The Man Who Sold The World

"Elenna!" Rome shouted, heedless of anyone hearing or discovering them, as he rushed forward, only to be met by cold chain link fence. He glanced up at the hovering potted plants, the pair of them over Lenna's head, wavering, and then falling. "Sh*t!" he shouted, like it would help.

He felt a rush of electricity that made his nose and lips tingle, briefly, and a sharp spike of pain in his head, not unlike the pre-premonition crap he was used to dealing with. His eyes flashed with something more than concern.

And the pots froze in mid-air.

They both stared up at them. Elenna yelped and backed away from beneath them.

"Thank God," Rome said, "now let 'em down slowly, chica. Jesus Christ, you're gonna make me--"

"I'm not doing anything!" Elenna shrieked.

"What?" Rome broke eye contact with the plants to look at her, startled.

The holly trees crashed to the ground, breaking both of the pots, leaving the trees exposed.

Silence. Then,

"Rome, you--your eyes were doing that thing--"

"That was not me!" Rome barked, loud and stern and mean enough that Elenna's mouth shut with a decided click. He regretted it almost immediately, but no way in hell was he laying claim to-- "Oh, God, my head," he groaned, suddenly pitching forward against the fence where he put his head in his hands as if they were the only things keeping his brain from exploding. He sniffed and swallowed thickly, the coppery taste of blood in the back of his throat.

"Rome, are you okay?"

"Yeah," Rome's head snapped up immediately, although he squinted at the world as if nighttime was too bright, and he replaced his Aviators on his face. "Yeah, I'm fine." He sniffed and wiped his nose again. Somehow he made it over the fence, and pulled Elenna into a please-forgive-me-so-I-don't-have-to-say-it-out-loud-hug. "Let's just try to forget this ever happened right?" he said, suddenly playful again. "Our alibi is we had to pull over to the side of the road for you to puke up all that Tequila you drank."

“Hey why do I have to be the one puking, we could also say you met a girl at the street.” She said sticking out her tongue wide grinning.

Since the trees were dropped and their pots were broken they were easier to carry.

Lenna shivered when she was standing at the car. Rome visions were one thing but now he can move things? That was... unbelieving.

“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I wouldn’t believe it.” Lenna rummaged through her bag when she found what she was looking for. She turned grinning around to Rome and said. “Bend this!” While holding up a spoon.

Rome forced a laugh, even though it made him--stupidly--sick to his stomach just thinking about it.

"Blow me!" he said, and gripped the steering wheel a little harder.

When they pulled up to the Hilton, the others were already there, congregating around a conveniently shadowed dumpster.

"What took you so long?" Raime snapped. Rome could tell by the numb-terrified faces around him that they hadn't found any decent intel, either.

"We had to pull over so Lennie here could puke," he replied jovially, slapping Raime on the chest, even as Elenna said, "That's a lie! He puked!"

"And anyway," Rome continued, running interference, "We got these," he brandished seven sharpened branches which Lenna had constructed on the drive over.

"What will these do?" Aly asked skeptically.

"In reality? Probably nothing. But according to the lore, an evergreen stake through the heart will kill most pagan gods. We're also thinking fire might do the trick, and add salt to be on the safe side."

"Are they serious?" Raime growled, but Morrigan and Georgie were nodding, testing out the weapons in their hands (it was almost better than Sarah Michelle Gellar).

And then they heard the screams from upstairs.

Lenna was about to explain why and how the sticks worked but then she got distracted from screams upstairs. Lenna went pale.

“Any chance that those don’t need our action?”

She wouldn’t admit this to anyone but she was a bit scared, or pretty much scared of Johnson. Yes he was send back to were he belongs but he crawled once out of the pit. Who said he couldn't a second time. She wished she had more of those protection charms. Best would be for everyone. She took a deep breath, made sure she is hiding her fear.

“I got the fire covered, let’s go. Safe a moron.”

I can't believe there is a real god involved.

A smile appeared for a second on her face.

Rome bridled at Lenna's grin--was she psycho?

He watched Morrigan test the stake expertly in her hand--was this chick like, a blackbelt or something?

But Rome left these questions unanswered and pounded up the stairs, armed with nothing more than the stake, his .44 loaded with silver bullets, and his charming good looks, expecting (hoping) the others would follow.

The scene that met him was straight out of a Hackmaster game cover, so gornographic that he stopped Elenna and Georgie as they came up behind him, so much he would rather they not have to see it more than he wanted backup.

Saturn stood there, now a huge, towering figure--though whether he had actually grown or used some sort of Gandalf-like magic to just make himself appear large enough to fill the room--in all his demigod glory; Jack White was scattered around the room in at least three pieces; his wife was also dead, as if an afterthought, impaled on the legs of a chair--a chair! The titan was now working his way through hotel security.

"Hey!"

Rome was shouting before he realized he had opened his mouth, and certainly before he realized what a truly stupid move that would be. His mouth went dry as he tried to think up a fitting follow-up that would make this worth it. The titan dropped the security guard he was in the middle of crushing like a ketchup packet to watch Rome with amused interest:

"Party's over, Saturn! You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here!"

Lenna swallowed hard, this was friggen gross.

Okay what the hell was I thinking that sticks work against something like this. How are we supposed to get close enough to stab him?

Lenna raised her right hand a bit higher and whispered. “Feuer hier, erscheine bei mir! ”
She expected a ball of fire, but nothing happened. She looked at her hand in shock. A little louder she said, again. “Feuer hier, erscheine bei mir!” But still nothing. She started to feel panicked and that this whole gig was over their heads, way over their heads. She stepped closer to Rome and Georgie, hoping one of them had an idea.


Spell translation:
Fire here, appear next to me!

Everytime a situation seemed a little, well, tricky, Georgina remembered the rules her father had told her when she was little. She remembered sitting on his lap, absorbing every single word he said. When you're scared, don't show it, he told her. In fact, never show any kind of fear, because whatever you're confronting, they should never know that you're scared. Fear is a weak point and it makes you even more vulnerable.
He was definitely right with that, but what if you were dealing with a god? Obviously nobody of the group really knew what to do, so this situation was a damn tricky one. Elenna had just tried to work some magic, but even that didn't work anymore, and now she looked at her, waiting for help. Georgie tried to remember everything she heard about gods, but at the moment her head was spinning and she couldn't think straight. On top of that Rome had acted without thinking first, provoking Saturn unnecessarily, which made the situation only worse because Saturn looked everything but pleased. Georgie tried to ignore the remains of Jack White that were scattered around the room. She felt sick to her stomach, and that was the last thing she could need right now. She turned towards Elenna who looked like she was about to get a panic attack.
"Are you okay?", Georgie whispered.

"Do I look okay?", her friend snapped. "We're screwed!"

"We have to come up with a plan or-"

"We should have come up with a plan ages ago!", Elenna interrupted her. "And no plan has worked so far anyway. Maybe you can jump around in your cheerleader outfit and distract Saturn a bit!"

Georgie didn't know whether her friend was kidding or not, she sounded a little too serious. But distracting Saturn-if that was even a remote possibility- might be a good idea. If it was working... But how can you distract a god?

Lenna looked back at Saturn, running through her head and every possible way to kill something, but nothing seemed to work or at least plausible. She didn’t understand why her magic didn’t work. Maybe it was because she panicked or was it Saturn who preventing them from working? When suddenly popped in her head. She pulled out the lighter and the bottle of lighter fuel. She stepped closer behind Georgie, so that Saturn couldn’t see what she was doing. She opened the bottle, wrapped around a cloth and was about to lit it up.

“What are you doing?” Georgie turned around to her.

“I’m having a plan, not a good one but I have one. Let’s try what happens when Saturn burns. We don’t get close enough to hurt him, but what if we can make him burn from the distance?”

Lenna didn’t look sure of her own plan.

“I don’t know if it works, but it is worth a shot. Right?”

This was actually hilarious.

Or adorable. Saturn couldn't decide which. It was certainly audacious. He had forgotten how irrepressible humans could be, how dogged. He'd missed this.

On the other hand, that little molotov the tiny one was preparing...

"Are you somehow under the impression that I don't see that, young lady?" With a wave, the molotov turned into a plastic flower. "Not to mention you look a little young to be drinking."

Theatrically, he clapped his hands and then threw his arms wide. A shock wave followed the trail of his fingers, and threw the humans to either side until they slammed, each and every one, quite satisfactorily, against the far walls.

He smiled widely.

"Now. We can talk. Shame I don't actually want to talk."

Lenna slid down the wall. Her great idea was smashed, or well turned into plastic flowers. But since it looked pretty certain that they would die just like John White and his wife. So it didn’t matter if Lenna annoyed Saturn a little bit more

“For what do you need souls? You can’t have ours we didn’t make a deal with you. And no of us would. You have the souls you wanted so just piss off!” Lenna nearly looked brave again, while she was holding her ribs after crashing into a wall.

We seriously need a break after this, if we survive it.

Rome staggered over to Lenna, letting nothing in the world stop him: not a titan, not that sickening pop in his shoulder, nothing. He clamped a hand over her mouth as she started to sling abuses at Saturn. Somehow, it was okay when he did it--he was retarded--she should know better.

Just as he was helping her up and keeping her behind him, Saturn waved a hand again, and all of them--he, Lenna, Georgie, Mor, Aly, Raime, and Dan--all slammed against the walls again--hard--but this time, they were held there.

Rome's eyes widened as he struggled, to no avail. What kind of creature had telekinetic powers like this--to hold seven people down at once? It was, like, no fair. He could probably hold twenty people at once.

This sucked out loud.

And now he can peel us off the wall, one by one, and make the rest of us watch as he squishes us into jelly--

"And now I can peel you pathetic things off the wall one by one, and make you watch while I--"

Oh, God, I hope I go first. As much as Rome really didn't want to die, especially not by being squashed into jelly, Rome knew the pain would be nothing compared to watching him do it to the others. It was like a sick game of eenie meenie miney mo. Pick me! Pick me!

"Hey! Tito!" Rome shouted, causing Saturn to turn his head. "I think it's cool that you're cheating and all, right?"

"Cheating?!"

"Yeah, cheating. It means you're scared of us, and I get it--"

"Scared? I fear no mortal! You insignificant--"

"No!"

"Rome!"

Saturn lunged for Rome, gripped him by the throat. Rome did a small victory cheer inside his own head, a brief moment of success--he had just played a god, after all--before the very real fact of intense pain came and kicked his victory lap in the nuts. It felt like a car was sitting on his chest. Rome scraped his fingernails into the wall behind him until it drew blood as he struggled in vain to escape. Just as he felt his collarbone popping and as black spots covered his vision, Saturn stopped, pulled back.

The hate in his eyes had intensified, if anything.

"No," he said. "Wait. You will be last."

Saturn turned, with gleeful purpose, to Detective Jack Raime. Aly's screams went unheard as the Titan twisted the poor brave man's head right off his shoulders, like Rawson used to do to GI Joes.

Rome wanted to throw up.

That was more than Georgie could take. She was used to evil things, she had seen horrible things right in front of her eyes- and not only in lame horror movies- but when Saturn ripped off Raime’s head she knew that this had crossed her line, like, totally. She tried to breathe but her chest got completely tight and she felt like she was suffocating. She got extremely dizzy and couldn’t see straight anymore. Everything around her became a big blur, and suddenly Aly’s scream sounded miles away.
You can't faint now, Georgina! Dammit, hold it together!
The walls suddenly seemed to spin around, and she couldn't make out the faces of the others anymore, only some indefinite shapes. Suddenly a shiver ran down her spine. It felt like ice-cold air was spreading out all over her body. She couldn't remember a time she ever felt like that. This was how she always imagined death must feel like.
She heard different voices and screams, it sounded like they were all million miles away. She no longer knew what was happening, she just wanted to close her eyes and wake up somewhere else.

How handy would it be to have a ghost brother around that comes in and rescues us?

Lenna felt as if she lost her mind at some point. Not only that she wished her crazy ghost of Nick was still here, no she also had no useful thought how to get out of this situation. When Raime lost his head she kept starring, just like people did when they are about to be overrun by an avalanche. She just watched in amazement. For a moment she wandered if she could get free with her magic, but all she could come up with was to burn the wall behind her down and her magic hadn’t work earlier anyway so where was the point in trying. But… a wicked smiled appeared on her face, when she mumbled loudly.

“Feuer in uns, Erde unter uns, Wasser um uns, Luft für uns. Kommt zu mir vereinigt euch und rettet uns.“

She didn’t expect anything to happen from this spell except that her friends thought it would and would work as placebo and let them find the strength within them to free themselves. Since she knew it was a bluff it didn’t helped her, but at least her friends might get free. So when a little wind played around her for a moment she was surprised but manage to cover the shock with the still wicked smile on her face.




Spell translation
Fire within us, earth below us, water around us, air for us. Come to me, unite and save us.

Although Georgie was about to pass out it suddenly felt like someone had put their hands on her shoulders and jolted her. The voices didn't sound that far away anymore, and the weird shapes turned into actual people again. Somebody spoke in a weird language, and she needed a moment to realize that it was Elenna who just said something in German, something she assumed was a spell. The wicked grin on her friend's face gave her away, she had definitely tried some magic. Georgie knew Lenna well enough to know when the younger girl tried out some magic. Was it Elenna's magical power that prevented her from losing her consciousness? Georgie could finally see straight again, although the sight of Raime's head made her feel sick. She didn't dare to look around, especially not at Aly.

"Hey", Georgie whispered in Elenna's direction, hoping not to attract Saturn's attention who seemed majorly pleased at his work of twisting off a mortal's head. "What did you just do?"

"Use your brain", Lenna snapped back in a whisper, but both girls immediately held their breath when they saw Saturn moving closer.

Lenna’s eyes sparkled dangerous. She always knew she wouldn’t go down without a fight and this time Rome couldn’t stop her.

“So smartass, who’s head is next? I hope you know that just a coward pins his victims against a wall while he is killing them. I bet in a fair fight against us you would have no chance. A fight with no magic tricks, just pure muscle power.”

Yeah okay I used magic too, but I’m still pretty sure I didn’t do anything with it.

“That’s what I really hate about you supernatural SOBs, you are all huge wimps hiding behind their power. You are not man enough to win against someone like me. Let us down and fight like a man, like a real God not like one of those weirdo freak kids that are too afraid of the real world and play online roleplays.”

Okay and that was the last speech I ever give, nice last words. One day they will write books about those words.

If Lenna ever looked like a witch then it was in this moment still grinning with evil sparkling eyes at Saturn.

Online roleplays, is that like a sex thing? Rome wondered, distantly, because why not? What he said out loud was,

"Elenna! Shut! Up!"

If he could only reach her, he was going to throttle her. But as it was, it looked as if Saturn was going to rob him of the pleasure.

"No! Dammit, you sonofab!tch! You keep away from her!" Rome bellowed as the Titan advanced somewhere between Georgie and Lennie, as if deciding whom to kill first.

Rome wondered, coldly, if he had been serious about that whole making-him-die-last thing. Because, yeah. Rome could not conceive of a worse way to go.

And so, of course, what was the big guy aiming for?

He caressed Elenna's throat, gently, so carefully, so creepily. "Such a pretty little thing, isn't she? Such a pretty neck, on such a pretty girl."

"Eww, get away from me, you sicko!" Lenna squirmed, but Saturn only grinned wider.

Rome felt his heart drop about four stories. Okay, maybe he could think of worse things than watching his friends die...

Rome struggled with a new vengeance. He had never before willed his powers to kick on, but now he wanted it more than anything. Throw a piece of furniture at the guy, get a vision of how to kill this SOB, anything!

Please, God, not Lenna, please, God, not Lenna, please, God...

Rome felt something.

But he wasn't sure it was him.

Allison couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. One moment he was there holding onto her for dear life and the next he was...she couldn't tear her eyes off his glassy open orbs no matter how sick she felt.

She wasn't really aware of her surroundings anymore so when the wind came from nowhere followed by the unearthly wail she didn't notice. A little girl cried somewhere in the distance but she still couldn't move.

A kind of shield formed around her, breaking her away from the others. Aly took up Jack's branch with hers and finally turned her eyes on the so-called god. Only there was something different in her eyes, another image in her face--a much younger image. If someone looked close they could make out a child in a white dress stained with red.

Allison stayed fixed on the body of her lover, while something else stood to meet his murderer.

He had a voice that shook foundations, thrummed the earth to its core, burst eardrums if he wasn't careful.

He was quite proud of that.

"Dad. Really? I mean, really, really?"

Cronos turned, wide-eyed in his ridiculous mortal guise, to face him.

"Son, I--"

"Did you just bitch-slap that ghost-possessed mortal? Dad, you know 'Dite's called dibs on her!" He stopped, waited for his own joke, "Oh, snap, that's right: you don't know, because I banished your sorry ass to Tartaurus where it belongs!"

"Son--wait! You--I was only--"

"Dicking around in my sandbox, right, Old Man? You gonna eat these guys, too, and make me make you regurgitate them--again--because that was so much freaking fun last time? I honestly don't care what you were doing with them, but it stops, now."

"What do you care for some--some--stupid--mortals?" Saturn spat the word.

He grinned, though he hadn't manifested a form here. Not yet.

"That's for me to know...and for you to suck it! αντίο!"

There wasn't a flash, or crash. No earth-shattering kaboom! Only he got entrances and exits like that. No, Cronos was just gone, in quiet ignominy.

Let the mortals sort that one out.

Rome shook his head, as if this would reset his eardrums to normal--not even the rock concert had been that loud, and he had been on stage...

And he found he could move. He fell away from the wall with only slightly more elegance than Han Solo peeling out of his carbonite wall-hanging, and ended up on his hands and knees.

Ow. Okay, and realized he could add a few more bumps and bruises--if not breaks and fractures--or, more likely, re-breaks and re-fractures from last time--to the running total. He was just blinking through the black spots of physical distress and had just managed to inhale deeply to call out and make sure everyone was still okay when...

Sirens. The police were on their way.

Crap.

He ran to Elenna first. She looked pretty beat-up, but resisted his attempt to carry her, and Georgie looked shaken but mostly unharmed. Morrigan was similar, and Dan didn't even look startled to by standing next to the free-rolling and still-bleeding head of Raime.

Aly didn't look good at all. They'd all seen something happen to her, felt the rush of cold air as she had somehow broken free to attack Saturn, before she had been viciously pimp-slapped back against the wall. And he was pretty sure she had banged Raime a few times. And now Raime was--

"Aly!" Rome cried, lifting her to a sitting position. She was staring straight ahead, catatonic, and blood was flowing from a cut on her lip. "Aly, you with me? Are you hurt anywhere, Aly?"

The sirens were getting louder.

"Dammit, Wesson, talk to me! Can you move?"

She didn't answer, and there wasn't time to make sure there wasn't anything broken or time to coax her to her feet herself, so Rome hoisted her into his arms.

"We have to get out of here, now. Georgie, you look after Lennie. Mor, I need an exit. Dan--" This wasn't good. The building was shaken to its foundations. People were running screaming. All of their blood was all over the crime scene. "Dan, I need you to torch this room. Let's go, people."

Allison stared up at the ceiling, what was left of it, and hung limp in someone's arms. She wasn't even sure where she was. She'd seen Jack...and then there was this little girl who took over her vision--a very familiar little girl.

"Jenna?" She whispered to no one as she felt the ground fall from under her. Her head rested on Rome's shoulder--at least she was pretty sure it was Rome--but she'd been much younger then so how could he be there?

She let her eyes close not wanting to sort out her convoluted life at the moment.

Lenna wasn’t sure what just had happened all this was really too crazy to understand. Georgie was pushing her to cars. Most of their stuff was pack already and everything that was still in their rooms could be left behind. Lenna was sitting on the backseat of the Ferrari, Aly was on the passenger seat while Rome was driving like a manic out of town. Morrigan’s car close behind them. The room was on fire and with it soon the entire hotel. Danila did a good job in setting it on fire. There wouldn’t be anything left that could be tracked back to them.

Hopefully.

Lenna leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. The world was spinning around her and she still tried to understand that they just got saved by another god. This was all crazy and insane, but it would be alright again. All they needed were some rest in the Safehouse, and some of Tex’s pancakes well and maybe a lot liquor from the bar.

((I'll call that a wrap!))

FINIS.
Thanks to all those who participated in or read The Man Who Sold the World!

Stay tuned for the next episode of Supernatural: Reanimated Pretty Woman