I'm sorry for the wait. This chapter was just kinda heard to write, you know? I'm going to try to post another chapter in the next few days, so you cupcakes won't have to suffer for too long. ;)

~Christianne

PS~ UNEDITED

"Hey Dani," Nikki said with a grin. "So…Think you can help us out?"

Nikki POV

"What-What happened to him?" Dani gasped, quickly moving out of the way so Sam and I could haul Dean into her cozy little house.

I let out a humorless laugh. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I told her honestly.

"Where can we put him?" Sam asked, worried about his brother.

"Uh…Let-Let me get a blanket or-or something-" Dani said, a little frazzled (she had a good reason to be). She dashed off towards a hallway.

"You sure she won't call the cops?" Sam asked, shooting a worried glance at me.

"She'll want to," I told him honestly. "But…But if I tell her it's vital that she doesn't, she won't."

Dani came back with some a thick, fluffy, dark magenta towels in one arm, and an armful of medical stuff in her other. She dropped the medical supplies on her coffee table, and used her foot to push it back while she pushed throw pillows off her sofa. Sam and I laid Dean down on it (on his stomach) after she'd covered it in towels.

She gasped a little when she really saw how much blood there was. "S-Scissors aren't gonna cut it," she said weakly in dry humor as she pulled on a pair of latex gloves. I rolled her eyes at the bad pun.

I wordlessly reached for the pocket knife on my belt, flipped it open at my side and handed it to her. Dani briefly looked between me and the knife slowly.

"Hey Nik?" Dani asked as she used to sharp blade of my pocket knife to cut away Dean's flannel and t-shirt.

"Yeah?" I asked, using the corner of one of the towels to wring out my hair.

"Who are these guys?—Hey, where'd the other one go?" Dani asked me, noticing Sam was gone.

I knew he was salting the doors and windows, but Dani didn't need to know that, not yet anyway. "This is Dean," I said, flicking the back of his calf, making him grunt. "The other one is his brother, Sam."

She wordlessly nodded as she peeled back the bloody shreds of Dean's shirt. "Can you get me the big metal mixing bowl? It's in my kitchen, on top of the fridge."

I wordlessly got up and wandered to her kitchen. The floors were a worn, pale wood, and I assumed it went all through the house. The walls of her kitchen were lined with ceramic tiles; a checkerboard of white and pale yellow. It was very Dani; happy.

I saw a few magnets on her fridge. One from the UW Green Bay, one from the Peshtigo Fire Museum, and a Milwaukee Brewers magnet among some others. My personal favorite was the one shaped like a stethoscope; the two earpieces and the round to-the-heart part were three separate magnets connected by some wiggly rubber stuff.

I found the metal mixing bowl (and a half empty bottle of rum) and brought it back to Dani, who was pulling Dean's shirts out from under his torso. The clang of the metal bowl on the wood must have startled Dean, because he groaned and opened his eyes. He grinned lazily at Dani, and muttered something. She glanced at me; I just shrugged.

Dani dropped Dean's shredded, bloody shirts into the large bowl, and began using gauze and cotton balls to clean the blood off Dean's back. Sam came back and pulled a chair from the kitchen table over to where Dani and I were on the floor.

"He's not allergic to anything, is he?" Dani asked, glancing at Sam, who didn't even bat an eye. "Like…Penicillin? Latex?"

"Uh…No," Sam said eventually. I looked at him doubtfully and he shrugged. "Well…He's never been tested for anything." He admitted.

"He needs to be tested for something." I said under my breath, earning a sidelong, annoyed look from Sam, and a confused look from Dani.

"Hey Sam? Wanna hop on Dani's computer and see if you can find anything?" I asked him. I'd already asked Dani if it was alright if Sam used it. He nodded, and went to the desktop computer on the other side of the room giving Dani and me some time alone.

"How do you know these guys?" Dani asked me when Sam was out of earshot.

I shrugged, leaning my back against the bottom of the sofa and took a swig of the rum; straight from the bottle. "That's a long story."

"Well, you're gonna tell it," Dani said a little firmer as she threw some bloody gauze into the bowl.

I played with the rum bottle on the floor, my nail scraped at the label. "I…I had an issue in Janesville," I started out vaguely. "Sam and Dean were in town, helped me out. I've been, sorta, with them since then."

"Like, with with, or just with?" Dani asked curiously, wrinkling her nose up and moving her cheeks to try and push her glasses up; her hands were still in bloody gloves.

"Just with!" I said defensively, but still smiling. "Jeez Dani, get your mind out of the gutter!"

Dani just giggled and rolled her eyes, but she abruptly frowned. "Nikki…Nik, are you, like, in something?"

I didn't answer, aside from furrowing my brows.

Dean's face pinched in pain, and he started muttering swear words. "Ow," he groaned, well, it was more of a growl.

I grabbed one of his hands, shoved the rum bottle in it and held it up to his face. He took a long swig, and blinked a few times before passing out.

The Next Morning

"C'mon…Waky-Waky!" I heard Dani say, and my shoulder was shaken gently. I groaned and rolled over. I think I was on the floor, because I got a face full of shag carpeting.

"Go away." I grumbled.

There was a loud clang. I shot up and grabbed my gun fast enough to see Dean's hand still on the metal bowl that contained shreds of his bloody shirt and the gauze and other supplies Dani used to clean him up. Before we all passed out, Dani had doused it in rubbing alcohol and dropped a match in. A small, sleep grin on his face. It was a little distorted, since his cheek was smashed into the sofa.

I rolled my eyes and put my pistol on Dani's coffee table. My said best friend was sitting nervously at her breakfast bar, a mug of tea in her hands. I scrubbed my hands down my face, got up and walked around to the other side of the counter. I leaned on my elbows and just stared at her until she looked up at me.

She, like Sam and me, was in the same clothes she wore last night. There were some rust-colored dried blood stains on her gray sweatpants and some small, spattered drops on the shiny black plastic frames of her glasses.

"Sam was talking to his brother earlier," she said, playing with the tag of her tea bag. "He-He was saying that there-there are demons here."

I frowned and played with a twist-tie on the counter.

"And-And he said you needed to keep your self in check 'cause they needed you and you're no use passed out."

I snorted; Sam worried about me too much.

"I was being haunted." I said, not looking at my best friend. "In Janesville," I clarified, finally looking up. Dani stared back at me in silence; a mix of caution, fear and curiosity in her eyes.

I smiled wryly. "See, I'm related to a really powerful witch from the 1800s, and she was trying to bind our souls so demons she threw back in Hell wouldn't drag me there."

Dani blinked.

"I...I can do stuff," I added, looking down at the twist-tie in my fingers. I stopped playing with it, and it slowly rose up in the air above my palm. Dani's eyes widened.

"That's what Sam was talkin' about...I'm really powerful-more powerful than any witch I've read about..." The twist tie slowly fell to the counter. "Something big is happening, and I need to be sure I don't pass out again."

"Again?" Dani asked. There wasn't anymore fear in her eyes, and I relaxed.

I hopped up on the counter and pulled one leg up, so I could look to my side and face Dani. "Yeah...When I really get into it-my magic-I hear this voice."

Dani nodded, propping her chin on her hand and using her pinky to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"It's not in English-It's some dead language."

"Latin?" Dani offered.

"No, I'd know if it was Latin." I sighed. "I only understood one thing it's ever said." I said, a small, frustrated frown on my face.

"What it say?" Dani looked like she was listening to the most interesting story ever written.

"You must wait." I rattled off.

"Wait for what?"

"I have no damn idea."

"Are you going to tell us what you're doing?" Dean asked slowly, trying to push himself up in a sitting position. Dani frowned, her hands fluttering over his shoulders as she tried to get him to lay back on his stomach. He'd already batted them away twice, and given her that stomach-boiling glare. Once he was upright, he gave me that glare.

Dani's living room had gone through a little redecorating; the sofa and coffee table had been pushed aside, and the rug flipped over so I could use some orange spray paint Dani found in her basement (left over from a craft project a few years ago) to paint a Devil's Trap on the back. I was currently squatting in front of her fireplace, a pale green ceramic bowl in front of me with various herbs (and one chicken bone) in it.

"Nope." I said, using my pocket knife to strip the leaves off a hazel branch before dropping it in. "'Cause you're not gonna like it."

"Then why are you doing it?" Sam asked. He was leaning in the door frame that lead to the back of Dani's house. His hazely/blue eyes had been watching me (and judging me) like a hawk since I noticed him eavesdropping on my conversation with Dani. He obviously wanted to talk to me about something, and I really wanted him to just tell me.

"'Cause we don't know what we're up against, and he does." I said simply, touching the edge of a crow feather to the flame of my match. I dropped it into the burning feather into the bowl, making everything puff out in flames.

"Alright, what is so important that you had to snatch me up from my fitting?"

I rolled my eyes as I stood up.

Zack was standing dead center in the Devil's Trap wearing a jacket with chalk lines all over it. As I stood up, I just glared at him. Zack finally looked away from me, and at the other three people in the room; Sam and Dean looking like that want to kill him but were too surprised to do it, and Dani was staring at him in shock.

When he looked back at me, his eyes flashed black. "You just had to bring your boyfriends in on our little partnership."

"Nikki..." Sam said slowly. "Who is this?"

"Everybody, meet Zack." I said, not looking away from the blond demon. "And Zack, I think you know everybody."

"Really Nikki?" I heard Dean say lowly. I looked his way; he looked like hell. His entire torso was wrapped up, and he was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees because he couldn't lean back on anything. "A demon?"

I shrugged. "Pretty sure I like it less than you do." I commented, frowning at Zack.

"But, hey," a wry smile came on my face. "What ever helps keep me hunting, right?"

"Yeah yeah yeah," Zack groaned, shedding the jacket. "Look, what do you want?"

"I want to know what the hell they are doing here." I snapped at him.

Zack groaned and rolled his eyes. "They're making an army, alright?"

"An army." I repeated. My mind jumped to the Devil's Gate in Wyoming.

"Yeah," Zack repeated, a frown on his face. "They need as many dead, tortured souls as they can get. Where better than a place of a major fire?"

"Why do they need an army?" Sam asked, his eyes narrowed skeptically.

"To fight something." Zack said slowly, like Sam was a small child, earning him a cold glare from Sam.

"How are they going to do that?" I asked Zack, making his turn towards me. Since his jacket with chalk on it was on the floor, he was just in a tight gray t-shirt. It was slightly distracting. "Anyone can bring forward one ghost; but several thousand? You need some serious mojo for that."

Zack chuckled once. "I know." He said simply, and leaned towards me. "That's why you're here, Nik."

I was sitting on Dani's back porch looking up at the sky.

"Haven't heard from you in a while." I said quietly. "I just heard that there are about a dozen demons in my hometown that want to take me and use me to raise an army of the dead...Now is one of those time where I need you to throw me in a coliseum and make me fight a demon with some ability I didn't know I had."

I waited a few more minutes, and Used-to-be-Fake-Chris never showed up. I groaned and scrubbed a hand down my face as I stood up.

I walked back into Dani's house and grabbed my keys. "I'm goin' out to get salt 'n stuff. Anyone want anything?"

"Pie!" Dean groaned from the sofa. He was half asleep with a shotgun in his hand and across from Zack, who was still in the Devil's Trap.

"Yeah, I'll see if they have any. Dani was sitting on the counter, a mug of tea in her hands.

"Hey, I'll go with you," Sam said, grabbing his jacket as I was at the door.

We sat in almost complete silence the whole ride to the closest grocery store until I heard a mumble.

"Hm?" I asked, looking at Sam.

"I didn't say anything," he told me, looking out the window.

I frowned, and didn't say another word until we pulled up to Walmart.

"I'm gonna find pie for Dean," I said as I shut the door. "And lighters, you get as much salt as you can."

Sam nodded wordlessly.

I was wandering down the bakery aisles, looking for pie, when I heard a familiar voice.

"What kind of store has gummy worms and gummy bears, but no Swedish Fish?"

I stopped, and took two steps back. I saw a familiar face in the candy aisle, and groaned as I walked down to him.

"What the hell?" I asked him, giving his shoulder a hard punch.

"First of all, that was weak, Nik," Used-to-be-Fake-Chris said, grabbing a handful of gummy bear bags and tossing them in the handbasket at his feet. "Second; I'm here 'cause you asked for my help."

I crossed my arms, cocked my hip and looked at him expectantly. "Well?" I said after a moment.

"Well what?" He asked, looking closely between real M&Ms and the generic Walmart brand.

"You said you're here 'cause I asked for help, so, go on; help." I said, waving a hand at him.

"'Ya see sweetcheeks, this only works if you ask me questions, and I give answers." Used-to-be-Fake-Chris told me, throwing both the generic and real M&Ms in the handbasket.

"Ok, fine, what the heck is going on in my hometown?" I asked him.

"Some demons are building up an army," he said simply.

"Yeah, I know that." I snapped at him. "How are they going to raise an army?"

"You know that phrase in your old high school?" Used-to-be-Fake-Chris asked me. "'From the ashes, we rise as one?'"

"Yeah, references the fire," I recalled, confused.

Used-to-be-Fake-Chris just tilted his head towards me and raised his eyebrows. "I thought you were smarter than this," he chuckled, looking away from me and grabbing a can of Pringles from the opposite side of the aisle. "Take a look."

I frowned, and examined the red can. I popped the plastic lid off and peeled the tinfoil off before tipping it over. A rolled up paper slid out. I put the can under my arm and untied the leather string holding it closed. The paper was yellowed and old, and crackled as I unfurled it.

"A map of the high school." I stated, glancing at Used-to-be-Fake-Chris.

"Take another look." He told me.

As I looked closer, I dropped the Pringles can and held the paper with both hands. In the center of the school, the gym, there was a large circle with symbols in it that I recognised from my grimoire.

"The school is a gate," Used-to-be-Fake-Chris explained to me, making me look up from the old map.

"A gate?" I repeated.

"They pop up in places of massive death." He said. "Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, Normandy, that sorta place. That way its easier for the reapers to move from the real world to Hell or Heaven."

"Like the Devil's Gate in Wyoming?" I asked, getting a nod.

"Jane, your soul-buddy, helped create it way back when, and only a person who created the gate can open the gate, and since Jane is in you-"

"-They need me to open it." I finished for him. "What does that mean, exactly?" I asked; I'd come up with an answer on my own, but I didn't like it at all.

"It means that if those black eyed bastards get it open, their gonna be a force of nature."

I threw the plastic bag with Dean's pie and a few plastic lighters in the trunk, and Sam did the same with the two bags he had, each filled with various kinds of salt.

"Did you pass any construction sites on your way here?" I asked him as we got in the car.

"Yeah, few miles West, why?" Sam asked.

"You still have no problem with a little breaking and entering, right?" I asked, getting on the westward highway.

"...No," Sam said slowly.

"Good," I said with a nod. "'Cause we're gonna need some C4."

"How did you learn to do this again?" Dani asked from the door.

"Online." I said simply, sitting up and cracking my neck.

Sam and I got back from the construction site a few hours before was looking into anything and everything related to spiritual gates, and Dean was (in a lot of pain, and) watching Zack, who was still in the salt circle. I was combining my knowledge of Wiccan blessed herbs and my newfound knowledge of explosive ordinances to make some bombs. They'd not only destroy the gate, but vaporise any demons in the blast radius. Each bomb was contained in a mason jar, which held a chunk of C4, a few tablespoons of lighter fluid and some herbs. The herbs would mix with the lighter fluid and make a small explosion, which would set off the C4. Since I was still a bit of a novice at this, I was working outside at the picnic table in Dani's backyard.

"So...What's your plan?" She asked, walking towards the picnic table until she was sitting across from me.

I shrugged. "It'll be just Sam and I," I reasoned. "No matter how macho Dean acts, even he can't fight demons who want to open a spirit gate with a back full of glass."

"What about me?" Dani asked, fixing her glasses.

"What about you what?" I asked, screwing a lid on another jar-bomb.

"What am I gonna do to help?" She clarified.

"Oh. Nothing." I told her.

"What? What do you mean nothing?" She asked me, clearly upset.

"You're normal, Dani," I sighed, shrugging. "Not only do I want you safe from all of this, but I want you to remain normal."

Dani snorted a little. "Pretty sure normal went out the window a while ago for both of us, Nik. If there's something I can do to help, I wanna do it."

"No." I said firmly.

"Yes." Dani shot back. Just like when we were in high school.

"I'm not going to play that with you." I said, pointing a finger at her.

Omniscient POV

"No! No-I have to get back in there!" Sam yelled, fighting his brothers grip, which was surprisingly strong for someone who could barely walk. "Dean-Let me go!"

Dani was next to the brothers, watching the doors to the Gilded Cross gym doors; her fingers linked together as she prayed for the life of her best friend. Nikki and she had gone to the reunion, and they completely underestimated the number of demons that would be there. Sam had managed to smuggle the large bag of jar-bombs into the school, and last time they saw Nikki, she was holding a match to the polyester bag, threatening to let Sam and Dani go, or she'd blow them, and the gate, sky high.

It took six demons to get Sam out the door, and Dean was all but grabbing his brothers hair to keep him where he was.

"Damnit-Sam!" Dean bellowed, finally making his brother look at him. "You going in there would do more harm than good!"

Inside the gym, Nikki was fighting her ex-boyfriend in the gym. He was the leader of the little group, and had the mistake of calling Nikki and the Winchesters weak. He got her on the floor, and began raigning blows down on her face. Nikki's arm was reaching out desperately for the knife.

Percy paused in his blows, and leaned close to Nikki. He chuckled and grabbed her face when she tried to turn away. "You never could hold your own," he said lowly.

Nikki grabbed the knife and jammed it into the back of Percy's neck. The tip of the blade could be seen protruding from his throat. Nikki grabbed the dark hair on top of his head, and jerked it one way while pulling the knife the other way. Blood gushed down onto Nikki's chest and face as she threw Percy's body off her. She all but decapitated him; that would slow him down a little. The other demons watched her with black eyes, all but shaking with rage,

As Nikki got up, she instinctively rolled her bottom lip into her mouth. The metallic, bitter taste of Percy's blood shocked her, and the moment it touched her tongue, she could feel the adrenaline rush through her veins; time seemed to slow, Nikki could hear the beats of her heart echoing through her mind. She looked down at herself, at the wet, dark stains on her shirt and the red over her hand holding the knife.

Dropping the knife, Nikki stared at her bloody hand in a daze, slowly bringing it closer to her face. Before she could process the action, she brought her hand to her mouth and sucked at the base of her thumb. The blood tasted bitter, but it was like nothing she'd ever experienced.

It'd been about six seconds since Nikki had taken out Percy, and the first demon ran at her.

"Dean I can't leave her alone in there!" Sam yelled at his brother, still fighting his grip. Dean didn't want Nik in there alone either, but over his dead body was Sam going to run back in there.

Nikki stared down at the body of the seventh demon, sucking blood off her pinky finger. It was like all the barriers Nikki felt in her magic were broken down.

When the first demon started towards her, he only made the situation worse for himself. He was saying how the first humans to feel the wrath of their army were her 'little boyfriends and that bitch with the glasses'. He told her they wouldn't kill them, though, they'd drag them to Hell and make them demons. While he spoke, he'd been walking towards Nikki. She simply reached out put her hand to his chest. A golden light erupted from her palm, and before she could process it, the demon was on the ground; it's eyes scorched out. The rest feel in the same manner.

All the blood was off her hand, Nikki, on an adrenaline high and dazed from the pace at which things were changing, grabbed the collar of her shirt and sucked at the half-dried blood on it.

Lucy had been hiding under the bleachers, and her face was twisted up in rage as she saw Nikki standing over the scorched, empty shells of her friends.

Lucy threw a hand forward and Nikki jerked, unable to move. Saying nothing, Lucy walked towards her. Nikki just smiled and shut her eyes.

Lucy, alone, was preparing to open the gate; to get her army. She was chanting an incantation, and a soft ringing began. Thinking it was part of the ritual, she continued. It grew quickly to a harsh ringing that the brothers and Dani heard outside, and soon it became unbearable.

Sam was on his knees outside, his hands pressed to his ears and eyes pinched shut.

There was a loud snap, and the ringing stopped. There was a second and a half of silence, where all three looked towards the gym.

Zack appeared a few yards in front of them just as the building started to implode. A large, fiery cloud slammed them all back as a hot wave washed over them. Sam watched in horror as at least a dozen smaller explosions sounded off, each throwing debris and fire into the air.

Zack, beaten and bloody, just blinked.

Sam, on the other hand, let out what Dean could only call a growl, and grab the demon roughly.

"This is all your fault!" Sam bellowed as he gave Zack a shove, sending Zack a good seven feet back on the asphalt. The demon didn't respond, he just looked at the burning remains of the school.

Sam grabbed Zack by the collar and slammed him against a car. "You gave her the job! You told her about the demons! If you had just stayed the hell away from her she'd still be alive!"

"Don't you think I know that?" Zack screamed in Sam's face, surprising him, Dean and Dani. The latter two were still stunned from shock. Dean had a hand on Dani's shoulder as she started to cry. Nikki was the only real friend she ever had.

Sam dropped Zack's shirt, and turned back to the fiery blaze where his best friend was burning. He fell to his knees and thought of the last conversation they had before they went to the school.

"So...Want Dean and me to ruff up your ex?" Sam asked teasingly. Nikki just kicked his chin and rolled her eyes.

"I'm serious!" Sam insisted, having a hard time not laughing. They were sitting in Dani's dining room cleaning their weapons. Dean was with Dani in the bathroom changing the bandages on his back. "He broke your heart! He can't get away with that."

Nikki smiled at him, and reached over to pinch his cheek softly. "I never noticed your dimples before," she commented as she stood up. She braced her hands on the table as she leaned forward. "They're cute."

Sam shook his head and rolled his eyes, and froze when Nikki leaned farther over to press a kiss to Sam's dimpled cheek. He didn't move after she pulled back, he watched her with his eyes. She grabbed the empty beer bottles and walked towards the kitchen.

Nikki leaned back, poking her head out of the kitchen. "And by the way, Sam, no one can break my heart."