Buffy also met a handful of people that, pending their survival of The Harvest, would go on to become Buffy's life-long pals, including fellow students Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris. But the problem with having life-long pals on the Hellmouth, was that it wasn't long before Buffy wound up having to take up slaying again to keep them alive. In confronting the black hats, she learned of a master vampire, (who had the origonality to call himself "The Master") and discovered his evil scheme from decades passed. Like his contemperaries, the Master didn't like all the peaceful not-dying that humans had swinging, and planned to end it by opening the Hellmouth and let all the Boo loose. But, thanks to the heralding earthquakes that precede inter-dimensional perversion, he accidently brought the city on his head and, as his portal collapsed, got trapped in it's spyncter like so much thong. Sixty odd years later, he was still trying to the open portal and break free, in which case, he'd have hell and all it's denizens for an entourage. The literal "End of The World," which would suck balls, but he was too weak to break free, so he was pretty much just opening Cheetos.

Buffy and her grave stomping pals didn't just have this Master to contend with. They spent the better part of a school year dicking-around with his undead buddies, plus scads of wicked stand-alone rivals, ultimate evils, and Cordelia (the latter hardly upstaged by the former). But it wasn't long before the going got tougher. Jenny Calender, computer teacher and pagan practitioner, occasionally joined the demon fighting mix and brought a wealth of relevent knowledge with her, including internet-scavenged portents from around the globe of oncoming disaster. A caravan of pointed, apocalyptic clues (including those pesky earthquakes) started pointing an ishy finger at the Master's release. Abundant prophecies foretell his escape and Buffy's death, but fail to mention the details. Apparently, the Master tried that whole "Harvest" fiasco to gather strength to free himself, but one good drag of slayer blood would do. Not only would he kill Buffy and rise, opening the hellmouth in the process and distroy everyone and everything she holds dear, but it would be Buffy's blood that made it possible. Burn!

So, being one of the sane-ies that fear death, Buffy promtly quits her gig in the face of her immutable mortality and hangs up her cross, but changes her mind after a heavily subtexted conversation with her mother and a post tramatic pow-wow with Willow. She realizes her mortality ain't so immutable afterall and faces down the Master, only to have prophecy assert itself when she's bitten by the Master -- which frees him and opens the hellmouth on all of Buffy's friends -- and drowned to actual death in a skanky cave pool. So the Master wins! Boo, hiss! But once again, the pooch is screwed for him when big funny Xander revives Buffy with CPR and she tears after the Master to give him a well deserved Hurtz Doughnut. Wham, bam, the bad guy is slain, the hellmouth closed, and the apocalypse is averted. Better burn, but it's not even close to vacation for Buffy. Well, quick vacation, but then she's totally slaying again, honest injun.

And all would've been well, had it not been for the annoying clause of his gypsie curse. He kept his soul as long as he stayed brooding in the bushes, but the minute his true love got herself a portion, his newfound euphoria caused the spell to break, unleashing the bastard-face within. (Also, very like a guy.) Thus we were treated to Angelus, Angel's schizo dark side, who crossed over to Spike and Dru's team and became the future bain of Buffy's junior year. And to add insult to injury, Jenny Calender, above mentioned good guy and friend of Buffy, turned out to be double agent. A closeted Kalderash tribeswoman, Jenny, or Janna, decended from the Romany tribe that Angel had offended before his ensouling at their hands. Jenny was sent to keep an eye on him and make sure nothing jollied Angel into losing his soul, which made her the only person around who could've stopped it from happening. That gets ironic later but, for now, let's get back to the ranch.

Angelus was bent on expressing his twisted affection for Buffy by attacking and stalking, not only her, but her family and friends. He also busied himself by going on a weeks-long psychotic whirlwind spree, which got threatened by Jenny's attempt to re-ensoul him and set things right. When her efforts to translate the origonal ancient curse began panning out, Drusilla predicted Jenny's plans and Angelus cut loose on Jenny, the computer she worked out the translation on, and the print-outs she mad of it. But, ironic as I prommised that would be, it thickens up. A notorious techno-dumbass, Angelus never even attempted to distroy any possible disc copy of the curse, which Jenny had luckily made. It temporarily dropped out of site.

Always trying to top himself, Angelus found a newly unearthed armageddon machine: Acathla, a demon from the days of knights and old timey weapons, who made a show of his plans to swallow the world in one bite. It was so over-hyped that he encurred the wrath of a virtuous knight, who slew Acathla mid-chomp and turned him to stone, thus enabling the locals to gift wrap him and bury him the hell away. But if the right ritual of bloody self sacrifice was performed by an evil being worthy of Acathla's wicked intent, it could pull the knight's sword free, which -- rather than crown the sword-puller rightful King of England -- would finally awaken Acathla and suck the world into hell, literally. Angelus found Acathla and, aided by his vampire mafia, set his heart on figuring out the ritual. They had to get the details straight fast, before Buffy and her friends, who found the Jenny's floppy, could restore Angel's soul again. The vamps made a few plays to stop the cursing and aid their own ritual, including the theft of Giles, a near fatal ka-bonging of Willow, (who was midway through cursing Angelus) and Drusilla's untimely murder of Kendra, which Buffy was suspected of commiting herself. She was expelled, and, her support net was thouroughly snipped, she needed to nab back Giles and deal Angelus a season finale sized ass-whuppin'.

Buffy gained the unlikely help of Spike, who wanted Angelus out of the picture almost as much as Buffy did, and they laid down ground rules at the Summers' house, just in time for Joyce to get an eyeful of Buffy slaying. Buffy came out about her calling and explained the frightening truth to her mother, who tried to lay down the law and put a stop to the violence. Not having time to deal with Joyce, Buffy couldn't do anything but book to her showdown with Angelus, taking with her a warning from Joyce: "If you leave this house, don't even think about coming back."

Being that Xander never explained to Buffy how post-kabong Willow was trying the soul cursing again from her hospital bed, Buffy went after Angelus set to kill. The ritual went bitch cakes and Spike, who didn't take kindly to Angelus bogarting his whackjob girlfriend, told him so with a tire iron. But Drusilla doesn't take kindly to people who don't take kindly, and she turned on Spike, leaving Angelus and Buffy to fight it out for the fate of the world together. To his credit, Angelus did pull the sword out of Acathla, and Buffy had to fight him to a stand still. Before she could strike the killing blow, however, Willow managed to restore his soul. Angelus was Angel again, but the only way to stop the ritual once it started was to run Angel through and send him to hell, thus closing the mouth of Acathla. Buffy gave him a touching goodbye kiss, then sword-gigged him and sent him to a sadly horrific fate. Unable to go home and feeling there was no where for her to turn, Buffy bailed, away from her friends, her mother, and her calling.

MORE COMING SOON!