Along Came A Spider

by Onomonopia

Burns

Spiderman hurled himself off of the rooftop onto the roof of a smaller building below him, hitting the concrete with a roll before he sprung back up to his hooves and continued running. He glanced over the side of the building to make sure that he still had an eye on the three ponies all in black, who had stolen some valuable gems ten minute prior. The three were running through the streets while firing bursts of magic back at the police ponies that were chasing them, but none of them had looked up yet to see that there was someone far worse than the police chasing them.

'Of course this would happen during my morning,' Spiderman thought to himself before he narrowed his eyes as he spied a chokepoint that the three were running towards. Without a moments hesitation he hurled himself off of the roof of the building and let his webbing fly, catching the side of a skyscraper and swinging himself right towards the three criminals. He stuck out his hind hooves and drove them right into the face of the leader of the group, sending him flying across the road before he crashed into a parked cab.

The other two didn't even have time to cry out in fear before Spiderman was on them, driving one hoof into the bridge of a criminals nose before spinning in the air and kicking the other in the side of the head. Both fell without another sound, leaving Spiderman to look at the three of them with a smirk under his mask.

'Three minutes and twenty two seconds. Feh, if I wasn't so tired...' Spiderman realized that he was being looked at when he turned around and found all sets of eyes on him, including those of the officers that had been chasing the criminals. "What? I stopped them with non lethal force. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"It's just...we're really getting to meet you," one of the officers replied, getting Spiderman to raise an eyebrow underneath of his mask. "You're the hero that's been fighting off those monsters that have been attacking the city. A lot of us...really look up to you. So to be able to met you..."

"A hero? Is that how all of you see me?" Spiderman asked before glancing around at the civilians as well as the other officers, who all nodded. "Heh, that just goes to show how little you know about me."

"What are you talking about, dude? You go out of your way to stop guys like us as well as fight monsters," one of the criminals that had managed to hold onto his consciousness said from below Spiderman. "That seems like a hero to me."

Spiderman smacked him across the face with a hoof and sent him off to dreamland, but with a sigh he knew that words alone would not be able to change the minds of the ponies. So instead he shot webbing at the nearest building and yanked himself back into the sky, where he swung from building to building while on the way to his destination.

'Fools. If only they knew the truth,' Spiderman thought silently before his spider sense began to blaze. But he didn't need to look around to see what had triggered it, for the large column of smoke that he could see rising off in the distance told him everything he needed to know. With precise aiming Spiderman swung himself over to the blazing building, relieved to see that it was only four stories tall. Without a moment to lose he swung himself right through one of the windows, crashing through it and landing in a room consumed by flames.

"Is there anyone in here?!" Spiderman roared amongst the flames, but while the scanners in his lenses weren't as good as the ones on Earth, he was still able to use them to find those trapped within the flames. He shot a strand of webbing into one of the cowering ponies and yanked them over to him right as the ceiling crashed down on where they had been laying. He then wrapped them in a safe cocoon of webbing before hurling them out the window. He watched from the window as the hit the ground and stuck there, but from the cries of fear he could tell that they had survived.

After checking the top floor to make sure that there was no one else, he swung down to a lower floor to see a foal crying besides the body of a mare. He raced over to the both of them, but with a quick sting of regret he found that he was too late for the mare. But he quickly moved past her as he grabbed the foal and ran to the window, before the foal cried out and pointed back at the mare.

"I am sorry, but they are gone. It is my job to make sure you do not join them," Spiderman apologized to the foal before he leapt out the window with them tucked tightly in his arms. He landed on three legs on the sidewalk and laid the foal on the ground in front of the ponies there. Before they could say anything he leapt through one of the second story windows, cursing to himself when he felt the flames get too close for comfort. He spied another trapped within the corner of the main room, but he felt a flash of annoyance cross his mind when he saw the horn upon their head.

"You are a magic user! Why in the name of heaven did you not simply teleport out?!" Spiderman roared at the pony over the flames as he webbed them up and chucked them out the window. He swiftly scanned the second floor to find that there was no one else there before moving onto the final floor, where he spied two more foals clutching each other tightly. "And why do young ones such as yourselves seem to be left behind at the first sign of danger?"

Spiderman had just gotten to them when the support in the building gave out and the three floors above them all came crashing down. Spiderman was the only one fast enough to react and he threw himself over the foals, roaring in pain as three stories collapsed atop him. The whole building collapsed upon Spiderman, who strained against it with all of his spider strength to keep from being crushed.

'How did the supports go so quickly? They normally take much longer for fire to bring them down?' Spiderman asked himself as he felt the flames bite at his flesh. With his spider strength he pushed the rubble off of him and the foals, growling as he felt the burns across his back. 'Hopefully Parker's powers can deal with burns.'

He lifted the two foals into his arms and staggered over to where the ponies were gathered, dropping the two foals off next to the other ponies before he turned and walked back over to the smoldering rubble that had been a building. 'Well no wonder it collapsed with supports as flimsy and flammable as these,' Spiderman snarled to himself as he found the cause of the problem. With a snarl he looked up at the clock to find that he was running late, so he took aim at the nearest building with his web shooters.

"Thank you!" one of the foals, the older of the two, said to him before he could fire his web. Spiderman turned his head to look at the foal, who was giving him a kind smile beneath the soot and tears that stung their face. "You're my hero!"

"It...was nothing."

With a pull of his arm Spiderman yanked himself back into the airspace of Manehatten, cursing every few seconds in pain as he swung through the buildings. When he finally reached his destination, the downtown shopping district, he let out a sigh when he found that a large creature that looked very similar to a sphinx was chasing after the ponies down there.

"How does a world that prides itself on friendship and harmony have so much criminal activity?" Spiderman asked himself before he shot two strands of webbing at the buildings next to him, pulling back on the webbing until it became as tight as he could make it. He then leapt up and allowed the webbing to slingshot him right towards the sphinx, driving both of his hooves into the back of the creatures head and driving its face straight into the cement. He then surfed on the back of the sphinx's head right up to the stall that he needed to buy something from, hopping off of the creature as it slid to a stop right in front of the counter.

"I am here for this kind of fabric and any spare parts that you can spare," Spiderman told the pony behind the counter as he showed them a picture of what he needed. The pony nodded slowly before they went to the back to get the supplies. Spiderman heard movement and turned around to see that the sphinx was trying to get back up. He fired a couple shots of webbing to keep the beast pinned to the ground before he turned back to see that his items had been gathered.

"Thank you. How much?" Spiderman asked, leaving a number of bits that he calculated would be enough when the pony gave him no answer. With one last shot of webbing to make sure that the sphinx couldn't get back up, Spiderman shot back up to the skyscrapers and began to his road back to the boutique. 'Hopefully things are calmer there then they are out here. Now I see why that silver man was so desperate for a hero. This place would fall apart without someone looking over them.'

\\( )//
//; ;\\

"I don't know why I was expecting anything less," Otto said aloud as Coco ran around with the fire extinguisher in her mouth while Stonewall tried in vain to smother the flames that had begun to consume the back of the boutique. Coco finally managed to get the pin out of the extinguisher and doused the flames, yet due to her horrible aim she also managed to cover Stonewall in foam. The two ponies panted heavily before Coco turned around to see Otto looking at the both of them with a raise eyebrow.

"Oh...you saw all of that," Coco muttered in an embarrassed tone as she tried to hide her face from Otto.

"And I am glad I did. It shows me that I should never try any of your cooking," Otto said as he walked over to Coco and held out a bag. "Here are the supplies that you ordered. Hopefully you do not set fire to these ones as well."

"Hey, I didn't set fire to the boutique because of my cooking! It was because I was terrified by a massive bug that was crawling on my back!" Coco exclaimed in indignation, but all her outburst did was cause Otto to raise the other eyebrow.

"An insect so large that you needed to set fire to your source of income to be rid of it. Now my interest is piqued. What many of insect could terrify you so greatly?"

"I'm not sure what it was, but it was like a spider or beetle made completely of metal," Coco said with a shudder, while Otto's eyes went wide. "I was just sitting here minding my own business when I felt something crawling along my back. I turn to look and I'm face to face with this massive bug! I hurled the thing off of my shoulder and began to chuck things at it and one of them just happened to be a scented candle that I like and...yeah...this is the end result."

'Oh dammit all.'

"So yeah, crazy Coco nearly burned down her entire boutique because of a large bug. Go ahead and make fun of me if you wish," she finished with a sad look as she gazed at the floor.

"Coco...well all make errors. I will not degrade your self worth with my words," Otto replied as he let out a sigh, yet his words caused both Coco's and Stonewalls heads to snap up towards him. Coco walked forward and placed her forehead against Otto's, causing the doctor to raise an eyebrow in confusion. "Now this, I must say, is bizarre even for you. What are you doing?"

"Making sure that you don't have a fever or are sick," Coco muttered in reply as she moved her head back. "You are feeling rather warm. Are you sure that you're alright?"

"I am fine Coco. But as you seem to have a burn it with fire reaction to large insects, perhaps I should go see what became of this bug," Otto suggested.

"Don't bother, I looked everywhere for that sucker, but I was unable to find it," Stonewall informed Otto, who rolled his eyes at the stallions words.

"Of course you could not find it. Odds are you tried to flush it out with even more fire," Otto replied with a smirk, but to his interest Stonewall just chuckled in reply before turning back to fire control. Surprised by his dismissal of Otto's words, when normally he would have at least got a glare from the stallion, Otto turned his focus to finding the "insect" that had gone missing. He found it exactly where he had expected to, on top of his workbench in the back of the boutique.

"And where have you been?" Otto asked when he picked up the small spider, eyes narrowing when he saw that one of its legs were missing and it seemed to have damage done to its outer exterior. He popped it open to see that there was internal damage to go along with the external damage, causing Otto's eyes to narrow. 'That would explain why it got too close to Coco instead of keeping an eye on her from a distance like I told it to. But this damage doesn't look like anything caused by a wild animal. This is calculated, like someone took it apart.'

'There is only one other that I know who is crazy and brilliant enough to take apart my machine and make sense of it. The Beast,' Otto realized with a cold feeling beginning to crawl up his spine. He snarled while forcing the emotions back down before he turned off the spider and left it on his workbench. 'For the time being, until I find out what he did with it it is safer that I leave it off. I will have to be more cautious in the future and check up on my other spider bots as well.'

As Otto turned to leave, he never noticed that the eyes of the spider came back on. They quickly glanced around the room to see where it was, before all of the eyes rested upon the back of Otto. And then they narrowed in on the well hidden burns marks along his back that it could just barely make out. It stared at the wounds for a second before its eyes shut off again and it lay still on the table.

Comments

[Mesiagamer]

Looks like the beast is taking advantage of otto.

[Chadbane]

As always, we demand more! Great chapter!

[RealityDowngrade]

Whoa whoa whoa, please don't tell me that now someone who has never even seen Otto's level of technology before is going to turn out to be a better "programmer" than him. Please? This story is too good for that sort of literal contrivance. Not for software at least, hardware is another case entirely.

[Animatorsnake]

Okay this part with the sabotaged spider-bot doesn't make sense, sure the Beast is a genius of it's own skills, but creating monsters through genetic manipulation and creating robotic creations are two different skill paths, so I found it unlikely that the Beast has the skill or even basic know-how to use one of Otto's creations or any robotic creation, I kind of find this tidbit of information kind of confusing to be honest. I know some evil geniuses that can do multiple things but if you specialize under one thing and known for it, then its kind of odd to be doing something else.

[Animatorsnake]

7603446
I thought of that as well, there are signs of some technology in Equestria but Otto is from another world and no matter how smart somebody else can be in this world you can't instantly hijack another piece of tech easily, especially if it isn't your specialty