Jack and Willow were serving up hot food, speaking with Pastor Joe when the TV at the far end of the community centre, previously displaying the news, turned to loud static. After a second or two of that, came a white countdown on a black screen. It displayed only five seconds, counting down to zero.
"What is that?" One of the men in the room asked.
Just as it reached zero, the image of a woman, tied to a chair in a nondescript location popped up. She was unconscious, a white cloth acting as a gag tied around her mouth. In her right hand was some sort of machine, duct taped to her. Her left hand, however, had been tied down, her fingers caught in a rather nasty looking medieval torture device.
Within half a second, something on the contraption triggered, cutting the woman's middle finger off. At closer inspection, Willow noticed that her pinky and ring finger had already been severed.
The woman screamed in agony as the middle digit was lost.
The TV static returned, lasting all of half a second before the black screen took over, displaying in white 'YoU woN't sAVe hER.'
The woman came back on screen as Willow shoved the wheeled TV stand out of the way, Jack running over to unplug it quickly.
Pastor Joe and Sylvia; now known to them as his daughter, dashed to them as Jack found a USB in the back of the screen, home made with a large piece of motherboard, wires and some hashed soldering.
"Who could've done this?" Jack asked.
"I don't know..." Pastor Joe sighed.
"I do." Cas said, walking off in the direction of the Pastor's office.

Sam, Dean, Eden and Amara sat at a table in the middle of Pavel's Deli, the deity excited as a plate of fresh-made Perogi was placed in front of her.
"We want to take your brother down." Dean started, eyeing her every move. "And we need your help."
"What makes you think I'd do that?" She asked, slipping a slice of the pan-fried filled dough into her mouth.
"Because you've got beef with him – past and present." The older brother retorted. "Plus, he's already threatened Eden and the baby and showed how serious he is by killing Jack."
Amara chuckled.
"He can't kill Eden or Jorden. He didn't create them."
"No, but he created everyone and everything else. Which means he could leave our daughter without a family. And since that 'everyone' includes Sam, Chuck technically created half of Jorden." Eden added.
"So she'll be an Archangel of Darkness, just like you." Amara gave a small shrug as she slipped another piece of food into her mouth.
"That's... Not the point here, Aunty..." The Dark Angel sighed, rubbing the top of her belly.
"Amara, I saw into Chuck's mind. His memories. He asked you for help." When Sam spoke, the deity's attention snapped to him in an instant, her interest piqued.
"Refusing to help him isn't the same as betraying him." She pointed out.
"You know what he's been up to the past couple of months." Dean continued. "Snuffing out universes, one after the other."
"I know. I can feel it." Amara huffed, looking down at the table with just her eyes. "He's very nearly done with the others."
"And you don't care..." The older brother clarified.
"It doesn't matter. There's nothing you three can do."
"There is." Dean countered. "See, our pal, Jack; he's a Nephilim and he's getting stronger everyday and soon he'll be strong enough to overpower Chuck. Now, we have a way to trap him, but we can't do it without you."
Amara looked between the three of them, appearing to genuinely think about it.
"No." She said, simply.
"No?" Dean and Eden repeated.
"No. I won't betray him like that." The deity shook her head.
"Why? I mean, I get he's your brother, but-"
"My apologies, Dean. But you don't get anything." Amara scoffed. "You see me sitting across from you. You see a woman. You see Chuck as a squirrely weirdo. But you can't imagine what we really are. We came into existence together, we are the same."
"The former Death... He told us you were the first born." Sam frowned.
"Or he told you what you needed to hear." The deity looked at him with just her eyes, seeming unimpressed. "Chuck and I, we're twins. Creation and destruction, light and dark, balance. And when we split apart, all this was created."
"The Big Bang..." The younger brother half stated, half asked.
"Eh..." Amara dipped her head, looking away.
"When you split? So when... When he threw you in the Cage. When he betrayed you." Dean nodded, leaning forward towards her. "When he trapped you for an eternity."
"You can't play on that. Not with me." Amara smirked. "Maybe I'm a fool, but I believe caging me hurt him deeply. And I know for me, doing that to him would be an agony. I'm sorry. I can't help you."
Sam nodded, giving a strained, short-lived smile as Dean sighed.
"No." Eden shook her head. "I'm not having this. I'm not having us place every single bet we have on Jack alone. It's not fair to him. You would rather have Chuck destroy every universe in existence and everyone in them just so you don't have to put your brother in a box? Do you not care? Do you not care about Sam and Dean? Do you not care about me? Or my daughter? What about the happiness you said I deserved? The happiness Jorden deserves? She won't have a family. She will grow up knowing that two of the only people she has left in the nothingness played a part in killing her entire family."
"She will have you to guide her and be her family, even if she never forgives my brother and I." Amara placed a gentle hand on Eden's, resting on her bump. "I'm sorry, my Angel. But I won't have a hand in locking my brother up for all eternity. I can't. Even if it means I lose you."

Jack and Willow had gone with Castiel to the place he suspected would house their suspect.
It was an old, run down apartment building, complete with grimy grey-green walls and filthy doors that, once upon a time, were white.
Jack rammed through the door of apartment seventeen, almost falling from the force he used.
"You okay?" Willow asked, strolling in passed him as he grabbed his knees and panted for breath. In response, the boy simply nodded. The young Vampire took her first proper breath since entering the room, gagging at what she smelt."Wow it stinks of death in here..."
"Brother Rudy left the congregation, the Pastor said." Castiel explained. "It was amicable, but-"
"Maybe that was a bad lie." Jack continued to catch his breath, but now stood upright as his guardian searched through some magazines and mail left on a side table.
"Yeah. Maybe." Cas replied, looking around the room to see a computer setup on a desk with three monitors and cables coming out of it from all angles. "And he was good with computers, so..." He trailed off, heading towards a set of french doors.
The doors revealed something that turned even the Angel's stomach.
Tied to a bed, was the rotting remains of who was presumably Brother Rudy. Above him, the word 'LUST' was painted in blood onto the wall between the bed frame and a large window, flies buzzing around everywhere.
"He's been dead a long time." Castiel observed.
"I think I'm gunna be sick..." Willow covered her mouth, closing her eyes in an attempt to stop the stinging caused by the unruly mixture of smells.

Outside the diner, Sam, Dean and Eden sat in the Impala. Sam and Eden waited patiently for them to head back home, but Dean was too busy staring out of the front window at Amara, who had just received the bill for their food.
Eventually, he turned the ignition key, firing up the low rumble of the small block V8.
"You know... Maybe it's for the better." Sam sighed.
Dean took one more look at Amara and switched the engine off again.
"Oh, here we go..." Eden muttered, knowing exactly what was going through his mind.
"What's going on?" Sam frowned, looking to his brother. "What are you doing?"
"You two wait here. I'm gunna ask her something." Dean instructed, getting out of the car.
"He's relying on the bond he and Amara have to sway her mind." Eden explained. "Though, if my monologuing didn't do it, I don't know what will..."
"I really hope he doesn't get on her bad side..." Sam sighed again.
"I'll keep an ear out and step in if needs be." His love nodded, keeping her steely blue gaze fixed on Dean.

Dean pushed open the diner door, setting off the little bell above it as Amara paid her bill.
He strolled up and slipped back into his seat across from her.
"Why?" He asked.
"I told you, Dean. He's my-"
"No, no. No." The Winchester shook his head. "Why did you bring her back?"
"Eden? She's my only creation, she deserves more, I-"
"I'm not talking about Eden. Though, we owe you thanks for that, I guess." Dean uttered, pausing for a moment. "You said that you wanted to show me something, that you wanted to, uh, to teach me something. I don't know if you were following along, but your little experiment? It came to a not-so-happy ending. My mom is dead. So what exactly did you wanna show me? What was the point?"
Amara sighed, looking him dead in the eye as she answered.
"I wanted two things for you, Dean." She said. "I wanted you to see that your mother was just a person, that the myth you'd held onto for so long of a better life – a life where she lived, was just that; a myth. I wanted you to see that the real, complicated Mary was better than your childhood dream because she was real. That now is always better than then. That you could finally start to accept your life."
As she spoke, Dean's eyes welled with tears. He didn't want her seeing him like this - so vulnerable, so... Weak.
"And the second thing?" He eventually asked.
"I thought having her back would release you, put that fire out. Your anger... But I guess we both know I failed at that." She dipped her head, looking aimlessly to her left.
Dean leaned forward, his voice low.
"You're damn right." He growled. They looked to one another in his pause, Amara rather shocked at his tone towards her, of all people. "Look at you. Just another cosmic dick rigging the game. You're just like your brother."
"It was a gift, Dean. Not a trial." She countered, trying her best to refrain from spitting her words out.
"I'm not angry, Amara." The Winchester put a hand to his chest, leaning towards her again. "I'm furious... To know that all my life I've been nothing but a hamster in a wheel. Stuck in a story. And you know who's fault that is? Chuck's. And it ain't just me. We're all trapped. Sam and Cas and Jack, even friggin' Eden and my nieces. Evenyou. And you wanna talk about the people he's killing?"
"Stop." The woman shook her head, turning away.
"Why? He's not stopping." Dean raised his voice. "And you're doing nothing to stop it. Think he gives a rat's ass about you? Well, now who's living in a dream world?"
Amara's bottom lip quivered at his words. She could only look down as she thought of what to say next.
"Can I... Trust you?" She eventually asked.
Dean looked her dead in the eye.
"I would never hurt you."
"Then... I'll think about it." 

That night, after receiving a call about another victim, Castiel, Willow and Jack made their way back to the community centre, where Sylvia's friend was laying on the steps in one of the visitor's arms, Pastor Joe next to them.
When he saw Castiel, he gave the girl a reassuring hand on her shoulder and made a swift exit back into the building.
"Jack, follow him." Cas instructed, nodding his head in the direction the Pastor had disappeared to.
The Angel knelt down beside the girl, who was panting heavily.
"What do you want me to do?" Willow asked, ignoring her Vampiric urges at the scent and sight of so much blood.
"Go with him. We don't need something happening that we can't explain." The Angel replied.
With a nod, Willow broke into a run towards where the Pastor and Jack had headed.

By the time Willow had caught up with Jack, she found him in the doorway to a room behind the community centre. She was about to say something but, looking into the room, she saw the female victim from the TV hijacking, tied to the chair in the middle of the room. Next to her, stood Sylvia, with a knife to her father's throat.
She threw him to the ground, making him grunt and arch his back from a bad landing, then turned to give Jack a panicked look.
The Nephilim took careful steps towards her, holding out his hands.
"I know you're in pain." He said. "I can- I can feel it. Just let me help you."
"Everyone's trying to help me." Sylvia breathed through a humourless chuckle. "Who are you? You're nothing. You're just a scared little boy trying to make your daddies and your mom happy."
She lunged for him, raising the knife above her head.
"Jack!" Willow panicked, running to shove him out of the way.
But the knife tore through his shoulder and embedded itself into Willow's chest.
The young Vampire gave a small, uneasy chuckle as she looked down at the blade in her heart.
"Ow..." She whispered, falling to the floor.
"No!" Jack roared, his wound glowing gold as it healed itself.
"What..." Sylvia's eyes were wide as Castiel ran in.
He approached the girl and took the arm she raised to try and hit him, curling her body into him.
"Don't hurt her!" Pastor Joe shouted.
"Sleep." The Angel whispered as he touched her forehead, helping her unconscious body fall safely to the ground before he looked to Willow, crouching down beside her. "Can you do it?"
He watched as the young Vamp tried to pull the blade from her heart, breathing erratically from the agony.
"I can't... I'm too weak." Willow whined, dropping her head and hands back to the floor in defeat.
"Here. Let me help." He soothed, wrapping his fist about the blade's hilt.
In one swift movement and a half scream, half groan from the girl, it was out.
Castiel dropped the blade, getting up to untie Sylvia's victim.
Pastor Joe watched in confusion and awe as the Angel's inhuman strength tore the metal bars and ropes from her body.
"Go get the police. Go!" Cas ordered to Jack, who quickly nodded and ran out of the room.
Once the boy had gone, Castiel hovered a hand over the woman's severed fingers. An orange glow illuminated from them and, when he took his hand away, the digits were reattached, much to the Pastor's surprise.
Slowly, the woman lifted her head, offering pleading eyes to the Angel before her. She then removed her hand from the torture device, gazing confused at her blood-soaked, but complete, appendage.
"What are you?" The Pastor asked.
"We're help." Willow strained through her pain. "Can someone please get me out of here before the police think I'm a victim too?"
Castiel nodded, moving to help her from the floor.
"You shouldn't have done that. Jack heals faster than you, you know this." He uttered, pulling her arm over his shoulders.
"Yeah, well, call it a lapse in thinking. Able to heal or not, he's still my brother and I'll still protect him." The young Vampire replied. "Now please, get me some blood so I can heal..."