I have to thank Thallen and Nathy for their diligent proof-reading. I'm also going to thank Hyrule for her thoughts on what could happen here, and the rest of the discord family for their motivation and ideas.
This is AU after Changing Channels. When I first learned about Balthazar, I had assumed that he'd been gone longer than just somewhere between season 4-6, and that's reflected in Trickster's Haven and here.
In this chapter, Bold is Enochian. Also, the mistreatment of children is a little more prominent in the first half of this chapter than it has been for other chapters. And there are mentions of torture (not of children). Naomi.
In the beginning that was the beginning, there was Light and there was Dark. They coexisted. There were no attempts by one at killing the other, and one did not create children with the sole purpose of locking the other away. They were codependent, and They were both capable of destruction and creation. And They were jealous beings. Dark created little monsters that wanted her time, and Light created something to send them away. Whatever it was, it was throwaway. Only lasting long enough to destroy Her little monsters. Dark was displeased, but did not offer retaliation because if He had done it first, She would have destroyed them as well.
But that did not stop Dark from creating two children in Their image. With the unhealthy codependent relationship between the Dark and the Light, she wanted to spur something new between Them.
Thing 1 and Thing 2 were created as two unrelated adults. Perhaps Dark wanted dolls in the image of Them. What she instead created was the first pair of soulmates. Thing 1 and Thing 2 were sentient and emotional beings. They did not have names, because Dark did not care about them. She cared about what She could use them for. That they serve their purpose.
If they had not been adults, the Things would have required alone time with Dark. Sentient children need time and affection and learning. The Things did not though, because they were created fully realized. Their understanding and comprehension was beyond what Dark had anticipated or desired them to have. But perhaps a third deity interfered because he was tired of his realm being littered with broken toys that had been considered worthless from the beginning.
Dark may not have been involved in the lives of Thing 1 and Thing 2, but Light was still jealous. Jealous that Dark would create these interesting autonomous toys that were capable of exercising this free will Dark hadn't intended to give them. And so Light tried to copy Thing 1 and Thing 2. He made Things 3-6. Though He tried, they were not as adult like as Things 1 and 2. These four sentient beings made of energy did not have minds as well developed as the first two and while they did have free will, they had not been taught to exercise it. They wanted, demanded, time with Light, which neither Dark nor Light wanted to deal with.
So Light and Dark contemplated, and then, they came to an agreement. This would be fun, they agreed, all smirks and wry smiles. These sentient beings were a mistake, but it could still be fixed.
So Dark called Her Things and Light called His. "My counterpart has created something which I can not suffer. Go wipe them out."
Thing 1 and Thing 2 were willing to investigate, but their loyalty to Dark was not blind. They knew what had happened to everything that had come before and they knew what the pattern was. Things 3-6 did not have the same knowledge. They willing followed the directions that Light gave them, no thought to their own safety or anticipation for what may follow. If Light told them to jump, they would have asked how high, because they didn't realize that their free will could have purpose.
Things 1 and 2 found 3-6 without revealing themselves. Thing 1 had been molded with some idea of stealth in mind, and Thing 2 molded to protect her. Things 3-6 were small, each progressively smaller than the last. They had blades, but they hadn't even been taught how to wield them properly, and the blades were not designed with their size in mind.
"What do we do?" Thing 2 whispered quietly to Thing 1.
"Oh no," Thing 1 whispered in response, almost in shock. "They want us all dead." She frowned. "I'll have no part of this." She put away her blade. Keeping her hands in front of her and visible, she stepped into view. "Hello."
Thing 3 raised his sword higher, pointing it in her direction. He took a single step forward, attempting to block Thing 1's view of Things 4-6 . Thing 6 cowered behind Thing 4 and Thing 5 shook, holding back tears.
"Who are you?" Thing 1 asked. She kept her tone level, hoping that they wouldn't attack her before they could ask questions. These weren't warriors. These were terrified children trying to please someone who only meant them harm.
"How do you mean?" Thing 5 sniffled. The Light hadn't seen fit to name them. Didn't have time for them at all. But he'd created them, so when he told them to come here, they had.
Thing 1 glanced at Thing 2. She wasn't trying to give the latter's position away, but she was angry. Dark hadn't seen fit to name them either, but she'd thought she could expect better from the other being. Apparently that was not the case. "What do you want to be called?" Thing 1 asked, considering that might be a reasonable question.
"Why call us anything?" Thing 4 asked. "We're all here to fight, aren't we?"
"I'd like to think we don't need to fight," Thing 1 replied. "I wasn't given a name either, but I picked one for myself."
Thing 6 glanced out from behind Thing 4. "What did you pick?"
"I'm Mirim," she said. "And that's Muriah." She pointed at Thing 2. "Who do you want to be?"
Thing 6 spent a whole minute pondering, but he shook his head. "I don't know."
"That's okay," Mirim replied. "Won't you put your swords away? We're not going to hurt you."
"But Light said-" Thing 3 shuffled his feet, but didn't put down his sword.
"Why do you think Light said what He said?" Mirim asked.
"Why does it matter?" Thing 4 asked. "He said we had to find Dark's creations and kill them. Isn't that you?"
"But that's wrong," Thing 5 whimpered. Tears slid down his face. "I don't wanna hurt anybody."
Thing 3 lowered the sword slightly and he looked over his shoulder. "Hey, hey. It's okay."
Mirim moved towards Things 3-6. "You don't need to hurt us. Muriah and I really don't want to hurt you, okay?"
Thing 3 looked back at Mirim. "But what if He finds out? He'll be angry with us."
Mirim gave him a gentle smile. "Come with us. Come with us and They need never find out. Promise."
They agreed, still reluctant, but they followed Mirim and Muriah to the border between the Light and Dark domains. They followed the middle border until Mirim stopped. "Here's good," she said, though the four children of Light could not see any difference between this spot and anywhere else along the border.
Muriah merely nodded to Mirim. Together, they started drawing Enochian sigils in the air. With each sigil added, lines formed. First a square, then a triangle, until a triangular prism of foundation and fabric had taken form in front of them. It had a rectangular door, and if not for the support, it would have looked more like a tent.
Mirim and Muriah circled the structure, continuing to add protective sigils to the border as they did so. These additional sigils did nothing to add to the structure of the would be house. Instead, it merely furthered to tie themselves to it.
"Do you know this language?" Mirim asked the children.
Thing 5 nodded. "We all do," he said.
"Do you have a favorite sigil?" Muriah asked. He waited, letting them decide for themselves whether they had one and if so, what it was. When all four had nodded, he continued. "I'm sure you four know yourselves better than we do. But you should add some part of yourself to the wards. Make them recognize you."
Each of the children added themselves to the wards. Thing 3, with a mild love of pointy objects and a fierce devotion to his smaller siblings. Thing 4, who loved bright lights and playing games. Thing 5, who wanted nothing more than to curl up with a good book and heal broken things. And Thing 6, who just wanted this moment with those he now considered family, to last forever.
Thing 7 and Thing 8 came into their lives like a dream come true. Mirim and Muriah had never thought they could conceive children, so when Samael and Daniel were born, they were the joy of their family. The kids were so excited that they usually slept with one of the twins in their little arms. Thing 3 and 4 tended to stay with Daniel, kissing his cheeks and nose so often that the baby was covered with freckles. Thing 5 and 6 sat with baby Samael to tell him about animals and the stars, and sometimes Thing 6 kissed his feet or chubby arms, also creating freckles.
Things 3-6 never felt like Mirim and Muriah loved them any less with the addition of Samael and Daniel. Despite Light and Dark's intentions and desires, or perhaps because of them, there was no way that the two adults were going to do anything that could harm their children. Their children. Not just Daniel and Samael, but all six of them. It wasn't a family of two, or four, or six. It was a family of eight.
The tent that Mirim and Muriah built in the beginning grew into a little house. It became what they needed it to be. The six kids needed space they could share and space that was their own. Each bedroom was decorated as they wanted it with help from their parents when their spells to color and shape wouldn't do as they wanted.
There were no tears. There was only endless love and patience. Their lives didn't extend outside the house, outside the security of the wards that protected them from Light and Dark, but it didn't need to. They could create whatever they wanted inside the house and with Dark and Light preventing the other from even creating a world, there was no world outside their home.
Under no circumstances would it ever last forever. Light and Dark may have forgotten about Their things for a long time, but not forever. The wards kept the things out of the way of Dark an Light, which was what They really wanted when they came up with the scheme to have them destroy each other. But eventually, they remembered that they had set their toys loose and went to see what had happened to them. They couldn't find them, or any evidence that they had ever gone after each other, and it displeased them.
They found them eventually. They found Mirim and Muriah raising the four children of Light and two of their own children. It didn't matter that Things 1-6 had never bother Dark and Light, their very existence infuriated the deities. It was almost worse that Thing 1 and Thing 2 had reproduced, on top of raising Light's creations. Dark's creations had done for Light's creations as Light and Dark should have done for Their own children and on top of that, were doing it for the children they had created. It rubbed it in the faces of the deities that their toys thought themselves better than their creators and they would not tolerate it.
Dark and Light required retribution for sins they only perceived to exist. They were codependent, and coexisting, and on the rare occasions they were capable of working together, deadly. They stood next to each other in front of the wards and started spelling out their own Enochian sigils. Their intention was not to remove all of the wards, but instead to blast a hole large enough for them to get through.
It was time for sleep when They came for Their children. Mirim and Muriah were wrapped around their six sleeping children when they were awoken by the wards they had placed with only love and protection in their intentions. The two adults had always wondered when this day would come, had thought about what they would do if this day ever came.
Muriah woke each child calmly, reminding each one as they awoke that they were loved. That they would be safe. That nothing would happen to them, but they had to get up now so they could go somewhere safer than this room. He waved his hand in the air, drawing a complicated sigil and adding to it with each wave of his hand. The sigil created a white light in the center of the room.
"I'll hold them off for as long as I can," Mirim stated. She left the room and went to the keystone of wards inside the house. The sigils she drew in the air were designed to reinforce and strengthen the wards around the house. " Fortify. "
Muriah added lines to his own sigil. With each additional rune, the circle of light increased in size. " Provide."
"What are you doing?" Thing 5 asked.
" Protect." Mirim whispered each sigil in Enochian as she added it to the spell she was casting. " Defend."
"Get out here you cowards!"
"You don't control us!"
The light from Muriah's spell grew to encompass the whole house and each additional sigil added now caused it to fade, seeming to disappear into the center of the circle.
"You won't escape punishment!" Dark cried. "You had orders!"
"And what are you going to do about it?" Muriah asked. "Maybe if you'd taken better care of your toys, they'd still be loyal to you."
The fledglings disappeared through the portal and the building was continuing to fade and shrink through the light, putting Mirim on the outside of it. She was still drawing sigils, but the damaged wards were fading faster than she could reinforce them.
Dark and Light tore a hole in the wards big enough for them to squeeze through when the light from Muriah's spell started fading.
The deities moved, drawing new sigils and chanting the alternating words of a new spell. "Banishment." "Death." "Reincarnation." "Annihilation." "Infertility." "You will suffer separation from your loved ones, with no knowledge of why your cursed existence will continue. You will face temporary relief, but only to remind you how much you hate the continued separation. This is your punishment for disobedience." The light was almost gone, "Forget." Muriah's spellwork finished as the last command was spoken, and every trace that they had ever existed disappeared with it.
Michael had no idea how the spell could have gone wrong. He wasn't even sure that it had gone wrong as the book had never said specifically how it worked or even what it did, beyond helping people remember things long forgotten. That did not explain why his siblings had all disappeared, with the exception of himself and the two fledglings. You told them not to use any part of you or Lucifer his mind told him. You did not tell them to use nothing of themselves. Jor's snakeskin, Hela's tooth, a piece of the quartz that meant everything to Gabriel, and a jar of honey. Who knew Fen's love of bees was so part of him.
That did not explain to Michael what he was supposed to do now. He knew his siblings and parents were still alive, but he could not feel them. He could not feel Gabriel's grace, nor Castiel's, even as he had only yesterday healed and promoted the seraph. They weren't dead, not much could kill a seraph and even less an archangel. He would know if they were dead . But they weren't here .
Time travel was unlikely and improbable. The things that Sigyn and Loki had wanted to know, that was from some universe that no longer existed, and it hadn't been here. Angels and archangels could find alternate universes along various timelines, but they were hardly using that method with this ritual. But wherever they were, were they in danger? Could they get back without help?
Even assuming they could, what if they needed help? He had no idea where they were and he couldn't feel any of them. That didn't really narrow anything down. If he wanted to find anything out, he'd need to check Heaven's archives for the original spell. But he couldn't take the fledglings. Not before Heaven was fixed and he couldn't just leave Raphael and Lucifer alone. They weren't human children, but even immortal children could get into trouble.
His head was whirring for any possible solution, and slowly ground to a stop on one, possibly a stretch, of an idea. Could the Winchesters be trusted? They acted ostensibly, but how high maintenance could they possibly be? They'd faced dangers worse than a few of things that could pose a threat to archangel children, and even in their younger states Lucifer or Raphael were anything but defenseless.
There was a weird ringing coming from a device on the table that Michael only kind of recognized as Fenrir's. A few seconds later it stopped ringing and a voice he recognized as Dean Winchester came on. "Hey Cas, hope everything's alright. We're planning on taking a vacation after this weird hunt and you're welcome to come with us if you'd like. We're not quite sure what's going on with it, these people have been dying from what seem to be Biblical plagues, blood, boils, and locust? Anyway, if you'd like to join us, we're in Easter, PA."
Michael listened as Dean proceeded to rattle off the details of their location, then picked up the phone. It sounded like the staff of Moses to him, which was an artifact from Heaven that had gone missing awhile back, along with a bunch of other weapons. He looked over to where Lucifer and Raphael were playing. "Will you two be okay by yourselves for a few hours?"
"Sure!" Lucifer exclaimed, Raphael nodding his head in agreement.
Michael flew to the given address.
"Whoa!" Dean shouted. "Where's Cas?"
"I am unsure. A spell went awry earlier and I am unsure where he and Gabriel and most of our family ended up." Michael held up Cas' phone. "I do not know how this works or I would have answered, but I heard your message. I believe the deaths were caused using the Staff of Moses. It's an artefact that went missing awhile back."
The Winchesters told Michael what they had learned so far, and he flew them to the father of the deceased child. Michael didn't have much choice but to knock out the man and the kid wielding the broken staff, but he was able to tell even without touching him that there was something up with the kid's soul. He touched it, gently, causing no harm to the child. "Huh," he said. "He bought the staff from an angel with his soul."
"... Like a demon deal?"
"Something like that. Let's see who it was." Michael stroked the soul, still being careful not to damage it. "Balthazar."
"Can you dissolve the contract?" Sam asked.
"Sure." Michael cleansing the contract with the soul with a wave of his hand. "I can go talk to Balthazar and make sure he doesn't do this again if you would prefer."
Dean looked like he was considering arguing but Sam elbowed him. "We came here following a lead on the Bunker you mentioned yesterday, got a key for it. Thank you for giving us that information."
"Can you tell me how this device is operated before I go?" Michael asked, referring to Cas' phone. "In case you want to contact me before I find my family."
The Winchesters gave Michael a crash course on how the phone worked and then left for the bunker, which they told Michael the location of. Michael tracked Balthazar down and flew to his home.
Michael found Balthazar inside the house, reveling in decadence. He raised an eyebrow at the angel that had been Castiel's best friend once. "Balthazar."
Balthazar might not have feared any other angels, but Michael wasn't just another angel. He swallowed thickly, but maintained eye contact with the archangel. "Michael."
"Will you at least tell me why?" Michael asked.
The angel shrugged. "If the world was going to end, I wasn't going to just sit around and wait for it or for civil war to break out. Father said to observe his creations, so I am."
"I will fix heaven and there will be no civil war," Michael promised. "Balthazar… Will you return the weapons to heaven?"
Balthazar scowled like a petulant child, but didn't answer right away. While Michael waited for Balthazar to respond, he glanced at the angel's grace. His own grace ached in sympathy.
How could it come to this? Father, why would You let this happen? It had been one thing to think He was dead. That He had died, and so they, His first children, had to try to figure out how to carry on. And everyone chose to follow the path to Armageddon and Paradise over thinking for themselves because following orders was ingrained in their grace. And this, this, was what happened to angels who tried anything else. Even if doing so wasn't their intention.
"Michael? Why are you staring at me like that?"
"Will you let me heal your grace?" Michael asked. "Please?"
Balthazar shrugged, although Michael sensed something akin to both surprise and discomfort in his posture. "Sure, why not. But why do you care? Naomi said she was doing it on the orders of the archangels." A defensive note had crept into his voice.
Michael was seething. But not at his brother, and he had promised Sigyn not to smite Naomi even as his grace was humming with his anger. Gabriel might have been the Messenger and the Archangel of Justice, but the latter was to some extent shared with Michael.
"No," Michael refuted gently, trying to keep the anger he felt from seeping into his words, "Actions made on her part were not made under any order of mine."
There would be justice, but not yet.