Super Angel Chapter 9

A/N: I have a very special treat in mind for Chapter 10. You'll love it.

Alec strode into Logan Cale's apartment with Joshua, who was wearing a motorcycle helmet to hide his doggish face. Joshua took off the helmet and shook his head, woofling slightly.

"Max! Logan! I need to get some wheels--" Alec called out, rounding a corner.

Max promptly fell off the couch, a white linen bedsheet clutched to herself. She yelped as her butt hit the floor, and Logan hurriedly clasped a cushion to himself.

"Jesus, Alec, ever heard of knocking?!" Max yelled, her face turning red.

"Whoa! Wow, you guys... you guys sure didn't waste any time, didja?" Alec cried out, clutching a hand to his eyes. He backed away from the half naked couple, turning down the hallway. Joshua came up to him, a silly grin on his face.

"Max and Logan get busy. That's the plan!"

"Well, mission accomplished!" Alec muttered, willing himself to forget. If he thought really, really hard about utter blankness, he might not have to gouge his eyes out.

Max and Logan soon stepped out of the lounge; Max's face dark, Logan's face red. Alec gave them a wave of greeting but stopped when Max glared at him with her trademark death look.

"What do you want, Alec?" she snapped.

"Uh, yeah, so I've been following up on that Dean guy, and Joshua says he went off to Kansas." Alec cringed slightly as Max intensified her glare.

"Probably to find his brother, Sam," Logan said.

"Yeah, so, Kansas. Kind of a long way to go, especially without Sector Passes, so..."

"You need a way to get there. How did Dean manage it?" Max asked, relenting.

"I think he took a bus, but it only leaves like once a week. If we wanna figure out what's going on here, I think we should find him before he disappears," Alec continued.

"So you want to borrow my motorcycle?" Max crossed her arms. "You'd better not bring it back totalled; I love my Ninja."

"I'll do you one better, Alec; how's flying sound?" Logan suggested.

Alec just stared at Logan.

"Who told you I could fly?"

"I can see why they call it Smallville," Bobby grunted, hopping off the back of a farmer's pickup truck. Sam, Castiel and Ruby in Jason's body followed suit; the friendly farmer who had offered them a ride into town beeped his horn as he drove away. It was nearly twenty hours later; after finding Castiel in the middle of the night, they had holed up to rest in a motel in Granville; Sam had also taken the time to stock up on equipment that had otherwise been destroyed with the Impala.

The foursome surveyed the town before them; it was more or less a single two lane road, boasting perhaps two dozen stores that made up this so called "Main Street". Sam wandered along, peering at broken rubble pieces littering the front step of what appeared to be an old theatre converted into a coffeeshop. A sign in the newly placed front doors, not even painted yet, declared that "The Talon" was closed for renovations.

"What's up, Sam?" Ruby chimed, hiding her nervousness. This was the trickiest part of her plan; if anybody in town recognised Jason, Sam and Bobby would quickly determine Ruby was a fake. It didn't help that according to Jason's memories, he had been at this exact coffeeshop not two days ago.

"Look, Dean. This plaster couldn't have been put in much earlier than yesterday, and from the shape of it, this entire wall was blown out."

"Blown out? Like a bomb?"

"If only; a bomb would have left burn marks. No, I think this is definitely supernatural." Sam looked at Ruby in Jason's body. "And here I was beginning to think you were crazy. No offense."

"None taken," Ruby muttered, studying the wall. The damage seemed to encompass the entire storefront, of reinforced timber no less. If this was linked to the lookalike or the aliens, she thought, then it was quite possible she had bitten off more than she could chew.

"So what's the plan, Sammy?" Dean asked his future brother.

They were in a beaten up blue pickup truck, driving westwards on the highway. Future Sam turned down the music (Dean couldn't believe his old tapes had survived this long) and reached over to the glove compartment on Dean's side of the car, pulling out a map and pointing.

"We're off to meet someone who can help us," he replied.

"Smallville? Isn't that where Dad..."

"Yeah, farmer's market, I know."

"Who the hell is in Smallville? Is it Bobby?"

"Bobby's dead, Dean."

Noticing Dean's startled look, Future Sam added: "It was quick and painless. Neither of us were there."

Dean absorbed this information slowly. He shook himself. Bobby wasn't dead yet. Not after they fixed this mess.

"You didn't answer my question, Sammy. Who's in Smallville?" Dean asked again.

Future Sam remained cryptic.

"An old friend."

Chloe awoke to the sound of her apartment's fire alarm blaring. Sitting up, she saw Ben in the kitchen hurriedly trying to put out a small fire on the stove.

"God, the noise the thing makes; it'd be less upsetting to wake up on fire!" she exclaimed, quickly retrieving the fire extinguisher.

She quickly doused the cooking pot, leaving behind a smoking mess. Ben looked at her apologetically.

"Sorry. I was hungry," he said.

"Jeez, Ben, ever heard of cereal?"

"No; what's cereal?"

"Never mind." Chloe sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Well at least it didn't trigger the--"

It seemed she had spoken too soon, when the sprinklers in the apartment went off. Chloe yelped, slipping on the floor and falling backwards, Ben only just catching her.

Chloe groaned; this was one hell of a way to start the day. First the fire alarm; now she had to pay for water damages? Opening her eyes, she found Ben's face only inches away from hers. A long moment passed, as Chloe stared into Ben's eyes. For some reason unknown even to herself, she leant in and kissed him on the lips.

Ben froze, unsure of what to make of this sudden turn in the situation. His body seemed to move of its own accord, and he found himself kissing her back, the strange feelings in his gut lifting into his chest. After what seemed an eternity, they broke off, the sprinklers beating down water still, soaking them both through. Chloe lifted her eyes to Ben's, her eyes slightly glazed over.

"Good morning to you too," she smirked.

Ben suddenly felt an itching sensation in his eyes. Remembering the incident on roof with Clark the night before, he dropped Chloe with a yelp, tearing his eyes away to rest on the kitchen sink.

Heat blasted intensely from his eye sockets, blowing a chunk of wall straight through to the outside. Sunlight streamed in as Ben fought to try and control his ability, with futile effort. The entire wall was now being blasted away, as Ben moved his head about, resisting the urge to see if Chloe was still alright. He screamed in defiance, willing the ability to stop, STOP! He could hear Chloe screaming as if in the distance. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he managed to close his eyes, and the hissing of melting plaster and mortar ceased into a sizzle. Ben fell to his knees, breathing heavily, and broke down in tears, his eyes locked shut. He felt Chloe crawl up beside him, comforting him with shushing sounds as he sobbed in despair. Chloe could hear him murmuring a nonsensical stream of words as she ran a hand through his hair.

"Please don't send me to the basement, I'm not a normie, I'm not a normie, the Blue Lady will tell you, she asked me to do it and I did it, I passed her test, I'm not a normie, don't send me to the basement..."

"It's okay, it's okay," Chloe reassured him, looking at the damage that had been done. It wasn't so much on fire as it was molten slag, and about half of the kitchen wall was now open to the outside. She leaned her cheek on top of Ben's head, angry tears held back, her thoughts on the Manticore project. Whoever had decided to play God with a bunch of children was sick. Sick, twisted, and evil.

A sudden concussive force threw Sam, Ruby, Bobby and Castiel to the ground. Falling flat on his back, Sam let out a grunt of pain, looking up to see bits of wall burn up and melt on the second floor of the Talon. He could hear someone, a woman, screaming, and then a second voice, male, also screaming. Sam looked about in panic, but there was no-one else about; the Main Street was more or less deserted, although a few stragglers had popped their heads out on the far end of the street. Smallville indeed.

Sam quickly got up, kneeling over his rucksack and passing out shotguns to everyone. Bobby silently began loading his with shells; Castiel simply looked into the barrel of his curiously. Ruby in Jason's body waved away the shotgun, knowing how useless it would be, instead holding up the green meteor rock with a snarl. Sam finished loading his shotgun and pumped it, before taking another pistol and tucking it into the back of his jeans.

The foursome approached the front door cautiously; Sam shot the locks and kicked open the doors. Suddenly the screaming ceased, and the roar of the fires dwindled down. Sam, Bobby, Ruby and Castiel hurried through the empty coffeeshop, up a staircase. Sam tried to slow down his breathing, as he pressed an ear against the door. He could make out the faint murmurs of sobbing. He looked back to Ruby questioningly.

"What do we do, Dean?" Sam asked.

"It's the alien; it's gone amok!" Ruby whispered. "We have to get in there and kill it!"

Castiel listened to this exchange, a confused expression on his face.

"Alien?" he wondered aloud.

"Well he's not a shapeshifter or a revenant, or a demon, we've tested that theory," said Bobby. "It's a lookalike of Dean here, although I'm not completely sold on the alien theory either."

"Shut up, Bobby, you don't know what you're talking about!" Ruby snapped.

"Dean, what's gotten into you?" Sam exclaimed. The Dean he knew would never speak to Bobby like that.

"What's going on is ET just blew up an apartment and we're standing around like goons swapping ghost stories! I'm going in, whether or not you two are with me!" Ruby made as if to kick the door down, when Castiel put a hand on Jason's shoulder, holding her back.

"A Dean lookalike? My apologies; I believe this situation is my doing. While trying to resurrect your brother here, I made the mistake of raising another in his place, one who looked very much like him."

"Wait, you're saying you resurrected Dean?" Sam stared at Castiel incredulously.

"I believe so. Or perhaps it was Uriel; I'm not clear which of the three we resurrected was Dean."

"Three Dean's?!" Sam repeated in shock.

"Quite possibly four."

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Sam yelled. "Four freaking Dean's?! How am I supposed to know which one's the real one?!"

Ruby snapped Jason's fingers in front of Sam's face. "Hello! Right here!"

Sam slowly looked at her, realisation dawning. He lifted his shotgun, pointing it at Ruby in Jason's body.

"Step away, Dean." Sam ordered.

"Sam, what're you doing--" Ruby began, but Sam cut her off.

"I SAID STEP AWAY, DEAN! IF THAT'S WHO YOU REALLY ARE!" Sam fired a shot into the ceiling to show how serious he was, pumping his shotgun and pointing it at Ruby again. Ruby held up her hands reluctantly; Bobby turned and pointed his shotgun at her as well.

"Guys, this is crazy. You know it's me. It's the other guy you have to be worried about, and you've just told him with that shot you fired that we're here, Sammy! We have to stop him while we still can; don't believe what this guy here says, I told you he was a demon!" Ruby pointed an accusatory finger at Castiel.

"I checked, Dean, and he's not a demon. But you know who I haven't checked?"

Sam glared furiously, before extending a hand, palm splayed. Ruby in Jason's body suddenly flew back against the staircase wall, lifting upwards as she writhed under Sam's telekinetic grip.

"Demon scum." Sam spat, livid.

"Sam..." Ruby choked. "Sam, it's me! It's... Ruby..."

Surprised, Sam loosened his grip, but still held Ruby against the wall.

"Ruby!? But I thought you were... you were..."

"Exorcised? No. I had to, Sam, I had to take this body, Alec, he was going to kill me..."

"You took Dean's body?!" Sam gripped his hand shut again, causing Ruby to scream. She turned Jason's head towards Sam, struggling to get the words out.

"Th-This isn't Dean!" she choked.

"Tell me where Dean is!!" Sam roared, stepping forward. The wall behind Ruby suddenly cracked, as he pushed her with supernatural force against it. Bobby watched in horror as the scene unfolded; Castiel watched with a detached air.

"I don't know where Dean is..." Ruby sobbed. The pain was incredible. Like nothing she had ever experienced, even in the Pit.

"LIAR!" Sam made as if to kill Ruby with one final clench of his hand.

The door of the apartment suddenly burst through, as Ben leapt through the entryway, a makeshift blindfold tied around his eyes to prevent him from accidentally activating his Heat Vision again. He didn't need sight; his highly attuned transgenic senses could tell where each and every person was on the stairwell. He didn't know why these people were here, but he had experience with people hunting him down, and he knew the sound of a shotgun being unloaded. There was no way he would allow Chloe to be hurt by these people hunting him; these hunters.

Startled, Sam loosened his grip on Ruby, who fell to the floor. Ben, still blindfolded, sprang up from his crouching position, kicking out at Sam, who was closest to him. Sam ducked, but was still hit by a glancing blow to the chest, causing him to fall into Castiel, who fell onto Bobby. The three of them in a tangle of arms and legs rolled down the staircase painfully. Ben turned his still blindfolded head towards Ruby, who was up and standing over him.

"Thanks," she sneered. Ben's right arm launched upwards, as if to uppercut Ruby, but he abruptly staggered and doubled over in pain as she took the meteor rock out of her pocket. She held the glowing green rock against him, watching as he squirmed, and held back his blindfolded head by his hair. She opened Jason's mouth and moved closer, readying herself to possess Ben.

All of a sudden she fell back with a cry, as Bobby crawled behind her, her demon-killing knife in his hand, ready to strike again. Ruby dropped the rock and held Jason's bleeding side in pain, kicking at Bobby, who didn't release his hold on the knife. She jumped back as he swiped at her again, noticing that Sam was almost fully untangled from Castiel at the end of the staircase. This was bad. Even if she possessed the transgenic, there was no way she would be able to escape once Sam had her in his sights. Quickly weighing her options, she hopped over Ben and off the staircase, escaping through the front entrance of the Talon. As Chloe rushed out of the apartment and covered the meteor rock with a leaden box, Ben followed the sound of Ruby's footsteps, wondering to himself why Jason's voice had sounded so familiar.

Joshua held up the paper bag, proceeding to throw up loudly into it once again. Alec looked away in exasperation, turning to Max who was sitting across from him in the private jet.

"Figures that he'd get airsick," Alec muttered. "Serves him right for eating up all my Mac'N'Cheese..."

Max rolled her eyes. Logan looked between them, then to his watch.

"We'll be arriving in Metropolis airfield in a half hour guys, so just try and hold on until then, yeah?" Logan put a reassuring hand on Joshua's knee.

Joshua nodded, green-faced, his usual silly attitude completely gone. He hadn't felt this woozy since that time he'd smoked the funny leaves at that warehouse.

Max handed Joshua a bottle of water, patting his arm. She glared at Alec again.

"What?!" Alec cried out, annoyed. She'd been giving him death glares all day.

"I don't know how you managed to screw things up this badly, but I know you're to blame!" she accused.

"Oh come on, why's it always gotta be me, huh?! Maybe it was that Dean guy, didja think that?"

"Yeah, well, maybe I'm having a hard time seeing the difference!" yelled Max, still pissed off.

"That's a cheap shot, and you know it!" Alec yelled back.

"Whatever, 'Dean'!"

"Oh is that how it's gonna be? How about I call you Little Miss 'Sam' from now on?!"

"Don't you compare me to that chain-smoking hussy! That's different, she's a clone!"

"And Dean's a freakin' twin from thirty years ago! Which is more different?!"

"You're both the same level of asshole!"

"Well you and 453 are the same kind of bitch!"

"WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?!"

Logan buried his head in his hands, silently chanting to himself whilst Alec and Max began to catfight.

"Just thirty more minutes, just thirty more minutes..." he thought, as Joshua violently threw up again.

"You're just mad I walked in on your damn booty call!"

"I'LL KILL YOU!"

"Are we there yet?" Dean asked for the ump-teenth time. Future Sam smirked.

"If you don't keep it down I swear I will turn this car around!" he joked.

Dean let out a laugh. Things were messed up, but it could be a lot worse. He'd found Sam (even if it was not his Sam) and was on his way to fix everything. A hunter couldn't ask for much more.

Dean leaned against the blue pickup window, peering up at the sky. It was getting close to noon. Dean sighed, resting his eyes for a moment.

"Does this old friend of yours know we're coming?" Dean asked, eyes still closed.

"I paged ahead. They'll be meeting up with us at some point."

Dean opened his eyes at this.

"What do you mean 'at some point'? Are they gonna meet us or not?"

"Honestly, it's not up to me. Let's just say this friend has a way of making entrances. They'll find us sooner or later."

Dean sighed again, this time in exasperation. He leaned his head back against the window, looking up at the sky again. A lonely private jet streaked across the sky, heading in the same direction they were. Dean watched it for a few minutes, before he sat up straight and peered closer.

"What's up, Dean?" Future Sam asked.

"That jet up there. It looks like it's gonna crash!"

The jet had started to wobble about, before suddenly making an abrupt turn and spiralling down towards the earth. Towards the very truck they were in.

"Jesus Sammy, it's gonna land right on top of us! Speed this load of junk the hell up!"

Alec and Max desperately wrestled with the flight controls, to no avail.

"You idiot! You broke the damn console!" Max screamed at Alec, as the jet dipped and began to spiral.

"I broke it?! You're the one who tackled me into the stupid thing!"

"Yeah, and your thick head broke it!"

"Who's even flying this thing?!"

Logan entered the cockpit.

"It's all automated! You're going to have to go to manual controls!" he yelled.

Alec and Max looked at each other in horror, turning back to Logan. Logan sagged.

"You guys don't have flight training?!" he yelled incredulously.

"That's what pilots are for!!" Alec yelled back.

Logan pushed past them and sat at the controls. He grabbed a hold of the yoke, ignoring the large head-sized indent in the console beside it. Pulling back, he attempted to level out the jet's flight path, only just steadying the descent.

"Logan, watch out! You're going to hit that truck!" Max screamed, pointing outside.

Logan tried to veer away, but it was too late; they were going to crush the truck, and likely end up a splattered fireball all over the highway.

Future Sam pushed down hard on the accelerator, knowing that there was no way he could outrun a jet. Dean swore himself blue in the seat next to him, cursing everyone from Elvis to Poseidon about the crap he had to go through avoiding flying to die in a plane crash whilst in a car!

Death seemed imminent for both parties, as the jet approached the truck with shrieking speed. Everybody closed their eyes, dreading the moment of impact; Dean hugged Future Sam, Logan pulled Max into a kiss, Alec screamed and Joshua let out a long howl.

A full twelve seconds later, they realised they weren't dead.

Three seconds after the fact, Alec stopped screaming.

Two seconds later, the six of them realised there was a seventh figure standing in the smoke and dust, holding the jet plane up with one hand, the blue truck up in the other.

Future Sam took one look at the silhouetted figure, and called out:

"What took you so long, Lana?!"

Future Lana just grinned.

"Nice to see you again too, Sam!"

Clark examined the large tree in the backyard of his house in puzzlement. That hadn't been there two days ago. Unless someone had decided to plant a great oak on his property for no reason, it seemed to have come from nowhere. He looked about, unsure what to make of this. Another meteor-infected person, who could... grow trees? It seemed a bit farfetched, even to him.

Focussing his eyes, he activated his X-Ray Vision. He was shocked to find that the entire tree seemed to glow in this state. He had no clue that this was the result of Castiel's Grace, which blessed the ground upon which it fell. All he knew was that something a lot bigger than usual was happening; and he had a bad feeling about it.

Ruby trudged along the dirt road, feeling every ache in Jason's body. She could push it on indefinitely, but that usually resulted in a very uncooperative body. Giving up for the moment, she fell to her knees, too exhausted from the ordeal Sam had put her through to care.

"Well well, someone looks thirsty," came an unknown voice behind her.

Ruby snapped Jason's head to the side to find a man standing over her, a smirk across his face. She thought quickly. The Jason body was useless to her now that Sam knew about the deception; why not take a fresh host? She spread Jason's arms wide and erupted out of his mouth in a spurt of black trailing smoke, towards the man. As her demon smokeform touched the man, however, it recoiled, and swiftly retreated to the limp ragdoll figure of Jason once again. The man chuckled; a cruel, inhuman sound.

"What the hell are you?!" Ruby spat. She was sick of people who weren't people.

Brainiac raised an eyebrow in response.

"I might ask you the same thing."

A/N #2: Short-ish chapter? Yes. Exciting Chapter promised next? YES!