Bad Day grabs me as the worm bites down.

  The world spins. I black out and wake up in a snow bank. I'm in a perfectly spherical crater about eight feet wide.

  Bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

  Ironically it seems that the damage alarm is the only part of my suit still working. My shields took the worst of the landing, but Bad Day isn't as lucky. He hits the ground with a sickening thud. His shields - which are never particularly strong - flicker and die. We are lying next to One Trick, who is breathing but not moving much.

  I pull out a rescue flare and throw it downwind. It won't make much difference, because if our rescuers haven't already seen us then we are going to freeze to death.

  I limp over to Bad Day and flip his helmet open. His breath comes out in a long, white cloud.

  Thank goodness.

  Then he stops breathing. I panic, and try to do CPR but his suit is too thick and doesn't bend as I push against it. Bad Day jerks, spasms and starts breathing again. I hear engines and look up to see a big aircraft, a Meteor, landing about ten feet from me. I don't know why I didn't hear it earlier. It's white and red, the colors of Team Mercy.

  The back opens and people jump out and run towards me. They place Bad Day and One Trick on the two operating tables in the Meteor. One of the nurses helps me into a seat, and I can see the concern in his face. He asks me a question, but I just shake my head. The jet takes off gently as medics strip away portions of One Trick's armor. She doesn't wake up as they place needles in her arms, doesn't even flinch when one of the medics flips open one of her eyelids. Bad Day is doing even worse: the medical team clears the space around him as his body spasms again.

  The time is passing strangely, people moving in blurs as they work. I close my eyes for a second, and when I open them Bad Day is looking right at me. He waves me over, so I unstrap and lurch unsteadily to sit beside him. He has a dozen tubes in his neck and chest. Some are pumping blood into his body, some are removing it. I don't know what the rest are doing, but I hope they are helping.

  “Okay, kid?” he says, although his voice sounds like a whisper from far away.

  I nod, although I'm not okay and might never be again.

  “Wrong Answer and Loud Mouth?” he asks, and all I can do is shake my head.

  “Not your fault,” he says, “not your fault. I saw Firestorm Commando coming out of the tunnel as I was trying to get back in. He was trying to collapse the tunnel. That’s why I was late.”

  “You shouldn't have come back for me,” I manage, “you could have stayed away and been fine.”

  Bad Day cracks a smile, but even that seems to bring him pain. He reaches over and grabs my shoulder, pulling me close.

  “Listen, kid, I never had a tenth of the potential you have. You are tough and smart, and we need more like you. If the last thing I ever do is keep you alive... it will be enough. It will be enough.”

  One of the medics pulls me gently away as Bad Day's eyes lose focus. She sits me down and straps me into one of the seats. She gives me a worried look and the chair starts to scan me for injuries. A nurse picks up my arm and examines it with soft hands, but I don't feel any pain. She shakes her head and calls a doctor who injects something into my arm. The doctor starts talking to me but I hear nothing, feel nothing, see nothing but Bad Day and the medics working on his broken body.

  I am going to kill Firestorm Commando the next time I see him.

  Lesson Ten: Go Hard Or Go Home (In A Casket)

  “Everything for Earth.”

  -Superhero Corps Motto.

  “Dark Fire believes that this mission could save the Earth. 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 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.

  “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.

 

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