Beware the Dragon

Title: Beware the Dragon
Author: Claire Watosn
Series: Stage one of Create Your Own Bingo
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Genre: Revenge/Vengence
Relationship(s): None
Content Rating: PG
Warnings: Mass murder
Author Notes: I’m aware that the Stiles in this story doesn’t come across as a good person. That’s fine with me.
Stiles has always struck me as more of an ambiguous person than mostly good or mostly bad. I mostly write him leaning more towards the good, but the potential to go the other way is always there.
I could easily see a Stiles who feels alone and with no one to talk to taking actions like these. I don’t think he’d even feel remorse afterwards. Does that make him a bad person? Probably. Do I care? No 🙂
Beta: Grammarly
Word Count: 1,773
Summary: Never tickle a sleeping dragon isn’t just good advice for actual dragons. Stiles learns some new tricks and decides that he’s not going to just brush off abduction, torture, and everything else the Argent family goes in for.

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It’s just powder until a spark ignites it. You need to be that spark, Stiles.

After the rave, Stiles ran the words through his mind, trying to wring meaning from them. A spark was a small thing, a tiny moment of energy that, on its own, was useless. But apply it correctly, and it could be the ignition point of a forest fire, of an explosion.

That seemed to be what Deaton meant. That Stiles, despite being otherwise useless, could be the catalyst of something big, could activate the properties of the ash without having any magic powers of his own.

Stiles might have taken that at face value and never thought of it again, except for what had actually happened. He hadn’t just ignited the protection, the way Deaton had said he should; he’d also somehow completed the circle despite not having enough ash to do that job.

To Stiles, that meant something completely different. It meant that Stiles had surpassed merely being the spark, he’d worked actual magic. What’s more, he’d done it before the mountain ash had been activated.

Probably.

“I need to test this,” Stiles muttered to himself, once he’d convinced himself that he was right. “If I can reproduce this, do intentional magic, then that will bring me off the bench and onto the playing field. I won’t just be the sidekick anymore, I’ll be a superhero in my own right.”

He resisted the impulse to call Scott and tell him all about it. Scott had hardly been Mr Supportive since this whole werewolf thing had kicked off. He’d blown Stiles off so many times so that he could focus on Allison and their drama, and from the sounds of it, he told Allison everything.

That was all well and good, and while Stiles didn’t really mind Allison knowing about his nifty magic powers—if he did have them—he wasn’t that keen on her knowing he tried them if it didn’t work out. There was also the problem of her family. Allison might be on the outs with them over her desire to date Scott right now, but who knew how long that would last?

Unfortunately, the end result was that Stiles didn’t have anyone to talk to about this whole situation.

On the other hand, Scott ditching him for Allison all the time left him with plenty of time to work on it.

Not having a teacher—and not trusting Deaton farther than he could throw him—progress was slow. There was also the weird fact that unless he was either absolutely calm or badly stressed, nothing happened at all.

Despite these drawbacks, progress was being made. He was able to manipulate any powder or granulated substance—he spent a lot of time practising with salt in case demons ended up being a thing—into a circle, and he could also start and maintain a small fire. The powder circle was easier and could be done at any time, but the fire required absolute calm.

Pleased with the idea that he would soon be able to offer definitive help in supernatural situations, he started gathering some supplies. He planned to keep salt, holy water, and mountain ash on him at all times in case of emergency.

The salt and the holy water were easy enough to come by, but the powdered mountain ash was much scarcer. Deaton claimed Stiles had used all of his, and that he wasn’t expecting another shipment for at least a month.

Stiles called bullshit and went online to source his own. He found it available in California in several small speciality shops, the nearest being in San Francisco. He immediately put in an order for five pounds and asked for it to be put on a courier as soon as possible.

He was still waiting for it to arrive when the attack at the station happened.

v^v^v

“Never again,” Stiles said to himself as soon as his father was safe at home and sleeping in his bed, newly reinstated to his position as sheriff by a stressed-out mayor. “I refuse.”

That was absolutely the last time he would be helpless while a supernatural creature ran amok and endangered his dad’s life. As soon as the mountain ash arrived he was going to devise a way to keep it readily accessible at all times and then ensure he never left the house without it. He was going to practice until he could do his magic regardless of what was going on around him.

Proving himself to Scott was no longer his primary goal. Scott could take care of himself; what mattered most to Stiles was making sure his father remained healthy and able for years yet.

He got to work as soon as the mountain ash arrived, and soon learned that like all magic, what mattered most was intent. Mountain ash could be manipulated into a magical barrier, and some experimentation at the mall showed that a mountain ash barrier stopped whoever or whatever Stiles wanted it to.

He also managed to grow and shrink his fires, and increase and decrease their temperature.

As soon as he managed to work his magic when terrified as well as calm, he was going to be a badass force to be reckoned with.

v^v^v

Unfortunately, before he reached the level of mastery he’d been aiming for, he was abducted and beaten by a geriatric serial killing mass murderer and his goons. Not only that, but he’d been witness to the torture of others, kids his own age, because of bigotry and racism. Maybe xenophobia would fit better. Either way, Stiles had officially had enough of Argents and their disgusting practices.

Not even Allison was exempt from his ire. Sure, he could understand her being upset about her mother’s death, but the actions she deemed appropriate, the violence and hatred she so quickly embraced, spoke volumes about the woman she was becoming.

Something had to be done. And not Scott’s version of something, involving lying to his allies and turning on them to achieve a tenuous result that Stiles was highly suspicious of.

An eye for an eye might make the whole world blind, but letting criminals get away with abduction, torture and murder just because the justice system wasn’t equipped to handle those particular crimes was repugnant. Gerard might now be suffering from Scott’s ‘Master Plan’, but his threat had never been in his physical ability but in his reach, his contacts, and his ability to inspire and manipulate.

So.

Since no one else was both capable of and willing to take care of the problem, Stiles was going to have to do it himself. And if that made him a bad person, then so be it. He’d rather get his hands bloody in the defense of his loved ones than do nothing and watch them suffer for his lack of determination.

There was no one he felt he could confide in. He never wanted his father to know what he was doing, and Scott had so clearly raised a pacifist flag and planted it right beside the Argents, he couldn’t help either.

Derek and Peter would probably agree to help him, but there were several reasons why Stiles didn’t want to bring them into it.

Peter would be a brilliant co-conspirator and would no doubt be willing to take the fight to the Argents, but Stiles didn’t trust him to be reliable in the aftermath. There was no way he’d be willing to give Peter the kind of dirt on him that this sort of thing would entail.

Derek would be more trustworthy—the number of times they’d saved each other’s lives couldn’t help but build trust—but he lacked the fire for vengeance that drove Peter. Derek ultimately just wanted his pack to be left in peace. He was a reactionary fighter, not a pre-planner, and Stiles doubted he’d agree to cold-bloodedly murder people. Not even Argents.

Luckily, Stiles didn’t actually need help.

v^v^v

The hardest part had been convincing Derek to bring his pack into a public area with enough witnesses for long enough to ensure the werewolves would be cleared of suspicion at the same time as the Argents were meeting with their goon squad.

Eventually, he managed it, organising a carwash to raise funds to help repair the station and chivying the werewolves along to help. He even managed to get Peter to attend by hinting that it would be worth his while.

Peter was sceptical, but his curiosity couldn’t let him stay away.

The bonus was that, because it was on behalf of the station, Stiles even managed to convince his dad to send a couple of his new deputies along to help out and introduce themselves to the town.

Having ensured everyone was busy and within sight of several CCTV cameras, Stiles excused himself for a short bathroom break.

It took less than a minute of concentration to activate the mountain ash he’d already placed, and then light up the house and the warehouse the Argents had been using.

Maybe it was a bit on the nose, but as far as Stiles was concerned, it was delayed karma.

He washed his hands and went back outside. There were cars to wash.

v^v^v

“I’m confused,” Peter said to him ten minutes later as they both waited for the next car to roll up. “As far as I can tell, there’s nothing particularly special about this car wash other than your ability to manipulate us all to attend.”

Stiles raised his eyebrows. “And if you can’t see the purpose, there can’t be one?”

As he finished speaking, fire engine sirens sounded in the distance. Stiles took a deep breath, closed his eyes and pushed the heat of the fire he’d started up a notch. No use in letting the fire be put out before it performed its task.

When he opened his eyes again, Peter’s gaze had narrowed.

Stiles smirked at him. “Listen well: staying here for at least another half an hour is in your best interests.”

Peter’s mouth twisted. “What I like about you, Stiles, is that even with all my…advantages…I can never tell when you’re pulling my leg.”

Stiles shrugged and moved towards the approaching car. “You can thank me later; right now, we have work to do.”

Alibis firmly cemented, check.

This strike should take the majority of the Argents off the board for good. If he missed a couple…well, there was always next time.

Stiles was done being the prey. Let’s see how the hunters liked it when the shoe was on the other foot.