Chapters F R I D A Y
"Hey, Applejack!" Rainbow shouted, running up to her friend at the end of the school day. Everyone had just left, except for a handful of students for their own reasons.
Rainbow held her phone, still staring with awe at the screen as she ran. She had trouble seeing what was on it, but had managed to do so just moments ago inside of CHS.
"Huh?" Applejack said as she looks over to her running friend.
"You'll never believe this!" Rainbow said, stopping dangerously close to Applejack. If she'd kept running for any longer, the both of them would've fallen to the ground. Applejack was annoyed by this, but decided not to say anything about it.
"Look! Someone took a video of a guy swinging on some kind of rope! He jumped off of this building, and then this rope thing came out of his arm, or something, and he started swinging around!" Rainbow said. "It's all over everything now! Mystable, VidTube, Tweeter, Facenook, everything!" Rainbow said, still amazed by the video.
Applejack stared at Rainbow, wide-eyed.
"..."
"I know, right?! It's so cool!" Rainbow said.
"Rainbow Dash, have you been buyin' things from strangers at all lately?"
Rainbow frowned. "I'm not kidding! Come on! Watch the video!" She said before sticking the her phone in Applejack's face.
Applejack took the phone, and sighed. "Look, I'm tellin' you right now that you've got to be mistaken. It just ain't possible for someone to shoot some kind of rope outta their arms." Applejack said.
"But magic, and unicorns, and other stuff like that is real! If that can be real, why can't this be real?" Rainbow argued.
"Well..." Applejack found herself at a loss for words.
"HA! See? Even you can't argue with that logic!"
Applejack sighed in defeat, and pressed her thumb on the video that was on the screen of the phone. "Can we go inside and watch this? The sun's kinda makin' this hard to see..." Applejack said.
They both went inside, and restarted the video.
"Look! That guy's about to jump!" A man said, pointing at a figure standing atop one of Canterlot City's taller buildings. It wasn't a skyscraper, but it was still pretty tall.
"No! You have so much to live for! Probably!" Said another bystander.
"Ditzy, come on! If we can get to the TARDIS quick enough, we can save that boy!" Clockwork said to Derpy, just a few feet in front of the camera recording the boy that was about to jump, assuring his demise.
Bystanders kept saying different things, and telling the boy not to jump for a few minutes.
"Rainbow, nothin' is happenin'. Wh-"
"Look! This is the part where it happens!"
"NOOO! DON'T TAKE ANOTHER STEP OR ELSE YOU'LL DIE!!!" Said a lady with green hair, wiping her forehead dramatically.
The moment she said that, the boy on the rooftop of the building...
...Stepped back.
"Oh, thank goodness!" Said yet another bystander.
The boy then leaped off of the building.
Screams flooded the area, along with one guy saying: "Do a backflip!"
"What in tarnation?! He jumpe-"
What happened next shut Applejack up.
The boy extended his arm towards another building as he fell, and a white-ish looking rope shot out of his hand. Once the rope reached the building it was shot at, the boy stopped falling, and began to swing on that rope. He extended his arm once again, and shot another rope towards another building. He swung on that rope as well, while the crowd below him flipped out.
There was a combination of "DEAR GOODNESS's", and "WOAH's", and other miscellaneous things.
The figure shot a rope at the building next to whoever was recording, and swung very low, making the crowd cheer and freak out at the same time. It looked like he had a red mask, and a pair of sunglasses above it, topped off with a beanie.
The video ended.
L A T E R
"Peter, is that you?"
"Yeah!"
"Oh, good! Did you remember to bring me some flour from the supermarket?" A voice familiar with Peter Parker said. It was his Aunt May, who had been a mother to him since he was only 7 years old, rather than an aunt.
He was 17, now.
Peter mentally slapped himself when he realized that he had, in fact, forgotten to bring flour for his aunt.
"Oh... uh... I forgot to get the flour." Peter said, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Peter!" May said from the kitchen. "This is the third time this week! First, you forget to bring me eggs, then laundry detergent, and now flour!" May ranted. She walked out of the kitchen, and looked Peter in the eye. "What have you been doing? Be honest, Peter." May said, sternly.
"I've been doing..." Peter opened and closed his mouth a few times before finally coming up with something to finish that sentence with.
"Parkour?" He said, slightly cocking his head.
And it sounded much better in his head than out of his mouth.
"Peter! Parkour?!" May exclaimed. Peter couldn't tell if she believed him or not, but she was rather gullible sometimes, so Peter was hoping his excuse worked. If he told his aunt what he's really been doing, she'd flip. And when she flips, he flips, too.
To save him some trouble, he tried lying further to make it sound like he'd been being safe while doing 'parkour'. "Yep. I... I wear a helmet, and kneepads, and-"
"Don't you know what happens to people who do parkour?! My friend's nephew does parkour, and he just broke about every bone in his body a few months ago! You'll be in the hospital just a room over from where he's STILL at! Not to mention that guy on the news! You know, with that masked lunatic jumping off buildings and shooting ropes everywhere and things like that, he could swing RIGHT into you! What if you fell? O-"
At that point, Peter stopped listening. That 'lunatic' swinging around on 'ropes' was already on the news? It'd just been about an hour or two ago that he'd been swinging around.
Of course he'd be on the news. It looked like that guy was about to commit suicide. Already, that'd be newsworthy. To make things even more interesting, he'd shot webbing out of his wrists, and started swinging on them.
How did Peter know that the guy swinging around earlier was using webs to swing around?
He was that guy.
While Peter was swinging around, though, he hadn't seen a news crew. Had somebody taken video of him?
Probably.
He'd gotten rather close to someone. That person was holding their phone sideways. That's how most people record things from mobile devices.
They must've sent the video to the news station. Of course.
Peter cut off this chain of thought, and began to listen to what his aunt was saying again.
"Or you could have a heart attack in mid-air and fall! What if that happened?! I've already lost your... uncle..."
May stopped talking, and covered her eyes, which were welling up with tears. Peter noticed this, and pulled her into a hug. He, too, began to get a little sad from the mention of his Uncle Ben.
His uncle had been shot and killed just a month and a half ago in the city of Manehattan. Peter hadn't seen it happen, but was close by when the gunshot rang through the night.
Ben's last words to Peter had stuck with him.
"With great power comes great responsibility."
Those were the words that Peter decided that he needed to live by.
As soon as May and Peter broke the hug, May looked at Peter and smiled.
"Don't forget the flour next time." She said, sniffling as she continued to smile.
"I won't, Aunt May..." Peter said, as may walked back into the kitchen to continue preparing dinner.
"I promise..."
S A T U R D A Y
"So, how do you think he did it?" Twilight asked.
"The swingin' guy? He probably... uh... used some kinda magic spell, or what not." Applejack guessed.
The girls were all at Pinkie's house, enjoying a sleepover. Rainbow and Pinkie were playing "Mighty Kombat X", while the rest of the girls sat and talked amongst each other. Surprisingly, Twilight was the first one to bring up the boy who'd been swinging in the recent video that'd only gotten more and more popular in the past 24 hours.
"Maybe he's a spider?" Fluttershy suggested. She loved spiders. That didn't say much, though, since she loved all animals.
"Ooh! Maybe something like that!" Twilight said, adverting her attention to Fluttershy. "He could've had his DNA somehow mixed with a spider, and gotten abilities similar to that of spiders!"
"Wouldn't he grow like... 8 legs, then? And fangs? And still look really creepy? I don't know about you, Twilight, but he looked like a guy in a mask to me. A cool guy in a mask, though." Rainbow said, still keeping her eyes glued to the game she was playing.
"Well, not necessarily. Tell me, girls, have you ever hear of cross-species genetics?" Twilight asked.
All the girls shook their heads, except for Sunset.
"Oh, you've hear of it, Sunset?" Twilight asked.
"Mmmhmm! I was reading a magazine that I found in your lab at CHS, and saw an article about it. Did you know that there's a scientist who only has one arm?! He was interviewed in the article!" Sunset said.
"Oh, you mean Curt Connors! He works with cross-species genetics to help him get his arm back! I don't recall how he lost it, but he's trying to find a way to fuse the DNA of a lizard with his own!" Twilight said.
"So... it's not any kind of magic? I mean... that seems a little more believable than messing with DNA, or whatever." Rainbow said, still keeping her eyes on the TV screen.
"Well, you might think that's more believable, but that's probably because you have experience with magic." Twilight said.
"Besides, Rainbow," Sunset began. "I'm pretty sure that there's no spell that makes ropes shoot out of your body." She said, smirking.
"Yeah, well-"
"I WIN!!!!!" Pinkie screamed at the top of her lungs.
"What?! NO WAY!!! I only lost because of all the eggheaded nonsense going on behind me!"
"I WON AND YOU LOST!!! I BEAT RAINBOW DASH!!!"
"No you didn't! Not fair and square!"
"YES I DID!!!"
"No you DIDN'T!!!"
"DID TOO!!"
"Did NOT!!!"
While Rainbow and Pinkie began to argue, the other girls continued their conversation.
"Perhaps that boy used some sort of harpoon, or sharp object to attach his ropes to those buildings? If he's a genius, like Micro Chips, he could've built something to launch the ropes, right?" Rarity said.
"I guess that would make sense, too." Sunset said.
"I have an idea. If we can build something that does just that, we can see if you're right or not!" Twilight exclaimed.
"I see n-" Rarity stopped for a moment. "Erm... darling, wouldn't one of us have to... swing? " Rarity asked.
"Well... I suppose. We wouldn't have to jump off of a tall building, though. We just need to know that it's support the weight of a human body!" Twilight said.
"So... when do we start?" Asked Sunset.
"Well, we need to collect supplies first, so how about Monday?"
S U N D A Y
Peter walked into an alleyway between a bakery and another building, and looked around to make sure that no one was looking. He saw a homeless man sleeping in a box, but that was it.
He looked at the wall of the bakery, and placed his hands on it. Peter then pulled himself up a little bit, and placed his feet on the wall as well.
Peter was sticking to the wall.
He discovered that he could do this soon before his uncle died, so he was fairly used to it by now.
Peter began to climb up the wall, and progressively climbed faster. Once he reached the edge of the roof, he pulled himself onto it. He straightened out his jacket, and began to walk towards the edge. He wasn't going to jump off like he had done on Friday, but he would just sit on the edge, and get used to being on the edges of buildings.
He had hesitated to jump off of that tall building on Friday, since usually, if you were to jump off of a building, you'd end up painting the ground with a nice shade of red.
He wasn't as scared to jump off of buildings, now that he knew that his 'web-shooters' worked.
Peter had created what he called 'web-shooters' after he had discovered his spider-like abilities. He seemed to have gained the same abilities that spiders have, save for the ability to spin webs.
He felt like his new set of powers was incomplete without webs, so he made web-shooters with a combination of different materials for the webbing itself, a few wrist watches, and other things that were easy enough to obtain. It had taken him about a week to get it right, but he'd finally created working web-shooters just before he and his aunt began to pack everything in their house to move to Canterlot City.
Peter looked at the street below him, perching himself in a gargoyle-like position on the edge of the bakery. He saw a mother tending to her baby in a stroller, a man listening to music as he jogged, a girl listening to music on a bench, bobbing her head to it, and a group of seven girls sitting outside of the bakery at a table.
Everything seemed pretty normal. That was, until he overheard a little bit of what the group of girls below were talking about.
"So, I've gathered springs, small pistons, and a few other things that can launch ropes at buildings like the boy from the video."
The groups of girls now had Peter's full attention.
"But how's the rope going to stick to the buildings, Twilight?" Rainbow asked.
"Ooh!!! I have a kunai that we can use to stab the rope into the building!" Pinkie said.
"A kunai? What the heck is a kunai?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"It's a thing I use to slice cakes with when I can't find the knives!"
"I thought that a kunai was a weapon of sorts?" Rarity said.
"Oh. That, too. Silly me!"
"Where did you even get a kunai?! That's an actual weapon!" Twilight said, shocked.
"It was a goodbye gift from a friend. He said he'd kind of keep in touch." Pinkie said. "He was really nice-ish. In a good way, though! He just used a lot of bad words, and said a lot of mean things, but he didn't ever mean any of them! He was nice and mean at the same time in a really nice way! I was surprised when I first met him, because he was only as old as Apple Bloom and Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, and he was always saying bad words like-"
Applejack put her hand over Pinkie's mouth so that the girls could continue their conversation. "Maybe we can get some kinda really strong glue, or somethin'?" Applejack said.
"Or a hook! Like... you know in that really old TV show with the guy who dresses as a bat all the time? We can use a hook like he uses, or something." Rainbow said.
"I'm guessing that it's something adhesive. Maybe glue, but it'd have to be able to support the weight of a human body. So maybe we can find something like that?" Twilight said. "If we can't find anything, we can always use some kind of harpoon, or like Rainbow suggested, a hook."
Rainbow kicked up her feet onto the table, and leaned back in her chair, making it go on two legs. "I bet the hook will work. After all, I'm the one who suggested it!" Rainbow said, smirking.
"Rainbow... are you sure you should be leaning back that much? It looks like your chair is about to-" Sunset couldn't finish her sentence before a 'THUD' was heard, along with the metal 'CLANG' of a chair.
"Fall." Sunset finished, looking at Rainbow, who was now on the ground.
"Ugh. You couldn't have said that sooner, Sunset?"
This was nuts. Those girls were going to try and build Peter's web-shooters.
Peter didn't know how they would do it, but he knew that it wasn't going to be fun for them.
'Should I go down and warn them?' Peter thought.
If he did, he could give away that he was the boy who was swinging around in the video. If he didn't, though, those girl could get themselves hurt.
Peter got off of the edge of the building, and started walking back to where he'd climbed onto the roof. He'd have to go and think about this.
But when he figured out what to do, how would he find those girls?
He'd have to see if he could figure out where they were going to do this, and somehow convince them not to.
He'd have to spy on them.
L A T E R
Peter had been following the group of girls for a few hours now, and he'd yet to be noticed. He had almost been caught a few times, but was able to keep those few times at a close call.
Even though he hadn't been caught, however, he had also learned absolutely nothing about where they'd be testing out their experiment . They'd brought up just about everything except for that, in fact.
Peter knew that he'd have to head home soon, but he figured that maybe they'd mention it soon. It was 8:00, so it had already started to get dark outside.
They had all been out for a while, shopping and talking. Those girls had brought up a variety of things while they all conversed, such as fashion, science, parties, sports, and even farming.
Peter had actually wished he could join in on those conversations a few times, but he knew that would probably blow his cover.
After a few more minutes of following them, he figured that he should finally go home to his aunt. He wasn't too far from the neighborhood that he had recently moved to, which was a relief. He had actually worried about how far he'd be from home at first.
He was on top of the same bakery he had started following them at when he decided to head back to his aunt's house, and so were the girls. They were sitting inside of the bakery, talking about something .
Peter turned to climb back down into the alleyway that he'd climbed up the bakery's wall in, but saw a woman with teal glasses and magenta hair quickly walking into it, being followed by a suspicious-looking guy, who was wearing a nice, baggy, black coat.
As soon as they were both far enough down the alley, the woman turned around, and opened her mouth to talk, but the man pushed her to the ground before she could. As she hit the floor, the man swiped her handbag from her, and began looking through it.
Peter knew that this would end badly. He reached into his jeans' pockets, and pulled out a folded red mask. He also took his sunglasses out of his jacket's pockets, and put them on. After putting these on, he pulled his hood over his head, and took action.
"P-please just take whatever you want! Just don't hurt me..." The woman said, her heart beating faster and faster in fear.
The man frowned in disappointment, then threw the expensive handbag down onto the dirty, cold ground. "I won't hurt you as long as you tell me where your wallet is."
The woman began to reach into one of her coat's pockets, and searched for the wallet. "Here! I-it's in my coat!" The woman said, taking the wallet out of her coat, and handing it over to the mugger.
"Thanks, lady." The thief said as he turned around and started to walk away. While he walked away, there was a ring coming from the door of the bakery, indicating that someone had just walked out of the bakery.
Hearing footsteps besides his own, the criminal slowed down.
He stopped moving completely when a girl with long, pink hair and butter-colored skin started walking past the alleyway, before stopping, and looking into the alleyway. When the girl did this, she gasped louder than the robber had ever heard anyone gasp before.
"M-mom?!" The girl said quietly, looking at the woman that the mugger had just robbed.
"Fluttershy, RUN!!!" The woman shouted, her voice cracking a little bit.
Fluttershy didn't move at all, though. She just stared at the man in shock and fright. The thug started to walk towards Fluttershy, rather slowly, in order to create an intimidating effect. Fluttershy began to whimper in fear, letting the man know that it worked.
"Hey, why don't you be just like your mother, and give me whate-"
Before the goon could finish his sentence, a web shot out of the darkness, and yanked the man back.
"WHAAAAGH!" The thug screamed as he was pulled through the air, and landed on the ground.
The thief stood up, pulled out a balisong knife, and started opening it. Before he could, though, another web shot out from the darkness, and hit his hand, pulling it to the wall opposite to the bakery's wall.
"What the hell?" The man shouted, trying his hardest to pull his hand off of the wall.
"Man, do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" A voice said, presumably the one that had trapped the man against the wall.
Peter walked out of the shadows of the alleyway, and looked at the criminal. He had a red mask on, accompanied by a pair od shades, so that no one knew what he looked like.
"Who the hell are you?!" The thug asked, still trying to pull his hand off of the wall.
"Oh, I wouldn't try and pull that stuff off the wall. The pressure that you're applying with your hand is just gonna make your hand really sticky. Really sticky. I need to find a way to make this stuff adhere less to skin. That'll probably get annoying soon." Peter said.
"Hey, come on, man! Let me outta this stuff!" The thug pleaded.
"I think the cops will do that for me. Now, let's see what all you've taken from people tonight!" Peter said, shooting a web at the criminal's other hand, trapping the his other hand to the wall, too.
The criminal continued to tell Peter to let him go, but Peter ignored him, and went for his coat. He opened it, and began to shuffle through the pockets.
"Hmmm... let's see..." Peter said, feeling around for the woman's stolen wallet.
"Oh, hey, ma'am." Peter said, turning his head to the woman who had just been mugged. "Don't worry about your wallet. You'll get it back in just a second."
The woman just nodded, obviously confused and surprised about what was going on.
Peter removed his hand from the muggers jacket after a moment, and pulled out-
"Wow, man. Three wallets? You've robbed three people tonight?" Peter said, shaking his head in disappointment.
"Yeah, what's it to you?" The thief barked at Peter.
"Just that it's not right, really. But man, you're good enough at being a criminal that you've mugged three people tonight, but you're still too stupid to wear a mask while you do it. You know, you're smarter than the guy who discovered black holes, you know that? I mean, you could probably discover white holes, or something if you felt like it." Peter said sarcastically.
"Y-you, too!" The thug said, making Peter burst into laughter.
"Oh, man! Ha-ha! Hey, that's a nice comeback! I might use that one day!" Peter said, taunting the thug.
"Hey, shut up! " The thug said, his face turning red in embarrassment.
"Hey man, I might just do this a little more often if this is the reaction I'll get from the people like you!" Peter said, continuing to humiliate the crook.
"Shut the hell up!"
"Hey!" Peter shot a web over the man's mouth, silencing him. "Really! These nice people might not like your foul mouth, mister!" Peter said, pointing at Fluttershy and her mother.
He turned to them, and started walking towards them, making them back away.
"Hey, woah, woah, woah! I'm not here to hurt you two. I'm just trying to help you out." Peter said, backing away carefully in response.
"You aren't...?" Mrs Shy said.
"Ma'am, if I wanted to hurt you, I would've done that already! I'm just here to help you get your wallet back." Peter said. "Here, is this one yours?" He said, taking one of the three wallets he held into his other hand, and holding it out.
"Y-yes..." Mrs. Shy said, still shaken about the current situation.
"That's great! Here, do you wanna catch it, or should I just hand it to you?" Peter asked.
"Here, I'll... t-take it..." Mrs. Shy said, slowly stepping towards Peter. When she got close enough, she took the wallet, and stepped back.
"Alright, good. So... uh..." Peter looked at the two other wallets in his hand. "Do you mind taking these to the police station? I can call and let them know what happened, but... I'm not sure they'd be so warm and welcoming to a guy in a mask... y'know since that usually fits the profile of the bad guy?" Peter asked, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Oh, yes! O-of course I can do that! I... I have to repay you for... well... saving me." Mrs. Shy said.
"Oh gosh, thank you so much, ma'am, I-I really appreciate it. I should be repaying you right now." Peter said as Mrs. Shy took the other two wallets.
"Oh, no! You saved me first, so I should be repaying you!" Mrs. Shy said.
"Ma'am, I was just doing what should've been done. I should be repaying y-" Peter glanced at Fluttershy, and noticed that she was totally still, and that her eyes were as wide as pizza pies.
"Hey, miss? You alright back there?" Peter asked. Mrs. Shy looked over at her daughter, then ran right up to her, pulling her into a big hug.
"Oh, I'm so sorry you had to see that, Fluttershy! You're still in school! You should've never witnessed any of that!" Mrs. Shy said. Fluttershy hugged back, hanging her head over her mother's shoulder.
"Why would anyone do this?" Fluttershy thought, looking at the man who was trapped against a wall, and still struggling to break free.
And them she realized that the boy in the mask was nowhere in the alleyway.
"M-mom! He's gone!"
Mrs. Shy let go of Fluttershy and turned around, hoping that Fluttershy wasn't talking about the thief. She was relieved to see that the thief was still stuck to the wall, and silenced, but she was confused about where the masked boy went.
"Fluttershy, we need to make a trip to the police station. I need to give these wallets to them, and I need to tell them what happened." Mrs. Shy said.
Fluttershy nodded, and thought about what had happened for a moment.
And then one thing popped into her mind.
"Was that the boy from the video?"
