This was the part Max hated, the waiting. It wasn't even the weeks, or sometimes months, of waiting it took to prepare his body for the Chrysalis. Nor the waiting it took to digest the knowledge needed to take the next leap towards perfection. No, it was the insufferably long wait to fall into the Chrysalis itself. So close to Torpor, without any of the mind-salving benefits. He hated to admit it, but it reminded Max of his Embrace. The darkness closing in, the feeling of the soul slipping away from the body, only to be forced back in at the last second; irrevocably changed into something new by the experience. It was like waiting to die, all over again.

Well, that and, the smell of gasoline.

The problem with a Chrysalis is, you never know how it will turn out. You spend so much time planning, preparing, training your body for what's to come. If everything went well, you came out the other side changed for the better. If you came through the experience, but without changing, you still counted yourself lucky. At least you came out of the little death with everything where it should be. The unlucky few who didn't were Lost to the Dragon. Which was a polite way of saying they turned into slathering, mindless Beasts. For those poor souls, “lucky” was being hunted down and destroyed before they destroyed someone or something they cared about.

Max swore long ago when he first joined the Ordo he'd never let himself come to that end. That was why he was currently at the bottom of a bathtub in his private room within the Dragon's Chapter House, several inches of gasoline covering him as he tried to clear his mind. Samantha stood nearby, holding a marine flare gun in a relaxed position by her hip. Once Max surfaced, she'd ask him a question; a failure on Max's part to answer like a rational , logical being would result in one hell of a pyrotechnics show.

Max relaxes, trying to clear his mind so he can enter the trance-like sleep of the Chrysalis. The coldness of the gasoline helped, Max drawing his blood into his core. The cold seeps into his joints, his body stiffening as the animating Vitae draining out of his limbs. He opens his mouth, letting flammable liquid flood down his throat, into his lungs; adding a cooling numbness to his chest. Max's eyes close; his whole body growing cold, stiff and lifeless as the Mekhet delves deep into his own mind.

The trick of a Chrysalis is getting close enough to Torpor to make one's body transmutable without actually slipping into the Sleep. And hiding yourself from your Beast long enough that it doesn't break free of it's cage. Max focuses on the growing haze around the edges of his mind. His body is cold, slowly losing feeling in his digits. It creeps up to his elbows and knees, the liquid in is chest pushing the numbness out to his shoulders and hips.

The haze begins to spread as well, Max can feel his mind slowing; edging towards slumber. The numbness of his body floats away as well, leaving him with only the vague awareness of his own mind. This was a close to sleep as he dared get; Max's mind reaching out for the cold, logical side of his personality.

He had detached himself from his emotions years ago; before she left him. He had told himself that the Kindred were incapable of love, a belief that had sustained him for decades of research and isolation. Samantha's dedication was a product of the Blood he feed her once a month, the soft words of his victims motivated by the rapture of the Kiss.

It wasn't until he meet Elanah during his first night in Sacramento that he began to question that belief. For a while, she awoke feelings in him that the thin Mekhet had considered dead for years. And then, in an instant, she was gone. Gone from his bed and then gone from Sacramento. He had no way of knowing what had happened to her, or to the man he suspected took her away; and would probably never know.

And so, he buried those emotions once more. Threw himself into his research and his position as Deputy and later Reeve. He would bury them deeper this time, with chains and weights heavy enough to make sure they never resurfaced again. And, for a time, it worked. He became cold, emotionless; unmoved by the plights of those around him. And in the end, it cost him a little bit more of his Humanity.

Finally, his thin fingers gain hold of what they're after: the cold, emotionless voice in the back of his head. The one that saw things only through the lenses of cruel logic and reason. There was no anger from this other side of his personality, only a detached fascination it felt a doppelganger image of itself wrapping it's finger around it's throat.

Max had spent weeks trying to master the little ticks of the human body. The way they would subconsciously move when speaking with each other; the subtle cues of body language that let the Kine know they were in the presence of another living being and not an animated corpse. Max felt his fingers sinking into the flesh of his emotionless side; the two slowly melding into one.

Images flashed through his foggy mind; the animated motions of old slap-stick comedians, the smooth motions of Sean Connery as he chatted up a beautiful woman. And yet the face of his doppelganger remained unchanged; unable to understand what Max was trying to show it. Max could feel his mind slipping away, getting ever closer to the bottomless abyss that swallows those that spend too long in the Chrysalis. He tired to pull away from his emotionless side, to break free and escape, to try the Chrysalis again another night. Yet, the two Maxs wouldn't separate; wherever they were going they were going together.

Then Max hears it, the baleful howl of his Beast somewhere in the distance. Even his iron resolve could keep the Monster at bay for so long. Finally freed from decades of imprisonment, it wanted nothing more that to tear the mind of it's dominator to shreds. Max doesn't panic, instead focusing on the thought that at least Tracy wasn't here to see his failure, to witness him burned to a pile of ash in the Chapter House bathroom.

Tracy... Even as the darkness of his own mind closed in around him, Max couldn't help but think of the petite Gangrel that had helped pull him from the dark dirge he had placed himself in these past few years. At last his last sane thought would be a pleasant one. He smiles, and to his amazement, his doppelganger smiles back. The two Maxs meld into one, and the Grand Wyrm can feel a part of himself he had exorcised so long ago rejoin his mind, leaving him alone in the crushing darkness of his own soul.


A moment of triumph, and then it was gone. Max knew he only had seconds to reassert his will, to pull away from the abyss before it swallowed him whole; leaving only a mindless shell behind. He pushed it back, making his body answer once again to his will. Precious blood began to course through his limbs once more; his body burning with feeling once again. His mind exploded as well, the fog rushing away from him as Max forced his body to reawaken. He opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling through the distorted lens of a foot of gasoline. Max pushed himself upright in the tub, forcing himself to cough to clear the liquid from his lung and throat. As his head breaks the surface, Samantha brings the flare gun up, pointing it with both hands at her Master.

How do you feel? She asks softly.

Max lifts his head, smiling a little at his Ghoul. Flammable. He answers, as he always did; Max coughing once again as more of the gasoline is forced from his body. Now put that damn thing down and hand me a towel...