Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise; the original concept of this story was inspired by 'To Hell & Back' by EventRider87, but I've added my own spin to things and have received EventRider87's permission to use their idea for this

Feedback: Much appreciated

The Corrupted Innocent

Walking carefully down the corridor towards the kitchen and the disturbingly filled freezer unit, Bela wondered how things could have reached the point where the idea of relying on an archangel to distract a goddess seemed almost normal to her.

OK, it's not something we'd do on a regular basis, but there are probably hunters out there who go their whole careers and never face anything more dangerous than a few really angry ghosts

As they reached the door to the kitchen, Bela exchanged anxious glances with Dean, Sam and Ellen as they heard someone screaming, followed by two men she recognised from the conference room dragging another man into the lobby, the unfamiliar man having clearly come from the freezer. Bela didn't even have time to think about how to act before one of the men struck the man in the neck with a cleaver, killing the man instantly, although she noticed Sam holding Dean back with a whispered warning. As they dragged the body away, Bela could only exchange a brief glance with the other hunters before they hurried into the kitchen, Dean taking up position to try and pick the lock on the freezer while the other three settled into a defensive stance around him.

"This isn't going well, huh?" Ellen asked.

"We're not dealing with a normal situation here by anyone's standards, Ellen; all we can do is focus on the final goal and keep trying to make it work," Sam said.

"Exactly," Bela nodded. "We get them out, Gabriel gets our blood out of Kali's hands, and-"

A large hand suddenly grabbed Bela's shoulder and moved to haul her away, leaving Ellen to dive into action and grab Bela before the other woman hit something that might have hurt the baby. Sam charged in to try and attack the new arrival, but the apparent god grabbed Sam by the throat and pinned him against the freezer. Unsure if this weapon would work but stuck for better options, Bela pulled out her angel blade and rammed it into the god's back, prompting him to release Sam as he staggered back, eyes and mouth glowing as he screamed in pain. The god turned around with a powerful swing of his arm that Bela only just managed to duck, but she was saved from further efforts when Ellen rammed a wooden stake into the god's side, the new blow driving an even greater scream of agony from the god's throat before he fell to the ground.

"OK," Ellen glanced around the kitchen with a slightly thoughtful smile. "Not the best hunt I've ever been on, but I think we did OK there… and what was that knife?"

"An angel's weapon I took from a psycho angel who'd been killing some of his associates when he couldn't convince them to help him release Lucifer," Bela explained. "Castiel let me keep it after I helped him stop the bastard."

"Well," Dean shrugged from his position by the locker, "'least we worked out that angel weapons can hurt pagans, even if they don't stop the suckers directly."

"Everything helps," Bela conceded, turning back to the locker before something grabbed them from behind.

"Now then," another unnamed god from the earlier conference said, looking mockingly between Bela and Dean, "shall we talk again?"


As the four hunters were thrown into the ballroom once again, Dean prayed that Bela's pregnancy wasn't far enough along for this kind of rough treatment to be that dangerous to the baby; he had faith that the future Johanna wasn't going to die that easily, but that wouldn't stop him from worrying about the family he'd never imagined…

When he looked up and saw Gabriel sitting at a table in a very dejected manner while Kali stood over him, he re-evaluated just how bad things were; considering the anti-angel sentiment expressed by this group so far, he wasn't feeling particularly good about the Trickster's chances.

"How long have you known?" Gabriel asked, which answered Dean's most urgent question without him needing to waste time trying to establish a more discreet way of bringing it up.

"Long enough," Kali replied.

"How's the rescue going?" Dean put in bitterly, only to be met with a glare from Gabriel.

"Well, surprise, surprise," Kali addressed the other gods in the room. "The Trickster has tricked us."

"Kali, don't," Gabriel whispered.

"You're mine now, and you have something I want," Kali said, leaning over to reach into Gabriel's jacket and pull out an angel blade. "An archangel's blade… from the archangel Gabriel."

Crap, Dean exchanged glances with the other hunters. Bang goes our best possible edge.

"OK, OK!" Gabriel said nonchalantly as he looked around the room. "So I got wings, like Kotex; that doesn't make me any less right about Lucifer."

"He's lying," Kali said with contempt. "He's a spy."

"I'm not a spy, I'm a runaway," Gabriel protested. "I'm trying to save you. I know my brother, Kali. He should scare the living crap out of you. You can't beat him. I've skipped ahead, seen how this story ends-"

"Your story; not ours," Kali cut him off, even as there was a faint trace of tears in her eyes. "Westerners, I swear; the sheer arrogance. You think you're the only ones on Earth? You pillage and you butcher in your God's name, but you're not the only religion, and he's not the only God. And now you think you can just rip the planet apart? You're wrong. There are billions of us. And we were here first. If anyone gets to end this world, it's me. I'm sorry."

Dean saw that Bela almost yelled out in protest as Kali slammed the blade into Gabriel's chest, causing the familiar white glow of a dying angel, even as the ex-thief bit her lip to stop herself drawing too much attention to herself.

"This is crazy," one of the other gods said.

"They can die," Kali said, even as she continued staring at Gabriel's corpse. "We can kill Lucifer."

That does it, Dean thought to himself grimly.

Whether or not this plan could work, and his own issues with these guys aside, god-versus-archangel in a Godzilla-versus-King Kong-esque match-up was still the best idea any of them had found since the Colt had proven useless, which was more than they'd had for months.

"All right, you primitive screwheads, listen up," he said, hoping that none of these gods were arrogant enough to just kill him outright.

"Are you outta your mind?" Ellen hissed over at him.

"Out of options," Dean whispered back to the older woman before he turned back to the gods, walking over to collect a drink from a table set up at the end of the room. "Now, on any other given day, I'd be doing my damndest to kill you all, but right now we're facing some desperate times and… well, I have reasons not to want this to go any further. So even though I'd love nothing better than to slit your throats, you dicks, we're gonna help you ice the devil, and then we can all get back to ganking each other, like normal. You want Lucifer, well, dude's not in the Yellow Pages. But me and Sam, we can get him here."

"How?" Kali asked.

"First let everyone in the freezer go," Bela said resolutely.

"And then we'll work out how to take down the Devil," Ellen said, before she shook her head and looked over at Sam. "Y'know, my life was fairly normal before you Winchesters walked into the Roadhouse."

"But it was a bit more boring, right?" Bela smiled. "And that was the bad kind of boring?"

"…Can't deny that," Ellen grinned back at the other woman.

That's certainly true, Dean mused as he exchanged glances with his brother.

Their lives were unquestionably more complicated than even for standard hunters, but Dean had to admit that a part of him genuinely appreciated the thrill of the hunting experience.


With Sam and Ellen contemplating battle strategies back in the hotel, Bela had immediately volunteered to help Dean lead the humans to safety; maybe it was a small victory when they were about to try and fight the devil with a bunch of pagan gods, but when they'd spent so long just holding the line against Lucifer getting a vessel Bela would take any victory where humans got away with their lives. Once the doors to the freezer had been opened and Kali had given a brief heat blast to warm up the former prisoners, it didn't take them long to follow Dean and Bela to the hotel doors, the two hunters watching as everyone ran from the building.

Bela didn't know if this would be enough, but with the weather picking up and no immediate sign of Lucifer, those people might have a chance…

"Dean!" a voice called from the Impala as the last of the former prisoners vanished from the car park, revealing the still-very-much-alive Gabriel squatting in the back of the Impala. "Don't look at me! Act natural. Get in."

Exchanging exasperated glances with Bela, Dean walked around the car and got into the driver's seat, Bela following his example as she settled into the passenger seat beside him (trying not to enjoy the moment; it was so rare that anyone got to sit up front in this thing if they weren't a Winchester…).

"Man, there is nothing natural about all this," Dean looked firmly at the man in the back of his car. "I thought you were dead."

"How did you pull that off?" Bela asked, looking urgently at the archangel.

"You think I'd give Kali my real sword?" Gabriel replied with a smirk. "That thing can kill me!"

"So… you slipped her a fake?" Bela asked.

"Made from a can of diet orange slice," Gabriel shrugged. "So… any chance you could go in there and snag your blood?"

"Wh- oh, Hell, no," Dean said.

"What's the problem?" Gabriel shrugged. "Kali likes you; you get in close-"

"I have a kid on the way now, you ass; I'm not gonna just… I don't screw around like that, OK?" Dean protested indignantly.

"Really?" Gabriel raised an eyebrow before he looked over at Bela with a grin. "Kudos to you, Ms Talbot; you managed to win over one of the biggest flirts I've ever met, and coming from me-"

"That means nothing," Bela said indignantly. "Look, you're here now; we're trying to rally the other gods to make a stand, but if you were standing with them-"

"You're kidding, right?" Gabriel looked sceptically at her.

"Hardly," Dean said grimly.

"Since when are you all butt buddies with a bunch of monsters?" Gabriel said. "That's all they are to you, aren't they?"

"Maybe," Bela conceded, deciding not to get into a debate about just how monstrous these lesser gods could be. "But we've had enough close calls over the last year or so to realise that we're going to need to bend the rules and do something unexpected if we're going to beat Lucifer; if you have a better idea than this, I'd like to hear it."

"Your call," Gabriel shook his head. "Personally, I'm blowing Jonestown; these lemmings wanna run off a cliff, that's their business."

"Maybe I'd buy that if I hadn't spent the last two years falling in love with a woman I once considered a self-centred bitch," Dean retorted. "But after all that, I can tell that smart-ass shell's just covering up the part of you that really does give a crap about all this."

"Really?" Gabriel raised an eyebrow as he smirked at Dean.

"Really," Dean said. "And maybe those freaks in there aren't your blood, but they are your family."

"They just stabbed me in the friggin' heart!"

"Which doesn't stop you caring about them," Bela smiled, trying to fight down the urge to let out an uncharacteristic whoop of joy at Dean's previous words; there would be time for them to talk about that later.

"Exactly," Dean said firmly to the archangel. "They're gonna die in there if you don't step up."

"…I can't kill my brother," Gabriel said at last.

"Can't or won't?" Dean countered, the silent stare he received from Gabriel all the answer he needed. "That's what I thought."

He turned and got out of the car, only to pause when he realised that Bela was still sitting inside it. "You coming?"

"In… in a moment," Bela said, smiling at Dean. "I've just… got something I need to work out first."

"Right…" Dean said, his expression sceptical even as he gave her an accepting nod before he turned around and walked back into the hotel.

"So what is this?" Gabriel looked over at Bela. "An intervention?"

"Just an idea I had that might help us all get out of this situation," Bela replied. "But if it's going to work, I need you to clear something up for me…"