Nobody wanted to be there at the new Sunnydale High School basement tonight. Most especially the guest of dishonor himself.

Held immobile on his feet in the middle of the sacred magical circle, Angelus glared ahead with his usual malignancy at those who weren't yet in his line of sight though he could hear them approaching nearer at every step. Unable to turn his head the slightest, all Angelus could do was to wait—

This hateful stare only intensified a moment later at seeing Faith now move into view along with hearing her telling someone else off-stage, "Yeah, me an' Wes in LA, we was gonna do one real dumb plan that had me shootin' up some junkie's blood, then make Fang here bite me so he got stoned, too. I figgered instead, screw that! Just pound him flat, an' drag his ass to Sunnyhell so Red can stuff Angel's soul back in him. Which I did, like you can see right there."

"Wonderful," Rupert Giles said in his most acerbic tone. "It never occurred to you where you already were to simply finish him off there without further ado?"

Faith glowered at the Englishman who'd moved up to stand beside her, carrying a loaded crossbow in his arms. She angrily snapped at him, "I owe Angel big-time! That buys him a chance to come back if Red can do the same job she did before!"

"I'm with Giles on this," a very grumpy Xander Harris made his presence known by taking his own place by that older man's left shoulder. The other crossbow also brought along by the Sunnydale native matched Giles' weapon exactly, down to the inserted wooden bolt ready for firing at the first pull of Xander's trigger finger.

"Why don't I save everybody the trouble of keeping him around and take care of things here and now for us?" Xander suggested hopefully.

Which was a tad worrying for Angelus, seeing how Xander promptly aimed the crossbow at the vampire's chest.

Before he could actually shoot, an annoyed Buffy Summers materialized by Xander and pushed aside the crossbow. During this, she berated him, "Don't you dare! Remember, you and Giles promised to let Willow at least try to return Angel's soul again!"

Her Watcher impatiently fingered his own crossbow while reminding Buffy in turn, "Yes, but you and Faith agreed that if she failed, Angelus would be put down by us both for once and all! That monster's just too bloody dangerous to risk him escaping to be let loose once more upon the world!"

"Thanks for not putting any pressure on me, guys," remarked Willow Rosenberg in her driest tone. The witch briskly stepped up towards the magical circle and then sank out of view from Angelus' sight, either kneeling or sitting in front of the circle with its ring of mystical items including an Orb of Thesulah. All of these, in the next few moments, would surely be used upon Angelus.

The vampire tried to lower his gaze to where Willow was now, only to be disappointed at this. In his frantic thoughts on how to avoid either becoming that whining Angel again or be dusted by a pair of crossbow bolts, Angelus soon came to the bitter conclusion that the first instance was at minimum the best he could hope for. After all, he'd managed to get free of that vengeful Gypsy curse twice now, so just be patient and wait as long as it took for his next chance to slaughter the entire Scooby Gang.

With her audience closely watching everything, Willow began chanting through the demanding ceremony to restore Angel's soul, knowing it'd take virtually all of her personal magic, just like the first time years ago. Any way to lessen the cost needed to be used, seeing how they were currently fighting against their latest Big Bad known as the First Evil. Moreover, the opportunity to regain one of the Sunnydale group's major allies couldn't be allowed to be passed up, no matter how much Xan and Giles complained about it.

That was why Willow convinced the others to let her conduct the ceremony directly over the Hellmouth itself. Good thing Xander had kept his spare keys to the basement from working as part of the construction crew to the new high school, so it'd been easy enough to sneak them all into there tonight. Now…yes, there was more than plenty of magical power to tap into, unlike when she'd been in the local hospital with a concussion when Buffy had gone off to keep Angelus from awakening the demonic statue of Acathla.

Continuing with her chant, Willow reached out with her mystical senses and drew off a portion of the Hellmouth's energies. That wasn't so hard. A little more couldn't hurt, and it'd make it way easier to return Angel's soul. Good, that should do it, so throttle it down a little—

Ooops.

No, no, not that much. Uh…it wasn't like she was doing it. More as if there was a whole big bunch of emptiness around and the Hellmouth was eager to fill it all up despite what Willow was trying to hold it closed. Will you quit it already, you bad piece of dimensional instability?

In the basement, the four humans and one vampire watched with growing alarm how in the middle of her unbroken chanting, Willow abruptly levitated from her tailor-fashion seat on the concrete floor to hover in the air at Angelus' waist level, her red hair glowing pure white and her eyes closed all during this.

Even with that, Angelus still managed to be distracted by something else. Willow herself barely managed to notice that particular bit of oddness, what with virtually all of her attention otherwise busy with desperately struggling to force shut the Hellmouth before it was too late—

Later on, the survivors agreed that the following experience they'd all underwent could be best described as every one of their internal organs abruptly hurtled straight ahead a good six inches, and then recoiled back the same amount equally fast with a concluding WHUMP! inside their bodies.

From where he'd wound up curled on the floor, knees touching his chest and hoping his navel was back where it belonged, Xander groaned, "Everyone okay? Buffy? Giles? Faith? Wils?"

Various answering whimpers from those people he'd just named reassured Xander a little, telling him that nobody had been actually killed by that really weird effect. That left…

"Deadboy? You there?"

Not a single sound came from the magical circle.

Xander manage to roll a teary eye towards where one more body was lying crumpled up in the middle of that circle. Feeling suddenly worried about how it might've gone totally wrong, Xander staggered up onto his feet, hanging onto his crossbow throughout it all. He barely registered how Giles was doing the same on his right. With trembling hands, they pointed their weapons directly at…whoever was in the circle.

Clearing his throat, Giles called out to where their witch had just rolled over onto her front and was tenderly rubbing the portion of her anatomy which had obviously landed hard on the floor when she'd come down from that abrupt bout of levitation. "Willow? Were you successful? Does Angel have his soul again?"

Sending Giles her fiercest glare for daring to interrupt a girl's attempt to soothe her aching butt, Willow nevertheless took a hand away from this massage to wave it in a mystical gesture towards the vampire's unmoving body. An instant later, that undead man's head shone briefly with a supernatural luminosity.

"He's got a soul," Willow announced with genuine relief, to next carefully get up from the floor with only a few winces along the way.

"Great," snarled Faith, holding onto B while they assisted each other to arise in turn from where they'd landed together. "What the fuck was the rest a' that shit?!"

Shrugging, Willow had to admit, "Beats me. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to hold the ceremony right over the Hellmouth— Wait a second!"

"Uh-oh," sighed Xander. "Do we need to start running now? More important, which way?"

Giving an impatient shake of her head, Willow stared around the basement in a rather unfocused way, all while being observed with growing nervous alarm by the rest of her friends. Soon, she declared with an actual note of awe in her voice: "Guys…I think the First Evil is gone."

Buffy blurted, "What do you mean, gone?"

Willow uncertainly stepped in a complete circle, looking a bit cross-eyed throughout it all. She finished off with the same stunned tone as moments before, "Gone, as in vanished. Disappeared. Completely wiped out. I had no idea until now how much it spread through Sunnydale, but it isn't anywhere here anymore!"

Faith had to squint skeptically at Red. "Are you sayin' Fang got his soul back and took out your baddie at the same time?"

They all looked at where Angel was still lying there.

Studying him, Willow soon shook her head again. "Not directly. The best I can explain it…a, a balance had to be restored and only a sacrifice could redeem it. Angel had the chance to return but he chose to let go and gain his reward when I opened the Hellmouth."

"But you said Angel has his soul!" Buffy protested, pointing a finger at the vampire. As if this was sensed by him, Angel stirred and then sat up, holding his head as if he was suffering from a severe headache.

Brightening at this evidence of Willow's error of her ex-boyfriend refusing to come back to Buffy, the Slayer called out to him, "Angel!"

Glancing up at this name, the vampire stared with increasing bafflement at where Buffy was standing with her friends. When his gaze swept over the other people there, Angel only looked even more confused, to then clumsily get up onto his feet without leaving the magical circle.

In a very meek voice, Willow corrected Buffy, "Uh…I said he had a soul. I didn't say it was Angel's soul."

Buffy turned her face to gawk at a decidedly sheepish Willow. Before she could get to the bottom of that unsettling declaration, a loud bellow echoed throughout the basement:

"SUMMERS!"

Whipping her head around, Buffy saw Angel pointing an angry finger toward herself, accompanied by an identical roar of, "I KNOW YOU'RE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS!"

For four people there, that irascible tone was all too familiar.

"Oh, no," Xander groaned.

Giles contributed his own pained, "Dear Lord…"

Buffy didn't say anything, though her face paled to utter whiteness.

Willow just wearily mentioned under her breath, "Should've remembered the Hellmouth's got one nasty sense of humor."

It was Faith, though, who had to ask, "What's wrong with Angel, anyways?"

In his most disgusted tone, Xander told Faith, "That's not Angel, but believe me, for once I'd really rather have him around instead of nobody else but Snyder!"

"That's Principal Snyder, you little juvenile delinquent!" growled the person in the magical circle. He cast a cold glance at where Xander was facepalming himself. "Don't think I've forgotten you either, Harris!"

Bringing his hand down from his chin, Xander glared at someone he'd never stopped loathing even years after they'd been eaten by a giant snake at Graduation Day.

"You know what? I don't have to stick around for this anymore! Giles, let's head over to your apartment and celebrate surviving another apocalypse. I'll even toast Angel when you break out the booze for his wake, in spite of the fact I'm sure he did this just to get back at me for all the times I called him Deadboy! Faith, Wils, you're invited, too."

"Huh?" gaped Faith, not sure of her welcome at this surprising invitation.

Willow couldn't help smiling at Faith, no matter her mixed feelings concerning this Slayer. "He's right. We won, so the Scoobies get to party and remember one of their own."

A very pleased shiver ran through Faith at the word 'Scoobies'. Yeah, looks like they think she's part'a the gang at last, and damn, but it feels good!

When the two pairs of men and women began to exit the basement, they had to pause at Buffy's indignant objection, "Hold it! You can't leave me here with him!"

That statement was finished by Buffy nodding towards where…Snyder...was sneering at them all.

"Oh, can't we just?" murmured Giles with a definite evil glint in his eyes. He smirked at a pouting Buffy.

"Someone has to inform a certain somebody else what's taken place over the last several years. Including the fact that there's an entirely new school with a quite different principal in charge. Not to mention the specific type of entity he is now, and how to exist during this. And, oh, a great deal more. All of which I'm sure you'll convey to him in your own unique take on the English language. We'll see you in due time, my dear girl."

Spluttering, Buffy could only watch Giles and the rest take their leave, with the younger contingent sending their own malicious grins at her along the way. It wasn't until the basement door was about to shut after them when Buffy managed a parting scream of, "I HATE YOU ALL!"

Panting after that outburst, Buffy was interrupted by Snyder's grating demand, "What was he talking about? It'd better be a really extensive explanation, Summers!"

About to tell Snyder just where to stick it, Buffy's attention was abruptly diverted by seeing something which proved the Hellmouth, as Willow had just cited, was always ready to demonstrate ever higher levels of malevolent absurdity.

"What?" Snyder suspiciously inquired at how that Summers brat was now staring at the top of his head.

Rather than responding, Buffy Summers just remained transfixed by how this vampire's once-profuse hairline was now visibly receding by the second, to reveal even more of an enormous forehead…