Squirm Notice (2)
6
“So,” Spider-Pony asked, swinging above Yancy Street, “if I were a shapeshifting alien with an unhealthy need to follow the most overrated celebrity in the tri-stable area around, where would I be? More accurately, where would you be?”
“Hmm.” Flying alongside, the Horseshoe Torch mulled it over. “Dunno. I’m usually asleep by now.”
A beat.
“Okay,” Spidey said diplomatically, “what about patterns? Hot spots?”
“Marketing said it sound too suggestive,” Johnny sighed wistfully as they looped around the Blue Tower, “and I’d make more money modelling somepony else’s line than handling my own. We also didn’t have anything with polka dots, so the name didn’t make much sense.”
“Great Pony save me…” Spidey alighted on a semaphore tower’s crossbeam, staying put so the Torch had to brake and turn to keep the conversation going. “I mean is there any kind of link between these attacks?”
“It’s like a bad sitcom,” Johnny growled, folding his blazing forelegs. “I’ll go out somewhere, have a good time, and then bam! Lyja! Laser lashing! She’s ruined laser tag forever, Pete! My 10th birthday, gone! Just like that!”
“Alright,” Spidey sighed, “before I tell the Hulk she looks fat in those pants and end it all, one last question. What do you mean by a good time?”
His tail whipped up like a hand as Johnny took a breath. “Note: I’m asking if it’s always a party or something.”
“Sometimes…” Johnny mused, frowning into the middle distance as he searched his memory. “A lot happens to me in clubs but now you mention it, Lyja’s been at more than a few of them.”
“That where she jumped you today?”
“Yeah, got an invite to this retro place. She tried to trap me in a disco ball laser grid.”
“Huh.” Spidey stroked his chin. “Sounds almost like one of my rouges. Relax, this is still about you! But that's practically a Mysterio special, which takes a lot of set up. Could she have had access to the place before you showed up?”
“Maybe? I got an exclusive invite--”
“Did anypony else?”
“Uh…” Johnny blinked, then his flames grew hotter. “Man, all the other guests were Skrulls!”
“So Lyja knew what kind of bait to use!” Spidey said a touch too cheerfully. “Bet if we hunt through your mail we’ll find more ‘exclusive invites’, which we can coordinate with venues/deathtraps. Hay, if she’s using the same distribution service or printing shop then we’ve got a return address! Maybe not hers, but we’ll have one of her aliases!”
“Well, we would,” Johnny countered, struggling with the alien sensation of awkwardness, “if I, ah, didn’t burn my junk mail to save space.”
Spidey did that one big eye, one little eye thing at him.
“What?!” the Torch protested. “I’m thinking of the environment!”
“Hate that that almost makes sense,” Spidey muttered. “Alright, you at least pack a little black book to keep track of your swaggerthons?”
“Please! How long have you known me?” Johnny smirked, retrieving his flame-proofed planner from its magically shrunken pocket in his collar and tossing it to the web-head.
“Alri—yiiii, hot, hot, hot!” Spidey fumbled it between his hooves before it cooled enough for him to properly grip, glaring at the Torch, who formed a flame halo to rub it in. He flipped through a few pages. “Man, your mouth-writing is flawless yet I have no idea what I’m looking at.”
“Dates,” Johnny said, raising an eyebrow at the seeming obtuseness.
“Nah, they're too long to be...oh, right.” Spidey flipped another page. “What’re these, lil’ doodles of their cutie marks?”
“Only the memorable ones!” Johnny performed a lazy mid-air loop-de-loop, trying to cope with the mounting irritation of just hovering. “C’mon, what’s taking so long?”
“I’m staring into your psyche without protective goggles,” Spidey muttered, then held the planner out. “These last couple entries, these’re before Lyja jumped you today?”
Johnny raised a blazing eyebrow. “Uh huh…?”
“And this cutie mark and these numbers I’m going to assume are her area code, because one of us’ll have to be embarrassed about them and it’s not gonna be you; this is her disguise for the day?”
“She pulled a couple when I tried to run her down, but yeah,” Johnny agreed, deliberately not mentioning her Rainbow Dash impression.
“Think you’d recognise it if she used it again?”
“I never forget a pretty face,” Johnny smiled with terrible sincerity.
“Oh really?” Spidey ran a hoof down the rest of the column, all the ponies and parties before Lyja’s latest trap. “How about all the ones she was wearing before? If you can match cutie marks and, okay, dress sizes--”
“Sometimes!” Johnny corrected sharply. “Other times it’s eye lash number, hair length, shoe size, makeup brand, even their area code.”
“Somehow better and worse…” Spidey blinked until his brain was back on track. “Point is if can you match these details up with a Lyja attack you’ve got a lot of things. Some of her disguises, types of places she lures you to, hay, maybe even a search radius. I mean, she’s gotta be somewhere in the city, right?”
“Skrulls aren’t as snooty as the Kree,” Johnny mused, “those guys would never settle for hiding out down here longer than they had to. Skrulls will even straight up get into the property game.” He blinked. “In fact…Lyja’s big comeback was when I was apartment hunting! She set up a whole fake place for me!”
“Yeesh!” Spidey winced. “And I thought Fera was possessive. Wait, wait, wait, if she knew you were looking--"
“The E.U.P. checked that out,” the Torch cut in, shaking his head, “and they didn’t find anything. Well, no, they found the pony she’d been impersonating. They signed her up for a cruise to get her out of the city.”
“Methodical,” Spidey mused. Johnny swooped after him as he sprang from his perch and resumed swinging. “Any idea how the Skrulls knew you’d be at that specific place?”
“Reed’s spells sweep for bugs all the time.” The Torch almost overshot his partner but slowed to fly alongside, turning on his back with his hooves behind his head. “Every now and then there’s a few E.T. one’s, but this is still a dead end. We checked out the agency and Lyja only infiltrated them to set up that deal. And it’s not like ponies didn’t know I was looking. I even made a pitch reel.”
“Do the world a favour: never, ever make your own true or false game. It’ll last for months.”
They began weaving through the supports of the Knightsburg bridge, startling a few out of towners while native Manehattanites kept right on contemplating the Nicks’ chances this season. They were quiet, not from needing to concentrate on such a simple (for them) stunt but because Johnny sensed Spidey’s own silence was more ruminating.
“So is it worth checking out that apartment?” the web-head asked eventually. “Any possible leads?”
“Nothing the E.U.P. won’t have bagged. Don’t think they’ve even let the place back on the market yet.”
“Hey, look on the bright side, you still managed to become a property owner.”
“Thanks, roomie,” Johnny smiled. “So where are we going?”
“Only other lead you’ve got!” Spidey dived off his latest beam, using twin web-lines to haul himself over the last few before they officially entered the city. “Lyja’s disco of doom!”
“Okay, good idea,” the Torch said patiently, pulling alongside him as his swing poses became more dynamic, “but it’s in Midtown. Back the other way.”
“…oh.”
“And gimme my book back!”
7
Fluttershy whistled to herself as her animal friends continued to supply her with new planks and nails. Angel kept his place at the front of the queue, unsmiling as he passed each fresh material from its dancing deliverer. Someone had to be a professional around here!
“And I think…we’re done!” Fluttershy announced. She cheerfully struck the last plank with the hammer in her wing. It didn’t even wobble. “Um…”
Harry the Bear rumbled kindly and leaned over to shove it firmly into the dirt.
“Aww, thank you!” Fluttershy grinned, though it wavered slightly as she looked up and down the row of the completed enclosure. “But now it doesn’t quite match…”
Some of her, um, heftier animals friends made helpful noises and waddled over, using their strength to shove the last few planks down.
“Oh wow!” Fluttershy blinked, hovering off the ground to take in the entire scene. “It matches and actually looks sort of…playful! Thanks everyone!”
She landed as the animals made appreciative noises. Angel hopped up to take a stern place besides her foreleg. All he was missing was a bouncer’s outfit.
“I mean it,” Fluttershy smiled as she looked all around at the creatures, great and small. “I know this wasn’t the sanctuary I promised you.” She sighed, looking at the ground. “And it’ll be a while before we can get there…but this is a little place for all of us, and it’s all the better for your help!”
Her friends chittered and barked and screeched in applause.
“And while we’re all here…” Fluttershy blushed and scuffed the grass. Angel patted her foreleg gently and she smiled, resolve strengthened. “I want to apologise. No, really, you’re all being very kind, but I should. Applejack was right, I have been relying on Discord just making things happen too much. I was so determined to whip up the perfect place for you that I didn’t take any time to ask you what you wanted. What you needed! And what we have now is so much better because we all made it together! It’s one thing to make something for a friend, but if you don’t include them in even just the smallest part of it then it’s not really for them, it’s all about you! I’ve got a lot to think about after today…oh, but, heh, I see you’re all eager to unwind, so!”
She happily took a line in her teeth and used it to tug the gates open. She juddered in place, on and off the ground, as paws and hooves stampeded past in a small localised earthquake. “Hey now! One at a time! I know everyone’s excited, but really!”
She chuckled as small hippos ferried smaller reptiles on their backs in a pool, and birds dragged and released the cords of a homemade swing set, allowing monkeys and rodents to enjoy themselves. Angel looked up at her expectantly, arms folded and one foot tapping.
“I know, I know!” Fluttershy chuckled. “Talk is cheap. I should get this down for our journal while it’s still fresh.”
Angel smiled and hopped alongside her as she headed towards the road. “And if anypony will appreciate a lesson about not using magic to take the easy way out, it’ll be—”
The world went purple.
“—Twilight,” Fluttershy mumbled.
“Agh,” the Element of Magic said, staring straight through her. Some remaining teleportation sparkles danced around her like fireflies before tumbling to the grass. Through her own shock Fluttershy realised she was tracking them so well because Twilight was completely rigid. Oop, no, apart from the occasional twitch of her wings.
“Twilight!” Fluttershy rallied. “How nice! I was just coming to see you.”
“Agh.”
“…you’re right.” Fluttershy tried to hide behind her hair. “It’s not like I’m anypony special. How presumptuous of me!”
“Agh.”
“Twilight?” Fluttershy blinked at her friend. She could sort of feel a silent scream going on behind that motionless purple face. “Is something the matter?”
Twilight nodded. “Agh!”
“Is anypony hurt? Should we be underground?” Fluttershy’s eyes widened as she tried to match worse case scenarios to that expression and the one presented itself. “Is Trixie back in town?!”
“Agh-ha-ha,” Twilight sort of laughed rigidly, still staring dead ahead, and levitated something out of her wing pocket. Fluttershy almost recoiled but realised it wasn’t some sort of bomb. It was…a small box?
“Oh, um, very nice!” she tried. “What is that, velvet? I’m sure Rarity would like it!”
“Nyagh!” Twilight barked, which was some kind of progress.
“Um…”
“Agh.” A purple aura crawled over the box and tremulously lifted the lid.
Fluttershy had to squint from all the shaking and once she made it out it should have been obvious. “Oooh, that’s lovely! Rarity would really like…” Her synapses froze then began trying to double back to make sense of what that ring implied and the strange new universe it seemed to be calling into being. “…that.”
“Agh!” Twilight agreed, nodding again.
A beat, no sound except the incongruous joy of Fluttershy’s animal friends enjoying their new park.
“…I’ll make tea,” Fluttershy decided, channelling her mother.
Angel rolled his eyes as she shuffled off, leaving Twilight behind, and hopped around the paralysed princess to begin pushing.
***
Twilight was still staring into nothing by the time Fluttershy finished preparing their drinks, the open engagement box still bobbing in the air by her horn. The Pegasus sat down on the couch beside her friend, looked left and right briefly, then tentatively reached up to close the lid. It felt oddly like burying a living thing.
Silence continued for a beat, but tea had been invoked which overwrote the Shy family’s instinct to stay in its natural habitat. A good host showed interest, after all!
“So did Peter--” Fluttershy began, despite having no screaming idea under the sun what she was supposed to say.
“It came from his saddlebag,” Twilight babbled, jerking back to life. She laughed drunkenly. “Wow, when I say it like that it sounds like a really underwhelming B-movie, huh?!”
“Um…”
“It came from his saddlebag!” Twilight repeated giddily. “Son of the thing from the saddlebag! The saddlebag rides again! Kaput and Concerto meet the Saddlebag Thing!”
“Are you alright?” Fluttershy asked.
“I don’t know.” Twilight ran a hoof through her mane. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do! I’m sorry for dumping this on you, I just teleported.”
“It’s okay, I’m here!” Fluttershy assured, putting a hoof on her friend’s shoulder. She could feel tension in those new wing muscles building like electric current. Any sudden moves were liable to send Twilight crashing through her roof. She thought quickly.
“Um. Al-alright, did Peter actually say anything about…whatever this is? Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for you if…y-you know. It just seems, well, a bit sudden, Ihopeyoudon’tmindmesayingso.”
She shrank under the weight of her presumptuousness, but Twilight didn’t turn her bones to glass or anything. In fact, the Alicorn was so quiet Fluttershy straightened up, concerned. She wondered how to get Twilight to make eye contact, things always went so much better when they could just know they were all there for each other.
“I don’t know what to do,” Twilight said distantly after a while. She turned as Fluttershy gently stroked her wings. “I don’t know what to do, Fluttershy.”
“You don’t have to do anything!” Fluttershy almost kicked herself over that wording. “I mean, that is, oh dear. Um, this is a shock, if you’ll pardon my language, it’s absolutely okay that you’re a bit…out of sorts! I know I would be!”
“You’re right.” Twilight gripped her hoof, a bit tightly but at least she didn’t seem to be about to cry or anything. “Oh sun and moon, I feel like Tirek just tackled me all over again!”
“Do you want to lie down?” Fluttershy asked quickly, squeezing her hoof and trying to check her pulse.
“I…” Twilight’s eyes flicked to the side as she thought about it. “I want to crawl into a volcano and pull it shut behind me. Is that normal?”
“It is when you’re this stressed,” Fluttershy assured. “Come on, lie down.”
She stood up and helped the Element of Magic assume the position. She felt Twilight trembling slightly and began looking around for a blanket. “Did you need any water? Are you breathing alright? Do you want me to fetch anypony?”
“N-no,” Twilight gripped her hoof, rapidly shaking her head. “I mean, maybe? Should we talk about this? What even is this?!”
“Shh, shh!” Fluttershy gently stroked her friend's hoof with her free one. “It’s alright. You feel how you feel. This isn’t about anypony else. Take your time.”
She felt the tremors ease in Twilight’s foreleg slightly. She wished she could get a good read on her pulse but it didn’t feel like she needed to gallop for Nurse Readheart yet. She made a note to make sure Twilight drank something.
“But it is, isn’t it?” Twilight said eventually. She was still making eye contact even as she thought about it, that was a good sign. “I mean, if Peter’s…” She audibly gulped. “Y’know. I have to…I mean, I don’t have to, but I do have to give him an answer!”
“Needing time is an answer,” Fluttershy assured gently. “Twilight, it’s alright, this is completely out of the blue.”
“Tell me about it!” Twilight giggled hysterically, but she managed get herself under control and sit up, wrapping her forelegs and wings around her hind legs. “Oh sun and moon, he probably didn’t even mean for me to find it. What if he wasn’t going to…y’know…today? But I can’t just put it back!”
“Are you sure?” Fluttershy asked.
Ponies were different from animals but medicine was medicine. One of the best ways to counter shock was to let them find their own words, help them make themselves part of the scenario. Even just having someone close by could feel like taking back some measure of control.
“I…yeah. Yes!” Twilight nodded firmly. “It’d be wrong otherwise.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Fluttershy said gently but firmly.
“No, I know.” Twilight smiled and sighed through her nose. She was maintaining eye contact, which made Fluttershy able to endure this tightrope walking sensation. “It was a silly accident. Spike slipped on a book. It’s just so big, you know?”
“Of course!”
Fluttershy instinctively put a wing around her friend. Oh, if only she were a little critter! Petting wouldn’t be enough. In fact, a lot of her immediate instincts felt patronising, but she could hide in her closest from shame later. Right now, Twilight needed her.
Silence reigned, broken only by the occasional bark or roar from the animal’s new park.
“…you’re having a party,” Twilight realised. “I should--”
“Oh, no, you don’t have to go anywhere!” Fluttershy tried to push her back into the safety of the sofa without actually, um, pushing. “Do you want me to get the girls? We should probably talk about this.”
“I guess?” Twilight’s voice began to rise hysterically. “Like, biggest moment of my life, maybe! But it’s Peter’s ri...ri-ri…right to…be involved! As well! So should I?!”
“We could write to Princess Cadence,” Fluttershy suggested.
“Oh no we couldn’t,” Twilight practically shrieked, sitting bolt upright.
Fluttershy sank to the floor, quivering. “O-only to get her advice!”
“Obviously, but there’s only two pieces of advice she could give!” Twilight hugged her hind legs again. “And I don’t know which one would be worse!”
“Alright…” Fluttershy licked her lips. They hadn’t gone dry or anything, but she needed to fortify somehow. “What do you want to do?”
A beat.
Another beat.
“Explode into a million pieces,” Twilight sighed.
She took the box in her hooves and flipped it open, looking down on the contents as if she and it were the only two things in all of creation. She looked appropriately lonely.
“What am I going to tell him, Fluttershy?”
“It, ah…” Fluttershy stood up as Twilight looked at her. “It sounds like you maybe do have your answer.”
“Maybe.” Twilight nodded and closed the box, returning it to her wing-pocket. She finally took a sip of tea. “You’re right, of course. I should talk to the others. You girls always get me on the right track.”
“I can…” Fluttershy began to offer.
“No, it’s alright!” Twilight slid off the couch, smiling gratefully if not happily and placing a hoof on her shoulder. “I’ll see who’s free. Maybe we should all get around the map table, but I just…I don’t think I could handle everypony at once, you know?”
“Whatever feels right!” Fluttershy assured, giving her hoof a squeeze. She wished she had a firmer grip for moments like these. She always felt it when an animal was connecting and responding but ponies could be so much harder to read.
“Thank you, Fluttershy. I mean it.”
She clung tightly as Twilight hugged her, trying to pour more reassurance into her friend, and watched uncertainly as the young Alicorn trudged out the door. She stood in her living room for a while after Twilight had taken to the sky and vanished from sight (leaving her door open, but she wasn’t one to complain and it was a nice day at any rate). She looked down, sensing Angel’s presence.
“It’s not my business,” she mumbled.
Black ball bearing eyes blinked up at her.
“Alright!” Fluttershy huffed. “I’ll stage an intervention! Jeez!”
She marched, softly and lacking a big stick, towards the door. Angel bounced up, grabbing her tail and startling her to a halt. He pointed to his belly, frowning.
“Oh! Um.” Fluttershy rubbed it. “There there, Twilight’ll be okay.” She made a very Angel sort of face. “It’s that Peter Trotter who should be worried.”
Angel rolled his eyes, taking her hoof and aiming it in the direction of the kitchen.
“Oh, you’re--” Fluttershy checked the clock. Whoops, a bit after Angel’s feeding time. “Right! Sorry!”
She’d been trying to keep an eye on his weight lately, so no extras no matter how guilty she felt, but there was no harm in a pinch more salad dressing. Bunny loved his salad dressing!
8
The remains of the club weren’t much to look at. Or maybe, Spider-Pony reflected, he’d just gotten that used to building with broken windows.
“And we’re not just rolling up, because…?” the Torch asked, hovering irritably beside him on their roof top perch.
“Gotta wait until traffics lighter.” Spidey indicated the packed street.
Creatures were cutting through to deal with a slow-moving convoy of trucks further up the road, trying to make navigate a turn without hitting each other with their trailers. Manehattanites complained about the good ol’ days and how you never had this problem with carts. Peter wondered what good ol’ days they were talking about. No gridlock? In Manehattan?
Johnny rolled his plasma sheathed eyes. “It’s day light, man.”
“Good point, would you douse already?”
“Kiss your aunt with that mouth?” But the goofball obliged, dropping beside him in a shower of sparks. “Look, I’m serious, I know you’re used to scuttling around in the dead of night, but what’s stopping us just heading in there?”
“Uh…” Spidey jumped onto a chimney, pantomiming scanning the street to stall for time. He actually hit on something. “Well, how do we know the Skrulls don’t have eyes on this place? They turned it into a trap for you, so.”
Johnny raised an eyebrow. “Spider-Sense tingling?”
“Not yet.” Peter heled the tip of his tail up. “They could be lying in wait.”
“Then I get to work off some Lyja related agro.” Johnny popped the joints in his forelegs and shoulders, igniting and flying towards the jagged hole in the glass.
“Johnny!” the web-slinger snapped in protest, firing off a web-line. A few pedestrians glanced up as he swung overhead but didn’t really react, which irritated him because it proved the point his roommate was making.
“So we heading inside?” The Torch was hovering in mid-air, just shy of entering the cordoned off space, forelegs smugly folded. “Or are you worried Gem Stone’ll be mad at you not respecting the authority of a lil’ E.U.P. tape?”
Spidey alighted on the wall just below him and flipped himself upwards into the gap, missing the sharp edges and not so much as ruffling the tape. “Like this is the first crime scene I’ve snuck into. Emphasis on sneaking.”
“What? It’s not like anypony’ll think you’re less of a menace.”
“Thanks…” Peter muttered, but if Johnny made any kind of retort he didn’t hear it, perching on a table and letting his mind and his special talent rub together. It wasn’t like the movies, and he was no Shamrock Runes in any case, but that microscope hadn’t popped onto his flank for nothing.
The fight, and probably an M.E.U.P. forensics team at some point, had stripped the walls, baring the oddly neat tangle of Skrull circuitry used to generate lasers. Angle suggested it was designed to work with the amount of mirrors in this place, and who’d be able to resist using the disco ball?
“Power source?” he asked, letting out the first question that drifted up from the fog.
“Hay if I know.” Johnny had taken a seat on one of the tacky leather sofas that hadn’t been scorched by fireballs and lasers.
“Hmm…” Peter stroked the fabric covering his chin, trying to follow the trail of that circuitry and not get lost in admiring the design, then blinked. “Oh for—! C’mon man, this is a crime scene!”
“Tell me about it.” Johnny waved at an angry thicket of burn marks crawling around the wall and behind the bar. “This place really coulda been something, and Lyja just torches it!”
I wonder if the Frightful Four is hiring. Spidey flipped off the table, sticking to the ceiling to survey the whole room and salvage his clue gathering buzz. “Alright, what happened exactly? You came in and…what? Instant lasers?”
“Basically.”
“Lyja didn’t try to wine and dine you first?”
“Nah, she was…” To Johnny’s credit he did look around to make sure before idly waving at some overturned equipment. “There, behind the DJ stuff.”
“That’s where she was operating all this from?” Spidey asked, crawling along the ceiling to check a nagging thought.
“She literally announced herself, so.” He heard a sad frumpy sound from the sofa as Johnny irritably threw himself back on it. Didn’t even have to look to know the hothead was folding his forelegs. “Her goon squad lured me onto that spot on the dance floor, she made some cracks and then the walls started shooting at me. ‘Dance Johnny, dance!’ Making me squirm…”
“So the walls and the disco ball?” Peter ran a hoof along a seam in the ceiling tiles. There it was…
“You paying attention?” Johnny snapped.
“Were you?”
He’d been too busy concentrating to put much venom into the comeback but the Torch still ignited, shooting up to glare at him…and inadvertently giving him another clue. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, call me unimaginative but, fun as watching you try to do the Hustle without getting sliced in half sounds, for the amount of effort it’d take to outfit this place I’d just’ve rigged the sprinklers to take you out.”
Peter smirked under the mask as the Torch blinked then craned his head to take in the now obvious faucet heads, more visible from his illuminating flames.
“Huh,” he admitted.
“So why didn’t Lyja?”
“Who knows!” Johnny snapped irritably, and Peter flinched from a sudden spike in temperature. “She probably just got a bigger kick out of chasing me round the room! Y’know how into it they can get!”
“True…”
But Peter could feel the question still sticking to the scene. This lady’s gimmick was anti-Torch traps and she hadn’t used water?
Johnny was right, the fruitloops they ran into absolutely got so wrapped up in their motif-de-jour they missed something obvious, sometimes that was all that saved your skin. But…all that cutting-edge stuff in the walls. The geometry she’d have to use to keep Johnny trapped. The enclosed space. And she hadn’t taken the most obvious route and just made sure he couldn’t flame on? Peter couldn’t make that fit.
This felt like it should go somewhere but he couldn’t see it, so switched tracks. “How’d you get out again?”
“Tricked her into zapping her console and shorting the whole deal out,” the Torch smiled with grim satisfaction, indicating the lumps of black plastic Peter now realised were melted.
“And probably fried one of our biggest leads in the process, thanks.”
He hopped off the ceiling to take a look anyway. He still wanted to find out what all this had been running on, and it was already generating questions.
Like with the sprinklers, what was Lyja thinking? Keep the Torch constantly moving so much he couldn’t fire back, and she’d probably been banking on eventually tiring him out, but why bother? Why not just trap Johnny in a cage of lasers, a type of projectile he couldn’t melt?
“Yeesh,” Spidey observed, head on one side as he took the remains of the turntable in, “how hot were you burning? This thing’s practically soup!”
“My usual 780 °F,” Johnny said, casually buffing his 4 logo, “but I only hit it with a fireball to make sure Lyja didn’t go for it again. Skulls have backups in practically everything, sneaky lil’ jerks.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, this one time, on Tarnax-whatever-number, it’s been a long fight, I’m looking for a restroom and--”
“Ah-bup-bup!” Peter waved his hooves, lenses squeezed shut in revulsion. “Not on this or any other planet am I talking about what you are! What I mean is, you didn’t take this thing out?”
“Nah, Lyja did.” Johnny looked smugger.
“Ah, the old lead-it-back-towards-‘em move!” Peter grinned under the mask, holding out for a high hoof. “Classic.”
“Iconic,” the Torch concurred, lowering the temperature of his hoof for delivery.
“Hmm,” Spidey mused as he began hunting through the warped bricks. Despite being all melty the remains of the turntable were sliced into neat sections, allowing his talent to help him visualise them falling apart. Checked out with some of the cleaner burn marks on the walls. “Lyja didn’t have any shielding?”
“There was a screen, yeah.” Johnny waved at some less shiny fragments mixed in with the broken glass all over the floor. “Guess she was counting on it being strong enough.”
“Maybe…” Peter looked at some of the mirrors.
Some of them had been cracked and only one of them was warped from high temperature. They’d have to be made of glass specially designed to reflect the lasers and the walls would’ve been of a similar material. That rip in one had to be made and Johnny had described the blasts as coming through all of them.
Lyja had been crazy enough to lure Johnny into a gingerbread set up from the ’70s, why would she be sane enough to wonder if standing in her own laser filled deathtrap was a good idea?
It nagged at him as much as all the other raised questions, though. No sprinklers, no accounting for Johnny’s manoeuvrability, and a dinky little screen to protect herself instead of, like, a forcefield?
Not that he doubted his buddy’s ability to get out of stuff like this, but he knew from experience how much of that was improvisation. If he could spot holes in a net that was supposed to be custom made to catch Johnny…why couldn’t somepony from a civilisation lightyears ahead of Wakanda?
On the other hoof she dated the guy. Why am I expecting her to have it together? Aha!
He scrapped away some flakes of melted plastic with a hoof.
“Find something?” Johnny asked, killing his flames and leaning over his shoulder.
“Maybe!” Spidey nodded, more to himself, as he turned the chunk of debris over. It was some (slightly warped but still legible) writing. He realised it was upside down, not a problem for his spidey-eyes, and translated for the confused Johnny. “Colonnade Sound Systems®.”
“Never heard of ‘em.”
“Positive?”
“You know dork stuff, I know music,” Johnny assured. “Trust me, there’s no company dealing in this kinda lightshow. The Skrulls probably whipped it up.”
“Ah, but they had to ship it up here!” Spidey said excitedly, practically jumping in place.
“You’re saying this is a lead?” Johnny asked the way he asked Peter most things, trying to sound unconvinced and agreeable at the same time.
“Fake sound system for a fake club has to have a real-ish address.” Peter indicated the ravished walls. “And if that doesn’t pan out, hay, they had to rent this place, install all this stuff, even score some tunes. If we can find where any of it came from...I’m not saying we’ll find Lyja but we’ll at least find out who she’s been talking to. Somepony in the underworld has to be moving this stuff for her.”
“I like ‘Lyja’ and ‘underworld’ in the same sentence,” Johnny grinned.
“So now comes the hard part.” Spidey jumped across tables to dive between the crime scene tape and back out into the city.
***
“Trawling your depressing knowledge of this city’s dirty underbelly until we find something?” He felt the heat behind him as the Torch reignited and followed. And that familiar buzzing sensation…
“To find your stalker, flame-brain,” Spider-Pony countered, flipping to perch on a flagpole.
He looked further up the street, the Torch following his gaze to that truck convoy, still trying to make it through the streets without putting their trailers through a storefront window. He could’ve kicked himself for missing it before: they all had Alchemax logos. Probably loaded with valuable research or whatnot.
“And as any good investigator knows…” he continued, trying to narrow the squiggles from his head into a beam pointing aaaat…that guy in the hoodie!
“BANZI!” the guy whooped, galloping forward. His crazy jump threw back his hood, revealing the custom biker style helmet he was wearing, part of his purple jumpsuit ensemble.
Instead of bouncing off the side of the lead truck’s trailer and breaking his fool neck, he passed into it in a splash of blue magic, his discarded hoodie wafting to the sidewalk. The truck shuddered with an unpleasant mechanical kind of…burping. The cab door flew open, the driver yelping as he was somehow fired out of it at the same instant the Pegasus’ upper body sprouted from the roof of the trailer.
Pedestrians boggled as magic enveloped the truck, crushing and streamlining various sections into a growling, angular behemoth.
“Blammo!” announced the Pegasus’ wing-gunning the two other trucks. Similar transformations discharged the other drivers and the mutated convoy began to rev.
“…it’s finding a spare moment to actually investigate anything,” Spidey deadpanned as he and the Torch raced after the convoy.
He used turning a corner to pick up speed, landing on the middle truck and hopping onto the lead. “Overdrive! Didn’t see ya indicate! Tsk tsk!”
“Spidey?!” the Pegasus squealed, bunching his hooves under his helmet. “Oh man, I just took this gig for rent, this is the best!”
“Eyes on the road!” Spidey called in terror as they took a rear wheel off a passing carriage and dislodged a fire hydrant. “Eyes on the road!”
“Whoops, sorry man, y’know how star struck I can get!”
Overdrive’s torso swivelled around disconcertingly, streamlining and sending a rippling roar through the truck. Before Spidey could adhere to the roof, turbines sprouted out of the side of each truck and ignited, throwing him off. The Torch swooped down, catching his tail in unlit hooves before he hit the asphalt. Which might have been a blessing.
“Star struck?” Johnny squinted down at him.
“Yeah, he’s new, and…” Peter shut his eyes, sighing into the wind from embarrassment. “He’s a fan.”
“You have a fan.”
He could hear it in Johnny’s voice, too incredulous to make fun of him now, but oh what would come later.
“Yeah, yeah, I have a supervillain fan. Follow that literal monster truck!”
“Great Pony in the sky, you have a fan…”
Alright, Twilight chided herself as she completed yet another lap of the patchwork quilt Equestria below her, you’ve circled Ponyville five times. You’re not giving yourself time to think about it, you’re procrastinating. Pony up!
She (slowly) dived, wings streamlined but flared for drag and a controlled decent. Which also meant she was slightly more aware of the box in her wing pocket now.
The river and some of its neighbours were spread out beneath her, ribboning their way through the fields towards the mountains. At least one or two of them should pass underground, maybe even merging with Canterlot’s maze of caverns and pipes.
Hundreds of caverns, miles of pipes. Acres of undiscovered underground in the shadows, no light or space until the water reached the edge of Equestria and the sea itself. If she took the ring out now, channelled all her Earth Pony strength and Pegasus speed into the wind up and just let go…
No. For one thing she’d still have seen it. Still know. And even if Peter never suspected she’d know it was out there, feel it bobbing on the tide every night millions of miles from her bed.
Fluttershy was right. It will help to talk to the others but how do I even begin? I don’t know that I want to say yes, but I don’t know that I want to say no! Should pick somepony soon though, with my luck Rainbow Dash is going to swoop by any minute wondering what I’m doing up here. And I can’t tell her!
…I mean, I can ask her advice but I can’t tell her! Gah! Wait, maybe that’s it. What if I frame it as a game? A question game. Pinkie Pie likes games!
What in the name of Celestia am I talking about?! That’s insane!
…good idea for a case study though, gets you results and a little plausible deniability. The university’s pulled worse over the decades. Then again how many cards could I throw together before ‘Do you think a mare should marry her coltfriend when they’re not even five years in yet?’
Could just show them the ring? Agh, but what if then they think it’s a done deal? I have all the willpower of Discord in a “Do Not Touch” sign factory right now! If they’re happy for me I’m either going to break their hearts or fold and wind up living a lie. And Spike already knows I’m freaking out. It’s unfair to ask him to maybe go along with that until I’m on the alter and have an attack on conscience.
Come on, filly, last month you held a fifteen feet tall centaur at bay! With the borrowed magic of three other princesses, admittedly, but still. This is just one little life decision.
That changes everything forever...
Maybe I can ask to channel all the wisdom of Cadence and the sisters this time? Applejack always says it’d be nice if I knew as much as I think I do!
…except I don’t WANT them to know about this, because what if their advice is…wrong?! IS there even a wrong answer to this?! I just got over being the baby princess, and now there’s another on the way--
Stop thinking about children Twilight, you are NOT going there!
Where was I going? Princess get married all the time, that was it! Which, okay, is part of why I don’t want to go to Cadence. At all. There’s only two answers she can give and they scare the CLOUD out of me!
Wait, what? Agh, cloud!
She reared in mid-air, yelping as this inadvertently stalled her wings. Her semi-Pegasus bio-magical field saved her as her upper torso impacted the large cloud in her path, allowing her to scrabble for purchase and haul herself up on it.
Twilight sighed like she was trying to sift a thousand years out of her body and flopped onto her back. She held the box in her hooves, flicking it open to stare mournfully at the ring.
Why did this have to happen now?
She snapped it shut, pressing it to her chest and closing her eyes.
Things have been getting so much BETTER! That Attilan mess helped me and Peter get over that stupid fight, the castle’s starting to feel like home, Chrysalis and Starlight Glimmer are the only threats still out there, and both are in the wind…and now I have to…to what?
Answer the most important question Peter can ask me.
And I have no idea how.
…WHY don’t I know? I love him! We love each other! Chrysalis would be dancing in the ruins of Canterlot and Attilan if we didn’t!
Her eyes snapped open.
Chrysalis. She’s been quiet, Princess Celestia says that’s the pattern, but she looked like a piece of burnt chewing gum after Medusa and Black Bolt took their love back. She could still be healing up.
So what’s stopping me from kidnapping some random changeling and making them answer for me?! Wait in the bushes, muss up my mane a little and oh thank goodness I’m here in time to save you, everypony! They had me for…months! Away, you wicked creature! Did I miss anything?
I mean, I’d have to pretend not to get a whole lot of in-jokes, and it can’t be pre-Tirek…but Peter ought to lose his nerve for a while, right?
Because he’d be scared to death and I’d probably crack, and we’ll be right back where we started, but it’ll be the end of everything, and this is CRAZY!
She clenched the velveteen weight of the box between her hooves, as if she could just crush it and everything she was feeling into nothing, go back to the nice, safe world of less than an hour ago.
What am I going to do?
***
A crash of timber below her!
Twilight rolled over, scrambling to all fours. She realised her weight must have sent the cloud drifting and now she was over the Everfree Forest. She coughed in surprise as she realised the air was full of the scent of fire. Magical fire.
Through a gap in the tree canopy she could see a hulking…something stomping through, scattering leaves and some of the strange bird like creatures that haunted the place. Smoke and flame knifed from its hooves, lapping at the mismatched trees which curled into strange new shapes, as if recoiling rather than burning.
It seemed to be a mass of swamp, like part of the Everfree had come alive and started moving toward Ponyville, which threw her already shaken brain.
That and the clown makeup and party hat that it was wearing for some reason.
A flash of monotone colours out of the corner of her eye made her focus: Zecora was marching steadily towards the beast.
I’m going to get over myself and save my friend, that’s what I’m going to do!
Twilight dived, covering her mouth and nose with a foreleg to prevent herself from inhaling whatever this freak was letting off as she swooped over it, conjuring a line of her faux-crystal in front of it to bring it to a halt.
“Twilight?!” Zecora exclaimed, staring at her as she landed.
“It’s alright, we can take him!” Twilight nodded gravely, turning to glare at the swamp-whatever-it-was. Her hasty barrier wasn’t very tall, but it had done its job, making the creature hesitate and giving her time to get off an impact bolt.
“No!” Zecora cried as her assault struck the creature.
The purple magic didn’t seem to do much but Twilight had only been trying to force it back. All she seemed to have accomplished was blasting away the makeup and hat. The creature didn’t so much fall over as slosh to one side, smacking against a tree.
Twilight and Zecora backed up as it creaked, almost groaning, shuddering into a jagged, sickly blue and pustule ridden nightmare. The grass and mud under them was thrown into their faces as twisted blue roots erupted before them, zigzagging across the Everfree’s floor.
Twilight choked as debris showered down on her, her eyes watering from flecks and then widening as the infected roots burst into that strange fire. Nearby trees began to distort, turning ugly colours. One erupted into a terrible orange mushroom, belching more of that disgusting smoke.
Twilight formed a forcefield, trying to clear her lungs and stop herself from panicking. She glared at the creature through the purple tinge, looking for a weak spot, a pattern of behaviour, anything!
The monstrosity was pulling itself back into an upright shape, muck and foliage crawling across its body. It almost looked like an elephant, or at least a vine like…something drooped out of where its face should have been, connected to another that formed a sort of brow.
The creature turned to face Twilight and she was too stunned by its eyes to even gasp.
They couldn’t be eyes but couldn’t be anything else. The dark, angry, defeated red of scab wounds. And she could feel a pull from them, a gravitational tug on her mind.
Looking into this thing’s eyes was like falling into an unknowable new universe. And they were looking right back at her.
The creature started towards her with stilted, sloshing movements of its legs, its trunk swaying.
Twilight backed up, tripping over an unseen blue root behind her. Her field burst from the break of her concentration and she stared up at one of those warped hooves, reaching for her face—
“Not today,” Zecora said with impossible calm, putting herself between them. “We do this my way.”
Twilight stared. The zebra didn’t even blink as that terrible mockery of a limb pressed against her.
A beat, as if the creature were probing for something.
Then it withdrew, ignoring them, its tuber-like head turning this way and that. Searching for something?
Zecora glanced down at Twilight, who managed an uncertain nod, then pulled something out of her necklace with her mouth and took it in her hooves. Twilight squinted. It was a pod and some roots. Zecora put the thing to her lips and the air filled with high but gentle music. A flute, Twilight realised. The tune was soothing but also distant, melancholy. It made her feel like she should be sorry for this creature.
The beast’s head sloshed slowly towards Zecora. As she played, her eyes focused on those lifeless crimson stones under that sagging brow. Eventually, its shoulders slumped, or maybe the mass of tangled grass and mud that comprised its shoulders just shifted, but it seemed relaxed.
Twilight tried to stay stock still as Zecora worked her own brand of magic but carefully looked around as the Everfree filled with relieved creaking. The trees were returning to the relative normal of the most unnatural place in Equestria, their infectious colours fading away along with the creature’s strange fire. The air still stank of burning wood and mildew, but the smoke was clearing.
Zecora finished her tune and watched her audience carefully. Its trunk flicked once but it remained impassive. It was so still it could almost have been mistaken for some kind of strange swamp statue but then Twilight remembered the way it could move, how unnaturally fast, and had to repress a shudder.
The creature turned to her as if it sensed this, freezing Twilight’s blood, but Zecora held up a hoof.
“Stay your touch my friend,” the shaman said gently. She gestured towards a trial of fire and flicked a seed towards it. It vanished into the flames which turned bubble-gum colours before shrinking away, revealing a river.
“You are displaced, it’s true,“ Zecora continued. “But follow this, do, every turn and bend, and your trial shall come to an end. Leaving us this haven to mend.”
A beat as the creature just stood there, towering over them. Then it turned, shuffling towards the stream and melting into it.
Zecora helped Twilight to her hooves as they watched, only its shoulders visible, and even that could just be a torn off chunk of embankment floating away to nowhere.
Apart from the dislodged party hat in the corner and the stink of smoke, the creature might never have been there at all.
***
“What was that thing?” Twilight asked eventually.
“I’ll say this much, young conjurer,” Zecora said sternly, “it is extremely lucky it’s touch you did not endure.”
She must be steamed if her rhyme was that clumsy, but Twilight knew better than to push it.
“You…were never in danger,” she realised. “You knew how to stop it doing wherever it was doing to the Everfree and I mucked everything up.”
“I did not need you to come out of thin air,” Zecora agreed, “but it was for my welfare.”
“No, it-it’s your territory,” Twilight stammered. “I should’ve trusted you had a plan.”
“Or two, or three,” the shaman smirked, “but enough about me, what can I do for you?”
“Oh, I wasn’t coming to see you, not that I’m not happy to!”
Twilight tried a shaky smile and to maintain eye contact without being weird about it. She eventually looked away and kicked the grass. “Though I could use all the help I can get, I suppose.”
Zecora raised an eyebrow. “Hmm. The guardian has a certain taste for fear. Especially when so near. What did bring you here?”
“I’ve had kind of a big surprise…”
Twilight attempted another kick and winced as she stuck an unearthed root. The tree she’d knocked the creature into was fully healed but its root hadn’t retracted. “Ow! Wait, that thing’s a guardian? Then what was it doing to the Everfree? It was almost like it was hurting the trees or something!”
“It was a good thing I intervened so soon,” Zecora agreed, “or the Everfree would have borne a terrible new bloom. The guardian’s home hums to a different tune, their magic so different it could spell only doom. The Everfree is, in its own way, alive and the Mage-Thing’s touch even it could not survive.”
“So it reacted to…him, but he didn’t mean to do it,” Twilight guessed.
“Indeed, he was bought here against his will, and his power and the Everfree’s do no go together.” Zecora’s eyes narrowed. “Still, I suppose Discord thought that would be clever.”
Twilight glanced at the party hat, its presence obnoxiously explained.
“Well, it was ingenious how you solved everything! Sorry for barging in.”
“All in a day’s work, young turk.” Twilight almost felt like Zecora was puffing out her chest even though she knew the shaman wasn’t the type. “But tell me about this surprise and what you feel it may jeopardise!”
“Um…”
Twilight looked at her for a beat, then levitated the ring box out. Zecora blinked at it uncomprehendingly until she flipped it open, feeling awkward as the zebra’s pupils enlarged.
For a few seconds there was only the distant noises of disturbed monsters and magic making their way back to the now safe Everfree.
“…yowza,” Zecora said eventually.
“Eyup,” Twilight agreed.
“Hopefully without any, ah, passive-aggression,” Zecora asked carefully, “are you telling me your totem popped the question?”
“I just found it in his saddlebag,” Twilight half wailed. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“He’s an odd one, your Peter,” Zecora said gently, gesturing for the Alicorn to join her sitting on a log, “but don’t worry, I wouldn’t know what to do either. So. You know you make a lovely couple, but fear an answer your troubles shall double?”
“Something like that.” Twilight snapped the box shut harder than she meant to. “I feel like my brain’s been drawn and quartered, and all the pieces are playing out every single possibility of this at once. Which is funny, since I have no idea how this is going to go!”
She looked up as Zecora put a hoof on her shoulder. “While you should speak to all you hold close, remember, it is your choice first and foremost. Do what makes you happy, what feels right, upmost!”
“I think we would be happy,” Twilight sighed, looking at the box in her hooves. “I can’t imagine why we wouldn’t be, but I can’t…I can’t see myself saying yes. And then I think about what it’d do to him.”
“While that’s kind, it’s true,” Zecora said firmly, “this isn’t about just him, but you.”
“I know, but we’re a package deal at this point.” Twilight shrugged. “I mean, we’re not joined at the hip, gosh, we live thousands of miles apart, but…you get what I mean?”
“Love is not my forte, I fear.” Zecora looked away into the trees and snorted. “Almost makes me wish Cadence was here.”
“Bad idea,” Twilight squeaked, clutching the box even tighter.
“That so?” Zecora raised an eyebrow and smiled as Twilight blushed. “Well, you have several opinions to go. But see her, it is something you should do. And don’t think of it as seeing the Princess of Love and matters occult. Your sister, that is who you should consult.”
“You’re right,” Twilight sighed. She rolled her eyes. “Plus, if she finds out I didn’t go to her I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“She’s got a mouth on her, that one,” Zecora chuckled. “And they say I’ve got a sharp tongue.”
“You know your way around woodwind instruments at least,” Twilight grinned. She slipped the box back into her wing pocket. “I’m sorry to get you wrapped up in this, I was just drifting around up there. Didn’t even realise the place was on fire.”
“Be that as it may, when it comes to the Everfree one must always observe,” Zecora cautioned, making her feel like she was back at school, “lest you wind up some monster’s horsdoeuvre! But you are still in two minds. I can read the signs.”
Twilight felt a petulant wave of defensiveness. “Well, yeah! Have you ever had to make a decision like this?”
“Yes,” Zecora said simply.
“Oh.”
Twilight blinked. Maybe burning to death from the touch of a swamp monster wouldn’t have been so bad. She wouldn’t have put her hoof in this, for one thing.
“S-sorry. Do, uh, do you want to tal--”
“No.”
“Alrighty!” Twilight squeaked with terrified, inappropriate cheeriness. “I’ll, ah, I’ll just…”
“Do not go,” Zecora assured. “You have much to think about regarding your beau. To articulate what you feel is an arduous task, but it will help you decide the questions you must ask. And ask yourself, for this kind of answer is not on any bookshelf. Keeping it bottled up? Not good for your health.”
“So, talk to people,” Twilight sighed. “That’s your advice?”
“Do what you must to find your own path. What helped me?” Zecora gave a shrug. “A bubble bath.”
“Ooooh.” Twilight pupils grew a little. “That would help right now.”
“I have my ways.” Zecora winked at her, the sobered. “But be sure not to fall into a malaise. Forward is the only way you can go, but we can always talk, you have my word it is so.”
“Thank you.” Twilight embraced her, grateful as her sort-of-mentor’s hooves patted her back. “I should get back to Ponyville. Find the others.”
“Before you’re on your way, a last question if I may?”
Twilight nodded.
“That you should say yes is the most obvious guess,” Zecora explained, “but you fear division, when younger than you have made this decision. That can work out, and it seems a sure thing with such a boy scout. So I suppose what you should really ask yourself is why do you doubt?”
“Well, it’d be silly not to wonder if it’s too fast,” Twilight replied, shrugging, and felt a small glow of pride at the zebra’s approving nod. “And that’d just be if I was still a Unicorn! If Chrysalis hadn’t gotten in the way, Shining and Cadence’s wedding would’ve gotten way more media attention than it did. It’d be difficult for Peter to keep his secret with that much spotlight on us, and it would affect us going forward.”
“It is wise to consider the toll fame takes,” Zecora agreed, “but this sounds like your mutual calling? Because, not to diminish his back-alley brawling, you Elements play for much bigger stakes.”
“There’s overlap, sure,” Twilight admitted, “but, well...”
She looked into the middle distance, processing. “Part of me is worried that we’d be starting a life together but…it’d be one big commitment after the other, and that’s hard enough. But I know Peter would always be looking at the newspapers, always wondering if somepony was hurt because he wasn’t there. I don’t know if I can ask him to make peace with that.”
“True, but he’d have the bigger commitment to you,” Zecora pointed out.
“I know, I know, but what if that’s what I wind up doing? Keeping Spider-Pony to myself when he belongs to Equestria? Maybe the world?”
“Of this kind of thing it is perhaps right to be wary,” Zecora said, “but bear in mind, it would not just be the Spider you would marry. There are a million ways this could go wrong, it’s true, but never forget, we define to what we belong.”
“Thanks, I guess…” Twilight spread her wings. “You’re right, I’ll find the others and we’ll hash this out.”
“Before you split the scene,” Zecora said, the weight in her voice dragging the princess back to earth. She produced a broom from somewhere and thrust it into Twilight’s hooves, indicating several burnt holes strewn with debris. “I think it only fair that you help keep it clean.”
To be Continued
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Because Johnny is hard to bait. "Oh, a brand-new sports car presented by a swimsuit model at a party hosted by my fanclub at this exclusive nightclub that nobody is allowed to know about! I can't wait!"
I really liked-- I think it was Warren Ellis, it might have been Bendis-- the Ultimate Fantastic Four when Johnny mentions that he's good with people and has a really good memory, he's just not smart compared to Sue, Reed and his dad.
.
Always a fan of positive Angel representation.
I mean, 'appreciates' vs 'understands...' Though Twilight would never use magic to take the easy way out, either. The convoluted, maybe.
"I'm just happy you didn't jump to Rarity first. "
And a good example of emotional support. Though I'm not sure if countershock is the right word?
I would say that's cliche, but there isn't a lot of variety for a Disco theme.
Anyway, either Johhny is bumbling into a totally different evil plan multiple times by accident, or Lyja is just trying to seduce him nemesis-style.
I love Overdrive, I'm getting really tired of Nick Spencer pointlessly dark BS.
"And I'm right here too! And I actually have a car!?"
And Man-Thing! But with a name that's not dumb!
10406727
"What? I'm cool and everypony likes me! It could happen!"
That's a good take on him, yeah. My favourite genre character archetype is someone who can do all this amazing stuff but struggles with all the everyday things outside of that speciality, which makes Johnny (and the rest of the cast, honestly) a good fit for this kind of story.
I mean this is a story with Johnny Storm in it so it's not like there isn't plenty of precedent for Jerks Who Actually Do Care.
That is because there was supposed to be a space between those two words. Fixed!
Stay tuned.
Haven't been keeping up, but does anyone really give a wet fart who Kindred is?
Didn't quite feel it as an Equestrification but it was hard to come up with much else and it can just be a random description Zecora's calling him.
10407872
I love that both 'bumbling into multiple evil plans accidentally' is just as likely as the seduction plan.
I don't care about kindred, and I'm getting tired if the dark supernatural direction the book is insiting on. I miss Dan Slott and Chip Zdarsky.
10408131
Zdarsky's run being as short as it was still makes me sad.
10408177
Life Story was also really good, especially when it started.