It was the same dream again. Stiles had hoped that the weird dreams would stop after the nogitsune left his body, although they weren't like the nightmares he'd had when he was possessed.

It started the same way as it always did, with him wandering through the forest at night, wearing nothing but his pyjamas. Barefoot he walked across the rough terrain of the forest floor without making a sound, heading towards something without even knowing the way. Taking another few steps he walked out into the clearing where the nemeton sat, brooding.

He stopped, unsure what to do next, the dream had always ended when he reached the nemeton before. Turning around slowly Stiles began to panic, afraid he was going to see the bandaged head of the nogitsune again as he had before in dreams like this. Instead nothing happened, the trees rustled in the breeze and the nemeton stump stood motionlessly behind him, as immovable as a mountain.

Come.

Stile whipped around, searching for the voice that had spoken but there was nothing but trees. 'I need to wake up,' he told himself, his voice shaking slightly, 'this is just a dream and I need to wake up.'

Come.

Having heard it a second time Stiles realised that it wasn't a voice that had spoken. It was as if the rustling of leaves, chirruping of insects and all the other background noises of the forest suddenly synchronized perfectly to sound that word in an insistent whisper.

Come.

Stile turned slowly to look down at what remained of the nemeton, breathing heavily. 'Who are you?' He asked in fear, not breaking his eyes away from the wooden stump.

COME!

With the word still echoing in his head Stile woke with a gasp, as if emerging from underwater after holding his breath. He sat up in his bead, beads of sweat shining on his temple.

'What the hell,' he whispered to himself.

'You don't look too good,' Scott told Stiles as he closed his locker door with a bang, a look of concern on his face.

'Yeah, well I guess it takes some time to readjust after being possessed by an evil fox spirit,' Stiles joked back, rubbing his eyes.

'It's been a month Stiles. Maybe you should talk to Deaton about it. You might be having…I don't know, post-possession stress or something.'

'It's fine Scott, really,' Stiles reassured the alpha, 'I mean, you've had dreams about the nemeton too.'

'Yeah but not as much as you and its never spoken to me,' Scott reminded him as they headed down the corridor to their first lesson, nearly walking into Isaac who was heading the other way. Instead of stopping to say hello Isaac just gave a nod and walked away, keeping his eyes on the ground in front of him.

'How is he?' Stiles asked as he watched the boy turn a corner and vanish, feeling guilty for bringing him up just to avoid a conversation.

'Still searching for Derek after school,' Scott said, unhappily looking after the retreating beta. 'He's getting pretty obsessed about it too. I think he's just avoiding having to think about…Allison.'

'I'm sorry man, I shouldn't have brought it up,' Stiles apologised.

'No, it's cool. Kira helped me through it a lot, but Isaac, he doesn't have anyone but us and Derek,' Scott returned mournfully.

'Where is Kira, I haven't seen her around this morning?' Stiles asked curiously.

'She's got physics with Lydia and Malia.'

'Oh,' Stiles replied, 'that must be…interesting.'

'Well done you three,' the teacher stated as he walked past the trio's table, 'I must say I I'm impressed at how quickly you've adapted to the workload in this class miss Tate and I'm sure I have you two to thank for it.'

'Thanks sir,' Lydia said, flashing a beautiful grin as he walked to the next table.

'Why do you two get all the credit for my scores in this class,' Malia said in irritation as she eyed the departing head of the teacher.

'In fairness Lydia and I did most of the work for this project,' Kira pointed out as she turned the handle of the mini generator in front of them. As a group assignment the class had been made to create their own hand powered generators with only the materials provided in class. The generators would be connected to an ammeter in class and whichever produced the highest among of energy would win a prize. Currently the three's was producing twice the energy of any other, mainly due to the fact that Kira was adding her own foxfire through the handle she was moving.

'Yeah, let's face it. You spent way too much time in the woods when you were young and not nearly enough time studying,' Lydia joked calmly, flicking her red hair over her shoulder.

'Ha, ha, very funny,' Malia retorted sarcastically as Lydia leaned forward to watch the small magnets twist around in their copper coils.

Lydia stiffened as she heard the faint sound of the voices coming from the whir of the magnets like they had from the noise of a taught string being plucked. She leaned in closer, her heart pounding, in the vain hope that she could make out what the voices were saying to her. It was like the words were at the very edge of hearing, almost teasing her to try and discern what was being said but no matter how much she strained she just couldn't grasp…

'Lydia?' Malia's voice said, silencing the whispering voices and bringing Lydia back to reality.

'What?' Lydia asked distractedly, still staring at the generator, now silent as Kira had stopped spinning it.

'The bell's rung,' Kira said uncertainly, 'Are you alright? You were kind of staring blankly there.'

'Yeah, it was nothing,' Lydia replied as she picked up her books, not entirely looking the two in the eye as she said it.

When the final bell rang Stiles followed Scott out of the school to the parking spaces where Scott's motorbike and Stile's beat-up jeep sat. As they arrived at Scott's motorbike Kira appeared from around a corner and wrapped her arms around the boy's neck, leaning forward to kiss him while Stiles stood to the side.

'Hey Kira,' Stiles said to her as they parted, waving his hand in a small hello.

'Hey Stiles, how's everything?' Kira asked back with interest, 'Still having weird dreams?'

'Nah, I think it's getting better,' Stiles lied.

'He's lying,' Scott told her, ignoring Stile's look of annoyance. 'If anything, they're getting worse.'

'Well, have you ever thought of going to the Nemeton to see if that might help,' Kira suggested.

'I don't know about that. The last time I started confusing dreams with reality I ended up in Malia's old coyote den,' Stiles half-joked. 'How is Malia by the way, does she ever…mention me?'

'Sometimes,' Kira said uncertainly, 'don't you hang out all the time though?'

'Well, yeah,' Stiles replied uncomfortably, 'but we never really hang out together, at first she only came round to train with Scott and then she only hung out with Lydia and me when we were tutoring her.'

'Well you could probably go and see her at the race track, she usually spends an hour there before she heads home,' Kira said, pointing off towards the general direction of the sports field.

'Really? Well, I mean, I wasn't really planning on doing anything anyway so I guess I could…see you guys later,' Stiles said awkwardly as he back away before leaving the two alone, trying not to laugh too much.

'So, dinner at my house?' Scott asked Kira as she fished her riding helmet out from her bag.

'Sure, but I've got homework to do so you can't distract me.'

'I make no promises.'

Malia was finishing her fifth lap around the pitch when Stiles jogged around the stadiums. She was barely out of breath as she loped over towards the benches to grab her water bottle, leaving the other runners to run their laps, gasping for breath.

'Hey Malia,' Stiles greeted awkwardly as he walked over to her, 'how's it going?'

'Good Stiles, what are you doing here? I didn't think there was any lacrosse practice tonight,'

'There isn't, I heard you were running here and I thought you might like to hang out,' Stiles continued, regretting the constant awkwardness in his voice.

'Oh yeah sure,' Malia replied. 'Just give me another couple of laps and then we can go for a walk or something.'

'Right, great,' Stiles said, a smile touching his lips as Malia smiled back as she turned back to the running track.

'Cool,' he continued to himself as he sat down on the bench.

As the sun was still shining, keeping the air pleasantly warm, Lydia decided to walk down a forest path to her home instead of taking the bus. She kept her head high as she walked, listening to music from her IPod as she did, and enjoyed the feeling of sunlight on her skin as it broke through the trees.

The whispering echoed through her ears again between the silence of one song ending and another beginning. With annoyance Lydia pulled out her ear buds and tucked them into her pocket, if it was important the voices would work harder for her to actually understand what they were saying.

As she drew her head up from her pocket she saw the indistinct figure of Isaac flitting through the trees. Sighing she jogged over to him before he could disappear into the wilderness.

'Have you ever thought it might just be easier to walk along the paved out track rather than jumping over roots?' She asked him sarcastically as he came within speaking range. Isaac didn't jump as she spoke, probably because he'd either seen or more likely heard her coming towards him.

'I've been checking the forest for signs of Derek's scent,' he responded unenthusiastically.

'I'm guessing you haven't found anything,' Lydia replied as she followed him nonchalantly over the woody terrain. 'Maybe he just left, the apartment was empty after all and he's done it before.'

'He told Scott when he went to South America with Cora, this time he just vanished and Peter's gone too,' Isaac retorted with irritation.

'Well, Derek vanishing is…unfortunate, but for me Peter disappearing is an improvement,' Lydia said honestly. 'Are we ever going to talk about the real reason you're so obsessed over this. It's been a month; Allison would want you to move on.'

'Move on as fast as you did you mean?' Isaac replied snidely.

'That's not fair,' Lydia snapped, anger reddening her cheeks, 'I miss Aiden as much as you miss Allison. The only difference is I'm not letting it take over my life.'

'So what should I do then?' Isaac almost yelled as he turned on her. 'Should I just abandon Derek when he might be in danger?'

'There's no evidence to suggest he is,' Lydia replied exasperatedly. 'Why are you trying to make this so difficult for yourself?'

Whatever Isaac's response was, Lydia never heard it. As she watched his mouth open and close to form words she could feel the sensation of silence flowing around her, drowning out the rustle of leaves and chirping of insects. In the space left over she heard it, at first quiet but growing louder with each passing beat. Singing, in a language Lydia didn't know, was coming from deep within the forest, there were no instruments to play music but none were needed as the combined voices seemed to have harmonics and rhythms that combined together to create a song that surpassed music and went beyond anything a whole symphony could accomplish.

It was the most beautiful sound Lydia had ever heard, and the most terrifying. The singing seemed to enter her ears and flow done her spine as icy cold terror, making her tremble and shiver as the beat of the song went on joyfully. Lydia had never felt like this, even when she had been kidnapped by evil Stiles she hadn't felt such fear, there was something wrong with these songs and something inside her knew it and trembled in fear of hearing it.

'Lydia? Lydia what's wrong,' Isaac's voice called out through the noise in her head, not drowning out the song but cutting through it enough for her to hear. It allowed her to focus on him again, she'd been so focused on the singing that she had stopped paying attention to what she was seeing. He was kneeling down to talk to her, apparently she had collapsed onto her knees but she didn't remember when.

'Can't you hear it?' She screamed back, trying to be heard over the music as it filled her ears and quickened in tempo.

'No, what is it?'

'It's coming from the forest, it...,' Lydia started to explain until stopping as a familiar feeling rose in her chest. Without thought or intention she sucked in all the air she could and did the only thing that might block out the singers. She screamed.

'So how've you been?' Stiles asked Malia as they began to walk through the forest.

'You know how I've been Stiles, it's not like we never talk,' Malia laughed. 'I still haven't told dad about any of…the other stuff but I'll get around to it.'

'Well I found it pretty hard to come out to my dad about this as well,' Stiles replied, 'I think I overcomplicated it by using chess pieces.'

'Well at least you didn't have as much baggage when you did it. When I do it there are going to be a whole load of issues to sort through,' Malia returned in a neutral tone as she looked up into the sky.

'Can you change back into a coyote yet?' Stiles asked quickly in the hopes of moving the subject away from less cheerful matters.

'Nope, but I'm still trying. Scott tells me it's a really rare skill,'

'Yeah, the only other person who could change fully was Derek's mum, your aunt I guess,' Stiles said, 'What exactly do you plan on doing when you get the power back?'

'I don't really know, I guess I'll figure that out when I get there,' Malia returned with a small smile. 'You're not worried I'll leave without saying goodbye are you?'

'What? No, I mean, it seemed like you're happy to stay human but I might have been wrong about that so I was asking just in case,' Stiles replied quickly, letting his mouth run off before his brain could think out a better response, but was glad to hear Malia laugh a little at it. A moment later she stopped and looked around in confusion, making Stiles stop to turn back to her to see what was wrong.

'Do you know where we are? It looks like we've walked off the track,' Malia stated as she looked around them for a path that was indeed no longer there.

'Well it can't be too far off, it shouldn't be that difficult to find,' Stiles said but as he looked around uncertainty crept into him. The trees and landscape around them seemed all wrong for the forest outside of the school grounds and the last few months of running around after werewolves and kanimas and everything else had given him a pretty good understanding of Beacon Hills' geography so he was sure this wasn't right. In fact, if anything, it looked more like the trees that surrounded the…oh.

Turning back around, Stiles looked ahead to the place they'd been heading to and could see what might be a clearing further forward. Slowly he began to walk towards it, willing himself to be wrong.

'Stiles? Where are you going?' Malia asked as she walked up behind him.

'I think I know where we are but it can't be right,' Stiles said half to himself. 'It's nowhere near the school and we've barely walked anywhere.'

And yet, as he said it, they stepped out into the small clearing where the nemeton sat in the centre. I must be dreaming, Stiles thought to himself, they couldn't possibly have walked all that way to the nemeton in such a short period of time. He instinctively looked down at his hands to count the fingers but nothing was amiss, there were only ten. He looked back up to see Malia watching him uncertainly.

'I'm going to take a wild guess here,' she said, 'and say that something weird is going on.'

'Yeah,' Stiles replied, forcing himself not to look at the stump in front of them, 'that's the nemeton except that we shouldn't have been able to walk anywhere near to it so quickly.'

'Okay, that's good to know,' Malia said as she turned back to look at the remains of the great tree again. 'So what do we do now?'

'How about you put your hands in the air,' a voice behind them suggested. A voice that was frighteningly familiar.

'Kate?' Stiles said in surprise as he turned around to see the smiling woman emerge from the trees behind them, holding a shotgun that was currently pointing to the ground, although her stance suggested it could be raised to horizontal any time she wanted.

'Hi Stiles, long time no see,' Kate said cheerfully as she backed him and Malia out into the clearing. 'How've you been? And while you're at it, could you tell me how you managed to get so close without me knowing it?'

'Who is this?' Malia whispered to Stiles as Kate came out from under the trees.

'Allison's psychotic killer aunt,' Stiles whispered hurriedly back as escape plans raced wildly across his mind.

'That's enough whispering thank you, and I'd prefer merciless killer Stiles,' Kate smiled as she raised her shotgun. 'If you were wondering, now would be a good time to answer my questions.'

Before Stiles could say anything Malia rushed forward, claws unsheathed on both hands, and dived for Kate. Kate seemed unfazed by the movement and just as quickly, no, faster even, she took aim and fired her shotgun, blasting Malia back to Stiles with a whole in her stomach. Black ooze began to seep from it even as Stiles knelt down to check the wound, Malia's breathing was laboured as she looked up at Kate with a snarl lining her lips.

'That was a warning shot, of course it'll also be a killing one soon enough but a warning nonetheless,' Kate said smoothly as she looked down at the two. 'Unfortunately for you Stiles this next shot will be very quickly terminal if you don't tell me how you snuck up here right now.'

'I, I don't know, we were just walking and…' Stiles babbled as he pressed his hands on Malia's wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

'Oh, is that all? Well if that's all you know then you're no use to me anyway,' Kate said before raising the gun again.

Stiles didn't even think before he reacted, his body just took over without consulting his brain and threw him away as the shot rattled past, nearly grazing him even so. He landed at the giant roots of the nemeton and felt his hand hit something hard. Wincing he looked at what it was without thinking and paused for a moment in shock of what he was seeing.

Wedged under and between the roots of the nemeton was a sword, it was the sword's handle that his hand had hit. He could just make out beyond the hilt the shining metal blade stuck deep into the earth and entangled in the tree's roots.

Instinctively he grabbed at the hilt and pulled with all his strength, feeling the blade give way beneath him and come loose. He turned around quickly to see Kate walking slowly towards him, her now empty gun held loosely at her side. He hurriedly stood up, his heart pounding in his chest, and raised the sword between him and Kate, pointing its tip at her. Now that the blade was out of the ground Stiles could get a better look at what it looked like.

The blade itself was covered in mud and grime from its time beneath the nemeton and was separated from the hilt with a large, circular guard that had four prongs jutting down over the hilt, making Stiles slightly worried about puncturing his hand on one of them. That being said, his fears seemed unfounded, his hand seemed to fit perfectly along the hilt, as if the two were made for one another.

Kate's laughter brought Stiles back from admiring the weapon and caused him to grip it tighter as she approached.

'Honestly Stiles, I don't even want to ask where you were hiding that,' she joked as she threw the shotgun aside. 'But I've had my fun with you now,' she sighed, although the smile never left her lips, 'it's time to end this.'

With that she opened her mouth in a snarl that became a roar as her face darkened, her eyes glowed green and fangs descended from her teeth. Soon a monster stood in front of Stiles, a dark blue, cat-like face stared back at him through slit eyes and sharp teeth twisted into Kate's old smile.

'How do you like the new look?' Kate growled mockingly before pouncing at Stiles who cried out in fear and alarm, raising the sword instinctively so that Kate's clawed hand met the flat of the blade as it came down.

There was a flash of light and the next thing Stiles knew Kate had been blown back by an unseen force, leaving her sprawling in the earth as she struggled to regain her balance. Stiles stood where he had before, the sword feeling oddly warm in his hand as he looked down at it in surprise. Kate gave him a single surprised look as she staggered to her feet before retreating into the safety of the trees where Stiles couldn't see her.

Keeping one eye on the treeline Stiles hurried back towards Malia and, sheathing the sword into a belt buckle, he picked a now unconscious Malia up into his arms and hurried away.

Scott and Kira hurried downstairs at the sounds of panic in Scott's kitchen. Night had fallen and a half-moon shone through the kitchen window as they stepped in to see Isaac and Lydia standing at the table.

'What's going on?' Scott asked, not worried by their sudden appearance in his house, he'd given Isaac a key, but at the looks on their faces.

'Something's happening,' Lydia said as she stepped forward a little shakily, 'something big.'

At the same time Dr Deaton answered the back door to his clinic to see a panting Stiles carrying a bleeding Malia with a desperate look on his face and an unusual sword at his side.

'She's been shot with wolfsbane,' he said as Deaton hurried him in to lay Malia on the operating table, 'and you'll never guess whose bullet it was.'

Ok, so this is my next big story.

You'll have to bear with me on updates for a while because I have A-level exams coming up which means I'm not going to be able to write a lot until they're over.

That being said, I hope you guys like the look of this and have a good day :)