TEASER

Night shot, a 3/4 view from behind a C-47, painted black, over some sort of countryside.

"Typing" effect:

July, 1942 ... SOMEWHERE OVER OCCUPIED BELGIUM

Through the cockpit window we can see SGT TOMMY JENKINS piloting solo. He flips some switches, and a radio voice comes on. "Status check-in, Toy Chest this is Play Pen." "Play Pen, this is Toy Chest, everything's loaded and ready to drop the box. ETA about five miles out."

Below the C-47, unexpectedly large bomb bay doors swing open. A huge cylinder -- a bomb? -- some ten feet in diameter rests inside the plane.

The plane flies over an urban complex (lots of lights), but Jenkins shakes his head. After a minute, he is flying over completely dark countryside. "All right, folks," he says into his mic, "bombs away."

The bomb topples out of the plane, hurtles toward the ground and the forest. Looking across the tree line we see it drop through with a huge ... thud. No explosion.

Camera slips slowly through the trees, until we see the bomb is embedded in the ground, unexploded. After a long moment, there's a hissing sound, and a panel on the side cracks open, moves outward, then stops. Another long moment, muttering, then a loud thud. And another. On the third, the panel pops out and hits the ground with a clang, the boot which forced it clearly visible.

Augustus Weld steps out of the cylinder, brushing himself off, looking around. Marie St Jean follows, silently, almost gliding. Last is Cpl Roger Donne, clearly disoriented and shaken. Roger moans, "How did we let them talk us into this?"

Cut to ...

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MAIN TITLES -- and -- COMMERCIAL

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ACT I - SCENE 1 - EXTERIOR, ARDENNES FOREST

[No episode title. No scene establishing "dateline"]

Another panel has been opened in the side of the "bomb," each of the characters is pulling duffels and the like out. Augustus and Roger are wearing darkened commando outfits. Augustus looks dapper in his, Roger rumpled. Marie is in a dark peasant's blouse and dress, and looks gorgeous.

While they are doing this, the voice of COL. EDWARD PHILLIPS, their CO, is heard in v/o. He explains that a newspaper story out of occupied Belgium has caught the attention of the top brass. A stray bomb, hitting a monastery church somewhere in Belgium, has uncovered a crypt with a series of interesting artifacts, including a codex whose name corresponds to writings in English arcane sources. Based on those writings, this codex would be... not a treasure map, but a large collection of treasure maps detailing the whereabouts of some of the great arcane secrets of Europe. The appearance of the newspaper article makes it clear that the local authorities have no idea what they've found, but it has to be assumed that Nazi researchers will recognize the tome as well, and act on it. Thus, this newly constituted unit of Allied "specialists" is being inserted into Belgium to locate the unnamed monstery and retrieve the codex or, at worst, keep it from getting into German hands.

Roger complains about the insertion method. Augustus notes that, if not for his spell, they'd have been smeared into jelly on the interior of the 'bomb'. Postponing inertia is highly unnatural.

Marie cocks her head, looking around. "We are not alone."

(Insert shot: Truck wheels passing through mud puddles on a dirt road. One set. Another set. Another set ...)

Roger glances at her, then asks Augustus, "So, how noticeable is this 'highly unnatural' magic?"

Augustus replies, "It could be detected for thirty, perhaps forty miles. But it would be very quick, and one would have to be both a high adept and prepared to notice it.

(Insert shot: Interior of some sort of office. German officer types are pointing at a map under layer of arcanely-etched glass and discussing it with a certain level of... emotion. A spot on the map has a large hole burned in it; the glass directly above that spot is cracked. Zoom on collar insignia of the officers -- a pentagram with the SS lightning bolts contained within. Another soldier is off to the side talking both to them and to the radio, issuing orders.)

Augustus turns to Roger. "At any rate, you said you needed to be on the ground before you could pinpoint our target. We're on the ground. Have at it."

Roger says, "I just need a chance to focus, without any interruption."

Which is a cue for the sound of many heavy trucks to be heard from around them.

"We should be going, now," Marie comments. She steps to the "bomb," reaches in, turns some sort of a switch; a mechanical clicking timer can be heard inside.

"Demo charges?" Roger asks.

"No," Augustus explains, "a mechanism that will break the circle."

"So what's going to happen?"

"Step back and observe." They do, ducking behind trees. After a few seconds -- whomp -- the bomb literally collapses downward, shattering and spraying the clearing with shrapnel.

"What was that?!?"

"Delayed inertia," Augustus observes. "Unnatural."

They set out, Augustus glancing back and muttering, "Right, couldn't afford parachutes." Augustus carries a large pack with a couple of runic 'wands', miscellaneous small satchels and bags secured to his belt, and a pistol, which he carries quite comfortably. Roger has a pack and an SMG slung over his shoulder. Marie has a small satchel over her shoulder. They begin to hear voices and see flashlights in the woods around them, and Augustus tells them to split up and meet at the rendezvous point.

The German trucks pull to a stop, troops jumping out, orders being snapped. They find the remains of the bomb/capsule, and are unsure what to make of it. Finally, an officer gives them the order to spread out, hunt for any intruders.

The following are side "dolly" shots as the individual protagonists make their way through the woods (trees passed are different; they are not running in a line, or together).

Augustus lopes along, a clearly competent woodsman even in the darkened woods, sliding around trees and hopping over small obstacles, pausing briefly to check the pursuit, then continuing.

Marie moves even more swiftly, gracefully, bounding like a gazelle, flowing around obstacles like the mist, or water around a stone.

Roger runs along, but stumbles frequently, by no means adept at moving through a darkened forest; he trips at one point, falling entirely out of the frame of the steady tracking of the camera and scrambles to catch back up.

Augustus sees a German ahead, back turned. He reaches into a pocket, pulls out a wren's egg, crushes it, and blows the powder (magical sparkly-dust effect), vanishing from sight. We continue to pan along with the steady cam, past the German; Augustus reappears at a full run, the glamour/veil having done its bit, just long enough. "Six hours prep work down the crapper," he mutters.

Marie, too, comes upon one of their pursuers. Almost dance-like, she runs past him, twisting his neck as she does, his body not yet collapsed fully by the time the frame passes him by.

Roger stumbles to a halt behind a tree, looking around him. He can hear shouts in German, see the flashlights waving around. He hugs the tree, breathing heavily. Something moves right by him as he starts -- we see it's an owl, but the wings pass across his sight, and the POV changes to a CLAIRVOYANT VISION [spec eff] -- steady, one-second cuts of black-and-blue, slightly solarized scenes, a slight popping sound between each, a piano playing softly in the background -- an image of a monastery, cobblestones, a large cross over the altar, a soldier crouched in a tree --

Roger pops back to reality, staring around him. He turns, takes a step back the way he came, sees that the bulk of the Germans appear to be in that direction, mutters a "damn" to himself, and continues on his way.

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ACT I - SCENE 2 - EXTERIOR, COUNTRY ROAD

Augustus leaves the woods behind, jogging along a darkened road. He can hear, then see, ahead of him a German military motorcycle tooling along, a driver plus a man in the sidecar. Augustus ducks down, then fishes out a monocle from a pocket, the outer edge of the lens etched with symbols. He concentrates on the monocle, his face becoming somewhat maniacal, altering what the driver sees, making him think the road turns when it doesn't, and causing the cycle to crash into the hedgerow.

The monocle cracks [does it? I can't remember - producer], and Augustus heads down to the cycle, the disturbingly manic look on his face (we tend to see this look whenever he's exercising magic, especially those with violent results). One German is bloodied and unconscious, the other is trapped in the hedge, trying feebly to extricate himself. Augustus kicks away a dropped gun, looks at the conscious man, and a dozen different possibilities flash through his mind, such as grabbing the man by the back of the head and shoving him onto that big pointed branch right there -- through the eye.

"Augie, no!" a girl's voice says. He starts, shakes himself, then simply punches the man as he gets within reach, stunning him. He then reaches into his satchel and pulls out a hypodermic syringe, filling it from a vial marked opium. No need for magic to keep them quiet for a while. As an afterthought, he goes through the Germans' billfolds and takes out their cash. "To insure prompt service," he says, then gets on the motorcycle and departs.

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ACT I - SCENE 3 - EXTERIOR, FOREST

Marie is continuing through the woods, as before, though we get flashes of her PoV sight, a tunnel-vision through far more misty forest than we see for "real." The PoV follows and flows unnaturally along behind her(Evil Dead camera-like) through the landscape. Lost in the hind-brain activity of moving through the forest, she pauses a moment, then veers at and angle away from the course she had been on, speeding up, a muffled heartbeat in the background, growing louder. She and the camera move past various obstacles, and then, leaping, comes to rest against a tree as Marie looks over a small clearing.

She looks down and we see a deer grazing on the grass there. She studies it, then turns her head in another direction, where she clearly knows she should be going, then back. The moonlight seems to brighten, more than before; she is a figure of exquisite beauty -- first human, then cold and unearthly. She hesitates --

-- and the doe's ears flicker, and it breaks from the clearing. That's enough for Marie, who gives up on her duty (for the moment) and gives in to the chase, and we return to the tunnel vision PoV, which narrows even further as it hurtles through the woodland, the other heartbeat overlaid with one that is fluttering rapidly in fear ...

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ACT I - SCENE 4 - EXTERIOR, COUNTRYSIDE CROSSROADS

Roger is trudging along in the night. Coming to a crossroads, he fumbles between reading its archaic script and juggling a small oilcloth map, compass, and flashlight. He drops the compass into a water puddle at his feet.

Kneeling, he sees his reflection in the water.

"Idiot," he tells it. "What are you doing out here?"

"Oooh," the reflection mocks him in return, "we admire your clairvoyant skills, Cpl. Donne. You're the last survivor of your old unit, Cpl. Donne. Uncle Sam still needs you, Cpl. Donne." Roger scowls and breaks up his reflection while fishing for the compass.

"You're an idiot, Cpl. Donne," he mutters.

"You gotta believe in yourself, kid," comes a v/o of SGT TOMMY JENKINS on the plane. We cut to a flashback of the flight over the straight and into Belgian air space. Donne is sitting in the co-pilot's seat, definitely not piloting, chatting with Jenkins with an air of familiarity. "Whether you're shooting a rifle or doing some of your mojo, you gotta believe you can do it," Jenkins continues. "Easy for you to say," Donne replies. "Nobody's counting on you to do something unnatural." Jenkins retorts, "They say if a man were meant to fly, he'd have wings. People are counting on me to do just that unnatural thing, too." Donne snorts. "Hope you're better at it than I am."

Flashback ends. Donne's still at the crossroads. He looks at the muddy compass in one hand, and then at his reflection in the pond. After a moment, he slumps slightly. Looking at the compass, he mutters, "At least I know this works reliably." He goes back to the map, and sets off in a direction.

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COMMERCIAL

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ACT II - SCENE 1 - INTERIOR, DECREPIT BARN

Start with establishing shot of the barn from a distance in the pre-dawn light. Not a working building, but an adequate shelter as a garage, for example.

Inside, Augustus is siphoning gas from a parked tractor into the motorcycle. Roger slips through the door, breathing heavily. He looks around.

"Where's Marie?"

"Not here yet."

Roger bites his lip. "Dawn soon. If she's caught out there in the daylight, it could be bad... someone might see her." [The producer chortles at the double meaning in this bit of dialogue.]

"Any problems getting here?" Augustus asks.

"No, most of the pursuit was in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, there's a reason for that --" He's interrupted by Marie entering. She looks great as always, if a bit windblown. She apologizes for the "small detour."

Roger explains that the whole night was a detour -- his clairvoyant flash in the woods pinpointed their target as being some twenty miles in the opposite direction. Augustus looks at the map, checking against Roger's descriptions, and determines where they're going.

But how to get there? Use the motorcycle with all three of them? Even if they could get German uniforms, it would be dangerous.

"We can't very well use the tractor," Augustus ironies.

"I think I can get this thing going," Roger says, pulling a tarp off an old truck, filling the barn with dust.

After several minutes of jiggering with it (cut scenes, different angles, including one where he says the truck has fuel but the battery appears dead), he tells Augustus to press down on the gas when he says. Under the hood, he spans his fingers over the battery connections, muttering some almost-nursery-rhyme, and a spark leaps from him to the motor, which turns over with a cloud of smoke and a rattle.

"Woo-hoo!" Roger shouts. He points a finger at Augustus. "It's magic, old bean! But we better get going -- not sure how long it will run on my jump." Augustus has, during the montage, changed into mufti from hidden caches (this barn is obviously a safe house, or at least a dead-drop), and Roger pulls on a jacket to cover up his uniform. In a cloud of smoke, they drive off.

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ACT II - SCENE 2 - INTERIOR, STATELY WADE MANOR

1922, WADE HALL, ENGLAND

Augustus, at age 16, is being led through a ritual spell, the Glamour of Innocuity, by his uncle. Once completed, they walk down through the nearby town.

"Can't they see us?" Young-Augustus asks. "Are we invisible?"

His uncle smirks. "Let's say we're incredibly unremarkable," he smarms.

His uncle then uses the veil of the spell to do petty, rude, cruel things to the villagers.

Then he turns on Augustus, and tells him to do the same.

Augustus refuses. His uncle slaps him, but the boy refuses him again. The uncle then begins to slap him again and again. We pull back from the beating taking place in the middle of the village high street, as people walk past, completely oblivious to what's going on.

Back in 1942, as Roger drives the truck, Augustus suggests he knows a way to bypass a few checkpoints, though he doesn't look particularly happy when he speaks.

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ACT 2 - ON TO ACT FOUR!

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ACT 4, SCENE FINAL - INTERIOR, CHAPEL OF OUR LADY OF INFINITE SORROWS MONASTERY

Establish the locale with some exterior shots. These match Roger's clairvoyant visions of the monastery from earlier. The monastery is not in good shape, and there's clearly a spot where a bomb hit in an interior corner of the chapel transept.

The doors at the end of the nave open up, and the team looks in. Flash shots of the interior of the chapel, lit by lanterns, bits of architectural accent, and the cross from Roger's vision, too. In one interior corner of the transept the roof and walls have been blown into rubble by a bomb, revealing a hole in the floor with ladders down into it. "Okay, we go in, grab the codex, and get out." At which point, a group of Germans rounds the corner of the transept, heading their way. One of them, one of the officers we saw earlier with the Nazi Sorcerer insignia, is carrying what is obviously the codex.

Augustus takes a step forward into the room, facing the Nazi sorcerer. They lock eyes and, rather than engaging in lots of pyrotechnics, just stand there, staring at each other. Within moments, though, there are ripples in the air, and poltergeist-like effects swirl around each of them. Augustus gets his "manic face/weird eyes" look again.

Roger steps in gun lowered, as some of the other Nazis open fire. He dives for cover behind one of the elaborate crypts that festoon the edges of the chapel, spraying fire in return, as bullets spang off of the marble shield of the medieval knight buried in the crypt sheltering him, and cherubs lose their wings in the gunfire.

Marie is silhouetted in the doorway still, the sunlight behind her, breathing heavily, pausing. "Pour le Resistance," she murmurs, and charges in.

Augustus is clearly under great strain, whatever is going on. Veins bulge around his face, and sweat trickles down his skin.

Roger shoots a couple of the opposition with his SMG. "Guys, this gunfire's going to draw company!"

At which point, Marie leaps past him. She is -- dancing? She steps, pirouettes, bounds, and leaps across the floor of the nave. We see this first as tight shots on her, but then pull back to realize it's practically a ballet, not a dash, across the open space. We change to her PoV and see that the stones of the floor burn with different colors, brighter and lesser, the various religious insignia and the names of the dead themselves (such chapels being a tomb themselves) glowing with different intensity depending on the virtue of the deceased. The greater the glow, the more Marie tries to avoid it -- though to someone outside, this picking and choosing looks like a graceful dance dodging bullets, mesmerizing to those who watch -- indeed, we see some of the Germans lower their guns and jaws, watching her.

"Augie, look out," cries Augustus' sister. Augustus blinks and breaks from his combat with the Nazi sorcerer to duck behind a pew, even as a couple of Nazis open fire on him. The sorcerer makes a break for it.

Roger is pinned down, bullets and shattered stone filling the air.

Marie takes a misstep and stumbles toward a silver crucifix on a stand by the wall, even as someone gets a lucky shot, hitting her in the arm, where she's caught herself on the crucifix. She cries out in pain ... was it the crucifix, the silver, or the bullet that hurt her? [The producer is nigh-rabid about keeping this particular question unanswered within the show at this point -- he wants the fanboys arguing between vampire, werewolf, or something else entirely. Marie's storyline is going to peak early in the season, so we need to milk the mystery while we can.]

Both men are pinned down, and with Marie's injury, it's looking bad for the trio.

COMMERCIAL BREAK

"Gotta trust yourself, kid," says TOMMY JENKINS in a v/o in Roger's head. The next second, Roger has a clairvoyant flash, pops out and shoots the guys who were gunning at Augustus. Another flash and he turns and takes down someone at the door to the church. Yet another -- and he takes down the sniper who'd climbed up onto a tree looking down into the church -- the last bit of earlier vision he'd had.

Roger stands there a moment, gun smoking. "Wow."

By this time, Marie has recovered, and has leapt amongst the Germans surrounding the sorcerer. She moves through in leaps and bounds, using the walls as much as the floor -- not "Crouching Tiger" style, but a parkour-like efficiency and grace -- realistic-if-amazing looking, but not fly wire work -- taking them down one at a time with a blow, a kick, an elbow.

Augustus is back on his feet again, locking eyes with the Nazi before he can duck out. "No. No surrender," he says in a thick voice. Very WW 2? British, right there. Sweat is pouring off of both of them, steaming away before it can drip. Their clothes are beginning to smoulder, tears streaming from their eyes.

And into this mix steps Roger. With a small smile, he utters a couple of short words -- another little rhyme. A spark leaps out -- not enough to distract, let alone harm, the Nazi wizard, but more than enough for the old, dry codex ...

It bursts into flames, practically exploding in the German's hands. The break in concentration results him being thrown through the remains of a stained glass window and out of the church. Augustus staggers, blinks -- then begins patting himself down, trying to put out the small fires on his clothes.

The fire spreads to whatever in the church can burn, quickly engulfing the structure. Augustus is grabbing bits of pages and fragments of paper as Roger helps him out of the building.

Exterior shot, as they climb a hill beyond the monastery. Roger is helping Augustus along, as Marie looks back -- facing away from the camera. We swing around her to focus on her face as she watches the monastery burn.

A vaguely self-satisfied smile plays on her face.

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DENOUEMENT - EXTERIOR, ALONG THE NORTH SEA COAST

Roger finishes flashing a signal to an offshore boat, as the three wait for a dinghy to land and take them back. They engage in small talk about how the team and the mission went.

"Good show," Augustus says.

"I hope others thinks so," says Roger.

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TEASER FOR NEXT EPISODE:

1. Close-up of Marie, face enraged, with her hands around someone's throat.
2. Briefing. The Colonel is in front of a slide projector. "Reports are confused, and we haven't been able to interview -- or locate -- any survivors."
3. Roger firing his SMG like mad. "This isn't helping!"
4. Augustus [in what is clearly a splice of a voice-over from one scene and a entirely different visual outtake] carrying a rune-covered elephant gun, coming to a halt and staring wide-eyed at something, as "The Girl's" voice says, "You cannot trust her kind."

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END TITLES, with this historical note:

Heinrich Himmler, head of the Gestapo, was given internal police control over Belgium and the Netherlands one month later, in August, 1942.

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• Return to Strange Allies page.
• Blog entry for discussion.
• Story Games AP thread for this episode.