BOBBY'S PLACE - NIGHT
At nearly ten o'clock the next night, all the hunters Sam and Dean could sweet talk had assembled in Bobby's living room to watch the latest episode of Inferno and evaluate their position: in addition to Rufus, they had Annie, Jody, Frank, and Garth. Quality, but certainly not quantity. And as per usual for a hunting party, there was currently a multiplayer argument.
"It's a biblical reference!" Rufus yelled at Frank. "Legion, the-."
"Yeah, reference!" Frank shot back. "It's about style: you can't do a headcount based on some lazy callback! And after the Incident, they don't have the manpower for something like that!"
"You're gonna use last night as a case for why you should go?" Bobby asked Castiel. "If that was proof of anything, it's that you got no sense! You take risks you shouldn't take. Without your grace-."
"I've been mortal for over three years!" Castiel said, trying to talk over him and the noise.
"Congratulations!" Bobby shouted. "You got all the brains of a three-year-old!"
"I just think you're gettin' a little too comfy here," Dean told Sam, with Big Time Attitude.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Sam asked, not freaking out at all.
"Yeah, you know what I mean," Dean said.
Meanwhile, Annie and Jody sat on the couch in their leftover Christmas sweaters, Annie using a little portable saw to carefully cut a cast off of Jody's foot. Jody was pounding down cheesy poofs and zoning out the arguments.
Suddenly, as if he could take no more, Garth stood in front of the group, hands up. Blocking their view of the television: "Everybody, can it!"
Everyone shut up, but rather than calming down, their anger seemed to be directed at Garth now. He could feel it in his bones and it didn't feel good.
He laughed nervously. "Awesome... Guys?" And then Garth proceeded to talk to everyone in a gentle tone one usually reserves for children, "I can see this hunt is gonna be a stressful one. Lotsa big, lotsa scary. So maybe y'all need to open up a dialogue, organize your thoughts. Use 'I' statements?"
"How 'bout this," Frank said, "I feel... like I'm gonna kick someone's skinny ass in about two minutes. Thoughts?"
Garth let his arms drop, frustrated and disappointed. "Come on, guys. You really think we can take on the Inferno crew like this?"
"No," Rufus said. "That's the point. Even if we could handle them one on one, they got the advantage. Hundreds of thousands-."
"Don't start that again-." Frank said.
"Wait, what does that mean?" Jody asked. "Hundreds of thousands of what?"
"Legion," Rufus said. "They got a demon in their ranks named Legion. According to lore, he's one suit possessed by thousands of demons."
"So?" Annie asked. "It's a little fancy of them, but so what? Hell's got millions of demons."
"They don't," Frank said. "Not anymore."
That statement was enough to shut the whole room up. What was he talking about?
So Frank explained. In a hushed, important tone, like he was telling a ghost story, "The whole point of stopping the fight between Michael and Lucifer was the fallout of the fight, not who would win. According to every estimate, just smiting one of those big guns was supposed to create a blastwave that would nuke half the planet. Sam and Dean nuked two. So? ...Why didn't it kill us all? Why did it only take out one town?"
The question hadn't even occurred to Sam and Dean.
"...The Horseman's Rings," Castiel said, the answer only just now dawning on him. "Sam opened up a portal to Lucifer's Cage just a few feet away. A vacuum that wanted to pull anything nearby into the deepest circle of Hell."
"Bingo," Frank said, feeling vindicated. "That archangel grace had to go somewhere, and word in the underground is, it devastated Hell's ranks. Ripping through pandemonium like a grease fire and taking every demon and damned soul down there out of the game. Add that to the demons Lucifer smote in his rituals and they just. Don't. Have. The numbers. But they've had three years and thousands of new souls just waiting to be damned. We have one shot to take them out before they've demonized their green recruits and replenished their ranks."
"If they had Legion topside," Rufus said, "then they do have the numbers to take our asses out. Easy."
"That many demons in one human vessel isn't possible!" Frank shouted. "Tell him, Cas."
Rufus and Frank both looked at Castiel. Both wanting him to take their side. In fact, everyone was looking at Castiel now, as he was the only insider they had.
"Well," Castiel began carefully, "the story of Legion is unverified. But technically possible. Though highly problematic."
"So you're saying," Sam asked, "if we managed to get into their studio, they could have thousands of demons waiting for us and we wouldn't know it?"
"He said it was possible," Dean said, "but it's more possible they have even fewer guys than we thought." Dean got a big smile at that. Like, hell yeah, we just got a huge break.
"It's hard to say either way," Castiel said. "except that Hell is apparently empty. And all the devils are here."
He and Bobby exchanged looks. Referencing The Tempest made it hard to stay angry.
"So what've we got to take a chunk outta these jackasses?" Dean asked everyone. "Come on, everything in the kitty."
Garth went to his coat and took out a sword in its scabbard. "We got this." He unsheathed the familiar-looking weapon. "I gotta bring it back when we're done, though."
Dean recognized it, annoyed. "That's the Sword of Wherever. Brunswick. How the hell did you get it?"
"I borrowed it from Bobby's friend," Garth said like it weren't no thang.
"Yeah, but how'd you get it outta the rock?"
"I just pulled, dude, this thing was loose as a frat boy."
Dean's face fell. Garth just pulled the sword from the stone. Sam, on the other hand, seemed to think this was hilarious.
"Awesome. So what about the rings?" Dean asked.
"Somebody swept Stull before we got there," Bobby said. They got the rings, the archangel blades, everything useful. But nobody we talked to saw anything, so we don't know where they ended up."
"And nobody's seen the Colt?" Dean asked.
"What?" Sam asked, cagey. "Why... I mean, if we haven't seen it in our timeline-."
"Someone found it," Castiel said. "A while ago, an angel named Samandriel took a shot at Crowley with it. But that's the last I'd heard about him or the Colt. He could be dead or hiding..."
"I have a layout of the studio," Frank said. "It's old, but it's legitimate."
"And we got angel blades," Jody said. "Those are harder and harder to find these days."
Dean shot a guilty look at Castiel. "We might have a lucky break," he said.
Castiel shook his head. Don't say it.
"What?" Sam asked.
"Meg and her goons," Dean said.
"Meg?" Bobby asked. "The Satan-worshipping nutjob who put me in a wheelchair?"
"She hates Crowley," Dean said. "In a big, fat, one-track way. And she's gone while without a lead. If we can get her in she might wanna take out his some of his guys for us."
"And when there's another power vacuum-." Sam started.
"We'll cross that bridge when we blow it up," Dean said, not really open to descent at the moment.
"Is that what we're gonna do?" Sam asked. "Blow it up? Because if we kill Crowley, this timeline-."
Dean rolled his eyes and dug his hands in his pockets, "You know what? You guys fight it out. Okay? I need a minute." And he turned and headed for the back door.
"The spell that sends us back-." Sam called out, still on his point.
"One minute," Dean said, and walked out on the whole thing, slamming the door behind him.
He walked out to one of the old garages. Sat on the back of Castiel's caddy. Cold night. A little too cold to have a pout-session in but not unbearable. The sky was clear. Bright. Wintery. But there was lightning. It caught Dean's eye.
Lightning? Without clouds? No, not lightning. Something weird and bright - something that looked like a tear - shot across the sky, looking like it was about to rip apart. And Dean could hear that sound again, the one from Sam's phone. That awful sound of rope breaking apart. He heard it, felt it under his feet. And then it stopped, all of it.
"Crap."