Superheroes soared through the skies, stopped trains with their bare hands, smiled from magazine covers.

Then the lawsuits started. The collateral damage. The public hearings.

And just like that—they were gone.

The Superhero Relocation Act saw to that. Every last one of them, packed into government housing, given new names, new jobs, new lives.

Now, thirty years later, most people didn't even believe they'd ever existed.

Most people.

The Striped Pig was the kind of bar that time forgot. Sticky floors. A single flickering neon sign. The jukebox only played songs from before the ban.

And in the corner booth, near the emergency exit, sat five figures in cheap Halloween costumes.

Not that anyone was looking.

The man standing there was tall. Broad-shouldered. Wearing a long coat that did nothing to hide the bulk underneath.

He had a scar running from his temple to his jaw.