Mid January had Xander throwing what amounted to a bomb into a group meeting.
"The curse on Angel has been broken. Angelus is loose."
"How?!" Charles demanded to know.
"Buffy's birthday was yesterday. She and Angel had sex."
"She had sex with a vampire?!" Tony said, in a strangled tone of voice. "And that broke the curse?!"
"Actually, that makes sense." Jessica said. "I've been researching soul curses and what could break them. The purpose of the curse is to make Angelus suffer, but on the surface, Angel is the one suffering. But Angelus is suffering in a way, too. He isn't being allowed to kill, to torture. To break the curse, Angelus has to feel a moment of peace. What would make Angelus feel peaceful? Something he knows would cause an enormous amount of pain. He gets Buffy to fall in love with Angel, thru the use of seduction and magic. They have sex, Angelus gets a Slayer, his mortal enemy, to not only fall in love with him, but to have sex with him. Because you can't have sex with Angel, without also having sex with Angelus. In that moment, he imagines her reaction to finding out, she had sex with both of them. Something I doubt she considered. He gets satisfaction from imagining the mental and emotional torture that revelation would have in her. The satisfaction that produces, is enough for a single moment of peace. Curse broken."
"Damn, it makes sense. Buffy is both their types. My research into Angelus turned up his human name, from before. Liam of Galway, Ireland. A drunken womanizer, that specialized in seducing young teenage girls. And Angelus' preference is also young teenage girls. Angel may not have even known he was playing into Angelus' plans, Angelus is a master manipulator, not to mention, a demon. All he has to do is whisper in Angel's dreams. They share head space after all." Joshua said.
"But if imaging is all it takes?" Xander started to say.
"Imagining it wouldn't be enough, no. It's the actual act that give the necessary emotional satisfaction needed to break the curse." Jessica said.
"And what's the Slayer doing about Angelus being loose?" Madelyn asked.
"Well, we've got another crisis to deal with before she gets around to dealing with Angelus." Cordelia said. "Spike and Drusilla are assembling a demon called the Judge. Apocalypse demon to be precise. Said to be able to burn the humanity out of a human. An entire army and a Slayer was sent against him the last time he was loose. The best they managed was to cut his body into six pieces. Head, arms, legs and body. They have all the pieces. We're trying to come up with a plan to stop them. Oh and Willow caught Xander and me making out in the stacks. She's in total freak out mode over that."
"Okay, we'll research too and see if we can up with anything." Charles said, ignoring Cordelia's making out comment. "Go back to the school and help with research there. If you come up with a plan, unless we can help, just go for it."
The two agreed and headed back to the school were Xander came up with a plan and he and Cordelia stole a rocket launcher from the National Guard Base outside town.
"You stole a rocket launcher?!" Tony said, trying to stay calm as he imagined his only son being hauled off to jail.
"The only clues we could find were, it took an army and no weapon forged could kill it. Modern weapons aren't forged and thanks to Halloween, I know alot about modern weapons." Xander answered. "And it worked. We blew him into thousands of pieces. Giles is shipping the pieces to friends and colleagues all over the world. They will be part of everything from roads to volcanos."
"It's alright, Tony." Charles said. "I know the commanding officer of the base. And he knows what goes on around here. I'll talk to him and make sure there's no repercussions. What about Angelus?"
"Buffy let him go. They fought and she couldn't finish him." Xander said.
"Damn it. I suppose it would be difficult to destroy something wearing the face of someone you love. I know it wasn't easy for you to dust what was left of Jesse." Charles said.
"No and even though I will never understand why or how Buffy got involved with Angel, I can understand her difficulty in dusting him." Xander said.
"Maybe we can do it. We've studied Angelus. He's clever and sadistic and is going to want to make up for a century of not killing. There's going to be bodies piling up. If we can come up with a way to deal with him, I say we dust him ourselves." Tony said.
"I agree." Charles said. "But we've got to remember, he has Drusilla on his side, a seer. Crazy as she is, her record speaks for itself. She's never been wrong, not as a human and not as a vampire. She could see us coming a mile away. What ever we come up with, has to distract her too. We'll brainstorm and we'll come up with something. In the meantime, keep helping Buffy."
A few weeks later, Jessica came to the group with a plan.
"Xander recently mentioned to me that Amy Madison has been practicing Magic. In fact, she's been misusing it. She's been whammying her teachers. I think we can use that to create a distraction to get Drusilla out of the way, at least for a little while."
"How?" Tony asked.
"Well, it requires a small sacrifice on Xander and Cordelia's part."
"What kind of sacrifice?" Cordelia asked warily.
"You break up temporarily, publicly. Which gives Xander an excuse to blackmail Amy into doing a spell for him. Amy has to call on her patron goddess to do any spell. Her patron goddess is Hecate, goddess of the moon. The moon has significance for vampires because they're safe under the moon. While she's doing the spell, Xander holds this." Jessica held up a religious icon. "While researching Angelus and finding out his human name, we also researched the others in his group. Drusilla was planning to be a nun before Angelus got ahold of her. This belonged to her when she was a human. Cost me quite a bit to track it down, but it's specific to her, which means, the spell will have an effect on her as well. While she's distracted, she can't warn Angelus and we attack his lair ourselves. I know it's elaborate, but Drusilla's a seer, which means she could see us coming. We need her out of the way."
"I don't want to break up with Xander. I also don't want Angelus running around."
"Me either." Xander said. "To both. But it would only be temporary."
"Yeah, it would. All right, let's try it."
Unfortunately for them, it backfired considerably. Amy called on the power of three goddesses for some reason, Aphrodite, Artemis and Hecate. Consequently, the spell was much bigger then anticipated and half the woman in town were after Xander that day, including Drusilla. And unfortunately for the group, Angelus was with her when she went after Xander, so they couldn't go after Angelus. Giles managed to reverse the spell and Giles, Buffy and Willow were really annoyed with Xander for awhile. He and Cordelia did get back together a day later.
"Well, it was worth a try. But the next time we come up with a plan, let's try not to make it so elaborate, okay." Charles said.