Chapter Seventy-Five
🌒 Amplification 🌘

Lydia, Scott and Stiles looked up when Deaton walked into the examination room of the animal with an envelope. "What I'm about to show you isn't supposed to exist." Deaton said before pulling out a stack of pictures from the envelope, "This is the only surviving evidence of Dr. Valack's time as Chief Medical Officer of Eichen House." He said as he started placing pictures down onto the table.

Each photo was of dozens of different supernatural creatures, including what appears to be Werewolves, Kanimas, and Wendigos, all of whom have had holes drilled into their skulls, and all of whom appear to either be in excruciating pain or dead. "To call it human experimentation would be... charitable." Deaton said.

Lydia's eyes subconsciously moved to a specific photo and picked it up slightly. It was of a recently-deceased woman with a hole drilled into her forehead, who is clutching the sides of her head, her mouth open in a silent scream. "A Banshee. She died screaming." He said making her head shoot up to look at him wide eyed.

"So, he drilled holes into their head? All of them?" Stiles asked making Deaton look over at him, "That was the experimentation part. He did it to Werewolves, Banshees, Seers, Wendigos... Any creature he could get his hands on. And Valack found that trephination would initially heighten their powers, but to levels that couldn't be contained."

"So, he wants to make Wren more powerful?" Scott asked and Lydia sighed and shook her head, "Except she's going to end up like them." She said as she gestured to the photos.

"Worse, actually. Wren's abilities were already pretty exceptional to begin with. There's a thing with Seers. They're rare, only a handful of families have the Seer blood like and every women of those families are Seers. But when a Seers mother dies, the mother's powers are transferred to the daughter, along with all the power from their ancestors. Putting a hole in her head... will be like causing a leak in a nuclear reactor. She'll see everything- every death, every traumatic moment both in the past and the future that's happened to people within a hundred miles, all at once." Deaton said making Lydia's eyes widen, "That'll kill her." She said.

"Not only that. Her own abilities could be so powerful that it might kill everyone around her as well."

🌘

Everyone stood around the dining table in Scott's house, "There's four steps- we get into Eichen, we get into the closed unit, we get Wren, we get out." Stiles started explaining and Scott nodded. "And we have to do all of this while getting past orderlies, guards, electric door locks, and a mountain ash barrier." Scott said and Lydia, Malia, Kira, and Liam are all looking at Scott and Stiles as though they're crazy.

"You have a plan for all that?" Malia asked and Stiles pulled out the key card, "I stole this the other day off an orderly. But, it's useless, 'cause they reset the codes each night." He said and Kira raised her eyebrows. "So, why'd you take it?" She asked and Stiles sighed and nodded slightly, "We're getting to that."

"The only way to get Lydia out of Eichen is to make that key card work again." Scott says and Liam squints, not understanding where they are going with this, "How are you going to do that?" He asked and Stiles sighed. "We're getting to that, okay? Just listen-" He says and turns his MacBook around so everyone can see the screen, which seems to have a log on it.

"I pulled all the history off the key card. Two weeks ago, there was a brownout and the security system rebooted. During a reboot, all of the key cards revert back to a default code. So, if we trigger a reboot-" Stiles explains and Lydia nodded slightly, "The card goes back to the default code. It works again." She said and Stiles nodded.

"How are we going to cause a brownout?" Kira asked and Stiles pointed at her, "You will. You're going to draw power from the main line- but only enough to cause the brownout. Not a blackout. Do that, and you send Eichen into lockdown, which would be bad. Very, very bad." Stiles said.

"There's an electrical room behind the reception counter. The main power line goes into two breakers that run power to all of Eichen." Scott says as he point at something on the blueprint while Kira looks at him with wide eyes, "Okay, slight problem- I don't know how to do that." She said and he gave her a reassuring smile. "That's okay! You have time to practice."

"Let's say this goes perfectly. How does a brownout get us into the closed unit of Eichen?" Malia asked, "The system takes five minutes to reboot. In that five minutes, all the alarms will be turned off. The key card should work." Stiles explained and Scott turns to Liam.

"Liam, you and I get Lydia and Stiles to the gate of the closed unit. But after that, they have to go on their own. We can't get past the mountain ash barrier. And, when we're gone, all anyone's going to think is that there was a reboot of the security system caused by a brownout." Scott said and Stiles nodded in agreement. "Uh, any questions?" Stiles asked.

"How do we get into Eichen House in the first place?"

"What's our worst case scenario?"

"What if I can't do it?"

"What if we're too late?"

Liam, Malia, Kira and Lydia asked all at the same time making their eyes widen slightly. "Okay, admittedly, a lot could go wrong." Stiles said and Liam raised his eyebrows at him, "Everything could go wrong!" He said.

"Guys, if we don't do this, we lose Wren. She's going to die in there tonight... And she might take a lot of innocent people with her." Scott said.

🌒

"Okay, my dad's got the lab working on the shoe prints, but, uh, we're all kind of mystified about how giant clawed werewolf feet turned back into a pair of sneakers." Stiles said as him and Scott walked down the stairs of the library. "Argent said it wouldn't be like anything we've ever seen before."

"Did he say it was going to defy the laws of physics?" Stiles asked sarcastically when Scott suddenly stopped making Stiles stop as well. They followed his trail of sight to see Theo leaning against a bookshelf, reading a book.

"What are you doing here?" Scott asked coldly and he looked over at them and closed the book, "I still need to graduate." He said as he took a step forward. "No. No, what you need is to be beaten. Severely. With a lead pipe wrapped in barbed wire-" Stiles said until Theo interrupted him.

"Okay, I admit, mistakes were made." Theo said making Stiles squint at him, "Murders. Some murders were made." He said and Theo rolled his eyes. "You know how the Soviets helped us win World War II? They knew how to make it through a Russian winter." Theo said making them look at him weird, "That it? Okay. Thank you, Theo. Very informative." Stiles said sarcastically.

"If you're planning to break Wren out of Eichen House, you still need to get past the mountain ash. We can make it through. You can't, Scott." Theo said making Scott squint at him.

"What do you really want?" Scott asked making Theo look over at him, "I know you saw the fresco. Two seriously pissed off creatures, the Hellhound and the Beast, fighting over a pile of dead bodies? I don't want to be one of the bodies. It's that simple." Theo said and they just glared at him, "I can get you to Wren. Or, we can see who gets to her first."

"There's no way he knows what Valack's doing. Why's he so interested in her?" Stiles asked and Scott sighed and shrugged, "He probably thinks what we're all thinking- that Wren's got something bigger to do with this. Maybe she's one of the people who can actually save us or maybe she knows something."

🌒

"She took out the whole school?" Scott asked as they all stood around the McCall house, "She took out the whole grid." Lydia said making their eyes widen. "Look, I failed every single practice try. This isn't going to work." Kira said and Liam sighed.

"How far can we get without the brownout?" Liam asked, "The front door." Stiles said. "We're going." Scott said making Kira look at him incredulously, "Scott, we went through boxes of light bulbs." Kira said and Scott just shook his head.

"It doesn't matter. You can do this!" Scott said optimistically making Kira sigh, 'The key card won't work unless there's a reboot, and there's no reboot without a brownout." Kira said. "I know you can do this." Scott said then looked around at Liam, Stiles, Lydia and Malia, whose facial expressions are each varying states of skepticism.

"Anyone here think she can't?" Scott asked and Stiles, Lydia and Liam instantly shook their heads, "Not me." Liam said. "I'm the one who put you in the plan." Stiles said and Lydia nodded in agreement, "Being able to take out the whole grid is impressive." She said and then they all looked over at Malia.

"What?" She asked and Stiles raised his eyebrows, "I believe in you, too, Kira." Stiles whispered making Malia look at him crazy. "I'm the one who's going to be locked in an electrical room with her!" Malia said and they all gave her a look making her sigh and turn to Kira, "Y-you can do it..." She said.

Kira looked at all of them before sighing, "You guys are all crazy. We're gonna die."

🌘

"Delivery to the morgue." Parrish says after he pulled up to the tail booth of Eichen House. The guard frowned and looked down at his clipboard, "I don't see you on the list." He said.

"You heard about the animal attacks, right? The hospital ran out of refrigerated drawers, and Eichen's got the only other up-to-code morgue in the county." Parrish said and the guard sighed, "Let's have a look." He said making Parrish eyes widen for a moment.

"I don't think you want to do that- the stench back there almost made me pass out while driving." He said and the guard gives Parrish a hard look before impatiently repeating his earlier request, "Open the back of the van, please." He said. Parrish sighs and puts the cruiser in park before getting out and walking around to the trunk, opening the door to reveal at least a half-dozen full body bags on the floor of the trunk.

"I'll need to log the names off the toe tags."

"There's significant decomp. They were found in the county tunnels way past rigor." Parrish said and the guard once again looks at Parrish suspiciously and repeats his demand, "Open them up, please." He said.

Parrish sighs and reaches toward one of the body bags, gingerly pulling the zipper and opening it to reveal a badly decomposing body. Which apparently smells as badly as Parrish described, because the guard gags and steps back covering his nose. Parrish goes to open the next one, only for him to stop him and wave him off, still trying to prevent himself from vomiting from the smell.

"No. No. Go. Just go." He says and Parrish smiled as he zipped the bag back up and shut the doors.

A few minutes later all the body bags were sitting in the morgue when four of them started to open. Lydia took a deep breath and cringed as she sits up, watching Scott, Liam and Stiles sit up as well. "Never again." Stiles said as Lydia climbed out of her bag.

Scott nods at him in agreement before pulling his phone out of his pocket and looking at the timer he has set on it, which reads 7:45:15 PM. He looks up at Liam and Stiles with a serious expression, "Fifteen minutes starting now." He said and they all nodded.

Scott and Liam each quietly extricate themselves from their body bags without issue, while Stiles, who sat up on the table in order to make it easier on himself, flails too hard in his attempt to get out that he falls off of the table and onto the floor. Lydia, Scott and Liam all look at him as he groans from the impact on the floor.

Scott pressed his ear to the door, listening closely to the footsteps leading down the hall away from them. Once he's determined that the hallway is clear, he looks back at Lydia, Stiles and Liam before opening the door so the three can quietly slip out of the room.

The four sneak through the general unit toward one of the gates to the closed unit, but when they turn the corner, they see two orderlies standing in the hallway making them hide behind the wall. "What are they doing there?" Scott asked and Stiles shook his head, "I don't know. Their rounds should've ended five minutes ago."

"I can take them." Liam said making them all turn to look at him crazy, "No one's taking anyone." Scott said and Lydia sighed. "How much time?" She asked and Scott looks at his phone and sighed, "Three minutes." He said. "I'll just knock them out and hide the bodies!" Liam said making Stiles roll his eyes in exasperation and gives Liam a look, "Oh, my God- please, stop."

This entire time, the four of them had been so preoccupied with their plan that they didn't notice the guy locked in a cell in front of them, who is now becoming incredibly agitated as he pounds his fist against the bulletproof glass. The sound startles them making them all instinctively jump backward away from the sound.

"Did you take the doctor??" The guy asked making them all look at each other wide eyed. Down the hallway, the orderlies are starting to get suspicious of the patient's shouting. "What?" Liam whispered, "Did you take the doctor? I haven't had my medication. I need ten milligrams at 8AM, fifteen milligrams at 1PM, and no more than twenty at dinner."

"We'll get the doctor..."

"Dr. Fenris. Dr. Fenris." The guy said before starting to sob, "They took Dr. Fenris." He cried, hitting the glass again. "I haven't had my medication! I need to see the doctor! They took Dr. Fenris!" They guy said, still hitting the glass, catching the orderlies attention. "Hey, somebody shut him up."

"I need to see the doctor!"

"Shut him up!"

Scott scrunches up his face more before extending his fangs, glowing his bright crimson eyes as he growls ferociously at the patient, who immediately becomes silent and backs away from the glass of his cell in fear. The orderlies, hearing no more rambling from the patient, assume that he was just talking to himself and walk through a side door, allowing the four to continue on.

"Come on." Stiles whispered before leading them to the gate. As they walked down the hallway the lights briefly go out, only to be replaced by the back-up generator lights, causing them all to sigh in relief.

"She did it! Kira did it!"

"Five minutes to get to Wren."

They walk up to the gate to the closed unit, where Stiles pulls out the keycard he stole before raising it to swipe it through the digital lock. Only to find that there is no such lock to be found, and Stiles immediately begins to panic.

"Where's the card reader? It should be here. It has to be here." He asked and Lydia sighed softly, "They must have taken it out when the Dread Doctors got through." She said.

"Are you telling me that we came all the way down here, just to be stopped by an ordinary key? Are you kidding me?" Stiles said frustratingly. It was quiet for a moment until Liam spoke up, "We don't need a key." He said making them all look at him with raised eyebrows.

"Not if we can break it down." He said and Scott looks at Stiles, who shrugged Stiles before him and Lydia stepped back a bit as Scott and Liam to both grab the wire fence gate with their fingers and start pulling it as hard as they can. Scott and Liam grunt and groan as they put all of their strength and focus into breaking open the gate, while Stiles and Lydia watches anxiously. After a moment, Lydia speaks up, "We're running out of time."

"We can't... The mountain ash... It's too much." Scott groaned and the four of them all look overwhelmed and disappointed at the prospect of letting Wren down, and after a moment, Liam gets a determined look on his face as he turns to Scott, "Hit me." He said making them all look at him weird.

"What?"

"Hit me! I'll get angry, then I'll get stronger." Liam said and Scott just

Scott continues to look at him like he was as insane, but Stiles and Lydia seems wholeheartedly in support of this plan. "Hit him. Hit him!" Stiles said and Lydia nodded in agreement.

"I tried to take your powers. I tried to kill you. Hit me!" Liam said trying to piss Scott off. Scott continues to look at him with a flabbergasted expression, and Liam looks at Stiles and Lydia for assistance. "He also left you for dead." Stiles said and Liam nodded in agreement, "I wanted you dead!"

Scott tries to resist his anger, but finally gives in and punches Liam in the face hard enough that he's briefly knocked off-balance. "Do it again!" He said and Scott punches Liam in the face again, knocking him to his knees.

"Do it! Do it!"

Scott punches Liam again, and they both grunt under their breath from the exertion as Stiles cheers them on, "Yeah!" Stiles yelled as Lydia just watched as Scott punched Liam one more time. Scott, tried to keep his werewolf powers under control, looks at Liam, who is slumped against the gate, growling slightly. "You angry?" He asked and Liam turns to face him, his eyes glowing gold and his fangs out as he growls menacingly, "Me too." Scott said.

Scott nods toward the door, and both werewolves grab the gate and use their newly-heightened super strength to pull on the door. It takes a few moments before Scott and Liam are able to wrench the door off its hinges and shove it past the mountain ash barrier. "Guys go!" Scott yelled and Lydia and Stiles instantly run through.

They walk through the halls, using the keycard to get through a second gate that leads into another hallway as Stiles nervously looks around to make sure they weren't being followed by guards or other Eichen employees. They made it to the hall that had Wren's room and they instantly made a beeline for the room.

They run in only to find a very weak and pale Wren laying silently on the bed, her wrists and ankles strapped to the bed frame and Valack's bloody drill laying on the table next to her, they both stops right in their tracks and stares in horror, especially when they see the bloody wound on the left side of Wren's head above her ear. When Wren sees them, she looks both relieved and terrified.

"Stiles...? Lydia...?" The sound of Wren voice spurs the twk into action, and they both finally rushed toward the bed. Stiles gently grabbed Wren's face to examine the wound more closely while Lydia started trying to get the restraints off. Wren, however, only becomes more panicked as she weakly pleads with them, "You can't