A Reason to Fight

Hello my nerds! Remember me? TIS A CHAPTER! I hope you're excited as I am. Please be as excited as I am. BECAUSE I AM BACK. And I'm here to stay. This story is getting finished, come hell or high water. Buckle up kiddos, it's about to get bumpy.

Love and respect from your gal InK!

…

Okay so at first Sam had been skeptical over the wisdom of gathering a bunch of magically inclined eighteen year olds into the same place and teaching them how to fight.

He knew enough about teenagers that even his interactions with normal ones had taught him that they weren't a demographic that was easily controlled, nor acted wisely when provided with weapons.

And yet, somehow, the setup seemed to work.

Eblis met with Sam privately to try and push his development of the psychic abilities Ava had described to him on his first night here. That was usually once a week.

They had fighting lessons in groups of three or four, scheduled very strictly. Showing up late or not showing at all would result in strict punishments.

His first impression, that this school, or camp, or whatever it was was very much like high school wasn't inaccurate. They also had classes and studied – Eblis was forcing the children who had not already done so to get their GEDs, insisting on them having some sort of credentials in the human world.

Sam was struck by how competent this demon seemed at navigating the human world, and it disoriented him and worried him. Eblis must be old and powerful to have managed to acquire such competence among humans and that worried him. A lot.

Thankfully, Eblis was at least on his side.

But yeah. They had classes, and homework, and even, apparently, cliques and bullies.

Sam found himself shoved up against walls when he got in Jake's way as the teenager moved through the halls. The older boy would frequently "forget" to pull his preternatural strength back when sparring, leaving bruises that lasted for days. He picked on the quiet and withdrawn Max the same way, but left Ansem well alone.

For all that Ansem and Andy were twins, Ansem were twins, Ansem spent far more time socializing with Jake, even as he possessively watched Andy out of the corner of his eye. Sam had approached Andy once or twice to tentatively start a conversation, and felt the second twin's eyes boring a hole into his back the entire time.

It was a vastly uncomfortable experience that made Andy seem embarrassed and Sam's skin shiver uncomfortably when he turned around to meet Ansems eyes. Scott and Andy hung out more often than not, which Ansem seemed to tolerate only because casually brushing up against the latter boy would result in immediate death.

Of course, nobody fucked with Ava and Sam was reasonably sure this was because she was both a girl and the most powerful of all of them. Or at least, the most in control.

It took nearly a week for Sam to realize this was more than just a militarized boarding school for magical kids.

He found Max crying on one of the massive spiral staircases, head hidden on top of his knees.

Awkwardly, Sam sprawled next to him, unsure what to do. Dean usually punched him on the arm to distract him but he didn't think that tactic would work here.

"I want to leave," he whispered.

"Why?" Sam asked awkwardly, trying to draw the other boy into conversation.

"I hate it here," the other boy continued. "People die here, if they're not strong enough. And I know I'm not. I know the first chance Eblis get's he's going to kill me."

Sam frowned.

"So why not just go home?"

The look Max gave him when he looked up curdled Sam's blood.

"Home's worse," he said. Max looked down and all the tension seemed to leave him at once.

"You're not weak," Sam said finally.

"What do you mean?" Max's head shot up.

"You just need to adjust your fighting stance," Sam said. "Trust me, I've fought demons and wendigos at least as strong as Jake, and it's all in being fast and stable on your feet."

Max's eyes were wide and hopeful as Sam helped him up to his feet.

"Come on," Sam said. "I'll show you."

…

A routine was established. Every day of the week except Saturday was planned out almost from when they woke up to when they went to sleep.

All six psychics ate breakfast together. Whoever's turn it was to work with Eblis one on one would do so while everyone else worked on homework or practiced fighting. Often they were translating complex rituals that Sam practically salivated over. Eblis had a large library, one with texts even he had never read about the supernatural. Of course, there was nothing on hunting or killing demons, but there was plenty on their history, which was interesting enough.

Then everyone ate lunch together, and broke up into two groups of three each. In the afternoon, they sparred. Two days a week it was hand to hand combat, which Sam excelled in when his opponent wasn't Jake – and even then, could usually hold his ground. Two days a week it was weapons based. And two days a week they had to use nothing but their psychic powers. It was always a controlled setting, with at least one demon looking on to make sure nobody took it too far.

Sometimes it was one on one, sometimes three on three or two on one or whatever combination of people and teams the demon watching them came up with.

Sam and Max took their share of extra beatings anyway.

Evenings were reserved for strategy. Eblis talked to them about movements of troops and various tactics in different kinds of environments. He had them make plans for various scenarios of attack.

It was like high risk chess, and Sam actively enjoyed this part of his day. He could focus on his plans to take back his life and murder the demon Azazel. And it looked like he might have an army to do it.

After that they would have dinner and go to bed, usually waking up to the same routine all over again.

Ava often tried to seek Sam out during their free time in the morning. Sam avoided her as best he could. The look in her wide eyes scared him – it was a manic glint, one he had seen in the eyes of hunters drunk on the kill. People like that got other hunters killed, and were best avoided at all costs.

Obviously, Sam saw the benefits of befriending the queen bee of the future demon army – because as things were shaping up, it was obvious that Ava was destined to truly lead them – he just didn't care.

Max on the other hand, Max he could tolerate. The younger boy studied by him quietly, and rarely said a word since that first conversation.

Sometimes they would spar. Sometimes Sam would teach him new martial arts moves he had gleaned from fighting dirty against a plethora of monsters and supernatural creatures. Max was a quick study, and while he wasn't ruthless, he was determined.

Mostly, Sam used his free time to practice honing his skills in telekinesis, because it was one of the few abilities that the psychics shared that didn't scare the crap out of him. He had no desire to continue having psychic dreams, though the few dreams he was having were each slightly dulled – and none seemed to display death, which was a step up from the way they had been before. Sam thought maybe becoming more and more in touch with the power he had was opening the part of him that was tuning in on the future to more wavelengths than just the Death channel.

He'd already been a freak as it was, so embracing that part of him to destroy the demon that made him this way wasn't much of a sacrifice.

Three weeks after arriving at the mansion, with Sam showing marked improvement in telekinesis and not much else, the routine shifted.

Instead of going to their nightly strategy meeting, Eblis called the psychics to a room in the basement of the mansion that Sam had never been to before.

It was a big wide open arena, with seats for spectators up above. Multiple demons were already seated, rubbing their hands together in excitement.

"Scott," Eblis said coldly. "Ava."

Both stepped forward.

Sam looked over at Max, confused. Max shook his head, warning Sam to stay quiet.

"You're in the right tonight," Eblis told the two teenagers he was facing. They nodded and turned to walk down the steps into the large arena.

"Sam, I believe you're the only one who doesn't know the rules for these gatherings," Eblis said. "Jake, why don't you fill him in while Ava and Scott get in position?"

"Only the strong survive," Jake said quietly, his eyes fixed on the arena. "Eblis only needs the strongest of us, so when someone is too weak to cut it-"

Jake's eyes shifted a fraction of an inch over to Max, who was visible over Sam's shoulder –

"They are culled from the herd," he finished, his arms spread wide.

"So it's a fight to the death," Sam said quietly, looking at the arena where Scott was bouncing back and forth on the heel of his toes and Ava was testing the weight of weapons that had been brought into the Arena on the cart.

"Exactly."

"So what are the rules?" Sam asked carefully, trying to disguise the horror that response instilled in him.

"You can use any weapons – your fists, your powers, a single weapon of your choice – and one person leaves the arena alive."

Jake said it reverently, his eyes closed, and Sam thought back to that first conversation with Max and realized with a shiver that Jake had probably already killed someone, a human, a teenager, maybe even more than one – and he felt physically sick.

Sam shivered in the cool underground room, and followed the other three psychics to a seat, hyperaware of the demons watching them.

There was a net of reinforced steel protecting the combatants in the arena from interference from spectators and Sam knew with a sinking feeling that there was nothing he could do but watch as one of the eighteen year olds in front of him died.

Ava called something over to Scott, but the boy shook his head and another demon came out to wheel away the cart of weapons. The two took up fighting stances on opposite sides of the ring.

He steeled himself.

If this is what he had to do to get rid of Azazel, could he do it?

Ava smiled at the knife in her hand and looked up with a nod towards a section of seating where Sam could see Eblis lounging contentedly. He didn't seem all that invested in the continued survival of his psychic children, as the demon often called them, but maybe that was because Scott was too weak –

And what if he decided Sam was too weak?

Sam grit his teeth as a gong chimed throughout the stadium and the demons started to cheer.

Scott was still unarmed, having opted apparently to rely on his own abilities over the weapons Eblis provided them.

He lunged forward. Ava swung the knife in a controlled arc, catching the boys arm. He shouted and drew back, probably regretting his decision to go without a weapon.

Scott dodged close to Ava a few more times, never close enough to touch her, but avoiding her parries with the knife more often than not.

After a few minutes Scott dodged in close, as though moving to strike Ava on the right, but ducked and kicked out, slamming his shin into the left side of her stomach.

Ava grunted in surprise and drooped the knife.

Scott was on her in a second but Ava had managed to pull the sleeve up over one arm and was holding off the other boy by sheer force. Her eyes gleamed, and suddenly Scott was thrown across the room, slamming into the wall of the arena.

Sam winced, and the demons cheered wildly.

Ava got to her feet slowly, leisurely, and walked over to where she'd dropped the knife.

She picked it up and held it out for the crowd to see. It glinted in the light and the cheering reached deafening levels.

Ava sauntered over to her opponent, straddling his waist as the boy's head tossed from one side to the other, trying to regain consciousness.

Before he did Ava raised the knife high-

And plunged it into his chest.

Again, and again and again.

Blood sprayed out from where knife met flesh and up in the stands Sam could hear the squelch of steel on blood.

Scott lay still.

Ava stood, arms red with blood, an angry slash of it across her torso, knife glinting red as she waved it over her head –

She smiled.

Sam glanced over at his fellow psychics. Jake looked enraptured. Ansem seemed bored. Andy was looking at his shoes and Max's face was frozen, chalk white.

Sam's eyes travelled past the group to where Eblis was sitting. He hadn't moved, and a small smile was fixed on his lips.

He'd known that this would be the outcome.

Sam was sure of it.

His stomach rolled again and Sam couldn't help but think he'd gotten in way over his head.

And now he had no way out.

…

"Why did you decide to join Eblis?" Sam asked Max the next day when they were holed up in the library.

Max shrugged.

"It was better than what I had at home," he said, repeating what he had the first day Sam had spoken to him. "My dad blamed me for my mom dying, him and his brother. They – took it out on me."

Sam frowned.

"They hurt you?" he asked.

Max nodded.

"Christ, Max I'm sorry," he said. "They had no right –"

"I know," Max cut in. "I thought maybe if I got powerful enough I would stop being afraid all the time," he added. "Maybe I would stop having nightmares of them-"

The silence that fell after he finished was deafening.

"Did it help?" Sam finally asked.

Max took a shuddering breath and took his head.

"I could kick their asses six ways to Sunday now," he said in a quiet, almost entranced voice. "I could kill them, leave them bloody and dead. But knowing that doesn't make me feel better, and staying here just makes me more afraid all the time. I know Eblis thinks I'm weak, and I know the next time he decides to make a point by having a grand face off, I'm the next one on his list to eliminate."

Sam had nothing to say to that.

However, it proved to be untrue.

Weeks passed like water running through their hands. Several more psychics came and – left. Two died at Jake's hands. One slit their throat cheerfully on Ansems command.

Sam watched three more people die before he cornered Max one night. He'd found the boy looking up at the stars, tears running silently down his face, his small body shaking with unvoiced sobs.

"I can't take this," Max whispered. "Its not worth it."

"You'll get revenge on the demon that killed your mom," Sam said quietly. "Isn't that enough?"

Max's face was contorted in despair.

"I don't know," he whispered out into the night. "I don't know, I don't know."

He whispered it like a hope, like a prayer.

Like maybe if he said it enough times it would stop being true and the answer would fall out of the sky.

Sam held his hand as they stared up at the stars, and felt his friends body shake with sobs beside him.

There was nothing he could do, and that knowledge left him feeling empty and so very small compared to the size of his friend's suffering.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"We need to find a way to leave," Sam said in a low voice. "You're right. This isn't worth it. Whatever fight we have, we need to finish it on our own."

"You come up with a plan, I'm all ears," Max told him seriously, his eyes focusing on Sam for the first time since the older boy had joined him on the roof. "I'll be right behind you, I promise."

…

They woke up with the sun and blearily stumbled downstairs to start their day training to use their powers. The look on Max's face was bleak, but Sam's schedule didn't allow him time to raise his concerns with the slightly younger boy.

Eblis kept up a demanding schedule, pushing the children harder and faster. It seemed like almost every night they would be watching two more psychic children face off in the Pit. Sometimes they died. Sometimes they walked away with painful looking injuries that lasted for days, but left the winner looking smugly satisfied. Sam counted himself lucky that he hadn't been forced into a fight of his own just yet.

Three days after Max's breakdown on the roof of the mansion, Sam still hadn't managed to get Max alone. He didn't even see the boy at meals anymore, which was beginning to become a point of major concern for Sam. He knew he had Eblis' favor, at least for now. But Max, Max could get thrown into the Pit at any time, and he would have no way of stopping it. Even if he tried to interfere there would be dozens of demons - including Eblis himself - willing to step in and stop him from preventing Max's death.

Sam had really only only gotten glimpses of the boy over the last few days. He looked tired and hollow, and his eyes gleamed with a manic light. He didn't look like he was eating or sleeping, and every time Sam did see him, his nose was buried in one book or another.

On the fourth day he cornered Sam in one of the alcoves, practically vibrating with excited energy.

"I have a way out," he said. "There are old tunnels underground-"

"Max wait, you don't think Eblis knows about those already?" Sam asked.

"I found them in an old blueprint in the library!"

Max looked proud of himself, chest puffed out, practically out of breath with excitement. But his eyes were glassy and his movements jerky and shaky, like he'd been drugged, or something. Sam wanted to get out almost as much as Max, even though he was still sure this was his best shot at killing Azazel. He just... didn't want to die while trying to escape, and this screamed 'set up' to him.

"He's probably trying to trap you-"

"If you're not going with me, I'll go alone!" Max announced. Sam pursed his lips, looking critically at the younger boy.

"We need to bide our time and think rationally," he said quietly. "You know I'm with you, what's gotten into you?"
But Max's eyes were fever bright, and there was a stain of excitement high on his cheeks.

The boy grumbled something and pushed passed Sam, leaving him standing in the hallway, shocked, at a loss for words.

It was only a week later, when Sam realized he hadn't seen hide nor hair of Max since that conversation that he seriously started to worry.