The moon turned red at exactly midnight.
Nocturnia's sky—usually thick with ash and smoke—briefly parted to reveal a perfect circle of blood suspended in the heavens. Alchemists and mad priests called it a sign. The Mayor called it an opportunity.
Mayor Hawkins stood at the top of Harvest Spire, his glass dome office overlooking the broken skyline. He raised a silver chalice to his lips, still red from the heart-meal his scientist had plated for him hours ago.
"Let the city bleed," he whispered.
And then, it began.
Down below, sleek black airships marked with the Civic Empowerment Corps seal took flight. Drones buzzed like flies between towers. Streets were flooded with armored troops—soldiers made not of flesh, but twisted metal and stolen organs.
Their mission: collect the gifted. All of them.
It didn't matter if they were registered. It didn't matter if they were children.
Power was currency, and Hawkins intended to become the wealthiest man alive.
In the slums of Lowburn, bombs dropped like falling angels. One tore through John's lab—an explosion of glass, steam, and diamond fragments. The blast hurled him into the street, his body phasing between forms, unstable and twitching.
Miles away, in the Hollowgrove District, Speen's apartment erupted in a coil of purple flame. He dove through the back window just in time to see masked soldiers dragging his girlfriend—Tali—screaming into a cage van.
He called to his shadow—it didn't answer.
Someone had trapped it.
And then they came for him.