Sadie had never screamed so loudly in her life. Well, maybe the time when Peter bit a chunk out of her side on the lacrosse field as a close second. Hands cupped around her mouth she jumped up and down as she cheered. If Derek was as near as he felt, he surely could hear the ear shattering screams of his wife. Between Scott and Kira, the Cyclones were keeping the ball out of the opposing team's hands with much more success than before. If the pair kept it up, the game would end and they could get everyone cleared out of the stadium to safety.
"Where did those two come from? Are they even in High School?" The other Coach snapped at Coach Finstock. He couldn't blame him, the werewolf and kitsune were ruthless as they plowed through the pack of high schoolers in pursuit of the ball.
Finstock didn't miss a beat, "Those are my best students. That one is like a son to me."
"He looks like he's thirty! Who the hell is that guy?"
Coach was overcome with a crazy smile, "That's Greenburg."
Sadie nodded, "He's my son. Do I look old enough to have a thirty year old son? What are you implying?"
The opposing team's Coach stammered an excuse, hands up in apology as he backed off to his side of the field.
"Take it to the rack Eli!" Coach shouted. Her son had the ball! And for one of the first times in his life, was running confidently towards the goal with the agility of her werewolf family members.
Wherever Derek was, she hoped he could hear the game and hear their son running with the ball. She held her breath, clutching at Coach as Eli pulled back to take the shot, sinking it into the net. Sadie and Coach shook each other with joy by the shoulders, Sadie knocked him to the ground accidentally with her strength. She left him there, running onto the field.
"Did you see that?! Did you see me score?" Eli shouted, eyes wide with shock and adrenaline.
Kira was beside him flopped on the ground, dropping her helmet onto the turf in an exhausted groan. "Remind me why I played this in high school?"
"Dad was actually right! I'm sort of good!" Eli exclaimed to Scott and Sadie, a wide grin on his face. He paused, looked at Sadie with a guilty look. "Dad!"
She nodded, "We got everyone out, that was the first step. Kira, what do we do now?"
Kira had gotten to her feet, leaving the pile of lacrosse clothes she'd put over her regular clothes in a puddle and looked up at the setting sun, "He's going to take you soon. Getting everyone out of the stands took longer than we had."
Eli panicked, "What?!"
Sadie turned to take his hand in reassurance, but was enveloped in a cloud of black smoke.
When the smoke cleared, she was no longer standing on the lacrosse field. Fog and dead trees surrounded her. At least the illusion wasn't below freezing this time. She squinted through the darkness, wishing her eyes to shift at will like everyone else so she could see better. The whole point of a true mate was to be able to protect her mate and children. What good could she be if she still needed to use a flashlight?!
"Sadie!"
A foot away stood Allison and Scott. Sadie hesitated to join them, glancing at the bow in Allison's hands. Her right hand slowly drifted behind her towards the waistband of her jeans, Scott noticed the action and called to her.
"It's okay, she's on our side. She's remembering," Scott reasoned. That was good enough for the moment for Sadie as she joined them at their side. There was no sign of the Nogitsune and even with a potentially murderous Allison with her, she still had faith in Scott. Allison looked Sadie over with a questioning look, "You don't remember her, do you?" Scott asked Allison.
The archer shook her head, "I know I should."
"Mom!" Eli ran up behind her. Allison's eyes widened as she took in the mother and son pair, realizing she'd been hunting potentially someone she knew and cared about. Sadie clasped his hand tightly and Eli gestured around them. "This is it. They're here. They're all trapped here."
"So are we." Scott glanced at Sadie and Allison before they started off into the fog. Scott paused, putting a hand on Sadie. "Kira?"
"I don't see her. She knew we were being taken so maybe she did something to prevent it. Hopefully she is still on Plan A."
"Plan A?" Scott asked, frowning at whatever building-like shape in the distance they were approaching.
"Don't even ask what Plan B is."
Up ahead in the fog was a altar, but before the four could get within visual distance, Sadie heard an eerie familiar clicking. Five Oni materialized from a cloud of black smoke, settling into an offensive position, swords held high.
"I've killed Oni before," Allison said confidently.
"Then let's kill a few more."
Scott and Allison broke off together, fighting like they had all those years ago against three Oni. Two of them made their way for Sadie and Eli as she pushed her last remaining silver dagger into her son's hands. Sadie could fight and hopefully prevent herself from being killed. Eli had never trained or tried to with his parents. He could barely handle going on jogs with his Mother through the Preserve and Derek wasn't even sure if he was a werewolf. He needed the extra protection of the only silver she'd brought with her. The gun in the waistband of her jeans would be useless against them, so she left it where it was.
"I can't use this," Eli stammered, trying to push it back into Sadie's hands. She didn't have time to argue and convince him to hang onto it. The first Oni swung as Sadie pushed Eli past and under its sword. She kicked the Oni's leg from under it, bringing the terrifying face mask to her knee with a crack. There wasn't a way to kill them, but she could try to slow them down.
"Keep moving!" she heard Scott's shout from a few feet away.
Sadie could almost see people on the altar as they neared. She squinted, trying to see if Derek was one of them when the second Oni swung at her, backing her into a tree. Her hands flew to the handle of its sword to stop it, one hand grasping the blade to prevent it from slicing off her head. She felt the metal cutting into the fingers on her left hand, blood dripping down her wrist. She let out a scream of pain, grimacing as she continued to struggle. If she continued this way, she wouldn't have a hand left to prevent her own decapitation. The pressure suddenly let off the sword, the Oni before her twisting into a bright yellow light before exploding to reveal Eli standing with her silver dagger outstretched.
"Mom! Holy shit, your hand!"
Sadie ripped off the lower half of her t-shirt, wrapping it tightly around her hand, pushing down the bile in her throat at the visible bones in her fingers as she used her teeth to tie it off tightly.
"We can't kill them without silver. We just have the one dagger! We need to buy Parrish and Kira more time!" Scott shouted.
"Sadie! Eli!" Sadie looked up from her shaking bloody hand to the altar. Her brown eyes met Derek's green ones for just a moment, relief flooding through her before she was pushed to the ground by Eli, his arm slicing in front of her at the Oni that approached. She quickly got to her feet, picking up the sword of the Oni that Eli had killed to block the next oncoming blow. She pushed them back, wanting to have their backs covered by the altar if possible.
She could practically hear Argent's advice from training with Allison in high school echo in her head, "Keep your six covered. If your back is open, consider yourself dead."
To her right, Allison was on the ground, her bow the only thing between her and the Oni before her. Sadie could see her arms shaking with exertion. She reached over, pulling the dagger from Eli's hands. Arm lifted to send her friend the only real weapon they had against these things, Sadie froze, hands clapping over her ears. The sound was excruciating, worse than her bloody, barely connected fingers on her hand. She closed her eyes tightly, hoping it would be over soon.
"Allison!"
The scream shook the entire illusion, the ground rumbling under Sadie's feet as tried to stay on her feet. Lydia.
When she reopened her eyes, the Oni were gone and so was Eli.
"We're not done yet," the voice sent chills through Sadie.
Her son in his grasp, long dark nails threatening his exposed throat, was the Nogitsune. Sadie ran to the stairs only to be pulled around the waist by Scott. His grasp was firm despite her fight to get to her son. Scott's eyes were fixed on the scene before him as he tried to prevent his sister from running to certain death.
"The game is mine!"
"Take me! Let the others go," Scott bargained, but the Nogitsune laughed a guttural laugh, black ooze dropping from his mouth. "All the lives here belong to me"
"You just need me," Scott continued, "Allison kills me. I die in her arms. The same way she died in mine. That's the move that wins the game, isn't it?"
Sadie thrashed in his arms again at his suggestion, "Scott, no!"
"I've already won!"
"You lose! Until I'm off the board! And I'm still standing! And I'm still the Alpha!" snarled Scott.
The Nogitsune was intrigued at Scott's offer. "An arrow to the heart, to save everyone else? All the other players go free?"
Allison's bow flew into her unwilling hands. Scott released Sadie, giving her a solemn look before turning slowly to face Allison.
The archer was horrified, "No."
"No…no I can't. I cannot. No."
Eli's gave a pained cry from behind them as the Nogitsune applied more pressure to his throat. Allison's eyes darted from a distressed Sadie to her Eli on the altar, putting the pieces together. She didn't know the full story yet, but she knew the boy the Nogitsune was threatening to kill was her friend's son and Scott's nephew.
The Nogitsune was getting impatient, "Allison! Kill him and I win the game!"
"Allison, please. Don't make me watch my nephew die. He's just a kid. Just like we were." Scott pleaded.
Sadie felt completely helpless and like she was going to throw up. She wanted, no needed to save Eli, to get him to safety. To get Derek to safety and out of here. But to lose Scott in order to do that was too much. Where was Kira? Stiles? Parrish? She could only stay knelt on the ground, hand clutched to her chest as she watched Allison unload multiple arrows into Scott's chest. The third arrow took him to the ground and into Allison's lap.
The Nogitsune laughed, "The wolves how to signal their position to the rest of the pack. Tell me Scott McCall, what is the sound of the wolf who's ready to die?"
Scott breathed deeply, a smirk gracing his face. "I'd tell you. But I'm not ready to die."
The arrows in Scott's chest burst into flames, his fatal wounds disappearing with the arrows as Scott stood. Mind racing, Sadie turned to the tied up Kitsune behind her as her foxfire re-entered her.
"Fox fire," spat the Nogitsune.
"Sadie!" Allison shouted, an arrow already notched in her bow. Sadie pulled the gun from her waistband, rising from the ground and firing at the Nogitsune. The bullet entered his forehead, followed by Allison's arrow seconds later in the same hole. He snarled, struggling to pull the arrow out with a roar that shook the illusion. Sadie prepared to fire again when more Oni than there had been previously, appeared around them. And they were advancing much faster than they had before.
"You want to get Plan A fired up, Sadie?" Scott called to her uneasily. A burst of fire suddenly appeared as Parrish led the rest of their pack, excluding Lydia & Jackson, through the opening in the broken illusion barrier.
Sadie sputtered in relief. She threw her arms out, gesturing at the incoming calvary. "Ta da?"
Kira had her katana in hand directly behind Parrish. She sliced through the first Oni and it immediately disappeared. Argent wasted no time, firing a headshot to the closest one with a snarl. "Catch!' he shouted to Sadie, tossing a clip to her. She deftly caught it, unloading her current clip and slamming the new one in, silver glinting in the manufactured illusion moonlight.
The Nogitsune staggered down the stairs in disbelief at the scene before him, giving Sadie an opportunity to break for the stairs and to her family. She'd just barely passed the Nogitsune when an Oni appeared before her, she fired her already chambered normal bullet into it uselessly.
"What is this?!" The Nogitsune roared at the turn of events before him. The first silver bullet in the clip jammed and Sadie backed up the stairs quickly as the Oni advanced on her. She struggled one handedly to unload and reload the clip. The Oni before her disappeared with the bang of a shot to reveal Stiles, gun in hand.
"Silver, you motherfucker!" Stiles shouted at the Nogitsune, firing a round into him, fueled by anger. The Nogitsune roared at him before continuing his descent into the chaos. Behind Sadie she could hear the Sheriff shouting for his son. With the Nogitsune distracted, it was up to the pair to free the rest of their group.
Sadie gave Stiles a grin as they jogged up the stairs, "How good did that feel?"
"Ohhhh my god, so good. Better than sex," Stiles practically moaned.
They separated, Stiles running to his Father as Sadie went to her family. Derek was already pulling with everything he had on the bonds on his wrist when Sadie and Eli reached him. They were tight to the point of bleeding and barely left any room behind him to move. Eli took one side and Sadie took the other, leaning their whole body weight back to pull on the binds.
"Come on, come on!" Sadie begged.
"Stop! Stop! Stop! The only way we can break these is with our strength together. Your Mom's hurt, it's you and me Eli." Derek halted their actions, looking to Eli.
"What strength? I don't have any strength!"
"You will as a wolf," Derek pressed, "We do it together."
Eli licked his lips nervously, hesitant to embarrass himself again in front of his Father. Derek immediately pressed. They couldn't baby him anymore. If he was going to learn to embrace his wolf, it needed to be NOW.
"You're my son…OUR son. You're a Hale," and before Eli could think, Derek had shifted, roaring louder than Eli had ever remembered a wolf howling. Sadie staggered as her eyes shifted in tandem with her son's, feeling a surge of power course through her. The Hales looked at each other. Blue, yellow and purple eyes glowing.
"Let's get your Dad the fuck out of here," Sadie growled, feeling more like a wolf than she ever had, placing her good hand on one side of the bonds as Eli took the other. She paused, taking in the sight of her beautiful son fully shifted for the first time in his life with pride before they ripped the bonds from Derek's wrists like they were nothing.
Derek's shifted face beamed at his son, briefly holding his face to study it before urging them down to Liam and Hikari to free them. Deaton and Mason were already freed by Stiles and the Sheriff and were assisting in taking down the last remaining Oni. Stiles and his Father were back to back, nearly mirror images in how they moved. The FBI had been good to Stiles.
"No!" The Nogitstune staggered to his knees. With his Oni gone, he was alone. Not defenseless, but without his army to back him. He was outnumbered. The pack stood spaced, but together, still not trusting they had beaten back the Oni. Derek and Eli stood protectively in front of Sadie, still in wolf form. Kira stood over the Nogitsune, katana in hand, ready to strike. Parrish strode to her, clearly having been briefed on Plan A. Sadie sighed, daring to hope that it was almost over. That they'd won. She'd hoped too soon.
"Do you remember the gift you gave me, Scott? The bite of an Alpha? The power of a werewolf. I haven't been a fox for awhile now…and now is the perfect time to let the beast free, " Nogitsune laughed, spitting black from his unsightly mouth. He unwrapped his head to reveal the most disgusting wolf shift Sadie had ever seen. Between the blood loss, her mangled hand and the sight before her, she really was going to throw up.
"Oh my god," she said softly under her breath, breathing deeply through her nose and out through her mouth. Derek and Eli dropped into crouches before her, hearing the stutter of panic in her heartbeat and instinctually moving to protect her. Before she could think, before she could breathe, the Hale werewolves ran towards the Nogitsune with Scott by their sides, Liam bringing up the rear. Kira swung her katana to strike, but with one hand the Nogitsune werewolf had held by the throat, tossing her through the air and into the stairs of the altar. Her head smacked against the stone stairs, her eyes staying shut, sword fallen from her limp hand. Hikari knelt beside her friend and fellow Kitsune, giving a reassuring nod that she was alive. When Sadie turned back to the fight, Derek, Eli and Scott were nowhere to be found. Scott's beta paced anxiously where they had just been.
"Liam! Where'd they go?" Sadie shouted, running to his side. He was panting, deeply gulping air.
"I don't know…I can't smell them anymore."
"What! Can you hear them?!"
Sadie spun in a circle, eyes frantic taking in the equally concerned rest of the group. She couldn't hear anything apart from the blood rushing in her ears.
Stiles was at her side instantly, "It's another illusion. It has to be. They just have to figure that out before it's too late."
He looked down at his hands quickly, unnoticeably quick to anyone but Sadie. She grabbed his hand with her uninjured one, squeezing it tightly. "It's real. I'm here with you."
"What do we do?" Liam was still pacing, Mason joining his best friend in support. He'd pause briefly, dropping to the ground to listen before returning to his feet. Sadie looked at the unconscious Kira, then back at Stiles. "What was Plan B? Did she tell you?"
He didn't have time to answer. A roar, nothing like Sadie had ever heard shook the entire illusion. She held onto Stiles as the ground rumbled under their feet as they looked at each other in terror. The Nogitsune and werewolves had broken through the illusion and reappeared locked in a struggle atop the Nemeton, over forty feet from where they stood. Derek had his arms wrapped around the Nogitsune from behind, Eli and Scott struggling to hold onto him from the front. With a roar or rage, the Nogitsune threw Eli from the Nemeton. Sadie and Stiles were moving the moment they saw them reappear, running to Eli. Before they got to him, Parrish had flown past them, fully engulfed in his hellfire. Parrish leapt onto the Nemeton just as the Nogitsune hurled Scott from him. Just Derek held onto the monster, struggling to maintain his grasp as Parrish grabbed ahold of him.
Stiles and Sadie dropped to the ground beside Eli as the young werewolf clutched as his healing broken ribs, his eyes locked on his father on the Nemeton.
"Plan B," Stiles said sadly beside Sadie,"Someone has to be the hero."
Sadie was already on her feet, scream in her throat as she realized what Derek was about to do. His sad blue eyes met hers and it felt like the world was ending around her. She knew that look. She wasn't sure who was holding her from running to him. It didn't matter. She had to get to her husband and get him off that damn Nemeton. Sadie was not losing him again.
"No!" She fought against Liam's hold as Parrish engulfed the Nogitsune in his hellfire. Flames flickered around Derek, climbing up the person she loved most in this world. He was going to burn to death and she and her son just had to watch it happen. Her nightmare view was suddenly blocked, Peter Hale's face impossibly close to Sadie's. He gripped her chin tightly, forcing her to look into his blue wolf eyes. Unshed tears glistened in his eyes as he stared at her, briefly darting to Eli beside her on the ground.
"You take care of him. Both of them,"
"What?" Sadie sobbed, confused and struggling to look around Peter.
He smiled sadly at her, the side of his mouth quirking up into a smirk as a lone tear ran down his cheek, "Someone has to do the right thing."
Peter leapt to the Nemeton with a roar, tossing his nephew off the Nogitsune into the leaves below. His claws sunk deep into the neck of the Nogitsune's throat to hold him as he growled at Parrish, "Parrish! Light this fucker up!"
The Nemeton exploded in fire. Sadie threw herself over Eli, with Stiles throwing himself over her. It was like a star had exploded, the light was so bright all Sadie could do was squeeze her eyes tightly, pressing her son's face against her chest for cover. The heat from the fire licked over them before disappearing, the light gone from behind Sadie's eyelids. She opened her eyes and under Stiles' arm she could just make out the Nemeton. It was empty, save Parrish slumped in exhaustion. Plan B had worked. The Nogitsune was gone and so was Peter Hale.