The Silver Reckoning

Chapter 42: Silver's Reckoning

Retrix stared at the Machine, a thousand thoughts running through his mind. The most prominent was... why? Why had Raize destroyed his own life just so he could power the Machine. It made no sense. Yes, it had probably powered it up to a point that it could wipe out the entire human race. But Retrix could simply take it up into space. He would have to take it further than planned, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Slowly he walked over to the Machine, the others watching him.

"Well..." he said softly, "I guess I better take this out of here."

He took a deep breath and focused on the area behind the Machine. It was slightly difficult to concentrate with the power radiating from it, but it shouldn't be too difficult. As the void portal began to open there was a yell from behind him.

"Wait!" Tyler said, "Stop!"

Retrix turned toward the human in surprise, "What is it?"

Tyler quickly walked over to the machine, studying it for a moment. He peered into one of the crevice's, wincing slightly at the bright light, before turning back to the others. They all looked at him, wondering what had caused his sudden outburst.

He let out a frustrated sigh, "I don't know if you will be able to get it into the void, let alone up into space."

"Why?" frowned the void dragon.

"The element stone inside... it's been overloaded with power. So much so that it is unstable. Any movement of the machine will cause it to crack... and well I'm sure you can all guess what would happen next."

"Wait, so we can't move it at all?" growled Blaze, "Then how on earth are we going to stop it."

The human gave a nervous shrug.

"Can't you just push it into the void?" asked Zepos, looking at Retrix.

The void dragon shook his head, "No... I wish I could, but for something of that size to enter the void... I'd need to bring it with me. And when I leave I also have to take it with me. It's like the void doesn't allow anything to be present inside it without me there."

"But... you managed to get Raize's equilibrium into the void without going in there," he said.

"It's fire. The instant it enters the void it disappears anyway," sighed Retrix, "And small things are okay as well, but the Machine... it wouldn't work."

"Besides, it wouldn't matter anyway. I doubt we could get it into the void before it went off," said Tyler.

"Tyler..." Faen whimpered softly, "Are... are you saying that we won't be able to stop it?"

His silence answered her question.

* * *

A low chiming sound was ringing through the silver dragon's head. The world was spinning in a haze. Nothing seemed right. The sky had blurred out, along with everything else. Rubble of the destroyed city surrounded her in large mounds. She was laying on a small part of the road that still remained visible, with a broken lamp post flickering on and off beside her body.

She was so tired. Her wings felt like lead and her body lacked the energy to even move her tail. It was like an enormous weight had settled down on top of her. It was so tempting just to close her eyes and sleep. Rest. She wouldn't be able to do anything anyway. She was just simply too exhausted to even get up.

"You know," a massive voice boomed through the sky, "I think I have figured out a name for my machine. The Grand Reckoning. What do you think of that? It suits it so well. For the reckoning upon human kind will be grand. It will give them exactly what they deserve."