Plans Within

Los Angeles

General Kennington looked over, once again, the reports from the recon teams, wishing, also once again, that there was actually more to look over.

The Rangers had moved in after the bomb sweeper robots, hanging on tight to the ropes attached to the devices. They had been set to move straight into the black mist. The illumination rounds they had fired had simply been swallowed as soon as they had reached the border.

A few of the soldiers in the Ranger team had sworn that they had continued forward for hours, even backing up that claim, inexplicably, with watches that were wildly out of sync with their teammates.

The truth was, at least to the General's eyes, and everyone else's that had been watching the mission, was that they had walked in, and then immediately had walked right back out again behind the robots, looking disoriented and confused.

They had tried it three more times, with similar results. On the last try, the Rangers had come out being dragged by the ropes, every one of them completely unconscious, but otherwise unharmed. After that, they had called a halt to the recon mission.

General Kennington sighed, letting the papers drop to the desk in frustration. He rubbed at his forehead as his clerk, Colonel Shaffer, waited patiently.

"Orders, sir?"

Kennington smiled, shaking his head. "Screw that, Colonel. There will be no orders. I am not sending in any more people or equipment into that, not knowing what the hell is happening in there, or what could be waiting."

Colonel Shaffer shifted his feet. "Understood, General...so, what do I tell the Governor? He's been calling every hour, sir."

Kennington nodded. "Send the next call directly to me. I can handle impatient politicians. Strategically, though, our hand is forced here. We're going to have to dig in and wait it..."

"Sir! General!" a panicked and sweating Staff Sergeant came bursting into the room, cutting him off.

"Sergeant!" Shaffer barked. "You can't just come barging in here like..."

The Sergeant glanced over and winced. "Sorry Sir! But we're under attack!"

General Kennington glanced over at his radio and alert center that was installed on a circuit board next to him. "What are you talking about? I've received no word from forward command about any kind of..."

As if on cue, the entire board lit up like a Christmas Tree, frantic radio calls accompanied the frantically flashing lights, and started to squawk over each other, desperately calling for support.

The General sprang up from behind his desk and pushed past his two men towards the open camp, racing past the several desks and operators and out of the command tent flaps.

He skidded to a halt outside, sudden movement causing him to look up.

An M1 tank was at least thirty feet in the air, being dragged and took back towards the wall of Blackness by a large pincer, attached to an inky, muscled, and equally massive and blistered arm.

He gaped at the sight before re-orienting on the rest of his camp.

Similar black limbs and writhing appendages shot through it at every conceivable place, ripping apart tents and grabbing tanks, helicopters, ammunition, weapons, and men, all of it being dragged back towards the writhing dark mass.

"Pull back...," he heard himself whispering. He blinked in surprise and shock. He squared his shoulders and took a deeper breath.

"PULL BACK!" he bellowed, now racing towards some men that had not yet been attacked. He waved his arms frantically. "Get the hell out of here! Move those vehicles out of range of those arms!"

To their credit, a few of the men noticed him and began to pull back, shouting orders of their own. The General spun wildly, sighting another group – there were just too many of them to reach...radio...he needed a radio...where was...?

"General!" Colonel Shaffer shouted over the chaos. "Look out!"

Too late.

A thick, powerful limb wrapped itself quickly around the General's waist, forcing out the air from his lungs in an instantaneous, violent, wheezing gasp. He blinked in surprise and pain, and by the time he had opened his eyes, he was spinning in the air, hundreds of feet off of the ground...racing towards that...mass...

And then the world disappeared.

Dean switched the channel from NBC to CNN, shaking his head. They were running the coverage on every channel of the scene at the L.A. Warehouse district where the Army was under attack. "Damn..." he whispered. He looked back over his shoulder at Sam, who stood with his arms crossed, looking sober, and Rowena and Crowley, who looked pale.

"They've wiped out that entire force..." Crowley said dryly.

"No...not the whole thing. Only within a certain distance," Sam answered. "It's like a perimeter."

"Subtle," Rowena said, traces of awe in her voice.

"Yeah...", Dean replied. "They're saying pretty clearly; 'Stay Off My Damned Lawn'..." he narrowed his eyes at Crowley. "And you're sayin' that Cas is stuck somewhere in the middle of that?"

Crowley nodded. "Probably."

"What's that supposed to mean, 'probably'? He's either in there or he's not...!"

Cowley held up a hand, indicating for Dean to calm down. "Relax, and no, that's not actually the case. We lost track of him after we escaped the Vault of Hell. There is a chance that he isn't in there," Crowley answered.

Dean let out a huff. "Knowin' Cas, he's in there all right..."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "Plan?"

Dean shook his head, pointing at the television screen "Against that?"

"We came here..." Crowley interrupted, "...tos see if the Men of Letters archives might give us that plan that you just mentioned." He looked over at Sam. "Any chance of doing that?"

Sam sighed. "I can try. But I've read quite a bit of the collected literature here, and most definitely the indexes, and can't remember anything that dealt with what we're seeing here."

Crowley rubbed his chin. "Nothing at all on the Old Ones? I find that hard to believe."

Sam smiled. "They considered it fiction. Ironic, isn't it?"

"But they did know about Lovecraft, and his breaching of the other dimension...are you telling me that they just ignored it?"

Sam shook his head. "No, they didn't ignore it, they just considered it fiction, like I said."

Crowley's brow furrowed. "You're going to have to clarify that to me."

Sam gestured for them to follow him as he headed down the staircase into the library. "I'll show you, c'mon."

They walked down to a large metal door, much like every other door in the Bunker. Sam opened it with a sense of care and reverence.

Sam flicked the lights on, and some florescents blinked slowly on. "Done a bit of housekeeping since the last time I was here, I see," Crowley commented, nodding in appreciation.

The large room seemed warm and cozy, in stark contrast to much of the concrete Bunker. What had once been ostensibly a series of drawers and filing cabinets piled and arranged haphazardly in a large, dusty and spiderweb-laden room was now a room with two levels, the second tier being a narrow wooden walkway lining the walls, with bookcases nestled in against it. Sam had also installed ladders and a small staircase leading up to it. Several comfortable looking chairs were arranged in the middle of the floor, along with dark oaken tables, set upon Oriental style dark rugs. A fireplace stood at the far end, and all of the books and files had been removed from their drawers and arranged neatly on the bookshelves lining the walls.

"Well, if you spend as much time in here as I do..." Sam answered, raking a hand back through his hair and moving towards a row of shelves near the rear of the room.

"God, you're boring," Dean complained. "I mean, seriously, not a single pin-up on the wall or anything?"

Sam ignored him, instead searching along a wall until he found a leather-bound folder, which he pulled out and carried to the center of the room, setting it on one of the tables.

"Here we go, have a look," he said, settling into a brown leather chair.

The others pulled up seats around the table, but Dean remained standing, looking uncomfortable. Sam turned the opened folder towards Crowley, who scanned the first page, and flipped it over, moving along the text there.

After a little while, once Crowley had reached he end, he nodded and leaned back in his chair.

"You get me now?" Sam asked.

"Yes. They assumed that the Void where the Old Ones existed was simply a manifestation of human imagination."

Dean shrugged. "So, they were wrong. This helps us zero."

Crowley shook his head. "No Dean, they were not wrong."

"Whatd'ya mean?"

Crowley looked up, considering. "Do you remember Metatron?"

Dean flinched visibly. "Yeah, who can forget that charming guy...?"

"He told you that he was always in awe of mankind's ability to create new worlds with their stories, with their imaginations, remember?"

Dean nodded.

"Well, it's true. It's why God created humans in the first place. You damned mortals are like birthing factories for new dimensions, new worlds."

"Yeah, but, what Lovecraft saw is frikkin real...it's here right now...eatin' soldiers..."

Crowley nodded. "Using spells and magic, sometimes humans get a look behind the curtain, to coin a phrase. That's what Lovecraft did. The Men of Letters had no way to determine that he was so accurate about his visions."

"And, once again Crowley, how does that help us?"

"Yeah, I'm kinda with Dean here on this one," Sam said. Dean looked at him, eyebrows raised in genuine surprise. Sam shrugged. "Hey man, I'm shocked too," he quipped.

Crowley looked at Rowena and stood up. "This is the key to the whole puzzle, actually. The Old Ones can only exist in our reality by feeding off of dreams and nightmares...well, mostly nightmares..."

"And your point?" Dean asked testily.

"I see what Judah is doing now," Crowley answered, grinning. "Clever plan."

"Judah...you mean, God, right? You tellin' me that you can see what God is doing?"

"Oh yes," Crowley answered. "Brilliant, almost worthy of...well, me."

"Mind filling us in?"

Crowley nodded. "Gladly. Let me tell you about what Charlie did to one of the Old Ones back in New Orleans, all the way back to the beginning of this whole mess..."