A/N: Happy New Year everyone! Who's ready for the next installment? The response I've been getting on this lately has been a huge inspiration and I would like to thank you all for the support :) Please let me know what you think. I love getting reviews, be they good or bad. I would also like to comment that this is most likely going to be a rather long story, I have a lot of it already written out in parts and planned out in my head, so here's the question: Would it be more enjoyable/ easier/ or what have you if I break this into multiple stories or would you rather me just continue to post on this one? Or do you even care, because I imagine it doesn't matter to some? Let me know ;)
TheHungryRainbow: Thank you so much for the review! I'm so glad you're enjoying it!
Ana turned and sprinted for the door that led into the house. She had no idea what to expect as she opened the door and threw it open, but what her eyes focused on was a room full of people laughing. Confused, she looked around until she caught sight of a very drunk guy she barely recognized sprawled out on the floor wearing a dress that was extremely small. The screams must have come from some of the people surprised by the man tripping and shattering the glass that had been in his hand. Content that no one was being murdered, she walked back into the garage and closed the door behind her, stopping only for a moment to spell it so that no one else would be able to go through it. Turning to focus on the demon still stuck in the trap, she crossed her arms over her chest and walked back toward it. "You almost had me for a minute." Ana spoke, still unnerved by the expression on the demon's face.
"I never said that the rest of the show was here." He pointed out.
Fear instantly wracked her system as she began to worry about the family that wasn't with her, but before she could come up with a plan to figure out who was in trouble Gabriel appeared by her side. "Exorcise him." She told Connor quickly, thankful that he had learned how to when they had first gotten together. "How bad is it?" she asked Gabriel, she could tell that her family needed their help, but they couldn't leave a demon here unwatched.
"Let's just say we need to move fast and the two of you may or may not need to brush up on a memory spell if you don't want your family to remember what's happening." Gabriel looked slightly flustered, the situation would have had to been pretty bad for the archangel to lose his cool.
A yell followed by the swirl of black smoke that ran around the room before it was driven through the concrete of the garage turned Ana's attention to Luke's unconscious body. Flicking her gaze up at Connor, "We need to go." she told him, ready to teleport to their motel room to grab her weapons, but Gabriel's hand on her arm made her pause.
"They're all at the Feragen house. The place is surrounded and we're not entirely sure how big the force is, but we're fighting off as many as we can. Be careful." He warned before disappearing.
Ana glanced at Connor over her shoulder before teleporting away, knowing that he would be able to follow her. Instantly moving for the duffle bag that held their weapons and spell supplies, she began to arm herself. A pistol filled with devil's trap rounds and an extra magazine, both of which she stuck in the waist of her jeans. Grabbing her other duffle bag, she dug out a thin black leather jacket, one that she had bought recently and had spent time on making it into a wearable arsenal carrier. Connor appeared next to her, seeing that she was getting ready to go, he began to get ready himself. "What took you so long?" she asked as she pulled an angel blade out of the duffle and hid it inside the inner lining of her jacket.
He glanced up at her as he grabbed an angel blade himself and the pistol that had been deemed his even though he rarely used it, "I went inside and told Kellen what was going on. He's going to stay at the party and keep Gwen there, partially to keep them safe, partially to make sure that nothing else was going to go after the people there."
Ana nodded, "Thanks. I have a feeling that we're not going to be doing much damage with this stuff." she told him, slipping a flask of holy water into her pocket.
"If the force is as large as Gabriel says it is, I'm going to assume that we'll do the most damage with magic, but better safe than sorry." Connor sighed, grabbing the small bag full of supplies he kept in his duffle for emergencies. It held basic herbs, stones, and other things that could be used for a variety of things, he had a feeling that if it was going to be used for anything this time around, it would be for healing and that thought made him worry.
Double checking to make sure that she was armed as much as she could be, she looked at Connor and held out her hand toward him. "Gabriel," she began to pray, knowing that it was the only way that the archangel would hear her, "we're on our way. We're going to start on the outside and work our way in, hopefully we can make more of a dent that way. Let everyone else know." Once she was done and Connor's hand was in her own, she gave him a weak smile, "Stay safe, be smart." she instructed him, kissing him on the cheek before she dropped his hand and teleported to the north side of the house. The nice thing about the connection that she and Connor had was that a lot of things could be left unsaid and still understood, which was why he knew to appear to the south side of the house and that they would both work their way through as many demons as they could alone.
When Gabriel said that the house was surrounded, he hadn't been exaggerating. From across the street Ana could make out demons all over the yard, driveway, and the sidewalk in front, waiting for their chance to have a hand in the attack. This was going to be a long, hard fight and Ana was sure that their chance of everyone making it out alive was slim. Stealing herself, she pulled her pistol out and loaded the first round into the chamber by pulling the slide back. The first round she fired signaled her presence and though she had stopped one demon in its tracks with the first bullet, the mass that ran toward her was larger than she had taken on alone before. Pushing all fear aside she drew the angel blade out in her empty hand and advanced on the oncoming sea of demons. She fired her pistol over and over, hitting demons square in the chest, stopping their movements suddenly, but it didn't seem to be doing much against the numbers coming at her.
The first one within arm's reach got the angel blade shoved through his throat and she moved his body in front of her as a shield while she fired the remaining bullets in her pistol. It emptied quickly, stopping another four demons in their tracks before she slipped the gun back into the waist of her jeans and pushed the body off of her blade so that the weapon was free to use. She turned and shoved it through the stomach of another demon as she pushed the crowd back with a wave of her hand, making it easier for her to attack a few at a time rather than all at once. Which was what the plan had been until she felt a force clamp down around her throat, cutting off almost all of her oxygen supply. There was a collective dark chuckle at the sight of her body fighting against the hold, but the demon was one of the strongest among the group, making it clear by using it's power to raise her off of the ground.
"Your luck has run out little witch." the female spoke as she made her way through the crowd, a proud smile seeming to be glued to her lips, "It was just a matter of time." she continued, stopping a few feet away from the hovering witch.
Ana smiled, raising her own hand out toward the demon, being able to retaliate now that she knew which one was attacking her. Focusing as much as she could with the lack of air, she curled her fingers toward her palm, slowly turning her arm as if she had a hold of something and was twisting it around. Essentially, that's what she was doing. It was an act similar to what Sam had been able to do when he was running on demon blood, exorcising demons without words, but her version didn't require any demon blood, thankfully, and it was a lot more permanent than what her uncle used to do. The demon stood frozen, the force of Ana's magic around her keeping her from moving and successfully releasing Ana from her hold, causing the witch to drop the short distance to the ground. The only thing keeping Ana on her feet once she landed was her sheer force of will and the stubbornness to not show weakness in front of her enemies. Sucking in a deep breath she forced more magic into what she was doing, completely balling her fist and twisting it as much as her arm would allow. In one swift motion Ana pulled her arm back and then quickly swung it toward the ground, as if she was throwing something out of her hand, causing the demon to clutch at her chest. Black goo began to bubble out from her mouth, ears, nose, and eyes. The other demons stood back and watched in fear as one of the most powerful among them was ended in a way few of them had heard of before, let alone seen.
"That's not possible!" One of the demons yelled and ran at her, ready to attack, but Ana spun and shoved the angel blade into his stomach.
She shook her head as she looked around, some of the demons had been so put off by her display of power that they seemed to be holding back, trying to decide if they wanted to chance meeting the same fate as the one before them. In some form of silent agreement, they all moved at the same time, seeming to decide that if they all attacked at once they would have a chance at taking on the powerful witch. What they didn't seem to understand was that not only was she a witch, but she had the same scary calm her father did and, just like with Dean, when she seemed perfectly at peace during a battle was the time to run.
Taking a few steps forward, Ana met the force head on and fought with a focus she had rarely felt before. Being outnumbered almost twenty to one didn't seem like that big of a deal when only five or six could surround her at once and that added to how aware she was of the amount of power she had building within her, she felt unstoppable. As the fight continued, she found herself now standing on the grass just in front of the large window that looked out from the living room of the house. The action had pushed her closer and closer to the house and now that she could see inside she could see that the two hunters and the two angels inside had their work cut out for them. This is taking too long and I don't like the looks of how things are going inside. Ana sent the thought to Connor through their bond while she pushed back the demons still left fighting her. She knelt to the ground, muttering a spell as she spun in a smooth circle, dragging the angel blade on the ground as she swirled around. Her voice grew in volume as she closed the circle she had drawn and with a few last words uttered she raised the blade in the air then drove it into the earth with such force that it was buried up to the hilt. Keeping herself close to the ground, she covered her eyes with her arm and turned away from the blade as a bright white like filtered out from it and shot out around her, seeming to pierce every demon around her. Screams filled the night as they died and the light faded, making it safe for Ana to lower her arm and glance around. Pulling the blade from the ground, she looked it over as she stood. What was that? Connor's voice filled her mind, the tone was full of worry.
I'll explain later. I'm heading your way. She sent back, tossing the angel blade aside, it was useless after her little stunt. Jogging around to the back of the house, she pulled her pistol back out from the waist of her jeans, dropped the empty magazine and replaced it with the extra one she had brought. Taking a deep breath, she paused at the door in the wooden gate that closed off the backyard, making a quick assessment of her injuries since she hadn't really been paying attention while she was surrounded by demons. She would make it, nothing too serious yet and even if it was she would fight through it, there was no way that this would end well without everyone working together and that included her.
Finally pulling the door open, she raised her gun as she walked into the yard, seeing Connor in pretty bad shape. Thankfully he wasn't taking on as many demons as she had and it seemed that he had been holding his own, but not without his own assortment of injuries. With another deep breath in, she began to fire at the demons surrounding him, emptying the clip into the last few as she finished letting the breath out. There were three left fighting, one focused on Connor as the other two came running toward her. Without a second thought, Ana tossed her pistol aside and extended both arms out, palms facing toward the demons and stopping them in their tracks as she repeated the same process she had with the female demon that had tried to suffocate her on the other side of the house.
As the last of the black goo came out of their bodies, they crumpled to the ground and Connor had a clear line of sight to Ana. He had ended the demon he had been fighting shortly after it had attacked and he had just been watching in shock and confusion as Ana used her powers to kill the two demons that had moved to attack her. "Where did you learn to do that?" he questioned, voice oddly level for how panicked he felt.
Ana's eyes moved from the bodies on the ground to Connor, "I'll explain that later too. Right now we have twelve demons here that still need to be dealt with and they need help inside."
"What's the plan?" He questioned, knowing that he wasn't going to get any answers out of her at the moment.
"You head inside and give them a hand, I'll exorcise these ones and then come in to help." She instructed, looking around at the demons who were stuck because of the devil's trap bullets. "I'll make quick work of this, hopefully since there isn't a constant stream of demons from the outside they've already got it under control in there."
Connor simply nodded and headed inside, hoping that they did have it mostly under control. He hadn't been trained as a hunter like the Winchesters, his body wasn't prepared to deal with pain like theirs were. As he reached for the doorknob to go inside, he winced, something was definitely broken and he was sure that his shoulder was out of socket. He would have someone look at it when everything was said and done.
Ana turned her focus to the twelve demons stuck in random parts of the yard, "Alright ladies and gentlemen, one way trip back to Hell?" she questioned, not waiting for a response as she forced them all to their knees with her power. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii…" She spoke loudly, waiting as she reached closer to the end before pulling each bullet out with a swift move so that the demons would be able to be purged from the humans they were possessing. There was a collective yell as black smoke filled the air around her momentarily before being plunged into the earth and drove straight into Hell. Sighing, Ana shook her head, her body was growing weak as she continued to use her powers on such a large scale and she was glad that this wasn't an often occurrence. Turning to make her way inside, she was glad to walk through the house and into the living room to see her uncle finishing off the last demon inside the house. "Can we not get one night of normalcy?" she questioned with a groan, drawing the attention of the room to her.
"You look like you got your ass kicked." Dean commented, sighing as he picked up a beer bottle off of the coffee table and downed the remaining contents.
Ana scoffed, "Look who's talking. You should be glad I'm alive, I took on at least thirty on my own out front."
Sam nodded, "Yeah, we caught sight of it a couple of times." he wiped the demon killing knife that was in his hand along the thigh of his jeans, getting rid of the blood.
"What the Hell was that light anyway?" Dean questioned, setting the bottle back down, "New spell?"
"Try impossible spell." Gabriel interrupted, crossing the room and looking at Ana with a slight glare. "Where did you learn that?" he basically demanded, arms crossing over his chest.
With a roll of her eyes, she threw her arms in the air in a dramatic huff, "Can I not be questioned about everything I do? First Connor, now you. It's all magic and I'm not hurting anyone human, so what does it matter?"
"What you did, shouldn't have been possible." Castiel began as he tucked his angel blade back inside of his trench coat, "It's something that only higher ranking angels have ever been able to do." he explained, blue eyes focusing on her in an almost accusing manner.
"Uh, hello? Anyone want to fill us in on what exactly my daughter did out there?" Dean looked between Cas and Gabe, holding his arms out as if he was waiting for them to physically hand him an answer.
There was the sound of someone clearing their throat, "Or you know, explain to the rest of us what the hell just happened?" Heather spoke up, glancing around at everyone. She and the three of the Feragen family that were there had been pushed against a wall and told to stay there so they weren't in the way.
"One thing at a time, alright?" Ana questioned, glancing between her dad and her aunt. Turning to address her father first, she sighed, "I may have opened the angel blade and released the grace that was inside of it, causing it to spread out and take out all of the demons at once."
"Wait, wait, wait. Back up a minute," Dean looked at the angels, "There's grace in an angel blade?" he questioned, obviously unaware of the information before hand.
Gabriel nodded, "What else do you think made them so powerful? When they were forged, dear old dad placed a small amount of grace in each one so that they would be pure. That's why they're so effective against demons."
Sam nodded, it had been a possibility he had considered more than once. "So what Ana did was release the grace that was inside of the blade?" he asked rhetorically, having heard his niece's explanation, "What makes that such an impossible thing? We've all come to the understanding that she's a powerful witch, maybe her power is just great enough to open it?"
"No, that's not entirely it." Castiel shook his head, "Not only is it something that only archangels are supposedly able to do, but the incantation that she would have had to use is Enochian."
"Witch? Archangels?" Hank questioned, brow furrowed as her looked at them all skeptically.
Ana held a finger up at him, "One thing at a time, I promise we'll explain everything shortly." she turned her attention back to Cas, "I've spoken in Enochian before, what's the big deal this time around?"
"Last time you spoke it was when you were still carrying around my grace, princess." Gabriel spoke up, "But since it's no longer with you, we're kind of confused as to how you would know the incantation."
"It has to be some side effect of carrying your grace around for so many years." She offered, not being able to think of a different explanation. "There were bound to be a couple of things that stuck around in my subconscious. Maybe it's only triggered by me using mass amounts of magic like I was outside."
Connor stepped forward, he had been keeping himself out of the main group and just watching patiently, waiting for the right time to speak up. "Speaking of your mass amount of magic use, would you like to explain to me how you exorcised a demon with your mind?"
Dean and Sam shared a quick, wide eyed look before they looked back to Ana, "You did what now?" Dean demanded, frowning in concern.
Sam stood silent, face looking a little paler as he worried that his niece was somehow traveling down the same road that he had when he was younger. Flashes of memories played through his head. Ruby, Lilith, and Lucifer all swirling around in a strange dance, mocking him and the inevitable downfall of the Winchester family. Shaking his head, he forced his focus back to what his niece was saying, coming back to the conversation at the end of her sentence.
"I didn't exorcise them. I killed them."
"How, Ana?!" Dean demanded, not liking what he was being told or the look that Cas and Gabe were sharing as they silently communicated something that looked like it should concern him.
"Magic!" Ana snapped, running both of her hands through her hair as she took in a deep breath. "Everything I'm able to do that isn't normal is magic, haven't you figured that out by now? I figured it would be pretty clear after knowing I'm a witch for over a year!"
Connor sighed, he hadn't wanted to turn this into a fight, he had just wanted answers. "Ana, calm-"
"I swear to God, Connor Alexander Mohr, if you tell me to calm down we are going to have a much bigger issue here." Ana fixed her glare on him before slowly turning her attention back to her father and uncle, finally realizing that panic that was running through Sam's body. "I killed them using my magic in a way that is similar to what Sam was able to do, there's no spoken spell, no exorcism, just my extreme focus and control of my power. I spent a lot of my time away at college trying new spells and creating some of my own, part of this one had already been created in hex bag form by some which from hundreds of years ago. All I had to do was tweak it a bit and I was able to kill a demon without a weapon other than my magic." she told them, glad to see that Cas and Gabe had been listening as well so she didn't have to repeat herself.
"Will someone please explain to us what's going on?" Callie almost screeched, her eyes wide with panic as she tried to understand everything that had just happened and what everyone else was talking about.
Ana rubbed her fingertips across her temples, her eyes focusing on the three men that had been questioning her. "Why don't we finish this later and give these guys some answers." she offered, waving her free hand at the normal part of her family. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and began a text to Kellen to instruct the siblings to come back to their house.
Sam and Dean both turned to look at the four people who were still standing near the wall they had been directed to when the fight broke out, taking in each of their expressions and trying to mentally prepare themselves for how they were about to handle what they wanted to be told. They were already scared and confused, watching four guys go head to head with a demon home invasion was probably something they had never thought they would see. Letting out a slow breath, Dean nodded and turned back to look at Ana, who seemed more stressed out than phased by the fight. "You sure about this? It's not the first time we've had to give this talk to people, but I know you wanted to keep them out of all of this."
"I think it's kind of late to keep them out of it." Ana answered as her phone vibrated in her hand, "But if we're going to tell them, we might as well wait until Gwen gets here so I don't have to repeat myself." Opening the text she received, she shook her head and lowered it back down to her side. "I guess they're almost here anyway." There was a short silence in which no one really knew what to say, each person dealing with whatever was going through their own head. Looking around the room, Ana frowned at the state it was in. Dead bodies had been almost forgotten on the floor and she knew that there were large numbers of them littering both the front and back of the outside of the house. "New plan," she began, her voice filled with a confidence and authority that she rarely took on, "we need to clean this up. Cas and Gabe, could you guys handling the bodies? The rest of us can pick up the house."
Gabriel scoffed, "Do you really have to ask?" he raised an eyebrow at her and snapped his fingers, causing the room they stood in to be rid of the bodies and put back to the way it had been before the fight broke out.
"I'll go take care of those outside." Castiel offered before disappearing, leaving the four people near the wall in even more shock than they had been when Gabriel fixed everything around them.
"Why don't you all sit down?" Connor offered, being able to sense the panic and shock overtaking their systems. "We'll explain everything once Kellen and Gwen are here, for now, just try to not freak out."
Ana looked at her family, wondering how she had gone from being bound and determined to keep them all out of the scarier part of the world to ready to spill all of the secrets she knew. As she watched them all move away from the wall and take a seat, it clicked in her head. This was all bound to happen, there was no way Ana could be such a big part of the craziness going on between the angels and the demons while at the same time expecting each supernatural race to leave her unsuspecting family completely alone. It was clear how naive the thought had been in the first place, "I need a drink." she commented before turning to walk toward the kitchen, but was caught short as Cas suddenly appeared in front of her.
"I believe this belongs to you." He told her, holding the pistol she had discarded outside in his outstretched hand.
Taking the gun, she tucked it in her waistband, "Thanks, Cas." she gave him a soft smile, then moved around him toward the kitchen, feeling almost ready to have a replay of the night she cut her foot on the glass of the broken whiskey bottle. Opening the refrigerator, she grabbed a bottle of beer, ignoring the presence of her uncle as he walked her direction through the house. Unscrewing the cap, she tossed it in the trash and took a large drink just as Sam walked into the kitchen.
"Sometimes you act so much like Dean it scares me." Sam stated with a soft chuckle, stopping just inside the entryway and leaning against one of the counters. He stood there a moment, accepting the silence as he watched his niece take another drink out of the bottle in her hand and taking the time to collect his thoughts.
Ana sighed, "Come on, Sam, out with it." she leaned forward on the island in the center of the room, resting her forearms on it. "I know what's on your mind, you just gotta fill me in on what exactly you want to know."
The tall man let out a slow, deep sigh. "I would just like a better understanding of how exactly you're doing it. The only way I could exorcise a demon was hopped up on so much demon blood that it almost took away my humanity and here you are killing them from the inside out."
"There's one big difference between the two of us. I'm a witch." She told him, pushing herself back up so she was standing. Walking around the kitchen she stopped at the counter that was just across the room from where he was standing and she pushed herself up on it so that she could sit. "I don't need demon blood to have power to do something like that and I promise the only reason I'm ever near demon blood is when I'm killing one. It's not dangerous for me to kill them like that, other than the fact that it takes a lot of my energy, it's not even labeled as dark magic."
Sam nodded, taking in everything that she was saying and considering it as he thought about the situation. "You understand why I'm worried though, right? I have all of the faith in the world in you, Ana, but I just had to be sure you weren't somehow being led down the same path I had been."
Giving him a soft smile, she nodded, "I get it, I do, but you need to trust me too. This magic and witch stuff is still all pretty new to you, me, and dad, but I need you both to give me the space to do what I'm capable of without breathing down my neck in fear that I'm going to do something wrong. I'm going to make some mistakes, you should have seen some of the ones I already have, but it's part of learning and you should understand that." Hopping off of the countertop, she walked over to her uncle and stopped when she was standing in front of him. "Just remember that I'm a Winchester and though I'm going to mess up, possibly in a huge way, at least I'll have the determination and stubbornness to fix anything I cause."
Sam smiled down at her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and walking with her back toward the rest of their group. "You definitely are a Winchester." he commented, squeezing her to his side and placing a kiss on the top of her head. "You ready to explain everything?" he questioned quietly as they came closer to the living room where everyone was sitting, waiting for the two of them to join the group.
"No, but it has to happen and we're going to have to find a way to keep them safe in case they're attacked again." Ana answered before taking another drink from the bottle, finishing it in the seconds before they entered the room. It was close to silent in the room as they joined everyone and she noticed that Kellen and Gwen were both among them now.
Kellen looked up from what he was whispering to Connor and caught sight of Ana across the room. Just like her dad, uncle, and Connor, she looked like she had been through the ringer. There was a split through the skin in her eyebrow, a long cut down her cheek, slashes through the fabric of the ivory shirt she wore and reaching into the skin, he could see long lines of open skin on her arms and torso. "What the hell happened?" he questioned. For all of them to look so rough it had to have been something big.
"Demons. A freaking hoard of them." Ana answered, stepping away from her uncle and moving through the room. As she passed the coffee table she set her now empty beer bottle down and turned to look at everyone, "Alright, let's get you all caught up. It's going to be a lot of information and it's going to sound really crazy, but just bare with me. Deal?" When no one responded, she gave a short nod and began to tell them everything. A long speech about monsters that most people only thought existed in movies, about how Heaven and Hell, angels and demons were all real. She told them about how the apocalypse almost happened, about her family's involvement in ending it and how they locked both Lucifer and Michael in the cage. Taking the time to explain to them that she was a natural witch, about her relation to the Salem witch Sarah Good and how she and Connor were each a part of two very powerful witch lines. Explaining shortly about the number of times demons had come after her and the seemingly endless list of ways they wanted to use her to end the world or make it so that they were in charge took more time than she wanted it too, the look of shock that crossed their features almost broke her heart. If only she could keep them out of all of this. Finally she wrapped up with the fact that both demons and the angels that were working with them would be coming after her, to either keep her from stopping their plan to release Lucifer and Michael or to use her to do so.
Kellen sat silently as he heard this all for the second time, watching his family react to everything Ana was saying and he wondered if things would ever be the same between all of them. "Why are you so calm about all of this?" Gwen's voice pulled him out of his thoughts, "You don't look nearly as freaked out as you should be."
With a shrug of his shoulders, he sunk down further in the couch he had taken a seat on during Ana's story, "Kind of doesn't surprise you the second time around."
"You told him before you told me?" Gwen questioned, clearly upset that her best friend had confided something like this in her brother rather than herself.
Ana rolled her eyes, "Different circumstances, Gwen. Anyway, if I could have kept this away from all of you, I would have. It seems like you're going to need to keep your eyes out though, so I'd rather you be aware and able to act than not know what was going on and die."
Heather, Monica, and Hank all shared a few looks, wondering how to take the new information. There was no way they couldn't believe it, they had watched both Dean and Sam go up against the demons and while the fight was in action they saw both the two angels and the demons do things that shouldn't have been possible. "Okay," Heather finally spoke up, turning to look at her niece, "what do we do now?"
"Now you get a few quick lessons on how to protect yourself." Ana told them, knowing that if she wanted them to live while she was trying to stop Jade and her army that they would need to know how to keep themselves safe.
