Just outside the abandoned barn on the outside of Hagerman, Idaho, America
"So, uh, we just run in there, guns a-blazing, and hope Beelzebub doesn't get lucky and hit one of us?" The Doctor asked, glancing at the barn.
"Come on, Doctor," Jack said with a grin, cocking his gun. "Don't tell you've had worse plans than this."
"We must hurry," Cas interrupted. "Beelzebub must suspect we're coming for him, and if not then by now he must have sensed us. Waiting only allows him more time to prepare."
Jack nodded, "alright. You two head in through a back way, or you teleport in, angel face, I'll head in through the front."
Though both the angel and Time Lord looked as though they wanted to argue, they nodded, wish him luck and then, disappeared.
Jack took a deep breath, checked his gun one last time, and jogged towards the doors.
Abandoned barn on the outside of Hagerman, Idaho, America
"I see you both have finally gotten over your shyness and have come to greet me in person," Beelzebub said, smiling widely and not at all convincingly as Cas and the Doctor appeared in front of him
"I am Castiel, an Angel of the Lord, and I-"
"Spare me the speech," Beelzebub said, raising an eyebrow at Cas. "So, you are an angel. That makes us brothers."
"No," Cas spat, eyes sparking with contained lightning. "You are a traitor and a deserter, we are not brothers."
"You wound me, brother." Beelzebub said, clutching a hand over his vessel's heart.
"You bad guys are really lacking something these days," the Doctor said thoughtfully, slipping his glasses out of a pocket and sliding them on. "I mean, don't get me wrong, the whole 'Prince of Hell here to raise your brothers and bring Hell to Earth' is interesting, yes. But... Well, isn't taking over, or destroying, or doing anything else along those lines to the Earth a little cliché now? Where's the originality?"
"I might ask the same of you, Doctor. That is what you call yourself, is it not? Isn't saving this planet getting a little old by now?"
"Touché," the Doctor said, with a grin that looked a little more like he was baring his teeth.
"I wouldn't do that," Beelzebub said suddenly, returning his silver gaze to Castiel, who was slipping an angel blade into his hand.
Cas paused, apparently unsure of how to proceed before raising his hand anyway and stabbing towards Beelzebub. Before the fallen angel could react, a noise distracted him from the front of the barn.
"Have you ever thought of redecorating in here?" Jack called, sauntering in and distracting Beelzebub for long enough that Cas could continue his movement.
However, the fallen angel hadn't lived through Hell for so long without knowing his own tricks, he swept both arms outwards and the Doctor and Cas were thrown to opposite sides, the angel blade spinning from Cas' hand.
Jack continued in his approach, "I mean, do all you bad guys think this kind of décor is appealing? Or maybe intimidating? Is it just because these are the only places you can use for your nefarious purposes? Hey, I've always wondered, do bad guys like you have your own special retailers? Do you just order them to find you the most depressing and derelict places available on the market?"
"Your talk bores me," Beelzebub drawled. "Which is a shame, as you are a most interesting individual. You shouldn't be alive, were you aware of that?"
"Oh," Jack smirked. "I've been told that so many times, I think I kinda lost count."
"Yes," the fallen angel nodded, allowing the man to walk closer still. "But has anyone ever explained why?"
"Yeah, of course."
Beelzebub hummed, nodding to himself. "So much energy, so many possible uses for you. It is a shame, but, I think, for the best."
"Hey, woah, what are you-"
Jack was cut short as he was thrown backwards against a wall of the barn, and Beelzebub took long strides toward him.
"I'll make this quick, for I wouldn't want to cause you any undue pain." He said, looking up at the helpless man before quickly twisting his left hand and watching as Jack's head snapped too quickly and too far to the right and his small struggles ceased. It was only then he allowed the body to drop.
At the door of the abandoned barn, outside of Hagerman, Idaho, America
"Okay," Dean muttered. "Sherlock, John and I run in, distract him while you two get the civvies out of here. Got it?"
Sam and Rose both nodded, Rose clutching the sheet of paper and Sam preparing his gun, both with a determined look in their eyes.
"Good," Dean glanced at Sherlock and John and grinned. "Ready for the party?" He asked grimly, before kicking the door open and sprinting inside, the other two following him closely behind.
The scene that greeted them was unpleasant to say the least, Jack's lifeless and somewhat mutilated body was slumped against the wooden wall of the barn, the Doctor and Cas were both sprawled at opposite ends of the barn, neither looking like they would regain consciousness any time soon. In the midst of it stood the very unimpressive figure of Beelzebub, a little behind him, in a darkened area of the warehouse, Dean could make out a bloody alter with what looked and sounded like flies buzzing around it.
"Dean!" The fallen angel's voice was surprisingly deep and booming. "So nice of you to finally join us, I thought you might not make it."
"Well, lucky for you, I hate to disappoint." Dean said, stepping forward with a predatory smile.
Beelzebub laughed, though it was not a kind sound, it was harsh and grating against his ears and Dean couldn't help but wince.
"And I see you've brought a friend," Beelzebub continued, looking behind Dean.
Frowning, Dean glanced behind him to see John looking just as mystified as Dean felt. "Uh, yeah." He said, turning back to face the fallen angel. "So, if you'd just kindly let my friend kill you, that would be real helpful."
Dean could already see their original plan had failed in such a way that would have been laughable if it weren't so damn terrifying. Cas, their only hope at ganking Beelzebub, was out. The Doctor, the unknown who seemed like he could be very powerful if he would just get a little violent, was also out. Jack, their immortal man, was dead. Sherlock had disappeared to nobody knows where. And Sam and Rose would be too busy saving the civs to be able to help out at that particular moment. Because of course, the whole point of plans was for them to screw up in every way possible.
"Well," Beelzebub shrugged. "We may as well get this over with." He made a shooing motion with his hand and Dean heard John fly backwards and then hit the wall. Hard.
He braced himself to be next, and was surprised when instead Beelzebub appeared in front of him (seriously, do those guys never walk?). This was the last thought Dean had for a while, as Beelzebub reached forward and, before Dean could react, touched his fore and middle fingers to his forehead.
In another area of the abandoned barn, outside of Hagerman, Idaho, America
"Get back!" Sam ordered, aiming his gun at a man, younger than him with spiky red hair, who was still approaching them. "Rose, any time would be great."
Rose, scrabbling on the floor and squinting in the half-light, let out a cry of triumph. "Found it!" She grabbed the piece of paper and immediately began reading out the strange sounding words.
When she was finished, both her and Sam looked at the three people, who had paused in their advancing upon the pair and instead stood stock still until, in unison, they dropped the floor unconscious.
"That was easy." Rose said brightly, shooting Sam a smile.
"Yeah..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Come on, we better go check the others are... still alive." Sam continued, taking off at a run toward the part of the barn he knew the others were in.
The main area of the abandoned barn, outside of Hagerman, Idaho, America
The Doctor groaned softly as he pulled himself upright, his glasses falling askew as they had miraculously stayed on during his unplanned flight. Gingerly, he pulled himself upright, and his eyes fell upon a rather gruesome sight.
Dean was standing in the centre of the barn, however, all of his usual life and energy seemed to have been drained away and he stood limply, his gun by his feet; it must have slipped from his hand. Meanwhile, Beelzebub had appeared at Dean's side, the bulk of his body preventing the Doctor from seeing what he was doing until, that was, he moved away. He held a dagger in one hand and a dark goblet in the other, there was a cut across Dean's arm with blood trickling from it and it was no doubt Dean's blood dripping from the dagger too.
It was then that the fallen angel began chanting in what the Doctor recognised as Enochian, thunder began to boom overhead as if to drown out Beelzebub's voice but he merely chanted louder. Before the fallen angel's chanting reached its crescendo, the Doctor realised he had to do something, and sprung to his feet. Looking around desperately for something that could help, his eyes soon landed on the angel blade, shining dimly against the dirt of the barn floor. Without hesitation he sprinted over to the blade, sweeping it up and, without halting, bringing his arm in a downwards curve and stabbing Beelzebub through his heart. White light shone brightly from the fallen angel's eyes and mouth as he let out a roar louder than the thunder above, within seconds, however, the body fell to the ground.
After a moment of taking deep breaths, the Doctor dropped the angel blade with a clatter and turned to Dean. "Dean! Hi, hey! Dean, you with me?" He asked, trying to get a reaction from the man who remained motionless despite his best efforts.
What the Doctor hadn't noticed was Castiel waking up as he killed Beelzebub, and staring wide-eyed at the spectacle. The angel made no sound to alert the Doctor to his newly-awakened state, however, instead he simply flew to the Doctor's side.
"What happened?" He asked, his deep voice surprising the Time Lord.
"Beelzebub put him under some kind of spell, perhaps the same one as he put the others under? I don't know." The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, spiking it up even more. "Then he seemed to be doing some kind of ritual, and he was chanting in Enochian.
Cas frowned, his eyebrows drawing together as he considered Dean. "He seems to be under a stronger enchantment than the others," he said thoughtfully. "I suppose the further ritual must have had something to do with that. Beelzebub didn't finish, did he?"
The Doctor shook his head, "no, I stopped him before he could."
"Good," Cas nodded. "We should be able to help Dean, then."
At that moment, Sam and Rose ran in and, upon seeing Dean, Sam quickened his pace until he skidded to a halt beside his brother.
"Dean?! Oh my God! What happened?" Sam demanded, looking angrily from Cas to the Doctor before taking Dean's face his hands and desperately searching his glazed eyes. As he looked at his brother's eyes, Sam noticed there was something odd happening in them, there seemed to be some sort of swirling silvery mist in them, and, as Sam looked on, he saw the mist gathering and beginning to blot out the emerald of Dean's eyes.
"What's going on?" Sam demanded again, looking to Cas.
"Maybe this?" Rose supplied, she had crouched down by Beelzebub's dead vessel and was looking at the goblet, which had miraculously stayed upright.
Cas took the goblet from her as she stood up and studied it intently, "a hell hound's fang, a feather from an angel's wing, and a pair of dice." The angel paused and sniffed at the swirling red concoction, "and I believe they're are mixed into virgin's blood."
Rose pulled a face, "that's disgusting. What did Beelzebub need all that for?"
"To prepare Dean to become Asmodeus' vessel." Castiel said, as though it were obvious and he was surprised the others hadn't realised it yet.
There was silence for a moment as the three others considered this, the quiet was broken by Sam. "Are you kidding me?!" He shouted, stabbing a finger toward Cas. "We're done! We dealt with angels wanting to possess us! Dean got possessed by Michael, for a few seconds at least. And now you're telling me that he's not strong enough to push out some low-level fallen angel?"
"I did not say that-"
"And as if that weren't bad enough, there's a spell with this one? Are you freakin' kidding me? No. You sort this out. Right. Now. Cas, or I swear to God-"
"Sam," Rose said tentatively. "He looks kind of like the others did when they'd had Beelzebub's brainwashing treatment... Maybe first of all we should see if the reversal spell does anything?"
Sam took a few calming breaths, and nodded silently. As Rose went through the Enochian spell again, the limp vulnerability disappeared from Dean until he blinked once and the glazed look was gone from his eyes.
"Dean?" Sam asked, a little breathlessly. "Hey buddy, you okay?"
Dean was silent for a few moments, until, suddenly, his eyes rolled up into head and his body crumpled.
"Hey, hey. You're okay, I got ya'. Easy, easy." Sam murmured, gently lowering his brother's unconscious form to the ground.
Castiel nodded to himself, "it would seem that was part of the spell." He looked at Rose, "well done."
Rose shrugged and grinned at the angel, "no problem, none of you guys would have figured it out anyway."
"That still doesn't solve the rest of the problem," Sam ground out, he gestured to the goblet Cas was still holding. "What're we gonna do about that?"
"I'll study it some more," Cas said. "And I will figure out how to reverse the ritual. Don't worry, Sam."
"Yeah?" Sam said, raising an eyebrow at the angel. "Tell me that again when Dean's okay."
For most people, dying more than once wasn't really a problem. For Captain Jack Harkness, it was becoming a habit he didn't seem to be able to shake. As he slowly swam back to consciousness, one of the first things he noticed was that his neck was a tad uncomfortable. After pulling himself into a sitting position, he snapped his head to the side so that it was facing forward. Yeah, that felt better. His memories of the previous few minutes took their time filtering back to him, and by the time he was fully caught up and his vision wasn't blurred, Jack could tell there was something wrong with the group stood in the centre of the barn. These suspicions were confirmed when he saw Dean collapse after Rose read out some strange sounding words.
"Anyone mind giving a guy a hand?" He called out, it took a few minutes for him to be able to work up to it; his throat felt like it had been twisted in some way it was not meant to.
The four conscious members of the group immediately looked over to him, and Rose let out a little gasp of surprise and ran over to him.
"Jack, are you okay? Oh my God, what happened to you? You look awful." Rose asked in a rapid, machine gun way.
He glanced over her shoulder at the Doctor, who was walking up behind her, the two made eye contact and, after a very slight shake of the head from the Doctor, Jack looked back into the worried eyes of Rose.
"Nothing much," Jack said with a casual grin. "Beelzebub just roughed me up a bit. Guess he didn't know exactly how much us 51st Century guys can take, huh?"
Rose gave him a relieved smile and stood, offering Jack her hand, which he gladly took.
"So, uh, where's the other two?" Jack asked, eager for the attention to be taken off of him. "You know, John and Sherlock?"
It appeared nobody else had noticed their absence until Jack had asked, and they all looked around in confusion, apart from Sam, who was checking over Dean.
"We're over here." Sherlock's voice shouted from the front of the barn, where there was an obvious disturbance in the clutter.
The five hurried over to find John sprawled amongst the rubble with Sherlock, who was digging away some of the rubble covering his friend's body.
"Why didn't you call us earlier?" The Doctor demanded as he and the others began to help clear away the rubble.
"I didn't know that Beelzebub was dead, did I?" Sherlock said contemptuously. "And if he was, then it wouldn't have been the best idea to be screaming about where my position was, would it?"
"Guess not," Rose huffed.
It didn't take long to uncover John, and once they did, Cas pressed two fingers to John's forehead, and they all looked on as his gashes and bruises healed, and then as his eyes fluttered open.
"Is he... dead?" John asked, shaking his head as he sat up.
"Yes." Cas confirmed, "but we do have some other problems."
"Not some more Princes of Hell?" John asked, looking up at Cas. "Because if so, I don't care if the world gets destroyed, I quit."
Jack offered John a hand and a blinding grin, "nah, no more of them. Something's up with emerald-eyes."
John accepted the proffered hand and looked at the group questioningly. "How exactly? And, ah, what exactly?"
"I imagine he did something stupid and heroic." Sherlock said drily, standing up and brushing himself off.
Cas shot the consulting detective a dark look, "this was none of his doing. Beelzebub put some kind of spell or enchantment on Dean."
"Oh, of course." Sherlock said, rolling his eyes. "Well, that makes so much more sense."
"Sherlock," John said in a warning tone. "I don't think anyone's in the mood for this right now."
Room 3, still in the dingy motel, Hagerman, Idaho, America
To say it was easy getting all eight members of the group back to the motel would be a lie, eventually, Sam ended up driving the Impala, with Dean carefully positioned in the shotgun seat, John, Jack and the Doctor all sitting in the back, while Cas took Rose and Sherlock back to the motel room.
The angel didn't explain why he didn't want to take Jack or the Doctor back with him, but he did say he didn't think it would be a good idea to fly with John after he had just been healed with Grace. Something about there only being so much angelic magic one human could take in a short period of time or something.
And that was how they all ended up back in the crappy motel.
Dean was unconscious on his bed, Sam sitting on his, his eyes never leaving Dean and radiating such an aura of protectiveness and anger that the group made the silent decision of leaving him be for a little while.
Sherlock was, once again, in 'his' armchair, fingers tented and apparently lost in thought. He hadn't spoken to anyone, not even John, about what he'd done in the barn, but his friend knew he'd speak when his thoughts were organised.
Castiel was standing at the door, a silent guardian as the others recollected themselves, Beelzebub's goblet placed next to him on the counter, his eyebrows were drawn together in a frown and his piercing blue eyes were constantly returning to the Doctor as though he were a newly discovered species that had to have every detail documented.
The Doctor was sitting with Rose, Jack and John, the four were sitting together in muttered conversation, sharing stories, it seemed, about what had happened to each of them in the barn.
The uneasy peace was disturbed when Dean groaned loudly and his eyes flickered open, Sam was immediately at his side.
"Hey Dean, how you feeling? You okay? You with me?"
"Quit crowding me, Sam." Dean mumbled, sitting upright and gripping Sam's shoulder to heave himself upright.
"You had a pretty rough time of it," Sam continued. "You sure you're feeling alright? Nothing... supernatural?"
"Yep, I'm all free will and individual thought. You know me." Dean said, summoning a grin and directing it at Sam, who gave a sigh of relief and returned the grin.
However, as Dean looked around the room, taking in the sight of the other six staring him, he suddenly frowned.
"Dean, what is it?" Sam asked, looking into the empty corner of the room that Dean was staring at.
"Please tell me you all see that..." Dean muttered, not moving his eyes from the spot.
"See what? Dean, you're freaking me out, man."
"Him!" Dean said, struggling to keep his voice even as he pointed at the corner.
In the corner was... well, it was Dean. Same dirty blonde hair, same plaid shirt, same AC/DC t-shirt, same torn jeans, same biker boots. Same everything. Same everything, that was, save for the fact that this Dean had ruby red, blood scarlet, glittering eyes.
"Hello, Dean," the other Dean purred, his eyes sparking. "I don't think we've been properly introduced. My name is Asmodeus," black wings sprang from the Prince of Hell's back as he grinned madly at Dean. "And we are going to get on so well."
First off, apologies for this taking so long again. But, if you'll allow me some more excuses, I moved house recently and it's all been a major rush and no wifi. So, even though the chapter took long enough from merely being this chapter, it also couldn't be uploaded on time. And that goes the same for my other stories too!
Anyway, I really hope you guys are keeping up with this and still enjoying it!
Thank you all once again for lovely, supportive and helpful reviews.
Lil'Fuj13- Thank you so much for a very reassuring review! And all my revision was worth it, I even did well in my sciences! :o And after my little filler chapter, I hope this one is much more satisfying!
MysticalPenguin393- Thank you! And what an interesting idea! Even if I can't fit that into this one, this is going to be a trilogy so I've noted down your idea and I'll certainly fit it in somewhere!
