As they made their way back, the hunters kept a bit of a wary eye on their otherworldly companions, still a bit taken aback, and slightly worried, at the sheer amount of dangerous-seeming weirdness the innocent seeming (more or less, in Vert's case) girls seemed to take for granted. Even by their standards, it was already getting a bit much.
But they arrived at the Impala without further distractions, and Neptune was bouncing in her seat the moment the door was unlocked.
"Soo, what didja find out? Where are the bad guys?"
"I believe I can lead us to their lodgings," Castiel declared. This time, he was sitting next to the door, though Vert in the middle seat was still next to him, and gave Dean instructions that would hopefully lead them to the nest.
Sam was wiping at the blood that had hit him with a grimace, not that there was much of a point to it since he was probably going to get splattered again when they cleared the nest, and Dean was grumbling threats about just what he would do to Sam if he got blood all over baby's fine upholstery.
Vert kept looking back and forth between Neptune and the reddened hunter, wearing an expression of pained understanding.
"I see you, too, have become victim of Neptune's apparent immunity to bloodsplatter? I know how frustrating it is, believe me. Once, when we were fighting in an abandoned factory, the entire place collapsed around us, and we all got covered in grease and dirt, peppered with broken masonry and metallic shrapnel. When the dust cleared, Neptune had a few scratches on her hands and face, and a light coating of dust on her hair. Blanc knocked her across the street in frustration."
Dean snorted a laugh and opened his mouth, but wisely decided to keep his comment about super powered kids to himself at the last moment. Neptune had left an impression on him, so to say.
"She sounds like an angry person," Sam remarked next to him, showing less restraint. Now that was new. "But I gotta say, it is kind of unfair. How do you do it?"
"Oh, it'd just be super lame if the protagonist looked all messed up, dontcha think? Oh and Blanc? Yeah, she's super angry. Whenever she's not being all quiet and mysterious. Our cute little angry heart." Neptune pulled out a device that looked like a cross between a cellphone and a handheld game console. As everyone looked at her confusedly, for various reasons, a picture of four girls appeared on the screen, two of them the strange goddesses that were in the car, joined by a tall, raven haired girl with red eyes, and a short brunette wearing a big, round, white hat.
Neptune pointed proudly to the tiny girl, who was smiling reluctantly.
"See? That's Blanc, or White Heart, the Goddess of Lowee. She's super cool."
She leaned in to Castiel, and stage whispered: "But never read her fanfictions. They're bad!"
Castiel squinted at her, tilting his head questioningly.
"I did not intend to," he replied, his voice careful like he wasn't sure if he was missing something. He usually was with Sam and Dean, and beginning to think that he could extend that to their two visitors.
Sam was twisted around in his seat while Dean kept his eyes on the road except for a glance at the rear view mirror.
"She doesn't look angry," he stated. "She actually seems kinda huggable. And I like her hat."
"Dude, could you be more gay," the older of the two grumbled from the driver's seat.
Sam only shot him a bitchface. "Try me."
Vert was having a dreamy look again, but Neptune was already pointing to the other girl in the picture.
"Oh yeah, I gotta go with mister sensible shoes here. Blanc is very huggable. Especially with the fur coat, and that hat is the stuff of dreams. Anyway, this here's Noire, also known as Black Heart, the CPU of Lastation. She's a total tsundere, and super fun to tease."
"She's a what now?" Sam inquired, frowning in confusion.
Dean sighed next to him. "A tsundere, Sammy. You know, tough shell but actually all warm and fuzzy when it comes down to it."
"How do you know that?" Sam demanded, almost prepared to regret the question a second later.
Dean just shrugged defensively. "I watch anime!"
"You watch hentai. There's a difference."
"We have kids on board, Sammy!"
"Really? Where?" Neptune made a big show of looking around the car. "We've got the queen of hentai back here. And me. Or does Cas count as a child. Haven't you educated him on the important things in life?"
"I tried," Dean responded drily. "It didn't go over too well." Sam shot him a dubious look, which was ignored.
"That was not my fault!" Castiel protested from the back seat. "I was simply being-"
"Face it, you freaked that poor girl out," Dean interrupted, chuckling at the memory.
The Angel scowled at him, folding his arms. "I don't see why it is so important anyway," he murmured under his breath.
Vert immediately perked up. "Now that sounds like there is an interesting story behind that. Do tell..."
"Well, since Cas here has no appreciation for the finer things in life, there ain't too much to tell, I'm afraid," Dean responded, grinning and ignoring the glare that Castiel was directing at the back of his neck.
"I'm not entirely sure a whore house counts as one of the finer things in life," he muttered.
Sam choked on his breath and stared at his brother incredulously. "I am never leaving you two alone again. What the hell, Dean?"
"He was about to die and a virgin! Not on my watch!" the older brother protested. "Besides, it wasn't a whore house. They were classy ladies, okay?"
"I don't think Chastity quite lived up to her name," Castiel remarked from where he sat. Dean wasn't sure if angels could blush, maybe it was just the lighting.
"You wouldn't know, you scared her off," he shot back. "Basically, Cas ended the evening early because he freaked her out by reading her mind. Kind of a buzzkill."
"I was trying to make her feel better!"
"Buddy, it's her job to make you feel better."
Sam let his head drop against the window with a groan. "I can't believe you two."
In the back seat, Neptune and Vert were busy laughing, hanging off each other to avoid flopping about in their seats.
"So...ahahhaa... You took an angel to a brothel..." Vert wheezed.
"Man, that sounds like the beginning of a bad joke!" Neptune interceded, before both reverted to uncontrollable giggling agian
Vert slapped Cas on the leg. "I am so sorry for you... Ahaahaa... But that is a priceless story. Ahaaa... But Dean probably overdid it a litte."
Castiel had taken to stoically staring out of the window with his arms crossed and now ducked his head a little. "Well..."
"No I didn't!" Dean crowed from the front. "I even left out how she ran from the room screaming and we were escorted out. I'm being nice here."
"You were unless you told them that," Sam interjected drily. "Are we there yet?"
Neptune seemed to take pity on the poor angel, and joined Sam in badgering his brother.
"Yeah, are we there yet? Where are we, anyway?"
She rose half out of her seat and clung to Dean's backrest like a superpowered purple monkey.
"The town's edge," Castiel replied in Dean's stead. "There's containers and ware houses there, a lot of them empty."
"Because that's not cliche or anything," Dean grumbled under his breath. "Why can't we have classy vampires for once? With a mansion and a pool?"
"Because they'd sparkle," Sam answered, dry and sarcastic. Dean just pulled a face, but didn't say anything more.
Vert shook her head.
"Mansions aren't any fun to fight through, believe me. There's too many corners, too much stuff. Warehouses have nice, clear areas and simple designs, at least. Though I do admit, it would be nice to fight somewhere that's nice to look at."
She surveyed the area with a wistful look.
"If we find a way back, remind me to show you the Toh-Kiden caves."
Neptune nodded enthusiastically. "Oh yeah, that's a really cool dungeon. I love questing there. We gotta show you that. It's suuuper pretty."
Castiel looked like he was trying very hard not to ask about the concept of fun or pretty Dungeons.
Dean had no such qualms, looking at Vert through the rear view mirror as he remarked: "I usually avoid dungeons until everyone has agreed on a safeword."
"TMI much?" Sam muttered from the passenger's seat. He sounded more resigned than appalled.
Vert smiled her dreamy smile again, and Neptune's face regained her dirty smile.
"Hehehe, how lewd... But we came here to smash some more monsters, shouldn't we be all sneaky now?"
"She's got a point," Sam remarked.
Relieved about the change in topic, Cas nodded. "We aren't too far now," he agreed. "If you want to surprise them, maybe we should pull over and walk the rest of the way. I could fly us in, too."
Dean nodded. "Sounds like a good idea."
He stopped the Impala in a shaded parking bay and everyone piled out. Vert looked around dreamily, her mind probably still on the images Dean had conjured up earlier.
The smaller goddess, on the other hand, seemed to be doing stretches.
"Okie dokie!" She addressed the angel cheerfully.
"You can carry both of them?"
"Over short distances such as this, it's not much of a challenge," he nodded.
Sam and Dean were raiding the trunk, glad that the area wasn't very densely populated, and Dean was grumbling something about uncomfortable angel transportation methods under his breath.
Neptune grinned broadly and rapped Vert hard on the shoulder.
"Wakey wakey, yaoi-head! We're gonna fly a bit!"
The blonde goddess looked like she was about to complain about the interruption, but took a look at everyone's expecting faces and thought better of it.
"Alright then. Who should I carry?"
"Carry?" Dean repeated. "I was thinking Cas would zap us inside or something. Element of surprise and all that jazz."
Sam was the one who closed the Impala's trunk so he could look at the two girls properly. "No offence, but I doubt either of you could carry any of us anyway. You're kinda... you know. Tiny." Only now, another seemingly obvious question appeared to occur to him. "How are you gonna fly anyway?"
Conveniently ignoring the little detail that might save them a bit of trouble, Neptune decided to show off.
"Well, apart from the fact that my strength stat is probably the highest of anyone here, we did mention that we're goddesses, right?"
She grinned proudly.
"Watch in awe! Activate HDD!"
Author's Note:
Hello everyone. I was honestly slightly surprised at the continued interest this story has gotten, and I have to say I am quite pleased.
Sadly, I am rapidly coming up on the end of the content that has been written so far, and there probably won't be any more anytime soon.
The reason for that (and the reason I have been steering clear of this story for a while) is that my co-author and me had a bit of a falling out over entirely unrelated matters. Since he was the one writing all the Supernatural parts, which I am decidedly less familiar with, I probably won't be able to finish this thing by myself.
Maybe I can gather up the courage to approach him again this year, but that's neither here nor there. Either way, I'll try to at least finish the next chapter myself, so you won't be left completely in the middle of everything.
That said, I wish you all a much better 2021.
Carry on.