Rule of Three
Teaser
Story by Gelfling21
Written by Gelfling21 (with additional writing by CN Winters)
Directed and Produced by Gelfling21 and CN Winters
Sounds by CSR
Edited by DragonWriter17
Art Direction by Robert Kidman
Artists – CN Winters, Zahir al Daoud, Sway, Humaira, Robert Kidman and Elif
Fade In:
Int.
Slayer Dorm Room – Morning
The room was dark. Only the faint silhouette of the screen of laptop could be seen. The soft tap-tap-tap of typing on a keyboard was the only sound.
Voiceover, Young Girl typing: "To: . From: . Subject: Hi Norm!"
Cut To:
Ext.
Council Grounds – Same Time
In the over-bright morning light, dead brown grass glistened with a heavy winter frost.
Cut To:
Int.
Slayer Dorm Room – Same Time
Voiceover, Young Girl typing: "I finally got to see the new Potter movie last night. Robin took me."
Cut To:
Ext.
Council Grounds – Same Time
A pair of girls’ sneakers crunched through the frosted grass of the Council grounds.
Voiceover, Young Girl typing: "I think he was a little bored. Or maybe he was just in a bad mood again, he was pretty quiet."
Cut To:
Ext.
Council Grounds – Near The Thicket – Same Time
Just above the sneakers, a girl’s hands came into view as she bent over.
Voiceover, Young Girl typing: "Kinda hard to tell with him these days but he seems to be doing better with his leg. Or lack of leg. Anyway, he walks pretty good by himself now. You can hardly notice. And your mom, well birth mom, seems in a better mood lately. By the way, what do you call Faith? Sometimes we call her slave driver but that’s just between us, okay?[g]"
In the girl’s left hand was a small, dark garbage bag. In her right hand, she held a beat-up, yellow plastic bowl filled with something that looked like leftover scraps of steak or beef.
Voiceover, Young Girl typing: "I know you can’t leave the house yet..."
The right hand hesitated for a moment, then set the bowl on the ground.
Voiceover, Young Girl typing: "...but Andrew told me about a place that sells bootleg copies of all kinds of stuff."
With her left hand, she placed the garbage bag completely over her right hand and extended her arm out past the bowl, using the bag as a glove.
Voiceover, Young Girl typing: "I gave him some of my Christmas money, and he’s gonna see if they have "Goblet of Fire," and if they do, he’s buying it for me so I can send it to you. I know it might not be the most honest thing in the world, but you should be able to see it too."
There was something embedded into the frozen ground that was undistinguishable until she pulled it up with her bag-protected right hand.
Voiceover, Young Girl typing: "Just be sure to save it so we can watch it when I come down there."
The frozen object made a ripping sound as it came up. It was the torn body of a possum.
Voiceover, Young Girl typing: "Hope it’s warm in Atlanta. I’m freezin’ my slayer butt off up here."
Quickly, with her left hand, she pulled the sides of the garbage bag around the dead carcass. Both hands tied off the bag.
Voiceover, Young Girl typing: "See ya. Gotta go strap on the feedbag and take care of my new pet project outside."
The tapping on the keyboard stopped. After a few mouse clicks came the sound of the laptop lid closing.
The girl’s hands disappeared as she stood. Her sneakers stood motionless on the grass for a long moment before moving out of sight. The sound of footfalls crunching on the frosty grass slowly faded into silence.
A few beats later, a heavy pair of men’s leather boots came and stood right where the girl had been. Jeans-clad legs bent at the knees as the man squatted, resting his arms on the top of his thighs and folding his hands neatly.
He reached out with his right hand, and with one finger on the rim of the bowl, he tipped it toward himself to peer into it. Then he lifted his finger off, allowing the bowl to rock back into a level position on the frozen ground. He hesitated a few seconds. His hands disappeared as he straightened and walked away, leaving behind the bowl of food scraps.
Fade Out.
End of Teaser
Act One
Starring:
Elijah Wood as Jeff and Lacey Chabert as Skye
Guest Starring:
Amanda Tapping as Dr. Wagner, Steffani Brass as Shannon, Robin Sachs as Ethan Rayne and Robert Picardo as Dr.Miller.
Fade In:
Int.
Small Shack – Moments Later
Brilliant white light flooded and then receded to show the interior of a small shack. Inside was a group of conjurors: two witches, a warlock, a chaos demon, and an eye-less demon from an unknown dimension.
They held fast and chanted as the glow became brighter and brighter and brighter still.
They traded nervous glances as the light became dense, no longer transparent but seemingly solid and larger in size. Their voices began to drop off oddly. Within seconds, all of them were unnaturally still with fixed gazes – all with eyes, that is. Their mouths began to tremble or contort, and a couple of them drooled long cords of saliva from their lips.
They stood rooted to their spots, their bodies beginning to tremble.
The blazing glow, now an orb of incredible density and brightness, began to burn their eyes – except for the one who had none to begin with – and they cried out in unison as they squeezed their lids shut. Their bodies started to shake violently, though they seemed glued in their places. As the light intensified, the conjurors who had shut their eyes found that they could see the room right through their tightly-shut lids.
The demon without eyes stood dead, killed silently in his place. His skin had been seared off his flesh. His frame held fast for a moment, upright and inanimate like a store mannequin. But his once-golden flesh was now cooked purple, and his melted internal organs began running down the insides of his legs. His body collapsed suddenly downward onto his feet.
One of the witches opened her mouth in a silent scream, looking frighteningly like a famous painting. The others present underwent similar agonies.
Their task, their lives, their names were now forgotten. All awareness, sense, and thought were blasted from them as their very cells became part of a dance of charged particles.
And then, in an instant, there was only quiet, and the five were no more.
Cut To:
Int.
Giles and Becca’s House – Kitchen – Same Time
Giles sighed heavily as he rubbed his head, entering the back door of the kitchen.
"How was your walk?" Becca asked as she walked in from the living room.
"Hmm?" He turned, wincing, to face his wife.
"What isit?" Becca asked. She placed a cooling hand on his forehead. "Are your calves bothering you again? Dr. Miller told you not to walk too far." She smiled. He only looked up weakly at her. "Rupert, you don’t look well."
From the nursery, Baby Elizabeth began to make fussing noises.
"Why don’t you sit down?" Becca said. "I’ll get you some Tylenol and make you some tea in a minute."
He nodded meekly, as if his head and stomach were conspiring to make him violently ill.
Becca returned with both Elizabeth and the pain pills. With practiced skill, she managed to cradle the baby in her arms, open the bottle, and spill out two white caplets into her palm.
"Here you go," she said, holding them out.
Giles reached for them.
"Rupert! Where did you go on your walk?" she gently chided. "Your boots are caked with mud." She bounced Elizabeth lightly in her arms. "Look," she said to the cooing baby, "Daddy’s all dirty."
Becca’s smile began to slip away when Giles didn’t so much as grin at the comment. Becca quickly put Elizabeth down in her playpen and turned to face Giles with a look of alarm.
Cut To:
Int.
Small Shack – Moments Later
The man in the center of the small, bare room huddled over his own knees. Having accomplished its task of delivering him there, the light faded quickly, leaving him stark naked and curled in a ball over his own feet, arms about legs and face pressed down hard onto his knees. His haunches hovered a mere inch above the wooden floor and shook with cold. He drew a sudden breath, hard and ragged, as though he had not breathed in eons.
Cut To:
Int.
Giles and Becca’s House – Kitchen – Same Time
"Rupert!" Becca called out to her husband, whose sudden, gasping breath startled both her and Elizabeth into silence.
Giles shuddered.
"I’m calling the hospital," she said as she ran over to the phone.
Giles let his breath out again, shuddering. Picking up on her parents’ emotions, the baby began to cry, and Becca kept the phone to her ear as she walked back over.
"Rupert!"
"Becca..." Giles furrowed his brow and inhaled unevenly.
"Rupert, what is it? What’s wrong?"
Giles looked up dazedly at her and then at the baby.
"The baby’s crying," he said distantly.
"I know, but she’s fine in her pen." Becca cupped his chin in her hand and tilted his face up toward her. He blinked at her. "What’s happening? What’s wrong?" she said with quiet dread.
Elizabeth too became unnaturally quiet again, almost as though she herself was waiting for an answer.
Giles searched Becca’s eyes for a moment, then forced some even breaths. He looked as if he were about to speak, but didn’t.
"Rupert, please. Answer me." Her gaze stayed on Giles as she began to talk into the phone. "Yes, I think my husband is having another heart attack, maybe a stroke… He’s having difficulty breathing and speaking… No, he’s awake in a chair. Please get someone here now," she added in a demand filled with both fright and anger at the same time.
He stood, shook his head, and the strange malady seemed to fade fast. He walked over to the playpen. He reached his hand out and laid it on Elizabeth’s head, smiling at her gently.
"There now," Giles told the baby. She made a sudden, happy noise at him.
"He’s standing now, but please send someone. Yes, that’s the address. Thank you." Becca hung up and walked over to her husband, who stood over the pen still smiling at his daughter. "Rupert," Becca called gently. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," he told her as though he had much more to say. "I’m fine. Just a little...dizzy spell. Need more sleep."
Becca looked sternly at him, but he said no more and started tickling the baby on the cheek. Elizabeth gurgled in joy.
Cut To:
Int.
Small Shack – Same Time
The man’s eyes began to focus on his surroundings, and he let his gaze stray from wall to floor to wall again, staring in wonder at the strange images around him.
There were drawings on the floor – a circle that looked like it was made of string and stone, and the image of a large casting bowl just within the circle, all drawn in a strange silhouette. A mortar and pestle had been drawn on the floor outside the circle. In one spot, he saw what appeared to be a realistic image of a candle – so finely wrought that he could tell where wax had dripped and could even make out the density of the lumpier drippings.
He drew a startled breath.
With great effort, he uncurled his body and pushed himself up, standing on weak legs. Swaying a bit from side to side, he began turning slowly, studying the strange markings on all the surfaces of the small room.
The ghastly images of those who had brought him back into his natural world and the tools of their efforts were etched into the walls and floorboards in photo-negative: two witches, a warlock who had been covered in flowing robes and scarves, a chaos demon, and a shape he did not know – a demon adept – all were preserved in perverse still-life. Nothing else had been touched beyond the vaporized conjurors’ irradiated images.
He turned again, slowly and deliberately, taking in everything a second time, then stopped. He breathed deeply and let his shoulders droop a bit.
"Bugger," Ethan Rayne said aloud to the shadow mages. "No scotch."
Cut To:
Int.
Watchers Council – Junior Dormitory – Same Time
Shannon entered the dormitory in a hurry, having missed breakfast and about to miss the first bell for class. She ran to her footlocker and opened it to get her books, then stopped. Slowly, she lowered the lid and looked over the top of the locker.
Across her bed, and on the floor on either side, was scattered her small collection of baseball cards. She turned quickly to the dresser and saw a few cards that remained there, askew now, where she had neatly piled them. It was plain that someone had swept them off the dresser and across the floor and bed.
Shannon stood and looked over at Lorinda’s bed and dresser, her eyes narrow slits of anger.
Cut To:
Ext.
Council Grounds – Near The Thicket – Same Time
Wild eyes shined in the darkness of the shadows. Steam rose in steady puffs, rhythmically obscuring the face of the creature.
The eyes shot forward in a blur, leaving behind barely stirring branches as snow silently fell. The quiet was suddenly marred by the sound of an animal’s death scream, then tearing and ripping. After a few moments, the silence returned. A dead and rent rabbit lay still upon the frozen ground.
Then came the sounds of something being choked down intermingled with snarling and snorting. The next noise was that of feet lightly crunching through the snow and branches rustling in the thicket.
The yellow bowl that had been left behind earlier in the day was now empty. But whatever ate from it was now deep within the woods.
Cut To:
Int.
Watchers Council – Rowena’s Office – Same Time
Rowena was sitting behind her desk looking at the contents of a manila folder when there was a knock at her door.
"Come in," she answered without looking up.
A young man in his early twenties walked inside.
"Mr. Wood thought you might like to know," he said as he walked over.
"Know what?" she asked, taking the piece of paper he held out for her.
"Paramedics were called to this location a few moments ago. Unresponsive male, shortness of breath."
Rowena examined the page, and her eyes suddenly widened.
"Thanks Jimmy," she told him with a nod as she began to dial the phone.
He reciprocated and then walked from the room.
"Kennedy," she began. "I need you to get to Giles’s house immediately."
Cut To:
Int.
Watchers Council – Willow’s Classroom – A Short While Later
Willow stopped and watched as Shannon nearly crashed through the classroom door. The young slayer looked directly at Lorinda, who was absently chewing some gum and looking bored.
Shannon glared at her. Lorinda smiled slightly.
"Shannon!" Willow said. "This is the third time this week you’re late."
"Overslept," Shannon said darkly.
"Well, I’ll talk to Dawn. Maybe you need to cut back on a couple of nights of patrolling." Shannon turned her stare towards Willow. Willow opened her mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it. "Just take a seat," she said, more gently. "Open your book to page...259. We’re talking about the first Coven to make a pact with the Watchers Council..."
Shannon sat down heavily in her seat and angrily plopped her books and laptop on her desk. She found her Honnegar’s History of Magic book and opened it. She noticed something odd about the pages as she flipped through them. Some seemed stuck together and lumpy. She pulled one pair apart and discovered a sticky, stringy mess of well-chewed bubble gum between the pages. Gum had been interspersed throughout the book.
Willow had turned to the whiteboard and was writing some notes for the class to copy. Shannon seized the opportunity to spin around in her chair and give Lorinda a look of hatred.
Lorinda looked back blandly at Shannon, then blew and popped a bubble at her.
Cut To:
Int.
Giles and Becca’s House – Moments Later
Becca stood with the phone to her ear as she held Elizabeth. "Stubborn man that I love won’t go with the paramedics…Yes, yes I will…Thanks for calling, Rowena. See you in a while."
After Becca hung up, she walked over to the paramedics while she patted Elizabeth on the back, the baby looking out over her shoulder.
"Are you certain you don’t want to go?" Becca asked Giles as the paramedics began to re-pack their equipment.