The Tyrant's Plea, Excused His Devilish Deeds~ Milton's "Paradise Lost"
One morning the Sun rose, and it was black.
The world was neither cold nor dark; the fires of Hell had spread to Earth and set the planet ablaze with the flames of damnation. The light from above had gone out. High in the sky hung an eternally crescent, blood-red moon, contaminated. It had turned red the day the Sun went out. Stars fell from the unstable sky, shattering the ground, put out and misplaced until the blanket above was a mere shadow of the light it had once held. The world was a place of noise; the sky split over and over, white cracks flashing above as thunder rumbled and shook the land.
Hail of fire and blood plummeted to the seas, turning the oceans crimson. Oceans emptied and dried, leaving marine creatures flailing upon beds of salt.
The earth quaked, reshuffling the land, swallowing terrain like a scroll reeled in. Mountains sank beneath oceans and continents shifted out of place. Land became monotonous. Caves moves from mountainsides to deep trenches. It was there that the remains of mankind hid. Numbers dwindled as two billion at a time were put to rest.
The air filled with smoke from Below, clogging up anywhere life had once thrived. What had once been green was now shrivelled and empty. The soil was of wormwood, blackened and inhospitable. The atmosphere was thick with Hell-smog, full and suffocating and oppressive.
For this was the end.
His feet had developed a hard, leathery sole that withstood the debris beneath them. They did not cut, bleed or burn. They were immune; they belonged to the instigator. This was his world. Sam Winchester now ruled Earth and Below, and it would not be long before the Above was in the palm of his hand too.
Hell was not the prison it had once been. Sam had solved that. Devil's Gates across the globe lay open, allowing permanent passage. The two lands one separated were now united under Sam's rule, and the difference no longer existed. Earth was Hell. And Sam led both. But he ruled them alone.
Lilith was a memory; Alistair had spent his final moments pleading for mercy. Sam had torn the torturer apart with his mind, stretching and burning the smoking entity until there was not enough left even for Hell. It had taken years of manifestation for Sam to reach his potential. For years he had lived with only a shadow of the true power he possessed. But Sam's anger had burnt so long and hard that it had crumbled the walls held up in his subconscious, and his full wrath had been released. The fires of his power burned so deeply that demons were no longer simply exorcised, but destroyed. Nothing stood in his way. After Alistair, Sam decided no one would hold authority over him, and went for the source. He reached the very centre and stronghold of Hell and set the MorningStar alight as bright as his name. Sam was now the only ruler left. Save one.
Heaven was not yet his.
None had succeeded in taking the Above. Sam did not care – none had more reason to succeed than him. Heaven held the one thing he cared about. Nothing had eased Sam's search, not in what felt like eons. No power down Below could help him, and no power Above offered. So Sam decided to take on the battle himself. He would claim the final free realm as his own and put the hunt to rest.
Sam's eyes roamed his kingdom; his gazed washed over the land and rose to the sky. Dusk approached, although it made no difference. The jet-black sun, lined by a pale glow of white, sat on the horizon, sinking slowly behind a flat plain of desolate land. A black mist hung over the ground, swirling and whispering. Humans hadn't been seen in these parts for a very long time. Humans hadn't been seen in any parts for a very long time. Sam had become more akin to demons than his own race. He now felt more comfortably surrounded by his own kind than ever before; this was an irony he had long tried to deny.
Demonic soldiers aligned themselves in formation behind their master. They served him with undying loyalty, for he had given them the world. They would follow him unto any end. Sam's golden eyes flared; he stood perfectly still, more immobile than stone. Yet his mind buzzed and raced; power fluctuated, the sky rumbling at every high and the sea turning at every low. He turned with his back to his troops, ready to relocate the battlefield.
A few hundred yards away stood great gates of light and purity. Music, perfectly harmonious, seeped out from between the bars and the army shuddered in its presence. Their very existence rebuked the sensation. The base of the gate was embedded in healthy earth, but merely inches from it was evidence of Sam's destruction. Soil was ebony and smoking even here. Sam smirked, prepared; but the display did not quite reach his eyes, which dulled to a pearlescent glow in the midst of holiness.
A celestial light rose behind the gates, climbing higher and higher into the black above before shooting down, lighting its path as it moved with frightening speed. The entity grounded between Sam and the heavenly gates in a ball of pure, steaming light. Dust flew up, clouding the air and bathing the atmosphere in a gentle haze, almost luminescent. Out of the mist stepped a beautiful being of grace and righteousness. Sam raised his chin towards the being with narrowed eyes of milky gold.
"Castiel."
Sam looked upon the angel's true visage with ease. His power brought immunity from an angel's real presence – Azazel himself had embodied angelic qualities. He had once been pure. Similarly, was the voice of an angel nothing more than a simple voice to his ears. Angels were no threat to this dark king; he had proved that when Uriel had dared try and overthrow his rule. The holy light had been cast from him as Sam let him deteriorate to dust at his fingertips. Castiel had witnessed his brother's death; he was well-aware of what stood before him.
"Haven't seen one of your kind in a while," Sam sneered, his feet firmly planted in the devastation he had sewn. The power that burned within him was a twisted light, mutilated when Azazel had fallen. The aptitude for creation had been perverted into ruinous destruction.
"Sam," it had been years since anyone had spoken his name, "look at what you have done." The angel's voice was a melody, even the air around him pulsed with life, the black of the soil seeping away to leave a fertile brown. "Earth's days are increasingly numbered under your hand."
Sam didn't answer. Deep, suppressed emotions bubbled up at the sight of the angel, but only a dark smirk graced the Winchester's lips. He would not have long to worry. He would destroy this angel and all others when he purged Heaven.
"You will not take my Father's kingdom," the Angel spoke calmly, without doubt.
"You once said the same for Earth."
"We fought for the earth, yes, but it is no longer worth the sacrifice. You may think the battlefield is about to shift, but it ceased to exist long ago."
"You're wrong. You hide up here with your brothers and your father, shielded and protected." Sam's voice rippled through the air as thunder. "My army will crush you all."
"Sam," the Angel pressed. "Do you not see what has become of you? You have become exactly what Azazel always planned; the destiny he had put forward for you."
Sam's defences faltered momentarily. The waves evened and the wind settled. He had not spared a thought for Azazel since Lilith had died screaming and cursing his name.
"I know why you are doing this," the angel reasoned with rationality. "You will not get him back. You cannot find him; he's gone."
Lightning split the sky and the Earth shuddered under his rage. Sam's fury bled through his fingertips. Static crackled and even Sam's army retreated in fear of their master.
"You took him from me," Sam breathed, his eyes molten pools of gold.
Castiel did not flinch or cower, but stood firm in the presence of Sam's rage. "We tried."
Sam balled his fists. Another mountain fell.
"Even we cannot retrieve him from inexistence."
"You lie!" Sam roared, and the earth shifted beneath their feet. Great chasms and welts appeared where the soil sank.
"We do not lie. Sam, you must cease; the world has fallen at your hand. Heaven is not yours to conquer. Haven't enough died?"
"If you had given Dean back, the count would be far less." Sam would not accept what the angel insisted as truth.
Castiel looked up with solemn eyes. "Then when desire has conceived," he quoted," it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full-grown, brings forth death."
Sam tipped his head to one side, jaw clenched and brow furrowed. The angel drifted forward.
"Dean was your desire, Sam. That desire is what caused this. You did this all on your own."
As the angel continued to approach, Sam began to advance, his palms itching with his own energy, a force unmatched. Not by Lilith, not by Uriel, not by Lucifer.
Castiel stopped, and for the first time in months the sky lit up as a score of shooting stars rose from Castiel's home territory and planted, flanking their brother. The air cleared to reveal the stretch between Sam and the heavenly gates full of angels. Sam was not afraid of them.
One final ball of burning light shot into a sky dark once more. The light receded, swallowed by the black of the Sun as the star hit beside Castiel. The glow did not fade in the presence of this being; Sam was only surprised he would see him so early in the battle.
The second angel did not speak, but his silent approach did not faze Sam. The two met, each facing the other, Sam laughing, the angel faceless.
"Michael." Sam acknowledged the warrior before raising a steady hand.
"I am sorry, Sam," Castiel uttered from behind a silent Michael; his voice sorrowful.
Michael stretched forward what may have been his own hand over the Winchester's and held it to Sam's cheek. The dark ruler screamed; it was a sound that disturbed the world unlike anything before or since. Living souls shrank into themselves, water receded and the remaining stars were pushed from view, coating the night in a complete black as Azazel's heir crumbled.