Scott had been right; his abs hurt like a bitch. Gemin and Boyd held him down while Derek broke his ribs. Kira had a soothing hand on his should and Deaton oversaw the whole process. It was definitely not a pleasant experience. Scott must have been leaking some of his alpha-mojo because the uninvolved pack members huddled in the far corners of the room. They were trying not to draw his notice and possibly his pain induced anger.
As much as Scott loved Stiles, he was about ready to break his face. The spaz was munching on another bucket of popcorn. Lydia had also joined him in the entertainment and refreshments. Only, the redhead happened to be studying him with intense scrutiny as if the injured werewolf was a really interesting lab rat. Scott didn't like it; especially because he was in a pretty venerable position. Must have been his werewolf instincts jumping to the forefront. At least he still had enough control not to take a bite out of Derek.
Now that Kira was awake after Kate's night-night tap, they could start hashing out the game plan. Right after Erica got her arm set. Scott felt better about not being the only one to break bones. He was also glad that he had gone first. It sucked having to watch someone going through pain and knowing you had to go next. Although, this meant that he had to be the one to cause his beta more pain.
Erica whimpered as she approached her healing alpha. The poor girl had gone through a lot of agony in her life. Scott took her arm in his hands, relieving the majority of her discomfort. He gave her a look that said everything would be ok and tried to project a calm, soothing influence. Erica gave him a single nod.
Crack.
There was the first break. Erica let out a shriek. Isaac grabbed her free hand, pulling her attention to him. Snap. Erica's next sound was more like an angry yell. There, done, the arm had been set.
While Erica was getting werewolf cuddles, Scott stretched. There was that weirdly masochistic tendency to poke at things that were sore. Like: 'Does it still hurt?' 'Ow.' "Guess it's still healing.' 'Maybe it's better now.' 'Ow.' 'Definitely not better.' 'One more try.' 'For the love of all that is holy, at least give it a minute before you poke it again.' He shook himself out of his ironic internal dialogue. Actually, his side was already feeling much better. Ah, the awesomeness that is werewolf healing. "OK everybody, what's the plan?"
"We need to find Ms. Argent and Peter Hale." Ito said, entering the house. Scott felt uncomfortable being venerable around his pack, even though he trusted them, let alone someone else. (Well, he almost trusted the Jackson and the twins.) He was definitely having problems with the other Alpha hanging around his territory. Typically, in werewolf society, there was a lot of jockeying for position in pack hierarchy. One's place was fought for; sometimes to the death. Alphas were not excluded from the violence. Look at what happened to Deucalion. Anyway, Scott's pack was atypical in a lot of ways. But that didn't mean he'd trust Ito as far as he could throw her, not when she had a very unstable power base. She was on the verge of being an Omega, herself.
"My uncle would have gone to ground, by now." Derek pointed out with disgust.
"Kate's probably done the same." Chris confirmed.
Scott ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Back at square one; it felt like they had just gone in a huge circle. "You know her best. Know anywhere she'd hide out?"
"I'll call some of her old hunting buddies. See what I can drum up." Chris told the group, grabbing his jacket from the back of the couch.
"Hunters!" Ito spit out. Clearly, it hadn't been enough time for Ito to get over the loss of her pack. The dead pool had been taken out a little over a year ago, but Beacon Hills' supernatural community was still recovering from the massacre. Scott didn't think she was likely to 'get over it,' even if the massacre was a decade ago.
Scott nodded. "Chris, I have to agree with Alpha Satome. No Hunters on pack lands. We don't want any of them sniffing around us, hunters aren't the most trust worthy people." Allison sent him death glares and huffed. Scott gulped and quickly back tracked, "Present company excluded, but we haven't had the best experiences with them." Interestingly enough, Genim was growling at the pissed off Allison. That wasn't a good sign. Past history?
"Understood." Chris accepted Scott's stance on the matter. He was most likely thinking of his own homicidal family's involvement in… almost everything that's gone wrong in Beacon Hills. Wow, dude, what a legacy. "Anything else?" The elder man asked.
Deaton held up two fingers. That was a weird gesture; it looked like he was raising his hand. "If I may add: we still have the previous mystery at hand, as well as the two new were-creatures, to look into." Way to bring it around, Deaton. The teenagers groaned at the reminder. What was the saying? 'One step forward, two steps back.'
"I'll make sure that I ask." Chris said, closing the front door behind him.
Stiles spoke up, having finished the popcorn, "So... research party? We'd didn't get a heck of a lot done yesterday."
"Good idea. You, Kira, Allison, Lidia, and Danny can see what you can find out. We need to know about dimension traveling, werebears, werecats, and undead magic… stuff." Scott commanded, wiggling his fingers to illustrate magic.
"I may be able to lend you some assistance." Deaton told the group. "I have some rare, obscure texts back at the house."
Melissa was grabbing her coat and keys, "I'll drive you, Deaton, I have a shift at the hospital coming up and I need to go get my scrubs before that."
"Speaking of which, Parish and I have to get to the station." Sheriff Stilinski said, standing from his seat at the couch. Scott had to admit the man tugged at his feels when he went to give both versions of his son a hug good bye. Genim looked like he had totally not expected the embrace. The Sheriff finished the good bye and made a shooing motion to get Parish on the move.
Parish waved with a shy, "Bye." There was a chorus of the same from the assorted pack. Everybody noticed the flirt in Lydia's reply, including Jackson and Aiden who looked pretty put out.
"More info gathering?" Ethan asked, trying to get his brother's attention away from his girlfriend.
"Yep," Scott agreed, "You and Aiden are one team, and Erica and Boyd are the other. Erica, why don't you go see if Willy knows about our latest creature of the week?"
"With pleasure." Erica said, cracking her knuckles. Scott took a second to pity the poor bar owner. Then, he was over it. The man was a sleaze.
Scott pondered a moment, trying to figure out how to distribute the remaining members of his pack. It was then that he noticed Braeden's conspicuous absence from their little pow-wow. He got a sinking feeling in his stomach. A hunter, one that had lied in the past, was mysteriously missing right after their two prisoners escaped. Scott smelled something fishy, and it wasn't actual fish.
Anyway, the people who'd have the best ability to track Peter were the ones who spent the most time with him. Following that logic, then the bizarro wolves and the Hales would know him best. So…
"Laura?"
She looked up at Scott, surprised he had addressed her. "Yes."
"You know where the alternate version of Peter hid out when he wanted to be alone?" Scott asked.
"I'm not…" Laura paused, looking down, thinking, "I might know a few places."
"Good. Take Isaac and scout them out." Scott then shifted his attention to Derek, "I want you and Malia to check the places Peter's been known to go to. You found him in the apartment last time. He could try hiding in plain sight again."
"Right." Derek agreed with a nod.
Who next? Jackson was a good tracker. He had a better nose than most, if not all, of the pack. He could go with that one girl that Scott hadn't really gotten a chance to talk to. "Jackson take…"
"Lexie?" Jackson asked saving Scott from bumbling her name. That would have been embarrassing, not to mention a little rude. Lexie, Lexie, Lexie. He had to remember that.
"Yup," Scott confirmed, grabbing his own coat and walking through the front door. "Genim, you're with me."
Scott was about to walk out onto the front porch when Brett and Liam came bounding up to him. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Where do you think you two are going?"
"Out with you." "To look for the bad guys." The two boys replied, as if it was a no-brainer. Yet both of them were sporting very impressive puppy dog eyes.
Unfortunately for them, Scott was the king of puppy dog eyes. He could even get Derek to do what he wanted, and that was no mean feat. "I don't think so."
"What?" "Why not?" Came the pup's plaintive replies.
"Because you have school in the morning." Boy did Scott feel ridiculous, and more than a little hypocritical, saying that. He heard Stiles snickering somewhere in the back and, out of his peripheries, he saw Derek raise an eyebrow of doom.
"It's the middle of the day." "You have school tomorrow, too." The boys called Scott on his shit.
"Yeah, but we're graduating at the end of the week." Scott told him snootily, crossing his arms over his chest and sticking his nose in the air. "You, on the other hand, have finales tomorrow." Scott gave into his immature desire to stick his tongue out at them.
The looks of horror that crossed their faces were priceless. Brett's nose was screwed in distaste and Liam was anxiously running his hand through his hair. "Ugh, why would you remind us?" "Oh no, I totally forgot about them."
Brett turned his reproachful look on his best friend, "Seriously?"
"What?" Liam snapped, "I haven't studied all weekend."
"You have straight A's." Brett pointed out. Funny enough, both of them had way better grades than anything Scott had his entire school career.
"How do think I got them." Liam argued. He really didn't have anything to worry about, as far as Scott was concerned. Liam was what you'd call an over achiever. He had to be the best academically, in lacrosse, and as a werewolf. His need to find acceptance through success most likely caused his anger issues and overall douche-baggery. This need to succeed, in turn, was the way he tried to make up for his personality issues. It was a viscous cycle. Scott's heart went out to the poor kid. They'd actually gotten close in the months since he'd bit Liam. Maybe that was why Scott could put up with Jackson more. Jackson had similar inferiority issues.
Scott shook himself from his thoughts. They were wasting daylight. "Why don't you guys go over to Mason's house to study? Think of it as a protection detail. He's the only one of us who is doesn't know Peter is at large." That caught Liam's attention. He dragged Brett out of the house in record time, totally breezing past Scott.
"Speaking of which, I have to get ready for my tests, too." Ken nervously fidgeted with his keys. "With all the excitement that has been going on, I haven't even written the test questions. " Mr. Yukimura was the History teacher at Beacon Hills High School.
Ms. Morell followed Kira's parents out, "I have to prepare for finals week, as well."
"What do you have to prepare for?" Erica asked, snidely, "You're the guidance counselor."
Morell looked down her nose at the she-wolf, "I'll have you know, this is my busiest week of the year. There are stressed and lost seniors who are worried about going away to college, or not having a plan for the future. There are the ones who are depressed that they are leaving school, their friends, and their childhood behind. Then, we have the partiers who show up inebriated to school." She really got into her rant and advanced on a retreating Erica. It was highly entertaining, watching the girl get her ass handed to her. "Then, there are the students who are going through nervous break downs because of finales. I have to deal with performance drugs, the selling of luck charms, and cheating. There are more fights and suicide attempts in this one week then all of the rest of the year, put together."
"Sorry." Erica threw in the towel. "You provide a very necessary service to the student body and you are under-appreciated."
O0o.o0O
"So…" Scott felt a bit awkward, talking to the broken version of his best friend.
"So…" Genim seemed just as weirded out. They were heading to the care home Peter had stayed at as an invalid. It was their first stop of the night. The scouting parties had conferred after all four teams started heading towards the school. They decided to split the map of Beacon Hills by the compass; seemed more logical that way.
Scott wasn't the greatest at planning in advance. Usually, Stiles, Derek, or Lydia would make the plans. Isaac, Allison, and Kira were good at the whole on-the-fly assessing thing. The alpha just wasn't very good with tactics, or research, or leading people in general. His ego was taking some pretty hard hits recently. He was pretty lost with it all. Not like he had to deal with this particular issue often. "So," Scott tried again to make conversation, "you and Peter are pretty close?"
"Not really." Genim shrugged his shoulders, not committing to anything. "He's not the greatest person in the world, but he's a lot better than others."
"What does that mean?" Scott asked, bewildered by the vagueness of that comment. There was obviously a lot of emotion there.
Stiles snapped a stick that he'd picked up earlier as he answered, "Peter can be a manipulative asshole, but he's nothing like how fucked up your Peter is."
"That's not saying a lot." Scott huffed a laugh at the understatement.
Genim shared a grin before a frown took its place. "Nah, I suppose not. It's like your Peter never got back his sanity from the fire; like he's still broken. Our Peter is different. He really cares about the pack, even if he can be a sarcastic jerk. It's just that we've had a rough year." Genim sighed.
Scott didn't know what to say. He was usually really good with emotions, that is, when they were out in the open. But this was different. He didn't know what Genim had gone through and he sure as heck couldn't tell him, 'Everything is going to be alright.' For one thing, that sounded like a cheap cliché. For another, it seemed to Scott that nothing was going to be 'alright' to this version of Stiles for a very long time. So he let the silence go on awhile.
"To answer your question, we used to be." Genim finally continued. "When my Scott first got turned, Peter was courting Melissa. Truth be told; it was kinda creepy." Scott shuddered, agreeing wholeheartedly. "Anyway, it settled into something normal for a while. He'd taught us some stuff and he was around more often than your mom or my dad. He treated us like family, which I think helped him recover, or at least pretend that the fire hadn't happened.
"Then, the bastard bit me and went and got himself killed. That was pretty rough. I was really angry and he wasn't around to be angry at. So I took it out on Derek. Then, Peter came back and Lydia died. Y- A bunch of other stuff happened, and I dealt with it. I'm pretty sure that Laura is technically his second but, sometimes; he acted like I was it. We got closer, I guess. But after the thing with the Darach, it was like he broke again. He was like Isaac, near the end, but with enough responsibility to keep from getting himself killed. Again."
"It's hard not having him around. And it's just plain weird dealing with you." Genim confided as they crunched through the leaf litter.
"Yeah," Scott huffed, "I never thought about being an alpha until it just kind of happened. I'm sure it was a surprise to you, too."
"Uh, yeah," Genim said, scanning the path ahead of them. "How'd that happen, by the way? You never really said."
"Oh, well, I'm not really sure. To be honest, I don't really know." Scott said scratching the back of his head. He was embarrassed about the whole 'true alpha' thing. In his own opinion, he felt like he was making a bit of a mess of it, so far. "We'd just got everyone back from the alpha pack and we were still dealing with the Darach. Derek did something where he was losing his alpha powers and I kind of just walked into an ash circle. Poof. Insta-Alpha." Scott said nonchalantly, trying to play it off.
It took Scott a minute to realize that Genim had stopped walking and he was just standing there, gaping. Scott, ideally, wondered if he could toss a piece of popcorn just so that to could hit that punching bag thing at the back of the other wolf's throat. Wouldn't that make him vomit? Maybe he shouldn't then.
"You're a true alpha?" Genim asked, incredulous.
"You don't have to sound so surprised." Scott said, pretending to be a little hurt. Actually he was a little hurt but it sounded pretty ridiculous in his own head.
Genim started pacing. "Do you know how rare that is? It's like…one, maybe, every century. Although, some werewolf historians suggest that a few alphas that have inherited the position without killing could have been true alpha's. They were just content to be followers instead of leaders, while their previous alpha reigned. So, it could happen more often than is strictly documented. Although, the other side of the argument is that if the wolf was content to follow, then that took them out of the running for true alpha anyways." Ah, there was the Stiles Scott knew and loved. Even as a broken werewolf, some people never changed.
"But, buddy, it seems like your circumstances make a pretty compelling argument for those who are content to follow until needed. No wonder Deucalion was so put out when he met me. I am totally awesome but I am no True Alpha." Yup. Definitely Stiles.
"What do you mean-" Scott started before the wind changed direction and he got a familiar sent.
"Do you smell that?" Genim asked Scott, getting sent at the same time. With that, the two bound on the trail, bypassing the recovery home completely.
