//------------------------------// // Spider-Mare VS the Sandmare // Story: Spare Parts // by Crack-Fic Casey //------------------------------// Spider-Mare was at her best in freefall. As a Pegasus she could fly, but her magic wasn’t very strong and she barely had any fine control. When she’d made her first costume she’d kept them covered to conceal her identity, and after a little practise web-slinging ended up being faster and better than flying had ever been. Thwip. The web-line smacked against the wall and held, and she felt a primal rush as it pulled taut and she swooped high above the streets. The wind rushed past her ears and she whooped as she began to pull up. She drifted near the wall and let go, rebounding across the street and almost floated over the next few buildings. As she passed the next one she snagged the corner with a short web-line, yanking her down. She rotated and let go, the glass passing by inches from her face. She drifted out over the new street, firing off a new strand of webbing and rocketing up and away again. These maneuvers, while complex, were accomplished in a few seconds almost automatically by the web-slinger. City blocks were gobbled in seconds as she flipped over and between the concrete canyons with an easy efficiency that even trained Pegasi couldn’t match. She giggled. Aunt Minty said that flying was overrated, but I don’t think this is what she meant. The smile faded almost immediately. Kr-fwoom! Spider-Mare’s ears turned as the sound of a unique explosion reached her ears. She reached the apex of her swing, letting go just before gravity began to reclaim her. Two web-lines grabbed either side of the alley and forelegs that could bend steel yanked her forward. She cannonballed onto the new street, holding the web-lines as they pulled tight to slow down and spinning two more with her back legs. She perched twenty feet above the street on her web, high enough to see any surprises. A column of sand was pouring out of a smashed wall, flowing upwards and resolving into a grey stone-y approximation of a pony form. “Aw, Sandy!” Spider-Mare called. “I’m touched! You get outta’ the joint and the first thing you do is find a way to see me!” “Where else would I go?” Sandmare snapped. “You’re always there! It doesn’t matter what I’m doing, you’ll find a way to mess it up. So I think I should just skip ahead a little.” As she talked, the stone that made up her body began to dissolve back into sand, pooling at her hooves and flowing back up her legs. Behind her mask, Spidey frowned. “Limestone, are ya feelin’ okay?” she asked. “You’re falling apart…” “Do you ever shut up!” Her body dissolved completely, reforming as a gigantic hammer bearing down on Spider-Mare. She hopped backward, taking the two-story fall without noticing. Sandmare barely missed her, smashing the pavement apart and forming into a gigantic blade that swept across the entire street. Spidey flattened herself underneath and caught the flat of the blade, stopping it before it could dismember any of the fleeing civilians. The stone blade broke back into sand and flowed across Spidey’s head and shoulders, forcing her to leap away or risk being engulfed. She flipped backward, landing four stories up and away from the fleeing herd. “Hey!” She snapped. “I’m not gonna act like we’re friends, but there’s other people here!” “Shuddup!” Tentacles of flexible stone smashed into the wall and pulled her up faster than Spidey would have liked. “I hate you! I’ve always hated you!” “And that’s great,” Spidey said as she galloped up the wall and around the building, “But you’ve never wanted to kill anyone else before so—” Sandmare just shouted again. To her horror, instead of continuing to chase Spidey she smashed her way into the building itself. Spider-Mare spun and charged back down but before she could reach her spider-sense shouted and— Craaaa-ACK! Spider-Mare twisted around flying debris as the whole floor exploded outward. She caught a glimpse of Sandmare ignoring the office workers as she watched Spidey fall. There wasn’t time to worry about that. Spidey jumped off the rubble and dove towards the street, repeating the familiar mantra of please don’t let me be late again, please… She spun around as she passed the rubble, kicking several minuscule disks from her hind web-shooters at key points. They exploded, tying the mess together with thick webbing. She struck it with a web-line and zipped back up, tagging anywhere the grenades missed while she web-zipped back up. Wham! She hit the bag of rubble harder than she meant to but worked without slowing down. Web-lines from all four legs were cast out, then more were cast out again. It stopped far, far closer to the ground than Spidey would have liked, and snapped back upwards. Vertigo tried to claim her as she crawled up, making sure to pin down the last of the loose rubble with more webbing and winced as the lines cast on the right side pulled free of the building they were attached to. She fired three more web-lines, making sure to grab away from the windows. The rubble vibrated in place, straining against the webbing but not snapping it. Spider-Mare looked up to check on Sandmare— Aw, no! Sandmare crawled across the front of the building, smashing it apart. Some of the heavy stone was in freefall, but the larger parts were targeted at Spidey herself. She leaped backward, rapidly tying several lines to the rubble and using web-grenades to make them into makeshift nets, and then charged upwards to meet the debris. I can do this Icandothis... Spidey smacked into the lowest chunk and sent it spiraling towards a window. Swearing, she strung a webline to the far building before leaping again, reaching the next piece and tying the two of them together. She bounced back and forth, sticking webbing to the larger chunks and letting the smaller stuff go. Again and again, she crisscrossed the air above the busy street, grabbing as many pieces of rubble as she could. Her shoulders burned as she desperately threw herself across the sky. She wasn’t fast enough to intercept all of it, but as she tied more and more lines across the sky the debris would get caught in the web before it hit the ground. A glance over her shoulder revealed the street to be mostly clear; most Manehattanites didn’t have an overtly functional sense of self-preservation, but even the most over-eager observers had fled. There was a moment of quiet before she realized that Sandmare had stopped throwing things, and then the colossal crook landed at the top of the web. The lines trembled but held firm as she began to pull her way down towards Spidey. Her body thinned and elongated as she snaked through the web, and she formed extra arms to stabilize herself as she climbed after Spider-Mare. Her head shot out and formed massive pincers that cleanly bit through the webs that Spidey had been sitting on mere moments before. The multi-limbed monstrosity screamed with rage and followed. “Killing me as a giant spider in my own web!” Spidey shouted as she darted around. “That one’s pretty good!” One of Sandmare’s arms winged her but it was blunt, barely winding her. She rolled her body up and dove through Sandmare’s body, briefly scattering her apart. Spidey landed on the street and stood, trying to work through the pain. Her Spider-Sense buzzed again, letting her flip back as web-lines began to snap and a pile of stone, half as tall as she was, hit the street where she’d been. Spider-Mare frowned. Every superhero fight around civilians had a ticking clock on it, counting down to the point where she wasn’t fast enough to save someone, and with Sandmare having apparently snapped that countdown was going faster than usual. What do I have? There’s a bakery, some apartments and — A gym! She darted across the street, overtop the re-forming Sandmare, and through the door to the gymnasium. She took a second to see if it was empty and jumped over to the showers. Sandmare bust her way in after, barely holding her form together and bellowing curses at the web-slinger. She blasted after her, weights and exercise machines caught in a stupendous sandy wave. Spidey barely had time to grab a metal bench to hide behind as Sandmare smashed her through the wall. Pain exploded across her back and head, but she’d been braced for it. She rolled off the impact as they entered the room, letting Sandmare continue until she smashed the showers apart. Fwoosh! Water burst through the shattered pipes, knocking Sandmare apart. She shouted and tried to reform, but muddy particles refused to listen to her. She came apart in pieces as Spidey caught her breath and quietly marveled that this counted as an easy day… Her spider-sense went off again. She leaped to the ceiling before looking to see what had set it off. The buzzing was passive; whatever it was, it wasn’t going to jump up and kill her. It was coming from Sandmare’s body, who’d stopped trying to get up. If Spidey didn’t know any better, it’d sound the mare was trying to cry.. Some kind of potion spilled out from Sandmare’s body and began to flow down the drain. It was clear, but it glowed with some kind of magic and the floor under it turned bizarre shades of black and grey, like a film negative. Wish I had a way of taking a sample, she thought to herself. The utility belts and fancy bases that the public speculated about were well out of her reach; she was lucky she was able to afford parts to construct her web-shooters. “I’m sorry…” Her ears twitched. “Sandy?” Her face was having trouble staying formed. It tried to come together, to form words before it crumbled under its own weight. Spidey knew from experience that she’d be like that for a few hours, more than enough time for the police to lock her up. She jammed the drain with her webbing and drew a webline across the hole in the wall, just big enough to make sure nobody stepped in anything. Then she was outside and swinging away. Why did I do that? Limestone lay in a sandy puddle as her container slowly made its way to Strikers Prison. She didn’t remotely feel up to assembling a body then. She felt angry, but instead of the blinding rage she’d felt earlier it was the older, familiar flame that felt like it was burning the inside of her chest. I was getting out by the end of the year… Pinkie was so proud of me. I was going home again… Limestone hadn’t seen the farm she’d given everything up for in nearly ten years. All she’d wanted was a little cash, just enough to cover a few months of bills but Spider-Mare had interfered. It was always Spider-Mare getting in the way and ruining any chance she’d ever— She smashed the side of the container, feeling her form break apart. Limestone needed to breathe needed to remember what it was like to be a pony so she pulled enough of herself together to form a head. The air she pulled in didn’t go to lungs or anywhere, but it started to help. I’m not doing this again, I can’t! She thought furiously at herself. I don’t want to feel like this anymore! I want to be a good person so why can’t I stop! Her face fell apart again. Limestone wanted to scream but was too angry to form a mouth. She raged against herself, against Spider-Mare, against anything near her. The container rocked back and forth as a sandstorm strong enough to rip a pony apart raged upon itself. Eventually, she exhausted herself and lay still. The rocking ceased and she realized that she wasn’t alone in the room. She pulled together a rough body so she could look more closely. It was a filly with a red curly mane and green fur, but the colors were bizarre like she was looking at a film negative. Limestone smoothed her features out and added her normal grey colors, not wanting to scare the filly. “How’d a tiny thing like you get in here?” she asked. “The guards are sticklers for rules.” “Not anymore,” the filly shrugged. “I just came by to see how you did. Is Spider-Mare dead?” “No!” Limestone snapped. “I don’t want— No, I’m not trying to kill her anymore. I want to change!” “Aw,” the eerie filly said. “That’s a shame. I’m sure we’ll get her tomorrow.” “Tomorrow— We?” Limestone glared at the filly. “Who are you?” “Cozy Glow!’ she said happily. “And ‘we’ means you too, silly!” Her hoof began to light up as she hovered closer to Limestone. “Everyone in the city tomorrow is gonna be working together to do one thing: Finally kill the Spider-Mare.”