Chapter Three
Sam jumped out of bed and grabbed the Ark with the blue towel over it. Barefoot, he ran down the hallway to the elevator with the Ark in his arms. The hallways were far too empty for a hospital of this size. As he pressed the down button, he heard a faint meowing at his feet. He glanced down. It was Chuck's cat.
"No kitty, I don't think this is the place for you."
The cat meowed again, in protest.
"Kitty, unless you have a serious ace up your…uh, paw, I think you should stay out of the way."
In response, the ordinary-looking tabby cat transformed into a lion, and sat on its haunches, staring at Sam, who shook his head in disbelief. Lucifer was gaping at the lion and shrinking back away from it.
"Are you Aslan?" Sam wondered aloud.
The lion growled.
"Okay, not Aslan."
The lion's head bobbed up and down as the elevator arrived with an audible ding.
"I think you'd better turn back. I don't see us both fitting in there," Sam said.
The lion shrank back to tabby cat size as the elevator door opened, and gazed up at him with innocent green cat eyes.
"In," Sam said.
The cat bounded into the elevator and sat in the corner, licking its paws and looking all the world like a normal cat. Sam stepped inside and pressed the down button.
"All right, fur ball. Time to kick some Leviathan butt," he said as the elevator door shut.
Rather ironically, the elevator music was a Muzak version of Bob Dylan's Knockin' on Heaven's Door.
In the corner, Lucifer rolled his eyes. The cat hissed at him.
Meanwhile, downstairs, Dean and Agent Smith were still surrounded by Leviathans.
"We need to do some serious ass-kicking," Dean said.
"No kidding," Agent Smith replied. "You're the expert. What do we do?"
Dean took the knife he'd been hiding in a secret jacket pocket. He grinned as it turned into a sword shaped very much like a lightning bolt. It was made from alien bluish metal. Electric blue and white sparks danced across the jagged blade.
"We kick ass," he replied.
Agent Smith nodded. From his jacket, he took out a neon green squirt gun.
Dean stared at it. "Please tell me there's cleaning solution in that."
"You did warn me earlier."
"Great. Try not to get yourself killed."
Dean swung at the Leviathan who had been a security guard with Zeus' thunderbolt. The sword crackled and sizzled as it sliced through the flesh. The Leviathan started laughing.
"Ha! That tickles…." He was cut off when the electricity danced across his entire body, and vaporized him from the inside out. Only dust remained on the floor.
Dean blinked. "I thought this wasn't supposed to kill them."
"Maybe he'll regenerate in a few thousand years?" Agent Smith asked.
"Hopefully not."
Ding. The elevator arrived, playing Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell. And this wasn't the Muzak version.
When the tabby cat leapt out of the elevator, the Leviathans laughed.
"If you were trying to make us die from laughing, Winchester, you're failing miserably," said a skinny blonde girl who had been the receptionist, but who now had Leviathan teeth.
Sam rolled his eyes. "Dean!"
"I'm here, Sammy. What the hell is that cat doing here?"
The cat looked at the skinny blonde girl and transformed into the lion. It roared in her face, and then took a swipe with claws. She looked down. "I liked that shirt." The Leviathan leapt out of the skinny blonde girl's former body and hovered. It was a shimmering serpent-like being with wings and lots of sharp teeth.
Sam darted past the Leviathans, who were gawking at the lion and body-less Leviathan, and shoved the Ark into Dean's arms.
"Here! Use it."
Dean handed Zeus' thunderbolt to Sam. "Hold this."
The Leviathans advanced on them slowly as Dean whipped off the blue towel and it fluttered to the ground.
The lion and the winged serpent were at it, clawing and hissing at each other. Some of the other Leviathans joined in, leaving the bodies they had inhabited, but which were now dead.
"Holy crap," Agent Smith muttered. He managed to piss a few off by shooting them with the squirt gun. One Leviathan came for him, still in its human body. The body had belonged to an orderly named Steve. He was rather well-built, and aimed a punch at Agent Smith.
Dean pressed his finger into the indentation of the Ark's top lid.
"This had better work," he said.
Sam swung at a few Leviathans with the thunderbolt, and when one nearly swiped him with claws, he realized he could do better.
"Hey, I've been wanting to say this," Sam said, grinning.
"What?" Dean asked as the Ark began to glow with white light.
"Flame on!"
In fire form, Sam's wings were clearly visible, and they were also fiery. He kept a tight grasp on the thunderbolt, swinging at the Leviathans who dared to come close. He reduced two of them to dust.
The Ark was glowing brighter now. Dean aimed it at the mass of Leviathans on the other side of the room.
Agent Smith sprayed the Leviathan formerly known as Steve right in the eyes, and his face melted. The Leviathan screamed as Agent Smith punched him. The Leviathan crumpled to the ground, still screaming from pain. Agent Smith sprayed him again for good measure. He then took out a second canister of cleaning solution and reloaded the squirt gun.
Meanwhile, on the far side of the room, the ray of white light from the Ark had opened up a portal. It was green and purple. Shadows swirled within it. Every Leviathan which came in contact with the white light was hurled into the portal, and most of them were screaming.
The lion, having finally shredded its Leviathan prey, turned its attention to another one a few feet away. Dean aimed the light at the Leviathan shreds. He saw a shadowy serpent-like figure get pulled out of the remains and hurled towards the portal as well.
In Sam's head, Lucifer was yelling as Sam kept reducing Leviathans to ashes with the thunderbolt.
"You think you're so great now? Guess what? As soon as people see you, they'll freak out. Everybody knows what you can do now, Sam. They're going to be as much afraid of you as they are of me!"
"Shut up," Sam growled.
"You know I'm right," Lucifer pressed.
Sadly, Sam realized that his hallucination probably was right. But it didn't matter now. He and Dean were going to save the planet yet again, and be treated like outcasts yet again. Sam punched one of the Leviathans with a flaming fist out of sheer anger. The Leviathan looked down and saw a gaping hole in its chest.
"I guess this is what you call a holey fight," Lucifer said. "Get it? Holey." He laughed.
Sam used his telekinesis to hurl the Leviathan into the path of the white light. "I said, shut up."
"You're going Vader now, Sammy boy," Lucifer taunted him. He snapped his fingers and Vader's helmet appeared on his head, and he breathed into it.
"Shut up."
"You said shut up to me," Lucifer said, still wearing the helmet. "I'm touched."
Sam made a move to punch Lucifer, even though he knew that Lucifer was only a hallucination.
"Sam, look out," Dean hollered.
Sam stopped in his tracks. He was only a couple of steps away from Agent Smith, completely focused on reloading the squirt gun with cleaning fluid. If he'd thrown that punch, he might have hit the FBI agent.
Agent Smith turned around, to see a fiery Sam scrambling back with haste. Through the flames, he saw a terrified look on Sam's face.
"What?"
"I…Lucifer…damn it!" Sam turned back into his normal form, though with wings visible.
"You never got the anti-hallucinogen pills," Agent Smith said as he realized how close a call he had just had. "Crap."
"Under the circumstances, I don't think anyone will mind if we take some and leave cash behind."
"Right," Agent Smith said. "It's not like that's breaking and entering or anything," he said sarcastically. "But then, I'm going to have to ignore Dean using fake ID. After all, it was on a Leviathan. You guys will need to get rid of all of your fake IDs after this, you know."
Sam sighed. "I don't think it'll matter. We're too famous now."
"Good point," Agent Smith replied. "You'll need to get some real IDs."
Sam chuckled. "I don't even know where my real ID is anymore."
Agent Smith shook his head, and then saw a body-less Leviathan advancing on Sam, trying to take advantage of him not being on fire now. "Behind you!"
Sam ducked. With a roar, the lion's claws ripped the winged serpent to shreds. The lion sat down on its haunches, licking its paws.
"I think that's the last one," Dean said.
"No Dick Roman?" Agent Smith asked.
"I guess not," Dean said.
"Bummer," Agent Smith replied.
"Trust me; you don't want to meet him."
"Oh, I already have," Agent Smith said. "I just didn't know he was one of them at the time."
Dean nodded.
The lion turned back into a normal-looking tabby cat, walked over to Sam, and purred.
"You're serious?" Sam asked.
The cat looked up at him.
"Okay, fine." Sam put the thunderbolt down and picked up the cat. The cat hissed at Lucifer.
"Wait," Dean said. "The cat can see your hallucination?"
Sam nodded.
Dean and Agent Smith exchanged glances.
"Are we entirely sure it's just a hallucination?" Agent Smith asked. "I mean, your brother did have the real Lucifer inside of him temporarily."
"I'm 95 percent sure it's just a hallucination," Dean replied. He glanced at the cat. "Okay, maybe 94 and a half at this point."
The cat hissed again. Lucifer backed away.
"Lucifer really doesn't like this cat," Sam said.
"Well, he has been hanging around Chuck for a while now," Dean said. "Who really knows how long? And he's not a normal cat. So maybe…some of Chuck's mojo rubbed off on him?"
Sam shrugged.
"Mojo?" Agent Smith repeated. "That's the understatement of the year."
"True," Dean said. "But who knows what those rules are, exactly? Hey, step back."
Everyone stepped back. Dean aimed the remaining Ark light at the Leviathan's remains, and the portal closed as its shadowy serpent form was sucked in. The light vanished from the Ark.
"Wow," Agent Smith said.
"Yeah. Uh…can we get my medicine, please?" Sam asked. "I really can't take very much more of him." He gestured towards Lucifer, who was hissing back at the cat.
There was a flash of light as Chuck appeared in the room. "Hey, guys. I need my Ark back. Was kitty good?"
"Oh, yeah," Dean replied as he handed the Ark back to Chuck. "Very good."
The cat in Sam's arms purred.
"Good. Now uh…I'm forgetting something, aren't I?" Chuck glanced around. "Right, Sam." He snapped his fingers and Lucifer disappeared. "There, now he won't be bothering you anymore."
Sam gaped. "Really?"
"Yeah."
Sam handed Chuck the cat, who curled up into a ball on top of the Ark. "Thanks. Do I still have five years?"
"What?"
"Five years left on Earth. That's what Cas said."
Chuck blinked. "You can stay on Earth if you want to. I think what he meant was, your transformation wouldn't be complete. I've sped it up by quite a bit because I'm going to need you to do a few things, but you can stay here if you want. People will know the truth about you, which will make it harder to stay here. Are you okay with that?"
Sam looked at Dean, and then back at Chuck. "Yeah, I'm okay with it."
Chuck snapped his fingers and the thunderbolt appeared in his hand. "I owe Zeus one from our last poker game. Maybe he'll accept this." He looked at Sam and Dean. "Try to stay out of trouble, okay?"
Chuck was about to vanish into thin air, when a red-haired nurse came down the elevator and gaped at the sight of the almost completely empty lobby.
"Oh, no," Chuck said. "Not again."
"What?" Dean asked.
"It's complicated. She keeps getting reincarnated. We run into each other at least once a century. She doesn't remember me and I keep trying to avoid reminding her. I really have to get going before…"
Sam and Dean exchanged glances. The cat meowed.
"Can I help you?" The red-haired nurse asked. Her name tag read M. Jones.
"Nope, I was just leaving," Chuck said. "See you later, alligator." He vanished into thin air, leaving the gaping people behind.
"Okay," Sam said. "That was a little weird." He looked at the nurse. "Your name wouldn't happen to be Mary, would it?"
"No, actually it's Maria. I'm adopted. Why do you ask?"
"Uh…no reason," he said.
"Shouldn't you be in bed?" The nurse asked, pointing out Sam's bare feet and white hospital garb, which stood out starkly in contrast with his red wings.
His cheeks nearly matched the color of the feathers. "I uh, I'm checking out."
"Not wearing that, you're not. Back to bed, superhero."
The wings vanished. "Do I have a choice?"
Maria crossed her arms. "No."
"Better do as she says," Dean said with a grin. "You can check out tomorrow, fly boy."
Sam sighed. "All right."
The elevator door opened, playing the Muzak version of Wonderful World. Sam rolled his eyes as he got in and the door closed.
Meanwhile, in a house in a small town called Kripke's Hollow, a tabby cat lay curled up in front of a fireplace as keys click-clacked on a keyboard on the other side of the room. A box sat on a desk nearby, looking fairly ordinary. It was covered by a dark blue towel.
The End