“Everything for Earth.”

–Superhero Corps Motto.

“How can you say no to that? I’d rather die trying than live in defeat!”

–Cold Comet arguing with The General, caught on tape and played at Dark Fire’s trial.

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

Loud Mouth had five kids by three different women, and Wrong Answer was married.

I hadn’t known that about them. I hadn’t known anything about them, really, not even why they had been assigned to the Cerberus Brawlers. A steward called Bag Pipes played at the funeral to a small crowd of operators and support staff. A few people read eulogies; both Loud Mouth and Wrong Answer had been difficult people to live with, but they had had their friends.

I wheeled Bad Day to the operators only area to watch the two single fireworks launched for the two fallen. Each rocket was beautiful, bright, and short-lived.

“And I damn near joined them,” Bad Day says to me.

He lost two fingers when his gun exploded, and he’s still in a wheelchair. He was lucky to survive.

My alarm beeps; it’s my shift in armory.

“I’m going to kill Firestorm Commando if I ever see him again,” I say seriously.

“You will have to get in line…the boss will get there first, I assure you. But I heard he’s gone back to The General, so we can’t do anything about him.”

“I better get going,” I say.

The squad is Past Prime, Home Brew, Zoo Prank and another rookie who is even more junior that me. She looks terrified.

“We are still having problems with cannons two and three. Old reliable is still firing, but slowly,” I hear Bad Memories saying to Past Prime.

“We’ll have to make do,” says Prime.

He doesn’t seem worried, but then he never does.

I put my helmet on, but there’s something wrong with it and all the alarms ring out at once. My visor slams down on my nose. It hurts.

“Hey! Uncool!” I shout, but I don’t think anyone can hear me.

I try and pull my helmet off, but it seems locked down. The alarms are hurting my ears, and I’m pretty sure my nose is broken.

“I. Am. Having. Problems!” I shout, each word punctuated by my visor flicking open and shut.

I flail around for a few seconds and hit someone by mistake. A strong arm grabs me and forces me to the ground. I sit on the ground and try to relax.

“Red Five is a no-go,” says a technician over my radio.

A red alarm starts ringing and Past Prime turns to the monitors.

“Small saucer over the Australian outback. No civilians in the area, but a couple of important mines. Let’s go.”

The team walks towards the capsules, but my helmet is still broken.

“We’ll see you when we get back,” Past Prime shouts over his shoulder.

My team leave in a slow thud-thud of cannon fire. I want to be with them, but I can’t fight if I can’t see. I hear a whine of a drill starting then feel vibrations right in my skull.

I hope they stop before they hit my brain.

The drill stops. My helmet pops off and a technician examines it with a scanning tool. She pulls out a set of screwdrivers and opens up the back. A medic checks me over: my nose isn’t broken, but I put some ice on it anyway.

“Can I catch up with my team?” I ask.

“Negative. This repair will take a few minutes, so you’ve been added to the next team to head out.”

“Oh. Can I get a sandwich, then?” I ask.

I’m always hungry.

“Sure, what kind?”

“Salami and tomato. On rye.”

Free Man and Never Lies walk into the armory and start suiting up. There is no rush; it’s rare for a second attack to follow close behind the first. The rest of the team arrives a few minutes later, as does my sandwich.

A yellow alarm starts ringing, indicating a saucer attack outside of our jurisdiction. It's a big one, too.

“Where is it?” asks One Trick.

“A little town called Bottle Falls, Southern USA. That rings a bell… oh, saucerhat.”

Small Talk runs into the armory and starts suiting up in a rush. A few of the technicians try to help him, but he is impatient and pushes them away. Never Lies is getting suited up as quickly as she can, but her suit has a lot of complicated connections to her heavy gun platforms. Small Talk gets dressed in record-breaking time and starts walking towards the delivery capsules.

“I need the dog whistle!” he yells.

A senior technician runs up to him and tries to calm him down, but Small Talk picks him up off the ground and screams in his face.

“My wife and kids live there! Bring me the saucerhat dog whistle!”

The technicians seem too frozen to move, so Small Talk walks over to a locker, breaks its door off and pulls out a big metal box.

“Even you can’t take on a saucer this size alone,” shouts out Never Lies, but Small Talk doesn’t care.

He jumps into a free capsule. I grab my helmet from the technician and make a move to follow him, but Never Lies holds me back.

“Don’t. You won’t survive where he’s going. Give me a few minutes and I’ll follow him.”

But Small Talk isn’t going to wait, and I don’t think it’s right to let him leave alone. I break free of Never Lies and strap myself into the next capsule. My helmet alarms are offline, but my radio still works.

“Saucer,” Never Lies says over my radio, “just hang in there, kid. We’re right behind you.”

She sounds genuinely worried. Why do I have this feeling that I’ve made a terrible mistake?

The capsule shoots off with a bang, and I wake up above the town of Bottle Falls. It’s not a big place. I see Small Talk is crouched in the middle of a grass plain between the town and the incoming saucer. The saucer is larger than any I’ve ever seen, and it's already dropping screamers and octo-apes from its hangars.

The saucer might fly right past the town, but its creatures are going to rip this place to shreds.

I land next to Small Talk. He’s crouched over the bag, the thing he called the dog whistle.

“Hey!” I scream, “What are you–”

The box screams like a banshee, a wail that hurts my ears, shakes me to the bone. I land next to Small Talk and clutch at my ears as the sound bursts through my helmet. The sound gets higher until I can’t hear it, but I swear I can still feel it vibrating in my teeth.

The sound seems to be getting some attention: a rocktopus shoots over towards us, all flames and tentacles and giant red eyes. Small Talk blasts it from the sky and it bursts into a cloud of fragments that fall out of the sky and drift towards us. They coat Small Talk in flakes of metal as if he were a magnet. A second rocktopus lands beside him and tries to wrap its metal tentacles around his neck but Small Talk rips it apart. The tentacles coil around his arms like thick metal bracelets.

The smaller, faster aliens are approaching us in waves. A couple of scouts drop out of the sky and land next to the dog whistle, but I blast them both down with a single shot. I hear a roar as a small Godzilla-like creature sprints straight towards us. Small Talk charges right back at it, kicking it in the face and then ripping it apart with his spare hands. Chunks of metal and shards of wire leap out of the monster’s guts and attach themselves to Small Talk. It doesn’t seem to slow him down at all. The imposing bulk of a cubetank rolls into the park, all sharp edges and giant guns. Small Talk jumps onto it and starts ripping through the thick armor as if it were wrapping paper. He pulls a plasma cannon out of its turret and uses it to blast a second tank.

My own multiblaster is getting a good workout, cutting down the smaller aliens by the dozen. A rain of lasers catches me, and little green discs form a protective skin around me, popping and exploding in quick succession. I can barely see past my pulsing shield but I lash out wildly with my multiblaster until I’m not being attacked anymore. My shield clears, and I find myself surrounded by a pile of triclops, scouts and octo-apes. Their ruined parts lift into the air and fly towards Small Talk, wrapping themselves around him until all I can see of him is his head. The laser guns gather around his right arm and shoulder until he looks like an artillery piece on legs. A blast of purple plasma streaks out of the air and catches him in the chest, breaking off part of his metal skin.

A three-winged dragon flashes overhead, all spikes and wicked talons. Small Talk brings it down with a volley of laser blasts. Two more dragons land on the ground and engulf Small Talk in flames.

“No!” I yell.

Small Talk emerges from the flames like a robot from hell and blasts the dragons into pieces. The body bursts into a cloud of burning vapors that Small Talk walks through without any care. He picks up the dragon’s head and presses it into his shoulder. His entire body is covered in strange alien components that seem to be boosting his strength. He looks over at me; I can’t see his face beneath the metal, but I think he’s surprised to see me.

A triclops lands beside him, and he punches it right through the chest in a shower of sparks and melting metal. Small Talk is one scary man.

There is a temporary moment of peace, and I use it to check my shields. 78%: not bad. My combat clock says we have been fighting for less than three minutes, but it feels much longer. Small Talk sheds some of the burnt metal that makes up his strange armor, losing some of his bulk but moving easier for it. I’ve never heard of anyone having powers like his. He pulls off the metal around his head and opens his visor, breathing in deeply. We have a moment of respite.

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“You shouldn’t be here,” he says.

“So? Neither should you!”

Something heavy hits me on the back of my head. I shoot out again, hoping to hit something, anything at all. I rise into the air but something strong catches my leg and throws me face first into the ground. I bounce, roll, and come face to face with a steel monstrosity that’s all teeth and spikes. My multiblaster barely grazes the thing, so I dodge past it.

I can see parachutes in the air, reinforcements perhaps. One bursts into flame and drops towards me.

A fireball shoots out of the sky and strikes the steel monster in the chest, melting it instantly. The fireball rises into the air. The flames are dark, almost black, but they aren't producing any smoke. I can see a figure floating in the flames. It spins towards the cluster of triclops and holds its arms out like cannons. Each hand spits out a stream of flames that melt the triclops in an instant. I've never seen power like that.

The fireball is attracting attention: a squadron of screamers come flying in. I raise my gloves and wing two, but the fireball gets all of the others with one stream of fire.

The fireball shrinks down to the shape of a small man. His suit is black and bulky, with dozens of pockets, but he is only four feet high. He isn't carrying any weapons. I suppose he doesn't need to. He hovers over me and flicks open his helmet. Hungry flames are burning over his arms and fists, hot enough to vaporize steel but not harming this man, not this legend.

Dark Fire.

He’s dead, officially, but the conspiracy nuts always said that the other supers had considered him so dangerous that they had ganged up on him to force him into retirement.

The flames on his body flicker and retreat to his feet and hands. He’s shorter than I expected, although it’s hard to tell while he’s still in the air. His power suit is black and charred. I can’t believe that he’s alive, that he’s here, and that he’s on my side.

Actually, that’s exactly how I felt about The General. I drop behind Small Talk’s massive form so I’m not such an obvious target.

Dark Fire flips his helmet open and looks around at the chaos of broken bodies around the dog whistle.

“What the hell?” he says pointedly. “I was only gone for a day.”

“My family live here,” Small Talk answers unapologetically.

“I know. But why did you bring the trainee?”

“I was suited up, and it seemed wrong to let Small Talk go alone,” I shout out from behind cover.

“You sure are living up to your reputation, Red Five. Try and not die, I still want to talk to you.”

Dark Fire’s arrival has bought us a little time, but the dog whistle is still calling out. Small Talk pats my shoulder and points at a flight of screamers heading our way.

“I’m glad you joined me,” he says.

Never Lies lands beside us.

“I’ll be the last for a while, the cannons are down. I see the dog whistle is working, so this should be interesting.”

“I’m still alive,” I call out.

“And still stupid,” she retorts.

“He shouldn’t have come,” says Dark Fire, “you two should have stopped him. He isn’t ready.”

“There’s no stopping this one,” says Small Talk.

“And is anyone ever ready for this?” adds Never Lies.

The ground rumbles, and we take off into the air, all arguments forgotten in the face of a new attack. A huge red oblong shape floats towards us, unfolding long arms that end in blades and claws as it approaches. The screamers arrive, and octo-apes drop down onto us.

I think I had a nightmare like this once.

“Uh oh,” I say.

Small Talk attacks the red tank head on, striking it with his borrowed bulk and slowing it down. The rest of us spread out and start firing. I don’t think I add much to the mighty arsenals of my fellow supers, but I do what I can as rockets explode around me. I’m not as agile as the other supers, and my shield takes a beating.

Lucky for me, soaking up crazy amounts of damage seems to be my only real superpower. Multicolored discs form in front of me and shield me from rockets and lasers and worse. Small Talk is thrown past me on a blast of plasma, shedding metal plates as he flies. He digs up a furrow of grass when he lands, but rises from the dust quickly to return to the fight. Dark Fire loops up past an oval battle tower that walks along on spider legs and douses it in fire. The creature keeps coming towards us and the dog whistle despite all that we are doing.

“Protect the whistle!” screams Small Talk, because it’s better that these things are trying to kill us than running loose through the town.

A wall of ice bursts from the ground and immobilizes the creature. It struggles to free itself, cracking the ice and sending shards towards us that melt in the air. I see a figure flying behind the oblong nightmare, slowing it with ice.

“Get busy!” screams the superhero.

We get busy. Dark Fire melts his way into the creature as Small Talk and Never Lies bust up its many legs. Eventually it stops moving and crashes to the ground with Dark Fire still inside. Neither Small Talk nor Never Lies seem to be worried about him.

“Hello,” calls out the new superhero to Never Lies, “where’s the rest of your team?”

She floats closer, sitting cross-legged in the air rather than flying like a normal super. I’ve seen her before, on the day The General tried to kill me. She’s Blizzard Master, and I’m happy to see her.

“We’re it,” says Never Lies.

“Three superheroes, one dead.”

“He’s not dead, and there are four of us,” says Never Lies, waving at me.

I feel pretty good about that. Blizzard Master lands lightly beside me and gives me the once over. Her eyes linger on my multiblaster as if she has never seen one like it.

“Barely four. This guy takes a beating, but doesn’t give one out. He needs a bigger gun. You should give him one of yours, you seem to be carrying enough for a whole team.”

Blizzard Master is the best. Never Lies snorts and aims her heavy gun platforms up towards the sky.

“Hey Blizzard Master, I say, you probably don’t remember me, but you saved my life once.”

“Yeah?” she asks without interest, “when was that?”

“A little while ago, when The General was trying to kill–”

“Oh, saucer. You’re that kid. Standing up to The General got me kicked out of my team and assigned to the team of total losers waiting in town.”

“Ah,” I say, suddenly taken back, “sorry about that.”

Dark Fire bursts out of the oblong, a glowing red crystal in his hands which he hands to Small Talk.

“Hello, Blizz,” he says with a smile.

“Dark Fire? They told me you were dead. Well, that explains pretty much everything.”

“Do you have a bomb for the saucer?” says Small Talk impatiently.

“I do, but we need to thin out these ranks of creatures before we make a move. They are coming right for us.”

She was right; the sky was dark with creatures.

“I can fortify the area with ice,” she suggests.

Dark Fire nods and we prepare a makeshift castle of ice and dirt around the dog whistle. We each assume a role, with mine being to watch the skies.

“I can see deathtowers, and more of those spider towers as well,” says Dark Fire. “It’s going to be a hectic battle.”

“My team are protecting the town, and those moronic Bazooka Boys should be arriving soon for whatever good they can do,” says Blizzard Master.

Waves of enemy break against our ice fort, and I do my best to keep the skies clear. An octo-ape wraps its arms around my neck but Never Lies takes it down with a well-placed plasma bolt. Two deathtowers approach and Dark Fire goes straight for one, burning right into it. Blizzard Master swoops towards the second tower, but it knocks her out of the air. She hits the ground hard and the tower looms over her. I throw my body over her and feel the blows of heavy fire on my back. It hurts, and I hope my shields can take it. The fire stops and the tower falls over. A big piece hits me in the head and I fall over.

“You okay, kid?” asks Never Lies, helping me to my feet.

“Sure,” I say, although I don’t feel okay.

“Dark Fire and I can take the bomb now if the rest of your team stays here as a distraction,” says Blizzard Master.

“Set,” we all say in unison, and Blizzard and Dark Fire take off.

“Incoming,” warns Never Lies.

A set of enormous missiles bombard us, smashing my shields and ripping Small Talk’s new body apart. One explodes next to Never Lies and flings her up into the sky. My shields are down to 20% and Small Talk is almost back to his natural suit, so I hate to think of how Never Lies is.

“Follow her,” Small Talk orders.

I’m too slow to catch her so I fly high to find her impact crater. Never Lies landed hard in the middle of a suburban garden, burning through the smooth grass and rolling through the rose garden. I’m not the first to find her: there are four superheroes in flowing red cloaks standing beside her by the time I reach her. I recognize them as members of the Bazooka Boys, a male-only team known for its brash displays of power.

“Look here, boys,” says one, “we were waiting for the saucer and we find this instead. It’s one of them girl supers. Help her up. And let’s get those dangerous toys away from her.”

They pull Never Lies to her feet and pull her gun platforms off of her, piling them to one side. She tries to push them away, but I can tell she’s still a little groggy from the huge hit she just took. I move to help her, but one of the Bazooka Boys grabs me. I catch Never Lies’ eye and she shakes her head slightly to say that now is not the time to kick up a stink. Besides, the guy is a lot stronger than me and I don’t even know if I can escape him.

“Come on, idiots, we don’t have time for this. The saucer is coming,” Never Lies says.

“Nah, no sign of the monsters. It’s going to pass us by, no problems.”

The dog whistle must have been far too effective, and no monsters got as far as the Bazooka Boys. They don’t seem smart enough to have figured out what is going on, either.

One of the Bazooka Boys shoves Never Lies.

“And don’t call us idiots,” one of the idiots says.

I struggle against my captor, but his grip is like steel. Never Lies looks angrier than I’ve ever seen her, but I can’t do anything to help her. She tries to fly way, but they mob her and force her feet to the ground.

“So keen to leave? But we are having fun!” yells one of the Boys.

“Yeah, it’s not often we meet a girl superhero,” says another.

Never Lies punches one in the head, knocking him back. That only seems to encourage the others.

“What kind of a superhero are you, punching another super!” one calls.

“Treason!” agrees another.

The world is burning, and the Bazooka Boys just want to find someone to bully. They shove Never Lies and she stumbles. The leader closes in on her, trying to grab her arm. That’s when she strikes, pulling a knife from her belt and cutting right through the leader’s shields and into his power pack, severing the lines that power his suit.

She moves fast, and for a second no-one else realizes what she had done. She leaps at another Bazooka Boy, slaps his punch aside and takes him out with her knife before slamming him into the ground. Every move she makes is smooth and calculated, and the Boys don’t have a hope of stopping her with their clumsy punches. She cut their power, leaving them helpless on the ground, but she doesn’t hurt them.

I would have, if our positions had been swapped.

The only one spared her wrath is the guy holding me, and only because he uses me like as a shield. Never Lies open her visor and glares at him.

“What kind of superhero am I?” she asks, “I’m the type who fights in the sky instead of hiding on the ground like you stupid losers. I’m the kind of superhero who took three of you out with a knife.”

She kicks a downed Bazooka Boy in the leg and he tries to crawl away from her. Her gun platforms float into the air and fix themselves to her shoulders where they belong.

“I’m the kind of superhero you don’t want to mess with, idiots.”

The guy behind me takes the hint and lets me go.

“Now,” Never Lies says, “why don’t you amateurs walk home and leave the saucer to me?”

We take off and I fly next to her in the air, close enough so we can talk.

“Those guys are a joke,” she says angrily. “Why do male superheroes think that women can’t fight? They were so slow and clumsy that I could have taken a dozen of them out if I wanted. Idiots. And were you planning on helping at any stage?”

“Why? They don’t deserve my help,” I say.

That almost earns me a smile.

“Let’s go kill some aliens,” she says.

“Yes ma’am.”

The saucer explodes in the distance, crashing down into a forest and starting a raging fire. That’s the kind of problem that the fire department can deal with, so we ignore it.

We find Small Talk lying on the ground within ten meters of the dog whistle. Our fort of ice and dirt lies in ruins around him, and a metal serpent is wrapped around his body. He managed to rip the thing’s head off before it reached the dog whistle. He’s surrounded by piles and piles of every kind of alien as if he was trying to form a wall of dead metal to protect the whistle.

“Is he dead?” I ask.

Small Talk groans in pain, and we fly down to unwrap him from his enemy.

“He’ll survive. Just.” Never Lies says.

We look up to see a flash of light from the other side of town as the downed saucer explodes. Dark Fire and Blizzard Master did their job well. I relax a little.

I should have learnt my lesson: a dozen aliens teleport into existence right above and the fight starts again. Never Lies gets three of them, but one pins her and another smacks me right in the helmet.

It’s a five-legged freak made of spinning blades and wicked spines. It slashes at my head, screaming in a high pitch squeal. My green shields take most of the damage but I struggle to fight it off. The pressure releases for a moment as someone pulls the alien off me and slams it against the ground. My rescuer is wearing dull blue, and isn’t someone I recognize. The alien turns on him, sticking a blade right through his leg. He staggers, yet still manages to punch the creature as it closes in on him. I blast it apart with my multiblaster, cutting its legs and arms off with focused blasts until it is no longer a threat. Never Lies has taken the rest of the aliens out in the same amount of time it has taken me to kill one. Blizzard Master was right; I do need a bigger gun.

My rescuer lies gasping on the ground. He has a huge ‘TRAINEE’ printed on his chest, and the only weapon he carries is a short sword. His suit looks even less impressive than mine. I kneel beside him and put some pressure on his leg until his suit stops the bleeding. I wonder what kind of a person sees a huge alien made entirely of blades and heads straight for it. I mean, I would, but I realize I’m not normal.

He reaches up, opens his visor and gives me a familiar smile.

“I knew I’d find you here,” he gasps.

It’s Tenchi.