The Angel's Knight #31 - Memories of Deaths Gone By by Philip S.

Summary: As the final battle approaches and the prize comes within reach a lot of old memories come to the surface. 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!

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110 miles north of Los Angeles, October 16, 2017

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Okay, even with but two weeks of life experience to draw on, I do know a few things. Such as that it's a really bad idea to fight an approaching army that, by all accounts, has us way outnumbered, from within a hole in the ground. And if I know that, shouldn't all these military types around here know it, too?

Well, from the sour look on their faces they do, but nobody complains. Not this Finn guy, not Graham, not Angel. I don't, either. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe this is just destined to happen this way. Maybe it can't happen any other way than this. The last stand of the good guys to ward off the forces of evil. Isn't that how it always ends in the fairy tales? Maybe this is all a fairy tale, too, and we're just acting it out.

The steps lead us down into the darkness. I hear Mr. Harris mutter that it didn't look like this the last time he was down here. Why am I not surprised about that? Again I have to think of that roller coaster analogy Faith told me a day or so ago. The only thing you can do is hold on and see where the ride takes you. That sums up my life pretty well, at least those parts of it that I can remember.

I can't tell how deep we've gone when we reach some sort of chamber. It looks like a building sunk down here. There is rubble everywhere, something that looks like it started out life as an altar of some kind. A large cross over in the corner. A church maybe? There are candles everywhere, but none of them is lit, the only sources of light the flashlights we brought along. For some reason I feel like the candles really should be lit. Have I been here before? I seem to remember a place like this.

"This was the Master's lair," I hear Angel say. "This is where he was trapped when the Hellmouth's energies captured him."

The Master? Yes, I remember Fred giving us all a short summary of the things she suspected about the Hellmouth. Not the greatest sort of entertainment on a two-hour car ride, but it was better than just staring out the window and being alone with my own thoughts. I don't like the way my thoughts have been going as of late. Especially since I confronted that doppelganger of Buffy Summers up there.

I remembered something then. I don't know what it was, but I remembered. Whatever it was, it convinced me beyond the shadow of a doubt that this thing could not be Buffy Summers. What was that? Buffy died when I was but a year old. How could anything that I remember from my past connect me to her?

There is a pool of dirty water over there in the corner and suddenly my legs refuse to move. I stop, staring at that water, and something creeps up my spine. A chill, a feeling of such immense terror that I can feel myself starting to shake.

"Diana?" someone asks and I almost jump. It's Angel. Did he sneak up on me or was I just too preoccupied? "Is everything all right?"

"I ... I don't know. That water over there ... I feel like ... almost like I've been here before."

He looks over and for a moment the terrible rage still churning behind his eyes seems to lessen, replaced by some kind of bitter remembrance.

"This is the place, right?" I hear Faith ask from behind me. "Where B ... I mean..."

"Yes," Angel quickly cuts her off, obviously not interested in further discussion. The place where B ... what? B is Buffy, right? Faith has a nickname for just about everyone and judging by Angel's reaction I doubt we're talking about anyone else but Buffy, the love of his life. Why am I getting chills over a place where something happened to Buffy? What kind of connection do I have with her?

I look at the water again and suddenly I feel faint. I remember falling, bonelessly tumbling forward until my face hits the surface of the water. Cold water, so cold. Everything is cold, even me. I can feel my life seep out of me through a throbbing pain in my neck and the earth beneath me is shaking. Somebody is laughing, someone whose voice sounds like ancient sandpaper.

I want to move, but I can't. Something is happening all around me, something important. I can feel the ground split apart, I can feel the fire burning deep beneath me. A fire that seeps into my every cell and fills me to the brim. Something is leaving me, something bright and powerful, but even as it leaves something else is there. Something that comes from below and burns bright, so bright.

For what seems like an eternity the world around me seems to swim, a lake of liquid fire I'm immersed in. It burns, but it doesn't hurt. Quite the contrary. It feels incredible, as if all the power of the universe is right there at my fingertips. I feel like I can do anything, everything, whatever I want.

Then there is a voice, urgent words trying to penetrate the fire that has embraced me like a lover. It calls my name. My name? Do I have a name? With the name come memories, so many memories. I didn't even realize I was missing them until now.

The fire fades, retreating back underground. No, not completely. I can still feel it there, still burning far brighter than it should. Something has happened. Someone has fanned the flames, called upon their power for his own purposes. Something dark and putrid is ascending from below and I know it's only so because a monster wants it to be. A monster that is even now heading for the surface, my blood pulsing in its veins.

I open my eyes and there is a face there. A face that is familiar, yet at the same time completely new and strange. A young man, no more than a boy, with tussled dark hair and a look of concern.

"Buffy?"

I feel the water rise up my lungs and my body is present again. I have a body. Heart beating in my chest, blood running through my veins. I'm alive again. I thought I was dead. I was certain I was going to die, knew it the moment I decided to come down here. I was so afraid, but I came anyway. Because it's my destiny. Because otherwise all my friends would pay the price.

"Xander?" I speak his name and I remember him. Just as I remember the man standing next to him, the man whose dark eyes look at me with so much love visible in their depths.

"Angel!"

"Diana, are you all right?"

I blink and the world comes back into focus. I'm standing in the buried church, still staring at the body of water that, for some reason, sends chills down my back. It happened again. I remembered something, but now it's gone. Something about ... it's all gone. Damn! Give me a break already, will you?

"Sorry," I tell the concerned vampire at my side. "Just spaced there for a second."

He frowns, not quite believing me, but there is too much else on his mind right now. Things like the demons I can almost hear advancing behind us.

"There are more stairs over here," someone yells. The chamber is already filled with people, the remains of our army. But I don't think we've reached our destination yet.

We're underway again, going further down. Yet another flight of ancient- looking steps, leading down deeper into the dark. Putting one foot in front of the other doesn't require too much thinking, so my thoughts go back to that strange episode from a minute ago. What did I remember? What was it about that place that unnerved me so?

Something about death. Something about fire.

"Faith?" I hurry to catch up with her.

"What is it, kid?"

"You said something up there. Something about that being the place where ..."

She gives me a concerned look, and then looks past me to where Angel is leading our troop down into the dark. Her voice, when she speaks again, is barely more than a whisper.

"Did Wes tell you how that two Slayers thing came about the first time?"

"Yes, he said something about one Slayer having to die for the next to be called, but that it works even if that Slayer doesn't stay dead. But seeing as you didn't die anywhere in the recent past I don't see..."

"It happened before, kid. Two Slayers before me. B ... Buffy, she died. Right up there in that chamber. That Master guy bit her, then left her to drown in that pool of water you were staring at."

My face hits the surface of the water. Cold water, so cold. Everything is cold, even me. I can feel my life seep out of me through a throbbing pain in my neck.

"Angel and the Xan-Man found her and brought her back via CPR. But by that time a new Slayer had already been called. Chick called Kendra. When she died it was my turn."

Something is leaving me, something bright and powerful, but even as it leaves something else is there. Something that comes from below and burns bright, so bright.

"You okay, kid?"

I blink and once again the world around me comes back into focus. Only this time I remember. I remember being in that chamber before. I remember ... oh my God, I remember dying.

"Faith ...," I begin, not sure how to say this. "Did you ever ... I mean, when Buffy was still around and you were both Slayers at the same time ... did you ever share memories or something?"

She gives me a confused look. "Memories? No, I don't think so. We shared dreams once or twice. I felt it when she died the second ... the final time, but memories? No. Why are you asking me all this?"

I shake my head, how am I supposed to explain this to her? Maybe it's something I picked up from Cordelia. Maybe, by sharing that vision she had about Buffy's death, the second death, I also got a package pertaining to her first one? Okay, so the vision wasn't like that, like it was happening to me, but still ...

"I just ... I got a creepy feeling from that pool up there. I just thought ... I don't know what I thought."

Faith doesn't seem convinced, but lets the matter drop for now. I guess we all got more important things to worry about right now then some freaky memories I somehow picked up from a person who died when I was but a toddler.

"Just be ready, kid! You did pretty good with the demons up there, but I have a feeling it's only going to get more fucked up the deeper we go."

I nod. The charge into what remains of Sunnydale was almost surreal to me, as if I was just watching as someone else took charge of my body and made with the fighting moves. I mean, I've only fought one fight in my entire life (as far as I can remember) and that was a training bout against Faith. But up there I was slicing and dicing demons like an old hand. Well, maybe not as old as Angel or Faith, but you know what I mean.

"By the way, kid," Faith interrupts my train of thoughts, "when did you find the time to do that?"

"Do what?"

She motions her flashlight toward my head. "Put those blond streaks in your hair. Just between you and me, blond and black don't really go together that well."

Blond streaks? I pull at my hair, looking at it. How the hell did I end up with blond streaks?

Also, was Faith always taller than I am? I could have sworn we were about the same height when we sparred this morning. Was that really just this morning?

Something very strange is going on here.

TO BE CONTINUED