AN-The title of the story and the series is from "Demons" by Imagine Dragons.
I do not own anything.I've started another story arch with no clear end in sight. Please forgive me. XD
The Apocalypse came and went. To Heaven and Hell's overall embarrassment though, it did not have the expected results. The world didn't end, nothing was really resolved, reality remained somewhat intact, and God was a total no show for the entire thing even though everyone involved was pretty damn sure it had been all his bright idea to begin with.
If all sides were being perfectly honest with one another, as far as Apocalypses went, it was all quite disappointing. Without God's backing in the whole matter, the supposed last war to end all wars crapped out at the finish line with a lackluster stalemate of sorts for a non-epic ending. The Creator had left the building but not before taking all the game plans with him, failing to leave a forwarding address for all parties involved. Left to their own devices, both sides let the war run its course until the generals of either side met in a grand finale, the ultimate prize fight.
Heaven vs. Hell.
Good vs. Evil.
Michael, 'Who is like God', the sword of Heaven vs. Lucifer, 'The Bringer of Dawn', the fallen Morning Star.
Set on Earth, the battle between the archangels tore the world of humans apart, changing continents in time span of days after the careful workings of millennia. Land lines were torn like wet paper under their feet, shaking the earth and everything that lived atop and below it apart. California was lost entirely, the state falling into the ocean like a modern day Atlantis. Florida didn't fare much better, following the West coast in its descent soon afterward.
Though it all began in the states, the rest of the world was not spared from mishap, the archangels taking their fight global. From a backlash of Lucifer's wings, Japan was wiped clean off the map, though some would later claim that it had just been moved. Australia was cleaved into almost perfect halves by Michael's sword. Africa became the tattered and torn chew toy of the dogs of war, the continent getting new peninsulas left, right, and center as entire countries were torn from it and carelessly tossed over winged shoulder. After a roll and tumble between the grappling archangels, Italy became a series of islands as did most of Europe, forming a new complex archipelago. Asia as a whole was shredded apart into new smaller continents by careless blows and wayward kicks from the celestial combatants, leaving Russia in almost even pieces of three and China distortional parts of two. India was freed of its attachment to the former continent as well and left to its own devices. A failed tacked caused South America to shatter like child's tower of building blocks, the pieces left to float upon the oceans' surface.
Canada remained mostly intact for whatever reason, many had theories on this but no real answers. The same could not be said about America though. The fight had begun there and because the universe likes symmetry whether it's willing to admit it or not, it ended there as well. For all its sins, Michigan ceased to exist as did most of the Midwest, leaving behind a floating minefield of stone in its wake. Twisted metal and death were strange monuments and grave markers for the forgotten dead, the curious proprieties of gravity forever effected from that day on and plagued with a maze of restless spirits.
During the Last Fight, the archangels' wings wounded the sky itself, destroying the currents of ocean and air so that all the weather patterns of the planet changed and not for the better. It snowed in the Sahara, what was left of it anyway, while the new islands of the earth were pounded by rampant hurricanes and tidal waves like the world was having a cosmic cold and was trying desperately to clear its metaphorical lungs. Previously frozen land masses at the poles experienced heat waves for the first time since the beginning of it all, only to freeze solid and thaw again in rapid succession until something made up its mind and left them frozen for good. If any penguins had survived, they would have been relieved.
In the grand scheme of all things, the war ended not with a bang, but with more of a whimper and a simple yet disappointing fade to black. Michael and Lucifer paused long enough between blows to trade words instead, mostly insults but at least they began talking. Stilted exchanges followed which eventually developed into a full blown and very long overdue conversation between the brothers as they sat down on what was left of Arkansas and Georgia.
Opinions and universal outlooks are exchanged and examined by the combatants for the first time since the Fall. Michael still didn't agree with Lucifer's initial decision that had led to his plunge but felt his brother had his own duty to fulfill in hell. In turn, Lucifer understood Michael's devotion for their Father, having once felt that sort of love himself for their creator but also came to realize that his brother could have never chosen any different course of action due to it, a prisoner of his own love and making.
Time and God's departure had changed many things in Heaven, in Hell, and everywhere else in between so after much debate, the brothers came to a final decision. An agreement of sorts, a tentative truce, was hashed out between the archangels. Michael would rule in Heaven while Lucifer reigned in Hell and if God ever decided to show back up again, they would say that they gave the Apocalypse a good go but it just hadn't worked out. Hopefully, God would be in a mellow mood by then and let it slide.
And so the divine army of Heaven and the profane army of Hell withdrew from the Earth and left it pretty much to its own devices. Both sides were astonished to learn something vital about their Father's creation though.
Humanity was adaptable, extraordinarily so.
Humans, given half a chance, and sometimes not even that much, could acclimate to just about any situation. There were innumerable floods, earthquakes, and every natural disaster imaginable of course, along with the Four Horsemen spreading their own personal brands of chaos, mayhem, misery, and death. Many, many people died but the ones that survived learned, relearned, and foraged on with grim determination, tenaciously clinging to life with a mixture of technology, science, and some things that should have never been forgotten in the first place. They knew now that everything that went bump in the night was real and even worse, it was hungry and wasn't too picky about what it ate. In response to the new threats, crumbling volumes of lore was dug out of crypts, ruined libraries, and other hidden places to be dusted off. Old rituals were brought back into practice, and ancient magics were revived with an unprecedented fervor and following.
With the old came the merging of the new as well. Blessed swords of silver were laser inscribed with primordial runes of protection, guns were modified for rounds packed with salt, dead man's blood, and holy water, and Kevlar armor was marked with anti-possession sigils and lined with iron. Salt became more valued than gold and holy water could be found readily enough on anyone's person. Iron and silver became more cherished than gold or diamonds, and salt was a part of any home, working into the brickwork and foundations of all building new and old or preserved under duct tape or mixed with cement glue. Latin was spoken as a second language and for the sake of survival, even the smallest child could recite verses in it well enough to repel demons if need be.
The angels and demons that chose to wander or remain on earth, for one reason or another, found themselves faced with a determined, fierce opposition. Demons were caught in devil's traps and left bound there to rot if they were lucky. With alchemy revived in full force, dissection and organ harvesting was not an unusual practice.
On the other end of the spectrum, angels were banished and repelled, hard won Enchonian symbols painted in blood and carved upon the walls of homes and cities alike, keeping the celestial host out of the affairs of humans entirely.
The other monsters who used to live on the fringes were found out as well, the creatures of legend and lore no longer feeling a need to hide themselves. Werewolves, vampires, and all the others roamed the new scrawling countryside, eating anyone stupid enough who dared into their path. The would be nightmare kings of the new long night found out that they should have perhaps stayed hidden. Their return was hailed with silver bullets, iron blades, and banishment spells from behind salt circles and iron clad walls.
Like phoenixes from the proverbial ashes, the cities of man rose again and were considered safe to an extent, existing in a state of permanent lockdown with every wall, window, and armed watchtowers riddled with devil's traps, Echonian warding, iron in every fixture and salt in every spare corner. Technology creeped back in though like everything it was changed.
Magic ran alongside electricity more often than not, given birth and rise to Spell Hacking or the GITM, mages of technology. It was due to them that cars, phones, and computers were made a possibility again though no one was sure how they managed it and GITM weren't about to give away their secrets.
For better and sometimes worse, the smaller towns were left to their own devices and ultimately their own survival, becoming the beacons of civilization on the edges of infinity.
Between the last cities and the smattering of towns that lay beyond them was the remains of Earth, shredded, torn, and made wrong by the fury and the powers of Heaven and Hell. The laws of physics were suspended in some places, giving rise to floating mazes of frayed land or gravity wells that crushed anything living that wandered into them into paste. Deserts of ice and fire stretched out like oceans between strips of life sustaining land. The remaining fertile places were overly so, filled with dark, strange jungles of constantly moving shadows and vengeful flora. Like humanity, fauna adapted as well, becoming sharper, faster, and exponentially more vicious.
The only people who dared travel between these wide open spaces of madness and chaos were the Hunters.
Hunters were men and women who made it their business to deal with monsters in the most violent ways possible. They were seen as anything and everything by this brave, new world. Salvation for some, unsung heroes by a few, and necessary evils by others. Sometimes loved, sometimes abhorred, hunters would travel through the Frontier from town to town, seeking bounties, work, and even sometimes, vengeance.
Some did it for profit. Some did it for retribution. Some did it simply for the thrill, using whatever was at their disposal to eliminate the evils that walked the earth so openly now. Any hunter worth his salt knew one or two spells to aid them in this. The most common form of magic among them was soul binding magic. No one knew who started it or discovered it, but demons and angels alike got to find this out firsthand in force. Through ritual and an exchange of sorts, a hunter could enslave a demon or angel to not just their will, but their blood as well. Family members could inherit a bound being if the original caster died, a demon or angel condemned to serve a family for generations, never to see the light of Heaven or the hellfire of Hell again..
Out of the two, demons were the easier to ensnare and control. That and a hunter was less likely to feel guilty about binding a demon to do their bidding. Criminals sentenced to death were sold to hunters for these types of possessions, capital punishment taking on a new form of justice.
While more highly prized, angels were far harder to come by. Besides being a hell of a lot more powerful than demons, finding a vessel for an angel to inhabit was a very rare thing to come by. Unlike the damned who could possess any poor bastard, an angel needed a person of biblical blood and even more importantly, consent on that person's part. People who knew they were vessels hid this at nearly all costs, their secret basically a death sentence. Angel possession left the human a burned out, drooling husk if one somehow managed to survive the process of an angel coming and going. There were more than a few horror stories of desperate or power hungry hunters kidnapping potential vessels to force consent out of them.
For all their sins, the hunters became the thin red line for the remaining vestige of humanity between their survival and total destruction. As time passed as it did, certain families gained notoriety for their skill in the field and thus legacies were born.
Of the hunters, the Harvelles were probably the most well known if not the easiest to find, the family owning a bar at a crossroads in what used to be Kansas, an immense, multilevel building of blessed, rune carved wood so weathered it was silvery grey. The Roadhouse was haven and home for many a wayward hunter, a port in the storm, the building and land around it warded from everything by blood and rock salt to silver and semen. It was a place where a hunter could sleep safely, heal, grab a beer, info, or a job. The bar was run by Ellen and her daughter Jo, Ellen's husband given a hunter's funeral years back after a hunt turned bad and bloody. The mother daughter duo did a little hunting on the side when monsters stuck their noses too close to the bar but for the most part kept to their own. Their angel was a slim red head who went by the name of Anna who was their bartender/bouncer. She could often be found at Jo's side.
The Singers were the keepers of lore, secrets, and ancient knowledge, the levels of which remained unrivaled. It came at a price though as the last remaining member of the family will tell you if he felt like answering such a mundane question. Bobby Singer was the most skilled spell caster of a generation and fount of forgotten lore and ritual. He was also a shameless drunk and one hell of a paranoid bastard if one could believe Crowley, demon king of the Crossroads, who was Bobby's servant. No one knew how wily old hunter had managed that one and he wasn't telling.
The Turners were another family renowned for their use of magic and hunting prowess. The patriarch of the family Rufus was an especially famed for his use of incantation. The Turner also for having a long history and unspoken alliance with the Singers. Often referred to by Rufus as 'the girls', Rachel and Hester were a pair of angels that served the family, what was left of it anyway. Hunting was hard on bodies and the Turners were no exception, Rufus being a last remaining survivor of his name.
The strategists of the hunting world were the Fitzgeralds who were known for their innovative problem solving and out of the box thinking. They were also recognized, even among other hunters, for being a little strange and touched in the head. A fresh faced angel named Samandriel served the family but was treated as one of them, the angel found often enough reading the last surviving comics books with Garth, the current head of the family. Never too far from the pair, one could also find Frank Devereaux, Garth's older, crotchety cousin. One hell of a paranoid bastard, Frank was the family's GITM, a talented hacker of considerably skill and a hunter's go-to for all things tech.
Walkers were feared more than honored, their methods considered harsh and merciless even among their own kind. Uriel was their grim enforcer, the angel often seen with their most prominent son, Gordon. The less that was said about them, the better.
The Campbells were a pedigree of hunter all to their own, their lineage going all the way back to the Mayflower. A long line of hunters even before the end of days, there were very few things this family had not killed and even fewer monster who wouldn't turn tail when they heard hint that the Campbells were out and about on a hunt. The family believed in the sole use of demons, claiming that angels were too unpredictable. Azazel, Lilith, Meg, and Ruby were the family's demons, bound in chains of Latin, blood, and badly worded deals to the will of the family.
Chuck, a scion from a family of proven prophets had his madness, alcoholism and Raphael to contend with, though apparently the archangel was not a servant but divine protection, the archangel holding out for God to show up and prove everyone else wrong. Most saw the dour archangel's presence the main reason for the nervous prophet's drinking problem. While an excellent source for the whereabouts and on goings of the divine, Chuck was hard to find, the squirrelly prophet constantly on the move which made him irritatingly hard to pin down or locate at times. His most devout follower and scribe, Becky Rosen, could be contacted though for assistance.
Out of all the hunters though, when shit really hit the fan, when the hopeless needed salvation, when the desperate called out justice and vengeance, there was only one name that was whispered in equal amounts of prayer and fear.
Winchester.