Battle Scars ❦ TW/TO

❦ KNOW THY ENEMY

"JUST tell me what you want. I'm done with all of your riddles." Hope said simply.

Deucalion cocked his head to the side with a coy smile. For an instant, it seemed like the alpha was staring right into her. She brushed the thought aside as her gaze traveled over Deucalion's dark glasses and walking stick. She wondered how he had gotten blind in the first place, he didn't seem like the kind of werewolf who would lose a fight.

"Before I was an Alpha, my old pack was stationed in a national park on the outskirts of Tennessee." He said, tracing his walking stick across the hospital floor. The screeching noise made Hope grimace.

"One of our wolves, Ray, went on a supply run but when he returned he wasn't alone. The man Ray was with spoke nonsense. The idea of a perfect supernatural being, a mix of a werewolf and a vampire. He turned Ray first, and then the others. It worked at first, but soon after they became rabid, and so the man killed every member of my pack."

Deucalion frowned. "If I hadn't been by the lake I would have been dead too. I didn't find out until many years later that the man hadn't given up, and eventually he had succeeded. Klaus Mikaelson had made the first Hybrid."

The mention of her father sent chills up Hope's back. She hadn't known that her father had tried to make other Hybrids before he sired Tyler Lockwood, never mind that fact that he had slaughtered an entire werewolf pack in his attempt to make hybrids.

"Why do you think I killed Ennis?" Deucalion asked.

Hope shrugged, she hadn't even known that Ennis was dead. "He was an experiment to see if I could create a hybrid just like your father had. He, of course was a failure."

That was why he wanted her. He didn't know how to make a hybrid without the subject dying. She smiled, knowing that she could use this to her advantage. He didn't know that the only person left who's blood could create a hybrid was her.

"You're too late." Hope said. "Making a hybrid requires the host to drink the blood of a Petrova doppelgänger and they're all dead."

"You see," Deucalion began "that's what I thought as well. Only, a werewolf girl named Haley Marshall was sired after the last of the Petrova bloodline died. Which means, there is another way and since she is your mother I think you know exactly what it is. And you're going to give it to me."

Hope released a humorless laugh. "Of course, because you asked so nicely."

"You'll break eventually, Hope Mikaleson. Just like your father did. You'll break, and then you'll tell me the key to successfully siring a hybrid."

"HOPE, what are you doing here?" Scott finally spoke from beside her as they followed Deucalion through the woods. Once the sacrifices were safe, she would kill Miss Blake, and then Deucalion.

She didn't get the chance to answer, for Deucalion had stopped short and was staring at a single firefly buzzing about in the trunk of a nearby tree. "It's a firefly." Hope said furrowing her eyebrows, confused as to why he was so fascinated by the glowing bug.

"Very unusual for this region." Was all Deucalion said in reply.

"It's because of Jennifer, isn't it?" Scott said, watching the bug. "Just before all this started, a deer crashed into Lydia's car, the cats went crazy at the animal clinic, birds flew into the high school."

Deucalion nodded, his eyes not leaving the firefly. "They say animals can sense natural disasters when they're about to happen. Maybe they can sense supernatural ones as well"

"Does she scare you?" Hope asked the alpha.

He snapped his head to look at the Hybrid with a frown. "She concerns me if she's willing to kill that many innocent people for her cause, people like Scott's mother, Stiles' father."

Scott looked at Deucalion. "Are you willing to kill innocent people?"

"I'll kill any living thing that gets in my way." He said, his blind eyes watching Hope.

They walked deeper into the woods and as the night progressed, Hope became more tense in their current situation. After a few more minutes of walking, they emerged into a clearing where the rest of the Alpha pack was surrounding the Beacon Hills Guidance counselor.

"How did you know, Marin, that we'd come for you?" Deucalion asked Ms Morell who had managed to circle herself in a ring of Mountain Ash to shield herself from the werewolves.

Ms Morell turned to face Deucalion with a smug expression. "Because Jennifer and I are the same. And I know you've always been suspicious of us, of what we can do."

"With good reason." Kali said moving around the circle of mountain ash slowly. "We know you sent that girl, the one who helped Isaac."

Ms Morrell nodded. "Braeden. I sent her to do what I've always done... maintain balance. I know nothing more about Jennifer than you know." She said before turning to look at Scott and Hope. "This isn't who you two are. Go back to your friends."

Deucalion frowned at her. "They can decide what's right for themselves."

She shook her head at the alpha. "Not without all the information. Have you told them everything you've done? How you've piled up bodies in a narcissistically psychotic effort to form your perfect pack? Bodies that include Ennis, by the way. My brother saved him. He was alive when Deucalion went in to see him. He wants you to go after Derek. If Derek joins the pack, it paves the way for Scott and Hope to join as well."

Deucalion shook his head with a chuckle. "The lies people will tell when they're begging for their life." Ms Morrell opened her mouth to say something else, but the words were lost as Deucalion uncapped his walking stick and threw the blade into her chest. She fell back with a sudden force, breaking the mountain ash shield underneath her.

The alpha's charged at once, but in an instant Scott was beside Ms Morrell, sticking up a hand in protection. "Hey! Back off!"

She panted heavily with pain as Scott wrapped his fingers around the stick and pulled it from her chest. She released a scream as Scott tossed the stick aside and Hope ran up beside them.

"I'm not going to let them kill you." He told her. "But if you know something, if you know where they are, you have to tell us."

"The Nemeton," She breathed heavily. "If you find the Nemeton, you'll find Jennifer."

SCOTT and Hope met Stiles and Doctor Deaton on an off road by the woods. Deaton had found a way for them to find the Nemeton by dying to make a connection to their family members. They would be dead for only a few seconds, but Deaton would bring them back. A few minutes later, they were all crowded into the animal clinic, three tubs of ice water surrounding Scott, Stiles, and Hope.

"Okay," Deaton began. "the three of you will get in. Each of us will hold you down until you're essentially--well, dead. But it's not just someone to hold you under. It needs to be someone who can pull you back, someone that has a strong connection to you, a kind of emotional tether." He said.

"Lydia... You go with Stiles."

The banshee looked surprise at this, casting Deaton an odd look. Deaton continued, "Allison, you'll hold Scott and Isaac will take Hope."

In only a moment, Hope was standing over the ice tub her breathing heavy. She didn't have too much time to think about what was happening, for she followed Scott and Stiles's lead, stepping into the freezing water and laying back against the tub.

Isaac offered her a worried smile as her eyes closed, and she was plunged into an immortal darkness.