I do not own Supernatural or related creations made by the SP Crew.

I will admit, I picked the name Oracle because I always liked the character and I thought it was funny. It didn't occur to me that Crowley would let me have an alias or that the work would be role playing that character a bit more literally than I had originally thought.

Crowley was shockingly generous to me, honestly, I think he enjoyed the resentment it built among his underlings. They really hated the special treatment he gave his human pet. Pretty sure that Crowley was on a mission to get me to rage quit by giving every demon, angel, and human we came across the impression I was sleeping with him.

So it was no surprise that he had hired human mercenaries to guard my new home. It was a large farmhouse that had been converted to a central base for helping hunters. There was a big library of lore, a very fine office, with way too many phones, a file cabinet of aliases for myself and several hunters that were seemingly under Crowley's employment. There was also a hidden panic room that Crowley set up for himself, he graciously said that I could use it in case of emergencies. On occasion, I would get to go to the nearby small town, drive the car I demanded Crowley give me and take a break, in the company of one of my guards of course.

I did not get many calls at first. Oddly the first call I got was from Samuel, wanting to help with his computer. Apparently, he had missed all the important developments in technology and his family were all busy. He ended up calling strictly for tech support once a week for the next month. Occasionally, I got a call from a demon needing a specific relic or something else, for some reason there were demons running around hunting. Crowley didn't really explain anything and I decided not to ask questions.

I did find ways to keep myself busy: reading, converting lore to a searchable document, learning how to make searchable documents better, learning how to direct calls to one number with different ring tones because multiple phones was super annoying, improved my cooking, bribed some of the guards to teach me some fighting skills as I could not survive on sucker punches and crotch shots forever, and tried my best to spend Crowley's money recklessly. I even set up alerts to try to catch on to situations that needed the attention of hunters. I would call Samuel to tip him off on occasion, but I still was not very good at tracking these things.

At least once a week, Crowley came by to see if I could replicate tapping into demonic powers without mangling my body. So far I had managed to telekinetically move a pen a half inch. Then I collapsed and hit my head on a nearby table. Crowley thought it was wildly successful.

Things did not get interesting until the end of that first month. For starters, Castiel literally popped in. He didn't even say anything, just appeared, took a real deep breath, let it out slowly, nodded at me and disappeared again.

A little while after that I received a call from one of Samuel's people, the younger man I had met before. It did not go well.

The screen on my phone lit up CAMPBELL HUNTER.

"Oracle speaking, what can I do?" I tried to sound pleasant.

"You need to find us something. Do you do that sort of thing?" His gruff and angry tone left something to be desired.

"What is it you need? I will do my best to get it to you quickly." I didn't like the guy, but we both had a job to do and a preference for not dying in the process.

"You'll do your best? Unbelievable." Then he hung up. I guess he didn't actually need anything.

I shrugged my shoulders and tried to get on with my day, ten minutes later, my phone rang again.

CAMPBELL HUNTER

"Oracle speaking, What can I do?" I tried a pleasant tone again.

"Okay you will get us what we need and get it here fast, our location is-" He was speaking fast and firmly. I interrupted him.

"No." I said the word calmly, even though I was very annoyed.

"No?" He seemed surprised by the word.

"What is your name?" I genuinely wanted to know.

"My name is Christian. Now-" I interrupted him again.

"Christian, you seem to be under the wrong impression. You seem to think you can order me around without so much as a please or thank you. Only my boss can do that and you are not him." I tried to keep my voice even as I continued.

"When you call back, please remember that." I decided to mute my end of the call, instead of hanging up right away.

I heard an interesting conversation between him and Samuel that essentially consisted of Christian calling me a useless demon whore and Samuel telling him to try being nicer. Eventually, they settled on having someone named Sam call me instead. I hung up then and changed the Number ID to CAMPBELL, ASSHOLE.

About thirty minutes later my phone lit up again.

UNKNOWN CALLER

"Hello mysterious caller, may I ask who you are?" I guessed that this was the "Sam" that was supposed to call me.

"...My name is Sam….is this….Oracle?" He was hesitant but his tone didn't quite match the way he was trying to get his words across.

"Yes, This is Oracle. I see you drew the short straw, did Christian get a good scolding for his bad manners?" I didn't do anything to hide the snide and somewhat amused tone in my voice.

There was silence but this Sam was still on the line.

"I am sorry, that was rude. What did you need, Sam?" I waited through another short beat of silence.

"Do you know where to find tears if someone twice orphaned?" He didn't sound hopeful.

"Are you joking?" I was legitimately surprised, that was a stupidly specific thing to ask for.

"You don't-"

I interrupted him, "I have it, I was surprised, no one asks for that. How soon do you need it?"

There was a pause, "How do you have something no one asks for?" His tone was suspicious.

"Why are you asking for it?" I fired back. This Sam did not seem like the trusting type.

"We need it as soon as possible. Send it to Samuel." I heard the phone move and thought he would hang up, but he said one more thing first.

"Thanks." There was a click and the call ended.

I pulled out a different cell phone that Crowley had given me for delivery services and sent a text.

ASAP Delivery to SC

Then I got a small vial and spent the next ten minutes trying to get myself to cry. I had always joked that my tears had to be worth something on the occult market, who knew.

Suddenly there was a somewhat skittish looking woman standing next to my desk. "You have a delivery?"

I hesitated, Usually I was only around demons with supervision. They were not nice even then. I decided that being polite was safest. "Here you go, thank you." I handed her the small vial and studied her.

She politely said "You're welcome." then just stood there looking concerned by something.

"Did...did you need anything else?" Normally, demons could not wait to leave my presence, something about not being able to kill me was annoying or something similar.

I was surprised, when the demon looked around and worriedly replied, "I am just waiting for you to dismiss me."

I tilted my head in confusion, "Dismiss you? What do you mean?"

The demon cast her eyes down before speaking, "His majesty felt that you would need a servant to see to your needs and safety, he has narrowed the candidates to me."

I pinched the bridge of my nose, "Let me get this straight. Crowley tortured a bunch of demons to make one a servant to me?"

She meekly nodded.

I continued, "How did he decide on you?"

She shook her head a little too quickly, "It's not important."

I sighed, "Crowley put cameras in this house or something, didn't he?" The demon looked rather petrified before as subtly as possible she nodded.

I sighed again, "Hold on, I have something dumb to add to this."

I was not kidding, Crowley did not seem to want me leaving this small fortress, so I tended to think of increasingly dumb things to kill time. Reaching into a box under my desk I pulled out a small box that had not been folded into shape yet. I quickly set it up and handed it to the demon.

She looked at it and read the label aloud, "Oracle Courier Services. Don't ask how, you probably don't want to know."

I saw the corner of her mouth twitch, "His Majesty won't like this."

I smiled, "Crowley can come tell me that himself, you can deliver that now." She was gone before I blinked.

I looked around the room wondering where cameras could be placed. I couldn't see anything, but that was hardly surprising. He could afford private guards, he could probably afford spy cameras.

I looked around the room before saying out loud, "Crowley, We need to talk about the cameras or I am donating a truly impressive amount of your money to charity."

I turned back to my computer to figure out just which charity would annoy my boss the most when I heard him. Speak of the devil and he shall appear indeed.

"I have killed people for less." He sounded annoyed, it must be a bad day.

"I am sure you have. You could always fire me, then kill me. I have instructions for the words "Crowley lost to me" to be etched on my headstone." I continued scrolling through charity listings before my chair was roughly pulled backward and spun around.

Crowley was inches from my face, eyes filled with fury, "Do not test me today Riley. My patience is wearing thin already." He looked positively wrathful and it was terrifying.

He stared at me intensely before raising a hand quickly to my face and leaning forward. I had no idea what he was going to do, but I panicked and slapped him hard across the face. As soon as I realized what I had just done, I pressed myself as far back into the chair as I could. He was going to kill me. Then the thought occurred to me that he could do much more than that.

Before I knew it Crowley had a hand around my throat but oddly he only held me there. "Do you have any idea how easy it would be to squeeze the life from you?"

He was studying me, gauging my reactions, eyes still full of rage. I stayed silent and still, too scared to move. "Do you realize how much I spoil you? Why do you and everyone else continue to deny me the respect I am owed?"

When I stayed silent this time, he began to tighten his hand around my throat. I hurriedly to think of something, anything to say, "Your Majesty…..the…. contract."

And suddenly Crowley was a foot away as I wheezed in some much needed air. My neck ached and I tried to pay attention as Crowley spoke in a much more pleasant tone. "Apologies, I will see to it that you are properly compensated for this incident."

I waved a hand at him, "Turn the sound off on the cameras and I will forget it ever happened."

Suddenly he was in my space again, "Done and Riley, do not slap me again."

Then he was gone

I don't know how long I had sat there shaking and staring off into space. It wasn't until I felt a hand on my shoulder that I moved at all. I had been so unaware of my surroundings that I managed to fall out of the chair and onto the ground. It took me a moment to even realize why I had been so startled in the first place, someone had touched my arm.

I looked up to see Castiel staring down at me with a grim look on his face. "You are crying." It was a statement lacking any real emotional tone, yet somehow, it felt a bit like concern.

I slowly got to my feet while wiping my eyes, I had not noticed that I had been crying in the first place. I put on the best smile I could manage, "It's nice to see you again Castiel, I was going to make lunch…...do you eat?"

Castiel was silently staring before he reached for my neck, I flinched. I couldn't help it. He froze his arm, "I can heal it for you." I nodded and he reached out, hand glowing at the bottom of my vision.

He took his hand back abruptly. I looked at him oddly, "Thank you, that would have been sore for a while. Is anything wrong?"

He frowned at me, "You have a demon within you."

I nodded, "Yes, I do."

Castiel continued to frown, "Why is it hard to sense?"

I shrugged as I made my way to the kitchen, motioning for him to follow. "Before I tell you anything, I need to know something. I cannot work against the interests of Crowley, my loyalty is being tested and my soul is at risk should I fail that test."

Castiel somehow managed to frown more, "The wager is a loyalty test? Why would you do that?"

I sighed, "Because I wanted to live. Now please, I want to answer your questions but cannot unless I have more information about your alliance with Crowley."

I sat down at the small table I had next to the kitchen and motioned for him to sit across from me. He looked hesitant, then sighed and plopped himself down in the chair.

"I am fighting a war. An alliance was necessary." He sounded frustrated and exhausted.

I tilted my head a bit, "A war? Aren't you an Angel, why would you be fighting a war?"

He frowned and I thought he would disappear rather than respond. So I was surprised to hear an explanation.

"There is a civil war in heaven. Some of the angels want to restart the apocalypse. I am fighting for humanity. They deserve to live, to go on." He spoke with faith in his statement.

I couldn't quite keep the angry tone from my voice when I responded, "I don't understand why you believe that humanity is worth saving."

I took a deep breath when I saw the surprised look on his face, "Tell me what Crowley's role is in this?"

Castiel's face hardened, "Crowley is a necessary ally, I lack the necessary soldiers to win."

I sighed, that was not a real answer. I stared at him for a long time weighing the possible costs of speaking candidly with the angel. Would it benefit Crowley for Castiel to know my secrets? Probably, but only in the short term, the angel needed to trust someone in Crowley's camp and it was clear that he would never trust a demon. A smart choice really.

I took a drink of water before responding, "Evil lives in necessity. This is something I learned growing up. It is easy to justify bad choices, hurtful actions, and even cruel behavior with necessity. What is necessary is extremely subjective. For me, it was necessary to bet my soul against my loyalty."

Castiel seemed to think about my words before in an asking tone saying, "Tell me what happened."

So I did. I told him of my initial possession, how I overcame it, and of most of the things that had happened to date regarding my demon suppressing abilities. It took a while but he sat there patiently listening to my story.

Then he stood up, "I see. Some of my soldiers may need assistance. I will tell them to contact you." Suddenly I was alone again, wondering whether that conversation had gone well or not.

He did send some angels to seek help, all of them were disdainful and distrustful of me. They bordered on the edge of rudeness but never quite crossed it. Always for little things research on relics, confirmation of locations of possible weirdness.

Not much different from hunters or the demons who were out playing at being hunters.

At the 3 month mark, I had gotten pretty good at nailing down possible leads on things going bump in the night. Even which leads to feed to certain groups, Hunters, Demons, or Angels. Turns out they all had something in common, none of them seemed to like or trust me.

I liked Castiel and he visited when he was able, but it was very hard to read that angel. Half the time he wouldn't even speak to me, just take a deep breath then leave.

Crowley was volatile at best, and the King of Hell taking a liking to you could quite possibly be more dangerous then if he didn't.

The only being that could be considered friendly was the demon assigned to be my servant. So far I had managed to get her name and stop her from referring to Crowley as "His Majesty" every single time. Ana was just too terrified for anything else. There was a small part of me that wondered what he had done to her, but mostly I decided it was better not to know.

Crowley's weekly visits yielded better results as I could now lift ten pounds with demonic powers without damaging myself. Crowley was at first angry with me for telling Castiel of my ability. He realized quickly though that I had more information on the war's movements and that Castiel would heal me or send someone to heal me without questions now. It was a worthy trade off in his eyes.

In month 4, something happened that really changed the way my time was spent. Someone gave my number to a hunter not working for Crowley or the Campbells.

UNKNOWN CALLER

"Hello mysterious caller, may I ask who you are?" I don't know what I was expecting, maybe a telemarketer; it did happen from time to time.

"Is this Oracle?" A young man's voice spoke hesitantly into the phone.

"Yes, This is Oracle, Who are you?" I tried to keep my tone polite, but it came out laced with suspicion.

"My name is Garth, I was given this number by a hunter named Campbell." He didn't sound certain he had called the right place, like it was a joke or something. Then something clicked in my head.

"Tell me, was this hunter also an asshole?" I smirked as I waited for a response.

"He was pranking me, wasn't he? I am sorry to bother you ma'am." I thought he might hang up so I hurried to respond.

"Probably was trying to mess with you. Joke's on him, Garth. You are getting the Premium Hunter Package." I grinned as I started opening file cabinets. I had been preparing this for hunters, but the ones I worked with kept pissing me off.

"Premium Package?" He had made no effort to hide his confusion.

"Oh yes, it includes lore, research, covers for FBI, CDC, etc, alias confirmation services, express delivery of weapons, relics, ingredients, and food. Normally, I accept food, books, rare items as payment but since the asshole of the Campbell clan wanted to be a dick. You can get this for free. So tell me Garth, what did you need?" I had hoped the smile on my face came across in my voice.

There was a beat of silence before he replied in an apologetic manner.

"Gosh, that is super nice, but I can't let you do that. It's too much."

I interrupted him before he got too far into turning me down. "If you are calling me, that means lives are likely at stake."

"You're right, What can you tell me about living Scarecrows?" He sounded a bit defeated.

"Depends, is it attacking randomly or attacking targets?"

"Targets, adults" His voice was suddenly serious.

"Age?" I was narrowing my choices. I had spent no small amount of time putting lore into a homemade database. I could narrow possibilities pretty quick by filling in a form.

"Early 20's" He replied.

"Does it bleed?" I asked, focusing on the form in front of me.

"No, but it hits really hard." I didn't pay much attention to his tone.

"Location?" I wasn't finding a creature that resembled a scarecrow but targeted attacks usually meant something personal.

"Wamego, Kansas." He sounded like he wasn't sure he was saying the name correctly.

"Alright Garth, Text me your overnight address, I am going to get you an answer as soon as I can." I hung up the line as I became more absorbed in my research.

Luckily, it wasn't super hard to research and Garth had called in the morning. Being targeted for anything in your early 20's was a sure sign that you were at best a stupid teen and at worst an asshole teen. Either way, the targets had done something to piss someone off in their teenage years.

The town was even kind enough to have police incidents reported in their small town paper. A couple of the reported victims were popped for vandalism of a farm. The farm owner had died of a heart attack when a prank went horribly wrong. The next paper apologized for misinformation and reported there was no prank at all in the unfortunate incident. In fact, a group of good Samaritan students, including the mayor's son, were nearby to call for aid.

I rolled my eyes, a vengeful ghost then. The obituary said that the body had been cremated by family. So how was it haunting a scarecrow? I shook my head, that didn't really matter, he just needed to burn it, in the ghost killing way.

I checked the time, 2 hours, a lot of bad things could happen in 2 hours, still at least it was only mid-day. I sent a text to Ana

Delivery

I knew it wouldn't be long before she arrived. So I picked up one of my larger boxes. I placed a few fake badges, for the FBI, CDC, US Marshal Service, and the IRS. I threw in a bag of chocolate chip cookies I had made the day before and placed the research I had found in a folder. On the outside of the folder I wrote in sharpie.

Vengeful Ghost.

Targets listed on page 1.

Burn the whole scarecrow.

I closed the box and was taping it shut when Ana arrived.

She looked at it, then to me. "Campbells, Crowley's crew, or…...the angels."

At least she was getting more casual, "None of the above, I got a call from an independent hunter."

She shifted nervously, "His majesty won't like this."

I rolled my eyes, "I literally cannot work against him, it will be fine. If you are so worried about it, then don't tell him"

She glared at me, growling out the word "Where?"

I shook my head, "You are in a bad mood today." I gave her the address and asked her not to be seen. She nodded sharply and disappeared.

Then the excitement was over. A blessing and a curse was that I rarely heard how things turned out. Most of the people who called didn't really want to speak with me, so I never really learned anything. The Campbell's didn't trust me, well the new guy Sam seemed okay with me, a bit standoffish, not super friendly, but okay. Crowley's demons really hated me, and Castiel was the only angel so far not to greet me with anything but indifference.

So it was very surprising when my phone lit up the next day with the new hunter's name.

GARTH