Steel Renegade

Hello there. You must be new to Fillydelphia!

I’m the Spectacular Steel Renegade, protector of this city. Have you read that new article in the Canterlot Times about the “Fillydelphia Renaissance”? Most of that was brought around by yours truly. I’m not really bragging, just paraphrasing the article.

At any rate, despite the forty-fold decrease in violent crime in the past few weeks, I’d still advise caution. The streets are still super dangerous after dark because, let’s face it, I can’t be everywhere at once and the cops are still not particularly helpful.

What’s that? You want to know how I got my start in the superhero business? I’m sorry, but I- You’re offering to buy drinks? Well why didn’t you say so in the first place?

Now I’ll only tell you this stuff if you promise to never try and take up hero-ing yourself, okay? It’s not a career for just anypony. Take it from a stallion who knows.

Now, where to begin?

Well, I guess the very beginning is a pretty logical place.

It all started in a bar on the corner of Dill and 23rd (which, by the way, I highly recommend. Their cauliflower bites are the BOMB)...

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(Several Weeks Ago)

“I think you’ve had enough, buddy.”

The bat pony sitting at the counter looked up blearily, the soft grey fur around his mouth matted and his breath smelling strongly of cider already.

“Look here ‘buddy’,” he said thickly, “I just learned that on top of losing my job and my house, I’m gonna lose my life next. I think that justifies a few more hard ciders.”

“I’m sorry,” the bartender said, his tone suddenly full of concern, “Is there anything I can do?”

The bat chuckled grimly and slammed his hoof down on the counter. When he lifted it again, a single bullet was sitting there.

“Put that right here,” he said, tapping his forehead, “and if that doesn’t work, make something up.”

“Cancer?”

The bat snorted with mirthless laughter, peering into his mug to check for any last dregs of alcohol. He was already visibly more sober, and his eyes were clearing up more and more by the second.

“I wish. No, for me it’s a super-rare condition called ‘Runway Mitosis’. It’s a fancy way of saying ‘your cells are having a population explosion and it’s gonna kill you’.”

”I’m very sorry,” the barkeep said again, “but I cannot legally serve you any more. Despite the fact that, erm… You appear to be sober again...”

The bat shrugged wearily and shoved a bag of Bits across the table for the bartender. “Another side effect of RM. I metabolize everything at super speed to fuel the constant cellular activity. Thanks for getting me this far. Keep the change.”

The bartender waved as the bat left his bar. “Good luck pal!”

“I’ll need more than luck,” the bat called back, pulling on his jacket, “I’ll need a friggin’ miracle!”

“You never know!”

The bat chuckled as he left, shivering slightly in the frigid wind.

(Yep. I needed a- What’s that? Why is this section in parenthesis? Well this is my little fourth wall-breaking narration/voice-over piece and it seemed like the best way to go about it. Anywho… I needed a friggin’ miracle to save me.)

The bat shuffled through the streets of Phillydelphia, hood pulled up, when a hoof was thrust roughly in his path.

He looked around and saw several hoodlum types leaning against a shop front. He sighed, knowing what was coming, and resigned himself to a beat-down.

“Gimme yer Bits,” the leader said roughly, “an’ dem pills we seen youse poppin’ all the time.”

“Those pills are my prescription chemo tabs. They’ll kill you. As for my Bits…” he shrugged, “Go to Tartarus. What’s mine’s mine. Unlike you lot, I actually made something of my life and earned these through hard work and an honest-to-Faust job.”

The thug’s nostrils flared in anger and he took a swing at him.

The bat moved with lightning speed that seemed out of place for such a seemingly despondent pony, and caught the thug’s poorly-weighted strike. Before the poor sap had any idea what was going on, he twisted his foreleg savagely, breaking it.

The thug’s scream of agony set the rest of the gang in motion. Most of them ran but two, either the bravest or the dumbest, took a run at him.

The bat socked the first thug in the face so hard that he was effectively clotheslined, then whirled around to face the second, drawing two silver-plated handguns from the depths of his jacket and aiming them at the thug.

“Buddy,” He said wearily, “Please don’t make me pull these triggers. I’m having a bad day as is.”

The gangbanger glanced down at his incapacitated gang mates, then at the two guns being aimed at him, then ran for his life.

The bat holstered his empty guns and continued on his way, leaving his attackers broken in the street, sighing and shaking his head. The gang activity was getting out of hand around this town. Not that the mayor cared…

He tried to swallow his bitterness at the dismal state of his beloved city, but only partially succeeded. It disgusted him how much the city that he had been born and raised in had deteriorated since his childhood.

He kept walking until he reached a wagon in an abandoned lot beside an industrial garbage incinerator and went in. His home was cramped and musty-smelling, but it was windproof and the incinerator next door kept things toasty.

He hung his jacket on a peg by the door and pulled out a small bottle of chemo tabs from one of the pockets.

Swallowing two of the bitter pills, he grabbed a water-filled canteen from the shelf above the privy. Every day he came back to this little wagon and waited for his chemo tabs to run out and kill him. It wasn’t the most pleasant of existences, but it was what he could afford and besides, if he was gonna die, might as well not get too comfy.

Snorting, he rooted around in the cabinets and found an old MRE from a military surplus store. He stared at it for a good long while before finally deciding that he wasn’t quite that desperate yet and set it back down, closing the cabinet.

He etched a tally mark on a battered wooden cabinet door with a knife and sat on the sofa that doubled as his bed.

The sofa made a funny clinking noise as he sat, and he was immediately on his hooves. He grabbed the knife and lifted the sofa cushion.

Under the piece of furniture was a small puddle of liquid that looked like quicksilver. He frowned. To his certain knowledge, he had never had mercury in this wagon.

Out of curiosity, he poked the metallic liquid with his hoof.

(Yeah… not the smartest move, but I was already dying. YOLO, and all that jazz.)

Instantly the liquid raced up his foreleg. He staggered back with a yell, slashing at his arm with the knife. The knife blade sparked and shattered on impact. Then the liquid began to sink under his skin. He screamed. It felt as though his entire foreleg was on fire.

Then the sensation began to spread.

He stepped back, still screaming, and tripped.

His head hit a chair on the way down and at once, everything went black.