//------------------------------// // Chapter 16: First Day Of Two Schools // Story: Equestria Girls/Spider-man Book 1: Amazing // by Equestrian Defender //------------------------------// After Miles got his schedule from Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna, who both welcomed him to CHS and gave him the usual rules about bulllying, cheating, et cetera; he met up with Flash Sentry who showed him around the school. Flash showed Miles where his classes would be; along with where the gym, cafeteria, library, and other important places where. And all the while Miles could see what Wallflower had meant when she said about the other students and their "crazy hair." While there were some students who had normal hair in black, brown, blond, occasionally red or orange (in the case of Thorax); there were plenty others with off the wall colors like green, blue (with Flash Sentry assuring him that it was in fact his natural color and not a dye job like Miles had originally thought. He also assured him that Twilight's hair naturally came in indigo with the two stripes.) pink, white, purple, and Flash even told Miles that one girl at the school had rainbow colored hair of all things. "You know I'm starting to feel out of place here," Miles stated. "Everyone's got a case of Anime Hair Syndrome* and I've just got this." He emphasized his point by pointing at his short black hair. Flash chuckled and replied "Trust me dude; with how friendly everyone is here, give it a few weeks and you'll feel right at home." "I'll hold you to that." Eventually they came to the music room, and Flash said "Okay, we need to stop here in the Music Room for a sec." Confused, Miles asked "Why? I mean, I like music as much as the next guy but I'm not exactly a musician." "Because I have some friends I'd like you to meet. And there's something they need to talk to you about involving this school and the statue out front." "What do you mean by that?" "Just trust me dude." Flash opened the door to the Music Room, walked inside... ...and was immediately assaulted by a series of air horns, a mountain of shiny glittery confetti falling on top of him from above, and a pie to the face. Grumbling, he wiped the pie stuff out of his eyes and looked at the Rainbooms, all of whom (sans Fluttershy who was nice enough to give him a towel) were either laughing or doing their best not to laugh. Well, I literally walked right into this one. "I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that with the exception of Fluttershy, you all had something to do with this." Pinkie immediately bounced up to him and replied "Yep! Sunset came up with the plan, Rainbow got all the airhorns. Applejack got me the buckets and baked the pie," she paused to get some of the syrup off of Flash and taste it. "Mmm. Apple cinnamon. 'Anyway, Rarity got the glitter that I mixed in with my confetti, and then I set the whole thing up!" Which explains why my Spider-Sense couldn't pick up on it Flash mentally noted as he took notice of the elaborate series of pulleys, buckets, and air horns that were along the inside of the door. "So, were you surprised," Pinkie asked. Flash nodded. "You could say that." He then turned to Sunset and saw her smug look of supreme victory. "Think you might've gone a wee bit overboard trying to get even with me." Still keeping that smug look, Sunset shook her head and replied "Nope. I don't play to get even. Momma plays to win." Rainbow laughed and added "Plus it helps when you got two friends who really love pranking people" before exchanging a fist bump with Pinkie Pie, both of them having massive grins. "We are such a good influence on her." Applejack chuckled before looking to see Miles watching all of this with a look of the utmost confusion. "Oh, don't mind us. This is a normal thing around here." "I'm starting to think nobody in this school knows what normal even means," Miles replied, before holding out his hand. "Miles Morales." Shaking his hand she replied "Jacqueline Apple. But everyone calls me Applejack." "Nice to meet you, Applejack." Looking at the other Rainbooms he asked "So, do you girl's dye your hair or-" "It's natural," Rainbow replied, rolling her eyes. "Not sure how, but yes, my hair naturally comes in seven colors. I get it from my dad." "So, does her hair naturally looks like a corkscrew and her hair naturally looks like cotton candy," he asked pointing at Rarity and Pinkie Pie respectfully. "Oh, it's completely natural," Rarity replied. "If I don't have it in a different style it just naturally curls like this-" "And a big yep for me," Pinkie Pie replied, cutting her off while suddenly appearing next to Miles, much to his shock. "I'm Pinkie Pie, by the way! Oh, and she's Rarity!" She pointed to Rarity who gave a quick wave before Pinkie continued "Well my full name's Pinkamena Diane Pie but that's a bit of a mouthful so just call me Pinkie Pie. I'm so excited to meet you! I love meeting new people, especially if they're new students who can hopefully become new friends and-" Putting her hand on Pinkie's shoulder, Rarity said "Pinkie, darling? Remember to let them breathe." "Right. Sorry," she said to Miles. "I kinda get super excited when I meet new people." "Nah, it's cool," Miles replied. "Though, you might wanna consider switching to Decaf." "I do drink Decaf," Pinkie Pie replied. Practically seeing the words on Miles' lips she added "And no, I'm not on any medications nor do I take any drugs. Yes, I get that a lot." Miles looked bewildered, before he said "That answers some questions, but just raises SO many more." "You get used to it," Flash stated. His phone rang at that moment. Looking at who was calling he added "I gotta step out for a moment. Be right back." Once he was out the door and the other girls introduced themselves, Miles said "So, Flash said you guys needed to explain something to me. What exactly did he mean by that?" Sunset was the one to answer with a question of her own. "Well Miles, do you believe in magic?" Once he was sure he was out of earshot from the Music Room, Flash answered the phone. "What's up, Twi?" "Just wanted to check up on my boyfriend," Twilight replied, giggling. "And to tell you that Karen and I narrowed down the list of people who could have made the tech for Scorpion's tail." Flash was surprised. When Karen had scanned the parts and compared them to the works of multiple scientists working for multiple tech companies, they came up with a list of roughly one hundred possible suspects. "Great job. How many do you have now?" "Just three. I'll tell you how and why when we get together after school. How's Miles doing?" "He's talking to Sunset and the Rainbooms right now so they can explain to him about the magic." "Wonder how he's reacting to that revelation?" "About magic existing? Doubtful that it'll surprise him that much since one of Earth's Mightiest Heroes is a guy who looks like the Norse God of Thunder and happens to use a magic hammer. The existence of another universe where instead of humans you have magic or fantastical animals, including unicorns, dragons and what not?" "His mind's probably doing loop-de-loops right now." "Yeah." He ran his hand through his hair, immediately feeling the literal mountain of confetti and sparkles that were still in his hair. "I swear I'm going to get them back for this." "Who and for what?" Flash sighed. "Promise me you won't laugh." He could just imagine the grin on her face as she replied "I'll try, but I make no promises." So he told her about how the Rainbooms pranked him, and before he even finished she burst out laughing. "How did I know you were going to laugh?" "Well, it was pretty funny," she replied. Getting serious for a moment she asked "So, how are you planning on getting back at them?" An absolutely insidious grin crossed his face as he replied "Don't you worry about that. My revenge prank will be one they never see coming." "Are you planning on pranking them all at once?" "Maybe. Why?" "Personally, what I would do is prank them off one by one. The panic and paranoia will begin to rise as they're each picked off one at a time, none of them knowing if they'll be next." Flash whistled. "My dear Twilight; I never knew you could be so evil." She giggled. "There's a lot you don't know about me. Well, I gotta go to my next class. See you later, Flash." "See you later, Twilight." Meanwhile at Crystal Prep, Abacus was on the phone talking to Celestia (the Principal, not the Princess) about the upcoming Friendship Games. "Yes, that works for me, Celestia. The Shadowbolts and I will see you on May 27th." She rolled her eyes at what Celestia said and replied "Yes yes, having the students form bonds and friendships is important." Honestly, this was one of the main reasons Cinch was constantly irritated by Celestia and Luna. Their constant talking of how the Friendship Games would help to "promote friendship and harmony" between their two schools and how their school team was superior because "all of the Wondercolts were friends on and off the field." And yet the Shadowbolts were the undefeated victors for the past ten years. Not because of friendship or harmony or any of that crap, but because Cinch's standards constantly pushed them to win this competition. Competitions were designed to have one winner that stood above all, while the rest of the contestants were meant to be the losers that would be crushed underneath the victor's feet. The idea that any competition would serve the purpose of promoting something as temporary and inconsequential as friendship was absolutely ludicrous to Cinch... She facepalmed. My god, I've been here so long I'm actually starting to believe my own cover. "Oh, no Celestia I just had this annoying insect buzzing around my head. I will see you on the 27th." Hanging up she fell back in her chair and sighed. "Nineteen days, Abacus. Nineteen days and you can finally end this charade and move on to better things." Smiling at that thought she pulled up a file on her computer, bringing up a picture of six girls. Underneath their pictures were their names: Pinkamena Diane Pie, Jacqueline (Applejack) Apple, Rarity Belle, Fluttershy Breeze, Rainbow Dash and finally, Sunset Shimmer. Putting her fingers together, she said "You girls hold the final key to my plans. And thanks to the blueprints I 'acquired' from Twilight Sparkle's laptop, I have the means to take it. Nothing will stand in my way. 'Not even Spider-Man." Once school had ended a few hours later (with nothing really interesting happening save for Miles introducing Flash and Thorax to Wallflower. While it was a bit awkward at first they were soon laughing and smiling like real friends by the time lunch was over.), Flash, Miles, and Thorax met up with Twilight at the lair in order to start Miles's training. Twilight and Karen had already begun working on Miles's Web Shooters, when Miles brought something up about their design. "According to Hooke's law, elastic force is linear with distance, given all factors are equal." He then motioned to Flash and then to himself, and back to Flash. "We're clearly not equal." He wasn't wrong. Not only was Flash at least a good head taller than Miles, but Miles was had a slightly stockier build compared to Flash, who even with the muscles the spider-bite gave him still looked a bit lanky. A scan by Karen later also showed that Miles weighed a few more pounds than Flash did. Still a healthy weight, but as Flash would point out "Just a few extra pounds can affect things like web fluid consumption, tensile strength..." "And a few other things," Twilight finished. Looking over the blueprints for the web shooters, Miles ran the calculations in his head. "Hmm, if we tighten the nozzle diameter by 0.7 millimeters, it all pretty much evens out." Both Flash and Twilight double-checked it, just to be sure. And sure enough, he was right. "I think we might have officially underestimated you," Twilight said with a smile. Once that was taken care of Flash showed Miles the basics of how to put the Web Shooters together piece by piece, how to fix them if something happened to them while he was in the field (which helped to avoid having to walk all the way back to base) and how to make the Web Fluid. Which Miles found was actually a little easier than he thought it would be. While they waited for the Web Fluid to finish, Flash took Miles over to the Training Area to run a few more tests to try and get the full scope of Miles's powers and see just how different they were from his own. As it turns out, Miles's enhanced strength and agility were about on Flash's level. His Spider-Sense on the other hand was not. To test this they set up a tennis ball launcher and had it shoot at them while their backs were turned. When it fired at Flash his Spider-Sense went off just before it fired. With Miles however, it only activated when the ball had been fired and was halfway to him, giving him less time to react. Fortunately since his reflexes were just as good Flash's he was able to dodge the ball with no problem. Still, it was something to look out for in the future. "I'm guessing that's the trade-off for having my Camouflage," Miles said, once they were done running the tests. Handing him a bottle of water from the fridge, Flash replied "I guess so. But who knows? Maybe you'll have some other spider-based superpower I don't have." "As long as I don't start growing extra limbs or shooting organic webs out of my butt, I'm cool with that." They both chuckled at that, before Flash asked "So, how's it feel to know that magic exists?" "Honestly, I kinda had a feeling that magic existed after Thor turned a skyscraper into a lightning rod to fry all those aliens," Miles replied. "And Multiverse Theory has been around for decades. So the idea of another universe where magic was a really prominent thing, not really that hard to swallow for me." "Huh. I was kinda expecting-" "-me to freak out, be all amazed and/or disbelieving?" Miles rolled his eyes. "Dude, we got a scientist who turns into a jolly green giant when he's angry, the Norse God of Thunder who has a magic hammer, a super-soldier from World War 2, and a billionaire playboy in a flying suit of armor with enough weapons to take on an army. Not to mention we got invaded by aliens who ripped open a wormhole above Avenger's Tower. You really think learning there's another universe full of magic and sorcery is gonna shock me?" "A fair point." "Though I will admit, finding out that Sunset Shimmer was supposed to be a 23 year old pony, and a unicorn of all things, was kinda crazy."** "Yeah, that one was pretty weird. I mean she looks just like a normal fifteen year old girl. Flaming red and gold hair notwithstanding." "Which must make it pretty awkward seeing as how you two used to date," Twilight said, looking up from the machine she was working on with a smirk on her face. Flash rolled his eyes. "Like I said, it wasn't really dating. I mean we never even kissed. Or held hands." "Either way, you were dating a twenty-three year old female of a different species." "And now I'm dating a fourteen year old adorkable yet beautiful girl of my species, who's almost as smart as me." Twilight playfully glared at him. "Excuse me? Almost as smart as you?" As the two continued their playful bantering, Miles looked at one of the inactive computer terminals. Sitting at it he asked "Hey Karen, you busy?" "I'm currently sifting through multiple files from Oscorp's servers, as well as helping Twilight narrow down the scientist who helped build that device they pulled off of Scorpion. And that's not even taking up 25% of my processing power or memory." Smirking, Miles asked "So, that's a no?" "That's a no. What do you need?" Pulling his notebook out of his backpack, he flipped to the design for his costume. "I have a potential design for my costume. You got a scanner somewhere?" "Right next to Thorax, left side." He did so, with Thorax taking a look at the sketch as it was being scanned. "Wow. You'll definitely stand out from Flash." Miles's design was simple enough; a variant of Flash's current suit colored black with red webs, fingers, and a bit of red surrounding the lenses. And much like the original, there would also be a spider on the chest and back, also in red. Miles nodded. "Yeah, wanted to go with something familiar, but still different. Kinda like an homage but with my personal spin on it." Sighing, he added "Now if only I can come up with a name." "Well, we can come up with one later." Both of them turned to see Flash holding a tray with two Web Shooters on it. "Because right now, we've got training to do." Carefully, Miles put on the Web Shooters. "They're a little bit tight," he remarked. Flash smiled. "Trust me, you'll get used to it." Meanwhile, in an undisclosed location, Otto Octavius was glaring at a TV. More specifically, he was glaring at an advertisement for an upcoming event: the Oscorp Charity Gala. Norman Osborn himself was going to be there that night. One of Otto's robotic tentacles came, grabbing the TV in its pincers. "Soon, Osborn," he muttered. The pincers on the tentacle snapped shot, crushing the TV like it was a piece of candy. "Soon."