The Shards gave the people power. The People used the Shards to gain more power. With power comes emotion. Emotion creates anger. The shards harvest the anger.

As of late, it seems that the Shards have been causing strange mutations in humans. Though it only seems to happen when in a state of incredible anger or fear. In a way, a sort of super state.
All affinities have a state like this, each one is deadly and occurs during incredible anger or fear.

Earth - Cataclysm State: All powers over earth increased ten fold. Power over lava/magma becomes available. Power to create massive earthquakes, sandstorms of incredible proportions, and volcanoes to erupt.

Water - Chemical State: All powers over water increased ten fold. Power over chemicals, liquid metal, and clouds becomes available. Power to create tsunamis, massive whirlpools, hurricanes, and huge floods.

Heat - Hell State: All powers over heat increased by ten fold. Person gains fiery skin. Can throw fire balls and create fire from pure air. Can cause lava to burst from the ground. Super heat the air to the point of frying anything nearby. Can breathe fire and create fire storms.

Cold - Ice age State: All powers over cold increased ten fold. Person gains skin so cold that anything that touches them will be frozen. Can create spears of ice from pure air. Can cause massive blizzards, hail storms, ice storms, and snap-freeze areas.

Light - Eclipse State: Powers over light greatly weakened. Powers over shadow, darkness, and Dark Matter become increased by Ten fold. Can throw balls of black fire. Emit steams of grey smoke (supposedly a manifestation of their emotions). Are able to create small, temporary, black holes. Able to control Dark Matter (supposedly the empty, black space, in the universe) giving them the ability to create objects that last for a short amount of time.

Sound - Sonic State: Powers over sound increased by ten fold. Able to create massive sound waves capable of sucking away all the air in the area. Can suddenly cause everything around them to become totally silent. Their movements cause strange ripples in the air to form. Can move so fast they are unable to be seen for short periods of time.

Electricity - Magneteria State: Powers over lightning and electricity increased ten fold. Powers over magnetism and other forms of energy become available. Power to cause massive fields of magnetism or electricity. Can electrocute people by just touching them.

Metal - Elemental State: Powers over metal increased ten fold. Power to create massive walls of liquid metal, cover ones self in metal, create copies of themselves made of iron or silver. Can melt themselves down and then back up in a different form (shapeshifting).

Nature - Biological State: Powers over nature and healing increased ten fold. Power to grow small forests, deadly and massive plants, and bring those who have recently died back to life. Power to morph into different animals, poison people by touching them, and plant spores in people's skin that cause plants to grow under their skin.