Chapter 32 Transformation

Emma Stone - POV

I wake up dying.

The first thing I notice isn't the power flowing through me like liquid fire, or the way reality seems to bend around my thoughts. It's Blake's face, peaceful and still beside me, his chest no longer rising and falling with breath.

"No," I whisper, the word carrying enough force to crack the ancient stones beneath us. "No, no, no."

I throw myself toward his body, pressing my hands against his chest, trying to push life back into him through sheer force of will. Energy floods through me—more power than I've ever felt, more than I knew was possible—but when I try to channel it into Blake's still form, agony tears through my nervous system.

My vision goes white. Blood fills my mouth. The power that should save him is burning me alive from the inside.

"Emma, stop." Cole's voice sounds distant though he's right beside me. "You're killing yourself."

"I don't care." I try again, pressing deeper, ignoring how the energy feels like swallowing molten metal. "I can save him. I have to save him."

This time the feedback drops me flat on the stone floor, my body convulsing as systems never designed for this level of supernatural energy overload completely. Through the pain, I understand the horrible truth—my abilities have expanded beyond human limits, but my body is still human. Every time I use this power, I'm trading pieces of my life for it.

Dr. Kane watches from where Cole holds a blade to her throat, her scientific fascination barely contained. "The transformation is unstable," she says. "Your consciousness expanded beyond physical constraints while your body remained anchored in normal reality. The strain will destroy you."

"How long?" I gasp, forcing myself to sit up despite tremors wracking my hands.

"Days, maybe less if you keep attempting major manifestations. Your cellular structure can't process this level of psychic energy indefinitely."

Days. I look down at Blake's peaceful face and feel something break inside my chest that has nothing to do with supernatural power. He sacrificed himself to save me, and now I'm going to die anyway from the very abilities his sacrifice was meant to preserve.

But maybe I can make those days count.

"Cole, get her out of here," I say, my voice steadier than I feel. "I need information about their operations, and more of her people are coming."

"What about Blake?"

I touch Blake's cheek, memorizing the face of the man who loved me enough to destroy himself rather than let them use him as a weapon against me. "We honor him by finishing this."

Cole nods and starts dragging Kane toward the emergency exit, but she resists with desperate strength.

"You can't control that power," Kane shouts at me. "Every manifestation brings you closer to cellular collapse. You'll burn out before you can change anything."

"Then I better work fast."

Alone except for Blake's body and approaching footsteps in the corridors above, I close my eyes and let my awareness expand carefully. The power flowing through me reveals connections I never knew existed—psychic networks linking enhanced individuals across the country, communication systems my abilities can access, surveillance networks I can infiltrate.

But more disturbing are the glimpses of other facilities like this one. Ryan performing surgery under threat. Students from universities nationwide held in medical wings designed for harvesting abilities rather than healing. The scope of Vera's organization stretches far beyond Blackwood University.

Through careful exploration that leaves me dizzy with exhaustion, I access their classified communications. What I discover makes my enhanced blood run cold.

They're not just eliminating enhanced individuals. They're preparing to use captured conduits as weapons in a war against normal humanity. The systematic harvesting of abilities isn't about control—it's about building an army of artificially enhanced soldiers to establish supernatural supremacy over the entire human race.

And according to their timeline, the first attacks begin tomorrow.

I have maybe two days to live and less than twenty-four hours to prevent a war that would destroy both enhanced and normal humans.

The power required to disrupt their operations simultaneously across multiple facilities feels like drinking lightning, but I grit my teeth and push deeper into their networks. Every psychic dampening field, every surveillance system, every communication relay.

But as my consciousness touches the broader supernatural infrastructure, alarms begin wailing throughout the university's hidden levels. My intrusion has been detected, and I can hear tactical teams mobilizing in response to the threat I represent.

More concerning are the other presences I feel awakening in response to the unprecedented energy I'm broadcasting. Ancient powers that have been dormant for decades, now stirring because something in the human world has become strong enough to disrupt supernatural hierarchies that have existed for centuries.

Some feel familiar, like distant relatives. Others radiate menace that makes my enhanced senses recoil in instinctive terror.

Through the pain of cellular breakdown and the grief of Blake's death, I realize the scope of what my transformation has accomplished. I have the power to end Vera's war before it begins, to save every captured conduit, to prevent the supernatural conflict that would devastate both sides.

But using that power will almost certainly kill me within hours instead of days.

Standing in the ritual chamber where my old life ended, I look down at Blake's peaceful face and make the choice he would want me to make. His sacrifice gave me this power. The least I can do is use it to save everyone he died trying to protect.

I place my hand on the ritual circle's central symbol and begin the process that will either save the world or destroy me in the attempt.

But as energy flows through ancient channels carved by my ancestors, I feel something else awakening—not just in distant supernatural networks, but here in Blackwood University itself. Something that has been sleeping beneath the campus for centuries, waiting for enough power to be channeled through the ritual circles to break free.

My transformation hasn't just made me the most powerful conduit in history.

It's awakened something that views both enhanced and normal humans as threats to be eliminated.

And it's rising from beneath the university right now.