Meg growls, striding across the room, the other Demons looking at each other, shuffling their feet. It is no hidden fact among them that Lucifer is not quite himself, given that he is mostly tied up and knocked out in a corner of the abandoned warehouse in Chicago they are occupying.
"There has to be some other way." Meg kicks at some of the Demons, barking orders. They go off, making themselves scarce. She has exhausted almost every resource, getting her Demons to possess as much professionals as they could, scooping out information and knowledge from their minds. Still no clue on how Lucifer's powers are bound. She dared not to ask the more powerful ancient Demons of Hell.
Lilith is dead, but the others, Beelzebub, Behemoth, Abbadon and the Legendary Cain are still alive and they will tear her to shreds. No, she needs to rely on an outside source to break this spell.
The Pagan Gods. Meg, like all other Demons, disliked them. They are ancient, and more powerful than most of them, except for perhaps the ancient ones. She is reluctant to seek them out, but desperate times calls for desperate measures. When her Father gains his memories back, Meg thinks, he will destroy them.
Which God, then? Which one is powerful enough to destroy such powerful bindings? Kali the Destroyer, with her winds and hurricanes and fires? No, she will attempt to burn them to cinders before even considering helping. Thor, then, or Odin. Norse Gods. They are strong. But hard to locate.
Loki, then. Meg realizes. Loki is a perfect choice. Being the King of Tricksters and a demi-god, Loki should be more than willing to hear her offer. She orders another Demon to bring as much candy to the warehouse as possible. She is going to make Loki an offer he cannot resist- protection against Lucifer's eventual wrath and, of course, lots of sugar.
The ritual in itself was not hard. Meg is skilled with many different rituals dealing with various elements of the supernatural. Even Angels, considering that her father was a fallen Angel. She gets her Demons to gather all the things she needs- chalk, blood, ink. Various rare herbs and crushed bones. The ritual is not the easiest one to use for summoning Loki, but it is one of the oldest known ones and the most powerful.
Surly the Trickster King cannot ignore her after such a summoning. Meg sets up the Altar in the warehouse adjacent to the one they are currently occupying. The summoning took vast amounts of her energy, but Meg's mouth managed to curl up in a tired, satisfied half smile at the sight of the golden haired man standing in the center of the ring.
"Hello, Loki." Gabriel was surprised when he felt the tugging of a summoning spell. It's definitely not the work of some teenager thinking it would be fun to try and summon a pagan god. It's not even the work of the few witches powerful enough to summon him. The spell is ancient, and any human who knew how to cast it is dead and long buried. He finds himself facing a Demon. With Gabriel's powers, he could easily resist the summoning. Unfortunately, that would cast many suspicions on his actual powers and identity.
He sucks on the candy, eyeing the Demon. Her soul is as dark and twisted as any other Demon's soul. He can see Azazel's mark, the fallen's tainted grace littering it's marks onto what's left of her soul.
"Demon." He let's his mask fall into place, twisting into a familiar grin. "I thought that ritual is lost but," He gestured with the lollipop, "apparently not."
Meg smirks. "I know a lot of things, Trickster King." She observes Loki. He seems like an unassuming man, slightly shorter than her with slicked back hair and bland, ordinary clothes. He could be just any man on the street, the only thing betraying his true nature the glint of malicious mischief in his eyes.
"You sure do." Gabriel keeps his voice light and airy. "Obviously-" He points to the setup. This Demon really overdid it, with the flowers and altars and candles and incense. She must really want something. "You went to, uh, great lengths for all this, so, what do you want?"
Meg smirks."Ain't that the million dollar question?"
"C'mon, make the offer" Gabriel pouts, "I don't have all day. I've got a job, you know- serving out Just Desserts."
"I just need a little help. In the magic department, if you will."
"Well" Gabriel shrugs. He could just smite this Demon, but who knows how many more will follow? That is the problem with this whole identities thing.
"You have heard of-" Meg grins "Our lord and savior Lucifer, right?" Gabriel stiffens at the mention of Lucifer, eyes going wide for the fraction of a second. Of course this has something to do with Lucifer. It is the Apocalypse, after all. And after all that lying low Lucifer still manages to find him, though not in the way he expected. He regains his composure.
"Sure! Why not, eh? King of the damned it is!" He chirps. Gabriel is a natural born actor, really. He should be winning an Oscar for this.
Gabriel really didn't expect to see a relatively unassuming blond man tied to a chair. Meg, the Demon glances at him and quirks an eyebrow.
"As you can see, I have a problem."
Lucifer groans, stirring in his seat. He lifts his head up, shaking errant blond strands away from his eyes. Meg was there, as usual. There is also a man. A blond man. There is something familiar about him, something that makes Lucifer's stomach churn with unknown feelings. Gabriel gazes into his lost brother's eyes, seeing no recognition in his vessel's ice blue eyes. His disguise is that good.
"Can you break the bindings on him?" The Demon asks.
"What bindings?" Gabriel takes a closer, more cautious look at Lucifer. Apart from the crude bounds that holds him in place(not even Archangel binding seals), there are other seals. Deeper, more powerful, woven into Lucifer's being.
"He can't remember anything. Like a blank slate. And he got kidnapped by the Winchesters, too." Meg sneers. "Who knows what kind of bullshit they put in his mind?"
Lucifer lost his memories? He pokes at the golden seals, and an ancient, almost forgotten power washes over Gabriel. For a moment there, Gabriel refuses to believe what he felt. The sheer power the bindings hold almost throws him off his feet. It's overwhelming, feeling his father's power after thousands of years without it. It makes Gabriel want to reach out, to sink into the light and cry out for love and affection and adoration.
It's how they, how Angels are made. They have no choice but to love and obey God. It's written into their very being, and no matter how hard Gabriel resisted he still missed the feeling. No wonder Heaven went insane after his departure. Steadying himself, Gabriel pulls away from the bindings.
"Well?" The Demon asks and Gabriel slips on his mask like a professional. He shakes his head, stilling himself.
"I can't. Seals are done by someone stronger than me." The Demon's face twists in rage. She leaps forwards, grabbing Gabriel by his shirt.
"Lies. My father will be restored."
"Fraid the restoring can wait, darling." He presses two fingers to her forehead, putting her to sleep before masking his grace with pagan magic.
"Hello, Lucifer." Gabriel spins around, facing his estranged older brother. Lucifer stares at the man- he heard something about summoning someone to help him regain his memories.
"Uh, hi?" He asks, moving uncomfortably against the ropes. The man- Loki? Snaps his fingers and the ropes came off, along with whatever sigils and bindings Meg put on him. Loki grabs Lucifer before he could run, and grins at his expression. Lucifer decides that he did not like this man. At all.
"C'mon, now, Luce- it's playtime!" They disappear, only to reappear half way across the country, in a cabin covered in seals. "Is it true?" Gabriel asks, eyes wide, shaking Lucifer's shoulders."You can't remember anything?"
"Yes?" Lucifer frowns. There is something odd about this man, that makes him feel familiar and strange at the same time. He exerted some sort of energy that he responded to.
"You don't remember me?" Gabriel asks. He is supposed to be relieved- that Lucifer did not, could not want this Apocalypse. But he is also selfish and the thought of all those memories of them together, as fledglings, growing up being gone-
"Am I supposed to?" Lucifer asks. "Can you, uh, bring me back to the Winchesters? Do you know them?" Gabriel scowls.
"I do know the Winchesters." Great. Those yahoos has stolen another one of his brothers. "But, no. You, Luci, are staying with me."
Lucifer contemplated escape. But, considering he knows nothing about using any of his supposed powers(and the fact that they are bound), he probably won't get far.
"Do you wanna know who I really am?" Gabriel asks. Bad idea, he scolded himself, exposing his true identity like this. But this is Lucifer- and Gabriel wants him to know.
"Who are you, then?" Lucifer asks, feeling as if he already know the answer. A word in the back of his mind and at the tip of his tongue, held back by whatever is holding back his memories and powers. Gabriel steps back, grinning.
"Call me Gabriel, brother."