny flame in one hoof and scrawled a message of fire on the air. In a society that was part Pegasus sky writing was not new, but he’d actually gotten the idea for this specific use of his powers out of a comic book.
He squeezed the message between both blazing hooves, smearing the letters together, then spread them suddenly to send it up and out, until it was visible enough to be seen from the city.
HAVE A HAPPY ONE declared the haloed-smiling-under-the-mistletoe-and-oh-yeah-on-fire caricature of Princess Celestia. The shoppers broke into applause on pure joyous instinct.
It was winking. Of course.
***
“Show off,” the Spectacular Spider-Pony muttered, trying to keep his balance on the tip of the statue’s crown and stamp his hooves for warmth at the same time.
More out of habit than necessity. A thermal spell woven into the enchanted scarf Gem had given him back in the day still spread pleasantly through the fibres of one of the most (in)famous costumes in the city. But being 50% spider, as it had with so many things in his life, ruined winter forever.
Not that he was a humbug or anything, but it’s hard to stay in the Hearth’s Warming spirit all the time when your genetically altered instincts are screaming at you to find a nice, dark crack in a wall to hide in. On the other hoof, sun bathing was a delight. Speaking of.
“Y’know I actually sort of know her now?” he called as the Torch came in for a landing. “When she comes for you, and if she won’t her sister will, and you run away to become a hermit in Wakanda or wherever, who do you think she’ll set her sights on next?”
“What? She doesn’t have any problem being on money or postage stamps.” Now normal, relatively speaking, Johnny shook himself like a dog to blow out a few remaining sparks. “The twin roots of all evil! And it’s her student you’d have to watch out for. Which you won’t, because it is an excellent, like all things I do, likeness.”
“Evil stamps?”
“The Mad Thinker collects them, Pete. Mad. It’s like right there in his name, what does that tell you, man?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Spidey groused. “We doing this or what, Flame Brain?”
“Soon as you unclench, Web-Head.” Johnny lounged casually against one of the crevices that made up the statue’s mane, idly wishing he had a scarf to flap in the wind and make him look even more casual. But such was the price of perfectly regulated body temperature at will.
“Still can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”
“Please, like this isn’t the best idea.”
“Not that, this! Standing on solid stone! In the wind! And the snow!” Spidey jumped up and down a little to emphasise each point but stopped at a stronger blast of wind. Typical Manehattan weather patrol. They always said they were going to fix the shifting pressure that caused this sort of thing but they never did. “In spandex!”
“Don’t forget the oh-so-fashionable accoutrement,” Johnny smirked, gesturing to the grumbling Web-Slinger’s back as he hefted the Santa sack full of The Plan.
“Like you even know what that word means.”
Johnny frowned.
“What was the big delay anyway?” Spidey asked over the subtle thwip thwip thwip of his web shooters. “This was your idea.”
“I got...distracted.” The Torch scratched absently at where he was pretty sure that one filly at Spark Tower had left a lipstick mark. He dimly recalled said lips being the same shade of blue as this one poison Diablo had whipped up once. Clearly he'd had no choice but to risk it all for the hopes and dreams of all mistletoe meeters everywhere!
His face wrinkled, still managing to look cover photo worthy even as he looked on in disgust at what Peter was weaving. “Do you have to do that in front of people?”
“Oooh, what’re they gonna do, ban me from the cartoon?” Spidey jumped in place again to test the sturdiness of his web-skis, and tossed his collaborator a web-harness. “Do me a favour and get un-distracted? The job you wanna pull, we’re gonna need some of that Fantastic Focus you’re so renowned for.”
Johnny harrumphed, shooting twin bursts of flame out his nose as a prelude to igniting. He took to the air, towing the Web-Slinger behind him back to the city like a holiday themed cover for a heavy metal album. Under the mask, Peter Trotter actually smiled, partly from the welcome warmth but mostly the mental image of Ferocious Flattop’s face if he could see this. Eat your heart out, Father Hearth’s Warming.
Then they were racing among the towers of Manehattan. It was like they’d passed through a wave and suddenly found a whole different universe on the other side. A universe of golden windows in dark concrete and looming, half glimpsed billboards, the colours of Hearths Warming strewn between ledges. And all of it set against the streaming snow.
It was breath taking. But the two ponies had been running their mouths almost longer than they’d had super powers. The moment didn’t last.
“Nopony appreciates genius anymore!” the Torch called over the wind, blasting synchronised flames out his hooves for ad hoc retro thrusters. Not to rip off Iron Mage’s shtick, but so he could tow his buddy and not, y’know, burn him alive with his usual contrail at the same time. “Where’s that Hearth’s Warming spider-spirit?”
“Left it back at the Barn half an hour ago.” Spidey reflexively twisted gently in the wind now and again, the proportionate agility of a spider syncing him up with the Torch’s movements as they began to turn into the big arc that would take them towards Embassy Row.
Johnny had to focus on quite a bit to keep his passenger airborne and both thrusters perfectly equal, but couldn’t resist a cocky, anime over the shoulder glance to flash his trademark grin. While aflame, it was like a small sun starring in its own toothpaste commercial. “So why’re you still here?”
“...just drive. If we pull this off, it’ll be a miracle.”
“A furshlugginer miracle I tells ya!” Grim Skies announced to no one. “Busiest night of the year and I gots the place all to myself!”
The retro modern penthouse of the Baxter Barn should have been lonely, what with only his faithful (super-sized and re-enforced) Barcalounger for company by the fire, but leave it to Susie to make the joint look good just in time for the holidays.
She’d convinced Stretch to gussy up some of his whatchamacallits in Hearth’s Warming colours. The result was the place looked mostly the same, but in the rich greens, golds and reds of the holiday. A cheerful but still classy version of itself that managed to feel homey and warm, even with the king-sized windows out onto the dark and cold of the city. Its lights added to the effect, even!
The ever lovin’ blue eyed Thing, the size of a runaway bus and with hooves like an avalanche of cinder blocks each, honest to goodness spun in place like some Bridleway musical to take it all in.
“No pandemonium, no punks and no pranks!”
The sounds of the fire and his favourite jazz records agreed by subtly becoming even more soothing. Paradise. This was almost better than what he’d spent the months since Nightmare Night dreaming of. An honest to gosh break.
H.E.R.B.I.E. had long since finished sprucing up for and after various visitors bearing gifts, and tucked himself away for the night. If the little floating trash can could see what Grim had done to the kitchen, while preparing a sandwich with the ingredients of a hundred gift baskets, he would have stayed there forever or self-destructed. Either thought brought a smile to the Thing’s craggy features.
“Let the Bic-head and the bug run around in the snow!” he told the sandwich, lowering himself into the chair. “It’s just you ’n' me, gorgeous. Nothin’ and nopony’s gonna ruin this night.”
If the Barcalounger had lungs to warn its rocky owner of the glitter bomb, treacherously hidden under its cushion a few hours ago, it would have been screaming.
3
Somewhere dank and medieval, heavy on the evil. Lots of shades of green, particularly the story high stained glass windows. Each pane distorted the cityscape outside into something else. Here, an evil forest of angry fist drunkenly thrust to the sky. There, the jaws of some grotesque sea monster. You really didn’t want to see what they did to Coney Island.
Spider-Pony wondered idly if what the place really needed was some plants. Then again, given the owner, what kind of plants? Everfree-esque, probably. Something pony-eating and cliché.
He may only have been contemplating something so…avant-garde because the low, constant buzz of his Spider-Sense was gradually vibrating his brain to pulp. His instincts were just trying to cope with the feeling of said owner’s magic etched into every surface, like an office kleptophobic given a label maker.
Usefully so, though! All he had to do was crawl along the ceiling, guide the Torch around the areas that made his head scream, and voilà! Useful for avoiding security spells, or knowing when a fun sized metal monster is about to turn the corner, like right now.
The Gloam Golem marched along its beat, green energy swirling inside its skull and out through its hoof print eyes, illuminating the badge carved into its chassis, the face of its owner. Johnny enjoyed undermining the effect by burning smiley faces or rude messages into them. But tonight, he was taking the subtler approach and pacing himself.
Which tonight meant, yeah, okay, hiding in a broom closet. As if he actually had to change into costume! Like some sort of Peter! What kind of self-respecting evil overlord didn’t deck his halls with suits of armour you could hide in?! That was cool. That was cool. He would pay.
For his part, Peter was splitting his focus between his Spidey-Sense and wondering just what an evil overlord used to polish all that stone and steel anyway. Since this closet was evil by association, was there an evil linen cupboard somewhere? Did he have fabric softener for the cape?
After a beat, the pressure in his brain eased up as the Golem trotted off to make like an abstract conversation piece and lower the tone in a different corridor. Spidey did that quick little move on hoof wave he’d seen in the movies, and they slunk out into the relatively less musty open air.
“Well getting in sure was easy enough,” he whispered dryly, suppressing a shiver at the memory of all those other green glows moving in the dark as they’d made their way through the halls. “Now we just have to stay in one piece long enough to get out...”
He silently sprang to another wall. Crawling was a comfort thing sometimes. He looked back to make sure Johnny was doing what he’d thought he was doing but still had to ask. “What’re you doing?”
“Hmm?” The Torch glanced up from a fancy 4 emblazoned pocket watch and took advantage of the lighting to make his grin that little bit more sinister. “Checking on a special delivery.”
The Thing just sat there. In his chair. With his sandwich. Still half way to his mouth.
Around him, a typhoon of confetti settled into slow swirls from inside a snow globe. One of them wafted down like a cinder from a jovial volcano eruption, and draped itself lazily on his nose. Stony blue eyes crossed to take it in: a flaming chibi pony head, wearing a Santa hat, and its tongue out to razz all the world.
“I hate that kid so much I scare myself sometimes,” he told the sandwich.
5
They knew they were getting close when things became more industrial. A sign of the enemy showing off his genius. And, according to Spider-Sense, when the security spells started to become even more terrifying. A sure sign of somepony with an image to protect.
At last, they emerged from a sewer like tunnel into a cathedral like chamber and beheld the target.
“See?” Johnny whispered, raising one flaming hoof higher to better illuminate their quarry. “Horrifying!”
“It’s worse than you described!” Dangling upside down from a web-line, the Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Pony dramatically punched a clenched hoof into the pad of his open one. “It’s going to take the two of us to expunge this evil, old chum!”
“What,” the Torch grumbled, “you can use expunge but I can’t know accoutrement?”
“Hush, I’m speechifying.” Spidey flipped to the floor, all the better for shaking a hoof at the statue looming over them. “It’s a threat! It’s a menace!”
As one they tugged the sack open, The Plan glinting within. A determined Spidey shared a glance with a mischievous Torch.
“It’s gotta go.”
“Dang, Pete, you’re so punk, I love it.”
Steps One through Two of The Plan
Step One: break into the Lashverian embassy undetected.
Step Two: Muahahaha!
“Sorry ’bout the impromptu mess, doll face.” the Thing said. He was gesturing for the late guest to come in, honest, but it looked more like he’d buzzed her up and thrown the door wide to display the confetti mountain that had become of his sanctuary. “Though to be honest, I’d almost forgotten anypony was comin’ over.”
After all these years as a pile of fossilised cookies his first instinct was still to offer a wing to take her coat. But that wasn’t an option. Dad-blasted cosmic rays. Still, it hadn’t been all bad. Sometimes, after all the fights and flights (often happening at the same time) to far off lands and other planes of existence, they occasionally got visited by a class act like the web-head’s aunt.
May Reilly bustled her way into the penthouse as though she were at least two decades younger. Her old fur overcoat didn’t have a hope of slowing her down and, even though he tried to keep up so he could at least help with the mountain of packages on her back, the Thing would’ve been almost scared to try. Maybe it was the fact she reminded him of his sweet aunt Petunia.
“Honestly Grim Skies, how many years does an old mare have to make the rounds before it sinks in: the best gifts are those given in person.” May had the coat in his hooves and the gifts neatly arranged on the table faster than any of Reed’s gizmos could ever hope to. Her eyes drifted over to the parade float that had been his chair. “The place looks...festive but lonely. Is it just you tonight?”
“Ah Stretch ’n' Susie had some fancy schamncy shindig to sit in on.” Grim waved it off, his hoof making a scraping sound like pebbles falling down some stairs. “And the matchstick’s probably playin’ walkin’ nightlight for your nephew somewhere.”
“Such good boys!” May said, beaming.
The Thing had gone hoof to hoof with heavy weights like the Shy-Hulk (nopony ever let him forget about the freakin’ Shy-Hulk), the Dragoon, and Mr. hoity toity Imperious Rex himself. Those were all pillow fights compared to how much effort it took him not to laugh at that.
“Eh, good at makin’ a mess, maybe.” He at least managed to pull a chair out for her. “I gotta lot to be thankful for May, don’t get me wrong, but I like to take a holiday on the holidays. Let the youngsters have their holly ’n' jolly.”
“So you won’t be wanting a little company and comestibles while cleaning up?”
She unsealed the tupperware lid on top of the pile. Cookies.
“Well. Might be nice to break out the old Parcheesi set...”
He took a bite. Sold immediately.
“Mmm, mandelbrodt!”
7
“Victory never tasted so sweet.”
Johnny realised he was doing the hooves on hips thing, like he was Reed’s age or something, and immediately adopted a smug folded forelegs pose to continue admiring their handiwork. Foregoing the giant novelty antlers had been the right move, but he’d adamantly (and, security conscious, quietly) put his hoof down about the red nose.
Spidey nodded, decoration lights and the macabre shadows of the embassy playing over his mask. “And to think I almost didn’t come.”
“How come?” Johnny turned to look at his bud as they came out of the tunnel—
Spider-Sense!
—which meant he didn’t see the rapidly approaching green light from above.
Spider-Pony went from tensing up to springing towards his pal like uncoiling steel in seconds, Spider-Speed’s usual disregard for physics. The impact sent them both spinning down the hall in a rolling bundle like something out of Discord’s idea of a pin ball game, only their tails telling which blurring tangle of limbs belonged to which.
On the plus side, they went rolling out of the descending Gloam Golem’s impact range. On the down side, they only stopped because they struck the hooves of another Golem. With more and more green eyes flickering out of the shadows, as if they’d been surrounded by a ring of malevolent trick birthday candles.
“Because I was expecting something like this to happen,” Spidey muttered as they took up a back to back position. “Something like this always happens.”
“Ah c’mon,” Johnny grinned as he reignited, “you know it’s just not Hearth's Warming without that one last thing you remember you just have to take care of!”
8
It wasn’t even a block to the closest subway, but Grim still insisted on walking May out of the Baxter Barn. It seemed a crummy thing to do to just use his 4 crest whatchamacallit to activate the penthouse lift and send her down all those floors alone.
“Take care, doll face!” he rumbled cheerfully as they reached the entrance. “I’d escort ya home as is benefitin’ of a gentleman of my breedin’ but...”
“But anypony who can whoop you good at that many rounds of parcheesi can look after herself, yes?” Sometimes it wasn’t so hard to believe she was related to that wall crawling clown. But that twinkle in her eye really could’ve come from his own sweet aunt Petunia.
“We’ll see ’bout that next year’s rematch!” That trademark faux bravado was flattened out of his smile by something more genuine. “But seriously, doll, thanks. It was a pleasure.”
May’s eyes twinkled some more, and the Thing felt the atmospheric charge that meant she was gearing up for one of those Trotter family soliloquies. All the fault of her late husband, apparently, but in her defence, he’d swear her nephew’s had become even more cornball since he’d started mixing with that Ponyville crowd.
“Well, Grimwald, we’ve both been around for a while now.”
“And don’t the squirts like remindin’ me...”
“But that means we both know that, even if you’re not all that lonely, sometimes the best gift a pony can give is their company.”
Okay, that one actually wasn’t so bad. Then she gave the big galoot a kiss on the cheek. His rocky hide even flushed a little!
“Ah, go on an’ get outta here with that talk before somepony sees. I got’s me a reputation to maintain!” Although. It had been an awful lot of floors for him to cover as well. Perhaps he’d had more to say than just goodbye.
“Then I suppose there’s nothing left to say except have a happy Hearth’s Warming!” May chuckled as she waved goodbye and began the climb down to the ocean of late party goers, shoppers and street performers.
“You too, doll face, and don’t worry, I will!” His wave was heartfelt and cheerful and his grin was heartfelt, tombstone like, and malevolent. “The kid doesn’t know what I planted in his room.”
Eight whole city blocks. That was how long it took them to lose the herd of weapons grade junk. The Horseshoe Torch half glided, half wobbled through the air, his flames rapidly growing and shrinking in time with his laboured breathing.
“Well...well that was...” a blur that looked like Peter was trying to say, as it sprawled on top of a HVAC unit.
“Engaging?” Jonny wheezed. “Gratifying? Dare we say…woo...fun?” A lot more articulate than his lungs were capable of at this point, and yeah, nerdy, but that accoutrement crack had really stung.
“I was...gonna go with...disastrous…” Spidey realised cold metal was not the best place to collapse and managed to force himself to all fours. “And a border line...ngh…act of war, but what’s the difference?”
“And here comes the soliloquy.” Johnny rolled his eyes, floating casually in mid-air as though resting on an inflatable pool chair. With his breathing now under control he could feel that tell tale atmospheric charge. “Seriously, what is it with your family?”
Spidey’s chest puffed out a little, although maybe that was just from all the hard breathing.
“I’m just saying, this is the season where everypony gets to have a little me time.” He honestly looked down at his hooves, contemplatively. “If we’re gonna pull on the union suits, it’d be nice if we could at least try and make the world a better place for a change.”
The two casually tossed each other gifts without much change in demeanour.
“And that’s why we’ll be doing the same thing next year.”
“Of course,” Spidey said without missing a beat. “Darksied?”
“Oooh, a challenge!”
They dove off the roof in opposite directions, Johnny flaming on and heading for uptown, Spidey swinging for the low roofs of Chelsea. The crowds below only saw multi-coloured blurs but heard the twin cries.
“Happy Hearths Warming, Flame-Brain!”
“Happy Hearths Warming, Web-Head!”
It didn’t matter that Johnny knew that Peter’s gift would be a fire extinguisher. It didn’t matter that Peter knew that Jonny’s gift would be a can of bug spray. The fact both still smelt like they’d just come from a Home Depot added to it if anything. Sometimes the best gift two super powered misfits like them could give each other was just their company.
10
The lights were still on in the penthouse. Johnny had been expecting to have to use the bay doors of the weird silo thing River had bolted onto the side of the building when they moved in, but he wasn’t about to complain. He flamed off and tapped his emblem to the matching sigil etched into the glass patio doors.
“Aw man,” he pouted as they slid open, “you cleaned up already?”
“Yup.” Grim Skies, clad in bathrobe and bunny slippers as if to rub it in, glanced up from his paper and over his tiny reading glasses, which were very definitely meant to rub it in. “Had a helpin’ hoof. Yer coco was all me though, not that I’m expectin’ so much as a thank you.”
“Uh huh.” Johnny squinted as he hung his 4 emblem and yoke on the coat rack. “What’d you put in it?”
The Thing snorted with a force that could have driven twin holes in a wall, and went back to his paper. After several pokes satisfying him it wasn’t going to explode, Johnny took a nonplussed sniff.
“Huh,” he concluded, “this is coco.”
“Still had some of them fancy Wakandan beans,” Grim rumbled. “It’ll be cold now, though.”
“Oh no,” Johnny deadpanned, holding a hoof to the bottom of the mug and filling the room with another wonderful holiday aroma, “whatever shall I do.”
The penthouse was full of nothing but the mellow sounds of the Thing’s old man music as he took an appreciative sip. “You know that little surprise wasn’t anything personal, right? Y’know, this time. Every year you just seem so determined to sit around here and, I dunno, grow moss or whatever it is you do. Figured you could use something festive.”
“An’ for this you think I would do a thing like ruin your coco?”
“It’s what I would do,” Johnny called back as he crossed the hall to his room.
The Thing shook his head ruefully. “Happy Hearth’s Warming, ya little punk.”
“Happy Hearth’s Warming, you big stiff.”
The high flying Horseshoe Torch lounged contentedly on his king sized bed, completely unaware of the glitter bomb hidden inside his alarm clock, set to go off tomorrow twenty minutes early.
And the one in his shower head. And his shaving foam. And most of his favourite mane and tail products.
The lights were on in his apartment. Spidey felt an odd mixture of ice cold shock and that holiday night exhaustion. He alighted on the fire escape railing, hefting the somehow always paint-stuck living room window open, and clambered inside.
“Poison Pony, I swear if this is you trying to be subtle again...” he called slipping off his scarf, and immediately shut up.
“Hello, dear,” his aunt and his girlfriend said in near perfect unison from his couch.
“Aunt May? Twilight?” Spider-Pony reached up and peeled off the mask to reveal the surprised, smiling face of Peter Trotter. “Can I get you...well, you’ve already made yourselves coffee, your gifts are just down the hall? Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting--”
“Neither was I!” Twilight Sparkle trotted over to give him a hug, then fussed over his scarf, her horn glowing and restoring some of the fading thermal magic. “But I wanted to surprise you anyway and bumped into your aunt on the subway, and, well, ooh, who enchanted this, Gem Stone? This is some nice spell weaving.”
“Twilight and her friends want to invite us to a little shindig,” Aunt May explained.
“In Ponyville?” Peter squinted as he shucked out of the rest of the costume “I was going to bug someone in the business to fly or teleport me over tomorrow…”
“At the library, yes!” Twilight beamed. “Pinkie Pie said she’d be ‘super duper Jupiter trooper prepared’ to fetch you herself but I figured it’d be, um, easier on everypony if I just set up a teleportation tunnel between here and town! What?”
Peter was looking at her as he threw his scarf back around his neck. “You can do that?”
“Oh sure! Like this!” Both Earth Ponies jumped slightly as the unicorn’s horn tore a gaping purple hole in reality. Spike looked up guiltily from where he’d been smuggling excess tiny hay dogs. “Sorry, it is a little loud isn’t it? But as long as one of our belongings is in either of our homes I can create a simple lay line to teleport myself along to either location…”
“And the larger, more visible tunnel is so you can carry passengers or larger loads?” Peter finished, waving at a distant Derpy Hooves. “You’re amazing! I totally need to take readings when we go through! Maybe some of our mane samples! Did you whip this up by yourself?”
Twilight blushed and kicked at the floor with one hoof. “Oh, you know, just spoke to Cadence about…stuff and the princess had these notes on a kind of glass that could be enchanted to bend between realities and, well, we’re always going to be so busy. You have your responsibilities and all…”
Peter was startled by a sudden weight on his back. He turned to find Aunt May loading him up with their gifts, and giving him a meaningful look. He smiled and took Twilight’s hoof. “I’m never too busy to spend time with you, Twilight. Especially not tonight. And how could we say no to something this thoughtful?”
“Yes, it’s not like you want to prove that Grinch you work for right, is it?”
He smiled as she leaned against his chest.
“Also, please do not tell Rainbow Dash I set up a teleportation tunnel between here and town, I really, really don’t want to race her, or make her think she can tap into this speed force nonsense she keeps going on about, and also what if we fall out of the tunnel and get swept away into the Bleed...”
“No problem, hon.” Peter just patted her shoulder.
“I also might be saving it to wreak my grim vengeance for that time she pranked me into thinking I accidentally loaned out all my books.”
“Lie to your friends and love ones on your behalf. Got it.”
Aunt May elbowed him in the ribs as the violet radiance and smell of hot coco enveloped them all.
12
Hearth’s Warming morning. The light of the rising sun did not reach the Lashverian embassy’s windows, and its warmth wouldn’t have reached the Baroness Von Bardas’ heart even if she hadn’t been stone cold terrified. You didn’t become the last holdout of Lashverian aristocracy by frolicking in the woods with bunnies and grandmothers. You also didn’t stay alive by failing the will of Gloam. Like, say, allowing two intruders to do…this.
She turned, ready to screech at the Golems again, and froze. The metal face of Dr. Gloam was right behind her.
“My lord...” Von Bardas began.
The doctor glided past her like she wasn’t even there, stopping at the base of the target. It had been a statue of Gloam himself, the centre piece of the chamber intersecting all public parts of the embassy, built to let everypony of this backwater know just who’s domain they were entering.
Now, with the application of a small fortune in Hearth’s Warming decorations and red paint, it looked like a king-sized Father Hearth’s Warming decoration. The defilers had even ringed the upper levels of the chamber with tinsel and wrapping paper, but the stand out was easily the plate of cookies and note left at the base.
With the hum of servos in Gloam’s armour, almost as cold and serpentine as it’s owner’s rage, a green glow levitated the note up to eye level.
Dear Gloomy,
Didn’t see you at the last super party. (ending with a sad face.) So we decided to bring the party to you! (ending with a smiley face!) Who knows, maybe a little cheer will make a big difference in you.
Enjoy the cookies!
A gauntlet slammed down on the plate, the sound of steel on mere porcelain echoing like a cannon shot. The Baroness was too terrified to even flinch.
“Burn it,” the dictator said simply.
“At once, lord!” the Baroness squeaked, trying not to shuffle away too quickly.
Gloam simply stood there, the iron clad embodiment of a bitterness that would grind Equestria and everywhere like it to the same grey ash as its own heart. Then lifted something up into the darkness of his hood. There was the sound of chewing.
“Mmm. Mandelbrodt.”