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    Angel Investigations

    Team » Angel Investigations appears in 145 issues.

    Brought together by the vampire with a soul, Angel, this group of vampire and demon hunters is dedicated to "Helping the Helpless".

    Short summary describing this team.

    Angel Investigations last edited by gravenraven on 06/19/23 07:32PM View full history

    Year One

    Team Angel
    Team Angel

    Trying to escape his love Buffy and the temptation she embodied, Angel, the vampire with a soul, relocated from Sunnydale to L.A.

    Though coming to L.A. with no purpose other then to stay away from Buffy, he soon found himself a friend in the half demon named Doyle and in Cordelia, who convinced him to become a champion, so he could save their souls.Shortly after forming though, Doyle sacrificed himself, to save many half-demons, from the scourge with his final act being to pass his visions on to Cordelia through a kiss.

    Shortly after this they ran into former watcher Wesley, who was now a "rogue demon hunter."He quickly began assisting Angel on cases, and was hired by Angel, mostly due to the his great researching abilities, from his former watcher's training.

    Through the course of Angel Investigations' early days, Angel and Co. had many experiences. There were encounters with both Buffy and Faith, the two slayers of the time, demons, vampires, and the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram and Hart, Attorneys at Law an evil law firm that represents the most powerful evil in L.A., and develops long time rivals in Lilah and Lindsay, two upper management types at W&H.

    Angel continued to be a thorn in Wolfram and Hart's side for many months, foiling every plan he came across that had their name on it. As part of an eventual plan involving Angel they resurrected the one person that would have some measure of control over him ... his sire, Darla, who because of her previous death had come back to Wolfram and Hart as a human.

    Year Two

    The team of Angel, Wesley, and Cordelia eventually made their way into an abandoned hotel from Angel's past called the Hyperion. It was infested with a Demon that feeds on Paranoia and fear. In the 1950's Angel was staying there, while the Demon was manipulating it's other guests. Most of the teams many exploits happened with this hotel as their base of operations. Gunn eventually signs on as a full fledged member and they meet a pacifist future-seeing lounge singing demon name Lorne (who can read a person aura and see their future by hearing them sing). During this time Wolfram and Hart started their plan of turning Angel to the side of evil, by using Darla. Darla had been resurrected not only as human but sick with syphilis (the disease that was killing her originally in her first human life). When Wolfram & Hart's plan to bring Angel to the dark side failed, and she found out of her illness, she attempted to make Angel turn her to a vampire again. Angel refused but just as Darla was at peace with her shortened life, accepting it as her second chance to die the way she was meant to, Wolfram and Hart shows up with Drusilla and Dru changes Darla to a vampire right in front of Angel's helpless eyes.

    He locks fully transformed Darla and Drusilla in a basement with the entire "Special Projects" department of W&H, and allows the vampires to slaughter everyone there. Angel prepares for the dark road and fight ahead of him by first firing Wesley Gunn and Cordelia from Angel Investigations. While they are off starting their own agency, Angel tracks down Darla and Drusilla (who have been recruiting their own army) and first kills all their recruits then sets the two women on fire (miraculously they both survive with some burns)

    Angel remains separated from his friend for months while he embarks on a dark campaign to take down Wolfram and Hart, specifically Lilah and Lindsay, the only survivors of Darla and Drusilla's massacre. Darla secretly has been staying with Lindsay (unknown to Angel OR Wolfram & Hart) and she ruins an important ceremony and kills some upper level demons of great importance to W&H. After this Angel succumbs to her advances and surrenders himself to the idea of losing his soul again. Shockingly though sex with Darla does NOT have the effect of removing his soul as he had expected and he experienced a spiritual rebirth, explaining to Darla that she could never make him "perfectly happy" like Buffy did. He leaves her with the warning that if he sees her again he will kill her. He then rushes of and manages to save Cordelia, Wesley and Gunn from demons trying to implant their spawn in their heads. The group reconciles and as part of this reconciliation, the 3 friends will come back to Angel Investigations only Wesley will run the agency and Angel works for him.

    Soon after this, Cordelia received a vision of a girl named Winifred Burkle. The team investigated and this lead to Cordelia being trapped in a hell dimension known as Pylea with the rest of the team having no way to get her back. Angel, Gunn, and Wesley enlist Lorne (who it turns out if from Pylea) for help and the 4 of them manage to make their way to Pylea. The first thing they notice is that the sun in Pylea does not burn Angel.Meanwhile Cordelia has been made into a slave (like all humans on this world) and meets another slave girl who turns out to be Winifred (who has been stuck for 5 years in this hell dimension after being sucked through a book at the university library). When she has a vision in front of a crowd is brought to the Council running the land for testing to see if she has "the sight". Meanwhile, Angel has been attacked and tries to switch to his vampire face only to be completely overwhelmed by the monster within him. Its Fred showing him his reflection (after luring him with a hand covered in blood) that help him reverts back. Wesley deduces that being in this dimension must enhance both his human AND vampire characteristics, hence sun does burn and he loses control when he tries to go vamp-face. When Cordelia tests true for the gift of visions she is made princess, a title she initially loves until she finds out of a prophecy of a girl with visions who sleeps with the Groosalugg and passes her visions onto him. Unwilling to do this she and the rest of Angel Investigations (with Lorne and Fred in tow) try to escape. After a large battle (with Wesley leading the rebel human forces in the land) the team managed to over throw the Council and free humans from slavery in Pylea. They install Groosalugg on the throne of Pylea and everyone goes home. When they walk into the Hyperion they see Willow sitting in the lobby with tragic news of Buffy's death.

    Year Three

    Year 3 for Angel Investigations was full of treachery and lies. No sooner is Angel back from his trip to grieve Buffy (and fight demon monks) then Cordy's vision begin to take physical effect on her body (slash marks, burns, and boils to match what was in her vision). They soon discover that this was a ruse by Lilah to trick Angel into freeing a boy named Billy being held prisoner in a pocket dimension and guarded by an unstoppable demon named Skip. Angel won, and helped get Billy set free. He brings Billy to Lilah, kills the demon causing Cordy's visions, threatening that Lilah better never come at him through Cordelia again. Meanwhile Darla is traveling the world searching for a mystic that can help her get rid of the baby growing inside her from her night with Angel. The team goes through several other emotional situations including a bodyhopping old man, starcrossed vampire lovers, dealing with Gunn's old gang and Buffy's return to life. Eventually Fred's parents show up, having heard of their daughters return, to bring her home, but after a battle with spider-demonspawn she decides her place is with the team.

    Then the past comes back to haunt them. First Billy (the boy Angel was forced to rescue) shows back up and has the ability to make any men give into their dark chauvinistic woman-hating side. He causes Gunn to almost beat Fred and Wesley to try to rape her. While still recovering from this emotional trauma, Darla shows up at the hotel, all pregnant and huge while Gun, Wesley and Fred start translating a scroll that talks of a major evil entity. At the same time, a demon is resurrecting an old enemy of Angel and Darla's named Daniel Holtz to get his revenge on the pair for killing his family in 1764. Soon after a vampire cult and Wolfram and Hart begin an all out offensive on the hotel to acquire mother and child for their own purposes.

    As Darla begins to go into labor, she also begin sharing a soul with her unborn child, and she starts to feel loving and protective towards the child, which are emotions that she has never felt before in all her unnatural years. As Holtz is stalking them , blowing up Karitas (Lorne's nightclub) in the process, Darla makes the ultimate sacrifice. Knowing that her dead body is not capable of giving birth to a baby, she stakes herself, killing herself in order to allow her baby to live. And so the baby is born in a raining alleyway outside of the nightclub and Angel must now keep the baby safe from the hordes of demons, vampires and humans who want the baby dead for various reasons.

    Around this time is Cordelia's birthday, and the gang plans a small celebration for her. However in the middle of her party she gets a massive sized vision that literally knocks her spirit out of her body. Able to see and hear but not able to contact or interact with her friends, Cordy is then faced with Skip, the unstoppable demon that Angel had fought. He tells her that he is her spirit guide on a journey she must take, he also tells her that the visions were never meant for human and that they WILL eventually kill her. Meanwhile, the gang tries to figure out what happened to Cordelia and while in her apartment they discover that she has been on brain medication and getting CAT scans behind their back, and that the visions are causing severe damage to her brain. On their journey (through a spiritual mall no less), Skip tells her that if she wants to live she has to go back and pick a different path that night. She chooses a path where she became a hugely successful actress and never met up with Angel or Wesley again in LA. Still having remnants of her old life she gets random urges to go to places shes never been like the Hyperion (which is still open for business) and an address in Pasadena (which was in her original vision that knocked her out). While in Pasadena, a demon rose and suddenly Gunn and a one-armed Wesley burst through the door and kill it. They bring Cordy to see Angel (who received the visions from Doyle instead of her) and she sees how the visions (while not killing him) have driven him completely mad. She leans in to kiss Angel and all her real memories come back. She refuses to give up her life and asks for another way. Skip tells her the only other way is to become part demon herself, she agrees and then she wakes up in a flash of light. As she tells everyone what happened, she stops and calmly informs them she is currently having a vision. No longer in blinding pain from it, she calmly tells them the details of the vision without even realizing that she is floating as she does it.

    With the danger of Wolfram and Hart and various attacking demons seeming to have past, Angel sets his sights on supporting his son by expending and taking on many cases all at once. This backfires in several ways but they manage to get through it safely with some new developments: more on how Cordy's new visions and power work and Ange realizes he has feelings for Cordy. These feelings only get worse when Angel takes the group to see a ballet he saw in 1890, and they discover it is under a spell and it is the exact same performance he saw in 1890 being repeated over and over for eternity. After being caught in some very compromising repeating scenes with Cordy, they defeat the wizard and set the spirits of the ballet free. They return home, with Angel about to tell Cordy how he feels, only to find the Groosalugg waiting for Cordelia in the lobby. Cordy and Groo fall back in love almost instantly and she asks Angel to help her find a spell to ensure that she won't lose her powers to him when they have sex like she she would have in Pylea. Angel begrudgingly agrees and finds everything necessary to help them out and the two of them take a leave of absence from the team. At the same time of this happy reunion though, Wesley is deciphering the rest of the earlier scrolls and he discovered a passage in the Nyazian scroll that mention the child of the vampires and "The father will kill the son". Around this time, Angel starts to think that Connor smells like food and they discover that Wolfram and Hart has been spiking Angel's food (his animal blood) with some of Connor's food.

    Horrified by this, Wesley makes a terrible deal with Holtz to save Connor. He steals the baby and gives him to Holtz's partner Justine, only to have Justine turn right around and slit his throat open, leaving him bleeding to death in a park. Holtz, Justine and the baby are about to escape but Angel and company chase him down to save the baby, but the demon who resurrected Holtz, Sahjahn, has other ideas. It turns out that he planted the false prophesy about Angel killing his son because there is a real prophesy that says Connor will someday defeat and kill Sahjahn. He opens a rip in time and space that leads to the hell dimension Quor-toth, which Holtz runs through willingly with the baby to get away from Angel and Sahjahn. The portal closes behind them leaving Angel, Sahjahn and Justine alone without Holtz or the baby. Wesley is found and brought to the hospital but discovers (after Angel tries to kill him with a pillow) that he has lost all his friends and no longer has a place on the team. In an attempt to get Connor back from Holtz, Angel uses black magic to open a portal to Quor-toth but ultimately fails, however Cordelia returns with the Groosalugg to help try and pick up the pieces.

    As an after effect of Angel dark attempt to find Connor, the hotel is over run by otherworldly slugs that posses people and dry them out until they die. The gang ends up barricaded into the hotel with Fred on the verge of being died out to death by one of the slugs. Suddenly Cordelia glows bright white and floats and her bright light destroys all the slugs but not before the one inside Fred warns the group of "The Destroyer". Moments later through the same dimensional rift as the slugs comes a teenaged boy covered in weapons and armor. And he looks to Angel and says,"Hi Dad". Its Connor!

    Teenaged Connor takes down the entire room before escaping into the night of LA. While Angel chases after Connor, Gunn, Fred, and Lorne are left to dealt with dimensional opening that Connor and the slugs came through. Back at Wesley's apartment , Lilah comes with an intriguing offer ... a job for him at Wolfram and Hart. When he scoffs at the offer she reminds him of the story of Judas Iscariot and tells him not to act as though hes too good to work for them. While the rest of the gang goes to search for Connor, Cordelia and Groo are left to watch the hotel. As they are talking they are struck down by a lightning bolt from the portal where Connor arrived and knocked unconscious. Angel follows Connor around LA trying to talk to him as his father but Connor (calling himself Steven, the name of Holtz's first son that Angel killed) says that the only father that matters to him is Holtz. Mean while back at the hotel, Lorne has brought in Mistress Meerna, a witch specializing in portals and time, to close the portal. After an encounter with a drug dealer and the police, they both escape together and Angel tells Connor that he always has a place to go if he needs one. Connor runs off to a hotel where it turns out that Holtz has returned also and is holed up here.

    While Angel returns to the hotel to update everyone, Connor and Holtz pick up the paper to find out WHEN they are. When Connor starts tailing about the fight with Angel, Holtz tells him that its good to be curious about his real father and that he should go and spend some real time with him. Connor argues but then returns to the hotel anyway. At the hotel, Lorne brings a crystal for a mystical Geiger counter to see what else escaped from the portal to Quor-toth. Cordelia goes to comfort Angel and Groo begins to worry more and more about their feelings for each other and goes for a long walk without Cordelia even noticing. Then Cordy gets a vision of a woman in danger at a noisy bar and Angel heads out, inviting Connor to join him. At the bar across town, Wesley is on the balcony looking down at the bar trying to see who invited him to the bar when Lilah walks up. She points out Justine at the bar and tells him that several vampire groups were tipped off "anonymously" about her being there tonight and that if he wants to save the life of the woman who slit his throat, all he has to do is say the word. He hesitates for a moment, giving her all that she needed from him and says that she will have her pulled out before shes hurt. Then Angel and Connor show up and as Justine tries to leave quickly, she is grabbed by vampires and a huge fight breaks out. Lilah and Wesley watch the fight from above commenting on how similarly the two men move. After the fight Angel goes back to the hotel bragging to Codry about Connor while Connor returns to Holtz. Holtz sends Connor back to Angel and tells him that he should stay with Angel and learn from him so Connor angrily leaves. However, Fred and Gunn have been following the Geiger counter to Holtz's hotel and they spot Connor leaving and Holtz inside.

    Back at the hotel Connor shows up looking for Angel but finds Lorne. He offers to bring Connor to hm but Connor refuses to go anywhere with a demon. A fight almost breaks out but Cordelia stops them. She sits him down and explains that not all demons are bad and that she is even half demon herself. With this, Connor attacks her but she stops him and starts to glow telling him "Let it go honey ...". Using her new demons powers she purifies his soul of the poison put there by Quor-toth. Angel sends Connor to spend time with Fred and Gunn out in the city so they can show him around, meanwhile Angel goes to confront Holtz himself. In Holtz's hotel room, he convinces Angel that he has to be the one to raise Connor and he gives Angel a letter to give to Connor (with his blessing that Angel read the letter himself also). At the oceanfront, Connor uses his enhanced hearing to hear Fred and Gunn talking about Angel going to deal with Holtz. He assumes the worst and runs away from them, heading towards the only father hes ever now, Holtz. Before Connor can reach him though, Holtz has Justine kill him with an ice pick to the throat (so the punctures look like vampire teeth marks) and when Connor arrives, Justine tells him that Angel came and killed Holtz so they need to get revenge on him.

    Angel is happy in his newfound relationship with his son, but Connor is secretly waiting for revenge, mistakenly believing Angel killed Holtz - just as he had planned as his final revenge against Angel. Linwood and Gavin from Wolfram and Hart try to abduct Connor. Meanwhile, Lilah continues to try to recruit Wesley by manipulation and seduction, and shows him that he is now very much like her: a human without a soul. Lorne confides in Angel that Cordelia really loves him before leaving town for a new job in Las Vegas. The Groosalugg leaves too, after confronting Cordelia about her feelings for Angel. With the Groosalugg gone, Cordelia and Angel agree to meet. But before either can confess their feelings for the other, Cordelia is confronted by the demon guide, Skip, who tells her that as a higher being, it’s now time for her to leave Earth’s plane of existence and move on to another. As she ascends, Angel is waylaid by a vengeful Connor and Justine who seal him in a metal coffin and throw it off a boat to sink down to the ocean floor. Angel in the ocean, Codry elevating to a higher place, Lorne in Las Vegas leaving Fred and Gunn to run the agency none the wiser.

    Year Four

    It starts with a happy family scene with the whole gang but turns out to be a hallucination of Angel’s from down on the ocean floor where he is still trapped 3 months later. Meanwhile Fred and Gunn are chasing vampires down looking for a vampire named Marissa who is known to feed on the cliffs where Angel and Cordelia were supposed to meet. After giving some info about her, the vampires attack but Connor shows up just in time to kill them all but is still lectured by Gunn about being reckless More dreams from Angel and Fred and Gunn have another lead to check out about their missing friends. Meanwhile Lilah and Wesley are having sex. Lilah tries to pump him for information but he says know knows nothing and doesn’t care at all either. When she leaves he goes to the closet and we see Justine chained up. Fred, Gunn and Connor go to the apartment where Marissa supposedly live. They find her but she attacks and escapes. Connor tracks her down but when it turns out she knows what Connor did to Angel, he kills her before Gunn and Fred can catch up. More hallucinating by Angel … and Fred has been trying to contact Lorne for weeks with no luck. She gets him on the phone for 5 seconds only to be told he knows nothing and for her to say hi to Fluffy the dog … which puzzles Fred since they don’t have a dog. At Wolfram & Hart, Lilah is dealing with Linwood and Gavin lording over her while they inform her they know about her and Wesley. On a boat in the middle of the ocean, Wesley has tracked down Angel with Justine’s unwilling help. When they bring Angel iron tomb up and unlock it, his first reaction is to grab Wesley in a vice grip. He relaxes his weakened grip and passes out from shock. When he wakes up he continues to have delusions of Lorne and Connor (who he thinks Wesley is). Wesley realizes that the animal blood he feeding Angel isn’t enough, he cuts his arm and feeds Angel himself. At Wolfram & Hart, Lilah gets a promotion by going to the senior partners behind Linwood’s back and then having him killed, effectively taking over his entire department. On the shore, Wesley leaves Justine chained up by herself as he leaves, telling her to stop being other peoples' slave. At the hotel, Fred comes to talk to Connor then shocks him with a stun gun, having talked to Wesley she knows what happened. When Wesley shows up with Angel then leaves abruptly as Connor tries to escape only to be stopped by a badly weakened Angel. He tells Connor what really happened to Holtz then tells him to leave … right before almost passing out. Finally after all this we look to the sky and see Cordelia all glowy and floaty in the air … telling everyone she’s bored and to get her out of there!

    In 1985, a little girl is brought to a new private school by her parents. Shes all bundled and they warn her not to touch anyone before they leave. At lunch a boy tries to play with her and when they hands touch there's a huge shock and the boy is sent flying while the girl looks horrified. Today, Fred and Gunn are packing up Cordelia’s apartment because they cant afford to pay the rent anymore (Ghost Dennis is not happy about it). And across town Wesley has his own crew and they are fighting vampires. Angel shows up to talk to thank him and forgive him for stealing Connor but Wesley doesn’t care about apologizes, but he tells them to talk to a demon named Dinza to help find Cordy. When they find Dinza she tells them to use the Axis of Pythia. In a fancy restaurant, Gwen (the little girl) is now all grown up and dress in red leather while she goes to meet a client. He wants he to steal the Axis for him and after they quibble over the price she shocks/melts his watch (which she slipped off his hand without him noticing). While she prepares to steal it, the gang at the hotel is learning about the Axis from Fred poorly draw sketches. Lilah and Wesley are still having sex. Gunn, Fred and Angel break in the auction house where the Axis is kept, and as Angel approaches the Axis a gate drops down and so does Gwen. As she steals the artifact and tries to escape Gunn tries to stop her but is hit with a huge electric shock from her that stops his heart. She goes to escape but her guilt overtakes her and she uses her electricity to jump start his jump and revive him before leaving. Later Angel catches Lilah watching over Connor after some veiled threats and quasi-friendly conversation he warns her to stay away from Connor while also telling her he knows about her and Wesley. Back at the hotel Fred has a breakdown about Gunn dying, and Angel’s disappearance and Cordy being missing. Angel finds Gwen on her way to deliver the Axis and tell her why he needs it. As they are talking shows up and says because of her sloppy job she must be killed. As they elevator they are in closes and fills with gas Angel punches a hole in the wall nearest an electric current so she can jump-start the elevator and they both escape. She allows him to take the Axis. Back at the hotel Angel uses it to find out that Cordelia is on a higher place doing good and very happy so they decide to let her continue her good work up there. But shes not happy, and we see her still stuck up in floaty glowy land.

    Angel has been watching Connor from a distance while Cordelia is stuck on a higher place bored to death. The gang then decides to take a road trip to Las Vegas to see Lorne. When they get to Lorne’s show they watch him perform but then he breezes right past them during the audience sing along part of the show without even acknowledging them. This happens again when they try to talk to him outside his dressing room. Inside the dressing room however inside the dressing room the casino owner, Lee DeMarco, forces him to tell the futures of some of the audience members before leaving him locked up in his room. Lilah and Wesley are having phone sex while he does business at the same time. Gunn and Fred are playing blackjack (with Fred counting cards) while Angel worries about Lorne. One of the backup singer from the shows gives one of the singing audience members a chip to play a special game. Gunn and Fred decide to check out Lorne by having Fred dress up as a backup singer (a Lornette). When she gets into his room he almost crack her in the head in an attempt to escape, then they escape the guards. Desperate for more quarters, Vivian walks in a trance-like state across the casino's driveway and is nearly run over by a taxi, but Angel rescues her. He sneaks into the special Spin to Win game area. Lee hands him a chip, which Angel tosses away, but it slides onto the table and when the house wins, Angel loses his destiny. He's given a cup of quarters and sent out to the casino to play. Fred runs from Lorne's room and hysterically convinces the guards outside to go into the room. Lorne manages to escape and the three run out into the casino to find Angel. They find him shoving quarters into a slot machines in a zombie-like state and ask him to pose a distraction while they get Lorne out. Angel's too entranced with his gambling to comprehend the plan. DeMarco is pleased when he receives information that Angel is a souled vampire, realizing Angel's destiny will be profitable. While fleeing security, Lorne confesses he tells Lee about the people with bright futures, so that they can be lured into the Spin and Win game. Their destinies are sucked into the chip they play and later sold on the black market. Guards spot them; to pose a distraction, Lorne sings a high-pitch noise into a microphone. After they escaped, Gunn angrily assumes that Lorne told Lee about Angel. Lorne corrects him by revealing that he's being blackmailed and if he refuses to cooperate, people will be killed. When Gunn realizes that Angel's destiny has been taken away, he runs back to the casino, finding him at one of the slot machines. As Spencer arrives with Lorne and Fred held in the custody of his security guards, Angel resumes gambling. The rest of the group is brought into the back room, where Lee orders Fred and Gunn killed and Lorne to return to his work. Meanwhile, Cordelia wonders from high how she can save her friends. Somehow, she manipulates Angel's slot machine to win a jackpot so he can be brought into the back room with the others. Lee is angered that someone actually won but Angel doesn't have an explanation for his winning. When one of the men pulls a gun on Fred, it brings out the demon in Angel. He starts to beat up on Lee's men, and during the distraction Lorne smashes the glass ball holding the chips, causing all of the destinies to return to their rightful bodies. Back in L.A., the gang is glad to be home, although Angel questions what caused his jackpot winning at the casino. As they head inside the hotel, they freeze when they see Cordelia standing in the middle of the lobby. When they try to speak to her she has no idea who they are.

    A man tries to get his stalled car started while his family waits in the car. Connor appears by the car and warns them of danger just before a tow truck arrives with a vampire driving it. The vampire attacks, but Connor jumps, beating up and eventually killing the demon and protecting the frightened family of three. Connor breaks into the hotel through a window just in time to see Angel and friends arrive home and spot Cordelia in the lobby. They try to approach her, but she doesn't remember anything about them or herself. Angel tries to remind Cordelia about who she is, but she is scared and doesn't know what to believe.

    Lorne approaches the hotel from outside, but Angel sends Gunn out to intercept the demon before Cordelia can see him and be frightened. Angel panics with Fred in the office about how they're going to handle Cordelia's lack of memory while Cordy panics herself in the lobby because of everyone's strange behavior. The phone rings and they let the machine get it until the message reveals more than Cordelia needs to hear and Fred quickly picks it up. Without saying much, she then with runs off to get Gunn and prevent a demon from bearing its spawn. Angel takes Cordelia upstairs to one of the rooms where all of her stuff has been stored from her apartment. Cordy looks through some of the boxes as Angel again tries to convince her that she's safe and with friends. After changing into some more comfortable clothes, Cordelia nervously practices saying her name in front of a mirror and then reads the eerie messages left in her high school yearbook and searches through pictures of herself from over the years. Cordelia wanders through the halls of the hotel and follows the sound of singing to Lorne's room where he's listening to a client sing. She doesn't see much and heads downstairs to the lobby. Angel removes several jars of blood from the counter before she can see them, but she finds a drop of blood left behind and starts to worry. Gunn and Fred return covered in purple demon goo and talking about killing the demon babies, unaware that Cordelia is ducked behind the counter. She pops up and runs out into the garden only to be jumped by a couple of evil lawyers. She fights them off with Angel's help and then vocalizes her suspicions that she's a spy and they want something from her. Angel denies that and tries to calm her down without revealing the truth to her. Back in her room, Cordelia asks about a picture of her, Angel and Connor as a baby, wondering whether she was a mother or together in a relationship with Angel. He denies both and then she wonders if she was a nun, handing him a handful of crucifixes she found in her boxes. Angel vamping out at the burning contact and Cordelia again runs away and into Lorne down in the lobby. She’s fed up and wants to know the truth, but has a hard time believing it. Cordelia sings rather badly so Lorne can read her future but the singing sends Lorne running off to his room without much of an explanation. Angel follows after in search of answers and frustrated, Cordelia take off on her own, despite Gunn and Fred’s attempts to keep her with them. Angel desperately tries to get answers from Lorne about his reading of Cordelia, but Lorne is tight lipped. He does reveal that something horrible and evil is coming and soon and hes very freaked out. Lilah and Wesley are still in bed together and Wesley accidentally slips and mentions they are in a “relationship” and has to pay Lilah a dollar because he lost a bet. Cordelia searches for Angel in the hotel, but instead finds Lorne’s client - a large mouthed human-eating demon - in one of the halls. She runs from the demon and is saved by Connor, who stabs the demon and then Cordelia asks him to take her somewhere else. Angel, Gunn and Fred look at the dead human-eating demon while Lorne updates them on the horrific things he saw when reading Cordelia. Angel and the others set out to find Cordelia wherever she is. At some sort of a warehouse, Connor and Cordelia talk and bond as Connor leads her to the place he calls home. He's brutally honest with her about everything and Cordelia truly appreciates that. While sleeping at Wesley's, Lilah gets a call on her cell phone about Cordelia's return and rushes off, leaving an eavesdropping Wesley alone. Cordelia tries to sleep, but she can't with so many pieces missing from her puzzle. Connor tries to comfort her and remind her of the few things he knew about her. She recognizes his loneliness that somewhat matches her own. As Angel updates the others on his lack of success in finding Cordelia, Wesley arrives with some answers. He reveals that Cordelia's with Connor but that Wolfram and Hart are planning to go after her again for the knowledge she may have about the Powers. Connor sleeps next to Cordelia with his hand inappropriately placed on her chest but moves it to quiet her as someone breaks into the room. More men attack and Cordelia and Connor are forced to fight them off as best as they can. Lilah watches the proceedings from the roof on a video feed as the gang arrive and help fight off the Wolfram and Hart minions. After the bad guys are defeated, Angel tries to get Cordelia to return with him, but she chooses to stay with Connor rather than the others because Connor was truthful with her. Although her choice hurts them, Angel and the others leave her. Wesley finds the dollar bill Lilah left behind on the floor of his bedroom and realizes something. Back at the hotel, Gunn and Fred try to console Angel as they return to the hotel, but a noise in the office distracts them. They find Lorne tied up in the office, a bad wound on his forehead. He reveals that Wolfram and Hart used a special burrowing demon to sneak into his head and steal the knowledge Lorne had about Cordelia. It was all a trap to get Lorne alone and vulnerable. Wesley shows up at Lilah's door and gets upset with her because she tricked him into warning Angel and separating the gang from Lorne. She reminds him it was just part of her job and that she spared the life of Lorne because he was Wesley's friend. Cordelia sleeps while Connor watches over her, while at the hotel, Angel stares out into the night and longingly back at his empty bed.

    Fred's article on superstring theory is published in an academic journal, and she is asked to present it at a physics symposium by her old college professor Seidel. Her presentation takes a sudden turn when a dimensional portal opens and snake-like creatures emerge to kill her. Angel had spied Lilah during the speech and at first thinks she is behind it, but she was simply keeping an eye on Wesley. Gunn and Angel suspect another member of the audience, a comic book fanatic, but it turns out he's just following stories of strange disappearances, as well as reading about Angel on internet forums. Fred learns that Professor Seidel is the one responsible and the one who had sent Fred into the Pylea dimension six years earlier. He felt Fred as well as other missing colleagues were competing for his job. Against Angel and Gunn's advice, Fred pursues vengeance against her former mentor. She asks for Wesley's help, and in the process is almost sucked into another portal, opened by a text message from Seidel; Wesley agrees to help. Meanwhile, Cordelia is staying with Connor at his vast empty loft. He trains her to slay vampires while a possible romance between them blossoms. Angel confronts Seidel (largely to protect him from Fred's vengeance), but Seidel releases a demon from a portal to attack Angel; as Seidel tries to escape, he encounters Fred, who opens her own portal, intending to send him to a hell dimension as punishment. As he is being sucked in, Gunn arrives and, when unable to convince Fred to close the portal, snaps Seidel's neck to save him from the torment, which upsets Fred. Fred and Gunn tell the others that Seidel accidentally sucked himself into a portal meant for Fred, keeping the true events secret. Cordelia asks Angel whether or not they were ever in love.

    Theres a scene with Lorne singing and then addressing an unseen audience as he tells the story of the next events. Cordelia asks if her and Angel were in love and he says hes not sure. She very upset and just wants to remember who she is and then Lorne comes in with the answer. He brings them a bottle with a memory restoration spell in it and Cordelia jumps at the chance. Wesley shows up, invited by Lorne to assist with the spell, and asks Fred how everything went. She tells him mission accomplished and Gunn realizes that he was in on Fred’s plan to kill her professor. He follows Wesley to Angel’s office and threatens him not to pursue Fred, but Wesley tells him there is nothing going on. Gunn asks what happened to him and he replies, “I had my throat cut and all my friends abandoned me.” They sit in a circle for the spell and then the bottle begins to spin. Everyone becomes very disoriented and then everyone begins to stumble around the lobby as Lorne goes unconscious. Not realizing what she is doing, Cordelia smashes the bottle. Everyone begins to act as though they are 17 year old. Cordelia is a spoiled cheerleader from Sunnydale, Wesley is an uptight young Water student at the academy, Fred is a paranoid conspiracy theorist who smokes weed, Gunn is a tough street thug, and Angel is a teenaged Irishman named Liam. After accosting Wesley for being English, Angel (Liam realizes his own accent is missing and then determines that it must be the devil. They each speculate as to what brought them together and then Gunn and Wes disagree on how to proceed. Wesley tries to show off his karate skill with an awkward stance (reminding us of his early days on Buffy) and accidentally sets off his wrist mounted stake. They find Lorne’s unconscious body and they all determine hes a demon (except Liam who says it’s the devil). Across town, Connor saves a girl who then offers to sleep with him…if he pays her. Back at the hotel they have tied up Lorne up in the lobby while Gunn pushes from them to cut off the demons head. Cordy wonders why everyone’s not weirded out by wooden stakes and demons and Gunn and Wesley reveal they both know the demons and vampires are real (apparently this Cordy is from before Buffy showed up in Sunnydale). Wesley theorizes that they are locked in the building with a vampire as a test. Then they all start to notice that they don’t look 17 at all. They decide to hunt down this supposed vampire and try to get free. Cordy and Liam pair off and Cordelia tries to come on to him which results in his fang coming out much to even his own surprise. Now he worries that hes about to be killed by everyone else. When he tries to escape the hotel he mistakes the large metal cars for demons. When they reconvene in the lobby Wesley suggests that the vampire may be one of them and that everyone must submit to a test. Everyone passes fine but when its Liam’s turn he grabs the cross then he hides his burning hand until something else gets the groups attention. Finally Lorne wakes up with his full memory intact and (not knowing what hes doing) calls Liam out as a vampire. Liam knocks Lorne out again and a huge fight break out with him Gunn and Wesley with Cordelia and Fred running away. Liam catches Cordelia who calls the attention of a lurking Connor when she screams. The two men have a tense conversation about fathers while they fight. When Lorne comes to again he convinces Fred to release him and he restores her memory with a new potion. They stop Connor and Liam fighting just before something deadly happens and Lorne restores everyone’s memories As he puts the mixture on Cordy’s tongue a waves rushes over her and she runs away from them down the hall. Switching back to Lorne’s lounge act he tells his unseen audience what Cordelia really saw: a terrifying image of a huge rock demon with fire behind it. When Angel chases her down in the hotel he asks her the same question she asked him: “Were we in love?” and she replies, “ Yeah…we were” and she walks away. Lorne finishes up his lounge act and leaves the stage revealing that there is no audience in the seats.

    Lorne wants to learn what Cordelia remembers about her time as a higher power, but Angel insists that they wait before drilling her on her memories. Connor comforts Cordelia after another nightmare featuring the demon from her visions. Meanwhile, as Angel Investigations is flooded with calls involving paranormal activity all over Los Angeles, Wesley returns home after fighting a bug infestation to find Lilah dressed as Fred for sexual role-playing. At Connor's behest, Angel goes to see Cordy and she is finally able to talk to him. She tells him she loves him, but also that while she was a higher being, she saw and relived everything he did while he was Angelus. Her in-depth knowledge of that part of his past makes it too hard for her to be involved with him. Suddenly, she starts breathing hard and her eyes turn white as she warns Angel that "he's coming." Cordelia lies down and tells Angel and Connor what she remembers of her vision. Back at the hotel, Lorne picks up on the strained relationship between Fred and Gunn; since they jointly sought revenge on the man who sent Fred to a hell dimension, Fred has not been able to forgive Gunn for their actions. She leaves for the diner where she and Gunn are regulars. Angel goes to Wolfram & Hart to demand that Lilah return the information the law firm sucked out of Lorne's head about the impending apocalypse. Cordelia and Connor walk to an alleyway that Cordelia recognizes as the place where Connor was born, where Darla staked herself. A large, horned demon bursts from the ground before them, knocking them both down. Connor attacks, but his strength is not enough to stop the demon and he takes a brutal beating before the demon strides away. Cordelia tends to Connor's wounds and finds that he has broken ribs, something that's never happened to him before. At the diner, a waitress tries to advise Fred on her relationship troubles, until an earthquake shatters the diner's windows. Meanwhile, unable to locate Fred, Gunn is restless and tries to leave to find her, but Wesley appears and interrupts his departure. Aware of all the strange occurrences around town, he offers to work with them to deal with this problem, but Gunn's too angry with Wesley to even consider the idea. Angel stops them all from leaving because he has information from Lilah that they must study to prevent the end of the world. The trio examine the pages containing information stolen earlier from Lorne's brain. Another call is taken by Lorne and Angel instructs him to start mapping the locations from where the calls originate. The pages make no sense until Gunn sees that the pages fit together like a puzzle. Rearranging the sheets reveals a symbol shaped like a square with an "X" inside representing the "Eye of Fire." Lorne makes another discovery: the mapped locations of strange occurrences form the same pattern. Angel and the gang determine that the location on the map that appears at the middle of the X is a popular club on a high rooftop. They arrive at the club to find a mass of dead bodies and the Beast waiting for them. Angel and the team take on the demon but are overpowered. Crossbows, axes, and swords don't have much impact, so Wesley tries a series of guns that also fail. Angel renews the battle and manages to send the demon to its knees, until the demon stakes him in the neck. With parting words about Cordelia's safety with Connor, the demon sends Angel flying off the roof onto the floor. The demon forms the Eye of Fire using the dead bodies and sets them ablaze. Angel rips the stake from his neck and slowly begins to recover. The fire on the roof rises towards the sky and soon fire starts to rain down as Connor and Cordelia watch. Connor blames himself for the whole situation, but Cordelia comforts and reassures him that he's not to blame. Cordelia kisses Connor and tells him that if the world is ending that he deserves the chance to feel something real. While everyone else watches the fire, fearing the future that awaits them, Connor and Cordelia have sex. Angel watches the woman he loves making love to his son.

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