Through Hell
PenPatronus
Chapter Fifteen
Showdown

Allison Argent couldn't hide a self-satisfied smirk. Cora Hale had supernatural strength, but Allison scaled the outside of the distillery wall twice as fast. The hunter and the werewolf tiptoed across a stone ledge and squeezed through a rectangular window on the east side of the facility. Ethan and Chris Argent took the same path on the west side. Deaton, Lydia and Danny went through a back door and stood waiting outside the main room of the distillery, waiting for the signal.

Allison crawled to the edge of an iron walkway twenty feet above the room. Even though she expected to see the scene below her, she still gasped.

Stiles hung from his wrists in front of the vengeful sign Ennis had clawed into the wall. He must have been unconscious because his ankles were rolled and his whole body was limp. Gerard stood in front of the wounded Optimalpha and watched Stiles blood drain from his wrists into a bucket at his feet. A burst of adrenaline shocked Allison's system at the sight – Stiles was going to bleed out sooner than they anticipated.

Behind Gerard, Deucalion, Kali and Aiden stood over Scott, Derek and Isaac. The three werewolves were bound, on their knees, and subdued by cattle prods in their backs. Whenever any one of them made a move to help Stiles, one of the Alphas jabbed electricity into their spines.

Allison and Cora traded glances. "Ready?" the hunter whispered.

Cora's eyes were narrows and fierce. She leaned over the edge like an Olympian about to dive. "Ready," she said through sharp fangs. "Do it."

Allison unsheathed an arrow and released it. On the opposite side of the room, her father unleashed a barrage of bullets. Ethan and Cora dove off the walkways and landed, claws and teeth bared, between Gerard and his Alphas. Deucalion jabbed Derek in the neck with the cattle prod before launching it like a spear at Ethan. He rolled left, Cora right. Kali shoved Isaac aside and intercepted her. Allison took careful aim at Scott, said a brief prayer, and shot an arrow that sliced apart the ropes around his wrists. Startled, stunned, it took Scott an extra minute to realize that he was free. By then Deaton, Lydia and Danny ran into the room. Danny worked on getting Isaac and Derek free while Deaton and Lydia pulled Scott towards the sidelines.

"What's going on?" Scott asked. His words were slurred from the combination of electrocution and the poisonous smoke still in his lungs. Before he got an answer, Kali launched Cora and knocked all three of them to the ground. Derek roared. He tackled Kali so hard that they both burst through the wall behind Stiles.

"Lydia – Lydia, go!" Deaton shouted. Lydia squealed with fear but ducked her head and sprinted towards the corner. She found where the rope that held Stiles aloft was tied and got busy unknotting it. Deaton pulled Scott to his feet. The veterinarian took a syringe out of his pocket. It was as round as his fist, as long as his forearm, and full of violet liquid. "Do you trust me?" he asked Scott.

Scott swayed. He blinked and stood too close to Deaton. "Is that – is that wolf's bane?"

"The rope is too thick! I can't get it—" Lydia began. An arrow interrupted her sentence. Allison cleaved the rope just above Stiles' wrists and the teen crumpled to the floor.

"Wolf's bane and mistletoe," Deaton explained. "Scott, I'm sorry, but I have to kill you."

"Wh-what?"

Danny reappeared. He pulled Scott's arm over his shoulder and helped Deaton lead him over to Stiles. There was a gash across his forehead, courtesy of Deucalion, who was currently getting his ass whooped by his twin Alphas.

"Trust me," Deaton repeated to Scott. "Just trust me." Either Scott did trust him or he just didn't react in time, because Deaton stabbed the needle into the teen's neck and emptied the entire contents into Scott's bloodstream.

Lydia scratched her knees raw when she slid across the floor to Stiles. He was still bleeding. His pulse was slow, his face white, his lips tinted blue. Lydia shouted his name and slapped his face until a slice of brown was visible between his eyelids. "Oh, Stiles," she gasped, and kissed him briefly on the forehead.

"Lyd…" he whispered, his voice hoarse. "Can't see you…"

"Listen to me," she said, speaking three times faster than usual. "Listen to me, Stiles. You have to bite Scott. You have to bite him, do you understand? Bite him – bite him!"

Stiles' tongue snaked out and he licked his dry lips. "What – why?"

Kali's body suddenly slid into the room on her back. Derek followed, his eye color so neon bright that they could've been mistaken for flashlights.

"Stiles, it's part of a ritual to make you a pure Optimalpha, do you understand? Scott made you – he bit you, he's your sire and you have to bite him back so that you can fully transform." Deaton and Danny dragged Scott over, then. He'd passed out. His heartbeat was deadly slow. And then, as planned, it disappeared entirely. Deaton took a step back, his hands on his head.

Desperate, Lydia took Stiles' hand and pressed his fingers against Scott's neck. "He's dead. Stiles, Scott is dead, ok? If you understand nothing else, understand this: Scott is dead and you have to bite him to save him. Ok? Bite him and you'll be able to heal him. Save us, Stiles, save—"

Lydia was thrown backwards off her feet. Deaton and Danny went flying as well and all three of them collapsed, unconscious, against the wall. Chris Argent ran into the room then. He got off two shots at Deucalion before the Demon Wolf sent him flying as well. Isaac and Cora, briefly distracted by the ruckus, were tripped by Kali. She nearly snapped their necks but Ethan and Aiden pulled them away. Allison dropped to the floor, bow at the ready. She aimed it at violet-eyed creature standing over Scott and Stiles. Gerard. She had the shot but Gerard picked up Derek by the neck and held him aloft like a shield.

Gerard's shadow wasn't humanoid. With his arms spread he looked like a tree, at first. Like the oak his Darach magic came from. Like he'd done in the cave, he merely looked at someone and they started to choke on their own blood. Werewolves and humans alike dropped to their knees all around the room. Gerard got a sick pleasure from watching the blood leak from between Derek's lips and slide down his cheek, down his chin and down his neck to where Gerard's hand gripped him. Making sure that Derek was watching, Gerard made a show of looking down at the pool of Stiles' blood and the two bodies lying still in it.

"Shame," the Darach said just loud enough to Derek to hear. "Scott didn't have to die, too." Derek's eyes bulged. He aimed his hearing down at Scott and Stiles but couldn't hear heartbeats coming from either of them. A sound that was a half-sob, half-gasp erupted from his throat. "Join them, won't you?" Gerard hissed at Derek.

"No!" Isaac shouted.

With a simple flex of his fingers, Gerard crushed Derek's windpipe and threw the body to the floor without a second thought.

Through the slimmest space between his eyelids, a semiconscious Stiles watched helplessly as Gerard murdered Derek and chucked him beside Scott's dead body.

Dead.

The word repulsed Stiles. He feared it. Death had taken his precious mother, his friends, and now Scott and Derek. Bite Scott, said Lydia's voice in his head. He remembered her wild eyes - demented, terrified. Crazy? Senseless? No… Determined. Righteous. True. Stiles remembered Marin saying that only an Optimalpha could kill a Demon Wolf like Deucalion, only an Optimalpha could destroy a Darach as strong as Gerard. Stiles had to become one. A True Optimalpha. If not for anyone else, then for his two best friends lying dead beside him.

While Gerard, Kali and Deucalion's attention turned to the traitorous Aiden, Stiles pulled himself forward using only his fingertips. Vaguely he wondered how there could be a single drop of blood left in him when it seemed like he was swimming through it. But swim he did – crawl he did – until he was beside Scott's forearm, staring at the skin. His sire's skin.

Stiles summoned the last of his strength, and bit.

The best way he could describe it was a sugar rush. If the sugar was fiery strength that not so much rushed but exploded. Stiles was on his feet before he knew it.

Every eye turned to him. Gerard's widened the most. "No," the old man croaked. He turned to run but Stiles grabbed him by the neck, just like Gerard had held Derek. Power filled him. Indefinable power. Feral but focused, fueled by Nature but somehow beyond it. He knew – deep in his gut and deep in his soul – that if he really wanted to, he could fly.

He dragged the dark magic out of Gerard like a werewolf would suck out pain. Tendrils of darkness galloped up Stiles' arms. He inhaled everything from Gerard until the only thing that remained was a heartbeat. Slowly, he gave a measured amount back – just enough to leave him alive and functioning but lacking every lick of magic and every memory of who he was. Stiles let Gerard live but the old man was a blank slate. The unconscious elder Argent slid to the floor.

Deucalion and Kali stood their ground. But not out of bravery, out of fear. Stiles took them by the throats, too. He robbed them of their Alpha-ness, of their strength and power, of their memories and selves but not their lives. When they woke up – days later – they would merely be a pair of childlike humans. No threat to anyone ever again. Stiles released them and they landed on the floor beside Gerard.

He made eye contact with everyone else in the room: Deaton, Danny and Lydia; Ethan and Aiden; Chris, Allison, Isaac and Cora. And then Stiles knelt beside Derek and Scott, took their still warm hands and pushed every bit of power he'd stolen from Gerard, Deucalion and Kali into them.

20 Hours Later

Stiles poured on the full werewolf speed and sprinted from his house to Scott's in three minutes flat. Lydia and Isaac stood just outside the front door. "We were just about to call you," she gasped.

"I know," Stiles answered as he ran past them. "I sensed it." He was up the stairs in two steps, past the faceless bodies of his other friends in the hall, and through Scott's bedroom door. Two men sat on the edges of a pair of parallel beds in the center of the room. They were awake but groggy, rubbing their hands through their hair and asking the other what happened. The question was answered when Stiles burst in.

Being a super werewolf didn't mean that Stiles had any special power over his emotions. At the sight of Derek and Scott healthy, healed and alive, his eyes went red. Not supernaturally, but because of the joyful tears. He hugged them both, and they hugged him – cheeks against cheeks, fists around clothing, shoulders trembling from barely contained sobs.

Everything was ok. More than ok, because Scott, Derek and Stiles were alive. Alive, and together.

The End