There wasn't time to breathe anymore.
Not when the sky seemed to burn like it was falling apart. Not when the bunker's wards hissed from the pressure of thousands of monsters trying to break them. Not with bodies stacked like cordwood all around us. They smoked, twitched, and still somehow tried to crawl forward.
The hybrids were relentless.
They were faster than werewolves, stronger than vampires, and now powered with something that didn't belong to them. I'd seen grace work before, when it was angelic and pure, divine in a way that bent reality around it. But this wasn't that. This was grace twisted by hate, pulsing through veins that should never have carried it. None of their eyes glowed with life, they burned with hatred.
And they were everywhere.
Elly and Lucifer had torn through a group near the southern perimeter, their combined abilities now synced in a way that was far too beautiful to watch. She moved like a thunderstorm, fire flying from her weapon in arcs of shimmering red. He followed close behind her, igniting every hybrid she missed, angelic energy blooming from his palms like a pyre from Hell itself. Their new bond forged in the middle of this chaos had somehow amplified them. But even that wouldn't last long in this.
I ran along the outer line of wards along the walls of the bunker, a blade in both hands, breath coming in hot gasps. The air crackled with the ward's magic, crimson threads of energy coming from them every time a body slammed into it. It was holding, but just barely.
A banshee-like shriek tore through the wind and I turned, in time to see a spirit, a full-bodied vengeful spirit, hair like smoke, eyes hollow and burning, slam into Dean.
"Dean!" I shouted.
He ducked just fast enough that it grazed him. Sam fired a sawed-off shotgun full of rocksalt from behind him. The round burst the spirit like a glass shattering on stone. Dean gave him a nod, then shot me a grin, blood smeared across his face.
"You can't get rid of me that easily." He called, then turned to face a new group of charging monsters. "How many of these things are there?"
"Too many," I grunted, driving a blade into the side of a monster as it lunged for me. It hardly flinched at the iron now embedded in its side. Only when I dragged the blade upward, slicing through where its heart would be, did it finally fall.
Silver and iron weren't working anymore.
Some of these things were healing right through our blows, snarling as bullets tore through them and then pushing themselves back together like wet clay. It wasn't natural. Nothing about this was anymore.
"Elly!" I shouted as she skidded to a stop a few yards away, face flushed with effort. "They've all been grace-doped. We can't rely on hunter knowledge anymore."
"Then we'll just have to try everything." Elly snapped, a hidden dagger flying from her fingers.
"Lucifer!" I locked eyes with him and gestured to the three monsters now coming from the trees. Their muscles bulged, veins glowing faintly blue. "Any way you can strip the grace out of them?"
Lucifer hesitated. "I don't think so." He admitted. "Especially not if they've accepted it."
"Then this is war."
But it already was.
Another blow of cold energy slammed into us, and I turned, ready to face another spirit or hybrid, but this was different. The cold came in with a stink of something rotten and sweat and blood. Something malicious.
The things stepped out onto our battlefield without a sound.
There were five of them. They looked like skinwalkers. But not any that I had seen before. These weren't the half-feral, blood-driven shapeshifters we used to track down in the woods. These moved with a purpose like soldiers. Standing tall, unshaken, cloaked in a shadow that seemed to seep from them. Their eyes glowed with unnatural light, a cobalt blue flame in their eyes.
They didn't snarl or snap at us. They fucking smiled.
"Shit," I muttered.
One of them raised a hand.
There was no warning or gathering of energy. Just Sam, Dean, and Cas getting lifted off their feet and flung backward as if gravity itself had turned inside out. They landed hard, weapons scattering. The new monsters advanced on us.
Lucifer stepped forward, flaming energy bright in his palms again. But before he could do anything with it, one of the skinwalkers blurred across the opening. It blurred. Faster than anything I had seen before. It reappeared behind him, slammed its claws into Lucifer's back, and tossed him across the battlefield like a ragdoll.
"Lucifer!" Elly wailed.
He hit the ground hard, his form skidding across the grass and dirt before slamming into a tree. His wings flicked into view briefly, limp and broken as his grace, brilliant red becoming matte, sputtered in his eyes.
I didn't hesitate after that. I charged for them.
The one in front turned to face me, tilting its head with almost curious amusement. Its mouth stretched wider than it should have into an unnatural grin.
"You've brought children into this fight." It said, voice too deep, too layered to be just one. "How quaint."
I didn't answer.
Instead, I flung my first blade, but not at it. At the hybrid behind it. The weapon buried itself between its eyes and stuck there. There was no scream. Just a body collapsing. The skinwalker flinched, just enough for me to pivot and strike at its neck with my other blade.
It caught my wrist mid-swing.
Its grip felt like cold, burning ice.
"You are not meant to rule." It whispered to me, its face morphing to mimic my own. "Not Hell. Not anything in this world."
"You're not the first asshole to tell me that." I hissed at it.
Then I kicked it, full force, and slammed my free hand into its chest.
Energy exploded from it like a pulse of blinding white light.
The thing stumbled back, hissing, but I was already on the move. Rolling to Elly's side, dragging her down just as another of the monsters hurled itself at where she had just been standing.
"This is bad." She commented.
"No shit," I muttered.
My power hadn't done enough damage to stop the thing permanently, but it did leave a bitter metallic sting in the air. I didn't wait for the thing to recover before I turned to Elly, grabbed her hand, and dragged her behind a boulder.
"They're faster." She gasped, wiping a line of blood from her cheek. "Faster than anything I've ever seen."
"Ya, and not just that," I said, peeking around the rock. "They're smart. Tactical. They're not just here to kill us anymore. They're here to make sure we never get back up again."
Across the battlefield, I saw Dean and Sam helping Cas to his feet. Cael, whipping through the air with his angel blade as it glowed silver blue, was already rushing toward the skinwalkers. He moved like a bullet of grace, slamming into one of them hard enough to send dirt and ash spiraling through the air. They clashed in a blur of steel and dark energy, but even Cael's divine speed seemed evenly matched by the creature. It wasn't right.
Kore appeared then, beside me in the blink of an eye, crouched low, their silver and brown eyes glowing faintly with lavender power. Their clothing was scuffed and singed in places. But they were calm.
"I don't like these odds." They said flatly, their voice smooth and steady.
"Join the club," I grunted. I nodded toward where Cael was now locked in a brutal melee with two of the skinwalkers.
Kore stood slowly, summoning a sleek obsidian blade to their hand like it was nothing. It crackled with energy that felt older than Hell itself. "You want them scattered?"
"Just buy me sixty seconds," I said. "And watch for the signal."
They didn't ask what the signal was before they ran.
Kore launched into the fray, graceful and precise, their blade slicing through a hybrid's chest before vaulting into the chest of a second. They twisted the strike and flipped away just as both hybrids burst into violet flames.
"Ally!" I turned, scanning the chaos for the young girl. "Where the fuck…"
A column of raw golden and red-trimmed energy erupted near the bunker's walls. Ally stood in the center of it, her golden hair shorter than it had been before as it singed at the ends, Hands raised toward the sky, eyes blazing like miniature stars. Her scream cut through the noise, equal parts terrified and divine, and the force of it shattered the hybrids in front of her to ash.
She stood there shaking. Pale. Unstable.
She was slipping.
"Lucifer!" I shouted over the roar of monsters and weapons, pointing at Ally. "She's burning out!"
Lucifer was moving before the words fully left my mouth, teleporting to Ally's side in the blink of an eye, his arms wrapped around her waist to steady her while Elly cleared a path to them. I could just make out him whisper, soothing their daughter, grounding her, and trying to help her breathe.
And just for a moment, I let myself hope.
Then everything shifted again.
The air seemed to chill more. I swear the sky above us cracked with energy. And a sound, high pitched, inhuman, almost like sick, twisted laughter, ripped across the battlefield.
I turned and saw the skinwalkers regrouping.
The one I had blasted with my energy stood whole now, body regenerating as we watched it. It's head tilted to the side slowly. It was a command, silent and absolute.
And more slinked out of the woods. Dozens of them now. Making the numbers around us reach into the hundreds.
Not just the hybrids anymore. More shapeshifters. Spirits. Creatures malformed and furious, some vengeful enough to drag illusions of chains behind them, others seemed to weep sulfur as they screamed. And all of them headed straight for the bunker. Straight for us.
"Fuck me…" I muttered. "That's a reckoning if I've ever seen one."
I braced myself, summoning every ounce of power I had from the thing that marked me. The thing that would forever make me more than a demon and never close to anything human again. It pulsed in my chest like a second skin, and the world seemed to tilt slightly as I grasped for it.
Shadows seemed to spill from my hands as I let it loose, black etched with red veins that hissed as it spread across the ground. I slammed my palm into the ground.
A shockwave came from it, bursting outward from my palm. And everything within fifty feet stopped moving. Time hadn't frozen, but it had hiccuped. Warped just enough.
"Kore!" I shouted.
They didn't need a better sign to drive their blade into the earth. The energy that rippled outward from it did not belong to Hell. It was something new. Something the earth and all its monsters had never felt before.
Dark, old magic that had been gifted to me by something deeper, now living in them. And for a few precious seconds, the wave of enemies pushed back, just far enough for Cael and Cas to regroup, for Sam to reload, and for Dean to scoop up his machete again.
"Kore! Cael!" I shouted. "We need to get rid of those shifters as fast as possible."
"What about the others?" Kore asked.
"We can get rid of the small fry after we take out the strongest ones." I rolled my shoulders, now sore and aching.
Elly's voice rang out from behind me as she helped Ally to her feet with Lucifer. "Alex, make it count."
I nodded to her before charging back into the fray. The smell of scorched earth and ozone clawed at my throat as I drove my blade through the chest of another hybrid. It screamed, high and keening, but even the sound was swallowed by the cacophony around us. It didn't matter. Two more took its place before the body had hit the ground.
Everywhere I looked, there was motion. Violence. Blood.
The bunker was to our backs now, its magic flickering like a heartbeat near death. The clearing we had been fighting in was coated in ash and blood and broken bodies. Cael and Kore fought just ahead of me, their movements a synchronized dance of brutal efficiency. Cas joined them now, creating a perimeter, just barely.
Dean appeared to my left, his machete dripping with black ichorous blood, panting like he had been running a marathon.
"This." He gasped. "Is not what I signed up for."
"Too late to back out now." I snapped at him, slashing at another charging hybrid.
It didn't slow down. I dropped my blade and caught it with both hands, twisting mid-air and using its weight to slam it against the ground. I crushed its windpipe with my knee and drove a wave of power into its spine. It hissed and popped, body convulsing until finally going still.
There wasn't time for me to pick up my weapon before the next one came. They were everywhere. Everywhere.
The field to my south was a blur of claws, fangs, and burning eyes. Grace lit the battlefield like an angry aura, flicking in pulses across hybrid veins and through the hands or weapons of angels.
Kore stumbled to my right, blood dripping from a gash across their side before it healed shut in an instant. I caught them just before they hit the ground, and together we stood in the battle.
"They just keep coming," They rasped. "We kill twenty, thirty more take their place."
"They've got to run out eventually," I said. Even though I didn't believe it myself.
Because there was still something in the air. As if the air itself was trembling. The cracks from Hell still bleed. This wasn't just a hoard anymore, it felt more like an invasion.
A growl came from in front of us. Kore didn't hesitate to push off of me and vault back against the advancing monster. I pulled a throwing dagger from my boot and turned to the next wave, heart pounding. Limbs aching. Blood running hotter than ever.
And then…
"You're bleeding power." The voice slid through my mind like oil through cracked glass.
Not loud. Or harsh. Just there. Cold and calm.
I gritted my teeth. "Not now."
"You can't win like this. They'll kill you. Your friends. You child. Accept me, and we will survive."
I staggered as another hybrid lunged toward me, claws scraping across my shoulder. My skin split. The blood spilled down my back and splattered up my neck before it could heal. I stabbed upward and caught the thing beneath its chin, driving it back.
"You don't get a say in this," I growled.
"I'm not going to decide for you. This is an offering. A gift. A way out."
It had always been like that. Never a scream, never fire and fury like the demons from Hell. It was calm. Persuasive. Dealy. It had never raged, just whispered. And that somehow made it worse.
"Shut up," I muttered.
"You could burn them all. One command. Just say yes."
"I said, shut up!" I scream it this time, flinging energy out at an approaching mob. It shattered them, bursting in fragments of blood and bone. But it still wasn't enough.
Cas landed beside me, his face streaked with dirt and dark blood. "Are you alright?"
"Do I look alright?" I snapped at him. "Because I'm about five seconds from cracking this place wide open with whatever power I've got left."
"Do it," Cas said grimly, stabbing a hybrid through the temple. "We're running out of time."
I looked back out. Lucifer and Elly were holding Ally between them, still trying to fight as they protected her, trying to let her recover. Her hands still sparked with uncontrollable grace, and her body trembled with it. Lucifer was barely upright, and Elly was bleeding from dozens of different cuts.
Dean and Sam were retreating toward the garage entrance, shoulder to shoulder, fighting through five at once. Cael was pinned in the middle of three skinwalkers who just wouldn't go down. Kore had vanished behind a mass of monsters.
We were losing.
"Let me help you." It whispered to me again. "You're not weak. But you're not enough either. Not for this."
I shook my head.
I wasn't ready to give up. Not yet.
Not when I had people to protect. A family to fight for.
"I'm not yours," I growled under my breath. "Not yet."
The air burned with blood. The field was no longer a battlefield, it was a slaughter.
We were breaking up. There was no safe space to fall back to. No walls were strong enough anymore. No weapons sharp enough. The hybrids kept coming in waves, unrelenting and unholy. Every time we gained an inch, they took it back with blood, howls, and smoke.
Then the wards began to fail.
I felt it first, an audible crack that rang through my bones, like a pressure drop in the heart of a thunderstorm.
The protective spellwork around the bunker shattered.
Sigils glowed bright and shattered like glass along the perimeter. The runes I had carefully selected so long ago glowed white hot, then fizzled and died. The energy our home had always held to keep us safe, flickered twice.
Then went dark.
"No…no no no…" I spun, trying to rebuild the nearest ward by instinct alone, hands shaking. But they wouldn't take.
The bunker was exposed.
The scream of a teenage girl broke through the air like a dagger through silk.
"Ally!" Elly's voice cracked, raw, and terrified.
I turned just in time to see one of the hybrids, a taller, broader hulk with glowing blue eyes, lunge for Ally. Lucifer dove between them, energy blasting from his hands, but the creature barreled through it like smoke. Its claws raked across Lucifer's chest, lifting him off his feet and slamming him into the ground beside her.
Elly pulled her daughter into her arms, shielding her with her body, gun raised, but empty. Spent.
Another hybrid was there before she could do anything to stop it.
Cas shouted a warning and flung his angel blade toward it. It hit the second hybrid in the throat but wasn't fast enough to do anything about the first as it still trampled towards them.
Everything slowed.
I saw Cael trying to break through the mass. Dean and Sam screaming something. Kore ran toward the garage, running towards them as their body glowed with power and their blade trailed shadows. I felt myself move forward, feet pounding against the earth, but Elly was too far. I was too slow.
"Let me in."
The voice came again. Right on the edge of my mind.
"This will be the end, Alex. Your bunker will fall. Your family will die. They will rend the world apart with grace and blood. Let me in."
I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw started to ache.
I could feel the pulse of Kore's energy starting to break in the distance. Even they had a limit ot their power. I swear I could feel Lucifer's heartbeat skipping. I could feel Ally's grace unraveling as it crackled through the air, her body unable to hold it, threatening to explode. I could feel Elly's fear, tangible and blinding, as she pulled her daughter closer and prepared to die for her.
My hands shook.
I had nothing left.
And the enemy wasn't stopping.
Another hybrid shrieked nearby. Kore was knocked to the ground, their blade flying from their grip. Cas scream. Cael roared. Dean yelled my name through it all.
"Just say yes."
My lips parted.
I was a Winchester. A hunter. A ruler of Hell. A survivor. A demon forged in fire and guilt and grief.
And I was so damn tired.
"...okay." It was nothing more than a whisper.
But it was all it needed.
The world seemed to shudder. But it wasn't the battlefield or the earth that did it. It was me.
I felt it unlocking behind my sternum, like chains unraveling, or a door creaking open into a space with no floor or ceiling or walls. With no end. I felt the dark power rise through me like a breath caught in reverse, an inhale that reached too far and stayed too long. My vision tunneled and then widened. My blood burned, then froze.
The fire that it had kept inside of me exploded outward. Violet flames that didn't burn, but devoured.
The battlefield lit up in the blinding light. Shadows peeled from the ground like skin. Every monster within thirty feet of me turned, hesitated, then screamed. The grace inside the hybrids rebelled, twisted, and shrieked in protest against my power. Like oil meeting a roiling, vicious fire.
I didn't need to lift a finger.
They dissolved.
The voice in my head laughed, not with cruelty, but with joy. Triumph.
"Welcome, Queen of Hell."
My feet rose from the ground without my say-so. The blood on my skin burned away. I blinked, and I knew the natural brown of my eyes was no longer there. I now saw the world through violet flames.
Kore looked up from the dirt, their mouth hanging open. "Mom…?"
Lucifer blinked from where he lay on the ground. "What have you…"
Elly was still shielding Ally, staring through tangled blonde hair with wide, unbelieving eyes. "Alex?"
The remaining hybrids paused. For the first time since this all started, they hesitated.
A heartbeat passed.
Then two.
And I smiled.
Because for the first time in my life…
I was the monster they all feared.