When I woke up again, I felt multiple Buzzes everywhere around me. It was also very noisy. I recognized the noise as several swords clashing against each other. That's when I sat up, glanced around, and realized that there was something wrong with what I was seeing.

I was seeing double. Or triple. Or quadruple. Or whatever the next one is - quintuple? I blinked a couple of times, but my vision didn't become any clearer. I was sitting on the hard, stone floor of a fair-sized room, most likely somewhere in the cave system, although I had no idea where. All around me were my friends. They were fighting copies of themselves and each other.

Each combatant had his or her trademark sword. Methos, or a copy of Methos, was engaged in a fight against two copies of himself, one copy of me, and one of MacLeod. Amanda fought against a Marc clone and a MacLeod clone or vise versa. Marie, Marc, and MacLeod, or copies of the three of them, had similar combatants.

Even as I categorized each person into one side or the other, the groups broke truces and switched sides. It was clearly every man or woman for him or herself. I had no idea who was who; I felt a Buzz coming from everyone in the room. It was either one huge mirage or five of those Buzzes belonged to my students and friends.

I got to my feet. I no longer held my sword and reached inside my coat. Surprisingly, my fingers found the hilt of my broadsword. I pulled it out and took up a battle stance, not that it ended up mattering. No one challenged me or rushed at me. They didn't even seem to notice me.

A group containing two Marie's, one Marc, and a copy of myself was the closest. As they fought, the Marc clone/original pushed one of the Marie's away from him. She stumbled backwards and into me…

…and continued through me as if I wasn't there.

I stared at the copy of Marie lying half-submerged in my legs. I cursed. This was just wonderful. I was an apparition. Or maybe they were the apparitions. That thought was more comforting than the former.

Marie didn't even seem to realize she'd just stepped through me. She got back onto her feet and rejoined the fight.

I looked around at each of the groups. No one had taken a head yet. None of them had even been mortally stabbed, and not a single one of them appeared to be tiring. I sheathed my sword, fighting the illogical impulse to join in. There wasn't much a non-corporeal Immortal could do for friends that I couldn't distinguish from the enemy.

Or was there? I did know some spells. If any of them could be of any use was another question. Maybe if I changed Amanda's locating spell a little... If it didn't work, no one would know.

May the Gods bless Immortal memory. I closed my eyes and began to recite. "Spirit Guides of the new and old / Your wisdom and guidance has been through these lands forever told."

Now for a little editing.

"Help me find my friends in this unfamiliar place / Guide me to them, they of the Immortal race."

My ears were met with silence.

I opened my eyes to discover all but five of the fighting Immortals had disappeared, and they weren't the five Immortals I had in mind. They were five copies of myself, and each appeared to have noticed me. They turned toward me and slowly began to advance.

I hastily pulled out my broadsword. Two of them attacked at once. It wasn’t often that I had to deal with five opponents at once, and I was a little out of practice. I did my best to block and parry, but a third gave me a flesh wound before I could back away from him. I blocked his next move, barely dodging the fourth's swing at my neck and then barely blocking the fifth's attack.

At least none of them were stabbing me in the back; all of them were fighting me face to face. The bad thing about that was they all wanted to fight at the same time. Everything became a blur as I blocked and parried, blocked and parried. I couldn't even think about what was happening, much less get a breather. I didn't need one, anyway. None of us were tiring, even though we'd been fighting for several minutes, and despite the fact that five copies of myself were fighting the original, neither side was getting the upper hand. I may have started off slowly, but I was quickly remembering how to fight several opponents at once.

This was feeling like something from the Matrix Reloaded. At least no more copies were showing up. Finally, I said, "Enough. Enough!"

Amazingly enough, it worked. My copies backed off a few paces.

"I'm on your side!" I blurted, thinking wildly. I pointed to one of them at random and said, "He's the one we want!"

The copy I'd singled out looked indignant while the others looked uncertain. After a few moments, however, the other four turned and began to close in on their friend.

I stood there with my mouth open, dumbfounded, before I shook myself out of it and looked around for an exit. I spotted one in the closest wall and ran for it. Reaching it, I kept going-

-and ran smack dab into someone on the other side.

I caught my balance but the man I'd run into didn't. He toppled over onto a sandy ground, spraying sand everywhere.

I could no longer hear the clash of steel against steel behind me and turned to see that the entrance was gone; in fact, the stone wall was also missing. Before my eyes was an endless stretch of sand.

I felt heat behind me and turned back around to see that the roof of a hut, several yards away, had caught fire.

The man on the ground before me hastily got back to his feet, ran around me, and continued on his way, away from what I could now see was a burning village. I suddenly realized that the heat I felt wasn't coming from the setting sun behind me, but from the fires. I breathed in and instantly felt dread; among the smell of burning wood was the smell of rotting and burning flesh.

I heard a scream, muffled behind the noise of the flames. I ran around the first hut and into a clearing on the other side. There, in the middle, were a group of dying and dead villagers. They were dressed in clothing from before my time. Only experience kept me from barfing on the spot, although the younger part of me wanted to do nothing else.

What caught my attention even more were the four riders sitting astride horses. It was clear that these four people been the cause of the village's destruction. Two of them chased after fleeing villagers, cutting them down with their blades. A third rider set fire to more huts, while the fourth stood over the pile of villagers in the clearing. His sword, whose tip pointed down toward the villagers, was coated in blood; he'd clearly just impaled one of the villagers on the sword's tip.

He was dressed completely in white and wore a white bone mask.

The rider looked up and across the square at me. I felt my knuckles tighten around my sword. The horseman directed his mount around the bodies and toward me, stopping when he was a few feet away from me. I felt the Buzz as he approached.

I regarded his mask for several minutes. Neither of us said a word. Finally, I held my breath as the rider lifted up his mask. I already knew what I would see. I'd seen that rider before, in the Quickening induced memories I'd received from Samuel, Jake Melville's Immortal lackey. It still came as a shock.

I looked up into the face of my friend of two thousand years and saw a stranger. "Hello, Alex," he said in the tongue of whatever time this was. To my ears, it sounded like Ancient Greek, the oldest human language I knew.

"Who are you?"

His expression turned from cold to malicious. "I am Death of the Horsemen."

Everything clicked. A rush of receded memories from Samuel's Quickening came rushing back. For the first time, I saw the entire story. Death was a member of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The Horsemen rode three thousand years ago, and Methos was one of them. Samuel had been only one out of thousands of their victims.

"No," I denied. I couldn't accept it. I knew that Methos was and never could have been a good guy. I knew that there were parts of Methos' past that gave him nightmares - parts he refused to talk about. But I'd never considered something like this.

"Why?" I had to know.

A wicked grin appeared on his face. "Because I wish it," Death answered with mirth in his voice.

With that, Death turned his mount around and headed off back across the clearing to join his brethren. I stared after him.

Halfway across the clearing, however, Death brought his mount to a halt. He made the horse turn around, then urged the horse into motion. Horse and rider raced for me. My heart pounded in my chest. I couldn’t move. I was glued to the spot. Death raised his blade. As they barred down on me, he swung.

At the last minute, I regained my freedom of motion. I rolled to the side, missing both blade and hooves by inches.

Everything was quiet.

I got back to my feet and looked around. I stood on a sand floor in an empty, stone room.

I stood there, staring wildly around me. A mantra began in my mind: Methos was a Horseman. Methos was Death. Methos was responsible for killing a third of the world’s population three thousand years ago. Methos was Death. Methos was Death.

Methos had lied.

There was only one exit. It was in the far wall. I tightened my grip on my sword and advanced toward it. If Methos was in the next room-the present day Methos, that is-I didn’t know what I would do. It wouldn’t be pleasant.

I couldn’t believe what I had just seen. It made me furious to think that Methos had ever been like that. No, that was only part of it. It made me even more furious that he’d never told me about this. I’d always known that Methos was not a good guy. Sometimes, he’d play the knight in shining armor, but that was usually my role – he’s said so himself. I can actually quote him.

I knew that, long before he met me and long after we had met, he spent most of his time looking out for himself. I, Giles, and Anya - the ones who had grown old and died two millennia ago - somehow managed to get him to change his tune, but we never changed it completely. Regardless of all of that, I never would have suspected him of ever being a mass murderer. The clues had always been right in front of my nose. How easily he could shrug off the possibility of stopping a demon or mortal who had been killing off the inhabitants of an entire village. He’d always made excuses, saying that they were mortals – they’d die eventually anyway, or saying that he’d rather keep his head instead of dying by the hands of a demon. At the end, I’d always convince him to help, only because we were friends – nothing more.

I never considered that the reason for his unconcern for the helpless was because he used to kill them for fun.

Maybe he stopped because he felt disgusted with himself. Assuming he did stop. No, he had to. There was no way I could have been a friend of an unconverted mass murderer.

Damnit! I couldn’t think. I couldn’t think about this. I couldn’t believe that my best friend of two thousand f***ing years had lied to me, had pretended to be something he wasn’t.

The next room beyond the sand-floored room was a stone passageway. It was also very cold; light from the room behind me provided illumination but not warmth. I hurried through it quickly. A door was at the other end of the hall. It was the first door I’d come across in the cave system. For some reason, in a place carved out of stone, the door had been constructed out of wood. I could have cared less. All I cared about was finding Amanda, Marc, and Marie. Then I’d hunt down Methos and get some answers from my so-called friend.

May the gods aid me during whatever came after that.

I reached for the door handle and turned it. As I pushed the door outward, I felt a Buzz.

A second later, I heard a scream.

*****

It sounded like Marie.

I slammed the door open and raised my sword, looking in all directions for the source of the scream. I stuck one foot out the door. When my foot met only air, I hastily pulled it back through the doorway. Looking down, I saw that the floor ended inches from the wall, becoming a cliff that overlooked a canyon at least twenty feet deep.

I could hear a low, dangerous laugh down in the canyon. The laugh didn’t sound human; it was more animalistic…

…like a hyena.

I glanced over the edge. Down below, I saw what I’d hoped I wouldn’t see. Marie had her sword up in front of her, keeping the animals attacking her at bay. By animals, I meant my hyena-possessed self and the other members of my little ‘pack,’ four bullies from high school.

During my sophomore year at Sunnydale High, hyenas possessed four other students and myself. I was the leader. The five of us together ate the school mascot, a pig. Later on, the other four attacked and ate Principle Flutie. Thankfully, I wasn’t with them at the time, but what I did do was just as bad – I had attempted to rape Buffy.

Just as I’d experienced a time from Methos’ past, Marie was living a scene from my past.

The side of the cliff looked climbable. I sheathed my sword and sat with my legs hanging over the cliff. Then I turned and began the slow, careful process of climbing down the rock face. Half-way down, I heard the hyena’s laughs become snarls. I heard one of them whine. Marie must have cut one of them.

I dropped the rest of the way down and turned around, taking out my sword. I saw that one of the girl hyenas had been harmed. The other members of the pack looked furious.

I ran. My hyena self posed to strike. He leapt just as I reached him. I swung my blade.

My hyena self fell to the ground, clutching his throat. The other hyena-possessed humans crowded around him, checking to see if he was all right. I grabbed Marie’s arm and ran.

A second wooden door was in the opposite rock face. We raced for it, threw it open, and slammed it shut behind us.

We stood in another stone passageway. An open doorway stone at the end, and I could see what appeared to be a marble floor beyond it.

Marie pulled her arm away. When I looked at her, she was staring at me. "What the hell was that?" she asked me.

"That’s me when I was possessed by a hyena," I answered. "I wish you didn’t see that. I wasn’t a very nice person."

"A hyena? Is that what that was?" She was trembling. She was afraid of me. "S-so what he said wasn’t true?"

"What did he say?" I asked, dreading the answer. The things I told Buffy when the hyena possessed me…

A hyena laugh penetrated through the door. "You’re a weak little girl, Marie de Champagne," my hyena self called through the door. "You were a terrible student. I can't believe how long it took you to learn how to hold a sword, let alone swing it properly!"

Marie was stunned by the words. "It’s not true," I assured her.

The pack laughed. I ignored them as best as I could and focused my attention on my student. "Marie, you know I wouldn’t say things like that."

Marie had her sword half raised as she backed away from me. "Je le connais," she assured me. I know that. She continued, "He said you never told me about any of this because you knew I wouldn't be able to deal," she told me. "You may have never voiced that, Alex, but I know you felt it. That…thing didn't make up all of those insults."

"And you're right. I can’t handle this. Yesterday I was worried about editing hours of film of a sitcom episode down to twenty minutes. Now I’m terrified that the boogey monster will get me. I just…need some time."

With that, she turned and ran through a doorway and out of sight.

"Marie, wait!" I ran after her.

I raced after her down the corridor and into the marble room.

I entered a marble hall. Rows of tall columns stretched like giants from the floor to a ceiling cast in shadow. Only the center isle was completely visible; to the right and to the left, columns merged with shadow, making the room feel as big as the Grand Canyon.

I could hear Marie’s running footsteps, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. "Marie!" I called, but she didn’t answer. Eventually, I felt her Buzz fade away, making me panic. I thought, desperately, about the path I should take. I remembered walking down rooms like these, long ago; their purpose had been to make a person feel small and insignificant before entering the temple of one of the Greek gods. There should be only two doors: the one I came through, and one on the opposite end of the hall. The only places for Marie to go, if this room was true to form, was back through the doorway behind me, or through the door at the opposite end of the long hall. I peered down the center isle; the far wall was barely visible and appeared to be only a dot of white.

I hurried down the hall. My footsteps echoed off every surface, louder to my ears than Marie’s had been.

Half way down the hall, I felt a Buzz. I slowed.

Suddenly, a man’s shout echoed everywhere around me. I raised my sword and looked everywhere. Marc came flying out of the shadows on the right. He soared past me, stopping only when he collided with a column on the left.

I rushed over to him. Once again, as I had been with Marie, I was certain that this was really Marc and not an illusion or memory of him.

I wasn’t going to leave Marc behind in pursuit of Marie. Hopefully, I’d catch up with her later. No, I definitely would, but it would have to wait until Marc had revived. He had died on impact. I pulled him away from the column and checked him all over for anything that would impede his healing process. Several shards of marble from the column were stuck in his back, but it wouldn’t keep him from healing; they would come out without my assistance.

Marc woke up a few minutes later. He gasped, and his body spasmed, as per usual. Then he started screaming again.

He rolled about on the floor, obviously in great pain. I knew it couldn’t be the shards; they’d already come out. It had to be related to whoever’s memory Marc witnessed, which scared the hell out of me. Who’s memory – Marie’s, Amanda’s, or Duncan’s – had caused this?

I grabbed a hold of his arm. Instantly, he stilled. "Marc," I said, hoping to bring him back to reality…if this place could be called reality.

Marc blinked, gasping. He saw me. "Alex."

"What happened?"

I helped him sit up as he answered, "It was awful. I saw MacLeod take the head of an evil Immortal, only the Quickening didn’t go to him. He was closer, but it still went to me."

He rubbed his eyes. Quickening lightening flashed across the back of his hand.

"It was like nothing I’d ever felt before. It felt like it was taking me over, making me…something I didn’t like. I tried to fight, but every time I resisted, it would increase its attack and make it worse than before."

I knew exactly what he was talking about. "It was a Dark Quickening."

Shit. Marc was almost taken over by a Dark Quickening from MacLeod’s past. Forget about Methos. MacLeod was going to get his ass kicked the next time I saw him.

"It’s okay. It was just a memory – it didn’t affect you."

I helped Marc get to his feet. He was pretty weak after a Quickening that never really happened. Marc had lost his sword during the episode, but he wasn’t really keen on going back into the shadows to retrieve it, nor was he able-he could barely stand. I had no idea where to search for the missing sword, and I wanted to try to catch up with Marie. Marc slung an arm over my shoulders. I supported him with my left arm and held on tight to my sword with the other, in case we ran into something unpleasant. Together, we started off down the hall toward that distant wall.

It took us the better part of an hour to reach the end of the hall. By that time, Marc had regained his feet and was walking without aid. In the center of the marble wall at the far end was an open doorway. It led into a second marble room. From what I could see of the next room, it looked remarkably unlike any Greek temple I’d ever been inside.

I walked in first, holding up my sword, with Marc bringing up the rear. The room was oval-shaped, like a football field. There were drains spaced evenly about every fifteen feet along the black-and-white checked marble floor. Doors were also spaced evenly along the oval-shaped wall encircling the room; I counted at least twenty. We had stepped through one of the doors along the one of the two curves. Looking up, I could see a domed ceiling stretching up a hundred feet or more. Light from unseen windows high up in the dome provided illumination.

"I don’t like this," Marc commented. "This reminds me of a stadium of some sort."

"Like a coliseum," I added.

Marc’s eyes widened. "Almost like a Roman sort of coliseum?"

"Almost."

Marc cursed, long and hard, in Italian, Greek, Egyptian, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and finally English. "What the hell is all of this?" he finally asked. "We’ve been led on some wild goose chase for what?" He looked up and yelled to the ceiling, "Why not just come out and face us? Cowards!"

As if answering his challenge, we felt several Buzzes. Marie ran into sight on the east side of the room. Amanda appeared in mid-flip from a doorway directly across from Marie. She completed a few more back flips away from whatever was behind her before she realized the scenery had changed.

Duncan appeared from a doorway several yards down from her. His hair had fallen out of his barrette. His clothes were torn considerably, and half-healed gashes lay beneath them. His sword was coated in blood.

The last of our little group to appear was Methos. He came, walking cautiously, out of a doorway at the far end, all the way across the atrium from where I stood.

The six of us stood there, staring at each other, for a long time. I glared first at MacLeod; it had been his memory, after all, which had harmed Marc. My gaze landed on Marie next. She looked away, but not before I saw the fear mixed in with a little betrayal and anger in her eyes. Amanda, I noticed, had glued her gaze on Marc and wouldn't budge. Marc didn't seem to notice; his own gaze was fixed, wide eyed, on the highlander. Methos and I were the only ones that were taking in the entire scene. Amanda's, Marc's, and MacLeod's gazes were all fixed on a specific person, and Marie kept her gaze on me whenever she thought I wasn't looking.

Suddenly, my gaze met the old man's.

I set my expression into stone. He was puzzled by my expression, I could tell. I waited. Surely he'd figured out already that each of us had experienced a scene from one of the others' past. Surely he understood that I was the only one looking at him, and that I had to be the one to see something from his past.

His eyes widened with suddenly understanding and fear. He gave me a hopeful, yet resigned look. I nodded back, allowing anger to settle onto my features.

That's right, Death. I now know what you were once, what you'd kept a secret from me for two thousand years. How much more time did you hope would pass before I found out?

I tightened my grip on my pommel before taking a step forward. I'd given him one chance to explain himself, but only one.

To my left, I saw, on the edge of my vision, Amanda take a threatening step toward Marc.

Suddenly, a breeze rushed through the atrium, circling around the large oval room hurriedly. As the wind whipped past my ears, I thought I heard a whispered word being carried on the breeze. "Milaali…"

Milaali was the Hilliacticanese word for 'Increase.' Increase what? I wondered. A second later, I found out.

Suddenly, I felt my hatred turn into a rage that took complete control over me. I couldn't think. I just acted. Before I registered it, I had raced across the atrium to stand before Methos and immediately swung at his head.

Methos blocked, easily and swiftly, with his own sword. I attacked again without pause and he ducked.

I wanted him dead. I couldn't think clearly anymore, but I knew I wanted that. It was all I did want. I was filled with a blind rage I hadn't been feeling seconds before, and I knew I was going to have his head, one way or another.

I swung at his legs in an attempt to make him drop to his knees. He blocked the swing. Methos, it seemed, had stopped thinking as well and was completely intent on his survival, something he'd always been good at. Neither of us said a word.

The others were no less affected. I have no memory of what happened to them. I was told later that Marc, suddenly intent on a sword fight with MacLeod, had started across the room toward the highlander, only to be intercepted by Amanda. Amanda, consumed by the same rage that had taken hold of me, had started attacking him, aiming for his neck with her broadsword, and he'd had no choice but to block and parry. His complete attention wasn't in the fight, unfortunately; he kept looking at MacLeod, keeping him in Marc's sight as much as possible.

MacLeod, after witnessing a tragic moment in Marie's Pre-Immortal life, had suddenly been overcome with concern for Marie's welfare. He ran across the floor to her side, barely missing a wayward swing of Amanda's sword that he barely registered.

I was too intent on killing Methos that I wasn't aware of any of that. I kept attacking, but Methos blocked every swing. I pulled back in frustration. I couldn't find a weakness in his defense. Sword fighting was no longer an option. I had only one option left.

If I had been thinking properly, I would never have considered doing what I did next. However, I wasn't thinking properly. I wasn't thinking at all.

I wasn't a warlock, or a wizard, or even a sorcerer. I didn't know spells for every instance of my every day life. I knew only a few spells, and these were spells I'd committed to memory to use only in the last resort, never before, and most times not even then. There were spells I knew that had been lost to mortals for centuries, and others that the Watcher's Council guarded from the rest of the world at all costs.

I didn't pick the most powerful one, thank god, nor did I pick the least powerful of the spells I knew. The one I picked was somewhere in the middle, not that it was any better. Methos had no chance. Then again, neither did anyone else for five miles around, once the spell would be complete.

I didn't care. All I wanted was Methos dead, and I would accomplish that however possible.

I felt a wind gather around me as I took in a deep breath, calling on the aid of the elements around me. "Great and Powerful Are Ye, Lightening and Thunder, Fire and Wind; I Summon Ye to my Aid!"

The light pouring through the dome grew dim and gray, making everything in the atrium hard to see. Outside, lightening flashed. A wind crew within the atrium, slowly at first before picking up speed to become a whirlwind.

Amanda ceased her attack on Marc in mid swing; she had no choice. The wind was too strong to continue her attack on him. She, Marc, MacLeod, and Marie turned to watch, eyes wide.

A circle of fire burst up around Methos. Buffeted by the wind, I watched Methos fall to his knees, half obscured by the hot flames and the smoke.

I raised my arms, shouting to the high ceiling, "Protect me from mine Enemies; Bring down Destruction upon-"

The windstorm my spell had begun carried another whispered, Hilliacticanese word. It brushed by my ears and everyone else's ears in turn: "… Piillaalan …" It was the word for Decrease.

Instantly, I felt my head clearing as the rage receded. I was still angry with Methos but I wasn't seeing red.

My eyes widened as I finally registered the scene before me. What the hell did I think I was doing? I'd started the Eradicating Spell, a spell powerful enough to incinerate us all. I froze, petrified.

"Stop!"

It was Marie’s voice. It effectively broke through my shock, making me jerk. The spell broke as I stumbled to my knees. The wind, after blowing out the fire surrounding Methos, dissipated. The skies cleared and the lightening stopped flashing.

Everything was suddenly quiet. I felt drained, as drained as I was after Jake Melville tried to suck my Quickening out of me. Gasping for breath, I looked over at Methos. He was getting onto his feet. I stared at him. He stared back.

Oh, gods. What had I done?