Fightin' Spirit

by Iolaus


Kidnapped

Several of the top men and women of the Hero Association Board sat around a futuristic circular table, holograms of files, data, and pictures of different heros floated above the table. Other than the table and chairs nothing else decorated the room as it was meant strictly for important business and meetings. Director Fine Thrust calmly took his seat nearest the door after finally managing to make time away from his usual duties.

“I’m glad that you were able to make this meeting Fine Thrust, you’ve been busy these last few weeks,” Dapper Meadow, one of the board members noted as he tapped a rhythmic pattern on the table with his cybernetic hand.

“I sure hope that I’d be able to make this meeting since it was I that called it,” Fine Thrust stated while placing a tablet down in front of him.

Dapper chuckled, “Then I’m sure you’d want to get right down to business.”

Fine Thrust nodded to Dapper in acknowledgment, “From these past few months, and even when the association began, our hero ranking system is inherently flawed.”

“What do you mean?” A woman asked.

“Our ranking system is based primarily on popularity instead of capability to handle higher ranking threats,” Fine Thrust answered. “A large portion of our A and B ranked heros are the ones that appeal highest to the population, especially amongst children. Some are able to handle monsters but when it comes to strong foes they get beaten. It is only a matter of time until one is killed, I don’t need to explain how this would affect how we look to the world.”

“Then how do we assign heroes to the appropriate rankings?” Dapper Meadow asked.

“A test, one better than what we have. To include a physical portion and a paper portion,” Fine Thrust answered. “All current heroes, excluding a select few, will undergo this test so we can evaluate the rankings and assign heroes to a class more fitting for their skills. This way we can send out A-class heroes and know that they are able to handle what comes their way.”

“A select few excluded?” Inquired another board member, he and the others muttering to themselves as they tried to figure out what he meant by that.

“I’ve been monitoring several heroes that have shown extraordinary abilities and skills while I’ve been working on our ranking redesign,” Fine stated, connecting his tablet to the table, tapping on the device and finally placing several pictures and details on the holographic screens floating in the air in front of each board member. “These are the people who I feel do not need to be tested.”

The board members talked amongst themselves in hushed whispers.

“So, these thirteen individuals are to receive immediate A-rank listings?” Dapper asked, wishing to clarify.

Fine Thrust shook his head, “No, I want to create a seperate rank above A-class. These heroes are superhuman compared to the others so I feel it’s fitting to call their class S-class. They will be the public face of the heroes in our organization, the strong heroes that stand between the strongest monsters and the people.” Dapper nodded his head in understanding of what Fine Thrust was saying.

“Two of these heroes seem rather young for such an important role…” one of the other members stated with some concern. “They have some impressive feats but do you think they are ready for such large responsibilities?”

Fine Thrust nodded, “I do, but if you are still doubtful then we need to simply wait and they will prove themselves. It will take some time to get everything ready so just be patient and let their results speak for themselves. If that is all then I’d like to bring this meeting to a close, we still have a lot of work to do.”

Nobody had anything else to say. As the board members began to leave Dapper stopped by Fine’s chair as the man began to gather up his tablet, “How’s the investigation?”

“Going nowhere so far, none of the few monsters we’ve managed to capture know anything.” Fine Thrust sighed, “I feel like we’re being led by the nose on a wild goose chase.”

Dapper patted his shoulder in reassurance, “Don’t stress out too much on us, we need you in one piece.”

Fine Thrust chuckled, “Yeah, I won’t burn out anytime soon.”

“Then I’ll leave you to your work, stay well,” Dapper smiled and left the room through the automatic door, leaving Fine Thrust to plan and prepare.


With a heavy slam a bat crushed the large bulbous brown head of a short mushroom monster, its cushioning surface doing nothing to stop the lethal blow from compressing its body flat and sending monster innards across the ground. James pulled the bat from the head of the monster and tsked in annoyance, monster gunk stained its surface. He flicked the bat, causing most of the gunk to fly into the ground and walls of the spacious alley.

James looked down the gunk-covered alleyway, he could see multiple corpses of the random wolf level mushroom monsters he recently killed littering the ground. He had been coming across these monsters all day and he was getting rather sick of running into them. The young hero rested the least gore covered side of his bat on his shoulder and huffed in annoyance, “Finally, that's the last of ‘em.”

“Good work, Metal Bat,” a voice rang from the entrance of the alley.

James looked back in the direction of the newcomer, ignoring the people in white uniforms as they ran around him towards the bodies of the monsters. It didn’t surprise him that he would be given the same hero name as the guy he looked like now, but it did prove that the people in charge don’t have any imagination.

“Thanks, I guess,” James replied to the black-suited man, not recognizing the man from any parts of the Association that he knew of. Of course, James didn’t actually know about most of the people working at the Heroes Association anyway. But, judging from the Hero Association armband on him and all of the white-uniformed workers he guessed that they were a cleanup crew of some sort.

Ignoring the working men as they loaded up their large van with the bodies, James shoved a hand in a pocket and walked out of the alley. As the small fire of his fighting spirit from the very brief battle wore down, it wasn’t much as the monsters were extremely weak, he could start to feel the crisp cold air of the early November weather settling down in City D once more. Now that he was no longer distracted by a random monster attack he was free to do what he came to this part of the city for in the first place. Present shopping.

Normally this was not his kind of thing, and for anyone else, he would have given them money and that would have been the end of it. But ever since he decided to be antisocial and blew off the Fall Formal a month back, whilst wondering how that new girl managed to get everyone to vote for her so quickly, he could not get the cold glaring of his sister and disappointed look of his new mother out of his head. To James, it was maddening just thinking that he managed to disappoint them so much and he decided he needed to make it up to them. He would use the money he saved from working as a hero to get his sister and mother the greatest present he could find, as well as making sure he would go to every other Fall Formal during his time at Canterlot High. Even if he really didn’t want to go to a school dance of all things.

“But what ta get them…” James muttered to himself as he looked around in hopes to randomly spot a store that had that special item. A single glance down the street gave him his answer. The store itself was not overly grand, but it did look like a place for the more well-off and there were several stuffed animals on display behind the window. A sign above the store announced that you could build your own stuffed toy, it reminded James of those Build-A-Bear places back in his old world. He never went into one, but he imagined they weren’t so different.

Destination in mind, James promptly walked down the street to the store. If he were anybody else he might have felt embarrassed being caught in a place like this, but he had a little sister and a mother to appease, taking time to create a personal stuffed toy for the both of them is worth it. The bell chimed as James entered the store, it only took a few moments for him to spot the beginning of the building process.

The store itself held aisles of already built stuffed toys and other kinds of toys. It was a typical toy store, albeit busier than usual. Two shifty looking red-haired older men that had to be twins worked the register.

A few people in the store, mostly parents, unsurprisingly gave James a strange look. He looked like a typical delinquent and the baseball bat held under his armpit still covered in monster gook did not paint a good or safe picture. None of the other customers dared to approach him however, deciding to simply avoid him. James didn’t notice any of this and simply worked on his presents.

When he was halfway finished with his presents and reached the area where he could stuff them an obnoxiously bratty voiced announced its displeasure behind him.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?!”

James paused his worked to look behind his back, confused. Two little girls around the age of his sister were standing behind him, only one was openly glaring at him with her hands in her hips, the other looked nervous and eyed his bat apprehensively.

The defiant and angry one was pink skinned and had purple and white hair. She was wearing an obviously expensive yellow dress and had a tiara shaped hair pin in her hair. The nervous one was light grey skinned and her hair was a mixture of dark and light grey. She was wearing a set of light blue glasses, a necklace with a spoon of all things hanging off of it, and was wearing a purple expensive looking dress.

James didn’t think much of them and just said, “Buildin’ some stuffed toys, the hell does it look like I’m doin’?”

The pink girl growled at James’s disrespectful tone and the grey girl bit her lip and pulled on her friend’s sleeve, “Hey Diamond, I don’t think we should mess with this guy, he looks kind of scary.”

The now named Diamond just harrumphed and said, “I don’t care Silver! He’s obviously too poor to be here and he’s dirty! Look at that weird stuff he dragged in here on his bat!” She pointed at the now mostly dried monster gunk on his bat. “This ruffian should not be ruining my favorite toy store!”

A vein throbbed on James’s head, “Oi ya brat, ya shouldn’t be talkin’ to people like that. How ‘bout ya go play somewhere else and quit botherin’ me. I’ll shop where I want.”

“Fucking brat, just piss off!” His thoughts were not as civil.

“I’ll talk to a commoner like you how I want!”

“Diamond, come on!” As annoyed as he was getting James could appreciate this Silver girl wanting to get the damn brat away from him. Fortunately for James and Silver a well dressed older gentleman came running up to them before things could escalate.

“Miss Tiara! Please, let’s quickly pick out a toy! You don’t wish to keep your father waiting, right?” The older man who was clearly her butler or caretaker nearly begged the younger girl to come with him.

For a few tense moments things were silent as Diamond Tiara and James glared each other down. Finally, Diamond Tiara harrumphed and turned around on her heels in the haughtiest way a little girl like her could do. Her friend following timidly behind her, as if to get away as fast as possible. The older man gave James an apologetic look as he ushered the two children away.

“Fine! But I want two toys!”

James just tsked in annoyance and continued to stuff the toys he made. This day had been unusually stressful and he could do with another monster fight to blow off some steam. He’d even take those weak mushroom monsters if it meant he could hit something. After finally finishing the toys and paying for them, only vaguely noticing the two girls and the butler leaving the shop as he was paying for them, James walked out of the store with a bag in hand.

James turned down the street and began his walk home but didn’t get far when a loud shout rang in the air and the screams of young children echoed across the street. Quick as he could James abruptly turned around on his heels and shot down the street, going around the street corner he caught the sight of an unmarked van and four men hauling two struggling bags into the back. The butler handling the brat laid on the sidewalk holding his head, a bleeding gash on the side.

“Shit!” James swore as he tore down the street to stop the kidnappers before they left. The vans back doors swung shut and the tires screeched as the van shot down the street to get away as fast as possible. James sprinted as fast as he could but the van had the lead. “Gonna have to take shortcuts then,” he muttered before running through an alleyway and jumping to the roof of a building, barely spying the fleeing van making a turn down another street.

From the direction he could see the van going James figured they were going to some secret hideout near the warehouses by the river that cut through City-D. Not taking any longer to form a general direction James leaped from the building to another one across the street, he was just glad this area was not downtown and more suburban. The van always stayed just out of sight as it made turns into other streets and James almost swore, he wasn’t far from the vehicle but he didn’t want to chase it all the way across the city.

The van suddenly made a beeline for the highway ramp. “Shit, so they weren’t going to the warehouses then,” James said to himself. “Better hurry, don’t want to miss my only chance.”

He poured all his leg strength into running and jumping, barely making it to the ramp entrance before the van. With a grunt James used all his strength to jump off the building and land on top of an eighteen wheeler. The wind blew his hair around and ruffled his clothes in an annoying way, one of the only times he disliked wearing his baggy clothing.

The man driving the van was shocked to see somebody land on the roof of the eighteen wheeler’s container. James didn’t waste time and jumped from his spot, barely grabbing onto the edges of the front window with his hands, the grip of his bat firmly between his teeth and the handles of the small bag containing the presents around his wrist.

James was rather annoyed at the whole situation and unconsciously gripped the sides of the van hard enough to crack the window and dent the metal of the window frame. From the inside of the van the driver shouted something James couldn’t hear and another kidnapper pulled out a handgun and pointed the barrel at James. With a determined glare the young hero gripped his hand harder on the drivers side and swung out of the way. The bullet flew through the window as James dangled on the side of the van while keeping his feet from dragging across the concrete. With a muffled grunt he climbed up to get level with the side window.

He had to quickly duck as another bullet flew over his head, “Motherfucker!”

He held on tighter, broke the side mirror for the driver with a punch and flung himself down the side of the van to get to the back. It was obvious to James that he wasn’t going to be able to stop them now, the van was too annoying to fight on and he couldn’t just destroy it with the two little girls inside. He needed to wait until the van stopped.

James made his way around the back of the van, the two doors that opened in the back had convenient handles on the edges. All James needed to do was stay out of sight until the van slowed down or was out of the highway, he also made sure to burn the license plate of the van into his memory just in case. The other door on the back of the van opened, momentarily confusing James. Screams were heard from inside of the van and a small grey form was flung out of the back.

For a moment time slowed and all James could do was stare with wide eyes as the small form of the girl he barely knew as Silver screamed in panic as she was deliberately tossed out the back of a moving van going at least sixty miles an hour.

It didn’t take long for James to make his decision.

With not a care for his own safety he jumped from his position and caught the younger girl in his arms, turning them mid air and letting his back take the brunt of the hit from the car behind them and flinging them to the side of the freeway. James bit down on his bat harder as he kept from shouting his pain. He moved Silver into a princess hold while they were still in the air, landed feet first on the ground, and immediately started running in order to slow the two of them down. They weren’t going so fast that he couldn’t keep up while running and so he kept his balance.

The car he hit came to a screeching stop not far behind the two of them and was nearly hit by the other cars driving. More tires screeching and obnoxious honking and yelling started as the other drivers on the road tried to avoid crashing. James looked down at the sobbing girl in his arms, her glasses were gone, she was shaking, and tears and snot ran down her face in rivers. He looked down the road where the van managed to escape.

“Well, shit,” James said.