Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural
AM: Thank you PrawnNetwork for the prompt. Sorry it took so long to get it out.
A long time ago, there were four brothers.
They weren't your average siblings. They were ancient, powerful beings, harbingers of the end of the world.
They were the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.
The youngest of them was Pestilence, who controlled and created all forms of disease and blights. Like any youngest sibling he could be immature and even rebellious his double role as Conquest gave him a somewhat unpredictable personality, leading to some possibly catastrophic behavior on occasion.
The second-youngest brother was Famine. Despite being the embodiment of hunger, he was often the more even-kneeled of the brothers, and the first to realize long term consequences.
The next brother was War. He could be oddly calm for his name, but that doesn't mean he couldn't get angry.
The oldest of all of them was Death. He was the most powerful of all the brothers, as one day all things will die. Being Death, he had a unique, big-picture perspective on things, which is why that, whenever the brothers had an argument, he was usually the one to sort things out.
Case in point, a particular incident during the dark ages.
It all started when Pestilence created a new disease and sent it out into the world, quickly spearing throughout Asia and Europe. It caused swollen, infection-filled boils to pop up on the victim's body, and possible turn parts of the body gangrenes. This was followed by acute fever and vomiting of blood. Most people died within to seven days. And died they did. Soon it wiped out half the continent.
"This is my greatest creation yet," Pestilence thought gleefully, watching a house where everyone had died being burned down, "I must show it to my brothers."
And so he invited War and Famine to a nearby town where they had put all the pluge victims into one large building.
"Is this what you wanted to show us, Pestilence?" Famine asked, staring at the ramshackle strucre.
"Somewhat," Pestilence replied, "Or rather, what is inside."
Making themselves invisible to the humans, they walked into the building. The two older horsemen were initially shocked at the states of the dying people the lined the walls, but quickly regained their composure.
"Isn't it amazing?" Pestilence beamed, "It's so devastating that they're calling it the black death!"
"It is impressive brother." Famine admitted.
"Yes." War said, but there was a tinge of doubt and worry in his voice.
"What is it, War?" Pestilence asked, seeing his brother's concerns.
"Your new creation is excellent," War agreed, "However, I fear you might have done it too well this time. You run the risk of whipping humanity out if you're not careful."
"Like you don't kill plenty humans." Pestilence replied defensively.
"I can afford to," War replied, "If I run out of humans I can always cause War among demons or angels or the like. You do not have that luxury."
"And what does that mean?" Pestilence asked.
"Humans are the only creatures on this planet that ever shown signs of disease." War explained, "You are irrevokealbly tied to them, for if they were gone, you could not do your work."
Pestilence's look set in look of anger.
"What War means is-" Famine began, trying to defuse the situation before things got out of control.
"I know what he means," Pestilence said, before storming up, leaving his two older brothers in the Plague house.
"Now look what you've done!" Famine cried, shooting War an angry look, "Who knows what he'll do now. We cannot have disputes over little things like this, otherwise, the whole world will notice!"
"And what will the whole world do about it?" War challenged, "Besides what's the worst he could do?"
It turns out the worst Pestilence could do was try to create his most powerful disease ever, on that affected supernatural creatures.
He experimented on every matter of creature he could get his hands on, using every type of deasie he had ever made. He spent months on it, but nothing worked. Until one day he was feeding one of his captive vampires, and steam started coming out of his month and he started howling in pain. In response Pestilence carefully took a swab of the vampire's saliva and tested it. It appeared that he had created a compound that became acidic when combined with human blood. He created more of it then spread it to every vampire he could find.
The acid plague spread like wildfire effecting almost every vampire on the planet. Many tried simply switching to animal blood, but it still burned them from the inside out. Soon, they all just settled on starving then risking the disease.
Once he was statified with his progress, Pestilence to find his War and Famine.
War and Famine stared as they watched a vampire tried to feed, only for his gums and fangs to burn. War found it somewhat amusing, but Famine was concerned.
"Still think I'm bound to humanity?" Pestilence challenged.
"Well, all vampires were originally human." War replied.
Pestilence got that enraged look again.
"Now, Pestilence," Famine began, "This is astounding what we've done here. Please don't do anything-" But before Famine could finish his sentence, Pestilence was gone. "Now see what you've done!" Famine snapped, "Now he's going to try something bigger this time. Something that may even affect the natural order."
"You're being melodramatic, Famine." War replied dismissively.
"That's what you thought last time!" Famine pointed out, "And look what happened." Deciding it was pointless to try to reason with either of them, he marched off. He had to find Death before this extremely out of hand.
Meanwhile, Pestilence had laid down a series of devil's traps. "Vampires aren't good enough?" He thought, "Fine. I'll take it up a knoch."
He managed to catch seven demons and began experimenting on them with even more intensity then he had the random creatures he managed to catch. And it took even longer than it did with them, too. Then one day, one of them coughed. That in and of itself would have been unremarkable, except when he coughed, he coughed up some black smoke.
After that Pestilence just sat back and watched as the demon coughed up bits of its very being for two hours, until it was completely gone.
After running a through more test to make sure it worked every time, he was about to go get his brothers when he realized: demons used to be humans as well. He stomped his foot on the ground like a young child in frustration. How could he prove that his power didn't relay on humans when every monster somehow or another was originally human?!
Then it hit him. There was a creature that wasn't connected to humanity at all. Angels! But how to get one?
Soon Pestilence had a plan in place. He took the remaining demons, now somewhat insane from their time in captivity, and set them onto the small unsuspecting village. He then directed a few more demons to the area, and threw in a couple of his diseases that affected humans for a nice finishing touch. Sure enough, the commotion attacked the Heavenly Host's attention and a small group was sent down to see what the hullabaloo was about.
Pestilence watched the fracas, trying to find an angel to capture. Suddenly his eyes went to a blonde female who not only was at the edges of the group, but had been injured. It was very easy for him to sneak up on her and use the spell he had found to render her temporarily uncunious so he could take her back to the clearing without any fuss.
Once he had her, he put her in place he had pre-prepared, covered in warning with a pair of warded shackles for her hands and feet. He put her wrist and ankles in them and started flipping through a blood-stained leather spell book for the spell he needed. It was around the time the angel started waking up. "W-What," She began, looking around, "Where am I? Who are you?" Then she noticed she was chained, and she started struggling panicked.
"Now, now," Pestilence said, sincerely disturbed by her distress, "Clam down, neither us want you to hurt yourself. Now, as for your questions, you are in valley somewhere in Europe, and I am the Horseman Of Pestilence."
The angel backed away in fear only to be stopped by the chains. "W-What do you want with me?"
Pestilence felt this pit forming inside him and for a minute he reconsidered what he was doing. "No," He told himself, "You didn't feel bad about any of the others, why should you feel bad about her? You have to finish this. You have to prove them wrong." He looked down at the book again and began the spell.
The angel screamed in pain as her pairs of wings were brought to the earthly plane. Soon Pestilence could see a pair of pearlescent white wings on her back. Suddenly entrenched by their beauty he reached out and touched them without thinking. She wrenched back in pain, as her wings were still tender from the change in their matter. He hated to cause her that level of pain, but it was necessary for what he was going to do.
He was going to create a blight to angel wings.
However, while all that was going on Famine had finally found Death, collecting a soul somewhere in Asia. He was hesitant at first, as Death would not be happy about being interrupted at work and the Horseman was intimidating even to his brothers. Then Death said, " I know you're back there, Famine. What is it?"
"It's Pestilence and War," Famine began nervously, "They had a disagreement a few months ago and I'm afraid things have gotten...out of hand."
"It wall started with Pestilence's new deasie, the Black Death," Famine began, "I'm sure you've heard of it."
"Yes, I have." Death confirmed, "It's been causing me a lot of extra work."
"Well, War had some concerns about what would happen to Pestilence if he wiped out all humanity and...he told him as much." Famine explained, "And ever since Pestilence has been on this tear trying to prove that he isn't dependent on humanity by trying to invent a disease that infects monsters, and he's actually had some success, but now I'm worried that he's trying something bigger, something that might send the natural order tumbling down around us."
Suddenly a recent odd occurrence he had heard about occurred to Death, and he wondered if it could be connected to this.
"What is it?" Famine asked, realizing there was something on his brother's mind.
"Two days ago there was an intense demon attack on some random village in Albania," Death began, "In addition to that everyone seemed to be struck with an odd series of plagues. Not the Black Death or anything, but still noteworthy. Anyway, it was so much, such an intense attack on a seemingly unimportant village that the angels decided to investigate. In the chaos of the battle one of them went missing. The host is counting her amongst the dead, but she's not on my list."
"You don't think-"Famine began.
"I don't know," Death replied, "Not for sure. But I promise, I will look into this, and figure out what's going on, with the angel and with Pestilence."
Even with Death's power it took three days to find Pestilence, he hid himself so well. However when he found the barn in a valley in Georgia with warding on the outside, he thought he had found the right place. That in the blood-curdling scream that came from it a few seconds after he arrived.
"No!" The female angel screamed, backing away as much as she could, as Pestilence approached her, his hand out-stretched.
"Don't make this harder than this to be, my dear." Pestilence urged, trying to stay patient.
"Don't," The angel begged, tears welling up in her eyes, "Please don't, please."
"Step away from the girl, Pestilence." An eerily calm voice said from behind him.
Pestilence slowly turned around and saw Death behind him, and he didn't look too happy with him.
Without warning the shackles that had been around the angel's wrist and ankles fell to the ground. The angel looked stunned, as if she couldn't believe what was happening. Suddenly she started sobbing. "Thank you," She managed to say in-between her tears, "Thank you."
"Just make sure your siblings know there is to be no retribution for this." Death replied.
"Your brother kidnapped and tortured a member of the Heavenly host," The girl seethed, a flicker of rage in her eye, "I cannot and I will not guarantee-"
Death shot her a harsh look the immediately silenced her. "Of course, sir," She said, then made a b-line for the door, and as soon as she was free of the warding, took off.
Pestilence stood there in stunned silence, preparing for the worst.
"Famine told me about your little quarrel with War," Death said, "And your experiments."
"Now, Death," Pestilence began nervously, backing away from the eldest and most powerful Horseman, "I know how this may look-"
"Do you?" Death shot back, "Do you realize how far reaching the ramifications could have been if I hadn't stopped you just now?"
"It was just a wing blight." Pestilence said, still trying to justify his actions, "What major harm could that have done?"
"I don't know, maybe cause the angels to neglect their duties while they try to deal with it," Death responded, "And let me tell you brother, they may not do much anymore but what they do is very important."
"I didn't think-"Pestilence began, starting to realize when he done.
"No you didn't did you?" Death replied, never raising his voice, "We cannot argue over petty things like otherwise the whole world will notice us, if it's not falling apart from whatever cosmic nightmare we've created."
Pestilence cast his eyes down in a show of shame and remorse. "I'm so sorry, brother," He said, sincerely, "I never meant for things to get this out of hand."
Seeing that his brother was truly contrite, Death put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "I know it can be hard sometimes," Death said, "Being the youngest in a family such as this, with a strange and confusing set of powers, but I promise you, one day you will do incredible things with these powers. Things that will have a permeate affect on the world. In the meantime, no matter what happens we will always be there for you, as you will for us."
"I will, Death," Pestilence replied, "Thank you. For stopping me, I mean."
"It was nothing," Death responded, "Although, it was a bit of an incontinence, so I would ask one favor of you."
Pestilence spent the next few days, traveling around the world, taking away all the disease from the monsters he had infected. Soon the natural order was back in balance. Of course, there was still the Black Plague, but, that would eventually work itself out and the human race survived.
When he was done, Pestilence sought out War. "I'm sorry for the things I did." He told his fellow Horseman.
"It's alright." War replied, "It was just as much my fault as it was yours. I shouldn't have baited you."
Then Pestilence did something nobody expected. He threw his arms around War's neck, hugging him. War's eyes widened and surprise for a moment, but then he hugged back.
Death did his best to suppress a smile. He was glad everyone was getting alone again and they could put all this behind them, but he had a reputation to up hold after all. "I take it I don't have to worry about you two now?"
"Yes." Pestilence, said, letting go of his brother.
"Well, then," Death said, turning to go, "I'm afraid I have to take my leave."
"Please brother," War said, "Stay a little bit. We hardly ever get to see you."
"I wish I could, War," Death replied, "But I have work to do."