Trainee Superhero (Book Three) (6 page)

I try to get between his face and his leg,
but he pushes me aside.

“Relax, boy. It was my metal leg,
anyway.”

We pull him away from the creature’s head,
just in case.
Dark Fire
kneels beside him. The older man
grunts in recognition as
Dark Fire
bends over him.

“I am so sorry, Rob. You have lost so much by
following me,” says
Dark Fire
.

“Nonsense,” whispers
Past Prime
, “I’ve
been killing saucers since before your time, and I’m not done yet!
This old body still has a trick or two!”

They talk quietly together until a medical
transport arrives, and then I help the medics load
Prime
onto a stretcher.

“He’ll survive,” the medic says, “mostly just
damage to his cyborg parts.”

“See?” whispers
Prime
weakly.

More superheroes are loaded onto the
transport, and it takes off.

“I hope you learnt something from that,” says
Pet Shark
from right behind me.

He has an arm in a sling and his helmet is
missing. It looks like he put up a heck of a fight.

I did learn something:
Past Prime
’s
real name is Rob. I would not have guessed.

“Everybody gather,” orders
Dark
Fire
.

We form a circle around him. He listens to
the radio in his helmet as he waves us closer.

“Orders coming in,” says
Dark Fire
. He
pauses, stunned.

We all look over; it’s a rare thing to see a
legendary superhero lost for words. He opens his visor and shakes
his head in disbelief.

“Another titan has just made landfall… and
we’ve been ordered to respond.”

“Stay calm and trust in the Corps. We have
everything under control

-Superhero Corps official propaganda

“Some days everything goes wrong, despite all
the plans and attempts to make things better. Being a superhero
doesn’t prevent those days, it amplifies them.”

-
Bad Day
, email to his brother.

Only seven of us make it to the second titan,
and all of us are hurting.

Tenchi and I are the only trainees, but we
are in better shape than the others.
Never Lies
has lost one
of her cannons,
Home Brew
is limping,
Free Man
and
Simon Smith
are covered in burn marks and cuts, and even
Dark Fire
is moving more slowly than usual.

“We’re dead,” says
Home Brew
as we
soar in the Comet, and no one disagrees.

The Comet drops us above the city and we fly
in formation, a thin shield to stand against the saucer’s great
weapon. The city unrolls below, streets and buildings all laid out
like a model. Cars and buses rush under our feet as people flee
back the way we came. Some look up and wave, but most do not. They
are too busy trying to survive, too busy in the struggle and frenzy
of escape. The sounds of sirens and screams drift up to us, but
they are muffled and far away, noise from another world. We fly in
silence, each of us full of both focus and fear. The people below
are relying on us; thousands will die if we fail.

I feel like a superhero for the first time; I
feel like this is my moment.

We land on the highest tower and wait. We
can’t see any other supers in the air.
Dark Fire
drops a
purple emergency flare, a call to any and all superheroes to gather
to him. I doubt they will. The first team sent to stop the titan
are missing, and it will be too long to wait for any others to
arrive. We are alone, but
Dark Fire
still drops the flare.
It sizzles loudly. We can hear the heavy footsteps of the creature
approaching, smell the smoke of distant fires. The ugly sounds of a
panicking city drift up to us, the crash of cars colliding and
distant, useless sirens.

“Any sign of the
East Coast Warriors
?”
asks
Never Lies
.

The warriors were meant to be protecting this
area, but there is no sign of them. I wonder if they have already
tried to stop the creature and failed.

“They are not here,” says
Simon Smith
with worry confidence.

An enormous red dorsal fin rises over the
hills. This titan is different from the last one, with a broad head
and two vast cannons on its shoulders. It has long rows of spines
taller than the building we are standing on and a pair of long,
thin tails that whip from side to side as it approaches. We aren’t
the first to try and stop this thing: it's limping, and smoke rises
from a long gash on its right side. Whoever did that must have hit
it real hard.

Just not hard enough.

“What are we waiting for?” asks Tenchi.

Dark Fire
waves him to silence.

“You have a plan, right?” asks
Home
Brew
nervously.

I know his story; he was kicked out of two
teams for getting dangerously drunk while on duty. He’s not the
kind of superhero you might expect to find at the end of days, yet
here he is.

“We have a plan,” says
Never Lies
,
“but it’s a long shot. We won’t blame anyone who leaves now.”

There is an uncomfortable silence as we
consider it.

“I’m staying,” I say at last, “there are too
many civilians still out here.”

“I’ll stay,” says Tenchi, “but I want a
promotion if we survive. And a dog.”

I laugh, but Tenchi shakes his head.

“I’m serious, I want a dog.”

“I choose to stay,” says
Free Man
,
“which is both the first and last real choice I’ve had in years. I
wanted to be a philosopher, you know, not a soldier.”

“You can be both,” I suggest.

“Everyone will know my name after today,”
says
Simon Smith
, and smiles as if that’s all that matters.
I don’t know if he’s planning to leave business cards when we’re
done here, and I’m not about to ask him.

“You’re a weird guy,
Simon Smith
,” I
say, “but I’m glad you’re here.”

“Call me…
Simon
.”

Home Brew
looks like he might fly off,
but he doesn’t.

“I’m staying,” he says at last, “I would
never forgive myself if I left now. I can’t believe that brewing a
few beers landed me
here
. I’m never drinking again.”

“I’m glad you are all staying,” says
Dark
Fire
.

“We’ll be fine,” says Tenchi.

“No, we probably won’t,” says
Never
Lies
, “there is no use pretending otherwise.”

Two parachutes open in the sky, little
flowers of home almost lost in the big blue forever. They circle,
see the flare and head to join us.

“It’s
Perth Rose
and
Three
Brothers
,” I say.

I didn’t see them in the fight earlier. It
looks liked they just arrived from the
Cerberus
. They are
each holding a red bag almost as big as I am, but they aren’t
carrying any other weapons. The bags are connected directly to
their power suits by thick tubes, something I have never seen
before. Whatever they are, they’re powered by the suits. They land
gently beside us, and
Dark Fire
checks them over.

“How long?” asks
Dark Fire
.

“Seven minutes to minimum charge, eleven to
maximum charge,” answers
Perth Rose
. He looks like he’s been
crying.

“And you’re both sure about this?”

They nod in unison.

“Okay. Start the first charge now, the second
charge in five minutes. We’ll try rip open an entry for you. The
best plan is to hit it as it crosses the parkland if we can.
Otherwise just hit it as best you can. Set?”

“Set,” we all say and we start to move.

“Wait,” orders
Dark Fire
, “I know the
odds are stacked against us, but they always were. People are
relying on us. We can do this. We can!”

“We can do this,” echoes
Never
Lies
.

“We can,” says
Free Man
.

“Call me
Simon
.”

“Set?”

“Set!”

Perth Rose
pulls a cord on his suit
and the bag starts pulsing with light.
Dark Fire
starts a
timer on his arm then waves us into the air. We rise together.

“Thank you,”
Dark Fire
calls out, and
I don’t think he’s talking to us.

“I’ll draw the fire,” I say, and race ahead
of the others.

They call me back, but I don’t respond. My
shields are back to full, and I know what I have to do. My only
real skill as a superhero is taking a beating, so it’s better that
the titan focusses on me rather than my friends. I dive and spin as
best I can, but the alien titan hits me with everything it’s got.
My suit vibrates and rolls under the fire, and all of my alarms
start ringing.

I really need a master switch to mute those
things.

A missile hits me and pushes me to the
ground. I have a few seconds of respite to check on my team as they
fly over. A plasma storm engulfs
Home Brew
and he falls
right out the sky and crashes into a rooftop bar in a spray of
glass. He’s up again in seconds, but then a pair of missiles find
him and he falls again.
Free Man
lands beside him, but then
both are covered in green smoke and I lose sight of them.

Huge missiles fill the air.
Simon
Smith
flies overhead, followed by a cloud of rockets the size
of buses. He points at the titan and the missiles arc past him and
at the beast. The titan turns its head and blasts two of the
missiles out of the air, but the others catch it right between its
enormous eyes and stun the beast.

“Go
Simon
!”

A squid-liked alien drops out of the sky and
wraps its tentacles around my legs. I blast it and stamp it into
pieces. The squid dissolves into an oily green gas.

“Weird.”

The gas clumps and reforms, so I blast it
again.

A triclops armed with axes charges at me, and
I blast it with my color cannon. Tenchi lands beside me and slaps
me on the back.

“I remember when one of those nearly killed
us,” he says.

“Yeah, now all we have to do is worry about
that titan.”

“And those things,” he says, pointing his
sword at three octo-apes and a cube-tank overhead.

“I’ll take the hit and then the tank,” I say,
charging my cannon.

Tenchi ducks behind me and we leap forward
together. The cube-tank hits me in the chest, but I drop Tenchi
right into the octo-apes and he cuts into them. I take out the tank
with one shot and then land just in time to smash an octo-ape on
the head, stunning it. Tenchi shoves his sword through the thing’s
chest and cuts until it stops moving.

I get back into the air just as one of the
titan’s massive shoulder cannons fires. It hits me square on and
smashes me into the sky. I fly high above the city, spinning
dangerously. My shields flicker and die, but my new suit of armor
keeps me alive.

I pull a parachute cord and once again offer
a prayer of thanks to whoever is in charge of packing my little
lifesavers. I stabilize and start dropping through the air when I
see four new superheroes joining us. They are flying in perfect
formation, unconcerned about taking fire or conserving energy. I
recognize one of them immediately: his poster is probably still
hanging above my bed.

The General
has arrived, and he’s
brought his friends along. They’re called the
Elite Guard
and I’m not sure whether I should be celebrating or running right
now. They are the best of the best, the most power and beautiful
superheroes on the planet, and if anyone can save the day it’s
them.

But there should be twelve of them, not
four.

I swoop towards the titan to where
Dark
Fire
and my team are trying to burn through its neck.

“
The General
and his people are
incoming,” I say, “don’t know what you want to do about it.”

Dark Fire
drops a purple flare onto
the creature’s back.

“Put your visor down, kid, you don’t want him
to see you!”

We’ve almost cut a hole through the
creature’s armor when the
Elite
arrive. They don’t talk to
us, they don’t even look at us, they just swoop down and start
dishing out incredible amounts of damage.

I watch in awe as
Golden Zeus
uses a
lance to cut a piece of the creature’s armor right off, but then he
gets hit by a missile and slammed into a building. A second super
drops next to me, rolling hard. I fly next to him and help him up
as cube-tanks strafe us.

“Thanks,” he says.

The name on his suit says
Silver
Shadows
, but
Silver Shadows
is a bit of a legend and
this guy only looks a few years older than me.

“I have your poster on my wall,” I say, and
then immediately feel stupid.

This is not the time, idiot.

“Charmed. I’ll sign it if we survive. Now,
where’s the boss?”

I point out
The General
, but
Silver
Shadows
shakes his head. He sees
Dark Fire
and lands
next to him, adding his own cutting rays to theirs. I cover them as
best I can, using my body to shield theirs.

“…took one down already, but lost most of the
team. This one is larger,” says
Silver Shadows
.

“Copy. We took one down, too. I have a bomb
for this one, but we need to cut through the armor!”

The titan shakes itself violently, sending us
flying. I land hard in a tree, and struggle to get out.

“On your feet, convict!” yells
The
General
as he flies past.

He may hate my unit, but at least he doesn’t
know who I am.