Chapter 26: Two Minutes and Counting Down

Calcifer and Stiles landed just out of the Whomping Willow's reach, nearly blowing Kira and Allison over. They stared at them, blinking through weary, bloodshot eyes. They looked like they'd been through hell and back, clutching their items to their chests, their wands held unsteadily in their hands. "What the hell is that on you? You smell horrible," Allison commented, wrinkling her nose as he dismounted to stand beside her.

Stiles plucked dispassionately at his clothing, glaring at the blood that coated it. "The blood of a talking snake who tried to eat me. Why do you smell like goblin piss?"

"That's me," Kira said, rubbing at her forehead as if she had a migraine building through her skull, "I don't really want to talk about it. Just know that you're not wrong."

Nodding, Stiles resisted the urge to clarify and instead turned his attention to Allison. She was covered in what looked like plant juices, presumably from the greenhouse, and a thick, white substance that reeked of something Stiles couldn't name. "What's that white stuff on you?"

Allison glanced down at herself, horror flooding her face. "Ew!" she screeched, her hand convulsing around her wand. She was physically holding herself back from flinging her arms wide and tearing her shirt from her body. "Oh god, I need to be out of these clothes right now! And a shower! Right now, Stiles! Merlin's pants, that's disgusting! Ew, ew, ew!"

"Alrighty, Calcifer, remind me not to ask these two about their first trial ever again," Stiles said, glancing back to his dragon. Calcifer snorted, steam curling from his nostrils. "Good dragon! I knew we'd be good friends quickly."

"You know, when you talk to creatures like they're going to respond to you in our language, it just makes you seem like you're missing several marbles," Kira pointed out, rubbing at a greenish-yellow stain that had bleached the black of her clothing. She pouted, dropping the fabric to glance up at him.

Stiles shrugged. "People have thought that since I got here in my third year. It's nothing new. They do respond though, the creatures, they just do it in a way that you have to be paying attention to actually understand."

The pair nodded absently, staring up at the branches of the Whomping Willow swaying restlessly in the wind. It creaked and groaned, leaning towards them.

"Champions, you will be given two minutes to reach the object placed in the Shrieking Shack. There is only one way in and one way out. You're path has been highlighted before you. Be careful of the things that may be waiting for you. Some nightmares are more real than others." Cautious, wary, worried silence pressed in on them. Even the breeze died in the silence. The announcer swallowed loudly enough to be transferred over the grounds. "You're, uh, you're time starts... now!"

Gold blazed before the trio, disappearing beneath the Whomping Willow.

'Reducio!' Stiles shouted at Calcifer. The dragon shrank to the size of a Great Dane, roaring in protest. "Sorry, buddy, but we won't be able to fit otherwise." Climbing onto the dragon's back just behind his wing joints, he shouted, "Let's go! Excelsior!"

Stiles could almost hear Lydia groan at his misuse of the term through their bond. His cackle of delight morphed into a shout of surprise as the Whomping Willow began swinging, aiming for Allison and Kira as they darted for the entrance. "Holy shit, you two are crazy!"

Allison screamed as she ducked and rolled out of the way of a branch, popping her head up once it had passed over her. "What the hell is going on?" She cursed colorfully in French, rolling again and to her feet.

"Trees shouldn't be able to move!" Kira shouted, hanging on to the branch that had slammed into her middle with all of her strength.

"This is the Whomping Willow!" Stiles shouted at them, "It literally has what it does in its name!"

"Who is that literal?" Allison shouted back, a whoosh of air leaving her lungs at a branch caught her in the chest. She was whisked into the air right along with Kira.

Patting Calcifer along the side of his neck, he said, "Let's go. We can get through this." As Calcifer lifted off the ground, darting towards the entrance, he dodged one branch after another. Stiles called out to the preoccupied pair, "Sorry about this, but I'll see you on the other side when you're done playing with the tree! By the way, stunning charms do work on it!" With the sound of Kira swearing in Japanese and Allison's French only gaining more color, Stiles disappeared through the entrance.

…..

"Alright, I've been down here I don't even know how many times, and definitely know this is not the usual way," Stiles muttered to himself, staring around at the unfamiliar path. They'd been flying down the path for what he was sure had been more than two minutes, and the golden road had disappeared, leaving them in sticky darkness that reached for him, curling around him. "This is strange, don't you think, Calcifer?" he asked. When he got no response, he glanced down, finding only his own two legs guiding him through the darkness.

Slowing to a halt, he stared at his legs, dread and unease becoming close friends in his chest. "Oh, this is not right. This is not right at all," he whispered, turning his eyes back up.

There was nothing before him, and nothing behind him. Reaching out his arms, he moved to his left, searching for the wall. Nothing. To his right? Nothing. If he thought about it hard enough, he couldn't remember hearing the slash of Calcifer's wings through the stale air or the tap of his shoes against stone.

"Really, really not right." Exhaling a deep breath, he continued forward. There was nothing else for him to do. He muttered spells beneath his breath at he walked, spells to clear the darkness, to show him his path, to remove him from whatever oblivion he'd been forced into.

Slowly, but surely, the darkness lightened to the grey just before dawn, and then disappeared all together with the soft flickering of firelight, opening onto a scene that Stiles would not soon forget.

Kate Argent straddled his mother's waist, leaning close to her face as she grinned widely. She had her wrists pinned to the floor. Blood slipped down her chin from a bruising wound on her lip. The blood splattered against his mother's pale skin, pooling in the hollow of her throat.

"You're not going to get away with this, Argent," Claudia spat, her lips pulled far back from her teeth is a feral snarl. Her eyes glowed the color of a dying sun, the light fading little by little. "They'll know you did it. They'll kill you if you touch me." The ring on her finger pulsed feebly and inconsistently.

The smile on Kate's lips only grew wider. "Oh, but I already have." She leaned down further, her lips only inches from Claudia's.

Claudia sneered. Stiles startled back, he'd never seen his mother display such a vicious expression. Pride swelled in his chest.

"Gerard must have really fallen low. Sending a little girl to kill a sick woman. How sad the Argent family has grown. It's a shame, really, and I hope your brother can get away from your poisonous father and actually make something of himself. Maybe Gerard should have sent Chris instead. He doesn't enjoy playing when he'd got a job to do."

Kate bared her teeth at Claudia, lifting her wrists and slamming them into the ground. The sound of shattering bone filled the room, but Claudia's only reaction was the paling of her skin. Her expression did not change, only twitched to show she'd even felt the injury.

"Mom!" Stiles shouted, jerking forward, but his feet had been stuck in place, his voice falling on deaf ears.

"I am not a little girl! I am a grown woman, a grown hunter!" she screamed in his mother's face, "I will kill you and every single Hale that lives in this town!"

Claudia laughed, though a bit strained. "I'd like to see you try. Do you really think you'll be able to get within feet of their home? You're an Argent, and untrustworthy one even to other hunters, at that. You're so stupid that you tried to seduce me to gain my trust."

"Obviously not that stupid if it worked."

Claudia's laughter shook her whole body, her face falling to the side as she gasped for air. "Oh, that is precious. You really think it worked. Forcing yourself onto someone and seducing them are two terribly different things. I'm too weak right now to have fought you off, and you thought that your seduction worked when you shoved me to the ground. You are really a precious idiot. I hope you never procreate." Her laughter died out as Kate's grip on her shattered wrist tightened, and she could only glare up at the younger woman.

"You shut your dirty whore mouth."

"Oh, I'm a dirty whore? Me thinks the pot is calling the kettle black."

"Yes! You are screwing the Hale alpha even with a husband and a son! And she has a husband and children herself!"

Claudia rolled her eyes, and Stiles suddenly understood where he got his flagrant sarcasm from. "Do you really think I would be dying right now if I were in an intimate relationship with the alpha of the Hale pack? Do you really think I couldn't have killed you without my wand if I were? How can you be so stupid? So ignorant? Oh, I wish I were as ignorant as you!" Her voice had risen to a shout. She panted as her words died around them.

Kate ground her teeth. "But you are the emissary of the Hale pack."

"Was," Claudia corrected, her voice turning singsong, "My alpha lost faith in me. That is why I am dying."

"Then why protect them?"

Claudia raised an eyebrow at Kate. "Because they're my family. So, if you're going to kill them, you might as well kill me too." A grin unfolded across her lips. "Unless... you're too scared to fight a dying woman." She shoved Kate off of her, rolling away towards the fire where her wand lay, unattended. Snatching it up, she dragged herself to her feet, her eyes falling on Stiles.

Terror twisted across her face. "Stiles, go! Go now!" she shouted at him.

"No! No, Mom! I won't leave you! I can help!" he shouted back, his voice young and afraid as he stared at Kate's rising form. Kate turned her fury towards him, fire exploding from the fireplace, twisting towards him.

Claudia flung herself towards him, throwing up a shield around them as she fell to his feet. "You have to live, Stiles. There's so much waiting for you in the future. I'm sorry for this, but I love you." She hugged him close as she whispered, 'Obliviate.'

…..

His knees buckled beneath him as the first sob slipped from his throat. Crumpling to the floor, he wiped haphazardly at his face with his sleeve. More tears streaked down his cheeks, dripping from his chin as he curled in on himself. "Mom," he sobbed, burying his face against his knees.

"Stiles?" Derek's voice echoed around him. Jerking his head up, he stared at his mate, his sobs slipping away as Derek crouched beside him. "What happened, Stiles?"

Chin trembling, he stammered, "K-Kate, she k-killed my mother. No one ever told me. They told me she died because she was sick, but they were wrong, they lied to me. Kate killed her."

Derek blinked back at him, nodding slowly as he spoke. "Did you try to stop her?" he asked gently, running warm fingers down Stiles' back.

Stiles stared at him, his jaw hanging slack. "N-no, I was really young, there was nothing I could do. Mom wouldn't let me-"

Removing his hand from Stiles' back, Derek stood, stepping away from him. "You could have, you know, stopped her. It would have been easy for you. You could have just gone off like you've done every other time. You could have saved her and kept Kate from killing my whole family."

"You- You know it doesn't work like that!" Stiles shouted, "You know I can't control that any more than children can control their magical outbursts!"

Derek shook his head, turning from Stiles. Already, he could feel his magic slipping from him, his body withering, their mate bond fraying. "Maybe I was wrong to choose you. I don't think you can be an emissary or an alpha. I should have chosen my mate better," he said sadly, taking the first step away from Stiles.

"Why would you say that? I've been doing pretty well for stumbling through this blind."

"No, you haven't," Derek said, glancing over his shoulder with only contempt in his eyes, "You could have been doing so much better than this. I trusted that you could, and you've broken that trust."

There was a sharp, painful tug in the pit of Stiles' stomach, like someone was trying to yank his innards out through his belly button with a summoning charm. He cried out, curling into himself. "Whoever you are, because you're not Derek, you're wrong. Derek would never say something like that, he'd never turn his back on me," Stiles growled, turning burning crimson eyes up to Derek's retreating back, "I don't know who you are, or what you're trying to do, but you're wrong. You're wrong!"

His magic burst from his body without warning, filling the space and burning away the blackness around him until he could see the walls of the Shrieking Shack, could hear Calcifer snuffling around him making rumbling, worried noises. His magic crawled along the floor, across the walls, crackled through the air around them.

The smell of burnt fabric filled his nose, and he glanced down to find that his mother's ring, glowing and heated, had burned a hole through his clothing.

He was going to be sick. Stumbling over to a waste basket, he allowed himself to evacuate what little food his pack had managed to coax into him earlier that morning.

Calcifer pulled at the back of his clothing less than gently as he slumped over the rim if the basket. "I'm fine, Calcifer. I'm fine," he mumbled, batting at the dragon, but he continued to tug, pulling Stiles to his feet. "Fine! Fine! I'm paying attention! What is it?"

The dragon glowered at him, blinking slowly before huffing and turning towards the middle of the room.

"Champions, there are only fifteen seconds left on the clock! And we're still short a winner!" the announcer shouted somewhere off in the distance. "Folks, we haven't seen hide no hair of Stiles Stilinski for nearly the whole two minutes! Do you think he's gotten passed the obstacle that was waiting along their path? We can only hope!"

Stiles blinked, staring at the middle of the room. Sitting on a pedestal, a piece of rock -or was it metal? Clay? Wood?- sat, continuously molding and remolding itself into new objects with varying colors and shapes and textures. A ring, a bracelet, a wand, a statue. His mothers grin grew warmer against his skin as if responding to the object.

"Do you... do you think this is the bonus object?" Stiles asked, looking over to Calcifer. The dragon nudged his hand towards the object.

"Hurry, Champions! You've got five seconds left!" the announcer shouted, "Count down with me, everyone! Five... Four... Three..."

Stiles reached out, and wrapped his fingers around the last item.