Episode 5
Face the Nightmare, Part 1
Some Lunatic with a Sadistic Choice
Darkness...that was all Rainbow Dash could see right now...
The first thing she noticed, aside from a nasty headache that is...was the feeling of cold violent gusts of wind making her sway back and forth as if she was dangling on a thread. She could hear the sounds of the city all around her...but the sounds were distant and also mostly drowned out by the overpowering noise of the strong winds blowing in her ear.
She tried to move, but soon found herself incapable of doing so. There was something keeping her limbs restrained...something sticky, stretchy, and very familiar.
Slowly but steadily her eyes opened to take in her surroundings, and the first thing she saw was the majestic sight of Canterlot City...as grand and majestic as it could ever be with its many lights brightening it up in the dark hour of the night.
However...there was a problem.
The whole city was far below her!
All at once, her spider-sense flooded her brain with all the information she would need to tell exactly what kind of situation she was currently in while her eyes and ears filled her in on the rest.
With the exception of her exposed head (which still was not that exposed give that she was still wearing her mask), every part of her body was wrapped up tightly in a cocoon of spider silk, with only a single long thread connecting it to the operating arm of a crane sitting at the very top of the CelestiaCorp Tower, which was now currently extended far over the edge.
This meant that, if the flimsy-looking thin line of silk keeping her suspended to the crane arm were to snap, there would be an over 390 metre long drop straight down towards the cold hard pavement below waiting for her.
Sure, the jump she made from the Empire Canterlot Building was even higher than that, but this time she had all four of her limbs restrained and thus was presented with no feasible way to halt her descent in time. In other words: if she fell down now...she would never come back up again.
When that fact sunk into her head, she realised, 'Well...this sucks.'
Rainbow wasn't the only one there though, as a distressed voice on her right was quick to remind her of. "Urghhh! I can't move! HELP! Can anyone hear me!? Hello!"
Dash immediately recognised it, and turned her head around to see that Twilight Sparkle was also stuck in a cocoon hanging onto the crane arm by a single line of webbing...though she was taking the predicament a lot worse then Rainbow did.
Also, her glasses were missing, which meant that she could barely make out what was going on around her, which...might actually be for the best considering her situation.
In an attempt to calm her down, Rainbow called out, "Twilight, chill."
"Rainbo-"
"Spider-Girl," she immediately corrected before her friend might have accidentally spilled out her identity to whoever might be listening. "And yeah, it's me."
Twilight caught herself, but still sounded rather anxious. "Well...uh, Spider-Girl, what's going on!? I'm stuck, and without my glasses, I can't tell..."
In her confusion, the distressed teenager made a monumental mistake while she was trying to figure out where she was...
...she looked down.
Now, despite how impaired her vision might be, there was still a lot that she could still make out without her glasses...such as how far down the ground was from where she was hanging.
After releasing a very high-pitched scream, Twilight started to panic, wriggling and tussling against the sticky webbing that contained her as much as she could. Of course, doing so wasn't in any shape or form going to help her situation, but right now, she was finding it very hard remain rational and level-headed.
However, her scream was loud and sharp enough to not only make Rainbow sorely miss the ability to cover her ears, but also to wake up someone else nearby.
"Urghhhh...what, where...what's going on?" another voice mumbled on Rainbow's left, followed by a groan.
Deciding to ignore it for a second, Rainbow Dash instead kept her focus on Twilight and tried her best to get her to stop panicking (which was paramount given that her excess movements might actually put her in more danger than she was already in).
"Stop moving, Twilight! You're just making it worse!" she loudly reasoned.
"HOW CAN I BE CALM WHEN I'M HANGING OFF THE SIDE OF A BUILDING!?" Twilight questioned hysterically, her eyes glued to the ground below while hyperventilating like crazy.
"Twilight...is that you?" the third mysterious person asked groggily. Twilight recognised who it was though.
"Sunset? You're here too?!" she asked while trying to catch a glimpse of her...though that was rather difficult without her glasses and with Rainbow Dash hanging in the way.
Rainbow herself cast a glance over her shoulder to see that Sunset Shimmer was stuck in their predicament too...and so was also Spike a bit further out, but he didn't seem to have woken up yet.
Though upon seeing the strange masked face of Spider-Girl looking right at her, Sunset briefly gave her a weird look in response...but that was soon replaced by an expression of shock once she too looked down to see where she was. To her credit though, she did not start to panic like Twilight did, and instead just ended up staring wide-eyed down while muttering out a subdued, "...Whoah."
With a quick shake of her head, Shimmer looked back up and took in a deep calming breath...then decided to put her own issues aside for now and focus on what was most important...which, at this exact moment, was to help Twilight get over her anxiety before she could hurt herself.
"Twilight, listen to me," she urged, making Twilight stop squirming for a second. "Close your eyes...take a deep breath...and let it out sloooooowly."
Despite every fibre of her body telling her not to, Twilight trusted Sunset's advice, and did just what she said. She clenched her eyes shut, took in a healthy gulp of air, and then let it out in a calm and orderly manner.
Even though it didn't make her any less terrified over the situation...it did make her calm down just enough for her to think rational thoughts once again.
After a moment of biting her lip and trying her best not to look down again, she eventually said, "I...I think...I'm okay now," though she didn't sound too sure about that.
Still, it was an improvement.
"Good," Sunset commented with a smile...before fixing the Spider-Girl with a suspicious glare and asking, "Now, first things first: who the hell are you and why are you wearing a luchador mask?"
"Me? Uh...just call me Spider-Girl. All my friends do," Dash replied a bit awkwardly. "And well...I'm wearing a mask because...I'm kind of a superhero...ish. And it does not look anything like a luchador!"
Sunset raised a sceptical eyebrow, "A superhero? Seriously?"
"Yep! I mean, I got the costume, I got the powers, so basically...yeah. I'm a superhero."
"Riiiiiight..." Shimmer voiced, not sounding all that convinced. "Well, I guess this night wasn't weird enough as it was."
Rainbow tested the strength of the webs keeping her restrained by trying to stretch her arms out...only for the strong elastic material to keep her stuck firmly in place. 'This is definitively the webbing I always use, but how did...wait a minute!
She moved her fingers around her wrists to feel if the familiar shape of her web-shooters were still there, and soon came to realise...they weren't.
'Ah nuts, no webs! How did this even happen?'
"Speaking of which..." Rainbow began. "...Do either of you have any idea what the hell is going on!?" she asked slightly hysterically. "All I know is that that Spike kid somehow turned into a giant lizard, and then when we try to turn him back, we got jumped by some weirdo disguising herself as this chick," she said while looking at Sunset. "...And then we got knocked out and here we are. An explanation would be really appreciated right about now!"
Both Twilight and Sunset flinched a bit from the sheer volume of Rainbow's voice at the end of that sentence. Though after hearing it, the two of them went silent for a second as they each tried to find a place to start explaining all the outlandish events that had happened tonight.
"Well..." Twilight eventually began. "You see, Sunset and I were working on this cross-species genetics project..."
"Cross-speci-what-now?" Dash voiced in confusion.
Sunset rolled her eyes, then clarified, "We were trying to take the abilities of one animal and give it to another. Like say, salamanders can regrow lost limbs, so why don't we try giving that ability to a human?"
"Ooooh...got it. So wait, does that mean you used Spike as a guinea pig? That's messed up, man!"
"No!" Twilight was quick to refute. "We weren't ready for human trials yet! It was way too early for that. And even so...I would never do that to Spike. He's my brother!"
"Then how did he-"
Sunset cut her off and explained, "It was Doctor Silk Mane, the head scientist on the project. She was the one who tried to poison Twilight with a messed up version of the formula. Only...she was actually some crazy shapeshifting criminal calling herself Chrysalis who was trying to depose Celestia and take over the company. Go figure."
"But if she was after Twilight-"
"She hid the poison in a package she gave to me, but then Spike opened it first," Twilight clarified before Dash could get a word in edgewise.
"I knew something was off about her from the start, so I tried to search her office for clues," Sunset continued. "But then she caught me, tied me up, talked my ear off for an hour about her master plan and then knocked me out. Next thing I know, I woke up here. Did she get you too?"
"Actually...no," Twilight answered, trying to remember what happened before she ended up here.
"She tried to attack us in the lobby while being disguised as you," Dash continued. "Probably with that 'turn people into lizards' poison, but she never accounted for my trusty spider-sense. I saw her lame sneak attack coming a mile away and punched her out before she got the chance!"
"Spider-sense? Where have I..." Sunset wondered aloud, sounding slightly suspicious. "Wait, hang on! If you took down Chrysalis, then how did you all get here!? Did someone else-"
Before she could finish asking that question, it was promptly answered when a dark, sinister, and slightly deranged laugher started to echo all around them...followed by the sound of a glider flying ever closer and closer.
"Hehehehehehehe-Hahahaha-Hahahahahahahahah-HAHAHAAAAHAAHA!"
Rainbow recognised it immediately, and it instantly made her body tensed up. Looking down, she saw the familiar unwelcome sight of the Nightmare Goblin ascending towards her from down below, having apparently just concluded her little talk with Celestia.
'...And then there's this bitch,' Rainbow thought as the costumed lunatic approached them.
Once the villain reached their altitude, she flew circles around her helpless captives and started to...well...sing apparently.
"The itsy bitsy spider...went up the water spout...down came the Goblin...and knocked the spider out! HAHAHAHAHAHAAH!"
When she was done with that, she swooped down and hovered in place in front of the bound Spider-Girl, giving her a haughty smirk as she did so. "A pleasure to see you again, Spider. I was looking forward to meeting you mask to mask again."
"Oh look, it's the Wicked Witch of the West," Spider-Girl commented with equal parts snark and disdain in her voice. "Now get me out of this stuff so I can kick your butt like I should have done last time we met!"
Nightmare patronisingly wagged a finger at her, "Tsk, tsk, tsk, now don't be rude...I thought we could use this opportunity to have a lovely chat."
"Who are you!?" Twilight suddenly asked, trying to be kept in the loop...which was only more difficult when she could barely make out what her captor looked like.
The Goblin looked at her with a grin and answered, "Oh dear Twilight Sparkle, you may know me as the Nightmare Goblin. A bit pretentious, I know, but I have always had a thing for theatrics. Call me old-fashioned."
"You! You're the one Chrysalis was working with, aren't you?" Sunset suddenly realised, having pieced together the story as best she could from what she heard. "Her...'business partner'?"
Nightmare gave Sunset a cocky smirk, then hovered over to her so she was looking the teenager face to face. "Well, aren't you a smart cookie, Sunset Shimmer?" she complimented...and strangely enough, she actually sounded somewhat sincere about it. "Yes, I was the one who broke that maniac out of prison and put her in this place."
Leaning in to Sunset's ear and getting uncomfortably close in the process, the Goblin whispered, "I even took care of the real Doctor Silk Mane for her..." before giving her a smile so disturbing that Sunset didn't even want to think about the implications of that confession.
Flying back a metre or so, the Goblin turned her attention to the whole group and continued her monologue. "However, Chrysalis was merely a puppet. I only used her shapeshifting abilities to gain access to CelestiaCorp and all its wonderful toys...and you for that matter," she noted while keeping her eyes squarely on Sunset. "How kind of her to leave you gift wrapped for me, wasn't it?"
"So you mean to tell me that poising Spike, trying to poison me, was all your doing?!" Twilight questioned in a burst of rage.
"Hahahahahah! Well, I never said that. I just told her to make sure the project failed in a spectacular way that left a lot of collateral damage. The whole turning people into lizards-thing and trying to use it on you specifically...well, that was her plan, not mine. Still, it would have worked out quite well for me in the end if not for..."
She trailed off when her blue cat-like eyes landed on Spike...who still hadn't woken up yet, even with everything going on around him. Nightmare flew over to him and tapped her finger on his head a few times to wake him up...but he still didn't react to it other than looking slightly agitated for a second.
The Goblin rolled her eyes and sighed, "Children..."
Then she flew back a bit to continue her evil monologue, "Now, as I was saying...Chrysalis' plan would have worked out quite well for me had you..." she pointed a finger at Twilight, "...been the one who was infected rather than him," she motioned over to Spike. "Then all I had to for Celestia to follow my demands was to bargain for the cure to turn you back."
She then flew right up in Twilight's face and gently grabbed her cheeks with her gloved hands. "After all...there's nothing Celestia wouldn't do for her faithful student...is there?" she asked while caressing her face in a very unsettling way.
Twilight shuddered in response.
"Hey!" Spider-Girl called over to her. "Get your hands off her, you creep!"
Nightmare proceeded to do just that, but only so that she could fly up in Spider-Girl's face instead and grab her by the chin a lot less gently. "But then you just had to get in the way! My plan was like fine poetry: delicate and perfected...but you forced me to go the more direct approach. Which, in this case, means 'comply or I'll drop the whole lot of you down to your deaths!'"
However, even while hanging on nothing more than a delicate line of silk several hundred metres into the air with a psychopath in a Halloween costume staring her dead in the eye while threatening to kill her...Rainbow Dash didn't show even a speck of fear and confidently boasted, "Hah, is that supposed to scare me?! I've jumped off far higher buildings than this, and I took it like a champ."
The Goblin chuckled, "Hehehe...because you had these to break your fall?" she asked while holding her wrist in front of Rainbow's face, and in the process showing a very familiar-looking device now strapped to it.
Dash immediately knew what it was. 'Wait, is that my web-shooter? And...she's got the other one on her other wrist too? So that's how we ended up like this? What a rip-off!'
"Hey! That's mine!" she shouted in a flash of anger. "Give them back or I swear I'll...!"
The Nightmare Goblin got very close to her and shouted, "You'll do what?!"...shutting her up in an instant. "This is the second time we meet, and you have yet to even so much as lay a finger on me! You were nothing to me then...and you're no better now! The only reason you're even still alive is because of a sickening sense of pity I had when I saw your pathetic attempt to play hero. Face it, spider, you're out of your depth!"
"Well at least I'm not a coward!" Spider-Girl pointed out undeterred, making Nightmare's eyes widen for a second. "If you had any guts, you would face me fair and square, spider to goblin...but no, all you do is to hit me with a lame cheap shot, act like you've actually done something impressive (which you haven't), and then start monologuing like some stupid over-the-stop comic book villain! I mean, give me a break. If you were really all that, you'd cowboy up and untie me right now so we can have a real fight."
The Goblin fell silent for a moment while she gave the masked hero a dangerous glare...and then...she laughed.
"Mmhmhmhm-hahahahahahahahah-HAAHAHAHAA! You have quite a mouth on you, little hero! I LOVE IT!" the villain complimented with a massive grin on her face (er, mask).
"Though if you're so brave..." she began with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Why don't you show me your beautiful face?" she asked while grabbing Spider-Girl by the hem of her mask and slowly pulled it up.
Immediately, Rainbow started to internally panic at what the Goblin was about to do. 'Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. I can't let this psycho see my real face. Come on, Rainbow, do something! Anything!'
By the time Nightmare had pulled the mask up just enough to show her chin and mouth, Rainbow did the only thing she could think off to stop her nemesis from exposing her.
She lunged out and bit the Goblin right in her finger with as much force she could muster.
The Nightmare Goblin screamed out in pain and retracted her hand as fast as she could. Cringing in agony, the humiliated supervillain clenched her injured finger tightly while her previous smug expression changed to one of extreme irritation.
Turns out, with great superhuman strength...comes one heck of a bite! After all, who's to say that her jaw muscles hadn't improved just as much as the rest of her body?
In this case, it turned out to be enough to force through even the sturdy gloves protecting the Goblin's surprisingly delicate hands enough to probably leave a bruise afterwards.
"Don't touch the mask, creep," Spider-Girl said with an improved sense of confidence.
With a growl, the Nightmare Goblin reached into her cloak and pulled out what was unmistakably a sword, a metre-long sabre to be precise, from an unseen scabbard hidden in her suit and immediately used it to slice the thread keeping Spider-Girl's cocoon attached to the crane arm clean off.
Of course the Goblin saw the value in having as many hostages at her disposal as possible, and sure she really wanted to know the face behind Spider-Girl's mask, but...well, right now she was just too pissed off to really care. Better to just be done with her once and for all.
It's not as though her identity would matter all that much after she's dead anyway.
Rainbow only had a split second to react with a quick "Oh gosh," before she promptly began to fall straight down the building at an alarming speed.
She saw the silhouettes of the Nightmare Goblin and her bound friends shrink before her eyes as she quickly flew further and further away from them. The harsh winds that she'd been subjected to before while hanging up there were suddenly accelerated to a much greater degree as she started to come dangerously close to reaching terminal velocity on the way down.
After casting a glance downwards to her destination, she saw the hard merciless ground coming closer and closer second by second.
With her current fall speed and momentum, added to the distance she had to drop from the roof to the pavement...she knew that the second she touched the ground, she would be dead. Not even her superpowers could save her from that.
Faced with the fact that she had no web-shooters currently on her person and all of her limbs were indeed still restrained under the layer of sticky cobweb covering her body...Rainbow had every excuse in the world to scream and panic, flail around aimlessly, or resign herself to her inevitable fate.
...But she didn't.
Instead, the world around her began to slow down to a crawl as her spider-sense kicked in.
She closed her eyes, relaxed...and let her mind think of a way out.
'This...can't be it, right?' she wondered. 'This can't be the way I go out...can it? The great Rainbow Dash splattered on the sidewalk after being dropped off a tall building by some costumed wacko?
...
...
...
'No...it's not.
'If I give up now, Twilight, Spike and Sunset are all as good as dead, and that maniac gets away with everything she's done. I can't let that happen! I have to do something! For my friends! For mom! FOR ME!'
With nothing left to lose, Rainbow pushed against her restraints with all the strength she could muster...and more!
She didn't care that it was seemingly impossible to get through it, she didn't care that the webbing seemed almost tougher than titanium...and she most certainly didn't care that she'd already tried and failed at doing the exact same thing she was doing now.
Her friends were in danger, and she was going to save them no matter what.
And eventually, just in the nick of time, the Spider-Girl's efforts prevailed, and she ripped right through the webbing, finally freeing her arms and legs from their prison, and giving her the opportunity to grab onto the nearest surface (in this case, the wall of the nearby CelestiaCorp Building) with the sticky fingers at the end of her right hand.
Though she almost got her arm completely dislocated by the sudden change in momentum, she managed to push past the pain and hold onto it regardless.
Pure determination was a powerful force indeed.
And after attaching her other hand and both of her feet onto the wall as well, Rainbow looked up at her foe high above her and steeled herself for what was to come...then she began to climb back up, determined to stop the Nightmare Goblin once and for all.
'Last chance, Spider-Girl. Now it's all or nothing.'
Meanwhile up above, the Goblin looked rather pleased with herself as she inspected her remaining hostages while taking the time to remove a piece of webbing that got stuck on her sword when she sliced Dash's line off with it. In her amusement, the lunatic even started to hum a merry tune to herself while doing so.
The other hostages though (aside from Spike of course...who was still sleeping), were not nearly as happy about what she just did, and glared daggers at her as best they could.
"Why are you doing this, you...you monster!?" Twilight shouted in a tone that betrayed all the anger and distress she felt in this moment. After all, in her point of view, she just witnessed the Goblin straight up murder one of her best friends in cold blood. It didn't matter what happened after this, Twilight was never going to forgive her for what she just did.
"And do you really think you're gonna get away with it?!" Sunset added to that, appearing to be just as angry as Twilight was...albeit for slightly different reasons, since she didn't even know who the Spider-Girl was to begin with.
Nightmare on the other hand still remained nonchalant about the whole thing, despite their angry words, and just gave the two teenagers a quick glance and a shrug, not even bothering to open her mouth to reply to them.
However, her nonchalance vanished the second another voice shouted, "Stand down, Goblin!"
The Goblin smirked, then turned around to look into the eyes of none other than her own sister, who had by now finally managed to get up on the roof as instructed and was currently levelling a glare of her own at the villain. In contrast though to the glares of Sunset and Twilight, Celestia's lacked their flame and rampancy...but instead held a cold, understated and merciless fury...which, in truth, was actually way more terrifying.
"Took you long enough," Nightmare idly commented. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming."
Celestia didn't say anything to her at first. Instead, she looked straight past her and set her eyes on the hostages (two of which she immediately recognised as her own students...and the third as one as their brothers) and gave them a concerned look.
"Twilight, Sunset, Spike, are you okay? Did she hurt you?" she asked, completely ignoring her demon-possessed sister as she did so.
"We're alive," Sunset replied. "At least, the three of us are. Spike's just unconscious."
"There was someone else here, but she..." Twilight started to say, but couldn't bring herself to finish that sentence, as her emotions got the better of her. Even so, she didn't need to, for Celestia saw the one odd web-line that wasn't connected to a person anymore and figured out the rest herself.
"Yes, yes...and the same-" the Goblin was about to say, but couldn't get the word in edgewise when Celestia interrupted her by continuing to address the hostages rather than giving the hostage-taker herself any attention.
"Then stay calm, my students," she said in a protective motherly tone. "I promise I will get you all out of this before anyone else gets hurt."
A bit peeved, the Nightmare Goblin screamed out, "STOP IGNORING ME, YOU SELF-RIGHTEOUS HAG!" with an air of entitlement in her voice.
If there was one thing a narcissistic terrorist like her hated above all else...then it would be to be dismissed or ignored, and the Goblin would have none of it if she had any say in the matter! It was bad enough to be ignored as Luna...but being ignored as the Nightmare Goblin too was not something she would take lightly.
Though when she actually did get the attention of her sister, it was one of anger and disappointment, and not one of dread or resignation as she hoped. "And you! I am giving you one more chance to stop hiding behind your human shields and release them at once! Otherwise...you'll leave me no choice..." she threatened ominously while her eyes were starting to glow.
"You don't give me orders, Tia!" Nightmare declared while she swung her sword over to the thread keeping Twilight hanging and held it there. "Take one more step and your precious Twilight is nothing but a red stain on the pavement!"
Celestia flinched a little in surprise upon hearing that. Not because of the threat though, that just made her colder and angrier...but because of something small and barely noticeable that the masked villain just said...that frankly Celestia might have misheard all things considered. But if she really did say what she thought she said...
However, now was not the time to ponder about things like that, so she pushed the thought aside for the moment.
"What do you want, Goblin?" she asked instead.
"First: your attention..." Nightmare answered while she pressed a few buttons on her wrist device.
A moment later, a holographic display of scattered news reports and video footage of the Lizard's attack earlier tonight popped up all around Celestia for her to see, giving her a pretty detailed (yet still kinda vague) idea of what just happened.
While she scanned them over and took in the information she could gather from the various flashes of news that the Goblin threw right in her face, Celestia wore an expression that seemed to be a mix between curiosity and concern.
After motioning over to the bound Spike with her free hand, Goblin explained, "Earlier tonight, this poor innocent little boy was horrifically transformed into a terrible beast and wreaked quite a lot of havoc all over Canterlot. Multiple eye-witnesses, verified by the police, several wounded pedestrians and a heck of a lot of property damage was left in his wake...and all those people are gonna wonder where this monster came from..."
And after pressing another button, the holographic news reports were replaced with details about the Cross-Species Genetics project from CelestiaCorp's database. "...And I have proof that it all happened because of a project that you, Celestia, had officially sanctioned."
"What?!" Celestia sputtered, sounding reasonably horrified over what the Goblin was implying. "I never approved that project for human trials! How did you even get your hands on it?"
The Goblin smirked deviously. "Heheheh...I did nothing. It was all the work of one of your employees...a certain...Doctor Silk Mane, to be precise."
"Doctor Mane..." Celestia mused under her breath, going through the facts she knew about the good doctor in her head while piecing together how she fit into all this. It didn't take her long before she figured it out though.
"She was working for you the whole time, wasn't she?" she guessed, disappointment evident in her tone. "I should have known..."
"Hmhmm-hahahahah-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! No, she worked for you!" the villain reminded while pointing a finger at her sister. "You hired her, remember? Who's to say that this little field test wasn't done on your behalf after all?"
"HOW DARE YOU?!" Twilight suddenly asked, rather bravely considering her precarious position. Despite what her common sense was telling her, she just found the Nightmare Goblin's lies to be too infuriating to keep listening to at this point. "Celestia is the nicest, most compassionate person I've ever met! Don't you dare bring her down to your level, you rotten psychopath!"
As soon as the bold words left her mouth however, Nightmare quickly retaliated by pressing a button on the handle of her sabre, making it sparkle with electrical power. And, as she was pressing that blade against the web-line holding Twilight aloft, it instantly sent an agonising jolt of electricity throughout her body and made her scream out in pain.
Though she only experienced it for probably a second or two, the sensation of having about a hundred volts flowing through her body was one of the most unpleasant things she had ever felt in her life...if not the most unpleasant thing. And considering all the hardships she'd have to go through tonight, that really said a lot.
Though for future reference, what Twilight felt in that moment...was the lowest possible setting for the lightning sabre!
"STOP!" Celestia commanded in a loud booming voice, even using her superhuman power to boost it to levels that would be physically impossible for a normal human being to produce without a microphone.
To her credit, the Goblin did turn it off...though it still left Twilight shocked and panting for breath while signs of smoke came out of her.
And while she was in that sorry state, Nightmare put her face right up next to Twilight's ear and whispered, "Don't you dare think she has any less blood on her hands than I have..."
Then she looked back at Celestia and laid out, "So now that we've established that I won't hesitate to torture or even kill your precious students if you don't cooperate...I want you, dear Celestia, to head on over to the nearest police station and confess to being the one to blame for creating that terrible Lizard and unleashing it on the unsuspecting people of this town."
Meanwhile, Sunset gave Twilight an empathetic look and quietly asked, "You okay, Twilight?"
Twilight closed her eyes and shook her head. This was probably as far away from okay as she could be.
"So let me see if I got this straight," Celestia said in a steady tone. "You want me to confess to a crime I haven't even committed. Why?"
"Because...you'll be in jail then. Do I really need to elaborate?" she answered in a deadpan tone.
"But why go after me?" Celestia pleaded with a hint of desperation in her voice. "What did I ever do to you that would justify the lengths you have gone to to see me punished? Who are you under that mask?"
Those questions had a strange effect on the Nightmare Goblin. She fell silent and looked away for a second as a strangely sad and conflicted expression briefly revealed itself on her masked face, all while her cat-like eyes turned more normal...and then she grunted and shook her head before she could go too far in that direction...before Luna could get the upper hand...and her eyes remained as demented and cat-like as they were before.
She then turned back at her sister and ranted, "You! I can't even begin to tell you how much I have suffered because of you, how much the one person I love has suffered because of you! I have hopes, dreams, and aspirations...that your destructive self-righteous attitude always crushes into dust whenever I try to achieve them! You're everything that's wrong with my life! And I will tear you and everything you've built to shreds if you won't. stop! GETTING! IN MY WAY!"
Under her mask, Nightmare's real face had turned red with anger...though her manic and infuriated expression was communicated quite well anyway through her demonic mask. After all, she had designed it that way.
Though after she had made her little outburst, the Goblin took a second to calm herself before she once again put a smile on her face and asked, "Now...what will it be? Your freedom and your reputation...or the lives of your precious students and little Spike here? The choice is yours."
Celestia tensed, but said nothing.
On paper, it seemed like an easy decision. The hostages' lives were right now the only thing she cared about, and she would do anything to make sure they all got home in one piece after this whole ordeal was over and done with.
However, Celestia didn't trust the villain to honour her part of the deal and keep them safe if she complied, and...if she went to prison, the Goblin would still be free to hurt countless more innocent people, and not to mention might her company fall into the hands of someone like Rex Storm, who would likely abuse and weaponize her work for their own selfish benefit and potentially hurt even more.
No matter what she did, someone would get hurt...
...At least unless she was fast enough to grab Twilight and the others before the Goblin could cut them lose. It was risky, but she knew that if she got close enough, she could overpower her adversary and save the hostages without much difficulty.
Unfortunately, the Goblin was one step ahead of her this time, and could guess what her big sister was thinking.
"One more thing to help you decide..." she added while raising a finger for emphasis...then pointed it at a large antenna spire just behind Celestia. "You see that pumpkin?"
Celestia gave a quick glance at where she was pointing, and indeed saw a small metal pumpkin webbed up to the top of the antenna. And, having heard what the Goblin did at the docks, she knew that those pumpkins were bad news.
"At my command, that thing will blow up and unleash a massive cloud of gas," she revealed, much to Celestia's dread. "The same gas in fact that poor little Spike breathed in...and you saw what happened to him. Just imagine what it will do to all the people down there just minding their own business."
A look of distress passed Celestia's features when she realised just how outplayed she was. The Nightmare Goblin's plan was perfect. There was now nothing she could do without someone paying the prize. Nothing!
"You can stop the bomb or save your students...or fail at both...or just comply with my demands. That way everyone but you will walk away from this with a smile on their face. The choice is-"
"MINE!" a new voice suddenly shouted, much to everyone's surprise.
The Goblin barely had time to recognise just who that voice belonged to and turn around to look at them when a foot flew straight into her jaw with enough force to make her briefly lose control of her glider and spin around wildly while she tried desperately to maintain her balance.
The surprise kick had come from none other than the Spider-Girl of course...and now she was ready for round two!
While the Goblin had spent her time talking, Rainbow had spent that time climbing all the way back up to the roof. Once there, she had stayed out of sight, planned it out and waited for the perfect moment to spring her attack.
And now...in an interesting twist of irony...it was the Nightmare Goblin who was the one that got hit in the face with a devious sneak attack. Karma really was a cruel mistress tonight, wasn't it?
After she had delivered her powerful face-kick though, Spider-Girl used its momentum to fall back with a back flip and elegantly land on top of the crane arm where her friends were hanging.
"Now how do you like that, bitch!" Rainbow shouted victoriously while giving a double thumbs down in the currently disoriented Goblin's direction.
"Spider-Girl!" Twilight shouted, sounding beyond relieved to know that her friend was still alive...but still remembering not to spoil her identity. She owed her that at least.
"How are you still alive?!" Sunset questioned.
A bit confused, Celestia meanwhile asked a simple, "Who?"
But now was no time for explanations. She only had a few precious moments to spare before the Nightmare Goblin could recover and retaliate, so Rainbow's one and only priority was to save her friends and stop the lizard bomb from going off before her enemy could do so. A nearly impossible task to be sure, but she did have help this time around if the strange sensation she got from Celestia on her spider-sense was any indication, and if she just acted quick enough...she just might pull it off.
The first thing she did was to look right at Celestia with an urgent glint in her eyes (or visors technically) and say, "You take care of the bomb! I got the hostages!" in as serious of a tone as she could muster.
Now, to be fair, Celestia had literally no idea who this mysterious person was, and would have every reason in the world to distrust and question her...but, for reasons that she would have a hard time explaining, she just didn't.
There was something in her voice, her costume, and her recent actions that reminded Celestia all too much of how she was back in her Captain Jupiter days...almost as if she could see her own younger self under that strange blue mask the Spider-Girl hid her face behind.
Besides, with so many lives in imminent danger, she didn't have the time to question anything right now...so she immediately gave the Spider-Girl a nod and did as she was told.
With a bright flash of light enveloping her, Celestia activated her hidden powers; making her hair flow on its own, her eyes become bright as the sun and her skin start to glow in a powerful radiance. Once she was powered up enough, she focused her attention on the small metal pumpkin sitting at the top of building's tall antenna spire and leapt up to grab it in a single bound.
Meanwhile, the Spider-Girl had already gotten to work on her own plan.
She dropped down from her perch on top of the crane to a position where she was using one of her arms to hang off of it, then used her free hand to grab hold of the thread keeping Twilight's cocoon stuck to it and asked, "Do you trust me?"
"I guess I do," Twilight answered a bit uncertainly. "Why?"
Then Rainbow pulled the whole thing off of the operating arm and held Twilight's cocoon dangling in her grip. And, as you might expect from her by now, the action immediately made Twilight start to panic again.
"No reason," Dash replied rather cheerfully considering the situation, now using her legs to keep herself attached while she reached over to do the same with Spike's cocoon as well.
By now though, the Nightmare Goblin had recovered from Rainbow's kick and regained control of her glider...and it didn't take her long at all to see what was happening...and she did not like it one bit.
The first thing she noticed was that Celestia, now completely enveloped in her signature Captain Jupiter glow (which made her very easy to make it out in the darkness of the night), was using her remarkably strong grip and climbing speed to scale the tall antenna on top of the building and come closer and closer to the lizard bomb the Goblin had placed there.
Immediately, the Goblin reached over to a button on her wrist device that would detonate the bomb...but she was a second too late.
Just as she tried to activate it, Celestia came up to its level, yanked it out and crushed it in the palm of her hand a split second before it could receive the signal to explode.
However, despite how ridiculously strong she was when fully powered up, Celestia did show some restraint when she crushed it. After all, she only needed to destroy the inbuilt receiver, not accidentally set it off herself. And since, at the end of the day, despite whatever modifications the Goblin had made to it, the device was still based on CelestiaCorp technology, and thus Celestia knew just how much pressure she would need to use to successfully disarm it.
Though seeing as that plan failed spectacularly, the Nightmare Goblin growled irritably and set her eyes instead on the crane and Spider-Girl's attempt to save the people hanging off of it.
Speaking of which...by now had the young heroine successfully pulled up both Spike and Twilight from their previous positions and held onto them both in one arm each. Though try as she might though, she could only carry two people at a time...so Sunset Shimmer would have to hang in there just a little longer.
With no time to spare, Rainbow jumped clear across the gap between the crane arm and the roof while keeping a firm tight grip on the two hostages...even if the sudden vertigo caused by the action made Twilight even more disoriented than she already was and also actually made Spike wake up...finally.
When she landed at her destination with the two of them, Spike groggily asked, "Wha-what's going on?" while Twilight was too busy trying to contain yet another panic attack to answer him in proper words.
"Sit tight, I'll be right back!" was all Rainbow had to say to them though before she turned back to the crane and set out to help the third and final hostage.
With another leap, she landed right back on the operating arm, and was just about to reach down to get Sunset Shimmer out of her precarious situation as well, when...the Goblin flew past them at immense speed and grabbed her first, using her own enhanced strength to rip the human cocoon right off of its thread.
The Goblin flew in a wide arc and circled back so she ended up hovering above the Spider-Girl with Sunset still wrapped up in her cocoon and dangling off her clenched hand.
"THAT'S ENOUGH!" she shouted loud enough to get everyone's attention, her smug facade having crumbled away into one of rage and resentment. "Stand down or I will drop Sunset Shimmer right here, right now!"
Like before, when she first woke up in this position, Sunset actually managed to refrain from screaming or panicking...but the distressed look on her face made it very clear that she was very close to doing so this time.
Spider-Girl got up on her feet and clenched her fists as she stared the villain down, assessing the situation.
Celestia dropped down from the antenna to the roof with loud thud, her incredibly dense body when powered up even making the hard surface beneath her crack in the process. And after she landed, she too set her eyes on the Goblin and waited for her to make the next move.
"Valiant efforts on both your parts, but once again I hold all the cards," the Nightmare Goblin commented after composing herself a bit. She was still noticeably pissed off, but she showed it a bit more subtly now as opposed to screaming at the top of her lungs. "Now the terms have changed. If either of you want Sunset Shimmer to be alive by the end of the day, you will both have to reveal your secrets!"
While looking at Celestia she said, "You will now not only tell the police you created the lizard, but you will also reveal to them, to EVERYONE, that you are also Captain Jupiter!"
"Huh?!" Sunset voiced upon hearing that. Twilight too looked at Celestia with a surprised expression as well from where she was lying, still stuck in her cocoon.
The Goblin ignored her and then pointed a gloved finger at the Spider-Girl, "...And you will take off your silly little mask and show me exactly who you are!"
Rainbow flinched. This was one ultimatum more than what she was prepared to deal with tonight. Nevertheless, she quickly went through her options. 'No way will I reveal who I am to this psycho...but I can't let Sunset get hurt either. Damnit Dash, why couldn't you just be one second faster?!'
"Do that, and she will live...refuse, and she will die!" the Goblin declared as clear and to the point as she could.
Celestia hesitated, almost looking for a second as if she was about to do something...but then, with a resounding sigh, she reluctantly powered down and slumped her shoulders in resignation.
She had no choice, she saw no way to refuse the Goblin and save Sunset's life...so she did the one thing she swore she would never ever do...
...she gave in.
"Alright, Goblin...you win," she said in a defeated tone.
A smile formed on the Nightmare Goblin's masked face upon hearing that. "Oh, hehehehahaha...good! I knew you'd come around. You're so predicta-"
"No!"
Rainbow Dash declared in a clear and decisive tone, making Celestia's, the Nightmare Goblin's and especially Sunset's eyes widen in surprise.
She stood firm and looked at the Goblin with a determined, unwavering stare...one that made it pretty clear she was 100% confident in the decision she just made, and was not backing out.
Though only time would tell if what she just made was the right choice or not.