“Resilience.”

–Iron Golem’s answer to a reporter who asked him what made a good superhero.

“Don’t cry, you have a world to save.”

–Cold Comet’s last words to Dark Fire.

----------------------------------------

“You have a visitor waiting for you outside,” a steward tells me, and for a second my heart jumps at the thought of Stacey paying me a visit.

Instead it’s Small Talk, and he’s already in his platinum suit of armor. He doesn’t make any sign that he recognizes me, but turns away and starts walking to the armory.

“Come,” he says.

“Man, I thought I was done with my training!” I moan.

I can hear my whole team laughing behind me; they know that I always come back from my training with Small Talk covered in bruises.

“Good luck, dude!” yells Little Voices.

“He doesn’t need luck, he needs a full body cast,” calls out Bad Day.

I follow Small Talk into the armory. A team of technicians is fussing over our suits but Small Talk ignores them.

“Get ready,” he says.

It doesn’t take me long. I don’t bother asking what’s going on anymore, I just do as I’m told. I climb into a Comet and close my eyes.

“Where are you going, kid?” asks a technician over my helmet radio.

“Wherever Small Talk wants me,” I reply, “but I bet you know more than I do.”

The technician laughs, and then shuts up abruptly. A different voice – Dark Fire’s voice – replaces him.

“We are sending you out for special training,” he says, “with someone you can relate to. Don’t screw around and don’t screw up.”

“As if I would,” I mutter, but Dark Fire has already turned his radio off.

Small Talk climbs into the Comet and we launch. We fly for ten minutes or so before Small Talk grabs me without warning and pulls me right out of my harness, snapping the metal hooks meant to hold me in. The back of the Comet snaps open and Small Talk throws me out before my suit is powered up, and I tumble through the air until I reach a parachute cord. I don’t panic – I’ve been in far worse situations than this, and it’s something of a compliment when Small Talk puts me in danger like this, because he obviously thinks I can take it.

My suit powers up quickly, and I look below me. I’m far above an icy desert that stretches from horizon to horizon. I can feel the cold biting at me through my suit, but that’s not my biggest concern.

My biggest concern is a huge robotic insect waiting for me on the ground. It has a dozen huge cannons mounted on its body, six misshapen legs that end in long talons, and a long head that ends in a cockpit.

My shields turn on just as a bolt of plasma catches me in the chest and burns my parachute away. I fall feet first towards the insect and power up my weapons: none of them are working, which is a concern. The technicians must have disabled them for my training. A second bolt of plasma bounces me in the air as the nightmare insect below snaps its jaws eagerly.

“Fine, if that’s how you want to play it,” I say.

I plunge towards the metal monster, intent on smashing it with the power of my fall. It hits me with missiles and lasers, but they bounce off my shields as discs of lights form a cone around me. I’m only a few feet from my target when Small Talk tackles me hard and pushes me off target so that I slam into the ground rather than the robot.

I bounce to my feet and into the air, and I notice that I’ve made a large impact zone in the ice.

“Not bad, kid,” says Talented Brat in that sarcastic way of his.

“You! Where are you?”

“Look up.”

He’s sitting in the cockpit of the robot insect, and uses one of its long legs to wave to me.

“What the heck is that thing?” I ask.

“New toy. I thought I could build my own superhero suit, but I got a little carried away. Lucy here is the result. I admit that she’s a little large, but she flies surprisingly well. You and the other supers are going to be obsolete once I get a few more like her off the ground.”

“Lucy?” I ask as the massive insect shifts the turrets on its back so they face towards me.

“Isn’t she something? Now, are you feeling cold?”

“Yes – ”

A huge flame erupts from Lucy’s mouth and covers me. My shields crackle and pop with static as the fire surrounds me, but I’m fine. My suit warms up to the point of discomfort, but I don’t try to stop the flame.

“That’s actually quite nice,” I say aloud.

The flames stop suddenly.

“Nice?” says Talented Brat disappointedly.

I guess he was hoping to overload my shields or something. That guy seems to enjoy trying to kill me.

“Yeah, nice and warm. Now, why am I here?”

I hear someone clapping loudly and turn to see a large figure standing in the snow. It’s Rhino Rampage, the clumsiest of all superheroes. I find it insulting that this is who Dark Fire chose to train me, but I swallow my doubts and my pride and land beside him. He is a full head and shoulders taller than me, and his suit is covered with short, thick horns.

“Danger Magnet here for training,” I say.

Rhino Rampage opens his helmet and blinks at me. His face is thin and topped with light red hair.

“Hello,” he says, “I’m Rhino Rampage.”

“I know,” I say, “pleased to meet you.”

“No you aren’t,” he says, “you’re annoyed to be here and you don’t think that a clumsy guy like me can teach you anything. Right?”

He is right; I didn’t think my feelings were so obvious.

“Dark Fire told me you would feel like that, but I have a very special lesson for you,” he explains.

“Right,” I say doubtfully.

My skepticism rankles him a little.

“Listen, kid, I’m not a particularly powerful superhero but I’ve survived far more combat missions than just about anybody else. Doesn’t that make you want to know how I do it?”

I never thought about that before – he’s been a superhero for a long time, so he must be doing something right.

“So teach me,” I say.

I expect a lecture of some kind, but Rhino is more a man of action.

“Right. Hit me, Brat,” he says.

A bright bolt flies down from Lucy and hits Rhino right between the eyes. It would have been enough to knock most superheroes over, but he just shrugs it off. He’s tough, that’s for sure, but I don’t need to be taught how to be tough. He takes another without a word, and then the third one bounces off his head and back at Lucy wheze it sizzles on her shields.

“I’ve never seen that trick before,” I say.

“No. I worked it out a few years ago, but only people with seriously powerful shields can do it. Small Talk asked if I would be kind enough to pass my learning onto one of his young and impressionable students who could benefit from increasing his ability to do damage.”

“Really?” I asked doubtfully.

“No. He just showed up and told me to get in a Comet, and I worked out the rest myself. He’s not the most talkative man.”

“So how do you do it?” I ask.

He shows me a panel of lights on his arm.

“The panel shows me what kind of energy I’m getting hit with, and if I can match my shield to that kind then I tend to bounce them back. It’s not as easy as it sounds.”

It doesn’t sound particularly easy. Rhino passes me a panel and then steps back to stand beside Small Talk who has been watching all this in silence.

“Plasma!” yells Rhino.

Lucy hits me with plasma and the panel lights up with green dots. Rhino shows me how to play with the panel until the dots form a line, but it takes me too long and the dots disappear.

“Again,” says Small Talk, and I get a bad feeling of déjà vu.

I’m too slow with my panel, and I struggle to line up the lights. I can tell Rhino is disappointed, but Small Talk never gives away any emotion. We keep at it for an hour or so without success.

“It’s been ages, he can’t do this,” complains Talented Brat.

“We don’t give up,” says Small Talk.

“Sometimes we do,” suggests Rhino tentatively.

“No.”

After a dozen more attempts I manage to bounce a plasma bolt back over Lucy’s head. A second blast follows it, hitting Lucy right on her metal beak. Rhino whoops with excitement and grabs my shoulders, shaking me back and forth.

“That took me months to teach myself!” he yells in my ear.

“Faster,” Small Talk says.

After that it gets easier. The plasma is simple enough, but Small Talk keeps pushing me to do more.

“Faster… while flying. And all types of energy,” he instructs Talented Brat and me.

Lucy hits me with different combinations of plasma and lasers, hyperbolts and energy lances. Matching the lights is a little like playing a game of Tetris while flying a fighter plane in a dogfight. I fly with my left arm extended in front of me so that I can see the panel of lights. That’s the arm my multiblasters are mounted on, so it’s lucky I don’t need to aim them.

I bounce about a third of the energy blasts back before I see odd things on my panel. The lights are twinkling in a distracting way, so I slow to a hover. Little blue and green discs form a protective covering over my shield and all of Lucy’s weapons do little more than buffer me in the air.

“What are you doing?” asks Rhino impatiently.

“Fly, idiot!” says Brat and launches a trio of huge missiles at me.

“Leave him!” snaps Small Talk

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He shoots the missiles down, but I barely notice. The lights on my shield panel are almost hypnotic. I align the lights as best I can, and they seem to be making an odd but familiar pattern that gives me a headache.

“Something weird – ” I begin.

And then every blast and laser that’s hit me in the last hour erupts out from my shields and flies at Lucy, bursting through her shields and melting her armor. My power plant is just about spent, so I spiral down to the ground land with a thud.

“Hey hey!” yells Rhino Rampage and tackles me to the ground. “That was great! That was really great! You are amazing!”

I punch him in the head, but I can’t hurt him through his shields. He throws me around like I’m a rag doll, laughing as he does so. My head is killing me, but I’m still feeling great about my new ability to bounce weapons off me.

“Stop,” orders Small Talk over the radio, and we stop fighting.

“What?” ask Rhino Rampage in annoyance.

“We have a saucer attack that the Island Seven are responding to. Never Lies asked us to bring her shield back to her to fill the team out. We can just about make it if we leave right now.”

“Righto. Does she want us to join in the fun? The kid looks a little tired for combat.”

Small Talk shrugs and nods meaningfully at the Comet. We walk towards it, leaving Talented Brat alone in the steaming pile of ruined metal that is all that remains of his robotic insect.

“Guys?” he says as the Comet fires up its engines.

We start powering down our suits so that we can board the Comet safely.

“I’m looking forward to seeing Never Lies in action,” Rhino says.

“Guys!” repeats Talented Brat, but his radio is already getting faint.

“She’s good,” says Small Talk, which is the greatest compliment I’ve ever heard him give anyone, ever.

“Guys! For heaven’s sake, my chair is on fire!”

“She must be excellent, then. I remember when I took down that flame hydra by getting eaten by it and planting a bomb in its stomach. That was just about my finest moment, and I barely got a ‘fine’ out of it,” says Rhino.

I can hear explosions over my radio, and what sounds like hissing steam. Brat yells in surprise, but his voice is cut of when the radio fails.

“Should we be helping him?” I ask with some concern.

“If he can’t deal with problems like that then he will never make it as a superhero,” says Small Talk sternly.

The Comet takes off and we can see the burning robot below us. His robotic body is smoking, and one of the legs kicks out wildly. Its tail spasms and the whole creature rolls onto its side. Talented Brat is still inside, and I’m not entirely sure that he has a way of getting out.

“Are we sure you aren’t being a bit harsh?” Rhino asks as part of the robot explodes.

“He threw me out of Comet on our first training exercise,” I say.

“Yeah, that sounds about right. He shot me twice in the chest, and that was while we were still in the regular army. He was trying to teach us to have faith in our body armor. It hurt.”

“He shot me with a rocket launcher and a plasma gun for much the same reason.”

“Was he smiling?”

“He never smiles.”

“I’m sitting right here,” Small Talk snaps.

“He told me a joke, once,” continues Rhino without concern.

I think he’s the only person I’ve met who isn’t terrified of Small Talk’s gruff manner. I wonder how long they must have known each other – years, probably. Maybe over a decade.

“He never tells jokes,” I say as the Comet takes off.

“Never,” agrees Small Talk grumpily.

“He told me a joke at my wedding. Two men walk into a bar–”

“–Ouch, ouch,” finishes Small Talk with the tinniest hint of a smile.

Rhino giggles in a most unsuperhero–like manner, and twenty minutes later he’s dead.

Rhino Rampage shouldn’t have died, but our missions are dangerous and unpredictable. We find the rest of the Island Seven circling high above a group of strange walkers that I’ve never seen before. They look like battleship turrets mounted on three heavy legs and march in a rigid formation like a regiment of infantry on parade. Each of the walkers has a small silver orb mounted on its head, and something about them fills me with foreboding. Never Lies and the others are still making a plan of attack when we arrive.

“What’s the problem? Let’s just get into them!” says Rhino.

He obviously subscribes to the classic superhero approach of charge in now and think later.

“No, there’s something weird going on here. This is something new, and if we rush we die,” explains Never Lies.

“New is bad,” says Simon Smith.

“Sometimes… but we have less than twenty minutes before they reach the nearest town, so we need to act,” One Trick says nervously.

She cradles her enormous plasma cannon and shakes her red head. It’s always stressful for us when we don’t know what to do, so it must be even worse for Never Lies.

“Swarm them?” suggests Rhino Rampage again, but Small Talk shushes him.

“Your team, your play,” he tells Never Lies.

“I know. Okay, Bad Day and Phoenix Pink can use their teleporting skills to get close to the walkers and test their defenses while we get between them and the town. Simon Smith¸ I want you to stay in the air and out of danger unless I call for you. Set?”

“Set.”

We fly over the walkers as our scouts teleport down to the enemy. The walkers don’t seem concerned by their appearance and make no attempt to shoot them down. Bad Day appears close beside a walker in a flash of light, and then drops through the air clumsily and lands on the ground. One of the walkers blasts at him but he’s away before he takes the hit, moving himself high above the walkers but dropping down again. Phoenix Pink is also struggling to fly, and only her ability to teleport keeps her out of the walkers’ guns. A bolt of plasma from one of the walkers’ massive guns touches her shoulder, and she teleports back to us in a dozen flashes that leave her exhausted.

“Yeesh, that was an unpleasant surprise,” she said.

Bad Day is more thorough with his investigation, teleporting around the walkers and trying to find where his powers of flight cut out before he returns.

“They have some kind of large flight-suppression shield around them. Their guns are all short ranged and powerful, so if we get caught on the ground we are dead.”

“So if we had just rushed in…” Rhino says thoughtfully.

“We’d be deep fried bug food. This is why we always listen to the boss,” says One Trick.

“Almost always,” mutters Never Lies.

“What about long range weapons?” asks Small Talk.

“Only One Trick and I have them, but won’t get enough time to use them if we can’t fly… okay, listen up. We make two teams of a shield, a shooter and a mover. We attack from behind to minimize our danger, and make sure that we stay out of the way of the formation’s guns. Rhino Rampage, you and Phoenix Pink are with me. Day, you take One Trick and Danger Magnet. Set?”

“What about us?” asks Little Voices in annoyance.

He doesn’t want to get left behind, but he has no place in the plan. Superhero suits are heavy, and we all know that those of us who can’t teleport can’t dodge, and those who can’t dodge need excellent shields.

“You only get involved if things are out of control. I’ll pop a smoke signal.”

“If?” asks Small Talk.

“When. When things get out of control, I’ll pop a signal. Set?”

We teleport into range and my body becomes heavy as I lose the power of flight. We are well within whatever shield is preventing us from flying, and so the only way out is teleportation or a coffin. Rhino and I form a human wall and One Trick and Never Lies fire over our shoulders. Both are deadly, but Never Lies carries three times as many guns as One Trick and is a far better shot with all of them. Each time she fires a walker loses a leg, and it’s not long before their casualties are mounting. We block a few hits from long range guns, but there are fewer than I was expecting. I try using my new rebounding skills and send a few shots back at the walkers, hitting a few but not killing any.

“But why don’t they fight back?” asks Bad Day, and I know that we are all thinking the same thing.

A group of walkers turn around suddenly to face us. They start walking in unison, the sounds of their metal feet hitting the ground together like a drum beat. My proximity alarm starts ringing, so I push the ‘disable’ button I had Second Best install for me.

“Here we go,” calls out Never Lies.

We pull back before the walkers reach us and start firing again. We take more hits, but our guns have more range than theirs and we stay out of their reach by constantly teleporting backwards. It’s a good plan, and it’s working well. The only problem is that our teleporters are getting exhausted by constantly having to ferry their teams away from danger.

“I’m okay, but Phoenix is struggling,” Bad Day calls out.

We take out the last of the small group that attacked us, and Small Talk flies down to raid their bodies for parts to add to his armor. He builds himself a pair of sturdy metal legs and starts putting together something that looks like an enormous crossbow.

“The others are getting too close to the town,” calls out Little Voices in passing.

He’s been scouting ahead of us instead of waiting for a signal, but Never Lies doesn’t seem to mind.

“We can make it.”

We move close to the main body of walkers and open fire again, taking out more. We have destroyed over half of them already without any trouble or casualties, and it looks like we will stop them all before they reach town.

“This is a good plan,” says Rhino.

Then the walkers stop walking and become totally still. They spin towards us as one, and then stop again. The sight is disconcerting, and we hold fire and wait to see what will happen next.

“Uh oh,” I say.

Fires appear beneath the walkers and they start moving slowly into the air, gathering momentum as they go. The roar of their engines is so loud that we have to yell just to hear each other.

“They are heading for the town!” shouts Rhino, but Never Lies just shakes her head.

She pops a pink flare as the walkers start flying right at us.

Bad Day teleports One Trick out in a blink of an eye, but when Phoenix Pink tries to move Never Lies she just flickers and remains in place.

“Sorry,” Phoenix says.

“It’s fine, just go!” Never Lies says as walkers crash down around us.

Phoenix Pink doesn’t go far, but teleports right into a walker and starts hacking at it with her sword as it lands. Small Talk strides into the walkers. He has formed parts of the fallen walkers into a robotic form that is their equal in height but armed with twice as many cannons and a giant crossbow. He rips a walker in two and covers himself in its parts, then launches Little Voices from his crossbow, and my friend slices right through a walker with his sword. Little Voices barely has time to get to his feet before Small Talk snatches him up and loads him into the crossbow again.

Never Lies’ plan may have fallen apart, but we still know how to brawl with the best of them.

Bad Day appears beside us, blasts a walker with his pistols and grabs Never Lies. They disappear, leaving Rampage and me standing in a circle of walkers. They lower their huge cannons and I start to feel worried as they power up. My armor is so heavy that I’m having trouble simply standing, so I know that running won’t help.

“Here we go, kid. The guy who kills the least walkers with shield bounces has to have dinner with Small Talk,” says Rhino.

We stand back to back and the walkers open fire. My shield absorbs the worst of the damage, and I quickly work on reflecting plasma bolts back at the walkers. The air around us fills with deadly plasma fire and my suit begins to heat up, but a rainbow of shimmering discs cover my body and protect me. The discs pop and reform as the walkers do their best to melt me down, and I do my best to turn their weapons against them. I know the rest of my team are fighting as best they can, so all I can do is hold on and hope I’m a good distraction.

The walkers can’t get through my shields; I start laughing as I bounce their blasts back at them.

“Kid?” says Rampage from behind me.

“Yes?”

“My shields aren’t as good as yours… so I don’t know how much more I can take. There is no way a teleport can get us out this maelstrom, is there?”

It’s not really a question, because he can see that no teleporter would survive getting into the circle of hell around us.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Yeah, I figured. At least I managed to teach you my one good trick, right?”

“We can make it,” I yell.

“No… I’m down to ten percent and dropping fast. I can hold them here for a few seconds if you want to make a run for it.”

“No!” I yell.

“I’m down to five – ”

Rhino’s body slams against me as he passes out, and I fall over. My suit is so heavy that I can barely move, and a walker steps right onto me and starts pushing down on my chest with all its weight.

“Simon Smith!” screams a familiar voice.

The walker takes a step back; Simon Smith is standing on its head and controlling it. He drops besides us and holds his hands up to the walkers. They stop moving or shooting, and for a few seconds we have peace. Little Voices makes the most of the moment to chop a few legs, and Bad Day teleports beside me and rescues Rhino.

“I can only hold them for a few more seconds,” says Simon Smith casually.

“Okay… do you want to use me as a shield, then?”

“Why?” he asks.

The walkers start moving, and Simon Smith grabs me and jumps high into the air, arcing over the walkers and landing outside of the fight. The flight suppression field that has caused such havoc doesn’t seem to affect him too badly, so we make it past the walkers. We are out of danger, but not for long. Phoenix Pink picks me up and moves me back into combat, but I’m so heavy that all I can do is sit on a dead walker and blast about with my color cannon. The air beside me flashes as Bad Day drops Rhino off.

“This isn’t so bad,” says Rhino from beside me.

His recovery is remarkable, but he can’t move any better than I can. I decide that my next suit is going to be a heck of a lot lighter, and I don’t care if that means less armor to protect me.

There are only a handful of walkers left. Never Lies is climbing over a fallen walker when it bursts back into life, smacking itself into her and then self-destructing into a fireball that sends her flying. Never Lies lands badly. Her shields are gone, and a second walker moves in for the kill.

“Bad Day!” I yell.

Day teleports beside me and grabs my arm. Rhino Rampage breaks my hold and catches Day as he teleports beside Never Lies. Rhino pushes Never Lies behind him and takes the full brunt of the hit as the walker explodes with a white-hot flame. His shields crackle but hold, and he bounces a bolt of energy back at the walker that burns right through it. For a second I think he’ll be fine, but then another walker charges at them and self-destructs into a fireball. All I can see is green flames and molten parts of a walker.

Bad Day appears beside me with Never Lies and Rhino Rampage. Never Lies looks fine, but Rhino is lying down and not moving. Small Talk lands beside me while Bad Day takes over command of the Island Seven, quickly destroying the last few walkers. I’m too worried about Never Lies and Rhino Rampage to focus properly, and my color cannon begins to miss more than it hits. Phoenix Pink grabs my arm and then slaps me hard.

“Help them by fighting!” she yells.

I hit the last walker at the same time as One Trick blasts it with plasma, and suddenly we can all fly again. We gather around Rhino as he lies on the ground. His suit has been blown open, and I can see his chest is covered in blood.

“He’s definitely dead,” whispers Never Lies.

Small Talk is doing CPR right through the suit. I hear the dull crack of bones as Rhino Rampage’s body bounces up and down on the ground. Sparks crackle along Small Talk’s arms and jump into the air where they explode with a pop. Small Talk doesn’t stop, because superheroes don’t give up.

“He’s dead!” repeats Never Lies more loudly as a Comet lands nearby.

A medical team jump out and run towards us, but I can see in their faces that they don’t have much hope. We stand around awkwardly watching Small Talk try to save his friend.

“I wish we could do something,” I say to Simon Smith.

“Really?” he asks in genuine surprise.

He walks over and places a hand on Rhino’s head, pushing Small Talk aside with ease. Purple light pulses below his hands, and Rhino Rampage gasps, curses, and then sits up. He rolls over and spits out a mouthful of blood.

“That one hurt like hell… I must be getting too old for this,” Rhino says.

We all look at Simon Smith, but he’s staring up at the sky as if looking for shapes in the clouds.

What a weird guy.