1) And along came a Spider...Part 3

Episode 1

And along came a Spider...Part 3

Wait, spiders don't shoot webs?

Twilight Sparkle lived in a small apartment downtown that she shared with a fairly young boy named Spike. While they had no blood relation, Twilight and Spike considered each other brother and sister, and had done so for years.

Abandoned at a very young age, Spike had no knowledge whatsoever about his biological parents, and neither did anyone else. However, when he was around five years old, he was adopted by a young couple by the names of Night Light and Twilight Velvet, and they decided to raise him alongside their own children Shining Armour and Twilight Sparkle. While Spike never really connected with Shining all that much, he grew especially close to Twilight and even volunteered to be her 'number one assistant' when she needed one. Even when Twilight was forced to move to an apartment in the big city to be closer to her new job at CelestiaCorp, Spike chose to move there with her.

While the choice to relocate to the city was the most logically sound one, Twilight still preferred her old home in the suburban district where most of her friends lived. The only friend she lived remotely close to now was Sunset Shimmer, who lived just a few blocks away. Even her pet owl Owlowiscious couldn't come with her. Long story short: he didn't really like the city, and was now currently living with Fluttershy and her other animals.

While the distance to most of her friends and her favourite owl was certainly not what she had in mind, Twilight's greatest challenge however was trying to adjust to the stressful and hectic environment of central Canterlot. The crowds, the rush, the city noise and all those subway stations to keep track of were really starting to get on her nerves.

Still, it was a small prize to pay for becoming Miss Celestia's personal protégé and being allowed to work at one of the greatest science companies in the modern world. She secretly wished though that the CelestiaCorp building hadn't been positioned in one of the most hectic parts of the city.

However, no matter how chaotic things might become outside, Twilight knew that her bedroom was always a peaceful sanctuary. In fact, her room was the complete opposite of the disorganised mess Rainbow Dash lived in, and had everything organised to the extreme.

The first clue to how different their rooms were was the fact that the only thing Twilight had on her walls was a map of the periodic table over her bed…and nothing else. The rest of the room also gave a completely different impression. Bookshelves loaded with tons and tons of books made up most of the living space, and if anyone else lived here, that would become quite a mess. However, Twilight kept every single book in its proper place at all times without exception. First, they had to be put into the proper category, and once there, they had to be placed in perfect alphabetical order unless chronology said otherwise. If a book was not where it belonged, then that could only mean that Twilight was currently reading it or had loaned it to someone else.

Her desk was also very clean and polished, with the only objects on it being the mouse, keyboard, computer screen and a few somewhat out of place framed photographs. One of those was a family portrait showing herself, her brothers Spike and Shining Armour, their parents Night Light and Twilight Velvet, and even Shining's wife Cadence, all smiling at the camera.

The second picture was of herself and her circle of friends all dressed up for Nightmare Night, with Pinkie Pie dressing up in a chicken costume, Rainbow Dash cosplaying as Daring Do, Applejack looking like a walking scarecrow and Twilight Sparkle wearing a get-up to make her resemble a Roman soldier. However, Fluttershy was nowhere to be seen and instead there was another girl in her place with expertly curled purple hair who was dressed up in a tight black catsuit outlined by white fur and also had a black eye-mask on her face.

The third and final photo was of Twilight and Sunset Shimmer receiving an award from Miss Celestia herself for their entries into a science fare a while back, very goofy smiles were plastered on both teen’s faces.

The photos were there to remind her of the people that she cared about, and to make sure she didn't become so absorbed in her research to completely forget about them...again. Granted, she felt a little guilty for not having a picture of Fluttershy, but in her defence, Fluttershy wasn't really comfortable with people taking pictures of her, and she especially didn't feel comfortable leaving her home (or her room for that matter) at Nightmare Night.

Sunset's suggestion yesterday to pay more attention to her friends was something that had been on her mind, and she was determined to make things up sooner or later.

However, at the moment, Twilight was fully absorbed in her research into something called the 'Decay-Rate Algorithm' (whatever that was), her focus being on the screen of her computer...and nothing else.

Which was why she jumped slightly when a knock came…from her window. Only…her apartment was on the seventh floor, so how could anyone possibly be knocking on her window?

Twilight did the most rational thing she thought she could do: write it off as her imagination and continue her work.

But…when the knocking returned, and a little louder and more impatient this time, she couldn't ignore it any longer.

What she saw when she turned to look at it though, was not something she expected, and had to do a double take to make sure she wasn't just imagining things.

Rainbow Dash was just…there, in her window, looking at her with a slightly impatient glare. How and why she was there, Twilight could not explain, but she could read Rainbow's expression as 'Can you open the window already?', and she decided she might go ahead and do just that.

With a slight hesitation in her moves, Twilight got up from her computer chair, walked over to the window and slowly opened it inwards.

As soon as it was open, Rainbow Dash said “Took you long enough.” while taking a seat at the edge of the window in a surprisingly carefree manner considering she was at the risk of falling seven stories down and splattering to her death on the pavement below if she leaned back too much.

Twilight took a few steps back, “Um, hi Rainbow. So why are you coming through…my window?”

“I don’t really like stairs.”

"Understandable, but...how did you even get up there? I mean this is on the seventh floor and I haven't seen any fire escape ladders on this side of the building or..."

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But that’s the thing. Look, something strange has happened to me, and when I mean strange, I mean really, really, über-strange.”

Twilight immediately began to worry, “What is it? Are you sick?”

“I don’t know about that, but…I think it will a be a lot easier to show you.”

“Show what?"

"Ooh, you'll see..." Rainbow answered ominously, her eyes showing a certain smugness that Twilight was not sure she liked.

She stretched her neck muscles a little and rubbed her hands together in preparation before she jumped from the window, flew clear across the room, and latched onto the ceiling directly behind Twilight's head.

She had moved so fast that Twilight could barely follow her movements, and when she turned around to come face to face with an upside-down Rainbow Dash looking at her with that cocky grin, her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates while she backed away slightly.

Somehow, the girl in front of her was sitting on her ceiling, an act which, according to Twilight's very science-oriented brain, was against the laws of physics. And yet, she was still doing it.

“How…how…ho…how are you DOING THAT?!” She finally blurted out after a few moments of bewildered staring.

Rainbow casually answered “Pretty neat, huh?” while she crawled across the ceiling, down to the far wall, and finally back down to the floor, at which point she stood up straight and leaned her back against the wall.

“Since when could you do that!?”

“Since this morning. Get this, I woke up on the ceiling with no memory whatsoever of how I even got there in the first place. And that was far from the end of it, I can do even more stuff than just climbing walls."

“Really?! What else can you do?”

“I am strong enough to lift myself up with just two fingers, I can jump about twenty metres at a time. Heck, by jumping from rooftop to rooftop, I got through three city blocks in ten seconds flat! Also, I can kinda feel things in my surroundings, and sometimes I get this weird tingle at the back of the head that warns me about...stuff."

Twilight's glasses slowly slid down her nose while her mind was trying to process what she had just heard and witnessed. Her mind coming up with at least a billion questions she felt the need to ask Rainbow Dash about. But for now, there was only one question that really mattered.

"How exactly...did this happen?"

Rainbow scratched the back of her neck, "Weeeeell...that's kinda why I'm here actually. I figured you'd be the one to ask about this."

After pushing up her glasses, Twilight sat down at her computer chair and put a hand on her chin as she was trying to figure out an explanation.

"Have you ever experienced any similar abilities before?"

"No, can't say I have."

"And you just...woke up like this?"

"Yep!"

"Now let's see..." Twilight mused, "Uhmm...sudden exposure to alien radiation? Not likely. Unusual genetic mutation revealing itself through adolescence? Possible, but way too sudden. Or maybe...wait a minute! Maybe that visit to CelestiaCorp yesterday could have something to do with this? But what could you possibly have been into contact with there that would give you these...abilities?"

Suddenly, a light bulb lit up in Rainbow's head, "The spider! It must have been that weird spider that did this!"

"Spider? What spider?"

"Oh, right, Fluttershy is probably going to use 'the stare' on me for telling you this, but during the tour of the Bio-labs, or whatever that place was called, Fluttershy begged me to help her unlock one of the spider-cages and let her take care of that spider she kept moping about. Being such a loyal friend, I agreed, and was halfway about to open the thing when-"

Twilight suddenly shouted, "You did WHAT?!"

"I was about to open the cage to the..." she trailed off when she noticed Twilight glaring at her.

"Do you have any idea how much trouble the both of you could have ended up for that?!"

"Look, I can't resist it when Fluttershy uses those adorable puppy dog eyes on me...And I did not just call her eyes 'adorable'. Seriously, I didn't."

Twilight didn't really get what the big deal was and asked, "Rainbow, what's so wrong about-"

But before the conversation could potentially get awkward, Dash got back on topic. "Anyway, before I could get the spider out, that bossy lavender-haired woman in the black suit got in my face and asked me what we were doing. Things got a bit...tense, but it worked out in the end."

"Are you talking about Luna?"

"Yeah, I think that was her name. Ya know her?"

"She's my mentor Celestia's younger sister. She owns about half the company. We have worked together a few times on a couple of projects, but I don't know her that much personally."

"Does she always have that attitude?"

"She is a bit less jovial than her older sister, but from what I've been told...well, she's been through a lot. Neither of them really likes talking about it."

"Touchy subject?"

"I guess so. All I know is that it had something to do with one of Luna's childhood friends, I think his name was Sombra, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I digress, what happened after the encounter with Luna?"

"Oh, well, nothing special really. We gave up on getting that spider out and continued the day pretty much as it happened. However...when I had gotten home and was about to take a nap, the spider just appeared on my hand and bit me. I...don't remember anything after that until I woke up this morning."

"So if I got this straight...you got all these abilities from...a spiderbite?"

"I suppose I did."

Twilight's brow creased as her brain tried to come up with some sort of explanation for this whole thing. But eventually, she came up with one theory that could make some sort of sense.

"Alright, I think I may have an idea as to what happened to you."

"Yeah, and..?" Rainbow urged.

"The spiders that we're studying at CelestiaCorp are not exactly...ordinary, to put it mildly. All of them were exposed with a strange form of radiation that emanated from a meteor that crashed into the Everfree Forest about a year ago. It was also from the very same meteor that the 'Symbiote' organism originated from. The radiation mutated the DNA of the spiders and enhanced some of their abilities beyond what normal spiders are physically able to do. And my best guess is that those enhanced abilities must have somehow transferred over to you through the venom of the affected spider. While nothing in our research have ever suggested such a transfer to be possible, it is a possibility that, if the spider that bit you was the one that came into contact with the symbiote, the symbiote could have given the spider the ability to transfer genetic traits from one organism to another, and that is how this particular spider could have given you these abilities."

Rainbow Dash just stared at Twilight with a dull expression for a moment before she said, "You lost me."

Twilight simplified, "The spider had super-powers that it somehow gave to you when it bit you."

"Oooooh, now I get it. Wasn't that a lot easier to say?"

Twilight Sparkle released a very audible sigh and rolled her eyes.

"What? It's not my fault this egghead stuff goes over my head." Rainbow argued.

Twilight turned her attention to her computer and Googled after a picture of the species of spider that bit Rainbow Dash. While it was impossible to find a good enough picture of the exact species, she settled for a close relative and enhanced it.

Rainbow Dash took a good look at the picture. It certainly looked similar to the one that bit her, but something was off. "Wait, I remember the spider being red and blue, not brown."

Twilight explained, "This is a picture of an ordinary Wolf Spider, the one that bit you was not, let's say, 'ordinary'. After being exposed to the meteor, they changed colour...among other things."

"Like what?"

"A wolf spider is a fast and strong hunter. Unlike most other spiders, they don't use elaborate web traps to capture their prey, and prefer to just chase them down instead. They're a very common group of spiders and can be found basically everywhere. However, the 'super-spiders' we're studying are something else entirely. Somehow, the mutation had altered them to be faster, stronger and far more agile than they were before."

"Meaning?"

"They could outrun cockroaches easily, and believe me, cockroaches are fast. They could lift several times their own weight, and if that wasn't impressive enough, they could even jump better than jumping spiders...who can jump really far. Also, while spiders can climb on solid surfaces, they cannot do so on completely smooth things like glass, the super-spiders could."

"So because the spiders had those powers, I have those powers?"

Twilight nodded.

"That's cool, but...what about the strange tingling thing?"

"Well, all spiders can feel vibrations in the air through the hairs on their bodies. That way they can sense moving things in their surroundings. The super-spiders have a version of that ability that is about a hundred times more sensitive. That and the fact that their enhanced reflexes made it feel like they could predict the future sometimes. Sunset liked to call this the...'Spider-Sense'."

"Spider sense, huh? Has a nice ring to it."

"And there you have it. Increased speed, strength, agility, reaction time, the ability to climb on walls and sense objects in your surroundings. I got to say, those are some fascinating changes, almost makes me wish I was the one bitten by that spider." Twilight then realised something, "Wait...where did that spider go after it bit you?"

Rainbow Dash was about to answer, but stopped herself when she realised that she had no idea.

Meanwhile...

Fluttershy was beyond excited when she found the red and blue spider she tried to save at CelestiaCorp wander around aimlessly on the pavement just outside her house.

After letting the arachnid climb up into her hand, she said, "I am so glad that I found you, you poor, poor thing. My name is Fluttershy, and what might your name be? I think I will call you 'Fuzzy Legs', do you like that name, Fuzzy Legs? I can tell that you do, and I'm sure you will become good friends with the rest of my cute little animals. Now let's take you to your new home and I will find a nice little snack for you to feed on."

Back at Twilight's apartment...

"Not a clue." Rainbow Dash finally answered.

Twilight contemplated just what the consequences of what that could mean, and because she was Twilight Sparkle, the results quickly turned dire. "Oh no, no, no, no, no, this isn't good, this could be a potential disaster!"

Rainbow raised an eyebrow, "And why is that?"

"Just imagine what would happen if the spider bit someone else, or even a bunch of people! And what if every one of them started to have the same powers you have?! Too many variables! TOO MANY VARIABLES!"

When Twilight was beginning to hyperventilate, Rainbow grabbed the other girl by the shoulders and shook her hard enough to shut her up, nearly making her glasses slide off her face in the process.

Rainbow flashed a grin and assured "Relax, Twilight. My 'spider-sense' is telling me that there is absolutely nothing to worry about, Hakuna Matata."

After readjusting her glasses, Twilight gave Rainbow a deadpan look, "You just made that up."

Rainbow winked and confessed, "Guilty as charged."

"Rainbow Dash, can you take things seriously for once?" Twilight with a slightly frustrated undertone in her voice.

"Of course I'm taking things seriously, but that doesn't stop me from making jokes about it. You know what Pinkie always says: laughter is good for the soul!"

"There are times to be funny and there are times to be serious, and the fact that right now, a mutated spider is potentially giving random people super-powers, is not a laughing matter!"

Rainbow crossed her arms and asked, "...And freaking out about it is going to help...how exactly?"

Twilight tried really hard to answer that, "Well it's, I suppose, but spider, super-powers, have to...fine, I guess you're right, stressing out about it is not helping anything."

"See? You worry too much."

"Maybe..." Twilight concurred uneasily.

An Idea suddenly popped up in Rainbow Dash's head, "Sooo...now I can do stuff that spiders can do, huh?"

"More or less. You can use the enhanced abilities of the super-spiders, not the things that-"

Rainbow interrupted her by saying, "Then that means that I can do..." before she dramatically pulled her arm out, aimed it at the far wall and shouted, "...THIS!"

Nothing happened.

She shook her wrist a little and tried to do the same thing again, "I mean: THIS!"

Still, nothing happened.

"Ah, come on!"

Cue crickets chirping.

Not one to give up easily, Rainbow tried to do it a few more times, each with the same result. The more she tried though, the more she started to shout increasingly odd things, such as "FIRE!", "NOW!", "WEBBING AWAY!", "SPIDER POWERS ACTIVATE!", "SHAZAM!" and "RAINBOW OF POWER!"

While she was doing this, Twilight was left staring at her with a completely baffled and confused look on her face. And she was not the only one though.

Spike, the only other resident in the apartment, a boy about 14 years old with spiky green hair wearing a purple hoody, heard the unusual amount of noise from Twilight's room and went to investigate. When he opened the door to her room, he did not expect to see Rainbow Dash pointing her arms all over the place while shouting a bunch of gibberish.

Now equally baffled as his adoptive older sister, Spike asked, "Rainbow Dash?! What are you doing here? And...what exactly is it that you're doing?"

Without turning around to face him, she answered, "I'm trying to shoot webs, Spike!"

That answer only made him more confused. "Shoot...webs?"

"Yeah, you know, like spiders do."

Twilight facepalmed and clarified, "Rainbow Dash, first of all: spiders don't shoot webs, they weave it slowly. Secondly: wolf spiders don't spin webs like other spiders. And thirdly: even if the ability to 'shoot webs' was given to you through the spiderbite, you would not be doing it from your hands."

"Oh yeah, and where exactly would I shoot webs from?"

Twilight gave her a serious look, "Do you really want to know?"

"Yes..." Dash answered hesitantly.

"Spiders produce webbing from the dorsal end of their bodies."

"Translation?"

"The web come from their backsides."

That answer immediately made Rainbow's eyes open wide while she became very uncomfortable. "So...you're saying that I have to shoot webs from...my butt?"

"Thankfully no. You can also be glad that you haven't grown additional legs or transformed into human-spider hybrid or something."

"Gee thanks for those nightmares." Rainbow added sarcastically.

"Sorry!"

"Still, it would have been cooler if I could shoot webs though."

After having listened to Twilight's and Rainbow's conversation about, well, whatever they were talking about, Spike asked, "So what exactly is going on here?"

Twilight answered, "Rainbow Dash got bitten by one of the mutated spiders I was studying at CelestiaCorp and now she has all sorts of new abilities."

"Really? Like what?"

Dash answered that by leaping off the floor and attached herself to the upper walls in the far corner, keeping herself up with a hand and foot on each wall. She then crossed her arms and said, "Climbing walls, super-strength, faster reaction speed, faster speed in general, increased agility, aaaaand I'm still as awesome as always!"

Spike's eyes widened in amazement while he exclaimed, "HOLY NEW PERSONAS! You're like a comic book superhero or something!...unless this is another dream." He quickly perished that thought though when he realised, "Nah, Rarity's not here, so it's obviously not a dream."

Twilight gave her younger brother an unreadable look and asked, "Wait, are you seriously dreaming about her every single time you sleep?"

He blushed and scratched the back of his neck nervously, "Maybe not...every time, but its...eh never mind, forget I said anything."

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Spike, you're not the only one to dream about someone you care about." Twilight assured while dreamily staring into nothing.

That look did not go unnoticed by Rainbow, and she didn't hesitate to tease, "Really, and who is that you're always dreaming about, Twilight?"

Twilight silently thanked her dark skin for hiding her blush while she nervously answered, "What?! No! I didn't say I dreamed about someone!"

"You...don't really have to. So who is it?"

"Let's not get sidetracked here!" She said a little too loudly to avoid suspicion. "I believe we were talking about Rainbow Dash's...change."

Spike frowned a bit before he noted, "Hey, you got me to tell you who I secretly had a crush on, now you got to tell me who you have a crush on!"

"Spike, your crush on Rarity was hardly a secret to begin with, even she knew about it. But...I guess you do have a point, there is no point in denying the fact that I have a crush on somebody, and you have every right to know who it is."

Rainbow urged, "Come on then, spill it!"

Twilight gave her a stern look and said, "I said I would tell Spike, not you."

"What?! How's that fair?"

"Well, you refuse to tell who you have a crush on, so why should I?"

Twilight's logic was irrefutable, and Rainbow Dash didn't like it, so she groaned and muttered, "Fine, have it your way."

Spike however raised an eyebrow and asked, "Wait, are you telling me you don't know who Rainbow Dash has a crush on?"

"Um, no. Should I?" Twilight questioned.

"Seriously? Isn't it super-obvious at this point? How could you possibly not know?!"

"Hey, I'm not that obvious!" Dash defended.

"Yeah, you are." Spike insisted in a deadpan tone.

Twilight finally answered, "I guess I'm not that good at spotting crushes. Wait a minute, Rainbow Dash has just received superpowers and we're talking about CRUSHES!? Aren't there more important things to talk about?"

Rainbow Dash climbed up on the ceiling and crawled over to the middle of the room where she sat down (up?) and let her head fall down to Twilight's level, only upside down, causing her rainbow-coloured hair to hang down freely.

Once she had gotten in this position, she gave Twilight an upside down grin and questioned, "Really? And what more is there to talk about?"

Twilight then had an idea, "Well, you said you wanted to be able to shoot webs."

"Yeah?"

"While it might not be possible for you to produce natural webbing like a spider, I might be able to give you the next-best thing." She then turned to Spike and said, "Spike, can you find me the boxes from CelestiaCorp titled 'Project Arachnid' and bring them to the workroom?"

The boy actually saluted and replied, "I'm on it!" before he headed off.

Twilight looked back at Rainbow, "Follow me, I want to show you something."

Intrigued, Rainbow dropped down on the floor, even twisting her body in such a way that she landed on her feet while doing so. She then followed the teen genius to her designated 'workroom' where she usually performed most of her odd science experiments.

About half of those projects were basically 'homework' from her job at CelestiaCorp, while the other half were just her curiosity and boredom getting the better of her. With the resources of one of the leading research companies in the world backing her up and a very high IQ scale, there was barely anything Twilight Sparkle couldn't create if given the right motivation.

By the time Rainbow Dash and Twilight reached the room, Spike was already waiting there holding a box with the words 'CelestiaCorp' written on it. After receiving an approving nod from Twilight, Spike put down the box on her work table, and she quickly reached into it and picked out a small pistol-looking object that seemed pretty high-tech.

After getting a feel of holding the peculiar object, she showed it to Rainbow and explained, "This is called a 'Cobweb High Trajectory Launcher' or 'Webgun', and was designed by me and Sunset Shimmer as a way to harness the remarkable strength and stickiness of a spider's webbing. While the spider that bit you was a wolf spider, the webbing in this device was harvested from a species of orb-weaver spider that was also affected by the meteor radiation. However, this time, the mutation caused the spiders to not only produce far more webbing than usual, but that webbing was also a bit stronger than usual. We eventually found a way to store large quantities of the webbing in very small capsules that could release it with quite a remarkable force at the push of a button. One of those capsules is embedded in this device."

After seeing both Rainbow Dash and Spike stare at her incomprehensibly, Twilight sighed and said, "This webgun is loaded with spiderweb and can be used to shoot webbing with."

Now the two of them understood what she was talking about and let out a collective "Ooooh..." in understanding.

"Anyway, the webgun can release very strong threads of cobweb that flies faster than the speed of sound and is strong enough to stop a fighter jet at full speed if enough force is backing it up. A single capsule can also contain enough webbing to go on for months of constant usage."

Rainbow picked up another webgun from the same box and toyed around with it a little. She began to toss it around and catch it repeatedly, and she even picked up another one and began to juggle with them. She normally wasn't the best at juggling multiple objects at the same time, but with her spider sense and enhanced reflexes, she could probably do this in her sleep.

"Cool, these things doesn't even weigh anything."  Dash commented after a while.

Twilight began to explain, "Well, they were designed to be lightweight. Also, with your enhanced strength, your perception of what is-"

Instead of listening to what Twilight was telling her, Rainbow Dash aimed one of the guns at the far wall and pulled the trigger with no warning given whatsoever. In under a second, a long thread of condensed webbing shot out of the barrel of the gun and attached itself to the wall like super-glue.

Twilight nearly jumped out of her skin and sharply turned to face her reckless friend, "What do you think you're-"

But before she had a chance to finish that sentence, Dash began to shoot around with both guns wildly, sending threads of cobweb flying all over the room faster than the eye could track. Twilight and Spike both quickly got behind a nearby desk to avoid getting hit by any of it. While Spike got out okay, a sling of webbing got stuck in Twilight's tied up dark-blue hair.

By the time Rainbow Dash was finished 'testing' the webguns, Twilight's workroom was a complete mess, with almost every available surface covered in sticky webbing, and that included the walls, objects and even the ceiling. Suffice to say, it would not be fun for Spike and Twilight to clean it up.

This also made Twilight's barely contained anger very understandable when she stomped from her hiding place, got in Rainbow's face and shouted, "RAINBOW DASH! What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

Rainbow nonchalantly answered, "Just testing these things out."

"Couldn't you have done it somewhere else than my workroom!?"

"Hehe, sorry about that. I guess I got a bit..." She trailed off when she got a glimpse of her friend's web-covered hair "...when, phttheHAHHAHHHAhahahahahahahaheheheh!"

Twilight was not amused, "Okay, what's the joke this time?"

"Have you looked in a mirror lately? Wait, don't answer that! HEHEHeheheheh! Spike, check out Twilight's new hair, curtsy of yours truly!"

When Spike got up from behind the desk and got a look at it, he too began to join in on the laughter.

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Laugh it up, you two, laugh it up. And perhaps when you're done, you can clean this place up."

That made both Rainbow Dash and Spike immediately stop laughing.

Spike pointed at himself and asked, "Who, me?"

Twilight shook her head, "No, not you! Rainbow Dash on the other hand, being the one who made this mess, would feel ever so thankful if she cleaned it up...won't you?" She finished that question with a glare to her rainbow-haired friend.

Dash let out a nervous laugh, "Hehehe...he...I suppose that's fair. Do you think Ajax works on webbing?"

"Maybe, I don't know. So, by the way, what did you think about the webguns?"

"They're cool, I guess, but they could be cooler."

"Cooler how?"

"Just...cooler."

"Yes, that's very helpful, thank you very much" Twilight noted with heavy sarcasm.

"Maybe they could be...about...twenty percent cooler."

"What does that even mean?!"

Rainbow tried to think of a way to explain it. "Okay, while the gun is cool, I was thinking of something that looked like I could actually shoot webs from my hands or something. I need something that's also a bit more securely strapped to my arms rather than just something I'm holding. Also, isn't me walking around with something looking like a gun a very bad idea."

Twilight began to consider Rainbow's request for a moment. She eventually came up with one idea that seemed promising. It was certainly doable, especially with her resources and ingenuity, as well as a welcome challenge. However, there was just one thing she had to take care of before that.

"I think I have an idea. But before I get to it, I'm going to wash this web out of my hair, and you are going to clean up this room. Deal?"

"Sure thing, I'll have this place looking as good as new before you know it."

"And I'm holding you to that..." Twilight added before she walked out of the room to take a quick shower, leaving Spike and Rainbow alone.

After she had left, Rainbow Dash looked around for anything to use to get rid of the cobwebs all over the room, but she couldn't really find anything of use, so she instead grabbed hold of one of the loose threads and simply ripped it off of the wall. Her enhanced strength made it look a lot easier than it actually was.

With nothing better to do, Spike considered this to be a good time to ask something he'd been wondering about.

"Um...Rainbow?"

While still pulling the webs from the walls, she prompted, "Yeah?"

"I've been wondering...what exactly are you planning to do with your new powers?"

Rainbow turned to him and beamed, "Isn't it obvious?! I may have been awesome before, but now I have super-powers! Think of the possibilities! Lightning Dust can eat her heart out, because now I am the best athlete in school! I will be so awesome that nobody will ever be able to beat me, and then it will only be a matter of time until the Wonderbolts recognise my potential and let's me join them. Say goodbye to Rainbow Trash, and hello to Captain Awesome!"

Spike however, had another idea. "...Or you could be a superhero!"

Dash raised an eyebrow,"A superhero, seriously?"

"Of course!" Spike suggested with enthusiasm, "With those new powers, you'd be great at it! Just think how many people you could save, how many bad guys you can put in jail, and just how much people will love you. Everyone loves a hero, and I'll say that you might just be up to the challenge."

"No offence, Spike, but I'm an athlete, not a superhero from one of your comic books. Besides, superheroes are lame anyway. You won't see me wearing a cape or undies on the outside, and I can think of a lot better things to do with my life than saving cats out of trees."

"It's not just about that. I mean, wouldn't it be awesome to fight supervillains?"

"What 'supervillains' are you talking about? None of those guys have been out of prison for more than twenty years or so. And even if they were still running around, I'd rather let the cops handle them than getting myself killed."

"But, but...ah, fine. It's your choice anyway..." Spike noted with obvious disappointment in his voice.

Seeing his crestfallen expression, Rainbow said, "Look, that was a good idea, but I'm not really cut out for superhero stuff."

"Yeah I guess. Just, whatever you do...don't go too far with it. I know about that whole shoplifting thing you were doing before, and I don't want something like what happened with Rarity to happen with you."

Rainbow muttered "I'm never gonna live that down am I?" before she assured, "Look, I may have shoplifted a little and played one or two pranks on Spoiled Rich, but I'm not a criminal and I know when to draw the line."

"You know, that's exactly what Rarity said too, and look how well that turned out."

"Just chill out, Spike, I'll be on my best behaviour. What's the worst that could happen?"

Spike sighed, "I really wish you didn't just say that."