Origins: The Hero's Checklist
The silent, tranquil night in Maretropolis was interrupted by a crash. Two trashcans tipped and fell loudly to the ground as a stallion bellowed through them. Momentarily stumbling after the collision, he regains his balance and continues sprinting into the night. Breathing heavily, the stallion races down the street, eyes darting around, searching for a place to hide or turn. Not having too light a coat or mane, with his being a darkened blue and midnight black respectively, the running pony was only further camouflaged into the night by the pitch black hoodie he wore. Thus, hiding wouldn’t be too difficult, he thought, if he could just find a back alley or shadowy area. This stallion would need to hide, as he knew he couldn’t outrun her.
“Horseapples! Why did this have to go south?” Although the stallion wanted to vent his anger with a cathartic yell, screaming isn’t the best option when you don’t want to be found. And right now, he really didn’t want to be found. So he silently cursed his luck in his own head as he continued down the street.
“Of all nights and of all jobs, the boss chooses me for this job tonight!” At first, he would have been fine with taking the job. It was an ordinary night and it was a simple job. All he had to do is what he usually did. Blend in. Make the deal. Get out of there. And that was all still true. For most, it was an ordinary, quiet night. And the job was still a simple three steps.
“Simple until the guy you’re dealing to ends up being followed by one of the costumed freaks around here and getting out of there means shaking some tail!” And so the stallion continued to run, not seeing anyplace to properly hide. Yet, looking back, he didn’t exactly see her anymore either.
Slowing down to catch his breath, the stallion pauses to listen for the sound of hoofsteps approaching. Not hearing anything, he gains a relieved sense of security.
“That’s all it took to outrun her...I guess she’s not so marevelous after all.”
The stallion turns forward once more to continue his escape, but is met with a hoof directly to the muzzle. The night’s silence is interrupted once more as the thug flies a few feet backwards and hits the ground with a thud. Grabbing his pained muzzle, the stallion could only rock on the ground as she slowly walked towards him. Opening his eyes to see who had just broken his nose, the stallion’s eyes become as wide as plates as he sees none other than Mistress Marevelous, untying her lasso, above him.
“Who’s marevelous now!?” Spike finished, practically screaming the line as he excitedly turned the last page of the comic, closing the book. The comic, a limited edition copy of “The Adventures of Miss Marevelous Volume Three,” wouldn’t usually be out for reading like this, yet Spike thought it necessary that he break out the best stuff for this occasion.
“And that, Thorax...is a comic book.”
Compared to his best friend’s outwards enthusiasm, Thorax was in all honesty no less excited. He was just keeping his excitement more on the inside along with some genuine confusion.
“Wow...that’s really cool, Spike...what are they for again?”
Spike, feeling a sense of failure for not immediately hooking his friend on comic books, quickly and loudly gave his reply.
“It’s for you, Thorax! You enjoy comic books cause they’re so awesome.”
Regardless of Spike’s vague reasoning, Thorax did understand the excitement to be felt behind the concept of comic books. He had been pretty excited while Spike was reading the comic to him, the exaggerated action making him feel invigorated and the cool characters filling him with admiration.
“Are all comic books like this, Spike?”
“Only the best ones. And Miss Marvelous is one of the best superheroes out there!”
“Superheroes? Is that what you call a pony in a comic.”
“Well, yeah...But they have to be tough, super tough. And really brave and awesome! They’ve got cool costumes and they save ponies.”
“Oh...okay. So Miss Marvelous...”
“Miss Marevelous.”
“Marevelous?”
“It’s a pun. It makes her name cool. Superheroes usually have cool names.”
“Oh, um...so Miss Marevelous is a superhero because she has all of those things.”
“Exactly! But most importantly superheroes have to save ponies! If they don’t or they’re evil, then they’re super villains.”
“I guess that makes sense, but what if a superhero has to...”
Before Thorax could ask, he was interrupted by a plume of green flame and smoke quickly erupting from his friend’s mouth. From the spark came a wisp of magic that transformed itself into a letter. Thorax had gotten used to this by now and recognized it as the postal transportation magic the small dragon was capable of. The first time it happened, however, he was sure he was going to have to take Spike to the hospital before the panicking had been calmed by Spike telling him that it was a normal occurrence.
Now interested in who may have sent Spike the letter, Thorax watched as his friend’s eyes moved up and down the page, reading the note. He wouldn’t have to wait long for an answer, however, as his friend’s quick pace to life carried him forward once more.
“Sorry about this, Thorax, but Twilight needs me back in Ponyville.”
Grabbing his comic and giving Thorax a quick side hug before heading towards the door, Spike looked back over his shoulder.
“See ya, Thorax. Say bye to Cadence and Shining for me. Oh, and Flurry!”
With that, Spike was out the door of his room in the castle and Thorax was left to his own thoughts and questions regarding superheroes.
Thorax had openly resided in the Crystal Empire for quite some time now. Enough time, he thought, for the ponies around him to really start to warm up to him. At least, that was the dream. And at the moment that’s still at it was, a dream. Sure, a large portion of his new pony neighbors had made an effort to extend their friendship. Some very amiable citizens did so on their own and others after repeated insistences by their Princess Cadence. However, he was always aware of the few dirty looks and uncomfortable stares he received as he walked around. No pony would ever say anything to him either out of courtesy or as not to make a scene. Although he guessed it was usually the latter, Thorax was grateful that most ponies had become fond of his presence.
The changeling’s expanding group of acquaintances within the Empire was only one sign of his time there. Thorax’s wings, for one, became an unexpected mark of his new life. Changelings innately fed and thus existed upon love and Thorax had come to learn that under the Princess of Love, the Crystal Empire had become akin to that of an expansive, perpetual garden. Food in the form of love and magic constantly surrounded him as long as he stayed within the Empire. Initially shocked by the constant influx of sustenance, Thorax had to learn not to gorge himself all the time. There had been quite a few times early on in his stay in which a guard or other pony had found him bloated and unable to move from overindulging himself on the love around him.
Luckily for Thorax, Cadence was quick to find a solution for her new friend. After many attempts and a few weeks of practice, she taught him how to channel any excess love within him towards his wings. He was initially quite frightful at the prospect, feeling that he wasting any love he didn’t use to survive. However, after Cadence had told him that the Crystal Ponies received their shine through a similar process, Thorax began to try it for himself. This was why the changeling was quite ecstatic when he first gazed upon his wings sparkling with magic. Having even just a part of him shine like the rest of the ponies around him did made him feel somehow included and even wanted.
He was definitely no longer the scared, friendless creature he had been before Spike had convinced everypony to accept him. For that, Thorax was eternally grateful and would often remind the small dragon of so. He was further grateful when Spike took it upon himself to share pieces of pony culture with him, including opening Thorax’s world up to the entirely new prospect of comics and superheroes. The notion had immediately fascinated him; the idea of a certain pony or group of ponies rising above normality to save others was extremely exciting.
It was by this definition that Thorax labeled Spike as a superhero. He had, in fact, quite literally risen above the Empire, on the shoulders of his adoring fans no less, to save him. In actuality, Thorax considered himself in the company of many superheroes. He had the honor of eventually meeting all of Equestria’s Princesses, who all had their own unique abilities reserved for them over normal ponies. Similarly, Spike had told him tales of the way his close friends had risked their lives to save Equestria. Didn’t that make all of them superheroes? When Thorax had asked Spike this question, the small dragon surprised him by giving only a short laugh and delivering the line “You have no idea.” It would only be later that Thorax would learn of their adventure in which they quite literally became superheroes.
Thorax went through a similar line of thinking every time he walked through the streets of the Empire. Whether it be pondering his new life, considering how to handle the new relationships he made, or even wondering about trivial pieces of pony life that somepony would later have to explain to him, Thorax always had something on his mind as he went about a stroll. However, his thinking would often be stopped by a pony acknowledging him in the street, usually a familiar face saying hello or a small colt or filly asking him about being a changeling.
He remembered specifically an incident in which a brown colt with a chestnut mane had walked up to him in order to ask “Why you look like a bug?” The colt’s mother had rushed over seconds later and apologized for her son’s rudeness. Thorax only smiled and assured her that it was fine. He admitted to enjoying talk with other ponies no matter the circumstance.
It was the memory of this encounter that caused Thorax to notice how little ponies were around today. He had been heading in the direction of the market and the center of the Empire, which usually became packed as one progressed closer. However, Thorax was already a decent part of the way there and it seemed like he was completely alone on the street he was walking on. Finding the prospect both strange and a tad unnerving, Thorax chose to pick up his pace, hoping it would get him to a group of ponies quicker. The changeling’s wings buzzed, giving off both a dull, yet incessant sound and a light shimmer visually.
Thorax stayed close to the ground as he flew, barley hovering above the street as he quickly levitated towards the center of the Empire. His eyes began darting around almost as quickly as his wings buzzed, trying to find the ponies that usually strolled the paths he took. After coming to the end of a few deserted streets, Thorax halted his flight and shook back to the ground. Becoming increasingly afraid in the midst of this impromptu seclusion, he focused on the magic within himself for comfort. The silence around him seemed to have its own deafening choir, yet Thorax began drowning it out as he channeled the love within him.
Love, or at least the kind of love that was available as magic, cannot happen without at least two creatures. It is the bond between others that sparks love and what gives off the magic Thorax was currently channeling. Thus, the love within Thorax soothed him, as it gave the artificial presence of another amidst his current loneliness. This continued for a short while until Thorax’s wings began to dim as he started channeling the love that was stored in them. Not wanting to use up that love and needing to replenish his wings’ shine, Thorax switched his focus to the love in the air. And that’s when he felt it.
Due to the abnormal amount of love shared within the Crystal Empire, the innately social magic of love connects everypony at any given moment. Thorax, by focusing on the love in the air and following it as if he were hanging onto a rope, could use the magic around him as a guide, letting him now where other ponies were. Immediately, he scolded himself for not thinking to do so earlier when he felt alone, but he soon grew preoccupied with an unusual scene he felt.
Focusing on the love of the ponies in the Empire he could feel a ways down a large collection of individual hotspots that the love in the air went through. Knowing these were the hearts of ponies, he could tell that that a large group of ponies had gathered there. However, usually when this happened, the large number of hearts in one place gave off even more love than usual. At the moment, Thorax felt, the the love in that area was quite lacking. In fact, the trail of magic leading to that location was flickering as if something was blocking the feeling of love from nearing there. Or leaving there.
Immediately, Thorax quit channeling the love in the air and used his wings to speed towards where the ponies were grouped together. The only way a group of ponies that large would be unable to feel and give off love is if they were in mass preoccupied by a another, opposed emotion. Whatever it was they were feeling, fear, sadness, or even anger, it couldn’t be good.
Thorax’s hurried pace succeeded in getting him to the scene rather quickly, as he turned a corner to see a panicked sea of Crystal Ponies in a matter of minutes. The changeling had flown quite high to get there faster and as he hovered back to the ground, he took a moment to take in the scene around him. The ponies were clearly worried and some at the edge of the group were even shaking. Gazing towards what the ponies were gathered around, Thorax saw that a squadron of guards were standing between the crowd and the Empire’s newly established bank.
He didn’t know if it was the comic Spike had showed him earlier or a general intuition, but Thorax could immediately tell what was happening. Landing behind the crowd of ponies, who were still much too occupied with the scene before them to notice his arrival, Thorax once again tapped into the love in the air. Although it was sparse in the area due tot he hostile situation, Thorax could still pick up on the small amount of love in everypony to assess the situation.
Focusing on the magic inside the bank, Thorax first picked up on a couple of hearts grouped together, giving off a severely minuscule stream of love.
“Ponies...and they’re scared,” Thorax realized. He could only assume they were hostages and it confirmed why royal guards would be outside and why everypony was so disturbed. However, what disturbed Thorax was the hearts of one of these ponies. It was still grouped with the others, yet this one was giving off noticeably more magic. Thorax knew this meant that the pony was not as frightened as the others, or had a better connection with the magic around them.
“It couldn’t be,” Thorax whispered to himself. Sure enough, however, when the changeling focused on the magic being given off by this heart, he immediately recognized it as belonging to Prince of the Crystal Empire and captain of the royal guard Shining Armor.
The situation for Thorax went immediately from disturbing to terrifying. Not only were, scared ponies in danger, one of closest his friends and a Prince of Equestria was in the same situation. Wanting to know how bad the situation would be for them, Thorax switched his focus to the other ponies in the bank. He could feel four other presences in the building. They were more spread out and even moving, yet their hearts were giving off a similarly low level of love to the hostages. Thorax assumed this was because their hearts were preoccupied with malice, not love, and identified them as the aggressors.
“Okay. Not good. Not good.” Thorax began to panic as the direness of what lied before him dawned on his frightened mind. However, before the realization could fully sink in, Thorax’s attention was drawn to movement at the front of the bank. Quickly flying above the crowd to see what was occurring, Thorax silently flashed into the appearance of a small bird as not to alert anyone of his presence. He could see the entire crowd of ponies squirm and the guards in front tense as the front door to the bank cracked open just slightly.
“Okay!” A gruff, if not forcibly low, voice started. “Your Prince here thought he could just teleport in here and take us out. But he don’t know we got ourselves some magic traps around this entire place. So, you try something like that, you get knocked out just like he did! But don’t worry, we’ll give em back. We just want to walk outta here free and with our money!”
Thorax, caught up on the situation by the thug’s convenient monologue, had his mind racing, trying to think of something he could do. There was no way he could get in. Even if he was brave enough to try to sneak in, the traps the robbers had set would alert them to his presence immediately.
“Come on, Thorax. Think! You have to do something!” But before he could, Thorax was stripped of more options as he heard the door to the bank open once more, this time completely slamming open. Returning his attention to the scene, Thorax found that while he was brainstorming, the guards had evidently agreed to the thug’s demands. The rest of the royal guard had split the crowd of ponies in half, clearing a path from the bank to the streets. Soon enough, one of the thugs came out holding a bag of bits in their teeth and a hostage tied on their back. The pony was huge, Thorax saw, and wore a full body jumpsuit to cover both their face and cutie mark. Two other thugs, just as large as the first one, came out next, each carrying a bag of bits and a hostage.
The last thug, however, exited the bank quite differently. This pony, for one, was quite small, compared to their fellow robbers, being of an average build for a pony. Second, instead of carrying money and a hostage, they came out using one foreleg to drag Shining Armor on the ground and in their teeth was a silver dagger pointed at Shining’s head. He joined the three other thugs quickly, walking through the path created by the guards, eyes darting around to scan for any possible threat to their escape.
Thorax was surprisingly reminded of the comic Spike had showed him earlier. The thugs leaving the bank mirrored how the goon Mistress Marevelous eventually caught tried to escape. This recollection forced another thought to find its way into Thorax’s head.
“What would Spike do right now?” Thorax honestly considered the question. On one hand, or claw since this was about Spike, the little dragon was a hero to these ponies and might try to act like one. On the other, Thorax had really gotten to know Spike during his time in Equestria and that meant learning that he wasn’t always the bravest of ponies. For Thorax, debating this answer also meant debating what he would do.
“It doesn’t look like they have the magic traps set up, so I could probably get to them...but if I try to do anything, that one could hurt Shining...unless I sneak up on him...but how I could do that?...Unless...”
Ultimately, Thorax’s decision was based upon another question, “What if the one they had was Spike?”
Before he could change his mind, Thorax, still in the form of a tiny bird, flew quickly to ground behind one half of the crowd of ponies. Quite small in form, nopony noticed the flash of magic as Thorax changed forms from that of a bird to a bug. Scuttling through the hooves of the ponies in the crowd, Thorax soon reached the path the thugs were using. Looking up, Thorax found the pony who was dragging Shining and held the knife. With his heart pounding, Thorax crawled towards them. Quickly, Thorax got ahead of them and waited in his bug form for the pony to get closer.
“Okay, I only have one shot at this.” Thorax told himself. “If you mess up, Shining could seriously get hurt. No pressure.”
As the thug walked closer, Thorax did a final evaluation of his plan to make sure he should go through with it. Since this pony was the only one with a weapon, all he needed to disorient was them and the guards could catch the others.
“But what am I going to do to...?” Before Thorax could think any more, the thug walked right in front of him.
Channeling his inner Miss Marevelous, Thorax took a deep breath and changed forms once again.
“What the he..” The thug carrying the knife in his teeth could only mumble two full words before the pony who had suddenly appeared in front of them in a flash delivered a swift headbutt.
The crowd was equally stunned, as they saw the same pony appear with the same flash of light in front of the thug with Shining Armor and promptly bash his skull against the criminal’s. The thug immediately dropped the dagger and crumbled to the ground. Going limp and releasing Shining’s head as well, the thug’s body made a loud thump on the street within the silence of the stunned crowd. Before Shining hit the floor too, Thorax caught his friend with one foreleg.
At the moment, Thorax could only comprehend two things. One, his head was in a mountain of pain. Two, the whole crowd was staring at him. And that included the other three robbers.
“Guards, get them now!” Thorax yelled as he ducked, pulling Shining’s head down with him, so the guards would have a clear line of sight towards the thugs. Both the guards and robbers reacted after Thorax’s command, yet the guards, having been trained in such skills, reacted faster. At least one beam of magic was shot at every one of the robber’s hooves. The thugs tried to move, but the magic caught them faster and wrapped around their hooves, becoming unbreakable hoof-cuffs.
Immediately, the crowd of ponied descended on the three thugs, reaching to untie the hostages and take away their bags of bits. Eventually, all three hostages were rescued and the guards made their way to the robbers, confiscating the stolen money and beginning to lead them away. The Crystal Ponies rushed to their Prince,who was lying unconscious yet okay on the ground. During the end of this ordeal and the rush of the crowd, they then tried to, yet couldn’t, find the mysterious pony who had just saved the day.
Thorax wasn’t sure what to expect as he went for his walk about the Empire the next day. Surely, the attempted robbery would be the talk of everypony’s choice, yet he didn’t know if anyone figured he was involved. He wasn’t sure why, but Thorax had done his best to make sure he wasn’t seen as the one who saved Shining. While the guards rescued the other hostages, Thorax had flashed back into the form of a bug and crawled away from the scene. Returning to his regular appearance in private, he flew quickly to the castle, where Shining had already been taken back. After making sure his friend and the Prince was okay, he stayed to comfort Princess Cadence and answer her questions, claiming he had been hiding in the crowd.
As he began passing ponies, Thorax was partially surprised that nopony was stopping to question him. In his mind, it was obvious. What other creature could even try what the crowd had seen him do? Thorax realized, however, that the way he had hid before and after his transformations would make it seem like a pony had only teleported into the scene and then teleported out.
And the pony the crowd saw wasn’t the same form he used before he was accepted by the Empire. Unlike the blue coltish stallion Thorax had previously posed as, in the spur of the moment, he had chosen a more imposing figure knowing he needed to take out the thug. Thus, to the ponies of the Crystal Empire, it appeared that a tall, maroon stallion with a shiny yellow mane came from nowhere to save the day.
Walking further and further down the street, Thorax was able to pick up on some of the conversations ponies were having. Based upon the reoccurring sentiments of “he came out of nowhere!” and “does anypony know who he was?,” it didn’t appear as if anypony knew he had been the hero. That thought was bittersweet for Thorax. While he was a tad disappointed he wouldn’t be recognized for what he did, he also figured that not every pony in the Empire would be open to him being the hero.
Eventually, Thorax came upon a large group of Crystal Ponies crowding around a newsstand. Walking over to them, he had to answer the expected line of questioning from those who knew him.
“Hey, Thorax! Did you hear about this!?”
“Did you see it, Thorax!?”
“This is crazy, right, bud?”
Swiftly dispelling each question with short responses “yeah,” “of course I did,” and “I know right,” Thorax eventually made it to the newsstand. Grabbing a paper, Thorax was not surprised to find the article covering the event on the front cover. He noticed there was a picture of him in the middle of the article, standing over the robber he had headbutted and carrying Shining Armor. The headline read “Mysterious Hero Saves Prince, Stops Robbers.” Reading the paper, it mostly recapped the events he had seen for himself the day before. However, as it began covering “the hero,” Thorax was stunned by the paper’s rhetoric.
“The heroic pony who stepped in to take down the robbery’s mastermind and our Prince’s captor didn’t stick around for any new fans. Just as quickly as they appeared to save the day, they disappeared without a trace. Ponies can only speculate as to who this stallion is, but some are calling Equestria’s real-life superhero. And some are calling him...”
“Show Stopper.” Thorax finished.
He couldn’t believe it. Ponies thought he was a superhero. An actual superhero like Mistress Marevelous. But it did make sense when he thought about it. Remembering what Spike told him, Thorax agreed that he had saved those ponies. Ponies were even calling him “awesome” and now he had a cool name!
“That’s what being a superhero is about, right?”
Thorax didn’t know if he should tell somepony, if he should do this again or...He was getting ahead of himself. Thorax didn’t know if he wanted to do this again. What he did know, is that he need to talk to somepony about this. And who better to talk to than his best friend, superhero expert, and fellow hero of the Crystal Empire?
Author's Note
Hey, everyone! E2 here. This story isn't the quick 1,000 or 2,000 word story I've been putting out there. This took some time to write and I plan for it to be multi-chapter. Hope you all enjoyed it and thanks for reading! Track the fic if you liked it, like it if you liked it, fav it if you liked it. And follow me if you really liked it! Criticism is wanted and will be followed!
Today's Helpful Tip For Evictus from E2: Take your time with your fics and they can be over 1,500 words.
