A/N: Sorry about the wait on this one guys...
The moment Sera had the two hunters close enough to touch she flew toward the location of the Devil's Gate that Sam's group was covering. The female angel had already been there once to make sure that things were going as smoothly as they could. Her brother Daniel was keeping a close watch on those he was with, assuring that the hunters weren't injured so bad that they couldn't fight. When she landed, Claire and Xavier instantly brought their weapons back up assessing the situation before they were both off to help, not even questioning the fact that they had been pulled from their own location. Sera watched as Claire moved in Alex's direction, cutting down any demon or angel that got in the way. Quickly locating the youngest Winchester brother she flew to Sam's side, shoving her own angel blade into the back of a demon that he had been facing off against.
"How are the rest holding up?" Sam asked, slowly turning, waiting for his next enemy to attack.
Sera pulled her blade out of the body that had fallen to the ground, "Fine. This group has the worst of it. I've brought Claire and Xavier to help, but I need to return to Ana and Gabriel." she stated, not giving him any more information before she was gone. Heading south she dropped into the fray that was happening with Dean's group, not bothering to even stop and talk to the hunter as she landed next to Castiel. "Ana's asked that you stay here and protect Dean. I'm going to aide her group so that you can stay here."
Castiel gave her a questioning look, knocking aside the fist that was directed at his face. There was something that Sera wasn't sharing with him, but he had no time to argue. "Go then." he instructed, knowing very well that his sister was just as equipped, if not more so, to protect Ana as he was.
Not bothering to waste another moment Sera flew away. She had only been gone a few minutes, but when she returned it was to the sight of Lucifer and Michael standing not far from where she had landed next to Gabriel.
They're here. The message from Ana was clear as day in Connor's head and he almost slipped up when the angel and demon that he had been fighting had lunged at the same time. Michael and Lucifer had broken free from the cage. The archangels were on earth and if the fear coming from Ana was anything to go by, they were where Ana was. Looking around, he noticed that the numbers fighting against them had dwindled greatly and that those fighting with him were holding up pretty well. "Hannah!" Connor called to the angel, pushing his two foes away with a wave of power. He really couldn't waste any more time, he needed to get to Ana. The angel appeared at his side, "I need to go to Ana."
Hannah's eyes widened slightly, she knew what that meant. "Go, we can finish this." she assured him, knowing that the bigger battle was more important at this point. The only goal left now was to get rid of the archangels.
With a quick nod, Connor teleported to Ana's location appearing at her side within seconds. His heart dropped into his stomach as he looked at the two men who could only be the archangels that they had been trying to avoid. The power radiating off of them made his skin tingle and he wondered how exactly he and Ana were supposed to put a stop to them.
"Oh, looky! You've brought another friend." Lucifer teased, eyes roaming over the male witch. The appearance of the two brought a memory that had been lost in the back of his mind forward and the grin that had been plastered to his face since he had seen Ana slowly dropped into a scowl. "Really now, brother?" He was now directing his words to Gabriel, "First you somehow manage to come back from the dead and now you're using the prophecy against us?"
Gabriel scoffed, his eyes still glaring at the brother who had shoved an angel blade into his decoy, the one that had been so life like he could feel part of the pain when it had happened. "Like I planned this, Lucy. This is their show, I'm just along for the ride."
Michael slowly turned the glare that he had set on Ana toward Lucifer, "Must we keep talking? I'd rather break the little witch's neck." the words were almost a growl. He had lost his vessel the moment he'd entered the cage. Adam had died when Castiel had thrown the holy fire at them, but Michael had still been able to use the vessel until Sam had knocked him into Hell. The demons who had come to set them free had a human on stand by that they had somehow convinced to say yes so Michael could use him, but much like Lucifer's vessel the one he was riding was not meant to hold the grace of an archangel. That would only matter for a short time though, he had plans to get his original vessel to say yes. Both archangels would be using their intended Winchesters by the time they were done with this petty battle.
Ana had been filled with fear since the moment the archangels had emerged from the gate, but the moment that Michael spoke the fear was swiftly replaced with determination and rage. Taking a step forward, she could feel Connor's worry and confusion as she moved out of their line but she ignored it. "This will be your one shot," she spoke, knowing that they would take little heed of her words, "and I can assure you that neither of you will be making it out of this alive."
"Oh, little witch, so precious." Lucifer taunted, his scowl quickly turning back into a smile as he chuckled. "Do you really think you stand a chance against the two of us?" Each archangel was exceedingly powerful on their own, but now that Michael had completely turned from their Father and the pair of brothers was working together, there was little that could stop them.
"I guess we're about to find out." She answered, knowing that there was no getting out of this without a fight. Her grip on the angel blade in her hand tightened, quickly sending a message to Connor through their bond before she teleported right behind the archangels.
Michael turned around and raised his arm to block the angel blade that she was already swinging at him. Holding that arm in place he clenched his hand into a fist before thrusting it into her abdomen with so much force that he felt something crack. The grunt that the pain pulled from the witch's mouth was one of the most pleasing things he had heard in years. Just as he pulled his arm back to hit her again he was suddenly thrown back by a wave of power unlike anything he had ever felt from a witch.
Connor had teleported shortly after Ana, appearing just in front of Lucifer. They would have more luck if the four of them could separate and weaken the brothers, then he and Ana could finish them off somehow. As Sera joined him, Connor began his assault on the archangel in front of him. Part of him wondering where the rest of Ana's group was, but he would just have to ask about that later.
Gabriel was at Ana's side moments after Michael had cracked a couple of her lower ribs, placing his fingers to her forehead to heal the wounds before Michael could make his way back to them. "He's stronger than you physically, cupcake. Try not to let him get too close." he instructed before flying to where Michael had landed, ass down on the ground. Taking the moment of weakness, he raised his fist that held his angel blade and punched his brother across the face. "Don't touch my witch, Mickey." he snarled as he brought the angel blade down toward his brother's chest, but before it could hit home Michael disappeared.
Connor and Sera were working pretty well together, not that they were doing much damage to Lucifer, but he had yet to hurt either of them. Wrapping his power around the archangel as Sera ran at him with her blade he tried to hold Lucifer still, but it didn't take long before he had broken out of Connor's magic.
"Enough! This is a waste of my time!" The Devil snarled, disappearing from where he stood to join Michael who had just appeared in front of Ana. "Let's kill her and get this over with, I want to destroy this planet so we can move on to better things." he told his brother as they moved on opposite sides of Ana. Before the witch had any time to attack both archangels used their powers, Lucifer merely cutting off her oxygen while Michael began compressing his power around her brain.
If Ana could have screamed she would have, but with no air in her body she only whimpered as she fell to the ground. She could make out shouting, most likely Connor and Gabe as they realised what was happening. Suddenly the pain was gone, Connor's face was directly in front of her eyes as she began to pull in long breaths, waiting for the pain to clear from her head so that she could think again.
"Ana? Ana, talk to me. Are you alright?" Connor asked, not bothering to turn any attention to the angels behind him. Gabriel had pulled Ana away from his brother before he and Sera attacked so that they were distracted while Connor checked on her.
"Fucking angels." She muttered, as the pain began to clear fully and she could focus on what was going on around her. "I'm going to kill them. Help me up." Grabbing onto his outstretched hand, Ana used it to pull herself to her feet, regaining her bearings as she looked over Connor's shoulder to see Michael throw Gabriel across the field. "I'm so done with this!" she snapped, frustrated that the world kept throwing all of this crap at her family. "Let's finish them."
Connor turned to see what was happening, "How? We don't know what exactly we're supposed to do end this." Michael began to turn his attention toward them, but Gabriel was quickly back in his face, forcing their fight to continue.
"Good thing I have a plan." Ana muttered, knowing that it wasn't much of a plan, but it was all that she had. "I'll switch you for a while. Go help Gabe with Michael, we'll make our move when we can." she assured him before teleporting so that she was standing right next to where Sera and Lucifer were locked in a fight. Taking the moment while she could, Ana moved behind Lucifer and striked out with her angel blade, she hadn't been able to bury it in his back like she had hoped, but the blade did drag across his skin deep enough for his bright grace to shine out of the wound.
Lucifer quickly spun to look at her, "You little witch!" he snapped, lifting his hand to snap the witch out of existence. The fight had been pretty entertaining up until that point.
Ana lashed out with her power, throwing Satan back as far as she could. "Obviously." she scoffed, catching a slight wince from the angel as he pushed himself back up to his feet. The expression on his face had her more worried than she had been when she had first saw him come out of the gate. There was no way that the four of them would hold up much longer against the archangels, not if the murderous look in Lucifer's eyes was anything to go by. Whatever move they were going to make they needed to make it soon. Teleporting to Sera's side, she kept her eyes on Lucifer as she spoke, "We need to regroup. You grab Gabe, I'll grab Connor and we'll move across the field."
Not wasting any time both women disappeared from their spots, each grabbing the man they had agreed to from their fight with Michael and then taking them with as they moved as far away from the archangels as they could get. "So what are we supposed to do? We've barely made any progress on either of them." Gabriel was focused where both of his brothers stood, seeming to be waiting to see what they were going to do next.
"Ana?" Connor looked to his soulmate, he had no idea what they were going to do. His and Ana's go to move was strong, but it wasn't strong enough to take out one archangel, let alone two.
"That's it!" Ana's head jerked up, Connor's thought giving way to the idea that had just come into her head. "Sacrifice…" she muttered, eyes focused on the ground as she tried to process if what she was about to attempt would even work. Looking up, she watched as Lucifer and Michael began to walk toward them, their smug smiles communicating that they had thought they'd won. Their time had run out and this was the last move they had. "Everyone lay a hand on me." she instructed, noticing that the archangels were only getting closer.
Gabe, Connor, and Sera all shared a confused look before doing as they were told. Ana had been running the show since they had all been pulled together and it would be dumb for them to ignore her now. Connor grabbed onto her hand, while each angel rested a hand on the shoulder they were closest to. "What now?" Connor asked. Lucifer and Michael could attack at any moment, he could feel Ana's need to protect herself and the rest of them, but there was also a hesitation of what she was about to do.
"You're all going to channel as much of your energy as you can into me. Gabe and Sera, lend me as much of your grace as you can. Connor, same goes for your magic. The combination of all of that should be enough to stop them." Ana spoke, her voice steel as she understood that this was not going to be an easy task for any of them. "We stick this out until the end." These new words were orders, her tone leaving no room for argument, "Either they die or we do from trying to stop them."
Everything that happened after Ana's order occurred in such a way that it was hard to comprehend what was going on unless a person was in the thick of it. Michael and Lucifer seemed to realize that their enemy was about to make their big move, but came to the conclusion too late as when they tried to attack the two witches and the two angels they were stopped by a beam of blinding white light. A light full of so much power and energy that it made their skin burn, their grace scream, and fear fill the pit of their stomachs. The two angels and the one witch were focused solely on the redhead that they were shoving full of their energy, watching as she accumulated it all with the addition of her own before expelling it from her body through her one free hand. The two archangels struggled against the power being used against them, but neither could break free of it's hold long enough to retaliate. It seemed that while they were being weakened they were also being held captive where they stood.
Dean watched as Cas shoved his angel blade into the last demon standing. All in all their fight had been easier than he could have hoped for, little of their own blood was shed, though his left shoulder had been dislocated a few angels back and it looked like Krissy was limping pretty badly as she crossed the boggy wetlands towards him. The gate they had been assigned to was right on the edge of a swamp and that had made their fighting more difficult. Turning his attention the opposite direction he could see that William and Ariel were also walking toward him, both were wounded, but they were all alive. "Cas! Update on everyone else!"
The angel flew so that he was instantly at his friend's side. "There was a check in of sorts not long ago. Our group along with Charlie and Connor's were having the best of it. Daniel reported that they had been having some trouble with the gate in Maine."
"What about Ana and Gabriel?" He was beginning to think that they had succeeded in their plan to keep the demons and angels from opening the gates. Maybe for once they would be able to avoid the big fight at the end of a gruesome attack against the world and his family.
Castiel frowned, there had been no word from Gabriel or Ana, at least not directly. "Sera flew to me while we were still pretty outnumbered. She said that she would be helping Ana's group, but she didn't say what was happening."
The familiar presence of dread hit Dean's gut at those words, the all too reoccurring feeling that something wasn't right and someone he loved was in the middle of something bad. "Take me to them." Gabriel should have given them a heads up if things were going ass up for their group, but Dean was also aware that a lot of things in their lives never played out like they should.
Giving the hunter a stiff nod, Cas grabbed onto Dean's arm before giving Ariel a look that clearly said to follow them. He would get Dean there now and the rest would join once Ariel had both William and Krissy within reach. The flight took seconds, but even if it had been hours nothing could have prepared the angel or the hunter for the scene they arrived at. Gabriel, Sera, and Connor were surrounding Ana, each with a hand on her as the young witch channeled something Castiel could only describe as a celestial laser beam. Following the path of the light, he saw that Michael and Lucifer were trying to fight against it, but the power was slowly eating away at their vessels. Flesh was pealing back from muscle, blood dripping toward the ground underneath them, the only thing keeping them on their feet being the power they held as archangels, but it seemed that their grace was helpless against the amount of force being used against them.
Dean was sure that his heart had stopped beating for a solid second when he realized what was going on. Nothing about what was happening yards away from him seemed right. Obviously Michael and Lucifer being there was wrong, they were all meant to gather and fight the dickheaded angels together, but they hadn't even been made aware that they were topside. But Ana… Ana shouldn't be able to do what she was doing. The only time he had seen her do something similar it had weakened her greatly and that was just with her own power, but this light that she was pushing from her hands was much brighter than anything he'd ever seen her do and it was easy to make the connection between the hands touching her that she was drawing power from those around her. This wasn't right. "ANA!" Dean shouted louder than he probably ever had before as he picked up his feet, beginning to move toward his daughter.
Without hesitation Castiel grabbed onto Dean's good shoulder and pulled him back, "You can't. It could kill you." He warned his friend. The amount of power coming from Ana could quickly static out from it's controlled position and take down anyone nearby.
"I don't care!" The hunter jerked free of Cas' grip and began to run. His legs were moving as fast as he could make them move, the pain in his shoulder was forgotten and the fresh adrenalin that was pumping through his system was giving him an extra boost to move faster.
The process of absorbing all of the energy from an archangel, a warrior angel, and an extremely powerful witch was fast. It filtered out of the three people around Ana, inside of her body, joined with her own power, and then escaped through her hand. It all happened too fast for her mind to fully process, but it was clear that her body was weakening faster than was good. "We need to stop." Connor's voice broke through Ana's concentration. "You can't take much more of this."
"No. Keep going." The words were spoken through gritted teeth as she pushed harder. It was difficult to see anything other than the light in front of her, but she could feel the presence of the archangels weakening. It was working. They were going to win.
Connor looked toward Gabriel for help, hoping that the angel would help him in convincing Ana that this had to end, but he was only met with a sympathetic look. "Ana, stop, please." He began to plead, if she didn't listen he would let go, remove his power from her attack. There could be bad side affects to letting go before she was ready, but he would do it if it meant keeping her strong. When all his soulmate did was shake her head at his request, he frowned. "Why?"
Keeping her hand focused toward their enemy across the field, Ana slowly turned her head so that she was looking into the blue eyes that she loved so much. Tears began to escape her watering eyes as she looked at him, lip trembling as she spoke. "There has to be a sacrifice."
"ANA!" Dean's voice had everyone looking in his direction as the hunter ran toward them, pure fear etched into the expression on his face.
With a sad smile, the youngest of the Winchester line turned her attention back to the task in front of her. "I can't hold this much longer. Give me as much as you can. This has to end." Ana had little faith that she would survive this and she wouldn't risk Michael and Lucifer surviving this if she didn't as well.
Gabriel stilled his expression, being able to feel just how weak she was getting. "You've got it, princess. You blast my lame ass brothers to Timbuctoo and I'll heal you up when it's all said and done." he assured her as he pushed more of his grace into her body.
"You've almost done it, Ana." Sera spoke, being far enough away from the witch and her light to see the decaying bodies of her brothers' vessels. Each human body was so destroyed that each archangel was basically standing in the field in their true forms.
The presence of the others of his group was felt instantly by Cas as Ariel appeared next to him with Krissy and William in tow, "I've spoken with Daniel, Jax, and Hannah." she told him softly just as the rest of the groups appeared near them.
Castiel watched as realization hit all of their faces before turning his attention forward again. It was then that he noticed that Michael and Lucifer were so close to their true angel forms. "Close your eyes!" he instructed, knowing that any non angel to lay eyes on them wouldn't live. Flying to Dean, he didn't even try to reason the hunter as Cas tackled him to the ground and used his own body to block the sight of his brothers.
The high pitched, inhuman sound that Dean had long ago associated with an angel's real voice filled the field and he quickly covered his ears. It lasted for long minutes before the sound was finally gone, leaving every non angel with a ringing in their ears and a pain in their head. He felt as Castiel's weight was lifted off of him, his friend's focus turned away from him. Pushing himself to his feet Dean looked around, first noticing the scorch marks on the already dead grass where Lucifer and Michael had been standing. His green eyes moved directly to the left of there to see Connor sitting on the ground with Ana in his arms, both Gabriel and Sera kneeling next to them. "ANA!" his voice filled the silence that had taken over the field.
Once again Castiel grabbed Dean by the arm and flew him to where the group of four was. Gabriel's head hung low as he knelt in front of Connor, Ana between the two of them. "Gabe." He spoke his brother's name softly, asking an array of questions with the one word. Gabriel slowly shook his head, giving the only answer that needed to be given.
Dean looked down at the still form of his daughter, she must have passed out after using so much energy on that attack. He was waiting for one of the angels amoung them to heal her, to bring a little more color back into her cheeks, to get her chest to start rising and falling with her breaths. Her chest that was barely moving… her chest that wasn't moving. Not even a fraction. "Ana?" The name was cracked and weak as it escaped his mouth. His entire body lost control as he noticed that Connor was openly sobbing as he clutched onto Ana's limp body and he dropped to his knees, inches from her face. Dull green eyes looked past him and up to the darkening sky with no focus, no longer having the ability to see anything.
