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Beacon Hills was a town at war.
Oh, you wouldn't know it just casually driving through. From the outside, it still appeared to be a quaint little town, with all the small town atmosphere one expected. Kids went to school, played sports and went on dates. Adults attended town hall meetings and waved to each other at traffic lights. On the surface, it looked like any other All American town.
But that was just on the surface. As jaded as he had become, it never failed to amaze Stiles that people could be so willfully blind to anything they didn't want to see.
"You know," Stiles said to Isaac as they slowly maneuvered an injured Derek down the back of another alley, "I once thought the most unrealistic thing about Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the fact that no one in Sunnydale ever seemed to notice the fact that the whole town was full of killers. Now that I've seen it in action, all I can think is that they actually underplayed it."
Isaac gave a huff of laughter, but Derek turned to Stiles with a raised eyebrow. "Because the vampires weren't unrealistic?"
"Ok, other than the vampires. Come on, man. Work with me here." He shifted Derek over against a wall, and stopped to catch his breath. "How do you even know about Buffy?"
Derek rolled his eyes. "We had TV, Stiles. Laura was obsessed with that show, even more than you."
"Hey, it was research!" Stiles exclaimed, then grunted as he pulled Derek's arm back over his shoulder and struggled to take more of Derek's weight before continuing down the alley. "And surprisingly accurate research, once I got past the vampires. Also, I wasn't obsessed, so shut up."
Under the surface, Beacon Hills was a battleground every night. The howls of wolves that didn't exist in California echoed through the forest surrounding the town. Gunfire and screams of pain rang out in the streets, while the residents turned up their televisions and complained to one another about teenage pranks getting out of hand.
Stiles couldn't really be too angry with them, though. Seeing the truth, in most cases meant not seeing the next sunrise, so most of the residents of Beacon Hills had learned to ignore anything that might force them to take sides in this invisible war. Anything, including the funeral of a beloved former sheriff.
Stiles sat in the hard wooden chair, Scott on his left and Isaac on his right, staring at the coffin before him and ignoring the fact that the cemetery was empty except for his pack and a handful of employees of the mayor's office. The numbness that had blanketed his emotions since the night he found his father's body was fading, but it still enough to allow him to keep his face composed as the mayor himself stepped forward.
Beacon Hills shared more than one similarity with Sunnydale.
Stiles pulled the door open and frowned in concern. "Dad?"
"Stiles." John Stilinski smiled at his son, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Can I come in?"
Stiles shook himself and stepped back. "Of course. Kind of late, isn't it?" he asked as he closed and locked the door again.
"I need to talk to you," John said, walking toward the living room. "I need to show you something."
Stiles followed, concern rapidly morphing to worry. "Do I need to get the others?"
John shook his head as he sat on the couch and dropped a stack of papers on the table in front of him. "You can tell them about it later, if you think I'm right."
Stiles lowered himself to the couch next to his father. "Right about what?" He blinked as John shoved one of the papers into his hand.
"Read that."
Stiles eyes flew over the words and figures on the page, and his eyebrows dipped into a frown. "Where did you get this?"
John snorted. "They may have cleaned house at the station, but I still have friends in low places."
Stiles gave his father half a grin, then picked up the next page on the stack. By the time he'd reached the fifth sheet, his face was grave. "Are you sure this is legitimate?"
"Absolutely," John said. "Believe me, my source is impeccable, and lying to me about this would accomplish nothing."
Stiles let his head fall back against the cushion of the couch. "We'd suspected they had help in the city government, but we thought it was the new sheriff, maybe a couple judges. Not..." Stiles rubbed a hand over his face and straightened again. "Christ. An evil mayor. It's such a cliché."
The memory of one of his last conversations with his father rang through his head as Mayor Robert Freeman stepped up to the casket, placing a single black rose on top before turning to face Stiles.
"I'm so sorry about your father," Freeman said, voice ringing with false sincerity. "He was a valuable member of this community. It's a shame that his later years were so troubled, but I know he forgave you for that."
Stiles could feel more than hear Isaac's growl of fury, and he placed a calming hand on Isaac's thigh. "I'm sure my father knew exactly how you felt about him, Mayor," he replied, unshaken. "I know that I certainly do. I also know exactly how my father felt about me and my friends. In fact, one of the last things my father said to me was that this town was our responsibility, and I take my responsibilities very seriously."
Freeman hissed, visibly struggling to recover his aplomb. "The well-being of this town is my responsibility, not yours or any of your mongrels," he snapped, no longer bothering to hide his contempt.
Stiles shrugged negligently, pretending to ignore the way both Scott and Isaac were now tensed to attack. "Perhaps I don't think you're doing a very good job."
Freeman's eyes narrowed. "Are you threatening me with some sort of insurgency?"
Stiles leaned back in his chair, legs straight in front of him, one hand wrapped around Scott's arm and the other carding through Isaac's curls to hide their trembling. "I don't think I'd say an insurgency. I think I'd call it more of a revolution."
~~~
The first casualty of the war had been Chris Argent. Well, actually, most of the pack believed that Peter Hale was the first casualty. However, thanks to his hard-won ability to speak to the dead, gained over many excruciating hours of training with Alan Deaton, Stiles knew something most of the rest of the pack didn't know - that Peter had been playing both sides against the middle in an attempt to be the only one left standing. After a long night of pondering some things Laura Hale had told him during one of their conversations, Stiles had decided that telling Derek the truth served no purpose. Instead, he'd simply given Peter false information, and set him up to be executed by the hunters he was attempting to beguile. Believing that Peter had died trying to protect the pack had given Derek motivation through some very dark times, so Stiles kept the facts close to his chest, telling only Lydia the truth of what he'd known and what he'd done, and allowing the rest of the pack to mourn their perceived loss. He'd never quite found it in himself to pretend to join them, however.
No, in Stiles' opinion, the true first casualty had been Chris Argent. Chris, who had turned his back on a lifetime of belief after finally realizing that not all werewolves were monsters and not all monsters were werewolves. Chris, who had put his life on the line time after time to protect not only Allison, but also the pack he'd come to see as friends. Chris, who had died screaming, not at the hands of those he'd spent most of his life hunting, but instead being tortured by those he'd once hunted with, who had seen his defection as more offensive than the existence of the werewolves themselves and who had enjoyed every groan of pain and every tear of agony they'd pulled from him, cut by cut and burn by burn, leaving his broken and mutilated body in the middle of town as a warning.
They'd have been wiser to dispose of it quietly. They'd severely underestimated the hunter's daughter and her need for revenge, a need that had been sharpened by Gerard in her teenage years, then tempered and honed by Stiles himself, to benefit the pack instead of harm it. Under his guidance, Allison had become an exquisite and deadly spy, more ruthless than even Gerard would have believed possible. When code names had gone from a game to a life-saving necessity, Stiles had taken a great deal of pleasure in naming her Velvet.
"She even has the dimples!" Stiles grinned, "Although, I have to admit Scott's no Silk."
~~~
Stiles turned his back on the casket holding the body of his father and made his way back to the silver SUV that had replaced his beloved Jeep many years ago. When he was in a playful mood, he still teasingly complained to Erica that it as all her fault he'd had to give the Jeep up, insisting the vehicle had never run as well after her attempts at learning to drive a standard.
He climbed into the driver's seat of the SUV, but shook his head when Scott started to head to the other side. "Ride back with Derek," he said quietly.
Scott frowned. "Why?"
Stiles stared out the front window of the car. "I need some time to myself, Scott," he said. "I won't be long, but I need some time."
Scott bit his lip, a habit he'd never quite managed to break from his younger years. "It's not safe for any of us to be alone right now."
Stiles huffed. "They're not going to take me down today," he said, voice heavy with exhaustion. "They're enjoying my misery too much to cut it short." He turned back to his best friend. "I just need to go by Dad's house and get a few things, then I'll be home. Thirty minutes at the most."
Scott held his eyes for a moment, then finally nodded. "Thirty minutes. If you're not back by then, I'm coming after you." Without waiting for an answer, he turned and trotted toward Derek's car.
Stiles chuckled to himself as he turned the key in the ignition. Scott didn't get the last word in very often, but he always tried.
The drive from the cemetery to his childhood home took less than five minutes, and as he pulled into the driveway, Stiles was struck with a wave of nostalgia. He'd learned to walk in this house, lost his first tooth, had his first sleepover (with Scott, of course). He'd even managed to have his first kiss in this house.
Walking inside, the first thing he felt was the warm brush of air across the back of his neck, accompanied by the faint scent of cinnamon. "Hi, Mom," he murmured, a small smile tipping the corners of his lips. "I'm home."
He took a deep breath, then walked towards his father's office. In minutes he had the floorboards in the corner pried up, and the locked box of important documents out of the hidden alcove and in his hands. As he turned to leave, his eyes were caught by a flash of light as sunlight glinted off a golden picture frame hanging on the wall.
The picture was of Stiles at 13, dressed in his baseball uniform and grinning proudly at the camera with his father on one side and his mother on the other. He remembered that day as clearly as if it had been yesterday. It had been taken the day before his mother went for her first chemotherapy treatment. Even in the picture, Stiles felt he could see the pain in her eyes, but her smile was as beautiful as it was in his memory.
He brushed his fingers over the glass covering the picture.
"You have to take care of your father now, Stiles. He needs you more than anything."
He'd made a promise to his mother at age 14, and he'd kept that promise for another 17 years, until finally he'd made one mistake too many. "I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry I didn't keep him safe. You'll have to take care of each other, now."
He felt another brush against the back of his neck. Not the warm comfort he'd felt when he first entered the house; this was hotter, heavier. Determination tinged with anger. Not his mother this time, but a spirit he was just as intimately familiar with. A small smile tilted the corners of his mouth. "Don't worry Dad. I'm going to take care of it. They won't get to hurt anyone else."
~~~
Alan Deaton was the second casualty of the war the hunters had brought to Beacon Hills.
Stiles had spent eight years working with the veterinarian, learning everything Alan had been willing to teach him. Eventually, he'd surpassed his mentor and had become the teacher himself.
There had been many days, before the war had begun, when Stiles had spent hours sitting on the hard floor of the clinic, or kneeling in the grass clearing behind it, surrounded by flame and water. It had been Alan who showed him how to call upon the elements for protection. It has been Alan who had spent hours helping him create the amulets that every member of the pack still wore. It had been Alan who had first showed him how to open the doorway between this life and the next, allowing him to communicate with those who had gone before, and it had been Alan who held him as he sobbed out both his joy and his sorrow after seeing his mother for the first time in five years.
It had also been Alan who had used his dying breath to warn them of the attack that would have decimated the pack if they hadn't been prepared.
Locked deep in the basement of the house he'd been sharing with Scott and Isaac for six years now, Stiles carefully went about the preparations he'd learned at Alan Deaton's hands. He could hear the pack over his head, shuffling from one room to another, restless. He knew they were worried about him, could sense it through the bonds he'd painstakingly created with each and every one of them. It didn't matter. They could wait.
They'd have to.
The brush in his hand was steady as he painted the sigils, runes and symbols carefully. Each time one was completed, it glowed, burning into his skin as permanently as the ones that had been tattooed on his body for over a decade, drawing on the power of the elements, the power of the pack, the power of the dead.
"Speaking to the dead is one thing," Alan said as he twisted the lid off yet another glass jar. "It's like opening a window. Suddenly, the light is brighter. You can feel the breeze on your face and hear the birds singing. Drawing the power of the dead into yourself is a completely different thing. It changes you, hurts you. It can even kill you, burning you from the inside out. It is not something to use casually."
"So what you're saying is that this should be End-Game only," Stiles said, picking up a delicate paintbrush.
Alan put a hand over Stiles', stilling him. "Nothing about this is a game."
It took him hours to complete. Never let it be said that drawing runes while looking in a mirror was easy. It had taken Stiles months to manage it without drawing the marks backwards. The room was cold, but the fire from the marks on his skin kept him from feeling even the slightest chill. Each mark increased the temperature a little more, until he felt like he was radiating power from his very bones.
With the last rune completed, he set down the paintbrush and took a deep breath then took a moment to look over his work in the mirror. Despite the fact that the runes and symbols were drawn in black, they glowed and pulsed visibly, writhing and twisting on his skin.
Stiles nodded to himself, then pulled on his jeans and shoes. He ignored his shirt, but grabbed the duster Lydia had gotten for him on his thirtieth birthday. They didn't do much for birthdays anymore, but Lydia had insisted that the big 3-0 was worth some sort of acknowledgement.
"I look like Nick Fury," Stiles said with a happy smile, turning one way, then the other, to see himself better in the department store mirror.
"I was thinking more Captain Jack Harkness," Allison grinned.
Stiles smirked. "You would."
"So would he," Allison quipped.
Stiles laughed, then pulled both girls into a hug. "Thanks. I love it. It's the perfect birthday present."
The pack went still as Stiles walked into the room. He ignored the reaction, walking over to where Lydia was sitting in an overstuffed chair by the fireplace, to let her check his work. She twirled her finger, indicating that she wanted him to turn in place, and after she'd seen both his back and his chest, she nodded.
"Are you sure this is what you want to do?" Derek asked, looking Stiles over from head to toe.
"They killed my father," Stiles said, voice hard. "Not because he was a threat. They made sure of that when they took away his badge and fired anyone who had any reason to show him loyalty. It wasn't even because he was an irritant. No, they killed him for no other reason than as a message to me. Well, message fucking received. I'm not bringing the battle to their doorstep, I'm bringing the apocalypse. This ends tonight."
Derek held his eyes for a long moment, then nodded. "When do we leave?"
"We?"
"You're not going alone. You're pack, and pack works together."
"This isn't the pack's battle anymore," Stiles said. "It's gone too far for that."
Derek just looked at him with patient eyes. "You don't have to take the others, but I'm going with you, whether you want me to or not."
"So am I," Isaac said fiercely, stepping up beside his alpha.
"And me," Scott agreed.
"You don't have to do this," Stiles said, shaking his head. "I can -"
"Stiles," Scott broke in softly. "We loved him, too."
Stiles felt something shiver inside him, a deep, painful longing almost strong enough to make him question his decision. But then an image of his father's body, left bleeding on his doorstep, breathing his last, desperate breaths, flashed before his eyes and hardened his resolve. He lifted his chin and met Derek's eyes. "Then we leave now."
Derek nodded, pulling off his clothes as his body began to shift. Within moments an enormous black wolf was standing at Stiles' side, head almost reaching Stiles' shoulder, and eyes glowing red as the fires of hell. All around them, the betas were also stripping down and, with the help of Lydia's magic, taking on their own wolf forms, smaller than Derek's but no less deadly.
Stiles looked at the wolves, then at Lydia whose entire form was crackling with power, and Allison, bristling with weapons no hunter had ever imagined. The hunters thought they knew what they were up against. They had no idea.
He turned back to Derek. "Get Allison into position on the top of the Beale building. She'll have the best chance of taking down anything in our way from there. Then circle around and wait for me on the ridge."
He looked at Allison. "Once we're inside, make your way to the warehouse roof and cover the back exit. I don't want any of them getting away."
Allison nodded, then spun on her heel, following the wolves swiftly and silently out the back door and into the surrounding forest.
When the house was quiet, Stiles turned his attention to Lydia, who had curled back up in her chair.
"Are you sure you're ready?" Lydia asked him.
"Are you?" Stiles shot back.
Lydia laughed softly, the ends of her hair whipping in response to the magic coursing through her veins. "I've been racing towards this day since I was sixteen years old," she said. "And there's enough of Peter Hale still trapped inside me that I'm actually going to enjoy it."
She rose to her feet, and walked slowly across the room, pulling something out of her pocket. "I have something for you."
She pressed the glowing gem into Stiles' hand. "What's this?"
The smile that crept across Lydia's face was nothing short of terrifying. "Let's just say it will ensure that our beloved mayor will have plenty of time to regret his life choices before he's finally allowed to rest in peace." She tapped a blood red nail on her chin. "Or, perhaps I should say in pieces."
Stiles stared at her, then at the gemstone in his hand. As he closed his fist over it, a smile mirroring Lydia's twisted his mouth.
"Welcome to the revolution, you son of a bitch."