The Angel's Knight #26 - Impending Clarity
by Philip S.
Summary: Of fake Slayers, late arrivals, and a call to arms and furious battle. Spoilers: Everything up to the end of Buffy S5 / Angel S2. Everything after that is different.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All characters taken from the TV shows Buffy and Angel are property Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. No infringement is intended. Archive: Story will be archived at www.shadow-dancing.com. Everyone else please ask!
#
110 miles north of Los Angeles, October 15, 2017
#
Every pair of eyes present is looking at the events happening right in front of me, but I doubt anyone else is seeing quite what I'm seeing. Except maybe the witches from Maryke's New England coven, but I'm not sure about them, either. Everyone sees Diana, the mysterious new Slayer, walk up to the woman claiming to be Buffy. Her words are audible to everyone within hearing distance.
Me, I'm too busy looking at something else too even notice.
I've always been good at seeing auras. Not just auras at that. I've always seen things other people didn't. No wonder many kids in school considered me a freak. It came to the point where I told no one about the things I saw, too afraid of their ridicule. Things have changed since then, but I still find it hard to describe the things I see to people who, compared to myself, are so blind to a large part of the world.
A human being is more than flesh and blood. It's energy, a living field of light and color hovering just outside the range of most human eyes. It's unique for every person and never static, flickering and changing with every second of life lived. Every experience adds to it. Colors are dulled by age, light is dimmed by the fading of innocence. The aura can tell a person's life at a single glance and sometimes I have a hard time understanding how people that can't see it can even relate to others.
Diana's aura is changing with every step she takes towards 'Buffy', a flickering mass of confusion streamlining into a focused whole for the briefest of moments. Almost as if she becomes whole for the duration of a heartbeat, as if the scattered pieces of her life fit together for the shortest of seconds before falling apart again.
The moment they face each other, the moment Diana yells that this blonde woman before her is not Buffy Summers, in that single moment the two auras seem almost identical. More in synch even that Diana and Faith's. Almost as if they belong to one and the same person.
Then suddenly everything falls apart.
The aura of the thing calling itself Buffy, the thing that almost fooled me into believing it, changes violently. The gentle light of tempered strength and passionate purpose that always made Buffy so unique fades completely, replaced by a darkness that chills me simply by looking at it.
Some part of me registers that the flesh is changing as well. A human shape ripples and flows until it looks nothing like a woman anymore. It grows, it changes, it becomes something right out of a nightmare. At least seven feet tall, armored scales, rows upon rows of needle-sharp teeth, hands tipped with vicious claws.
All around me people are trying to overcome their shock, moving to fight this threat that has suddenly appeared in our midst, but I can't stop staring. I've never seen anything like this before. Within the span of a few seconds this thing's aura has completely reversed itself, upside down and inside out. This is impossible. An aura can change with time, but this ... a person, even a demon, can't suddenly become something completely different. Not inside where it counts.
This can't be happening!
"Tara! Look out!" Someone tackles me from the side, wrenching me out of my thoughts. I look up just in time to see the huge, dark shape of the thing rush past me. It would have flattened me if not for Xander, who is busy getting back to his feet and taking out his weapon.
The real world fades back into view for me and I see that the staging area has descended into chaos. The thing is making a beeline right towards Angel and the others, its dark being focused on but one purpose. It wants to take out the leader of this army. I can almost see it, every erg of its strength aimed directly at the heart of Angel.
None of which compares to what's radiating off Angel right at this moment.
In all the years I've known Angel he has always been subdued, held back. A man so afraid of his own feelings, his own dark desires, that he has hidden them behind thick walls, never letting them out. If not for the undeniable compassion in his eyes, the light of pure good I can see in him without even trying, I might have mistaken him for a cold and uncaring person. He is anything but.
Right now, though, the walls are nowhere in sight. The dark, putrid thing inside of him, the essence of the demonic, is pouring out in thick waves, human hatred mixed with inhuman fury. His face has lost all traces of humanity and his eyes are filled with bloodlust.
For the first time in my life I'm scared of him.
Moments later the dark thing has reached him and the two demons collide head-on. His opponent is at least a full foot larger than him and twice as broad, but Angel doesn't seem to care. He tears into it with his bare hand, armored scales splintering under his claw-like fingers. The thing's own claws cut deep into his flesh, but he doesn't seem to feel it. The ground shakes from the force of their collision and I can see even the most hardened of battle veterans among our gathered army pale.
Everyone seems frozen by Angel's outbreak of hate and fury, everyone but Diana and Faith. The two Slayers are jumping into the fray, identical looks of determination on their faces. Faith is almost as furious as Angel, but she, even more than him, is weary of the demon inside of her. Maybe because hers isn't bound by magic, but only by her own willpower. For her it doesn't take perfect happiness, just a single second of carelessness. Her fury is a finely tempered steel edge and she drives it deep into the thing's hide.
And Diana? She has changed again. Whatever completeness she achieved for herself a moment ago is gone again, little more than a glimpsed dream. Instead she is immersing herself in the moment of battle, allowing instincts to take over.
The battle is done with quickly, but it seems to last an eternity. When the thing finally collapses, broken and bloodied, I know that it's not over. Not even by half. Angel looks down at it, his hands and arms covered in black blood almost up to his elbows, and the fury hasn't faded. The walls haven't come back up. I've never met Angelus, something I'm very grateful for, but right now I'm looking at something ten times worse.
A demon with a soul that is filled with enough rage and anger to set an entire world ablaze.
Angel's eyes flicker away from the dead thing and toward the driver of the limousine, a mere man who obviously hasn't got the slightest idea what he has gotten himself into. Somehow I doubt Angel cares.
Before anyone among us can react Angel has crossed the distance, grabs the man by his neck, and slams him against the hood of his car with enough force to crack ribs. All around me people are moving once again, maybe intending to stop him, maybe trying to get a good distance away from him. I'm torn myself.
"I should kill you," Angel growls, his face less than inch away from that of the driver. I think the only reason the poor man isn't fainting right now is his own stark terror. "For bringing that thing here, I should kill you. But I won't. I want you to do something for me, little man. Will you do something for me?"
Every word from his lips quivers with hatred and rage, barely contained. Angel's human soul isn't holding him back right now. It's cheering him on.
"Go back to the people that hired you. Tell them that I got their little present. Tell them I will be visiting each and every single one of them to personally express my gratitude. Do we understand each other?"
The driver frantically nods, as much as he's able to with Angel's hand clamped around his throat. A moment later he is freed, Angel releasing him, and I don't think I've ever seen a mere human move that fast. He jumps behind the wheel and moments later the limousine is gone, the sound of screeching tires fading into the distance.
Angel turns around and sees all of us looking at him. For a long moment there is silence, then Faith takes a step forward, a worried look on her face.
"You okay, big guy?"
He stares at her for several heartbeats, only to shake his head.
"No, Faith. I'm anything but okay." With that he stalks past her, back towards the table where the thing just sat, back towards the maps for our invasion of Sunnydale.
Faith sighs, closing her eyes.
"Well," she mutters, "if Wolfram & Hart wanted to get him pissed, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams."
"I thought they had reached the height of their depravity when they brought back Darla," Wesley adds. "It seems I've been wrong."
I look at Diana and she seems more confused than ever before. Quickly moving towards her, I put my hand on her shoulder. When she looks up at me her eyes are filled with questions.
"I just knew," she whispers under her breath. "I looked at her and suddenly I knew. I heard someone saying something about deceptions and illusions, almost as if I was remembering it."
She swallows hard, wrapping her arms around herself to stop them from shaking. "What is happening to me, Tara?"
I lean down to hug her, wishing that I could help her figure things out. That moment back there, for a moment I almost thought she had found it. Had found herself. Maybe it was a glimpse of things to come. Goddess, I hope so. This poor girl deserves to be whole again.
"We will get moving right now," I can hear Angel. "I don't want Wolfram & Hart or anyone else to delay us any further."
Wesley approaches him, more worried than I've seen him in a good long while.
"Angel, please take a moment to calm down. We ..."
"We don't have a moment, Wesley," he interrupts him. "Wolfram & Hart have crossed another line here tonight and they know it. Not even Lilah could be so stupid as to do something like this without expecting me to get back at her for it. No, whatever is happening in Sunnydale, it's important enough for them to do ... this. Which means we have to get moving right now."
I don't like what I'm seeing when I'm looking at him, but I'm afraid he is right. Whatever that thing really was, however it did what it did, it certainly represented a major effort on Wolfram & Hart's part. They are not the kind of people to do something like this just to annoy Angel.
Looking at the dust cloud that still hides Sunnydale suddenly drives things home for me. I haven't dared think of it so far, but now the thought is there and won't let go. Willow! Willow is in there. She might still be alive. She might still be alive and if she is then she has been in Goddess knows what kind of pain nonstop for the last sixteen years.
I have lost track of the number of nights I cried myself to sleep after leaving her. I had to do it, there was never any doubt, but the price ... the price was so incredibly high. I had let her in so deep. There have been others since, but no one has ever been to me what Willow was.
The worst thing wasn't even what she did to me. I might have been able to get over that eventually. No, the worst thing was that she never felt guilty about it. She raped my mind, rearranged my thoughts to her own design, and didn't see it as a bad thing. That, more than anything else, showed me that this was no longer the woman I had fallen in love with.
The only problem is that realizing this was not the same as to stop loving her.
And now, sixteen years later, she might still be alive. We are going into Sunnydale to prevent a group of dark mages from freeing her. Maybe afterwards we will try and find a way to free her ourselves without bringing about the end of the world. I can't help but wonder what will happen if I see her again. What will I feel? What will I do?
"Tara? You okay?"
I come out of my thoughts realizing that I'm still hugging Diana, who looks at me with worry. I've never been good at hiding my own emotions, I'm afraid.
"Just memories, Diana," I mutter. "Good memories, bad memories, and not knowing where the line is between them."
"I wouldn't know about that." She gives a sad chuckle. "Got some to spare?"
"None I would want anyone to have."
Now is not the time to open up old wounds or think about what might be. Angel was right. We have no time to spare. We need to get this over with and done. Then we can try and deal with our own personal demons. If only they were as easy to strike down as that black thing on the ground over there. If only.
We prepare. We start to move. Sunnydale, here we come. Only we have barely managed to drive half a mile towards our goal when something else happens. The air around us fizzles and sizzles for a second, the familiar shiver of a magical spell runs down my spine. A teleportation spell. Someone is about to teleport in on us.
A brief flash of light and there are five figures standing right in our paths. The military vehicles screech to a halt, the cars behind them hit their breaks for all they are worth. Dozens of weapons are immediately trained on the newcomers.
"Looks like we got here just in time."
One is Giles. Another is Cordy. I don't know the two blonde women standing beside them, but the fifth ...
Oh, Goddess.
Dawn?
TO BE CONTINUED
Summary: Of fake Slayers, late arrivals, and a call to arms and furious battle. Spoilers: Everything up to the end of Buffy S5 / Angel S2. Everything after that is different.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All characters taken from the TV shows Buffy and Angel are property Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. No infringement is intended. Archive: Story will be archived at www.shadow-dancing.com. Everyone else please ask!
#
110 miles north of Los Angeles, October 15, 2017
#
Every pair of eyes present is looking at the events happening right in front of me, but I doubt anyone else is seeing quite what I'm seeing. Except maybe the witches from Maryke's New England coven, but I'm not sure about them, either. Everyone sees Diana, the mysterious new Slayer, walk up to the woman claiming to be Buffy. Her words are audible to everyone within hearing distance.
Me, I'm too busy looking at something else too even notice.
I've always been good at seeing auras. Not just auras at that. I've always seen things other people didn't. No wonder many kids in school considered me a freak. It came to the point where I told no one about the things I saw, too afraid of their ridicule. Things have changed since then, but I still find it hard to describe the things I see to people who, compared to myself, are so blind to a large part of the world.
A human being is more than flesh and blood. It's energy, a living field of light and color hovering just outside the range of most human eyes. It's unique for every person and never static, flickering and changing with every second of life lived. Every experience adds to it. Colors are dulled by age, light is dimmed by the fading of innocence. The aura can tell a person's life at a single glance and sometimes I have a hard time understanding how people that can't see it can even relate to others.
Diana's aura is changing with every step she takes towards 'Buffy', a flickering mass of confusion streamlining into a focused whole for the briefest of moments. Almost as if she becomes whole for the duration of a heartbeat, as if the scattered pieces of her life fit together for the shortest of seconds before falling apart again.
The moment they face each other, the moment Diana yells that this blonde woman before her is not Buffy Summers, in that single moment the two auras seem almost identical. More in synch even that Diana and Faith's. Almost as if they belong to one and the same person.
Then suddenly everything falls apart.
The aura of the thing calling itself Buffy, the thing that almost fooled me into believing it, changes violently. The gentle light of tempered strength and passionate purpose that always made Buffy so unique fades completely, replaced by a darkness that chills me simply by looking at it.
Some part of me registers that the flesh is changing as well. A human shape ripples and flows until it looks nothing like a woman anymore. It grows, it changes, it becomes something right out of a nightmare. At least seven feet tall, armored scales, rows upon rows of needle-sharp teeth, hands tipped with vicious claws.
All around me people are trying to overcome their shock, moving to fight this threat that has suddenly appeared in our midst, but I can't stop staring. I've never seen anything like this before. Within the span of a few seconds this thing's aura has completely reversed itself, upside down and inside out. This is impossible. An aura can change with time, but this ... a person, even a demon, can't suddenly become something completely different. Not inside where it counts.
This can't be happening!
"Tara! Look out!" Someone tackles me from the side, wrenching me out of my thoughts. I look up just in time to see the huge, dark shape of the thing rush past me. It would have flattened me if not for Xander, who is busy getting back to his feet and taking out his weapon.
The real world fades back into view for me and I see that the staging area has descended into chaos. The thing is making a beeline right towards Angel and the others, its dark being focused on but one purpose. It wants to take out the leader of this army. I can almost see it, every erg of its strength aimed directly at the heart of Angel.
None of which compares to what's radiating off Angel right at this moment.
In all the years I've known Angel he has always been subdued, held back. A man so afraid of his own feelings, his own dark desires, that he has hidden them behind thick walls, never letting them out. If not for the undeniable compassion in his eyes, the light of pure good I can see in him without even trying, I might have mistaken him for a cold and uncaring person. He is anything but.
Right now, though, the walls are nowhere in sight. The dark, putrid thing inside of him, the essence of the demonic, is pouring out in thick waves, human hatred mixed with inhuman fury. His face has lost all traces of humanity and his eyes are filled with bloodlust.
For the first time in my life I'm scared of him.
Moments later the dark thing has reached him and the two demons collide head-on. His opponent is at least a full foot larger than him and twice as broad, but Angel doesn't seem to care. He tears into it with his bare hand, armored scales splintering under his claw-like fingers. The thing's own claws cut deep into his flesh, but he doesn't seem to feel it. The ground shakes from the force of their collision and I can see even the most hardened of battle veterans among our gathered army pale.
Everyone seems frozen by Angel's outbreak of hate and fury, everyone but Diana and Faith. The two Slayers are jumping into the fray, identical looks of determination on their faces. Faith is almost as furious as Angel, but she, even more than him, is weary of the demon inside of her. Maybe because hers isn't bound by magic, but only by her own willpower. For her it doesn't take perfect happiness, just a single second of carelessness. Her fury is a finely tempered steel edge and she drives it deep into the thing's hide.
And Diana? She has changed again. Whatever completeness she achieved for herself a moment ago is gone again, little more than a glimpsed dream. Instead she is immersing herself in the moment of battle, allowing instincts to take over.
The battle is done with quickly, but it seems to last an eternity. When the thing finally collapses, broken and bloodied, I know that it's not over. Not even by half. Angel looks down at it, his hands and arms covered in black blood almost up to his elbows, and the fury hasn't faded. The walls haven't come back up. I've never met Angelus, something I'm very grateful for, but right now I'm looking at something ten times worse.
A demon with a soul that is filled with enough rage and anger to set an entire world ablaze.
Angel's eyes flicker away from the dead thing and toward the driver of the limousine, a mere man who obviously hasn't got the slightest idea what he has gotten himself into. Somehow I doubt Angel cares.
Before anyone among us can react Angel has crossed the distance, grabs the man by his neck, and slams him against the hood of his car with enough force to crack ribs. All around me people are moving once again, maybe intending to stop him, maybe trying to get a good distance away from him. I'm torn myself.
"I should kill you," Angel growls, his face less than inch away from that of the driver. I think the only reason the poor man isn't fainting right now is his own stark terror. "For bringing that thing here, I should kill you. But I won't. I want you to do something for me, little man. Will you do something for me?"
Every word from his lips quivers with hatred and rage, barely contained. Angel's human soul isn't holding him back right now. It's cheering him on.
"Go back to the people that hired you. Tell them that I got their little present. Tell them I will be visiting each and every single one of them to personally express my gratitude. Do we understand each other?"
The driver frantically nods, as much as he's able to with Angel's hand clamped around his throat. A moment later he is freed, Angel releasing him, and I don't think I've ever seen a mere human move that fast. He jumps behind the wheel and moments later the limousine is gone, the sound of screeching tires fading into the distance.
Angel turns around and sees all of us looking at him. For a long moment there is silence, then Faith takes a step forward, a worried look on her face.
"You okay, big guy?"
He stares at her for several heartbeats, only to shake his head.
"No, Faith. I'm anything but okay." With that he stalks past her, back towards the table where the thing just sat, back towards the maps for our invasion of Sunnydale.
Faith sighs, closing her eyes.
"Well," she mutters, "if Wolfram & Hart wanted to get him pissed, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams."
"I thought they had reached the height of their depravity when they brought back Darla," Wesley adds. "It seems I've been wrong."
I look at Diana and she seems more confused than ever before. Quickly moving towards her, I put my hand on her shoulder. When she looks up at me her eyes are filled with questions.
"I just knew," she whispers under her breath. "I looked at her and suddenly I knew. I heard someone saying something about deceptions and illusions, almost as if I was remembering it."
She swallows hard, wrapping her arms around herself to stop them from shaking. "What is happening to me, Tara?"
I lean down to hug her, wishing that I could help her figure things out. That moment back there, for a moment I almost thought she had found it. Had found herself. Maybe it was a glimpse of things to come. Goddess, I hope so. This poor girl deserves to be whole again.
"We will get moving right now," I can hear Angel. "I don't want Wolfram & Hart or anyone else to delay us any further."
Wesley approaches him, more worried than I've seen him in a good long while.
"Angel, please take a moment to calm down. We ..."
"We don't have a moment, Wesley," he interrupts him. "Wolfram & Hart have crossed another line here tonight and they know it. Not even Lilah could be so stupid as to do something like this without expecting me to get back at her for it. No, whatever is happening in Sunnydale, it's important enough for them to do ... this. Which means we have to get moving right now."
I don't like what I'm seeing when I'm looking at him, but I'm afraid he is right. Whatever that thing really was, however it did what it did, it certainly represented a major effort on Wolfram & Hart's part. They are not the kind of people to do something like this just to annoy Angel.
Looking at the dust cloud that still hides Sunnydale suddenly drives things home for me. I haven't dared think of it so far, but now the thought is there and won't let go. Willow! Willow is in there. She might still be alive. She might still be alive and if she is then she has been in Goddess knows what kind of pain nonstop for the last sixteen years.
I have lost track of the number of nights I cried myself to sleep after leaving her. I had to do it, there was never any doubt, but the price ... the price was so incredibly high. I had let her in so deep. There have been others since, but no one has ever been to me what Willow was.
The worst thing wasn't even what she did to me. I might have been able to get over that eventually. No, the worst thing was that she never felt guilty about it. She raped my mind, rearranged my thoughts to her own design, and didn't see it as a bad thing. That, more than anything else, showed me that this was no longer the woman I had fallen in love with.
The only problem is that realizing this was not the same as to stop loving her.
And now, sixteen years later, she might still be alive. We are going into Sunnydale to prevent a group of dark mages from freeing her. Maybe afterwards we will try and find a way to free her ourselves without bringing about the end of the world. I can't help but wonder what will happen if I see her again. What will I feel? What will I do?
"Tara? You okay?"
I come out of my thoughts realizing that I'm still hugging Diana, who looks at me with worry. I've never been good at hiding my own emotions, I'm afraid.
"Just memories, Diana," I mutter. "Good memories, bad memories, and not knowing where the line is between them."
"I wouldn't know about that." She gives a sad chuckle. "Got some to spare?"
"None I would want anyone to have."
Now is not the time to open up old wounds or think about what might be. Angel was right. We have no time to spare. We need to get this over with and done. Then we can try and deal with our own personal demons. If only they were as easy to strike down as that black thing on the ground over there. If only.
We prepare. We start to move. Sunnydale, here we come. Only we have barely managed to drive half a mile towards our goal when something else happens. The air around us fizzles and sizzles for a second, the familiar shiver of a magical spell runs down my spine. A teleportation spell. Someone is about to teleport in on us.
A brief flash of light and there are five figures standing right in our paths. The military vehicles screech to a halt, the cars behind them hit their breaks for all they are worth. Dozens of weapons are immediately trained on the newcomers.
"Looks like we got here just in time."
One is Giles. Another is Cordy. I don't know the two blonde women standing beside them, but the fifth ...
Oh, Goddess.
Dawn?
TO BE CONTINUED
