The Beast

The Beast's History

The 18th century

In 1789, the Beast was in Prussia. The Svear priestesses intended to banish him from the Earth dimension and had cast a spell so that he could not touch them.

In an attempt to get assistance, the Beast slaughtered several people in order to attract Angelus to him, at which point he attempted to create a mutual alliance with him. He wanted Angelus to kill the Svear and, in return, the Beast would pay him back somewhere down the line. Angelus refused and was subsequently beaten half to death before the priestesses arrived to banish the Beast.

Ascension in the 21st Century

Eventually, the Beast rose up from the pits of hell. The first people to encounter the Beast were Cordelia — then possessed by Jasmine — and Connor, who found the Beast arriving on Earth at the exact spot where Connor had been born. A fight ensued, during which Cordelia was injured.

Angel, Gunn, and Lorne decided to take on the Beast. Wesley rejoined them to help in the battle, but they failed and were all badly injured. With the help of a large human sacrifice at the Sky Temple, the Beast conjured the rain of fire over Los Angeles.

Blocking the Sun

The Beast, seeking to reach Mesektet in the White Room, killed everyone working at Wolfram & Hart as he tried to reach the White Room, activating the building's security protocols which turned the majority of his victims into zombies. The Beast killed Mesektet and drained her of her dark energy. Following the death of Mesektet, the Beast hunted down and killed the rest of the Ra-Tet: Ma'at, Ashet, and Semkhet.

The final Ra-Tet, Manjet, was killed by Jasmine in secret. Using the metal wings in Ashet and Semkhet and the heart of Ma'at, the Beast made a ritual to eclipse the sun, which was completed when the dark energy of Mesektet was imbued in the orb which was extracted from Manjet's head. The eclipse began as a sunlight-blocking spot that spread covering Los Angeles and was supposed to eventually cover the totality of Earth.

Angel's team believed that their only hope was in Angel's soulless alter ego Angelus, who apparently knew the Beast in the past, even though Angel himself did not remember the encounter. All references to the Beast in this dimension were magically erased shortly before its arrival; "Angelus" was the only entity in this dimension unaffected, as he did not technically exist at the time the spell was cast.

Once freed, Angelus was eventually convinced to reveal the details of his encounter with the Beast, also revealing the information that the Beast was actually the minion of a greater evil; the Beast Angelus had encountered was only ever interested in destruction, while his current actions hinted at a deeper, more long-term plan that didn't fit with Angelus's recollections of him. After Angel's soul was stolen and a ritual to restore his soul via dark magic was faked, Angelus broke free and sought out the Beast to learn what its next plan was, although he rejected the Beast's offer to work for his master.

Death

With their options increasingly limited in the face of the Beast and Angelus, Wesley broke Faith out of jail to assist in Angelus' capture and fight the Beast. Although the Slayer wasn't match for the physically imposing demon, he was in the end betrayed by Angelus, who stabbed him with the dagger the Beast had carved out of his own bones as a tribute to his master.

The death of the Beast also undid the solar eclipse, leaving Faith in the sunlight and Angelus confined to the shadows.