Chapter 14 – The Grimm Institute

The VTOL landed without sound.

No wheels. No mechanical whir. One second they were flying through a storm above the Atlantic – the next, the world just stopped moving.

Max blinked. No lurch. No pressure shift. Just silence.

A soft chime pinged inside the cabin. Red lights faded to cold white.

Hawthorne unstrapped himself from the ceiling rail. “We’ve arrived.”

Dan looked around. “Where? This doesn’t look like Heathrow.”

Victor muttered, “That’s because we’re not in London. We’re under it.”

The rear ramp hissed open with a hydraulic sigh. No air whooshed in – only sterile, cold light. Beyond the ramp was a tunnel. Seamless steel. Runes glowed faintly along the walls. No windows. No signage.

Dan shivered. “This place gives me church and prison vibes. At the same time.”

“Welcome to the Burrow,” Kane said, stepping past them. “Grimm Institute headquarters. Officially, it doesn’t exist.”

Chloe leaned forward slightly, clutching Liz’s necklace. “What happens to her now?”

“The girl will be transferred to Cryo-Vault Six,” Kane said without pausing. “Isolated, monitored, reinforced with psionic nullifiers.”

Alyssa scowled. “She’s not radioactive.”

Kane didn’t even glance back. “Not yet.”

They moved as a group, two soldiers pushing Liz’s pod ahead, the rest of them flanked by armed escorts.

The deeper they went, the colder it got. The tunnel sloped downward imperceptibly, but Max could feel it in his bones – like the world was tilting further from sunlight with every step.

The corridors forked. Runes shifted. Surveillance orbs hovered silently along the ceilings. Armed guards patrolled at intersections. Some carried rifles. Others held glowing glaives or strange relics shaped like spears and crosses fused together.

Alyssa whispered, “Are they all human?”

Max didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure.

After ten minutes of silence and descent, the group emerged into a massive circular chamber. A transit hub – like a spinal column for an entire underground city.

Trains without tracks floated silently in docks along the far wall. Elevators descended in open shafts, supported by flickering force fields. Holographic maps shimmered in the air but none showed the surface. Only rings. Layers. Levels.

And in the centre of the room, carved into a hexagonal black obelisk, was the Institute’s insignia: A scroll. A sword. Bat-like wings.

Underneath, etched in silver: “Veritas Per Scientiam.”

Truth through knowledge.

Victor looked up. “Subtle.”

A new voice answered.

“That’s the idea.”

They turned.

A man approached from one of the central platforms, flanked by two silent bodyguards in white-cloaked armour. His presence hit like cold static – invisible, but suffocating. The air grew thin around him, as if reality itself wasn’t sure he belonged.

Dr. Helmut Grimm.

He moved like a man unbound by pain – or too far gone to notice it anymore. His face was pale and stretched, the skin tight across a skeletal frame, but not with age — with something deeper. Something wrong. As if a deep cut of his soul had been scooped out and never replaced.

His grey hair was immaculately combed, but dry as ash. His eyes glinted like polished steel, but something shimmered behind them – a flicker of blue flame buried in frost. Hunger. Knowledge. Madness.

A deep black line traced his jaw to his neck – not a scar, but something older. A burn? A sigil? It pulsed faintly when he spoke, like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to him.

His coat was pristine: long, high-collared, crimson-lined. He wore immaculate white gloves - but beneath them, the edges of his fingers were unnaturally pale. Almost transparent. Like bone was winning the slow war against flesh.

Every step he took echoed – not loudly, but with finality.

And then Max saw it.

An aura. Crimson red, swirling tightly around Grimm’s frame – mind affinity, unmistakably powerful. But where most auras pulsed or glowed, this one flickered. Fractured.

There were holes.

Tiny tears, like something had chewed through his soul and left rot behind. Jagged voids that leaked nothingness. Only Max reacted – no one else could see it. It wasn’t just wrong.

It was damned.

Max’s gut twisted. The Hellfire inside him recoiled.

Grimm stopped ten feet away. His voice was crisp, smooth, and disturbingly alive.

“Mr. Jaeger,” he said. “You’re late.”

Max squared his shoulders. “Didn’t know I had a schedule.”

Dr. Grimm smiled thinly. “That’s the problem with anomalies. They don’t follow calendars.”

His gaze flicked across the group – Dan, Victor, the girls – and then rested on Liz’s containment pod.

“You brought the storm with you,” he said softly. “And the thunder it woke.”

Alyssa stepped forward, fists clenched. “Are you going to dissect her?”

“No,” Grimm said, turning to her. “We’re going to keep her safe. We’re also going to keep the world intact. She just happens to be the pin in the grenade.”

Max took a step forward. “You’ve been watching us. Since the beginning.”

“Not watching,” Grimm replied. “Predicting.”

Chloe whispered, “How?”

Grimm’s smile faded. “Because I saw it once. A future I don’t intend to repeat.”

Max’s stomach turned.

Before he could speak, Grimm raised a hand. “There will be time for questions. And answers. But for now, you all need rest. Showers. Food.”

He nodded to one of his guards. “Take them to Dorm-7. Full clearance. And alert Dr. Adisa. The girls will be undergoing empowerment.”

Max blinked. “You’re not stopping me?”

“I’m not your father,” Grimm said, eyes gleaming faintly. “And I’ve stopped trying to fight fate.”

He turned on his heel. “We begin proper briefings in twelve hours.”

And just like that, he was gone – swallowed by the elevator shaft behind him, descending into the earth like a ghost returning to its grave.

…………………

The room was too clean.

Sterile white walls, soft recessed lighting, bunks with tightly folded sheets. Not a home. Not a prison. Something in between. Like a luxury hospital built by someone who’d forgotten what comfort meant.

Alyssa stood by the window – if it could be called that. It showed a simulated sunrise: clouds scrolling past, sunlight creeping over a forest that probably didn’t exist. A lie made of pixels. She didn’t blink.

Chloe sat on one of the beds, knees tucked to her chest, Liz’s necklace wound tight around her fingers. She hadn’t let go of it since they landed.

Max leaned against the wall, arms crossed. He hadn’t spoken much since Grimm left. Too many thoughts. Too many variables.

Dan was in the washroom, vomiting quietly. Victor paced.

A soft chime sounded as the door slid open.

A woman stepped in. Dark skin, greying braids pulled into a bun, surgical robes over reinforced combat gear. Her eyes were tired, but sharp. Clinical.

“I’m Dr. Adisa,” she said. “Head of Biometric Integration and Soulfield Evaluation.”

Alyssa didn’t turn. “That’s a long way to say you’re the one who’s going to mess with us.”

Dr. Adisa gave a faint smile. “On the contrary. I’m the one who tries to stop people from dying when they mess with themselves.”

She set a case down on the central table. It hissed open – revealing vials, soulstone slivers, and a series of small metallic discs pulsing with pale red light.

“I’ve been briefed on what you are, Mr. Jaeger,” she said, nodding to Max. “Uncontracted awakening. Unique soul-affinity imprint. Unknown replication risk.”

Alyssa muttered, “You make that sound like a disease.”

“It might be,” Adisa said. “Or it might be the only cure we get.”

She looked at the girls. “Do you understand what happens next?”

Chloe spoke first, voice trembling. “You scan us.”

“This is uncharted territory,” Adisa said, pulling up a flickering scan of Alyssa’s vitals.

“But we’ve seen similar awakenings. The method holds—mostly.”

She paused. “We’ll test your baseline and lock your soul resonance. Then Jaeger lights the fuse.”

Her tone turned clinical. “If it takes, you’ll stabilize. If it doesn’t…”

She let the sentence decay.

Max finished it. “I shut it down.”

Alyssa turned fully now, meeting his eyes. “You’re not shutting down anything.”

He looked at her. Her face was pale, but her voice was steady.

“You sure about this?” he asked.

“I was sure the moment Jack hit the ground,” she said.

Max looked at Chloe.

Chloe’s voice was barely a whisper. “I don’t want to be helpless anymore.”

Max nodded. Slowly. “Then we try.”

Adisa gestured. “One at a time. Alyssa first. Sit here.”

Alyssa dropped into the chair, spine straight, fists clenched. Electrodes were placed. Monitors flickered. Readings scrolled across the holo-screen – stress spikes, soul resonance waves, emotional spikes.

Max stepped forward. He reached out – not physically, but with something deeper. The thing inside him. The fire that wasn’t just heat.

He felt her soul.

Tight. Coiled. Like a blade wound around grief and defiance.

And deep within it – a flicker.

Max spoke quietly. “I’m going to light the fuse now.”

Alyssa smiled grimly. “Do it.”

Hellfire flickered in his palm. Not blue. Not yellow. Not for her. This fire was violet.

He touched it to her chest.

A scream tore through the room – hers, raw and furious.

The lights flared. The screens shattered.

And something woke.

…………………

Alyssa arched backward in the chair, her spine locked in a bridge, every muscle clenched. The restraints groaned. Sparks danced from the shattered monitors. The air grew dense – thick, like liquid concrete pressing against their skin.

The lights above her pulsed. Then cracked.

Max stumbled back, arm still outstretched. The fire was gone from his hand but something had taken root in hers.

The air around Alyssa warped.

Gravity twisted.

A sound like stone grinding against metal tore through the room as the chair beneath her cracked. The floor buckled. Not a metaphor – it physically gave way, steel plating bending under a sudden, impossible weight.

Dan staggered. Chloe gasped.

Victor growled, “She’s—”

“Getting heavier,” Max said. “She’s not just awakening – she’s sinking into the world.”

Alyssa screamed again but this time, it wasn’t pain. It was resistance. Like she was pushing back against something trying to pin her down. Her skin darkened, veins glowing faintly amber beneath the surface. Then, starting from her shoulders, rock began to spread – jagged, obsidian-black stone forming plates across her arms, her chest, her throat.

Her feet punched through the floor. Her body cracked the chair wide open.

And still she grew heavier.

Not bigger – just denser. Every molecule collapsing inward like a neutron star.

A halo of debris lifted around her – sheets of paper, fragments of metal – only to fall again in slow, spiralling collapse. As if even the air couldn’t escape her pull.

Chloe whispered, “What’s happening to her?”

Max didn’t answer.

Because he could see it.

Her soul.

She emitted a beautiful blue aura.

A deep core of burning pressure, laced with grief and guilt but controlled. Condensed. Weaponized. It wasn’t fire. It wasn’t light.

It was mass.

And then… she exhaled.

A sound like stone shearing from stone echoed through the room as the rock casing cracked. Fell away.

The armour didn’t shatter – it peeled. Like the cocoon of something finally strong enough to stand.

Alyssa rose from the wreckage.

Her skin was dusted with mineral veins, still faintly glowing. Her hair hung loose but floated weightless for a moment before settling. Her eyes were blue now. Quiet. Solid.

She clenched one hand into a fist. The sound it made was like tectonic plates locking into place.

“I feel…”

She stepped forward.

The floor bent beneath her foot but didn’t break.

“…like I’ve been drowning in lead since Liz went under. Since Jack died.”

She looked at Max. Calm. Unshaking.

“Now the weight’s mine.”

Victor blinked. “You okay?”

Alyssa smiled faintly. “Never better.”

Dr. Adisa's voice crackled over the intercom, tight with awe. “Subject stabilized. Core density 280% above baseline. Dermal mineralization complete. Affinity confirmed.”

Chloe stared, wide-eyed. “What did she become?”

Max exhaled. “An anchor. The one who doesn’t move when the world breaks.”

Alyssa turned her head, flexing her shoulders as thin flakes of stone cracked and fell.

“Now,” she said. “It’s your turn Chloe.”

…………………

Silence settled in the room.

The lights still flickered from Alyssa’s awakening. The air smelled faintly of ozone and dust. Max’s skin still tingled from the energy he had just unleashed but already, his gaze had shifted.

Chloe sat frozen on the edge of the second chair, pale fingers digging into Liz’s necklace. She hadn’t moved during Alyssa’s transformation. Hadn’t blinked. Just watched.

Now she looked at Max.

“I’m ready.”

Max frowned. “You don’t have to follow her.”

Chloe shook her head slowly. “This isn’t about following. I’ve been a ghost long enough. I’m just... done being the kind that can’t touch anything.”

Dr. Adisa exchanged a look with Max, then moved forward to reset the equipment. What little remained intact was sparking and half-functioning.

“No electrodes this time,” she muttered. “We’ll do this one raw.”

Chloe sat down. Straight-backed. Breath steady. The screen to her right still flickered as it tried to read her vitals.

But Max wasn’t watching the screen.

He was already reaching inward.

Chloe’s soul felt… cold.

Not in a lifeless way – more like still water under ice. Quiet. Deep. Untouched by light, but aware of it. There was pain in there. A lot of it. But unlike Alyssa’s strong-willed defiance, Chloe’s soul didn’t resist.

It simply waited.

Max whispered, “You sure?”

Chloe nodded. “Light the fuse.”

Max reached deep within, feeling something subtler stir inside him – less flame, more spirit. The energy that had granted Dan a golden calm, that had fuelled Alyssa’s gravity.

He let it respond to her.

He placed two fingers to her sternum – and the light disappeared.

Literally.

The room dimmed.

Shadows lengthened. Light bent. For a moment, the edges of the world felt uncertain. Max recoiled instinctively – something passed through his fingers.

Then Chloe vanished.

“Alyssa?!” Max snapped, spinning.

“Here!” Alyssa yelled – she was holding onto her sister’s hand, which was flickering in and out of phase. Her entire body was translucent now, like smoke shaped into a girl.

Dan stumbled back. Victor dropped into a low guard, unsure what to punch.

Chloe opened her eyes – and the whites were gone. Just soft, glowing grey.

And then she stood.

But it was wrong.

She didn’t move through the room.

She moved between it.

Each step left a ripple in the floor, like heat distortion on asphalt. When she passed one of the broken monitors, her shoulder phased right through it – no resistance, no sound.

Max could feel her soul now. No longer cold. It was shifting. Fluid. Untouchable.

“Subject has entered transmaterial state,” Dr. Adisa said quietly. “Quantum instability at 27%. She’s… slipping between layers.”

Chloe looked at her hands. Solid. Then not. Then back again.

“I can feel… things. In the air. Like I could step through walls if I wanted to. Or float. Or fall upward.”

She turned to Max. “And I can feel yours. Your fire. The prison inside you. All of it.”

Max stiffened. “You can see it?”

“Only when I close my eyes,” she said softly. “But yes. I see a… cage.”

Alyssa stepped forward, hesitant. “Can you turn it off? The ghost thing?”

Chloe smiled, small and sad. “I think I am the ghost now.”

She reached for her sister—and their hands met. Solid. No phasing. Just warmth.

Then Chloe’s body faded again—like breath on glass.

She pulled herself back with effort, materializing fully.

Max exhaled. “You okay?”

She looked at him, and for the first time, her eyes held steel.

“I’ve always been okay. I just never had a way to show it.”

Dr. Adisa tapped her device. “Subject stable. Incompletely anchored, but stable. Recommend soul-tether protocols if she loses cohesion.”

Victor looked at Max. “She’s a goddamn spectre.”

Max shook his head. “No. She’s a scalpel. A whisper with teeth.”

Chloe brushed her hair behind her ear. The gesture looked normal – until her fingers flickered out of sync with the motion. Like a ghost forgetting how to be solid.

“When we find them,” she whispered. “The ones who did this to Liz. To Jack.”

She didn’t finish the sentence. But her voice didn’t stop either.

A second later, the same words echoed faintly – not from her mouth, but from the wall behind Max. Like reality had picked up her anger and repeated it.

Max shivered.

Chloe looked down at her hands. “I’m still learning where I begin and end.”

And with that, her body faded again – just for a breath. Just long enough to remind them all that she was something else now.

Something dangerous.

Something watching from more than one place.

…………………

The temple was quiet.

Not with silence, but with suffocation – the kind that crushed sound beneath weight and wonder. Vaulted ceilings stretched into darkness, draped in ancient gold-veined silk. The air shimmered with heatless flame, caught between realms.

Gold. Everywhere.

Melted, moulded, piled. Chalices and crowns, bones and banners – all reduced to treasure. Coins stacked like corpses. Golden statues fused from kings long forgotten. A thousand thrones discarded like broken toys.

And at the centre, on a throne of fused idols and melted kingdoms, sat Mammon.

The King of Greed did not move. He barely breathed.

Ancient. Skeletal. Crowned.

His skin was paper-thin, pulled tight over a frame of blackened gold. Fingers long and jointless, like clawed branches dipped in molten ore. His eyes were twin ingots of burning white light, forever watching. Forever weighing.

Around him, nothing lived.

Even the torches burned gold.

And before him – kneeling – was a man in black.

No. Not a man. A demon wrapped in flesh.

Kimaris. The hunter. The saboteur. A blade forged in the old war, still honed to a whisper.

His form was perfect – tall, dark-haired, in a sleek three-piece suit. His shadow writhed unnaturally behind him, stretching too far, coiling in patterns like glyphs. He knelt with one fist to the golden floor, head bowed.

Mammon spoke without sound. His voice crawled through the air like molten wax.

"Aamon is gone."

Kimaris didn’t flinch.

"His essence... swallowed. His gate signature severed. You felt it?"

Kimaris nodded once. “Confirmed. Aamon did not return to the Pit. His soul was consumed. Entirely.”

Mammon’s fingers drummed once – and the entire temple shook.

A golden goblet in the corner turned to ash.

"A Contractor did this?"

“Yes,” Kimaris said. “Human. Name: Max Jaeger. Awakened.”

Mammon leaned forward slowly. Bones groaned like tectonic plates.

"Unchained power. No binding. No price paid?"

His voice almost cracked – not with anger.

With lust.

“He broke our law.”

A golden beetle crawled across Mammon’s throne. He crushed it absently beneath one finger.

Kimaris remained silent.

"Find him," Mammon whispered. "Learn what he is. Find what he loves. And if he is what I fear—"

Mammon sank deeper into his throne of melted gods, the gold moulding around him like obedient flesh.

“Aamon was chaos. Noise. He took and took but understood nothing.”

He raised one skeletal finger – an ancient coin spun into the air, hovered for a heartbeat, then crumbled into black ash before hitting the floor.

“But I am Greed,” Mammon whispered. “The first contract. The last kingdom. The weight behind every want.”

The room pulsed. Not with sound but with value. Everything shimmered with potential... and judgment.

“If the world dares to reprice power,” he hissed, “then I will reprice the world.”

The throne beneath him cracked – reshaped itself into a spiked crown of fused monarchs, all screaming in gold.

“Bring me this Max Jaeger. Alive, dead... or better yet – unbroken.”

Kimaris stood.

Gold peeled away from the floor around him in curling flakes.

He didn’t bow again. Just turned. Vanished.

“Let him feel what it's like to be weighed.”

The torches flared once – then burned in reverse, sucking light from the room.

And somewhere across the veils of creation, Max Jaeger’s soul flickered, as if a price had just been placed upon it.