Chapter 1: The Light Dies.
2 years after the second eclipse
Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
"Don't look so sad Barri, you'll make it harder to leave–-you know if I don't go then they will take away both of our registrations." May tried to keep her voice steady, endeavoring with all her might to keep the sob from escaping her trembling lips as she stared into the sorrowful eyes of her boyfriend, Barrister. Her combat-booted feet were firmly planted at a rooftop's ledge, primed to unleash a torrent of fire and launch her into the sky to fulfill her contract as a hero, yet, they both knew this was different.
Something cold gripped Barrister's spine like a frozen snake; not outright fear, but a familiar sensation he'd been suppressing for years, well before the eclipse had turned millions into mutants, that always manifested as an acute attack of tunnel vision with blackened edges at first and then showed him things he shouldn't be able to see: for a split second, he saw May engulfed in searing green fire that was not her own, her beautiful flesh dissolving into pure energy as her tumultuous screams disappeared among the many others wailing into the expanding mass of destruction engulfing the entire city. The vision vanished as quickly as it came, leaving him dizzy and disoriented for only a second at most. He'd been having these "feelings" more frequently lately, but had always attributed them to anxiety about May's dangerous work rather than actual power as he tended to over-worry as a habit at this point.
"We both have seen what the unstable Aberrants can do...I don't want to lose you just because you have an obligation to people who hate us! There's no way of knowing what will happen if you try to stop that thing." Barrister stepped towards her, not allowing her a clear path to take off without setting him ablaze like the littered trash stationed near their feet that told of long nights Barrister waited for her to return from patrolling the city. It was wrong to refer to their own Aberrant kind as mere things but what else could he describe the nuclear powered monster annihilating the downtown area to be? "What does getting yourself killed change May!?" Barrister finally blurted out, Unable to keep from wincing in the searing atmosphere being pushed from the center of the city only slighter hotter than his partner's ambient temperature at this point.
May turned to the large horrifying glow, feeling the heat of another unstable blast of radiation and unprecedented energy waves coming from the near invisible downtown area once again. "I have to try, Barri– people need heroes, even if most of us only do it just to be allowed to live like the rest of everybody else...Why would god give us these powers if we weren't meant to protect those in need?" She asked him, still facing away to hide the tears quickly evaporating from her pale yellow eyes. The blasts were becoming more frequent, gaining intensity as the scathing haze burst into an array of vibrant green hues. "I need you to go inside, please...I have to go, now."
The abrupt moment May's flames erupted from her palms, Barrister knew he'd lost the argument, as always. His own hands, which moments ago had been gripping her arms, now fell limply to his sides as if to show his frustration. The betrayal etched across his gaunt face was a landscape of obvious—sharp angles of anger softened by the desperate love underneath that would not allow him to show the rage he felt not only toward her for wanting to leave, but against the entire hero program Aberrants were forced to take part in.
"My partner's already en route," she said, her voice hollow, barely competing with the nuclear explosions quaking around them. "Jace is racing to intercept and he is nowhere near strong enough to take that guy out." May hesitated. Jace Morgan, her assigned partner, was one of the most experienced Aberrant heroes in the city's emergency response team. His ability to generate and manipulate electromagnetic fields made him perfect for containing unstable energy signatures. But she knew the nuclear threat was beyond even his considerable skills due to an injury he suffered months ago protecting her.
The familiar screams echoing from miles around forced memories into her like the radioactive shockwaves consuming everything forced chalky soot into the air. She saw again the night the mutant gang had torn through her parents' neighborhood. The screams. The uncontrolled meta-abilities that had reduced entire city blocks to ash like she was able to glimpse now fueled her need to bring order among the violent masses. "I have to go," May repeated, this time with a steel in her voice that displayed her resolve, the green nuclear explosions pulses still turning into large bubbles of plasma in the distance. Witnesses were reporting total devastation—entire city blocks gone from where they once stood powerfully along the cityscape.
Barrister's expression shifted once again. The fury drained away, replaced by a resigned understanding that looked remarkably still much like defeat. "Then go," he stated, not able to expound verbally what he wanted to truly say; "Just... come back to me." he thought, able to hide his tears from her as he made his way to the roof exit.
Her scorching white flames erupted again in a hell-like inferno, searing the ledges brick with burning lashes as she headed toward the epicenter with blinding speed that was signature for her hero alter ego. Scorch; the burning hope of Los Angeles flared in every glass window for miles. Bringing thousands to stare at the spectacle, allowing for them to feel there was still something out there able to save them from the cataclysm.
Emerald nuclear energy and blazing white fire intertwined, creating a spectacular, terrifying exhibition of destruction as she collided head on with the threat within moments from taking off; only able to brace her consciousness for one of the immense pulses of pure nuclear energy before blacking out mid flight and causing her to stumble into collision course. May's powers merged with the blazing forces in a resoundingly bright fusion that sent invisible shockwaves through the city that could be felt miles across southern California. The raw power was something Barrister never saw, the initial shockwave threw him from the crumbling rooftop, his body tumbling through the air futility before thrashing bloodily onto the body-strewn concrete three stories below the apartment he and May shared.
He lay motionless among the dead, clinging to conscious, as the city burned around him and survivors wailed its pain into the blackened morning sky. Emergency vehicles ran their sirens through smoke-choked streets endlessly. First responders pulled bodies from the rubble, some moving, most not due to the severity of the blast as even lesser Aberrents were turned to nothing but emblazed shadows beneath mounds of ravaged buildings. As consciousness slipped away from Barrister, the last thing he registered was being lifted onto a stretcher, rough hands checking his vitals, and hushed voices debating where to take "another one of them." After passing over him with a barely functioning biometric scanner.
Unadulterated, white-hot pain swarmed his body; not allowing him to open his eyes as he struggled to hear past the ringing of his ears and the agony his body was in. The city dissolved into noiseless chaos around his broken body lying in the fractured cement after the human medics quickly dropped him in order to save someone not tainted by the eclipse's aberration. He finally willed his eyes to open and through fading vision, Barrister watched blood-caked mothers dragging barely alive children through the rubble blocked street, their faces glazed in terror as they fled the radiation still lingering around. A group of survivors huddled behind an overturned bus, their shadows dancing against burning buildings as emergency crews fought to establish safe zones from the comfort of military grade vehicles.
He tried to call out to them, to move out of pool of his own blood, but his body refused to respond; yet somehow he could feel the vibrations of approaching tanks through the concrete, a sensation that seemed to bypass his physical senses entirely as visions plagued his mind. The military convoy arrived quickly, as if they'd been waiting for this catastrophe. Black unmarked vehicles with reinforced plating swept through the streets, their squadrons wearing radiation suits and carrying scanning equipment all marked with a large M. Barrister's consciousness finally flickered in and out for the last time, but in those moments of clarity, he saw them separating people into groups; humans to emergency shelters, Aberrants to containment vehicles all pushed together like the bowels of hell.
—--------
Barrister's first sensation was a dull, throbbing ache that seemed to radiate from every molecule of his body that quickly coalesced into blistering pain from his bones, but the hole in his heart felt even more pressing than any physical pain from losing May; just as the visions had told him. The sterile white walls and the dank smell of recycled disinfectant made him cognizant he was in a medical facility long before his ears could fully focus on the words being said to him over a monitoring station's buzzing speaker due to having worked in a much smaller scale facility downtown.
The pain medications they'd given him were wearing off, but something else was replacing the discomfort; a strange tingling sensation that made the air feel thick around him as if he was swimming in gelatin. Twice now, he'd reached for the water cup beside his bed and watched his fingers seem to pass through it before solidifying again. He blamed it on the drugs, the trauma, anything but what he feared it might actually mean as he did not need any other reason to be hunted any further—The very last thing he needed was to manifest abilities now, after decades of passing as a Lesser Aberrant and being allowed the most freedom his kind could dream of having.
His hand twitched, searching for his phone to call May but finding himself completely restrained to a dingy bed and unable to reach his shattered phone on the table across the room. His mind quickly found ways to being replay her death over and over in his spinning sanity. The memory of the rooftop...her flames, the nuclear explosion, her desperate determination to save others plastered all over her face, it all became as tangible as the anguish his body was currently in once again. In his sinking heart, he knew she was dead. The unfiltered, instinctual certainty of loss settled into his aching bones like a cold, immovable weight of tungsten being piled on the body even if he hadn't seen the exact scene of his vision.
"Awake, are we?" The sharp voice was clinical. Detached, yet honed from countless entries into the facility handled with ease as a human nurse, her laminated badge marked her as standard personnel, not an Aberrant, looked down at him with a helping of disgust and professional indifference. Her simple brown eyes locked on his own yet he had only just noticed her presence. Her clipboard might as well have been a weapon, the way she held it between them like a shield and kept her distance though he was firmly bandaged.
"Where am I?" Barrister's voice was a raspy mess, barely recognizable from disuse after days of being in a medically induced coma.
"An Aberrant Containment and Rehabilitation Center now owned by Markum industries: Santa Monica, to be exact." she replied, her tone making it clear that 'rehabilitation' was nothing more than a euphemism as she clicked her pen and jotted something down. Her accent was untraceable to Barrister, making him question the validity of only being a few miles from where he had been knocked unconscious. "Ward C, Bed 17. You're lucky. Mr. Barrister Craig, do you remember your name?"
Lucky.
The word hung in the air like a bitter joke the same way his name felt to be in that moment as the door opened with a hydraulic hiss and a figure entered that was more machine than man. Barrister had heard rumors, seen glimpses in restricted media feeds on dark web Aberrant sites, but nothing prepared him for the reality of Miros Markum. Half his body was gleaming ebony cybernetic infrastructure, titanium-carbon composite limbs that moved with ungodly precision even for a machine. One eye was a complex apparatus of sensors and data streams that whizzed past his face until making visual contact with Barrister and suddenly flashing closed, the other a piercing human blue that seemed to look through his body rather than at him. His human side was cold, showing years of hard life lived in the dark brown flesh that hung from his skeleton. Expensive unblemished white tailored clothing, likely worth more than Barrister would earn in a lifetime, draped over his partially mechanical form.
"Mr. Craige," Markum's voice was almost like a fluid of corporate authority that oozed into his accented speech. "I'm Dr. Markum. Chief medical officer and primary administrator of this facility and others like it across the west coast for the Markum conglomerate." Barrister said nothing but noted how each breath he took seemed monitored by every inch of minimalist blinking tech and leering person in the room. Markum slowly approached him, mechanical leg whirring softly with each firm step onto the cold padded tile as he passed the nurse with a simple nod of his head. A holographic display flickered to life, projected from an implant in his wrist made of small red lettering that built words and imagery. Medical readouts, mission reports, classified documents dancing just beyond Barrister's reach all labeled with May's name in large font. "Your partner, The elemental class 4. She was involved in a critical energy containment incident. The details are classified." A pause. A calculated look. "But I can tell you she will not be returning to you."
Barrister's fingers curled into the roughly thin hospital sheets that scratched at his brown skin. He knew what that meant; his worst crushing nightmares had come true just as the visions said. "What happened?" he managed, though he was sure he knew from what he tried to remember.
Markum's cybernetic eye seemed to scan him another time, assessing Barrister's power state with interest. "That," he said finally, "depends on what you're willing to do for us, boy." Markum settled into a metal chair that was more mechanical extension of the room than furniture that swiftly built itself from the panels of the floor, his cybernetic parts recalibrating with a chirping, almost musical whirr of engineering long needing care. "Armistead Incorporated's hero program has failed catastrophically," he began, each word measured and cold like they were just casual conversation. "The nuclear incident in Los Angeles is the final proof. We've lost entire city blocks, hundreds of millions in infrastructure, and what do the Armistead heroes provide? Terrific destruction masked as protection. Not me." Barrister felt something building inside him, an uncontested rage that threatened to consume innards and turn them into boiling knots of hate. Markum continued, his human eye never blinking, the cybernetic one cycling through data streams and heat signatures. "The government has contracted me to do one of two things in the wake of Armistead's reshuffling. Option one: Produce a new generation of controlled meta-individuals. Systematic. Predictable. Weaponized. Under my company's humble supervision, of course" He paused, letting the words hang in the air like puffed cigar smoke. "Option two: Complete depopulation of Aberrant individuals left after the blast. Relocation, sterilization, and more... direct methods. Dirty, filthy methods that I am no stranger to after a booming first year Aberrant termination rate on the east coast." Markum turned to the nurse's unwavering freckled face, smiling an unnerving smile that left Barrister knowing he was not partial to either.
The First Year after the Second Eclipse.
Barrister remembered the roundups, a year passing made no difference in the devastation of the period. Military trucks rolling through once quiet American neighborhoods and opening fire. Aberrant families—children, elderly, everyone in between—herded like veal cattle to a slaughterhouse. The streets ran red with the gut chunked insides of those who tried to fight back, even if human. Entire communities vanished overnight, replaced by new tourist destinations if too devastated or apartment complexes that were strictly regulated. Scanning stations on every corner, hasty technology designed to detect the slightest genetic deviation and not always properly managed nor calibrated. His own removal from his family was a catastrophe of violence that felt like decades now compared to everything else.
A most likely faulty scanner.
A tremor in his hand that marked him as different.
The last image of his mother; her mouth hung open in shock, no longer maternal love as men in black tactical gear pulled him away and branded his body just before throwing him into a windowless semi-truck that was overfilled with others deemed like him where he was forced to fight to escape being trampled in the same hell-like cramped space he saw others being crammed into earlier.
"The fuck am I supposed to do?" Barrister muttered. "You got yourself a dud, May was the one you wanted– I'm not a powered Aberrant...You should have just let me die in the rubble."
Markum's cybernetic eye focused on him with Jaguar-like intensity as he leaned inward. "Or maybe you have not been tested enough, from your registration, I am aware that you have had it easy being in the shadow of a Hero like May and being a Lesser." Markum quickly pulled up his file, projecting a 3D image of Barrister in the air. "A nice cushy job with Armistead's relocation committee, nice apartment, and that creature you loved; all wasted on someone like you...A coward." Markum squinted his eyes. "You'll compete in a...test against prospective hero candidates. Win, and you earn a chance. Lose, and you'll spend the remainder of your life in our mine facilities. Aberrant labor. Expendable. Forgettable yet never unreliable to our new bustling economy."
The implied threat was clear. Death by exhaustion. Death by neglect. A slow, systematic elimination like countless others now being prepped to handle the reconstruction of the city. "May," Barrister breathed. The name was a prayer. A curse. The only thing that remained of the life he'd known.
Markum's lip curled almost imperceptibly, something between a smile and a sneer. "Your girlfriend, the Class 4 Aberrant; a fire elemental who tried to contain the nuclear event. Presumed neutralized. Do the specifics make you happier? What do you gain from agonizing over loss when you have so much to lose yourself? Do you not want to show the world that your kind deserves more than annihilation?"
Barrister's hands began to tremble as he pondered the questions, knowing they were all shaded with simmered hatred toward what he was. But he did not tremble with fear. He trembled with something else that made his body pulse with pain. Something that had been buried deep inside him since childhood threatened to bubble to the surface. A feeling he hid since his youth after his parents lied about his age and prayed he was normal once all of earth's children died and left only the Originals two decades ago. He couldn't be anything more though, his survival must have been only a miracle like his mother told him and possibly herself for so many years until a faulty scanner picked up what dozens of routine checks never did and exposed him as different along with the other Lesser Aberrants that were essentially human. He didn't know the extent of his powers. Never had.
Always too afraid to become a monster like the Originals had always been depicted in the media when he was a child. Always controlled in how he approached any person in his life even before other Aberrants appeared after the second eclipse; not even May knew he was anything more than a Lesser. Yet, something was changing, he no longer could hold back the torrent he felt searing into every fiber in his body, the feeling all engulfing as he never broke eye contact with Markum. "Whatever gets me the fuck out of here." he nearly spat the words, and even he didn't recognize the voice that emerged; not able to see the flash of silver light manifesting around his own irises that the others clearly saw manifest.
Markum's mechanical parts recalibrated. For the first time, something that might have been respect flickered in his human eye. "Rehabilitation begins tomorrow," he said. "And then, Mr. Craige, we'll see exactly what you're made of."
