Chapter 2
What They Call Fire
The rest of the week was torture. All Megan did was lay on her bed. It's not like she needed to leave her room. She could poof up food when she was hungry; she had internet, and a TV. Really that's all she need in life. Megan wondered if she could just live out her life in her room, avoiding her duties as Protector of the Earth.
During that week Megan re-watched all the episodes of Doctor Who, suddenly understanding the Doctor more given her situation. She knew what it was like to have to save the world every other day and how it was like to change into a whole new person just to escape death. At times Megan thought it would have been better if she had died back at the palace. But she would quickly shake off the thought, wishing never to have thought that in the first place. But what if…
The gang let her stay up in her room and never called her down to go on a hunt or anything. She knew that she was mourning, both Exarp and her old body, and that they needed to leave her alone. Well, until the end of that week.
They came up to her room and told her that it's been long enough and that she needed to come out. That eventually she would have to do her job. It took a while but Megan finally agreed.
Turned out Castiel didn't have that great of a week either. Even with Gabriel, Luna, and Balthazar's help they couldn't find Oro. It scared Megan to think what he had possibly done with the Horsemen's rings.
So it was a fairly uneventful week. Except for something strange. Every night Megan would have the same weird dream. In the dream she saw fire and red and the reoccurring memory of the time she met Emma at the bank when they were trapped in the vault by Rylie, the Demon. She had no idea what it meant but she hoped she would find out soon.
The morning after everyone told her to actually do things, Megan went down stairs and, having nothing better to do, decided to experiment. She sat down at the breakfast bar and snapped her fingers, making a bunch of plates full of various foods appear in front of her. Then she dug in.
Dean walked down a few minutes later, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and gave her a look as he saw all the food she had in front of her. "Hungry?" he asked.
Megan swallowed a mouthful of pineapple before saying, "No, I'm just checking to see what food I like now. I used to hate pineapple but now it's awesome. My taste buds must've changed."
Dean nodded then grinned when he saw a plate of steaming hot apple pie. He quickly grabbed a slice and started eating it. God, he looked like that was the best pie in the whole God damn world.
"You have an addiction," Megan said.
"Not an addiction. An obsession," he clarified.
"Same thing."
-BNW-
A few hours earlier…
It had taken Oro a week to figure out what he was going to do with the Horsemen rings. Taking the rings from Megan was kind of a spur of the moment thing so he had no plan for the future. Until now.
The Angel of Fire stood in the blazing hot desert, the just as hot sand sliding under his feet as he walked and the vultures circled overhead. Yes, this would be the perfect spot.
Oro stopped walking and grasped the rings tight in his hands. He was doing it. He was making this happen.
He decided that he couldn't wait any longer. He threw the rings onto the golden sand of the desert and muttered the ancient words in a language long forgotten. Just a few more seconds now…
The wind started to pick up, moving the sand in waves, creating a hot ocean that only seemed fit for the swimmers of Hell itself. Storm clouds rose overhead eerily and a quick crack of lightning struck down not too far away from him.
The sand in front him started to sink into the ground like quick sand and soon a hole appeared in front of him. It was a twisted abyss of black and purple and red, spiraling towards the cage.
Lightning struck again. Thunder crackled. The wind blew. The vultures left. The hole in front of him opened wider.
"Hello." Oro turned around, not the least bit scared (okay, maybe a little, but he would never admit. He would never get a chance to admit it), as he stared Lucifer in the eye. "That was very kind of you to let me out of my cage."
In one swift movement the Devil lodged his hand inside the Angel's stomach and watched his eyes light up. The Angel of Fire fell to the ground and soon the vultures returned. Lucifer grinned.
"I've got work to do."
-BNW-
Back in the present…
Megan burped as she lay down on the now green couch (she felt the need to change something but wasn't exactly sure why. Enough had changed already). She had eaten a lot and made a list to remind herself what foods that she liked now and ones that she now didn't like.
Megan was feeling, at the short moment, content. Or at least it was some kind of content. She still felt horrible, anger rippling under her skin, but over the week past she had begun to ignore it. She discovered that she had to clear her mind for a bit to reach anything close to happiness. Wait, was she becoming the Hulk? God dammit.
"This is not good." Megan sat up on the couch to see that Castiel had returned, his black hair somewhat ruffled and his blue eyes showing… was it fear?
"What's not good?" Dean asked from the love seat where he was eating his fourth of fifth helping of pie.
"I found out what Oro has done with the rings," Castiel said, somewhat quickly in a nervous panic. Megan had never seen him like that before. "Is everyone here?" he asked.
"TEAM MEETING IN THE LIVING ROOM!" Megan yelled. In a matter of moments everyone had come to the living room except for Gabriel and Luna. Luna had been hard at work finding new places to hide the Tablets and Gabe was, well, she had no idea where Gabe was.
"What's up?" Sam asked.
"Bad news," Megan said.
"Oro," Cas said then paused, either for dramatic effect or because he was afraid of how everyone would react, "Has freed Lucifer."
Everyone was silent after hearing that. Megan was screaming inside her head, wishing that why, oh God why the fuck would you do that Oro, you are a stupid fuck and I should've killed you when I had the chance.
"Cas, please tell you're kidding," Dean said and Megan could tell by the look in his eyes that he was thinking the same thing that she was.
"No, I am not 'kidding'," he put air quotes around the word. "Lucifer roams the Earth again."
"Come fucking on!" Megan cried. "We spent so freaking long trying to stop Raphael from opening the cage again and Oro does it in a week? This is so fucking stupid!"
"I'm gonna have to agree with Megan on this one," Sam said and Megan could hear the quietness of fear in his voice. And again she felt that hatred of being called by her name. Why was that?
"So, what's the plan?" Jinx asked. Everyone stayed silent. "Come on guys, we always have a plan."
No, there was no plan. They've had plans for this but they were already used, crumpled up blue prints that were now living their life in a waste basket, content that that they worked or sad that they failed. There was no fail safe plan. There was no plan B. All that was left was to just freak the fuck out and hope that Lucifer would go back into his cage after being asked nicely.
"Lucifer obviously has the rings now," Castiel said, steering away from Jinx's question. "The only thing that I found at the spot where the cage was opened was Oro's body."
"Oro's dead?" Megan asked. "At least one good thing came out of this."
"I think I would rather have a pissy Angel than a fallen one," Balthazar said, holding onto Jinx's hand tight as if Lucifer would pop up out of nowhere and steal her away. And that was an actual possibility.
"I say were wait out until Lucifer starts popping up on the radar. Then we'll figure out what we'll do," Castiel said.
Megan didn't like this, not one bit. Seeing only a projection of Lucifer scared her shitless but now to have the actual thing? No, this was too much. She felt sick again; ready to puke up all the things she ate during her food test. Not good, not good, not good.
But instead of getting a stomach ache she got something else; a splitting headache. Megan winced and closed her eyes as pain started to rise to her head and she quickly held her head in her hands as if it would help.
"What's going on?" Dean asked as he and the others bounded over to her to make sure that she was okay. Megan shook her head no. She was not okay.
She was seeing something. It was her dream that she had every night, the one with the fire and the red and little Emma. This time it all felt so real. Like she could feel the wave of heat from the fire and feel the red around her and hear the sound of Emma's little laugh as she waved good bye. In a split second it was all over. That's when Megan finally understood her dream. What it finally meant.
"What was that, Megan?" Sam asked.
"Don't call me that," she said as she fixed her new red hair.
"You keep saying that, what do you want us to call you?" Dean asked.
"Well, I finally know now," Megan said. The Dream had told her exactly that. The Dream had renamed her.
"Call me Emma. Emma Crimson."
