I've never written that fast... also this chapter is slightly shorter, but I had fun writing it!

Wakagimi: YOU CHANGED YOUR USERNAME! Wow, I almost didn't recognize you! :D The graveyard scene was made for that purpose. I wrote it right after I finished the twelvth chapter actually, and it stayed in my files during two other months before I eventually wrote the rest, so I had time to improve it ^^ And you can't know how much I've wanted to write Coach versus Thomas, it's gold. Plus, Coach is a lot of fun to play with, he's really dumb (no offense for the Coach stans). I KNOW RIGHT I AM GOING TO HELL WITH THESE CLIFFHANGERS I LOVE MYSELF SOMETIMES

Lovely: I love chesus too ;) And don't worry, we're on the same boat, I kill myself with these cliffhangers too. Love your anon name by the way, is this supposed to tell me something? ^^

fadingshadowss: Heyy you're still there and writing me reviews! Thank you!

DG3n3sys1702: Wow! Thank you so much for those compliments, it literally made me want to write the end of that chapter. I'm so glad you feel that way because it's really the feeling I want people to have when reading this fanfiction. Of course I feel like it's really bad because I struggle with the language, but thank you so much (I can't say that enough) for giving me hope! Please bring me some more, I need it like air.

I need reviews, guys! You're now 110 to follow Him, I'm sure you can stop a second and send a quick review, it doesn't bite at all! Enjoy this chapter now ;)

Fourteenth chapter

Minho kicked an abandoned bottle of alcohol on the side of the road, sending it rolling between some bushes. Newt rolled his eyes at his action.

"How far are we from this bloody tree?" he asked. "My leg hurts."

Stiles shrugged blandly. "It's somewhere around us." he replied with a vague gesture. "To the right - no, left. I think..." He squinted his eyes as he rummaged through his memories. "Left. Definitely the left. It can't be too far away, the woods aren't as big as your maze."

"See, that's the reason I quit the job." groaned Newt, tempted to imitate Minho's action toward an innocent bottle but there weren't any in their path anymore.

"You were a runner?" Stiles asked, impressed. "Like Thomas?"

"I used to be, yeah." the British said. Stiles waited for him to continue his explanation but Newt didn't seem keen on talking about his past.

But the thing is, Stiles loved to intrude people's lives and it wasn't Newt's muteness that was going to stop him. He sniffed loudly from the nose as if he had a cold, and turned his prying gaze to Minho.

"Why did he quit?" he asked the big guy in a whisper once he got closer to him to the point where Minho's personal space was almost violated.

He could almost feel electricity in the air as soon as the words came out of his mouth. Minho lowered his eyes at him, and Stiles suddenly felt a whole lot smaller even though he was almost the guy's height.

The teen nodded quickly. "Okay. Okay. I get it. Personal matter. None of my business. I need to be at least level eight friends with you to unlock your extremely dark past, and I'm only at like, level four since we came to know each other in particularly weird and sinister circumstances."

Minho looked over at Newt, who seemed as weirded out as him. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You're not familiar with humor, then?" Stiles babbled.

"That wasn't humor, shuck face, that was pure incoherence. Talk English next time."

"Will do." he said, unable to keep a straight face. "We're gonna have to turn left."

"We're getting off the road?" Newt worried.

"You wanted to find the Nemeton? Well we're gonna have to get at least a little lost." Stiles explained, crossing the barrier of trees that marked out the road. "It's a supernatural tree that's ten hundred thousand years older than Beacon Hills, and you have no idea how powerful it is. So one thing is sure: it's the tree that's gonna find us, not the other way around."

"You've done your research pretty good." Minho noted, slapping a tiny branch that was coming for his face instead of just ducking.

"I had to. I'm known to be the research-man." he joked, tangling his feet in ferns. He pushed them back, trying not to fall pathetically in front of two guys who survived a zombie apocalypse. Yes, Stiles felt quite lame in front of Minho and Newt, but who could blame him? He had a hard time swinging a bat while these two chopped off heads. Maybe not daily, but still.

After what seemed to be an eternity of wandering and hoping they'll eventually fall on it, he stopped in his tracks and sat against a birch struck by lightning. He opened the coke with one hand, winced when the foam spurt on his face and almost choked when he took a mouthful.

"Already tired?" Minho sassed, staring down at him.

Newt snorted. "We've been walking non-stop for a long time, mate. And he was in a coma a week ago. Let him live." He reached for his backpack and pulled out of it three protein bars. He threw the first two to Minho and Stiles, and kept the last one to himself. "C'mon, a break won't end us. We are in the normal world now – if you can say so."

Minho took a deep breath in and decided that a pause wouldn't be lethal. He sat down reluctantly under Newt's amused watch.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence punctuated by birds chirping and the boys' chewing, Stiles decided to abruptly cut the ice.

"So have you ever had a girlfriend?"

Newt and Minho both stopped chewing at the same time and stared at Stiles like he had suddenly grown a second head.

"Seriously?" the Asian said, now completely fed up with this spaz.

"I was just wondering!" he replied for his defense. "Can't I be at least slightly curious? Everything I say always backfires at me, for the love of god..."

"One day a big bad villain is gonna kill him because he'd think that bringing up the time where he was tit-sucking his mummy would be relevant." Newt said, absently chewing his protein bar.

Offended, Stiles opened his mouth to once again let out an other spit of sarcasm. "Well maybe that villain needed a reminder that he used to be an innocent kid!"

"Oh come on, no one's innocent!" Newt yelled, now pointing angrily his food at Stiles. "No one on this bloody planet is some nice, selfless soul!"

"You think I don't know that?" he replied, quirking his eyebrows.

"Look." started Minho, raising both hands in a sign of peace. "I'm usually the first down for a fight, but right now it's not what we need."

Newt sighed. "Thank you for your input, peace-maker."

Stiles takes one last bite from his protein bar. "So about the dating thing?"

Minho almost threw his flask at his head. "I'm gonna shucking crush your shucking-"

"That was a rhetorical question!" Stiles justified himself, raising his arms to protect his face. He slowly lowered his hands once he saw that Minho was progressively calming down thanks to Newt's glare on him. It was then obvious that he couldn''t help but speak up again. "But did you?"

"Shuck your bloody mouth, you buggin' idiot." Newt exploded as Minho gave the boy a perfect middle finger.

"That's a no, then." Stiles smiled, well decided to make their life a living hell. He had fun picking on Isaac, but now that the blond was gone and Scott was used to his attitude, he really enjoyed bantering with his new-found victims. Victims that were more scary than Isaac, but he had threatened a powerful, though old, hunter one day and came out alive but with stitches. Pain didn't scare him anymore, not when it was done to him.

"Well did you?" Newt asked, turning the situation around.

Stiles frowned. "Did I what?"

"Did you date?"

Stiles's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. An incomprehensible stutter came out of his throat and the two Gladers snorted in front of his fluster. "Huh, no." he managed to say.

"Doesn't surprise me, you're an ugly shank." Minho replied, happy to take his revenge on him.

"A few girls tried!" Stiles quickly said. He had self-esteem, after all.

"Oh, they were probably blind then."

Stiles faked a laugh. "Yeah, thank you for boosting my self-confidence."

"Any time."

Newt stretched his bad leg with a wince of pain. He took his flask, poured some water on the hollow of his palm, and smudged his face with it. The fresh liquid woke him a little. He was about to drink what was left in his flask when Stiles looked up suddenly. After a week and a half spent with Stiles and Thomas both having odd visions about each other, he had learned that this kind of reaction was not to be treated lightly.

"What is it?" he asked as Stiles messily got on his feet. "Thomas?" he inquired.

"No, it's not him."

"What is it then?"

Minho packed up silently their expedient picnic and slid his bag back up on his shoulders. He rose quickly. "What do you hear?"

"It's not me." Stiles slowly said, face painted by realization.

"Yeah, we got that, but-" Minho froze and wondered for an instant if his hearing was not deficient.

Newt stood up as well and turned around, searching for where the sound was coming from. "I hear it too." he murmured.

"I suggest running." Stiles proposed nervously. "The sooner would be better."

A buzzing, like flaps of distant bee wings. Coming closer every second. Newt pulled a sharp knife out of his backpack without wasting any more time and flashed it.

"Wow, where is that coming from?" Stiles yelled.

"Melissa's kitchen." the blond replied, twirling the knife between his fingers. "Old habits."

"What, stealing from the kitchen?"

"Yep."

A sudden wind took them by surprise and tore their clothes and air, bringing to them the foreign smell of wind and dust that had nothing to do in the middle of Beacon Hills' woods. A sharp hiss came with the gust, cutting through the air from all directions, piercing their eardrums. Stiles clamped his hands to the sides of his head as a pack of birds previously hidden at the crown of the trees suddenly flied away as fast as they could.

We're gonna die, he thought very optimistically.

"What the hell is this thing!" Minho shouted over the noise.

Newt and Stiles turned to see at what he was staring at with such wide eyes.

It was a monster. Couldn't be anything else, or maybe some sort of hybrid. It was a few feet in front of them, floating in mid-air between the trees with four powerful wings made of brown skin, allowing him to maneuver easily between the trees. Its body resembled a bat's, only its tail was one of a giant demon's, like a whip ready to flagellate. It instantly reminded Stiles of a kanima, but the resemblance ended there.

"I think we should run?" he said, but his voice was nothing but a tiny murmur in the horrifying screech the creature was making.

The monster was simply looking at them, hovering between earth and sky, like waiting. It gave Stiles more time to examine it, notice the red eyes staring at the three small humans, the claws jingling at the end of long and slim arms, probably made to catch and rip.

The boys could just stare in horror as the creature ended its long scream. Finally, like emerging from an intense drowsiness, they shook themselves and tore their eyes off the thing, and-

"RUN!" Minho screamed, and the others obeyed instantly.

They stormed off without even attempting to fight it, leaving behind a few crisps of their protein bars.

~Ξ~

Lydia was carefully applying the brush against the canvas when she felt it. A familiar tugging at the back of her head.

"Kira." she said slowly.

The brush escaped from her fingers and fell on the carpet of the art class with a thud. The dark-haired girl looked at her in worry.

"You okay?"

Lydia nodded softly, feeling an other pull at the back of her head, this one more powerful.

"Can you tell the teacher I'm not feeling well and accompany me to the nurse office?" she said.

Kira's mouth opened in a perfect O. She nodded quickly and stood up with a wince, raising a hand. "Sir, I think Lydia's going to be sick."

The strawberry blonde was already up and was heading to the door. The teacher had little choice but to accept, so Kira ran off to catch up to her friend.

"Is this a banshee feeling?" she asked worryingly, twisting her hands.

Lydia's blank stare was enough to answer her question.

Because Beacon Hills was a small town and fate was a thing, they ran into Scott and Thomas in front of the school. Scott had his hands on Thomas's shoulders, apparently trying to make him look at him in the eye to calm him down, but the boy's eyes were shut tight and his lips were twitching.

Kira raced to Scott. "What's happening?!"

"It must be about Stiles!" Scott replied helplessly.

Thomas' next words confirmed his theory. "It touched him..." he said, teeth clenched as if he was in pain.

"What touched him?" Scott inquired, shaking him. "Thomas! What touched Stiles?!"

But Thomas simply clamped his hands against his side and doubled over, no sound but a groan coming out of his mouth.

"Scott." Kira called out, reaching out for him as she looked at Lydia.

"Thomas!" Scott shouted, kneeling to be at his height. "Hey, are you okay? What's going on? Is he injured?"

"Scott!" she cried out. "Lydia's leaving!"

Scott looked up and finally had a glimpse of Lydia going off on her own. He then looked at Thomas who was trying to control his breathing, and made up his mind.

"Kira, take Lydia to your car and let her be shotgun. Take the wheel, and Thomas and I will be on the back seat."

Without wasting any more time, she nodded and went off right as Teresa stepped out of the school. She saw Thomas, obviously in pain on the asphalt, and Scott comforting him.

"Tom!" she cried out as she ran to them, blessing the Doc Martens at her feet. "What happened?"

"It's Stiles." Scott explained quickly as the boy was trying to straighten. Kira, on the control of her car, pulled over next to them and the Alpha helped Thomas to go on the backseat. When Teresa tried to join them, he stopped her. "No, it's too dangerous."

"There's enough room for me!" she yelled.

"I need you to warn my mom and your friends that something's happening so they can be ready, just in case." he elucidated, and she still flew furiously by the nose, clearly not enjoying being left behind. "Please." he begged. "It's not that we don't need you, it's just that the others need you more. You're the messenger. Please."

Teresa looked at Thomas. He looked back at her. Tried to smile. She nodded reluctantly.

"Okay. But don't any of you dare die."

"Scott!" Kira cried out. "Lydia's losing patience!"

"We won't." Scott promised. He took Teresa's hand and squeezed it, like a promise. "No one will die, not on my watch."

With this, he shut the door. Teresa shifted as the engine roared and left her on her own on the sidewalk.

~Ξ~

Stiles collapsed once more but Minho wouldn't just leave him behind. He took the teen by the arm and forced him up, yelled at him to run until he couldn't anymore, but Stiles already couldn't.

He clamped a hand to his side, wincing in pain. He could feel the slice on his skin under his torn shirt, and the little hole in which had lodged the needle. When the creature had charged at them and thrown its devil tail at Stiles, they were far away from thinking that this tail was thorny, and that these thorns hurt like a bitch and numbed whoever they stroke.

"Why is it always me?" he complained. He felt like his mouth was filled with gum.

"Slim it and run!"

His legs were shaking and could barely support his weight. He really only worked on adrenalin, and he wondered for an instant if it wasn't also his and Thomas' connection that helped him.

Minho ran alongside him during a few more minutes, zigzagging between the trees, trying to outrun the creature, until he pushed Stiles on the side, grabbed him by the collar and dragged him between the enormous roots of a large stump. Stiles didn't dare complain about the manhandling, he just kept his mouth shut and tried to make his legs to stop shaking as Minho hid himself next to him.

"You seen Newt?" the runner asked in a murmur.

Stiles shook his head carefully. Minho looked around them in an attempt to find either the monster hunting them or the blond running away from the monster hunting them.

"He must have tried to lure it away from us." he groaned. "This shuck-head's gonna get himself killed." He then turned toward Stiles, stuck between two roots. "You can walk?"

"No idea." the boy winced as he moved a foot painfully. "I can move."

"Awesome."

He grabbed Stiles' arm and got him up on his feet, then shoved him forwards. Stiles only had the time to look back before they were once again thrown into the wild.

"Hey, we were on the Nemeton-"

"Too late for that." Minho panted. "DUCK!"

Stiles dived and Minho spun away, rolling as the creature with its claws ready to grasp missed them by an inch. One of Melissa's knives in hand, he went to stab it, missing each time.

"Don't stop!" he yelled at Stiles whose mouth was invaded by dirt.

Stiles pushed on his arms, however he found out soon enough that he was too weak to even stand up. He tried once more to get up out of rage, but his body wouldn't respond.

"I hate poison." he groaned before his head dropped.

Minho let out a cry of battle and spun, crouched close to the ground, stabbed, jabbed, thrust his knife but the creature was just too fast. And just as it was about to catch Minho with one if its elongated arms, a blurry form charged at it and literally impaled it.

Newt twisted the kitchen knife into the open wound and the monster screeched, even loudlier than before, flapped its wings angrily like trying to slap its killer with them, before it touched the ground and fell. Newt let go of the knife and it stayed into the twitching creature whose scream was slowly dying. One last twitch and it stopped moving, one last twitch and the body disintegrated before them, leaving behind a clean blade.

Newt stood there, breathing in and out rapidly, and Minho slowly got back to his feet, patted his friend's shoulder in a thank you.

"Can someone get me off the ground?" Stiles called out with a wince.

Minho gestured for Newt to go. "I can't deal with him any longer. I only saved his ass because Thomas would have died if I hadn't."

"Why, thank you." Stiles sarcasmed as Newt took him by the armpits and helped him up, then held him against a tree until he could feel his legs again. "Anyone wonder why it didn't try to sting Minho? Because it had plenty of time to do so, but it kept attacking him, not just stabbing and flying away like it did with me."

"I also wonder what the hell that was. Ever heard of it?" the blond asked, rubbing his knee in pain.

"First time I see one."

Newt got the knife back and held it in his clenched fist just in case. "For now, let's head back."

"That's an excellent decision, captain."

"And slim it before Minho kills you."

"I can do that too."

~Ξ~

"Are we getting closer, Lydia?" Scott asked.

Lydia's gaze was still locked on something far away they couldn't see. She didn't answer. Kira glanced at her worryingly.

"I've only seen her in that state once." she commented, trying to loosen the tension. "It's kinda terrifying."

"She doesn't like it either." Scott said with a tight smile.

"We're in the forest." Thomas noted. "Minho wanted to map it." The pain at his side had slowly disappeared and turned into numbness – he didn't know if it meant good news or not. For now, he didn't try to think about what might have happened even though his mind raced on its own. "Maybe Stiles is with him, you told me what happened with the tree."

"Yeah, it wasn't pretty." Scott winced, observing the infinite road rolling out before them. "Let's just hope that the Nemeton is the origin of the problem this time."

Before they had time to react, a dishevelled figure appeared out of nowhere in front of the car. Kira yelped and turned the wheel violently. The car jerked to the side and almost crashed into a maple before she pressed the brake with all the strength of her heel.

Thomas opened the door of the car as soon as it was stopped and fuming, and got out of the vehicle. Minho was on him instantly.

"We nearly ran over you!" Thomas cried out.

Minho seemed more preoccupied by other things than his almost-death. "Care to give us a lift?" he panted, doubling over to get his breath back.

"Yeah, but where are-"

"Here." he heard behind him.

Newt and Stiles appeared between the trees, the blond supporting the brunet. Both were limping now. Thomas understood now why his side had hurt.

Scott and Kira slammed their car door shut, but Lydia stayed inside.

And started screaming.

A loud screech covered her scream and split the air so loudly that Thomas looked up so fast he thought he had snapped his neck. His eyes drifted upwards where a crack in thin air was opening, frozen lightning, a crack opening to an other dimension. But it wasn't what caught his eye first.

He watched, hypnotized, as a creature like dragon fell toward him, its expandable arms and sharp claws coming straight for him. Newt appeared in the corner of his vision and he barely noticed him until his body collided with his and shoved him back into the car. He stumbled backwards and fell, head hitting painfully the side of the car door, just as the creature landed on top of Newt, pinning his body; and finally taking it between its large hands, not even stabbing him in the slightest, simply take him and flying away, right into the crack between the two dimensions. He heard Newt's last scream before it closed, somehow covering the thing's victory screech and Lydia's cry.

"No!" he shouted, but he knew it was already over and there was no going back.

His heart banged against his rib cage, and deep down he knew it was because he was standing way too close from Stiles, but right now it didn't matter. He had just lost his best friend. Again.

As Lydia's scream ended, his just began.