Chapter Two: Femme Fatalle
A lot changed over the days following the conversation. Enough that both the Argents and Derek's pack could process something was going on behind their back. First, while before Chris had no doubt Allison and Scott had a thing behind his back, any sign of the Teen wolf near her completely vanished, and the most odd was that Allison didn't seem to mind it one bit. In fact she took great pleasure into seeing him and his wife trying to catch the boy in their room.
The only moments they did have contact was during lunch, but even that had changed somehow. They did not speak to each other, in fact it was clear the only reason they sat together was because Stiles and Lydia sat at the same table. Jackson, Erica, Boyd and Lydia herself felt the strange interaction between the Teen Wolf, the Hunter, the Human and whatever Lydia was. It had also come to their attention that Scott was seemingly avoiding Stiles as of lately.
Then one day Coach Finstock had called the team and, as usual, Lydia was nearby in the benches, but Stiles and Allison were nowhere to be seen even tough Stiles was in the team. When Coach Finstock asked around for him Scott came up with an excuse about Stiles being held by mr Andrews, even tough Lydia knew Stiles was not in detention. During the whole training Scott played badly, Jackson and Erica were not making sense of it, and Boyd was frowning with worry. Everybody sensed Scott McCall was up to something, even his team mates.
"McCall, can I have a little word with you in private?" The coach asked. The raven barely could hold his smile. He purposefully broke formation and walked towards the spot on the benches were Lydia stood. Sitting down and waiting for the coach to join him. "I meant at my corner you idiot."
"Actually sir, I wanted to talk to you about something, and there would have been too many ears in that corner." He said pointing the corner where the gamers were still practicing. "Look, It's been an amazing season, and I really enjoyed being part and cocaptain of the team... but I quit."
The shout that followed was so loud that it didn't take a Werewolf to hear it from a mile away. Every single person on the field and several on the window turned to see the coach laughing. "That was a good one McCall." He said. "Don't Joke like that again, almost gave me a heart attack."
"Sir, I am serious, I. QUIT." Scott said, forcing the last two words. "I don't like to play as much as I did before, besides Jackson is a great Captain and he will be able to lead the team to victory without my help." Scott winced as he said that, the look the coach was giving would make Derek's Alpha Glare (As conveniently dubbed by Stilinski) look like a stare. Scott could hear his heart beating at an irregular interval.
The teen wolf reacted and held the coach as his legs gave weight. He and Lydia, who quickly positioned herself besides Scott, helped carry the coach to a bench while Danny came up with an Ice pack and Someone went to call the Nurse. After making sure that the coach would be all right he removed his helmet and thew it on the field along with his bat. Going to the washroom.
"What the hell happened back there?" Jackson asked crossing his arms as Scott undressed and took a cold shower. "It must have been quite something to knock down Finstock like that."
"It's no big deal, I just quit Lacross." Scott replied, not that he had to answer to Jackson.
"WHAT!" Jackson asked furious "You can't do that McCall, you are the fucking Captain of the Team!"
"Co Captain." Scott grinned "I was under the impression you would like to hear that you are the star of the team again. You never really liked the fact that I took advantage of my abilities to best you in the game." He scoffed.
The reaction on Jackson's face made it clear that the boy hadn't stopped to consider that angle after Scott dropped the bomb on him. Then again the boy brushed that tough aside faster than a goalie catching a softball with a stick. "Why did you do it?"
"Jackson, I really don't need to explain my motives for you, and besides we currently have an Audience I would rather not talk to." Scott said pointing to Boyd, who was standing by the Lockers not even trying to look like he wasn't listening into the conversation. "I don't need Derek to be the next one asking what I am doing, In fact I would LOVE some privacy from both of you and Erica as well."
"I don't know Derek as well as you do, but don't you think he will think you are up to something big or stupid?" Boyd asked. "I mean, the whole school has been getting odd vibes from you this past week, and I am not talking about your abilities. Derek has been very annoyed, he wanted to handle the Hunter but now he needs me and Erika babysitting you and Lydia."
"Tell him he is wasting his time. I would rather be an Omega and get sliced into two than help mess my life more than his family already did. The argent's, you guys, the whole school will become a battlefield and there are 240 students here. If it wasn't for my mother I would be long gone."
"What about Stilinski?" Boyd asked.
"He and I are not on speaking terms, I am also not speaking to Allison if you didn't caught up on that." Scott said to an impressed Jackson and Boyd. "Now Leave, me, alone." Scott said flashing yellow eyes. Somehow during the discussion he had finished his bath and changed into a plain black shirt and jeans. He gave one last glance to the two team members and left.
The rest of the day was filled with rumors. During his economy class Finstock completely ignored his presence, meanwhile Erica had been stalking him like a Hawk. At one point he left the room, the Coach ignoring him completely, Erica tried to shadow him, but even Finstock was not ignorant enough to let two students of opposite sexes roam free, much to the female's frustration.
Scott grinned as he found himself in the hall. After sensing for a while he knew Derek, Isaac and Boyd were nowhere nearby. He walked past Lydia's locker, slipping the card he had bough earlier, Scott had to think carefully about how to communicate with Lydia and still prevent anyone spying on her from figuring out what he was up to. He also had to mask his scent from the card with a strong scent of lemongrass oil, after he slipped in the card he left school without being seen.
He knew when he reached his house that there was a new tail on his back in the form of the great alpha himself. It should have been Isaac but apparently Derek was fed up of not knowing what was going on. Well, he would have to endure it for a while longer.
"Give me one reason not to beat you until you sing like a Canary?" Derek said standing in front of his porch. "I know you are up to something McCall, and you are going to tell me."
"Really Derek, do you think you can come here and force me to obey you just like your Dear Uncle tried before?" Scott asked crossing his arms. "Cause I would really love to call Stiles Dad and file a complaint of harassment from such a nice person of interest."
"Even if you could dial and call his father, by the time he arrived I would have been long gone with what I wanted, Omega." Derek grinned "And you would have a bunch of non healing bruises to join the one in your abdomen."
"Very arrogant of you to assume I would allow our fight to play like it did last time." Scott grinned. It had long been decided that the best way to keep the Argents and Derek confused was to divide and conquer. Scott and his antics were keeping the attention of the Wolves, while Alisson would distract her family by behaving, leaving Stiles, the one no one would suspect was a real threat, to find the information Scott and Lydia needed.
Still, to make sure one party wouldn't have to depend on the other, Allison and Stiles came up with a few aces in the hole they could use to avoid the weaponry of the Hunters as well as Derek's attacks. In stiles and Allison's case it involved a lot of silver and wolfs bane doped areas, but since those were lethal to Scott they had to be creative when it came to his anti Derek kit.
There was a tense silence in the room, before Scott moved himself to the side of the house. He knew it would be stupid to go for the door, but there were other ways to get to his room. As he climbed the wall Derek watched unimpressed. Once Scott reached his room he knew it would be a matter of time before the Alpha lost whatever he had of his patience, he had to act quick.
Sure enough Derek began to follow Scott to the window. Scott in turn placed two earplugs on his ears and turned his computer on and the speakers to maximum. When he saw Derek holding into the outside of the window the Omega smirked, and Derek realized too late he had been tricked. Scott waved him and pressed enter on his computer, still grinning.
To any human, it would seem that Scott activated static on his speakers. In fact, the speakers had been adjusted by Stiles to produce an inaudible frequency to humans, but a very annoying frequency to dogs and werewolves. Derek, being an alpha, felt like someone just turned bad rock at the highest volume on his ears, he was so surprised he let go of the window and fell on his back. Scott, in turn, was not affected thanks to the ear plugs and his weakened power.
The boy knew a pissed off Derek was not a good thing, and although annoying the sound alone could not stop the Alpha from making a hole in his wall to attack him. However, for all the stubbornness and rage the Hale could produce, he was still smart enough to know Scott had more than just the lousy music up his sleeve, and it would be a really bad idea to attack the house, as it would give the Argents a reason to attack him. He gave one last menacing glance to Scott, Derek's way of saying this wasn't over by a long shot, and left.
Scott deactivated the sound module and spend the rest of the afternoon doing his homework and studying. He left the house and bought some steak at the market, again being followed by Isaac to his house. As he arrived there he found Lydia on the Porch seemingly depressed. Scott grinned, the plan had worked, Lydia had figured out the code, and to make things better Erica's scent was not around, even tough she had been here.
"Lydia, is everything all right with you?" Scott asked.
"Everything is not all right." Lydia growled "We need to talk."
Scott nodded, motioning for her to get inside, which she did without asking questions. Then he picked up a pair of plugs placing them in the ear, and handed Lydia a spare set motioning for her to do the same. After making sure she had the device on correctly he turned on the speaker system and grinned as he scented Isaac's scent go away.
"I am so glad you figured out the code." Scott said.
"Oh, please, a baby could have figured that one out. Tough I must admit I did not expect you to use Cesarean Code, and to write that sort of thing." She said presenting the gift card. On it Scott had written things in gibberish, CAESAR, folowed by severall letters on random order, underneath those, in a sharpie pink tone, were letters in Lydia's handwritting.
"We are being watched by enemies, be discrete and act unaware. I need to reveal something to you, it is about your attack. Come to my house and do what I say, do not speak about this letter until I get rid of the spies."
Scott nodded. "Anyway, I told you I would reveal you something." Scott sighted, wondering how he could explain this better... "Remember the thing you saw at the movie theater, and the thing that attacked us at school?" Scott asked.
She nodded, obviously not pleased to remember that.
"A day before we met Allison, Stiles came to my house and told me they found half of a body in the woods near the Hale Mannor." Scott explained, noticing how Lydia reacted upon hearing the name Hale. "I discovered it was Laura Hale, sister of Derek Hale and niece of Peter Hale."
The gasp was even more evident as Scott mentioned Peter Hale. Lydia remembered the Trophy, and the man in the ice, she grew pale as a ghost, and for a second Scott felt like letting her go. Lydia must have seen his intentions because she exclaimed "Keep explaining, I need to hear it."
"Right, this is where it gets interesting, Stiles and I went to search for Laura's body, and I kinda found it, only something found me too, a large, furry, red eyes and menacing thing." Scott went to his computer and bough the movie Lydia had of the Alpha "The same creature that attacked you, bit me." Scott explained. "I guess that makes us somewhat the same."
"What was that thing?" Lydia asked, trying in vain to keep her cool.
"That, was Peter Hale." Scott stated. "A Werewolf."
Lydia looked at him like he grew another head. She would have slapped him for coming up with such a bad joke on her if it wasn't for the fact the look Scott was giving her now was the same look he used that morning with Coach Finstock, the look Scott gives whenever he throws a life changing bomb on someone.
"I will prove it." Scott went on "But I need your word you will not freak out, if you get out of the house other werewolves will try to stop you, I am NOT in league with them and they are dangerous, so whatever happens I need you to trust me and do not move or scream, if you feel you can't stand to do that then It is better that I do not change and you leave now."
Lydia frowned "I think it will be better if you do not change for now" She said "I will give you the benefit of the doubt until I need evidence, but I need an answer to this question, why did Peter Hale, if that is the one you are talking about, came after me?"
Scott sighted. "Okay, the first thing you need to know is that there are werewolf hunters. Guess who they are? I will give you a hint, brings up Silver in Memory."
This made the woman laugh. "Don't tell me, you fell in love with a werewolf hunter?"
"Bad choice I know, she nearly killed me when she discovered." Scott said trying to sound like he was telling a funny history even tough at the time it had scared him. "Anyway, I have nothing to fear from Allison, but her father and grandfather would love to see me split in half, you know Katherine Argent started the fire in the hale Manor, she killed children and humans who had nothing to do with the curse of being a werewolf, and left Peter Hale burned and tetraplegic..."
Lydia fell into silence, Allison had admitted to what had happened, it was no wonder the Hales had a real grudge on the Argents, and Vice Versa... "Oh my god, it's a war!" She said.
Scott sighted, the girl was too smart for her own senses. He went on to explain how Peter killed Laura to become an Alpha, how he decided to Recruit Scott as a member of his pack to gain power, but Scott had fought against the Alpha power with the help of Derek while searching for a Cure. How Peter had systematically killed or attempted to kill the ones responsible for the fire and it had culminated with him using Lydia to get to Stiles to find Scott so they could face Katherine.
"Peter Killed Katherine making him and every of his kind an enemy of Gerard Argent, Derek Killed Peter, thus denying me any chance to become Human again. At first we tought he had turned you, but you don't have the smell or the abilities of a Werewolf. Still Derek, the Argents and even I are concerned, specially because there is an unaccounted shape shifter roaming the city, the same one that killed Isaac's father and nearly Killed Allison, and I have no reason not to suspect you are it or at least involved."
There was a brief pause, and then Scott followed "Look, everything is a mess right now, The Argents and Derek are about to turn the school into a battlefield. Neither one has what it takes to destroy the other, and I have no doubt Derek will turn to changing people at the same time the Argents might do something crazy like revealing us. We NEED to stop this war, the question is, will you help me, or just stand aside and risk getting caught in the crossfire?"
"How can we stop it?" Lydia asked with anger. "Scott, we are just teenagers, even if you are a Werewolf, even if I am a werewolf, we are no match for a pack of four or hunters with ages of training. Not to mention If I am a werewolf then I obviously can't control it."
"There is only one way that we can stop this without blood on the school part. We tame both Derek and the Argents. Now, Allison and Stiles are working on a way to make Allison the leader of the Hunters, they are dissecting their rules trying to come with all the codes and punishments needed to enforce a cease fire on their side. Our part is much tougher, because to make Derek turn tail on his revenge, we need to subdue him or kill him, and he happens to be the Alpha."
"How do you propose we do that, oh furry one?" She asked with Sarcasm
"There are two ways, one is either of us find an Alpha that Is not Derek, get really luck, disable his pack, kill him, and become an alpha ourselves, then fight and subdue or kill Derek. Now, I can think of a million reasons that plan would end up with us turned into dinner, so there is another, far more complex but safer alternative. You become a Proto Alpha, a legendary being among the Werewolf Clan that not even the Werewolves and the Hunters know about. One who can make an Alpha obey." Scott told her, he didn't know what a Proto Alpha could do, but it appeared to be their only salvation.
"Why me and not you?" She asked.
"I think it would be more cooperative if you got the spoils of our work, I only ask one thing in exchange tough and it may gross you out a little, when the time comes for me and Allison to... do it, I need you to be there and keep me in my human form so that I don't harm Allison."
Lydia sighted, trust Scott to be the most generous, likable dummy head in the world. For once she could see the nerd that had been the boy before he got in the Lacrosse team. Come to think of it, given his abilities, it was clear something about him had changed, but deep down Scott was Scott. And even tough she still had a thing for Jackson and he knew Allison had a thing for the brunette, Lydia couldn't help but envision a future where Scott was her... err... Mate. Who knows, maybe Allison would Share?
Brushing the tough aside she nodded. "I guess I can help you. Even if I am not a wolf I am way better than Stiles at finding things well hidden. Just so we make sure this is not a huge joke on my expense, I want to see you change." She grinned. "And I mean a big change."
Scott frowned, but consented, deactivating the sound trigger he removed the earplugs and then loosened his shirt and pants, till he was down to his boxers. "I am sorry for this, but I really want to spare on the damaged clothes." He said upon her stare. "Look in my eyes Lydia."
She nodded, fixating on the brown eyes. Scott summoned his strength and Lydia quickly noticed the flicker of gold showing up on the brown eyes. Scott tried to keep his instincts in check, it would do no good to attack Lydia. Besides, he had the feeling Derek would already figure out he had changed in front of the girl and would be pissed off so he had to hurry this up or risk having a dangerous pack of four on his porch.
As it was, he had a deja vu of the events of this morning, only with Lydia replacing the coach. He picked her up gently and placed her on top of the bed, quickly reverting back to human and replacing his clothes. He fetched the ice pack and the smelling salts and made her drink a glass of lemon juice. Watching with his senses the heartbeat of the girl, ready to carry her to the ER if something happened.
"That was amazing." Was the first thing Lydia said once she regained her voice.
"I Know. Look, I enjoy the feeling, but It's more of a burden than a gift." Scott explained.
Lydia nodded, then an idea occured her, she held out her hand and focused on it. Scott did a double take as he watched the thing turn scally green and humid. "Holy Hell!" The boy said looking at the arm, then at Lydia's black eyes. "They were right, you are the shape shifter!"
"If you are right... then I killed Isaac's father..." Lydia said terrified "This will not look good on my Scholarship Application." She panicked reverting to normal, her eyes redder and about to cry.
"I won't tell if you don't." Scott grinned "Look, you did a good thing Lydia, Killing is not good, but Isaac's father was a monster, I've seen what he is capable off and the world is a better place without him. Do not, for one second, let remorse over his death affect you. Also, the fact you are a Shape Shifter does not mean you are the same one who attacked Isaac's father or Allison, it could still be a coincidence." He reassured her.
"Thank's Scott, but I need to learn to control this. Maybe it's impossible to become human again after what Peter did to us, but we can become werewolves so perfect no one will be able to tell we are not human unless they touch silver and wolfsbane on us."
"Or take a flash picture." Scott sighted "Flashes trigger my eyes, tough I don't think if the same will happen with your black ones."
"Eww..." She said. "In any case, we need to find more about this Proto Alpha thing, and I will need to learn how to take advantage of these skills like you did with Lacrosse. I don't know if this is a good idea... but I think we should make it so that people think we are dating."
Scott frowned, Allison had proposed the same thing. In fact she would soon be offering herself to Matt. The very idea of his girl hanging around photo boy made his blood boil, but the Friendship would keep the Argents confused and also protect him from and of Matt's photos. By acting as a couple, it would get the Argents off his back and Derek would know that Lydia was on his side. Even tough he could no longer rely on Stiles, who had to act under the radar, having Lydia on his team was reassuring, specially if you add her skills in Chemistry to her new Powers.
"Yes, we will use that as an excuse. I mean, it's not like I couldn't use a smart girlfriend to help me Tacke Harris and Finstock's classes. And even tough I only been a werewolf for a few months I know a few things that should work for Lizardy beings as well." Scott said dodging a pillow the girl threw at him.
"Scott, thank you for telling me. I thought I was going crazy, but after hearing your story I can understand things better. These Hallucinations, they are the effect of the change right?" She asked. "I've been seeing things, a man, I think it's Peter Hale."
"I promises you Lydia, that man is dead, killed by Stiles adaptation of your Molotov Cocktail and Derek's fangs. Werewolves, alpha specially, can channel images into other beings trough their claws, after so much trauma I am not really surprised he might have sent you a few of his mental flashes, but you will get over it." He said hugging her, and the warmth of his body made her feel comfortable.
"Right, I need to go home, it's getting late, and there are freaking beasts out there at night." She said rolling her eyes at her own joke. She gave a glance at Scott again, remembering the werewolf boy that held her in his arms a few seconds before, and the young boy that hang out with Stiles when they were at kindergarten. "Nice seeing you Scott. See you tomorrow, oh and I am sorry about the Lacrosse Team."
"It's all right, I get the feeling there will not be much time for Lacrosse with what is going on, besides I cannot risk revealing my abilities to Principal Argent." He stated. "The team will do fine without me, After all Jackson and Boyd are there to pick up the slack."
Lydia nodded, she would have to watch out for Boyd and specially that viper Erica, not to mention Isaac and Derek, and Specially the Argents. She had a lot to think about tonight and to plan for the next days. With a last wave she left the house and got in her car. Scott watched, grinning, as she drove away. He had got a powerful ally, he had avoided Derek, who had beaten him a few days ago, and his goons and he was more and more out of the argent's radar, despite the fact the Principal was now Allison's Grandfather Gerard.
Scott Three, Rest of the Competitors One
