I didn’t understand it then. Looking back now, I realize that was the moment everything changed.

  The doorbell rang at the Griffin household.

  Theo’s father, eyes red from a sleepless night of watching news footage of mountain storms and search grids, pulled the door open.

  What he saw shocked him to his core.

  Standing on his modest porch, haloed by the morning light, was Stupendous himself. And cradled gently in the hero’s massive arms, unconscious and pale, was Theo.

  Stupendous was huge—seven feet of sculpted presence that made the doorway seem small. He laughed, a sound that was both warm and commandingly loud. “Hahaha! Hello there, Mr. Griffin! I’ll let myself in. Thank you.”

  Before Theo’s father could utter a word, the hero blurred, moving with a speed that defied his size, and was suddenly standing in the center of the small living room. He positioned himself just so, letting the light from the window fall across his shoulders in a dramatic beam.

  Theo’s father stood frozen in the open doorway, his mind short-circuiting. Stupendous? Stupendous is in my house? Holding my son?

  The hero’s broad back was to him. In his arms, Theo lay limp. A new, shocking detail registered: Theo’s hair, normally a dark brown, had been transformed into a bright, unnatural shade of gold.

  “What…” Theo’s father finally managed, his voice a dry rasp. “What happened to him? I’ve been worried sick. The school called… they said they couldn’t find him. Is he okay?”

  Stupendous turned his head slightly, his profile noble and reassuring. “All is well, Mr. Griffin. Your son is safe.”

  He wore simple, dark casual clothes, but on his frame, they looked like a uniform. With infinite care, he knelt and placed Theo on the worn living room sofa, arranging a cushion under his head.

  Then he stood, turning fully to face Theo’s father. He seemed to fill the entire room.

  “MR. GRIFFIN…”

  Griffin’s heart lurched, hammering against his ribs. It was a cocktail of awe and terror—the dizzying excitement of having his lifelong hero in his home, violently mashed together with the primal fear of a father whose child was hurt and changed.

  Stupendous’s expression was no longer the easy, public smile. It was serious, intent, and carried the weight of immense authority.

  “We need to talk.”

  ---

  After a while, Theo woke up in his own bed.

  He blinked, the familiar ceiling coming into focus. He slowly sat up, his body aching with a deep, unfamiliar exhaustion. And then he saw him.

  Stupendous was sitting on the wooden chair from Theo’s desk, placed directly in front of the bed. The hero’s elbows rested on his knees, his hands clasped, his head bowed as if in thought. He filled the small room with a quiet, monumental presence.

  Theo was at a complete loss for words. His hero. In his home. Sitting on his chair.

  Stupendous looked up. His public, radiant smile returned. “Finally awake, my boy!”

  “Stu… Stupendous?” Theo managed, his voice rough.

  Stupendous laughed, a booming, warm sound in the confined space. “I know! You’re probably at a loss for words right now. So speak not. I will be the one to speak.”

  Theo’s mind raced. How can Stupendous be in my room? Wait… how did I get here?

  “My boy,” Stupendous began, his tone shifting to one of profound, theatrical gravity. “Your life has changed. Because now, coursing through your veins…” He extended his arms outward in a sweeping, dramatic gesture. “…is the most incredible power to ever exist. A power my master spent over half a century creating. Cultivating.”

  He pointed a finger directly at Theo’s chest. “And now, you have been chosen to be its wielder. Isn’t that awesome?” He threw his head back and laughed again, loud and uncontained.

  A neighbor’s muffled voice came through the wall: “Did I just hear Stupendous’s voice?”

  Theo stared, his thoughts churning. A power? How can I have a power? I’m a Baseline. I have no Signature. “What… what do you mean? What power?”

  “My power,” Stupendous said, his smile taking on a sharp, knowing edge. “Not the incomplete version I have. What you have, my boy… is a Signature truly divine. Complete, in all its majesticness. What you have… is…” He stood up, spreading his arms wide, looking up at the ceiling as if addressing the heavens. “ Tyrannical Unrivalled Raw Bouting Output! A.K.A T.U.R.B.O!

  He laughed again, the sound vibrating in the small room. “Unparalleled speed, power, and more! What you have is Turbo 3.0!”

  Then, a sound began. A low, powerful hum that emanated from Stupendous’s chest, rhythmic and deep, like a high-performance engine idling.

  “Is that…?” Theo whispered.

  “YES, MY BOY!” Stupendous interrupted, his eyes blazing. “That... is the sound of my power! The legendary roar! You too have it now!” He flexed, and the hum became a pulsing, potent growl that made the glass of water on the nightstand tremble.

  A sleek watch on his wrist chimed, and a calm, synthetic voice spoke. “Warning: Turbo strain at critical threshold. Core stability failing.”

  Stupendous’s triumphant expression shattered. “Say what?”

  A violent jolt of pain surged through him. He let out a sharp, pained gasp that was almost feminine in its pitch, and a groan was ripped from his throat. He crashed to his knees, breathing in ragged, shuddering bursts. The veins on his neck and arms began to glow with a sickly, faint green light. His magnificent blond hair darkened at the roots, bleeding into a dull, lifeless black.

  Theo jumped from his bed. “Are you okay? What’s happening to you?!” He tried to support the hero, helping him slump back into the chair. As he did, he felt Stupendous’s frame… shrink. The immense, seven-foot presence diminished, settling into the shape of a man no taller than five-foot-ten.

  “I’m… fine,” Stupendous grunted, the word thick with pain. Then he convulsed, doubling over, and vomited a stream of vivid, shimmering blue liquid onto Theo’s rug.

  Theo panicked. “No, you’re not fine! DAD—!”

  “NO!” Stupendous’s hand shot out, not with power, but with desperate speed. He lunged and slammed the bedroom door shut, leaning his now-average frame against it, breathing hard. “Damn it,” he whispered, his voice a strained rasp.

  Mr. Griffin’s worried voice came from the hall. “Theo? What’s the matter?”

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Stupendous squeezed his eyes shut, mastering his breathing with visible effort. When he spoke, his public voice was back, strained but convincing. “No, no! Everything is fine, Mr. Griffin! Just a little hero business! All under control!”

  He slid down to sit with his back against the door, a barrier between the truth and Theo’s father. The performance fell away again, leaving utter exhaustion. “Get me some water, kid.”

  Theo stood frozen, staring. The voice he had just heard was not the majestic, commanding baritone of Stupendous. It was the voice of a sick man, raw and heavy with a terrible cold.

  No, no, no… this can’t be. This is an impostor. It can’t be the Almighty Stupendous. Theo began muttering to himself, his world view cracking.

  Stupendous snapped his fingers weakly. “Kid. I said I’m thirsty.”

  “Y-yes, sir.” Theo snapped to, hurrying to his desk and grabbing a bottle of water. His hands shook as he passed it over.

  Stupendous drank greedily, draining half the bottle in one go. He sighed, a sound of profound relief and deeper weariness. “So. Now you’ve seen what I really am. It’s the side effect of the incomplete Turbo. Decades ago, the monsters were becoming too much. Kairos… had no choice but to use it. And like you, I was chosen.”

  He wiped his mouth, the blue stain on his sleeve glowing faintly. “So you see. I’m just like you. I never developed a Signature. But unlike you, Master chose me by dumb luck. Because there was no one else. Things were dire back then. I was only thirteen years old.” A hollow, humorless laugh escaped him. “Yes, pretty reckless of Master to put the fate of the world in a child’s hands, right?”

  He looked at his own trembling hands. “For forty years, Master trained me to become the world’s… temporary pillar. I enjoyed my time with him. He was… he was…”

  Tears, sudden and uncontrollable, welled in the hero’s eyes. They overflowed, tracing clean lines through the faint residue of blue on his cheek. “He was like a father to me. No… he was the only father I’d ever known.”

  He cried then, silently, his shoulders shaking. He turned his face to the wall, raising a hand as if to shield himself. “Please. Don’t look at me. I don’t want you to see me in this pathetic state. I’m Stupendous. I’m always… happy.” His voice broke into a whisper. “I just… I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  I was shocked by the man before me. This wasn’t the Stupendous I knew. Not the man who was always happy, who split monsters in two with a smile on his face, the hero who had never, in the public record, allowed a single casualty on his watch. The legend was gone. In his place was just… a man. Broken, grieving, and painfully human.

  I didn’t know what to think. I couldn’t process the mountain of secrets he’d dumped on me, or the raw, undignified sight of him weeping against my bedroom door. My mind was static.

  All I could do was reach out. I touched his shoulder. “It’s okay,” I said, the words feeling useless.

  I handed him the box of tissues from my desk. He blew his nose loudly, a profoundly un-heroic sound. “Thanks,” he muttered, his voice still thick.

  “Hey,” I said softly. “Wanna go out and get some fresh air?”

  Stupendous nodded without looking at me. “Yeah.”

  We went up to the roof and sat at the edge, our legs dangling over the side, looking down at the city waking up far below. The distance helped. The silence between us felt heavy, but not hostile.

  “Who is this master you were talking about?” I finally asked.

  “The giant man you saw in the cave,” Stupendous said, his gaze fixed on the horizon. “His name was Kairos. And he was… the only family I had left.” He paused, the pain fresh in his eyes. “I found you passed out right next to him. I don’t even know how you managed to find that place.”

  He reached into his jacket and pulled out the sleek metal vial—the one labeled TURBO. It glinted in the morning light. “Do you remember this?”

  The memory was a cold shock in my veins. “Yes. Yes, I do. That… that guy injected me with it. I thought I was gonna die.”

  Stupendous threw his head back and laughed, a real, booming laugh that echoed off the rooftop vents. Then he flinched, grabbing his chest with a sharp gasp. “Aw, damn. My chest.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he waved me off, catching his breath. And then, he told me everything.

  He told me how a scared, thirteen-year-old boy was chosen by a desperate alien. How he was given a power that was a death sentence disguised as a gift. He told me about the early battles, the ones the history streams never showed—the messy, terrifying fights where the power almost ate him alive. And he told me about the woman he’d loved, a brilliant engineer who had tried to build a device to stabilize him, and who had been killed in a Breach event he arrived just seconds too late to stop.

  “The world thinks I’ve never lost anyone,” he said, his voice quiet and flat. “That no one has ever died on my watch. That’s true, publicly. But I’ve lost a lot. Every single day, I think about them. That pain… it’s what keeps me going. It’s the fuel.”

  He looked over at me, and his expression shifted from sorrow to mild surprise. “Wait. Are you crying? Seriously?”

  I wiped at my eyes, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. It’s just… you’ve been through so much. It’s not fair.”

  He laughed again, louder this time, the sound full of genuine, weary amusement. “You’re such a crybaby!” He reached over and gave me a hearty, brotherly smack on the back.

  He’d forgotten his own strength.

  The force of the pat didn’t feel like a pat. It felt like being hit by a bag of bricks. I yelped, my balance vanished, and I pitched forward, over the edge of the roof.

  The city rushed up to meet me.

  “OH, SHIT!” Stupendous’s voice shouted from above.

  There was a flash of golden light. I caught a glimpse of him—seven feet tall again, hair blazing gold—launching himself over the ledge after me. He fell like a comet, wrapped an arm around my chest, and kicked off the very air with a thunderous BOOM. We shot upward, the wind screaming in my ears, and landed back on the roof with a soft thud.

  I collapsed onto the gravel, gasping, my heart trying to beat its way out of my ribs.

  Stupendous shrank back down to his normal size, looking sheepish. He scratched the back of his head. “Sorry about that,” he said, as if he’d just spilled a drink, not nearly turned me into street pizza.

  He sat down beside me, the last of his dramatic energy spent. He looked at me, all traces of tears or laughter gone, his eyes clear and serious.

  “So,” he said. “Let’s talk about your future.”

  To Be Continued...