The Needs of the Few
Something made a brushing sound on the ground very close to where Jesse slept. He awakened immediately, eyes springing open, muscles tensing. He strained to hear the noise again, letting energy fill into his hands. He slipped them further under his jacket that he had been using as a pillow to hide the red glow.
He heard it again, closer. He braced his knees against the rocky ground and readied himself to spring when whatever it was came into view. His eyes were half-closed, so that anything spotting him would believe him to be asleep, but he could still see everything.
A shadow crept along the lee of the large boulder that Jesse had sheltered under. The diffused light of the sunset mixed with the clinging shadows of night made it hard to make out any details. Jesse took in a deep breath and held it...
When he saw the head of something poke around the edge, Jesse leapt up, his eyes and hands blazing with red and black Hellfire. He heard a sharp yelp, and the figure of a man jumped back awkwardly, tripped, and fell on it's backside.
Jesse rushed forward and saw sprawled on the rocky terrain a small man in a plaid shirt, faded blue jeans with holes in them, flip-flops and a tattered bath-robe, his hands and arms crossed over his head in a cringing sort of defense.
"Don't kill me! Don't kill me!", a squeaky, panicked voice shouted out, echoing in the desolate terrain.
Jesse stopped and lowered his arms, the fire fading out. He let out the breath that he had been holding and let his shoulders drop. He took a cautious step forward and went to one knee in front of the man.
The little guy lowered his arms slowly, and blue eyes peeked out tentatively from behind them. He was a scruffy looking middle-aged man, with messy, short dark hair flecked with more than a little gray with a matching unkempt beard. "You...you're human?", the guy said, quietly, his arms lowering further.
"Last I checked," Jesse grunted, leaning over and offering a hand up. The little guy went to take it.
"Name's Jesse. Jesse Turner," Jesse said.
The little guy's hand recoiled back like Jesse's arm was a venomous cobra. He scrambled away a foot or so on his hands and feet, kicking up a small cloud of dust and pebbles.
Jesse stood up, alarmed.
"What? What's the matter?", he asked. The man's eyes were wide with fear and shock.
"You...you're the antichrist..." the guy said slowly. He made it cautiously to his feet, and took a few more steps back. Jesse was reminded of a rabbit about to bolt from a predator.
Jesse cocked his head quizzically. "You know me?", he asked slowly.
"Oh yeah, I think I kinda do...I mean...I wrote you once...kinda...and oh crap, don't kill me...", the guy sputtered, turning halfway around.
Jesse sighed heavily and held up his hands palms out. "Look, man, I am not the antichrist. I...you could say that I turned down the job, OK? Really." He shook his head, closing his eyes. "And what the hell do you mean that you 'wrote me'? What's that supposed to mean?"
The guy stopped retreating and took a closer look at Jesse. "Just what I said," he answered slowly. "Um...you didn't...you said that you didn't take the job?"
Jesse nodded, then gave the guy a half smile. "Didn't like the management."
The little guy watched him, still as a stone for moment, then blew a puff of air out of his mouth, deciding something. He turned towards Jesse and brushed his hands off on his bathrobe and took a steady step forward, his hand extended.
"'Ok then. I figure you could have blasted me to atoms by now if you were lying. Name's Chuck, Chuck Shurley. I'm a writer. You were...it's hard to explain...you were in a story I wrote once." Jesse frowned. "Maybe this'll help," Chuck continued. "We have some mutual acquaintances...Sam and Dean Winchester?"
Jesse's head moved back a bit at the mention of Sam and Dean. "Well...yeah...I do know them. You friends with them?"
"Actually, that's complicated", Chuck answered, frowning. "Short answer – yeah."
"And the long answer?"
"I wish that I'd never met them," Chuck answered, his smile completely contrary to his statement.
Jesse shook his hand and nodded grimly. "So, Chuck, how did you end up here?", he asked, gesturing around him at the vast wasteland with his free arm. "Did that have something to do with those two?"
Chuck nodded back. "Yeah. They got captured. The bozos that did the kidnapping wanted to know where I was."
"An Angel and a Demon possessing a couple of teenagers?", Jesse asked.
Chuck nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing. "You've met them?"
"Unfortunately, yes", Jesse answered, sighing.
"Real trouble, those two..." Chuck said, sighing in return.
Jesse frowned. "And Sam and Dean...they what? Gave you up? That really doesn't sound like them."
Chuck shook his head and ran a hand back through his hair. "Well, no, they didn't...I kinda..." He stopped and frowned, placing a hand over his mouth and looking at the ground.
"Kinda what?"
"I went to go rescue them."
Jesse looked Chuck up and down. He couldn't have been much more than 5'5" and 140 pounds soaking wet. "You...went to go rescue them from the Angel and the Demon?"
Chuck nodded and pursed his lips, smacking them together and looking away. "Yeaaaah..." he answered in a long drawl. "Not the brightest idea, huh?" He turned his eyes back to Jesse.
"Why would you even try something like that?"; Jesse asked, incredulous. "Who are you? An Angel, some kind of supernatural bad-ass?"
"Um...I'm...I'm a Prophet of the Lord," Chuck answered in a half-mumble.
Jesse's eyes widened and he took a step back, looking around.
"Don't worry, nothing's coming for you," Chuck said.
"But aren't you guys supposed to be...?"
"Protected by Archangels?", Chuck said, sighing, shoving his hands into the pockets of his bathrobe. "Yeah, see? That's exactly what I thought. It worked once or twice before. I thought it might work again when I went to go get Sam and Dean." He kicked a pebble a few feet and and then leaned against the boulder, crossing his arms and scowling. "But, apparently, they've got better things to do or something," Chuck said. "I got caught before I even got in the front door. Then this girl opened a portal and sent me here."
Jesse nodded. "Yeah, well, I got bad news about your Archangel backup," he said. He scrambled up onto the boulder and scanned the horizon. He let out an exasperated breath. A whole lot of nothing. Just as he had seen before nightfall.
"What's that?" Chuck asked tentatively from below him, looking up, his hand shielding his eyes from the risen sun.
"They might all be dead by now," Jesse answered solemnly, hopping down off of the rock.
Castiel grabbed Crowley around the waist, and in less then a blink, and with a ruffle of feathers, they were standing back on the ship with Jy-Shiaj and his family. His eyes went to the larger galley that they were just on and widened in shock.
It was at least fifty feet in the air, ocean water streaming off of it. A pair of pincers the size of a football field held it tight in the middle. A few tentacles at least a hundred feet long and half as thick each had also emerged from the churning and foaming water, and were wrapped around the elevated boat. It's hull cracked and groaned in protest as the pincer and tentacles squeezed around it. Planks of wood split and fell away from it and into the sea. Castiel's eyes followed them down to where they landed.
The entire surface of the ocean around them boiled and rolled in chaotic waves. Writhing, dark, enormous shadows moved underneath them, hidden from view, but when they broke the surface, Castiel could see scaly, inky black skin. He recoiled in horror when he saw that along the limbs of the enormous creature, inky black malicious eyes stared back at him and blinked periodically. They were dotted randomly all along the monster's body.
A little girl from the press of people gathered on the ship's deck let out a shriek of terror.
"I find myself in total agreement with her," Crowley said by Castiel's side, staring wide eyed into the water over the railing. "Eep. What is that thing?"
"Like the Emperor told you, it's the Leviathan," came a voice from behind them. Castiel and Crowley turned and saw Gabriel standing on the deck, looking up at the freighter suspended in the air. He turned his gaze back to them. "A hybrid creature, actually. Like the Cambrion, or the Nephalim. But instead of being born of Angel or Demon and a human, it's born of the Old Ones and a human."
Castiel's eyes widened, turning back around as the creature let out another enormous roar and larger parts of the ship it was holding crashed into the ocean. "Like the ones Joshua was trying to make...", he whispered.
Crowley whistled lowly. "No wonder he was so interested in these." He shook his head. "Nasty bugger. So, now what? Can we kill it?"
Gabriel shook his head. "It would take Legions of Angels to defeat that, and a large portion of them are recovering after sinking Atlantis and sealing the Portal."
Castiel nodded grimly. "So, it's done then?"
Gabriel nodded in reply.
A cry of grief went out from several of Jy-Shiaj's family. Some of them sunk to the deck, their bodies racked and shaking with sobs.
"The Emperor is getting away," Gabriel said, matter-of-factly.
"Yes," Castiel answered.
"And you need to escape somehow. Once that creature is done with that boat, it will turn to this one."
Castiel nodded, looking around at the huddled people.
Gabriel sighed, his blue eyes steady. "Castiel, I can only do one of these things for you...you know that."
Castiel's head bowed, his eyes closing. "Crowley..." he grunted. He looked up and met the Demon's eyes. "Crowley...how sure are you that this plan of yours will work?"
Crowley stared and then shrugged. "I don't honestly know, Castiel. 50-50?"
Castiel's eyes blazed with fury and frustration.
"That's not good enough, Crowley! Tell me, will it work, or not?!"
Crowley returned the furious gaze. "I don't know! In principle, yes, it should work!" He wiped a hand over his mouth and looked away before turning back to Castiel and moving closer, speaking confidentially. Look, the Deep One is under my control. Tt crosses over, and then collapses the Portal from the other side, game over. But Castiel, you know as well as I do, anything could go wrong here. Especially when we're talking about dealing with Vandecourte. I'm just being practical."
Castiel watched for a few moments and closed his eyes, nodding. "If you're wrong...we lose everything..."
Crowley cocked his head. "And your plan, Castiel, your paradox? How fool-proof will that be?"
Castiel grimaced and opened his eyes. "Pretty fool-proof." He watched Jy-Shiaj's family for a long time and then turned as the large ship finally broke in two, the last large sections crashing into the ocean, sending up waves full of debris onto the deck of their ship. The creature let out a bellowing cry of triumph. The collective group of Atlantians let out a gasp of shock, their eyes wide with fear, staring back and forth in hope at the two Angel's standing on the boat. Castiel looked back at them and shook his head. He strode over to Gabriel, who was watching him curiously.
"Well, Castiel, what will it be?"
"Get us out of here," Castiel grunted. His eyes turned to Jy-Shiaj and the people crowded around him. "All of us."
Jesse and Chuck trudged for hours through the wasteland until they noticed the sun begin to set. Jesse looked around and stretched. He frowned to himself.
"Hey, you tired?", he asked Chuck.
"A little," Chuck replied. "Why?"
Jesse nodded, his brow furrowing. "What about thirsty? Hungry?"
Chuck returned the questioning look and narrowed his eyes. "No, actually, now that you mention it." He looked around. "I mean, I should be, right? We've been walking all day." He found a spot of the ground and sat down, stretching his legs out before bending them back and leaning back on his straightened arms into a reclined sitting position. "That's actually pretty strange, isn't it?", he asked rhetorically.
"Pretty strange..." Jesse answered anyway, his words trailing off. "It's like, I dunno, this place is some kind of holding cell? A 'Jail-World' or something?"
"Huh. 'Jail-World'..." Chuck replied sounding out the word in his mouth. He shook his head. "Nah, sounds too corny. It would never work in a story."
Jesse shook his head. "That's not what I meant..."
"'Cell-World' maybe...", Chuck continued, unperturbed. "Or...'The Cell'...nah, nope, that was a movie..." He frowned and looked back up at Jesse. "What were we talking about?"
Jesse shook his head, sitting down himself. "Doesn't matter." He looked around again and let out a deep breath. "Well, if we aren't going to die of attack, exposure, thirst or hunger, then I'm going to have to guess we got sent here for safe-keeping. Out of the way."
Chuck nodded slowly. "Sounds logical to me."
"But for what? And until when?" He brushed at the dirt with his hand. "I mean, they could have just killed us, unless they needed us for some reason."
Chuck just watched him.
"It's my fault, I guess," Jesse said slowly. "I bought their whole sales pitch, hook, line and sinker." He looked at Chuck and let his head drop.
"The damned thing is, I think I knew it. I've had this...power. My whole life. And I never used it. I watched the world around me...descend into war and chaos, the whole time knowing I could have done something about it. But I never did. Do you know what I mean?"
"Yeah, I think I get it," Chuck answered, nodding slowly.
"And they came around and gave me...well...an excuse to use it. And I bought it." He let out an exasperated huff and fell onto his back in the dirt. "I'm such anidiot."
There was a minute or so of silence before Chuck answered.
"Jesse, when people feel powerless to change the world around them, and then someone offers them a way to do it, an easy way to do it...kid, that's the hardest lesson in the world to learn."
Jesse propped himself up on his elbow.
"What lesson?"
"When to trust. Who to trust." Chuck shook his head. "Stop blaming yourself, Jesse. It's impossible to get that one right every single time. What's important is, you saw where this was headed, and you made the choice to stop. You wouldn't believe how many people fail that test."
Jesse relaxed and leaned back down. "I guess. I just hope it isn't too late."
"Me too, Jesse," Chuck answered. "We just gotta hope. And wait."
"For what?"
Chuck let out a short, sarcastic bark of a laugh. "A frikkin' miracle is what."
They both laughed softly as the sun sank and night set in.
Justin sighed and looked at the clock on the wall.
Still an hour before he could clock out and go home.
He turned back to his cell phone that he had on the desk and started up another game of 'Angry Birds'.
He had no idea why he had bothered to come in at all. The world was freaking out over the giant pillar of light in the Atlantic, and no one anywhere, human or otherwise, had heard from his boss Crowley in days.
I need a new job...he thought to himself.
There was a sudden crack in the air and the sound of water hitting the floor in several large splatters. Justin turned his head up slowly from his game and into the lobby.
Which was now filled with about fifty or so soaking wet people in strange clothes looking around in confusion. At the their head was the Angel Castiel.
Justin swallowed hard and looked to his left, where Crowley was leaning on the desk smiling at him, his business suit similarly drenched, rivulets of waters falling from his head into small puddles on the brushed metal reception counter.
"Hallo Justin," Crowley said benignly. He reached over and exasperatingly and demonstratively turned off Justin's phone for him. "I can see that your wages are well accounted for."
Justin worked his mouth open and closed, but no words came out.
"No worries," Crowley continued, moving away from the desk. "You can more than make up for it tonight. Two things I'm going to be needing you to do, with all haste, I might add. One:", Crowley continued, ticking them off on his fingers. "These people are going to all need accommodations, food, fake Visas, identities, cultural training, English lessons and jobs. As soon as you can manage it. Preferably in that order, and also preferably before the Department of Immigration finds out about them." Justin blinked and turned his head slowly at the large crowd of people.
"And two: after you get them settled for the night, I will be needing you to go down to Vault A and bring it's occupant to me in my office. Tonight, Justin." He smiled broadly and clapped Justin on the shoulder before walking back into the office.
"I know you won't join me, choir-boy, but I could use a drink," he called back to Castiel over his shoulder.
Castiel said something to one of the people in the room and looked at Justin, shrugging.
"I...I'm sorry," The Angel said before following Crowley down the hall.
Justin turned his head in shock at the group of newcomers, who were all staring at him expectantly.
I really, really, need a new job...