THE HISTORY OF ANGEL, PART 2
300 Years Of Mayhem And Heroics
THE 1800'S cont.
By 1898, Angelus, Darla, Spike and Drusilla had brought their whirlwind of slaughter to Borsa, Romania. It was on a fateful night during that year that Darla gave Angelus a young Gypsy girl to kill for his birthday. The girl turned out to be the favorite daughter of a Romany tribe called the Kalderash clan. The enraged tribe elders put a vengeance curse on Angelus, which restored his soul and forced him to live in anguish over the acts he had committed as a vampire. Darla, Drusilla and Spike attacked the Gypsy camp and slaughtered the entire tribe to avenge their fallen leader, but the damage had already been done. Upon regaining his humanity, Angelus deserted his comrades and attempted to redefine himself.
THE 1900'S
Although Angelus' thirst for butchery had been extinguished, his love for Darla had not. In 1900, he tracked her down in China, where she was feeding on townspeople with Spike and Drusilla during the Boxer Rebellion. In an attempt to win her back, Angelus hid the fact that he could no longer kill the innocent and faked his bloodlust to appease his lover. On the night that Spike killed a masterful Slayer in an abandoned temple, the reunited pack decided to leave China to seek victims in other parts of the world.
It didn't take long for Darla to expose Angelus' facade. She could tell that he had been killing vermin to satisfy his necessity for blood, and she realized that the few humans he killed in front of her were miscreants like murderers and rapists. Darla finally tested Angelus by bringing him a human baby, the personification of innocence and virtue. As Darla waited for her lover to feed on the infant, Angelus scooped up the child, jumped through the window, and left her for good.
During the 1910's, Angelus moved to America and changed his name to Angel in an attempt to further remove himself from his past. While repenting for the acts he had committed as a vampire, he developed an aversion towards other vampires and lived like a transient, feeding on rats for nourishment. In the 1920's, Angel was living in Juarez when a barbaric demon named Boone took offense to the brooding outcast. The two warriors engaged in a brutal fight over a girl that lasted three and a half hours and ended without a victor. Boone was left with a bitter grudge against Angel that would not be settled until more than 75 years later.
By 1952, Angel had taken residence at the Hyperion Hotel in Los Angeles. The human inhabitants were intimidated by his fierce demeanor and avoided him at all costs. During his stay, a Thesulac demon, which feeds on paranoia, turned the hotel residents into a bloodthirsty mob. The horde turned its wrath on Angel and was able to overpower the vampire and hang him from a rafter. Angel, still very much alive, waited for the mob to lose interest and wander off before he climbed down. He indignantly left the Hyperion and its inhabitants at the mercy of the Thesulac demon.
Angel later left Los Angeles and aimlessly roamed across America until, consumed by self-pity, he hit rock bottom and began living in an alleyway in New York. But in 1996 his life was changed when he met a street-wise demon named Whistler. The Powers That Be, a force for good and order in the universe, sent Whistler to guide Angel on a path to redemption. The slick-tongued demon convinced Angel to help a Vampire Slayer named Buffy fight the forces of evil in California.
Angel first laid eyes on Buffy in Los Angeles and followed her to Sunnydale when she and her mother moved. In 1997, he began to help the slayer by delivering cryptic advice about demonic activity. One night, when Buffy was attacked by vampires outside of the Bronze, the local hangout, Angel saved her and Buffy invited him over to sleep in her room. The two began to sense a mutual attraction and when Buffy returned home from school the next day they shared a passionate kiss. But before they could revel in the afterglow, Angel's vampire face came out and he dejectedly ran away.
As both Buffy and Angel began to consider the consequences of their ironic attraction, Darla showed up in Sunnydale with the goal of winning her "Darling Boy" back. The cunning Darla made it look like Angel had attacked Buffy's mother, which quickly pit the slayer against her soulmate. Angel wasn't able to convince Buffy of the truth until he destroyed his past by slaying Darla at the Bronze. Although Buffy could accept the fact that Angel was no longer evil, the two of them decided that their poetic relationship could never work. As they kissed one last time, the cross Buffy wore around her neck burned an imprint onto Angel's chest, leaving a permanent memento of their love.
Although the forces of good and evil separated Buffy and Angel, fate brought them back together. As they became deeply enamored with one another, they decided to consummate their love on Buffy's 17th birthday. What they didn't know was that the Romany curse was predicated on Angel remaining tortured. Upon experiencing a moment of true happiness, the curse was lifted and his soul removed once again.