The Amazing Spider Mare: Sinister Secrets

by SuperPinkBrony12

Sinister Showdown, Part 1 (Six Against Two)

Pinkie brought the vial to Twilight right away. If it what Martin Lee had said was true and there really was something as powerful as Devil's Breath out there, then she had to deliver the only cure to someone who could produce enough of it to safe everyone afflicted. The alternative was too much to even think about.

Twilight was definitely taken aback by Pinkie's out of breath statements when she arrived at the castle, but still set to work quickly. Only then did Pinkie allow herself to catch her breath and rest.

Cheese Sandwich opted to use the time to explain how he'd ended up in his confrontation with Mr. Negative. "I stayed as long as I felt I was needed at Town Hall. But eventually it seemed like everything was under control. Town Hall's still intact. Badly damaged and in need of repairs, but still standing. So after that, your Aunt Suzanne contacted me and told me you'd gone to see Mr. Lee but hadn't come out of his office. So I went in to look for you."

"And that's when you discovered that Mr. Negative and Martin Lee were one and the same," Pinkie commented. "Yeah, I kind of experienced that too. Now, I'm not sure who's in control. I wanna say it's Martin Lee, but it's probably still Mr. Negative. Fortunately though, Martin Lee was able to resist long enough to give me the means to stop Mr. Negative's plans before they can do anymore harm."

"Never a dull moment with you by my side," Cheese commented to his wife. "But I wouldn't have it any other way," He gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Feels like it's been forever since I've gotten to do that."

Pinkie just replied. "Cheese, I promise you, as soon as this is over we're going to take a well needed vacation. A sort of second honeymoon if you will. Being a superhero is exhausting work."

A few moments later, Twilight came trotting out still holding the original vial with her magic. Her mane looked quite frazzled, indicating a lot of intense research and magical experimentation. Parts of her mane even looked a bit singed. She wiped the sweat from her brows. "Well, I've got good news..."

"And let me guess, bad news too. That's always how it works." Pinkie commented.

Twilight reluctantly nodded. "I'm afraid so. The good news is, this is most definitely the cure for that Devil's Breath you mentioned. There's already reports of ponies coughing and hacking nonstop, of increased mood swings," But then she gulped. "However, the bad news is, I can't produce enough of the antidote to cure everypony afflicted. At the current rate I can only manage half at best, and that's if I'm lucky."

Pinkie and Cheese both gasped in shock! "What?!"

"I was afraid you two would say that," Twilight glumly commented. "But that cure is incredibly volatile. Without more of it, half is the best I can do."

"That can't be! There's no way we could come up short like this!" Pinkie remarked as she punched a nearby wall with a hoof! "After all that! After the rousing speech I gave to Martin Lee, it's all for naught!"

However, Cheese was quick to suggest. "We can't give up now, Pinkie. Martin Lee's got to have produced more of that cure somewhere. Maybe if we tracked it down fast enough, we could distribute it to everyone in need?"

"But that could take days, even weeks! And it seems like that Devil's Breath is on a very fast moving timetable. If we don't find the cure by sundown today, it may be too late!" Pinkie protested. "Without a lead, we wouldn't even know where to start! And we never did find out what those criminals were doing for Mr. Negative. I'll bet you anything that if we'd been able to get more information out of them, we'd have some idea of where to search."

"Perhaps I could be of assistance?" A familiar voice called out, said voice's owner quickly revealing itself as none other than Officer Copper Top.

Pinkie Pie and Cheese were relieved to be in their superhero costumes, but then Pinkie realized that she had removed her mask in order to talk to Twilight! Her identity was now exposed! "O-Officer Copper Top!" She gasped. "I... know what you're thinking... but I swear this really isn't what it looks like!"

"Oh, so you're not working on your Spider Mare cosplay?" Officer Copper Top teased with a knowing grin. "Come on, it wasn't that hard to figure it out. I wasn't the top cop at my old office for nothing. A good cop has to be able to figure out a few mysteries here and there," She then added. "If you really wanna maintain the whole 'Secret Identity', maybe come up with a way to conceal your obvious disappearances. Wasn't hard to figure out you were never around whenever Spider Mare on the scene. Same goes for your husband, Cheese Sandwich."

"W-well, you can't tell anyone about this. It's top secret!" Pinkie vowed. "If your superiors find out..."

"What? You think you're the only one who can keep a secret?" Copper Top remarked as she shook her head. "I knew all along. But I never said anything because it wasn't important. Nothing's going to change now that I know. In fact, having somepony like me in on your double life could probably be a big help. It'll be easier to help you maintain your cover, I can pull some strings here and there. Even go so far as to set up aliases and dummy companies, and it'll all be off the books," Then she cleared her throat. "Anyway, I originally came here for something much more important than a talk about secret identities. You're not gonna believe this, but Martin Lee actually turned himself in. Even showed up at the office with hoofcuffs and everything. He said he had 'personal information' related to Mr. Negative and the bombing of Town Hall. You wouldn't happen to have had anything to do with that, would you?"

"Who me? Nah," Pinkie insisted as she threw up her hooves. "What did you manage to find out?"

Copper Top grinned. "Quite a lot, actually. Seems like Martin Lee knows Mr. Negative more than anypony might have thought. He mentioned that there's an entire batch of the cure for Devil's Breath that was being shipped from that warehouse you and your partner raided. Mr. Negative was planning to horde it all, Martin Lee would only be able to release it bit by bit."

"That must've been what was in those containers!" Pinkie realized. "Any leads on where they went?"

Copper Top nodded and presented a piece of paper. "There's an abandoned construction site in the heart of Manehattan. The cure was supposed to be stored in a warehouse across the street, but someone or something was able to hijack the delivery vehicles mid route. Unconfirmed sources have mentioned numerous reports of unspecified monsters lurking at the construction site. So if you go there, be careful."

Pinkie accepted the paper (which contained directions to the warehouse's location and its proximity to the construction site). "We will. And thanks for the tip. I know our partnership didn't get off to the greatest start, but I think after this kind of assistance the future looks bright."

"Thank me later. For now, you and your partner have a cure to find, and lives to save!" Copper Top encouraged.

---

And so it was that, even though they were still recovering from the fight against Mr. Negative, our crime fighting power couple set out for Manehattan. Once again thrusting themselves into the thick of the struggle between good and evil.

But not even they knew what truly lay in store for them in the city that some say never slept.

Arriving at the construction site, Spider Mare and Black Cat noticed how unsettlingly quiet everything was. It wasn't like the usual kind of quiet in which everyone had already gone home and work would resume the next day. Between the many abandoned scaffoldings, concrete slabs that supported iron beams for the rough outlining frame of a building, and power tools that lay scattered every which way, it looked more like a hastily abandoned project. As if all traces of life had suddenly and inexplicably vanished.

"This is creepy," Black Cat commented as he and Spider Mare entered the site. "Let's just find where those crates of the cure are and get out of here."

"I have a feeling it won't be that easy. My 'Pinkie Sense' is unusually quiet, and that's not a good sign at a place like this," Spider Mare remarked as her eyes scanned every which way for any sign of threats. "Stay sharp. This is exactly the kind of setting for when the bad guys wanna ambush the good guys and catch 'em by surprise. I sure hope it's not that part."

"Oh, but it is! Like the spider said to the fly, 'Welcome to my parlor.'" An echoy, alien sounding voice cried out in what sounded like a hiss. All of a sudden, a familiar blueish-black alien like spider monster appeared before the two heroes.

"Venom!" Spider Mare gasped and jumped back. "Why am I not surprised? I assume Carnage is with you, or did you two have a falling out?"

Venom hissed and swung at Spider Mare, who jumped back further. "Whoa, touchy!" Spider Mare remarked. "And I see your breath is still as rotten as always. Seriously, Venom, do you not know what breath mints are?"

Venom just growled. "You mock us at your own peril, Spider Mare. As you can plainly see, we have found a new host. Quite a suitable one at that. And with said new host, we have assembled a team. Not just Carnage, but a whole bunch of familiar faces just itching for the chance to have their revenge."

"Venom, I can't believe it! You ensarned yet another innocent creature in your web of lies?!" Spider Mare commented in shock. "Haven't you learned anything from our previous encounters? I was hoping you'd changed."

But Venom's face parted, revealing a very familiar red scaled dragon. "Hate to break it to you, puny pony pipsqueak, but this was a willing bonding. I'm sure Spike told you all about me, Garble."

"But what are you doing here?! I thought you hated ponies!" Black Cat commented in surprise.

"Oh I did," Garble remarked in bitterness. "Unfortunately, thanks to your pony loving friend, Spike, I was cheated out of what was rightfully mine! The title of Lord of Dragons! Instead, the namby-pamby pony lover found a dragon just as namby-pamby and pony loving as he was, and got her installed on the throne. And her first act as the new Dragon Lord or I should 'Dragon Lady' was to have me expelled! Said I was 'too dangerous'!"

Then Garble's face folded back into Venom. "But that was when we ran across us. For you see, Carnage was keeping our spirit alive this whole time. We are the original symbiote, Carnage is but an off-spring, the junior partner."

Carnage swooped down next to Venom a moment later, cackling with glee. "It's too bad Lightning Dust is already such a fantastic host, man. If we'd partnered with Garble, we would be unstoppable! Just think of the carnage we would unleash," Then he added. "But enough with the warm, mushy stuff. We didn't come hear to catch up on old times and swap stories. We came to fight!"

Cheese turned a knob on his staff, adjusting it to shoot fiery webbing. "Bring it on, you symbiote slime buckets! Spider Mare and I are wise to your tricks, you won't win this time!"

"Oh, and who says it's just the four of us?" Carnage laughed, before giving a whistle. "Okay, guys. That's your cue. Time to join the party!"

Venom proceeded to add. "You see, Spider Mare. You are so very popular. We missed you so much. So we thought we'd take the liberty of organizing a little 'reunion'. You know, kind of like a birthday party. Except in this, nothing like that," One by one, he listed each of the villains that joined the symbiotes. "I'm sure you already recognize your old 'friends': Electro, The Rhino, The Scorpion, and The Mane-iac."

Electro grinned. "We're calling ourselves the Sinister Six! And we have but one goal now, to destroy you and your precious Black Cat, forever!"

The Scorpion added. "Now then, why don't we stop with the talking and starting giving out the 'presents'? I've got one you'll both enjoy."

"Gee. We'd love to join, fellas. Really," Spider Mare nervously replied. "You really shouldn't have gone to all these lengths just to see Black Cat and I again. But uh... six against two isn't exactly sporting."

Black Cat was quick to add. "Yeah, it hardly seems fair."

"Who says this is a fair fight?" The Rhino snorted. "In this case, it's anything goes. So are you gonna fight, or just wimp out?"

"Enough stalling! Sinister Six, attack!" Electro cried out, launching the first attack with a powerful beam of electricity!

Author's Note:

And so begins the climax of this story and the part I'm sure you've all been waiting patiently for.

Comments

[Comickook]

Again, very god job on the characterizations, exchanges and future action set-up in all the right places. I especially liked how Twilight pointed out they had enough antidote to cure HALF the victims, but NOT ALL (since that makes for a good set-up for later) as well as how Copper Top was already on to the heroes. And, yes, the VERY slightly modified version of the "Gauntlet of Fire" episode ending makes for a good reason on Garble's end to join with the symbiotes.

And, yeah, next episode is going to be one doozy of a fight.