Ex Machina
Title: Ex Machina
Author: missyjack
Artist: ammo
Beta: Thanks to the wonderful gekizetsu and ms_nightshade
Total Words: 8,000
Genre(s): Gen, Season 9 case!fic, bunker!fic
Characters: Team Free Will
Summary: Castiel, Sam, and Dean are stuck in the bunker during tornado season and are busy stockpiling their emotional issues. Less Team Free Will and more Team Cranky Pants. But then SOMETHING gets into the bunker - or is it something trying to get out? Can the guys get their shit together in time to figure it out?
Author's Note: As soon as I saw ammo's amazing artwork I knew I wanted to write for it. Its so dynamic and action packed! Then I just faced the problem of working out why Team Free Will is fighting a giant robot..
Fic on A03
Artwork Post by ammo
The sky above the Kansas plains was dirty dishwater circling a plughole. This was not at all unusual during tornado season, except for the fact that the atmosphere was shot through with more holes than a whack-a-mole board.
Kansas was not sure why. It was a flat square place where little of interest ever happened on the ground, but weird shit always seemed to be happening above it - and below it - and well, generally through it.
No-one knows when it started, but it may have been when the dinosaurs popped through a rift from another dimension back in the Cretaceous period. Hundreds of millennia later, the powerful magic used by the People of the South Wind lead to a series of encounters with the Coyote, aka The Trickster, which were fun at first and then just really annoying. There was also that instance in the 17th century with the whale and the bowl of petunias, but that's another story.
Due to an influx of leprechauns in 1881, Kansas became the first state to enact prohibition.
In the early 20th century, L. Frank Baum - author, fancy poultry breeder and member of the secret Men of Letters society - popped back and forth to Oz so often that the portals between the fairy realm and ours might as well have been revolving doors.
In 1921, The Men of Letters chose Lebanon Kansas, the geographic center of the United States of America, as the location to build a bunker that would house their collected knowledge, provide safe haven from evil, and basically because it was sort of de rigeur for a secret society to have a lair. The fact they knew. The fact that supernatural occurrences in the region increased thereafter is entirely possibly not a coincidence.
The bunker took two years to build using a combination of architects, witches, and interior designers who had to be brought in from San Francisco, as the mid-west was not particularly tolerant of interior designers back then.
It was carved out of the earth and protective sigils were carved into its foundations. Powerful spells and magic were used to ward it from evil. Sitting above it was a power station designed to run independently of the Kansas Power Grid, as both a security and money saving measure. It drew its energy from the stream next to it, the rocks around it, and a good deal of magic from realms parallel to ours and not normally associated with the generation of electricity and provision of great water pressure.
From the late 20th through to the early 21st century, time travel, especially around Lawrence Kansas, increased significantly. And when angels travel through time, they don’t make a wrinkle in time - they scrunch it up, fold it, and make it into an origami unicorn.
Then there was the time a portal to Hell that was unlocked using the rings of the four horseman of the apocalypse in Stull Cemetery.
It was not surprising therefore that over Kansas, the veil between realities stretched thinner than Saran wrap over their day old coleslaw.
On this particularly Wednesday, through the swirling mass of atmosphere and reality above the flat golden plains, shot a single shiny bolt of something that looked like lightning. It hit the ground with an explosion of smoke and light, throwing corn stalks through the air like so many pick-up-sticks. Along the bright shaft of light something shimmered and flowed like the mercury out of a broken thermometer. It pooled on the ground and started flowing in a single thin stream.
It was not quite visible. If you were near it, you might catch a glint of something shiny from the corner of your eye, but as soon as you turned, it disappeared. It moved quickly, drawn by a magnetic attraction that was more than just physics, not just the electrostatic attractive forces between the delocalized electrons but something more akin to desire.
A desire for something that lived in a hole in the ground near Lebanon, Kansas.
&&&
The bunker built by the Men of Letters was currently occupied by two hunters of things and savers of people, the brothers Sam and Dean Winchester along with an angel named Castiel, who had until recently been known as Steve or Clarence for reasons not particularly relevant at this point.
Between them they had saved the world a number of times, although they had also been responsible for near destruction of the same world on more than one occasion. If it was a day ending in ‘y’, you could bet that these three were in the middle of something potentially world ending or life-threatening.
Today was not one of those days (although it was a Wednesday, which does end in ‘y’), unless they killed each other, which was not entirely unlikely. The men had been trapped inside the bunker for two days due to the wild weather and the atmosphere inside the bunker was as thick as the thunderous air outside, crackling with a mixture of pent up anger, unexpressed feelings and a modicum of sexual tension. There were so many things the three of them didn't talk about that the silence was deafening.
The main thing everyone didn’t talk about was Kevin.
&&&
Castiel was wrestling with a can of tuna.
He had started opening it in the electric can opener, the operation of which Dean had demonstrated to him repeatedly, when the machine had started chewing at the rim of the can, shooting sparks and growling something at him in a deep mechanical rasp Cas couldn't quite make out. He had both the machine and can in a hammerlock, when the can opener seemed to leap from his grasp and hurl itself across the kitchen, leaving Castiel dripping with tuna and briny shame.
He placed the tuna on the bench and looked at the mangled and still not quite open tin forlornly. In front of him were the scorched remains of the toaster and the carbonised remains of two slices of bread.
Castiel wished he could have simply transported himself to a sandwich shop but the grace he had taken to replace his own was feeble and unreliable in its application and he was just as likely to materialise inside a tree. He sometimes thought it was worse being half an angel, than when he was not an angel at all.
Castiel had even failed at making lunch. The tuna was unsalvageable, so Castiel placed it on the bench and went to see if there were any leftovers in the fridge. Dean sporadically cooked large and elaborate meals and then after one sitting refusing to eat them again, so the refrigerator was usually well stocked.
Castiel didn't want to serve Sam and Dean leftovers, if he had learned one thing in his time of being human it was the art of sandwich making, but it was better than nothing. While Castiel no longer needed to eat, he thought making them lunch would demonstrate in a small way his good will and that seemed to be in short supply at the moment, after the mess with Gadreel and his inadvertent role in Crowley's escape from the Winchesters.
Castiel wanted to repair Heaven and return all the angels home. He wanted to stop all the evil in the world, he wanted to be of help to the Winchesters, he wanted Sam to trust him, and he wanted Dean to-
In truth, he wasn't quite sure what he wanted from Dean. That was complicated. Dean was complicated. More complicated, Castiel thought, than the mysteries of the universe, of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory combined. The very mind of God was an open book compared to Dean Winchester.
Being human had also taught Castiel the art of hyperbole.
Castiel cleaned down the bench, as Dean was rather territorial about the kitchen and surprisingly fussy, and emptied the tuna and remains of a soggy tomato he had found in the fridge into the garbage disposal.
Castiel considered whether the tuna tin should go in as well. This was not your usual insinkerator, but a large industrial model stand-alone. Wood chipper size, Sam called it when he speculated that it was probably used not only for food but possibly also for disposing of the bodies of the possessed, vanquished creatures and the like. Dean had grinned at the idea and peered down the plughole eagerly, as if he'd be able to see a pile of monster parts in it.
Castiel hadn’t been quite sure if Sam had been serious of not. That happened a lot. Dean seemed to take delight in providing him with misinformation about life in general. Castiel would often turn to Sam for confirmation or clarification, although that didn’t always work, because Sam could be just as mischievous as his brother.
Not recently though. Since the revelation that Dean had facilitated his brother's possession by an angel, the angel who killed Kevin, there had been little mischief. In fact, Sam and Dean rarely spoke, except for essential communication or when on a hunt.
SCRRRRREEEEEEKKKKKKK!!!
The sound was echoing up from the garbage disposal.
NGHRH! NMMHGH!
Castiel leaned down and a spray of tuna and vegetable matter spewed forth and rained down on him. It was the stuff of horror movies, although Castiel didn’t know that as his current TV viewing was currently dictated by Dean and involved countless hours of watching something called ‘Duck Dynasty’ and ‘Bering Sea Gold’.
&&&
Dean was sitting at the long table in the library, an array of partly dismantled guns lined up neatly, along with his gun cleaning gear on a piece of oiled canvas in front of him, while Sam was sitting in an armchair, pretending to research something.
While there were many rooms in the bunker, most often they could be found in the library. Sam would say he was there because it was closest to most of the research material and that it was where the Wi-Fi reception was best. Dean would say it was because… actually Dean would just tell you to shut-up if you asked. Truth was, he was there because Sam was.
Since the whole clusterfuck with Gadreel, things had broken apart between them and Dean had no idea how to start putting it back together. More than that, he was worried about Sam who just seemed withdrawn. He appeared to have little interest in pursuing anything angel or demon related, or even just a garden-variety ghost hunt. He kept claiming he wanted to do more research and that he'd be ready to get back out on the road soon. But ‘soon’ had passed - three weeks ago.
Sam couldn't remember what he had told Dean he was working on, just that he implied to Dean and Cas that it was VERY important. Truth be told, he was daydreaming, thinking about what it would've been like to be one of the Men of Letters in its heyday, fighting evil with esoteric knowledge and a well-catalogued library. A time when the Men of Letters donned fedoras and led the fight against the supernatural and no-one's brother gave evil angels time-share rights to their body.
It seemed preferable to dealing with real life right now. Sam still felt uneasy in his own skin and the memories of how - and for what appalling ends - Gadreel had used him flashed through his mind with disturbing frequency.
"How's it going?" Dean interrupted his reverie. He was putting a new album on the record player. "Need a hand with any of the big words?" A half smile crept onto Dean's face, like a groundhog peeking its head up looking for spring.
Sam looked over at Dean, a shadow across his face. Dean's smile fled. Still winter then.
"Well, it involves translating Aramaic or possibly Zoroastrian. Both above your pay grade, so I'll just keep slogging."
Dean knew Zoroastrian wasn't a language, their texts were all written in Avestan, but he got the message. Sam didn't want his help and if it weren’t for the weather and the pressing problem of the murderous angels rampaging in the vicinity, he would quite possibly be a thousand miles away from Dean right now.
Sam winced inwardly at the look on Dean's face but he wasn't letting go of his anger towards him anytime soon. Sure, he got the whole ‘what could I do you were going to die?’ rationale. He got the ‘I was tricked’ excuse. He got that he shouldn’t feel guilty about the things he did while Gadreel was in control of him (Kevin-Kevin-Kevin). Sam got that Dean did what he did to get Gadreel out. He understood that it all happened because of REASONS.
But still. Sam just didn't know how to get back to a place where he could rely on Dean. There are only so many times you could patch something up and expected it to hold together. Dean's jeans were testament to that.
Dean dropped the needle and Jethro Tull advised them that life wasn't easy.
&&&
Sometime later, halfway through the B-side, they each looked up at the sound of a polite cough. Castiel stood in the archway between the library and the war-room, his trench coat stained with liquid and small pieces of fish.
"I'm not taking you shopping in this weather," warned Dean.
After getting the grace of another angel, an event Castiel had refused to fully explain although Dean suspected the other being had not simply donated it, Castiel had insisted on dressing in his old attire. So, Dean had helped him find a new badly fitting suit and trench coat. Castiel had apparently abandoned his original trench coat in a laundromat without a second thought as to how Dean had carried the thing around with him, transferring it from car to stolen car over the course of a year.
Bastard, thought Dean.
"I was making lunch," Castiel said, as if that explained everything.
"Dude, you smell like a whale threw up on you! If you messed up my kitchen…"
"They attacked me."
"Who attacked you?" Sam asked, not quite meeting Castiel's gaze.
He didn’t quite believe that Castiel had been unable to sense Gadreel, and while he knew Castiel was no more likely to possess him than take up river dancing, Sam couldn't help feeling just a tad wary around the angel.
"I think the kitchen appliances are cursed."
Castiel walked in and stood next to Dean, looking down at him in all seriousness. Dean made a waving motion in front of his face as Castiel's ‘eau de tuna’ wafted over him.
"Seriously, you are thousands of years old with a brain the size of a planet and you can't use a toaster?"
"The kitchen equipment all seems to have developed a will of its own. I think it is maybe a curse or a possession."
"Or maybe they've all become self-aware and will rise up against us," Dean responded.
"Great," said Sam. "A robot apocalypse, that’s all we need."
Dean looked over at Sam and almost smiled. Sam almost smiled back.
Castiel frowned.
No-one ever took him seriously, which is probably the reason why he kept getting into end-the-world situations - so that someone would take him seriously. Castiel had watched a bit of Dr. Phil since he'd been trapped on Earth.
"Look, just turn everything off and turn it back on again." Dean went back to cleaning his guns.
"And remember," he yelled at the receding back of Castiel's trench coat, "No metal in the microwave!"
&&&
Back in the kitchen, Castiel found a bowl of lasagne in the fridge and, after ensuring it did indeed contain no metal, he placed it into the microwave that Dean had recently purchased and pushed the button marked with the symbol of a dish and a flame.
The machine was able, Dean had explained, to work out how long to heat things at the push of a single button - Castiel-proof he had called it. Which It should've been insulting, but Castiel had long since learned that Dean's negative comments were his way of forming a bond based on familiarity and not the sign of contempt as he had thought for many years. At least most of the time. It seemed to Castiel, better to err on the side of positive thinking. Thank you again, Dr. Phil.
Castiel stared at the lasagne as it rotated.
Grghh hrrghh ghrrg GRRRRRKNKNKN
He could still hear something coming from the garbage disposal. He leaned towards it, the sound was sharp and discordant like metal on metal but Castiel sensed a pattern in the noise. Not just a repeating mechanical sound, but something that seemed - purposeful. Castiel, who could understand every language that had even been spoken, couldn't interpret it but it definitely seemed like an attempted to communicate. It was at least as expressive as when Dean grunted at him.
Grghh hrrghh ghrrg GRRRRRKNKNKN GRRRRRKNKNKN GRRRRRKNKNKN
The sound repeated and then it echoed back. From behind him. From the microwave, behind him. As Cas turned, the microwave started to rock and shake and sparks flew from the top of it.
KABOOOOOM!
&&&
When Castiel came to, Dean was kneeling over him with a look of concern on his face that was far less ambiguous than any insult.
"Cas? Cas? You okay?"
Castiel struggled to his feet.
"Yes, I… I didn't do anything Dean. It was the microwave and something in the garbage disposal unit. They were talking and then yelling and everything exploded."
In the middle of the room, Sam was spraying the microwave with a small fire extinguisher. Foam spattered his flannel and his hair, as if he'd just come in from the snow.
Castiel leaned on the table. The grace inside him felt resentful, as if it was healing him only reluctantly.
"Concussion. Sit down."
Dean helped him into a chair, looking over at where little wisps of acrid smoke curled upward from the ruined microwave.
"It wasn't me," Castiel repeated somewhat more forcefully. He didn't want the Winchesters thinking him less competent than they already did.
"We know, Cas. The record player and the bar fridge in the library both put on a fireworks display," said Sam as he brushed himself down. "And we heard weird noises too."
&&&
"So, what's going on here? Could it really be some sort of possession? I mean, if Cas thought the noises were voices then maybe it is a ghost or something…?" Dean was finishing reassembling his guns.
"Maybe, the ghost really is in the machine," muttered Sam as he started browsing the internet, although for what, he didn’t know.
"Actually, wasn't that an X-Files episode? Where a computer was making machines kill people?"
"Yes, but kitchen appliances? It's not like they're networked." Sam had found a blog titled "Help, My Kitchen is Possessed" but it seemed to suggest that rats were the culprits.
"So, an actual ghost then? Some pissed-off dead Man of Letters?"
"I suppose," Sam set his laptop down. "I'll have a look through the index file and see what there is - there's a whole section on cases that took place in the bunker."
"Sure thing - load me up with some files."
"I understand how things are organised around here better." Sam put his laptop on the table as he walked over to the main card index. "Why don't you get some weapons and supplies together?"
Dean was about to protest - not that he chose research willingly but it was like Sam couldn't bear to be in the same room as him. Dean sucked it up, though. If this was his punishment, so be it. Not that he didn’t deserve this and more. At least Sam making his life hell meant Sam was still here to make it hell.
"Sure - you hit the books. I'll run the EMF over the place and get some gear together. And see if Cas can make himself smell less like he's dating a dolphin."
&&&
When Dean returned, Sam had opened the laptop again and spread out on the table around him were files, index cards and a pile of books. Dean dumped a couple of bulging duffle bags on the floor and sat down.
"The EMF was off the fucking charts - everywhere! I think it's all the storm activity. Either that or every ghost on the planet has taken up residence here." The lights flickered as if in assent.
Sam pushed a stack of papers towards Dean, fanned out so he could see the small black and white photographs pinned to the top right hand corner of each top sheet.
"There were nine Men of Letters who died here in the Bunker. Well, seven men and two women. The first one was Peter Jenkins, who was killed by James Haggerty after the Wicked Witch took control of him. The last one was in 1950 - Rachel Fienberg."
"What happened to her?" Dean was digging all the flashlights out of one duffle, flicking them on and off to test the batteries and lining them up on the table. He paused to pick up and study the photo of Rachel Fienberg. She had shoulder length curly hair and dark intense eyes. Dean thought she looked fierce. And hot.
"Died after being bitten by a Vetala. They had one captive and were trying to synthesise an antidote to its poison in the lab here." Sam pointed off over Dean's shoulder in the general direction of the lab, which was in a corridor off the library. "Rachel was trying to get the venom from it when it attacked her."
"I suppose she might be pissed enough about that to hang around and fifty years later possess a toaster."
Sam leaned back in his chair, running his fingers through his hair.
"I don’t think so. I mean, any of them," Sam poked at the pile of photos, "could have reason to hang around, although the Letters guys were pretty careful in terms of salting and burning."
"I don't think it’s a ghost." Castiel entered, smelling cleaner and fresher than before. Obviously his angelic powers of clothes cleaning were intact.
"Cas - where have you been?"
Castiel picked up a flashlight and turned it on. After 200 lumens of light hit him in the face, he turned it off quickly and spent several moments blinking hard.
"I thought if it was a ghost or even a demon," Cas explained, trying not to be distracted by the white shapes floating in front of his eyes, "I might be able to sense the spirit. But, I could feel nothing."
"What about an angel, Cas?" Sam looked at him with a challenge on his face. "Oh that's right, you're not great at sensing them even when they're hiding in plain sight, are you?"
A silence ensued that was on the epic side of awkward. Sam immediately regretted his comment.
"That is true, but I still think I would be able to sense a human spirit."
"Tell me, if not a ghost - then what? The place is warded against so many things…" Dean glanced up at the line of tiles around the library - on the walls and the floors - that bore a variety of protection symbols.
The lights flickered again. Once, twice and then the room went dark.
There was the sound of an explosion, as the radio panels in the war room lit up like the Fourth of July.
"Shit." Sam rushed over. There were no flames, but the smell of singed rubber and scorched Bakelite filled the air.
The lights came back on.
Dean paced the library, looking up and around as if he could see what had caused what had just happened.
"This is getting worse. We just gonna sit around here with our thumbs up our asses? Cas, c'mon man, haven't you got anything?"
"I'm sorry, Dean. I do not know what is causing this and do not know how to stop it."
"Have the storms got anything to do with it? Lightening strikes or something? It all seems electrical related."
Sam pulled his laptop towards him.
"Let me see… The National Weather Service in Topeka has issued a weather advisory - electrical storms, tornados - all centred on this part of the state. And get this," he leaned in as he continued reading, "something was seen striking the ground near Lebanon Kansas: ‘local authorities say nothing was found at the site and suggest it could've been a meteor that burned up on entry into the earth's atmosphere.’ You know what that sounds like?"
"Damn," Dean clenched and unclenched his fists. "An angel falling?"
Castiel shook his head. "No - I would've heard chatter about that from the other angels. Besides, unless it was Metatron himself, there is no-one left to fall."
"Dorothy said that tornados could open portals to the fairy realm," said Sam. "Maybe something came through from there or somewhere else."
"So, it could be flying monkeys or anything. Great!" Dean slumped in the chair between Cas and Sam.
The lights flickered again. Three of them shorted out in a bloom of sparks.
"Fuck it," Dean slapped his palm on the table. "We don't know what it is, but maybe we can work out where it is and what it's doing."
&&&
Blueprints covered the table. They might as well be the plans to the Death Star, thought Sam, for all he could make out of them.
Dean was rearranging them into groups that seemed to mean something to him.
"Well, These are the original construction schematics and this lot are about the work done in the late forties to extend the garage and…did you know there's a sauna and spa and what could possibly be a bowling alley on the second floor?"
"Glad to know the Men of Letters weren't suffering while saving the world." Sam's brow creased as he stared down at the schematics.
"Well, I know exactly what I am doing once we've stopped…well whatever this is." Dean carefully slipped one floor plan to the side.
"Where was that noise I heard in the kitchen coming from?" asked Castiel.
Dean centered one of the blueprints on the table and traced his finger across it. "It looks like whatever you put into the garbage disposal gets ground up and then flows down to the basement down here…"
"We have a basement? Huh." Sam wasn't that surprised; they still hadn't explored the entire complex.
"Yeah three, no four floors down. You go down the stairs," Dean pointed to the spiral staircase at the rear of the library. "And down a short corridor and then another flight of stairs. It houses something that’s part of the power plant. See this area appears to be a reinforced vault and …"
"What's this?" Sam jabbed his finger at a dotted double line.
"I think it's an underground stream, it seems to run through the vault then out - that’s where the stuff from the garbage disposal empties into it - and then it seeps back through the rock into the stream that runs behind the power plant above us."
"So, Maybe whatever hit the ground near us," Castiel paused as he thought it through, "is trying to get into whatever it is in the basement that powers the power plant?"
Dean straightened up. "The question is what hit the ground, what's in that vault and what's it got to do with why things are shorting out?"
"That's three questions, Dean." Castiel was always helpful in pointing out the bleeding obvious.
"Charlie did say that the computer partly ran on magic? Makes sense that there was some spell work or something involved in the power plant." Sam nodded as things started to fall into place. "I mean, think about it - great electricity, Wi-Fi, whatever it is that stops our cell signals being tracked here, the world wide angel detector table…"
The lights flickered, once twice and everything went dark.
They didn't come back on.
"Fuck."
"Cas, is that you?”
"Hey, who touched my...?"
"Owww!"
"Is that your-?"
"It's a flashlight!"
Beams of light sliced through the darkness.
"We need to head to the basement." Dean swung one of the duffle bags onto his shoulder and handed the other to Castiel.
"Wait!" Sam grabbed his arm. "Dean, we've got no idea what we're dealing with. It's obviously not something we can just stop by shooting it. Rushing in, making decisions when we don't have all the information… Doing the first thing that seems like a good idea usually isn't."
In the dark, Dean couldn't see Sam's face, but he could feel the anger radiating from him. Dean guessed he was still not as angry with Dean as Dean was with himself. About everything.
"So what, Sam? We just sit around 'til it kills us in the dark? Fuck, I wish it was the damn robot apocalypse…" Dean kicked at a chair. "Wait… maybe it is!"
Castiel spoke quietly, as if to calm Dean. "I think you are confusing movies with reality."
Sam shone his flashlight in Dean's face. "What?"
Dean moved out of the light and sat up on the table.
"In some mythology there are Elementals. Beings that represent and are composed of the elements - water, earth, fire, and air - and they're not only made of those elements but they control them. So like an Air Elemental would control the weather, and a Fire Elemental controls, well, fire. And you can also get Stone Elementals, and Ice Elementals…"
"I know some of the elemental stuff from Greek mythology," said Sam, to no one's surprise. "How do you know all this?"
"There's a bit of stuff in Bobby's journal about alchemy." Dean cleared his throat. "But mainly from Moondoor. "
"What?" Sam and Castiel chorused.
"Charlie set up an online gaming version of Moondoor called Battle of the New Ages. She showed it to me before she and Dot fucked off to Oz. You get to fight things and you have to collect spells and go on raids and quests and I was in this clan…"
"Let me guess," said Sam. "You were a dwarf with a giant hammer."
"No, actually I was a warrior priest, highly regarded for my spell work," replied Dean not at all petulantly but with all the gravitas befitting an Elder Mage of the WolfBlood Clan. "Anyway, in the game there are Elementals. They can cause destruction and chaos, but they can be controlled by spells so their forces are contained."
"Like Cas said - still aren’t real, Dean."
"Hey, we fought the Wicked Witch of the West right here in this room! So, don’t talk to me about what's real. All this shit, everything we fight, is a story from somewhere. I didn't used to believe angels were real."
"He has a point," said Sam to Castiel.
"All lore does come from somewhere," Cas agreed. "And if it's a being from another realm, then that may be why I couldn't sense it. What sort could it be though?" Castiel replied.
"Well, there's some connection to electricity and the power plant. Metal conducts electricity. Maybe it’s a Metal Elemental,” pondered Sam.
"Hey guys, I'm right here." Dean waved his arms making his flashlight beam bounce around the walls of the library.
"You said these things could be controlled by spells?" asked Sam.
"In the Moondoor game, yeah. What are you thinking?"
"Maybe the Men of Letters trapped an Elemental to help power the bunker," Castiel interjected. "If they exist and if you can control them that way."
"Yes," agreed Sam. "And maybe something has come from another realm and landed here and is trying to make contact with the one trapped in the basement. If it came from another dimension, maybe it's trying to take our Elemental back? E.T. go home?"
"Okay, we need to find a spell to destroy it, preferably the intruder one only so we don’t destroy the power plant."
"I'll never get the spa and sauna going if that happens." Dean's pre-emptive disappointment was palpable.
"Look, best case scenario is that the plant just shuts down. Mind you, that could mean we are trapped in here with no power, which also means there's no ventilation, but I figure it would take us a few weeks to use up the air supply. Worst case is that the whole thing blows up taking us and a chunk of Kansas with it."
There was silence for a moment, before Sam continued.
"Cas, if these Elementals have some connection to Greek mythology, we might find something useful in the Greek section of the library. Room 18 on the second level has a whole bunch of Greek parchments I haven’t even looked at - can you start there? I'll look at the collection up here." As Castiel left, Sam moved over and started picking books off the shelves.
Dean looked at Sam's form in the dim light, moving with purpose amongst the shelves of ancient books. There was more purpose in Sam, more energy than he'd seen in, well, a long time. He shuffled the blueprints around and rolled up a couple.
"I'm going to see how this thing might be moving around."
&&&
Dean was back in the library, drawing marks on the blueprints, which were surrounded by a dozen candles. The flashlights had stopped working, spluttering briefly to life, then dying as if something kept sucking the batteries dry.
Dean was in the middle of explaining the results of his survey to Sam, when Castiel returned carrying a long parchment scroll. His angelic power seemed to help him in the dark as he managed to navigate gracefully past each chair and table corner Sam and Dean had been banging into. He stood quietly as Dean continued.
"So, I used the metal detector app on my phone. There appear to be heavy concentrations of metal running down the wall from the kitchen,” he made a cross on the map, “to the room below it,” and another one, “and the one below that,” and another cross. “Then, metal levels go back to normal right down to the basement."
"I told you not to go to the basement."
"Keep your pants on. I didn't. Well, just to the door. Anyway, I noticed there were makings on the plans, which indicated something running through the walls. And I found this…"
Dean placed a handful of deep sea-green glassy fragments on the table.
"It's obsidian. Volcanic glass. They’ve used it as an insulator in the walls - probably because it doesn’t conduct electricity. I found more of it the deeper I went. I bet we'll find that vault in the basement is lined with it."
"So, whatever is down there can't get out and maybe whatever has got in here, can't get down there." Sam speculated.
"Looks like it. I think what happened earlier was the elemental that came through in the storm trying to find a way through to the basement. It probably came through the walls and then was probably travelling through electrical wires. But, everything below level two seems to be self-contained both in terms of wiring and this glass insulation. So, that means it's basically trapped." Dean drew a line across the blueprint.
"So, Now we just need some way of getting rid of it. Cas, what do you find?
"The Greeks described the elementals but, it's all rather vague and there is much more recorded of their mythology than their science. But, I found some other texts about an Islamic alchemist from Persia who lived about thirteen hundred years ago called Jābir ibn Hayyān. He was the first person to look at the practical applications of the combination of chemical elements and the magic. "
Cas unfurled the scroll the length of the table.
"This scroll is a Latin translation of part of his Book of Stones. Jabir spent his life pursing two things - the way to transform base metals into precious ones like gold and silver…"
"The philosopher's stone! Which was also said to grant immortality!" Sam said excitedly.
"What you studied alchemy in your spare time?" Just sometimes, Dean got sick of Sam knowing something about everything.
"No - I read about it in Harry Potter. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The first book. Although they called it the Sorcerer's Stone here because, well they didn’t think people would understand what a Philosopher's Stone was."
"People not understanding a reference to medieval chemistry? Shocker! "
Castiel cleared his throat.
"The other part of Jabir's work was connected was takwin - the creation of artificial life."
"Woah. Very Dr. Frankenstein."
"Those experiments were unsuccessful - mostly."
"Mostly?" the brothers chorused.
Castiel held up a hand.
"The part that is relevant to us is the work where he managed to bring forth what he called the Life Elemental - the living forms of the elements. It seems he called them forth from another realm, rather than created them. They could take on a variety of shapes and forms. He has spells here for binding and trapping them and for banishing them."
"Not for destroying them?" Just our luck, thought Sam.
"No. Jabir saw the creation of life, of combining the physical and spiritual forces in nature, as a way of honouring of the creative power of God. He thought being involved in the creative act inwardly transformed and purified him. Jabir felt that the taking of any life corrupted the soul."
"Okay, well I don’t think any of us have to worry about tarnishing our souls… well, those of us that have them." Dean smiled at Cas, who couldn't see it in the dimness.
"Okay - so we banish it then. If we can find it."
Just then, all the candles sputtered out plunging the room into darkness.
"Sam, Dean. I think it found us!"
Down one wall of the library, silvery threads of liquid metal ran from ceiling to floor, like rain running down a window pane.
"It's getting stronger, manifesting. It probably gained strength from all the electricity it has been sucking up." Sam stepped, cautiously, closer. It was viscous like molten metal, although it wasn't radiating any heat.
"Yeah, well we can speculate on its care and feeding later. Let's get on with that banishing spell."
Dean had lit a large torch, about two feet long, something that wouldn't have looked out of place in a medieval village. Still, it threw enough light to read by. He walked back to the table.
"C'mon Sam, your Latin's better than mine."
Sam walked over and picked up the parchment, looking for the place where the banishing spell began. He read it over it to himself a few times before commencing the ritual. He read in a loud, confident voice:
"Si adversum me spiritus in hoc loco, Pugna metallo electri,Nihil in animas eorum expelle et usque ad ultimum potentiae, quod removendum vestigial, Haec sunt mala, in fugam, Per tempus et spatium."
"It's working!" said Castiel.
The thin threads of silver were indeed now flowing upwards, towards the ceiling. Dean shifted his grip on the torch, trying to hold it so Sam could read without getting without getting smoke in his eyes. He coughed a couple of times.
"What did you soak that thing in Dean, elephant crap?"
"Yes, I have a pet elephant called Angus in a pen off the garage. Now, shut up and read!"
Sam repeated:
"Si adversum me spiritus in hoc loco, Pugna metallo electri,Nihil in animas eorum expelle et usque ad ultimum potentiae, quod removendum vestigial, Haec sunt mala, in fugam, Per tempus et spatium."
“It's slowing down!" yelled Castiel. "Again!"
"Si adversum me spiritus in hoc loco, Pugna metallo electri,Nihil in animas eorum expelle et usque ad ultimum potentiae, quod removendum vestigial, Haec sunt mala..."
Suddenly the metal poured down the wall in a single solid sheet, like a thin aluminium shutter, except it disappeared right through the floor.
"Okay," said Dean, "the obsidian is thicker on the floor below. That should stop it getting to the basement."
Suddenly the whole room rocked.
CRASH! CRUNCH! KABOOM!
"Fuck!" exclaimed everyone.
Books flew from library shelves and index cards confettied into the air.
"It's like the opening scene to Ghostbusters!" Dean yelled to make sure he didn't drop the torch and incinerate them all.
"Is that a movie about an earthquake?" Castiel yelled back.
The floor stopped moving, mostly, but the thunderous sounds from below them were accompanied by shudders throughout the whole structure.
BOOM! CRASH!
Sam shouted, "We have to get down there, continue repeating the spell."
Sam furled the scroll under his arm, as Dean grabbed the duffle and shoved the other one at Castiel.
The staircase entered the floor below at the entrance to one of the training rooms, which looked something like a classroom. Or it used to. It was now just a mess of splintered wood and shattered glass. And in the middle of the room the entire floor was missing, leaving a gaping hole to the floor below.
Sam, Dean and Cas pressed themselves against the wall, Sam throwing his arms out to hold the others back, like a parent in the front-seat of a car.
Wary of the unstable floor, the three leaned forward slightly, just in time to see the top of what looked like a giant robot disappearing through the hole that extended not only to the floor below them, but the one below that as well. And the next one.
"Fuck!" exclaimed Dean. "We're gonna to need a bigger spell!"
&&&
When they got to the basement, the impossible was indeed true.
The Metal Elemental was dark gunmetal grey that made it hard to see in the dim light of the cavernous basement, but it stood at least forty foot tall on thick articulated legs, with long arms that ended in hands ten feet across. The thing looked like it was wearing armor over its metal body, which was overkill if ever Dean had seen it. Its head was topped with curved metal spikes and its eyes glowed like a cauldron of molten lead.
It was beating its fists against the curved wall at one end of the room, the vault that housed the other Elemental, and whatever else that was the source of energy for the power plant.
Dean placed the torch in a sconce on the wall and grabbed a machete from his duffle. He motioned at Castiel to move forward.
"Si adversum me spiritus in hoc loco..."
Sam started reciting the banishment spell again while Castiel and Dean stood armed with weapons and a great deal of doubt about what good they would do them.
"Nihil in animas eorum expelle et usque ad ultimum potentiae, quod removendum vestigia…"
The Elemental stopped its pounding and swung to face the stairs. It took only one step for it to be within arms reach but Castiel flung out his hand and a powerful blast shot forth, hitting the creature in the chest and making it stagger backwards.
"Go Cas! Keep it up!"
As the creature advanced, Castiel again sent out a burst of energy, but this time it was much weaker, and barely gave the monster pause.
"Haec sunt mala, in fugam Per tempus et spatium.
Si adversum me spiritus in hoc loco, Pugna metallo electri Nihil in animas eorum expelle et usque ad ultimum potentiae…"
Sam was yelling the spell now and they could see parts of the creature starting to return to liquid metal - thin streams bled from its fingers and the tips of its horns as the creature roared and advanced again.
Castiel's strike this time was weaker than a flashlight beam and one huge metal arm reached out and smashed against Dean, flinging him back into the stonewall.
"NOOO!"
Castiel released a burst of energy, slightly stronger than before, but as he dropped to his knees he knew he was spent. The Elemental didn't even pause, it returned to the vault, bashing with its whole weight against it. With each impact, it let out a deep roar.
HAROON! HAROOOM!
And from somewhere inside the vault, an answering reply came.
ROOOOM! AHAROOOM!
Sam ran to Dean, who was trying to stand, using the wall for support, blood smeared across his forehead and trickled down the side of his face. Sam helped him up, noticing how Dean winced and bit his lip. Dean had the pain threshold of a Mac truck, so Sam knew his brother was badly hurt.
"Sam, keep doing the spell."
"No, you take over." Sam rubbed a thumb over the cut on Dean's scalp, relieved to see it wasn't too deep. "It's too strong, Dean and Cas seems to have run out of angel mojo."
"I can still fight!" Castiel said, angel sword in his hand.
Sam retrieved the torch and handed it to Dean. Dean was barely standing, balanced wide with his feet apart, the torch in one hand and the scroll in the other.
AHAROOOM! HAROON!
The basement shuddered with each blow. They need this spell to work and work now.
"Look, we stand here at the edge of our hope, at the end of our time; we have chosen not only to believe in ourselves, but in each other. Today we face the monsters that are at our door and bring the fight to them. Today, we are cancelling the apocalypse!" Sam pumped his fist in the air.
Dean laughed.
"Dude, Pacific Rim? Really?"
"Hey, giant robot thing; seemed appropriate." Sam shrugged and smiled. A wide smile. A "fuck-this-lets-save-the-world" smile. Dean grinned back.
"Yeah well, Idris Elba is hotter than you!"
"C'mon let's do this. Cas and I will fight it off or at least distract it while you finish the spell. "
Dean took the scroll from Sam. Every inch of him wanted to refuse, but he knew Sam was right.
"Si adversum me spiritus in hoc loco, Pugna metallo electri, Nihil in animas eorum expelle et usque ad ultimum potentiae, quod removendum vestigial, Haec sunt mala, in fugam, Per tempus et spatium."
The spell seemed to enrage the elemental. It pounded harder and roared louder and then turned back to face Castiel and the Winchesters.
With one hand it picked up Sam, who fired at it as the Elemental's fingers tightened around him in a vice-like grip. Castiel leaped at it, plunging his angel sword into its eye, which caused a spray of sparks to issue forth.
As Dean kept repeating the spell, the Elemental reached an arm back towards the vault, which had developed a line of cracks along it.
AHAROOOM!
It called and whatever was in the vault replied
HAROON!
"The vault's cracking!" yelled Sam struggling within the Elemental's fist, trying to make every shot count.
"I know!" Dean shouted in response. "I think the banishing spell is pulling the Elemental from inside the vault. If it breaks out, everything could blow!"
"Argggh," Sam fired again, as Castiel, hanging one-handed from the being's mouth, stabbed at it again.
Dean looked over the scroll, squinting as he read further down, concentrating to translate the Latin in the dim light. He began reading from a new section:
"Lectus magna Occidentalis, Mare et aequora praesides Dimitte, quod nectit digerendum in spatio et tempore, Fac tibi in perpetuum pertransiret quae coniungit sperated Sic fiat."
The creature thrashed around, as Sam and Castiel shot and stabbed wildly at it. The crack across the vault seemed to have widened and a faint glow could be seen through it.
Dean read the new spell again, yelling it above the roar of the Elementals and the crash of metal on stone.
"LECTUS MAGNA OCCIDENTALIS MARE ET AEQUORA PRAESIDES DIMITTE, QUOD NECTIT DIGERENDUM IN SPATIO ET TEMPORE, FAC TIBI IN PERPETUUM PERTRANSIRET QUAE CONIUNGIT SPERATED SIC FIAT."
Sam and Castiel felt the metal around them soften and suddenly the Elemental was collapsing into a liquefied pool on the floor. As they scrambled clear of it, they watched in amazement as it flowed across the room and through the crack into the vault.
Then basement flooded with light and the room hummed as the electricity came back on.
And all that could be heard from the vault was a low bass sound, which sounded not unlike purring.
&&&
The lights shone brightly in the library.
Castiel passed Sam a plate upon which sat a five-tiered sandwich of delicious magnificence.
"Wow, thanks Cas!"
"Ish rlly gddd!" Dean uttered around a mouthful of sandwich. Castiel had managed enough power to heal the laceration on Dean's head, but from the way he sat, Castiel knew his body still ached from the battering it had taken. He and Sam both looked content though and Castiel allowed himself a moment's satisfaction and enjoyed watching the Winchesters demolish the lunch he had prepared.
When Dean stopped for a breather, Castiel asked, "Dean, how did you know to change the spells?"
Dean wiped some mayonnaise from the corner of his mouth and sucked it from his thumb.
"I figured that the banishing spell was splitting them up and was only making everything worse, so maybe what we needed to do was release the binding spell that was trapping the one in the vault, and then they'd be reunited. I mean metals and elements like bonding don’t they? They attract each other, they're stronger together?"
The metaphor hung in the air like a fart no one wanted to own.
"I thought maybe they'd both leave. But hey, they stayed, both of them in the vault, powering the bunker. Let's just hope they're happy setting up house here and that the new binding spell we whacked on it holds them both"
"It was a very inspired move, Dean," said Castiel earnestly.
Dean ducked his head a bit and smiled. "Well, couldn’t have done it without you two legends holding Gigantor at bay. Some pretty deadly work from both of you."
Sam had already finished his sandwich and glanced at Castiel, as if another sandwich might magically appear. When one didn’t, he cleared his throat and tapped at his phone.
"Well, the weather report says things are clearing up, so what's say we do some research and then get out there and see what the angels are up to."
"Great. Wonderful idea." Dean picked at his teeth and then stretched gingerly in his chair. "You two guys get geeking. I'm off to soak in our lovely, hot bubbly spa!"