(Extra update because it's my birthday and I felt like it! ð¥³ððð¤)
...
Scott, Malia, Y/n, Lydia, Liam, and Peter stood in the empty sheriff's station. "You're going to bite Stiles?" Lydia repeated, Scott having explained his idea to them.
"To get him through the rift." Scott sighed as he moved over to one of the desks and looked down at the papers they had laid out.
"Just to clarify, are you planning on biting everyone in the train station?" Peter asked from his perch leaning on the wall.
"With Stiles back, he'll be able to help us figure out a plan."
"He's good at that." Malia said.
"He's the best." Y/n added.
"So the plan is to get Stiles to come up with a plan." Peter reiterated.
"You can shut up now."
"Malia, look around. We're the only ones left in Beacon Hills. If they take us, Lydia and Y/n will be the only ones left to haunt the place."
"That's why I'm the only person that's going in." Scott informed. "Liam and Hayden will stay here with Mason. As long as somebody is left in Beacon Hills, the Wild Hunt can't move on."
"I like your plan, Scott. I really do, especially the part about turning Stiles. But it can't work."
"How are you so sure?" Y/n asked.
"Logic. Life experience. What are the odds that he'll get taken? What if Stiles isn't there? What if there's no Beacon Hills to come back to?"
"You got a better idea?" Liam wondered.
"Yeah. It's called, 'run like hell'. So, leave in five?"
"Is that really how you want to spend the rest of your life?" Y/n asked as she stepped in front of him. "Running like hell from every danger that comes your way?"
Malia stood next to her sister. "You promised you'd help us. We still need to find the rift."
"I didn't promise I'd help you girls commit suicide."
"If you can't help, we can find it ourselves." Scott spoke up.
"Scott, I admit that you have a flair for beating the odds. But, this?" He walked backwards towards the door. "You don't walk away from. You run."
"You can't run forever!" Y/n shouted in frustration after him as he left. Malia watched as he left, almost seeming a little hurt at his abandonment. Y/n felt similarly. She was certain she had seen those glimmers of good in him, when he brought Stiles' keys to them, when he made Malia run from the riders and stayed behind to buy her some time. Maybe she was wrong.
...
Scott, Malia, Y/n, and Lydia walked together in the preserve, heading back towards where Peter was found to search for the rift. "When you were here before, how long until the ghost riders showed up?" Scott asked Malia.
"A couple minutes."
"That's reassuring." Lydia commented.
"At least it's not immediately." Y/n said.
"What's a rift supposed to look like?"
"If it's a tear in the fabric of our world? Theoretically it could look like anything from a microscopic black hole to a free-floating Eistien-Rosen bridge." Lydia answered. They paused in a clearing, all glancing up towards the sky. "I really hope it's not up there."
Y/n's eyes began to glow as she held out her hands, reaching out with her magic as she tried to feel for any shift in energy that would suggest a rift or a portal. "It's not." She said after a moment, eyes dimming as she walked a bit to the side and pointed towards the dry brush. "It's down there."
Scott followed her direction and found a large pipe that jutted out from the ground, giving access to the tunnels below. Scott crouched down at the opening and picked up a blackened leaf, looking up at the girls who stood behind him. "The rift is below us."
They went down into the tunnels, turning on their phone flashlights to brighten the dim surroundings. "I can't see a thing." Lydia lightly complained.
"It's got to be down here somewhere." Scott encouraged. They went down one of the tunnels and came upon a split. While Scott, Lydia, and Y/n went left, Malia turned right and was instantly thrown back by an invisible wall.
Malia groaned as she hit the floor. "Found it!"
"Good job, sis." Y/n and Scott helped her up while Lydia examined the rift that looked like a translucent wall of green flames when they got close.
"It's remarkably similar." She remarked.
"To what?" Malia asked.
"To the Einstien-Rosen bridge." Knowing that Peter was nearly burned to death going through one of them, Malia found a steel pipe to test the fires. She struggled to keep her grip on it as she forced it into the rift. The edges glowed orange from the heat as it sparked. Malia grunted as she pulled away the smoking pipe. "There's gotta be another way. We just need to think."
"Think?"
"Yeah. Think about how to get through a supernatural rift that melts steel." Scott mused as he looked up at it.
"It was made for spirit travel, it's not gonna be easy." Y/n said.
"But it doesn't have to be so hard." A voice called from behind them, and they turned to find Mr. Douglas standing there.
"He followed our scent." Scott realized.
"I followed your desperation. We're all in a tough spot. Desperate to get inside and save everyone, and hoping to find a way to stop this army of the dead. We all want the same thing."
"Why is he being so shifty about it?" Y/n questioned.
"He has a point." Lydia regretably agreed with the man.
"If he doesn't kill anyone." Malia said.
"Else." Scott corrected. "If he doesn't kill anyone else."
"All that matters right now is getting through the rift."
"Then you're out of luck." Malia held up the burned pipe.
"The rift burns anything that tries to pass through it." Lydia informed.
"Perhaps not everything." Douglas smirked as Jordan walked up beside him, fully shifted and growling at his friends. The usual orange fire in his eyes was instead colored green, just like the rift.
"Jordan." Lydia called, but he didn't react to her voice.
"If the hellhound can open the rift, we all go together." Douglas offered.
"You're the bad guy." Malia pointed out. "I'm pretty sure helping you is a bad idea."
"Good guy. Bad guy. When has anything ever been so black and white?"
"World War II." Liam answered, panting as he came down the tunnel to deliver the information he had learned from Theo. "He's a Nazi."
"Of fucking course he is." Y/n complained with an exasperated hand toss.
"He wants the Hunt for himself. He wants his own supernatural army."
"We're not letting you through that rift." Scott declared as Douglas let the length of the whip drop to the ground.
"'Not letting' me? I see. You still think you have a say in the matter." He grunted as he flicked the whip and they jumped back. Scott's eyes glowed and his fangs grew as he roared. Douglas cracked the whip a few more times, sparks flying at their feet as they avoided the strikes. Y/n pushed Lydia and Liam towards the other tunnel, out of the line of fire. Another crack and Malia took the chance to dart to safety. Scott roared again as he avoided a few more lashes, but was forced to move to the others. Y/n's eyes glowed in defiance as she stood her ground, unwilling to let him or the whip intimidate her. He flicked the whip at her a few times, but each time she batted it away with her magic. "Get out of my way, hexe." He demanded.
While Y/n didn't know much German, outside of the few phrases Alan had taught her, she did teach herself a few obscenities much to her guardian's displeasure. "Fick dich ins Knie." (Fuck you/screw you.) Y/n smirked when he glowered at her, becoming fed up with her interfering. He became even more aggressive with the attacks which she was able to deflect. But her focus was only on Douglas, she forgot to pay attention to the hellhound under his control. Jordan came up beside her and backhanded her. Blindsided by the attack she was sent flying to the side. She slid at her friends' feet when she hit the ground, and Scott was quick to help her back to her feet.
"Höllenhund." Douglas commanded him in German. Jordan walked up the the rift and pushed his hands into the center. The fire became more solid as it struggled to close while he forced it open.
"Parrish, stop!" Scott yelled. Douglas cracked the whip towards them again, keeping them back. When the rift was open Douglas left the teens alone.
Scott went to follow as Douglas moved away, but Malia held him back. "Wait."
"Wunderbar." Douglas looked at the opened rift in wonder. Jordan roared at the teens in warning. "Höllenhund, kommen." One more roar for good measure and Jordan followed Douglas through the opening.
"Now." They darted around the corner, trying to make it through before it closed, but they were too late. The rift swiftly shut just before they got to it.
"Dammit." Y/n grumbled just as two riders appeared and stepped through the rift, sealing it shut permanently behind them.
Scott held his arms in front of his pack as they all backed away while the riders advanced "Liam, you and Lydia get to the bunker." The two turned and ran down another tunnel while the other three got ready for a fight. Immediately one of the riders wrapped his whip around Scott's neck. Scott's eyes widened as he held onto the cord to keep it from choking him, Malia quick to get behind and grab it as well to try and help. While Y/n worked on making sure the other one stayed back, the two teens managed to pull the whip off, falling to the ground from the loss of leverage.
"The whip. It didn't take you." Malia realised.
"I don't think they're trying to take us. I think they're trying to kill us." Scott helped Malia up as the riders had trapped Y/n's hands, but instead of using them to hinder her magic again they instead yanked her forward, making her fall to the ground behind them to make her stay out of the fight.
While Malia and Scott tried to run a rider caught her around the waist with his whip. He threw her to the side and she landed on top of a steel drum. The other tried whipping Scott, but he caught it instead and pulled on it, slamming the rider into more steel drums. The rider holding Malia pulled on the whip and made her slam into the other wall. When he went to do it again Scott jumped behind her and took most of the blow as they both fell to the ground. Y/n had recovered and used her magic to pull the riders back as she moved to stand protectively in front of her friends. She tried again to hold them back, but she can only do so much before she was caught around the wrists and held down by one of the riders.
"Will you stop doing that?" She growled in irritation while the other prepared to shoot Scott and Malia.
A sudden growl drew the teens attention to Peter who was running down the hall with his fangs bared. He roared as he jumped up, pushing the gun toting rider's arm away while using him and Peter's own momentum to lift up and kick the other rider square in the chest, making him drop the whip that was holding Y/n down. "Why aren't you running?" He pushed the riders into the steel drums and clawed at them. Malia scrambled over to help Y/n pull the whip off of her wrists before they and Scott got up and ran down the tunnel. They stopped at the turn and watched as Peter was quickly overwhelmed, arms grabbed as he was held against the drums. "GO!" Peter yelled when he saw they were still standing there.
"No!" Y/n shouted as she darted forward, Scott having to grab her to stop her from rushing in to help. Peter's eyes softened as he looked at his daughters just before a rider shot him, making him vanish once again in green smoke. Scott had to grab Malia as well, pushing the sisters forward so they could escape while they still could.
...
Scott, Malia, Y/n, Lydia, and Liam, the last remaining members of the pack, had regrouped at Scott's house, and when he tried to call his mother he found her number was no longer in service. She had been taken by the riders. Scott sat at the kitchen table while he tried calling again, and again, and again, always getting the same automated voice saying the same message. "We're sorry the number you have reached is not in service. Please check the number or try your call again. This is a recording." The phone beeped. Y/n watched sadly as he pressed the button again. "We're sorry the number you have reached is not in service. Please check the number or try your call again. This is a recording."
"Scott." Malia called, but he ignored her. She walked over and set a hand on his shoulder before moving to sit next to him. "Scott, your mom is gone. But she's still alive." She gently spoke, turning the phone screen off and sliding it away from him.
"What do we do now?" Liam wondered.
"We can't hide from them."
"What about Lydia? The ghost rider was afraid of her."
"The ghost riders aren't afraid of anything." Y/n said as Liam and Lydia joined them at the table.
"It was almost like... Reverence." Lydia tried to put into words how the rider reacted when she and Liam encountered one.
"Doesn't matter." Scott muttered. "The rift is gone. We're the only ones left in Beacon Hills."
There was a knock on the kitchen door before Noah let himself in. He closed the door and moved to stand closer to the table. "I have a son." Y/n's head snapped to look up at him. "His name is Mieczyslaw Stilinski. But we call him Stiles. I remember. When Stiles was a little kid, he couldn't say his first name. Not sure why. It pretty much rolls off the tongue." He joked. "But, uh, the closest he could get was-"
"Mischief." Y/n muttered at the same time he spoke, a vague memory coming to her as he talked about his name.
"His mother called him that until..." He trailed off, swallowing down the tears again, taking a shaky breath. "I remember when, uh... When Stiles first got his Jeep. It belonged to his mother. She wanted him to have it. The first time when he took a spin behind the wheel, he went straight into a ditch. I gave him his first roll of duct tape that day. He was always getting into trouble. But he always had a good heart. Always. We're here tonight because my goofball son decided to drag Scott and Y/n, his greatest friends in the world, into the woods to see a dead body."
"How did you remember?" Scott asked.
"It started with Stiles' jersey." Noah put a hand on Y/n's shoulder. She reached up and gave it a gentle squeeze as she smiled up at him. "Then I found the red string for his crime board. Finally, his whole room came back and all the memories. And then the strangest thing happened."
"What?" Lydia wondered.
"I thought I saw him. It's like something opened right there in the middle of the room. Just for a moment. And then it was gone."
"A rift." Scott named, a new spark of hope shining in his eyes.
"I thought there was only one rift. We saw it disappear." Malia said, trying to understand.
"Your memories of Stiles opened a new rift." Y/n told Noah.
"If the Sheriff can do it..."
"Maybe we can." Lydia finished for Malia.
"But that rift closed." Liam reminded.
"Then we'll just have to open another." Y/n smiled.
"How?" Noah asked.
"By remembering Stiles." Scott answered. "We have to remember everything."
~~~
Published: 4/21/23