Interesting note: Went looking to find out what Gabriel was the patron of in Catholic dogma out of boredom and stumbled upon a list of angel names. Among them was Arael which in Hebrew is the name of an angel who's name means 'Light of God or Vision of God'. Who knew there actually is an angel named Arael? (Source: Wikipedia)
Dean dragged Blaze to Bobby's house and explained to the man what was really going on.
"Wait a minute. Angels are trying to start the apocalypse?"
"What, did you think that light show was just that? The angels needed a 'righteous' man to kill Lilith and break the final seal. I kept them far from me and Sam is likely with Loki," said Dean.
"So how did you get out?" asked Blaze.
"Angels needed to break the first seal. So they insured my brother was killed by allowing a demon as powerful as Azazel out and about to cause problems. Once I broke it they sent a ton of their feathered minions down to drag my ass out. Funny thing really...I saved an angel down there," said Dean.
Blaze blinked, before he reached out with his Rider sense.
"You're like me?" he said in surprise.
"Not exactly. The Rider isn't a demon, it's an angel. Specifically their Grace. One of Mephistopheles' worst tortures was to rip an angel's grace out and stuff it into an unwilling vessel."
Blaze looked confused, so Dean explained.
"An angel has a source of power called Grace. Now an angel, in order to interact with mortals, has to get a willing human which is called a vessel. However if an angel's grace is forced onto an unwilling vessel, it gets shredded and they run the risk of falling. The angel that fueled your powers before was tortured for centuries being forced to be the power behind the Riders."
"How could you know this?"
"Because, Johnny Blaze, I was finally able to regain my sanity thanks to the fact you willingly gave up the power long enough for Dean to notice me," said Arael.
Blaze looked surprised.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Astarael, and I am an angel. I am also the one who powered your abilities before you gave them up. Thanks to you I was able to get Dean's attention and he let me out of the pit when the others came to get him."
Blaze believed her. She had the same feeling that the Rider had before he gave up the power...shortly before he had to retake it just to save a kid's life.
"However I believe you might be worthy of this power. Dean's still debating whether he should become a Rider as well."
"Why is he debating?" asked Blaze.
"Because I'm still trying to figure out if it's worth risking my baby into turning it even more badass than it already is," said Dean, switching back.
There was the sound of wings and Dean looked outside.
"Sam!"
Sam took one look at Blaze and raised an eyebrow.
"Who's this?"
"Johnny Blaze," he said, holding out a hand.
"Sam Winchester. How did you get roped into this mess?"
"Angels tricked him into killing Lilith since they couldn't get me or Constantine. So where's your ride?" asked Dean, looking for the angel that dropped him off.
"Yeah...about that..." said Sam, not meeting Dean's eyes.
Suddenly Arael laughed. She had a good idea what happened.
"You absorbed too much of my commander's Grace, didn't you?"
Sam coughed, not answering that. Arael started cracking up. Suddenly Dean did too when Arael explained what happened.
"You became half-angel?" he said guffawing.
"Explanations please?"
"Arael was badly hurt from the pit, so her garrison commander gave some of his Grace and left it in Sam so she could siphon it off as needed. Thing is, it didn't all get absorbed by her... Sam apparently started absorbing some in him as well..." grinning Dean.
"Which means he's almost fully bonded to my commander now, not that Father minds. The two could use someone to balance each other out."
Dean was still grinning. As much of an ass as Gabriel was at times, he was also very loyal as shown by the way he treated Arael despite her condition.
Not many angels would willingly help her after what happened, and fewer still would use a human as a battery to make sure she got better. Besides, Sam needed to lighten up anyway.
Dean got a hot tip from Chuck about the 'Sword of Micheal' being in one of his father's old storage containers.
Thing was, Dean had already been there three months back and had cleared out some of the more dangerous stuff to sell to Midnite for some easy cash. Arael hadn't seen any knives, and Dean didn't even know what an angel's sword looked like.
So he knew something was up.
Still, the demons had gotten wind of the Micheal Sword being there, and he didn't want them getting their claws on anything that might come back to bite him in the ass later, so off the Winchesters (plus one seriously pissed off Blaze who had been told by Gabriel that being around the muttonheads might get his ticket cleared to enter heaven) went.
What they found was a slaughter, and one very irritating seraph.
Arael was many things, but a coward was not one of them. And she drew the line when Zachariah tried to force Dean to say yes to Micheal by giving him stomach cancer.
"Dean, I don't know about you but I'm tired of running."
'What do you have in mind?'
"I say we teach this arrogant bastard a lesson...and show them that you won't be forced into becoming Micheal's meat suit just because they want you to," said Arael, her anger clear as day.
Dean might have held out...had Zachariah not just removed Sam's lungs. He might hold back from being a Rider out of pride, but he drew the line when it meant his brother was in danger.
'Deal!'
Zachariah was at first confused then shocked when Dean stood up and there wasn't any pain in his eyes. Instead his attention was quickly drawn to the fireball Dean was tossing in his direction.
It hit a minor angel and the man screamed in pain as the soul fire ripped apart the connection between his true form and his vessel. He saw the angel flee back to the Host before the fire killed him, though he would have scars from that blast for the rest of his life.
"You can threaten me all you want you arrogant prick, but nobody hurts my family like that and gets away with it," snarled Dean.
Dean put his bony hand on Sam's shoulder, and suddenly he could breath again as Arael focused the grace still left in him to react to the danger.
Blue flames engulfed Dean, and Sam could see his brother's skull. He had to admit, his brother did look like a total badass.
"Tell Micheal he can take his demands and shove them up his ass along with his sword. I have a better angel on my side, and she isn't nearly as big a prick as you," said Dean. His voice had developed the echo-quality that Arael liked to use out of boredom.
"This can't be!" said Zachariah, as he realized what was going on.
Dean was the Micheal Sword, but Micheal couldn't take his body if there was already an angel in the Winchester!
The question was which one.
"And by the way... Astarael says fuck off...not that you'll have any other choice since God said she was free to kill you if you tried anything again," said Dean, answering that question.
The gun he had in his pants suddenly turned much more dangerous as it absorbed the soul fire and the distinct sound of it cocking filled the warehouse. Zachariah stared death in the face as Dean grabbed his neck from the collar and forced him into a soul stare.
Astarael felt death by soul fire was too good for this prick...he had to feel every death and all the pain that he had caused forcing Lucifer out of the cage by lying to Blaze.
The now former angel screamed as his Grace was literally ripped from him...and because God had given her a minor upgrade, it went straight into Astarael.
She could only do this with angels that were nearly fallen, or had crossed the line...though she couldn't use it on Lucifer unfortunately.
However it also meant that her healing would accelerate depending on how much Grace she could absorb.
Dean would be very surprised later to see her true face after this...she looked more like an anorexic woman than a half-dead one.
Sam and Dean were shooting to incapacitate rather than kill... Arael had noticed that they weren't dealing with real demons, just someone making it look like they were.
Ellen, who was among those who had been told about Arael, hit Sam with the holy water instead. Nothing happened.
Dean snickered.
"What's so funny?" she asked.
"Sam's turning into a partial angel because he's been acting as a walking battery for Grace for the past year," explained Dean.
Sam looked uncomfortable with the look Ellen shot him.
"How was I supposed to know that would happened if I agreed to act as a container rather than a vessel?"
"So what can he do?"
"He can fly. Sort of," said Dean grinning.
"And what about you?"
"Dean finally agreed to the Rider's powers, so he has all the basic abilities with none of the control issues. He's also found that his car is as sentient as a five-year-old," said Sam dryly.
Ellen's eyebrow raised briefly at that. Then again there were countless legends in Japan where an item took on sentience if given enough attention. And with how much Dean loved that car of his, it was of little surprise that it would at least gain a conscience.
"And?"
"It's like a damn puppy. The more often I turn it into the Rider's vehicle, the more alive it becomes. On the plus side it does like Sam and Bobby but it's still iffy around Cas."
Ellen heard a rumbling across the silent town. It sounded like a car...whining?
"Dammit... I told her it wouldn't take that long. Whatever's doing this has to reek of the pit, and we know Arael will pick up on it," muttered Dean.
Arael immediately reared back as she sensed the presence of someone she would very much like to avoid.
"War's presence is all over in this room," she hissed.
Ellen blinked. This was the first time Arael had shown up around her.
"War?"
"One of the four horsemen. I should have guessed from that tacky red car outside... making people believe their neighbors are demons sounds like one of his stunts."
"So you're Arael? Bobby's spoken about you. He said you saved Dean in the pit."
"More like we're saving each other. Dean needs someone to keep him and Sam together through all the crap they've been through. And Dean was the only soul in the pit who thought I was worth saving despite all the pain he had to be in."
"And Sam?"
"It was through me that they found Gabriel. Those two are a surprisingly good match together," said Arael impishly.
Arael took a quick glance around the room before her eyes landed on a man with glasses and a bulky looking ring. Blue eyes narrowed on him specifically.
"What's wrong Dean," asked Sam, emphasizing his brother's name.
"I smell sulfur," said Arael, dropping the effect.
Everyone tensed. 'Dean' walked past a lot of the survivors until he came to the man with the ring.
Suddenly his eyes glowed blue and War knew he had been busted.
"How quaint. And I here I heard from the others you were smart enough to refuse Micheal's demand. Even killed an angel doing it," said War.
"Zachariah was a fallen Seraph, it was only a matter of time. Now hand over the ring War, or I will cut off your hand to get it."
"Now why should I do that, Astarael? Yes, I recognize your scent from the pit. I'm amazed you convinced the Winchester to let you jump in him."
"You really want to be in the service of a angel who's throwing the world's biggest hissy fit because he's mad Daddy loves the new kid more than him? Hand over the ring and you can go back to play in the Middle East somewhere," said Arael.
War actually laughed at the description. That did sound a lot like the way Lucifer was acting.
"You're alright, for a seraph. Here," said War grinning. The minute the ring dropped into his hand, War vanished.
Ellen stared.
"You neglected to mention that Arael was a seraph," she said accusingly.
"With how badly she was when Dean first found her, it was hard for anyone to believe she was one."
"What just happened?" asked the pregnant girl.
"We just solved the problem. Be glad most of the horsemen really don't like Lucifer, or that would have been a lot harder," said Dean.
Ellen noted that his eyes were back to green now.
"Fricken angels," muttered Dean.
Dean and Sam had split up for the week, mostly because Gabriel was getting rather irritating about Sam's angelic abilities not being trained.
So Sam went to visit the sugar-happy arch angel while Arael and Dean traveled alone for a while.
What went unspoken by the other hunters was that everyone had noted some serious tension between them. Gabriel remarked that it was a pity Arael didn't have a body, otherwise she would jumped Dean months ago.
Right now though, Dean was pissed off because Micheal apparently wanted to send a very firm message about not being his vessel.
Which lead to Dean and Astarael being in a future where Arael was still in the pit. She was less than amused.
