Deep Running

"So, what's the plan, then?"

Crowley stared intently over the bow at the heavy wooden cargo freighter ahead of them. In comparison to the boat that Jy-shiaj had procured for them, it was no wonder that they had caught up so quickly. It's gigantic masts were full of sail, but it's size made their boat look like a dory. It labored in the thick Atlantic water, which were full of swell. The crew of Jy-shiaj's ship was expertly dodging along the deck, swinging the booms into the wind, and catching up to the larger ship easily.

Crowley glanced to his side when he didn't receive an answer to his question. Castiel was standing there next to him, eyes squinted against the wind, his hair slicked back by the driving sea breeze and spray. His fingers were clasped around his Angel Blade, white-knuckled. He stared intently at the other ship, his jaw forward.

"Do you plan to kill him?", Crowley shouted over the driving wind.

Castiel blinked in surprise and turned towards him, water streaming from his face. He looked confused.

"What do you mean?", he asked.

"Joshua," Crowley answered, raising his eyebrows. "Are you meaning to kill Joshua?"

Castiel's shoulders relaxed and he turned back to the other ship. "You know that I can't," he replied evenly.

Crowley tilted his head to the side. What are you not telling me Castiel?

"Too much disruption to the timeline, I take it," he answered gruffly, turning his face back into the wind.

"Yes," Castiel replied somberly. "Certain events...need to be kept intact so they can play out correctly." He turned slowly to Crowley. "He will pay. In time."

"Uh-huh," Crowley grunted. "So then - we are to grab your past self and blink out, so to say?"

Castiel sighed. "I hope it will be that easy. Something tells me that Joshua will not be all that willing to play along."

Crowley's brow furrowed in question. "What is he doing with your old self anyway, Castiel? And for that matter, how do you think you will be able to 're-program' yourself if we take him with us?"

Castiel stared at Crowley for a long time before answering,

"Joshua isn't done with my past self yet. He represents a significant investment to him now. I'm assuming he will wipe his...my memory, and then destroy the vessel, sending my essence back to Heaven, with no idea what happened to him."

Crowley nodded. "Then his Trojan Horse just waits for several millennia, and activates when it's ready. It still doesn't answer the question about what you're trying to do though."

Castiel did not answer. He simply stared out at the sea and Joshua's ship.

Crowley nodded to himself again. "You're thinking that if you can take yourself away from Joshua, you can prevent him from erasing your memory. Forewarn yourself about the Portal to Purgatory. Stop yourself from opening it."

Castiel let out a deep breath and nodded.

"Castiel...you've told me yourself about paradoxes...that they're impossible..."

"Crowley, an Angel has the power to cause a paradox in the timeline."

Crowley blinked in surprise.

"Come again?"

Castiel turned towards him and looked at the deck of the ship. "If I so choose...I can purposely create a paradox." He looked away and shook his head. "It's never, and I do mean, never been done. Because doing so basically defies God's plan. It has the potential for incredible devastation." He looked back at Crowley. "Not even Lucifer ever dared to try it. The results are completely unpredictable..."

"They why are you...?" Crowley began to ask.

"Look around you!", Castiel shouted, sweeping his arm in a wide circle. "We are at the brink of the entire universe unraveling! And it's my fault, Crowley!" He squeezed his eyes shut and paced a few steps away. His shoulders hunched, his rain slicked back was turned towards Crowley. "If I can, the paradox I create will just stop this...this destruction. But it will be a fundamental defiance of the Divine Plan. It will..." Castiel hesitated, and let out a deep breath. "It will undo me, Crowley. It will cut me off completely from the Grace that made me. To defy Father and His Plan in this way...that's why no Angel has ever done it. It will annihilate the one that does."

Crowley, open-mouthed, stared at Castiel. "Castiel, you don't have to do this..."

"Yes, yes I do. The ability to cause a paradox like this is Heaven's emergency plan. A worst-case scenario." He smiled and waved his arm around again feebly, letting it fall back to his side. "It will only affect me, Crowley. And since I'm the catalyst to all of this..." He turned back to Crowley. "I have to try." He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. "Look, we'll try it your way first. We send the Old One that you captured back to their domain and try to close the Portal from that side. If it fails...then..."

"Then...", Crowley answered grimly, squinting through the rain.

"Get ready," Castiel grunted, looking back over Crowley's shoulder. "We're there."

"Get the hell away from me!", Leon shouted, breaking away from Jones and backpedaling away from the Angel and Demon as they came towards him. He tripped on some gravel and fell on his backside. He scrambled backwards, his palms smarting from the rock-strewn ground. David ran over to him.

"Leon, we have to run..." David bent over and whispered.

"You think you can get away from us?", the Angel purred, voice full of menace. "This is my backyard."

"Where to?", Leon whispered back to David, whipping his head up to look at him. "You heard him, this is their turf."

"Well, what the hell do you suppose we do, then?", David answered back, frustrated. "Fight them?"

Leon regained his feet. The Angel watched him, a curious and amused look on his face.

"I'm sick of running, I'm sick of bullies, and I damned well know that I'm sick of those two," Leon answered in a hiss, staring back at the Angel.

"What are you going to do, Leon?", the Angel sneered. "In case you haven't noticed, we're in Heaven. No corpses here." He shrugged. "No bodies, no zombies." He leveled his gaze and took a threatening step forward, blue energy gathering around his balled-up fists.

Leon looked around him, breathing hard. His mind raced, trying to find something he could use to fight them. The ruins of Heaven lay all around him, Angels lay out on the ground everywhere, blackened wings spread out underneath. He frowned. No bodies...well...no human ones, anyway. He rolled up his sleeve and the symbol tattooed on his arm started glowing green, a fine mist weaving out of it. Then he looked back to the Angel and smiled.

The Angel stopped. "What's so funny, Leon?"

Leon kept on grinning. "Oh nothing. But if this works..."

One of the Angels under a large piece of debris moved.

The Angel and Demon whipped their heads towards it. It shifted the large chunk of marble off of it's body and stood up. It took a shuffling step forward, it's eyes glowing green.

"Leon...", the Demon snarled quietly under his breath, watching as several dozen other forms began rising around them. "What are you doing...?"

Leon's grin flashed back maliciously. "'Bout to even the odds is all," he said.

The Angel and Demon maneuvered back to back, standing over Suriel's prone form. Sarah, Trevor and Jones joinied them. Kinsey stood with her back to a large portion of the remains of a ruined wall, staring at the scene and not moving. The Angel zombies were quickly surrounding them, forming a massive horde in seconds.

"Brother...?" the Angel hissed.

The Demon shot Leon a look of pure hatred. Then he inclined his head a bit, almost a small gesture of respect.

"What, Brother?", he replied. "Kids, huh? Did you really expect them all to behave? If I recall, the original seven Archangels didn't exactly all get along with each other either."

The Angel growled. "What do we do?"

"Well, unless you feel like taking on about, oh, I would say..." he made a sarcastic gesture of counting all of the figures surrounding them and moving closer. "...two hundred or so of our re-animated siblings, I would suggest we retire to a different venue."

"No!," the Angel snarled. "Heaven is ours! It's ours!" He took a defiant step towards the wall of zombie Angels and then, thinking better of it, quickly retreated , glaring venomously at Leon.

The Demon sighed. "We'll come back. We know his powers have limits. The Angels will run out of go-juice soon enough."

The both turned their heads simultaneously towards Leon. The Angel clenched his teeth and pointed with his Blade.

"I will not forget or forgive this, you little worm. When I find you..."

"Yeah, yeah, heard it before...", Leon answered back. He held out his hand and the zombie Angels closed in faster." If I was you..."

In the space of less of an eye-blink, they were gone. Leon lowered his arm, put his hands on his knees and let out a huge breath of relief.

"Leon?", David said quietly.

"Yeah, man?"

"Remind me never to piss you off..."

Leon grinned and straightened up. He waved his arms and the Angel zombies began to shuffle away.

"Yeah, well, we still better get the hell out of here, man. I got a feeling that those two won't stay gone for long." He frowned and looked around, spotting Kinsey. David and he walked over to her.

"You OK?"

Kinsey nodded. "I...I wasn't worried. I could have used my power to push them away."

Leon shook his head. "Nah, that's not what I meant..."

Kinsey bit her lip and nodded, looking away. "I...I don't know. I thought that I was doing the right thing for once, but now..."

"I hear ya," Leon answered.

Kinsey shook her head and looked around. "There are some buildings over there that are still intact," she said nodding at some shadowy forms in the distance. "We should go there and see if we can find something, anything to help us out."

David nodded. "And maybe some way to get out of here before they come back. That's going to be tough to pull off without Angel power." He frowned and rubbed his chin. "Unless...Leon, you think you could order one of those zombies of yours to zap us out of here?"

Leon shook his head. "Nah, it doesn't work like that. They're like worker bees. They don't have anything except brute strength anymore."

David sighed. "Yeah, well, then, we better find some other Angel around here that's still alive then. We can't stay here."

"No lie," Leon agreed. "And maybe they can tell us how to find Jesse, too. Something tells me that we're gonna need his help before this is all through."

Kinsey nodded. "That might be wishful thinking, but we'll keep it in mind." She moved away from the wall and took a deep breath. "Ok, let's go."

The three Heralds started off through the ruins, the zombie Angels following them in a semi-formation.

Jy-shiaj's ship pulled up alongside the larger freighter and several of the crew threw hooks attached to ropes over the side. They nodded when they were fastened, letting out slack so their ship didn't ram into the larger ship's side.

Crowley looked up at the other boat and back to Castiel.

"It's quiet..."

Castiel nodded. "Don't worry. He's there." He moved to the ropes and nodded at the crew. They began to climb. Castiel disappeared in a blink, the sound of wings rustling in his wake.

"Who's worried...?", Crowley grumbled, moving over to the ropes then teleporting over.

When he reached the deck, the crew had assembled in a semi-circle, thin Atlantian swords drawn, looking around for any movement on the deck. Castiel stood in front of them, looking around as well. Crowley moved over to his side, also scanning. He didn't see a soul.

"Are you absolutely sure they're here, Castiel?", he whispered.

Castiel nodded slowly. "I can sense their presence. They're on the other side of the ship, near the railing."

"Trap?"

Castiel narrowed his eyes. "I can't be sure. There are only a few of them. Joshua, my past self and a couple of the Emperor's guards."

"Human?"

Castiel grimaced. "I seriously doubt it." He looked back at Crowley. "Get ready".

They moved stealthily and as silently as possible across the ship's deck, moving around cabin walls and storage containers, rounding of the former until they spotted a few shadowy figure in the rainy mist standing right up against the railing. Castiel frowned and stepped out.

"Joshua!"

One of the figures stepped forward.

"Castiel. Welcome," came the deep southern voice from the mists. "I assume the Demon is with you as well, correct?"

"I'm here too, rest assured," Crowley growled, stepping up next to Castiel. "So, come on out and play, you little snot."

A slow laugh came from the deep mist. "Why would I do that, now, Mr. Crowley? So you can kill me?" There was a moments pause as the figure moved back to the railing. "We both know that you can't do that anyway. So, capture is it? Well, we can't have that either. Or you taking control of your past self, Castiel. Far too valuable a pawn."

"We're in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean," Crowley answered back. "Do you actually believe that you're going to escape?"

"That's exactly what I'm going to do, Mr. Crowley," Joshua answered back, his voice full of conversational mirth. "You see, I have no further need for you two. So me and mine are going to adjourn to my skip here, and sail away." He stepped over the rail, followed by his companions. Crowley noticed one of them was carrying an unconscious form over his shoulder. Castiel started moving forward.

"And what's to keep us from just catching up to your dingy and taking what we want anyway?", Crowley called after him, his stomach dropping in warning - already dreading the answer to that question.

"Have you ever read Socrates?" Joshua called back as he began to lower the ship into the sea.

"What about him?"

"His prized student, Plato, wrote in Timaeus about the great continent of Atlantis, as an ideal state. Have you ever wondered what Socrates thought of that?"

"He wouldn't have thought much of it, I imagine, as he was already dead for 39 years once it was written," Crowley replied , moving across the deck with Castiel, quickening their pace.

Joshua barked out a laugh in response. "An excellent riposte, Mr. Crowley, I applaud you." They reached the railing and looked over the side. Joshua's skip was more than halfway down to the water already.

"Actually, yes, I was speaking hypothetically. You see, the knowledge of Atlantis that Plato shared was something Socrates wanted desperately to keep secret," Joshua called up. The mist was thin enough now that Crowley could see him grinning up at him. Crowley let out a low growl.

"Why keep it so secret then, Joshua?", Crowley asked, keeping him talking. He turned to the rest of the crew. "Get back to the ship!", he hissed in a whisper. "Cut him off!" The crew took off across the deck at a run.

"Because it's dangerous, of course," Joshua replied smoothly. "The Angels sunk the entire land just to seal the Portal it contained. The one that's standing open right now. Why, any manner of nasty creature could come out of that Portal were mortal man to learn of it's existence."

Crowley felt the blood drain from his face.

"Like what?"

As if in response, a deep, booming groan came from beneath the waves, as if a creature of unimaginable size was roaring. Crowley straightened up away from the rail, eyes wide in shock. Castiel was turning his head around wildly.

"Gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to the actual Leviathan. Not the pitiful creatures that tried to eat the world a few years ago, mind you, but the genuine article."

The boat jolted heavily as something massive struck it. The deck shuddered and there was a crack like a thunderbolt as the mast snapped and fell, strewing lines and debris all across the deck.

"I bid you, adieu, Castiel. And to you as well, Mr. Crowley. Better luck in the Afterlife," Joshua crooned. "That is," he added, as if considering. "If I allow there to actually be one of those under my rule."

The sound of his laughter faded away as the boat hit the water. It's sails quickly deployed and it rushed quickly away from the freighter.

Crowley looked at Castiel as the deep bellow repeated itself, nearer this time. A stench like a thousand rotting fish rose into the air, and the ship creaked and rocked as it began to rise, something huge literally lifting it out of the sea.

Castiel's face was pale, his eyes wide open.

"So..." Crowley croaked out weakly as the ship gave another horrible jolt, almost making him lose his balance. "...what's the plan then?"