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The Hero Club is an OC-centric My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic written by Mind Jack
(Fimfiction).
Gusty Breeze is a troubled pony. A young mare from a prestigious family, Gusty ends up on the wrong side of the law after a violent assault and, as an alternative to being sent to juvie, is slapped with a term of probation that she must now spend with her estranged aunt, Daffodil. Gusty wants nothing more than to do her time, stay on her best behavior, and get out of this awkward situation as quickly as possible. That plan is complicated as soon as she befriends Boomer, Daffodil's snarky daughter, and Snake Eyes, a literal pickpocket with a bad streak of her own. Together, the three of them get wrapped up in a mystery that could cause no shortage of trouble for any of them.
And what was that assault over anyway? Just a strange book that Gusty takes violently possessive ownership over, that's all.
The story can be read on Fimfiction, Fanfiction or A03.
This story provides examples of:
- Amusing Injuries: Subverted. The Chase Fight between Gusty and Nopony involves quite a bit of slapstick that would normally be Played for Laughs, with Gusty crashing through fences, getting sidelined by a carriage, and eventually ramming through a brick wall, but it actually caused some pretty serious injuries once the adrenaline wore off.
- Bait-and-Switch Boss: Chapter 5 sets up for an epic final chase with Gusty and Snake going after Mr. Wonderbread, but then Gusty's Unstoppable Rage kicks in and she herself becomes the biggest threat to both of them.
- Brutal Honesty: Both Daffodil and Boomer make no effort to sugarcoat how much trouble Gusty is in and why she can't afford to break any of their rules.
- The Caper: The gang is forced into a variation of this in Chapter 4, breaking into the school at night in order to find evidence of Nopony's identity.
- They pull another in the next chapter that involves evacuating the school, then leading Wonderbread to the compromising photos to expose Pepper as Nopony.
- Chase Fight: The chase between Gusty and Nopony at the end of Chapter 3, which eventually culminates in a physical confrontation.
- Free-Range Children: While the trio has some supervision, they are mostly left to their own devices, starting their business and taking on jobs all by themselves.
- Great Detective: Pure Luck, one of the heroes in Gusty's book. She turns to his words once the group is in need of some mystery-solving advice.
- Hero Insurance: Averted. Coltsburg evidently has enough experience with heroes not to enact such a policy and Gusty and Boomer get slapped with a huge bill for the path of destruction they left around the school. This is, in fact, what inspires them to form the Hero Club to pay it off.
- Kid Detective: All three of the protagonists are forced to become these right from the getgo to solve the Nopony case. As well as...
- Kid Hero: It's the entire premise of the story after all.
- Lost in Transmission: Snake attempting to send an important message to Gusty over a crappy radio.What Snake says: Gusty, listen! Pepper is not Nopony! We can't continue the plan! Abort now!What Gusty hears: Gusty, listen! Pepper is...Nopony! We can...continue...plan...now!
- Mood Whiplash. In chapter 1 and most of chapter 2, Gusty is making friends and her situation is slowly improving. Then, when they leave the room for a moment, Snake's window opens. Everything goes downhill from there.
- Mundane Fantastic: In the town of Coltsburg, masked superheroes and supervillains running around is not only a normal occurrence, but downright mundane to the point that its citizens treat a bank robbery as just another slow day. It takes Gusty some time to get used to this.
- Old, Dark House: The trio's main hideout.
- Orphanage of Fear: One of the club's various gigs is to visit one of these. Although the orphanage itself seems pretty nice, they are searching for a bully tormenting the foals and thus creating this kind of atmosphere.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: When breaking into the school, Snake gives everypony disguises consisting of nothing more than cheap wigs, sunglasses, and bandannas, with some tape to cover Boomer's cutie mark. Pepper Spray sees through it instantly, citing that the tape fell off and they did nothing to hide their distinctive fur or tails.
- Punch-Clock Villain: What Coltsburg's "supervillains" seem to amount to. As Snake puts it, they're basically just normal guys who treat it as a sort of second job. Two of them make a habit of sticking up the local bank just to avoid waiting in line, and act generally cordial to everypony present.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: All across the board. Gusty is prone to extreme fits of violence, Snake is a pickpocket, Boomer spends her free time making explosives, and these are just the heroes.
- Also Great Detective Pure Luck, which Snake lampshades.
- Violence Really Is the Answer: When faced with the problem of how to deal with an Evil Orphanage Lady who has the foals she's tormenting too afraid to speak out against her, Gusty's solution is to just beat the crap out of her and toss her on their client's desk. It works.
