The sky over New Avalon City screamed with sirens and shattering glass.
A towering villain made of living magma—codenamed Caldera—roared as he hurled a bus-sized boulder of molten rock toward the crowded financial district below. Screams rose from the streets. Evacuation was still underway. The boulder arced downward, trailing fire.
Then time stuttered.
To the fleeing civilians, it looked like the world froze for a heartbeat. The boulder hung mid-air, flames suspended like orange ribbons. A figure in a sleek white-and-silver hero suit blurred into existence beneath it—tall, lean, hooded cape billowing despite the lack of wind.
Eclipse.
Rank S. Pro Hero Registration #007. The one they called "the Chronomancer."
He raised a gloved hand. A faint, translucent blue ring expanded outward from his palm, rippling through the air like water. The boulder slowed further, cracks of super-heated stone cooling mid-descent. With a casual flick of his wrist, Eclipse reversed its momentum entirely. The massive projectile spun backward in a perfect arc, hurtling toward the empty rooftop it had come from.
Caldera barely had time to snarl before his own attack slammed into him, burying him under tons of his own cooled lava.
The crowd erupted in cheers.
"Eclipse! Eclipse! Eclipse!"
Phones flashed. Children waved handmade signs. News drones circled overhead, broadcasting live to millions. A little girl in the front row clutched a plush doll of the hero and shouted at the top of her lungs, "You're the coolest!"
Eclipse landed lightly on the street, boots touching down without a sound. He turned toward the crowd, offering the trademark calm nod the public adored—distant enough to feel heroic, close enough to feel human. His mask covered the upper half of his face, leaving only a sharp jawline and lips visible. The expression was neutral, practiced. Perfect.
Inside the mask, Kairos Voss felt nothing.
He scanned the cheering faces automatically—checking for injuries, for lingering threats. Standard procedure. His Chrono Flux Aura hummed quietly in his veins, already recovering from the ten-second rewind he'd just performed. Minor strain. Acceptable.
A reporter shoved a microphone toward him. "Eclipse! Another flawless save! How does it feel to be the city's unbreakable shield?"
Kai let the silence hang just long enough to seem thoughtful. Then, in the measured baritone the Hero Association had coached into him:
"As long as people can go home to their families tonight, that's all that matters."
More cheers. More photos.
He signed a few autographs—quick, elegant strokes of a marker on posters and cast arms—then excused himself with a polite wave. The crowd parted like water. Pro heroes of lower rank saluted as he passed. Interns stared in awe.
By the time he reached the rooftop extraction point, the adrenaline of the fight had already drained away, leaving only the familiar hollow.
A support helicopter waited, rotors idling. The pilot gave a thumbs-up. Kai boarded without a word. As the chopper lifted into the sunset, New Avalon glittered below—tall spires of glass and steel, hero billboards flashing his own masked face beside slogans like "Time Waits for No One—Except Eclipse."
He pulled off the mask.
Short black hair fell across his forehead. Sharp gray eyes stared at nothing in particular. The face beneath the hero persona was younger than most realized—barely eighteen. Handsome in a cold, symmetrical way that made strangers trust him on sight.
Kairos Voss leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes.
Behind his eyelids, the same memory played on loop, as it always did after a public victory.
He was ten years old again, standing in the kitchen of a modest suburban home.
His parents arguing about bills.
His little sister tugging at his sleeve, asking him to play.
Then the pressure in his chest—something vast and uncontrollable waking up for the first time.
A blue ring expanding outward.
Time fracturing.
His mother's scream cutting off mid-word as her body withered in fast-forward—hair graying, skin wrinkling, collapsing into dust before she hit the floor.
His father reaching for him, aging decades in seconds.
His sister—
Kai's eyes snapped open.
The helicopter was still climbing. The pilot hadn't noticed.
He flexed his fingers, watching faint blue chronal lines flicker across his skin before fading. The power that had made him a celebrity. The power that had erased his family in the span of a heartbeat.
The power he would one day erase from the world entirely.
Below, the city continued to cheer for the hero they loved.
None of them knew that the same hand that saved them today would, one day, try to destroy everything they believed in.
Kairos Voss—Eclipse by day, Void by night—gazed down at the lights of New Avalon and whispered to no one:
"This world doesn't need gods."
The helicopter banked toward Apex Hero Academy, where the next generation waited to be taught how glorious it was to wield godlike power.
Kai smiled thinly.
He had a class to attend tomorrow.