I'm just going to skip the 'in-the-past' chapter for now. Cause I feel like it.
As all you lovelies know, I don't usually promote things, but if you can withstand and find some enjoyment in anime style, check out Black Butler.
Holy horn of Gabriel, it is amazing. And there's demons in it!
Back on topic, here's a change of subject. A while ago, I found out the most amazing thing ever.
Gabriel is back.
The freaking Trickster is finally back! Not just fans moaning and begging, he's really back! The guys who play Sam and Dean also agreed to continue past Season 10. Guys, Supernatural is one of the longest running fantasy ever!
And Gabe is back!
Aaaaah!
Ahem.
Also worth mentioning, I was in Grand Prairie, Alberta the other day and saw a combat jacket that looked just like Gabe's for sale. I promptly grabbed it and started weeping happily. It is now in my possession forever.
The very presence of it in my room makes me feel more badass, and crave suckers.
"Lola,"
The pagan didn't turn her head, continuing her examination of a creepy clown statue.
'It could be brought to life, Midgardians have such fears-'
"Lola-"
"Do not call me that, Gabriel." Loki admonished.
"You were ignoring me." Gabriel laughed breezily, an attempted pout ruined by a wide grin.
"I was attempting to understand the use of this horrid statue." She huffed, tracing its bulbous eyes with a sharp nail. Bits of paint crumpled under her painted claws. Neither noticed several nearby men break out in sweat. "Is it a torture device? Left in the bedrooms of unruly children so they listen to their mothers?"
"Ye-no." Gabriel somehow managed to pull off neutral confirmation. "Hey, look, our target!" Loki followed Gabriel's gaze to a young man a few booths ahead. His golden hair curled handsomely around his ears, bright hazel eyes gleaming politely at other fair-goers. A smile straight from the 40's fixed near permanently on his face.
Loki scowled. Add a hundred pounds of muscle, a few inches of height, and the man could be from Asgard.
"The sweet boy next door volunteers at an old folks home." Gabriel's smile turned feral, annoyed impatience pulsing in her golden eyes. "Convinces them to write him in little old ladies' wills, or forces them. Then, he starts poisoning them." She pulled a slim white stick from her pocket, laying it lip lip balm over her mouth. Her grin was poisonous. "How about a little bit of just deserts?"
"I thought you said I was the bait." Loki commented, amused.
"This guy's clever. He won't try and lure some 6'3 goddess into a dark corner to rob and murder." Gabriel swept a hand at herself. "How can some mortal with a grim reaper complex resist attacking a poor defenseless little girl? Come on, we'll get you one later."
Gabriel's eyes gleamed at the thought of a good hunt, and Loki felt a tiny thrill of instinctive fear. The being infront of her was ancient, had been around before Odin was anything more then a dazed thought of a distant Creator. The fear just made the thrill even more exciting. This is what it felt like for a raven to feast by a wolf, join in meat and game and know, one clink of teeth, and you are the prey.
Gabriel flounced up to the young killer, her red shirt slipping over her thin shoulders. The delicate grace of a bird took over her features; defenseless, beautiful and elegant. The blonde man glanced up, eyes sharpening as they met Gabriel's. The courteous smile lit up his face.
The short woman offered him a sweet smirk, the balm glistening on her lips. He smiled and laughed, slowly drawing her closer. No-one payed any attention as the young murderer stole a kiss, pulling away with a dazed look. Gabriel winked at him, slipping back to Loki, her lips red with something more then kiss-bruising.
"I offered him his choice." The Trickster whispered to the pagan. "He picked his poison."
Loki blinked. Oh, so that was how she did it. Gabriel almost struck her as too noble for murdering, but this is how she blurred the moral lines. The man was given the choice; kiss a young girl he had just met, leading to swindling and murder, or stand down, deciding against another kill. The young killer picked his poison, and chose death.
Behind them, the young man, mid-sentence with a potential victim, rubbed his throat sheepishly. He offered the pretty young girl a hesitant smile, and collapsed in a fit of burning coughs.
He was dead in three minutes.
"I want one." Loki declared. All signs of the hunt washed away from Gabriel. She bounced, beaming.
"Oh, I have just the one!" She laughed, pointing a finger into the crowd. Her painted nail trained on a balding English man, his sharp suit neatly pressed. Loki jumped as her green eyes met his face. In the physical world, he had dark brown, thinning hair and brown eyes. Deeper, underneath the skin, in places only the long-lived or supernatural see, there was another face. A mess of scales and black smoke, twin red eyes gleaming like magma out of its twisted soul.
"What is that?!" Loki spat, wishing she had the sleeves or cape to hide a summoned dagger.
"That, my dear pagan, is a demon." Gabriel rubbed her hands together. "Time for some real fun."
"And how is that not a death machine waiting to happen?"
Tony Stark scowled at his wrench, not looking away from his 'death machine'. His unwanted guest milled in the doorway, shooting the hunk of gleaming metal like it would jump up and try to rip out his throat.
In his defense, Tony often felt the same about Asgard's quote, unquote 'magic'.
"It's going to boost your magical power puff's mojo." The engineer huffed, wrenching away at a stubborn screw. "Or, you know, blow up. Don't you have a job to do? Hunt down zombies, maybe?"
"Zombies don't exist." Dean Winchester slunk into the room like a junkyard dog, eyeing everything distrustfully. "Besides, I can name tons of things worse the slow, rotting dead bodies that die as soon as their heads' gone."
"Yeah, like what?" Tony snorted, but inwardly leaned forwards eagerly. They should teach this stuff at school, instead of making you write sonnets.
"Wendigos, for one. Cannibal, fast as lightening and impervious to bullets and knifes." Dean sat down on the edge of a cluttered bench. "Only fire takes them out. me and Sammy took one out a few years ago. Hmm, Yellow-eyed demons," The hunter's eyes grew cold. "Much harder to kill then a black-eye. All the usual things, salt, iron, traps, hardly do anything."
"Well, I fought two pagan gods." Tony offered up weakly.
"Do you even know how to kill a pagan?" Dean laughed. The engineer reluctantly shook his head. "Wooden stake dipped in blood. It's different for some pagans, but it takes out tricksters fine."
"What's the difference between a trickster and a pagan?" Tony wiped his hands off on an oily rag, flopping down beside Dean.
"It's a- sub-pantheon." Dean explained. Sam was much better at the whole 'things-that-go-bump-in-the-night' explanation. "Most tricksters are pagans, not all pagans are tricksters. Er, Loki, Coyote, Kitsuni, they're all tricksters. They have powers of creation, like making little side pockets in the world."
"Ever fought a trickster?" Stark asked, rapt. He remembered his own fight with Loki. The one that nearly destroyed an entire city. He didn't know what Loki could do on his own, but he didn't really want to risk another city to find out.
"Yeah, one. The Trickster. Never found out his name." Dean pulled out his father's Book, flipping to one of the pages. He felt a little awkward. No-one outside of family had really seen the Book. He jabbed a finger at the paper. "There, upper-levels have power over creation, lower-levels create illusions. For the most part, they're also considered Messengers, all that just deserts junk. The Trickster threw a couple of ninja ladies at us and a saw wielding maniac. I think he was just playing with us, or else we never could have taken him out. Took me, Sammy and Bobby just to take him down."
"... You sure he's dead?" Tony hinted. Dean stiffened.
No, that crazy pagan has to be gone-
"He's dead. I saw the stake go in myself." The hunter snapped, slamming the Book shut. Dean stormed out without waiting for Tony's answer.
The billionaire stared at the door in shock, jaw hanging open. He had not seen that coming.
"I apologize for my ward's behavior."
Tony wasn't even surprised to see Castiel appear in the middle of the shop, examining the machine with interest.
"He is under stress." The angel continued, running a hand along the metal frame. "He was not here to prevent last year's attack. Dean feels the need to save the world."
Tony didn't even bother addressing the last bit. "What are you, his guardian angel?"
"Yes." Castiel replied without hesitance. "But not in the way humans see us. I am not a guardian. I am a soldier."
"You and Cap would get along." Tony snorted. He went back to tinkering. It was nearly an hour before Castiel spoke again.
"How does it work?"
The engineer looked up with a grin. "It's science. You have that up in cloud-land? We, Bruce and me, tested something like this on the glow stick of destiny before the Chitauri attack." Tony paused, drifting back to the battle-field. He gave his head a little shake."We created it to contain and drain 'magic' power, but a touch-up and it should boost it instead."
Castiel nodded blankly, fingers flitting over the machine, devoting curves to memory. The angel fixed his intense blue gaze on Tony, his pale hand still resting on the metal frame. "During the attack, I, and the other angels, felt something odd."
Tony raised a skeptical eyebrow at the word 'angels'. Angels were people, like Yinsen, like Pepper. He knew magic, or advanced science, existed in some form, but he had seen no proof of sword-swinging, halo-totting, wing-flapping humanoids in any of his battles. Well, there was a mutant...
"Yeah, baby blue? what'd you feet?" Tony huffed, tightening a screw.
"We felt the sky explode."
The screwdriver fell from Tony's numb hand with a clatter. Castiel's hand, cold from the metal, closed on his shoulder.
"You are brace, Anthony Edward Stark." The angel's voice chimed unearthly from behind him. "Rest easy, for you are loved." The cold hand vanished, and Tony was alone with a half-finished machine and a fledgling panic attack.
That night, for once in a very long time, Tony slept without nightmares.
"I hardly think this is necessary." The demon laughed with a touch of nervousness. He hated being exercised, but other then that, he had little fear. He tested his bound hands, tied to a small, bright pink plastic chair. A devil's trap in still dripping red paint was weeping crimson over his head.
The two 'lovely' 'ladies' circled him like sharks, eyes feverish with excitement.
"Necessary?" The tall one purred, raking a hand across the demon's suited chest. A button was ripped off under her long nails. "Most definitely not. But it is certainly fun."
"Ah, hunters are in it for the fun now, are they?" The demon mocked, annoyed. He had big fish to spear, he could get very little done tied to a chair.
"Hunters?" The raven haired beauty turned to her companion.
"Humans that track down supernaturals." The short one huffed. "Like we cause all the deaths. I've never met a supernatural more evil then the worst humanity has to offer."
The demon's easy smirk started to slip.
"Not hunters?" He groaned. This sent things even further back. "Look see, let's make a deal-"
The short woman snapped her fingers sharply, pointing at him. "Crowley! I know I recognized this one!"
"Crowley?"
"A-yup, King of the Crossroads. It's me, Crowles, the Trickster." Gabriel clapped her hands together sharply, turning back into a male. His skimpy top and tight jeans shifted to a combat jacket and blue loose pants. "My oh my, you are getting rusty. Hey, Loks, pass the salt!"
"Trickster..." Crowley's voice was a mix of a growl and a plea. The demon wasn't in the same weight class as the head Trickster, and he knew it. "Come now, you've had your fun. Let me go."
Loki pressed a large paper bag into Gabriel's hands, the lip overflowing with white specks. The two tricksters shared wolfish grins.
The Trickster perched the bag carefully on Crowley's head, grinning madly.
"Trickster, stop this, you recall I'm rather, er, allergic to salt, yes?" His brown eyes clouded over red between blinks.
"Oh, yes, I remember." Gabriel nudged the bag a bit, making it tip precariously. "I also remember Budapest."
"You and I remember Budapest very differently." Crowley looked up frantically without shifting his head. "As I recall, it wasn't my fault that Lycan was in your bedroom."
"You left the window open-"
"You left the stake on the counter!"
"Shush." Gabriel poked Crowley's nose. The demon tried to shout but stopped at the bag tilted dangerously. "Oh, Loki, come meet Crowley, business partner of mine. He gives me the names of over-due souls and I spare his hounds the bother."
"Loki? The pagan that tried his hand at world domination?" The King of the Crossroads gave a soft bark of laughter, frozen above the neck. "Can't say I was cheering for you."
Loki's eyes narrowed threateningly, but Gabriel just snickered.
"Of course not, then you'd be out of the job." The Trickster giggled.
"Can I go now?"
"No."
Crowley gave a breathy growl. "What do you want, Trickster."
"A pony." He answered immediately. "With eight wings, and breaths fire-"
"What do you want from me?"
"Oh, right." Gabriel pulled a list out of his pocket, waving it infront of Crowley. "The Winchesters, they need a shove. Give them the Colt, sooner then your 'plan' asks."
"What's in it for me?" The demon asked cautiously.
"Life-time guarantee, no-more demon kidnapping. Besides, I've already got your back." Gabriel winked. "What more could you ask for?"
"Well-"
"Scratch that. What more do you want to risk asking for?"
"... Just get rid of that damn devil's trap." Crowley scowled. Gabriel leaned forwards to seal the deal but Crowley jerked turned as fast as the bag would allow. "No need, Trickster. I always get cavities from your kisses. Just call it a deal."
Gabriel pouted but gave in with a shrug. With a wave of his hand, the trap vanished from the ceiling.
"Just for the kicks." He grinned, swooping down on Crowley. The demon really did jerk away this time, sending the white bag tumbling down into his lap. He scrunched up his face, hissing, as he waited for the burn of salt.
Nothing happened.
Confused, he cracked one eye open, fixing on the pile of powder on his lap. Tiny white grains trickled out of his hair and down his face.
"Sugar." Crowley stated blankly. His eyes flickered red. "Sugar! You crazy bastard, I'll rip your head off-"
"You've been Loki'd." Loki said, completely deadpan. The two tricksters vanished with a flashy snap of fingers.
"TRICKSTER!"
This is actually a ton longer then the original was, since I added the longer scene with Tony and Dean. Oh, and I changed the just deserts victim. Originally, it was a fat old man, real sleazeball lowlife. Then I looked it over and thought, 'that has so been done before', so I changed it to the other kid. So, that's a real story, some kid was swindling old folks for insurance money and poisoning them when he was in the will. I can't remember where I read it, but I couldn't help but think 'that is totally the kind of guy Gabe would target'. So there.
Peace Off, Internets.
