Super Pony Roomies

by TheManehattanite

Line of Ire (1)

1

The lights go up.

A study in a Manehattan penthouse. An Earth Pony reclines on a Chesterfield, idly swirling the contents of a wine glass as his brow knits appreciatively over whatever book he’s reading. A burgundy smoking jacket combines with his chocolate coloured coat and blonde hair to make him look like some illicit mix of Turkish delight and a vanilla swirl.

It compensates for the fact the wine glass is full of chocolate milk and his copy of ǝƃɐɹǝǝԀ s,dɹnʍ┴ is upside down. His crystal blue eyes flick to the camera.

“Oh, hello there! I’m Tropical Johnnycake Storm, but you can call me Johnny. You may remember me from such feats of bravery as a little thing I like to call ‘The Last Ten Years!”

A montage of news photos, the Horseshoe Torch (and the occasional other member of the Fantastic Family) in action against assorted mad scientists, evil wizards, robots, kaiju and apes with super powers. The last one is Johnnycake straight up taking a selfie with Galactaurus, Devourer of Worlds.

“Been an adventure, hasn’t it?” Johnny says, now standing by a globe with a hoof on it, as if patting some sort of exotic pet. “And now we have the chance at a new one…together!”

Panoramic shot of the Manehattan skyline, the majesty, the energy, the character. All ruined by the Horseshoe Torch flying into frame, one hoof raised to his brow to pantomime looking back and forth. “They say there’s a million stories in the coated city, and half as many apartments. Guess who’s looking for one? If your answer was the high-flying Horseshoe Torch, go to the head of the class!”

A montage of various scenes across the city. A couple on a bench. A mixed species basketball game. Pigeons on a roof for some reason.

“Somewhere out there in this beautiful city is the perfect place to hang the many stylish hats and similar accessories I wear in my role not just as hero, engineer, sky diver, race kart driver and cordon bleu chef, but as a fellow Manehattanite! If you know of a happy home in need of a hero, let me know!”

The typical Equestrian nuclear family around the dinner table. Though, judging from the way Father’s pipe bubbles over and Mother starts taking aim with her book, not one who was expecting or asked to be filmed.

“Don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself. Do it for Mom, Dad and starshroom pie.”

Johnny now stands in front of an abstract portrait of Princess Celestia, solemn gaze levelled at the camera like a descending warhead telling you this is for your own good. “Do it for Equestria.”

“H.E.R.B.I.E?” comes an affable baritone. “What are you doing in my study?”

Eagle eyed viewers might just have the chance to register Johnny rapidly slicing his hoof under his chin for cut!cut!cut! before the camera blurs to River Reeds’ upper torso stretching around the half open door.

“Johnny?”

“Hey, Doc! Before you ask any questions I just wanna assure you the lil’ sputnik takes full responsibility and you should be proud of him for it.”

The camera squeals in protest as River’s brow creases, either from his powers or realisation. “Is that my robe?!”

The world judders into static and clears in the shadow of a silver colossus striding down Canal Street. The sickly yellow equine face inside its helmet shrivels with revulsion at the strands dangling from its mighty power lance.

“INSECTS OF EQUESTRIA! YOUR WORLD IS NOW THAT OF TERMINUS THE TERRI—shoo, shoo! Go on, get out of it!”

It swings the weapon to and fro, more like a pair of tweezers holding something bacterial than the nightmare of a thousand solar systems. The camera chirrups in terror as a sudden lash sends a screaming Johnny and Spider-Pony hurtling straight towards it--

Static.

2

“Of course that’s just the first cut,” Johnnycake Storm said, timing his most disarming grin with the parting curtains for maximum disarming sparkle.

“Uh huh,” grunted Juniper Waters, super pony lawyer to the stars. “And I advise you to make it the last.”

“As my lawyer or as my friend?”

“The former since there’s an outside chance you’ll listen to me.” Juniper reached out to stop him playing with her Starswirl cradle. “This isn’t a good look, Johnny.”

“I’m just doing what all truly great Equestrian artists have done since time immemorial: trying to cash in on my talent and good looks to score an apartment! This is Manehattan, June! The most enterprising city on Earth!” He side-eyed a wall of photos, where she posed identically with varied famous clients. “Also, according to focus testing, the one major conurbation where Grim isn’t more popular than me.”

“Popularity depends on perception.” June settled back in her chair, sighing. “I see this, I see your way of reaching out and, even though this hurts a little, it’s actually pretty creative.”

Johnny leaned back in his own chair, satisfied hooves behind his head and taking advantage of the sunlight to make his mane shimmer.

“Everypony else? They’re going to see one of those high and mighty super ponies trying to muscle their way into a home as payment for services rendered. And if you don’t, nice place you got here, be a shame and all that.”

“You cannot think that little of me!”

“Of course I don’t, you goober, but I know better because we’re friends.”

“That an invitation to crash on your couch?” Johnny muttered as he fumbled the film out of the projector. “Least you could do after torpedoing my big idea.”

Despite his powers he still felt the heat of her gamma irradiated gaze on his neck.

He turned as slowly as possible with ears lowered and an innocent smile like a good boy as the office, despite now being fully illuminated, seemed to plunge into the same emerald darkness as June’s eyes. “Kidding!”

“Good,” June said with a quiet firmness as the glow faded. “Shy-Hulk doesn’t need to be that strong.”

“I don’t really wanna hit up anypony in the business anyway.” Johnny resumed packing up his wears as if the great green apocalypse hadn’t been narrowly averted. “Last thing I need is the tabloids running another ‘Super pony nepotism?!’ scandal and Sue nagging me for it.”

“Try being the shoulder she’ll cry on if you actually pull this off,” June muttered, arranging some papers on her desk. It wasn’t quite noon yet but any time of day was usually too early for Tropical Johnnycake Storm. “How’s that going by the way? And, more pertinently, why bring this to me?”

“Because every photo of me is gorgeous but like 40% of them are on fire, every landlord’s nightmare.” Johnny stared up at the ceiling fan, wishing June’s visitor chair was the swivelling variety so he could at least mildly entertain himself. “Maybe I could work out some kind of deal with the city, like you had with Las Pegasus?”

“Shy-Hulk was going through a phase, okay?” June cocked her head to the side, scrutinising him. “Has anypony actually refused you residence because of your powers?”

Johnny’s slump became rigid.

“You haven’t even applied anywhere, have you.” It wasn’t a question. Not from the way her nostrils flared but her poker face stayed. “You’re trying to get out in front of any potential problems. You’re here because you need a licencing lawyer.”

“Do I get smashed if I say yes…?” Johnny was smart enough to not try the smile this time. “I mean, there is this specific film score I wanna set it to--”

“You might if you waste any more of my time! I have clients with real problems, kid. Not all of them have superpowers.”

“But I mean…is it a good idea? Pitching myself? Just in case somepony wants my expertly quaffed goodness but not my fiery hot treats?”

“Gross.”

June put a hoof on his shoulder. Her eyes were still regular magical species green, not atomic emerald, but he felt a little bit of Thing-esque weight to the hoof, as if even her alter-ego was reaching out to him.

“And the only way to find out is to put yourself out there. Maybe they’ll say no, maybe they’ll have the right. I’ll still go to bat for you if I have to, but you have to make the first move here.”

“Are you talking like a wingman so I’ll think about this like wooing a filly and it’ll be less intimidating?”

“If it’ll get you out of my office, yeah.”

“You’re the best, June,” Johnny grinned and vaulted out of the chair with the same enthusiasm urchins in a musical showed for drain pipes and rickety fences. “Give ya a hug but you have other cases and that suit looks expensive!”

“You’re learning,” June smirked. She walked him out into the lobby as the projector folded up into a slim saddlebag, another River Reeds marvel.

She side-eyed him expectantly as he fidgeted with it under the pretence of deciding which shoulder would be the cooler to sling over. “Last chance to unload.”

“Just a feeling I’ve had ever since I took down Fin Fang Foom—”

“Oh, right. That happened,” June said with the leaden weight of three weeks worth of his bringing it up.

“—but just looking for one tiny, preferably authentically hard wood floored, apartment feels so much…bigger. More--” He tried to keep walking and wave a divining hoof at the same time.

“If you say ‘real’ I will Hulk-out and punt you all the way back to first grade.”

“Okay, okay, but you get what I mean, right? Those days when you wake up from a dream but somehow you feel like everything you know was unreal all along? Like, I dunno, a fairy tale. Oh, excuse me sir!”

“Quite alright!” The dwarven warrior tipped his helmet as if Johnny hadn’t almost collided with his hefty battle axe and continued on to the front desk with the gallant knight, elfin archer princess and obligatory hooded pony of mystery. The party wizard, a unicorn in a hat that must once have been pointy but had seen some things, man, gave June and Johnny a nervous look as he hurried to keep up, followed by a box with lots and lots of little legs.

“That’s my two o‘ clock.” June put a companionable hoof on his shoulder as he hauled open one of the glass front doors. “But yeah, I know what you mean. Felt the same way looking for my first place. Hay, when I got my degree!”

“Yeah?”

“That feeling of knowing so much but just having more questions you don’t know how to ask, nopony telling you the answers. And this was before I had to share a brain with the Anti-Social-est One There Is! There was something my mom told when we met for coffee on campus once. Put everything in perspective. Wanna know what it was?”

Johnny tried to keep any and all pleading out of his eyes as he did the old cocky raise of the eyebrow routine.

“Welcome to adulthood, kiddo, you’ve got real problems now,” his lawyer said and pushed him out into the big wide world of Equestria.

3

“Not to be a downer, but one day we’re gonna feel like we’re just too old for this.”

The Spectacular Spider-Pony was in freefall, which wasn’t unusual. He fired a fresh web-line, now being trailed by the tail of the pony in the chicken-snake costume, which was, sadly, also not unusual.

“Get off!” the Basilisk snarled, corkscrewing in an attempt to either dislodge Spidey or dash him against one of the passing skyscrapers. The move was familiar and easily countered with Spider-Sense, but something was off about the voice.

Spidey released the line, firing two more. The startled not-Basilisk hadn’t been prepared for the sudden release of weight and was even less prepared for its sudden return, braking and sagging with equal violence. The sudden stop sent Spidey careering up like a pendulum, somersaulting onto the villain’s back. He peered upside down at the still recovering face in the beak/mouth of the cowl.

“Well if it isn’t Dark ‘Blackie’ Deco, my favourite also-ran!”

“Yeah?! We’ll see after this also-ran runs ya through!”

Spider-Sense made him turn and shield his eyes, but the Basilisk Beam still stung. The strike from the suit’s tail was sharper.

Spidey chastised himself as he toppled through the air. The Basilisk suit: not bad for what technically amounted to a rubber monster costume with a souped-up flashlight attached. It never paid to underestimate outfit or wearer.

He snagged one of the trailing web-lines, now dangling back at square one, to mix terminologies. The real deal Basilisk would probably have been out of range in the seconds it would take his eyes to adjust, but Dark Deco had been out of the game for a long time. He could work that.

“So you thought, what, you’d get all dressed up, take in the sights, maybe the museum district, blow your parole to the bottom of Horseshoe Bay foooooor…?”

“Haw! Nice try, Web-Slinger! Keepin’ this suit is almost worth a hundred times what I’ll get paid for running this little errand! Wouldn’t tell you who left it on my doorstep even if I knew!”

“Aww! In that case how about a sneak peek at what’s in the mystery box?”

He snagged the other web-line, taking advantage of the Basilisk’s attempt to slam him into a semaphore tower to anchor the still sticky strands against its gantry beams. Blackie squawked as his momentum pulled them taut as bridge cables, almost sending him bungeeing backwards into the shutters.

Wasting no time, Spider-Pony galloped along the impromptu tightrope and sprang for the satchel, which Tombs would have been smart enough to trust to the grasp of the suit’s tail, but that Deco had been carrying in his hooves the entire chase. “Yoink!”

“NO!” Blackie howled, eyes popping as he slashed both batwings as forward as they’d go. Peter winced as one sliced across the front of his costume, the other batting him clean over the opposite skyscraper and through the roof of a clock tower.

***

He let out a groan, swallowed by the rumble of gears as the world shuddered back into focus. “Don’t suppose you got a spare set of ribs in here…?”

The satchel had only stayed with him because his wall-crawling kept it practically magnetised to his hooves. Which meant Basilisk would be coming after it, hard and fast. Which meant it’d be real great for the pounding headache and spots in his eyes to ease up right about—Spidey-Sense!

He managed to perch on a walkway railing, still holding the bag, as the Basilisk torpedoed through the adorable little hatch doors, decapitating the adorable little wooden personality-rights-safe Princess Celestia with those furiously flapping wings.

Peter had spent his entire career avoiding their designer, who could wield them with expert precision, but they were sharp and strong enough that they didn’t need to be. The only reason Blackie hadn’t taken a leg off with the frenzy he had them in was because they were mounted on his back.

“Get your filthy mitts off my payday, you little punk!” he shrieked, whip cracking that industrial strength tail after the somersaulting Web-Slinger, leaving mangled railings and cannon ball like dents all along the walkway.

“Y’know what, why not?” Spidey mused, weighing the prize in one of said mitts as he leapt onto a rotating gear. “Doesn’t go with my outfit anyway!”

He coiled on his perch, getting a good wind up as the deranged Deco lunged for him, recoiling halfway through as Spider-Pony cannoned forward suddenly. He took advantage of the Spider-reflex induced hangtime, making sure he had the perfect bead on that faux-scaly underbelly as the satchel came up from its latest spin.

He released the strap, sending the heavy cargo hurtling into the wannabe Basilisk’s gut. The impact knocked the wind right out of Blackie, and Blackie right out of the suit. Peter could still hear the champagne cork POP noise of all 200 lbs of pony shooting out through the mouth, even over the deafening chime of the catapulted Deco slamming into the tower bell.

Not that he had time to gloat. He was too busy becoming tangled in the limp Basilisk suit, losing control and tumbling to the hard floor. The satchel smacked into a space way too close to his head for comfort, spilling its cargo. Looked like…rocks?

Blackie moaned, peeling his face off the bell like removing old tape, then squealed as he began the perilous tip backwards into freefall, only making it halfway as web strands looped around the rafters to cocoon his hind legs.

“Iiit’s Echo with Deco,” Spidey drawled in his best Morning AFM voice, dangling upside down in front of his captive, “Manehattan’s most underrated and frankly underwhelming insight into the mind of the underworld with your host: Dark Deco! Whatcha been up to, Blackie?”

“Dreamin’ of wrappin’ my hooves around your scrawny neck, you...!”

“Really? I was gonna go with zen garden.” Spidey snagged one of the stones with a web-line, waggling in front of Deco’s flaring nostrils. “Seems like you could use it. Whatever could these be for if not personal use? Is it supposed to represent the kinda mindset that’d actually pay you to steal a bunch of rocks?”

The feel of the one in his hoof made him take a closer look. Engravings, stylised, maybe a language?

“Didn’t ask questions,” Deco snarled, drawing his attention. “Not for the kinda incentives we’re talkin’ about here!”

“And those would be?”

“Among other things, another shot at you!”

Deco’s sneer made him spin around before his Spider-Sense kicked in, still too late to do anything.

Something hard and fast smacked into his back, sending him sprawling to the floor almost halfway across the room. He moaned, forcing himself up on one leg, trying to discern if he was seeing what he was seeing or if it was just his vision blurring: the Basilisk, tail still lashing, floating there besides Blackie.

The empty Basilisk suit.

What in the whole wide world of Equestria..?! How hard did he hit me? How DID he hit me?

Spidey struggled to clear his aching head and process the image. The apparently alive costume wrapped its tail around the satchel, slicing through Deco’s bonds with one wing and unnervingly opening its own headpiece as wide as possible to allow him to slide back in.

“Nifty, ain’t it?” the now re-ensconced hood chuckled, flashing him a mocking salute with a scaly hoof. “It’s been fun whipping your tail again Webs, but I got a delivery to make. Let’s do it again real soon.”

Spidey at least managed to gleam some satisfaction from the villain’s escape as Blackie banged his head off the hatch, trying to vamoose the same way he broke in.

By the time he managed to stagger into daylight the wannabe-Basalisk was long gone. Pedestrians far below peered up at him as he peered down from the ledge. Good thing Deco hadn’t tried going through the clock face, he wasn’t sure he’d have been in shape to stop any falling glass.

Okay, that was new. And if it’s not how come Tombs never used it before? Summoning spells, sure, and Spark was talking about upgrading with all that fancy new stuff from the Crystal Empire but…remote control? Okay Trotter, focus. How’d he do it?

He flipped the rune stone he’d somehow been able to hang onto up and down in his hoof, lenses narrowing in concentration. Who hired him and what did they want these for?

Then he turned around and saw the giant clock face.

…is that the time?!

***

Ten minutes later (three of which he wasted in a nearby alley trying to pull off his mask and pants at the same time) Peter Trotter was galloping down Fulton Street at practically full Spider-speed, scattering what pedestrians he wasn’t weaving around. “Sorry! Incoming! Gangway! Yeah, same to you buddy!”

He skidded along the asphalt as he realised he’d overshot the doors under a beakers and test tube logo, snagging his saddlebag strap in his teeth as it almost shot off his body and scaring the living daylights out of the poor ponies behind the reception desk as he bounded to a stop in front of them.

“Hugh…hugh…hi!” he gasped “Uh, P-Peter Trotter for the interview?”

“I’ll see to this.” He fought the urge to peel up the floor tiles and hide underneath as the minotaur supervisor glared down at him, flipping through her notebook. “Ah, yes, here you are Mr. Trotter. You’re early!”

He beamed hopefully. “Oh?!”

“Yes, we rescheduled for tomorrow. I’m surprised the paper didn’t tell you.”

“Why would The Bugle…?”

Oh. Oh no. Oh noooo.

He’d been needling Rocky for weeks about it, hadn’t he, letting him try out as The Bugle’s scientific consultant for some extra cash. It had been at the back of his mind when was trying to get the lab interview, only then Spellectro and the Shaker had gotten into that power measuring contest in the middle of Mason Square Garden, so he must've still been reeling from that when marking the calendar.

He was at the wrong lab for the wrong kind of interview!!!

Okay, focus. The clock behind the reception desk was obscured by one of the supervisor’s horns, but his chance with the real lab was shot. Send them a polite apology later, right now? Why not?

“Ah, never mind. This is unorthodox, I know, but since I’m here, would you happen to be hiring?”

“As a matter of fact…”

4

“The math doesn’t lie,” Reed reiterated patiently. “Every few hours a pony somewhere in this city is moving out of or into a two-person lease. You’ll find a needing roommate a lot faster than you’ll find a waiting apartment.”

“Hear what you’re laying down, Doc,” Johnny replied, back pointedly turned to the chalkboards the older Unicorn was levitating, “but won’t it be kind of cramped in there?”

“Oh, come now John, you of all ponies worried about somepony else cramping your—?”

“As if! It just seems unfair to ask them to make room for all this style!”

Johnny whipped around, clad in the latest casual Istallion wear and forcing H.E.R.B.I.E. to float backwards in case of getting lashed by his tail, or worse, being berated for allowing hair to besmirch the racks of Johnny’s wardrobe hanging from his waldos.

“What do you think?” Johnny asked, dawning shades and completing the Never-Actually-Played-Polo-I-Just-Like-The-Shirts look.

“I like them,” Reed said, because he knew how the lad worked at this stage. “Listen, if storage is a concern I have some helpful mass shifting furniture left over from that one expedition--”

“We’ll see what kind of place I can score first,” Johnny said a bit too quickly.

“Alright. Sure you don’t want one of us to come with you?”

“Sue’s out with Armilla, you’ve got like a thousand new discoveries cooking, and somehow I don’t think a pile of rocks in a trench coat is gonna help make a good first impression.” Johnny was already sliding the terrace windows open for take-off. “Besides I already guilt tripped him into covering monitor duty for me.”

“Oh, more like a hundred, really,” Reed corrected, even now making multiple notes on one of his ever-present clipboards. He frowned. “Monitor duty is more a Befrienders thing, isn’t it? We don’t do it.”

The building shook to a furious bellow of “WAIT A COTTON PICKIN’ MINUTE!” several floors down. H.E.R.B.I.E. wobbled in mid-air in a flurry of velvet and cashmere.

“See?” the now aflame Torch grinned, forelegs spread demonstratively as he prepared to lazily tumble backwards off the balcony. “If I can pull that off what’s charming my way into a hearth and home?”

Famous last words.

***

The charm offensive actually worked perfectly during the first attempt. Kind of?

“Any particularly loud habits we should know about, Mr. Storm?”

“I prefer to attend rather than host.” The mare he was facing was older, but it was the 21^st reign of Celestia and he’d pranced around with one of the Eternals for a bit, so he was mixing a fair bit of respect into his coyness. “The read sheet of music is more divine than the loudest symphony, my grandmamare used to say!”

“Mmhm. So no parties?”

“No ma’am!” That she’d know about.

“I see.” Not scribbling on her clipboard but running a hoof down it. He so had this! “No visitors of a…questionable nature?”

“Perhaps, if the question is where they learnt such manners!” Like he’d dance with anypony who couldn’t think quickly on their hooves.

She made a humourless sound. “And it says here you offered to pay a few weeks’ worth of rent in advance?”

“I’m sure there’ll be something to spare after all the charity work,” Johnny beamed, mixing in a little technical truth.

“I’m sure there would.” She smiled politely. Like a rock to the head with a complimentary note. “If your application met our standards.”

“You’re turning me down…?”

“This is an off-Bridleway property Mr. Storm,” the landlord said sternly, looking at him over the horn-rimmed spectacles he now realised were meant to be quirky. “We cater to character around here.”

“I’m a super pony!” Johnny sputtered “Look!” He ignited his head. She didn’t even adjust her glasses. “What tenant could be more, uh…c-charateristic than that?!”

“It is Manehattan,” she said flatly.

The sheer logic of it was so close to a physical force he flamed off, feeling like a helpless watermelon who’d made the mistake of wandering into a dark alley in mallet territory.

“I…you…that… But my application?! I was so charming you could offer me as a main course at the Regis! What could I have possibly done wrong?!”

“I’m afraid, as the foals say, ya boring.”

“That went out of style two apocalypses ago, you hag!” Johnny screeched. In his head. Half an hour later. He didn’t even remember getting into the cab. If the universe had had any decency the driver would’ve turned out to be the Wingless Warlock in disguise, but he was so rattled he forgot to make a pass at her.

***

There wasn’t technically a second attempt, not because of any unforeseen faux pas but the more mundane fact the East Side place he’d had his eye on had been sold by the time he arrived. While he was reeling the universe decided to spring Manehattan’s legendary Never Aroundness of cabs on him. It took a few minutes huffily wandering the streets and almost getting run down by a furniture truck to remember he could fly.

“Comin’ through folks,” he called as he passed through the civilian airspace over Celestial Park, not so frazzled he couldn’t remember to avoid accidentally sending flocks of Pegasi, griffons and medium sized dragons spiralling to the ground in a blaze of fiery death.

“Nice contrail!” a weather pony called.

Johnny glanced over his shoulder to give her a patented smile, but it was flattened and distorted by the glass pane of what she really meant: the change in background magical frequency had turned his trailing flames into a shower of candy coloured, abstract shapes. Flowers and squiggles mostly. He looked like he was pulling the opening titles of Saved By The Bell behind him.

“Ley lines,” he hissed, clenching chagrined teeth as he put on a burst of speed to get out of there.

***

The third attempt was the first to honestly hurt.

“Nice!” He stepped into the studio/loft/almost-out-of-a-movie space with the same delight Reed usually showed for the discovery of a new class of pony eating bacteria. “Is this early 50’s Stallifornian architecture? On this coast?”

“Excellent eyes, Mr. Storm,” the younger landlord beamed. She was dressed in professional business wear that only matched her charmingly lowkey energy if you imagined her working somewhere fun, like a Las Pegasus casino. One of Johnny’s favourites.

“Eh, work takes me a lot of places. You recognise certain things.”

“I wasn’t referring to your gift for architecture.”

Johnny gently released enough of his powers to make it look like he was blushing, both because endearing himself would help with the sale and because the only thing the ladies loved more than a cultured stallion was a humble one. It faded as she led him through to the Canterlot ballroom sized living room and broke his concentration with the best feature.

“Holy cow,” he gasped, eyes flashing with the sunset glowing behind the elephant sized bay windows, “what a view!”

“Oh, I agree,” she breezed following in after him.

He’d have added his own line to let her know he was receiving loud and clear, but the spectacular panorama of towers and parks was overriding all other signals. “And you want how much for this place?”

“Can you really put a price on something this good for the mind and soul?” she asked.

He was seriously going to have ask her name at some point so he could add her to his Hearth's Warming card list.

“Can’t believe I missed seeing something this amazing on the way in!”

“Well, we have only just met.”

Scratch that, so he could invite her over for Hearth’s Warming.

“Does your je ne sais quoi come with the place too?” he asked casually taking full advantage of her own coyness.

“I’ll certainly be…around.” There was something about her smile that got to him. Not like that, like…hadn’t her lipstick been green when she’d opened the door? Maybe it was the light in here, the view was the meteorological equivalent of a roaring fireplace. “But you’ll have plenty of company.”

“No kidding, check out all those clubs down there! And the signs! This street has so much nightlife you could use it as an emergency runway in a blackout!”

“Funny you should mention that, because I was trying to engineer an opening to mention your neighbours.”

The landlord clapped her hooves together with the military precision of a Bridleway cue.

The front door glided open through some unseen method, which Johnny would’ve thought was odd, given he didn’t remember closing it, but didn’t because of the murders’ row of ambiguously 20-something mares that parade marched through it. The windows bounced the radiance of their vivacious smiles around the room and straight into Johnny’s brain.

“How’s it going everypony?” he would have said, but the looks they were giving him and the sheer radioactive luck pouring out of this walk-in miracle’s walls made him feel like he was drowning even as his throat went dry. He trotted backwards and only landed in the sinfully heavenly embrace of one of the many recliners because he bumped into it and tipped himself over.

“Is something wrong, Johnnycake?” the landlord cooed, lashes fluttering as she placed a hoof to his brow, practically buoyed up there as the wave of oh-so-concerned neighbours flooded around the chair.

Surrounding him his inner explorer cautioned, shrugging off his inner playboy, inner rockstar and inner Formula One champion’s attempts to dogpile it. It managed a lot more easily than most of his colleagues would have thought.

“Wrong?! Sun and country, no! Heck, that view…”

He paused, Johnny-Sense tingling.

“Yes! Sunset's are practically mesmerising, aren't they?!”There was a hint of desperation in her tantalising voice now, her hoof switching to his chest as if trying to shove him into the recliner like a bag of incriminating evidence into a peat bog.

“Yeah, but…can I—? Thanks.” She squeaked as Johnny took her pressing leg to examine her watch, politely but firmly sliding one of the encroaching neighbours backwards as a bulwark against the rest with an outstretched hind leg.

“Yeah, it’s only 2:30,” he said, half noting on adventure honed instinct that the watch was more of a high-tech communicator type of deal, a slight extra-terrestrial slant to the digits.

“But it’s awesome, right?” She grinned disarmingly even as she yanked her foreleg out of his grip with more combat hold breaking experience than a real estate agent should have, even in Manehattan.

“Oh, absolutely,” Johnny agreed, nodding contemplatively, almost there. “The whole place is perfect! In fact, it’s almost like it coulda…”

He trailed off, staring vaguely into the middle distance as his eyes focused sharply as Timberwolf’s claws unsheathing.

“Could have what?” the landlord asked, adjusting her lapels almost as if she were a gunslinger limbering up for high noon.

“Could have been made…for me…”

Johnny gave the apartment another look, the same slow kind sunlight gives to bombed out ruins in a war movie.

“Aww crap,” he said dejectedly, “this is a Skrull honeytrap, isn’t it?”

“What?!” the landlord chuckled “Whaaaat? Nooo-ho-ho-oh, what? Ahaha, that would beSEIZE HIM!”

Johnny used a quick but low level thermal burst to shoot himself towards the kitchen island before the ring of beguiling danger could close. His would-be captors crashed into each other in a synchronised jump, styled manes and tails billowing like parade balloons in the world’s saddest crash landing.

“Ladies! Ah, ponies? People? People! Let’s not be hasty!” He scrambled for purchase, trying simultaneously to climb down, stay atop, and not mar the immaculate marble counter as angry, yellowing eyes began to rise out of the tangle. “This place isn’t rent controlled, right? Technically you’d be inflicting all sorts of harm on me every day! They say stress is the greatest cause of hair loss, and as I’m sure you know I love my hair! Financial, follicle! Double the emotional damage!”

He sprang to the piano in the upper right corner of the room as another neighbour lunged for him, the discordant ♪pldingtwang♪ of his hooves striking the keys perfectly timed with her face slamming into the marble top. He hauled the top board up, creating a barrier for a war crying Skrull, swinging herself towards him with the chandelier, to bounce off and crash land on a trio that had been trying to sneak up on him.

“Well, I’ve had a wonderful time,” he called, slamming the board down and balancing on it as he took aim with a foreleg, “ but this wasn’t it!”

With an almost turbine like roar a jet of flame burst from his hoof, propelling the entire piano towards the windows like a battering ram made of class, demolishing and bowling aside lesser items of furniture. The squealing of the frenzied castors was almost drowned out by shrieking Skulls as they dived out of his way.

All except his would-be landlord, who he barely had time to register was homicidally galloping towards him! No, wait. The last coffee table between them.

Nonplussed, Johnny watched as the Skrull commander leapt onto the table, hurling herself into the air with the same in-equine grace. The front of the piano ploughed it into expensive dust as she thrust hooves towards him glowing with the same violet energy that flooded her eyes, bowling him off the runaway instrument and effortlessly landing in his place.

He tried to roll with the impacts of the familiar laser blast and hitting the floor, but he still felt the breath rushing out of him as he landed. Purple dots of energy and disoriented vision flashed all around him as he stared up at the still careening piano.

“Yes!” the commander cried, thrusting clenched, violet pulsing hooves. “Oh yes, yes, yes!”

Then she looked behind her. “Oh no.”

She managed to hurl herself into one of the plush chairs just in time. The piano rammed into the glorious faux sunrise with an appropriately vaudevillian sounds of torment, shattering itself…and the sky?

Through the multiple shocks his system had taken in the last few seconds, Johnny watched as cracks and static lanced across the magnificent view, muddying orange and gold with pale electric green. Even as the shattered piano rolled back from the impact, the entire wall began to tip forward after it. The commander yelped, still glowing hooves scrabbling in place for a few precious seconds before she managed to bolt out of range of the collapsing screens.

“A hologram,” Johnny said hollowly. “It’s a hologram.”

It was the revelation not the blast that kept him stunned in place as the Skrulls swarmed over him, holding him down.

“Honestly? I thought it was a little much.” The commander brushed herself down, smirking in triumph. “But it did the job, didn’t it?”

“Uh, I dunno, Commander,” piped up an underling holding down Johnny’s left hind leg, “he did notice the time difference.”

“You know what the royalty won’t notice, Private?” she replied sweetly. “Your name! When I leave it out of my report! The report that tells the tale of how my brilliant scheme captured the legendary Horseshoe Torch, one of the four greatest enemies of the empire!”

“Not to risk being written out, ma’am,” the Skrull who’d faceplanted into the countertop pointed out nasally, snout still accordioning in that gross shapeshifter way, “but protocol says he’s not officially captured until his powers are neutralised, and realistically speaking how could we hold him if they weren’t?”

“I’d have ordered you to get the stasis cuffs on him by now if you didn’t keep interrupting!” the commander snapped. “Where are the cuffs anyway?”

“In the piano like you ordered, ma’am!”

“Yes, the clearly totalled piano. Fools! I meant where are the other stasis cuffs?”

“Other stasis cuffs, ma’am?”

“The other stasis cuffs,” she said with the calm of someone who could laser blast your head off your shoulders and was trying not to. “The ones I told you all to hide around the apartment.”

“You, uh, specified the--” Accordion Face began.

“Yes,” she snapped, violet energy flaring out of her eyes, “to agent 2162! Which one of you is 2162?! Hurry up, he’s coming ‘round!”

The energy in her eyes flared brighter as every hoof, some of them going green and scaly, went up. “What?! You can’t all be… What?!”

“You did ask for us, ma’am,” Accordion Face pointed out, a note of reproach in her voice audible even as she began trying to stretch her snout back into shape.

“No, I asked for the best agents from the best seduction departments in the empire!”

“Right,” Accordion Face winced as she released her nose, now straight but still wobbling. “That’s us. Department 2162.”

“And you’re agent 2162.” Johnny and his captors looked back and forth between them as the commander began trying to force a problem into a solution. “The one I ordered to hide stasis cuffs in the piano. That’s clearly not going to work. So where are the rest of them?”

“We’re Department 2162.” Accordion Face sounded worried now. “We’re agents of the twenty thousandth, one hundredth and sixty second infiltration department. So, see, we’re all agent 2162.”

“What.” The room flared purple as the commander’s eyes widened. “All sixteen of you?! How would that…what kind of…So where did all those other orders I sent out go?!”

“Did you check if they were, like, received?” asked the woozy chandelier Skrull as her squashed comrades carried her over.

“No! When I give an order I expect it to be obeyed! I shouldn’t need to--”

“Well if you had,” the deleted left leg Skrull said, not un-bitterly, “you’d probably have found a bunch of messages from high command asking what the ☊⟒⋏⌇⍜⍀⟒⎅ you were talking about.”

“What kind of asinine system is this?!” the commander practically shrieked, staring from underling to underling. “How in the ten dimensions does that make sense as a naming convention?!”

“Well it sort of saves time, if you think about it,” one of Chandelier’s supporters pointed out.

“How?!”

“I mean, there’s twenty thousand, one hundred and sixty one departments before us. And besides the fact this is, like, spy ops and junk so anonymity is the point, we’re all in the army. It’s not like anyone cares about our names.”

“Some of us don’t even get into the reports,” Left Leg muttered.

“YOU SHUT UP!” The energy frothing in the commander’s hooves winked out as she clasped them to her temples, her popping eyes still glowing. “This is why this empire is collapsing!”

“So, okay, since we’re all agent 2162,” Accordion Face interjected, in the tone of someone sliding towards the end of a greased ledge, “and you told agent 2162 to hide the stasis cuffs in the piano…and we’re all agent 2162…”

In near perfect sync all their reptilian gazes shot to the wreckage. The mountain of mahogany rubble was a lot more metallic than it should have been, broken sea shells of high tech cuffs sparking in a pitiful pile where they’d poured out of cracks in what must have been a very hollow piano.

All eyes shot back to the blinking Johnnycake.

“Where’s the Super Skrull?” the commander wheezed. “Oh ⎅⟒⏃⍀ ⋔⟒, where’s the Super Skrull?”

“We thought you were the Super Skrull, Acting Commander,” Accordion Face gulped.

“I’m a Super Skrull, you lummox!”

“Lyja.” They froze at the ice in the pinned Torch’s voice. “Is that you, Lyja?”

“Yyyyyynnnnnnnn?” the commander managed, ears lengthening and chin segmenting as she struggled not to shift back to her ponytail. Unfortunately, even though they were vibrating from the effort of non-committance, she’d let her vocal cords revert.

The Skrulls pinning Johnny shot away from him like a splash mark on concrete, just in time to avoid being cooked alive by an angry blast of flame that punched a hole in the ceiling. Hot dust and cold daylight poured into the devastated space.

“I told you what would happen if you came back,” Johnny hissed, fully alight with his eyes glowing a deeper, seething orange.

“What can I say?” Lyja smirked as they circled each other, glowing violet eyes matching his as she rippled back to her true green form. “You’re just so easy, Johnny!”

She elongated her foreleg to put more speed into her blasts. Her still mostly disguised troopers dived for cover behind the remains of the furniture as the Torch countered each shot with his own savage bursts of flame.

“Give me a break,” Johnny spat as he forced her to back up. “Lyja the Laser Lasher! Man, what happened to you? You were always the absolute worst, but you used to be better than…whatever this is!”

“So I’m a little rusty,” she panted as her purple jumpsuited back met the wall. “But I’m sure it’ll be just like the old days. After a lot of practice.”

Johnny hated the way she was smiling. Hated the sadism in it. Hated the thrill it still gave him.

“Even if you weren’t booked for a one-way trip to the Stockade, did you seriously think you’d take me down with…?” He waved a blazing hoof vaguely in the direction of the peeping green minion heads.

She actually shrugged. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

“Watch me. I know you, Lyja. You might be almost unluckier than a certain web-slinger I know, but you’re twice as creepy crawly. The only reason you’d slither out from under your rock is if you had a big time plan. You’re such a schemer you make Gloam sick!”

“Flatterer!” She winked, sending out violet sparks. She knew he hated that too.

“I’m not playing around, Lyja.” Some of the cold fury left his voice as he sincerely asked the question. “Why did you come back?”

“Well, lover, the answer to your question is: SMOKE BOMB!”

The space filled with righteous flames almost the exact same instant it was flooded with the choking green mist.

Johnny snarled, sparks shooting from between his teeth as the hacking Skrulls tried to rally around him. Okay, she was back, which automatically made everything terrible, and she’d gotten away, which was worse because who knew what she was up to this time. But sixteen Skrull infiltrators and a heads up wasn’t chicken feed. Once clean up had finished and the rights were sorted out maybe he could still use the space. Like, sure, two holes in the roof and the view had been a lie, but…

Then he saw what the collapsing screen had done to the hardwood floor, put back his head and blasted another hole in the ceiling with a column of flames that emerged from his mouth along with the desolate scream.

“You monsters!” he was yelling as the M.E.U.P. galloped into the chokingly smoke filled room, repeatedly banging one of the 2162 agents’ multi chinned face off the now irreparably scuffed kitchen counter. “It could have been beautiful! IT COULD HAVE BEEN BEAUTIFUL!”

5

“So what went wrong?” Applejack asked as they hefted a bale of mildew smelling wreckage onto a cart. The other was starting to fill up with salvaged crates and barrels as she cleared it of wooden posts, two of which she slipped onto her back as she trotted past.

“I’m not joking,” Peter insisted as they headed back to the jagged gashes in the mud, “the suit moved all on its own!”

“Nah, that sounds…well, weird but that’s just, whadda you folks call it, the business!”

Applejack placed another post and deftly tapped it straight into the soil, completing a task that would have taken a stallion twice her size ten minutes of sweaty, jaw numbing labour with a hammer. “You get a new gig yet? You don’t sound so sure. If ya don’t mind me sayin’.”

“It’s cool. They said they’d think about it,” Peter sighed. He cast a web-lasso around another pile of wreckage. It was lucky the strands were adhesive enough, still allowing him to reel the timber in, as his unenthusiastic yank didn’t pull it all the way closed.

“That doesn’t sound so bad.” Applejack trotted over, satisfied for now with the two neat(ish) rows she’d set up along the riverbank, and began hefting barrels onto her back, placing her hooves against another to roll it. “They know your name now, right? And hey, you applied somewhere!”

“I guess.” Peter gave a smile that was transparently for her benefit. “Felt more like they were seeing how far I was pushing it or something. Or sizing me up for a straitjacket.”

“Now there’s an idea. Your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Shrink!” Applejack gave him one of her nudges that would’ve sent an un-enhanced pony vibrating like fine china in an earthquake. Peter sometimes got the feeling she liked not having to hold back around him. “You could make sure some of the nuts ya tango with stay in the packet! Wouldn’t even need to ditch the costume. Whip yourself up a moustache an‘ clown ‘do, a pair of tiny specs an‘ a bad accent…”

Peter couldn’t hold back a burst of laughter, forcing him to readjust his aim to snag more floating debris. “Ja, ask them why zhey hate zeir mutha…”

“Oh gosh, they don’t do they?” Applejack shook her head as she organised some of his bundles closer together. “Don’t get me wrong, we’ve gone up against some weirdos, heck, even before Twilight showed up, but these fellas sound like they either got too much spankin’ as foals or not enough!”

“No comment.” Peter checked a crate he’d reeled in wasn’t too waterlogged and passed it to her. “Looks like we’re about to wrap up, boss. Wanna try for the grand prize?”

“Uuuh...”

Applejack cocked her head, considering the scarred caboose jutting out of the river like a cubist’s impression of a cheeky wooden duck and nodded. “Sure, gimme a minute to grab the spare wheels.”

“Hey, one pony wrecking and construction crew up in here,” Peter offered, “you already did the work of an entire salvage crew and even brought emergency cart wheels! What’s the point of bringing a grade-A genetic misfit like me along if you’re not gonna let me lighten the load?”

Applejack’s look could have sandblasted a Canterlot Castle wall, but she was smiling. “What, ‘cause this is stallion’s work and I should be a good lil’ filly and sip cider on the veranda?”

“I-I didn’t--” Peter stuttered, dropping the crate he was carrying and only managing to catch it with the proportionate hasty juggle-grab of a spider “Anypony could get bitten by a… Some of my best…”

“Buddy, you are way too easy!” She gave him another nudge, this time startling him into tumbling the crate into the damp but neat pile. “Look, you got the big city; my family has this town. Savvy?”

“Definitely.” Peter bumped her proffered hoof. “But my friends tell me to stop trying to do everything at once all the time even on my day off, and that thing had to be four or five tons before taking on water.”

“What do I look like, Rainbow Dash? Just ’cause I got a rep to maintain doesn’t mean I’m gonna rope burn my teeth out an‘ maybe drown myself. But this baby was carryin’ fertilizers, paints, some construction stuff…weather team’ll filter the worst out, but we can’t just leave it there leakin’ who knows what.”

“Least it’s not one of the town’s sources,” Peter said, raising his voice over the web-lines his tail was weaving together, “and I’m sure the apothecary’ll whip up something to help the fish.”

“Yeah, it’s the other wildlife we were worried about,” Applejack replied clearly, even though she should have been distracted with the windup she was taking with her lasso. Mare had Matt tier game! “Especially Fluttershy, naturally. Fence oughta keep ‘em out so they can find a better drinkin’ spot.”

She let fly, perfectly nailing the wagon’s rear spoiler.

“Okay, wheels are probably gonna go and if it’s in the mud we’ll be here all dang day, so hard an‘ fast, yeah?”

“On your mark,” Peter monotoned back in his best Ground Control voice.

“You’re learnin’,” Applejack smirked, taking a firm grip between her teeth and pulling her line taut.

***

After a muffled countdown the splintered remains of one of Ponyville’s supply wagons was splashing backwards through the water bleeding from its multiple gouges, making the mud it had churned up that morning even swampier.

With a synchronised yank both ponies sent it shooting forward, knifing new lines through the remains of its chaotic tracks. One of the rear wheels, now technically the front, did shatter, pitching the wreck down and jolting the devastated actual front into the air, landing completely clear of the mud.

Nevertheless, Applejack insisted on replacing all the wheels. Herself.

“Gonna be enough hassle gettin’ this convoy back to Ponyville as is, can’t have this overgrown bath toy collapsin’ in the middle of the road.”

“See what you mean,” Peter agreed, peering into the damp darkness of the shattered sides. “Hey, there’s some more loot in here if--”

Applejack made a number of strangely articulate noises from where she was tightening a bolt. With her mouth.

“…sorry?”

“Anythin’ that wasn’t watertight’ll be mulch by now,” Applejack repeated, then spat to the side to get the taste of metal out of her mouth. “It’s these holes I’m worried about. She looks like one bump and she’ll split like Rarity’s brain that time we opened a Shears next to the new all stallions gym.”

“Or,” Peter offered, taking a few steps back.

Applejack watched, begrudgingly impressed as he fired his webs into the wagon’s eviscerated sections with crossbow precision, weaving lattices that pulled themselves tight together and slammed the dangling segments back into place. The wagon now looked like it had been caught between a rock and another rock, but also compacted instead of gutted. All the webbing was internal, no visible reason to think the wreck had held together long enough to be brought back than sheer dumb luck.

“I won’t tell if you won’t.” Peter winked as he attached the debris wagon’s rear winch to the remains of the wreck’s front spoiler before she could try to prove something. As if he wasn’t.

“Ya get all kinds of weird fish in Equestrian waters these days is what folks'll say,” Applejack agreed, taking advantage of his unsolicited gallantry to yolk herself to the salvage cart, putting herself at the front of the convoy.

“Oh, come on! You can’t seriously expect me to let you pull this monstrosity yourself.”

“Hay nah, why do ya think I brought ya along in the first place? Your good looks?” She indicated the other yolk with her head and a very Manehattanite impetuosity. “And once we’re on the main road you’re outta those reins and trottin’ ‘longside. There’s three of the biggest mouths this side of the Dragon Lands packin’ Elements of Harmony and it ain’t gonna be Honesty’s fault Spider-Pony’s secret gets spread all over town.”

“Oddly flattering.”

Peter slotted the large wooden ‘DANGER: DONE OUR BEST BUT WHY TAKE CHANCES’ board into place, completing Applejack’s fence.

“Nice calligraphy by the way! Isn’t this the kind you use for your stalls?”

“Best lesson trade school ever teaches ya is the importance of makin’ an impression! I never did ask what of.”

Peter was laughing so much he almost didn’t manage to harness himself properly, but in no time at all they were trotting briskly along one of Ponyville’s well-worn trade roads, a boxcar and a half’s worth of salvage and debris rattling complacently behind them.

Peter idly wondered if this was the road he’d chased the pain-in-the-tail white collar crook he’d come to think of as The Commuter!© down. He’d come to think of it as his first official Ponyville adventure.

Technically he’d passed through once on an adventure to the Everfree Forest, which he…might tell the friends about if he and Timber could ever agree on what happened in there. But it'd been interesting to come back out of costume once Twilight piqued his interest.

While a generous slice of Canterlot could be glimpsed between mountaintops, the town had been built up out of many travelling farmers, explorers and traders from all over the kingdom, a hub of activity even before Equestrian Express ran one of its major lines through it. Almost every major business or travel route weaved through the place, which was probably why the proximity of one of the few unexplainable phenomena in Equestria was conspicuously absent from the tourist board’s literature.

He smiled ruefully, wondering what the locals had made of that weirdo luchador from the Big Apple showing up, chasing a thief who looked sort of like the bum from Married with Foals and getting into a spat with four of the local celebrities while Twilight and Fluttershy were out of town. Thank the stars above Flattop hadn’t been there…

“Don’t forget the dog,” he mumbled distractedly in response, then shook his head. “Sorry, you say something?”

“I was tryin’ to say thanks,” Applejack grumbled, but not as much as he’d seen her do with ponies who deserved it. “Coulda handled it but it was good of you to lend a hoof on your downtime. And can’t say I was lookin’ forward to all that work without Big Macintosh around.”

“Oh no, happy to,” Peter assured as they navigated one of the turns. “And I’m sorry about your brother. Falling into poison joke sounds bad enough, but being allergic…yikes!”

“Ah, Zecora and the others are all over it.” She was trying to sound unconcerned and he wasn’t going to stop her. “Have the big lug up an‘ fitter than a new pair of spats in no time. But the town needs this stuff, even with a replacement on the way tonight.”

“Lived through enough blizzards back home to know what you mean,” Peter agreed gravely. “Hay, I was there for the one where they turned the Good Spell blimp into a dropship, the roads were so bad.”

“Oh gosh!” Applejack laughed “Not the same thing, but after Winter Wrap Up our school, we must’ve been a year younger than Apple Bloom, but they took us to see some documentary or whatever at the theatre and that was in the news reel! It was like, I dunno, like watchin’ aliens droppin’ a circus on a city for Hearth's Warmin’!”

“That’s the best way I’ve ever heard it put!” Peter felt a web-swing like rush of nostalgia. “Our whole neighbourhood turned out to help, right, it’s me, my aunt and uncle, we can see the bridge and this…waterfall of parachutes and boxes is just spraying down onto the island out of this-this-this sky whale! Only they weren’t colour coded, it’s the ley lines acting up between districts, so they’re bursting into any random colour! Like watching the sky drop a paint jug! And I’m scrabbling at Uncle Glen in my snowsuit, begging him to put me on his shoulders so I can get a better look!”

Their laughter carried over the rattle of the wagons, which lowered as they were forced to slow down to catch their breath.

“Guess I still think of him that way,” Peter mused, not really looking at his hooves on the road.

“In your snowsuit...?”

“A giant.”

Nothing but hooves and cart wheels on packed earth for a few beats.

“He sounds like he’d still give ya a boost today,” Applejack said with the warmth she usually reserved for Twilight.

She rolled her eyes as Peter stopped dead to look at her and was bumped back into trotting by the momentum of the convoy. “Please, I come from a family who doesn’t say nothin’ ‘less there’s somethin’ to say an’ run with a herd of fillies younger’n me who don’t say nothin’ until everything’s gone wahoonie shaped. Gotta be good at readin’ ponies.”

Peter frowned, looking at his hooves again so he’d hopefully sound less defensive. “It’s not your problem.”

“You’re datin’ the girl who turned me into one of them, ah whaddayacallsit, anthropomorphic personifications of the concept of truth.”

He was half convinced she’d phrased it that way so he’d stare at her again.

“We may as well be friends,” she smiled, shrugging. “Besides you’ll just wind up havin’ the same conversation with Twi anyway. Practice’ll do ya good!”

“Yeah, like trimming my web-shooters from the inside,” Peter muttered. “Ah, it’s dumb, but the fact I haven’t written anything in a while came up. No major research papers, not even The Bugle’s science section, but…”

“Buuuut?”

He couldn’t stop heaving the sigh. “Technically? I should’ve been overqualified.”

“Over—? You’re pullin’ my leg!”

“Would this face lie to you?”

“Buddy, Rainbow Dash doesn’t lie to me.” She looked to the sky contemplatively. “Much. Anymore. Makes April Foals day ‘bout as much fun as gettin’ an all over massage from a porcupine. So, what, you should’ve been too good for ‘em but you also couldn’t prove it even though they knew it?”

“Uh…basically.”

“Dang, Spike wasn’t kiddin’ about your luck!” She shook her head, chuckling as he frowned. He’d have to have A Chat with the dragon later. “Mind if somepony else has a take?”

“May as well be friends.” He gave her a smile as the rooftops of Ponyville came into view. He felt her slowing to a stop and matched her pace to avoid dragging the entire convoy over her.

“They didn’t say no. Even if they did, you still took an accident and tried to make it into somethin' else.”

She tapped the front of the cart behind them with a hind leg. “Like what we did today! Wasn’t those couriers fault their rattlin’ and bangin’ woke that hibernatin’ manticore up, and it wasn’t its fault it was scared and jumped the first thing that moved. So sure, I’m gonna miss out on a lil’ sleep tonight to make sure my neighbours get the supplies they need, but at least now we can all tide over ‘til then. Plus, since Fluttershy helped the poor beastie back to sleep, we know where an innocent creature’s den is and can set up the right cautions, like we did at the lake.”

She smiled, putting a hoof on his shoulder. “An’ the crown agreed to give the town a salvage fee, which gets split with my farm. And even though I totally coulda pulled it off without ya, I got to help my home and learn something about a friend at the same time. Today coulda been worse. All we can do is do good where we can.”

Peter smirked to show he was feeling better. “You’re as bad as Twilight, you know that?”

“Don’t make me toss ya in that junk pile.” She gave him another hardy nudge. “Speakin’ of. Homestretch buster, outta those reins! Time to lie by omission!”

“You’ve changed since you started hanging out with those no-good city ponies.”

He ducked her swipe, shrugging his way out of the reins and adopting a nonchalant air as they began the journey towards the town square. If Applejack missed Spider-strength taking the brunt of the convoy she didn’t let it show.

“Gotta dump this at the depot before I pass ’round what we saved an’ tell everypony you’re more help than ya look. I’ll try an’ swing by when you grab your train.”

“Sure you don’t need any more…?”

“Go do your real responsibility and see your girlfriend, ya busybody!”

“Love you too!” Peter called over the rattle of the convoy, but still hung around for a bit watching her recede, making sure the wreck didn’t come apart, until he realised he was attracting attention for scrutinising the back of a waterlogged wagon.

***

He cantered casually across the plaza with the rest of the hoof traffic. No festival on today it looked like, but he still smiled at the energy, the flow of ponies going in and out of shops, houses and restaurants. It was like a condensed version of Forest Hills. More carnival atmosphere, less tennis and decent(ish) pizza! Less things to swing from admittedly, and it had taken practice to avoid sending a hoof through someone’s straw roof, but that felt…right.

Spider-Pony had to adjust to the place. Peter Trotter? Peter Trotter got to be…anypony.

Business and pleasure, though. He had to pick up his saddlebag from the station locker he’d started renting, Blackie’s mystery rock nestled in the same secret pocket he kept the mask in. Hope it hadn’t scratched the lenses during the train ride, he’d hate to dump this on Twilight and then hit her up for a quick repair spell too.

To ease his conscience, he decided to stop by those flower ponies the girls were always grumbling about (apart from Fluttershy, who just mumbled) and pick up the ultimate romantic token: an optional snack.

“One heather and hydrangea bouquet please, ladies!” he beamed. “Oh what the hay, throw in some magnolia, mix it up a little.”

“Heather and hydrangea with a magnolia chaser?!” one of them cooed and swooned simultaneously “It’s Twilight Sparkle’s mystery stallion!”

“Daisy!” Lily snapped, practically strangling the bouquet as she wrapped it “Read the situation! We talked about this! Will that be all, sir?”

“...eyup,” Peter squeaked, hastily nosing the bits across the counter and snagging it in his mouth before she turned out to be Mystique or something.

Tucking it into his saddlebag he tried to straighten up and almost collided with a camera lens. “Wh—?!”

“Sorry Mr. Trotter!” Featherweight said, managing to bounce up and down despite his rig. “Just wanted to let you know! I got into that contest! They’re gonna see my stuff!”

“You did? Nice!” He grinned, holding out his hooves to the little guy. “Down low!”

It was so cheesy his esteemed publisher’s lactose intolerance was probably flaring up all the way back home, but so what, the little guy’s genuine enthusiasm for the craft deserved a doofy big brother pony boosting.

“And the golden rule?”

“Safe is close enough,” Featherweight repeated with rote weariness, “everything else is why Celestia invented telephoto lenses.”

“Like, sh’aaay, ’ese?!”

Featherweight blinked. “Your keys?”

Peter crossed his eyes to take them in. He’d wondered why they tasted more metallic than usual. He slipped them back in, turning broadside to the colt. “Darn pockets! Okay, it was supposed to be a surprise, but lower left one. Modified ‘em so they should fit with your rig.”

“Oh wow!” Featherwight's eyes were almost as wide as the caps clenched in his widdle buck teeth. “Th’nks sh’oh m’ch!”

“Keep it up, kid!” Peter called as the colt bolted off to geek out somewhere.

Licking his chops to try and get the taste of plastic out, he looked up and saluted an approaching shadow. “Hey, Rainbow!”

“Hey, homewrecker!” Dash called back.

“Still doing the girlfriend’s faux-abrasive best friend routine?” Peter smirked back. “Because pretty sure that went out of style two apocalypses ago.”

“What routine, I’m like this with everypony.” She winked at the apex of her lazy loop-de-loop. “Watch out for runaway mail ponies!”

“Huh?”

And then that mail pony, you know the one, cannoned into him because, for some Pinkie Pie-esque reason, she didn’t set off his Spider-Sense.

***

“So since she was going your way anyway…” he was explaining ruefully a few minutes later, passing Twilight her small parcel.

“You know, I really need to sit down and figure out how that particular gift of yours works,” Twilight said, gently checking his head with a hoof. “I mean the symbiote makes sense, but why does Owlacious set it off and Derpy doesn’t?”

“Maybe because owls eat spiders, honey.” Peter’s eyes pinballed back and forth as he checked the cornices. “Where is he anyway? Torturing some field mice, perhaps?”

“My owl does not torture field mice!”

“That you know of.”

“I’m the one who cleans out his cage! I’d have noticed, wouldn’t I Spike?”

“Only because I clean everything else around here and he’s your gross bird.” Spike emerged from the closet, lining up supplies on the counter. “Hey, Pete.”

“Hey, big guy. Wanna hoof?”

“Nah, it’s cool. Make with the mushy mushy!”

“You surround them with books…” Twilight muttered, straining with the box’s tab, magically sealed to prevent telekinetic shoplifting, “you share your notes…do they repay you with a vocabulary? Nooo…”

“Maybe this will be more intellectually stimulating!”

Peter nosed open his bag and searched it, temporarily panicking that he may have lost the specimen. Thankfully it hadn’t scratched his mask’s lenses but fallen inside it.

“Oooh, my favourite flowers and an object of unknown origin!” Twilight snatched it up in her telekinesis, inquisitive eyes roaming all over it even as she quipped. “Keep this up and I’ll start to think you’re sweet on me, Mr. Trotter.”

Her eyes narrowed, her grip on the tab loosening. “Hmm…strong vibrational frequency…engraved, stylised, maybe a language? Where did you get this again?”

“A scaly little bird dropped it in my lap after trying to kill me.”

He went on to explain Arcadian Tombs’ career as a golden age adventuring inventor, the decades of frustration as he was always overshadowed by more dynamic colleagues.

How the bitterness had driven him to go corporate, snapping when a certain family business tried to swindle him out of his greatest invention, a mysti-kenetic harness that would allow non-Pegasi to fly! The predilection for the basilisk species’ venomousness that had driven Tomb’s to model his spare prototype on them, allowing him to match Peter’s youth, strength and agility in mid-air.

And how a low level smuggler had managed to get his greasy hooves on a version of the suit, almost as dangerous as the old lunatic because of his lack of finesse.

“But Mr. Tombs never manipulated it before?” Twilight mused “Hmm. Could they be working together? Tombs somehow piloting the costume in case something happens to Dark Deco?”

“A remote controller sounds like a distinct possibility,” Peter said as he finished an oatcake, “but Tombs is the last pony who’d do Blackie a favour. They despise each other.”

“Wasn’t he a for real basilisk-pony at some point?” Spike asked, wiping a window. “I remember seeing some photos in Twilight’s scrapbook.”

“Oh man, yeah, that was weird.” Peter shook his head. “Back in my senior year he had some kind of midlife plus crisis and hooked up with an underworld lab, custom super soldiers kinda stuff. It was like fighting a crocodile skin sofa! His metabolism couldn’t handle it, though, so it wore off after a while. Put him out of commission until a few years ago.”

He blinked, looking at Twilight as she floated the stone and multiple tomes in front of her, still wrestling with the tab. “You keep a scrapbook? On me?”

“…I like research,” Twilight said diplomatically, blushing.

She sighed and put the books down and the stone on a table. “Sorry Peter, I’m trying, but if it’s ancient it’ll be buried deep. The downside to the princess letting me study the Elements some more and drip feeding the Canterlot archives is it feels like my brain has more flight paths than Rainbow Dash on mushrooms. And! This! Stupid! Tab!”

“It’s cool!” Peter smiled. “Whenever you can get around to it! Want me to…?”

“I faced down Nightmare Moon fresh out of grad school, I’m not going to be beaten by a piece of plastic!” Her expression softened into one of sympathy as she took a break from trying to wrench her forelegs out of their sockets. “I feel sorry for your rogues sometimes. The minds it must take to build those devices! What would Mr. Tomes or Dr. Octavius do if they’d turned to magic instead of Everfree think?”

“Pontificate even more?”

“♪I’m feeling too good to fight with you today!♪” Twilight sang, nuzzling him as she gave up on being one of the common people and levitated a protractor from a nearby pen mug to stab the box open. “Shining’s going to host the Equestria Games, I’m drowning in delicious research, there hasn’t been a crisis since last November and Spike’s thingy finally arrived!”

Spike hopped off the windowsill he’d been cleaning as she floated a small crystal something or other with earphones and a belt-like strap. “My what now?”

“Oh sweet, a Spark Enterprises MAGiPod,” Peter cooed. “Gosh hon, that must have set you back a bit! Tony only let them on the street after spinning them out of all those crystal communications upgrades he made for the crown.”

“It was pre-ordering the songs that really hiked things up,” Twilight beamed, passing it to Spike, “but the girls all chipped in when I explained it was a present for Spike.”

“Present?!” Spike practically hurled the thing back at her, backing away as though burned. “B-but I didn’t do anything to…”

“Everything okay?” Peter asked, taking a cautious step forward.

The problem (“problem”) with their relationship was he and Twilight were so simpatico it felt like they’d been officially together longer than they had. There was a lot between her and her friends he wasn’t privy to. Yet.

Then again, he still hadn’t told her about that night with Uncle Glen. What really happened.

Yet.

Maybe Spike deserved his secrets. They couldn’t be worse.

“It’s fine!” Spike said with an embarrassed desperation Peter knew a little too well.

“It is,” Twilight reassured, using her telekinesis to fasten the cord around his waist and her hooves to place the earphones around his neck. “You were fine at Hearth's Warming, and I’ll always trust you. And have a lot of birthdays to make up to you. But if it helps, think of it as a work present!”

Spike weighed the phones cautiously. “Work present, huh?”

“Well you were saying yesterday how nice it’d be to have some real music while you worked!”

“Yeah, and then you said it’d be nice if I could actually carry a tune or remember the words.” Spike gave her an impish smirk. “That was last month.”

“Put on your dragon metal, dear.”

“Dragon—?” Spike’s eyes went wide with awe, joyfully snapping the headphones into place. “Thanks Twilight!”

He almost bowled her over with the hug. Peter presumed she winced from the button jamming into her side and the proximity of the now playing earphones to her face rather than the affection. He could feel the tinny blasts of industrial sounds from here. They both backed up in bemusement as Spike dropped away and began swaying and humming, his tail wrapped around his duster.

“That was nice of you,” Peter chuckled as the dragon began to dance-dust his way across the room, impressed the little guy actually could do it with his eyes closed.

“Nice nothing, that was all for me.” She sprang at him suddenly! Spike continued to head-bop obliviously as a startled Peter reared up to catch Twilight in his forelegs. The last of the soreness from Basilisk’s tail and the convoy melted away as she planted a kiss. “I’ve had it with his unsolicited commentary when I’m in the middle of having woo pitched to me.”

She teleported both of them suddenly, Peter blinking away purple sparks as he found himself back on all fours and facing the main staircase. He felt the reassuring weight as she materialised on his back, draping herself and gently wrapping her forelegs around his neck.

“Up those stairs, gorgeous! I want you to tell me how perfect my coat looks at sunset again!” She playfully dug her hooves into his sides like spurs. “Chop, chop!”

“Looking to kill a few hours until then, huh?” he smirked, getting into a starting crouch.

“You’re the improvisational sort, I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

Spike, lost in a world of power cords, completely failed to register her giggle as Peter made a mock macho whinny and galloped up her bedroom stairs two at a time.

***

Okay, so it was only weekends, the odd early weekday, and more often some primal magic brouhaha. Okay, so the pizza was decentish at best. Ponyville wasn’t perfect. But just to get away from it all and feel like a normal pony was rarer than gold to a grade-A genetic misfit. With Twilight? It could have been on fire and still been paradise.

But even as the door slammed shut and the curtains were drawn, he could almost feel Manhattan thousands of miles away, waiting and generating twice as many reasons to put the mask back on.

Manehattan needed the Spectacular Spider-Pony, but Peter Trotter was no longer sure he wanted to live in a world without this girl and her town.

To be Continued.

Author's Note:

Figures I'd get the MLP fic bug just as we're about to wrap up, huh?

What to expect going forward: The big idea behind this series has always been the sitcom side of FiM more than the high fantasy, so while it'll probably take another million years what I'm aiming for is a British style sitcom format. 6 episodes with maybe a 7th Holiday Special kinda thing (like the first chapter!). If nothing else hammering out six of these sounds more realistic. When we hit that 6th and final chapter maybe a season 2, maybe something else. Had an MLP/Red Dwarf idea I've wanted to do forever. But we'll see.

Don't expect it to skew tooooo close to the show or concern itself overly much, though the girls are absolutely going to show up more and Twilight's promotion is going to be a factor. But we're a lot more about, well, hunting for apartments and messing up job interviews than what happens when Sombra rises again. And again. And again.

Life's enough of a ride without Prophecy and Destiny, might as well enjoy it.

GLOSSARY

TERMINUS: The FF's giant enemy who is not Galactus. Instead of a big white doofus in purple hat armour, he's a big yellow doofus in tin foil armour.

THE COMMUTER: One of the best Spider-Man stories ever written.

Comments

[Crack-Fic Casey]

The comedy here was great, especially the new skrulls. Johnny cake is a goldmine. Not enough crossovers focus b on comedy.