[fanfic] Strange New Worlds: Episode VI
Title: Strange New Worlds
Artist: extraonions
Author: tiptoe39
Pairing(if applicable): Gen
Rating: PG-13 for violence and some crude humor
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Master art post | Master fic post
Episode VI: The Master Builder
Milton Laboratories, Patent Application #2958
VES-L Electron Stabilization Beam
A blast wave from a firearm that momentarily halts electron transference between atoms to prevent the conversion of matter from element to element, or the dissolution of matter into energy.
The beam’s effects wouldn’t last very long. But for the time being, Michael and Raphael were only as fast as the human bodies they’d built, and that gave Sam and Dean their chance to run. And run they did, speeding out of the room and back down the hall. They turned a corner, then another, working their way into the heart of the building.
“You got it?”
“Of course I’ve got it, you think I’m stupid?” Dean skidded to a halt, unslung the pack he’d been keeping on his shoulders. From far away, the sounds of battle echoed. “You think they’ll be OK?”
“They’d better be.” Sam opened the pack and began assembling pieces. “We’ve got our hands full here.”
Milton Laboratories Patent Application #20358
Arc Sword
A melee weapon able to adapt to and synchronize with the frequency of waves it encounters and echo them back. Can be used for combat with mechanical and organic beings.
Dean’s mind was churning. A week ago at this time they’d been floating through the void, picking up odd jobs. Just him and his brother, unburdened by passengers or passersby, living their own solitary, unimportant lives. What ever happened to “For the weird and unexplained, call the Winchester brothers?” It’d been swallowed in a fight too big to comprehend. The fate of the human race. The fate of the world. It was on their shoulders, and Dean was afraid that something had changed that could not be changed back. What would they have after this? Would they survive?
He looked at Sam, yearning for a spark of hope. What he saw instead was danger.
The shaft of light was too bright. Dean shouted and turned his eyes away. Sam had thrown his arm over his eyes and huddled on the floor, body protecting the device they were building. Dean squinted at the silver knife in his pack and drew it out. The sound it made almost sickened him, and the vibrations it gave off were resonating into his hand, making him dizzy. But as soon as he swung it through the air, as soon as it came into contact with the light, the vibrations changed, and suddenly there was a sick scream as the alien being exploded into a shower of sparks that fell and faded into the floor.
Sam looked up, eyes still wary, afraid of another blinding light coming for them. Dean brandished the sword and panted heavily. “They know we’re here,” he muttered. “Better hurry up and get this done.”
“Working on it.” Sam frowned at him reproachfully, and Dean flashed him the thumbs-up.
“No worries, dude. I got your back.”
Milton Laboratories Patent Application #1547
Working Interstellar Navigation/Guidance System
This product is intended to enable rapid over-light-speed travel for any personal or commercial vehicle.
Castiel and Anna came running just as Dean and Sam made it back to the ship. The hallway behind them was starting to erupt with light.
“The beam’s wearing off. Hurry!” someone shouted, and someone else stumbled as they all tried like hell to pile into the tiny cruiser. Metal and stone were breaking down and becoming light, and they were all one jumbled mess of people trying to get aboard a ship that was about to be assaulted by pure energy.
Sam grabbed the lever on the dash -- the new one, with WINGS written along the side -- and pulled as hard as he could.
The craft jolted into sickening speed. Behind them, planet-sized palaces faded. And the darts of light, like angry comets, slid through space after their ship.
“We injured them,” Castiel said hurriedly. “They’re slow.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s slow!” Dean was in the gun turret, speaking over the comm as he slammed the trigger over and over again. Michael and Raphael dodged each blast. “Damn it, why couldn’t you make the gun light speed, too?”
“They’re gaining.” Anna’s eyes were full of tears. “Now, it has to be now!”
“Are you crazy?” Sam turned to her in shock. “We’re not out of range yet!”
“We don’t have a choice.” She spoke quickly, carefully. “Either we flip the switch now, or they come after us with all their armies and destroy the entire universe. There’s no choice. Activate it now!”
“Do it,” Castiel said. “We don’t have much time.”
Sam looked at Anna briefly, then angled his head over toward the gun turret. “Dean?”
One last blast, and Dean wiped his brow and rejoined Sam in the cockpit. “Let’s do it.”
He opened a panel on the dash. Sam pushed down on one bright circle of light; Dean hit the other. And the whole galaxy began to shake.
Unfolding from somewhere far, far behind them was a gigantic net of mottled light and darkness. The sky lit up like a supernova, every star outshone by the bright, fast-growing cage. As the net wrapped faster and faster around them, the holes between the nodes of light began to fill in with dark waves. Sam aimed the ship for one of those fast-closing holes, and four anxious pairs of eyes zeroed in as they zoomed toward freedom.
They didn’t make it.
The ship shuddered as it ran up against the dark shell. Castiel and Anna let out twin shouts of agony as the Impala was twisted and warped in every possible way, then slammed forward into the wall of space. Dean and Sam winced and braced themselves in the cockpit for imminent death.
In that moment, with death a certainty, Dean gained some measure of foolish courage. He lifted his head to look at Castiel and Anna, and didn’t look down when bright light suddenly suffused the entire cockpit.
He did not go blind. But his eyes were locked in wonder and awe as the beings that had been Castiel and Anna grew to massive proportion, great golden silhouettes of their human forms pouring out endless light and sealing the spaceship within the span of giant, magnificent white wings.
Then it was over. The Impala continued to hurtle through space. Castiel and Anna lay motionless on the floor. Sam took shaky breaths. And Dean looked behind them as a black shroud fell over a stretch of space and pulsed there, a dark, impenetrable ball of glowing energy, forever sealed off from the rest of the universe.
Milton Laboratories Patent Application #9573
Wormwood SRS Mark Two (working name: The Cage)
An improvement on the existing system, the Cage will not only restrain gas-based beings but also energy-based ones. In its first real-world testing application, energy and matter traveling over light speed were able to penetrate the barrier. But a) the energy lost significant power in the penetration, and b) Milton Laboratories holds the only patent application on over-light-speed travel. So this is hardly expected to be a problem.
“This is depressing,” said Anna as the four walked up toward the Roadhouse. “I’m really going to have to use my hands to build everything from now on? I can’t make anything out of raw elements?”
Dean laughed. “You’re the one who had the bright idea to give up your mojo to get us out of there alive.” Anna shrugged. “Come on, don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts. “
“Hell, no.” She snorted. “But what in space could be in this run-down old bar that I can use?”
In answer, Dean held open the back door for her. When her eyes first fell on Ash’s control room, Anna sucked in a gasp of wonder.
“Well, hi, there,” Pamela said from the corner, spinning around in her chair. Her digital eyes
scrutinized the new arrival. “Aw, Dean, you shouldn’t have. How did you know I liked redheads?”
Anna gave Dean a panicked look. Dean backed away. “You two have fun.” Sam, as usual, was just standing there laughing.
“Oh, come on, peach, I’m only fooling you.” Pamela slung an arm around Anna. “So I hear you’re good with machines, huh? Even for your species?”
“Former species, and I’m the best.”
“Tough words.”
“I’ll back them up.” They were halfway down the stairs to the floor when Pamela reached down and squeezed Anna in an inappropriate place. Dean and Sam got the hell out before the yelling started.
The sun was intensely bright as it set, turning the Impala into a black silhouette with a long shadow. Sam squinted into the glare. “So you think she’s right? Her people won’t figure out a way to break out of there and go after us?”
Dean shrugged. “Cas did say she was pretty much the master builder. According to him, it’s thanks to her that they even had all those McMansions.”
“This is true.”
Castiel was standing by the loading hatch. His skin shone silver in the sun. “And even if they do make it out, they’ll be weakened enough that we will stand a chance.”
“You’re weakened, too, robot head.” Dean slapped him on the back. “Sucks about the skin coloring, though. You think Anna will be able to build you a better body?”
“I doubt it.” Castiel scowled. “And for the record, it is not a robot head.”
“Whatever you say, robot head.” Dean opened the hatch of the newly refurbished Impala. The dents and warps from their escape had been painstakingly hammered out, and she shone like new. Dean caressed the gleaming metal as they climbed in. "It's gonna be cramped on board from now on."
"I do not require much space," offered Castiel, which made Sam laugh again.
Dean slung an arm around Castiel's shoulder. "You don't get to pilot her.”
“I did not ask to--"
"Just in case you get the idea."
The Impala blasted off into the sky, a little heavier than before but still carrying the same spirit. The Winchesters were back out looking for the unexplained and the strange. So they had a new partner. So they had some battle scars. So what? They were still them. Dean leaned back in the pilot’s seat, enjoying that break into low gravity, feeling pretty much content. The world hasn’t ended, he thought to himself, so what next?
Well, what else? They’d keep on flying.
THE END
Artist: extraonions
Author: tiptoe39
Pairing(if applicable): Gen
Rating: PG-13 for violence and some crude humor
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Master art post | Master fic post
Episode VI: The Master Builder
Milton Laboratories, Patent Application #2958
VES-L Electron Stabilization Beam
A blast wave from a firearm that momentarily halts electron transference between atoms to prevent the conversion of matter from element to element, or the dissolution of matter into energy.
The beam’s effects wouldn’t last very long. But for the time being, Michael and Raphael were only as fast as the human bodies they’d built, and that gave Sam and Dean their chance to run. And run they did, speeding out of the room and back down the hall. They turned a corner, then another, working their way into the heart of the building.
“You got it?”
“Of course I’ve got it, you think I’m stupid?” Dean skidded to a halt, unslung the pack he’d been keeping on his shoulders. From far away, the sounds of battle echoed. “You think they’ll be OK?”
“They’d better be.” Sam opened the pack and began assembling pieces. “We’ve got our hands full here.”
Milton Laboratories Patent Application #20358
Arc Sword
A melee weapon able to adapt to and synchronize with the frequency of waves it encounters and echo them back. Can be used for combat with mechanical and organic beings.
Dean’s mind was churning. A week ago at this time they’d been floating through the void, picking up odd jobs. Just him and his brother, unburdened by passengers or passersby, living their own solitary, unimportant lives. What ever happened to “For the weird and unexplained, call the Winchester brothers?” It’d been swallowed in a fight too big to comprehend. The fate of the human race. The fate of the world. It was on their shoulders, and Dean was afraid that something had changed that could not be changed back. What would they have after this? Would they survive?
He looked at Sam, yearning for a spark of hope. What he saw instead was danger.
The shaft of light was too bright. Dean shouted and turned his eyes away. Sam had thrown his arm over his eyes and huddled on the floor, body protecting the device they were building. Dean squinted at the silver knife in his pack and drew it out. The sound it made almost sickened him, and the vibrations it gave off were resonating into his hand, making him dizzy. But as soon as he swung it through the air, as soon as it came into contact with the light, the vibrations changed, and suddenly there was a sick scream as the alien being exploded into a shower of sparks that fell and faded into the floor.
Sam looked up, eyes still wary, afraid of another blinding light coming for them. Dean brandished the sword and panted heavily. “They know we’re here,” he muttered. “Better hurry up and get this done.”
“Working on it.” Sam frowned at him reproachfully, and Dean flashed him the thumbs-up.
“No worries, dude. I got your back.”
Milton Laboratories Patent Application #1547
Working Interstellar Navigation/Guidance System
This product is intended to enable rapid over-light-speed travel for any personal or commercial vehicle.
Castiel and Anna came running just as Dean and Sam made it back to the ship. The hallway behind them was starting to erupt with light.
“The beam’s wearing off. Hurry!” someone shouted, and someone else stumbled as they all tried like hell to pile into the tiny cruiser. Metal and stone were breaking down and becoming light, and they were all one jumbled mess of people trying to get aboard a ship that was about to be assaulted by pure energy.
Sam grabbed the lever on the dash -- the new one, with WINGS written along the side -- and pulled as hard as he could.
The craft jolted into sickening speed. Behind them, planet-sized palaces faded. And the darts of light, like angry comets, slid through space after their ship.
“We injured them,” Castiel said hurriedly. “They’re slow.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s slow!” Dean was in the gun turret, speaking over the comm as he slammed the trigger over and over again. Michael and Raphael dodged each blast. “Damn it, why couldn’t you make the gun light speed, too?”
“They’re gaining.” Anna’s eyes were full of tears. “Now, it has to be now!”
“Are you crazy?” Sam turned to her in shock. “We’re not out of range yet!”
“We don’t have a choice.” She spoke quickly, carefully. “Either we flip the switch now, or they come after us with all their armies and destroy the entire universe. There’s no choice. Activate it now!”
“Do it,” Castiel said. “We don’t have much time.”
Sam looked at Anna briefly, then angled his head over toward the gun turret. “Dean?”
One last blast, and Dean wiped his brow and rejoined Sam in the cockpit. “Let’s do it.”
He opened a panel on the dash. Sam pushed down on one bright circle of light; Dean hit the other. And the whole galaxy began to shake.
Unfolding from somewhere far, far behind them was a gigantic net of mottled light and darkness. The sky lit up like a supernova, every star outshone by the bright, fast-growing cage. As the net wrapped faster and faster around them, the holes between the nodes of light began to fill in with dark waves. Sam aimed the ship for one of those fast-closing holes, and four anxious pairs of eyes zeroed in as they zoomed toward freedom.
They didn’t make it.
The ship shuddered as it ran up against the dark shell. Castiel and Anna let out twin shouts of agony as the Impala was twisted and warped in every possible way, then slammed forward into the wall of space. Dean and Sam winced and braced themselves in the cockpit for imminent death.
In that moment, with death a certainty, Dean gained some measure of foolish courage. He lifted his head to look at Castiel and Anna, and didn’t look down when bright light suddenly suffused the entire cockpit.
He did not go blind. But his eyes were locked in wonder and awe as the beings that had been Castiel and Anna grew to massive proportion, great golden silhouettes of their human forms pouring out endless light and sealing the spaceship within the span of giant, magnificent white wings.
Then it was over. The Impala continued to hurtle through space. Castiel and Anna lay motionless on the floor. Sam took shaky breaths. And Dean looked behind them as a black shroud fell over a stretch of space and pulsed there, a dark, impenetrable ball of glowing energy, forever sealed off from the rest of the universe.
Milton Laboratories Patent Application #9573
Wormwood SRS Mark Two (working name: The Cage)
An improvement on the existing system, the Cage will not only restrain gas-based beings but also energy-based ones. In its first real-world testing application, energy and matter traveling over light speed were able to penetrate the barrier. But a) the energy lost significant power in the penetration, and b) Milton Laboratories holds the only patent application on over-light-speed travel. So this is hardly expected to be a problem.
“This is depressing,” said Anna as the four walked up toward the Roadhouse. “I’m really going to have to use my hands to build everything from now on? I can’t make anything out of raw elements?”
Dean laughed. “You’re the one who had the bright idea to give up your mojo to get us out of there alive.” Anna shrugged. “Come on, don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts. “
“Hell, no.” She snorted. “But what in space could be in this run-down old bar that I can use?”
In answer, Dean held open the back door for her. When her eyes first fell on Ash’s control room, Anna sucked in a gasp of wonder.
“Well, hi, there,” Pamela said from the corner, spinning around in her chair. Her digital eyes
scrutinized the new arrival. “Aw, Dean, you shouldn’t have. How did you know I liked redheads?”
Anna gave Dean a panicked look. Dean backed away. “You two have fun.” Sam, as usual, was just standing there laughing.
“Oh, come on, peach, I’m only fooling you.” Pamela slung an arm around Anna. “So I hear you’re good with machines, huh? Even for your species?”
“Former species, and I’m the best.”
“Tough words.”
“I’ll back them up.” They were halfway down the stairs to the floor when Pamela reached down and squeezed Anna in an inappropriate place. Dean and Sam got the hell out before the yelling started.
The sun was intensely bright as it set, turning the Impala into a black silhouette with a long shadow. Sam squinted into the glare. “So you think she’s right? Her people won’t figure out a way to break out of there and go after us?”
Dean shrugged. “Cas did say she was pretty much the master builder. According to him, it’s thanks to her that they even had all those McMansions.”
“This is true.”
Castiel was standing by the loading hatch. His skin shone silver in the sun. “And even if they do make it out, they’ll be weakened enough that we will stand a chance.”
“You’re weakened, too, robot head.” Dean slapped him on the back. “Sucks about the skin coloring, though. You think Anna will be able to build you a better body?”
“I doubt it.” Castiel scowled. “And for the record, it is not a robot head.”
“Whatever you say, robot head.” Dean opened the hatch of the newly refurbished Impala. The dents and warps from their escape had been painstakingly hammered out, and she shone like new. Dean caressed the gleaming metal as they climbed in. "It's gonna be cramped on board from now on."
"I do not require much space," offered Castiel, which made Sam laugh again.
Dean slung an arm around Castiel's shoulder. "You don't get to pilot her.”
“I did not ask to--"
"Just in case you get the idea."
The Impala blasted off into the sky, a little heavier than before but still carrying the same spirit. The Winchesters were back out looking for the unexplained and the strange. So they had a new partner. So they had some battle scars. So what? They were still them. Dean leaned back in the pilot’s seat, enjoying that break into low gravity, feeling pretty much content. The world hasn’t ended, he thought to himself, so what next?
Well, what else? They’d keep on flying.
THE END