A/N: Geez. It's been a while. Sorry bout that. Anyways, just wanted to say thanks for sticking with me. Much appreciated ^•^ I think the updating schedule's gonna speed up a bit, so it's no longer a whole month between chapters. I feel really bad about that. Anyways, enough of my rambling. Just read the damn thing already.
September 28, 2008
"Apocalypse? The apocalypse, apocalypse? The four horsemen, pestilence, $5-a-gallon-gas apocalypse?" Dean asked.
Sam almost smiled at that.
"That's the one. The rise of the witnesses is a - a mile marker." Bobby confirmed.
"Okay, so, what do we do now?" Sam asked.
Three years. There years since he had lost Percy, since he had started hunting with his brother again. Three years, and here he was, attempting to stop the Apocalypse. Five-dollar-a-gallon-gas apocalypse, according to his brother's wisdom.
"Road trip. Grand Canyon, Star Trek Experience. Bunny Ranch." Dean said, listing off a bunch of places he'd wanted to go. Leave it to Dean to come up with something unproductive.
"First things first." Bobby said, making a face. "How about we survive our friends out there?"
"Great. Any ideas aside from staying in this room until Judgment Day?" Dean asked.
"It's a spell-" Bobby waved at a piece of paper to the side. "-to send the witnesses back to rest. Should work."
Sam raised his eyebrows at that. "Should. Great."
"If I translate it correctly." Bobby finished. "I think I got everything we need here at the house."
"Any chance you got everything we need here in this room?" Dean asked, looking the kind of hopeful you get when you know nothing is going to come of it.
True to form, Bobby made a face that said, idjit, did you really believe that? "So, you thought our luck was gonna start now all of a sudden? Spell's got to be cast over an open fire."
Sam quickly mentally went over the entire house, trying to figure out where best to have open flames. "The fireplace in the library." He said, thinking aloud.
"Bingo." Bobby said.
"That's just not as appealing as a, uh, ghost-proof panic room, you know?" Dean said, taking a glance around as if hoping for the ingredients and a fire pit to magically appear.
The three of them began gathering all of their stuff, getting ready to leave the relative safety of the panic room for the Witness-infested rest of the house.
"Cover each other." Bobby warned them. As if they really needed to be warned. "And aim careful. Don't run out of ammo until I'm done, or they'll shred you. Ready?"
The three of them exited the room. They didn't encounter any of the ghosts until they reached the stairs leading up.
There, sitting rather plainly on them, was a vaguely familiar person. It took Sam a moment to place him, but when he did, he felt a wave of regret. It was Ronald, the one who had believed in Cybermen and lizard people.
"Hey, Dean." The apparition asked. "You remember me?"
"Ronald, huh? With the laser eyes? I wish I could say it's good to see you." Dean said, kind of wryly.
"I am dead because of you. You were supposed to help me!" Ronald said. He didn't seem all that wrathful yet, but he was probably well on his way to getting there.
Without warning, Bobby shot the ghost, and it went up in smoke. "If you're gonna shoot, shoot. Don't talk." He said, giving them a look.
They went up the stairs, and Sam glanced at the spot where Ronald had been sitting. He didn't linger, though, not wanting to be caught in the place the ghost had been, just in case it came back.
They made it to the library, and Dean began setting up the fire while Sam made a salt circle around where Bobby was working. Already the man was following the instructions, preplanning all of the ingredients and their locations.
"Upstairs, linen closet - red hex box. It'll be heavy." Bobby pointed to the stairs leading to the top floor of the house, and Sam nodded.
"Got it." He said. Just as he was going up the stairs, he heard the sound of the two girls. He sighed, keeping steady, trusting that Bobby could handle himself. And if not, Dean.
He hurried down the hallway, checking each door to see whether it was the aforementioned linen closet. So maybe he didn't know exactly where it was. Sue him.
The second door he picked, thankfully, seemed to be the right one, as there were a pile of sheets in it. He stuck his hand in, pressing it as far back as he could go, before he hit something that seemed to be the box.
He pushed all the sheets to the side, trying to dig the box out.
Just as he got it out, someone spoke to him.
"You know what really pisses me off, Sam?"
Sam turned around, surprised, and saw Meg leaning casually there. Her hair was longer, changed from the short bob the demon had worn it in, and her clothes were dirty and stained.
He shot at her, but missed, and she advanced on him, speaking.
"You saw how I suffered for months. I thought you must have learned something. I thought I died for something." She made a face, and leaned closer.
"Meg." Sam said, placatingly, trying to find a way to get past her.
"But what you're doing with that demon, Ruby... How many innocent bodies has Ruby burned through for kicks? How many girls just like me? And you don't send her back to Hell? You're a monster!" Her words stung. The fact that they were true also, well, that was just the icing on the cake.
Before she could get in another word edgewise, he raised his rifle and didn't miss, this time.
Without wasting another second, Sam grabbed the box (which was, as Bobby has said, pretty heavy) and ran downstairs.
Just in time, too. The moment he entered the kitchen, he saw Henriksen going for Dean's heart. He shot the Witness without a second thought.
"You all right?" He asked, checking to make sure Dean hadn't been stabbed in the kneecap with a fork or something like that.
"No."
Yeah. The Witnesses seemed to have that effect. "Let's go." He said, helping Dean up. With any luck, they could get the stuff to Bobby in time and they could survive the attack.
Ronald appeared again as Dean reloaded his gun.
And despite everything so far, Dean still tried to reason with him.
"Ronald. Hey, come on, man. I thought we were pals."
"That's when I was breathing." The ghost stated bluntly. "Now I'm gonna eat you alive."
"Well...come on, I'm not a cheeseburger."
Yeah, Dean. Because cheeseburgers were living beings.
Dean raised his gun to shoot Ronald, but he'd disappeared.
Bobby started chanting some Latin, beginning the ritual. Before he could get very far, though, the windows slammed open and wind blew in, distorting the salt line and opening up some pretty big gaps.
Glue. They should have used glue.
Meg appeared again, this time making no pretense of scary conversation, launching straight into murderous.
Sam was quick to shoot her.
Ronald appeared again also, and Sam shit him, too. However, their reform times were getting shorter, and it was becoming more of a game of Whack-A-Mole than lookout.
Victor had reformed, and by the time Sam glanced over, he'd cornered Dean and knocked away any available guns. Dean reached back and grabbed one of the fire irons and swing it like a baseball bat, vanishing Henriksen for the time being.
Sam's distraction cost him. Meg appeared in front of him, and before he could do anything, sent a desk flying at him, trapping him against the wall behind him.
Dean looked over at him. "Sam!" He yelled.
But Sam wasn't the important one here. "Cover Bobby!" He shouted back, trying to direct Dean's attention away from him.
The two girls had appeared again and were sitting on Bobby's desk, very childlike and almost creepily. Bobby had started chanting faster, maybe nearing the end, probably just to beat the Witnesses, but he was so focused on the spell that he didn't notice Meg coming up behind him.
Before he could should out to Bobby, a pale kid came running into the library. Sam was too relieved for backup to wonder how, exactly, he had gotten there.
The Witnesses all stopped their attack on Bobby, and turned around as one to face the newcomer.
The kid laughed, said something that sounded Greek, and pulled a sword out of nowhere, so black it looked like it was sucking the light in. He took an offensive stance, and made a "come at me" gesture.
All at once, the Witnesses rushed him, morphing as they moved into different people.
One of which was an olive-skinned girl in a silver parka.
The kid visibly faltered at the sight of her, but maintained his stance. "You are not Bianca!" He had a surprising lack of accent.
He raised his hand, and slashed through one of the ghosts that got too close. It seemed to get absorbed into the blade, and didn't come back. "You are not my friends anymore. They are in Elysium!" He clenched his hand into a fist, and the Witnesses exploded with a fading scream.
None of them came back.
Dean helped Sam get the desk off of him, and they looked at the kid. He was putting his sword through his belt loops like it was the most common thing, completely nonchalant.
He looked up at the Winchesters, and glanced at Bobby, who was still behind them.
"Are you alright, sir?" He asked. Bobby raised an eyebrow at being called "sir," but nodded anyways.
"That's cool." The kid said. "I hope none of them got you?"
"Who are you?" Sam asked.
"Nico." The kid answered. He pulled over a chair, and sat down in it. As he did, the sword sort of vanished again, but now that Sam knew what to look for, if he squinted, he could almost see it.
Kind of.
"Okay, Nico." Bobby said. "Wanna tell me how you got here? Oh, and how you got rid of the Witnesses?"
Nico shrugged. "I don't know how much I'm allowed to tell you. Honestly, I wasn't expecting you three to still be alive by the time I got here. Most of the other Hunters weren't. Of course, that also meant the Witnesses were gone." He shrugged. "I'm just here to get rid of Witnesses, if possible, and head back."
Sam figured that the boy's explanation raised more questions that answers. For example, where's the"back"he was supposed to head to? What's the sword made of? How did he know where the Witnesses were going to show up?
Before Sam could ask anything, Dean cut in.
"Who the hell are you, Nico?" He hissed the boy's name like it was an insult.
Nico raised his hands like he was surrendering. "Dude, calm down. No need to go war-god on me."
The sentence sounded just like Percy, and it felt like a punch to Sam's chest. He'd never quite gotten over his death, but hearing someone who talked so much like him, just...
Sam tried to focus.
"I was just here to do my job, that's all. Don't get so snippy with me."
"So, what? You're just leaving now?" Sam asked.
Nico nodded. "Yeah. Unless you want me to stick around, but I don't think Mr. Macho Man here really wants that."
Sam looked at Dean. He didn't seem entirely pleased with the kid, actually, looking like he wanted to strangle him.
But he reminded Sam so much of Percy...
"Do you have any siblings?" Sam asked before he could stop himself.
Nico seemed to laugh at that. "Depends what you use to define siblings. The answer changes."
Sam was no less confused by his answer. He was about to ask what Nico meant by that, when a rainbow shimmered into existence next to Nico's head.
When the kid saw it, he groaned. "Perpetually bad timing, Annie." He muttered.
A face appeared in the rainbow, and Sam saw Dean level a gun at it, check it, and drop it when he realized it was empty.
The person in the rainbow had blonde curly hair and a tan that reminded Sam of California.
"Geez, Nico, we were getting worried." She said, pushing a stay strand of hair behind her ear. "When you didn't check in..."
"Annabeth, I'm fine." Nico said, sounding exasperated. "It was just ghosts. Seriously. Although, I did run into a couple of friends."
"Friends?" The blonde asked. "Like who?"
So apparently she couldn't see them from this angle. Good to know.
Nico appeared at his side and dragged him so his face was incredibly close to the rainbow. At this distance, Sam could see the girl's gray eyes, and exactly how her face paled when she, apparently, recognized him.
"Nico..." She said, sounding weak. "Did you seriously run into the Winchesters?"
A/N: I apologize for any discrepancies with the episode, end of this chapter notwithstanding. It's been a while since I've seen it, and I was working off the script.