Enchanted by the banshee's concert, Stiles starred up at the stage, his foot tapping in rhythm with the music. The deep, emotional tune had changed into a faster, more energetic beat and glaring laser beams whizzed over the scene, painting Lydia Martin's dress with every colour of the rainbow. The singer sashayed over the stage with an angel's grace and now and then flinged her hair back over her shoulder with an elegant shake of her head without her voice ever missing a tune.
Next to him, Allison was smiling brightly and humming along, but her eyes weren't fixed on the stage. Inconspicuously, she looked around the concert hall, eyeing the exits and focusing on every movement.
The song came to an end and Miss Martin sang out the last, long note, then bowed down the same moment the music stopped and the lights went out. The audience erupted in applause. In unison the people jumped off their seats for a standing ovation. Peter was over the moon, yelling „Bravo! Bravo!" Slowly the lights turned up again and Lydia stood in the middle of the stage, bowing deeply.
She raised the microphone to start singing her next song, when suddenly the doors to the hall were thrown open. A large group of wolfed out people poured through every entry inside. Despite their already lethal claws and teeth, they were carrying heavy weapons and immediately opened fire on the audience. The people began to scream as the first spurts of bullets shot into the crowd, taking several people down. The whole room turned into chaos as everyone ran towards the exits, trying to save their own lives. Whoever had fallen to the ground was mercylessly stamped down.
Stiles had thrown himself on the ground, trying to find cover behind the seats, and Peter had followed his example. They could hear the devastated cry of Hale's assistants as they were carried away by the crowd's force. Peter was shacking in fear and babbled into his mike, agitatedly describing the happenings to his listeners. Stiles didn't stop him, thinking that the radio host should do whatever helped him to get through the attack.
Allison, on the other hand, had pulled out a gun and Stiles seriously wondered where she had been hiding it the whole time. She returned the fire with precice shots, taking one after the other werewolf out. She had to duck behind the seats when their attackers focused their joint onslaught on the front row. The young agent was completely in her element, she had been raised to haunt down werewolves and every action she did right now came natural to her. W ith skillfull hands, she reloaded her weapon with new ammo.
„I'll distract them", Allison shouted at Stiles while she lifted the long skirt of her dress and fastened it in a knot. „You get the stones!"
Stiles turned towards Miss Martin, who stood still in shock in the middle of the stage, when the sound of several guns fired at once resounded again through the concert hall and one stray bullet ripped a big hole into the banshees abdomen. Her hands went down to cover the wound as blood started to gush out of it, toning her dress in a much darker colour than the laser beams had just a view minutes before. The singer's eyes turned back into hear head and as gracefully as she had danced, she fell down to the ground.
Stiles shout out in shock, but Allison didn't falter. As fast as a gazelle, she leaped over the row of seats and started firing again. She rushed through the aisle and fought her way towards one of the exits, the pulp of werewolves chasing her as she darted outside.
Trusting that Allison had all the werewolves' attention, Stiles flinged himself up onto the stage and pulled the injured woman done behind the cover of the front row. He took off his jacket and pressed the fabric against the gaping hole in her stomach.
„The government had send me to help you. Just stay calm."
Next to them, Peter was in the middle of a meltdown.
„If somebody hears this, come and get me! I'm in the first row", he cried into his mike.
„You must give him the stones", Lydia told Stiles urgently. Her voice was raw and a small river of blood ran out of the corner of her mouth.
„Who?"
„The pentachoron. The supreme being summoned from death to save the world."
„Derek?", Stiles asked bewildered.
„Yes", she answered with a fond smile. „But he's more fragile than he seems. He needs your help." Under strain, she reached out one blood-besmeared hand and cupped his face. „And your love. Or he will die." Her eyelids fluttered shut and her hand fell weakly back to the ground, leaving a red streak on his cheek.
„No, no, no", Stiles mumbled insistently. „Stay with me! No, you can't die, come on. Listen to me! Wake up!" He took her face into his hand and she opened her eyes in a daze.
„Where are the stones?"
„What?"
„The stones! Where are the stones?"
The banshee took a deep, rustling breath and laid her hand onto her stomach close to the lethal wound.
„The stones", she said weakly, fighting for the energy to continue her sentence.
„The stones, where are they?!"
„In me." She whispered her last words as her eyes drew shut once more and the last bit of life drained out of her body.
„What? What?", Stiles urged her on, but it was too late. Lydia Martin was dead.
„My God! Stiles!", Peter cried out from where he was peeping over the back of the row. „Oh my God, Stiles! Stiles! Stiles! Another one coming! Stiles, I think we should go!"
„One minute!", he tried to hush him in vain. „Just gimme a minute!"
„Hey you!", a deep voice suddenly said from behind him. A kick landed on his back as he didn't react. „I said you!"
„I'm not with him", Peter hastily declared with his hands raised in the air, but the werewolf didn't regard him.
He hold out his weapon against Stiles neck in a threat. „Where's the other?"
In a flash, Stiles grabbed his arm and flicked the werewolf over his shoulder. He slammed hard on his back and within a second, Stiles had taken his gun and held it to his head.
„I said one minute", he told the werewolf angry. „Peter, hold this gun."
All colour drained out of the radio hosts face. „What?!"
„Hold this gun", Stiles repeated pressing.
„What do you want me to do?" Peter was stuttering fastly with nervousness. His hands were trembling harshly as he came closer.
„Come on, puit your hand there." Gently, Stiles guided Peter's finger around the weapon without aiming it away from the werewolf's head. „Put your hand on it."
„What do I do?", Peter asked once again desperately.
„If he moves, squeeze the trigger."
Stiles turned bacck around towards the banshee's dead body and tried to make sense of her words. Behind him, Peter continued having his mild panic attack.
„I don't feel right, Stiles!"
The human paid him not attention and shut his spluttering out.
„The stones are in me", he mumbled to himself thoughtfully, when it suddenly hit him.
He took a deep breath and rolled up his sleeves, preparing himself for what he was about to do. Carefully, but with force, he pushed his hand inside the dead woman's injury. The flesh ripped under the strain, distending the wound further and letting more blood ooze out. He groped delicately through the entrails, squeezing the intestines between his fingers until he felt something hard inside it.
„Stiles? I have a headache, Stiles. This ain't me!" Peter's muttering stopped as he watched with big eyes as Stiles pulled out the small bowel, looped it around his hands and ripped it forcefully apart. Fine drops of blood splattered around and landed on the dead banshee's body and Stiles' face. He didn't mind the spatters, he was too engrossed in squeezing the hard object out of the organ. A greasy, little plastic bag came out, iniside it, a deep blue sapphire, small enough to fit into Stiles' closed fist. The gem was uncut and still rough at the sides, but the rich colour exposed its worth.
Stiles quickly pulled out the other two stones, a ruby and an emerald, before he turned to the radio host.
„Peter."
The dj jerked as Stiles suddenly called his name and a loud bang echoed through the sound as he pulled the trigger and shot a bullet right into the werewolf's brain.
„Sorry", he quieked at the unmoving body and dropped the gun. „You think he's gonna be okay?"
Stiles rolled his eyes at the man's distress and pulled out his tuxedo's handkerchief to wrap the stones inside it. The sound of footsteps came closer, decoyed by the noise of the gun and Peter threw a nervous look over the seats.
„Stiles, another one coming. Oh, shit! Three coming, Stiles! Three!"
Shrieking, Peter was pulled back down and Stiles pushed the wrapped up stones into his hand.
„You guard this with your life or you'll look like this guy right here." He pointed at the red hole in the werewolf's head. „Moon?"
„Moon."
„Supermoon?"
„Supermoon!"
Stiles took back the weapon and jumped out behind the seats. Within seconds he had gunned down the three werewolves and rushed up the steps between the seat rows towards the upper exit.
More werewolves were roused by the noise and ran towards him. He shot wildly at the group as he walked out onto the gallery. In the foyer beneath him, civilians were still running around screaming, but his eyes catched the trained motions of a warrior and he pointed his gun towards the threat. He paused, taken aback as he saw the werwolf aiming a giant machine pistole back at him.
Impressed, he nodded his head and then fled sideways, blindly shooting at the werewolf, who responded the fire. The fat missiles slammed into the gallery's railing and the wall behind Stiles, bursting deep holes into the plaster and leaving a smoking trail of destruction.
Stiles ran as fast as he could to avoid the bullets and then took a leap over the railing with a strained yell. He landed hard on the foyer's bar, bottles and glasses scattering to the side and breaking in a clear chink, before he rolled over and fell behind its cover.
While he catched his breath, wincing at the shards' sharp edges that had sliced his skin in various places, Peter scrambled out of the concert hall onto the gallery, his back bend low to avoid being seen by the werewolves. The stones were stashed deep in his tight dress pants' back pocket and he repeatedly patted his rear to make sure that they were still there, while still muttering unthinkingly into his mike.
Behind the bar, Stiles was frantically searching for his weapon. He must have dropped it during his jump from the gallery. The werewolves were yelling orders at each other and Stiles could hear more gun shots in the distance, telling him that Allison wasn't far away. Something cluttered to his left and he looked over to see a small hand grenade without safety pin ring landing next to him. In a heartbeat, Stiles kicked it away and bolted in the opposite direction.
The small grenade's explosion blasted half of the bar away and Stiles threw his arms over his head as he felt the hot blaze reaching its clutches close to his body.
Pumped full with adrenaline and his heart pounding fastly, Stiles tried to find a way out of his bad situation. He searched the room once more for the gun he had dropped and found it lying close to a table under which Lou Ferrigno and a few other civilians hid.
„Hey! Lou!", he shouted at the actor. The man looked over to him, baffled and clearly afraid.
„The gun! Gimme the gun!"
Ferrigno starred at him before lifting a hand and holding it behind his ear.
Stiles crunched his teeth in frustration and started to point urgently at the weapon.
„The- the gun!"
Another grenade landed inside the bar, to far away from Stiles to kick it further away, but still close enough that the force of the following explosion tossed Stiles aside and out from behind his cover. At his sight, the werewolves promptly opened fire and Stiles scarcely avoided them as he crawled as fast as possible back behind the counter to escape them.
As he looked up, he saw that Ferrigno had creeped out from under the table.
„Yes", he yelled affirmingly. „The gun!"
The actor leaned over some wreckage, picked something up and threw it over to Stiles.
It was a lemon that must have dropped from the bar's counter and rolled towards the table.
Stiles blinked at the fruit in disbelieve before he looked up at Lou, who winked at him triumphantly and gave him a thumbs up. Stiles was totally done.
„Thanks, Lou."
A werewolf jumped up behind the counter, roaring loudly and pointing his weapon at Stiles. The human threw his hands in the air in a surrendering gesture.
„Don't shoot! Don't shoot!", he cried out, fear and panic written over his face. „I'm not armed!"
„Get up!", the werewolf snarled.
Stiles obeyed immediately and stood up on unsteady feet.
„You've got the wrong guy. Don't shoot."
The other werewolf's in the room came closer and surrounded him as he slowly walked out from behind the bar and took a full turn to let his eyes swift through the room and over every enemy, his arms still raised.
„I'm on vacation. Don't shoot me, please. I won a contest – Cheerios' – to Los Angeles."
The werewolf holding him at gun point took a step to the side and onto a long chunk of ruins to have a better aim at the human.
„Get down", he barked from his higher position and waved his weapon curtly over to the side where the other civilians were pulled out from under the table and lead away with a threatening weapon to their heads.
Stiles looked up at him and spotted Peter on the gallery right above the werewolf, peeking his head through the railing to get a better look at the foyer. He made eye contact with the radio host and waved his fingers as subtle as possible.
„Wait a minute", the dj whispered into his mike as the werewolf repeated his order at Stiles. „I think he's trying to say something to me."
As Peter still didn't understand Stiles' sign to move over and the werewolf began to growl at Stiles, the human sighed heavily and then jumpd forward onto the raised end of the chunk that the werewolf was standing on.
Yowling in surprise, he was tossed upwards, his head breaking through the gallery above him and emerging right next to Peter's face, who started howling in shock. The werewolf panicked as his head was stuck in the concrete and he blindly pulled his weapon's trigger. But Stiles had already ducked down and the bullets flew past him, hitting the werewolves that surrounded him.
Peter was wolfed out in fright and slashed his claws at the head that had popped up next to him, pushing it back down through the hole until the werewolf fell back onto the ground, losing the hold on his weapon.
Stiles snatched the gun and shot the last werewolves standing in the foyer into the head. He rushed to the closest one and searched through his stuff, finding a small bomb with a timer switch at the werewolf's belt.
Through the hole in the ceiling, Peter was looking down at him in distress.
„Stiles, my man. Where are? Oh my God. Stiles. Stiles, they're coming!", he cried out as another group of werewolves marched out into the gallery.
With a fierce look in his eyes, Stiles raised the fully-automatic gun and aimed it in Peter's direction.
„Don't move!"
„What!?"
He pulled the trigger, letting the bullets hit into the underside of the gallery's floor, drawing a circle right around where the dj lay. The man coughed as the missiles went through the concrete and blew up dust and dirt around him. The stone cracked loudly and then broke away from beneath the radio host, who yelled startled as he fell with the debris down into the foyer.
He caughed and shook off the dirt before he turned to Stiles and was shocked once more as he watched the human setting the timer on the bomb.
„Wha- What you doing?!"
„Count to ten", Stiles told him and then threw the explosive weapon up onto the gallery.
He pulled Peter by his lapels under a table and took hold of the table's leg. Behind them, the werewolves started to shot down from the gallery at the table they were hiding under.
„Was that a bomb?", Peter asked incredulously.
„Shut up and count!"
With a voice quaked by panic, Peter started to count loudly, as they moved forward with the table above them. As he reached nine, the bomb exploded into a vast fireball, tearing down the gallery and blasting the werewolves away. The shock wave pushed them forward and they clinged to the table's legs, trying to protect themselves from the flying debris.
After the enormous bang, the room seemed suddenly silent. Stiles crawled out from under the table and inspected the demolition. The gallery was lying in ruins atop of the werewolves and several small fires blazed lazily at the remains as thick, black smoke raised from the flames.
He turned to Peter, who staggered out from beneath the table, and gave him a wry smile.
„Ten."