note: This chapter takes place during Abomination (2x04).

note2: If I had better mental planning I would've put up until Sydney goes to the game in the last chapter but I'm bad at mental planning.


Sydney did not go to sleep at a reasonable hour. Hell, she didn't even leave the chair, or sleep for that matter, after she returned back to her room with a plate of pizza rolls. There was no time to waste, since she needed to find out what the hell she had seen so she could find a way to kill it, or at least find a way to subdue it long enough to find a way to kill it.

She only pulled away from her computer when there was a knock on her door, followed by it being opened. She swiveled in her desk chair, stretching out her (very stiff and cramping) legs in front of her as she watched her dad walk into her room, a mug of something steaming (she suspected coffee, since the smell that had come with the mug had finally hit her sleep-deprived nose). She glanced at the clock that was across the room on the nightstand next to her bed, seeing that it was exactly 5:46 a.m. She groaned, putting her head into her hands and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms.

"You didn't sleep, did you?" the sheriff asked, setting a mug of coffee down on his daughter's desk.

"No," she groaned, dragging her hands down her face slowly before she sat back upright in he chair, grabbing the mug he had set down and holding it in her hands.

"I thought I told you to go to bed at a reasonable hour, but it doesn't look like that happened; let me guess..." He scratched his chin, and made a face like he was thinking. "Stress-programming?"

She took a long sip from the mug, not minding that the scalding coffee was slightly burning her to tongue. No pain, no gain; coffee tasted the best when it was hot, and she wasn't about to let the mug of sugary, coffee creamer-y goodness go cold sitting on her desk. As she room her long drink of be mouth-numbing liquid, she mulled over whether or not what she had been doing for seven hours straight would be considered stress-programming; she eventually went with yes, because her brain didn't really want to function any longer than it needed to. "I can't help it, okay? I saw that guy's dead body, dad." She shuddered involuntarily and took another sip. "I can't just get over that."

"You want to talk about it?"

"No, I definitely do not. I want to remove it from my subconscious and never think of it ever again."

"Well," he said, getting back up from where he had leaned - and eventually ended up sitting - on his daughter a desk, "I guess that's the end of our conversation." He walked back to the door before hanging back a second. "Make sure you wake up your brother, okay?"

"Will do," she replied, practically downing the rest of the mug before setting it aside and going back to her research. She only had three pages left to look at, which shouldn't take her more than fifteen minutes to glance at with her sleep-deprived brain.

.

Sydney was startled awake and nearly fell off the edge of her bed when her phone started ringing. She blindly reached toward the noise, not even wanting to look at the sunlight that was streaming through her open window, or the bright light of her cell phone screen for that matter. When she managed to grab ahold of the incessantly ringing device, she pulled it under the blanket so she could put it up to her ear without even glancing at the caller ID, just pressing the "answer" button. Only one person would call her at this hour of the morning, and she would skin him alive if this call took more than a minute.

"What the hell do you want Stiles?" she grumbled, "I was sleeping."

"Gerard."

"What about Gerard?" she groaned.

"He has this thing called a bestiary -"

A half smiled quirked its way onto her face, her sleepy stupor mixing up words in her brain. "I think you mean -"

"No, I don't. Jesus, what's wrong with you people? It's a bestiary, an encyclopedia full of supernatural creatures."

"Okay, and..?"

"And, we can find out what you saw, granted its in the book."

"So how do you getting this book from Allison's creepy grandpa?"

"Uh, ya' see, that's where you come in. Are you still planning to come to the lacrosse game tonight?"

She pulled her blanket slightly off her head, squinting against the sunlight to look at her clock. It was only 9:36, which was way too early to be having this conversation. "If I don't go Coach is going to put you in and I'll miss it," she whined, pulling the blanket back over her head. "I can't miss that. But I have a feeling I might want to skip out on this one..."

"Nope, you are definitely going, no ifs, ands, or buts. I'll explain the plan on the way there. Bye, love you," he said quickly before hanging up.

"Why, Stiles," she groaned into her mattress, throwing her phone into the recesses of her blanket, having it land someone where near the end of the bed.

Eventually - after much trying and failing to go back to sleep - she got out of bed and went downstairs to produce herself some breakfast. Maybe if she ate something, she could go back to sleep, because she sure as hell did not want to go the the lacrosse game on three and a half hours of sleep, especially if there was a plan involved. She could not risk falling alseep on the job. When she returned to her room with a sandwich and an excessive amount of potato chips (that had been stashed deep in the cupboard so her dad would not eat them; Stiles was insistent that their dad eat right, and potato chips were not on his list of "able to eat all the time" foods), she found her phone ringing somewhere deep in her sheets and blanket. She quickly set her plate on her desk and practically leapt onto her bed, going towards the source of the ringing. She detangled her phone from where it had been wrapped in the sheets, caught at the side of the bed where the sheet was tucked under her mattress. Quickly looking at the caller ID - Danny, and a picture of him in his lacrosse jersey making a goofy face - she pressed the "answer" button and shoved the phone up to her ear.

"Heya, Danny."

"Hey, Sydney, what do you think is the best way to brighten a video but maintain the quality of the footage - changing the contrast and tweaking color for the whole thing or changing each frame individually?"

"Depends. How long is this said footage?"

"Seven hours."

"I'd go with the whole thing, otherwise you'd be brightening frames for hours. And what, may I ask, is this for? Because if you're making one of those ridiculous film trailers again -"

"We do not speak of those, Sydney. Not ever again."

"Calm down, I was only teasing. But seriously, what - or who - is this for?"

"Jackson."

"Oooh, Danny, you never told me you were into that kind of -"

"Sydney."

"Teasing, only teasing. But what the hell does Jackson need brightened?"

"A video of him..."

"A video of him..?" she repeated. A video of him could mean many things, most likely lacrosse videos of himself. That douche was so goddamn obsessed with himself.

"...in his bed."

"Oh god, Jesus, is it- is it what I think it is? God I hope not because that would be beyond disgusting. Like, I may have puked in my mouth a little. I was even going to offer to do it for you but ew, gross, no not anymore. You can brighten that all by yourself."

. . . . .

Sdyney glanced back up at the stands, over to where Allison was sitting next to her grandfather. She was now wearing his coat, and when she caught Sydney's eye she nodded slightly, the signal to set the next step of the plan into motion. Sydney "accidentally" kicked the metal bench in front of the bottom row of the bleachers, the signal to Stiles to go and get the keys from Allison. Stiles hopped up off the bench and walked off to retrieve the keys; Sydney followed quickly after, going to other way around the bleachers after a few minutes had passed, as to not draw suspicion. She ran after her brother, who was several feet in front of her before he stopped suddenly, going up to a car who Sydney recognized as Lydia's.

"Hey Lydia, what's wrong?" Stiles asked, tapping on the window.

"Just go away!" Lydia shouted, voice shaky from crying.

"What's wrong?" Sydney asked Stiles as she walked up next to him.

"Look, I don't need anyone seeing me cry!" she said, wiping her eyes.

"Stiles, go, I'll be there in a minute," Sydney said, shoving him aside so she could have access to the window.

"But -" Stiles started to protest.

"Go."

He sighed, running off towards the school.

"You shouldn't care if people see you cry," Sydney said. "Because if they see you crying, they'll think, gee, I wish I could look as pretty as Lydia Martin does when she cries, becuase let me tell you, I look like a snotty mess when I cry. Like on my sixth birthday when Stiles took my present because he thought it was his."

"Yeah," Lydia mumbled, "you were pretty snotty."

"Exactly my point. Now if I could look like you when I cried, well, I wouldn't be covered in a fine layer of muscus when I was done. Now what's the matter Lydia?"

"You're going to think I'm crazy."

"Lydia, you're my best friend. Trust me, there is nothing you say that will make you sound crazy. Literally nothing." Sydney could hear the crowd suddenly cheer from the field, and she remembered what she was actually supposed to be doing. "Can you just give me five minutes? I know, sorry, but five minutes. I'll be back here in five minutes, and we can talk about anything, yeah? Just five minutes."

And with that, Sydney sprinted towards the school, not breaking pace even until she reached the principal's office, even when she started feeling like she was inhaling sharp knives as she ran. Okay, she definitely needed to start exercising. All this "not being in shape" was going to get her killed one day, since she'd probably running away from things that wanted to kill her for the rest of her life, and she had Scott to blame. When she reached the office, she paused at the doorway, leaning against it and heaving in breaths until she could breathe properly without feeling like she was dying.

"Are you okay?" Stiles asked.

"I'm fine, but I think I might have exercise-induced asthma. You find anything yet?"

"Not yet, help me look," he said, motioning towards a filing cabinet near her. She sighed and began looking through the drawers, finding no books, but finding several student records, along with Stiles' "permanent record" with all of his accounts of getting in trouble - which was a folder stocked full of papers (and one incident read "Hell Week - Filling the swimming pool with industrial-strength blue dye". Where the hell did he even manage to get blue dye, let alone some of industrial-strength?). She skimmed through a few more before shoving the thick folder back into the drawer, continuing her search of the cabinet. That was, until she reached the bottom drawer, which would not open no matter how hard she pulled on it. "Stiles, where are the keys? There's a locked cabinet here."

"In the door." he motioned towards the open door, not looking up from where he was crouched behind the desk, looking in drawers. She stood up and turned so she could reach out and pull the keys from the door handle where Stiles had left them, but nearly had a heart attack when she saw Erica standing in the doorway.

"Hello Sydney," the blonde purred, which caused Stiles to instantly shoot up from behind the desk, "and Stiles, too."

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sydney said, an annoyed tone taking hold of her voice. She had a vendetta against this bitch after she knocked out Sydney's brother. Erica just smiled, stepping into the room and behind the desk, proceeding to slam Stiles' head into the wood and knock him out cold. Oh, this bitch was two for two and if as thought that Sydney was going to do something about - ow, ow, ow, hair.

Erica grabbed a fistful of Sydney's brown locks, dragging her out of the office and down several hallways, towards the direction of the swimming pool. When she arrived inside, the blonde let go of the brunette and walked over to stand next to Derek.

"Sydney," he said, and the named girl rubbed her head where Erica had grabbed her hair.

"Derek," she replied.

"What'd you see at the mechanics garage?"

"Several alarming EPA violations that I'm seriously considering reporting."

Derek smiled at her, extending the claws in his left hand and proceeding to deflate a basketball that Sydney just noticed he was holding. The words, "ho-ly hell," may or may not have escaped her lips.

"Let's try that again," he said, and she sighed, knowing that she'd have to tell him, or else he'd (to quote him indirectly through Stiles) "rip her throat out with his teeth".

"Alright, the thing was pretty slick-looking. Um, skin was dark, kind of patterened...uh, I think I actually saw scales. Is that enough? Okay, 'cause I have somebody I really need to talk to." Derek shot her a look and she groaned. "Uh, alright, fine. Eyes, uh... eyes are...yellowish, um...and slitted. Um, has a lot of teeth. Oh, and its got a tail, too. Are we good?"

Derek and Erica started to look up slightly, and Erica's face looked a little scared.

"What? Wait, have you seen it? You have this look on your faces like you know exactly what I'm talking about." Sydney turned her head around to see the lizard thing, and to have it hiss like a dinosaur at her. She backed up quickly, going to the other side of Derek. It jumped off of the railing and Derek dropped down, face changing to accommodate his werewolf form, and growled. The lizard thing threw Erica up against the wall, knocking her out cold. Derek looked back, pushing Sydney.

"Run!"

She went to run, but there was a pool in her way. Couldn't really run on that (not unless she was Jesus, and she was pretty sure she wasn't). Plus, the thing had just slashed at Derek; she saw the cut across it when he turned back around to face the monster.

"Derek, your neck." He gingerly reached back to feel the cut, the lizard-man hissing and retreating slowly. Derek began to fall and Sydney rushed forward, grabbing Derek and throwing his arm over her shoulder. "C'mon," she said, starting to run the length of the pool, dragging Derek with her. Jesus, was this guy like 100% muscle? He weighed a ton, and it was hard to pull him with his lack of motor control. "Where is it? Do you see it?" she asked frantically, pulling Derek as fast as she could.

"No, just hurry. Call Scott!"

She reached for her phone, pulling it out of her pocket but dropping it. She bent down to pick it up, but doing so caused Derek to lose his balance and fall into the pool with a strangled shout that she couldn't quite decipher. She looked from her phone to the pool, back to her phone and then to the pool again before jumping in after Derek. Between calling for help and saving the only thing that could potentially save her in this situation, she opted for the closer one. She wrapped her arms around his middle and pulled him back up to the surface, Derek gasping as they broke the surface. She moved her position, throwing Derek's arm over her shoulder and swallowing a little bit of chlorine-flavored water in the process. Tasty. He sputtered, trying to get the water that had gotten into his airways when he fell into the pool out.

"Where'd it go?" she asked, looking around from their position in the pool, which was only about a fourth of the room. "Do you see it?"

"No."

"Maybe it took off," she said, blowing water out of her face. Then a pterodactyl screech pierced the air, and the two looked at each other.

"Maybe not."

Sydney groaned and kept treading water, although her waterlogged clothing was starting to pull her down slightly. At least she opted for a sweatshirt instead of a coat, since the latter would have weighed her down even more.

"You get me out of here before I drown -" Derek started, but she cut him off.

"You're worried about drowning? Did you notice the thing out there with multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth?"

"Did you notice that I'm paralyzed from the neck down in eIGHT FEET OF WATER?"

She would have laughed at Derek's tone of voice at the end of his sentence, if it weren't for the fact that doing so would probably cause her to swallow more pool water and if she wasn't scared shitless that the lizard would realize it could just slither its way into the pool and end them then and there.

"Okay, I don't see it," she said, looking around for the lizard. She began paddling with her free arm towards the side of the pool, so she could get them out of the water.

"Wait wait wait, stop! Stop!"

Her eyes landed on the lizard, crawling around the edge of the pool.

"What's it waiting for?" she mumbled.

The lizard continued to circle the pool before it got close to the edge, sticking its hand into the water before pulling it back like it had just been burned.

"Wait, did you see that? I don't think it can swim," she said to Derek as the lizard returned to circling the edge.

And for at least another forty-five, Sydney waded in the pool, trying to keep the angry werewolf afloat even though she was getting tired, her clothes definitely reaching their saturation point and wanting to pull her down the bottom.

"Okay," she huffed out, "I don't think I can...do this much longer." She began to try and swim towards the edge of the pool - towards her phone - but Derek must've been a mind reader as well as a werewolf because he shouted when she began to swim.

"No, no, no! Don't even think about it!"

"Could you just trust me this once?"

"No!"

"I'm the one keeping you alive, okay? Have you noticed that?"

"Yeah and when the paralysis wears off, who's going to be able to fight that thing, you or me?"

"So that's why I've been holding you up for the past two hours?" she groaned.

"You don't trust me, I don't trust you. You need me to survive, which is why you're not. Letting. Me. Go."

Sydney bit her lip, making a split-second decision in her mind; it was now or never. She ducked under Derek's arm, swimming for her phone.

"Sydney!" Derek shouted before he sank to the bottom of the pool, and oh god, he was going to kill her for this.

She swam all-out for her phone, even though her muscles ached from holding Derek up. The lizard-thing seemed to notice her going for her phone and began slithering over, so she kicked her ass into gear and went for phone. She had to get it, or they would both be royally screwed, most likely ending up dead in the pool at Beacon Hills High School. That's not how she wanted to he remembered - found dead in a pool, just another local dead person in the swirling vortex of death that was Beacon Hills, California.

She grabbed her phone seconds the lizard reached it, immediately swimming back once she had it in her hand. Oh sweet Jesus, she had never been so happy to see her phone. She held it above her as she swam back toward the center of pool, dialing in Scott's number.

"Scott!" she shouted in the speaker, not even bothering with a greeting. This was urgent, and there was no time for hello's.

"I can't talk right now," Scott said before hanging up on her. She furrowed her eyebrows at the phone, mouth opening slightly in shock. Scott was the worst brother's best friend in the history of ever. She knew it was useless to try and call him again, so she threw her phone into the water and dove in after Derek. He was her only lifeline left since Scott could not comprehend the urgency of the situation she was in. She grabbed the werewolf by the front of his shirt, hauling him back up to the surface.

"Tell me you got him," Derek gasped and Sydney just groaned.

"I can't stay up much longer, I need something to hold onto."

She looked around for something to hold onto that wasn't not the edge of the pool and spotted the diving board, which was in fact not the edge of the pool even though it was in close proximity. Who cares, she'd rather lose her hand to a lizard than drown. She started in the direction of the diving board, swimming under it to grab one of the bars next to it. She grabbed it and tried to pull herself up, but her wet hand was slick on the metal, causing it to just slip right off. Well, shit.

They both started to sink into the water, Sydney giving up all hope now. She just wanted to go home and sleep, but a giant lizard was preventing her from doing so. Curse giant lizards. But just then she felt someone grab the back of her sweatshirt, hauling her out of the water and onto the titled floor next to the diving board. She coughed, spitting up water that had gotten into her lungs while she had given up on life, and looked up to see Scott standing on the diving board completely wolfed out.

The lizard was apparently close by and charged at Scott, trying to knock him down. He was pushed off the diving board, but recovered and landed on the tile beside Sydney and Derek. It hissed at him, before charging again and knocking him into a giant mirror (that Sydney had never noticed before; why do they have a giant mirror in the swimming pool area?), causing it to shatter upon impact. Scott frantically looked behind him as the lizard neared him, looking for something that he could use as a weapon, spotting jagged piece of mirror. He picked it up and held it up in front of him, which caused the lizard to stop and stare into it, tilting its head back and forth like a confused puppy - giant, scaly, incredibly lizard-like puppy. Suddenly, it jumped to the railing above Scott before making a dramatic exit out the window that was above the pool.

He looked back to the two he had pulled from the pool, Derek leaning against the edge of the diving board and Sydney was wringing out her hair.

"Where's Stiles?" Scott asked.

"He's in Gerard's office," Sydney replied.

"I was just there and I didn't see him. Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure, unless he got up and walked away, which is highly unlikely. Did you check the floor behind the desk?"

"No..."

"Well, that's where he should be, since your -" she glared at Derek, "beta knocked him out. Again. And if you be so kind as to tell her that's karma's a bitch, that'd be greatly appreciated."

.

"I keep forgetting he looks this stupid when he's not awake," Sydney said, tilting her slightly at her brother's unconscious form on the floor. She then reached out and bumped Scott's shoulder, holding out her hand. "Give me your phone."

Scott gave her a "what the hell, no" look and asked, "why do you want my phone?"

"Because I threw mine into the pool after you refused to come and help me while I was stranded in the water holding Derek up. Now hand it over, I just want to take a picture of his stupid little face."

He groaned and pulled his phone out of his pocket, handing it over to Sydney who grinned as she took it from him, snapping a picture of her brother's face before handing it back to Scott.

"If you delete that before I get a new phone, just know this - I know where you live."

"Yeah, and I know where you live," Scott retorted, even though it wasn't a very good comeback. "So do you have any idea on how we can wake him up?"

"Yeah, actually." She pulled her arms out from the still-soaking sweatshirt and shucked it off (and revealing just a plain black bra underneath, because who needs to wear t-shirts under sweatshirts), causing Scott to make an alarmed sound. "What?"

"Why are you taking off your shirt!"

"This is my idea, you dingus." She rolled up her sweatshirt and wrung it out on the face of her brother, the cold water snapping him awake. She pulled the now less wet sweatshirt back on as he brother nearly hit his head on the desk that had knocked him out. "Scott, help me get him up."

"Did you find it?" Stiles asked as they both grabbed an arm to pull him to his feet.

"Find what?" Sydney asked.

"The bestiary, the thing we came here for. Please tell me you have it."

"You mean this?" Scott asked, pulling Gerard's keys out of his pocket and holding it up by a flash drive that was connected to the keyring.

.

"Is that even a language?" Stiles asked as Scott flipped through the virtual pages of the bestiary.

"Is this what's its like to look at my coding?" Syndey asked Stiles, who nodded. "Wow."

"How are we supposed to figure out what this thing is?" Scott grumbled.

"It's called a kanima," Derek said, walking up to them with Erica by his side.

"You knew the whole time?" Stiles said, acting pissed off.

"No. Only when it was confused by its own reflection."

"It doesn't know what it is," Scott said, realization dawning on him.

"Or who."

"What else do you know?" Sydney asked, even though whatever Derek was about to say she already knew. She filtered through her brain, trying to think of she had read an article about kanimas or not. She could've, but if she did, she didn't remember; researching while sleep-deprived does not equal remembering everything you read.

"Just stories. Rumors."

"But its like us?" Scott asked.

"A shapeshiter, yes, but...it's not right. It's like a..." Derek said, looking for the right word.

"An abomination," Sydney murmured, Derek nodding.