//------------------------------//
// Line of Ire (2) 
// Story: Super Pony Roomies 
// by TheManehattanite 
//------------------------------//


6


After…all that (and a few hours of debriefing, bad coffee and insisting he didn’t need a blanket, suggesting the officer in charge as an alternative so she’d get mad and expedite his dismissal, though he’d meant it, she really did have a showpony lovely coat) the intrepid Horseshoe Torch tried going further afield. 

“How do you feel about wharfs, Mr. Storm?” the white suited landlord asked, making him regret the idea immediately even though nothing had happened yet. 

“…how do…you feel about wharfs?” 

“Please Mr. Storm, neither of us is on trial here! It’s not the 60’s anymore, am I right?”

“Yes,” Johnny said simply, trying not to wonder what the random decade had to do with anything because it clearly couldn’t go anywhere good. 

“I only ask because Storm is a good strong name, distinct as hoofprints, but storms, wharfs, you know, there’s connotations.” 

“There don’t have to be!” 

“Oh, I like that!” the old pony chuckled, Mozart mane wobbling slightly. Johnny was convinced his eyepatch had changed places at least twice since they began the conversation. 

He tried to supply his older family members’ style deficiencies by a wrapping a mix of impishness and swagger around his natural talents, but had the uncomfortable feeling this Mr. Fishodour (that name!) was either better at stringing ponies along, operating on a different plane of reality, or both. 

The Baxter Barn (technically the Baxter Building on paper, but named after the founder’s farm styled laboratory that gave the building it’s distinctive place in the Manehattan skyline, neat trivia if you wanted to appear worldly on a date) had gone through several landlords before Sue had finally been able to help Reed fully claim the property, and Johnny wouldn’t have trusted some of them with her old Princess Playset dollhouse let alone somepony’s home and future. 

Fishodour made those guys look like lemonade stand foals with delusions of grandeur just by standing there. 

“We have a thriving little community here,” he explained continuing the tour, or at least leading Johnny around the apartment a lot, “ well, little. Always up to something! Got to keep your eye on them!”   

“I’m big on socialising!” Johnny tried smiling. “What do folks around here do for fun?”

“There’s a certain amount of running around, they must enjoy some of it.” Mr. Fishodour was randomly open doors now. “What line do you want to go with, Mr. Storm?”

“Sorry?”

“Ahaha, no it’s me who should apologise! Old habit I picked up from my days running a Las Pegasus legal firm.”

“Oh, you were a lawyer?” The Las Pegasus and legal hooks gave him an opportunity to bring up June and hopefully make him feel like he had his hooves on solid ground for the first time in this conversation. 

“No, just owned a lot. Ah, here we are!” The all white colour scheme was the only reason Johnny could buy this crank wasn’t a disguise for the Pop-Up Pony as he wearily followed him into the living room. “I meant to ask what line you’re in?”

“Explorative research,” Johnny said carefully, giving the old weirdo a once-over and deciding to play to the cut of his suit. 

“Explorative! Sounds profitable!” Fishodour smiled wistfully. “One of my many great, great grandfathers was an explorer, you know. Or at least he dealt in international waters a lot.” 

“Isn’t this a little much for one pony?” Johnny asked. “I mean, you haven’t let me get a good look at any of the other rooms, but this seems more family sized.” 

“Now don’t be greedy Mr. Storm.” Fishodour wagged a hoof. “You already saw the restaurant downstairs, despite my best efforts!”

“Yeah, I…did wonder why you asked to meet around the back.” 

“Oh, because that door is so much easier to open! Besides, if it’s restaurants you want, you’ve got a view of a much more successful one from this window.” 

“Not especially!” Johnny looked through the open window anyway. “I’d probably fix that backdoor, too. No offence, but it’d be kinda hard to sleep in any of these bedrooms if your thriving little community could run in and out whenever they want.” 

“Fair point,” Fishodour consented. “We’re quite energetic for such an out of the way place. Why, I recently took up tumbling! It’s important to have skills to…fall back on! Eh? Eh?”

“Mmm,” Johnny agreed, idly looking the place over and vowing never to pick potential housing via flame dart to a map ever again. 

Not because this was where fate had driven him, but because the dart had naturally burnt a hole in the place name and this wherever-the-hay had been next to it. 

“This place seriously feels bigger than I’ll need, what kind of price were you thinking?”

“We already agreed on one,” Fishodour beamed. “And you did say you wanted somewhere nopony would ever think to look.”  

He held that pleasantly disposed smile though an entire beat of the super pony staring at him. 

“No I didn’t,” Johnny said eventually. “I think you’ve mistaken me for somepony else. Maybe you get a lot of ponies who drop out of the sky on fire and make appointments at the last minute, but…”

“Oh no, easy mistake, could happen to anypony,” Mr. Fishodour assured. “My real 3:30 and I have never met face to face. Don’t even know if they’re a pony!” 

“And, ah, the current owners?” 

“Don’t deal in…well, I really shouldn’t say. But even if these were the proceedings I thought they were they’d have no bearing on them.” 

“Yeah, but it’s just that all their stuff’s still here.” Johnny picked up and examined a framed photo of three foals, feeling like their eyes were going to follow him all the way back home. “These people know you’re trying to sell their house, right?” 

“No, you’re running an illegal panda gland harvesting lab in the basement!”

Johnny recoiled, both from the accusatory hoof and the bomb burst sound of the dropped photo smacking the floor. “What?!” 

“See? Accusations aren’t fun, Mr. Storm.” 

“Mr. Fishodour?” came a deadpan voice that dragged Johnny to the centre of the earth with how exhausted it was “Are you up here? Because I don’t wanna complain but there’s this thing I found in the basement that we should probably talk abou--Oh, uh, hi.”

“Hey,” Johnny said, trying to keep his voice as un-incriminating as possible. “Um.”

“Bob! You’re--”

“Back, yeah. Left, ah, left something in the basement, which I kinda feel we--”

“I was going to say alive! Remarkable.”

They all stood there looking between each other, until Fishodour smiled and shrugged. “Well, can’t hoof-stand around here all day. Hup!” 

He hurled himself backwards out the window with the grace of an Equestria Games competitor. Johnny and Bob almost knocked each other over racing to it to see…Fishodour landing perfectly in his open roofed carriage, which rattled off around a corner and out of sight. 

Only the sea breeze and sound of distant hoofbeats indicated the old stallion had ever existed, and Johnny wasn’t sure the experience would ever leave him no matter how hard he tried. 

After fixing up the family’s door and accepting one of their burgers to go (least he could do), he was touching down on the terrace, feeling every mile of today’s insane journey slapping into him like waves. The hardest part? He had to tell Sue. 


***

“Lyja?!” 

Sue threw off her work glasses, almost scattering the papers she’d been studying as she bounded from the kitchen table to embrace him. 

“Oh Johnny, I’m so sorry! How’d she even know where to lay that trap?”

“She’s always been good at picking her moments.” Johnny flopped down onto one of the couches, staring at the actual sunset out the magically tinting windows. “Other places I had lined up were probably cool, but it’s not like the E.U.P.’ll let me near them. Afraid you guys are still stuck with me.” 

“I’ve had you kicking my hooves out from under me since before you could walk,” Sue smiled, sitting next to him. “I can wait a little longer.” 

Despite himself (or maybe that burger) Johnny smiled. 

“It’s a big city. You’ll find somewhere.”

“Maybe. I could talk to Skrull engineering, find out where they took that hologram.” 

Sue laughed then stopped at the contemplative look on his face. “You’re serious.” 

“Hey, if I can’t have hardwood floors—!”

“Well if ya ain’t got nothin’ better to do,” the Thing rumbled, snagging his tail in his teeth as he walked past, “you can make yourself useful for once an’ help me sort out some Yancy Street business.” 

Johnny’s protests were cut short as he flopped to the penthouse floor, adopting a resigned pose as he was dragged along. 

“Why not? A warm cup of your dignity would hit the spot right about now…”

“Don’t stay out too late!” Sue laughed as they turned the hall corner leading to the hanger. “You’ve got plenty more home hunting left to do!” 

“Could I proofread Web-Head’s jokes first?” the Torch muttered into the carpet. “Throw myself down some stairs, maybe.” 

It did feel good to be out in the darkening city air, though. Maybe because instead of the long flight of shame back to the penthouse he was on a mission. 

Okay, that was Peter think, time to shake it off. 


7

“So wait,” Spike blinked as Peter suited up in the middle of the library floor, “why’d you take the train if you were just gonna use Twilight’s set up to go back all along?”

“Peanuts and the fact I had only one more ride for enough miles to redeem on my rail pass.” Peter winked, pulling the mask halfway over his face to cover his eyes but not his snout. 

“I’ll keep digging around for this,” Twilight promised, levitating Deco’s stone back into his saddle bag. 

“It’s cool. I’ll hunt down Tombs and see what I can find out. Doubt it’s anything big, that’s not his forte and it sure isn’t Blackie’s.” They shared a last kiss before he pulled the mask down fully. “And don’t stay up too late! You’ve already got a lot going on.”

“Maybe it’s your fault for wearing me out,” she teased, horn glowing. The floor beneath him filled with warm light and cool, stale smelling city air as she backed away. 

“Same time next weekend?” 

“Maybe earlier if the fate of the world’s at risk!” she called, the light shimmering off the Elements display behind her. 

“Hey, Discord’s a good guy now.” He shrugged as space began to waver around him. “Anything could happen!” 

Her laughter was swallowed by his apartment blooming into existence around him. 

Sunset. The underworld watering holes he knew about should be starting to fill up. He tossed his saddlebag onto the couch, checked his mail (no response from the lab but he hadn’t seriously expected any), and launched himself out the living room window. 

Despite his constant internal carping, going straight from Twilight Time to web-swinging was actually bolstering! Maybe it was just refreshing that for once in his adult life he wasn’t choosing to put a relationship to the side to focus on the business. 

Then again, going from the most engaging and intelligent pony he’d ever met to the more primal feeling of galloping across the sides of buildings and swinging past towers, billboards, and rooftop gardens: what wasn’t to like? 

In a montage of shady taprooms, alleyways, and an unobtrusive visit to The Bugle’s archives, he confirmed that Tombs had been granted early parole into a work release program. All in a little under two hours. Hadn’t even had to hang Turk off a fire escape or anything!

“Huh. Damage Control.” 

A consult position, which made him smile grimly under the mask. Old man had certainly caused enough damage. But where was the connection? Spare parts for Basilisk suits? Then how’d Blackie fit in? How’d that stone?

Ears not being pointy enough to qualify for World’s Greatest Detective, he decided for a more direct approach: trying to annoy it out of the old buzzard. 


8


Arcadian Tombs arrived in his musty rooms in what had, in his day, been one of the finest explorers guild halls in the city to find his nemesis perched on the head of his favourite gothic reading chair, pretending to flip through one of the yellowing tomes that filled every corner. 

“So how was your day?” Spidey cooed, making a show of neatly closing the book, then dumping it like a brick into a tower of them, collapsing it. 

“What do you want, arachnid?” 

Even without being framed by the Basilisk cowl, Tombs eyes always unsettled Peter. One sharp and bird like, the other languid and reptilian. 

“Magical jewellery and horseshoes to match, but it looks prettier on the Elements.” He hopped off the head of the chair, landing in the seat with his forelegs behind his head and one hind leg crossed over the other. “Speaking of! Can’t be doing your entitlement complex any good knowing there’s a younger, sleeker Basilisk model out there.”

“Believe it or not, I care even less about that fool Deco than I do you.” 

“You could tell me what Princess Celestia’s hair is made out of and I still wouldn’t believe you.” Spidey sprang to the ceiling, lenses neutral as he stared the old man (upside)down. “Come up with any cruel and unusual ways to make your baby more versatile lately? I know how you like to tinker.” 

“No longer, I’m afraid.” He hadn’t missed the old man’s reptilian smile. “You see before you a reformed stallion.” 

“Cade, old buddy, old pal, we’ve talked about this! If you wanna make me laugh just be yourself!” 

“Rest assured, this whole affair is most amusing.” Tombs finished removing his hat and coat. His remaining hair seemed to be peeling itself away from his balding dome in a wing like shape, not helping with the whole evil genius thing. “You have no evidence to connect me to whatever you’re accusing me of, and even less right to invade my lodgings like this.”

“Evil-bird-suit-mastermind-says-what.”

“What?!” Tombs snapped. 

Spidey pointed a hoof in triumph. “Ah-ha!”  

“I haven’t missed these inane games, I really haven’t.” 

Tombs picked up an old teapot and started to water a small bonsai tree. Peter half suspected the old man was filling his mouth as a stall tactic. After this long it couldn’t be because he actually thought it’d make the Web-Head stop talking. 

“Deco swiped a bag of ancient stones from the Magical History Museum.” Spidey dropped to perch on a suit of armour, keeping Tombs in view. “That’s your game, not his.” 

“You flatter me,” Tombs smirked again, using a small trowel to stir the gravel of his little zen garden. “But then my expertise is far more considerable than you and that lout’s combined.”

“Never kept you out of the Stockade though, did it?” Spidey tried. 

There was a flair of those strangely beak like nostrils, but you had to know Tombs to recognise it.  

“The Stockade never held me for very long.” That reptilian curve of the mouth again as Tombs lowered himself onto the mat next to the bonsai table, making sure the Web-Slinger got a good view of a small metal band around his ankle. “And since then I’ve been under constant surveillance. As you can see, my gift from the state here is still the obnoxious yellow of my allowed radius, rather than any of the random colours crossing into another district would generate.” 

“Please,” Spidey scoffed as he fired a tail-web to the ceiling and dangled around Tombs in a slow orbit. “The stones in those things are so basic they freeze up by rubbing some tinfoil into a local ley line and wrapping them in it!”

Then again, he only knew that because Fera had told him. Ley lines were also the reason adding alarm spells to these bracelets had been abandoned, helpful as that would have been, because crossing one could short the stone out before they even went off. 

Hay, just wrapping a thick enough bandage around your hoof and faking a limp could buy an offender a few hours of freedom. The only reason you never heard of anypony trying the old paint-it-yellow trick anymore was because the crown had seen through that immediately, and started casting them with non-stick spells.

“Even if you didn’t pawn the suit off to Blackie, you’d never sit still working a nine-to-five while he was flying around. The bitterness would break you in half.”

“If you’ll ask local law enforcement or the good people at Damage Control, you’ll find I’ve been doing just that!” Tombs said jovially, eyes closed now to rub the meditation image in. 

“So the only real question is what you’ve got in here that they don’t know about.”

“Ah, a locked room mystery, is it? Haven’t had the pleasure of one of those since I had to help figure out who built the first death traps inside the pyramids…after they were built.”

Spidey stopped circling. “…that actually does sound kinda cool.”

“One tries one’s best.” Tombs opened his reptilian eye. “You realise, of course, that I’m only waiting for the M.E.U.P. to arrive?”

“What?” 

Spidey turned towards the door, wondering how he’d missed the sounds of hoofbeats on stairs or why there’d been no Spider-Sense blast. And got his answer as a green Unicorn with a blonde mane and a badge rammed her way inside. 

“Back away from him!” she barked. 

“Gem?!” Spidey’s lenses widened, distorting their twin reflections of her irritated expression. “I-I mean…Officer Stone?”

“That’s Detective Stone to you, Web-Head. Let’s go for a walk.”


To be Continued