Galway, 1753 -- On his last day as a mortal human, the man who will become
Angelus encounters a beautiful, blonde woman on the streets at night. Her name is
Darla, and she seduces him closer to her. She sinks her fangs into his neck, then
uses her nails to make an incision on her chest, just above her breasts.
Immediately, Darla pulls the man's mouth onto her bleeding cut, turning the man
into a demon of the night.
Sunnydale, Present -- Angel watches Buffy from afar as she battles a pair of
vampires. She orders one of them to take a message to Angel, saying that she's
taking the offensive. The vampire doesn't comply, so Buffy finishes him off. The
next day, Giles pays a visit to the museum, where a newly-discovered stone
artifact has been discovered. It is a few feet taller than Giles, and it contains some
form of text on the side. Giles asks the man in charge, Doug Perren, if they
attempted to open it yet, but Doug didn't notice the crack running down the side of
the stone until Giles pointed it out. Giles then asks Doug to refrain from opening it
until he can decipher the text. At school, Buffy declares to her friends for the
umpteenth time that she's ready to face Angel, despite the fact that final exams
are approaching. Willow offers to tutor Buffy in chemistry during one of their free
periods.
London, 1860 -- Before she became a demon, Drusilla was a young Catholic
woman who only wanted to follow the right path in life. She enters a church and
steps into the confessional booth, failing to notice one of the priest's arms reaching
out in desperation before being pulled back in. Drusilla does not realize that
Angelus has just murdered the priest and is now acting in his place behind the
confessional screen. After Drusilla tells him of her problem with her visions of the
future, Angelus torments her by claiming that she is a child of the devil. Drusilla
does not want this to be true, and pleads for help. Finally, Angelus lets her go with
a request for Hail Mary's and an act of contrition.
Sunnydale, Present -- Drusilla, Spike, and Angelus read about the museum's new
artifact in the newspaper. Angelus knows what it is immediately. Back in
Sunnydale High, Buffy hopelessly tries to solve a chemistry problem when she
accidentally drops her pencil. It rolls off into the desk and falls on the floor, right
next to Ms. Calendar's disk which has remained their ever since the night of her
murder. Buffy pulls the disk out and hands it to Willow, and pops it into the disk
drive to check out its contents. What they find is Jenny's final project: the curse for
the restoration of Angel's soul. Meanwhile, Dru, Angel, and several other vamps go
to the museum to retrieve the stone, killing Doug Perren in the process.
Rumanian Woods, 1898 -- The dead body of a gypsy girl lays stretched out on the
ground next to a fire, while an elder gypsy woman chants the curse of restoration.
Glowing beneath her is an Orb of Thesulah. While she chants the curse, Angelus
flees through the woods, trying to escape the scene of the crime, for he is the one
responsible for the girl's death. The elder woman completes the curse, and
Angelus is stopped in his tracks. He falls to his knees, and his eyes glow as his
soul returns to his body for the first time in over a century. A gypsy man steps out
of the woods and explains to Angel that he is being punished for the countless
murders he has committed.
Sunnydale, Present -- Buffy and Willow show Giles a printout of the restoration
curse. Giles claims that the curse would require a great knowledge of the black
arts, and Willow feels that she's up to the challenge. While everyone talks of
Angel's salvation, only Xander is upset, for he feels that Angel must pay for his
murders with his life. Xander gets into an argument with Giles over Jenny's last
wish before telling Buffy that she's willing to forget all about the murders in order to
get her beloved Angel back. Elsewhere, Angel tells Spike the story of a demon
named Acathla. This demon possesses the power to literally swallow the Earth
into Hell, but he was stopped by a knight centuries ago. His body turned to stone
with the sword still embedded in it, then was concealed in the stone tomb and
buried deep beneath the ground. With that, two vampires open the tomb, revealing
the body of Acathla inside. Only someone worthy can remove the sword from
Acathla's body, freeing him to reign terror on the world. Later that night, Buffy finds
the claddagh ring that Angel gave to her before he lost his soul. She goes outside
for a walk and encounters Kendra, who has returned to take care of another dark
force in Sunnydale. At the library, Kendra shows them a valuable weapon that she
brought with her. It is a sword that was blessed by the same knight who stopped
Acathla. If Angel succeeds in reviving the demon, it may be their only chance to
stop it. Buffy asks Willow to perform the curse as soon as possible, but they need
an Orb of Thesulah first. Luckily, Giles already has one in his office.
Manhattan, 1996 -- Angel stumbles through the streets of Manhattan, living like a
bum ever since he regained his soul. He is approached by another demon named
Whistler who say's he too is on the good side. Whistler offers Angel a chance to
pick himself up from this foul life and become someone important in the world. But
first, Angel has to see something before he can make his decision.
Los Angeles, 1996 -- A car with windows painted black parks outside of Hemery
High, and Angel rolls the window down just enough to see what he came there for:
the Chosen One. He observes Buffy's first meeting with a Watcher, then follows
her to the cemetery where she first learns the truth about vampires and her destiny
in life. Angel also follows Buffy to her home, where her mother is upset because
Buffy got home late. Buffy goes to the bathroom and listens to her parents arguing
with each other. Having seen enough, Angel asks Whistler to help him to a better
life, teach him to become somebody.
Sunnydale, Present -- A human sacrifice is brought before Angelus, who promptly
feeds on his blood, making sure to spread some on the palm of his right hand.
Angelus then approaches the body of Acathla, reciting the incantations for the
ritual of his revival. Angelus grabs the sword and pulls it with all his might, but he
fails. Spike is amused at Angelus's failure, and Dru is very upset. Angelus then
swears that they will turn to an old friend, and then succeed.
The next day, Buffy and the others take one of their final exams, unaware that a
concealed vampire is walking down the hallway toward their classroom. The
vampire steps into the room, and smoke begins to rise from her body as the rays
of sunlight hit it. She warns Buffy that more will die if she does not meet Angel that
night. As she finishes the message, her body disintegrates. Buffy tells Willow to
perform the curse, leaving Kendra behind to stand guard. Buffy finds Angel at the
cemetery, and they begin to fight. Meanwhile, a group of vampires invades the
library during the restoration ritual. Back at the cemetery, Buffy realizes that her
fight with Angel is merely a diversionary tactic, so she turns and runs towards the
school as fast as she can. While Kendra battles one of the vampires, another one
pushes a bookshelf over, crushing Willow underneath. Xander fights another one,
but it brutally breaks his right arm before he can shake him off. After Kendra slays
a vamp, she attacks another that has knocked out Giles. As they surround her,
Cordelia escapes from the library, while Willow lays unconscious under the
bookshelf. Drusilla then enters and takes on Kendra one-on-one. Kendra is no
match for Dru, who defends all of her attacks before hypnotizing the Slayer into an
immobile trance. Dru then slashes a cut in Kendra's neck with her nails. Kendra
falls to the ground as blood pours out of her neck. Taking Giles with them, the
vampires leave the library only moments before Buffy bursts into the school
hallways. She finally makes it to the library, but it is too late. She runs over to
Kendra's fallen body, but there's nothing she can do. Suddenly, the police arrive to
see Buffy over the body of a dead woman. One of them aims a gun at Buffy,
ordering her to freeze. Buffy's disastrous night has just gotten worse.
