Adam had never been one to sit still, but this wasn't running or fighting—it was building something.
Winter had settled fully over Windom, transforming the landscape into a monochrome canvas of whites and grays. Most teenagers spent their evenings playing video games or watching movies, huddled against the bitter cold. Not Adam. The chill in the air matched the focus in his mind as he pursued a different kind of entertainment—piecing together a supernatural puzzle that spanned generations.
He and Professor Reed spent the next several weeks inside the regional outpost, bringing order to the chaos. They cataloged every file, scanned every journal, tagged every sigil-smeared report.
The work was methodical, requiring a patience Adam hadn't known he possessed. Before the memories, before hunting, he'd been quick to frustration, eager for results. Now, he understood the value of careful, deliberate progress. Each file was a potential piece of the larger puzzle. Each faded note could be the key that unlocked everything.
Reed brought a portable scanner and laptop setup, while Adam handled the sorting system—building out a digital archive of all operational Men of Letters data from Relay Node #7.
"You've become quite the archivist," Reed remarked one afternoon, watching as Adam carefully labeled another box of processed documents. "I'm impressed."
Adam shrugged, but couldn't entirely hide his pride. "When the stakes are this high, details matter."
Roy contributed in his own way, securing the perimeter, setting up discreet warning systems around the abandoned town of Ellwood. The older hunter remained skeptical about spending so much time on research when they could be hunting, but even he couldn't deny the value of what they were uncovering.
"Just don't forget how to shoot while you're playing librarian," he grumbled, checking the salt lines at the entrance for the third time that day.
It was dusty, slow work. But it mattered.
Because buried in all of it was something the rest of the world had forgotten.
The Men of Letters had been methodical in their documentation, categorizing supernatural phenomena with scientific precision. Reports detailed creature classifications, territorial patterns, hierarchical structures within monster communities. One file contained a complex taxonomy of demons, categorizing them by power levels, affiliations, and areas of influence.
"It's remarkable," Reed said, examining a particularly detailed report on vampire migration patterns throughout the early 20th century. "They weren't just reacting to supernatural threats—they were studying them, predicting them."
"Knowledge as power," Adam replied, the phrase becoming something of a mantra as they worked.
One afternoon, tucked inside a battered field journal, they found a ciphered entry—simple substitution, archaic phrasing, clearly written by someone who didn't want it easily found.
Initials: E.M.
Elizabeth Milligan.
Adam felt a jolt of recognition. While they'd found several documents bearing his grandmother's initials or signature, this was different—deliberately hidden, even within the secrecy of the outpost.
Reed decrypted it late that night, cross-referencing old codebooks from the outpost's shelves.
The process was painstaking. Reed worked with a singular focus, her academic training perfectly suited to the task. Adam watched as she carefully mapped the cipher patterns, identifying key substitutions, testing different codebooks until she found the right match.
"Got it," she said finally, as the midnight hour approached. Her voice held the quiet triumph of a scholar making a breakthrough.
The entry was vague but unsettling:
"The beasts move when the bloodlines converge. It is not chaos—it is selection. The circle outside the Order knows this well. They knew it first. We only record. They intervene."
"If the Grimm texts are right, then the price is not just power—it's inheritance. I fear Adam will carry more than just the name."
Adam read it three times, his mouth dry.
Grimm texts.
The name itself carried a weight, an echo from folktales and bedtime stories. But in this context, it felt significant in ways Adam couldn't yet articulate.
"She's talking about me," he said, the realization sudden and jarring. "Or—someone named Adam."
Reed looked up sharply. "You think there was another Adam in your family line?"
"I don't know." Adam ran a hand through his hair, frustration evident. "Mom never mentioned anyone. But given everything else Elizabeth kept hidden..."
The reference didn't match any known Men of Letters records. Reed offered a theory.
"The Grimms weren't just fairy tale collectors. There's lore suggesting they were early supernatural scholars. Maybe even hunters. Rogue factions, pre-Order. Hidden legacy lines."
She pulled out her own notebook, flipping to a page filled with her neat handwriting. "I've come across references to the Brothers Grimm in my own research. Academic folklore suggests they were documenting real phenomena in coded forms—the fairy tales were just the public face of their work."
"So my great grandmother was connected to them somehow?"
"It's possible." Reed tapped the decrypted note. "This suggests a relationship between the Men of Letters and some group or individual with Grimm connections—'the circle outside the Order.' A separate organization, perhaps, with different methods but similar goals."
Roy didn't like it.
"Sounds like your great grandmother was dancing with powers the Men of Letters didn't control. That could be why she stayed regional—why they kept her out of the central Order."
He examined the note with the wariness of a man who'd seen too many good intentions lead to disaster. "Secret societies within secret societies. Never ends well."
Reed nodded slowly. "Or why she chose to stay out."
Adam thought about Elizabeth's journal entries, about her careful documentation of "the Old Blood," about the protective sigils she'd left throughout the outpost. She hadn't been naive or reckless. Whatever connections she'd maintained—with the Grimms or otherwise—had been deliberate, calculated.
Adam didn't have answers. Not yet.
So they shelved the mystery.
For now.
There were too many threads to follow at once. Too many secrets buried in the dust. And one pressing concern overshadowed all others.
Instead, he turned to something more immediate—Azazel's plan.
Using the data they digitized, Adam traced old cases involving missing or dead children that matched the special psychic profiles. He cross-referenced them with weather patterns, sulfur reports, and unexplainable events across two decades.
Adam created a digital database, combining the Men of Letters records with his own knowledge of Azazel's activities from his "memories." He built timelines, mapped locations, identified patterns that might have remained hidden without his unique perspective.
"You're sure about these dates?" Roy asked, looking over Adam's shoulder at the computer screen.
Adam nodded. "As sure as I can be. These weather anomalies—electrical storms, cattle deaths, temperature fluctuations—they follow Azazel's movements. And they cluster around certain children."
A pattern emerged.
"They're all born in 1983," Adam said, marking a cluster of points on a digital map. "All visited by Azazel. Most of them orphaned or manipulated into isolation."
He pulled up a document containing names he'd compiled:
Sam Winchester. Ava Wilson. Jake Talley. Andrew Gallagher. Lily Baker. Max Miller.
The list continued—nearly two dozen names, scattered across the country. Children Azazel had visited as infants, bleeding into their mouths, marking them for some dark purpose.
He circled one last date.
2006.
The year the "psychic kid showdown" was supposed to begin. The Royal Rumble, as he'd always called it in his head.
The showdown Azazel orchestrated to find the strongest among them. The vessel.
Sam.
Adam leaned back, staring at the web of data glowing on the screen.
"He's building an army," he said softly. "Or maybe just... a competition."
The scale of it was staggering. Decades of careful planning, of selecting and grooming these special children. All to find the perfect soldier for whatever came next.
Roy crossed his arms. "But for what?"
The question hung in the air between them. Adam had pieces of the answer from his "memories"—Lucifer's vessel, the breaking of the first seal, the start of the apocalypse—but the full picture remained frustratingly blurry.
"To free something," Adam said carefully. "Or someone."
Reed looked up from the ancient text she'd been translating. "You know more than you're saying."
It wasn't an accusation, just a statement of fact. Over the weeks they'd spent together in the outpost, she'd grown increasingly perceptive of the times when Adam drew on knowledge he shouldn't have—couldn't have—acquired naturally.
Adam's jaw tightened. "Still don't know. But we're running out of time to figure it out."
He wasn't ready to share the full truth—that his knowledge came from watching a TV show in another timeline, that he remembered future events that hadn't happened yet. Even in a world of demons and monsters, that level of strangeness might push their trust to the breaking point.
Instead, he focused on what they could prove with the evidence they'd gathered.
"Whatever Azazel's planning culminates soon," he said. "We need to be ready."
Outside, winter rolled in across Minnesota.
The ground froze. The roads emptied. The wind howled like something old remembering.
Adam stared out the small, dust-covered window of the outpost, watching snow swirl in the pale light of the security lamps they'd installed. The abandoned town of Ellwood looked like a ghost town from an old photograph—buildings half-collapsed under the weight of snow and time, streets erased by drifts.
He thought about his mother, alone at home, waiting for him to return from another "study session." About John Winchester, somewhere out there hunting Azazel, unaware that his forgotten son was building the knowledge base that might save them all. About Sam and Dean, bound for a confrontation they didn't fully understand.
And in the shadows of abandoned networks and forgotten bloodlines...
Something began to stir.
Adam felt it—not with his senses, but with something deeper. Something in his blood. A resonance, like a tuning fork struck at just the right frequency.
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