Demons, Demigods and Hunters (Percy Jackson/Supernatural)

Chapter 17

Warning: This chapter does include some descriptions of violence and torture. It is a recap of some of Anna's more traumatic moments. You can skip this chapter and still understand the story.

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Dreams

The house was on fire. Everything was burning and her Abba was screaming in pain. Isolde was outside, the tall lady who looked just like her holding her back, the grip on her arm tight. The lady was stopping her from helping Abba. Isolde fought back as best as she could, pushing back her sobs as she thrashed in the woman's firm grip.

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The flames shifted and grew until they fell away into small pinpricks along a round tunnel wall.

The room is dark. She's in the labyrinth, after the failures of the telekhines on Mt. Saint Helens. After all she was the one who had alerted Hephaestus under the pretense of checking on the monster's progress. But her real mistake was in helping her baby sister escape back to the safety of the god's forges. Now Luke knows she's a spy.

She raced blindly through the tunnels, trying to outrun fate.

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Torches flicker with red flames. A crowd roars around her, the screams and boos and hisses pressing in on her ears; the sounds ampliphied by the design of the underground arena.

She weakly lifts her head in defiance. She hasn't screamed yet. Her blood runs down her back, staining the sand. Antaeus frowns. She isn't good entertainment. She refused to be good entertainment. Dianne doesn't beg, she's far too proud for that. Luke flicks his hand, bringing in a new tormentor, looking for entrance into Kronos's army. Someone poured nectar over her back, temporarily healing her. She watches as two Scythian Dracanae slither into the arena, their eyes lit with sadistic excitement. Dianne prepares herself for more pain.

The dracanae favored knives, slicing into her skin; some places deep, other shallow. The snake women are masters at their art, knowing how to bring her the most pain, with the least amount of actual damage. After them come the telekhines, who favor fire, then a giant that likes to break bones. She loses track of what tries to make her scream, only really noticing the instruments of her pain. Bullwhips, poisons, swords, knives, electricity, fists and more. They tear her body apart and put it back together; bringing her to the brink of death before pulling her back. It became one of Antaeus's favorite games. Soon she was refusing to scream, not out of pride, but for the continued safety of camp. She knew the moment she gave in, Luke's army would be granted passage through the arena.

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The fire flickered, changing from red to green. Greek fire, burning across a battlefield filled with screaming soldiers. Screaming children.

She changed her name to Anna, Dianne a painful reminder of the arena, when Antaeus would call her forward to be tortured in the ring. She was fighting in the streets of Manhattan, watching her family get cut down all around her. A pack of hellhounds advanced, their red eyes glowing in the night, teeth flashing in the dim streetlights. She called for the next wave of Greek fire to be launched. Then it was chaos. She hacked her way through Kronos's army, wielding Eleos in one hand, a celestial bronze dagger in the other. Battle was a bitter dance, the elegance of her skills, her strategy bringing down the enemy. But when her steps wavered, her family died around her.

Anna is alone as she defends her position.

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She's on Olympus, watching over the shrouds covering the dead from the war. There is a party going on but she can't tear herself away from the shrouds. They haven't been taken to camp for the final rites yet. So Anna stands guard. Bearing witness to the Heroes of Olympus. Too many of them belong to her friends. Too many belong to her siblings. Now she's the oldest Athena camper. One of the oldest half bloods left.

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Fire roars around her. What should have been a simple quest to kill some empousai that were harassing some nymphs has turned into a forest fire. Anna stands back to back with Cory, a son of Eurus; the west wind. Luckily the two empousai are dead. Unluckily, they're trapped in a ring of fire. Cory looks at her helplessly. He'd been sweet on her for a few months, but she wasn't ready to commit. Suddenly he mouthed I'm sorry at her. Before she could react a strong wind gusted, shoving her through a small gap in the flames even as the fire grew bigger and hotter within the small cirle they'd been trapped inside of. Anna listened as he screamed while he burned. All she could do was run.

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Orange flames roar as they change to a poisonous gold.

Once again she is surrounded by enemies. Separated from both camps surrounded by the idiot augur Octavian's monstrous forces even as the Greeks and Romans used the remaining onagers to fire the dangerous charges at the monsters she was surrounded by. She dodged the impacts as best she could, the shrapnel flying everywhere, getting into her armor, digging gouges into exposed skin. Suddenly a massive hellhound comes out of nowhere and she's fighting for her life even as the beach explodes around her, the earth sucking at her body and the excruciating snap of her knee under the claws and weight of the monstrous dog. The hellhound melts away into shadow as Chris Rodriguez, backed by Clarisse appear before her. The two demigods haul her towards the Apollo field hospital, but the the world explodes around them and everything fades away.

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Her dream shifts and she's back in that cornfield, looking for the next demigod she'd been sent to retrieve. A daughter of Hecate. Anna had been sent to find her by the goddess herself. The rotting barn is in view. Her stomach sinks. She knows what's next.

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Anna screams as her own weapons are turned against her. Knives slicing through her body, Eleos carving into her skin when she frees her friends. Nico, weak with blood loss barely crawls over and just as the others shadow travel away, Anna is yanked back by an invisible force.

The little girl.

She's trapped against a wall as the sadistic girl sweetly tells her how pretty she looked with the dancing wood.

"Like flowers." She says in her small little voice. Anna screams as the splinters under her skin move into new patterns. The girl frowns. Somehow she can still see through the sweat, tears and blood running down her face.

"That sound isn't very nice. We have to use our inside voices you know." The little girl instructs. Reaching for the knife on the table.

"When you do bad things you get punished." She instructs. The knife slicing into her side is almost a welcome distraction from the movement of the splinters in her skin. She screams and screams and screams and screams.

But nobody will ever hear her.

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AN: Yay! 100 chapters! We're almost done, thank you to everyone whose stuck by this story for so long!