Blazing Capes

by TJAW

2. Something New

Marked Target

The next few days were of little consequence. I won’t bore you with the grieving I did. It was intense sadness, but I wasn’t tempted to kill myself or anything.

I just sat through the funeral silently and somberly. I wasn’t asked to give a eulogy, and I’m glad I wasn’t. Some of my dad’s friends gave some, and the kind words they had to say about him were a small comfort. Still good to hear though. It was raining, the same as it had been for over a week now. The weatherponies really needed to get their shit together.

I walked to pick up my backpack and changed. I had a black tie on for the funeral, and after taking it off, I stuffed it in one of the little compartments. I got my olive drab sweater out, the same one I’d worn the day he’d died, put it on, and put up the hood. The rain was colder that I remembered it was before my dad died. I felt just a little bit weaker in that cold.

As I was leaving the cemetery where the funeral was held, I was swarmed by paparazzi. Flashing lights, unintelligible voices, a swarm of reporters asking for comment. I kept walking down the sidewalk and they kept following.

“Mr. Target, what has your father left you in his will?”

“No comment,” I muttered. My response was lost among the din of the media vultures swarming me. I didn’t know actually, the will hadn’t been presented to me yet.

“Mr. Target, what do you think of the recent crime wave that culminated in your father’s death?”

“No comment.” More firm and audible this time.

“Who’ll be running Target Enterprises now?”

“No comment!” I went from somber to pissed off. I was starting to bare my teeth and grimace.

“Now that your father is dead, what do you have to say about sexual assault allegations made by female employees of Target Enterprises?”

I grabbed the nearest camera and I threw it on the ground. The high-end device literally shattered into thousands of pieces on the ground, the few intact electronics drenched in the freezing rain.

“That’s what I have to say! Those allegations were bullshit lies made up by greedy whores and every one of you knows it! Now get the fuck away from me you shit-sucking vultures! If I see one of you near my apartment I’ll throw you out the Celestia-damned window!!” I roared as load as I possibly could. I was quite obviously seething, and I could literally feel fire in my body, my forehooves especially.

The disrespectful vermin dispersed. All except for one female griffon photographer, who landed near me.

Gilda Grimwing

I could feel Marked Target’s eyes boring into me, genuine hatred all over his face. I felt bad for him honestly. I normally didn’t even try to get shots from these kinds of things; I hate messing with mourners. The only thing was, the payoff for any good shots could’ve been as high as a five Gs.

It didn’t help my conscience that I was the one who killed his dad. Hey! He was maybe a year or two older than me at most, and he just lost his only family. I know I shouldn’t feel bad for him, but I do. I feel bad the day after I kill fairly often even if I enjoy it at the moment, but killing a well-liked philanthropist really makes you feel worse than all the shit in a sewer.

“Didn’t you get the memo?” He asked bitterly. “Buzz off.”

I showed him my camera, and popped out the memory card. I saw him stare at it, bemused. I tossed it into the nearest drainage grate and smiled weakly. He smiled back and resumed walking. I followed, ostensibly happening to head the same way, my head tilted slightly downwards in shame.

He looked back and frowned again. “What rag do you work for that has you so set on getting something out of me?”

“None, I’m a freelancer. I wouldn’t have even shown if the offers weren’t so high; I normally avoid funerals like the Cutie Pox. And I ain’t after anything now. Now I just wanna make it up to you. Starbits a few blocks from here; I’ll buy. Promise I won’t ask anything that'll get into a story.”

Marked Target looked at me again, this time with a slight grin on his face. “Okay.”

A few minutes later, we were out of the cold rain and enjoying some coffee and pastries. He took his hood off when we got inside to reveal a black manecut. Not bad looking for a pony.

He took his coffee black, I took mine with sugar and cream.

“You never told me your name,” He said.

“Gilda. Gilda Grimwing. Just call me Gilda.”

“Marked Target, but I guess if you were trying to get a shot of me earlier you knew that.”

“Can I call you ‘Mark’, or do just your friends call you that?”

“Sure, anypony who throws away a 64-gig SD card just to make somepony feel better is okay in my book.”

“Whoa, how’d you know the mem size?” I was a bit surprised that he knew the size, actually.

He laughed. “I always had good eyes; 20/5 vision. Coulda been a pilot.”

He laughed again. We chatted for several more hours. Turned out we had a lot in common. Both gamers, similar tastes in movies and TV, both of us had mixed feelings on art. Some bigger differences in our musical tastes, but we both enjoyed classic rock, even if that was our sole similarity there. He was a really nice stallion, laid-back and level-headed too, which made me feel even worse to have killed his dad during that job a few days before.

It was getting late when we decided to leave.

“Hey, I had fun,” He began. “Wanna do this again sometime?”

“Sure.” We exchanged numbers and emails. Then we both nervously admitted neither of us had been asked out on a date - ever - before we left. He took a cab, I flew home. The rain had let up for the first time in days.

And then a pigeon shat on me.

Marked Target

I got in a cab and headed home after saying goodbye to Gilda. The cab smelled like vomit, the driver was ugly even for a diamond dog, and his rates were a bit high. My dad, the only family I knew, was dead; murdered by an unknown assailant during a violent heist. I was working a dead-end job as a janitor.

But despite it all, I felt good. I remember that when ponies would tell me “Every cloud has a silver lining”, I used to respond “But hundreds are killed by lightning each year trying to find it”. But now it looked like I’d stumbled onto a silver lining and gotten out alive. I rolled up my sleeves and put my hooves behind my head.

My positivity didn’t last long. About halfway to my apartment, I noticed in the rear-view mirror that a van had been following us, and when I looked closer, bullets started to fly from it.

I ducked, and the cabbie took several bullets probably MAC-10s judging by the rate of fire. With the driver dead, the cab veered off-course and crashed into a building.

The first weird thing I noticed was that I wasn’t even dazed. No concussion, no whiplash, no pain. My gain.

I jumped out of the car and landed on all four of my hooves, ran for cover into an alleyway, and heard my attackers get out and come for me.

I didn’t know what their game was. Were they trying to assassinate me? Wipe out the family line? Not likely, the only decent motivation was that some power-hungry exec at Target Enterprises decided to usurp power for himself, and I know that A) my dad prized loyalty as much as competence and B) nopony working there would go for anything but an accidental death if they wanted me dead.

In retrospect, maybe they were aiming for a tire to cause an accident, but they just sucked.

That left two possibilities. The first was that they knew who I was and thought I had a lot of dough on me and some credit cards they could use to access supposedly loaded bank accounts. The second was that they were just some fellas out to kill for thrills. If it was the first they’d be disappointed at the truth. If it was the second, they wouldn’t get the chance. Either way, they were gonna be disappointed.

I grabbed a trash can lid as I heard hoofsteps near. I’d fought off individual muggers before with just such an improvised weapon. The first guy to come around was met with a crushing blow to the head. I noticed there was a distinct imprint of the attacker’s skull on it, which was odd. I’d hit harder before with a metal lid, and nothing like that happened.

The next pony I threw the lid at, and it flew with astounding speed before connecting with his chest. Like before, I had no idea how I’d done it. After that five ponies swarmed me. I clocked the first and dodged the punches of two others easily. I delivered a series of body blows to the next one and heard his bones crunch before he fell to the floor.

That left three. Before I could act, I saw them back up and ready their weapons. I knew that was it; they were using .45 caliber submachineguns and they were too far for me to counter, there was no way I could possibly survive.

I guess I impossibly survived. I heard them all fire their weapons, the combined report sounding like a minigun. Then the firing stopped, and the swearing started. I was still alive somehow. By the grace of Celestia, I’d just survived a barrage of almost a hundred bullets at point blank when just two should’ve killed me.

I felt that same fire in my body that I did earlier that day, and I realized my hooves literally caught fire. But there was no pain, just warmth. I threw a punch at one of my reloading assailants, hitting him square in the chest and scorching the point of impact. The next two went flying when my flaming hooves shot a fireball at each of them as I jabbed in their direction but came up short.

Just like that, it was over. I’d just fought off seven armed ponies by myself, with nothing but my hooves and a trash can lid. I didn’t know what happened. I was scared shitless at what I’d done. So I ran.

I ran to my apartment. I ran faster than I could remember ever running in my life. Fast enough that I outran motorcycles that I could tell by the engine sound were going at least forty. I ran those ten blocks and I wasn’t even remotely tired when I was done. Not tired when I got to my room, either.

I locked the door, turned on the news, and lay on my bed listening.

A reporter covered the crash and subsequent fight I’d been in. Nopony saw me clearly, nor could they come up with an accurate or consistent description of my Cutie Mark, but they saw what I did. They saw me take those bullets. They saw what looked like a mugging turn into a brawl into a firefight and into a one-sided massacre.

That’s right. I said “massacre”. Those ponies I fought, all seven of them died of their wounds. Burns, fractures, blunt force trauma. All of it me.

My phone rang. It was Gilda, and I answered.

“H-hey,” I said nervously.

“Mark, you watchin’ the local news? This shit’s unbelievable!” Gilda sounded genuinely astounded.

“Yeah. I saw it myself and I can’t believe it!”

“You saw it? I thought you were in a cab.”

“I, uh, got out. Fare was too expensive, so I walked the rest of the way. Saw that shit go down myself. Don’t think I’d be any better than the people being interviewed at describing the pony, though.” That last part I said with a laugh. I’m a good liar, especially under pressure.

“Looks like that stallion got himself a cool set of superpowers and decided to test ‘em out.”

“Whoa, I didn’t think of it like that!”

“Wanna talk about it over drinks on Thursday at Ganon’s? Laaadies niiight!” She sang.

I was briefly consumed with an intense curiosity as to what Ganon was up to. And what was for dinner. And dudes on magic carpets delivering oddly convenient answers to my questions.

“Definitely. Figure out the specifics later?”

“Yeah, see ya.”

“Bye.”

I went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. My backpack and hoodie were intact. Like whatever had protected me had protected around my body. Like an impenetrable aura.

I tried to remember what superhero had that same invulnerability aura thingie. I used to read a lot of comics when I was a foal, so I should’ve been able to recall immediately. It took me about a minute to remember. Superstallion. I remembered it didn’t protect his cape though, so I guess my backpack was just out of the line of fire.

I guess since I’d manipulated fire earlier, that was a pun. A shitty one. Dammit, that was one too! I was in the bathroom when I made it! Shit, that last one sounded like I was talking about a piece of- Dammit, I did it again!

I put my stuff on my bed and went to take a hot shower. I think really well in the shower, so I often take one when I need to clear my mind.

Or clop. Hey, don’t judge me! It takes like, no effort to clean it up afterwards when you do it in the shower!

Anyways, I thought about my day. I got my first girlfriend at age twenty-three, and discovered I had superpowers. When I looked back on it, I figured out them all, and my weakness, too. I had super-strength, super-speed, invulnerability, and the ability to create and control fire. Judging from my increased aversion to cold, cold was probably my weakness. Probably got those powers from that X-ray mishap.

And dad said reading all those comic books would never pay off!

Now I just needed a cool costume. And a cool name. And cool gadgets. And a cool ride, maybe a bunch of them. Now I was looking forward to my dad’s will.

I got out of the shower, hopped in bed, pulled over my blanket, and tried to sleep. And failed. I was up till 6AM, and then I finally fell asleep for three hours before my phone woke me up. Oh phone, what would I do without you? Probably get a new phone; you are a replaceable inanimate object and you will deal with it! Stop ringing dammit, daddy needs his sleep!

Mind you, it wasn’t an alarm. I had the entire week off of work since my dad died, which was probably the most decent thing those dicks in administration ever did for me. It was a call from Target Enterprises.

I rolled out of bed, fell onto the ground, got back up, and answered.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mr. Target? We’ve found your father’s last will and testament.” A female voice. “Please be at the building within three hours.”

Comments

[Cades]

Fireballs... I wonder what else he will get? And my money is on Marked Target VS. Gilda somewhere in there.

[TJAW]

1022894
It's gonna be sorta like the relationship Batman and Catwoman have, but with legit superpowers. So there will most definitely be fighting. And I don't plan on giving Mark any new powers, just interesting ways to manipulate his existing ones.

I'm trying to avoid turning him into the Quasi-Sue that is Ember Storm, so no ridiculous shit like "healing with fire" (Seriously, WTF Ember?), other than possibly cauterizing wounds to stop bleeding. Obviously that'd be painful.

Expect some wacky revelations next chapter.

[Cades]

1022934
Is Gilda gonna be wearing a latex suit like Catwoman?
But in seriousness, having fire powers is cool, but healing with fire is basically impossible. Unless the user is made of fire.

[TJAW]

1022959
Ember Storm can heal with fire, because he's a Sue.

I've already said Gilda is wearing a dark red muscle suit that covers everything except the head and neck. It's not bulky or anything, but it does enhance her strength. And it's rather... Form-fitting.

[Cades]

1022990
So she is wearing basically a latex suit on steroids? Because, well, I would love to see that.

Just crossed my mind: Prolouge saod that Marked had an iPhone. He has hooves. iPhones, to the best of my knowledge, are not compatible woth hooves. Either that or I'm seeing things. I sure do hope that it is not the latter.

[TJAW]

1023061
Well, a muscle suit is thicker than a latex suit, varying from half an inch in thickness to several inches. Take the Nanosuit 1 and 2 for instance. The N1 had a relatively thin layer of artificial muscle. Another example is Old Snake's suit in MGS4. Gilda's suit is like that. So it's form-fitting but adds a noticable layer of muscle to the wearer. It's science, not a magic fetish suit.

[Cades]

1023316
And I want one now. Just to wear under everyday clothes.

[CluelessDetective]

I love the Zelda CD-I joke!