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Gabriel followed behind Sam and Dean as the two hunters led this sorry lot of survivors to where the portal was located. The plan was for the group, consisting of some alternate versions of people the Winchesters had loved and lost over the years (who Gabriel was nearly certain the brothers would try to keep afterwards) and their rag-tag Resistance comrades, to return to their world and regroup. Make a plan to fight off this crazed version of Michael, get him and his forces off of Earth before they destroyed it completely. This whole scenario stank to Gabriel; he was sure even the gung-ho Apocalypse supporters of his own Heaven, including Raphael, would have been appalled at the state of things here. After all, their party line was "start and win the Apocalypse, usher in Paradise." This was certainly not Paradise.
Lucifer had given up playing prisoner after they were attacked by a squad of angels and the space between Gabriel's shoulder blades itched in paranoid expectation of a blade there. Luckily, it seemed Lucifer was more interested in staying on his kid's good side instead of getting revenge on the one who'd handed Team Free Will the "How to Lock Someone In The Cage" guide. It would suck trying to fight his brother off as weak as he currently is. The various hunters and Castiel would try to fight him off too, but Lucifer was fully capable of mowing through everyone here if he really wanted to. Gabriel didn't want to waste his contingency on Lucifer.
They were approaching the portal site when another squadron of angels found them. This time, however, alternate Michael was with them. Lucifer immediately stepped forward to put up a fight, standing alongside Gabriel and the more experienced hunters to buy time for the weaker members of the group to rush to the portal site.
The rank and file angels weren't much of a match for an archangel with backup, even running on empty Grace-wise as Gabriel was. However, that was only the case so long as alternate Michael continued observing.
Then Michael reached out with his power and started nullifying Lucifer's Grace-based attacks, no longer simply watching the proceedings.
They were getting pushed back now, instead of merely covering a retreat.
Michael sent Lucifer flying; the echoes of branches breaking and the distant thwump of Lucifer impacting the ground told Gabriel just how far Lucifer had been sent away from the battlefield. Such an attack aimed at Gabriel would probably take him out of commission. Even for Lucifer, it would take him a moment to make his way back. And a moment was all Michael needed to crush the humans (and Cas and Jack) before him if he brought his full might to bare.
Luckily (or unluckily) this Michael appeared to have developed a sadistic streak and wanted to take his time. Or perhaps he wanted captives. Either way, the portal wouldn't be open forever, they needed to leave. And they had to bar Michael from following them through.
With their heavy hitter temporarily removed from the field, the hunters struggled against the angels who just seemed to keep popping up out of the woodwork. Gabriel grimaced at the yells and shouts of alarm and barely hidden fear from the humans. The embers of hope this desperate plan had kindled in the locals were starting to burn out into despair.
Castiel was thrown into a tree with a sick crunch, prompting a yell from Jack. Dean threw himself at the angel responsible with bloody-minded determination that bordered on recklessness. Sam desperately wove defense around the weak members of the group, some of whom bravely stepped forward to face creatures far out of their weight class but were determined to get the non-combatants to safety.
The portal was still too far away.
Michael was advancing on Jack, and Gabriel as a consequence since he was standing in between this warped version of his eldest brother and where his nephew was helping Cas back to his feet.
Lucifer came barreling in and was promptly sent flying once again.
Michael drew his blade.
Gabriel's eyes darted over the battlefield, taking in the hopeless battle. Gabriel's eyes were only off Michael for a moment but that was all the time he needed to cross the distance between them. Gabriel dropped to the ground and rolled out of the way of alternate Michael's sweeping blade and reaching hand. Unfortunately the move opened a path to Jack and Cas. Fortunately Lucifer appeared to bar that path. They engaged in telekinetic battle that burned brightly on frequencies human senses were too dull to register even as they engaged in hand-to-hand combat, Lucifer at a disadvantage without his own blade.
Gabriel put his free hand in his pocket, even as he stepped quickly to avoid the attacks of three angels ganging up on him. Time to call in his contingency.
The angels harassing Gabriel paused when Gabriel withdrew a kazoo from his pocket. One of them gasped in recognition and murmured "The Horn of Gabriel." Angels across the battlefield heard and stopped their own battles if they weren't fighting a Winchester or other elite hunter and turned to look.
Dean, who hadn't heard the whisper but saw Gabriel holding a little kazoo up to his lips yelled: "This is no time for music!" Which was incredibly short sighted of him because didn't Dean realize yet that Gabriel was full of tricks?
Gabriel's angels knew better; they leapt forward in a bid to take the Divine Weapon from him. Gabriel ignored the humans and angels in favor of blowing a short little tune that echoed unnaturally through the air and got the attention of anyone who hadn't already been looking at him. Gabriel almost wanted to squirm under the attention, long years of hiding making him nervous. At the same time, Gabriel smirked deviously and reveled in the attention - his years as Loki shining through. Even better was the feeling of "I know something you don't" that filled his belly.
"And just what was that supposed to accomplish, Gabriel?" alternate Michael asked, condescending. "The Horn has already been blown here."
("The Horn of Gabriel?!" Gabriel heard Sam and Bobby and a handful of other learned hunters hiss in question, in alarm.)
"Sure," Gabriel said, refusing to quall under alternate Michael's attention. "But this is a composition of my own design."
Reality splintered next to Gabriel, manifesting as a glowing vertical line to those with human senses. Recognizable to his world's inhabitants as a portal. Gabriel heard their intakes of breath at the sight but his attention was on alternate Michael, who narrowed his vessel's eyes. Lucifer drew back from him in favor of grabbing and shoving Jack toward the relative safety of a cluster of hunters.
The portal opened further with an audible crrrack as a booted foot kicked it from the other side to make enough of a hole for the boot's owner to step through. And step through they did.
Clad in the body of a young East Asian woman, who was in turn clad in armor gleaming like a Seraph's blade, was Michael. Gabriel's Michael. Who had, until recently, been sitting in Lucifer's Cage, singing showtunes out of boredom (everything Lucifer said had a grain of truth in it, but he always twisted his words around that truth until it didn't sound anything like what it was). Reality sealed shut behind her, the portal closing.
"Gotta be kidding me," Lucifer muttered off to the side. "When did Michael get out of the Cage?"
"So you bring another version of me here? That will not save you," alternate Michael said, though he was watching his double cautiously. "This copy couldn't even defeat your version of Lucifer, what makes you think this increases your chances of escape?"
Michael paid them no mind even as their comments caused ripples of whispers to sound around the clearing. Instead she addressed Gabriel. "You have it?" she asked.
("Michael's out of the Cage?" Gabriel heard Dean demand, the human channeling his unease into anger as he was well practiced in doing.
"This is news to me," Castiel responded.
"Michael's a chick? How many spare vessels does he have lying around; what'd he need me for?" Dean continued, aggravated.
"There must be a difference between you and them," Sam said.)
"Yeah I have it, here ya go," Gabriel said and pulled something else out of his pocket, something that shouldn't have fit there: a shining copper-colored sword as long as Gabriel's vessel's entire leg. "Took some sneaking around to extract that without anyone noticing, I'll have you know."
Michael stopped paying attention to him as soon as she took the sword's hilt though. It was a beautiful and incredibly destructive weapon. In its owner's hands, it gave off rolling waves of power that only the angels with enough Grace could feel, even Gabriel had too little to notice the power he knew was there. This was no mere Angel Blade. This was the Sword of Heaven's Viceroy, weapon of the strongest angel of the Host, that which had been used to cast Lucifer into Hell, that which had driven the Leviathans into Purgatory.
(Lucifer was very still behind them, watching the proceedings like a hawk. Mary started urging the non-combatants to step very lightly and sneak away toward Rowena's portal.)
Michael twirled the sword in her hand, reacquainting herself with the length and heft of it. Then she gave alternate Michael a considering look. He pulled another blade from his coat pocket, so he was dual-wielding.
"My Apocalyptic battle with my brother ended before it could even begin," Michael started conversationally. She pointed the sword at her alternate and grinned the grin of an eager and bloodthirsty predator. "Maybe you can actually give me a workout!"
Gabriel stumbled in the backwash of Michael's lunge forward. The air screamed at the speed with which Michael slashed her sword and the Earth split without having been struck as alternate Michael twisted out of the way. Angels and humans alike darted away from the combatants, giving them plenty of space.
Sam came up to Gabriel's side. "What the Hell?" he said more than asked. "Since when could you just open a way to the Cage?"
Gabriel snorted, watching as the Michaels sped up faster and faster, single longsword against two shortswords. A stray attack caused a scythe of wind to cut the tops off three nearby trees. More gouges were being dug into the ground alongside Michael's first one.
"I didn't open a portal to the Cage. Michael wasn't in the Cage - hasn't been for a couple weeks. I simply sounded an agreed upon distress call and Michael did the rest," Gabriel explained. Gabriel turned and grabbed Sam's arm, pushing him towards the other hunters. "We should go, get your refugees to the portal site. If we stay here, we'll be collateral."
Mary, who had heard him since she'd been coming forward to get her son, changed course to jog along with them and asked: "Collateral?"
"Yup!" Gabriel said cheerily. "Michael's not here to protect us, oh no. Michael's here to Deal With a threat to Creation." Capital letters were absolutely necessary when saying "deal with" too. "And work off some pent up aggression at the same time, I'm sure."
The hunter group hurried away from the growing battlefield, several giving Gabriel a side-eye for apparently having such an ace in his pocket the whole time. Or for adding a second Michael onto their preexisting Michael-related concerns since one of Sam and Dean's selling points for retreating to their world was the fact that their Michael was imprisoned. When they caught up to where Lucifer was dusting a handful of angels who had torn themselves away from the Michael vs Michael fantasy match-up of the millennium to pursue the humans, Lucifer gave Gabriel an elder sibling stink-eye Gabriel hadn't had directed at him in centuries.
"You set this up. When did you get the Sword, Gabriel?" he demanded.
Gabriel grinned at him, unrepentant. "Before you got to this world, Luce."
Lucifer looked begrudgingly impressed. Dean less so.
"You've had that thing this whole time? It didn't look like an ordinary angel blade or even an archangel blade; why didn't you use it?" he demanded accusingly.
Gabriel gave Dean a look that screamed "you're a dumb-dumb" in the condescending manner of someone too fed up to be nice about it but not fed up enough to start actually cursing. "Because I can't use it maybe? It's Michael's sword."
The hunters were passing through the portal quickly, only a handful remained beside their group.
"I thought Dean was the 'Michael Sword'," Sam questioned even as he ushered a reluctant Jack through the portal. "That it was all a euphemism for True Vessel."
"Well part of it was that," Gabriel explained, finally stepping through the portal himself, "but mostly it was because Dean had the sword in his soul."
"In my WHAT!?" Dean yelped.
"You pulled the sword out of Dean's soul? I thought touching souls was painful?" Sam asked, visibly curious.
Dean put his hand protectively over his sternum like a scandalized woman clutching her pearls.
"Did you hurt my baby?" Mary demanded.
"Only a little bit," Gabriel admitted candidly. "Put up sound proofing wards and erased all memory of the procedure; healed Dean a little afterwards. You people didn't wonder why my Grace has remained at an all time low this whole venture? Obviously I was using it and not resting properly."
"Stop chatting the lot of you! Is that everyone?" Rowena cut off any indignant responses. Her hands trembled as she struggled to hold the portal open, Lucifer's Grace having been all used up.
"Everyone except Lu-" Cas started.
Lucifer stepped through. "Got a new canyon where that forest used to be," he announced.
"A what?"
"-and Micha-"
Michael, their Michael, stepped through. She wasn't wearing armor anymore, instead donning skinny jeans and a sweater, and immediately sank into the nearest chair. Then tiredly popped a stick of gum into her mouth ignoring everyone's incredulous stares.
"That's everyone," Gabriel told Rowena, who immediately closed the portal and leaned against the table to catch her breath.
"Uh... Michael?" Sam ventured. "What happened?"
"Hell if I know," Michael said. "Though it was fierce enough that I got rattled even behind, like, three layers of insulating memories."
Dean stepped closer. "You the vessel?"
"Yeah," she snapped her gum. "Big M is gone, left soon as we stepped through the portal. Was nice enough to return my clothes to top shape. And restock my gum."
Gabriel moved to stand next to her. "He say anything before he left?"
"Yeah. Said 'the threat has been neutralized'."
Everyone exchanged looks. Lucifer scoffed and walked off.
"Look, I'm glad I was able to help save the world, but can I go home now? I'm beat."
"Right uh yeah, of course," Sam cleared his throat. "We'll be glad to take you home. Where is home?"
"Don't worry about it," Gabriel waved a negligent hand. "I'll rest up and take her back in the morning."
The still unnamed young woman watched all the rugged and dirty hunters milling about with wary suspicion. Gabriel saw her watching them and clapped a hand on her shoulder. "I've got a room you can rest up in and I'll stay with you so we can leave as soon as I can make the flight."
She smiled tiredly. "So long as you don't tell me I'm in charge of the second coming of Jesus, sure Gabriel," she joked. Gabriel grinned back.
Mary watched them head deeper into the bunker. "Should we let her be alone with him?" she asked.
Sam and Dean exchanged looks, remembering finding Gabriel and Rowena in the library. Castiel, however, was the one who spoke. "Gabriel has taken over guardianship," he said. "He's tagged her with his Grace so he'll know if she is hurt."
"Well... alright then," Mary conceded with pursed lips. She promised herself she would check up on the girl a little later. "Let's get everyone settled and figure out what we're doing now that the 'threat' has apparently been 'neutralized'."
Dean looked at Sam, still holding his hand to his chest. "There was a sword in my soul."
Sam patted him awkwardly on the arm. "I know," he consoled.