“Stand against the saucers and the world stands with you.”

–Superhero Corps official propaganda.

“It’s just the four of us versus the hostile universe, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

–Cold Comet, journal entry read out at Dark Fire’s trial.

We land on a cliff overlooking the ocean. There are six of us, including Tenchi. He’s armed with the enormous sword that Talented Brat said no one was strong enough to wield. Tenchi needs both hands to keep it off the ground, but he seems to be okay. There isn’t anything suspicious that we can see, so Never Lies calls up Talented Brat.

“No saucer,” she says.

“I’m getting some big readings… real big. There’s something in the ocean.”

He almost sounds nervous.

“Real big,” adds Second Best calmly, “we’ll be on the lookout.”

“Copy. We can see nothing so far,” says Never Lies.

We spread out and start scouting the cliff. Tenchi and I are a team, which makes us both happy. Tenchi doesn’t fly, but runs through the air on discs of light that form below his feet and hang in the air behind him so that his path is illuminated by bright footsteps. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s not fast, but it does look cool.

“Showy,” says Never Lies.

“I have to close my eyes,” Tenchi admits to me when we are a little further away.

I smile; it’s good to know that he has an Achilles’ heel.

“See anything?” I ask.

“No, but can you hear that whispering on the radio? One single voice, getting closer.” I can’t hear anything, and Tenchi’s talk of little voices is frankly a bit weird.

“I’m high above the cliffs,” says Never Lies over the radio, “nothing to see.”

Our radio starts to crackle.

“There!” says Tenchi, point out at the horizon.

I can’t see anything except water, clouds and boats.

“Mmm… this is going to be a difficult one,” murmurs Extremely Dangerous over the radio.

“Gather on me,” says Never Lies curtly.

She drops out of the sky and lands beside me.

I still can’t see anything out there except a small fishing boat.

“I don’t see anything,” says Born Lucky.

My proximity alarm starts ringing slowly, with seconds between each ‘bang’.

“Prox alarm,” I say.

Then I see it: a line of black fins cutting through the water, trailing long spikes like huge antennae. The fins brush past the fishing boat, rolling it in their wake. They are still many miles off shore, but I estimate the fins are several stories high.

“I see it now,” says One Trick unnecessarily, “and it looks mighty big.”

Never Lies pulls a flare out of a pocket, lights it and throws it. Green smoke billows into the air.

“Yes. Okay. Born Lucky and his squad are on their way,” she says.

She looks unsure of herself for the first time since I’ve met her, but I don’t blame her.

“Won’t be long now,” she says.

I know things are looking bad when Never Lies tries to be comforting.

I check my weapons and shields; the black fins get closer. Whatever’s underneath them is moving fast. I start to see a massive oval shape beneath the water as smaller fins burst the out of the waves.

“Turn your proximity alarms off;” says Never Lies evenly, “we don’t want to get deafened. Day and Trick to flank left, Red Five and Grey Three flank right. Dangerous and I will draw its fire here. Set?”

“Call me Simon Smith,” whispers Extremely Dangerous.

“Set,” say the rest of us. I start charging up my color cannon.

An enormous head emerges from the water, a nightmare shape of protruding turrets and eyes set amongst multiple beaks and maws. Behind that rise massive shoulders and a back wider than an aircraft carrier’s deck. This thing looks like someone took Godzilla and the army sent to stop Godzilla and rolled them into one creature, then added the turrets from a world war two battleship for good measure.

“Whoah,” I say, “that’s a monster and a half.”

“Cut the chatter, Red Five,” snaps Never Lies.

The monster beaches itself with powerful strokes of its tail and then stands on twelve massive legs than end in bulbous feet. Each foot could crush a tank. Turrets pop up along its back, huge arrays of long barrels and odd round discs that might be microwave beams. Water gushes from its body, raining down on the sand. The creature opens its many eyes and looks from side to side as if not yet ready to move to land. It sways under the weight of its own body.

“Surely that thing’s too big to walk,” says Bad Day.

It should be, yet it takes a step forward with a thud that we can feel on the cliff. The lines of enormous scales on the thing’s back flip open to reveal rows and rows of missiles.

“Change of plan, we need to get under it, low and fast,” yells Never Lies.

I don’t want to get under this thing, but I’ve learnt better than to question Never Lies. I start moving. Tenchi keeps pace, but he isn’t happy.

“Why are we trying to get under this thing?” he demands.

The creature yawns with massive teeth, then banks of missiles open along its shoulders.

“Faster!” I say, and grab Tenchi, dragging him forward.

Streams of lasers cut up the sand around us, and we dodge as best we can. The creature yawns again, and missiles rise in their thousands like clouds of death. There are so many that they blot out the sun and leave us in darkness.

“At least we’re fighting in the shade!” I joke, but I don’t think anyone hears me.

The missiles start to fall, but we are under the beast before its weapons find us. They hit the ground around the cliff where we had been standing, leveling the rock and soil into nothing. We would have died if we had stayed out there; Never Lies had been right, as usual.

“We’re not safe yet,” she says, pointing upwards.

Huge panels have opened in the creature’s belly and hundreds of creatures drop. I see the familiar shapes of enemies I’ve faced before, but also new creatures like a multi-legged crab-thing that lands next to Tenchi. He cuts it in half with a single blow of his enormous sword.

My cannon starts vibrating: the end is a ball of bright green light. I launch it towards the beast’s nearest leg, but it hits without making much of a mark.

“That’s not good!” I say.

Tenchi rips through a pair of triclops and I cut down a squadron of strange glowing insects that form a triangle in the air. It's chaos down here: Bad Day blurs past leaving burning shells of aliens behind him. One Trick has a huge axe in one hand and a silver blaster in the other. She spins and shoots, dodges and dives as she goes head to head with the nightmare child of a dinosaur and a fighter jet. The creature almost gets her, but she spins past it, knocking it back with her axe. Creatures close around her, but Bad Day appears from nowhere and teleports her out of danger with only a second to spare.

A pyramid flies towards us, spinning wildly. I’ve heard of these: they get close and then explode.

“Get behind me,” I say.

Tenchi moves beside me with his sword in front of him, but I push him back as the pyramid explodes into orbs of plasma. I spread my arms and close my eyes as the orbs burst against my green shields. There’s a second when I think I’m done for, but then the plasma fades away and I’m still alive. My shields say 67%. A pair of winged snakes whips through the air towards us, but I melt them with ease.

We launch ourselves into a frantic dogfight, chasing and being chased through the mess of tentacles and spires on the creature's belly. We are both slow in the air, but anything that gets close is cut clean in two by Tenchi’s giant sword or blasted by my color cannon.

“This is madness!” he yells at me as I take a pair of screamers out with my multiblasters.

A third screamer lands on my helmet and tries to pull my head right off. I hit it with my color cannon, but something strong grabs my leg. I feel heat, and then whatever it was is gone.

One Trick flies past and waves to me. Her head is on fire, and blasts of red shoot out, melting everything they touch. She must have had her powers upgraded. She joins up with Never Lies who is punishing everything that gets too close to her. One Trick keeps the sky around Never Lies clear and Never Lies smashes the larger enemies with accurate blasts from her cannons. The two of them are doing a lot better than Tenchi and I, so we fly over to join them.

Only Extremely Dangerous fights alone. He’s floating in the air with his arms outstretched. Long thin lines of grey lead from his fingers to each of the aliens around him, and he makes them dance like puppets. He gathers the biggest aliens to him, and when he tires of playing with them they simply fall over and are replaced by new creatures. He’s keeping the most dangerous aliens off our back, so I suppose I should be grateful, but at the same time it seems he could be doing so much more.

I don’t know why he doesn’t; that guy is weird.

The rest of my team shelters behind my shields as we try to figure out a plan. Missiles and plasma pop against my body, but I’m safe enough, the magnificent human shield.

Never Lies blows a hole right through a triclops as it approaches, and I drop a mutton-head with a blast of my color cannon. We are killing aliens by the hundreds, but they just keep coming.

“So is every mission like this?” Tenchi asks.

“Pretty much,” answers One Trick, “except normally we have to fight in the dark as well.”

“Ha,” says Tenchi uncertainly. I hope he realizes she’s joking.

“Quiet,” orders Never Lies, “we need to collect the others and head upwards. We aren’t doing much good here.”

She’s right. We might be building up the world’s most impressive body count of aliens ever seen, but we haven’t even managed to slow the titan as it walks up the beach.

A squadron of enormous spheres circle us, giant floating eyes with plasma cannons for irises and long metal tentacles as eyelashes.

One blasts Tenchi out of the air, pushing him out of our little circle. He hits the ground and rolls, and the eyeballs swamp him. He cuts out as fast as he can, dropping a few and cutting through tentacles, but two get behind him and squeeze their long tentacles around his neck. I blast one away; three more take its place. It only takes seconds before Tenchi disappears from sight under a pile of wicked tentacles.

“Dangerous! Help him!” orders Never Lies.

Extremely Dangerous ignores her and continues playing with creatures around him, making them either dance or fight with each other for his amusement.

“Simon Smith!” I scream.

“Yes,” he says, and waves his hand at Tenchi.

The aliens attacking Tenchi slow right down to a halt, their tentacles pausing in mid-air. Their bodies fall limp, and I help pull them off him. He looks a bit shaken, and I don’t blame him. I grab him and fly over to Extremely Dangerous.

“Simon Smith,” I say, “can you stop these things long enough for us to head upwards?”

“Of course,” he says, and floats away.

I grab Tenchi and fly towards our team. Bad Day and One Trick provide us some cover as Tenchi charges his shields.

Never Lies grabs me and points at Simon Smith who is spinning around below us.

“What is Extremely Dangerous doing?” she demands, “we need to get out of here.”

“Call him Simon Smith,” I say.

“Why? That’s not his codename.”

“You are here because you never lie. Simon Smith is here because he wants people to know his name. Call him Simon Smith.”

She stares at me.

“This is really not the… whatever. Simon Smith, we need you!”

Simon Smith starts to glow. A single pulse of grey energy bursts from his body and burns through the waves of aliens approaching us. Every alien except the titan falls out of the sky, and we all breathe a sigh of relief. There’s no immediate risk, and we take a moment to relax and check our shields. Everyone seems okay.

“I can’t believe I never thought of trying that,” Never Lies says.

“I have my moments,” I say.

“Moment,” corrects Tenchi, and I hear a few snickers.

“Moments,” I say, “definitely more than one.”

Simon Smith flies up to join us, and we slap him on the back and congratulate him. From the genuine smile he gives us, I wonder if this is the first time anyone has ever been glad to see him.

“We’ll call you whatever you like if you keep doing stuff like that!” One Trick says.

“Call me Simon Smith.”

The ground below us is scattered with alien carcasses. There must be hundreds of them, thousands even, but the beast doesn’t care. It keeps moving, occasionally stepping on the broken bodies of its own alien allies. More creatures drop out its belly.

“We should try to attack the head; if we get close enough it won’t launch missiles at us for fear of hitting itself,” I say.

“Yes. Everyone spread out. We need to move fast and hit hard. We will go up past the second and third legs on the left. Set?” says Never Lies.

“Set,” we say as one.

We fly in a clump, our eyes open and our weapons pointing outwards. The creature lurches forward on its enormous legs, each step taking it out of the water and onto land. We find a joint and start attacking it, but the leg is protected by dozens of towers and huge armored plates.

“I can’t even make a dent in this thing,” I say at last.

“We need to go upwards,” agrees Never Lies, “follow me!”

An octo-ape flies towards us, but Never Lies takes it out with one shot. We fly up and towards the creature’s massive head.

“Incoming!” I yell.

A pair of winged creatures flies at us, but Never Lies and I bring them down. They’re followed by a series of cube tanks and sphere bombers that blast us hard. We make it to the creature’s head just as a fireball falls out of the sky and hits right near me. The fireball lands on the metal and keeps burning through the scales.

It’s about time Dark Fire showed up.

Small Talk is next to arrive, and gets to work ripping up turrets and binding them to himself until he is a ball of guns that blast everything out of the sky. His efforts buy us safety from above as more parachutes appear in the sky.

“What is that guy even doing?” says Tenchi in amazement.

The whole team is landing on the creature’s back, and for the first time every member of the Cerberus Brawlers focus their energies on one single target.

We work with fire bombs and ice blades, lasers and plasma cannons, axes and spears, pulsing swords and gravmaces. There are waves of energy in every color flying through the air, the hummings and screaming of sonic weapons and the occasionally dull explosion as we tear this creature down. Even Simon Smith gets involved, casually ripping whole scales off the beast’s back and throwing them aside as if they were nothing. The metal next to me explodes, and my shield alarm starts ringing again. I ignore it; this is no time to run.

“Attack the eyes!” orders Past Prime as he runs towards the banks of eyes above the creature’s head.

Tenchi follows him and they rip up turrets and sensor pods with their swords. A huge spike beside an eye explodes, throwing Tenchi right off the creature’s head and down to the beach below it.

“Tenchi!” I yell.

Past Prime doesn’t stop his attacks but simply presses onwards. The team ignores my fallen friend, and he is alone.

No, not alone.

I cast myself into the air, fly past the creature’s head and down to where Tenchi is laying in the sand. He isn’t moving; it was a long way down.

“Hey, are you all right?”

“Argh… what the heck was… uh oh.”

The titan is looking down at us. It opens its huge mouth and roars out a tsunami of flames that break against my shield. I form a dome of overlapping blue plates that hold the worst of the fire out but I can feel still the raw heat on my face. Pain burns across my body, but it’s no worse than what I’ve suffered in training. I stand over Tenchi and focus on staying alive, letting my power flow through me. The implants in my neck and ear get hot, but I ignore them. My shield shimmers and glows, warping under the attack. The air is filled with a roar like ten thousand screaming seagulls my shields flicker.

“Sorry, dude,” I say, but I doubt Tenchi can hear me.

My shields drop to 3%, and I close my eyes. At least we were trying, I think to myself, at least we were doing something. I think of Mom, and realize I’m about to see her again. I close my eyes and try to make peace with my death.

“Uh, dude?”

I open my eyes; Tenchi is looking up at me from the ground.

“You look intense, man, is everything all right?”

The sand around us has fused into a single crystal of blackened glass. It looks like the ruins of Mordor, only without the charm. The sand below us is still yellow, but it’s as hot as hell.

“I did not expect to survive that,” I mutter, but Tenchi doesn’t hear.

Dark Fire lands beside us with a crunch. He looks impressed, unless I’m just imagining that. I help Tenchi to his feet, but he’s so worn out that he doesn’t even notice who is talking to us.

“We managed to plant some bombs inside it, so we need to get out of here,” says Dark Fire.

We hear an almighty explosion above us as one of the creature’s legs gives way. I look up in wonder as the titan begins to fall, but Tenchi has more sense and pulls me away. We make it to the cliffs as chains of explosions break through the giant robot’s back and it falls down to the sand.

The team gives up a ragged cheer when it becomes obvious that the creature won’t be getting back up.

None of us have got through unscathed. Most of the team are lying down; many aren’t moving at all. There are maybe eight of us still in fighting shape and I’m including Tenchi and myself in that count.

Dark Fire lights a flare, and a Comet lands on the cliffs. I’m too tired to help, so I find a rock with a view of the alien carcass and sit overlooking the sea. The waves are peaceful.

“That was… wow,” says Tenchi as he collapses beside me.

I’m too tired to do anything but nod.

We watch in satisfaction as the creature starts to fall apart, big chunks breaking off and falling to the sand. A second round of explosions rips through the creature and plumes of multi-colored smoke rise into the air.

“That head… is it moving by itself?” asks Tenchi.

No. No, surely not.

“Copy that. Everyone on their feet!” yells Dark Fire.

I groan and leap into the air. The creature’s head has grown a set of thin legs. It’s clumsy and slow, but the turrets on its head are still deadly. One catches One Trick on the side of the head and she goes down. Another hits me in the chest, knocking me around. I try to gain height, but I’m bombarded with missiles and plasma bolts. I try to circle and dodge, but I can’t even see where I’m flying. I fly out of a storm of lasers and swoop down to the creature’s moving hand. I roll under its legs and blast its belly with my color cannon. The creature stumbles, and I realize that I don’t want to be under it when it collapses.

“Yikes!” I scream, and scramble from underneath it.

Two supers grab me and pull me into the air. We are just in time; the creature falters and falls, squashing everything below it. My rescuers are Zoo Prank and Home Brew, and both look tired.

“Thanks,” I say, but Home Brew just nods.

The creature is dying, but it isn’t dead. A tentacle-like tongue whips out and grabs Past Prime, pulling him back into the mouth. The monster bites down, and we scramble to attack its mouth. Tenchi cuts away some of its teeth and Dark Fire pushes past them, right into the creature’s throat.

The creature slumps forward and its jaws relax. Small Talk forces the mouth open and Dark Fire drags Past Prime out. Both of them are covered in purple acid, and Past Prime’s leg is gone below the knee.

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.”