🚨 HE THOUGHT HE WAS SAVING HIS GRANDFATHER. HE WAS HELPING A KILLER.

The gymnasium exploded into chaos.

Gunfire tore through the air, shattered wood splitting off the bleachers as students screamed and dived for cover. Clara moved like a ghost through the smoke, dropping two mercenaries with precise headshots before they could raise their rifles.

Arthur fired his heavy shotgun, the booming blasts echoing like thunder. A mercenary was lifted off his feet, crashing through the scorekeeper's table.

"Secure the boy!" Richard screamed to his remaining commanders, retreating behind a steel tactical shield.

Two mercenaries grabbed Leo by the collar, dragging his limp, paralyzed body toward the rear exit leading to the cafeteria. Leo couldn't fight back; the black serum felt like liquid lead pouring through his nervous system, paralyzing his muscles and dimming his sight.

"Maya..." Leo choked out, his vision swimming.

Through the haze of smoke, he saw Maya scramble beneath the bleachers, pulling Sam with her as Clara provided covering fire. They were safe for now—but he was being dragged away into the dark hallways of his own school.

The mercenaries threw Leo onto a stainless-steel food prep table in the cafeteria, binding his wrists and ankles with heavy industrial steel cuffs.

Richard stepped into the cafeteria, wiping sweat from his brow, his composure momentarily cracked. "Hurry up! Load him into the transport! The military radar will pick up this firefight in less than three minutes!"

"He's secured, sir!" the mercenary barked, tightening the wrist cuffs until they bit into Leo's skin.

Richard walked over to the stainless-steel table, looking down at Leo. He reached into his coat and pulled out a long, hollow bone-marrow extraction needle—the true harvesting tool.

"I wanted to do this in a sterile lab, Leo," Richard said, his breath hitching with fanatic excitement. "I wanted to give you anesthesia. But your grandfather forced my hand. So... this is going to hurt. Remarkably bad."

Richard raised the thick needle, aiming it directly at Leo’s hip bone.

"Why?" Leo managed to whisper, his voice slurping through paralyzed lips. "I thought... I thought you loved me. You raised me for sixteen years. You took me to baseball games... you taught me how to ride a bike..."

Richard stopped, the needle hovering inches above Leo’s skin. For a fraction of a second, something human flickered in Richard’s cold eyes—a shadow of grief, or perhaps guilt.

"I did love you, Leo," Richard said softly. "Every birthday party. Every catch in the yard. It was real."

"Then why...?"

"Because you aren't my son," Richard whispered, leaning down. "You are the clone of my real son. My real son died of leukemia when he was seven years old. Arthur couldn't save him. So Arthur took his cell line, fused it with the Prometheus Gene, and created you."

The revelation struck Leo like a physical impact.

A clone.

He wasn't just an experiment. He was a replacement. A walking ghost made to fill the void of a dead child.

"You're not a person, Leo," Richard said, his face hardening as the human warmth vanished completely, replaced by cold fanaticism. "You're a second chance. And by harvesting your marrow, I can create a cure that will ensure no child ever dies of leukemia again. Your sacrifice will save millions. Isn't that what a hero does?"

Richard plunged the heavy needle downward.

CLANG!

The needle didn't penetrate. It struck Leo’s hip and bent sideways, snapping in half with a metallic ping.

Richard froze. "What...?"

On the table, Leo’s hands began to twitch.

The black serum running through his veins—the neuro-blocker designed to paralyze human nerves—was being systematically consumed. The Prometheus Gene didn't just regenerate physical tissue; it adapted to toxins. It evolved.

The dark fluid in Leo’s blood was turning a bright, blinding luminescence.

Snap!

Leo snapped the steel cuff on his right wrist as if it were a wet paperclip. He sat up slowly on the stainless-steel table, his eyes glowing with an intense, terrifying brilliance that illuminated the dark cafeteria.

"You're wrong, Richard," Leo said. His voice was no longer that of a boy. It vibrated with a terrifying double-toned frequency. "A hero gets to choose."

Leo grabbed Richard by the throat, lifting the grown man off his feet with one hand.

The remaining mercenaries opened fire. Bullets struck Leo’s back—ping, ping, ping—flattening against his skin and dropping harmlessly to the linoleum floor. His cellular density had hardened into something impenetrable.

"Leo... please..." Richard gasped, kicking his legs uselessly in the air, his face turning purple as Leo’s grip tightened.

Leo looked into the eyes of the man who had raised him, the man who had lied to him, the man who had created him from the ashes of a dead boy.

"You said you wanted a second chance," Leo whispered softly.

BOOM!

The double doors of the cafeteria were kicked open. Arthur staggered into the room, covered in soot and blood, clutching his side where he had been shot.

"LEO, STOP!" Arthur cried out, tears cutting tracks through the grime on his face. "DON'T DO IT! IF YOU KILL HIM, YOU BECOME EVERYTHING THEY WANTED YOU TO BE!"

Leo stood frozen, holding Richard in the air.

He looked at Arthur. He looked at the bleeding, dying old man who had started this entire nightmare sixteen years ago out of grief and arrogance.

And then, Leo looked at his own reflection in the polished stainless-steel wall of the kitchen.

Glowing eyes. Unstoppable power. A monster holding a man by his neck.

Leo’s breath hitched. He slowly lowered his hand, dropping Richard to the floor.

Richard collapsed into a heap, coughing violently, gasping for air.

"I am not your dead son," Leo said, looking down at Richard with pure disgust. "And I am not your weapon, Arthur."

Before anyone could say another word, a heavy tactical drone crashed through the large cafeteria windows, hovering in the middle of the room. Its red laser sight swept across the space, locking onto Leo’s chest.

A synthetic voice boomed from the drone’s speakers:

“APEX VANGUARD PRIMARY COMMAND DETECTED. PROJECT PROMETHEUS IS COMPROMISED. INITIATING LEVEL 5 CLEAN-SWEEP PROTOCOL.”

Clara sprinted into the cafeteria, her face white with terror. "LEO! ARTHUR! RUN! THEY'RE NOT TRYING TO CAPTURE HIM ANYMORE!"

She pointed out the window toward the sky.