The air in Chamber Theta was pressurized with silence.

It was not peace. It was control – total environmental suppression, designed to contain gods in human skin. Six cryogenic pods stood in a circle, each suspended by black umbilical cables. The room was lightless, save for the soft pulse of a green countdown.

00:00:01 INITIATE WAKE SEQUENCE

The pods hissed open – one by one.

The first to move was Sergeant Axel Carrigan.

He stepped out slowly, with reverence, like a priest emerging from a baptism of steel. His skin bore dozens of old bullet scars. His dog tags hung from a rosary. His right eye twitched as he flexed his jaw, working blood back into muscle.

He knelt.

Not in pain.

In prayer.

"Saint Michael, make me your hammer."

He touched the revolver holstered across his ribs. Six shots. Each one a confession waiting to be answered.

They called him Reverb.

He believed in justice. He believed in sacrifice. He believed the world needed hard men to keep the darkness at bay.

And if he had to be the monster to kill the monsters?

Then he would pray harder.

The cold mist hadn't finished venting from the next pod when Cassie Donovan opened her eyes.

She exhaled softly, fogging the inside of the pod's visor.

Her voice didn't tremble. It never had.

"Status: Active."

The restraints unlocked. She stepped into the chamber barefoot, pale, calm. Several corpses already lay on the floor – artificial, synthetic, shaped to resemble the human dead.

She reached for one. Whispered its name.

The body sat up, twitching once.

She smiled. Just muscle memory returning.

They called her Splice.

She didn't see herself as a necromancer. She was a systems engineer – her medium just happened to be death.

The Agency called her depraved.

She called herself efficient.

She didn't hate the enemy. She didn't even care who they were. She just needed more bodies to work with.

Somewhere in the dark, a hymn echoed.

"And lo, He said unto me, your pain shall become mine, and in that agony, we shall be cleansed…"

The third pod snapped open with a hiss.

Mason Holloway stood tall and shirtless, his arms tattooed with scripture and surgical scarring. He rolled his neck once. His mouth twisted into a smile not meant for anyone kind.

He wore his Bible like a holster.

He was called Crux.

He didn't need orders. He only needed permission.

He'd been told the target had burned half a demon lord to ash and escaped another with the girl in tow. Possessed, they said. Probably unstable.

Good.

"Blessed is the blade that cuts the cancer."

Pain wasn't something Crux inflicted.

It was something he revealed.

The fourth pod remained sealed but it was already empty.

A flicker. A glitch. A shimmer.

Trey Cortez appeared behind Splice and gave her corpse a mock salute.

"That one looks like your last boyfriend."

He turned to the wall, tapped his temple, and watched the playback of his own emergence loop over itself.

Three seconds ago, he was here.

Five seconds from now, he still will be.

They called him Rewind.

He wasn't cruel. He wasn't kind. He didn't live in a single moment long enough to decide.

He believed in forward progress. In clean kills. In knowing what comes next before it happens.

"So. Who we ganking?"

Naomi Vance stood next.

Her pod hissed open. She stepped into the air barefoot. The cold didn't touch her. It never had.

The others gave her space – not out of fear, but because nothing got through her. Not the air. Not the pressure. Not the noise.

They called her Stonewall.

She hadn't felt pain in years.

Hadn't felt anything at all in months.

Her eyes scanned the chamber. Clinical. Distant. Not absent but fading.

She was the shield. The unshatterable line.

And if something managed to break her?

Then the war was already lost.

The last pod hadn't opened.

It didn't need to.

In the far corner of the chamber – half in shadow, half in silence – something crouched. The walls were scratched. The air was thick with the smell of copper and fur.

When Crux looked over, he smiled.

"Still with us, Reeve?"

The creature growled softly.

They called him Gallows.

He didn't speak. He hadn't spoken since his third transformation. He only moved when told. Only killed when pointed.

He was muscle memory incarnate.

His limbs twitched in ways no human body should.

One blink.

Now he was standing.

The Director's voice buzzed through the wall intercom, low and calm:

"Chamber Theta – confirm wake sequence. Objective briefing in five."

Reverb closed his eyes.

"We bring them both in breathing. Doesn't matter how broken."

Splice rolled her shoulders. Rewind grinned. Crux bowed his head. Stonewall said nothing. Gallows… stared at the wall.

The room reset its pressure.

The mission had begun.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

…………………

The chamber was carved from black steel and silence.

Six chairs, all bolted to the floor. A single projection wall. No windows. No screens. No flag.

The Director stood in the centre, arms behind his back, suit crisp, expression carved from glass. A retinal scanner blinked once above his shoulder. Nothing else moved.

In front of him: Reverb. Crux. Rewind. Splice. Stonewall. Gallows.

Six warheads in human flesh.

Each one built to end something sacred.

He began without greeting.

"Target: one anomaly. One asset. The aircraft departed London at 07:19 local time. Destination: Kyoto, Japan. Current velocity: Mach 0.82. Altitude: thirty-seven thousand feet. You will intercept before it breaches Chinese airspace."

A moment passed.

No questions.

The Director continued.

"Primary subject: Max Jaeger. Civilian-turned-Awakener. Unverified possession of latent soul-class enhancement. Carrier of Type-Theta Hellfire. Recovered reports indicate partial devouring of Demon Lord Aamon. Anomaly status confirmed."

He let that settle like ash.

"Secondary subject: Elizabeth Jaeger. Sixteen. Comatose. Contained in modified Institute-grade stasis pod. Her body is host to unknown psychic phenomena – potential residual from early-stage possession. Considered high-priority intelligence asset. Possible tether to the anomaly."

Crux chuckled. "Daddy burns cities. Daughter sleeps through it. Real family values."

Splice tilted her head. "She's pretty. Pretty corpses twitch better."

Reverb didn't flinch. "Eyes forward."

"Supplementary personnel: Four empowered civilians. Not Contractors."

That made Rewind sit up.

"Empowered how?"

The Director clicked through the feed – Alyssa ripping through a wall with gravitational force. Chloe phasing through a demon's body. Victor in Chimera form, smashing concrete. Dan laying hands on a dying man, repairing broken ribs with golden light.

"Names: Alyssa Blackthorn. Chloe Blackthorn. Victor Drake. Daniel Bailey. Status: bonded to the anomaly via undocumented soul-resonance events. No Contracts. No records."

Rewind blinked. "No Contracts?"

Splice snorted. "That's not how it works."

"Clearly it is," Crux muttered. "We've got four miracles walking around unsanctioned."

Gallows tilted his head.

Reverb asked flatly, "Are they targets?"

The Director paused.

"Disposables. Capture not required. Eliminate if they interfere."

Stonewall didn't look up, but she whispered one word for the first time in weeks:

"Interfere."

Rewind grinned. "Oh, I hope they do."

Crux cracked his neck. "Always fun to cut the strings from people who were never meant to dance."

Crux grinned without warmth. He reached into his coat and removed a small vial – someone's blood, long since congealed. He dipped his fingers in it and made the sign of the cross on his chest.

"Healer, huh? Let's see if he can fix broken souls."

Stonewall said nothing.

She never did.

Splice unsheathed a curved bone blade and slid it between the teeth of one of her half-built corpses. It clicked into place like a puzzle piece.

Gallows crouched in the corner. His breath fogged the reinforced glass wall behind him, low and rhythmic. Watching. Waiting.

The Director turned back to the projection.

A flicker of grainy satellite footage appeared – a white aircraft just leaving UK airspace, barely a speck.

"You will board. Secure both subjects. Repeat: Max Jaeger is to be brought back alive. Condition is irrelevant."

He turned his gaze to Splice. She nodded once.

"Elizabeth Jaeger is priority extraction. The pod must remain intact. No deviation. No fire inside the cabin unless the Contractor becomes unstable."

The word Contractor landed like a challenge.

"Airspace engagement will be cloaked under Chinese radar jamming ops. You will breach via upper orbital insertion – Class B descent rigs are already calibrated."

Crux licked the blood from his finger. "I always did like falling."

The Director turned from them then, finalizing the transmission to the warplane now refuelling three levels above them.

"Wheels up in twenty."

Reverb stood first. His rosary glinted as he walked toward the exit. "We bring them in breathing," he said. "Doesn't matter how broken."

Crux followed.

Splice's corpse trailed behind her like a shadow.

Rewind left and was already gone.

Stonewall walked through the door without breaking stride.

Gallows… smiled.

The Director remained alone.

The screen faded to black.

…………………

The sky was pale steel.

Not dark. Not light. Just that strange, colourless quiet you sometimes saw before a storm – when the clouds hadn't made up their mind yet.

Max stepped onto the tarmac with a duffel slung over one shoulder and his gaze locked on the Institute jet ahead. It gleamed faintly in the low morning light – an older military model, reinforced, repurposed. The kind of bird that could survive a war if you begged it hard enough.

Behind him came the others. Dan whistled low.

"Does this thing come with snacks? Or just trauma?"

Victor laughed under his breath. "Both. Probably."

They were trying to lift the mood. Max appreciated it – more than he could say.

Alyssa walked a step behind them, wheeling the stasis pod with Liz inside. She kept one hand pressed gently against the glass casing. Protective. Possessive. She didn't say a word to Max, but she met his eyes once.

There was no hostility left. Just worry. And something close to trust.

Chloe trailed her twin, rubbing her arms against the morning chill.

"If this flight has airplane food, I'm committing crimes."

Max smiled despite himself. "You already have."

"Then I'll upgrade."

Dan tapped his chest and raised one hand like a stewardess.

"You're all in good hands. I'll be your onboard emotional support healer today. Please fasten your seatbelts and refrain from touching any cursed artifacts during take-off."

Ferron gave a soft snort but said nothing. He stood near the plane's open ramp, arms crossed, eyes scanning the perimeter. Always watching. Always calculating. But Max noticed his shoulders had dropped slightly. The lines around his mouth weren't as sharp.

The man was relaxing. Just a little.

Max glanced at him. "You sure they'll help us? Your family?"

Ferron didn't answer right away. His gaze flicked to Liz's pod, then back to Max.

"They hate people," he said. "But they hate demons more."

"That's... comforting."

"Hana will help," Ferron said firmly. "She's the best in the world for this kind of thing. And if she won't—"

He paused.

"The bear will."

Chloe blinked. "Wait – what bear?"

Ferron didn't elaborate.

Victor chuckled and gave Max a look. "If this goes sideways, I'm counting on the bear."

Max just shook his head. The ramp began to rise as the last of their gear was loaded. The team filed inside, finding seats. It wasn't spacious, but it was secure.

Liz's pod locked into the side wall with a hiss.

Alyssa sat beside it.

Chloe next to her.

Dan and Victor dropped into rear seats, still quietly bickering over who got the window.

Ferron took the front-most seat – closest to the cockpit.

Max lingered last.

He turned, just once, and looked up at the sky.

Still that same pale steel. Still undecided.

But something in him pulled tight. Not a warning. Not yet.

Just the itch of a hunter being watched.

He stepped inside and let the ramp close behind him.

…………………

The engines hummed like distant thunder.

Inside the jet, the world had shrunk to metal walls, fabric seats, and the soft thrum of altitude. Most of the others had settled into a rare, comfortable silence. Victor was snoring quietly in the back. Chloe had her eyes closed, head resting on Alyssa's shoulder. Even Dan was quiet – though his fingers still pulsed with that faint golden aura. Always healing. Even when no one was broken.

Max sat across from Ferron, both strapped in near the front. Between them, a table bolted into the floor held a scattered pile of Ferron's notes—names in kanji, sketched diagrams, ritual markings etched by hand.

Max leaned forward.

"You've said your family can help Liz. I need to know how."

Ferron didn't look up from the page he was folding.

"You're asking the wrong question."

Max frowned. "What's the right one?"

Ferron looked up. His expression was unreadable. Not cold – just weathered. Like someone who had carried too many things for too long.

"The right question is: Why would they help at all?"

He sat back.

"The Seineru family doesn't trust outsiders. We don't operate under the Institute. We're not Contractors. We don't make deals. We don't summon demons. We destroy them."

"By birth?"

"By blood."

Max stayed silent.

Ferron gestured to the diagram.

"Every Seineru child is trained from the moment they can speak. We don't inherit power – we inherit the method. A technique older than the Binding Wars. Pre-Contract era. Based on shamanism: harmonic resonance, soul frequency, and identity stabilization."

Max blinked. "You exorcise demons with… song?"

Ferron gave the faintest smirk. "It's not music. But it might sound like it."

He pointed to a series of markings on the diagram – a spiral of brushstrokes arranged around a name.

"This is the core. We don't trap demons with magic circles or containment glyphs. We trap them with names. With truth. We force them to remember what they were – and in doing so, we make them reject the body they're hiding in."

Max leaned back. His throat was dry.

"Will it work on Liz?"

"It has to."

That was all Ferron said. But Max could see the weight behind it. It wasn't confidence. It was desperation masked as certainty.

A few rows behind them, Alyssa shifted next to the pod. Her hand hadn't left the glass since they took off. Chloe was reading something scrawled in one of Ferron's notebooks, eyes darting.

Max lowered his voice.

"And Hana? She's the one who can do this?"

Ferron nodded slowly.

"Hana Seineru is the strongest of us. Not because she trained harder. Because she's… different."

"How different?"

"She never bonded with anyone. Never trusted anyone outside the family. Lives alone in the mountains. People think she's a ghost."

"But you trust her."

"I trust her to do the right thing."

He paused, then added:

"And she's never lost an exorcism."

Max let that settle. It should've been comforting.

It wasn't.

"What if she says no?"

Ferron looked out the small oval window. Clouds drifted far below, endless and white.

"Then we ask the bear."

Max blinked. "You keep saying that. What bear?"

Ferron didn't answer.

…………………

The hum of the engines had become background noise.

Most of the others were asleep or pretending to be. Alyssa hadn't moved from Liz's pod. Chloe dozed lightly against her shoulder. Ferron sat cross-legged by the bulkhead, eyes half-closed, breathing in a steady rhythm Max couldn't read – prayer or preparation.

Dan was seated across the aisle, his boots up on a crate of sealed equipment, fingers laced behind his head. The golden hue in his aura had dimmed since the fight with Mammon, but it still shimmered faintly under his skin—like something beneath the surface was always alive, always watching.

Victor sat beside Max, thumbing the edge of a combat knife, the blade still stained from something that hadn't bled properly.

"Y'ever notice," Victor said, "that the plane rides are always the quietest part?"

Max leaned his head back. "That's because nothing's on fire."

"Yet," Dan offered helpfully.

Max smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.

Victor's voice dropped, more serious now.

"Back at the farmhouse. Kimaris didn't just want to kill us. He wanted to hurt us. Break something."

Dan nodded slowly. "He almost did."

"And Mammon?" Max said. "He was… what? A Demon Lord of systems? Greed, contracts, manipulation?"

"He moved like gravity," Victor muttered. "Not fast, just… inevitable."

They sat in silence for a few seconds, each replaying that moment: the golden explosion, the collapse of space, the impossible weight of presence.

"You think he's dead?" Dan asked. "Mammon?"

Max exhaled through his nose.

"I don't know."

Victor said nothing.

He kept staring out the narrow window, watching the endless sky blur by.

Then, almost too quietly to hear:

"I've got a bad feeling."

Max looked over. "About what?"

Victor's eyes didn't leave the horizon.

"This is too easy."

There was no turbulence.

No radar pings.

No alarms.

Just silence above the clouds.

And far in the distance – barely dots against the blue – a formation of six shadows began to close in, high above the jet stream, silent and falling fast.

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