----2 months later---

The day began like any other--

With Dashuan patrolling the rebuilt streets of the city for anything to do, he found himself outside the reconstructed stadium; staring up at the shiny new titanium it was comprised of.

In the months since the confrontation with Arc and Derek, an uneasy peace had settled over the metropolis and many investors even flocked to its dense sprawl. Humans were learning to coexist with the idea of Aberrants; even if very few even truly existed. Tensions still simmered beneath the surface as always but things were changing.

Dashuan had taken on the role of mediator, working tirelessly to bridge the gap between the two worlds by acting as a local police officer.

As he soared above the skyline, a strange darkness began to creep across the sun. Dashuan paused mid-flight, a chill running down his spine as he watched the celestial event unfold.

"This can't be good, " he mumbled while noticing a slight lul in his speed and then pulled out his cell phone. "Hey..."

"Derek, are you seeing this?"

Before either could respond, a blinding flash erupted from the eclipsed sun with enough intensity to knock him from the sky. Dashuan threw up his arms to shield his body from the impact.

The world went white, then unlit, as he plummeted from the sky in a freefall.

When he came to in a smoking crater, the city was in utter chaos around him. The ground beneath him trembled violently, buildings swaying like palm trees. Dashuan struggled to his feet, his head spinning as he tried to make sense of the wreckage around him.

"What the fuck happened?!"

The earthquake was unlike anything he'd ever experienced.

Immense cracks spider-webbed across the streets, devouring cars and unfortunate pedestrians alike in their wake. The air was filled with the sound of shattering glass and the agonized groans of twisting metal splintering like wood.

Dashuan's phone signal buzzed through, he clutched it from his pocket as the broken screen barely lit up. "Dashuan! --Trapped... 52nd and... building's coming down!" Derek's voice barely audible.

Dashuan launched himself into the air, fighting against the turbulent winds that thrashed him toward the crumbling skyscrapers.

He spotted the building Derek had mentioned, a luminous tower of glass and steel that was now swaying dangerously; it was another of the city's newest constructs, the largest in the entire state.

As he approached, he saw Derek through a shattered window, desperately trying to maintain His footing as the floor beneath them buckled and heaved. Derek's suit was malfunctioning, the mimicked powers flickering on and off unpredictably as charges of electricity lit up the room and turned the area to ashy soot.

Dashuan didn't hesitate.

He dove through the broken window, glass shards slicing his skin as he rolled to a stop beside his friend.

"We need to get out of here, now!" he exclaimed over the deafening rumble of the earthquake's aftershocks.

The floor gave way beneath them.

Dashuan's stomach lurched as they plunged, debris raining down around them; he reached out with his gravity manipulation he had been honing, assembling a bubble of altered gravity that slowed both their falls.

They crashed through floor after floor, Dashuan straining to maintain the protective field as he simultaneously tried to guide their collapse away from the worst of the falling rubble; seeing a particular bar of rebar looking the most dangerous as it fell beneath his body.

Derek had gone limp, his suit sparking and smoking.

With bone-jarring impact, they hit the ground floor of the building. Dashuan's concentration broke, and gravity reasserted itself with brutal force as they lay there sprawled across the cracked marble, gasping for breath in the dust-choked air that filled the area.

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"Are you okay?" Dashuan huffed, forcing himself to his feet. He could hear the building groaning above them, and knew they had only moments before it came down completely.

"Can you move?"

Derek remained motionless, his pristine white suit's crimson lights dark.

Dashuan scooped up Derek's unconscious form, they stumbled out of the lobby just as the tower gave its final cessationous cry. He threw up his palms, desperately trying to alter the gravity around them to deflect the worst of the falling rubble.

His power strained to its limit as tons of concrete and steel rained down, threatening to bury them alive under its massive weight--

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Dashuan lowered his hand, his entire body shuddering with fatigue.

They were alive, huddled in a small pocket of safety amidst the ruins of the collapsed building.

As the dust began to settle, Dashuan became aware of sounds that chilled him. Screams of pang and torment echoed through the devastated streets, all followed by inhuman howls that raised the hair on the back of his neck.

"What... what's happening?" Dashuan gasped.

He shook his head, unable to comprehend the scene unfolding before them.

People were stumbling through the rubble-strewn streets, some clutching their heads in misery, others convulsing on the ground.

Dispersed among them were figures that seemed... altered.

A soldier, his uniform torn and bloody, lumbered past his respite area. His skin had taken on a red hue, and before their stunned eyes, wounds on his arms sealed themselves shut entirely.

He turned, fixing them with a stare of wild starvation before charging at a group of survivors huddled nearby and sinking his teeth into the slowest memeber's, only a little child, neck.

"Oh god," He whispered while taking in the fountains of blood with his tearing eyes.

The eclipse had done more than trigger another earthquake. It had unleashed something new, something terrifying.

All around them, bedlam reigned supreme as people grappled with sudden, uncontrolled mutations or succumbed to a sickness that seemed to spread with horrifying speed.

A woman ran past, her brown skin erupting in bony protrusions that tore through her silky brown pantsuit. She screamed in agony, lashing out at anyone who came near.

In the distance, Dashuan saw a man levitating a few inches off the ground, his face full terror as he tried desperately to control his newfound ability without floating from the earth like an arrent balloon.

"I need to do something," Dashuan declared, setting Derek down gently. The young millitary man was starting to stir, his suit's systems slowly coming back online.

"People need help controlling whatever's happening to them..."

Dashuan's cracked phone rattled to life; It was a global emergency broadcast, and the news it delivered sent a chilliness down his backbone.

"...worldwide catastrophe. Reports coming in from every continent of a massive 5.6 magnitude earthquake, followed by widespread outbreaks of an unknown illness. We're also receiving unconfirmed reports of individuals exhibiting... superhuman abilities. The World Health Organization estimates that up to 100 million people may be affected globally, with half showing signs of the illness and half manifesting these unexplained mutations. Citizens are advised to stay in their homes if possible and avoid contact with anyone showing symptoms..."

The broadcast devolved into static, leaving Dashuan and the now-conscious Derek to stare at each other in stunned silence. "A hundred million," Derek whispered, his voice raw with emotion.

"How... how is that even possible?"

Dashuan shook his head, trying to process the scale of the tragedy before his very eyes. "The first eclipse only affected a few of us last time. This... this is beyond anything we could have imagined..."

A scream nearby jerked them back to the immediate crisis.

A young boy, no more than ten, was curled up on the ground, his body wracked with spasms as bloody cysts erupted across his darkening skin.

His mother knelt beside him, torn between the urge to comfort her child and the apprehension of contracting whatever was afflicting him.

Without hesitation, Dashuan moved to help.

He approached cautiously, hands raised; but not fully up. "Ma'am,"

"I'm here to help. I'm... I'm like them. B-but I can control it. Let me try to help your son." He said softly,

The woman looked up at him, fat tears streaking through the caked dust on her face. She shook wordlessly, backing away fearfully as Dashuan knelt beside the boy.

"You're gonna be okay," Dashuan said gently.

"I know you're scared. But I need you to try to focus on my voice, alright? You CAN control it, but you have to stay calm..." Dashuan carefully placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.

He could feel the tremors running through the child's body, the surging heat of the mutation wreaking havoc on his system as more blood streamed from different puss-filled sacks. For 4 long seconds, nothing seemed to change but the color of the boy's skin; farther ashy gray and losing saturation. Gradually, the boy's spasms began to subside. The blisters on his skin receded, leaving behind patches of toughened, almost scaled tissue where he used to be pudgy.

The boy unlocked his hazel eyes, glancing up at Dashuan in dread. "I... I can feel it,"

Dashuan hid a frown, helping the boy to his feet while knowing the snarling feeling suppressed powers can have. "It's a part of you now. It will stop hurting...I promise."

As the grateful mother cautiously embraced her son, Dashuan turned back to Derek. "We can help them," he said, a note of hope in his voice after bringing on Aberrant back from the edge; even if it was just a minor help for the time being it truly made him happy. "Not all of them, not the sick ones, but the new Aberrants...they need time to get used to their powers!"

Derek, his white suit now fully functional, stepped forward. "We need to coordinate with the authorities and set up quarantine zones for the infected...Anything past that is too dangerous"

Dashuan nodded grimly. "It's a start. But we need to think bigger. This can't just be affecting our city--"

As they spoke, more cries for help reached their ears.

All around them, the newly changed grappled with powers they couldn't understand or control, while others succumbed to the mysterious illness that seemed to strike in sync with the arrival of the eclipse that affected both humans and Aberrant.

Dashuan took a deep breath.

"Alright, we need you to use your powers to get the electrical grid back online. Communication is going to be crucial...Derek, your suit's sensors might be able to distinguish between the sick and the newly powered--So try to help as many as you can to the metro."

"What about you?" Derek asked, electricity already crackling around his hands as he prepared to dive into the task; he had an incongruent sharpness that made Dashuan stop in his sprint.

Dashuan looked up at the sky's crimson curtain, where the eclipse was finally beginning to wane. "I'm going to fly. As high as I can, see how far this devastation spreads. And then... then I'm going to find Arc if im lucky and contain this before the city is destroyed."

He launched himself into the smokey atmosphere, rising above the haze and dust of the ravaged metropolis, the eclipse had plunged their world into utter darkness, but Dashuan was determined.

As he skyrocketed higher, he saw the true scale of the eclipse's dark curse; the entire New Heaven County was an inferno. Energy sparked and bits. bodies flew past even Dashuans altitude as he shielded himself.

The city he loved was burning, once again.