The Angel's Knight #27 - Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the
Supernatural
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110 miles north of Los Angeles, October 15, 2017
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There is very little time left to tell this story, so I beg you to listen and remember your questions for later. I promise to answer as many of them as I can in the short while before the battle ahead. For now, though, it is very important that you all understand the nature of the war you have been drafted into and in order to do that you need to understand the nature of this world. The world you have all been walking in for large portions of your life, whether you remember it or not.
First you must know that there are two worlds where we perceive but one. The first to come into existence was the mundane world. It is the world most human beings spend their lives in. It is governed by natural laws and reason. In this world there are no strange and wondrous creatures and things that can not be explained. It is a world that, to some, is boring and cold, yet it has more than its share of wonder. Music, art, love, achievement, all these are miracles in their own right. Just not the kind that are written about in the fairy tales.
There is another world, though. The world you live in. There is no clear line of separation between the two, mind you. They exist in the same place, they exist at the same time, and more often than not they will intersect. One can cross from one into the other and back a thousand and more times within a single human lifetime. Yet this second world is quite different from the first one. And far, far more dangerous.
It is the world of myth.
It was born long after the mundane world, came into existence only when the first intelligent creatures emerged and started wondering what might be hiding out there in the shadows of night, what strange wonders might be found out there in the darkness. None of them ever guessed at the truth. The simple truth that there was no second world of monsters and demons hidden anywhere until they themselves dreamed it into existence. All they needed in order to do that was their own limitless imagination and one other thing.
The Torch. Cordelia here has seen it in her visions a hundred times by now. A towering construct cradling an eternal flame, hidden deep beneath the world. How it came to be there even I can not tell you. I doubt anyone on this level of existence can. What I can tell you is that it is powerful. Maybe the greatest single power to exist in this world. For untold eons this power lay quiet beneath the world until it was first tapped. Tapped by those who let their imagination roam free.
Out of the flames of the Torch were born creatures that had no right to exist in the mundane world. Dead bodies do not rise again, they do not walk around without heartbeats, and they do not combust upon having a stake thrust into their hearts. Yet in the minds of some people they did, people that were afraid of the dark, and soon their fears took form and walked on two feet, sank their fangs into the flesh of their creators.
The written word allowed people to write down and share their stories across space and time and there were always those among the readers who wondered, who questioned, who believed. One man might write a tale of someone who turned into an animal by the light of the full moon, a tale that served no other purpose than amusement and brief distraction. Yet another man might read it and believe it, thereby giving flesh to the story, sending it out into the forest to run, to howl, to kill, to create others like itself.
These new creatures lived by their own rules, had their own natural laws, their own limitations. They looked at their world as it was and accepted it. A vampire would not question why a creature without a heartbeat could have an erection anymore than a mundane human would ask why its hair grows. Okay, there are some that ask these questions, but they are always the minority and often ignored.
Before you ask, no! The fact that vampires and other creatures of myth are born from stories does not make them anything less than real. Whether you emerged from a female's womb or from the pages of a fairy tale does not make a difference on the fundamental level. Things are easily brought to life, but destroying them is much harder. Even if all vampire stories were to be burned today and not a single human being even remembered them anymore, even then the vampires would endure. A son does not automatically die when his mother does, does he?
Not all the creatures born in the world of myth have been given their form by human imagination, though. No, there are others. Creatures that serve a greater purpose, a more than mere manifestations of stories and fables.
One among these creatures is the Slayer. No fairy tale was ever written about it and no child ever gazed out into the darkness, imagining a young girl hunting and killing vampires. Or maybe they did, but not enough of them to actually bring such a girl to life. No, the Slayer is old, much older than the creatures it is meant to hunt and destroy. Older than the Council of Watchers. Older than any form of human civilization.
The Slayer is a creature of balance. Born directly from the fires of the Torch, its primary purpose is to keep myth from subjugating reality. Creatures that adhere to no natural law, whose only limits are those imposed upon it by a people unaware of their own creative power, would inevitably conquer or destroy the world that birthed them. The Slayer is to prevent this from happening. It keeps the mundane and the mythological world in balance.
I would very much like to give you all more time to absorb these revelations, to figure out what they mean for you and the lives you have led, but I fear there is no time for that. I am sorry. There is more you must learn. The conflict ahead of us is about much more than a group of dark mages looking to open the Hellmouth. By the way, the Hellmouth? I believe your friend Fred was very close to figuring out the truth about it. Fred? Why don't you tell them?
Yes, indeed. The Hellmouth is little more than a source of energy. A focal point for the powers of the Torch, to be exact. Nowhere on the surface of this world do the fires of myth burn more brightly, nowhere else is their power as easily accessible. Enough power to transform a man into a greater demon. Enough power to open a gateway to an imagined hell dimension. Enough power for a fallen God to try and remake the entire world in her image.
It is also the only known entrance into the resting place of the Torch itself.
That's pretty much what this is all about. The Torch. The source of all mythical power in this world. That's a lot of power, believe me. And, naturally, there are those that are interested in this kind of power. Who want to use it for their own purposes.
Let me tell you another story. There are more world out there then the one, or two, we live in. You have seen some of these worlds. You have visited them. Phylea, remember? Fred, you spent years there. It's not a demon dimension, no. There is no such thing as demon dimensions. It's a world that was once like ours. A world comprised of two worlds in balance, one mundane, one mythological. Only in that world the balance was destroyed. The mundane was eradicated and only the mythological remained. There are other worlds where the balance tipped the other way. In those world the myths are just that, myths. No more than stories, tales without substance.
And the destruction of that balance is always the result of a battle. A battle of the kind we are about to enter. It's not about Sunnydale. It's not about Willow. It's not about the Hellmouth. It's about the fate of the world, both worlds, and which of them shall rule supreme at the expense of the other.
There are two factions in this battle. Always the same two, no matter what world they wage their battle in. They take different names, different shapes, but they are always the same beings. Or maybe I should use another word for them. Gods? They certainly behave as if they were gods, playing with worlds the way children play with their toys. What you need to know about them is that they are geometrically opposed. Deadly enemies. They play their game for the highest of stakes.
They both want to tip the balance. One side wants a world like Phylea, wants to drown the mundane in the mythical. The other wants a world devoid of all myth, nothing but cold, hard reality remaining. Both need to reach the Torch in order to fulfill their goal. The interesting thing is, though, that the rules of the game allow neither of them to go there themselves. They have to manipulate others into doing it for them.
I am sure you have already guessed the names these two factions are known by in our world. You work for one of them. It is for their purpose, not your own, that you are about to enter into battle.
I imagine that the foremost questions on all your minds right now is the one asking who the hell I am and how I know all these things. A few of you already know, but there is one very important person I have yet to tell. The name I was given by Darla, my mother, is Celeste. Yes, Darla is my mother, as impossible as that may seem. And my father, well, that would be you, Angel.
Hi, daddy! It's nice to meet you at last.
I know things are really difficult for you right now. I saw the little gift Wolfram & Hart sent you. In case you are wondering, the thing was so good at fooling you because it really believed itself to be Buffy. Well, for those few days since the lawyers brought it to life and told it that it was Buffy, you could almost say that it was her. It was only when someone told it that it wasn't Buffy that it began to reassume the shape it had been given originally. Remembered its original purpose, which was to kill you. Complicated, I know. Ask Giles or Darla about it, they have gathered a bit of experience regarding creatures like this.
I know how much it hurt you too see her again, daddy, even if it wasn't quite her. I'm sorry I came too late to warn you about it. But I see you had someone else there to protect you from their machinations. Diana, right? You and I should have a talk later on, there is a lot about yourself that you don't know yet. Later, though. Our time is running out.
As to how I know all that I know ... I can't tell you that quite yet. I hope you can find it in your heart to trust me, daddy, even if you have never met me before to day. I know I am asking a lot. Mother would tell you that you can trust me, but you have even less reason to believe her than me. Cordelia and Giles know part of the story. They have decided to trust me for now and I hope that will suffice for you.
There is someone else here with us, someone whose presence is imperceptible to most of you for the time being. Tara, from the look on your face I can guess that you can see her already. Again, there is not enough time to explain it all to you. Be assured that things will become clearer once we enter the battle.
You already know what needs to be done. At this moment the dark mages, who have sworn their service to the faction that wants to drown the world in the fires of myth, are busy trying to free Willow from her imprisonment, thereby opening the focal point and giving them access to the Torch itself. If at all possible that must be prevented from happening. If we can't, then we must go down into the Earth and find the Torch ourselves before the others can. If the worst should come to pass ... well, let us hope it won't.
Before we get moving again I would like to speak to some of you individually.
Tara, I know how much you dread what you might find in Sunnydale. I know you are torn between the love you still feel for Willow and your memories of what she did to you. When the moment comes, and you will know when it does, trust your instincts. Trust the one thing you can do better than anyone else. It will not lead you astray.
Amy, you will be asked to do something incredibly difficult. Much more difficult than breaking free of the dark magic that held you in its grasp at one time. I am asking you to remember how you felt when the darkness had a hold of you. Remember that people can claw their way out of the shadows and back into the light.
Xander, right now you would like nothing better than to go back home to Anya and your children, I know that. It is your sense of commitment that makes you strong. Remember it when the time comes.
Faith, remember what I said about the nature of the Slayer. You are a creature of balance. This purpose has been all but forgotten in the years since the First Slayer walked the Earth. It is crucial that you remember it once again.
Mom, for most of your life you have let others dictate what you should be. Now is the time to decide for yourself what you are and what you will do.
Diana, your role in this battle might be the most crucial of them all, because you are a wild card, a trump most thought was already out of the game. You must separate truth from lie, fact from fiction, and remember why you are here and what you must do. No one can tell you that, you can only realize it for yourself and you haven't much time left.
Daddy, I know you have a thousand questions. About me, about mom, about the role you are to play. I can feel the rage they have ignited within you. Please don't allow it to overcome you. This is the moment you were made for, daddy. Even more than the Slayer you are a creature of balance, one who is at home in both worlds. A demon with the soul of a man. That is why both sides tried so hard to pull you into their camps. Why one tried to bring back the demon you were and the other lured you with the promise of becoming a human man. You represent unity, balance, and that is what they both intend to destroy.
All will be made clear very soon. I promise you that. Right now, though, we have no more time left. Please hurry and remember what I told you. All of you.
Good luck to all of us!
TO BE CONTINUED
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110 miles north of Los Angeles, October 15, 2017
#
There is very little time left to tell this story, so I beg you to listen and remember your questions for later. I promise to answer as many of them as I can in the short while before the battle ahead. For now, though, it is very important that you all understand the nature of the war you have been drafted into and in order to do that you need to understand the nature of this world. The world you have all been walking in for large portions of your life, whether you remember it or not.
First you must know that there are two worlds where we perceive but one. The first to come into existence was the mundane world. It is the world most human beings spend their lives in. It is governed by natural laws and reason. In this world there are no strange and wondrous creatures and things that can not be explained. It is a world that, to some, is boring and cold, yet it has more than its share of wonder. Music, art, love, achievement, all these are miracles in their own right. Just not the kind that are written about in the fairy tales.
There is another world, though. The world you live in. There is no clear line of separation between the two, mind you. They exist in the same place, they exist at the same time, and more often than not they will intersect. One can cross from one into the other and back a thousand and more times within a single human lifetime. Yet this second world is quite different from the first one. And far, far more dangerous.
It is the world of myth.
It was born long after the mundane world, came into existence only when the first intelligent creatures emerged and started wondering what might be hiding out there in the shadows of night, what strange wonders might be found out there in the darkness. None of them ever guessed at the truth. The simple truth that there was no second world of monsters and demons hidden anywhere until they themselves dreamed it into existence. All they needed in order to do that was their own limitless imagination and one other thing.
The Torch. Cordelia here has seen it in her visions a hundred times by now. A towering construct cradling an eternal flame, hidden deep beneath the world. How it came to be there even I can not tell you. I doubt anyone on this level of existence can. What I can tell you is that it is powerful. Maybe the greatest single power to exist in this world. For untold eons this power lay quiet beneath the world until it was first tapped. Tapped by those who let their imagination roam free.
Out of the flames of the Torch were born creatures that had no right to exist in the mundane world. Dead bodies do not rise again, they do not walk around without heartbeats, and they do not combust upon having a stake thrust into their hearts. Yet in the minds of some people they did, people that were afraid of the dark, and soon their fears took form and walked on two feet, sank their fangs into the flesh of their creators.
The written word allowed people to write down and share their stories across space and time and there were always those among the readers who wondered, who questioned, who believed. One man might write a tale of someone who turned into an animal by the light of the full moon, a tale that served no other purpose than amusement and brief distraction. Yet another man might read it and believe it, thereby giving flesh to the story, sending it out into the forest to run, to howl, to kill, to create others like itself.
These new creatures lived by their own rules, had their own natural laws, their own limitations. They looked at their world as it was and accepted it. A vampire would not question why a creature without a heartbeat could have an erection anymore than a mundane human would ask why its hair grows. Okay, there are some that ask these questions, but they are always the minority and often ignored.
Before you ask, no! The fact that vampires and other creatures of myth are born from stories does not make them anything less than real. Whether you emerged from a female's womb or from the pages of a fairy tale does not make a difference on the fundamental level. Things are easily brought to life, but destroying them is much harder. Even if all vampire stories were to be burned today and not a single human being even remembered them anymore, even then the vampires would endure. A son does not automatically die when his mother does, does he?
Not all the creatures born in the world of myth have been given their form by human imagination, though. No, there are others. Creatures that serve a greater purpose, a more than mere manifestations of stories and fables.
One among these creatures is the Slayer. No fairy tale was ever written about it and no child ever gazed out into the darkness, imagining a young girl hunting and killing vampires. Or maybe they did, but not enough of them to actually bring such a girl to life. No, the Slayer is old, much older than the creatures it is meant to hunt and destroy. Older than the Council of Watchers. Older than any form of human civilization.
The Slayer is a creature of balance. Born directly from the fires of the Torch, its primary purpose is to keep myth from subjugating reality. Creatures that adhere to no natural law, whose only limits are those imposed upon it by a people unaware of their own creative power, would inevitably conquer or destroy the world that birthed them. The Slayer is to prevent this from happening. It keeps the mundane and the mythological world in balance.
I would very much like to give you all more time to absorb these revelations, to figure out what they mean for you and the lives you have led, but I fear there is no time for that. I am sorry. There is more you must learn. The conflict ahead of us is about much more than a group of dark mages looking to open the Hellmouth. By the way, the Hellmouth? I believe your friend Fred was very close to figuring out the truth about it. Fred? Why don't you tell them?
Yes, indeed. The Hellmouth is little more than a source of energy. A focal point for the powers of the Torch, to be exact. Nowhere on the surface of this world do the fires of myth burn more brightly, nowhere else is their power as easily accessible. Enough power to transform a man into a greater demon. Enough power to open a gateway to an imagined hell dimension. Enough power for a fallen God to try and remake the entire world in her image.
It is also the only known entrance into the resting place of the Torch itself.
That's pretty much what this is all about. The Torch. The source of all mythical power in this world. That's a lot of power, believe me. And, naturally, there are those that are interested in this kind of power. Who want to use it for their own purposes.
Let me tell you another story. There are more world out there then the one, or two, we live in. You have seen some of these worlds. You have visited them. Phylea, remember? Fred, you spent years there. It's not a demon dimension, no. There is no such thing as demon dimensions. It's a world that was once like ours. A world comprised of two worlds in balance, one mundane, one mythological. Only in that world the balance was destroyed. The mundane was eradicated and only the mythological remained. There are other worlds where the balance tipped the other way. In those world the myths are just that, myths. No more than stories, tales without substance.
And the destruction of that balance is always the result of a battle. A battle of the kind we are about to enter. It's not about Sunnydale. It's not about Willow. It's not about the Hellmouth. It's about the fate of the world, both worlds, and which of them shall rule supreme at the expense of the other.
There are two factions in this battle. Always the same two, no matter what world they wage their battle in. They take different names, different shapes, but they are always the same beings. Or maybe I should use another word for them. Gods? They certainly behave as if they were gods, playing with worlds the way children play with their toys. What you need to know about them is that they are geometrically opposed. Deadly enemies. They play their game for the highest of stakes.
They both want to tip the balance. One side wants a world like Phylea, wants to drown the mundane in the mythical. The other wants a world devoid of all myth, nothing but cold, hard reality remaining. Both need to reach the Torch in order to fulfill their goal. The interesting thing is, though, that the rules of the game allow neither of them to go there themselves. They have to manipulate others into doing it for them.
I am sure you have already guessed the names these two factions are known by in our world. You work for one of them. It is for their purpose, not your own, that you are about to enter into battle.
I imagine that the foremost questions on all your minds right now is the one asking who the hell I am and how I know all these things. A few of you already know, but there is one very important person I have yet to tell. The name I was given by Darla, my mother, is Celeste. Yes, Darla is my mother, as impossible as that may seem. And my father, well, that would be you, Angel.
Hi, daddy! It's nice to meet you at last.
I know things are really difficult for you right now. I saw the little gift Wolfram & Hart sent you. In case you are wondering, the thing was so good at fooling you because it really believed itself to be Buffy. Well, for those few days since the lawyers brought it to life and told it that it was Buffy, you could almost say that it was her. It was only when someone told it that it wasn't Buffy that it began to reassume the shape it had been given originally. Remembered its original purpose, which was to kill you. Complicated, I know. Ask Giles or Darla about it, they have gathered a bit of experience regarding creatures like this.
I know how much it hurt you too see her again, daddy, even if it wasn't quite her. I'm sorry I came too late to warn you about it. But I see you had someone else there to protect you from their machinations. Diana, right? You and I should have a talk later on, there is a lot about yourself that you don't know yet. Later, though. Our time is running out.
As to how I know all that I know ... I can't tell you that quite yet. I hope you can find it in your heart to trust me, daddy, even if you have never met me before to day. I know I am asking a lot. Mother would tell you that you can trust me, but you have even less reason to believe her than me. Cordelia and Giles know part of the story. They have decided to trust me for now and I hope that will suffice for you.
There is someone else here with us, someone whose presence is imperceptible to most of you for the time being. Tara, from the look on your face I can guess that you can see her already. Again, there is not enough time to explain it all to you. Be assured that things will become clearer once we enter the battle.
You already know what needs to be done. At this moment the dark mages, who have sworn their service to the faction that wants to drown the world in the fires of myth, are busy trying to free Willow from her imprisonment, thereby opening the focal point and giving them access to the Torch itself. If at all possible that must be prevented from happening. If we can't, then we must go down into the Earth and find the Torch ourselves before the others can. If the worst should come to pass ... well, let us hope it won't.
Before we get moving again I would like to speak to some of you individually.
Tara, I know how much you dread what you might find in Sunnydale. I know you are torn between the love you still feel for Willow and your memories of what she did to you. When the moment comes, and you will know when it does, trust your instincts. Trust the one thing you can do better than anyone else. It will not lead you astray.
Amy, you will be asked to do something incredibly difficult. Much more difficult than breaking free of the dark magic that held you in its grasp at one time. I am asking you to remember how you felt when the darkness had a hold of you. Remember that people can claw their way out of the shadows and back into the light.
Xander, right now you would like nothing better than to go back home to Anya and your children, I know that. It is your sense of commitment that makes you strong. Remember it when the time comes.
Faith, remember what I said about the nature of the Slayer. You are a creature of balance. This purpose has been all but forgotten in the years since the First Slayer walked the Earth. It is crucial that you remember it once again.
Mom, for most of your life you have let others dictate what you should be. Now is the time to decide for yourself what you are and what you will do.
Diana, your role in this battle might be the most crucial of them all, because you are a wild card, a trump most thought was already out of the game. You must separate truth from lie, fact from fiction, and remember why you are here and what you must do. No one can tell you that, you can only realize it for yourself and you haven't much time left.
Daddy, I know you have a thousand questions. About me, about mom, about the role you are to play. I can feel the rage they have ignited within you. Please don't allow it to overcome you. This is the moment you were made for, daddy. Even more than the Slayer you are a creature of balance, one who is at home in both worlds. A demon with the soul of a man. That is why both sides tried so hard to pull you into their camps. Why one tried to bring back the demon you were and the other lured you with the promise of becoming a human man. You represent unity, balance, and that is what they both intend to destroy.
All will be made clear very soon. I promise you that. Right now, though, we have no more time left. Please hurry and remember what I told you. All of you.
Good luck to all of us!
TO BE CONTINUED
