Runa was much more comfortable around Dean and Cas, now that they'd settled things between them. And Sam and Gabriel were both more than happy to let Kyra join them.

Of course, when it comes to the Winchesters, peace never lasts.

Kyra paused and looked at Runa, feeling like something was off.

"Runa, you got any weird vibes coming from your end?" she asked, glancing around warily. Something was definitely not right here.

Runa nodded a bit, concerned and a little pale.

"I definitely feel something," she said. "I don't like it, these aren't the normal 'Hell is on the move' vibes. This is strange."

"We need to investigate this," Kyra said, frowning. "There's something very off about this. Runa, what did you find out about Crowley? A while back when we were doing recon?"

"He was gathering his heavy hitters," Runa said, thinking back. "He was going to try to find Purgatory, see if he could use all of the monster souls there to secure his position as King of Hell."

"That would be very bad," Cas said. "He would not be able to control the souls. It would be akin to setting off an explosion, but many of the souls would get loose, and cause havoc."

"Then we have to stop him before things get that far," Sam said. "We have to find out how he plans to open Purgatory, and stop him before he manages it."

"You make it sound easy," Kyra muttered. "Any ideas, Runa? Should we just see if we can find him up here? I heard he doesn't like spending time down below much."

"We need to do this as fast as possible," Runa said. "We need eyes and ears everywhere." She was quiet for a moment. "You all spread out up here, see what you can find. I can see about going below to gather information."

"No," Dean said. "No, I don't like that plan, nothing good happens when we all split up."

"Well, nobody can come with me," Runa pointed out. "And I need to know what's going on down there. And we need to gather as much information as fast as we can up here. Call Bobby, see if he's heard anything. Have him put the word out. But we need information, and we need it yesterday."

Dean scowled but didn't object again.

"What else do you need done before you go?" Kyra asked, looking at Runa. Because she wasn't quite the ideal person for demon interrogating.

Runa hesitated a bit.

"We need to make sure Heaven doesn't catch wind of this for as long as possible," she said. "With that damn war going on, purgatory is not something we need them trying to take over as well." She looked at Kyra. "Look after my things. I'll call when I'm topside again."

"Done," Kyra said. She could do that. Or get one of the others to do it, if she needed to go distract some angels for a while.

"Thanks," Runa said. She glanced at the others before setting her bag down. "Then I'm going to go find the nearest entrance to Hell."

"Come back soon," Kyra said, looking at her.

"Don't get killed or I'll have to drag you out of there myself," Dean said, looking at Runa. He was very serious about that.

"Dean, you've been in Hell more than enough for any one person," Runa said. "Don't you dare. I'll be okay, I'm practically designed for this." After a quick hesitation, she gave both him and Cas each a quick kiss. "I'll be back." With that, she disappeared, popping herself to the nearest Hellgate and going in.

"She'll be fine, she's done this multiple times," Kyra said, though she wasn't quite settled herself. "Anyway, we should get going, we have work to do." She got up and busied herself with gathering her things to hide the slight shaking in her hands.

Dean swore quietly but got up and went to go call Bobby.

Sam gathered up his things as well, and then pulled out his laptop. Time to cast an information net and see what he could find.

It took several days for the group to fully have their information web out and gathering useful tidbits. Demon activity was up, although not much, but more interesting was that monster hunts were popping up more frequently.

Sam definitely noticed that the monsters seemed to be coming out in force.

"Think something is flushing them out?" he asked. "This is definitely not normal. Crowley's probably up to something."

"Smarmy dick," Dean muttered, looking over the reports of all the new monsters coming out.

"It makes sense," Kyra said quietly from behind her computer. "Flush out the monsters, get hunters to kill them, their souls end up in purgatory, he has more souls to fuel him in the war."

"Exactly," Sam said. "And the hunters are definitely out and about, from what I can tell." He looked at Dean. "Has Bobby gotten anything new yet?"

"Depends what you mean by new. He hasn't heard anything too far out of the ordinary, but there's definitely been buzz about the surge of monsters. We're not the only ones to notice." Dean scowled.

"Which is probably the entire plan," Sam said. "The hunters take out the monsters, and if the monsters thin out the hunters, then that's just fewer problems for Crowley to worry about."