I know I am stupid starting a new story - but after hearing "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons, I had to write this! I do not own Supernatural but I own this story! I'd like to thank my friend Rachael for helping me with this story though! You are a great help, Darlin'! So, sit down and get comfortable! I hope you enjoy this first chapter to "Welcome to the Age of Angels."
…
The days when John Winchester was a young boy, a son to two moderately middle class, albeit happy, parents, were filled with unimaginable comfort and ease.
He was an only child in a world that glimmered each morning with the suns rising and the suns death. A world that actually shimmered clean and bright with soft crystals - sparkles from the silvery Grace of the creatures that did not so much as fall from heaven, as they descended.
Messengers of God the humans had called them. Seraphs and Angels and Warriors, creatures of the Supernatural whose core beliefs were to help the humans, help their Fathers creation as they were a pitiful yet surprisingly brave race.
Help those on Earth that deserved to be saved from wickedness - and smite those that truly belonged in the darkest crusts of hell below.
That was how the Age of Angels started.
For so long the humans had lived in sin - they had murdered each other without reason.
Rivers were red with the blood of kin and family, enemy and friend. It was so bad that the population in itself was dwindling - the humans were becoming extinct and it was all their own doing, all their own fault.
They stole from the innocent and scorned the good. They snatched bread from the mouths of the poor and robbed those who were even slightly better off than they themselves were - though in realization - everyone ate dirt for their meals and drank tears for their thirst.
The wicked were rewarded with anger and the decent were granted with sorrow.
If the humans had a concept of hell - it was in the years before John Winchester was born. Before any good flickered in the world, like a dirty flame, dead before it even began to burn.
One could not turn on the television, for those who were wealthy enough to have stolen such a luxury, without seeing images of death - of meager banks robbed and war fought and waged. Of children orphaned in the slums and crawling around fields of garbage and swill. Of malnourished poor and evil crawling over them like worms feeding from their flesh.
It was the darkest of times for the people of earth, it was what most would deem the Apocalypse, a foul word for a foul setting. The longest years of man plagued by fear and violence, and a false sense of hope.
It seemed like nothing would remedy the situation - the humans themselves too scared to work together, to change their horrid behavior towards one another… Yet all of that changed when the Angels, shimmering beautiful people of the sky, lent hands of silver and kindness to the weak and ill-minded humans.
They were gorgeous and frightening at the same time. But it was not the normal sense of fear that the humans usually felt in their day to day lives. The fear of going hungry, of being killed in their bed, of dying alone from the many diseases that plagued their lives. It was an authoritative fear - these creatures with large graceful wings and eyes that shone as bright as their Grace. They raged fear into the eyes of the wicked, into the eyes of the people drenched with sin.
Within weeks of the Angels arrival the murderers of so many lives had been pursued and smited along barren city streets - thrown into pits and salted and burned as was the custom of these Heavenly beings. All together the murders stopped - no one risking to raise a hand against each other so long as the creatures flew the skies above them.
Robbers did not dare continue their reign of terror on the poor - they hid in the shadows, weary of the sound of fluttering wings, knowing they would face divine wrath for their crimes. Stealing, pick-pocketing and robbing stopped altogether - people satisfied with the meager money they made that soon, with the help of the Angels showing them advancements in technology and larger employment needs, grew into hefty sums of wealth that kept afloat each and every person. No one had a reason to steal another mans bread from his mouth ever again.
Pedophiles, child molesters, Abusers and Rapists were tried by the Angels, each malevolent being weighing the persons soul and seeing if they did in fact commit these deeds. If the person accused was found guilty they were immediately thrown in jail - guarded by human and Angel alike.
All one had to do to be spared from casting an Angels wrath was to be a decent human being. That was all. The Angels were lenient enough to understand that humans had moments of weakness, their emotions led them astray. So the great beings did everything in their power to show humanity that they loved them.
At the command of the Angels, drug houses and illegal brothels were torn down and hospitals and orphanages were put in their place. Environmentally friendly alternatives to energy production was established and the air never tasted so sweeter to the human race - they were now able to see the sky as blue as their ancestors saw it so long ago. A year later the word "Smog" had ceased to be used in normal vocabulary.
Barren fields began to grow prosperous when just a few Angels sprinkled holy water from the tips of their fingers into the dry soil baked brown by the sun. Life grew and thrived so beautifully that the Angels, with the hum of their sweet voices, titled the Earth the New Garden of Eden.
Laws were set up to protect each individual - Men, women, and children were protected under divine right. Regardless of Race, Age, Sex, Gender, Status, Economical situation, Religious views, and everything else - humans were to be equal and respected, allowed to have life, freedom, food, medicine, safety and shelter.
It was a prosperous time - John remembered it well. He had enough food to eat, he had a small but comfortable home where he lived with his mother and father - and every night, if he squinted hard enough at the sky - he could see an Angel or two fly softly above his roof far off in the distance, watching him and protecting him from harm.
The stars that his parents never got to see when they were young, shone brightly against the expanse of wings.
It was a wonderful life and Age.
That was, until the virus spread.
…
No one knew how it had surfaced, how it had tainted the once shimmering and beautiful air of the earth.
Some suggested it came from the waste products of the humans before the New Age, from unsanitary places that were in the process of being cleaned and purified by the Angels. Others said it must have been building up in the beings for ages, slowly rotting them inside out. It could have been from the lack of humidity in the air - an unbalanced atmosphere that lacked the mist of Heavenly clouds and hardened the Angels lungs so that slowly, they began to die like old weakened things. Other suggested something much simpler.
That the Angels very Graces were being burned from their body.
But no matter how it came to happen, the Angels began to feel it shake against their Grace and sicken them like malnourished dogs left to die on the streets. Many recalled, as they were screaming and fritting and snarling, that it burned, it was burning them, like their Grace was being clutched by the fingers of Hell.
The Angels, those that fell susceptible to the disease first began to feel their bones grow heavy - their Vessel not being able to move as quickly - the skin stretching from them becoming leathery and diseased. They could no longer hold up their wings - instead the feathers began to lose their glossy shine and dragged to the floor, dirty and ragged. Some of them just went mad and began to rip all their feathers from their skin and bones - raving and shouting until they were escorted to the few Angel hospitals that the Creatures had built.
Angels were supposed to be almost immortal, it was an unquestionable fact. Yet the New Age was seeing a disease that brought terror with it. The only thing that was only supposed to be able to kill another Angel - was an Angel itself. Hence how some of the Supernatural beings were put out of their misery by their own brothers and sisters. A flash of light in the execution room - and the whole hospital ward went silent, the silvery light shining bight before the Angel and his or her Grace was nothing but a corpse and an ash inlay of wings.
Garrison after Garrison fell.
Chaos consumed human and Angel alike. Humanity was fearful, not knowing what was happening and why it was happening. Their saviors, beautiful warriors of God, were dropping dead like flies.
The virus, as they then decided to call it, carried itself similar to the bird flu, infecting each celestial being until they all dropped like plague ridden crows, burning into the ground with their feathers as the virus seemed to consume into their grace, erupting it from their bodies like an explosion from inside.
John himself watched three Angels die on the street outside of his house, staggering and weeping, until they screamed up at the sky and sunk to the asphalt - cadaver and an imprint of wings the only thing left.
The Angels that were thought to be a gift from God, helping the humans coexist peacefully, performing miracles, began to die till there were only a few left - the last Garrison.
But this last collection of Angels - some rouge, some from different Garrisons, orders, and Cults, formed together to hole themselves into the shell of the Angel institution of health - hardly anyone left to help with it's upkeep any more. It was eerily silent and smelled fresh with ash and lost Grace, causing even the most bravest Warriors of God to shiver.
Yet this last Garrison was smart and above everything else fearful for their lives. Heaven was closed off to them - the clouds would not part and they were too weak to call to their father for help - they only had one option left.
And so, the huddled mass of Angels, cowering against each other - brother and sister, decided on the last course of action. The last Angels on earth - were going to seal each other off forever.
It a brilliant plan - however poorly executed.
All they had in the small little hospital to achieve their course of action were several small glass bottles and corks filled with cotton swabs and Q-tips, syringes and cloths to bit down on should the pain rage against them so harshly that they needed something to keep a hold of instead of biting off their own tongues.
Chests, arms, legs and every other place on their body they could get to was injected with a numbness serum that bit against their Vessels flesh until each and every one of them began to loose feeling in their bodies. Then, it was time.
On the count of three, bottles uncorked and the sounds of destruction all around them from the angered and fearful humans that they had once saved, the Angels gritted their teeth and ripped their graces from their very souls.
It was painful and it left enough of them collapsing when it was over - shrieking and crying as the feeling of emptiness seeped into their soul. But they all achieved what they had intended. They had saved themselves.
And as each body fell to it's death, a Grace no longer able to sustain the Vessel, the Angels burned and shriveled into a rough and coarse pile of ash.
The Graces of the last Garrison of Angels left rolling and skittering to the floor for the taking.
It was weeks until anyone found the burned out shells of the corpses of the last Angels - the small infirmary room looking like a mass suicide had taken place just hours before. The Vessels still smelled like fresh death and spilt blood no matter how burned their faces and chests were.
And who but the military, the last authority in the world, would stumble upon the small little vials? Small bottles no bigger than your thumb stuffed to bursting with soft silver coiled Graces. So many Graces.
And who but John Winchester - no older than eighteen and just a grunt working under said military, would be the first to run his hands over the smooth and surprisingly warm glass of the trapped Graces.
It was at that moment, when his young brown eyes caught the beautiful shimmer of an Angels grace, that John decided that the military would take up it's greatest challenge yet.
Reviving the Angels one by one till humanity was once again saved.
…
It would be years later before the first Angel was recreated. From human flesh and human sweat - blood pumped into the Vessel fresh and clean till the donated corpses body was flushing pink with life. Before the donated heart given to the lab by a teenager who died a day before in a car crash, was beating and pulsing inside the Caucasian males chest - the chest cavity open and swelling to show lungs grey and ribs gleaming red with sinew and meat.
Claws of metal held the human Angels chest open as the top scientists of their time began to prod and poke at the insides of the being, rooting around to create a nest for which to sew the donated soul into. A nest of meat tissue and sinew and blood.
For in order to have this being restored to it's full power it needed an entire body all it's own as well as a soul scrubbed and cleaned.
The Laboratory - owed by Seraphs Production Naturals, usually got such materials from donations. People could, as they usually did to help the cause of restoring the once beautiful Angels, donate their bodies after they died in hopes of becoming a strong enough choice as a Vessel for an Angel.
Souls from death row inmates were harvested and collected after the execution and scrubbed clean with rock salt and soaked for days in vats of bubbling holy water till the soul was shimmering transparent and blue. Only then could the soul be even considered a good enough match for a recreated Angel.
And usually those that were tested were not strong enough to cling to the Grace and had to be disintegrated or thrown away.
Yet on occasion they found a soul worthy enough to harden along the Grace of the Angel and become the Vessels core, the center of the Angel that would keep it pure and moral and just - as well as strong.
Such was the occasion of the first Angel to be created under the watchful eye of John Winchester, head of his department.
The soul - belonging to the body of a woman who gladly donated her soul to science after she had died five years ago was a perfect match and was placed into the body of a Caucasian male, aged thirty-one when he died from an overdose of pills after his first born son died a week before.
The Vessel was a bit wrecked as the male had caused some self harm to his face before he overdosed - a few circular burn marks from what was undoubtedly from a cigarette - but other than that the blonde blue eyed man would have to do.
And as John, latex gloved hand grabbed at the handle of his tongs that were dipped in holy water, and snatched the tail of the silvery puddle Grace, lifting it up and over the chest cavity of the Vessel - he felt a surge of hope that this would work. This was it - the first Angel in over twenty years.
The Grace slid down from it's metal clasp to shine against the fluttering soul - the two seeming to morph into one into a hardened core, looking like a softly blue hued quartz crystal growing around the Vessels heart, quivering as the organ pumped blood to and from the body.
Quickly the on hand doctors began to sew up the chest cavity with red thread soaked in salt water - stitching up an Angel symbol that to the untrained eye simply looked like a circle with a line and arrow around it with squiggles dancing about it. But to John, it meant progress - it meant the soul and Grace were nice and snug in their new home and that the project was a success.
Then, with a big grin that would only be matched by the sight of his two sons being born later in the next two years - John felt his whole heart heave a sigh of relief as the Angel, their first Angel whom they would name Lucifer, began to open his eyes.
…
May, 4th, 1992
My Boys have grown into fine young men - though Sam still seems like he has a few more inches to go, all legs and arms that boy is! He can practically fit into my old leather work boots, his feet are that big! Oh but there isn't a minute that goes by that his little smile and mop of brown hair doesn't brighten my day ever since Mary died. He has his mothers eyes after all.
And then there is Dean, my eldest and strongest - so full of spark and boldness. A spit fire just like his old man, always wanting to take on bigger and grander challenges. I'm thinking about taking him into work with me seeing as he's old enough - let him get a look at our newest creation, Lucifer. A real life Angel.
I know my boys will be delighted - to see the Seraphs in my old journals and records of notes come to life before their eyes. Those bed time stories appearing in the flesh with grand wings and sparkling eyes and a need - a hunger, to help the human race.
And Damn if the human race doesn't need the help.
I think I will take them in next week, let them see their old man in action, wrestling a few Angels back to life. I'll definitely want them to be there when we bring Azazel back to life - that is, hoping his Grace will do fine in the vessel we have prepared for him. Ellen says their's something not quite right with the vessels eyes that we chose for him, which could result in the Angel becoming blind or having an abnormal eye color.
But the latter should be fine, the color of his eyes don't really matter to the scientists, and the military could care less about such matters.
Already we have a growing Garrison, from those small little glass bottles that were saved from the epidemic. Saved from the Apocalypse.
Can you imagine it boys? A World of Angels again?
I can hardly believe that my dream is coming true.
- John Winchester
…
The moment Sam and Dean found their fathers old work journal - a leather bound thing no bigger than the span of their big Winchester hands, they felt a rush of duty and a wave of guilt hit them square in the gut.
Or, at least Dean felt the rush of duty surging fast and warm in his veins and Sam the wave of guilt flooding his heart at even the mention of the unearthing of their fathers journal.
It was on that particular day - on the tenth year anniversary of their dads death - that they happened to have the urge to clean out the old basement again. Dust things off, maybe rip some more family photos from their sticky glossy prison in photo albums and place them around the house. Anything to keep the memory of their birth mother and father alive. Maybe tape some more pictures on the small fridge that held Ellen's left over home made pies, Bobbies beer, and the rest of the kids soda - root beer and Coca Cola nice and cool.
Anything to keep their dreams alive.
After their dad died, they had tried their best to forget about it, about the horror of it all that stuck like cold hard stone in their guts.
The night it happened they didn't say a word. They didn't cry as they watched their father perish - though Dean waited till the Ambulance drove him and his little brother home before he let his tears fall - holding Sammy in a cocoon of blankets on their dads messy bed as Ellen's voice drifted from downstairs in the kitchen where her and Bobby were signing adoption papers for the two brothers. The two orphans.
But on that day in early March, so many years past, when the rain would just not let up on the roof of the two story house, causing a great and yet calming noise on the window panes, Sam and Dean found themselves pooled over the inky handwriting of their late father - the words seeming so distant and long ago.
The pages were faded yellow by now, some dog eared where their father couldn't be bothered to bookmark his findings any other way. There were some notes in reds and blues, mostly in Latin, but enough schooling made the boys able to decoded the chicken scratch hand writing. Prayers, Incantations, Sigils, and warnings above all else were scattered along the pages. Latin in the high school curriculum was an important part of their history and education. No matter how long the Angels had been extinct - the world tried to keep their memory preserved and alive in it's population. For the good of the human race, the Angels were never forgotten.
The great heavenly creatures, after becoming extinct from a plague, were even tried to be duplicated - hence where their brave father, and engineer for S.P.N. came into the program. John Winchester, wanted more than anything to bring these Supernatural beings back to life.
They had always known how their Father had died - in a burst of flames after the electrical wire and pipes holding their fathers latest creation captive had bent and twisted the chains apart like coiled snakes before the creature within their possession sprang from his hold. He screeched like a crow, only to stretch those massive black vulture wings designed specifically for him, for Azazel. He swooped down like a bird of prey, eyes hauntingly yellow as Sam and Dean watched from the outside safety of a glass pane a feet thick - watched as the white walls of the laboratory that would create many Angels to come was bathed in the bold colors of red. Azazel was the second Angel to be created within the walls of S.P.N. and the first Angel to ever be destroyed via injection within the companies walls.
And Sam and Dean saw it all.
It was a horrible day - Sad indeed. Dean was barely eleven, Sammy only eight. Neither of them took it well, how could they? Their last parent had perished in one of most sinister of ways. Killed by an Angel was something never heard of unless you deserved it, unless you were the scum of the earth. Angels were too kind and full of shining grace to commit such a sin on such an innocent person - so what had gone wrong?
Some blamed the Grace that was coiled inside Azazel- that they hadn't purified it enough, they hadn't scrubbed it clean with salt and holy water enough. But Ellen, a close friend of John and Mary Winchester, had decided that the soul - the human soul plastered to Azazels vessel was a spoiled thing. It was to blame. Taken from the deceased body of a human on death row, a criminal charged with murdering his entire family in the dead of night.
The soul was to blame. So, learning from that horrible tragedy of Johns death, the human souls - those donated by the deceased or given to by humans on death row, where scrubbed viciously clean, purified seven times over and monitored to see if they showed any less than desirable qualities for an Angels Vessel.
The military, which already played a strong part in the creation of these Heavenly warriors of God from the beginning, saw to it that another mistake like this - another blunder causing the innocent life of an employee and the future of Seraph Production Naturals was never to be repeated again.
And so the company retreated back into the shadows, creating and morphing creatures in bright clean laboratories - waiting until the day that the Angels, the ones they had created from scratch, from human flesh and soul and shimmering preserved Grace would be released into this damaged world again.
To help rise the human race above destruction and make them great again.
And as the two brothers, older and wiser now, forgetting all the past pain, burying it deep into their hearts, flipped through the yellowed pages - they came to a conclusion. A pact of sorts, sworn on by blood and agreed on by a heavy weighted look from their eyes that reminded their Step Mother and Father so much of John and Mary.
They decided to bring their fathers dream back to life.
They decided to apply to work at Seraph Production Naturals first thing in the morning, and to create an age of Angels once more.
…
So, Verdict? Questions? By the way, this is a Destiel as well as Sabriel Story!
