Episode 4
Cold Blood, Part 3
Reptile Rampage!
The cross-species genetics project that Twilight, Sunset and Dr Silk Mane had been working on for the last month was anything but flawless or risk-free...even when used in its proper way.
While the project had finally managed to find success in its intended application with the most recent test subject (the three-legged mouse that regrew its lost limb in a previous chapter), there were many more far less successful tests that had been done before that happened.
Some mice just fell apart and died, others mutated into horrible mismatched hybrids that turned rabid and insane out of sheer confusion about what was happening to them, and a few even straight up turned into another animal entirely, while the rest...well, they just stayed the way they were with no noticeable changes whatsoever. However, that last possibility was the clear exception to the norm and didn't happen often.
Either way, this was clearly a problem that could not be ignored, especially if the practice would be used on a larger scale. Therefore had Celestia immediately ordered the creation of a second formula to effectively counteract the original one and restore the test subjects to their former selves. The result was something of a...'gene-cleanser'...if you will. A powerful mutagen that could knock out any foreign DNA in the organism's body and recover the parts of them that the cross-species formula had overridden.
While Twilight and the others had focused far more on making the initial cross-species serum work properly in the first place rather than take too much time developing its counteragent, she was still fairly confident there was still one sample left in CelestiaCorp's bio-labs...which of course was where she was currently heading.
Despite how relatively close she was to her destination, she ended up taking a fair bit longer to get there than she wanted. Mostly that was because of how terribly exhausting this whole ordeal had turned out to be...not helped by the fact that she hadn't gotten much of anything resembling of a good night's sleep before Spike woke her up earlier. Also, the wound he inflicted on her chest right before he fully transformed into the Lizard was still taking quite a toll on her as well.
The bloodied t-shirt she wore gave her a lot of odd looks from a number of people on the street, most of who weren't even aware of the Lizard's rampage in the first place. But even so, that still wasn't nearly as bad as the stinging pain she felt every time a gust of wind touched her chest.
The experience was excruciating.
Eventually, even if she knew she had no time to do so, she just had to slow down for a bit. Otherwise, she'd risk tiring herself out to the point of collapse...and that wouldn't help Spike's situation one bit.
Putting a hand over her open wound to quell the pain a bit, she leaned up against the wall of a nearby building and tried to catch her breath.
'I can't do this,' she gloomily thought. 'At this rate I'll never make it to the cure and back to wherever Spike is in time. If I can't think of another way to get it to him, he's gonna stay that way forever, and it's all gonna to be my fault. Come on, Twilight, think! There must be a way to get this done faster, there must be!'
Suddenly, she remembered something that she couldn't believe she hadn't thought about sooner. Too tired and stressed out to think clearly most likely why.
'Wait a minute, Sunset said she was gonna work late tonight. It might be a long shot, but maybe she's still there.'
With that idea in mind, Twilight reached into her pocket and pulled out her cellphone, then immediately went to click on Sunset's name in her friends list to make the call.
She could hear the signals going out, but it took quite a while longer than she hoped it would before the call was eventually answered...so much so that for a second or two, Twilight was really worried it wasn't going to happen.
Her fears were soon put to rest though when she heard the always familiar confident voice of Sunset Shimmer say, "Hey, Sparkle! What's up?"
Twilight let out a sigh of relief. "Sunset, thank goodness you picked up! I need your help."
"Okaaay...with what?" her friend asked in a confused tone.
First things first. "Are you at CelestiaCorp right now?!"
"Uh...yeah, why?"
Twilight felt a small ray of hope in her heart upon hearing that. That meant that her idea might just work. Feeling a bit more optimistic than she was a moment ago, she immediately went about explaining the situation to her.
"You were right about that box Doctor Mane gave me! But it wasn't just a prank, it was an unstable version of the cross-species genetics formula! Spike opened it, and now he's turned into a human/lizard hybrid!"
"Spike!?" Sunset asked, sounding strangely more surprised over the fact that it had happened to him rather than the fact that it had happened at all.
If she was in a more lucid state of mind, Twilight might even have questioned that, but right now, her priorities were elsewhere.
"Yes, and he needs our help. Do you remember where we kept the Gene-cleanser?"
"Of course."
"Well, what I need you to do is to retrieve it and give it to me. I'm on my way to CelestiaCorp right now."
There was a distinct pause on the other end. Twilight noticed it, but didn't think much of it. Though in hindsight, she probably should have.
"Hmmm...you know, it might be easier if you wait in the lobby. I'll be coming down there with the Gene-cleanser in a minute or two tops. That sound good?"
"Uh, well, sure. I'll be there soon."
"Good to hear. Bye!"
Then the line went dead. Twilight put her phone back in her pocket and took in a deep breath, calming her mind and body.
Relieved that she could count on her best friend (and secret crush) at a time like this, Twilight began to make her way over to her destination. Though this time, she knew she wasn't in as much of a hurry as she was before and could content herself with a steady walking speed rather than trying and failing to run as fast as possible.
However, after this whole experience was over and done with, Twilight was sure to put in a vow to hit the gym and work on her endurance somewhere along the line.
Around the same time, but in a complete different part of the city, Captain Shining Armour of the Canterlot City Police Department was fully prepared to go home and catch at least a few hours of sleep tonight, his massive pile of overdue paper work on his desk having already kept him busy to well over midnight.
Combine that with his frankly hopeless investigation into the annoyingly elusive 'Carnage Killer' he had been busy with all week and Chief Neighsay's constant complaints about how he did his job, and one could easily excuse him for wanting nothing more than to go home, kiss Flurry goodnight and cuddle up in bed with Cadence...and then probably dream of his upcoming promotion he hoped would be in his future.
Instead, he and every single officer in his precinct who were still awake were now forced to head over to the city mall to quell a situation so utterly bizarre and unbelievable that Shining initially assumed it had to be an elaborate hoax of some kind.
Apparently, an alarming amount of people had reported that a giant lizard-monster of some kind was wreaking havoc in the middle of the city...which, by the way, was definitively not the kind of assignments that Captain Armour was used to...to say the least.
Still, he was professional enough to do his job despite the strangeness of the situation or the inconvenient timing. And even if he wasn't, he also knew disobeying direct orders from Chief Neighsay was pretty much the same as handing in his resignation.
So now, despite how much he would rather do pretty much anything else, he was nonetheless driving at full speed through the busy city streets in his squad car, lights and sirens turned on to highlight the seriousness of the situation and get people out of the way. He was joined by four more cars following closely behind, and alongside him was Officer Spearhead, Shining's partner and best friend on the force.
"So Shining, think this is a real giant lizard or just some dude in a costume?" Spearhead took the time to ask while they were approaching their destination.
He was a slightly bigger than Captain Armour and had a bit of a deeper voice, but that didn't make him any more intimidating in the least. In fact, given his slightly more laid back demeanour and upbeat attitude, even in dire situations like these, he was actually the more approachable of the two when on duty.
By contrast, Shining Armour was currently too focused on his driving to indulge his friend's question, and merely replied with an impersonal, "Stay focused. We'll see when we get there."
"Okay...but I was asking because, like, should we call the zoo for an open spot or something or just tell some crazy cosplayer to knock it off?"
"I don't know, Spearhead," he replied. "Just be ready for anything."
"Always am, sir," Spearhead assured while loading a fresh magazine of bullets into his standard-issue handgun. "Though if it is a guy in a costume I'd rather not use this."
Shining pulled over, having just reached the entrance to the mall. Then he unbuckled his seat-belt and suggested, "Then why don't we go in and find out?"
"You're the boss."
Meanwhile, inside the building they were about to enter...there was quite a situation going on.
'You know, if someone told me a few months ago that I'd be chasing down a giant lizard-version of Spike in a blue spider-themed spandex costume...then I'd probably ask if you were on drugs, but just look at me now!'
These were the thoughts that rang through Rainbow Dash's head while Spike the Lizard sent her flying straight into a clothes racket in a department store with a fairly powerful tail-whip to the face.
As it turned out, trying to subdue a rampaging reptile-monster without seriously hurting it may have been a bit harder than she thought it would be.
Heck, even finding him had proved to be quite a challenge given that he was both very fast and hellbent on finding a place to hide. She had lost his trail no less than five times already.
However, even so, the sight of a giant lizard-man running around the streets was still hardly something that would go unnoticed. In the end, all Dash had to do to find him was to follow the screams...and that eventually led her to the Canterlot City Mall, where the two were currently engaged in a rather violent confrontation.
Luckily for her, a pile of soft shirts was far from the worst thing she could had been sent flying into, and it didn't take her long at all to get back on her feet and continue the fight.
This time, she used a quick sling of webbing to pull a nearby mannequin towards her, then leapt up, spun around and kicked it hard enough to send it flying right into the Lizard's torso.
Turns out that, given enough force, even a flimsy plastic imitation of a human body could be a serviceable projectile to use in a heated battle. In this instance, it proved enough at least to knock the creature over for a moment.
And being led completely by animal instincts with no human intelligence to speak of, the Lizard actually assumed that the mannequin itself was the one that had attacked him, and viciously retaliated against it.
He started by pinning it down to the floor, then used his powerful jaws to pull one of its arms off before he started to rip it apart piece by piece with a fierce flurry of his sharp claws.
Though when he was preoccupied with his feral evisceration of the defenceless mannequin, Spider-Girl jumped up on the ceiling and shot a web-line each at the floor on both sides of him, then pulled back on them as hard as she could, creating a lot of tension in the strings...and when there was enough of it, she let go, sending herself flying towards him like a slingshot with her feet first.
She hit him with enough force to slam him belly-first into the floor, knocking the wind out of him and sending the pieces of the mangled mannequin underneath him flying in all directions.
And before he had a chance to recover, Spider-Girl wasted no time before she webbed up his hands, legs and tail to the floor. In addition to that, she also put one foot on his back and pressed down on it while she used her sticky spider-powers to anchor the other to floor next to him.
He growled and hissed in protest, struggling like a stranded fish in an attempt to break free of his new position.
With him temporarily incapacitated though, Spider-Girl took a second to catch her breath. "Okay, Spike, fun's over," she said in a slightly exhausted tone. "Now would you please just stay put until-"
Her spider-sense rang off, leaving her only a second or so to brace herself before the Lizard's muscular tail suddenly ripped right through the webbing keeping it contained and swung around to swat her aside like a bug.
Unlike the last time she had been sent flying by a whip of that tail though, she now ended up falling on the cold hard floor rather than a soft pile of clothes...which was probably a lot less comfortable all things considered.
And without her on top of him pinning him down, it didn't take the Lizard long to break out of his restraints and scamper off yet again.
Having landed right on her shoulder, Rainbow let out a pained groan while she made an effort to push herself back up on her feet.
After she had at least managed to sit up straight, she muttered, "That tail is really starting to get annoying..."
Just outside the fashion store where that battle took place, little more than half a dozen police officers were currently approaching with their weapons drawn.
Captain Armour took point, his shoulders tense and the grip on his gun as steady as can be. He may not have any idea what he was getting into, but he was prepared to handle whatever it was he had been sent do deal with.
At his left was Spearhead, who, while also having his pistol out, wasn't quite as tense as his partner and seemed curious about what was going on more than anything.
In contrast, the female officer on Shining's right, a certain Spitfire DeWolff, somehow looked even more intense, with a borderline aggressive glint in her eyes. Not surprising really given that she had served in the military long before she became a police officer...and as such had a hard time to shake off that special military attitude.
Next to her was her boyfriend Soarin Skies, who, having served alongside Spitfire in the war, had a similar military aura about him...which actually was a clear contrast to how laid back and carefree he was when off-duty.
There were three other officers there as well: the newly recruited Thunderlane, the slightly cocky Fleetfoot, and the older and more experienced Wind Rider...but we won't spend too much time on them right now. They're not all that important in the story just yet.
"Everyone, be ready," Shining urged as he moved up on the door to the shop.
They could clearly hear the commotion going on inside, and they caught glimpses of the battle through the shop windows...but that still didn't mean they knew what was going on.
And just as he was about to kick open the door and say something along the lines of 'Freeze!', 'Hands where I can see them!' or 'Down on the floor now!', the Lizard came bursting through it on all fours and forced himself past the group, knocking down Shining Armour, Spearhead and Fleetfoot to the floor in the process. Spitfire got hit in the face by a slap of the creature's tail but managed to regain her balance quickly.
The others didn't have much time to react to the encounter until after the Lizard had already disappeared around the corner, leaving them just standing there trying to make sense of what just happened.
"What the hell was that?" Spearhead mumbled as he, Shining and Fleetfoot were trying to get their bearings together.
"...I think...that was the lizard we're here to catch," Wind Rider answered, sounding a bit stunned.
Soarin turned on his radio and reported, "Officer Skies here! Giant lizard presence confirmed, going to need-"
Then the Spider-Girl jumped out of that same door, shouting, "Sorry, coming through!"
The cops only caught a brief glimpse of her appearance before she too got out of sight and swung around the corner, her determination to catch the Lizard not leaving any time for explanations to be given.
"...backup. Also, someone in a blue morph suit just flew past us. Got any intel on that?"
'Wait, was that Twilight's brother...and Spitfire and Soarin?'' Spider-Girl thought as she swung through the wide hallways of the city mall in hopes of catching up to the rampaging reptile she was chasing. 'Must have been sent to take care of Spike, I guess. But they don't know who he is, and they have guns, and if they use them on Spike, then...well, I'm not letting another person die on my watch, so it won't come to that. I just have to to get to him before they do!'
Luckily for her, it didn't take her all that long before she found the creature on the run, now heading towards a local cafe, probably drawn in by the smell of food.
At the end of her next swing, Spider-Girl let go of the line, performed a quick somersault and landed with both of her feet on top of the Lizard's head, kicking him down to the floor and stopping him in his tracks.
After pulling off the manoeuvre, she landed on a nearby cafe table and took on a combat stance. "Come on, Spike, don't leave me yet! The party's barely started!"
Having just got his face slammed right into the cold hard floor, the Lizard quickly got back up on all fours and fixed the Spider-Girl with a hateful glare, letting out a low hiss while doing so.
Seeing that expression on the monster's uncannily human (yet still creepily inhuman) face made Rainbow pause for a second and mutter, "Uh-oh."
The Lizard's next move was to try to slash at her with two swipes of his claws. Spider-Girl dodged them both and jumped back a step, landing on the floor behind the table.
Not deterred, the Lizard pushed on his attack by trying to climb over the table to reach her, but then Spider-Girl had the bright idea of grabbing it with both of her hands and push it up, preventing him from getting to her so easily.
Now holding the public furniture as a makeshift shield against the attacking reptile, she pushed him back with all her might, thus literally turning the tables on the battle. With the large flat surface pressing into his belly with great force, the Lizard tried desperately to slice her with his claws...but to no avail. She was just too small for his arms to reach over the table.
It didn't take long for the Lizard to trip over his feet and fall on his back. And as soon as he did, she placed herself above him and pressed the table down as hard as she could to pin him to the floor.
Their battle soon turned to a contest of strength as the Lizard desperately tried to pry the Spider-Girl off of him by pushing the table up as hard as he could while she pushed the same object down with equal ferocity.
The only question left was who was the strongest of the two. Would the Lizard's feral monster brawn overwhelm the smaller teenage girl...or would Rainbow Dash's superhuman strength and stubbornness get the best of the overgrown gecko she was tangling with?
Unfortunately, the answer to that question would probably never be revealed, as an unexpected third party chose this of all times to get themselves involved.
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE! Hands where we can see 'em!" the distinctive raspy voice of Spitfire DeWolff shouted with as much authority as she could muster.
Spider-Girl followed the source of the voice and saw that Shining Armour, Spitfire, Spearhead, Soarin and three more officers were all aiming their guns at her from the other end of the hallway.
The momentary distraction their presence provided proved to be enough for Spider-Girl to unintentionally let up on her power struggle with the Lizard for a brief moment...giving him the opportunity he needed to push her off of him with enough force to send both her and the table flying across the room and onto the floor a few metres away from him.
And with the Lizard no longer restrained, he bolted up on his back legs and let out a savage shriek. It sent shivers down the spines of most of the officers...and that feeling only worsened when he turned his slitted eyes on them, all while hissing menacingly.
Shining Armour only had a split second to make a decision about what to do in this situation. Nothing in his training had prepared him for this, and he had no idea what was even going on, why there was a giant lizard running around, or why it was attacking people...and he most certainly didn't know that the lizard in question just so happened to be his adopted younger brother.
The only thing he did know about it was that this creature had attacked innocent people and was currently looking at him and his men with the clear intention to attack. With that in mind, he did the only sensible thing he thought he could do.
He ordered, "OPEN FIRE!"
Still a bit disoriented from having been thrown across the room and only gotten enough time to get up on her knees, Rainbow immediately felt a cold dread in her heart when she heard that order be given.
'No, they can't! she thought in a panic. 'Spike's tough, but he's definitively not bulletproof! I gotta do something!'
With the aid of her spider-sense, time seemingly slowed down to a crawl around her while Dash assessed the situation.
'Seven cops, all armed and ready to fire on Spike in the next second. Okay, Spider-Dash, you got this!'
The first thing she did was to turn to the Lizard and connect two strings of webbing to his side, one hitting him in his upper right arm and the other on the right side of his face, and then pulled him out of the line of fire as hard and as fast as she could.
The next second, all seven of the police officers fired their guns in the Lizard's direction, but fortunately for Spike, not a single one of their bullets managed to hit him before Spider-Girl got him out of their crosshairs.
However, it was still far from over, as Rainbow Dash now had to deal with the cops themselves if she didn't want them to have another chance to try and shoot him again.
With the benefit of hindsight, Rainbow probably could have used her words to attempt to explain the situation to them and resolve this whole thing in a more peaceful and civilised way...but she didn't, not because it was a bad idea, but because it was still Rainbow Dash who had to make that choice, and she was a woman of action, not words. Plus, in a situation as dire as this one, she couldn't take any chances.
Immediately, she started by sending a sling of webbing right into the faces of Spearhead and Fleetfoot respectively, temporarily leaving them both confused and disoriented, with the action even causing Fleetfoot to slip and fall on her back.
Then she rushed at the officers so fast that not one of them had time to react before she knocked Spitfire down to the floor with an open palm strike to the chest. Right after that, she dropped down and used a low kick to knock Wind Rider and Spearhead's legs out from under them.
Now with only three left, Spider-Girl positioned herself in between Soarin and Thunderlane and connected a sling of webbing to them each, then jumped back a metre or so and pulled them together so hard that the two of them ended up slamming into each other and fall to the floor in a heap.
This all happened in about six and a half seconds. Much too fast for any of the cops to keep up with when she ended up right in their faces and didn't give them a second to do anything about it. However, despite all that, there was still only one of her and seven of them, and in those few short seconds she had been busy taking out the rest of them had Shining Armour managed to aim his gun at her and subsequently pull the trigger.
Rainbow could almost feel the air part around the bullet as it loudly passed by her ear after he had fired, just barely missing her face by a single centimetre.
If he had gotten just a second longer to steady his aim before took the shot, she likely wouldn't have survived the encounter.
She wouldn't give him another opportunity to try again though, as her next move involved immediately snatching the gun out of his hands and throw it over her shoulder, then send him flying with a kick to gut.
A tad bit more aggressive than what she did to the others for sure, but he did nearly just kill her and she was mostly acting upon instinct anyway.
And with all seven policemen currently lying on the ground around her, Spider-Girl didn't spare a second before she webbed them all shut to the floor to stop them from getting back up.
Only once every single one of them was properly contained and out of the way did she take a moment to catch her breath. Sure, she didn't have to exert herself for all that long, just about twelve seconds or so give or take, but moving as incredibly fast as she just did took quite a lot out of her.
"You won't get away with this!" Spitfire angrily declared while defiantly struggling against the webbing.
Spider-Girl gave her a sympathetic glance and said, "Sorry about that, guys, but I just can't have you going around shooting an innocent person."
"What are, ughh, you talking about?" Captain Armour asked, sounding a bit pained from the powerful kick to the stomach he just sustained. She might have overdone it a bit with that one.
"Long story and I don't even know most of it, but the bottom line is that that lizard monster you almost killed was a human being not-so-long ago," Spider-Girl quickly informed. "So I'd appreciate it if you guys could stop try to shoot him for a minute and let me get him back to normal."
"...then why're you letting him get away?" Soarin asked from where he was lying, all the while trying to pry himself away from Thunderlane...who was currently webbed up with him.
A sudden and immediate wave of realisation hit Rainbow Dash when he said that, and she quickly showed a panicked expression under her mask once she noticed that she hadn't been paying any attention to where the Lizard had ended up while she had been busy fighting the cops.
Just in time she spotted a glimpse of the creature disappear around the corner further inside the mall, which prompted her to mutter, "Urggh, not again..."
With a running leap, she jumped up into the air and began to swing her way after the Lizard, shouting "Sorry, gotta dash!" to the restrained officers she had to leave behind to do so.
...
...
...
"So uh...do any of you know how to get out of this stuff?" Spearhead eventually asked.
No one had a good answer to that question.
Given that the mall had closed several hours ago, and there were pretty much no one other than Rainbow, the Lizard and those cops she just webbed up around, it shouldn't by all means be that hard to track where the Lizard had run off to.
There were, however, quite a lot of places for him to hide in here, and this game of hide and seek she had been playing with him was proving to be quite infuriating by now.
She was lucky though to spot a glimpse of what looked to be the Lizard's tail disappear into the entrance to the local bowling alley. Acting fast, she swooped down after him.
After swinging through the doorway, she landed on her feet inside the closed bowling alley.
Most of the lights were turned off, with only a select few switched on to keep this place from being cast in complete darkness. And of course was it also eerily quiet...too quiet in fact. Gone were the noises of people talking or screaming...or the sounds of heavy bowling balls being thrown across the wooden floor...or the loud music that usually played in the background.
Now there was only silence...the soft hum of the ventilation system notwithstanding...and it was putting Rainbow Dash on edge.
'I could have sworn I saw him come in here, but where did he go?'
She moved silently and carefully into the room, always keeping an eye out for the the creature she was hunting. After all, he could just as easily be the one hunting her.
Spider-Girl first checked behind the empty counter.
No one was there.
She then checked the area where the bowling shoes were stored.
No one was there either.
After that, she dropped down over by the bowling lanes to see if he was hiding around there.
And yet...she still didn't find him.
'Maybe...he didn't come in here after all,' she considered, letting out a breath she didn't realise she had been holding and allowed herself to relax for a second.
However, that was when the Lizard decided to attack. With a shrill hiss erupting from the darkness, the monster leapt out of the shadows and pounced on his unsuspecting prey like a panther on the prowl, coming from behind her with his teeth and claws drawn out.
Rainbow Dash only had a split second to react...but luckily for her, that was all she really needed. Just as she felt a very painful jolt from her spider-sense go off in the back of her head, her perception of time slowed down long enough for her to come up with the idea of dropping down to the ground on all fours, and therefore letting the giant lizard leap right over her.
Not being a particularly intelligent creature, the Lizard didn't realise that his failed surprise attack landed him right on top of the very slippery floor of one of the bowling lanes, making him trip over his own claws and clumsily fall on his belly in a very undignified fashion.
Spider-Girl observed the Lizard repeatedly try and fail to stand up straight only to fall down again, and gained a small smirk under her mask as a result.
"Gotcha!" she taunted.
Then, with a sudden burst of confidence, she seized the opportunity to counterattack.
She took a running jump and flipped over him, using her massively increased reaction time to pepper him with webbing as she did so. And when she was done she elegantly landed on the floor behind him.
Though while the Lizard could barely stand on the oiled surface of the bowling lane without falling on his face several times in a row, the Spider-Girl had no such problems. After all, her ability to stick to walls and ceilings with barely any difficulty made slippery floors a complete cake walk in comparison.
Even though the Lizard did have gecko DNA in him, that was fortunately from a species which didn't have suction cups for fingers. If Doctor Mane had just so happened to have chosen another species to the mix instead, this might have been a very different scenario.
And with a solid footing where her foe did not, Rainbow held the clear advantage this time, as the Lizard was too busy fumbling and rolling around just in order to get back on his claws to fighting back.
In addition to that, the webbing that she had just covered him in made the situation even worse for the creature given that his panicked and uncoordinated movements only resulted in him tangling himself up in it.
Not willing to let this chance to catch him slip away, Spider-Girl unleashed even more webbing on her opponent, keeping her distance while she started to leap around and shoot him from as many angles as she could with her web-shooters to make sure he was as restrained as possible.
It didn't take her long until the Lizard was stuck in a tight silky cocoon, with all of his limbs and tail thoroughly restrained, leaving him with nothing to do but helplessly wriggle around and growl in frustration.
After several failed attempts, Rainbow Dash could now take pride in the fact that she had finally managed to successfully restrain and capture her opponent...though it certainly wasn't easy.
"And that's a strike, folks!" Rainbow joked after having finished wrapping him up. "Now to get you back to CelestiaCorp..." she later added while putting her hand on her chin in thought.
Of course, there was always that to consider...
While all this had been going on had the thoroughly exhausted Twilight Sparkle finally managed to get herself over to the entrance to the CelestiaCorp Tower...though that wasn't easy either.
Her lack of sleep combined with her injury and general tiredness made it beyond tedious just to walk a longer distance, but through sheer force of will and concern for the well-being of her little brother, she had pushed herself to at least make it this far.
For the first time this night, she let a relieved smile form on her lips when she spotted Sunset Shimmer through the glass doors of the building, casually leaning against a wall and giving Twilight a friendly smile in return.
Thankful that her best friend just so happened to be around, Twilight picked up the pace and made her way through the doors to greet her...blissfully unaware that she was walking straight into a trap.
If Twilight had bothered to check her surroundings before she entered, she might have spotted the masked figure tracking her every move with her glowing blue eyes from the vantage point of her glider, silently hovering in place above the unsuspecting girl's location.
The Nightmare Goblin had her prey in her sights.