Victoria Argent huffed with annoyance as she looked at her watch. She sent a glare towards her oblivious father-in-law who was in the study as he continued a conversation on his cell. She had trained herself out of any obvious emotional "tells" years ago but the temptation to run her fingers through her short hair in frustration was always harder to resist when she had to deal with Gerard.

Victoria hated tardiness with a passion. At least Allison knew better than to be late and she had already left for the High school with that Martin girl in that ridiculous Porsche, driven by the son of the DA. At least she was staying away from that McCall creature for now. Gerard seemed to have talked some sense into her since she wasn't listening to her parents.
What was keeping Gerard? She moved forward towards the open door of the study and caught the tail end of his conversation "Thank you Carl. I appreciate the heads up about this matter. I won't forget it and I am sure you and your wife will enjoy the two weeks at the Argent townhouse in Paris. I am surprised that the School Board did not see fit to inform me directly as the Principal of the school but we all know that the S&G Council are rather circumspect with information. It will be interesting to see how they think this rather strange initiative will work. I do hope it's in the best interests of the children."

Gerard's smoothly closed the conversation with mild pleasantries in direct contrast to the cold calculation on his face. That was the expression of an experienced hunter working through unexpected variations to his plans. Victoria's annoyance was temporarily shelved by her curiosity. "Carl Brewer from the County School Board?" She queried.
Gerard nodded absently "He has proved useful in the past and luckily for us his wife does so adore shopping in Paris" he responded dryly.

"And?" Victoria prompted impatiently once again looking at her watch. She had class first thing this morning and she was going to be late, even if she was travelling with the Principal.

"And my dear Vicky, he had very interesting news that may serve to assist us in our endeavours" he smirked. "An impressive distraction which will allow us to work with more freedom and speed up our efforts to rid this poor town of its supernatural curse."

His smirk grew even larger at the frustration on his daughter-in-law's face. "The Sentinel and Guide Council are doing some outreach work at the High School apparently. A surprise visitation is planned today. I am sure we can spin this development to our advantage and even make use of those pathetic so called gifted pairs." There was a satisfied gleam in his cold eyes as he uttered the words.

"Gerard, you know its Hunter Council policy to avoid the SGC" Victoria cautioned with a concerned frown but Gerard merely shrugged in response. "That's only to keep our hunter sentinels off their radar with their ridiculous mollycoddling and attempts to pair them with guides! As if we would allow our sentinels to have such divided loyalties. In any case we currently don't have any sentinels on duty with us so it won't affect us." He scoffed.

Suddenly Victoria smirked right back at him. She knew exactly how to get her own retribution for being kept waiting. "In that case my dear Gerard you can inform Araya Calaveras as Head of the Hunter Council of this potential encroachment of the SGC into Hunter business. I am sure she will be delighted to hear from you as always."
Victoria swung away to head towards the front door, knowing Gerard had no choice but to obey his family Matriarch and knowing how much it irked the arrogant old bastard. "Coming Principal Argent, we don't want to be late with such important guests for the school, do we?"

Jim relaxed against the uninspiringly beige wall with his arms folded, blending in easily with the rest of his sentinels scattered throughout the rather cramped staff conference room. It always surprised mundanes that such a big guy could be so unobtrusive as to be disregarded. Especially when they finally found out who he was. But he had learnt the skill first in the military as a Ranger and then refined it as a cop. It could be very useful to be overlooked until he decided otherwise. His darling Guide called it "the Ellison Grand Entrance" technique. Blair could look like innocence personified when he felt like it but he was such a sarcastic little shit. God he loved him.

He could hear the rabbit fast beat of the kid's heartbeat. Stiles was standing a couple of feet away from him and didn't seem to know what to do with his arms until he thrust his hands in his pockets. The kid stared around the room in horrified fascination, but Stiles was unnaturally quiet as he watched what was happening.
He was monitoring the kid's vitals. He didn't want him to have another meltdown because of that scumbag Argent. But Stiles needed to see that he wasn't going to have to deal with this shit by himself any more. If the kid had felt any real anxiety Jim would have got him out of there faster than anyone could say overprotective sentinel but he was just nervous and excited after Carolyn's earlier pep talk.

Jim's gaze swung idly over the congregated confused teachers as they listened with growing disbelief to Megan's more adult version of the message already delivered to the students. He had always appreciated Megan's bluntness. When she had a message to deliver, no-one misunderstood it.
Sometimes diplomacy was overrated Blair. Especially when dealing with assholes.
He anticipated the coming uproar with amusement, but he was focused on one specific issue. Argent. Gerard Argent. The Principal who wasn't there. Despite a call from the County Board to demand the mandatory all staff meeting this morning, the guy hadn't graced them with his presence so far.

It was just as well that he had already tasked Maya and Hector Carasco with surveillance on the Argent property and Miki Kamerci, the most joyfully vicious Guide he had ever met, bless the little darling, had the joy of tailing the old bastard himself.

Henri Brown's quiet comment that Maya had reported back to say Argent was just leaving his son's place with his daughter- in-law Victoria and that oops she had bugged all their vehicles, was heard by only the sentinels in the room. Stiles snorted with unwilling amusement and Jim caught Megan smirking with delight which seemed to set the antsy teachers off again until she mentioned the pay rise for any teacher who was retained by the SGC. Though no-one seemed to notice that she didn't guarantee any jobs would be retained. Then the grumbles subsided until the evaluations were mentioned.
Stiles shoved his fingers in his ears at the noise which erupted. The other sentinels barely winced because they were enjoying themselves too much. Blair would lament humorously that all the sentinels who worked closely with them took their badassery cue from Jim. And Jim had no problem with that at all.

Before Jim could make his "Ellison Entrance" and reinforce Megan's message he felt his panther make the leap to that damn blue jungle. It normally wasn't a big deal. There was always a tingle of awareness, a subconscious acknowledgement that his spirit animal had left.
Not that he would ever use the word tingle within Blair's hearing! Good God no. He was not going to spend minutes, hours even days of his life defining the feeling behind the damn word for his insatiably curious Guide. His Guide who still hadn't grown out of his compulsion to record everything related to his Sentinel, even after all the years they had been bonded.
That damn blue jungle was home to all the spirit animals, well unless the animal owned Tony Stark and chose to live in a blue desert. Of course, the guy had to be different and drag John Stilinski into it as well. Jim knew he was lucky that Stiles and his situation had distracted Blair from that little mystery. The research binge would have been legendary and as North America Prime Sentinel, he would have suffered the whining complaints from all his Sentinels. Hopefully dealing with Stiles and this Hellmouth supernatural shite storm would keep Blair distracted for the foreseeable future.

Now though the utter rage that flooded through his connection with the panther from the spirit plain made his knees weak. For one horrified second, he wondered if he was going to pass out, but he stiffened his resolve. He had dealt with this spiritual mumbo jumbo before, he wouldn't be affected like a baby sentinel who had just come online.

Panic flooded his system. God damn it. Stiles. He swung round just in time to see Megan catch the kid before he fell to the ground, unconscious. Caroline already had her hand on Stiles's forehead, but she stared straight at her Alpha. "He's okay Jim, he just had the same jolt you did from your spirit animals, it overwhelmed him. He'll be fine. He just needs to be quiet in a safe place."
Jim's heartrate started to calm down. Between the kid and his guide, it was a damn miracle that he didn't have hypertension. Pair of troublemakers. And no Blair, it wasn't because of all the damn rabbit food.
Sentinel Kavan Smith had already reached Megan and picked the teenager up easily. "Quinn and I will take care of him" he murmured quietly as he and his guide left the room.

Jim nodded abruptly in relief then turned to glare at the snigger he heard from one of the teachers. He zeroed in on the guy at the back "Stilinski in the middle of a drama once again, what a surprise" the cruel words were muttered under his breath. But Jim caught them as did the rest of the Sentinels who focused on the thin faced bespectacled guy in the dark grey suit and grey striped shirt whose overwhelming odour was of chemicals, bunsen burners and bitterness. Stiles' infamous chemistry teacher then.

"Harris right" Jim stated rather than asked. "I think you just made it to the head of line for evaluation Teach, let's see what kind of marks you get on this pop quiz" and the smile he gave the guy was as cold as a dip into liquid nitrogen. Harris went pale and that odd economics teacher, the Coach, Finstock, gave a roar of laughter. The guy was openly amused at Harris's plight. In fact, he seemed to relish it.

Ellison hadn't missed the swift assessing glance the Coach had given Stiles when he collapsed. Only the fact that he was being looked after by a bonded pair seemed to be stopping the guy from pushing his way to the front of the room to deal with the kid.

The glares that the rest of his sentinels directed towards the chemistry teacher were not comforting. Harris was getting paler by the second, but it was his lucky day or at least lucky hour. It wasn't as though any of the sentinels were going to forget what he said just because they could all hear the arrival of Principal Argent and the English Teacher Victoria Argent. Justice was delayed rather than abandoned.

The all pervading stench of gun oil and the dark wet scent of a damp forest that seemed strangely familiar to Jim preceded them before the older man swept into the conference room as if he owned it. It was obvious that the guy had already been informed about the SGC visit despite the requested confidentiality. But it appeared that he didn't know everything because Argent could barely refrain from rubbing his hands with glee. It was obvious that he seemed to think SGC involvement was going to benefit him.

Henri's bonded guide Joel Taggert moved imperceptibly closer to Ellison as he murmured softly, "Jesus Jim, that guy reeks of malevolence. He should not be near adults let alone kids and she has an iceberg instead of a heart. They are both fucking dangerous."

Jim could see the wheels turning in the asshole's head. He already knew the guy was a real piece of work from Stiles's information. This just confirmed it as well as emphasising Argent's arrogant belief in himself.

Victoria Argent however was unobtrusively scanning the room and her mouth tightened as she saw the number of strangers next to all the exits. Her movements were slow and designed to be unnoticed as she checked her concealed weapons.

Ellison had never regretted coming online as a Sentinel, especially when Blair landed in his life, but sometimes the political bullshit he had to deal with as Alpha Prime of the whole USA made him utterly weary.
Then there were days like today. When his Sentinel core was hunting his prey. When his soul sang to his senses, when his blood pounded, when his focus was complete, and he knew that he was going to win. They were both going down. His Guide was so getting lucky later. He'd have to remember to switch on the white noise generator so that they didn't traumatise their baby sentinel.

The Argents would not know what hit them.

He leant back once more and watched as Carolyn took over from her Sentinel, giving a brief rundown on what had happened so far. Jim could see the flicker of anger in the eyes of both Argents before it was smoothed out with professional swiftness. Oh, they were good. Just not good enough. The smile on Argent's lips was not reflected in his cold eyes as he responded smoothly "Of course I and my staff will work closely with the Sentinel and Guide centre to develop a school we can all be proud of".

Jim's intention to step in was derailed again as he finally recognised that foresty smell. It was aconite, commonly known as wolfsbane. Rangers were taught to recognise any flora that could prove of use to them, including those that could be used as weapons. Aconite was poisonous to humans if prepared correctly. As a Sentinel Ranger he was also given the additional scent training. That's why it was familiar. The scumbags were almost drenched in the stuff.

Before he could utter a word, Carolyn turned to look at the man. She was so professional even the expression in her eyes was bland and non-confrontational. But the whole room felt her utter disdain projected through her aura.
Jim heard the shocked indrawn breaths and the discomforted twitching from the rest of the mundanes, well all except from the Coach. His smirk seemed to get bigger, and he relaxed back into his chair. Interesting. Finstock had just moved to the top of his list of people to speak to. He had already been on the list because Stiles liked the guy and Blair thought he would have a different perspective on what was happening at the school.

Carolyn's cool precise voice broke though Jim's musings.

"I'm sorry but there seems to be some sort of misunderstanding. This school now belongs to the SGC. The district school authority no longer has any say in what happens here. We simply cannot allow anyone other than a Sentinel and or Guide to run the school. In this case, it will be an experienced bonded pair. There are many issues to resolve. All staff and admin will undergo mandatory empathic evaluation. Even if you have no intention of staying to work for us. We need to understand your... educational legacy"

The way she smiled made Argent stiffen but it was Victoria who barked out angrily "What the hell is an empathic evaluation?"

"Not had much to do with guides then Mrs Argent", Megan commented with a wide smile. "Bit surprising you being an educator and all." Sentinel Connors cheerful voice was in direct contrast to her Guide's stern solemnity. "Gotta protect the tribe mate or in this case the tribes' sprogs from all possible threat"

Coach Finstock snorted loudly. "That'll be a first for this school." He seemed oblivious to the deadly glares most of his co-workers were sending his way. Sentinel Connors blinked at him once and then carried on.

"It's an unfortunate fact that Schools in this Country aren't safe from violent attacks, got to be sure no-one is coming back with any grudges or weapons. For example, a newly online young sentinel was recently kidnapped from this very school and attacked. Now that sort of thing just pisses the SGC off mightily and will result in sentinel justice, you know like a sanctioned sentinel hunt. So, everyone gets the evaluation." The entire room was stunned into silence.

The sentinel's previous cheerful nonchalance disappeared, the tension in the room increased as her relaxed loose-limbed posture morphed into the stance of an intent predator. The low growl in her voice as she finished her comment had the rest of the sentinels in the room standing to attention with eager anticipation.
She stalked into Argent's personal space, dark eyes intent and unblinking, as she repeated "everyone, especially those who stink of gun oil."

Then she drew his scent into her nostrils in an overtly obvious manner and sheer rage flashed across her countenance. "Why the hell can I smell the blood of a sentinel on you you old sod?" she hissed the furious accusing words into his stunned face.