thursdays_angel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thursdays_angel) wrote2011-01-17 09:22 pm
thursdays_angel) wrote2011-01-17 09:22 pm
Cheat Mountain. Rural West Virginia. September 29, 2008
“The demons are gathering on the summit.”
Castiel automatically glances up the slope of the mountain. There is nothing to see – the summit is shrouded in mist and rain and blue-grey shadow. But there is no doubt that the demons are there. He can feel them, like a faint, bone-deep itch. And given the slightly impatient shifting of some of his brothers and sisters, he is not the only one.
“The Seal within this mountain is complex. As is the ritual to break it.” Ecanus, Castiel’s immediate superior, looks over the dozen angels at his command. By human standards, he is an unimposing leader, his vessel a scrawny boy of no more than seventeen.
Castiel knows that it is foolish to think that an angel’s vessel is a reflection of character or ability. Such prejudices are all too human. And yet he finds himself silently hoping that Ecanus’s young and inexperienced exterior is not an indicator of how he will conduct this battle.
Of course, there is the nagging fact that Ecanus is not as experienced a leader as other angels in his position. If all were right, this field command would belong to Anna.
Castiel quickly shakes off that thought. The chain of command had chosen Ecanus as Anna’s replacement, and that alone is enough of an endorsement.
Ecanus does not seem to have noticed that the mind of at least one of his soldiers is straying.
“Once interrupted, the ritual cannot be retried,” he continues. “They will have lost their chance at this Seal. Therefore, it is imperative that we allow them to begin before we move in. We will take them by surprise from all sides.”
There is no need to specify that prisoners will not be taken.
“Once the task is completed, return immediately to the Garrison,” Ecanus adds, looking grim. “We may well be needed elsewhere this night.”
There is no need to explain what every angel on this worn-down mountain already knows. Lilith, it seems, is growing impatient and has cast aside any semblance of subtlety. Ten Seals have come under blatant threat in the last few hours, all over the globe. At least one has already been broken. For creatures so adept at being underhanded, the demons are all but daring Heaven to interfere. The Garrison has found itself scrambling to deploy a defensive net, hastily dispatching angels to each site.
And the Garrison does not care for being put on the defensive.
The angels wait in silence for the signal to strike while rain drips down through the leaves and the overcast evening gives way to night. It is only when full darkness has fallen that there is a flash of reddish light on the summit, and a dull boom rolls down to the valley below. The ritual is underway.
And, as one, the angels vanish from beneath the trees, and the mountain virtually errupts.
Castiel automatically glances up the slope of the mountain. There is nothing to see – the summit is shrouded in mist and rain and blue-grey shadow. But there is no doubt that the demons are there. He can feel them, like a faint, bone-deep itch. And given the slightly impatient shifting of some of his brothers and sisters, he is not the only one.
“The Seal within this mountain is complex. As is the ritual to break it.” Ecanus, Castiel’s immediate superior, looks over the dozen angels at his command. By human standards, he is an unimposing leader, his vessel a scrawny boy of no more than seventeen.
Castiel knows that it is foolish to think that an angel’s vessel is a reflection of character or ability. Such prejudices are all too human. And yet he finds himself silently hoping that Ecanus’s young and inexperienced exterior is not an indicator of how he will conduct this battle.
Of course, there is the nagging fact that Ecanus is not as experienced a leader as other angels in his position. If all were right, this field command would belong to Anna.
Castiel quickly shakes off that thought. The chain of command had chosen Ecanus as Anna’s replacement, and that alone is enough of an endorsement.
Ecanus does not seem to have noticed that the mind of at least one of his soldiers is straying.
“Once interrupted, the ritual cannot be retried,” he continues. “They will have lost their chance at this Seal. Therefore, it is imperative that we allow them to begin before we move in. We will take them by surprise from all sides.”
There is no need to specify that prisoners will not be taken.
“Once the task is completed, return immediately to the Garrison,” Ecanus adds, looking grim. “We may well be needed elsewhere this night.”
There is no need to explain what every angel on this worn-down mountain already knows. Lilith, it seems, is growing impatient and has cast aside any semblance of subtlety. Ten Seals have come under blatant threat in the last few hours, all over the globe. At least one has already been broken. For creatures so adept at being underhanded, the demons are all but daring Heaven to interfere. The Garrison has found itself scrambling to deploy a defensive net, hastily dispatching angels to each site.
And the Garrison does not care for being put on the defensive.
The angels wait in silence for the signal to strike while rain drips down through the leaves and the overcast evening gives way to night. It is only when full darkness has fallen that there is a flash of reddish light on the summit, and a dull boom rolls down to the valley below. The ritual is underway.
And, as one, the angels vanish from beneath the trees, and the mountain virtually errupts.
no subject
Lilith is far from impatient. She's had millennia to bide her time, what are few more little months? Nothing at all. The children got tonight will not see this world before she brings about its destruction.
And if this does not appear to be subtle and underhanded, well, that's because they're watching the wrong hands.
This seal, like the nine others Lilith's demons laid siege to tonight, means very little. If they manage to break any of them, so much the better, and they'll be rewarded, if they manage to survive.
If they don't survive, well, demons are like Doritos. Crunch all you want. She'll make more.
And these ten seals are mere feints.
There are but two that matter, the first and the last of the dozen.
After all, sixty-six, that's all she needs. Sixty-six out of ten times that. She can lose ten if she breaks two, and be ahead.
So first it was the Witnesses. Something to keep the little human hunters entertained. Visits with old friends.
And then it was the ten, to set up the twelfth.
Nothing up her sleeves, but watch closely, little angels.
Now that you're spread thin, responding to ten threats all around the world . . .
Now the trick of it becomes apparent.
And it is written that the righteous blade shall know the fires of Hell, and be reforged. And She shall wield it under the moonless sky, and She shall strike the armies of Heaven. Twice three times She shall strike, and then break Her blade. And as it breaks, so shall the seal.
Lilith is come to Cheat Mountain.
no subject
Good or ill.
And tonight, when Castiel appears on the summit of the mountain, it feels like it is trying to tear the spare pines and spurs of rock out of the very ground. As in the old days, Israfel is off to his right, Hamied to his left. The last time they had gone into battle thus, it had been in desert. Tonight it is falling branches and sheets of rain and flying forest debris.
And demons raging louder than the wind.
Castiel grabs the demon closest to him, cutting it off mid-incantation, burning it out of its profane existence. He lets the mortal husk fall to the ground -- he will take time later to pray for the human soul -- and charges toward the next. Around the perimeter, he can hear this brothers and sisters doing the same. Tightening the circle, forcing the demons into a crowded killing zone in the middle.
This battle should be quite straightforward.
no subject
And wind has nothing on Lilith.
They might hear her first, just a split second before they see her, laughing a laugh like a screech owl's cry, one that catches on the mountain winds, echoes and flitters away.
And then they'll see her, a woman in white with a sword, other demons part in a scramble to make way for her.
Now never mind the wind, little angels. Because you're caught in a storm, her sword flashing fast and bright as lightning as she crosses the mountaintop.
Through the neck of an angel housed in a boy barely old enough to shave, through the chest of woman in a drab pantsuit.
Two down . . .
no subject
The surrounded demons were falling back, forming a knot. Pulling us in closer, Castiel thought for one split second.
But it was only for a moment, and Ecanus gave the signal to move in. To finish them off.
Then she was there. And Ecanus was the first one to be cut down.
Then Sabiel. Then Baruch. The light of their Grace flaring once as if in protest, and then dying to nothing.
And then Castiel found himself looking straight at Lilith. At Lucifer's first and worst corruption of Creation. For all that she is leading the forces of Hell, Castiel had never seriously contemplated that he could ever come face to face with Lilith.
He thought he had understood fear when he had been sent into Hell to retrieve Dean Winchester. But that was nothing to this. And to his shame, Castiel freezes.
no subject
This is the great army of Heaven?
Really?
She had expected them to at least make things interesting.
The sword flashes twice as Lilith all but dances across the top of the mountain -- to her left, through the heart of an angel is military fatigues, whirling behind her to sever another's elaborate braids, and the rest of her head, too.
And then, for a second, she pauses, looking at the one in the trenchcoat, standing still in the middle of the battle.
Oh, she thinks she's heard of you, little angel.
Lilith raises her sword and smiles, and borrows a greeting from a fallen follower.
"Hello, darling."
no subject
Angels are fearsome soldiers. But there are some things they are not good at, and one of them is strategic retreat. Especially when one's commander is dead and there is no one to issue the order.
And Castiel has never been in a battle quite like this before.
This is Lilith, and therefore if there is even a chance they can take her, they will have delivered a killing blow to Hell's plan.
On the other hand, this is Lilith, and if they have any sense of self preservation at all, they should fly from this mountain as fast as possible.
Because this is Lilith, and what chance do a handful of foot-soldier angels have?
But even as the options are weighed in his mind, Castiel knows what the outcome will be. He cannot run, and face his Garrison again. Cannot run and ever be worthy of his Father's forgiveness.
And so, shaking himself from the spell of the demon's smile, Castiel gathers himself and flies.
At Lilith.
He can't kill her. Castiel does not have the hubris to think he has that power within him.
But the sword....maybe if he can get the sword...
no subject
Well, well, well.
Lilith watches him fly towards her, holds her position, and then . . .
With a terrible and inhuman grace, she moves sideways, turning as she goes, breaking every bone in her meatsuit's spine, barely feeling it.
She strikes even as she's turning, burying the sword in the chest of the angel coming to her brother's aid, trying to sneak up behind Lilith.
And when the hilt hits the breastbone, and the light has flared and gone from the angel's eyes, Lilith jerks her hand up, snapping the blade from the hilt, letting both hilt and angel fall, as the Seal breaks.
She turns to Castiel.
"Aren't you lucky, darling? You get to live till next time," she says.
And then throws her head back and smoke pours out of the woman she's wearing, vanishing into the dark sky, leaving seven broken bodies that now house neither human nor angel nor demon, a broken sword, and a still raging battle on the top of Cheat Mountain.
no subject
He can still hear the fight all around him, the demons remaining to pick the bones of the routed angels.
Almost half of their number dead, and a Seal shattered. Not even the Seal they were sent to protect.
A Seal that their very presence helped to break.
Castiel scrambles past the body that Lilith had discarded to get to Israfel, sprawled in the dirt, the broken blade protruding from her chest. There is nothing left here, either human or angel. Just lifeless vessel.
Castiel grasps the blade and pulls it free. The hilt, which had fallen from the hand of Lilith's host, is laying just a foot away. An angel's blade, or it had been once, a long time ago. Just holding the broken pieces makes Castiel feel as if he is walking through Hell again.
He stands, still holding both pieces. Looks around at the clash of angels and demons around him. And raises his voice above the din.
"Fall back! Return to the Garrison! Fall back!"
This battle is lost. It's time to save what little they can.