The box landed with a noise like no other. Booming, wheezing, groaning...
An odd golden light shone through the windows, and Sam could just about hear something... it was faint, but he was sure someone was singing.
The footsteps of the demon guards echoed through the hall, and Gabriel's incessant screaming had stopped. Sam saw Crowley himself racing towards the alien object. It was hard to see through the barred window, but Sam was sure that the King of Hell looked... scared. That's not something you see every day.
The door swung open with a creak and light flooded the corridor like a tidal wave. Instinctively Sam closed his eyes. The singing Sam heard earlier was amplified and it filled the space with a haunting, high melody. His heart started to ache and swell to the crescendos and diminuendos.
Cas stood, alone, in front of Crowley and the growing army of demons. He was silhouetted by a cascade of molten starlight spilling out of the box behind him like a dam had broken. Tendrils of pure power snaked out and in, out and in, pulsing to the beat of a heart. The angel's eyes glowed with golden rage.
"Castiel?" Crowley whimpered.
"The demon king." Cas' voice was all wrong. It was smoother, more melodic, higher in pitch. It made Sam uncomfortable, but his face was glued to the door in desperation. "Cease and you will walk freely."
Crowley narrowed his eyes in defeat and snapped his fingers. And snapped his fingers again. And again. Bewildered by his lack of power, the demon froze.
"I am the Bad Wolf, life force of the TARDIS, eye of Time and Space. I am also Castiel, Angel of the Lord, savior of humanity and protector of prophets. You cannot escape me. I hold the past and the future in my hands. You will stop this or I will split the atoms in your body in half one by one."
Crowley simply laughed, but his facade was breaking apart.
"Look, Cas, or Bad Wolf, or whatever- I'm not going to stop my prophet education program. Kill me, if you really want to, but there is no way you can get to the Word of God and its prophets without-"
Cas answered by raising his hand, very slowly and pointedly. A blinding white light shot out from his palms. Sam and Dean quickly shut their eyes as to not be blinded by his grace. When their gaze returned to the situation at hand, the hundred-or-so demon guards had vanished, leaving only small piles of dust. Crowley stood alone and terrified, frantically looking around for backup.
"I stripped away their atoms from their damned souls and cast them into the Void. Now, King of Hell. Will. You. Cease."
With the last three words Cas stepped forward, with godly rage. Sam was truly afraid of the usually docile angel- it reminded him of the whole leviathan fiasco when Cas became a deity.
Suddenly Cas flickered- literally. The light pulsing out from his body faltered. The angel became confused, looking down upon himself.
"I- I don't understand.."
The light came back. And went out. On and off and on and off. Cas became steadily more confused, trying and trying to regain control. Sam felt Dean stiffen beside him.
"You okay?" Sam muttered without looking at his distressed brother.
"Yeah," Dean replied, his voice rough with empathy. "But Cas isn't."
The sound of Crowley's nervous laughter echoed through the metal walls.
"Running low on God-juice, are we, Cassie?"
There was more darkness falling than light now.
"I can't- there's so much- so much-" It was Cas' regular voice, deep and scared. Sam watched in horror as Cas sunk slowly to the ground, blinking and gasping in shock. His eyes still shone unnaturally gold.
This proved to be too much for Dean.
"Cas!" he yelled in desperation, straining his cracking voice. It wasn't a plea for help. It was just a shot in the dark, a second of pure emotion channeled into one single scream.
Cas's head whipped around to face the unmarked prison cell door. Pain shadowing his gaze, he shot one final burst of power towards them from his shaky hands before collapsing.
The door was blasted open before Dean or Sam could say or do anything more.
"Go!" heaved Cas, while Crowley stalked towards him. But the fallen angel wasn't looking at the Winchesters, who had burst out of the room immediately. He was facing the TARDIS. A figure stumbled out of the glowing machine, heaving, its clothing ripped. The person ran for its life, grabbing the shocked brothers by their wrists and pulling them along with him.
o-o-o-o
I grunted with frustration as my migraine worsened by the second. Struggling to keep my eyes open, I forced myself to stare at the tablet for a few more seconds before burying my face in my hands again.
I had translated about a sentence in an hour. One freaking sentence. Gloria was a little bit better than me at it, given she'd had more practice at it, but even she was getting cabin fever in the enclosed room. Shivering under the constantly chilling air con, I squinted at the foreign letters and scribbled down pictograms, still not making sense of the words. I shuddered as the tablet's contents swam in my red, sleep-deprived eyes, forming into legible stone words. I was able to jot down the words 'unto Hell' before my concentration broke, and my temporary power washed away.
I groaned and closed my eyes, rocking my chair back. Gloria patted my arm sympathetically. She was a girl of little words, which was comforting sometimes. Sighing exaggeratedly, I turned back to my work.
I had translated about a sentence- it was a very long sentence, but still. Paired with what the other Doctor had done previously, my scattered notes read 'An innocent soul must be rescued from Hell and returned unto Heaven.' I read it over a few times, my messy handwriting a welcome change from the stress-inducing tablet language. Deciding that it still made no sense after a few minutes of mulling it over, I decided to stretch my legs.
I paced around the entrance, a cold metal door with a few slots in it to look out of. I was curious, so obviously I peered through the holes-
Wait a minute.
"Aren't there supposed to be guards here?" I asked, turning my head to face the others, all absorbed in their tasks.
Greg raised his head, speaking in a lazy, gruff tone. "Yeah, there's always about 15 out there. Why, have they gone?"
"Yeah," I said quietly. "The guards aren't there."
Rachel Dare stood up, excitement shining in her eyes. "Can we leave? Can we go home?"
"I don't think so," muttered Kevin huskily. It was the first time he'd spoken in hours and I really didn't appreciate his grim tone. "Demons are powerful; even if they're gone, we'll still be stopped."
"Blimey," the other Doctor, who was pasting post-it-notes on the wall, interjected. "You're a cheery one."
"I'm just being realistic," Kevin argued.
I turned away from their banter, rubbing my temples. I glanced through the bars one last time, just to check, but what I saw didn't make sense. In the distance, near the back of the infinitely long corridor, three men were running for their lives. One in plaid, one in a leather jacket.. and one in a ripped-up purple tweed coat. All of them making their ways towards us.
Oh my God.
"Guys..." I murmured, shocked. No one heard me. "Guys!" I yelled. Their heads snapped in my general direction.
"We're being rescued."
