CHAPTER 104: THE HYBRID NETWORK

Chapter 104: The Hybrid Network

The Council prison break was meant to be impossible. But when Death himself walks through your walls, impossible becomes easy.

Darius crouched behind a pile of rubble, watching the old fortress burn. Council guards ran everywhere, screaming about shadows that ate light and crystals that sang dangerous songs.

"The distraction is working," Luna whispered, her blood magic crackling around her fingers.

"But we need to move fast." Through the chaos, Sera led them down passageways that twisted like living things.

Her Council access codes opened doors that shouldn’t exist, showing cells that held nightmares. "She’s in the deepest level," Sera said quickly. "Where they keep the prisoners too dangerous to kill."

The elevator dropped for what felt like forever. When it finally stopped, the air itself felt different. Heavier. Poisoned with hopelessness. "I can smell her," Darius said sadly.

"And she’s not alone." The tunnel stretched ahead, lined with cells that hummed with containment magic. But as they got closer to the end, sounds drifted through the quiet. Voices. Children’s sounds. "No," Luna breathed.

"They wouldn’t." But they had. The final cell was bigger than the others, built like a small apartment. Inside, Celeste sat on a simple bed, her honey-blonde hair now streaked with white.

But she wasn’t alone. Twelve children sat in a circle around her, their ages ranging from maybe five to fifteen. Each one glowed with the same dimensional energy that was killing River. Hybrid children.

"You’re too late," Celeste said without looking up. Her ice-blue eyes were duller now, aged by months of magical drain. "They brought these little ones here three days ago. They’re going." "What are they doing to them?" Death asked, his terrible voice somehow soft.

"Testing," Celeste answered bitterly. "The Council found that hybrid children can reach through dimensions.

They’re trying to force them to build permanent ties to other worlds." One of the children, a boy who looked about ten with wolf ears and vampire fangs, turned toward them.

"Are you here to help us go home?" he asked hopefully. "We’re going to try," Darius promised. "Good," said a girl with witch eyes and fae wings.

"Because we found something the grown-ups need to know." Sera worked on the cell locks while Luna began breaking the magical bonds around each child.

But it was the oldest combination, a teenage girl with scales that shimmered like water, who spoke the words that changed everything. "We’re not the only ones," she said. "There are hundreds of us. Maybe thousands." "What do you mean?" Death asked.

"The bridges we can make," the girl continued. "They link us to hybrid children in other places. Other times. We’ve been talking to them."

She closed her eyes, and suddenly her scales blazed with light. The air around her shimmered, and words echoed from nowhere. "Hello from the London packs." "Greetings from the Tokyo covens."

"The Australian witches send their power."

"Brazil’s jaguar shifters stand ready." Dozens of sounds, speaking different languages but somehow understood by all. Children’s voices, carried across impossible lengths through dimensional energy.

"By the gods," Sera whispered. "They’ve created a global network." "Not created," the scaled girl amended. "Discovered. The links were always there.

The Council just taught us how to use them." "And it’s killing you," Luna said angrily, seeing how the girl’s light was flickering. "Maybe," the girl admitted.

"But we can do something the adults can’t. We can talk to the supernatural groups that got separated from their home dimensions." She closed her eyes again, and this time the voices that came through weren’t human.

"The Crystal Wolves of Dimension Seven are ready to return." "The Shadow Vampires have been waiting centuries for this moment." "The Storm Witches will lend their power to break the barriers." Darius felt his legs go weak.

"You’re talking to our original species. The ones the Council cut off from this world." "They never left," the boy with wolf ears said happily.

"They’ve been trying to come back ever since the walls went up. They just needed someone to help them connect." "The hybrid children are living translators," Death realized. "Bridges between the trapped supernatural beings here and their families in other dimensions."

"But using the power is burning them out," Celeste said simply. "Look at them. Really look." Darius did, and his heart broke. Each child was flickering like a light in the wind.

Their dimensional energy was eating them from the inside, just like it was doing to River. "How long do they have?" he asked.

"Days," Celeste answered. "Maybe hours for the youngest ones." "Then we use the network now," Luna decided. "Before it’s too late." The scaled girl nodded weakly.

"We can reach every supernatural group on Earth. And every dimensional family that got split. But..." "But what?" "To break the walls safely, we need all of them working together at the same time.

Every witch, every vampire, every shifter, every mixed child, all using their power in perfect harmony." "That’s impossible," Sera argued. "The coordination alone would take months to plan."

"Not if we had someone to conduct it," the girl said quietly. "Someone bonded to various species. Someone with the power to command every supernatural being." "Liana," Darius breathed. "The Guardian," Death confirmed.

"But she would have to lose more than just her mate bonds. She would have to give up her human life totally, become a permanent bridge between all dimensions." The cell door finally clicked open, but no one moved. The weight of what they’d learned pressed down on everyone. "There’s more," Celeste said, standing slowly.

Her jail clothes hung loose on her thin frame, but her eyes blazed with old fire. "I’ve been studying the children’s skills. They’re not just bridges. They’re keys." "Keys to what?"

"To rewriting the basic laws of reality. The Council used hybrid children to build the barriers in the first place. Used their mixed bloodlines to create chains between dimensions." She moved to a wall covered in symbols that hurt to look at. "But if we reverse the process..."

"We could give everyone a choice," the scaled girl finished. "Stay in this world or return to their original homes. No more forced separation." "What about the exiled ones?" Luna asked.

"They go back to their own world and stay there. The bridges close behind them, but softly. No more madness, no more hunger." It sounds perfect. Too perfect. "What’s the catch?" Darius asked. Celeste’s smile was sharp as broken glass.

"The hybrid children have to keep the new barriers forever. They become living locks between worlds, never aging, never dying, never able to live regular lives."

"And Liana?" "Becomes their queen. The Guardian of all dimensions. Immortal, all-powerful, and totally alone." Alarms started blaring throughout the jail.

Council forces had realized their most dangerous inmates were being freed. "We need to go," Sera urged. "Now." "Wait," the scaled girl said quickly. "There’s something else. Something we found while talking to the other hybrid children."

"What?" "The Council isn’t the real threat. They’re just tools. There’s something else controlling them. Something that’s been hiding in the space between worlds."

Before anyone could ask what she meant, the prison shook with huge impacts. Through the cell’s small window, they could see the sky tearing open like cloth.

The exiled ones weren’t just coming. They were bringing friends. "The Void Feeders," Celeste whispered, her face going pale. "The Council woke up the Void Feeders."

"What are Void Feeders?" Darius asked. "Creatures that eat entire realities," Death said sadly. "They eat worlds, dimensions, everything. I thought they were just tales." "Not legends," the scaled girl said, her young voice heavy with old knowledge.

"The mixed network has been sensing them for weeks. They’re what the Council was really trying to keep out. The exiled ones were just the first wave." The jail shook again, and this time chunks of ceiling fell around them.

"How do we fight something that eats reality?" Luna asked desperately. "We don’t fight them," Celeste said, grabbing weapons from secret compartments around the cell.

"We feed them something else. Something so powerful and complex that it takes them centuries to digest." "What could possibly be that powerful?" Celeste’s smile became truly frightening.

"A Guardian freely bonded to every supernatural soul in existence. A living world made of pure love and sacrifice." "You’re talking about turning Liana into bait," Darius growled.

"I’m talking about turning Liana into rescue. If she bonds with everyone at the moment of dimensional split, her power will be so vast that the Void Feeders will focus on her instead of the fleeing realities." "And then what happens to her?"

"She either ascends to become something beyond human understanding, or she gets consumed along with the Void Feeders." Death’s terrible laugh rang through the prison. "Either way, she saves everyone else."

Another hit, stronger than before. Through the window, they could see things moving in the torn sky. Things with too many teeth and eyes like black holes. "The Void Feeders are here," the scaled girl whispered.

"The network is screaming. Every mutant child in the world can feel them coming." "Then we better get back to the others," Darius said grimly. "And hope Liana is ready to become a goddess."

As they ran through collapsing corridors, the hybrid children holding hands to keep their network connection, Celeste grabbed Darius’s arm. "There’s one more thing," she said quickly. "Something I discovered in my research."

"What now?" "The Void Feeders aren’t random killers. They’re cleanup teams. Someone is sending them to erase the proof of what the Council has done."

"Evidence of what?" "That this world, this entire reality, is stolen. We’re all living in a world that belongs to someone else." The jail exploded around them as Death’s power tore open a portal to safety.

But as they fell through dimensional space, Celeste’s words rang in Darius’s mind. If their entire world was stolen, then saving it might not be saving anything at all.

It might be returning stolen property to its original owners. And the real owners might not want to share.