Unexpected Destinies Chapter 171
Title: Unexpected Destinies
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash, character death
Word Count: 3,857
Summary: Sam and Gwen try and hold their own in the midst of large demonic and angelic battle.
FUTURE
Sam swore as the demon's knife caught him across the cheek but luckily it was just a scratch. Nonetheless he took great satisfaction in sticking the demon killing knife into the demon's chest and watching its eyes flare as it died. He was completely unable to enjoy his victory beyond that though as there were already two new demons ready to take the place of the one that he'd just killed.
"Fucking hell!" Sam cursed, dodging a blow from the first before kicking the second one's legs out from under it. "How many of them are there?"
"Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to," Gwen responded, shooting a demon full of rock salt.
"There has to be a finite number to their horde."
"Less talk, more killing."
Jesus but his family was weird. It was a fact that Sam had known ever since he was a little boy, even before he'd forced the truth of what their father did out of his older brother, and yet he was still somehow surprised by it even now. After all who else had a cousin who'd issue orders like that to them while standing back to back halfway around the world from home, fighting for their lives in the midst of a sea of battling angels and demons? It was the Apocalypse in a way that their other fights had never been, not even the final one in Stull Cemetery.
Gwen's presence disappeared from behind him, but Sam wasn't able to so much as turn his head to see what had happened as the demon before him now actually knew her hand-to-hand skills.
"My Lord will be pleased to see you, Sam Winchester," she stated, giving him a bloody smile.
"Seriously?" Sam demanded, totally unable to help channeling his brother. "That's the best you've got? You sound like a cheap movie villain."
The demon snarled at him and lunged forwards with a series of sharp jabs at his ribs that Sam had to dance back to avoid. "Laugh all you want now, Winchester, but we'll see who's laughing later when Father claims you as his own once more."
"Never going to happen!" Sam shot back, using the demon's forward momentum with her next move against her to trip her and throw her to the ground. "I'll never let him in again. Never!"
With that, Sam stabbed her viciously in the neck, his original target missed as she twisted in a failed attempt to avoid his killing blow.
"Sam, watch out!" Gwen cried out.
Acting on pure instinct, Sam shoved himself back- towards the sound of his cousin's voice- and only just avoided having his head blown off by a round from his own shotgun. Instead the blast hit another demon, sending him screaming backwards into two others that had tried to use the commotion to rush Gwen and himself. He ignored them in favor of the greater threat and glared at the demon that had found the weapon he'd lost in an earlier struggle.
"That's mine," Sam stated darkly.
"Not anymore," the demon taunted. "Now it's mine and I'm going to kill you with it."
Though the demon had raised and aimed the shotgun at him, the next shot came from a different direction entirely and it was the demon that crumpled to the ground. Not wanting to lose the chance to regain his weapon, Sam lunged forwards and pulled it from the corpse's hand before turning to face his savior. Surprisingly it was another black eyed son of a bitch.
"Huh?" Sam questioned.
"He disobeyed," the newest demon stated. "Lucifer's orders were quite clear when it came to you."
Oh, of course. He really should have seen that one coming and Sam would have kicked himself for the oversight if he'd had the time to do so. Instead he focused on his current opponent and tried to figure out the best course of action. The demon already had his gun up and ready, but it had also indicated that it wanted him alive as per the devil's orders. Which meant that he actually had the advantage here. Not pausing to think about it or the possible consequences if he was wrong, he brought his shotgun up and fired.
The fighting continued in a whirlwind all around Sam and Gwen and he'd totally lost track of where anyone was other than his cousin. Bobby had started off with them and he really didn't want to think too closely about what might have happened to the older hunter after they'd been separated; forced apart by a veritable wave of black eyed sons of bitches that had suddenly poured in out of nowhere, succeeding in forcing even the angels back onto the defensive. And speaking of the angels, was it just his imagination or were there a hell of a lot less of them now than there had been before? A few quick glances about seemed to confirm that fear and he felt a wave of terror wash over him at the thought.
If the demons were successfully killing the angels then what chance did the two of them stand? As if to make matters worse, the next angel that Sam caught sight of was carelessly stalking past the throng of demons without a care in the world, clearly indicating that it was the wrong kind of angel. And shit but just how many different kinds of allies did Lucifer have? Luckily for them, one of Heaven's angels arrived just at that moment and managed to distract the Hell's angel before it had a chance to catch sight of them. Or rather, to catch sight of him.
The thought made Sam swallow thickly but it gave him the little extra incentive that he needed to force back the demon in a little boy's meatsuit that had tried to strangle him. He was reluctant to stab him just in case the boy was still alive when a stream of water hit them and the demon screamed as its flesh began to sizzle and burn. With a smile, he use the demon's pain to twist it around so that Gwen had a better target and was able to hit him full in the face with the Holy water filled soaker that she'd gotten from Dean. He briefly regretted not taking one as well, but all things said and done, he infinitely preferred using the knife. Knowing that he was killing the demons rather than just forcing them to flee was far more satisfactory for him even if it meant that he had to get closer to his opponents in order to do it. This, however, was an exception.
The moment that the demon fled from the boy, Sam grabbed one of the many modified hex bags that he carried and shoved it into one of the boy's pockets. He didn't have the heart to feel for a pulse, far too afraid of what he might find. Besides, dead or alive, the hex bag was all that he could do for the kid now as there was no way that they could drag the boy along with them as they fought. If anything that was far more likely to get the kid killed than leaving him here unattended but closed to further demonic possession.
"Michael!"
The cry, though far away, carried clear across the fighting and Sam looked up towards it along with everyone else all around him. The volume of the voice alone would have been enough for him to know that it was an angel doing the talking, but combined with the familiarity of it and the name that it called out, he knew who it was that he would see even before he caught sight of the figure clad in a suit so white that it was almost painful to look upon in the bright sunlight.
Lucifer had arrived.
For one long, horrendous moment it was like this fact froze everyone on the battlefield, human, angel and demon alike. Then there was movement out of the far corner of Sam's right eye and he turned his head slightly even as dread rose swiftly within him, all but threatening to choke him. Dean. Or rather, technically, Michael. Not that it truly made any difference seeing as the archangel was currently using his brother as his vessel. If one of them fell in this fight, so would the other and that thought absolutely terrified him in a way that he'd not been in a really long time. He'd only just gotten his brother back, he couldn't lose him again, not right when things were finally starting to get better between them again.
At that particular moment Sam would have been willing to take anything, any kind of relationship with his brother, even a really shitty one, if it meant that Dean made it through this confrontation alive.
"Lucifer," Michael acknowledged, coming to a stop a short distance away from the devil.
"What? That's it, Brother? No big speeches on how I'm misguided and need to repent and that Father will take me back?" Lucifer sneered.
"No, we are beyond that now. Or rather, you are beyond that now."
"What ever happened to Father's love being all encompassing and His forgiveness total?"
"Father isn't here now, Lucifer, and my ability to forgive is not so absolute."
"And what of your love?"
"I never stopped loving you, Brother," Michael replied calmly. "Not even when I started hating you."
Those words made Sam flinch as if he'd received a physical blow. Though it was clearly Michael who was in control of his brother's meatsuit and the archangel's presence altered the tone of Dean's voice noticeably, it was also still recognizably his big brother's voice that was saying those words and they cut him to the quick even though they weren't directed at him. Michael had said the word 'brother' and his own relationship with Dean had gotten so strained that it wasn't entirely outside the realm of possibility that he could have heard those exact same words directed at him by his brother at one point.
Sam was happy to note that he wasn't the only one stunned and hurt by those words as Lucifer clearly hadn't been expecting them either. He couldn't help but feel a vindictive streak of pleasure at that. Let the bastard take that. Michael had clearly always been as forgiving of his brother's sins as Dean had been of his own, which meant that he really should be the last one to speak out against someone else's brother doing the same. But this was Lucifer that they were talking about here and that made all of the difference in the world as far as he was concerned.
The very distinctive click of a shotgun firing on empty drew Sam's attention to his left and he turned to see Gwen aiming at a demon that had decided to use the distraction Michael and Lucifer were causing to try and sneak up on her. Without a moment's hesitation, his cousin tossed the shotgun up into the air and grabbed hold of the barrels, using her new grasp to smash the demon's face in with the stock, pounding it a few more times afterword for good measure. He couldn't help but shake his head at the sight. There were times when Gwen really did remind him of Dean, which had always disturbed him on several levels as a female version of his brother was more than his brain could cope with even at the best of times.
The demon's attack though seemed to be the trigger for all of the other demons around them and Sam had to turn his attention back to the fighting rather than keeping an eye on his brother and Michael which he really wanted to do. Whenever he got a moment he did glance over though and what he saw made his mouth go dry. While he had seen two angels battling it out before, he'd never witnessed two archangels fighting until now and what a sight it was to behold. Demons and other angels fled, leaving a large circle of free space around the two brothers as they traded blows, their swords and power wreaking havoc all around them and decimating the ruins, reducing it even further to rubble.
Sam had absolutely no problems admitting that even having been Lucifer's vessel, he'd had absolutely no fucking clue as to the true power of an archangel. Nor that he was both awed and terrified beyond belief just now, and no small part of himself either. It was the first time that it really was driven home to him that if Michael was killed or failed, that they were truly and utterly screwed here. There was simply no way that they could even hope to stand up to this and he found it totally incomprehensible to him that they'd ever even thought that they could. God but they'd truly been hopelessly naive despite all of Castiel's attempts to make them realize the true power of an archangel.
Heaven's most terrifying and absolute weapons indeed.
Invisible power slammed into Sam and he cried out as he was sent flying, knocking into Gwen and sending them both tumbling to the ground in a hopeless mess of limbs.
"Fuck," Gwen cursed, managing to pull her water gun out and spraying the immediate area around them indiscriminately.
"Sorry," Sam said as he scrambled to disentangle them as the cries of demons hit with the Holy water sounded far too close for his comfort.
The next cry was far louder and Sam looked up to see a demon in a female meatsuit skewered on the end of an angelic blade. The angel that was revealed when the demon crumpled to the ground was one that he'd seen before, speaking with both Dean and Castiel at various times. The demons immediately around them all pulled back, clearly far more hesitant to face a Heavenly opponent that a few Earthly ones.
"Are you alright, Sam and Gwen?" the angel inquired.
"Yes, thanks, Xarael," Gwen replied.
Xarael? Now that his cousin mentioned the name, Sam vaguely recalled having heard it before though he couldn't immediately place where. Regardless of that, though, he was more than happy to accept any help that they could get, especially when it made the demons more wary of approaching them. He used the brief reprieve to look back up to see how Dean and Michael were faring but they weren't where they'd been before. Instead he caught sight of Castiel fighting Simiel, their blows just as violent and destructive as those he'd seen between Michael and Lucifer, or at least so they appeared to his human eyes. He knew the archangels themselves considered there to be a very distinctive and important power gap between themselves. A short distance away Raphael was battling what appeared at first glance to be two demons, but from the resistance they were managing to put up he wouldn't be surprised if they were actually some of the angels that had fallen with Lucifer and taken to the darkness more than some of their other brethren that had rebelled with the devil.
"Sam, down!" Gwen cried out and Sam dropped like a rock.
Despite his immediate reaction, he still felt like he could feel the salt rushing by his ears and Sam had to bite back the instinctive reaction to snap at his cousin for being reckless. Gwen had probably just saved his life and it was his own fault for getting distracted in the first place. Being down though gave him the perfect angle to shoot another demon that was creeping up on them. The one after that got a killing blow with his knife. Xarael's presence made the demons more wary but they still kept coming nonetheless.
It took Sam a while but when he was faced with a demon in a small male meatsuit that was threatening to trash his ass, he realized that the demons which chose to attack them with an angel in such close proximity weren't the usual run of the mill demons. No, instead they were now facing the slightly older and more powerful demons instead. On some level he didn't mind, but it did sting his pride more than a little that he was having such a hard time dealing with a demon a third of his size who wasn't wielding anything more than his fists.
"You think that puny little knife will save you, Sam Winchester?" the demon questioned with a laugh. "What? Too afraid to face me without it?"
Sam's eyes narrowed but he refused to rise to the bait. Not only did the black eyed son of bitch have a massive strength advantage over him, but given this one's serious fighting skills, he really, really wanted to kill it rather than making it flee the meatsuit that it had taken or vanish off to somewhere else. Those thoughts vanished as he had to pull one of the new moves that Dean had only just taught him to block the next blow. Instinct took over after that and all that he was aware of beyond his opponent was where in relation to himself Gwen and Xarael were. He wasn't sure how long it took, but it was more than enough time for the demon to land a few significant blows that left him aching before he managed to create the opportunity that he'd been waiting for and he instantly took advantage of it and buried his knife to the hilt in that demon's chest.
"Oh, Father, no!" Xarael exclaimed and Sam's heart stopped as he saw the expression of horror on her face.
His own head whipped around to see what was going on and Sam froze in place as he caught sight of a ball of what he could only describe as dark flames or light growing steadily larger in Lucifer's hands as the devil chanted something foreign that hurt his ears just to listen to.
"Dean! Michael!" Sam called out, desperately wishing he were closer.
His eyes darted about to see his brother covered in a veritable swarm of demons and Sam just suddenly knew that this had been a setup. This must have been Lucifer's plan all along, which meant that whatever the devil had planned was bad. Really, really, really bad. Before he could even think of doing anything else. There was a flash of light that seared Sam's eyes and all of the demons swarming over Michael all but melted away and the archangel was left free to turn his attention back to Lucifer.
It was too little too late though and Sam watched in horror as Lucifer thrust his hands out and the ball of dark flames shot straight for Michael, hitting the archangel right in the chest before morphing into some kind of purple lightning. It raced across Dean's meatsuit as Michael cried out in pain even as the two were blasted backwards and they were sent crashing through the ruined columns to sprawl brokenly across the rubble beyond. It had all happened so quickly that it took him a moment or two to fully process what had just happened but when he did his heart was racing in his chest.
As a result it took Sam far longer to realize that Michael wasn't moving than it should have.
"He's gone," Xarael whispered, shock and disbelief rife in her voice.
"What?" Sam demanded.
"Michael... he's... he's gone."
"What do you mean, he's gone?" Gwen pressed. "Are you saying that he's dead?"
"I- I don't know. His presence, it's just gone."
"Presence?" Sam questioned, eyes drawn back towards Lucifer as Castiel attacked the devil with a cry of rage.
Raphael instantly followed, but so did Simiel and the four archangels all but collided in a clash of sound and fury. The resulting battle was a sight to behold, terrifying and awe inspiring all at once.
"An archangel's presence is always felt unless they go to great lengths to either disguise or hide it. Michael's just vanished," Xarael explained.
Without truly thinking about it, Sam flung himself forwards into the mass of demons separating him from his brother. Dean had to be alive, his brother just had to be. He'd already lost Dean far too many times for it to be any other way. The demons that had seemed so much more challenging just a short while ago now hardly even stood a chance as he plowed straight through them, Xarael and Gwen at his back. He wasn't entirely sure whether that was because of his own fury or Xarael's but he frankly didn't care so long as it meant that he got to Dean.
They were making visible progress when there was a blinding flash of light that forced Sam to squeeze his eyes shut or risk losing his sight and his heart stopped in his chest. He knew that light, or at least he recognized it as being a far stronger version of something that he'd witnessed before in a storage room in upstate New York.
It was the light emitted by the dying Grace of an angel.
Part of Sam didn't want to open his eyes when the light died down because he knew that if he did so that he'd been totally unable to help but look over to see what had happened and he wasn't sure that he could handle that right now. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that one of the archangels had just been killed, the light had simply been far too much brighter than before for it to have been anyone else. The only question was which archangel had it been?
Despite the terror coiling in the pit of his stomach (or was it rather because of it?), Sam was completely unable to keep his eyes closed. He simply had to know the truth, no matter how horrible it could be as nothing could be worse than just not knowing. Automatically his eyes were drawn back to where he'd last seen his brother, meatsuit lying prone and broken amidst the rubble of the ruins. Relief flooded through him as he found Dean just as he'd last seen him, though it was instantly followed by the knowledge that he didn't actually know whether that was a good thing or not. True, there hadn't been the flare of dying Grace when Lucifer had unleashed whatever magic the devil had uncovered, but that didn't mean anything. For all he knew that flare of Grace didn't always happen or Lucifer had found some way of doing the angelic equivalent of destroying someone's mind while leaving their bodies physically intact.
The myriad of horrendous possibilities paraded through Sam's mind and his elation and relief instantly vanished. It was probably far too much to hope that it had actually been Lucifer that had been killed, wasn't it?
Sam's fears were realized when he finally turned his head to see Lucifer pull his sword out of his brother's throat.
A.N.: Here, finally, is the third timeline that I promised you all. And no, I'm not saying which archangel/brother that was at the end there.
*runs & hides*
Chapter 172
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash, character death
Word Count: 3,857
Summary: Sam and Gwen try and hold their own in the midst of large demonic and angelic battle.
FUTURE
Sam swore as the demon's knife caught him across the cheek but luckily it was just a scratch. Nonetheless he took great satisfaction in sticking the demon killing knife into the demon's chest and watching its eyes flare as it died. He was completely unable to enjoy his victory beyond that though as there were already two new demons ready to take the place of the one that he'd just killed.
"Fucking hell!" Sam cursed, dodging a blow from the first before kicking the second one's legs out from under it. "How many of them are there?"
"Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to," Gwen responded, shooting a demon full of rock salt.
"There has to be a finite number to their horde."
"Less talk, more killing."
Jesus but his family was weird. It was a fact that Sam had known ever since he was a little boy, even before he'd forced the truth of what their father did out of his older brother, and yet he was still somehow surprised by it even now. After all who else had a cousin who'd issue orders like that to them while standing back to back halfway around the world from home, fighting for their lives in the midst of a sea of battling angels and demons? It was the Apocalypse in a way that their other fights had never been, not even the final one in Stull Cemetery.
Gwen's presence disappeared from behind him, but Sam wasn't able to so much as turn his head to see what had happened as the demon before him now actually knew her hand-to-hand skills.
"My Lord will be pleased to see you, Sam Winchester," she stated, giving him a bloody smile.
"Seriously?" Sam demanded, totally unable to help channeling his brother. "That's the best you've got? You sound like a cheap movie villain."
The demon snarled at him and lunged forwards with a series of sharp jabs at his ribs that Sam had to dance back to avoid. "Laugh all you want now, Winchester, but we'll see who's laughing later when Father claims you as his own once more."
"Never going to happen!" Sam shot back, using the demon's forward momentum with her next move against her to trip her and throw her to the ground. "I'll never let him in again. Never!"
With that, Sam stabbed her viciously in the neck, his original target missed as she twisted in a failed attempt to avoid his killing blow.
"Sam, watch out!" Gwen cried out.
Acting on pure instinct, Sam shoved himself back- towards the sound of his cousin's voice- and only just avoided having his head blown off by a round from his own shotgun. Instead the blast hit another demon, sending him screaming backwards into two others that had tried to use the commotion to rush Gwen and himself. He ignored them in favor of the greater threat and glared at the demon that had found the weapon he'd lost in an earlier struggle.
"That's mine," Sam stated darkly.
"Not anymore," the demon taunted. "Now it's mine and I'm going to kill you with it."
Though the demon had raised and aimed the shotgun at him, the next shot came from a different direction entirely and it was the demon that crumpled to the ground. Not wanting to lose the chance to regain his weapon, Sam lunged forwards and pulled it from the corpse's hand before turning to face his savior. Surprisingly it was another black eyed son of a bitch.
"Huh?" Sam questioned.
"He disobeyed," the newest demon stated. "Lucifer's orders were quite clear when it came to you."
Oh, of course. He really should have seen that one coming and Sam would have kicked himself for the oversight if he'd had the time to do so. Instead he focused on his current opponent and tried to figure out the best course of action. The demon already had his gun up and ready, but it had also indicated that it wanted him alive as per the devil's orders. Which meant that he actually had the advantage here. Not pausing to think about it or the possible consequences if he was wrong, he brought his shotgun up and fired.
The fighting continued in a whirlwind all around Sam and Gwen and he'd totally lost track of where anyone was other than his cousin. Bobby had started off with them and he really didn't want to think too closely about what might have happened to the older hunter after they'd been separated; forced apart by a veritable wave of black eyed sons of bitches that had suddenly poured in out of nowhere, succeeding in forcing even the angels back onto the defensive. And speaking of the angels, was it just his imagination or were there a hell of a lot less of them now than there had been before? A few quick glances about seemed to confirm that fear and he felt a wave of terror wash over him at the thought.
If the demons were successfully killing the angels then what chance did the two of them stand? As if to make matters worse, the next angel that Sam caught sight of was carelessly stalking past the throng of demons without a care in the world, clearly indicating that it was the wrong kind of angel. And shit but just how many different kinds of allies did Lucifer have? Luckily for them, one of Heaven's angels arrived just at that moment and managed to distract the Hell's angel before it had a chance to catch sight of them. Or rather, to catch sight of him.
The thought made Sam swallow thickly but it gave him the little extra incentive that he needed to force back the demon in a little boy's meatsuit that had tried to strangle him. He was reluctant to stab him just in case the boy was still alive when a stream of water hit them and the demon screamed as its flesh began to sizzle and burn. With a smile, he use the demon's pain to twist it around so that Gwen had a better target and was able to hit him full in the face with the Holy water filled soaker that she'd gotten from Dean. He briefly regretted not taking one as well, but all things said and done, he infinitely preferred using the knife. Knowing that he was killing the demons rather than just forcing them to flee was far more satisfactory for him even if it meant that he had to get closer to his opponents in order to do it. This, however, was an exception.
The moment that the demon fled from the boy, Sam grabbed one of the many modified hex bags that he carried and shoved it into one of the boy's pockets. He didn't have the heart to feel for a pulse, far too afraid of what he might find. Besides, dead or alive, the hex bag was all that he could do for the kid now as there was no way that they could drag the boy along with them as they fought. If anything that was far more likely to get the kid killed than leaving him here unattended but closed to further demonic possession.
"Michael!"
The cry, though far away, carried clear across the fighting and Sam looked up towards it along with everyone else all around him. The volume of the voice alone would have been enough for him to know that it was an angel doing the talking, but combined with the familiarity of it and the name that it called out, he knew who it was that he would see even before he caught sight of the figure clad in a suit so white that it was almost painful to look upon in the bright sunlight.
Lucifer had arrived.
For one long, horrendous moment it was like this fact froze everyone on the battlefield, human, angel and demon alike. Then there was movement out of the far corner of Sam's right eye and he turned his head slightly even as dread rose swiftly within him, all but threatening to choke him. Dean. Or rather, technically, Michael. Not that it truly made any difference seeing as the archangel was currently using his brother as his vessel. If one of them fell in this fight, so would the other and that thought absolutely terrified him in a way that he'd not been in a really long time. He'd only just gotten his brother back, he couldn't lose him again, not right when things were finally starting to get better between them again.
At that particular moment Sam would have been willing to take anything, any kind of relationship with his brother, even a really shitty one, if it meant that Dean made it through this confrontation alive.
"Lucifer," Michael acknowledged, coming to a stop a short distance away from the devil.
"What? That's it, Brother? No big speeches on how I'm misguided and need to repent and that Father will take me back?" Lucifer sneered.
"No, we are beyond that now. Or rather, you are beyond that now."
"What ever happened to Father's love being all encompassing and His forgiveness total?"
"Father isn't here now, Lucifer, and my ability to forgive is not so absolute."
"And what of your love?"
"I never stopped loving you, Brother," Michael replied calmly. "Not even when I started hating you."
Those words made Sam flinch as if he'd received a physical blow. Though it was clearly Michael who was in control of his brother's meatsuit and the archangel's presence altered the tone of Dean's voice noticeably, it was also still recognizably his big brother's voice that was saying those words and they cut him to the quick even though they weren't directed at him. Michael had said the word 'brother' and his own relationship with Dean had gotten so strained that it wasn't entirely outside the realm of possibility that he could have heard those exact same words directed at him by his brother at one point.
Sam was happy to note that he wasn't the only one stunned and hurt by those words as Lucifer clearly hadn't been expecting them either. He couldn't help but feel a vindictive streak of pleasure at that. Let the bastard take that. Michael had clearly always been as forgiving of his brother's sins as Dean had been of his own, which meant that he really should be the last one to speak out against someone else's brother doing the same. But this was Lucifer that they were talking about here and that made all of the difference in the world as far as he was concerned.
The very distinctive click of a shotgun firing on empty drew Sam's attention to his left and he turned to see Gwen aiming at a demon that had decided to use the distraction Michael and Lucifer were causing to try and sneak up on her. Without a moment's hesitation, his cousin tossed the shotgun up into the air and grabbed hold of the barrels, using her new grasp to smash the demon's face in with the stock, pounding it a few more times afterword for good measure. He couldn't help but shake his head at the sight. There were times when Gwen really did remind him of Dean, which had always disturbed him on several levels as a female version of his brother was more than his brain could cope with even at the best of times.
The demon's attack though seemed to be the trigger for all of the other demons around them and Sam had to turn his attention back to the fighting rather than keeping an eye on his brother and Michael which he really wanted to do. Whenever he got a moment he did glance over though and what he saw made his mouth go dry. While he had seen two angels battling it out before, he'd never witnessed two archangels fighting until now and what a sight it was to behold. Demons and other angels fled, leaving a large circle of free space around the two brothers as they traded blows, their swords and power wreaking havoc all around them and decimating the ruins, reducing it even further to rubble.
Sam had absolutely no problems admitting that even having been Lucifer's vessel, he'd had absolutely no fucking clue as to the true power of an archangel. Nor that he was both awed and terrified beyond belief just now, and no small part of himself either. It was the first time that it really was driven home to him that if Michael was killed or failed, that they were truly and utterly screwed here. There was simply no way that they could even hope to stand up to this and he found it totally incomprehensible to him that they'd ever even thought that they could. God but they'd truly been hopelessly naive despite all of Castiel's attempts to make them realize the true power of an archangel.
Heaven's most terrifying and absolute weapons indeed.
Invisible power slammed into Sam and he cried out as he was sent flying, knocking into Gwen and sending them both tumbling to the ground in a hopeless mess of limbs.
"Fuck," Gwen cursed, managing to pull her water gun out and spraying the immediate area around them indiscriminately.
"Sorry," Sam said as he scrambled to disentangle them as the cries of demons hit with the Holy water sounded far too close for his comfort.
The next cry was far louder and Sam looked up to see a demon in a female meatsuit skewered on the end of an angelic blade. The angel that was revealed when the demon crumpled to the ground was one that he'd seen before, speaking with both Dean and Castiel at various times. The demons immediately around them all pulled back, clearly far more hesitant to face a Heavenly opponent that a few Earthly ones.
"Are you alright, Sam and Gwen?" the angel inquired.
"Yes, thanks, Xarael," Gwen replied.
Xarael? Now that his cousin mentioned the name, Sam vaguely recalled having heard it before though he couldn't immediately place where. Regardless of that, though, he was more than happy to accept any help that they could get, especially when it made the demons more wary of approaching them. He used the brief reprieve to look back up to see how Dean and Michael were faring but they weren't where they'd been before. Instead he caught sight of Castiel fighting Simiel, their blows just as violent and destructive as those he'd seen between Michael and Lucifer, or at least so they appeared to his human eyes. He knew the archangels themselves considered there to be a very distinctive and important power gap between themselves. A short distance away Raphael was battling what appeared at first glance to be two demons, but from the resistance they were managing to put up he wouldn't be surprised if they were actually some of the angels that had fallen with Lucifer and taken to the darkness more than some of their other brethren that had rebelled with the devil.
"Sam, down!" Gwen cried out and Sam dropped like a rock.
Despite his immediate reaction, he still felt like he could feel the salt rushing by his ears and Sam had to bite back the instinctive reaction to snap at his cousin for being reckless. Gwen had probably just saved his life and it was his own fault for getting distracted in the first place. Being down though gave him the perfect angle to shoot another demon that was creeping up on them. The one after that got a killing blow with his knife. Xarael's presence made the demons more wary but they still kept coming nonetheless.
It took Sam a while but when he was faced with a demon in a small male meatsuit that was threatening to trash his ass, he realized that the demons which chose to attack them with an angel in such close proximity weren't the usual run of the mill demons. No, instead they were now facing the slightly older and more powerful demons instead. On some level he didn't mind, but it did sting his pride more than a little that he was having such a hard time dealing with a demon a third of his size who wasn't wielding anything more than his fists.
"You think that puny little knife will save you, Sam Winchester?" the demon questioned with a laugh. "What? Too afraid to face me without it?"
Sam's eyes narrowed but he refused to rise to the bait. Not only did the black eyed son of bitch have a massive strength advantage over him, but given this one's serious fighting skills, he really, really wanted to kill it rather than making it flee the meatsuit that it had taken or vanish off to somewhere else. Those thoughts vanished as he had to pull one of the new moves that Dean had only just taught him to block the next blow. Instinct took over after that and all that he was aware of beyond his opponent was where in relation to himself Gwen and Xarael were. He wasn't sure how long it took, but it was more than enough time for the demon to land a few significant blows that left him aching before he managed to create the opportunity that he'd been waiting for and he instantly took advantage of it and buried his knife to the hilt in that demon's chest.
"Oh, Father, no!" Xarael exclaimed and Sam's heart stopped as he saw the expression of horror on her face.
His own head whipped around to see what was going on and Sam froze in place as he caught sight of a ball of what he could only describe as dark flames or light growing steadily larger in Lucifer's hands as the devil chanted something foreign that hurt his ears just to listen to.
"Dean! Michael!" Sam called out, desperately wishing he were closer.
His eyes darted about to see his brother covered in a veritable swarm of demons and Sam just suddenly knew that this had been a setup. This must have been Lucifer's plan all along, which meant that whatever the devil had planned was bad. Really, really, really bad. Before he could even think of doing anything else. There was a flash of light that seared Sam's eyes and all of the demons swarming over Michael all but melted away and the archangel was left free to turn his attention back to Lucifer.
It was too little too late though and Sam watched in horror as Lucifer thrust his hands out and the ball of dark flames shot straight for Michael, hitting the archangel right in the chest before morphing into some kind of purple lightning. It raced across Dean's meatsuit as Michael cried out in pain even as the two were blasted backwards and they were sent crashing through the ruined columns to sprawl brokenly across the rubble beyond. It had all happened so quickly that it took him a moment or two to fully process what had just happened but when he did his heart was racing in his chest.
As a result it took Sam far longer to realize that Michael wasn't moving than it should have.
"He's gone," Xarael whispered, shock and disbelief rife in her voice.
"What?" Sam demanded.
"Michael... he's... he's gone."
"What do you mean, he's gone?" Gwen pressed. "Are you saying that he's dead?"
"I- I don't know. His presence, it's just gone."
"Presence?" Sam questioned, eyes drawn back towards Lucifer as Castiel attacked the devil with a cry of rage.
Raphael instantly followed, but so did Simiel and the four archangels all but collided in a clash of sound and fury. The resulting battle was a sight to behold, terrifying and awe inspiring all at once.
"An archangel's presence is always felt unless they go to great lengths to either disguise or hide it. Michael's just vanished," Xarael explained.
Without truly thinking about it, Sam flung himself forwards into the mass of demons separating him from his brother. Dean had to be alive, his brother just had to be. He'd already lost Dean far too many times for it to be any other way. The demons that had seemed so much more challenging just a short while ago now hardly even stood a chance as he plowed straight through them, Xarael and Gwen at his back. He wasn't entirely sure whether that was because of his own fury or Xarael's but he frankly didn't care so long as it meant that he got to Dean.
They were making visible progress when there was a blinding flash of light that forced Sam to squeeze his eyes shut or risk losing his sight and his heart stopped in his chest. He knew that light, or at least he recognized it as being a far stronger version of something that he'd witnessed before in a storage room in upstate New York.
It was the light emitted by the dying Grace of an angel.
Part of Sam didn't want to open his eyes when the light died down because he knew that if he did so that he'd been totally unable to help but look over to see what had happened and he wasn't sure that he could handle that right now. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that one of the archangels had just been killed, the light had simply been far too much brighter than before for it to have been anyone else. The only question was which archangel had it been?
Despite the terror coiling in the pit of his stomach (or was it rather because of it?), Sam was completely unable to keep his eyes closed. He simply had to know the truth, no matter how horrible it could be as nothing could be worse than just not knowing. Automatically his eyes were drawn back to where he'd last seen his brother, meatsuit lying prone and broken amidst the rubble of the ruins. Relief flooded through him as he found Dean just as he'd last seen him, though it was instantly followed by the knowledge that he didn't actually know whether that was a good thing or not. True, there hadn't been the flare of dying Grace when Lucifer had unleashed whatever magic the devil had uncovered, but that didn't mean anything. For all he knew that flare of Grace didn't always happen or Lucifer had found some way of doing the angelic equivalent of destroying someone's mind while leaving their bodies physically intact.
The myriad of horrendous possibilities paraded through Sam's mind and his elation and relief instantly vanished. It was probably far too much to hope that it had actually been Lucifer that had been killed, wasn't it?
Sam's fears were realized when he finally turned his head to see Lucifer pull his sword out of his brother's throat.
A.N.: Here, finally, is the third timeline that I promised you all. And no, I'm not saying which archangel/brother that was at the end there.
*runs & hides*
Chapter 172