The wood in the older door creaked in a haunting way as Coco pushed it open, but all thoughts of ghost that might be haunting Otto left his mind when he followed her into the small room. Within it was a bed pushed up against the wall, a small table and chair in the other corner and a dusty bookshelf that was almost completely empty. A single window was the only source of light, but what truly drew the doctors eyes was that the whole place had been covered in warm and inviting quilts and fabrics, making it look far more inviting than it actually was.
"Here. I spruced this place up a bit for you when you agreed to work for me," Coco said as she spun around to face Otto, a large smile on her face. Otto glanced around at the small room, his face impossible to read. "I mean, it's not the greatest room in all of Equestria, but it's nice enough...even though I forgot to get around to dusting. Darn it Coco, you can be so forgetful."
Otto walked past her (no easy feat with how small the room was) and placed a hoof on the bed. His efforts told him that the springs weren't in the best of shape and that sleeping on the bed might be problematic for his back. He then shifted his attention to the table and chair, which he discovered neither of them were stable as they each rocked slightly at his touch. Finally he cast a glance at the bookshelf, finding that he knew nothing about either of the books on the shelves.
'Well that is to be expected. I would be more concerned if I had read stories from their world,' Otto figured as he cast his eyes around the room once more.
"Oh yeah, one last thing!" Coco said excitedly as she reached behind her and pulled out a small mirror, which she then hoofed over to Octavius. "Here's a mirror for you, since I figure you like to look at yourself."
"And why would you assume that?" Otto asked her, raising an eyebrow and flustering the mare.
"I-I just figured, because you like to talk about how great you are, that you would be a bit...anyway, how do you like the room?!" Coco asked with a small chuckle and a smile that was far more forced than the ones Otto had given her.
"It will suffice, I suppose," he said as he placed the mirror on the table.
Otto didn't know why Coco seemed happy with his response, but the thought passed from his mind as he walked to his bed and dumped his saddlebag beside it. He kicked the bag under the bed, planning on leaving it down there and forgetting all about it. He sat on the bed and frowned when he found that his earlier deductions were off, for the bed was harder than he had first believed.
"Well, if you're all moved in, I'll leave you alone for the night. It's been a long and...frankly crazy day and I think we'd all be better if we just slept it off," she said with a small laugh, before shaking her head and walking towards the door.
"Coco." Coco stopped in her tracks and glanced back at Otto, who was giving her a look as if he was looking at a scientific problem. "Why are you doing all of this for me? First you aid me when I was weak, then you offer me a job and now are providing lodging for me. And yet you know practically nothing about me. Why do all this for a stranger such as myself?" Coco stared at the wall for a moment, thinking hard about her answer.
"I suppose it's because...I've been where you are," she said in a soft tone, getting Otto to raise his eyebrows. "Beaten into the dirt, unappreciated and no matter how hard I try nopony seems to give a damn about me. I've worked for far too many ponies like that. So I want to make sure I help as many ponies like that as I can, to show them that somepony does care for them."
"Coco...while that is a sweet sentiment, you know nothing about me or what I've been through," Otto said in a harsher tone than he would have liked. But his words did not offend Coco. Instead, she looked back at him with a knowing smile.
"So are you telling me that you have failed at something that you thought yourself the best at? That you haven't watched as your world crumbled around you, knowing that there was nothing you could do to save it?" For a brief moment Otto could not find the words to answer and after that moment past Coco gave him a kind smile. "I could see it in your eyes. I was there too and the only reason I got out of it was because of the generosity of another. They helped me. So if you want, I'll be the one to help you."
Otto said nothing in reply as Coco turned off the lights and left the room, but he knew that he needed to re-evaluate his synopsis of the mare. Deciding to save that for tomorrow, he laid back onto the bed and sighed as the mattress barely budged.
'What a strange first couple of days in this world. And what a bizarre world this is. The city is almost like New York, except with ponies and monsters instead of people and...monsters.' Otto then turned over and stared at the mirror on the table, his eye narrowing as he remembered what had happened the last time he had been near a reflective surface.
"I know that you are there, Parker," Otto said into the darkness of the room. "I do not know if you are a leftover fragment of the procedure or if you are the actual man, but I know that you are there. You may not say anything now, but I saw you earlier. And you still wore that same look of disgust that you always had when you looked at me."
"But why are you here? Why can you not let me be?!" Otto snarled into the darkness, yet there was no answer. Otto then sneered as he lowered his head onto his pillow and pulled the quilt over himself, forcing Peter and the thoughts of his old foe out of his mind.
'Then there is the matter of the voice that told me how to use the webshooters,' Otto remembered. 'It was not Parker, the voice was different. And it sounded far more like Thor's...godly. Another question I will have to find the solution to, I suppose.'
Otto knew that eventually he would have to discover why he was there or if there was a chance of him returning to his own world, but for the moment he let those thoughts lay dormant. He instead closed his eyes and did his best not to dream of a burning city, of a girl dangling before a subway car...and his legacy of ashes.
\\ ( ) //
// ; ; \\
"Alright team, we've gotten another order from a pretty important pony," Coco explained to both Otto and Stonewall, both of who were glaring at the other out of the corner of their eyes. "I haven't told anypony this yet, but here you go. Sapphire Shores, incase you haven't heard of her Otto, is a VERY famous singer and one of the most adored in all of Equestria. And she's come to me to make her new dress!"
"See? Your talents are already being noticed," Stonewall said with a smile at Coco. "You'll be more famous than Rarity in no time." Coco blushed as she started to play with her mane.
"Oh please, I'm nowhere near Rarity's level yet," she said meekly. "She's made multiple dresses for Sapphire in the past. I'm just glade that she decided to give me a chance to make an outfit for her new concert."
"And speaking of music, what the hell is it with you ponies and singing?" Otto snarled before he rubbed his eyes, which had bags underneath of them. "Last night I heard not one, not two, but THREE different ponies singing about their lives and their feelings! Why?! It sounded like they had full musical scores for some of them!"
"Anyway, I've got assignments for the both of you," Coco said, completely ignoring Otto's question. "Stonewall, I'm going to need you to get the jewels and gems. The last time I tried to get them I was mugged. Now they say it was a random event, but I'm willing to bet that it was Cherry Bomb that sent those ponies."
"I've got it. It's natural that you would entrust me with the most important task," Stonewall said with a smirk at Otto, who scowled at him in reply.
"Otto, I need you to go to the store and pick up a few tools that I've broken," Coco said after getting between the two of them, hoofing Otto a list of supplies. He glanced over it once and memorized all of the items on them, before casting a glance up at Coco.
"How do you break three different sewing machines at the same time?" he asked her with curiosity.
"Hurry! Every second you waste in here is another second that the outfit isn't finished!" Coco said as she pushed the ponies out of the studio. Of course, she couldn't budge either of them but they walked out to humor her a bit. Once Coco was gone though, Otto and Stonewall immediately glared at each other.
"What's the matter, can't figure out the directions on the map? Or are you simply too much of an imbecile to even know how to read?" Otto said in a snide tone. "Don't worry, I'll point out where you need to go incase you can't follow simple directions."
"Pretty cocky coming from a pony that Coco only took in out of pity," Stonewall shot back with a smirk. "Heard that you got brought down by five common thugs. If I was taken down by such a small group I would have to hide my face under a bag because of the shame."
"You should hide your face under a bag anyway. Do mankind a favor." Stonewall narrowed his eyes at Otto's words, but Otto saw more confusion in his eyes than actual anger. Stonewall then opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and then turned to leave, grumbling under his breath as he walked away.
'Well, now that I've gotten rid of the fool, time to see where I am actually heading,' Octavius thought to himself as he checked the map. The directions were simple enough and Otto found no trouble in following them. His first obstacle came in the form of a massive intersection, where crowds of ponies waited at each crosswalk, waiting for their chance to cross.
'Manehatten. The name of the damned city is Manehatten. This cannot be a coincidence,' Otto mused as he waited for the light to change. 'It has similar structures, a similar layout and even the name is almost the same. If this is a prank by one of the gods, then they have a cruel taste in humor.'
The signal to walk appeared and Otto took a step forward, but the moment he did so his spider sense went off. Otto didn't know what the danger was, but in a moment he backpedaled onto the sidewalk. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and spied a carriage racing towards them like a bat out of hell. He then glanced in front of him to see a mother and her foal that were unaware of the danger and were right in the path of the carriage.
Faster than any pony could have reacted, Otto grabbed the both of them and pulled them back. They had barely made it back onto the sidewalk before the carriage raced by, followed swiftly by another carriage full of ponies in armor. A few gold coins landed on the ground and allowed Otto to deduce what had happened.
'Seems like a robbery and a high speed pursuit,' Otto figured, having pulled his fair share of both. He then glanced behind him at the mare and her foal, both of who were too stunned by what had happened to say anything. 'I've done my good deed for the day. The guards can handle the rest.'
The store that he had been instructed to go to was a small one and seemed to be a family owned store instead of part of a larger brand. Otto walked into the store to see numerous ponies repairing old items, while a large but smiling mare stood behind the counter.
"I'm here to pick up something for Coco," Otto said to the mare at the counter, but the moment he spoke he felt his spider sense tingle slightly. He glanced over his shoulder to see what may have set it off, but aside from the workers and shoppers no pony caught his eye.
"Oh, are you the new assistant of hers that she talked about in her letter?" the mare asked with a slight accent as she looked over Otto. "Well, she has good taste. You're quite the handsome stallion, aren't you?"
"Please, good lady, may I simply get what I came here to pick up?" Otto seethed, doing his best to not get angry.
"Right to business, eh? I like that," she replied before turning her head. "Hey, bring up Coco's order! It'll be right up in a minute, but don't worry, you can talk to me to pass the time."
"Wonderful," Otto replied through gritted teeth.
"You seem like an interesting fellow. Glad to see that Coco finally found a pony that she could trust," the mare said with a shake of her head. "Poor thing just has the worst luck. Two f her assistants stabbing her in the back while her competitors seem to know her every design. She almost gave up for a while, but she came back swinging. And now look at her. Being hired by Sapphire Shores! How about that?"
"Yes...how about that?" Otto said slowly as another pony brought up three sewing machines.
"Here, let me bag those for you," the mare said as she placed the three of them into a saddlebag and hoofed it to Otto, who slid them over his back. "Well, not only are you good looking but you're pretty strong as well. I can see why Coco has an eye on you."
Otto said nothing in reply, but as he nodded to the mare and headed for the exit to the door he felt his spider sense tingle once again. But this time was far stronger than the last and made Otto look around not only in the store, but also out on the streets. Yet despite knowing evil when he saw it, Otto could not find anything or pony that warranted such a strong shock of the sense.
Yet even as Otto took a step back into the hustle and bustle of the city, he couldn't help but glance over his shoulder one last time at the store. 'I did wish to look around a bit more, but perhaps I shall head straight back to Coco's studio after all,' he decided, walking a little bit faster as the sense continued to tingle...and he began to think.