CHAPTER 106: THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

Chapter 106: The Underground Railroad

The portal spit them out in full darkness. Darius hit the ground hard, feeling broken stones beneath his hands.

The hybrid children fell around him, their network light flickering like dying stars. "Where are we?" Luna whispered, her blood magic leaving eerie red shadows on wet walls.

"Underground," Death answered, his shadows reaching out to map their surroundings. "Old subway tubes, maybe. Haven’t been used in decades."

The scaled girl struggled to sit up, her link to the hybrid network weaker than ever. "I can barely feel the others now. The Council’s jamming is getting stronger."

That’s when they heard footsteps echoing through the tunnel. Multiple sets, moving fast but trying to stay quiet.

Darius tensed, ready to fight, but a familiar voice called out. "Don’t shoot! It’s us!" Talia emerged from the shadows, her red curls matted with dirt and her hazel eyes sparkling with an intensity that hadn’t been there before.

Behind her came a group of about twenty supernaturals - wolves, vampires, witches, and others Darius didn’t recognize. "Talia?" Luna gasped.

"What are you doing here? Where’s Liana?" "Still trapped behind the Council barriers," Talia said, her voice tight with fear. "But that’s not the biggest problem right now."

She knelt beside the hybrid children, her seer skills crackling around her like invisible lightning. "I’ve been having dreams. Lots of them.

And they all show the same thing - the Council isn’t just trying to clean us. They’re moving us." "Herding us where?" Sera asked. "Into one big trap." Talia’s eyes went faraway, seeing things that weren’t there yet.

"They want all the surviving supernaturals in one place so the Void Feeders can eat us all at once." A new voice spoke from deeper in the cave.

"That’s why we started the railroad." An older vampire stepped into the light, his pale skin marked with Council burn scars. "Name’s Marcus. I used to run supplies for twelve different supernatural groups before the purges began." "Now I run people." Behind him, more figures emerged from secret passages. Dozens of them.

All refugees, all having the hollow look of those who’d lost everything. "How many?" Darius asked. "Three hundred saved so far," Marcus answered.

"But for every one we save, the Council purifies five more. We’re losing this war." The scaled girl’s scales suddenly blazed with urgent light.

"Something’s wrong. The network - it’s yelling." Her eyes rolled back as visions from the mixed children around the world flooded through her. "London network is down. Tokyo network is gone.

They’re hitting every hybrid child place at once." "How many are left?" Death demanded. "Maybe thirty worldwide. And they’re all being hunted." Talia grabbed Darius’s arm, her seer powers showing her flashes of near future.

"Council patrol. Coming this way. Six teams, full purification gear. They’ll be here in four minutes." Marcus cursed. "How did they find us?"

"They didn’t," Talia said grimly. "They’re checking every tunnel, every hidden spot. Systematic sweep."

"We need to move everyone," Luna said, but Marcus shook his head. "Three hundred people through these tunnels? Half of them are too weak to run.

The Council will catch us before we make it two blocks." That’s when the butterfly-winged girl spoke up, her tiny voice carrying surprising power. "What if we don’t run?"

Everyone turned to look at her. Despite being only five years old, her mixed-blood background gave her insights the adults missed.

"The bad guys want to catch us all together, right? So what if we split up really, really far apart?" "She’s onto something," the scaled girl said, her network link flickering back stronger.

"If we can get the remaining hybrid children to different dimensions instead of different places..." "We could scatter the supernatural population across multiple realities," Death finished.

"The Void Feeders couldn’t eat us all at once." "But how do we open that many dimensional doors?" Sera asked.

"The hybrid network is barely functioning." Talia’s eyes went wide as another vision hit her. "Oh no. Oh no, no, no." "What is it?" Darius asked.

"The mate bond. It’s not just linking Liana to the triplets anymore. The worry is making it reach out, trying to find more anchors. It’s pulling in other supernatural people."

Luna felt it first - a sudden tug in her chest, like someone had tied a rope around her heart. Then Sera gasped as the same feeling hit her. "It’s spreading," Talia whispered.

"The bond is trying to create a network using living supernatural beings instead of hybrid children." Marcus stared at them in shock. "That’s impossible. Mate bonds don’t work that way."

"They do when one of the mates is carrying the reincarnated spirit of an ancient Luna," Death pointed out. "Liana’s dog isn’t normal. It’s learning, adapting." The scaled girl’s connection suddenly exploded with new knowledge.

"The remaining mixed children are reporting the same thing.

They’re feeling pulled toward specific adult supernaturals. It’s like the network is trying to rebuild itself using established magical beings as nodes." "Could it work?" Darius asked.

"Maybe. But it would mean giving up individual character. Everyone connected would share ideas, emotions, memories. You’d become part of a hive mind." Above them, they could hear Council boots on the street level.

The patrol was getting closer. "We’re out of time," Marcus said. "Whatever we’re going to do, we need to decide now." Talia closed her eyes, her seer powers reaching into multiple possible futures. What she saw made her face go pale.

"There’s another problem. A big one." "What now?" Luna groaned. "The new mixed children. The second generation. They’re not hiding anymore."

Through the scaled girl’s flickering link, they could sense it. Hybrid children born in the last few months, raised in secret, suddenly waking with powers that made the first generation look weak. "How is that possible?" Sera asked.

"Because they were born after the dimensional barriers started breaking down," the butterfly-winged girl said simply.

"They’re not just mixed magical blood. They’re mixed dimensional energy." "Which means?" "They don’t need the network to open physical doors. They ARE dimensional doors."

The Council footsteps were directly above them now. Flashlight beams started exploring down through storm drains. "Decision time," Marcus hissed.

"Fight, hide, or run?" But before anyone could answer, the scaled girl’s entire body exploded with light. Her link to the surviving hybrid children had found something unexpected.

"The second generation children aren’t scattered," she gasped. "They’re all in one place. And they’re not hiding." "Where are they?" "With Liana. Inside the Council walls.

They walked right through the purification walls like they weren’t even there." Darius felt his heart stop. "How many?" "Twelve. All under six months old. All carrying enough dimensional energy to..." She never finished the sentence.

Above them, the street exploded as Council purification teams blasted their way into the tunnel system. But as white light flooded down, something impossible happened.

The baby hybrid children, miles away behind Council barriers, reacted to the threat against their network. Reality cracked like glass around the tube.

Through the breaks, they could see Liana’s location - and she could see them. "Darius?" Liana’s voice echoed through dimensions.

"What’s going on? These babies just appeared in my area and they’re..." Her words cut off as the purification teams opened fire.

But instead of burning away magical energy, their weapons were being absorbed by the dimensional cracks. The second generation hybrid children weren’t just resistant to purification - they were feeding on it. And they were getting bigger.

Marcus grabbed everyone he could reach. "Through the cracks! Now!" They dove toward the dimensional tears just as the tunnel roof collapsed.

But as they fell through bent space toward Liana’s location, Talia’s final vision hit her like a sledgehammer. The Council hadn’t just been hunting magical beings.

They’d been breeding them. Creating bigger enemies on purpose. And the Void Feeders weren’t trying to eat their world. They were trying to run from something worse that was coming behind them.

Something that made cosmic monsters look like house pets. Something that had been chasing the Void Feeders across dimensions for eons. And it had finally found their world.