Chapter 73 The Third Option
The metal of the blast door screamed. It sounded like a dying animal.
A massive black claw punched through the steel. Then another. The Hollow Queen was peeling the door open like a tin can. Behind her, the screeching of a thousand monsters echoed in the shaft.
I stood at the control console. My hand trembled. It hovered over the blue key that the Commander had given me.
Ten feet away stood the Commander at the next console. His key was already in the lock, and he was staring at me with cold, hard eyes.
"Turn it, Elara," he said. His voice was calm, even with death knocking at the door. "Be a hero."
I looked at the rocket suspended in the middle of the room. Beautiful and terrible; it contained the power to save the human race. But the price was the life of the man I loved.
I looked at Ryker.
He was in front of me, blocking my view of the door. With both hands, he was holding his sword. He was bleeding. He was tired. Yet he smiled at me. It was a soft, sad smile.
"It's okay," Ryker whispered, his voice breaking through the din of the alarms. "I had a good life. I met you."
"I can't," I choked out. Tears blurred my vision. "Ryker, I can't kill you."
"You have to," he said. "If you don't, the Queen gets in. She eats us. Then she eats the city. At least this way... you survive."
He turned away from me. He faced the door. He was prepared to die to buy me five seconds to turn that key.
"Turn the key!" the Commander screamed. "She is coming!"
I gripped the key. The cold metal pressed into my palm.
Destroy magic. That was the order. Unmake the unnatural.
A memory came rushing back. The attic in the North, the arena, Vespera. All my life, people tried to control my magic or destroy it. Vespera wanted to use it, the Commander wanted to delete it.
All of them viewed magic as a problem.
But it wasn't a problem. It was part of me. It was part of Ryker.
"No!" I whispered.
The thought hit me like a thunderbolt.
The Commander had called the rocket a "Frequency Generator." It was designed to send signals that unraveled magic. It was like noise-canceling headphones for the soul. It would produce the void.
But the Hollows... they were voids. They were emptiness. That was why they were hungry. They fed on magic because they had none.
If we created a void, would that not render their world larger?
"Commander!" I shouted. "You are wrong!"
The Commander stared at me blankly. "What?"
"The Hollows are empty!" I yelled above the din of the monsters. "They're made of nothing! If you send an anti-magic pulse, you might not kill them. You might make them stronger! You're offering them precisely what they are—emptiness!"
The Commander hesitated. "It is a risk we have to take!"
"I have a better option," I say. I move my hand away from the key and towards the keypad.
"What are you doing?" The Commander aimed his shotgun at me. "Turn the key!"
"Kael!" I screamed. "Get yourself over here!"
Kael didn't question me. He ran straight to my side.
"Are you able to hack this?" I pointed at the frequency settings splashed across the screen. "The rocket is merely a broadcaster, yes? It sends out a signal."
"Yes," Kael replied, rapidly scanning through the code. "It sends a negative frequency. It deletes energy."
"Inverse it." I ordered. "Switch it around."
Kael was staring at me in disbelief. "You want to... reverse the polarity? Elara, that won't destroy magic. That will just make it stronger."
"Exactly," I said, pulling the Origin Stone out from under my shirt. It was glowing so bright it hurt to look at.
"The Hollows are like balloons," I quickly said. "They eat magic. They are hungry. So let's feed them."
I slammed the Origin Stone onto the console.
"Let's feed them so much that they pop."
Kael understood instantly. A grin broke across his face.
"Overcharge," Kael said. "We don't turn the lights out. We turn the sun on."
"If you do that," the Commander shouted, realizing our plan, "you could burn out every mind on the planet! It's too much power!"
"For a human? Maybe," I said. "But Wolves? Mages? We are built for power. We can handle the surge. The Hollows can't. They are unstable."
CRASH.
The blast door finally succumbed.
It fell onto the metal walkway with a thunderous clang.
The Hollow Queen stepped through.
She filled the doorway, and her enormous obsidian skin glinted from the red emergency lights. She opened her mouth and let out a scream that shattered the glass on the control dials.
Hundreds of smaller Hollows poured in behind her like so many waves of black water.
"Ryker! Hold them!" I screamed.
"Gladly!" Ryker roared.
He charged. He didn't wait for them to come to him. He ran straight into the swarm.
His sword was a blur. He cut the first Hollow in half. He punched the second one off the walkway. He was a whirlwind of violence.
Graves, the Grey Knight, opened fire with his rifle. "Hold the line!"
Vane was shooting with his one good hand. "Hurry up, witch! We are on the menu!"
"I need thirty seconds!" Kael yelled, his fingers flying across the keypad. "I have to rewrite the launch code!"
"You don't have thirty seconds!" the Commander yelled. He raised his shotgun to shoot Kael.
"Don't you dare!" I shouted. I blasted the Commander with a push of wind. He flew back, hitting the wall.
"Do it, Kael!" I put my hands on the console. I channeled my power into the machine. "I am the Source. Use me!"
The queen saw us. She saw the rocket.
"NO," she hissed.
She ignored Ryker. She ignored the bullets. She jumped.
She leaped across the gap, aiming straight for the rocket. She knew what it was; she knew it was the end of her kind.
"She's going for the warhead!" Vane yelled.
If she broke the glass casing, the Aether would spill out and kill us all right here.
Ryker turned. He saw the Queen in the air.
He couldn't reach her. He was too far away.
But he had his sword.
Ryker roared and threw his sword.
It was a desperate throw. The heavy Star-Metal blade spun through the air.
THUNK.
It hit the Queen in mid-air; it pierced her shoulder, pinning her to the metal support beam of the rocket tower.
She shrieked, thrashing against the beam, inches from the glass warhead.
"Now, Elara!" Ryker yelled. He was unarmed now. The swarm was closing in on him.
"Ready!" Kael shouted. "The frequency is inverted! Turn the key!"
I grabbed the key.
The Commander scrambled up, blood on his face. "No! You'll doom us all!"
I looked at him.
"I'm saving us all," I said.
I turned the key.
CLICK.
The rocket didn't launch. It didn't fly up.
Instead, the glass warhead began to glow.
It wasn't a white glow. It was a blinding, multi-colored storm. Red, Gold, Violet, White.
The rocket became a beacon.
HUMMMMMMM.
A sound wave hit us. It wasn't a noise. It was pure power.
I felt it instantly. It felt like drinking ten cups of coffee at once. My veins felt like they were on fire. My hair stood up.
Ryker fell to his knees. He roared, his muscles swelling. The magic wasn't hurting him; it was filling him.
But the Hollows?
The Queen screamed. It was a sound of pure agony.
Her obsidian skin began to crack. Bright light shone from inside her body. She was absorbing the ambient magic, but she had no soul to hold it. She was an empty cup being filled with an ocean.
"TOO... MUCH..." she gasped.
Across the room, the smaller Hollows stopped moving. They began to shake.
POP.
One of the Hollows exploded. It didn't leave a body. It just turned into dust and light.
POP. POP. POP.
Like firecrackers, the monsters began to burst. They couldn't hold the surge.
The Queen looked at me. Her eyes—which were usually empty—were now filled by blinding white light.
"Vessel..." she whispered.
Then, she shattered.
She exploded into a cloud of white dust.
The wave of energy kept going. It passed through the walls of the bunker. It passed through the soil. It shot up into the city.
Above us, in the ruins of the Iron Sovereignty, every Hollow vine, every creature, every monster felt the surge.
They were creatures of the Void. And the Void had just been filled.
In the silence of the Launch Room, the hum died down.
I fell to the floor, exhausted. The Origin Stone was dark. I had given everything.
I looked up.
The Commander was alive. He was checking his hands, amazed he hadn't melted.
Kael and Vane were alive.
And Ryker?
Ryker was on his hands and knees in the middle of the walkway. He was surrounded by the dust of his enemies.
He slowly looked up. His eyes were gold—brighter than I had ever seen them.
He took a deep breath.
"I feel..." Ryker whispered, looking at his hands. "Strong."
I smiled, and tears ran down my cheeks.
We didn't destroy the magic; we saved it.