Free Trainee Superhero (Book Three) by C. H. Aalberry

move in for the
kill.”
    “Scouts?” I ask in surprise.
    “You know, the scouts. They do the easy work
of dropping a bomb on the saucer and then leave before the saucer
creatures get really riled up. Then it’s up to us to do the hard
work.”
    A pair of medusa heads attacks the Hollywood Nine , pulling one of them to the ground. The
others blast out wildly, taking out the second medusa but also
losing their formation. Phoenix Pink sees the fight but
rolls her eyes. It’s not a hard fight for four superheroes, yet her
teammates seem to be panicking. Phoenix Pink blasts the
medusa apart with a well-aimed plasma ball.
    “Yeah,” I say, “you guys are the real heroes.
I guess I’d better go find the other scouts.”
    I fly upwards. I have to find Dark
Fire and Never Lies , because the Hollywood Nine have no idea what they are doing. The Super Corps must be
desperately short of people if they are rolling out their junior
‘A’ list teams for actual fights.
    “Hey you, get back here!” orders Platinum
Arrow , but I ignore him.
    I don’t like being told what to do,
particularly by idiots, and I have a job to do. Phoenix Pink follows me, leaving her friends behind. She’s much faster than me,
so I can’t leave her alone.
    “I’ve never heard of the Cerberus
Brawlers ,” she says, “and what kind of a name is Danger
Magnet ?”
    “An accurate one, so maybe don’t fly so
close. What kind of a name is Phoenix Pink ?”
    “A stupid one,” she says with surprising
anger, “but it moves a lot of action figures with the young kids
and uber geeks who like that sort of thing.”
    I have the action figures of every member of
the Hollywood Nine on the shelf in my bedroom. They are all
still in their original packaging, too, but I don’t mention it.
Stace had a Phoenix Pink bag.
    I see the long spines of a blob-cacti lying
in a park, so I know my squad must be around here somewhere. A
house is on fire, its neat front gardens disrupted by a severed
triclops arm. A squad of octo-apes swoop towards us. I get one, and Phoenix gets the other with her sword.
    “I’ve been trying to get out of Hollywood , actually, but the Corps doesn’t want me to
transfer.”
    I’m not used to so much small talk during a
mission. Normally people are either yelling at me or ignoring me,
so I guess it makes a nice change.
    We find Never Lies , but she isn’t
excited to see us.
    “This isn’t bring your girlfriend to work
day,” she says scathingly.
    Phoenix Pink giggles and sticks her
hand out.
    “I’m-”
    “-I know who you are, now shush. What are Hollywood doing in a real battle, I thought you guys were
ornamental only?”
    Dark Fire flies up to us and nods at Phoenix . She seems in awe, and surprised to see him.
    “What’s the play?” he says.
    “ Dange r and me to draw east into that
park and make as big a distraction as we can. You wait until
everything is headed our way, then loop behind and plant a bomb.
It’s going to get messy.”
    Dark Fire nods.
    “Messy,” he agrees, and takes off.
    “I don’t mind messy,” I say, “I think I’m
suited to it.”
    Never Lies shakes her head and flies
towards the park, shooting an alien she sees along the way. I join
her, and to my surprise so does Phoenix Pink .
    “Don’t you have a team photo shoot you should
be at?” asks Never Lies with a whole lot of acid.
    “You really don’t like me, do you?” says Phoenix Pink without concern.
    “I do not.”
    “And yet you know nothing about me.”
    “I have read your file.”
    “Really? It doesn’t matter, the file is
rubbish. I’m the best fighter in the Hollywood Nine , you
know. No one else comes close.”
    I can tell that Never Lies is about to
make a snarky comment about how that’s like being the toughest baby
bunny rabbit, so I pretend to take a hit and drop down through the
sky and into the road.
    “Incoming!” I call out, and Never Lies and Phoenix Pink both scan the skies.
    “Liar!” they say