Terry watched with bated breath—not because his chest was tight from some rib injury, though it was, but because he was completely enthralled—as the unknown super casually floated toward the battle between the draugr and the ghouls.

“Okay, I’m gonna need all the rotting things to step away from the spirit thing,” the super called out. The howling of the draugr and the constant, grating communication between the ghouls drowned out his request for the most part.

Still, he watched the battle expectantly, like a man used to being heard and obeyed. When it became clear the undead had no intention of separating like two kids at a schoolyard brawl scolded by a teacher, he sighed.

The draugr was suddenly flipped onto its back, pinned to the ground by a mundane boot. The clutching ghouls were thrown to the street like discarded accessories. The draugr’s wailing had magnified under the super’s casual assault, stabbing into Terry’s ears like an ice pick. The ghouls stirred in the fog bank, disoriented but uninjured, except for what the draugr had already inflicted.

“Will you—hey, stop screami—okay, stop that!” The super pressed his foot down, turning the high-pitched wailing into more of a squeal. Then, the strength of the draugr’s body seemed to hit its limit and the boot passed through its chest like he had stepped through a rotten corpse. “Oh, shit! Oops…” The super glanced around as if caught in the act of something he shouldn’t be doing.

Terry just watched dumbfounded. Had he…accidentally killed the draugr?

The man extracted his foot with a disgusted look. Shaking it vigorously, he dislodged dead flesh and ichor that went spraying through the fog.

“Back for two minutes,” the man muttered. “And I’ve already ruined my favorite boots.”

A distant part of Terry recognized that this super could kill him with an errant touch. If the man even blew air out of his lungs too hard, Terry’s skin would probably be peeled back like rice paper. But the much nearer part of him—the part screaming the loudest inside of him right now—was the die-hard supers geek that he’d been since he could remember.

And that geek inside of him knew every single S-grade powerhouse in the world.

Except this one.

“Who are you?” Terry called from his splayed position on the hood of a car. The fire running through his entire body was second to the dying curiosity burning inside his mind.

The super looked at Terry in surprise. “Oh, sorry kid. Forgot you were there.” He delicately shook his boot once more, then stepped away from the draugr corpse to approach Terry.

Crunch limped into Terry’s vision, stepping in front of the super.

“Do not…approach…”

The man paused, snorting humorously. Leaning around the ghoul, he looked at Terry. “I’ll give ‘em that, they’re loyal. Like a dog,” he added with a wry smile.

Though Terry didn’t like the comparison, he felt a welling up of pride—and a fair bit of concern. Even Crunch at full strength wouldn’t slow this super—even if he sold his life in the effort. This man wasn’t on Savage’s level.

He was light-years ahead of a super like Savage.

“Crunch, it’s okay. Let him pass,” Terry ordered gently.

The ghoul hesitated, then backed away, coming to stand next to where Terry lay on the hood of a car. He examined Terry with a single wide eye.

“My prince, need medical help!”

Terry chuckled, then cut off as a wracking cough took him. When he had his breath back, he said, “I’ll live. Check on Burg, Blood, and the others.”

Crunch glanced at his fallen brothers, a concern lighting in his eye. With a clacking of jagged teeth, he gave orders to the few standing ghouls. One ghoul ran off into the fog, while the others went to check on the downed ghouls.

The super had watched the entire affair with a bored disinterest, but waited for Crunch to relay his orders before approaching.

Terry forced in a breath through aching ribs in order to calm his excitement. This was a real-life S-ranked super, standing right in front of me! Not his grandfather. Not an action figure. Not a poster. An unknown S-ranker in the flesh!

“Are you a new S-ranked?” Terry asked. “I thought I knew all the higher tiered A’s, but…” He trailed off, not wanting to say anything rude.

The man shrugged. “New? You could say that,” he said with a chuckle. “You can call me Silver.”

Terry wracked his brain. Silver…Silver…

“No offense, but I’ve never heard of you,” he replied coyly. “And I pretty much know every super—” He had almost said, ‘worth knowing’ and had just stopped himself. “Every powerful super,” he quickly amended.

The man shrugged. “Don’t surprise me. Left for my Capstone before your daddy’s balls dropped, I reckon.”

Terry gasped, his jaw hanging open. The man’s wry expression snapped the boy out of his idolization.

“You-you’re an Original?”

Silver lifted his chin in a haughty manner, as if he were posing for a photo op. “Couldn’t you tell?”

Now that the man mentioned it, his costume was several decades out of style. For one thing, there were two colors—red and blue—and they weren’t subtle or stylish by any stretch of the imagination. The shorts were red and more short-shorts than of a practical length, eschewing the modern aesthetic and trending more toward…pre-Call workout clothes. Beneath them were blue tights that were tucked into red leather boots. There was a blue cape attached at his shoulders that Terry hadn’t noticed before and that was the real give away.

Everyone knows that you don’t wear capes.

But all that did was solidify in his mind that this super’s story added up. This man was from an era well before Terry’s time. His thoughts raced at a thousand miles a second. Who were the Originals that hadn’t been seen in a few decades but weren’t confirmed dead? Let’s see…there was Shatterspear, A-Bomb, Wrecker, Teargas, Gunmetal…

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He cycled through all of the names from memory, but none of them matched this super’s powerset. Although, decades in whatever realm he had been might have drastically altered his appearance and powers.

“What name did you go by before your Capstone?” he asked.

Silver’s face dropped and he looked off into the fog. “That’s…a bit personal.”

“Oh…uh, sorry?”

The man shook his head with a frown. Then he snapped his fingers, the shockwave of the displaced air actually pinning Terry to the car hood for a moment and flaring up the pain he had been ignoring. His eyebrows lifted in surprise and he had a look of chagrin.

“Oops, sorry bout that kid. Still acclimating.”

Terry was too starstruck—and too busy combing through his memory of the Originals—to notice. “It’s fine,” he replied quickly.

Silver looked up into the night sky, his brow knitting together. “Help me out here, kid. Think my System’s fried.” He slapped the side of his head like it was an old TV throwing salt and pepper static. “This should be Kansas…but this sure ain’t look like Kansas. And this fog ain’t natural for a joo-lai afternoon.”

Joo-lai…? Did he mean July! As in the old calendar?

Oblivious to Terry’s shock, the man casually glanced at his wrist, then seemed to realize there was nothing there. “What time you got? Says it’s barely past noon but—” He waved his hand as if to indicate the obvious darkness. “You can see my confusion.”

Terry barely heard the question, he was so focused on that semi-familiar word.

July wasn’t a thing anymore.

“Uh, well, it is past noon. And we’re not in Kansas.”

Silver looked at him with a wry smile. “Okay, Dorothy, if we’re not in Kansas, where are we?”

Dorothy…?

“Well, first of all, I’m Terry, not Dorothy. Second of all, we’re in the Free-City of Wichita, ruled by the—”

“Boy, don’t play with me. I ain’t in the mood.”

Terry was taken aback at his tone, unconsciously leaning away. Crunch growled in response, but the super didn’t even register the ghoul’s presence.

“Wichita’s part of Kansas, kid, so don’t get cute.”

Terry shook his head fervently. “No, really. Kansas City is hours away and is run by the Council. Topeka’s nearby and is ruled by the Knights—” He cut off, suddenly realizing that no, Topeka was not in fact ruled by Sol and his Knights…not anymore.

Silver closed his eyes and rubbed at his temple.

“The state, kid. Kansas state. Jesus H., you got me thinking I was in Canada or something. Was bout to burn down some maple trees outta spite.”

He chuckled dryly, but Terry’s eyes had gone wide.

“I was only kidding…sorta.”

Terry shook his head. “State? You meant Kansas state? Like the United States?”

Silver sighed, looking up toward the sky. When he brought his eyes back down, there was an edge to them that scared Terry.

“I’m sorry,” Terry said quickly. “I’m not trying to be smart. It’s just…I didn’t realize you meant the state, like the old state…from before.”

Silver’s eyes narrowed, a hard look that made Terry glance around for an escape route. But there was none, so the man’s eyes pinned him to the hood like a butterfly on exhibit.

“Whatchu mean, old state, huh? You tryin’ tell me Kansas ain’t exist no more?”

The man’s slurring drawl had become exaggerated as his mood soured and Terry had to take a moment to process the words through his fear.

“I-uh, well…yeah. The United States collapsed a couple decades after the Call and—”

“You’re shitting me?” Silver exclaimed. “How long back?”

Terry scoured his memory, afraid to give the super a non-answer. But for as long as he had been alive, the United States had been a relic of history.

“Um, maybe thirty years?” Terry suggested. Seeing the darkening look on the man’s face, he gulped. “Uh…sorry?”

The man turned away and started pacing, muttering under his breath in clear agitation.

“Thirty years…been gone for…idiots…collapsed—”

Suddenly, he whirled on Terry, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “The zombie called you prince. This your family’s territory, then?” His tone was even, but there was something dangerous in the glint in his eyes.

Terry’s instinct was to lie, deflect, say anything to not get pasted against the hood of this car by a strange super. But he knew he didn’t have it in him to tell a convincing lie—not under these conditions.

So, he resigned himself to the super’s will.

“Yes, my family rules this city,” he admitted. Crunch seemed to sense the mood from the super, because he angled his body in just a little tighter.

Silver pursed his lips. “Did your family bring down the U.S.?” The question had the weight of a guillotine hanging over a condemned man’s head.

Thankfully, Terry knew the answer to this one and didn’t have to lie.

“No! No, it wasn’t grandfather. He came back from his Capstone to a world in chaos, picked up the pieces of his home after the war. The world was in turmoil and nowhere was safe for normies. He created a little pocket of order in his neighborhood and all of Wichita begged to join.”

That was mostly true—true enough for Terry to say it convincingly, at least. Terry’s grandfather might have carved out a little extra with a bit of force, taking advantage of the chaos after the Splintering.

“Hmph, well, I’ll get to the bottom of your story,” Silver said with the cool surety of a proclamation. “What’d you say his name was?”

For the second time, he considered lying. If he could direct this obviously deranged S-ranker toward some actual supervillain, he’d have time to warn his grandfather. But the Emperor’s identity wasn’t a secret—even a cursory investigation would reveal Terry’s lie and then who knew what this super would do.

So he pulled his shoulders back, puffed up his chest—painfully—and projected his voice. “Emperor Necroton, Lord of the Long Night, Protector of the Living and the Unliv—”

“Who?”

Terry faltered at the interruption, suddenly feeling silly. “Uh, well, Lord Necroton was his superhero name.” Silver squinted, looking off as if trying to wrack his brain. “Terrence Fairway?” he supplied helpfully.

“Terrence…Terrence.” He tapped his chin and pursed his lips. Then his eyes went wide and he stared at Terry in shock. “Terry Fairway? T-Bone? You gotta be shitting me?”

T-Bone? He had never heard that name for his grandfather. And he doubted the Emperor would be pleased to hear it either. “Emperor Necroton,” Terry said, emphasizing the honorific. “I’ve never heard of anyone named…T-Bone.”

“Kid that throws around bones?” Silver flung his hand out sideways like he was chucking a frisbee. “Little pissant was barely a B-ranker when I was called for my Capstone.”

Crunch bristled, though thankfully didn’t launch himself at the arrogant powerhouse. Terry got the impression the man wasn’t exactly…meticulous, in his use of force. He might level a city block dealing with an attack from Crunch—and Terry with it.

Though he didn’t care to see Crunch throw his life away at the insult, it was still an insult and Terry felt his hackles rise in defense of his grandfather.

“The Emperor is an S-ranked powerhouse—and one of the strongest. And if I were you, I wouldn’t be here when he returns from—” Terry suddenly realized his mistake and clamped his mouth shut. He had just been about to admit the Emperor wasn’t in the city. He scrambled to think of a convincing lie. “—from his survey of the fields. In fact, Crunch, could you send someone ahead to inform the Emperor of Silver’s arrival. I bet he’d like to know that a rogue, unregistered S-ranker is questioning his—”

“Oh, give it a rest, kid. Your bluster is exhausting.” Silver shook his head with a chuckle. “Never woulda pegged little T-Bone as a supervillain in the making.” He tilted his head as if acknowledging the other side of his one-sided debate. “Although, looking back, kid was wound tighter than a clock. Took himself way too seriously, now that I think about it.”

“He’s not a supervillain,” Terry protested. For some reason, he had latched onto those words, ignoring the rest of the man’s statement. “He’s the Protector of the Living and Unliving, Emperor of—”

“The Long Night, yeah, I heard ya kid.” Silver glanced around, surveying the street and surrounding fog. “I don’t know, I’m kinda getting supervillain energy here. Dead bodies, population trapped inside the city, an unending night—” He waved his hand in front of his face. “—and a fog that smells like roadkill left out in the sun.” He nodded to himself. “Yep, definite supervillain energy.”

Before Terry could rebut, the man shrugged. “Anyway, no point arguing with a baby. Lots of things to kill, people to avenge, and so on.”

The man’s knees bent and the fog rushed away. The asphalt rippled, then cracked, and a rush of wind assaulted Terry as the super launched himself into the night sky. The fog swirled where he’d jumped, then filled the space back in, hiding the torn up street below.

Terry watched the man disappear into the dark, a torrent of thoughts raging inside of him.

But the loudest thought, the loudest voice in his head, was shouting out the same thing, over and over again.

That was so freakin’ cool!