Bring Me To Life – A Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel Crossover Event
Part 56
The Life, Death and Tragic Rebirth of Cassandra Rayne
Ireland, the west coast - The Cliffs of Moher
1,000 Years Ago
Then
As the wind howled, the rain poured and the thunder crackled in the darkened noon skies above them, Cassandra Rayne gritted her teeth as she held Hope's Dagger, burning bright as daylight in her armored hand, using all the supernatural strength the Powers had blessed her with to push back against the menacing Avatar of The Enemy.
A monstrous creature nearly nine feet tall, more beast than anything else. Horned, red-eyed and with an animal-like, fur-coated body and a pig-like snout that resembled that of the legendary minotaur, the creature brought down its flaming sword crashing upon her blade, its inhuman strength pushing the beautiful Champion of The Powers to her limits.
Yet as Cassandra Rayne had done over countless battles, against endless foes, she did what she best…find farther limits for her to push to.
"Foolish wench!" snarled the creature in its bestial voice. "Dost thou truly believe thou can best me? I am the embodiment of darkness! I am That Which Cannot Be Named! The Thing Which The Darkness Fears!"
Through blood-caked teeth and a bruised left cheek, through aching back and broken ribs, Cassandra snorted, unimpressed as she blocked and parried its sword blows. "I know what lies within you, monster! You may not fall easily…but I vow that on my life, on the life of all that I love, in the name of all that is good and sacred, YOU WILL FALL!"
Letting out a bellowing war cry, she brought her enchanted weapon swinging up in a deadly arc at its head, and the creature only barely managed to get its blade up to prevent a sure decapitation. Using her momentum, Cassandra lifted up her leg and delivered a punishing Eastern-based kick to its stomach, knocking it backwards as she tried to press her advantage.
She had spent months preparing for this moment.
Fasting, praying, meditating, training. In her time as a warrior, a soldier of light, a Champion since the age of 15, Cassandra had vanquished hundreds of monsters. Vampires, demons, fallen beasts from the edges of every man's nightmares…she had faced them and defeated them all. Just as she was trained to do, like her father, and his father before him. It was in the blood, the tradition of the Rayne family. They were soldiers of light, servants of good, willing to risk all to protect those who cannot protect themselves. It was their way. It was their family motto.
Servire Cum Honore, Mori Cum Gloria.
To Serve with Honor, To Die With Glory.
Yet the creature before her was different from the hundreds of beasts and monsters she had sent back into the pits of Hell. This creature…WAS Hell.
It was none other than The First Evil.
Or its embodiment.
Acolytes of The First had set into action months ago a plan to bring the The Enemy In The Darkness into flesh, to overrun this world. Villages across Europe were sacked. Hundreds killed, sacrificed in its name. And now, it had managed to tether itself, though only temporarily, to this world through the body of this foul creature, its Avatar, and sought to open the mouth of Hell but a few feet from them through an enchantment by its priests, the Harbingers of Death.
If it succeeded, the time of Man on Earth would end in brutal and destructive death.
And the Age of the Turok-Han, the Age of Darkness, would once again descend upon this world.
Forever.
And that was something Cassandra could not allow to happen.
She had spent months gathering what allies she could, tracking down and killing The First's minions in every hole she could find them. Waging battles with her army against its own.
This life, this harsh, brutal life, was not one she would have chosen for herself. In another life, she would have loved to have spent her days in the countryside, somewhere by the sea, adoring her children with the man she loved.
Yet the man she loved, contrary to what others might have thought, was ironically not her husband Lars.
She had come to care for Lars, respect him, trust him and admire him, and he was a wonderful father to their three beloved children. Yet, she knew in her heart with some guilt, the man she had married, was arranged to marry since birth, was not the one who held her heart, who owned the other half of her soul.
That honor belonged to the man she felt watching her in the shadows.
A man…a half-demon…whose true name she barely knew. (And, according to him, was impossible to pronounce unless she was part-dolphin.)
A man the world only knew in legend, and only by one name: The Whistler.
In the course of her battles, they had met.
He was...a strange man. Enigmatic. Mysterious. An odd, sometimes ill-timed sense of humor.
He flustered her. Vexed her. Angered her. Pushed and needled her, and sometimes, she wanted to take her metal helmet and smack him with it.
Yet…she loved him dearly. With all of her heart.
He was the only one on Earth she trusted, loved and admired as her true equal.
He was tender. He was wise. He was kind. He was good. And brave.
And she loved him.
Loved him in a way she never thought she knew how to. And she knew by the way his eyes would twinkle at her, the soft way he would say her name, the tenderness of his touch in the times they had made passionate love, that he felt the same way.
Yet…their love could never be.
Duties, both his and hers, separated them. He was bound in servitude to The Powers, a duty he would never shirk. And aside from her same duties serving them as their Champion, she had been arranged to Lars since birth, to be married to him once she turned 21, as was the way of her clan.
It broke her heart to end it with him. She had often cried herself to sleep over it, her soul aching in agony at being separated from her soulmate.
But she knew there was no other way. Their fates could bring them together only so close…but yet still too far apart.
So she savored the little time they had together, such as the weeks they had spent tracking down the high priests of The First, slaughtering them, finding out what they could of its plans. It all led her to this: a final showdown on the Cliffs of Moher, with the fate of the world at stake.
"You tire, meddlesome whore. I can feel it. I can SMELL it!" the creature snarled, its laugh a deep rumble in its chest as it swung its burning sword down so hard at her, Cassandra barely dodging it, that it charred and shattered the stone beneath them. "Even you cannot keep this up forever, Cassandra Rayne. You are merely human. Weak flesh, flawed blood…and I am so much more than mere flesh and blood now. I am Fear. I am Death. I AM POWER."
Gritting her teeth and blinking to get the rain water out of her eyes, Cassandra scowled at The Enemy. "And you are…talking too damn much!" she angrily snapped as she swiped Hope's Dagger up hard at the monster, slicing a nasty cut on its torso that caused it to growl in anger and pain. Cassandra lashed out her leg, kicking it away.
With every blow, she could feel Whistler's concern, his worry, his love for her through their connection, their bond. She used his love as her strength, used it to fuel her fury, her relentless attacks. Unfortunately, this was one battle where her beloved Whistler could not help her. She knew the rules. He was but a messenger. Sworn by The Powers That Be themselves to maintain the balance in this world, this universe. By their creed, he could not interfere, no matter how much he wanted to. And she knew how much he wanted to.
This was a battle the mighty Cassandra Rayne, Champion of the Powers That Be, now had to fight alone.
Her other ally and dear friend Catherine Neill, a fiery red-haired Slayer from Ireland, lay dead not a few feet from her, felled by this creature as she jumped in the path of a mortal sword blow to the chest meant to slay Cassandra herself. Tears stung Cassandra's eyes as she spotted the bleeding, broken corpse of her brave and beautiful friend, yet she used that to fuel her rage. Every drop of love, every drop of hate, every ounce of rage and fury and pain and loss and heartache she channeled and made it her weapon, made it her power.
And using that power, Cassandra pushed and pushed and pushed with her blade, beating the monster back towards the cliffs, until she saw her opening. It was getting tired. She could see the creature straining, struggling to contain the power within it. The fact that Cassandra was a skilled opponent and was wielding the powerful and legendary sword Hope's Dagger, known to Rayne's people as the Sword of Destiny, only further exacerbated the stress and strain on the monster's body. For all its boasts of transcending flesh, even this fearsome Avatar was not a strong enough vessel to maintain the pure darkness and raw power of The First Evil. It got slower, though just a fraction slower, and its blows weaker, yet only a fraction weaker. But in a fight to the death, fractions, Cassandra knew, could make all the difference. And she intended to make those fractions spell disaster for The Enemy.
Quickly and brutally, Cassandra batted its sword hard to the left, knocking it off balance. Then crashed Hope's Dagger hard against the flaming sword again pushing it to the right. The creature stumbled and flailed, its hoofed feet staggering at the force of her blows.
"Do it, Cassandra! NOW!" Whistler shouted.
Screaming in fury, Cassandra leapt up and brought her legendary, shimmering sword Hope's Dagger slicing through the creature's torso with all her might.
Like a hot knife through butter, the enchanted blade cleaved meat from bone, foul black blood spurting up from The Avatar of The First's body. The creature bellowed in agony and rage, dropping its fire-bathed sword clattering to the ground. It staggered one way, then another way, its eyes wide in disbelief at the mortal blow it received.
Smiling in grim satisfaction, Cassandra sprinted towards the creature, swiping up hard yet again as her sword sliced the other way into its torso, leaving a bloodied, deep and gruesome 'X'-shaped wound in its chest. Roaring in agony again, the creature looked upwards, groaned and lurched backwards like a falling tree log to the cliffs below.
Its body landed with a sickening thud, broken and bleeding as the rain poured down around them on this cold winter's noon.
Panting in heavy breaths, Cassandra fell to her knees, tears of victory, of sorrow, of the significance of the moment, streaming down her face. She let the moment soak in. She had lost friends to this unholy evil. Dear friends. Loved ones.
Yet…it was over.
At long last…she could rest.
Whistler was beside her before she even knew. As he knelt down to face her, she looked at his kind, handsome face, smiling proudly at her, and she lost all her composure.
She pressed her lips to his in a deep and loving kiss, marriage and vows and duties be damned.
Let me have this, she pleaded silently to the universe, to the Powers themselves as she kissed the man she loved deeply, with as much love and passion as was in her soul. Just for a moment…please just let me have this…
Whistler kissed her back just as fiercely. He knew it was against the rules. He knew The Powers could have his head. But he didn't care. In all of his centuries and eons and ages, he had never met anyone like Cassandra Rayne. He had never met a woman so beautiful, so brave, so fierce and determined yet so kind and loving and passionate. And funny. God, how he loved how funny she could be when she wanted to be. It made even his sometimes-cynical heart thaw.
Breaking apart, he gently stroked her hair. "You did it, Cassandra."
She sniffled, nodding as her eyes were still wet from tears and rain. "My love…I…I'm just so tired," she sighed. "Tell me we've won. Tell me it's over."
He nodded, smiling wanly. "It's over. The First Evil has been vanquished."
Their gazes followed the trail to the body of Catherine Neill. A fallen Slayer. Their fallen friend. Her grey metal armor was smoldering in the center where the First's avatar had driven its sword into her brave heart. Her red hair was strewn about her, her beautiful green eyes, as full of life as the hills of her village in Ireland, now wide and blank in death.
Cassandra's eyes welled up with tears again, mourning the loss of one of her dearest friends. Beautiful, spirited, adventurous and mischievous Catherine, her beloved friend. An actual princess of royal blood from the Ui Neill dynasty, Catherine was only 18 to Cassandra's 24. They were years apart, yet brought together by duty and battle. Through the duty of protecting the world and innocents from the evils in the dark. She was one of the few people who could understand Cassandra's pain, her burden, for she shared the same pain, doubled by her duties as a princess and her responsibilities as The Slayer. She shared the same burden.
And now she was gone.
Never again to laugh with Cassandra. To talk with her, share laughter and tears with, to fight side-by-side with her. To down pints of ale at a tavern and laugh and sing in a rare moment of calm before they had to chase down yet another monster.
She was just gone…like the Slayers before her.
Cassandra and Whistler knelt over her body, Cassandra's eyes welling with tears while pressing a tender kiss to the already cooling forehead of her friend. She uttered a quiet prayer in Gaelic, the language of Catherine's forefathers, and prayed that her soul would find peace, that she would be welcome in the halls of her ancestors in the afterlife.
"Rest well, Catherine of House Ui Neill, daughter of Cillian, princess of the Ui Neill dynasty," Cassandra whispered through her tears as she reverently closed Catherine's eyes. "May you find the peace in death that was denied to you in life. Safe journey, my sister. Until the day we meet again."
Whistler held her hand, squeezed it in comfort. "She died a warrior, Cassie. She died saving you. Saving the world. She would have wanted it that way."
Yet his tender words brought Cassandra no solace as she stroked the hair of her fallen friend.
"Oh, God…poor Drogyn," she muttered in realization, another round of tears coming down her face. "He'll be devastated."
Whistler nodded sadly. One of their newer compatriots in this mission, a young new member of the Brotherhood of the Chosen named Drogyn, had grown quite enamored with Catherine in the months they had spent tracking down The First and its acolytes. Whistler had caught them sneaking a kiss once or twice in the middle of the night when the four of them had set up camp to rest. He had half a mind to scold Drogyn about that, but decided against it. They had more pressing matters at hand.
Besides, he decided, Drogyn would learn soon enough that women like Cassandra and Catherine, chosen for greatness, were easy to fall for, and hard to get over when the reality of duty and destiny set in.
A loud, inhuman groan interrupted their solemn respects to the dead. Alert, Cassandra grabbed her sacred sword, the mighty Hope's Dagger, and sprinted over to the cliff, Whistler not far behind her.
To her consternation and anger, the Avatar of The First, the creature she had seemingly vanquished, was still alive. Barely alive, most assuredly on Death's door, yet alive still.
Catherine, dear, sweet Catherine is dead…and this scum yet lives, Cassandra angrily thought, clenching her sword harder.
Whistler eyed the monster warily. "Not to criticize your fighting abilities, Cassie," he said cautiously. "But next time? I'd go for the head."
She threw Whistler an annoyed glance. "Whistler? Not helping," she gritted out.
It glared at her through baleful red eyes, staring at her with a look of pure hatred it sent shivers down her spine. "You…think you've…won?" it coughed, trying to laugh even though its own blood was spilling out of its mouth. "Foolish…girl…I can…never…be…defeated…I have…eternities…to act…eons…to plan…this is…but…a setback…I'll…be back…long after…you're dead…long after…your line is…ended…you are…but mortal…and I…am…forever."
Anger lit up Cassandra's blue irises as she seethed, shook in fury while staring down at the body of her enemy. The Enemy. The one who had taken so much from her. The one who killed her friend. The one who threatened her world, and everyone she loved.
"Cassandra, finish it," Whistler urged her. "Don't let it keep talking, just finish the bastard!"
"I curse you…Cassandra…Rayne…I will…be…avenged…You…will never…be…safe…" the Avatar vowed through its blood-filled coughs and breaths, and in its eyes, she could see the black hatred, the unholy fury of The First Evil. "And neither will…anyone…you…love…one by one, Cassandra…Rayne…they will all…die…by my followers'...hands…your...half-breed...lover…your…cuckolded…husband…even…your bastard…children…and all…in your…wretched…bloodline…they…will…all…die…screaming…" It snarled at her with the blackest loathing and venom in its last few dying breaths. "JUST LIKE YOUR WHORE FRIEND THE SLAYER! HAHAHAHAHA!"
That did it.
Letting out a fearsome, grief-filled war cry, Cassandra leapt down, her sword raised over her head, aiming for the monster's neck. Aiming to put this repulsive evil out of its misery forever.
Out of the corner of his eye, Whistler saw the Avatar of The First's left hand start to glow a deep, deadly red, crackling with energy.
"Cassandra, NO! NOO!" he shouted in warning at the woman he loved.
Too late.
With whatever life force it had left, The Avatar of The First raised its hand and blasted a full, destructive beam of dark crimson energy at the Champion.
Cassandra felt the heat searing through her, felt its energy ripping her apart.
Piece by piece.
Atom by atom. Whistler—!
She screamed in pain.
Her life flashed before her eyes as her world was blasted away…
"CASSANDRA!" Whistler screamed in agony, tears springing to his eyes, feeling the heat himself as the beam erupted and nearly took the cliff down itself.
And The Avatar of The First laughed.
It cackled.
It howled in pyrrhic victory…
"ENOUGH!"
BOOM!
Until the ground exploded under it, thanks to the earth-shattering force of a mystical warhammer.
A warhammer wielded by a tear-streaked, grief-stricken Drogyn.
The cliff's ground caved and buckled, and finally collapsed. Letting out a roar of fear and anger, the Avatar of The First Evil let out a dying scream as its mortally wounded body collapsed into the sea below, rock and boulders raining down on it as the water soon pooled black with its blood.
Now…it was truly over.
But at a terrible cost.
With tears in his eyes, clutching his warhammer so tightly it cut into his palms, Drogyn took no solace in the victory, standing over the cliff and staring numbly into the sea. His beloved Catherine…and now his dear friend Cassandra…
Gone.
They were just…gone. Grief ripped and tore through his soul.
Not far from him, Whistler knelt on what was left of the cliff's ground. Tears flowed down his face, his heart broken into a million pieces.
No.
Not Cassandra.
Not his sweet, brave, beautiful Cassandra.
Not this.
Anything but this.
Never this.
Never her.
Please, by the Powers, don't take her.
PLEASE, NOT HER! TAKE ME, BUT PLEASE NOT HER! PLEASE!
Whistler touched the scorched ground where her sword fell.
There was no body left of her for Whistler to grieve.
No piece of her left to hold, to pray for, to even bury. Her weapon, Hope's Dagger, was all that remained of the mighty Cassandra Rayne, Champion of the Powers That Be.
Friend. Mother. Wife. Lover. Warrior. Protector.
Champion.
Beloved.
His trembling hands reached for the blade, reverently grasping its hilt, its blade. It was razor sharp and its mere touch was enough to cut him, leaving his palms nicked with bleeding cuts.
He didn't care.
He no longer cared about anything.
He couldn't feel anything.
They may have saved mankind on this day, but as far as Whistler was concerned…the world had ended.
His world, at least.
He closed his eyes tightly, wept uncontrollably as he let the tears fall down his face, mourning her.
Remembering her.
Loving her.
Cassandra…
"Whistler?"
His eyes popped open.
Her voice…what cruel trick was this?
Had he gone mad?
Or had the Powers decided to punish him, taunt him in his lowest moment for daring to break their sacred rules?
"Whistler, is that you?"
Stunned almost speechless, Whistler held the blade up closer to his face. It couldn't be…it can't be…
He stared in disbelief at the blade.
"C…Cassandra?" he whispered, his mind unable to process what was happening.
The sword pulsated and glowed in a way that it never had before, even when he saw Cassandra wield it. Like it had a heartbeat.
Like it was…alive.
It spoke again. It was her. Whistler had no idea how, but it was her.
Cassandra.
Her voice, once so strong and sure, confident, was now a frightened, scared hush.
"Whistler…my love…I'm…cold. Why am I so…cold?"
To Be Continued…
Next: Buffy struggles with getting her friends and allies to trust her as the End of Days draws near; The First Evil makes yet another move to rock Sunnydale to its core. And as Angel and his mysterious new weapon connect with each other, he finds himself facing his first real test at the hands of the First Evil's minions. Can Angel survive?
A/N: I felt it necessary to get in the backstory of Cassandra Rayne.
I was just going to make it a few short graphs, but then my imagination started running wild; who is this mysterious women in Angel's sword? What was she like? What did she love? Who did she love? What did she dream about? What did she want out of life? And just how exactly did she end up trapped in that sword? So I decided to give her a stand-alone origin chapter. She's going to play a key part the rest of the way in this story. She's more than just a disembodied voice for a deadly magical weapon that is crucial in saving all of reality. She was a person once. A warrior, and a great one (and a sexy one, lol).
Like Angel and Buffy, she's lived and loved (and died and came back), she's suffered, bled and paid the price of fighting 'The Good Fight'. And much like Buffy and Angel, she also knows what it's like to taste the fruit of forbidden, star-crossed love. So her perspective on things will be pretty unique as our favorite star-crossed warriors struggle with saving the world and the Multiverse as we know it.
And as for what that means for Whistler…well, let's just say he's got some explaining to do and quite a story to tell once his tragic connection with Cassandra is revealed to our heroes.
The inspiration behind Cassandra Rayne comes from her appearances in the Buffy The Vampire Slayer video game and novel tie-in "Chaos Bleeds".
More to come soon! Please read and review!
Later!
Best,
Jean-theGuardian
