The morning of their first training session, Aria came downstairs at 6:10 dressed in the most durable thing she owned, which turned out to be a hoodie and sweatpants.
The kitchen was already in motion. Mom worked the stove with one hand and packed a paper bag with the other, Mark sat at the table fully dressed and inhaling eggs with his knee bouncing under it, and Dad stood by the back door in his suit, ready before all of them.
"You're late," Mark informed her. "Dad said bright and early, you know."
She rolled her eyes. "It's six-ten, Mark. It's early enough."
Aria clicked on the TV out of habit on her way to the table.
On screen, a helicopter shot drifted over a city glittering under an open night sky, and the banner along the bottom read: MIDNIGHT CITY SEES STARS FOR FIRST TIME IN OVER TWO DECADES.
"…what," Aria said. Midnight City's curse was broken? How?
"…confirming again for viewers just joining us. The phenomenon known as the Midnight City curse ended late last evening, local time. In the hours since, a joint operation by the Guardians of the Globe and a new superhero has uncovered what officials describe as a large-scale vampiric threat living beneath the city, and, this is the part that still doesn't feel real, folks, more than five hundred missing persons have been recovered. Alive."
The footage cut to a street at night with rows of gurneys and silver blankets. A gaunt man and a sobbing woman collided in the middle of the road and hugged so hard that a medic nearby visibly flinched.
Mom's spatula drifted down to her side. "More than five hundred. That's… that's unbelievable. How did so many people stay missing for so long?"
"Eat while you watch, kids," Dad said. "We're leaving in ten."
Nobody left in ten.
The recap cut away to a live feed, a podium bristling with microphones under a LIVE banner, and even Dad went still by the door. The Immortal stepped up to the podium and tapped the microphone twice.
"Is this on? Excellent. Good morning, everyone." Camera flashes rolled off him. "Short version first. Just after nightfall yesterday, our operation broke the curse that has covered Midnight City for twenty years. Beneath the city, we discovered a vampire nest that had been feeding on its people, and this morning, it no longer exists. More than five hundred of the missing came home overnight. Now, before your questions, there's one correction to what you've been reporting. Nearly all of what happened last night was the work of one man. An independent hero. His name... is Wild Card. I'll begin taking questions."
Every head in the living room turned to Aria at the same time.
Her stomach dropped through the floor, kept going, and came out somewhere in the Earth's mantle.
"Wild Card," Mark said. "Your mall guy?"
"He's not my… there is no my."
"But that's the boy who fixed your camera, right?" Mom asked.
"There was nothing boyish about..." Aria muttered to herself and coughed, her cheeks turning red when everyone gave her the look. She didn't mean to say that out loud. "I mean. Yes. Him. Probably. How many superheroes in white masks can there be?"
On screen, the room of reporters had erupted, and the Immortal picked one out of the noise. "You, in the grey suit."
"Can you confirm reports that the creature leading the vampires was Dracula? The actual, historical Dracula?"
"I can. He called himself Dracula. Even had a throne room. And nothing we found under that city gave me a reason to doubt him. He'd been down there for more than a decade, building an army of vampires and thralls out of its people. Next question."
"Dracula's real?" Aria said.
"Apparently," Mark said, eyes on the screen. "And he was under Midnight City this whole time. Makes sense, too. It's the perfect place for a vampire to live in, now that I think about it."
"According to some sources, this Wild Card defeated Dracula alone. How does one hero defeat Dracula?" a reporter pressed. "If many of the stories and anecdotes from history are actually true, Dracula must have been a powerful opponent with many different powers."
"Ah, good question. Let me walk you through what actually happened, because its important you understand what this man did."
The Immortal rested both hands on the podium.
"Dracula's throne room was cursed. Any living thing that crossed the threshold could enter and never leave. Wild Card stepped in, unaware of this, and only realized it after the trap closed on him. He understood his situation immediately and ordered the Guardians accompanying him to fall back to call for reinforcements. Wild Card faced Dracula, a sorcerer, and twelve werewolves with no way out and all by his lonesome."
He paused, letting the audience digest his words.
"When we arrived at the throne room, the battle was already over. Left inside were the defeated werewolves and sorcerer, Dracula's ashes, and one man standing in the middle of it. As for the how, he possesses superhuman physical characteristics, a variety of powers, and wields a weapon composed of sunlight. Actual sunlight. I'll let your minds stew on what that means for a vampire. And before anyone suggests I'm exaggerating, understand that I have lived longer than empires, and I do not impress easily. I can assure you, I am impressed. Next question."
Mark set his fork down and didn't pick it back up.
Aria stared at the screen.
"The curse itself," another reporter called. "It's long been attributed to Midnight Magician. Is it true he was found among the dead? He was alive down there this entire time?"
"He was alive until last night and is the sorcerer I've been referencing," the Immortal said. "We deduce that he'd been hiding for twenty years in the dark, serving Dracula, and yes, that surprised us too. The whole world, including us, assumed he cast his curse and died or fled. Turned out we were wrong. Next question."
"Is Wild Card someone the Guardians have been training in secret?"
"No. If we had trained him, believe me, we would be taking the credit for his excellent work last night," the Immortal said in a joking smile and tone. "Next question."
"There's footage circulating of him healing survivors and producing food from nothing. No registered superhero or supervillain on Earth heals others and none create matter. Do you have any insights on the mechanisms behind his powers?"
"Ask him, if you can find him." The Immortal shrugged. "What I can tell you is what I witnessed with my own eyes. He healed countless wounds, both fatal and non-fatal, and fed over five hundred people with his abilities. In all my life, I have never seen either power before last night. Make of that what you will. I've decided to simply be grateful he chose to stay and help. Last question."
"Daphne, from the Superhero Fanclub Association. Is he single?"
"Oh, it's these guys again," Mark scoffed. "How'd they even get in? They're not a news network."
Aria noticed she'd stopped breathing long after the question was raised. She reached for her orange juice and acted completely normal.
The Immortal sighed.
"...To my knowledge, yes."
"It's a fair question, isn't it?" Mom asked, pointedly glancing at Aria while she coughed her way back to life.
Mark thumped her on the back without looking away from the TV.
After the Immortal said his closing remarks and ended the press conference, the broadcast moved to the aid camp, and a reporter's montage of interviews rolled.
War Woman, carrying a folded stretcher under one arm, was asked about Wild Card. She took a moment to think. "He did in hours what would've taken us an entire day and with far more casualties. Now move, this is a working area."
Martian Man stood next to a row of sleeping survivors and spoke gently, "What can I say about Wild Card? Though inexperienced, he is a strong and capable hero I respect. That is all."
Green Ghost drifted into frame carrying a crate of supplies straight through a parked ambulance. When asked about Wild Card, he laughed once. "I phase through solid walls, and I still can't explain what I watched that man do. Whoever he is, I'm just glad he's on our side."
And Darkwing, caught mid-stride by a chasing reporter, stopped exactly once. "Now's not a good time. I have work to do."
The montage turned to the civilians. A man wrapped in three blankets, one of the freed, looked the camera with tremendous seriousness.
"The vampires? Horrifying. I lost three years of my life down there. But that masked fella handed me a burrito at three in the morning that genuinely restored my faith in the world. I would like to formally request the recipe."
It moved to a man alone at the edge of the camp, wrapped in a blanket, staring at a phone. "My wife thought I was dead," he said. His voice stayed level the whole time, which somehow made it worse. "She grieved and remarried two years ago. She... She even has a kid now." He took a deep breath "She apologized to me. Can you believe that? She apologized when it wasn't even her fault."
The reporter didn't ask a follow-up.
It moved to an elderly woman with her hands folded, voice on the brink of breaking. "My daughter wasn't among the people saved. But dozens of other mothers got their children back. I'm glad for them. Truly..."
Her tears said otherwise.
Mom sat down slowly on the arm of the couch with her hand raised to her mouth. Nobody in the living room said anything for a moment.
"Support services confirm," the anchor added quietly, "that many of the recovered are returning to lives that moved on without them, and for the families whose loved ones were not among those saved, the night brought no comfort. And now, the exclusive viewer footage everyone has been asking us about since dawn."
It was vertical phone video, shot from an apartment window overlooking the medical camp a night with a time stamp in the corner. A yellow oval of light opened on a wall of rock in middle of the park, and a familiar figure stepped out of it. Wild Card.
Something condensed into his hand. It looked like a jagged yellow spear with the exact shape of a lightning bolt. Real lightning crackled to life around him, sheathing his whole body as he turned to the street.
Wild Card became a blur of white and vanished from the camera. Loose leaves spun around where he used to stand.
From behind the phone, the person filming muttered, "…what the fuck? Where'd he go?"
Mark reached over, took the remote, and watched it a second time.
"Damn," he said, whistling in appreciation. "He's fast."
"Play it again," Dad said.
Mark played it again. Dad watched the whole clip through without moving, saying nothing.
"Officials estimate," the anchor went on, "that this was recorded moments before the vampires' remaining leadership was destroyed at a sealed exit several blocks away, the event that is believed to have freed all of the enthralled at once…"
The screen filled with more camp footage from last night next. Wild Card crouched at a stretcher with light spilling from his hands while a shaking person went still and easy. The same figure handed out steaming plates of what looked like restaurant-worthy food to a line of blanket-wrapped people. The video clips went on and on.
As they played, the banner underneath asked: WHO IS WILD CARD?
Was he being for real? Is he an actual magician? Aria thought, a little dizzy about it.
"He healed those people all night," Mom said, her voice soft as she watched the footage loop. "Look at him. He didn't have to stay and do that."
"Mm," said Mark, who was on his fifth viewing of the lightning clip. "Wild Card's probably gonna be on the news more from now on."
"Cecil's never mentioned this Wild Card before," Dad muttered.
Who's Cecil?
Mom glanced at him. "Should he have?"
"No." Dad smiled, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'm just surprised. It's not every day someone new does something that big." He checked the clock on the wall. "All right. That's enough television. Time for training."
"Finally." Mark was up before the word ended. "I've been ready. Historic events can happen on their own time, I have flying to learn."
Mom intercepted them at the door, pressing the paper bag into her hands and kissing them both. "Sandwiches. Try to come back with everyone's bones where they started."
"No promises," Dad said, which from him was a joke, probably. Right?
Aria clicked off the television on her way past, catching the white mask frozen mid-frame for half a second before the screen went dark. She slung the Nikon over her shoulder, because if her brother was going to fly into the sky today with a chance of crashing, history deserved a photographer. She followed them out the back door into the early light.
Dad walked ahead of them across the lawn, already rolling his shoulders. Mark was talking fast about takeoff angles. The paper bag was warm in her arms and the camera was a familiar weight at her hip. Her mind was still stuck on the news.
If she could help people using her powers like Wild Card did, maybe being a superhero wouldn't be so bad after all.