The sun rose over Motley Cow like a bloodshot eye, casting a rusty glow over the city's industrial skyline. In the shadows of an abandoned foundry, a figure moved with uncanny grace through a series of devastating kicks. One, two, three... all the way to twenty-six. Always twenty-six. Never more, never less.
They called him "Ore-Breaker," an elemental incarnation of iron itself. Some said he was born in the heart of a blast furnace. Others claimed he emerged fully formed from an asteroid impact. The truth was considerably less dramatic: Harold Jenkins had simply woken up one day to discover his skin had turned a metallic gray and he could bend steel with his bare hands.
What nobody knew was that Harold—sorry, Ore-Breaker—absolutely detested his fearsome reputation.
"Another glorious morning of being terrifying," he sighed, his voice like grinding gears as he completed his training ritual. His joints creaked with a sound like distant thunder as he reached into his gym bag and pulled out a small, pink notebook with a unicorn sticker on the cover.
He glanced around nervously. The foundry was empty, as always. Nobody came here anymore. Nobody except him.
Ore-Breaker clicked a sparkly gel pen and began to write:
Petals soft as morning dew,
Not like my iron fists so true.
Why must I break when I could mend?
A gentle touch, I'd rather lend.
My heart, though iron, yearns to feel,
More than the cold embrace of steel.
He sighed again, adding a small drawing of a butterfly in the margin. It was terrible. He was no artist. But the poems—the poems were his soul laid bare. If only someone could see beyond the metallic exterior that had earned him his unwanted reputation.
"Yo! Ore-Breaker!"
Harold slammed the notebook shut with such force it bent the metal spiral binding. He shoved it deep into his bag as three men in matching leather jackets approached.
"The Commissioner needs you," said the lead man, staying a respectful distance away. "There's a situation downtown."
"What kind of situation?" Harold asked, his voice automatically dropping an octave into what he privately called his "scary metal voice."
"The Calcium Crusher is threatening to dissolve the city's water supply. You're the only one who can stop him."
Harold pinched the bridge of his metallic nose. The Calcium Crusher. Again. That guy really had a bone to pick with him. Elemental rivalries were exhausting.
"Fine," he growled, hefting his gym bag. "I'll be there in ten."
The men scurried away, and Harold allowed himself one more tiny sigh. He'd been working on an especially beautiful verse about daffodils.
Downtown Motley Cow was in chaos. The Calcium Crusher stood atop the water treatment facility, his skeletal frame gleaming in the morning sun as he poured a vial of mysterious liquid into the city's main water tank.
"Your bones will dissolve like sugar in hot tea!" he cackled to the terrified crowd below. "And then you'll all be as spineless as your city council!"
Harold landed with a resounding CLANG on the rooftop, the impact leaving a small crater. "That's enough, Crusher."
"Ore-Breaker," The Calcium Crusher sneered. "Come to rust in the rain again? Iron is so... reactive."
"At least I'm not brittle," Harold replied, immediately regretting the taunt.
Why must we always fight?
Why can't we discuss literature or the changing seasons?
The Calcium Crusher lunged, and Harold sidestepped with surprising agility for someone made of metal. His mind raced, calculating angles and pressure points with mathematical precision.
"Calcium has its weaknesses," Harold thought as he positioned himself. "Impact force to the anterior structural points, followed by precision strikes to the major load-bearing joints..."
He launched into his sequence, each kick landing with surgical accuracy. One through six targeted the skeletal villain's shoulders and arms, neutralizing offensive capabilities. Seven through twelve focused on destabilizing balance points. Thirteen through nineteen struck with increasing force at calculated stress fractures.
"And for the finale..." Harold muttered as he launched into the air.
Kicks twenty through twenty-six landed in a devastating combination that brought the Calcium Crusher crashing down. The skeletal villain collapsed in an unconscious heap, bone fragments scattered across the rooftop.
As the villain lay defeated, Harold knelt beside him, ostensibly checking to ensure he was truly subdued. Under his breath, barely audible even to himself, he whispered:
"My strength brings pain, my purpose strife,
This endless battle, my iron life.
Yet still within this metal heart,
A gentler soul yearns to take part."
He rose just as the crowd erupted in cheers. "Ore-Breaker! Ore-Breaker! Ore-Breaker!"
Harold gave a half-hearted wave, his face an impassive metal mask revealing none of the emotions or poetry that stirred within.
Later that evening, Harold sat alone in his apartment, specially reinforced to hold his weight. On his industrial-strength couch, surrounded by delicate ceramic figurines of woodland creatures (his secret collection), he opened his pink notebook again.
The day's events had inspired him:
They cheer my strength, they fear my might,
But none can see my soul's true light.
Twenty-six iron kicks, they call my fame,
Yet gentle verse is my true aim.
A prisoner of my metal skin,
The tender heart that beats within.
The doorbell rang, startling him so badly he snapped his gel pen in half, spraying glitter ink across his living room. He quickly hid the notebook under a couch cushion and stomped to the door, each footfall leaving small indentations in his reinforced floor.
It was Ms. Petunia from next door, a retired librarian with coke-bottle glasses and no sense of fear whatsoever. She was the only person in Motley Cow who treated him like a normal person rather than a terrifying elemental force.
"Harold, dear, I brought you some cookies," she said, holding up a plate. "Oatmeal raisin. And I found this book of Romantic poetry I thought you might enjoy."
Harold stared at the slim volume of Keats with longing. "Why would I want poetry?" he asked gruffly, his voice like steel wool across granite.
Ms. Petunia adjusted her glasses and fixed him with a knowing look. "Harold Jenkins, I've been a librarian for forty-seven years. I know a closet poetry lover when I see one." She pushed the cookies and book into his metal hands. "Besides, I found this in the hallway last night after your battle with Phosphorus Flame."
She held up a small, battered notebook with several loose pages sticking out. One page had his handwriting on it:
Iron fists but a heart of gold,
My gentler passions left untold.
The world sees strength in every blow,
But misses the tears I cannot show.
Harold recognized his emergency poetry journal—the one he carried in his utility belt for moments of inspiration between battles. He must have dropped it while dragging himself home, exhausted after extinguishing the elemental arsonist.
Harold's metal face couldn't blush, but there was a distinct sound of overheating coming from his chest.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he insisted weakly.
"Harold," Ms. Petunia said firmly, "I'm starting a poetry club at the library. Tuesdays at seven. I expect to see you there."
Before he could protest, she was gone, leaving Harold holding cookies and Keats in his indestructible hands.
The following Tuesday found Harold lurking outside the Motley Cow Public Library, trying to look inconspicuous despite being a six-foot-four metal man in a trench coat and fedora. Through the window, he could see a small circle of chairs where Ms. Petunia and four others sat waiting.
"Just walk in," he muttered to himself. "Say hello like a normal person. Don't accidentally crush anything."
As he reached for the door, a scream echoed from down the street. Harold closed his eyes and counted to ten, his metal fingers leaving imprints in the library's stone facade.
A woman ran toward him. "Ore-Breaker! Thank goodness! The Sodium Sisters are attacking the power plant!"
Harold looked longingly through the library window. Ms. Petunia gave him an understanding smile and a little wave that clearly said, "Next week."
With a sigh that sounded like a steam engine in distress, Harold removed his hat and coat. The twenty-six iron kicks would fly again tonight.
But someday, perhaps, he would read his poems aloud. Someday, Motley Cow would know both sides of its iron protector—the fighter and the poet, the strength and the sensitivity.
Until then, he had his pink notebook, his sparkly pens, and the private knowledge that even iron can have a gentle heart.
And really, wasn't that poetry in itself?