Anyanka, as she is now known, spends the next thousand and some years as the patron saint of woment scorned, wreaking vengeance on ex boyfriends at the wish of their dumped women.

Anyanka arrives in Sunnydale when she hears of Cordelia Chase's break up with Xander. Believing everything to be Buffy's fault, Cordelia wishes that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale and Anya grants that wish with disaterous consequences for the scoobies. When Cordelia realises what has happened, she turns to Giles and manages to convince him that Buffy was meant to be in Sunnydale before she is killed by vampire Xander and Willow.

Giles manages to defeat Anyanka and return the real world by destroying her power centre thus ridding her of her powers. The now human Anya at first wants her powers back and tricks Willow into helping her with a spell to recover her power centre, which goes very, very wrong.

Stuck in her human form, Anya develops a crush on Xander and they go to the prom together, although she runs off when she hears of the upcoming apocalypse. Unable to get over Xander, she soon returns to Sunnydale once the apocolypse has been averted and the unlikely pair become a couple. Struggling to deal with being human (and mortal) Anya is not afraid to speak her mind and question, well, everything. With the next apocalypse on the horizon, Xander proposes to her, but, thinking that he is only doing it because the world is going to end, she tells him to propose again when the world doesn't end.

The world doesn't end, but Xander is reluctant to announce their engagement and finds one excuse after another to put it off until he can do so no longer. Once the engagement is announced the wedding plans commence and each gets more and more nervous as the day draws nearer. Even though they agree that, although their wedding is something to be nervous about, their marriage will be something to look forward to, Xander gets cold feet at the last minute and leaves her at the altar. Devastated, Anya turns to her old mentor, D'Hoffryn and becomes a vengeance demon once more. She cannot shake her feelings for Xander, however, and finds herself still helping the scoobies out.

The vengeance game is suddenly not as appealing to Anya as it used to be and, after a particularly nasty piece of work, she begs D'Hoffryn to take what she has done back, even though it means that she must sacrifice a life. D'Hoffryn agrees but it is her friend Halfrek's life that is sacrificed and not Anya's.

With the latest apocalypse drawing close, Anya finds herself thrown more and more in with the scoobies and oddly wanting to stay and help, rather than run away. Although she and Xander have 'break up sex' and obviously still love each other, their relationship is never rekindled. Come the apocalypse, Anya finds herself doing something she has never done before, staying and fighting, and what's more, giving her life to save another's. She dies a hero.