Chapter 16: Midnight Ground

Midnight came like a storm you could hear but couldn't see.

The air was heavy.

Tense.

Waiting.

We stood in the old transit plaza—once a bustling square, now cracked and overgrown with weeds.

There were no lights.

No League drones overhead.

No banners waving.

Just people.

Dozens.

Then hundreds.

Powered and not.

Rogue sympathizers.

Frightened families.

Former agents.

Unregistered healers.

Kids too young to understand but old enough to feel the tension buzzing in the concrete.

They came because they heard us.

And because no one else was listening.

I stood at the edge of the broken fountain.

Echo beside me.

Delryn behind.

Reese somewhere on overwatch, scanning with borrowed tech from a Null cell three districts away.

I cleared my throat.

Then didn't speak.

Not yet.

Because something was wrong.

The energy in the air?

It was… off.

Buzzing. But not warm.

Not curious.

It was sharp. Like glass under the skin.

Echo felt it too.

"Something's here," she whispered.

Then the lights returned.

Bright.

White.

Artificial.

They flooded the plaza from all sides, snapping on with surgical precision.

People screamed. Shields came up. Powered sparked to life.

I raised my hands, glowing, heart pounding.

And from the shadows, boots marched.

Three rows.

League armor.

Full force.

A voice rang through the plaza:

"Disperse. Now. This is an unauthorized gathering in a restricted zone."

It wasn't a warning.

It was a death sentence.

Delryn stepped up, her League ID still active in one hand.

"This is a peaceful demonstration," she shouted. "No violence. No aggression."

"This is a Level Four alert. Authorized to suppress with force."

I moved beside her.

Louder now.

"My name is—"

But they already knew it.

And before I could finish…

A drone fired.

The shockwave hit the fountain.

Blew concrete sideways.

People scattered.

Powers flared.

The square became a battlefield.

I screamed for calm.

But chaos doesn't listen.

Especially when it's been waiting for an excuse.

I caught two children falling from the stairs with a burst of energy.

Echo blinked a flash grenade out of the air mid-flight.

Delryn disabled three drones with a shortwave disruptor—tech she swore she didn't have.

Reese's voice buzzed in our ears.

"They weren't supposed to fire. That wasn't League protocol. Something's overriding their commands."

"Who?" Echo shouted.

Then we saw them.

Moving between the League units.

Wearing League armor.

But wrong.

Too smooth.

Too quiet.

They didn't shout.

Didn't respond to orders.

They just watched.

And then acted—blasting civilians, targeting low-level powers, hunting instead of enforcing.

One pulled off their helmet.

And we saw the mark.

A lightning bolt inside a skull.

Hollow agents.

In League gear.

They'd infiltrated.

Corrupted.

Possibly controlled the strike team.

That's why the League didn't pull back.

That's why the attack had started.

Because it wasn't the League.

Not completely.

It was the Hollow, moving like rot under a painted surface.

Echo flared into shadow form, leaping over wreckage and slicing two Hollow operatives down in a blink.

I pulled three people behind a barricade, shielding them with a curved wall of energy.

Delryn pushed forward, holding her badge up again and again, yelling "Stand down!" at soldiers who no longer listened.

And then Reese spoke again.

"They're jamming emergency broadcasts. I'm trying to override."

"Do it faster," I growled.

The battle raged.

But something shifted.

Because the people?

They didn't run.

They fought.

Not with powers.

Not all of them.

Some threw rocks.

Some shielded others.

One elderly woman stood in front of a younger girl and refused to move when a drone aimed down.

And when it fired—

A blue shield appeared.

Someone else stepped between.

A powered teen.

New.

Terrified.

But there.

Alive.

That was the moment.

The turning point.

The Divide wasn't just us anymore.

It was them.

All of them.

Together.

The Hollow started to fall back.

One by one.

They weren't ready for unity.

They wanted fear.

They got fire.

Real fire.

From the people.

From us.

The square held.

We held.

And when the last drone blinked offline—

Thanks to Reese's override finally breaking through—the silence returned.

Heavy.

Burnt.

But different.

Alive.

We counted the wounded.

Nine.

Minor injuries.

One powered arrest.

We broke him out ten minutes later.

But no deaths.

Not this time.

Not here.

The news hit the networks before sunrise.

Despite jamming.

Despite silence.

Despite scrubbing.

Because truth spreads faster than bullets when people carry it themselves.

And they did.

"Divide Faces Hollow in Peaceful Protest Ambush."

"Rogues, League, and Civilians Join Together Against Corrupt Strike."

"Who Really Fired First?"

"Unmasked Agents Wore Hollow Marks."

And the most shared image—

A teenager in a torn jacket, standing in front of two children, hands raised, a broken drone at his feet, backlit by fires:

"We Are Not Weapons."

That morning, the city breathed differently.

The Divide wasn't a rumor anymore.

It was a reality.

A line drawn in people, not walls.

And I wasn't a fugitive anymore.

Not just.

I was a leader.

And I was going to act like one.

Later that night, we met at the safehouse again.

Exhausted.

Bloodied.

But not broken.

Echo sat beside me, patching her shoulder.

Delryn updated League contacts still loyal to the truth.

Reese held the chip again.

"There's more in here," he said. "Encrypted files. Something called Phase Five."

"Can you open it?"

"Eventually."

I looked out at the city map.

All the glowing dots.

All the active cells.

I thought of the vault girl's question:

What will you build?

And I finally had an answer.

"A future."