//------------------------------// // Chapter 10. The World Waits with Bated Breath. // Story: Magnets in a Mare's World. // by Triple-Rainbow //------------------------------// A new inmate has come to our prison, a lanky pegasus stallion with teal skin who calls himself Cat Colt, though the other inmates have made it a habit of calling him Cat Call. He’s undoubtedly supposed to be this world’s alternative version of Cat Woman, though the similarities stop at their cat themed personas. Cat Colt, or Zephyr Breeze, is a far cry from the capable villainess who prowled Gotham museums and stole Batman’s heart. He claims to be a skilled thief and an expert of breaking and entering, but I have my sincere doubts about that. His overall personality paints the picture of an overly arrogant fool who believes that having a mask and a name would be enough to earn a reputation in prison. Still, if he was sent to a prison specifically designed for super villains, then perhaps he’s at least capable of annoying the heroes outside. And I must applaud him for not relying on enchantments to commit his heists, though it could have just as easily been that he didn't know how to use any enchantments. If I had met him in my earlier days, I’m sure he could have been a useful ally, especially when it concerned my very modest budget. I still remember stalking through the streets of Trot City looking for spare change in alleys and gutters. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much loose change considering that a third of the population’s homeless could use magic and grab them before I could. I wandered around with a much full of six bits worth of change, staring at my pitiful collection as I rounded up my total savings in my head. I only had about fifty bits worth at the time, and Timber would pay me by the end of the week, but that pay was already halved since most of it went to food and housing. I was still a long way from getting the necessary three hundred bits for an enchantment, but the world seemed to smile on me that night. As I closed my eyes to feel the metal around me, stepping into an alley to quickly take anything of value, I felt several different types of metal behind me. Describing the “feeling” of a metal by sense is difficult to explain, and I’d rather not waste pages telling myself something I already know. When I opened my eyes and turned around I was surprised to see a pegasus mare wearing a bandanna over her mouth, and I was absolutely terrified of the knife she was pointing at me. “Money,” it was an order, not a threat. Quickly throwing the bag of loose change to her, she caught it with her free hand and shook it in her palm. “Is this bucking it?! Where’s the rest of it?” “Th-that’s all I had,” I told her. I really wish I had been braver in my early days. I would always stutter and wiper like a coward when I should have simply taken that knife and shoved it into her neck. “Don’t bucking lie! Where’s the rest of it?!” I tried to tell her that I didn’t have anything else on me, and when she came closer my instincts took ahold of me. The threatening mare (god, I can’t believe I was actually intimidated back then) raised pulled her knife back only for it to suddenly freeze in place before an iron pipe smashed into the back of her head. She dropped like a sack of bricks after that, letting the knife slip from her grasp as her face quickly kissed the concrete. I waited a few moments in morbid wonder, staring at the blotch of red that was growing on her scalp. Thinking quickly, I ripped the bandana off of her face and tried to wrap her head before sitting her up against a dumpster. She was still breathing, so I decided to quickly run out of the alley with my meager savings until I noticed a piece of leather sitting nearby. Opening the wallet revealed around a hundred bits, a debit card, and, miraculously, the code to her account. I actually had to think about that longer than I should have. She had just tried to stab me after taking everything I had, I deserved something in return for it. Besides, a good amount of the money in her account was probably stolen too, it was only right that I should have taken it for myself. Sadly, my conscious wouldn’t allow it, so I simply stole the hundred bits and used some loose change to use a payphone and dialed 911. Thankfully, between the many differences that separate our worlds, those three numbers weren’t among them. I think I told them my name was Cuddle Fish, or something equally ridiculous, and that I was just saved by a figure clocked in a purple cloak that used a levitation spell to hit the assailant over the head. They asked me to wait for them to arrive, which of course I didn’t do, and I went back to Camp Everfree as soon as the call ended. I still regret not taking that money out of her account. Stealing from murderers was a grey area for me at the time, but I was desperate for money back then. I wouldn’t have wasted the next week and a half by searching for meager change like a beggar if I had a backbone back then. It took much longer than it should have, but I finally hd enough money for an enchantment that would hide my face, though not enough to distort my voice as I would have liked. I was somewhat worried that I would need to actually bring in the helmet to be enchanted, but the cloaking spell I requested came in the form of a sticker that I could put inside of it later. Looking into a mirror at the camp revealed that the enchantment met all of my expectations, hiding my face completely as a void of darkness stared back at me with white eyes. Part of me wanted to leave as quickly as possible to enact my heroic plan, but I knew that it wouldn’t be good to immediately leap into battle. I still needed to practice in the forest, and I would need more time between my purchase and my debut. Moondancer had easily accepted the lie I spoon fed her, but I doubted that an idle thought wouldn’t cross her mind if a male superhero with an enchantment similar to Stygian’s appeared only a day after she sold that specific enchantment to a “stallion,” as she believed. My first attempts at flight weren’t graceful by any measure of the word. To save myself the embarrassment of reliving that memory, let me just say that it took me a long time to actually learn the basic principles of flight. By that time, nearly three and a half months had passed me by, and the summer guests had started to file into our modestly sized camp. I was so naive to think that it would only take a week to learn the principals of flight and levitation, along with the ability to manipulate magnetic fields with ease. Real life isn’t made up of montages where I could skip the moments where I nearly impaled myself with a rusty machete or twisted my ankle carrying too many things to the camp. I also ended up getting into a terrible and abusive relationship while I was at camp. Every hour of the day she would call out to me, promising me sweet relief from the exhaustion that filled me, but she also never let me sleep. While it was good for a bit of late night training, a man still needs his sleep. But, she still tempted me, promised me that she would make everything better. I was a love stricken fool, but she was just so helpful. Ah, good old Bunn brand coffee maker, our time together was special but it was terrible for my health. Jokes aside, I did have an unhealthy amount of caffeine flowing through my veins every day. Timber and I would often joke about how he would need to throw an intervention at some point, only he wasn’t joking. Hell, even Gloriosa seemed a bit worried about my caffeine addiction. I suppose there are worse things than an aspiring hero with a heavy dependency of caffeine. Like crying cats, or dead puppies, or cats crying over dead puppies. Still, I’ll admit that I have my own personal demons. Even now, I can’t look at a coffee pot the same way anymore. My inconsistent sleep schedule also made it a bit more difficult to balance work and practice, to the point where I nearly fell asleep mowing the grass. But, it was all for the best, since I had been able to test my powers in the safety of my solitude. Due to the increase of campers and ponies who liked to take nature walks at night, something that was expressly forbidden and ignored, I had to move away from my usual training area in search of something more fitting. Thanks to an old map I was able to find while cleaning the attic, I learned that there was an old abandoned mineshaft in the nearby mountains. The site had been left to rust over the years, turning into a rotting mess of forgotten carts and buried tracks. After cleaning up the entrance and ensuring that only I could enter by making a wall of rusted iron that blocked the main entrance, I explored my new secret base with a flashlight and wandering eye. I felt veins of raw iron that had been been left undiscovered, a labyrinth of rails that wove trough the mountain like a roller coaster, and an old elevator shot that had been buried under several tons of rubble. I expected to feel these things around me, but as I went deeper into the mines, I felt something different tug at my senses. New types of metal tickled the hairs on my arms as I followed the invisible trail, eventually coming to a dead end at the end of one of the mine shafts. Stealing a glance behind me, I saw an overturned cart and backed away before throwing it at the boulder, only for the cart to fly through it as if it weren’t there. Flinching at the loud noise that rang out from the hidden room, I took a moment to steady myself before floating through the illusion. Behind the fake boulders was a room that reminded me of Batman’s lair. The large computer monitor that sat at the end of the room had a new metal addition to the monitor. I hissed through my teeth at that, deciding to look at anything else except for the broken monitor. Spiderwebs soaked in dust filled the empty spaces on the shelves, a table with half built rusted gadgets sat below a cork-board that held several dozen magazine clippings and photos. Hovering over the ledge of the cavern revealed a lower level that had several industrial machines scattered about with little rhyme or reason. Everything was in a state of disrepair, with tools lying next to hall-finished projects, as if they were abandoned without a second thought. I hovered closer to the workbench that was tucked away in the corner of the lower floor. Several dozen papers caked in a thick layer of dirt covered the table, the writing too faint to be sensible. I ignored those and puled open the drawers beneath, finding three black metal rings that felt different to the other ore I had touched before. They were nullstone bands, a type of metal that could suppress unicorn magic and the curses that give other creatures unique abilities. I wouldn’t learn of their uses until my descent into villainy, but I still appreciated their beatury before I found out how useful they could be. I felt a spectral familiarity when I held them, a feeling of déjà vu that sent chills of delight rippling through my body. It was a shame that my costume had a severe lack of pockets those days, so I elected to put the bands back in the drawer before exploring the rest of my appropriated lair. Luminescent enchanted rods provided a decent amount of light for the dusty room. Flipping a nearby switch then caused the lair’s air system to kick on, roaring to life as the musky air was cleared out. The only other items of note were two lockers that held what looked like two fourths of a barbershop quartet’s wardrobe, and a picture of two unicorn stallions wearing the red stripped shirts and straw hats that sat in the lockers. I would later learn that my lair belonged to a pair of villainous twins called the Terror Twins, meaning that my form, my secret identity, and my new home had been burrowed or taken inspiration from four villains. After putting the portrait aside, I hovered above the decrepit lair, imagining the perfect base as I tore away the rusting floor panels. My work wasn’t pretty by any means, but it felt nice to remodel the forgotten lair into something more fitting, something that would earn then name of Magneto’s Polaris Palace. Of course, I still had an actual job to return to, so I used the secret exit in my palace to fly back to Camp Everfree. And the next day, the world would finally see the Master of Magnetism in action as I fought off some of the greatest heroes known to these creatures.