Spider-Mane, and Spider-Mane 2099 escorted Twilight to where they found the rift. Peter dragged Vulture 2099's body behind him, with the griffon covered in enough webbing to make sure he stays still even if he were to wake up. "Alright, big guy..." Peter said to the sleeping Vulture, who continued to be silent. "This is where we take you back to whatever future you call home."
"You know he can't hear you, right?" Miguel deadpanned.
"Yeah, I know..." Peter replied, "But it's nice to be courteous to someone you just dragged for about ten minutes. Especially whenever said person you dragged is unconscious." he finished, pointing a hoof up the air, smiling.
"Sometimes I wonder how I put up with you." Miguel grunted.
"Try living with him for five years." Twilight teased. "You get used to his humor after the first week."
"Aw, c'mon. Even before we dated, you loved my jokes." Peter reminded her, the stallion wrapping a hoof around her back. "In fact, it most likely was my witty humor that made you tolerate me."
"Maybe... But it was more than that." Twilight reminded her husband, "I couldn't stand your jokes at first, but... They grew on me."
"Okay, can we cut this trip down memory lane short? We gotta close this breach." Miguel reminded the couple, pointing at the open vortex in front of them.
"Moment killer..." grumbled the stallion. "Alright..." Peter sighed, throwing Vulture 2099 into the portal. Twilight lit up her horn, casting a new spell that hadn't been used in a long while. She focused her energy into the portal, sweat beading down her face and she was trembling, not used to using this much power all at once. The two Spiders noticed that it began to pulse, then it started to shrink, eventually fading away for good. Twilight collapsed onto the grass, Peter holding her up in an instant, "Easy, honey... I'm supposed to be the one collapsing, remember?"
"That... was a l-lot harder than I thought." Twilight slowly admitted, "I should've practiced first..."
"Thanks, Twilight. We'll take you back to rest up." Miguel said softly to the alicorn. "Just don't push yourself too hard. I have a feeling there's plenty more rifts like that..."
"Yeah, in fact I think we could all use a break." Peter admitted.
Miguel sat on the bed of the guest room, wondering how he could pass the time. He looked at his costume, which was still in surprisingly good shape. Then he looked at Peter's, which was ripped slighty from the battle against Vulture 2099. "Uh, Parker... You might want to get your costume fixed." he noted.
Peter sighed, "Right... Man, Rarity's gonna kill me..."
"She fixes up your suit?" O'Hara asked.
Peter sat down, "Well, yeah. Even though I've been living here for a couple years, having hooves instead of hands while being used to thr latter makes it hard to stitch up the ol' costume. So, Rarity offered to make a suit fit for me and fix it if she's able to. Heck, I can't pay her enough for what's she's done." he smiled, "Heh, she's even made some spares just in case." he said, looking at the slightly torn costume. "I'll admit. It's seen worse days."
"Yeah, well we should give you an upgrade when the time comes." Miguel joked.
"Nah. I prefer the classics thank you very much." Peter responded in a stern tone.
"Is this about the costume?" Trixie asked, walking into the room, overhearing the two stallions' conversation. "Oh, Rarity is not going to appreciate that..." she said, looking at the tears within the torso part of the suit. "I swear, that mare stitches that suit more than doing her orders it seems." the unicorn added.
"Oh, you have no idea..." Peter replied.
Miguel hung his costume over the edge of the bed, still not used to the new shape. "Hey, uh, Trixie, was it?" Miguel asked, "Any luck on finding more rifts?"
"Sorry, O'Hara, but after the first time I think we all could use a rest, lest we have Peter and Twilight collapsing on the floor from exhaustion." Trixie replied. "Ask Twilight. She has the notes, after all."
"Sounds good." Peter said to his roommate.
"Anyway..." Trixie began to speak once more, "I am going to find something to eat now. Trixie cannot help find portals on an empty stomach after all." and with that said, the blue unicorn trotted off to the kitchen to make some food.
"Okay." said Peter, holding up his ripped suit. "I need to ask Rarity if she's done with her orders yet. Feel free to do as you please around the house, O'Hara."
"Um... Alright then." Miguel responded awkwardly.
Miguel wandered the house, and saw that minus the sofas and bedrooms the Treebrary was for the most part totally empty again, 'How the shock do Peter and Twlight pass the time?' he wondered. He felt a nudging on his left hoof. Looking down, Miguel saw Mayday trying to get his attention. As well as Twilight cleaning up the assortment of papers lying around from the earlier research. "Oh, hey, Mister O'Hara." she greeted.
"Hi, Uncle Miguel. Where's daddy?" asked Mayday.
Miguel pointed to the door, "Your father went to get his suit fixed real quick." he answered. "He'll be back soon probably."
Twilight wandered into the room, seeing that the mess has been cleared, "Hey, Miguel? Trixie mentioned that you wanted to see the notes we had." she levitated a piece of paper in his direction, "Here's some more information we gathered about the rifts sometime after you left to fight Vulture." she explained.
"Good. Thanks." Miguel replied, looking over the data. "From the looks of things, the two of you managed to track a few more portals than I thought. Not bad." he complimented.
"Thank you, Miguel. While we rest, do you mind if we learn more about 2099?" Twilight offered, "It sounds interesting. And Mayday wants to learn as well. You don't have to if you don't want to."
"Uh, sure. Go right ahead." O'Hara responded, 'Let's just hope I don't freak her and May out with this information. Being part of a family like this is definitely not something that I'm used to.'
Mayday asked the first question to Miguel, "What's the future like?"
What's it like?" Miguel paused, wondering how to explain his world to someone as young as Peter and Twilight's daughter. "Well, I'm kinda like your father in a way. We have powers and we have to stop the bad guys from hurting others. And there are a lot of bad people in my time."
"Like that Vulture griffon?" Twilight added.
"Exactly. I just hope that he's it. A lot of people from my world are kind of... What's the word? Different. They don't act like the ponies here do, and some of them want the world for themselves, like Alchemax." O'Hara explained.
"Peter mentioned it sometime before you showed up, is it really like he said?"
"I don't know what he told you, but if Sloan's gonna be sending more goons after us, you're better off knowing some things about me. I work at Alchemax and they tricked me to join in their crazy experiments. They gave me something that I literally couldn't live without to make sure that I stay with them. I tried taking it out of my system with a machine called a gene splicer, but somehow it got sabotaged with spider DNA. That DNA mixed with my own gave me enhanced abilites of those of a spider's."
"After that, I swore to fight against Alchemax and restore 2099 to a peaceful world. Though of course, they're aware of me and sent their police, the Public Eye after me plenty of times, so I'm pretty much on the wrong side of the law as far as they're aware. But there are other heroes, some of which have taken the legacy of the past, as well as other corporations competing such as Stark-Fujikawa."
"Stark? As in Tony Stark?" Twilight blurted out.
"Yeah, I guess." Miguel replied, "His company merged with Fujikawa sometime after the end of the Heroic Age and is now a shell of its former self from the information I gathered. They're also after me as well. It's like the whole shocking world is after me, and whatever heroes are left."
Twilight frowned, "Peter had that same problem back in his time. Some jerk named Jameson ranted about him being a menace. His city hated him and made him doubt his purpose as Spider-Man. Once I summoned him to Equestria, everypony loved him, but after learning of his true origins, he was feared. It took sometime, right before Mayday was born actually for him to earn ponies' trust once again." she explained, recalling the nine months before her daughter's birth.
"Did that really happen, mommy?"
The alicorn sighed, "Yes, sweetie. Your daddy is a good stallion, but it took a while for other ponies to figure that out once they learned where he came from. He proved that he was a hero all by himself, and I am glad that you weren't around to witness that struggle for him."
May hugged her mother, as Twilight reciprocated the action, wrapping her forehooves around her daugher. "So... Do you want to talk about your world more, O'Hara?"
"No. But I just wanna add that you all should be careful. 2099 is home to a lot of villains, most of which I have to deal with on my own. We have to prepare for any of them coming," Miguel warned sternly, trying to stay calm in front of the filly, doing his best to no worry her or Twilight anymore. "Anyway, as much as I don't want to, Rainbow Dash is probably gonna bug me about flying. So I have to see her before she annoys me. Again."
"Are you sure you're okay, Peter?" Rarity asked, observing the tears in the costume, "At the very least it should take me no more than thirty minutes to fix the rips."
"Yeah..." the stallion lied. "It's just... If it wasn't for me going nuts with that crystal experiment, then Sloan wouldn't have found a way to get here and send that Vulture creep here as well as any other villain from 2099 that he could find." he admitted.
"It wasn't your fault, darling. You know that we would never put something like against you. I assume that your experiment never intended to have such consequences, so none of us could have predicted any of this happening." the white unicorn comforted, but she could see Peter's somber look.
"You seem to put yourself down a lot more whenever that gets brought up... Is there something bothering you about it?" in that instant, Peter had an image. A very gruesome one. He held his head, trying to get the picture of his friends dying out of his head. His hooves clutched his cranium harder, but something else made his head hurt more than usual.
"N-No... Sorry... That was just a headache." Peter denied, shaking off the pain.
"If you say so..." Rarity responded, not wanting to budge Peter any further. She focused her attention back to the costume that lay on the table. The unicorn used her magic to lift up a needle and a roll of strings. "Let us get this patched up, shall we?" she asked, Peter nodding in response.
Hoofsteps were heard coming down a flight of stairs, a younger unicorn revealed herself. "Oh, hi Peter!" she cheered, pulling Peter into a hug, making the stallion yelp uncomfortably. The filly had the same white fur as Rarity, and her mane consisted of two different shades of violet. Sweetie Belle released her grip on Peter, who gasped for air after being squeezed too hard.
"Good to see you too, Sweetie Belle." Peter said with a friendly wave, getting his breath back. Suddenly, a surge of pain overtook his head once again, 'I-It feels like my Spider-Sense is on maximum overdrive! It's not the hug. It's something else. My powers better not be going in flux again!' his mind screamed in agony. He held his cranium once again, rubbing it in hopes of curing the pain.
"Did I do something wrong?" Sweetie asked worridly.
"You didn't do anything Sweetie Belle... It's j-just a migrane." assured Peter once again, trying his best to stay awake.
"You don't have to stay if you're not feeling well, Peter. I'll just give the costume to Twilight once its finished." Rarity said.
Peter paused, but the aching sensation in his head made up his mind. "Alright. If you don't mind, anyway. If I'm feeling better, then I'll come back for it." he responded, trotting out the door, "See you two later." he added with a wave before closing the door.
On the way back to the Treebrary, Peter shook the cobwebs out of his stinging head, 'What's wrong with me? Maybe the stress of time travel is getting to me. I should just go to bed...' he mused.
Unknown to Peter, a spider-like creature his in the shadows, biding its time and waiting for the right moment to strike. It extended its claws, but refused to attack.
"I take it the Vulture was a failure?" Sloan asked.
Serena shook her head, "No, Sloan. Vulture was merely a distraction for Spider-Man while we found a way to harness the rifts in this dimension. I have a few more ideas should I need them."
"Ah, yes. And I too have a few trump cards myself. Though I do not know of Tarantula's fate, I have to rely on the other being I found in the past. Though he's not very cooperative." Walker revealed, the elder unicorn stopping in his tracks. He shot a beam of magic out of his horn, opening a portal. "In the meantime, I will bring yet another enemy of Spider-Man's to this world to provide a distraction for us to continue."
Doctor Octopus 2099 smirked, deciding to walk on her hologram tentacles, "I believe I could assist you in that. Once I enter this rift, I shall find my next minion and his army to ready them. Then, while he's busy fighting your ally, I will make your captive... Cooperate." she said that last word in a sinister tone.
"Army? And who are you sending exactly?" Sloan wondered.
Doc Ock 2099 moved a tentacle into the portal, hopping inside of it, "Let me say that he is an arachnid, though a mindless one. I should still have some eggs from when he had the fragment of the Tablet of Order and Chaos that Spider-Man was so determined to find." after saying that, the scientist stepped into the portal, all the while Sloan used his device to harness the energy of the portal, the stallion getting stronger by the second.
"Soon... I shall have enough energy to safely go to the past without the aid of that accursed creature..." Sloan muttered as walked in as well. Sometime passed before Walker stepped out. Some armored men walked as well, morphing into various equines. The leader of which wore clothes that would be typically seen by a cowboy, a hat and a vest that fit his new form. One of his hooves appeared to be cybernetic as well as an eye.
"Thanks for tellin' me where Spider-Man's at. As much as I wanna work alone, these guys will distract any other threats that stand in my way."
Walker smirked, "You are quite welcome, Venture. I believe that Spider-Man is nearby, intending to stop my research."
"Oh, he and I have some unfinished business. Stone hired me before, but this time the I will end him." Venture assured his employer.
"Good. Now, I must attend to my 'coworker' on the project." he said, and Doc Ock came out. "Ah, how goes the experiment from the other end?"
Serena chuckled, figuring out the situation, "Quite well. Though, I'll need more time."
"We'll cover for you, ma'am." Venture replied. "Now, gentlemen," he pointed to the officers, "Let's give 'em their money's worth!" once the Public Eye was out of sight, Patel looked at Sloan.
"Another distraction?"
Walker nodded, "Yes. They shall hold off Spider-Man while we reach the next portal. By the time we meet, I will have the energy necessary to pull off my scheme."