Chapter 57: Ch. 52 - THE WOLVES OF WAR

Avalon's outfit:

Chapter Fifty-Two

⚔ The Wolves Of War ⚔

Scott, hiding behind a stone support column, looks around the corner for a brief moment to find Lydia, Avalon and Malia hiding behind a crate. Scott went to run over to them but is forced to move back to avoid being hit by gunfire, which just broke the cement covering the corner he was just standing behind.

Deucalion is desperately trying to crawl away to safety, and Peter has just rushed from behind another support column to behind a steel barrel in hopes of it holding up better against the Hunters' ammunition.

Malia and Avalon, ducked down as far as they can behind a create, tries to hold the wooden box still so Lydia, who is covering her ears to minimize the trauma to her enhanced sense of hearing, remains safe.

A hunter found Scott's hiding spot and was about to shoot him, much to Scott's panic, until suddenly, Stiles' Jeep speeds through the road in front of the shipyard and forcefully hits the Hunter so hard he flies backward. Scott, stunned, looks at Stiles, who gives him a relieved-yet-exasperated look.

"You didn't think you were doing this without me, did ya?" He asked and before Scott can process his best friend's arrival, Derek appears next to the Jeep and smirks at him, "Without us?" He asked. Not waiting for a response, Derek immediately lets out his fangs, claws, and glowing blue eyes before roaring and launching himself into the fray, allowing him to easily take down two Hunters in midair.

Since Derek's intervention has tilted the fight in their favor, Malia gets out of her hiding spot and rushes toward a Hunter, shoving him hard against the chain-link fence behind him. Without pausing, Malia, using her newly-taught sightless acuity, senses a Hunter behind her and pirouettes before slashing him across the chest several times with her claws. Finally, Malia runs backward to kick the first Hunter in the head, easily knocking him out.

Near the parking lot, Peter has just shoved a Hunter against one of the stone support columns; though the Hunter blocks his first strike, Peter manages to land a second one before kneeing him in the head. Once that threat has been eliminated, Peter, with his glowing blue eyes and fangs out, roars in glee and goes to find another Hunter to fight.

Avalon quickly ran out and wrapped her arm around a hunter's neck before kicking his legs out from under him. She held her hands out right as a couple hunters ran up to her and her eyes turned her golden yelled/fiery reddish-orange. The guns they were holding slowly started to glow a red hot before the men yelled out in pain, dropping the guns as they burned their hands. Avalon wasted no time, grabbing both of the men by their hair, slamming their heads against each other before letting their bodies fall to the ground.

Derek slammed another of Monroe's men onto the ground like a sack of potatoes, which leads Monroe to realize that they're outmatched. She runs toward her SUV with the rest of the Hunters who are conscious and not badly injured before they drive away.

Once they're gone, they all meet up and join Scott, who had been trying his best to keep Deucalion alive, to no avail. Deucalion's breaths become more and more shallow as he gently thrusts his hand on top of Scott's, a trickle of blood dripping from his mouth. Scott, knowing deep down that Deucalion won't survive, looks devastated as he makes eye contact and listens to what he has to say.

"Gerard... What he f-f-fears most... He can't... beat you..." He said weakly as he slowly runs out of air and time, though he chuckles as if almost in amusement when he realizes how this war ends, smiling in spite of himself. "...And he knows it." Before Deucalion can say more, his eyes go glassy, his breathing stops, and his hand slips out of Scott's own, confirming his death.

Scott, with tears in his eyes, exhales in disappointment as the others gather closely around him. "It's really started, hasn't it?" Malia asked and Stiles frowned, "What's started?" He asked and Scott stands to his feet, though he doesn't immediately take his eyes off of Deucalion's body.

"It's an all-out war."

When Scott finally turns to look at the rest of his friends, he suddenly remembers that Derek has re-joined them for the first time in over a year and looks at him in shock. Noticing Scott's line of sight, Avalon, Malia, Lydia and Peter all turn to look at Derek as well as Scott walks forward and hugs him tightly, though Peter rolls his eyes in the background and sighs before he turns toward his nephew.

"As much as I enjoy the impromptu family reunion, what are you doing here?" Peter said and Derek and Scott break apart, each clapping each other on the shoulder in a brotherly fashion as they do so, before Derek begins to explain his return to his hometown.

"I found a pack slaughtered in Brazil. There were two words written in blood on the wall- Beacon Hills." He said and Scott glanced back at Deucalion's body for a moment before turning back to Derek with a surprised look on his face. "You came back for Beacon Hills?" He asked and Derek gave him a look, "No- I came back for you."

Scott looks at Derek gratefully and smiles at him before suddenly, the police radio in Stiles' Jeep starts to chirp and beep. After a moment, Gerard's voice is heard through the speakers, and the pack follows Scott and Stiles to the Jeep.

Scott gets into the passenger seat while Stiles gets into the driver's seat, while the others circle around the open windows to hear what Gerard has to say. Ever the literary scholar, Gerard recites an modified excerpt from Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, which is spoken by Mark Antony in Act 1, Scene 3.

"Blood and destruction / And dreadful objects so familiar / All pity choked with custom of fell deeds / And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge / With Ate by his side come hot from hell / Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice... Do you know the rest, Scott? Do you know your Shakespeare?"

Scott looks up at Derek, who is standing outside of the passenger door of the Jeep who nods to indicate that he knows the answer. Scott picks up the radio microphone and hands it to Derek, who finishes the quote, "Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war..."

"War, indeed. Welcome back, Derek. You must all be feeling rather nostalgic. Are you pleased with the little family reunion I've gathered around you, Scott?"

Scott can't help but roll his eyes, albeit with a grim expression on his face, before he responds, "Yeah, why don't you come join us, and I can thank you in person." He said but Gerard ignores this comment in favor of continuing to make his point.

"I even have a few visitors for you... from London. Even someone like Jackson Whittemore couldn't resist coming back to Beacon Hills." Gerard says making Blake and Lydia's eyes widen, "Say "Hello," Jackson!" He said but all they head was the sound of Jackson's screaming. Lydia squeezed her eyes shut while everyone else looked horrified.

"Do it again, old man! Come a little closer- I'm gonna shove that thing so far up your ass!"

"He's lost none of his charm, has he? You can find him here with us at the armory, Scott. In fact, I'm going to tell you where to find all of them. Your deputy Hellhound met some friends of his while responding to a call from Eichen House. Your father was on his way back from San Francisco with the goal of entering the fight... But he didn't get far. You might want to tell your mother to skip her shift at the hospital tonight. Liam and his friends are there now." Gerard said making Avalon's eyes widened slightly, "Optimistic of them, but woefully ill-advised. This is how you wage war, Scott."

"A strategic positioning of your army against theirs. Which is why you will come to me. You will try to save as many as you can, and you might even save a few. But, your limited resources will be spread thin, and ultimately, you will fail." Scott, overwhelmed by what he's hearing, grimaces and sighs as he squeezes his eyes closed for a moment, clutching the radio so tightly that he nearly crushes it.

"The dogs of war, Scott... They're coming for you."

⚔

Lydia flipped the animal clinic sign on the door from "OPEN" to "CLOSED" before joining Scott, Avalon, Derek, Malia and Stiles in the exam room, where they are gathered around the metal exam table as Stiles and Derek begin to explain how they are involved in the situation.

"So, literally day one of my internship, and up comes this slide about this guy they've been chasing in the woods of North Carolina." Stiles explained making Malia look at him confused, "I thought you were in South America." She said and Derek nodded.

"I was. The bodies of the wolves I told you about? They blame me." He said, "So, I learn that the FBI has cornered this feral, mass-murdering unsub-" Stiles started to explain again but Derek cuts him off with a look and his own version of the story.

"I found a group of Hunters gathering in a meeting place. I was trying to get information." He said and Stiles rolls his eyes before finishing his thought, "Yeah, well, the FBI found it, too, and they were planning a SWAT assault to take him down, dead or alive."

Stiles looks over to see Lydia smirking, clearly humoring him, while both Scott and Malia are looking at Stiles and Derek with wide eyes. While Avalon looked she didnt believe anything Stiles said. "And, as we all know, though, with Derek, it's perferably dead." He said and Derek was taken aback by this comment at first before finally shrugging, acknowledging the truth in Stiles' words as the debate continues on. "Preferably." He said and Stiles ignores Derek in favor of moving on with the story.

"So, I convinced them to take me on the field op." He said and Avalon raised her eyebrows and held her hand out slightly, "Hold on- You convinced the FBI to bring an intern onto an extremely dangerous field operation?" She asked and Derek rolls his eyes sarcastically. "I'm surprised he didn't convince them he could lead it." He said and Stiles nodded slightly.

"I tried- didn't work." Stiles said completely serious before shaking his head slightly before getting to the point, "Anyway, long story short, I basically had to, you know, save his life." Stiles said making Derek look at him with a mixture of exasperation and offense at what he is implying.

"That's not how it happened." Derek said and Stiles scoffed, "Yeah, I may have left out a detail, but that's the gist of it." He said defensively. He looks over at the others- Lydia has her eyebrows raised while nodding skeptically, Scott and Malia look impressed and Avalon didn't believe it at all. "That's the essential essence of it."

"You couldn't walk." Derek said and Stiles scoffs before trying to save face in an awkward tone of voice, "I was limping." He said. "You couldn't walk- and I know that because I was carrying you." Derek said and Stiles looks at Derek as though he is hurt by his interpretation of their story before scoffing and giving his rebuttal.

"They shot my toe! You wanna see it?" He asked and Derek rolls his eyes and looks at Lydia, Scott, Avalon and Malia with an expression that seems to say, 'You see what I had to deal with?'. "My toe was caught in the crossfire! It was obliterated!" Stiles said and Lydia looks at him exasperatedly, "Okay, forget your toe." She said making Stiles look st her offended.

"Obliterated..." He mumbled and looked over at Scott, who sighs and tries to redirect the conversation back to the task at hand. "Guys, it's not just the Hunters- we've got another problem." Scott said and Avalon sighed and nodded, "It's called the Anuk-ite. It can get into your head, it can make you see things." She said and Stiles furrowed his brows, "What does it look like?" He asked. "It used to look like two ordinary people... But, somehow, they merged." Lydia explained and Stiles looks very unsettled by what he's hearing.

"All we know is it's made of two faces- one human, the other supernatural." Azalea said and Scott nodded, "It's a shapeshifter, just like us." He said as he jerks his head in Avalon and Malia's direction to indicate that he's referring to himself, Avalon, Malia, and Derek.

"But it knows what you're afraid of- what you fear most." Scott said and Malia nodded, "And now it can kill you just by looking at you." She said making Stiles frown. "Okay, so you're telling me that we've gotta go up against this thing blind and face our deepest fear?" He asked and Avalon nodded.

"Yeah. Why, what do you fear most?" She asked and Stiles pursed his lips, "Blindness." He said and Derek looks amused and incredulous by this answer. "Becoming blind?" He asked and Stiles nodded, "Yeah, terrified of it. Always have been. But this just seems to be a situation of unfortunate overlap." He said and they all nodded before Scott turns the conversation back to their next move.

"Lydia, you and Stiles need to find Argent. Get to the armory and rescue Jackson." Scott said and Lydia sighed. "I don't think we have time to wait for him. I've gotten through those doors once anyway, I can do it again." Lydia said and Stiles, looking at them incredulously, interjects before they can continue.

"Can we slow it down just for one second to make sure I'm grasping this? So, we're talking about actually doing this? We're gonna do exactly what Gerard wants us to? Is that right?" He asked and Scott nodded, "I think that if we stop the Anuk-ite, we stop it all." He said and Derek furrowed his brows.

"Stopping this thing can stop Gerard and the Hunters?" Derek asked and Scott sighed softly, "Not all of them are Hunters." He said and Derek raised his eyebrows. "No, he's right. Most of them are ordinary people acting out of fear." Avalon said and Scott nodded and sighed, "Monroe's not gonna change... But I think that we can reach the others. Most of them, actually."

"The Anuk-ite is causing them to come from a place of fear." Lydia said and Derek shrugged and nodded, "Well, fear's pretty motivating, especially when it leads to anger." He said and Scott nodded. "And I think that if we can take out the fear, we can take out the fight in them, too. They're afraid of us, but they don't have to be. They just have to change their minds."

"We have to change their minds."

"Okay. We can face the Anuk-ite. We can try to fight it blind. We can try to face our fears. But, we still need to know how to catch it." Avalon said and looked at Scott with a serious expression, "Yeah, we'll figure that out. We always do." He said as he grabbed her hand and Derek smiled softly.

"Well, it's nice to see someone hasn't lost their optimism." He said and Scott smiles weakly at him, "Not yet." He said. Stiles, who stares off into the distance for a moment, bitterly interjects, "I have." He said making Lydia shoot him a look before turning to Scott. "We will buy you time, Scott. Who knows? Maybe Jackson has the answer." She said and Malia nodded.

"Maybe Argent will come back with one." Malia said and Scott looked at Avalon, Malia and Derek, "You three, you're with me. And we need Peter- anyone who can help stop this thing, or slow it down." He said. "Where are we headed?" Malia asked, "The high school." Scott said and Derek raised his eyebrows. "That's where we're gonna find this thing?" He asked and Scott looked at him and shook his head.

"No. It'll find us."

⚔

Scott, Avalon, Malia and Derek arrived at the high school and are horrified to find that Peter has been petrified into stone. Malia, overwhelmed, pauses for a moment, "He's not dead. He can't be." She said and the they all focused their hearing for a moment. When they hear a quiet heartbeat from inside of the statue, they seem to be slightly relieved.

"He has a heartbeat, but it's faint." Derek said, but then suddenly was distracted by the sound of footsteps approaching them, "And we're not alone."

cott looks Peter up and down and when Scott's eyes widen in realization, Avalon looks at him with a confused expression. "Scott?" She asked and Scott continues to think for a moment before he finally speaks. "I think I know how to catch it." He said making them glance at each other.

Two Hunters armed with assault rifles are running down the hallway while Scott, Avalon, Malia and Derek hide in the nearby stairwell. Once the Hunters are out of earshot, they begin to quietly plan their next move. "We can't just hide. Peter's not going to last like that." Malia said and Derek nodded slightly, "Well, neither will we if that thing finds us, too."

"We've got to wait for Stiles." Scott said making Malia sigh impatiently, "I'm not waiting here." She said before running down the stairs making them run after her. "Malia, hold on." Avalon said as she grabbed her girlfriend's arm.

Hearing something behind them the four of them turn around to find Monroe holding a handgun aimed at Scott's chest before shooting. The bullet hit him in the chest making him fall to the ground and the others quickly ran over to them. "Scott-" Avalon started to say but he cut her off, "No, I'm okay! Don't let her go." He said.

Avalon and Malia stood up as Monroe smirked before walking through the double door. "Let's go." Avalon said before her and Malia quickly ran after Monroe.

A little while later Lydia snuck into Coach's office with her eyes closed before turning around and opening her eyes. Her eyes widened and she gasped slightly when she saw the statues of both Avalon and Malia standing in front of her.

⚔

The pack gathered around Scott, who is laying weakly on the main staircase, his eyes darkened and bloody. "Scott, you have to heal. If your eyes stay like this much longer, the damage is gonna be permanent." Derek said, "Come on, Scott, concentrate." Stiles said worriedly.

"I'm trying... It's not working. I can't focus. I can't-I can't-I can't do it." He stuttered and Avalon thought for a moment, "Can I try something?" She asked as she crouched down in front of him and he nodded. "This will hurt." She said before pressing her thumbs down over his eyes and he groaned in pain as she burned him.

"Why did you do that?" Stiles asked as she pulled her hands away, "I'm trying to counteract him clawing his eyes out with me burning them so I can heal him." She said and held her hands out in front of his face before her eyes golden yellow/fiery reddish-orange. Red veins started trailing up her arms for a moment before they slowly disappeared and she lowered her hands. "Open your eyes." She said and he shook his head, "I can't." He said.

"Try." She said and after a couple seconds Scott slowly opened his fully healed eyes make everyone sigh in relief. "What did you do?" Derek asked making Avalon look at her, "Pyro magic makes me be able to heal burns but it doesn't necessarily stop at burns. If you have a scratch beneath the burn, and I heal the burn it'll heal the scratch too." She said before patting Scott's shoulder and standing up.

⚔

"They ran that night. Gerard put guns in people's hands, but a lot less than they thought were actually willing to use them. More people know our secret now, but more of them are on our side. They weren't afraid of us anymore. Now we have allies who used to be enemies. We have protectors. We have friends willing to fight for us." Scott explains to Alec who looks despondent and confused. "'Kay, Alec... The people who are hunting you? They've got a leader. Her name is Monroe, and she's got a lot of followers."

"Like, what? Hundreds?" Alec asked and Scott looks at Alec with a serious expression, "Thousands- all over the world."

"So what are we doing here?"

"We're meeting up with some people who can help us. Some of them are always with us, others come when we need them. But, tonight... We need everyone we can get." Scott says and Alec is suddenly distracted by the arrival of the Jeep pulling up to them and watches as Stiles and Lydia get out of it to join them.

Next is Derek, driving his new Camaro, and Malia, in her Toyota with Avalon and Liam. They all get out to greet them as well, "Are they all... different?" Alec asked.

"Some of them are. Some can do things you'd never believe. And others might only be human-" Scott gestures at Stiles, who smiles. "But they make up for it by being really smart." Scott gestures to Lydia, who nods back at him. "Or really good in a fight." Scott said looking over at Malia and Avalon who smiled.

"Who are they?" Alec asked and Scott smiled at the thought of the answer before turning to giving Derek a look who smiled at him. "My friends. My pack. And you can be with us, if you want. But you're going to have to fight."

"Against Monroe?"

"And everyone that follows her." He nodded and Alec looks at Scott with fear in his eyes. "She said she'd find me. That she'd hunt me down and kill me. She didn't care how old I was. She said I was a monster." Scott looks at Alec affectionately, remembering a similar conversation he had with Liam before he speaks.

"You're not a monster. You're a Werewolf." He says, his eyes glowing bright red, "Like me." Scott looks over at Liam, who smiles proudly in response, before beckoning Alec to follow him.

Scott walks over to the others to make his introduction, and Derek smiles with pride as well as he follows after him. Scott puts his arms around Stiles' shoulders while Derek tossed his arm over his best friend's shoulders. Alec, now excited to meet everyone, quickly rushes over.

They smiled at each other as the others joins them at Scott's side. Lydia joins Stiles's side and Malia and Avalon wrapped their arms around each other before joining Scott and Derek. Liam was the first to approach Alec to talk to him as all eight of them walk into the proverbial sunset.