SPN Gen Mini Bang: Expectations
Expectations
Artist: becc_j
Beta: lolaann1
Buffy/Supernatural. To avert the apocalypse the IWC needs a special glove. To use the glove they just need to summon a special sword to their dimension.
The Michael-sword is nothing like they expected
Time-line Buffy: 10 years after Season 7 finale
Time-line Supernatural: Season 6, between "The Man who would be King" and "Let it bleed"
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon et cetera, Supernatural to Eric Kripke et cetera.
Giles, Willow and Dawn stared at the object on the table between them. They had a big apocalypse coming and the only thing that could stop it was this glove. It was long, obviously meant to be a part of armor, and was made of leather and a few metallic ornaments. It looked absolutely harmless.
Fact was they couldn't even touch the glove with their bare hands. Every Slayer who touched the glove ended up comatose for a few days. From what they knew of the history of the artifact, for normal people it was worse by far. Their problem was that they had a weapon they couldn't even use.
"So, what do we know about this thing?" Willow sounded tired.
Dawn sorted her papers and showed them to Willow and Giles. She was the Head Researcher of the International Watchers’ Council, better known as the IWC. She loved her work, but this been a long and frustrating search.
"The artifact has a very long and complicated Sumerian name which we translated to Rifle’s glove. Research requests that somebody investigates how Sumerians could describe a rifle thousands of years before somebody invented them. We are researching signs of time travel in that era. Back to the glove, it is meant to be used in combination with something called the Michael sword."
Giles looked up from Dawn’s papers detailing the name of the artifact. "That sounds vaguely familiar."
Dawn nodded and pulled some illustrations in front of Giles and Willow. Pictures of an angel in midflight with a flaming sword in hand, battling against others. "The Michael sword is the sword of the archangel Michael. As in, right-hand man of the Judeo-Christian god." Okay, this was different. There had never been anything to indicate that this god and angels even existed.
Willow was the first to actually be able to sort her thoughts accordingly. "If the glove can only be used in combination with this sword, we can assume that there are angels somewhere. So, where do we find this sword?"
Dawn looked up from all the papers and books she’d pushed to Willow and Giles for reading. "According to our information, angels and everything that it implies really exist. They’re just not here. As far as we understand it, there are simultaneously different realities and different dimensions to our own dimension and reality. Some are very different from ours, some are nearly the same. The part of the multiverse angels belong to is so vastly different from ours that beings who dimension hop don't even go there."
That was certainly interesting and something they had to reflect on later. "Do you have an idea how to find the sword somewhere in a part of the multiverse demons consider unfriendly?"
Dawn smiled. "We hoped you could find the sword through its link with the glove. Considering the amount of distance, we thought if you threw in a vial of Key-blood you would have the juice to pull the sword through."
Willow thought about it, considered the amount of energy she would need for something like that.
Giles furiously cleaned his glasses. He knew they needed the sword, but they didn't have any idea if Michael or somebody else would be attached. And they needed somebody to wield the sword and glove. "One moment, we won’t do that without a few precautions. We need to do that in a heavily guarded room with a few Slayers around. Faith is here at the moment, so we can ask her group for protection. And after we get the sword we can test to see if it really reacts differently in combination with the glove."
The younger women nodded. Perhaps it sounded a bit paranoid, but that was what kept them alive more often than not.
# #
Faith stood in her place, her slayers in their designated places, and Willow sat on the floor, foreign letters scribbled around her. The senior slayer knew that the letters had been written with Dawn’s blood to give the whole procedure more power. Directly in front of Willow was a bit of space where the sword would appear.
Somehow no one in the group really expected to happen what did happen.
# #
One moment Dean was in the car driving with Sam beside him, the next he was beamed to some place he didn’t know and nearly fell over a woman sitting directly in front of him on the floor. It looked like they summoned him. How was that even possible? He wasn’t a demon
Without a second thought, he went battle ready and assumed position against the armed women around him.
# #
"Stop!" Giles’ order stopped everyone momentarily.
The Watcher looked back to the wards they had put around the room for protection. Nothing was disturbed or broken. He mustered the guy next to Willow. He looked human, not that it really told them much. Age wise he was in the same category as the scoobies. But the most interesting thing was that the guy didn't seem to have a sword with him. He was armed, yes, no question, but he didn’t have a sword on his body.
"Everybody lower their weapons." The slayers followed his order and lowered their weapons. The new guy changed from an aggressive to a defensive stance. Not perfect, but good enough for the moment.
"Hello. My name is Giles. I can assure you we didn't plan on bringing you here, this has been a mistake."
"I'm not sure this was a mistake. Hi, I'm Faith."
Giles didn't even dignify Faith with an answer. She had the tendency to go for anything male and/or good looking. The person before them fit both criteria. "We just have to understand what we did wrong and we will send you back to your home dimension."
"A different dimension? OK." He didn't seem that disturbed by the news. He casually put his gun back, but didn't let any of the potential threats out of eye shot. "I'm Dean. And I was just on my way to eat something. Do you have any food? I don't think I can wait till you find your mistake." A loud and impressive sound from his stomach made clear that he wasn't joking.
Dawn nodded automatically. "Come with me, I will take you to the cafeteria. By the way, I'm Dawn." Faith followed closely behind Dawn and her new prey.
# #
Sam saw that his brother had vanished from one second to the other. He stopped the car before it could crash against something and slid over to the driver’s side. One second after that his cell was dialing Dean’s familiar number.
Nothing.
Sam’s next call went to somebody different. "Bobby, we have a problem."
# #
Dawn smiled a little as Dean ate. Not only could you see that he enjoyed eating enough that it seemed indecent to watch him, he easily ate the amount a slayer would be proud of.
Faith just grinned.
Dean didn't even seem to realize that he was the main focus of most of the people in the cafeteria. After his after-slaying-plate (extra greasy, indecent large portions, lots of proteins) he ate his helping of pie with lots of whipped cream and smiled wide.
Dawn decided to tell Giles that it was not a good idea to leave a guy that looked like that with such a smile alone around estrogen central. She was sure Faith would be happy to look after him. Hell, she would do it herself in a heartbeat if she had the time.
"So, tell me, what did you try to get out of my dimension?"
Faith jumped in before Dawn could answer "You are pretty relaxed hearing that you’re in a different dimension."
He nodded. "Well, it’s not my first trip. My brother and I were sent to a different dimension before. Since magic didn't even exist there, it wasn’t easy to get back. So, you know about magic, I don't have to pretend I'm somebody I'm not, better than last time."
It certainly explained his non-reaction to where he was. And he knew of magic, that made everything easier. "Is everybody in your dimension aware of magic?"
Dawn enjoyed his deep, rough laughter. "No. The supernatural world is something only a few people believe in. It’s surprising how much normal people can ignore in the name of denial."
Dawn smiled automatically. Apparently Sunnydale Syndrome was not exclusive to their dimension. "We tried to bring a specific sword here. There is this being who wants to bring the apocalypse. The only way to stop it is with this special glove. But the glove can only be used in combination with the Michael-sword and without it we can’t use our only working weapon."
Dean didn't let anybody see how disturbed he was that he wasn’t here by mistake, he was here as a weapon, even without them knowing. They had summoned the right guy. But somehow he had hoped that with him never becoming an angelic vessel that dubious title wouldn't matter anymore. "Perhaps we should tell Giles and your witch that they can stop trying to find their mistake." He enjoyed his coffee: black, hot, extra strong with a little dash of cardamom and hazelnut. The nice, older lady who supplied him with the food told him it was the way the researchers liked it.
"Why?"
"Let me introduce myself: My name is Dean Winchester. I'm the Michael-sword."
# #
Faith couldn't help herself; she had to laugh a little. There was Giles and Red trying to send him back, while at the same time ‘eye candy’ was the answer to their problems. Of course, they had always assumed that the sword was a real sword, not once did they think it could be a person. But then, Dawn alone was a good example that it could be just a title. She was The Key. And this guy was The Sword.
Giles cleaned his glasses. "So, you are the Michael-sword?"
Dean sighed. "I'm not really a fan of that title. My name is Dean Winchester."
Winchester. Rifle’s glove. Winchester’s glove. Everything made so much sense, now. "Why do you have that title? We thought it meant a physical weapon."
"You’re not completely wrong. I take it you never met an angel?"
Willow shook her head. "They don't come to our part of the multiverse. The only thing we have about them are legends."
"Lucky you,”their guest mumbled to himself. "An angel in its natural state is the size of the Chrysler building, with a few heads and pairs of wings. Humans can't withstand the sight of them. There are a few people that can understand them talking, but believe me, you don't want to hear them if you don't have the ability."
The little geeks in Willow, Giles and Dawn committed everything to memory. When else could they get an account on angels? "What happens to a human who sees them?" came from Dawn. The Researcher in her wanted to grab something to write.
"Your eyes burn out of your sockets."
Okay, definitely not a good idea to meet an angel.
"To operate on earth and interact with people they need human bodies.
These humans have to come from certain bloodlines to be able to hold an angel. The angel then possesses the human, just with the difference that the human has to be willing to give them their body. The difference with archangels is that while they can possess anyone of the correct bloodline like normal angels, their grace can only be contained by true vessels, humans that are specifically born to be the vessel of an archangel. If an archangel has to make-do with a different vessel, this human won’t last long. The grace burns them from the inside out till the body can’t contain the archangel anymore."
"And that's you?"
"Yes. I'm the True Vessel of the archangel Michael. The only thing it brings you is angelic plotting against you and a shitty title."
"And if you die? Will it go down the bloodline to the next?" The question was logical for Willow, Giles and Dawn. It was a bit like how the original slayer line worked, just without the blood connection.
"Michael can go down the bloodline for a temporary fix. But a true vessel is just born once. If I'm dead and they need a permanent body for him, they have to resurrect me."
OK, shitty deal. Before anybody had the opportunity to say something the man took the glove and inspected it directly. Giles, Willow and Dawn gave each other triumphant smiles when the glove didn't harm their guest.
"You said this thing was meant for the Michael-sword, not Michael?" He took off the flannel and tried the glove. They all looked fascinated as the fastenings closed itself as if by magic. The gray leather fit perfectly.
"Yes, it was very specific. Why, is that relevant?"
Dean opened the first fastening and the whole glove opened up again, allowing the limb freedom again. "Because I think nobody ever thought this thing would be used"
"Why do you think that?"
He showed them the metallic ornaments. "These signs are Enochian. Angel chicken scratch. I can’t really read it, but I recognize a few of them as warding against angels. As in, the glove is for the vessel without the angel. It’s just, it wasn't planned for me to be in this state. According to all the prophecies and machinations of heaven and hell, I should be either dead or a meatsuit for Michael."
"And therefore not able to use the glove." Very interesting.
Faith, who had been quiet the whole time, snorted. "At least it will be a total surprise when we get Deano there to use the thing."
The hunter put the question back in waiting position in his mind. "Tell me something about whoever wants to end this world."
# #
Sam drove back to Bobby's place. It felt wrong to drive the Impala without Dean by his side. The whole time he thought about it he came back to one answer
Castiel
Who else had a tendency to just zap Dean to places without a warning? Sam didn't know why, now that they knew Castiel was working together with Crowley. The hunter didn't even think as he took his cell and scrolled down to the number of the angel. He waited for Cas’ customary socially awkward voice mail speech to finish before letting his anger out.
"Cas, I know that since you're buddies with the king of hell, you think rules don’t apply to you anymore and you can do whatever the hell you want. But to vanish Dean out of the car like that?! The only good thing about this is that I know Dean is bitching at you at the moment, demanding to be brought back. Fuck you, Cas!"
He stopped the call and concentrated on driving. He reminded himself that despite everything that happened, Cas never meant to harm Dean in any way.
# #
Cas listened to his voice mail and looked at the little piece of technology in confusion. Vanishing Dean out of the car? What was Sam talking about? For a few moments he contemplated the idea that Sam's wall broke and the human went insane as expected.
But perhaps Dean really was gone. There were possibilities other than him. And he still considered the Winchesters to be his responsibility. Somehow he didn't think Sam would appreciate him phoning back, not with his irritated voice.
Since he couldn't find Sam on his own, Bobby's would be his best choice
continued in Part 2
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