Summary- Angel loses his soul due to the contract with Wolfram and Hart. Lilah warns Wesley, and he, Fred and Knox escape from Angelus. Gunn has been possessed by the panther in the White Room. Robin Wood is offered a job at Barrington High, near Sunnydale, and the others decide that a new Watcher's Council is needed. Oz is sent to deal with Gunn. They decide that Lindsey may know how to destroy the contracts, and resolve to contact him. Drusilla visits Angelus, and he rejects her. A military group appears, and Buffy blackmails their general into meeting her. Angry and lonely Drusilla finds Connor and takes him to the warlock who originally altered his memories. Spike appears out of a portal intended to produce a Tarok-Han as a human, but exhibits superhuman strength in escaping from the disappointed cultists. The warlock requires an object from Connor's old life, and Drusilla goes to the Hyperion to get it. Buffy meets the general, who tells her that they are trying to create supersoldiers to fight Suvolte Demons (As You Were), who are becoming inexplicably smarter. Riley Finn is dead, and his wife Sam has gone on a vengeance mission against them. She says that someone may be controlling them, and takes him back to Willow. AI follow Drusilla, and try and fail to prevent her from restoring Connor. He runs away, and Drusilla follows him and tells him how Angelus abandoned her. They find themselves in harmony. Spike's reaction to his resurrection is to get very drunk, and is picked up by a Wolfram and Hart lawyer, and taken to see Angelus. Giles comes to LA to ask Wesley to be part of the new Council. He refuses, but tells him what has happened with Angelus and Drusilla. Drusilla has restored Connor's memories, but not their memories of him. Giles calls the new Watcher's Council, and is told that Buffy and Willow have gone to Belize in a helicopter with weapons, spell ingredients and the troll hammer. Lindsey arrives in LA. Connor and Drusilla launch an attack against Wolfram and Hart. Drusilla senses and rescues Spike, and Connor and Angelus fight. He nearly kills Angelus, but in the end Drusilla saves him by throwing Angelus out of the window. He takes his contract and one other thing, after having a conversation with the First. Angelus has the Order of Taraka sent after them both, and tells them to find Sahjhan. Lindsey tells them that the contracts are spells in physical form, and decides to call Gwen to retrieve them. Angelus finds and releases Sahjhan, then convinces him to try to kill Connor. Wesley and Fred go to collect Cordelia from hospital, but find that she has been taken by the thing Drusilla awoke (Connor).

Hyperion-Day

Gwen: I'm a professional thief. I don't do charity.

Fred: Well, the Axis of Pythia was worth 33 million dollars. I mean, in a way, we made you a multi-millionaire.

Gwen: If you hadn't interfered I would have gotten away with it without the alarms going off.

Wesley: You also owe us rather more than money. Or isn't that little gadget on your back what Gunn helped you get?

Gwen: All right, you helped me find this, I helped you against the Beast.

Wesley:  The difference is, you failed.

Gwen: Just because-

Lindsey: Can we speed this up? We know that you're going to help us, otherwise you wouldn't be here. You don't come to a client's home to refuse an offer.

Gwen: Fine, I'll help. Lend me a hand here will ya.

Lindsey: How?

Gwen: Get this thing off my back. I'm not doing a job against Wolfram and Hart at under full power.

(Lindsey removes LISA, and electricity shoots out of her hands. The others jump away as it surrounds her, melting metallic objects for about five feet. Slowly it retreats back into her)

Oz: Neat.

Lorne: I liked that lamp.

Wesley: So, our number one priority is to get our contracts.

Fred: And to find Cordelia.

Wesley: Alright our, two number one priorities are… (They pause as they realize they're mimicking a conversation from happier times.) Well, Gwen, when can you start?

Gwen: Tomorrow would be fine.

Wolfram and Hart-Day

Angelus is sitting at his desk, and suddenly the lights go off. The shutters close of their own accord, and he is left in darkness. He reaches for the intercom, and finds that it is not working. He looks up, and sees a figure standing in the darkness. He grins broadly.)

Angelus: That was quick.

Tarakan: You are one of our most valued customers.

Angelus: You know who I want killed?

Tarakan: The vampire and the boy.

Angelus: I've had a change of heart.

Tarakan: It is not wise to call us out in vain.

Angelus: All of them. I have an apocalypse to plan, I don't have the luxury to deal with them personally.

Tarakan: All of them? That is not sufficiently precise for our purposes.

Angelus: My former employees, my children, Lindsey, the werewolf with the dumb name, anyone helping them. Just kill them all and hand me the bill.

Tarakan: As you wish. (The darkness in the room draws into him. As it grows bright Angelus catches a glimpse of orange eyes in a black-skinned face before he collapses in upon himself.)

Angelus: (Into the now working intercom) The Tarakans have arrived. Tell Sahjhan, and bring round the helicopter. I have something to take care of.

Barrington High-Day

Jared: (See chapter 2 if you don't remember) So, uh, there's a Halloween dance.

Dawn: Yeah.

Jared: So, uh, has anyone asked you to go?

Dawn: Are you taking a survey?

Jared: Uh, no.

Dawn: Are you trying to wind me up, and then crush my teenage dreams of romance before they truly begin?

Jared: Not that either.

Dawn: Do you have any kind of cruel, evil motive in this?

Jared: Are you okay?

Dawn: Just wondering. No, I haven't been asked.

Jared: Well then, uh, maybe we could, y'know, go?

Dawn: Do I have to wear a stupid costume?

Jared: I don't think so.

Dawn: Sure then. I don't want to spend any longer at home than I have to. With Buffy, Giles and Willow gone, about the most responsible person in the house is either Faith or Xander. It's chaos.

Jared: Okay, see you.

Belize-Jungle-Night

(Buffy hits a Suvolte Demon with the hammer, grinning when its shell splits open and it goes flying ten feet back into the next one. She brings it back to splatter another that leaps at her from behind. Willow electrocutes one, and Sam kills another with a mace.)

Buffy: Maestra, if you would…

(Willow holds out her hands towards a nest and incinerates it.)

Willow: We're nearly there, I can sense that thing.

Sam: You said that two days ago.

Willow: It's not my fault the thing moved.

Buffy: Question is, why did it move?

Willow: Maybe it sensed us getting close. Or maybe it just got bored, and- (They  crest a hill) Oh.

Sam: Or maybe it needed an airbase.

Buffy: I'm going with option three.

Sam: (Into walkie-talkie) We have found the alpha nest. They're trying to get on a plane. Over.

Willow: Actually, that's pretty clever. I mean, that take over a few adults and a lot of nestlings, and then they grow up so fast that pretty soon… we're in real trouble.

(One of the planes starts to move forward.)

Buffy: Willow, can you stop it doing that?

Willow: Sure. (She gestures and its wheels fall off.)  No problem. (She cries out and falls, clutching at her head.)

Sam: What's wrong with her?

Buffy: She said that thing was telepathic. It must be attacking her mind. (She starts running down the hill.)

Sam: Is this one of those, "Screw backup, I'm goin' in" moments? 'Cause I can tell you from experience, those hardly ever work. (She sighs and runs after her.)

Belize-Army Base-Night

(Matthew Walsh and General Parker are talking about Buffy, Willow and Sam. For the record, Matthew Walsh looks about thirty, has dark hair, and looks entirely human.)

Matthew: You realize how lucky you are that the three of them have found the alpha lair, don't you?

Parker: I had no doubt they would.

Matthew: You would have been in quite a lot of trouble if they hadn't. You should have had Agent Finn court marshalled, not made a member of your special elite group.

Parker: It worked perfectly.

Matthew: Yes, it did. I will be putting that in my report. I assume you included her to demonstrate that hand-to-hand is of great benefit to those even without the benefits of my research?

Parker: If we need to call in more troops than we normally keep in the black ops, I don't want to have to wait three months while they sign legal documents and undergo testing to ensure they won't have allergic reactions to your compounds, before they become any use.

Matthew: Still, the use of medieval weaponry is going to cause a stir.

Parker: It's the best thing to use against insectoids like them. Anyway, it's far cheaper to give them clubs than lightning guns. In any case, I think that if they can get used to injecting demonic implants into our soldiers they can get used to that.

Matthew: General, you make it sound so dramatic, so Frankensteinian, so Walshian. It is not as though I am replacing people's limbs with those of subterrestrials. Mere injections into the blood and bone, similar to those which were carried out during the Initiative project.

Parker: Those were known to cause paranoid schizophrenia.

Matthew: These are from a completely different source. It isn't anything so crude as injecting basically refined steroids into them, it is merely tapping into a power beyond what is available to most people. Like Summers or Rosenberg, but on a smaller scale. If only I could precisely determine where their enhancements are from think of what I could do.

Parker: They claim they come from the earth itself, or some kind of cave people, creating super heroes to defend against the forces of darkness, or from the soul inside.

Matthew: Yes, but that is the difference between us and them Where they have to explain what is before them through magic, and in terms of good and evil, we both know that it is merely the manipulation of matter. Because we, are men of logic. We know that there are no souls, no magic, no good and no evil. And I will find the source of their power.