What makes an angel an angel?
Is it their proximity to God? Is it their raw, unfathomable power? Is it the glowing pulse in the center of their beings that is their Grace?
Yes, yes, and yes. But that's not the singularly most identifiable trait of an angel. From the ceramic figures in Nativity scenes to the inked, aged representations in Bobby's books, they all have one thing in common. Or rather, two things.
Wings. An angel is nothing without their wings.
Mostly, the wings are tucked away, hidden under the skin, against the back, or, if the angel had enough 'juice', a lightspeed beck away in a multidimensional pocket.
Castiel was a soldier in the Lord's army, and had been for a long, long time. When in heaven, angels are treated as garrisons, as multiples. On earth, the gathering of so many would be detrimental. When angels gather in such numbers, even shielded from the human eyes and ears, a low thrum of power could still be felt to the passerby mortal, akin to a bass speaker's pulse at a concert. Angels can hide their bodies easily.
But they cannot hide their wings and bodies at the same time. If the wings come out, the rest of them follows.
Castiel, like all angels, could craft a bubble around himself that warded anything and everything supernatural. Within this bubble, he could hide, watch, wait...or attack. When he attacked, his angelic blade in hand and power to rip the cosmos at his fingertips and holy fire in his eyes, he would summon his wings to the plane of existence to aid him.
This fight with a high-level demon proved to be one such instance.
The limbs rip from their multidimensional storage and through Castiel's clothes, answering the call. They attach at the base of his Vessel's shoulder blades, multijointed and muscled like whipcords. They are HUGE, like three train cars from tip to sparking tip. The edge that cuts the air is stronger than anything known to man, even diamond. This hardened edge parries the supernatural blades and attacks of enemies. In fact, that is their first job once they manifest: the demon leaps forward with a stolen angel blade in his hands. Castiel is only surprised for a nanosecond that the demon went straight to physical contact, avoiding lashing out with telekinesis and magic. The tops of his wings form an X and catch the demon's blade, trapping it between the hardened edges.
Castiel's wings are no one particular color: such a color does not exist in the tiny collection of wavelengths the human eye can perceive. Suffice it to say they are all colors, and none at all. They show up to a perceptive human (which are few and far between) as a glimmer, like heat off a car hood. To demons and other angels, they are simply and utterly glorious.
The demons gets his blade free, snarling, baring teeth. Eyes roll to black and fingernails lengthen. He grips the blade tighter, warier now that he's gauged the angel's speed and strength. His next attack is much more precise, and Castiel is forced backwards, on the defensive, at the ferocity of it. The demon seems fatally determined to get under his defenses, under his wings where the sharp feathers and shielding edges are useless. Castiel should expect no less: this demon is only fifth from Lucifer in terms of power. He'd accidentally happened upon the demon while pursuing a lead on the Father's whereabouts. But, as he'd heard humans say, if you get lemons, you make lemonade.
But this lemonade may very well kill him.
The demon halts his foray, draws back a little, and sneers a taunt at the weakness of the angel he'd heard such impressive things about. His laugh is like crying babies and nails on a chalkboard.
In the brief reprieve, Castiel's wings arch up for the first joint, out for the second, and down for the third, the tips of the primaries forming the razor-sharp bars to a protecting cage around him. It is the fighting stance of thousands and thousands of angels, archangels, seraphs, and cherubs before him, and for a split second, he can feel them. His ancestors, echoes of their Graces trilling in his ear. The more he focuses, the louder it becomes. Then he can see them. They stand at his back and around him, white-robed, swords at the ready, silent and an unspoken reminder of what, of who Castiel is, of the brotherhood he is part of. His Grace jerks at his core with a sudden influx: they're reaching out from the beyond, channeling their power to him!
He raises his True voice, multiplied a thousand-thousand times over, in a death-dealing cry to the demon. The resonance melts the demon's flesh from his bones, and sets fire to it at a temperature hotter than white phosphorus. A flash of white-hot, unholy pain stabs through Castiel's back. His spine arches to the point of breaking, face contorted at the shock. All of a sudden...
it stops.
With a satisfying sort of itch like a loose tooth being pulled, Castiel's wings shatter like mirrors to a reveal a new set underneath. They look like two sets laying flat against each other, white on top and black on bottom. The mirror shards turn to dust. As he watches, the wings separate, sliding apart, the normal pair at the top and the new ones migrating to his floating ribs. Castiel, open-mouthed, gives them an experimental flex. They respond to every twitch, every breeze, the short feathers ruffling like grass in the wind even when he stands stock still. They shine like a sourceless sun.
Castiel looks at the ash-and-goo pile that was once the fifth most powerful demon. Although he loathes these affronts to his Father's creations because they are darkly evil, to this one in particular, he is grateful.
