Chapter 14: Vought's Crackdown
The emergency alert pierced through Godolkin's morning calm like a blade through silk. Landon felt the vibration in his bones before he heard it—the deep, mechanical hum of security drones warming up across campus, their rotors cutting through air that suddenly felt too thin to breathe.
[LOCKDOWN INITIATED. ALL STUDENTS REPORT TO DESIGNATED ZONES.]
The announcement crackled from every speaker, every screen, every device within a mile radius. Landon pressed his back against the brick wall of the humanities building, watching as his classmates scattered like startled birds. Some ran toward the dormitories. Others stood frozen, heads tilted skyward as black shapes descended from the clouds.
So much for flying under the radar.
The drones moved with predatory precision, their cameras swiveling to track movement below. Red targeting beams sliced through the morning mist, painting crimson dots on walls, on faces, on the trembling hands of students who'd never seen Vought's iron fist without its velvet glove.
Landon's phone buzzed. A message from Dean Shetty appeared on every device simultaneously: Priority Target: Landon Vale. Approach with caution. Reward for information.
His throat constricted. The air tasted metallic, like blood and ozone and the bitter aftermath of choices he couldn't take back. Every prank, every small act of rebellion, every moment of thinking he could outsmart Vought—it had all led to this. His name on every screen. His face on every wanted poster.
Congratulations, genius. You're officially fucked.
The shape-shifting kicked in before conscious thought, his features melting and reforming with practiced ease. Broader jaw. Darker hair. Different posture. The ability responded to his desperation, molding him into someone forgettable, someone safe.
[SHAPE-SHIFTING STABILITY: 80%. NICE DODGE, FUGITIVE.]
Not now, he thought at the system, slipping between shadows as a drone passed overhead. Its searchlight swept the ground where he'd been standing moments before, illuminating nothing but empty concrete and scattered leaves.
Students streamed past him, some crying, others shouting into phones. The lockdown had transformed Godolkin from a university into a prison, and Landon was the reason why. Every frightened face, every panicked voice—his fault. The weight of it pressed against his chest like a stone.
He needed to find the others. Marie, Luke, Andre, Emma—they'd be targets too, guilty by association. His stomach churned at the thought of Emma's delicate features on one of those wanted posters, her nervous smile frozen in digital amber.
The main quad had become a war zone. Security forces in tactical gear moved between clusters of cowering students, barking orders and checking IDs. Landon skirted the perimeter, his borrowed face helping him blend with the crowd of terrified freshmen.
A hand grabbed his shoulder.
"Hey—"
Landon spun, heart hammering, ready to run or fight or die again if necessary. But it was just a security guard, his face slack with boredom rather than recognition.
"You're supposed to be in the east dorm for processing," the guard said, gesturing toward a line of students being herded like cattle. "Move it."
Landon nodded, affecting a stutter. "S-sorry, sir. Got turned around."
The guard waved him on, already looking elsewhere. Landon joined the line, keeping his head down and his features carefully neutral. Around him, his classmates whispered theories and rumors: They found drugs in the dorms. Someone hacked the mainframe. There's a terrorist on campus.
None of them suspected the terrorist was walking among them.
The processing line moved slowly, each student scanned and questioned before being released or detained. Landon watched the pattern, counting guards, memorizing faces. When his turn came, he met the scanner's gaze with steady eyes.
"Name?"
"David Chen," Landon replied, the lie sliding off his tongue like water. The fake identity held—one of the benefits of shape-shifting was that even biometric scanners could be fooled if you changed the right bone structure.
The guard's tablet beeped green. "Go to section C. Next."
Landon walked away on unsteady legs, the borrowed identity already feeling like a second skin. He'd passed the first test, but the real challenge lay ahead. Somewhere in this chaos, his friends were being hunted because of his choices.
Time to make things right.
The abandoned maintenance tunnel beneath the quad smelled of rust and neglect, but it offered something precious: invisibility. Landon had discovered it weeks ago during one of his exploratory missions, and now it served as the perfect hideout.
Emma found him first, materializing from the shadows like a ghost made flesh. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, but her jaw was set with determination.
"Landon?" Her voice was barely a whisper. "Oh god, I was so scared they'd—"
She threw herself into his arms before he could respond, her small frame trembling against his chest. The scent of her shampoo—vanilla and something floral—cut through the tunnel's mustiness, anchoring him to something real and good in a world gone mad.
"I'm okay," he murmured into her hair, though they both knew it was a lie. None of them were okay. None of them would be okay again.
"They have your picture everywhere," Emma said, pulling back to look at him. "Your real picture, not... whatever this is." She gestured at his altered features.
Landon let his face return to its natural state, the shape-shifting unwinding like a held breath. Emma's expression softened as his familiar features emerged—the sharp cheekbones, the defiant green eyes, the mouth that couldn't quite hide its tendency toward sarcasm even in crisis.
"There you are," she said, touching his cheek with fingers that shook only slightly. "I was afraid I'd lost you."
The words hit him harder than any physical blow. Lost him. As if he were something worth keeping, worth fighting for. The strange warmth that thought created was almost enough to push back the cold fear settling in his bones.
Almost.
"Emma," he began, but she pressed a finger to his lips.
"Don't you dare apologize," she said fiercely. "Don't you dare say this is your fault. Vought did this. They chose to turn our school into a police state. You just... you just gave them an excuse."
An excuse. That was one way to put it. Another way was that he'd painted a target on everyone he cared about through sheer reckless stupidity.
"I need to tell you something," Emma continued, her voice dropping to barely audible. "About how I feel. About you."
The tunnel suddenly felt too small, the air too thin. Landon's chest tightened with something that might have been hope or might have been terror—with Emma, the line between the two had always been razor-thin.
"The world's ending and you want to talk about feelings?" He tried for his usual deflection, but his voice cracked on the last word.
"Especially when the world's ending." Emma's eyes were fierce now, burning with an intensity that reminded him why he'd been drawn to her in the first place. "Because if we don't make it through this—if they catch us or worse—I want you to know that I care about you. More than care about you."
The words hung between them like a bridge he wasn't sure he deserved to cross.
"Emma—"
"I know you think you're some kind of monster," she said, cutting him off. "I've seen how you look at yourself when you think no one's watching. But you're not. You're just scared and alone and trying to survive in a place that wants to chew you up and spit you out."
She was wrong, of course. He was exactly the kind of monster she thought he wasn't—someone who killed and died and killed again for power, who lied to the people who trusted him most. But looking into her eyes, seeing the absolute certainty there, he almost believed her version of him instead.
"You really want to do this here?" he asked, gesturing at the grimy tunnel walls. "Our big romantic moment in a sewer?"
Emma laughed despite everything, the sound bright and incongruous in their underground hideout. "Where else? The quad's a war zone, the dorms are locked down, and I'm pretty sure the cafeteria's been converted into a holding facility."
She had a point. If they were going to have this conversation—and apparently they were—it might as well be in the only safe place left on campus.
"For the record," Landon said, taking her hands in his, "I care about you too. More than I should. More than is smart."
"Good," Emma said, rising on her toes to brush her lips against his. The kiss was soft, tentative, tasting of fear and hope in equal measure. "Because smart's overrated anyway."
[ROMANCE LOCKED: EMMA'S YOURS. DON'T MESS IT UP.]
The system's message felt less mocking than usual, almost protective. Landon ignored it, focusing instead on the girl in his arms and the way her presence made the darkness feel less absolute.
Heavy footsteps echoed from the tunnel entrance. Landon tensed, ready to shift his features again, but it was only Luke and Andre, their faces grim but their eyes relieved to find them safe.
"Thought we might find you lovebirds down here," Andre said, though his usual teasing tone was tempered by exhaustion. "Marie's looking for you. Says she's got a plan."
"Of course she does," Landon muttered, but there was fondness in it. Marie always had a plan, even when the world was falling apart around them.
Luke's expression was harder to read. The fire supe had been through too much to trust easily, but something in his posture suggested grudging respect rather than suspicion.
"You really did it," Luke said quietly. "Brought down their whole house of cards."
"I brought down a lot more than that," Landon replied, guilt threading through his voice like poison. "Look what it's cost us."
"Cost them," Luke corrected firmly. "Vought. This is what they do when they're scared, man. They show their true colors."
Andre nodded agreement, metal dust swirling around his fingers in agitated patterns. "My pops always said power corrupts, but I never really got it until now. Watching them turn our school into a fucking concentration camp over some pranks..."
"They're not just pranks anymore," Landon said, meeting each of their eyes in turn. "This is war now. And we're all enemy combatants."
The weight of that statement settled over them like a shroud. They were no longer students. They were rebels, revolutionaries, targets. The transformation was complete, irreversible.
"So what do we do?" Emma asked, her hand finding Landon's and squeezing tight.
Landon looked at each of them—Emma with her fierce loyalty, Andre with his conflicted ambition, Luke with his hard-won hope. These people who'd chosen to stand with him despite everything. Who believed in some version of him that might actually be worth saving.
"We take on the world," he said simply. "All of it. Together."
[CREW'S READY: REBELS RISING.]
The system's approval felt almost warm this time, as if it too recognized that something fundamental had shifted. They weren't just surviving anymore. They were fighting back.
Luke's answering grin was sharp as a blade and twice as dangerous. "About fucking time."
MORE POWER STONES == MORE CHAPTERS
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