“I was born rich, handsome and well connected, but I will earn my greatness.”

–Extract from Born Lucky's email to Dark Fire, the only occasion of someone volunteering for the Cerberus Brawlers.

“Cold Comet was like a daughter to me, and I will never forget her. I also lost an arm and most of my leg that day, and I may never fly again. Yet what we found will save the Earth, and isn’t that our purpose?”

–Master Bansuri, statement at Dark Fire’s trial.

I’m climbing the infinity wall when Small Talk arrives at the bottom. I ignore him; I’m so close to that stupid bell that this could be the run.

My collar explodes in pain and I hit the mat.

“The boss wants to see you,” Small Talk says, leaning over me.

He grabs my arm and escorts me out of the training hall up corridors I’ve never used before. We pass stewards, technicians and medics who do their best to stay out of our way. Small Talk leads me up a set of stairs and into a small, dark office with a single window looking over the Cerberus’ three cannons. We must be in the boat’s island, the tower sitting to one side of the deck. The room is dominated by a wooden desk piled high with computers and hologram projectors. A bookshelf runs along one wall of the room, and Never Lies is browsing the books. She doesn’t look up when we enter. Past Prime is also here, standing beside a weapons rack that holds long metal swords. Small Talk points me to the center of the room and then stands beside Never Lies.

Dark Fire is sitting behind the desk; he does not look happy to see me. He’s in full combat armor. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen him out of his armor. He’s about four feet tall, but exudes power.

“Red Five,” he says, “this panel has convened to assess your potential as a superhero. We have come to the conclusion that you have some talent, but not enough to be accepted into our team. You are too prone to risk, and to injury.”

“What? Come on!” I object.

“You need to work harder if you want to make it.”

Work harder?

“I'm working as hard as I can,” I say.

“Then this is as good as you will ever get,” says Dark Fire.

“Then this is as good as I’ll ever get,” I argue back, “but I think I’ve shown it's good enough for cannon fodder. The Cerberus Brawlers have had a lot of casualties recently, so you need me.”

My three instructors glare at me.

“Why are you here?” asks Dark Fire.

“Past Prime brought me,” I answer.

Never Lies chuckles, so I guess that was the wrong answer.

“I want to be a superhero,” I try.

Small Talk just shakes his head at that.

A silence descends on the room. They are still waiting on my answer.

“I want to avenge my mother. I want to kill saucers.”

Another awkward pause.

“You are charged with assaulting The General with full knowledge as to his identity. Assaulting a superhero is considered treason,” says Dark Fire.

“I never–”

“–we don’t care. All three of your instructors have taken a swing at The General at one point or another, and so have I. The point is that you were sent here, but you are too young. I know that Past Prime has talked to you about joining Mercy…have you considered it?”

“No. No disrespect to Mercy, they do good work, but I want to fight. You need me.”

“We knew your mother,” says Dark Fire, “and she wouldn’t want you to die so young. We owe her.”

That shuts me up, but not for long.

“I’m staying.”

“You should-”

“I’m staying!” I yell.

No one responds to my tantrum. A deep and awkward silence falls over the room.

“We have been testing you. You are too slow in sparring, in climbing,” says Dark Fire at last. “You have some talent in assessment and information gathering, but you lack precision. You are too young, too rash. We don’t want your death on our hands.”

“–No!” I interrupted forcefully, “I want to fight. Cape or coffin, nothing in between. You would be stupid to send me to Mercy.”

“Dangerous, boy,” mutters Past Prime.

I don’t apologize.

“This is a good offer. You will be safe. Think about it,” urges Never Lies, “really.”

“I have.”

Every day of my life since Mom died.

“Everybody dies eventually,” I say, “I just want to die trying to do something good.”

“And you will,” mutters Past Prime.

“And you will,” says Dark Fire, “but only if you can prove yourself. Now get out of my office.”

They cancel my team assignments. I start training harder than I ever have, but my three instructors have abandoned me. I stay in the training hall from morning to night, skipping meals to get more time in the simulator, setting the difficulties higher and higher. I spar with the multi-armed training robot until I can best it two times out of five at a medium setting. It’s not a great record, but it’s better than nothing. My sparring draws a crowd of superheroes who enjoy watching me take a beating. I know there’s a betting pool going on, and that means that some people are going to get egg on their heads. Literally.

The superheroes have no need for money, so they bet the right to throw eggs at each other. They bet on everything, from who can get the most kills on a mission to when Chef will make lasagna again. My duels with the sparring robot are the flavor of the week, and so far over a hundred eggs have been bet on me.

“What are the odds on me hitting that damn bell on the climbing wall?” I ask Bad Day at dinner time.

He gives me a long, slow look, taking in my many bruises.

“Three hundred to one, the largest odds we’ve ever seen. No one’s taken it up yet.”

I head back to the hall after dinner and start climbing the wall.

“Hey kid,” someone calls out.

It’s Pet Shark, and he seems happy to see me.

“What?” I say cautiously.

“I heard what happened. Both Never Lies and Small Talk voted to promote you but Past Prime and Dark Fire said no. What’s with that?”

“I dunno,” I lie.

“Liar. You just need to prove yourself.”

“How?”

“Climb the wall and hit that bell. The rest of us have, it’s a piece of cake. It’s embarrassing that you can’t, really. The wall is out for maintenance until midnight, but you can try then. Hit the bell and you’re in.”

I don’t know whether to trust him, but what else can I do?

I train in the simulator until midnight and then head down to the wall. It's dark and quiet in the training hall, and I am alone.

“Lights on,” I say.

I walk to the bottom of the infinity wall and look up. The bell isn’t that far up, really. It should be easy, right? All I need is someone to help me start the wall moving. Pet Shark steps out of the shadows.

“Need a hand?” he asks.

He’s smiling again, and that worries me.

“Why are you being so helpful?” I ask suspiciously.

“Just being friendly,” he says innocently.

I doubt it, but Pet Shark has a perfect poker face. I consider my options, but it’s not like I have anything to lose.

“Let’s do this.”

I climb, fall, repeat. Pet Shark laughs at me, but I ignore him.

“I do enjoy watching you fall,” he says, “you will never make it.”

He’s right. I won’t make it by climbing, so there is only one other way for me to hit that bell. I can see it in my head, and it ends badly. I take a break at the bottom of the cliff as I think about my options.

Past Prime is standing by the wall watching me. I didn’t see him arrive, and I don’t care about what he thinks of me. He doesn’t say anything, but he glares at Pet Shark.

I start climbing, pushing myself harder than I ever have. The wall slides past me, the handholds getting smaller and more spaced out as the levels go past. I’m almost at the top of the wall as ‘Level Seven’ passes me. I know I have ten seconds of relatively easy climbing before the next level drops me. I lose a little ground as the wall speeds up, but then I find a good foothold and leap right into the air and towards the bell. I slap it and the tips of my finger just miss it.

I fall, hitting the ground hard.

Past Prime makes no move to help me. Small Talk is standing next to him, as silent as ever. Never Lies has joined them, and I feel like I’m being judged.

“Where’s Dark Fire?” I ask, “I want to show him I can do this.”

My instructors ignore me, but Dark Fire steps out of the shadows to join them. He doesn’t look pleased.

I start my climb again, but this time I feel a surge of adrenaline that pushes me up the cliff. I’m not climbing, I’m flying, and no wall will keep me down. I make the eighth level, the first time I’ve ever got so far, then launch myself up and at the bell. This time I touch it.

Bing.

I fall, sliding through the air, past the mats below the infinity wall and towards the ground headfirst. I stick my arms out to protect myself and hit the ground hard. My arm snaps and my forehead bangs into the floor. The pain is terrible, worse than anything I’ve ever felt. I look at my arm and a bone poking through the skin. I roll over and see Pet Shark smiling at me.

“Help?” I ask.

“Look at you, bleeding everywhere. How untidy,” says Pet Shark reproachfully.

I didn’t think he was a compassionate man, but he fetches the medical kit from beside the infinity wall and pulls it out of its plastic package.

Thank goodness.

Pet Shark hands me the plastic cover and puts the medical kit back in place.

“Try and bleed into that, you'll make less mess.”

I stick my arm in the bag and blood starts pooling in the bottom. I’m losing a lot of blood, but my instructors don’t make a move to help me.

“I told you this would happen if we pushed him,” says Never Lies, because she enjoys being right.

She turns her back and walks away.

“He did better than you ever have,” yells Pet Shark, but she just gives him the middle finger without even turning around.

Small Talk gives Dark Fire an intense look and then follows Never Lies, leaving my two doubters to watch over me.

“Guess she was right… I’ve changed my vote,” announces Dark Fire, “coffee, sensei?”

Pet Shark grabs my shirt and helps me to my feet.

“You did great, kid,” he says loudly, but then pulls me close and whispers in my ear, “I never thought you’d make it. No one ever has, I just wanted to see how far I could push you. Dark Fire doesn’t mind me playing with the trainees, but if you tell anyone else I put you up to this, I’ll kill you. Now get!”

I get.

I find a steward in the corridor and she helps me to the medical bay. The nurses don't even bat an eye at my injuries, but just sit me down and pump replacement blood into my arm. They work with such practiced efficiency that they don’t even take their eyes off the late night TV show on the monitors. The doctor arrives, scowls at me, and points me towards a big black auto-surgery box. I stick my arm in the box. It whirls quietly as it sets my arm. The nurses give me a glass of orange juice and a pack of pills while they check my head. I'm feeling pretty good by the time I finish the juice and pull my arm out of the black box. It's wrapped in bandages.

“That wasn’t so bad,” I say.

“We haven’t even started yet,” says the nurse, and pushes a needle into my neck.

I wake up in the sick bay. This has become such a frequent occurrence that they’ve set up a bed just for me.

“You should apply for a frequent fliers card,” says the younger nurse.

The doctor, Got Greedy arrives. He checks me over and leaves without a word.

“He doesn’t seem to like me much,” I tell the nurse.

“No,” she says with a smile, “but don’t take it personally. He’s been grumpy ever since he was conscripted for this role as an alternative to going to jail for selling med tech on the black market.”

“He’s a criminal?” I say, only somewhat surprised.

“A talented criminal,” she corrects me, “which is why your arm is now more metal than bone. Now get some rest.”

I wait for her to leave, and then I stand up. My arm is in a cast, but I feel fine. More metal than bone? I can live with that. I’m doing one-armed push-ups when Never Lies walks into the room. She gives me a bemused look and shakes her head.

“You’re an idiot,” she says.

That’s a fair assessment.

“No one has ever hit the bell, you know. It’s meant to be an impossible challenge to teach trainees to push themselves in a situation they can’t win.”

I didn’t know that.

“I don’t know what possessed you to throw yourself around like that. What were you thinking?”

I shrug.

“I wanted to impress you. I guess I was too stupid to know when I was beat,” I say.

“Past Prime tried to argue that you mother wouldn’t want you fighting and that this incident proved you take too many risks.”

“I guess my mom wouldn’t want me fighting,” I admit.

“No one’s mother wants their kids to fight, but Past Prime is too old to remember that. Anyway, Small Talk said you have the kind of stupid we need, and even Dark Fire was impressed.”

“So you voted to let me join?” I ask.

“I did. I don’t think you are the worst superhero I’ve ever seen. Now get some sleep.”

They keep me in the sick bay for another three days, although I don’t really see the point. I’m ready to get out of here. I play with my tat-a-gotchi, making it do tricks. It’s grown bigger now, a long serpent with crystalline wings and a sharp beak.

“I remember when you were a lame little worm,” I tell it.

Someone coughs politely to get my attention. It’s the grey-haired steward.

“They want you in the armory,” he tells me, and I’m finally free.

Second Best and Talented Brat are standing in the middle of the armory waiting for me. A crowd of technicians are gathered around them, and everyone seems excited.

“Come here, lad,” Brat says.

He points me towards a suit of armor in a dark corner. I can’t see any details.

“Turn on a light or something,” I say.

A single spotlight turns on and illuminates the suit. It’s a squat and bulky thing, all sharp corners and flat surfaces with no concession to aerodynamics. The helmet is a thick cube of black glass, and the chest and legs are covered in bulky flat metal.

“Woah,” I say.

The left arm is a thick rectangle ending in a barrel, the right arm is a set of rods encased in a set of clear glass cubes and a heavy prism sits on each shoulder. The prisms look like short-range cutting lasers. It’s a heavier suit than any I’ve ever seen, with overlapping metal squares all over.

It looks like the kind of suit that’s designed to mess things up. I look for a name on the chest, but the suit looks polished and new, unpainted and without a label.

“Like it?” asks Second Best.

“It’s… brutal,” I say, “but I like it! Whose is it?”

They share a confused look, and Brat slaps his face in exasperation.

“Idiot.”

I’m being dense; this suit was made for me.

“Really?” I ask, and for the first time since my mom died I break into a genuine smile.

“Really,” says Second Best, “just for you.”

I put it on; it fits perfectly. This suit is the first piece of clothing made just for me.

“Ready?” Brat asks.

I am; I fly right out the armory hangar and into the sky. The suit feels solid, like I’m a flying rhino made of steel. I feel good.

No… I feel invulnerable.

“Fly east,” whispers Second Best in my helmet.

I check my compass and fly east. The suit turns well, for all its bulk, and flying slowly barely uses any power. I loop and dive, yelling in pleasure.

“I kept this power source just for you,” says Second Best, “it was your mother’s favorite, some of her best work. It’s got a lot of juice.”

I fly until I reach a rocky island.

“We have mounted two multiblasters in the right arm and the color cannon in the left. The shoulders are cutting lasers for short range work. You control them with your eyes, but they will take up a ton of your power, so don’t fire them for long.”

I use the lasers to cut some rocks into thin slices, and then I blast the slices with my multiblaster until the stones are nothing but dust.

“Nice,” I say.

My helmet ticks loudly.

“I have a weapons lock on me,” I say.

“Seventy-three missiles heading your way,” agrees Second Best, “I’d prefer if you didn’t shoot them down. Fly into them and we’ll see about your shields.”

“Fly into them?” I ask. That seems like a pretty stupid thing to do, so naturally I start immediately.

The first missile hits me right in the chest but green shields shimmer around me and the rest of the missiles either swerve past me or explode harmlessly against my shields.

“Shield check,” says Second Best.

“98%,” I say.

Second Best whistles, impressed.

“That’s some good work,” she says.

“Thanks.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, Red Five, I was talking to myself. I’ve built a flying tank.”

I hover in the air, taking in the ocean and earth below me, the sky above. I can see the Cerberus in the distance, and a few other warships on the horizon. Clouds stream out above me, leading out into the distance, and part of me wants to follow them.

“What’s stopping me from just flying away now?” I ask.

“Would you?” asks Second Best. She sounds a little anxious.

“Of course not, but surely people consider it.”

“We still control your collar,” Second Best reminds me, “and I can shut your suit down from here. Plus Never Lies has been following, just in case.”

“I thought you said I’m a flying tank!”

“I can still take you,” says Never Lies over my radio.

I can’t see her, but I have no doubt that she’s around. My helmet goes tick-tick-tick.

“You have all your weapons locked on me, don’t you?” I ask.

“I do.”

She sounds smug.

“One of those weapons is a special shield-piercing cannon designed to bring people like me down, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“Good thing you won’t need it, then.”

“Yeah… about that…”

A beam of light hits me right in the head and I fall out of the sky, tumbling. I catch myself just above the ground.

“Shields at 80%. And also, ouch.”

“80%? That’s impressive. Nice recovery, too.”

“Thanks, but my head is buzzing like there’s a swarm of bees in this suit with me. Please don’t do that again. Can we go get some lunch now?”

“You wish. We still have work to do, so stop whining and power up that rainbow-cannon.”

Three hours later I’m lying in the sun in the operators’ area, exhausted. Never Lies kicks me in the leg.

“Get up, trainee, we have things to talk about.”

I wonder if she’s going to shoot me again; she really seemed to enjoy it. She leads me to the cafeteria and sits me down at a table. Chef brings over three pieces of cake.

“We’ve been thinking,” she says, “and we’ve come to the conclusion that you need a partner. It’s pretty common practice for trainee to get paired up; it makes you easier to handle and gives you a better chance on the battlefield. Anyway, his name is Grey Three.”

The door opens and Tenchi walks in. We stare at each other in dumbstruck surprise.

“You two have complementary skills,” continues Never Lies, “and we thought you would work well together. You two look like you’ve seen a ghost, is there a problem?”

She almost cracks a smile, but then turns away.

Tenchi grabs me in a bear hug and squeezes the life out of me. We high five, we bump fists, we laugh. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

“Powers?” asks Tenchi.

“Shields and lasers, mostly. I can pretty much hit everything I want,” I say, “so I really clean up at range. What about you?”

“Blades, and the bigger the better. They call it tino-kinetics or something, I don’t know.”

“Oh, that’s cool!” I say.

That’s way better than being a flying tank.

“I can’t fly very well,” Tenchi says to make me feel better, “I have to close my eyes. Is this cake for me?

Chef brings us more coffee and cake; he’s in an excellent mood, and doesn’t mind us intruding on his space.

“That… is… delicious,” says Tenchi around a mouthful of cake.

I don’t answer; I’m too busy eating.

“What are you doing here?” he asks me.

“Back home… The General arrived–”

“–just in time to save you, what a champ!” Tenchi interrupts enthusiastically.

“Turns out he is Stace’s Dad. He was not pleased to see me and his daughter in the middle of a saucer attack, so he tried to kill–”

“–tried to kill you? What a saucerhat!”

Tenchi’s admiration of The General disappears even more quickly than mine did. Tenchi doesn’t seem at all surprised that a superhero could be so dangerous to the people he is supposed to protect. I guess he has also seen behind the façade.

“What about you?” I ask.

“I was in training for a while. They seemed to be in a rush to get us finished. I was top of my class, so they promoted me early. I had a few missions, and everything was going well enough–”

“–what? How? I nearly died on my first missions!”

“I just did what the voices on my radio told me,” he says, giving me a very odd look.

“I didn’t get voices, I just got shot. I would have killed for voices!” I say.

“Well… it turned out that no one else was hearing anything on their radios, so people thought I was pretty weird.”

“Okay…”

“Anyway, the little voices kept me alive. On my last mission they kept telling me to come towards where I found you. I did what they said, so that was good, but my commanders did not like me doing my own thing.”

“So they sent you here?”

“Well... I also punched my boss, which might have something to do with my reassignment.”

I wince; punching a superhero is never a good idea, not even if you are a superhero. Technically it’s an act of treason and punishable by death.

“Why did you hit him?”

“We were at a club… he was getting handsy with a girl who wasn’t enjoying it. One thing led to another, and now I’m here. It’s better this way, anyway. Partners, just like we planned!”

“I’m glad you’re here, man,” I say.

“Me, too. They told me that you’ve been breaking the record for time spent in the sick bay. What’s up with that?”

“Go hard or go home… you know how I am. I just want to be good at this.”

Tenchi nods.

“And now I’m here, and we are going to be the greatest team who ever lived. Right?”

Right. The legend of Grey and Red starts today.

“Look at my tat-a-gotchi!” I say.

Tenchi is impressed; his own tat-a-gotchi is big red shrew that moves so quickly across his arm that I can’t keep track of it.

“Cool,” we say in unison.

Never Lies walks back in.

“If you are done with the cake, perhaps you would like to join me in saving the world?” she says sarcastically.

Tenchi rolls his eyes and whispers “WTF” to me, but I shrug.

“She’s right, as always,” I say, “it’s time to save the world. Again.”