Spiderman Equestria's Hero: Back In Action

Early the next morning, Rarity had already dawned her Iron Heart armour and was flying over Canterlot City. Within her suit, she had already loaded in her AI assistant, Coco Pommel. The virtual helper that Fancy Pants so graciously let Rarity keep.

“Good morning, Miss Rarity; I trust you slept well.” Coco’ enquired.

Iron Heart replied, “Coco’, darling; how many times must I tell you to just call me ‘Rarity’?”

“At least one more time, Miss Rarity.”

The two of them were on their way to the police’s impound lot; the place where they keep cars used by criminals or large vehicles that have been deemed crime scenes. It was where the police were keeping the school bus that the five missing Crystal Prep students disappeared from.

Upon arrival, Iron Heart landed in the yard, right in front of the school bus. Coco Pommel explained, “From the little evidence that Detective Spear Head gave us, the only people on the bus at the time were the five missing students.”

Which made Rarity ask, “What about the bus driver?”

“He had got off the bus to find help; at the time, the road was blocked by debris.” Coco’ said, reading from the police report that had been uploaded into her systems. “But when he returned to the bus, with emergency response units, the students were gone.”

Rarity figured they’d find more answers on the bus; so using her suits strength, she carefully pride the doors open and entered the bus. Now that they were on the ‘crime-scene’, Rarity needed to find any evidence the police might have missed.

Iron Heart stated, “There must be something here that can help us figure out what happened yesterday. Something, anything.” The hero looked around the seats and driver’s compartment, she couldn’t find any physical evidence.

This gave Coco Pommel an idea, “Miss Rarity, now might be a good time to try the evidence-scanner. Master Adam has it in his mask lenses and uses it to scan crime-scenes; and I took the liberty of uploading the program into your suit.”

That was a good idea; Rarity stood in the middle of the bus, “Activate Detective Mode.” Rarity said. The eye lenses in her mask scanned the bus, it was picking up traces of residue all over the bus; and anything that seemed out of the ordinary were highlighted in red.

Right by the front of the bus, where the entrance was, was a cloud of a chemical compound; Rarity scanned the residue and Coco’ was able to identify it.

“Gun smoke; Miss Rarity, that’s gun smoke.” The AI explained.

Rarity replied, “Someone fired a gun in here; there was no body reported or traces of blood found, so I don’t think this was a hit.”

The next thing Rarity scanned for was the bullet, she wanted to see where it impacted. She looked up and found the bullet lodged into the metal of the ceiling; Coco’ projected a hologram figure with a gun, showing them firing a pistol into the ceiling.

The hero concluded, “The assailant fired his weapon into the ceiling, probably to get the attention of the students.”

Walking back down the steps of the bus, Rarity found the last piece of evidence she needed; multiple fingerprints on the hand railing. She scanned the prints, and with the national crime data-base at her disposal, she was able to identify who they belonged to.

“The fingerprints all belong to the missing students, they got off the bus themselves.” Rarity then noticed the last trace of prints, a sixth set; most likely belonging to the person with the gun. She deeply scanned the prints and Coco Pommel identified them to someone within the police records.

Coco’ explained, “The fingerprints match to a certain, Tire Tracks; previous charges include vandalism and grand theft auto. He was released from Rykers six months ago.”

Rarity asked, “Location?”

“According to building records and leases; Tire Tracks recently took ownership of a warehouse down by the docks. I’ve just got the address.” The AI explained.

Iron Heart stepped off the bus and replied, “Then let’s pay him a little visit.” With that said, the superhero flew off into the sky.

It took Rarity only a few minutes to fire herself across the city with her rocket boosters; with a hard bang, she landed right outside the warehouse, leaving a small dent in the ground. The armoured hero noticed a door that she could use to get inside, so she entered the building to find the missing students.

Iron Heart said to her AI, “Any life-signs, darling?”

However, there was no answer.

Rarity tried to boot up her systems, but something was going wrong; her entire network was shutting down. The inside of her helmet went dark, all that was left functioning was the optical systems and the motor-functions, so she could see and move.

“What is going on?” she asked.

Suddenly, spotlights lit up the room; Rarity was stood in the centre of the warehouse, in front of her was a large stage with a curtain covering it, but what caught her attention was the flickering video screen behind her. Iron Heart turned to the screen as the picture came up.

The screen showed a figure, in a hoodie and a creepy looking mask; the masked man said, “Welcome, superhero; prepare to take your final exams.” His voice was all muffled, like he was speaking terribly into a microphone.

Iron Heart didn’t understand, so she asked, “What is this? Some kind of funny joke?”

“Not at all, hero; you can call me, Jigsaw. And its time to take the DATs; Deadly Aptitude Tests.” ‘Jigsaw’ replied. “You’ll have to think hard, and think fast.” He then started laughing like a maniacal maniac.

Rarity simply crossed her arms, “You have some serious issues, darling. This isn’t funny.” She explained.

“School isn’t meant to be funny. Its punishingly difficult!” Jigsaw yelled.

Just ignoring his outburst, Rarity was already tired of this; she pointed her finger at the screen and demanded to know, “Alright, enough is enough. Where are the missing students?”

Jigsaw chuckled slightly before replying, “There’re alive, for now.” He then showed Rarity five boxes that appeared on the screen, five empty squares. “The rules of this test are simple, there are five questions all together; for every answer you get right, you advance to the next test. But if you get a question wrong, lets just say, something terrible will happen.”

More spotlights lit up as Jigsaw stated, “Let the DATs begin.”

A noise from behind Rarity caught her attention, she turned back to the stage and saw the curtain lift out of the way. When the curtain was gone, Rarity gasped at the sight of one of the missing Crystal Prep students, handcuffed to a pole.

The student was coming around, she had been unconscious; when she was fully up, she noticed her situation and gasped. She had long red hair, light green skin and was wearing her Crystal Prep uniform; she saw the superhero in front of her and yelled, “Iron Heart!”

Rarity ran to her and asked, “Are you okay, darling?”

“Well, I’m chained to a pole a creepy warehouse, so not really.” The student replied.

Iron Heart went round to her back and tried to break the handcuffs, but even with her suit, they wouldn’t break. On a smaller screen beside the stage, Jigsaw appeared again; he laughed at the sight of them.

“Rose Bud here is wearing Titanium shackles, wired to open via remote control; hence why I disabled your suits computer systems. Can’t have you cheating.” Jigsaw then pushed a button; the machines built into the ceiling were shifting, until a satellite dish was lowered down on a robot arm. And to its sides, two mirrors did the same.

Looking confused, Rose Bud asked, “Mirrors?”

Jigsaw explained, “Irradiated mirrors.” The shine from the spotlights shined into the mirrors, they reflected the beam into the satellite, which generated a heated beam that fired into the floor.

Rarity watched the beam move towards the stage; she stated, “A laser.”

“In thirty seconds, this fiery red head will literally be on fire.” He was right, the laser beam was heading right for Rose Bud. “Unless you answer the following question: What was the team name for Canterlot High School during the Friendship Games?”

“Iron Heart!” Rose Bud screamed as the beam got closer.

But that’s when it hit Rarity, this question was easy; she turned to the screen and answered, “Wondercolts, its The Wondercolts.” A tick suddenly appeared in one of the boxes on the screen. Also, the cuffs holding Rose Bud in place unlocked and dropped off; Rose Bud quickly jumped out of the way as the laser started melting through the pole.

The student ran into Rarity’s arms, hugging her, she had never been so scared in her life.

Jigsaw brushed off this minor set back and stated, “Not bad, that was... cutting it close.” He then laughed at his own joke.

Iron Heart picked up the cuffs and threw them at the screen, breaking the glass; Jigsaw switched back to the bigger screen in front of them. Rarity stated, “No more games. Where are the other four students?!”

“You’ll find them in time; I’ve hacked your network so we can communicate.” Jigsaw turned on all the lights, illuminating the whole warehouse. “When I’m ready, I’ll send you the location of the next test. Until then, have a good life.” Jigsaw laughed one more time before the screen went black.

With nothing left to go on, Rarity had no choice; she had to keep playing this twisted game in order to save the students. Speaking of which, the hero checked on the one she just saved.

“Are you okay?” Iron Heart asked.

Rose Bud replied, “I am now. This was like some twisted horror movie sequel.” She was breathing heavily, still in minor shock. “I mean, that guy’s not just nuts, he’s a whole bag of trail mix.”

Rarity pushed a button on her wrist computer, alerting the authorities of her location, along with an encoded message; she explained to the student, “Stay here, an officer is on his way, he’ll take you back to CCPD.”

With that said, Iron Heart left the building; when she walked outside, Coco Pommel came back online. “Miss Rarity, what happened? I lost power for a moment there.”

The hero replied, “What was that? You’ve never gone offline like that before, darling.”

Iron Heart turned her head back to the building and Coco’ ran a quick scan of the warehouse; when she was done, the AI concluded, “The entire warehouse was layered with an interference alloy, blocking my systems.”

Rarity then stated, “This person may be insane, but he certainly knows what he’s doing.”

Now that everything was done here, Rarity ignited her rockets and flew off into the sky; all she could do was wait for Jigsaw to contact her with his next ‘test’.

Across the city, in her room in her Mom’s apartment, Twilight Sparkle was lying on her bed; she had her laptop on her chest, with something on the screen. She was writing up her resume to try and apply for another job. The only problem was, there was a section where she had to write something about herself; and for some reason, she couldn’t think of what to right.

“Let’s see.” Twilight muttered to herself. “I used to attend Canterlot High, I’m in a loving relationship with my girlfriend. And in my spare time, I punch bad guys and swing on webs through the city in a pink and white costume.” She read it aloud, before holding down back-space.

Twilight quickly tried again and typed, “My name is Twilight Sparkle.” She then thought for a moment, “And even I’m bored already.”

Suddenly, on her computer screen, Twilight saw she was getting a video call from Adam; needing a distraction, she quickly answered.

When Adam came onto the screen, he greeted her with, “Hey Twilight; you busy? Could use some help with a babysitting job at Rykers.”

“I’m there, whatever you need. I’ll call you on the way.” Twilight hanged up the call and left the room. She snuck out of her window and up to the roof where she kept the backpack with her suit; after a quick change into her spider-gear, she leaped off her roof and began swinging through the city.

It had been a while since Twilight had been able to just swing through the city and enjoy the power that she had been given. So she decided to fix that.

Without even thinking, she web-zipped to a building and began running up its side; when she reached the top, she jumped forward and spring-front-flipped off the other side. Spider-Girl slid down a slanted roof before pulling herself forward with webs; she jumped past some people who were having a party on one of the rooftops.

“Excuse me, late for work.” She joked, shooting past them.

As she flew through the air, the Spider-Hero was flipping and spinning in the air; before calming down and sensibly swinging between the buildings. Whilst web-swinging, the comm system in her mask got a call from Spiderman.

“Twilight, I’m just getting to Rykers. You on your way?” Adam asked.

Spider-Girl replied, “On my way, who are we babysitting?”

Spiderman explained, “I heard yesterday that Zzzax is being transferred to the Ravencroft Institute. Not much room at Rykers for him since Molten Man became his roommate.”

“Zzzax can definitely throw a tantrum; I’ll be there.” With that said, Twilight ended the call.

Not long after, Twilight got another call, from her Mom. “Hey Twilight, did you just pop out?”

She replied, “Yeah Mom, just going to meet my friends.”

Twilight Velvet explained, “Well, I just wanted to remind you, your father is coming home today.” After everything that had happened these last few days, Twilight completely forgot, Night Light was being released from Rykers today.

“That’s great Mom, I’ll be home as soon as I can. I can’t wait to see him.” Spider-Girl explained to her mother.

“Me too, I’ll see you at home later.” After that, Twilight ended the call; she was almost at the prison.

A few minutes later, Spider-Girl made it to the harbour; using her webs, she zipped from boat to boat, all the way to the small island where Rykers prison was. And after latching onto the wall of the prison, Twilight ran around the complex before running into Spiderman on one of the lower roofs; he was watching the prison guards ready the boat being used for the transfer.

Twilight landed next to Adam, and they were ready for this transfer themselves.

Spiderman greeted his friend with, “Hey Spider-Friend. Glad you could make it.”

“Looks like I’m just in time.” Spider-Girl replied.

Once she said that, the large doors were opening to the prison; emerging from those doors, guards were walking the prisoner out to the boat. And for the first time in three years, the Spider-Heroes saw their old friend.

Contained within a special harness to negate his powers, Micro Chips walked out to the boat; the heroes would never forget this sight, his entire body was made of living energy and eyes glowed like super-charged headlights.

As Zzzax stepped out of the doors, he stopped for a minute and inhaled; the first time he’s been able to breathe in fresh air for so very long.

“Keep it moving, Micro Chips.” One of the guards stated.

Micro’ turned to that guard and smiled, the best he could with his crooked mouth; a small spark of electricity flickered off his shoulder. This sudden move made the guard flinch, thinking something bad was going to happen; Zzzax simply chuckled before following orders and moving onto the boat.

Once the prisoner was on the boat, the guards followed behind and they shipped off; the boat began sailing around the bay and on its way to Ravencroft. The Spider-Heroes were beginning to wonder if they were even needed for this, until Adam noticed something out of the ordinary.

Three black helicopters were seen by the two heroes flying over the water and towards the boat; Spiderman asked, “When did they call in air support?”

“I don’t think that’s air support.” Spider-Girl replied.

The two of them jumped from the prison and were quickly able to swing to the boat before it was too far out; they landed on the boat, right in the middle of all the guards. The men took little notice of the Spiders, their eyes were fixed on the choppers.

Twilight moved closer to one of the guards to say, “We need to make sure the prisoner is secure....”

But, before she could finish, one of the choppers opened it’s doors and revealed someone; it was the gang with the purple hockey masks, the ones who hunt Meta-Humans. And in their hands was a rocket launcher; without hesitation, they fired the weapon at the boat, a direct hit on the bridge of the ship. Before the guards could react to this attack, another person from above threw down a grenade; it generated a small explosion which blasted the guards and Spiders away, knocking the guards unconscious.

Spider-Girl swung up to the ship’s bridge to check the crew were alright; Spiderman stayed with the guards, checking they were still alive.

During this time, the three choppers were hovering over the boat, and thugs began sliding down ropes onto the deck; Adam, being the closest, figured he’d have to deal with these guys.

“I really should’ve stretched.” He joked.

Spiderman was surrounded by seven thugs, two had machine guns and one had a knife. One of the attackers charged for the wall-crawler and tried to punch him; but Adam caught his fist and forced it back into the thug’s face, Spidey then swung his leg around and kicked him away. The knife wielding criminal ran for Spiderman, but the hero shot a web at her stomach and pulled her forward; he then jumped over her and grabbed her shoulders with two other webs and swung her over his head, slamming her into the ground and knocking her out cold.

Adam asked, “Who are you guys?” but the thugs didn’t answer, so Spidey explained, “Okay, hi; I’m Spiderman. In case you didn’t know, Zzzax is bad news. Definitely want to keep him in prison.”

The two gang members with machine guns were about to fire, until Adam shot their guns with webs, sealing the barrels; after that, the hero spring-back-flipped and kicked them both off the boat and into the water. One of the other guys picked up the dropped knife and tried to strike Adam from behind, but his Spider-Sense warned him; so he jumped backwards and landed on the guy’s shoulders, then used his legs to flip the thug backwards and knock him out.

To finish off the thugs, Spiderman grabbed a piece of burning debris with his webs and threw it at the last two gang members; when it exploded upon impact, the purple-mask-wearers were knocked out.

Once that group was dealt with, Spiderman started making his way to the back of the boat; he called Twilight on the comm. “Spider-Girl, they’re trying to get inside the ship.”

“They want Zzzax.” Twilight replied. “We’ve got to stop them.”

Suddenly, Adam’s Spider-Sense warned him about an incoming threat; but when he saw it, he didn’t want to believe it. Flying towards the ship were three airborne spider robots, purple armoured plating and glowing green eyes. One of the robots flew right past the hero, while another grabbed him and hoisted Spidey into the air.

Making a joke, Spiderman said, “Well, aren’t you a handsome little devil.”

Spiderman kicked the robot away and began free falling back to the ship; that was until one of the other robots flew right into him and bashed Adam right to the back of the boat, where Twilight was.

The two Spider-Heroes felt it best to fight together, especially now they were surrounded by gang members and flying robots; five thugs in total, and still three spider robots.

As the heroes started fighting, Adam stated, “Have you seen these guys? A lot of money and tech here.”

Twilight replied, “Yeah, these guys aren’t messing around. They seem desperate to get their hands on Zzzax.”

Fighting was tough, but the thugs were starting to go down; the robots were flying and Twilight knocked down the last of the gang members.

But that didn’t mean that this was over; the heroes noticed a fourth chopper flying in, and from that chopper, a flare was shot. When Spider-Girl saw the flare, it made her look to the beach the boat was passing; on that beach, were more members of this gang. All of them were holding rocket launchers, and with the flare as their signal, they all fired.

The rockets blasted holes in the boat, water was seeping in, the ship was going down. The boat was flooding and there were guards trapped inside; not only that, but the flying spider robots were still attacking from above.

“Get inside the ship and help the crew!” Adam ordered. Twilight nodded and jumped off the side, she then fired two web-lines and pulled herself right into one of the blast holes. After she was gone, Adam finished, “I’ll deal with the flying knock-offs.” The hero then jumped up to the robots.

Inside the boat, Spider-Girl was crawling around, looking for anyone trapped inside; the ship was quickly filling up with water, she needed to work fast. She immediately found two guards inside the boat; one was trapped under a piece of debris, the other was trying to help him.

Using two web-lines, Twilight latched then onto the rubble then jumped over a pipe that was mounted to the ceiling. With the help of her weight, Twilight was able to use the pipe and the webs to pull the debris away.

“Oh my gosh, thank you.” One of the guards said, whilst helping up his friend. “There are more guards trapped deeper in the ship.”

Spider-Girl replied, “I’ll find them; get topside before this place goes under.”

After the guards made their way to the exit, the Spider-Hero had to go deeper into the ship in order to find the last of the trapped crew.

Twilight was crawling up a corridor, it was on its side, the boat was tipping over; the hero suddenly got a call from Adam outside. “You okay in there?”

Spider-Girl replied, “I’m trying to get out. Looking for civilians on the way; its bad in here, Adam”

She reached the top of her corridor and pulled herself into the large room with webs; this room was filled with storage crates and shipping containers, along with a huge gaping hole in the wall. Water was flooding the room, causing the ship to go down.

On the far side of the room, Twilight could hear something; it sounded like a muffled voice. Spider-Girl could just make out what the person was saying, “Is someone out there? Zzzax, he got out and threw me in here.”

The Spider-Hero jumped over the water and to the wall, she found herself by Zzzax’s holding cell, she could hear the guard inside.

Twilight replied, “Don’t worry, I’ll get you out.”

She gripped the edges of the cell and attempted to pry it open; however, the door was electronically locked. Luckily, Twilight thought of another plan; using the visor in her mask to find the wiring system that was powering the door. After scanning the walls, she found the main cable and followed it to the junction box; once she fired an electric web at the fuses, the power began to shut down.

Now that all power in that cell was off, Twilight web-zipped back over to the door and was now able to pry it open.

When the door came down, Twilight got a look at the one inside, the sight made her gasp.

Standing before her, was Zzzax; she had just freed him. And with the power off and the meta-power dampeners disabled, Micro Chips was able to power himself up and brake free from the harness; he felt a huge surge of electricity pass through his body.

The electric villain noticed Twilight in the room and stated, “Thanks a million, babe.” He then blasted her with a bolt of electricity, sending her flying across the room. Zzzax hovered off the ground and blasted Spider-Girl with more electricity, holding her in the air.

Spider-Girl managed to mutter, “But, I... saved you.”

“Oh really.” Zzzax replied, before blasting her through a wall, sending her somewhere else in the ship.

When Micro Chips was alone, he attempted to fly away; that was until a door flew open, three of the purple hockey mask thugs entered the room and found the electric villain. One of them said into a radio, “We have eyes on Zzzax.” Another aimed a weapon at the villain and fired a power-dampening clamp onto his leg; once again cutting off his powers.

Meanwhile, Twilight was recovering from being electrocuted; when she got up, she saw a hole in the ceiling and that she was surrounded by more masked thugs.

Spider-Girl began fighting by grabbing a piece of debris with her webs, and throwing it at two of the criminals; while she kept fighting them, she called Adam to tell him what happened.

“Spiderman, Zzzax got away!” Twilight yelled into the comm.

Adam replied, “Not exactly. I just saw them drag Micro Chips, wrapped in a tarp, to one of their choppers; I'm going after them now."

When the last thug went down, Spider-Girl web-zipped up through the hole in the roof and landed on the top-deck, or the side; the ship was fully on its side, and was heading right for the peer. While she was assessing the situation, Twilight noticed one of the choppers was surrounded by the flying spider robots.

The helicopter’s side-door opened, revealing the passenger; Tombstone came into full view, with a rocket launcher in his hand.

“Tombstone?” Twilight muttered.

The gangster aimed the weapon at the fuel tanks on the side of the ship, and fired; the rocket hit the tanks and knocked them into the water, they exploded, spreading fuel into the water and setting the bay on fire.

Twilight once again yelled into the comm, “Spiderman! Things just went from bad, to Canterlot Bay on fire bad.”

“That’s... wow, okay.” Adam replied. “Heading back now. We’ll deal with Zzzax later.”

Spider-Girl then noticed a boat with people on it in the water that the flames were reaching, the prison ship was also about to crush it. Twilight quickly web-zipped to the boat and landed on its front; using two web-lines, she latched them onto the peer and pulled the boat forward. But it wasn’t going fast enough, so Twilight turned around and shot an electric-web at the engine; the boat then jumped to life and raced towards the land and out of harms way.

The ship’s propellers had reached the peer, the people started running for their lives as the propellers began shredding through the wooden dock. Twilight jumped off the boat and in front of the deadly engine; Spider-Girl started pelleting it with webs, trying to stop it.

Twilight knew that the only way to stop it fully, would be to pry it off the ship entirely; so Twilight shot two web-lines at the engine, but something else happened.

A bat shaped ninja-star was thrown from the sky and cut right through Twilight’s webs; the hero looked up and got a real fright.

Morbius, the Living Vampire, swooped down with his giant bat wings and grabbed Spider-Girl by the shoulders; he then threw her across the peer, away from the propeller. He then landed in front of her, grinning at the hero with a smile full of fangs.

Spider-Girl didn’t notice the propeller breaking free from her webs, her eyes were fixed on the vampire. In a spine chilling voice, Morbius stated, “I remember you.”

Twilight clenched her fist, full of anger; she replied, “You don’t know what you took from me.”

Suddenly, a black chopper flew over their heads; Morbius saw that as his cue to leave. The vampire hissed at the Spider-Hero before flapping his wings to fly away, but Twilight wasn’t just going to let him go. Spider-Girl fired webs at the vampire, trying to stop him, but he just kept dodging them; Morbius flew away with the helicopters, Twilight was about to chase after them.

“Spider-Girl, I need your help.”

Twilight turned back to see Spiderman, helping the people get away and trying to stop the spinning blades. But the urge to got after Morbius was too much, she took one more step away before she realised the right thing to do.

Spider-Girl turned back to the propeller and had an idea; she shot a web-grenade right in the centre of the propeller and watched it explode, the entire engine was coating in webs. The pressure was so great, that the spinning blade broke off its mantle and went flying into the ocean. The ship was stopped in its tracks, the people were safe, it was over.

After that entire situation, rescue boats were sailing around the bay; they were putting out the fires and helping anyone who had fallen in the water. The Spiders were helping right up until they arrived; Spiderman landed on a lamppost on the dock, overseeing the boats.

“First responders are on the site, at least.” Adam muttered to himself. “The police are still fishing, but there’s no sign of any of them.”

He was then able to swing back over to the city, where Twilight was waiting for him; she was standing on a rooftop, just looking at the sea. Spidey landed next to her; once they were sure that no one was around or watching, they took off their masks.

Twilight then asked, “Who were those guys?”

“Whoever they are, they’re packing some serious tech.” Adam replied.

Twilight looked away from her friend, really concerned, “Now they have all that, plus Zzzax, Tombstone and Morbius." She had already got Adam up to speed with what she saw, Tombstone and Morbius were working with this gang, or the gang were working for them.

Adam then reassured her, “Hey, whatever they’re planning. We’ll find them, and we’ll stop them.” With that said, Adam needed to be sure about something; so he asked a question he didn’t really want to ask. “Listen Twilight, about Morbius.....”

“Don’t.” Twilight replied.

But Adam continued, “Look, when Shining Armour died...”

“I said don’t.”

Spider-Girl reapplied her mask and was ready to go home but before she left, she turned back to Spiderman and stated, “I know the job; but I can’t forget what he did.” Twilight then jumped off the building and began web-swinging away.

Whilst Twilight was swinging home from the botched prison transfer, she got a call on her mask-phone. When she answered, her heart sank from happiness; it was someone she’d wanted to talk to face to face for a long time.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

The Spider-Hero perched on a rooftop and replied, “Dad?”

“Yeah, Twily; its me. I’m out, and I want to see you.” Night Light explained.

Twilight could feel the tears forming in her eyes, “Yeah. Yes of course; where?” she replied.

Night Light gave her the location, “The roof of our apartment. Your Mom’s out getting supplies; says we’re having a welcome home dinner for me.” He chuckled at that last statement.

“I’ll be right there.” Twilight replied. She then ended the call and began swinging all the way home, she couldn’t wait to see her father again. However, a small part of her wanted to be careful; Night Light may be her father, but their last proper encounter ended in them fighting.

With her web-skills, it only took her a few minutes to get back to her apartment building, she landed on a billboard that overlooked her building; and there he was. Sat on a chair on the roof of the apartment, Night Light put down his coffee cup and stood out of his chair; he could see his superhero of a daughter.

“We really going to do this with the mask on?” he asked.

She didn’t want to, but Twilight had to be a little cautious; the hero replied, “Depends.”

Night Light laughed slightly at that remark, he then explained, “Relax. I’m not trying to get my butt kicked by my daughter again.” With that said, Twilight jumped down and took her mask off; the look on her face made Night Light chuckle again. “Your brother used to give me that exact same look.”

Without saying another word, the two of them came together and hugged; Night Light pressed his lips against her head, kissing his daughter’s forehead. However, his fatherly bond with Twilight was telling him that something was off.

“Twilight?” he asked. “Twilight, what’s wrong?”

Swallowing her fear, Twilight replied, “Michael Morbius. He’s back in the city.”

Night Light shook his head, he knew what she was thinking, “Listen, what happened to Shining Armour; this is not on you.” But Twilight was still looking down. “We can’t let him live up here.” Night Light explained, pointing at his head. “Its just another kind of prison.”

“Its not that easy, Dad.” Twilight replied. “I was right there with him, when Morbius killed him. And I couldn’t save him.”

“I never said it was easy.” Her father said back. “But sometimes, you have to push the past away, so you can make room for the future.”

Putting his arm around Twilight’s shoulder, Night Light explained, “I’m living proof of that, my parole means Prowler’s retired, for good. But I wasn’t going to be that man anymore anyway; because that man is finished, he’s gone. And I never got a chance to thank you for that.”

The two of them hugged one more time; Night Light then sat back down and Twilight sat opposite him. They decided not to talk about hero work anymore, now they just wanted to catch up and spend some time as father and daughter.

“How are you and Sunset doing?”

“We’re fine. I mean, I love her; and we always know when one of us needs the other.”

“I’m so proud of you Twily.”

Meanwhile, Spiderman was dangling from a web that was hanging onto a crane; he was on the phone to his wife, they were discussing the potential house.

“I’m thinking, we sell the apartment, and maybe our wages cover the rest.” Adam suggested.

However, Fluttershy replied, “Honey, I don’t make that much, I work at the animal shelter. And you don’t have a job.”

That comment made Adam sigh; being Spiderman and having a full time career were just cancelling each other out, one more than the other. Adam couldn’t think of anything that could be done for this, but he didn’t want to deprive the woman he loved, her dream home.

“I may have one idea.” Fluttershy then said. “We could take out a loan from a bank. I know it would put us into some debt, but it wouldn’t have to be a lot; just enough to start us off.”

But Adam replied, “Sweetheart, my parents did the exact same thing to buy the house they live in now; and they’re still paying it off to this day.”

This was going nowhere, there was no way of doing this; they needed the money, but there was just no way of getting it.

“When I get home tonight, I say we sit down and talk about this.” Spidey explained.

“Not tonight. We’re all going to Friendship Land.” Fluttershy explained. “You didn’t forget, did you?”

Adam quickly fibbed, “No, of course not.” He then let go of the web he was holding and started swinging down the street. “I’ll see you tonight, love you.”

He heard Fluttershy sigh in response, “I love you too.” With that said, the call ended.

Spiderman landed on a rooftop and perched on the edge, he commented on the end of that phone call, “She sighed. That’s how you know she’s not mad, just disappointed. And somehow, that’s so much worst.”

Suddenly, Adam noticed something in the distance; he couldn’t believe his eyes or his luck, but he finally had a lead to the new gang in town. Spiderman spotted one of those flying spider-robots hovering above the buildings; no doubt it was mapping out the surrounding areas.

The Spider-Hero watched as it landed on a building higher than the one Adam was on; without alerting the robot, Adam web-zipped to that building to try and sneak up on the spider-droid.

Adam saw the robot facing away from him, so in a quick act, he shot the robot with an electric-web; the spider-droid was temporarily disabled. And now that he had one of these robots at his disposal, a thought occurred, “Maybe I can try something out.”

Spiderman scanned the machine and found what he was looking for, the control panel hidden behind the armoured plating; Spidey pride away the cover and was granted access to the main system. With a little rewiring, Adam was able to activate the ‘Return Home’ setting; this caused the robot to reactivate and fly off into the sky.

With the robot on its way, Spiderman wasted no time going after it.

After a few minutes of following the spider-droid, Adam could see where it was going; the building looked like an old abandoned shopping mall. Spidey didn’t want the incoming robot to catch anyone’s attention; so with a quick motion, Adam once again hit the robot with an electric-web, shutting it down.

Spiderman watched the robot land on another rooftop and explode upon impact; this allowed the hero to focus on the location ahead.

Adam landed on the roof of the shopping mall, and inside was exactly what he expected; through the skylight he was next to, Adam could see the purple-hockey-masked gang members. The hero really needed more intel on these guys, so he went to his resident technical support.

“Hey Sunset.” Adam said as he started a call with Sunset Shimmer. “I’m at an old shopping centre on the east side, and those masked thugs are here.”

Sunset replied, “Twilight told me all about them; and this is not the first time we’ve tangoed with them.” She explained. Sunset then accessed an old case file they had, it dated back about two years. “These guys call themselves, the True Humans. Basically, they’re a low rate band of thugs who hate Meta-Humans; they think life was better for this city before people with super-powers showed up.”

Spiderman joked, “Who started this club, Gilda Griffon?” he then focused up again. “This place could be where they took Zzzax.” Spidey ended the call, but was going to keep Sunset Shimmer posted about whatever he found.

The only way to get some answers would be to snoop around, which means that these thugs would have to be taken care of.

Two gang-members were guarding an entrance into the building, Adam jumped down through the skylight and landed on a gargoyle that was mounted on the wall. While the two guards were talking, Adam noticed a way to distract one; a small generator was left on the side of the room, a well shot electric-web would cause the diversion he needed.

Adam fired the web, and the generator began to spark; this caught the attention of one of the guards, so they went over to investigate. This allowed Spidey the opportunity to shoot two web-lines at the other thug, pull them up to the gargoyle and tie them up in webs.

“Nighty night.” The hero joked.

And with no one watching his back, Adam saw fit to web-zip towards the second thug and slam him into the ground, knocking him out cold.

Now with a way in, Adam pride open the doors and made his way through the mall. Rarity would shriek at this place; plants were over growing, dirt was all over the floor, this place was disgusting.

For a secret base of criminals, Spiderman didn’t run into many guards; he did his best to avoid the ones he did run into, but its like there was barely anyone here. But what Adam found next was surprising, especially for this group; the hero wandered the halls before running into a research lab.

On the work benches, were certain items relating to three characters that Spiderman was all too familiar with.

“Tombstone.” All Adam thought about this was the fact he shot Fluttershy that one time, the time Adam almost lost her. Next to the work bench, Spidey noticed three yellow chemical barrels; the label on the side read ‘Diox-3’. Adam commented, “I remember this stuff; this is the chemical Tombstone was exposed to, its what made him what he is now.”

On the other side of the room, Adam saw vials of yellow liquid on the second work-bench; Spiderman also recognised this stuff. “This is the serum that turned Dr Morbius into a vampire; is he trying to replicate this for his crew?”

And finally, the last bench had a machine harness placed on a mannequin body; it was the harness that amplified Zzzax’s powers, when he was part of the Insidious Six. “The Tinkerer created this gear, while she was working for Morbius; he must be trying to charge it up for his new gang members.”

Spiderman had seen enough, if these villains gave their gear to the crew, they’d all be unstoppable.

The only way to stop this would be to find Tombstone, or Morbius, or any of them; using an air vent, Spiderman crawled through the air-duct to get around more of the building. While getting around, Adam called Sunset again, to give her the update.

“Sunset, I have the endgame for you. I think Morbius is trying to rebuild the Insidious Six; with old members and new ones.” Adam explained.

The red-haired girl replied, “That would explain all those break-outs; but then how come we haven’t heard from any of the other super-villains?” Sunset had a valid point, none of the other missing villains had been seen since they were freed. The only one to make an appearance in the last few months was Molten Man.

Spidey replied, “I don’t know; but I’m going to find them and get to the bottom of this.”

“Remember to call if you need backup.”

“Will do.”

Spiderman dropped out of the vent and into another room; to Adam’s surprise, this room actually had a guard in it. The mask thug turned around to see the super-hero behind him; the thug drew and knife from his pocket and went to attack the hero.

But Adam had seen his fair share of knife crimes; without even trying, Adam punched the guy in the face, disorienting him. After the criminal was stunned, Adam punched his face again; this one broke his mask and knocked him out.

“I need answers, not more questions.” Adam commented. He noticed the computer that this thug was watching over; Spidey then stated, “Let’s see what you were looking after.”

Suddenly, Adam’s Spider-Sense warned him about an incoming threat; the Spider-Hero jumped out of the way to dodge the spider-droid that just pounced at him from behind and took out one of the none essential computer screens.

Using humour to calm himself, Adam stated, “Can I just say how beautiful your design is. It would be a crime, no, an act of vandalism to take you apart.” The hero then raised his fists, ready to fight. “But that won’t stop me.”

The spider-droid pounced at the hero again, this time Adam didn’t dodge; he let the robot hit him and they both crashed through the wall into a large open room.

As Spiderman got to his feet, two more robots joined their arachnid brother in the room; all three were ready to tear the hero apart.

Adam started the fight by grabbing a piece of debris with his webs and swinging it around like a wrecking-ball; the rubble bashed away two of the robots, and Adam threw the debris at the last one. When the chunk of concrete hit the spider-droid, Spidey took advantage of its guard being down and began punching and kicking it; right up until he summersaulted over the robot and used two web-lines to pull himself back feet first, through the robot, smashing it into pieces.

The Spider-Hero started punching and kicking one of the other two robots, he then kicked it away; but it wasn’t down yet. The tampering it detected activated its self-destruct system; Adam grabbed the robot with his web-lines and threw it at the other, the explosion caused both of them to be destroyed.

Just when Adam thought the fight was over, he noticed the doors swing open and a group of the True Humans ran into the room.

"Finally, I was wondering when Animal Control would show up.” Adam joked.

The leading thug stated to his crew, “Surround him, Tombstone wants his head.”

Spiderman grabbed the leading gang-member with a web-line and pulled him forward; the hero then upper-cutted him into the air, jumped up after him and began punching the snot out of him. When he was down, Adam fought with the other three True Humans; punching and kicking them to the point that they were knocked unconscious.

Spidey looked around the room, the fight was over; Adam took a huge sigh of relieve, almost falling to the ground with exhaustion. But he remembered the computer he was trying to access; pulling himself forward with webs, Adam landed back in the room with the computer.

“What were you protecting?” Adam asked.

The file that Adam was able to access was a video, the curious hero pushed play, wanting to find out more.

The video showed an empty room somewhere in this mall, with an empty cage in the centre of the floor; it was empty now. The lock looked like it had been fried open with electricity; something wanted out of there.

Tombstone came into frame, walking towards the empty cage; he examined the lock. Behind him, the gang-leader could hear something coming; but what caught his attention was the True Human thug lying behind the cage, he was still alive, somehow.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Zzzax teleported into the room; his hands were supercharged with energy, and he released that power by blasting Tombstone with hundreds of volts of electricity. Zzzax watched the gang-leader fall to his knees, the energy seemed to be weakening him.

“Nice knowing you.” Micro Chips stated.

But that wasn’t happening; Tombstone got back up as the electric blast was getting weaker. Zzzax was running out of energy, until he could no longer keep blasting.

The weakened electric-villain fell to the floor; Tombstone got up, completely unharmed by the blast. Brushing himself off, the gang-leader asked, “Is that, the best you can do?” Tombstone then grabbed Zzzax by his neck and slammed him against the back wall. “They said you had the potential to be a killer. Imagine my disappointment.”

Tombstone punched his hand into the wall, he pulled out a power cable; with one swift motion, Tombstone stabbed the end of the cable into Micro Chips’ neck, he cried out in pain. His wails got quieter as he started to disappear; the gang-leader watched as Zzzax’s body was absorbed into the cable, until there was nothing left of him.

Once Micro Chips was gone, Tombstone spoke into the radio he had with him, “Life signs?”

Someone on the other end replied, “No life signs detected, sir, he’s gone.”

Once the job was done, Tombstone just put the radio in his pocket and left the room like nothing had happened. After that, the video ended.

Spiderman couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed, the time frame on the video indicated that this happened just over an hour ago. Adam didn’t what to believe this was happening, but it was; Micro Chips was dead.

Spidey then concluded the new endgame of this gang and its leaders, “Tombstone isn’t breaking super-villains out of prison to team up with them; he’s taking them out.”

Adam had seen enough, he needed to get out of here and warn the girls; every Meta-Human in the city now had a target on their back, including Equestria’s Heroes.